f

V.

Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.'
His mother watch'd a midnight fold,
Built deep within a dreary glen,
Where scatter'd lay the bones of inen,

In sour forgotten battle slain,

And Heach'd by drifting wind and rain.

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 Luman superstition, if peculiar to, and characteristic of, the country in which the sceno 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, which doeth now stand in this toune; and ancient men doeth say, that there was a battell foughten on ane litle hill not the tenth part of a myle from this church, bo certaine men which they did not know what they were. And long tyme thereafter, certaine herds of that tone, and of the next toune, called Unnatt, both wenches and youthes, did on a tyme conveen with others on that hill; and the day being somewhat cold, dil gather the bones of the dead men that were slaine long tyme before in that pince, and did make a fire to warm them. At last they did all remove from the fe, except one maid or wench, which was verie cold, and she did retanic defe go. She being quyetlie her alone, without anic other compania Seber cloaths above her knces, or thereby, to warm her; a

The summer dawn's reflected hue

To purple changed Loch Katrine blue,
CANTO III., STANZA II.

1

It might have tamed a warrior's heart,'
To view such mockery of his art!

The knot-grass fetter'd there the hand,
Which once could burst an iron band;
Beneath the broad and ample bone,
That buckler'd heart to fear unknown,
A feeble and a timorous guest,
The field-fare framed her lowly nest;
There the slow blind-worm left his slime
On the fleet limbs that mock'd at time;
And there, too, lay the leader's skull,2

Still wreathed with chaplet, flush'd and full,

wind did come and caste the ashes upon her, and she was conceived of ane man-chyld. Severall tymes thereafter she was verie sick, and at last she was knowne to be with chyld. And then her parents did ask at her the matter heiroff, which the wench could not weel answer which way to satisfie them. At last she resolved them with ane answer. As fortune fell upon her concerning this marvellous miracle, the chyld being borne, his name was called Gili-doir Maghrevollich, that is to say, the Black Child, Son to the Bones. So called, his grandfather sent him to school, and so he was a good schollar, and godlie. He did build this church which doeth now stand in Lochyeld, called Kilmalee."-MACFARLANE, ut supra, ii. 188.

1 There is something of pride in the perilous hour,
Whate'er be the shape in which death may lower;
For Fame is there to say who bleeds,

And Honour's eye on daring deeds!

But when all is past, it is humbling to tread

O'er the weltering field of the tombless dead,

And Tee worms of the earth, and fowls of the air,
Beasts of the forest, all gathering there;
All regarding man as their prey,

All rejoicing in his decay.-BYRON-Siege of Corinth.

* Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps.
Is that a templc where a god may dwell?

R

For heath-bell, with her purple bloom,
Supplied the bonnet and the plume.1
All night, in this sad glen, the maid.
Sate, shrouded in her mantle's shade :
-She said, no shepherd sought her side,
No hunter's hand her snood untied,
Yet ne'er again to braid her hair

The virgin snood did Alice wear; 2

Why, even the worm at last disdains her shattered celi !

Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,

Its chambers desolate, and portals foul;

Yet this was once Ambition's airy hall,

The dome of thought, the palace of the soul:
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,
The gay recess of wisdom and of wit,

And passion's host, that never brook'd controul :
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?

Childe Harold.

1 These reflections on an ancient field of battle afford the most remarkable instance of false taste in all Mr. Scott's writings. Yet the brevity and variety of the images serve well to show, that even in his errors there are traces of a powerful genius.-JEffrey.

2 The snood, or riband, with which a Scottish lass braided her hair, had an emblematical signification, and applied to her maiden character. It was exchanged for the curch, toy, or coif, when she passed, by marriage, into the matron state. But if the damsel was so unfortunate as to lose pretensions to the name of maiden, without gaining a right to that of matron, she was neither permitted to use the snood, nor advanced to the graver dignity of the curch. In old Scottish songs there ecur many sly allusions to such misfortune; as in the old words to the popular tune of "Ower the muir amang the heather."

"Down amang the broom, the broom,

Down amang the broom, my dearie,

The lassie lost her silken snood,

That gard her greet till she was wearie."