Note 18. Stanza xxvii. In his black mantle was he clad, A Palmer, opposed to a Pilgrim, was one who mad it his sole business to visit different holy shrines; tra the vicar of St. Thomas of Exeter, a leader among the 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 pecce very well; he was a very good woodman, and a hardie, and such a one as would not give his head for the polling, or his beard for the wash-velling incessantly, and subsisting by charity: wheres 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, Sain Rosalie retired to God. when he had paid his devotions at the particular spo They counted nought what their clouts were Syne clampit up St Peter's keys, Made of an old red gartane: St James's shells, on t' other side, shows Toe, On Symmye and his brother. Note 19. Stanza xxix. « 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 St Regulus (Scottice, St Rule,) a monk of Patræ i (as now it is) in the days of the saint; and even now it Achaia, warned by a vision, is said, A. D. 370, to have is a very bad, and steepy, and break-neck way. In this sailed westward until he landed at St Andrews in Scatfrightful place, this holy woman lived a great many land, where he founded a chapel and tower. The latter years, feeding only on what she found growing on that is still standing; and, though we may doubt the pre barren mountain, and creeping into a narrow and dread-cise date of its foundation, is certainly one of the most ful cleft in a rock, which was always dropping wet, and was her place of retirement, as well as prayer, having worn out even the rock with her knees, in a certain place, which is now open'd on purpose to show it to those who come here. This chapel is very richly adorned; and on the spot where the saint's dead body was discover'd, which is just beneath the hole in the rock, which is open'd on purpose, as I said, there is a very fine statue of marble, representing her in a lying posture, railed in all about with fine iron and brass work; and the altar, on which they say mass, is built just over it.»-Voyage to Sicily and Malta, by Mr John Dryden (son to the poet), p. 107. Note 17. Stanza xxvi. 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.» ancient edifices in Scotland. A cave, nearly fronting Note 20. Stanza xxix. And the crazed brain restore. St Fillan was a Scottish saint of some reputation Although popery is, with us, matter of abominatioil, yet the common people still retain some of the super stitions 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, lunas have been left all night bound to the holy stone, in adence that the saint would cure and unloose them fre morning. CANTO II. Note 1. Introduction, The scenes are desert now, and bare, Where flourish'd once a fores: fair. Erick Forest, now a range of mountainous sheep3, was anciently reserved for the pleasure of the chase. Since it was disparked, the wood has ling by degrees, almost totally destroyed, although, protected from the sheep, copses soon arise any planting. When the king hunted there, ohen summoned the array of the country to meet dist his sport. Thus, in 1528, James V. «made proclamation to all lords, barons, gentlemen, landwardan, and freeholders, that they should compear at Bamburgh, with a month's victuals, to pass with the ag where he pleased, to danton the thieves of Teviot de Annandale, Liddesdale, and other parts of that try; and also warned all gentlemen that had good g, to bring them, that he might hunt in the said try, as he pleased: The whilk the Earl of Argyle, Earl of Huntley, the Earl of Athole, and so all the of the gentlemen of the Highlands, did, and ught their hounds with them in like manner to hunt the king, as he pleased. The second day of June the king passed out of burgh to the hunting, with many of the nobles gentlemen of Scotland with him, to the number twelve thousand men; and then past to Meggitland, bounded and hawked all the country and bounds: to say, Crammat, Pappert-law, St Marylaws, Canavinck, Chapel, Ewindoores, and Longhope. I rard say, he slew, in these bounds, eighteen score harts. These huntings had, of course, a military character, attendance upon them was a part of the duty of a The act for abolishing ward, or military res, in Scotland, enumerates the services of hunthosting, watching, and warding, as those which were in future to be illegal. Taylor, the water poet, has given an account of the de in which these huntings were conducted in the Blands of Scotland, in the seventeenth century, ing been present at Braemar upon such an occasion: There did I find the truly noble and right honourlords, John Erskine, Earl of Mar; James Stuart, Earl of Murray; George Gordon, Earl of Engye, son heir to the Marquis of Huntley; James Erskine, Ler of Buchan; and John, Lord Erskine, son and heir the Earl of Mar, and their Countesses, with my much red, and my last assured and approved friend, William Murray, knight of Abercarney, and hundnd of others, knights, esquires, and their followers; and every man, in general, in one habit, as if rus had been there, and made laws of equality: once in the year, which is the whole month of Pattie's Higory of Scotland, folio edition, p. 143. August, and sometimes part of September, many of the nobility and gentry of the kingdom (for their pleasure) 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 isshoes, 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 fore fathers, never wore any, but a jerkin of the same stuff that their hose is of; their garters being bands or wreathes of hay or straw; with a plaid about their shoulders; which is a mantle of diverse colours, much finer and lighter stuff than their hose; with blue flat caps on their heads; a handkerchief, knit with two knots, about their necks: and thus they are attired. Now their weapons are-long bows and forked arrows, swords and targets, harquebusses, muskets, durks, and Lochaber-axes. With these arms I found many of them armed for the hunt. ing. As for their attire, any man, of what degree 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 conquered with kindness, and the sport will be plentiful. This was the reason that I found so many noblemen and gentlemen in those shapes. But to proceed to 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 Kindroglit. 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, partridge, 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 panies do ride or go to the said places, sometimes wading up to the middles, through burns and rivers; and then, they being come to the place, do lie down on the ground, till those foresaid scouts, which are called the Tinkhell, do bring down the deer; but, as the proverb says of a bad cook, so these tinkhell men do lick their own fingers; for, besides their bows and arrows, which they carry with them, we can hear, now and then, a harquebuss or a musket go off, which they do seldom discharge in vain. Then, after we had staid there three hours, or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer appear on the hills round about us (their heads making a shew like a wood), which, being followed close by the tinkhell, are chased down into the valley where we lay; then all the valley, on cach side, being way-laid with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are all let loose, as occasion serves, upon the herd of deer, that with dogs, guns, arrows, durks, and daggers, in the space of two hours, fourscore fat deer were slain; which after are disposed of, some one way, and some another, twenty and thirty miles, and more than enough left for us, to make merry withal, at our rendezvous.>> Note 2. Introduction. ———Yarrow, Where erst the outlaw drew his arrow. The tale of the Outlaw Murray, who held out Newark Castle and Ettrick Forest, against the king, may be found in the «Border Minstrelsy,» vol. I. In the Macfarlane MS. among other causes of James the Fifth's charter to the burgh, is mentioned, that the citizens assisted him to suppress this dangerous outlaw. Note 3. Introduction. -lone Saint Mary's silent lake. This beautiful sheet of water forms the reservoir 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: The swans on sweet St Mary's lake Near the lower extremity of the lake, are the ruins of Dryhope tower, the birth-place of Mary Scott, daughter of Philip Scott of Dryhope, and famous by the traditional name of the Flower of Yarrow. She was married to Walter Scott of Harden, no less renowned for his depredations, than his bride for her beauty. Her romantic appellation was, in latter days, with equal justice, conferred on Miss Mary Lilias Scott, the last of the elder branch of the Harden family. The author well remembers the talent and spirit of the latter Flower of Yarrow, though age had then injured the charms which procured her the name. The words usually sung to the air of «Tweedside,» beginning « What beauties does Flora disclose,» were composed in her honour. place of worship during the seventeenth century. The vestiges of the building can now scarcely be traced but the burial ground is still used as a cemetery. I funeral, in a spot so very retired, has an uncommon striking effect. The vestiges of the chaplain's hous are yet visible. Being in a high situation, it com manded a full view of the lake, with the opposit mountain of Bourhope, belonging, with the lak itself, to Lord Napier. On the left hand is the tow of Dryhope, mentioned in the preceding note. Note 5. Introduction. the Wizard's grave; That Wizard Priest's, whose bones are thrust From company of holy dust. At one corner of the burial ground of the dem lished chapel but without its precincts, is a sma mound, called Binram's corse, where tradition depasi the remains of a necromantic priest, the former nant of the chaplainry. His story much resembles thatt Ambrosio in the « Monk,» and has been made the the of a ballad, by my friend Mr James Hogg, more por ically designed the Ettrick, Shepherd. To his volum entitled the « Mountain Bard,» which contains thi and many other legendary stories and ballads of gre merit, I refer the curious reader. Note 6. Introduction. -dark Lochskene. A mountain lake, of considerable size, at the he of the Moffat-water. The character of the scenes is uncommonly savage; and the earn, or Scottish eagl has, for many ages, built its nest yearly upon an ish in the lake. Lochskene discharges itself into a brook which, after a short and precipitate course, falls frot cataract of immense height and gloomy grandeur calle ant's Grave,» afterwards mentioned, is a sort of trenet from its appearance, the « Grey Mare's Tail.» The <G which bears that name, a little way from the foot the cataract. It has the appearance of a battery & signed to command the pass. a Note 7. Stanza i. Where, from high Whitby's cloister'd pile, The Abbey of Whitby, in the Archdeaconry Cleaveland, on the coast of Yorkshire, was founde A. D. 657, in consequence of a vow of Oswy, hing Northumberland. It contained both monks and n of the benedictine order; but, contrary to what wa usual in such establishments, the abbess was superi to the abbot. The monastery was afterwards ruiner by the Danes, and rebuilded by William Percy, in t reign of the Conqueror. There were no nuns there st Henry the Eighth's time, nor long before it. The run of Whitby Abbey are very magnificent. Lindisfarn, an isle on the coast of Northumberland was called Holy Island, from the sanctity of its ancient monastery, and from its having been the episcopal seat of the see of Durham during the early ages of British christianity. A succession of holy men held thai office: but their merits were swallowed up in the supe rior fame of St Cuthbert, who was sixth bishop of Durham, and who bestowed the name of his mony,» upon the extensive property of the see. ruins of the monastery upon Holy Island betoken great antiquity. The arches are, in general, strictly Sc and the pillars which support them, short, strong, an! ay. In some places, however, there are pointed dows, which indicate that the building has been Impaired at a period long subsequent to the original foundation. The exterior ornaments of the building, being of a light sandy stone, have been wasted, as serbed in the text. Lindisfarn is not properly an was, but rather, as the venerable Bede has termed it, misle: for, although surrounded by the sea at jhil tide, the ebb leaves the sands dry between it and opposite coast of Northumberland, from which it about three miles distant. Note 8. Stanza xiii. Then Whitby's nuns exulting told, Then said the hermit, 'You and yours shall hold your lands of the abbot of Whitby, and his successors, in this manner: That, upon Ascension-day, you, or some of you, shall come to the wood of the Stray-heads, which is in Eskdale-side, the same day at sun-rising, and there shall the abbot's officer blow his horn, to the intent that you may know where to find him; and he shall deliver unto you, William de Bruce, ten stakes, eleven stout stowers, and eleven yethers, to be cut by you, or some of you, with a knife of one penny price; and you, Ralph de Percy, shall take twenty-one of each sort, to be cut in the same manner; and you, Allatson, shall take nine of each sort, to be cut as aforesaid; and to be taken on your backs, and carried to the town of Whitby, and to be there before nine of the clock the same day before mentioned. At the same hour of nine of the clock, if it be full sea, your labour and service shall cease; and if low water, each of you shall set your stakes to the brim, each stake one yard from the other, and so yether them on each side with your The popular account of this curious service, which probably considerably exaggerated, is thus given True Account,» printed and circulated at Whitby: In the fifth year of the reign of Henry II., for the conquest of England by William, Duke of Somady, the lord of Uglebarnby, then called Wil-yethers; and so stake on each side with your strout stowers, that they may stand three tides, without A de Bruce; the lord of Smeaton, called Ralph de Each of removing by the force thereof. Perry; with a gentleman and freeholder called Allatson, make, and execute the said service, at that very hour, shall do, you on the 16th of October, 1159, appoint to meet ad hunt the wild boar, in a certain wood, or desert it shall so fall out, this service shall cease. every year, except it be full sea at that hour: but when You shall 17, belonging to the abbot of Whitby; the place's faithfully do this in remembranee that you did most was Eskdale-side; and the abbot's name was wizan. Then, these young gentlemen being met, God for mercy, repent unfeignedly of your sins, and cruelly slay me; and that you may the better call to th their hounds and boar-staves, in the place before-do good works. The officer of Eskdale-side shall blow, oned, and there having found a great wild boar, Out on you! Out on you! Out on you! for this heinous bounds ran him well near about the chapel and mage of Eskdale-side, where was a monk of Whit-service, so long as it shall not be full sea at the aforecrime. If you, or your successors, shall refuse this to was an hermit. The boar being very sorely said hour, you, or yours, shall forfeit your lands to the scued, and dead-run, took in at the chapel-door, abbot of Whitby, or his successors. This I entreat, Braid him down, and presently died. The hermit and earnestly beg, that you may have lives and goods the hounds out of the chapel, and kept himself preserved for this service; and I request of you to proat his meditations and prayers, the hounds ading at bay without. The gentlemen, in the thick mise, by your parts in heaven, that it shall be done by the wood, being just behind their game, followed will confirm it by the faith of an honest man.' Then you, and your successors, as is aforesaid requested, and I the ery of their hounds, and so came to the hermitage, the hermit said, 'My soul longeth for the Lord: and I ng on the hermit, who opened the door, and came b; and within they found the boar lying dead; forgave the thieves on the cross.' do as freely forgive these men my death, as Christ yar which, the gentlemen, in a very great fury, because And, in the presence Je bounds were put from their game, did most violently In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum, a of the abbot and the rest, he said moreover these words: cruelly run at the hermit with their boar-staves, vinculis enim mortis redemisti me, Domine veritatis. whereby he soon after died. Thereupon the gentlemen, Amen.-So he yielded up the ghost the eighth day of wing and knowing that they were in peril of December, anno Domini 1169, whose soul God have ch, took sanctuary at Scarborough. But at that mercy upon. Amen. the abbot being in very great favour with the removed them out of the sanctuary; whereby ey came in danger of the law, and not to be privileged, kely to have the severity of the law, which was eth for death. But the hermit being a holy and test man, and at the point of death, sent for the t, and desired him to send for the gentlemen who ad wounded him. The abbot so doing, the gentlemen e; and the hermit, being very sick and weak, said them, I am sure to die of those wounds you given me. The abbot answered, "They shall as die for the same. But the hermit answered, Sat so, for I will freely forgive them my death, if Ley will be content to be enjoin'd the penance I shall 37 them for the safeguard of their souls.' The gentlemen being present, bade him save their lives. «This service,» it is added, «still continues to be performed with the prescribed ceremonies, though not by the proprietors in person. Part of the lands charged therewith are now held by a gentleman of the name of Herbert.>> Note 9. Stanza xiii. The lovely Edelfled. She was the daughter of King Oswy, who, in gratitude to Heaven for the great victory which he won 655, against Penda, the pagan king of Mercia, dedicated Edelfleda, then but a year old, to the service of God in the monastery of Whitby, of which St Hilda was then abbess. She afterwards adorned the place of her education with great magnificence. Note 10. Stanza xiii. of thousand snakes, each one Was changed into a coil of stone, When holy Hilda pray'd. ——— how sea-fowls' pinions fail, As over Whitby's towers they sail. These two miracles are much insisted upon by all ancient writers, who have occasion to mention either Whitby or St Hilda. The relies of the snakes which infested the precincts of the convent, and were, at the abbess's prayer, not only beheaded, but petrified, are still found about the rocks, and are termed by protestant fossilists Ammonitæ. The other miracle is thus mentioned by Camden: « It is also ascribed to the power of her sanctity, that these wild-geese, which, in the winter, fly in great flocks to the lakes and rivers unfrozen in the southern parts, to the great amazement of every one, fall down suddenly upon the ground, when they are in their flight over certain neighbouring fields hereabouts: a relation I should not have made, if I had not received it from several credible men. But those who are less inclined to heed superstition, attribute it to some occult quality in the ground, and to somewhat of antipathy between it and the geese, such as they say is betwixt wolves and scylla-roots: for, that such hidden tendencies and aversions as we call sympathies and antipathies, are implanted in many things by provident nature for the preservation of them, is a thing so evident, that every body grants it.» Mr Charlton, in his History of Whitby, points out the true origin of the fable, from the number of sea-guils that, when flying from a storm, often alight near Whitby; and from the woodcocks and other birds of passage, who do the same upon their arrival on shore, after a long flight. Note 11. Stanza xiv. His body's resting-place, of old, How oft their patron changed, they told. St Cuthbert was, in the choice of his sepulchre, one of the most mutable and unreasonable saints in the calendar. He died A. D. 686, in a hermitage upon the Farne islands, having resigned the bishopric of Lindisfarn, or Holy Island, about two years before. His body was brought to Lindisfarn, where it remained until a descent of the Danes, about 763, when the monastery was nearly destroyed. The monks fled to Scotland, with what they deemed their chief treasure, the relics of St Cuthbert. The saint was, however, a most capricious fellow-traveller; which was the more intolerable, as, like Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea, he journeyed upon the shoulders of his companions. They paraded him through Scotland for several years, and came as far west as Whithern, in Galloway, whence they attempted to sail for Ireland, but were driven back by tempests. He at length made a halt at Norham; from thence he went to Melrose, where he remained stationary for a short time, and then caused himself to be launched upon the Tweed in a stone coffin, which landed him at Tilmouth in Northumberland. This boat is finely shaped, ten feet long, three feet and a half in diameter, and only four inches thick; so that, with very little assistance, it might certainly have swam. It still lies, or at least did so a few years ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined chapel of Tilmouth. From Tilmouth, Cuthbert wandered into Yorkshire; and at the bishop's see was transferred. At length, the Dut continuing to infest the country, the monks removed Rippon for a season; and it was in return from then to Chester-le-street, that, passing through a forest cail Dunholme, the saint and his carriage became imin vable at a place named Wardlaw, or Wardilaw. Be the saint chose his place of residence; and all w have seen Durham must admit, that, if difficult in choice, he evinced taste in at length fixing it. It said, that the Northumbrian catholics still keep sect the precise spot of the saint's sepulture, which is on entrusted to three persons at a time. When one da the survivors associate to them, in his room, a perm judged fit to be the depositary of so valuable a secret Note 12. Stanza xv. Even Scotland's dauntless king, and heir, etc. Before his standard fled. Every one has heard, that when David I., with his Henry, invaded Northumberland in 1136, the Engli host marched against them under the holy banner St Cuthbert, to the efficacy of which was imputed t great victory which they obtained in the bloody hattie Northallerton, or Cuton-moor. The conquerors we at least as much indebted to the jealousy and intract bility of the different tribes who composed Davi army; among whom, as mentioned in the text, we the Galwegians, the Britons of Strath-Clyde, the m of Teviotdale and Lothian, with many Norman a German warriors, who asserted the cause of the Et press Maud. See CHALMERS Caledonia, p. 622; a me laborious, curious, and interesting publication, fro which considerable defects of style and manner oug not to turn aside the Scottish antiquary. Note 13. Stanza xv. 'T was be, to vindicate bis reign, Cuthbert, we have seen, had no great reason to spa Note 14. Stanza xvi. Although we do not learn that Cuthbert was, durin length made a long stay at Chester-le-street, to which his life, such an artificer as Dunstan, his brother i |