Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/133

 thoucht they seemed meik and tame in the remanent figure of thair bodyis, yai wer mair wyld than ony uther beistis; and had sic hatrent aganis ye societe and cumpany of men, that thai come nevir in the woddis nor lesuris quhair thay fand ony feit or haynd thairof; and mony dayis efter thay eit nocht of the herbis that wer twichit or handillit be men. Thir bullis wer sa wyld that thai wer nevir tane but slycht and crafty labour, and sa impacient, that efter thair taking thay deit for importable doloure. Als sone as ony man invadit thir bullis, thay ruschit with so terrible preis on hym that thay dang hym to the cird, takand na feir of houndis, scharp lancis, nor uther maist penitrive wapinnis ."

Page 73. v. 871. This account of the different tempers displayed by Monmouth and Dundee in the battle of Bothwell-bridge, accords exactly with both history and tradition. It is alluded to in "The battle of Bothwell-bridge," a traditionary ballad of the Covenanters, still current in Scotland, and which will be included in the third volume of that excellent work, "The Minstrelsy of the Scotish Border." Both parties, in this religious contest, seem to have celebrated their respective causes in verse. Cleland, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Cameronian regiment, who fell in the battle of Dunkeld, composed a long satirical poem "on the Highland host, who came to destroy the western shires in 1678," which is more