Galloway, who had mingled with the Wild Scots of that district and had given their national name to them.

These Picts of Galloway are mentioned for the last time in the reign of David the First of Scotland, and composed a principal division of his army during the war of the Standard. They are described as ferocious savages, half clad and half armed, but of great courage, and advancing haughty pretensions to superiority over the Norman knights who had joined the Scottish host. The cruelties which they practised in ravaging the country, sparing neither sex nor age, and tossing infants upon their bloody lances, seem to be exaggerated by the English historians. They won a great battle at Clitherow, near the sources of the river Ribble. William, son of Duncan, base-born brother of King David, was their commander. But the want of discipline of the Galwegians occasioned misfortunes which counterbalanced the victories gained by their ferocious courage. These wild soldiers mutinied in the Scottish camp, and would have slain the king, if not prevented by a well-judged, though false, alarm, stating the English to be close at hand. Their chiefs brawled and bullied in the council; and, on the night before the battle of Northallerton, A. D. 1138, asserted, as their right, the privilege of leading the van on the ensuing day. It was conceded to them, though reluctantly, as the best way of preserving peace. We may here remark that different English historians call the vanguard, thus composed, by the various names of Picts, Scots, Galwegians, and Men of Lothian. Lord Hailes observes that this strange contrariety ought to teach us that the English historians are no certain guides for ascertaining the denominations of the different tribes which inhabited Scotland in ancient times.' This proposition, in the abstract, is as judicious as those of the venerable historian usually are.. But, in this particular instance, the body which led the van was so strangely mingled, that any of these four epithets, though apparently contradictory of each other, might without impropriety be applied to them. 1. They were Picts, as sprung from the remains of that people who fled to their kinsmen in Galloway. 2. But they might, in one point of view, be termed Scots, since the Picts possessed the province in common with a colony from Ireland, called the Wild Scots of Galloway, and remembered to this day by that name. 3. They were termed Gallovidians, or Galwenses, or Galwegians, as inhabiting the province of Galloway. 4. If there mixed with them any considerable number of the Vecturiones, or Southland Picts, which is a thing highly probable, they might, in consequence of such admixture, be without impropriety termed Lothian men by a foreign historian, who was not greatly interested in knowing himself, or transmitting to posterity, of what precise tribes this nefanda exercitus ' consisted.

The

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The following curious circumstance illustrates the doubt which race predominated amongst the Galwegians, during the action. Leading the van, which their presumption had demanded, they rushed on with terrible shouts of Abanigh, Albanigh!' We are the men of Albany, or Albyn. This war-cry, of course, asserted that the assailants were the ancient inhabitants of Scotland-a boast agreeing with their descent from the Picts or ancient Caledonians. They charged with courage worthy of the vaunt; but when, after a severe struggle, they were driven back by the English, these last shouted in derision, Erygh, Erygh-Standard!' that is 'Ye are but Irish-ye are but Irish-the Standard for ever!' The standard alluded to, is the holy banner sent into the field by Thurstan, bishop of York, which formed naturally the war-cry of the English, and indeed gave name to the war. In shouting out the epithet of Irish as a reproach, the English alluded to that part of the Galwegians who, though ranked among the Picts, were yet Wild Scots of Irish extraction. To conclude-the people of Galloway spoke a Celtic dialect till within a very period;-a circumstance unfavourable to those who hold that the Picts spoke a Gothic one-since, in that case, strong Gothic traces must have lingered where the remains of the Pictish people had found their final refuge.

late

After the battle of the Standard, although the Galwegians are often mentioned, we hear no more of their Pictish descent; and it is probable that, during the time when the district enjoyed a period of stormy independence under its native lords, down to 1234, (when Roland, the last of these, left his lordship to heirsfemale,) there was no distinction made between the people of Galloway, whether of Pictish or Hiberno-Scotish descent.

We have now gone hastily through a curious inquiry-Ritson having courteously afforded us the light of his Chronicles, illustrating the Latin motto, vivit post funera virtus, and speaking as with a voice from the tomb. If by means of the weapons furnished by this industrious antiquary, we have been enabled to point out some flaws in the Gothic system of his celebrated opponent, it is without the least desire to awaken the warmth of the late controversy. We would wish to be considered as only desirous to know the truth in so far as the truth can be discovered, and with the due respect to the ashes of learned and able scholars; for we must not forget that, quoting Chalmers or Ritson against Pinkerton,

'We breathe these dead words in as dead an ear.'

There is, however, a living scholar of great merit, who has written more lately on this interesting subject, and who justly claims our recommendation to such of our readers as are inteVOL. XLI. NO. LXXXI,

M

rested

rested in the early history of Britain. Mr. Lowe had distinguished himself by a prize essay, entitled (quaintly enough) On the Ancient History of the Kingdom of the Gaelic, the extent of the country, its laws, population, poetry, and learned.' To this essay the Highland Society of London awarded the premium-and deservedly, since we know of few single volumes of recent date offering such a display of research. Mr. Lowe is, we have been told, one of that laborious and ill-requited class of men who have done so much essential service as well as honour to their country-the parochial schoolmasters of Scotland. In such a situation, command of leisure is rare; access to authorities peculiarly difficult; and the student works at an expense of time, labour, and too often health, not easily to be appreciated by those more fortunate scholars, whose hours of study are hours of relaxation. It is to be hoped that Mr. Lowe's talents and zeal will raise him from the respectable but hard-working and ill-remunerated class to which he belongs, and place him in a pulpit of The Kirk.

The defect of the book is an aptitude to lean on slight authorities-a slight mixture, in short, of the old sin of the race. Perhaps the author may not have seen the more recent compositions, in which such forgeries as the laws of Kenneth Mac Alpine, for example, have been unanimously rejected by lawyers and historians. The history of the old book termed the Regiam Majestatem,' again, is pretty well understood to have been a ruse-deguerre on the part of Edward I. of England, used for the purpose of riveting the feudal code upon the Scottish nation, as more favourable to his views, and abolishing the consuetudinary laws and customs of the Scots and Bretts; of the Dalriadic Scots, that is, and the Britons of Strath Clyde. Mr. Lowe also swallows, by wholesale, the belief in Ossian-history, poetry, chronology, and all. These things savour a little of the ancient credulity of the Scottish historians, who could find it in their hearts to deny nothing with which they conceived the honour of their Antiqua Mater to be concerned. The Essay was originally composed for the Highland Society of London, amongst whom some lingering worshippers of the neglected idol are probably to be found; and this is a circumstance which the candid reader will keep in view. We are extremely sorry that our limits permit us to say nothing further upon the labours of this modest and meritorious young man, and in such a case it would be truly unjust to enlarge on deficiencies.

ART

ART. VI.-An Account of some of the most important Diseases peculiar to Women. By Robert Gooch, M.D. London. 8vo, 1829.

THE

HE work before us, being expressly devoted to medical subjects, cannot, as a whole, be appreciated by the non-professional reader. There are points, however, in medicine, forming that debateable land between technical and general knowledge, which few, who have attained to half the years allotted to our sojourn here, have not been forced to make the subjects of anxious thought; and of these the most painfully interesting is insanity. to which Dr. Gooch has devoted two essays, distinguished in a very uncommon degree for originality, precision, and vigour of thought.*

The materials which our author has brought together will enable us to examine the validity-Of the opinions current in medicine as to the nature and treatment of insanity in general, and puerperal insanity in particular;-Of certain opinions current in society as to insanity; and, thirdly, of certain notions entertained in law respecting insanity, considered as a subject of legal medicine.

It is well known that some, who are quite sane at all other times, become deranged-sometimes a few days, sometimes several months, after confinement. We may quote the following

case:

เ

A lady, who I was told had had a " a brain fever" after her former lying-in, came to London to be attended by me in her next confinement. For nine days subsequent to a short and an easy labour, nothing indicated the approach of disease. On the tenth day, however, the shop of a piano-forte maker in Oxford-street caught fire: this occasioned a great bustle in the neighbourhood; as her sitting-room did not look into the street, it was kept from her knowledge during the day; but in the evening, while she was standing at her window, which looked into a yard at the back of the house, a piece of burning matter fell within her sight. I saw her about two hours afterwards, at nine in the evening: her manner was agitated. On being questioned as to her feelings, she kept silent for some time, and then answered abruptly: her pulse was quick; her look and manner odd and unnatural. I slept in the house. At four o'clock in the morning the nurse waked me, and said that her mistress had no sleep; that she was sitting up in bed talking to herself, but that instant had expressed a wish to see me. I rose and went to her; there was only a rushlight in a remote part of the chamber. As soon as she saw who I was, she told me to sit down and look at her. I said, "I do." "What do

The two essays to which we allude are entitled "Disorders of the Mind in Lyingin Women;" and "Thoughts on Insanity as an object of Moral Science."

you see?"

"Nothing but yourself." "Look at my head." "I do." "Do you see nothing particular there?" "Nothing." "Then I was presumptuous: I thought that a glorious light came out of my temples and shone about my head; I thought I was the Virgin Mary." The patient recovered in three weeks.'

The practical question to be determined is, what is the state of the body on which the disorder of mind depends? Our medicinal agents can only raze out the written troubles of the brain,' through their action on some portion of the organisation. It is of the last importance, therefore, to ascertain that peculiar state of organisation which accompanies insanity; and here Dr. Gooch is opposed not only to popular but to professional prejudices.

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There is a strong disposition,' says he, to attribute raving of the mind to inflammation of the brain. Perhaps it originates thus:-that the disorder of the mind, with which we are most familiar, is drunkenness, which is known to be caused by spirits and cured by temperance: -mania is called brain fever; and the sight of a raving patient instantly suggests the thoughts of cupping-glasses, iced caps, low diet, and purgatives.'

Experience, however, according to our author, points to a very different conclusion: it teaches us that disorder of the mind may be connected with very opposite states of the circulation; sometimes with inflammation or active congestion, for which depletion is the shortest remedy; sometimes with an opposite condition of the circulation, which depletion will only aggravate: And, indeed, in order to prove that the excitement of the brain, in puerperal insanity, does not always depend on inflammation, nothing more is necessary than to look over the leading points of the cases narrated by Dr. Gooch as having fallen within his personal observation.

In one of these, the disease occurred in a pale lady without any heat of skin, or much quickness of pulse, and was not relieved by blood-letting: in another, it occurred in one whose constitution was drained and enfeebled by nursing a third was habitually hysterical, pale, and from want of sufficient physical power always brought forth dead children: in a fourth, insanity followed immense loss of blood: in a fifth, it occurred in one in whom, for urgent reasons, large bleedings were essential to preserve life in a sixth, who had lived so low, and was of so irritable a constitution, that she appeared as if at the close of some disease which had been overlooked, mania showed itself, and was relieved not by bleedings or cupping, but by means which tranquillized, soothed, and sustained the patient. In a seventh, the attendant treated the case by moderate depletion, by leeching, cupping, purging, and low diet;—she died, not with the symptoms

of