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requires notice, Mr Douglas Kinnaird will let me know; but of praise, I desire to hear nothing.

"You will say, ' To what tends all this?' I will answer THAT ;-to keep my mind free and unbiassed by all paltry and personal irritabilities of praise or censure-to let my genius take its natural direction, while my feelings are like the dead, who know nothing and feel nothing of all or aught that is said or done in their regard.

"If you can observe these conditions, you will spare yourself and others some pain; let me not be worked upon to rise up; for if I do, it will not be for a little. If you cannot observe these conditions, we shall cease to be correspondents,—but not friends, for I shall always be yours ever and BYRON,

truly,

"P.S. I have taken these resolutions not from any irritation against you or yours; but simply upon reflection that all reading, either praise or censure, of myself has done me harm. When I was in Switzerland and Greece, I was out of the way of hearing either, and how I wrote there !-In Italy I am out of the way of it too; but latterly, partly through my fault, and partly through your kindness in wishing to send me the newest and best periodical publications, I have had a crowd of Reviews, &c., thrust upon me, which have bored me with their jargon, of one kind or another, and taken off my attention from greater objects. You have also sent me a parcel of trash of poetry, for no reason that I can conceive, unless to provoke me to write a new 'English Bards.' Now this I wish to avoid; for if ever I do, it will be a strong production; and I desire peace as long as the fools will keep their nonsense out of my way." Containing as this volume does, like its predecessor, much more of the original letters and memoranda of Byron, than of Moore's more laboured and polished, but far feebler narrative, almost every page teems with original and striking observations, and graphic and powerful sketches. What, for example, could be more perfect of its kind than the following rapid etching, betraying, by a few strokes, the hand of a master?

BYRON'S ACCOUNT OF PINDEMONTE. "To-day, Pindemonte, the celebrated poet of Verona, called on me; he is a little thin man, with acute and pleasing features; his address good and gentle; his appearance altogether very philosophical; his age about sixty, or more. He is one of their best going. I gave him Forsyth, as he speaks, or reads rather, a little English, and will find there a favourable account of himself. He enquired after his old Cruscan friends, Parsons, Greathead, Mrs Piozzi, and Merry, all of whom he had known in his youth. I gave him as bad an account of them as I could, answering, as the false Solomon Lob' does to Totterton' in the farce, 'all gone dead,' and d-d by a satire more than twenty years ago; that the name of their extinguisher was Gifford; that they were but a sad set of scribes after all, and no great things in any other way. He seemed, as was natural, very much pleased with this account of his old acquaintances, and went away greatly gratified with that, and Mr Forsyth's sententious paragraph of applause in his own (Pindemonte's) favour. After having been a little libertine in his youth, he is grown devout, and takes prayers, and talks to himself, to keep off the devil; but for all that, he is a very nice little old gentleman."

We subjoin a specimen of the manner in which Byron kept his diary. It places the very man before us:

AN EXTRACT FROM BYRON'S DIARY.

"Sketched the outline and Drams. Pers. of an intended tragedy of Sardanapalus, which I have for some time meditated. Took the names from Diodorus Siculus-I know the history of Sardanapalus, and have known it since I was twelve years old-and read over a passage in the ninth vol. octavo of Mitford's Greece, where he rather vindicates the memory of this last of the Assyrians.

"Dined-news come-the Powers mean to war with the peoples. The intelligence seems positive-let it be so-they will be beaten in the end. The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.

"I carried Teresa the Italian translation of Grillparzer's Sappho, which she promises to read. She quarrelled with me, because I said that love was not the loftiest theme for true tragedy; and, having the advantage of her native language, and natural female eloquence, she overcame my fewer

arguments. I believe she was right. I must put more love into Sardanapalus' than I intended. I speak, of course, if the times will allow me leisure. That if will hardly be a peace-maker.

"January 14, 1821. lines of the intended tragedy of Sardanapalus. "Turned over Seneca's tragedies. Wrote the opening Rode out dined-wrote some more of my tragedy. some miles into the forest. Misty and rainy. Returned"Read Diodorus Siculus-turned over Seneca, and some other books. Wrote some more of the tragedy. Took a glass of grog. After having ridden hard in rainy weather, and scribbled, and scribbled again, the spirits (at least mine) need a little exhilaration, and I don't like laudanum now as I used to do. So I have mixed a glass of strong waters and single waters, which I shall now proceed to empty. Therefore and thereunto I conclude this day's diary.

"The effect of all wines and spirits upon me is, however, strange. It settles, but it makes me gloomy-gloomy But it composes for a time, though sullenly. at the very moment of their effect, and not gay hardly ever.

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1814, Moore-the poet' par excellence, and he deserves it"I have just thought of something odd. In the year and I were going together, in the same carriage, to dine with Earl Grey, the Capo Politico of the remaining whigs. Murray, the magnificent-the illustrious publisher of that name-had just sent me a Java Gazette, I know not why, or wherefore. Pulling it out, by way of curiosity, we found it to contain a dispute-the said Java Gazette-on Moore's merits and mine. I think, if I had been there, that I could have saved them the trouble of disputing on the subject. But there is fame for you at six-and-twenty! Alexander had conquered India at the same age; but I doubt if he was disputed about, or his conquests compared with those of Indian Bacchus, at Java.

"It was great fame to be named with Moore; greater to be compared with him; greatest-pleasure, at least-to be with him; and, surely an odd coincidence, that we should be dining together while they were quarrelling about us beyond the equinoctial line.

"Well, the same evening I met Lawrence the painter, and heard one of Earl Grey's daughters-a fine, tall, spiritlooking girl, with much of the patrician thorough-bred look of her father, which I dote upon-play on the harp, so modestly and ingeniously, that she looked music. Well, would rather have had my talk with Lawrence-who talked delightfully-and heard the girl, than have had all the fame of Moore and me put together.

"The only pleasure of fame is, that it paves the way to pleasure; and the more intellectual our pleasure, the better for the pleasure and for us too. It was, however, agreeable to have heard our fame before dinner, and a girl's harp after."

Several pieces of unpublished poetry, of great beauty and interest, are scattered throughout the volume. We have room for only the following stanzas ;

STANZAS.

"Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story, The days of our youth are the days of our glory; And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty, Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

"What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?

'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled.
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!
What care I for the wreath that can only give glory?
"Oh, Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee; Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee; When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory."

Having now exerted ourselves, to the best of our ability, to take off the first edge of our readers' curiosity, we shall return to this important work more methodically and argumentatively next week.

Songs; by the Ettrick Shepherd. Now first Collected. Edinburgh. William Blackwood. 1831. 12mo. HAVING been favoured with a copy of this work in sheets, we should have noticed it sooner, had our Christmas or New-Year's-Day number contained reviews. We now hasten to introduce it to the acquaintance of our readers, fully satisfied that it will speedily acquire an extensive and well-merited popularity.

Wi' rocks o' the Nevis and Garny
We'd rattle him off frae our shore,
Or lull him asleep in a cairny,
An' sing him-Lochaber no more!
Stanes an' bullets an' a',
Bullets an' stanes an' a':
We'll finish the Corsican callan
Wi' stanes an' bullets an' a'!

"For the Gordon is good in a hurry,

An' Campbell is steel to the bane, An' Grant, an' M'Kenzie, an' Murray, An' Cameron will hurkle to nane; The Stuart is sturdy an' loyal,

An' sae is M'Leod an' M'Kay; An' I, their gudebrither, M'Donald, Shall ne'er be the last in the fray! Brogues an' brochin an' a', Brochin an' brogues an' a'; An' up wi' the bonny blue bonnet, The kilt an' the feather an' a' !"*

is the following beautiful little lyric : In a different strain, full of tenderness and simplicity,

THE BROOM SAE GREEN

Having so recently taken occasion to speak of the Shepherd's peculiar talents, we shall not revert to the subject at present; but, as the best mode of recommending the volume before us to the favour of our readers, we shall enrich our columns with a few of its songs, together" Is my greatest favourite at present,-probably because the air is with the graphic and characteristic notes with which they are accompanied.

We shall begin with the first song in the volume. It is full of that spirit-stirring humour which the Scotch people are fond of mingling with their patriotism. The notes which accompany it are curious and amusing:

DONALD MACDONALD.

"I place this song the first, not on account of any intrinsic merit that it possesses,-for there it ranks rather low,-but merely because it was my first song, and exceedingly popular when it first appeared. I wrote it when a barefooted lad herding lambs on the Blackhouse Heights, in utter indignation at the threatened invasion from France. But after it had run through the Three Kingdoms, like fire set to heather, for ten or twelve years, no one ever knew or enquired who was the author.-It is set to the old air, Woo'd an' married an' a.' "My name it is Donald Macdonald,

I leeve in the Heelands sae grand;
I hae follow'd our banner, and will do,
Wherever my Maker has land.
When rankit amang the blue bonnets,
Nae danger can fear me ava;

I ken that my brethren around me
Are either to conquer or fa'.
Brogues an' brochin an' a',
Brochin an' brogues an' a';
An' is nae her very weel aff

Wi' her brogues an' brochin an' a'?

"What though we befriendit young Charlie ?—

To tell it I dinna think shame;
Poor lad, he cam to us but barely,

An' reckon'd our mountains his hame.

"Twas true that our reason forbade us;

But tenderness carried the day ;

Had Geordie come friendless amang us,
Wi' him we had a' gane away.
Sword an' buckler an' a',

Buckler an' sword an' a';

Now for George we'll encounter the devil,
Wi' sword an' buckler an' a'!

"An' O, I wad eagerly press him The keys o' the East to retain ; For should he gie up the possession,

We'll soon hae to force them again.
Than yield up an inch wi' dishonour,
Though it were my finishing blow,
He aye may depend on M'Donald,
Wi' his Heelanders a' in a row:

Knees an' elbows an' a',
Elbows an' knees an' a';
Depend upon Donald M'Donald,
His knees an' elbows an' a'!

"Wad Bonaparte land at Fort-William,
Auld Europe nae longer should grane;
I laugh when I think how we'd gall him,
Wi' bullet, wi' steel, an' wi' stane;

my own, as well as the verses; for I find I have a particular facility in approving of such things. It is beautifully set by Bishop, in Goulding and D'Almaine's Select Scottish Melodies.

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Lang I sat by the broom sae green, An' O, my heart was eerie ! For aye this strain was breathed within, Your laddie will no come near ye! Lie still, thou wee bit fluttering thing, What means this weary wavering? Nae heart returns thy raptured spring, Your laddie will no come near ye!

"His leifu' sang the robin sung

On the bough that hung sae near me, Wi' tender grief my heart was wrung, For O, the strain was dreary! The robin's sang it couldnae be That gart the tear-drap blind my ee; How ken'd the wee bird on the tree That my laddie wad no come near me? "The new-wean'd lamb on yonder lea It bleats out through the braken, The herried bird upon the tree

Mourns o'er its nest forsaken ;If they are wae, how weel may I? Nae grief like mine aneath the sky, The lad I loe he cares nae by

Though my fond heart is breaking!"

"I once heard the above song sung in the theatre at Lancaster, when the singer substituted the following lines of his own for the last verse:

For Jock Bull he is good in a hurry,
And Sawney is steel to the bane,
An' wee Davie Welsh is a widdy,
An' Paddy will hurkle to nane :
They'll a' prove baith sturdy and loyal,
Come dangers around them what may,
An' I, their gudebrither, M'Donald,

Shall ne'er be the last in the fray!' &c.

It took exceedingly well, and was three times encored, and there was I sitting in the gallery, applauding as much as any body. My vanity prompted me to tell a jolly Yorkshire manufacturer that night, that I was the author of the song. He laughed excessively at my assumption, and told the landlady that he took me for a halfcrazed Scots pedlar.

"Another anecdote concerning this song I may mention; and I do it with no little pride, as it is a proof of the popularity of Donald M'Donald among a class, to inspire whom with devotion to the cause of their country was at that time a matter of no little consequence. Happening upon one occasion to be in a wood in Dumfries-shire, through which wood the highroad passed, I heard a voice singing; and a turn of the road soon brought in sight a soldier, who seemed to be either travelling home upon furlough, or returning to his regiment. When the singer approached nearer, I distinguished the notes of my own song of Donald M'Donald. As the lad proceeded with his song, he got more and more into the spirit of the thing, and on coming to the end,

An' up wi' the bonny blue bonnet,
The kilt an' the feather an' a'!'

in the height of his enthusiasm, he hoisted his cap on the end of his staff, and danced it about triumphantly. I stood ensconced behind a tree, and heard and saw all without being observed."

There is a delicate and touching pathos in the two last lines of the second verse of the above song:

"How ken'd the wee bird on the tree

That my laddie wad no come near me?"

But the Shepherd's versatility is great; and we are not aware of any species of Scotch song in which he is not at home. Let us take, as our next example, "The Women Fo'k," a ballad we have heard him sing a hundred times, with all a bard's enthusiasm, in the presence of many a fair and smiling damsel; and heartily do we agree with him in declaring that no one else will ever sing it so well again :

THE WOMEN FO'K.

"The air of this song is my own. It was first set to music by Heather, and most beautifully set too. It was afterwards set by Dewar, whether with the same accompaniments or not, I have forgot. It is my own favourite humorous song, when forced to sing by ladies against my will, which too frequently happens; and, notwithstanding my wood-notes wild, it will never be sung by any so well again.— For the air, sce the Border Garland.

"O sairly may I rue the day

I fancied first the womenkind;

For aye sinsyne I ne'er can hae

Ae quiet thought or peace o' mind!

They hae plagued my heart an' pleased my ee,
An' teased an' flatter'd me at will,

But aye, for a' their witcherye,
The pawky things I loe them still.

O the women fo'k! O the women fo'k!
But they hae been the wreck o' me;
O weary fa' the women fo'k,

For they winna let a body be!

"I hae thought an' thought, but darena tell,
I've studied them wi' a' my skill,
I've lo'ed them better than mysell,
I've tried again to like them ill.
Wha sairest strives, will sairest rue,
To comprehend what nae man can ;
When he has done what man can do,
He'll end at last where he began.
O the women fo'k, &c.

"That they hae gentle forms an' meet,
A man wi' half a look may see;
An' gracefu' airs, an' faces sweet,

An' waving curls aboon the bree;
An' smiles as saft as the young rose-bud,
An' een sae pawky, bright, an' rare,
Wad lure the laverock frae the cludd-
But, laddie, seek to ken nae mair!
O the women fo'k, &c.

"Even but this night, nae farther gane,
The date is neither lost nor lang,

I tak ye witness ilka ane,

How fell they fought an' fairly dang.
Their point they've carried right or wrang,
Without a reason, rhyme, or law,

An' forced a man to sing a sang,
That ne'er could sing a verse ava.

O the women fo'k! O the women fo'k!
But they hae been the wreck o' me ;

O weary fa' the women fo'k,

For they winna let a body be."

Our friend the Shepherd is not very well pleased, it appears, with Mr Moore, whom he flatly accuses of jealousy; and, we must confess, with some show of reason, when we find that the agreeable author of the "National Melodies" refused to sanction the publication of a song like the following:

THE MINSTREL BOY

"Was written as a per contra to Mr Moore's song to the same air. But either he or his publishers, or both, set up their birses, and caused it and a great many more to be cancelled,-the most ridiculous of all things, in my opinion, I ever knew. It was manifestly because they saw mine were the best. Let them take that! as Gideon Laidlaw said when the man died who had cheated him.

"The Minstrel Boy to the glen is gone,
In its deepest dells you'll find him,

Where echoes sing to his music's tone,

And fairies listen behind him.
He sings of nature all in her prime,

Of sweets that round him hover,
Of mountain heath and moorland thyme,
And trifles that tell the lover.

"How wildly sweet is the minstrel's lay,

Through cliffs and wild woods ringing,
For, ah! there is love to beacon his way,
And hope in the song he's singing!
The bard may indite, and the minstrel sing,
And maidens may chorus it rarely;
But unless there be love in that heart within,
The ditty will charm but sparely."

This is different from Moore's "Minstrel Boy," but it is scarcely inferior. Our readers will peruse the following with interest:

O, WEEL BEFA' THE MAIDEN GAY.

"This song was written at Elleray, Mr Wilson's seat in Westmoreland, where a number of my very best things were written. There was a system of competition went on there, the most delightful that I ever engaged in. Mr Wilson and I had a Queen's Wake every wet day-a fair set-to who should write the best poem between breakfast and dinner, and, if I am any judge, these friendly competitious produced several of our best poems, if not the best ever written on the same subjects before. Mr Wilson, as well as Southey and Wordsworth, had all of them a way of singing out their poetry in a loud sonorous key, which was very impressive, but perfectly ludicrous. Wilson, at that period, composed all his poetry, by going over it in that sounding strain; and in our daily competitions, although our rooms were not immediately adjoining, I always overheard what progress he was making. When he came upon any grand idea, he opened upon it full swell, with all the energy of a fine fox-hound on a hot trail. If I heard many of these vehement aspirations, they weakened my hands and discouraged my heart, and I often said to myself, Gudefaith, it's a' ower wi' me for this day! When we went over the poems together in the evening, I was always anxious to learn what parts of the poem had excited the sublime breathings which I had heard at a distance, but he never could tell me.

"There was another symptom. When we met at dinner-time, if Mr Wilson had not been successful in pleasing himself, he was desperate sulky for a while, though he never once missed brightening up, and making the most of the subject. I never saw better sport than we had in comparing these poems. How manfully each stood out for the merits of his own! But Mrs Wilson generally leaned to my side, nominally at least. I wrote the "Ode to Superstition" there, which, to give Mr Wilson justice, he approved of most unequivocally. He wrote "The Ship of the Desert" against it-a thing of far greater splendour, but exceedingly extravagant. I likewise wrote "The Stranger" and "Isabelle" there, both to be found in the Poetic Mirror; and I know some of the poems that Mr Wilson wrote against these too, if I were at liberty to tell. The one he wrote that day on which I composed the following song, was not a song, but a little poem in his best style. What with sailing, climbing the mountains, driving with Bob to all the fine scenery, dining with poets and great men, jymnastics (as Wilson spells it in the Noctes), and going to tell our friends that we were not coming to dine with them-these were halcyon days, which we shall never see again!

"O, weel befa' the maiden gay,
In cottage, bught, or penn,
An' weel befa' the bonny May
That wons in yonder glen,

Wha loes the modest truth sae weel,
Wha's aye sae kind, an' aye sae leal,
An' pure as blooming asphodel
Amang sae mony men!

O, weel befa' the bonny thing
That wons in yonder glen!

"'Tis sweet to hear the music float

Along the gloaming lea;

'Tis sweet to hear the blackbird's note
Come pealing frae the tree;
To see the lambkin's lightsome race—
The speckled kid in wanton chase-
The young deer cower in lonely place,
Deep in her flowing den;
But sweeter far the bonny face
That smiles in yonder glen!

"O, had it no' been for the blush
O' maiden's virgin flame,

Dear beauty never had been known,

An' never had a name;

But aye sin' that dear thing o' blame
Was modell'd by an angel's frame,
The power o' beauty reigns supreme
O'er a' the sons o' men ;
But deadliest far the sacred flame
Burns in a lonely glen!

"There's beauty in the violet's vest

There's hinney in the hawThere's dew within the rose's breast, The sweetest o' them a'.

The sun will rise an' set again,
An' lace wi' burning gowd the main-
The rainbow bend outower the plain,
Sae lovely to the ken;

But lovelier far my bonny thing

That wons in yonder glen !"

We have room for only one more song. It is one which, for simple pathos, is not surpassed by any other in the language:

A FATHER'S LAMENT.

"A young friend of mine, whom I greatly admired for every manly and amiable virtue, was cut off suddenly in the flower of his age, (Mr R An.) The next time that I visited the family, his parent's distress and expressions of fond remembrance affected me so deeply, that I composed the following verses in his character. I likewise composed an air for it, which I thought adapted to the words. It is finely set by Bishop, in his Select Melodies.

"How can you bid this heart be blithe,
When blithe this heart can never be?
I've lost the jewel from my crown-

Look round our circle, and you'll see
That there is ane out o' the ring
Who never can forgotten be
Ay, there's a blank at my right hand,
That ne'er can be made up to me!

""Tis said as water wears the rock,

That time wears out the deepest line;
It may be true wi' hearts enow,

But never can apply to mine.
For I have learn'd to know and feel-
Though losses should forgotten be—
That still the blank at my right hand
Can never be made up to me!

"I blame not Providence's sway,
For I have many joys beside,
And fain would I in grateful way
Enjoy the same, whate'er betide.
A mortal thing should ne'er repine,
But stoop to the Supreme decree;
Yet, oh! the blank at my right hand
Can never be made up to me!"

We could go on multiplying quotations of a similar kind for a long while, but ex pede Herculem. This volume of Songs cannot fail to find its way over the whole country; and on the shelves of many a library—in the recess of many a lowly window-on the top of many an antique chest of drawers, it will take its place side by side with the Poems of Burns.

A New Gazetteer of Scotland. By Robert Chambers, Author of the "Picture of Scotland," and William Chambers, Author of the " Book of Scotland." Nos. I. and II. Edinburgh. Thomas Ireland. 1831. THIS is a very neat, a very useful, and a very amusing work. The typography is good-the different articles are, in general, amusing and well written ;-and, as a book of reference, it is of great value. All our readers have, without doubt, experienced the teazing sensation attendant upon the rencontre in a newspaper, or history, of the name of some district or locality in our native land, the precise relative situation of which we cannot figure to ourselves, either because we have forgotten it, or, for a still better reason, because we never knew it. There is

a restless and feverish curiosity hereby excited, and along with it a painful degree of shame, that we should not know places to which we are so closely bound. For all such evils which flesh is heir to, the Gazetteer of Messrs Chambers is a sovereign and infallible remedy. It shall henceforth, (that is, as soon as it is completed,) neatly bound, occupy a constant place upon our table. We should as soon think of displacing the Edinburgh Almanack, or the Rhyming Dictionary. In short, we do not know how we got on without it before, but we are certain we cannot now dispense with it. It is like tea and potatoes, which our stupid ancestors never seem to have discovered that they wanted; but what a life were this if they should now be taken from us!

The following dissertation upon the nature and origin of those tracts of country to which, in Scotland, the name of "Carse" has been applied, is a fair specimen of the manner in which the work is executed:

THE CARSES OF GOWRIE, STIRLING, FALKIRK, &c. "Modern investigation, assisted by the light of science, has discovered what was long a matter of justifiable conjecture, that these various carses, or flat stretches of land, on the margins of great rivers, have been formed by the deposition of alluvial matter, and the capricious change of the watercourses. By the discovery of the bones of large marine animals, imbedded many feet below the surface of the soil, it has been satisfactorily demonstrated that such places must have been at one period-and that an epoch long subsequent to the supposed general mixture at the delugewithin the flow of the sea. Some years ago, the perfect skeleton of a whale was found at Airthrie, in the Carse of Stirling, many miles from the sea, or the Firth of Forth, and a considerable distance from the present course of the river. Articles of artificial formation, such as anchors, have been from time to time exposed in the Carse of Falkirk, within the memory of men now alive; and many other cir cumstances prove that the whole of these two beautiful prairies have been gradually formed from the alluvium of the adjacent stream. The very nature of the soils of these two carses is probative of the theory. The land is generally a reddish, or at least a coloured stiff clay, capable of producing certain kinds of crops in great abundance. The most remarkable changes in the physiognomy of the country have been produced in the Carse of Gowrie and Strathearn. Here the rivers Tay and Earn have doubtless altered their course, and circumscribed their limits in a number of ways. The traditions of the country people, although always suspicious, are generally worthy of some credit, especially when local appearances give them countenance. It is a common tradition, that the Tay, instead of forming the southern boundary of the Carse of Gowrie, formerly bounded it on the north, running under the Sidlaw Hills; and it is related that rings for the tying up of boats have been found attached to the rocks near the supposed obsolete course. The usual tale is, that the Tay turned off from its present course about two miles below Perth, and, making the circuit described, fell into the Firth, at the eastern extremity of the Carse; the Earn occupied by itself the channel of the two (now) united rivers. They ran along all the way down the Carse, parallel to, and at no great distance from each other, winding round, and almost isolating various rising grounds which lay between them, and which, from that circumstance, were called Inches, or islands, as Inchira, Meginch, Inchmartin, Inchmichael, Inchture, and others. A countryman, having drawn a furrow with his plough from the Tay along a low field which he wished to irrigate, caused the whole river to take this direction, and to How into the course of the Earn, leaving its former channel bare, and detracting from the Inches their pristine insular character. Another result has been, that the Tay now appears to flow into the Earn as a tributary, instead of sustaining its real character as a principal. Wild and improbable as this story may appear, it is borne partly out by local facts. It is the opinion of the present writers that the whole of that district of country, or space forming the beds of the Tay and Earn, with the carses on their banks, from that part of the Tay where it becomes shallow, a few miles above Dundee, to the eminences which bound the Carse of Strathearn on the west, was, at an early period, one immense lagoon, or jungle, such as is now seen on the continent of America, wherein was a trackless labyrinth of watercourses, pools, brushwood, and forest trees. How

Into this

We

or when the aboriginal forest disappeared, or the waters of between the river Earn and the Ochils on the south, there is the swamp betook themselves to defined channels, are ques- an elevation which receives the popular designation of Tertions which no writer can answer. It is only a matter of nave, a word, in all likelihood, deduced from Terræ Navis, certainty that the country continued in a condition far for the very good reason, that the hillock has the precise from reclaimed after the land became inhabited, because the shape and appearance of a ship turned upside down. It etymologies of the names of places now in use are signifi- seems, in fact, as if a ship had been laid on the ground with cant of the original nature of their respective localities. By its keel uppermost, and then, by the caprice of an enchanter, these names we further discover that the district was the changed to earth, with a coating of fine grass. The neighhabitation of beasts of prey and animals of the chase. bouring inhabitants are not decidedly of opinion that TerBoars, wolves, and foxes, from such a deduction, must have nave was ever a ship, which, like ordinary vessels, sailed been the common inhabitants of the thickets and wilds. It upon the sea; but they are firmly of belief that, whether an has been shown by the ingenious naturalist, the Rev. Dr enchanted ship or not, there is something uncanny about it, Fleming of Flisk, that what is now the bed of the Tay was and that it is under the special care of supernatural beings. once a forest, and this is proved by the discovery of the roots To support such a position, they give the following traditionof trees, still in their natural position, within low water-ary story-Many years ago, a poor man in the parish remark; immense beds of clay, full of the leaves of fresh- quired a few divots or turfs, to lay upon the rigging' of his water plants; also beds of peat, containing hazel nuts in cottage, and having often remarked the beauty and closeness great quantities; deposits of shell-marl, and other remains of the sward of Ternave, he resolved, whatever might come equally significant. The process of forming dry arable of it, to cast from its surface the quantity of divots he reland, out of the sludge of a shallow river, easily diverted quired. Proceeding, therefore, with a spade suitable to his from its course, has been pursued, first by Nature, and, in purpose, he soon arrived by the side of the hillock and comthe second place, by Art. The cause of the windings or menced operations. But it is said that he got no more than links of the Forth may be referred to a something so tri- one incision made with impunity. From the opening befling, that it is hardly worthy of belief. The fall of a tree neath his spade, there issued the figure of an old man, dressed has sent a stream in a new direction; the slight opposition in the fashion of ane auncient mariner,' who, with violent offered by the edge of a stone, has directed the water into gesticulations, motioned him to begone, and forbade him an opposite course. On a smaller scale, the whole opera- ever again to attempt to injure the sides of his vessel, under tion may be seen in the case of a rivulet meandering through a deadly penalty, and having done so, instantly disappeared the bottom of a meadow. The growth of the land is like- within the opening of the half-lifted turf. It need scarcely wise of no difficult solution. The grounds of the carse are be added, that the divot-caster required no second warning. the deposition of particles of earthy matter, washed down He withdrew his spade in a qualm of terror and awe; and, by the floods from the upper country, mingled with the re- having come home and mentioned the circumstance to his siduum of forest trees and decayed vegetables. It is interest-neighbours, from that day to this (continues the relater of ing to view the spectacle of the reclaiming of land from the the story) no person in the parish, be the condition of the Tay, now in operation, at the instance of both nature and art.‘rigging' what it may, has molested the enchanted ship, or This large and fine river is constantly bringing down from the ruffled the beauty of its verdant covering." recesses of the Highlands, an infinitude of particles of sand or other matter, individually so small, that they cannot be seen by the naked eye, and whose presence is only known by the colour they infuse in the water. These particles are not carried out to sea. They are arrested by the tides opposite the carse ground above noticed, and, sinking to the bottom, they imperceptibly form a fine species of mire. In the course of time, this mire rises to the surface of the estuary. It is first left dry at ordinary high tides, and next becomes visible at the height of spring tides. very long while, it forms merely long bare reaches at low water, and at these ebbs of the tide, a person might, from appearances, be of opinion, that he could walk across the bed of the estuary with little difficulty. Floods and high impetuous tides at last drift so much matter on these rising reaches and half-formed islets, that they remain, at all times, above water, and finally, by the action of the winds in blowing thither the seeds of plants, or by other causes beyond the reach of human discovery, the land so formed is covered with a rich herbage, shrubs, plants of a various nature, and even trees. In the bed of the Tay there have risen, in this manner, Grange Island, Rhind Island, Cairney Islands, Carpow Island, Chisbinny Island, and Mugdrum Island, and perhaps these islands may, at a future day, be joined to each other, or to the mainland on one side, so as to offer a complete specimen, in modern times, of the way in which the great body of the carses have sprung into existence. The ingenuity and wisdom of man are hastening, though not with a very creditable rapidity, the extension of the dry land on the banks of the Tay, and gradually diminishing the unprofitable breadth of its channel. The work of creation is going on chiefly upon the Fife side, a short way below Newburgh. Rude piers or dikes are run out from the shore, to the length of a few yards, at certain distances from each other, and at every flux of the tide, a small portion of the mire is left betwixt them. Little by little, the margin of the land is protruded farther and farther into the water, and when it has reached the outer termination of the dikes, additional projections are made, and the same result follows of an increase of land. In this way many flat fertile fields have been added to this portion of Fife; and, judging from a superficial calculation, it would seem to be no difficult matter to hem in the Tay to a narrow deep channel on the Perthshire side, thereby not only increasing the quantity of productive land to a vast amount, but doing much for the benefit of navigation. An old writer on this part of Scotland, relates a circumstance, significant of the former maritime condition of Strathearn, and the superstitious feelings of the people. In this district,

The reader will find, in another department of our Journal, some remarks, by a valued correspondent, upon the article" St Andrews," in the Gazetteer. controversy we do not propose to enter at present. hold with Sir Roger de Coverley-that much may be said on both sides. We have it in contemplation, also, to enter at large upon the discussion of our Scotch University system ere long. This, however, we may remark, For a that it would be putting a work of this kind to too severe a test, to pass every article, seriatim, under the review of a person who possessed peculiar, and perhaps exclusive, sources of information respecting the district described in it.

The Westminster Review. No. XXVII. January, 1831.

London. Robert Hewerd.

The New Monthly Magazine. No. CXXI. January,
1831. London. Colburn and Bentley.
The Aberdeen Magazine.

deen.

Lewis Smith.

No. I. January, 1831. Aber

political, but in these times this must be the natural ten-
THE present number of the Westminster Review is very
dency of all the larger periodicals. The Westminster is of
course democratical, and to a degree which, to us, albeit
we have nothing to do with politics, is somewhat de trop.
At the present moment, when we see old constitutions
breaking up all around us, and when what the Solicitor-
General calls the "despotism of public opinion," is at-
tempting to sweep away the established principles and
maxims of centuries, we cannot help thinking that a noble
opportunity offers itself to those who are disposed to de-
fend, not bigotedly, but with firmness and judgment, the
institutions of their ancestors. "Public opinion" must of
course have its way; but public opinion is one thing, and
the opinions of the people of the mob-are another. In
every well-governed state, the great body of the popula-
tion has hitherto allowed itself to be regulated by the
enlightened few; but the spirit of these latter days seems
to inculcate the belief, that physical strength implies
moral right—a false and dangerous doctrine.
crew are at all times much stronger than their officers,

A ship's

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