218 MR haedy's additions to the 



plant woodes and trees, and make hedges, and saw broome, after the 

 faculties of their maillinges, in place convenient therefor, under silc 

 paine as law and unlaw of the barone or lord sail niodifie." Whether 

 in this act there be any "pains and penalties " annexed for injuring 

 wood, I have no means of knowing ; but in various subsequent acts of 

 the Scottish Parliament, rigorous punishments were inflicted, " toties 

 quoties,''^ (against) any person (who) should " contravene " the law, 

 and " cut, break, or pull up any tree, or peel the bark off any tree." 

 They extended "the punishment for destroying green wood, even to 

 death, for the third offence." Probably the rhyme may perpetuate 

 some cruelties exercised by the strong hand of power upon the 

 peasantry, while they yet groaned under a state of villanage. For 

 the facts in this illustration I am indebted to a paper on the " Laws 

 of Scotland for protecting woods, trees, and enclosures," given in the 

 Farmer's Magazine for November 1815. 



" You're oure near the Water E'e." 

 Often said by a mother to a peevish child ; but whether it refers to 

 ih.Q'WQ.ie-a: 'EijQ jjar excellence, or to the water of the eye, " non nobis 

 tantum componere litem." 



" Loudon loots, Merse brutes, Lammermuir whaps." 



This is the satirical effusion of some nameless Pasquin. The follow- 

 ing extracts from Eay's Itineraries may be appropriate. "August 

 the 17th [1661], we travelled from Berwick to Dunbar, a town noted 

 for the fight between the English and Scots." On the journey, the 

 author remarked that "the women generally to us seemed none of the 

 handsomest. They are not very cleanly in their houses, and but 

 sluttish in dressing their meat." "The Scots cannot endure to hear 

 their country or countrymen spoken against. They have neither good 

 bread, cheese, or drink ; they cannot make them, nor will they learn. 

 Their butter is very indifferent, and one would wonder how they could 

 contrive to make it so bad." When he appears to have arrived in the 

 vicinity of Dunbar, he says — "We observed little or no fallow grounds 

 in Scotland; some layed ground we saw, which they manured with 

 sea wreck. The people seem to be very lazy, at least the men, and 

 may be frequently observed to plough in their cloaks." Why the 

 Lammermuir people are designated whaps (curlews), I cannot deter- 

 mine. It probably relates metaphorically to their being still more 

 uncivilized than their brethren in the low countries. 



" The bat, the bee, 

 The butterflee, 

 The cuckoo and the swallow, 

 The kittiwake. 

 And the corn crake, 

 Sleep a' in a little hoUie." 



