With deep and deathful meaning fraught; For such Antiquity had taught

Was preface meet, ere yet abroad

The Cross of Fire should take its road.
The shrinking band stood oft aghast
At the impatient glance he cast ;—
Such glance the mountain eagle threw,
As, from the cliffs of Benvenue,
She spread her dark sails on the wind,
And high in middle heaven, reclined,
With her broad shadow on the lake,
Silenced the warblers of the brake.

IV.

A heap of wither'd boughs was piled,
Of juniper and rowan wild,
Mingled with shivers from the oak,
Rent by the lightning's recent stroke.
Brian, the Hermit, by it stood,
Barefooted, in his frock and hood.
His grisled beard and matted hair
Obscured a visage of despair;

His naked arms and legs, seam'd o'er,
The scars of frantic penance bore.
That monk, of savage form and face,1
The impending danger of his race
Had drawn from deepest solitude,

Far in Benharrow's bosom rude.

Not his the mien of Christian priest,
But Druid's, from the grave released.
Whose harden'd heart and eye might brook
On human sacrifice to look ;

And much, 'twas said, of heathen lore
Mix'd in the charms he mutter'd o'er.
The hallow'd creed gave only worse 1
And deadlier emphasis of curse;
No peasant sought that Hermit's prayer,
His cave the pilgrim shunn'd with care,
The eager huntsman knew his bound,
And in mid chase call'd off his hound;
Or if, in lonely glen or strath,
The desert-dweller met his path,

He pray'd, and sign'd the cross between,
While terror took devotion's mien.2

V.

Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.3
His mother watch'd a midnight fold,

1 [MS." While the bless'd creed gave only worse."] 2 [MS." He pray'd with many a cross between,

And terror took devotion's mien."]

8 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,

Built deep within a dreary glen,

Where scatter'd lay the bones of men,

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-Doir-Magrevollich.

"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 foughton on ane litle hill not the tenth part of a myle from this church, be certaine men which they did not know what they were. And long tyme thereafter, certaine herds of that toune, 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, did gather the bones of the dead men that were slayne long tyme before in that place, and did make a fire to warm them. At last they did all remove from the fire, except one maid or wench, which was verie cold, and she did remaine there for a space. She being quyetlie her alone, without anie other companie, tooke up her cloaths above her knees, or thereby, to warm her; a 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

In some forgotten battle slain,

And bleach'd by drifting wind and rain.
It might have tamed a warrior's heart.1
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, flushed and full,

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 see 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.]

2 ["Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps. Is that a temple where a god may dwell?

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

Gone was her maiden glee and sport,
Her maiden girdle all too short,

Why, even the worm at last disdains her shattered cell! 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 ribbon, 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