surges with a ceaseless
swell lies far beneath us, and no echo of its roar reaches this spot. A
few sheep are nibbling the short grass; the golden star-flowers and the
pink heather plumes at our feet are the lineal descendants, for aught we
can conceive, of star-flowers and heather plumes that flourished here a
thousand years ago,--so undisturbed a possession has Nature had In this
realm of hers for ages. No change, improvement, growth, has added to or
taken from Staffa. Storm-washed in winter, flower-crowned in summer, its
history is forever the same. Sitting here among the heather tufts, and
looking off on the limitless blue sea and the neighboring islands, it is
not hard to dream one's self away into by-gone centuries, to imagine
Bruce and his faithful islesmen sailing past as they go forth to rouse
the clans, or, diving deeper into legendary days, to picture Fingal
himself and his warlike allies bending their white sails towards the
ocean-palace that still claims him as its traditionary king.

"O Ossian, Carril, and Ullin! you know of heroes that are no more. Give
us the song of other years. Raise, ye bards of other times, raise high
the praise of heroes; that my son! may settle on their fame."

"Soon shall my voice be heard no more, and my footsteps cease to be
seen," was the prophetic cry of the "first of a thousand heroes," as he
learned from "Ullin, the bard of song" that his young son Ryno was "with
the awful forms of his fathers." But "the bards will tell of Fingal's
name, the stones will talk of me," was the consolatory thought of him,
who, grown old in fame, had a foreshadowing of the glory which would
hang round his memory, when he exclaimed, "But before I go hence, one
beam of fame shall rise, I will remain renowned; the departure of my
soul shall be a stream of light."

And who among ancient heroes could better deserve to have his memory
embalmed than he whom an honorable foe thus eulogized?--"Blest be thy
soul, thou king of shells! In peace thou art the gale of spring; in war,
the mountain storm." And what touching interest to us of later times
hangs round this legendary champion of the right, when we listen to his
mingled strain of triumph, lament, and justification!--"When will Fingal
cease to fight? I was born in the midst of battles, and my steps must
move in blood to the tomb, But my hand did not injure the weak, my steel
did not touch the feeble in arms. I behold thy tempests, O Morven! which
wil