# Scotish Descriptive Poems/Notes on Clyde, Part 1

NOTES BY THE EDITOR.
PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.
P. 19. l. 4. All Wilson's publications seem to have escaped the notice of the Reviewers, except the Dramatic Essay, 1760, which was noticed in the following terms by the Monthly Reviewer, who commends the author's modesty for terming his production an Essay rather than a Drama.—"The author of this poetical essay has kept very close to the history, having added little of the circumstances of the story, beside a number of moral sentiments, judiciously interspersed, and generally well expressed; the piece being, indeed, unequally written; some parts of it presuming more in favour of the author's genius, than other parts of it are able to support. The verse is not poetry; and the ear of the English reader will frequently be offended with the sounds of certain Scoticisms, which should never presume to make their appearance on this side the Tweed."
Hume of Godscroft, in a copy of verses on the event which is the subject of this drama, and which are ​preserved in his history, Vol. I. p. 289. had declared the subject worthy of the tragic muse:
PART I.
Page 44. v. 169. According to Henry the Minstrel, Wallace married the daughter of "Hew Braidfute," and heiress of Lammington; a circumstance which gave great offence to Hesilrig, or, as Fordun terms him, Hesliope, the English sherriff of Lanerk, whose son had desired this match. The revenge taken by Hesilrig was equally dastardly and cruel: Wallace having been overpowered in a sudden rencontre at Lanark, escaped to Cartland Craigs; but his innocent lady was put to death by her disappointed and merciless suitor.
Numerous places in Clydesdale bear the name of Wallace; and the memory of that hero is preserved in songs and traditions, not only in that district, but in the Border and Highlands. He is celebrated by Jonston ​in a strain superior to what that author generally assumes:
P. 45. v. 187. The historical allusion in this passage, is probably to the capture of the Duc d'Aquillain and Melampe privateers, by Captain Lockhart of the Tartar frigate; a commander who afterwards greatly distinguished himself in the British naval service. This popular derivation of the name of Lockhart is certainly erroneous, as the name occurs in charters at a period long anterior to Sir Symon Lockharde de Lee et Cartland, who accompanied James Lord Douglas to Spain, on his journey to the Holy Land. But, in the anecdotes of family history introduced into this poem, the author has seldom recourse to better authority than Abercrombie.
P. 50. v. 321. The allusions to the history of Douglas, in this passage, refer chiefly to circumstances narrated in Hume of Godscroft's history. The traditions on which the history of the family of Douglas is founded, are certainly of Gaelic extraction, and may probably be still preserved in some of the genealogical verses of Gaelic tradition. It is to be regretted that no attempt has been made to preserve the traditionary history of the Highland clans, to record which was the principal occu​pation of the bards during the latter periods of their history. Buchanan of Auchmar seems to deduce the origin of Douglas from the famous Thane Macduff of Fife. Defoe thus celebrates the clan:
Jonston, in his Heroes Scot. has also borne ample testimony to their fame:
P. 54. v. 408. According to some antiquaries, the ancestor of Somerville accompanied Edgar Atheling, the ​grandson of Edmund Ironside, on his return from Hungary, whither his father had been sent by the King of Sweden, to whose custody he had been committed by Canute the Dane. By the exertions of Malcolm IV. of Scotland, Edgar was restored to his patrimonial estate. Cuthally, the ancient castle of the Somervilles, the ruins of which still exist in the vicinity of Carnwath, is commonly pronounced Cowdaily; whence the punning spirit of tradition has taken occasion to say, that it derived its name from the daily laughter of a cow for the board of Somerville, alluded to in the poem.
P. 54. v. 417. It may not be unpleasing to the reader, to compare Wilson's description of the falls of the Clyde, with that given by Mr. William Lockhart of Baronald, in the Statistical Account of the Parish of Lanark:
"The uppermost fall is somewhat above two and a half miles from Lanark, and from the estate on which it is situated, is called the Bonniton Fall or Lin. From Bonniton house, a very neat and elegant modern building, you arrive at the Lin, by a most romantic walk along the Clyde, leaving the pavilion and Corra Lin upon your right hand. At some little distance from the fall, the walk, leading to a rock that juts out and overhangs the river, brings you all at once within sight of this beautiful sheet of water; but no stranger rests satisfied with this view; he still presses onwards along the walk, till from the rock immediately above the Lin, he sees the whole body of the river precipitate itself into the chasm below. The rock over which it falls is upwards of twelve feet of perpendicular height, from which the Clyde ​makes one precipitate tumble, or leap, into a hollow den; whence some of it again recoils in froth and smoking mist. Above, the river exhibits a broad, expanded, and placid appearance, beautifully environed with plantations of forest trees. This appearance is suddenly changed at the fall: and, below it, the river is narrow, contracted, and angrily boils and thunders among rocks and precipices.
"The same beautiful and romantic walk conducts you back again, along the precipice that overhangs the river, both sides of which are environed by mural rocks, equidistant and regular, forming, as Mr. Pennant expresses it, a "stupendous natural masonry;" from whose crevices, choughs, daws, and other wild birds, are incessantly springing. You descend along the river for about half a mile, till you arrive at the Corra Lin, so called from an old castle and estate upon the opposite bank. The old castle of Corra, overhanging a high rock that overlooks the fall, with Corra house, and the rocky and woody banks of the Clyde, form of themselves a beautiful and grand coup d'oeil: But nothing can equal the striking and stupendous appearance of the fall itself, which, when viewed from any of the different seats placed here and there along the walks, must fill every unaccustomed beholder with awe and astonishment. The tremendous rocks around, the old castle upon the opposite bank, a corn mill in the rock below, the furious and impatient stream foaming over the rock, the horrid chasm and abyss underneath your feet, heightened by the hollow murmur of the water and the screams of wild birds, form ​at once a spectacle both tremendous and pleasing. A summer-house or pavilion is situated over a high rocky bank, that overlooks the Lin, built by Sir James Carmichael of Bonniton in 1708. From its uppermost room it affords a very striking prospect of the fall; for all at once, on throwing your eyes towards a mirror on the opposite side of the room from the fall, you see the whole tremendous cataract pouring as it were upon your head. The Corra Lin, by a late measurement, is found to be 84 feet in height. The river does not rush over in one uniform sheet like the Bonniton Lin, but in three different, though almost imperceptible, precipitate leaps. On the southern bank, and when the sun shines, a rainbow is perpetually seen forming itself upon the mist and fogs, arising from the violent dashing of the waters———."
"The next fall of consequence is the Stonebyres Lin, situated about two and a half miles below the Corra Lin. It is so called from the neighbouring estate of Stonebyres, belonging to Daniel Vere, Esq.; but the grounds adjacent to the fall, on both sides of the river, have lately been feued or purchased by Mr. Dale. This cataract, which is about eighty feet in height, is the ne plus ultra of the salmon, as none can possibly get above it, although their endeavours, in the spawning season, are incessant and amusing. It is equally romantic with the others; and like the Corra Lin, has three distinct, but almost precipitate falls. Wild rugged rocks are equally visible ​here, and they are equally fringed with wood; the trees however are by no means so tall and stately, being composed of coppice wood."
P. 57. v. 489. Fordun, Lesley, Buchanan, and Wyntown, have mentioned the regulations established by King Kenneth at Lanark. But D. M'Pherson, the learned editor of Wyntown, has ingeniously conjectured, that the superior reputation of the warlike Kenneth has in this instance appropriated what is more justly due to the peaceful genius of his brother Dovenald, who revived the institutions of that ancient legislator, Hed-Fyn.
P. 61. v. 587. The following description of wild and garden fruits, present a favourable specimen of the "The Don," a loco-descriptive poem, and may be compared by the curious reader with Wilson's delineation of the appearances of forest and fruit trees:
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Page 67. v. 729. Defoe in his "Caledonia," thus mentions the family of Hamilton:
P. 73. v. 861. The following description of the Scotish bison occurs in Bellenden's Boece:
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 ​angry than witty; and, like the other poems of that author, published in 1697, it is equally defective in versification and poetical imagery. He thus describes the Highlanders:
Cleland represents the Highlanders as exhibiting
He alludes to the inhabitants of Clydesdale who had signed the bond of the Covenanters, in the following terms;
Cleland, like a true Presbyterian, renounces the inspiration of the Grecian muses, and the far-famed waters of Parnassus; for, says he,
The rapacity of the Highlanders in the western shires, seems to have rivalled that of the Pandoors and Cossacs of modern days. It is thus described by our author:
Andrew Guild, author of a curious volume of Latin MS. poems, preserved in the Advocates Library, Edin​burgh, W. 5. 14. espouses the episcopalian cause with more inveteracy than ingenuity, and inscribes his poems to Graham of Claverhouse, in the following lines:
In this style proceeds the invective of this Goth, or Vandal, or Hun; for in point of Latinity it is scarcely possible to be more barbarous; who appears to have been one of the last Scotish poets who employed the Latin language, and certainly one of them who least deserves to be known. How inferior is his style to that of the elegant Pitcairn! It must have been a great satisfaction to a Presbyterian of the old school, to see so much viru​lence expressed in such bad language. I select the following characteristic passage from his “Phanaticorum Descriptio:"
In an invective on David Williamson, he refers to a well-known adventure of that covenanter, which is supposed to have given origin to the popular Scotish song of “Dainty Davie:"
The arms and military array of the Covenanters who formed round the standard of Claverhouse, taken at the skirmish of Lowdon-hill, and advanced to Bothwell-bridge, are described in the following passage:
The Bellum Bothwelianum, from which this passage is extracted, is of considerable length, and mentions some minute circumstances of the engagement. One passage is curious:
After this poem follows "Velitatio Cameroniana, sive, Appendix Belli Bothweliani." The other poems of Guild are chiefly complimentary or valedictory. One of them is addressed to Sir Robert Dalyell. The author appears to have been educated at Aberdeen.
Colville, in his Scotish Hudibras, and afterwards Meston, in his "Knight," both allude to the spirit of resistance displayed by the Presbyterians. The latter thus describes "the Souterkin of reformation:"
* ↑ Monthly Review, Vol. XXIII. p. 526.
* ↑ Henry's Wallace, Vol. I. p. 121. 1790.
* ↑ Joh. Jonstoni Heroes Scot. p. 9.
* ↑ Buchanan's Inquiry into the Genealogy and Present State of ancient Scotish Surnames, p. 14.
* ↑ Defoe's Caledonia, p. 43.
* ↑ Joh. Jonstoni Heroes Scot.
* ↑ Statistical Account of Scotland, Vol. XV. p. 20.
* ↑ Statistical Account of Scotland, Vol. XV. p. 23.
* ↑ Chron. Pict. ap. Innes, p. 783.
* ↑ The Don; a Poem, p.17.
* ↑ Everans is a berry that grows upon the tops of hills, and resembles a mulberry, but of a yellowish colour when ripe.
* ↑ Woodrip is a kind of wild lavander, but has a much finer smell.
* ↑ Knapperts is a root that tastes like liquorice, but is much sweeter.
* ↑ The Don; a Poem, p.18.
* ↑ Ibid p. 23.
* ↑ The Don; a Poem, p. 23, 24.
* ↑ Defoe's Caledonia, p. 46.
* ↑ Bellenden's Boece.
* ↑ Cleland's Poems, p. 11.
* ↑ Ibid p. 12.
* ↑ Ibid p. 13.
* ↑ Cleland's Poems, p. 34.
* ↑ Ibid p. 43.
* ↑ Cleland's Poems, p. 59.
* ↑ Ibid p. 38.
* ↑ Meston's Poems, p. 8. 1767.
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