donation of seed-corn. The ancient Scottish gaberlunzie, too, was often repaid by his night's quarters for his contributions in legendary lore. By means of these professed ballad-reciters, much traditional poetry was preserved which must otherwise have perished. Many interesting ballads and tales have also been recovered from the recitations of shepherds and aged persons residing in the recesses of the Border mountains. From these various sources, nearly two hundred different ballads have been collected, several of which are believed to be compositions of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries; as there is every reason to suppose that these ballads were, in almost every case, composed immediately after the occurrence of the incidents which they commemorate. The great modern collector of these fine old rhymes, as must be generally known, was Sir Walter Scott, who on divers occasions rode over the more interesting Border tracts, alighting at the cottages of the peasantry, and there and elsewhere noting down all that could be collected of these precious relics. The labours of Sir Walter in this respect were finally laid before the public in his celebrated Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, a work in three volumes, issued in the year 1803, and therefore one of his earliest productions. In this popular collection, enlivened with many traditionary anecdotes, the ancient ballads are divided into two classeshistorical and romantic. The first class, again, has been subdivided into two series-those which refer to public historical events, and those which commemorate real circumstances in private life. To the former of these belong the metrical narratives of the Battle of Otterburn, Johnnie Armstrong, the Raid of the Reidswire, and Kinmont Willie, &c.: to the latter, the Douglas Tragedy, and the Dowie Dens of Yarrow. It would be unreasonable to expect that compositions originating in such a state of society as we have described should exhibit either refined sentiment or elegant expression. But they abound in natural pathos and rude energy, and present a picture of the manners and feelings of the times which renders them highly valuable. The romantic ballads are different in almost every respect from the first two classes, and may be regarded as an embodiment of the popular superstitions of the time-a record of the fancied exploits of fairies, ghaists, brownies, and bogles— 'Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen, Their stories are in general only such simple and familiar incidents as take place in a rude state of society; and, what is more, they are almost all common to every nation in the world. Along with the ancient ballads in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Sir Walter has presented some modern ones, the composition generally of living authors at the time, written in imitation of those handed down by tradition. Among these we might instance the Mermaid, by Leyden, and the Murder of Caerlaveroc, by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. PRESENT STATE OF THE BORDERS. The union of the crowns of England and Scotland in 1606, as has been stated, greatly changed the character of the Borders; and the union of the kingdoms in 1707, with the establishment of the modern sheriffdoms, reduced the entire district to law and order. Latterly, with the progress of improvement, barren wastes, once the resort of freebooters, have become fruitful fields: towns and hamlets, mansions, farm-steadings, and cottages, now enliven those scenes which for ages had been marked by works of hostility; and in those defiles where the rude reivers found a refuge, rich and almost countless flocks have long wandered in perfect security; while the ruined towers of the Border chiefs, scattered throughout the district, present a striking memorial of times and manners that have long gone by. The eastern marches, where the Douglases and the Homes once ruled and fought, are now universally allowed to form the most fertile and best cultivated part of Scotland—the place where nature has been kindest, and the husbandman most inclined to cultivate her good graces. To the eye of a traveller, it seems rather a portion of rich and lovely England, than of this 'land of mountain and of flood.' It is tinged, as it were, with the geniality of the country to which it adjoins. It possesses the glorious hedgerows of England in the fullest perfection, with the lines of trees between, making each field resemble a splendid picture, deeply and doubly framed. Here also are to be seen houses built with less regard to the harsh climate of Scotland than those farther north. The honeysuckle and eglantine luxuriate around slim cottages and villas, whose large bow-windows, presented towards 'the sweet south,' give assurance that there is here a greater sum-total of summer delights than of winter discomfort. This highly favoured district is purely agricultural and pastoral, and is occupied by a population distinguished for their intelligence, industry, and piety. The Tweed, the most lovely of Scottish rivers, with its far-famed tributaries, contributes to its beauty and fertility. On the banks of this classic stream stand the impressive ruins of the abbeys of Melrose, Dryburgh, and Kelso, where the ashes of kings and barons, the flower of Border chivalry, have long mingled with those of their peaceful contemporaries-abbots and monks. The whole region abounds in legends, and superstitions, and spiritstirring tales, and has been from time immemorial the subject and the birthplace of Scottish song. The vale of the Teviot, which includes the greater part of the county of Roxburgh-the ancient middle marches of the Borderis scarcely less beautiful and fertile, and has been celebrated by Scottish lyrists in strains no less encomiastic. It is the country of Thomson, Leyden, and Scott; and is the scene of tales, songs, and traditions innumerable. The lower part of the vale is purely agricultural; and as Leyden has justly remarked, in the vicinity of Kelso, where the Teviot joins the Tweed, its scenery rivals the beauty of an Italian landscape. The upper part of the district 'Where Cheviot's ridges swell to meet the sky' partakes more of a pastoral character; but all is green and cheerful to the tops of the highest hills, and though still wild and solitary, is pleasingly rural. The whole of this region, once the centre of Border raids-the land of the Rutherfords, Elliots, Turnbulls, and other turbulent clans-is now a scene of beauty and fertility scarcely equalled in any part of the country. 'Dark and dismantled lies each ancient peel. * * * * Their native turbulence resigned, the swains Feed their gay flocks along these heaths and plains.' Even in Liddesdale-where, as might have been expected, the primitive manners of the Borders lingered long after they had become extinct in other parts of the country-all has been changed; and in the whole island you do not look upon a greener, softer, more cultivated, or more accessible region. NE of the most striking facts presented to us by history is the recurrence, at irregular intervals of time, of virulent diseases of an extraordinary character, which, breaking out unexpectedly in particular localities, have spread sometimes over certain defined districts, sometimes over entire countries, sometimes over all the civilised world, and sometimes even, it would appear, over the whole surface of our planet, everywhere defying the power and skill of man, and sweeping off myriads to their graves. To these awful visitations men have given the name, at once vague and appropriate, of the Pestilence or the Plague; reserving the name, however, especially for those cases in which human beings are the victims, and distinguishing similar recorded instances of unusual mortality among the lower animals by the name of the Murrain. Of a general or universal plague, the best known instance in modern times is the famous pestilence, or 'Black Death,' as it was called, of 1348-9, which, taking its rise in Asia, spread westward into Europe, and raged fearfully for many months. The best account we have of this pestilence is that given by the celebrated Italian writer Boccaccio, in the introduction to his Decameron, where there is a vivid description of its ravages in the city of Florence. Of all the other narratives of a pestilence extant, the two most celebrated are that of the plague at Athens, in the year 430 before Christ, by Thucydides, and that of the Great Plague of London, in 1664-5, by Daniel Defoe. No other narrative of the same description can be No. 38. I compared for truthfulness and accuracy with these two accounts, which, though written at an interval of two thousand years, the one by an ancient Greek, the other by an Englishman of the reign of Queen Anne, yet resemble each other in many points. There is this difference, however, between them, that while Thucydides was an actual eye and ear witness of what he describes, and was himself ill of the plague, Defoe wrote his account upwards of fifty years after the calamity to which it refers, and could have been but a mere infant in the arms when the plague was raging. Still, there is abundant evidence that Defoe took pains to make his account an authentic one, by collecting such anecdotes and minute particulars as could be obtained from acquaintances who had survived the plague, as well as by consulting all the public and parish records and printed pamphlets by medical men and others relative to the plague-year. His account, accordingly, may with perfect confidence be taken as, what it pretends to be, that of an eye-witness, who describes from personal recollection. In the following tract, therefore, we will present our readers with an abridgment of Defoe's Journal of the Plague-year in London; retaining the whole substance of that inimitable account, and interweaving, as we proceed, such additional particulars as we can obtain from other sources. BREAKING OUT OF THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. During the early part of the seventeenth century, London had been repeatedly, if not almost yearly, visited by the plague: the generally confined thoroughfares, and the absence of any proper sanitary regulations, affording it on all occasions more or less scope. These visitations, common as they were, usually created some degree of alarm; and therefore, when it was announced, in the month of September 1664, that plague had made its appearance in the metropolis, a certain excitement in the public mind was created. Little, however, appears to have been done to avert the contagion, and it may be said to have existed till the ensuing spring without any decided means being taken for its suppression. At length, in March 1665, things became more alarming; it was ascertained that in St Giles and the neighbouring parishes several persons had died of plague. In May the weather became warm, so as to aggravate the complaint; and 'in June,' proceeds Defoe, 'the infection spread in a dreadful manner. I lived without Aldgate, about midway' between Aldgate Church and Whitechapel Bars, on the left-hand or north side of the street; and as the distemper had not reached to that side of the city, our neighbourhood continued very easy. But at the other end of the town their consternation was very great; and the richer sort of people, especially the nobility and gentry, from the west part of the city, thronged out of town, with their families and servants, in an unusual manner; and this was |