The scene of this sanguinary conflict was called Lilliard's Edge, from the circumstance of a Scottish maiden following her lover to the field, where she was killed, after fighting with great bravery. A stone was erected to her memory on the spot where she fell, bearing the following rude inscription :

Fair maiden Lilliard lies under this stane,
Little was her stature, but great her fame;

Upon the English louns she laid mony thumps,
And when her legs were cutted off, she fought upon
her stumps.

The devoted attachment and heroic conduct of Fair maiden Lilliard deserved a monument more in keeping with the loftiness of her character.

In 1559, the unfortunate monks saw their beautiful church laid in ruins, their halls and cloisters demolished, their possessions wrested from them, and their community dispersed, by the tumultuary violence of a populace who were not only instigated by an unquenchable zeal against popery, but were understood to have been urged on to the destruction of the monasteries and other religious edifices of the kingdom, by such of the nobility and others as had either been recently enriched with the plunder of the

church, or coveted and expected a portion of her property, and who, fearing, no doubt, that should a rivival of the ancient form of worship take place they might be forced to give up their newly acquired possessions, became naturally anxious that the devastation should be as general and complete as possible, that they might throw the most perfect hinderances in their power in the way of an event equally inimical to their interests and their wishes. To this cause may be attributed, in a great measure, the shattered condition of this and most of the other monastic buildings in Scotland.

In 1590, Mr Douglas, who was then commendator of Melrose, built himself a house with stones taken from the ruin ; and, in 1618, a vault was thrown over a part of the nave of the church from which the original roof had fallen, that it might serve as a place of presbyterian worship for the parish. The stones used for this purpose were also taken from the ruin. At a subsequent period, this unfortunate pile has supplied material for the still baser purposes of building a prison and repairing the mills and sluices; and when or where the work of destruction might have ended none can tell,

had it not, by an agreement between the Duke of Buccleuch and the other heritors of the parish, become the property of that nobleman, who has used every possible means to retard its decay.

MELROSE ABBEY.

DESCRIPTION.

Of the domestic buildings of Melrose Abbey there remains scarcely a vestige. The only indication of the ancient magnificence of this celebrated monastery is to be found in the ruins of its splendid church, which is not only the most beautiful, but, fortunately, the most entire ecclesiastical ruin in Scotland. Its form is that of a Latin cross, with a square tower in the centre, one side of which is only standing. This tower is eighty-four feet in height, raised upon a pointed arch, and terminates in a stone balustrade, the rails of which