did come to an end, and the Magistrates were apparently successful in the main part of the case. An action was then raised in the Teind Court by Mr. Alexander Macbean and Mr. Murdoch Mackenzie, ministers at Inverness, against the Heritors, for an augmentation of stipend. At the outset the Magistrates did not oppose this action. As they afterwards said, "they and every individual of the town being perfectly sensible of the pursuers, their not being provided in a stipend near adequate to the weight and importance of the Charge, or what the Teinds of the parish. could admit of, did therefore consider it an improper thing in them to state themselves as defenders, or to give any opposition to the pursuers in an action so much founded on justice." But, according to themselves, they had a rude awakening. The passage just quoted is from a petition presented for them to the Teind Court on 24th February, 1755, and the tone of mild reproach of the immediately succeeding sentence is somewhat amusing. "At the same time," they say, "they did not expect that the pursuers (the ministers) would have taken decreet against the town for sums not concluded for, or in payment of which they knew the town could not by law be subjected, neither did they expect that the other Heritors, by a misrepresentation of facts, would have endeavoured to load the town with the payment of sums to which they must have known themselves to be duly liable, but in both the petitioners have been mistaken." The cause of this reproachful remonstrance was that, in the interlocutor modifying the stipends, the town was not only ordained to pay 200 merks of stipend out of the Common Good, but to pay each of the ministers "100 merks yearly in lieu of a manse, and to furnish the elements to the Communion, according to use and wont, out of the town's Common Good." The Magistrates say that the interlocutor, so far as concerns the 200 merks of stipend, should be "made somewhat more explicit," and they go on to explain that in 1665 the then incumbents of the parish obtained a decreet of modification and locality, according to which there is payable out of the lands held in feu by the Provost, Bailies, and Council of Inverness of the Kirk thereof, 100 merks of old locality paid out of the Common Good of the Burgh, and another 100 merks money out of the Common Good, which was accepted by the pursuers of the decreet for themselves and their successors serving the Cure, being in lieu of what was promised by the Magistrates' predecessors to the ministers serving the Cure, according to an Act of Council, dated 11th February, 1650, which bears the 100 merks to be then, "and in all time thereafter, in full satisfaction of all that can be challenged or claimed by the ministers or their successors from the said Magistrates, Council, Guildry, or community of the said Burgh, by virtue of the said Act, or any other manner of way." This was certainly explicit enough, and the Magistrates were perfectly right not to allow a bargain of this kind, judicially sanctioned ninety years before, to be lost sight of. With regard to the money decerned for in lieu of manses, and the expense of Communion elements, the Magistrates contended that they were only liable to the extent of their proportion as Heritors of the parish. There were, they said, two manses belonging to the ministers of the parish, but on their becoming "insufficient and unhabitable," the Heritors came to the resolution of paying to each of the ministers 200 merks yearly, in name of house rent, until a proper opportunity should occur of repairing or rebuilding the manses. "Most of the Heritors having failed in paying their proportions, the heavy end of the performance of this agreement fell upon the Petitioners, and their predecessors in office, who could not see their ministers altogether unprovided with houses, and therefore have been in use of paying to each minister 100 merks per annum on that account, and this they did the more readily, as they always understood their ministers to be insufficiently provided in a stipend." They go on to state that for the same reason, in obtaining the Act of Parliament imposing a duty in favour of the town of two pennies on the pint of ale, and expecting that this tax would produce a considerable sum, they, in the year 1720, augmented the ministers' stipend to 1600 merks annually, but that the tax, having produced much less than they expected, and the town having in consequence contracted a debt of £1000 sterling, a sum they have very small prospect of getting soon paid off, they, on obtaining in 1737 a new Act of Parliament continuing the tax for a term of years, were obliged to "withdraw their bounty from the ministers." As to the town being in use to furnish the Communion elements, it is, they say, "altogether a mistake, and 'tis believed neither the pursuers nor Heritors will now aver it." The petition goes on to state that the town's interest in the parish, in point of estate, is £444 7s. 6d. (Scots) of yearly rent, whereof £224 18s. 10d. is land rent, and the remainder feu. Of the land rent, £183 12s. is said to be paid for a "piece of carse ground taken off the sea by building a very high dyke at a great expense, upon which the sea rises sometimes to about twelve feet in height, endangers the breaking down thereof, and thereby losing not only the expense they have been put to, but their rent in all time coming." The lands referred to are those now known as Seabank, recovered from the sea by the embankment at the Longman. The petition does not state when the dyke was built, nor do the Council Records, but it appears that rent was for the first time paid for the reclaimed lands in 1746. It was contended for the Magistrates that these lands could not be subjected in payment of stipend, on account of the manner in which they had been reclaimed from the sea, and because a constant and certain rent could not be said to arise from them, seeing they were liable to be again invaded by the tide; an argument which was ultimately sustained by the Court, but to which the landward Heritors retorted that "this would be a fine plea for some of the provinces of Holland, where the whole country has in former times been gained off the sea, from the overflowing of which it is only defended by their dykes." The ministers and the landward Heritors were apparently as dissatisfied with the stipend modified by the Court as the Magistrates were. "It seems the interlocutor pleased none of the parties," says the town's agent, Mr. William Forbes, in a letter to Provost Hossack, dated 27th February, 1755, and petitions against it were presented for Messrs. Macbean and Mackenzie, the ministers; and for "John Forbes of Culloden, William Duff of Muirton, Alexander Baillie of Dunzean, George Ross of Kinmylies, Esquire, solicitor, at London; Evan Baillie of Aberiachan; and the other Heritors of the parish of Inverness." The petition of the Heritors states that the interlocutor of which they complained modified a stipend which they think "over profuse" for this "corner of the country," and they submit a calculation showing that the existing stipend, with the value of the two glebes, which were let for £19 8s. 10d., and £16 13s. 4d. (sterling) respectively, yielded the ministers £194 7s. 11 d. between them. To this, they say, their Lordships had "been pleased to add" no less than £22 4s. 53d., making the share of each minister £108, which "appears to be a very high stipend." Too high, the Heritors think, for they say (1) the Charge is neither extensive nor laborious, there being three ministers in the town of Inverness, all upon an equal footing; (2) being situated within a Royal Borough, they are not exposed to the incidental expense of entertaining strangers; (3) the third minister, who has but £65 of stipend, lives as decently and contentedly upon his stipend as becometh any gentleman of that profession, and was never heard to complain of his provision being too small; and (4) vivres of all kinds are cheap in Inverness, beef selling throughout the year at 1d. per pound, and other fleshes proportionally cheap. (To be continued.) TO WILLIAM MACPHERSON, ESQ., OF INVERNESS, On receiving from him a copy of The Thistle, a choice collection of Scottish Song, by Colin Brown, Ewing Lecturer, Anderson's College, Glasgow. accompaniments and harmonies by James Merrylees. My faithful friend, thy manly heart Is ever, like thy voice, in tune; I thank thee for thy welcome gift- Of Scotia's songs, a casquet rare, Charmed verses, and sweet melodies; Where master pen and skilful note, Give fame to Brown, to Merrylees. Thy gift shall be to me a spring From which sweet draughts I oft shall draw; And as I drink I'll think of thee When, clansman, thou art far awa'. My faithful friend, thy manly heart Is ever, like thy voice, in tune; I thank thee for thy welcome gift- Instrumental New York, August 27, 1885. DUNCAN MACGREGOR Crerar. THE HEROIC TALES OF THE CELTS. BY ALEX. MACBAIN, M.A., F.S.A. SCOT. THE materials of Irish Mythology have well been divided by M. D'Arbois de Jubainville into three leading parts; there is, first, the mythological cycle which deals with the gods and the ethnology of the country, and which we have treated already (Vol. ix. 124). There are, secondly, the Cuchulain cycle, and, thirdly, the Ossianic cycle, both dealing with the heroes of the race. Between the godcycle and the hero-cycles there is a long break, which is filled up in the histories with meagre details, but full genealogies, of intermediate kings, with now and then an oasis of mythical incident, like Cimbaeth's conquest of the war-goddess, Macha Red-mane, and Labraid Loingseach's hunted youth and punishment of the usurping uncle. A wounderful list it is! Are these kings and chiefs but shadows conjured from the fertile imagination of bards and monks? Most of them undoubtedly are mere genealogical stop-gaps, though a few names and events may have lived on in legend and myth. For, what are the facts in regard to the literary documents of Irish history? None go back in MS. earlier than the year 1100, and the language in which the oldest MS. is written is just the language of the time at which it was written. It is useless to postulate for the composition of the literary matter a date of six centuries or more previously; the writings may be as old as that and older, but their final recension in the 11th century is couched in the language of that time, and great caution must be exercised in sifting out what is and what is not old. At the best, the result remains unsatisfactory, and unsafe to theorise upon. Yet, it must be said that Irish history from after the time of St. Patrick may be trusted, for it can be often tested by contemporary and other documents. When we remember the mythical history of St. Patrick himself, and that he is divisible into three different |