ไป mental world; all the hoarded treasures of the primeval dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its yet unexplored mines. This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power have, for more than twenty centuries, been annihilated; her people have degenerated into timid slaves; her language, into a barbarous jargon; her temples have been given up to the successive depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but her intellectual empire is imperishable. And, when those who have rivalled her greatness shall have shared her fate; when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents; when the sceptre shall have passed away from England; when, perhaps, travellers from distant regions shall in vain labor 15 to decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief; shall hear savage hymns chanted to some misshapen idol over the ruined dome of our proudest temple, and shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of the ten thousand masts, her influence and 20 her glory will still survive, fresh in eternal youth, exempt from mutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual principle from which they derived their origin, and over which they exercise their control. [In 1745, Charles Edward, grandson of James II, landed in Scotland, and soon gathered around him an army with which he marched into England, in order to regain possession of the throne from which his ancestors had been driven. He was brilliantly successful at first, and penetrated into England as far as Derby; but he was then obliged to retreat, and, after many disasters, his army was entirely defeated by the English, under command of the Duke of Cumberland, at Culloden. Lochiel, the head of the warlike clan of the Camerons, was one of the most powerful of the Highland chieftains, and a zealous supporter of the claims of Charles Edward. Among the Highlanders are certain persons supposed to have the gift of second sight; that is, the power of foreseeing future events Lochiel, on his way to join Charles Edward, is represented as meeting one of these seers, who endeavors in vain to dissuade him from his purpose.] 1 2 [SEER, LOCHIEL.] SEER. Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array! O weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead; Culloden, that recks with the blood of the brave. seer; Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright. SEER. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn? From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the north? But down let him stoop from his havoc on high! *The poetical name of Scotland. 4 5 Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, my clan; Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one! SEER. Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day! Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight: Aluding to the perilous adventures and final escape of Charles, after the battle of Culloden. 6 'T is finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors, But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where? Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn, The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier; Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell Where his heart shall be thrown ere it ceases to beat, LOCHIEL. Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale. Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore, Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore, Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe! Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame. [WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN was born in the county of Fife, in Scotland, in 1813, and died August 4, 1865. He was called to the Scotch bar in 1840, and in 1845 was elected to the professorship of rhetoric and belles-lettres in the University of Edinburgh, which he held till his death. He was a prominent contributor to "Blackwood's Magazine." The following extract is from the "Lays of the Scotch Cavaliers," a collection-irring ballads illustrating the history of Scotland. James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, was executed in Edinburgh, May 21, 1650, for an attempt to overthrow the power of the commonwealth, and restore Charles II. The ballad is a narrative of the event, supposed to be related by an aged Highlander, who had followed Montrose throughout his campaigns, to his grandson, Evan Cameron. Lochaber is a district of Scotland in the southwestern part of the county of Inverness. Dundee is a seaport town in the county of Forfar. Inverlochy was a castle in Inverness-shire. Montrose was betrayed by a man named MacLeod of Assynt. Dunedin is the Gaelic name for Edinburgh. Warristoun was Archibald Johnston of Warristoun, an inveterate enemy of Montrose.] COME hither, Evan Cameron! Come, stand beside my knee. I hear the river roaring down towards the wintry sea; There's shouting on the mountain-side, there's war within the blast, Old faces look upon me, old forms go trooping past; I hear the pibroch wailing amidst the din of fight, And my dim spirit wakes again upon the verge of night. "T was I that led the Highland host through wild Lochaber's snows, A traitor sold him to his foes; O deed of deathless shame! I charge thee, boy, if e'er thou meet with one of Assynt's name Be it upon the mountain's side, or yet within the glen, Stand he in martial gear alone, or backed by arméd men Face him, as thou wouldst face the man who wronged thy sire's re nown; Remember of what blood thou art, and strike the caitiff down. They brought him to the Watergate, hard bound with hempen span, throng, And blew the note with yell and shout, and bade him pass along. But when he came, though pale and wan, he looked so great and high, |