THE BYSTANDER.

No. VI.

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THE SELFISHNESS OF GENEROSITY.

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We have no intention to give into that silly paradox which seeks to prove that all our actions are dictated by selfish motives-a fallacy which the mind can much more easily detect than expose. As it is not our purpose to enter into the discussion at present, we merely remark, that its supposed proof rests upon an exclusive attention to the logical forms of demonstration, and a neglect of that observation or experiment which ought to afford them matter. The general tendency of the time is in a different direction-to sacrifice every thing to mere observation and experiment. Either extreme is bad: the first mentioned leads to positive error, the latter prevents the attainment of truth.

But to come to our subject. When we speak of the selfishness of generosity, we do not mean thereby that calculating spirit which estimates its bounty at the highest rate, and exacts, sooner or later, a return in full. There is no generosity in this; it is a mere mercantile speculation. As little do we mean the profusion with which the fond parent, the lover, and the husband, heap presents upon the object of their affections. It is, in their case, but an attempt to give utterance to a devotedness which words are too feeble to express. It is akin to the feeling which prompts the Catholic devotee to adorn the image of his favourite saint. They gaze with an idolatrous affection upon the beloved object, and seek to enhance her charms by decking her with ornaments, or conveying to her mind some new pleasure that may heighten the charm of her expressive countenance. They act under the impulse of a mental intoxication-a mixture of love and vanity. There can be no generosity where there is not some sense of the worth of the sacrifice; and to them nothing has any value but the object which they doat upon.

By generosity, we mean the power of cheerfully obeying the mandate—“ do as you would be done by"-to its full extent. We mean that active quality of the mind which enables a man to postpone, on all occasions, the consideration of self,-which no sooner sees pain and distress, than it seeks, without any reference to who may be the sufferer, to relieve them, which feels a proud consciousness of power in relinquishing, even at the hazard of self-impoverishment, some just right which might interfere with the happiness or comfort of others. In this motive to action, there is no selfishness. Selfishness implies a direct and conscious reference to our own advantage. It can only admingle with those actions which are dictated by reflection, which have been deliberately weighed and argued beforehand. But generosity is an impulse, an unreflective, elementary emotion of our being, as much as love or aversion. The man who acts in accordance to its dictates, acts thus, simply because it is his nature to do so. In the course of time, reflection may show him that an enlightened regard to his own happiness recommends exactly the same line of conduct,

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and thus strengthen his resolution to pursue it; but this new motive, coming to the support of the other, can in no ways affect its original character. And in like manner, although the man of extended views and acquaintance with the world, must be aware, from his past experience, that self-denial is the source of the purest and most lasting happiness, this does not interfere with or destroy the principle of his constitution, which renders it easy and pleasant for him to practise that virtue. The person who is naturally generous, and he who is of close and selfish habits, may occasionally act in the same manner; but, while the conduct of the one will have the free, buoyant, and spontaneous beauty of one discharging a natural function, the constrained and hesitating gait of the other, will betray that he is acting in accordance with his reason, but against his inclinations. An

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Again, by the selfishness of generosity, we do not mean any taint inhering in the impulse itself, but its tendency, when indulged in to an undue extent, and not sufficiently regulated by reflection, to superinduce a morbid state of mind, characterised by the most engrossing selfishness. There is nothing uncommon in this fact, of an emotion beautiful and pure in itself, fading into one which is just the reverse. Our emotions are either amiable or unamiable; none of them are, properly speaking, either virtuous or vicious,

Virtue is that well-balanced state of mind, that reflective and habitual bravery, which is produced by the control exercised over our emotions by our reasoning faculty. A virtuous mind is not the gift of nature (though an innocent and an amiable are), but of habit and training. It is produced by the mutual reaction of our sentiments and reason. When uncontrolled by the last-mentioned ingredient of our constitution, the mind passes from one emotion to another, in virtue of the most strange and arbitrary associations. Most men must have experienced the instantaneous revulsion by which the most ardent and engrossing love can, by a check from the coldness or caprice of its object, be made to pass into rage. He who the moment before felt it happiness but to sit by the side of the woman he loved, and to gaze upon herwho would gladly have kept "the winds of heaven from visiting her face too roughly," would have esteemed an arduous task imposed upon him a favour, and who drank increase of love even from a sportive trick,-the same person may be driven by a jealous suggestion to address her in the language of hatred and insult, and to feel all that he so violently utters. In the first state of mind he was eminently amiable; in the other, to which he has passed at one sudden bound, he gives all the brutality of his nature to the light. For what can be more revolting than to see one of the stronger sex outraging the delicacy of a woman upon a groundless suspicion? Yet the emotional part of our mind is capable of assuming alike the lovely and the hideous character. It is only the reflective faculty within us, conscious of the repulsive aspect of the latter, that induces us to struggle against its return, and it is only after many unsuccessful contests, that we acquire the power of doing so successfully.

But there is also a way in which indulgence even in the most amiable emotions, has a detrimental influence

upon the character. By yielding ourselves up to their unchecked control, we enervate ourselves and become effeminate. Unaccustomed to allow resection any influence over our indulgence in pleasing senations, we become intellectual voluptuaries. We acquire, as all voluptuaries do, habits of irritability and impatience, when all things do not concur to fill up the measure of our enjoyment. It was such a state of mind as this, that we had in view when we used the expression, "the selfishness of generosity." We have met with people in the world who were capable of the most heroic self-devotion, but who exacted in return an expression of gratitude as fervent and enthusiastic as their own feelings. They did not confer their benefits with a consciousness that it was for such a return. For the moment, they were under the influence of pure and unalloyed beneficence. But they were persons of an enthusiastic and imaginative—of what is termed in society a romantic turn of mind. This disposition many of them had cultivated by the study of poetry and romance. In yielding to the impulse of their natural generosity, they were buoyed up by a full consciousness of the elevated character which the postponement of selfish considerations gives to a man. Accustomed to indulge in and prolong every luxurious throb of feeling, they expected to see, in the conduct of the victims of their beneficence, the expression of an overpowering sense of their superiority, mingled with a passionate excess of gratitude. If their advice was not deferred to on all occasions-if a nature, which, while it feels deeply, has an awkwardness in expressing itself, gave an appear. ance of coldness to the thanks they received, they instantly suspected the presence of ingratitude, and by their peevishness and continued complaints exacted a terrible return for the favour they had conferred.

It is more the existence of tempers such as we have been describing, than of such as are actuated on all occasions by a cool calculating selfishness, that renders it such a delicate and dangerous matter to accept of a favour at the hands of any one. When we know that a favour has

any emotion that may counteract the desire of present gain. Their crime does not consist in spurning the pre. cepts of virtue, but in not being sufficiently susceptible to them.

These reflections, although they do not pretend to furnish any adequate test for determining, in every individual case of a dispute between the giver and receiver of a favour, which is in fault, may, nevertheless, be of use in serving to direct those who are called upon to determine between them, and to moderate their own harsh judgments of each other. In regard to the parties, they enforce in a striking manner the observance of the most important precept of practical ethics-mutual forbearance. The benefactor ought to probe well the motives which have actuated him. If he find that his supposed generosity has been in part a veiled ambition of men's gratitude and admiration, he should remember that his disappointment is but a just reward for his questionable benevolence-that perhaps what he calls ingratitude appears to him as such, merely because, over-rating his services, he has expected a warmer return than was really due to him. On the other hand, the person who has received the favour will struggle against the tendency of our nature to forget, and if at times his patron seem to exact too much, will learn to discriminate between a dignified refusal to yield to undue exactions of homage, and a pettish denial of all merit to one who is merely, like all human beings, not perfect, and who has a sacred and un. alienable hold upon his affection and reverence.

LITERARY CRITICISM.

L.

Archeologia Scotica; or Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Vol. III., Part II., and Vol. IV., Part I. 4to. Edinburgh: William Tait. London: Longman and Co. 1831.

we feel nothing more than the decency of encountering the bestower with an expression of respectful deference— there may even exist between us the complacent feeling which exists between those who, without any decided attachment, feel that they have been, or may be, mutually serviceable to each other. But when warm and sincere gratitude is met by peevishness and suspicion, because it is not reiterated as incessantly as a parrot's chatter, or expressed in a slavish deference, the yoke becomes galling and insupportable. The ceaseless persecution of discontented egoism frets away affection: while a truly generous mind (the word is used here with a somewhat different meaning-as nearly synonymous with noble) is racked by the tormenting consciousness, that a feeling is dying away, to which the conduct of its object at first richly entitled it. Add to this the minor but teasing consideration, that the world, which judges by outward show alone, will infallibly sympathize with the patron the fear of misapprehension.

It is not our intention to deny the existence of ingratitude, or to palliate the conduct of the ungrateful man. There is a natural tendency in the minds of most men to ingratitude. There are few possessed of that rich and retentive character, which receives impressions deep and for eternity. In most men, the remembrance of past events, however warmly cherished for the moment, is gradually and insensibly effaced. They are not like stucco, which hardens around its mould, but like the moist sand of the sea-shore, from the elastic surface of which we see our foot-prints as it were gradually arising, or like the water which closes behind the ship's wake. The present maintains with them an undue preponderance over the past. They are not consciously and resolvedly ungrateful, but the memory of past benefits has faded from their minds-its traces are too faint to excite

the Antiquaries of Scotland. Part III. 1784-1830. (Ordered to be printed, at a meeting of the Council, held on the 14th March, 1831.) Edinburgh. 1831. AFTER an interval of several years, our Antiquarian Society again appears before the public, like a giant refreshed by slumber. It has brought up its lee-way, by publishing at the same time the concluding part of its third, and the first fasciculus of its fourth volume. Along with these appears a continuation of Mr Smellie's account of the institution and progress of the Society, bringing down its history to the close of the session preceding that which has just terminated. After a careful perusal of these volumes, we feel ourselves entitled to compliment the Society, not only upon the vigorous exertion by which this has been accomplished, but upon the decidedly more elevated intellectual character which marks this its last publication, when compared with all the volumes which have preceded it. The office of the antiquarian is, by puzzling out every relic of the olden time, to accumulate by degrees materials for the historian, To the discharge of this task, he ought to bring habits of clear logical arrangement, an acute discernment of the value of evidence, and a knack at distinguishing between what is relevant and what irrelevant to his subject. Now, in the earlier volumes of the Society's Transactions-with all reverence for that illustrious body do we speak-there seemed to be an extreme scarcity of these qualifications among its members. Their subjects of discussion were frequently puerile or old wifish (for by some strange jumbling of our ideas, these words have come to bear an identical meaning), and in treating them, they were apt, as the Germans call it, "to talk in the blue distance," i. e. discuss "the general question." The treatises in the Parts now lying on our table are of a very different character.

First, as bearing upon the history of Scotland, we have a learned and judicious essay on the battle of Mons Grampius, and the campaigns which led to it, by Colonel Millar; infinitely the most satisfactory treatise concerning our vitrified forts that has yet appeared, by Dr Hibbert; an essay by Mr Anderson, W.S., on the site of Macbeth's castle, which throws much incidental light on the history of that monarch; and a number of interest

ing notices, serving to elucidate the connexion between Norway and the Northern and Western coasts of Scotland. Coming nearer to our own times, we have the earlier history of the Clan Gregor, investigated by the Society's indefatigable secretary, Donald Gregory-the first instance on record of a trustworthy history of a Highland clan resting upon contemporary evidence. The

same gentleman contributes some notices relative to the state of Archery in the Highlands, and the latest employment of Bowmen in the Scottish army. To him also is the society indebted for the communication of a Highland obituary, compiled early in the sixteenth century.

Turning next to scrutinize the Society's contributions to the literary history of our country, we find a notice of the life of Hamilton of Bangour, the friend of Ramsay, and author of "Busk ye, busk ye, my bonnie, bonnie bride;" together with a chronological list of his poems, published and unpublished. Mr D. Laing furnishes an account of the Hawthornden MSS., and copious extracts from Drummond's unpublished correspondence and poems. John Gregorson, Esq. of Ardtornish, has allowed the Society to publish some letters from James Gregorie, professor of mathematics at St Andrew's about the end of the seventeenth century, to which some interesting notes have been appended by Professor Wallace. John Gregory, Esq., advocate, has permitted the publication of a commission, granted by the Senatus Academicus to the same Mr James Gregorie, to purchase for them mathematical instruments in England. These, and a great variety of articles of minor importance, show the diligence with which the Society has laboured to elucidate the history of our nation's literary and scientific exer

tions.

The name of Drummond of Hawthornden is classical, and a sufficient warrant to cull from his poetry. The last of the sonnets, which we subjoin, has a stateliness of diction not unworthy of Milton, and preoccupies a theme which has in our day been frequently and successfully dwelt upon,

EDINBURGH.

"Install'd on Hills, hir Head neare starrye bowres,
Shines Edinburgh, proud of protecting powers,
Justice defendes her heart; Religion east

With temples; Mars with towres doth guard the west;
Fresh Nymphes and Ceres seruing, waite upon her,
And Thetis, tributarie, doth her honour.

The sea doth Venice shake, Rome Tiber beates,
Whilst she bot scornes her vassall watteres threats.
For scepters no where standes a Towne more fitt,

My foes strong are, and I a fragill glasse,→→ Howres charged with cares consume my life's small sparke;

Yet, of thy goodness, if I grace obtaine,

My life shall be no losse, my death great gaine."

BEFORE A POEME OF IRENE.

Thy temples razed, thy forts with flames deuour'd,
"Mourne not, faire Greece, the ruine of thy kings,
Thy championes slaine, thy virgines pure deflowred,
Nor all those greifes which sterne Bellona brings !
But mourne, fair Greece! Mourne that that sacred band
Which made thee once so famous by their songs,
Forc't by outrageous fate, haue left thy land,
And left thee scarce a voice to plaine thy wrongs!
Mourne that those climates which to thee appeare
Beyond both Phoebus and his sisteres wayes,
To saue thy deedes from death must lend thee layes,
And such as from Museus thou didst heare!
For now Irene hath attain'd such fame,
That Hero's ghost doth weepe to heare her name."

It has been our endeavour for some time back, to give brief but faithful reports of this Society's proceedings. With the leading features of its most important papers, we may therefore presume that the majority of our readers are acquainted. Selecting at present upon the principle of choosing what is most likely to prove amusing to our readers, we transfer to our pages a letter from the Rev. James Robertson of Callander, to the Hon. James Drummond, giving an account of some Highland Superstitions connected with Hallowe'en. Burns has made every one familiar with the manner in which that festival was celebrated in his time in the Lowlands: the reverend author of the following epistle has done the same good ser¬ vice to the Highlands;

"Callander, 7th March, 1791.

66 Sir,-A letter which I had the honour to receive from Mrs Drummond, dated the 3d curt., conveyed your request, which to me is always a command, that I should write more fully concerning the superstitious customs of the Highlanders upon All-Hallow Eve. I do not remember what was in the small note I made at Drummond Castle; therefore this letter has a chance of being only a repetition.

"I. Upon the last day of Autumn, the people of a small village or hamlet cut down as many ferns as they thought necessary for the fire, which they meant to kindle in the evening.

"In remote ages, it is probable that more people attended each fire than at present, the farm-houses being less scattered than now. They lived in groups of many houses and families, for the purpose of mutual defence against wild beasts or bad people. Besides, that their attendance at this grand anniversary was only possible once a-year, and recommended by a high degree of religious veneration, mixed with an eager desire of prying into futurity, we may suppose that these festivals were well

SONNET.

"Rise to my soule, bright Sunne of Grace, O rise!
Make mee the vigour of thy beams to proue ;
Dissolue the chilling frost which on mee lies,
That makes mee lesse than looke-warm in thy loue.
Grant mee a beamling of thy light aboue
To know my foot-steps, in these tymes, too-wise;
O guyde my course! and let mee no more moue
On wings of sense, where wandring pleasure flyes.

I haue gone wrong and erred; but ah, alas!
What can I else doe in this dungeon dark?

"This custom seems also to have been more ancient than the introduction of agriculture, and points at ruder ages for its origin, perhaps even more remote than the pastoral age, because no straw or any fuel was to be used in the fires, except ferns alone; and the food was principally such fruits as the season and country could afford. The young people collected the ferns; and no ferns were to be taken but such as were cut down that very day.

"As soon as it began to be dark, even before daylight was gone, the whole people who had an interest in the bonfire assembled at a convenient and contiguous emiThe fire was kindled with many expressions of Large fires are, among many nations, expressions of national rejoicings; and it is well known that in very large tracts of Asia, fire was not only employed in reli

nence.

joy.

gious ceremonies, but was itself held in veneration, and obtained divine honours.

"But, that I may not digress from my subject, when the ancient Caledonians had, with many gesticulations and mirth, attended their fire till it was spent, every person in the company got a small stone, such as they could conveniently carry in one hand, and distinguishable by some particular mark, that each stone might be easily known from every other stone. The oldest person laid down the first stone upon the very verge or circumference of the ashes of their fire, saying to the rest that this stone was his. All the rest were prepared to do the same, and took precedency according to their seniority, until the whole stones formed a circle round the spot on which the fire had burnt. And if any person was absent, the rest put in a stone for their absent friend. This was generally done by the nearest relation of the absentee. "Whether this circle of stones was in imitation of the circles of stones at which they usually assembled for their ordinary and regular worship, or whether it was in imitation of the roundness of their fire, or out of respect to the circular appearance of the sun, the great fountain of fire, I will not pretend to say. It is probable, that both the circle of stones in their ordinary places of worship, and the circle of stones upon All-Hallow Eve, and many other circles they made, were with an allusion to the figure of the sun.

"To this day, when the Highlanders go round any thing with a degree of religious veneration, they go round in the same direction as the sun goes round the world on this side the equator, i. e. from east to west, by the south side. This is the direction in which a bride is placed by her bridegroom, when they stand up to be married; the direction in which the bridegroom turns round the bride to give the first kiss after the nuptial ceremony; the direction in which they go at least half round a grave before the coffin is deposited; the direction in which they go round any consecrated fountain, whose waters are supposed to have some medicinal virtues, which they expect to receive by immersion or drinking. I have heard it said that, in certain places of the Highlands, the people sometimes took off their bonnets to the sun when he appeared first in the morning.

"I ask your pardon for leaving my subject for this custom, which they call the lucky or fortunate way of turning round, and the opposite direction, the ominous or unfortunate way.

"I at least gave time to the good people to return from the bonfire to their houses, which they did with much anxiety. The person whose stone was turned out of its place, and the tread of whose foot was to be found in the ashes next morning, was supposed to be doomed to die before the end of twelve months. No person went near that haunted place all night; but by the break of day it was approached with awe, and every circumstance supposed to be of importance relative to the stones and ashes examined with care.

"All this I have seen myself; and there is not one particular omitted where the ceremony is understood to be duly performed, or to have any efficacy in divination. "I have heard it supported by very respectable and repeated tradition, that this bonfire was the extinguishing of the old or unhallowed fire, upon All-Saints Eve, in the times of the Druids; and that upon the next morning the people applied to their priests for holy or consecrated fire, the virtues of which new fire were to last for one year and no longer.

"II. After the ceremony of the bonfire was over, and all the stones laid in the order mentioned, the young people's next care was to use certain charms, and to indulge their curiosity in trying to know the persons or names of their future spouses. The whole of their divinations seem to refer to their deaths or marriages, which are certainly two very important grounds of concern to people, in all ages, and in every stage of society.

"From such a variety of charms, as were in use with regard to the latter of these, I shall only mention two or three; for every person made choice of one or of another, according to their courage or inclination.

“One mode of knowing the appearance and figure of their future spouse was this. The person went to a barn, which must have two opposite doors. Both doors were opened. A riddle was taken, into which a piece of money was thrown; no matter whether a coin, or brooch, or piece of plate. The person began immediately to riddle the silver, in the name of the Evil Spirit, or of the Worst Man, as he is commonly called in Gaelic. During this transaction the figure of a person came in, and took the riddle from the person who was employed; and this vision was understood to have the exact figure, and stature, and appearance of the future spouse.

"I am not very superstitious, nor much inclined to give credit to tales about hobgoblins; yet I cannot forbear to mention what a man of veracity told me not long ago, about this very charm, that had happened to people with whom he was intimate in his youth.

"My author lived then in his grand-uncle's house. His grand-uncle's servant went to the barn, to riddle the silver, upon All-Hallow Even. There came in the figure of a woman, who took a faint hold of the riddle, but not so as to take it out of his hand. He continued still to riddle, and there came another female apparition, and passed in the same manner. Immediately thereafter there came in four people, carrying a coffin on a bier, in the ordinary way used at funerals, and passed through the barn. He was so terrified, that he started back till this procession passed away. But before he could make his escape, the figure of a third woman came in, and took the riddle from him. He left the barn instantly, and came to the dwelling-house in great terror and agitation. The person who told me was at that moment in the house. The master of the family examined his servant strictly, in the presence of all, where he had been-what he had been about-and if he had seen any thing. servant told every circumstance as above narrated. old man replied, You shall be three times married, and you have already seen the funeral of your two first wives.'

The

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"The man was actually married three times-buried two of his wives-and died himself before the last wife.

"However incredible this story may appear, I see no way to overturn it, unless we suppose that the whole family had conspired to tell a lie; and, even then, it is still surprising that they could devise a lie which should correspond exactly to all the circumstances of the man's three marriages, and the two funerals, long before any of them took place.

"I have heard of other adventures of this nature, where a woman went to riddle in the barn, and the apparitions of men came in, with the clothes wet or bloody; and these women's husbands are said to have been drowned or killed. But I never could trace information, which appeared to be so suspicious, till it rested on any thing like proper evidence of the fact. I have only heard from those who had heard it from others.

"III. Another practice is, that a person goes to the fold upon that night, and takes some wool from a black sheep. The wool is spun immediately by the person, without speaking a word to any other. The person then goes to a common kiln for drying victual. The clew is thrown down, in the same name as before, into the pot of the kiln; and the person begins to wind up the yarn, till the end below be held fast. Then the person asks, Who holds my clew? The answer, from below, announces the name and surname of the future spouse.

"I have seen or heard of many other modes of trying to know future events upon All Hallow Evening, especially with regard to marriage; such as a stone, taken from a rivulet making a boundary between two estates, and from a ford where living and dead do pass-gall cut with the