entire length of the house, is formed of deal planks laid upon tressels, and covered with a succession of table-cloths, white though coarse. The quantity of the dinner is answerable to the space which it is to cover: it generally consists of barley broth, or cock-a-leeky, boiled fowls, roasted ducks, joints of meat, sheep's heads, oat and barley cakes, butter, and cheese; and in summer, frothed buttermilk, and slam. In the glens where goats are kept, haunches of these animals and roasted kids are also added to the feast. In the olden time, venison and all kinds of game, from the cappercalich to the grouse, were also furnished; but since the breach of the feudal system, and its privileges, the highland lairds have become like other proprietors in the regulation of their game, and have prohibited its slaughter to their tenants upon pain of banishment.

Yet the cheer of the dinner is not so remarkable as the gear of the guests. No stranger who looked along the board could recognise in their "braws" the individuals whom the day before he had seen in the mill, the field, or the "smiddie." The men are generally dressed to the best of their power in the lowland fashion. There are still a few who have the spirit, and who take a pride, to appear in the noble dress of their ancestors. These are always considered as an honour and an ornament to the day. So far however has habit altered the custom of the people, even against their own approbation, that notwithstanding the convenience and respect attached to the tartans, they are generally laid aside. But though the men are nothing deficient in the disposition to set themselves off in the lowland fashions, from the superior expense of cloth and other materials of a masculine dress, they are by no means so gay as the lasses. Girls, who the yester, even were seen bare-headed and bare-footed, lightly dressed in a blue flannel petticoat and dark linen jacket, are now busked in white frocks, riband sashes, cotton stockings on their feet, and artificial flowers on their heads. The "merchant's" and the miller's daughters frequently exhibit the last fashion from Edinburgh; and are beautified and garnished with escalloped trimmings, tabbed sleeves, tucks, lace, gathers, and French frills! As it has been discovered that tartan is nothing esteemed in London, little or none is to be seen, except in the red plaid or broached tunic of some old wife, whose days of gayety are past, but who still loves that with which she was gay in her youth. It is to be regretted that Dr. Samuel Johnson had not lived to witness

these dawnings of reason and improvement; his philosophical mind might have rejoiced in the symptoms of approaching “civilization" among the highlanders.

The hour of dinner is generally about one o'clock; the guests are assembling for two hours before, and each as he enters is presented with a glass of "uisga" by way of welcome. When the company is seated, and the grace has been said, the bottle makes a regular round, and each empties a bumper as it passes. During the meal more than one circle is completed in the same manner; and, at the conclusion, another revolutionary libation is given as a finale. As soon after dinner as his march will allow, the bridegroom arrives: his approach is announced at a distance by a continual and running discharge of firearms from his party. These signals are answered by the friends of the bride, and when at length they meet, a general but irregular feu-de-joie announces the arrival. The bridegroom and his escort are then regaled with whiskey, and after they have taken some farther refreshment the two parties combine, and proceed in a loose procession to the "clachan."

Sometimes, and particularly if there happens to be a few old disbanded sergeants among them, the whole "gathering" marches very uniformly in pairs; and there is always a strict regulation in the support of the bride, and the place of the bridegroom and his party. The escort of the former takes precedency in the procession, and the head of the column is generally formed of the most active and best armed Immeof her friends, led by their pipes. diately after this advanced guard, come the bride and the females of her party, accompanied by their fathers, brothers, and other friends. The bride is supported on one side by a bridesman, and on the other by a bridesmaid; her arms are linked in theirs, and from the right and left hand of the supporters is held a white scarf or handkerchief, which depends in a festoon across the figure of the bride. The privilege of supporting the bride is indispensably confined to the bridesman and bridesmaid, and it would be an unacceptable piece of politeness for any other persons, however high their rank, to offer to supply their place. The bridegroom and his party, with their piper, form the rear of the procession, and the whole is closed by two young girls, who walk last at the array, bearing in a festoon between them a white scarf, similar to that held before the bride. During the march the pipes generally play the old

Scots air, "Fye, lets a' to the Bridal," and the parties of the bride and bridegroom endeavour to emulate each other in the discharge of their fire-arms. In this order the bridal company reaches the church, and each pipe as it passes the gate of the surrounding cemetry becomes silent. In the old time the pipers played round the outside of the clachan during the performance of the service, but of later years this custom has been discontinued. The ritual of the marriage is very simple: a prayer for the happiness and guidance of the young couple who are about to enter upon the troubled tide of life; a short exhortation upon the duties of the station which they are to undertake, and a benediction by the imposition of the hands of the minister, is all the ceremonial of the union, and announces to them that they are "no longer two, but one flesh."

In the short days of winter, and when the bridegroom has to come from a distance, it is very frequent that the ceremony is not performed until night. The different circumstances of the occasion are then doubly picturesque and affecting: while the cavalcade is yet at a distance, the plaintive pealing of the pipes approaching upon the stillness of the night, the fire-arms flashing upon the darkness, and their reports redoubled by the solitary echoes of the mountains, and when, at length, the train draws near, the mingled tread of hasty feet, the full clamour of the pipes, the mixed and confused visionry of the white figures of the girls, and the dark shadows of the men, with here and there the waving of a plaid and the glinting of a dirk, must be striking to a stranger, but wake inexpressible emotions in the bosom of a Gaël, who loves the people and the customs of his land.

The scene is still more impressive at the clachan. I have yet before me the groups of the last wedding at which I was present in the highlands. The church was dimly lighted for the occasion; beneath the pulpit stood the minister, upon whose head eightyfive winters had left their trace: his thinned hair, bleached like the "cana," hung in ringlets on his neck; and the light falling feebly from above, shed a silvery gleam across his lofty forehead and pale features, as he lifted his look towards heaven, and stretched his hands above the betrothed 'pair who stood before him. The bridegroom, a hardy young highlander, the foxhunter of the district, was dressed in the full tartans; and the bride, the daughter of a neighbouring shepherd, was simply attired in white, with a bunch of white roses

in her hair. The dark cheek and keen eye of the hunter deepened its hue and its light as he held the hand which had been placed in his, while the downcast face of the bride scarcely showed distinctly more than her fair forehead and temples, and seemed, as the light shone obliquely upon them, almost as pale as the roses which she wore; her slim form bent upon the supporting arm of the bridesmaid the white frill about her neck throbbing with a light and quick vibration.

After the ceremony of the marriage is concluded, it is the privilege of the bridesman to salute the bride. As the party leave the church, the pipes again strike up, and the whole company adjourns to the next inn, or to the house of some relation of the bride's; for it is considered "unlucky" for her own to be the first which she enters. Before she crosses the threshold, an oaten cake is broken over her head by the bridesman and bridesmaid, and distributed to the company, and a glass of whiskey passes round. The whole party then enter the house, and two or three friends of the bridegroom, who act as masters of the ceremonies, pass through the room with a bottle of whiskey, and pour out to each individual a glass to the health of the bride, the bridegroom, and their clans. Dancing then commences to the music of the pipes, and the new-married couple lead off the first reel. It is a customary compliment for the person of highest rank in the room to accompany her in the next. During the dancing the whiskeybottle makes a revolution at intervals; and after the reels and strathspeys have been kept up for some time, the company retires to supper. The fare of the supper differs little from that of the dinner; and the rotation of the whiskey-bottle is as regular as the sun which it follows.

[At highland festivals the bottle is always circulated sun-ways, an observance which had its rise in the Druidical "deas'oil," and once regulated almost every action of the Celts.]

When the supper is announced, each man leads his partner or some female friend to the table, and seating himself at her side, takes upon himself her particular charge during the meal; and upon such occasions, as the means of the bride and bridegroom do not permit them to bear the expenses of the supper, he is expected to pay her share of the reckoning as well as his own. After supper the dancing again commences, and is occasionally inspired by the beforenoticed circumvolutions of the "Uisga na

1st Dr. Stay the gentlemen, they have killed a man.

O sweet Mr. Francis. One run to his father's.

2d Dr. Hark, hark, I hear his father's voice below; 'tis ten to one he is come to fetch him home to supper, and now he may carry him home to his grave.

Enter the Host, old Forest, and Susan his daughter.
Host. You must take comfort, Sir.

For. Is he dead, is he dead, girl?
Sus. Oh dead, Sir, Frank is dead.

For. Alas, alas, my boy! I have not the heart
To look upon his wide and gaping wounds.
Pray tell me, Sir, does this appear to you
Fearful and pitiful-to you that are

A stranger to my dead boy?

Host. How can it otherwise?

For. O me most wretched of all wretched men!
If to a stranger his warm bleeding wounds
Appear so grisly and so lamentable,

How will they seem to me that am his father?
Will they not hale my eye-brows from their rounds,

And with an everlasting blindness strike them?

Sus. Oh, Sir, look here.

For. Dost long to have me blind?

Then I'll behold them, since I know thy mind.
Oh me !

Is this my son that doth so senseless lie,

And swims in blood? my soul shall fly with his
Unto the land of rest. Behold I crave,

Being kill'd with grief, we both may have one grave.

Sus. Alas, my father's dead too! gentle Sir,
Help to retire his spirits, over-travail'd
With age and sorrow.

Host. Mr. Forest