sufficient to take my arms; and then he pulled out his warrant, and I read it. It was signed by Wentworth Armitage, a general warrant to search all persons they suspected, and so left the power to the soldiers at their pleasure. They came to us at Coalley-Hall, about sunsetting and I caused a cantle to be lighted, and conveyed Peebles into the room where my arms were. My arms were near the kitchen fire; and there they took away fowling-pieces, pistols, muskets, carbines, and such like, better than £20. Then Mr. Peebles asked me for my buff-coat; and I told him they had no order to take away my apparel. He told me I was not to dispute their orders: but if I would not deliver it, he would carry me away prisoner, and had me out of doors. Yet he let me alone unto the next morning, that I must wait upon Sir John, at Halifax; and, coming before him, he threatened me, and said, if I did not send the coat, for it was too good for me to keep. I told him it was not in his power to demand my apparel; and he, growing into a fit, called me rebel and traitor, and said, if I did not send the coat with all speed, he would send me where I did not like well. I told him I was no rebel, and he did not well to call me so before these soldiers and gentlemen, to make me the mark for every one to shoot at. I departed the room; yet, notwithstanding all the threatenings, did not send the coat. But the next day he sent John Lyster, the son of Mr. Thomas Lyster, of Shipden Hall, for this coat, with a letter, verbatim thus:-Mr. Hodgson, I admire you will play the child so with me as you have done, in writing such an inconsiderate letter. Let me have the buff-coat sent forthwith, otherwise you shall so hear from me as will not very well please you.' I was not at home when this messenger came; but I had ordered my wife not to deliver it, but, if they would take it, let them look to it: and he took it away; and one of Sir John's brethren wore it many years after. They sent Captain Butt to compound with my wife about it: but I sent word I would have my own again; but he advised me to take a price for it, and make no more ado. I said, it was hard to take my arms and apparel too; I had laid out a great deal of money for them; I hoped they did not mean,to destroy me, by taking my goods illegally from me. He said he would make up the matter, if I pleased, betwixt us; and, it seems, had brought Sir John to a price for my coat. I would not have taken £10 for it: he would have given about £4; but, wanting my receipt for the money, he kept both sides, and I had never satisfaction." Memoirs of Captain Hodgson.

Eain. 1806.

On his dark face a scorching chime. And toil, had done the work of time. Death had he seen by sudden blow, By wresting plague, by torture slow. -St. vi, p. 194. In this character. I have attempted to sketch one of those West Indian adventurers, who, during the course of the seventeenth century, were popularly known by the name of Bucaniers. The successes of the English in the predatory incursions upon Spanish America, during the reign of Elizabeth, had never been forgotten: and, from that period downward, the exploits of Drake and Raleigh were imitated, upon a smaller scale indeed, but with equally desperate valour, by small bands of pirates, gathered from all nations, but chiefly French and English. The engrossing policy of the Spaniards tended greatly to increase the number of these freebooters, from whom their commerce and colonies suffered, in the issue, dreadful calamity. The Windward Islands, which the Spaniards did not deem worthy their own occupation, had been

gradually settled by adventurers of the French and English nations. But Frederic of Toledo, who was despatched in 1630, with a powerful fleet against the Dutch, had orders from the Court of Madrid to destroy these colonies, whose vicinity at once offended the pride and excited the jealous suspicions of their Spanish neighbours. This order the Spanish Admiral executed with sufficient rigour: but the only consequence was, that the planters, being rendered desperate by persecution, began, under the well-known name of Bucaniers, to commence a retaliation so horridly savage, that the perusal makes the reader shudder. When they carried on their depredations at sea, they boarded, without respect to disparity of number, every Spanish vessel that came in their way; and, demeaning themselves, both in the battle and after the conquest, more like demons than human beings, they succeeded in impressing their enemies with a sort of superstitious terror, which rendered them incapable of offering effectual resistance. From piracy at sea, they advanced to making predatory descents on the Spanish territories: in which they displayed the same furious and irresistible valour, the same thirst of spoil, and the same brutal inhumanity to their captives. The large treasures which they acquired in their adventures, they dissipated by the most unbounded licentiousness in gaming, women, wine, and debauchery of every species. When their spoils were thus wasted, they entered into some new association, and undertook new adventures. For farther particulars concerning these extraordinary banditti, the reader may consult Raynal, or the common and popular book called the History of the Bucaniers.

---On Marston heath Met, front to front, the ranks of death.

-St. XII, p. 195.

The well-known and desperate battle of LongMarston Moor, which terminated so unfortunately for the cause of Charles, commenced under very different auspices. Prince Rupert had marched with an army of 20,000 men for the relief of York, then besieged by Sir Thomas Fairfax, at the head of the Parliamentary army, and the Earl of Leven, with the Scottish auxiliary forces. In this he so completely succeeded, that he compelled the besiegers to retreat to

Marston Moor, a large open plain, about eight miles distant from the city. Thither they were followed by the Prince, who had now united to his army the garrison of York, probably not less than ten thousand men strong, under the gallant Marquis, (then Earl) of Newcastle. Whitelocke has recorded, with much impartiality, the following particulars of this eventful day:The right wing of the Parliament was commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax, and consisted of all his horse, and three regiments of the Scots horse; the left wing was commanded by the Earl of Manchester and Colonel Cromwell. One body of their foot was commanded by Lord Fairfax, and consisted of his foot, and two brigades of the Scots foot for reserve; and the main body of the rest of the foot was commanded by General Leven. The right wing of the Prince's army was commanded by the Earl of Newcastle; the left wing by the Prince himself; and the main body by General Goring, Sir Charles Lucas, and Major-General Porter. Thus were both sides drawn up into battalia.

"July 3rd, 1644. In this posture both armies faced each other, and about seven o'clock in the morning the fight began between them. The Prince, with his left wing, fell on the Parlinment's right wing, routed them, and pursued them a great way; the like did Generals Goring, Lucas, and Porter, upon the Parliament's main body. The three generals, giving all for lost, hasted out of the field, and many of the soldiers

fled, and threw down their arms; the King's forces too eagerly following them, the victory, now almost achieved by them, was again snatched out of their hands. For Colonel Cromwell, with the brave regiment of his countrymen, and Sir Thomas Fairfax, having rallied some of his horse, fell upon the Prince's right wing, where the Earl of Newcastle was, and routed them; and the rest of their companions rallying, they fell altogether upon the divided bodies of Rupert and Goring, and totally dispersed them, and obtained a complete victory, after three hours' fight.

From this battle and the pursuit, some reckon were buried 7,000 Englishmen; all agree that above 3,000 of the Prince's men were slain in the battle, besides those in the chase, and 3,000 prisoners taken, many of their chief officers, twenty-five pieces of ordnance, forty-seven colours, 10,000 arms, two waggons of carabins and pistels, 130 barrels of powder, and all their bag and baggage."—WHITELOCKE'S Memoirs.

Lord Clarendon informs us, that the King, previous to receiving the true account of the battle, had been informed, by an express from Oxford, "that Prince Rupert had not only relieved York, but totally defeated the Scots, with many particulars to confirm it, all which was so much believed there, that they had made public fires of joy for the victory."

Monckton and Mitton told the news,

How troops of Roundheads choked the Ouse,
And many a bonny Scot, aghast,
Spurring his palfrey northward past,
Cursing the day when zeal or meed
First lured their Lesley o'er the Tweed.

Cromwell, with his regiment of cuirassiers, had a principal share in turning the fate of the day at Marston Moor; which was equally matter of triumph to the Independents, and of grief and heart-burning to the Presbyterians and to the Scottish. Principal Baillie expresses his dissatisfaction as follows:

The Independents sent up one quickly to assure that all the glory of that night was theirs; and they and their Major-General Cromwell had done it all there alone: but Captain Stuart afterward showed the vanity and falsehood of their disgraceful relation. God gave us that victory wonderfully. There were three generals on each side, Lesley, Fairfax, and Manchester; Rupert, Newcastle, and King. Within half an hour and less, all six took them to their heels;this to you alone. The disadvantage of the ground, and violence of the flower of Prince Rupert's horse, carried all our right wing down; only Eglinton kept ground, to his great loss; his lieutenant-crowner, a brave man, I fear, shall die, and his son Robert be mutilated of an arm. Lindsay had the greatest hazard of any; but the beginning of the victory was from David Lesley, who before was much suspected of evil designs: he, with the Scots and Cromwell's horse, having the advantage of the ground, did dissipate all before them."-BAILLIE'S Letters and Journals. Edin. 1785.

Do not my native dales prolong Of Percy Rede the tragic song, Tram'd forward to his bloody fall By Girsonfield, that treacherous Hall? -St. xx, p. 196. In a poem, entitled "The Lay of the Reedwater Minstrel," Newcastle, 1809, this tale, with

many others peculiar to the valley of the Reed, is commemorated:-"The particulars of the traditional story of Parcy Reed of Troughend, and the Halls of Girsonfield, the author had from a descendant of the family of Reed. From his account, it appears that Percival Reed, Esquire, a keeper of Reedsdale, was betrayed by the Halls (hence denominated the false-hearted Ha's) to a band of moss-troopers of the name of Crosier, who slew him at Batinghope, near the source of the Reed.

The Halls were, after the murder of Parey Reed, held in such universal abhorrence and contempt by the inhabitants of Reedsdale, for their cowardly and treacherous behaviour, that they were obliged to leave the country." In another passage, we are informed that the ghost of the injured Borderer is supposed to haunt the banks of a brook called the Pringle. These Reeds of Troughend were a very ancient family, as may be conjectured from their deriving their surname from the river on which they had their mansion. An epitaph on one of their tombs affirms, that the family held their lands of Troughend, which are situated on the Reed, nearly opposite to Otterburn, for the incredible space of nine hundred years.

And near the spot that gave me name.
The moated mound of Risingham,
Where Reed upon her margin sees
Sweet Woodburne's cottages and trees,
Some ancient sculptor's art has shown
An outlaw's image on the stone.

two

-St. xx, p. 196. Risingham, upon the river Reed, near the beautiful hainlet of Woodburn, is an ancient Roman station, formerly called Habitancum. Camden says, that in his time the popular account bore, that it had been the abode of a deity, or giant, called Magon; and appeals, in support of this tradition, as well as to the etymology of Risingham, or Reisenham, which signifies, in German, the habitation of the giants, to Roman altars taken out of the river, inscribed, DEO MOGONTI CADENORUM. About half a mile distant from Risingham, upon an eminence covered with scattered birch-trees and fragments of rock, there is cut upon a large rock, in alto relievo, a remarkable figure, called Robin of Risingham, or Robin of Reedsdale. It presents a hunter, with his bow raised in one hand, and in the other what seems to be a hare. There is a quiver at the back of the figure, and he is dressed in a long coat, or kirtle, coming down to the knees, and meeting close, with a girdle bound round him. Dr. Horseley, who saw all monuments of antiquity with Roman eyes, inclines to think this figure a Roman archer: and certainly the bow is rather of the ancient size than of that which was so formidable in the hand of the English archers of the middle ages. But the rudeness of the whole figure prevents our founding strongly upon mere inaccuracy of proportion. The popular tradition is, that it represents a giant, whose brother resided at Woodburn, and he himself at Risingham. It adds, that they subsisted by hunting, and that one of them, finding the game become too scarce to support them, poisoned his companion, in whose memory the monument was engraved. What strange and tragic circumstance may be concealed under this legend, or whether it is utterly apocryphal, it is now impossible to dis

cover.

The name of Robin of Redesdale was given to one of the Umfravilles, Lords of Prudhoe, and afterwards to one Hilliard, a friend and follower of the king-making Earl of Warwick. This person commanded an army of Northamptonshire and northern men, who seized on and beheaded the Earl Rivers, father to Edward the Fourth's queen, and his son, Sir John Woodville.

-Do thou revere

The stututes ot the Bucanier.

-St. XXI, p. 196.

The "statutes of the Bucaniers" were, in reality, more equitable than could have been expected from the state of society under which they had been formed. They chiefly related, as may readily be conjectured, to the distribution and the inheritance of their plunder.

When the expedition was completed, the fund of prize-money acquired was thrown together, each party taking his oath that he had retained or concealed no part of the common stock. If any one transgressed in this important particular, the punishment was, his being set ashore on some desert key or island, to shift for himself as he could. The owners of the vessel had then their share assigned for the expenses of the outfit. These were generally old pirates, settled at Tobago, Jamaica, St. Domingo, or some other French or English settlement. The surgeon's and carpenter's salaries, with the price of provisions and ammunition, were also defrayed. Then followed the compensation due to the maimed and wounded, rated according to the damage they had sustained; as six hundred pieces of eight, or six slaves, for the loss of an arm or leg, and so in proportion.

"After this act of justice and humanity, the remainder of the booty was divided into as many shares as there were Bucaniers. The commander could only lay claim to a single share, as the rest; but they complimented him with two or three, in proportion as he had acquitted himself to their satisfaction. When the vessel was not the property of the whole company, the person who had fitted it out, and furnished it with necessary arms and amunition, was entitled to a third of all the prizes. Favour had never any influence in the division of the booty, for every share was determined by lot. Instances of such rigid justice as this are not easily met with, and they extended even to the dead. Their share was given to the man who was known to be their companion when alive, and therefore their heir. If the person who had been killed had no intimate, his part was sent to his relations, when they were known. there were no friends nor relations, it was distributed in charity to the poor and to churches, which were to pray for the person in whose name these benefactions were given, the fruits of inhuman, but necessary piratical, plunders."RAYNAL'S History of European Settlements in the East and West Indies. Lond. 1776.

CANTO SECOND.

If

are beautifully situated upon the angle, formed by a little dell called Thorsgill, at its junction with the Tees. A good part of the religious house is still in some degree habitable, but the church is in ruins. Egliston was dedicated to St. Mary and St. John the Baptist, and is supposed to have been founded by Ralph de Multon about the end of Henry the Second's reign. There were formerly the tombs of the families of Rokeby, Bowes, and Fitz-Hugh. -the mound,

-St. v, p. 199.

Raised by that Legion long renown'd, Whose votive shrine asserts their claim, Of prous, faithful, conquering fame. Close behind the George Inn at Greta Bridge, there is a well-preserved Roman encampment, surrounded with a triple ditch, lying between the river Greta and a brook called the Tutta. The four entrances are easily to be discerned. Very many Roman altars and monuments have been found in the vicinity, most of which are preserved at Rokeby by my friend Mr. Morritt.

Rokeby's turrets high.-St. VI, p. 199

This ancient manor long gave name to a family by whom it is said to have been possessed from the Conquest downward, and who are at different times distinguished in history.

A stern and lone, yet lovely road
As e'er the foot of Minstrel trode.
-St. VII p. 199.

What follows is an attempt to describe the romantic glen, or rather ravine, through which the Greta finds a passage between Rokeby and Mortham; the former situated upon the left bank of Greta, the latter on the right bank, about half a mile nearer to its junction with the Tees. The river runs with very great rapidity over a bed of solid rock, broken by many shelving descents, down which the stream dashes with great noise and impetuosity, vindicating its etymology, which has been derived from the Gothic, Gridan, to clamour. The banks partake of the same wild and romantic character, being chiefly lofty cliffs of limestone rock, whose grey colour contrasts admirably with the various trees and shrubs which find root among their crevices, as well as with the hue of the ivy, which clings around them in profusions, and hangs down from their projections in long sweeping tendrils. At other points the rocks give place to precipitous banks of earth, bearing large trees intermixed with copsewood. In one spot the dell, which is elsewhere very narrow, widens for a space to leave room for a dark grove of yew-trees, intermixed here and there with aged pines of uncommon size. Directly opposite to this sombre thicket, the cliffs on the other side of the Greta are tall, white, and fringed with all kinds of deciduous shrubs. The whole scenery of this spot is so much adapted to the ideas of superstition, that it has acquired the name of Blockula, from the place where the Swedish witches were supposed to hold their Sabbath. The dell, however, has superstitions of its own growth, for it is supposed to be haunted by a female spectre, called the Dobie of Mortham. The cause assigned for her appearance is a lady's having been whilom murdered in the wood, in evidence of which, her blood is shown upon the stairs of the old tower at Mortham. But whether she was slain by a jealous husband, or by savage banditti, or by an uncle who coveted her estate, or by a rejected lover, are points upon which the traditions of Rokeby do not enable us to decide.

How whistle rash bids tempests roar. -St. XI, p. 200. That this is a general superstition, is well known to all who have been on ship-board, or who have conversed with seamen. The most

murder and piracy had been committed; that the plague broke out among the wicked crew who had perpetrated the crime, and that they sailed in vain from port to port, offering, as the price of shelter, the whole of their ill-gotten wealth; that they were excluded from every harbour, for fear of the contagion which was devouring them; and that, as a punishment of their crimes, the apparition of the ship still continues to haunt those seas in which the catastrophe took place, and is considered by the mariners as the worst of all possible omens. My late lamented friend, Dr. John Leyden. has introduced this phenomenon into his Scenes of Infancy, imputing, with poetical ingenuity, the dreadful judgment to the first ship which commenced the slave trade:

formidable whistler that I remember to have met with was the apparition of a certain Mrs. Leakey, who, about 1636, resided, we are told, at Mynehead, in Somerset, where her only son drove a considerable trade between that port and Waterford, and was owner of several vessels. This old gentlewoman was of a social disposition, and so acceptable to her friends, that they used to say to her and to each other, it were pity such an excellent good-natured old lady should die; to which she was wont to reply, that whatever pleasure they might find in her company just now, they would not greatly like to see or converse with her after death, which nevertheless she was apt to think might happen. Accordingly, after her death and funeral, she began to appear to varions persons by night and by noonday, in her own house, in the town and fields, at sea and upon shore. So far had she departed from her former urbanity, that she is recorded to have kicked a doctor of medicine for his impolite negligence in omitting to hand her over a stile. It was also her humour to appear upon the quay, and call for a boat. But especially so soon as any of her son's ships approached the harbour, this ghost would appear in the same garb and likeness as when she was alive, and, standing at the mainmast, would blow with a whistle, and though it were never so great a calm, yet immediately there would arise a most dreadful storm, that would break, wreck, and drown ship and goods." When she had thus proceeded until her son had neither credit to freight a vessel, nor could have procured men to sail in it, she began to attack the persons of his family, and actually strangled their only child in the cradle. The rest of her story, showing how the spectre looked over the shoulder of her daughter-in-law while dressing her hair at a looking-glass, and how Mrs. Leakey the younger took courage to address her, and how the beldam despatched her to an Irish prelate, famous for his crimes and misfortunes, to exhort him to repentance, and to ap

prize him that otherwise he would be hanged, and how the bishop was satisfied with replying, that if he was born to be hanged, he should not be drowned-all these, with inany more particulars, may be found at the end of one of John Dunton's publications, called Athenianism, London, 1710, where the tale is engrossed under the title of The Apparition Evidence.

Of Erick's cap and Elmo's light. -St XI, p. 200. "This Ericus, King of Sweden, in his time was held second to none in the magical art; and he was so familiar with the evil spirits, which he exceedingly adored, that which way soever he turned his cap, the wind would presently blow that way. From this occasion he was called Windy Cap; and many inen believed that Regnerus, King of Denmark, by the conduct of this Ericus, who was his nephew, did happily extend his piracy into the most remote parts of the earth, and conquered many countries and fenced cities by his cunning, and at last was his coadjutor: that by the consent of the nobles, he should be chosen King of Sweden, which continued a long time with him very happily, until he died of old age."-OLAUS.

The Demon Frigate.-St. XI, p. 200. This is an allusion to a well-known nautical superstition concerning a fantastic vessel, called by sailors the Flying Dutchman, and supposed to be seen about the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope. She is distinguished from earthly vessels by bearing a press of sail when all others are unable, from stress of water, to show an inch of canvas. The cause of her wandering is not altogether certain; but the general account is, that she was originally a vessel loaded with great wealth, on board of which some horrid act of

"Stout was the ship, from Benin's palmy shore,
That first the weight of barter'd captives bore;
Bedimm'd with blood, the sun with shrinking
beams
Beheld her bounding o'er the ocean streams;
But, ere the moon her silver horns had rear'd,
Faint and despairing, on their watery bier,
Amid the crew the speckled plague appear'd,
To every friendly shore the sailors steer;
Repell'd from port to port, they sue in vain,
And track with slow unsteady sail the main.
Where ne'er the bright and buoyant wave is

scen

To streak with wandering foam the sea-weeds green,

sing,

Towers the tall mast, a lone and leafless tree,
Till self-impell'd amid the waveless sea;
Where summer breezes ne'er were heard to
Nor hovering snow-birds spread the downy
wing,
Fix'd as a rock amid the boundless plain,
The yellow stream pollutes the stagnant main.
Till far through night the funeral flames aspire,
As the red lightning smites the ghastly pyre.

"Still doom'd by fate on weltering billows
Along the deep their restless course to hold,
roll'd,
Scenting the storm, the shadowy sailors guide
The prow with sails opposed to wind and tide;
The Spectre Ship, in livid glimpsing light,
Glares baleful on the shuddering watch at night,
Unblest of God and man!-Till time shall end.
Its view strange horror to the storm shall lend."
-By some desert isle or key.

-St. xii. p. 200.

What contributed must to the security of the Bucaniers about the Windward Islands, was the great number of little islets, called in that country keys. These are small sandy patches, appearing just above the surface of the ocean, covered only with a few bushes and weeds, but sometimes affording springs of water, and, in general, much frequented by turtle. Such little uninhabited spots afforded the pirates good harbours, either for refitting or for the purpose of ambush; they were occasionally the hiding-place of their treasure, and often afforded a shelter to themselves. As many of the atrocities which they practised on their prisoners were committed in such spots, there are some of these keys which even now have an indifferent reputation among seamen, and where they are with difficulty prevailed on to remain ashore at night, on account of the visionary terrors incident to places which have been thus contaminated.

Before the gate of Mortham stood.

-St. XVI, p. 201.

The castle of Mortham, which Leland terms "Mr. Rokesby's Place, scant a quarter of a mile from Greta Bridge, and not a quarter of a mile beneath into Tees," is a picturesque tower, surrounded by buildings of different ages, now con