MESPILUS. 'n 



SO as to form almost a seat, and covered partially with the small- 

 leaved purplish Jungermannia. 



There are some Thorns in our district which call for specific men- 

 tion. (1.) B. Ci)£ 33oltoart C^ora— familiar to the reader of the 

 Ballad poetry of Scotland : 



" At Polwart on the green 



If you '11 meet me the morn. 

 Where lasses do eonveen 

 To dance about the Thorn." — A. Ramsay*. 



The custom was for new-married couples, with their friends, to dance 

 around this Thorn on the eve of their marriage. It originated, as we 

 shall have future occasion to tell, in a rude age, and at a remote but 

 uncertain era ; and was only relinquished towards the end of the 

 past century. The last couple who performed the time-honoured rite 

 are yet in life, far advanced in years. There were originally two 

 thorn-trees which stood near the middle of the village, at about six 

 yards' distance from each other. Neither of these now exist. The 

 last of them was blown down several years ago, and its trunk is pre- 

 served in the cellar of Marchmont-House. Chambers' Picture of 

 Scotland, p. 13. From its root a successor has arisen; and another 

 bush near it has been apparently a seedling. Neither of the descend- 

 ants have any beauty, for they have not been kindly nursed nor 

 cared for ; but they are notwithstanding worthy of preservation, and, 

 as the villagers take a pride in them, so let us hope that the proprietor, 

 and descendant of an ancient house, vrill indulge them in their pride, 



* The authorship of the Song is disputed. See " The Songs of Scotland," 

 pubhshed by Wood and Co., Edin. 1849, iii. p. 119.— Miss Elizabeth Bell 

 writes me : " An old song on the subject, perhaps now supposed Allan 

 Ramsay's, was written by my Great-Great Grandfather, at that time a pro- 

 prietor of the greater part of the neighbouring parish of Fogo, and the 

 Grandfather of Thomson the Poet. Thomson in right of his mother, 

 Beatrix Trotter, succeeded to Widehope, among the lower Cheviots near 

 Yetholm, and there is known to have written his ' Winter ' before he went 

 to London. This property became my Father's, as the nephew and heir 

 of the Poet, but unfortunately, owing to his having a large family and small 

 stipend, he was obliged to sell it about 60 years ago." — The father of Miss 

 Bell — James Bell, D.D.^ — was minister of the parish of Coldstream from 

 1778 to 1794, where he died 9th August in the 50th year of his age. He 

 appears to have been a botanist, for, in his account of the parish, he remarks 

 that, — " Plants in far greater variety are to be found in the lower parts of 

 Clydesdale and Renfrewshire than in this parish and its neighbourhood. 

 This part of the Merse and downwards along Tweed, is not a rich tield for 

 a botanical journey." Stat. Ace. Scotland, iv. p. 415. — The inference 1 

 drew from this passage has been confirmed by his daughter, who tells me 

 that he was, from boyhood, very fond of the study, and at the time of his 

 death was preparing a work on the subject. He was an aceomphshed 

 scholar, devoted to literature, science, and the fine arts; and he was a 

 Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He pubhshed a volume of 

 " Sermons preached before the University of Glasgow," Lond. 1790; and 

 had made great progress in writing a Life of Thomson, which his early 

 death arrested. Unfortunately the materials he possessed have been lost. 



