In the first place, the love of rapine which we have just mentioned is inherent in both: the towns which fall beneath the ravages of the Greek are probably little superior in importance to the villages which excite the cupidity of the Scot. Both nations possess the same romantic notions of individual bravery: both value their booty rather from its being the prize of battle, than from the weight of the gold, or the number of the cattle, of which it consists. And to say the truth, when we behold, on the one side, Achilles retiring from his conquests, with his captives, and his treasures, and his beeves; and when we see, on the other, the chieftain of some kilted clan returning to his native fastnesses, and driving the fat of the land before him, we hardly know which of the two cuts the more respectable figure. Why do we attach such splendid ideas to the terror of Troy? His rival is a more picturesque object for the design of the painter, he is as muscular a model for the chisel of the sculptor; but the piracies of the Mountaineer will never be celebrated like the piracies of the Myrmidon; for, alas! Gaelic will never sound so classical as Greek! Many of the superstitions of the one nation bear a striking resemblance to those of the other. Both of them believe that their sages have the faculty of foreseeing and predicting future events; both of them place great reliance on signs and auguries; both imagine that the soul exists after death, and that it continues to take an interest in the pursuits and the friends whom it left upon earth. Much as we are attached to the fooleries of our old friends before Troy--to the victims, and the priests, and the oracles, we must confess that, to our taste, the plaided seer, rapt up in his vacant trance of second-sight, is a more interesting and a more poetical object than all the mummeries of Delphos or Dodona. But there is one point in this legendary species of religion, in which the similarity appears to us rather remarkable. We allude to that extraordinary union of the opposite doctrines of free-will and predestination, which so forcibly obtrudes itself upon our notice in examining the traditions of both countries. To discuss this point at any length would require a greater portion of time than we can devote to it; and we shall therefore content ourselves with observing that the fabulous self-devotion of Achilles, who is said to have remained at Troy, although conscious that he was destined to die there, appears to us to have taken its rise from those notions of an unavoidable fate which Homer so frequently expresses. But this trait, which, as has been often observed, adds such an exalted merit to the character of the hero, has many parallels in the conduct of the Scottish clansmen, whose chieftains we frequently find going with alacrity to battle, although feeling a consciousness that they are seeking their death. But look you there again!--the self-devotion of the Mountaineer will never be