Or by J. CHAPPELL, 98, Royal Exchange; W. STRANGE, Pater. ILLUSTRIOUS AND DISTINGUISHED noster Row; and G. BERGER, Holywell Street, Strand, London.

THE Rev. Mr IRVING and his FOLLOWERS Arranged in Alphabetical Order, and forming a complete

PART III. Price 2s., and VOL. I. Price 6s. 6d. cloth, and the whole to be arranged for reference, in an alphabetical order.

NEW HISTORICAL WORK,

In the press, and speedily will be published,

By A. FULLARTON and CO., Glasgow,

To be completed in about twenty Parts, price Two Shillings each; or on royal paper, with proof impressions of the Plates, price Three Shillings each, making Four Volumes, 8vo,

A HISTORY OF THE HIGHLANDS,

AND OF THE

HIGHLAND CLANS.

By JAMES BROWNE, Esq., LL.D., Advocate,

Author of "Aperçu sur les Hieroglyphes d'Egypte, et les progrès faits jusqu'à présent dans leur Déchiffrement;" of the Articles, "Aca. demy," "Apparitions," "Army," "Athens," "Attica," "Battle," "Blind," "Bourdaloue," "Brahmin," &c. &c., in the Seventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica; of a " Critical Examination of Dr M'Culloch's Book on the Highlands;" and other works.

THE grand object of this Work, the merit of the design of which belongs exclusively to my intelligent and enterprising publishers, is to exhibit, in the most attractive form possible, a comprehensive digest of all that is known, or deserving of being recorded, on the interesting subject which it is intended to illustrate. Much has already been written and published on the Highlands generally, as well as on the manners, customs, habits, feelings, superstitions, character, condition, and martial achievements of that people, who, from a period long anterior to the dawn of authentic history, occupied the mountains and the glens of the Alpine region, included within the Grampian boundary; and there is scarcely any separate branch of the subject which some one has not appropriated, and overlaid with a mass of disproportionate and oppressive details. But of the crowd of writers who, at different times, have expatiated in the various portions of this ample field, many have been actuated by the strongest prejudices of nationality, whilst others, careless of facts, have sought to exhibit the embellishments of romance rather than the truth of history, and a few have laboured, with perverse industry, to vilify, misrepresent, and traduce the country and the people which they professed to describe; and, at all events, no work has as yet appeared in which the subject of the Highlands and the Highlanders has been treated of in all its branches, or to which reference may conve niently and safely be made for such information as it must be desirable for the public to have presented to them in an agreeable and access. ible form. To supply this desideratum,-to concentrate and combine the knowledge which at present lies scattered over an immense surface, and throughout a vast variety of publications,-to interweave with what is already known and ascertained a large body of information derived from new sources and hitherto inedited documents,-to apply the laws of evidence and the lights of philosophy to the investigation of subjects which have too long been viewed through the exaggerating media of ignorance, prejudice, or national vanity,-and to replace within the pale of history characters and events which have hitherto been claimed by fiction as its own;-these are the views and objects with which the work now announced to the public has been undertaken,-these, also, are the principles which will be religiously observed in its execution. The author is neither an apologist nor a partisan. What he has undertaken is to write history in the spirit of history: and, independently of all higher considerations, he is too thoroughly convinced that nothing is so really interesting as the truth, ever to deviate from the rule which he has prescribed to himself.

From the title of the work, it will be seen that it naturally resolves itself into two parts, each requiring to be distinctly treated; first, a general history of the Highlands from the earliest to the present times; and, secondly, a detailed account, partly genealogical and partly historical, of each sept or clan into which the aboriginal population was divided, interspersed with such notices of local traditions, usages, peculiarities, and other circumstances, as are necessarily excluded from a general history, yet serve to illustrate those varieties of character and feeling observable amongst the different tribes of a people long subject to a species of government partly feudal and partly patriarchal.

With regard to the History of the Highlands, which comes first in order, it will probably be found to present some peculiar claims to the attention of the public. For, besides dissertations on the origin and migrations of the Celts, as deduced from the casual notices of historians and other authors, the affiliation of languages, and the incidental illustrations of monuments,-on the Poetry, the Music, the Superstitions, and the Character and Condition of the Highlanders, both in ancient and in modern times-together with a variety of other subjects, there will be embodied in the general narrative, an ample account of their military achievements, from the time when they first appear on the theatre of our national history, till their almost entire fusion and amalgamation with the rest of the population of the country in our own times,-of their campaigns under Montrose, Dundee, and others,-of the two rebellions of 1715 and 1745, together with details, never before published, of the political connexions and intrigues maintained, in the interval, between the great Jacobite families of the North and the Court of the exiled family at St Germain's, and, lastly, of the services of the Highlanders in the regular army, from the battle of Fontenoy and the period when the genius of Chatham first gave to their military virtue a safe direction, till the conclusion of the late war, in the course of which they so honourably and fully sustained their ancient reputation in arms. For all this the materials are ample; and with the new lights which will unquestionably be derived from the Stuart Papers, as well as from other documents recently discovered, it is confidently hoped that a fresh interest may be given, even to events which are generally known, by revealing the secret springs in which they originated, detecting the real motives of the principal agents, and removing much of the misconception and error that still prevails respecting some of the most interesting portions of our national annals. In as far, indeed, as regards the two rebellions, the history of these extraordinary occurrences still remains to be written; whilst the political links by which they were connected have never yet been attempted to be supplied by any competent hand. Of the short-lived and ill-conducted insurrection of 1715, there absolutely exists no readable or rational account; for although the leading facts were matter of notoriety, the true character of the whole affair has never been duly appre ciated, either as respects its causes or its consequences; nor has any effort worth mentioning been made to search out the truth, or fathom the real views and objects of those who principally figured in this remarkable movement. Nor has the bolder and better sustained effort of 1715 been more fortunate in an historian. Home, with his materials in his hands, out of which a noble monument might have been reared, betrayed the trust which the great Jacobite families of the North had reposed in him, and, in a pitiful anxiety to avoid giving offence where none would have been taken, published to the world an account remarkable for nothing but its barrenness and inanity; whilst, from a notion of enhancing the value of what was in itself really worthless, he appears to have sacrilegiously destroyed the invalu able documents which a too confiding generosity had, without condition or stipulation, placed in his hands. Like the well-known Frenchman in Greece, he defaced the monuments which he could not appreciate and knew not how to use, and thus created a blank which, to a certain extent, can never be filled up. Nor has any subsequent writer yet executed the task which this timid and time-serving man so cruelly bungled. We have indeed had gossiping and garrulous narratives, manufactured out of scraps, collected from the most impure sources, and replete with the catchpenny trumpery which it is so much the fashion of the day to palm upon the public-but no HISTORY. It remains to be seen whether this may not even yet be supplied.

The nature of the second part of the work has already been indicated. It is of a kind to interest deeply the heads of all the great families of the North, in the first instance; and there can be little doubt that, with their usual patriotic liberality, they will be inclined to encourage and promote it by every means in their power. Of this disposition, indeed, many of them have already given ample and honourable evidence, by handsomely offering to afford every facility to the researches of the author, and to put him in possession of whatever documents or information they have it in their power to furnish him withal. He expected nothing less at their hands. What he has already written on the subject of the Highlands is a guarantee for the fairness, at least, with which any information communicated to him will be used; and although the value of the work which he has undertaken will in a great measure depend on the strictly historical character with which he is anxious, above all things, to impress it, a liberal and candid spirit will, he trusts, ever guide him in the judgments he may be led to pronounce both on individuals and on parties, on the conduct of men, and on the complexion of the events which it will be his business to describe. On these grounds he renews his application for such information as may serve to aid him in any portion of his work; and as there is one species of gratitude which has been defined, a lively sense of favours to be received, he trusts that, in addition to acknow. ledgments actually due by him for many important documents and contributions already communicated, he may, at the same time, express his conviction that the debt of prospective gratitude will speedily experience a very great and signal increase. In the capacious bosom of the North, there is still much which we would be curious to learn, and which it would be highly interesting for the public to be made acquainted withal. J. B.

25