Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Volume 2 - Consisting of Historical and Romantic Ballads, Collected in The - Southern Counties of Scotland; with a Few of Modern Date, Founded - Upon Local Tradition by Sir Walter Scott
page 69 of 342 (20%)
page 69 of 342 (20%)
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Dalkeith house. The whole appearance of the ground, even including a few
old houses, is the same which the scene now presents: The removal of the porch, or gateway, upon the bridge, is the only perceptible difference. The duke of Monmouth, on a white charger, directs the march of the party engaged in storming the bridge, while his artillery gall the motley ranks of the Covenanters. An engraving of this painting would be acceptable to the curious; and I am satisfied an opportunity of copying it, for that purpose, would be readily granted by either of the noble proprietors.] [Footnote B: Dalziel was a man of savage manners. A prisoner having railed at him, while under examination before the privy council, calling him "a Muscovia beast, who used to roast men, the general, in a passion, struck him, with the pomel of his shabble, on the face, till the blood sprung."--FOUNTAINHALL, Vol. I. p. 159. He had sworn never to shave his beard after the death of Charles the First. This venerable appendage reached his girdle, and, as he wore always an old-fashioned buff coat, his appearance in London never failed to attract the notice of the children and of the mob. King Charles II. used to swear at him, for bringing such a rabble of boys together, to be squeezed to death, while they gaped at his long beard and antique habit, and exhorted him to shave and dress like a Christian, to keep the poor _bairns_, as Dalziel expressed it, out of danger. In compliance with this request, he once appeared at court fashionably dressed, excepting the beard; but, when the king had laughed sufficiently at the metamorphosis, he resumed his old dress, to the great joy of the boys, his usual attendants.--CREICHTON'S _Memoirs_, p. 102.] The same deplorable circumstances are more elegantly bewailed in _Clyde_, a poem, reprinted in _Scotish Descriptive Poems_, edited by Dr |
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