But hark! Jehovah speaks, ye angels hear,
The voice of God was like the thunder's roll;
To earth's degraded sin-bound soil draw near,
And range from Greenland to the southern pole;
Mankind shall bow with reverential fear,

And every nation yield to thy control;
And, as a pledge that this shall be the case,
This kingly jewel on thy brow we place.'
He spoke from him who occupied the throne,
A glorious crown the angelic youth receives,
(Victors and kings might envy such a crown),
Of gold entwined with amaranthine leaves :
And Mercy's herald to the earth flies down,
And soon the portals of elysium leaves;
The heavenly horseman and his courser fly,
On viewless pinions, through the liquid sky.
Through earth he takes his wide extended range,
And Sin and Satan flee where'er they go;
See what a glorious, what a heavenly change,
When mercy's waters, like a river, flow;
Mortals may see, and think it wondrous strange,
But none the gospel-mystery can know,
For, unconverted, every human mind
Is carnal, foolish, ignorant, and blind.
Ride on, victorious chief, extend thy power,
Peace and salvation to our spirits bring;
And let thy bow pour forth an arrowy shower
To rob hell's monarch of his fatal sting,
Nor cease, my God, till that all-glorious hour
When all the world thy righteousness shall sing :
When every enemy, immortal Lord,

Shall be destroyed by retribution's sword.

Halifax.

GULLELMUS.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A VISIT TO HERMITAGE

CASTLE.§

Here naked stand the melancholy walls,
Lash'd by the wintry tempest cold and bleak,
That whistle mournful through the empty porch,
And piece-meal crumble down the towers to dust.

SOME years ago, induced by the solicitations of a friend, I visited the ruins of this once-celebrated stronghold of the feudal times. It was at that season of the year when the trees, casting their summer livery, were fast assuming the desolate and cheerless hue of winter. Perhaps it might be partly owing to this circumstance that the surrounding scenery appeared wild and uncultivated in the extreme. The castle is situated upon the banks of a small stream called the Hermitage water, and from this, probably, the castle derives its name. It seems to have consisted, in former times, of four square towers, connected by a curtain; but a part of the walls is broken down. The main entrance of the castle, consisting of a wide and lofty Gothic archway, which appears to have been defended by a portcullis, is still entire ; but the interior area of the building is filled up with rubbish, surmounted by a luxuriant crop of nettles, and other weeds, which give an air of utter desolation to the surrounding scene.

Deserted Hermitage! oft with dread

I've traced thy ruins mouldering o'er the dead,
While, as the fragments fall, wild fancy hears
The solemn steps of old departed years.

Desolate and lonely as this ruin now is, the solitude being only occasionally disturbed by the cries of the wild birds which have here taken up their abode, the associations connected with it are interesting in the extreme. It occupies a distinguished place in the history of the border wars, and wild and fearful are the tales of horror which tradition has recorded against it.

? Situated on the borders of Roxburghshire, on the confines of Liddesdale, and distant a few miles from Castleton. This dale is watered by the rivers Hermitage and Liddal, which form a junction at Castleton church.

To give a particular detail of the cruel and sanguinary scenes that were here transacted at various periods, would require a volume of itself, but a brief account concerning some of them, may, perhaps, be interesting to my readers.

The castle is supposed to have been built in the thirteenth century for the purpose of repelling the frequent inroads and assaults of the English, whose successful forays rendered a place of strength necessary for the protection of the neighbouring country. On viewing the shattered remains of this venerable fortress, the traveller will behold, with serious awe, the fluctuating and transitory state of all human things. The lofty turrets, and battlements, where the eagle-eyed sentinel watched the motions of the approaching foe; and the high vaulted domes, that echoed back the melting sounds of the minstrel's sweet notes, are now laid in one promiscuous heap of ruins. The fierce and arbitrary mandate of the tyrant Soulis, calling forth his quaking slaves to resume the oppressive toils and burthens of the day; the prancing of horses, and the rattling of armour, when the fierce Douglas marched his chosen warriors forth to encounter the foe; the piercing groans of the wounded and dying,-the pitiful plaint of the brave hero, Ramsay, perishing for hunger, in a dark dungeon, is heard no more,-nor is the ill-fated Queen Mary, weeping over the couch of her favourite, Bothwell, to be seen in this much-famed fortress. All is now hushed into stillness and tranquillity. The ear is only regaled with the early notes of sweet songsters, and the constant murmurs of the crystal stream, pouring its limpid waters from the eddying pool over the shelving rocks, as if still lamenting the fate of the brave Keeldar Mangerton, and the other heroes that suffered here.

'Can such things be,

And overcome us, like a summer's cloud,

Without our special wonder?'

It is recorded that after Queen Mary returned from Stirling to Edinburgh, proposing to hold assizes in Liddesdale, she sent forward Bothwell to make the

necessary preparations for her arrival. After arriving at Jedburgh, having learnt that Bothwell had been severely wounded on visiting his castle of Hermitage, she (after transacting her public business at that place) performed her memorable journey to this castle, by which she ran a great risk of her life, owing to the swamping of her horse in a bog: this, taken altogether, was one of the most hazardous and impracticable journeys ever achieved, taking the unsettled state of the country into consideration, and when we consider that it was performed by a delicate female, and one who had only recently risen from child-bed. Tradition says, that she was accompanied on her expedition with a guard of twelve men, which certainly appears to have been a very inefficient escort for a queen, in what might have been considered an enemy's country. It does not appear, however, that she remained many hours at the castle, and, it is said, returned to Jedburgh the same evening. There are few places which the finger of history points out as having been visited by this unfortunate queen, to which there is not a degree of interest attached. The place itself, perhaps, in any other circumstances, might be as uninteresting as possible, but Hermitage castle is an exception to this; the many brave and distinguished warriors who met with an ignoble fate within its sanguinary precincts, are more numerous than even the page of history has thought fit to record. Among the most cruel transactions of this kind, recorded to have taken place, is the fate of the brave Sir Alexander Ramsay, at that period sheriff of Teviotdale. The lord of the castle, William Douglas, though distinguished by the proud title of the Flower of Chivalry,' from some imagined offence, probably proceeding from envy, caused this brave knight (who had been his companion in arms) to

? In Carlisle castle the apartments are still shown where this unfortunate queen was confined. During her imprisonment the royal captive used a walk in front of the castle. which yet retains the name of the Lady's Walk.' Near the castle gate, a few years ago, were growing two stately ash trees, of uncommon size, said, by tradition, to have been planted by the fair hands of the princess.

be thrown, along with his horse's furniture, into a dungeon, beneath the castle, there to perish by the most fearful of all deaths-that of hunger. The wretched captive is said to have prolonged his miseries by subsisting on some grains of corn, which had fallen from a granary above the place of his confinement, and, in proof of this circumstance, a mason, having broken down a part of the wall, some years ago, for the sake of the stones, descended into the vault beneath, and found a quantity of chaff, some bones, a sword, and the bit of a bridle. The peasantry still affirm, that those who approach the ruins at night, can distinguish, in the pauses of the wind, the cries and groans of the murdered knight. As our great bard truly says,-in this place,

Ere the bat hath flown

His cloister'd flight; ere to black Hecate's summons
The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hum,
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done

A deed of dreadful note.'

In the reign of Edward the First this fortress was in the hands of Lord Soulis, one of the most blood-thirsty and savage monsters which the history of those times has recorded. A Northumbrian warrior, called the Cout of Keeldar, or Keeldar Mangerton, on account of his enormous size and strength, coming to defy Lord Soulis at this, his place of power, suffered deeply for his injudicious bravery. Being attacked by some of Soulis's retainers he was obliged to retire; they, however, could make no impression on his coat of mail, till getting him into a deep pool of the river, near the castle, they succeeded in despatching him by holding him beneath the water with their spears. In the ancient cemetery, at a short distance from the spot where this tragic deed was consummated, is to be seen what is called the Cout's grave,' which consists of a long narrow stone, on a mound considerably larger than the surrounding grave. The pool is called the Cout's pule' to this day. The fate which tradition assigns to Soulis is singular: it is said that, having given offence to his liege sovereign, Edward, (he being one of those