Thomas the Rhymer, and Walter Scott, of Merse extraction,
whose dust Berwickshire holds as its most sacred trust.

Lauder and Earlston are the only places of importance in the valley. The
former--it is, by the way, the only royal burgh in the shire--boasts a
considerable antiquity. It is still a quaint-looking but clean town,
with long straggling street, and one or two buildings--the parish kirk
and Tolbooth--offering decidedly Continental suggestions. Lauder's
old-worldness and isolation are at an end, however. After much
agitation, a railway-line now connects it with the rest of the world,
and already the signs of a new life are apparent. Within a very few
years the inevitable changes will be sure to have passed over this once
quiet and exclusive little town. It is the "Maitland blude," which
dominates Lauder, and Thirlestane Castle, built, or renovated rather, in
the time of Charles II., is still a place to see. Amongst Scottish
families, the Maitlands were first in place and power. Not a few of them
were greatly distinguished as statesmen and men of letters--the blind
poet and ballad-collector, Sir Richard; William Maitland, the celebrated
Secretary Lethington; Chancellor Maitland, author of the satirical
ballad, "Against Sklanderous Tongues;" Thomas, and Mary, Latin
versifiers both; and the infamous "Cabal" Duke, the only bearer of the
title. Within the well-kept policies of Thirlestane, tradition has
located the site of the historic Lauder Bridge, so fatal to James III.'s
favourites in 1482. Dr. John Wilson, of Bombay, Orientalist and scholar,
was born at Lauder in 1804, and James Guthrie, the first Scottish martyr
after the Reformation, was its minister for a short period.

Earlston is seven miles down stream from Lauder. Before reaching the
town of the Rhymer some spots of interest call for notice. At St.
Leonard's--a little way out--a hospital off-shoot of Dryburgh, lived
Burne the Violer, the last of the minstrel fraternity, a supposed
prototype of the Minstrel of the "Lay," and author of the fine pastoral
poem, "Leader Haughs and Yarrow," the verse-model for Wordsworth's
"Three Yarrows." One verse was a great favourite with Scott and Carlyle,
both of whom were known to repeat it frequently:--

"But Minstrel Burne can not assuage
His grief, while life endureth,
To see the changes of this age,
Which fleeting time procureth;
For mony a place stands in hard case,
Where blythe folk ken