r wes not, in all Liddesdail,
That ky mair craftelly could steil,
Whar thou hingis on that pin!

_Ib_. p. 194.

Sir Richard Maitland, incensed at the boldness and impunity of
the thieves of Liddesdale in his time, has attacked them with keen
iambicks. His satire, which, I suppose, had very little effect at the
time, forms No. III, of the appendix to this introduction.

The borderers had, in fact, little reason to regard the inland Scots
as their fellow subjects, or to respect the power of the crown.
They were frequently resigned, by express compact, to the bloody
retaliation of the English, without experiencing any assistance from
their prince, and his more immediate subjects. If they beheld him, it
was more frequently in the character of an avenging judge, than of a
protecting sovereign. They were, in truth, during the time of peace,
a kind of outcasts, against whom the united powers of England and
Scotland were often employed. Hence, the men of the borders had little
attachment to the monarchs, whom they termed, in derision, the kings
of Fife and Lothian; provinces which they were not legally entitled
to inhabit[34], and which, therefore, they pillaged with as little
remorse as if they had belonged to a foreign country. This strange,
precarious, and adventurous mode of life, led by the borderers, was
not without its pleasures, and seems, in all probability, hardly so
disagreeable to us, as the monotony of regulated society must have
been to those, who had been long accustomed to a state of rapine. Well
has it been remarked, by the eloquent Burke, that the shifting tides
of fear and hope, the flight and pursuit, the peril and escape,
alternate famine and feast, of the savage and the robber, after a time
render all course of slow, steady, progressive, unvaried occupation
and the prospect only of a limited mediocrity at the end of long
labour, to the last degree tame, languid, and insipid. The interesting
nature of their exploits may be conceived from the account of Camden.

[Footnote 34: By act 1587, c. 96, borderers are expelled from the
inland counties, unless they can find security for their quiet
deportment.]

"What manner of cattle stealers they are, that inhabit these valleys
in the marches of both kingdoms, John Lesley, a Scotchman himself, and
bishop of Ross, will inform you. They sally out of their own borders,
in the night, in troops, through unfrequented bye-ways, and many
intricate windings. All t