Note 1102 — APPENDIX I. AN ESSAY ON THE ANCIENT MINSTRELS IN ENGLAND.

This line being quoted from memory, and given as old Scottish poetry, would have been readily corrected by the copy published in Scottish Songs, 1794, 2 vols. 12mo. i. p. 267, thus (though apparently corrupted from the Scottish idiom):

had not all confidence been destroyed by its being altered in the Historical Essay, prefixed to that publication (p. cx.) to

the better to favour a position, that many of the pipers "might live upon the border, for the conveniency of attending fairs, &c. in both kingdoms." But whoever is acquainted with that part of England knows that on the English frontier rude mountains and barren wastes reach almost across the island, scarcely inhabited by any but solitary shepherds; many of whom durst not venture into the opposite border on account of the ancient feuds and subsequent disputes concerning the Debatable Lands, which separated the boundaries of the two kingdoms, as well as the estates of the two great families of Percy and Douglas; till these disputes were settled, not many years since, by arbitration between the present Lord Douglas, and the late Duke and Dutchess of Northumberland.