mighty dead crown our hills amid the desolation of years; while the proud and elaborate temples of Balbec, Palmyra and Persepolis have yielded to the wreck of time. The chief, whose ashes lay beneath the mound, sleeps through the night of time, his grave is far from the track of man; the grass grows and withers, as an emblem of human fate, upon his lonely barrow top, while the passing breeze chants his funeral dirge. On a spot so hallowed by the wing of Time, the imagination may vividly depict the rude but solemn rites attendant on the burial; the blazing pile flinging its lurid beams around, gave notice to the distant tribes of the sad office then performing, while the relentless and officiating priest, plunging his steel into the breasts of those unhappy favourites who were doomed to share their master's death, calmly viewed their convulsive agonies; while the mystic song of the bards, narrating the exploits of the deceased, the frantic yells and mystic dance of the skin-clad Celts, drowned in a vast clamour, the wild and piercing shrieks of expiring victims-then were the trophies solemnly deposited-then was raised the mound, and then was performed the mystic ceremony of going three times round the tomb, amid invocations on the name of the deceasedthe harp has ceased, the fire pile has blazed, the tribes have retired from the grave, and left the rude mound to its future solitude, save when a passing traveller should throw the stone of respect upon the heap, which is to last for future days!" Scarborough. WM. ATKINSON. The Selector; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS. A HIGHLAND STORY. Related by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart. of Fountainhall.* NEAR the hamlet of Carr, on the right bank of the river Dulnan, a slate-rock has been laid bare, which, if properly wrought, might turn out to some account. About 150 yards to the westward of the houses, there is a small patch of land surrounded by a few stunted birches, called Croftna-croitch, or the Gallows Croft, having the following story attached to it:-Near the end of the seventeenth century, there lived a * In his "Account of the Great Floods of August, 1829, in the Province of Moray, and adjoining Districts." certain notorious freebooter, a native of Lochaber, of the name of Cameron, but who was better known by his cognomen of Padrig Mac-an-Ts'agairt, Peter the Priest's son. Numerous were the creachs, or robberies of cattle on the great scale, driven by him from Strathspey. But he did not confine his depredations to that country; for, some time between the years 1690 and 1695, he made a clean sweep of the cattle from the rich pastures of the Aird, the territory of the Frasers. That he might put his pursuers on a wrong scent, he did not go directly towards Lochaber, but, crossing the river Ness at Lochend, he struck over the mountains of Strathnairn and Strathdearn, and ultimately encamped behind a hill above Duthel, called, from a copious spring on its summit, Cairn-an-Sh'uaran, or the Well Hill. But, notwithstanding all his precautions, the celebrated Simon, Lord Lovat, then chief of the Frasers, discovered his track, and despatched a special messenger to his father-in-law, Sir Ludovick Grant, of Grant, begging his aid in apprehending Mac-an-Ts'agairt and recovering the cattle. It so happened that there lived at this time on the faird of Grant's ground a man also called Cameron, surnamed Mugachmore, of great strength and undaunted courage: he had six sons, and a stepson, whom his wife, formerly a woman of light character, had before her marriage with Mugach; and as they were all brave, Sir Ludovick applied to them to undertake the recapture of the cattle. Sir Ludovick was not mistaken in his man. The Mugach no sooner received his orders than he armed himself and his little band, and went in quest of the freebooter, whom he found in the act of cooking a dinner from part of the spoil. The Mugach called on Padrig and his men to surrender; and they, though numerous, dreading the well-known prowess of their adversary, fled to the opposite hills, their chief threatening bloody vengeance as he went. The safety, and watched them there till their Mugach drove the cattle to a place of Mac-an-Ts'agairt did not utter his owners came to recover them. Padrig threats without the fullest intention of carrying them into effect. In the latter Strathspey with a strong party, and wayend of the following spring he visited laid the Mugach, as he and his sons were returning from working at a small patch of land he had on the brow of a Mac-an-Ts'agairt and his party conhill, about half a mile above his house. cealed themselves in a thick covert of underwood, through which they knew that the Mugach and his sons must pass; but seeing their intended victims well armed, the cowardly assassins lay still in their hiding-place and allowed them to pass, with the intention of taking a more favourable opportunity for their purpose. That very night they surprised and murdered two of the sons, who, being married, lived in separate houses, at some distance from their father's; and having thus executed so much of their diabolical purpose, they surrounded the Mugach's cottage. No sooner was his dwelling attacked, than the brave Mugach, immediately guessing who the assailants were, made the best arrangements for defence that time and circumstances permitted. The door was the first point attempted; but it was strong, and he and his four sons placed themselves behind it, determined to do bloody execution the moment it should be forced. Whilst thus engaged, the Mugach was startled by a noise above the rafters, and, looking up, he perceived, in the obscurity, the figure of a man half through a hole in the wattled roof. Eager to despatch his foe as he entered, he sprang upon a table, plunged his sword into his body, and down fell his stepson! whom he had ever loved and cherished as one of his own children. The youth had been cutting his way through the roof, with the intention of attacking Padrig from above, and so creating a diversion in favour of those who were defending the door. The brave young man lived no longer than to say, with a faint voice, "Dear father, I fear you have killed me!" For a moment the Mugach stood petrified with horror and grief- but rage soon usurped the place of both. "Let me open the door!" he cried, "and revenge his death, by drenching my sword in the blood of the villain!" His sons clung around him to prevent what they conceived to be madness, and a strong struggle ensued between desperate bravery and filial duty; whilst the Mugach's wife stood gazing on the corpse of her first-born son in an agony of contending passions, being ignorant, from all she had witnessed, but that the young man's death had been wilfully wrought by her husband. "Hast thou forgotten our former days of dalliance?" cried the wily Padrig, who saw the whole scene through a crevice in the door-"how often hast thou undone thy door to me when I came home on an errand of love; and wilt thou not open it now to give me way to punish him who has but this moment so foully slain His thy beloved son?" Ancient recollections and present affliction conspired to twist her to his purpose. The struggle and altercation between the Mugach and his sons still continued. A frenzy seized on the unhappy woman. She flew to the door-undid the bolt-and Padrig and his assassins rushed in. The infuriated Mugach no sooner beheld his enemy enter, than he sprang at him like a tiger, grasped him by the throat, and dashed him to the ground. Already was his vigorous sword-arm drawn back and his broad claymore was about to find a passage to the traitor's heart, when his faithless wife coming behind him, threw over it a large canvass winnowing sheet, and, before he could extricate the blade from the numerous folds, Padrig's weapon was reeking in the best heart's blood of the bravest Highlander that Strathspey could boast of. four sons who had witnessed their nother's treachery, were paralyzed. The unfortunate woman herself, too, stood stupified and appalled; but she was quickly recalled to her senses by the active clash of the swords of Padrig and his men. "Oh, my sons! my sons!"' she cried-" spare my boys!" But the tempter needed her services no longer-— she had done his work. She was spurned to the ground, and trampled under foot, by those who soon strewed the bloody floor around her with the lifeless corpses of her brave sons. Exulting in the full success of this expedition of vengeance, Mac-an-Ts'agairt beheaded the bodies, and piled the heads in a heap on an oblong hill, that runs parallel to the road, on the east side of Carr Bridge, from which it is called Tomnan-Cean, the Hill of the Heads. Scarcely was he beyond the reach of danger, when his butchery was known at Castle Grant, and Sir Ludovick immediately offered a great reward for his apprehension; but Padrig, who had anticipated some such thing, fled to Ireland, where he remained for seven years. But the restlessness of the murderer is well known, and Padrig felt it in all its horrors. Leaving his Irish retreat, he returned to Lochaber. By a strange accident, a certain Mungo Grant of Muckrach having had his cattle and horses carried away by some thieves from that quarter, pursued them hot foot, recovered them, and was on his way returning with them, when, to his astonishment, he met Padrig Mac-an-Ts'agairt quite alone, in a narrow pass, on the borders of his native country. Mungo instantly seized and made a prisoner of him. But his progress with his beasts was tedious; and as he was entering Strathspey at Lag-na-caillich, about a mile to the westward of Aviemore, he espied twelve desperate men, who, taking advantage of his slow march, had crossed the hills to gain the pass before him, for the purpose of rescuing Padrig. But Mungo was not to be daunted. Seeing them occupying the road in his front, he grasped his prisoner with one hand, and brandishing his dirk with the other, he advanced in the midst of his people and animals, swearing potently, that the first motion at an attempt at rescue by any one of them, should be the signal for his dirk to drink the life's blook of Padrig Mac - an- Ts'agairt. They were so intimidated by his boldness, that they allowed him to pass without assault, and left their friend to his fate. Padrig was forthwith carried to Castle Grant. But the remembrance of the Mugach's murder had been by this time much obliterated by many events little less strange; and the laird, unwilling to be troubled with the matter, ordered Mungo and his prisoner away. Disappointed and mortified, Mungo and his party were returning with their felon captive, discussing, as they went, what they had best do with him. "A fine reward we have had for all our trouble !" said one. "The laird may catch the next thief her's nanesel, for Donald!" said another. "Let's turn him loose!" said a third. "Ay, ay," said a fourth, "what for wud we be plaguing oursels more wi' him!" "Yes, yes! brave generous men!" said Padrig Mac-anTs'agairt, roused by a sudden hope of life from the moody dream of the gallows-tree, in which he had been plunged, whilst he was courting his mournful muse to compose his own lament, that he might die with an effect striking as all the events of his life had been; "yes, brave men! free me from these bonds! it is unworthy of Strathspey-men,-it is unworthy of Grants to triumph over a fallen foe! Those whom I killed were no clansmen of thine, but recreant Camerons, who betrayed a Cameron! Let me go free, and that reward of which you have been disappointed shall be quadrupled for sparing my life!" Such words as these, operating on minds so much prepared to receive them favourably, had well nigh worked their purpose. But, "No!" said Muckrach sternly, "it shall never be said that a murderer escaped from my hands. Besides it was just so that he fairly spake the Mugach's false wife. But he did not spare her sons on that account? If ye let him go, my men, the fate of the Mugach may be ours; for what bravery can stand against treachery and assassination ?" This opened an entirely new view of the question to Padrig's rude guards; and the result of the conference was, that they resolved to take him to Inverness, and to deliver him up to the sheriff. As they were pursuing their way up the south side of the river Dulnan, the hill of Tom-nan-cean appeared on that opposite to them. At sight of it, the whole circumstances of Padrig's atrocious deed came fresh into their minds. It seemed to cry on them for justice, and, with one impulse, they shouted out, "Let him die on the spot where he did the bloody act!" Without a moment's farther delay, they resolved to execute their new resolution. But on their way across the plain, they happened to observe a large fir-tree, with a thick horizontal branch growing at right angles from the trunk, and of a sufficient height from the ground to suit their purpose; and doubting if they might find so convenient a gallows where they were going, they at once determined that here Padrig should finish his mortal career. The neighbouring birch thicket supplied them with materials for making a withe; and, whilst they were twisting it, Padrig burst forth in a flood of Gaelic verse, which his mind had been accumulating by the way. His song, and the twig rope that was to terminate his existence, were spun out and finished at the same moment, and he was instantly elevated to a height equally beyond his ambition and his hopes. No one would touch his body, so it hung swinging in the wind for some twelve months or more after his execution; and much as he had been feared when alive, he was infinitely more a cause of terror now that he was a lifeless corpse. None dared to approach that part of the heath after it was dark; but in daylight people were bolder. The school-boys of Duthel, who, like the frogs in the fable, gradually began to have less and less apprehension for him, actually bragged one another on so far one day, that they ventured to pelt him with stones. A son of Delrachney, who happened to aim better than the rest, struck the birchen withe, by this time become rotten, severed it, and down came the wasted body with a terrible crash. As the cause of its descent was hardly perceptible to any of them, the terrified boys ran off, filled with the horrible belief that the much-dreaded Padrig was pursuing them. So impressed was poor young Delrachney with this idea, that, through terror and haste, he burst a blood-vessel, and died in two hours afterwards. Padrig's bones were buried about 100 yards to the north of the bridge of Carr; but, as if they were doomed never to have rest, the grave was cut through about thirty-five years ago, when the present Highland road was made; and they were reinterred immediately behind the inn garden. Should any idlers, who may wander after dusk along the road leading by the base of the Tom-nan-cean, see strange sights cross his path, let him recall the story I have narrated, and it may furnish him with some explanation of what he beholds. Motes of a Reader. "DEATH TOKENS' IN WALES. We IN a wild and retired district in North Wales, that namely which extends from Dolgelly westward to Barmouth and Towyn, where there is certainly as much superstition as in any other district of the same extent, and where there are many individuals who lay claim to the title and capabilities of seers, the following occurrence took place, to the great astonishment of the mountaineers. can vouch for the truth of the statement, as many members of our own teulu, or clan, were witnesses of the fact. On a dark evening, a few winters ago, some persons with whom we are well acqainted, were returning to Barmouth on the south or opposite side of the river. As they approached the ferry-house at Penthryn, which is directly opposite Barmouth, they observed a light near the house, which they conjectured to be produced by a bonfire, and greatly puzzled they were to discover the reason why it should have been lighted. As they came nearer, however, it vanished; and when they inquired at the house respecting it, they were surprised to learn that not only had the people there displayed no light, but they had not even seen one; nor could they perceive any signs of it on the sands. On reaching Barmouth, the circumstance was mentioned, and the fact corroborated by some of the people there, who had also plainly and distinctly seen the light. was settled, therefore, by some of the old fishermen, that this was a "deathtoken;" and, sure enough, the man who kept the ferry at that time was drowned at high-water a few nights afterwards, on the very spot where the light was seen. He was landing from the boat, when he fell into the water, It and so perished. The same winter the Barmouth people, as well as the inhabitants of the opposite banks, were struck by the appearance of a number of small lights, which were seen dancing in the air at a place called Borthwyn, about half a mile from the town. A great number of people came out to see these lights; and after awhile they all but one disappeared, and this one proceeded slowly towards the water's edge, to a little bay where some boats were moored. The men in a sloop which was anchored near the spot, saw the light advancing-they saw it also hover for a few seconds over one particular boat, and then totally disappear. Two or three days afterwards, the man to whom that particular boat belonged was drowned in the river, while he was sailing about Barmouth harbour in that very boat. We have narrated these facts just as they occurred; we must leave the solution of the mystery to the ingenuity of our readers.-(From an indifferent paper on "the Philosophy of Apparitions in Fraser's Magazine; the writer of which has much to learn before he can throw any new light upon the ever-to-be- controverted subject of "Apparitions.") THE LEGACY OF THE ROSES. A PERSON who died at Barnes left an Oн, plant them above me, the soft, the bright, The sweet with the sweep of the west wind's wing: Let the green bough and the red leaf wave— Plant not the cypress nor yet the yew; Too heavy their shadow, too gloomy their hue, "HUMBOLDT," said a certain captain in the West Middlesex Militia, "Humboldt is an over-rated man-there is very little in him; and he knows nothing of geography!"-"How! that celebrated traveller know nothing of geography?" "No more than my black terrier there, sir. I met him once at a party at the Russian Ambassador's, at Paris, and put him to the proof. As long as he was talking about the Andes and the Cordilleras, and places which nobody but himself had ever heard of, he carried it all his own way; but the moment I put a straight forward question to him, which any school-boy might have answered, he was floored. 'Now, Baron,' said Itaking him by surprise-Now, Baron, can you tell me where Turnham Green is?' Upon--my-honour, he knew no more about it than I know about Jericho!"-New Monthly Magazine. INSCRIPTION ON THE PORTAL OF A VILLA NEAR SIENNA. "Quisquis huc accedis, Quod tibi horrendum videtur, Whoever thou mayest be who enterest here, remember that what may seem strange to thee is agreeable to me. If thou art pleased, thou canst remain; if displeased, depart- either will please me.-Ibid. CHINESE POLICY. IN China all is at a stand still; succeeding ages add not to the knowledge of those that have gone before; no one must presume to be wiser than his fathers: around the Son of Heaven, as they designate their emperor, assemble the learned of the land as his council; so in the provinces the learned in their several degrees around the governor; and laws and rules are passed from the highest down to the lowest, to be by them given to the people. Every, even the most minute, circumstance of common life, is regulated by law. It matters not, for example, what may be the wealth of an individual; he must wear the dress and build his house after the mode prescribed by ancient regulations. In China every thing bears the stamp of antiquity: immovableness seems to be the characteristic of the nation; every implement retains its primitive rude form; every invention has stopped at the first step. -Cabinet Cyclopædia, Vol. ix. Outlines of History. WINE. O, WINE! glorious, excellent Wine! how often hast thou inspired me with eloquence, relieved me from the trammels of fancied imprisonment, given new life, new hope, new existence to my weather-beaten frame, and to my pallid imagination! To thee, O Bacchus ! I am indebted for many a social hour, many a lively thought, many an excellent companion, which, without thy influence on my uncultivated brain, would have been, a tedious time, a homely expression, or a milk-and-water associate !-to thee again I must resort, and hence the future gleams of happiness in this life. -New Monthly Magazine. ALBUMS. WHY is a book, commonly kept by one fool to be written in by other fools, called an album ? "I have not the least idea," said an accomplished young gentleman, to whom I once put the question, just after he had been scribbling some lines in the album of one of our modern Sapphos, which proved he had not the least idea, not even such a little one as would have been large enough for an album.-Ibid. PHILISTINES. THIS people, celebrated for their wars with the Israelites, dwelt on a small strip of sea-coast south of the Tyrians. They were originally, it is thought, a colony from Egypt. They possessed five cities, under the government of five princes, and confederated together for mutual defence. Trade and piracy were their chief means of subsistence. Their long and obstinate resistance against the arms of the Israelites testifies their valour and love of independence. A seafaring people, the chief object of their worship was a sea-god, Dagon.-Cabinet Cyclopædia, Vol. ix. ARABS. FROM the earliest dawn of history, the Arabs have led the nomadic life, to which the nature of their country has destined them. The numerous tribes, under the government of their sheikhs and emirs, roam the desert apart-now in friendship, now in hostility. The |