Blair Collection > Galic antiquities

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thinks, is (truck. At once he ftarts awake. His hair had been
caught in the opening end of the beam on which he flept : he
leaves it there, with all its £kin. He fees Tura low : he knows
not that his blood, a red ftream, defcends. His pain, amidfl his
grief, is forgot. " Virgins of my love, I will not furvive you,"
he faid as, expiring, he fell on the heath *.
Nor didft thou die alone, O Gai'a : the days of many other
heroes, in their darkly-iilent heath, were few and mournful. They
pined away like green leaves over which the mildew hath paffed r
they link in filence amidfl the mofly heath of the hill. Like
ghofls that have not received their fame, they fhunned the voice of
joy t- They retired to their caves whenrofe the found of gladnefs.
Mal-
* The ar-^^u/^ give adifFerent account incommodious; but they were ufeful in
of the death of Gara, and relate feveral their own day, and mofl of them well ad-
flrange (lories concerning him, fuch as apted to the neceffity of the times,
his having been beheaded on the thigh The firft Chriftian mi(rionaries,in thefe
of Fingal, &c. but thefe tales are mani- countries^ werefofenfibleoftheadvantage
feftly late and fpurious, and therefore re- to be derived from fome of thefe fuper-
jeded. ftitions, among men who were not yet ripe
for bearing the clear light of truth, that
•(- The melancholy ftate allotted, after '^^y '^''^ "°' ^° '""«=*' attempt to flop their
death, for fuch as had not '« received Source, as toturn them intoanewchannel.
their fame," muft have ftrongly excited ^""^ \.^zm, for inftance, whoever was
thofe who believed it, to diftinguifli them-
felves by fuch brave and virtuous aCT;ions
as might merit the praife of the bard.
We juftly laugh at many of the fuper-
ftitions of our forefathers : but as, in
not initiated into the Chriflian religion
by baptifm, was forced to wander after
death, a mournful folitary (hade, in the
fame ftate as formerly thofe who had irot
" received th^ir fame." It was a notion
the progrefs of all ftates, fuch a period '" the Highlands till of very late, that the
muft be, we have alfo reafon to admire fa'"t voices of children who had died un-
the wifdom with which the Druids ma- baptized were heard in the woods and
naged this engine, fo as to make it ge- other lonely places, bemoaning theirhard
nerally fubfervient to the interefls of fate.— All countries, as well as this had
fociety.— The fuperftruaures of fuper- once their fuperftitious sras.; only they
aition, like very old towers, appear now are the happieft, which have '^ot the
odd and fantaftic, as welJ as extremely fooneft through them.