species of composition have recently issued from the press, I think it due to the management of the Haymarket Theatre, and to Mr. Macready, to state the exact truth respecting it. The authors of some of these dramas cannot reasonably complain, as they have not chosen to adapt their works to the purposes of acting, that they have not been acted; but there are others who naturally and earnestly desire to participate in the fascinations of the acted drama, whose wishes I should rejoice to see fulfilled. Two obstacles, however, subsist, which, while they continue, must confine the opportunities of doing justice to dramatic authors within narrow limits-the dearth of competent actors to represent their works, and the monopoly which restricts the number of theatres entitled to give them scope. Whether the removal of the last difficulty would tend speedily to obviate the first, is matter of conjecture; but the experiment ought to be, and must be tried. The claims of our dramatic literature to a Free Stage are becoming every day more urgent with the development of its rich resources; and they cannot long be so advanced and so supported in vain. PREFACE. It seems strange that the terrible incident, which deepens the impression made on all tourists by the most awful Pass of the Highlands, should not have been long ago made the subject of poetry or romance. Although the massacre which casts so deep a stain on the government of King William the Third, may well have been regarded as too shocking for dramatic effect, unless presented merely in the remote back-ground of scenic action, it is surely matter of surprise that it should not have been selected as a subject for Scottish romance, by the great Novelist who has held up its authors to just execration in his "History of Scotland." A deed so atrocious, perpetrated towards the close of the seventeenth century, under the sanction of a warrant, both superscribed and subscribed by the king, is an instance of that projection of the savage state into a period of growing civilisation which enables the novelist to blend the familiar with the fearful-" new manners" with "the pomp of elder days"-the fading superstition of dim antiquity with the realities which history verifies. To him, the treachery by which it was preceded the mixture of ferocity and craft by which it was planned and executed-the fearful contrast between the gay reciprocation of social kindness, and the deadly purpose of the guests marking out their hosts for slaughter -present opportunities for the most picturesque contrasts, the most vivid details, the most thrilling suggestions, which are not within the province of the dramatist. The catastrophe has also a far-reaching interest, as showing the extermination of one of the most sturdy and austere, although one of the smallest, of the Highland clans; for, being the most fearful of the series of measures by which the little sovereignties of the Highland Chiefs were abolished, it may well represent their general extinction, and the transfer of the virtues and the violence they sheltered from action to memory. It occurred in a scene, too, which, for gloomy grandeur, is not only unequalled, but unapproached-perhaps, unresembled-by any other Pass in Britain; and its solemn features, especially when contemplated beneath heavy clouds and amidst rolling mists, harmonise with the story of the horrors which were wrought among them. Considering, therefore, the delight which Sir Walter Scott felt in animating the noblest scenery of his country with its most romantic traditions, it is difficult to account for his abstinence from a theme which, if adopted by him, would have been for ever sacred from the touch of others.* * Two passages only, as far as the Author is aware, in the poetry and fiction of Sir Walter Scott, contain allusions to the massacre at Glencoe ; but they show how intensely he felt the atrocities committed under the apparent sanction at least of the government of King William. The following stanzas are quoted by himself from his own poems, in a note to his History: "The hand that mingled in the meal, At midnight drew the felon steel, The friendly hearth which warm'd that hand, That bade destruction's flames expand "Then woman's shriek was heard in vain ; More than the warrior's groan, could gain In endeavouring to present, in a dramatic form, the feelings which the scene and its history have engendered, it has been found necessary to place in the foreground domestic incidents and fictitious characters; only to exhibit the chief agents of the treachery, so far as essential to the progress of the action; and to allow the catastrophe itself rather to be felt as affecting the fortunes of an individual family, than exhibited in its extended horrors. The subject presents strong temptations to mere melodramatic effect: it has been the wish of the Author to resist these as much as possible; but he can scarcely hope with entire success. In the outline of those incidents which are historical, the Author has not ventured on any material deviation from the story, as related in the Fifty-eighth Chapter of Sir Walter Scott's "History of Scotland," where it will be found developed with all the vividness of that master-spirit of narrative.* The rash irresolution of Mac Ian, in The winter wind that whistled shrill, Far more than Southron clemency." The following passage occurs in the tale of the "Highland Widow," in Elspat's remonstrance to her son on his enlistment :-" Go, put your head under the belt of one of the race of Dermid, whose children murdered-yes," she added with a wild shriek, "murdered your mother's fathers in their peaceful dwellings in Glencoe! Yes," she again exclaimed with a wilder and shriller scream, "I was then unborn, but my mother has told me; and I attended to the voice of my mother;-well I remember her words !-They came in peace, and were received in friendship; and blood and fire arose, and screams and murder !" "Mother," answered Hamish, mournfully, but with a decided tone, "all that I have thought over-there is not a drop of the blood of Glencoe on the noble hand of Barcaldine ;-with the unhappy house of Glenlyon the curse remains, and on them God hath avenged it." * By the obliging permission of Mr. Cadell, expressing the feelings of Sir Walter Scott's family, I have enriched the Appendix to this volume with the chief part of this stirring tale. deferring his submission till the last moment; his journey to Fort-William in the snow-storm; his disappointment in finding he had sought the wrong officer; his turning thence, and passing near his own house, to Inverary, where he arrived after the appointed day; the acceptance of his oath by the sheriff of Argyle, and his return to enforce the allegiance of his clan to King William; the arrival of Glenlyon and his soldiers in the glen ; their entertainment for fifteen days by the Macdonalds; the cold hypocrisy by which they veiled their purpose when urged to its execution by Major Duncanson; and the partial execution of the murderous orders; are all real features of an ower true tale." The only deviations of which the Author is conscious are, the representing Alaster Macdonald, the younger son of Mac Ian, as a lad, instead of the husband of Glenlyon's niece; and that niece as fostered by the widow and son of a chief of the clan, once the rival of Mac Ian; and in substituting, for the foul traits of treachery which Sir Walter Scott imputes to Glenlyon, the incident of his procuring a young officer in his own regiment, but of the clan of the Macdonalds, to place the soldiers in the tracks leading from the valley they were commanded to surround. The character of Halbert Macdonald, and the incidents of his story and conduct, are entirely fictitious. As the chief interest which the Author can hope that any will find in perusing this drama, will consist in its bringing to their minds the features of the stupendous glen to which it refers, he may be permitted to state, that the spot where the tower and chapel of Halbert are supposed to be placed, is beneath the summit of the great mountain Bedin; towards which a huge gully leads, or seems to lead, from the bed of the river, and where, enclosed amidst the |