In camps licentious, wild, and bold;
In pillage fierce and uncontroll'd;
And now, by holytide and feast,
From rules of discipline released.

IV.

They held debate of bloody fray,

Fought 'twixt Loch Katrine and Achray.

Fierce was their speech, and, 'mid their words,
Their hands oft grappled to their swords;

Nor sunk their tone to spare the ear
Of wounded comrades groaning near,
Whose mangled limbs, and bodies gored,
Bore token of the mountain sword,

Though, neighbouring to the Court of Guard,
Their prayers and feverish wails were heard:
Sad burden to the ruffian joke,

And savage oath by fury spoke!—1
At length up-started John of Brent,
A yeoman from the banks of Trent;
A stranger to respect or fear,

In

peace a chaser of the deer,
In host a hardy mutineer,
But still the boldest of the crew,
When deed of danger was to do.

He grieved, that day, their games cut short,
And marr'd the dicer's brawling sport,

1 [MS." Sad burden to the ruffian jest,
And rude oaths vented by the rest."]

And shouted loud, "Renew the bowl!
And, while a merry catch I troll,

Let each the buxom chorus bear,

Like brethren of the brand and spear."

V.

SOLDIER'S SONG.

Our vicar still preaches that Peter and Poule Laid a swinging long curse on the bonny brown

bowl,

That there's wrath and despair in the jolly black

jack,

And the seven deadly sins in a flagon of sack ;
Yet whoop, Barnaby! off with thy liquor,
Drink upsees out, and a fig for the vicar!

Our vicar he calls it damnation to sip
The ripe ruddy dew of a woman's dear lip,

Says, that Beelzebub lurks in her kerchief so sly, And Apollyon shoots darts from her merry black 'eye;

Yet whoop, Jack! kiss Gillian the quicker,

Till she bloom like a rose, and a fig for the vicar!

Our vicar thus preaches-and why should he not?

For the dues of his cure are the placket and pot;

1 Bacchanalian interjection, borrowed from the Dutch.

And 'tis right of his office poor laymen to lurch, Who infringe the domains of our good Mother Church.

Yet whoop, bully-boys! off with your liquor, Sweet Marjorie's the word, and a fig for the vicar!!

VI.

The warder's challenge, heard without,
Staid in mid-roar the merry shout.
A soldier to the portal went,-

"Here is old Bertram, sirs, of Ghent;
And, beat for jubilee the drum!

A maid and minstrel with him come."
Bertram, a Fleming, grey and scarr'd,
Was entering now the Court of Guard,
A harper with him, and in plaid
All muffled close, a mountain maid,
Who backward shrunk to 'scape the view
Of the loose scene and boisterous crew.
"What news?" they roar'd: "I only know,
From noon till eve we fought with foe,

1["The greatest blemish in the poem is the ribaldry and dull vulgarity which is put into the mouths of the soldiery in the guard-room. Mr. Scott has condescended to write a song for them, which will be read with pain, we are persuaded, even by his warmest admirers; and his whole genius, and even his power of versification, seems to desert him when he attempts to repeat their conversation. Here is some of the stuff which has dropped, in this inauspicious attempt, from the pen of one of the first poets of his age or country," &c. &c.--JEFFREY.]

As wild and as untameable

As the rude mountains where they dwell;
On both sides store of blood is lost,

Nor much success can either boast."-
"But whence thy captives, friend? such spoil
As theirs must needs reward thy toil.1
Old dost thou wax, and wars grow sharp;
Thou now hast glee-maiden and harp!
Get thee an ape, and trudge the land,
The leader of a juggler band."—2

1 [The MS. reads after this:

"Get thee an ape, and then at once

Thou may'st renounce the warder's lance,

And trudge through borough and through land,
The leader of a juggler band."]

2 The jongleurs, or jugglers, as we learn from the elaborate work of the late Mr. Strutt, on the sports and pastimes of the people of England, used to call in the aid of various assistants, to render these performances as captivating as possible. The glee-maiden was a necessary attendant. Her duty was tumbling and dancing; and therefore the Anglo-Saxon version of Saint Mark's Gospel, states Herodias to have vaulted or tumbled before King Herod. In Scotland, these poor creatures seem, even at a late period, to have been bonds women to their masters, as appears from a case reported by Fountainhall: "Reid the mountebank pursues Scott of Harden and his lady, for stealing away from him a little girl, called the tumbling-lassie, that danced upon his stage; and he claimed damages, and produced a contract, whereby he bought her from her mother for L.30 Scots. But we have no slaves in Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns: and physicians attested the employment of tumbling would kill her; and her joints were now grown stiff, and she declined to return; though she was at least a 'prentice, and so could not run away from her master; yet some cited Moses's

".

VII.

"No, comrade ;- -no such fortune mine.
After the fight these sought our line,
That aged harper and the girl,
And, having audience of the Earl,
Mar bade I should purvey them steed,
And bring them hitherward with speed.
Forbear your mirth and rude alarm,

For none shall do them shame or harm.". "Hear ye his boast? cried John of Brent, Ever to strife and jangling bent;

"Shall he strike doe beside our lodge,

law, that if a servant shelter himself with thee, against his master's cruelty, thou shalt surely not deliver him up. The Lords, renitente cancellario, assoilzied Harden, on the 27th of January (1687).”—FOUNTAINHALL's Decisions, vol. i. p. 439.1

The facetious qualities of the ape soon rendered him an acceptable addition to the strolling band of the jongleur. Ben Jonson, in his splenetic introduction to the comedy of "Bartholomew Fair," is at pains to inform the audience "that he has ne'er a sword-and-buckler man in his Fair, nor a juggler with a well-educated ape, to come over the chaine for the King of England, and back again for the Prince, and sit still on his haunches for the Pope and the King of Spaine."

1 Though less to my purpose, I cannot help noticing a circumstance respecting another of this Mr. Reid's attendants, which occurred during James II.'s zeal for Catholic proselytism, and is told by Fountainhall, with dry Scotch irony: January 17th, 1687.-Reid the mountebank is received into the Popish church, and one of his blackamores was persuaded to accept of baptism from the Popish priests, and to turn Christian papist; which was a great trophy: he was called James, after the king and chancellor, and the Apostle James." -Ibid. p. 440.