We gather from our most recent correspondence with Mr Shaw, (Letter of 8th June 1843,) that he does not regard the range in the spawning period to be followed by a corresponding range in the departure of smolts towards the sea, and in their return from it as grilse. He has found a considerable diversity of time in the assumption of the silvery coating even among individuals of the very same family. "I do not," he observes, "recollect an instance where there were not individuals of each brood reared in my ponds, which assumed the migratory coating several weeks before the brood in general had done so; and these individuals would have migrated accordingly, and reappeared as grilse all the sooner." As the hatching and growth of salmon smolts and other fish, is regulated in a great measure by the temperature of the water in which they dwell, it is very probable that ova deposited late in the season, (say the month of March,) may, in consequence of the great increase of temperature, be hatched much more rapidly than those spawned in mid-winter, and so, by the end of a couple of years, no great difference will exist between them. We remember that, in one of Mr Shaw's earlier experiments, it is stated that he took occasion to convey a few ova in a tumbler within doors, where the temperature ranged from 45 deg. to 47 deg.. They were hatched in thirty-six hours, while such as were left in the stream of the pond, in a temperature of 41 deg., did not hatch until the termination of seven subsequent days. The whole had been previously one hundred and six days in the water, under a considerably lower temperature.

Mr Shaw has frequently detected individual smolts, both of salmon and sea-trout, (though of the latter more particularly,) descending in some seasons as early as the end of March, and as late as the middle of June, and he has little doubt that some may make their way still earlier to the sea. These, of course, will be found in our tideways as small grilse, weighing one or two pounds, in April and May. The large parr, to which we have already alluded as occasionally met with in rivers, and which we regard as young salmon remaining (and in this forming exceptions to the normal rule) in fresh water throughout their third year, Mr Shaw, whose opinion we requested on the subject, coincides with us in thinking, "would, in all probability, be the first to quit the river after so long a residence there, when the season of migration approached. These, however, are not the only individuals of their kind which leave the river for the sea long before the month of May." A difference in the period of deposition will assuredly cause a difference in the period of hatching, and in this we agree with Mr Scrope; but we think that a late spawning, having the advantage of a higher temperature as the result of a more genial season, will be followed by a more rapid development, and so the difference will not be so great, nor expanded over so many months, as that gentlemen supposes. Finally, the vagrant summer smolts, to which we have before alluded, may consist of that small number of anomalous fry, which we know to assume the migratory dress and instinct soon after the completion of their first year.

Although the excellence of a salmon's condition is derived from the sea, and all its increase of weight is gained there, yet few of these fish remain for any considerable length of time in marine waters. By a wonderful, and to us most beneficial instinct, they are propelled to revisit their ancestral streams, with an increase of size corresponding to the length of their sojourn in the sea. Such as observe their accustomed seasons, (and of these are the great mass of smolts,) return at certain anticipated times. Their periods are known, and their revolutions calculated. Such as migrate at irregular or unobserved intervals, return unexpectedly at different times. Their motions seem eccentric, because their periods have not been ascertained.

But it is obvious that Mr Yarrell's diminutive examples already alluded to, could not have gone down to the sea with the great majority of their kind, during the spring preceding that in which they were captured; because, in that case, having remained a much longer time than usual in salt water, they would have returned as very large grilse instead of extremely small ones.

Mr Scrope informs us that the most plentiful season in the Tweed for grilse, if there has been a flood, is about the time of St Boswell's fair, namely, the 18th of July, at which period they weigh from four to six pounds. Those which don't leave the salt for the fresh water till the end of September and the course of October, sometimes come up from the sea for the first time weighing ten or eleven pounds, or even more.

"Some of them are much larger than small salmon; but by the term grilse I mean young salmon that have only been once to sea. They are easily distinguished from salmon by their countenance, and less plump appearance, and particularly by the diminished size of the part of the body next the tail, which also is more forked than that of the salmon. They remain in fresh water all the autumn and winter, and spawn at the same time with the salmon. They return also to sea in spring with the salmon. It seems worthy of remark, that salmon are oftentimes smaller than moderate-sized grilse; but, although such grilse have been only once to sea, yet the period they have remained there must have exceeded the two short visits made by the small salmon, and hence their superiority of size. When these fish return to the river from their second visit to the sea, they are called salmon, and are greatly altered in their shape and appearance; the body is more full, and the tail less forked, and their countenance assumes a different aspect."—P. 37.

We are glad to observe that in these opinions regarding the growth of grilse and salmon, our author conforms with, and consequently confirms, the ingenious and accurate experimental observations recently completed by Mr Young of Invershin.[11]

Of all those natural causes which counteract the increase of salmon fry, and consequently of grown grilse and adult salmon, Mr Scrope considers that the "furious spates" which so frequently occur in Tweed, are the most destructive. These not only put the channel in motion, but often sweep away the spawning beds entirely. Prior to the improvements in agriculture, and the amelioration of the hill pastures by drainage, the floods were much less sudden, because the morasses and swampy grounds gave out water gradually, and thus the river took longer to rise, and continued fuller for a greater length of time than in these degenerate days, to the increased delight of every acre-less angler.

"But now every hill is scored with little rills which fall into the rivers, which suddenly become rapid torrents and swell the main river, which dashes down to the ocean with tumultuous violence. Amidst the great din you may hear the rattling of the channel stones as they are borne downwards. Banks are torn away; new deeps are hollowed out, and old ones filled up; so that great changes continually take place in the bed of the river either for the better or the worse. When we contemplate these things, we must at once acknowledge the vast importance of Mr Shaw's experiments; for if ponds were constructed upon the Tweed at the general expense, after the model of those made by him, all these evils would be avoided. The fry might be produced in any quantities by artificial impregnation, be preserved, and turned into the great river at the proper period of migration. There might at first be some difficulty in procuring food for them; but this would be easily got over at a very small expense, and with a few adult salmon more fry may be sent to sea annually than the whole produce of the river at present amounts to, after having encountered the sweeping perils I have mentioned."—P. 43.

[Footnote 11: See Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Vol. XV. Part iii. p. 343.]

Our author then proposes that proprietors should call meetings for the purpose, and that parr, hitherto so named, should now, in their capacity of young salmon, be protected by law. He advises all who have an interest in the river, to consider the wisdom of mutual accommodation; the owners of the more seaward banks being dependent on the upper heritors for the protection of the spawning fish and fry, while they, on the other hand, are equally dependent on the former for an honest adherence to the weekly close-time.

But a thoughtful consideration of this portion of our subject would lead us into a somewhat interminable maze, including the policy of our ancient Acts of Parliament, and the nature of estuaries,—those mysteriously commingled "watteris quhar the sea ebbis and flowis,"—"ubi salmunculi vel smolti, seu fria alterius generis piscium maris vel aquae dulcis, (nunquam) descendunt et ascendunt,"—and then the stake-net question stretches far before us, and dim visions of the "Sutors of Cromarty" rise upon our inward eye, and the wild moaning of the "Gizzin Brigs" salutes our ear, and defenders are converted into appellants, and suspenders into respondents, and the whole habitable earth assumes for a time the aspect of a Scotch Jury Court, which suddenly blazes into the House of Lords.[12]

[Footnote 12: Certain river mouths and estuaries in the north of Scotland "within flude-marke of the sea," have lately given rise to various questions of disputed rights regarding the erection of stake-nets, and the privilege of catching salmon with the same. These questions involve the determination of several curious though somewhat contradictory points in physical geography, geology, and the natural history of fishes and marine vegetation.]

That salmon return with great regularity to the river in which they were originally bred, is now well known. Mr Scrope, however, thinks that they do not invariably do so, but will ascend other rivers during spawning time, if they find their own deficient in bulk of water. Thus many Tweed salmon are caught in the Forth, (a deep and sluggish stream,) and a successful fishing there is usually accompanied by a scarce one in the Tweed. Yet we know that they will linger long, during periods of great drought, in those mingled waters where the sea "comes and gangs,"—as was well seen in the hot and almost rainless summer of 1842, when the Berwick fishings were abundant, but those of Kelso and the upper streams extremely unproductive. The established fact, however, that grilse and salmon, under ordinary natural circumstances, do certainly return to their native beds, is one of great practical importance, because it permits the plan of peopling barren rivers by the deposition of impregnated spawn carried from more fruitful waters. It ought to be borne in mind, however, in relation to this latter point, that these waters must possess, in a considerable measure, the same natural attributes which characterize the voluntary haunts of salmon. If they do not do so, although the fry bred there will in all probability return thither from the sea as grilse, yet the breeding process will be carried on at first feebly, and then inefficiently, till the species finally becomes extinct. The same observations, of course, apply to trout. It has been proposed, we believe by Sir W.F. Mackenzie of Gairloch, to apply the principle of one set of Mr Shaw's experiments to the improvement of moorland lochs, or others, in which the breed of trout may be inferior, by carrying the ova of a better and richer flavoured variety from another locality. Now, in this well-intentioned scheme, we think there is some confusion of cause and effect. It is the natural difference in food, and other physical features and attributes, between the two kinds of lochs in question, which causes or is intimately connected with the difference in the fleshly condition of their finny inhabitants; and unless we can also change the characters of the surrounding country, and the bed of the watery basin, we shall seek in vain to people "the margins of our moorish floods" with delicate trout, lustrous without any red of hue within, in room of those inky-coated, muddy-tasted tribes, "indigenae an advectae," which now dwell within our upland pools.

It has been asserted by some that salmon will dwell continuously, and even breed, in fresh water, although debarred all access to the sea. "Near Kattrineberg," says Mr Lloyd, in his work on the field-sports of the north of Europe, "there is a valuable fishery for salmon, ten or twelve thousand of these fish being taken annually. These salmon are bred in a lake, and, in consequence of cataracts, cannot have access to the sea. They are small in size, and inferior in flavour. The year 1820 furnished 21,817." We confess we cannot credit this account of fresh water (sea-debarred) salmon, but suppose there must be some mistake regarding the species. Every thing that we know of the habits and history, the growth and migrations, of these fish in Britain, is opposed to its probability. Mr Young has conclusively ascertained that, at least in Scotland, not only does their growth, after the assumption of the silvery state, take place solely in the sea, but that they actually decrease in weight from the period of their entering the rivers; and Mr Scrope himself, (see pp. 27, 30,) although he quotes the passage without protest, seems of the same opinion. Besides, with their irrepressible instinctive inclination to descend the rivers during spring when young, we don't believe that the cataract in question would prevent their doing so, although it might assuredly hinder their return in summer, in which case the Kattrineberg breed would soon become extinct, even supposing that they had ever had existence. The alleged fact, however, is well worthy of more accurate observance and explicit explanation than have yet been bestowed upon it by the Scandinavian naturalists.

We are informed that Mr George Dormer of Stone Mills, in the parish of Bridport, put a female salmon, which measured twenty inches, and was caught in the mill-dam, into a small well, where it remained twelve years, and at length died in the year 1842. "The well measured only five feet by two feet four inches, and there was only fifteen inches depth of water." We should have been well pleased to have been told of the size of the fish when it died, in addition to that of the prison in which it dwelt, for otherwise the fact itself is of less consequence.[13] We presume its rate of growth would be extremely slow, although we do not agree with Mr Young in the opinion already quoted, that salmon actually decrease in dimensions on entering the fresh water. We doubt not they decrease in weight, and probably also in circumference; but their bones and organic structure are assuredly enlarged, and themselves lengthened, in such a way as to fit their general form for a rapidly increased development, so soon as they again rejoice in the fattening influences of the salubrious sea.

[Footnote 13: The following curious particulars regarding the above-mentioned salmon are taken from a Devonshire newspaper:—"She would come to the top of the water and take meat off a plate, and would devour a quarter of a pound of lean meat in less time than a man could eat it; she would also allow Mr Dormer to take her out of the water, and when put into it again she would immediately take meat from his hands, or would even bite the finger if presented to her. Some time since a little girl teased her by presenting the finger and then withdrawing it, till at last she leaped a considerable height above the water, and caught her by the said finger, which made it bleed profusely: by this leap she threw herself completely out of the water into the court. At one time a young duckling got into the well, to solace himself in his favourite element, when she immediately seized him by the leg, and took him under water; but the timely interference of Mr Dormer prevented any further mischief than making a cripple of the young duck. At another time a full-grown drake approached the well, when Mrs Fish, seeing a trespasser on her premises, immediately seized the intruder by the bill, and a desperate struggle ensued, which at last ended in the release of Mr Drake from the grasp of Mrs Fish, and no sooner freed, than Mr Drake flew off in the greatest consternation and affright; since which time, to this day, he has not been seen to approach the well, and it is with great difficulty he can be brought within sight of it. This fish lay in a dormant state for five months in the year, during which time she would eat nothing, and was likewise very shy."]

Our author next refers to a rather singular subject, which has not yet sufficiently attracted the notice of naturalists, and the phenomena of which (at least their final causes) have not been explained by physiological enquirers. That fishes assume, in a great degree, the colour of the channel over which they lie, is known to many practical observers. We have ourselves frequently frightened small flounders from their propriety with our shoe-points, while angling near the mouths of rivers, and so exactly did their colour accord with the shingle beneath our feet, that we could not detect their presence but by their own betraying movements. Such, however, as happened to glide towards, and settle on, a portion of the bed of different colour from the rest, continued perceptible for a short time; but they too seemed speedily to disappear, although we afterwards discovered that they had not stirred an inch, but had merely changed their tint to that of the particular portion of the basin of the stream to which they had removed. Every angler knows, that there is not only a difference in the colour of trouts in different streams, but that different though almost adjoining portions of the same river, if distinguished by some diversity of character in respect to depth, current, or clearness, will yield him fish of varying hue. Very rapid and irregular changes are also observable in their colours after death; and large alternate blotches of darker and lighter hues may be produced upon their sides and general surface, by the mode of their disposal in the creel. Dr Stark showed many years ago, that the colour of sticklebacks, and other small fishes, was influenced by the colour of the earthenware, or other vessels in which they were confined, as well as modified by the quantity of light to which they were exposed; and Mr Shaw has very recently informed us, regarding this mutability of the outer aspect of fishes, that if the head alone is placed upon a particular colour, (whether lighter or darker,) the whole body will immediately assume a corresponding shade, quite independent of the particular tint upon which the body itself may chance to rest. We know not to what extent these, and similar phenomena, are familiar to Sir David Brewster; but we willingly admit, that in order to attain to their clearer comprehension, the facts themselves must be investigated by one who, like that accomplished philosopher, is conversant with those branches of physical science to which they are related. They unfortunately lie beyond the range of our own optics, but Mr Scrope's practical improvement of the subject is as follows:—

"I would recommend any one who wishes to show his day's sport in the pink of perfection, to keep his trouts in a wet cloth, so that, on his return home, he may exhibit them to his admiring friends, and extract from them the most approved of epithets and exclamations, taking the praise bestowed upon the fish as a particular compliment to himself."—P. 56.

British legislators ought certainly to consider the recent completion of our knowledge both of salmon and sea-trout; and if they can make themselves masters of their more detailed local history, so much the better. Mr Home Drummond's is still the regulating Act of Parliament, and seems to have kept its ground firmly, notwithstanding many attempted alterations, if not amendments. In accordance with that Act, all our rivers north of the Tweed close on the 14th of September, and do not re-open till the 1st of February.[14] This bears hardly upon some of our northern streams. In the Ness, for example, before the application of the existing laws, more fish were wont to be killed in December and January than during most other periods of the year.[15] It appears to have been clearly ascertained that the season of a river (in respect to its being early or late) depends mainly upon the temperature of its waters. The Ness, which is the earliest river in Scotland, scarcely ever freezes. It flows from the longest and deepest loch in Britain; and thus, when the thermometer, as it did in the winter of 1807, stands at 20, 30, or even 40 deg. below the freezing point at Inverness, it makes little or no impression upon either lake or river. The course of the latter is extremely short. The Shin is also an early river, flowing from a smaller loch, though with a more extended course before it enters the Kyle of Sutherland, where it becomes confluent with the Oykel waters. It may so happen, that in these and other localities, a colder stream, drawing its shallow and divided sources from the frozen sides of barren mountains, may adjoin the lake-born river, and

"On that flood, Indurated and fix'd, the snowy weight Lies undissolved, while silently beneath, And unperceived, the current steals away."

Now salmon don't like either snowy water, bridges of ice, or stealthy streams, but a bold, bright, expansive, unimpeded, and accommodating kind of highway to our inland vales. They instinctively regard a modified temperature, and a flowing movement, as great inducements to leave the sea in early winter, instead of waiting until spring; and, in like manner, they avoid "imprisoned rivers" until icy gales have ceased to blow. The consequences are, we may have an extremely early river and a very late one within a few hundred yards of each other, and both debouching from the same line of coast into the sea. Now, in the autumn of 1836, a bill was proposed and brought in by Mr Patrick Stewart and Mr Loch, to amend the preceding Act (9th Geo. IV.) which had repealed that of James I., (1424.) It proceeded on the preamble, that "whereas the sand acts have been found inadequate to the purposes for which they were passed, inasmuch as it is found that our close-time is not suitable for all the salmon fishings and rivers throughout Scotland, and it is expedient that the same should therefore, and in other respects, be altered, modified, and amended." It therefore enacted that different close-times shall be observed in different divisions of Scotland, the whole of which is partitioned into twelve districts, as specified in schedule A referred to in the bill. We do not know how or from whom the necessary information was obtained; but we doubt not it was sedulously sought for, and digested in due form. For example, the boundaries as to time and space of the second district, are as follows:—"From Tarbet Ness aforesaid, to Fort George Point, in the county of Nairn, including the Beaulie Frith and the rivers connected therewith, except the river Ness, from the 20th day of August to the 6th day of January, both days inclusive; and for the said river Ness, from the 14th day of July, to the 1st day of December, both days inclusive." This is so far well. But in the ninth district, the definition and directions are:—"From the confines of the Solway Frith to the northern boundary of the county of Ayr, from the 30th day of September to the 16th day of February, both days inclusive." Now most anglers know that the district thus defined, includes streams which vary considerably in their character, and cannot be correctly classed together. Thus the Doon, which draws its chief sources from numerous lakes among the hills, is one of the earliest rivers in the south-west of Scotland, clean fresh-run fish occurring in it by Christmas; while the neighbouring river Ayr, although existing under the same general climatic influence, produces few good salmon till the month of June. It is fed by tributaries of the common kind. The Stinchar, in the same district, is also a late river, being seldom worked by the tacksmen till towards the end of April, and even then few of the fish are worth keeping. Of course, it requires to be closed in September, although the fish are then in good case. These, and many other facts which might be mentioned, show the difficulty of legislating even upon the improved localizing principle which it has been attempted to introduce. However, the bill referred to, though printed, was never passed.

[Footnote 14: The net fishings in the Tweed do not close till the 16th of October, and the lovers of the angle are allowed an additional fortnight. These fishings do not open (either for net or rod) till the 15th of February.]

[Footnote 15: It was proved in evidence before the select committee of the House of Commons in 1825, that the amount of salmon killed in the Ness during eight years, (from 1811-12 to 1818-19,) made a total for the months

Of December, of 2405 Of January, 3554 Of February, 3239 Of March, 3029 Of April, 2147 Of May, 1127 Of June, 170 Of July, 253 Of August, 2192 Of September, 430 ——— 18,542

It further appears, from the evidence referred to, that during these years no grilse ran up the Ness till after the month of May. The months

Of June produced 277 Of July, 1358 Of August, 4229 Of September, 1493 —— 7357 ]

Since we have entered, inadvertently, into what may be called the legislative branch of our subject, we may refer for a moment to the still more recent bill, prepared and brought into Parliament by Mr Edward Ellice and Mr Thomas Mackenzie, and ordered to be printed, 11th May 1842. It is entitled, "a bill for the better regulation of the close-time in salmon fisheries in Scotland;" and with a view to accommodate and reconcile the interests of all parties, it throws the arrangement and the decision of the whole affair into the hands of the commissioners of the herring fishery. It enacts that it shall be lawful for these commissioners, upon due application by any proprietor (or guardian, judicial factor, or trustee) of salmon fishings, of the value of not less than twenty pounds yearly, in any of the rivers, streams, lochs, &c., or by any three or more of such proprietors possessing salmon fishings of the yearly value of ten pounds each, or of any proprietor of salmon fishings which extend one mile in length on one side, or one half mile on both sides of any river or stream, calling upon the said commissioners to alter the close-time of any river, stream, &c., to enquire into the expediency of such alteration. With that view, the are empowered to call before them, and examine upon oath or affirmation, all necessary witnesses, and to take all requisite evidence for and against the proposed alteration of the close-time; and upon due consideration of all the circumstances of the case, to determine that the close-time in such river, stream, &c., shall be altered, and to alter the same accordingly, and fix such other close-time as they shall deem expedient. Provided always that the close-time to be fixed by said commissioners, shall not in any case consist of less than one hundred and thirty-nine free consecutive days. Provision is also made for an alteration, on application and evidence as before, of any such legalized close-time, after the expiration of three years; all expenses incurred by the commissioners in taking evidence, or in other matters connected with the subject, to be defrayed by the proprietors. Permission may also be granted in favour of angling with the single rod, for fourteen days after the close. This bill, which we suspect it would have been difficult to work conveniently, was likewise laid upon the shelf.

Although, as we have said, salmon soonest ascend the warmest rivers, they are alleged to spawn earliest in the colder ones. Thus Mr Scrope informs us, that in the shallow mountain streams which pour into the Tay, near its source, the fish spawn much earlier than those in the main bed of that magnificent river, and he quotes the following sentiments of the late John Crerar, head fisherman and forester to the Duke of Athole, on the subject:—

"There are," said John, "two kinds of creatures that I am well acquainted with—the one a land animal, the other a water one—the red-deer and the salmon. In October the deer ruts, and the salmon spawns. The deer begins soonest, high up among the hills, particularly in frosty weather; so does the salmon begin to spawn earlier in frosty weather than in soft. The master hart would keep all the other harts from the hind, if he could; and the male salmon would keep all the other males from the female, if he was able."—P. 60.

We do not think, however, that Mr Scrope's comparative reference to the upper and lower portions of the Tay affords a satisfactory or conclusive test. The higher parts of almost all rivers (including, their tributaries) constitute the favourite spawning places, from other causes than "by reason of the cold;" and the question should be tried, not by comparing two different districts of the same river, but all the portions of one river, with the entire course of another of dissimilar character. The exceptive clause in Mr Loch's proposed act in flavour of the river Ness, certainly stood upon the supposition of that river being an early one for the breeding salmon, as well as the new-run winter fish; for it enacts not only that the Ness should open more than a month earlier than its neighbours, but also that it shall close more than a month before them. This latter restriction would of course be useless and impolitic, if the parent fish were not conceived to be about to spawn. But it should also be borne in mind, that the same causes (such as the extent and depth of feeding lakes) which produce a higher temperature in winter, cause a lower one in summer and the earlier part of autumn, and that shallow upland streams are warmer during the latter periods than those which flow from deeper and more affluent sources. We believe that the fish of all rivers spawn soonest on the higher portions of their water courses, whether these be comparatively warm or cold. The earliest individuals are in general such as have escaped the nets and other accidents below, and have made their watery way in good time to proper spawning places. In several rivers with which we are acquainted, a great majority of the breeding fish ascend in August and September. But many of those which make their appearance in July, would be early spawners if they were allowed to escape the various dangers which beset their path in life—almost all the salmon of that month being captured by one means or another. Mr Young, in our MS. notes already quoted, states, in regard to the range of the breeding season, that he has seen salmon perfectly full of spawn, ascending the rivers in October, November, December, January, and February. Now the fish of the last-named month may have spawned as late as March, although our correspondent adds that he has never seen fish on the spawning beds later than February, nor earlier than September. He has seen them in the act of spawning in these and all the intermediate months.

As we have said above, the greater part of these breeders ascend in August and September, and the throng of the spawning process takes place in November and December. The earlier spawning begins in September with only a few pairs, generally grilse; and from that period the numbers increase till the first week of December, when the operation has attained its height. It then gradually decreases until February, when perhaps only a few pairs are seen at work. Mr Young informs us that sea-trout are seen spawning a week earlier than grilse, and grilse a week earlier than salmon. He does not mean that all grilse spawn before salmon begin, but that they are observed working a week before the latter have commenced.

Mr Shaw informs us, (in his last letter,) that it is an exceedingly rare occurrence to find an unspawned fish in the rivers of Dumfriesshire in the month of March. On one occasion, however, about twenty years ago, he observed a female salmon spawning in the Nith about the 10th or 12th of March, but unaccompanied by any male. He can also call to mind a pair of salmon having been observed spawning in the Ettrick so late as Selkirk March fair, which is held during the first week of April. This, however, we believe to be a very rare occurrence, notwithstanding Mr Scrope's statement, that he has in the Tweed "caught full roaners as late as May." These seem to be anomalous or accidental instances, and we are not aware that any evidence has been brought forward to prove that they still seek the spawning beds in pairs at that period, or produce what may be called autumnal fry.

The usual spawning period in the south-west of Scotland extends from about the middle of November till the middle of February; but the busiest months of that period are December and January, when the salmon spawn in great numbers in the Nith, about Drumlanrig. From the circumstances of the largest salmon visiting the rivers at that season, Mr Shaw is induced to think that they are likewise the oldest; and that, as they increase in years, they desire to remain the longer in the sea, visiting the fresh waters only during the breeding season. The spawning period of sea-trout, he informs us, is from about the middle of October until the middle of December, the principal period being the whole of November, when the various streams and tributaries are taken possession of both by sea-trout and herling, spawning in deep or shallow water, according to their individual size.

But in reference to the point in question, that cold accelerates the spawning process, let us take for a moment the general basin of the Oykel waters into view. We know that for several seasons back, the earliest spawning in that quarter has occurred in the Carron, in September. Now, it is certain, that during that month the Carron waters are warmer than those of the Shin. So also the Oykel (properly so called) is itself two degrees warmer in October than the Shin, and yet the latter is the later of the two. It thus appears that warmth may be advantageous both as inducing early spawning in autumn, and an early entrance of fresh-run fish in winter; although a single river may not possess both attributes for the reason hinted at—the deepest waters, though protected from winter's cold, being also screened from summer's heat. Mr Scrope may therefore be regarded as right in his facts as to the earlier season of the upland streams, although his theoretical explanation of them is not conclusive.

The lateness of the spawning season in the Shin may, in some measure, be owing to the early breeding fish going up into the loch, from whence, after a time, they fall back upon the spawning places in the fords of the river. The same thing happens in the lower regions of the Tay—the fish fall back from the loch, and the ford between Taymouth Castle and Kenmore is by far the latest in that river. Salmon have been seen to spawn there in February. In regard to the general influence of the atmosphere, we may here remark that frosty weather is good for spawning; because the fish go then into the deeper or central portions of the fords, by which procedure the spawning beds are never dry,—whereas, in time of spates, salmon are apt to deposit their spawn along the margins, and thus the roe is frequently destroyed by the subsiding of the waters.

However, the real importance of an early river has little or no connexion with the periods of the spawning process; because it is not so much the breeding fish that are of individual value in winter, as those which, having no intention or requirement to spawn until the following autumn, enter the fresh waters because they have already completed the days of their purification in the sea. Although, when viewed in the relation of time, they may seem to form the continuous succession of spawning fish which have come up gravid from the ocean during the later months of autumn, they are in truth rather the avant-couriers of the newer and more highly-conditioned shoals which show themselves in early spring. We believe that fresh-run fish may be found in all our larger rivers during every month throughout the year, though we cannot clear up their somewhat anomalous history, nor explain why the breeding season, as among land creatures of identical natures, should not take place more uniformly about the same time. It is by no means improbable, however, that, as grilse seek our fresh waters at different periods from adult salmon, so salmon of a certain standing may observe different periods of migration from those of dissimilar age.

If, as many suppose, the earliest fish are those which have soonest spawned during the preceding autumn, and have since descended towards and recovered in the sea,—then a precocious spawning would necessarily lead to the speediest supply of clean fish in mid-winter; but the fact referred to has not been ascertained, and it may therefore still be as reasonably alleged that the winter fish (an opinion supported by the fact of their unusually large size) have continued in the sea since spring. At least a majority of them, (for they differ somewhat in their aspect and condition,) instead of having spawned soonest in autumn, have probably rather spawned last of all during the preceding spring, and so required for their recovery a corresponding retardation of their sojourn in the sea. The reasons why grilse seldom show themselves till the summer is well advanced, are very obvious, now that we have become conversant with their true history. They were only smolts in the immediately preceding spring, and are becoming grilse from week to week, and of various sizes, according to the length of their continuance in the sea. But they require at least a couple of months to intervene between their departure from the rivers in April or May, and their return thither;—which return consequently commences, though sparingly, in June, and preponderates in July and August.

But we are making slow progress with our intended exposition of Mr Scrope's beautiful and instructive volume. Although salmon and salmon streams form the subject and "main region of his song," he yet touches truthfully, albeit with brevity, upon the kindred nature of sea-trout, which are of two species—the salmon-trout and the bull-trout. The fry of the former, called orange fins, (which, like the genuine parr, remain two continuous years in the river,) greatly resemble the young of the common fresh-water trout. "Like the grilse, it returns to the river the summer of its spring migration, weighing about a pound and a half upon an average."—P. 63. We think our author rather over-estimates their weight at this early period. Herlings (for so they are also named on their first ascent from the sea) rarely weigh one pound, unless they remain for a longer time than usual in salt water. In this state they bear the same relation to adult sea-trout as grilse do to salmon, and they spawn while herlings. They afterwards increase about a pound and a half annually, and in the summer of their sixth year (from the ovum) have been found to weigh six pounds.[16] Whether this is their ordinary ultimate term of increase, or whether, having every year to pass up and down the dangerous, because clear and shallow waters, exposed to many mischances, and, it may be, the "imminent deadly breach" of the cruive-dyke, and thus perish in their prime, we cannot say: but this we know, that they are rarely ever met with above the weight of six or seven pounds.

[Footnote 16: See Mr Shaw's paper "On the Growth and Migration of the Sea-trout of the Solway."—Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Vol. XV. Part iii. p. 369.]

Of the generation and growth of the other and greater sea-trout (Salmo eriox,) we have not yet acquired the same precise knowledge, but its history may fairly be inferred to be extremely similar.

"These fish," says Mr Scrope, "are found in many salmon rivers, but not in all. It is very abundant in the Tweed, which it visits principally at two seasons; in the spring about the month of May, and again in the month of October, when the males are very plentiful; but the females are scarce till about the beginning or middle of November. With salmon it is the reverse, as their females leave the sea before the males. The bull trout is also more regular in his habits than the salmon; for the fisherman can calculate almost to a day when the large black male trout will leave the sea. The foul fish rise eagerly at the fly, but the clean ones by no means so. They weigh from two to twenty-four pounds, and occasionally, I presume, but very rarely indeed, more. The largest I ever heard of was taken in the Hallowstell fishing water, at the mouth of the Tweed, in April 1840, and weighed twenty-three pounds and a half. The heaviest bull trout I ever encountered myself weighed sixteen pounds, and I had a long and severe contest with his majesty. He was a clean fish, and I hooked him in a cast in Mertoun water called the Willow Bush, not in the mouth but in the dorsal fin. Brethren of the craft, guess what sore work I had with him! He went here and there with apparent comfort and ease to his own person, but not to mine. I really did not know what to make of him. There never was such a Hector. I cannot say exactly how long I had him on the hook; it seemed a week at least. At length John Halliburton, who was then my fisherman, waded into the river up to his middle, and cleeked him whilst he was hanging in the stream, and before he was half beat."—P. 66.

Many simple-minded people, with something of a sentimental turn, (they are almost always fond of raw oysters, and gloat over a roasted turkey, although they know that it was bled to to death by cutting the roots of its tongue,) look upon angling as a "cruel sport." Let us see, with Mr Scrope, how this matter really stands.

"I take a little wool and feather, and tying it in a particular manner upon a hook, make an imitation of a fly; then I throw it across the river, and let it sweep round the stream with a lively motion. This I have an undoubted right to do, for the river belongs to me or my friend; but mark what follows. Up starts a monster fish with his murderous jaws, and makes a dash at my little Andromeda. Thus he is the aggressor, not I; his intention is evidently to commit murder. He is caught in the act of putting that intention into execution. Having wantonly intruded himself on my hook, which I contend he had no right to do, he darts about in various directions, evidently surprised to find that the fly, which he hoped to make an easy conquest of, is much stronger than himself. I naturally attempt to regain this fly, unjustly withheld from me. The fish gets tired and weak in his lawless endeavours to deprive me of it. I take advantage of his weakness, I own, and drag him, somewhat loth, to the shore, when one rap on the back of the head ends him in an instant. If he is a trout, I find his stomach distended with flies. That beautiful one called the May fly, who is by nature almost ephemeral—who rises up from the bottom of the the shallows, spreads its light wings, and flits in the sunbeam in enjoyment of its new existence—no sooner descends to the surface of the water to deposit its eggs, than the unfeeling fish, at one fell spring, numbers him prematurely with the dead. You see, then, what a wretch a fish is; no ogre is more bloodthirsty, for he will devour his nephews, nieces, and even his own children, when he can catch them; and I take some credit for having shown him up. Talk of a wolf, indeed a lion, or a tiger! Why, these, are all mild and saintly in comparison with a fish! What a bitter fright must the smaller fry live in! They crowd to the shallows, lie hid among the weeds, and dare not say the river is their own. I relieve them of their apprehensions, and thus become popular with the small shoals. When we see a fish quivering upon dry land, he looks so helpless without arms or legs, and so demure in expression, adding hypocrisy to his other sins, that we naturally pity him; then kill and eat him, with Harvey sauce, perhaps. Our pity is misplaced,—the fish is not. There is an immense trout in Loch Awe in Scotland, which is so voracious, and swallows his own species with such avidity, that he has obtained the name of Salmo ferox. I pull about this unnatural monster till he is tired, land him, and give him the coup-de-grace. Is this cruel? Cruelty should be made of sterner stuff."—P. 83.

Mr Scrope is known as an accomplished artist as well as an experienced angler, and we need not now to tell our readers that he is also a skilful author. It does not fall to the lot of all men to handle with equal dexterity the brush, the pen, and the rod—to say nothing of the rifle—still less of the leister, under cloud of night. There is much in the present volume to interest even those who are so unfortunate as to have never seen either, grilse or salmon, except as pupils or practitioners in the silver-fork school. His reminiscences of his own early life and manlier years, under the soubriquet of Harry Otter, are pleasantly told, and his adventurous meetings with poachers and painters are amusing in themselves, as well as instructive in their tendency to illustrate, not only the deeper mysteries of piscatorial art, but the life and conversation of the amphibious people who dwell by the sides of rivers. His first arrival in "fair Melrose," the moonlight lustre of which was then unsung, is thus described—

"It was late, and I looked forth on the tranquil scene from my window. The moonbeams played upon the distant hilltops, but the lower masses slept as yet in shadow; again the pale light caught the waters of the Tweed, the lapse of whose streams fell faintly on the ear, like the murmuring of a sea-shell. In front rose up the mouldering abbey, deep in shadow; its pinnacles, and buttresses, and light tracery, but dimly seen in the solemn mass. A faint light twinkled for a space among the tomb-stones, soon it was extinct, and two figures passed off in the shadow, who had been digging a grave even at that late hour. As the night advanced, a change began to take place. Clouds heaved up over the horizon; the wind was heard in murmurs; the rack hurried athwart the moon; and utter darkness fell upon river, mountain, and haugh. Then the gust swelled louder, and the storm struck fierce and sudden against the casement. But as the morrow dawned, though rain-drops still hung upon the leaf, the clouds sailed away, the sun broke forth, and all was fair and tranquil."—P. 97.

The fisherman was sent for express, and his general garb and fly-bedizened hat, are soon portrayed; while the "waxing" of the Tweed, and how the Eildon Hills were of old cloven by the art of grammarye, conclude the fourth chapter, and bring us only to the hundredth page.

The ensuing section of the work opens with some general observations on the scenery of that now noted district of the south of Scotland, blended with the graceful expression of those melancholy remembrances, we doubt not deeply felt, which must ever cast a dark shadow over the minds of the surviving associates of the Great Minstrel. Alas! where can we turn ourselves without being reminded of the transitory nature of this our low estate, of its dissevered ties, its buried hopes, and lost affections! How many bitter endurances, reflected from the bosom of the past, are ever mingling with all those ongoings of human life and action which we call enjoyments! How mixed in their effects are even the natural glories of this our fair creation! What golden sunset casts not its far-beaming splendour, not only on the great mountains and the glittering sea, but also breaks, as if in mockery, into ghastly chambers where the desolation of death, "the wages of sin," is miserably brooding! And yet how solemnizing, how elevating in their influences, are all the highest beauties both of art and nature, notwithstanding the awe, approaching to fearfulness, with which they not seldom affect our spirits. The veneration with which we gaze even on insensate walls which once formed the loved abode of genius and virtue, is a natural tribute to a noble nature, and flows from one of the purest and most sustaining sources of emotion by which our humanity is distinguished. It almost looks as if, in accordance with the Platonic philosophy, there remained to man, from an original and more lofty state of existence, some dim remembrance of perfection.

"This inborn and implanted recollection of the godlike," says Schlegel, "remains ever dark and mysterious; for man is surrounded by the sensible world, which being in itself changeable and imperfect, encircles him with images of imperfection, changeableness, corruption, and error, and thus casts perpetual obscurity over that light which is within him. Wherever, in the sensible and natural world, he perceives any thing which bears a resemblance to the attributes of the God-head, which can serve as a symbol of a high perfection, the old recollections of his soul are awakened and refreshed. The love of the beautiful fills and animates the soul of the beholder with an awe and reverence which belong not to the beautiful itself—at least not to any sensible manifestation of it—but to that unseen original of which material beauty is the type. From this admiration, this new-awakened recollection, and this instantaneous inspiration, spring all higher knowledge and truth. These are not the product of cold, leisurely, and voluntary reflection, but occupy at once a station far superior to what either thought, or art, or speculation, can attain; and enter into our inmost souls with the power and presence of a gift from the divinity."

Mr Scrope's first visit to the Tweed was made before the "Ariosto of the North" had sung those undying strains which have since added so much associated interest to the finely varied courses of that fair river. But many fond lovers of nature, then as now,

"Though wanting the accomplishment of verse,"

were well acquainted with all its unrecorded beauties.

"What stranger," asks our author, "just emerging from the angular enclosures of the south, scored and subdued by tillage, would not feel his heart expand at the first sight of the heathy mountains, swelling out into vast proportions, over which man had no dominion? At the dawn of day he sees, perhaps, the mist ascending slowly up the dusky river, taking its departure to some distant undefined region; below the mountain range his sight rests upon a deep and narrow glen, gloomy with woods, shelving down to its centre. What is hid in that mysterious mass the eye may not visit; but a sound comes down from afar, as of the rushing and din of waters. It is the voice of the Tweed, as it bursts from the melancholy hills, and comes rejoicing down the sunny vale, taking its free course through the haugh, and glittering amongst sylvan bowers—swelling out at times fair and ample, and again contracted into gorges and sounding cataracts—lost for a space in its mazes behind a jutting brae, and re-appearing in dashes of light through bolls of trees opposed to it in shadow.

"Thus it holds its fitful course. The stranger might wander in the quiet vale, and far below the blue summits he might see the shaggy flock grouped upon some sunny knoll, or struggling among the scattered birch-trees, and lower down on the haugh, his eye perchance might rest awhile on some cattle standing on a tongue of land by the margin of the river, with their dark and rich brown forms opposed to the brightness of the waters. All these outward pictures he might see and feel; but he would see no farther: the lore had not spread its witchery over the scene—the legends slept in oblivion. The stark moss-trooper, and the clanking stride of the warrior, had not again started into life; nor had the light blazed gloriously in the sepulchre of the wizard with the mighty book. The slogan swelled not anew upon the gale, sounding, through the glens and over the misty mountains; nor had the minstrel's harp made music in the stately halls of Newark, or beside the lonely braes of Yarrow.

"Since that time I have seen the Cottage of Abbotsford, with the rustic porch, lying peacefully on the haugh between the lone hills, and have listened to the wild rush of the Tweed as it hurried beneath it. As time progressed, and as hopes arose, I have seen that cottage converted into a picturesque mansion, with every luxury and comfort attached to it, and have partaken of its hospitality; the unproductive hills I have viewed covered with thriving plantations, and the whole aspect of the country civilized, without losing its romantic character. But, amidst all these revolutions, I have never perceived any change in the mind of him who made them,—'the choice and master spirit of the age.' There he dwelt in the hearts of the people, diffusing life and happiness around him; he made a home beside the border river, in a country and a nation that have derived benefit from his presence, and consequence from his genius. From his chamber he looked out upon the grey ruins of the Abbey, and the sun which set in splendour beneath the Eildon Hills. Like that sun, his course has been run; and, though disastrous clouds came across him in his career, he went down in unfading glory.

"These golden hours, alas! have long passed away; but often have I visions of the sylvan valley, and its glittering waters, with dreams of social intercourse. Abbotsford, Mertoun, Chiefswood, Huntly-Burn, Allerley—when shall I forget ye?"—P. 102.

How many share these sad and vain regrets! The very voice of the living waters, which once glittered so rejoicingly through the green pastures, or reflected in their still expanse the lichen-covered crag or varied woodland, seems now to utter an "illoetabile murmur," while

"A trouble not of clouds or weeping rain, Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light, Engender'd, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height."

On the 21st of September 1832, Sir Walter Scott breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. "It was a beautiful day," we have been elsewhere told, "so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still, that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes. No sculptor ever modelled a more majestic image of repose."[17]

[Footnote 17: The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by his literary executor.]

We must here unwillingly conclude our account of Mr Scrope's volume, although we have scarcely even entered on many of its most important portions. Bait fishing for salmon, and the darker, though torch-illumined, mysteries of the leister, occupy the terminal chapters. A careful study of the whole will amply repay the angler, the naturalist, the artist, and the general admirer of the inexhaustible beauties of rural scenery—nowhere witnessed or enjoyed to such advantage as by the side of a first-rate river.

* * * * *



THE WHIPPIAD, A SATIRICAL POEM.

BY REGINALD HEBER, BISHOP OF CALCUTTA.

In offering this little poem to the public, some few words, by way of explanation, are deemed necessary. Most of the circumstances alluded to in it will be familiar to Oxford readers of Bishop Heber's standing, but especially to those of his own college, Brazenose. The origin of the poem was simply this:—A young friend of his, B——d P——t, went to call upon him at Brazenose, and, without being aware of the heinous crime he was committing, cracked a four-horse whip in the quadrangle. This moved the ire of a certain doctor, a fellow and tutor, and at that time also dean of the college, commonly called Dr Toe from a defect in one of his feet. The doctor had unfortunately made himself obnoxious to most of those of his own college, under-graduates as well as others, by his absurd conduct and regulations. On the following day Mr P——t cracked the whip in the quadrangle, when the doctor issued from his rooms in great wrath, and after remonstrating with Mr P——t, and endeavouring to take the whip from him, a scuffle ensued, in which the whip was broken, and the doctor overpowered and thrown down by the victorious P——t, who had fortunately taken his degree of Master of Arts. Heber, then an under-graduate of only a few terms' standing, wrote the first canto the same evening, and the intrinsic merit of the poem will recommend it to most readers. But it will be doubly interesting when considered as one of the first, if not the very first, of the poetical productions of that eminent and distinguished scholar. In it may be traced the dawnings of that genius which was afterwards to delight the world in an enlarged sphere of usefulness.

K.

CANTO FIRST.

Where whiten'd Cain the curse of heaven defies,[18] And leaden slumber seals his brother's eyes, Where o'er the porch in brazen splendour glows The vast projection of the mystic nose, Triumph erewhile of Bacon's fabled arts,[19] Now well-hung symbol of the student's parts; 'Midst those unhallow'd walls and gloomy cells Where every thing but Contemplation dwells, Dire was the feud our sculptured Alfred saw,[20] And thy grim-bearded bust, Erigena, When scouts came flocking from the empty hall, And porters trembled at the Doctor's call; Ah! call'd in vain, with laugh supprest they stood And bit their nails, a dirty-finger'd brood. E'en Looker gloried in his master's plight,[21] And John beheld, and chuckled at the sight.[22] Genius of discord! thou whose murky flight With iron pennons more obscured the night— Thou, too, of British birth, who dost reside In Syms's or in Goodwin's blushing tide,[23] Say, spirit, say, for thy enlivening bowl With fell ambition fired thy favourite's soul, From what dread cause began the bloodless fray Pregnant with shame, with laughter, and dismay? Calm was the night, and all was sunk to rest, Save Shawstone's party, and the Doctor's breast: He saw with pain his ancient glory fled, And thick oblivion gathering round his head. Alas! no more his pupils crowding come, To wait indignant in their tyrant's room,[24] No more in hall the fluttering theme he tears, Or lolling, picks his teeth at morning prayers; Unmark'd, unfear'd, on dogs he vents his hate, And spurns the terrier from his guarded gate. But now to listless indolence a prey, Stretch'd on his couch, he sad and darkling lay; As not unlike in venom and in size, Close in his hole the hungry spider lies. "And oh!" he cries, "am I so powerless grown, That I am fear'd by cooks and scouts alone? Oh! for some nobler strife, some senior foe, To swell by his defeat the name of Toe!" He spoke—the powers of mischief heard his cries, And steep'd in sullen sleep his rheumy eyes. He slept—but rested not, his guardian sprite Rose to his view in visions of the night, And thus, with many a tear and many a sigh, He heard, or seem'd to hear, the mimic demon cry:—[25] "Is this a time for distant strife to pray, When all my power is melting fast away, Like mists dissolving at the beams of day, When masters dare their ancient rights resume, And bold intruders fill the common room, Whilst thou, poor wretch, forsaken, shunn'd by all, Must pick thy commons in the empty hall? Nay more! regardless of thy hours and thee, They scorn the ancient, frugal hour of three.[26] Good Heavens! at four their costly treat is spread, And juniors lord it at the table's head; See fellows' benches sleeveless striplings bear,[27] Whilst Smith and Sutton from the canvass stare.[28] Hear'st thou through all this consecrated ground, The rattling thong's unwonted clangour sound? Awake! arise! though many a danger lour, By one bright deed to vindicate thy power." He ceased; as loud the fatal whip resounds, With throbbing heart the eager Doctor bounds. So when some bear from Russia's clime convey'd, Politer grown, has learnt the dancer's trade, If weary with his toil perchance, he hears His master's lash re-echoing in his ears, Though loath, he lifts his paws, and bounds in air, And hops and rages whilst the rabble stare.

CANTO THE SECOND.

You the great foe of this Assembly! I the great foe? Why the great foe? In that being one of the meanest, barest, poorest, ——Thou goest foremost.—SHAKSPEARE'S Coriolanus.

Forth from his cell the wily warrior hies, And swift to seize the unwary victim flies. For sure he deem'd, since now declining day Had dimn'd the brightness of his visual ray, He deem'd on helpless under-graduate foes To purge the bile that in his liver rose. Fierce schemes of vengeance in his bosom swell, Jobations dire, and Impositions fell. And now a cross he'd meditate, and swear[29] Six ells of Virgil should the crime repair.[30] Along the grass with heedless haste he trod,[31] And with unequal footsteps press'd the sod— That hallow'd sod, that consecrated ground, By eclogues, fines, and crosses fenced around. When lo! he sees, yet scarcely can believe, The destined victim wears a master's sleeve; So when those heroes, Britain's pride and care, In dark Batavian meadows urge the war; Oft as they roam'd, in fogs and darkness lost, They found a Frenchman what they deem'd a post. The Doctor saw; and, filled with wild amaze, He fix'd on P——t[32] his quick convulsive gaze. Thus shrunk the trembling thief, when first he saw, Hung high in air, the waving Abershaw.[33] Thus the pale bawd, with agonizing heart, Shrieks when she hears the beadle's rumbling cart. "And oh! what noise," he cries, "what sounds unblest, Presume to break a senior's holy rest?[34] Full well you know, who thus my anger dare, To horse-whips what antipathy I bear. Shall I, in vain, immersed in logic lore, O'er Saunderson and Allrick try to pore— I, who the major to the minor join, And prove conclusively that seven's not nine? With expectation big, and hope elate, The critic world my learned labours wait: And shall not Strabo then respect command, And shall not Strabo stay thy insulting hand? Strabo![35] whose pages, eighteen years and more, Have been my public shame, my private bore? Hence, to thy room, audacious wretch! retire, Nor think thy sleeves shall save thee from mine ire." He spoke; such fury sparkled in his face, The Buttery trembled to its tottering base, The frighted rats in corners laid them down, And all but P——t was daunted at his frown; Firm and intrepid stood the reverend man, As thrice he stroked his face, and thus began: "And hopest thou then," the injured Bernard said, "To launch thy thunders on a master's head? O, wont to deal the trope and dart the fist, Half-learn'd logician, half-form'd pugilist, Censor impure, who dar'st, with slanderous aim, And envy's dart, assault a H——r's name. Senior, self-called, can I forget the day, When titt'ring under-graduates mock'd thy sway, And drove thee foaming from the Hall away? Gods, with what raps the conscious tables rung, From every form how shrill the cuckoo sung![36] Oh! sounds unblest—Oh! notes of deadliest fear— Harsh to the tutor's or the lover's ear, The hint, perchance, thy warmest hopes may quell, And cuckoo mingle with the thoughts of Bel."[37] At that loved name, with fury doubly keen, Fierce on the Deacon rush'd the raging Dean; Nor less the dauntless Deacon dare withstand The brandish'd weight of Toe's uplifted hand. [38]The ghost of themes departed, that, of yore, Disgraced alike, the Doctor praised or tore, On paper wings flit dimly through the night, And, hovering low in air, beheld the fight. Each ill-starr'd verse its filthy den forsakes, Black from the spit, or reeking from the jakes; The blot-stain'd troop their shadowy pages spread, And call for vengeance on the murderer's head.

CANTO THE THIRD.

digito male pertinaci.—Hor.

[39]Shade of Boileau! (who told in deathless lays A choral pulpit's military praise,) Thou, too, that dared'st a cloister'd warfare sing, And dip thy bucket in Castalia's spring! Forgive, blest bards, if, with unequal fire, I feebly strike the imitative lyre; Though strong to celebrate no vulgar fray, Since P——t and conquest swell the exulting lay. Not link'd, alas in friendship's sacred band, With hands fast lock'd the furious parsons stand; Each grasps the whip with unrelenting might— The whip, the cause and guerdon of the fight— But either warrior spends his strength in vain, And panting draws his lengthen'd breath with pain, Till now the Dean, with throat extended wide, And faltering shout, for speedy succour cried [40]To them who in yon grateful cell repose, Where Greenland odours feast the stranger's nose— "Scouts, porters, shoe-blacks, whatsoe'er your trade, All, all, attend, your master's fist to aid!" They heard his voice, and, trembling at the sound, The half-breech'd legions swarm'd like moths around; But, ah! the half-breech'd legions, call'd in vain, Dismay'd and useless, fill'd the cumber'd plain; And while for servile aid the Doctor calls, [41]By P——t subverted, prone to earth he sprawls. [42]E'en then were heard, so Brazenose students sing, The grass-plot chains in boding notes to ring; E'en then we mark'd, where, gleaming through the night, Aerial crosses shed a lurid light. Those wrestlers, too, whom naked we behold Through many a summer's night and winter's cold, Now changed appear'd, his pristine languor fled, Expiring Abel raised his sinking head, While with fix'd eyes his murderer seemed to stand, The bone half dropping from his nerveless hand. So, when of old, as Latian records tell, At Pompey's base the laurel'd despot fell, Reviving freedom mock'd her sinking foe, And demons shriek'd as Brutus dealt the blow. His trencher-bonnet tumbling from his crown, Subdued by Bernard, sunk the Doctor down; But yet, though breathless on the hostile plain, The whip he could not seize he snapt in twain— "Where now, base themester,"—P——t exulting said, And waved the rattling fragments o'er his head— "Where now thy threats? Yet learn from me to know How glorious 'tis to spare a fallen foe. Uncudgel'd, rise—yet hear my high command— [43]Hence to thy room! or dread thy conqueror's hand." [44]His hair all gravel, and all green his clothes, In doleful dumps the downcast Doctor rose, Then slunk unpitied from the hated plain, And inly groaning sought his couch again; Yet, as he went, he backward cast his view, And bade his ancient power a last adieu. So, when some sturdy swain through miry roads A grunting porker to the market goads, With twisted neck, splash'd hide, and progress slow, Oft backward looks the swine, and half disdains to go. "Ah me! how fallen," with choaking sobs he said, And sunk exhausted on his welcome bed; "Ere yet my shame, wide-circling through the town, Spreads from the strong contagion of the gown, Oh! be it mine, unknowing and unknown, [45]With deans deceased, to sleep beneath the stone." As tearful thus, and half convulsed with spite, He lengthen'd out with plaints the livelong night, At that still hour of night, when dreams are oft'nest true, A well-known spectre rose before his view, As in some lake, when hush'd in every breeze, The bending ape his form reflected sees,[46] Such and so like the Doctor's angel shone, And by his gait the guardian sprite was known, Benignly bending o'er his aching head— "Sleep, Henry, sleep, my best beloved," he said,[47] "Soft dreams of bliss shall soothe thy midnight hour; Connubial transport and collegiate power. Fly fast, ye months, till Henry shall receive The joys a bride and benefice can give. But first to sanction thy prophetic name, In yon tall pile a doctor's honours claim;[48] E'en now methinks the awe-struck crowd behold Thy powder'd caxon and thy cane of gold. E'en now—but hark! the chimney sparrows sing, St Mary's chimes their early matins ring— I go—but thou——through many a festive night Collegiate bards shall chant thy luckless fight— Though many a jest shall spread the table round, And many a bowl to B——r——d's health be crown'd— O'er juniors still maintain thy dread command, Still boast, my son, thy cross-compelling hand.[49] Adieu!"—His shadowy robes the phantom spread, And o'er the Doctor drowsy influence shed; Scared at the sound, far off his terrors flew, And love and hope once more his curtains drew.

[Footnote 18: In the quadrangle of Brazenose College, there is a statue of Cain destroying Abel with a bone, or some such instrument. It is of lead, and white-washed, and no doubt that those who have heard that Cain was struck black, will be surprised to find that in Brazenose he is white as innocence.]

[Footnote 19: All the world has rung with the fame of Roger Bacon, formerly of this college, and of his exploits in astrology, chemistry, and metallurgy, inter alia his brazen head, of which alone the nose remains, a precious relic, and (to use the words of the excellent author of the Oxford Guide) still conspicuous over the portal, where it erects itself as a symbolical illustration of the Salernian adage "Noscitur a naso."]

[Footnote 20: Two medallions of Alfred and Erigena ornament the outside of the Hall, so as to overlook the field of battle.]

[Footnote 21: The Porter of the college.]

[Footnote 22: The doctor's servant or scout.]

[Footnote 23: Two wine-merchants residing in Oxford.]

[Footnote 24: To those gentlemen who, for half an hour together, have sometimes had the honour of waiting in the Doctor's antechamber, "Donec libeat vigilare tyranno," this passage will need no explanation; and of his acts of graceful dignity and unaffected piety at chapel, perhaps the less that is said the better.]

[Footnote 25: It was a Rosicrucian tenet, that the demon was assimilated to the object of his care; and in this we are confirmed by the authority of the Doctor himself, who treated very largely on the subject of demons in his lecture on Plato's Phaedon. The powers of his mind were never more successfully displayed than when he illustrated his positions by the scriptural instance of the two Galilean demoniacs, who abode in the tombs night and day. It was reserved for his ingenuity and learning to discover that those unfortunate Bedlamites were not mortals, but departed spirits.]

[Footnote 26: The real friend of collegiate discipline, whose feelings our author would blush to offend, will be pleased to recollect that this deviation from the usual dinner hour took place in the long vacation; that it was introduced for the convenience of study, and that the doctor, could he so far have forgotten his dignity as to have joined the four o'clock party, would have found decorous manners, and more than one brother fellow of the company.]

[Footnote 27: Wisely was it ordained by our founders, that, young men being too apt to laugh in their sleeves at the conduct of their superiors, the academical dress of the under-graduates should, as far as possible, obviate that inconvenience. Thus, also, Tully hath it, "Cedant arma togae."]

[Footnote 28: The two founders of Brazenose College.]

[Footnote 29: It is necessary to explain to non-academic readers, that it is customary for the tutor of a college to put an X opposite the name of an offending member in the Buttery Book, as it is called, by which he is interdicted from having bread buttered, a kind of excommunication.]

[Footnote 30: For the meaning of this expression we refer the reader to the most preposterous imposition ever known in the annals of collegiate punishment; the original MS. of which is preserved in the museum of an eminent collector in Kent. In short, as in Cambridge they sell their butter by the yard, so at Brazenose the cloth measure has been applied with singular success to the works of genius; and perhaps the system may be so far improved upon, that a future under-graduate may have to toil through a furlong of Strabo, or a perch of logic.]

[Footnote 31: This alludes to the hobbling gait of the Doctor, in consequence of the defect in his foot.]

[Footnote 32: The Rev. B——d P——t.]

[Footnote 33: Alluding to a notorious malefactor, executed about this times and hung in chains on Wimbledon Common.]

[Footnote 34: Prophetically spoken, as the Doctor was then only a junior fellow.]

[Footnote 35: The Doctor, finding that Horace prescribed a nine years' delay for play or poem, inferred that more than twice that time was necessary for the learned labours of the editor of Strabo.]

[Footnote 36: For the wonderful answers of the learned cuckoo, at logic lecture, we refer to his (the cuckoo's) equally edified class-fellows.]

[Footnote 37: The reader will perhaps be astonished to find, that the Doctor as supposed to flatter himself with the hope that his attentions were not altogether unacceptable to a young lady of singular elegance and personal accomplishments, here alluded to.]

[Footnote 38: "Obscoenaeque volucres signa dabant."]

[Footnote 39: The poet invokes his heroi-comic predecessors, the author of the Lutrin, and Alessandro Tassoni, whose Secchia Rapita, or Rape of the Bucket, is well known to the amateurs of Italian poetry.]

[Footnote 40: No classical stranger could ever pass the porter in his lodge at Brazenose, without being sensibly reminded of a favourite passage in Horace, and exclaiming, "Quis multa gracilis—puer in rosa, Perfusus liquidis—odoribus Grato——sub antro." ]

[Footnote 41: "Procumbit humi bos." This is not the first time the Doctor has been overcome by port.]

[Footnote 42: "Hine exaudiri gemitus, et saeva sonare Verbera, tum stridor ferri tractaeque catenae." ]

[Footnote 43: With great practical justice and classical elegance, the words of the assailant are retorted upon himself— "Suo sibi gladio hunc jugulo." ]

[Footnote 44: The bouleversement is supposed to have happened on the green adjoining the gravel.]

[Footnote 45: Dead deans, broken bottles, dilapidated lantherns, under-graduated ladders, and other lumber, have generally found their level under the pavement of Brazenose cloisters.]

[Footnote 46: Like Virgil's nightingale or owl— "Ferali carmine bubo Flet noctem." ]

[Footnote 47: "Post mediam visus noctem cum somnia vera."]

[Footnote 48: We have heard it whispered, but cannot undertake to vouch for the truth of the rumour, that a considerable wager now depends upon the accomplishment of this prophecy within nine calendar months after the Doctor has obtained a bona fide degree.]

[Footnote 49: Alluding to the collegiate punishment before explained.]

* * * * *



CHARLES EDWARD AT VERSAILLES.

ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF CULLODEN.

Take away that star and garter—hide them from my loathing sight, Neither king nor prince shall tempt me from my lonely room this night; Fitting for the throneless exile is the atmosphere of pall, And the gusty winds that shiver 'neath the tapestry on the wall. When the taper faintly dwindles like the pulse within the vein, That to gay and merry measure ne'er may hope to bound again, Let the shadows gather round me while I sit in silence here, Broken-hearted, as an orphan watching by his father's bier. Let me hold my still communion far from every earthly sound— Day of penance—day of passion—ever, as the year comes round. Fatal day whereon the latest die was cast for me and mine— Cruel day, that quell'd the fortunes of the hapless Stuart line! Phantom-like, as in a mirror, rise the griesly scenes of death— There before me, in its wildness, stretches bare Culloden's heath— There the broken clans are scatter'd, gaunt as wolves, and famine-eyed— Hunger gnawing at their vitals—hope abandon'd—all but pride— Pride—and that supreme devotion which the Southron never knew, And the hatred, deeply rankling, 'gainst the Hanoverian crew. Oh, my God! are these the remnants—these the wrecks of the array, That around the royal standard gather'd on the glorious day, When, in deep Glenfinnart's valley, thousands, on their bended knees, Saw once more that stately banner waving in the northern breeze, When the noble Tullibardine stood beneath its weltering fold, With the ruddy lion ramping in the field of treasured gold! When the mighty heart of Scotland, all too big to slumber more, Burst in wrath and exultation, like a huge volcano's roar! There they stand, the batter'd columns, underneath the murky sky, In the hush of desperation, not to conquer but to die. Hark! the bagpipe's fitful wailing—not the pibroch loud and shrill, That, with hope of bloody banquet, lured the ravens from the hill— But a dirge both low and solemn, fit for ears of dying men, Marshall'd for their latest battle, never more to fight again. Madness—madness! Why this shrinking? Were we less inured to war When our reapers swept the harvest from the field of red Dunbar? Fetch my horse, and blow the trumpet!—Call the riders of Fitz-James, Let Lord Lewis bring the muster!—Valiant chiefs of mighty names— Trusty Keppoch! stout Glengarry! gallant Gordon! wise Lochiel! Bid the clansmen charge together, fast, and fell, and firm as steel. Elcho, never look so gloomy! What avails a sadden'd brow? Heart, man—heart! we need it sorely—never half so much as now. Had we but a thousand troopers—had we but a thousand more!—— Noble Perth, I hear them coming!—Hark! the English cannons' roar. God! how awful sounds that volley, bellowing through the mist and rain! Was not that the Highland slogan? Let me hear that shout again! Oh, for prophet eyes to witness how the desperate battle goes! Cumberland! I would not fear thee, could my Camerons see their foe. Sound, I say, the charge at venture—t'is not naked steel we fear; Better perish in the melee than be shot like driven deer! Hold! the mist begins to scatter. There in front 'tis rent asunder, And the cloudy battery crumbles underneath the deafening thunder; There I see the scarlet gleaming! Now, Macdonald—now or never!— Woe is me, the clans are broken! Father, thou art lost for ever! Chief and vassal, lord and yeoman, there they lie in heaps together, Smitten by the deadly volley, rolled in blood upon the heather; And the Hanoverian horsemen, fiercely riding to and fro, Deal their murderous strokes at random.— Ah my God! where am I now? Will that baleful vision never vanish from my aching sight? Must those scenes and sounds of terror haunt me still by day and night? Yea, the earth hath no oblivion for the noblest chance it gave, None, save in its latest refuge—seek it only in the grave. Love may die, and hatred slumber, and their memory will decay, As the water'd garden recks not of the drought of yesterday; But the dream of power once broken, what shall give repose again? What shall charm the serpent-furies coil'd around the maddening brain? What kind draught can nature offer strong enough to lull their sting? Better to be born a peasant than to live an exiled king! Oh, these years of bitter anguish!—What is life to such as me, With my very heart as palsied as a wasted cripple's knee! Suppliant-like for alms depending on a false and foreign court, Jostled by the flouting nobles, half their pity, half their sport. Forced to hold a place in pageant, like a royal prize of war Walking with dejected features close behind his victor's car, Styled an equal—deem'd a servant—fed with hopes of future gain— Worse by far is fancied freedom than the captive's clanking chain! Could I change this gilded bondage even for the massy tower Whence King James beheld his lady sitting in the castle bower— Birds around her sweetly singing, fluttering on the kindled spray, And the comely garden glowing in the light of rosy May. Love descended to the window—Love removed the bolt and bar— Love was warder to the lovers from the dawn to even-star. Wherefore, Love, didst thou betray me? Where is now the tender glance? Where the meaning looks once lavish'd by the dark-eyed Maid of France? Where the words of hope she whisper'd, when around my neck she threw That same scarf of broider'd tissue, bade me wear it and be true— Bade me send it as a token when my banner waved once more On the castled Keep of London, where my fathers' waved before? And I went and did not conquer—but I brought it back again— Brought it back from storm and battle—brought it back without stain; And once more I knelt before her, and I laid it at her feet, Saying, "Wilt thou own it, Princess? There at least is no defeat!" Scornfully she look'd upon me with a measured eye and cold— Scornfully she view'd the token, though her fingers wrought the gold, And she answer'd, faintly flushing, "Hast thou kept it, then, so long? Worthy matter for a minstrel to be told in knightly song! Worthy of a bold Provencal, pacing through the peaceful plain, Singing of his lady's favour, boasting of her silken chain, Yet scarce worthy of a warrior sent to wrestle for a crown. Is this all that thou hast brought me from thy field of high renown? Is this all the trophy carried from the lands where thou hast been? It was broider'd by a Princess, can'st thou give it to a Queen?" Woman's love is writ in water! Woman's faith is traced in sand! Backwards—backwards let me wander to the noble northern land; Let me feel the breezes blowing fresh along the mountain side; Let me see the purple heather, let me hear the thundering tide, Be it hoarse as Corrievreckan spouting when the storm is high— Give me but one hour of Scotland—let me see it ere I die! Oh, my heart is sick and heavy—southern gales are not for me; Though the glens are white with winter, place me there, and set me free; Give me back my trusty comrades—give me back my Highland maid— Nowhere beats the heart so kindly as beneath the tartan plaid! Flora! when thou wert beside me, in the wilds of far Kintail— When the cavern gave us shelter from the blinding sleet and hail— When we lurk'd within the thicket, and, beneath the waning moon, Saw the sentry's bayonet glimmer, heard him chant his listless tune— When the howling storm o'ertook us drifting down the island's lee, And our crazy bark was whirling like a nutshell on the sea— When the nights were dark and dreary, and amidst the fern we lay Faint and foodless, sore with travel, longing for the streaks of day; When thou wert an angel to me, watching my exhausted sleep— Never didst thou hear me murmur—couldst thou see how now I weep! Bitter tears and sobs of anguish, unavailing though they be. Oh the brave—the brave and noble—who have died in vain for me!

W.E.A.

* * * * *



EARLY GREEK ROMANCES—THE ETHIOPICS OF HELIODORUS.

"It is not in Provence, (Provincia Romanorum,) as is commonly said from the derivation of the name—nor yet in Spain, as many suppose, that we are to look for the fatherland of those amusing compositions called Romances, which are so eminently useful in these days as affording a resource and occupation to ladies and gentlemen who have nothing to do. It is in distant and far different climes to our own, and in the remote antiquity of long vanished ages:—it is among the people of the East, the Arabs, the Egyptians, the Persians, and the Syrians, that the germ and origin is to be found of this species of fictitious narrative, for which the peculiar genius and poetical temperament of those nations particularly adapt them, and in which they delight to a degree scarcely to be credited. For even their ordinary discourse is interspersed with figurative expressions; and their maxims of theology and philosophy, and above all, of morals and political science, are invariably couched under the guise of allegory or parable. I need not stay to enlarge upon the universal veneration paid throughout the East to the fables of Bidpai or Pilpay, and to Lokman, who is (as may easily be shown) the Esop of the Greeks:—and it is well known that the story of Isfendiyar, and of the daring deeds of the Persian hero Rustan, in love and war,[50] are to this day more popular in those regions than the tales of Hercules, Roland, or Amadis de Gaul, ever were with us. And so decidedly is Asia the parent of these fictions, that we shall find on examination, that nearly all those who in early times distinguished themselves as writers of what are now called romances, were of oriental birth or extraction. Clearchus, a pupil of Aristotle, and the first who attempted any thing of the sort in the Greek language, was a native of Soli in Cilicia:—Jamblichus was a Syrian, as were also Heliodorus and Lucian, the former being of Emessa, the latter of Samosata:—Achilles Tatius was an Alexandrian; and the rule will be found to hold good in other instances, with scarcely a single exception."

[Footnote 50: The exploits of these and other paladins of the Kaianian dynasty, the heroic age of Persian history, are now known to us principally through the Shah-Nameh of Ferdousi, a poem bearing date only at the beginning of the eleventh century; but both this and its predecessor, the Bostan-Nameh, were founded on ballads and [Greek: rhapsodiai] of far distant ages, which had escaped the ravages of time and the Mohammedans, and some of which are even now preserved among the ancient tribes of pure Persian descent, in the S.W. provinces of the kingdom. Sir John Malcolm (History of Persia, ii. 444, note, 8vo. ed.,) gives an amusing anecdote of the effect produced among his escort by one of these popular chants.]

Such is the doctrine laid down (at somewhat greater length than we have rendered it) by the learned Huetius, in his treatise De Origine Fabularum Romanensium; and from the general principle therein propounded, we are certainly by no means inclined to dissent. But while fully admitting that it is to the vivid fancy and picturesque imagination of the Orientals that we owe the origin of all those popular legends which have penetrated, under various changes of costume, into every corner of Europe,[51] as well as those more gorgeous creations which appear, interwoven with the ruder creations of the northern nations, to have furnished the groundwork of the fabliaux and lais of the chivalry of the middle ages:—we still hold that the invention of the romance of ordinary life, in which the interest of the story depends upon occurrences in some measure within the bounds of probability, and in which the heroes and heroines are neither invested with superhuman qualities, nor extricated from their difficulties by supernatural means, must be ascribed to a more European state of society than that which produced those tales of wonder, which are commonly considered as characteristic of the climes of the East. Even the authors enumerated by the learned bishop of Avranches himself, in the passage above quoted, were all denizens of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, and consequently, in all probability, Greeks by descent; and though the scene of their works is frequently laid in Asia, the costumes and characters introduced are almost invariably on the Greek model. These writers, therefore, may fairly be considered as constituting a distinct class from those more strictly Oriental, not only in birth, but in language and ideas; and as being, in fact, the legitimate forerunners of that portentous crowd of modern novelists, whose myriad productions seem destined (as the Persians believe of the misshapen progeny of Gog and Magog, confined within the brazen wall of Iskender,) to over-run the world of literature in these latter days.

[Footnote 51: The prototype of the well-known Welsh legend of Beth-Gelert, for instance, is found in the Sanscrit Hitopadosa, as translated by Sir William Jones, with a mere change in the dramatis personae—the faithful hound Gelert becoming a tame mungoos or ichneumon, the wolf a cabra-capello, and the young heir of the Welsh prince an infant rajah.]

At the head of this early school of romantic writers, in point of merit as of time, (for the writings of Lucian can scarcely be considered as regular romances; and the "Babylonica" of Jamblichus, and the "Dinias and Dercyllis" of Antonius Diogenes, are known to us only by the abstract of them preserved in Photius,) we may, without hesitation, place Heliodorus, the author of the "Ethiopics," "whose writings"—says Huetius—"the subsequent novelists of those ages constantly proposed to themselves as a model for imitation; and as truly may they all be said to have drunk of the waters of this fountain, as all the poets did of the Homeric spring." To so servile an extent, indeed, was this imitation carried, that while both the incidents and characters in the "Clitophon and Leucippe" of Achilles Tatius, a work which, in point of literary merit, stands next to that of Heliodorus, are, in many passages, almost a reproduction, with different names and localities,[52] of those in the "Ethiopics," the last-named has again had his copyists in the "Hysminias and Hysmine" of Eustathius or Eumathius, and the "Dosicles and Rhodanthe" of Theodorus Prodromus, the latter of whom was a monk of the twelfth century. In these productions of the lower empire, the extravagance of the language, the improbability of the plot, and the wearisome dullness of the details, are worthy of each other; and are only varied occasionally by a little gross indelicacy, from which, indeed, none but Heliodorus is wholly exempt. Yet, "as in the lowest deep there is a lower still," so even Theodorus Prodromus has found an humble imitator in Nicetas Eugenianus, than whose romance of "Charicles and Drosilla" it must be allowed that the force of nonsense "can no further go." Besides this descending scale of plagiarism, which we have followed down to its lowest anti-climax, we should mention, for the sake of making our catalogue complete, the "Pastorals, or Daphnis and Chloe" of Longus—a work in itself of no particular merits or demerits as a literary composition, but noted for its unparalleled depravity, and further remarkable as the first of the class of pastoral romances, which were almost as rife in Europe during the middle ages as novels of fashionable life are, for the sins of this generation, at the present day. There only remain to be enumerated the three precious farragos entitled "The Ephesiacs, or Habrocomas and Anthia"—"the Babylonics"—and "the Cypriacs"—said to be from the pen of three different Xenophons, of whose history nothing, not even the age in which any of them lived, can be satisfactorily made out—though the uniformity of stupid extravagance, not less than the similarity of name, would lead a priori to the conclusion that one luckless wight must have been the author of all three. From this list of the Byzantine romances, (in which we are not sure that one or two may not after all have been omitted,) it will be seen that Heliodorus had a tolerably numerous progeny, even in his own language, to answer for; though we fear we must concur in the sweeping censure of a Quarterly Reviewer, (vol. x. p. 301,) who condemns then en masse, with the single exception of the "Ethiopics" of the last-named author, as "a few tiresome stories, absolutely void of taste, invention, or interest; without influence even upon the declining literature of their own age, and in all probability quite unknown to the real forerunners of Richardson, Fielding, and Rousseau."

[Footnote 52: The principal adventures of Clitophon and Leucippe consist in being twice taken by pirates on the banks of the Nile, as Theagenes and Chariclea are in the Ethiopics.]

A work thus excepted, by common consent, from the general reprobation is which all its compeers are involved, must deserve some notice from its negative, if not from its positive merits; and the particulars which have been preserved of its literary history are also somewhat curious. Even in these days, when almost every other individual is a novelist, either in esse or in embryo, the announcement of a love-story from the pen of a bishop would create what is called "a considerable sensation"—though perhaps it would hardly draw down on the author such condign and summary punishment as was inflicted by the straitlaced Kirk of Scotland, less than a century ago, on one of her ministers, for the high crime and misdemeanour of having indited "a stage play, called the Tragedy of Douglas."[53] Yet not only the "Ethiopics," but the best known of its successors, the "Clitophon and Leucippe" of Achilles Tatius, are both universally asserted to have been juvenile productions of ecclesiastics who afterwards attained the episcopal dignity: and the former, if we may credit the Ecclesiastical History of Nicephorus, fared not much better at the hands of the Provincial Synod of Thessaly than did the "Tragedy of Douglas" at those of the Scottish Presbyteries. Hear what saith the historian: "This Heliodorus, bishop of Trica, had in his youth written certain love-stories called the "Ethiopics," which are highly popular even at the present day, though they are now better known by the title of 'Chariclea'"—(the name of the heroine)—"and it was by reason thereof that he lost his see. For, inasmuch as very many of the youth were drawn into peril of sin by the perusal of these amorous tales, it was determined by the provincial synod that either these books, which kindled the fire of love, should themselves be consumed by fire, or that the author should be deposed from his episcopal functions—and this choice being propounded to him, he preferred resigning his bishopric to suppressing his writings."—(Niceph. Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. xii. c. 34.)[54] Heliodorus, according to the same authority, was the first Thessalian bishop who had insisted on the married clergy putting away their wives, which may probably have tended to make him unpopular: but the story of his deposition, it should be observed, rests solely on the statement of Nicephorus, and is discredited by Bayle and Huet, who argue that the silence of Socrates (Ecclesiast. Hist. v. chap. 22.) in the passage where he expressly assigns the authorship of the "Ethiopics" to the Bishop Heliodorus, more than counterbalances the unsupported assertion of Nicephorus—"an author," says Huet, "of more credulity than judgment." If Heliodorus were, indeed, as has been generally supposed, the same to whom several of the Epistles of St Jerome were addressed, this circumstance would supply an additional argument against the probability of his having incurred the censures of the church: but whatever the testimony of Nicephorus may be worth on this point, his mention of the work affords undeniable proof of its long continued popularity, as his Ecclesiastical History was written about A.D. 900, and Heliodorus lived under the reign of the sons of Theodosius, or fully five hundred years earlier. Enough, however, has been said of him in his capacity of a bishop—and we shall proceed to consider him in that of an author, by which he is far better known than by episcopacy.