"In this church the Conqueror offered up his sword and royal robes, which he wore on the day of his Coronation. The monks kept these till the Suppression, and used to show them as great curiosities, as they likewise did a table of the Norman gentry, which came into England with the Conqueror." Extracted from "An History of the Mitred Parliamentary Abbies and Conventual Cathedral Churches," &c. &c. 2 vols. By Brown Willis, Esq. 1718. This work sold at the Merly Sale for £26.

(7) "Ponderous monuments graced with sculptures, and diversified with copious sepulchral inscriptions, once marked the place where they lay; and marble clamped with iron and defended with balustrades, protected it from invasion." Essay on Sepulchres, by W. Godwin, p. 45.

(8) Our first Parents were placed in the garden of Eden, to dress and to keep it: labour is the law of our nature, and " Providence has so ordered it, that a state of rest and inaction, however it may flatter our indolence, should be productive of many inconveniences: that it should generate such disorders as may force us to have recourse to some labour, as a thing absolutely requisite to make us pass our lives with tolerable satisfaction." -See Burke on the Sublime, p. 203.

(9) On the subject of retirement, it would be an omission not to name Zimmerman. "True and social happiness resides only in the bosom of love, or in the arms of friendship; and can only be really enjoyed by congenial hearts and kindred minds, in the domestic bowers of privacy and retirement." Zimmerman possessed great mental sensibility and a romantic cast of imagination, but is not allowed to be equally distinguished by force of reason or solidity of judgment.

(10)" Thomson's Seasons:" make it the companion of your walks lay it beside you upon the garden-seat; and doubt not that its perusal will always improve your ideas of the great Creator.

(11) The love of nature seems to have led Thomson to a cheerful religion; and a gloomy religion to have led Cowper to

a love of nature.

The one would carry his fellow-men along with him into nature; the other flies to nature from his fellowmen.-Biographia Literaria, p. 25.

(12) "But the pleasure we feel from the finest garden is not to be compared to that of walking in fields and meadows. The stately tulip, the elegant narcissus, the beautiful hyacinth-none. please so much as the simple flowers, which enamel the fertile. valley. Whatever charms the flowers may have, which are cultivated in our gardens, yet those in the fields are still more pleasing. There is beauty in the former, but in the latter there is both use and beauty." Sturm's Reflections. We recommend these to be read aloud in a family circle, daily, the first occupation of the morning.

NOTES

ΤΟ

OSSIAN'S HALL.

(1) The scene of most of Ossian's Poems is laid in Scotland, or on the coast of Ireland opposite to the territories of Fingal. Ireland was, on the north, undoubtedly peopled with Celtic tribes. The language, customs, and religion of both nations, were the same. They had been separated from one another by migration, only a few generations before our poet's age; and they still maintained a close and frequent intercourse.

Refer to Beattie's Conjectures on National Music.

Ossian, son of Fingal, flourished about the beginning of the third century: his principal place of residence was Selma, which was probably in the neighbourhood of Glenco in Argyleshire; supposed to be the Cona of Ossian, who is sometimes styled the Bard of Cona.

(2) The theology of Odin, after being banished from its native land, found an asylum in the Scandinavian north; where it yielded not, till after a long struggle, to the Christian faith. The knowledge of it, preserved in many glorious songs and legends, has descended to our day. The origin of all Teutonic tribes was on the borders of the Baltic sea.

(3) On a prétendu qu'il n'y avait point d'idées religieuses dans l'Ossian. Il n'y a point de mythologie: mais on y retrouve sans cesse une élévation d'ame, un respect pour les morts, une confiance dans une existence à venir: sentimens beaucoup plus

analogues au caractère du Christianisme que le Paganisme du midi.

De la Litérature, page 256.

(4) To these enthusiastic beings it appeared not unlikely that the spirits of the departed objects of their concentrated affection should come in the hour of deep distress to cheer the solitary mourner with hopes of future meeting in some state, no longer incident to change or separation. This state of mind was quite sufficient to give familiar voices to the winds of night, and well known forms to the mists of the morning.

Thus it is likely that the apparitions were the offspring of genius, and sensibility, nursed by grief and solitude. And may we not easily imagine that what had been the theme of their thoughts all day, the same train of pensive vision would also picture their slumbers?

Hence, in time they could hardly distinguish the forms of their waking fancy from their nightly dreams; and it is this which gives such pathetic effects to their descriptive poetry. These phantoms, however, which exalted the musings of a superior order of souls, were not confined to their solitudes; on the contrary, they soon became topics of vulgar discussion and popular belief. The more degraded notions of witchcraft originated in the semibarbarous ages, and were blended with the former belief in visionary beings.

Superstitions of the Highlands, by Mrs. Grant.

(5) Duke of Athol's pleasure grounds, where the classic hill of Dunsinane, the woods of Birnam, waving over Dunkeld, combine, in one spot, much to interest and delight.

At Pennycuick, near Edinburgh, there is in the family mansion of Sir George Clerke, Bart. M. P. for Edinburghshire, an apartment called Ossian's Hall. The room is of large dimensions, the paintings occupy the coved ceiling, and consist of twelve compartments. The figures are as large as life, the subjects chiefly taken from Ossian's poems, painted by Runciman, in a bold and striking manner. Nor can I refrain

from mentioning that in the same neighbourhood is laid the scene of that most beautiful pastoral drama," The Gentle Shepherd:" by Allan Ramsay.

Of the woods celebrated by Ossian, scarcely any traces remain, and trees no longer flourish on those spots which were formerly covered with them. These stormy regions had the striking effect of the music of the storm upon the forest, the æolian harp of nature.

We conclude by quoting another opinion of a person of taste and refinement, who observes, "cold must be the imagination that does not grow warm with the wild conceptions of the Scaldic muse; and, who is he that can refrain the tribute of his tears from the childless sorrows of the son of Fingal? The energy of this poetry has made it outlive the language in which it was written." The Album, May, 1823.