88 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



ful bard and musician than either of the above, who created a 

 whole company of imaginative worthies, " that great magician," 

 according to the Chaldean M.S., which hath his dwelling in the 

 old fastness, hard " by the river Jordan, which is by the Bor- 

 der." He transfigured a dull, foggy country into an enchanted 

 land, peopled with airy castles, fantastic pageants, lovers, 

 knights, and dames innumerable. His stirring strains have 

 soothed many a sick-bed, and his potent spells have endowed 

 many a gallant youth with patriotism, generosity, and self- 

 denying heroism. Year by year his creations still flood the 

 land with a gold-bearing stream of Southern and transatlantic 

 visitors. Every hillside in that Border region has its legend, 

 not unremembered by Sir Walter, every stream there flows 

 straight from Fairy-land. Imagination sees on its wildest moor- 

 land a company of brave soldiers, a hawking party, or a run- 

 away pair of ill-starred lovers. Thither must we turn this 

 golden weather. There is no time like late autumn, even 

 towards the end of October, for a walking tour ; whereas in 

 summer it is always more or less burdensome to carry a knap- 

 sack, in these frosty morns and keen afternoons, it seldom be- 

 comes an incumbrance, even after twenty miles' walking. 

 Away, then, from the clamour of the forum, the rattle of spin- 

 ning-jennies ! Leave behind politics, school-boards, and cares, 

 public, social, or domestic. In that clear atmosphere of the 

 Borders we shall only breathe woodland scents, the fragrance 

 of fine birch and heather ; no sound save the grouse's crow 

 and the streamlet's murmur will fall upon the delighted ear, 



" Jam mens praetrepidans avet vagari, 

 Jam Iseti studio pedes vigescunt. 5 ' 



As we cannot climb Jack's beanstalk in order to find the 

 entrance to Enchanted Land, and the celebrated horse of the 

 Arabian Nights is not in our stud, which, whenever a man 

 mounted and turned a key in his neck, transported him whither 



