they find themselues neither of swiftness nor courage to hunt and kill the chaces that are lighter and swifter. The bloodhounds of this colour proue good, especially those that are cole-blacke, but I make no great account to breede on them, or to keepe the kind, and yet I found a booke, which a hunter did dedicate to a prince of Lorayne, which seemed to loue hunting much, wherein was a blason which the same hunter gaue to his bloodhound, called Souyllard, which was white : My name came first from holy Hubert's race, Souyllard my sire, a hound of singular grace. Whereupon we may presume that some of the kind prooue white some. times, but they are not of the kind of the Greffiers or Bouxes, which we haue at these dayes."-The noble Art of Venerie or Hunting, translated and collected for the use of all Noblemen and Gentlemen. Lond. 1611. 4. p. 15. Note III. For the death-wound, and death-halloo, Muster'd his breath, his whinyard drew.-St. VIII. p. 6. When the stag turned to bay, the ancient hunter had the perilous task of going in upon, and killing or disabling the desperate animal. At certain times of the year this was held particularly dangerous, a wound received from the stag's horns being then deemed poisonous, and more dangerous than one from the tusks of a boar, as the old rhyme testifies : If thou be hurt with hart it brings thee to thy bier, But barber's hand will bore's hurt heal, thereof thou need'st not fear. At all times, however, the task was dangerous, and to be adventured upon wisely and warily, either by getting behind the stag while he was gazing on the hounds, or by watching an opportunity to gallop roundly in upon him, and kill him with the sword. See many directions to this purpose in the Booke of Hunting, chap. 41. Wilson the historian has recorded a providential escape which befel him in this hazardous sport, while a youth, and follower of the Earl of Essex * Sir Peter Lee, of Lime, in Cheshire, invited my lord one summer, to hunt the stagg. And having a great stagg in chace, and many gentlemen in the pursuit, the stagg took soyle. And divers, whereof I was one, alighted, and stood with swords-drawne, to have a cut at him, at his coming out of the water. The staggs there, being wonderfully fierce and dangerous, made us youths more eager to be at him. But he escaped us all. And it was my misfortune to be hindered of my coming nere him, the way being sliperie, by a fall; whien gave occasion to some who did not know mee, to speake as if I had faine for feare. Which being told me I left the stagg, and followed the gentleman who [first] spake it. But I found him of that cold temper, that it seems his words made an escape from him; as by his denial and repentance it appeared. But this made mee more violent in pursuit of the stagg, to recover my reputation. And I happened to be the only horseman in, when the dogs sett him up at bay and approaching nere him on horsebacke, hee broke through the dogs, and run at mee, and tore my horse's side with his horns, close by my thigh. Then I quitted my horse, and grew more cunning (for the dogs had sette him up againe), stealing behind him with my sword, and cut his ham-strings; and then got upon his back; and cut his throate; which as I was doing, the company came in, and blamed my rashness, for running such a hazard."-Pxcx's Desiderata Curiosa, ii, 464. Note IV. And now, to issue from the glen, No pathway meets the wanderer's ken, A far-projecting precipice.-St. XIV. p. 9. Until the present road was made through the romantic pass which I have presumptuously attempted to describe in the preceding stanzas, there was no mode of issuing out of the defile, called the Trosachs, excepting by a sort of ladder, composed of the branches and roots of the trees. Note V. To meet with highland plunderers here, Were worse than loss of steed or deer.-St. XVI. p. 11. The clans who inhabited the romantic regions in the neighbourhood of Loch Katrine, were, even until a late period, much addicted to predatory excursions upon their lowland neighbours. "In former times, those parts of this district, which are situated beyond the Grampian range, were rendered almost inaccessible, by strong barriers of rocks, and mountains, and lakes. It was a border country, and though on the very verge of the low country, it was almost totally sequestered from the world, and, as it were, insulated with respect to society. ""Tis well known, that in the highlands, it was, in former times, accounted not only lawful, but honourable, among hostile tribes, to commit depredations on one another; and these habits of the age were perhaps strengthened in this district, by the circumstances which have been mentioned. It bordered on a country, the inhabitants of which, while they were richer, were less warlike than they, and widely differenced by language and manners."-GRAHAM's Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire, Edin, 1806, p. 97. The reader will therefore be pleased to remember, that the scene of this poem is laid in a time When tooming faulds, or sweeping of a glen, Note VI. A grey-hair'd sire, whose eye intent Was on the vision'd future bent.-St. XXIII. p. 16. If force of evidence could authorise us to believe facts inconsistent with the general laws of nature, enough might be produced in favour of the existence of the Second Sight. It is called in Gaelic Taishitaraugh, from Taish, an unreal or shadowy appearance, and those possessed of the faculty are called Taishatrin, which may be aptly translated visionaries. Martin, a steady believer in the second sight, gives the following account of it : "The second sight is a singular faculty of seeing an otherwise invisible object, without any previous means used by the person that uses it for that end; the vision makes such a lively impression upon the seers, that they neither see, nor think of any thing else, except the vision, as long as it continues: and then they appear pensive or jovial, according to the object which was represented to them. "At the sight of a vision, the eye-lids of the person are erected, and the eyes continue staring until the object vanish. This is obvious to others who are by, when the persons happen to see a vision, and occurred more than once to my own observation, and to others that were with me. "There is one in Skie, of whom his acquaintance observed, that when he sees a vision, the inner part of his eye-lids turns so far upwards, that after the object disappears, he must draw them down with his fingers, and sometimes employs others to draw them down, which he finds to be the much easier way. "This faculty of the second-sight does not lineally descend in a family, as some imagine, for I know several parents who are endowed. with it, but their children not, and vice versa; neither is it acquired by any previous compact. And, after a strict inquiry, I could never learn that this faculty was communicable any way whatsoever. "The seer knows neither the object, time, nor place of a vision, be fore it appears; and the same object is often seen by different persons, living at a considerable distance from oue another. The true way of judging as to the time and circumstance of an object, is by observation; for several persons of judgment, without this faculty, are more capable to judge of the design of a vision, than a novice that is a seer. If an object appear in the day or night, it will come to pass sooner or later accordingly. "If an object is seen early in a morning (which is not frequent), it will be accomplished in a few hours afterwards. If at noon, it will commonly be accomplished that very day. If in the evening, perhaps that night; if after candles be lighted, it will be accomplished that night: the latter always in accomplishment, by weeks, months, and sometimes years, according to the time of night the vision is seen. "When a shroud is perceived about one, it is a sure prognostic of death. the time is judged according to the height of it about the person: for if it is seen above the middle, death is not to be expected for the space of a year, and perhaps some months longer; and as it is frequently seen to ascend higher towards the head, death is concluded to be at hand within a few days, if not hours, as daily experience confirms. Examples of this kind were shown me, when the persons of whom the observations were then made enjoyed perfect health. "One instance was lately foretold by a seer that was a novice, concerning the death of one of my acquaintance; this was communicated to a few only, and with great confidence; I being one of the number, did not in the least regard it, until the death of the person about the time foretold, did confirm me of the certainty of the prediction. The novice mentioned above is now a skilful seer, as appears from many late Instances; he lives in the parish of St. Mary's, the most southeru in Skie. "If a woman is seen standing at a man's left hand, it is a presage that she will be his wife, whether they be married to others, or unmarried, at the time of the apparition. "If two or three women are seen at once near a man's left hand, she that is next him will undoubtedly be his wife first, and so on, whether all three, or the man, he single or married at the time of the vision or not; of which there are several late instances among those of my acquaintance. It is an ordinary thing for them to see a man that is to come to the house shortly after; and if he is not of the seer's acquaintauce, yet he gives such a lively description of his stature, complexion, habit, &c., that upon his arrival he answers the character given him in all respects. "If the person so appearing be one of the seer's acquaintance, he will tell his name, as well as other particulars; and he can tell by his countenance whether he comes in a good or bad humour, "I have been thus seen myself by seers of both sexes, at some hundred miles distance; some that saw me in this manner, had never seen me personally, and it happened according to their visions, without any previous design of mine to go to those places, my coming there being purely accidental. "It is ordinary with them to see houses, gardens, and trees in places void of all three and this in progress of time uses to be accomplished; as at Mogshot, in the isle of Skie, where there were but a few sorry cow-houses, thatched with straw, yet in a very few years after, the vision, which appeared often, was accomplished, by the building of several good houses on the very spot represented by the seers, and by the planting of orchards there. "To see a spark of fire fall upon one's arm or breast, is a forerunner of a dead child to be seen in the arms of those persons; of which there are several fresh instances. "To see a seat empty at the time of one's sitting in it, is a presage of that person's death soon after. "When a novice, or one that has lately obtained the second-sight, sees a vision in the night-time without doors, and comes near a fire, he presently falls into a swoon. "Some find themselves as it were in a crowd of people, having a corpse which they carry along with them; and after such visions the seers come in sweating, and describe the people that appeared: if there be any of their acquaintance among 'em, they give an account of their names, as also of the bearers, but they know nothing concerning the corpse. "All those who have the second-sight do not always see these visions at once, though they be together at the time. But if one who has this faculty, designedly touch his fellow-seer at the instant of a vision's appearing, then the second sees it as well as the first; and this is sometimes discerned by those that are near them on such occasions."-MARTIN's Description of the Western Islands, 1716, 8vo. p. 300, et seq. To these particulars innumerable examples might be added, all attested by grave and credible authors. But in despite of evidence, which neither Bacon, Boyle, nor Johnson were able to resist, the Taisch, with all its visionary properties, seems to be now universally abandoned to the use of poetry. The exquisitely beautiful poem of Lochiel will at once occur to the recollection of every reader. |