Sky, mountain, river, wind, lake, lightnings! ye, With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul To make these felt and feeling, well may be Things that have made me watchful; the far roll Of your departing voices, is the knoll

Of what in me is sleepless-if I rest.

But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal?

Are ye like those within the human breast? Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?

LESSON XCVIII.

SCOTLAND'S MOUNTAIN PINE.

The mountains of Scotland were once inhabited by several inde. pendent chieftains, whose followers, called clans, were as brave in war as troublesome in peace. Clan-Alpine, a clan celebrated by Walter Scott in his novels and his poem of the Lady of the Lake, had the pine tree for its banner. The author of the following lines is unknown to the Editor, but his poem breathes the spirit of the Highlands. If too long, the lines in brackets may be omitted.

The mountain pine of Scotland! it liveth in delight, Aloft where lightning-banners lead the thunder-cloud of night;

Not from the soil that deeply lies in the lowland vallies down,

Does the pine his sceptered arm extend, or lift his leafy

crown,

But on his heritance of heights where the blood-red sunsets play,

Like meteor plumes on a warrior's helm at the close of battle day,

There-there he stands, the mountain king, and a glorious king is he,

As he sees with pride on every side his forest-chivalry.

What know they of his glory? what feel they of his

pride,

Or of the loud-wheeled thunder trains that round his empire ride

They who have never seen him soar where the eagle's vision fails,

From his native Highland heather dark to wrestle with the gales?

"Loosed is a flood of sunlight," the gloom is changed to gold,

And the cascades of orchestral sounds their scenic pride unfold,

And, by that lustre, deeply down, each calm romantic

scene

Is vistaed off by sun-touched glades that ope to meadows green.

Hath all the Arab's fairy realm a glory like to thisBeauty and power and fear and joy in one ecstatic bliss? One glance to those eternal pines when storm clouds are unfurled

Is far beyond the spell-built halls of the Geniï's spirit world.

[Pine trees are in Glengary, Glemoriston, Glenmore, Strathglass, Lock-Shiel, Findhorn, and calm Lock-Arkaig's shore,

And pine trees by the Dee shut out the pale moon's pensive star,

With foliage dark of Invercauld, and the spreading of Braemar.

But over all in pride and strength, and ancientness and power,

Stands firm Clan-Alpine's banner-tree topping the mountain tower,

Girt by his own dominions-deep rocks and cliffs around,

Unweakened by the tempest's breath or the torrent's wasting bound.]

Then live the pine of Scotland, that dwelleth in delight, Up where the lightning banners lead the thunder clouds of night!

Long may its carnival of leaves be joyous in the light, While all look up to that kingly tree on his throne of ancient might.

LESSON XCIX.

SPEECH OF ROB ROY.

The following speech is taken from the novel of Walter Scott. Rob Roy was a chieftain of the Mac Gregors, usually called Clan-Alpine. A few words spelled in Scottish fashion have been left unanglicized, for the piece sounds far better when pronounced with the Scottish ac

cent.

"You speak like a boy,—like a boy, who thinks the auld gnarled oak can be twisted as easily as the young sapling. Can I forget that I have been branded as an outlaw, stigmatized as a traitor,-a price set on my head as if I had been a wolf,—my family treated as the dam and cubs of the hill-fox, whom all may torment vilify, degrade, and insult,—the very name which came to me from a long and noble line of martial ancestors, denounced, as if it were a spell to conjure up the devil with?

And they shall find, that the name they have dared to proscribe-that the name of Mac Gregor is a spell to raise the wild devil withal. They shall hear of my vengeance, that would scorn to listen to the story of my wrongs. The miserable Highland drover, bankrupt, barefooted, stripped of all, dishonored and hunted

down, because the avarice of others grasped at more than that poor all could pay, shall burst on them in an awful change. They that scoffed at the grovelling worm, and trod upon him, may cry and howl when they see the stoop of the flying and fiery-mouthed dragon. But why do I speak all this?—We are a rude and an ignorant, and it may be a violent and passionate, but we are not a cruel people. The land might be at peace and in law for us, did they allow us to enjoy the blessings of peaceful law. Can we view their bluidy edicts against us their hanging, heading, hounding, and hunting down an ancient and honorable name, as deserving better treatment than that which enemies give to enemies? Here I stand, who have been in twenty frays, and never hurt man but when I was in hot bluid; and yet they wad betray me and hang me like a masterless dog, at the gate of ony great man that has an ill will at me. The heather that I have trod upon when living, must bloom ower me when I am dead. My heart would sink, and my arm would shrink and wither like fern in the frost, were I to lose sight of my native hills; nor has the world a scene that would console me for the loss of the rocks and cairns, wild as they are, that you see around us. I was once so hard put at by my great enemy, as I may well ca' him, that I was forced e'en to gie away to the tide, and remove myself and my people and family from our dwellings in our native land, and to withdraw for a time into Mac Callum More's country. But our hearts amaist broke when we departed, and I wad not have the same touch of heartbreak again, no, not to have all the lands that ever were owned by Mac Gregor."

any more.

LESSON C.

THE FATE OF MAC GREGOR.

The following legend of the Highlands of Scotland was written by JAMES HOGG, the Ettrick Shepherd, as he is usually called. The piece is long, but the Editor did not see where it could be shortened Most of the allusions in this poem have been explained in the preceding lessons. Colquhoun (pronounced Colhoon) was Laird of Luss, or leader of a party opposed to Mac Gregor. By an act of the Privy Council in 1603, the Clan of Mac Gregor were ordered to drop the name on pain of death for non compliance, and this order was not fully revoked till nearly two centuries afterward. The expression, "screwed the high heaven," has reference to the spiral flight of certain birds of prey. The speaker can give the idea by an appropriate ges

ture.

"Mac Gregor, Mac Gregor, remember our foeman;
The moon rises proud from the brow of Ben-Lomond,
The clans are impatient, and chide their delay;
Arise! let us bound to Glen-Lyon away."

Stern scowled the Mac Gregor, then, silent and sullen,
He turned his red eye to the braes of Strath-fillan;
"Go, Malcom, to sleep, let the clans be dismissed;
The Campbells this night for Mac Gregor must rest.”

"Mac Gregor, Mac Gregor, our scouts have been flying, Three days, round the hills of Mc Nab and Glen-Lyon; Of riding and running such tidings they bear,

We must meet them at home, else they'll quickly be here."

"The Campbell may come, as his promises bind him,
And haughty Mc Nab, with his giants behind him;
This night I am bound to relinquish the fray,
And do what it freezes my vitals to say.

I have sworn by the cross, by my God, and by all!
An oath which I can not, and dare not recall,