Note VII.

Scenes sung by him who sings no more!-P. 147.

The ballad, entitled "Macphail of Colonsay, and the Mermaid of Corrievrekin," was composed by John Leyden, from a tradition which he found while making a tour through the Hebrides about 1801, soon before his fatal departure for India, where, after having made farther progress in oriental literature than any man of letters who had embraced these studies, he died a martyr to his zeal for knowledge, in the island of Java, immediately after the landing of our forces near Batavia, in September, 1811.

Note VIII.

Up Tarbat's western lake they bore,

Then dragg'd their bark the isthmus o'er.-P. 148: The peninsula of Cantire is joined to South Knapdale by a very narrow isthmus, formed by the western and eastern Loch of Tarbat. These two salt-water lakes, or bays, encroach so far upon the land, and the extremities come so near to each other, that there is not above a mile of land to divide them.

"It is not long," says Pennant, "since vessels of nine or ten tons were drawn by horses out of the west loch into that of the east, to avoid the dangers of the Mull of Cantyre, so dreaded and so little known was the navigation round that promontory. It is the opinion of many, that these little isthmuses, so frequently styled Tarbat in North Britain, took their name from the above circumstance; Tarruing, signify.

ing to draw, and Bata, a boat. This too might be called, by way of pre-eminence, the Tarbat, from a very singular circumstance related by Torfous. When Magnus, the barefooted King of Norway, obtained from Donald-bane of Scotland the cession of the western isles, or all those places that could be surrounded in a boat, he added to them the peninsula of Cantyre by this fraud: he placed himself in the stern of a boat, held the rudder, was drawn over this narrow track, and by this species of navigation wrested the country from his brother monarch."-PENNANT's Scotland, London, 1790, P. 190.

But that Bruce also made this passage, although at a period two or three years later than in the poem, appears from the evidence of Barbour, who mentions also the effect produced upon the minds of the Highlanders, from the prophecies current amongst them:

"But to King Robert will we gang,
That we have left unspoken of lang,
When he had convoyed to the sea
His brother Edward, and his menyie,
And other men of great noblay,
To Tarbart they held their way,

In galleys ordained for their fare,
But them worth* draw their ships there,

* Were obliged to.

And a mile was betwixt the seas,
And that was lompnyt* all with trees.
The king his ships there gert+ draw
And for the wind couth+ stoutly blaw
Upon their back, as they would ga,
He gert men rops and masts ta,
And set them in the ships high,
And sails to the tops tye:

And gert men gang thereby drawing.

The wind them help'd that was blowing,

So that, in little space,

Their fleet all over drawn was.

And when they that in the isles were,

Heard tell how the king had there,
Gart § his ships with sails go
Out over betwixt Tarbat two,

They were abaysit || so utterly,
For they wist, through old prophecy,
That he that should gar ¶ ships so
Betwixt the seas with sails go,

Should win the isles so till hand,

That none with strength should him withstand.
Therefore they come all to the king.

Was none withstood his bidding,

*

Owtakyn Johne of Lorne alane.
But well soon after was he taen ;
And present right to the king.
And they there were of his leading,
That till the king had broken fay,t

Were all dead and destroyed away."

BARBOUR'S Bruce, vol. III. Book XV. pp. 14, 15.

Note IX.

The sun, ere yet he sunk behind

Ben-ghoil," the Mountain of the Wind,"
Gave his grim peaks a greeting kind,

And bade Loch-Ranza smile.-P. 149.

Loch-Ranza is a beautiful bay, on the northern extremity of Arran, opening towards East Tarbat Loch. It is well described by Pennant.

"The approach was magnificent: a fine bay in front, about a mile deep, having a ruined castle near the lower end, on a low far-projecting neck of land, that forms another harbour, with a narrow passage; but within has three fathom of water, even at the lowest ebb. Beyond is a little plain watered by a stream, and inhabited by the people of a small village. The whole is environed with a theatre of mountains; and in the

back-ground the serrated crags of Grianan-Athol soar above." -PENNANT'S Tour to the Western Isles, p. 191, 2.

Ben-Ghaoil," the mountain of the winds," is generally known by its English, and less poetical name, of Goatfield.

Note X.

"Each to Loch-Ranza's margin spring;

That blast was winded by the King."-P. 157. The passage in Barbour, describing the landing of Bruce, and his being recognized by Douglas and those of his followers, who had preceded him, by the sound of his horn, is in the original singularly simple and affecting. The king arrived in Arran with thirty-three small row-boats. He interrogated a female if there had arrived any warlike men of late in that country. Surely, sir," she replied, "I can tell you of many who lately came hither, discomfited the English governor, and blockaded his castle of Brodick. They maintain themselves in a wood at no great distance." The king truly conceiving that this must be Douglas and his followers, who had lately set forth to try their fortune in Arran, desired the woman to conduct him to the wood. She obeyed.

66

،، The king then blew his horn on high ;
And gert his men that were him by,
Hold them still, and all privy;
And syne again his horn blew he.

James of Dowglas heard him blow,