to bring their hawks and dogs with them, that the monarch might refresh himself with sport during the intervals of military execution. With this array he swept through Ettricke forest, where he hanged, over the gate of his own castle, Piers Cockburn of Henderland, who had prepared, according to tradition, a feast for his reception. He caused Adam Scott of Tushielaw also to be executed, who was distinguished by the title of King of the Border. But the most noted victim of justice during that expedition was John Armstrong of Gilnockie, famous in Scottish song, who, confiding in his own supposed innocence, met the king, with a retinue of thirty-six persons, all of whom were hanged at Carlenrig, near the source of the Teviot. The effect of this severity was such, that, as the vulgar expressed it, "the rush bush kept the cow," and "thereafter was great peace and rest a long time, wherethrough the king had great profit; for he had ten thousand sheep going in the Ettricke forest in keeping by Andrew Bell, who made the king as good count of them as they had gone in the bounds of Fife."-Pitscottie's History, p. 153.

Page 52.-Stanza xxviii.

What grace for Highland Chiefs judge ye
By fate of Border chivalry.

James was, in fact, equally attentive to restrain rapine and feudal oppression in every part of his dominions. "The king past to the isles, and there held justice courts, and punished both thief and traitor according to their demerit. And also he caused great men to show their holdings, wherethrough he found many of the said lands in non-entry; the which he confiscate and brought home to his own use, and afterward annexed them to the crown, as ye shall hear. Syne brought many of the great men of the isles captive with him, such as Mudyart, M'Connel, M'Loyd of the Lewes, M'Neil, M'Lane, M'Intosh, John Mudyart, M'Kay, M'Kenzie, with many others that I cannot rehearse at this time. Some of them he put in ward, and some in court, and some he took pledges for good rule in time coming. So he brought the isles, both north and south, in good rule and peace; wherefore he had great profit, service, and obedience of people a long time hereafter; and as long as he had the heads of the country in subjection, they lived in great peace and rest, and there was great riches and policy by the king's justice."Pitscottie, p. 152.

Page 58.-Stanza xxxv.

Rest safe till morning; pity 'twere

Such cheek should feel the midnight air!

Hardihood was in every respect so essential to the character of a Highlander, that the reproach of effeminacy was the most bitter which could be thrown upon him. Yet it was sometimes hazarded on what we might presume to think slight grounds.

It is reported of old Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, when upwards of seventy, that he was surprised by night on a hunting or military expedition. He wrapped him in his plaid, and lay contentedly down upon the snow, with which the ground happened to be covered. Among his attendants, who were preparing to take their rest in the same manner, he observed that one of his grandsons, for his better accommodation, had rolled a large snow-ball, and placed it below his head. The wrath of the ancient chief was awakened by a symptom of what he conceived to be degenerate luxury. "Out upon thee!" said he, kicking the frozen bolster from the head which it supported, "art thou so effeminate as to need a pillow?" The officer of engineers, whose curious letters from the Highlands have been more than once quoted, tells a similar story of Macdonald of Keppoch, and subjoins the following remarks:

"This and many other stories are romantick; but there is one thing, that at first thought might seem very romantick, of which I have been credibly assured,-that when the Highlanders are constrained to lie among the hills, in cold dry windy weather, they sometimes soak the plaid in some river or burn (i.e., brook), and then, holding up a corner of it a little above their heads, they turn themselves round and round, till they are enveloped by the whole mantle. They then lay themselves down on the heath, upon the leeward side of some hill, where the wet and the warmth of their bodies make a steam, like that of a boiling kettle. The wet, they say, keeps them warm by thickening the stuff, and keeping the wind from penetrating.

"I must confess I should have been apt to question this fact, had I not frequently seen them wet from morning to night; and, even at the beginning of the rain, not so much as stir a few yards to shelter, but continue in it, without necessity, till they were, as we say, wet through and through. And that is soon effected by the looseness and spunginess of the plaiding; but the bonnet is frequently taken off, and wrung like a dish-clout, and then put on again.

"They have been accustomed from their infancy to be often wet, and to take the water like spaniels; and this is become a second nature, and can scarcely be called a hardship to them, insomuch that I used to say, they seemed to be of the duckkind, and to love water as well. Though I never saw this preparation for sleep in windy weather, yet, setting out early in a morning from one of the huts, I have seen the marks of their lodging, where the ground had been free from rime or snow which remained all round the spot where they had lain."-Letters from Scotland. Lond. 1754, 8vo. ii.

This officer is a sort of secretary, and is to be ready, on all occasions, to venture his life in defence of his master; and at

Canto III.]

Notes.

189

drinking-bouts he stands behind his seat, at his haunch, from whence his title is derived, and watches the conversation, to see if any one offends his patron.

"An English officer being in company with a certain chieftain, and several other Highland gentlemen, near Killichumen, had an argument with the great man; and, both being well warmed with usky, at last the dispute grew very hot.

"A youth who was henchman, not understanding one word of English, imagined his chief was insulted, and thereupon drew his pistol from his side, and snapped it at the officer's head; but the pistol missed fire, otherwise it is more than probable he might have suffered death from the hand of that little vermin.

"But it is very disagreeable to an Englishman over a bottle, with the Highlanders, to see every one of them have his gilly, that is, his servant, standing behind him all the while, let what will be the subject of conversation."-Letters from Scotland,

ii. 159.

CANTO THE THIRD.

Page 61.-Stanza i.

And while the Fiery Cross glanced, like a meteor, round. When a chieftain designed to summon his clan, upon any sudden or important emergency, he slew a goat, and making a cross of any light wood, seared its extremities in the fire, and extinguished them in the blood of the animal. This was called the Fiery Cross, also Crean Tarigh, or the Cross of Shame, because disobedience to what the symbol implied inferred infamy. It was delivered to a swift and trusty messenger, who ran full speed with it to the next hamlet, where he presented it to the principal person, with a single word, implying the place of rendezvous. He who received the symbol was bound to send it forward, with equal despatch, to the next village; and thus it passed with incredible celerity through all the districts which owed allegiance to the chief, and also among his allies and neighbours, if the danger was common to them. At sight of the Fiery Cross, every man, from sixteen years old to sixty, capable of bearing arms, was obliged instantly to repair, in his best arms and accoutrements, to the place of rendezvous. He who failed to appear suffered the extremities of fire and sword, which were emblematically denounced to the disobedient by the bloody and burned marks upon this warlike signal. During the civil war of 1745-46, the Fiery Cross often made its circuit; and upon one occasion it passed through the whole district of Breadalbane, a tract of thirty-two miles, in three hours. The late Alexander Stuart, Esq., of Invernahyle, described to me his having sent

round the Fiery Cross through the district of Appine during the same commotion.

Page 63.-Stanza iv.

That monk, of savage form and face.

The state of religion in the middle ages afforded considerable facilities for those whose mode of life excluded them from regular worship, to secure, nevertheless, the ghostly assistance of confessors perfectly willing to adapt the nature of their doctrine to the necessities and peculiar circumstances of their flock. Robin Hood, it is well known, had his celebrated domestic chaplain, Friar Tuck. And that same curtal friar was probably matched in manners and appearance by the ghostly fathers of the Tynedale robbers, who are thus described in an excommunication fulminated against their patrons by Richard Fcx, Bishop of Durham, tempore Henrici VIII. "We have further understood, that there are many chaplains in the said territories of Tynedale and Redesdale, who are public and open maintainers of concubinage, irregular, suspended, excommunicated, and interdicted persons, and withal so utterly ignorant of letters, that it has been found, by those who objected this to them, that there were some who, having celebrated mass for ten years, were still unable to read the sacramental service. We have also understood there are persons among them, who, although not ordained, do take upon them the offices of priesthood; and, in contempt of God, celebrate divine and sacred rites, and administer the sacraments, not only in sacred and dedicated places, but in those which are prophane and interdicted, and most wretchedly ruinous; they themselves being attired in ragged, torn, and most filthy vestments, altogether unfit to be used in divine, or even in temporal offices. The which said chaplains do administer sacraments and sacramental rites to the aforesaid manifest and infamous thieves, robbers, depredators, receivers of stolen goods, and plunderers, and that without restitution, or intention to restore, as is evinced by the fact; and do also openly admit them to the rites of ecclesiastical sepulture, without exacting security for restitution, although they are prohibited from doing so by the sacred canons as well as by the institutes of the saints and fathers. All which infers the heavy perils of their own souls, and is a pernicious example to the other believers in Christ, as well as no slight, but an aggravated injury to the numbers despoiled and plundered of their goods, gear, herds, and chattels." **

Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.

The legend which follows is not of the author's invention. It

The Monition against the Robbers of Tynedale and Red sdale, with which I was favoured by my friend Mr. Surtees, of Main-forth, may be found in the original Latin in the Appendix to the Introduction to the Border Minstrelsy, No. VII., fourth edition.

is possible he may differ from modern critics, in supposing that the records of human superstition, if peculiar to, and characteristic of, the country in which the scene is laid, are a legitimate subject of poetry. He gives, however, a ready assent to the narrower proposition, which condemns all attempts of an irregular and disordered fancy to excite terror by accumulating a train of fantastic and incoherent horrors, whether borrowed from all countries, and patched upon a narrative belonging to one which knew them not, or derived from the author's own imagination.

In the present case, therefore, I appeal to the record which I have transcribed, with the variation of a very few words, from the geographical collections made by the laird of Macfarlane. I know not whether it be necessary to remark, that the miscellaneous concourse of youths and maidens on the night, and on the spot where the miracle is said to have taken place, might, in an incredulous age, have somewhat diminished the wonder which accompanied the conception of Gilli-Doir-Magrevollich.

"There is bot two myles from Inverloghie, the church of Kilmalee in Loghyeld. In ancient tymes there was ane church builded upon ane hill, which was above this church, which doeth now stand in this toune; and ancient men doeth say, that there was a battell foughten on ane litle hill not the tenth part of a myle from this church, be certaine men which they did not know what they were. And long tyme thereafter, certaine herds of that toune, and of the next toune, called Unnatt, both wenches and youthes, did on a tyme conveen with others on that hill; and the day being somewhat cold, did gather the bones of the dead men that were slayne long tyme before in that place, and did make a fire to warm them. At last they did all remove from the fire except one maid or wench, which was very cold, and she did remaine there for a space. She being quyetlie her alone, without anie other companie, took up her cloaths above her knees, or thereby, to warm her; a wind did come and caste the ashes upon her, and she was conceived of ane man-child. Severall tymes thereafter she was very sick, and at last she was knowne to be with chyld. And then her parents did ask at her the matter heiroff, which the wench could not weel answer which way to satisfie them. At last she resolved them with ane answer. As fortune fell upon her concerning this marvellous miracle, the chyld being borne, his name was called Gili-doir Maghrevollich, that is to say, the Black child, son to the bones. So called, his grandfather sent him to schooll, and so he was a good schollar, and godlie. He did build this church which doeth now stand in Lochyeld, called Kilmalie."-MACFARLANE, ut supra, ii. 188.

Page 65.-Stanza v.

Yet ne'er again to braid her hair
The virgin snood did Alice wear.

The snood, or riband, with which a Scotch lass braided her hair, had an emblematical signification, and applied to her