that a fair fame might be achieved by arranging the Psalms of David, and
superseding the barbarities of Sternhold and Hopkins. James maintained
that the present edition in use in Scotland, could _not_ be
improved. He said that the question had been agitated in the General
Assembly, and Sir Walter Scott was applied to, to furnish an improved
versification, but he answered, stating that it would be a more
difficult matter to get the people to adopt them, than to furnish the
same. Any alteration in this respect would be looked upon as little
better than sacrilege, and he therefore advised that the present form
should be continued in. "Watty's a sensible chap," said the shepherd,
speaking familiarly of Sir Walter, "and if he laid a finger on o'or
venerable psalmody, I wad pitch a louse at him, wha hae ever loved the
man as my ain brether."

* * * * *

During the last years of Sir Walter's life, he visited in the counties
of Berwick, Roxburgh, and Selkirk, the various scenes which his graphic
pen has delineated and incorporated in his minstrelsy and romance. The
summer when the preceding notes were made, I happened to be in Kelso,
and took ride one day to visit the worthy minister of a neighbouring
parish, in which the celebrated border _keep_ Smailholme tower is
situated, the scene of the fearful legend embodied in the poem "The Eve
of St. John."

We rode over to it: it is situated on a crag or ridge of rock, high
in the north range of hills, the Lammer-muir, which spring from the
splendid vale of Teviot and Tweed, commanding an unbounded prospect
on the east and west; the south is terminated by the Cheviots and
the English border.