patible with the influence of worldly cus

Much of this,

peculiar sa

toms in the present times. however, was owing to the credness of the bond of marriage, in those countries, where the violation of it was regarded with a kind of holy horror: And much to those affinities being for the most part contracted where they strengthened ties previously existing ;where they, in a manner, added links to the chain of memory, as well as to an unbroken succession of family alliances; the subject of those connections delighting to recal the past, and to dwell fondly on the recollected prowess, worth, or dignity of their mutual ances

tors.

This accounts, in some measure, for the respect in which the name of spouse is hold among these tribes. A good man will necessarily prove a good husband any where. Even a man, not distinguished for any other species of merit,

sometimes makes a tolerable husband to a woman whose beauty has attracted him, and whose qualities of mind or manners are particularly engaging.

In the highlands these prerequisites are not essential. A man who possesses scarce any other virtue, will not fail in this. Characters, otherwise remarkable for levity, turbulence, or immorality, are still kind and generous to the creatures indissolubly united to them; and whom they feel, as well as know themselves bound to protect.

Those who imagine these mountaineers personages like Arcadian swains, invariably united to the objects of their first fond affections, will not wonder at this. They will, on the contrary, consider such a state of society as the result of the choice in marriage being generally made from the purest motives.

This, however, is not much oftener the case here than in more polished

countries. Young people are bred, not only with a profound reverence for their parents, but with a kind of implicit confidence in the elders of their tribe. Rash and imprudent attachments produce much amatory poetry, and many exquisite lovelorn plaints; for the Celtic muses, above all others, have" skill to complain."

They are said also to occasion sorrow, sickness, and, in some instances, death; They occasion, however, very few ill assorted marriages. A contract of this indissoluble nature is rarely entered into without a solemn consultation of the kindred on both sides; where all advantages are nicely balanced, and where, as in the world, fancy is sometimes sacrificed to convenience.

The highlands, though fertile in hardy and determined spirits, scarce ever produced a Remeo, who had hardiness enough to incense his kindred, by chusing his Juliet from an adverse tribe. Connec

tion with high lineage and powerful a liances, was a great object among the upper classes. They laid very great

stress too upon the character of the parents. What they called a good breed, where the frame of the parents was comely and healthy, and their charac ter stainless. A highlander shuddered at any alliance with crime, and could not easily divest himself of a faith in hereditary propensities.

Last, after these, came the consideration of wealth. Money, literally such, was out of the question, but from the extreme poverty to which the younger branches. of good families were liable, shut out as they were from all ordinary resources, small matters to them acquired great importance.

To divest themselves entirely of the consequence attached to what they con sidered as high birth was impossible; to subsist, on what they considered as de

cent mediocrity, without some little advantage by marriage, and the very extreme of exertion and self-denial after it, was equally impossible.

A wife who brought forty cows was a desireable match to one who could not possibly begin the world without such assistance. A thousand marks was a lure irresistible, so late as within fifty years past. Yet custom, necessity, and the habit of laying great weight on alliance, and on a stainless ancestry, in many instances produced matches, in which, at first, affection had little share.

Once married, though the wife should neither excel in beauty or understanding, she borrowed a kind of sacredness from the tie which united her to her husband, and became blended with his very existence. Though perhaps not fitted to awake the raptures or agonies of poetic passion, he was predisposed to regard her as