Good-morrow gave from brake and bush; III. No thought of peace, no thought of rest, Was preface meet, ere yet abroad The Cross of Fire should take its road. Are clothed with early blossoms; through the grass The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills 1 Of summer birds sing welcome as ye pass. -Childe Harold. 2 MS. Hard by, his vassals' early care The mystic ritual prepare. IV. A heap of wither'd boughs was piled, Mingled with shivers from the oak, His naked arms and legs, seam'd o'er, And much, 'twas said, of heathen lore 1 See Appendix, Note G. 2 MS.- While the bless'd creed gave only worse. The desert-dweller met his path, He pray'd, and sign'd the cross between, V. Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.2 1 MS.-He pray'd with many a cross between, And terror took devotion's mien. 2 The legend which follows is not of the author's invention. It is possible he may differ from modern critics, in supposing that the records of human superstition, if peculiar to, and characteristic of, the country in which the scene is laid, are a legitimate subject of poetry. He gives, however, a ready assent to the narrower proposition which condemns all attempts of an irregular and disordered fancy to excite terror, by accumulating a train of fantastic and incoherent horrors, whether borrowed from all countries, and patched upon a narrative belonging to one which knew them not, or derived from the author's own imagination. In the present case, therefore, I appeal to the record which I have transcribed, with the variation of a very few words, from the geographical collections made by the Laird of Macfarlane. I know not whether it be necessary to remark, that the miscellaneous concourse of youths and maidens on the night and on the spot where the miracle is said to have taken place, might, even in a credulous age, have somewhat diminished the wonder which accompanied the conception of Gilli-DoirMagrevollich. 'There is bot two myles from Inverloghie, the church of Kilmalee, in Loghyeld. In ancient tymes there was ane church builded upon ane hill, which was above this church, |