the struggle for independence from the sovereignty of England, had a beginning long prior to the time when it engaged the attention of Europe, or furnished a romantic chapter to the historian, in the portraiture of the ambition of Edward, or the heroic perseverance of Wallace and Bruce. The question of feudal homage to the English crown was raised in preceding reigns, and the disputes of ages bore testimony to the unshaken fidelity with which the Archbishops of York claimed the spiritual subjection of the North.

It is, too, in regard to these ancient times, anterior to that when Mr. Tytler begins, that miracle most abounds. It was here that the pruning-knife of rigid criticism was desired. Chalmers has, indeed, done much to smooth the labour, by happy guesses when he had not authority, and solid reasoning when met by shallow speculation. But his labours are so overlaid with learning, that, except to the antiquary, they are useless; and his own theories, while they have superseded all others, are in many respects only delusive plausibilities. Since his day, moreover, much has been accomplished to facilitate the historian's labours. The hodmen

of historians—those industrious antiquaries who have burrowed amid the ruins that Time in his hurried march has spared-have collected materials for building a new structure, which would have a foundation more substantial than the shadowy mists of Scottish metaphysics. Centuries, hitherto lost, are recovered; and in writing the history of our country, we are not under the hard necessity of blotting out cycles of ages, and marking the blank-as our older geographers did to continents-a territory unknown. The excitement of war, the intrigues of courts, the violence of faction, are the same in all times, and give to the page of history the dulness of monotony; but the origin of a people only once occurs to fatigue the attention, and the interest it excites, though less brilliant than a battle, is made more enduring by the philosophic instruction it inculcates. In the gradual development of civilization there is a philosophy which appeals universally to mankind. The rise and progress of institutions, traced first to insulated acts, where a deviation from the rule was made the rule, passing into usage by repetition, and becoming law by prescriptive tolerance, are the most interesting, though generally the most

neglected, portion of human history. Of this portion of our annals we have little in the work before us,—the disquisitions at the end of the second volume professing to illustrate the condition of the country only from the time when the history begins.

The authorities to which Mr. Tytler is principally indebted for his early volumes, are the established works of Fordun and Winton, whom he has in general accurately followed, except in certain cases, where the renowned Hector Boece had told the same story, with an additional touch of the romantic. But although the venerable Principal of Aberdeen is sometimes honoured by his imaginative flights being thus incorporated into history, Mr. Tytler does not choose to cite the author, who, until the days of Hailes, was considered the historian of Scotland. Even now his work will yield amusement for an idle hour. The feats of its heroes dim the lustre of Pantagruel and Don Quixote; but his versatile genius could not confine itself to the minute description of imaginary battles, or the glories of regal shades. It descended even to the natural creation, and extracted live geese from rotten trees. The author, in short, reduces fic

tion to a science, in which moderation is forgotten. Everything is on a gigantic scale. Virtues are always in the superlative; vice, measureless and boundless; numbers are multiplied with a dexterity and assurance that cannot but excite admiration for his arithmetic; and, knowing with Fag, that the drawing on a lie is nothing unless well supported, he forges endorsements to make it pass current. He bravely asserts that he obtained all the speeches that he puts into the mouths of his spectral kings, and the curious things they did, from histories never before or since heard of,-which the monkish piety of Icolmkill had preserved, and the generous liberality of the Earl of Argyle had enabled him to consult.*

* Boece's history was written in Latin, and translated by Bellenden into the good old Scotch of the 16th century. In many respects it is an amusing book, and not the least amusing portion is that where he gives sketches of the natural creation, of which we shall give a specimen

In showing" the nature of mussilis and cocles, of quhilkis mony kindis ar among us," he informs us, that "airlie in the morning, quhen the lift is cleir and temperat, they opins thair mouths a litill above the watter, and maist gredelie swallows the dew of the hevin; and eftir the mesure and quantitie of the dew that thay swallow, they bredis the perle." The persecution they endure on account of the pearls they possess, seems to have given them uncommon sagacity. They "knaw

Of modern historians we have had a number, who unfortunately were all the hacks of booksellers, and whose chief aim was the quantity

weill," says Boece, " in quhat estimatioun and price the frute of thair wombe is to al peple!"

But the most interesting fact is the procreation of geese from rotten wood. The historian informs us, that "he made no little labour and diligence to search the truth and verity thereof;" and he even "sailit thro the sea," where the geese were bred. The result of "gret experience," therefore, is, that the geese are produced from the trees which, being cast into the sea, are soon filled with worms, who hold their glorious saturnalia on the decaying fibre. After showing their head and feet, they thereafter "schaw thair plumis and wingis ;" and when they have arrived at the full stature and dimension of geese, they fly away to join their fellows. He proves this by the history of a wonderful tree, thrown by the waves upon the land, out of the holes of which came a multitude of worms, which in a short time grew into geese, took wing, and vanished. Boece himself was not a witness of this case, nor of another of a ship at Leith, which, instead of flying away like one great goose as it was, resolved itself into innumerable worms, which afterwards soared the meridian in the shape of geese, to the great grief of the people of the port.

But with regard to a third notable instance, we are told by the historian, that it occurred "afore our ene." Alexander Galloway, the minister of Kinkell, who must have known the historian's character, and had in his own constitution some little humour, came in haste one day to Boece, "knowing us richt desirus of sic uncouth thingis," with a mussel shell, which, when opened, displayed to the astonished eyes of the worthy Principal, not a fish, but a perfectly shaped fowl. From all this the historian concludes, that because "the rude and ignorant people saw ofttimes the fruits that fell off