of truce, which, although places of merchandize and merriment, often witnessed the most bloody scenes, may serve to illustrate the description in the text. They are vividly pourtrayed in the old ballad of the Reidsquair. Both parties came armed to a meeting of the wardens, yet they intermixed fearlessly and peaceably with each other in mutual sports and familiar intercourse, until a casual fray arose :

Then was there nought but bow and spear,

And every man pulled out a brand.

In the 29th stanza of this Canto, there is an attempt to express some of the mixed feelings, with which the Borderers on each side were led to regard their neighbours.

Stanza VIII.-page 119.

And frequent, on the darkening plain,

Loud hollo, whoop, or whistle ran;

As bands, their stragglers to regain,

Gave the shrill watch-word of their clan.

PATTEN remarks, with bitter censure, the disorderly conduct of the English Borderers, who attended the Protector Somerset on his expedition against Scotland. "As we wear then a settling, and the tents a setting up, among all things els com.

mendable in our hole journey, one thing seemed to me an intollerable disorder and abuse: that whearas allweys, both in all tounes of war, and in all campes of armies, quietnes and stilnes, without nois, is, principally in the night, after the watch is set, observed (I nede not reason why), our northern prikkers, the Borderers, notwithstandyng, with great enormitie (as thought me), and not unlike (to be playn) unto a masterles hounde howlyng in a hie wey when he hath lost him he waited upon, sum hoopynge, sum whistlying, and most with crying A Berwyke, a Berwyke! A Fenwyke, a Fenwyke! A Bulmer, a Bulmer! or so otherwise as theyr captains names wear, never lin'de these troublous and dangerous noyses all the nighte longe. They said they did it to finde their captain and fellows; but if the souldiers of our oother countreys and sheres had used the same maner, in that case we shoold have oft tymes had the state of our camp more like the outrage of a dissolute huntyng, than the quiet of a well ordred armye. It is a feat of war, in mine opinion, that might right well be left. I could rehearse causes (but yf I take it, they are better unspoken than uttred, unless the faut were sure to be amended) that might shew thei move alweis more peral to our armie, but in their one night's so doynge, than thei shew good service (as some sey) in a hoole vyage."—Apud DALYELL's Fragments, p. 75.

Stanza XXIX.-page 139.

Cheer the dark blood-hound on his way,
And with the bugle rouse the fray.

THE pursuit of Border marauders was followed by the injured party and his friends with blood-hounds and bugle-horn, and was called the hot-trod. He was entitled, if his dog could trace the scent, to follow the invaders into the opposite kingdom; a privilege which often occasioned bloodshed. In addition to what has been said of the blood-hound, I may add, that the breed was kept up by the Buccleuch family on their Border estates till within the 18th century. A person was alive in the memory of man, who remembered a blood-hound being kept at Eldinhope, in Ettrick Forest, for whose maintenance the tenant had an allowance of meal. At that time the sheep were always watched at night. Upon one occasion, when the duty had fallen on the narrator, then a lad, he became exhausted with fatigue, and fell asleep, upon a bank, near sunrising. Suddenly he was awakened by the tread of horses, and saw five men, well mounted and armed, ride briskly over the edge of the hill. They stopped and looked at the flock; but the day was too far broken to admit the chance of their carrying any of them off. One of them, in spite, leaped from his horse, and, coming to the shepherd, seized him by the belt he wore round his waist, and, setting his foot upon his body, pulled it till it broke, and carried it away with him. They rode off at the gallop; and, the shepherd giving the alarm, the

blood-hound was turned loose, and the people in the neighbourhood alarmed. The marauders, however, escaped, not

withstanding a sharp pursuit. This circumstance serves to show how very long the license of the Borderers continued in some degree to manifest itself.

NOTES ON CANTO VI.

Stanza V.-page 147.

She wrought not by forbidden spell.

POPULAR belief, though contrary to the doctrines of the church, made a favourable distinction betwixt magicians, and necromancers, or wizards; the former were supposed to command the evil spirits, and the latter to serve, or at least to be in league and compact with, those enemies of mankind. The arts of subjecting the dæmons were manifold; sometimes the fiends were actually swindled by the magicians, as in the case of the bargain betwixt one of their number and the poet Virgil. The classical reader will doubtless be curious to peruse this anecdote.

"Virgilius was at scole at Tolenton, where he stodyed dylygently, for he was of great understandynge. Upon a tyme, the scolers had lycense to go to play and sporte them in the fyldes, after the usance of the holde tyme. And there was also Virgilius therebye, also walkynge among the hylles alle