LETTER III.

DALHOUSIE CASTLE—THE EARL AND COUNTESS—ANTIQUITY OF THEIR FAMILY.

Edinboro’ has extended to “St. Leonard’s,” and the home of Jeanie Deans is now the commencement of the railway! How sadly is romance ridden over by the march of intellect!

With twenty-four persons and some climbers behind, I was drawn ten miles in the hour by a single horse upon the Dalkeith railroad, and landed within a mile of Dalhousie Castle. Two “wee callants” here undertook my portmanteau, and in ten minutes more I was at the rustic lodge in the park, the gate of which swung hospitably open with the welcome announcement that I was expected. An avenue of near three quarters of a mile of firs, cedars, laburnums, and larches, wound through the park to the castle; and dipping over the edge of a deep and wild dell, I found the venerable old pile below me, its round towers and battlemented turrets frowning among the trees, and forming with the river, which swept round its base, one of the finest specimens imaginable of the feudal picturesque.[1]The nicely-gravelled terraces, as I approached, the plate-glass windows and rich curtains, diminished somewhat of the romance; but I am not free to say that the promise they gave of the luxury within did not offer a succedaneum.

I was met at the threshold by the castle’s noble and distinguished master, and as the light modern gothic door swung open on its noiseless hinges, I looked up at the rude armorial scutcheon above, and at the slits for the port-cullis chains and the rough hollows in the walls which had served for its rest, and it seemed to me that the kind and polished earl, in his velvet cap, and the modern door on its patent hinges, were pleasant substitutes even for a raised drawbridge and a helmeted knight. I beg pardon of the romantic, if this be treason against Della Crusca.

The gong had sounded its first summons to dinner, and I went immediately to my room to achieve my toilet. I found myself in the south wing, with a glorious view up the valley of the Esk, and comforts about me such as are only found in a private chamber in England. The nicely-fitted carpet, the heavy curtains, the well-appointed dressing-table, the patent grate and its blazing fire (for where is a fire not welcome in Scotland?) the tapestry, the books, the boundless bed, the bell thatwillring, and the servants that anticipate the pull——oh, you should have pined for comfort in France and Italy to know what this catalogue is worth.

After dinner, Lady Dalhousie, who is much of an invalid, mounted a small poney to show me the grounds. We took a winding path away from the door, and descended at once into the romantic dell over which the castle towers. It is naturally a most wild and precipitous glen, through which the rapid Esk pursues its way almost in darkness; but, leaving only the steep and rocky shelves leaning over the river with their crown of pines, the successive lords of Dalhousie have cultivated the banks and hills around for a park and a paradise. The smooth gravel walks cross and interweave, the smoother lawns sink and swell with their green bosoms, the stream dashes on murmuring below, and the lofty trees shadow and overhang all. At one extremity of the grounds are a flower and a fruit garden, and beyond it the castle farm; at the other, a little village of the family dependants, with their rose-imbowered cottages; and, as far as you would ramble in a day, extend the woods and glades, and hares leap across your path, and pheasants and partridges whirr up as you approach, and you may fatigue yourself in a scene that is formed in every feature from the gentle-born and the refined. The labor and the taste of successive generations can alone create such an Eden. Primogeniture! I half forgive thee.

The various views of the castle from the bottom of the dell are perfectly beautiful. With all its internal refinement, it is still the warlike fortress at a little distance, and bartizan and battlement bring boldly back the days when Bruce was at Hawthornden (six miles distant,) and Lord Dalhousie’s ancestor, the knightly Sir Alexander Ramsay, defended the ford of the Esk, and made himself a man in Scottish story in the days of Wallace and the Douglasses. Dalhousie was besieged by Edward the first and by John of Gaunt, among others, and being the nearest of a chain of castles from the Esk to the Pentland Hills, it was the scene of some pretty fighting in most of the wars of Scotland.

Lord Dalhousie showed me a singular old bridle-bit, the history of which is thus told in Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather:

“Sir Alexander Ramsay having taken by storm the strong castle of Roxburgh, the king bestowed on him the office of sheriff of the county, which was before engaged by the knight of Liddesdale. As this was placing another person in his room, the knight of Liddesdale altogether forgot his old friendship for Ramsay, and resolved to put him to death. He came suddenly upon him with a strong party of men while he was administering justice at Harwick. Ramsay, having no suspicion of injury from the hands of his old comrade, and having few men with him, was easily overpowered; and, being wounded, was hurried away to the lonely castle of the Hermitage, which stands in the middle of the morasses of Liddesdale. Here he was thrown into a dungeon (with his horse) where he had no other sustenance than some grain which fell down from a granary above; and, after lingering awhile in that dreadful condition, the brave Sir Alexander Ramsay died. This was in 1412. Nearly four hundred and fifty years afterward, that is, about forty years ago, a mason, digging among the ruins of Hermitage Castle, broke into a dungeon, where lay a quantity of chaff, some human bones and a bridle-bit, which were supposed to mark the vault as the place of Ramsay’s death. The bridle-bit was given to grandpapa, who presented it to the present gallant earl of Dalhousie, a brave soldier, like his ancestor, Sir Alexander Ramsay, from whom he is lineally descended.”

There is another singular story connected with the family which escaped Sir Walter, and which has never appeared in print. Lady Dalhousie is of the ancient family of Coulston, one of the ancestors of which, Brown of Coulston, married the daughter of the famous Warlock of Gifford, described in Marmion. As they were proceeding to the church, the wizard lord stopped the bridal procession beneath a pear-tree, and plucking one of the pears, he gave it to his daughter, telling her that he had no dowry to give her, but that as long as she kept that gift, good fortune would never desert her or her descendants. This was in 1270, and the pear is still preserved in a silver box. About two centuries ago, a maiden lady of the family chose to try her teeth upon it, and very soon after two of the best farms of the estate were lost in some litigation—the only misfortune that has befallen the inheritance of the Coulstons in six centuries—thanks (perhaps) to theWarlock pear!

[1]“The castle of Dalhousie upon the South-Esk, is a strong and large castle, with a large wall of aslure work going round about the same, with a tower upon ilk corner thereof.”—Grose’s Antiquities.

[1]

“The castle of Dalhousie upon the South-Esk, is a strong and large castle, with a large wall of aslure work going round about the same, with a tower upon ilk corner thereof.”—Grose’s Antiquities.

LETTER IV.

SPORTING AND ITS EQUIPMENTS—ROSLIN CASTLE AND CHAPEL.

The nominal attraction of Scotland, particularly at this season, is the shooting. Immediately on your arrival, you are asked whether you prefer a flint or a percussion lock, and (supposing that you donottravel with a gun, which all Englishmendo,) a double-barrelled Manton is appropriated to your use, the game-keeper fills your powder and shot-pouches, and waits with the dogs in a leash till you have done your breakfast; and the ladies leave the table, wishing you a good day’s sport, all as matters of course.

I would rather have gone to the library. An aversion to walking, except upon smooth flag stones, a poetical tenderness on the subject of “putting birds out of misery,” as the last office is elegantly called, and hands much more at home with a goose-quill than a gun, were some of my private objections to the “order of the day.” Between persuasion and a most truant sunshine, I was overruled, however; and, with a silent prayer that I might not destroy the hopes of my noble host, by shooting his only son, who was to be my companion and instructor, I shouldered the proffered Manton and joined the game-keeper in the park.

Lord Ramsay and his man looked at me with some astonishment as I approached, and I was equally surprised at the young nobleman’s metamorphosis. From the elegant Oxonian I had seen at breakfast, he was transformed to a figure something rougher than his highland dependant, in a woollen shooting-jacket, that might have been cut in Kentucky, pockets of any number and capacity, trousers of the coarsest plaid, hob-nailed shoes, and leather gaiters, and a manner of handling his gun that would have been respected on the Mississippi. My own appearance in high-heeled French boots and other corresponding geer for a tramp over stubble and marsh, amused them equally; but my wardrobe was exclusively metropolitan, and there was no alternative.

The dogs were loosed from their leash and bounded away, and crossing the Esk under the castle walls, we found our way out of the park, and took to the open fields. A large patch of stubble was our first ground, and with a “hie away!” from the gamekeeper, the beautiful setters darted on before, their tails busy with delight and their noses to the ground, first dividing, each for a wall side, and beating along till they met, and then scouring toward the centre, as regularly as if every step were guided by human reason. Suddenly they both dropped low into the stubble, and with heads eagerly bent forward and the intensest gaze upon a spot, a yard or more in advance, stood as motionless as stone. “A covey, my lord!” said the game-keeper, and, with our guns cocked, we advanced to the dogs, who had crouched, and lay as still, while we passed them, as if their lives depended upon our shot. Another step, and whirr! whirr! a dozen partridges started up from the furrow, and while Lord Ramsay cried “Now!” and reserved his fire to give me the opportunity, I stood stock still in my surprise, and the whole covey disappeared over the wall. My friend laughed, the game-keeper smiled, and the dogs hied on once more.

I mended my shooting in the course of the morning, but it was both exciting and hard work. A heavy shower soaked us through, without extracting the slightest notice from my companion; and on we trudged through peas, beans, turnips, and corn, mudded to the knees and smoking with moisture, excessively to the astonishment, I doubt not, of the productions of Monsieur Clerx, of the Rue Vivienne, which were reduced to the consistency of brown paper, and those of my London tailor, which were equally entitled to some surprise at the use they were put to. It was quite beautiful, however, to see the ardor and training of the dogs; their caution, their obedience, and their perfect understanding of every motion of their master. I found myself interested quite beyond fatigue, and it was only when we jumped the park paling and took it once more leisurely down the gravel walks, that I realized at what an expense of mud, water, and weariness, my day’s sport had been purchased.Mem.Never to come to Scotland again without hob-nailed shoes and a shooting-jacket.

Rode over to Roslin castle. The country between Dalhousie castle and Roslin, including the village of Lasswade, is of uncommon loveliness. Lasswade itself clings to the two sides of a small valley, with its village church buried in trees, and the country seat of Lord Melvill looking down upon it, from its green woods; and away over the shoulder of the hill, swell the forests and rocks which imbosom Hawthornden (the residence of Drummond, the poet, in the days of Ben Jonson,) and the Pentland Hills, with their bold outline, form a background that completes the picture.

We left our horses at the neighboring inn, and walked first to Roslin chapel. This little gem of florid architecture is scarcely a ruin, so perfect are its arches and pillars, its fretted cornices and its painted windows. A whimsical booby undertook the cicerone, with a long cane-pole to point out the beauties. We entered the low side door, whose stone threshold the feet of Cromwell’s church stabled troopers assisted to wear, and walked at once to a singular column of twisted marble, most curiously carved, standing under the choir. Our friend with the cane-pole, who had condescended to familiar Scotch on the way, took his distance from the base, and drawing up his feet like a soldier on drill, assumed a most extraordinary elevation of voice, and recited its history in a declamation of which I could only comprehend the words “Awbraham and Isaac.” I saw by the direction of the pole that there was a bas relief of the Father of the Faithful, done on the capital—but for the rest I was indebted to Lord Ramsay, who did it into English as follows: “The master-mason of this chapel, meeting with some difficulties in the execution of his design, found it necessary to go to Rome for information, during which time his apprentice carried on the work, and even executed some parts concerning which his master had been most doubtful; particularly this fine fluted column, ornamented with wreaths of foliage and flowers twisting spirally round it. The master on his return, stung with envy at this proof of the superior abilities of his apprentice, slew him by a blow of his hammer.”

The whole interior of the chapel is excessively rich. The roof, capitals, key-stones, and architraves, are covered with sculptures. On the architrave joining the apprentice’s pillar to a smaller one, is graved the sententious inscription, “Forte est vinum, fortior est rex, fortiores sunt mulieres; super omnia vincit veritas.” It has been built about four hundred years, and is, I am told, the most perfect thing of its kind in Scotland.

The ruins of Roslin castle are a few minutes’ walk beyond. They stand on a kind of island rock, in the midst of one of the wildest glens of Scotland, separated from the hill nearest to the base by a drawbridge, swung over a tremendous chasm. I have seen nothing so absolutely picturesque in my travels. The North Esk runs its dark course, unseen, in the ravine below; the rocks on every side frown down upon it in black shadows, the woods are tangled and apparently pathless, and were it not for a most undeniable two-story farm house, built directly in the court of the old castle, you might convince yourself that foot had never approached it since the days of Wallace.

The fortress was built by William St. Clair, of whom Grose writes: “He kept a great court, and was royally served at his own table in vessels of gold and silver; Lord Dirleton being his master-household; Lord Borthwick his cup-bearer, and Lord Fleming his carver; in whose absence they had deputies to attend, viz: Stewart, Laird of Drumlanrig; Tweddie, Laird of Drumerline, and Sandilands, Laird of Calder. He had his halls and other apartments richly adorned with embroidered hangings. He flourished in the reigns of James the First and Second. His princess, Elizabeth Douglas, was served by seventy-five gentlewomen, whereof fifty-three were daughters of noblemen, all clothed in velvets and silks, with their chains of gold and other ornaments, and was attended by two hundred riding gentlemen in all her journeys; and, if it happened to be dark when she went to Edinburgh, where her lodgings were at the foot of the Black Fryar’s Wynd, eighty torches were carried before her.”

With a scrambling walk up the glen, which is, as says truly Mr. Grose, “inconceivably romantic,” we returned to our horses, and rode back to our dinner at Dalhousie, delighted with Roslin castle, and uncommonly hungry.

LETTER V.

“CHRISTOPHER NORTH”—MR. BLACKWOOD—THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD—LOCKHART—NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ—WORDSWORTH—SOUTHEY—CAPTAIN HAMILTON AND HIS BOOK ON AMERICA—PROFESSOR WILSON’S FAMILY, ETC.

One of my most valued letters to Scotland was an introduction to Professor Wilson—the “Christopher North” of Blackwood, and the well known poet. The acknowledgment of the reception of my note came with an invitation to breakfast the following morning, at the early hour of nine.

The professor’s family were at a summer residence in the country, and he was alone in his house in Gloucester-place, having come to town on the melancholy errand of a visit to poor Blackwood—(since dead.) I was punctual to my hour, and found the poet standing before the fire with his coat skirts expanded—a large, muscular man, something slovenly in his dress, but with a manner and face of high good humor, and remarkably frank and prepossessing address. While he was finding me a chair, and saying civil things of the noble friend who had been the medium of our acquaintance, I was trying to reconcile my idea of him, gathered from portraits and descriptions, with the person before me. I had imagined a thinner and more scholar-like looking man, with a much paler face, and a much more polished exterior. His head is exceedingly ample, his eye blue and restless, his mouth full of character, and his hair, of a very light sandy color, is brushed up to cover an incipient baldness, but takes very much its own way, and has the wildness of a highlander’s. He has the stamp upon him of a remarkable man to a degree seldom seen, and is, on the whole, fine-looking and certainly a gentleman in his appearance; but (I know not whether the impression is common) I expected in Christopher North, a finished and rather over-refined man of the world of the old school, and I was so far disappointed.

The tea was made, and the breakfast smoked upon the table, but the professor showed no signs of being aware of the fact, and talked away famously, getting up and sitting down, walking to the window and standing before the fire, and apparently carried quite away with his own too rapid process of thought. He talked of the American poets, praised Percival and Pierpont more particularly; expressed great pleasure at the criticisms of his own works that had appeared in the American papers and magazines—and still the toast was getting cold, and with every move he seemed less and less aware of the presence of breakfast. There were plates and cups but for two, so that he was not waiting for another guest,—and after half an hour had thus elapsed, I began to fear he thought he had already breakfasted. If I had wished to have reminded him of it, however, I should have had no opportunity, for the stream of his eloquence ran on without a break; and eloquence it certainly was. His accent is very broadly Scotch, but his words are singularly well chosen, and his illustrations more novel and poetical than those of any man I ever conversed with. He spoke of Blackwood, returning to the subject repeatedly, and always with a softened tone of voice and a more impressive manner, as if his feelings were entirely engrossed by the circumstances of his illness. “Poor Blackwood,” he said, setting his hands together and fixing his eyes on the wall, as if he were soliloquising with the picture of the sick man vividly before him, “there never was a more honest creature, or a better friend. I have known him intimately for years, and owe him much; and I could lose no friend that would affect me more nearly. There is something quite awful in the striking down thus of a familiar companion by your side—the passing away—the death—the end forever of a man you have been accustomed to meet as surely as the morning or evening, and have grown to consider a part of your existence almost. To have the share he took in your thoughts thrown back upon you—and his aid and counsel and company with you no more. His own mind is in a very singular state. He knows he is to die, and he has made every preparation in the most composed and sensible manner, and if the subject is alluded to directly, does not even express a hope of recovery; yet, the moment the theme is changed, he talks as if death were as far from him as ever, and looks forward, and mingles himself up in his remarks on the future, as if he were here to see this and the other thing completed, and share with you the advantages for years to come. What a strange thing it is—this balancing between death and life—standing on the edge of the grave, and turning, first to look into its approaching darkness, and then back on the familiar and pleasant world, yet with a certain downward progress, and no hope of life, beyond the day over your head!”

I asked if Blackwood was a man of refined literary taste.

“Yes,” he said. “I would trust his opinion of a book sooner than that of any man I know. He might not publish everything he approved, for it was his business to print only things that would sell; and, therefore, there are perhaps many authors who would complain of him; but, if his opinion had been against my own, and it had been my own book, I should believe he was right and give up my own judgment. He was a patron of literature, and it owes him much. He is a loss to the world.”

I spoke of the “Noctes.”

He smiled, as you would suppose Christopher North would do, with the twinkle proper of genuine hilarity in his eye, and said, “Yes, they have been very popular. Many people in Scotland believe them to be transcripts of real scenes, and wonder how a professor of moral philosophy can descend to such carousings, and poor Hogg comes in for his share of abuse, for they never doubt he was there and said everything that is put down for him.”

“How does the Shepherd take it?”

“Very good humoredly, with the exception of one or two occasions, when cockney scribblers have visited him in their tours, and tried to flatter him by convincing him he was treated disrespectfully. But five minutes’ conversation and two words of banter restore his good humor, and he is convinced, as he ought to be, that he owes half his reputation to the Noctes.”

“What do you think of his Life of Sir Walter, which Lockhart has so butchered in Frazer?”

“DidLockhart write that?”

“I was assured so in London.”

“It was a barbarous and unjustifiable attack; and, oddly enough, I said so yesterday to Lockhart himself, who was here, and he differed from me entirely. Now you mention it, I think from his manner hemusthave written it.”

“Will Hogg forgive him?”

“Never! never! I do not think he knows yet who has done it, but I hear that he is dreadfully exasperated. Lockhart is quite wrong. To attack an old man, with gray hairs, like the Shepherd, and accuse him so flatly and unnecessarily of lie upon lie—oh, it was not right.”

“Do you think Hogg misrepresented facts willingly?”

“No, oh no! he is perfectly honest, no doubt, and quite revered Sir Walter. He has an unlucky inaccuracy of mind, however; and his own vanity, which is something quite ridiculous, has given a coloring to his conversations with Scott, which puts them in a very false light; and Sir Walter, who was the best natured of men, may have said the things ascribed to him in a variety of moods, such as no one can understand who does not know what a bore Hogg must sometimes have been at Abbottsford. Do you know Lockhart?”

“No, I do not. He is almost the only literary man in London I have not met; and I must say, as the editor of the Quarterly, and the most unfair and unprincipled critic of the day, I have no wish to know him. I never heard him well spoken of. I probably have met a hundred of his acquaintances, but I have not seen one who pretended to be his friend.”

“Yet there is a great deal of good in Lockhart. I allow all you say of his unfairness and severity; but if he were sitting there, opposite you, you would find him the mildest and most unpresuming of men, and so he appears in private life always.”

“Not always. A celebrated foreigner, who had been very intimate with him, called one morning to deprecate his severity upon Baron D’Haussez’s book in a forthcoming review. He did his errand in a friendly way, and, on taking his leave, Lockhart, with much ceremony, accompanied him down to his carriage. ‘Pray don’t give yourself the trouble to come down,’ said the polite Frenchman. ‘I make a point of doing it, sir,’ said Lockhart, with a very offensive manner, ‘for I understand from your friend’s book, that we are not considered a polite nation in France.’ Nothing certainly could be more ill-bred and insulting.”

“Still it is not his nature. I do believe that it is merely an unhappy talent that he has for sarcasm, with which his heart has nothing to do. When he sits down to review a book, he never thinks of the author or his feelings. He cuts it up with pleasure, because he does it with skill in the way of his profession, as a surgeon dissects a dead body. He would be the first to show the man a real kindness if he stood before him. I have known Lockhart long. He was in Edinboro’ a great while, and when he was writing ‘Valerius,’ we were in the habit of walking out together every morning, and when we reached a quiet spot in the country, he read to me the chapters as he wrote them. He finished it inthree weeks. I heard it all thus by piecemeal as it went on, and had much difficulty in persuading him that it was worth publishing. He wrote it very rapidly, and thought nothing of it. We used to sup together with Blackwood, and that was the real origin of the ‘Noctes.’ ”

“At Ambrose’s?”

“At Ambrose’s.”

“But is there such a tavern, really?”

“Oh, certainly. Anybody will show it to you. It is a small house, kept in an out-of-the-way corner of the town, by Ambrose, who is an excellent fellow in his way, and had a great influx of custom in consequence of his celebrity in the Noctes. We were there one night very late, and had all been remarkably gay and agreeable. ‘What a pity,’ said Lockhart, ‘that some short hand writer had not been here to take down the good things that have been said at this supper.’ The next day he produced a paper called ‘NoctesAmbrosianæ,’ and that was the first. I continued them afterward.”

“Have you no idea of publishing them separately? I think a volume or two should be made of the more poetical and and critical parts, certainly. Leaving out the politics and the merely local topics of the day, no book could be more agreeable.”

“It was one of the things pending when poor Blackwood was taken ill. But will you have some breakfast?”

The breakfast had been cooling for an hour, and I most willingly acceded to his proposition. Without rising, he leaned back, with his chair still toward the fire, and seizing the tea-pot as if it were a sledge-hammer, he poured from one cup to the other without interrupting the stream, overrunning both cup and saucer, and partly overflooding the tea-tray. He then set the cream toward me with a carelessness which nearly overset it, and in trying to reach an egg from the centre of the table, broke two. He took no notice of his own awkwardness, but drank his cup of tea at a single draught, ate his egg in the same expeditious manner, and went on talking of the Noctes and Lockhart and Blackwood, as if eating his breakfast were rather a troublesome parenthesis in his conversation. After a while he digressed to Wordsworth and Southey, and asked me if I was going to return by the Lakes. I proposed doing so.

“I will give you letters to both, if you haven’t them. I lived a long time in that neighborhood, and know Wordsworth perhaps as well as any one. Many a day I have walked over the hills with him, and listened to his repetition of his own poetry, which of course filled my mind completely at the time, and perhaps started the poetical vein in me, though I cannot agree with the critics that my poetry is an imitation of Wordsworth’s.”

“Did Wordsworth repeat any other poetry than his own?”

“Never in a single instance, to my knowledge. He is remarkable for the manner in which he is wrapped up in his own poetical life. He thinks of nothing else. Everything is done with reference to it. He is all and only a poet.”

“Was the story true that was told in the papers of his seeing, for the first time, in a large company some new novel of Scott’s, in which there was a motto taken from his works; and that he went immediately to the shelf and took down one of his own volumes and read the whole poem to the party, who were waiting for a reading of the new book?”

“Perfectly true. It happened in this very house. Wordsworth was very angry at the paragraph, and I believe accused me of giving it to the world. I was as much surprised as himself, however, to see it in print.”

“What is Southey’s manner of life?”

“Walter Scott said of him that he lived too much with women. He is secluded in the country, and surrounded by a circle of admiring friends who glorify every literary project he undertakes, and persuade him in spite of his natural modesty, that he can do nothing wrong or imperfectly. He has great genius and is a most estimable man.”

“Hamilton lives on the Lakes too—does he not?”

“Yes. How terribly he was annoyed by the review of his book in the North American. Who wrote it?”

“I have not heard positively, but I presume it was Everett. I know nobody else in the country who holds such a pen. He is the American Junius.”

“It was excessively clever but dreadfully severe, and Hamilton was frantic about it. I sent it to him myself, and could scarce have done him a more ungracious office. But what a strange thing it is that nobody can write a good book on America! The ridiculous part of it seems to me that men of common sense go there as travellers, and fill their books with scenes such as they may see every day within five minutes’ walk of their own doors, and call them American. Vulgar people are to be found all over the world, and I will match any scene in Hamilton or Mrs. Trollope, any day or night here in Edinburgh. I have always had an idea that I should be the best traveller in America myself. I have been so in the habit of associating with people of every class in my own country, that I am better fitted to draw the proper distinctions, I think, between what is universal over the world or peculiar to America.”

“I promise you a hearty welcome, if you should be inclined to try.”

“I have thought seriously of it. It is, after all, not more than a journey to Switzerland or Italy, of which we think nothing, and my vacation of five months would give me ample time, I suppose, to run through the principal cities. I shall do it, I think.”

I asked if he had written a poem of any length within the last few years.

“No, though I am always wishing to do it. Many things interfere with my poetry. In the first place I am obliged to give a lecture once a day for six months, and in the summer it is such a delight to be released, and get away into the country with my girls and boys, that I never put pen to paper till I am driven. Then Blackwood is a great care; and, greater objection still, I have been discouraged in various ways by criticism. It used to gall me to have my poems called imitations of Wordsworth and his school; a thing I could not see myself, but which was asserted even by those who praised me, and which modesty forbade I should disavow. I really can see no resemblance between the Isle of Palms and anything of Wordsworth’s. IthinkI have a style of my own, and as myain barn, I think better of it than other people, and so pride prevents my writing. Until late years, too, I have been the subject of much political abuse, and for that I should not have cared if it were not disagreeable to have children and servants reading it in the morning papers, and a fear of giving them another handle in my poetry, was another inducement for not writing.”

I expressed my surprise at what he said, for, as far as I knew the periodicals, Wilson had been a singularly continued favorite.

“Yes, out of this immediate sphere, perhaps—but it requires a strong mind to suffer annoyance at one’s lips, and comfort oneself with the praise of a distant and outer circle of public opinion. I had a family growing up, of sons and daughters, who felt for me more than I should have felt for myself, and I was annoyed perpetually. Now, these very papers praise me, and I really can hardly believe my eyes when I open them and find the same type and imprint expressing such different opinions. It is absurd to mind such weathercocks; and, in truth, the only people worth heeding or writing for are the quiet readers in the country, who read for pleasure, and form sober opinions apart from political or personal prejudice. I would give more for the praise of one country clergyman and his family than I would for the admiration of a whole city. People in towns require a constant phantasmagoria, to keep up even the remembrance of your name. What books and authors, what battles and heroes, are forgotten in a day!”

My letter is getting too long, and I must make it shorter, as it is vastly less agreeable than the visit itself. Wilson went on to speak of his family, and his eyes kindled with pleasure in talking of his children. He invited me to stop and visit him at his place near Selkirk, in my way south, and promised me that I should see Hogg, who lived not far off. Such inducement was scarce necessary, and I made a half promise to do it and left him, after having passed several hours of the highest pleasure in his fascinating society.

LETTER VI.

LORD JEFFREY AND HIS FAMILY—LORD BROUGHAM—COUNT FLAHAULT—POLITICS—THE “GREY” BALL—ABERDEEN—GORDON CASTLE.

I was engaged to dine with Lord Jeffrey on the same day that I had breakfasted with Wilson, and the opportunity of contrasting so closely these two distinguished men, both editors of leading Reviews, yet of different politics, and no less different minds, persons, and manners, was highly gratifying.

At seven o’clock I drove to Moray-place, the Grosvenor-square of Edinburgh. I was not sorry to be early, for never having seen my host, nor his lady (who, as is well known, is an American,) I had some little advantage over the awkwardness of meeting a large party of strangers. After a few minutes’ conversation with Mrs. Jeffrey, the door was thrown quickly open, and the celebrated editor of the Edinburgh, the distinguished lawyer, the humane and learned judge, and the wit of the day,par excellence, entered with his daughter. A frank, almost merry smile, a perfectly unceremonious, hearty manner, and a most playful and graceful style of saying the half-apologetic, half-courteous things, incident to a first meeting after a letter of introduction, put me at once at my ease, and established a partiality for him, impromptu, in my feelings. Jeffrey is rather below the middle size, slight, rapid in his speech and motion, never still, and glances from one subject to another, with less abruptness and more quickness than any man I had ever seen. His head is small, but compact and well-shaped; and the expression of his face, when serious, is that of quick and discriminating earnestness. His voice is rather thin, but pleasing; and if I had met him incidentally, I should have described him, I think, as a most witty and well-bred gentleman of the school of Wilkes and Sheridan. Perhaps as distinguishing a mark as either his wit or his politeness, is an honest goodness of heart; which, however it makes itself apparent, no one could doubt, who had been with Jeffrey ten minutes.

To my great disappointment, Mrs. Jeffrey informed me that Lord Brougham, who was their guest at the time, was engaged to a dinner, given by the new lord advocate to Earl Grey. I had calculated much on seeing two such old friends and fellow-wits as Jeffrey and Brougham at the same table, and I could well believe what my neighbor told me at dinner, that it was more than a common misfortune to have missed it.

A large dinner-party began to assemble, some distinguished men in the law among them, and last of all was announced Lady Keith, rather a striking and very fashionable person, with her husband, Count Flahault, who, after being Napoleon’s aid-de-camp at the battle of Waterloo, offered his beauty and talents, both very much above the ordinary mark, to the above named noble heiress. I have seen few as striking-looking men as Count Flahault, and never a foreigner who spoke English so absolutely like a native of the country.

The great “Grey dinner” had been given the day before, and politics were the only subject at table. It had been my lot to be thrown principally among tories (conservativesis the new name,) since my arrival in England, and it was difficult to rid myself at once of the impressions of a fortnight just passed in the castle of a tory Earl. My sympathies in the “great and glorious” occasion were slower than those of the company, and much of their enthusiasm seemed to me overstrained. Then I had not even dined with the two thousand whigs under the pavilion, and as I was incautious enough to confess it, I was rallied upon having fallen into bad company, and altogether entered less into the spirit of the hour than I could have wished. Politics are seldom witty or amusing, and though I was charmed with the good sense and occasional eloquence of Lord Jeffrey, I was glad to get up stairs after dinner tochasse-caféand the ladies.

We were all bound to the public ball that evening, and at eleven I accompanied my distinguished host to the assembly-room. Dancing was going on with great spirit when we entered; Lord Grey’s statesman-like head was bowing industriously on the platform; Lady Grey and her daughters sat looking on from the same elevated position, and Lord Brougham’s ugliest and shrewdest of human faces, flitted about through the crowd, good fellow to everybody, and followed by all eyes but those of the young. One or two of the Scotch nobility were there, but whigism is not popular amongles hautes volailles, and the ball, though crowded, was but thinly sprinkled with “porcelain.” I danced till three o’clock, without finding my partners better or worse for their politics, and having aggravated a temporary lameness by my exertions, went home with a leg like an elephant to repent my abandonment of tory quiet.

Two or three days under the hands of the doctor, with the society of a Highland crone, of whose ceaseless garrulity over my poultices and plasters I could not understand two consecutive words, fairly finished my patience, and abandoning with no little regret a charming land route to the north of Scotland, I had myself taken, “this side up,” on board the steamer for Aberdeen. The loss of a wedding in Perthshire by the way, of a week’s deer-shooting in the forest of Athol, and a week’s fishing with a noble friend at Kinrara, (long-standing engagements all,) I lay at the door of the whigs. Add to this Loch Leven, Cairn-Gorm, the pass of Killicrankie, other sights lost on that side of Scotland, and I paid dearly for “the Grey ball.”

We steamed the hundred and twenty miles in twelve hours, paying about three dollars for our passage. I mention it for the curiosity of a cheap thing in this country.

I lay at Aberdeen four days, getting out but once, and then for a drive to the “Marichal College,” the Alma Mater of Dugald Dalgetty. It is a curious and rather picturesque old place, half in ruins, and is about being pulled down. A Scotch gentleman, who was a fellow-passenger in the steamer, and who lived in the town, called on me kindly twice a day, brought me books and papers, offered me the use of his carriage, and did everything for my comfort that could have been suggested by the warmest friendship. Considering that it was a casual acquaintance of a day, it speaks well, certainly, for the “Good Samaritanism” of Scotland.

I took two places in the coach at last (one for my leg,) and bowled away seventy miles across the country, with the delightful speed of these admirable contrivances, for Gordon Castle. I arrived at Lochabers, a small town on the estate of the Duke of Gordon, at three in the afternoon, and immediately took a post-chaise for the castle, the gate of which was a stone’s throw from the inn.

The immense iron gate surmounted by the Gordon arms, the handsome and spacious stone lodges on either side, the canonically fat porter in white stockings and gay livery, lifting his hat as he swung open the massive portal, all bespoke the entrance to a noble residence. The road within was edged with velvet sward, and rolled to the smoothness of a terrace walk, the winding avenue lengthened away before, with trees of every variety of foliage; light carriages passed me driven by ladies or gentlemen bound on their afternoon airing; a groom led up and down two beautiful blood horses, prancing along, with side-saddles and morocco stirrups, and keepers with hounds and terriers; gentlemen on foot, idling along the walks, and servants in different liveries, hurrying to and fro, betokened a scene of busy gayety before me. I had hardly noted these various circumstances, before a sudden curve in the road brought the castle into view, a vast stone pile with castellated wings, and in another moment I was at the door, where a dozen lounging and powdered menials were waiting on a party of ladies and gentlemen to their several carriages. It was the moment for the afternoon drive.

LETTER VII.

GORDON CASTLE—COMPANY THERE—THE PARK—DUKE OF GORDON—PERSONAL BEAUTY OF THE ENGLISH ARISTOCRACY.

The last phæton dashed away, and my chaise advanced to the door. A handsome boy, in a kind of page’s dress, immediately came to the window, addressed me by name, and informed me that His Grace was out deer-shooting, but that my room was prepared, and he was ordered to wait on me. I followed him through a hall lined with statues, deers’ horns, and armor, and was ushered into a large chamber, looking out on a park, extending with its lawns and woods to the edge of the horizon. A more lovely view never feasted human eye.

“Who is at the castle?” I asked, as the boy busied himself in unstrapping my portmanteau.

“Oh, a great many, sir.” He stopped in his occupation, and began counting on his fingers. “There’s Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Claud Hamilton and Lady Harriette Hamilton (them’s his lordship’s two step children, you know, sir,) and the Dutchess of Richmond and Lady Sophia Lennox, and Lady Keith, and Lord Mandeville and Lord Aboyne, and Lord Stormont and Lady Stormont, and Lord Morton and Lady Morton, and Lady Alicia, and—and—and—twenty more, sir.”

“Twenty more lords and ladies?”

“No, sir! that’s all the nobility.”

“And you can’t remember the names of the others?”

“No, sir.”

He was a proper page. He could not trouble his memory with the names of commoners.

“And how many sit down to dinner?”

“Above thirty, besides the Duke and Dutchess.”

“That will do.” And off tripped my slender gentleman with his laced jacket, giving the fire a terrible stir-up in his way out, and turning back to inform me that the dinner hour was seven precisely.

It was a mild, bright afternoon, quite warm for the end of an English September, and with a fire in the room, and a soft sunshine pouring in at the windows, a seat by the open casement was far from disagreeable. I passed the time till the sun set, looking out on the park. Hill and valley lay between my eye and the horizon; sheep fed in picturesque flocks, and small fallow deer grazed near them; the trees were planted, and the distant forest shaped by the hand of taste; and broad and beautiful as was the expanse taken in by the eye, it was evidently one princely possession. A mile from the castle wall, the shaven sward extended in a carpet of velvet softness, as bright as emerald, studded by clumps of shrubbery, like flowers wrought elegantly on tapestry; and across it bounded occasionally a hare, and the pheasants feel undisturbed near the thickets, or a lady with flowing riding-dress and flaunting feather, dashed into sight upon her fleet blood palfrey, and was lost the next moment, in the woods, or a boy put his pony to its mettle up the ascent, or a gamekeeper idled into sight with his gun in the hollow of his arm, and his hounds at his heels—and all this little world of enjoyment and luxury, and beauty, lay in the hand of one man, and was created by his wealth in these northern wilds of Scotland, a day’s journey almost from the possession of another human being. I never realized so forcibly the splendid result of wealth and primogeniture.

The sun set in a blaze of fire among the pointed firs crowning the hills, and by the occasional prance of a horse’s feet on the gravel, and the roll of rapid wheels, and now and then a gay laugh and merry voices, the different parties were returning to the castle. Soon after a loud gong sounded through the gallery, the signal to dress, and I left my musing occupation unwillingly to make my toilet for an appearance in a formidable circle of titled aristocrats, not one of whom I had ever seen, the Duke himself a stranger to me, except through the kind letter of introduction lying upon the table.

I was sitting by the fire imagining forms and faces for the different persons who had been named to me, when there was a knock at the door, and a tall, white-haired gentleman, of noble physiognomy, but singularly cordial address, entered, with the broad red riband of a duke across his breast, and welcomed me most heartily to the castle. The gong sounded at the next moment, and, in our way down, he named over his other guests, and prepared me in a measure for the introductions which followed. The drawing-room was crowded like asoirée. The Dutchess, a very tall and very handsome woman, with a smile of the most winning sweetness, received me at the door, and I was presented successively to every person present. Dinner was announced immediately, and the difficult question of precedence being sooner settled than I had ever seen it before in so large a party, we passed through files of servants to the dining room.

It was a large and very lofty hall, supported at the ends by marble columns, within which was stationed a band of music, playing delightfully. The walls were lined with full length family pictures, from old knights in armor to the modern dukes in kilt of the Gordon plaid; and on the sideboards stood services of gold plate, the most gorgeously massive, and the most beautiful in workmanship I have ever seen. There were, among the vases, several large coursing-cups, won by the duke’s hounds, of exquisite shape and ornament.

I fell into my place between a gentleman and a very beautiful woman, of perhaps twenty-two, neither of whose names I remembered, though I had but just been introduced. The Duke probably anticipated as much, and as I took my seat he called out to me, from the top of the table, that I had upon my right, Lady ——, “the most agreeable woman in Scotland.” It was unnecessary to say that she was the most lovely.

I have been struck everywhere in England with the beauty of the higher classes, and as I looked around me upon the aristocratic company at the table, I thought I never had seen “heaven’s image double-stamped as man and noble” so unequivocally clear. There were two young men and four or five young ladies of rank—and five or six people of more decided personal attractions could scarcely be found; the style of form and face at the same time being of that cast of superiority which goes by the expressive name of “thorough-bred.” There is a striking difference in this respect between England and the countries on the continent—thepaysansof France and thebontadiniof Italy being physically far superior to their degenerate masters; while the gentry and nobility of England differ from the peasantry in limb and feature as the racer differs from the dray-horse, or the greyhound from the cur. The contrast between the manners of English and French gentlemen is quite as striking. Theempressment, the warmth, the shrug and gesture of the Parisian, and the working eyebrow, dilating or contracting eye, and conspirator-like action of the Italian in the most common conversation, are the antipodes of English high breeding. I should say a North American Indian, in his more dignified phase, approached nearer to the manner of an English nobleman than any other person. The calm repose of person and feature, the self-possession under all circumstances, that incapability of surprise ordérèglement, and that decision about the slightest circumstance, and the apparent certainty that he is acting absolutelycomme il faut, is equally “gentlemanlike” and Indianlike. You cannot astonish an English gentleman. If a man goes into a fit at his side, or a servant drops a dish upon his shoulder, or he hears that the house is on fire, he sets down his wine-glass with the same deliberation. He has made up his mind what to do in all possible cases, and he does it. He is cold at a first introduction, and may bow stiffly, (which he always does) in drinking wine with you, but it is his manner; and he would think an Englishman out of his senses who should bow down to his very plate and smile as a Frenchman does on a similar occasion. Rather chilled by this, you are a little astonished when the ladies have left the table, and he closes his chair up to you, to receive an invitation to pass a month with him at his country house, and to discover that at the very moment he bowed so coldly, he was thinking how he should contrive to facilitate your plans for getting to him or seeing the country to advantage on the way.

The band ceased playing when the ladies left the table, the gentlemen closed up, conversation assumed a merrier cast, coffee andchasse-caféwere brought in when the wines began to be circulated more slowly; and at eleven, there was a general move to the drawing-room. Cards, tea, and music, filled up the time till twelve, and then the ladies took their departure, and the gentlemen sat down to supper. I got to bed somewhere about two o’clock; and thus ended an evening which I had anticipated as stiff and embarrassing, but which is marked in my tablets as one of the most social and kindly I have had the good fortune to record on my travels. I have described it, and shall describe others minutely—and I hope there is no necessity of my reminding any one that my apology for thus disclosing scenes of private life has been already made. Their interest as sketches by an American of the society that most interests Americans, and the distance at which they are published, justify them, I would hope, from any charge of indelicacy.

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