Thou couldst not live to see her beam
For ever quenched in Jena's stream.
Lamented Chief!-It was not given
To thee to change the doom of heaven,
And crush that dragon in its birth,
Predestined scourge of guilty earth.
Lamented Chief!-not thine the power,
To save in that presumptuous hour,
When Prussia hurried to the field,

And snatched the spear, but left the shield!
Valour and skill 'twas thine to try,
And, tried in vain, 'twas thine to die.
Ill had it seemed thy silver hair
The last, the bitterest pang to share,
For princedoms reft, and scutcheons riven,
And birthrights to usurpers given;
Thy lands, thy children's wrongs to feel,
And witness woes thou could'st not heal!
On thee relenting Heaven bestows
For honoured life an honoured close;*
And when revolves, in time's sure change,
The hour of Germany's revenge,
When, breathing fury for her sake,
Some new Arminius shall awake,
Her champion, ere he strike, shall come
To whet his sword on Brunswick's tomb.
"Or of the Red-Cross herot teach,
Dauntless in dungeon as on breach:
Alike to him the sea, the shore,
The brand, the bridle, or the oar:
Alike to him the war that calls
Its votaries to the shattered walls,

Which the grim Turk, besmeared with blood, Against the invincible made good;

Or that, whose thundering voice could wake
The silence of the polar lake,

When stubborn Russ, and metall'd Swede,
On the warped wave their death-game played;
Or that, where vengeance and affright
Howled round the father of the fight,
Who snatched, on Alexandria's sand,
The conqueror's wreath with dying hand.
"Or, if to touch such chord be thine,
Restore the ancient tragic line,
And emulate the notes that rung
From the wild harp, which silent hung,
By silver Avon's holy shore,

Till twice a hundred years rolled o'er;
When she, the bold enchantress, came,§
With fearless hand and heart on flame!
From the pale willow snatched the treasure,
And swept it with a kindred measure,
Till Avon's swans, while rung the grove
With Montfort's hate and Basil's love,
Awakening at the inspired strain,
Deemed their own Shakspeare lived again."

Thy friendship thus thy judgment wronging, With praises, not to me belonging,

In task more meet for mightiest powers,
Would'st thou engage my thriftless hours.
But say, my Erskine, hast thou weighed
That secret power by all obeyed,
Which warps not less the passive mind,
Its source concealed or undefined;
Whether an impulse, that has birth
Soon as the infant wakes on earth,

* [MS.-" For honour'd life an honour'd close-
The boon which falling heroes crave,
A soldier's death, a warrior's grave.
Or if with more exulting swell,

Of conquering chiefs thou lovest to tell,
Give to the harp an unheard strain,
And sing the triumphs of the main-
Of him the Red-Cross hero teach,
Dauntless on Acre's bloody breach,
And, scorner of tyrannic power,
As dauntless in the Temple's tower:
Alike to him the sea, the shore,
The brand, the bridle, or the oar,
The general's eye, the pilot's art,

The soldier's arm, the sailor's heart.
Or if to touch such chord be thine," &c.]

✦ [Sir Sidney Smith.]

1 [Sir Ralph Abercromby.]

§ (Joanna Baillie.]

("As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, Receives the lurking principle of death;

One with our feelings and our powers,
And rather part of us than ours;
Or whether fitlier termed the sway
Of habit, formed in early day?
Howe'er derived, its force confessed
Rules with despotic sway the breast,
And drags us on by viewless chain,
While taste and reason plead in vain.
Look east, and ask the Belgian why,
Beneath Batavia's sultry sky,
He seeks not, eager to inhale,
The freshness of the mountain gale,
Content to rear his whitened wall
Beside the dank and dull canal?
He'll say, from youth he loved to see
The white sail gliding by the tree.
Or see yon weather-beaten hind,
Whose sluggish herds before him wind,
Whose tattered plaid and rugged cheek
His northern clime and kindred speak ;
Through England's laughing meads he goes
And England's wealth around him flows;
Ask, if it would content him well,

At ease in those gay plains to dwell,
Where hedge-rows spread a verdant screen
And spires and forests intervene,
And the neat cottage peeps between?
No! not for these will he exchange
His dark Lochaber's boundless range;
Not for fair Devon's meads forsake
Bennevis gray and Garry's lake.

Thus while I ape the measure wild
Of tales that charmed me yet a child,
Rude though they be, still with the chime
Return the thoughts of early time;

And feelings, roused in life's first day,
Glow in the line, and prompt the lay.

Then rise those crags, that mountain tower,

Which charmed my fancy's wakening hour.¶

Though no broad river swept along,

To claim, perchance, heroic song;

Though sighed no groves in summer gale,

To prompt of love a softer tale;

Though scarce a puny streamlet's speed
Claimed homage from a shepherd's reed;
Yet was poetic impulse given,

By the green hill and clear blue heaven.
It was a barren scene, and wild,
Where naked cliffs were rudely piled:
But ever and anon between

Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green:
And well the lonely infant knew
Recesses where the wall flower grew,**
And honey-suckle loved to crawl
Up the low crag and ruined wall.

I deemed such nooks the sweetest shade

The sun in all its round surveyed;

And still I thought that shattered towert
The mightiest work of human power;
And marvelled, as the aged hind

With some strange tale bewitched my mind,
Of forayers, who, with headlong force,

Down from that strength had spurred their horse,
Their southern rapine to renew,

Far in the distant Cheviot's blue,

The young disease, that must subdue at length,

Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.

So, cast and mingled with his very frame,

The Mind's disease, its RULING PASSION Came
Each vital humour which should feed the whole,
Soon flows to this, in body and in soul:
Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head,
As the mind opens, and its functions spread,
Imagination plies her dangerous art,
And pours it all upon the peccant part.

"Nature its mother, Habit is its nurse;
Wit, Spirit, Faculties, but make it worse
Reason itself but gives it edge and power;
As Heaven's blest beam turns vinegar more sour," &c.
POPE'S Essay on Man.]

[MS.-"The lonely hill, the rocky tower,

That caught attention's wakening hour."]

** [MS.-" Recesses where the woodbine grew."]

* [Smailholm Tower, in Berwickshire, the scene of the Au thor's infancy, is situated about two miles from Dryburgh Abbey.]

And, home returning, filled the hall
With revel, wassel-rout, and brawl.
Methought that still with trump and clang,
The gate-way's broken arches rang;
Methought grim features, seamed with scars,
Glared through the window's rusty bars,
And ever, by the winter hearth,
Old tales I heard of wo or mirth,
Of lovers' slights, of ladies' charms,
Of witches' spells, of warriors' arms;
Of patriot battles, won of old

By Wallace wight and Bruce the bold;
Of later fields of feud and fight,

When, pouring from their highland height,
The Scottish clans, in headlong sway,
Had swept the scarlet ranks away.
While stretched at length upon the floor,t
Again I fought each combat o'er,
Pebbles and shells, in order laid,
The mimic ranks of war displayed;
And onward still the Scottish lion bore,

And still the scattered Southron fled before.
Sull, with vain fondness, could I trace,
Anew, each kind familiar face,
That brightened at our evening fire!
From the thatched mansion's gray-haired sire,§
Wise without learning, plain and good,
And sprung of Scotland's gentler blood;
Whose eye, in age, quick, clear, and keen,
Showed what in youth its glance had been;
Whose doom discording neighbours sought,
Content with equity unbought ;ll
To him the venerable priest,
Our frequent and familiar guest,
Whose life and manners well could paint
Alike the student and the saint;T
Alas! whose speech too oft I broke
With gambol rude and timeless joke:
For I was wayward, bold, and wild,
A self-willed imp, a grandame's child;
But half a plague, and half a jest,
Was still endured, beloved, caress'd.

From me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask
The classic poet's well-conned task?
Nay, Erskine, nay-on the wild hill
Let the wild heathbell flourish still;
Cherish the tulip, prune the vine,
But freely let the woodbine twine,
And leave untrimmed the eglantine:
Nay, my friend, nay-since oft thy praise
Hath given fresh vigour to my lays;
Since oft thy judgment could refine
My flattened thought, or cumbrous line,
Still kind, as is thy wont, attend,
And in the minstrel spare the friend.
Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale,
Flow forth, flow unrestrained, my tale!

CANTO THIRD.

THE HOSTEL, OR INN.
I.

THE livelong day Lord Marmion rode :
The mountain-path the Palmer showed

* [The two next couplets are not in the MS.]
[MS. While still with mimic hosts of shells,
Again my sport the combat tells-
Onward the Scottish lion bore.

The scatter'd Southron fled before."]

1 [See notes on The Eve of St. John, in the Border Minstrel3. ente; and the Author's Introduction to the Minstrelsy, p. 5. ante]

$ (Robert Scott of Sandyknows, the grandfather of the Poet.] Upon revising the Poem, it seems proper to mention that the lines,

"Whose doom discording neighbours sought,

Content with equity unbought:"

By glen and streamlet winded still,
Where stunted birches hid the rill.
They might not choose the lowland road,**
For the Merse forayers were abroad,
Who, fired with hate and thirst of prey,
Had scarcely failed to bar their way.
Oft on the trampling band, from crown
Of some tall cliff, the deer looked down;
On wing of jet, from his repose
In the deep heath, the black-cock rose;
Sprung from the gorse the timid roe,
Nor waited for the bending bow;
And when the stony path began,
By which the naked peak they wan,
Up flew the snowy ptarmigan.

The noon had long been passed before
They gained the height of Lammermoor ;tt
Thence winding down the northern way.
Before them, at the close of day,

Old Gifford's towers and hamlet lay.‡‡

III.

Soon, by the chimney's merry blaze,
Through the rude hostel might you gaze;
Might see, where, in dark nook aloof,
The rafters of the sooty roof

Bore wealth of winter cheer;
Of sea-fowl dried, and solands store,
And gammons of the tusky boar,

And savoury haunch of deer.
The chimney arch projected wide;
Above, around it, and beside,,

Were tools for housewives' hand;
Nor wanted, in that martial day,
The implements of Scottish fray

The buckler, lance, and brand.
Beneath its shade, the place of state,
On oaken settle Marmion sate,
And viewed around the blazing hearth,
His followers mix in noisy mirth;
Whom with brown ale, in jolly tide,
From ancient vessels ranged aside,
Full actively their host supplied.

ton; close to it is Yester House, the seat of the Marquis of Tweed dale, and a little farther up the stream, which descends from the hills of Lammermoor, are the remains of the old castle of the family.]

$ The accommodations of a Scottish hostelrie, or inn, in the 16th century, may be collected from Dunbar's admirable tale of "The Friars of Berwick." Simon Lawder, "the gay ostleir," seems to have lived very comfortably; and his wife decorated her person with a scarlet kirtle, and a belt of silk and silver, and rings upon her fingers; and feasted her paramour with rabbits, capons, partridges, and Bordeaux wine. At least, if the Scottish inns were not good, it was not for want of encouragement from the legislature; who, so early as the reign of James I., not

IMS. The student, gentleman, and saint."

The reverend gentleman alluded to was Mr. John Martin, minister of Mertoun, in which parish Smailholm Tower is situated.] **IMS.-"They might not choose the easier road, For many a forayer was abroad."]

Bec notes to "The Bride of Lammermoor." Waverley Novels, vol. in

(The village of Gifford lies about four miles from Hadding.

laries, having stables and chambers, and provision for man and horse, but by another statute, ordained that no man, travelling on horse or foot, should presume to lodge any where except in these hostellaries; and that no person, save inn-keepers, should receive such travellers, under the penalty of forty shillings for exercising such hospitality.* But, in spite of these provident enactments, the Scottish hostels are but indifferent, and strangers continue to find reception in the houses of individuals.

* James I. Parliament I. cap. 24; Parliament III. cap. 56.

IV. Theirs was the glee of martial breast, And laughter theirs at little jest; And oft Lord Marmion deigned to aid, And mingle in the mirth they made; For though, with men of high degree, The proudest of the proud was he, Yet, trained in camps, he knew the art To win the soldier's hardy heart. They love a captain to obey, Boisterous as March, yet fresh as May: With open hand, and brow as free, Lover of wine and minstrelsy; Ever the first to scale a tower, As venturous in a lady's bower:Such buxom chief shall lead his host From India's fires to Zembla's frost.

"So please you," thus the youth rejoined,
"Our choicest minstrel's left behind.
Ill may we hope to please your ear,
Accustom'd constant strains to hear.
The harp full deftly can he strike,
And wake the lover's lute alike;
To dear Saint Valentine, no thrush
Sings livelier from a spring-tide bush,
No nightingale her love-lorn tune
More sweetly warbles to the moon.
Wo to the cause, whate'er it be,
Detains from us his melody,
Lavish'd, on rocks, and billows stern,
Or duller monks of Lindisfarne.
Now must I venture, as I may,
To sing his favourite roundelay."
IX.

A mellow voice Fitz-Eustace had,
The air he chose was wild and sad;
Such have I heard, in Scottish land,
Rise from the busy harvest band,
When falls before the mountaineer,
On lowland plains, the ripened ear.
Now one shrill voice the notes prolong,
Now a wild chorus swells the song:
Oft have I listened, and stood still,
As it came soften'd up the hill,

[MS.-" Full met their eyes' encountering glance."]

And deem'd it the lament of men
Who languish'd for their native glen;
And thought how sad would be such sound,
On Susquehannah's swampy ground,
Kentucky's wood-encumber'd brake,
Or wild Ontario's boundless lake,
Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain,
Recall'd fair Scotland's hills again!

X.

SONG.

Where shall the lover rest,

Whom the fates sever

From his true maiden's breast,
Parted for ever?

Where, through groves deep and high,
Sounds the far billow,

Where early violets die,
Under the willow.

CHORUS.

Eleu loro, &c. Soft shall be his pillow.
There, through the summer day,
Cool streams are laving;
There, while the tempests sway,
Scarce are boughs waving;
There, thy rest shalt thou take,
Parted for ever,

Never again to wake,
Never, O never!

CHORUS.

Eleu loro, &c. Never O never!

XI.

Where shall the traitor rest,

He, the deceiver,

Who could win maiden's breast,
Ruin, and leave her?
In the lost battle,

Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle
With groans of the dying.

CHORUS.

Eleu loro, &c. There shall he be lying. Her wing shall the eagle flap

O'er the false-hearted;

His warm blood the wolf shall lap,
Ere life be parted.

Shame and dishonour sit

By his grave ever;

Blessing shall hallow it,-
Never, O never!

CHORUS.

Eleu loro, &c. Never, O never!
XII.

It ceased, the melancholy sound,
And silence sunk on all around.
The air was sad; but sadder still
It fell on Marinion's ear,
And plain'd as if disgrace and ill,
And shameful death, were near
He drew his mantle past his face,
Between it and the band,
And rested with his head a space,
Reclining on his hand.

His thoughts I scan not; but I ween,
That, could their import have been seen,
The meanest groom in all the hall,
That e'er tied courser to a stall,
Would scarce have wished to be their prey,
For Lutterward and Fontenaye.

"Is it not strange, that, as ye sung, Seem'd in mine ear a death-peal rung, Such as in nunneries they toll For some departing sister's soul? Say, what may this portend?"Then first the Palmer silence broke, (The live-long day he had not spoke,) "The death of a dear friend."*

XIV.

Marmion, whose steady heart and eye
Ne'er chang'd in worst extremity
Marmion, whose soul could scantly brook,
Even from his king, a haughty look ;t
Whose accent of command controll'd,
In camps, the boldest of the bold-
Thought, look, and utterance, failed him now,
Fallen was his glance, and flushed his brow:
For either in the tone,

Or something in the Palmer's look,
So full upon his conscience strook,
That answer he found none.
Thus oft it haps, that when within
They shrink at sense of secret sin,
A feather daunts the brave;

A fool's wild speech confounds the wise,
And proudest princes veil their eyes
Before their meanest slave.

XV.

Well might he falter!-by his aid
Was Constance Beverley betray'd;
Not that he augur'd of the doom,
Which on the living closed the tomb:
But, tired to hear the desperate maidt
Threaten by turns, beseech, upbraid;
And wroth, because in wild despair, S
She practised on the life of Clare;
Its fugitive the church he gave,
Though not a victim, but a slave;
And deemed restraint in convent strange
Would hide her wrongs, and her revenge.
Himself, proud Henry's favourite peer,
Held Romish thunders idle fear,
Secure his pardon he might hold,
For some slight mulct of penance gold.
Thus judging, he gave secret way,
When the stern priests surpris'd their
His train but deem'd the favourite page
Was left behind, to spare his age;
Or other if they deemed, none dared
To mutter what he thought and heard:
Wo to the vassal, who durst pry
Into Lord Marmion's privacy!

XVI.

prey.

His conscience slept-he deem'd her well,
And safe secur'd in distant cell;
But, wakened by her favourite lay,

And that strange Palmer's boding say,
That fell so ominous and drear,
Full on the object of his fear,
To aid remorse's venom'd throes,
Dark tales of convent vengeance rose;

And Constance, late betray'd and scorn'd,
All lovely on his soul return'd;
Lovely as when, at treacherous call,
She left her convent's peaceful wall,

Among other omens to which faithful credit is givena mong the Scottish peasantry, is what is called the "dead-bell," explained by my friend James Hogg, to be that tinkling in the ears which the country people regard as the secret intelligence of some friend's decease. He tells a story to the purpose in the "Mountain Bard," p. 26.

u

["O lady, tia dark, an' I heard the dead-bell!
An' I darena gae yonder for gowd nor fee."

By the dead-bell is meant a tinkling in the ears, which our peasantry in the country regard as a secret intelligence of some friend's decease. Thus this natural occurrence strikes many with a superstitious awe. This reminds me of a trifling anecdote, which I will here relate as an instance:-Our two servant girls agreed to go an errand of their own. one night after supper, to a considerable distance, from which I strove to persuade them, but could not prevail. So, after going to the apartment where I slept, I took a drinking-glass, and, coming close to the back of the door, made two or three sweeps round the lips of the glass with my finger, which caused a loud shrill sound. I then overheard the following dialogue:- B. Ah, mercy! the dead-bell went through my head just now with such a knell as I never

Crimsoned with shame, with terror mute, Dreading alike escape, pursuit,

Till love, victorious o'er alarms,

Hid fears and blushes in his arms.

XVII.

"Alas!" he thought," how changed that mien!
How changed these timid looks have been,!|
Since years of guilt, and of disguise,
Have steeled her brow, and armed her eyes!
No more of virgin terror speaks

The blood that mantles in her cheeks;
Fierce and unfeminine, are there,
Frenzy for joy, for grief despair;
And I the cause-for whom were given
Her peace on earth, her hopes in heaven!-
Would," thought he, as the picture grows,
"I on its stalk had left the rose!

Or, why should man's success remove
The very charms that wake his love!-
Her convent's peaceful solitude
Is now a prison harsh and rude,
And, pent within the narrow cell,
How will her spirit chafe and swell!
How brook the stern monastic laws!
The penance how-and I the cause!-
Vigil and scourge-perchance even worse!"-
And twice he rose to cry, " to horse!"
And twice his sovereign's mandate came,
Like damp upon a kindling flame;
And twice he thought, "Gave I not charge
She should be safe, though not at large?
They durst not, for their island, shred
One golden ringlet from her head."-
XVIII.

While thus in Marmion's bosom strove
Repentance and reviving love,
Like whirlwinds whose contending sway
I've seen Loch Vennachar obey,
Their host, the Palmer's speech had heard,
And, talkative, took up the word:-

Ay, reverend Pilgrim, you, who stray
From Scotland's simple land away,T
To visit realms afar,

Full often learn the art to know
Of future weal, or future wo,
By word, or sign, or star;
Yet might a knight his fortune hear
If, knight-like, he despises fear,
Not far from hence;-if fathers old
Aright our hamlet-legend told."-
These broken words the menials move,
(For marvels still the vulgar love;)
And, Marmion giving license cold,
His tale the host thus gladly told :-

XIX.

THE HOST'S TALE.

"A clerk could tell what years have flown
Since Alexander filled our throne,
(Third monarch of that warlike name,)
And eke the time when here he came
To seek Sir Hugo, then our lord:
A braver never drew a sword;

A wiser never, at the hour

Of midnight, spoke the word of power:

heard.'-'I. I heard it too.'-' B. Did you indeed? That is remarkable. I never knew of two hearing it at the same time before.-I. We will not go to Midgehope to-night.'-B. I would not go for all the world. I shall warrant it is my poor brother Wat; who knows what these wild Irishes may have done to him?"-HOGG's Mountain Bard, 3d Edit. p. 31, 32.]

(MS. Marmion, whose pride could never brook,
Whose haughty soul }

Even from his King, a scornful look."]
: [MS." But tired to hear the furious maid."]
SMS-"Incensed, because in wild despair."
i The MS. reads:-

'Since fiercer passions wild and high,,
Have flushed her cheek with deeper dye,
And years of guilt, and of disguise,
Have steel'd her brow, and arm'd her eyes
And I the cause-for whom were given
Her peace on earth, her hopes in heaven!-
How will her ardent spirit swell,
And chafe within the narrow cell!")
T (MS.-"From this plain simple land away."]

The same, whom ancient records call
The founder of the Goblin-Hall.*
I would, Sir Knight, your longer stay
Gave you that cavern to survey.
Of lofty roof, and ample size,
Beneath the castle deep
lies:

To hew the living rock profound,
The floor to pave, the arch to round,
There never toiled a mortal arm,

It all was wrought by word and charm;
And I have heard my grandsire say,
That the wild clamour and affray
Of those dread artisans of hell,
Who laboured under Hugo's spell,
Sounded as loud as ocean's war,
Among the caverns of Dunbar.

XX.

"The King Lord Gifford's castle sought,
Deep labouring with uncertain thought;
Even then he muster'd all his host,
To meet upon the western coast;
For Norse and Danish galleys plied
Their oars within the Frith of Clyde.
There floated Haco's banner trim, t
Above Norweyan warriors grim,
Savage of heart, and large of limb;
Threatening both continent and isle,
Bute, Arran, Cunningham, and Kyle.
Lord Gifford, deep beneath the ground,
Heard Alexander's bugle sound,
And tarried not his garb to change,
But, in his wizard habit strange,S
Came forth,- a quaint and fearful sight;
His mantle lined with fox-skins white;
His high and wrinkled forehead bore
A pointed cap, such as of yore
Clerks say that Pharaoh's magi wore:

His shoes were marked with cross and spell,
Upon his breast a pentacle ;!!

His zone, of virgin parchment thin,
Or, as some tell, of dead-man's skin,
Bore many a planetary sign,
Combust, and retrogade, and trine; T
And in his hand he held, prepared,
A naked sword without a guard.

XXI.

"Dire dealings with the fiendish race
Had marked strange lines upon his face
Vigil and fast had worn him grim,
His eyesight dazzled seemed, and dim,
As one unused to upper day;
Even his own menials with dismay

*A vaulted hall under the ancient castle of Gifford, or Yester, (for it bears either name indifferently,) the construction of which has, from a very remote period, been ascribed to magic. The Statistical Account of the Parish of Garvald and Baro gives the following account of the present state of this castle and apartment: "Upon a peninsula, formed by the water of Hopes on the cast, and a large rivulet on the west, stands the ancient castle of Yester. Sir David Dalrymple, in his annals, relates, that 'Hugh Gifford de Yester died in 1267; that in his castle there was a capacious cavern, formed by magical art, and called in the country, Bohall, i. e. Hobgoblin Hall. A stair of twenty-four steps led down to this apartment; which is a large and spacious hall, with an arched roof; and though it hath stood for so many centuries, and been exposed to the external air for a period of fifty or sixty years, it is still as firm and entire as if it had only stood a few years. From the floor of this hall, another stair of thirty-, six steps leads down to a pit which hath a communication with Hopes water. A great part of the walls of this large and ancient castle are still standing. There is a tradition, that the castle of Yester was the last fortification in this country that surrendered to General Gray, sent into Scotland by Protector Somerset." Statistical Account, vol. xiii. I have only to add, that, in 1737 the Goblin Hall was tenanted by the Marquis of Tweedale's fal coner, as I learn from a poem by Boyse, entitled "Retirement,' written upon visiting Yester. It is now rendered inaccessible by the fall of the stair.

nam

Sir David Dalrymple's authority for the anecdote is in Fordun. whose words are." A. D. MCCLXVII. Hugo Giffard de Yester moritur; cujus castrum, vel saltem caveam, et dongionem, arte damonica antiquæ relationes ferunt fabrifactas: ibidem habetur mirabilis specus subterraneus, opere mirifice constructus, magno terrarum spatio protelatus, qui commu niter BO HALL appellatus est." Lib. x. cap. 21.-Sir David conjectures, that Hugh de Gifford must either have been a very wise man, or a great oppressor.

In 1263, Haco, king of Norway, came into the Frith of Clyde with a powerful armament, and made a descent at Largs, in

Beheld, Sir Knight, the grisly sire,
In his unwonted wild attire;
Unwonted, for traditions run,
He seldom thus beheld the sun.

'I know,' he said, his voice was hoarse,
And broken seemed its hollow force,-
I know the cause, although untold,
Why the King seeks his vassal's hold:
Vainly from me my liege would know
His kingdom's future weal or wo;
But yet. if strong his arm and heart,
His courage may do more than art.

XXII.

"Of middle air the demons proud,
Who ride upon the racking cloud,
Can read, in fixed or wandering star,
The issue of events afar;

But still their sullen aid withhold,
Save when by mightier force controlled.
Such late I summoned to my hall:
And though so potent was the call,
That scarce the deepest nook of hell
I deemed a refuge from the spell,
Yet, obstinate in silence still,
The haughty demon mocks my skill.
But thou,-who little know'st thy might,
As born upon that blessed night,**
When yawning graves, and dying groan,
Proclaim'd hell's empire overthrown,-
With untaught valour shalt compel
Response denied to magic spell.'-++
Gramercy,' quoth our monarch free,
Place him but front to front with me,
And, by this good and honoured brand,
The gift of Coeur-de-Lion's hand,-
Soothly I swear, that, tide what tide,
The demon shall a buffet bide.'#t
His bearing bold the wizard viewed,
And thus, well pleased, his speech renewed:-
There spoke the blood of Malcolm!-mark:
Forth pacing hence, at midnight dark,
The rampart seek, whose circling crownss
Crests the ascent of yonder down;

A southern entrance shalt thou find
There halt, and there thy bugle wind
And trust thine elfin foe to see,

In guise of thy worst enemy:

Couch then thy lance, and spur thy steed-
Upon him! and Saint George to speed!
If he go down, thou soon shalt know
Whate'er these airy sprites can show ;-
If thy heart fail thee in the strife,
I am no warrant for thy life.'

Ayrshire. Here he was encountered and defeated, on the ad October, by Alexander II. Haco retreated to Orkney, where he died soon after this disgrace to his arms. There are still existing, near the place of battle, many barrows, some of which, having been opened, were found, as usual, to contain bones and urns. I [MS." There floated Haco's banner grim,

O'er fierce of heart and large of limb."]

"Magicians, as is well known, were very curious in the choice and form of their vestments. Their caps are oval, or bike pyramids, with lappets on each side, and fur within. Their gowns are long, and furred with fox skins, under which they have a linen garment, reaching to the knee. Their girdles are three inches broad, and have many cabalistical names, with crosses, trines, and circles inscribed on them. Their shoes should be of new russet leather, with a cross cut upon them. Their knives are dag ger fashion; and their swords have neither guard nor scabbards." See these, and many other particulars, in the discourse concern ing devils and spirits, annexed to Reginald Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, edition 1865.

"A pentacle is a piece of fine linen, folded with five corners, according to the five senses, and suitably inscribed with characters. This the magician extends towards the spirits which he invokes, when they are stubborn and rebellious, and refuse to be conformable unto the ceremonies and rites of magic." See the discourses, &c. above mentioned, p. 66.

TIMS." Bare many a character and sign,

Of planets retrograde and trine."] **It is a popular article of faith, that those who are born on Christmas, or Good Friday, have the power of seeing spirits, and even of commanding them. The Spaniards imputed the haggard and downcast looks of their Philip II., to the disagreeable visions to which this privilege subjected him.

[M8.-"With untaught valour mayst compel What is denied to magic spell."] 11 [MS.-" Bicker and buffet he shall bide."]

$$ [MS.-"Seek that old {cramp which as a crown. "]

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