happy Helen the principal witness against her former lover.

Slowly and solemnly, but in a tone of encouragement, the prelate calls upon her for her testimony.

"My lord,' said Helen Dunbar, looking fearfully round, whilst every fibre of her frame seemed to quiver with agitation, as she caught her first view of the wasted form and countenance of the unfortunate prisoner, and met his eye, which was now filled with a flitting fire of anxiety, which it had not before exhibited. But she seemed yet more affected by the glance of the Land of Knockando, who stood beside him. It quite overcame her for My lord!-my lord!

some moments. " I-I-'

"Take thine own time, daughter!' said the Bishop, cheeringly, and begin, if it so pleaseth thee, with thy recollection of what befel at the wedding at the Mill of Duthel. The prisoner Anchernach did then and there strike down John Grant of Knockando, without cause of provocation, did he not?'

"My lord, he did strike down Knockando,' said Helen; but as I chanced to watch them standing for some time, as if in talk together, I observed their looks; and, were I to judge from what I saw, I should hold that John Grant of Knockando had by his words so chafed Auchernach, and worked upon his dormant ire, as to fret it into the sudden outburst of that flame, the which blazed forth so openly to the senses of all who were then present.'

"Was he not rebuked by the good priest, thine uncle, for the outrage of which he was then guilty?' demanded the Bishop.

"He was, my lord,' replied Helen; and in a sterner tone than he had ever heard the priest use before. But ere mine uncle went to bed, on the evening of that very night in which he was murdered, these ears did privately hear him express a doubt whether he might not have been too hasty in judging him, and he then uttered a fervent ejaculation to heaven for pardon if he had so erred.'

"Heard ye no threat from the lips of Auchernach against thine uncle?' demanded the bishop.

"I did hear words which in mine agitation at the time I could not well interpret,' said Helen.

After the murder of mine uncle, I did, in my distraction, recall and connect these words with the cruel deed which had so swiftly followed them. But certain circumstances did afterwards occur to satisfy me that the words, Old man! look that thou dost not pay dear for thy favour to that new guest of thine! were meant by Aucher

nach as a friendly warning, and not as a threat.'

"Against whom then dost thou believe that Auchernach's friendly warning was given? if so thou judgest it to be,' said the bishop.

"Against him who now standeth beside the accused,' said Helen Dunbar; and rising from her chair as she said so, she turned round, and drawing herself up to her full height, she regarded the individual she was addressing with a firm and resolute look, and added in a clear, distinct, and solemn voice,The warning of Auchernach was kindly meant, and would to the holy saints that it had been taken as it was intended! The warning of Auchernach was meant to guard against the false arts of John Dhu Grant of Knockando there, whom I do here fearlessly accuse as the real murderer of mine uncle !""

The murmurs of the astonished auditory followed this announcement. A flush of sudden joy and tenderness spreads over the face of Lewis, while that of Knockando changed alternately from the deadly white of guilty fear, to the black expression of fiendlike ferocity, as he proclaimed it "a deep compact between the murderer and his paramour." The bishop represses the murmurs and bid her proceed.

66 6 My lord,' said Helen, still standing, and betraying deep agitation, as in her modest and respectful address to the stances; I was the first person who enbishop she recalled the appalling circumtered mine uncle's apartment on the morning which followed the fatal night of his murder. When I did approach me to the bed I fancied that he slept; for, as was not uncommon with him, he lay with the blessed crucifix over his bosom.

I lifted the holy emblem in my left hand, bed-clothes from his chin-when-when whilst, with my right I did remove the beholding, as I did, the bloody work which had been done upon him, I fell backwards on the floor in a swoon, and so firmly did I grasp the crucifix to my bosom in mine unconscious agony, that those who came to mine aid, called thither by my scream, found it so placed, and it was carried with me to mine own apartment, and I so found it when my senses were restored to me. That the crucifix had ever lain that night upon mine uncle's breast at all, therefore, could have been known only to myself aloneand to him who, during that fatal night, removed it from his bosom for the purpose of doing the murder on him, and who replaced it there after he had wrought the cruel deed.'

"But how can this touch the Laird of Knockando?' demanded the bishop, earnestly.

"My lord,' said Helen, some days after the murder, the Laird of Knockando did force himself into my presence, under the false pretence of bearing a message from the Reverend Lord Prior. His object seemed to be to whet my vengeance against the person who then lay accused of the murder of mine uncle. It was then, that, in the presence of my friend and my servant, who are both now within the call of this tribunal, prepared to support this my testimony, then it was, I say, that he used expressions, the which were, for greater security, taken down after he was gone. The wretch,' said he, the wretch who, lighting down like some nocturnal fiend upon the sacred person of thine uncle, and reckless of the holy emblem of Christ which lay upon his bosom, could put it aside, that he might plunge his dirk into the innocent throat of his sacred servant, must not only die the death of a felon, but he can never hope for mercy from Him whose blessed emblem he hath outraged.' None but the murderer could have so circumstantially described this most barbarous deed.

John Dhu Grant of Knockando did so describe it. Therefore is John Dhu Grant of Knockando the murderer! On his head the blood of my murdered uncle doth loudly call for that justice which it doth behoove man to do upon it. And may He that died for us all, grant that mercy hereafter to his guilty soul, which

his own relentless sentence would have denied to another?'"

We have so frequently expressed our opinion of these volumes, as occa sion arose in the discussion of them, that we deem it scarcely necessary in a more formal manner to repeat it. The work is decidedly well executed, and the narratives sustained, for the most part, in a style of unaffected ease and propriety which we deem in chief essential to success in story-telling. It contains much to interest and admonish in the history of the dark workings of man's ignorance, and vice and passion; and not a little to amuse in the light and humorous sketches of character and incident. We could have wished, however, that the author had made his tales more subservient to the exhibition of the peculiarities of national character, and national prejudices, and the illustration of national history: indeed, as we have already remarked, these are the true uses of legendary writing, and confer on it a higher reputation than that of mere gossip. We now take leave of Sir Thomas and his legends, with a hope that he may ere long again afford us some pleasant hours, and a recommendation to our readers, espe cially those who meditate a ramble through the Scottish Highlands, to avail themselves of the advantages we have already enjoyed.

SOME of my readers will rememberone or two will take the trouble of collating the Introduction to these early fragments which was printed in the number for last July. Circumstances which I will be easily pardoned for not communicating explicitly to the public, have left until the present month their Collector without the power of commencing the fulfilment of his engage

ment.

Those who take any interest in a Theme which, however often approached in our modern literature, has not often been followed to its true issue, and which, even if it had, could scarcely be considered to have yet lost its mysterious claims on the attention of the contemplative, will recollect that in the introduction to which I have referred, the Personage

was described, whose inward and exterior history is noted in these autobiographical relics. He was sketched as One whose youth and life terminated together, yet whose experiences were rapidly accumulated, and whose Spring wore the hues of a sad and precocious Autumn. One of those to whom Genius was the "Voice of the secret Divinity" in a truer, because a more literal, sense that the proud common-place of poetical declamation imports; a Voice constantly whispering his spirit to its natal abode, and permitting it no rest in this. One who was led to Religion by Poetry; who entered the Temple by "the Beautiful Gate." One, in brief, who was in our lower world an Enigma with its solution in a higher; the half of a Cipher whose explaining counterpart was invisible and