of the provocation, seemed to his kinsmen to jus-
tify his deed.
After a short abode at Hamilton,
this fierce and determined man left Scotland, and
served in France, under the patronage of the fam-
ily of Guise, to whom he was doubtless recom-
mended by having avenged the cause of their
niece, Queen Mary, upon her ungrateful brother.
De Thou has recorded, that an attempt was made
to engage him to assassinate Gaspar de Coligni,
the famous Admiral of France, and the buckler
of the Huguenot cause. But the character of
Bothwellhaugh was mistaken. He was no mer-
cenary trader in blood, and rejected the offer with
contempt and indignation. He had no authority,
he said, from Scotland to commit murders in
France; he had avenged his own just quarrel, but
he would neither, for price nor prayer, avenge that
of another man.-Thuanus, cap. 46.

The Regent's death happened 23d January 1569. It is applauded or stigmatized, by contemporary historians, according to their religious or party prejudices. The triumph of Blackwood is unbounded. He not only extols the pious feat of Bothwellhaugh, "who," he observes, "satisfied, with a single ounce of lead, him, whose sacrilegious avarice had stripped the metropolitan church of St Andrews of its covering;" but he ascribes it to immediate divine inspiration, and the escape of Hamilton to little less than the miraculous interference of the Deity.-JEBB, vol. ii. p. 263.

With equal injustice, it was, by others, made the ground of a general national reflection; for, when Mather urged Berney to assassinate Burleigh, and quoted the examples of Poltrot and Bothwellhaugh, the other conspirator answered, "that neyther Poltrot nor Hambleton did attempt their enterpryse, without some reason or consideration to lead them to it; as the one, by hyre, and promise of preferment or rewarde; the other, upon desperate mind of revenge, for a lyttle wrong done unto him, as the report goethe, according to the vyle trayterous dysposysyon of the hoole natyon of the Scottes."-MURDIN'S State Papers, vol. i. p. 197.

CADYOW CASTLE.

ADDRESSED TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LADY ANNE HAMILTON.1

BY WALTER SCOTT.

WHEN princely Hamilton's abode
Ennobled Cadyow's Gothic towers,

The song went round, the goblet flow'd,
And revel sped the laughing hours.

Then, thrilling to the harp's gay sound,
So sweetly rung each vaulted wall,
And echoed light the dancer's bound,

As mirth and music cheer'd the hall.

1 [Eldest daughter of Archibald, 9th Duke of Hamilton.ED.]

But Cadyow's towers, in ruins laid,
And vaults, by ivy mantled o'er,
Thrill to the music of the shade,
Or echo Evan's hoarser roar.

Yet still, of Cadyow's faded fame,
You bid me tell a minstrel tale,
And tune my harp, of Border frame,
On the wild banks of Evandale.

For thou, from scenes of courtly pride, From pleasure's lighter scenes, canst turn, To draw oblivion's pall aside,

And mark the long-forgotten urn.

Then, noble maid! at thy command,
Again the crumbled halls shall rise;
Lo! as on Evan's banks we stand,
The past returns-the present flies.

Where, with the rock's wood cover'd side,
Were blended late the ruins green,

Rise turrets in fantastic pride,

And feudal banners flaunt between :

Where the rude torrent's brawling course

Was shagg'd with thorn and tangling sloe,

The ashler buttress braves its force,

And ramparts frown in battled row.

'Tis night-the shade of keep and spire
Obscurely dance on Evan's stream;

And on the wave the warder's fire
Is chequering the moonlight beam.

Fades slow their light; the east is grey;
The weary warder leaves his tower;
Steeds snort; uncoupled stag-hounds bay,
And merry hunters quit the bower.

The drawbridge falls-they hurry out-
Clatters each plank and swinging chain,
As, dashing o'er, the jovial rout

Urge the shy steed, and slack the rein.

First of his troop, the Chief rode on;1
His shouting merry-men throng behind;

The steed of princely Hamilton

Was fleeter than the mountain wind.

From the thick copse the roebucks bound,
The startled red-deer scuds the plain,

For the hoarse bugle's warrior sound

Has roused their mountain haunts again.

1 The head of the family of Hamilton, at this period, was James, Earl of Arran, Duke of Chatelherault, in France, and first peer of the Scottish realm. In 1569, he was appointed by Queen Mary her lieutenant-general in Scotland, under the singular title of her adopted father.