his meeting with the Queen of Faery: the localities made mention of in the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, however, and in the notes appended to it, do not corroborate this opinion. Huntlie bank, the Eildon tree, and the Bogle burn, are therein spoken of, and these lie on the opposite side of the Eildons. To give interest to the Rhymer's Glen, however, it is not necessary that it should be the reputed scenes of imaginary and supernatural intercourse. It was a favourite retreat of Sir Walter Scott, and whoever treads where he hath trode, and muses where he hath mused, will feel that he is upon classic, we had almost said holy ground. The following lines, taken from the Edinburgh Literary Journal for January 1830, will not be conceived unworthy of a place here.

ON REVISITING THE RHYMER'S GLEN, NEAR

ABBOTSFORD.

Returning from another clime,
I seek the haunts of olden time;
Once more at close of evening grey,
Down Eildon's side I fondly stray,-

Once more with willing steps I turn
To thee, romantic Huntly burn.

Scene of my first poetic dreams,

Where all with fond remembrance teems;
Here, as thy waters onward haste,
I mark, in rapture, all the past,
And muse on those delightful hours
When first I sat among thy bowers.

Thrice ten long tedious years have pass'd Since with the dawn I left thee last; The glow of youth was on my brow, My step was firm and light,-but now An alter'd man thy vale I seek,— Benumb'd my limbs and wan my cheek.

Each year the world new changes knows;
Thy stream the same for ever flows,
Soft gliding through the leafy brake,
From Cauldshiel's dark unfathomed lake,
And still remains as pure and free,
As it of old was wont to be.

And groves of birch and hazels green,
Still soften all thy fairy scene.

What changes hast thou mark'd of men, Since first thou was the Rhymer's Glen! Since nightly in the moonlight clear The fairies held their revels here, Till the gay skylark from the lawn, Uprose to meet the silver dawn; Since first the clanging bugle-horn To envied toils awoke the morn,

T

Call'd of our land the pride and grace,
To seek for glory in the chase;

And brought the deer o'er hill and dale
For safety to thy lonely vale.

Thy sod has oft with blood been dyed,
But now no more the warriors ride;
The dauntless thistle and the rose
No longer meet as deadly foes.
Long since the mighty spell is broke,
That bound us to St Peter's yoke;
The monks, thy lords in days of yore,
Will tread this green recess no more,
No more will chaunt the mystic strain,
Nor worship at St Mary's fane.
The deer has left his woodland lair,
Thy furze but screens the timid hare.
The eagle from his cliffs has flown,
Succeeded by the hawk alone.
But in thy minstrel's lofty rhymes
Our souls revert to ancient times,
And still in fancy hover o'er

The scenes that can return no more.

W. B.

ALLAN WATER.

THIS stream takes its rise from a place called Allanshaws, amid a moorland tract of country on the north side of the Tweed, and, after a course of seven or eight miles, it falls into that river about two miles above Melrose. The Allan derives its chief interest from being understood to form the Glendearg of "the Monastery," with the description of which it corresponds in every essential feature, though it may nevertheless appear that Sir W. Scott had rather kept in view the aspect which the place might be supposed to wear at the period of which we wrote, than that which it presented at the time he did write.

Near to the head of Allan water, however, are still to be seen the ruins of three of those ancient fortalices so common to the southern districts of Scotland. The

name of the first of these towers is Langshawmill, the name of the second is Colmslie, and of the third Hillslap; they stand within a short distance of each other. Hillslap was inhabited within the last century; it belonged to a family of the name of Cairncross; an old man, still living in this neighbourdood, the son of a tenant of the last laird of that name, remembers the sale by auction of its furniture and other moveables, when he remarked, amongst other things an immense number of swords, many of them mourning ones, and others elegantly mounted, their hilts being inlaid with silver and gold. Colmslie tower is that of the three which corresponds in situation and external appearance with the home of the Glendinnings, and unless it be that the "patches of wood and copse" and the "thickets of oak and birch," are less frequently to be met with in the early course of the stream than they perhaps once were, and that its banks for a mile or two ere it falls into the Tweed are now beautifully wooded, the description of the Glendearg of the Monastery will be found to agree in every other particular with the