A Book of Higland Minstrelsy; With Illustrations by R. R. M'Ian (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 edition. Excerpt: ...no wonder, if predisposed to credulity by education, they should imagine such appearances realised to their senses as well as to their thoughts. The seventh son of a seventh son was supposed, by the accident of his birth, to be gifted with this unenvied power. The consciousness of being so considered by those around him would of itself foster in the mind of the unfortunate child a dreamy habit of reflection, an abstraction of manner, and a feeling of being unlike others, calculated, as he grew to manhood, to isolate him more and more from his fellows, and to teach him to people with apparitions the solitude of his soul. Such a character is that attempted to be portrayed in the following ballad. Duntroon Castle, the ancient seat of an influential family of the Campbell clan, occupies a commanding site at the entrance of the Loch or Bay of Crinan, where it communicates with a similar salt-water firth, the Loch of Craignish. Duntroon has had its days of military pride, when it stood sieges and defied invaders by sea and land; but it is now a peaceful dwelling-house. The present proprietor has refitted and modernised the whole building in the interior, and yet with excellent taste has contrived to preserve something of its martial appearance, so that the voyager, as he sweeps under its walls, may still imagine it a fortalice of the olden time, hanging darkly from its wave-girt steep. The coast-line of this part of Argyle is remarkably varied. The shores, now precipitous and barren, now undulating and richly cultivated, carry the visitor through a succession of beautiful prospects, each differing from the last. The waters are studded with innumerable islets, some wooded, and all grassy, which afford shelter to sea-fowl of every description....