457. Yesternight. We have lost this word, though we retain yesterday.
Cf. yester-morn in v. 104 below. As far = as far back as.
460. Was on, etc. The MS. reads: "Is often on the future bent." If
force of evidence could authorize us to believe facts inconsistent with
the general laws of nature, enough might be produced in favor of the
existence of the second-sight. It is called in Gaelic Taishitaraugh,
from Taish, an unreal or shadowy appearance; and those possessed of
the faculty are called Taishatrin, which may be aptly translated
visionaries. Martin, a steady believer in the second-sight, gives the
following account of it:--
'The second-sight is a singular faculty of seeing an otherwise invisible
object without any previous means used by the person that uses if for
that end: the vision makes such a lively impression upon the seers, that
they neither see nor think of any thing else, except the vision, as long
as it continues; and then they appear pensive or jovial, according to
the object that 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 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....
'If a woman is seen standing at a man's left hand, it is a presage that
she will be his wife, whether they be married to others, or unmarried at
the time of the apparition.
'To see a spark of fire fall upon one's arm or breast is a forerunner of
a dead child to be seen in the arms of those persons; of which there are
several fresh instances....
'To see a seat empty at the time of one's sitting in it, is a presage
of that person's death soon after' (Martin's Description of the Western
Islands, 1716, 8vo, p. 300, et seq.).
"To these particulars innumerable examples might be added, all attested
by grave and credible authors. But, in despite of evidence which neither
Bacon, Boyle, nor Johnson were able to resist, the Taish, with all its
visionary properties, seems to be now universally abandoned to the use
of poetry. The exquisitely beautiful poem of Lochiel will at once occur
to the recollection of every reader" (Scott).
462. Birchen. Shaded by birches. Cf. Milton's "cedarn alleys" in Comus,
990.