rious uncouth sounds heard in the depth of a German forest, during the silence of the night. They conceived they still heard the cry of the Wildgrave's hounds; and the well-known cheer of the deceased hunter, the sounds of his horses' feet, and the rustling of the branches before the game, the pack, and the sportsmen, are also distinctly discriminated; but the phantoms are rarely, if ever, visible. Once, as a benighted Chasseur heard this infernal chase pass by him, at the sound of the halloo, with which the Spectre Huntsman cheered his hounds, he could not refrain from crying, Gluck zu Falkenburgh! (Good sport to ye, Falkenburgh!)‘Dost thou wish me good sport?' answered a hoarse voice; thou shalt share the game;' and there was thrown at him what seemed to be a huge piece of foul carrion. The daring Chasseur lost two of his best horses soon after, and never perfectly recovered the personal effects of this ghostly greeting. This tale, though told with some variations, is universally believed all over Germany. The French had a similar tradition concerning an aërial hunter who infested the forest of Fontainebleau. He was sometimes visible; when he appeared as a huntsman, surrounded with dogs, a tall grisly figure. Some account of him may be found in Sully's Memoirs, who says he was called Le Grand Veneur. At one time he chose to hunt so near the palace, that the attendants, and, if I mistake not, Sully himself, came out into the court, supposing it was the sound of the king returning from the chase. This phantom is elsewhere called St. Hubert. The superstition seems to have been very general, as appears from the following fine poetical description of this phantom chase, as it was heard in the wilds of Ross-shire: 'Ere since of old, the haughty thanes of Ross- And horns, hoarse winded, blowing far and keen :- Starts at the noise, and both the herdsman's ears A posthumous miracle of Father Lesley, a Scottish capuchin, related to his being buried on a hill haunted by these unearthly cries of hounds and huntsmen. After his sainted relics had been deposited there, the noise was never heard more. The reader will find this, and other miracles, recorded in the life of Father Bonaventura, which is written in the choicesz Italian. WAR-SONG. Page 9, line 16. Oh! had they marked the avenging call. The allusion is to the massacre of the Swiss Guards on the fatal 10th August, 1792. It is painful, but not useless, to remark, that the passive temper with which the Swiss regarded the death of their bravest countrymen, mercilessly slaughtered in discharge of their duty, encouraged and authorized the progressive injustice, by which the Alps, once the seat of the most virtuous and free people upon the continent, have, at length, been converted into the citadel of a foreign and military despot. A state degraded is half enslaved. [Written in 1812.] GLENFINLAS. Page 11, line 13. How blazed Lord Ronald's beltane-tree. The fires lighted by the Highlanders, on the first of May, in compliance with a custom derived from the Pagan times, are termed The Beltane-tree. It is a festival celebrated with various superstitious rites, both in the north of Scotland and in Wales. Page 12, line 26. The seer's prophetic spirit found. เ I can only describe the second sight, by adopting Dr. Johnson's definition, who calls it an impression, either by the mind upon the eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant and future are perceived and seen as if they were present.' To which I would only add, that the spectral appearances, thus presented, usually presage misfortune; that the faculty is painful to those who suppose they possess it; and that they usually acquire it while themselves under the pressure of melancholy. Line 87. Will good Saint Oran's rule prevail? St. Oran was a friend and follower of St. Columba, and was buried at Icolmkill. His pretensions to be a saint were rather dubious. According to the legend, he consented to be buried alive, in order to propitiate certain demons of the soil, who obstructed the attempts of Columba to build a chapel. Columba caused the body of his friend to be dug up, after three days had elapsed; when Oran, to the horror and scandal of the assistants, declared that there was neither a God, a judgment, nor a future state! He had no time to make further discoveries, for Columba caused the earth once more to be shovelled over him with the utmost despatch. The chapel, however, and the cemetery, was called Relig Ouran; and, in memory of his rigid celibacy, no female was permitted to pay her devotions or be buried in that place. This is the rule alluded to in the poem. Page 14, line 218. And thrice Saint Fillan's powerful prayer. St. Fillan has given his name to many chap els, holy fountains, etc., in Scotland. He was, according to Camerarius, an Abbot of Pittenweem, in Fife; from which situation he retired, and died a hermit in the wilds of Glenurchy, A. D. 649. While engaged in transcribing the Scriptures, his left hand was observed to send forth such a splendor as to afford light to that with which he wrote, a miracle which saved many candles to the convent, as St. Fillan used to spend whole nights in that exercise. The 9th of January was dedicated to this saint, who gave his name to Kilfillan, in Renfrew, and St. Phillans, or Forgend, in Fife. THE EVE OF ST. JOHN. Page 14, line 1. The Baron of Smaylho'me rose with day. Smaylholme or Smallholm Tower, the scene of the ballad, is situated on the northern boundary of Roxburghshire, among a cluster of wild rocks, called Sandiknow-Crags, the property of Hugh Scott, Esq., of Harden. [It was at the farmhouse of Sandy-Knowe, one is glad to remember, that Scott spent his earliest boyhood, with his paternal grandfather, as recorded by him in his autobiographic sketch.] The tower is a high square building, surrounded by an outer wall, now ruinous. The circuit of the outer court, being defended on three sides by a precipice and morass, is accessible only from the west, by a steep and rocky path. The apartments, as is usual in a Border keep, or fortress, are placed one above another, and communicate by a narrow stair; on the roof are two bartizans, or platforms, for defence or pleasure. The inner door of the tower is wood, the outer an iron gate; the distance between them being nine feet, the thickness, namely, of the wall. From the elevated situation of Smaylholme Tower, it is seen many miles in every direction. Among the crags by which it is surrounded, one, more eminent, is called the Watchfold, and is said to have been the station of a beacon, in the times of war with England. Without the tower-court is a ruined chapel. Brotherstone is a heath, in the neighborhood of Smaylholme Tower. Page 15, lines 17, 18. He came not from where Ancram Moor [Sir Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Laboun, during the year 1544, committed heavy ravages upon the Scottish border. For this Sir Ralph was made a Lord of Parliament and the next year the two reentered Scotland with a larger army and repeated their bloody work. As they returned toward Jedburgh they were followed by the Earl of Angus at the head of a thousand horse, who was shortly after joined by the famous Norman Lesley, with a body of Fife-men. A fierce battle ensued on Ancram Moor, in which Lord Evers and his son Sir Brian and 800 Englishmen were slain, and a thousand prisoners were taken.] Page 16, line 79. So, by the black rood-stone and by holy Saint John. The black rood of Melrose was a crucifix of black marble, and of superior sanctity. Line 108. All under the Eildon-tree. Eildon is a high hill, terminating in three conical summits, immediately above the town of Melrose, where are the admired ruins of a magnificent monastery. Eildon-tree is said to be the spot where Thomas the Rhymer uttered his prophecies. See also note, p. 513. Page 17, line 193. That nun who ne'er beholds the day. The circumstance of the nun' who never saw the day,' is not entirely imaginary. About fifty years ago, an unfortunate female wanderer took up her residence in a dark vault, among the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, which, during the day, she never quitted. When night fell, she issued from this miserable habitation, and went to the house of Mr. Haliburton of Newmains, the Editor's great-grandfather, or to that of Mr. Erskine of Sheilfield, two gentlemen of the neighborhood. From their charity she obtained such necessaries as she could be prevailed upon to accept. At twelve, each night, she lighted her candle, and returned to her vault, assuring her friendly neighbors that during her absence her habitation was arranged by a spirit, to whom she gave the uncouth name of Fatlips; describing him as a little man, wearing heavy iron shoes, with which he trampled the clay floor of the vault, to dispel the damps. This circumstance caused her to be regarded, by the well-informed, with compassion, as deranged in her understanding; and by the vulgar, with some degree of terror. The cause of her adopting this extraordinary mode of life she would never explain. It was, however, believed to have been occasioned by a vow that during the absence of a man to whom she was attached, she would never look upon the sun. Her lover never returned. He fell during the civil war of 1745-46, and she nevermore would behold the light of day. The vault, or rather dungeon, in which this unfortunate woman lived and died, passes still by the name of the supernatural being with which its gloom was tenanted by her disturbed imagination, and few of the neighboring peasants dare enter it by night. THE GRAY BROTHER. The breath of one of evil deed 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 himself, to be possessed of supernatural gifts; for the wild scenes which they frequented, and the constant 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 his 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; "he 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, ill-looked 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 familyworship, 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.' Page 18, line 66. By blast of bugle free. The barony of Pennycuick, 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. Line 67. To Auchendinny's hazel glade. [Auchendinny, situated upon the Eske, below Pennycuick, when Scott wrote, was the residence of H. Mackenzie, author of the Man of Feeling, &c.] Line 70. And Roslin's rocky glen. [The rocky glen is less an object of interest than the marvellous chapel with an elaborateness of sculptured story which to the modern tourist seems singularly unidiomatic in Scotland.] Line 71. Dalkeith, which all the virtues love. [In Scott's time the place once belonging to the Earl of Morton, was endeared to him by being the residence of the family of Buccleuch.] Line 72. And classic Hawthornden. Hawthornden, the residence of the poet Drummond. A house, of more modern date, is enclosed, as it were, by the ruins of the ancient castle, and overhangs a tremendous precipice, 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. 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. Page 26. CADYOW CASTLE. The ruins of Cadyow, or Cadzow Castle, the ancient baronial residence of the family of Hamilton, are situated upon the precipitous banks of the river Evan, about two miles above its junction with the Clyde. It was dismantled, in the conclusion of the Civil Wars, during the reign of the unfortunate Mary, to whose cause the house of Hamilton devoted themselves with a generous zeal, which occasioned their temporary obscurity, and, very nearly, their total ruin. The situation of the ruins, embosomed in wood, darkened by ivy and creeping shrubs, and overhanging the brawling torrent, is romantic in the highest degree. In the immediate vicinity of Cadyow is a grove of immense oaks, the remains of the Caledonian Forest, which anciently extended through the south of Scotland, from the eastern to the Atlantic Ocean. Some of these trees measure twenty-five feet, and upwards, in circumference; and the state of decay in which they now appear shows that they have witnessed the rites of the Druids. The whole scenery is included in the magnificent and extensive park of the Duke of Hamilton. There was long preserved in this forest the breed of the Scottish wild cattle, until their ferocity occasioned their being extirpated, about forty years ago. Their appearance was beautiful, being milk-white, with black muzzles, horns, and hoofs. The bulls are described by ancient authors as having white manes; but those of latter days had lost that peculiarity, perhaps by intermixture with the tame breed. In detailing the death of the Regent Murray, which is made the subject of the ballad, it would be injustice to my reader to use other words than those of Dr. Robertson, whose account of that memorable event forms a beautiful piece of historical painting. 'Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh was the person who committed this barbarous action. He had been condemned to death soon after the battle of Langside, as we have already related, and owed his life to the Regent's clemency. But part of his estate had been bestowed upon one of the Regent's favorites [Sir James Bellenden, Lord Justice-Clerk], who seized his house and turned out his wife, naked, in a cold night, into the open fields, where, before next morning, she became furiously mad. This injury made a deeper impression on him than the benefit he had received, and from that moment he vowed to be revenged of the Regent. Party rage strengthened and inflamed his private resentment. His kinsmen, the Hamiltons, applauded the enterprise. The maxims of that age justified the most desperate course he could take to obtain vengeance. He followed the Regent for some time, and watched for an opportunity to strike the blow. He resolved at last to wait till his enemy should arrive at Linlithgow, through which he was to pass in his way from Stirling to Edinburgh. He took his stand in a wooden gallery, which had a window towards the street; spread a feather-bed on the floor to hinder the noise of his feet from being heard; hung up a black cloth behind him, that his shadow might not be observed from without; and, after all this preparation, calmly expected the Regent's approach, who had lodged, during the night, in a house not far distant. Some indistinct information of the danger which threatened him had been conveyed to the Regent, and he paid so much regard to it that he resolved to return by the same gate through which he had entered, and to fetch a compass round the town. But as the crowd about the gate was great, and he himself unacquainted with fear, he proceeded directly along the street; and the throng of people obliging him to move very slowly, gave the assassin time to take so true an aim, that he shot him, with a single bullet, through the lower part of his belly, and killed the horse of a gentleman who rode on his other side. His followers instantly endeavored to break into the house whence the blow had come; but they found the door strongly barricadoed, and, before it could be forced open, Hamilton had mounted a fleet horse which stood ready for him at a back passage, and was got far beyond their reach. The Regent died the same night [January 23, 1569] of his wound' (History of Scotland, book v.). Bothwellhaugh rode straight to Hamilton, where he was received in triumph; for the ashes of the houses in Clydesdale, which had been burned by Murray's army, were yet smoking; and party prejudice, the habits of the age, and the enormity of the provocation, seemed to his kinsmen to justify the deed. After a short abode at Hamilton, this fierce and determined man left Scotland, and served in France, under the patronage of the family of Guise, to whom he was doubtless recommended by having avenged the cause of their niece, Queen Mary, upon her ungrateful brother. De Thou has recorded that an attempt was made to engage him to assassinate Gaspar de Coligni, the famous Admiral of France, and the buckler of the Huguenot cause. But the character of Bothwellhaugh was mistaken. He was no mercenary trader in blood, and rejected the offer with contempt and indignation. He had no authority, he said, from Scotland to commit murders in France, he had avenged his own just quarrel, but he would neither, for price nor prayer, avenge that of another man' (Thuanus, cap. 46). Page 27, line 45. First of his troop, the chief rode on. The head of the family of Hamilton at this period, was James, Earl of Arran, Duke of Chatelherault, in France, and first peer of the Scottish realm. In 1569, he was appointed by Queen Mary her lieutenant-general in Scotland, under the singular title of her adopted father. Line 81. Stern Claud replied with darkening face. Lord Claud Hamilton, second son of the Duke of Chatelherault, and commendator of the Ab bey of Paisley, acted a distinguished part dur ing the troubles of Queen Mary's reign, and remained unalterably attached to the cause of that unfortunate princess. He led the van of her army at the fatal battle of Langside, and was one of the commanders at the Raid of Stirling, which had so nearly given complete success to the queen's faction. Line 85. Few suns have set since Woodhouselee. This barony, stretching along the banks of the Esk, near Auchendinny, belonged to Bothwellhaugh, in right of his wife. The ruins of the mansion, from whence she was expelled in the brutal manner which occasioned her death, are still to be seen in a hollow glen beside the river. Popular report tenants them with the restless ghost of the Lady Bothwellhaugh; whom, however, it confounds with Lady Anne Bothwell, whose Lament is so popular. This spectre is so tenacious of her rights, that, a part of the stones of the ancient edifice having been employed in building or repairing the present Woodhouselee, she has deemed it a part of her privilege to haunt that house also; and, even of very late years, has excited considerable disturbance and terror among the domestics. This is a more remarkable vindication of the rights of ghosts, as the present Woodhouselee is situated on the slope of the Pentland hills, distant at least four miles from her proper abode. She always appears in white, and with her child in her arms. Page 28, line 112. Drives to the leap his jaded steed. Birrel informs us, that Bothwellhaugh, being closely pursued, after that spur and wand had failed him, he drew forth his dagger, and strocke his horse behind, whilk caused the horse to leap a very brode stanke [i. e. ditch], by whilk means he escapit, and gat away from all the rest of the horses' (Diary, p. 18). Line 129. From the wild Border's humbled side. Murray's death took place shortly after an expedition to the Borders. Line 137. With hackbut bent, my secret stand. With gun cocked. The carbine with which the Regent was shot is preserved at Hamilton Palace. It is a brass piece, of a middling length, very small in the bore, and, what is rather extraordinary, appears to have been rifled or indented in the barrel. It had a matchlock, for which a modern firelock has been injudiciously substituted. Line 141. Dark Morton, girt with many a spear. He was concerned in the murder of David Rizzio, and at least privy to that of Darnley. Line 144. The wild Macfarlanes' plaided clan. This clan of Lennox Highlanders were attached to the Regent Murray. Line 145. Glencairn and stout Parkhead were nigh. The Earl of Glencairn was a steady adherent of the Regent. George Douglas of Parkhead was a natural brother of the Earl of Morton, whose horse was killed by the same ball by which Murray fell. Line 147. And haggard Lindesay's iron eye. Lord Lindsay, of the Byres, was the most ferocious and brutal of the Regent's faction, and, as such, was employed to extort Mary's signature to the deed of resignation presented to her in Lochleven Castle. He discharged his commission with the most savage rigor; and it is even said that when the weeping captive, in the act of signing, averted her eyes from the fatal deed, he pinched her arm with the grasp of his iron glove. Line 152. So close the minions crowded nigh. Not only had the Regent notice of the intended attempt upon his life, but even of the very house from which it was threatened. With that infatuation at which men wonder, after such events have happened, he deemed it would be a sufficient precaution to ride briskly past the dangerous spot. But even this was prevented by the crowd; so that Bothwellhaugh had time to take a deliberate aim. Spottiswoode, p. 233. Page 29, line 178. Spread to the wind thy bannered tree. An oak, half-sawn, with the motto through, is an ancient cognizance of the family of Hamilton. THE REIVER'S WEDDING. Page 29, line 50. Beneath the trysting tree. At Linton, in Roxburghshire, there is a circle of stones surrounding a smooth plot of turf, called the tryst, or place of appointment, which tradition avers to have been the rendezvous of the neighboring warriors. The name of the leader was cut in the turf, and the arrangement of the letters announced to his followers the course which he had taken. CHRISTIE'S WILL. Page 31, line 2. And sae has he down by the Grey Mare's Tail. A cataract above Moffat. Line 13. Bethink how he sware, by the salt and the bread. He took bread and salt, by this light, that he would never open his lips.' The Honest Whore, Act v. scene ii. Page 32, line 67. And, hunting over Middleton Moor. Middleton Moor is about fifteen miles from Edinburgh on the way to the Border. Line 87. Or that the gipsies glamoured gang. Besides the prophetic powers ascribed to the gipsies in most European countries, the Scottish peasants believe them possessed of the power of throwing upon bystanders a spell, to fascinate their eyes, and cause them to see the thing that is not. Thus in the old ballad of Johnie Faa, the elopement of the Countess of Cassillis, with a gipsy leader, is imputed to fascination: As sune as they saw her weel-far'd face, Line 95. I have tar-barrelled mony a witch. Human nature shrinks from the brutal scenes produced by the belief in witchcraft. Under the idea that the devil imprinted upon the body of his miserable vassals a mark, which was insensible to pain, persons were employed to run needles into the bodies of the old women who were suspected of witchcraft. THOMAS THE RHYMER. Page 33, line 24. All underneath the Eildon Tree. The Eildon Tree, from beneath the shade of which Thomas the Rhymer delivered his prophecies, now no longer exists; but the spot is marked by a large stone, called Eildon Tree Stone. A neighboring rivulet takes the name of the Bogle Burn (Goblin Brook) from the Rhymer's supernatural visitants. Line 66. And she pu'd an apple frae a tree. The traditional commentary upon this ballad informs us, that the apple was the produce of the fatal tree of knowledge, and that the garden was the terrestrial paradise. The repugnance of Thomas to be debarred the use of falsehood, when he might find it convenient, has a comic effect. Page 34, line 27. Where a king lay stiff beneath his steed. King Alexander, killed by a fall from his horse, near Kinghorn. Line 42. My doom is not to die this day. The uncertainty which long prevailed in Scot land concerning the fate of James IV. is well known. Line 56. Is by a burn, that's called of bread. One of Thomas's rhymes, preserved by tradi tion, runs thus: 'The burn of breid Shall run fou reid.' Bannock-burn is the brook here meant. The Scots give the name of bannock to a thick round cake of unleavened bread. Page 35, line 3. And Ruberslaw showed high Dunyon. Ruberslaw and Dunyon are two hills near Jedburgh. Line 5. Then all by bonny_Coldingknow. An ancient tower near Ercildoune, belonging to a family of the name of Home. One of Thomas's prophecies is said to have run thus: 'Vengeance! Vengeance! when and where ? On the house of Čoldingknow, now and evermair!' The spot is rendered classical by its having given name to the beautiful melody called the Broom o' the Cowdenknows.' Page 36, line 112. As white as snow on Fairnalie. An ancient seat upon the Tweed, in Selkirkshire. In a popular edition of the first part of Thomas the Rhymer,' the Fairy Queen thus addresses him : 'Gin ye wad meet wi' me again, Gang to the bonny banks of Fairnalie.' |
