seated, as they have since continued to be, in the extrem e north of the island; and their chief at the time was a personage of such importance, that his name and proper designation could not have been omitted in the early narratives of the occurrence. He on one occasion brought four thousand of his clan to the aid of the royal banner against the Lord of the Isles. This historian is of opinion that the Clan Quhele of Wyntoun were the Camerons, who appear to have about that period been often designated as Macewans, and to have gained much more recently the name of Cameron, i.e. Wrynose, from a blemish in the physiognomy of some heroic chief of the line of Lochiel. This view of the case is also adopted by Douglas in his Baronage, where he frequently mentions the bitter feuds between Clan Chattan and Clan Kay, and identifies the latter sept, in reference to the events of 1396, with the Camerons. It is perhaps impossible to clear up thoroughly this controversy, little interesting in itself, at least to readers on this side of Inverness. The names, as we have them in Wyntoun, are 'Clanwhewyl' and 'Clachinya,' the latter probably not correctly transcribed. In the Scoti-Chronicon they are 'Clanquhele' and 'Clankay.' Hector Boece writes 'Clanchattan' and 'Clankay,' in which he is followed by Leslie; while Buchanan disdains to disfigure his page with their Gaelic designations at all, and merely describes them as two powerful races in the wild and lawless region beyond the Grampians. Out of this jumble what Sassenach can pretend dare lucem? The name Clanwheill appears so late as 1594, in an Act of James VI. Is it not possible that it may be, after all, a mere corruption of Clan Lochiel?

The reader may not be displeased to have Wyntoun's

original rhymes:

A thousand and thre hunder yere,
Nynty and sex to mak all clere -
Of thre-score wyld Scottis men,
Thretty agane thretty then,
In felny bolnit of auld fede,1

As thare fore-elders ware slane to dede.
Tha thre-score ware clannys twa,
Clahynnhe Qwhewyl and Clachinyha;
Of thir twa kynnis ware tha men,
Thretty agane thretty then;

And thare thai had thair chiftanys twa,
Scha2 Ferqwharis' son wes ane of tha,
The tother Cristy Johnseone.

A selcouth thing by tha was done.
At Sanct Johnstoun besyde the Freris,
All thai enterit in barreris

Wyth bow and ax, knyf and swerd,
To deil amang thaim thair last werd.3
Thare thai laid on that time sa fast,
Quha had the ware1 thare at the last

I will nocht say; but quha best had,
He was but dout bathe muth and mad."
Fifty or má ware slane that day,

Suá few wyth lif than past away.

The prior of Lochleven makes no mention either of the evasion of one of the Gaelic champions, or of the gallantry of the Perth artisan, in offering to take a share in the conflict. Both incidents, however, were introduced, no doubt from tradition, by the Continuator of Fordun, whose narrative is in these words:

1 i. e., Boiled with the cruelty of an old feud.

2 Scha is supposed to be Toshach, i.e., Macintosh: the father of the chief of this sept at the time was named Ferchard. In Bowar he is Scheabeg, i.e., Toshach the Little.

3 i.e., Fate, doom.

4 The waur - the worse.

Muth and mad, i.e., exhausted both in body and in mind.

'Anno Dom. millesimo trecentesimo nonagesimo sexto, magna pars borealis Scotiæ, trans Alpes, inquietata fuit per duos pestiferos Cateranos, et eorum sequaces, viz. Scheabeg et suos consanguinarios, qui Clankay, et Cristi Jonson ac suos, qui Clanquhele dicebantur; qui nullo pacto vel tractatu pacificari poterant, nullâque arte regis vel gubernatoris poterant edomari, quoadusque nobilis et industriosus D. David de Lindesay de Crawford, et Dominus Thomas comes Moraviæ, diligentiam et vires apposuerunt, ac inter partes sic tractaverunt, ut coram domino rege certo die convenirent apud Perth, et alterutra pars eligeret de progenie sua triginta personas adversus triginta de parte contraria, gladiis tantùm, arcubus et sagittis, absque deploidibus, vel armaturis aliis, præter bipennes; et sic congredientes finem liti ponerent, et terra pace potiretur. Utrique igitur parti summè placuit contractus, et die lunæ proximo ante festum Sancti Michaëlis, apud North insulam de Perth, coram rege et gubernatore et innumerabili multitudine comparentes, conflictum acerrimum inierunt; ubi de sexaginta interfecti sunt omnes, excepto uno ex parte Clankay et undecim exceptis ex parte altera. Hoc etiam ibi accidit, quòd omnes in præcinctu belli constituti, unus eorum locum diffugii considerans, inter omnes in amnem elabitur, et aquam de Thaya natando transgreditur; à millenis insequitur, sed nusquam apprehenditur. Stant igitur partes attonitæ, tanquam non ad conflictum progressuri, ob defectum evasi: noluit enim pars integrum habens numerum sociorum consentire, ut unus de suis demeretur; nec potuit pars altera quocumque pretio alterum ad supplendum vicem fugientis inducere. Stupent igitur omnes hærentes, de damno

fugitivi conquerentes. Et cùm totum illud opus cessare putaretur, ecce in medio prorupit unus stipulosus vernaculus, staturâ modicus, sed efferus, dicens; Ecce ego! quis me conducet intrare cum operariis istis ad hunc ludum theatralem? Pro dimidia enim marca ludum experiar, ultra hoc petens, ut si vivus de palæstra evasero, victum à quocumque vestrûm recipiam dum vixero: quia, sicut dicitur, "Majorem caritatem nemo habet, quàm ut animam suam ponat quis pro amicis." Quali mercede donabor, qui animam meam pro inimicis reipublicæ et regni pono? Quod petiit, à rege et diversis magnatibus conceditur. Cum hoc arcus ejus extenditur, et primò sagittam in partem contrariam transmittit, et unum interficit. Confestim hinc inde sagittæ volitant, bipennes librant, gladios vibrant, alterutro certant, et veluti carnifices boves in macello, sic inconsternatè ad invicem se trucidant. Sed nec inter tantos repertus est vel unus, qui, tanquam vecors aut timidus, sive post tergum alterius declinans, seipsum à tanta cæde prætendit excusare. Iste tamen tyro superveniens finaliter illæsus exivit; et dehinc multo tempore Boreas quievit, nec ibidem fuit, ut suprà, cateranorum excursus.’1

The scene is heightened with many florid additions by Boece and Leslie, and the contending savages in Buchanan utter speeches after the most approved pattern of Livy.

The devotion of the young chief of Clan Quhele's foster-father and foster-brethren in the novel is a trait of clannish fidelity, of which Highland story furnishes many examples. In the battle of Inverkeithing, between the Royalists and Oliver Cromwell's troops, a foster

1 See Note 1.

father and seven brave sons are known to have thus sacrificed themselves for Sir Hector Maclean of Duart; the old man, whenever one of his boys fell, thrusting forward another to fill his place at the right hand of the' beloved chief, with the very words adopted in the novel — ‘Another for Hector!'

Nay, the feeling could outlive generations. The late much-lamented General Stewart of Garth, in his account of the battle of Killiecrankie, informs us that Lochiel was attended on the field by the son of his fosterbrother.

"This faithful adherent followed him like his shadow, ready to assist him with his sword, or cover him from the shot of the enemy. Suddenly the chief missed his friend from his side, and, turning round to look what had become of him, saw him lying on his back with his breast pierced by an arrow. He had hardly breath, before he expired, to tell Lochiel that, seeing an enemy, a Highlander in General Mackay's army, aiming at him with a bow and arrow, he sprung behind him, and thus sheltered him from instant death. This,' observes the gallant David Stewart, 'is a species of duty not often practised, perhaps, by our aide-de-camps of the present day.' (Sketches of the Highlanders, vol. i. p. 65.)

I have only to add, that the Second Series of Chronicles of the Canongate, with the chapter introductory which now follows, appeared in May 1828, and had a favourable reception.

ABBOTSFORD, Aug. 15, 1831.