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,
When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array!
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,
And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight:
They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown,
Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down!
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain.
But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war,
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
'Tis thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await,
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.

A steed comes at morning: no rider is there;
But it bridle is red with the sign of despair.
Weep, Albin!* to death and captivity led!
0 weep ! but thy tears cannot number the dead:
For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave,
Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.

Lochiel. Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer! -Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,

Draw, dōtard, around thy old wavering sight,
This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.

Seer. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn?
Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn :
Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth,
From his home, in the dark-rolling clouds of the north?
Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;

But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed-for the spoiler is nigh.
Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?
"T is the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
From his eyriet that beacons the darkness of heaven.
O, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,
Whose banners arise on the battlements' height,
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;
Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return!
For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.
Lochiel. False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan,
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And, like reapers, descend to the harvest of death.

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!
But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws;
When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd,
Clan-Ranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud;
All plaided and plumed in their tartan array

Seer. Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day!
For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
But man cannot cover what God would reveal:
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring
With the blood-hounds, that bark for thy fugitive king.
Lo! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath,
Behold, where he flies on his desolate path!

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?
For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.
Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn,
Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn?
Ah no! for a darker departure is near;

The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier ;
His death-bell is tolling; O! mercy, dispel
Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell!
Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs,
And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims.
Accursed be the fagots, that blaze at his feet,
Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat,
With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale

• 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!
And leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.

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
Now, the golden-haired Apollo. -
Invoking Plutus to puff up the bellows
Of inspiration, they distil

The rhymes and novels which cajole us,

Not from the Heliconian rill,

But from the waters of Pactolus.
Before this golden age of writers,

A Grub-street garreteer existed,
One of the regular inditers

Of odes and poems to be twisted
Into encomiastic verses,

For patrons who have heavy purses.
Besides the bellman's rhymes, he had
Others to let, both gay and sad,

All ticketed from A to Izzard;

And, living by his wits, I need not add,
The rogue was lean as any lizard

*Pron. strōwed.