is seen!! And, secondly, why does he take so much more trouble to display his folly, than a wise man to shew his knowledge? Is it the only gem worth wearing? is it the only quality of which we ought to be vain? While at breakfast, I received a message from a "gentleman with a hammer," as mine host announced him, requesting the honour of a conference, as he was in search of knowledge, and expected much illumination from so celebrated a personage; as well known through all the Highlands as Jack Pudding himself. The hammer was bright from the anvil; raw as the philosopher that bore it; but was displayed in great state, as if to gain consequence, as well in my eyes as in those of Mr Cameron, and of all the waiters and ostlers of Killin, and Tyndrum, and Loch Earn, and Callander. The folly and the hammer were equally visible: for he wore both on the outside of his coat : the more prudent conceal them in their pockets. When it was the fashion for gentlemen to be "angry," and to fight, every tailor carried his sword by his side. Now, every blockhead who has cracked a stone at Salisbury Craig must display a hammer about the country, to the astonishment of innocent people and his own vast inconvenience. The world will never be the wiser for all their hammers. My philosopher requested to know what the opposite mountain was “made of." I answered, neglectingly, I know not what; but the word was not very long. He looked as much confounded as if I had spoken in heathen Greek: and thus, with one little word, not half an inch in length, I fathomed the depth and bottom of his mineralogical understanding! Yet be will write a book. And, what is worse, he will tell the world his name. It is not for me to gibbet him; every man has a right to perform this ceremony on his own person, if he pleases.

Now, seriously, this is too bad. The story, as told by the Doctor, proves that he is both a puppy and a brute, and that he ought to have been kicked for his insolence; but as we have a tolerable guess whom he points at, motives of delicacy alone prevent us from " gibbetting" the name of an accomplished and meritorious individual, and from calling down on the head of this impertinent, gasconading Anglo-Scot the indignation and contempt of every honourable mind. These examples were necessary to our purpose, as they sufficiently demonstrate his intolerable pedantry and conceit, and, what is of more importance at present, the spirit in which he writes. He is eternally aiming at wit, without being witty, labouring an antithesis, when he should be stating a fact; and fancying that he is extremely smart, tranchant, and sarcastic, when he is only heavy, malignant, and dull. But to proceed: After various rambles, counter-rambles, and doublings, the Doctor finds himself at Blair-in-Athole, where he tells us " he must say something, or it would be ingratitude to a place of which he knows each dingle bush and alley green; ingratitude to its lovely scenes and to its hospitable towers; to the Noble Owner of which this country owes a deep debt, for the unwearied activity of his exertions and example, and of whom it is praise enough to say, that he is a pattern of a truly British Country Gentleman." In this instance, at least, we are not disposed to question the sincerity of the Doctor's gratitude to the "place," the "hospitable towers," and the "Noble Owner: the place is beautiful, the towers are hospitable, and the Duke of Atholl is one of the very best men extant; but till we read the Doctor's puffery, we had not the slightest conception that his Grace was so great a public benefactor, that the "country" was so deeply in his debt," or that " the unwearied activity of his exertions" had extended farther than regenerating his own tenantry, and maintaining his political ascendancy in the county. And verily he has had his reward. Has he not, at this present writing, twenty-five farms in his own hands, and is not his portrait suspended in the CountyHall at Perth? What could his Grace, or his " shadow" the Doctor, wish for more? But how comes it that this grateful mineralogist is so surly with the "Noble Owner" of Taymouth, who, with only one exception, has done more in the way of regenerating, or rouping out, than any other proprietor in the Highlands, and who, therefore, on his own shewing, must be a public benefactor, "and a pattern of a truly Scotch Country Gentleman?" Is the Doctor's motto " no pudding, no praise?" Not a whisper of the "hospitable towers" of Taymouth, " of which he knows not that he can say aught which has not been said by others, and which was never said by any one worse than by BURNS, who, whenever he attempted to describe-natural sce

nery, unconnected with cted with his own peculiar moral views and situations, SANK THE LOWEST OF THE LOW!!" On the contrary, he rakes up the yet-unexpiated horrors of Glenco, to hurl them in the teeth of the Clan Campbell. "Let us remember," says he, that the really guilty were Breadalbane and Glenlyon." Here, we are happy to say, we so far agree with him. "The principally guilty" were, to be sure, Breadalbane, aided and abetted by President Stair, and his son the Secretary," who had imbibed the spirit of Lauderdale's administration:" Glenlyon was the miserable instrument by which the chief of his name perpetrated his savage vengeance. But when he says that "the massacre of Glenco was not the act of William," and that the stigma must attach, not to the House of Nassau, but to that of Campbell," we must demur to so broad a conclusion, and protest against the doctrine in morals which it seems to infer. Breadalbane's atrocious guilt no sane person will dispute; he was the primum mobile of the whole, and was already inured to massacre, by the execution of letters of fire and sword against the Earl of Caithness, whose estates he had formerly usurped. Nor is it denied that the fact of Macdonald of Glenco having made his submission to Government was carefully concealed from William. What, in these circumstances, was the conduct pursued by the King? It was this: He signed, and, for the greater security of those who were to be concerned in this tragedy, countersigned, instructions to proceed to military execution against the men of Glenco; he armed private hatred with the authority of government and law, on the testimony of persons, one of whom was notoriously disaffected; and, as far as appears, without any farther inquiry, he issued orders for the extermination of a whole race. How, then, can it, with any truth, be said, that the massacre of Glenco" was not," so far, at least, the act of William?" There were many circumstances which might have aroused his suspicion. Breadalbane was at feud with the Macdonalds; his character was notoriously sanguinary; and the warrant was, contrary to all usage, required to be countersigned. Is a Prince to be exonerated

the guilt of a dreadful crime, because he recklessly issue from all share in

the warrant for its commission, because the perpetrators, having once tasted of blood, exceed the limits of their instructions, and revel in all the excesses of brutal and barbarian vengeance? The law of no civilized country admits ignorance to be set forth as a plea of exculpation for the commission of crime: it says, "If you were ignorant, why did you not inquire?" Negligence in such matters is as bad as intention; to say nothing of entrusting to private hatrede and malice the execution of a public sentence. The massacre of Glenco, therefore, was, and will ever be held, to a certain extent," the act of Wilson liam," and the indelible stigma of the crime will attach, in nearly equal degrees, to the House of Nassau and that of Campbell.

From Glenco, the Doctor enters the Moor of Rannoch, a space of some 18 miles of black bogs and desolation, for the transit of which he hires a Highland pony, with a guide, for the exorbitant sum of two guineas. The "almost unknown spot" is passed, of course; the Doctor, very much to his own satisfaction, escapes drowning in a peat-moss; and the rascally Celt who attends him, Sandy Macdonald by name, demands first an extra guinea, "because it was harvest," and, failing in that modest requisition, shillings" for carrying the Doctor's umbrella. But the Doctor is inflexible and Sandy objurgates him in pure Erse and broken English, concluding by calling him "not a gentleman." The Doctor acquiesces in the reproach; "assures" Sandy that he is not a gentleman, but an informer, and that, "instead of paying him, he would lodge an information against him for letting horses on hire without a license." cense. This awful threat was enough: the rage of the mountaineer fell " a moderate level:" Sandy got his money, and departed, "vowing revenge agsinst the next Saxon who should fall into his clutches." Hence, the Doctor concludes, "It is not very wonderful that travellers in the Highlands call the people extortioners." It is not, un-doubtedly; provided it were true that the whole race of Gael were smitten with the insatiable cupidity of Sandy Macdonald, or that the said Sandy constituted" the people" in his proper worthless person. On another occasion, the

Doctor says, 66 I ain well aware of the folly and difficulty of generalizing on national character;" yet, in the face of this avowed conviction of the "folly" of so 66 generalizing," he sets down the whole Highlanders as “extortioners," because one knave had the impudence to try how far his facility would go. Nay, at Pluscarden, he meets with a trait of character of a very opposite kind, -an instance of the most scrupulous and conscientious honesty; but lest any merit should therefrom redound to the hated sons of the Gael, he takes care to say "Pluscarden is not in the Highlands," though he forgets to add, that that poor woman in question was a Highlander. A man who is so egregious a noodle as to agree to give two guineas where "aught shillings" would have been sufficient, and, what is more, would, as we can vouch from experience, have been thankfully received from any one who had the least tact or knowledge of the people with whom he had to deal, deserves all the objurgation of all the Sandy Macdonalds extant, and to be thoroughly fleeced to boot, as a punishment for his folly and extravagance.

But if the Doctor believes in Highland "extortion," he more than atones for his fault, by his scepticism in regard to Highland fidelity the incorrupta fides" for which the people are pretty generally thought to have been distinguished, before the grand process of modern civilization commenced. Adverting to the concealment of Prince Charles after the battle of Culloden, he says, unless Highlanders themselves had been his blood-hounds, (be means the blood-hounds of the government,) he could scarcely have been discovered in any one of the places where he took refuge. "English soldiers might have hunted him in vain till now," Vol. I., p. 456. These averments would startle any body who has not had the good fortune to read Dr Macculloch's book; because it is commonly by courtesy presumed, that a man has calmly meditated and weighed what he deliberately prints and gives forth to the world; but after perusing that work, it is impossible to wonder at any thing. We crave permission, with all due and becoming respect, to submit the following queries to the Doctor's consideration: 1. Were not Highlanders (Campbells) employed as well as English soldiers, in "hunting" the unhappy Prince? 2. Was not Charles, on one occasion, saved from falling into the hands of his pursuers, by the unparalleled devotion of a young gentleman of the name of Mackenzie, who strikingly resembled him in person, and cheerfully sacrificed his life to continue the heroic deception" which that resemblance had produced? 3. When he was hemmed within the island of Skye, and every exit vigilantly guarded, what would have become of him but for the admirable contrivance and conduct of Flora Macdonald? 4. On these, and other occasions of a similar kind which might be mentioned, was not escape rendered utterly impracticable, had it not been for the superior address of the native Highlanders, whose vigilant fidelity never relaxed, and to whom the largest bribe ever offered for treachery held out no temptation? 5. Is it not a downright perversion of facts, to allege that the fidelity of the Highlanders was merely negative, when it is notorious that but for their active and unwearied assistance, the Prince could not have existed or concealed himself for one month, far less six? 6. Will Dr Macculloch have the kindness to match this never-to-be-forgotten example of chivalrous devotion, by producing a parallel instance from the history of any people with which he may happen to be acquainted? If he will answer these queries in a satisfactory manner, we promise to believe— almost any thing he may chuse to tell us; even that our worthy friend Donald Sinclair, inn-keeper at Kinloch Rannoch, bears the Christian name of Shemus, and with his immortal needle repaired some injuries" of time and travel" in the Doctor's inexpressibles; that the poems of old Struan, the prototype of the illustrious Baron of Tully-Veolan, are "a disgusting mixture of profligacy and religion" and that the Doctor was perfectly justifiable in telling his readers the colour of Mrs Pennycuik's nose.

It was Buonaparte, we believe, who once said, that, from the sublime to the ridiculous, is but a step. The transition is as easy from a Prince to a Highland inn-keeper, from Charles Edward Stuart, to Donald, alias Shemus Sinclair. A word in regard to the latter. The Doctor discovers that

Donald, alias Shemus, has a library, which, he says, "had one prime merit, at least in the eyes of the Roxburgh club, for it was very black ;" and finding, in the said library, such books as Smith's Wealth of Nations, Lempriere's Dictionary, Montaigne, Virgil, Grotius de Veritate, Clerk's Ovid, &c., he enters forth with into some "amusing speculations on "the libraries of these Highland inns." Now, in the present case, the whole mystery and marvel will, we hope, vanish, when we state, that Donald's son, a very promising youth, was educated for the Church, and that the books in question were his, a fact which the Doctor might have easily learned, had facts been his object. But then the speculation about "the libraries of these Highland inns" would have been utterly lost; and who cares for facts, when he may have fine writing?

There is more, however, than fine writing, in the following most extraordinary statement: "I can venture to say, that there is not a garden from Barra-Head to the Butt of the Lewis, nor from the Mull of Cantyre to Cape Rath. I can most truly assure you that I never saw such a thing, nor even a culinary vegetable of any kind. You might as well seek for a mangosteen as for an onion; a leek, a turnip, or even a cabbage. Whether the Gaelic language has names for such objects, I know not, but the articles themselves are UTTERLY UNKNOWN; AND I WILL PRODUCE YOU TEN THOUSAND HIGHLANDERS WHO NEVER SAW EITHER"..." I once supposed that the poor little people in the Highlands had never heard of gardens and vegetables, and that they might therefore be taught to mend their diet, and increase their comforts," Vol. II., p. 291. And again, at p. 293 of the same volume, he says, "I do not remember that I ever saw any other vegetable than potatoes at a real Highland table." He admits that there are some few exceptions; but he distinctly avers that these are to be found" on the borders of the Lowlands, or in the hands of low country tenants, or under some peculiar circumstances of accident, WITHOUT AFFECTING THE GENERAL PRINCIPLE." Now, let us examine a little, in detail, this admirable and unique piece of information. 1. "I can venture to say," quoth the Doctor, " that there is not a garden from Barra-Head to the Butt of the Lewis, nor from the Mull of Cantyre to Cape Rath ;" and he adds, "I can most truly assure you that I never saw such a thing, nor even a culinary vegetable of any kind." After this, we shall not be surprised at any thing he may 66 venture to say," but when he gravely asserts, that, throughout the long track he defines, he "never saw a garden, nor even a culinary vegetable of any kind," we must suppose, either that he is joking, or that, if he be not, he is as blind as one of his own hammers,-or, if neither of these solutions be admissible, that he is a person who will "venture to say" any thing. He was frequently at Broadford, in Skye; how happens it that he " never saw" the garden of Mr Mackinnon of Corry, which is in the immediate vicinity? He has favoured us with a long account of Portree; did he "never see" the garden of Mr Macpherson, which, like that of Mr Mackinnon, is well stocked with fruit-trees and bushes of all sorts, to say nothing of "culinary vegetables," which are produced in great abundance? Is there no garden at Armadale Castle, none at Dunvegan, (there are two,) none at Balmacara, none at Inverinet, on the banks of Lochduich? We ask him, if, at the head of Lochourn, one of the very wildest spots in the whole Highlands, (which he also visited,) he "never saw" the garden of Macdonald of Barrisdale, which would be esteemed a fine one even in some of the most cultivated parts of the Lowlands? Nay, we will thank him-nay more, defy him-to mention the name of a single Highland gentleman who has not a garden which produces all the "culinary vegetables" he has stated and more. But we go much farther than this. Every respectable person who rents a portion of land cultivates a garden for the use of his family, and rears all the vegetables he has condescended on; nor, on the extensive estates of M'Leod of M'Leod, for example, is there, so far as we know, (and we have had occasion to know a little on the subject,) a single exception to this statement. The same thing applies to the barony of Glenelg, with which the Doctor ought to be aequainted, as he has blotted a great deal of paper on the subject; and we

may just mention, as one instance out of many which we could bring for ward, the farm of Beolary, situated on the coast, to which there is attached a capital garden, tastefully laid out by a native Highlander, and stocked with apple, pear, and plum-trees, besides the grand desideratum of "culinary vegetables." It is true, that many of the common people have not "kale-yards," for the best of all possible reasons, because many of them have no ground; but such of them as have, (and this is still a very considerable number,) lay out little plats, adjoining their huts, in which they rear greens and potatoes; nor is it possible for any man, who has eyes in his head, and will believe the evidence of his senses, to dispute the fact. Yet Dr Macculloch says, that "there is not a garden from Barra-Head to the Butt of the Lewis, nor from the Mull of Cantyre to Cape Rath;" that he can TRULY aver "he never saw such a thing, nor even a culinary vegetable of any kind!!!" If we chose, we could refresh his memory by informing him where he himself ATE" culinary vegetables," the produce of that country where there are no gardens and no vegetables! 2. He asserts, that " you might as well seek for a mangosteen as for an onion, a leek, or a turnip" that the articles are utterly unknown," and that "he will produce ten thousand Highlanders who never saw either." This, we believe, is the first time it was ever alleged that "onions" were "utterly unknown". to the Highlanders, who, for centuries past, have been twitted on account of their ravenous fondness for that pathetic root. The assertion, however, is false: the onion is as well known to the Highlander, as the leek to the Welshman, or cabbage to the carnivorous John Bull and we hereby engage to pay him down the sum of One Pound Sterling per head for each Highlander he shall produce who "never saw" a turnip, a cabbage, a leek, or an onion. He affirms "he can produce ten thousand: so much the better for him, the worse for us: nothing is impossible to your modern Geologists: they build up and destroy worlds at their pleasure: and, therefore, no one who knows what they can do will doubt that it is quite as easy for Dr Macculloch to produce ten thousand Highlanders who have never seen an onion, as to put Dun Mac Sniochain in his snuff-mull, or carry the island of Rum in his breeches' pocket.

Something too much of onions; by the sheer force of sympathy, our own eyes are in tears: so, as we happen to be hovering about Skye, we shall endeavour to relieve this dull prosing by one of the Doctor's inimitable "dramatic sketches"- -a sketch, to wit, of mine hostess of the inn at Kyle-Rea. It seems he had just been reading St. Ronan's Well, and had a prodigious itching to fall in with a Highland Meg Dods; and, as our readers must have already perceived, the Doctor is never at a loss to discover what he goes in search of. Why," says he, "should I be more afraid to tell the TRUTH than the author of St. Ronan's Well?" Certainly, Doctor, there is no reason in the world: "speak truth and shame the Devil," even if his infernal majesty were the author of St. Ronan's Well, and the natural father of Meg Dods. The reader will, upon no account whatever, skip the following extract.

66

It was early in the morning when Roger (the pony) and I arrived at the pass; and, winding down the long descent between the mountains of the Kyle Rich, found ourselves in front of the inn. "This is the ferry-house."- "Aye, aye, ye'll be wanting the ferry, nae doot ?"-" To be sure; and you can give me some breakfast.” "It's the Sabbath."-" I know that; but I suppose one may breakfast on the Sabbath ?"-" Aye, I'se warn ye-that's a bonny beast."-" It's my Lord's poney." “Aye, I thought it was Roger; I thought I kenn'd his face. And where 'll ye be gaun ?"" I am going to Eilan Reoch, and I want some breakfast."-" A weel, a weel, I dinna ken: Lassie! tak' the gentleman's horse." No sooner, however, had Mrs Nicholson taken possession of the gentleman and his horse, and his property also, securing thus the soul and body both of Don Pedro, than all this civility vanished on a sudden, small as it was before. I asked for the ferry-man, and the boat, and the tide-she kenn'd naething about the ferry." Why, I thought you said this was the ferry-house?"-" That was true; but the ferry-boat was half-a-mile off, and she had nothing to do with the ferry-man, and her husband was not at home, and the