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terity, it seems difficult to decide. If we may believe Mackenzie, Learmont only versified the prophecies delivered by Eliza, an inspired nun of a convent at Haddington. But of this there seems not to be the most distant proof. On the contrary, all ancient authors, who quote the Rhymer's prophecies, uniformly suppose them to have been emitted by himself. Thus, in Winton's Chronicle

Of this fycht quilum spak Thomas
Of Ersyldoune, that sayd in derne,
There suld meit stalwartly, starke and sterne.
He sayd it in his prophecy;
But how he wist it was ferly.

Book VIII, chap. 32.

There could have been no ferly (marvel), in Winton's eyes at least, how Thomas came by his knowledge of future events, had he ever heard of the inspired nun of Haddington, which, it cannot be doubted, would have been a solution of the mystery much to the taste of the Prior of Lochleven.

Whatever doubts, however, the learned might have as to the source of the Rhymer's prophetic skill, the vulgar had no hesitation to ascribe the whole to the intercourse between the bard and the Queen of Faery. The popular tale bears that Thomas was carried off, at an early age, to the Fairy Land, where he acquired all the knowledge which made him afterwards so famous. After seven years' residence, he was permitted to return to the carth, to enlighten and astonish his countrymen by his prophetic powers; still, however, remaining bound to return to his royal mis. tress, when she should intimate her pleasure. Accordingly, while Thomas was making merry with his friends in the Tower of Ercildoune, a person came running in, and told, with marks of fear and astonishment, that a hart and hind had left the neighbouring forest, and were, composedly and slowly, parading the street of the village. The prophet instantly arose, left his habitation, and followed the wonderful animals to the forest, whence he was never seen to return. According to the popular belief, he still 'drees his weird 'in Fairy Land, and is one day expected to revisit earth. In the meanwhile, his memory is held in the most profound respect. The Eildon-tree, from beneath the shade of which he delivered his prophecies, now no longer exists; but the spot is marked by a largestone, called Eildon-tree Stone. A neighbouring rivulet takes the name of the Bogle Burn (Goblin Brook) from the Rhymer's supernatural visitants. The veneration paid to his dwelling-place even attached itself in some degree to a person, who within the memory of man, chose to set up his residence in the ruins of Learmont's tower. The name of this man was Murray, a kind of herbalist; who, by dint of some knowledge in simples, the possession of a musical clock, an electrical machine, and a stuffed alligator, added to a supposed communication with Thomas the

Rhymer, lived for many years in very good credit as a wizard.

It seemed to the Editor unpardonable to dismiss a person so important in Border tradition as the Rhymer, without some farther notice than a simple commentary upon the ancient ballad. It is given from a copy, obtained from a lady residing not far from Ercildoune, corrected and enlarged by one in Mrs. Brown's MSS. The former copy, however, as might be expected, is far more minute as to local description. To this old tale the Editor has ventured to add a Second Part, consisting of a kind of cento, from the printed prophecies vulgarly ascribed to the Rhymer; and a Third Part, entirely modern, founded upon the tradition of his having returned with the hart and hind to the Land of Faery. To make his peace with the more severe antiquaries, the Editor has furnished the Second Part with some remarks on Learmont's prophecies.

PART II.-Adapted.

The prophecies ascribed to Thomas of Ercildoune have been the principal means of securing to him remembrance amongst the sons of his people.' The author of Sir Tristrem would long ago have joined, in the vale of oblivion, 'Clerk of Tranent, who wrote the adventures of Schir Gawain,' if, by good hap, the same current of ideas respecting antiquity, which causes Virgil to be regarded as a magician by the Lazaroni of Naples, had not exalted the bard of Ercildoune to the prophetic character. Perhaps, indeed, he himself affected it during his life. We know at least, for certain, that a belief in his supernatural knowledge was current soon after his death. His prophecies are alluded to by Barbour, by Winton, and by Henry the Minstrel, or Blind Harry, as he is usually termed. None of these authors, however, give the words of any of the Rhymer's vaticinations, but merely narrate, historically, his having predicted the events of which they speak. The earliest of the prophecies ascribed to him, which is now extant, is quoted by Mr. Pinkerton from a MS. It is supposed to be a response from Thomas of Ercildoune to a question from the heroic Countess of March, renowned for the defence of the castle of Dunbar against the English, and termed, in the familiar dialect of her time, Black Agnes of Dunbar. This prophecy is remarkable, in so far as it bears very little resemblance to any verses published in the printed copy of the Rhymer's supposed prophecies. The verses are as follows:'La Countesse de Donbar demande a Thomas de Essedoune quant la guerre d'Escoce prendreit fyn. Eyl l'a repoundy et dyt.

When man is mad a kyng of a capped man;
When man is levere other mones thyng than his owen
When londe thouys forest, ant forest is felde;
When hares kendles o' the her'stane;
When Wyt and Wille werres togedere

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When shal this be?

Nouther in thine tyme ne in mine;

Ah comen ant gone

Withinne twenty winter ant one.'

PINKERTON'S Poems, from MAITLAND'S MSS. quoting from Harl. Lib. 2253, f. 127.

As I have never seen the MS. from which Mr. Pinkerton makes this extract, and as the date of it is fixed by him (certainly one of the most able antiquaries of our age) to the reign of Edward I or II, it is with great diffidence that I hazard a contrary opinion. There can, however, I believe, be little doubt that these prophetic verses are a forgery, and not the production of our Thomas the Rhymer. But I am inclined to believe them of a later date than the reign of Edward I or II.

The gallant defence of the castle of Dunbar, by Black Agnes, took place in the year 1337. The Rhymer died previous to the year 1299 (see the charter, by his son, Note I, p. 680). It seems, therefore, very improbable, that the Countess of Dunbar could ever have an opportunity of consulting Thomas the Rhymer, since that would infer that she was married, or at least engaged in state matters, previous to 1299; whereas she is described as a young, or a middle-aged woman, at the period of her being besieged in the fortress, which she so well defended. If the editor might indulge a conjecture, he would suppose that the prophecy was contrived for the encouragement of the English invaders during the Scottish wars; and that the names of the Countess of Dunbar, and of Thomas of Ercildoune, were used for the greater credit of the forgery. According to this hypothesis, it seems likely to have been composed after the siege of Dunbar, which had made the name of the Countess well known, and consequently in the reign of Edward III. The whole tendency of the prophecy is to aver that there shall be no end of the Scottish war (concerning which the question was proposed) till a final conquest of the country by England, attended by all the usual severities of war.

When the cultivated country shall become forest,' says the prophecy-when the wild animals shall inhabit the abode of men;-when Scots shall not be able to escape the English, should they crouch as hares in their form '-all these denunciations seem to refer to the time of Edward III, upon whose victories the prediction was probably founded. The mention of the exchange betwixt a colt worth ten marks,

and a quarter of 'whaty [indifferent] wheat,' seems to allude to the dreadful famine, about the year 1388. The independence of Scotland was, however, as impregnable to the mines of superstition, as to the steel of our more powerful and more wealthy neighbours. The war of Scotland is, thank God, at an end; but it is ended without her people having either crouched like hares in their form, or being drowned in their flight, 'for faute of ships,'thank God for that too.-The prophecy quoted in the preceding page is probably of the same date, and intended for the same purpose.

A minute search of the records of the time would, probably, throw additional light upon the allusions contained in these ancient legends. Among various rhymes of prophetic import, which are at this day current amongst the people of Teviotdale, is one, supposed to be pronounced by Thomas the Rhymer, presaging the destruction of his habitation and family:

'The hare sall kittle [litter] on my hearth stane, And there will never be a Laird Learmont again.' The first of these lines is obviously borrowed from that in the MS. of the Harl. Library-" 'When hares kendles o' the her'stane '-an emphatic image of desolation. It is also inaccurately quoted in the prophecy of Waldhave, published by Andro Hart, 1613:

'This is a true talking that Thomas of teils,

The hare shall hirple on the hard [hearth] stane.'

Spottiswoode, an honest, but credulous historian, seems to have been a firm believer in the authenticity of the prophetic wares vended in the name of Thomas of Ercildoune. 'The prophecies, yet extant in Scottish rhymes, whereupon he was commonly called Thomas the Rhymer, may justly be admired; having foretold, so many ages before the union of England and Scotland in the ninth degree of the Bruce's blood, with the succession of Bruce himself to the crown, being yet a child, and other divers particulars, which the event hath ratified and made good. Boethius, in his story, relateth his prediction of King Alexander's death, and that he did foretel the same to the Earl of March, the day before it fell out; saying, "That before the next day at noon, such a tempest should blow, as Scotland had not felt for many years before." The next morning, the day being clear, and no change appearing in the air, the nobleman did challenge Thomas of his saying, calling him an impostor. He replied, that noon was not yet passed. About which time a post came to advertise the earl of the king his sudden death. "Then," said Thomas, "this is the tempest I foretold; and so it shall prove to Scotland." Whence, or how, he had this knowledge, can hardly be affirmed; but sure it is, that he did divine and answer truly of many things to come.'-SPOTTISWOODE, p. 47. Besides that notable voucher, Master Hector

Boece, the good archbishop might, had he been so minded, have referred to Fordun for the prophecy of King Alexander's death. That historian calls our bard ruralis ille vates.-FORDUN, lib. x, cap. 40.

What Spottiswoode calls 'the prophecies extant in Scottish rhyme,' are the metrical productions ascribed to the seer of Ercildoune, which, with many other compositions of the same nature, bearing the names of Bede, Merlin, Gildas, and other approved soothsayers, are contained in one small volume, published by Andro Hart, at Edinburgh, 1615. Nisbet the herald (who claims the prophet of Ercildoune as a brother-professor of his art, founding upon the various allegorical and emblematical allusions to heraldry) intimates the existence of some earlier copy of his prophecies than that of Andro Hart, which, however, he does not pretend to have seen. The late excellent Lord Hailes made these compositions the subject of a dissertation, published in his Remarks on the History of Scotland. His attention is chiefly directed to the celebrated prophecy of our bard, mentioned by Bishop Spottiswoode, bearing that the crowns of England and Scotland should be united in the person of a King, son of a French Queen, and related to the Bruce in the ninth degree. Lord Hailes plainly proves that this prophecy is perverted from its original purpose in order to apply it to the succession of James VI. The groundwork of the forgery is to be found in the prophecies of Berlington, contained in the same collection, and runs thus:

'Of Bruce's left side shall spring out a leafe, As neere as the ninth degree;

And shall be fleemned of faire Scotland,

In France farre beyond the sea.

And then shall come again ryding,

With eyes that many men may see.
At Aberladic he shall light,

With hempen helteres and horse of tre.

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in 1515, two years after the death of James IV in the fatal field of Flodden. The Regent was descended of Bruce by the left, i.e. by the female side, within the ninth degree. His mother was daughter of the Earl of Boulogne, his father banished from his country-'fleemit of fair Scotland.' His arrival must necessarily be by sea, and his landing was expected at Aberlady, in the Frith of Forth. He was a duke's son, dubbed knight; and nine years, from 1513, are allowed him by the pretended prophet for the accomplishment of the salvation of his country, and the exaltation of Scotland over her sister and rival. All this was a pious fraud, to excite the confidence and spirit of the country.

The prophecy, put in the name of our Thomas the Rhymer, as it stands in Hart's book, refers to a later period. The narrator meets the Rhymer upon a land beside a lee, who shows him many emblematical visions, described in no mean strain of poetry. They chiefly relate to the fields of Flodden and Pinkie, to the national distress which followed these defeats, and to future halcyon days, which are promised to Scotland. One quotation or two will be sufficient to establish this fully:

Our Scottish King sal come ful keene,

The red lyon beareth he;

A feddered arrow sharp, I ween,

Shall make him winke and warre to see.
Out of the field he shall be led,

When he is bludie and woe for blood;
Yet to his men shall he say,

"For God's love turn you againe,
And give yon sutherne folk a frey!
Why should I lose, the right is mine?
My date is not to die this day."

Who can doubt, for a moment, that this refers to the battle of Flodden, and to the popular reports concerning the doubtful fate of James IV? Allusion is immediately afterwards made to the death of George Douglas, heir-apparent of Angus, who fought and fell with his sovereign :

'The sternes three that day shall die,
That bears the harte in silver sheen.'

The well-known arms of the Douglas family are the heart and three stars. In another place, the battle of Pinkie is expressly mentioned by name:

'At Pinken Cluch there shall be spilt
Much gentle blood that day;
There shall the bear lose the guilt,
And the eagill bear it away.'

To the end of all this allegorical and mystical rhapsody, is interpolated, in the later edition by Andro Hart, a new edition of Berlington's verses, before quoted, altered and manufactured, so as to bear reference to the accession of James VI, which had just then taken place. The insertion is made with a peculiar degree of awkwardness, betwixt a question, put by the narrator, concerning the name and abode of the person who showed

him these strange matters, and the answer of the prophet to that question :

Then to the Beirne could I say,
Where dwells thou, or in what countrie?
[Or who shall rule the isle of Britane,
From the north to the south sey?

A French queene shall bear the sonne,
Shall rule all Britaine to the sea;
Which of the Bruce's blood shall come,
As neere as the nint degree:

I frained fast what was his name,
Where that he came, from what country ]
In Erslingtoun I dwell at hame,
Thomas Rymour men cals me.'

There is surely no one who will not conclude, with Lord Hailes, that the eight lines enclosed in brackets are a clumsy interpolation, borrowed from Berlington, with such alterations as might render the supposed prophecy applicable to the union of the crowns.

While we are on this subject, it may be proper briefly to notice the scope of some of the other predictions, in Hart's Collection. As the prophecy of Berlington was intended to raise the spirits of the nation during the regency of Albany, so those of Sybilla and Eltraine refer to that of the Earl of Arran, afterwards Duke of Chatelherault, during the minority of Mary, a period of similar calamity. This is obvious from the following verses :

'Take a thousand in calculation,
And the longest of the lyon,
Four crescents under one crowne,
With Saint Andrew's croce thrise,
Then threescore and thrise three:
Take tent to Merling truely,
Then shall the wars ended be,
And never again rise.

In that yere there shall a king,
A duke, and no crown'd king:
Becaus the prince shall be yong,
And tender of yeares.'

The date, above hinted at, seems to be 1549, when the Scottish Regent, by means of some succours derived from France, was endeavouring to repair the consequences of the fatal battle of Pinkie. Allusion is made to the supply given to the Moldwarte [England] by the fained hart' (the Earl of Angus). The Regent is described by his bearing the antelope; large supplies are promised from France, and complete conquest predicted to Scotland and her allies. Thus was the same hackneyed stratagem repeated, whenever the interest of the rulers appeared to stand in need of it. The Regent was not, indeed, till after this period, created Duke of Chatelherault; but that honour was the object of his hopes and expectations.

The name of our renowned soothsayer is liberally used as an authority throughout all the prophecies published by Andro Hart. Besides those expressly put in his name, Gildas, another assumed personage, is supposed to derive his knowledge from him; for he concludes thus:

'True Thomas me told in a troublesome time,
In a harvest morn at Eldoun hills.'

The Prophecy of Gillas.

In the prophecy of Berlington, already quoted, we are told,

pro

'Marvellous Merlin, that many men of tells, And Thomas's sayings comes all at once.' While I am upon the subject of these phecies, may I be permitted to call the attention of antiquaries to Merdwynn Wyllt, or Merlin the Wild, in whose name, and by no means in that of Ambrose Merlin, the friend of Arthur, the Scottish prophecies are issued: That this personage resided at Drummelziar, and roamed, like a second Nebuchadnezzar, the woods of Tweeddale, in remorse for the death of his nephew, we learn from Fordun. In the Scotichronicon, lib. iii, cap. 31, is an account of an interview betwixt St. Kentigern and Merlin, then in this distracted and miserable state. He is said to have been called Lailoken, from his mode of life. On being commanded by the saint to give an account of himself, he says that the penance which he performs was imposed on him by a voice from heaven, during a bloody contest betwixt Lidel and Carwanolow, of which battle he had been the cause. According to his own prediction, he perished at once by wood, earth, and water; for, being pursued with stones by the rustics, he fell from a rock into the river Tweed, and was transfixed by a sharp stake, fixed there for the purpose of extending a fishing-net:

'Sude perfossus, lapide percussus, et unda,
Haec tria Merlinum fertur inire necem,
Sicque ruit, mersusque fuit lignoque prehensus,
Et fecit vatem per terna pericula verum.'

But, in a metrical history of Merlin of Caledonia, compiled by Geoffrey of Monmouth from the traditions of the Welsh bards, this mode of death is attributed to a page, whom Merlin's sister, desirous to convict the prophet of falsehood, because he had betrayed her intrigues, introduced to him, under three various disguises, inquiring each time in what manner the person should die. To the first demand Merlin answered, the party should perish by a fall from a rock; to the second, that he should die by a tree; and to the third, that he should be drowned. The youth perished, while hunting, in the mode imputed by Fordun to Merlin himself.

Fordun, contrary to the French authorities, confounds this person with the Merlin of Arthur; but concludes by informing us, that many believed him to be a different person. The grave of Merlin is pointed out at Drummelzar, in Tweeddale, beneath an aged thorn-tree. On the east side of the churchyard the brook, called Pausayl, falls into the Tweed; and the following prophecy is said to have been current concerning their union :

When Tweed and Pausayl join at Merlin's grave, Scotland and England shall one monarch have.' On the day of the coronation of James VI, the Tweed accordingly overflowed, and joined the Pausayl at the prophet's grave.-PENNYCUICK'S History of Tweeddale, p. 26.

These circumstances would seem to infer a communication betwixt the south-west of Scotland and Wales, of a nature peculiarly intimate; for I presume that Merlin would retain sense enough to choose for the scene of his wanderings a country having a language and manners similar to his own.

Be this as it may, the memory of Merlin Sylvester, or the Wild, was fresh among the Scots during the reign of James V. Waldhave', under whose name a set of prophecies was published, describes himself as lying upon Lomond Law; he hears a voice, which bids him stand to his defence; he looks around, and beholds a flock of hares and foxes? pursued over the mountain by a savage figure, to whom he can hardly give the name of man. At the sight of Waldhave, the apparition leaves the objects of his pursuit, and assaults him with a club. Waldhave defends himself with his sword, throws the savage to the earth, and refuses to let him arise till he swear, by the law and lead he lives upon, 'to do him no harm.' This done, he permits him to arise, and marvels at his strange appearance :

He was formed like a freike [man] all his four quarters; And then his chin and his face haired so thick, With haire growing so grime, fearful to see.'

He answers briefly to Waldhave's inquiry concerning his name and nature, that he 'drees his weird,' i. e. does penance in that wood; and, having hinted that questions as to his own state are offensive, he pours forth an obscure rhapsody concerning futurity, and concludes:

'Go musing upon Merlin if thou wilt:

For I mean no more, man, at this time.'

This is exactly similar to the meeting betwixt Merlin and Kentigern in Fordun. These prophecies of Merlin seem to have been in request in the minority of James V; for among the amusements with which Sir David Lindsay diverted that prince during his infancy, are,

'The prophecies of Rymer, Bede, and Merlin.

SIR DAVID LINDSAY'S Epistle to the King. And we find, in Waldhave, at least one allusion to the very ancient prophecy, addressed to the Countess of Dunbar:

'This is a true token that Thomas of tells, When a ladde with a ladye shall go over the fields.' The original stands thus:

'When laddes weddeth lovedies.'

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was committed to the charge of his accuser, Captain James Stewart, newly created Earl of Arran, to be conducted to his trial at Edinburgh, Spottiswoode says that he asked, "Who was Earl of Arran?" and being answered that Captain James was the man, after a short pause, he said, "And is it so? I know then what I may look for?" meaning, as was thought, that the old prophecy of the Falling of the heart by the mouth of Arran" should then be fulfilled. Whether this was his mind or not, it is not known; but some spared not, at the time when the Hamiltons were banished, in which business he was held too earnest, to say, that he stood in fear of that prediction, and went that course only to disappoint it. But if so it was, he did find himself now deluded; for he fell by the mouth of another Arran than he imagined.'-SPOTTISWOODE, p. 313. The fatal words alluded to seem to be these in the prophecy of Merlin :

In the mouthe of Arrane a selclouth shall fall,
Two bloodie hearts shall be taken with a false traine,
And derfly dung down without any dome.'

To return from these desultory remarks, into which I have been led by the celebrated name of Merlin, the style of all these prophecies, published by Hart, is very much the same. The measure is alliterative, and somewhat similar to that of Pierce Plowman's Visions; a circumstance which might entitle us to ascribe to some of them an earlier date than the reign of James V, did we not know that Sir Galloran of Galloway and Gawaine and Gologras, two romances rendered almost unintelligible by the extremity of affected alliteration, are perhaps not prior to that period. Indeed, although we may allow that, during much earlier times, prophecies, under the names of those celebrated soothsayers, have been current in Scotland, yet those published by Hart have obviously been so often vamped and re-vamped, to serve the political purposes of different periods, that it may be shrewdly suspected, that, as in the case of Sir John Cutler's transmigrated stockings, very_little of the original materials now remains. I cannot refrain from indulging my readers with the publisher's title to the last prophecy, as it contains certain curious information concerning the Queen of Sheba, who.is identified with the Cumaean Sibyl: "Here followeth a prophecie, pronounced by a noble queene and matron, called Sybilla, Regina Austri, that came to Solomon. Through the which she compiled four bookes, at the instance of the said King Sol, and others divers: and the fourth book was directed to a noble king, called Baldwine, King of the broad isle of Britain; in the which she maketh mention of two noble princes and emperours, the which is called Leones. How these two shall subdue and overcome all earthlie princes to their diademe and crowne, and also be glorified and crowned in the heaven among saints. The

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