inscribed disgrace. While, however, we partake of the general displeasure created by the public manner in which Mrs. Jordan was kept, we cannot join in casting upon his Royal Highness the undivided odium of the poverty which preceded, and perhaps in some degree caused, the death of that unhappy lady. A highly respectable publication remarks, and, we have reason to know, with justice and truth:-" When the time arrives that the historian shall feel himself at liberty to enter into details, and sift matters to the bottom, we entertain no doubt that his Royal Highness will come out of the investigation, not without blame, for who is faultless? but undeserving the reproach which has been cast upon him."

The neglect with which the royal Duke was treated as a naval officer, he also strangely received in every other respect. Neither as a Peer, nor as a Prince, did the nation seem concerned to distinguish him, or even to remember that he was in being. According to a recent declaration of his own to the Goldsmith's company, not a single corporate body had before presented him with its freedom, nor had he been honored with any token of public confidence and regard. To impute this inattention wholly to his own misconduct, would be as erroneous as to imagine that there was nothing in his conduct to excite the displeasure of the nation. But, whatever were his faults, the clemency of John Bull has at last forgiven them; and if his Royal Highness were sinned against than sinning," he appears to have pardoned the offence.

"' more

The parties are now perfectly reconciled. The course of providence has placed the Duke of Clarence next in succession to the throne; and it is neither wise nor safe for the country to keep alive its ancient prejudices against one who may to-morrow be their sovereign. Sometime before this important change in his prospects, his Royal Highness had married, evidently to his own satisfaction, as well as agreeably with the wishes of the government and the people. The effect of matrimony; upon both his private habits and his public character, has been good; while the amiable Princess, his wife, is one to whom the nation can look with hope, in the event of her becoming Queen of Great Britain. Moreover, the past neglect of the Duke's official talents and

claims is already compensated: he is now Lord High Admiral, and the honor and authority of the office were revived, after a sleep of a century, that he might be invested with them.

Sufficient time has not elapsed for the Duke to exemplify all the qualities, which the nation looks for in a wise and devoted naval chief; but that, if his life be spared, and no fatality attend the throne to call him to the higher station, he will fulfil the utmost wishes of the country, no one seems inclined to doubt Two extremes, observation and experience will teach him to avoid. Real abuses must not be spared, but met with a firm, inviolable resolution to suffer no precedent or patronage, no influence or intrigue to plead for their respite. On the other hand, doubtful and difficult experiments must not be encouraged, nor novel courses, in any branch of this wide administration, be commenced, until some moral certainty appears of real improvement becoming the result. This is not the day for tampering with the British navy-for weakening a single buttress, or lowering a single rampart, of our wooden walls-for commencing or speculating on the commencement of a new system, which may be but half matured, when war returns to render its abandonment and its completion alike impossible.

SONNET.

The dewy freshness of our early years,
That is the spring-time of our life's delight,
Now that our manhood's sun attains its height,
Before its summer fervor disappears:

All sober-brow'd around us are our peers;

As summer leaves, no longer green and bright, Are from their early beauty changed quite: Whilst for high hopes come heart-disturbing fears. The sun that wasteth much yet giveth more, Withering the bloom it cherisheth the fruit: Who sows in spring shall have an autumn store, Of pleasures strong, though of a graver suitThe well-till'd mind with plenty running o'erSpring-gifts, when flowers are dead, and songs are mute.

R. H..

THE RAID OF CILLECHRIST.

Bordering clans, like neighbouring nations, were never upon terms of hereditary concord; vicinity produced rivalry, and rivalry produced war: for this reason the Mac Donells and the Mac Kenzies were never long without some act of hostility or feud; firing houses, driving herds, raising rents, and slaughtering each other's clansmen, were feats of recreation which each was equally willing to exercise upon his neighbour; and if either was more deficient than the other, it was more from want of opportunity than lack of good will.

Among all the exploits which were occasioned between the two clans, none was more celebrated, nor more fearful, than the burning of the Cillechrist, (Christ's Church ;) it gave occasion and name to the pibroch of the Glengarrie family, and was provoked and performed in the following manner.

In the course of a long succession of fierce and sanguinary conflicts, the Mac Lelans, a race who were the followers of the Mac Kenzies, took occasion to intercept and assassinate the eldest son of Donald Mac Angus, of Glengarrie. Donald died shortly after, and his second son, who succeeded to the chieftancy of the clan, was too young to undertake the conduct of any enterprise to revenge the death of his brother: his cousin, however, Angus Mac Raonuill, of Lundi, acted as his captain, and gathering the Mac Donells in two separate raids, swept off the greater part of Lord Seaforth's country. Still, this revenge seemed to him too poor an expiation for the blood of his chief; the warm life of the best of his foemen was the only sacrifice which he thought he could offer as an acceptable oblation to appease the manes of the murdered; and he therefore projected a third expedition, resolving in this to fill the measure of vengeance to the brim.

In the possession of his design, he awaited a favourable opportunity, and gathering a small band of men, penetrated into the country of the Mac Kenzies early on a Sunday morning, and surrounded the Cillechrist, whilst a numerous congregation were assembled within its walls. Inexorable in his purpose, Angus commanded his men to set fire to the building, and slaughter all who endeavoured to break forth. Struck with despair when the flames rushed in upon the aisle of the church, and they beheld the bare claymores glancing beyond the door, the congregation, scarcely knowing what they did,

endeavoured to force their way through the weapons and the flames! but, pent within the narrow pass of a single arch, they were not able to make way over each other, far less to break the ring of broadswords which bristled round the porch : men, women, and children, were driven back into the blazing pile, or hewn down, and transfixed at the gorge of the entrance! the flames increased on every side, a heavy column of livid smoke rolled upward on the air, and the roar of infuriated men, and wailing of suffering infants, and the shrieks of despairing women, rung from within the dissolving pile.

While the church was burning, the piper of the Mac Donells marched round the building, playing, as was customary on extraordinary occasions, an extempore piece of music! The pibroch which he now played was called from the place where it was composed, Cillechrist, and afterwards became the pibroch of the Glengarrie family. At length the flames poured forth from every quarter of the building; the roof fell in, there was one mingled yell, one crash of ruin; the flame sunk in mouldering vapor, and all was silent.

Angus was looking on with stern unrelenting determination, but the deed was done, and recollection now warned him of the danger of delay; he immediately gave orders to retreat, and, leading off his men, set off with the utmost expedition to his own country. The flames of the church had, however, lighted a beacon of alarm, which blazed far and wide; the Mac Kenzies had gathered in numerous bodies, and took the chase with such vigour, that they came in sight of the Mac Donells long before they came to the border of their country. Angus Mac Raonuill seeing the determination of the pursuit, and the superiority of its numbers, ordered his men to separate, and shift each for himself; they dispersed accordingly, and made every one his way to his own home as well as he could. The commander of the Mac Kenzies did not scatter his people, but intent on securing the leader of his foemen, held them together on the track of Angus Mac Raonuill, who, with a few men in his company, fled towards Loch Ness. Angus always wore a scarlet plush jacket, and it now served to mark him out to the knowledge of the pursuers.

Perceiving that the whole chace was drawn after himself, he separated his followers one by one, till at length he was left alone; but yet the pursuers turned not aside upon the track of any other. When they came near the burn of Alt Shian,

the leader of the Mac Kenzies had gained so much on the object of his pursuit, that he had nearly overtaken him. The river which was before them runs in this place through a rocky chasm, or trough, of immense depth, and considerable breadth: Angus knew that death was behind him, and, gathering all his strength, he dashed at the desperate leap, and being a man of singular vigour and activity, succeeded in clearing it. The leader of the Mac Kenzies, reckless of danger in the ardor of the pursuit, followed also at the leap; but less athletic than his adversary, he failed of its length, and, slipping on the side of the crag, held by the slender branch of a birch tree, which grew above him on the brink. The Mac Donell looking behind in his flight, to see the success of his pursuer, beheld him hanging to the tree, and struggling to gain the edge of the bank he turned, and drawing his dirk, at one stroke severed the branch which supported the Mac Kenzie ;-" I have left much behind me with you to-day," said he, "take that also." The wretched man rolling from rock to rock, fell headlong into the stream below, where, shattered and mangled by the fall, he expired in the water.

Angus Mac Raonuill continued his flight, and the Mac Kenzies, though bereft of their leader, held on the pursuit. checked, however, by the stream, which none of them dared to leap, Angus was gaining fast upon them, when a musket discharged at him by one of the pursuers, wounded him severely, and greatly retarded his speed. After passing the river, the Mac Kenzies again drew hard after him, and as they came in sight of Loch Ness, Angus perceiving his strength to fail, with his wound, and his enemies pressing upon him, determined to attempt swimming the loch; he rushed into the water, and for some time, refreshed by its coolness swam with much vigour and confidence. His limbs would, however, in all probability have failed him, before he had crossed the half of the distance to the opposite bank; but Fraser of Fyars, a particular friend of the Glengarrie family, seeing a single man pursued by a party out of the Mac Kenzie's country, and knowing that the Mac Donells had gone upon an expedition in that country, got a boat, and hastening to the aid of Angus, took him on board, and conveyed him in safety to the east side of the loch. The Mac Kenzies, seeing their foeman had escaped, discontinued their pursuit, and Angus returned at his leisure to Glengarrie.