God's usual mode of discovering murder,) it bled afresh upon the said Philip; and that thereupon he let the body fall, and fled from it in the greatest consternation, crying, Lord have mercy upon me!"" The prisoner was found guilty of being accessory to the murder of his father, although there was little more than strong presumptions against him. It is true, he was at the same time separately convicted of the distinct crimes of having cursed his father, and drunk damnation to the monarchy and hierarchy. His sentence, which was to have his tongue cut out, and hand struck off, previous to his being hanged, was executed with the utmost rigour. He denied the murder with his last breath. "It is," says a contemporary judge, " a dark case of divination, to be remitted to the great day, whether he was guilty or innocent. Only it is certain he was a bad youth, and may serve as a beacon to all profligate persons." FOUNTAINHALL'S Decisions, vol. i. 483.

While all ranks believed alike the existence of these prodigies, the vulgar were contented to refer them to the immediate interference of the Deity, or, as they termed it, God's revenge against murder. But those, who, while they had overleaped the bounds of superstition, were still entangled in the mazes of mystic philosophy, amongst whom we must reckon many of the medical practitioners, endeavoured to explain the phenomenon, by referring to the secret power of sympathy, which even Bacon did not venture to dispute. To this occult agency was imputed the cure of wounds, effected by applying salves and powders, not to the wound itself, but to the sword or dagger, by which it had been inflicted; a course of treatment, which, wonderful as it may at first seem, was certainly frequently attended with signal success. 1 This, however, was attributed to magic, and those, who submitted to such a mode of cure, were refused spiritual assistance.

The vulgar continue to believe firmly in the phenomenon of the murdered corpse bleeding at the approach of the murderer. "Many"

1 The first part of the process was to wash the wound clean, and bind it up so as to promote adhesion, and exclude the air. Now, though the remedies, afterwards applied to the sword, could hardly promote so desirable an issue, yet it is evident the wound stood a good chance of healing by the operation of nature, which, I believe, medical gentlemen call a cure by the first intention.

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(I adopt the words of an ingenious correspondent) are the proofs advanced in confirmation of the opinion, against those who are so hardy as to doubt it; but one, in particular, as it is said to have happened in this place, I cannot help repeating.

"Two young men, going a-fishing in the river Yarrow, fell out; and so high ran the quarrel, that the one, in a passion, stabbed the other to the heart with a fish-spear. Astonished at the rash act, he hesitated whether to fly, give himself up to justice, or conceal the crime; and, in the end, fixed on the latter expedient, burying the body of his friend very deep in the sands. As the meeting had been accidental, he was never suspected, although a visible change was observed in his behaviour, from gaiety to a settled melancholy. Time passed on for the space of fifty years, when a smith, fishing near the same place, discovered an uncommon and curious bone, which he put in his pocket, and afterwards showed to some people in his smithy. The murderer being present, now an old whiteheaded man, leaning on his staff, desired a sight of the little bone; but how horrible was the issue! no sooner had he touched it than it streamed with purple blood. Being told where it was found, he confessed the crime, was condemned, but was prevented by death from suffering the punishment due to his offence.

"Such opinions, though reason forbids us to believe them, a few moments' reflection on the cause of their origin will teach us to revere. Under the feudal system which prevailed, the rights of humanity were too often violated, and redress very hard to be procured; thus an awful deference to one of the leading attributes of Omnipotence begat on the mind, untutored by philosophy, the first germ of these supernatural effects; which was, by superstitious zeal, assisted, perhaps, by a few instances of sudden remorse, magnified into evidence of indisputable guilt."

THE DÆMON-LOVER.

THIS ballad, which contains some verses of merit, was taken down from recitation by Mr William Laidlaw, tenant in Traquair-knowe.' It contains a legend, which, in various shapes, is current in Scotland. I remember to have heard a ballad, in which a fiend is introduced paying his addresses to a beautiful maiden ; but, disconcerted by the holy herbs which she wore in her bosom, makes the following lines the burden of his courtship :

"Gin ye wish to be leman mine,

Lay aside the St John's wort and the vervain.”

The heroine of the following tale was unfortunately without any similar protection.

1

1 [See a note on the Douglas Tragedy, ante.-ED.]

THE DEMON-LOVER.1

"O WHERE have you been, my long, long love, This long seven years and more?""O I'm come to seek my former vows Ye granted me before."

former vows,

For they will breed sad strife;

O hold your tongue of your former vows,

For I am become a wife."

He turn'd him right and round about,
And the tear blinded his ee;

"I wad never hae trodden on Irish ground,
If it had not been for thee.

"I might hae had a king's daughter,

Far, far beyond the sea;

I might have had a king's daughter,

Had it not been for love o' thee."

["And woman wailing for her Dæmon-Lover."-COLERIDGE.]

"If ye might have had a king's daughter, Yer sell ye had to blame;

Ye might have taken the king's daughter, For ye kend that I was nane."

“O faulse are the vows of womankind, But fair is their faulse bodie;

I never wad hae trodden on Irish ground, Had it not been for love o' thee."

"If I was to leave my

husband dear,

And my two babes also,

O what have you to take me to,

If with I should
you

go

?"

the sea,

"I hae seven ships upon

The eighth brought me to land; With four-and-twenty bold mariners, And music on every hand."

She has taken up her two little babes,
Kiss'd them baith cheek and chin;
"O fair ye weel, my ain two babes,
For I'll never see you again."

She set her foot upon the ship,

No mariners could she behold; But the sails were o' the taffetie, And the masts o' the beaten gold.

2