times for whole days and nights they are doomed to feel the gnawings of hunger, being unable to make way against the storm; and often during the winter they can only make a short daily excursion in quest of a precarious morsel of food. In the meantime the natives are snugly seated around their blazing peat-fires, amusing themselves with the tales and songs of other years, and enjoying the domestic harmony which no people can enjoy with less interruption than the Hebridean Celts.

The sea-weeds cast ashore by these storms are employed for manure. Sometimes in winter the shores are seen strewn with logs, staves, and pieces of wreck. These, however, have hitherto been invariably appropriated by the lairds. and factors to themselves; and the poor tenants, although enough of timber comes upon their farms to furnish roofing for their huts, are obliged to make voyages to the Sound of Mull, and various parts of the mainland, for the purpose of obtaining at a high price the wood which they require. These logs are chiefly of fir, pine, and mahogany. Hogsheads of rum, bales of cotton, and bags of coffee are sometimes also cast ashore. Several species of seeds from the West Indies, together with a few foreign shells, are not unfrequent along the shores. Pumice and slags also occur in small quantities.

Scenes of surpassing beauty, however, present themselves among these islands. What can be more delightful than a midnight walk by moonlight along the lone sea-beach of some secluded isle, the glassy sea sending from its surface a long stream of dancing and dazzling light,—no sound to be heard save the small ripple of the idle wavelet, or the scream of a sea-bird watching the fry that swarms along the shores! In the short nights of summer, the melancholy song of the throstle has scarcely ceased on the hill-side when the merry carol of the lark commences, and the plover and snipe sound their shrill pipe. Again, how glorious is the scene which presents itself from the summit of one of the loftier hills, when the great ocean is seen glowing with the last splendour

of the setting sun, and the lofty isles of St. Kilda rear their giant heads amid the purple blaze on the extreme verge of the horizon.

W. MACGILLIVRAY.

BALLAD OF ROSABELLE.

Oн, listen, listen, ladies gay;

No haughty feat of arms I tell ;
Soft is the note, and sad the lay,
That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

'Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!
And, gentle lady, deign to stay!
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheugh,
Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.

'The blackening wave is edged with white;
To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;

The fishers have heard the Water Sprite,
Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh.

'Last night the gifted seer did view

A wet shroud swathed round lady gay;
Then stay thee, fair, in Ravensheugh;
Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?'

"Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
To-night at Roslin leads the ball,
But that my lady-mother there
Sits lonely in her castle-hall.

Tis not because the ring they ride,
And Lindesay at the ring rides well,
But that my sire the wine will chide
If 'tis not filled by Rosabelle.'

O'er Roslin all that dreary night

A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; 'Twas broader than the watchfire's light, And redder than the broad moon-beam.

It glared on Roslin's castled rock,
It ruddied all the copsewood glen;
'Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak,
And seen from caverned Hawthornden.

Seemed all on fire that chapel proud
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie,
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheath'd in his iron panoply.

Seemed all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altar's pale ;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,

And glimmered all the dead men's mail.

Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair-
So still they blaze, when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high Saint Clair.

There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle ;

Each one the holy vault doth hold,

But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle !

And each Saint Clair was buried there

With candle, with book, and with knell ;
But the sea-caves rung and the wild winds sung
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

SIR W. SCOTT.

THE SHETLAND ISLES.

THESE islands, although magnificent and varied in their cliff scenery, are not imposing at a distance, as their actual height above the sea is inconsiderable, the loftiest hill, that of Roeness, only attaining about 1450 feet of elevation; while the surface of the country is seldom broken into rough picturesque summits, but is disposed in long undulating heathy ridges, among which are very many pieces of flat swampy ground, and numerous uninteresting fresh-water lakes. Hence the grand and more diversified appearance of the land is not perceived by the stranger till he approaches close to the shore; but then, as his bark is hurried on by the sweeping winds and tides, the projecting bluff headlands and continuous ranges of rocky precipices begin to develop themselves, as if to forbid his landing, as well as to defy the further encroachments of the mighty surges by which they have so long been lashed.

Besides the connected ranges of precipices, there are everywhere to be seen immense pyramidal detached rocks, called stacks, rising abruptly out of the sea, both near to and at a great distance from the land, the abodes of myriads of seafowl. Some of these stacks are perforated by magnificent arches of great magnitude and regularity, while in others there are deep caverns and subterranean recesses.

Large land-locked bays, protected from the fury of the ocean by rocky breastworks and islets, afford numerous sheltered havens to boats and shipping; and the long narrow arms and inlets of the sea, called ghoes or voes, which almost penetrate the islands from side to side, diversify the surface, and exhibit innumerable varieties of cliff scenery and contending tides and currents.

Although of course treeless, and almost shrubless, and, in general, brown and heathy, the pastures of Shetland neverheless frequently exhibit broad belts of short velvety sward,

adorned with a profusion of little meadow plants, the more large and beautiful in their flower-cups as the size of their stems is stunted by the boisterous arctic winds. Many very beautiful cultivated spots occur, especially towards the southern end of the mainland; and the retired mansions of the clergy and gentry, scattered throughout the islands, are uniformly encircled with smiling fields, and occasionally with garden. ground.

The climate of Shetland, though exceedingly tempestuous, foggy, and rainy, especially when the wind blows from the south or west, is, from its insular position, far milder than its high latitude would lead one to expect, and the inhabitants are in consequence athletic and healthy; but the seasons are so uncertain, the vicissitudes of temperature so rapid and frequent, and the autumnal gales so heavy, that but little dependence is to be placed on the grain crops raised in the islands. The winter, though free for the most part from snow and frost, is dark and gloomy; but this is made up for by the continued light of the summer months, during which the night is almost as bright as the day. The nights begin to be very short early in May, and from the middle of that month to the end of July darkness is absolutely unknown. The sun scarcely quits the horizon, and his short absence is supplied by a bright twilight. Nothing can surpass the calm serenity of a summer night in the Shetland Isles. The atmosphere is clear and unclouded, and the eye has an uncontrolled and extensive range; the hills and headlands look more than usually majestic, and a solemnity is superadded to their grandeur; the water in the bays appears dark, and as smooth as glass; no living object interrupts the tranquillity of the scene, save a solitary gull skimming the surface of the sea; and there is nothing to be heard but the distant murmuring of the waves among the rocks.

ANDERSON.