Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 389, March 1848

1

Vide Notes to Pope's Dunciad, book iii.

2

Italian Sketches, No. V., August 1843.

3

Epistle to the Hebrews, v. 13, 14.

4

In an otherwise admirable lecture on schools, which was lately delivered by Professor Blount, at Cambridge, we were surprised to hear a general commendation passed on these books. We feel persuaded, that neither the gravity of the class nor the approval of the Professor would have held out long against the recital of a few extracts.

5

Notwithstanding their number, we would suggest one more, the "corrective alphabet," in which all the symbols should stand representative for objects agreeable to babes, and, ex. gr., after their innocent lips have been made to falter out Herod's formidable name, we would point to ours, where —

6

(Les faux dieux.)

7

"We were not" (says Jeremy Taylor) "like women and children when they are affrighted with fire in their clothes; we shook off the coal, indeed, but not our garments; lest we should expose our Church to that nakedness which the excellent men of our sister Churches complained to be among themselves."

8

Bellarmine asserts (and who but a heretic shall dispute it with him?) that men are bound so far to submit their consciences to the Pope, as even to believe virtue to be bad and vice to be good, if it shall please his Holiness to say so. (Bellar. de Rom. Pontif, lib. iv. cap. v.) When things came to this pass, were we not justified in the insertion of that rough deprecatory clause that stood in our Litany – "From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities, Good Lord deliver us!"

9

"We must seek to enter into the real divine unity; if not, the pseudo unity to which Mr Newman would bring us back will be attempted once more among us; only to be followed, when its hollowness, its nothingness, its implicit infidelity, is laid bare, by an explicit infidelity, an anarchical unity, without a centre, without a God." (Maurice's Lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 111.)

10

Imitated from Juvenal, Satire viii.

11

It is singular to observe how the "votiva paries," in the churches of Papal Rome, are hung with similar offerings to those which formerly ornamented her temples in Pagan times. We possess several of these ancient offerings; inter alia– a uterus and a mamma, in terra cotta, from the Temple of Elvina Ceres at Aquinum, and an abortion, in lead, from the same source.

12

Registrum Prioratus Sancti Andreæ, 114.

13

New Statistical Account, Aberdeenshire, 1089.

14

Of the many spots traditionally connected with Ossian, we have no doubt that the association is no older than the days of James Macpherson. Yet, to show how fearlessly we adopt our theory, we shall here state a circumstance appearing to establish a genuine Ossianic tradition of no common interest, which we wonder never to have seen introduced in the controversy. The wild glen running from the neighbourhood of Crieff towards Loch Tay, called Glen Almond or Glen Almain, is the traditional resting-place of the bones of Ossian. The reader will remember it from Wordsworth's lines: —

Early in last century, a military road was carried through this glen, by a set of men brought up in the stiff formal engineering of the period, who went straight to their end, caring neither for scenery, nor for legends, for the graves of bards, nor for big stones, as one of their number – Captain Burt, a very matter-of-fact but clear narrator, who was present – shows.

"A small part of the way through the glen had been marked out by two rows of camp colours, placed at a good distance one from another, whereby to describe the line of the intended breadth and regularity of the road by the eye. There happened to lie directly in the way, an exceedingly large stone, and, as it had been made a rule from the beginning, to carry on the roads in straight lines, as far as the way would permit, not only to give them a better air, but to shorten the passengers' journey, it was resolved the stone should be removed, if possible, though, otherwise, the work might have been carried along on either side of it.

"The soldiers by vast labour, with their levers and picks, or hand-screws, tumbled it over and over till they got it quite out of the way, although it was of such enormous size, that it might be matter of great wonder how it could ever be removed by human strength and art, especially to such who had never seen an operation of that kind; and upon their digging a little way into that part of the ground, where the centre of the base had stood, there was found a small cavity about two feet square, which was guarded from the outward earth, at the bottom, tops, and sides, by square flat stones. This hollow contained some ashes, scraps of bones, and half burned ends of stalks of heath; which last we concluded to be a small remnant of a funeral pile."

Burt, returning to the spot after a short absence, asked the officer in charge "what had become of the sarcophagus." "He answered that he had intended to preserve it in the condition I left it, till the commander-in-chief had seen it, as a curiosity, but that it was not in his power so to do; for soon after the discovery was known to the Highlanders, they assembled from distant parts, and, having formed themselves into a body, they carefully gathered up the relics, and marched with them in solemn procession to a new place of burial, and there discharged their fire-arms over the grave, as supposing the deceased had been a military officer." – Burt's Letters, ii. 188. The engineer officer, desirous to account for so unaccountable a proceeding naturally drew on the etiquette of his own profession. We make the supporters of Ossian a free gift of this anecdote, not doubting that they will appreciate our liberality.

15

Alas! it is a world of change. While correcting the press, we have just heard that some learned antiquary has enlightened the Lunfananers, and that they have set up a tavern called "The Macbeth Arms!"

16

It may be found at the end of vol. i. of Pinkerton's History of Scotland, and in vol. ii. of the collection of reprints called Miscellanea Scotica.

17

See Tytler's History, iii. 307, et seq.

18

The Life and Correspondence of Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith, G. C. B. By T. Barrow, Esq. F. R. S. Two vols. Bentley, London.

19

Hudson's Bay; or, Snow-Shoe Journeys, Boat and Canoe Travelling Excursions, and Every-day Life in the Wilds of North America, during Six Years' Residence in the Territories of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company. With Illustrations. By Robert Michael Ballantyne. Edinburgh, 1847. Printed for Private Circulation.