wicked monk poisoned a very fair peach, and gave it to that lady, who, at a collation, put it to steep in wine, presented one-half of it to the Prince, and eat the other herself. She, being tender, died in a short time; the Prince, more robust, sustained for some while the assaults of the venome, but however could not conquer it, and in the end yielded his life to it.

"Such as adjust all the phenomena of the Heavens to the accidents here below might have applied to this same comet of extraordinary magnitude, which was visible fourscore days together from the month of December. Its head was in the sign of the Balance, and it had a long tail, turning a little towards the north."-P. 494. Bulteel.

The duke died on the 12th of May. The king was very anxious to get the perpetrator of the crime out of the hands of the Duke of Burgundy, who had been thrown into inexpressible rage on hearing the catastrophe of Charles. "The monk was found dead in prison, the devil, as was said, having broken his neck the night before that day wherein they were to pronounce his sentence. This was what the king desired, that so the proof of the crime might perish with the poysoner." P. 495.

In Dr. Dibdin's "Tour," vol. iii. p. 591, there is a very beautiful miniature figure of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, at prayers: it is taken from a manuscript breviary on vellum, of the fifteenth century, executed for his use. A more hard-featured and truculent-looking visage is scarcely to be imagined than that prefixed to one of the four portraits

intended to adorn the frontispiece of the edition of the "Mémoires de Comines."

We presume that the " courtly and martial” Galleotti was himself a memorable example of the vanity of his science, as to the personal fortunes of its professors*: it being his fate to break his neck at Lyons in 1476, at his first interview with Louis XI, owing to his dismounting too precipitately from his horse, in order to salute his new patron. Others, among whom is, we believe, Paulus Jovius, relate that he was seized with a fit of apoplexy at Padua.

At the close of his own life, Louis placed all hope in his physician, James Coctier, who received 10,000 crowns by the month for the last five months. (See Comines, b. vi. xii. and Mezeray, p. 505.) He summoned also from Calabria, a holy hermit whom Comines, (b. vi. 8.) calls friar Robert; but according to Mezeray, his name was Francis Martotille, .founder of the order of Minimes."- "This hermit,' says Comines, "at the age of twelve years was put in a hole in a rock, where he continued three-andforty years and upwards, till the King sent for him by the master of his household, in the company of the prince of Tarante, the king of Naples' son. But the said hermit would not stir without leave from his holiness, and from his king, which was great discretion in so inexperienced a man."

66

"The king," says Mezeray, flattered him, implored him, fell on his knees to him;" and, ac

* Even Apollo was compelled to exclaim

"Nec prosunt domino, quæ prosunt omnibus, artes!".

Ovid. Met i. 524.

cording to Comines, "adored him, as if he had been Pope himself." But this good man, in answer, talked to him of God, and exhorted him to think of the other life than this."-Mezeray, p. 505.

We remember to have seen a story, that Louis, suspecting the death of a lady whom he regarded with affection had been occasioned by the prediction of an astrologer, summoned the supposed delinquent into his presence, intending to take very summary vengeance. The wary sage, set upon his guard by the tenour of the first question put by the monarch ; Tell me, thou that art so learned, what shall be thy fate?"--humbly represented, that he foresaw his death would happen three days before his majesty's. The king, it was added, very carefully avoided putting him to death.

"All the blue bonnets are over the border."

BURNS.

Of the different regions into which Scotland is divided, it may be said, that, as the Highlands possess the greatest attraction for the lover of nature in her sublimest and most interesting forms, so the border has charms to fascinate all those who delight in romantic enterprize, and poetic fancy. This boundary, between two warlike and long hostile kingdoms, be

came, naturally, the great theatre on which the atchievements of the feudal ages were performed. The habitual hostility, too, with which the inhabitants of the opposite side of the march viewed each other, gave rise to constant scenes of minor exploits, which, though they could not find a place in history, kept alive the habits of activity, enterprize, and daring valour, which held men's minds in a state of perpetual excitement. The same causes which rendered the borders the theatre of war, rendered it also a land of song; for true and native poetry is the result, not of monastic and studious seclusion, but of those eventful circumstances which fire the imagination, and melt the heart. Another effect of this constant state of warfare upon the borders, was the construction of "towers of defence," which, if they could not aspire to the rank of fortresses, might at least afford protection against sudden inroad; and, if they could not repel an invader, might retard his progress. These could not indeed, rival the pomp and magnificence of those mansions which, in the interior of Scotland, and the less troubled districts of England, were erected by the great nobles, for the display of baronial grandeur. A square tower, built on a height, with walls of immense thickness, and a few narrow loop-holes for the admission of light, and the discharge of missile weapons, formed usually the whole array of a border castle. Some, however, belonging to the border nobility, was built on a scale of greater magnificence; they are placed, generally, in a picturesque situation, and all of them recal events of history and tradition which must be interesting to a large portion of the present generation. The striking aspect, indeed, presented by a

country which, after having long been the theatre of national hostility, has remained some time in a state of peace, affords a contrast as inviting as it is romantic and luxuriant. Numerous castles left to moulder in massive ruins; fields where the memory of ancient battles still live among the descendants of those by whom they were fought or witnessed; the very line of demarcation which, separating the two countries, though no longer hostile, induces the inhabitants of each to cherish their separate traditions, unite to render these regions interesting to the topographical historian or antiquary.

The most remarkable border antiquities of the Britons are the extensive entrenchments, known by the name of the Catrail, and the remains of an irregular hill fort, situated on the grounds of Mr. Pringle, of Fairnlee.* The Roman antiquities here met with, besides their great roads, and the remains of the wall of Antoninus, consist chiefly of arms and sepulchral monuments. At length the Saxons, partly as conquerers, and partly as refugees, came and filled the whole low country of Scotland, and finally communicated their language to that part of the kingdom. The system of clanship, which was originally Celtic, and unknown to the Saxons, was borrowed by the latter, and adopted on the borders to nearly as great an extent as in the Highlands. Of this remarkable form

* For the most interesting account of the most remarkable incidents in border history and tradition; see "The border antiquities of England and Scotland, comprising specimens of architecture aud sculpture, and other vestiges of former ages, by WALTER SCOTT, Esq. To which the reader is referred for many curious anecdotes, and many views of manand antiquities.

ner,