Cooked to ape dainties when I feast in public.
What time men sleep, I mostly pass in prayer,
Vigils and stripes. All this, for my soul's health-
To wring a pardon for my erring people—
Do I. My lord, you never knew of these.
Will they prevail with Heaven? Can God require
Aught else?

BISHOP.

Ay, lady-much

These are no royal virtues. Kings must wield The two-edged sword of justice.

But thou hast forced me.

QUEEN.

All will out!

I did not mean to speak to thee so freely-
'Tis my favourite purpose
To lay this hated royalty aside—
To abdicate the throne to wander hence
In pilgrim's weeds-a-foot to seek the shrine
Of our dear Saviour-to adore the place
Where first his body lay-to fall in weakness-
To die on Calvary, where erst he died.
Should I survive, in some far distant town,
Or Asian isle, I'll find some poor old cloister
Of strictest order-there pass out the remnant
Of this sad life of mine, a friendless nun;
No one will know me-no one will inscribe
Above my grave a tell-tale epitaph,
To say that Mary Tudor sleeps below.
All this I will endure-so I avoid
Solicitations such as thine.

Light up the tapers in the oratory.

Set forth the missal and, beside the hour-glass, Dispose the skulls which yesterday were brought Forth from the charnel-bouse at Westminster. My beads-forget them not. *

SOME REMARKS ON THE CLANSHIP OF THE HIGHLANDS-AND THE ANOMALIES OBSERVABLE IN THE SUCCESSION OF CHIEFS OF CLANS.

By Donald Gregory, Esq. F.S.A. Scot.

HAVING observed that, in the many disputes regarding the honours of Highland families, which have sprung up of late years, the facts and arguments by which the various claims of individuals were supported, agreed neither with themselves nor with any rules of succession, established or hypothetical, I was led to investigate the subject, in order, if possible, to obtain some rule which might apply to all cases. Of this investigation the following general remarks are the result; which I now submit with deference to those skilled in such matters, hoping that I may have at least succeeded in clearing away some of the obstacles to a proper understanding of the subject.

As allusion has been made, in the title of this paper, to anomalies observable in the succession of chiefs of clans, it may here be mentioned what these anomalies are—` Whilst every chief wishes to be considered as a sort of Celtic patriarch, one individual claims through lineal descent in the male line, and proves his claim by charters, retours, entails, and other feudal documents, which are certainly not the remains of Celtic customs. Another claims through a female, and supports his claim in like manner. A third proves his descent, by similar evidence, from some individual who does not himself appear to have had the feudal jus sanguinis, but, nevertheless, by the choice of the clan, had enjoyed the dignity of chief, and transmitted it, along with the family estates, to his posterity.

Many other claims might be noticed, but they all serve to show that the dignity, although originally personal, had a tendency gradually to become territorial. As this tendency must have taken its rise from the feudal system, it becomes necessary to ascertain when that system was introduced, and to what extent it prevailed in the Highlands.

And here, it may be observed, that the impression left on the mind of any one who reads such works as treat of the Highlanders, is: Firstly, that they were a purely Celtic people, in whose manners and customs could be traced distinctly the institutions of the great Celtic race; and, secondly, that, till after the Rebellion in 1745 or perhaps that in 1715—the feudal system had either never been introduced at all, or introduced very imperfectly. A vast deal of pains is taken to show, that the different chiefs disdained to hold their lands otherwise than "by the sword," meaning thereby, not military tenure, but a holding independent altogether of the crown; whilst many supporters of these views do not seem to be aware, that the power taken from the chiefs by the act abolishing heritable jurisdiction in Scotland, was essentially feudal. We propose to discuss these two points in succession.

With regard, then, to the prevalent opinion, that the Scottish Highlanders were a purely Celtic people, or, in the words of a modern author, "the unmixed descendants of the ancient Celts," it appears to be supported chiefly by a reference to their language, and by a somewhat extraordinary disregard of two grand facts connected with Highland history; namely, the Scandinavian conquest, and occupation for centuries of the Hebrides, and the

* Logan on the Gael of Scotland.—I. i.

That the occupation of the Hebrides for centuries, by an enterprising and warlike race like the Norwegians, should have led to no mixture of blood between them and the aboriginal Celts, or whatever other people the Scandinavian conquerors found in these islands, is a supposition not only too absurd to call for lengthened refutation, but, besides, directly contrary to known facts. The M'Leods have long boasted their Norwegian descent; and if the great Somerled was not himself sprung from the same race, as has been frequently asserted, he certainly married a Scandinavian princess, (through whom, indeed, came his claim to the Isles ;) consequently his undoubted descendants, and they form the most numerous tribe the Highlands ever saw, are, to say the least, not unmixed Celts. The effects of the colonization from the south and east of Scotland, if less direct, must still have been sensibly felt; and, although without going so far as some who would not leave us one family of Celtic descent in the Highlands, we may safely affirm that the establishment of such families as the Comyns in early, and the Gordons and Menzieses (or Mannerses) in more recent times, must have been followed by a corresponding mixture between them and the Celtic race.

The prevalence of the Gaelic language is no sound argument that a mixture has not taken place. It only goes to show that the mass of the lower classes continued to use their old language, in preference to that of foreign conquerors or settlers; and that the same thing happened in the Highlands of Scotland to the Norse and Saxon tongues, as in England to the language of the Norman conquerors, or in Ireland to that of the numerous and powerful descendants of such English settlers as established themselves by marriage or otherwise without the pale.

But to what purpose do so many Scottish Highlanders assert, in the face of facts like these, the purity of their Celtic blood-and deny their descent from Scandinavian ancestors? Were these Scandinavians then so ignoble-so little distinguished-so inferior to the Celts-that to be descended from them is accounted dishonourable? On the contrary, it ought to be the proudest boast of every Highlander, that he belongs to a people who have on innumerable occasions vindicated their claim to a descent from the most enterprising and gallant race that the world has seen since the decline of the Roman empire-those heroes who, issuing from the coasts of Norway and the shores of the Baltic, established thrones for themselves in every corner of Europe! Nor is an Anglo-Saxon or AngloNorman ancestry less honourable or less distinguished.

We come now to consider the introduction of the feudal system into the Highlands, and its effects on the people. Several charters are extant, granted by King Alexander III., of lands in the Highlands; and in the reign of this prince, in 1263, mention is made by the Norwegian author of the account of Haco's expedition, -of one of the great lords of the Hebrides holding lands both of Alexander and Haco, and offering to resign those he held of the latter, as he could not serve both kings, and had chosen to stand or fall with the Scottish monarch. This fact shows the establishment of the feudal system in the Hebrides and adjacent Highlands even at that early period, and many more from the same, or equally good, authority might be adduced. In the public documents regarding the disputes between Baliol and Bruce -in those of the reign of Baliol—but more particularly in those of the reign of Bruce, we have ample proof of the prevalence of the feudal system in the High..

Another cause of mixture may be here alluded to, one very familiar to the Irish antiquaries, and which must have affected the Dalriadic Scots before their settlement in Argyle; viz. that arising from the early colonization of Ireland by the Belge, or Firbolgs, as they are styled by the Irish annalists a people whose remains are by many considered as proving them incontestably to have been a branch of the great Gothic or Teutonic race.

choose to consult Rymer's Fodera Angliæ, the Rotuli Scotiæ, and Robertson's Index of Charters by the Kings of Scotland. From the latter work, and other authorities, it would be no difficult task to prove the complete establishment of the feudal system in the Highlandsas far as regards the holding of lands-prior to the reign of Robert III. The Lords of the Isles, it is well known, granted charters to their different relations and vassals, sometimes limited to heirs of a particular marriage— sometimes without limitation: at one time to be held of themselves—at another to be held of the crown. These retainers generally got their charters confirmed by the crown; and on the forfeiture of the family of the Isles, such of them as did not previously hold of the crown, received, with few exceptions, after the annexation of the lordship, new charters from the king as Lord of the Isles. In every district of the Highlands and Isles, there were royal bailies and chamberlains for the collection of the king's rents, feu-duties, and feudal casualties; and the Highland chiefs were well acquainted with the value of certain documents called Gifts of Ward and Marriageof Nonentries—and of Escheat; which they used in many cases for the purpose of extending their family influence. The great object of the chiefs was to have the superiority, or freeholding of all the lands occupied by their respective clans,-and thus to ensure the dependence upon them of the chieftains or elders of the tribes. The latter, on the other hand, were naturally desirous of becoming themselves freeholders, and domestic feuds were not unfrequently the consequence of their being successful.

All these facts, which admit of easy proof, show that the feudal system was, not only in name, but in fact, introduced among the Highland tribes much earlier than is generally supposed. What then were the effects of this system upon the inhabitants? One great effect was, as we have already noticed-and as a very slight inspection of any of the controversial works published by Highland chiefs will show-that the chiefship gradually became, in almost every instance, a territorial honour. This at least appears to have been the general rule. There were, no doubt, frequent exceptions to this rule, arising from the Celtic manners of the mass of the people, which led them to prefer their ancient law of tanistry to the feudal law, and, upon important occasions, to indulge that preference by choosing their chief from the nearest of kin to the feudal heir, when the latter happened not to be agreeable to the clan. Upon such occasions, illegitimacy was no bar to the object of their choice attaining the station of chief, as might be illustrated by numerous instances; but it should be noticed, that as most of the alleged cases of illegitimacy occur during the period immediately preceding the Reformation, they may have arisen from obstacles thrown in the way of marriage by the ecclesiastics, at a time when the abuses of the Church of Rome had reached their height, and may have been only considered disqualifications under the canon, not under the civil law. It would be somewhat difficult otherwise to account for some facts which appear in several Highland genealogies, unless we were to suppose which is hardly admissible that marriage was very lightly regarded among the Highlanders.

Whatever the case may be in regard to illegitimacy, it is at least certain that, in feudal times, the best and only real title to the chiefship of a clan, was possession, in whatever way acquired, if recognised by the body of the clan. Thus, if the clan so pleased, an heiress might carry the honour to her husband's family, as in the case of the Clanchattan ; or several sons might be disinherited, and a distant relation called to the succession, as happened in the same tribe at a later period.

Having come to this conclusion, we are naturally tempted to enquire what was so peculiarly Celtic in the Highland system of clanship? Certainly not the succession of the chiefs, for the principal rule, as we have seen,

was derived from the feudal system. The truth is, clanship, in its modern acceptation, was nearly as prevalent in the Lowlands as in the Highlands. We frequently read in the acts of Parliament, of the Border clans, and, with the exception of the occasional appearance of the law of tanistry among the Highlanders, and of certain Celtic predilections, which led every man dwelling under a Highland chief to call himself by the surname of his landlord, thereby increasing the apparent numbers of the blood-relations of the chief, the Johnstones and Armstrongs seem to differ from the M'Donalds and M'Leans, chiefly in name, dress, and language. Deadly feuds were alike prevalent among them; and the slaughter of a chief, or even of a clansman, was equally considered as calling upon the whole clan for revenge.-It does not, indeed, appear, that the custom of keeping bards, or that of fosterage, ever prevailed in the Lowlands generally, in modern times. These were decidedly Celtic customs; but there can be no doubt that, like the taking of Calps, they prevailed in Galloway and Carrick,* (where Gaelic was spoken in the reign of Queen Mary.) to a comparatively recent period and we may therefore presume, that they obtained all over Scotland before the Anglo-Saxon colonization, and could only have become obsolete by degrees.

:

It is a singular fact, and one well worthy of notice in considering the subject of clanship, that in most, if not all, of the Highland genealogies, the founder of the family —the individual from whom all the clan boast to be descended-flourished since the introduction of the feudal system, and, in many cases, centuries after that event. In these circumstances, the clans, thus gradually arising, could not fail to be affected by the feudal laws and customs; and it may thus be a question, whether clanship, as it existed in the Highlands in later times, and also in the Lowlands, as we have seen, was not as much a consequence of the feudal system as derived from Celtic customs. On the whole, it would appear that, from the mixture of races, and the introduction of the feudal system, the inhabitants of the Highlands, although speaking a Celtic dialect, have gradually departed more and more from the pure Celtic model, and consequently cannot be looked upon in the same light as the Irish tribes, among many of whom the law of tanistry, gavelkind, and other Celtic customs-untouched by the feudal system-prevailed to a comparatively recent period.

SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTHDAY.

For a month proverbially consecrated to folly, April has been strangely fertile in great men. They grow in clusters like nuts. Thus, the 22d is the birthday of Henry Fielding, the 23d, of Shakspeare, and the 24th, of Oliver Cromwell. What an association! The Hogarth of authors beside him who combined the varied excellencies of all his tribe; and both beside him who wrote his stern thoughts with sword-blows.

Shakspeare is the greatest riddle that the world has known. People think they know the author of the plays that bear his name, because a name, and nothing more, is attached to them; and they thought that they did not know the author of the Waverley Novels, because Sir Walter Scott would not confess to them-it is strange to what a degree we are the slaves of words. What have we of Shakspeare but the name, and two or three anecdotes, the one half of which gives us no idea of the man, and the other is of doubtful authority. Shakspeare's plays are the voice of nature, that every one feels and so

Complaints were made to Parliament, in the year 1489, by the lieges dwelling in Galloway and Carrick, against certain gentle men, "Heddis of Kyn," for taking of "Cawpis ;" and measures were taken to put a stop to this exaction. The Calp was an acknowledgment of chiefship, and equivalent to the Heriot. It continued to be raised by many of the Highland chiefs in the beginning of the last century; and there are instances of it in Wales to this day.

little does any thing we know of himself chain us down to an individual author, that we feel, in reading them, they may be viewed as spontaneous growths, as well as the merest "primrose by the river's brim." There is something mythological and pleasing in the thought; and the identity of the dramas with nature harmonizes with it. In other plays, however natural and skilful the plot, however true the passion, there is something in their cut-and-dry arrangement, and in the vague universality of their imagery, that reminds us their home and dwelling-place is in the pasteboard and canvass world of the stage. But Shakspeare's plays, although firmly knit and framed, containing nothing that does not tend to the denouement, seem to the unobservant eye to ramble on in an easy gossiping way to the close; and they are redolent of meadows and woods. They ought to be performed as Milton's Comus was, on the greensward, before some tangled grove. The reality of their poetry is so strong, that the make-shifts of the stage show poorly off beside it.

The question has been started, whether Shakspeare was conscious of his own powers. A certain knot of critics will have it, that he was something like his own Touchstone, that he could not "be 'ware of his wit till he broke his shins over it," and that this accident never befel him. They argue, that he was well on in the years of manhood before he betook him to the rhyming trade; that he threw out his good things as want forced him; that he was a jolly fellow and fond of company; that he retired, long before he could be called an old man, to his native place, abandoning literary labour, and leaving his works to take care of themselves. All this is very ingeniously noted— but let us hear Shakspeare himself.

He was not insensible to the arrogance with which persons engaged in the active business of life were apt to look down upon those whose business it was to mimic their strut and pretensions. It appears from his hundred and eleventh sonnet, that he felt deeply the unjust contempt with which actors were regarded in his time.

"O for my sake, do thou with fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
Than public means, which public manners breeds;
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand."

But he seems also to have felt that his jovial and mercurial disposition exposed him to the censure of the sourer sort nearly as much as his profession. Witness the following sonnet:

""Tis better to be vile, than vile esteem'd,
When not to be, receives reproach of being.
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.
For why should others' false, adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am; and they that level

At my abuses, reckon up their own:

I

may be straight, though they themselves be bevel; By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown; Unless this general evil they maintain,

All men are bad, and in their badness reign."

One so sensitive to public opinion was not likely to come so frequently before its tribunal in the character of a dramatic author, without seeking to scan his own merits. No one who reads Shakspeare will accuse him of want of variety; but we find uniformly that those least apt to repeat themselves, are also the least easily satisfied with their own efforts. In one of his sonnets we find him taxing himself with monotony of style and thought, and seeking to obviate the objection by what has rather the air of a forced conceit :

"Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
So far from variation or quick change?
Why, with the time, do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
O know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,

So is my love still telling what is told."

But the most desponding appreciation of his own poetry to which we find him giving vent, is in his thirtysecond sonnet.

"If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
Compare them with the bettering of the time;
And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought!
Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
To march in ranks of better equipage:

But since he died, and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love."

The uniform gentleness of Shakspeare's muse, and his apparent carelessness of the world's opinion, do not, therefore, prove that he was without his anxieties on the score of his reputation. They only show that he had the sense and strength of will to conceal them. This is all the difference between manly endurance and whining complaint. Not to be sensible to the want of success, is not to be a man, but weakly to bewail it, is to be "the baby of a girl."

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF EDINBURGH.

SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES.

Monday, 11th April.

SIR HENRY JARDINE in the Chair.

Present,-The Hon. Lord Meadowbank; Drs Carson, Alison, Borthwick, Keith, Huie; Messrs J. T. GibsonCraig, Sivright, W. Allan, Maidment, Laing, Stevenson, Macdonald; Rev. Mr Chapman, and many others.

SEVERAL donations having been announced by the curator, the secretary read some extracts from a letter addressed to him by Lieut.-General Ainslie, F.S. A., Scot. from Paris, mentioning that several of the corresponding members of the Society had received gold medals, and other prizes, from the Institute of France, for essays on subjects of antiquarian research.

A communication from the Rev. W. J. D. Waddilove, of Bracon-Grange, was read, which contained some remarks suggested by the perusal of Dr Hibbert's Essay on the Lawtings of Orkney and Shetland, printed in the Society's Transactions, vol. iii. To this succeeded some notices from the Public Records regarding James Monteith, the manufacturer of the brass gun, dated Edinburgh, 1642, which was taken at the last siege of Bhurtpore, and now lies in the Society's Museum-communicated by Mr Macdonald. The Secretary next drew the attention of the meeting to an address read before the Royal Irish Academy, by John D'Alton, Esq. of Dublin, "On the Necessity of publishing the Ancient Annals, &c. of Ireland," and stated that Mr D'Alton was anxious to have the opinions of all those who take an interest in the history of Ireland, on the best mode of carrying this desirable object into effect. The same gentleman then read his remarks on the clanship of the Highlands. Our readers will find this able and important paper in the department of to-day's Journal

entitled Miscellaneous Literature. The regular business being concluded, Lord Meadowbank recounted to the meeting the circumstances connected with a late discovery in Fair Isle, Shetland, of a number of Anglo-Saxon coins, found almost under the same circumstances as the pose of "Baby Yellowley," mentioned in the Pirate, (vol. iii. p. 54,) and near the spot assigned in the novel for that lady's habitation. As this treasure was discovered considerably beneath the present surface of the ground, and as no Shetland annals give any account of its being deposited, the coincidence certainly implicates Sir Walter in a connexion with uncannie means of receiving information. It is well for him that witchcraft is no longer penal. There was a thoughtful expression in Lord Meadowbank's eye while telling his story, which seemed expressive of a regret that the circumstances could not now be expiscated in a court of justice.

EDINBURGH DRAMA.

We know not what we can well say of Young in addition to our previous criticisms, except that his last appearance was his best. "Nought on the stage so much became him as the leaving of it." We speak both of his powerful performance in Hamlet, and of his manly and sensible leave-taking speech. In lieu of all remark, therefore, we this week present our readers with a fly-leaf, containing three heads of Young-in Hamlet, Brutus, and Macbeth -drawn by a young artist of some promise, and lithographed by our own Forrester-the unequalled in this department of art. We offer this trifle as a pledge of our desire to exert ourselves to the utmost, and as a respectful tribute to an amiable man, and an accomplished actor.