As the sun’s setting splendour was thrown,
Thence they looked o’er a realm—
And to-morrow beheld it their own.
[89] What is called the East Hill at Hastings is crowned with the works
of an ancient camp; and it is more than probable it was the spot which
William I. occupied between his landing, and the battle which gave him
England’s crown. It is a strong position: the works are easily traced.
LINES WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF LA PEROUSE’S VOYAGES.
Loved Voyager! whose pages had a zest
More sweet than fiction to my wond’ring breast,
When, rapt in fancy, many a boyish day
I tracked his wanderings o’er the watery way,
Roamed round the Aleutian isles in waking dreams,
Or plucked the _fleur-de-lys_ by Jesso’s streams—
Or gladly leaped on that far Tartar strand,
Where Europe’s anchor ne’er had bit the sand,
Where scarce a roving wild tribe crossed the plain,
Or human voice broke nature’s silent reign;
But vast and grassy deserts feed the bear,
And sweeping deer-herds dread no hunter’s snare.
Such young delight his real records brought,
His truth so touched romantic springs of thought,
That all my after-life—his fate and fame
Entwined romance with La Perouse’s name.
Fair were his ships, expert his gallant crews,
And glorious was th’ emprize of La Perouse,—
Humanely glorious! Men will weep for him,
When many a guilty martial fame is dim:
He ploughed the deep to bind no captive’s chain—
Pursued no rapine—strewed no wreck with slain,
And, save that in the deep themselves lie low,
His heroes plucked no wreath from human woe.
’Twas his the earth’s remotest bounds to scan,
Conciliating with gifts barbaric man—
Enrich the world’s contemporaneous mind,
And amplify the picture of mankind.
Far on the vast Pacific—midst those isles,
O’er which the earliest morn of Asia smiles,
He sounded and gave charts to many a shore
And gulf of Ocean new to nautic lore;
Yet he that led Discovery o’er the wave,
Still finds himself an undiscovered grave.
He came not back,—Conjecture’s cheek grew pale,
Year after year—in no propitious gale,
His lilied banner held its homeward way,
And Science saddened at her martyr’s stay.
An age elapsed—no wreck told where or when
The chief went down with all his gallant men,
Or whether by the storm and wild sea flood
He perished, or by wilder men of blood—
The shudd’ring Fancy only guess’d his doom,
And Doubt to Sorrow gave but deeper gloom.
An age elapsed—when men were dead or grey,
Whose hearts had mourned him in their youthful day
Fame traced on Mannicōlo’s shore at last
The boiling surge had mounted o’er his mast.
The islesmen told of some surviving men,
But Christian eyes beheld them ne’er again.
Sad bourne of all his toils—with all his band—
To sleep, wrecked, shroudless, on a savage strand!
Yet what is all that fires a hero’s scorn
Of death?—the hope to live in hearts unborn:
Life to the brave is not its fleeting breath,
But worth—foretasting fame, that follows death.
That worth had La Perouse—that meed he won;
He sleeps—his life’s long stormy watch is done.
In the great deep, whose boundaries and space
He measured, Fate ordained his resting-place;
But bade his fame, like th’ Ocean rolling o’er
His relics—visit every earthly shore.
Fair Science on that Ocean’s azure robe,
Still writes his name in picturing the globe,
And paints—(what fairer wreath could Glory twine?)
His watery course—a world-encircling line.
THE POWER OF RUSSIA.
So all this gallant blood has gushed in vain!
And Poland by the Northern Condor’s beak
And talons torn, lies prostrated again.
O, British patriots, that were wont to speak
Once loudly on this theme, now hushed or meek!
O, heartless men of Europe—Goth and Gaul!
Cold, adder-deaf to Poland’s dying shriek;—
That saw the world’s last land of heroes fall—
The brand of burning shame is on you all—all—all!
But this is not the drama’s closing act;
Its tragic curtain must uprise anew.
Nations, mute accessaries to the fact!
That Upas-tree of power, whose fostering dew
Was Polish blood, has yet to cast o’er you
The lengthening shadow of its head elate—
A deadly shadow, darkening nature’s hue.
To all that’s hallowed, righteous, pure, and great,
Wo! wo! when they are reached by Russia’s withering hate.
Russia, that on his throne of adamant,
Consults what nation’s breast shall next be gored:
He on Polonia’s Golgotha will plant
His standard fresh; and, horde succeeding horde,
On patriot tomb-stones he will whet the sword,
For more stupendous slaughters of the free.
Then Europe’s realms, when their best blood is poured,
Shall miss thee, Poland! as they bend the knee,
All—all in grief, but none in glory likening thee.
Why smote ye not the giant whilst he reeled?
O, fair occasion, gone for ever by!
To have locked his lances in their northern field,
Innocuous as the phantom chivalry
That flames and hurtles from yon boreal sky!
Now wave thy pennon, Russia, o’er the land
Once Poland; build thy bristling castles high;
Dig dungeon’s deep; for Poland’s wrested brand
Is now a weapon new to widen thy command—
An awful width! Norwegian woods shall build
His fleets; the Swede his vassal, and the Dane:
The glebe of fifty kingdoms shall be tilled
To feed his dazzling, desolating train,
Camped sumless, ’twixt the Black and Baltic main:
Brute hosts, I own; but Sparta could not write,
And Rome, half-barbarous, bound Achaia’s chain:
So Russia’s spirit, midst Sclavonic night,
Burns with a fire more dread than all your polished light.
But Russia’s limbs (so blinded statesmen say)
Are crude, and too colossal to cohere.
O, lamentable weakness! reckoning weak
The stripling Titan, strengthening year by year.
What implement lacks he for war’s career,
That grows on earth, or in its floods and mines,
(Eighth sharer of the inhabitable sphere)
Whom Persia bows to, China ill confines,
And India’s homage waits, when Albion’s star declines?
But time will teach the Russ, e’en conquering
Has handmaid arts: ay, ay, the Russ will woo
All sciences that speed Bellona’s car,
All murder’s tactic arts, and win them too;
But never holier Muses shall imbue
His breast, that’s made of nature’s basest clay:
The sabre, knout, and dungeon’s vapour blue
His laws and ethics: far from him away
Are all the lovely nine that breath but freedom’s day.
Say, e’en his serfs, half humanised, should learn
Their human rights,—will Mars put out his flame
In Russian bosoms? no, he’ll bid them burn
A thousand years for nought but martial fame,
Like Romans:—yet forgive me, Roman name!
Rome could impart what Russia never can;
Proud civic rights to salve submission’s shame.
Our strife is coming; but in freedom’s van
The Polish Eagle’s fall is big with fate to man.
Proud bird of old! Mohammed’s moon recoiled
Before thy swoop: had we been timely bold,
That swoop, still free, had stunned the Russ, and foiled
Earth’s new oppressors, as it foiled her old.
Now thy majestic eyes are shut and cold:
And colder still Polonia’s children find
The sympathetic hands, that we outhold.
But, Poles, when we are gone, the world will mind,
Ye bore the brunt of fate, and bled for humankind.
So hallowedly have ye fulfilled your part,
My pride repudiates e’en the sigh that blends
With Poland’s name—name written on my heart.
My heroes, my grief-consecrated friends!
Your sorrow, in nobility, transcends
Your conqueror’s joy: his cheek may blush; but shame
Can tinge not yours, though exile’s tear descends;
Nor would ye change your conscience, cause and name,
For his, with all his wealth, and all his felon fame.
Thee, Niemciewitz,[90] whose song of stirring power
The Czar forbids to sound in Polish lands;
Thee, Czartoryski, in thy banished bower,
The patricide, who in thy palace stands,
May envy; proudly may Polonia’s bands
Throw down their swords at Europe’s feet in scorn,
Saying—“Russia, from the metal of these brands
Shall forge the fetters of your sons unborn;
Our setting star is your misfortune’s rising morn.”
[90] This venerable man, the most popular and influential of Polish
poets, and president of the Academy of Warsaw, was in London when this
poem was written; he was seventy-four years old; but his noble spirit was
rather mellowed than decayed by age. He was the friend of Fox, Kosciusko,
and Washington. Rich in anecdote like Franklin, he bore also a striking
resemblance to him in countenance.
REULLURA.[91]
Star of the morn and eve,
Reullura shone like thee,
And well for her might Aodh grieve,
The dark-attired Culdee.[92]
Peace to their shades! the pure Culdees
Were Albyn’s earliest priests of God,
Ere yet an island of her seas
By foot of Saxon monk was trod,
Long ere her churchmen by bigotry
Were barred from holy wedlock’s tie.
’Twas then that Aodh, famed afar,
In Iona preached the word with power,
And Reullura, beauty’s star,
Was the partner of his bower.
But, Aodh, the roof lies low,
And the thistle-down waves bleaching,
And the bat flits to and fro
Where the Gael once heard thy preaching,
And fall’n is each columned aisle
Where the chiefs and the people knelt.
’Twas near that temple’s goodly pile
That honoured of men they dwelt.
For Aodh was wise in the sacred law,
And bright Reullura’s eyes oft saw
The veil of fate uplifted.
Alas, with what visions of awe
Her soul in that hour was gifted—
When pale in the temple and faint,
With Aodh she stood alone
By the statue of an aged Saint!
Fair sculptured was the stone,
It bore a crucifix;
Fame said it once had graced
A Christian temple, which the Picts
In the Britons’ land laid waste:
The Pictish men, by St. Columb taught,
Had hither the holy relic brought.
Reullura eyed the statue’s face,
And cried, “It is he shall come,
Even he in this very place,
To avenge my martyrdom.
“For, woe to the Gael people!
Ulvfagre is on the main,
And Iona shall look from tower and steeple
On the coming ships of the Dane;
And, dames and daughters, shall all your locks
With the spoiler’s grasp entwine?
No! some shall have shelter in caves and rocks,
And the deep sea shall be mine.
Baffled by me shall the Dane return,
And here shall his torch in the temple burn,
Until that holy man shall plough
The waves from Innisfail.[93]
His sail is on the deep e’en now,
And swells to the southern gale.”
“Ah! knowest thou not, my bride,”
The holy Aodh said,
“That the Saint whose form we stand beside
Has for ages slept with the dead?”
“He liveth, he liveth,” she said again,
“For the span of his life tenfold extends
Beyond the wonted years of men.
He sits by the graves of well-loved friends
That died ere thy grandsire’s grandsire’s birth;
The oak is decayed with old age on earth,
Whose acorn-seed had been planted by him;
And his parents remember the day of dread
When the sun on the cross looked dim,
And the graves gave up their dead.
“Yet preaching from clime to clime,
He hath roamed the earth for ages,
And hither he shall come in time
When the wrath of the heathen rages,
In time a remnant from the sword—
Ah! but a remnant to deliver;
Yet, bless’d be the name of the Lord!
His martyrs shall go into bliss for ever.
Lochlin,[94] appalled, shall put up her steel,
And thou shalt embark on the bounding keel;
Safe shalt thou pass through her hundred ships,
With the Saint and a remnant of the Gael,
And the Lord will instruct thy lips
To preach in Innisfail.”
The sun, now about to set,
Was burning o’er Tiriee,
And no gathering cry rose yet
O’er the isles of Albyn’s sea,
Whilst Reullura saw far rowers dip
Their oars beneath the sun,
And the phantom of many a Danish ship,
Where ship there yet was none.
And the shield of alarm[95] was dumb,
Nor did their warning till midnight come,
When watch-fires burst from across the mair
From Rona and Uist and Skye,
To tell that the ships of the Dane
And the red-haired slayers were nigh.
Our islesmen arose from slumbers,
And buckled on their arms;
But few, alas! were their numbers
To Lochlin’s mailèd swarms.
And the blade of the bloody Norse
Has filled the shores of the Gael
With many a floating corse,
And with many a woman’s wail.
They have lighted the islands with ruin’s torch,
And the holy men of Iona’s church
In the temple of God lay slain;
All but Aodh, the last Culdee,
But bound with many an iron chain,
Bound in that church was he.
And where is Aodh’s bride?
Rocks of the ocean flood!
Plunged she not from your heights in pride,
And mocked the men of blood?
Then Ulvfagre and his bands
In the temple lighted their banquet up,
And the print of their blood-red hands
Was left on the altar cup.
’Twas then that the Norseman to Aodh said,
“Tell where thy church’s treasure’s laid,
Or I’ll hew thee limb from limb.”
As he spoke the bell struck three,
And every torch grew dim
That lighted their revelry.
But the torches again burnt bright,
And brighter than before,
When an aged man of majestic height
Entered the temple door.
Hushed was the revellers’ sound,
They were struck as mute as the dead,
And their hearts were appalled by the very sound
Of his footstep’s measured tread.
Nor word was spoken by one beholder,
While he flung his white robe back on his shoulder
And stretching his arm—as eath
Unriveted Aodh’s bands,
As if the gyves had been a wreath
Of willows in his hands.
All saw the stranger’s similitude
To the ancient statue’s form;
The Saint before his own image stood,
And grasped Ulvfagre’s arm.
Then uprose the Danes at last to deliver
Their chief, and shouting with one accord,
They drew the shaft from its rattling quiver,
They lifted the spear and sword,
And levelled their spears in rows.
But down went axes and spears and bows,
When the Saint with his crosier signed,
The archer’s hand on the string was stopt,
And down, like reeds laid flat by the wind,
Their lifted weapons dropt.
The Saint then gave a signal mute,
And though Ulvfagre willed it not,
He came and stood at the statue’s foot,
Spell-riveted to the spot,
Till hands invisible shook the wall,
And the tottering image was dashed
Down from its lofty pedestal.
On Ulvfagre’s helm it crashed—
Helmet, and skull, and flesh, and brain,
It crushed as millstone crushes the grain.
Then spoke the Saint, whilst all and each
Of the Heathen trembled round,
And the pauses amidst his speech
Were as awful as the sound:
“Go back, ye wolves, to your dens,” he cried,
“And tell the nations abroad,
How the fiercest of your herd has died
That slaughtered the flock of God.
Gather him bone by bone,
And take with you o’er the flood
The fragments of that avenging stone
That drank his heathen blood.
These are the spoils from Iona’s sack,
The only spoils ye shall carry back;
For the hand that uplifteth spear or sword
Shall be withered by palsy’s shock,
And I come in the name of the Lord
To deliver a remnant of his flock.”
A remnant was called together,
A doleful remnant of the Gael,
And the Saint in the ship that had brought him hither
Took the mourners to Innisfail.
Unscathed they left Iona’s strand,
When the opal morn first flushed the sky,
For the Norse dropt spear, and bow and brand,
And looked on them silently;
Safe from their hiding places came
Orphans and mothers, child and dame:
But alas! when the search for Reullura spread,
No answering voice was given,
For the sea had gone o’er her lovely head,
And her spirit was in Heaven.
[91] Reullura, in Gaelic, signifies “beautiful star.”
[92] The Culdees were the primitive clergy of Scotland, and apparently
her only clergy from the sixth to the eleventh century. They were of
Irish origin, and their monastery on the island of Iona, or Icolmkill,
was the seminary of Christianity in North Britain. Presbyterian writers
have wished to prove them to have been a sort of Presbyters, strangers
to the Roman Church and Episcopacy. It seems to be established that
they were not enemies to Episcopacy;—but that they were not slavishly
subjected to Rome like the clergy of later periods, appears by their
resisting the Papal ordonnances respecting the celibacy of religious
men, on which account they were ultimately displaced by the Scottish
sovereigns to make way for more Popish canons.
[93] Ireland.
[94] Denmark.
[95] Striking the shield was an ancient mode of convocation to war among
the Gael.
ODE TO THE GERMANS.
The Spirit of Britannia
Invokes across the main,
Her sister Allemania
To burst the Tyrant’s chain:
By our kindred blood she cries,
Rise, Allemanians, rise,
And hallowed thrice the band
Of our kindred hearts shall be,
When your land shall be the land
Of the free—of the free!
With Freedom’s lion-banner
Britannia rules the waves;
Whilst your BROAD STONE OF HONOUR[96]
Is still the camp of slaves.
For shame, for glory’s sake,
Wake, Allemanians, wake,
And the tyrants now that whelm
Half the world, shall quail and flee,
When your realm shall be the realm
Of the free—of the free!
MARS owes to you his thunder[97]
That shakes the battle-field,
Yet to break your bonds asunder
No martial bolt has pealed
Shall the laurelled land of art
Wear shackles on her heart?
No! the clock ye framed to tell
By its sound, the march of time;
Let it clang oppression’s knell
O’er your clime—o’er your clime!
The press’s magic letters,
That blessing ye brought forth,—
Behold! it lies in fetters
On the soil that gave it birth:
But the trumpet must be heard,
And the charger must be spurred;
For you father Armin’s Sprite
Calls down from heaven, that ye
Shall gird you for the fight,
And be free!—and be free!
[96] “Ehrenbreitstein” signifies, in German, “_the broad stone of
honour_.”
[97] Gunpowder.
FLORINE.[98]
Could I bring back lost youth again,
And be what I have been,
I’d court you in a gallant strain,
My young and fair Florine.
But mine’s the chilling age that chides
Devoted rapture’s glow,
And Love—that conquers all besides—
Finds Time a conquering foe.
Farewell! we’re severed by our fate,
As far as night from noon;
You came into the world too late,
And I depart so soon.
[98] Florine was the beautiful Miss O’Bryen. She married Mr. Huntley
Gordon—Scott’s amanuensis for the MS of the Waverley Novels—and died soon
after her wedding.
TRANSLATIONS.
SONG OF HYBRIAS THE CRETAN.
My wealth’s a burly spear and brand,
And a right good shield of hides untanned,
Which on my arm I buckle:
With these I plough, I reap, I sow,
With these I make the sweet vintage flow,
And all around me truckle.
But your wights that take no pride to wield
A massy spear and well-made shield,
Nor joy to draw the sword:
Oh, I bring those heartless, hapless drones,
Down in a trice on their marrow-bones,
To call me King and Lord.
FRAGMENT FROM THE GREEK OF ALCMAN.
The mountain summits sleep: glens, cliffs and caves,
Are silent—all the black earth’s reptile brood—
The bees—the wild beasts of the mountain wood:
In depths beneath the dark red ocean’s waves
Its monsters rest, whilst wrapt in bower and spray
Each bird is hushed that stretched its pinions to the day.
MARTIAL ELEGY FROM THE GREEK OF TYRTÆUS.
How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand,
In front of battle for their native land!
But oh! what ills await the wretch that yields,
A recreant outcast from his country’s fields!
The mother whom he loves shall quit her home,
An agèd father at his side shall roam;
His little ones shall weeping with him go,
And a young wife participate his woe;
While scorned and scowled upon by every face,
They pine for food, and beg from place to place.
Stain of his breed! dishonouring manhood’s form,
All ills shall cleave to him:—Affliction’s storm
Shall blind him wandering in the vale of years,
Till, lost to all but ignominious fears,
He shall not blush to leave a recreant’s name.
And children, like himself, inured to shame.
But we will combat for our father’s land,
And we will drain the life-blood where we stand
To save our children:—fight ye side by side,
And serried close, ye men of youthful pride,
Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost
Of life itself in glorious battle lost.
Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight,
Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might;
Nor lagging backward, let the younger breast
Permit the man of age (a sight unblessed)
To welter in the combat’s foremost thrust,
His hoary head dishevelled in the dust,
And venerable bosom bleeding bare.
But youth’s fair form, though fallen, is ever fair
And beautiful in death the boy appears,
The hero boy, that dies in blooming years:
In man’s regret he lives, and woman’s tears,
More sacred than in life, and lovelier far,
For having perished in the front of war.
SPECIMENS OF TRANSLATION FROM “MEDEA.”
Σκαιους δε λεγων κουδέν τι σοφους
Τους προσθε βροτους ουκ αν αμαρτοις.
“Medea,” v. 194. p. 33. Glasg. edit.
Tell me, ye bards, whose skill sublime
First charmed the ear of youthful Time,
With numbers wrapt in heavenly fire,
Who bade delighted echo swell
The trembling transports of the lyre,
The murmur of the shell—
Why to the burst of Joy alone
Accords sweet Music’s soothing tone?
Why can no bard, with magic strain,
In slumbers steep the heart of pain?
While varied tones obey your sweep,
The mild, the plaintive, and the deep.
Bends not despairing Grief to hear
Your golden lute, with ravished ear?
Oh! has your sweetest shell no power to bind
The fiercer pangs that shake the mind,
And lull the wrath at whose command
Murder bares her gory hand?
When flushed with joy, the rosy throng
Weave the light dance, ye swell the song!
Cease, ye vain warblers! cease to charm
The breast with other raptures warm!
Cease! till your hand with magic strain
In slumbers steep the heart of pain!
SPEECH OF THE CHORUS IN THE SAME TRAGEDY, TO DISSUADE MEDEA FROM HER
PURPOSE OF PUTTING HER CHILDREN TO DEATH, AND FLYING FOR PROTECTION TO
ATHENS.
O haggard queen! to Athens dost thou guide
Thy glowing chariot, steeped in kindred gore;
Or seek to hide thy damnèd parricide
Where Peace and Mercy dwell for evermore?
The land where Truth, pure, precious, and sublime,
Woos the deep silence of sequestered bowers,
And warriors, matchless since the first of time,
Rear their bright banners o’er unconquered towers!
Where joyous youth, to Music’s mellow strain,
Twines in the dance with nymphs for ever fair,
While Spring eternal on the lilied plain,
Waves amber radiance through the fields of air.
The tuneful Nine (so sacred legends tell)
First waked their heavenly lyre these scenes among;
Still in your greenwood bowers they love to dwell,
Still in your vales they swell the choral song!
But there the tuneful, chaste, Pierian fair,
The guardian nymphs of green Parnassus, now
Sprung from Harmonia, while her graceful hair
Waved in bright auburn o’er her polished brow!
ANTISTROPHE I.
Where silent vales, and glades of green array,
The murmuring wreaths of cool Cephisus lave,
There, as the muse hath sung, at noon of day,
The Queen of Beauty bowed to taste the wave;
And blest the stream, and breathed across the land
The soft sweet gale that fans yon summer bowers;
And there the sister Loves, a smiling band,
Crowned with the fragrant wreaths of rosy flowers!
“And go,” she cries, “in yonder valleys rove,
With Beauty’s torch the solemn scenes illume;
Wake in each eye the radiant light of Love,
Breathe on each cheek young Passion’s tender bloom!
“Entwine, with myrtle chains, your soft control,
To sway the hearts of Freedom’s darling kind!
With glowing charms enrapture Wisdom’s soul,
And mould to grace ethereal Virtue’s mind.”
STROPHE II.
The land where Heaven’s own hallowed waters play,
Where friendship binds the generous and the good,
Say, shall it hail thee from thy frantic way,
Unholy woman! with thy hands embrued
In thine own children’s gore? Oh! ere they bleed,
Let Nature’s voice thy ruthless heart appal!
Pause at the bold, irrevocable deed—
The mother strikes—the guiltless babes shall fall!
Think what remorse thy maddening thoughts shall sting,
When dying pangs their gentle bosoms tear!
Where shalt thou sink, when lingering echoes ring
The screams of horror in thy tortured ear?
No! let thy bosom melt to Pity’s cry,—
In dust we kneel—by sacred Heaven implore—
O! stop thy lifted arm, ere yet they die,
Nor dip thy horrid hands in infant gore!
ANTISTROPHE II.
Say, how shalt thou that barbarous soul assume,
Undamped by horror at the daring plan?
Hast thou a heart to work thy children’s doom?
Or hands to finish what thy wrath began?
When o’er each babe you look a last adieu,
And gaze on Innocence that smiles asleep,
Shall no fond feeling beat to Nature true,
Charm thee to pensive thought—and bid thee weep?
When the young suppliants clasp their parent dear,
Heave the deep sob, and pour the artless prayer,—
Ay! thou shall melt;—and many a heart-shed tear
Gush o’er the hardened features of despair!
Nature shall throb in every tender string,—
Thy trembling heart the ruffian’s task deny;—
Thy horror-smitten hands afar shall fling
The blade, undrenched in blood’s eternal dye.
CHORUS.
Hallowed Earth! with indignation
Mark, oh mark, the murderous deed!
Radiant eye of wide creation,
Watch the damnèd parricide!
Yet, ere Colchia’s rugged daughter
Perpetrate the dire design,
And consign to kindred slaughter
Children of thy golden line!
Shall thy hand, with murder gory,
Cause immortal blood to flow!
Sun of Heaven!—arrayed in glory
Rise, forbid, avert the blow!
In the vales of placid gladness
Let no rueful maniac range;
Chase afar the fiend of Madness,
Wrest the dagger from Revenge!
Say, hast thou, with kind protection,
Reared thy smiling race in vain,
Fostering Nature’s fond affection,
Tender cares, and pleasing pain?
Hast thou, on the troubled ocean,
Braved the tempest loud and strong,
Where the waves, in wild commotion,
Roar Cyanean rocks among?
Didst thou roam the paths of danger,
Hymenean joys to prove?
Spare, O sanguinary stranger,
Pledges of thy sacred love!
Shall not Heaven, with indignation,
Watch thee o’er the barbarous deed?
Shalt thou cleanse, with expiation,
Monstrous, murderous parricide?
THE PILGRIM OF GLENCOE.[99]
The sunset sheds a horizontal smile
O’er Highland frith and Hebridean isle,
While, gay with gambols of its finny shoals,
The glancing wave rejoices as it rolls
With streamered busses, that distinctly shine
All downward, pictured in the glassy brine;
Whose crews, with faces brightening in the sun,
Keep measure with their oars, and all in one
Strike up th’ old Gaelic song.—Sweep, rowers, sweep!
The fisher’s glorious spoils are in the deep.
Day sinks—but twilight owes the traveller soon,
To reach his bourne, a round unclouded moon,
Bespeaking long undarkened hours of time;
False hope—the Scots are stedfast—not their clime.
A war-worn soldier from the western land,
Seeks Cona’s vale by Ballihoula’s strand;
The vale by eagle-haunted cliffs o’erhung,
Where Fingal fought and Ossian’s harp was strung.—
Our veteran’s forehead, bronzed on sultry plains,
Had stood the brunt of thirty fought campaigns;
He well could vouch the sad romance of wars,
And count the dates of battles by his scars;
For he had served where o’er and o’er again
Britannia’s oriflamme had lit the plain
Of glory—and victorious stamped her name
On Oudenarde’s and Blenheim’s fields of fame.
Nine times in battlefield his blood had streamed,
Yet vivid still his veteran blue eye gleamed;
Full well he bore his knapsack—unoppressed—
And marched with soldier-like erected crest:
Nor sign of ev’n loquacious age he wore,
Save when he told his life’s adventures o’er;
Some tired of these; for terms to him were dear
Too tactical by far for vulgar ear;
As when he talked of rampart and ravine,
And trenches fenced with gabion and fascine—
But when his theme possessed him all and whole,
He scorned proud puzzling words and warmed the soul;
Hushed groups hung on his lips with fond surprise,
That sketched old scenes—like pictures to their eyes:—
The wide war-plain, with banners glowing bright,
And bayonets to the farthest stretch of sight;
The pause, more dreadful than the peal to come
From volleys blazing at the beat of drum—
Till all the field of thundering lines became
Two level and confronted sheets of flame.
Then to the charge, when Marlbro’s hot pursuit
Trode France’s gilded lilies underfoot;
He came and kindled—and with martial lung
Would chant the very march their trumpets sung.—
The old soldier hoped, ere evening’s light should fail,
To reach a home, south-east of Cona’s vale;
But looking at Bennevis, capped with snow,
He saw its mists come curling down below,
And spread white darkness o’er the sunset glow;—
Fast rolling like tempestuous Ocean’s spray,
Or clouds from troops in battle’s fiery day—
So dense, his quarry ’scaped the falcon’s sight,
The owl alone exulted, hating light.
Benighted thus our pilgrim groped his ground,
Half ’twixt the river’s and the cataract’s sound.
At last a sheep-dog’s bark informed his ear
Some human habitation might be near;
Anon sheep-bleatings rose from rock to rock,—
’Twas Luath hounding to their fold the flock.
Ere long the cock’s obstreperous clarion rang,
And next, a maid’s sweet voice, that spinning sang:
At last amidst the greensward (gladsome sight!)
A cottage stood, with straw roof golden bright.
He knocked, was welcomed in; none asked his name,
Nor whither he was bound, nor whence he came;
But he was beckoned to the stranger’s seat,
Right side the chimney fire of blazing peat.
Blest Hospitality makes not her home
In wallèd parks and castellated dome;
She flies the city’s needy greedy crowd,
And shuns still more the mansions of the proud;—
The balm of savage or of simple life,
A wild flower cut by culture’s polished knife!
The house, no common sordid shieling cot,
Spoke inmates of a comfortable lot.
The Jacobite white rose festooned their door;
The windows sashed and glazed, the oaken floor,
The chimney graced with antlers of the deer,
The rafters hung with meat for winter cheer,
And all the mansion indicated plain
Its master a superior shepherd swain.
Their supper came—the table soon was spread
With eggs and milk and cheese and barley bread.
The family were three—a father hoar,
Whose age you’d guess at seventy years or more,
His son looked fifty—cheerful like her lord,
His comely wife presided at the board;
All three had that peculiar courteous grace
Which marks the meanest of the Highland race;
Warm hearts that burn alike in weal and woe,
As if the north wind fanned their bosoms’ glow!
But wide unlike their souls: old Norman’s eye
Was proudly savage ev’n in courtesy.
His sinewy shoulders—each, though aged and lean,
Broad as the curled Herculean head between,
His scornful lip, his eyes of yellow fire,
And nostrils that dilated quick with ire.
With ever downward-slanting shaggy brows,
Marked the old lion you would dread to rouse.
Norman, in truth, had led his earlier life
In raids of red revenge and feudal strife;
Religious duty in revenge he saw,
Proud Honour’s right and Nature’s honest law.
First in the charge and foremost in pursuit,
Long-breathed, deep-chested, and in speed of foot
A match for stags—still fleeter when the prey
Was man, in persecution’s evil day;
Cheered to that chase by brutal bold Dundee,
No Highland hound had lapped more blood than he.
Oft had he changed the covenanter’s breath
From howls of psalmody to howls of death:
And though long bound to peace, it irked him still
His dirk had ne’er one hated foe to kill.
Yet Norman had fierce virtues, that would mock
Cold-blooded tories of the modern stock,
Who starve the breadless poor with fraud and cant;—
He slew and saved them from the pangs of want.
Nor was his solitary lawless charm
Mere dauntlessness of soul and strength of arm;
He had his moods of kindness now and then,
And feasted ev’n well-mannered lowland men
Who blew not up his Jacobitish flame,
Nor prefaced with “pretender” Charles’s name.
Fierce, but by sense and kindness not unwon,
He loved, respected ev’n his wiser son;
And brooked from him expostulations sage,
When all advisers else were spurned with rage.
Far happier times had moulded Ronald’s mind,
By nature too of more sagacious kind.
His breadth of brow, and Roman shape of chin,
Squared well with the firm man that reigned within.
Contemning strife as childishness, he stood
With neighbours on kind terms of neighbourhood,
And whilst his father’s anger nought availed,
_His_ rational remonstrance never failed.
Full skilfully he managed farm and fold,
Wrote, ciphered, profitably bought and sold:
And, blessed with pastoral leisure, deeply took
Delight to be informed, by speech or book,
Of that wide world beyond his mountain home,
Where oft his curious fancy loved to roam.
Oft while his faithful dog ran round his flock,
He read long hours when summer warmed the rock:
Guests who could tell him aught were welcomed warm,
Even pedlars’ news had to his mind a charm;
That like an intellectual magnet-stone
Drew truth from judgments simpler than his own.
His soul’s proud instinct sought not to enjoy
Romantic fictions, like a minstrel boy;
Truth, standing on her solid square, from youth
He worshipped—stern uncompromising truth.
His goddess kindlier smiled on him, to find
A votary of her light in land so blind;
She bade majestic History unroll
Broad views of public welfare to his soul,
Until he looked on clannish feuds and foes
With scorn, as on the wars of kites and crows;
Whilst doubts assailed him, o’er and o’er again,
If men were made for kings or kings for men.
At last, to Norman’s horror and dismay,
He flat denied the Stuarts’ right to sway.
No blow-pipe ever whitened furnace fire,
Quick as these words lit up his father’s ire;
Who envied even old Abraham for his faith,
Ordained to put his only son to death.
He started up—in such a mood of soul
The white bear bites his showman’s stirring pole;
He danced too, and brought out, with snarl and howl,
“O Dia! Dia! and Dioul! Dioul!”[100]
But sense foils fury—as the blowing whale
Spouts, bleeds, and dyes the waves without avail—
Wears out the cable’s length that makes him fast,
But, worn himself, comes up harpooned at last—
E’en so, devoid of sense, succumbs at length
Mere strength of zeal to intellectual strength.
His son’s close logic so perplexed his pate,
Th’ old hero rather shunned than sought debate;
Exhausting his vocabulary’s store
Of oaths and nicknames, he could say no more,
But tapp’d his mull,[101] rolled mutely in his chair,
Or only whistled Killiecrankie’s air.
Witch legends Ronald scorned—ghost, kelpie, wraith,
And all the trumpery of vulgar faith;
Grave matrons ev’n were shocked to hear him slight
Authenticated facts of second-sight—
Yet never flinched his mockery to confound
The brutal superstition reigning round.
Reserved himself, still Ronald loved to scan
Men’s natures—and he liked th’ old hearty man;
So did the partner of his heart and life—
_Who_ pleased her Ronald, ne’er displeased his wife.
His sense, ’tis true, compared with Norman’s son,
Was commonplace—his tales too long outspun:
Yet Allan Campbell’s sympathizing mind
Had held large intercourse with human kind;
Seen much, and gaily, graphically drew
The men of every country, clime, and hue;
Nor ever stooped, though soldier-like his strain,
To ribaldry of mirth or oath profane.
All went harmonious till the guest began
To talk about his kindred, chief and clan,
And, with his own biography engrossed,
Marked not the changed demeanour of each host;
Nor how old choleric Norman’s cheek became
Flushed at the Campbell and Breadalbane name.
Assigning, heedless of impending harm,
Their stedfast silence to his story’s charm,
He touched a subject perilous to touch—
Saying, “’Midst this well-known vale I wondered much
To lose my way. In boyhood, long ago,
I roamed and loved each pathway of Glencoe;
Trapped leverets, plucked wild berries on its braes,
And fished along its banks long summer days.
But times grew stormy—bitter feuds arose,
Our clan was merciless to prostrate foes.
I never palliated my chieftain’s blame,
But mourned the sin, and reddened for the shame
Of that foul morn (Heaven blot it from the year!)
Whose shapes and shrieks still haunt my dreaming ear.
What could I do? a serf—Glenlyon’s page,
A soldier sworn at nineteen years of age;
T’ have breathed one grieved remonstrance to our chief,
The pit or gallows[102] would have cured my grief.
Forced, passive as the musket in my hand,
I marched—when, feigning royalty’s command,
Against the clan Macdonald, Stairs’s lord
Sent forth exterminating fire and sword;
And troops at midnight through the vale defiled,
Enjoined to slaughter woman, man, and child.
My clansmen many a year had cause to dread
The curse that day entailed upon their head;
Glenlyon’s self confessed the avenging spell—
I saw it light on him.
“It so befell:—
A soldier from our ranks to death was brought,
By sentence deemed too dreadful for his fault;
All was prepared—the coffin and the cart
Stood near twelve muskets, levelled at his heart.
The chief, whose breast for ruth had still some room,
Obtained reprieve a day before his doom;—
But of the awarded boon surmised no breath.
The sufferer knelt, blindfolded, waiting death,—
And met it. Though Glenlyon had desired
The musketeers to watch before they fired;
If from his pocket they should see he drew
A handkerchief—their volley should ensue;
But if he held a paper in its place,
It should be hailed the sign of pardoning grace:—
He, in a fatal moment’s absent fit,
Drew forth the handkerchief, and not the writ;
Wept o’er the corpse, and wrung his hands in woe,
Crying ‘Here’s thy curse again—Glencoe! Glencoe!’”
Though thus his guest spoke feelings just and clear,
The cabin’s patriarch lent impatient ear;
Wroth that, beneath his roof, a living man
Should boast the swine-blood of the Campbell clan,
He hastened to the door—called out his son
To follow; walked a space, and thus begun:—
“You have not, Ronald, at this day to learn
The oath I took beside my father’s cairn,
When you were but a babe a twelvemonth born;
Sworn on my dirk—by all that’s sacred, sworn
To be revenged for blood that cries to Heaven—
Blood unforgiveable, and unforgiven:
But never power, _since then_, have I possessed
To plant my dagger in a Campbell’s breast.
Now, here’s a self-accusing partisan,
Steeped in the slaughter of Macdonald’s clan;
I scorn his civil speech and sweet-lipped show
Of pity—he is still our house’s foe:
I’ll perjure not myself—but sacrifice
The caitiff ere to-morrow’s sun arise.
Stand! hear me—you’re my son, the deed is just;
And if I say—it must be done—it must:
A debt of honour which my clansmen crave,
Their very dead demand it from the grave.”
Conjuring then their ghosts, he humbly prayed
Their patience till the blood-debt should be paid.
But Ronald stopped him.—“Sir, Sir, do not dim
Your honour by a moment’s angry whim;
Your soul’s too just and generous, were you cool,
To act at once the assassin and the fool.
Bring me the men on whom revenge is due,
And I will dirk them willingly as you!
But all the real authors of that black
Old deed are gone—you cannot bring them back.
And this poor guest, ’tis palpable to judge,
In all his life ne’er bore our clan a grudge;
Dragged when a boy against his will to share
That massacre, he loathed the foul affair.
Think, if your hardened heart be conscience-proof,
To stab a stranger underneath your roof!
One who has broken bread within your gate—
Reflect—before reflection comes too late,—
Such ugly consequences there may be
As judge and jury, rope and gallows-tree.
The days of dirking snugly are gone by,
Where could you hide the body privily,
When search is made for’t?”
“Plunge it in yon flood,
That Campbells crimsoned with our kindred blood.”
“Ay, but the corpse may float—”
“Pshaw! dead men tell
No tales—nor will it float if leaded well.
I am determined!”—What could Ronald do?
No house within ear-reach of his halloo,
Though that would but have published household shame
He temporized with wrath he could not tame,
And said, “Come in, till night put off the deed,
And ask a few more questions ere he bleed.”
They entered; Norman with portentous air
Strode to a nook behind the stranger’s chair,
And, speaking nought, sat grimly in the shade,
With dagger in his clutch beneath his plaid.
His son’s own plaid, should Norman pounce his prey,
Was coiled thick round his arm, to turn away
Or blunt the dirk. He purposed leaving free
The door, and giving Allan time to flee,
Whilst he should wrestle with (no safe emprise)
His father’s maniac strength and giant size.
Meanwhile he could nowise communicate
The impending peril to his anxious mate;
But she, convinced no trifling matter now
Disturbed the wonted calm of Ronald’s brow,
Divined too well the cause of gloom that lowered,
And sat with speechless terror overpowered.
Her face was pale, so lately blithe and bland,
The stocking knitting-wire shook in her hand.
But Ronald and the guest resumed their thread
Of converse, still its theme that day of dread.
“Much,” said the veteran, “much as I bemoan
That deed, when half a hundred years have flown,
Still on one circumstance I can reflect
That mitigates the dreadful retrospect.
A mother with her child before us flew,
I had the hideous mandate to pursue;
But swift of foot, outspeeding bloodier men,
I chased, o’ertook her in the winding glen,
And showed her palpitating, where to save
Herself and infant in a secret cave;
Nor left them till I saw that they could mock
Pursuit and search within that sheltering rock.”
“Heavens!” Ronald cried, in accents gladly wild,
“That woman was my mother—I the child!
Of you unknown by name she late and air,[103]
Spoke, wept, and ever blessed you in her prayer,
Ev’n to her death; describing you withal
A well-looked florid youth, blue-eyed and tall.”
They rose, exchanged embrace: the old lion then
Upstarted, metamorphosed, from his den;
Saying, “Come and make thy home with us for life,
Heaven-sent preserver of my child and wife.
I fear thou’rt poor, that Hanoverian thing
Rewards his soldiers ill.”—“God save the king!”
With hand upon his heart, old Allan said,
“I wear his uniform, I eat his bread,
And whilst I’ve tooth to bite a cartridge, all
For him and Britain’s fame I’ll stand or fall.”
“Bravo!” cried Ronald. “I commend your zeal,”
Quoth Norman, “and I see your heart is leal;
But I have prayed my soul may never thrive
If thou shouldst leave this house of ours alive.
Nor shalt thou; in this home protract thy breath
Of easy life, nor leave it till thy death.”
...
The following morn arose serene as glass,
And red Bennevis shone like molten brass;
While sunrise opened flowers with gentle force,
The guest and Ronald walked in long discourse.
“Words fail me,” Allan said, “to thank aright
Your father’s kindness shown me yesternight;
Yet scarce I’d wish my latest days to spend
A fireside fixture with the dearest friend:
Besides, I’ve but a fortnight’s furlough now,
To reach Macallin More,[104] beyond Lochawe.
I’d fain memorialize the powers that be,
To deign remembrance of my wounds and me;
My life-long service never bore the brand
Of sentence—lash—disgrace or reprimand.
And so I’ve written, though in meagre style,
A long petition to his Grace Argyle;
I mean, on reaching Innerara’s shore,
To leave it safe within his castle door.”
“Nay,” Ronald said, “the letter that you bear
Entrust it to no lying varlet’s care;
But say a soldier of King George demands
Access, to leave it in the Duke’s own hands.
But show me, first, the epistle to your chief,
’Tis nought, unless succinctly clear and brief;
Great men have no great patience when they read,
And long petitions spoil the cause they plead.”
That day saw Ronald from the field full soon
Return; and when they all had dined at noon,
He conned th’ old man’s memorial—lopped its length,
And gave it style, simplicity, and strength;
’Twas finished in an hour—and in the next
Transcribed by Allan in perspicuous text.
At evening, he and Ronald shared once more
A long and pleasant walk by Cona’s shore.
“I’d press you,” quoth his host—(“I need not say
How warmly) ever more with us to stay;
But Charles intends, ’tis said, in these same parts
To try the fealty of our Highland hearts.
’Tis my belief, that he and all his line
Have—saving to be hanged—no right divine;
From whose mad enterprise can only flow
To thousands slaughter, and to myriads woe.
Yet have they stirred my father’s spirit sore,
He flints his pistols—whets his old claymore—
And longs as ardently to join the fray
As boy to dance who hears the bagpipe play.
Though calm one day, the next, disdaining rule,
He’d gore your red coat like an angry bull:
I told him, and he owned it might be so,
Your tempers never could in concert flow.
But ‘Mark,’ he added, ‘Ronald! from our door
Let not this guest depart forlorn and poor;
Let not your souls the niggardness evince
Of lowland pedlar, or of German prince;
He gave you life—then feed him as you’d feed
Your very father were he cast in need.’
He gave—you’ll find it by your bed to-night,
A leathern purse of crowns, all sterling bright:
You see I do you kindness not by stealth.
My wife—no advocate of squandering wealth—
Vows that it would be parricide, or worse,
Should we neglect you—here’s a silken purse,
Some golden pieces through the network shine,
’Tis proffered to you from her heart and mine.
But come I no foolish delicacy, no!
We own, but cannot cancel what we owe—
This sum shall duly reach you once a year.”
Poor Allan’s furrowed face, and flowing tear,
Confessed sensations which he could not speak,
Old Norman bade him farewell kindly meek.
At morn, the smiling dame rejoiced to pack
With viands full th’ old soldier’s havresack.
He feared not hungry grass[105] with such a load,
And Ronald saw him miles upon his road.
A march of three days brought him to Lochfyne.
Argyle, struck with his manly look benign,
And feeling interest in the veteran’s lot,
Created him a sergeant on the spot—
An invalid, to serve not—but with pay
(A mighty sum to him), twelve-pence a day.
“But have you heard not,” said Macallin More,
“Charles Stuart’s landed on Eriska’s shore,
And Jacobites are arming?”—“What! indeed!
Arrived! then I’m no more an invalid;
My new-got halbert I must straight employ
In battle.”—“As you please, old gallant boy:
Your grey hairs well might plead excuse, ’tis true,
But now’s the time we want such men as you.”
In brief, at Innerara Allan stayed,
And joined the banners of Argyle’s brigade.
Meanwhile, th’ old choleric shepherd of Glencoe
Spurned all advice, and girt himself to go.
What was’t to him that foes would poind their fold,
Their lease, their very beds beneath them sold!
And firmly to his text he would have kept,
Though Ronald argued and his daughter wept.
But ’midst the impotence of tears and prayer,
Chance snatched them from proscription and despair
Old Norman’s blood was headward wont to mount
Too rapid from his heart’s impetuous fount;
And one day, whilst the German rats he cursed,
An artery in his wise sensorium burst.
The lancet saved him: but how changed, alas,
From him who fought at Killiecrankie’s pass!
Tame as a spaniel, timid as a child,
He muttered incoherent words and smiled;
He wept at kindness, rolled a vacant eye,
And laughed full often when he meant to cry.
Poor man! whilst in this lamentable state,
Came Allan back one morning to his gate,
Hale and unburdened by the woes of eild,
And fresh with credit from Culloden’s field.
’Twas feared at first, the sight of him might touch
The old Macdonald’s morbid mind too much;
But no! though Norman knew him and disclosed,
Ev’n rallying memory, he was still composed;
Asked all particulars of the fatal fight,
And only heaved a sigh for Charles’s flight;
Then said, with but one moment’s pride of air,
“_It might not have been so had I been there!_”
Few days elapsed till he reposed beneath
His grey cairn, on the wild and lonely heath;
Son, friends, and kindred of his dust took leave,
And Allan, with the crape bound round his sleeve.
Old Allan now hung up his sergeant’s sword,
And sat, a guest for life, at Ronald’s board.
He waked no longer at the barrack’s drum,
Yet still you’d see, when peep of day was come,
Th’ erect tall red-coat, walking pastures round,
Or delving with his spade the garden ground,
Of cheerful temper, habits strict and sage,
He reached, enjoyed a patriarchal age—
Loved to the last by the Macdonalds. Near
Their house, his stone was placed with many a tear;
And Ronald’s self, in stoic virtue brave,
Scorned not to weep at Allan Campbell’s grave.
[99] I received the substance of the tradition on which this poem is
founded, in the first instance, from a friend in London, who wrote to
Matthew N. Macdonald, Esq., of Edinburgh. He had the kindness to send
me a circumstantial account of the tradition; and that gentleman’s
knowledge of the Highlands, as well as his particular acquaintance with
the district of Glencoe, leave me no doubt of the incident having really
happened. I have not departed from the main facts of the tradition as
reported to me by Mr. Macdonald; only I have endeavoured to colour the
personages of the story, and to make them as distinctive as possible.
[100] God and the Devil—a favourite ejaculation of Highland saints.
[101] Snuff-horn.
[102] To hang their vassals, or starve them to death in a dungeon, was a
privilege of the Highland chiefs who had hereditary jurisdictions.
[103] Scotch for late and early.
[104] The Duke of Argyle.
[105] When the hospitable Highlanders load a parting guest with
provisions, they tell him he will need them, as he has to go over a great
deal of _hungry grass_.
NOTES.
NOTES TO THE PLEASURES OF HOPE.
PART I.
NOTE TO PAGE 7.
_And such thy strength-inspiring aid that bore_
_The hardy Byron to his native shore._
The following picture of his own distress, given by Byron in his simple
and interesting narrative, justifies the description in page 7.
After relating the barbarity of the Indian cacique to his child, he
proceeds thus:—“A day or two after we put to sea again, and crossed the
great bay I mentioned we had been at the bottom of when we first hauled
away to the westward. The land here was very low and sandy, and something
like the mouth of a river which discharged itself into the sea, and which
had been taken no notice of by us before, as it was so shallow that the
Indians were obliged to take everything out of their canoes, and carry
them over land. We rowed up the river four or five leagues, and then
took into a branch of it that ran first to the eastward, and then to
the northward: here it became much narrower, and the stream excessively
rapid, so that we gained but little way, though we wrought very hard. At
night we landed upon its banks, and had a most uncomfortable lodging,
it being a perfect swamp, and we had nothing to cover us, though it
rained excessively. The Indians were little better off than we, as there
was no wood here to make their wigwams; so that all they could do was
to prop up the bark, which they carry in the bottom of their canoes,
and shelter themselves as well as they could to the leeward of it.
Knowing the difficulties they had to encounter here, they had provided
themselves with some seal; but we had not a morsel to eat, after the
heavy fatigues of the day, excepting a sort of root we saw the Indians
make use of, which was very disagreeable to the taste. We laboured all
next day against the stream, and fared as we had done the day before.
The next day brought us to the carrying place. Here was plenty of wood,
but nothing to be got for sustenance. We passed this night, as we had
frequently done, under a tree; but what we suffered at this time is not
easy to be expressed. I had been three days at the oar without any kind
of nourishment except the wretched root above mentioned. I had no shirt,
for it had rotted off by bits. All my clothes consisted of a short grieko
(something like a bear-skin), a piece of red cloth which had once been a
waistcoat, and a ragged pair of trowsers, without shoes or stockings.”
NOTE TO PAGE 14.
_Wild Obi flies._
Among the negroes of the West Indies, Obi, or Obiah, is the name of a
magical power, which is believed by them to affect the object of its
malignity with dismal calamities. Such a belief must undoubtedly have
been deduced from the superstitious mythology of their kinsmen on the
coast of Africa. I have, therefore, personified Obi as the evil spirit of
the African, although the history of the African tribes mentions the evil
spirits of their religious creed by a different appellation.
NOTE TO PAGE 14.
_Sibir’s dreary mines._
Mr. Bell, of Antermony, in his “Travels through Siberia,” informs us that
the name of the country is universally pronounced “Sibir” by the Russians.
NOTE TO PAGE 14.
_Presaging wrath to Poland—and to man!_
The history of the partition of Poland, of the massacre in the suburbs
of Warsaw, and on the bridge of Prague, the triumphant entry of Suwarrow
into the Polish capital, and the insult offered to human nature, by the
blasphemous thanks offered up to Heaven, for victories obtained over men
fighting in the sacred cause of liberty, by murderers and oppressors, are
events generally known.
NOTE TO PAGE 19.
_How long was Timour’s iron sceptre swayed?_
To elucidate this passage, I shall subjoin a quotation from the preface
to “Letters from a Hindoo Rajah,” by Eliza Hamilton, a work of elegance
and celebrity:—
“The impostor of Mecca had established, as one of the principles of his
doctrine, the merit of extending it either by persuasion, or the sword,
to all parts of the earth. How steadily this injunction was adhered to by
his followers, and with what success it was pursued, is well known to all
who are in the least conversant in history.
“The same overwhelming torrent which had inundated the greater part
of Africa, burst its way into the very heart of Europe, and covering
many kingdoms of Asia, with unbounded desolation, directed its baneful
course to the flourishing provinces of Hindostan. Here these fierce and
hardy adventurers, whose only improvement had been in the science of
destruction, who added the fury of fanaticism to the ravages of war,
found the great end of their conquest opposed by objects which neither
the ardour of their persevering zeal, nor savage barbarity, could
surmount. Multitudes were sacrificed by the cruel hand of religious
persecution, and whole countries were deluged in blood, in the vain hope,
that by the destruction of a part, the remainder might be persuaded, or
terrified, into the profession of Mahomedism. But all these sanguinary
efforts were ineffectual; and at length, being fully convinced, that
though they might extirpate, they could never hope to convert, any number
of the Hindoos, they relinquished the impracticable idea with which they
had entered upon their career of conquest, and contented themselves with
the acquirement of the civil dominion and almost universal empire of
Hindostan.”
NOTE TO PAGE 20.
_While famished nations died along the shore._
The following account of British conduct, and its consequences, in
Bengal, will afford a sufficient idea of the fact alluded to in this
passage.
After describing the monopoly of salt, betel nut, and tobacco, the
historian proceeds thus:—“Money in this current came but by drops; it
could not quench the thirst of those who waited in India to receive
it. An expedient, such as it was, remained to quicken its pace. The
natives could live with little salt, but could not want food. Some of
the agents saw themselves well situated for collecting the rice into
stores; they did so. They knew the Gentoos would rather die than violate
the principles of their religion by eating flesh. The alternative would
therefore be between giving what they had, or dying. The inhabitants
sunk;—they that cultivated the land, and saw the harvest at the disposal
of others, planted in doubt—scarcity ensued. Then the monopoly was easier
managed—sickness ensued. In some districts the languid living left the
bodies of their numerous dead unburied.”—_Short History of the English
Transactions in the East Indies_, page 145.
NOTE TO PAGE 20.
_Nine times have Brahma’s wheels of lightning hurled_
_His awful presence o’er the alarmèd world._
Among the sublime fictions of the Hindoo mythology, it is one article of
belief, that the Deity Brahma has descended nine times upon the world in
various forms, and that he is yet to appear a tenth time, in the figure
of a warrior upon a white horse, to cut off all incorrigible offenders.
“Avatar” is the word used to express his descent.
PART II.
NOTE TO PAGE 31.
_Or learn the fate that bleeding thousands bore,_
_Marched by their Charles to Dneiper’s swampy shore._
“In this extremity,” says the biographer of Charles XII. of Sweden,
speaking of his military exploits before the battle of Pultowa, “the
memorable winter of 1709, which was still more remarkable in that part
of Europe than in France, destroyed numbers of his troops; for Charles
resolved to brave the seasons as he had done his enemies, and ventured to
make long marches during this mortal cold. It was in one of these marches
that two thousand men fell down dead with cold before his eyes.”
NOTE TO PAGE 32.
_As Iona’s saint._
The natives of the island of Iona have an opinion, that on certain
evenings every year the tutelary saint Columba is seen on the top of the
church spires counting the surrounding islands, to see that they have not
been sunk by the power of witchcraft.
NOTES TO GERTRUDE OF WYOMING.
PART I.
NOTE TO PAGE 45.
_From merry mock-bird’s song._
“The mocking-bird is of the form, but larger than the thrush; and the
colours are a mixture of black, white, and grey. What is said of the
nightingale by its greatest admirers, is what may with more propriety
apply to this bird, who, in a natural state, sings with very superior
taste. Towards evening I have heard one begin softly, reserving its
breath to swell certain notes, which, by this means, had a most
astonishing effect. A gentleman in London had one of these birds for six
years. During the space of a minute he was heard to imitate the woodlark,
chaffinch, blackbird, thrush, and sparrow. In this country (America) I
have frequently known the mocking-birds so engaged in this mimicry, that
it was with much difficulty I could ever obtain an opportunity of hearing
their own natural note. Some go so far as to say, that they have neither
peculiar notes, nor favourite imitations. This may be denied. Their few
natural notes resemble those of the (European) nightingale. Their song,
however, has a greater compass and volume than the nightingale, and they
have the faculty of varying all intermediate notes in a manner which is
truly delightful.”—Ashe’s _Travels in America_, vol. ii. p. 73.
NOTE TO PAGE 46.
_And distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan roar!_
The Corybrechtan, or Corbrechtan, is a whirlpool on the western coast
of Scotland, near the island of Jura, which is heard at a prodigious
distance. Its name signifies the whirlpool of the Prince of Denmark; and
there is a tradition that a Danish prince once undertook, for a wager,
to cast anchor in it. He is said to have used woollen instead of hempen
ropes, for greater strength, but perished in the attempt. On the shores
of Argyleshire, I have often listened with great delight to the sound of
this vortex, at the distance of many leagues. When the weather is calm,
and the adjacent sea is scarcely heard on these picturesque shores,
its sound, which is like the sound of innumerable chariots, creates a
magnificent and fine effect.
NOTE TO PAGE 48.
_Of buskined limb, and swarthy lineament._
“In the Indian tribes there is a great similarity in their colour,
stature, &c. They are all, except the Snake Indians, tall in stature,
straight, and robust. It is very seldom they are deformed, which has
given rise to the supposition that they put to death their deformed
children. Their skin is of a copper colour; their eyes large, bright,
black, and sparkling, indicative of a subtile and discerning mind: their
hair is of the same colour, and prone to be long, seldom or never curled.
Their teeth are large and white; I never observed any decayed among them,
which makes their breath as sweet as the air they inhale.”—_Travels
through America by Capts. Lewis and Clarke, in 1804-5-6._
NOTE TO PAGE 48.
_Peace be to thee! my words this belt approve._
“The Indians of North America accompany every formal address to
strangers, with whom they form or recognise a treaty of amity, with a
present of a string, or belt, of wampum. ‘Wampum,’ says Cadwalladar
Colden, ‘is made of the large whelk shell, _Buccinum_, and shaped like
long beads: it is the current money of the Indians.’”—_History of the
five Indian Nations_, p. 34. New York edition.
NOTE TO PAGE 48.
_The paths of peace my steps have hither led._
In relating an interview of Mohawk Indians with the Governor of New York,
Colden quotes the following passage as a specimen of their metaphorical
manner:—“Where shall I seek the chair of peace? where shall I find it but
upon our path? and whither doth our path lead us but unto this house?”
NOTE TO PAGE 48.
_Our wampum league thy brethren did embrace._
“When they solicit the alliance, offensive or defensive, of a whole
nation, they send an embassy with a large belt of wampum and a bloody
hatchet, inviting them to come and drink the blood of their enemies.
The wampum made use of on these and other occasions, before their
acquaintance with the Europeans, was nothing but small shells which they
picked up by the seacoasts, and on the banks of the lakes; and now it is
nothing but a kind of cylindrical beads, made of shells, white and black,
which are esteemed among them as silver and gold are among us. The black
they call the most valuable, and both together are their greatest riches
and ornaments; these among them answering all the end that money does
amongst us. They have the art of stringing, twisting, and interweaving
them into their belts, collars, blankets, and mocassins, &c., in ten
thousand different sizes, forms, and figures, so as to be ornaments
for every part of dress, and expressive to them of all their important
transactions. They dye the wampum of various colours and shades, and
mix and dispose them with great ingenuity and order, and so as to be
significant among themselves of almost every thing they please; so that
by these their words are kept, and their thoughts communicated to one
another, as ours are by writing. The belts that pass from one nation to
another in all treaties, declarations, and important transactions, are
very carefully preserved in the cabins of their chiefs, and serve not
only as a kind of record or history, but as a public treasure.”—Major
Rogers’ _Account of North America_.
NOTE TO PAGE 49.
_As when the evil Manitou._
“It is certain the Indians acknowledge one Supreme Being, or Giver of
Life, who presides over all things; that is, the Great Spirit; and they
look up to him as the source of good, from whence no evil can proceed.
They also believe in a bad Spirit, to whom they ascribe great power; and
suppose that through his power all the evils which befall mankind are
inflicted. To him, therefore, they pray in their distresses, begging that
he would either avert their troubles, or moderate them when they are no
longer avoidable.
“They hold also that there are good Spirits of a lower degree, who have
their particular departments, in which they are constantly contributing
to the happiness of mortals. These they suppose to preside over all the
extraordinary productions of Nature, such as those lakes, rivers, and
mountains that are of an uncommon magnitude; and likewise the beasts,
birds, fishes, and even vegetables or stones, that exceed the rest
of their species in size or singularity.”—Clarke’s _Travels among the
Indians_.
The Supreme Spirit of good is called by the Indians “Kitchi Manitou”; and
the Spirit of evil, “Matchi Manitou.”
NOTE TO PAGE 50.
_Fever-balm and sweet sagamité._
The fever-balm is a medicine used by these tribes; it is a decoction of
a bush called the Fever Tree. Sagamité is a kind of soup administered to
their sick.
NOTE TO PAGE 50.
_And I, the eagle of my tribe, have rushed with this lorn dove._
The testimony of all travellers among the American Indians who mention
their hieroglyphics, authorises me in putting this figurative language in
the mouth of Outalissi. The dove is among them, as elsewhere, an emblem
of meekness; and the eagle, that of a bold, noble, and liberal mind.
When the Indians speak of a warrior who soars above the multitude in
person and endowments, they say, “he is like the eagle, who destroys his
enemies, and gives protection and abundance to the weak of his own tribe.”
NOTE TO PAGE 51.
_Far differently, the mute Oneyda took, &c._
“They are extremely circumspect and deliberate in every word and action;
nothing hurries them into any intemperate wrath, but that inveteracy to
their enemies which is rooted in every Indian’s breast. In all other
instances they are cool and deliberate, taking care to suppress the
emotions of the heart. If an Indian has discovered that a friend of his
is in danger of being cut off by a lurking enemy, he does not tell him of
his danger in direct terms as though he were in fear, but he first coolly
asks him which way he is going that day, and having his answer, with the
same indifference tells him that he has been informed that a noxious
beast lies on the route he is going. This hint proves sufficient, and his
friend avoids the danger with as much caution as though every design and
motion of his enemy had been pointed out to him.
“If an Indian has been engaged for several days in the chase, and by
accident continued long without food, when he arrives at the hut of a
friend, where he knows that his wants will be immediately supplied, he
takes care not to show the least symptoms of impatience, or betray the
extreme hunger that he is tortured with; but on being invited in, sits
contentedly down and smokes his pipe with as much composure as if his
appetite was cloyed and he was perfectly at ease. He does the same if
among strangers. This custom is strictly adhered to by every tribe, as
they esteem it a proof of fortitude, and think the reverse would entitle
them to the appellation of old women.
“If you tell an Indian that his children have greatly signalised
themselves against an enemy, have taken many scalps, and brought home
many prisoners, he does not appear to feel any strong emotions of
pleasure on the occasion; his answer generally is,—they have ‘done well,’
and he makes but very little enquiry about the matter; on the contrary,
if you inform him that his children are slain or taken prisoners, he
makes no complaints: he only replies, ‘It is unfortunate:’—and for
some time asks no questions about how it happened.”—Lewis and Clarke’s
_Travels_.
NOTE TO PAGE 51.
_His calumet of peace, &c._
“Nor is the calumet of less importance or less revered than the wampum
in many transactions relative both to peace and war. The bowl of this
pipe is made of a kind of soft red stone, which is easily wrought and
hollowed out; the stem is of cane, alder, or some kind of light wood,
painted with different colours, and decorated with the heads, tails,
and feathers of the most beautiful birds. The use of the calumet is to
smoke either tobacco or some bark, leaf, or herb, which they often use
instead of it, when they enter into an alliance or any serious occasion
or solemn engagements; this being among them the most sacred oath that
can be taken, the violation of which is esteemed most infamous, and
deserving of severe punishment from Heaven. When they treat of war, the
whole pipe and all its ornaments are red: sometimes it is red only on one
side, and by the disposition of the feathers, &c., one acquainted with
their customs will know at first sight what the nation who presents it
intends or desires. Smoking the calumet is also a religious ceremony on
some occasions, and in all treaties is considered as a witness between
the parties, or rather as an instrument by which they invoke the sun and
moon to witness their sincerity, and to be as it were a guarantee of the
treaty between them. This custom of the Indians, though to appearance
somewhat ridiculous, is not without its reasons; for as they find that
smoking tends to disperse the vapours of the brain, to raise the spirits,
and to qualify them for thinking and judging properly, they introduced it
into their councils, where, after their resolves, the pipe was considered
as a seal of their decrees, and as a pledge of their performance thereof,
it was sent to those they were consulting, in alliance or treaty with;—so
that smoking among them at the same pipe, is equivalent to our drinking
together and out of the same cup.”—Major Rogers’ _Account of North
America_, 1766.
“The lighted calumet is also used among them for a purpose still more
interesting than the expression of social friendship. The austere
manners of the Indians forbid any appearance of gallantry between the
sexes in day-time; but at night the young lover goes a calumetting, as
his courtship is called. As these people live in a state of equality,
and without fear of internal violence or theft in their own tribes,
they leave their doors open by night as well as by day. The lover takes
advantage of this liberty, lights his calumet, enters the cabin of his
mistress, and gently presents it to her. If she extinguishes it, she
admits his addresses; but if she suffer it to burn unnoticed, he retires
with a disappointed and throbbing heart.”—Ashe’s _Travels_.
NOTE TO PAGE 51.
_Trained from his tree-rocked cradle to his bier._
“An Indian child, as soon as he is born, is swathed with clothes, or
skins; and being laid on his back, is bound down on a piece of thick
board, spread over with soft moss. The board is somewhat larger and
broader than the child, and bent pieces of wood, like pieces of hoops,
are placed over its face to protect it, so that if the machine were
suffered to fall, the child probably would not be injured. When the women
have any business to transact at home, they hang the board on a tree, if
there be one at hand, and set them a swinging from side to side, like a
pendulum, in order to exercise the children.”—Weld, vol. ii. p. 246.
NOTE TO PAGE 51.
_The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook_
_Impassive—_
Of the active as well as passive fortitude of the Indian character, the
following is an instance related by Adair in his “Travels”:—
“A party of the Senekah Indians came to war against the Katahba, bitter
enemies to each other.—In the woods the former discovered a sprightly
warrior belonging to the latter, hunting in their usual light dress:
on his perceiving them, he sprang off for a hollow rock four or five
miles distance, as they intercepted him from running homeward. He was
so extremely swift and skilful with the gun, as to kill seven of them
in the running fight before they were able to surround and take him.
They carried him to their country in sad triumph, but though he had
filled them with uncommon grief and shame for the loss of so many of
their kindred, yet the love of martial virtue induced them to treat
him, during their long journey, with a great deal more civility than if
he had acted the part of a coward. The women and children, when they
met him at their several towns, beat him and whipped him in as severe a
manner as the occasion required, according to their law of justice, and
at last he was formally condemned to die by the fiery torture.—It might
reasonably be imagined that what he had for some time gone through, by
being fed with a scanty hand, a tedious march, lying at night on the bare
ground, exposed to the changes of the weather, with his arms and legs
extended in a pair of rough stocks, and suffering such punishment on his
entering into their hostile towns, as a prelude to those sharp torments
for which he was destined, would have so impaired his health and affected
his imagination, as to have sent him to his long sleep, out of the way
of any more sufferings.—Probably this would have been the case with the
major part of white people under similar circumstances; but I never knew
this with any of the Indians: and this cool-headed, brave warrior, did
not deviate from their rough lessons of martial virtue, but acted his
part so well as to surprise and sorely vex his numerous enemies:—for when
they were taking him, unpinioned, in their wild parade, to the place
of torture, which lay near to a river, he suddenly dashed down those
who stood in his way, sprang off, and plunged into the water, swimming
underneath like an otter, only rising to take breath, till he reached
the opposite shore. He now ascended the steep bank, but though he had
good reason to be in a hurry, as many of the enemy were in the water,
and others running, very like bloodhounds, in pursuit of him, and the
bullets flying around him from the time he took to the river, yet his
heart did not allow him to leave them abruptly, without taking leave in
a formal manner, in return for the extraordinary favours they had done,
and intended to do him. After slapping a part of his body, in defiance
to them,” continues the author, “he put up the shrill war-whoop, as his
last salute, till some more convenient opportunity offered, and darted
off in the manner of a beast broke loose from its torturing enemies. He
continued his speed, so as to run by about midnight of the same day as
far as his eager pursuers were two days in reaching. There he rested
till he happily discovered five of those Indians who had pursued him:—he
lay hid a little way off their camp, till they were sound asleep. Every
circumstance of his situation occurred to him, and inspired him with
heroism. He was naked, torn, and hungry, and his enraged enemies were
come up with him;—but there was now every thing to relieve his wants,
and a fair opportunity to save his life, and get great honour and sweet
revenge by cutting them off. Resolution, a convenient spot, and sudden
surprise, would effect the main object of all his wishes and hopes. He
accordingly creeped, took one of their tomahawks, and killed them all on
the spot,—clothed himself, took a choice gun, and as much ammunition and
provisions as he could well carry in a running march. He set off afresh
with a light heart, and did not sleep for several successive nights,
only when he reclined, as usual, a little before day, with his back to a
tree. As it were by instinct, when he found he was free from the pursuing
enemy, he made directly to the very place where he had killed seven of
his enemies and was taken by them for the fiery torture. He digged them
up, burnt their bodies to ashes, and went home in safety with singular
triumph. Other pursuing enemies came, on the evening of the second day,
to the camp of their dead people, when the sight gave them a greater
shock than they had ever known before. In their chilled war-council they
concluded, that as he had done such surprising things in his defence
before he was captivated, and since that in his naked condition, and
now was well-armed, if they continued the pursuit he would spoil them
all, for he surely was an enemy wizard,—and therefore they returned
home.”—Adair’s _General Observations on the American Indians_, p. 394.
“It is surprising,” says the same author, “to see the long continued
speed of the Indians. Though some of us have often run the swiftest of
them out of sight for about the distance of twelve miles, yet afterwards,
without any seeming toil, they would stretch on, leave us out of sight,
and outwind any horse.”—_Ibid._ p. 318.
“If an Indian were driven out into the extensive woods, with only a
knife and a tomahawk, or a small hatchet, it is not to be doubted but he
would fatten even where a wolf would starve. He would soon collect fire
by rubbing two dry pieces of wood together, make a bark hut, earthen
vessels, and a bow and arrows; then kill wild game, fish, fresh-water
tortoises, gather a plentiful variety of vegetables, and live in
affluence.”—_Ibid._ p. 410.
NOTE TO PAGE 51.
_Sleep, wearied one! and in the dreaming land_
_Shouldst thou to-morrow with thy mother meet._
“There is nothing,” says Charlevoix, “in which these barbarians carry
their superstitions farther, than in what regards dreams; but they vary
greatly in their manner of explaining themselves on this point. Sometimes
it is the reasonable soul which ranges abroad, while the sensitive
continues to animate the body. Sometimes it is the familiar genius who
gives salutary counsel with respect to what is going to happen. Sometimes
it is a visit made by the soul of the object of which he dreams. But in
whatever manner the dream is conceived, it is always looked upon as a
thing sacred, and as the most ordinary way in which the gods make known
their will to men. Filled with this idea, they cannot conceive how we
should pay no regard to them. For the most part they look upon them
either as a desire of the soul, inspired by some genius, or an order
from him, and in consequence of this principle they hold it a religious
duty to obey them. An Indian having dreamt of having a finger cut off,
had it really cut off as soon as he awoke, having first prepared himself
for this important action by a feast. Another having dreamt of being a
prisoner, and in the hands of his enemies, was much at a loss what to do.
He consulted the jugglers, and by their advice caused himself to be tied
to a post, and burnt in several parts of the body.”—Charlevoix’s _Journal
of a Voyage to North America_.
NOTE TO PAGE 52.
_The crocodile, the condor of the rock._
“The alligator, or American crocodile, when full grown,” says Bertram,
“is a very large and terrible creature, and of prodigious strength,
activity, and swiftness in the water. I have seen them twenty feet in
length, and some are supposed to be twenty-two or twenty-three feet
in length. Their body is as large as that of a horse, their shape
usually resembles that of a lizard, which is flat, or cuneiform, being
compressed on each side, and gradually diminishing from the abdomen to
the extremity, which, with the whole body, is covered with horny plates,
of squamæ, impenetrable when on the body of the live animal, even to
a rifle-ball, except about their head, and just behind their forelegs
or arms, where, it is said, they are only vulnerable. The head of a
full-grown one is about three feet, and the mouth opens nearly the same
length. Their eyes are small in proportion, and seem sunk in the head, by
means of the prominency of the brows; the nostrils are large, inflated,
and prominent on the top, so that the head on the water resembles, at a
distance, a great chunk of wood floating about: only the upper jaw moves,
which they raise almost perpendicular, so as to form a right angle with
the lower one. In the fore-part of the upper jaw, on each side, just
under the nostrils, are two very large, thick, strong teeth, or tusks,
not very sharp, but rather the shape of a cone: these are as white as
the finest polished ivory, and are not covered by any skin or lips, but
always in sight, which gives the creature a frightful appearance; in
the lower jaw are holes opposite to these teeth to receive them; when
they clap their jaws together, it causes a surprising noise, like that
which is made by forcing a heavy plank with violence upon the ground,
and may be heard at a great distance.—But what is yet more surprising to
a stranger, is the incredibly loud and terrifying roar which they are
capable of making, especially in breeding-time. It most resembles very
heavy distant thunder, not only shaking the air and waters, but causing
the earth to tremble; and when hundreds are roaring at the same time,
you can scarcely be persuaded but that the whole globe is violently
and dangerously agitated. An old champion, who is, perhaps, absolute
sovereign of a little lake or lagoon (when fifty less than himself are
obliged to content themselves with swelling and roaring in little coves
round about), darts forth from the reedy coverts, all at once, on the
surface of the waters in a right line, at first seemingly as rapid as
lightning, but gradually more slowly, until he arrives at the centre of
the lake, where he stops. He now swells himself by drawing in wind and
water through his mouth, which causes a loud sonorous rattling in the
throat for near a minute; but it is immediately forced out again through
his mouth and nostrils with a loud noise, brandishing his tail in the
air, and the vapour running from his nostrils like smoke. At other times,
when swoln to an extent ready to burst, his head and tail lifted up, he
spins or twirls round on the surface of the water. He acts his part like
an Indian chief, when rehearsing his feats of war.”—Bertram’s _Travels in
North America_.
NOTE TO PAGE 52.
_Then forth uprose that lone way-faring man._
“They discover an amazing sagacity, and acquire, with the greatest
readiness, any thing that depends upon the attention of the mind. By
experience, and an acute observation, they attain many perfections to
which Americans are strangers. For instance, they will cross a forest
or a plain, which is two hundred miles in breadth, so as to reach, with
great exactness, the point at which they intend to arrive, keeping,
during the whole of that space, in a direct line, without any material
deviations; and this they will do with the same ease, let the weather
be fair or cloudy. With equal acuteness they will point to that part of
the heavens the sun is in, though it be intercepted by clouds or fogs.
Besides this, they are able to pursue, with incredible facility, the
traces of man or beast, either on leaves or grass; and on this account
it is with great difficulty they escape discovery. They are indebted for
these talents not only to nature, but to an extraordinary command of
the intellectual qualities, which can only be acquired by an unremitted
attention, and by long experience. They are, in general, very happy in a
retentive memory. They can recapitulate every particular that has been
treated of in council, and remember the exact time when they were held.
Their belts of wampum preserve the substance of the treaties they have
concluded with the neighbouring tribes for ages back, to which they will
appeal and refer with as much perspicuity and readiness as Europeans can
to their written records.
“The Indians are totally unskilled in geography, as well as all the other
sciences, and yet they draw on their birch-bark very exact charts or maps
of the countries they are acquainted with. The latitude and longitude
only are wanting to make them tolerably complete.
“Their sole knowledge in astronomy consists in being able to point out
the polar star, by which they regulate their course when they travel in
the night.
“They reckon the distance of places not by miles or leagues, but by
a day’s journey, which, according to the best calculation I could
make, appears to be about twenty English miles. These they also divide
into halves and quarters, and will demonstrate them in their maps
with great exactness by the hieroglyphics just mentioned, when they
regulate in council their war-parties, or their most distant hunting
excursions.”—Lewis and Clarke’s _Travels_.
“Some of the French missionaries have supposed that the Indians are
guided by instinct, and have pretended that Indian children can find
their way through a forest as easily as a person of maturer years; but
this is a most absurd notion. It is unquestionably by a close attention
to the growth of the trees, and position of the sun, that they find their
way. On the northern side of a tree there is generally the most moss; and
the bark on that side, in general, differs from that on the opposite one.
The branches towards the south are, for the most part, more luxuriant
than those on the other sides of trees, and several other distinctions
also subsist between the northern and southern sides, conspicuous to
Indians, being taught from their infancy to attend to them, which a
common observer would, perhaps, never notice. Being accustomed from their
infancy likewise to pay great attention to the position of the sun, they
learn to make the most accurate allowance for its apparent motion from
one part of the heavens to another; and in every part of the day they
will point to the part of the heavens where it is, although the sky be
obscured by clouds or mists.
“An instance of their dexterity in finding their way through an unknown
country came under my observation when I was at Staunton, situated behind
the Blue Mountains, Virginia. A number of the Creek nation had arrived
at that town on their way to Philadelphia, whither they were going upon
some affairs of importance, and had stopped there for the night. In the
morning, some circumstance or other, which could not be learned, induced
one half of the Indians to set off without their companions, who did not
follow until some hours afterwards. When these last were ready to pursue
their journey, several of the towns-people mounted their horses to escort
them part of the way. They proceeded along the high road for some miles,
but, all at once, hastily turning aside into the woods, though there
was no path, the Indians advanced confidently forward. The people who
accompanied them, surprised at this movement, informed them that they
were quitting the road to Philadelphia, and expressed their fear lest
they should miss their companions who had gone on before. They answered
that they knew better, that the way through the woods was the shortest
to Philadelphia, and that they knew very well that their companions
had entered the wood at the very place where they did. Curiosity led
some of the horsemen to go on; and to their astonishment, for there was
apparently no track, they overtook the other Indians in the thickest
part of the wood. But what appeared most singular was, that the route
which they took was found, on examining a map, to be as direct for
Philadelphia as if they had taken the bearings by a mariner’s compass.
From others of their nation, who had been at Philadelphia at a former
period, they had probably learned the exact direction of that city from
their villages, and had never lost sight of it, although they had already
travelled three hundred miles through the woods, and had upwards of four
hundred miles more to go before they could reach the place of their
destination.—Of the exactness with which they can find out a strange
place to which they have been once directed by their own people, a
striking example is furnished, I think, by Mr. Jefferson, in his account
of the Indian graves in Virginia. These graves are nothing more than
large mounds of earth in the woods, which, on being opened, are found
to contain skeletons in an erect posture: the Indian mode of sepulture
has been too often described to remain unknown to you. But to come to my
story. A party of Indians that were passing on to some of the sea-ports
on the Atlantic, just as the Creeks, above mentioned, were going to
Philadelphia, were observed, all on a sudden, to quit the straight road
by which they were proceeding, and without asking any questions, to
strike through the woods, in a direct line, to one of these graves, which
lay at the distance of some miles from the road. Now very near a century
must have passed over since the part of Virginia, in which this grave was
situated, had been inhabited by Indians, and these Indian travellers, who
were to visit it by themselves, had unquestionably never been in that
part of the country before: they must have found their way to it simply
from the description of its situation, that had been handed down to them
by tradition.”—Weld’s _Travels in North America_, vol. ii.
PART III.
NOTE TO PAGE 65.
_The Mammoth comes._
That I am justified in making the Indian chief allude to the mammoth as
an emblem of terror and destruction, will be seen by the authority quoted
below. Speaking of the mammoth, or big buffalo, Mr. Jefferson states,
that a tradition is preserved among the Indians of that animal still
existing in the northern parts of America:—
“A delegation of warriors from the Delaware tribe having visited the
governor of Virginia during the revolution, on matters of business,
the governor asked them some questions relative to their country, and,
among others, what they knew or had heard of the animal whose bones were
found at the Salt-licks, on the Ohio. Their chief speaker immediately
put himself into an attitude of oratory, and with a pomp suited to what
he conceived the elevation of his subject, informed him, that it was a
tradition handed down from their fathers, that in ancient times a herd
of these tremendous animals came to the Bick-bone-licks, and began a
universal destruction of the bear, deer, elk, buffalo, and other animals
which had been created for the use of the Indians. That the Great Man
above looking down and seeing this, was so enraged, that he seized his
lightning, descended on the earth, seated himself on a neighbouring
mountain, on a rock, of which his seat and the prints of his feet are
still to be seen, and hurled his bolts among them, till the whole were
slaughtered, except the big bull, who, presenting his forehead to the
shafts, shook them off as they fell, but missing one, at length it
wounded him in the side, whereon, springing round, he bounded over the
Ohio, over the Wabash, the Illinois, and finally over the great lakes,
where he is living at this day.”—Jefferson’s _Notes on Virginia_.
NOTE TO PAGE 65.
_Scorning to wield the hatchet for his bribe,_
_’Gainst Brandt himself I went to battle forth._
I took the character of Brandt in the poem of “Gertrude” from the common
Histories of England, all of which represented him as a bloody and bad
man (even among savages), and chief agent in the horrible desolation of
Wyoming. Some years after this poem appeared, the son of Brandt, a most
interesting and intelligent youth, came over to England, and I formed
an acquaintance with him, on which I still look back with pleasure. He
appealed to my sense of honour and justice, on his own part and on that
of his sister, to retract the unfair aspersions which, unconscious of its
unfairness, I had cast on his father’s memory.
He then referred me to documents which completely satisfied me that the
common accounts of Brandt’s cruelties at Wyoming, which I had found in
books of Travels and in Adolphus’s and similar Histories of England, were
gross errors, and that, in point of fact, Brandt was not even present at
that scene of desolation.
It is, unhappily, to Britons and Anglo-Americans that we must refer the
chief blame in this horrible business. I published a letter expressing
this belief in the _New Monthly Magazine_, in the year 1822, to which
I must refer the reader—if he has any curiosity on the subject—for an
antidote to my fanciful description of Brandt. Among other expressions to
young Brandt, I made use of the following words:—“Had I learnt all this
of your father when I was writing my poem, he should not have figured in
it as the hero of mischief.” It was but bare justice to say thus much of
a Mohawk Indian, who spoke English eloquently, and was thought capable
of having written a history of the Six Nations. I ascertained also that
he often strove to mitigate the cruelty of Indian warfare. The name of
Brandt, therefore, remains in my poem a pure and declared character of
fiction.
NOTE TO PAGE 65.
_To whom nor relative nor blood remains._
_No!—not a kindred drop that runs in human veins!_
Every one who recollects the specimen of Indian eloquence given in
the speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, to the Governor of Virginia, will
perceive that I have attempted to paraphrase its concluding and most
striking expression:—“There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of
any living creature.” The similar salutation of the fictitious personage
in my story, and the real Indian orator, makes it surely allowable to
borrow such an expression; and if it appears, as it cannot but appear,
to less advantage than in the original, I beg the reader to reflect
how difficult it is to transpose such exquisitely simple words without
sacrificing a portion of their effect.
In the spring of 1774, a robbery and murder were committed on an
inhabitant of the frontiers of Virginia, by two Indians of the Shawanee
tribe. The neighbouring whites, according to their custom, undertook to
punish this outrage in a summary manner. Colonel Cresap, a man infamous
for the many murders he had committed on those much injured people,
collected a party and proceeded down the Kanaway in quest of vengeance;
unfortunately a canoe with women and children, with one man only, was
seen coming from the opposite shore unarmed, and unsuspecting an attack
from the whites. Cresap and his party concealed themselves on the bank
of the river, and the moment the canoe reached the shore, singled out
their objects, and at one fire killed every person in it. This happened
to be the family of Logan, who had long been distinguished as a friend to
the whites. This unworthy return provoked his vengeance; he accordingly
signalised himself in the war which ensued. In the autumn of the same
year a decisive battle was fought at the mouth of the great Kanaway, in
which the collected forces of the Shawanees, Mingoes, and Delawares,
were defeated by a detachment of the Virginian militia. The Indians sued
for peace. Logan, however, disdained to be seen among the suppliants;
but lest the sincerity of a treaty should be disturbed, from which so
distinguished a chief abstracted himself, he sent, by a messenger, the
following speech to be delivered to Lord Dunmore:—
“I appeal to any white man if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and
he gave him not to eat; if ever he came cold and hungry, and he clothed
him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war Logan
remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for
the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, ‘Logan
is the friend of white men.’ I have even thought to have lived with you
but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold
blood, murdered all the relations of Logan, even my women and children.
“There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living
creature:—this called on me for revenge. I have fought for it. I have
killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance.—For my country I rejoice
at the beams of peace;—but do not harbour a thought that mine is the joy
of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his
life.—Who is there to mourn for Logan? not one!”—Jefferson’s _Notes on
Virginia_.
NOTES TO O’CONNOR’S CHILD.
NOTE TO PAGE 77.
_Their tribe, they said, their high degree,_
_Was sung in Tara’s psaltery._
The pride of the Irish in ancestry was so great, that one of the O’Neals
being told that Barrett of Castlemone had been there only 400 years, he
replied,—that he hated the clown as if he had come there but yesterday.
Tara was the place of assemblage and feasting of the petty princes of
Ireland. Very splendid and fabulous descriptions are given by the Irish
historians of the pomp and luxury of those meetings. The psaltery of Tara
was the grand national register of Ireland. The grand epoch of political
eminence in the early history of the Irish is the reign of their great
and favourite monarch Ollam Fodlah, who reigned, according to Keating,
about 950 years before the Christian era. Under him was instituted the
great Fes at Tara, which it is pretended was a triennial convention of
the states, or a parliament; the members of which were the Druids, and
other learned men who represented the people in that assembly. Very
minute accounts are given by Irish annalists of the magnificence and
order of these entertainments; from which, if credible, we might collect
the earliest traces of heraldry that occur in history. To preserve order
and regularity in the great number and variety of the members who met
on such occasions, the Irish historians inform us that when the banquet
was ready to be served up, the shield-bearers of the princes, and other
members of the convention, delivered in their shields and targets, which
were readily distinguished by the coats of arms emblazoned upon them.
These were arranged by the grand marshal and principal herald, and hung
upon the walls on the right side of the table; and upon entering the
apartments, each member took his seat under his respective shield or
target, without the slightest disturbance. The concluding days of the
meeting, it is allowed by the Irish antiquaries, were spent in very free
excess of conviviality; but the first six, they say, were devoted to
the examination and settlement of the annals of the kingdom. These were
publicly rehearsed. When they had passed the approbation of the assembly,
they were transcribed into the authentic chronicles of the nation, which
was called the Register, or Psalter of Tara.
Colonel Vallancy gives a translation of an old Irish fragment, found in
Trinity College, Dublin, in which the palace of the above assembly is
thus described as it existed in the reign of Cormac:—
“In the reign of Cormac, the palace of Tara was nine hundred feet
square; the diameter of the surrounding rath, seven dice or casts of a
dart; it contained one hundred and fifty apartments; one hundred and
fifty dormitories, or sleeping-rooms for guards, and sixty men in each:
the height was twenty-seven cubits; there were one hundred and fifty
common drinking-horns, twelve doors, and one thousand guests daily,
besides princes, orators, and men of science, engravers of gold and
silver, carvers, modelers, and nobles.” The Irish description of the
banqueting-hall is thus translated: “Twelve stalls or divisions in each
wing; sixteen attendants on each side, and two to each table; one hundred
guests in all.”
NOTE TO PAGE 78.
_And stemmed De Bourgo’s chivalry._
The house of O’Connor had a right to boast of their victories over the
English. It was a chief of the O’Connor race who gave a check to the
English champion De Courcy, so famous for his personal strength, and
for cleaving a helmet at one blow of his sword, in the presence of the
kings of France and England, when the French champion declined the combat
with him. Though ultimately conquered by the English under De Bourgo,
the O’Connors had also humbled the pride of that name on a memorable
occasion: viz., when Walter De Bourgo, an ancestor of that De Bourgo who
won the battle of Athunree, had become so insolent as to make excessive
demands upon the territories of Connaught, and to bid defiance to all
the rights and properties reserved by the Irish chiefs, Aeth O’Connor, a
near descendant of the famous Cathal, surnamed of the bloody hand, rose
against the usurper, and defeated the English so severely, that their
general died of chagrin after the battle.
NOTE TO PAGE 78.
_Or beal-fires for your jubilee._
The month of May is to this day called “Mi Beal tiennie,” _i.e._, the
month of Beal’s fire, in the original language of Ireland, and hence I
believe the name of the Beltan festival in the Highlands. These fires
were lighted on the summits of mountains (the Irish antiquaries say) in
honour of the sun; and are supposed, by those conjecturing gentlemen,
to prove the origin of the Irish from some nation who worshipped Baal
or Belus. Many hills in Ireland still retain the name of “Cnoc Greine,”
_i.e._, the hill of the sun; and on all are to be seen the ruins of
druidical altars.
NOTE TO PAGE 78.
_And play my clarshech by thy side._
The clarshech, or harp, the principal musical instrument of the Hibernian
bards, does not appear to be of Irish origin, nor indigenous to any of
the British islands.—The Britons undoubtedly were not acquainted with
it during the residence of the Romans in their country, as in all their
coins, on which musical instruments are represented, we see only the
Roman lyre, and not the British Teylin, or harp.
NOTE TO PAGE 79.
_And saw at dawn the lofty bawn._
“Bawn,” from the Teutonic “Bawen”—to construct and secure with branches
of trees, was so called because the primitive Celtic fortification was
made by digging a ditch, throwing up a rampart, and on the latter fixing
stakes, which were interlaced with boughs of trees. This word is used by
Spenser; but it is inaccurately called by Mr. Todd, his annotator, an
eminence.
NOTE TO PAGE 81.
_To speak the malison of heaven._
If the wrath which I have ascribed to the heroine of this little
piece should seem to exhibit her character as too unnaturally stript
of patriotic and domestic affections, I must beg leave to plead the
authority of Corneille in the representation of a similar passion: I
allude to the denunciation of Camilla, in the tragedy of Horace. When
Horace, accompanied by a soldier bearing the three swords of the Curiatii
meets his sister, and invites her to congratulate him on his victory,
she expresses only her grief, which he attributes at first only to her
feelings for the loss of her two brothers; but when she bursts forth into
reproaches against him as the murderer of her lover, the last of the
Curiatii, he exclaims:—
“O Ciel! qui vit jamais une pareille rage:
Crois-tu donc que je sois insensible à l’outrage,
Que je souffre en mon sang ce mortel déshonneur!
Aime, Aime cette mort qui fait notre bonheur.
Et préfère du moins au souvenir d’un homme
Ce que doit ta naissance aux intérêts de Rome.”
At the mention of Rome, Camille breaks out into this apostrophe:—
“Rome, l’unique objet de mon ressentiment!
Rome, à qui vient ton bras d’immoler mon amant!
Rome, qui t’a vu naître et que ton cœur adore!
Rome, enfin, que je haïs, parce qu’elle t’honore!
Puissent tous ses voisins, ensemble conjurés,
Sapper ses fondemens encore mal assurés;
Et, si ce n’est assez de toute l’Italie,
Que l’Orient, contre elle, à l’Occident s’allie!
Que cent peuples unis, des bouts de l’univers
Passent, pour la détruire, et les monts et les mers;
Qu’elle-même sur soi renverse ses murailles,
Et de ses propres mains déchire ses entrailles;
Que le courroux du Ciel, allumé par mes vœux,
Fasse pleuvoir sur elle un déluge de feux!
Puissai-je de mes yeux y voir tomber ce foudre,
Voir ses maisons en cendre, et tes lauriers en poudre;
Voir le dernier Romain à son dernier soupir,
Moi seule en être cause, et mourir de plaisir!”
NOTE TO PAGE 81.
_“And go to Athunree!” I cried._
In the reign of Edward the Second, the Irish presented to Pope John
the Twenty-second a memorial of their sufferings under the English, of
which the language exhibits all the strength of despair:—“Ever since the
English,” say they, “first appeared upon our coasts, they entered our
territories under a certain specious pretence of charity, and external
hypocritical show of religion, endeavouring at the same time, by every
artifice malice could suggest, to extirpate us root and branch, and
without any other right than that of the strongest; they have so far
succeeded by base fraudulence, and cunning, that they have forced us
to quit our fair and ample habitations and inheritances, and to take
refuge like wild beasts in the mountains, the woods, and the morasses
of the country;—nor even can the caverns and dens protect us against
their insatiable avarice. They pursue us even into these frightful
abodes; endeavouring to dispossess us of the wild uncultivated rocks, and
arrogate to themselves the PROPERTY OF EVERY PLACE on which we can stamp
the figure of our feet.”
The greatest effort ever made by the ancient Irish to regain their
native independence, was made at the time when they called over the
brother of Robert Bruce from Scotland. William de Bourgo, brother to the
Earl of Ulster, and Richard de Bermingham, were sent against the main
body of the native insurgents, who were headed rather than commanded by
Felim O’Connor. The important battle, which decided the subjection of
Ireland, took place on the 10th of August, 1315. It was the bloodiest
that ever was fought between the two nations, and continued throughout
the whole day, from the rising to the setting sun. The Irish fought with
inferior discipline, but with great enthusiasm. They lost ten thousand
men, among whom were twenty-nine chiefs of Connaught. Tradition states
that after this terrible day, the O’Connor family, like the Fabian, were
so nearly exterminated, that throughout all Connaught not one of the name
remained, except Felim’s brother, who was capable of bearing arms.
NOTES TO THEODRIC.
NOTE TO PAGE 85.
_That gave the glacier tops their richest glow._
The sight of the glaciers of Switzerland, I am told, has often
disappointed travellers who had perused the accounts of their splendour
and sublimity given by Bourrit and other describers of Swiss scenery.
Possibly Bourrit, who had spent his life in an enamoured familiarity with
the beauties of Nature in Switzerland, may have leaned to the romantic
side of description. One can pardon a man for a sort of idolatry of
those imposing objects of Nature which heighten our ideas of the bounty
of Nature or Providence, when we reflect that the glaciers—those seas
of ice—are not only sublime, but useful: they are the inexhaustible
reservoirs which supply the principal rivers of Europe; and their annual
melting is in proportion to the summer heat which dries up those rivers
and makes them need that supply.
That the picturesque grandeur of the glaciers should sometimes disappoint
the traveller, will not seem surprising to any one who has been much in
a mountainous country, and recollects that the beauty of Nature in such
countries is not only variable, but capriciously dependent on the weather
and sunshine. There are about four hundred different glaciers,[106]
according to the computation of M. Bourrit, between Mont Blanc and the
frontiers of the Tyrol. The full effect of the most lofty and picturesque
of them can, of course, only be produced by the richest and warmest
light of the atmosphere; and the very heat which illuminates them must
have a changing influence on many of their appearances. I imagine it
is owing to this circumstance, namely, the casualty and changeableness
of the appearance of some of the glaciers, that the impressions made
by them on the minds of other and more transient travellers have been
less enchanting than those described by M. Bourrit. On one occasion M.
Bourrit seems even to speak of a past phenomenon, and certainly one
which no other spectator attests in the same terms, when he says that
there once existed between the Kandel Steig and Lauterbrun, “a passage
amidst singular glaciers, sometimes resembling magical towns of ice, with
pilasters, pyramids, columns, and obelisks, reflecting to the sun the
most brilliant hues of the finest gems.”
M. Bourrit’s description of the Glacier of the Rhone is quite
enchanting:—“To form an idea,” he says, “of this superb spectacle, figure
in your mind a scaffolding of transparent ice, filling a space of two
miles, rising to the clouds, and darting flashes of light like the sun.
Nor were the several parts less magnificent and surprising. One might
see, as it were, the streets and buildings of a city, erected in the
form of an amphitheatre, and embellished with pieces of water, cascades,
and torrents. The effects were as prodigious as the immensity and the
height;—the most beautiful azure—the most splendid white—the regular
appearance of a thousand pyramids of ice, are more easy to be imagined
than described.”—Bourrit, iii. 163.
[106] Occupying, if taken together, a surface of 130 square leagues.
NOTE TO PAGE 85.
_From heights browsed by the bounding bouquetin._
Laborde, in his “Tableau de la Suisse,” gives a curious account of this
animal, the wild sharp cry and elastic movements of which must heighten
the picturesque appearance of its haunts:—“Nature,” says Laborde, “has
destined it to mountains covered with snow: if it is not exposed to keen
cold, it becomes blind. Its agility in leaping much surpasses that of the
chamois, and would appear incredible to those who have not seen it. There
is not a mountain so high or steep to which it will not trust itself,
provided it has room to place its feet; it can scramble along the highest
wall, if its surface be rugged.”
NOTE TO PAGE 85.
_Enamelled Moss._
The moss of Switzerland, as well as that of the Tyrol, is remarkable for
a bright smoothness approaching to the appearance of enamel.
NOTE TO PAGE 88.
_How dear seemed e’en the waste and wild Shreckhorn._
The “Schreckhorn” means in German, the _Peak of Terror_.
NOTE TO PAGE 88.
_Blindfold his native hills he could have known!_
I have here availed myself of a striking expression of the Emperor
Napoleon respecting his recollections of Corsica, which is recorded in
Las Cases’s “History of the Emperor’s Abode at St. Helena.”
NOTES TO LOCHIEL.
NOTE TO PAGE 103.
Lochiel, the chief of the warlike clan of the Camerons, and descended
from ancestors distinguished in their narrow sphere for great personal
prowess, was a man worthy of a better cause and fate than that in which
he embarked,—the enterprise of the Stuarts in 1745. His memory is still
fondly cherished among the Highlanders, by the appellation of the
“_gentle Lochiel_;” for he was famed for his social virtues as much as
his martial and magnanimous (though mistaken) loyalty. His influence was
so important among the Highland chiefs that it depended on his joining
with his clan whether the standard of Charles should be raised or not in
1745. Lochiel was himself too wise a man to be blind to the consequences
of so hopeless an enterprise, but his sensibility to the point of honour
overruled his wisdom. Charles appealed to his loyalty, and he could not
brook the reproaches of his Prince. When Charles landed at Borrodale,
Lochiel went to meet him, but on his way, called at his brother’s house
(Cameron of Fassafern), and told him on what errand he was going; adding,
however, that he meant to dissuade the Prince from his enterprise.
Fassafern advised him in that case to communicate his mind by letter to
Charles. “No,” said Lochiel, “I think it due to my Prince to give him my
reasons in person for refusing to join his standard.”—“Brother,” replied
Fassafern, “I know you better than you know yourself: if the Prince
once sets his eyes on you, he will make you do what he pleases.” The
interview accordingly took place; and Lochiel, with many arguments, but
in vain, pressed the Pretender to return to France, and reserve himself
and his friends for a more favourable occasion, as he had come, by his
own acknowledgment, without arms, or money, or adherents: or, at all
events, to remain concealed till his friends should meet and deliberate
what was best to be done. Charles, whose mind was wound up to the utmost
impatience, paid no regard to this proposal, but answered, “that he was
determined to put all to the hazard.” “In a few days,” said he, “I will
erect the royal standard, and proclaim to the people of Great Britain
that Charles Stuart is come over to claim the crown of his ancestors, and
to win it, or perish in the attempt. Lochiel, who my father has often
told me was our firmest friend, may stay at home, and learn from the
newspapers the fate of his Prince.”—“No,” said Lochiel, “I will share
the fate of my Prince, and so shall every man over whom nature or fortune
hath given me any power.”
The other chieftains who followed Charles embraced his cause with no
better hopes. It engages our sympathy most strongly in their behalf, that
no motive, but their fear to be reproached with cowardice or disloyalty,
impelled them to the hopeless adventure. Of this we have an example
in the interview of Prince Charles with Clanronald, another leading
chieftain in the rebel army.
“Charles,” says Home, “almost reduced to despair, in his discourse with
Boisdale, addressed the two Highlanders with great emotion, and, summing
up his arguments for taking arms, conjured them to assist their Prince,
their countryman, in his utmost need. Clanronald and his friend, though
well inclined to the cause, positively refused, and told him that to
take up arms without concert or support was to pull down certain ruin on
their own heads. Charles persisted, argued, and implored. During this
conversation (they were on shipboard) the parties walked backward and
forward on the deck; a Highlander stood near them, armed at all points,
as was then the fashion of his country. He was a younger brother of
Kinloch Moidart, and had come off to the ship to enquire for news, not
knowing who was aboard. When he gathered from their discourse that the
stranger was the Prince of Wales; when he heard his chief and his brother
refuse to take arms with their Prince; his colour went and came, his eyes
sparkled, he shifted his place, and grasped his sword. Charles observed
his demeanour, and turning briskly to him, called out, ‘Will you assist
me?’—‘I will, I will,’ said Ronald: ‘though no other man in the Highlands
should draw a sword, I am ready to die for you!’ Charles, with a
profusion of thanks to his champion, said, he wished all the Highlanders
were like him. Without farther deliberation, the two Macdonalds declared
that they would also join, and use their utmost endeavours to engage
their countrymen to take arms.”—Home’s _History of the Rebellion of 1745_.
* * * * *
An account of the second sight, in Irish called “Taish,” is thus given in
Martin’s “Description of the Western Isles of Scotland,” p. 3-11:—
“The second sight is a singular faculty of seeing an otherwise invisible
object, without any previous means used by the person who sees it for
that end. The vision makes such a lively impression upon the seers, that
they neither see nor think of anything else except the vision as long as
it continues; and then they appear pensive or jovial according to the
object which was represented to them.
“At the sight of a vision the eyelids of the person are erected, and
the eyes continue staring until the object vanish. This is obvious to
others who are standing 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 Skye, of whom his acquaintance observed, that when he
sees a vision the inner parts of his eyelids turn so far upwards, that,
after the object disappears, he must draw them down with his fingers, and
sometimes employs others to draw them down, which he finds to be much the
easier way.
“This faculty of the second sight does not lineally descend in a family,
as some have imagined; for I know several parents who are endowed
with it, and their children are not; and _vice versa_. Neither is it
acquired by any previous compact. And after strict enquiry, I could
never learn from any among them, that this faculty was communicable to
any 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 distance from one another. The true
way of judging as to the time and circumstances is by observation; for
several persons of judgment who are without this faculty are more capable
to judge of the design of a vision than a novice that is a seer. If an
object appears in the day or night, it will come to pass sooner or later
accordingly.
“If an object is seen early in a morning, which is not frequent, it will
be accomplished in a few hours afterwards; if at noon it will probably
be accomplished that very day; if in the evening perhaps that night; if
after candles be lighted, it will be accomplished that night; the latter
always an accomplishment by weeks, months, and sometimes years, according
to the time of the night the vision is seen.
“When a shroud is seen about one, it is a sure prognostic of death. The
time is judged according to the height of it about the person; for if
it is not seen above the middle, death is not to be expected for the
space 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 person of whom the observations were
then made was in perfect health.
“It is ordinary with them to see houses, gardens, and trees in
places void of all these, and this in process of time is wont to be
accomplished; as at Mogslot, in the Isle of Skye, where there were but a
few sorry low houses thatched with straw; yet in a few years the vision,
which appeared often, was accomplished by the building of several good
houses in the very spot represented to the seers, and by the planting of
orchards there.
“To see a spark of fire is a forerunner of a dead child, to be seen in
the arms of those persons; of which there are several instances. To see a
seat empty at the time of sitting in it, is a presage of that person’s
death quickly after it.
“When a novice, or one that has lately obtained the second sight, sees
a vision in the night-time without doors, and comes near a fire he
presently falls into a swoon.
“Some find themselves as it were in a crowd of people, having a corpse,
which they carry along with them; and after such visions the seers come
in sweating, and describe the vision that appeared. If there be any of
their acquaintance among them, they give an account of their names, as
also of the bearers; but they know nothing concerning the corpse.”
Horses and cows (according to the same credulous author) have certainly
sometimes the same faculty; and he endeavours to prove it by the signs of
fear which the animals exhibit when second-sighted persons see visions in
the same place.
“The seers,” he continues, “are generally illiterate and well-meaning
people and altogether void of design: nor could I ever learn that any
of them ever made the least gain by it; neither is it reputable among
them to have that faculty. Besides, the people of the Isles are not
so credulous as to believe implicitly before the thing predicted is
accomplished; but when it is actually accomplished afterwards, it is not
in their power to deny it, without offering violence to their own sense
and reason. Besides, if the seers were deceivers, can it be reasonable
to imagine that all the islanders who have not the second sight should
combine together, and offer violence to their understandings and
senses, to enforce themselves to believe a lie from age to age? There
are several persons among them whose title and education raise them
above the suspicion of concurring with an impostor, merely to gratify
an illiterate, contemptible set of persons; nor can reasonable persons
believe that children, horses, and cows, should be pre-engaged in a
combination in favour of second sight.”
THE END.
MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.