At Berwick, Norham, and other Border fortresses of importance, pursuivants usually resided, whose inviolable character rendered them the only persons that could,ginally spelled Schlap. with perfect assurance of safety, be sent on necessary

Note 13. Stanza xviii.

James back'd the cause of that mock prince,
Warbeck, that Flemish counterfeit,

Who on the gibbet paid the cheat.
Then did I march with Surrey's power,

What time we razed old Ayton tower.

The story of Perkin Warbeck, or Richard, Duke of
York, is well known. In 1496, he was received honour-
ably in Scotland; and James IV, after conferring upon
him in marriage his own relation, the Lady Catherine
Gordon, made war on England in behalf of his preten-
sions. To retaliate an invasion of England, Surrey ad-
vanced into Berwickshire at the head of considerable
forces, but retreated after taking the inconsiderable
fortress of Ayton. Ford, in his Dramatic Chronicle of
Perkin Warbeck, makes the most of this inroad :
SURREY. Are all our braving enemies shrunk back

Hid in the fogges of their distemper'd climate,
Not daring to behold our colours wave
In spight of this infected ayre? Can they
Looke on the strength of Cundrestine defac't;
The glorie of Heydonhall devasted; that
Of Edington cast downe; the pile of Fulden
Overthrowne: And this, the strongest of their forts,
Old Ayton Castle, yeelded and demolished,
And yet not peepe abroad? the Scots are bold,
Hardie in battayle, but it seems the cause
They undertake considered, appeares
Unjoynted in the frame on 't.

Note 14. Stanza xix.

For here be some have prick'd as far,
On Scottish ground, as to Dunbar;
Have drunk the monks of St Bothan's ale,
And driven the beeves of Lauderdale;
Harried the wives of Greenlaw's goods,

In explanation of this ancient ditty, Mr Surtees has furnished me with the following local memorandum:— Willimoteswick, the chief seat of the ancient family of Ridley, is situated two miles above the confluence of the Allon and Tyne. It was a house of strength, as appears from one oblong tower, still in tolerable preservation. It has been long in possession of the Blacket family. Hardriding Dick is not an epithet referring to horsemanship, but means Richard Ridley of Hardriding,9 the seat of another family of that name, which, in the time of Charles I was sold on account of expenses incurred by the loyalty of the proprietor, the immediate ancestor of Sir Matthew Ridley. Will of the Wa' seems to be William Ridley of Waltown, so called from its situation on the great Roman Wall. Thirlwall Castle, And given them light to set their hoods. whence the clan of Thirlwalls derived their name, is situated on the small river of Tippel, near the western The garrisons of the English castles of Wark, Norboundary of Northumberland. It is near the wall, and ham, and Berwick, were, as may be easily supposed, takes its name from the rampart having been thirled, very troublesome neighbours to Scotland. Sir Richard i. e. pierced, or breached, in its vicinity. Featherstone Maitland of Ledington wrote a poem, called <<The Castle lies south of the Tyne, towards Alston-moor. Blind Baron's Comfort;» when his barony of Blythe, in Albany Featherstonhaugh, the chief of that ancient fa- Lauderdale, was hurried by Rowland Foster, the Engmily, made a figure in the reign of Edward VI. Alish captain of Wark, with his company, to the numfeud did certainly exist between the Ridleys and Fea- ber of 300 men. They spoiled the poetical knight of therstones, productive of such consequences as the bal- 5000 sheep, 200 nolt, 30 horses and mares; the whole lad narrates. 24 Oct. 22do Henrici Svi. Inquisitio furniture of his house of Blythe, worth 100 pounds capt. apud Hautwhistle, sup. visum corpus Alexandri Scots (l. 8:6: 8), and every thing else that was portFeatherston, Gen. apud Grensilhaugh, felonice inter-able. <<This spoil was committed the 16th day of May, fecti, 22 Oct. per Nicalaum Ridley de Unthanke, Gen. 1570 (and the said Sir Richard was threescore and Hugon Ridle, Nicolaum Ridle, et alios ejusdem nominis. fourteen years of age, and grown blind), in time of Nor were the Featherstones without their revenge; for, peace; when nane of that country lippened (expected) 36to Henrici 8vi, we have-Utlagatio Nicolai Feather- such a thing.»-<< The Blind Baron's Comfort» consists ston, ac Thome Nyxson, etc., etc., pro homicidio Will in a string of puns on the word Blythe, the name of Ridle de Morale. the lands thus despoiled. Like John Littlewit, he had << a conceit left him in his misery,-a miserable conceit.>>

The last line of the text contains a phrase, by which the Borderers jocularly intimated the burning a house. When the Maxwells, in 1685, burned the castle of Lochwood, they said they did so to give the Lady Johnstone

light to set her hood.» Nor was the phrase inapplicable; for, in a letter, to which I have mislaid the reference, the Earl of Northumberland writes to the king and council, that he dressed himself, at midnight, at Warkworth, by the blaze of the neighbouring villages, burned by the Scottish marauders.

Note 15. Stanza xxi.
The priest of Shoreswood.

This churchman seems to have been a-kin to Welsh

the vicar of St Thomas of Exeter, a leader among the

Note 18. Stanza xxvii.
The summon'd Palmer came in place;
In his black mantle was he clad,
With Peter's keys, in cloth of red,
On his broad shoulders wrought.

Cornish insurgents in 1549. « This man,» says Hollinshed, «had many good things in him. He was of no great stature, but well set and mightilie compact : He was a very good wrestler; shot well, both in the longbow, and also in the cross-bow; he handled his handgun and peece very well; he was a very good wood- A Palmer, opposed to a Pilgrim, was one who made mau, and a hardie, and such a one as would not it his sole business to visit different holy shrines; tragive his head for the polling, or his beard for the wash-velling incessantly, and subsisting by charity: whereas ing. He was a companion in any exercise of activitie, and of a courteous and gentle behaviour. He descended of a good honest parentage, being borne at Peneverin, in Cornwall; and yet in this rebellion, an arch-captain, and a principal dooer.»-Vol. IV, p. 958, 4to edition. This model of clerical talents had the misfortune to be hanged upon the steeple of his own church.

Note 16. Stanza xxiii.

And of that grot where olives nod,

Where, darling of each heart and eye,
From all the youth of Sicily,

Saint Rosalie retired to God.

the Pilgrim retired to his usual home and occupations, when he had paid his devotions at the particular spot which was the object of his pilgrimage. The Palmers seem to have been the Questionarii of the ancient Scottish canons 1242 and 1296. There is, in the Bannatyne MS. a burlesque account of two such persons, entitled Simmy and his Brother.» Their accoutrements are thus ludicrously described (I discard the ancient spelling). Syne shaped them up to loup on leas,

Two tabards of the tartan;

They counted nought what their clouts were

When sewed them on, in certain.

Syne clampit up St Peter's keys,

Made of an old red gartane:

St James's shells, on t' other side, shows
As pretty as a partane

Toe,

On Symmye and his brother.

Note 19. Stanza xxix.

To fair St Andrews bound,
Within the ocean-cave to pray,
Where good St Rule his holy lay,
From midnight to the dawn of day,

Sung to the billows' sound.

<< Sante Rosalia was of Palermo, and born of a very noble family, and, when very young, abhorred so much the vanities of this world, and avoided the converse of mankind, resolving to dedicate herself wholly to God Almighty, that she, by divine inspiration, forsook her father's house, and never was more heard of, till her body was found in that cleft of a rock, on that almost inaccessible mountain, where now the chapel is built; and they affirm, she was carried up there by the hands of angels; for that place was not formerly so accessible (as now it is) in the days of the saint; and even now it St Regulus (Scottice, St Rule), a monk of Patræ in is a very bad, and steepy, and break-neck way. In this Achaia, warned by a vision, is said, A. D. 370, to have frightful place, this holy woman lived a great many sailed westward until he landed at St Andrews in Scotyears, feeding only on what she found growing on that land, where he founded a chapel and tower. The latter barren mountain, and creeping into a narrow and dread- is still standing; and, though we may doubt the preful cleft in a rock, which was always dropping wet, cise date of its foundation, is certainly one of the most and was her place of retirement, as well as prayer; the ruinous castle of the Archbishops of St Andrews, ancient edifices in Scotland. A cave, nearly fronting having worn out even the rock with her knees, in a certain place, which is now open'd on purpose to show bears the name of this religious person. It is difficult it to those who come here. This chapel is very richly of access; and the rock in which it is hewed is washed adorned; and on the spot where the saint's dead body by the German Ocean. It is nearly round, about ten was discover'd, which is just beneath the hole in the feet in diameter, and the same in height. On one side rock, which is open'd on purpose, as I said, there is a is a sort of stone altar; on the other an aperture into very fine statue of marble, representing her in a lying an inner den, where the miserable ascetic, who i̟nhaposture, railed in all about with fine iron and brass-bited this dwelling, probably slept. At full tide egress work; and the altar, on which they say mass, is buil, just over it.»-Voyage to Sicily and Malta, by Mr John Dryden (son to the poet), p. 107.

Note 17. Stanza xxvi..
Himself still sleeps before his heads

Have mark'd ten aves, and two creeds.

Friar John understood the soporific virtue of his beads and breviary, as well as his namesake in Rabelais. «< But Gargantua could not sleep by any means, on which side soever he turned himself. Whereupon the monk said to him, I never sleep soundly but when I am at sermon or prayers. Let us therefore begin, you and I, the seven penitential psalms, to try whether you shall not quickly fall asleep. The conceit pleased Gargantua very well; and, beginning the first of these psalms, as soon as they came to Beati quorum, they fell asleep, both the one

and the other.»

and regress are hardly practicable. As Regulus first
colonised the metropolitan see of Scotland, and con-
verted the inhabitants in the vicinity, he has some rea-
son to complain, that the ancient name of Killrule (Cella
Reguli) should have been superseded, even in favour of
the tutelar saint of Scotland. The reason of the change
was, that St Rule is said to have brought to Scotland
the reliques of St Andrew.

Note 20. Stanza xxix.
Thence to Saint Fillan's blessed well,
Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel,
And the crazed brain restore.

St Fillan was a Scottish saint of some reputation. Although popery is, with us, matter of abomination, yet the common people still retain some of the superstitions connected with it. There are, in Perthshire, several wells and springs dedicated to St Fillan, which are still places of pilgrimage and offerings, even among the protestants. They are held powerful in cases of

madness; and, in some of very late occurrence, luna-August, and sometimes part of September, many of

tics have been left all night bound to the holy stone, in confidence that the saint would cure and unloose them before morning.

CANTO II.

Note 1. Introduction.

The scenes are desert now, and bare,

Where flourish'd once a forest fair.

the nobility and gentry of the kingdom (for their plea-
sure) do come into these Highland countries to hunt:
where they do conform themselves to the habit of the
Highland-men, who, for the most part, speak nothing.
but Irish; and, in former time, were those people
which were called the Red-Shanks. Their habit is-
shoes, with but one sole a-piece; stockings (which they
call short hose), made of a warm stuff of diverse
colours which they call tartan; as for breeches, many
of them, nor their forefathers, never wore any,
jerkin of the same stuff that their hose is of; their
garters being bands or wreathes of hay or straw;` with

but a

Ettrick Forest, now a range of mountainous sheep-a plaid about their shoulders; which is a mantle of walks, was anciently reserved for the pleasure of the diverse colours, much finer and lighter stuff than their royal chase. Since it was disparked, the wood has hose; with blue flat caps on their heads; a handbeen, by degrees, almost totally destroyed, although, kerchief, knit with two knots, about their necks: and wherever protected from the sheep, copses soon arise thus they are attired. Now their weapons are-long without any planting. When the king hunted there, bows and forked arrows, swords and targets, harqueWith he often summoned the array of the country to meet busses, muskets, durks, and Lochaber-axes. and assist his sport. Thus, in 1528, James V «< made these arms I found many of them armed for the huntproclamation to all lords, barons, gentlemen, landward-ing. As for their attire, any man, of what degree men, and freeholders, that they should compear at Edinburgh, with a month's victuals, to pass with the king where he pleased; to danton the thieves of Teviotdale, Annandale, Liddesdale, and other parts of that country; and also warned all gentlemen that had good dogs, to bring them, that he might hunt in the said country, as he pleased: The whilk the Earl of Argyle, the Earl of Huntley, the Earl of Athole, and so all the rest of the gentlemen of the Highlands, did, and brought their hounds with them in like manner to hunt with the king, as he pleased.

<<The second day of June the king passed out of Edinburgh to the hunting, with many of the nobles and gentlemen of Scotland with him, to the number of twelve thousand men; and then past to Meggitland, and hounded and hawked all the country and bounds: that is to say, Crammat, Pappert-law, St Marylaws, Carlavirick, Chapel, Ewindoores, and Longhope. I heard say, he slew, in these bounds, eighteen score

of harts.>>

These huntings had, of course, a military character, and attendance upon them was a part of the duty of a vassal. The act for abolishing ward, or military tenures, in Scotland, enumerates the services of hunting, hosting, watching, and warding, as those which were in future to be illegal.

Taylor, the water poet, has given an account of the mode in which these huntings were conducted in the Highlands of Scotland, in the seventeenth century, having been present at Braemar upon such an occasion: << There did I find the truly noble and right honourable lords, John Erskine, Earl of Mar; James Stuart, Earl of Murray; George Gordon, Earl of Engye, son and heir to the Marquis of Huntley; James Erskine, Earl of Buchan; and John, Lord Erskine, son and heir to the Earl of Mar, and their Countesses, with my much honoured, and my last assured and approved friend, Sir William Murray, knight of Abercarney, and hundred of others, knights, esquires, and their followers; all and every man, in general, in one habit, as if Lycurgus had been there, and made laws of equality: for once in the year, which is the whole month of

1 Pitscottie's History of Scotland, folio edition, p. 143.

soever, that comes amongst them, must not disdain to
wear it; for if they do, then they will disdain to hunt,
or willingly to bring in their dogs; but if men be kind
unto them, and be in their habit, then are they con-
quered with kindness, and the sport will be plentiful.
This was the reason that I found so many noblemen
But to proceed to
and gentlemen in those shapes.
the hunting.

<< My good Lord of Mar having put me into that shape, I rode with him from his house, where I saw the ruins of an old castle, called the castle of Kindroghit. It was built by King Malcolm Canmore (for a hunting house), who reigned in Scotland when Edward the Confessor, Harold, and Norman William reigned in England. I speak of it, because it was the last house I saw in those parts; for I was the space of twelve days after, before I saw either house, corn-field, or habitation, for any creature, but deer, wild-horses, wolves, and such like creatures,-which made me doubt that I should never have seen a house again.

<< Thus, the first day, we travelled eight miles, where there were small cottages, built on purpose to lodge in, which they call Lonquhards. I thank my good Lord Erskine, he commanded that I should always be lodged in his lodging: the kitchen being always on the side of a bank many kettles and pots boiling, and many spits turning and winding, with great variety of cheer,as venison baked; sodden, rost, and stewed beef; mutton, goats, kid, hares, fresh salmon, pigeons, hens, capons, chickens, partridges, muir-coots, heath-cocks, caperkellies, and termagants; good ale, sacke, white and claret, tent (or allegant), with most potent aquavitæ.

<< All these, and more than these, we had continually in superfluous abundance, caught by falconers, fowlers, fishers, and brought by my lord's tenants and purveyors to victual our camp, which consisteth of fourteen or fifteen hundred men and horses. The manner of the hunting is this: Five or six hundred men do rise early in the morning, and they do disperse themselves divers ways; and seven, eight, or ten miles compass, they do bring, or chase in the deer, in many herds (two, three, or four hundred in a herd), to such or such a place, as the noblemen shall appoint them; then, when day is come, the lords and gentlemen of their com

This beautiful sheet of water forms the reservoir ant's Grave,» afterwards mentioned, is a sort of trench, from which the Yarrow takes its source. It is connected with a smaller lake, called the Loch of the Lowes, and surrounded by mountains. In the winter, it is still frequented by flights of wild-swans; hence my friend Mr Wordsworth's lines: