Claverhouse’s sword (a strait cut-and-thrust blade) is in the possession of Lord Woodhouselee.  In Pennycuik-house is preserved the buff-coat, which he wore at the battle of Killicrankie.  The fatal shot-hole is under the arm-pit, so that the ball must have been received while his arm was raised to direct the pursuit However he came by his charm of proof, he certainly had not worn the garment usually supposed to confer that privelage, and which is called the waistcoat of proof, or of necessity.  It was thus made:  “On Christmas daie, at night, a thread must be sponne of flax, by a little virgine girle, in the name of the divell:  and it must be by her woven, and also wrought with the needle.  In the breast, or forepart thereof, must be made with needle work, two heads; on the head, at the right side, must be a hat and a long beard; the left head must have on a crown, and it must be so horrible that it maie resemble Belzebub; and on each side of the wastcote must be made a crosse.”—­SCOTT’S Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 231.

It would be now no difficult matter to bring down our popular poetry, connected with history, to the year 1745.  But almost all the party ballads of that period have been already printed, and ably illustrated by Mr Ritson.

END OF HISTORICAL BALLADS.

MINSTRELSY OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER.

PART SECOND.

ROMANTIC BALLADS.

SCOTTISH MUSIC, AN ODE,

BY J. LEYDEN.

TO IANTHE.

  Again, sweet syren, breathe again
  That deep, pathetic, powerful strain;
    Whose melting tones, of tender woe,
  Fall soft as evening’s summer dew,
  That bathes the pinks and harebells blue,
    Which in the vales of Tiviot blow.

  Such was the song that soothed to rest. 
  Far in the green isle of the west,
    The Celtic warrior’s parted shade;
  Such are the lonely sounds that sweep
  O’er the blue bosom of the deep,
    Where ship-wrecked mariners are laid.

  Ah! sure, as Hindu legends tell,
  When music’s tones the bosom swell,
    The scenes of former life return;
  Ere, sunk beneath the morning star,
  We left our parent climes afar,
    Immured in mortal forms to mourn.

  Or if, as ancient sages ween,
  Departed spirits, half-unseen,
    Can mingle with the mortal throng;
  ’Tis when from heart to heart we roll
  The deep-toned music of the soul,
    That warbles in our Scottish song.

  I hear, I hear, with awful dread,
  The plaintive music of the dead;
    They leave the amber fields of day: 
  Soft as the cadence of the wave,
  That murmurs round the mermaid’s grave,
    They mingle in the magic lay.