Murray's death took place shortly after an expedition to the Borders; which is thus commemorated by the author of his Elegy:--

'So having stablischt all thing in this sort,
To Liddisdaill agane he did resort.

Throw Ewisdail, Eskdail, and all the daills rode he,
And also lay three nights in Cannabie,
Whair na prince lay thir hundred yeiris before.
Nae thief durst stir, they did him feir sa sair;
And, that thay suld na mair thair thift allege,
Threescore and twelf he brocht of thame in pledge,
Syne wardit thame, whilk maid the rest keep ordour:
Than mycht the rasch-bus keep ky on the Border.'

Scottish Poems, 16th century, p. 232.

heard, condemned to die, for some outrage by him committed, and obtayning pardon through suyte of the Countess of Murray, he recompensed that clemencie by this piece of service now at this batayle.' Calderwood's account is less favourable to the Macfarlanes. He states that 'Macfarlane, with his Highlandmen, fled from the wing where they were set. The Lord Lindsay, who stood nearest to them in the Regent's battle, said, 'Let them go! I shall fill their place better:' and so, stepping forward, with a company of fresh men, charged the enemy, whose spears were now spent, with long weapons, so that they were driven back by force, being before almost overthrown by the avaunt-guard and harquebusiers, and so were turned to flight.' -CALDERWOOD'S MS. apud KEITH, p. 480. Melville mentions the flight of the vanguard, but states it to have been commanded by Morton, and composed chiefly of commoners of the barony of Renfrew.

NOTE VIII.

Glencairn and stout Parkhead were nigh. -P. 669.

The Earl of Glencairn was a steady adherent of the Regent. George Douglas of Parkhead was a natural brother of the Earl of Morton, whose horse was killed by the same ball by which Murray fell.

This clan of Lennox Highlanders were attached to the Regent Murray. Hollinshed, speaking of the battle of Langside, says, 'In this batayle the vallancie of an Heiland gentleman, named Macfarlane, stood the Regent's part in great steede; for, in the hottest brunte of the fighte, he came up with two hundred of his friendes and countrymen, and so manfully gave in upon the flankes of the Queen's people, that he was a great cause of the disordering of them. This Macfarlane had been lately before, as I have

NOTE IX.

-haggard Lindesay's iron eye, That saw fair Mary weep in vain.-P. 669.

Lord Lindsay, of the Byres, was the most ferocious and brutal of the Regent's faction, and, as such, was employed to extort Mary's signature to the deed of resignation presented to her in Lochleven Castle. He discharged his commission with the most savage rigour; and it is even said, that when the weeping captive, in the act of signing, averted her eyes from the fatal deed, he pinched her arm with the grasp of his iron glove.

NOTE X.

So close the minions crowded nigh.-P. 669.

Not only had the Regent notice of the intended attempt upon his life, but even of the very house from which it was threatened. With that infatuation at which men wonder, after such events have happened, he deemed it would be a sufficient precaution to ride briskly past the dangerous spot. But even this was prevented by the crowd: so that Bothwellhaugh had time to take a deliberate aim.-SPOTTISWOODE, p. 233. BUCHANAN.

THE imperfect state of this ballad, which was written several years ago, is not a circumstance affected for the purpose of giving it that peculiar interest which is often found to arise from ungratified curiosity. On the contrary, it was the Editor's intention to have completed the tale, if he had found himself able to succeed to his own satisfaction. Yielding to the opinion of persons, whose judgment, if not biassed by the partiality of friendship, is entitled to deference, he has preferred inserting these verses as a fragment, to his intention of entirely suppressing them.

The tradition, upon which the tale is founded, regards a house upon the barony of Gilmerton, near Lasswade, in Mid-Lothian. This building, now called Gilmerton Grange, was originally named Burndale, from the following tragic adventure. The barony of Gilmerton belonged, of yore, to a gentleman named Heron, who had one beautiful daughter. This young lady was seduced by the Abbot of Newbattle, a richly endowed abbey, upon the banks of the South Esk, now a seat of the Marquis of Lothian. Heron came to the knowledge of this circumstance, and learned also, that the lovers carried on their guilty intercourse by the connivance of the lady's nurse, who lived at this house of Gilmerton Grange, or Burndale. He formed a resolution of bloody vengeance, undeterred by the supposed sanctity of the clerical character, or by the stronger claims of natural affection. Choosing, therefore, a dark and windy night, when the objects of his vengeance were engaged in a stolen interview, he set fire to a stack of dried thorns, and other combustibles, which he had caused to be piled against the house, and reduced to a pile of glowing ashes the dwelling, with all its inmates'.

per

The scene with which the ballad opens was suggested by the following curious passage, extracted from the Life of Alexander Peden, one of the wandering and secuted teachers of the sect of Cameronians, during the reign of Charles II and his successor, James. This person was supposed by his followers, and, perhaps, really believed himself, to be possessed of supernatural gifts; for the wild scenes which they frequented, and the constant dangers which were incurred through their proscription, deepened upon their minds the gloom of superstition, so general in that age.

About the same time he [Peden] came to

1 This tradition was communicated to me by John Clerk, Esq. of Eldin, author of an Essay upon Naval Tactics.

Andrew Normand's house, in the parish of Alloway, in the shire of Ayr, being to preach at night in his barn. After he came in, he halted a little, leaning upon a chair-back, with his face covered; when he lifted up his head, he said, "They are in this house that I have not one word of salvation unto"; he halted a little again, saying, "This is strange, that the devil will not go out, that we may begin our work!" Then there was a woman went out, ill-looked upon almost all her life, and to her dying hour, for a witch, with many presumptions of the same. It escaped me, in the former passages, what John Muirhead (whom I have often mentioned) told me, that when he came from Ireland to Galloway, he was at family-worship, and giving some notes upon the Scripture read, when a very ill-looking man came, and sat down within the door, at the back of the hallan [partition of the cottage]: immediately he halted and said, "There is some unhappy body just now come into this house. I charge him to go out, and not stop my mouth!" This person went out, and he insisted[went on], yet he saw him neither come in nor go out.—The Life and Prophecies of Mr. Alexander Peden, late Minister of the Gospel at New Glenluce, in Galloway, part ii. § 26.

A friendly correspondent remarks, that the incapacity of proceeding in the performance of a religious duty, when a contaminated person is present, is of much higher antiquity than the era of the Reverend Mr. Alexander Peden.'-Vide Hygini Fabulas, cap. 26. 'Medea Corintho exul, Athenas, ad Aegeum Pandionis filium devenit in hospitium, eique nupsit... Postea sacerdos Dianae Medeam exagitare coepit, regique negabat sacra caste facere posse, eo quod in ea civitate esset mulier venefica et scelerata; tunc exulatur.'

NOTE I.

From that fair dome where suit is paid By blast of bugle free.-P. 671.

The barony of Pennycuik, the property of Sir George Clerk, Bart., is held by a singular tenure; the proprietor being bound to sit upon a large rocky fragment called the Buckstane, and wind three blasts of a horn, when the King shall come to hunt on the Borough Muir, near Edinburgh. Hence the family have adopted as their crest a demiforester proper, winding a horn, with the motto, Free for a Blast. The beautiful mansion-house of Pennycuik is much admired, both on account of the architecture and surrounding scenery.

NOTE II.

Auchendinny's hazel glade.-P. 671.

Auchendinny, situated upon the Eske, below Pennycuik, the present residence of the ingenious H. Mackenzie, Esq., author of the Man of Feeling, &c.-Edition 1803.

NOTE VI. Dalkeith.-P. 671.

The village and castle of Dalkeith belonged of old to the famous Earl of Morton, but is now the residence of the noble family of Buccleuch. The park extends along the Eske, which is there joined by its sister stream of the same name.

NOTE III.

NOTE VII.

Classic Hawthornden.-P. 671. Hawthornden, the residence of the poet Drummond. A house of more modern date is enclosed, as it were, by the ruins of the ancient castle, and overhangs a tremendous precipice upon the banks of the Eske, perforated by winding caves, which in former times were a refuge to the oppressed patriots of Scotland. Here Drummond received Ben Jonson, who journeyed from London on foot in order to visit him. The beauty of this striking scene has been much injured of late years by the indiscriminate use of the axe. The traveller now looks in vain for the leafy bower,

'Where Jonson sat in Drummond's social shade.

Upon the whole, tracing the Eske from its source till it joins the sea at Musselburgh, no stream in Scotland can boast such a varied succession of the most interesting objects, as well as of the most romantic and beautiful scenery. 1803...-The beautiful scenery of Hawthornden has, since the above note was written, recovered all its proper ornament of wood. 1831.

HIS FIRST LINES.
(1782.)

(Preserved by his Mother.)

In awful ruins Ætna thunders nigh, And sends in pitchy whirlwinds to the sky

Black clouds of smoke, which, still as they aspire,

From their dark sides there bursts

the glowing fire;

At other times huge balls of fire are toss'd

That lick the stars, and in the smoke

are lost:

Sometimes the mount, with vast convulsions torn,

Emits huge rocks, which instantly are borne

With loud explosions to the starry

skies,

mass flies,

recoils,

While Etna thundering from the

bottom boils.

man,

Whose life's comprised within a span, To him his homage raise.

BOTHWELL'S SISTERS THREE.

A FRAGMENT.

(1799.)

WHEN fruitful Clydesdale's applebowers

Are mellowing in the noon,

When sighs round Pembroke's ruin'd

towers

The sultry breath of June,

When Clyde, despite his sheltering wood,

Must leave his channel dry,
And vainly o'er the limpid flood
The angler guides his fly,--

If chance by Bothwell's lovely braes
A wanderer thou hast been,
Or hid thee from the summer's blaze
In Blantyre's bowers of green,
Full where the copsewood opens wild
Thy pilgrim step hath staid,
Where Bothwell's towers, in ruin piled
O'erlook the verdant glade,

And many a tale of love and fear
Hath mingled with the scene-
Of Bothwell's banks that bloom'd so
dear,

And Bothwell's bonny Jean

O, if with rugged minstrel lays
Unsated be thy ear,

And thou of deeds of other days
Another tale wilt hear,-

Then all beneath the spreading beech,
Flung careless on the lea,
The Gothic muse the tale shall teach
Of Bothwell's sisters three.

Wight Wallace stood on Deckmont head,

He blew his bugle round,
Till the wild bull in Cadyow wood
Has started at the sound.