—1799-] 
all the kindred train of inordinate paf- 
fions '” ) 
Such are the reflections of the elegant 
PeTRaRCH: concerning a diforder which 
cannot now be named without indelicacy. 
- From the language in which he {peaks of 
it, and from the confideration of its being 
numbered by him among other common 
fources of the vexations of human life, we 
may infer that it was, in the days of Pe- 
TRARCH, a not unfrequent complaint 
among all ranks in life, and throughout 
the fouthern regions of Europe. Clean 
linen, frefh animal food, with the plenti- 
ful ufe of wheaten bread and other vege- 
table provifions, are the happy medicines, 
by the ule of which it has been expelled. 
ee ; 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. - 
SIR, ; 
N the prefent eventful zra, which has 
witneffed the downfall of fomany an- 
tient and illu(trious families, I am fur- 
prifed to fee fo little of the public attention 
drawn tothe royal family of Mac GREGor., 
Let not your Englifh readers {mile at this 
epithet ; for it is an epithet unqueftionably 
jut. 
In that moft authentic, valuable, and 
judictows work, entitled, The Baronage of 
Scotland, we have a hiftory of the family, 
written, it has been faid, by him who now 
claims to be the chief; and furely the tef- 
timony of fuch a writer mutt carry con- 
viction to the mott {ceptical mind. In- 
deed, the narrative is drawn up with a 
modefly which flafhes convistion in the 
reader’s face.. ‘* Though the royal de- 
fcent of this moft ancient clan might be 
traced from-the chronicles of the Scottifh 
kings to the remotett antiquity, we fhall 
here,”* fays the illuftrious author, < carry 
it no farther back’ than the immediate un- 
doubted progenitor, Parnce Grecor, 
third fon of king Alpin, fon of the cele 
brated Achaius king of Scotland, who be- 
gan to reign Ayno 787.” 
To me, who know fo well the number 
and the authenticity of the Scottifh records 
prior to that period; the felf-denial of him 
who did not make ufe of them to carry 
back his pedigree to Japhet the fon of 
Noah, fupplies the place of 10,000 proofs 
of the truth of the decent which he has 
traced. Indeed I am now thoroughly 
convinced, with a member of the clan who 
was both a poet and an antiquarian, that 
there are but four houfes of high antiquity 
in Europe; the houfe of Aufria, the 
houfe of Bourbon, the houfe of Stewart, 
apd the houfe of Mac Grecor; and of 
Family of Mac Gregor. 
529 
thefe, it is a queéftion undecided, whether © 
the houfe of Stewart be any thing more 
than a éranch of that of Mac Gregor. 
Of thefe four illuftrious families, the 
fate has been very remarkable. The 
chief of the houfe of Stewart is now 2 
catholic prieft ; the male line of the houfe 
of Auitria failed in 1740, by the death of 
the emperor Charles VI.; and the head of 
the houfe of Bourbon has for fix years 
been a wandering exile; but the hiftory 
of the houfe of Mac Greger is {till more 
extraordinary than that of any of the other 
three. 
About the beginning of the laft cen. 
tury, after havine tor many years before 
committed what their exemies called “ vatt 
outrages and depredations,’? the Mae 
Gregors, under the conduct of their chief, 
maflacred the Colquhouns, a neighbouring 
clan, with fuch circumftances of treache. 
rous atrocity, that the name of Mac Gre~ 
gor was abolithed by act of parliament, 
and the whole clan declared outlaws. It 
will naturally be thought that fuch a law 
could not have been pafled againft a fa- 
mily fo illuftrious, but upon the moft com~ 
plete evidence; and it muft be confeffed 
that the public opinion on this occafion 
acqtlielced in. the wildom and juftice of | 
the legiflature. But, notwithftaading thele 
preiumptions, the hiftorian ef the clan, 
whom we have already quoted in terms fo 
refpectful, has proved, by evidence the 
moft incontrovertible, that his family was 
innocent, and the Scotch parliament a pack 
of knaves. “* Mr. Alexander Rofs,” fays 
he, * profeffor in the univerfity of Aber- 
deen, makes it plainly appear, in a Latin 
hiftory of the family of Sutherland, how 
grofsly this unfortunate clan have been 
mifreprefented and abufed ;”” and furely 
no man of common fenfe will pretend that 
evenan ad? of parliament, corroborated by 
public opinion and the teftimony of aH our 
hiffortans, can invalidate the credit of a” 
profefor in the Univerfity of Aberdeen! It 
is true, that Charles IT. having repealed 
the law which abolifhed the name of Mae 
Gregor, king William judged it neceflary 
to revive it, on account of fome new de- 
predations committed by the cian under 
the conduc of Robert Roy; but what is 
king William when compared with pro 
Seffar Rafs ? MU 
The effects of thefe unjuft laws were: 
various. The clan was broken and di- 
fperfed. Some of them took one name, and 
fome another ; and they emigrated in mul- 
titudes to Germany, France, Italy, and 
Ireland. As the learned hiftoriam already 
mentioned has not traced the Iri/d, Malian, 
oY 
