394 Anniversary Address. 



Hollies (most of them cut over), a kind of enclosure once 

 fashionable. "Is there under heaven," says Evelyn, "a 

 more glorious and refreshing object than an impregnable hedge 

 of one hundred and sixty foot in length, seven foot high, and 

 five in diameter, which I can shew in my poor gardens at any 

 time of the year, glitt'ring with its arm'd and vernish'd leaves? 

 the taller standards at orderly distances blushing with their 

 natural coral : It mocks at the rudest assaults of the weather, 

 beasts, or hedge-breakers, 



"Et ilium nemo irapune lacessit."* 

 My " Uncle Toby's " hedge was of holly and hornbeam. So 

 here we have beech at the one end. Being admitted, we find 

 the interior of the old tower to correspond with its architec- 

 ture, affording us an idea of the accommodations of the middle 

 classes during past ages. We gain the battlements by a dark 

 turnpike stair of very unequal steps, but find the view ex- 

 cluded by the tall trees that shelter the garden. The bed- 

 rooms are low roofed and gloomy, from the smallness of the 

 windows. The walls are at least six feet thick. The 

 Library is well furnished with books; we noticed some 

 old copies of the classics, several Italian works, &c. ; and 

 an old Bible with illustrative wood-cuts drew the attention of 

 some members, while others examined the swords, skull-cap, 

 and plate armour, clad in which some " Petrus de Haga " of 

 other days, may have quelled the Southron. Even the ex- 

 communications of the monks of Melrose, more terrible than 

 knightly weapon, were braved by the doughty De Haigs, 

 when the ownership of a tract of land became the subject of 

 controversy.! Lord Jerviswoode is the present occupant of 

 Bemersyde. Further on the party obtained one of the finest 

 views of Melrose vale that is to be had, its rich profusion of 

 trees, its golden corn fields, its venerable abbey, its houses 

 and villas half embowered in foliage, its grand background of 

 hills, and its barer hill-sides intersected by a net-work of 

 hedges. Some of the party, to obtain a more extensive view, 

 ascended Bemersyde Hill. These returned by the Gaitheugh 



• Evelyn's Sylva, p. 128, 2nd Edit, 1670. 

 t Jeffrey's Hist, of Eoxburghshire, IV., p. 89. 



