city many years till his death, which left his widow indigent, and threw her on the cold charity of a careless world. She seems to have outlived the recollection of her husband's relatives. After his death she struggled her way into this almshouse, and gained an allowance of two shillings a week; and on this, with the trifle allowed for her services in keeping clean the church, at past threescore years and ten, she somehow or other contrives to exist. We led dame Wood to talk of her "domestic management," and finding she brewed her own beer with the common utensils and fire-place of her little room, we asked her to describe her method: a tin kettle is her boiler, she mashes in a common butter-firkin, runs off the liquor in a "crock," and tuns it in a small-beerbarrel. She is of opinion that "poor people might do a great deal for themselves if they knew how: but," says she, "where there's a will, there's a way." The old Font of Beckenham Church. A font often denotes the antiquity, and frequently determines the former import ance of the church, and is so essential a part of the edifice, that it is incomplete without one. According to the rubrick, a church may be without a pulpit, but not without a font; hence, almost the first thing I look for in an old church is its old stone font. Instead thereof, at Beckenham, is a thick wooden baluster, with an unseemly circular flat lid, covering a sort of wash-hand-basin, and this the "gentlemen of the parish" call a "font!" The odd- sented in the engraving. Mr. Harding expresses an intention of making a table of it, and placing it at the front of his house: in the interim it is depicted here, as a hint, to induce some regard in Beckenham people, and save the venerable font from an exposure, which, however intended as a private respect to it by the host of the "Crooked Billet," would be a public shame to Beckenham parish. For the Table Book. GONE OR GOING. 1. Fine merry franions, Wanton companions, My days are ev'n banyans With thinking upon ye; How Death, that last stringer, Or is laying, on ye. There's rich Kitty Wheatley, She sleeps in the Kirk-house; And poor Polly Perkin, She's gone to the Work-house: Fine gard'ner, Ben Carter For Proserpine's orchards; And Lily, postillion, Is one of a million That fill up the church-yards. 4. And, lusty as Dido, Fat Clemitson's widow Flits now a small shadow By Stygian hid ford; And good Master Clapton The ground he last hap't on; 5. And gallant Tom Docwra, Of Nature's finest crockery, Now but thin air and mockery, Lurks by Avernus ; Whose honest grasp of hand, Still, while his life did stand, At friend's or foe's command, Almost did burn us. 6. (Roger de Coverly Not more good man than he), Push'd for Cocytus, His death might affright us! 7. Had he mended in right time, (That black hour, and fright-time,) Till sexton interr'd him, Have groan'd in his coffin, While demons stood scoffing You'd ha' thought him a coughingMy own father heard him! 8. Could gain so importune, With occasion opportune, That for a poor Fortune, That should have been ours,t In soul he should venture Amid the dark Powers ? 9. Kindly hearts I have known; Linger, yet uneffaced,- 10. But this day, Fanny Hutton She died, as the dunce died; Things, as she once did: And prudent Miss Wither Nor I, well, nor you know; Who sat up with him. ELIA. + I have this fact from Parental tradition only. + Death lengthens people to the eye. Scottish Legends. HIGHLAND SCENERY. The scenery and legend of Mr. James Hay Allan's poem, "The Bridal of Caölchairn," are derived from the vicinity of Cruachan, (or Cruachan-Beinn,) a mountain 3390 feet above the level of the sea, situated at the head of Loch Awe, a lake in Argyleshire. The poem commences with the following lines: the prose illustrations are from Mr. Allan's descriptive notes. Grey Spirit of the Lake, who sit'st at eve At mighty Cruächan's gigantic feet; And lov'st to watch thy gentle waters heave The silvery ripple down their glassy sheet; How oft I've wandered by thy margin sweet, And stood beside the wide and silent bay, Where the broad Urcha's stream thy breast doth meet, And Caölchairn's forsaken Donjon grey Looks from its narrow rock upon thy watery way. Maid of the waters! in the days of yore What deeds have past upon thy mountain shore; 66 INISHAIL. the convent on the lovely isle." Inishail, the name of one of the islands in Loch Awe, signifies in Gaëlic "the lovely isle." It is not at present so worthy of this appellation as the neighbouring "Fràoch Elan," isle of heather, not having a tree or shrub upon its whole extent. At the period when it received its name, it might, however, have been better clothed; and still it has a fair and pleasant aspect: its extent is larger than that of any other island in the lake, and it is covered with a green turf, which, in spring, sends forth an abundant growth of brackens. There formerly existed here a convent of Cistercian nuns; of whom it is said, that they were "memorable for the sanctity of their lives and the purity of their manners: at the Reformation, when the innocent were involved with the guilty in the sufferings of the times, their house was supprest, and the temporalities granted to Hay, the abbot of Inchaffrey, who, abjuring his former tenets of religion, embraced the cause of the reformers."* Public worship was performed in the chapel of the convent till the year 1736: but a more commodious building having been erected on the south side of the lake, it has since been entirely forsaken; nothing now remains of its ruin but a small part of the shell, of which only a few feet are standing above the foundation. Of the remaining buildings of the order there exists no trace, except in some loose heaps of stones, and an almost obliterated mound, which marks the foundation of the outer wall. But the veneration that renders sacred to a Highlander the tombs of his ancestors, has yet preserved to the burying-ground its ancient sanctity. It is still used as a place of interment, and the dead are often brought from a distance to rest there among their kindred. In older times the isle was the principal burying-place of many of the most considerable neighbouring families: among the tombstones are many shaped in the ancient form, like the lid of a coffin, and ornamented with carvings of fret-work, running figures, flowers, and the forms of warriors and two-handed swords. They are universally destitute of the trace of an inscription. Among the chief families buried in Inishail were the Mac Nauchtans of Fràoch Elan, and the Campbells of Inbherau. Mr. Allan could not discover the spot appropriated to the former, nor any evidence of the gravestones which must have covered their tombs. The place of the Campbells, however, is yet pointed out. It lies on the south side of the chapel, and its site is marked by a large flat stone, ornamented with the arms of the family in high relief. The shield is supported by two warriors, and surmounted by a diadem, the signification and exact form of which it is difficult to decide; but the style of the carving and the costume of the figures do not appear to be later than the middle of the fifteenth century. On the top of the distant hill over which the road from Inverara descends to Cladich there formerly stood a stone cross, erected on the spot where Inishail first became visible to the traveller. These crosses were * Statistical Account, vol. viii. p. 347. general at such stations in monastic times, have erroneously, and without any authority and upon arriving at their foot the pilgrims of tradition, assigned it as the dragon's knelt and performed their reverence to the isle, in the ancient Gaëlic legend of saint, whose order they were approaching." Fràoch and the daughter of Mey." There From this ceremony, the spot on the hill above-mentioned was and is yet called "the cross of bending." FRAOCH ELAN. "The refuge tower grey Looked down the mighty gulf's profound defile." The little castellated isle of "Fràoch Elan" lies at a short distance from Inishail, and was the refuge hold of the Mac Nauch tans. It was given to the chief, Gilbert Mac Nauchtan, by Alexander III. in the year 1276, and was held by the tenure of entertaining the king whenever he should pass Loch Awe. The original charter of the grant was lately in possession of Mr. Campbell of Auchlian, and a copy is to be found in "Sir James Balfour's Collection of Scottish Charters." The islet of "Fràoch Elan" is in summer the most beautiful in Scotland. On one side the rock rises almost perpendicular from the water. The lower part and the shore is embowered in tangled shrubs and old writhing trees. Above, the broken wall and only remaining gable of the castle looks out over the boughs; and on the north side a large ashtree grows from the foundation of what was once the hall, and overshadows the ruin with its branches. Some of the windowniches are yet entire in the keep, and one of these peeping through the tops of the trees, shows a view of fairie beauty over the waters of the lake, and the woody banks of the opposite coast. In the summer, Fràoch Elan, like most of the islands in Loch Awe, is the haunt of a variety of gulls and wild fowl. They come from the sea-coast, a distance of twenty-four miles, to build and hatch their young. At this season, sheldrakes, grey gulls, kitaweaks, white ducks, teal, widgeon, and divers, abound in the Loch. Fràoch Elan is chiefly visited by the gulls, which hold the isle in joint tenure with a water-eagle who builds annually upon the top of the remaining chimney. It is not very long since this beautiful isle has been delivered over to these inhabitants; for a great aunt of a neighbouring gentleman was born in the castle, and in "the forty-five," preparations were privately made there for entertaining the prince had he passed by Loch Awe. From the name of Fràoch Elan some is, in truth, no farther relation between one and the other, than in a resemblance of name between the island and the warrior. The island of the tale was called "Elan na Bheast," the Monster's Isle, and the lake in which it lay was named Loch Luina. This is still remembered to have been the ancient appellation of Loch Avich, a small lake about two miles north of Loch Awe. There is here a small islet yet called " Elan na Bheast," and the tradition of the neighbourhood universally affirms, that it was the island of the legend. RIVAL CHIEFS. "Where fought Mac Colda, and Mac Phadian died." "Alaister Mac Coll Cedach." Alexander, the son of left-handed Coll, was a Mac Donald, who made a considerable figure in the great civil war: he brought two thousand men to the assistance of Montrose, and received from him a commission of lieutenancy in the royal service. He is mentioned by contemporary writers, under the corrupted name of Kolkitto; but time has now drawn such a veil over his history, that it is difficult to ascertain with any degree of certainty from what family of the Mac Donalds he came. By some it is asserted, that he was an islesman; but by the most minute and seemingly authentic tradition, he is positively declared to have been an Irishman, and the son of the earl of Antrim. Of his father there is nothing preserved but his name, his fate, and his animosity to the Campbells, with whom, during his life, he maintained with deadly assiduity the feud of his clan. It was his piper who was hanged at Dunavàig in Ceantir, and in his last hour saved the life of his chieftain by composing and playing the inexpressibly pathetic pibroch," Colda mo Roon." But though he escaped at this juncture, Colda was afterwards taken by the Campbells, and hung in chains at Dunstaffnage. His death was the chief ground of that insatiate vengeance with which his son ever after pursued the followers of Argyle, after the death of his father, Alaister chanced to pass by Dunstaffnage in return from a descent which he had made in the Campbell's country. As he sailed near the NW 19. Long *Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 346; and Pennant's Tour in Scotland, 1774, p. 217. SIGL castle, he saw the bones of his father still hanging at the place where he had suffered, and swinging in the sea-breeze. He was so affected at the sight of the lamentable remains, that he solemnly vowed to revenge them by a fearful retribution, and hastening his return to Ireland gathered what force he was able, and sailing back to Scotland offered his services to Montrose. He was gladly accepted; and during the various adventures of the marquis in the Hielands, Alaister Mac Colda was one of the most valuable of his adherents; and his followers were accounted among the bravest and best experienced in the royal army. Some of their exploits are recorded in the "Leobhair Dearg," or "Red Book of Clanranald," and fully justify the fame which they received. Alaister was present at the battle of Inbherlochie, and after the action he was sent with his followers to the country of Argyle. He entered the Campbell lands by Glen Eitive, and wherever he came put all who bore the name of that clan to fire and sword. As he marched down Glen Eitive, he crossed the bounds of the Mac Intires in Glen O, and in passing the house of their chieftain, a circumstance occurred, which gives a lively picture of the extent of the ancient respect paid by a clansman to the ties of his blood. The Mac Intires were originally descended from the Mac Donalds, and lived from time immemorial upon the border of the Campbells, between that race and the south-east march of the Clan Donald in Glen Coe. Upon the decline of the vast power of this sept after the fatal battle of Harlow, and upon the subsequent increase of power to the Campbells, the Mac Intires placed themselves under the latter clan, and lived with them as the most powerful of their followers. When Alaister Mac Colda passed through Glen O, he was not acquainted with the name of the place nor the race of its inhabitants; but knowing that he was within the bounds of the Campbells, he supposed that all whom he met were of that clan. Glen O was deserted at his approach, and it is probable that the men were even then in service with Argyle. Alaister, in his usual plan of vengeance, ordered fire to the house of the chieftain. A coal was instantly set in the roof, and the heather of which it was made was quickly in a blaze. Before, however, the flames had made much progress, Alaister was told that the house which he was burning was that of the chieftain of Mac Intire. The man of Mac Donald immediately commanded his people to do their endeavour to extinguish the fire; "for," said he, "it is the house of our own blood." The flames were soon overcome, and Colda passed through the glen of the Mac Intires in peace into Glen Urcha, where he burnt and destroyed all within his reach. From hence he marched entirely round Loch Awe, carrying devastation through the ancient and original patrimony of the Campbells. As he passed by the Loch of Ballemòr, the inhabitants (a small race named Mac Chorchadell, and dependant upon the former clan) retired from their huts into the little castle of their chieftain, which is situated in the midst of the Loch. Being in no way connected with his enemies by blood, Alaister did not conceive that with them he held any feud, and quietly marched past their deserted habitations, without laying a hand upon their property. But as his men were drawing from the lake, one of the Mac Chorchadells fired upon their rear, and wounded a Mac Donald. Alaister instantly turned: "Poor little Mac Chorchadell," said he in Gaëlic, "I beg your pardon for my want of respect in passing you without stopping to pay my compliments; but since you will have it so, I will not leave you without notice."-He returned, and burnt every house in Balle, mòr. The power of the Campbells had been so broken at Inbherlochie, that it was not until Mac Colda had arrived near the west coast of their country, that they were again in a condition to meet him in a pitched fight. At length they encountered him on the skirt of the moss of Crenan, at the foot of a hill not far from Auchandaroch. The battle was fought with all the fury of individual and deadly hatred, but at last the fortune of Alaister prevailed, and the Campbells were entirely routed, and pursued with great slaughter off the field of battle. Some time afterwards they again collected what numbers they could gather, and once more offered battle to Alaister, as he was returning to Loch Awe. The conflict was fought at the ford of Ederline, the eastern extremity of the lake; but here the success of the Mac Donalds forsook them. They were entirely beaten and scattered,' so that not six men were left together; and those who escaped from the field were cut off by their enemies, as they endeavoured When the chieftain returned to his house, the coal which had so near proved its destruction, was found in the roof; it was taken out by order of Mac Intire, and preserved with great care by his descendants, till the of the Highlands and the oppression of his superior. late Glen O was driven to America by the misfortunes |