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fortresses between Cumberland and the Tweed-a centre of princely Border power and festivity in harmony with the lofty bearing of the baron who led to the field that strong array—

All knights of metal true,
Kinsmen to the bold Buccleuch.

Walter, a grandson of Sir David, was Warden of the West Marches, and celebrated in his day for valour and magnanimity during the minority of James V. To Sir Walter's period belongs the story of the "Lay," the Baron himself making a narrow escape when attempting to release the King from the custody of Angus. He afterwards distinguished himself at Pinkie, 1547; but five years later, as recorded in the poem, lost his life in the streets of Edinburgh when engaged in an encounter with Kerr of Cessford. A grandson, Sir Walter of Buccleuch, was also Warden of the West Marches, and otherwise celebrated in Border song as making at the head of his clan a successful sally on Carlisle Castle for the rescue of "Kinmont Willie," seized and confined by Lord Scrope on a certain day of truce in the spring of 1596. And he asks in anger

Have they taken him, Kinmont Willie,
Against the truce o' Border tide;
And forgotten that the bauld Buccleuch
Is keeper here on the Scottish side?

Kinmont "Willie's" residence became in modern times the Annandale seat of the Queensberry family. After the succession of James to the English throne, Buccleuch was very active in quieting the Borders, and, to accomplish this end, raised a regiment of resolute soldiers, whom he afterwards carried over to fight against the Spaniards in Holland. Having obtained considerable renown in the Netherlands as a commander under Prince Maurice, he was raised to the Peerage of Scotland, with the title of Lord Scott of Buccleuch. He married a daughter of the old foe of his house, Sir William Kerr of Cessford, sister of Robert, first Earl of Roxburghe, and died in 1611. An Earldom of Buccleuch,

with the secondary title of Eskdale, came into the family with Lord Walter (1619), whose son Francis acquired Dalkeith from the Morton family, 1642.

Of two daughters born to Earl Francis by his wife of the house of Rothes, the eldest, Mary, became Countess of Buccleuch in her own right; but, dying without any issue from her marriage with Scott of Harden, she was succeeded in the family honours and wide estates by that amiable Countess Anne, who, as the wife of the illegitimate but favourite son of Charles II.—

Had known adversity,

Though born in such a high degree;

In pride of place, in beauty's bloom,

Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb.

On his marriage in 1663, the Buccleuch dignity was elevated to a Dukedom, and the name of Scott assumed by Monmouth. After the execution of her husband for levying war against his half-brother, King James (1685), Duchess Anne resided for the most part at Dalkeith or in the stately tower of Newark on Yarrow, now a romantic ruin, but included within the beautiful grounds surrounding Bowhill, where, in April, 1884, Duke Walter breathed his last. It was at Newark, the reader may remember, the "Last Minstrel" sung his "Lay" to please the hospitable lady and her high-born dames. Wordsworth refers to the place as

That region left, the vale unfolds

Rich groves of lofty stature,

With Yarrow winding through the pomp

Of cultivated nature.

And, rising from these lofty groves,

Behold a ruin hoary

The shattered front of Newark's tower,

Renowned in Border story.

To the last, even after she had made a second alliance with Charles, third Lord Cornwallis, the Duchess kept up the style of a Princess of the blood, being served by pages on bended knee, and under a rich canopy, which none were permitted to approach without permission. To prevent the Scotch titles becoming

extinct at her death, the Duchess resigned them into the hands of the Crown, and obtained, 1687, a regrant to herself, and after her death to James, Earl of Dalkeith, her eldest son, and his heirs-male and taillie. The second son became Earl of Deloraine. The Duchess survived till 6th February, 1732, when she was a little over eighty years of age. The Earl of Dalkeith having predeceased his mother, 1705, the succession on her death opened up to his eldest son, Francis, born 1695. In 1743 he obtained by Act of Parliament a restoration of the Earldom of Doncaster and Barony of Scott of Tynedale, two of the English honours of his grandfather, the Duke of Monmouth. He married, first, 5th April, 1720, Lady Jane Douglas, eldest daughter of James, second Duke of Queensberry, by whom he had a son, Francis, Earl of Dalkeith, who predeceased his father, and, secondly, Miss Powell, but by that lady had no issue. On the approach of the Pretender to Edinburgh in 1745, Duke Francis sent his tenantry to assist in defending the City. He died 22nd April, 1751. His son, the Earl of Dalkeith, had married Caroline, eldest daughter and co-heiress of the famous John, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, by whom he had four sons and two daughters. His eldest son, Henry, succeeded his grandfather. One of the daughters, Frances, married to Archibald, Lord Douglas, was a posthumous child.

Henry, third Duke of Buccleuch, was born 13th September, 1746. In March, 1764, his Grace and his brother, the Hon. Campbell Scott, set out on their travels, accompanied by the learned Dr. Adam Smith. The brother was assassinated on the streets of Paris on the 18th October, 1766, in his nineteenth year. His remains were brought home by the Duke, and deposited in the family vault at Dalkeith. On the commencement of the war with France in 1778, Duke Francis raised a regiment of Fencibles chiefly among his own tenantry, and, by his attention to the wants of the service, secured the affection and esteem of all under his command. He married, in 1767, Elizabeth, daughter of the last Duke of Montague, by whom he had three sons and four daughters, viz., George, who died in infancy; Charles William Henry, Earl of Dalkeith;

Henry James Montague, who succeeded as Lord Montague in 1790, on the death of his grandfather, the Duke of Montague, but died in 1845, without male issue, when the title became extinct; Mary, married to James George, Earl of Courtown; Elizabeth, to the Earl of Home; Caroline, to the Marquis of Queensberry; and Harriet, to the sixth Marquis of Lothian. On the decease of William, fourth Duke of Queensberry, "Old Q," without issue, 23rd December, 1810, Duke Henry succeeded to the Dukedom and to considerable estates in Dumfriesshire. It was to the influence of this Duke of Buccleuch that Sir Walter Scott was indebted for his appointment in December, 1799, to the office of Sheriff-depute of Selkirkshire, and afterwards in 1806 to that of one of the principal clerks of the Court of Session. His Grace died 11th January, 1811.

His eldest son, Charles William Henry, fourth Duke of Buccleuch, and sixth of Queensberry, was born 24th May, 1772, and in 1807 was summoned to the House of Peers as Baron Tynedale. He married, 23rd March, 1795, Harriet Katherine Townshend, youngest daughter of Thomas, first Viscount Sydney. Her Grace died in 1814. There is a touching correspondence on this event between the Duke and Sir Walter Scott in Lockhart's life of the poet. The Duke was a constant friend and correspondent of Sir Walter, and at an early period of money difficulties gave his name as security for a loan of £4,000. He also bestowed on the Ettrick Shepherd the life-rent of the farm of Altrive, on the favourite braes of Yarrow. By his Duchess he had two sons, Walter Francis, Earl of Dalkeith, who succeeded him as fifth Duke of Buccleuch, and died April, 1884, as before mentioned, in his forest retreat at Bowhill, aged seventy-eight; Lord John Douglas Scott, an officer in the army, and six daughters. Earl Charles died at Lisbon, 20th April, 1819. The present Peer, William Henry Walter, better known as Earl of Dalkeith, is the sixth Duke.

ST. COLUMBA.

"ALTUS Prosator, Vetustus Dierum, et Ingenitus"-so opens that magnificent hymn which the unbroken tradition of thirteen centuries connects with the name of Columba, but of engrossing interest otherwise, in so far as it indicates modes of thought prevailing in the early Church at a time when creeds, as we now have them, were barely formulated. Athanasian only in so far as it expresses opinions known to have been valiantly defended by Athanasius, certain prominent doctrines embodied in the famous creed were expressed in language almost identical to the brethren of Iona by the Apostle of our Western Highlands. "Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti una est Divinitas æqualis gloria, co-æterna Majestas," declares the creed; so in like manner Columba-"Cui est Unigenitus Christus et Sanctus Spiritus co-æternus in gloriâ Deitatis perpetua." Subject or not subject to Rome, here is belief, expressed at least as early as the Council of Nice (A.D. 325), set out in language almost identical with what the Church put into form some centuries later-probably not far removed from Columba's own day. Welcome on its own account at any time, the student of our early poetry will find a new interest added to the hymn through the care and scholarship of its latest editor. Naturally inclined to such studies, and frequently engaged in them, it occurred to the present Marquis of Bute that there were many persons who would hail with pleasure a new handy edition of the "Altus" of St. Columba, as well from veneration for the memory of the author as from appreciation of the intrinsic merits of the work, and of its interest as a specimen of ancient Celtic Latin poetry. The text has been taken from the edition, unhappily uncompleted, of the "Liber Hymnorum," prepared for the Irish Archæological and Celtic Society by the late Dr. Todd, author of the well-known "Memoir and Mission of St. Patrick." To the words of the poem the noble Marquis has added a most useful kind of double commentary. First, a paraphrastic translation into

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