years distinguished themselves as rearing up and supporting the
British school.

Enough has been said and sung about

"The well-contested ground,
The warlike Border-land,"

to render the habits of the tribes who inhabited it before the
union of England and Scotland familiar to most of your readers.
The rougher and sterner features of their character were softened
by their attachment to the fine arts, from which has arisen the
saying that on the frontiers every dale had its battle, and every
river its song. A rude species of chivalry was in constant use,
and single combats were practised as the amusement of the few
intervals of truce which suspended the exercise of war. The
inveteracy of this custom may be inferred from the following
incident:--

Bernard Gilpin, the apostle of the north, the first who undertook
to preach the Protestant doctrines to the Border dalesmen, was
surprised, on entering one of their churches, to see a gauntlet
or mail-glove hanging above the altar. Upon inquiring; the
meaning of a symbol so indecorous being displayed in that sacred
place, he was informed by the clerk that the glove was that of a
famous swordsman, who hung it there as an emblem of a general
challenge and gage of battle to any who should dare to take the
fatal token down. "Reach it to me," said the reverend churchman.
The clerk and the sexton equally declined the perilous office,
and the good Bernard Gilpin was obliged to remove the glove with