for, once ensconced in these quaggy retreats, the fugitives were seldom captured, unless in instances where the pursuers followed the offender "in hot-trod," by means of bloodhounds trained for the office.1

It cannot be doubted, that the ruthless devastations committed by the Borderers in their forays, together with the uncertainty which side a Border chief (in time of war between the two kingdoms) might find it his interest to espouse, rendered both English and Scottish monarchs ambitious of destroying the power of these predatory leaders, and reducing their vassals to the level of peaceable subjects of the realm. Nevertheless, it was not until the accession of James to the throne of England, that the olive bough of peace began to wave over the distracted border-land. He, "in pursuance of his favourite purpose of extinguishing all memory of past hostilities between his kingdoms, and, if possible, of places that had been the principal scenes of those hostilities, prohibited the name of Borders any longer to be used, substituting in its stead, that of Middle Marches. He also ordered all places of strength in these parts to be demolished, (except the habitations of nobles and barons,) and broke the garrisons of Berwick and Carlisle." Thus, though long fostered prejudices, and envious re

1 Hot-trod was the pursuit of offenders, with hounds and horn, with hue and cry; a thief might be pursued into the opposite realm within six days, and all who attempted to shelter or rescue him while the chase lasted, were equally liable to punishment with himself. Slough-dogs (as bloodhounds were termed in these districts) were in use for this savage purpose, (reminding us too painfully of scenes still familiar to the dwellers in slaveholding vicinities and communities :) so lately as the reign of James I. from a warrant then issued, it appears that nine such animals were ordered to be provided and kept at the charge of the different inhabitants of the border-districts.-Vide Hutchinson's History of Cumberland.

sentments still continued to smoulder in hearts which from time immemorial, had yielded to no will, save that of their feudal superior, and had acknowledged no legislation save a code of Border laws, the days when helpless women and children were by the failure of a sword blade, exposed to the horrors of being suddenly consigned to abject captivity; and when crops, flocks, and herds, were perpetually in danger of becoming the wholesale prey of a marauding band, for ever passed away.

The Borders enjoyed a quiet order which they had never before known as the generation brought up in rapine and misrule died away, their descendants became more civilized; and at the close of another hundred years, when the union between England and Scotland was completed by Act of Parliament in the reign of Queen Anne, the Borderers had become so far amalgamated with the rest of the community, that the country, from having been shunned as the litigated boundary between contending nations, began to be regarded as the centre of Great Britain. And now, the only existing remnant of "Debateable Land," is the spot, neither in England nor in Scotland, whereon stands "the Queen's good town of Berwick-upon-Tweed."

The noon-day sun was shining with unclouded splendour, when, with the glories of a long summer afternoon. before us, we departed from Penrith, leisurely to wend our way along the cool margin of Ulles water to sweet secluded Patterdale. There are two roads from Penrith to Ulleswater; that on the north side of the Eamont follows the Cumberland route, and leads the traveller past Dalemain (Dominium in Valle,) anciently a possession of the De Morvilles, and afterwards of the Laytons, from whom, on the demise of the last male heir in the 1 History of the Borders.

reign of Charles II., it was purchased by Sir Edward Hasell, ancestor of the present proprietor. We, however, pursued the Westmoreland route, south of the Eamont, for the third and last time recrossing Eamont Bridge, taking a last look at the Round Table, and a bird's-eye glance at "Mayborough's mound and stones of power,

By Druids raised in magic hour."-Sir W. Scott.

The sight grows dizzy when gazing back, through the dim vista of ages, in search of the period when these stones were first grouped in a mystic ring by the Druids of ancient Britain. Are these indeed the relics of some vast temple reared by that potent patriarchal priesthood in honour of the Unknown Being1 Whom they "ignorantly worshipped." Or, does Mayborough owe its birth to the magic proficiency of a later period in remote antiquity, when man's unslaked aspirations after a more

How long the several nations, descended from Gomer the son of Japhet, continued to worship only the One Living and True God, it is impossible for us to discover. It is probable that the fatal innovation of adoration of a plurality of gods was promoted by the three following causes :-1st. The names and attributes of the True GOD were mistaken for, and adored as so many different divinities. 2nd. The most illustrious objects in nature (such as the sun, moon, and stars,) at first viewed with great veneration as the most glorious works and lively emblems of the Deity, by degrees came to be adored as gods. 3rd. Great and mighty princes who had been objects of universal admiration during their lives, became objects of adoration after their deaths. The Supreme Being was worshipped by the Gauls and Britons under the name of Hesus, a word expressive of His attribute of Omnipotence, as Hizzuz is in the Hebrew. (Psalm xxiv. 8.) But when the worship of a plurality of gods was introduced, Hesus came to be adored only as a particular divinity presiding over war and armies, and who was the same with Mars. Teutates (a compound of two British words, Deu-Tatt, which signify GOD the Parent or Creator,) was another name or attribute of the Supreme Being, sub

heroic state of being, led him to deify in his fellows the fragments of the shattered image of his Maker? Can it be, that the hoary British elders were arrested by footprints of the hierarchy attendant upon the behests of the Ever-present Creator, when their startled senses dreamed at discovering divinity in the sun or in the

sequently worshipped as a particular divinity, and degraded into the sovereign of the infernal world, the same with the Dis and Pluto of the Greeks and Romans. Thunder, from being regarded as the voice of the Eternal, ultimately received separate worship under the name of Taranis. The sun, that most universal object of idolatrous worship, received devoted homage in many places under the various names of Bel, Belinus, Belatucardus, Grannius, &c. and was the same with Apollo. The Britons seem also to have paid the same kind of devotion to the moon; and it is probable that the famous circles of stones, (many of which still remain,) were places where the Druids kept the sacred fire, symbol of the sun, in connection with their worship of these heavenly bodies. With regard to the deified mortals worshipped by the Gauls and Britons, it appears certain that these were in general the very same persons who were worshipped by the Greeks and Romans; the only question is, whether the Celtic nations borrowed their heroes from the Greeks and Romans, or whether these last borrowed from them. Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Mercury, &c. with their corresponding female divinities, were princes and princesses of the royal family of the Titans, (a people belonging to the Celte by birth) who reigned with much lustre both in Asia and Europe, in the patriarchal ages. The rites rendered by the Britons to this mythological hierarchy were frequently of a very inhuman kind. Songs of praise in their magnificent round temples, and offerings of spoils in their consecrated groves, were accompanied, not simply by sacrifices of animals, (offered by a priest who placed his hand upon the head of the victim immediately before it was killed,) but frequently by a holocaust of human beings, who, placed within a colossal figure of a man made of osier twigs, were consumed to ashes by fire, in pursuance of the tradition current among the Druids, "that nothing but the life of man could atone for man."-Henry's History of Great Britain, Book I. chap. 11.

thunder, and peopled the forests and the fountains with genii and other kindred creatures, invisible to mortal ken? It is conjectured by Mr. Pennant that the stones at Mayborough are the remains of a supreme consistory of Druidical administration, perhaps similar to the one at Bryn-Gwyn, (signifying "the supreme or royal tribunal,") near Fre'r Dryn, in the Island of Anglesey.

It appears probable that there was one of such place's of judicature in the territories of every considerable clan or tribe subject to Druidic laws; since the right of administering justice belonged to the order of Druids in general; and to the Arch-Druid as supreme judge, as well as to inferior judges appointed to represent the Druidic body, in particular. That these courts for the convenience of those who had occasion to attend them, were held in the open air, is evident from the fact of the laws of Wales directing the Judge to "sit with his back to the sun or the storm, that they might not incommode him." In order to give the greater solemnity to the proceedings, the tribunal usually adjoined the temple of religion, and was placed on an elevation, either natural or artificial, that all might see and hear their Judges.

Mayborough is seated on a gentle eminence, not far from the south bank of the Eamont; it consists of a circular barrier of loose stones, nearly thirty yards wide at the base, and from twelve to fifteen feet high in the centre: the entrance is on the east side, and is about twelve yards wide; the area is one hundred yards in diameter, and the barrier is thinly clothed with trees and shrubs. Near the centre of the area is an unhewn column, twelve feet in height and twenty-five in girth: within a comparatively recent period, there were four of these columns, arranged in form of a square. Four also stood at the entrance, viz. one at each exterior, and one