The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 583, December 29, 1832. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.

      On arriving at the summit of the hill overlooking the Tweed, it burst upon my sight. I looked down on the grounds in which it is settled, as on a map. The skill and industry of Sir Walter is not more remarkable in his literary than in his rural works. The house stands in a bare, barren corner of Selkirkshire, (I think) but by admirable management, he has enclosed it with fine, hardy young wood, and quite altered its appearance.

      At the bottom of the hill I took the boat at the ferry, and resting in the middle of the stream, the Tweed, and looked around me. I saw a person on the opposite bank appearing and disappearing in the wood which comes down to the water's edge. I drew near. He was dressed in a short, green coat and cap, and was amusing himself with the antics of a large dog. The place—the time—the air—the gait—every thing conspired: "Who's that, lassie?" said I to my little boat rower; "That, sir? that's himsel, that's the shirra" (sheriff.) Yes, it was the man—he himself—the pride of Scotland—her boast—the intellectual beacon of her hills—it was Sir Walter Scott!

      Sept. 3. At Selkirk. At Mitchell's Inn, where I was introduced to the celebrated Jamie Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. He had come, I think, from a fair held at the Eildons. We got over a jug of toddy. Our conversation turned on the church service of the kirk of Scotland, and we rambled into poetry in conversing on the psalms. I pointed out to the shepherd, that a fair fame might be achieved by arranging the Psalms of David, and superseding the barbarities of Sternhold and Hopkins. James maintained that the present edition in use in Scotland, could not be improved. He said that the question had been agitated in the General Assembly, and Sir Walter Scott was applied to, to furnish an improved versification, but he answered, stating that it would be a more difficult matter to get the people to adopt them, than to furnish the same. Any alteration in this respect would be looked upon as little better than sacrilege, and he therefore advised that the present form should be continued in. "Watty's a sensible chap," said the shepherd, speaking familiarly of Sir Walter, "and if he laid a finger on o'or venerable psalmody, I wad pitch a louse at him, wha hae ever loved the man as my ain brether."

      During the last years of Sir Walter's life, he visited in the counties of Berwick, Roxburgh, and Selkirk, the various scenes which his graphic pen has delineated and incorporated in his minstrelsy and romance. The summer when the preceding notes were made, I happened to be in Kelso, and took ride one day to visit the worthy minister of a neighbouring parish, in which the celebrated border keep Smailholme tower is situated, the scene of the fearful legend embodied in the poem "The Eve of St. John."

      We rode over to it: it is situated on a crag or ridge of rock, high in the north range of hills, the Lammer-muir, which spring from the splendid vale of Teviot and Tweed, commanding an unbounded prospect on the east and west; the south is terminated by the Cheviots and the English border.

      We found the Tower in possession of a party, and the Rev. Mr. C– rode forward to report, in case we should be deemed intruders. He came back shortly, and it was no other than Sir Walter himself, with several members of his family, who had accompanied him to bid a final farewell to Smaillum keep. As I afterwards heard, he was in the highest spirits, and repeated the poem for the gratification of his party, in that impressive manner for which he was remarkable, in giving the necessary effect to his own compositions. The party brought a cold collation with them: before leaving, Sir Walter surveyed the beautiful prospect at his feet, the Tweed and Teviot meeting in sisterly loveliness, and joining their waters in the valley, with the golden fields of England in the distance; when filling a glass of wine he drank with fervour, in which all joined him, "baith sides of the Tweed."

      OLD ENGLISH ARMOUR

      Previous to the time of Edward I., the body-armour may be distinguished by the appellations of trelliced, ringed, rustred, mascled, scalad, tegulated, single-mailed, and banded. The trelliced method has not been properly ascertained: it probably consisted of leather thongs, crossed, and so disposed as to form large squares placed angularly, with a round knob or stud in the centre of each. The ringed consisted of flat rings of steel, placed contiguous to each other, on quilted linen. The rustred was nothing more than one row of flat rings, about double the size of those before used, laid half over the other, so that two in the upper partially covered one below. Mascled; the hauberk composed of several folds of linen, covered with diamond-shaped pieces of steel touching each other, and perforated: so called from their resemblance to the meshes of a net. Scaled; formed of small pieces of steel like the scales of fish, partially overlaying each other. This species was used only during the reigns of Henry II and Richard I. The tegulated consisted of little square plates, partly covering one another, like tiles.

      Single Mail was composed of rings set edgeways on quilted linen. It came into use about the close of John's reign, and continued to be partially worn till that of Edward I. At the commencement of Henry III.'s reign, it covered not only the head, but hands, legs, and feet. It was very heavy, and likewise the rings were liable to be cut off by the blow of a sword; which latter circumstance, perhaps, introduced the contrivance of banded