WHERE is the fon of Selma, he who led in war? I behold not his fteps, among my people,

It is a vulgar error, that the common Highlanders lived, in abject flavery, under their chiefs. Their high ideas of and attachment to, the heads of their families, probably, led the unintelligent into this mistake.-When the honour of the tribe was concerned, the commands of the chief were obeyed, without reftriction; but, if individuals were oppreffed, they threw themselves into the arms of a neighbouring clan, affumed a new name, and were encouraged and protected. The fear of this defertion, no doubt, made the chiefs cautious in their government. As their confequence, in the eyes of others, was in proportion to the number of their people, they took care to avoid every thing that tended to diminish it.

It was but very lately that the authority of the laws extended to the Highlands. Before that time the clans were governed, in civil affairs, not by the verbal commands of the chief, but by what they called Clechda, or the traditional precedents of their ancestors. When dif ferences happened between individuals, fome of the oldest men in the tribe were chofen umpires between the parties, to decide according to the Clechda. The chief interpofed his authority, and, invariably, enforced the decifion.In their wars, which were frequent, on account of family feuds, the chief was lefs referved in the execution of his authority; and even then he feldom extended it to the taking the life of any of his tribe.-No crime was capital except murder; and that was very unfrequent in the high lands. No corporal punishment, of any kind, was inflict, ed. The memory of an affront of this fort would remain, for ages in a family, and they would feize every opportunity to be revenged, unless it came immediately from the hands of the chief himself; in that cafe it was taken, rather, as a fatherly correction, than a legal punishment for offences,

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returning from the field. Fell the young bounding roe, who was fo ftately on my hills? He fell for ye are filent. The fhield of war is broke.Let his armour be near to Fingal; and the fword of dark-brown Luno. Iam waked on my hills: With morning I descend to war.

* HIGH on Cormul's rock, an oak flamed to the wind. The grey skirts of mist are rolled around; thither ftrode the king in his wrath. Diftant from the hoft he always lay, when battle

*This rock of Cormul is often mentioned in the preceding part of the poem. It was on it Fingal and Offian ftood to view the battle. The cuftom of retiring from the army, on the night prior to their engaging in battle, was universal among the kings of the Caledonians.Trenmor, the most renowned of the ancestors of Fingal, is mentioned as the first who inftituted this cuftom. Succeeding bards attributed it to a hero of à latter period.-—— In an old poem, which begins with Mac-Arcath nan ceud fról, this cuftom of retiring from the army, before an engagement, is numbered, among the wife inftitutions of Fergus, the fon of Arc or Arcath, the first king of Scots. I fhall here tranflate the paffage; in some other note I may, probably, give all that remains of the poem. Fergus of the hundred fireams, fen of Arcath who fought of old: theu didst first retire at night: when the foe rolled before thee, in echoing fields. Nor bending in ref is the king: he gathers battles in his foul. Fly, fon of the franger; with morn he' When, or by whom, this poem was writ, is uncertain. It has much of the fpirit of the an. cient compofition of the Scotifh bards; and feems to be a clofe imitation of the manner of Offian.

fball rub abroad.

burnt

burnt within his foul. On two fpears hung his shield on high; the gleaming fign of death; that shield, which he was wont to ftrike, by night, before he rushed to war.-It was then his warriors knew, when the king was to lead in ftrife; for never was this buckler heard, till Fingal's wrath arofe.-Unequal were his steps on high, as he fhone in the beam of the oak; he was dreadful as the form of the fpirit of night, when he cloaths, on hills, his wild geftures with mift, and, iffuing forth, on the troubled ocean, mounts the car of winds.

NOR fettled, from the ftorm, is Erin's fea of war; they glittered, beneath the moon, and, low-humming, ftill rolled on the field.-Alone are the fteps of Cathmor, before them on the heath; he hung forward, with all his arms, on Morven's flying hoft. Now had he come to the moffy cave, where Fillan lay in night. One tree was bent above the ftreain, which glittered over the rock.There fhone to the moon the broken fhield of Clatho's fon; and near it, on grafs, lay hairy-footed Bran*. . He

had

* This circumftance, concerning Bran, the favourite dog of Fingal, is perhaps, one of the most affecting paffages in the poem. I remember to have met with an old poem, compofed long after the time of Offian, wherein

BOOK VI. had miffed the chief on Mora, and searched him along the wind. He thought that the blue-eyed hunter flept; he lay upon his fhield. No blaft came over the heath, unknown to bounding Bran.

CATHMOR faw the

white-breafted dog; he faw the broken fhield. Darknefs is blown back on his foul; he remembers the falling away of

a ftory of this fort is very happily introduced. In one of the invasions of the Danes, Ullin-clundu, a confiderable chief, on the western coaft of Scotland, was killed in a rencounter with a flying party of the enemy, who had landed, at no great diftance, from the place of his refidence. The few followers who attended him were also flain..--The young wife of Ullin-clundu, who had not heard of his fall, fearing the worst, on account of his long delay, alarmed the reft of his tribe, who went in fearch of him along the fhore. They did not find him; and the beautiful widow became difconfolate. At length he was discovered, by means of his dog, who fat on a rock befide the body, for fome days.-The poem is not just now in my hands; otherwife its poetical merit might induce me to prefent the reader with a tranflation of it. The ftanza concerning the dog, whofe name was Du-chos, or Blackfoot, is very defcriptive.

"Dark-fided Du-chos! feet of wind! cold is thy feat on rocks. He (the dog) fees the roe; his ears are high; and half he bounds away. He looks around; but Ullin fleeps; he droops again his head. The winds come past; dark Du-chos thinks, that Ullin's voice is there. But still he beholds him filent, laid amidst the waving heath. Darkfided Du-chos, his voice no more shall fend thee over the heath!"

the

the people. They come, a ftream; are rolled away; another race fucceeds.-"But fome mark the fields, as they pafs, with their own mighty námes. The heath, thro' dark-brown years, is theirs; fome blue ftream, winds to their fame. Of thefe be the chief of Atha, when he lays him down on earth. Often may the voice of future times méet Cathmor in the air when he ftrides from wind to wind, or folds himself in the wing of a storm."

GREEN Erin gathered round the king, to hear the voice of his power. Their joyful faces bend, unequal, forward, in the light of the oak They who were terrible were removed: Lubar * winds again in their hoft. Cathmor was that beam from heaven which fhone when his people

In order to illuftrate this paffage, it is proper to lay before the reader the scene of the two preceding battles. Between the hills of Mora and Lona lay the plain of Moi-lena, thro' which ran the river Lubar. The first battle, wherein Gaul, the fon of Morni, commanded on the Caledonian fide, was fought on the banks of Lubar. As there was little advantage obtained, on either fide, the armies, after the battle, retained their former pofitions.

In the fecond battle, wherein Fillan commanded, the Irish, after the fall of Foldath, were driven up the hill of Lona; but, upon the coming of Cathmor to their aid, they regained their former fituation, and drove back the Caledonians, in their turn: fo that Lubar winded again in their hoft.