Equally lively was the love of General Fraser for the country of his nativity. This officer, who was killed at Sarratoga, in the memorable expedition of General Burgoyne, was so warmly attached to his native village, Glendoe, situated two miles from Fort Augustus, in one of the most beautiful parts of the Highlands, that, some little time previous to his fall, he declared to a friend, that he would rather be buried in one of the groves of the mountain, looking towards Loch Ness, than in Westminster Abbey!

The Swiss boasts of his lakes and his mountains; the Cambrian of his vales and his valleys; while the Scot mentally beholds with admiration and affection, even at the most distant region of the Antipodes, the windings of the Forth, the waterfalls of the Clyde, and the environs of Perth; the ruins of Iona, the crags of the Hebrides, the romantic scenes of Loch Lomond, and the heaths and glens of the Grampians.

Highly affecting is that passage in holy writ, where Jerusalem is represented, as remembering, in the days of her affliction, and of her misery, all the pleasant things, that she had in the days of old.' And still more affecting is that poem of David, where he represents

1 Lamentations, i, v. 7.

This poem, which is inserted among the Psalms of David, was in fact written by one of the captive Jews, when in exile at Babylon; and it beautifully paints the affection, which he and his countrymen entertained for Jerusalem.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they, that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they, that wasted us, required of us mirth; saying, sing us

the natives of Jerusalem banished, and sitting on the banks of the river of Babylon. Their masters desire them to play some airs for their pleasure: the exiles return" How shall we sing the song of the Lord, in a strange land?" An instance of a similar nature is recorded, by Athenæus, of the Sybarites, who, being enslaved by the Romans, and not only constrained to adopt manners, foreign to their Grecian origin, but even to speak the language of their conquerors, assembled every year, on a particular day, to bewail their condition; and by shedding tears, and uttering lamentations in their original language, endeavoured to keep alive their affection and respect for their unfortunate country.

How beautifully has Virgil alluded to this affection, in that fine passage of the tenth Æneid, where he describes the last moments of the dying Argive! None of the translators have preserved the force, the simplicity, and the pathos, of this admirable passage:

Sternitur, infelix, alieno vulnere, cælum

Aspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos.1

These lines naturally remind us of the cruelty of Verres. One of the charges against this governor was,

one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget Psalm cxxxvii.

Irer cunning."

1 Virg. Ea.—Quintilian, lib. iv, c. 2.

that he had caused a native of Italy to be scourged, in the market-place of Messana, and then to be nailed to a cross, on the sea-shore: aggravating the treatment, by ordering the sufferer's face to be turned towards Italy; that he might have the additional torture of dying in sight of his own home. This circumstance gave ample opportunity for the eloquence of Tully.'

X.

The Swedes were so charmed, at having a native of their own country for a king,-an indulgence which, before the accession of Gustavus III., they had not, for a long time, enjoyed,—that they struck a medal in commemoration of the happy event, on the reverse of which was this inscription: Fadern's land et, "It is my native land." De Pages assures us, that the Japanese have a law, which forbids every subject to sail out of the sight of land, under penalty of death. Those, therefore, who are driven by a storm to a foreign shore, are obliged to renounce every idea of returning to their native soil. Thus does a law, the most amiable in its origin, operate in its application, in a manner, the most gigantically oppressive, on one of the best feelings of the human heart. The Chinese, also, esteem it a crime to quit their country; and are, therefore, much prejudiced against Europeans, who settle there; because, in doing so, they seem to have abandoned the tombs of their ancestors.

Has any one succeeded in the world of commerce, upon the ocean, or in a distant country? with what

1 Cic. in Verr.

pleasure does he retire to his native village, to spend the remainder of his days in peaceful retirement !

Cling to thy home!-if there the meanest shed
Yield thee a hearth, and shelter for thy head ;

* * * * * *

For e'en this cheerless mansion shall provide
More heart's repose, than all the world beside.

Leonidas.

Are we miserable With what melancholy delight do we recall to mind the few short and happy moments, we have spent, by the side of a cataract, on the banks of a torrent, or beneath the shade of a ruin, in the society of those, we have loved, esteemed, or admired! How grateful is it, too, in those moments of comparative sorrow, when weariness has superseded curiosity, and travelling become irksome or dangerous, to charm away the hours of disgust by recalling, with pensive enthusiasm, the favourite haunts of our youth, or those scenes, to which we are by asssociation peculiarly attached. And how delightful is it, when, journeying in a foreign country, we come unexpectedly to a spot, resembling those, which are so indelibly impressed upon the mind, as never to be forgotten! With what rapture did the army of Agricola behold the plain of Perth, and the Tay winding through the midst of it! All those associations, which are so agreeable in a distant land, instantly rising to their memories, they exclaimed with transport, "Behold the Tyber!-Behold the Campus Martius!"

XI.

That book of the Pharsalia, where Cæsar, in the palace of the Ptolemies, enquires of Achoreus, the high priest, the source, direction, increase and decrease of the Nile, with their respective causes, is, assuredly, one of the most interesting 'in all Lucan. Replying to the enquiries of Cæsar, Achoreus enumerates the various opinions, which the most enlightened travellers and philosophers had entertained of the source and causes of the overflow of that river'; which the Egyptians, even of the present day, call holy, blessed, and sacred; and on the opening of the canals of which, mothers are seen plunging their children into its stream, from a belief, that the waters have a purifying and divine quality.2

Memnon consecrated his hair to the Nile; and the Egyptians formerly were accustomed to sacrifice a virgin in its honour every year. There is a fine statue of this river in the Vatican, holding a cornucopia, out of

3.

Lib. x.-Pompon. Mela. de Situ Orbis, lib. i., c. ix, 1. 35, &c.— Diodorus Siculus, lib. xi.-Senec. Nat. Quæst, b. iv. 1. 1, 2.—Claudian, Ep. de Nilo.-Consult, also, D'Herbelot's Bibliothèque Orientale: art, Nile, and Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 100. Some writers have pointed out some resemblances, between this river and the Danube: the idea originated with Herodotus; vide Euterpe, xxxiii. 4. 2 Travels in Egypt and Syria, vol. i. p. 19.

3 Moreri Hist, Dict., vol. vii.-Vossius de Idolatria, lib. ii. 4 Of the worship of this river see Plut. de Isis et Osiris; also Libanius, pro Templis. The gods were fabled to have been born upon its banks (Diod. Sic.); and priests were consecrated to it in all the cities of Egypt (Herodot.).