and long afterwards, in England, Milton found cause to exclaim

"New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large."

Did the great preacher "reform" the monastery of Inchcolm, which we now see before us, rising out of the waters like a vision of the past? It is an interesting spot: the little island is not a mile in length, and scarce a hundred and fifty paces broad; the ruins are extensive, and it is easy to conjure up the figures of the monks, counting their beads, amidst the dashing of the waves, and within sound of the bells of Edinburgh on a calm evening. The island half realises the poet's description of Arqua

Which seem'd made

For those who their mortality had felt,

And sought a refuge from their hopes decayed.

It shows a distant prospect, far away,

Of busy cities, now in vain displayed,

For they can lure no further; and the ray

Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday."

John Kemble, the tragedian, and Crabbe, the poet, confounded Inchcolm with Iona or Icolmkill; the blunder did not say much for their geography, but the names sound something like each other, and both owe their celebrity to the same patron saint, Colm or Columb. One stormy day, in the year 1128, Alexander I. king of Scotland, was crossing, with his retinue, over at the Queen's Ferry, and was driven for refuge into this island. They found one inhabitant in it, a hermit of the order of St Columb, who supported himself with a cow, and such shell-fish as he could pick up. The king and his retinue were forced to remain three days, partaking of the hermit's simple fare; and the monarch, grateful for his escape, vowed to erect a monas

tery in the island. Thus Inchcolm became the seat of monks, and was enriched with some of the best lands of Fifeshire. It was often plundered and burned—but still rose again from its ashes-and here old Walter Bowmaker, the abbot, who died in 1449, wrote his chronicle of Scottish history, in continuation of Fordun. The light in his study would, no doubt, be familiar to the seamen on the Frith, and some of them would occasionally beg or buy his prayers, for a soft wind or a favouring gale, as they set out on their voyage; but what would the old abbot say if he were now to "revisit the glimpses of the moon," and lift up his eyes, from his precious vellum leaves, on the steamboats careering around the island-the crowd of going and returning vessels-and the new spires and palaces of Edinburgh glittering in the distance! The tower of the monastery, the cloisters, the chapter-house, and part of the buildings, remain to attest their former grandeur; and these, seen from the sea, are not unlike the ruins of Iona. The monks would seem to have been skilled in herbs; for many rare plants still abound here.

The Protector Somerset, in his expedition to Scotland, during the reign of Edward the Sixth, took possession of Inchcolm; the monks had fled, and Somerset installed one of his knights, Sir John Lutterel, as abbot. His inauguration was something like a military triumph; he had with him a hundred hackbutters and fifty pioneers, to keep his house and land; two barks, well furnished with ammunition, and seventy mariners, to keep his waters. There is a dash of caustic humour in the way which an old chronicler describes the state of this military abbot-" The perfectness of his religion," he says, "is not always to tarry at home, but sometimes to row out abroad, on a visitation; and when he goeth, I have heard say, he taketh always his sumners with him, which are very open-mouthed, and never talk

but they are heard a mile off; so that, either for love of his blessings, or fear of his cursings, he is like to be sovereign over most of his neighbours." The time, however, was fast approaching when the whole fabric of monkish power was to be shaken in this country. There is certainly something attractive to the imagination in the outline of the lives of these recluses their expatriation from the world, and abstraction from its busy pursuits, their solitary cells, prayers, and fastings, sacerdotal robes, and illuminated missals. But we must go back to a period long anterior to the Reformation, if we wish to find these characteristics adopted with true sincerity, devotion, and simplicity. In the early ages, the monasteries were almost the only depositories of learning in the kingdom; but the progress of knowledge was fatal to the pretensions of the monks-their "miracles" ceased to impose upon the multitude, and their professions of sanctity failed to cover their cupidity, ignorance, and immorality. Even if the Reformation had not proceeded with such violence, the monasteries must have fallen to pieces: the nation would not have continued much longer to support so enormous and expensive a power-pierced, as it was, by the shafts of ridicule, and open to the attacks of reason.

We have wandered away from Inchcolm, and we need hardly return to it, for little else remains to be chronicled. The Reformation proved the downfal of the place, as a religious establishment. In 1580 it would seem to have been untenanted in that year the plague was imported into Leith, by a ship from Dantzic, and the infected persons were sent to Inchcolm, where many of them died and were buried. We saw two skulls (probably remains of these unfortunates) which were lately found on the spot. During the late war, batteries were erected at Inchcolm, as a protection to the Frith of Forth-an invasion was then dreaded; but Napoleon was wise enough to abandon this hopeless enterprize;

and that "mighty tempest," which "hung upon the skirts of the horizon, and to which the eyes of Europe were turned, in silent and awful expectation," disappeared like a summer cloud.

H

58

MOUNTAIN SCENERY.

THE FALL OF FOYERS.

AN English lover of the country, and of all its delicious sights and sounds, has written a book, called "A Day in the Woods." The subject is inspiring: what is so fitted to call forth delightful emotions as a day spent in the wild woodlands? A long, long day in summer, about the middle of July, from sunrise, when morn is on the mountain tops, and on the trees-all in motion-twinkling with dew-drops, and exhaling their wild aroma-every bush and branch rife with birds, and the waters dimpled with the liveliest light, till sunset lingers among the hoary trunks and stems—the ash rising in grace, the Venus of the wood, and the oak its Hercules; and the long level shadows are stretched on the greensward,

"Thick inlaid with patines of bright gold."

Then, too, the birds ply their tasks, but in a soberer mood: the blackbird pours his prolonged strain; in the fields and woods of England, the nightingale is heard over all her compeers, like a Malibran or Grisi, among the boughs. The brooks and rivers have a fuller and more solemn sound,