forests, and divided by small rivers and morasses, into dales and valleys, where the different clans lived, making war sometimes on the English, sometimes on each other, and sometimes on the more civilized country which lay behind them.

But though the Borderers resembled the Highlanders in their mode of government and habits of plundering, and, as it may be truly added, in their disobedience to the general government of Scotland, yet they differed in many particulars. The Highlanders fought always on foot, the Borderers were all horsemen. The Borderers spoke the same language with the Lowlanders, wore the same sort of dress, and carried the same arms. Being accustomed to fight against the English, they were also much better disciplined than the Highlanders. But in point of obedience to the Scottish government, they were

not much different from the clans of the north.

II. JAMES V. OF SCOTLAND. -James V. displayed most of the qualities of a wise and good prince. He was handsome in his person, and resembled his father in the fondness for military exercises, and the spirit of chivalrous honor which James IV. loved to display. He also inherited his father's love of justice, and his desire to establish and enforce wise and equal laws, which should protect the weak against the oppression of the great. It was easy to make laws, but to put them in vigorous exercise was of much greater difficulty; and in his attempt to accomplish this laudable purpose, James often incurred the ill will of the more powerful nobles. He was a welleducated and accomplished man; and like his ancestor, James I., was a poet and a musician. He had, however, his defects. He avoided his father's failing of profusion, having no hoarded treasures to employ on pomp and

show; but he rather fell into the opposite fault, being of a temper too parsimonious; and though he loved state and display, he endeavored to gratify that taste as economically as possible, so that he has been censured as rather close and covetous. He was also, though the foibles seem inconsistent, fond of pleasure, and disposed to too much indulgence. It must be added, that when provoked, he was unrelenting even to cruelty; for which he had some apology, considering the ferocity of the subjects over whom he reigned. But, on the whole, James V. was an amiable man and a good sovereign.

His first care was to bring the Borders of Scotland to some degree of order. Thesę, as you were formerly told, were inhabited by tribes of men, forming each a different clan, as they were called, and obeying no orders save those which were given by their chiefs. These chiefs were supposed to represent the first founder of the name, or family. The attachment of the clansmen to the chief was very great: indeed, they paid respect to no one else. In this the Borderers agreed with the Highlanders, as also in their love of plunder and neglect of the general laws of the country. But the Border men wore no tartan dress, and served almost always on horseback, whereas the Highlanders acted always on foot. You will also remember that the Borderers spoke the Scottish language, and not the Gaelic tongue used by the mountaineers.

The situation of these clans on the frontiers exposed them to constant war; so that they thought of nothing else but of collecting bands of their followers together, and making incursions, without much distinction, on the English, on the Lowland (or inland) Scots, or upon each other. They paid little respect either to times of truce or treaties of peace, but exercised their depredations

without regard to either, and often occasioned wars betwixt England and Scotland which would not otherwise have taken place. As their insolence had risen to a high pitch after the field of Flodden had thrown the country into confusion, James V. resolved to take very severe measures against them.

His first step was to secure the persons of the principal chieftains by whom these disorders were privately encouraged. The Earl of Bothwell, the Lord Home, Lord Maxwell, Scott of Buccleuch, Ker of Fairniehirst, and other powerful chiefs, who might have opposed the king's purposes, were seized, and imprisoned in separate fortresses in the inland country.

James then assembled an army, in which warlike purposes were united with those of sylvan sport; for he ordered all the gentlemen in the wild districts which he intended to visit to bring their best dogs, as if his only purpose had been to hunt the deer in those desolate regions. This was to prevent the Borderers from taking the alarm, in which case they would have retreated into their mountains and fastnesses, from whence it would have been difficult to dislodge them.

These men had indeed no distinct idea of the offences which they had committed, and consequently no apprehension of the king's displeasure against them. The laws had been so long silent in that remote and disorderly country, that the outrages which were practiced by the strong against the weak seemed to the perpetrators the natural course of society, and to present nothing that was worthy of punishment.

Thus, as the king in the beginning of his expedition suddenly approached the castle of Piers Cockburn of Henderland, that baron was in the act of providing a

great entertainment to welcome him, when James caused him to be suddenly seized on and executed. Adam Scott of Tushielaw, called the King of the Border, met the same fate.

In the like manner James proceeded against the Highland chiefs; and by executions, forfeitures, and other severe measures he brought the northern mountaineers, as he had already done those of the south, into comparative subjection. He then set at liberty the Border chiefs, and others whom he had imprisoned, lest they should have offered any hindrance to the course of his justice.

James was very fond of hunting, and when he pursued that amusement in the Highlands he used to wear the peculiar dress of that country, having a long and wide Highland shirt and a jacket of Tartan velvet, with plaid hose, and everything else corresponding. The accounts for these are in the books of his chamberlain, still preserved.

The reign of James V. was not alone distinguished by his personal adventures and pastimes, but is honorably remembered on account of wise laws made for the government of his people, and for restraining the crimes and violence which were frequently practiced among them; especially those of assassination, burning of houses, and driving of cattle - the usual and ready means by which powerful chiefs avenged themselves of their feudal enemies.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

After the success of Marmion, I felt inclined to exclaim with Ulysses in the Odyssey:

"One venturous game my hand has won to-day

Another, gallants, yet remains to play."

The ancient manners, the habits and customs of the aboriginal race by whom the Highlands of Scotland were inhabited, had always appeared to me peculiarly adapted to poetry. The change in their manners, too, had taken place almost within my own time, or at least I had learned many particulars concerning the ancient state of the Highlands from the old men of the last generation. I had always thought the old Scottish Gael highly adapted for poetical composition. The feuds and political discussions which, half a century earlier, would have rendered the richer and wealthier part of the kingdom indisposed to countenance a poem, the scene of which was laid in the Highlands, were now sunk in the gener ous compassion which the English, more than any other nation, feel for the misfortunes of an honorable foe. The poems of Ossian had, by their popularity, sufficiently shown that if writings on Highland subjects were qualified to interest the reader, mere national prejudices were, in the present day, very unlikely to interfere with their success.

I had also read a great deal, seen much, and heard more of that romantic country where I was in the habit of spending some time every autumn; and the scenery