coRNtrs. 91 



this simpler as he tracked the Percys' hunting ground, and plucked 

 the Cornus. There remains no journal of his voyage. He had been 

 a great traveller ; and was so learned, in plants especially, that he was 

 called a second Dioscorides. His birth-place is unknown ; and he 

 died young — immatura morte abreptum, — in 1568, leaving a reputa- • 

 tion which survives on the sole testimony of his many friends. See 

 MoufFet Theat. Ins. argum. p. 1. Pulteney's Sketches, i. 83. (Pul- 

 teney, by an error, gives 1589 as the date of his death.) Gray's Brit. 

 Plants, i. p. 15. Turner and Dillwyn's Guide, ii. p. 468. Nat. Lib. 

 Mammalia, xii. p. 50. 



John Ray's visit to Cheviot, and to the Cornus, was more than a 

 century later than Penny's, — in June 1671; and thenceforward the 

 hill was classical ground to the botanist. He has recorded no parti- 

 culars of the ascent, nor do I much regret the omission, for Ray was 

 curt and cold in his descriptions of natural scenery, and its beauty 

 did not animate him *. A gossipy tourist followed him at the distance 



* As a proof I shall quote here his description of Berwick, as he saw it, 

 in 1661 : — ^August 16th. "This night we lodged at Berwick; our journey 

 was of about twenty-five miles. The river Tweed is here joined with a 

 stone bridge of fifteen arches. Here hath been a very goodly castle, which 

 is now demolished. The upper town is encompassed with a wall, which is 

 not very strong; within this wall is a large void ground or green, whereunto 

 the inhabitants bring their cattle, and let them stay all night, and in the 

 morning drive them out again to pasture. The lower town is very strongly 

 fortified with a broad and deep ditch of water, and against it an impene- 

 trable bulwark or bank of earth, faced with freestone against the ditch. 

 There are also for defence, four tall platforms or forts, besides external for- 

 tifications. This town is still kept with a strong garrison. There is in it 

 a fair church, built by Oliver Protector. Here we saw in the cliff by the 

 shore, a cave, called the Burgesses' Cave, not worth the remembering, and 

 an hole in a rock, through which a boat may pass at full sea, called the 

 Needle's Eye." Memorials of Ray, p. 152. — Let this be compared with 

 the following wiitten about the middle of the 17th century : — ■" In this 

 Towne were in times past keept and maintained neare one thousand Sol- 

 diours. — This Towne was strengthened, environed, and is incircuited with 

 strong walls and flankeirs, each rampier containing four or five great pieces 

 of ordinance, and every flanker had two great ordinance opposite one to 

 another, &c. — This towne hath severall secret vaults or passages, besides 

 the common gates ; it had two of the fairest windmills in Great Britaine ; 

 it hath a commodious key for shipps, a fair and stately stone bridge, built 

 at the charge of the late famous, pious, prudent, and for ever memorable 

 Prince and Monarch James king of Great Britaine, &c.— This towne had 

 a stronge castle, situat.e upon a high rocke, in manner circular, but the want 

 of repairing, as also the delapidation of the walls, cause the beholders to be 

 sorry, considering the mounts, rampiers, and flankers, sometime so well re- 

 plenished with great ordinance, and now looke like a new shome sheep, 

 these great pieces put away few knowes whither. This castle had faire 

 houses therein, the walls and gates made beautifuU with pictures of stone, 

 the work curious and dehcate ; it had a large gallery couered over with 

 lead; but the worke being unfinished by the death of the Right Honourable 

 George Earl of Dunbarr, cause the pictures in a manner to weepe and feare 

 their downfall. I must not omitt the faire built Pallace, sometime a court 



