\TOiIAM AND MAEY.

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being the rightful successor of those Lords of the Isles, who, as cnAP _late as the fifteenth century, disputed the preeminence of the _EIL_Kings of Scotland. This genealogical controversy, which haslasted down to our own time, caused much bickering amongthe competitors. But they all agreed in regretting the pastsplendour of their dynasty, and in detesting the upstart race ofCampbell. The old feud had never slumbered. It was stillconstantly repeated, in verse and prose, that the finest part ofthe domain belonging to the ancient heads of the Gaelic nation,

Islay, where they had lived with the pomp of royalty, Iona,where they had been interred with the pomp of religion, thepaps of Jura, the rich peninsula of ICintyre, had been trans-ferred from the legitimate possessors to the insatiable MacCallum More. Since the downfall of the House of Argyle, theMacdonalds, if they had not regained their ancient superiority,might at least boast that they had now no superior. Believedfrom the fear of their mighty enemy in the West, they hadturned their arms against weaker enemies in the East, againstthe clan of Mackintosh and against the town of Inverness.

The clan of Mackintosh, a branch of an ancient and Feud bc-rcnowned tribe which took its name and badge from the wild JSo - 6cat of the forests, had a dispute with the Macdonalds, whichoriginated, if tradition may be believed, in those dark times tosllos -when the Danish pirates wasted the coasts of Scotland. Inver- Inver-ness was a-Saxon colony among the Celts, a hive of traders andartisans in the midst of a population of loungers and plunderers,a solitary outpost of civilisation in a region of barbarians.Though the buildings covered but a small part of the space overwhich they now extend; though the arrival of a brig in the portw r as a rare event; though the Exchange was the middle of amiry street, in which stood a market cross much resembling abroken milestone; though the sittings of the municipal councilwere held in a filthy den with a roughcast wall; though the bestMacaulay, History. IV. 21