Note 20. p. 74.

66 My brethren thus estranged, and I

Now in our caves retired lie," &c.

The Urisks dwelt in caves, each in one or more of the chief mountains of his district; and the whole class held stated annual meetings to deliberate on their affairs, in a very steep and romantic hollow of Ben-Venue, in Perthshire. This hollow is styled Choir-nan-Uriskin, which, says Sir Walter Scott, "literally implies the Corrie, or Den of the Wild or Shaggy Men." "The Urisks," observes Dr. Graham, "were supposed to be dispersed over the Highlands, each in his own wild recess; but the solemn stated meetings of the order, were regularly held in this cave of Ben-Venue." Sir Walter Scott thus describes the cave:-" It is surrounded with stupendous rocks, and overshadowed with birch-trees, mingled with oaks, the spontaneous production of the mountain, even where its cliffs appear denuded of soil."

Note 21. p. 75.

"Till on these mountains beam the dawn

Of an approaching perfect day,

Shall chase us from our haunts away," &c.

That all the various orders of the pagan mythology, whether barbarian or classical, had a foreknowledge of the

advent of our Redeemer, and of the cessation, within given periods, of their functions and influence through His ascendancy, is admitted, assumed, or asserted, on all hands. Thus, Plutarch gravely informs us, that—

During the voyage of Æmilian, the Grecian orator, to Italy, a voice from the Isle of Paxos, suddenly called for one Thamus, on board of the vessel. This was an Egyptian pilot, a passenger, whose name was known to few. He listened to the summons twice in silence, but the third time he acknowledged it. All were terrified on hearing a loud injunction, Announce, on gaining Palocles, that the Great Pan is dead! There he found the winds and the seas were lulled and on beholding the place, he proclaimed, The Great Pan is dead!' Scarcely had he spoke, when the lamentations, not of one, but of many, were heard. Rumours quickly reaching Tiberius Cæsar, he called Thamus before him, to enquire regarding Pan. The learned then conjectured, that this was the same who had sprung of Mercury and Penelope. Many desert islands, the reputed abode of demons and heroes, are dispersed about Britain. Demetrius, an emissary of the Emperor, arriving at an island next to them, found it thinly peopled, but all of reputed sanctity. Much confusion in the air, portents, and storms and thunders, prevailed. The islanders declared, that one of excellence superior to human nature, had deceased among them."

And Milton, in his Hymn on "The Nativity," thus enlarges with inimitable beauty on the same subject:"The oracles are dumb,

No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo, from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No mighty trance, or breathed spell,

Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

"The lonely mountains o'er,

And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
From haunted spring and dale,
Edged with poplar pale,

The parting genius is with sighing sent;

With flower-enwoven tresses torn,

The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

"In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

The Lars and the Lemures moan with midnight plaint; In urns, and altars round,

A drear and dying sound,

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;

And the chill marble seems to sweat,

While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat," &c.

Dalyell, in his "Darker Superstitions of Scotland," says, in reference to Tiberius's emissary, Demetrius, searching among the demon-haunted isles about Britain, "If the Christian religion supplanted Pagan idolatry by imperceptible changes, and the sanctity of one of the

Hebrides, [Iona] subsequently so noted, preceded it, the scene of so remarkable an incident might be appropriately fixed within its limits."

This is a very good fancy; but the if spoils it all; as Iona never possessed any distinction, either for sanctity or aught else, until the long subsequent era of St. Columbkill. Anglesey would suit the hypothesis much better, as that island continued to be the chief seat of the Druids and their religious mysteries, from the earliest period down to that of its destruction by Agricola, in the reign of Domitian, a considerable time after that of Tiberius.

Our Scottish theologians after the Reformation, entertained a belief exactly in harmony with what the Urisk is made to say a little farther on,-to the effect, that the greater light about to be diffused by the Reformation, would banish him and all his Kindred Powers from the regions where it was propagated. Thus, in the records of Church-Court proceedings anent witchcraft and demonology of all kinds, the clergy are found in process of time gradually asserting, that, "by the blessing of God, reformation from Popery, and more pure preaching of the Gospel," such beings and influences had become almost invisible. I am afraid, however, they differed from the Urisk as to subsequent destination, where he says he and his brethren shall attain

"To higher realms and fuller light;"

but it would be hard indeed to sentence the whole array of those intermediate Powers,-many of them so friendly

and benevolent, to the outer darkness and misery of the rebellious and incorrigibly-wicked! It is more

humane to assume their period of servitude to man, to have been one of probation—or say even of punishment for offences committed in some previous state; and allow them a step in advance afterwards, like the ascending destinies of the spirits of virtuous men, under the metempsychosis of Pythagoras.

Note 22. p. 76.

86 Strong, but harmonious, kind and clear,
The voice had fallen on Orchay's ear."

It used to be much debated in the Scotch ecclesiastical and civil judicatories, with what kind of voices demons and other spiritual existences spoke. Satan was at length generally allowed to have "a rough and goustie voice," and the speech of the lesser demons to resemble "a speaking into empty casks." An author named Lilly, gives it as his opinion, that angels speak Gaelic, and states that "when they so speak, it's like the Irish, much in the throat!" This is as good as what many Irish antiquarians assert even to this day,—that Irish was the language of Eden, and that in it Adam named all the animals!

Amid such a conflict of opinions, it is safest to hold by the common-sense theory,-that, if such beings could imi