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The Gray Brother.

A FRAGMENT.

THE imperfect state of this ballad, which was written several years ago, is not a circumstance affected for the purpose of giving it that peculiar interest which is often found to arise from ungratified curiosity. On the contrary, it was the Editor's intention to have completed the tale, if he had found himself able to succeed to his own satisfaction. Yielding to the opinion of persons, whose judgment, if not biassed by the partiality of friendship, is entitled to deference, he has preferred inserting these verses as a fragment, to his intention of entirely suppressing them.

The tradition, upon which the tale is founded, regards a house upon the barony of Gilmerton, near Lasswade, in Mid-Lothian. This building, now called Gilmerton Grange, was originally named Burndale, from the following tragic adventure. The barony of Gilmerton belonged, of yore, to a gentleman named Heron, who had one beautiful daughter. This young lady was seduced by the Abbot of Newbattle, a richly endowed abbey, upon the banks of the South Esk, now a seat of the Marquis of Lothian. Heron came to the knowledge of this circumstance, and learned also, that the lovers carried on their guilty intercourse by the connivance of the lady's nurse, who lived at this house of Gilmerton Grange, or Burndale. He formed a resolution of bloody vengeance, undeterred by the supposed sanctity of the clerical character, or by the stronger claims of natural affection. Choosing, therefore, a dark and windy night, when the objects of his vengeance were engaged in a stolen interview, he set fire to a stack of dried thorns, and other combustibles, which he had caused to be piled against the house, and reduced to a pile of glowing ashes the dwelling, with all its inmates.'

The scene with which the ballad opens, was suggested by the following curious passage, extracted from the Life of Alexander Peden, one of the wandering and persecuted teachers of the sect of Cameronians, during the reign of Charles II. and his successor, James. This person was supposed by his followers, and, perhaps, really believed him

1 This tradition was communicated to me by John Clerk, Esq., of Eldin, author of an Essay upon Naval Tactics, who will be remembered by posterity, as having taught the Genius

self, to be possessed of supernatural gifts; for the wild scenes which they frequented, and the con- | stant dangers which were incurred through their proscription, deepened upon their minds the gloom of superstition, so general in that age.

"About the same time he [Peden] came to Andrew Normand's house, in the parish of Alloway, in the shire of Ayr, being to preach at night in Lis barn. After he came in, he halted a little, leaning upon a chair-back, with his face covered; when he lifted up his head, he said, 'They are in this house that I have not one word of salvation unto;' be halted a little again, saying, 'This is strange, that the devil will not go out, that we may begin our work! Then there was a woman went out, illlooked upon almost all her life, and to her dying hour, for a witch, with many presumptions of the same. It escaped me, in the former passages, what John Muirhead (whom I have often mentioned) told me, that when he came from Ireland to Galloway, he was at family-worship, and giving¦ some notes upon the Scripture read, when a very ill-looking man came, and sat down within the door, at the back of the hallan [partition of the cottage]: immediately he halted and said, 'There is some unhappy body just now come into this house. I charge him to go out, and not stop my mouth! This person went out, and he insisted [went on], yet he saw him neither come in nor go | out."-The Life and Prophecies of Mr. Alexander | Peden, late Minister of the Gospel at New Glenluce, in Galloway, part ii. § 26.

A friendly correspondent remarks, "that the incapacity of proceeding in the performance of a religious duty, when a contaminated person is present, is of much higher antiquity than the era of the Reverend Mr. Alexander Peden."-Vide Hygini Fabulas, cap. 26. “Medea Corintho erul, Athenas, ad Egeum Pandionis filium devenit in hospitium, eique nupsit.

"Postea sacerdos Diana Medeam eragi tare cœpit, regique negabat sacra caste facere posse, eo quod in ea civitate esset mulier venefica et scele rata; tunc exulatur.”

of Britain to concentrate her thunders, and to launch them against her foes with an unerring aim.

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"Then came The Gray Brother, founded on another superstition, which seems to have been almost as ancient as the be lief in ghosts; namely, that the holiest service of the altar cannot go on in the presence of an unclean person--a heinous sinner unconfessed and unabsolved. The fragmentary form of this poem greatly heightens the awfulness of its impression; and in construction and metre, the verses which really belong to the story appear to me the happiest that have ever been produced expressly in imitation of the ballad of the middle age. In the stanzas, previously quoted, on the scenery of the Esk, however beautiful in themselves, and however interesting now as marking the locality of the composition, he must be allowed to have lapsed into another strain, and produced a pannus purpureus which interferes with and mars the general texture."-Life of Scott, vol. ii. p. 26.

NOTES 1 to 7.

SCENERY OF THE ESK.-P. 605.

APPENDIX.

1 The barony of Pennycuik, the property of Sir George Clerk, Bart., is held by a singular tenure; the proprietor being bound to sit upon a large rocky fragment called the Buckstane, and wind three blasts of a horn, when the King shall come to hunt on the Borough Muir, near Edinburgh. Hence the family have adopted as their crest a demi-forester proper, winding a

horn, with the motto, Free for a Blast. The beautiful man sion-house of Pennycuik is much admired, both on account of the architecture and surrounding scenery.

2 Auchendinny, situated upon the Eske, below Pennycuik, the present residence of the ingenious H. Mackenzie, Esq. author of the Man of Feeling, &c.-Edition 1803.

"Haunted Woodhouselee."-For the traditions connected with this ruinous mansion, see Ballad of Cadyow Castie, Note, p. 603,

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pice upon the banks of the Eske, perforated by winding caves, which in former times were a refuge to the oppressed patriots of Scotland. Here Drummond received Ben Jonson, who journeyed from London on foot in order to visit him. The beauty of this striking scene has been much injured of late years by the indiscriminate use of the axe. The traveller now looks in vain for the leafy bower,

"Where Jonson sat in Drummond's social shade."

Upon the whole, tracing the Eske from its source till it joins the sea at Musselburgh, no stream in Scotland can boast such a varied succession of the most interesting objects, as well as of the most romantic and beautiful scenery. 1803. -The beautiful scenery of Hawthornden has, since the above note was written, recovered all its proper ornament of wood 1831.

War-Song

OF THE

ROYAL EDINBURGH LIGHT DRAGOONS.

"Nennius. Is not peace the end of arms?

"Caraiach. Not where the cause implies a general conquest.

Had we a difference with some petty isle,

Or with our neighbors, Britons, for our landmarks,

The taking in of some rebellious lord,

Or making head against a slight commotion,

After a day of blood, peace might be argued :
But where we grapple for the land we live on,
The liberty we hold more dear than life,
The gods we worship, and, next these, our honors,
And, with those, swords that know no end of battle-
Those men, beside themselves, allow no neighbor,
Those minds, that, where the day is, claim inheritance,
And, where the sun makes ripe the fruit, their harvest,
And, where they march, but measure out more ground
To add to Rome

It must not be-No! as they are our foes,
Let's use the peace of honor-that's fair dealing;
But in our hands our swords. The hardy Roman,
That thinks to graft himself into my stock,
Must first begin his kindred under ground,
And be allied in ashes."

Bonduca.

measure of arming freemen in defence of their own rights, was nowhere more successful than in Edinburgh, which furnished a force of 3000 armed and disciplined volunteers, including a regiment of cavalry, from the city and county, and two corps of artillery, each capable of serving twelve guns. To such a force, above all others, might, in similar circumstances, be applied the exhortation of our ancient Galgacus: "Proinde ituri in aciem, et majores vestros et posteros cogitate." 1812.

THE following War-Song was written during the apprehension of an invasion.' The corps of volunteers to which it was addressed, was raised in 1797, consisting of gentlemen, mounted and armed at their own expense. It still subsists, as the Right Troop of the Royal Mid-Lothian Light Cavalry, commanded by the Honorable LieutenantColonel Dundas.2 The noble and constitutional

The song originally appeared in the Scots Magazine for 1802.-ED

War-Song

OF THE

ROYAL EDINBURGH LIGHT DRAGOONS.

To horse to horse! the standard flies,
The bugles sound the call;

The Gallic navy stems the seas,
The voice of battle's on the breeze,
Arouse ye, one and all!

From high Dunedin's towers we come,

A band of brothers true;
Our casques the leopard's spoils surround,
With Scotland's hardy thistle crown'd;
We boast the red and blue.

2 Now Viscount Melville.-1831.'

3 The royal colors.

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END OF CONTRIBUTIONS TO MINSTRELSY OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER.

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