"The contributors to this little collection will be found abundantly entitled to the thanks of the Inftitutress *, the approbation of the LIBERAL, the acknowledgments of the CHARITABLE, and the bleffings of the POOR." ART. V. The Hiftory of the Province of Moray: Extending from the Mouth of the River Spey, to the Borders of Lochaber in Length; and from the Maray Frith, to the Grampian Hills in Breadth: And, including a Part of the Shire of Banff to the Eaft; the whole Shires of Moray and Nairn: and the greatest part of the Shire of Inverness. All which was antiently called the Province of Moray, before there was a Divifion into Counties. By the Rev. Mr. Lachlan Shaw, Minister of the Gospel at Elgin. 4to. 12s. 6d. Edinburgh, William Auld. London, John Donaldfon. Antiquam Exquirite Matrem This Hiftory is divided into fix parts, containing an Introduction, the Geography, the Natural History, the Civil and Political, the Military and Ecclefiaftical History of Moray: But as the extent and variety of it, fo much greater than its popular importance, will not justify our making any copious abstract, we cannot give our readers a better idea of its plan and execution in general than we meet with in the author's preface. "The author of this undertaking collected the materials of it at different times, and wrote them for his own amufement, without any defign of offering them to the public. He perufed descriptions of feveral counties, but had not the good fortune to meet with any tolerable account of the Province of Moray; wherefore, mindful of the obfervation, Nefcio qua natale folum dulcedine captos He has arranged his collections into the order in which they now appear. "The geographical part would be lefs entertaining, if it was not intermixed with a genealogical account of several families of eminence and diftinction: in this, his chief view was, to give the true origin and antiquity of thofe families. It is generally agreed, that we had not fixed furnames in Scotland earlier than the eleventh century: before that period, our kings were named patronimically, as, Malcolm MacKennet, Kenneth MacAlpin, &c. The author has in his hands manuscript accounts of the families treated of, from which entertaining anecdotes might have been extracted; but this, he was afraid, would too much fwell the work. He has added the armorial bearings of families. The Romans preferved the distinction of families by the jus imaginis: they divided the people into nobiles, novi, et ignobiles: he that had the images or ftatues of his ancestors, Mrs. Miller, of Bath-Easton; to whom fome elegant and many pretty compliments are paid in the courfe of the volume. who who bore eminent offices, as prætor, edile, conful, &c. was called Noble: he that had only his own image or ftatue, was Novus or an Upftart: and he that had no ftatue, was Ignoble. Thofe little ftatues of wood, marble, brafs, &c. were carefully preferved and expofed at funerals and other folemn occafions; and poffibly from this came our coats of arms. (Vid. Suet. in octav. et Dioclef. and Niber's Ufe of Armories.) "In the geographical, and fome other parts of this work, the author has given the names of places in the Gaelic language, which is a dialect of the Celtic: in this he has generally obferved the proper orthography, which often differs from the common pronunciation in this kingdom: this he has done to make the etymology of these names of places the more intelligible. "The natural hiftory, although it contains little to gratify the curiofity of those who are much verfant in fuch reading; yet valuable authors have given an account of natural productions of countries fuch as they write of; and the peculiar product of this province ought not to be omitted, and may be entertaining to many. "In the civil part, there is fuch variety as cannot but be agreeable to fome readers. In the Roll of Barons, there are several alterations fince 1760: in fome, fons have come into the place of their fathers; in others, collaterals have fucceeded: and in 1774, the king and parliament granted to Major General Frafer, the lands and eftate of the late Lord Lovate his father. But the roll, as it now flands, is fo well known, that it is unneceffary to write it. "The Military History is drawn up from the beft writers the author has met with. "The ecclefiaftic part may appear to fome readers too long. The length however may be excufed, confidering the great variety of matter it contains; the author has ufed a ftyle fo laconic and brief, that be could not exprefs his thoughts intelligibly in fewer words: and it may be agreeable to fome, to find the fucceffion of minifters in parishes, and the changes in ecclefiaftical government, fince the reformation. "There is added an appendix, containing a number of papers, most of them never before published; which ferved to elucidate and confirm many parts in the preceding work." As a fpecimen of the hiftorian's ftile and manner of writing, we felect the following account of the fuperftitious cuftoms ftill practifed in the county of Moray; which feem to have had their rise from the Druids. "In hectic and confumptive difeafes, they pair the nails of the fingers and toes of the patient, put thefe parings into a rag cut from his clothes, then wave their hand with the rag thrice round his head crying Deas-Soil, after which they bury the rag in fome unknown place. I have feen this done: and Pliny, in his natural history, mentions it as practifed by the magians or druids of his time. "When a contagious difeafe enters among cattle, the fire is extinguished in fome villages round: then they force fire with a wheel, or by rubbing a piece of dry wood upon another, and therewith burn ́juniper H juniper in the ftalls of the cattle, that the fmoke may purify the air about them they likewife boil juniper in water, which they fprinkle upon the cattle. This done, the fires in the houfes are rekindled from the forced fire. All this I have seen done; and it is no doubt a druid custom. "They narrowly obferved the changes of the moon, and will not fell wood, cut turf or fuel, or thatch for houfes, or go upon any expedition of importance, but at certain periods of the revolution of that planet: fo the druids avoided, if pollible, to fight till after the full moon. (Diodor.) "They divine by bones; having picked the flesh clean off a fhoulder-blade of mutton, which no iron must touch, they turn towards the east, or the rifing fun, and looking fteadily on the tranfparent bone, pretend to foretell deaths, burials, &c. This Ofteomatcia was much practifed among the heathens; and the druids confulted the entrails and bones of animals, even of human victims. (Tacit. Annal 14.) I have spoken of their regard to omens page 240. "At burials they retain many heathenish practices; fuch as music and dancing at like wakes, when the nearest r lations of the deceafed dance firft. At burials, mourning women chant the Coronach, or mournful extemporary hymes, reciting the valourous deeds, expert hunting, &c. of the deceafed. When the corpfe is lifted, the bedftraw, on which the deceafed lay, is carried out and burnt in a place where no beaft can come near it; and they pretend to find next morning, in the afhes, the print of the foot of that perfon in the family, who fhall first die. "They believe, that the material world will be deftroyed by fire. So general is this perfuafion, that when they would exprefs the end of time, they fay Gu-braith, i. e. To the conflagration, or deftruction.' "The ufe which the druids made of juniper, and their regard to the changes of the moon, fhew that they were no ftrangers to the virtues of plants, and the influences of the celestial bodies. "I fcarce need obferve, that throughout this kingdom, many places have their names, and fome prfons their furnames, from the druid cards, carns, &c. as Baird, Carnie, Moni-bhard, Tullibardin, Carn-wath, Carn-crofs, &c." This work is well-printed and embellished with engravings of fome views of ruins and other buildings, and will afford entertainment to the çurious; particularly thofe who are inquifitive after the antiquities of North-Britain. ART. VI. An Efay towards establishing the Melody and Measure of Speech, to be expreffed and perpetuated by peculiar Symbols. Continued from page 448, Vol. II. and concluded. Having given a pretty full and particular account of Mr. Steele's mufical fcheme, refpe&ting the melody or rife and fall of the voice in speaking, we should now proceed, in conformity to VOL. III. D our our promife, to the confideration of the hints he has thrown out in his preface, in regard to the afcertaining and improving of articulation; we must beg leave, however, to add a word or two on the propriety of profecuting the former scheme, even admiting that, in the rise and fall of speaking, the voice does run the divifions up and down the very few notes within the compafs contended for. The oratorial melody of the Greek tongue being confeffedly loft, and the application of it, or the fubftitution of any thing equivalent to the English, being attended with great, if not infuperable difficulties, it may be worth confidering, whether it would not be better to give up all thought of it entirely, and make the fuppreffion of fuch variation the diftinguishing characteristic of speaking, as oppofed to finging. The obfervation of Tully to a certain chaunting speaker is trite and common; and it is notorious that a chaunt or brogue is common to provincial dialects and bad orators, while the most elegant and refined speakers have the least of it. Nay fo little have fome of our beft and moft genuine orators of tune in fpeaking, that we have known very mufical ears unable to diftinguish it. We frankly own that, on fuch authority, we ourselves have heretofore denied the existence of it in polished fpeech. At the fame time, we confefs ourselves converts to Mr. Steele's proof of its exiftence. We muft do him the juftice alfo to own ourfelves particularly pleased with his illuftration of, what he calls the poize, or light and heavy modes of emphasis, in contradiction to the loud and foft; a dif tinction he thus familiarizes by example. "Suppofe a man fpeaking to his mistress in the words MY DEAR.' Dear being, in this place, put fubftantively, is abfolutely affected to the heavy; therefore these fhould be pronounced thus, my DEAR. Suppose the converfation to have begun in the ordinary degree of loudnefs, and at the fame inftant he has pronounced my, a perfon appears in fight who ought not to hear the next fyllable, the speaker can inftantly foften his voice, even to a whisper, though still the word will carry its proper emphafis and remain heavy." We regard his notice of this diftinction as the principal improvement he has made in the theory of our English profody. For, as to his project of marking the mufical notes of fpeech, and fetting oratorial declamation to tune like the recitativo of an opera, we have no great notion either of its practicability or utility. On the contrary, we think tune fhould be given up entirely to finging, and the abolition of the little musical chaunt there is, in fpeaking, fhould be recommended, as beft fuiting the energy and propriety, and perhaps even the elegance of, fpeech. In this, however, we give merely our opinion, as amoufoi, under correction of the mufical among the learned. As to the matter of articulation, we speak with more confidence, having long made it a pe a peculiar branch of our study. It is fo pretty an hypothefis, that there are, as our author maintains, neither more nor lefs in nature than seven vowel founds, that we are by no means difpofed to controvert the truth of it; though we fee no efficient cause in philofophy to confine the organs of articulation to the formation of feven any more than any other number. We do not conceive the articulation of the voice to resemble in this respect its intonations, or to depend on fimilar caufes to thofe vibrations in the mediums of found and light, which regulate the number and variety of notes and colours. Of this at least, we are confident, that the actual variation of vowel founds as they are pronounced in different languages, cannot well be reduced to fo small a scale. Mr. Steele hath, nevertheless, fome good obfervations on the fubject. "In order to distinguish, says he, what are vowels and what are not, let this be the definition of a vowel found; videlicet, a fimple found capable of being continued invariably the fame for a long time (for example, as long as the breath lafts) without any change of the organs; that is, without any movement of the throat, tongue, lips, or jaws. "But a diphthong found is made by blending two vovel founds by a very quick pronunciation, into one. "So that to try, according to the foregoing definition, to continue a diphthong found, the voice most commonly changes immediately from the first vowel found, of which the diphthong is compofed, by a small movement in fome of the organs, to the found of the vowel which makes the latter part of the faid diphthong, the found of the first vowel being heard only for one inftant. For example, to make this experiment on the English found of u, as in the word USE, which is really a diphthong compofed of these two English founds E and oo; the voice begins on the found EE, but inftantly dwindles into, and ends in, oo. "The other English found of u, as in the words UGLY, UNDONE, BUT, and GUT, is compofed of the English founds AU and oo; but they require to be pronounced fo extremely fhort and close together, that, in the endeavour to prolong the found for this experiment, the voice will be in a continual confused ftruggle between the two component founds, without making either of them, or any other found, diftinct; fo that the true English found of this diphthong can never be expreffed but by the aid of a fhort energic aspiration, fomething like a fhort cough, which makes it very difficult to our fouthern neighbours in Europe. To try the like experiment on the English found of 1 or y as I in the first perfon, and in the words MY, BY, IDLE, and FINE, (both which letters are the marks of one and the fame diphthong found compofed of the English founds AU and EE,) the voice begins on the found AU, and immediately changes to EE on which it continues and ends. "The English found of E, in the words met, let, men, get, is a D 2 diphthong |