Insured his celebrated Buckkar by compounding with the devil for one-tenth of his crew every voyage. How they arranged the separation of the stock and tithes, is left to our conjecture. The Buckkar was perhaps called the Black Prince in honour of the formidable insurer. The Black Prince used to discharge her cargo at Luce, Balcarry, and elsewhere on the coast; but her owner's favourite landing-places were at the entrance of the Dee and the Cree, near the old castle of Rueberry, about six miles below Kirkcudbright. There is a cave of large dimensions in the vicinity of Rueberry, which, from its being frequently used by Yawkins, and his supposed connexion with the smugglers on the shore, is now called Dirk Hatteraick's cave. Strangers who visit this place, the scenery of which is highly romantic, are also shown, under the name of the Gauger's Loup, a tremendous precipice, being the same, it is asserted, from which Kennedy was precipitated. Meg Merrilies is in Galloway considered as having had her origin in the traditions concerning the celebrated Flora Marshal, one of the royal consorts of Willie Marshal, more commonly called the Caird of Barullion, King of the Gipsies of the Western Lowlands. That potentate was himself deserving of notice, from the following peculiarities. He was born in the parish of Kirkmichael, about the year 1671; and as he died at Kirkcudbright 23d November 1792, he must then have been in the one hundred and twentieth year of his age. It cannot be said that this unusually long lease of existence was noted by any peculiar excellence of conduct or habits of life. Willie had been pressed or enlisted in the army seven times; and had deserted as often; besides three times running away from the naval service. He had been seventeen times lawfully married; and besides such a reasonably large share of matrimonial comforts, was, after his hundredth year, the avowed father of four children, by less legitimate affections. He subsisted, in his extreme old age, by a pension from the present Earl of Selkirk's grandfather. Will Marshal is buried in Kirkcudbright Church, where his monument is still shown, decorated with a scutcheon suitably blazoned with two tups' horns and two cutty spoons. In his youth he occasionally took an evening walk on the highway, with the purpose of assisting travellers by relieving them of the weight of their purses. On one occasion, the Caird of Barullion robbed the Laird of Bargally, at a place between Carsphairn and Dalmellington. His purpose was not achieved without a severe struggle, in which the Gipsy lost his bonnet, and was obliged to escape, leaving it on the road. A respectable farmer happened to be the next passenger, and seeing the bonnet, alighted, took it up, and rather imprudently put it on his own head. At this instant, Bargally came up with some assistants, and recognising the bonnet, charged the farmer of Bantoberick with having robbed him, and took him into custody. There being some likeness between the parties, Bargally persisted in his charge, and though the respectability of the farmer's character was proved or admitted, his trial before the Circuit Court came on accordingly. The fatal bonnet lay on the table of the Court; Bargally swore that it was the identical article worn by the man who robbed him; and he and others likewise deponed that they had found the accused on the spot where the crime was committed, with the bonnet on his head. The case looked gloomily for the prisoner, and the opinion of the judge seemed unfavourable. But there was a person in court who knew well both who did, and who did not, commit the crime. This was the Caird of Barullion, who thrusting himself up to the bar, near the place where Bargally was standing, suddenly seized on the bonnet, put it on his head, and looking the Laird full in the face, asked him, with a voice which attracted the attention of the Court and crowded audience-" Look at me, sir, and tell me, by the oath you have sworn-Am not I the man who robbed you between Carsphairn and Dalmellington?" Bargally replied, in great astonishment, "By Heaven! you are the very man."-" You see what sort of memory this gentleman has," said the volunteer pleader: "he swears to the bonnet, whatever features are under it. If you yourself, my Lord, will put it on your head, he will be willing to swear that your Lordship was the party who robbed him between Carsphairn and Dalmellington." The tenant of Bantoberick was unanimously acquitted, and thus Willie Marshal ingeniously contrived to save an innocent man from danger, without incurring any himself, since Bargally's evidence must have seemed to every one too fluctuating to be relied upon. While the King of the Gipsies was thus laudably occupied, his royal consort, Flora, contrived, it is said, to steal the hood from the Judge's gown; for which offence, combined with her presumptive guilt as a gipsy, she was banished to New England, whence she never returned. Now, I cannot grant that the idea of Meg Merrilies was, in the first concoction of the character, derived from Flora Marshal, seeing I have already said she was identified with Jean Gordon, and as I have not the Laird of Bargally's apology for charging the same fact on two several individuals. Yet I am quite content that Meg should be considered as a representative of her sect and class in generalFlora, as well as others. The other instances in which my Gallovidian readers have obliged me, by assigning to "Airy nothings A local habitation and a name," shall also be sanctioned so far as the Author may be entitled to do so. I think the facetious Joe Miller records a case pretty much in point; where the keeper of a Museum, while showing, as he said, the very sword with which Ba laam was about to kill his ass, was interrupted by one of the visitors, who reminded him that Balaam was not pos sessed of a sword, but only wished for one. "True, sir," replied the ready-witted Cicerone; "but this is the very sword he wished for." The Author, in application of this story, has only to add, that though ignorant of the coincidence between the fictions of the tale and some real circumstances, he is contented to believe he must urconsciously have thought or dreamed of the last, while engaged in the composition of Guy Manuering. END OF THE NOTES TO GUY MANNERING. THE ANTIQUARY. BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. WITH ALL HIS ILLUSTRATIONS AND NOTES. I knew Anselmo. He was shrewd and prudent, And pleased again by toys which childhood please; Or else the jingling of a rusty medal, Or rare melody of some old ditty, That first was sung to please King Pepin's cradle. EDINBURGH: ROBERT CADELL, ST. ANDREW SQUARE. THE Antiquary. I knew Anselmo. He was shrewd and prudent, Or the rare melody of some old ditty, ADVERTISEMENT (1829.) THE present Work completes a series of fictitious narratives, intended to illustrate the manners of Scotland at three different periods. WAVERLEY embraced the age of our fathers, GUY MANNERING that of our own youth, and the ANTIQUARY refers to the last ten years of the eighteenth century. I have, in the two last narratives especially, sought my principal personages in the class of society who are the last to feel the influence of that general polish which assimilates to each other the manners of different nations. Among the same class I have placed some of the scenes, in which I have endeavoured to illustrate the operation of the higher and nore violent passions; both because the lower orders are less restrained by the habit of suppressing their feelings, and because I agree with my friend Wordsworth, that they seldom fail to express them in the strongest and most powerful language. This is, I think, peculiarly the case with the peasantry of my own country, a class with whom I have long been familiar. The antique force and simplicity of their language, often tinctured with the Oriental eloquence of Scripture, in the mouths of those of an elevated understanding, give pathos to their grief, and dignity to their resentment. I have been more solicitous to describe manners minutely, than to arrange in any case an artificial and combined narrative, and have but to regret that I felt myself unable to unite these two requisites of a good Novel. The knavery of the Adept in the following sheets may appear forced and improbable; but we have had very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity to a much greater extent, and the reader may be assured, that this part of the narrative is founded on a fact of actual occurrence. I have now only to express my gratitude to the public, for the distinguished reception which they have given to works, that have little more than some truth of colouring to recommend them, and to take my respectful leave, as one who is not likely again to solicit their favour. To the above advertisement, which was prefixed to the first edition of the Antiquary, it is necessary in the present edition to add a few words, transferred from the Introduction to the Chronicles of the Canongate, respecting the character of Jonathan Oldbuck. "I may here state generally, that`although I have deemed historical personages free subjects of delineation, I have never on any occasion violated the respect due to private life. It was indeed impossible that traits proper to persons, both living and dead, with whom I have had intercourse in society, should not have risen to my pen in such works as Waverley, and those which followed it. But I have always studied to generalize the portraits, so that they should still seem, on the whole, the productions of fancy, though possessing some resemblance to real individuals. Yet I must own my attempts have not in this last particular been uniformly successful. There are men whose characters are so peculiarly marked, that the deli. neation of some leading and principal feature, inevitably places the whole person before you in his individuality. Thus, the character of Jonathan Oldbuck, in the Antiquary, was partly founded on that of an old friend of my youth, to whom I am indebted for introducing me to Shakspeare, and other invaluable favours; but I thought I had so completely disguised the likeness, that it could not be recognised by any one now alive. I was mistaken, however, and indeed had endangered what I desired should be considered as a secret; for I afterwards learned that a highly respectable gentleman, one of the few surviving friends of my father, and an acute critic, had said, upon the appearance of the work, that he was now convinced who was the author of it, as he recognised, in the Antiquary, traces of the character of a very intimate friend of my father's family." beyond an exposition of his distresses. He was often a talkative, facetious fellow, prompt at repartee, and not withheld from exercising his powers that way by any respect of persons, his patched cloak giving him the privilege of the ancient jester. To be a gude crack, that is, to possess talents for conversation, was essential to the trade of a “ puir body" of the more esteemed class; and Burns, who delighted in the amusement their discourse afford. ed, seems to have looked forward with gloomy firm. ness to the possibility of himself becoming one day or other a member of their itinerant society. In his poetical works, it is alluded to so often, as perhaps to indicate that he considered the consummation as not utterly impossible. Thus, in the fine dedication of his works to Gavin Hamilton, he says, I have only farther to request the reader not to suppose that my late respected friend resembled Mr Oldbuck, either in his pedigree, or the history imputed to the ideal personage. There is not a single incident in the Novel which is borrowed from his real circumstances, excepting the fact that he resided in an old house near a flourishing seaport, and that the author chanced to witness a scene betwixt him and the female proprietor of a stagecoach, very similar to that which commences the history of the Antiquary. An excellent temper, with a slight degree of subacid humour; learning, wit, and drollery, the more poignant that they were a little marked by the peculiarities of an old bachelor; a soundness of thought, rendered more forcible by an occasional quaintness of expression, And after having remarked, that were, the author conceives, the only qualities in which the creature of his imagination resembled his benevolent and excellent old friend. The prominent part performed by the Beggar in the following narrative, induces the author to prefix a few remarks on that character, as it formerly existed in Scotland, though it is now scarcely to be traced. Many of the old Scottish mendicants were by no means to be confounded with the utterly degraded class of beings who now practise that wandering trade. Such of them as were in the habit of travelling through a particular district, were usually well received both in the farmer's ha', and in the kitchens of the country gentlemen. Martin, author of the Reliquia Divi Sancti Andreœ, written in1683, gives the following account of one class of this order of men in the seventeenth century, in terms which would induce an antiquary like Mr Oldbuck to regret its extinction. He conceives them to be descended from the ancient bards, and proceeds:— "They are called by others, and by themselves, Jockies, who go about begging; and use still to recite the Sloggorne (gathering-words or war-cries) of most of the true ancient surnames of Scotland, from old experience and observation. Some of them I have discoursed, and found to have reason and discretion. One of them told me there were not now above twelve of them in the whole isle; but he remembered when they abounded, so as at one time he was one of five that usually met at St Andrews." The race of Jockies (of the above description) has, I suppose, been long extinct in Scotland; but the old remembered beggar, even in my own time, like the Baccoch, or travelling cripple of Ireland, was expected to merit his quarters by something And when I downa yoke a naig, Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg." Again, in his Epistle to Davie, a brother Poet, he states, that in their closing career— "The last o't, the warst o't, Is only just to beg." "To lie in kilns and barns at e'en, When banes are crazed and blude is thin, the bard reckons up, with true poetical spirit, the As the life of a Scottish mendicant of the eighteenth century seems to have been contemplated without much horror by Robert Burns, the author can hardly have erred in giving to Edie Ochiltree something of poetical character and personal dignity, above the more abject of his miserable calling. The class had, in fact, some privileges. A lodging, such as it was, was readily granted to them in some of the out-houses, and the usual awmous (alms) of a handful of meal (called a gowpen) was scarce denied by the poorest cottager. The mendicant disposed these, according to their different quality, in various bags around his person, and thus carried about with him the principal part of his sustenance, which he literally received for the asking. At the houses of the gentry, his cheer was mended by scraps of broken meat, and perhaps a Scottish "twalpenny," or English penny, which was expended in snuff or whisky. In fact, these indolent peripatetics suffered much less real hardship and want of food, than the poor peasants from whom they received alms. If, in addition to his personal qualifications, the mendicant chanced to be a King's Bedesman, or Blue-Gown, he belonged, in virtue thereof, to the aristocracy of his order, and was esteemed a person of great importance. |