NORTH DURHAM AND BERWICKSHIRE. 325 



ness, where the forest overshadows, or the brake chokes them 

 with its stronger growth ; but they spring up in the garden and 

 the cultivated field, and become rank and noxious, in consequence 

 of the very labour which man hath bestowed in preparing and 

 manuring the ground." To this early period I might perhaps 

 refer the introduction of most of the weeds which have at all 

 times annoyed the farmer; but there are among them some 

 whose appearance has undoubtedly been of a later date. Other 

 naturalized plants, as I have already mentioned, have escaped 

 from the garden, where they were at first cultivated by the 

 monks, for the purposes of surgery and medicine, or for the ex- 

 pulsion of the demons and aerial spirits which haunted every 

 wood and stream, and were ever ready to become the unwelcome 

 tenants of this " human microcosm." CHALMERS tells us, that 

 in the age of William the Lion, gardens appear to have been not 

 very uncommon in Scotland; and he further tells us, what is 

 more to our purpose, that " in Bondington, near Berwick, there 

 were gardens in those times." At Coldingham there was also a 

 very extensive one, as we learn from a charter of Alexander the 

 Third, printed in the appendix to Mr RAINE'S History of Dur- 

 ham, and pointed out to me by my friend Mr WEDDELL. This 

 deed was executed in the 10th year of his reign (1259), and, 

 amongst other valuable gifts of Dauid de Quikeswude *, con- 

 firms to thejnonks of Coldingham, ten acres of land under cultiva- 

 tion with flowers, and situated within the bounds of the monas- 

 tery -f. Soon after this time, gardens for raising culinary herbs 

 became common ; and when it is remembered that all, or almost 

 all, of them have been removed, and can now only be traced in 

 the chartularies or by the eyes of antiquaries, it seems remarkable 

 that the plants derived from this source should be so few ; and 

 even these linger about their first abodes, affording by their pre- 

 sence the best evidence we have 



" That Art had sojourn'd there in days of yore." 



* RAINE'S Durham^ App. p. 14, No. Ixv. 



t Quixwood, in the parish of Abbey, and now the property of the Orphan Hos- 

 pital of Edinburgh. 



