[3] “The Hell wicked-witted, bloodthirsty Graham of Claverhouse hated to spend his time with wine and women.”—­“Life of Walter Smith,” in Walker’s “Biographia Presbyteriana.”

[4]

    “I saw the man who at St. Neff did see
    His conduct, prowess, martial gallantry: 
    He wore a white plumach that day; not one
    Of Belgians wore a white, but him alone
    And though that day was fatal, yet he fought,
    And for his part fair triumphs with him brought.”

Laing’s “Fugitive Scottish Poetry of the Seventeenth Century.”

[5] The passage occurs in the fifth book.  Dundee, retreating before the forces of the Convention, is represented as musing over his camp-fire on the ingratitude of the Prince whose life he had once saved.

    “Tu vero, Arctoae gentis praedo improbe, tanti
    Fons et origo mali, Nassovi, ingrate virorum,
    Immeritum quid me, nunc Caesaris arma secutum,
    Prosequeris toties, et iniquo Marte fatiges? 
    Nonne ego, cum lasso per Belgia stagna caballo
    Agmina liligeri fugeres victricia Galli,
    Ipse mei impositum dorso salientis equi te
    Hostibus eripui, salvumque in castra reduxi? 
    Haecne mihi meriti persolvis praemia tanti? 
    Proh scelus!  O Soceri rapti nequissime sceptri!”

The translation, which is certainly, as Napier calls it, both imperfect and free, is to this effect: 

    “When the fierce Gaul through Belgian stanks you fled,
    Fainting, alone, and destitute of aid,
    While the proud victor urged your doubtful fate,
    And your tired courser sunk beneath your weight;
    Did I not mount you on my vigorous steed,
    And save your person by his fatal speed? 
    For life and freedom then by me restored
    I’m thus rewarded by my Belgick Lord. 
    Ungrateful Prince!”

[6] The stories of Claverhouse’s conduct at Seneff, and of the quarrel at Loo, are told in the “Life of Lieut.-General Hugh Mackay,” by John Mackay of Rockfields, and in the “Memoirs of the Lord Viscount Dundee,” published in 1714, and professing to be written by an officer of the army.  This little book is remarkable chiefly as being the first recorded attempt at a biography of Dundee.  The writer was possibly not an officer, nor personally acquainted with Dundee.  But he had certainly contrived to learn a good deal about him and his affairs; and as later research has either corroborated or, at least, made probable, much of his information, it seems to me quite as fair to use it for Dundee, as to use the unsupported testimony of the Covenanters against him.  According to his biographer, Mackay himself was Claverhouse’s successful rival.  According to the earlier writer, the man was David Colyear, afterwards Lord Portmore, and husband of Catherine Sedley, Lady Dorchester, James’s favourite and ugliest mistress.

CHAPTER II.