Highlands, sometimes in the deep coal-mines of Northumberland and
Cumberland, which rim so far beneath the ocean. It is also to be found in
Reginald Scott's book on Witchcraft, which was written in the sixteenth
century. It would be in vain to ask what was the original of the
tradition. The choice between the horn and sword may, perhaps, include as
a moral that it is foolhardy to awaken danger before we have arms in our
hands to resist it.

Although admitting of much poetical ornament, it is clear that this
legend would have formed but an unhappy foundation for a prose story, and
must have degenerated into a mere fairy tale. Dr. John Leyden has
beautifully introduced the tradition in his "Scenes of Infancy":--

"Mysterious Rhymer, doomed by fate's decree
Still to revisit Eildon's fated tree,
Where oft the swain, at dawn of Hallow-day,
Hears thy fleet barb with wild impatience neigh,--
Say, who is he, with summons long and high,
Shall bid the charmed sleep of ages fly,
Roll the long sound through Eildon's caverns vast,
While each dark warrior kindles at the blast,
The horn, the falchion, grasp with mighty hand,
And peal proud Arthur's march from Fairy-land?"

In the same cabinet with the preceding fragment, the following occurred
among other 'disjecta membra'. It seems to be an attempt at a tale of a
different description from the last, but was almost instantly abandoned.
The introduction points out the time of the composition to have been
about the end of the eighteenth century.

THE LORD OF ENNERDALE.

IN A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER FROM JOHN B______, ESQ., OF THAT ILK, TO
WILLIAM G______, F.R.S.E.

"Fill a bumper," said the knight; "the ladies may spare us a little
longer. Fill a bumper to the Archduke Charles."

The company did due honour to the toast of their landlord.

"The success of the archduke," said the muddy vicar, "will tend to
further our negotiation at Paris; and if--"

"Pardon the interruption, Doctor," quoth a thin, emaciated figure, with
somewhat of a foreign accent; "but why should you connect those events,
unless to hope that the bravery and victories of our allies may supersede
the necessity of a degrading treaty?"

"We begin to feel, Monsieur L'Abbe," answered the vicar, with some
asperity, "that a Continental war entered into for the defence of an ally
who was unwilling to defend hims