You must think hardly of us—and it is not natural that it should be otherwise. But remember, at least, we have not been unprovoked: we are a rude and an ignorant, and it may be, a violent and passionate, but we are not a cruel people. The land might be at peace and in law, for us, did they allow us to enjoy the blessings of peaceful law. But we have been a persecuted people; and if persecution maketh wise men mad, what must it do to men like us, living as our fathers did a thousand years since, and possessing scarce more lights than they did? Can we view their bloody edicts against us their hanging, heading, hounding, and hunting down an ancient and honorable name as deserving better treatment than that which enemies give to enemies ? — Here I stand- - have been in twenty frays, and never hurt man but when I was in hot blood!-and yet, they would betray me and hang me, like a masterless dog, at the gate of any great man that has an ill will at me. You are a kind-hearted and an honorable youth, and understand, doubtless, that which is due to the feelings of a man of honor. But the heather that I have trod upon when living, must bloom over me when I am dead — my heart would sink, and my arm would shrink and wither, like fern in the frost, were I to lose sight of my native hills; nor has the world a scene that would console me for the loss of the rocks and cairns, wild as they are, that you see around us. And Helen what would become of her, were I to leave her, the subject of new insult and atrocity? or how could she bear to be removed from these scenes where the remembrance of her wrongs is aye sweetened by the reco ·ion of her revenge I was once so hard put at by my great enemy, as I may well call him, that I was forced e'en to give way to the tide, and removed myself, and my people, and my family from our dwellings in our native land, and to withdraw for a time into MacCullummore's country, - and Helen made a lament on our departure, as well as MacRimmon himself could have ? framed it; and so piteously sad and wosome, that our hearts almost brake as we listened to her :—it was like the wailing of one for the mother that bore him - and I would not have the same touch of the heart-break again, . no, not to have all the lands that were ever owned by MacGregor. .... LESSON CLVI. Lochiel's Warning. — CAMPBELL. Lochiel was the chief of the warlike clan of the Camerons; and one of the most prominent, in respect to power and influence, among the Highland chieftains. He attached himself to the cause of Charles Stuart, called the Pretender, from the claim that he made to the British throne. In the following piece, Lochiel is supposed to be marching, with the warriors of his clan, to join the standard which Charles had raised among the Highlands in his invasion of Scotland in 1745. On his way he is met by a Seer or Wizard, who, having, according to the popular superstition, the gift of second sight, or prophecy, forewarns him of the disastrous event of the Pretender's enterprise, and exhorts him to return home, and not be involved in the certain destruction that awaited the cause and the followers of Charles, and which afterwards fell upon them in the battle of Culloden. Seer, Lochiel. Seer. LOCHIEL, Lochiel, beware of the day, A steed comes at morning: no rider is there; Lochiel. Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer! -Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, Draw, dōtard, around thy old wavering sight, Seer. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn? But down let him stoop from his havoc on high! The Gaelic appellation of Scotland, more particularly the High lands. † Pron. a'rè. Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock! Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock! Seer. Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day! Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight:* Rise! rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight! "T is finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors Culloden is lost, and my country deplores; But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where? The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier ; • Alluding to the perilous escape of Charles from the west of Scotland Lochiel. Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale. Though my perishing ranks should be strewed * in their gore, Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore, Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low, With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe! LESSON CLVII. The Poet and the Alchemist. -NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. AUTHORS of modern date are wealthy fellows: 'Tis but to snip his locks, they follow The rhymes and novels which cajole us, Not from the Heliconian rill, But from the waters of Pactolus. A Grub-street garreteer existed, Of odes and poems to be twisted For patrons who have heavy purses. All ticketed from A to Izzard; And, living by his wits, I need not add, *Pron. strōwed. |