was their mutual property. "Dido" appears to have the same meaning as "David" and signifies "beloved;" "Sophonisba" and "Esther" imply "secrecy;" "Hasdrubal" is closely connected with "Ezekiel," "Hanno" and "Hannah" are identical. The literal rendering of "Hannibal," is "grace of the Lord;" and a more familiar illustration could scarcely be advanced, than the modern translation and reception of its Greek synonyme "Joannes" into all the languages of Europe. "Ian," "Jean," "Hans," "Giovanni," "Juan," "Ivan," may serve at present to ring the changes upon that beloved and generic alias of the Englishman,-"John." Surnames, in the sense of a family badge, do not seem to be of very ancient date; doubtless among ourselves they were quite arbitrary, until a comparatively recent period. The most natural proceeding was probably the assignment to the person of his place of abode; or the still more primitive custom which may yet be found lingering here and there among the Welsh peasantry, and obtains even more generally in Russia, of adding to the Christian name of the son, that which was borne by his father before him.

Our ingenious ancestors, the ancient Britons, who formed among themselves at an early stage of their history, a sort of peripatetic school of design, carrying about upon their persons original sketches in lieu of more substantial clothing, derived their vocabulary of proper names, chiefly from the colouring materials employed in these curious and economical devices. This scanty nomenclature was speedily enlarged and reconstructed, on the admixture of foreign elements; but we are not left without a standing memorial of this good old custom of our fathers, by those staunch conservatives who still rejoice in the appellations of Black, White, Brown, Green, and Gray. In the present enlightened age, we generally decide this momentous question in one of two diametrically opposite ways; and as the business of patronymic is settled pretty decisively beforehand, we either entail our Johns and Toms from generation to generation, to the sore confusion of contemporaries in the third and fourth degree,—or we break out into the "sturdy" chartisms of Zycinthias and "Loniceras," without the most remote reference to the unities of the life-drama, or to the trifling little accidents of mind, body, and estate. Our French neighbours, a people much more poetical, (and, to use their own expressive term, spirituel,) than ourselves, had, and probably they still retain a fashion exceedingly touching and suggestive with regard to Christian names. Their manner is, at the baptism of a son, to give the child two names, the second being that of his mother; so that without bringing it by general use into a familiarity that might defeat its purpose and weaken its effect, he carries with him, from his cradle to his coffin, a gentle and sacred memory which may prove in hours of danger and temptation, a talisman to act upon those subtle chords of the inner being, which often resist a conscious and cognisable agency. And yet the custom could not well be naturalized on this side of the Channel. Translated into English, it would lose its pith and freshness, its delicacy, and its bloom. We have all our

own bye-laws; and where the obligation of the great common charter ceases, universal liberty and compensation begin. If we are not so sensitive to poetical associations as our more impulsive friends, without disparagement to them we may travel to the conclusion that we need such impulses less. The English mind is more open to principle, and more accessible to reason, and naturally prefers precept to insinuation, and the didactic to the metaphorical. At the same time, reflections of a more spiritual cast are not wanting to any of us, if inclination prompts us to pursue the theme.

There is one reflection attaching to the names we bear, which, inasmuch as it stands entirely alone in the wide field of thought, and pertains to no other fragment of mortality that we try to call our own, is worthy of a passing notice. It was not without reason that the thought of death flashed to the mind of Solomon, as he wrote of the preciousness of a "good name." It is in fact, the solitary relic that that we are doomed inevitably to retain,-the one earthly symbol of which not even the king of terrors can defraud us. This token clings to us like our shadow, we take it with us when we pass away; the name that was breathed above the babe in the cradle, is written over the out-worn sleeper in the coffin, and goes down into the hush and shelter of the grave. Hands will trace that name once more for us, when our own lie stiff and pale beneath the shroud; eyes will look strangely on the old familiar lines that our quenched orbs can never see; and lips will breathe for the last time in our presence, the well-known summons which speaks no longer to the deaf, cold heart, and does not bring a flutter or a change over the fixed and awful smile of death.

We have all heard of him who sat and watched beside the running stream, "till the river should pass away." But listen,—for the river of life is flowing faster, and we perhaps, in our inconsequence, are inverting the simplicity at which we smile, and forgetting that the hasty current is wearing itself to the sea. Listen, for our names were not intended to be "writ in water;" and before the channel dries, and the low, rippling murmur, fainter and fainter fades away, -think where it were best to pledge that treasure, and to inscribe that memorial,--that "name, which is all a ghost can have."

DULSE AND TANGLE FROM ARRAN ISLAND.

It is now acknowledged by the tacit consent of universal custom, that the season for beholding Highland scenery in perfection, is that fascinating moment when the full flush of summer has departed, and all nature is mellowed into the soft, repentant beauty, which is such a tender premonitor of autumnal decay. Every thing is so very beautiful, that it is more easy to recognize than to explain the instinctive melancholy which already begins to pervade the conscious landscape. The days are still warm and brilliant, although the evening shadows

appear a little sooner, and lengthen a little faster; a stray leaf here and there may have fallen,-perhaps indeed in windless, sheltered ⚫ footpaths, they already rustle under the tread of the passer by; but few trees except the hasty horse-chesnut have done more than deepen their summer green, and the brightening umber of its broad leaves extends a pleasing variety to the intense verdure, which has as yet been mitigated only by the occasional relief afforded by the satin-like foliage of the copper beech. The oaks, so grave in their dark beauty, have put forth those pale shoots which come when the acorns begin to fall; and the scarlet clusters of the mountain ash are just ripening among its slender leaves of silvery green. The sky is seldom cloudless it is true; but clouds are the very familiars of the hills, and their swift, grotesque shadows, brooding over the dark inland lakes, sweeping across the mountains, sighing hastily down some rocky pass or open gully, or dreaming upon a lonely silent tarn,-produce an endlessly beautiful creation of chiaroscuro, for the want of which, any mere solar system might vainly attempt to compensate. Yet often at the extremities of the day, even these restless shapes disappear entirely. Just before sunrise, distant peaks, generally invisible, will emerge into strange light, and stand as if cut out against the morning sky, dyed in a rich dawn, blended of azure, crimson, and purple; but this is not always, or often, a favourable omen, and like an early rainbow, commonly bodes tears. In the evening, however, a clear horizon betokens no evil; and when the nearer western ranges, that look grey and shadowy in the full sun, warm into a soft amethyst, gently darkening against the quiet glory that for a few bright moments kindles every thing into burnished gold,-while the eastern heaven is flecked with cloudlets of the softest rose colour, (which I once heard a very little child in his graceful speech call "angels' wool,")—and overhead, the wide blue vault is still too full of light for the stars, though a patient eye may distinguish one here and there for a moment -there are no words to describe the dreamy loveliness, no colours to paint the perfect peace. Such visions, however, once seen, live on in the mind for ever; and memory revelling in her own fairy land, forgets the deficiencies of spoken language, and learns to forgive the poverty of art. Pleasure which has been intensely desired, is generally said to disappoint; but the contemplation of beautiful scenery is an enjoyment not often enhanced either by anticipation or retrospection. The actual sensation of pure happiness cannot be tasted beforehand, and never lives again in memory. Few of our mortal joys will fall into this category; for the subtle essence of happiness is more generally found to elude absolute possession, and to resolve itself into the two extremes of hope and recollection.

Among the many lovely spots that lie within the ken of those who seek health or pleasure in the western Highlands, not the least attractive or attracting is that larger Arran, which forms the most considerable part of one of Scotland's island counties. In spite of its southern position, and commercial vicinity, it retains all the primitive simplicity and rusticity of a mountain district, partly no doubt from its isolated situa

tion, and partly from the slight encouragement afforded by the existing dynasty to permanent settlers. Lying in the open channel of the Clyde, where the breath of the Atlantic sweeps round the Mull of Cantyre, at whose feet break the waves of the Irish Sea, it can boast an atmosphere that is both pure and bracing, without having lost the milder influences which characterize those more sheltered islets and headlands clustered in the upper portion of the firth. In consequence of this happy conjunction of circumstances, all its slender capacities of accommodation are called into requisition, and during the weeks of summer and early autumn, its eastern coast presents a lively scene, thronged with the comers and goers who ebb and flow with the tide, while every available nook and cranny is turned to account for the behoof of visitors of a more permanent character. Day after day the busy steamers bear down the smoky Clyde new hordes of busy life, that, for the most part, returns contentedly to its looms and chimnies after having quaffed for an hour the fresh breezes of Goatfell. A squall may be encountered in the transit, even before the equinox; therefore adventurers whose nautical experience is yet to come, will do well to be wary.

On a calm bright day, when the autumn winds are blowing over the heathy hills, though the summer sun is still shining warm into the sea, it is worth while to coast along the broken shore, over the smooth transparent waters, golden or green by fits or starts, that fall on the beach without a ripple. Deep in the heaving crystal, which looks as if its yellow sands were not a fathom down, open the salt petals of the sea-flowers, and the quaint sea-urchins hide in the tangle, safe enough till the storm-billows cast them shorewards by and bye. The soft ocean-grass, green as an emerald, and far out of reach of the scythe of the mower, twists its flexible threads into thick, verdant masses, or spreads them under the glassy waves. Nearer the surface, in hundreds, float the sca-nettles or Medusæ, in all their wonderful variety and eccentric beauty. Some spread themselves in their integrity upon the water, like a thin pearl-coloured membrane, moving their delicate circular fringes in every direction. Others, folding their edges inwards, present the appearance of animated saucers, never suspending for a moment the restless working of their plastic forms, and exhibiting in the fickle motions of their curious and symmetrical central rings, a resemblance to the endless fascinations of the kaleidoscope. It is difficult to judge what they are, so shadowy and aerial is their fabric, and it is not till a luckless victim has been forcibly ejected from its element, and lies on the beach, a helpless decoction of mucilage, sad in the waning glories of faint lilac or departing amber, that it vindicates its title to the less honourable epithet of a jelly-fish.

Brushing down quite to the waters' edge in many places, are clumps of forest, chiefly dark pines and heavy firs, whose solemn hues and stately outlines cast a tinge of gloom over the brightest adjuncts, -an effect which seems to have been desiderated by the Dutch in their sad horticulture, that indefensible experimentalism at once so unnatural and so irresistible,-so easy to condemn in theory, and so

impossible to withstand in fact. Here and there, a solitary white cottage clings like a waif and stray to the hill-side; now half a dozen in a cluster assume the concrete dignity of a village, and exult in the glory of a noun proper; and over Brodick Bay looks down the castle of the princely Hamiltons, from its "nest among the cedars." The next curve in the shore reveals Lamlash, a long straggling hamlet, and the town par excellence, great in municipal dignities towards the centre, the most remarkable of which is assuredly the church, an edifice of whose purport the unenlightened spectator must charitably be made aware, before he can distinguish it from the whited sepulchre blindfold, which it painfully resembles. At either end, the low, thatched houses dwindle up the bloomy hills, the pale smoke dreaming softly against the rich purple heather. Here ends all authorized communication with the mainland; and here through the long bleak winter, the mail-boat steams heavily over the grey, wild sea, with its weekly cargo of things new and old. Just opposite is Holy Island; it lies two miles out yonder, yet looks so bright and near, with its sunny, treeless slopes, and the glancing windows of its single farm-house, that a schoolboy would tell you he could throw a stone across, and misdoubted, would feel his prowess aggrieved. Turning into the village purlieus, the houses are, for the most part, primitive enough. Portable staircases are the prevailing fashion in mansions that can boast a second floor; and the ladders which do duty for these instruments of domestic ambition, seem to be constructed on the draw-bridge principle, and could probably be employed as a forlorn hope by a beleaguered family in the attic. Hauled up high and dry upon the beach, quite out of reach of the tide, a superannuated cutter presents a yet more original idea of colonization. Three entire households have their establishments allocated here, let us hope under happier auspices than that triple community of sorrowful memory, renowned in the annals of fable.

Very tempting look those quiet inland roads, winding up to the feet of the low hills. A little rivulet, noisy enough, perhaps, when the winter snows have swollen its current, purls quietly past a silent mill, and then the brown, rugged, highland road twines round the fragrant mountain, one deep blush of crimson with the honey-sweet heather. Tufts of blue-bells, those wild, delicate beauties, hang their shy yet fearless blossoms over the face of the cliff, and the bold brambles fling their fruitful suckers hither and thither, forming a quickset hedge at intervals along the roadway. A little further on, all sights and sounds but the still life of the bird and the bee, and the musical solitude of the woods and braes, fade away into delicious silence. A squirrel may peer down through the branches, or a quick pheasant hurry through the brushwood, or a confiding mavis venture its speckled breast and bright eyes within a stone-throw; the sighing leaves float peacefully downwards when the boughs are rustled by the soft wind, and lose themselves in the thick decay of departed autumns. O those autumn leaves, with their ever-recurring cadence, breathing that old, sad song, which we are fain to listen to, yet never fully understand!

The path emerges from the wood, and declines into a sunny hollow,

VOL. XXV.

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