when you attempt to shut it, the binding bursts in your hand."

LXIII.

SCOTISH CANNIBALS.

"The Pichts were fierce and Scythian like:

Much like the Irish now

The Scots were then couragious both :

Nor them I disallowe

That write they fed on humane flesh,

For so it may be well,

Like of these men their bloudie mindes

Their native stories tell."

Warner's Albion's England.

SAINT JEROME, who survived the beginning of the fifth century, relates that the Attacotti, a Scotish tribe dwelling in the Lennox, ate human flesh.2 Our historians are laudably anxious to discredit the accusation; and perhaps they have shown that it is unfounded, though all must confess that a love of good eating seems never to have been a national failing. "There is no kind of food," says William

1 Philobiblon Richardi Dvnelmensis, sive de Amore Librorum, et Institvtione Bibliothecae tractatus pulcherrimus. Ex collatione cum variis manuscriptis editio jam secunda, cap. xvii. pp. 53, 54. Oxoniae, Excudebat Josephus Barnesius, 1599.

2 Pinkerton's Enq. into Hist. of Scot. vol. ii. p. 144, edit. 1814. Ritson's Ann. of Caled., vol. i. p. 142. Gibbon touches the subject: "A valiant tribe of Caledonia, the At

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of Newbury" from which the Scots will turn away: they will devour whatever a dog will take."

tacotti, are accused by an eyewitness of delighting in the taste of human flesh. When they hunted the woods for prey, it is said that they attacked the shepherd rather than his flock; and that they curiously selected the most delicate and brawny parts, both of males and females, which they prepared for their horrid repasts. If in the neighbourhood of the commercial and literary town of Glasgow a race of cannibals has really existed, we may contemplate, in the period of the Scotish history, the opposite extremes of savage and civilized life. Such reflections tend to enlarge the circle of our ideas; and to encourage the pleasing hope that New Zealand may produce in some future age the Hume of the Southern Hemisphere."

1 Gul. Newbrig. Rer. Anglic. lib. ii. cap. xxxii. p. 189, edit. Antv. 1567. Major, Boece, and other eminent Scotsmen, were educated at Montagu College in Paris; [See Boetii Vitae Episcoporum Abredonensium]; but (if we except John Major's doubtful compliment,-" Gymnasio Montis acuti frugi et non ignobili") we nowhere hear the slightest complaint from them of its filth or indifferent fare, though it was perhaps more famous for these than for its learning. Erasmus has commemorated its vermin in his Colloquies (Percontandi Forma, p. 7, edit. Amstel. 1662): "Georgius. Ex qua tandem corte aut cavea nobis ades Livinus. Quid ita? Geor. Quia male saginatus. Quia macie pelluces totus, ariditate crepitas. Unde prodis? Livin. E collegio Montis acuti. nobis onustus literis. Livin. Imo pediculis." And in the short sketch of his own life which this great scholar has bequeathed to us, he speaks of its ill-ventilated dormitories, and its rotten eggs : "Illic in Collegio Montis acuti,

Geor. Ergo ades

One or two instances of cannibalism occur in the pages of our older chronicles.

In 1339, during the siege of Perth, the neighbouring country was brought to the greatest extremity, and many died of hunger. Androw Wyntown writes

"A Karl, they said, lived near thereby
That would set gins commonly
Children and women for to slay,

And men that he might o'erta',

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ex putridis ovis et cubiculo infecto morbum concepit." Erasmus indeed was fastidious in his viands; he slandered the potent ale of Queen's College, Cambridge, as raw, small, and windy. (Coleridge's Biograph. Borealis, p. 345.) Jejuniorum impatiens semper fuit," says Melchior Adam. (Vit. Germ. Philosoph. p. 41.) But Montagu College seems only to have had justice at his hands: Hear the erudite preceptor of Gargantua: “Seigneur, ne pensez que je laye miz on colliege de pouillerye quon nomme Montagu: mieulx leusse voulu mettre entre les guenaulx de Sainct Innocent, pour lenorme cruaulté et villenye que iy ay congneu: car trop mieulx sont traictez les forcez entre les Maures et Tartares, les meurtriers en la prison criminelle, voyre certes les chiens en vostre maison, que ne sont ces malauctruz on dict colliege. Et, si jestoys roy de Paris, le dyable memport si je ne mettoys le feu dedans, et feroys brusler et principal et regents, qui endurent ceste inhumanité deuant leurs yeulx estre exercee." (Rabelais, liu. i. chap. xxxvii. p. 43, edit. 1837.)

And eat them all, that get he might,
Crystyne Klek to name he hight.
That woeful life continued he

Till waste of folk was the Countrie."l

Fordun gives a similar account: "Such was the dearth of food at that time, that the common people perished in multitudes, and lay unburied like sheep in ditches. There lurked in the neighbourhood a stout churl called Crysti Cleik, who with his wife, laid traps for women, boys, and young men, and strangling them, lived like wolves on their flesh." John Major says the name of the wretch was Trysty Clok, and that when he was seized and brought to trial, he urged in his defence that by no other way could he find means of subsistence.3

The

Hector Boece gives another instance in the reign of James II., who died in 1460. "About this time a certain robber was seized in a cave in Angus, called Fenisden, where he lived with his family. monster used to steal young persons or to decoy them to his cavern, where he killed them and ate their flesh the younger the age of his victims, and the plumper their condition, so much the more delicate

1 Wyntownis Cronykil, b. viii. c. xxxvii.

2 Scotichronicon, lib. xiii. cap. xlvi. vol. ii. p. 331, edit. Goodal.

3 De Gestis Scotorum, lib. v. cap. xvi. fol. ciii. edit. 1521.

Idid he esteem them. For this most abominable iniquity, he, his wife, and all their offspring were burned alive, except a female child not quite twelve months old. She was brought up at Dundee, but before she had completed her twelfth year, she was caught in the commission of the same crime for which her father had suffered, and was sentenced to be buried alive. As she was led to the place of execution, great multitudes of people, especially of women, followed her, heaping curses on her head for her inhuman barbarities. Turning toward them with a countenance in which the lines of cruelty were strongly marked, she exclaimed, 'Why do you upbraid me as if I had done a disgraceful thing? Believe me that no one who has found how delicious human flesh is, will be able thereafter to refrain from eating children.' Thus unrepentant of the

crime which she had committed, she met her doom in the presence of a mighty concourse of spectators, who were moved with horror at her great guilt and hardened impenitence.”

1 Boetii Scotorum Historia, lib. xviii. On the question how far Boece is to be believed in this matter, I may refer the reader to a clever little work, Description of the Coast between Aberdeen and Leith, p. 58. Aberd. 1837.

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