But thei might hym not gette by force ne by train,
He satte by the fyre when thei were in the rain.

HARDYNG's Chronicle, p. 303, 4

Peter Langtoft has also a passage concerning the extremities to which King Robert was reduced, which he entitles

De Roberto Brus et fuga circum circa fit.

NOTES TO CANTO THIRD.

Note I.
For, glad of each pretext for spoil,

A pirate sworn was Cormac Doil.-P. 91. A sort of persons common in the isles, as may be easily believed, until the introduction of civil polity. Witness the Dean of the Isles' account of Ronay. “ At the north end of Raarsay, be half myle of sea frae it, layes ane ile callit Ronay, mair then a myle in lengthe, full of wood and heddir, with ane havin for heiland galeys in the middis of it, and the same havein is guid for fostering of theives, ruggairs, and revairs, till a nail, upon the peilling and spulzeing of poor pepill. This ile perteins to M‘Gillychallan of Raarsay by force, and to the bishope of the iles be heretage.”—Sir DONALD Monro's Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1805, p. 22.

Note II.
56 Alas! dear youth, the unhappy time,”
Answer'd the Bruce, “ must bear the crime,

Since, guiltier far than you,
Even ?”. -he paused; for Falkirk's woes

Upon his conscious soul arose. -P. 96. I have followed the vulgar and inaccurate tradition, that Bruce fought against Wallace, and the arrayrof Scotland, at the fatal battle of Falkirk. The story, which seems to have no better authority than that of Blind Harry, bears, that having made much slaughter during the engagement, he sat down to dine with the conquerors without washing the filthy witness from his hands.

Fasting he was, and had been in great need,
Bloodied were all his weapons and his weed ;
Southern lords scorn'd him in terms rude,
And said, Behold yon Scot eats his own blood.

Then rued he sore, for reason had he known,
That blood and land alike should be his own ;
With them he long was, ere he got away,
But contrair Scots, he fought not from that day.

The account given by most of our historians, of the conversation between Bruce and Wallace over the Carron river, is equally apocryphal.

There is full evidence that Bruce was not at that time on the English side, nor present at the battle of Falkirk; nay, that he acted as a guardian of Scotland, along with John Comyn, in the name of Baliol, and in opposition to the English. He was the grandson of the competitor, with whom he has been sometimes confounded. Lord Hailes has well described, and in some degree apologized for, the earlier part of his life.

“ His grandfather, the competitor, had patiently acquiesced in the award of Edward. His father, yielding to the times, had served under the English banners. But young Bruce had more ambition and a more restless spirit. In his earlier years he acted upon no regular plan. By turns the partizan of Edward, and the vicegerent of Baliol, he seems to have forgotten or stifled his pretensions to the crown. But his character developed itself by degrees, and in maturer age became firm and consistent.”—Annals of Scotland, p. 290, quarto, London, 1776.

Note III.
These are the savage wilds that lie

North of Strathnardill and Dunskye.-P. 100. The extraordinary piece of scenery which I have here attempted to describe, is, I think, unparalleled in any part of Scotland, at least in any which I have happened to visit. It lies just upon the frontier of the Laird of Mac-Leod's country, which is thereabouts divided from the estate of Mr Mac-Cal. lister of Strath-Aird, called Strathnardill by the Dean of the Isles. The following account of it is extracted from a journal kept during a tour through the Scottish islands :

“ The western coast of Sky is highly romantic, and at the same time displays a richness of vegetation in the lower grounds to which we have hitherto been strangers. We passed three salt-water lochs, or deep embayments, called Loch Bracadale, Loch Einort, and Loch -, and about 11 o'clock opened Loch Slavig. We were now under the western termination of the high ridge of mountains called Cuillen, or Quillin, or Coolin, whose weather-beaten and serrated peaks we had admired at a distance from Dunvegan. They sunk here upon the sea, but with the same bold and peremptory aspect which their distant appearance indicated. They appeared to consist of precipitous sheets of naked rock, down which the torrents were leaping in a hundred lines of foam. The tops of the ridge, apparently inaccessible to human foot, were rent and split into the most tremendous pinnacles. Towards the base of these bare and precipitous crags, the ground, enriched by the soil washed down from them, is comparatively verdant and productive. Where we passed within the small isle of Soa, we entered Loch Slavig, under the shoulder of one of these grisly mountains, and observed that the opposite side of . the loch was of a milder character, the mountains being softened down into steep green declivities. From the bottom of the bay advanced a headland of high rocks, which divided its depth into two recesses, from each of which a brook issued. Here it had been intimated to us we would find some romantic