Excerpt from The Poetical Remains of Robert Chambers, LL. D This poem relates to David Ritchie, a deformed and eccentric character, who, for many years previous to 181 1, dwelt in a solitary cottage in the vale of Manor, near Peebles, and was allowed by Sir Walter Scott to have been the prototype of the fictitious character of the Black Dwarf. With an intellect of considerable native strength, and by no means uncultivated, this poor hater of his kind had a superstitious veneration for the mountain-ash, or rowan-tree, and his grave in Manor churchyard is marked by a plant of that species. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.