clean,
and bind it up so as to promote adhesion, and exclude the air. Now,
though the remedies, afterwards applied to the sword, could hardly
promote so desirable an issue, yet it is evident the wound stood a good
chance of healing by the operation of nature, which, I believe, medical
gentlemen call a cure by the first intention.]

The vulgar continue to believe firmly in the phenomenon of the murdered
corpse bleeding at the approach of the murderer. "Many (I adopt the
words of an ingenious correspondent) are the proofs advanced in
confirmation of the opinion, against those who are so hardy as to doubt
it; but one, in particular, as it is said to have happened in this
place, I cannot help repeating.

"Two young men, going a fishing in the river Yarrow, fell out; and so
high ran the quarrel, that the one, in a passion, stabbed the other to
the heart with a fish spear. Astonished "at the rash act, he hesitated
whether to fly, give himself up to justice, or conceal the crime; and,
in the end, fixed on the latter expedient, burying the body of his
friend very deep in the sands. As the meeting had been accidental, he
was never from gaiety to a settled melancholy. Time passed on for
the space of fifty years, when a smith, fishing near the same place,
discovered an uncommon and curious bone, which he put in his pocket,
and afterwards showed to some people in his smithy. The murderer being
present, now an old white-headed man, leaning on his staff, desired a
sight of the little bone; but how horrible was the issue! no sooner had
he touched it, than it streamed with purple blood. Being told where it
was found, he confessed the crime, was condemned, but was prevented, by
death, from suffering the punishment due to his crime.

"Such opinions, though reason forbids us to believe them, a few moments
reflection on the cause of their origin will teach us to revere. Under
the feudal system which prevailed, the rights of humanity were too often
violated, and redress very hard to be procured; thus an awful deference
to one of the leading attributes of Omnipotence begat on the mind,
untutored by philosophy, the first germ of these supernatural effects;
which was, by superstitious zeal, assisted, perhaps, by a few instances
of sudden remorse, magnified into evidence of indisputable guilt."

THE LASS OF LOCHROYAN.

NOW FIRST PUBLISHED IN A PERFECT STATE.

Lochroyan, whence this ballad probably derives its name, lies in
Gallowa