world. The barbarism and lawlessness attributed, with | as a 'shuddering impulse, a mental spasm, that comes unsought, justice, to the Highlander till within the last hundred and often departs without leaving a trace behind by which it years, were purely relative. To the world at large he may be connected with any future event. was barbarous, because he did not understand its usages “ “ The Highland seer did not go about like Balaam, to seek

- he was lawless, because he did not consider himself for enchantments; his gift was a fatality, and was generally as bound by its laws. But within his own circle, where unwelcome as unlooked for. He was not consulted by those alone he felt that he owed obedience and respect, no

curious to pry into futurity; he made no trade of imposture ;

no honours were attached to this mysterious endowment; the man was more observant of those habitual courtesies prophet was shunned rather than regarded by the vulgar. which constitute the greatest charm of polished life; or

Instead of possessing, he was possessed by the spirit withia more implicitly subservient to all the laws by which him, over the working of which he had no control.' his society was bound together. The absurdities and

“ The seventh son of a seventh son was supposed, by the aevices, flowing from the feeling of personal consequence cident of his birth, to be gifted with this unenvied power

. The we have attempted to describe, have almost entirely dis- consciousness of being so considered by those around him, would appeared under the influence of an enlarged acquaint-of itself foster in the mind of the uufortunate child a dreamy ance and more frequent intercourse with the world ; its habit of reflection, an abstraction of manner, and a feeling of benefits still remain to dignify and elevate the Highland being unlike others, calculated as he grew to manhood to isolate character. In no part of the world, at this day, do men him more and more from his fellows, and to teach him to people

Such a character is of very limited fortunes occupy a higher place in the with apparitions the solitude of his soul. social scale- no where are they more fully imbued with that attempted to be portrayed in the following ballad :the feelings, or more liberally endowed with the qualifi

MARY OF THE OAKENSHAWS. cations, which raise and maintain men above the common level.

" It was upon a summer night, The poetical elements in the Highland character are

A tranquil night of June, easily deduced from its general features. Their mode

We rested on our idle oars of life, active, but not laborious--full of enterprise and

Beneath an amber moon, adventure, and free from the toil which depresses the

That mirrored upon Crinan's loch spirit and cramps the faculties-gave full scope to the

Thy ruined walls, Duntroon! development of passion and imagination. Their little

The sky was calm, the air was balm, communities, with their rivalries, hostilities, and alli

The night was clear as day, ances, were each a theatre within whose narrow bounds

Our eyes could trace each wooded isle the whole round of human feelings and passions were

On Crinan's breast that lay,

And e'en the mist of Scarba's hills displayed and brought into play. The objects might be

Far out beyond the bay. trilling and insignificant, but the passions and feelings were as active and vigorous as if they concerned the

It was a night to meditate, struggles of empires ; and all the more picturesque in

But full of speech were we, their exhibition, from the limited field to which they

As lark that singeth from the cloud,

Or mavis from the tree; were confined. And from the closer contact of the hos

There was Mary of the Oakenshaws tile communities, and the greater importance in every

With Willie Bhane and me, struggle of each individual, the public feelings of friendship or hostility for the friends or enemies of the clan,

Sweet Mary of the Oakenshaws

So thrillingly she sung; were more dramatically interwoven than can often take

No burn above its mosses flowed place in the struggles of nations, with the private

So smoothly as her tongue, feelings of individuals, which, either flowing with those

No bluebell e'er so beautiful public feelings, gave them greater vigour or intensity,

In cleft of granite hung. or, running counter to them, disturbed the current by a conflict full of the richest elements of poetry.

I scarce had hoped to mate with her,

Yet she to me was vowed, All these peculiarities of Highland circumstances and

And blushed so full of happiness, character are now no more. The inaccessible character

That well I might be proud; of their country has been destroyed. Clanship is little

For I had won her manfully more than a tradition, or a fond memory lingering in

From all the rival crowd. the hearts of a few, who are unwilling to lose sight of

And Willie Bhane, no common youth the last distinguishing peculiarity of their native race ;

Was fashioned like to him, the enmities of rival clans have been laid asleep; and

Of lineament so feminine, with that the exclusive devotion of clansmen to their

So delicate of limh, chief and to each other has been cooled down. The few

With eyes where saddest sentiment remaining points of distinction between the population

Welled ever o'er the brim. of the Highlands and the other parts of the country, are

A stranger to our mountain shores wearing away day by day, and we shall, by and by, have

In earliest youth came he, only such books as Mrs. Ogilvy's Highland Minstreisy,

His mother was a dark eye'd dame, to furnish us with any knowledge regarding what once

From climes beyond the sea; constituted so picturesque a feature in the character of

There was a spirit in her mien, the northern half of our island.

That spake of ancestry. We have too long detained our readers from the slight

There was a lightning in her glance, taste we mean to give them of Mrs. Ogilvy's muse. We

Although her tones were mild, cannot attempt any general analysis of her book, but we

And there were sad and cloudy cares select two poems as very favourable specimens of her

Upon her forehead piled ; powers in different styles. Each poem is prefaced by

She never gazed as mothers gaze some general observations of a very interesting character

Upon an only child. illustrative of the story, and in general necessary to a

But silent in that fisher glen full understanding of it. The first is founded upon the

She dwelt where first she came, superstition of the “second sight," and is thus intro

And if her homely neighbours asked duced :

Of lineage or of name,

She said, 'He is a seventh son, “ It has been well said hy Mrs. Grant of Laggan, that the

His father was the same.'' second sight of the Highlanders differed from all heathen divinations in this important respect, that it was entirely involun- The ballad goes on to tell the effect produced on the tary. It is described by this elegant and imaginative essayist, boy's character by the mysterious influence supposed t

THE VOW OF IAN LOM.

belong to the circumstance of his birth-how the fishers | Dundee, whose hapless fall in the very heat of success he laments feared to meet him alone, and how he did not mingle with with even more than his accustomed fervour. The story of the other boys, but strayed away by himself, climbing the poem is strictly true. The two young Macdonalds of Keppoch, loftiest and most dangerous rocks,“ to watch the sunset chieftains of the tribe to which Ian Lom belonged, were muron the sea," and how he became the best and boldest dered by a family of the same name, a father and six sons, who boatman on the lake.

were tacksmen on the lands of Keppoch, and had some private

quarrel with the youths. The uncle of these unbappy brothers “But most his mood was pensiveness

was present, but neither interfered to prevent the deed, nor took When he would dreaming lie,

any subsequent steps to bring the criminals to justice. But the As if beneath the bubbling wave

devoted and intrepid Scannachie was bound to his chieftains by Strange visions met his eye,

closer ties than those of relationship. Indignant at the kinsman's And whoso next he looked upon,

apathy, he went from house to house, and from castle to castle, They said was soon to die.

calling for vengeance on the assassins. After many fruitless

attempts, he at last obtained from government a commission to Thus half we clung to him in love,

take the murderers, dead or alive, and from Sir James Macdonald And half we shrank in dread,

of Sleat, a body of men sufficient to execute the commission. The Until he grew to be my friend

seven guilty men defended themselves with unparalleled bravery, And hers, that maiden dead,

barricading their house, and fighting till they fell dead beside And words of angel sympathy

their own hearthstone. Ian Lom has preserved the dirk with To him she pitying said.”

which they had slain their chieftains, and its edge was now The natural consequence followed — he loved Mary of turned against themselves.” the Oakenshaws-was necessarily rejected, and leaving her without upbraiding or complaint, went to sea. Again he returned, and met the lovers as they were pre

Through the beeches by the river, paring to cross the loch. He warned them against the at

In whose shades a man might lurk, tempt, foretelling that it would end in disaster; but his

Who is he that wildly searchetli, warning was disregarded, and then he sprung into the

Brandishing a dripping dirk P boat beside them, that he might share Mary's fate. It

On the night air, gore bedabbled,

Streams the mantle at his back, was a lovely evening as they returned from their excur

Ian Lom, the Blood Avenger, sion, so lovely that

Hurrying on the murderer's track !
“ E'en Willie Bhane in that repose

Whither fled those caitiff brothers,
Forgot his fatal gift."

When the assassin's work was o'er ?

To the fastness of the mountainThe catastrophe is thus told :

To the caverns on the shore ?

Doth the kinsman's wrath pursue them,
“ Then one by one we sank in thought,
And each began to muse;

In whose sight the deed befel ?
Our hearts absorbed the gentle calm

Or at peace, upon their homestead,
As flowers the summer dews,

Are the guilty left to dwell?
When Mary's voice spontaneously

Now with screaming of the pibroch-
Its magic did infuse.

Now with coronach and cry,

Clansmen bear the sons of Keppoch
So sweet she sang, so soft she sang,

In their father's grave to lie.
She wiled our hearts away;

Wherefore silent is the minstrel ?
Forgetful of the helm and oar

Chants he not their young renown,
We drifted from the ray

Who went forth in manhood's glory
Of moonlight to the darkest shades

Where the red hand struck them down?
And shallows of the bay,
So sweet she sang, so sad she sang,

Ere the rites are fully ended

Ere the mourners hie them home,
Our tears she did unlock;

In the midst, with head uncovered,
When, all unsteered, the helpless boat

Hear me vow !’quoth Ian Lom;
Drove rudely on a rock,

• Till my chieftains be avenged
And by an eddying tide engulfed

Song shall be foresworn by me,
Heeled over in the shock.

Woman's heart and woman's beauty,
The music still was in our ears

Minstrel's praise and minstrel's fee!'
Of that entrancing burst,

On his brows he thrust his bonnet,
When we were struggling for our lives

Turned and strode along the vale,
In chillest waves immersed,
And madly grasping at the clothes

And the clansmen of Macdonald
Of her who sank the first.

Answered with a thrilling wail.

Deep it swelled from manly bosom,
'Twas but a second-swimmers strong,

Silvery sad from woman's tongue;
We both the deep could brave,

On the fresh-heaped grave of Keppoch
And near us lay the sheltering land,

Like a cloud of grief it hung.
But she was in the wave,
And Willie Bhane sank hopelessly

Oh! the minstrel's words were mighty,
With her he died to save !"

And the minst rel's soul was strong,

With a more than mortal passion The other poem, of which we extract a part, “The

Wrthing to avenge the wrong. Vow of lan Lom," relates to a very remarkable character.

Journeying swift to hall and castle, Ian Lom Macdonald was born, says Mrs. Ogilvy

Fearlessly he told his tale,

Crying, “Vengeance for the orphans “ In the reign of James VI. of Scotland, and lived, it was

Is the glory of the Gael ! alleged, till that of Queen Anne, a spectator and eloquent denouncer of the union of the two kingdoms. His poetical genius was of a high order, entirely devoted to the Jacobite cause, which

Jonrneying swift by firth and ferry, he advanced as much, if not more, by his songs as others did by

Early starting, resting late, their claymores. He accompanied Montrose in most of his

Soon he reached the knight Macdonald marches, and commemorated his victories. Charles II. created

On the distant shores of Sleat. him Gaelic Poet-Laureate, a distinction of which he was justly

Loud the minstrel's voice resounded proud, and which, beginning in his person, died in his death, never

Through.the rugged halls of knock, having been conferred on a successor. Ian Lom's last fight

And he shook the chief with passion, was the fatal victory of Killiecrankie, where he had gone with

As the earthquake shakes the rock.

*

*Faithful vassal, truthful minstrel,

By the fell or by the flood,
I will find those sons of Dougal-

Shedders of the guiltless blood !
Forth he sent, that western chieftain,

Clansmen armed in strong array,
Ian Lom, the Blood Avenger,

Went to guide them on their way.
Hunted home into their dwelling,

Strongly barred with stone and wood,
Pale of face, but firm of purpose,

By the door those traitors stood.
Seven were they, sons and father,

Stalwart men to wield the brand,
'Twas a strife of desperation

At the meeting hand to hand.
Broken down their vain defences,

One by one they fell and died,
And the sire upon his hearthstone

Sank at last his sons beside.
Through thy woody paths, Glengarry,

Marched the victors of that fray,
In the waters of thy fountain

Seven heads were laved that day.
Sternly parting from the corses,

Left to blacken on the ground,
Ian Lom returned rejoicing,

For the vengeance he had found.

本

Girt through life by war and tempest,

He was great in his degree,
For he sang, Montrose, thy glory,

And he wailed thy fall, Dundee !
Kings arose and kings descended

Unlamented to the tomb,
Ere the coronach was pealing

For the death of Ian Lom.
Nor with life his greatness perished,

Left undying in his song,
Words familiar by the fireside

When the winter nights were long;
Words familiar, ever chanted

To the bride when she was wed,
To the babe when it was christened,

To the corse when it was dead;
By the shepherd in the shealing,

By the lady in her home;
Wheresoever men were gathered

Went the songs of Ian Lom.
And his voice again was breathing

From the grave a trust and power,
When the Stuart sailed for Scotland

In a dark and evil hour.
Mightier was the verse of Ian

Hearts to nerve, to kindle eyes,
Than the claymore of the valiant,

Than the counsel of the wise.
Still he singeth unforgotten

In the echoes of his home ;
Every burn and every mountain

Tells thy glory, Ian Lom!"

gaol. The prison was in such a state, that he might have found little difficulty in escaping; but he considered himself as in the hands of authority, such as it was, and the same principle of duty which led him to take arms, made him equally ready to endure the consequences. After lying there a few days, he applied to the sheriff for leave to go out and work by day, promising that he would return regularly at night. His character for simple integrity was so well known, that permission was given without hesitation, and for eight months Jackson went out every day to labour, and as duly came back to prison at night. In the month of May the sheriff prepared to conduct him to Springfield, where he was to be tried for high treason. Jackson said this would be a needless trouble and expense. His word was once more taken, and he set off alone, to present himself for trial and certain condemnation. On the way he was overtaken in the woods by Mr. Edwards, a member of the council of Massachusetts, which at that time was the supreme executive of the state. This gentleman asked him whither he was going? "To Springfield, sir,' was his answer, to be tried for my life.' То this casual interview Jackson owed his escape, when, having been found guilty and condemned to death, application was made to the council for mercy. The evi. dence and the sentence were stated, and the president put the question whether a pardon should be granted. It was opposed by the first speaker: the case, he said, was perfectly clear; the act was unquestionably high treason, and the proof complete; and if mercy was shown in this case, he saw no cause why it should not be granted in every other. Few governments have understood how just and politic it is to be merciful; this hard-hearted opinion accorded with the temper of the times, and was acquiesced in by one member after another, till it came to Mr. Edwards's turn to speak. Instead of delivering his opinion, he simply related the whole story of Jackson's singular demeanour, and what had passed between them in the woods. For the honour of Massachusetts and of human nature, not a man was found to weaken its effect by one of those dry legal remarks, which, like a blast in the desert, wither the heart they reach. The council began to hesitate, and when a member ventured to say that such a man certainly ought not to be sent to the gallows, a natural feeling of humanity and justice prevailed, and a pardon was immediately made out.”

In some unlucky dispositions, there is such an envious kind of pride, that they cannot endure that any but themselves should be set forth for excellent : 60 when they hear one justly praised, they will either seek to dismount his virtues : or, if they be like a clear night, eminent, they will stab him with a but of detraction : as if there were something yet so foul, as did obnubilate even his brightest glory. Thus when their tongue cannot justly condemn him, they will leave him in suspected ill, by silence. Surely, if we considered detraction to be bred of envy, nested only in deficient minds, we should find that the applauding of virtue would win us far more honour than the seeking slyly to disparage it. That would show we loved what we commended, while this tells the world we grudge at what we want in ourselves.---Feltham's Resolves.

Miscellaneous.

“ I have here made only a nosegay of culled flowers, and

N.B. The Second Volume of this periodical is now ready; covers have brought nothing of my own, but the string that ties

for binding, with table of contents, may be ordered of any Book

seller. them."-Montaigne.

CONTENTS.
INTEGRITY REWARDED.

Page

Pago King Lear and his Daughters | Black Fritz, Chap. II

23 The Annals of the American War record the following (with Illustration) 18 Popular Year-Book ........... story :-“ A plain farmer, Richard Jackson by name, Scenery of the Great Western

Farleigh Grange.....

18 Book of Highland Minstrelsy 25

MISCELLANEOUS: was apprehended, during the revolutionary war, under Railway.....

19 Integrity Rewarded, &C.... 3 such circumstances as proved, beyond all doubt, his

.

London Magazine:

a

a

reached by human foot. It has now lost its claim | met at the hospice of Grimsel, intending to sup, to the title on the latter score, the highest peak together for the last time, when it was proposed having been attained by two brothers named that they should make one more excursion before Meyer, of Aarau, in 1812; by a guide in 1828; and they separated. The autumnal season was favourin 1841 by a party of scientific men, who had been able to their plans, and it was soon decided to atresiding among the glaciers of the Aar, for the pur- tempt the ascent of the Jungfrau, first crossing the pose of making meteorological and geological ob- Mer de Glace of Viesch. servations.

Having fixed upon a guide, Jacob Leuthold by The Jungfrau is the first mountain that the name, a man of known skill and fidelity, preparachildren of the country learn to call by name; and tions were made during the evening; provisions, strangers arriving at Berne inquire for it as for the consisting of wine, cheese, meat, and a huge quanprincipal object of curiosity. With its vast ex- tity of bread, were collected, while each one prepanse of snow and glacier, it is indeed a magnifi- pared his package, taking care to exclude every cent spectacle. Not only its summit, but all the thing not absolutely necessary. The next morning, mass of the mountain above the level of the spec- the 24th August, the weather becoming rainy and tator, is white with perpetual snow, of virgin stormy, Jacob declined to set out. The weather purity, which breaks off abruptly at the edge of a did not improve during two days, so that it was precipice, forming one side of a ravine separating the morning of the 27th before the party started the Jungfrau from the Wengern Alp. It appears on their expedition. They were twelve in number, to be within gun-shot of the spectator; so colossal namely, M. Agassiz, the distinguished ichthyolo- !! are its proportions, that the effect of distance is gist; Mr. Forbes, professor of natural philosophy. lost. Planted on the brow of a ravine is a châlet at Edinburgh ; Mr. Heath, professor of mathema5,350 feet above the sea-level, directly facing the tics at Cambridge ; M. du Châtelier; M. de Pury; Jungfrau, and presenting the best view of it. The and M. Desor. There were also six guides, at the opposite precipice, forming the base of the moun- head of whom was Jacob, who was also appointed tain, is channelled with furrows or grooves, down captain of the expedition. which avalanches frequently descend: they are Before the commencement of the journey, a cirmost numerous a little after noon, when the sun's cumstance occurred which serves to illustrate the influence loosens masses of ice from the glacier, character of the mountaineer guides, and to exand causes them to break off.

plain the unlimited confidence which travellers are A distant roar, as of thunder, announces the wont to repose in them. fall of an avalanche, and in half a minute a gush of Johannes Wæhren, the inseparable friend of white powder, resembling a small cataract, is per- Jacub, and one of the most intelligent among all ceived issuing out of one of the upper grooves or the guides of the hospice, happened, the day before gullies; it then sinks into a fissure, and is lost for the intended departure of the expedition, to be a time, but reappears some hundred feet below seized with a violent inflammation in the knee, with another roar, and a fresh gush from a lower which a medical man pronounced to be serious. gully, till the mass of ice, reaching the lowest He had long pleased himself with the prospect of step, is precipitated into the guli below. By conducting the party to the Jungfrau, for he and watching attentively the sloping white side of the Jacob were the only individuals who were in the Jungfrau, the mass of glacier which produces this secret of this expedition. In spite of the pain he roar may be seen at the moment when disengaged, was suffering, the poor fellow still hoped it would and before the sound reaches the ear; sometimes it turn out nothing; and the party felt great grief in merely slides down over the surface, at other times telling him that he must no longer think of the it turns over in a cake; but, in an instant after, it Jungfrau. During the two days that the party was disappears, is shattered to atoms, and, in passing detained on account of the weather, Wæhren's through the different gullies, is ground to powder knee became much better, so much so that, on the so fine, that as it issues from the lowest, it looks evening before they set out, he came limping to like a handful of meal; and particles, reduced by them with the assurance that he could go, having friction to the consistence of dust, rise in a cloud no doubt that he would be quite well on the morof vapour. Independently of the sound, which is row. M. Agassiz, as may be supposed, refused his an awful interruption of the silence usually pre-consent, pointing out to him all the dangers to vailing on the high Alps, there is nothing grand which he would be exposed. The unfortunate or striking in this phenomenon; and, indeed, it is Wæhren could object nothing to these reasons; difficult at first to believe that these echoing but the greatest sorrow was depicted on his counthunders arise from so apparently slight a cause, tenance, and he retired to a corner of the apartor that that cloud of dust arises from tons of ment, where he continued sobbing, while his ice hurled down the mountain, which would be comrades were making preparations for departure. capable of sweeping away whole forests, did any Next day, one of the party having occasion 10 occur in its course, and of overwhelming houses enter the servants' apartment, was surprised to and villages. During the early part of the summer, observe Wæhren at breakfast with the other guides. three or four such discharges may be seen in an Surprise being expressed at this, he inquired if he hour: in cold weather they are less numerous; was not to be permitted to bid them adieu. The and in the autumn scarcely any occur. The ava- party thanked him for his attention, again recomlanches finally descend into the valley of Trum- mended him to be careful of his knee, and then set laten, the deep and uninhabited ravine which out. They had not proceeded far, when, on suddivides the Jungfrau from the Wengern Alp; and denly turning round a rock, he was seen with the on melting, send forth a stream which falls into other guides. Every one immediately called out the Lutschine, a little above Lauterbrunnen. to him, asking if he had really lost his senses.

Such is the mountain which the scientific party The party endeavoured to persuade hin to abanbefore alluded to proposed to scale. They had don an undertaking which they believed would be

0