the fort of Zutphen to the Spaniards, for which good service he was afterwards poisoned by them, is said to have been the first who brought the rapier-fight into general use. Fuller, speaking of the swash-bucklers, or bullies of Queen Elizabeth's time, says, "West Smithfield was formerly called Ruffians' Hall, where such men usually met, casually or otherwise, to try masteries with sword and buckler. More were frightened than hurt, more hurt than killed therewith, it being accounted unmanly to strike beneath the knee. But since that desperate traitor Rowland Yorke first introduced thrusting with rapiers, sword and buckler are disused." In The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, a comedy, printed in 1599, we have a pathetic complaint :-" Sword and buckler fight begins to grow out of use. I am sorry for it: I shall never see good manhood again. If it be once gone, this poking fight of rapier and dagger will come up; then a tall man and a good sword and buckler man, will be spitted like a cat or rabbit." But the rapier had upon the continent long superseded, in private duel, the use of sword and shield. The masters of the noble science of defence were chiefly Italians. They made great mystery of their art and mode of instruction, never suffered any person to be present but the scholar who was to be taught, and 'even examined closets, beds, and other places of possible concealment. Their lessons often gave the most treacherous advantages; for the challenger, having the right to chuse his weapons, frequently selected some strange, unusual, and inconvenient kind of arms, the use of which he practised under these instructors, and thus killed at his ease his antagonist, to

whom it was presented for the first time on the field of battle. See BRANTOME's Discourse on Duels, and the work on the same subject," si gentement ecrit," by the venerable Dr Paris de Puteo. The Highlanders continued to use broad-sword and target until disarmed after the affair of 1745-6.

Note VIII.

Like mountain-cat, who guards her young,

Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung.-P. 25.

I have not ventured to render this duel so savagely desperate as that of the celebrated Sir Ewan of Lochiel, chief of the clan Cameron, called, from his sable complexion, Ewan Dhu. He was the last man in Scotland who maintained the royal cause during the great civil war, and his constant incursions rendered him a very unpleasant neighbour to the republican garrison at Inverlochy, now Fort William. The governor of the fort detached a party of three hundred men to lay waste Lochiel's possessions, and cut down his trees; but, in a sudden and desperate attack, made upon them by the chieftain, with very inferior numbers, they were almost all cut to pieces. The skirmish is detailed in a curious memoir of Sir Ewan's life, printed in the Appendix of Pennant's Scottish Tour.

"In this engagement, Lochiel himself had several wonderful escapes. In the retreat of the English, one of the strongest and bravest of the officers retired behind a bush, when he observed Lochiel pursuing, and seeing him unaccompanied with any, he leaped out, and thought him his prey. They met one another with equal fury. The combat was long and doubt

ful: the English gentleman had by far the advantage in strength and size; but Lochiel exceeding him in nimbleness and agility, in the end tript the sword out of his hand: they closed, and wrestled, till both fell to the ground, in each other's arms. The English officer got above Lochiel, and pressed him hard, but stretching forth his neck, by attempting to disengage himself, Lochiel, who by this time had his hands at liberty, with his left hand seized him by the collar, and jumping at his extended throat, he bit it with his teeth quite through, and kept such a hold of his grasp, that he brought away his mouthful: this, he said, was the sweetest bit he ever had in his lifetime.”– Vol. I. p. 375.

Note IX.

Ye towers! within whose circuit dread,

A Douglas by his sovereign bled;

And thou, O sad and fatal mound!

That oft hast heard the death-axe sound.-P. 33. Stirling was often polluted with noble blood. It is thus apostrophized by J. Johnston :

Discordia tristis

Heu quoties procerum sanguine tinxit humum !
Hoc uno infelix, et felix cetera, nusquam

Lætior aut cœli frons geniusve soli.

The fate of William, eighth Earl of Douglas, whom James II. stabbed in Stirling Castle with his own hand, and while under his royal safe-conduct, is familiar to all who read Scot

tish history. Murdack Duke of Albany, Duncan Earl of Lennox, his father-in-law, and his two sons, Walter and Alexander Stuart, were executed at Stirling, in 1425. They were beheaded upon an eminence without the castle walls, but making part of the same hill, from whence they could behold their strong castle of Doune, and their extensive possessions. This "heading hill," as it was sometimes termed, bears commonly the less terrible name of Hurly-hacket, from its having been the scene of a courtly amusement alluded to by Sir Da vid Lindsay, who says of the pastimes in which the young king was engaged,

"Some harled him to the Hurly-hacket ;"

which consisted in sliding, in some sort of chair it may be supposed, from top to bottom of a smooth bank. The boys of Edinburgh, about twenty years ago, used to play at the hurlyhacket on the Calton-hill, using for their seat a horse's skull.

Note X.

The burghers hold their sports to-day.-P. 33. Every burgh of Scotland, of the least note, but more especially the considerable towns, had their solemn play, or festival, when feats of archery were exhibited, and prizes distributed to those who excelled in wrestling, hurling the bar, and the other gymnastic exercises of the period. Stirling, a usual place of royal residence, was not likely to be deficient in pomp upon such occasions, especially since James V. was very par

tial to them. His ready participation in these popular amusements was one cause of his acquiring the title of King of the Commons, or Rex Plebeiorum, as Lesley has latinized it. The usual prize to the best shooter was a silver arrow. Such a one

is preserved at Selkirk and at Peebles. At Dumfries, a silver gun was substituted, and the contention transferred to firearms. The ceremony, as there performed, is the subject of an excellent Scottish poem, by Mr John Mayne, entitled the Siller Gun, 1808, which surpasses the efforts of Ferguson, and comes near those of Burns.

Of James's attachment to archery, Pitscottie, the faithful, though rude recorder of the manners of that period, has given us evidence:

"In this year there came an ambassador out of England, named Lord William Howard, with a bishop with him, with many other gentlemen, to the number of threescore horse, which were all the able men and waled (picked) men for all kind of games and pastimes, shooting, louping, running, wrestling, and casting of the stone, but they were well 'sayed (essayed or tried) ere they past out of Scotland, and that by their own provocation; but ever they tint: till at last, the queen of Scotland, the king's mother, favoured the English-men, because she was the king of England's sister: and therefore she took an enterprise of archery upon the English-mens hands, contrary her son the king, and any six in Scotland that he would wale, either gentlemen or yeomen, that the English-men should shoot against them, either at pricks, revers, or buts, as the Scots pleased.