kind of dogges hath beene dispersed through the countries of Henault, Lorayne, Flaunders, and Burgoyne. They are mighty of body, neuertheless their legges are low and short; likewise they are not swift, although they be very good of scent, hunting chaces which are farre straggled, fearing neither water nor cold, and doe more couet the chaces that smell, as foxes, bore, and such like, than other, because they find themselves neither of swiftness nor courage to hunt and kill the chaces that are lighter and swifter. The bloodhounds of this colour proue good, espe cially those that are cole-blacke; but I make no great account to breede on them, or to keepe the kind; and yet I found a booke which a hunter did dedicate to a prince of Lorayne, which seemed to loue hunting much, wherein was a blason which the same hunter gaue to his bloodhound, called Souyllard, which was white :

'My name came first from holy Hubert's race,
Souyllard my sire, a hound of singular grace.'

Whereupon we may presume that some of the kind proue white sometimes; but they are not of the kind of the Greffiers or Bouxes, which we haue at these days."-The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting, Translated and Collected for the use of all Noblemen and Gentlemen. Lond. 1611. 4. p. 15.

Page 12.-Stanza viii.

For the death-wound and death-halloo,
Muster'd his breath, his whinyard drew.

When the stag turned to bay, the ancient hunter had the perilous task of going in upon and killing or disabling the desperate animal. At certain times of the year this was held particularly dangerous-a wound received from a stag's horn being then deemed poisonous, and more dangerous than one from the tusks of a boar, as the old rhyme testifies :

"If thou be hurt with hart, it brings thee to thy bier,

But barber's hand will boar's hurt heal, therefore thou needst not fear."

At all times, however, the task was dangerous, and to be adventured upon wisely and warily, either by getting behind the stag while he was gazing on the hounds, or by watching an opportunity to gallop roundly in upon him and kill him with the sword. See many directions to this purpose in "The Booke of Hunting," chap. 41. Wilson the historian has recorded a providential escape which befell him in this hazardous sport while a youth and follower of the Earl of Essex :

And

Sir Peter Lee of Lime, in Cheshire, invited my lord one summer to hunt the stagg. And having a great stagg in chace, and many gentlemen in the pursuit, the stagg took soyle. divers, whereof I was one, alighted, and stood with swords drawne to have a cut at him at his coming out of the water. The staggs there being wonderfully fierce and dangerous, made us youths more eager to be at him. But he escaped us all

And it was my misfortune to be hindered of my coming nere him, the way being sliperie, by a fall, which gave occasion to some, who did not know me, to speak as if I had falne for feare. Which being told me, I left the stagg and followed the gentleman who [first] spake it. But I found him of that cold temper, that it seems his words made an escape from him; as by his denial and repentance it appeared. But this made mee more violent in pursuite of the stagg, to recover my reputation. And I happened to be the only horseman in when the dogs sett him up at bay; and approaching nere him on horsebacke, hee broke through the dogs and run at mee, and tore my horse's side with his hornes close by my thigh. Then I quitted my horse, and grew more cunning (for the dogs had sett him up againe), stealing behind him with my sword, and cut his hamstrings, and then got upon his back and cut his throate; which as I was doing the company came in, and blamed my rashness for running such a hazard."-PECK'S Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 464.

Page 16.-Stanza xiv.

And now, to issue from the glen,
No pathway meets the wanderer's ken,
Unless he climb, with footing nice,

A far-projecting precipice.

Until the present road was made through the romantic pass which I have presumptuously attempted to describe in the preceding stanzas, there was no mode of issuing out of the defile called the Trosachs, excepting by a sort of ladder composed of the branches and roots of the trees.

Page 18.-Stanza xvi.

To meet with Highland plunderers here
Were worse than loss of steed or deer.

The clans who inhabitated the romantic regions in the neighbourhood of Loch Katrine were, even until a late period, much addicted to predatory excursions upon their lowland neighbours.

"In former times those parts of this district which are situated beyond the Grampian range were rendered almost inaccessible by strong barriers of rocks, and mountains, and lakes. It was a border country; and though on the very verge of the low country, it was almost totally sequestered from the world, and, as it were, insulated with respect to society.

"'Tis well known that in the Highlands it was, in former times, accounted not only lawful, but honourable, among hostile tribes, to commit depredations on one another; and these habits of the age were perhaps strengthened in this district by the circumstances which have been mentioned. It bordered on a country, the inhabitants of which, while they were richer, were less warlike than they, and widely differenced by language and

manners."-GRAHAME's Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire. Edin. 1806. p. 97.

The reader will therefore be pleased to remember that the scene of this poem is laid in a time

"When tooming faulds, or sweeping of a glen,
Had still been held the deed of gallant men."

Page 22.-Stanza xxiii.

A gray-hair'd sire, whose eye intent
Was on the vision'd future bent.

If force of evidence could authorize us to believe facts inconsistent with the general laws of nature, enough might be produced in favour of the existence of the Second-Sight. It is called in Gaelic Taishitaraugh, from Taish, an unreal or shadowy appearance; and those possessed of the faculty are called Taishatrin, which may be aptly translated visionaries.

Page 24.-Stanza xxv.

Here, for retreat in dangerous hour,
Some chief had framed a rustic bower.

The Celtic chieftains, whose lives were continually exposed to peril, had usually, in the most retired spot of their domains, some place of retreat for the hour of necessity, which, as circumstances would admit, was a tower, a cavern, or a rustic hut, in a strong and secluded situation. One of these last gave refuge to the unfortunate Charles Edward, in his perilous wanderings after the battle of Culloden.

"It was situated in the face of a very rough, high, and rocky mountain, called Letternilichk, still a part of Benalder, full of great stones and crevices, and some scattered wood interspersed. The habitation, called the Cage, in the face of that mountain, was within a thick bush of wood. There were first some rows of trees laid down, in order to level a floor for a habitation; and, as the place was steep, this raised the lower side to an equal height with the other; and these trees, in the way of joists and planks, were levelled with earth and gravel. There were betwixt the trees, growing naturally on their own roots, some stakes fixed in the earth, which, with the trees, were interwoven with ropes made of heath and birch twigs, up to the top of the Cage, it being of a round or rather oval shape; and the whole thatched and covered over with fog. The whole fabric hung, as it were, by a large tree, which reclined from the one end, all along the roof, to the other, and which gave it the name of the Cage; and by chance there happened to be two stones, at a small distance from one another, in the side next the precipice, resembling the pillars of a chimney, where the fire was placed. The smoke had its vent out here, all along the fall of the rock, which was so much of the same colour that one could discover no difference in the clearest day."-HOLM's History of the Rebellion. Lond. 1802. 4to, p. 381.

Page 26.-Stanza xxviii.

My sire's tall form might grace the part
Of Ferragus, or Ascabart.

These two sons of Anak flourished in romantic fable. The first is well known to the admirers of Ariosto by the name of Ferrau He was an antagonist of Orlando, and was at length slain by him in single combat. There is a romance in the Auchinleck Manuscript, in which Ferragus is thus described :

"On a day come tiding
Unto Charls the King,

Al of a doughti knight
Was comen to Navers;
Stout he was and fers,
Veruagu he hight.
Of Babiloun the soudan
Thider him sende gan,

With King Charls to fight.
So hard he was to-fond, a
That no dint of brond

No greued him, aplight.

He hadde twenti men strengthe,
And fourti fet of lengthe,
Thilke painim hede, b
And four fet in the face,
Y-meten c in the place,

And fiften in brede, d
His nose was a fot and more;
His brow, as brestles wore ; e
He that it seighe it sede.
He loked lotheliche,

And was swart f as any piche,

Of him men might adrede."

Romance of Charlemagne, 1. 461-484. Auchinleck MS., fol. 265.

Ascapart, or Ascabart, makes a very material figure in the history of Bevis of Hampton, by whom he was conquered. His effigies may be seen guarding one side of a gate at Southampton, while the other is occupied by Sir Bevis himself. The dimensions of Ascapart were little inferior to those of Ferragus, if the following description be correct :

Me name,' a sede, a is Ascopard :
Garci me sent hiderward,
For to bring this quene ayen,
And the Beues her of-slen. b
Icham Garci is c champioun,
And was i-driue out of med toun,
Al for that ich was so lite. e
Evere man me wolde smite,
Ich was so lite and so merugh,f
Euerie man me clepede dwerugh. g
And now icham in this londe,
1 wax mor h ich understonde.
And strengere than other tene; i
And that schel on us be sene."

Sir Bevis of Hampton, 1, 2512. Auchinleck MS., fol. 189

Page 26.- -Stanza xxix.

Though all unask'd his birth and name.

The Highlanders, who carried hospitality to a punctilious excess, are said to have considered it as churlish to ask a stranger his name or lineage before he had taken refreshment. Feuds were so frequent among them, that a contrary rule would in many cases have produced the discovery of some circumstance which might have excluded the guest from the benefit of the assistance he stood in need of.

Page 28.-Stanza xxx.

and still a harp unseen

Filled up the symphony between.

"They (meaning the Highlanders) delight much in musicke, but chiefly in harps and clairschoes of their own fashion. The strings of the clairschoes are made of brasse wire, and the strings of the harps of sinews; which strings they strike either with their nayles, growing long, or else with an instrument appointed for that use. They take great pleasure to decke their harps and clairschoes with silver and precious stones; the poore ones, that cannot attayne hereunto, decke them with christall. They sing verses prettily compound, contayning (for the most part) prayses of valiant men. There is not almost any other argument whereof their rhymes intreat. They speak the ancient French language, altered a little."*"The harp and clairschoes are now only heard of in the Highlands in ancient song. At what period these instruments ceased to be used is not on record, and tradition is silent on this head; but, as Irish harpers occasionally visited the islands and Western Isles till lately, the harp might have been extant so late as the middle of the present century. Thus far we know, that from remote times down to the present, harpers were received as welcome guests, particularly in the Highlands

g Dwarf.

c His.
h Greater, taller.

d My.

• Vide "Certeyne Matters Concerning the Realme of Scotland, &c., as they were anno Domini 1597." Lond. 1603. 4to.