HE MERMAID. This beautiful ballad is the composition of Dr. John Leyden, and was originally published in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." It is founded, writes Sir Walter Scott, "upon a Gaelic traditional ballad called Macphail of Colonsay and the Mermaid of Corrivrekin." The dangerous gulf of Corrivrekin lies between the islands of Jura and Scarba, and the superstition of the islanders has tenanted its shelves and eddies with all the fabulous monsters and demons of the ocean. Among these, according to a universal tradition, the mermaid is the most remarkable. In her dwelling, and in her appearance, the mermaid of the northern nations resembles the siren of the ancients. "The Gaelic story bears, that Macphail of Colonsay was carried off by a mermaid, while passing the gulf above mentioned that they resided together, in a grotto beneath the sea, for several years, during which time she bore him five children: but finally, he tired of her society, and, having prevailed upon her to carry him near the shore of Colonsay, he escaped to land."

Legends of the mermaid, and of their loves for mortal men, are, however, common to nearly every country of the globe-so common, indeed, that many sensible authors have reasoned upon the probabilities of their actual existence; and some stories of their occasional appearances rest upon authorities that can scarcely be characterised as apocryphal. Sir Walter Scott, himself, in a note to the ballad, has a passage which may lead to the inference that he was by no means altogether sceptical on the subject. "I cannot help adding," he says, "that some late evidence has been produced, serving to shew, either that imagination played strange tricks with the witnesses, or that the existence of mermaids is no longer a matter of question. I refer to the letters written to Sir John Sinclair, by the spectators of such a phenomenon, in the bay of Sandside, in Caithness." * He adds that it would be easy to quote a variety of writers concerning the supposed being of these "marine people."-"The reader may consult the Telliamed' of M. Maillet, who, in support of the Neptunist system of geology, has collected a variety of legends, respecting mermen and mermaids, p. 230. et sequen. Much information may also be derived from Pontopiddan's Natural History of Norway,' who fails not to people her seas with this amphibious race. older authority is to be found in the Kongs shuggsio, or Royal Mirror,' written, as it is believed, about 1170. The mermen, there mentioned, are termed hafstrambur (sea-giants), and are said to have the upper parts resembling the human race; but the author, with becoming diffidence, declines to state, positively, whether they are equipped with a dolphin's tail. The female monster is called Mar-Gyga (sea-giantess), and is averred certainly to drag a fish's train. She appears generally in the act of devouring a fish, which she has caught. According to the apparent voracity of her appetite, the sailors pretend to guess what chance they had of saving their lives in the tempests, which always followed her appearance."

An

The reader may remember that some years ago, "a veritable mermaid" was exhibited in London. The cheat was discovered, however, upon close examination. The lady of the sea had been manufactured in Japan, out of the upper part of an ourang outang and the tail of a fish.

In Cromek's " Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway song," was published a ballad, entitled "The Mermaid of Galloway;" understood to be the production of Mr. Allan Cunningham, who received the substance of the story "from tradition ;" and "tradition," he states, is yet rich with the fame of the bewitching mermaid. Her favourite haunts were along the shores of the Nith and Orr, and on the edge of the Solway Sea, which adjoins the mouth of those waters. Her beauty was such, that man could not behold her face, but his heart was fired by unquenchable love; and, as usual, whenever she was seen, she was occupied in combing her "long hair of burning gold." "According to Lowland mythology," he adds, "they are a race of goddesses, corrupted with earthly passions; their visits to the world, though few and far between, are spoken of and remembered with awe; their affections were bestowed on men of exalted virtue and rare endowment of persons and parts. They wooed in such a strain of syren eloquence, that all hearts were fettered by the witcheries of love. When their celestial voice dropt on the ear, every other faculty was enthralled. They caught the beloved object in their embrace, and laid him on a couch, where mortal eyes might search in vain into the rites of such romantic and mysterious wedlock." The hero of this story is said to have been one of the Maxwells, of Cowehill he is wiled away from the arms of his betrothed bride by a song of the syren, "the sweetest sang ere brake frae a lip; " lulled to sleep among the water-lilies; and taken over the white "sea-faem;" while the earthly damsel is left to mourn his loss. The mystery of his disappearance is, however, thus explained to her :

It was i' the mid-hour o' the night,
Her siller bell did ring;

An' soun't as if nae earthlie hand
Had pou'd the silken string.

There was a cheek touch'd that ladye's,
Cauld as the marble stane;

An' a hand cauld as the drifting snaw,
Was laid on her breast-bane.

O cauld is thy hand, my dear Willie ;
O cauld, cauld is thy cheek;
An' wring thae locks o' yellow hair,
Frae which the cauld draps dreep.'

O seek another bridegroom, Marie,
On thae bosom-faulds to sleep;
My bride is the yellow water-lilie,
Its leaves my brydal sheet!'

Mr. Cunningham records two or three striking anecdotes relative to the popular belief, and Sir Walter Scott supplies others; the most remarkable, however, are told by Waldron, in his "History of the Isle of Man." One of them we copy: -"A very beautiful mermaid fell in love with a young shepherd, who kept his flocks beside a creek much frequented by these marine people. She frequently caressed him, and brought him presents of coral, fine pearls, and every valuable production of the ocean. Once upon a time, as she threw her arms eagerly round him, he suspected her of a design to draw him into the sea, and, struggling hard, disengaged himself from her embrace, and ran away. But the mermaid resented either the suspicion, or the disappointment, so highly, that she threw a stone after him, and flung herself into the sea, whence she never returned. The youth, though but slightly struck with the pebble, felt, from that moment, the most excruciating agony, and died at the end of seven days." In Ireland, stories of the mermaid- there called the "Merrow are very abundant; we have conversed with many of the peasants who would readily depose, upon oath, to having repeatedly seen them; and there, as well as elsewhere, they are always encountered

Combing their yellow hair.