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Title: The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell
Author: Thomas Campbell
Release Date: June 21, 2019 [EBook #59788]
Language: English
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[vi]
Lines Inscribed on the Monument lately finished by Mr. Chantrey,
which has been Erected by the Widow of Admiral Sir
G. Campbell, K.C.B., to the Memory of her Husband
Thomas Campbell was born in Glasgow, July 27, 1777. He
was of good family, his father being the youngest son of a
Highland laird, Campbell of Kirnan, who could trace his descent from
Gilespie le Camile, first Norman lord of Lochawe. As was (and is)
usual with the younger sons of Scottish families of rank, Campbell’s
father was destined for a commercial career. He commenced it in
Virginia, where he entered into partnership with a kinsman, and
returning with him to Scotland, carried on the business in Glasgow,
till the wars between Great Britain and her American Colonies for a
time seriously injured British commerce. After incurring severe
losses he at length gave up business altogether, and retired into
private life with diminished means and a large family.
Thomas, the poet, was the youngest of eleven children, and was
born after his father had retired. At eight years of age he was sent to
the Grammar School of Glasgow, and became the pupil of David
Alison, who soon detected the infant genius of his pupil. The boy
worked hard for his years, but his health was delicate, and, like Walter
Scott, he had to be sent away for the benefit of country air. Amidst
the fields and green lanes he regained health and strength, and
returning to his studies made rapid progress, especially in Greek. At
twelve years old, he gained prizes for his translations from the Greek
poets.
In 1793 Campbell commenced the study of the law in the office of
his relative Mr. Alexander Campbell, a Writer to the Signet, of Glasgow;
but he soon abandoned it, and again devoted himself to more
congenial pursuits. About this time his Lines on Marie Antoinette
appeared in the poet’s corner of a Glasgow paper; he had already
won a prize for his poem On Description from the University.
In 1795 the failure of a Chancery suit still further reduced his
father’s income, and Campbell, eager to reduce the family expenses,
sought and obtained a tutorship in the family of a Mrs. Campbell of
Sunipol, in the Hebrides, for the summer months. The romantic
beauty of his new home strongly impressed the youthful poet, and it
was whilst wandering on the wild lonely shores of Mull, that the
subject of his celebrated poem the Pleasures of Hope was suggested
to him by his friend Mr. Hamilton Paul. A rock on the isle, on which
he often sat and mused, obtained and still keeps the name of the
“Poet’s Seat.”
In the autumn Campbell returned to his studies at the University,
and finally closed his academic career by winning two prizes—one for
the Choephorcæ of Aristophanes, and the other for the Chorus in the
Medea of Euripides.
After quitting the University, he again became a tutor—this time
in the family of General Napier, who was greatly interested in the
gifted young man beneath his roof. It was during this residence in
Argyleshire that he wrote Love and Madness, and some other poems.
In 1798 the poet proceeded to Edinburgh, determined to try his
fortune in the Scottish metropolis. He had an introduction to Dr.
Robert Anderson, who, struck with his ability, recommended him to
Mr. Mundell, the publisher. Mr. Mundell at once gave him literary
work, his first task being to compile an abridgment of Bryan
Edward’s West Indies. He also obtained pupils, and thus managed
to secure a comfortable livelihood. But by degrees the love of poetry
grew too strong for this routine of industry, and he gradually devoted
himself to the composition of the Pleasures of Hope. Campbell’s life
at this time must have been a very happy one. He was enraptured
with his task, and he had many and kind friends in Edinburgh—amongst
them was Francis (afterwards Lord) Jeffrey. To his aunt
Mrs. Campbell, and to his beautiful cousin Margaret, who resided in
Edinburgh, he used to read his verses, and was cheered and encouraged
by their applause.
When the poem was finished, Dr. Anderson took it to Mr.
Mundell, who, after some consideration, offered the poet £60 for it,
an offer which was accepted.
The poem appeared, and Campbell at once became famous.
Everywhere it was read and admired, and it secured to the Author a
permanent reputation at the age of twenty-one. The Pleasures of[xi]
Hope went through four editions in a year. In the second edition
several new and remarkably fine passages were introduced.
In 1800 Campbell left Scotland in order to visit Germany. He
landed at Hamburg; and proceeded, after a short residence there, to
Ratisbon, which he reached only three days before the French took it,
and was, consequently, obliged to seek a refuge with the monks of the
Benedictine College; from the walls of which he beheld a cavalry
charge made by the German horse on the French under Grenier.
The scenes of war through which it was now his fate to pass, no doubt
suggested his fine lyric of Hohenlinden, though he was not a spectator
of the fight (Dr. Beattie tells us)—it occurred after he had left the
scene of war.
The times were now so troubled that Campbell hastened homeward,
the moment he could obtain his passports. At Hamburg,
where he remained for a while, he wrote the Exile of Erin. From
Hamburg he proceeded to Altona, and thence to England. During
his absence he had sent several small poems to the Morning Chronicle,
and on his return he was received and welcomed cordially by its
editor, Mr. Perry, who introduced him to the best literary society in
London. But from the natural enjoyment of his popularity he was
called by the tidings of his father’s death, and he hurried at once to
Edinburgh. Here he found that an absurd charge of treason had been
made against him, which, however, his own prompt and manly demand
of an investigation of his conduct at once quashed. Moreover, his
trunk, which had been seized on its way homewards, was examined, and
amongst his papers was found the glorious national lyric, Ye Mariners
of England, which he had written at Altona. The patriotic feeling
displayed in it at once assured the Sheriff of Edinburgh of the poet’s
innocence of the crime with which he was charged, and the affair
ended in the young poet’s character being entirely cleared.
From the period of his father’s death it became Campbell’s
duty to provide in a great measure for his widowed mother and his
sister, and he worked bravely and patiently for them at literary task-work.
In 1801 he visited London at Lord Minto’s invitation, and passed
a season of great gaiety in the midst of the literary celebrities of
England. On his return to Edinburgh he published Lochiel, and
Hohenlinden, and brought out the seventh edition of the Pleasures of
Hope.
In 1802 Campbell married his cousin, Miss Matilda Sinclair, and
went shortly afterwards to reside at Sydenham, then a lovely and
rather aristocratic place,—where his memory was long cherished, and
his dwelling is even now pointed out to strangers.
Here he supported by his literary labour his mother, his wife,
and children; and was occupied and happy. He contributed to the
Philosophical Magazine, the Star paper, and planned his Specimens
of the British Poets.
In 1805 Campbell received a pension of £200 from the Crown,
which must have greatly relieved the anxieties of a husband and father
dependent on so precarious a profession as literature. But he retained
only half for himself; the remainder he divided between his mother
and sister; an act of generosity which afterwards, we are told, led to
his receiving a handsome legacy of nearly £5,000 from a Highland
cousin.
In 1809 Gertrude of Wyoming, Lord Ullin’s Daughter, and The
Battle of the Baltic were published. Several prose works also
appeared from Campbell’s pen; in 1807, the Annals of Great Britain
from the Accession of George III. to the Peace of Amiens, was published
anonymously in Edinburgh. He wrote also a Life of Petrarch
in 1841, and edited numerous works. In 1818, the long-planned
Specimens of the British Poets was produced in London. After this
publication, Campbell delivered lectures at the Surrey Institution on
English Poetry, and the public pronounced him to be as elegant a
critic as he was a fine poet. In a pecuniary sense, everything he did
prospered.
In 1824 Theodric was published, which, however, obtained small
favour with the public. In fact a new style of poetry had superseded
that of the day when the Pleasures of Hope won golden opinions;
Scott had since charmed the ear with his Lay and his Lady of the Lake,
and had been in turn supplanted by the fiery muse of Byron, and—though
not then fully appreciated—the matchless melody and classic
charm of Shelley. After the productions of these great poets, the
calm and unimpassioned Theodric fell flat on the public ear; in
fact there is no comparison between it and the Pleasures of Hope.
As a lyric poet, Campbell, however, continued unrivalled, and
would have held his own place in our literature if he had never
written more than the Mariners of England and Hohenlinden. Nor
did the Pleasures of Hope lose its hold on public favour; it has[xiii]
retained it to this day, except in a certain clique of critics. There are
passages in it which will ever have a strong hold on our sympathies;
and which will be remembered when the half intelligible utterances of
our more modern times shall only excite wonder and amusement.
In 1827 one of Campbell’s early day-dreams, that of being Lord
Rector of his own University, was gratified. He was chosen, though
no less a rival than Sir Walter Scott was in the field, and he filled the
position so well, and so much to the benefit of the University, that he
was re-elected the two following years.
In 1820 Colbourne offered him the editorship of the New Monthly
Magazine, which he accepted and retained till 1830, at a salary of
£500 per annum. His sub-editor—a very efficient one—was Mr.
Cyrus Redding.
In 1831 Campbell brought out the Metropolitan Magazine, editing
it himself.
Meantime much domestic affliction had fallen on him. He had lost
a child, and his dear wife died in 1828, a loss which greatly affected
him. But he made himself other strong interests besides domestic
and literary ones. The Poles and the Greeks had enlisted his most
ardent sympathies, and had the best aid of his pen. Moreover, he
travelled in France and Germany, and in 1834 as far as Algiers, from
whence he wrote the Letters from the South, published in the Metropolitan
Magazine.
In 1838 he was presented to the Queen by the chief of his clan,
the Duke of Argyle, at the first levee held by the fair young Sovereign
after her accession to the throne. He had loyally offered her a present
of his works; the Queen accepted them, and graciously sent him in
return her picture. Campbell had been always a Liberal, but, like
Leigh Hunt, he was won by the gentle lady who held the sceptre to
sincere loyalty to the Crown.
Campbell moved to No. 8, Victoria Square, Pimlico, in 1840, and
adopted, as the sharer of his solitary home, his niece, Mary Campbell,
whose gentle ministrations soothed his declining years, and brightened
the last hours of his life.
In 1842 The Pilgrim of Glencoe was published, but it was not
well received, and the aged poet began to perceive that it was time to
lay by his pen; that he spoke to a generation he could not charm.
Nevertheless his age was honoured and prosperous. His works produced
nearly £700 a year, and his means exceeded altogether[xiv]
£1000 per annum. But he fancied he should prefer a cheaper
residence than London, and in compliance with the aged poet’s fancy,
his niece accompanied him to Boulogne, where they settled, at 5, Rue
Petit St. Jean.
Here he remained in a varying state of health till 1844, when he
became seriously ill, and the physician, Dr. Allatt, gave no hopes of
his recovery. His faithful and beloved friend, Dr. Beattie—by whom
a charming memoir of the poet has been since published—came to
him, and did his best to soothe the last moments of the dying poet.
His death-bed was truly Christian. Some of his last words were
“Come, let us sing praises to Christ,” “Let us pray for one another.”
On the 15th of June 1844, his spirit passed calmly, without a
struggle, to a better world.
The body of the poet was brought to England, and on the 3rd
of July buried in Westminster Abbey, near the centre of the Poet’s
Corner. His funeral was attended by numerous friends and admirers,
amongst whom were his chief, the Duke of Argyle, and Sir Robert
Peel, then premier.
Thus closed the life of one of the most popular poets of the beginning
of our century. Prosperous in its public phase—very sad and
sorely tried in its domestic one. He had refined taste and pleasing
manners; and no reproach rests upon his private or public character.
In his youth he was singularly beautiful in person. Leigh Hunt tells
us (in his autobiography) that Campbell’s face and person were rather
on a small scale, “his features regular, his eye lively and penetrating,
and when he spoke, dimples played about his mouth, which, nevertheless,
had something restrained and close in it. Some gentle Puritan
seemed to have crossed the breed, and to have left a stamp on his
face, such as we often see in the female Scotch face rather than the
male.”
No poet, except Shakespeare, has been so frequently quoted as
Campbell. Many of his lines have become proverbs:—“Coming
events cast their shadows before,” “’Tis distance lends enchantment
to the view,” &c., &c., are as familiar to us as household words. “His
verses” says a writer in Chambers’s Papers for the People, “cannot
be mistaken for those of any other English poet—his odes do not
resemble those of Dryden, Collins, or Gray—they stand alone....
Scott said, ‘he could imitate all the modern poets but Tom Campbell,’
he could not imitate him because his peculiarity was more in the[xv]
matter than the manner.” High praise this! Byron said that he
believed Campbell wrote so little poetry because he was afraid of comparison
with his early and famous poem: we have not the volume to
quote the exact words. We are rather inclined to think that the true
reason why he gave us no more poems than we possess at present was,
not only that his taste was exceedingly refined and fastidious—he
would not admit many charming minor poems into his collected works—but
that, like Goldsmith, his time was much occupied by task-work
for the publishers; and as he would not suffer hastily written lines to
appear, or any which he had not carefully polished, the quantity he
produced was necessarily small. We are told in Notes and Queries
that he took some pains (returning to the house where he had
written it for the purpose) to substitute a single word which he
believed would be an improvement on another in his Stanzas to
Florine! Consequently, his poems must have occupied time and
thought beyond what we may imagine from their length, and his
leisure could not have been great. It would have been better,
perhaps, if more voluminous poets had imitated his reticence, and
given us quality rather than quantity.
Campbell was a pleasant companion, and when he pleased could
(we have Byron’s authority for it) talk delightfully; but he was occasionally
absent and silent. His poetry is much admired by foreigners.
Madame de Staël was enraptured with the Pleasures of Hope, and
Goethe was a warm admirer of the Poet.
His domestic character was excellent, and his family sorrows—of
which this is no place to speak—were borne by him with patient
courage.
His Life, admirably given us by his friend Dr. Beattie,[1] is well
worth reading as a record of Genius, aided by patient perseverance,
struggling with difficulties, and vanquishing them; and to it, for fuller
and far more interesting details, we refer the readers of this brief
Prefatory Memoir.
To this collection of his poems we have added his Lines on Marie
Antoinette, the Dirge of Wallace, and one or two other poems, published
in the New Monthly Magazine.
The Poem opens with a comparison between the beauty of remote
objects in a landscape, and those ideal scenes of felicity which the
imagination delights to contemplate ... the influence of anticipation
upon the other passions is next delineated ... an allusion is made to the
well-known fiction in Pagan tradition, that, when all the guardian
deities of mankind abandoned the world, Hope alone was left behind
... the consolations of this passion in situations of distress ... the seaman
on his watch ... the soldier marching into battle ... allusion to the interesting
adventures of Byron.
The inspiration of Hope, as it actuates the efforts of genius,
whether in the department of science, or of taste ... domestic felicity,
how intimately connected with views of future happiness ... picture of a
mother watching her infant when asleep ... pictures of the prisoner, the
maniac, and the wanderer.
From the consolations of individual misery, a transition is made to
prospects of political improvement in the future state of society ... the
wide field that is yet open for the progress of humanising arts among
uncivilised nations ... from these views of amelioration of society, and
the extension of liberty and truth over despotic and barbarous
countries, by a melancholy contrast of ideas, we are led to reflect upon
the hard fate of a brave people recently conspicuous in their struggles
for independence[2] ... description of the capture of Warsaw, of the last
contest of the oppressors and the oppressed, and the massacre of the
Polish patriots at the bridge of Prague ... apostrophe to the self-interested
enemies of human improvement ... the wrongs of Africa ... the
barbarous policy of Europeans in India ... prophecy in the Hindoo
mythology of the expected descent of the Deity to redress the miseries
of their race, and to take vengeance on the violators of justice and
mercy.
[3] An error of the poet’s: Elijah did not ascend from Carmel, but from the
eastern side of Jordan.—(See 2 Kings ii. 7-11.)
[4] See Narrative of Byron’s Shipwreck.—Notes at end of Volume.
[5]A Briton and a friend.—Don Patricio Gedd, a Scotch physician in one
of the Spanish settlements, hospitably relieved Byron and his wretched associates,
of which the commodore speaks in the warmest terms of gratitude.
[6] The seven strings of Apollo’s harp were the symbolical representation of
the seven planets. Herschell, by discovering an eighth, might be said to add
another string to the instrument.
[9]Deep from his vaults, the Loxian murmurs flow.—Loxias is the name
frequently given to Apollo by Greek writers; it is met with more than once in
the Chœphoræ of Æschylus.
Apostrophe to the power of Love ... its intimate connection with
generous and social Sensibility ... allusion to that beautiful passage in
the beginning of the book of Genesis, which represents the happiness
of Paradise itself incomplete, till love was superadded to its other
blessings ... the dreams of future felicity which a lively imagination is
apt to cherish, when Hope is animated by refined attachment ... this
disposition to combine, in one imaginary scene of residence, all that
is pleasing in our estimate of happiness, compared to the skill of the
great artist who personified perfect beauty, in the picture of Venus, by
an assemblage of the most beautiful features he could find ... a summer
and winter evening described, as they may be supposed to arise in the
mind of one who wishes, with enthusiasm, for the union of friendship
and retirement.
Hope and imagination inseparable agents ... even in those contemplative
moments when our imagination wanders beyond the
boundaries of this world, our minds are not unattended with an
impression that we shall some day have a wider and distinct prospect
of the universe, instead of the partial glimpse we now enjoy.
The last and most sublime influence of Hope is the concluding
topic of the poem ... the predominance of a belief in a future state over
the terrors attendant on dissolution ... the baneful influence of that
sceptical philosophy which bars us from such comforts ... allusion to the
fate of a suicide ... episode of Conrad and Ellenore ... conclusion.
Most of the popular histories of England, as well as of the American
war, give an authentic account of the desolation of Wyoming, in
Pennsylvania, which took place in 1778, by an incursion of the Indians.
The Scenery and Incidents of the following Poem are connected with
that event. The testimonies of historians and travellers concur in
describing the infant colony as one of the happiest spots of human
existence, for the hospitable and innocent manners of the inhabitants,
the beauty of the country, and the luxuriant fertility of the soil and
climate. In an evil hour, the junction of European with Indian arms,
converted this terrestrial paradise into a frightful waste. Mr. Isaac
Weld informs us, that the ruins of many of the villages, perforated
with balls, and bearing marks of conflagration, were still preserved by
the recent inhabitants, when he travelled through America in 1796.
[38] The Indians are distinguished both personally and by tribes by the name
of particular animals, whose qualities they affect to resemble, either for
cunning, strength, swiftness, or other qualities:—as the eagle, the serpent, the
fox, or bear.—See Notes.
[40]Calumet of peace.—The calumet is the Indian name for the ornamented
pipe of friendship, which they smoke as a pledge of amity.—See Notes.
[41]Tree-rocked cradle.—The Indian mothers suspend their children in their
cradles from the boughs of trees, and let them be rocked by the wind.—See
Notes.
[43] From a flower shaped like a horn, which Chateaubriand presumes to be
of the lotus kind, the Indians in their travels through the desert often find a
draught of dew purer than any other water.
While thou shalt be my own, with all thy truth and charms!”
XXIII.
At morn, as if beneath a galaxy
Of over-arching groves in blossoms white,
Where all was odorous scent and harmony,
And gladness to the heart, nerve, ear, and sight:
There, if, oh, gentle Love! I read aright
The utterance that sealed thy sacred bond,
’Twas listening to these accents of delight,
She hid upon his breast those eyes, beyond
Expression’s power to paint, all languishingly fond—
XXIV.
“Flower of my life, so lovely, and so lone!
Whom I would rather in this desert meet,
Scorning, and scorned by fortune’s power, than own
Her pomp and splendours lavished at my feet!
Turn not from me thy breath, more exquisite
Than odours cast on heaven’s own shrine—to please—
Give me thy love, than luxury more sweet,
And more than all the wealth that loads the breeze,
When Coromandel’s ships return from Indian seas.”
XXV.
Then would that home admit them—happier far
Than grandeur’s most magnificent saloon,
While, here and there, a solitary star
Flushed in the darkening firmament of June,
And silence brought the soul-felt hour, full soon
Ineffable, which I may not portray;
For never did the hymenean moon
A paradise of hearts more sacred sway,
In all that slept beneath her soft voluptuous ray.
[45] It is a custom of the Indian tribes to visit the tombs of their ancestors in
the cultivated parts of America, who have been buried for upwards of a
century.
[46] The bridges over narrow streams in many parts of Spanish America are
said to be built of cane, which, however strong to support the passenger, are
yet waved in the agitation of the storm, and frequently add to the effect of a
mountainous and picturesque scenery.
LINES INSCRIBED ON THE MONUMENT LATELY FINISHED BY MR. CHANTREY, WHICH HAS BEEN ERECTED
BY THE WIDOW OF
ADMIRAL SIR G. CAMPBELL K.C.B., TO THE MEMORY OF HER HUSBAND.
[73] The tradition which forms the substance of these stanzas is still preserved
in Germany. An ancient tower on a height, called the Rolandseck, a few
miles above Bonn on the Rhine, is shown as the habitation which Roland built
in sight of a nunnery, into which his mistress had retired, on having heard an
unfounded account of his death. Whatever may be thought of the credibility
of the legend, its scenery must be recollected with pleasure by every one who
has visited the romantic landscape of the Drachenfells, the Rolandseck, and
the beautiful adjacent islet of the Rhine, where a nunnery still stands.
[75] A Norman leader, Gilliespie le Camile, in the service of the king of
Scotland, married the heiress of Lochaw in the twelfth century, and from him
the Campbells are sprung.
[87] Alluding to the well-known tradition respecting the origin of painting,
that it arose from a young Corinthian female tracing the shadow of her lovers
profile on the wall, as he lay asleep.
[88] The fact ought to be universally known, that France was indebted to
Poland for not being invaded by Russia. When the Duke Constantine fled
from Warsaw, he left papers behind him proving that the Russians, after the
Parisian events in July, meant to have marched towards Paris, if the Polish
insurrection had not prevented them.
[89] What is called the East Hill at Hastings is crowned with the works
of an ancient camp; and it is more than probable it was the spot which
William I. occupied between his landing, and the battle which gave him
England’s crown. It is a strong position: the works are easily traced.
That swoop, still free, had stunned the Russ, and foiled
Earth’s new oppressors, as it foiled her old.
Now thy majestic eyes are shut and cold:
And colder still Polonia’s children find
The sympathetic hands, that we outhold.
But, Poles, when we are gone, the world will mind,
Ye bore the brunt of fate, and bled for humankind.
So hallowedly have ye fulfilled your part,
My pride repudiates e’en the sigh that blends
With Poland’s name—name written on my heart.
My heroes, my grief-consecrated friends!
Your sorrow, in nobility, transcends
Your conqueror’s joy: his cheek may blush; but shame
Can tinge not yours, though exile’s tear descends;
Nor would ye change your conscience, cause and name,
For his, with all his wealth, and all his felon fame.
Thee, Niemciewitz,[90] whose song of stirring power
The Czar forbids to sound in Polish lands;
Thee, Czartoryski, in thy banished bower,
The patricide, who in thy palace stands,
May envy; proudly may Polonia’s bands
Throw down their swords at Europe’s feet in scorn,
Saying—“Russia, from the metal of these brands
Shall forge the fetters of your sons unborn;
Our setting star is your misfortune’s rising morn.”
[90] This venerable man, the most popular and influential of Polish poets,
and president of the Academy of Warsaw, was in London when this poem was
written; he was seventy-four years old; but his noble spirit was rather
mellowed than decayed by age. He was the friend of Fox, Kosciusko, and
Washington. Rich in anecdote like Franklin, he bore also a striking resemblance
to him in countenance.
And the Saint in the ship that had brought him hither
Took the mourners to Innisfail.
Unscathed they left Iona’s strand,
When the opal morn first flushed the sky,
For the Norse dropt spear, and bow and brand,
And looked on them silently;
Safe from their hiding places came
Orphans and mothers, child and dame:
But alas! when the search for Reullura spread,
No answering voice was given,
For the sea had gone o’er her lovely head,
And her spirit was in Heaven.
[91] Reullura, in Gaelic, signifies “beautiful star.”
[92] The Culdees were the primitive clergy of Scotland, and apparently her
only clergy from the sixth to the eleventh century. They were of Irish origin,
and their monastery on the island of Iona, or Icolmkill, was the seminary of
Christianity in North Britain. Presbyterian writers have wished to prove
them to have been a sort of Presbyters, strangers to the Roman Church and
Episcopacy. It seems to be established that they were not enemies to Episcopacy;—but
that they were not slavishly subjected to Rome like the clergy
of later periods, appears by their resisting the Papal ordonnances respecting
the celibacy of religious men, on which account they were ultimately displaced
by the Scottish sovereigns to make way for more Popish canons.
[98] Florine was the beautiful Miss O’Bryen. She married Mr. Huntley
Gordon—Scott’s amanuensis for the MS of the Waverley Novels—and died
soon after her wedding.
Their house, his stone was placed with many a tear;
And Ronald’s self, in stoic virtue brave,
Scorned not to weep at Allan Campbell’s grave.
[99] I received the substance of the tradition on which this poem is founded,
in the first instance, from a friend in London, who wrote to Matthew N.
Macdonald, Esq., of Edinburgh. He had the kindness to send me a
circumstantial account of the tradition; and that gentleman’s knowledge of
the Highlands, as well as his particular acquaintance with the district of
Glencoe, leave me no doubt of the incident having really happened. I have
not departed from the main facts of the tradition as reported to me by Mr.
Macdonald; only I have endeavoured to colour the personages of the story,
and to make them as distinctive as possible.
[100] God and the Devil—a favourite ejaculation of Highland saints.
[105] When the hospitable Highlanders load a parting guest with provisions,
they tell him he will need them, as he has to go over a great deal of hungry
grass.
The following picture of his own distress, given by Byron in his simple and
interesting narrative, justifies the description in page 7.
After relating the barbarity of the Indian cacique to his child, he proceeds
thus:—“A day or two after we put to sea again, and crossed the great bay I
mentioned we had been at the bottom of when we first hauled away to the westward.
The land here was very low and sandy, and something like the mouth
of a river which discharged itself into the sea, and which had been taken no
notice of by us before, as it was so shallow that the Indians were obliged to
take everything out of their canoes, and carry them over land. We rowed up
the river four or five leagues, and then took into a branch of it that ran first to
the eastward, and then to the northward: here it became much narrower, and
the stream excessively rapid, so that we gained but little way, though we
wrought very hard. At night we landed upon its banks, and had a most uncomfortable
lodging, it being a perfect swamp, and we had nothing to cover
us, though it rained excessively. The Indians were little better off than we,
as there was no wood here to make their wigwams; so that all they could do
was to prop up the bark, which they carry in the bottom of their canoes, and
shelter themselves as well as they could to the leeward of it. Knowing the
difficulties they had to encounter here, they had provided themselves with
some seal; but we had not a morsel to eat, after the heavy fatigues of the day,
excepting a sort of root we saw the Indians make use of, which was very disagreeable
to the taste. We laboured all next day against the stream, and fared
as we had done the day before. The next day brought us to the carrying[280]
place. Here was plenty of wood, but nothing to be got for sustenance. We
passed this night, as we had frequently done, under a tree; but what we
suffered at this time is not easy to be expressed. I had been three days at the
oar without any kind of nourishment except the wretched root above mentioned.
I had no shirt, for it had rotted off by bits. All my clothes consisted
of a short grieko (something like a bear-skin), a piece of red cloth which had
once been a waistcoat, and a ragged pair of trowsers, without shoes or
stockings.”
Among the negroes of the West Indies, Obi, or Obiah, is the name of a
magical power, which is believed by them to affect the object of its malignity
with dismal calamities. Such a belief must undoubtedly have been deduced
from the superstitious mythology of their kinsmen on the coast of Africa. I
have, therefore, personified Obi as the evil spirit of the African, although the
history of the African tribes mentions the evil spirits of their religious creed by
a different appellation.
The history of the partition of Poland, of the massacre in the suburbs of
Warsaw, and on the bridge of Prague, the triumphant entry of Suwarrow into
the Polish capital, and the insult offered to human nature, by the blasphemous
thanks offered up to Heaven, for victories obtained over men fighting in the
sacred cause of liberty, by murderers and oppressors, are events generally
known.
To elucidate this passage, I shall subjoin a quotation from the preface to
“Letters from a Hindoo Rajah,” by Eliza Hamilton, a work of elegance and
celebrity:—
“The impostor of Mecca had established, as one of the principles of his
doctrine, the merit of extending it either by persuasion, or the sword, to all
parts of the earth. How steadily this injunction was adhered to by his followers,
and with what success it was pursued, is well known to all who are in
the least conversant in history.
“The same overwhelming torrent which had inundated the greater part of
Africa, burst its way into the very heart of Europe, and covering many kingdoms
of Asia, with unbounded desolation, directed its baneful course to the
flourishing provinces of Hindostan. Here these fierce and hardy adventurers,
whose only improvement had been in the science of destruction, who added
the fury of fanaticism to the ravages of war, found the great end of their conquest
opposed by objects which neither the ardour of their persevering zeal,
nor savage barbarity, could surmount. Multitudes were sacrificed by the cruel
hand of religious persecution, and whole countries were deluged in blood, in
the vain hope, that by the destruction of a part, the remainder might be persuaded,
or terrified, into the profession of Mahomedism. But all these sanguinary
efforts were ineffectual; and at length, being fully convinced, that
though they might extirpate, they could never hope to convert, any number of
the Hindoos, they relinquished the impracticable idea with which they had
entered upon their career of conquest, and contented themselves with the
acquirement of the civil dominion and almost universal empire of Hindostan.”
The following account of British conduct, and its consequences, in Bengal,
will afford a sufficient idea of the fact alluded to in this passage.
After describing the monopoly of salt, betel nut, and tobacco, the historian
proceeds thus:—“Money in this current came but by drops; it could not
quench the thirst of those who waited in India to receive it. An expedient,
such as it was, remained to quicken its pace. The natives could live with little
salt, but could not want food. Some of the agents saw themselves well situated
for collecting the rice into stores; they did so. They knew the Gentoos
would rather die than violate the principles of their religion by eating flesh.
The alternative would therefore be between giving what they had, or dying.
The inhabitants sunk;—they that cultivated the land, and saw the harvest at
the disposal of others, planted in doubt—scarcity ensued. Then the monopoly
was easier managed—sickness ensued. In some districts the languid living left
the bodies of their numerous dead unburied.”—Short History of the English
Transactions in the East Indies, page 145.
Nine times have Brahma’s wheels of lightning hurled
His awful presence o’er the alarmèd world.
Among the sublime fictions of the Hindoo mythology, it is one article of
belief, that the Deity Brahma has descended nine times upon the world in
various forms, and that he is yet to appear a tenth time, in the figure of a
warrior upon a white horse, to cut off all incorrigible offenders. “Avatar” is
the word used to express his descent.
Marched by their Charles to Dneiper’s swampy shore.
“In this extremity,” says the biographer of Charles XII. of Sweden,
speaking of his military exploits before the battle of Pultowa, “the memorable
winter of 1709, which was still more remarkable in that part of Europe than in
France, destroyed numbers of his troops; for Charles resolved to brave the
seasons as he had done his enemies, and ventured to make long marches during
this mortal cold. It was in one of these marches that two thousand men fell
down dead with cold before his eyes.”
The natives of the island of Iona have an opinion, that on certain evenings
every year the tutelary saint Columba is seen on the top of the church spires
counting the surrounding islands, to see that they have not been sunk by the
power of witchcraft.
“The mocking-bird is of the form, but larger than the thrush; and the
colours are a mixture of black, white, and grey. What is said of the nightingale
by its greatest admirers, is what may with more propriety apply to this
bird, who, in a natural state, sings with very superior taste. Towards evening
I have heard one begin softly, reserving its breath to swell certain notes, which,
by this means, had a most astonishing effect. A gentleman in London had one
of these birds for six years. During the space of a minute he was heard to
imitate the woodlark, chaffinch, blackbird, thrush, and sparrow. In this
country (America) I have frequently known the mocking-birds so engaged in
this mimicry, that it was with much difficulty I could ever obtain an opportunity
of hearing their own natural note. Some go so far as to say, that they
have neither peculiar notes, nor favourite imitations. This may be denied.
Their few natural notes resemble those of the (European) nightingale. Their
song, however, has a greater compass and volume than the nightingale, and
they have the faculty of varying all intermediate notes in a manner which is
truly delightful.”—Ashe’s Travels in America, vol. ii. p. 73.
And distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan roar!
The Corybrechtan, or Corbrechtan, is a whirlpool on the western coast of
Scotland, near the island of Jura, which is heard at a prodigious distance. Its
name signifies the whirlpool of the Prince of Denmark; and there is a tradition[284]
that a Danish prince once undertook, for a wager, to cast anchor in it. He
is said to have used woollen instead of hempen ropes, for greater strength, but
perished in the attempt. On the shores of Argyleshire, I have often listened
with great delight to the sound of this vortex, at the distance of many leagues.
When the weather is calm, and the adjacent sea is scarcely heard on these
picturesque shores, its sound, which is like the sound of innumerable chariots,
creates a magnificent and fine effect.
“In the Indian tribes there is a great similarity in their colour, stature, &c.
They are all, except the Snake Indians, tall in stature, straight, and robust.
It is very seldom they are deformed, which has given rise to the supposition
that they put to death their deformed children. Their skin is of a copper
colour; their eyes large, bright, black, and sparkling, indicative of a subtile
and discerning mind: their hair is of the same colour, and prone to be long,
seldom or never curled. Their teeth are large and white; I never observed
any decayed among them, which makes their breath as sweet as the air they
inhale.”—Travels through America by Capts. Lewis and Clarke, in 1804-5-6.
“The Indians of North America accompany every formal address to
strangers, with whom they form or recognise a treaty of amity, with a
present of a string, or belt, of wampum. ‘Wampum,’ says Cadwalladar Colden,
‘is made of the large whelk shell, Buccinum, and shaped like long beads:
it is the current money of the Indians.’”—History of the five Indian Nations,
p. 34. New York edition.
In relating an interview of Mohawk Indians with the Governor of New
York, Colden quotes the following passage as a specimen of their metaphorical
manner:—“Where shall I seek the chair of peace? where shall I find it but
upon our path? and whither doth our path lead us but unto this house?”
“When they solicit the alliance, offensive or defensive, of a whole nation,
they send an embassy with a large belt of wampum and a bloody hatchet, inviting
them to come and drink the blood of their enemies. The wampum
made use of on these and other occasions, before their acquaintance with the
Europeans, was nothing but small shells which they picked up by the seacoasts,
and on the banks of the lakes; and now it is nothing but a kind of
cylindrical beads, made of shells, white and black, which are esteemed among
them as silver and gold are among us. The black they call the most valuable,
and both together are their greatest riches and ornaments; these among them
answering all the end that money does amongst us. They have the art of
stringing, twisting, and interweaving them into their belts, collars, blankets,
and mocassins, &c., in ten thousand different sizes, forms, and figures, so as to
be ornaments for every part of dress, and expressive to them of all their
important transactions. They dye the wampum of various colours and shades,
and mix and dispose them with great ingenuity and order, and so as to be significant
among themselves of almost every thing they please; so that by these
their words are kept, and their thoughts communicated to one another, as ours
are by writing. The belts that pass from one nation to another in all treaties,
declarations, and important transactions, are very carefully preserved in the
cabins of their chiefs, and serve not only as a kind of record or history, but as
a public treasure.”—Major Rogers’ Account of North America.
“It is certain the Indians acknowledge one Supreme Being, or Giver of Life,
who presides over all things; that is, the Great Spirit; and they look up to
him as the source of good, from whence no evil can proceed. They also believe
in a bad Spirit, to whom they ascribe great power; and suppose that through
his power all the evils which befall mankind are inflicted. To him, therefore,
they pray in their distresses, begging that he would either avert their troubles,
or moderate them when they are no longer avoidable.
“They hold also that there are good Spirits of a lower degree, who have
their particular departments, in which they are constantly contributing to the
happiness of mortals. These they suppose to preside over all the extraordinary
productions of Nature, such as those lakes, rivers, and mountains that are of an
uncommon magnitude; and likewise the beasts, birds, fishes, and even vegetables[286]
or stones, that exceed the rest of their species in size or singularity.”—Clarke’s
Travels among the Indians.
The Supreme Spirit of good is called by the Indians “Kitchi Manitou”; and
the Spirit of evil, “Matchi Manitou.”
The fever-balm is a medicine used by these tribes; it is a decoction of a
bush called the Fever Tree. Sagamité is a kind of soup administered to their
sick.
And I, the eagle of my tribe, have rushed with this lorn dove.
The testimony of all travellers among the American Indians who mention
their hieroglyphics, authorises me in putting this figurative language in the
mouth of Outalissi. The dove is among them, as elsewhere, an emblem of
meekness; and the eagle, that of a bold, noble, and liberal mind. When the
Indians speak of a warrior who soars above the multitude in person and endowments,
they say, “he is like the eagle, who destroys his enemies, and gives
protection and abundance to the weak of his own tribe.”
“They are extremely circumspect and deliberate in every word and action;
nothing hurries them into any intemperate wrath, but that inveteracy to their
enemies which is rooted in every Indian’s breast. In all other instances they
are cool and deliberate, taking care to suppress the emotions of the heart. If
an Indian has discovered that a friend of his is in danger of being cut off by a
lurking enemy, he does not tell him of his danger in direct terms as though he
were in fear, but he first coolly asks him which way he is going that day, and
having his answer, with the same indifference tells him that he has been informed
that a noxious beast lies on the route he is going. This hint proves
sufficient, and his friend avoids the danger with as much caution as though
every design and motion of his enemy had been pointed out to him.
“If an Indian has been engaged for several days in the chase, and by accident
continued long without food, when he arrives at the hut of a friend, where
he knows that his wants will be immediately supplied, he takes care not to
show the least symptoms of impatience, or betray the extreme hunger that he[287]
is tortured with; but on being invited in, sits contentedly down and smokes his
pipe with as much composure as if his appetite was cloyed and he was perfectly
at ease. He does the same if among strangers. This custom is strictly adhered
to by every tribe, as they esteem it a proof of fortitude, and think the
reverse would entitle them to the appellation of old women.
“If you tell an Indian that his children have greatly signalised themselves
against an enemy, have taken many scalps, and brought home many prisoners,
he does not appear to feel any strong emotions of pleasure on the occasion; his
answer generally is,—they have ‘done well,’ and he makes but very little
enquiry about the matter; on the contrary, if you inform him that his children
are slain or taken prisoners, he makes no complaints: he only replies, ‘It is
unfortunate:’—and for some time asks no questions about how it happened.”—Lewis
and Clarke’s Travels.
“Nor is the calumet of less importance or less revered than the wampum in
many transactions relative both to peace and war. The bowl of this pipe is
made of a kind of soft red stone, which is easily wrought and hollowed out;
the stem is of cane, alder, or some kind of light wood, painted with different
colours, and decorated with the heads, tails, and feathers of the most beautiful
birds. The use of the calumet is to smoke either tobacco or some bark, leaf,
or herb, which they often use instead of it, when they enter into an alliance or
any serious occasion or solemn engagements; this being among them the most
sacred oath that can be taken, the violation of which is esteemed most infamous,
and deserving of severe punishment from Heaven. When they treat
of war, the whole pipe and all its ornaments are red: sometimes it is red only
on one side, and by the disposition of the feathers, &c., one acquainted with
their customs will know at first sight what the nation who presents it intends
or desires. Smoking the calumet is also a religious ceremony on some occasions,
and in all treaties is considered as a witness between the parties, or rather
as an instrument by which they invoke the sun and moon to witness their sincerity,
and to be as it were a guarantee of the treaty between them. This
custom of the Indians, though to appearance somewhat ridiculous, is not without
its reasons; for as they find that smoking tends to disperse the vapours of
the brain, to raise the spirits, and to qualify them for thinking and judging
properly, they introduced it into their councils, where, after their resolves, the
pipe was considered as a seal of their decrees, and as a pledge of their performance
thereof, it was sent to those they were consulting, in alliance or treaty
with;—so that smoking among them at the same pipe, is equivalent to our[288]
drinking together and out of the same cup.”—Major Rogers’ Account of North
America, 1766.
“The lighted calumet is also used among them for a purpose still more
interesting than the expression of social friendship. The austere manners of
the Indians forbid any appearance of gallantry between the sexes in day-time;
but at night the young lover goes a calumetting, as his courtship is called. As
these people live in a state of equality, and without fear of internal violence or
theft in their own tribes, they leave their doors open by night as well as by day.
The lover takes advantage of this liberty, lights his calumet, enters the cabin
of his mistress, and gently presents it to her. If she extinguishes it, she admits
his addresses; but if she suffer it to burn unnoticed, he retires with a disappointed
and throbbing heart.”—Ashe’s Travels.
“An Indian child, as soon as he is born, is swathed with clothes, or skins;
and being laid on his back, is bound down on a piece of thick board, spread
over with soft moss. The board is somewhat larger and broader than the
child, and bent pieces of wood, like pieces of hoops, are placed over its face to
protect it, so that if the machine were suffered to fall, the child probably would
not be injured. When the women have any business to transact at home, they
hang the board on a tree, if there be one at hand, and set them a swinging from
side to side, like a pendulum, in order to exercise the children.”—Weld, vol. ii.
p. 246.
Of the active as well as passive fortitude of the Indian character, the following
is an instance related by Adair in his “Travels”:—
“A party of the Senekah Indians came to war against the Katahba, bitter
enemies to each other.—In the woods the former discovered a sprightly warrior
belonging to the latter, hunting in their usual light dress: on his perceiving
them, he sprang off for a hollow rock four or five miles distance, as they intercepted
him from running homeward. He was so extremely swift and skilful
with the gun, as to kill seven of them in the running fight before they were able
to surround and take him. They carried him to their country in sad triumph,
but though he had filled them with uncommon grief and shame for the loss of
so many of their kindred, yet the love of martial virtue induced them to treat[289]
him, during their long journey, with a great deal more civility than if he had
acted the part of a coward. The women and children, when they met him at
their several towns, beat him and whipped him in as severe a manner as the
occasion required, according to their law of justice, and at last he was formally
condemned to die by the fiery torture.—It might reasonably be imagined that
what he had for some time gone through, by being fed with a scanty hand, a
tedious march, lying at night on the bare ground, exposed to the changes of the
weather, with his arms and legs extended in a pair of rough stocks, and suffering
such punishment on his entering into their hostile towns, as a prelude to
those sharp torments for which he was destined, would have so impaired his
health and affected his imagination, as to have sent him to his long sleep, out
of the way of any more sufferings.—Probably this would have been the case
with the major part of white people under similar circumstances; but I never
knew this with any of the Indians: and this cool-headed, brave warrior, did
not deviate from their rough lessons of martial virtue, but acted his part so well
as to surprise and sorely vex his numerous enemies:—for when they were
taking him, unpinioned, in their wild parade, to the place of torture, which lay
near to a river, he suddenly dashed down those who stood in his way, sprang
off, and plunged into the water, swimming underneath like an otter, only rising
to take breath, till he reached the opposite shore. He now ascended the steep
bank, but though he had good reason to be in a hurry, as many of the enemy
were in the water, and others running, very like bloodhounds, in pursuit of him,
and the bullets flying around him from the time he took to the river, yet his
heart did not allow him to leave them abruptly, without taking leave in a
formal manner, in return for the extraordinary favours they had done, and intended
to do him. After slapping a part of his body, in defiance to them,”
continues the author, “he put up the shrill war-whoop, as his last salute, till
some more convenient opportunity offered, and darted off in the manner of a
beast broke loose from its torturing enemies. He continued his speed, so as to
run by about midnight of the same day as far as his eager pursuers were two
days in reaching. There he rested till he happily discovered five of those
Indians who had pursued him:—he lay hid a little way off their camp, till they
were sound asleep. Every circumstance of his situation occurred to him, and
inspired him with heroism. He was naked, torn, and hungry, and his enraged
enemies were come up with him;—but there was now every thing to relieve his
wants, and a fair opportunity to save his life, and get great honour and sweet
revenge by cutting them off. Resolution, a convenient spot, and sudden surprise,
would effect the main object of all his wishes and hopes. He accordingly
creeped, took one of their tomahawks, and killed them all on the spot,—clothed
himself, took a choice gun, and as much ammunition and provisions as
he could well carry in a running march. He set off afresh with a light heart[290],
and did not sleep for several successive nights, only when he reclined, as usual,
a little before day, with his back to a tree. As it were by instinct, when he
found he was free from the pursuing enemy, he made directly to the very place
where he had killed seven of his enemies and was taken by them for the fiery
torture. He digged them up, burnt their bodies to ashes, and went home in
safety with singular triumph. Other pursuing enemies came, on the evening of
the second day, to the camp of their dead people, when the sight gave them a
greater shock than they had ever known before. In their chilled war-council
they concluded, that as he had done such surprising things in his defence before
he was captivated, and since that in his naked condition, and now was well-armed,
if they continued the pursuit he would spoil them all, for he surely was
an enemy wizard,—and therefore they returned home.”—Adair’s General Observations
on the American Indians, p. 394.
“It is surprising,” says the same author, “to see the long continued speed of
the Indians. Though some of us have often run the swiftest of them out of sight
for about the distance of twelve miles, yet afterwards, without any seeming toil,
they would stretch on, leave us out of sight, and outwind any horse.”—Ibid.
p. 318.
“If an Indian were driven out into the extensive woods, with only a knife
and a tomahawk, or a small hatchet, it is not to be doubted but he would fatten
even where a wolf would starve. He would soon collect fire by rubbing two
dry pieces of wood together, make a bark hut, earthen vessels, and a bow and
arrows; then kill wild game, fish, fresh-water tortoises, gather a plentiful
variety of vegetables, and live in affluence.”—Ibid. p. 410.
“There is nothing,” says Charlevoix, “in which these barbarians carry their
superstitions farther, than in what regards dreams; but they vary greatly in
their manner of explaining themselves on this point. Sometimes it is the
reasonable soul which ranges abroad, while the sensitive continues to animate
the body. Sometimes it is the familiar genius who gives salutary counsel with
respect to what is going to happen. Sometimes it is a visit made by the soul of
the object of which he dreams. But in whatever manner the dream is conceived,
it is always looked upon as a thing sacred, and as the most ordinary
way in which the gods make known their will to men. Filled with this idea,
they cannot conceive how we should pay no regard to them. For the most
part they look upon them either as a desire of the soul, inspired by some genius,
or an order from him, and in consequence of this principle they hold it a[291]
religious duty to obey them. An Indian having dreamt of having a finger cut
off, had it really cut off as soon as he awoke, having first prepared himself for
this important action by a feast. Another having dreamt of being a prisoner,
and in the hands of his enemies, was much at a loss what to do. He consulted
the jugglers, and by their advice caused himself to be tied to a post, and burnt
in several parts of the body.”—Charlevoix’s Journal of a Voyage to North
America.
“The alligator, or American crocodile, when full grown,” says Bertram, “is
a very large and terrible creature, and of prodigious strength, activity, and swiftness
in the water. I have seen them twenty feet in length, and some are supposed
to be twenty-two or twenty-three feet in length. Their body is as large
as that of a horse, their shape usually resembles that of a lizard, which is flat,
or cuneiform, being compressed on each side, and gradually diminishing from
the abdomen to the extremity, which, with the whole body, is covered with
horny plates, of squamæ, impenetrable when on the body of the live animal,
even to a rifle-ball, except about their head, and just behind their forelegs or
arms, where, it is said, they are only vulnerable. The head of a full-grown one
is about three feet, and the mouth opens nearly the same length. Their eyes
are small in proportion, and seem sunk in the head, by means of the prominency
of the brows; the nostrils are large, inflated, and prominent on the top, so that
the head on the water resembles, at a distance, a great chunk of wood floating
about: only the upper jaw moves, which they raise almost perpendicular, so as
to form a right angle with the lower one. In the fore-part of the upper jaw,
on each side, just under the nostrils, are two very large, thick, strong teeth, or
tusks, not very sharp, but rather the shape of a cone: these are as white as the
finest polished ivory, and are not covered by any skin or lips, but always in
sight, which gives the creature a frightful appearance; in the lower jaw are
holes opposite to these teeth to receive them; when they clap their jaws
together, it causes a surprising noise, like that which is made by forcing a heavy
plank with violence upon the ground, and may be heard at a great distance.—But
what is yet more surprising to a stranger, is the incredibly loud and terrifying
roar which they are capable of making, especially in breeding-time. It
most resembles very heavy distant thunder, not only shaking the air and waters,
but causing the earth to tremble; and when hundreds are roaring at the same
time, you can scarcely be persuaded but that the whole globe is violently and
dangerously agitated. An old champion, who is, perhaps, absolute sovereign
of a little lake or lagoon (when fifty less than himself are obliged to content[292]
themselves with swelling and roaring in little coves round about), darts forth
from the reedy coverts, all at once, on the surface of the waters in a right line,
at first seemingly as rapid as lightning, but gradually more slowly, until he
arrives at the centre of the lake, where he stops. He now swells himself by
drawing in wind and water through his mouth, which causes a loud sonorous
rattling in the throat for near a minute; but it is immediately forced out again
through his mouth and nostrils with a loud noise, brandishing his tail in the air,
and the vapour running from his nostrils like smoke. At other times, when
swoln to an extent ready to burst, his head and tail lifted up, he spins or twirls
round on the surface of the water. He acts his part like an Indian chief, when
rehearsing his feats of war.”—Bertram’s Travels in North America.
“They discover an amazing sagacity, and acquire, with the greatest readiness,
any thing that depends upon the attention of the mind. By experience, and
an acute observation, they attain many perfections to which Americans are
strangers. For instance, they will cross a forest or a plain, which is two hundred
miles in breadth, so as to reach, with great exactness, the point at which
they intend to arrive, keeping, during the whole of that space, in a direct line,
without any material deviations; and this they will do with the same ease, let
the weather be fair or cloudy. With equal acuteness they will point to that
part of the heavens the sun is in, though it be intercepted by clouds or fogs.
Besides this, they are able to pursue, with incredible facility, the traces of man
or beast, either on leaves or grass; and on this account it is with great difficulty
they escape discovery. They are indebted for these talents not only to nature,
but to an extraordinary command of the intellectual qualities, which can only
be acquired by an unremitted attention, and by long experience. They are, in
general, very happy in a retentive memory. They can recapitulate every particular
that has been treated of in council, and remember the exact time when
they were held. Their belts of wampum preserve the substance of the treaties
they have concluded with the neighbouring tribes for ages back, to which they
will appeal and refer with as much perspicuity and readiness as Europeans can
to their written records.
“The Indians are totally unskilled in geography, as well as all the other
sciences, and yet they draw on their birch-bark very exact charts or maps of
the countries they are acquainted with. The latitude and longitude only are
wanting to make them tolerably complete.
“Their sole knowledge in astronomy consists in being able to point out the
polar star, by which they regulate their course when they travel in the night.
“They reckon the distance of places not by miles or leagues, but by a day’s
journey, which, according to the best calculation I could make, appears to be
about twenty English miles. These they also divide into halves and quarters,
and will demonstrate them in their maps with great exactness by the hieroglyphics
just mentioned, when they regulate in council their war-parties, or
their most distant hunting excursions.”—Lewis and Clarke’s Travels.
“Some of the French missionaries have supposed that the Indians are guided
by instinct, and have pretended that Indian children can find their way through
a forest as easily as a person of maturer years; but this is a most absurd notion.
It is unquestionably by a close attention to the growth of the trees, and position
of the sun, that they find their way. On the northern side of a tree there is
generally the most moss; and the bark on that side, in general, differs from
that on the opposite one. The branches towards the south are, for the most
part, more luxuriant than those on the other sides of trees, and several other
distinctions also subsist between the northern and southern sides, conspicuous
to Indians, being taught from their infancy to attend to them, which a common
observer would, perhaps, never notice. Being accustomed from their infancy
likewise to pay great attention to the position of the sun, they learn to make
the most accurate allowance for its apparent motion from one part of the
heavens to another; and in every part of the day they will point to the part of
the heavens where it is, although the sky be obscured by clouds or mists.
“An instance of their dexterity in finding their way through an unknown
country came under my observation when I was at Staunton, situated behind
the Blue Mountains, Virginia. A number of the Creek nation had arrived at
that town on their way to Philadelphia, whither they were going upon some
affairs of importance, and had stopped there for the night. In the morning,
some circumstance or other, which could not be learned, induced one half
of the Indians to set off without their companions, who did not follow until
some hours afterwards. When these last were ready to pursue their journey,
several of the towns-people mounted their horses to escort them part of the way.
They proceeded along the high road for some miles, but, all at once, hastily
turning aside into the woods, though there was no path, the Indians advanced
confidently forward. The people who accompanied them, surprised at this
movement, informed them that they were quitting the road to Philadelphia, and
expressed their fear lest they should miss their companions who had gone on
before. They answered that they knew better, that the way through the woods
was the shortest to Philadelphia, and that they knew very well that their companions
had entered the wood at the very place where they did. Curiosity led
some of the horsemen to go on; and to their astonishment, for there was
apparently no track, they overtook the other Indians in the thickest part of the
wood. But what appeared most singular was, that the route which they took[294]
was found, on examining a map, to be as direct for Philadelphia as if they had
taken the bearings by a mariner’s compass. From others of their nation, who
had been at Philadelphia at a former period, they had probably learned the
exact direction of that city from their villages, and had never lost sight of
it, although they had already travelled three hundred miles through the woods,
and had upwards of four hundred miles more to go before they could reach the
place of their destination.—Of the exactness with which they can find out a
strange place to which they have been once directed by their own people, a
striking example is furnished, I think, by Mr. Jefferson, in his account of the
Indian graves in Virginia. These graves are nothing more than large mounds
of earth in the woods, which, on being opened, are found to contain skeletons
in an erect posture: the Indian mode of sepulture has been too often described
to remain unknown to you. But to come to my story. A party of Indians
that were passing on to some of the sea-ports on the Atlantic, just as the
Creeks, above mentioned, were going to Philadelphia, were observed, all on a
sudden, to quit the straight road by which they were proceeding, and without
asking any questions, to strike through the woods, in a direct line, to one of
these graves, which lay at the distance of some miles from the road. Now
very near a century must have passed over since the part of Virginia, in which
this grave was situated, had been inhabited by Indians, and these Indian
travellers, who were to visit it by themselves, had unquestionably never been in
that part of the country before: they must have found their way to it simply
from the description of its situation, that had been handed down to them by
tradition.”—Weld’s Travels in North America, vol. ii.
That I am justified in making the Indian chief allude to the mammoth as
an emblem of terror and destruction, will be seen by the authority quoted
below. Speaking of the mammoth, or big buffalo, Mr. Jefferson states, that a
tradition is preserved among the Indians of that animal still existing in the
northern parts of America:—
“A delegation of warriors from the Delaware tribe having visited the
governor of Virginia during the revolution, on matters of business, the governor
asked them some questions relative to their country, and, among others, what
they knew or had heard of the animal whose bones were found at the Salt-licks,[295]
on the Ohio. Their chief speaker immediately put himself into an
attitude of oratory, and with a pomp suited to what he conceived the elevation
of his subject, informed him, that it was a tradition handed down from their
fathers, that in ancient times a herd of these tremendous animals came to the
Bick-bone-licks, and began a universal destruction of the bear, deer, elk,
buffalo, and other animals which had been created for the use of the Indians.
That the Great Man above looking down and seeing this, was so enraged, that
he seized his lightning, descended on the earth, seated himself on a neighbouring
mountain, on a rock, of which his seat and the prints of his feet are still to
be seen, and hurled his bolts among them, till the whole were slaughtered,
except the big bull, who, presenting his forehead to the shafts, shook them off
as they fell, but missing one, at length it wounded him in the side, whereon,
springing round, he bounded over the Ohio, over the Wabash, the Illinois, and
finally over the great lakes, where he is living at this day.”—Jefferson’s Notes
on Virginia.
I took the character of Brandt in the poem of “Gertrude” from the common
Histories of England, all of which represented him as a bloody and bad man
(even among savages), and chief agent in the horrible desolation of Wyoming.
Some years after this poem appeared, the son of Brandt, a most interesting and
intelligent youth, came over to England, and I formed an acquaintance with
him, on which I still look back with pleasure. He appealed to my sense of
honour and justice, on his own part and on that of his sister, to retract the
unfair aspersions which, unconscious of its unfairness, I had cast on his father’s
memory.
He then referred me to documents which completely satisfied me that the
common accounts of Brandt’s cruelties at Wyoming, which I had found in
books of Travels and in Adolphus’s and similar Histories of England, were
gross errors, and that, in point of fact, Brandt was not even present at that
scene of desolation.
It is, unhappily, to Britons and Anglo-Americans that we must refer the
chief blame in this horrible business. I published a letter expressing this
belief in the New Monthly Magazine, in the year 1822, to which I must refer
the reader—if he has any curiosity on the subject—for an antidote to my
fanciful description of Brandt. Among other expressions to young Brandt, I
made use of the following words:—“Had I learnt all this of your father when
I was writing my poem, he should not have figured in it as the hero of mischief.”[296]
It was but bare justice to say thus much of a Mohawk Indian, who
spoke English eloquently, and was thought capable of having written a history
of the Six Nations. I ascertained also that he often strove to mitigate the
cruelty of Indian warfare. The name of Brandt, therefore, remains in my poem
a pure and declared character of fiction.
Every one who recollects the specimen of Indian eloquence given in the
speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, to the Governor of Virginia, will perceive
that I have attempted to paraphrase its concluding and most striking expression:—“There
runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living
creature.” The similar salutation of the fictitious personage in my story, and
the real Indian orator, makes it surely allowable to borrow such an expression;
and if it appears, as it cannot but appear, to less advantage than in the original,
I beg the reader to reflect how difficult it is to transpose such exquisitely simple
words without sacrificing a portion of their effect.
In the spring of 1774, a robbery and murder were committed on an
inhabitant of the frontiers of Virginia, by two Indians of the Shawanee tribe.
The neighbouring whites, according to their custom, undertook to punish this
outrage in a summary manner. Colonel Cresap, a man infamous for the many
murders he had committed on those much injured people, collected a party and
proceeded down the Kanaway in quest of vengeance; unfortunately a canoe
with women and children, with one man only, was seen coming from the
opposite shore unarmed, and unsuspecting an attack from the whites. Cresap
and his party concealed themselves on the bank of the river, and the moment
the canoe reached the shore, singled out their objects, and at one fire killed
every person in it. This happened to be the family of Logan, who had long
been distinguished as a friend to the whites. This unworthy return provoked
his vengeance; he accordingly signalised himself in the war which ensued. In
the autumn of the same year a decisive battle was fought at the mouth of the
great Kanaway, in which the collected forces of the Shawanees, Mingoes, and
Delawares, were defeated by a detachment of the Virginian militia. The
Indians sued for peace. Logan, however, disdained to be seen among the
suppliants; but lest the sincerity of a treaty should be disturbed, from which
so distinguished a chief abstracted himself, he sent, by a messenger, the following
speech to be delivered to Lord Dunmore:—
“I appeal to any white man if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and
he gave him not to eat; if ever he came cold and hungry, and he clothed him[297]
not. During the course of the last long and bloody war Logan remained idle
in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my
countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, ‘Logan is the friend of white men.’
I have even thought to have lived with you but for the injuries of one man.
Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, murdered all the relations of
Logan, even my women and children.
“There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature:—this
called on me for revenge. I have fought for it. I have killed many. I
have fully glutted my vengeance.—For my country I rejoice at the beams of
peace;—but do not harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan
never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life.—Who is there to
mourn for Logan? not one!”—Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia.
The pride of the Irish in ancestry was so great, that one of the O’Neals
being told that Barrett of Castlemone had been there only 400 years, he
replied,—that he hated the clown as if he had come there but yesterday.
Tara was the place of assemblage and feasting of the petty princes of
Ireland. Very splendid and fabulous descriptions are given by the Irish historians
of the pomp and luxury of those meetings. The psaltery of Tara was
the grand national register of Ireland. The grand epoch of political eminence
in the early history of the Irish is the reign of their great and favourite monarch
Ollam Fodlah, who reigned, according to Keating, about 950 years before the
Christian era. Under him was instituted the great Fes at Tara, which it is
pretended was a triennial convention of the states, or a parliament; the
members of which were the Druids, and other learned men who represented
the people in that assembly. Very minute accounts are given by Irish annalists
of the magnificence and order of these entertainments; from which, if credible,
we might collect the earliest traces of heraldry that occur in history. To preserve
order and regularity in the great number and variety of the members who
met on such occasions, the Irish historians inform us that when the banquet
was ready to be served up, the shield-bearers of the princes, and other members
of the convention, delivered in their shields and targets, which were
readily distinguished by the coats of arms emblazoned upon them. These
were arranged by the grand marshal and principal herald, and hung upon the
walls on the right side of the table; and upon entering the apartments, each
member took his seat under his respective shield or target, without the slightest
disturbance. The concluding days of the meeting, it is allowed by the Irish
antiquaries, were spent in very free excess of conviviality; but the first six,[300]
they say, were devoted to the examination and settlement of the annals of the
kingdom. These were publicly rehearsed. When they had passed the approbation
of the assembly, they were transcribed into the authentic chronicles of
the nation, which was called the Register, or Psalter of Tara.
Colonel Vallancy gives a translation of an old Irish fragment, found in
Trinity College, Dublin, in which the palace of the above assembly is thus
described as it existed in the reign of Cormac:—
“In the reign of Cormac, the palace of Tara was nine hundred feet square;
the diameter of the surrounding rath, seven dice or casts of a dart; it contained
one hundred and fifty apartments; one hundred and fifty dormitories,
or sleeping-rooms for guards, and sixty men in each: the height was twenty-seven
cubits; there were one hundred and fifty common drinking-horns, twelve
doors, and one thousand guests daily, besides princes, orators, and men of
science, engravers of gold and silver, carvers, modelers, and nobles.” The
Irish description of the banqueting-hall is thus translated: “Twelve stalls or
divisions in each wing; sixteen attendants on each side, and two to each table;
one hundred guests in all.”
The house of O’Connor had a right to boast of their victories over the
English. It was a chief of the O’Connor race who gave a check to the
English champion De Courcy, so famous for his personal strength, and for
cleaving a helmet at one blow of his sword, in the presence of the kings of
France and England, when the French champion declined the combat with
him. Though ultimately conquered by the English under De Bourgo, the
O’Connors had also humbled the pride of that name on a memorable occasion:
viz., when Walter De Bourgo, an ancestor of that De Bourgo who won the
battle of Athunree, had become so insolent as to make excessive demands upon
the territories of Connaught, and to bid defiance to all the rights and properties
reserved by the Irish chiefs, Aeth O’Connor, a near descendant of the famous
Cathal, surnamed of the bloody hand, rose against the usurper, and defeated
the English so severely, that their general died of chagrin after the battle.
The month of May is to this day called “Mi Beal tiennie,” i.e., the month
of Beal’s fire, in the original language of Ireland, and hence I believe the name
of the Beltan festival in the Highlands. These fires were lighted on the[301]
summits of mountains (the Irish antiquaries say) in honour of the sun; and are
supposed, by those conjecturing gentlemen, to prove the origin of the Irish
from some nation who worshipped Baal or Belus. Many hills in Ireland still
retain the name of “Cnoc Greine,” i.e., the hill of the sun; and on all are to
be seen the ruins of druidical altars.
The clarshech, or harp, the principal musical instrument of the Hibernian
bards, does not appear to be of Irish origin, nor indigenous to any of the
British islands.—The Britons undoubtedly were not acquainted with it during
the residence of the Romans in their country, as in all their coins, on which
musical instruments are represented, we see only the Roman lyre, and not the
British Teylin, or harp.
“Bawn,” from the Teutonic “Bawen”—to construct and secure with branches
of trees, was so called because the primitive Celtic fortification was made by
digging a ditch, throwing up a rampart, and on the latter fixing stakes, which
were interlaced with boughs of trees. This word is used by Spenser; but it
is inaccurately called by Mr. Todd, his annotator, an eminence.
If the wrath which I have ascribed to the heroine of this little piece should
seem to exhibit her character as too unnaturally stript of patriotic and domestic
affections, I must beg leave to plead the authority of Corneille in the representation
of a similar passion: I allude to the denunciation of Camilla, in the
tragedy of Horace. When Horace, accompanied by a soldier bearing the three
swords of the Curiatii meets his sister, and invites her to congratulate him on
his victory, she expresses only her grief, which he attributes at first only to her
feelings for the loss of her two brothers; but when she bursts forth into
reproaches against him as the murderer of her lover, the last of the Curiatii,
he exclaims:—
In the reign of Edward the Second, the Irish presented to Pope John the
Twenty-second a memorial of their sufferings under the English, of which the
language exhibits all the strength of despair:—“Ever since the English,” say
they, “first appeared upon our coasts, they entered our territories under a certain
specious pretence of charity, and external hypocritical show of religion, endeavouring
at the same time, by every artifice malice could suggest, to extirpate
us root and branch, and without any other right than that of the strongest;
they have so far succeeded by base fraudulence, and cunning, that they have
forced us to quit our fair and ample habitations and inheritances, and to take
refuge like wild beasts in the mountains, the woods, and the morasses of the
country;—nor even can the caverns and dens protect us against their insatiable
avarice. They pursue us even into these frightful abodes; endeavouring to
dispossess us of the wild uncultivated rocks, and arrogate to themselves the
property of every place on which we can stamp the figure of our feet.”
The greatest effort ever made by the ancient Irish to regain their native[303]
independence, was made at the time when they called over the brother of
Robert Bruce from Scotland. William de Bourgo, brother to the Earl of
Ulster, and Richard de Bermingham, were sent against the main body of the
native insurgents, who were headed rather than commanded by Felim
O’Connor. The important battle, which decided the subjection of Ireland,
took place on the 10th of August, 1315. It was the bloodiest that ever was
fought between the two nations, and continued throughout the whole day, from
the rising to the setting sun. The Irish fought with inferior discipline,
but with great enthusiasm. They lost ten thousand men, among whom were
twenty-nine chiefs of Connaught. Tradition states that after this terrible day,
the O’Connor family, like the Fabian, were so nearly exterminated, that
throughout all Connaught not one of the name remained, except Felim’s
brother, who was capable of bearing arms.
The sight of the glaciers of Switzerland, I am told, has often disappointed
travellers who had perused the accounts of their splendour and sublimity given
by Bourrit and other describers of Swiss scenery. Possibly Bourrit, who had
spent his life in an enamoured familiarity with the beauties of Nature in
Switzerland, may have leaned to the romantic side of description. One can
pardon a man for a sort of idolatry of those imposing objects of Nature which
heighten our ideas of the bounty of Nature or Providence, when we reflect
that the glaciers—those seas of ice—are not only sublime, but useful: they are
the inexhaustible reservoirs which supply the principal rivers of Europe; and
their annual melting is in proportion to the summer heat which dries up those
rivers and makes them need that supply.
That the picturesque grandeur of the glaciers should sometimes disappoint
the traveller, will not seem surprising to any one who has been much in a
mountainous country, and recollects that the beauty of Nature in such countries
is not only variable, but capriciously dependent on the weather and sunshine.
There are about four hundred different glaciers,[106] according to the computation
of M. Bourrit, between Mont Blanc and the frontiers of the Tyrol. The full
effect of the most lofty and picturesque of them can, of course, only be produced
by the richest and warmest light of the atmosphere; and the very heat
which illuminates them must have a changing influence on many of their
appearances. I imagine it is owing to this circumstance, namely, the casualty
and changeableness of the appearance of some of the glaciers, that the
impressions made by them on the minds of other and more transient travellers
have been less enchanting than those described by M. Bourrit. On one occasion
M. Bourrit seems even to speak of a past phenomenon, and certainly one
which no other spectator attests in the same terms, when he says that there
once existed between the Kandel Steig and Lauterbrun, “a passage amidst
singular glaciers, sometimes resembling magical towns of ice, with pilasters,
pyramids, columns, and obelisks, reflecting to the sun the most brilliant hues
of the finest gems.”
M. Bourrit’s description of the Glacier of the Rhone is quite enchanting:—“To
form an idea,” he says, “of this superb spectacle, figure in
your mind a scaffolding of transparent ice, filling a space of two miles,
rising to the clouds, and darting flashes of light like the sun. Nor were the
several parts less magnificent and surprising. One might see, as it were, the
streets and buildings of a city, erected in the form of an amphitheatre, and
embellished with pieces of water, cascades, and torrents. The effects were as
prodigious as the immensity and the height;—the most beautiful azure—the
most splendid white—the regular appearance of a thousand pyramids of ice,
are more easy to be imagined than described.”—Bourrit, iii. 163.
[106] Occupying, if taken together, a surface of 130 square leagues.
Laborde, in his “Tableau de la Suisse,” gives a curious account of this
animal, the wild sharp cry and elastic movements of which must heighten the
picturesque appearance of its haunts:—“Nature,” says Laborde, “has destined
it to mountains covered with snow: if it is not exposed to keen cold, it becomes
blind. Its agility in leaping much surpasses that of the chamois, and would
appear incredible to those who have not seen it. There is not a mountain so
high or steep to which it will not trust itself, provided it has room to place its
feet; it can scramble along the highest wall, if its surface be rugged.”
I have here availed myself of a striking expression of the Emperor Napoleon
respecting his recollections of Corsica, which is recorded in Las Cases’s “History
of the Emperor’s Abode at St. Helena.”
Lochiel, the chief of the warlike clan of the Camerons, and descended
from ancestors distinguished in their narrow sphere for great personal prowess,
was a man worthy of a better cause and fate than that in which he embarked,—the
enterprise of the Stuarts in 1745. His memory is still fondly cherished
among the Highlanders, by the appellation of the “gentle Lochiel;” for he was
famed for his social virtues as much as his martial and magnanimous (though
mistaken) loyalty. His influence was so important among the Highland chiefs
that it depended on his joining with his clan whether the standard of Charles
should be raised or not in 1745. Lochiel was himself too wise a man to be
blind to the consequences of so hopeless an enterprise, but his sensibility to
the point of honour overruled his wisdom. Charles appealed to his loyalty,
and he could not brook the reproaches of his Prince. When Charles landed
at Borrodale, Lochiel went to meet him, but on his way, called at his brother’s
house (Cameron of Fassafern), and told him on what errand he was going;
adding, however, that he meant to dissuade the Prince from his enterprise.
Fassafern advised him in that case to communicate his mind by letter to
Charles. “No,” said Lochiel, “I think it due to my Prince to give him my
reasons in person for refusing to join his standard.”—“Brother,” replied
Fassafern, “I know you better than you know yourself: if the Prince once
sets his eyes on you, he will make you do what he pleases.” The interview
accordingly took place; and Lochiel, with many arguments, but in vain,
pressed the Pretender to return to France, and reserve himself and his friends
for a more favourable occasion, as he had come, by his own acknowledgment,
without arms, or money, or adherents: or, at all events, to remain concealed
till his friends should meet and deliberate what was best to be done. Charles,
whose mind was wound up to the utmost impatience, paid no regard to this
proposal, but answered, “that he was determined to put all to the hazard.”
“In a few days,” said he, “I will erect the royal standard, and proclaim to
the people of Great Britain that Charles Stuart is come over to claim the crown
of his ancestors, and to win it, or perish in the attempt. Lochiel, who my
father has often told me was our firmest friend, may stay at home, and learn
from the newspapers the fate of his Prince.”—“No,” said Lochiel, “I will[308]
share the fate of my Prince, and so shall every man over whom nature or fortune
hath given me any power.”
The other chieftains who followed Charles embraced his cause with no
better hopes. It engages our sympathy most strongly in their behalf, that no
motive, but their fear to be reproached with cowardice or disloyalty, impelled
them to the hopeless adventure. Of this we have an example in the interview
of Prince Charles with Clanronald, another leading chieftain in the rebel army.
“Charles,” says Home, “almost reduced to despair, in his discourse with
Boisdale, addressed the two Highlanders with great emotion, and, summing up
his arguments for taking arms, conjured them to assist their Prince, their
countryman, in his utmost need. Clanronald and his friend, though well
inclined to the cause, positively refused, and told him that to take up arms
without concert or support was to pull down certain ruin on their own
heads. Charles persisted, argued, and implored. During this conversation
(they were on shipboard) the parties walked backward and forward on the
deck; a Highlander stood near them, armed at all points, as was then the
fashion of his country. He was a younger brother of Kinloch Moidart, and
had come off to the ship to enquire for news, not knowing who was aboard.
When he gathered from their discourse that the stranger was the Prince of
Wales; when he heard his chief and his brother refuse to take arms with their
Prince; his colour went and came, his eyes sparkled, he shifted his place, and
grasped his sword. Charles observed his demeanour, and turning briskly to
him, called out, ‘Will you assist me?’—‘I will, I will,’ said Ronald: ‘though
no other man in the Highlands should draw a sword, I am ready to die for you!’
Charles, with a profusion of thanks to his champion, said, he wished all the
Highlanders were like him. Without farther deliberation, the two Macdonalds
declared that they would also join, and use their utmost endeavours to engage
their countrymen to take arms.”—Home’s History of the Rebellion of 1745.
An account of the second sight, in Irish called “Taish,” is thus given in
Martin’s “Description of the Western Isles of Scotland,” p. 3-11:—
“The second sight is a singular faculty of seeing an otherwise invisible
object, without any previous means used by the person who sees it for that
end. The vision makes such a lively impression upon the seers, that they
neither see nor think of anything else except the vision as long as it continues;
and then they appear pensive or jovial according to the object which 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[309]
are standing 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.
“There is one in Skye, of whom his acquaintance observed, that when he
sees a vision the inner parts of his eyelids turn so far upwards, that, after the
object disappears, he must draw them down with his fingers, and sometimes
employs others to draw them down, which he finds to be much the
easier way.
“This faculty of the second sight does not lineally descend in a family, as
some have imagined; for I know several parents who are endowed with it,
and their children are not; and vice versa. Neither is it acquired by any
previous compact. And after strict enquiry, I could never learn from any
among them, that this faculty was communicable to any whatsoever. The
seer knows neither the object, time, nor place of a vision before it appears;
and the same object is often seen by different persons living at a considerable
distance from one another. The true way of judging as to the time and
circumstances is by observation; for several persons of judgment who are
without this faculty are more capable to judge of the design of a vision than a
novice that is a seer. If an object appears in the day or night, it will come to
pass sooner or later accordingly.
“If an object is seen early in a morning, which is not frequent, it will be
accomplished in a few hours afterwards; if at noon it will probably be accomplished
that very day; if in the evening perhaps that night; if after
candles be lighted, it will be accomplished that night; the latter always an
accomplishment by weeks, months, and sometimes years, according to the time
of the night the vision is seen.
“When a shroud is seen about one, it is a sure prognostic of death. The
time is judged according to the height of it about the person; for if it is not
seen above the middle, death is not to be expected for the space of a year, and
perhaps some months longer: and as it is frequently seen to ascend higher
towards the head, death is concluded to be at hand within a few days, if not
hours, as daily experience confirms. Examples of this kind were shown me,
when the person of whom the observations were then made was in perfect
health.
“It is ordinary with them to see houses, gardens, and trees in places void
of all these, and this in process of time is wont to be accomplished; as at
Mogslot, in the Isle of Skye, where there were but a few sorry low houses
thatched with straw; yet in a few years the vision, which appeared often, was
accomplished by the building of several good houses in the very spot represented
to the seers, and by the planting of orchards there.
“To see a spark of fire is a forerunner of a dead child, to be seen in the
arms of those persons; of which there are several instances. To see a seat[310]
empty at the time of sitting in it, is a presage of that person’s death quickly
after it.
“When a novice, or one that has lately obtained the second sight, sees a
vision in the night-time without doors, and comes near a fire he presently falls
into a swoon.
“Some find themselves as it were in a crowd of people, having a corpse,
which they carry along with them; and after such visions the seers come in
sweating, and describe the vision that appeared. If there be any of their
acquaintance among them, they give an account of their names, as also of the
bearers; but they know nothing concerning the corpse.”
Horses and cows (according to the same credulous author) have certainly
sometimes the same faculty; and he endeavours to prove it by the signs of
fear which the animals exhibit when second-sighted persons see visions in the
same place.
“The seers,” he continues, “are generally illiterate and well-meaning people
and altogether void of design: nor could I ever learn that any of them ever
made the least gain by it; neither is it reputable among them to have that
faculty. Besides, the people of the Isles are not so credulous as to believe
implicitly before the thing predicted is accomplished; but when it is actually
accomplished afterwards, it is not in their power to deny it, without offering
violence to their own sense and reason. Besides, if the seers were deceivers,
can it be reasonable to imagine that all the islanders who have not the second
sight should combine together, and offer violence to their understandings and
senses, to enforce themselves to believe a lie from age to age? There are
several persons among them whose title and education raise them above the
suspicion of concurring with an impostor, merely to gratify an illiterate, contemptible
set of persons; nor can reasonable persons believe that children,
horses, and cows, should be pre-engaged in a combination in favour of second
sight.”
THE END.
MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
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