the Teviot. It takes its name from the number of hares which used to frequent Through slaty hills, whose sides are shogged with thorn, And clouds of ravens o'er the turrets sail." 66 The family of Harden is a cadet branch of the house of Buccleuch, and the heraldic allusion in the poem is to the fact that the Scotts of Harden bear their arms upon the field, while the Scotts of Buccleuch exhibit them on the bend dexter, which they adopted when the estate of Murdiestone came by marriage. One of the most famous of the Scotts of Harden was one Walter, who flourished during the reign of Queen Mary. He was a great freebooter, and used to bring his spoil to the castle on the cliff. His wife was Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow (one of the Scotts of Dryhope), and it is of her the well-known story is told of the production of a pair of clean spurs at dinner-time, in a covered dish, as a hint of the want of provisions, and of the way to get them. Notwithstanding his marauding life Walter seems to have prospered. He had a large estate, which was divided among his five sons. A number of the most popular of the Border songs are attributed by tradition to an infant whom he carried off in a raid, and whom his kind-hearted wife cherished as one of her own children. As illustrative of the temper of this rough old chief, Sir Walter tells a characteristic anecdote in one of the notes of the Minstrelsy. Upon one occasion, when the village herd was driving out the cattle to pasture, the old laird heard him call loudly to drive out Harden's cow. 'Harden's cow!' echoed the affronted chief; is it come to that pass? By my faith, they shall soon say Harden's kye' (cows). Accordingly he sounded his bugle, set out with his followers, and next day returned with a bow of kye and a lassen'd (brindled) bull. On his return with this gallant prev he passed a very large haystack. It occurred to the provident laird that this would be extremely convenient to fodder his new stock of cattle; but, as no means of transporting it were obvious, he was fain to take leave of it with the apostrophe, now become proverbial, By my saul, had ye but four feet, ye should not stand lang there!' In short, as Froissart says of a similar class of feudal robbers, nothing came amiss to them that was not too heavy or too hot." It was Auld Wat's eldest son, Sir William Scott, who was saved from being hanged for participation in a foray on the lands of Sir Gibson Murray, of Elibank, by the captor's prudent wife suggesting that it was a pity to sacrifice a young man of good estate when they might marry him to one of their three daughters, a proposal to which it did not, under the circumstances, require much argument to reconcile young Harden. Beardie (so called from the long beard he wore m mourning for the execution of Charles I.), the poet's great-grandfather, was the grandson of Sir William Scott. Hawick spreads itself on both sides of the Slitterick, a tributary of the Teviot, into which it falls just below the town. Having survived repeated burnings during the heat of Border warfare, part of the Tower-inn represents, it is said, the only building which was not consumed in the great blaze of 1570 Hawick is now at the head of the "tweed" manufactories of Scotland. It has s rapidly growing population, already over 8,000, and is continually being enriched with new mills. Minto Castle, the seat of the Earl of Minto-open daily, excep Sunday-perched on a height, between Hawick and Selkirk, commands a fine view, and is noted for its magnificent library. Minto Crags, close at hand, are a romantic series of cliffs rising suddenly above the Vale of Teviot. A small platform on a projecting crag is known as Barnhill's Bed, from a famous outlaw and robber, who lived in a strong tower beneath the rocks, of which there are some vestiges, as well as of another old peel on the summit of the heights. Of Melrose a sufficient account is given in the poem and notes. Ruskin is very angry with Scott, because, reverencing it as he did, "he yet casts one of its piscinas, puts a modern steel grate into it, and makes it his fire-place." Founded in 1136, by David I. (whose liberality in endowing churches wrung from his successor the moan that he was "a sore saint for the crown "), the abbey was finished ten years later, and was peopled with monks from Yorkshire, who, although of the reformed order, called Cistercians-the first of the class seen north of the Tweed-appear soon to have degenerated into the traditional monkish sensuality, if we may trust the jeering verse "The monks of Melrose made gude kail On Fridays when they fasted, Nor wanted they gude beef and ale, As long's their neighbours' lasted." The abbey was destroyed by the English in 1322, rebuilt by Robert Bruce, cruelly defaced at the Reformation, but still remains one of the noblest and most interesting specimens of Gothic sculpture and architecture in Scotland. The stone of which it is built, though exposed to the weather for so many ages, retains perfect sharpness, so that even the most minute ornaments seem as entire as when newly wrought. The Abbey is the theme of a poem by Arthur Hallam, who dwells especially on its resistance to decay, and covets a similar tardy waning, till looking on the serene, thoughtful figure of the bard of Abbotsford, he -"Knew that aweless intellect Hath power upon the ways of fate, And works through time and space uncheck'd. In the cold grave must come to lie, But his transmitted thoughts have part In the collective mind, and never shall depart." Although Abbotsford has a greater attachment for the traveller than any other spot in the district-not even, perhaps, excepting Melrose itself-it is apt to be a disappointment. It is a very indifferent building in an architectural point of view; defective in taste and poor in effect. It wants elevation, and, above all, repose; the eye is vexed by the composed medley of style, and by the restless pretentious effect to cram a vast deal into a limited space. Most of the pictures help to encourage an exaggerated idea of the imposing aspect of the mansion, and when the stranger sees the reality it falls far short of his expectations. For its own sake it would not be worth the while of turning out of one's road to look at it. To the associations connected with it alone, is due the interest of the place. It should be visited in the spirit of a pilgrimage, and to those who know the sad, romantic story of its creation and consequences, there is a touching interest in every relic and every chamber. How the dreams about the cottage expanded into the ambition of a Castle is well known, as well as its disastrous end; the crushing load of debt, the desperate struggle to redeem it, the over-strained and shattered mind. Between the Clarty Hole when Scott first furnished it-"the naked moor, a few turnipfields painfully reclaimed from it, a Scotch cottage and farm-yard, and some Scotch firs"-and the richly wooded domain, with its turreted chateau, into which It was gradually converted, there was a wide contrast. Whatever may be thought of the house, the surrounding plantations were a noble work, and justify the poet's PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. The The Poem now offered to the Public, is intended to illustrate the customs and manners which anciently prevailed on the Borders of England and Scotland. inhabitants, living in a state partly pastoral and partly warlike, and combining habits of constant depredation with the influence of a rude spirit of chivalry, were often engaged in scenes highly susceptible of poetical ornament. As the description of scenery and manners was more the object of the Author than a combined and reguler narrative, the plan of the Ancient Metrical Romance was adopted, which allows greater latitude, in this respect, than would be consistent with the dignity of a regular The same model offered other facilities, as it permits an occasional alteration of measure, which, in some degree, authorises the change of rhythm in the text. machinery, also, adopted from popular belief, would have seemed puerile in a Poem which did not partake of the rudeness of the old Ballad, or Metrical Romance. Poem. The For these reasons, the Poem was put into the mouth of an ancient Minstre the last of the race, who, as he is supposed to have survived the Revolution, might have caught somewhat of the refinement of modern poetry, without losing the simplicity of his original model. The date of the Tale itself is about the middle of the sixteenth century, when most of the personages actually flourished. The time occupied in the action is Three Nights and Three Days. THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. A PECULIAR interest attaches to "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," not only as the first disclosure of the poet's powers, but as that, among all his works, which is perhaps most closely identified with his personal career and character. Even if Scott had not himself told us, it would not be difficult to trace the various influences under which he composed this poem. His grandmother, in whose youth the Border raids were still matters of comparatively recent tradition, used to amuse him with many a tale of Watt of Harden, Wight Willie of Aikwood, Jamie Telfer of the fair Dodhead, and other Moss-trooping heroes. This prepared his mind for the deep impression which was made on it, when he was about twelve years old, by Percy's "Reliques of Ancient Poetry." It was under a large platanus-tree in his aunt's garden at Kelso that he first read them, forgetting even the dinner-hour in his enjoyment of this new treasure. "To read and to remember was in this instance," he says, "the same thing, and henceforth I overwhelmed my schoolfellows, and all who would hearken to me, with tragical recitations from the ballads of Bishop Percy. The first time, too, I could scrape a few shillings together, which were not common occurrences with me, I bought unto myself a copy of these beloved volumes; nor do I believe I ever read a book half so frequently, or with half the enthusiasm." In the compilation of his own Border Minstrelsy he followed the impulse thus derived; and when, after having for some years dabbled in poetry, he aspired to distinguish himself by something higher than mere translations or occasional verses, his partiality for the Border legends governed his choice of a subject as well as the style of treatment. He hesitated for a while as to the particular story he should illustrate, but all those he thought of belonged to the same class. At one time he contemplated "a Border ballad, in the comic manner," founded on his ancestor's (Sir William Scott, of Harden) marriage with ugly Meg Murray, as the alternative of being hanged by his father-in-law. But finally he decided on "a romance of Border chivalry, in a light-horseman sort of stanza." Having, at the request of the Countess of Dalkeith, undertaken a ballad about the adventures of a brownie or goblin, called Gilpin Horner, he was discouraged in the attempt by the apparent coldness with which his two friends, Erskine and Cranstoun, listened to the first stanzas, and abandoned the idea till tempted to resume it by learning that, on second thoughts, his critics had formed a more favourable opinion of the effort. He applied himself to the work as an amusement during his enforced leisure, when disabled by the kick of a horse at yeomanry drill on Portobello Sands. As soon as he got into the vein, he dashed it off at the rate of about a canto a week. The goblin page sank into a mere minor feature as the poem grew upon his hands. The metre was borrowed from Coleridge's "Lady Christabel." The beautiful freedom and variety of this metre Scott appreciated all the more, because it enabled him to introduce much of the style and phraseology of the old minstrels. The ballad measure in quatrains, which at first naturally suggested itself, was set aside as too hackneyed and wearisome for a composition of any length. Against the measured short line, or octo-syllabic verse, there was the objection of the " fatal facility," to use Scott's own phrase, with which it was written, the temptation it offered to mere verbiage, and its monotonous and namby-pamby effect. Shakespeare had laughed at it as the "butter-woman's rate to market,' and the " very false gallop of verses," and Scott felt that his muse demanded a more stirring and varied measure. "Christabel" was not published till 1816; but a year or two before Scott began the Lay" he had heard Sir John Stoddart recite some parts of it, which made a deep impression on his mind. He saw that Coleridge had remedied all the defects of the octo-syllabic measure, by freeing it from its rigid formality, and dividing it by time instead of syllables; by the beat of four, as Leigh Hunt remarks, into which you might get as many syllables as you could, instead of allotting eight syllables to the poor time, whatever it might have to say, varying it further with alternate rhymes and stanzas, with rests and omissions, precisely analogous to those in music. The old bard himself was an afterthought. He was introduced as a sort of " 'pitch-pipe" to indicate the tone and character of the composition. In the poem the reader will find a romantic picture of the Borderers, in the best aspect of their character. Their name, like that of the kindred rovers of the sea, is "linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes." Scott has brought out the solitary virtue-dauntless bravery-into the foreground, and has thrown the crimes into the shade. Here we may offer some prosaic observations on their real character. At first national feuds lent a justification to the Border raids. It was in the spirit of patriotism that the men on each side of the Cheviots harried one another's homes, and drove off one another's cattle. The instinct of hostility survived long after the two countries were at peace, and was quickened by the love of plunder. At the period of the following tale, they had degenerated into mere robbers, whom the rulers on both sides of the Border alike denounced. The best that can be said for them is that they had inherited the traditions of rapine which they sought to perpetuate; that what philosophers now call the doctrine of "continuity was responsible for much of their wild temper; and that the savage habits which had been transmitted through generations were not readily uprooted :— "There never was a time on the March partes, But yt was marvell yt the redde blude roune not It was, Nursed with such a lullaby, it seemed to these wild Borderers only a law of nature that Scots and English should prey upon each other, and this ferocious spirit soon expanded into an impartial appetite for plunder, and general antagonism to society. And so it came about that a Scott learned to have as little compunction in "lighting to bed " a Kerr as a Græme. They had their own domestic raids and blood-feuds or disputes, as over the Border. truth, a restless, cruel, wild-beast kind of existence, that called forth all the worst passions, and could have been bearable only through a brutish insensibility ard indifference to danger. They carried their life in their hands, and none could tell whether to a week's end he could call his kine his own. "They are like to Job," says Fuller, quaintly, "not in piety and patience, but in sudden plenty and poverty; sometimes having flocks and herds in the morning, none at night, and perchance many again next day." It was with some surprise, in the midst of vexation, that Watt Tinlinn reflected that his little lonely tower had not been |