While 'mid the pines that clothe yon rugged steep,
Where browze secure the stag and timorous roe,
Which nearly circling, round thy margin sweep,

And tint with darkest green the lake below,
Or, 'midst these birches light, I wander slow,
Where droop their branches on thy crystal clear.

Yon island castle, that in ruin hoar

Frowns on the forest, thro' whose ruined glade
Winds yonder secret pathway, which, of yore,
Marauding clans with frequent booty made;
These tow'ring rocks, that cast terrific shade,
To me no images of danger show.

Bard of Braeriach.

In shipping such as this, the Irish Kerne,

And untaught Indian, on the stream did glide,
Ere sharp-keel'd boats to stem the flood did learn,
Or fin-like oars did spread from either side.

DRYDEN.

WHEN the hour fixed for his departure arrived, Amherst privately examined both his own and his servant's arms, and saw that his pistols were in proper order, and double charged. A

small basket of provisions was made up for him by Mrs Macgillivray; and the horses being brought to the door, he bid his host and hostess a farewell suitable to such an absence as they anticipated. Criminal as he believed, nay, knew Lochandhu to be, he could not help feeling a certain degree of kindness towards him, since the Highland laird's conduct in regard to him, had been uniformly that of a warm-hearted and hospitable gentleman. That Lochandhu should have retained so strong a recollection of the obligation he owed his father, the Admiral, was at least a proof that there were some fine threads in his strangely-woven and desperate character. Above all, his steady and uniform resistance of the attempts of his natural brother against him, excited certain warm sensations he could not subdue ; and as he parted from him, he pressed his hand with a cordiality for which he afterwards almost blamed himself.

He rode off; and having soon forded the river, he travelled leisurely along its southern banks, by a route now well enough known to him. He then entered among the vast pine-forests, through a wild pass running between one of those beautiful green-topped isolated hills we formerly noticed,

and the lower elevations of the great mountain group.

Every step he advanced developed scenes such as Salvator might have copied, and which would have bid defiance to his wildest fit of imagination to have improved. Rocks reared themselves up amidst the gloomy features of the fir-forest, in every possible form savage nature could present. Nor were the softer beauties wanting; for the oak, and the birch, and the luxuriant underwood of gigantic juniper, and the large detached fragments of moss-covered stones lying scattered about, and the profusion of wild plants gracefully disposed around them, and the lovely knolls under which the track wound, imparted a thousand indescribable charms, to that which might have perhaps been of too sombre a character without them.

Immediately beyond the pass, the sun glittered on the surface of Loch an Eilan, seen through the huge upright stems of the fir trees, rising with a branchless bulk of timber, that might have supplied many a goodly mast and yard, and supporting the lofty, dense, and deep green canopy overhead. To the right of this lay a lonely lake, of about a mile and a half in circumference, every

where surrounded by the endless forest of pine, rising tree above tree, on the sides of those lesser i eminences forming its more immediate boundary, and covering them entirely, except only where the precipitous nature of the rocks bade defiance to their vegetation in certain spots, and there, breaking forth with their naked, grey, torrent worn fronts, from amidst the wood, they gave, an interesting variety to the scene. Behind! these were hills of greater height, rising tier a above tier, and the whole was closed in by the steep sides of those mountains, in the bosom of which this liquid mirror was enframed. From their immense magnitude and abrupt ascent, the whole visible sky appeared at first sight to be con fined within a space of not much more than half ait mile wide, where

"The champion head

Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides

With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied, and overhead upgrew

Insuperable height of loftiest shade

b of pine and fir.

But the delicate and softening mists of even

ing, hanging between the various heights, relieved them from each other, and assisted in filling the mind with the magnitude and intricacy of the circumjacent solitude, and a knowledge of their real extent was gathered from observing that the giants of the forest were diminished to the eye by perspective, in proportion as they appeared climbing the different distances. Even upon the shaggy sides of the mountains, the pines were seen running up in long and scattered detachments, as if determined to take possession by assault, even of those bare summits towering far over every thing below, and which were still clad in the sober brown of their heathy covering. The skimming form of the eagle, seen dark amid the pure ether, and his shrill shriek, prolonged among the hollows of the mountains, were the only indications of animal life, except the light splash, and widening circle, now and then produced on the surface of the lake by the sportive trouts. These too were the only interruptions to the glassy stillness of the water, that reflected all above it, and even doubled the fair cup of the water-lily resting upon its bosom.

A few low hillocks, thinly covered with wide growing trees, divided this upper lake from that