! SHETLAND AND THE SHETLANDERS; ^Tije jSTorttjern ((tivtuit By CATHERINE SINCLAIR, Author of "Modem Accomplishments," "Modern Society," "Hill and Valley," "Charhe Seymour," "Holiday House," &c. &c. O Scotland! nurse of bravest men, But nurse of bad men too For thee the good attempt in vain, What villains still undo ! Robertson of Struan. DEDICATED TO THE HIGHLAND SOCIETY. NEW-YORK: D. APPLETON & CO., 200 BROADWAY. 1840. PREFACE The author having in a previous volume ventured forward with some apprehension, she has been so agreeably surprised by the success of her first shot, in bringing down a large covey of readers, that she feels encouraged now to discharge a second barrel, ^ trusting it may not be said that she has overshot the mark. The more deeply grateful the author feels to those who have candidly, and only partially viewed her present attempt to throw some additional light and interest on the locahties of Scotland, the more solicitous she is, not to draw too largely on their forbearance, or to intrude too frequently on their attention ; she now therefore concludes this work, hoping that the very indulgent public may long continue '' To all its faults a little blind/' SHETLAND AND THE SHETLANDERS DORNOCH TO A SCOTCH COUSIN. I've often wished that I had clear, For life six hundred pounds a-year, A handsome house to lodge a friend, A river at my garden's end, A terrace-walk, and half a rood Of land, set out to plant a wood; ' Pope. My dear Cousin,—When students are about to leave Oxford, a list is given in of the books to which their attention has been chiefly devoted, and they are examined by a learned jury on the progress and depth of their attainments. If we were all obliged occasionally to render up before competent examiners such an account of our time, it would be amusing, in most cases, to see the miscellaneous list of favourite authors presented ! Instead of Homer, 1* b DORNOCH. Cicero, and Herodotus, how often we should find " Trollope, Dickens, and Hook," or perhaps " Byron, Scott, and the Newgate Calendar," but of late your more abstruse studies have been seriously impeded by the incessant battledore and shuttlecock of our correspondence, and the Post-office must wonder what can be going on in the North, seeing so con- stant a succession of letters pouring in upon you, their seals strained almost to bursting, like the lock of a trunk on a journey. We are credibly informed, that the Empress Josephine wore thirty new bonnets in a month ; and really those who travel through the wind and rain of this changeable summer would require to follow the example, or to wear theirs of cast-iron. Mr. M'Intosh ought to receive a petition from the ladies, to invent something becoming for us to wear during rain, as he certainly has sacrificed the ornamental to the useful in respect to gentlemen, who are much to be pitied for the sort of hideous domino they all wear in a shower, though they might be envied also for the impunity with which they can brave the worst now. I often think A would rather have a torrent of rain than otherwise, to prove how im- pregnable, amidst the w^ar of elements, are his for- tifications. We had a delightful clearing-up towards eve- ning for inspecting the neat little county town of DORNOCH. Dornoch, where I greatly admired the magnificent donation of a fine cathedral presented to the city some years ago, by the Duchess-Countess of Suther- land, who expended £Q000 in renewing an ancient ecclesiastical edifice which stood here, dedicated to St. Gilbert, a saint with whom I was not previously acquainted. The former building had been burned, along with a large proportion of the town, by an invading army, but her Grace caused the old pro- portions and very elaborate decorations to be copied with almost Chinese minuteness, and now it wants only a few centmies of antiquity to be quite venera- ble. After this renewal had been successfully com- pleted, the Duchess only once enjoyed the gratifica- tion of attending public worship in that house of God, where she now lies interred beneath a wooden trap-door in front of the altar. There also sleeps the Duke her husband, to whom the county of Suth- erland owed, and has testified, almost unbounded respect and gratitude. On the summit of a neigh- bouring hill, a pillar, sixty feet high, surmounted by a colossal statue, may be seen for thirty miles round, " known to every star and every wind that blows." It was raised by the personal labour and subscrip- tions of his own attached tenantry to the memory of this nobleman, originally a stranger to our heath- covered mountains, who became so completely a 8 DORNOCH. Scotchman by adoption, that he spent the whole income of his Highland estates in improving them, resided much in that remote district, associated cor- dially with his tenantry, and chose his dukedom to perpetuate his connection with this country and with the ancient Earldom of Sutherland, the oldest title in Britain. The Duke's death was supposed to have been hastened by the cold and fatigue of a steam voyage to Scotland; and the Duchess, who survived him five years, gave directions, on her death-bed, with singular forethought, that her body should be con- veyed to Dornoch by sea, but that any of her family who were to be present at the funeral should avoid the danger of a winter voyage, and follow by land. Few persons have enjoyed a more remarkably prosperous life than the Duchess-Countess of Suther- land, gifted from her earliest youth with an eminent share of beauty, talents, and fortune, which she lived to enjoy, almost unimpaired, during a long course of years. It is well known that when Lord Trentham was jilted by the beautiful but fickle Lady Caroline Spencer, some friend reported to him that the young- heiress of Dunrobin had expressed astonishment how any lady could refuse one so deserving of happiness. Upon hearing this, he instantly declared that she could more than compensate for his recent disap- DORNOCH. pointment,—the result of which eclaircissement was, an alhance most propitious to the best interests of Scotland. The Duchess-Countess, when about to be snatch- ed from all that this world could bestow, testified astonishing composure while she contemplated the immediate approach of death. When alluding to the prospect of her own impending dissolution, she said, " It is quite as well now as afterwards ;" and when advised to postpone some important business, she rephed, "There is no time for me but the present." No subject excites such deep interest in every human breast, as to ascertain how that last enemy has been met by others, which must sooner or later conquer ourselves ! It often seems to me, that du- ring life, we are placed between two impenetrable curtains, the one hiding from our sight all that is past, the other all that is future ; but a death-bed throws both, as it were, aside,—the door stands a-jar leading into another world,—and w^e then see at once, in solemn array, all the follies of our former existence, and all the terrors of a future judgment, which often so fearfully awaken those agonies of conscience that beset the mind of a dying sinner. Sir Henry Halford, who attended the final hours of many an eminent individual, has recorded his own surprise how many have no reluctance to die,—some 10 DORNOCH. from impatience of suffering, others from passive in- difference, but many from faith in our holy religion. " Such men," he adds, " were not only calm and supported, but cheerful, in the hour of death, and I never quitted such a sick-chamber, without a hope that my last end might be like theirs." It is very remarkable to observe, how little our love of life is proportioned to the external prosperity we enjoy in it, and that whenever we fancy any individual hav- ing more than a common share of happiness, he is always some one of whom we know nothing, or very little. You have heard of the poor bed-ridden old beggar, who clasped his hands in an agony of grief when told he was dying, and exclaimed, " Oh, this is a pleasant world !" and you have seen others, with scarcely a want unsupplied, who seemed weary of their very existence, and endured it only from a dread of futurity. Baxter said, he was all his life tempted sinfully to wish that he had never been born ; and those who have attained the most that this world can offer, have greatest leisure to look around-on the barrenness of the prospect, while they might be apt to exclaim, like Caesar, when he gained his empire, " Is this all !" A peaceful con- science, that blessing which all might enjoy, who rightly seek and value it, is the only support which will avail in the end, and some Christians have at- tained that holy faith which encouraged them to DORNOCH. 11 feel a clam serene expectation, that when the veil was drawn back which hides eternity from om- sight, they were immediately to behold the glories of Heaven. Yet how carefully must we discriminate between a resigned death, and a prepared death. Those who are most eagerly seeking the world's honours, pleasures, and applause, would scarcely be ready to acknowledge the wisdom of that last wash expressed by the unfortunate Princess Caroline Ma- tdda, who scratched these —words with a diamond on the window of her prison " Oh ! make me inno- cent—be others great!" Every living person is born with desires which the world, and all it con- tains, never can satisfy ; and though all the gifts of fortune accumulated around us, were conspiring to hide our Maker from our thoughts, we could not but feel that there are higher pleasures, and greater gifts, than any upon earth, which we are created to seek, and without which we can reach no happiness that deserves the name.