dressed cap-a-pee, on the day of the drawing-room at Holyrood.

Mr Townsend, the well known Bowstreet officer, accosted a gentleman of the Celtic Society, who was showing off in front of the Palace, in the following words: -"Sir, do you call yourself a Highlander ?" Answer-"Yes, certainly! you don't mean to affront me, sir?" Mr Townsend, "If I mistake not, sir, I have seen you some twenty years ago, a singing-boy in the choir of in England." This remark put the Celtic gentleman quite out, and raised a general laugh against him. It turned out to be Mr Magrath, the singing-master from Ireland, who, as a true Hibernian, is certainly no Highlander !

Amidst the monopoly of every thing they could pick up from any quarter, to add to the effect of their appearance as Highlanders, they took into their pay two good-looking men of considerable execution upon the Highland bagpipe, one a Mackenzie, piper to young Davidson of Tulloch; and the other a Mackay, piper to Mr Macdonald of Castle Tyrum, in Moidart, proprietor of Arisaig, &c. in Inverness-shire; both of whom they retained as pipers (apparently) of their Society, during his Majesty's visit to Scotland. And Mr Mackenzie (late secretary to the society,) whose influence with his namesake was considerable, did not blush tocause the said John Bain Mackenzie stand to Mr Dighton, a London artist, till sketched by that gentleman "as piper to the Celtic Society;" and Mackenzie, who is a retired subaltern officer, and professionally a miniature-painter, instead of continuing deer's grass, long used by him as the badge of his clan, has recently, on the authority, as he told me, of some Macras in Kintail, who, he says, had seen the late Seaforth use holly, the badge of the Rosses, time immemorial; on the attainder of which ancient and great clan, the Mackenzies had succeeded to their lands and extensive family inheritance in Ross-shire; this I remarked to that gentleman, (the first morning I saw it in his bonnet,) and after having challenged it in the pipers, was no rule why, upon such unqualified pretensions, he or his late chief (had he so done) should assume the badge of that clan, established as such for centuries before the first Fitzgerald crossed the Irish channel, or Kenneth Fitzgerald (hence "Macuinach") the son of Kenneth, obtained his first Royal grant of the Fortalice of "EllanDunan" in Kintail. But even here certain characters in the Celtic Society have not stopped; they have minced the "Clann-do-Nuill," as it were, into separate clans, founding upon the different modes of spelling their names in English, for in Gaelic there is no diffe

rence; and with a boldness never heard of before, they pretend to give one kind of heath or heather to one family or branch of that clan, and another to another; nay, they allege ferns, and many other unheard of badges, to be the distinctive mark of many of the minor clans, who have derived their origin from the ancient sovereign house of the Isles; while, in fact, every clan emanating from that stock, since the days of Somerled, who married the daughter and heiress of Olave or Olaus, the swarthy King of Man; whose sons, Reginald, ancestor of the Macdonells, and " Dhugail," ancestor of the Macdougals, on being sent, by their royal father, (at the head of separate and distinct commands,) to assist their mother's kin, the Norwegians, against the Danes, by orders of Reginald, first put heather in their bonnets, in order to distinguish themselves from the Danes when they should be engaged in close action; that is, claymore and helmet, target and dirk; when of course it follows, that he who lost the heather from his bonnet, was most likely next to lose his life; that being the only distinctive mark between foeman and friend.

This exposé may be deemed severe by some, who are not aware, that when his Majesty was first expected to visit Scotland, previous to the report dying off, under the impression that the King intended to make an extensive continental tour, I wrote my sentiments undisguisedly to most of the few noblemen and gentlemen, who, like myself, then stood upon the list of the Celtic Society, as well as that of the True Highlanders, explaining my disapprobation of the measures adopted by the body, so improperly assuming our national dress; I have not, therefore, any hesitation to remark, as I have now done, since no gentler hint was sufficient to restrain them, having observed to all with whom I corresponded upon that subject, that it was impossible for true Highlanders to associate with such a body or convention of people, open to all nations and to all religions; and, as their example of assuming the dress is frequently followed, upon Sundays, by many of the shop-boys in Edinburgh, not calculated to add either dignity or decency to the garb of the Gael, the line must now be strictly drawn, otherwise the national character of the Highlander must be tarnished, nay, demoralized in such hands.

A. RN. MACDONELL.

We really cannot help admiring Glengarry a good deal. He looks the Chief; and we have been told that he possesses many of the good qualities of the Chief. But he must not bran

dish his Tail so unnecessarily; and he ought to remember that other people have Tails as well as himself, though not so ostentatiously protruded. Neither ought he to mention people's names at this rate. It is not, we believe, true, that any Jew, who is not a Celt, belongs to the Society. As to Mulattoes, what is to hinder a Mulattoe from having plenty of Highland blood in his veins. Many Celts are in the Windward and Leeward Islands; and their progeny, we hold, though sprung perhaps by the mother's side, from the royal line of Congo or Dahomey, are entitled to join the Celtic Society. Does Glengarry suppose that the late Laird of Macnab had not a single Mulatto among all his offspring? But not to insist on what is so obvious, Glengarry forgot himself in that anecdote about our good friend Terence Magrath. It was pitiful and paltry in a Highland chief so to insult an inoffensive and respectable mau. He ought

to have known that Mr Townsend had too much sense to be rude to any gentleman on guard before the gate of the King's palace; and that, had he done so, any gentleman so insulted would have shewn a Bow-street officer the point of his bayonet, or the edge of his claymore. The anecdote is silly and untrue. Mr Magrath, with singular mildness and modesty, contradicted it in the newspaper, telling the public that he was not on guard at the Palace at all. Glengarry, therefore, ought to be ashamed of himself for such vile and vulgar gossipping, and, Highland chief as he is, ought to beg publicly Mr Magrath's pardon. He ought also to recollect, that a man may be seen by police officers in a situation really disgraceful, which that of Mr Magrath's was not; and that the choir of a cathedral is a pleasanter place than the bar of the High Court of Justiciary. With respect to Captain M'Kenzie, whose name Glengarry makes use of so unwarrantably, he is a soldier, not a singing master, and not likely to heed the cry of " Beware the Bear." This the event has shewed.

But the whole Celtic Society brist. led like a field at harvest-home. Glengarry was quite mistaken in supposing that they could not talk Gaelic. Of all languages, that is the most formidable in the spluttering mouth of an angry man. Forthwith there was no talk but of expulsion, and with many VOL. XII.

of decapitation. We would not have been in Glengarry's brogues for the profits of a whole Number. Pistols and claymores, daggers and dirks, and knives and kimes, were all furbishing up; and the hairy pouch of every member of the Celtic Society curled for very ire. Red faces and fiery eyes were seen hurrying to and fro on street and square, sometimes solitary and sullenly savage, at others social in grinning groups, mutually whetting up to execrating and exterminating exasperation. Where, in God's name, we thought, is the unfortunate Glengarry? He must be swallowed alive now, for the Bulls of Bashan are all roaring against him, and will toss and tear him to pieces like a red rag. But softly-Glengarry has been at Aberdeen, and, on his return, instead of insuring his life, comes forward with the following manifesto.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDINBURGH
OBSERVER.

Saturday Evening. SIR,-Glengarry was much amused upon his return from Aberdeen to-day, by reading in this day's Observer, “ that a requisition has been sent to the Secretary of the Celtic Society," &c. &c., for a purpose worthy of one of the many nationalties which belong to an assemblage such as theirs a modern convention open to people of all nations, and of all religious tenets, Jew as well as Christian. Their proposed plan, however, is not calculated to shake the nerves of a Highlander, more than their assumption of his native garb, (thereby burlesqued and degraded,) is to conciliate his justly injured feelings; but the former is as laughable as the latter is contemptible and unjustifiable in the sight of every unbiassed man upon earth. Scan me the danger to an eagle against whom some Celtic members ordered a gun to be charged, imagining themselves, (from dreams of Celtic importance, to be something terrific; ha! ha ha!) on seeing that "proud bird of the mountain" spurn the low mossy crag on which he had temporarily perched, and soar above the Grampians, into the firmament of Heaven !-roused from his peaceful position, by their presumptuous approach, decked in plumes, (which had one by one either dropped from his wings or his tail at moulting time, or which had been wafted by the wind from the stupendous rock, where he reared his eaglets in safety, to which they have no legitimate right; and which within demarcation of Caledonia's unconquered barrier, is indeed in the breast of every discriminating patriot 2 Z

The Celtic Society had better leave my plaid alone, as it hitherto is "Sans tache,* otherwise it may prove of too rough and

outlandish a texture for their delicate fingers. I would not have meddled with any of them, so long as they left me and my Highlanders to stand or fall by the merit or demerit of our own act; but as long as I carry a St Andrew about me, in the warlike garb of my ancestors, I shall not be bearded by the best man among them, who may choose to put himself forward as their champion, propria persona. Though I do not think it worth while to ask (as I undervalue that frothy effusion, proceeding from such authority) who sug gested the motion of which I am thus generously apprised; but at the same time, assassin-like, stabbed at me from behind a curtain, by calling my statement "misrepresentations," and aspersing my open, and, at least, manly conduct, with the term of "malignant jealousy," an epithet I entirely disdain, as having no place in my mind, and which I therefore retort indignantly to its author, as his vile and truly appropriate badge; and far more suitable to the Celtic Society, or at least to such of them, as authorised the paragraph to which I now reply; both for myself and my brethren, the pure and unsophisticated sons of "the land of glens, and hills, and warriors," to use a toast often drunk by the Celtic Society, in their hours of conviviality, and therefore meant only, perhaps, from the teeth outwards, to deceive us, by empty sounds; as they imagined, with little knowledge of the true Highland character, they had already done, by the assumption, without consent, of our natural garb! But though, in their ignorance of the Highland Laddie, they may have been misled by Baillie Jarvie's humorous expression, "That no man wi' breeks on his hinder-end, or money in his pouch, wad be safe amang thae Highland savages," let me assure the author of the paragraph in question, that I still have as many "Dugald Bodies" as will inform me who shall rise to make that motion, and by whom it shall be seconded, at the meeting so called; that is, if such a meeting shall actually take place, which I by no means believe; and if such motion shall be made and seconded, I think it due, in return to the candour of those who gave such authority, to inform them, that one of the Bears (the Macdonell's supporters) might thereby be roused into rage suffi cient to snap his chain, and

MAC-MHIC ALASTAIR.

The tables were turned-and now we trembled for the Celtic Society.— Glengarry will make minced meat of them all; and many a writer's apprentice will weep the day he laid aside his breeches! What were our fears for our dear Omai! Is he never to see What will King

Otaheite more?

Pouree say and what will become of Morton's red waggon ? Spare, O spare the gentle Omai! was our prayer.But lo, and behold, Omai appeared before us in the Sanctum, and said"Man of peace-one of the long-tailed chieftains threatens to cut off the head of me, Omai, because that I marched with the petticoat men, being only Omai, the son of the son of Omai the traveller.

But I, Omai, am a

chief in my own country, and have a long tail there; and I have slain many men in battle, fighting for my own king, King Pouree. And I, Omai, will carry my head back to Otaheite, upon the shoulders of me, Omai; and I will fight M'Alastair with my warclub." All our fears now were for the island of Otaheite; and we determined to bind over Omai to keep the peace. Accordingly, we took our crutch, and hobbled over to the Sheriff, and before night had Omai bound over not to kill Glengarry, under a justiciary warrant, and a penalty of L.5000. We had great difficulty in getting Omai to understand the meaning of this measure. At first he was rather obstreperous; but finally he acknowledged the propriety of peace, and deposited his war-club in the Sanctum by the side of another of no contemptible dimensions, which had seen service in its day, and now stands in dignified repose, (otium cum dignitate) in a corner, with a small silver plate, on which is inscribed the day of that great battle, when our Publisher play ed the part of a Percy.

Having thus saved Glengarry from the wrath of Mr Omai, we left the rest to the sonsy Sheriff of Edinburgh.— That gentleman, is, it appears, Controller of the Press, with, we presume, as the office can be no sinecure, a salary of L.1000 a-year. He interdicted by his caveat the editors of the Edinburgh newspapers from admitting into their columns any thing farther about the Glengarry controversy. Before his kind and thoughtful interference, however, the two following letters had appeared, which are entitled to a place in this Magazine :—

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDINBURGH OBSERVER.

SIR,-Any individual who wantonly thrusts himself forward into public notice, by making an unprovoked attack upon a whole Society of gentlemen, not only deserves, but really invites, public discussion respecting himself. This was done in a letter published in your papers of the 2d and 5th instant, by Mr M'Donell of Glengarry against the Celtic Society.

As a member of that body, I have an undoubted right to recriminate, by making observations upon Mr M'Donell's public acts as a Highlander; but the task would be ungenerous; and I entertain so great a degree of respect for many of his relatives, as to induce me, for the present, to decline it.

I shall therefore, in this communication, confine my observations to the causes which could lead Mr M'Donell to give vent to such outrageous expressions, as he has thought it proper to indulge in, against the Celtic Society, and shall, in conclusion, make public one simple statement, which will at once shew which party has the most "bare-faced effrontery."

The first public occasion on which the Celtic Society was called upon to act, by the Knight Marshal of Scotland, was in that interesting ceremony when the Regalia of Scotland were removed from the Castle to the Palace of Holyrood, immediately before the arrival of his Majesty in this city, when the clan Macgregor, under the personal command of Sir Evan M. Macgregor, their brave and distinguished chief, co-operated-whom, by the bye, I may take the liberty to recommend as a pattern to all Highland chieftains. Mr M'Donell of Glengarry, in tartan, the only person mounted on horseback, joined the Celtic Society, and placed himself at the head of the column, when marching to the Mound-and after we were found in the order of the procession, Mr M'Donell was riding about at the right of the whole, where I was stationed, as if he wished to be taken as the commander. He was forced to withdraw, and to go to the rear, by Macdougal, younger of Macdougal, a captain in the royal navy, who commanded the second division of the Celts that day; Mr M'Donell was so offended, that he afterwards told Captain M'Dougal, that he might expect to hear from him, which hearing never has taken place.

The piper, who is mentioned by Mr M'Donell, roundly asserts, that after he was hired by the Celtic Society, Mr M'Donell wished him to break his engagement, and absolutely offered him

double the sum to join his tail. It deserves to be mentioned, for the honour of a Highlander, that the piper indig nantly refused the bribe. I have no wish to inquire into the private reasons which could have induced Mr M'Donell to draw forward Captain M'Kenzie's name in the indelicate style he adopted in his letter. I heard it accounted for, at a meeting of gentlemen, a few days ago, as arising out of an affray which took place between that gentleman and Mr M'Donell some time ago at Fort-William-the history of which Mr M'Donell is bound to give to the public.

Mr M'Donell abuses the Society for having members who are not Highlanders, which comes very badly from one, who, I am told, had a Yorkshire-man, dressed up as a Highlander, in his own tail, on the occasion of his Majesty's visit. Mr M'Donell finds fault with gentlemen of the Society, for presenting themselves in numbers to his Majesty, in the Highland garb; I am confident no one really did so who had not a right, from his rank in society, to attend the levee. But what did Mr M'Donell do? Why, he forced himself into the royal presence, in dirty boots and spurs, on the day of his Majesty's arrival at Holyrood, when the Lord Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh were presenting the address, and where even HE had no right to enter. I am, &c. A CELT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDINBURGH OBSERVER.

SIR,-I request that you will, as soon as possible, insert the following reply to certain observations contained in an article published in your paper of last Thursday, under the signature of A. R. Macdonell.

1. It is not true that I caused John Bain M'Kenzie stand to Mr Dighton, till sketched by that gentleman, as piper to the Celtic Society."

66

For

2. I wear the holly in my bonnet, as the proper badge of my clan, and shall continue to wear it, notwithstanding Mr A. Rn. Macdonell's pretensions. doing so, I have the authority, not only of the Macras of Kintail, the contemporaries of the M'Kenzies in their settlement in that country, and firm adherents ever since, but that also of persons whose researches into the manners and customs of the Gael, entitle their dicta to implicit deference."

3. That I am a half-pay lieutenant is true; I can add, however, that my retire. ment from the service, whether it shall prove temporary or permanent, leaves no stain on my character. True it is, also, that to eke out the slender means of subsistence which my half-pay and the