Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/58

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we continued towards Kelso, running on the left hand; its velvet banks here and there spotted with little clumps of trees, and presenting a fairer sub- ject for tender and elegiac poetry, than it had before done. This scenery is still more animated and cheerful in the neighbourhood of the town of Kelso, where the banks of the river rise higher; the wood is thicker and more frequent; and the face of the country more ornamented by several gentlemen's seats in the vicinity of each other. The town itself is neat and uniform, the houses built for the most part of hewn freestone, and covered with blue slating. The only manufacture of any consequence is that of Scotch carpeting. Its po- pulation amounts to 3500. Like all other towns in Scotland, we found a general taste for literature prevalent at Kelso, and an universal diffusion of information even among the lowest classes of its inhabitants. As a specimen of the state of letters here, I must inform you that a work of uncommon curiosity with respect to its subject, and of the ut- most typographical beauty, is now preparing for publication. This is a collection of ancient tradi- tionary ballads; like the Scandinavian warlike compositions, songs to animate the Scotch bor- derers to battle, to rouze them to vengeance for depredations committed upon their own district, or

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