more it loses its simplicity, without acquiring either grace or strength; and therefore some of the faults of the verses must be imputed to the translator's feeling it a duty to keep as closely as possible to his original. The various puns, rude attempts at pleasantry, and disproportioned episodes, must be set down to Tchudi's account, or to the taste of his age. The military antiquary will derive some amusement from the minute particulars which the martial poet has recorded. The mode in which the Austrian men-at-arms received the charge of the Swiss, was by forming a phalanx, which they defended with their long lances. The gallant Winkelreid, who sacrificed his own life by rushing among the spears, clasping in his arms as many as he could grasp, and thus opening a gap in those iron battalions, is celebrated in Swiss history. When fairly mingled together, the unwieldy length of their weapons, and cumbrous weight of their defensive armour, rendered the Austrian menat-arms a very unequal match for the light-armed mountaineers. The victories obtained by the Swiss over the German chivalry, hitherto deemed as formidable on foot as on horseback, led to important changes in the art of war. The poet describes the Austrian knights and squires as cutting the peaks from their boots ere they could act upon foot, in allusion to an inconvenient piece of foppery, often mentioned in the Middle Ages. Leopold III, Archduke of Austria, called 'The handsome man-at-arms,' was slain in the battle of Sempach, with the flower of his chivalry. NOTE 22, p. 268 All the Swiss clergy who were able to bear arms fought in this patriotic war. NOTE 23, p. 269 This seems to allude to the preposterous fashion, during the Middle Ages, of wearing boots with the points or peaks turned upwards, and so long, that in some cases they were fastened to the knees of the wearer with small chains. When they alighted to fight upon foot, it would seem that the Austrian gentlemen found it necessary to cut off these peaks that they might move with the necessary activity. NOTE 24, p. 275 The original of these verses occurs in a collection of German popular songs, entitled Sammlung Deutschen Volkslieder (Berlin, 1807), published by Messrs. Busching and Von der Hagen, both, and more especially the last, distinguished for their acquaintance with the ancient popular poetry and legendary history of Germany. In the German editor's notice of the ballad, it is stated to have been extracted from a manuscript chronicle of Nicolaus Thomann, chaplain to Saint Leonard in Weisenhorn, which bears the date 1533; and the song is stated by the author to have been generally sung in the neighbourhood at that early period. Thomann, as quoted by the German editor, seems faithfully to have believed the event he narrates. He quotes tombstones and obituaries to prove the existence of the personages of the ballad, and discovers that there actually died, on the 11th May, 1349, a Lady Von Neuffen, Countess of Marstetten, who was, by birth, of the house of Moringer. This lady he supposes to have been Moringer's daughter, mentioned in the ballad. He quotes the same authority for the death of Berckhold Von Neuffen, in the same year. The editors, on the whole, seem to embrace the opinion of Professor Smith of Ulm, who, from the language of the ballad, ascribes its date to the fifteenth century. The legend itself turns on an incident not peculiar to Germany, and which, perhaps, was not unlikely to happen in more instances than one, when crusaders abode long in the Holy Land, and their disconsolate dames received no tidings of their fate. A story very similar in circumstances, but without the miraculous machinery of Saint Thomas, is told of one of the ancient Lords of Haigh Hall in Lancashire, the patrimonial inheritance of the late Countess of Balcarras; and the particulars are represented on stained glass upon a window in that ancient manor-house. NOTE 25, p. 365 Sir George Clark of Pennycuik, Bart. The Baron of Pennycuik is bound by his tenure, whenever the king comes to Edinburgh, to receive him at the Harestone (in which the standard of James IV was erected when his army encamped on the Boroughmuir, before his fatal expedition to England), now built into the park-wall at the end of Tipperlain Lone, near the Boroughmuir-head; and, standing thereon, to give three blasts on a horn. acton, a buckram vest worn under battalia, a battalion, an army (not a armour. ain, own. air, a sand-bank, an open sea-beach. almagest, an astronomical or astro- amice, an ecclesiastical vestment. ance, once. ane, one. anerly, alone. aneugh, enough. angel, an old English gold coin. avoid thee, begone. bairn, a child. baith, both. baldric, a belt. ballium, a fortified court. bale, a beacon-fire. plural). battle, an army. bauld, bold. beadsman, one hired to offer prayers for another. beamed, having a horn of the fourth beaver, the movable front of a helmet. bend (noun), a heraldic term. bill, a kind of battle-axe or halberd. bonail, i. e., bonallez, a god-speed, bonnet-pieces, gold coins with the king's cap (bonnet) on them. bandelier, a belt for carrying ammu- boot and bale, help and hurt. nition. ban-dog, a watch-dog. boune, bowne, prepare, make ready. boune, ready, prepared. bandrol, a kind of banner or ensign. bountith, a gratuity. banes, bones. bang, strike violently, beat, surpass. barbican, the fortification at a castlegate. barded, armoured (said of horses). barding, horse-armour. -barret-cap, a cloth cap. bourd, a jest. bow o' kye, a herd of cattle. bower, a chamber, a lodging-place, brach, a bitch-hound. bartizan, a small overhanging turret.brae, a hillside. |