MR HARDY ON BOWLING. 69 



chesters as ono terminus, and the conical height of Hoggeslaw, or 

 Woodend, still more remote, on the old post road, as the other. The 

 side that outstripped their rivals by the fewest throws, or what was 

 equivalent, first reached the goal, were declared vitcorious. The success 

 of a throw depended on the setting away, as if the bowl came in contact 

 with a stone, and the roads then were any thing but free from obstruc- 

 tions, it would start aside, or even recoil on the thrower. The prize 

 was something substantial — a supper provided by the vanquished party, 

 consisting, like that in a curling match, of beef and greens. A great 

 betf as a game was termed, came off on CJockburnspath Green in 1807 

 or 1808. It was a well -contested struggle, and it was the last. 



The age of the balls which have given occasion to this paper, it is 

 now impossible to ascertain. The field in which they occurred is called 

 the Crofts, — a name assigned in the early stages of cultivation to those 

 portions of arable land, which industry had reclaimed from the barren 

 and unprofitable waste. In it the old onstead of Penmanshiel stood, 

 and probably it was the first-fruits — the '* immetata jugera " — won from 

 the brown solitude of heath, with which the whole place was once covered.* 

 The original period of its occupation is involved in obscurity, but if 

 wo assume a series of aged ash-trees now fast verging to decay, like 

 the steading they sheltered and its forgotten inhabitants, as coeval 

 with its settlement, it is not altogether of modern date.t From these 



* I suppose the name Penmanshiel, Fenmashiel, or Penmorshiel, may signify the 

 high moor $hieling, in the same manner as Penshiel in the Lammermuirs may be the 

 high shieling, A shiel or shieling is a shepherd's summer hut, as well as a summer 

 pasturage for flocks, — equivalent to the scalinga of ancient charters. Though suflS- 

 ciently lowly in " days of yore, " it has not been unhallowed by the footsteps of 

 merit. It was here a talented professor of humanity (Prof. Christison) in his boy- 

 hood tended " the homely slighted shepherd's trade." Even then, perchance, that 

 generous ambition might have fixed its determinate hold on his character, which after 

 years of strenuous exertion, placed him in one of the most honourable positions the 

 cultivation of literature can confer ; while many a compeer less enthusiastically inspired, 

 left in his native seclusion, — " and with low-thoughted cares confined," toiled on 

 hopelessly and ingloriously in tho strife, 



** to keep up a trtiX and feverish being. 



Unmindful of the crown that rirtue gives.'* 



MiLTOX'a Comw. 



t Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks. 



Sir Thomas Brow.\s. 



