TERRIBLE INUNDATION.

FIRST ESTABLISHMENT OF A PROVISION FOR THE | rights, according to law, at the time when they SUPPORT OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. were granted, should be liable to any further It was not till 1617, fifty years after the final challenge, or alteration in their possession. establishment of the presbyterian religion in Scotland, that Parliament made any effectual provision for the support of its ministers. By the On Christmas eve, in 1358, there happened an statute, chap. 3, of the Parliament of that year, inundation in Lothian, great beyond example. the Lord Chancellor, along with certain commis- The rivers swollen by excessive rains, rose above sioners from the clergy, nobility, barons or their banks, and swept away many bridges and knights, and borgesses, were appointed with power houses; tall oaks and other large trees that grew to call before them all persons having, or claim- on the banks were undermined by the waters, and ing right to tithes, either as proprietors or as carried off to the sea. The sheaves of corn, laid lessees, and to assign from the tithes of each out to dry in the adjacent fields, were utterly lost. parish a perpetual local stipend to the minister The suburb of Haddington, called the Nungate, of the parish, the minimum being 500 merks, or was levelled to the ground. When the water apabout £27. 15s. sterling, and the maximum 800 proached the Nunnery at Haddington, a certain merks, or £44.9s. sterling. This statute, how- Nun snatched up the statue of the Virgin, and ever, provides that where the fruits of any benefice threatened to throw it into the river, unless Mary were in possession of the minister, they should protected her abbey from the inundation; at that be enjoyed by him, as before, and should not be moment the river retired, and gradually subsided subject to the jurisdiction of the commission, be- within its ancient limits. The Nun (says Fordun) cause there were many parsonages, at the time of was a simpleton, but devout, although not acthe Reformation, which had not been attached cording to knowledge. If, however, she perto any of the dignitaries of the church, but be-ceived any abatement of the inundation before longed to the clergy actually serving the cure. she uttered her threat, she was not a simpleton. The churches again, belonging to the episcopal benefices, seem also to have been exempted from this commission, as falling under the general clause of the statute, restoring the episcopal order, by which the bishops were bound to provide a competent stipend; but, in all other cases, the provision of the church was placed on a sure foundation, the commissioners having power to assign a competent ipend to each minister from the tithes of his own parish, and the tithes were equally subject to the burthen of this stipend, and placed equally with the jurisdiction of the commissioners, whether they were vested in the crown, by the act of Annexation, 1587, or had passed into the hands of the lay-impropriators. The statute in conclusion, enacted, probably with a view of reconciling the lay-impropriators to this augmented provision of the clergy, that no person who enjoyed the possession of tithes, by

JOHN ROY STEWART.

A gentleman of the Bradwardine character is still remembered by the Highlanders with a degree of admiration bordering on enthusiasm; this was John Stewart, of the family of Kincardine, in Strathspey, known to the country by the name of John Roy Stewart, an accomplished gentleman, an elegant scholar and poet, a brave soldier, and an able officer. He composed, with equal facility, in English, Latin, and Gaelic; but it was by his songs, epigrams, and descriptive pieces in the latter language, that he attracted the admiration of his countrymen.

He was an active leader in the rebellion of 1745, and during his hiding of many months, he had more leisure to indulge his taste for poetry and song. The country traditions are full of his descriptive pieces, eulogies, and laments on

friends, or in allusion to the events of that unfor-they had a tendency to soften the manners of the tunate period. He had been long in the service of France and Portugal, and had risen to the rank of Colonel.

people, and to teach the great truths of christianity to many who could not read the holy scriptures. These mysteries, or religious exhibitions, were He was in Scotland in 1745, and commanded a originally under the direction of the monks and regiment composed of the tenants of his family, of the clergy, who were the actors; and to whom and a considerable number of the followers of the people were probably indebted for their inSir George Stewart, of Grandtully, who had been troduction into Scotland. In Aberdeen they applaced under his command; with these, amount-pear, however, at an early period, to have been ing, in all, to 400 men, he joined the rebel army, conducted under the auspices of two personages, and proved one of its ablest partizans. Had the styled "The Abbot and Prior of Bon-Accord,” rebel commanders benefited by his judgment and who were represented by two young citizens, military talents, that deplorable contest would probably sons, or connexions of some of the have, probably, been lengthened, and much addi-magistrates in whom the nomination of these tional misery inflicted on the country. Colonel popular offices was vested. Stewart recommended to oppose the passage of the Duke of Cumberland's army across the Spey. Had this advice been acted upon, allowing for the expeditious movements of the rebels, many men mast have been lost in forcing the passage of that rapid river.

PRICE OF WOOL AFTER THE UNION.

The salary which was annexed to them, for supporting their charges, was generally five merks, or the fines of admission of two burgesses of guild; but was increased from time to time, according to the addition which was made to those fines. The earliest exhibition of this kind on record, is the play of " Halyblude," which was performed in 1440, at the Windmill-hill, under The wool of Scotland fell very considerably in the " Abbot and Prior of Bon-accord." The exits price in consequence of the Union with Eng-pense on this occasion being five merks, was deland, by which it was excluded from the great frayed as above mentioned. market of Europe, and confined to the narrow one of Great Britain. The value of the greater part of the lands in the southern counties of Scotland, which are chiefly a sheep country, would have been very deeply affected by this event, had not the rise in the price of butchers' meat fully com-ite topics of plays performed by the citizens. pensated the fall in the price of wool.

MIRACLE PLAYS, OR MYSTERIES.

In 1479, we find announced in the feast of Corpus Christi, a similar play, which was attended with the like expense. In process of time such religious exhibitions became secular amusements, and profane subjects were introduced, as the favor

These recreations, it seems, were too frequently practised; accordingly, we fil they were afterwards restricted, by the magistrates, to certain Miracle plays, or Mysteries, were common in days in the year; namely, to the Anniversary of St. many places in Scotland in the time of Popery. Nicholas, the tutelary saint of the boroughs, the Being the first and earliest of modern dramatic sundays of May, and other festival days. On these ¦ exhibitions, they were performed originally, in occasions the citizens dressed in their gayest archurches and monasteries, afterwards in the open ray, assembled at the Woolman-hill and Playfield, air, or some spot calculated to shew the perform-where they received the Abbot and Prior of Bosance to the greatest advantage. Rude and even ridiculous as they may now appear to be, they were interesting and instructive to our ancestors;

accord with pompous ceremony. These person ages, and their train of attendants, mounted e steeds, afterwards proceed in parade through the

streets of the town. The remainder of the day was devoted to mirth and festivity, to dancing, and to the exhibition of games, farces, and plays, concluding with a banquet, which appears to have been, not unfrequently, attended with tumult and disorder.

To be absent on these festivals was an offence, which was punished by the forfeiture of the offender's lease, if he held such of the community; or by a pecuniary fine, to be applied either to the expense of the lights, or of the repairs of the church of St. Nicholas.

ANCIENT HIGHLAND DRESS.

tumbled into the water, and beat Roy's men back to the kirk-yard, where several were killed. Glengerroch and Roy there engaged, where the latter was severely wounded. He however escaped to Balloch, and took shelter in a barn. The owner sent a child to Keith for medicines, who being questioned, replied, "they were for a man who was bleeding in my father's barn." This led to the discovery, and he was taken, and carried to Edinburgh, where he was tried and convicted of several murders, for which he was executed.

SUPERINTENDANTS.

The few protestant ministers at the reformation were distributed among the Royal Burghs, and made it more their concern to establish, and protermine and fix any one model or form of church pagate the pure doctrines of religion, than to de

The following account of the dress, is by an author who wrote before the year 1597. " "They," the Highlanders, " delight in marbled cloths, especially that have long stripes of sundrie colours; they love chiefly purple and blue; their predeces-government; and until government should be desors used short mantles, or plaids of divers colours, sundrie ways divided, and among some, the same custom is observed to this day; but for the most part now they are brown, most near to the colour of the hadder, to the effect when they lie among the hadders, the bright colour of their plaids shall not bewray them, with the which rather coloured than clad, they suffer the most cruel tempests that blow in the open fields, in such sort, that in a night of snow they sleep sound."

PETRIE ROY, the STOUTREIFER.

Petrie Roy came down from the Highlanders with his men to levy contributions in the town of Keith, in 1667, and threatened to burn it down if he was not satisfied. During the time that they were drinking at a public house, the gudwife and the servant contrived to pour raw sowens into their guns, and word was sent to the laird of Glengerroch, who dwells at a place now called New Mill. An alarm was given by jowing the kirk bell, which was done with such violence as to crack it. Petrie and his men found themselves in an unpleasant situation when their guns would not go off. At the brig of Isla, Glengerroch fired and shot the piper who marched in front, who

liberately settled, a few superintendants were appointed, but these could in no propriety be called bishops, such as were under popery, or in some after periods of the reformation, for they had no episcopal consecration. They were solemnly set apart to their office by mere presbyters; they neither claimed nor exercised a sole power of to be an order above presbyters: they were acordination, or jurisdiction; they never pretended countable to, and censured by the General Assembly, and what shows they were but a temporary expedient, there were but five named, of which number when one died, there was no successor to him appointed. And when presbyteries were erected the superintendant's office ceased.

HENRY SCOUGAL.

This very learned professor of Theology in the King's College, Aberdeen, was the son of Patrick Scougal, bishop of Aberdeen, from 1664 to 1682. He has the distinguishing merit of being the first Scottish divine who wrote a good book of practical piety. Before his time Theological authors employed their pens in writing on the controversial topics of doctrine, or on ecclesiastical polity.

THE END.