river in their light poplar canoes. All his war-store of provisions consisted of three stands of barbicued venison, till he had an opportunity to revenge blood, and return home. He waited with watchfulness and patience almost three days, when a young man, a woman, and a girl, passed a little wide of him an hour before suns.c. The former he shot down, tomahawked the other two, and scalped each of them in a trice, in full view of the town. By way of bravado, he shaked the scalps before them, sounding the awful death-whoop, and set off along the trading-path, trusting to his heels, while a great many of the enemy ran to their arms and gave chase. Seven miles from thence he entered the great blue ridge of the Apalahche Mountains. About an hour before day he had run over seventy miles of that mountainous tract; then, after sleeping two hours in a sitting posture, leaning his back against a tree, he set off again with fresh speed. As he threw away the venison when he found himself pursued by the enemy, he was obliged to support nature with such herbs, roots, and nuts, as his sharp eyes, with a running glance, directed him to snatch up in his course. Though I often have rode that warpath alone, when delay might have proved dangerous, and with as fine and strong horses as any in America, it took me five days to ride from the aforesaid Koosah to this sprightly warrior's place in the Chickasah country, the distance of 300 computed miles; yet he ran it, and got home safe and well at about eleven o'clock of the third day, which was only one day and a half and two nights."—ADAIR's History of the American Indians. Lond. 1775, 4to. p. 395. NOTE 2 A. In Redesdale his youth had heard Each art her wily dalesmen dared, To bugle rung and blood-hound's cry.-P. 308. "What manner of cattle-stealers they are that inhabit these valleys in the marches of both kingdoms, John Lesley, a Scotche man himself, and Bishop of Ross, will inform you. They sally out of their own borders in the night, in troops, through unfrequented by-ways and many intricate windings. All the day-time they refresh themselves and their horses in lurking holes they had pitched upon before, till they arrive in the dark in those places they have a design upon. As soon as they have seized upon the booty, they, in like manner, return home in the night, through blind ways, and fetching many a compass. The more skilful any captain is to pass through those wild deserts, crooked turnings, and deep precipices, in the thickest mists, his reputation is the greater, and he is looked upon as a man of an excellent head. And they are so very cunning, that they seldom have their booty taken from them, unless sometimes when, by the help of bloodhounds following them exactly upon the tract, they may chance to fall into the hands of their adversaries. When being taken, they have so much persuasive eloquence, and so many smooth insinuating words at command, that if they do not move their judges, nay, and even their adversaries, (notwithstanding the severity of their natures,) to have mercy, yet they incite them to admiration and compassion."-CAMDEN'S Britannia. The inhabitants of the valleys of Tyne and Reed were, in ancient times so inordinately addicted to these depredations, that in 1564, the Incorporated Merchant-adventurers of Newcastle made a law that none born in these districts should be admitted apprentice. The inhabitants are stated to be se generally addicted to rapine, that no faith should be reposed in those proceeding from "such lewde and wicked progenitors." This regulation continued to stand unrepealed until 1771. A beggar, in an old play, describes himself as "born in Redesdale, in Northumberland, and come of a wight-riding surname, called the Robsons, good honest men and true, saving a little shifting for their living, God help them!”—a description which would have applied to most Borderers on both sides. Reidswair, famed for a skirmish to which it gives name, [see Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii. p. 15,] is on the very edge of the Carter-fell, which divides England from Scotland. The Rooken is a place upon Reedwater. Bertram, being described as a native of these dales, where the habits of hostile depredation long survived the union of the crowns, may have been, in some degree, prepared by education for the exercise of a similar trade in the wars of the Bucaniers. NOTE 2 B. Hiding his face, lest foemen spy The sparkle of his swarthy eyc.-P. 308. After one of the recent battles, in which the Irish rebels were defeated, one of their most active leaders was found in a bog, in which he was immersed up to the shoulders, while his head was concealed by an impending ledge of turf. Being detected and seized, notwithstanding his precaution, he became solicitous to know how his retreat had been discovered. "I caught," answered the Sutherland Highlander, by whom he was taken, "the sparkle of your eye." Those who are accustomed to mark hares upon their form usually discover them by the same circumstance.1 NOTE 2 C. Here stood a wretch, prepared to change His soul's redemption for revenge!-P. 310. It is agreed by all the writers upon magic and witchcraft, that revenge was the most common motive for the pretended compact between Satan and his vassals. The ingenuity of Reginald Scot has very happily stated how such an opinion came to root itself, not only in the minds of the public and of the judges, but even in that of the poor wretches themselves who were accused of sorcery, and were often firm believers in their own power and their own guilt. "One sort of such as are said to be witches, are women which be commonly old, lame, blear-eyed, pale, foul, and full of wrinkles; poor, sullen, superstitious, or papists, or such as know no religion; in whose drowsie minds the devil hath gotten a fine seat; so as what mischief, mischance, calamity, or slaughter is brought to pass, they are easily perswaded the same is done by themselves, imprinting in their minds an ear 1 Sir Walter Scott continued to be fond of coursing hares long after he had laid aside all other field-sports, and he used to say jocularly, that he had more pleasure in being consider ed an excellent finder, than in all his reputation as a troureur.-ED. from nest and constant imagination thereof. . . . . These go house to house, and from door to door, for a pot of milk, yest, drink, pottage, or some such relief, without the which they could hardly live; neither obtaining for their service or pains, nor yet by their art, nor yet at the devil's hands, (with whom they are said to make a perfect and visible bargain,) either beauty, money, promotion, wealth, pleasure, honour, knowledge, learning, or any other benefit whatsoever. "It falleth out many a time, that neither their necessities nor their expectation is answered or served in those places where they beg or borrow, but rather their lewdness is by their neighbours reproved. And farther, in tract of time the witch waxeth odious and tedious to her neighbours, and they again are despised and despited of her; so as sometimes she curseth one, and sometimes another, and that from the master of the house, his wife, children, cattle, &c., to the little pig that lieth in the stie. Thus, in process of time, they have all displeased her, and she hath wished evil luck unto them all; perhaps with curses and imprecations made in form. Doubtless (at length) some of her neighbours die or fall sick, or some of their children are visited with diseases that vex them strangely, as apoplexies, epilepsies, convulsions, hot fevers, worms, &c., which, by ignorant parents, are supposed to be the vengeance of witches. .... "The witch, on the other side, expecting her neighbours' mischances, and seeing things sometimes come to pass according to her wishes, curses, and incantations, (for Bodin himself confesses, that not above two in a hundred of their witchings or wishings take effect,) being called before a justice, by due examination of the circumstances, is driven to see her imprecations and desires, and her neighbours' harms and losses, to concur, and, as it were, to take effect; and so confesseth that she (as a goddess) hath brought such things to pass. Wherein not only she, but the accuser, and also the justice, are foully deceived and abused, as being, through her confession, and other circumstances, perswaded (to the injury of God's glory) that she hath done, or can do, that which is proper only to God himself."-Scor's Discovery of Witchcraft. Lond. 1655, fol. p. 4, 5. NOTE 2 E. Brignall's woods, and Scargill's ware, E'en now, o'er many a sister cave.-P. 311. The banks of the Greta, below Rutherford Bridge, abound in seams of greyish slate, which are wrought in some places to a very great depth under ground, thus forming artificial caverns, which, when the seam has been exhausted, are gradually hidden by the underwood which grows in profusion upon the romantic banks of the river. In times of public confusion, they might be well adapted to the purposes of banditti. NOTE 2 F. When Spain waged warfare with our land.-P. 313. There was a short war with Spain in 1625-6, which will be found to agree pretty well with the chronology of the poem. But probably Bertram held an opinion very common among the maritime heroes of the age, that "there was no peace beyond the Line." The Spanish guarda-costas were constantly employed in aggressions upon the trade and settlements of the English and French; and, by their own severities, gave room for the system of bucaniering, at first adopted in selfdefence and retaliation, and afterwards persevered in from habit and thirst of plunder. NOTE 2 D. Of my marauding on the clowns Of Calverley and Bradford downs.-P. 310. The troops of the King, when they first took the field, were as well disciplined as could be expected from circumstances. But as the circumstances of Charles became less favourable, and his funds for regularly paying his forces decreased, habits of military license prevailed among them in greater excess. Lacy the player, who served his master during the Civil War, brought out, after the Restoration, a piece called The Old Troop, in which he seems to have commemorated some real Incidents which occurred in his military career. The names of the officers of the Troop sufficiently express their habits. We have Flea-flint Plunder-Master-General, Captain Ferretfarm, and Quarter-Master Burn-drop. The officers of the Troop are in league with these worthies, and connive at their plundering the country for a suitable share in the booty. All this was undoubtedly drawn from the life, which Lacy had an opportunity to study. The moral of the whole is comprehended in a rebuke given to the lieutenant, whose disorders in the country are said to prejudice the King's cause more than his courage in the field could recompense. The piece is by no means void of farcical humour. NOTE 2 G. Our comrade's strife.-P. 313. The laws of the Bucaniers, and their successors the Pirates, however severe and equitable, were, like other laws, often set aside by the stronger party. Their quarrels about the division of the spoil fill their history, and they as frequently arose out of mere frolic, or the tyrannical humour of their chiefs. An anecdote of Teach, (called Blackbeard,) shows that their habitual indifference for human life extended to their companions, as well as their enemies and captives. "One night, drinking in his cabin with Hands, the pilot and another man, Blackbeard, without any provocation, privately draws out a small pair of pistols, and cocks them under the table, which, being perceived by the man, he withdrew upon deck, leaving Hands, the pilot, and the captain together. When the pistols were ready, he blew out the candles, and, crossing his hands, discharged them at his company. Hands, the master, was shot through the knee, and lamed for life; the other pistol did no execution."-JOHNSON's History of Pirates. Lond. 1724, 8vo, vol. i. p. 38. Another anecdote of this worthy may be also mentioned. "The hero of whom we are writing was thoroughly accomplished this way, and some of his frolics of wickedness were so extravagant, as if he aimed at making his men believe he was a devil incarnate; for, being one day at sea, an a little flushed with drink, 'Come,' says he, let us make a hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it.' Accordingly, he, with two or three others, went down into the hold, and, closing up all the hatches, filled several pots full of brimstone and other combustible matter, and set it on fire, and so continued till they were almost suffocated, when some of the men cried out for air. At length he opened the hatches, not a little pleased that he held out the longest.”—Ibid, p. 90. NOTE 2 H. my rangers go Even now to track a milk-white doe.-P. 314. "Immediately after supper, the huntsman should go to his master's chamber, and if he serve a king, then let him go to the master of the game's chamber, to know in what quarter he determineth to hunt the day following, that he may know his own quarter; that done, he may go to bed, to the end that he may rise the earlier in the morning, according to the time and season, and according to the place where he must hunt: then when he is up and ready, let him drinke a good draught, and fetch his hound, to make him breake his fast a little: and let him not forget to fill his bottel with good wine: that done, let him take a little vinegar into the palme of his hand, and put it in the nostrils of his hound, for to make him snuffe, to the end his scent may be the perfecter, then let him go to the wood. . . . . When the huntsman perceiveth that it is time to begin to beat, let him put his hound before him, and beat the outsides of springs or thickets; and if he find an hart or deer that likes him, let him mark well whether it be fresh or not, which he may know as well by the maner of his hounds drawing, as also by the eye. . . When he hath well considered what maner of hart it may be, and hath marked every thing to judge by, then let him draw till he come to the couert where he is gone to; and let him harbour him if he can, still marking all his tokens, as well by the slot as by the entries, foyles, or such-like. That done, let him plash or bruse down small twigges, some aloft and some below, as the art requireth, and there withall, whilest his hound is hote, let him beat the outsides, and make his ring-walkes, twice or thrice about the wood."-The Noble Art of Venerie, or Hunting. Lond. 1611, 4to, p. 76, 77. "The soldier frae the war returns, And the merchant frae the main, But I hae parted wi' my love, And ne'er to meet again, My dear, And ne'er to meet again. "When day is gone and night is come, And a' are boun' to sleep, I think on them that's far awa The lee-lang night, and weep." NOTE 2 K. Rere-cross on Stanmore.-P. 315. This is a fragment of an old cross, with its pediment, surrounded by an intrenchment, upon the very summit of the waste ridge of Stanmore, near a small house of entertainment called the Spittal. It is called Rere-cross, or Ree-cross, of which Holinshed gives us the following explanation : "At length a peace was concluded betwixt the two kings vnder these conditions, that Malcolme should enjoy that part of Northumberland which lieth betwixt Tweed, Cumberland, and Stainmore, and doo homage to the Kinge of England for the same. In the midst of Stainmore there shall be a crosse set up, with the Kinge of England's image on the one side, and the Kinge of Scotland's on the other, to signifie that one is march to England, and the other to Scotland. This crosse was called the Roi-crosse, that is, the crosse of the King."-HoLINSHED. Lond. 1308, 4to, v. 280. Holinshed's sole authority seems to have been Boethius. But it is not improbable that his account may be the true one, although the circumstance does not occur in Wintoun's Chro nicle. The situation of the cross, and the pains taken to defend it, seem to indicate that it was intended for a land-mark of importance. NOTE 2 L. Hast thou lodged our deer ?-P. 316. The duty of the ranger, or pricker, was first to lodge or harbour the deer; i. e. to discover his retreat, as described at length in note, 2 H, and then to make his report to his prince, or master: "Before the King I come report to make, Then husht and peace for noble Tristrame's sake... My liege, I went this morning on my quest, My hound did stick, and seem'd to vent some beast. I held him short, and drawing after him, I might behold the hart was feeding trym; For when I had well marked him with eye, I say the slot or view was long on ground; The Art of Venerie, ut supra, p. 97. land on the very ridge of Stanmore; and a brook, which falls into the Tees near Barnard Castle, is named after the same deity. A field upon the banks of the Tees is also termed Woden-Croft, from the supreme deity of the Edda. Thorsgill, of which a description is attempted in stanza ii., is a beautiful little brook and dell, running up behind the ruins of Egliston Abbey. Thor was the Hercules of the Scandinavian mythology, a dreadful giant-queller, and in that capacity the champion of the gods, and the defender of Asgard, the northern Olympus, against the frequent attacks of the inhabitants of Jotunhem. There is an old poem in the Edda of Sæmund, called the Song of Thrym, which turns upon the loss and re covery of the Mace, or Hammer, which was Thor's principal weapon, and on which much of his power seems to hate depended. It may be read to great advantage in a version equally spirited and literal, among the Miscellaneous Translations and Poems of the Honourable William Herbert. NOTE 2 M. When Denmark's raven soar'd on high, Bade Reged's Britons dread the yoke.-P. 316. About the year of God 866, the Danes, under their celebrated leaders Inguar, (more properly Agnar) and Hubba, sons, it is said, of the still more celebrated Regnar Lodbrog, invaded Northumberland, bringing with them the magical standard, so often mentioned in poetry, called REAFEN, or Rumfan, from its bearing the figure of a raven: "Wrought by the sisters of the Danish king, NOTE 2 0. Who has not heard how brave O'Neale In English blood imbrued his steel ?-P. 317. The O'Neale here meant, for more than one succeeded to the chieftainship during the reign of Elizabeth, was Hugh, the grandson of Con O'Neale, called Con Bacco, or the Lame. His father, Matthew O'Kelly, was illegitimate, and, being the son of a blacksmith's wife, was usually called Matthew the Blacksmith. His father, nevertheless, destined his succession to him; and he was created, by Elizabeth, Baron of Dungannon. Upon the Death of Con Bacco, this Matthew was slain by his brother. Hugh narrowly escaped the same fate, and was protected by the English. Shane O'Neale, his uncle, called Shane Dymas, was succeeded by Turlough Lynogh O'Neale; after whose death Hugh, having assumed the chieftainship, became nearly as formidable to the English as any by whom it had been possessed. He rebelled repeatedly, and as often made submissions, of which it was usually a condition that he should not any longer assume the title of The Danes renewed and extended their incursions, and be- O'Neale; in lieu of which he was created Earl of Tyrone. gan to colonize, establishing a kind of capital at York, from But this condition he never observed longer than until the which they spread their conquests and incursions in every di- pressure of superior force was withdrawn. His baffling the rection. Stanmore, which divides the mountains of West- gallant Earl of Essex in the field, and overreaching him in a moreland and Cumberland, was probably the boundary of treaty, was the induction to that nobleman's tragedy. Lord the Danish kingdom in that direction. The district to the Mountjoy succeeded in finally subjugating O'Neale; but it was west, known in ancient British history by the name of Reged, not till the succession of James, to whom he made personal had never been conquered by the Saxons, and continued to submission, and was received with civility at court. Yet, acmaintain a precarious independence until it was ceded to Mal-cording to Morrison, "no respect to him could containe many colm, King of Scots, by William the Conqueror, probably on weomen in those parts, who had lost husbands and children account of its similarity in language and manners to the neigh-in the Irish warres, from flinging durt and stones at the earle as bouring British kingdom of Strath-Clyde. Upon the extent and duration of the Danish sovereignty in Northumberland, the curious may consult the various authorities quoted in the Gesta et Vestigia Danorum extra Daniam, tom. ii. p. 40. The most powerful of their Northumbrian leaders seems to have been Ivar, called, from the extent of his conquests, Widfam, that is, The Strider. he passed, and from reuiling him with bitter words; yea, when the earle had been at court, and there obtaining his majestie's direction for his pardon and performance of all conditions promised him by the Lord Mountjoy, was about September to returne, he durst not pass by those parts without direction to the shiriffes, to convey him with troops of horse from place to place, till he was safely imbarked and put to sea for Ireland."-Itinerary, p. 296. fort garrisoned by the English, which commanded the passes commonly upon a hill. In some of which I have seen formed into his country. "This captain and his few warders did with no less courage suffer hunger, and, having eaten the few horses they had, lived vpon hearbes growing in the ditches and wals, suffering all extremities, till the lord-lieutenant, in the moneth of August, sent Sir Henry Bagnal, marshall of Ireland, with the most choice companies of foot and horse-troopes of the English army to victual this fort, and to raise the rebels siege. When the English entered the place and thicke woods beyond Armagh, on the east side, Tyrone (with all the rebels assembled to him, pricked forward with rage, enuy, and settled rancour against the marshall, assayled the English, and turning his full force against the marshall's person, had the successe to kill him, valiantly fighting among the thickest of the rebels. Whereupon the English being dismayed with his death, the rebels obtained a great victory against them. I terme it great, since the English, from their first arriual in that kingdome, neuer had received so great an ouerthrow as this, commonly called the Defeat of Blackewater; thirteene valiant captaines and 1500 common souldiers (whereof many were of the old companies which had serued in Brittany vnder General Norreys) were slain in the field. The yielding of the fort of Blackewater followed this disaster, when the assaulted guard saw no hope of relief; but especially vpon messages sent to Captain Williams from our broken forces, retired to Armagh, professing that all their safety depended vpon his yielding the fort into the hands of Tyrone, without which danger Captaine Williams professed that no want or miserie should have induced him thereunto."-FYNES MORYSON'S Itinerary, London, 1617, fol. part ii. p. 24. Tyrone is said to have entertained a personal animosity against the knight-marshal, Sir Henry Bagnal, whom he accused of detaining the letters which he sent to Queen Elizabeth, explanatory of his conduct, and offering terms of submission. The river, called by the English, Blackwater, is termed in Irish, Avon-Duff, which has the same signification. Both names are mentioned by Spenser in his "Marriage of the Thames and the Medway." But I understand that his verses relate not to the Blackwater of Ulster, but to a river of the same name in the south of Ireland :- "Swift Avon-Duff, which of the Englishmen NOTE 2 Q. The Tanist he to great O'Neale.-P. 317. "Eudox. What is that which you call Tanist and Tanistry? These be names and terms never heard of nor known to us. "Iren. It is a custom amongst all the Irish, that presently after the death of one of their chiefe lords or captaines, they doe presently assemble themselves to a place generally appointed and knowne unto them, to choose another in his stead, where they do nominate and elect, for the most part not the eldest sonne, nor any of the children of the lord deecased, but the next to him in blood, that is, the eldest and worthiest, as commonly the next brother unto him, if he have any, or the next cousin, or so forth, as any is elder in that kindred or sept; and then next to them doe they choose the next of the blood to be Tanist, who shall next succeed him in the said captainry, if he live thereunto. "Eudox. Do they not use any ceremony in this election, for all barbarous nations are commonly great observers of ceremonies and superstitious rites? "Iren. They use to place him that shall be their captaine upon a stone, always reserved to that purpose, and placed and engraven a foot, which they say was the measure of their first captaine's foot; whereon hee standing, receives an oath to preserve all the ancient former customes of the countrey inviolable, and to deliver up the succession peaceably to his Tanist, and then hath a wand delivered unto him by some whose proper office that is; after which, descending from the stone, he turneth himself round, thrice forwards and thrice backwards. "Eudox. But how is the Tanist chosen? "Iren. They say he setteth but one foot upon the stone, and receiveth the like oath that the captaine did."—SPENSER'S View of the State of Ireland, apud Works, Lond. 1805, 8vo, vol. viii. p. 306. The Tanist, therefore, of O'Neale, was the heir-apparent of his power. This kind of succession appears also to have regulated, in very remote times, the succession to the crown of Scotland. It would have been imprudent, if not impossible, to have asserted a minor's right of succession in those stormy days, when the principles of policy were summed up in my friend Mr. Wordsworth's lines: "the good old rule Sufficeth them; the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can." NOTE 2 R. His plaited hair in elf-locks spread, &c.-P. 318. There is here an attempt to describe the ancient Irish dress, of which a poet of Queen Elizabeth's day has given us the following particulars: "I marvailde in my mynde, and thereupon did muse, To see a bride of heavenlie hewe an ouglie fere to chuse. This bride it is the soile, the bridegroome is the karne. With writhed glibbes, like wicked sprits, with visage rough and stearne; With sculles upon their poalles, instead of civill cappes; With speares in hand, and swordes besydes, to beare off after clappes; With jackettes long and large, which shroud simplicitie, Though spitfull darts which they do beare importe iniquitie. Their shirtes be very strange, not reaching past the thie; With pleates on pleates thei pleated are as thick as pleates may lye. Whose sleaves hang trailing doune almost unto the shoe; And with a mantell commonlie the Irish karne do goe. Now some amongst the reste doe use another weede; A coate I meane, of strange devise, with pleates set thick about, And Irish trouzes moe to put their strange protactours out." DERRICK'S Image of Ireland, apud SOMERS' Tracts. Edin. 1869, 4to, vol. i. p. 585. |
