go to her, confess my error, gain her forgiveness, and be restored to the qualifications I have forfeited. wished to ripen your judgment. Your own experience has done more than my advice could have obtained; excessive beauty, wit, or grandeur, only create calumny, jealousy, and hatred. Be you henceforth what nature made you, and Thyma obtained, successively, to be a first-rate wit, to be possessed of every accomplishment, and, next to the Queen, to have the chief command over all her sub-rely on my unabated friendship and projects, of whom she made as many enemies. tection." Hard as it may appear to renounce preeminence and authority, Thyma determined to apply once more to the Fairy, who said to her on her approach, "Had I opposed your wishes, you would have thought me unkind: by yielding to your caprice, Il to excel all others. Thyma returned to her lover, who heartily congratulated her on her new metamorphosis, and once more they were restored to happiness-Thyma only lamenting the time she had lost in contriving FRATERNAL ATTACHMENT PERPETUATED BY AN EXPEDIENT PECULIAR TO THE GAEL. IN La Belle Assemblée for October, 1817, page 161, we have given a Legend which records a remarkable event in the ancient story of a family* in the West Highlands. We now present our fair readers with another translation of a lyric poem, commemorating the origin of that hereditary friendship with which time immemorial has blended the interest of Melford, Dunstaffnage, and Duntroon. Their primogenitors were born of the same parents; the three brothers passed their lives in the most affectionate amity, and confirmed the decree of their father, that the two survivors should preside at the burial rites of each, in all future generations. To prevent disputes about precedence, it was unalterably settled, that the senior in age should take the upper end of the table, and bear the head of the deceased to the "narrow house of his rest;" and that the other ought to have the next place, iudicative of consanguinity, even in preference to sons, and all other relations. This custom has invariably been observed in the three families, so far as circumstances possibly admitted; and not only the representatives, but every member of these houses, take a warm concern in each others welfare. The tale of other years thus traces the source of a bond of friendship so sacredly inviolable throughout all the vicissitudes of many centuries. *The Campbells, of Duntroon.-Editor, || Pile high the cairn-high as the proud brow of towering rocks-high as the fardescended line of her fathers-high as the sound of their fame-the cairn, where a daughter of heroes, a flower of beauty, faded in the early morn of bright and warm sunshine, over the path of renown. The King of Lochlin tears his silvery locks, and strews them over the grave which encloses his dearest hope; and deep lies the source of his grief-for the treachery of a son destroyed Nivolda. He gave her to the mighty chief whose high heart loosed his bonds, and the bonds of him who forgot all but the pride of wrath for a conquest fairly won by the brave Oduin. As a sweeping blast he poured his thousands along the coast of Oduin, ere twelve moons had seen Nivolda the spouse of a hero. He seeks to force her from the castle in the absence of the chief, lest the heir of his wide-stretching lands, the inheritor of his prowess, might be born of her, and escape the thraldom of Danish vengeance. A faithful vassal of Oduin discovers the ambuscade, and reveals it to the chief. The chief repulses this false and cruel brother of Nivolda, and removes her to a cave, leaving her in charge to men that never failed him in the hour of danger; but a perfidious damsel of her own nation reveals the place of refuge: a large force assails the cave-the guards shed their generous blood in vain; they sink-they expire; and, with a last effort, the com mander sent an arrow to the bosom of the || flows from the hills, or a tree waves in the damsel whose arts destroyed. Nivolda.- woods." She spoke no more.— e.-Raise high The Danes bear her away in triumph; but the cairn-pile upon pile to the clouds; when night falls they spread the feast of and firm as the base of a thousand hills be joy-the charm of the shell weighs down the last words of Nivolda. Treachery has their eyelids: Nivolda glides away, remet shameful defeat-Oduin has conquered tracing her steps to the cave. Three sons his foes; he is as a son to the mournful are born in this solitude, red with the King, but no lovely huntress shall ever stream of life from her friends. Oduin had cheer the soul of the widowed chief.come by night to inquire for his beloved; The light of his secret sighs lies dark and he embraces her and his babes, but death cold beneath the heap of moss grown is in the feeble accents of Nivolda. "Let stone, uightly watered by tears of love three sisters nourish our sons," said she; from the eyes of a hero. "and let them be brothers while water B. G. THE LISTENER. THE following curious letter was left at my house last night. It is a very extraordinary specimen of a complaisant English husband;—rather a rara avis, it must be acknowledged, in this country. TO TIMOTHY HEARWELL, ESQ., his means, of reading every daily paper without its costing me one farthing. I regularly take in, for my dear wife, the fashionable Magazine called La Belle Assemblée, which he reads aloud to her, particularly that part which treats of fashion and dress; and by his persuasion, I am continually having dresses and caps made up for her of Urling's patent lace. SIR,-I should certainly be one of the most unthankful men in the world, were I to complain of my lot in life, since I am My wife cannot bear stays or corsets (I really treated like a spoiled child. I am do not very well know which is the proper the husband of a very charming wife, and term) with narrow backs; she says they I am possessed of a friend; oh! such a draw the shoulders too near together, and friend, that he is worth his weight in gold. put the arms too backward-that they This dear friend, that he may never lose quite fettered her, and made her hands sight of my dwelling, has taken up his purple. Immediately my dear friend went lodging exactly opposite to my house; in- to a celebrated corset-maker in St. James'sdeed, it is his own fault that he does not street, and in one week my dear love was make one of our family at bed as well as as much at her ease, as if she had been enboard, but he objects to the bed-room Itirely without stays. The corset he orderoffered him, and seemed to fix his minded for her was elastic, which made the on that next my wife's dressing-room; but as that is already occupied by her rich maiden aunt, who is not so fond of my friend as I could wish, I could not well ask her to accommodate him in the way he desired. However, he gives us as much of his company as he can, and seldom is absent from my table or my fireside. He purchases dolls for my little girl, and drums for my boy; he is always loaded with boxes of fruit lozenges and sweetmeats for my wife, and he brings me every new pamphlet the moment it issues from the press; and I have the pleasure, through waist look slender without causing the hips to stick out; it has not a nasty thick busk, that pierces the bosom, and often bends out in front; there is no occasion for laces of five or six yards long, and these corsets are as easy put on as off, in the space of a minute. My good neighbour always takes care to get us excellent places at the theatres whenever a new performer appears, or a piece is acted that has much merit. When we do not go to the play, he reads to us for an hour or two; nay, he does not stop till he sees I am fast asleep. Then, he is 22 nefit. In all our illnesses he is our nurse; and if the disorder seems really likely to so fearful of awaking me, that he carries his politeness so far as only to converse with my wife by signs; who, out of kind-have a serious turu, he has at his command ness for me, converses also in the same ingenious language. On my last birth-day he gave me a pair of Morocco slippers, lined throughout with fur, and very proper for a gouty man or a Prime Minister; though, I thank God, II am neither the one nor the other. One thing I have remarked which is very agreeable and convenient to me, and that is, that he is as jealous of my wife almost as much as I am myself. He watches all her actions and her conversation; he does not like any one to come near her; on the contrary, he makes all those young men who haunt the fashionable parties we are sometimes obliged to mix in, keep aloof. He moralizes with her in the most seductive manner, and sets forth the high value she ought to attach to virtue and delicacy of behaviour. He makes me ready to weep when he speaks on these subjects; and when I have been listening to the honied expressions that drop from his lips, I cannot forbear, in the heat of my enthusiasm, exclaiming aloud, "Ah! how happy am I in possessing so worthy a friend!" His servant, his horse, his gig, are all absolutely at our command; it seems as if he only had them for our use. He takes my wife and me out with him by turns, and carries us round the skirts of London: these airings I find very healthy, and my wife declares they are delightful. If we feel indisposed, or have any slight disorder, he feels our pulse himself; and if the stomach is affected, he prescribes camomile; if it is the head, camomile; if it is the vapours, camomile;—nothing but camomile: he has an unlimited confidence in the virtues of this plant. It thins the blood, and brightens the ideas-dissolves the humours, and promotes transpiration;|| he is not a medical man by profession, but he has in his library a great number of medical dictionaries and dispensaries, which he reads over and over again for our be an old doctor or two, the very sight of which will cure my wife of a fever. In short, I cannot express the many advantages that I receive from a connection which was accidentally formed, and which little thought would have ever turned out to be so tender an attachment: our minds, which had in them something of obstinacy, are DOW new-modelled and pure, and our characters are exactly suit. ed: briefly, there is not a day that we three (my wife, my friend, and myself) can bear to pass without seeing each other, and I am sure we do see one another more than ten times a day. May this happy union continue to pass away without a cloud! When I am obliged to take a short journey, I am sure of leaving behind me an attentive and true friend; I go on horseback, or travel post, without feeling the least uneasiness. If I should chance not to leave money enough with my wife, my friend makes use of his own for our house expences, and I can hardly prevail on him to suffer me to repay him when I return home. He wishes me to believe, that every thing between us ought to be in common. He says, when he is somewhat older he means to marry, and make my children his heirs; and you may easily judge by all I have already told you, and to which I could add many more particulars, that it was Heaven alone that guided me in making this acquaintance. There are not wanting many superstitious husbands, who fancy there is much danger attached to a connection of this kind. These people are afraid of their own shadow, and prefer their enemies to their friends. For my part, I am of a firmer mind; I know how to calculate my own interest; I am not going to give up real good, to embrace imaginary dangers; I am not always going to be in a panic with my jealousy, and I live as happy as a Prince between my wife and my friend. THOMAS SIMPLE. THE CORONATION CHAIR AND STONE. THE chair on which our Kings sit to receive the crown is principally remarkable for its marble seat, which hath acquired no trivial fame from the pens of old historians. Their legends inform us that this is the very stone on which the patriarch Jacob laid his head in the plain of Luz; that it was brought from Egypt into Spain by Gathelus, the supposed founder of the Scottish nation;* that it The object of our inquiries may unwas thence transported into Ireland doubtedly be traced to Ireland. It was "amongst other princelie jewels and regal most probably one of those stones which monuments," by Simon Brech, who was the Druids or priests of the country were crowned upon it about seven hundred used to consecrate for particular, sacred, or years before the birth of Christ, and that political purposes: its place was the hill it was thence carried to Scotland by King of Tara, and upon it the Kings of Ireland Fergus, three hundred and thirty years for many ages received their authority. before the same æra. After such adven- The Irish names of the stone were, the tures, it will not be surprising that the Fatal Stone, and the Stoue of Fortune; stone should once more be removed, and these it probably obtained from a power find its way to the Abbey of West- which it was said to possess of shewing minster.† the legitimacy of royal descent, which it Such are the legends relating to the acknowledged by an oracular sound when || fatal stone. But its probable history is so remarkable, and is carried back to a period so remote, that the aid of fiction was scarcely wanting to procure it reverence and regard. Mr. Toland justly styles this the ancientest respected monument in the world, for though some others may be more ancient as to duration, yet thus superstitiously regarded they are not. Of this Gathelus, a long account may be found in Hollinshed's Historie of Scotland. He a Prince of the true line was placed on it: under a pretender, it was silent. The Irish have an antient prophecy || respect. of it was necessary to the preservation of the regal power. It is remarkable that in later times this prophecy assumed a different form :"Ni fallat Fatum, Scoti quocunque locatum, "Inveniunt lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem." Or in the lowland Scotch of Wyntown is Cronykil, is there said to be a Greek, "the sonne of Ce-ing the stone, implying that the possesion erops, who builded the citie of Athens." Leav ing Greece, be resided some time in Egypt, and married Scota, the daughter of King Pharaoh; but being alarmed at the denunciations of Moses, who was then in the land of Egypt, he sailed with many followers, and landed in Spain, where be" builded a eitie which he named Brigantia," now Compostella. After much opposition from the native Spaniards, the historian relates, that "Gatbelus bauing peace with his neighbors, sat vpon his marble stone in Brigantia, where he gane lawes, and ministred justice vnto his people, thereby to mainteine them in wealth and quietBesse. This stone was in fashion like a seat, or chair; hauing such a fatall destinie, as the Scots say, following it, that wheresoener it should be found, there should the Scotishmen reigne, and have the supreme governance. Hereof it came to passe, that first in Spaine, after in Ireland, and then in Scotland, the Kings which ruled ouer the Sotishmen received the crowne sitting vpon that stone, vntil the time of Robert the First King of Scotland." "But gyf werdys faly hand be, The Irish pretend to have records concerning it for two thousand years, and say that it was brought into their island by the colony of Tuathde-Danan. The virtues of the stone were described in the book of Heath.-Toland, loc. cit. See Sir J. Ware's Antiq. of Ireland, by Harris, ii. pp. 10. 124: also Fordun Scoti-Chron. c. 27. || "The race of Scots of the true blood, if the prophecy be not false, unless they possess the Stone of Fate, shall fail to obtain regal power." Dr. Borlase, and other Celtic scholars, judging from the metre, say that these lines are not improbably of Druid original.—See Antiq. of Cornwall, p. 135. "Dare sall pe Scottis be regnand, "And lorddys hale oure all pat land." In either way the prediction continues to be fulfilled in that branch of the family of James I. which now fills the British throne.* From Ireland the Fatal Stone was conveyed to the settlement which the people of that country had made on the northwestern part of our island, from them called Scotland. Whether we receive or reject the tradition that it was brought over by Fergus, there is no doubt that the stone was removed to Scotland at a very early period, and that it was always regarded as a sacred monument by the people of that country. This opinion appears to be countenanced by the late ingenious Mr. King, who says it is clear enough that before the time of Kennith, that is, before the year 834, it had been placed simply and plainly as a stone of great import and of great notoriety in Argyleshire, and on account of the reverence paid to it, was removed by Kennith. This King having taken it from the Castle of Eunstaffnage, its antient station, placed it in the Abbey-church of Scone, in the year, 850† he also inclosed it in a chair of wood, on which he caused to be engraven the Leonine distich which we have already quoted. Here all Scottish Kings were crowned upon it, till the year 1296, when the victorious Edward 1. brought it to England, and left it as an offering of *This prophecy is said to have reconciled many of the Scottish nation to the union with this country. 66 "King Kenneth," saith our historian Holinshed, bauing destroied the Pictish kingdome, caused the Marble Stone (which Simon Breke sometime brought ont of Spaine into reland, and the first Ferguse out of Ireland into Albion, as before is recited) to be brought now foorth of Argile (where till that time it had beene diligentlie kept) into Gourie, which region before apperteined to the Picts, there to remaine from thencefoorth as a sacred token for th' establishment of the Scotish kingdome in that countrie: he placed it at Scone, vpon a raised plot of ground there, bicause that the last battell which he bad with the Picts was fought neare vnto the same place."-Hist. of Scotland (Kenneth). ́ Mr. Pennant, in his Tour to the Hebrides (ii. 409), has published an engraving of an antient ivory carving, found in the ruins of Dunstaffnage, represonting a King sitting in this Chair, with a book in his hand. conquest at the shrine of the Confessor, where it is still preserved.§ By the Treaty of Northampton, in 1928, which was confirmed by Parliament, it was agreed that the stone should be returned to Scotland; and, for this end, writs were issued by Edward Ill. which, however, were never executed. After its arrival in England, Edward I. caused it to be placed in a new chair with a step, richly paint ed and adorned with gilding. In the wardrobe account of that King, under the year 1800, are the sums which were then laid out upon it, amounting to il. 19s. 7d.-a considerable expence in those days. In order to illustrate the dignity of the relique, and to celebrate "the crested pride of the First Edward," a tablet was suspended near the Chair, with a Latin inscription; but this has long since shared the fate of many other written memorials with which the Abbey abounded. The Coronation Chair is of oak, of an architectural design, and ornamented on the back and sides with rows of pointed arches, the form of which confirms the reported age of this venerable relique. Some remains are yet to be seen of the painting and gilding with which it was once adorned. It is in height about six feet seven inches; in depth, twenty-four inches; and the width of the seat, withinside, is twenty-three inches. At nine inches from the ground is a frame to support the stone, upon the surface of which is the seat. The block appears to be of a reddish sand stone, and at each end a short iron chain is fastened in it; but these are nearly concealed by the wood work. The lover of antient art must regret that so beautiful a fabric should be exposed to external injury as well as decay; and must wish, if possible, that the chair of King Edward might rather be restored to its original style of decoration, than concealed by a covering even of the richest material. "In this Chair," saith Hector Boece," all Kingis of Scotland war ay crownit quhil ye tyme of Kyng Robert Bruse. In quhais tyme, besyde mony othir cruelteis done be Kyng Edward Lang Shankis, the said Chiar of Merbyll was taikin be Inglismen and brocht out of Scone to London and put in to Westmonistar, qubare it remaines to our dayis."—Cron, of Scotland, B. i. C. 2. |