Tell how storms deform the skies, RANT, ANNE MACVICAR, a Scottish poet; born at Glasgow, February 21, 1755; died at Edinburgh, November 7, 1838. She is commonly styled "Mrs. Grant of Laggan," to distinguish her from "Mrs. Grant of Carron," the author of the song Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch. Her father was an officer in a Highland regiment, and early in his daughter's childhood was stationed at Claverack, N. Y., where he was joined by his family. The child learned to speak Dutch, was taught to read by her mother, and to write by a sergeant in her father's company. In 1762 Mrs. Schuyler became interested in her, and took the child into her household, where she remained for several years. Her father resigned his position in the army, and settled in Vermont, but broken health led him to return to Scotland when his daughter was about thirteen years old. In 1779 she married the Rev. James Grant, and removed to the parish of Laggan, in Inverness-shire. In order to be of assistance to her husband, she applied herself to the study of Gaelic, in which she could soon converse fluently. In 1801 she was left a widow with eight children, and with insufficient means for their maintenance. To aid in the support of her children she collected and published a number of poems which she had written without thought of publication. The volume The Highlander and other Poems appeared in 1803, and met with at success that encouraged Mrs. Grant to continue literary work. She also undertook the education of several young girls of good family. In 1806 she published Letters from the Mountains, and the Memoirs of an American Lady, Mrs. Margarita Schuyler, in 1808. Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders appeared in 1810. Eighteen Hundred and Thirteen, a volume of verses, in 1814, and Popular Warnings for the Sons and Daughters of Industry, in 1815. She afterward made numerous translations from the Gaelic, for one of which she received, in 1824, the gold medal of the Highland Society. A sketch of her life, begun by her when she was seventy years old, was completed and published, together with a collection of her letters, by her son, in 1844. In 1827 she was awarded a pension by the British Government. The Memoirs of an American Lady is an entertaining picture of life in the New World. The author's warm admiration of royalty led her in her final chapters to indulge in sad forebodings for the future of the country which freed itself from the rule of kings. ON A SPRIG OF HEATH. Flower of the waste! the heath-fowl shuns To thy protecting shade she runs, Her young forsake her downy plumes Flower of the desert though thou art! The deer that range the mountain free, Their food and shelter seek from thee; Gen of the heath! whose modest bloom Flower of the wild! whose purple glow Nor garden's artful varied pride, Flower of his heart! thy fragrance mild And deck his bonnet with the wreath, Flower of his dear-loved native land! Alas, when distant, far more dear! When he from some cold foreign strand, Looks homeward through the blinding tear, How must his aching heart deplore, That home and thee he sees no more! THE HIGHLAND POOR. Where yonder ridgy mountains bound the scene The narrow opening glens that intervene Still shelter in some lowly nook obscure, One poorer than the rest where all are poor; And lonely muses all the summer day: Her gallant sons, who, smit with honor's charms, No time can e'er her banished joys restore, While the kind glance the melting heart reveals; And still, when the evening streaks the west with gold, The milky tribute from the lowing fold With cheerful haste officious children bring, And every smiling flower that decks the Spring. Ah! little know the fond attentive train, That spring and flowerets smile for her in vain; Let those to wealth and proud distinction born, A boon precarious, from indulgent Heaven: -The Highlander. APPARITIONS. It was in the first place, laid down as a principle, that when evil spirits were permitted to assume any visible form to disturb or dismay any individual, such permission was in consequence of some sin committed, or some duty neglected by the person so visited: sometimes want of submission, but oftenest of all want of faith, as they style it: that is, want of confidence in the divine protection and aid, which the Highlanders account a dreadful sin. Undue confidence - what they call emphatically tempting Providence is another sin punishable with this species of dereliction. They believe, for instance, that a spirit is never seen by more than one person at a time: that these shadowy visitors are permitted to roam in the darkness, to awake terror, or to announce fate to those who do not sufficiently respect the order that obtains in this particular, either to stay in at night, or take some other person along with them for a protection. If they are commanded by any one whom they are bound to obey, to go out at night, they are less liable to these visitations. At all times, if they mark the approach of the apparition, and adjure it in the name of the Trinity to retire, it can do them no hurt. But then, these spectres sometimes approach so suddenly, that they are seized with breathless terror, which prevents articulation. Or the spirit appearing in some familiar form, is mistaken for a living person till it is too late to recede. In the stillness of noon, or in a solitary place, at the instant one is speaking of them, the dead are sometimes seen in the day-time, passing transiently, or standing before one. But this is merely a momentary glimpse that continues only while the eye can be kept fixed on the vision, which disappears the moment the eyelid falls. Superstitions of the Highlanders. |