deen post," which, he complains, "is so very uncertain that there cannot be an exact correspondence keept with any man in your countrey, except with the merchants that live in Aberdeen."

An allusion, in the beginning of the communication, to Lord Lovat's real or affected reverence for the superstitions of his country, may be illustrated by a passage in the Letters of the lively author already quoted. "If I was," his lordship writes, "as much an observer of freits as I used to be, I would not have taken journey." Captain Burt tells us that his lordship was "frequently heard to affirm, that at the instant he was born, a number of swords that hung up in the hall of the mansion-house, leaped of themselves out of the scabbards, in token, I suppose, that he was to be a mighty man in arms, and this vain romance seems to be believed by the lower orders of his followers; and I believe there are many that laugh at it in secret, who dare not publicly declare their disbelief."() We may, perhaps, not uncharitably presume that a man of Lord Lovat's cast of mind, would dwell so much on this freit or omen, less from his own belief in it, than from the influence which it gave him over his followers. Neither the Clan nor their Chief were sufficiently read in the science of forebodings, to know that, as Sir Walter Scott has remarked, the presage was one of misfortune :

"Thy father's battle-brand, of yore

For Tine-man forged by fairy lore,
Did, self-unscabbarded, foreshow
The footstep of a secret foe."(2)

In No. III., his lordship resumes the history of his political negotiations at Edinburgh. The murmurs with which he prefaces

(1) Burt's Letters, vol. ii., p. 195.

(2) Lady of the Lake, cant. ii., st. xv.

it, as to the insecurity of the post-office, seem to have been but too well grounded. In 1738, the Earl of Ilay, one of the statesmen with whom Lord Lovat was coquetting, complains, in a letter to Sir Robert Walpole, that he is "forced to send this letter, by a servant, twenty miles out of town, where the Duke of Argyll's attorney cannot handle it; and to enclose it to William Steuart.” And in 1748, the commander of the troops in Scotland writes to the Secretary of State, "My letters are opened at the Edinburgh post-office; and I think this is done by order of a noble Duke, in order to know my secret sentiments of the people and of his Grace: If this practice is not stopped, the Ministers cannot hope for any real information." But Lord Lovat should have been among the last to complain of tampering with the mails, if, as would appear, he was the person alluded to by Burt in the following passage: "And lastly, I shall be very sparing of the names of particular persons, not only as they are unknown to you, but, to tell you the truth, in prudence to myself; for as our letters are carried to Edinburgh the hill-way, by a foot post, there is one who makes no scruple to intrude by means of his emissaries, into the affairs and sentiments of others, especially if he fancies there is anything relating to himself; so jealous and inquisitive is guilt.”

The account given in this letter(2) of the scuffle between a Highland Chief and his vassal is no doubt coloured, in order to "feed fat the ancient grudge" which Lord Lovat bore to his nearest and most powerful rival in the Highland country. Still no one will be inclined to discredit the story in the main, who remembers that not many years before, two of the gravest lawyers in Scotland, were hurried by the praefervidum ingenium Scotorum into a broil (2) Page 14.

(1) Burt's Letters from Scotland, vol. i., p. 9.

not a whit less unseemly. In 1715, the Earl of Ilay writes from Edinburgh to the Secretary of State: "There has happened an accident, which will suspend the Justice Clerk's fury against me for, he and the King's Advocate have had a corporal dispute; I mean literally; for, I parted them." And within four years after the date of this letter, Lord Lovat himself is found in a brawl, in which he suffered the indignity of a blow on the face. The anecdote may be given in the words of the genealogist of the Frasers:

"At a meeting of the freeholders and collectors of the land-tax, at the Court-house of Inverness, in 1744, for the choice of a collector, the Lord President, Lord Lovat, Lord Fortrose, and the Laird of M'Leod were present. A dispute having arisen between Lords Lovat and Fortrose, the first gave the latter the lie, who retorted by a blow on the face. They were separated with some difficulty; but Fraser of Foyers, who was in the gallery, seeing his chief insulted, jumped into the assemblage, cocked his pistol, and presented it to Lord Fortrose. He would have been killed, had not a gentleman, with great presence of mind, thrown his plaid over the pistol.(2) Several dirks and swords were then drawn on either side, and the Court thrown into great confusion. The Lord President and M'Leod seized hold of Lord Fortrose, and dissolving

(1) This letter," says Mr. George Chalmers," is in the Paper-Office. Adam Cockburn of Ormiston was Lord Justice-Clerk from 1707 to 1735. Sir David Dalrymple was Lord Advocate, from 1707 to 1720." Caledonia, vol. i. p. 870. Lond. 1807.

(2) Captain Burt furnishes a similar instance of the attachment which Lovat's clansmen entertained for him: “An English officer being in company with a certain chieftain and several other Highland gentlemen, near Killichumen, had an argument with the great man; and both being well warmed with usky, at last the dispute grew very hot. A youth, who was hanchman, not understanding one word of English, imagined his chief was insulted, and thereupon drew his pistol from his side, and snapped it at the officer's head; but the pistol missed fire, otherwise it is more than probable he might have suffered death from the hand of that little vermin." Letters, vol. ii., pp. 142, 143.

C

the assembly, forced him to go along with them. No sooner did they gain the street, than another of Lord Lovat's followers sprung upon Lord Fortrose, and struck him to the ground with a bludgeon, whilst arm in arm with his friends. As the matter betokened a more serious affray between the clans Fraser and Mackenzie, the President had need of all his influence to allay their differences.")

It must be acknowledged, however, that Lord Lovat's letter, if all its details are to be accepted, casts a new light on the code of Highland manners. A clansman, it would seem from this instance, may with honour submit to one blow from his Chief, although he must resent a second stroke! Either the spirit of clanship had much abated within forty years, or Chiefs on the shores of Loch Fine bore their faculties much more meekly than in the broad bosom of Strathspey. Boswell relates that in 1773, when Dr. Johnson and he visited the Duke of Argyle at Inverary, "A gentleman in company, after dinner, was desired by the duke to go to another room for a specimen of curious marble, which his grace wished to show us. He brought a wrong piece, upon which the duke sent him back again. He could not refuse; but, to avoid any appearance of servility, he whistled as he walked out of the room, to show his independency! On my mentioning this afterwards to Dr. Johnson, he said it was a nice trait of character."(2)

The high tone of honour and spotless integrity which Lord Lovat always assumed, and maintained even on the scaffold, and the claim which he occasionally (3) advanced to strict religious

(1) Anderson's Historical Account of the Family of Frisel or Fraser, pp. 158, 159. Edinb. 1825.

(2) Boswell's Life of Johnson. Mr. Croker's edit., vol. iii., pp. 53, 54. Lond. 1831. (3) His lordship, it is well known, professed to die in the faith of the church of Rome; and we are told that he was accustomed "to curse" both the Reformation and the Revolution,

principle, are none of the least memorable points in his character, when it is considered how thoroughly all his actions belied both the one and the other pretence. It is rarely, however, and only in such confidential communications as these letters to his cousin, that he ventures to cast off the mask of fair words,

"And shews the Fiend confess'd, without a veil."

"I entreat," he writes with all composure, "that you speak seriously to my Lord, that he may engage Glenbucket to write strongly to Glengerry to perswade him to take the oaths. I know he has no regard for them, so he should not stand to take a cart load of them, as I woud to serve my friends!"

No. IV. is of much the same tenor as the one which precedes it. The pleasure which his Lordship expresses in the acquaintance of his new political friends, seems only to inflame his wrath against the faithless clansman whose desertion renders him unable to serve his recent allies so effectually as he might otherwise have done.

The postscript to No. V. reveals incidentally the opinion which these new associates entertained of their Highland friend: “Duke Hamiltoun, and several other Lords, asked me, in a joking way, whether that fellow that has deserted his Chief and his Clan is

the former "because," he said, "it brought a false religion on us "; the latter, "because it involved us in a load of debt." State Trials, vol. xviii., pp. 593, 844, 854. Lond. 1816. Yet, on the most serious of all subjects, he could write to a familiar friend in such terms of levity as the following: "Those are so many sounds of trompette that call me to another world, for which you and I are hardly well prepared; but I have a sort of advantage of you; for if I can but dy with a little of my old French belief, I'll get the Legions of Saints to pray for me; while you will only get a number of drunken fellows, and the innkeepers, and tapister lasses of Inverness, and Mr. M'Bean, that holy man, etc." Culloden Papers, p. 122. Burt lets fall a hint of his lordship's scepticism. Letters, vol, i., pp. 269, 270.