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seventeenth century, on no better grounds. But what is worthy of particular notice in their case, is the visible conflict between statute-law supported by the obstinate credulity of the lower classes, on the one hand, and the dawn of a purer day which was then rising upon our rulers, and had already begun to dispel the illusions of the most detestable fanaticism, on the other. Yet it is a melancholy thing to reflect how long the night had lasted, and how deep had been its darkness; nor is it less lamentable to perceive how ineffectually the influence of true religion and of science is opposed, in our own days, to the inveterate credulity of a large proportion of our countrymen.

liar temper arose entirely from this cause or from original disposition, it appears at least to have displayed itself at a very early age; and his father used to observe, that " he was born either to slay or be slain." He was never more than a few months at school, but he had learned to read English very well. He was sent to Edinburgh when young to learn the trade of a brush-maker; but his extraordinary figure attracted so much notice, that he soon left this city in disgust, and retired to his native hills.

How he subsisted on his return to the country we have not heard, but some time afterwards, probably on the death of his father, he attracted the notice of Sir James Nasmyth; and being now settled in the parish of Manor, he formed the plan of erect

ACCOUNT OF DAVID RITCHIE, THE ing a cottage for himself on the

ORIGINAL OF THE BLACK DWARF.

THE singular person of whose real history and condition we now propose to detail a few particulars, has already excited the curiosity and contributed to the entertainment of the public in no ordinary degree, under the fictitious character of the BLACK DWARF. Of Ritchie's being the real prototype of that marvellous misanthrope, we do not profess to entertain even the shadow of a doubt. Under that view he has been already described, evidently from high authority, in the Quarterly Review-and also in the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine for June, by a correspondent who has since communicated to us some further curious and well authenticated information, which corroborates in general his former account, and which, with materials from other sources, enables us to present our readers with the following details.

David Ritchie, commonly called Bowed Davie, was born at Easter Happrew, in the parish of Stobo, Peeblesshire, about the year 1740. His father, William Ritchie, a labouring man, was employed for many years in the slate quarries at that place, as was also one of his sons, who was older than David. The name of our hero's mother was Niven. David used to say, that his deformity was owing to ill-guiding in his childhood; but this was not credited, and he is understood to have been mis-shapen from his birth. Whether his pecu

grounds of that gentleman, whose permission he seems to have readily obtained. He fixed upon a spot of ground at the bottom of a steep bank on the farm of Woodhouse. The benevolent proprietor directed his servants to lend him what assistance he might require, and gave him possession of the ground rent-free. The dwarf required but little assistance. With incredible labour and perseverance, he first cleared the space to be occupied by his hut and a small garden; scooping out for that purpose a large recess in the side of the hill, which, rising abruptly, formed on the one side a natural wall to the garden. The rest of it was inclosed partly by a wall of considerable height, and partly by the cottage, which occupied another of the sides. The walls both of the garden and the hut were chiefly built by Davie himself, of such materials as the spot afforded. Though without mortar, they were very solid, and were formed of alternate layers of large stones and turf. Having covered the cottage with a neat thatch-roof, and constructed a small door, and a few rude pieces of household furniture, he proceeded to the cultivation of his garden, in which he displayed very considerable taste, as well as industry. In a short time he contrived to stock it with a few fruittrees, and with all sorts of flowers, herbs, and culinary vegetables which could be procured in the neighbourhood. His manner of working is described, by persons who used to visit

him, as exceedingly laborious. Being unable to make any use of his feet in digging, he had a spade so contrived, that he could force it down with his breast; the rest of the labour was performed entirely by means of his arms and hands, in which he possessed great strength. He also procured some beehives, and planted a bower of willows and rowan-tree; and by degrees his little hermitage exhibited a very striking contrast to the slovenly kailyards of the neighbouring peasants, and looked more like a fairy bower than a wizard's den. It soon came to be resorted to by visitors, being accounted, with its inhabitant, one of the most interesting curiosities of the country. The late venerable Professor Ferguson used sometimes to visit Davie, and also, it is said, some other individuals of high literary celebrity. The cultivating, ornamenting, and shewingoff this little spot, formed his chief occupation and greatest pleasure. He reared a great profusion of flowers for his more elegant visitors, and chamomile, rhubarb, and other medicinal herbs, for his homely neighbours. He also supplied the tables of some gentlemen in the neighbourhood with honey. His bees, along with a dog and cat, of all which he was very fond, formed the whole of his live stock. This original cottage falling into disrepair, Sir James Nasmyth ordered a new one, consisting of two separate dwellings under one roof, to be erected for him and his sister, in 1802, at a short distance from the former. This was constructed by masons under Davie's directions; but he built the new garden wall almost entirely with his own hands. His sister wished to have one outer door common to both apartments; but he insisted on having two separate ones, as they appear at present. The house was, accordingly, divided by a complete partition. Davie's door is about three feet and a half high, and he could stand upright below the lintel. It has a small chink for a window, with wooden shutters. He would not admit of glass in it. Mr Ballantyne, the present farmer of Woodhouse, enlarged the garden at the same time; which addition it took Davie a whole year to put in order to his liking. He turned up the soil two feet and a half deep, clearing it of large stones, &c. His sister and he having frequently

quarrelled, a sort of estrangement took place between these two lonely beings. The sister, though no way deformed in her person, was never capable of regular employment, from a degree of mental aberration. They were long the only persons in the parish, who received support from the poor's funds. The dwarf, however, derived the chief part of his subsistence from the gratuitous contributions of the neighbouring farmers and gentry, most of whom he occasionally visited. Davie's meal-pock also hung constantly in the mill, and every person who had a melder ground allotted a small portion of it for his use. These resources, together with occasional presents from strangers who visited his dwelling, and the vegetables which he produced by his horticulture, sufficed for all his little wants. The pecuniary donations he received were chiefly expended on snuff, which was almost his only luxury, and one in which he indulged to excess. He kept a whisky bottle, too, and occasionally sold a little for some years, but was never known to be too free in the use of it himself. He died in December 1811, after an illness of three days. According to his own account, he was about 71 years of age at the time of his death; but it is believed that he was several years older. He had become very penurious in the latter part of his life. Although subsisting entirely on charity, about L. 20 was found in his chest at his death, the half of which was restored to the parish.

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The garden still retains marks of its original neatness, but is now totally unpruned. His sister, who is younger than Davie by some years, has become a good deal more deranged in her mind since his death. never passes the night in the cottage, but resides there through the day, and sleeps at the farmer's, Mr Ballantyne of Woodhouse. Of late a great many strangers call at the cottage, from whom she has received many charitable offerings. She cannot understand the cause of their great curiosity concerning her brother's history. She said to a friend of ours who visited the place a few weeks ago-" What gars folk speer sae mony questions about us? Our parents were mean, but there was nae ill anent them."

We are enabled to present our readers with the following sketch of

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Davie's singular physiognomy, from an original drawing taken some time before his death by a very accomplished person who lived for many years in habits of frequent and familiar intercourse with him, and which we believe is a striking likeness. It will be found to differ in some slight particulars from the description of the novelist, who, of course, was under no obligation to adhere rigidly or uniformly to his original materials in the delineation of either mental or physical qualities; yet the force and felicity with which he has in general transferred to his glowing canvas, not only the more striking characteristics, but often the minutest details, is altogether wonderful. So far as regards personal beauty, however, poor Davie has no great cause to complain of the appearance he exhibits, when arrayed in the wizard mantle of the Black Dwarf. The couplet in which Pope describes Sir Richard Blackmore, seems no longer hyperbolical when applied to Bowed Davie.

"He was so ugly and so grim, His shadow durst not follow him." His eyes, however, which were black, are said to have been fine. Of the rest

of his person no accurate sketch, we believe, has ever been taken. It was still more remarkable, however, than his visage, and after many minute inquiries, we have no hesitation in adopting, almost without variation, the words of his fictitious historian, who, in the following description, is allowed to have given a pretty exact and unexaggerated portrait. "His body, thick and square, like that of a man of middle size, was mounted upon two large feet; but nature seemed to have forgotten the legs and the thighs, or they were so very short as to be hidden by the dress which he wore. His arms were long and brawny, furnished with two muscular hands, and, when uncovered in the eagerness of his labour, were shagged with coarse black hair. It seemed as if nature had originally intended the separate parts of his body to be the members of a giant, but had afterwards capriciously assigned them to the person of a dwarf, so ill did the length of his arms, and the iron strength of his frame, correspond with the shortness of his stature.'

His height was about three feet and a half. His skull, which was of an oblong and rather unusual shape, was

of such strength that he could strike it with ease through the pannel of a door or the end of a tar-barrel. His laugh is said to have been quite horrible; and his screech-owl voice, shrill, uncouth, and dissonant, corresponded well with his other peculiarities.

There was nothing very uncommon about his dress. He usually wore an old slouched hat when he went abroad; and when at home, a sort of cowl or nightcap, such as he is here represented with. He never wore shoes, being unable to adapt them to his mis-shapen fin-like feet, but always had both feet and legs quite concealed, and wrapt up with pieces of cloth. He always walked with a sort of pole or pike-staff considerably taller than himself.

His habits were in many respects singular, and indicated a mind sufficiently congenial to its uncouth tabernacle. A jealous, misanthropical, and irritable temper, was his most prominent characteristic. The sense of his deformity haunted him like a phantom; and the insults and scorn to which this exposed him, had poisoned his heart with fierce and bitter feelings, which, from other traits in his character, do not appear to have been more largely infused into his original temperament than that of his fellow men. He detested children, on account of their propensity to insult and persecute him. To strangers he was generally reserved, crabbed, and surly, and though he by no means refused assistance or charity, he, on many occasions, neither expressed nor exhibited much gratitude. Even towards persons who had been his greatest benefactors, and who possessed the greatest share of his good will, he frequently displayed much caprice and jealousy. A lady, who knew him from her infancy, and who has furnished us in the most obliging manner with some particulars respecting him, says, that although Davie shewed as much respect and attachment to her father's family as it was in his nature to shew to any, yet they were always obliged to be very cautious in their deportment towards him. One day having gone to visit him with another lady, he took them through his garden, and was shewing them, with much pride and good humour, all his rich and tastefully-assorted borders, when they happened to stop near a plot of cabbages which had been some

what injured by the caterpillars. Davie observing one of the ladies smile, instantly assumed his savage scowling aspect, rushed among the cabbages, and dashed them to pieces with his kent, exclaiming, "I hate the worms, for they mock me."

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Another lady, likewise a friend and old acquaintance of his, very unintentionally gave him mortal offence on a similar occasion. Throwing back his jealous glance, he fancied he saw her spit at him. "Am I a toad, woman! that ye spit at me-that ye spit at me!" he exclaimed with fury, and without listening to any answer, he drove her out of his garden with imprecations and insult. When irritated by persons for whom he entertained little respect, his misanthropy displayed itself in words and sometimes actions of still greater rudeness. He would then utter the most shocking imprecations, swear he would " cleave them to the harn-pans”"if he had but his cran fingers on them," &c.

A farmer in the neighbourhood went one night, out of a frolic, to frighten Davie, but paid pretty dearly for his joke. He had assumed the character of a robber, and pretended to be breaking into his hut. The Dwarf, after reconnoitring him from a small unglazed window, which he had near his chimney, wrenched a large stone out of the wall, dashed it down upon the assailant, and knocked him to the ground, where he lay for a while senseless and very severely hurt.

The lady to whose information we have just referred, mentions another anecdote which came within her own knowledge, and which may serve to illustrate the resolute and dogged perseverance of the Dwarf. He had applied to Mr Laidlaw of Hallyards for a branch of a tree which grew in the neighbourhood, to serve some purpose of his own. Mr Laidlaw was always very ready to oblige Davie-but told him, that, on the present occasion, he could not grant his request, as it would injure the tree. Davie made no reply, but went away grumbling to himself. Next morning, some of Mr Laidlaw's servants happened to be going from home so early as two o'clock, when, to their surprise and terror, they perceived through the grey twilight a strange figure struggling and dancing in the

air below the said tree. Upon going up to the place they found it was Davie, who had contrived by some means to fasten a rope to the branch he wanted, and was swinging with all his weight upon it to break it down. They left him, and before he was a gain disturbed, he succeeded in bringing it to the ground, and carried it home with him.

He had a sort of strange pleasure in wandering out in the dark, and is said to have sometimes spent whole nights among the ruins of old buildings, and other places where spectres were believed to haunt; and he used to vaunt much of his courage and intrepidity in these adventures. With all this bravery he is known to have been extremely superstitious; and, to protect himself from witchcraft, he had planted a great deal of the rowantree, or mountain ash, around his dwelling. Upwards of forty of these trees were cut down in his garden after his death. It does not appear that he made any pretensions to warlockry, or that there was any strong suspicion of that nature respecting him among his neighbours, although a knowledge of his revengeful disposition impressed both young and old with a certain degree of fearful respect and awe of him. Davie spent much of his time in solitude, and when his garden did not require his care, would lie whole summer days by the side of a well, poring into the water. He also read a good deal when he could get books, and what is remarkable, was very fond of some parts of Shenstone's PastoralBallads, which he could repeat by heart. The sort of reading, however, in which he took greatest delight, was the adventures of Wallace and Bruce, and other popular tracts about Scottish heroes, the Highland clans, &c. He possessed a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, some parts of which he read with much interest. He had also got hold of "Tooke's Pantheon," and had his head confusedly stored with the stories of the Heathen Mythology. His information, such as it was, appeared to great advantage when he mingled with the peasantry at the mill or smithy. He was very satirical in his conversation; and his harsh creaking voice was there frequently heard much higher than the sound of the clapper, or the fore-hammer. He visited Peebles, the county town,

occasionally, but very seldom went to church. He was supposed to entertain some very peculiar notions on religious subjects, but those who were intimate with him say that he would now and then speak concerning a future state, with great earnestness and good sense; and on such occasions, when his feelings were excited, would sometimes burst into tears.

Davie would rather appear to have had some ambition of posthumous honours. Perhaps Tooke's Pantheon might have inspired him with a thirst of immortality, or perchance he had some presentiment of his approaching apotheosis, under the plastic hands of a mighty magician, a still more extraordinary and mysterious personage than himself-one who has not only raised up the spirits of the departed, but, by disrobing them of the more vulgar and prosaic rags of their mortal state, and investing them with imposing and poetical qualities, has restored them to the world in a guise a thousand times more pleasing and picturesque, and yet scarcely less true to nature, than the reality itself. But, whether poor Davie possessed the second sight or not, it is certain that he long expressed a desire to be buried on a particular spot which he pointed out, and not in the churchyard among the common brush," as he expressed it. One of the motives assigned by him for this singular wish, was his aversion to have the clods clapped down upon him "by such a fellow as Jock Somerville the bell-man." This person he always detested, and would scarcely stay in his company, probably from a secret feeling of disgust, or disagreeable reminiscence, suggested by a certain resemblance which the grave-digger bore to himself in personal deformity.

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He appears to have displayed no small portion of taste in the selection of his burial ground. It is described in a little tract now before us, as a "beautiful mount called the Woodhill, which rises from a plain nearly in the centre of the parish of Manor, skirted with a number of venerable old trees, and encircled by an amphitheatre of steep and lofty mountains, covered to the tops with heath, and having their sides broken and diversified by deep ravines, and rocky precipices. This picturesque little hill, rising abruptly

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