ing above her, throws herself perpendicularly towards the earth.

One of the most general rules in desire is, that the organ destined to apprehend the object seeks to approach it. He who listens, for example, advances his ear; the savage, accustomed to trace his way by the excellence of his scent, advances his nose; when the object can be grasp ed only by the sense that is suited to it, the hands are the part advanced. They are never perfectly indolent in the expression of an animated desire.

In ardent desire, all the powers of the mind are awakened; it seems to invite them all in order to satisfy it. In contemplation without desire, it employs only one of its powers, and in order to enjoy with less distraction and more pleasure, seems to leave all the others asleep. The man devoured with a burning thirst, and the voluptuous drinker, will furnish examples of these two expressions.

The voluptuary is wrapt up in himself. The hand which remains at liberty is carried under that which supports the glass; it has only a very gentle movement, and the muscles are not stretched. His eyes, immovable, become smaller, and if he is a subtle connoisseur, they assume a delicate and brilliant appearance; sometimes they are entirely and even forcibly

shut.

His head is sunk on his shoulders; in short, the whole man seems to be absorbed in that single sensation, which agreeably tickles his pa

late.

What a difference in the thirsty man, in him who experiences that devouring thirst, anhela sitis, of which Lucretius speaks. All the senses at once take part in the desire which presses him; his haggard eyes start from his head, his body, with the neck lengthened, leans forward; his steps are large and widely separated, his hands squeeze the cup with force, or rush forward to seize it, his respiration is rapid and difficult. At the mo

ment when he rushes on the cup, and before he holds it, his mouth is open, his dried tongue appears on his lips, and enjoys the liquid beforehand.

Let us take another example, that of a fond girl who impatiently expects her lover. She hears a noise; perhaps it is he. Immoveable, that she may the better distinguish the sound which has struck her, the ear, the whole body, are inclined towards the side whence it came. It is on this side only that her foot rests with firmness; the other, resting on tiptoe, seems to be suspended. All the rest of the body is in a state of activity. The eye is very open, as if to collect a greater number of rays from the object which does not yet appear; one hand is lifted to the ear, as if it could really catch the sound; and the other, to preserve the equilibrium, is directed to the earth, but detached from the body, and with the palm downwards, as if to repel whatever could disturb the attention necessary at such a mement. She half opens her mouth, as if to receive the sound by every channel thro' which it can penetrate.

(To be continued.)

Antiquities o SUTHERLAND.

IN the year 1630-1632, Sir Robert

Gordon, uncle to John Earl of Sutherland, and afterwards tutor to that noble family, wrote the History of Sutherland; in which he narrated the ancient conflicts of the Northern Clans. He states, that in the 11th century, St Bar, Bishop of Caithness, built a church at Dornoch, called St Bar's Church, which was the Bishop's Cathedral; that the Bishop's Castle, and the residence of the Canons, were built there, and that all the glass required for the church, was made by St Gilbert, at Sidry, two miles west from the town of Dornoch. Adjoining this church, Sir Patrick Murray, between the

years

years 1270 and 1280, established a monastery of Trinity Friars; and it was about the same time, or soon after, that Gilbert Murray, Bishop of Caithness, caused the church to be enlarged and embellished in the magnificent manner the present ruins indicate.

Tradition says, that about the same time, a brother of Bishop Murtay's fell at the head of a chosen band of men, when repelling a body of Norwegians or Danes, who had landed at Ferry Unes, near Embo, to pillage the country; and that a monument to his memory was placed near the font, in the east aisle of the cathedral. In that place is still lying in the earth a mutilated, but well-carved, figure of a warrior, in alto-relievo, which formed the lid of a stone coffin. This was the most honoutable mode of sepulture at that time, and is, therefore, no doubt, the monument of the warrior alluded to. Many stones, with curious carvings on them, are scattered in the ruins of this cathedral, of which some specimens appear.

Where the battle was fought at Embo, there is a stone, with the figure of a cross, erect in the ground, called Crois en Righ (the king's cross), where, by the same tradition, a king or chief of the Danes was killed and buried.

In 1570, John Sinclair, Master of Caithness, and Jye Mackay, of Strathnaver, came with a banditti to Sutherland, plundered the town of Dornoch, and burnt the church; which church was repaired by the said Sir Robert Gordon, who had interest enough to obtain the erection of Dornoch into a Royal Burgh.

COLE'S CASTLE,

Upon a rock in the black water of Strath-beg, about a mile and a half north from the junction of that river with the water of Brora, stand the Dec. 1812.

ruins of Cole's Castle. It is a circular building, 54 yards in circumference round the base on the outside, or 18 diameter; and 27 yards circumference, nine yards diameter within, by which it will appear that the walls are 4 yards, or 13 feet thick in the base; built of large stones, well connected, without any cement. The building has a batter or inclination inwards, of nine inches in every three feet in height. The door on the south-east side is 34 feet high, and 2 feet broad. In the middle of the wall, on each side of the passage by the door to the interior, is a small apartment, about six feet square and five feet high, as if intended for a guard to watch the entry. The highest part of the wall is 11 feet, but old people remember it twice that height. It is destroyed by the wantonness of cow-herds throwing the materials off the walls into the river. Beyond this building, and six feet from the wall, are the remains of an outer wall, which surrounded the castle, and an oblong garden of 27 yards long and 18 yards broad, to the verge of the rock. This wall seems to have been joined by large flags to the wall of the castle, leaving a passage of six feet broad by seven feet high between the two walls, where it is said they kept their cattle in the night time. In the face of the rock is an oblong seat, where, tradition says, Cole used to rest himself, fronting the meridian sun, and that there he was slain with an arrow from the bow of an assassin, and that when Cole felt the wound, he struck his hand upon the rock, which made such an impression, that it remains there to this day.

A ditch appears to have carried the water of the river round to the land side, which is now filled up with rubbish.

straths connected with the south-east and north coasts of this county. In the parish of Golspie, near Craigton, subterraneous buildings have been discovered, having a small oblique entry from the surface, of about 2 feet in the side of the square, which, after advancing three yards, widens to about three feet in the side of the square, which winds a few yards to an apartment of about 12 feet in the side of the square, and nine feet high, covered on the top by large broad stones, which terminated in one stone like a mill-stone, with a hole in the centre, probably to emit smoke. A passage from the room led to other rooms, inaccessible, owing to the earth falling in.

At Bakies, above Dunrobin, is a very large cairn, with subterraneous passages now choaked up.

At Kildonan is a cairn on each side of the river, with a passage said to be under the river from the one to the other. On a high rock, between Naver and Torsdale, are the remains of a large circular building, and the rock on which it is built is very difficult to asceud.

At Shiberscross there is a large circular cairn, and on a high heathy hill near it, there are about 50 round tumuli, in regular order, at about 12 yards distance from each other; and in front of them, a few yards lower down the hill, are the remains of two square forts, 20 yards in the side, having angular works on the corners. This seems to have been an encampment in some remote period, of which the people there have no tradition. There are remains of such encampments on Strath-fleet, Brora, &c.

Dun-Dornadil, and Castle Cole, are the only buildings of the circular kind that are not reduced to a heap of rubbish, within this county.

DUN-DORNADIL.

Strathmore, in the parish of Durness. It is a complete specimen of ancient Pictish architecture. Some old people in the parish remember a part of the walls 30 feet high; but the same cause that demolishes Cole's Castle, equally injures this residence of the ancient Chiefs of the Fingalian race.

It is evident, that at the period when this fabric was reared they had no instruments of iron; not a stone of them is moulded by a hammer, nor is there any fog or other material used to fill up the interstices among the stones; yet they are artfully laid together, seem to exclude the air, and have been piled with great mathematical care, else could they have remained in a tower like this, thirty feet high, so as to have withstood the casualties of more than 1000 years? In the ninth century, when the communication of these northern territories with the continent freely opened, they could not fail to learn the use of cement in building, if they had not before discovered it; and to obtain instruments of iron. From these circumstances we may be enabled in some measure to ascertain the so-much contested era of Ossian's heroes, as well as that of the Pictish towers. The car-born Chief, implies a proficiency in arts, almost incompatible with a state of life where the application of metal is unknown. The Bards were men of renown at the above period, when the Scandinavian adventurers infested the north coast of Scotland, and the Western Isles: the commanders of fleets and the leaders of armies carried them along to celebrate their achievements, and to narrate the difficulties and dangers which their fortitude and prowess overcame*. The same enthusiasm which inspired the Bards in the day of battle, would lead them to indulge the expression of softer sentiments in

See Torfæus' Autihority, Antiquities days

days of ease, and strains of lamenta tion in the pensive hours of sorrow. These hereditary songs were preserved by oral tradition, and many of them were put upon record by a Danish historiographer in the island of Flota, one of the Orcades. Perhaps the poems attributed to Ossian, the son of Fingal, are the productions of various bards, preserved in the above channel of oral traditions: even to this day, some Highlanders are at equal pains in teaching Ossian's poems to their sons, as in teaching them the principles of the Christian religion.

Observations on SCOTCH Farming.

By Sir Cristopher Hawkins, Bart. From Letters and Papers of the Bath and West-of-England Society.

THE

HE first object that strikes the attention of all agricultural travellers, is the neatness, the permanency,and impenetrability of the white thorn hedges, as well in the north of England as in Scotland.

The ground or bank intended for the line of hedge is well ploughed and cleaned before planted, and the plants are weeded twice a year.These hedges soon repay the first expense, by the quickness of their growth, the permanency of the improvement, and by the ornament they are to the country.

The next object I would recommend is the sowing of turnip seed in drills, instead of broadcast. The advantages are, the seed vegetates more rapidly, and thereby escapes the fly. Less manure, and much less expense are required; and the field, by being repeatedly ploughed, is left in a good state for any future crop.

Turnips succeed crops of corn, and after the usual ploughing, the drills are set at twenty-eight to thirty inches apart these drills are filled with well-rotted dung, and covered

in by the plough at the same time the seed is sown. As soon as the plants shew in leaf, the spaces between the drills are howed by a plough. The turnips are then thinned by women and children, and a one-horse plough goes up and down the rows, banking up the plants on each side: lastly, they are banked up by a doublemoulded plough.

I am induced to mention these particulars, because I do not apprehend the sowing of turnip seed in drills is as yet introduced into the west of England; and in the porth, where this crop is the great dependence of the farmer for winter food to his cattle, this method is universally prac tised.

As the rent of arable land in Scotland is supposed to be as much again. as is paid under similar circumstances in England, it has become an object of enquiry, as you may have seen in Sir Joseph Banks's letter to Six John Sinclair, by what mode of agriculture the Scots farmer is enabled to pay a rent double to what his English neighbour pays.

Sir John Sinclair is now prosecu ting this argument among the Perthshire agriculturists; and until we are better informed by the worthy President of the Board of Agriculture, I will state to you, that, in my opinion, the rents in Scotland are, as compared with English rents, in a great degree nominal rents; likewise, that the high rents in Scotland are in part owing to circumstances, and in part to the skill, industry, and attention of the Scotch farmer.

Supposing the average of arable. land in Scotland at £.5 per acre; one fifth part of this rent must be deducted for the difference between the Scotch and the English acre, and the value of what is paid in England for tithes, parochial taxes, and services, must likewise be deducted. But as these deductions would not reduce the rents paid in Scotland to a level with the

English

English rents, the circumstances in favour of the Scottish farmer are, that the great population of Scotland is either in the vicinity of the arable districts, or that the conveyance by land and by water are cheap and commodious.

The supply of Edinburgh, and of several large towns, and of 6000 cavalry and infantry usually in barracks in the Lothians, cause a great demand for the produce of those and and the neighbouring counties. But the best praise I can give of Scotch farming is to attempt, though imperfectly, to describe the practice. The whole, generally speaking, of a Scottish arable farm is in tillage, in crops of annual growth. The course of crops are from four to seven years. In the Lothians, the seven years course is preferred; in which time the land receives one good dressing with lime, and one fallow, which is otherwise manured with well rotted dung. The crops are alternately of corn and vegetables; the vegetables are turnips, clover, potatoes, pease, beans, and some vetches.

The farmers' returns are by corn and pulse, and by the winter keep of Highland bullocks and sheep. The capital on such a farm consists chiefly of labour-horses, implements of husbandry, seed corn, &c. Therefore, the little capital a farmer is required to lay out by this system of agricul ture, and the quick returns he has it in his power to make, even before the rent becomes due, very well enables him to pay, and equally entitles the landlord to receive a large proportion of this return as rent.

Having stated the cheapness of conveyance as a great advantage to the Scottish farmer, I will add, that he is enabled, by good roads, to perform all the heavy work on his farm by single-horse carts. The weights drawn in these carts will be accord. ing to circumstances; but the common and legal load of coals, drawn

by one horse up a rise of 300 feet, from Leith to the top of the High Street in Edinburgh, is 1200 weight. I am informed 1800 weight is usually drawn by one horse from Edinburgh to Glasgow; and in the coal carts in and near Glasgow, 2400 weight.

The roads in Scotland are excellent; and they have been laid down by able engineers in the best possible line of direction; so that where the hills could not be avoided, they have been, as much as possible, cut down, and the hollows filled up, or the a cent has been rendered much more gradual, as in the ascent of two miles from Leith to Edinburgh; or bridges of communication have been built over chasms, as Peese bridge in Berwickshire, more than 120 feet high; and the new bridge, 70 feet high, to communicate between the old and new town of Edinburgh.

These improvements, however, have raised the tolls on the turnpikes in Scotland more than double of what is paid in England; but as one horse is, by the levelry of the roads, enabled to do the work of two, or per haps of three, the additional rise of the turnpike tolls is merely nominal; while the advantages of perhaps 50 per cent. in the cheapness of carriage, remains a great and permanent benefit to the country.

By these means Scotch farmers are not only enabled to pay high rents, but, with attention and industry, to lay up money for their families.