kept alive

kept alive

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the habits of activity, enterprize, and daring valor, which held men's minds in a state of perpetual excitement. The same causes which rendered the borders the theatre of war, rendered it also a land of song ; for true and native poetry is the result, not of monastic and studious seclusion, but of those eventful circumstances which fire the imagination, and melt the heart. Another effect of this constant state of warfare upon the borders, was the construction of towerfe of defence,' which, if they could not aspire to the rank of fortresses, might at least afford protection against sudden inroad; and, if they could not repel an invader, might retard his progress. The?e could not indeed rival the pomp and magnificence of those mansions, which, in the interior of Scotland, and the less troubled districts of England, were erected by the great nobles, for the display of baronial grandeur. A square tower, built on a height, with walls of immense thickness, and a few narrow loopholes for the admission of light, and the discharge of missile weapons, formed usually the whole array of a border castle. Some, however, belonging to the border nobility, was built on a scale of greater magnificence; they are placed, generally, in a picturesque situation, and all of them recall events of history and tradition which must be interesting to a large portion of the present generation. The stiiking aspect, indeed, presented by a country which, after having long been the WAVERlJEY ANECDOTES. theatre of national hostility, has remained some time in a state of peace, affords a contrast as inviting as it is romantic and luxuriant. Numerous castles left to moulder in massive ruins; fields where the memory of ancient battles still live among the descendants of those by whom they were fought or witnessed ; the very line of demarkation, which, separating the two countries, though no longer hostile, induces the inhabitants of each to cherish their separate traditions, unite to render these regions interesting to the topographical historian or antiquary. The most remarkable border antiquities of the Britons, are the extensive entrenchments, known by the name of the Catrail, and the remains of an irregular hillfort, situated on the grounds of Mr. Pringle, of Fairnlee. The Roman antiquities here met with, besides their great roads, and the remains of the wall of Antoninus, consist chiefly of arms and sepulchral monuments. At length the Saxons, partly as conquerors, and partly as refugees.