Some years since, on removing the pavement of the chapel, their coffin plates were discovered, and are now preserved in the building. They bear the following inscriptions :— Arthurus, Dominus de Balmerino. Decollatus 18° die Augusti 1746. Etatis suæ 58°. Willielmus, Comes de Kilmarnock. Decollatus 18° die Augusti 1746. Etatis suæ 42. Simon, Dominus Etat suæ 80°. Could Mr. Jesse find no word synonymous with "ill-fated," that he repeats it so frequently in the foregoing extract? And here we take our leave, for the present, of Mr. Jesse, to whose "Memorials" we have given our patient attention. His work is an agreeable and interesting addition to our literature; but it is not all we could have wished, nor all that he could have made it. He has taken too straight a line from west to east; and has consequently overlooked much on either side of his path, from which, therefore, he might have diverged with advantage. The volumes are valuable as far as they go; but, to embrace every object of interest within the scope of such a design, he must give us as much more. The manner in which the book has been got up betrays a carelessness which is not to be excused in a work of this nature. For instance, we find the quotation at page 279 of the first volume Mighty victor, mighty lord, Low on his funeral couch he lies! repeated at page 428 in the same volume. There is, moreover, somewhat of what is termed book-making in these "Memorials," in which we find much of historical matter sufficiently familiar to the ordinary reader to forbid its introduction in a work of this nature. Despite, however, of these blemishes, and other graver faults of which we have spoken freely because we felt strongly, we shall be glad to find Mr. Jesse's industry and research employed in the extension of his design, for which he will find ample materials in the bye-ways as well as the highways of "busy London ;" and so we wish him good speed. From the Correspondence of the N. Y. Evening Post. MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER TO BROTHER JON ATHAN. A LOVING BALLAD. Albany, (England,) June 8, 1848. Ho! brother, I'm a Britisher, I tell you, brother Jonathan, I know your heart, an open heart, And shrewd to scheme a likely plan, There may be jealousies and strife, Two fledgling sparrows in one nest, Then how should eaglets meekly rest, "God save the Queen" delights you still, The good old strains your heart-strings thrill, For we are proud of you- There's nothing foreign on your face, Time was-it was not long ago, Your grandsire went with mine, Went with them then, I guess. Together both, hours long ago, Together prayed or swore, A king on fancy's throne, There was another glorious name, Who gained the double-first of fame, The beautiful-sublime; Well, well; and every praise of old O, brother, could we both be one, Add but your stripes and golden stars What more? I touch not holier strings, Nor glance at prophets, priests and kings, As friend with friend, and man with man, flippancy and smartness met together-never very attractive after the first surprise of strangeness was over, from its unreality and affectation—the style of composition is almost as much out of date as the "blue and buff" full dress of old whiggery. Current events, and a modified form of the mode in the hands of one of its original masters, may give it a temporary effect; but it seems passing away even with the extrinsic attraction of name and circumstances. An anonymous imitation has clearly fallen upon an age too late, although the imitation is sober and clever. The Diary and Notes of Horace Templeton, Esq., are a species of olla podrida-tales, travels, anecdotes, reflections, opinions, and a philosophy "after his kind." This is the framework. An orphan, suddenly succeeding to a property, young Mr. Templeton was placed by his guardian in the diplomatic line; where he saw a great deal, and seems to have enjoyed himself; he subsequently got into parliament, distinguished himself, according to his own account; and might have risen to eminence but for his want of ambition, his reflective philosophy, and his honest independence, the last of which, by thwarting his patron, cost him his seat. About this time his health gives way; a consultation of physicians furnishes him with slender hopes, but sends him to Naples to die. The book opens with Mr. Templeton at the Hôtel des Princes in Paris; his antecedents being afterwards described. During his rest at Paris, he falls in with an old flame; about whom he tells an old story, smart, but improbable and unreal. We then find him at Baden; which he describes with its society; and where he tells another story, but in the serious vein, for a young Englishman gets assassinated instead of Mr. Templeton. He then From the Spectator. travels through the Tyrol to Italy; picking up sevDIARY AND NOTES OF HORACE TEMPLETON, ESQ. eral local stories or traditions as he goes along, deA SMART book, by a clever writer, though of a scribing some features of the country and the people, bad school and in a bad style. The "late secre- and spending an evening at a small inn with Sir tary of legation" belongs to the dandy class of Robert Chaworth, the late prime minister, whom writers a set who (with pen in hand) affect to be he obliges with a suggestion or two. After several "blasé" and indifferent to all sublunary or super- small adventures, Mr. Templeton reaches Florence; lunary things, (though excessively sensitive, by finds himself ruined by the failure of his banker, the by, to criticism; strive to give profundity to but as he has not long to live it is of little consecommonplaces and novelty to what is trite by quence; and he passes his time in telling some sounding phrases expressed with a consequential anecdotes picked up in society, and possibly inair; "sport" philosophy by seizing a scientific vented, at first hand; printing some letters to indiprinciple in an encyclopædia or catechism and dis- cate part of his career, and present a mysterious guising it in their own diction; and think they veil which is not lifted. When he feels himself make themselves "distinguished" by talking of dying, he sits down, after the idea of the last day great men and fashionable people in a manner of a condemned, to write an account of his feelcombining the superior and the familiar. Disraeli ings; closes the story with the word "farewell;" and Bulwer have the credit of originating the school, and his valet publishes the papers in default of a in Vivian Grey and Pelham; but we think it came legacy. to us partly (the more glittering part from the The book is various in its contents (if they canFrench) through Colburn's writers in the New not be called matter;) the writer has seen "foreign Monthly, at the time when that eminent bibliopole parts," and picked up something; he has a kind was working his fictions of the "silver fork" of dramatic cleverness with a touch of stage-effect school. The fact, however, depends upon a chro- in his manner of presenting incidents or cutting nology which no one has compiled; and the pedigree of the effete or the departing is not worth the trouble of investigation. Easily imitated, where them short; and the composition is easy, smart, and fluent. But the obvious unreality, not to say falsehood, of the whole, with the evident craft of the professional penman, deprives it of interest | the gambler's look, a blending of slavish terror except in those passages where writing is proper. These relate to the introduced portions, that have nothing to do with Mr. Templeton; and consist of diplomatic stories, miscellaneous reflections, or travelling observations; of which we take a few. LITERARY RESULTS OF THE CENSORSHIP. with a resolution to brave the worst, almost demoniacal in its fierceness. I knew most of the persons present; I need not say, not personally, but from having seen them before at various other similar places. Many were professed gamblers: men who starved and suffered for the enjoyment of that one passion, living on the smallest gain, and never venturing a stake beyond what daily life demanded: haggard, It might open a very curious view into the dis- sad, wretched-looking creatures they were, the abtinctive nature of national character to compare the ject poverty of their dress and appearance vouching recognized class to which vice is attributed in differ- that this métier was not a prosperous one. ent countries; for while in England we select the farmed out their talents, and played for those who aristocracy always as the natural subjects for de- were novices. These men have a singular existpravity, in the Piedmontese territory all the stage ence; they exact a mere per centage on the winvillains are derived from the mercantile world. In-ning, and are in great request among elderly ladies, stead of a lord, as with us, the seducer is always a manufacturer or a shipowner; and vice a captain of dragoons, their terror of domestic peace is a cotton-spinner or a dealer in hardware. Let it not be supposed that this originates in any real depravity, or any actual want of honesty, in the mercantile world. No; the whole is attributable to the "Censor." By his arbitrary dictate the entire of a piece is often recast; and so habituated have authors become to the prevailing taste, that they now never think of occasioning him the trouble of the correction. Tradesman there stands for scoundrel, as implicitly as with us an Irishman is a blunderer and a Scotchman a knave. Exercised as this power is, and committed to such hands as we find it in foreign countries, it is hard to conceive any more quiet but effectual agent for the degradation of a national taste. It is but a few weeks back I saw a drama marked for stage representation in a city of Lombardy in which the words "Pope" and "Cardinal" were struck out as irreverent to utter; but all the appeals-and most impious they were to the Deity were suffered to remain unmutilated. 66 THE HERO AT HOME. We talked of Hofer, and I perceived that my companion was strongly imbued with an opinion, now very general in the Tyrol, that his merits were much less than foreigners usually ascribe to him. Sprung from the people, the host of a little wayside inn, a man with little education, and of the very roughest manners, it is somewhat singular that his claims are most disputed among the very class he came from. Had he been an aristocrat, in all likelihood they had never ventured to canvass the merits they now so mercilessly arraign. They judge of his efforts by the most unfair of tests in such matters the result. They say, "To what end has the Tyrol fought and bled? Are we better, or richer, or freer than before?" They even go further, and accuse him of exciting the revolt as a means of escaping the payment of his debts, which assuredly were considerable. GAMBLING: BADEN BADEN. Others whose passion for play is modified by the fears of its vicissitudes. Then there were the usual sprinkling of young men, not habitually gamblers, but always glad to have the opportunity of tempting Fortune; with here and there some old votary of the "table," satisfied to witness the changeful temper of the game without risking a stake. Into many vices men are led by observing the apparent happiness and pleasure of others who indulge in them. Not so with regard to play. No man ever became a gambler from this delusion; there being no such terrible warning against the passion as the very looks of its votaries. COLOSSAL BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND.-In 1839, Professor Owen, from examination of part of a thighbone found in New Zealand, decided that it belonged to a bird of the ostrich family, but of far more colossal dimensions. In certain mounds, said by the natives to contain the remains of their feasts, Mr. W. Mantell has since found bones of these Moas, or gigantic birds, of dogs, and men, all mixed together, and all evidently subjected to the effects of fire. Hence these birds must have lived at the same period with men who, like the present natives, were cannibals. Since the bones were imbedded in the alluvial beds the land seems to have been elevated; several terraces, at different heights above the sea, from a very ancient period been inhabited by a pecubeing seen round the coast. New Zealand has thus liar race of birds, to the almost entire exclusion of mammalia and reptiles; thus forming a counterpart to certain geological periods during which reptiles, either alone or chiefly, prevailed, as in the case of the Gallipagos Islands at the present day.—Proceedings of the Geological Society. ACCURACY OF TIME-KEEPERS.-The astronomer royal proposes to check and test the great clock for the new houses of parliament, by the astronomical clock at Greenwich observatory, through the medium of the electric telegraph. Once in every hour, accurate to less than a second of time, the parliament clock would indicate its time to the Greenwich clock; and besides this, all the other clocks throughTo pass from the mellow moonlight, dappling out the immense building are proposed to be placed the pathway among the trees and kissing the rip-in electrical connection with the great clock, and to pling stream, from the calm, mild air of a summer's receive correction from it once in every minute! night, when every leaf lay sleeping and none save the nightingale kept watch, into the glare and glitter of a gilded saloon, is somewhat trying to the jarred nerves of sickness. But what was it to the sight of that dense crowd around the play-tables, where avarice, greed of gain, recklessness, and despair, are mingled, giving even to faces of manly vigor and openness expressions of low cunning and vulgar meaning? There is a terrible sameness in HEIGHT OF WAVES.-Sir James C. Ross, in his Voyage to the Southern Seas, states the result of several experiments to have given only twenty-two feet for the entire height of the waves, or eleven feet above and below the general level of the ocean; the velocity of the undulations, eighty-nine miles per hour; and the interval between each wave, 1,910 feet. From the New Monthly Magazine. it has secured its prey disposes of it in its gorget, and then takes wing to repeat the operation, is what has also led Boece into the mistake that the bird lets go his prey for other of a daintier kind. It is Hector Boece, also, who gravely records the production of geese from shells found attached to wood in the sea. The author of "Hudibras," has, however, erred, when he supposes that the legend in question applied to Solan geese. And from the most refined of saints WHO has ever sailed into the Firth of Forth and has not been struck with that bold islet yclept the Bass Rock? Holy Island has a castle bearing rock that rises out of its sands, and the Isle of May has a light-house bearing cliff, on which we have ofttimes sat, laughing in merry concert with the clouds of gulls that, sweeping in eddies at our feet, filled the very air, and silenced the turbulent ocean with their plaintive cries. But no other islet on this rock-bound coast has so stern an aspect, or is so precipitous, or so lofty, as the Bass. It is to the east of Scotland what Ailsa Craig is to William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulathe west, and both are, probably from the same tion of the blood, visited the Bass Rock during the Such is the peculiar features, the seats of colonies of one of first half of the sixteenth century. the largest and most interesting of the British density of the flight of the old birds above, (he aquatic birds, the gannet or Solan goose. So says,) that, like a cloud, they darken the sun and identified is the Bass Rock with its great winged the sky; and such the screaming and din, that tenant-the pelican of our shores-that the bird you can scarce hear the voice of one who addresses itself was known to all the old naturalists as you. Pelecanus Bassanus, of which the French, through M. Buffon, made curiously enough le fou de Bassan, and the Germans Der bassanische Pelikan. Naturalists, who are, however, too apt to think that they have made a discovery, when they have merely changed a name, were not content till they had distinguished it from the pelicans by its old name among the northmen of Sula Bassana. Hector Boece, whose "History of Scotland" was published in 1526, gives a detailed account of this singular colony of birds. Certes, there is nothing in this rocke that is not full of admiration and woonder; therein also is great store of soland geese (vnlike to those which Plinie calleth water-eagles, or (as we saie) seaherons) and nowhere else but in Ailsaie and this rocke. At their first comming, which is in the spring of the yeare, they gather such great plentie of sticks and boughs together for the building of their nests, that the same doo satisfie the keeper of the castell for the yeerelie maintenance of his fewell without anie other provision. These foules doo feed their yoong with the most delicat fish that they can come by, for though they have alreadie preied vpon anie one, and have it fast in their beake or talons, yet if they happen as they flie towards the land to espie a better, they let the first fall againe into the sea, and pursue the later with great and eager swiftnesse vntill they take hold thereof. The venerable author, whose narrative is copied from Holinshed's translation, has erred in supposing that the gannet is confined to the Bass and Ailsa Craig. The bird is very extensively distributed, although the localities where it breeds are apparently few in number, on our own coasts; it builds at Lundy Island off the coast of Devon, on the Isles of Borea and Kilda, on the Suliskerry, or Gannet Rock, near the Orkneys, the Skelligs off the coast of Kerry, and other places. It is met with along the coast of Norway, Iceland, and North America, and probably takes most extensive flights. We have ourselves seen it off the coast of Portugal. The fact that the gannet when And further on he remarks, If you sail round the island, and look up, you see on every ledge and shelf, and recess, innumerable flocks of birds of almost every size and order: more numerous than the stars that appear in the unclouded moonless sky; and if you regard imagine that it is a mighty swarm of bees you have the flights that incessantly come and go, you may before you. In the "Ornithology" of Willoughby, edited 1678, by Ray, it is stated, that "on the Bass Island, in Scotland, lying in the middle of the Edinburgh Firth, and nowhere else that I know of in Brittany, a huge number of these birds (Solan geese) doth yearly breed." The celebrated author of "The Wisdom of God in the Creation," visited the Bass Rock on the 19th of August, 1661; yet he does not appear to have been more aware than Willoughby, that Ailsa, and other remote and rocky islets, were also, in one respect, equal to the "Solangoosifera Bassa" (what Latin!) of the Firth. Audubon, Selby, Wilson, Jardine, Macgillivray, all the great ornithologists of modern times, have visited the Bass to see the Solan geese. Mr. Selby appears to have found the colony in a peculiarly peaceable and confiding temperament, when they allowed" themselves to be stroked by the hand, without resistance or any show even of impatience, except a low guttural note." Dr. John Fleming estimates the yearly number of breeding pairs of gannets at the present time to amount to about 5000. Ray relates that, in his time, (1661,) the young of the Solan geese were esteemed a choice dish in Scotland, and sold very dear, (1s. 8d. plucked,) but he remarks the flesh smells and tastes strong of fish. From the "Household Book of James V.," published by the Bannatyne Club in 1837, it appears that the purchases of gannets for the royal table were regularly every day from one to thirty-six birds. Among the remnants of olden ecclesiastial privileges is one, that twelve Solan geese, entire, with the feathers on, are annually paid to the minister | monkish chroniclers, a great rock between the of North Berwick-the Vicar of the Bass. We have ourselves tasted the Solan goose, smoked and dried, and found it exceedingly palatable. The name of Barnacles, as applied by Butler to the Solan goose, explains what Cleaveland in his satire upon the Scotch means by feeding on Bernacles. Many other birds congregate on the Bass, more especially the Kittiwake gull, the razor bill, and the scout, or foolish guillemot. The cormorant, the shag, the herring gull, the common gull, the black-backed gull, the coulterneb, eider duck, falcon, turtle-dove, jackdaw, raven, and hooded crow, are also met with, and it is justly remarked of the island by the Rev. Thomas M'Crie, that to the visitor in summer, when the dark-browed rock is encircled with myriads of sea-fowl, wheeling around it in all varieties of plumage, and screaming in all the notes of the aquatic scale, when it may be said, The isle is full of noises, Bass and the adjacent land, which remained fixed in the middle of the passage, often causing shipwrecks. The blessed Baldred, moved by piety, ordered himself to be placed on this rock, which, being done, at his nod the rock was immediately | lifted up, and, like a ship driven by the wind, proceeded to the nearest shore, and thenceforth remained in the same place, as a memorial of this miracle, and is to this day called Saint Baldred's Coble, or Cock-boat. At Saint Baldred's death, the honor of having the dead body of the revered anchorite became an object of competition to three different parishes, who, coming to take away the same by force, the body was found all whole in three distinct places of the house where he died, so each community was miraculously gratified. The "parish kirk in the craig of the Bass," was consecrated in honor of St. Baldred in 1542 and the old chapel appears to have been occasionally frequented as a place of worship from that time till the Reformation. In 1677, we read in Sounds, and wild airs, that give delight, and hurt the statistical account that "Below the garden not. The scene appears like enchantment, and leaves an impression not easily forgotten. If we were to speak of the impressions produced on our own mind, by a visit made to this interesting spot, we should say never to be forgotten. But besides this Solan goose, of which a biographer of one of the prisoners of the Bass quaintly enough remarks, that it was probably the most ancient inhabitant of the rock, and its other winged congeners, there are also remains of humanity on this wave-beaten islet, and that, too, in its saddest and most ungenial forms of asceticism, despotism, and persecution. About half-way up the southern slope of the rock are the remains of an ancient chapel, the abode of anchorites as far back almost as the times of the introduction of Christianity into Scotland. At the base of the same slope, clinging, as it were, to the sides of the precipice, are the mouldering walls of a fortification, within which a number of zealous Covenanters were, for principle's sake, incarcerated during the reigns of the last Starts. The first hermit of the Bass, driven there probably by persecution, or by the wars between the Scots and the Picts, was Saint Baldred. He was of Scottish descent, and flourished at the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century, having died in the year of our Lord 606. Bede has termed him Bishop of Glasgow, and the successor of Saint Kentigern, or Mungo, the patron saint of that city, but it is supposed that neither Mungo nor Baldred were ever bishops. "Saint Baldred of the Bass appears,' says the Rev. Thomas M'Crie, "to have been a simple Culdee presbyter, residing for safety and retirement in the island, as Columba did in Iona, and Adamnan, another presbyter, in Inchkeith, but sallying forth occasionally to teach the rude natives on the mainland the doctrines of Christianity." In the time of this holy man there was, according to the there is a chapel for divine service; but in regard no minister was allowed for it, the ammunition of the garrison was kept therein." The earliest proprietors of the island on record were the Lauders, usually designated the Lauders of the Bass. The island continued with this ancient family for about five centuries, and the crest they assumed for it was quite characteristic-a Solan goose sitting on a rock; but the motto was rather a burlesque on the original, Sub umbra alarum tuarum. 66 66 The first time we hear of the Bass being employed as a strength," or fortified place, is in the year 1405, when it afforded a temporary retreat to James, the youngest son of Robert III., and on the succession of that prince to the throne. in 1424, Walter Stewart, eldest son of Murdac, or Murdo, Duke of Albany, who had acted as regent, was arrested and "sent prisoner to the castle of the Bass," while his mother, the duchess, was committed to the towers of Tantallan, which overlook the Bass in gloomy strength from the adjacent mainland. A lively fancy," says M'Crie, "might draw an affecting picture of the old duchess, as she gazed from the opposite towers of Tantallan on the ocean prison that held her wayward son, and describe her feelings as she saw him conveyed away to suffer an ignominious death. But Scottish ladies of that period were made of sterner stuff. "There is a report current," says the historian Buchanan, "that the king sent the head of her father, husband, and children, to Isabella, on purpose to try whether so violent a woman, in a paroxysm of grief, as sometimes happens, might not betray the secrets of her soul; but she, though affected at the unexpected sight, used no intemperate expressions." M'Crie says that he has an old manuscript which records this piece of savage brutality, and adds that the old lady "said nothing, but that they worthilis died, gif that whilk wes laid against them were trew! |