ittle to diminish their military hardihood, or to reconcile them to
a more civilized state of society. We have no occasion to trace the
state of the borders during the long and obscure period of Scottish
history, which preceded the accession of the Stuart family. To
illustrate a few ballads, the earliest of which is hardly coeval with
James V. such an enquiry would be equally difficult and vain. If we
may trust the Welch bards, in their account of the wars betwixt the
Saxons and Danes of Deira and the Cumraig, imagination can hardly
form [Sidenote: 570] any idea of conflicts more desperate, than were
maintained, on the borders, between the ancient British and their
Teutonic invaders. Thus, the Gododin describes the waste and
devastation of mutual havoc, in colours so glowing, as strongly to
recall the words of Tacitus; "_Et ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem
appellant_[1]."

[Footnote 1: In the spirited translation of this poem, by Jones, the
following verses are highly descriptive of the exhausted state of the
victor army.

At Madoc's tent the clarion sounds,
With rapid clangour hurried far:
Each echoing dell the note resounds--
But when return the sons of war!
Thou, born of stern necessity,
Dull peace! the desert yields to thee,
And owns thy melancholy sway.

At a later period, the Saxon families, who fled from the exterminating
sword of the Conqueror, with many of the Normans themselves, whom
discontent and intestine feuds had driven into exile, began to rise
into eminence upon the Scottish borders. They brought with them
arts, both of peace and of war, unknown in Scotland; and, among their
descendants, we soon number the most powerful border chiefs. Such,
during the reign of the [Sidenote: 1249] last Alexander, were Patrick,
earl of March, and Lord Soulis, renowned in tradition; and such were,
also, the powerful Comyns, who early acquired the principal sway upon
the Scottish marches. [Sidenote: 1300] In the civil wars betwixt Bruce
and Baliol, all those powerful chieftains espoused the unsuccessful
party. They were forfeited and exiled; and upon their ruins was
founded the formidable house of Douglas. The borders, from sea to
sea, were now at the devotion of a succession of mighty chiefs, whose
exorbitant power threatened to place a new dynasty upon the Scottish
throne. It is not my intention to trace the dazzling career of this
race of heroes, whose exploits were alike formidable to the English,
an