NOTE X. He learn'd the art that none may name, In Padua, far beyond the sea.-P. 4. Padua was long supposed, by the Scottish peasants, to be the principal school of necromancy. The Earl of Gowrie, slain at Perth, in 1600, pretended, during his studies in Italy, to have acquired some knowledge of the cabala, by which, he said, he could charm snakes, and work other miracles; and, in particular, could produce children without the intercourse of the sexes.-See the examination of Wemyss of Bogie before the Privy Council, concerning Gowrie's Conspiracy. NOTE XI. His form no darkening shadow trac'd The shadow of a necromancer is independent of the sun. Glycas informs us that Simon Magus caused his shadow to before go him, making people believe it was an attendant spirit.-HEYWOOD'S Hierarchie, p. 475. The vulgar conceive, that when a class of students have made a certain progress in their mystic studies, they are obliged to run through a subterraneous hall, where the devil literally catches the hindmost in the race, unless he crosses the hall so speedily that the arch-enemy can only apprehend his shadow. In the latter case, the person of the sage never after throws any shade; and those, who have thus lost their shadow, always prove the best magicians. NOTE XII. The viewless forms of air.-P. 4. The Scottish vulgar, without having any very defined notion of their attributes, believe in the existence of an intermediate class of spirits, residing in the air, or in the waters; to whose agency they ascribe floods, storms, and all such phenomena as their own philosophy cannot readily explain. They are supposed to interfere in the affairs of mortals, sometimes with a malevolent purpose, and sometimes with milder views. It is said, for example, that a gallant baron, having returned from the Holy Land to his castle of Drummelziar, found his fair lady nursing a healthy child, whose birth did not by any means correspond to the date of his departure. Such an occurrence, to the credit of the dames of the Crusaders be it spoken, was so rare, that it required a miraculous solution. The lady, therefore, was believed, when she averred confidently, that the Spirit of the Tweed had issued from the river while she was walking upon its bank, and compelled her to submit to his embraces; and the name of Tweedie was bestowed upon the child, who afterwards became Baron of Drummelziar, the chief of a powerful clan. To those spirits were also ascribed, in Scotland, the 'airy tongues, that syllable men's names, On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses. When the workmen were engaged in erecting the ancient church of Old Deer, in Aberdeenshire, upon a small hill called Bissau, they were surprised to find that the work was impeded by supernatural obstacles. At length, the Spirit of the River was heard to say, 'It is not here, it is not here, That ye shall build the church of Deer; Where many a corpse shall lie.' The site of the edifice was accordingly transferred to Taptillery, an eminence at some distance from the place where the building had been commenced. — MACFARLANE'S MSS. I mention these popular fables, because the introduction of the River and Mountain Spirits may not, at first sight, seem to accord with the general tone of the romance, and the superstitions of the country where the scene is laid. NOTE XIII. A fancied moss-trooper, &c.-P. 5. This was the usual appellation of the marauders upon the Borders; a profession diligently pursued by the inhabitants on both sides, and by none more actively and successfully than by Buccleuch's clan. Long after the union of the crowns the mosstroopers, although sunk in reputation, and no longer enjoying the pretext of national hostility, continued to pursue their calling. Fuller includes, among the wonders of Cumberland, 'The moss-troopers: so strange in the condition of their living, if considered in their Original, Increase, Height, Decay, and Ruine. 1. Original. I conceive them the same called Borderers in Mr. Camden; and characterised by him to be a wild and warlike people. They are called moss-troopers, because dwelling in the mosses, and riding in troops together. They dwell in the bounds, or meeting, of the two kingdoms, but obey the laws of neither. They come to church as seldom as the 29th of February comes into the kalendar. 2. Increase. When England and Scotland were united in Great Britain, they that formerly lived by hostile incursions, betook themselves to the robbing of their neighbours. Their sons are free of the trade by their fathers' copy. They are like to Job, 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. They may give for their motto, vivitur ex rapto, stealing from their honest neighbours what they sometimes require. They are a nest of hornets; strike one, and stir all of them about your ears. Indeed, if they promise safely to conduct a traveller, they will perform it with the fidelity of a Turkish janizary; otherwise, woe be to him that falleth into their quarters! 3. Height. Amounting, forty years since, to some thousands. These compelled the vicinage to purchase their security, by paying a constant rent to them. When in their greatest height, they had two great enemies, -the Laws of the Land, and the Lord William Howard of Naworth. He sent many of them to Carlisle, to that place where the officer doth always his work by daylight. Yet these moss-troopers, if possibly they could procure the pardon for a condemned person of their company, would advance great sums out of their common stock, who, in such a case, cast in their lots amongst themselves, and all have one purse. 4. Decay. Caused by the wisdom, valour, and diligence of the Right Honourable Charles Lord Howard, Earl of Carlisle, who routed these English Tories with his regiment. His severity unto them will not only be excused, but commended, by the judicious, who consider how our great lawyer doth describe such persons, who are solemnly outlawed. BRACTON, lib. viii. trac. 2. cap. 11.-"Ex tunc gerunt caput lupinum, ita quod sine judiciali inquisitione rite pereant, et secum suum judicium portent; et merito sine lege pereunt, qui secundum legem vivere recusârunt." "Thenceforward (after that they are outlawed) they wear a wolf's head, so that they lawfully may be destroyed, without any judicial inquisition, as who carry their own condemnation about them, and deservedly die without law, because they refused to live according to law." 5. Ruine. Such was the success of this worthy lord's severity,. that he made a thorough reformation among them; and the ring-leaders being destroyed, the rest are reduced to legal obedience, and so, I trust, will continue.FULLER'S Worthies of England, p. 216. The last public mention of moss-troopers occurs during the civil wars of the 17th century, when many ordinances of Parliament were directed against them. NOTE XIV. tame the Unicorn's pride, Exalt the Crescent and the Star.-P. 6. The arms of the Kerrs of Cessford were, Vert on a cheveron, betwixt three unicorns' heads, erased argent, three mullets sable; crest, a unicorn's head, erased proper. The Scotts of Buccleuch bore, Or, on a bend azure; a star of six points betwixt two crescents of the first. NOTE XV. William of Deloraine.-P. 6. The lands of Deloraine are joined to those of Buccleuch in Ettrick Forest. They were immemorially possessed by the Buccleuch family, under the strong title of occupancy, although no charter was obtained from the crown until 1545. Like other possessions, the lands of Deloraine were occasionally granted by them to vassals, or kinsmen, for Border service. Satchells mentions, among the twenty-four gentlemen-pensioners of the family, William Scott, commonly called Cut-at-the-Black, who had the lands of Nether Deloraine for his service.' And again, 'This William of Deloraine, commonly called Cutat-the-Black, was a brother of the ancient house of Haining, which house of Haining is descended from the ancient house of Hassendean.' The lands of Deloraine now give an earl's title to the descendant of Henry, the second surviving son of the Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth. I have endeavoured to give William of Deloraine the attributes which characterised the Borderers of his day; for which I can only plead Froissart's apology, that, it behoveth, in a lynage, some to be folyshe and outrageous, to maynteyne and sustayne the peasable.' As a contrast to my Marchman, I beg leave to transcribe, from the same author, the speech of Amergot Marcell, a captain of the Adventurous Companions, a robber, and a pillager of the country of Auvergne, who had been bribed to sell his strongholds, and to assume a more honourable military life under the banners of the Earl of Armagnac. But when he remembered alle this, he was sorrowful; his tresour he thought he wolde not mynysshe; he was wonte dayly to serche for newe pyllages, wherbye encresed his profyte, and then he sawe that alle was closed fro' hym. Then he sayde and imag. yned, that to pyll and to robbe (all thynge considered) was a good lyfe, and so repented hym of his good doing. On a tyme, he said to his old companyons, "Sirs, there is no sporte nor glory in this worlde amonge men of warre, but to use suche lyfe as we have done in tyme past. What a joy was it to us when we rode forth at adventure, and somtyme found by the way a riche priour or merchaunt, or a route of mulettes of Mountpellyer, of Narbonne, of Lymens, of Fongans, of Besyers, of Tholous, or of Carcasonne, laden with cloth of Brussels, or peltre ware comynge fro the fayres, or laden with spycery fro Bruges, fro Damas, or fro Alysaundre; whatsoever we met, all was ours, or els ransoumed at our pleasures; dayly we gate new money, and the vyllaynes of Auvergne and of Lymosyn dayly provyded and brought to our castell whete mele, good wynes, beffes, and fatte mottons, pullayne, and wylde foule: We were ever furnyshed as tho we had been kings. When we rode forthe, all the countrey trymbled for feare: all was ours goyng and comynge. How tok we Carlast, I and the Bourge of Companye, and I and Perot of Bernoys took Caluset; how dyd we scale, with lytell ayde, the strong castell of Marquell, pertayning to the Erl Dolphyn: I kept it nat past fyve days, but I receyved for it, on a feyre table, fyve thousande frankes, and forgave one thousande for the love of the Erl Dolphin's children. By my fayth, this was a fayre and a good lyfe! wherefore I repute myselfe sore deceyved, in that I have rendered up the fortress of Aloys; for it wolde have kept fro alle the worlde, and the daye that I gave it up, it was fournyshed with vytaylles, to have been kept seven yere without any re-vytayllinge. This Erl of Armynake hath deceyved me: Olyve Barbe, and Perot le Bernoys, shewed to me how I shulde repente myselfe; certayne I sore repente myselfe of what I have done."-FROISSART, vol. ii. p. 195. NOTE XVI. By wily turns, by desperate bounds, The kings and heroes of Scotland, as well as the Border riders, were sometimes obliged to study how to evade the pursuit of bloodhounds. Barbour informs us, that Robert Bruce was repeatedly tracked by sleuth-dogs. On one occasion, he escaped by wading a bow-shot down a brook, and ascending into a tree by a branch which overhung the water; thus, leaving no trace on land of his footsteps, he baffled the scent. The pursuers came up: Rycht to the burn that passyt ware, Bot the sleuth-hund made stinting thar, A sure way of stopping the dog was to spill blood upon the track, which destroyed the discriminating fineness of his scent." A captive was sometimes sacrificed on such occasions. Henry the Minstrel tells a ro. mantic story of Wallace, founded on this circumstance:-The hero's little band had been joined by an Irishman, named Fawdoun, or Fadzean, a dark, savage, and suspicious character. After a sharp skirmish at BlackErne Side, Wallace was forced to retreat with only sixteen followers. The English pursued with a Border sleuth-bratch, or blood-hound. 'In Gelderland there was that bratchet bred, While (i. e. till) she gat blood no fleeing might avail.' In the retreat, Fawdoun, tired, or affecting to be so, would go no farther. Wallace, having in vain argued with him, in hasty anger, struck off his head, and continued the retreat. When the English came up, their hound stayed upon the dead body :— 'The sleuth stopped at Fawdon, still she stood, Nor farther would fra time she fund the blood,' The story concludes with a fine Gothic scene of terror. Wallace took refuge in the solitary tower of Gask. Here he was disturbed at midnight by the blast of a horn. He sent out his attendants by two and two, but no one returned with tidings. At length, when he was left alone, the sound was heard still louder. The champion descended, sword in hand; and, at the gate of the tower, was encountered by the headless spectre of Fawdoun, whom he had slain so rashly. Wallace, in great terror, fled up into the tower, tore open the boards of a window, leapt down fifteen feet in height, and continued his flight up the river. Looking back to Gask, he discovered the tower on fire, and the form of Fawdoun upon the battlements, dilated to an immense size, and holding in his hand a blazing rafter. The Minstrel concludes, 'Trust ryght wele, that all this be sooth indeed, Mr. Ellis has extracted this tale as a sample of Henry's poetry.-Specimens of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 351. NOTE XVII. -the Moat-hill's mound, Where Druid shades still flitted round. -P. 6. This is a round artificial mount near Hawick, which, from its name, (Mot, Ang. Sax. Concilium, Conventus,) was probably anciently used as a place for assembling a national council of the adjacent tribes. There are many such mounds in Scotland, and they are sometimes, but rarely, of a square form. NOTE XVIII. the tower of Hazeldean.-P. 7. The estate of Hazeldean, corruptly Has. sendean, belonged formerly to a family of Scotts, thus commemorated by Satchells: 'Hassendean came without a call, The ancientest house among them all.' NOTE XIX. On Minto-crags the moonbeams glint. A romantic assemblage of cliffs, which rise suddenly above the vale of Teviot, in the immediate vicinity of the family-seat, from which Lord Minto takes his title. A small platform, on a projecting crag, commanding a most beautiful prospect, is termed Barnhills Bed. This Barnhills is said to have been a robber, or outlaw. There are remains of a strong tower beneath the rocks, where he is supposed to have dwelt, and from which he derived his name. On the summit of the crags are the fragments of another ancient tower, in a picturesque situation. Among the houses cast down by the Earl of Hartforde, in 1545, occur the towers of Easter Barnhills, and of Mintowith Minto town and place. Sir crag, Gilbert Elliot, father to the present Lord Minto, was the author of a beautiful pastoral song, of which the following is a more correct copy than is usually published. The poetical mantle of Sir Gilbert Elliot has descended to his family. 'My sheep I neglected, I broke my sheep-hook. Through regions remote in vain do I rove, Alas! 'tis too late at thy fate to repine! NOTE XX. Ancient Riddel's fair domain.-P. 7. The family of Riddell have been very long in possession of the barony called Riddell, or Ryedale, part of which still bears the latter name. Tradition carries their antiquity to a point extremely remote; and is, in some degree, sanctioned by the discovery of two stone coffins, one containing an earthen pot filled with ashes and arms, bearing a legible date, A.D. 727; the other dated 936, and filled with the bones of a man of gigantic size. These coffins were discovered in the foundations of what was, but has long ceased to be, the chapel of Riddell; and as it was argued, with plausibility, that they contained the remains of some ancestors of the family, 1 Elected M.P. for Selkirkshire in 1754. they were deposited in the modern place of sepulture, comparatively so termed, though built in 1110. But the following curious and authentic documents warrant most conclusively the epithet of 'ancient Riddel': 1st, A charter by David I to Walter Rydale, Sheriff of Roxburgh, confirming all the estates of Liliesclive, &c., of which his father, Gervasius de Rydale, died possessed. 2dly, A bull of Pope Adrian IV, confirming the will of Walter de Ridale, knight, in favour of his brother Anschittil de Ridale, dated 8th April, 1155. 3dly, A bull of Pope Alexander III, confirming the said will of Walter de Ridale, bequeathing to his brother Anschittil the lands of Liliesclive, Whettunes, &c., and ratifying the bargain betwixt Ans chittil and Huctredus, concerning the church of Liliesclive, in consequence of the mediation of Malcolm II, and confirmed by a charter from that monarch. This bull is dated 17th June, 1160. 4thly, A bull of the same Pope, confirming the will of Sir Anschittil de Ridale, in favour of his son Walter, conveying the said lands of Liliesclive and others, dated 10th March, 1120. It is remarkable, that Liliesclive, otherwise Rydale, or Riddell, and the Whittunes, have descended, through a long train of ancestors, without ever passing into a collateral line, to the person of Sir John Buchanan Riddell, Bart. of Riddell, the lineal descendant and representative of Sir Anschittil.-These circumstances appeared worthy of notice in a Border work. The ancient and beautiful monastery of Melrose was founded by King David I. Its ruins afford the finest specimen of Gothic architecture and Gothic sculpture which Scotland can boast. The stone of which it is built, though it has resisted the weather for so many ages, retains perfect sharpness, so that even the most minute ornaments seem as entire as when newly wrought. In some of the cloisters, as is hinted in the next Canto, there are representations of flowers, vegetables, &c., carved in stone, with accuracy and precision so delicate, that we almost distrust our senses, when we consider the difficulty of subjecting so hard a substance to such intricate and exquisite modulation. This superb convent was dedicated to St. Mary, and the monks were of the Cistertian order. At the time of the Reformation, they shared the general reproach of sensuality and irregularity, thrown upon the Roman churchmen. The old words of Then view St. David's ruin'd pile.-P. 8. The buttresses ranged along the sides of the ruins of Melrose Abbey, are, according to the Gothic style, richly carved and fretted, containing niches for the statues of saints, and labelled with scrolls, bearing appropriate texts of Scripture. Most of these statues have been demolished. David I of Scotland purchased the reputation of sanctity, by founding, and liberally endowing, not only the monastery of Melrose, but those of Kelso, Jedburgh, and many others; which led to the well-known observation of his successor, that he was a sore saint for the crown. NOTE XXIII. For mass or prayer can I rarely tarry, The Borderers were, as may be supposed, very ignorant about religious matters. Colville, in his Paranesis, or Admonition, states, that the reformed divines were so far from undertaking distant journeys to convert the Heathen, as I wold wis at God that ve wold only go bot to the Hielands and Borders of our own realm, to gain our awin countreymen, who, for lack of preching and ministration of the sacraments, must, with_tyme, becum either infidells, or atheists.' But we learn, from Lesley, that, however deficient in real religion, they regularly told their beads, and never with more zeal than when going on a plundering expedition. NOTE XXIV. So had he seen, in fair Castile, And hurl the unexpected dart.-P. 9. 'By my faith,' sayd the Duke of Lancaster, (to a Portuguese squire,) of all the feates of armes that the Castellyans, and they of your 1 Kale, broth. countrey doth use, the castynge of their dertes best pleaseth me, and gladly I wolde se it: for, as I hear say, if they strike one aryghte, without he be well armed, the dart will pierce him thrughe.'-' By my fayth, sir,' sayd the squyer, 'ye say trouth; for I have seen many a grete stroke given with them, which at one time cost us derely, and was to us great displeasure; for, at the said skyrmishe, Sir John Lawrence of Coygne was striken with a dart in such wise, that the head perced all the plates of his cote of mayle, and a sacke stopped with sylke, and passed thrughe his body, so that he fell down dead.'-FROISSART, vol. ii. ch. 44.-This. mode of fighting with darts was imitated in the military game called Jeugo de las canas, which the Spaniards borrowed from their Moorish invaders. A Saracen champion is thus described by Froissart: 'Among the Sarazyns, there was a yonge knight called Agadínger Dolyferne; he was always wel mounted on a redy and a lyght horse; it seemed, when the horse ranne, that he did fly in the ayre. The knighte seemed to be a good man of armes by his dedes; he bare always of usage three fethered dartes, and rychte well he could handle them; and, according to their custome, he was clene armed, with a long white towell about his head. His apparell was blacke, and his own colour browne, and a good horseman. The Crysten men say, they thought he dyd such deeds of armes for the love of some yonge ladye of his countrey. And true it was, that he loved entirely the King of Thune's daughter, named the Lady Azala; she was inherytor to the realme of Thune, after the discease of the kyng, her father. This Agadinger was sone to the Duke of Olyferne. I can nat telle if they were married together after or nat; but it was shewed me, that this knyght, for love of the sayd ladye, during the siege, did many feates of armes. The knyghtes of France wold fayne have taken hymn; but they colde never attrape nor inclose him; his horse was so swyft, and so redy to his hand, that alwaies he escaped.' -Vol. ii. ch. 71. NOTE XXV. And there the dying lamps did burn,. Before thy low and lonely urn, O gallant Chief of Otterburne!-P. 10. The famous and desperate battle of Otter. burne was fought 15th August 1388, betwixt Henry Percy, called Hotspur, and James, Earl of Douglas. Both these renowned champions were at the head of a chosen body of troops, and they were rivals in. military fame: so that Froissart affirms,. 'Of all the battayles and encounteryngs. that I have made mencion of here before in. all this hystory, great or smalle, this battayle that I treat of nowe was one of the sorest |