Hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire, Some spirit of the air has waked thy string! IT is now a seraph bold, with touch of fire,

Tis now the brush of fairy's frolic wing.
Leceding now, the dying numbers ring

Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell,
And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring
A wandering witch-note of the distant spell-

And now, 't is silent all!-Enchantress, fare thee well!

NOTES.

CANTO I.

Note 1. Stanza iv.

— the heights of Cam-Var,

And roused the cavern, where, 't is told,

A giant made his den of old.

My name came first from holy Hubert's race, Souyllard my sire, a hound of singular grace. Whereupon we may presume that some of the kind prooue white sometimes, but they are not of the kind of the Greffiers or Bouxes, which we haue at these days.»> The noble art of Venerie or Hunting, translated and collected for the Use of all Noblemen and Gentlemen. Lond. 1611. 4. p. 15.

Note 3. Stanza viii.

For the death-wound and death-halloo,
Muster'd his breath, his whinyard drew.

When the stag turned to bay, the ancient hunter had the perilous task of going in upon, and killing or disabling the desperate animal. At certain times of the year this was held particularly dangerous, a wound received from a stag's horns being then deemed poisonous, and more dangerous than one from the tusks of a boar, as the old rhyme testifies:

If thou be hurt with hart, it brings thee to thy bier:

But barber's hand will boar's hurt heal, therefore thou needst not fear.

L'a-Var, as the name is pronounced, or more properly Caigh-mor, is a mountain to the north-east of the village At all times, however, the task was dangerous, and to of Callender in Menteith, deriving its name, which sig-be adventured upon wisely and warily, either by getting Is the great den, or cavern, from a sort of retreat among the rocks on the south side, said, by tradition, to have been the abode of a giant. In latter times, it was the refuge of robbers and banditti, who have been only erpated within these forty or fifty years. Strictly peaking, this strong-hold is not a cave, as the name uid imply, but a sort of small inclosure, or recess, arrounded with large rocks, and open above head. It ey have been originally designed as a toil for deer, 30 might get in from the outside, but would find it This opinion prevails among the dd sportsmen and deer-stalkers in the neighbourhood. Note 2. Stanza vii.

behind the stag while he was gazing on the hounds, or by watching an opportunity to gallop roundly in upon him, and kill him with the sword. See many directions to this purpose in the Booke of Hunting, chap. 41. Wilson the historian has recorded a providential escape which befel him in this hazardous sport, while a youth and follower of the Earl of Essex.

ficult to return.

the

Two dogs of black St Hubert's breed,
Camatch'd for courage, breath, and speed.

<< Sir Peter Lee, of Lime, in Cheshire, invited my lord one summer, to hunt the stagg. And having a great stag in chase, and many gentlemen in the pursuit, the stagg took soyle. And divers, whereof I was one, alighted, and stood with swords drawne, to have a cut at him, at his coming out of the water. The staggs there being wonderfully fierce and dangerous, made us youths more eager to be at him. But he escaped us all; and it was my misfortune to be hindered of my comThe hounds which we call Saint Hubert's hounds ing nere him, the way being slipperie, by a fall; which commonly all blacke, yet neuertheless, their race is gave occasion to some, who did not know mee, to speak magled at these days, that we find them of all co- as if I had falne for feare. Which being told me, I left ars. These are the hounds which the abbots of St the stagg, and followed the gentleman who [first] spake Habert haue always kept some of their race or kind, in it. But I found him of that cold temper, that it seems our or remembrance of the saint, which was a hunt- his words made an escape from him; as by his denial with St Eustace. Whereupon we may conceiue that and repentance it appeared. But this made mee more. grace of God) all good huntsmen shall follow violent in the pursuit of the stagg, to recover my repuLa into paradise. To returne vnto my former pur- tation. And I happened to be the only horsemen in , this kind of dogges hath beene dispersed through countries of Henault, Lorayne, Flaunders, and BurThey are mighty of body, neuertheless their are low and short, likewise they are not swift, ough they be very good of sent, hunting chases ich are farre straggled, fearing neither water nor d, and doe more couet the chases that smell, as foxes, ere, and such like, than other, because they find them s neither of swiftness nor courage to hunt and kill chases that are lighter and swifter. The bloodauds of this colour prooue good, especially those that are cole-blacke, but I made no great account to breede them, or to keepe the kind, and yet I found a book che a hunter did dedicate to a prince of Lorayne, Vich seemed to loue hunting much, wherein was a on, which the same hunter gaue to his blood-hound, ed Souyllard, which was white:

when the doggs sett him up at bay; and approaching near him on horsebacke, he broke through the dogs and ran at mee, and tore my horse's side with his hornes, close by my thigh. Then I quitted my horse, and grew more cunning (for the doggs had sette him up againe), stealing behind him with my sword, and cut his ham-strings; and then got upon his back, and cut his throate; which, as I was doing, the company came in, and blamed my rashness for running such a hazard.»> PECK'S Desiderata Curiosa, II, 464.

tic

Note 4. Stanza xiv.
And now, to issue from the glen,

No pathway meets the wanderer's ken,
Unless he climb, with footing nice,

A far-projecting precipice.

Until the present road was made through the roman-
pass
which I have presumptuously attempted to de-

scribe in the preceding stanzas, there was no mode of issuing out of the defile, called the Trosachs, excepting by a sort of ladder, composed of the branches and roots of the trees.

Note 5. Stanza xvi.

To meet with Highland plunderers here
Were worse than loss of steed or deer.

The clans who inhabited the romantic regions in the neighbourhood of Loch Katrine, were, even until a late period, much addicted to predatory excursions upon their Lowland neighbours.

<< In former times, those parts of this district, which are situated beyond the Grampian range, were rendered almost inaccessible by strong barriers of rocks, and mountains, and lakes. It was a border country, and though on the very verge of the low country, it was almost totally sequestered from the world, and, as it were, insulated with respect to society.

descend in a family, as some imagine, for I know se veral parents who are endowed with it, but their children not, and vice versa; neither is it acquired by any previous compact. And after a strict inquiry, I could never learn that this faculty was communicable any way whatsoever.

«The seer knows neither the object, time, nor place of a vision, before it appears; and the same object is often seen by different persons, living at a considerable The true way of judging

distance from one another.

as to the time and circumstance of an object, is by ob
servation; for several persons of judgment, without
this faculty, are more capable to judge of the design of
If an object ap
a vision, than a novice that is a seer.
pear in the day or night, it will come to pass sooner or
later accordingly.

:

« If an object is seen early in the morning (which is not frequent), it will be accomplished in a few hours « T is well known, that in the Highlands, it was, in afterwards. If at noon, it will commonly be accom former times, accounted not only lawful, but honour-plished that very day. If in the evening, perhaps that able, among hostile tribes, to commit depredations on night if after candles be lighted, it will be accom one another; and these habits of the age were perhaps plished that night: the later always in accomplishment, strengthened in this district, by the circumstances which by weeks, months, and sometimes years, according to have been mentioned. It bordered on a country, the the time of night the vision is seen. inhabitants of which, while they were richer, were less warlike than they, and widely differenced by language and manners.>>GRAHAM'S Sketches of Scenery in Perth-height of it about the person; for if it is seen above the shire. Edin. 1806. p. 97.

The reader will therefore be pleased to remember, that the scene of this poem is laid in a time,

When tooming faulds, or sweeping of a glen,
Had still been held the deed of gallant men.
Note 6. Stanza xxiii.

A gray-hair'd sire, whose eye intent
Was on the vision'd future bent.

If force of evidence could authorise us to believe facts inconsistent with the general laws of nature, enough might be produced in favour of the existence of the second-sight. It is called in Gaelic Taishitaraugh, from Taish, an unreal or shadowy appearance; and those possessed of the faculty are called Taishatrin, which may be aptly translated visionaries. Martin, a steady believer in the second-sight, gives the following account of it:

« When a shroud is perceived about one, it is a sure prognostic of death: the time is judged according to the

space

middle, death is not to be expected for the of a year, and perhaps some months longer; and as it is frequently seen to ascend higher towards the head, death is concluded to be at hand within a few days, if not hours, as daily experience confirms. Examples of this kind were shown me, when the persons of whom the observations were then made, enjoyed perfect health.

<< One instance was lately foretold by a seer that was a novice, concerning the death of one of my acquaintance; this was communicated to a few only, and with great confidence: I being one of the number, did not in the least regard it, until the death of the person, about the time foretold, did confirm me of the certainly of the prediction. The novice mentioned above is now a skilful seer, as appears from many late instances he lives in the parish of St Mary's, the most northern in Skie.

« If a woman is seen standing at a man's left hand, it is a presage that she will be his wife, whether they be married to others, or unmarried, at the time of the apparition.

<< The second-sight is a singular faculty, of seeing an otherwise invisible object, without any previous means used by the person that used it, for that end; the vision makes such a lively impression upon the seers, that they « If two or three women are seen at once near a man neither see, nor think of any thing else, except the vi- left hand, she that is next him will undoubtedly be bus sion, as long as it continues; and then they appear pen-wife first, and so on, whether all three, or the man, be sive or jovial, according to the object which was represented to them.

«At the sight of a vision, the eye-lids of the person are erected, and the eyes continue staring until the object vanish. This is obvious to others who are by, when the persons happen to see a vision, and occurred more than once to my own observation, and to others that were with me.

« There is one in Skie, of whom his acquaintance observed, that when he sees a vision, the inner part of his eye-lids turns so far upwards, that after the object disappears, he must draw them down with his fingers, and sometimes employ others to draw them down, which he finds to be the much easier way.

This faculty of the second-sight does not lineally

single or married at the time of the vision or not; of which there are several late instances among those of my acquaintance. It is an ordinary thing for them to see a man that is to come to the house shortly after. and if he is not of the seer's acquaintance, yet he gives such a lively description of his stature, complexion, habit, etc. that upon his arrival he answers the character given him in all respects.

par

<< If the person so appearing be one of the seer's ac quaintance, he will tell his name, as well as other ticulars; and he can tell by his countenance whether he comes in a good or bad humour.

« I have been seen thus myself by seers of both sexes, at some hundred miles' distance: some that saw me in || this manner had never seen me personally, and it hap

pened according to their visions, without any previous sign of mine to go to those places, my coming there ang purely accidental.

It is ordinary with them to see houses, gardens, and rees, in places void of all three; and this in progress of Time uses to be accomplished: as at Mogshot, in the Isle of Skie, where there were but a few sorry cow-houses, | tatched with straw, yet, in a very few years after, the Iesion, which appeared often, was accomplished, by the building of several good houses on the very spot reprenied by the seers, and by the planting of orchards

in the way of joists or planks, were levelled with earth and gravel. There were betwixt the trees, growing naturally on their own roots, some stakes fixed in the earth, which, with the trees, were interwoven with ropes, made of heath and birch twigs, up to the top of the Cage, it being of a round or rather oval shape; and the whole thatched and covered over with fog. The whole fabric hung, as it were, by a large tree, which reclined from the one end, all along the roof, to the other, and which gave it the name of the Cage; and by chance there happened to be two stones at a small distance from one another, in the side next the precipice, resembling the pillars of a chimney, where the fire was placed. The smoke had its vent out here, all along the fall of the rock, which was so much of the same colour, that one could discover no difference in the clearest To see a seat empty at the time of one's sitting in | day.»-HOME's History of the Rebellion. Lond. 1802. sa presage of that person's death soon after.

To see a spark of fire fall upon one's arm or breast, wafore-runner of a dead child to be seen in the arms of those persons, of which there are several fresh in

Some find themselves as it were in a crowd of peohaving a corpse which they carry along with them; and after such visions the seers come in sweating, and escribe the people that appeared: if there be any of acquaintance among 'em, they give an account of their names, as also of the bearers, but they know thing concerning the corpse.

All those who have the second-sight do not always we these visions at once, though they be together at the me. But if one who has this faculty designedly touch as fellow-seer at the instant of a vision's appearing, en the second sees it as well as the first; and this is sometimes discerned by those that are near them on such occasions. »—MARTIN'S Description of the Western lands. 1716. 8vo. p. 300, et seq.

To those particulars innumerable examples might be added, all attested by grave and credible authors. But, despite of evidence, which neither Bacon, Boyle, nor Johnson, were able to resist, the Taisch, with all its viry properties, seems to be now universally abanoned to the use of poetry. The exquisitely beautiful poem of Lochiel will at once occur to the recollection

of every reader.

4to. p. 381.

Note 8. Stanza xxviii.

My sire's tall form might grace the part

Of Ferragus or Ascal art.

These two sons of Anak flourished in romantic fable. The first is well known to the admirers of Ariosto, by the name of Ferrau. He was an antagonist of Orlando, and was at length slain by him in single combat. There is a romance in the Auchinleck MS., in which Ferragus is thus described:

On a day come tiding
Unto Charis the king.

Al of a doughti koight
Was comen to Navers,
Stout he was and fers,
Veruagu he hight.

Of Babiloun the soudan
Thider him sende gan,
With King Charls to fight.
So hard he was to-fond
That no dint of brond
No greaed him, aplight.
He hadde twenti men strengthe,
And forti fet of lengthe

Thilke painim bede, 1
And four feet in the face,
Y-meten in the place,

And fiften in brede. 4
His nose was a fot and more;
His brow, as brestles wore;3
He that it seighe it sede.
He loked lotheliche,

And was swart as any piche,
Of him men might adrede.

Beues hadde of him wonder gret,
And askede him what a het,
And yaf men of his contré
Were ase meche ase was he.

Me name, a sede, 4 is Ascopard,
Garci me sent hiderward,
For to bring this quene ayen,
And the Beues her of-slen. 5
Icham Garci is champioun,
And was i-driue out of me? toun
Al for that i, he was so lite,
Eueri man me wolde smite,
Ich wus so lite and so merugh,
Eueri man me clepede dwerugh. 19
And now icbam in this londe,
I wax mor ich understonde,
And stranger than other tene;
And that schel on us be sene."

12

Sir Bevis of Hampton, 1, 2512. Auchinleck MS. fol. 189.

Note 9. Stanza xxix.

Though all unask'd his birth and name.

The Highlanders, who carried hospitality to a punctilious excess, are said to have considered it as churlish, to ask a stranger his name or lineage, before he had taken refreshment. Feuds were so frequent among them, that a contrary rule would, in many cases, have produced the discovery of some circumstance, which might have excluded the guest from the benefit of the assistance he stood in need of.

Note 10. Stanza xxx.

and still a harp unseen Fill'd up the symphony between.

tricts.-CAMPBELL's Journey through North Britain. Lond. 1808. 4to. I. 175.

Mr Gunn, of Edinburgh, has lately published a carious essay upon the Harp and Harp Music of the Highlands of Scotland. That the instrument was once in common use there, is most certain. Cleland numbers an acquaintance with it among the few accomplishe ments which his satire allows to the Highlanders:— In nothing they're accounted sharp, Except in bagpipe or in harp.

CANTO II.

Note 1. Stanza i.

Morn's genial influence roused a minstrel gray.

That Highland chieftains, to a late period, retained in their service the bard, as a family officer, admits of very easy proof. The author of the Letters from Scot land, an officer of engineers, quartered at Inverness about 1720, who certainly cannot be deemed a favour able witness, gives the following account of the office, and of a bard, whom he heard exercise his talent of recitation :—

«The bard skilled in the genealogy of all the High land families, sometimes preceptor to the young laird, celebrates in Irish verse the original of the tribe, the famous warlike actions of the successive heads, and sings his own lyricks as an opiate to the chief, when indisposed for sleep; but poets are not equally esteemed and honoured in all countries. I happened to be a witness of the dishonour done to the muse, at the house of one of the chiefs, where two of these bards were set at a good distance, at the lower end of a long table, with a parcel of Highlanders of no extraordinary appearance, over a cup of ale. Poor inspiration!

"

« They were not asked to drink a glass of wine at our table, though the whole company consisted only of the great man, one of his near relations, and myself.

They (meaning the Highlanders) delight much in musicke, but chiefly in harps and clairschoes of their own fashion. The strings of the clairschoes are made of brasse-wire, and the strings of the harps of sinews, which strings they strike either with their nayles, growing long, or else with an instrument appointed for that use. They take great pleasure to deck their harps and clairschoes with silver and precious stones; the poore ones that cannot attaine hereunto, decke them with christall. They sing verses, prettily compound, contayning (for the most part) prayses of valiant men. After some little time, the chief ordered one of There is not almost any other argument, whereof their them to sing me a Highland song. The bard readi rhymes intreat. They speak the ancient French lan- obeyed, and with a hoarse voice, and in a tune of few guage, altered a little. The harp and chairschoes various notes, began, as I was told, one of his own are now only heard of in the Highlands in ancient ricks; and when he had proceeded to the fourth or fifth song. At what period these instruments ceased to be stanza, I perceived, by the names of several used, is not on record; and tradition is silent on this glens, and mountains, which I had known or heard of head. But, as Irish harpers occasionally visited the before, that it was an account of some clan battle. But Highlands and Western Isles till lately, the harp might in his going on, the chief (who piques himself upon have been extant so late as the middle of the present school-learning at some particular passage, bid hum century. Thus far we know, that from remote times cease, and cryed out, There's nothing like that in Vir down to the present, harpers were received as welcome gil or flomer.-I bowed, and told him I believed guests, particularly in the Highlands of Scotland; and This you may believe was very edifying and delightso late as the latter end of the sixteenth century, as ap- ful.»-Letters from Scotland, II, 167.

Note 2. Stanza vi.

the Grame.

persons,

pears by the above quotation, the harp was in common use among the natives of the Western Isles. How it happened that the noisy and inharmonious bagpipe banished the soft and expressive harp, we cannot say; for metrical reasons, is here spelt after the Scout The ancient and powerful family of Graham (which, but certain it is, that the bagpipe is now the only instrument that obtains universally in the Highland dis- pronunciation) held extensive possessions in the coun

ties of Dumbarton and Stirling. Few families can boast ¦ of more historical renown, having claim to three of the most remarkable characters in the Scottish annals. Sir John the Græme, the faithful and undaunted partaker | of the labours and patriotic warfare of Wallace, fell in the unfortunate field of Falkirk, in 1298. The c