ballads-the youth having been caught in a foray upon Sir Gideon's lands, and obliged to marry the mucklemouthed lady in order to save his neck. All who remember Alexander, seventh Lord Elibank, will be ready to acknowledge that the feature of the family had, down to that time at least, lost nothing by transmission.

People of sense, affected by such peculiarities, generally make light of them. Such were the Crawfords of Cowdenhills in Dumbartonshire, to whom was attached a large mouth, of not less pertinacity than that of the Murrays. There is still in existence a silver spoon, of uncommonly large proportions, which a representative of the family, who lived two hundred years ago, caused to be made for himself and his heirs; and which, besides the date (1641), bears the following inscription:

This spoone, ye see,

I leave in legacie,

To the maist-mouth'd Crawford after me.

Whoever sells or pawns it, cursed let him be.

There was a similar spoon, with a similar rhyme, in the family of Craufurd of Craufurdland in Ayrshire. It is hardly necessary to remark, that the existence of such spoons and such inscriptions forms a somewhat better proof than is usually to be obtained of the alleged transmission of family features through a succession of generations.

THE MACLEANS.

It was alleged of the Macleans, by those who were not friendly to them, that they were addicted to a sort of ostentatious egotism, to which an untranslatable Gaelic epithet was affixed, not unaptly expressed by the word Gasconade. When they began to decline before their more politic neighbours and rivals, the Campbells, they designated themselves

An cinneadh mor 's am por tubaisteach.

Which, literally translated, means,

The great clan and luckless race;

but this was observed by their enemies to be only an instance of their incurable self-esteem-'the ruling passion strong in death.'

MAXTON OF CULTOQUEY'S LITANY.

The small estate of Cultoquey, in Perthshire, is considered a sort of miracle in the Highlands, having been preserved entire by one family for five hundred years, though surrounded on all hands by those of about half-a-dozen large proprietors. A Lowlander, or a modern, can scarcely conceive the difficulty which this honourable old family must have experienced in keeping its ground in the midst of such powerful and avaricious neighbours, and through successive ages of barbarism and civil discord. That aggressions were not unattempted, or at least that the neighbours were not the most agreeable imaginable, is proved by an addition to the litany which Mr Maxton of Cultoquey made (upwards of a century ago), and which is here preserved, as illustrating in some measure the characteristics of certain Scottish families:

From the greed of the Campbells,
From the ire of the Drummonds,
From the pride of the Grahams,
From the wind of the Murrays,
Good Lord deliver us!

The author of this strange prayer was in the habit of repeating it, with the rest of the litany, every morning, on performing his toilet at a well near his house; and it was perhaps the most heartfelt petition he preferred. The objects of the satire were-Campbell of Monzie, who lived a mile and a-half from Cultoquey; Campbell of Aberuchill, a judge of Session, and one of the greatest land-buyers of his time (eight miles); Drummond of Perth (four miles); Graham, Duke of Montrose, at Kincardine Castle (eight miles); Murray, Duke of Atholl, at Tullibardine Castle (six miles); and Moray of Abercairney, at Abercairney House (two miles). All these gentlemen took the joke in good part, except the Murrays, whose characteristic is the most opprobrious-wind, in Scottish phraseology, signifying a propensity to vain and foolish bravado. It is said that the Duke of Atholl, hearing of Cultoquey's Litany, invited the old humorist to dinner, and desired to hear from his own mouth the lines which had made so much noise over the country. Cultoquey repeated them, without the least

boggling; when his Grace said, half in good, half in bad humour, 'Take care, Cultie, for the future to omit my name in your morning devotions, else I shall certainly crop your ears for your boldness.' 'That's wind, my lord duke!' quoth Cultoquey with the greatest coolness, taking off his glass. On another occasion, a gentleman of his Grace's name having called upon Mr Maxton, and used some angry expostulations on the manner in which his clan was characterised, Cultoquey made no answer, other than bidding his servant open the door, and let out the wind of the Murrays !*

* Imitations of the litany were common in former times. Mr Thomas Forrester, an eccentric clergyman of Melrose, about two hundred years ago, made himself conspicuous, and was expelled from his parish, on account of his satirical additions to the service-book. He and his verses are thus noticed in A Description of the Parish of Melrose, in Answer to Mr Maitland's Queries (1752): He was deposed by the Assembly, at Glasgow, anno 1638; and, as Honorius Regius acquaints us, "Classe Mulrossiana accusante, probatum fuit," that he had publicly declared that any servile work might be done on the Lord's day, and, as an example to the people, he had brought home his corn out of the fields to his barn-yard on that day; as also that he had said that the public and ordinary preaching of the Word was no necessary part of divine worship; that the reading of the liturgy was to be preferred to it; that pastors and private Christians should use no other prayers but what were prescribed in the liturgy. They charged him likewise with Arminianism and Popery, and that he said publicly that the Reformers had done more harm to the Christian churches than the Popes at Rome had done for ten ages. I am surprised that no notice is taken of his litany, which made a great noise in those times. Bishop Guthrie, in his Memoirs, only mentions it:

From Dickson, Henderson, and Cant,

Th' apostles of the Covenant,

Good Lord deliver us!

I have been at great pains to find out this litany in the libraries of the curious, but in vain. There was an old gentlewoman here who remembered some parts of it, such as

From the Jesuit knave in grain,

And from the she-priest cracked in brain,

From her and a' such bad lasses,

And a' bauld ignorant asses,

Such as John Ross, that donnart goose,

And Dan Duncanson, that duncy ghost,

Good Lord deliver us!

For the understanding of this part of the litany, we are to observe that there was one Abernethy, who, from a Jesuit priest, turned a zealous Presbyterian, and was settled minister at Hownam, in Teviotdale; he said the liturgy of Scotland was sent to Rome to some cardinals to be revised by them, and that Signior Con had showed it to himself there he is the "Jesuit." And as to the she-priest, this was one Mrs Mitchelson, who was looked upon as a person inspired of God, and her words were recited as oracles, not a few

RHYMES CONNECTED WITH SUPERSTITIONS.

THE fairies, or, as they were popularly called, the guid neibors, were famous for their elopements with the wives of mortals. The miller of Alva is not the only injured husband whose case here calls for record. A neighbour of that person-the smith of Tullibody-was equally unfortunate; and had not, for anything I ever heard, the ultimate happiness of getting back his lost spouse. The case of the smith was attended, as the newspapers would say, with circumstances of peculiar aggravation. His spouse was taken away almost before his very eyes; and not only was his honour thus wounded in the tenderest point, but his feelings were also stung by a rhyme of exultation sung by the fairies, in which they reflected, in a most scandalous and ungenerous manner, upon his personal habits. The tale goes, that while he was busy at work at one end of the house, he heard the abductors, as they flew up the chimney at the other, singing with malicious glee

'Deedle linkum dodie,

We've gotten drucken Davie's wife,
The smith of Tullibody!'

The fairies do not appear to have ever been successful in introducing the human race, by the above means, into their own country; at least it is well known that they were in the habit of frequently stealing away children from the cradles of mortal mothers, for the purpose of adopting them as their own offspring, nurturing them in Fairyland, and making them part of their own community. The heavy coil of humanity does not appear to have been thus ingrafted upon the light-bodied race, who could exhibit feats of ropetaking them from her mouth in characters. Most of her speeches were about the Covenant.*

* Burnet's Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, p. 83.

dancing upon the beams of the new moon, and feast, unseen, in thousands, under the blossom of the wild violet.* These adopted children, perhaps, remained amongst them only in the quality of friends, platonic lovers, or servants; and were permitted, after a few years of probation, to return to earth, in a fitter condition than formerly to enjoy its blessings. It ought not to be forgotten that, in cases of stealing children, one of their own unearthly brats was usually left in the cradle.

It was, till lately, believed by the ploughmen of Clydesdale, that if they repeated the rhyme,

Fairy, fairy, bake me a bannock, and roast me a collop,
And I'll gie ye a spurtle aff my gad end!

three several times, on turning their cattle at the terminations of ridges, they would find the said fare prepared for them on reaching the end of the fourth furrow.

The fairies are said to have been exceedingly sensitive upon the subject of their popular appellations. They considered the term 'fairy' disreputable; and are thought to have pointed out their approbation and disapprobation of the other phrases applied to them in the following verses :Gin ye ca' me imp or elf,

I rede ye look weel to yourself;
Gin ye ca' me fairy,

I'll work ye muckle tarrie ;+
Gin guid neibor ye ca' me,

Then guid neibor I will be;

* 'It is still currently believed that he who has the courage to rush upon a fairy festival, and snatch from them their drinking-cup, or horn, shall find it prove to him a cornucopia of good fortune, if he can bear it in safety across a running stream. A goblet is still carefully preserved in Edenhall, Cumberland, which is supposed to have been seized at a banquet of the elves by one of the ancient family of Musgrave, or, as others say, by one of their domestics, in the manner above-described. The fairy train vanished, crying aloud

"If this glass do break or fall,
Farewell the luck of Edenhall!"

'The goblet took a name from the prophecy, under which it is mentioned in the burlesque ballad commonly attributed to the Duke of Wharton, but in reality composed by Lloyd, one of his jovial companions. The duke, after taking a draught, had nearly terminated the "luck of Edenhall,” had not the butler caught the cup in a napkin as it dropped from his Grace's hands. I understand it is not now subject to such risks; but the lees of wine are still apparent at the bottom.'-Minst. Scot. Bord. ii. 130.

† Trouble.