On his shield was a hound, in a silver | Over Tweed's fair flood, and Mertoun's leash bound,

For that knight is cold, and low laid in What news from the bold Bucthe mould,

The bold Baron's brow then changed, I The lady blush'd red, but nothing she said:

He pass'd the court-gate, and he oped the The lady look'd through the chamber fair,

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 bis prophecies,

"By the Baron's brand, near Tweed's That lawless love is guilt above,

fair strand,

Most foully slain, I fell;

And my restless sprite on the beacon's height,

For a space is doom'd to dwell.

"At our trysting-place, for a certain space" I must wander to and fro;

But I had not had power to come to thy bower

Had'st thou not conjured me so.

Love master'd fear- her brow she cross'd;

"How, Richard, hast thou sped ? And art thou saved, or art thou lost ?”The vision shook his head!

"Who spilleth life, shall forfeit life; So bid thy lord believe:

This awful sign receive."

He laid his left palm on an oaken beam ;
His right upon her hand;

The lady shrunk, and fainting sunk,
For it scorch'd like a fiery brand.

The sable score, of fingers four,

Remains on that board impress'd;
And for evermore that lady wore
A covering on her wrist.2

There is a nun in Dryburgh bower,
There is a monk in Melrose tower
Ne'er looks upon the sun;

He speaketh word to none.
That nun, who ne'er beholds the day,3
That monk, who speaks to none—
That nun was Smaylho'me's Lady gay,
That monk the bold Baron.

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 Hamilten 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 muzzies, 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 following ballad, it would be injustice to my readers 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 favourites,† 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 They were formerly kept in the park at Drumlanrig, and are still to be seen at ChilEingham Castle, in Northumberland.

This was Sir James Bellenden, Lord Justice-Clerk, whose shameful and inhuman rapacity occasioned the catastrophe in the text,-SPOTTISWOODE.

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 endeavoured to break into the house whence the blow had come; but they found the door strongly barricaded, 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 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.

The Regent's death happened 23rd January, 1569. It is applauded or stigmatized, by contemporary historians, according to their religious or party prejudices. The triumph of Blackwood is unbounded. He not only extols the pious feat of Bothwellhaugh, "who," he observes, "satisfied with a single ounce of lead, him whose sacrilegious avarice had stripped the metropolitan church of St. Andrews of its covering ;" but he ascribes it to immediate divine inspiration, and the escape of Hamilton to little less than the miraculous interference of the Deity.―JEBB, vol. ii. p. 263. With equal injustice, it was, by others, made the ground of a general national reflection; for, when Mather urged Berney to assassinate Burleigh, and quoted the examples of Poltrot and Bothwellhaugh, the other conspirator answered, “ that neyther Poltrot nor Hambleton did attempt their enterpryse without some reason or consideration to lead them to it; as the one, by hyre, and promise of preferment or rewarde; the other, upon desperate mind of revenge, for a lyttle wrong done unto him, as the report goethe, according to the vyle trayterous dysposysyon of the hoole natyon of the Scottes."MURDIN'S State Papers, vol. 1. p. 197.

The house to which this projecting gallery was attached was the property of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, a natural brother to the Duke of Chatelherault, and uncle to Bothwellhaugh. This, among many other circumstances, seems to evince the aid which Bothwellhaugh received from his clan in effecting his purpose.

The gift of Lord John Hamilton, Commendator of Arbroath.

Addressed to the Right Honourable Lady Anne Hamilton.

WHEN princely Hamilton's abode
Ennobled Cadyow's Gothic towers,
The song went round, the goblet flow'd,
And revel sped the laughing hours.

Then, thrilling to the harp's gay sound,
So sweetly rung each vaulted wall,
And echoed light the dancer's bound,
As mirth and music cheer'd the hall.

But Cadyow's towers, in ruins laid,
And vaults, by ivy mantled o'er,
Thrill to the music of the shade,

Or echo Evan's hoarser roar.

Yet still, of Cadyow's faded fame,

You bid me tell a minstrel tale, And tune my harp, of Border frame, On the wild banks of Evandale.

For thou, from scenes of courtly pride, From pleasure's lighter scenes, canst turn,

To draw oblivion's pall aside

And mark the long-forgotten urn.

Then, noble maid! at thy command,
Again the crumbled halls shall rise;
Lo! as on Evan's banks we stand,

The past returns-the present flies.

Where, with the rock's wood cover'd side,

Were blended late the ruins green, Rise turrets in fantastic pride,

And feudal banners flaunt between:

Where the rude torrent's brawling course Was shagg'd with thorn and tangling sloe,

The ashler buttress braves its force,

And ramparts frown in battled row.

'Tis night-the shade of keep and spire Obscurely dance on Evan's stream; And on the wave the warder's fire

Is chequering the moonlight beam

Fades slow their light; the east is grey;
The weary warder leaves his tower;
Steeds snort; uncoupled stag-hounds bay,
And merry hunters quit the bower.

The drawbridge falls-they hurry out―
Clatters each plank and swinging chain,
As, dashing o'er, the jovial rout

Urge the shy steed, and slack the rein.

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.

Aim'd well, the Chieftain's lance has "The wilder'd traveller sees her glide,