BORDER THE MAGAZINE. K ADDRESS TO THE READER. NOW THYSELF" was the sublime inscription carved over the gate of a heathen temple. Human philosophy has repeated the maxim in every age. There is another kind of knowledge which treads close upon self-knowledge, and which history teaches not in vain. We allude to the past and present condition of our native country and its inhabitants,--their language, works, social condition, and development. We have no desire to write fine, but with much plainness of speech, honestly and truthfully, according to the intelligence we possess. Our object is to scatter the seeds of such literature, almost exclusively, as will influence and instruct, while it elevates the best and noblest instincts of our nature. To march uniformly with the great army of progress, and never be found in the rear of current advancement and growing civilisation. To glean improvements developed by whatever age, people, or country. To apply new discoveries and inventions to our domestic use and advantage. To love science for her sake. To cherish antiquity for the rich legacy bequeathed to us, and venerate, more than all, those national landmarks of civil and religious liberty, which are the indestructible bulwarks of a free, powerful, and contented people. We offer our pages as neutral territory—as the current media of reciprocal communication, to the antiquary, naturalist, and literary aspirant, whether resident on the English or on the Scottish Border. To such, we hope to become a reliable authority and a valuable acquisition, and therefore proceed with confidence in their co-operation and support. Archæology has been our study for many years past, and this will occupy a prominent position in our future field of VOL. I.-No. I. A labour. We have found sweet morsels in various departments of natural history, and it is our intention to give to its votaries what investigation has achieved and subsequent experience confirmed. With the antiquary we have Roman roads to travel, ruined camps and fortified positions to explore; ancient British and Danish defences to examine, hill-towns and huts to investigate, and popularly to narrate a thousand facts which have been already enrolled in history, (inaccessible history to the million,) or which may crop out on further investigation. Fifty years ago, both local antiquaries and travellers shewed a tendency to ascribe every circle of stones, hill-hut, fortlet, and terrace to Druidical or Roman origin. Many of these cultivation has wholly obliterated, and so far destroyed others as to render future investigation highly problematical. The traditional halo which for centuries surrounded some, modern investigation has swept away. And we have now to guard against running to the opposite extreme in judging of what remains to be explored or re-examined. If denied the "dark unfathom'd caves" of the sea monsters to soliloquise upon, enamelled with coral and festooned with reticulated drapery of singular colour and inimitable pattern, we have others equally interesting: caves of human construction and occupancy-asylums in the rock, doubtless once the refuge of weak and oppressed families, during Border turmoil or religious persecution-receptacles of ascetic occupants, abodes of exiled, homeless wanderers-possibly of poor monks, whose monastic houses had been destroyed by the calamities of war, and their communities suddenly dispersed. The flora and fauna of special localities invite unremitting attention. With the naturalist we must roam the glen and climb the hill; mark what delights in sunshine, what in shade, and thus some daily lessons learn from the great volume of animated nature "Not a tree, A plant, a leaf, a blossom, but contains A folio volume-we may read, and read, And read again, and still find something new, In the field of national and domestic literature, we shall be earnest gleaners. The customs, proverbial sayings, and traditions of Border-life will be collected with assiduity, and the biography of eminent Borderers be rendered an instructive and delightful theme. We shall occasionally attempt to trace the rise, wealth, and progress of those costly and magnificent medieval institu tions, whose ruins and monuments still attract the architect and the scholar. And it will be our desire to give just and unbiased conclusions as to the causes which led to the degeneracy and decay of their inmates, and finally to the suppression of the institutions themselves.* Our geological reports will disclose the more remarkable stratification of rocks in particular districts. The singular geognostic formations of the Eastern Borders; the Kaims of this and the neighbouring county of Berwickshire; the great boulders, water-stones, and debris of the drift period; but more especially deposits wherein fossil organic remains may occur, and the general economic bearing which Geology has upon the agriculture of particular districts in the Border counties. Since it is our belief that agriculture is the great original source of national wealth and prosperity, whatever measures may tend to ameliorate and improve the condition of those dependent upon it, augment present progress and future gain, stimulate more enlightened practice, introduce better and more economic systems of dairy and field management, and eradicate the unprofitable notions of a bygone period, shall have our hearty support and concurrence. Horticulture and Floriculture will be cherished. The economy of the kail-yard, as well as the more costly beauties of the flower-garden and conservatory, will receive special attention. Professionals and amateurs will find in our pages a suitable medium of intercommunication. We shall constantly epitomise the transactions of learned societies, farmers' clubs, and horticultural associations. And while no effort will be spared to make the "BORDER MAGAZINE" a valuable reliquary of ancient history and the monuments of antiquity, and a safe repository for the fruits of private investigation in natural science, we trust it will be regarded generally as a useful vehicle of intelligence among the literati of the Border Counties. Whatsoever relates to the fine arts shall have our fostering care and respectful attention. We admire sculpture and its embodiment of strength, grace, and beauty. Who has ever forgotten the life proportions of a noble statue that truly represented the original? Our towns are everywhere improving in appearance, and we regard sculpture as the best accessory of architecture. And while we can revel with uncommon grati *Time, which "antiquates antiquity," has nearly triumphed. Sublime in their melancholy splendour, and beautiful in their fair proportions, year by year those noble buttresses and chiselled glories are succumbing to the gale. The founders and worshippers are gone; and, if we except Coldingham Priory and the Abbey of Jedburgh, (still in use as churches,) the voice of melody is no longer heard in them. fication among the pictures of the old masters, numbers of which adorn the halls and galleries of the Border-land, we are not the less delighted with the productions of modern schools and of native talent. We shall be ever ready to appreciate general excellence, graceful arrangement, accuracy of colouring, and natural truthfulness. The flourishing manufacturing emporiums of Hawick, Selkirk, and Galashiels will receive special attention. The Border rivers and their inhabitants shall be constantly noticed. As an educational medium, we offer the right hand of fellowship to all engaged in tuition, and we shall heartily appreciate their correspondence and support. Each number of the " BORDER MAGAZINE" will be illustrated with engravings in the best style of art. The castles and mansions of the Border aristocracy and gentry will be delineated, as well as the ecclesiastical and other public buildings, new erections, bridges, town-halls, railway-stations, viaducts, ruins, monuments, and antiquities. In landscape scenery we possess what the most fastidious can desire. The Border district is "rich in the spoils of time," and the thrilling histories of high antiquity. The land where Thomson, Burns, Scott, Leyden, Hogg, and others sang, must have its own peculiar enchantment. On the Border they inhaled the balmy genius of inspiration. They have left to posterity an invaluable legacy of national minstrelsy, and to our country the bequest of their undying fame. We protest against any of our readers anticipating difficulties in our present attempt to foster literary reciprocity north and south of the Border. For our part, we see none; and if, in former times, obstacles to such a peaceful triumph had an existence, let us hope they have for ever vanished. Little more than twelve years ago, (1850,) the splendid railway viaduct which crosses the Tweed at Berwick was opened by our gracious Sovereign Lady the Queen. This auspicious event was aptly styled "The last act of the Union." Who will gainsay us in believing that such an enterprise did more to knit together and consolidate the two long hostile nations than all the royal marriages and Acts of Parliament accomplished for many bygone centuries? So it is with the increase of facilities for literary purposes, penny-postage, cheap travelling, economy in time, and easy access to the most unfrequented nooks in the Border districts. The renowned castles of Newark, Roxburgh, Norham, and Wark, are either in utter ruin or are fast hastening to destruction. The dim moonlight of years is upon them, and the noise of revelry and war has long since ceased to echo through their vaulted halls. Ford Castle and some other Border keeps have been repaired and modernised as the private dwellings of a kind and peaceful aristocracy. A hundred Border towers have sunk into oblivion; and of many not a vestige remains to indicate the site which they once occupied. The field of Flodden has long submitted to the hand of cultivation, Ancrum Moor is in a high state of fertility, and Otterburn a pasture spangled with flocks. The walls of Hume Castle echo no more with the clang of arms, but enclose a pretty garden. No "warders grim" pace the castle and walls of Berwick, and the men-at-arms on the battlements of Alnwick stand motionless as the rock they were quarried from. A museum of antiquities decorates the interior of the old Norman keep at Newcastle; and shipwrecked mariners find an hospitable asylum within the walls of Bamborough, once the ancient palace of the Northumbrian kings. On further investigation, we learn that the strongholds of Northumbrian chieftains are either in neglected ruin, or transformed into huge repositories of art, hospitals, and schools. The tournament and masquerade have given place to philosophical conversaziones, benevolent institutions, or musical entertainments. The ancient seats of Border reivers are gone for ever, or are tenantless; and the lineal descendants of the most illustrious clansmen occupy modern noble mansions, adorned with costly and elaborate furnishings such as their ancestors never dreamed of. The power of steam has almost annihilated distance, and brought places together which in the old time were far apart. Commercial pursuits have fostered a kindly national reciprocity, and have given an inalienable brotherhood to our common race. We behold in these the best guarantee for future peace and security. National prejudices have grown weak before combined and united intelligence. With the extension of railways the English and Scottish Union has been irrevocably consummated, and a literary conglomerate rises on the dawn of a new era. We commend ourselves to those who have the time, talent, and inclination, to come to our aid and take an interest in our enterprise. To assist in collecting together what has been long sown, but only partially reaped. To recover from the jaws of time morsels of the few glorious relics that remain. To come earnest and resolute, as to a new task in which much labour is foreseen, and more than ordinary diligence required. We have strung together a hundred tales and traditions of Border life. We intend introducing a series of sketches, named |