He ceased; and cries of rage and grief Burst mingling from the kindred band,

And half arose the kindling Chief,

And halfunsheathed his Arran brand.

But who, o'er bush, o'er stream and rock,

Rides headlong, with resistless speed,

Whose bloody poniard's frantic stroke Drives to the leap his jaded steed,

Whose cheek is pale, whose eyeballs glare,

As one some vision'd sight that saw, Whose hands are bloody, loose his hair?

'Tis he! 'tis he ! 'tis Bothwellhaugh.

From gory selle, and reeling steed, Sprung the fierce horseman with a bound,

And, reeking from the recent deed,

He dash'd his carbine on the ground.

Sternly he spoke: 'Tis swect to hear In good greenwood the bugle blown, But sweeter to Revenge's ear,

To drink a tyrant's dying groan. 'Your slaughter'd quarry proudly trode,

At dawning morn, o'er dale and down,

But prouder base-born Murray rode Through old Linlithgow's crowded

town.

'From the wild Border's humbled side,

In haughty triumph marchèd he, While Knox relax'd his bigot pride

And smiled the traitorous pomp to

see.

'But can stern Power, with all his vaunt,

Or Pomp, with all her courtly glare, The settled heart of Vengeance daunt, Or change the purpose of Despair?

'With hackbut bent, my secret stand, Dark as the purposed deed, I chose, And mark'd where, mingling in his band,

Troop'd Scottish pikes and English bows.

'Dark Morton, girt with many a spear, Murder's foul minion, led the van; And clash'd their broadswords in the

rear

The wild Macfarlanes' plaided clan. 'Glencairn and stout Parkhead were nigh,

Obsequious at their Regent's rein, And haggard Lindesay's iron eye,

That saw fair Mary weep in vain.

"Mid pennon'd spears, a steely grove, Proud Murray's plumage floated high;

Scarce could his trampling charger move,

So close the minions crowded nigh.

'From the raised vizor's shade, his eye

Dark-rolling glanced the ranks along, And his steel truncheon, waved on high,

Seem'd marshalling the iron throng.

'But yet his sadden'd brow confess'd A passing shade of doubt and awe; Some fiend was whispering in his breast;

"Beware of injured Bothwellhaugh!"

-The death-shot parts! the charger springs,

Wild rises tumult's startling roar, And Murray's plumy helmet ringsRings on the ground, to rise no more.

'What joy the raptured youth can feel
To hear her love the loved one tell!
Or he who broaches on his steel
The wolf by whom his infant fell!

'O come ye from east, or come ye from west,

Or bring reliques from over the sea? Or come ye from the shrine of Saint James the divine, Or Saint John of Beverley?'

'I come not from the shrine of

Saint James the divine,

Nor bring reliques from over the sea; I bring but a curse from our father, the Pope,

Which for ever will cling to me.'

'Now, woful pilgrim, say not so!

But kneel thee down to me, And shrive thee so clean of thy deadly sin,

That absolved thou mayst be.'

'And who art thou, thou Gray Brother. That I should shrive to thee, When He, to whom are given the keys of earth and heaven,

Has no power to pardon me?'

'O I am sent from a distant clime,
Five thousand miles away,
And all to absolve a foul foul crime,
Done here 'twixt night and day.'

The pilgrim kneel'd him on the sand, And thus began his saye

When on his neck an ice-cold hand Did that Gray Brother laye—

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

PART I.-ANCIENT.

FEW personages are so renowned in tradition as Thomas of Ercildoune, known by the appellation of The Rhymer. Uniting, or supposed to unite, in his person, the powers of poetical composition, and of vaticination, his memory, even after the lapse of five hundred years, is regarded with veneration by his countrymen. To give anything like a certain history of this remarkable man would be indeed difficult; but the curious may derive some satisfaction from the particulars here brought together.

It is agreed on all hands that the residence, and probably the birthplace, of this ancient bard, was Ercildoune, a village situated upon the Leader, two miles above its junction with the Tweed. The ruins of an ancient tower are still pointed out as the Rhymer's castle. The uniform tradition bears, that his sirname was Lermont, or Learmont; and that the appellation of The Rhymer was conferred on him in consequence of his poetical compositions. There remains, nevertheless, some doubt upon the subject. In a charter, which is subjoined at length', the son of our poet designed himself' Thomas of Ercildoun, son and heir of Thomas Rymour of Ercildoun,' which seems to imply that the father did not bear the hereditary name of Learmont; or, at least, was better known and distinguished by the epithet which he had acquired by his personal accomplishments. I must, however, remark that, down to a very late period, the practice of distinguishing the parties, even in formal writings, by the epithets which had been bestowed on them from personal circumstances, instead of the proper sirnames of their families, was common, and indeed necessary, among the Border clans. So early

1 Note I, p. 680.

as the end of the thirteenth century, when sirnames were hardly introduced in Scotland, this custom must have been universal. There is, therefore, nothing inconsistent in supposing our poet's name to have been actually Learmont, although, in this charter, he is distinguished by the popular appellation of The Rhymer.

We are better able to ascertain the period at which Thomas of Ercildoune lived, being the latter end of the thirteenth century. I am inclined to place his death a little farther back than Mr. Pinkerton, who supposes that he was alive in 1300 (List of Scottish Poets), which is hardly, I think, consistent with the charter already quoted, by which his son, in 1299, for himself and his heirs, conveys to the convent of the Trinity of Soltra, the tenement which he possessed by inheritance (hereditarie) in Ercildoune, with all claim which he or his predecessors could pretend thereto. From this we may infer that the Rhymer was now dead, since we find the son disposing of the family property. Still, however, the argument of the learned historian will remain unimpeached as to the time of the poet's birth. For if, as we learn from Barbour, his prophecies were held in reputation as early as 1306, when Bruce slew the Red Cummin, the sanctity, and (let me add to Mr. Pinkerton's words) the uncertainty of antiquity, must have already involved his character and writings. In a charter of Peter de Haga de Bemersyde, which unfortunately wants a date, the Rhymer, a near neighbour, and, if we may trust tradition, a friend of the family, appears as a witness.-Chartulary of Mel

rose.

It cannot be doubted that Thomas of Ercildoune was a remarkable and important person in his own time, since, very shortly after his death, we find him celebrated as a prophet and as a poet. Whether he himself made any pretensions to the first of these characters, or whether it was gratuitously conferred upon him by the credulity of pos

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