We have here a short but sufficiently precise description of the chieftain of a clan, whether highlander or borderer: for it is to be observed, that the southern provinces of Scotland, and indeed the neighbouring English counties, afforded the same examples of such a patriarchal species of authority. This seems to have been clearly of Celtic origin: for the English and Scottish borders were, as well as the highlands, peopled by a tribe of this race, the remnants of Arthur’s kingdom, which extended as far as from North Wales to Cumberland in England, and the parallel counties in Scotland. The cause, however, of clanship being maintained in this line, as well as in the Highlands, is probably to be found in the analogous state of society presented by both districts. Such a custom as clanship would hardly be preserved in any country, after the necessity for it had ceased. Now this had ceased under the increasing civilization of the other Celtic provinces; but was yet in force in those, whose pacification had been retarded by moral or physical accidents. In these, clanship was the best protection which could be had in a state of neighbour warfare.
It may excite surprise that no mention is anywhere made of the Highland garb, which might have been turned to some account in this picture; but it must be recollected that the Highlanders do not appear to have been much considered in the time of Ariosto; and indeed may be said to have first risen into consideration by the glorious part they played in Montrose’s wars. ↩
I have here been under the necessity of creating a dukedom. The original says, “Il duca di Trasfordia,” which is clearly an Italianization of the Latin name of Transforthia, applied to a certain district of Scotland, i.e. the parts beyond Forth, for which Albany would be the exact equivalent, but which Ariosto has made another fief; and previously disposed of. I do not know, however, where the term is to be found, except in a document belonging to the college of Glasgow, termed the rector’s book, commencing about the year 1450. Here it is enjoined that the rector be chosen by four nations of the matriculated members; and of these, the third is entitled Natio Transforthiana, and described as including omnes partes extra Fortham et Stirling et exteros. Ariosto, who probably received his accounts of North Britain from Scottish students at Padua, appears to have confused the information which he had derived from them. But that he, in his aera, should have been studious of such points appears to me infinitely more extraordinary, than that he should not have always duly sifted and separated the knowledge which he had acquired. ↩
St. Patrick was supposed to have made a cave, through which was a descent into purgatory for the living sinner, who was desirous of expiating his evil deeds while yet in the flesh; and in the Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh is a curious MS. metrical romance, entitled “Owain Miles,” which contains an account of all the dreadful trials which Sir Owen underwent with this view. Some extracts of this are given in Sir Walter Scott’s Border Minstrelsy. ↩
Gourds were apparently in Ariosto’s time used in Italy for the same purpose as corks are at present by us. ↩
Xenocrates was a disciple of Plato, famous for his continence. ↩
All the adventures contained in this and the following stanza are to be found in Boiardo’s Innamorato, from her first adventure in France and casting the magic sleep upon Malagigi to the stealing of her ring by Brunello in the citadel of Arbracca. ↩
Meaning, I suppose, Ovid’s Galataea flying from Polyphemus. ↩
There is a propriety observed in this order of words; as in fact the use of artillery did (I believe) spread from the Germans immediately to the Italians, the Venetians first making use of it near Chioza; or Chioggia, in their war with the Genoese. ↩
Bombard was, properly speaking, a mortar: culverine, a long piece, which borrowed its denomination from the snake; and saker and falcon light artillery, so called from two species of the hawk. ↩
We read in Homer of Neptune’s visits to the blameless Aethiopians; but Ovid’s Metamorphoses were the great mine whence Ariosto drew his mythological materials, and he had probably in his recollection the passage where the gods are described taking refuge in Aethiopia amid the tumults of the Titanic war. ↩
Ino, the wife of Athamas, and Melicerta, her son, were changed into deities of the sea. ↩
In the system of education pursued during the middle ages, few means were better suited to the end proposed, than the sort of interchange which was made of sons of princes, and gentlemen who, brought up under other roof than that of their father, were bred in a kind of noble apprenticeship to their calling, amid companions of their own age, secure of kindness (because under friendly, if not kindred, tutelage), but removed from all the risks of parental indulgence. ↩
Curds are called in Italian giuncate, because carried in baskets made of the bull-rush, or giunco. Hence our word junket, meaning, in its original signification, curd; and, in its secondary, rustic festivity; because curds were formerly the standing dish on such occasions. ↩
So ends this beautiful, though strange episode, made up
