"Saxon, from yonder mountain high,I marked thee send delighted eyeFar to the south and east, where lay,Extended in succession gay,Deep waving fields and pastures green,With gentle slopes and groves between;Those fertile fields, that softened vale,Were once the birthright of the Gael."
"Saxon, from yonder mountain high,I marked thee send delighted eyeFar to the south and east, where lay,Extended in succession gay,Deep waving fields and pastures green,With gentle slopes and groves between;Those fertile fields, that softened vale,Were once the birthright of the Gael."
"Saxon, from yonder mountain high,
I marked thee send delighted eye
Far to the south and east, where lay,
Extended in succession gay,
Deep waving fields and pastures green,
With gentle slopes and groves between;
Those fertile fields, that softened vale,
Were once the birthright of the Gael."
The outer gates of the castle are said to have been built by the old Romans, and were strong enough for ancient batteries, but not for modern artillery. The marks of the cannon shot fired by General Monk when he attacked the castle, directing the whole fire of his artillery at one point till he battered down a portion of the wall, and the breach through which William Wallace entered, are points of interest. So was the dark, secure, stone cell into which we peeped, where Rob Roy is said to have been confined. The outer works of the castle were erected in Queen Anne's time, and that known as the Palace, built by James V. The little room known as the Douglass Room, with its adjoining closet, is one of the "lions" of the castle, for it was here that the Earl of Douglass—the "Black Douglass"—met King James II. under promise of safe conduct; and after a fiercediscussion, in which the king vainly tried to induce him to abandon a compact he had made with other chiefs, he stabbed the earl, in a fit of passion. The nobles attendant on the king, concealed in the little antechamber, rushed in and completed the murder, throwing the body from the window—which is pointed out to us—into the garden beneath.
Not far from the castle is the "Lady's Rock," a small hill from which the ladies of the Scottish court, and other favored ones, could look down upon the tournament field, a hundred feet below. And as we sat there, and looked upon the form of the lists, still visible upon the turf below, marked by the green ridges, it was easy to imagine what an animated and beautiful scene it must have presented when filled with knights and squires, steeds and men; for it was here that James was forced to award Douglass the prize, as the victor in the feats of strength at the Scottish sports.
"The gray-haired sires, who know the past,To strangers point the Douglass cast,And moralize on the decayOf Scottish strength in modern day."
"The gray-haired sires, who know the past,To strangers point the Douglass cast,And moralize on the decayOf Scottish strength in modern day."
"The gray-haired sires, who know the past,
To strangers point the Douglass cast,
And moralize on the decay
Of Scottish strength in modern day."
This beautiful vale has witnessed many a joust and tournament. This vale at our feet, this "Lady's Rock," and the lady's seat, which makes for us a sort of rocky throne, as we sit here and muse on Scotland's history and Scotland's poet, are the very ones he speaks of as
"The vale with loud applauses rang,The Lady's Rock sent back the clang."
"The vale with loud applauses rang,The Lady's Rock sent back the clang."
"The vale with loud applauses rang,
The Lady's Rock sent back the clang."
Near the Lady's Rock is a modern cemetery, beautifully laid out, and containing statues of Knox and Henderson, and other handsome monuments. The old churchyard of Grayfriars contains many curious monuments, and here, on an old sun-dial, I found this inscription:—
"I mark time; dost thou?I am a shadow; so art thou."
"I mark time; dost thou?I am a shadow; so art thou."
"I mark time; dost thou?
I am a shadow; so art thou."
It was in Grayfriars that James VI. was crowned, and Knox preached the coronation sermon.
No tourist will think of leaving Stirling without taking a ride to the field of Bannockburn, a short distance. The scene of a battle which occurred more than five hundred and fifty years ago cannot be expected to preserve many features of its former character; the only one which is of particular interest is the "Bore Stone," a fragment of rock with a small cavity, in which the Scottish standard is said to have been raised; it is clamped all over with iron bars, to prevent relic-hunters from carrying what remains of it away.
The story of the battle is one of the most familiar ones in Scottish history to both young and old readers, and your guide will indicate to you points where the Scotch and English forces were disposed, where the concealed pits were placed into which plunged so many of the English cavalry, the point where Bruce stood to watch the battle, nay, the very place where
"The monarch rode along the van,The foe's approaching force to scan,"
"The monarch rode along the van,The foe's approaching force to scan,"
"The monarch rode along the van,
The foe's approaching force to scan,"
when Sir Henry Boune, thinking, as the Bruce was mounted on a slight palfrey, far in advance of his own line, to ride him down with his heavy war horse, set his lance in rest, and dashed out from the English lines with that intent.
"He spurred his steed, he couched his lance,And darted on the Bruce at once,"
"He spurred his steed, he couched his lance,And darted on the Bruce at once,"
"He spurred his steed, he couched his lance,
And darted on the Bruce at once,"
thinking to distinguish himself and have his name in history. He did so, but not in the manner, probably, he had anticipated; for
"While on the king, like flash of flame,Spurred to full speed, the war horse came!But swerving from the knight's career,Just as they met, Bruce shunned the spear.*****High in his stirrups stood the king,And gave his battle-axe the swing;Such strength upon the blow was put,The helmet cracked like hazel-nut;"
"While on the king, like flash of flame,Spurred to full speed, the war horse came!But swerving from the knight's career,Just as they met, Bruce shunned the spear.*****High in his stirrups stood the king,And gave his battle-axe the swing;Such strength upon the blow was put,The helmet cracked like hazel-nut;"
"While on the king, like flash of flame,
Spurred to full speed, the war horse came!
But swerving from the knight's career,
Just as they met, Bruce shunned the spear.
*****
High in his stirrups stood the king,
And gave his battle-axe the swing;
Such strength upon the blow was put,
The helmet cracked like hazel-nut;"
and so began the battle of Bannockburn, which ended in the defeat of one hundred thousand English by thirty thousand Scots, raising Bruce from a hunted rebel to the rank of an independent sovereign. It was the most important battle the Scots ever won, and the most severe defeat the English ever experienced in Scotland.
Another pleasant little excursion was a walk to Cambuskenneth Abbey, crossing the River Forth by an old ferry, where we had to hail the ferry-man from the other side. We did not have to say,—
"Boatman, do not tarry!And I'll give thee a silver poundTo row us o'er the ferry,"—
"Boatman, do not tarry!And I'll give thee a silver poundTo row us o'er the ferry,"—
"Boatman, do not tarry!
And I'll give thee a silver pound
To row us o'er the ferry,"—
for the old fellow came over, rowed three of us across, and demandedthree half-pencefor the service; so we were liberal, and gave him double fare. The only part of the abbey remaining is a Gothic tower, and a few remnants of walls, and the foundation lines of nave and transept, which are visible. A few years ago, when some excavations were being made here, the site of the high altar was found, and beneath it the supposed coffin and skeleton of James III. They were re-interred, and a handsome square sarcophagus marks the spot, bearing an inscription, which tells the visitor that Queen Victoria erected it in 1861, in memory of her ancestors.
While at Stirling we had the opportunity of seeing a real Highland regiment, who were quartered there, in their picturesque, unmilitary dress,—kilt, bare legs, plaid stockings, crown of feathers, &c.,—a most uncomfortable and inconvenient dress for service in the field, I should imagine. I also had an opportunity of hearing native Scotch songs, sung by a Scotch minstrel, as I never heard them sung before. It was a still, quiet moonlight night, in one of the streets, and the wandering minstrel accompanied himself on a violin. I never heard ballad-singing better or more effectively rendered. The singer's voice was a pure, flexible tenor, and as he sung, "Flow gently, sweet Afton," there was hardly a finger moved in the crowd that stood about him; but when he gave a pathetic Scotch ballad, in which the tear was in his voice, he brought it into the eye of more than one of his auditors; and the hearty manner in which many a poor, ragged fellow crowded up to give him a ha'penny at the close, showed how deeply they were touched, and how grateful they felt towards one who could interpret their national melodies so well.
From Stirling we will make a detour through that charming scenery of Scotland which Scott so frequently mentions in his Lady of the Lake, especially in the ride of Fitz-James after the stag, which at eve had "drunk his fill,"
"Where danced the moon on Monan's rill."
But first an unromantic railroad ride of sixteen miles must be taken; and not unromantic, either, for there are many pleasant spots and points of historic interest on the route,—the Bridge of Allan, a pleasant village, which is a popular watering-place not far from Stirling, being one;—through Donne,
"The bannered towers of Donne,"
and on by the rippling stream of the River Forth.
"They bathe their coursers' sweltering sides,Dark Forth, within thy sluggish tides."
"They bathe their coursers' sweltering sides,Dark Forth, within thy sluggish tides."
"They bathe their coursers' sweltering sides,
Dark Forth, within thy sluggish tides."
And we might go on with half the poem in the same manner, such is the charm which Scott's poetry has lent to this part of the country.
At the rugged-looking little stone-built town of Callander we left the train, and climbed into a sort of open wagon stagecoach, similar to those sometimes used at the White Mountains, which held sixteen of us, and had a spanking team driven by an expert English "whip;" and we were whirled away, for a ride of twenty miles or more, through the lakecountry and "the Trossachs" to Loch Katrine. The word "trossachs," I was told by a communicative Scotchman, signified "bristles," and the name was suggested by the species of coarse furze which abounds in the passes of this rough and hilly country. The wild mountain scenery reminded me often of our own White Mountains; and the reaches of view, though giving pretty landscape scenes, showed a country rather sterile for the husbandman—better to shoot over than plough over.
At last we reached a little sort of hollow in the hills, where Lake Vennachar narrows down to the River Teith, and came to where the stream swept round a little grassy point of land; and here our coach stopped a moment for us to look,—
"For this is Coilantogle Ford,"—
which, it will be recollected, was
"Far past Clan Alpine's outmost guard,"
and the scene of the combat between Fitz-James and Roderic Dhu. "And there," said an old Scotchman, pointing to the little grassy peninsula, is the very place where the fight took place"—a borrowed stretch of the imagination, inasmuch as the poet himself imagined the combat.
But we whirled away past Vennachar, mounted a little eminence, from whence we had a grand panoramic view of hills, lake, road, and river, with Benvenue rising in the background; and as we rattled down the hill the road swept round with a curve near to a little village that I recognized at once from the pictures in illustrated editions of Scott's poems—Duncraggan's huts, one of the points at which the bearer of the fiery cross paused on his journey to raise the clans.
"Speed, Malise, speed! the lake is past,Duncraggan's huts appear at last."
"Speed, Malise, speed! the lake is past,Duncraggan's huts appear at last."
"Speed, Malise, speed! the lake is past,
Duncraggan's huts appear at last."
And passing this, we soon rolled over a little single-arched bridge—the bridge of Turk.
"And when the Brigg of Turk was won,The headmost horseman rode alone."
"And when the Brigg of Turk was won,The headmost horseman rode alone."
"And when the Brigg of Turk was won,
The headmost horseman rode alone."
On over the Brigg of Turk, past Loch Achray, and we come to the Trossachs Hotel, commanding a good view of the black-looking "loch," and the rocky peak of Ben A'an. Between this point and Loch Katrine, a mile, are the "Trossachs." All the drives and scenery in the immediate vicinity are delightful; and the hotel, which is a fine castellated building, must be a most pleasant place for summer resort.
Embarking upon a little steamer named Rob Roy, on Loch Katrine, we sail close by Ellen's Isle, and sweep out into the middle of the lake—a lovely sheet of water, and reminding the American tourist of Lake George. A delightful sail on this lake carried us to Stronachlachar. There we disembark, and take carriage again through the valley to Loch Lomond, passing on the road the hut in which Helen McGregor, Rob Roy's wife, was born, and also a fort built to check the incursions of the McGregors, and at one time commanded by General Wolfe—the same who afterwards fell at the capture of Quebec. Then, descending to Inversnaid, we came to Loch Lomond, with the dark mountains looking down upon its waters.
That there is some wind among these Scotch hills we had ample opportunity of ascertaining; for so furiously did the gusts pour down upon the lake, that they lashed it into foam-capped waves, and sent the sheets of spray so liberally over the boat as to make us glad to contemplate this pride of the Scottish lakes, its hills, and thirsty islands from the cabin windows. Disembarking once more at Balloch, situated at the southern extremity of the lake, the train was in waiting which took us to Glasgow, passing Dumbarton on our route, and giving us a fine view of Dumbarton Castle, situated upon the two high peaks of Dumbarton Rock, five hundred and sixty feet high, and noted as being the place of confinement of William Wallace. The highest peak of the rock is called Wallace's Seat, from this circumstance.
Glasgow Cathedral, situated on the highest ground in the metropolis of Scotland, looks over the spires, domes, and crowded masonry of a city of half a million inhabitants. A view from its tower, over two hundred feet in height, takes in the valley of the River Clyde, with woods, and hedges, and pleasant meadows, and the river itself rolling on its way towards the ocean. The Renfrewshire Hills, the neighboring town of Paisley, Dumbarton Rock, and the Argyleshire Mountains, and a ruin or two, with the waving ivy, green upon the shattered walls, complete the distant picture; while spread beneath, at our very feet, is the busy city itself, with its factories, its furnaces, and great masses of high-storied houses, and stretching along by the water side the great quay wall of fifteen thousand feet in length, with vessels ranged two or three abreast before it.
This fine old cathedral is an elegant Gothic structure, and was built in 1136. It is remarkable from being one of the few churches in Scotland that have been preserved in a comparatively perfect state, and its annals for the past seven hundred years have been well preserved and authenticated; but with these I must have but little to do, for once immersed in the curious records of these old ecclesiastical edifices, so celebrated in history, and so wondrous in architectural beauty, and we shall get on all too slowly among the sights and scenes in foreign lands.
The grand entrance to the Glasgow Cathedral is at the great doorway at one end of the nave, and we enter a huge church, three hundred and nineteen feet long by about sixty wide, divided by a splendid screen, or rood loft, as it is called, separating the nave from the choir, that most sacred part of the Roman Catholic edifices, where the principal altars wereerected, and high mass was performed. The carving and ancient decoration here are in a fine state of preservation, and the majestic columns which support the main arches, with their beautifully-cut foliaged capitals of various designs, are an architectural triumph.
The crypts beneath this cathedral are in an excellent state of preservation, and at one time were used for purposes of worship. In Catholic times these old crypts were used for the purposes of sepulture for prelates and high dignitaries of the church; but nearly all traces of the monuments of these worthies were swept away in the blind fury which characterized the Reformation in its destruction of "monuments of idolatry;" and so zealous, or, we may now say, fanatical, were the Reformers, that they swept to swift destruction some of the finest architectural structures in the land, and monuments erected to men who had been of benefit to their race and generation, in one general ruin. The tourist, as he notes the mutilation of the finest works of architectural skill, and the almost total destruction of exquisite sculpture and historical monuments, which he constantly encounters in these ecclesiastical buildings, finds himself giving utterance to expressions anything but flattering to the perpetrators of this vandalism.
An effigy of a bishop, with head struck off and otherwise mutilated, is now about all of note that remains of the monuments here in the crypt. It is supposed to be the effigy of Jocline, the founder of this part of the cathedral, which is about one hundred and thirty feet in length, and sixty-five wide, with five rows of columns of every possible form, from simple shaft to those of elaborate design, supporting the structure above. The crypts are, it is said, the finest in the kingdom. But the great wonder of Glasgow Cathedral is its stained-glass windows, which are marvels of modern work, for they were commenced in 1859, and completed in 1864, and are some of the finest specimens of painted-glass work that the Royal Establishment of Glass Painting, in Munich, has ever produced.
These windows are over eighty in number; but forty-four of them aregreatwindows, twenty-five or thirty feet high, and each one giving a Bible story in pictures. The subjects begin with the Expulsion from Paradise, and continue on in regular order of Bible chronology. Besides these are coats of arms of the different donors of windows, in a circle of colored glass at the base, as each was given by some noted person or family, and serves as a memento of relatives and friends who are interred in the cathedral or its necropolis. Besides the leading events of biblical history, from the Old Testament portrayed, such as Noah's Sacrifice, Abraham offering Isaac, the Offer of Marriage to Rebekah, the Blessing of Jacob, the Finding of Moses, &c., there are figures of the apostles, the prophets, illustrations of the parables of our Saviour, and other subjects from the Holy Scriptures, all beautifully executed after designs by eminent artists.
But space will not permit further description of this magnificent building. Scott says this is "the only metropolitan church, except the Cathedral Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, that remained uninjured at the Reformation." It owes its preservation from destruction somewhat to the fact that James Rabat, who was Dean of Guild when its demolition was clamored for, was a good Mason, and saved this work of the masters' art by suffering the "idolatrous statues" of saints to be destroyed on condition of safety to the building.
At the rear of the cathedral rises the Necropolis, a bold, semicircular eminence, some three hundred feet in height, and formed in regular terraces, which are divided into walks, and crowded with elegant and costly modern monuments; too crowded, in fact, and reminding one more of a sculpture gallery than a cemetery. Among the most conspicuous of these monuments was a fine Corinthian shaft and statue to John Knox, and on the shaft was inscribed,—
"When laid in the ground, the regent said, 'There lieth he who never feared the face of man, who was often threatened with dag and dagger, yet hath ended his days in peace and honor.'"
"When laid in the ground, the regent said, 'There lieth he who never feared the face of man, who was often threatened with dag and dagger, yet hath ended his days in peace and honor.'"
A magnificent square sarcophagus, erected to James Sheridan Knowles, bore his name.
"Died November, 1862."
A fine monument to John Dick, Professor of Theology and Minister of Grayfriars Church, Edinburgh; another to William McGarvin, author of the "Protestant." One erected to a favorite Scotch comedian attracted my attention from the appropriateness of its design and epitaph. The designs were elegantly-cut figures of Comedy and Tragedy, in marble, a medallion head in bass-relief, probably a likeness of the deceased, and the mask, bowl, and other well-known emblems of the histrionic art. The epitaph was as follows:—
"Fallen is the curtain; the last scene is o'er,The favorite actor treads life's stage no more.Oft lavish plaudits from the crowd he drew,And laughing eyes confessed his humor true.Here fond affection rears this sculptured stone,For virtues not enacted, but his own—A constancy unshaken unto death,A truth unswerving, and a Christian's faith.Who knew him best have cause to mourn him most;O, weep the man more than the actor lost.Unnumbered parts he played, yet to the endHis best were those of husband, father, friend."
"Fallen is the curtain; the last scene is o'er,The favorite actor treads life's stage no more.Oft lavish plaudits from the crowd he drew,And laughing eyes confessed his humor true.Here fond affection rears this sculptured stone,For virtues not enacted, but his own—A constancy unshaken unto death,A truth unswerving, and a Christian's faith.Who knew him best have cause to mourn him most;O, weep the man more than the actor lost.Unnumbered parts he played, yet to the endHis best were those of husband, father, friend."
"Fallen is the curtain; the last scene is o'er,
The favorite actor treads life's stage no more.
Oft lavish plaudits from the crowd he drew,
And laughing eyes confessed his humor true.
Here fond affection rears this sculptured stone,
For virtues not enacted, but his own—
A constancy unshaken unto death,
A truth unswerving, and a Christian's faith.
Who knew him best have cause to mourn him most;
O, weep the man more than the actor lost.
Unnumbered parts he played, yet to the end
His best were those of husband, father, friend."
The deceased's name was John Henry Alexander, who died December 15, 1851.
From Glasgow we took rail to Ayr, on a pilgrimage to Burns's birthplace, and, at five o'clock of a pleasant afternoon, arrived at that little Scotch town, and as we rode through the streets, passed by the very tavern where "Tam O'Shanter" held his revel with "Souter Johnny"—a clean little squat stone house, indicated by a big sign-board, on which is a pictorial representation of Tam and his crony sitting together, and enjoying a "wee drapit" of something from handled mugs, which they are holding out to each other, and, judging from the size of the mugs, not a "wee drapit" either; for the oldScotsmen who frequent these taverns will carry off, without winking, a load beneath their jackets that would floor a stout man of ordinary capacity.
A queer old town is Ayr, and at the hotel above mentioned the curious tourist may not only sit in the chairs of Tam and Johnny, but in that Burns himself has pressed; and if he gets the jolly fat old landlord in good humor,—as he is sure to get when Americans order some of his best "mountain dew,"—and engages him in conversation, he may have an opportunity to drink it from the very wooden cup, now hooped with silver, from which the poet himself indulged in potations, and drained inspiration.
As we ride over the road from the town of Ayr—
"Auld Ayr, whom ne'er a town surpassesFor honest men and bonnie lasses"—
"Auld Ayr, whom ne'er a town surpassesFor honest men and bonnie lasses"—
"Auld Ayr, whom ne'er a town surpasses
For honest men and bonnie lasses"—
to Burns's birthplace, and Alloway Kirk, we find ourselves upon the same course traversed by Tam O'Shanter on his memorable ride, and passing many of those objects which, for their fearful associations, gave additional terror to the journey, and kept him
"glowering round wi' prudent cares,Lest bogles catch him unawares."
"glowering round wi' prudent cares,Lest bogles catch him unawares."
"glowering round wi' prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares."
A pleasant ride we had of it, recalling the verses, as each point mentioned in the ballad, which is such a combination of the ludicrous and awful, came into view and was pointed out to us.
"The fordWhare in the snaw the chapman smoored,And past the birks and meikle stane,Whare drunken Charlie brake neck-bane;And thro' the whins, and by the cairn,Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn;And near the thorn aboon the well,Whare Mungo's mither hanged hersel."
"The fordWhare in the snaw the chapman smoored,And past the birks and meikle stane,Whare drunken Charlie brake neck-bane;And thro' the whins, and by the cairn,Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn;And near the thorn aboon the well,Whare Mungo's mither hanged hersel."
"The ford
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoored,
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Whare drunken Charlie brake neck-bane;
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn,
Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn;
And near the thorn aboon the well,
Whare Mungo's mither hanged hersel."
But let us stop at the poet's cottage—the little one-story "clay-biggin" it originally was, when, in 1759, Robert Burns was born there, consisting only of a kitchen and sitting-room;these still remain, and in a little recess in the former is a sort of bunk, or bed, where the poet first saw light; that is, what little of it stole in at the deep-set window of this little den; additional rooms have been built on to the cottage, including a large one for society meetings and anniversary dinners; the little squat thatched cot is the Mecca of thousands of travellers from all parts of the world, as the visitors' book reveals.
An old Scotch woman, who was busy with her week's ironing, her work, for a few moments, to show us the rooms and sell a stereoscopic view, and then returned to her flat-irons. An old fellow, named "Miller" Goudie, and his wife, used to occupy the cot. He now rests in Alloway churchyard, and, as his epitaph says,—
"For forty years it was his lotTo show the poet's humble cot;And, sometimes laughin', sometimes sobbin',Told his last interview with Robin:A quiet, civil, blithesome body,Without a foe, was Miller Goudie."
"For forty years it was his lotTo show the poet's humble cot;And, sometimes laughin', sometimes sobbin',Told his last interview with Robin:A quiet, civil, blithesome body,Without a foe, was Miller Goudie."
"For forty years it was his lot
To show the poet's humble cot;
And, sometimes laughin', sometimes sobbin',
Told his last interview with Robin:
A quiet, civil, blithesome body,
Without a foe, was Miller Goudie."
A framed autograph letter of Burns, and a picture of him at a masonic assembly, adorn the walls of the large room, and are about all of interest in it. A short distance beyond the cottage, and we come to "Alloway's auld haunted Kirk,"—a little bit of a Scotch church, with only the walls standing, and familiar to us from the many pictures we had seen of it.
Here it was that Tam saw the witches dance; and there must have been the very window, just high enough for him to have looked in from horseback: just off from the road is the kirk, and near enough for Tam to hive seen the light through the chinks, and bear the sound of mirth and dancing. Of course I marched straight up to the little window towards the road, and peeped in at the very place where Tam had viewed the wondrous sight; but such narrow and circumscribed limits for a witches' dance! Why, Nannie's leap and fling could not have been much in such a wee bit of a chapel, and I expressed that opinion audibly, with a derisive laugh at Scotch witches, when, as if to punish scepticism, the bit ofstone which I had propped up against the wall to give me additional height, slipped from beneath my feet, bringing my chin in sharp contact with the window-sill, and giving me such a shock altogether, that I wondered if the witches were not still keeping guard over the old place, for it looks weird enough, with its gray, roofless walls, the dark ivy about them flapping in the breeze, and the interior choked with weeds and rubbish.
In the little burial-ground of the kirk is the grave of the poet's father, marked by a plain tombstone, and bearing an epitaph written by Burns. Leaving the kirk, a few hundred yards' walk brings us to
"The banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,"
and the "auld brigg" spanning it, over which Tam O'Shanter's mare Maggie, clattered just in time to save him from the witch's vengeance, losing her tail in the struggle on the "keystane." The keystone was pointed out to us by a little Scotch lassie, as we stood on the bridge, admiring the swift stream, as it whirled under the arches, and the old Scotch guide told us "Tam had eight mair miles to gang ere he stopit at his own door-stane."
Near this bridge is the Burns Monument, a sort of circular structure, about sixty feet high, of Grecian architecture. In a circular apartment within the monument is a glass case, containing several relics, the most interesting of which is the Bible given by Burns to his Highland Mary. It is bound in two volumes, and on the fly-leaf of the first is inscribed the following text, in the poet's handwriting: "And ye shall not swear by my name falsely; I am the Lord." (Levit. xix. 12.) And on the leaf of the second, "Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths." (Matt. v. 33.) In both volumes the poet has inscribed his autograph, and in one of them there rests a little tress of Highland Mary's hair.
The grounds—about an acre in extent around the monument—are prettily laid out, and in a little building, at oneextremity, are the original, far-famed figures of Tam O'Shanter and Souter Johnny, chiselled out of solid freestone by the self-taught sculptor Thom; and marvellously well-executed figures they are, down to the minutest details of hose and bonnet, as they sit with their mugs of good cheer, jollily pledging each other. This group, and that of Tam riding over the bridge, with the witch just catching at Maggie's tail, are both familiar to almost every American family, and owe their familiarity, in more than one instance, to the representations of them upon the cheap little pitchers of Wedgwood ware, which are so extensively used as syrup pitchers wherever buckwheat cakes are eaten.
The ride back to Ayr, by a different route, carries us past some pleasant country-seats, the low bridge of Doon, and a lovely landscape all about us.
But we visited the classic Doon, with its banks and braes so "fresh and fair," as most of our countrymen do—did it in a day, dreamed and imagined for an hour in the little old churchyard of Kirk Alloway, leaned over the auld brig, and looked down into the running waters, and wondered how often the poet had gazed at it from the same place, or sauntered on that romantic little pathway by its bank, where we plucked daisies, and pressed them between the leaves of a pocket edition of his poems, as mementos of our visit. We did not omit a visit to the "twa brigs" that span the Ayr. The auld brig,—
"Where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they meet,"—
was erected in the fourteenth century, and was formerly steep and narrow, but has been widened and improved within the past fifteen years. The new one, which is about two hundred yards from it, was built in 1788, and from it a good view of the river and the old bridge is obtained.
A ride round the town shows us but little of special interest to write of; a fine statue of William Wallace, cut by Thom, in front of a Gothic building, known as Wallace Tower, being the most striking object that met our view. From Ayr toCarlisle, where we saw the castle which Bruce failed to take in 1312, which surrendered to Prince Charles Stuart in 1745, and which was the scene of such barbarities on the conquered on its being retaken by the Duke of Cumberland. The old castle, or that portion of it that remains, with its lofty, massive tower and wall, makes an imposing appearance, and is something like the pictures of castles in the story-books. In one portion of it are the rooms occupied by Mary, Queen of Scots, on her flight to England, after the battle of Langside.
The old red freestone cathedral, built in the time of the Saxons, where sleeps Dr. Paley, once archdeacon, and where is a monument erected to his memory, claimed a modicum of our time, after which we passed through Newcastle-on-Tyne, celebrated, as all know in these modern days, as a port of shipment for coal, and busy with its glass-houses, potteries, iron and steel factories, and machine shops, and owing its name to the fact that Robert, son of William the Conqueror, built a new castle here after his return from a military expedition. The old donjon keep and tower still stand, massive and blackened, not with the smoke of battle, but of modern industry, which rises, in murky volumes, from many chimneys.
On we speed, leaving Newcastle, its dingy buildings and murky cloud, behind, and whirl over the railroad, till we reach the beautiful vale that holds the "Metropolis of the North of England," as the guide-books style it,—the ancient city of York,—with its Roman walls, and its magnificent minster; a city, which, A. D. 150, was one of the greatest of the Roman stations in England, and had a regular government, an imperial palace, and a tribunal within its walls. York, which carries us back to school-boy days, when we studied of the wars of the Roses, and the houses of York and Lancaster—York, whose modern namesake, more than seventeen hundred years its junior, in the New World, has seventeen times its population.
York—yes, in York one feels that he is in Old England indeed. Here are the old walls, still strong and massy, thathave echoed to the tramp of the Roman legions, that looked down on Adrian and Constantine the Great, that have successively been manned by Britons, Picts, Danes, and Saxons, the latter under the command of Hengist, mentioned in the story-legends that tell of the pair of warlike Saxon brothers, Hengist and Horsa, the latter, whose name in my youthful days always seemed to have some mysterious connection with the great white-horse banner of the Saxon warriors, that was wont to float from the masts of their war ships.
It was in York that the first Christmas was ever kept in England. This was done by King Arthur and his nobility when he began to rebuild the churches, in the year 500, that the Saxons had destroyed.
York was once a place where many Jews dwelt. We all remember Isaac of York, in the story of Ivanhoe; and the great massacre of this people there in 1490, when over two thousand fell victims to popular fury.
But I am not going to give a chronological history of this interesting city, for there is scarcely an American reader of English history but will recall a score of noteworthy events that have occurred within its ancient walls.
The great and crowning wonder here to the tourist is, of course, the cathedral, or the minster, as it is called. This magnificent and stupendous pile, which occupied nearly two hundred years in erection, and has stood for three hundred years since its completion, is, without doubt, one of the most magnificent Gothic structures in the world, and excels in beauty and magnificence most ecclesiastical buildings of the middle ages. After a walk through a quaint old quarter of the city, and a stroll on the parapets of the great wall, through some of the gates, with the round, solid watch-towers above them, pierced with arrow-slits for crossbowmen, or having, high above, little turrets for sentinels, I was in the mood for the sight of the grand old cathedral, but not at all prepared for the superb and elegant proportions of the pile which suddenly appeared to view, as I turned a corner of a street.
The length of this majestic pile is five hundred and twenty-four feet, and its breadth two hundred and twenty-two, and the height of its two square and massive towers one hundred and ninety-six feet. I got a west view of the building first, which is what I should suppose was properly its front, consisting of the two tall square towers, with the main entrance between them, surmounted by a great Gothic window, exhibiting a magnificent specimen of the leafy and fairy-like tracery of the fourteenth century. Tall, pointed arches are above it, and the two towers are also adorned with windows, and elaborate ornamentation. To the rear of them, at the end of the nave and between the two transepts, rises the central tower two hundred and thirteen feet. There is a fine open space in front of this glorious west front, and no lover of architecture can come upon it for the first time without standing entranced at the wondrous beauty of the building in proportion, decoration, and design.
Churches occupied the site of York Cathedral centuries before it. One was built here by King Edwin, in 627; another in 767, which stood till 1069; but the present building was founded in 1171, and completed in the year 1400.
The expectations created by an external view of its architectural grandeur and rich embellishments are surpassed upon an examination of the interior, a particular description of which would require almost a volume to give space to. We can only, therefore, take a glance at it.
First, there is the great east window, which, for magnitude and beauty of coloring, is unequalled in the world. Only think of a great archseventy-five feet high, and over thirty feet broad, a glory of stained glass! The upper part is a piece of admirable tracery, and below it are over a hundred compartments, occupied with scriptural representations—saints, priests, angels, &c. Each pane of glass is a yard square, and the figures two feet three inches in length. Right across this great window runs what I supposed to be a strong iron rod, or wire, but which turned out to be a stone gallery, or piazza, a bridge big enough for a person to cross upon, and from which the view that is had of the whole interior of thisgreat minster—a vista of Gothic arches and clustered columns of more than five hundred feet in length, terminated by the great west window, with its gorgeous display of colored glass—is grand beyond description. The great west window contains pictured representations of the eight earliest archbishops of York, and eight saints, and other figures. It was put up in 1338, and is remarkable for its richness of coloring.
Besides the great east and west windows, there are sixteen in the nave and fifteen in the side aisles. In the south transept, which is the oldest part of the building, high up above the entrance, in the point of the arch, is the great "marigold window," formed of two concentric circles of small arches in the form of a wheel, the lights of which give it the appearance of the flower from which it is named, the diameter of this great stone and glass marigold being over thirty feet. Then, in the north transept, opposite, is another window of exquisite coloring—those warm, deep, mellow hues of the old artisans in colored glass, which the most cunning of their modern successors seek in vain to rival. It appears, as it were, a vast embroidery frame in five sections, each section a different pattern of those elaborate traceries and exquisite hues of needle-work with which noble ladies whiled away their time in castle-bower, while their knights fought the infidel in distant clime. This noble window is known as the "Five Sisters," from the fact that the pattern is said to have been wrought from designs in needle-work of five maiden sisters of York.
The story of these sisters is told by Dickens in the sixth chapter of Nicholas Nickleby. This magnificent window is fifty-seven feet in height, and it was put in in the year 1290. The other windows I cannot spare space to refer to; suffice it to say the windows of this cathedral present a gorgeous display of ancient stained glass not to be met with in any similar building in the world. In fact, the minster exhibits more windows than solid fabric to exterior view, imparting a marvellous degree of lightness to the huge structure, while inside the vastness of the space gives the spectator opportunity to stand at a proper distance, and look up at them as they arestretched before the view like great paintings, framed in exquisite tracery of stone-work, with the best possible effect of light. The glass of these windows, I was informed by the verger who acted as our guide, was taken out and hidden during the iconoclastic excitement of Cromwell's time, and they are now the only ones that have preserved the ancient glass intact in the kingdom. The most valuable are protected by a strong shield of extra plate glass outside.
From the painted glories of the windows the visitor's eye sweeps over the vast expanse of clustered pillars, lofty Gothic arches, and splendid vistas of Gothic columns on every side. In the great western aisle, or nave, a perspective view of full three hundred feet of columns and arches is had; and standing upon the pavement, you look to the grand arched roof, which is clear ninety-nine feet above, and the eye is fairly dazed with the immensity of space. The screen, as it is called, which separates the nave from the choir, rises just high enough to form a support for the organ, without concealing from view the grand arches and columns of the choir, which stretch far away, another vista of two hundred and sixty-four feet, before the bewildered view of the visitor, who finds himself almost awe-struck in the very vastness and sublimity of this grand architectural creation.
The screen is a most elaborate and superb piece of sculpture, and is ornamented with the statues of the English kings, from the time of William the Conqueror to Henry VI., fifteen in number. The great choir, with its exuberant display of carving, richly-ornamented stalls, altar, and side aisles, screened with carved oak, is another wonder. Here I had the pleasure of listening to the choral service, performed by the full choir of men and boys attached to the cathedral; and I stood out among the monuments of old archbishops and warriors of five hundred years agone, and heard that sweet chant float upon the swelling peals of the organ, away up amid the lofty groined arches of the grand old minster, till its dying echoes were lost amid the mysterious tracery above, or the grand, full chorus of powerful voices made the loftyroof to ring again, as it were, with heavenly melody. There was every appeal to the ear, the eye, the imagination; and I may say it seemed the very poetry of religion, and poetry of a sublime order, too.
An attempt even at a description of the different monuments of the now almost forgotten, and many entirely forgotten, dignitaries and benefactors of the church that are found all along the great side aisles, would be a useless task. Some are magnificent structures of marble, with elegantly-sculptured effigies of bishops in their ecclesiastical robes. Others once were magnificent in sculptured stone and brass, but have been defaced by time and vandalism, and, in their shattered ruin, tell the story of man's last vanity, or are a most striking illustration of what a perishable shadow is human greatness.
The Chapter-house attached to York Minster is said to be the most perfect specimen of Gothic architecture in the world, and is certainly one of the most magnificent interiors of the kind I ever gazed upon. The records of the church give no information as to whom this superb edifice was erected by, or at what period, and the subject is one of dispute among the antiquaries, who suppose it must have been built either in the year 1200 or 1300. It is a perfect octagon, of sixty-three feet in diameter, and the height from the centre to the middle knot of the roof sixty-seven feet, without the interruption of a single pillar,—being wholly dependent on a single key-pin, geometrically placed in the centre.
Seven squares of the octagon have each a window of stained glass, with the armorial bearings of benefactors of the church, the eighth octagon being the entrance; below the windows are the seats, or stalls, for the canons and dignitaries of the church, when they assemble here for installations and other purposes. The columns around the side of this room are carved, in the most profuse manner, with the most singular figures, such as an ugly old friar embracing a young girl, to the infinite delight of a group of nuns, grotesque figures of men and animals, monks playing all sorts of pranks, grinning faces, &c. The whole formation of this exquisitely-constructedbuilding shows a thorough geometric knowledge in the builders, and the entrance to it is by a vestibule, in the form of a mason's square.
In the vestries we had an opportunity of seeing many and well-authenticated historical curiosities. The most ancient of these is the famous Horn of Ulphus, the great Saxon drinking horn, from which Ulphus was wont to drink, and by which the church still holds valuable estates near York. With this great ivory horn, filled with wine, the old chieftain knelt before the high altar, and, solemnly quaffing a deep draught, bestowed upon the church by the act all his lands, tenements, &c., giving to the holy fathers the horn as their title deed, which they have preserved ever since; and their successors permit sacrilegious Yankees, like myself, to press their lips to its brim, while examining the old relic.
A more modern drinking-cup is the ancient wooden bowl, which was presented by Archbishop Scrope—who was beheaded in the year 1405—to the Society of Cordwainers in 1398, and by them given to the church in 1808. This more sensible drinking-cup has silver legs and a silver rim, and not only is it well adapted for a jorum of punch, but the good archbishop made it worth while to drink from it, according to the ancient inscription upon it, in Old English characters, which reads,—