Letter III

Letter IIIGlasgow, April 16, 1853.Dear Aunt E.:—You shall have my earliest Scotch letter; for I am sure nobody can sympathize in the emotions of the first approach to Scotland as you can. A country dear to us by the memory of the dead and of the living; a country whose history and literature, interesting enough of itself, has become to us still more so, because the reading and learning of it formed part of our communion for many a social hour, with friends long parted from earth.The views of Scotland, which lay on my mother's table, even while I was a little child, and in poring over which I spent so many happy, dreamy hours,—the Scotch ballads, which were the delight of our evening fireside, and which seemed almost to melt the soul out of me, before I was old enough to understand their words,—the songs of Burns, which had been a household treasure among us,—the enchantments of Scott,—all these dimly returned upon me. It was the result of them all which I felt in nerve and brain.And, by the by, that puts me in mind of one thing; and that is, how much of our pleasure in literature results from its reflection on us from, other minds. As we advance in life, the literature which has charmed us in the circle of our friends becomes endeared to us from the reflected remembrance of them, of their individualities, their opinions, and their sympathies, so that our memory of it is a many-colored cord, drawn from many minds.So in coming near to Scotland, I seemed to feel not only my own individuality, but all that my friends would have felt, had they been with me. For sometimes we seem to be encompassed, as by a cloud, with a sense of the sympathy of the absent and the dead.We left Liverpool with hearts a little tremulous and excited by the vibration of an atmosphere of universal sympathy and kindness. We found ourselves, at length, shut from the warm adieus of our friends, in a snug compartment of the railroad car. The English cars are models of comfort and good keeping. There are six seats in a compartment, luxuriously cushioned and nicely carpeted, and six was exactly the number of our party. Nevertheless, so obstinate is custom that we averred at first that we preferred our American cars, deficient as they are in many points of neatness and luxury, because they are so much more social."Dear me," said Mr. S., "six Yankees shut up in a car together! Not one Englishman to tell us any thing about the country! Just like the six old ladies that made their living by taking tea at each other's houses."But that is the way here in England: every arrangement in travelling is designed to maintain that privacy and reserve which is the dearest and most sacred part of an Englishman's nature. Things are so arranged here that, if a man pleases, he can travel all through England with his family, and keep the circle an unbroken unit, having just as little communication with any thing outside of it as in his own house.From one of these sheltered apartments in a railroad car, he can pass to preëngaged parlors and chambers in the hotel, with his own separate table, and all his domestic manners and peculiarities unbroken. In fact, it is a little compact home travelling about.Now, all this is very charming to people who know already as much about a country as they want to know; but it follows from it that a stranger might travel all through England, from one end to the other and not be on conversing terms with a person in it. He may be at the same hotel, in the same train with people able to give him all imaginable information, yet never touch them at any practicable point of communion. This is more especially the case if his party, as ours was, is just large enough to fill the whole apartment.As to the comforts of the cars, it is to be said, that for the same price you can get far more comfortable riding in America. Their first class cars are beyond all praise, but also beyond all price; their second class are comfortless, cushionless, and uninviting. Agreeably with our theory of democratic equality, we have a general car, not so complete as the one, nor so bare as the other, where all ride together; and if the traveller in thus riding sees things that occasionally annoy him, when he remembers that the whole population, from the highest to the lowest, are accommodated here together, he will certainly see hopeful indications in the general comfort, order, and respectability which prevail; all which we talked over most patriotically together, while we were lamenting that there was not a seventh to our party, to instruct us in the localities.Every thing upon the railroad proceeds with systematic accuracy. There is no chance for the most careless person to commit a blunder, or make a mistake. At the proper time the conductor marches every body into their places and locks them in, gives the word, "All right," and away we go. Somebody has remarked, very characteristically, that the starting word of the English is "all right," and that of the Americans "go ahead."Away we go through Lancashire, wide awake, looking out on all sides for any signs of antiquity. In being thus whirled through English scenery, I became conscious of a new understanding of the spirit and phraseology of English poetry. There are many phrases and expressions with which we have been familiar from childhood, and which, we suppose, in a kind of indefinite way, we understand, which, after all, when we come on English ground, start into a new significance: take, for instance, these lines from L'Allegro:—"Sometimes walking, not unseen,By hedge-row elms on hillocks green.* * * *Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,While the landscape round it measures;Russet lawns and fallows gray,Where the nibbling flocks do stray;Mountains, on whose barren breastThe laboring clouds do often rest;Meadows trim with daisies pied,Shallow brooks and livers wide:Towers and battlements it seesBosom'd high in tufted trees."Now, these hedge-row elms. I had never even asked myself what they were till I saw them; but you know, as I said in a former letter, the hedges are not all of them carefully cut; in fact many of them are only irregular rows of bushes, where, although the hawthorn is the staple element, yet firs, and brambles, and many other interlopers put in their claim, and they all grow up together in a kind of straggling unity; and in the hedges trees are often set out, particularly elms, and have a very pleasing effect.Then, too, the trees have more of that rounding outline which is expressed by the word "bosomed." But here we are, right under the walls of Lancaster, and Mr. S. wakes me up by quoting, "Old John o' Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster.""Time-honored," said I; "it looks as fresh as if it had been built yesterday: you do not mean to say that is the real old castle?""To be sure, it is the very old castle built in the reign of Edward III., by John of Gaunt."It stands on the summit of a hill, seated regally like a queen upon a throne, and every part of it looks as fresh, and sharp, and clear, as if it were the work of modern times. It is used now for a county jail. We have but a moment to stop or admire—the merciless steam car drives on. We have a little talk about the feudal times, and the old past days; when again the cry goes up,—"O, there's something! What's that?""O, that is Carlisle.""Carlisle!" said I; "what, the Carlisle of Scott's ballad?""What ballad?""Why, don't you remember, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, the song of Albert Graeme, which has something about Carlisle's wall in every verse?'It was an English, laydie brightWhen sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,And she would marry a Scottish knight,For love will still be lord of all.'I used to read this when I was a child, and wonder what 'Carlisle wall' was."Carlisle is one of the most ancient cities in England, dating quite back to the time of the Romans. Wonderful! How these Romans left their mark every where!Carlisle has also its ancient castle, the lofty, massive tower of which forms a striking feature of the town.This castle was built by William Rufus. David, King of Scots, and Robert Bruce both tried their hands upon it, in the good old times, when England and Scotland were a mutual robbery association. Then the castle of the town was its great feature; castles were every thing in those days. Now the castle has gone to decay, and stands only for a curiosity, and the cotton factory has come up in its place. This place is famous for cottons and ginghams, and moreover for a celebrated biscuit bakery. So goes the world,—the lively vigorous shoots of the present springing out of the old, mouldering trunk of the past.Mr. S. was in an ecstasy about an old church, a splendid Gothic, in which Paley preached. He was archdeacon of Carlisle. We stopped here for a little while to take dinner. In a large, handsome room tables were set out, and we sat down to a regular meal.One sees nothing of a town from a railroad station, since it seems to be an invariable rule, not only here, but all over Europe, to locate them so that you can see nothing from them.By the by, I forgot to say, among the historical recollections of this place, that it was the first stopping-place of Queen Mary, after her fatal flight into England. The rooms which she occupied are still shown in the castle, and there are interesting letters and documents extant from lords whom Elizabeth sent here to visit her, in which they record her beauty, her heroic sentiments, and even her dress; so strong was the fascination in which she held all who approached her. Carlisle is the scene of the denouement of Guy Mannering, and it is from this town that Lord Carlisle gets his title.And now keep up a bright lookout for ruins and old houses. Mr. S., whose eyes are always in every place, allowed none of us to slumber, but looking out, first on his own side and then on ours, called our attention to every visible thing. If he had been appointed on a mission of inquiry he could not have been more zealous and faithful, and I began to think that our desire for an English cicerone was quite superfluous.And now we pass Gretna Green, famous in story—that momentous place which marks the commencement of Scotland. It is a little straggling village, and there is a roadside inn, which has been the scene of innumerable Gretna Green marriages.Owing to the fact that the Scottish law of marriage is far more liberal in its construction than the English, this place has been the refuge of distressed lovers from time immemorial; and although the practice of escaping here is universally condemned as very naughty and improper, yet, like every other impropriety, it is kept in countenance by very respectable people. Two lord chancellors have had the amiable weakness to fall into this snare, and one lord chancellor's son; so says the guide book, which is our Koran for the time being. It says, moreover, that it would be easy to add a lengthened list ofdistinguésmarried at Gretna Green; but these lord chancellors (Erskine and Eldon) are quoted as being the most melancholy monuments. What shall meaner mortals do, when law itself, in all her majesty, wig, gown, and all, goes by the board?Well, we are in Scotland at last, and now our pulse rises as the sun declines in the west. We catch glimpses of the Solway Frith, and talk about Redgauntlet.One says, "Do you remember the scene on the sea shore, with which it opens, describing the rising of the tide?"And says another, "Don't you remember those lines in the Young Lochinvar song?—'Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide.'"I wonder how many authors it will take to enchant our country from Maine to New Orleans, as every foot of ground is enchanted here in Scotland.The sun went down, and night drew on; still we were in Scotland. Scotch ballads, Scotch tunes, and Scotch literature were in the ascendant. We sang "Auld Lang Syne," "Scots wha ha'," and "Bonnie Doon," and then, changing the key, sang Dundee, Elgin, and Martyrs."Take care," said Mr. S.; "don't get too much excited.""Ah," said I, "this is a thing that comes only once in a lifetime; do let us have the comfort of it. We shall never come into Scotland for thefirst timeagain.""Ah," said another, "how I wish Walter Scott was alive!"While we were thus at the fusion point of enthusiasm, the cars stopped at Lockerby, where the real Old Mortality is buried. All was dim and dark outside, but we soon became conscious that there was quite a number collected, peering into the window, and, with a strange kind of thrill, I heard my name inquired for in the Scottish accent. I went to the window; there were men, women, and children there, and hand after hand was presented, with the words, "Ye're welcome to Scotland!"Then they inquired for, and shook hands with, all the party, having in some mysterious manner got the knowledge of who they were, even down to little G——, whom they took to be my son. Was it not pleasant, when I had a heart so warm for this old country? I shall never forget the thrill of those words, "Ye're welcome to Scotland," nor the "Gude night."After that we found similar welcomes in many succeeding stopping-places; and though I did wave a towel out of the window, instead of a pocket handkerchief, and commit other awkwardnesses, from not knowing how to play my part, yet I fancied, after all, that Scotland and we were coming on well together. Who the good souls were that were thus watching for us through the night, I am sure I do not know; but that they were of the "one blood," which unites all the families of the earth, I felt.As we came towards Glasgow, we saw, upon a high hill, what we supposed to be a castle on fire—great volumes of smoke rolling up, and fire looking out of arched windows."Dear me, what a conflagration!" we all exclaimed. We had not gone very far before we saw another, and then, on the opposite side of the car, another still."Why, it seems to me the country is all on fire.""I should think," said Mr. S., "if it was in old times, that there had been a raid from the Highlands, and set all the houses on fire.""Or they might be beacons," suggested C.To this some one answered out of the Lay of the Last Minstrel,—"Sweet Teviot, by thy silver tideThe glaring bale-fires blaze no more."As we drew near to Glasgow these illuminations increased, till the whole air was red with the glare of them."What can they be?""Dear me," said Mr. S., in a tone of sudden recollection, "it's the iron works! Don't you know Glasgow is celebrated for its iron works?"So, after all, in these peaceful fires of the iron works, we got an idea how the country might have looked in the old picturesque times, when the Highlanders came down and set the Lowlands on fire; such scenes as are commemorated in the words of Roderick Dhu's song:—"Proudly our pibroch, has thrilled in Glen Fruin,And Banmachar's groans to our slogan replied;Glen Luss and Ross Dhu, they are smoking in ruins,And the best of Loch Lomond lies dead on her side."To be sure the fires of iron founderies are much less picturesque than the old beacons, and the clink of hammers than the clash of claymores; but the most devout worshipper of the middle ages would hardly wish to change them.Dimly, by the flickering light of these furnaces, we see the approach to the old city of Glasgow. There, we are arrived! Friends are waiting in the station house. Earnest, eager, friendly faces, ever so many. Warm greetings, kindly words. A crowd parting in the middle, through which we were conducted into a carriage, and loud cheers of welcome, sent a throb, as the voice of living Scotland.I looked out of the carriage, as we drove on, and saw, by the light of a lantern, Argyle Street. It was past twelve o'clock when I found myself in a warm, cozy parlor, with friends, whom I have ever since been glad to remember. In a little time we were all safely housed in our hospitable apartments, and sleep fell on me for the first time in Scotland.Letter IVDear Aunt E.:—The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and scarce could the charms of the social Scotch breakfast restore me. I say Scotch, for we had many viands peculiarly national. The smoking porridge, or parritch, of oatmeal, which is the great staple dish throughout Scotland. Then there was the bannock, a thin, wafer-like cake of the same material. My friend laughingly said when he passed it, "You are in the 'land o' cakes,' remember." There was also some herring, as nice a Scottish fish as ever wore scales, besides dainties innumerable which were not national.Our friend and host was Mr. Baillie Paton. I believe that it is to his suggestion in a public meeting, that we owe the invitation which brought us to Scotland.By the by, I should say that "baillie" seems to correspond to what we call a member of the city council. Mr. Paton told us, that they had expected us earlier, and that the day before quite a party of friends met at his house to see us, among whom was good old Dr. Wardlaw.After breakfast the calling began. First, a friend of the family, with three beautiful children, the youngest of whom was the bearer of a handsomely bound album, containing a pressed collection of the sea mosses of the Scottish coast, very vivid and beautiful.If the bloom of English children appeared to me wonderful, I seemed to find the same thing intensified, if possible, in Scotland. The children are brilliant as pomegranate blossoms, and their vivid beauty called forth unceasing admiration. Nor is it merely the children of the rich, or of the higher classes, that are thus gifted. I have seen many a group of ragged urchins in the streets and closes with all the high coloring of Rubens, and all his fulness of outline. Why is it that we admire ragged children on canvas so much more than the same in nature?All this day is a confused dream to me of a dizzy and overwhelming kind. So many letters that it took C—— from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon to read and answer them in the shortest manner; letters from all classes of people, high and low, rich and poor, in all shades and styles of composition, poetry and prose; some mere outbursts of feeling; some invitations; some advice and suggestions; some requests and inquiries; some presenting books, or flowers, or fruit.Then came, in their turn, deputations from Paisley, Greenock, Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Belfast in Ireland; calls of friendship, invitations of all descriptions to go every where, and to see every thing, and to stay in so many places. One kind, venerable minister, with his lovely daughter, offered me a retreat in his quiet manse on the beautiful shores of the Clyde.For all these kindnesses, what could I give in return? There was scarce time for even a grateful thought on each. People have often said to me that it must have been an exceeding bore. For my part, I could not think of regarding it so. It only oppressed me with an unutterable sadness.To me there is always something interesting and beautiful about a universal popular excitement of a generous character, let the object of it be what it may. The great desiring heart of man, surging with one strong, sympathetic swell, even though it be to break on the beach of life and fall backwards, leaving the sands as barren as before, has yet a meaning and a power in its restlessness, with which I must deeply sympathize. Nor do I sympathize any the less, when the individual, who calls forth such an outburst, can be seen by the eye of sober sense to be altogether inadequate and disproportioned to it.I do not regard it as any thing against our American nation, that we are capable, to a very great extent, of these sudden personal enthusiasms, because I think that, with an individual or a community, the capability of being exalted into a temporary enthusiasm of self-forgetfulness, so far from being a fault, has in it a quality of something divine.Of course, about all such things there is a great deal which a cool critic could make ridiculous, but I hold to my opinion of them nevertheless.In the afternoon I rode out with the lord provost to see the cathedral. The lord provost answers to the lord mayor in England. His title and office in both countries continue only a year, except in cases of reëlection.As I saw the way to the cathedral blocked up by a throng of people, who had come out to see me, I could not help saying, "What went ye out for to see? a reed shaken with the wind?" In fact, I was so worn out, that I could hardly walk through the building.It is in this cathedral that part of the scene of Rob Roy is laid. This was my first experience in cathedrals. It was a new thing to me altogether, and as I walked along under the old buttresses and battlements without, and looked into the bewildering labyrinths of architecture within, I saw that, with silence and solitude to help the impression, the old building might become a strong part of one's inner life. A grave yard crowded with flat stones lies all around it. A deep ravine separates it from another cemetery on an opposite eminence, rustling with dark pines. A little brook murmurs with its slender voice between.On this opposite eminence the statue of John Knox, grim and strong, stands with its arm uplifted, as if shaking his fist at the old cathedral which in life he vainly endeavored to battle down.Knox was very different from Luther, in that he had no conservative element in him, but warred equally against accessories and essentials.At the time when the churches of Scotland were being pulled down in a general iconoclastic crusade, the tradesmen of Glasgow stood for the defence of their cathedral, and forced the reformers to content themselves with having the idolatrous images of saints pulled down from their niches and thrown into the brook, while, as Andrew Fairservice hath it, "The auld kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the fleas are caimed aff her, and a' body was alike pleased."We went all through the cathedral, which is fitted up as a Protestant place of worship, and has a simple and massive grandeur about it. In fact, to quote again from our friend Andrew, we could truly say, "Ah, it's a brave kirk, nane o' yere whig-malceries, and curliewurlies, and opensteek hems about it—a' solid, weel-jointed mason wark, that will stand as lang as the warld, keep hands and gun-powther aff it."I was disappointed in one thing: the painted glass, if there has ever been any, is almost all gone, and the glare of light through the immense windows is altogether too great, revealing many defects and rudenesses in the architecture, which would have quite another appearance in the colored rays through painted windows—an emblem, perhaps, of the cold, definite, intellectual rationalism, which has taken the place of the many-colored, gorgeous mysticism of former times.After having been over the church, we requested, out of respect to Baillie Nicol Jarvie's memory, to be driven through the Saut Market. I, however, was so thoroughly tired that I cannot remember any thing about it.I will say, by the way, that I have found out since, that nothing is so utterly hazardous to a person's strength as looking at cathedrals. The strain upon the head and eyes in looking up through these immense arches, and then the sepulchral chill which abides from generation to generation in them, their great extent, and the variety which tempts you to fatigue which you are not at all aware of, have overcome, as I was told, many before me.Mr. S. and C——, however, made amends, by their great activity and zeal, for all that I could not do, and I was pleased to understand from them, that part of the old Tolbooth, where Rob Roy and the baillie had their rencontre, was standing safe and sound, with stuff enough in it for half a dozen more stories, if any body could be found to write them. And Mr. S. insisted upon it, that I should not omit to notify you of this circumstance.Well, in consequence of all this, the next morning I was so ill as to need a physician, unable to see any one that called, or to hear any of the letters. I passed most of the day in bed, but in the evening I had to get up, as I had engaged to drink tea with two thousand people. Our kind friends Dr. and Mrs. Wardlaw came after us, and Mr. S. and I went in the carriage with them.Dr. Wardlaw is a venerable-looking old man; we both thought we saw a striking resemblance in him to our friend Dr. Woods, of Andover. He is still quite active in body and mind, and officiates to his congregation with great acceptance. I fear, however, that he is in ill health, for I noticed, as we were passing along to church, that he frequently laid his hand upon his heart, and seemed in pain. He said he hoped he should be able to get through the evening, but that when he was not well, excitement was apt to bring on a spasm about the heart; but with it all he seemed so cheerful, lively, and benignant, that I could not but feel my affections drawn towards him. Mrs. Wardlaw is a gentle, motherly woman, and it was a great comfort to have her with me on such an occasion.Our carriage stopped at last at the place. I have a dim remembrance of a way being made for us through a great crowd all round the house, and of going with Mrs. Wardlaw up into a dressing room, where I met and shook hands with many friendly people. Then we passed into a gallery, where a seat was reserved for our party, directly in front of the audience. Our friend Baillie Paton presided. Mrs. Wardlaw and I sat together, and around us many friends, chiefly ministers of the different churches, the ladies and gentlemen of the Glasgow Antislavery Society, and others.I told you it was a tea party; but the arrangements were altogether different from any I had ever seen. There were narrow tables stretched up and down the whole extent of the great hall, and every person had an appointed seat. These tables were set out with cups and saucers, cakes, biscuit, &c., and when the proper time came, attendants passed along serving tea. The arrangements were so accurate and methodical that the whole multitude actually took tea together, without the least apparent inconvenience or disturbance.There was a gentle, subdued murmur of conversation all over the house, the sociable clinking of teacups and teaspoons, while the entertainment was going on. It seemed to me such an odd idea, I could not help wondering what sort of a teapot that must be, in which all this tea for two thousand people was made. Truly, as Hadji Baba says, I think they must have had the "father of all teakettles" to boil it in. I could not help wondering if old mother Scotland had put two thousand teaspoonfuls of tea for the company, and one for the teapot, as is our good Yankee custom.We had quite a sociable time up in our gallery. Our tea table stretched quite across the gallery, and we drank tea "in sight of all the people." Bywe, I mean a great number of ministers and their wives, and ladies of the Antislavery Society, besides our party, and the friends whom I have mentioned before. All seemed to be enjoying themselves.After tea they sang a few verses of the seventy-second psalm in the old Scotch version."The people's poor ones he shall judge,The needy's children save;And those shall he in pieces break,Who them oppressed have.For he the needy shall preserve,When he to him doth call;The poor, also, and him that hathNo help of man at all.Both from deceit and violenceTheir soul he shall set free;And in his sight right preciousAnd dear their blood shall be.Now blessed be the Lord, our God,The God of Israel,For he alone doth wondrous works,In glory that excel.And blessed be his glorious nameTo all eternity;The whole earth let his glory fill:Amen; so let it be."When I heard the united sound of all the voices, giving force to these simple and pathetic words, I thought I could see something of the reason why that rude old translation still holds its place in Scotland.The addresses were, many of them, very beautiful; the more so for the earnest and religious feeling which they manifested. That of Dr. Wardlaw, in particular, was full of comfort and encouragement, and breathed a most candid and catholic spirit. Could our friends in America see with what earnest warmth the religious heart of Scotland beats towards them, they would be willing to suffer a word of admonition from those to whom love gives a right to speak. As Christians, all have a common interest in what honors or dishonors Christianity, and an ocean between us does not make us less one church.Most of the speeches you will see recorded in the papers. In the course of the evening there was a second service of grapes, oranges, and other fruits, served round in the same quiet manner as the tea. On account of the feeble state of my health, they kindly excused me before the exercises of the evening were over.The next morning, at ten o'clock, we rode with a party of friends to see some of thenotabilia. First, to Bothwell Castle, of old the residence of the Black Douglas. The name had for me the quality of enchantment. I cannot understand nor explain the nature of that sad yearning and longing with which one visits the mouldering remains of a state of society which one's reason wholly disapproves, and which one's calm sense of right would think it the greatest misfortune to have recalled; yet when the carriage turned under the shadow of beautiful ancient oaks, and Mr. S. said, "There, we are in the grounds of the old Black Douglas family!" I felt every nerve shiver. I remembered the dim melodies of the Lady of the Lake. Bothwell's lord was the lord of this castle, whose beautiful ruins here adorn the banks of the Clyde.Whatever else we have or may have in America, we shall never have the wild, poetic beauty of these ruins. The present noble possessors are fully aware of their worth as objects of taste, and, therefore, with the greatest care are they preserved. Winding walks are cut through the grounds with much ingenuity, and seats or arbors are placed at every desirable and picturesque point of view.To the thorough-paced tourist, who wants todothe proprieties in the shortest possible time, this arrangement is undoubtedly particularly satisfactory; but to the idealist, who would like to roam, and dream, and feel, and to come unexpectedly on the choicest points of view, it is rather a damper to have all his raptures prearranged and foreordained for him, set down in the guide book and proclaimed by the guide, even though it should be done with the most artistic accuracy.Nevertheless, when we came to the arbor which commanded the finest view of the old castle, and saw its gray, ivy-clad walls, standing forth on a beautiful point, round which swept the brown, dimpling waves of the Clyde, the indescribable sweetness, sadness, wildness of the whole scene would make its voice heard in our hearts. "Thy servants take pleasure in her dust, and favor the stones thereof," said an old Hebrew poet, who must have felt the inexpressibly sad beauty of a ruin. All the splendid phantasmagoria of chivalry and feudalism, knights, ladies, banners, glittering arms, sweep before us; the cry of the battle, the noise of the captains, and the shouting; and then in contrast this deep stillness, that green, clinging ivy, the gentle, rippling river, those weeping birches, dipping in its soft waters—all these, in their quiet loveliness, speak of something more imperishable than brute force.The ivy on the walls now displays a trunk in some places as large as a man's body. In the days of old Archibald the Grim, I suppose that ivy was a little, weak twig, which, if he ever noticed, he must have thought the feeblest and slightest of all things; yet Archibald has gone back to dust, and the ivy is still growing on. Such force is there in gentle things.I have often been dissatisfied with the admiration, which a poetic education has woven into my nature, for chivalry and feudalism; but, on a closer examination, I am convinced that there is a real and proper foundation for it, and that, rightly understood, this poetic admiration is not inconsistent with the spirit of Christ.For, let us consider what it is we admire in these Douglases, for instance, who, as represented by Scott, are perhaps as good exponents of the idea as any. Was it their hardness, their cruelty, their hastiness to take offence, their fondness for blood and murder? All these, by and of themselves, are simply disgusting. What, then, do we admire? Their courage, their fortitude, their scorn of lying and dissimulation, their high sense of personal honor, which led them to feel themselves the protectors of the weak, and to disdain to take advantage of unequal odds against an enemy. If we read the book of Isaiah, we shall see that some of the most striking representations of God appeal to the very same principles of our nature.The fact is, there can be no reliable character which has not its basis in these strong qualities. The beautiful must ever rest in the arms of the sublime. The gentle needs the strong to sustain it, as much as the rock flowers need rocks to grow on, or yonder ivy the rugged wall which it embraces. When we are admiring these things, therefore, we are only admiring some sparkles and glimmers of that which is divine, and so coming nearer to Him in whom all fulness dwells.After admiring at a distance, we strolled through the ruins themselves. Do you remember, in the Lady of the Lake, where the exiled Douglas, recalling to his daughter the images of his former splendor, says,—"When Blantyre hymned, her holiest lays,And Bothwell's walls flung back the praise"?These lines came forcibly to my mind, when I saw the mouldering ruins of Blantyre priory rising exactly opposite to the castle, on the other side of the Clyde.The banks of the River Clyde, where we walked, were thick set with Portuguese laurel, which I have before mentioned as similar to our rhododendron. I here noticed a fact with regard to the ivy which had often puzzled me; and that is, the different shapes of its leaves in the different stages of its growth. The young ivy has this leaf; but when it has become more than a century old every trace and indentation melts away, and it assumes this form, which I found afterwards to be the invariable shape of all the oldest ivy, in all the ruins of Europe which I explored.This ivy, like the spider, takes hold with her hands in kings' palaces, as every twig is furnished with innumerable little clinging fingers, by which it draws itself close, as it were, to the very heart of the old rough stone.Its clinging and beautiful tenacity has given rise to an abundance of conceits about fidelity, friendship, and woman's love, which have become commonplace simply from their appropriateness. It might, also, symbolize that higher love, unconquerable and unconquered, which has embraced this ruined world from age to age, silently spreading its green over the rents and fissures of our fallen nature, giving "beauty for ashes, and garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness."There is a modern mansion, where the present proprietor of the estate lives. It was with an emotion partaking of the sorrowful, that we heard that the Douglas line, as such, was extinct, and that the estate had passed to distant connections. I was told that the present Lord Douglas is a peaceful clergyman, quite a different character from old Archibald the Grim.The present residence is a plain mansion, standing on a beautiful lawn, near the old castle. The head gardener of the estate and many of the servants came out to meet us, with faces full of interest. The gardener walked about to show us the localities, and had a great deal of the quiet intelligence and self-respect which, I think, is characteristic of the laboring classes here. I noticed that on the green sweep of the lawn, he had set out here and there a good many daisies, as embellishments to the grass, and these in many places were defended by sticks bent over them, and that, in one place, a bank overhanging the stream was radiant with yellow daffodils, which appeared to have come up and blossomed there accidentally. I know not whether these were planted there, or came up of themselves.We next went to the famous Bothwell bridge, which Scott has immortalized in Old Mortality. We walked up and down, trying to recall the scenes of the battle, as there described, and were rather mortified, after we had all our associations comfortably located upon it, to be told that it was not the same bridge—it had been newly built, widened, and otherwise made more comfortable and convenient.Of course, this was evidently for the benefit of society, but it was certainly one of those cases where the poetical suffers for the practical. I comforted myself in my despondency, by looking over at the old stone piers underneath, which were indisputably the same. We drove now through beautiful grounds, and alighted at an elegant mansion, which in former days belonged to Lockhart, the son-in-law of Scott. It was in this house that Old Mortality was written.As I was weary, the party left me here, while they went on to see the Duke of Hamilton's grounds. Our kind hostess showed me into a small study, where she said Old Mortality was written. The window commanded a beautiful view of many of the localities described. Scott was as particular to consult for accuracy in his local descriptions as if he had been writing a guide book.He was in the habit of noting down in his memorandum book even names and characteristics of the wild flowers and grasses that grew about a place. When a friend once remarked to him, that he should have supposed his imagination could have supplied such trifles, he made an answer that is worth remembering by every artist—that no imagination could long support its freshness, that was not nourished by a constant and minute observation of nature.Craignethan Castle, which is the original of Tillietudlem, we were informed, was not far from thence. It is stated in Lockhart's Life of Scott, that the ruins of this castle excited in Scott such delight and enthusiasm, that its owner urged him to accept for his lifetime the use of a small habitable house, enclosed within the circuit of the walls.After the return of the party from Hamilton Park, we sat down to an elegant lunch, where my eye was attracted more than any thing else, by the splendor of the hothouse flowers which adorned the table. So far as I have observed, the culture of flowers, both in England and Scotland, is more universally an object of attention than with us. Every family in easy circumstances seems, as a matter of course, to have their greenhouse, and the flowers are brought to a degree of perfection which I have never seen at home.I may as well say here, that we were told by a gentleman, whose name I do not now remember, that this whole district had been celebrated for its orchards; he added, however, that since the introduction of the American apple into the market, its superior excellence had made many of these orchards almost entirely worthless. It is a curious fact, showing how the new world is working on the old.After taking leave of our hospitable friends, we took to our carriages again. As we were driving slowly through the beautiful grounds, admiring, as we never failed to do, their perfect cultivation, a party of servants appeared in sight, waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and cheering us as we passed. These kindly expressions from them were as pleasant as any we received.In the evening we had engaged to attend anothersoirée, gotten up by the working classes, to give admission to many who were not in circumstances to purchase tickets for the other. This was to me, if any thing, a more interestingréunion, because this was just the class whom I wished to meet. The arrangements of the entertainment were like those of the evening before.As I sat in the front gallery and looked over the audience with an intense interest, I thought they appeared on the whole very much like what I might have seen at home in a similar gathering. Men, women, and children were dressed in a style which showed both self-respect and good taste, and the speeches were far above mediocrity. One pale young man, a watchmaker, as I was told afterwards, delivered an address, which, though doubtless it had the promising fault of too much elaboration and ornament, yet I thought had passages which would do honor to any literary periodical whatever.There were other orators less highly finished, who yet spoke "right on," in a strong, forcible, and really eloquent way, giving the grain of the wood without the varnish. They contended very seriously and sensibly, that although the working men of England and Scotland had many things to complain of, and many things to be reformed, yet their condition was world-wide different from that of the slave.One cannot read the history of the working classes in England, for the last fifty years, without feeling sensibly the difference between oppressions under a free government and slavery. So long as the working class of England produces orators and writers, such as it undoubtedly has produced; so long as it has in it that spirit of independence and resistance of wrong, which has shown itself more and more during the agitations of the last fifty years; and so as long as the law allows them to meet and debate, to form associations and committees, to send up remonstrances and petitions to government,—one can see that their case is essentially different from that of plantation slaves.I must say, I was struck this night with the resemblance between the Scotchman and the New Englander. One sees the distinctive nationality of a country more in the middle and laboring classes than in the higher, and accordingly at this meeting there was more nationality, I thought, than at the other.The highest class of mind in all countries loses nationality, and becomes universal; it is a great pity, too, because nationality is picturesque always. One of the greatest miracles to my mind about Kossuth was, that with so universal an education, and such an extensive range of language and thought, he was yet so distinctively a Magyar.One thing has surprised and rather disappointed us. Our enthusiasm for Walter Scott does not apparently meet a response in the popular breast. Allusions to Bannockburn and Drumclog bring down the house, but enthusiasm for Scott was met with comparative silence. We discussed this matter among ourselves, and rather wondered at it.The fact is, Scott belonged to a past, and not to the coming age. He beautified and adorned that which is waxing old and passing away. He loved and worshipped in his very soul institutions which the majority of the common people have felt as a restraint and a burden. One might naturally get a very different idea of a feudal castle by starving to death in the dungeon of it, than by writing sonnets on it at a picturesque distance. Now, we in America are so far removed from feudalism,—it has been a thing so much of mere song and story with us, and our sympathies are so unchecked by any experience of inconvenience or injustice in its consequences,—that we are at full liberty to appreciate the picturesque of it, and sometimes, when we stand overlooking our own beautiful scenery, to wish that we could see,"On yon bold brow, a lordly tower;In that soft vale, a lady's bower;In yonder meadow, far away,The turrets of a cloister gray;"when those who know by experience all the accompaniments of these ornaments, would have quite another impression.Nevertheless, since there are two worlds in man, the real and the ideal, and both have indisputably a right to be, since God made the faculties of both, we must feel that it is a benefaction to mankind, that Scott was thus raised up as the link, in the ideal world, between the present and the past. It is a loss to universal humanity to have the imprint of any phase of human life and experience entirely blotted out. Scott's fictions are like this beautiful ivy, with which all the ruins here are overgrown,—they not only adorn, but, in many cases, they actually hold together, and prevent the crumbling mass from falling into ruins.To-morrow we are going to have a sail on the Clyde.

Letter IIIGlasgow, April 16, 1853.Dear Aunt E.:—You shall have my earliest Scotch letter; for I am sure nobody can sympathize in the emotions of the first approach to Scotland as you can. A country dear to us by the memory of the dead and of the living; a country whose history and literature, interesting enough of itself, has become to us still more so, because the reading and learning of it formed part of our communion for many a social hour, with friends long parted from earth.The views of Scotland, which lay on my mother's table, even while I was a little child, and in poring over which I spent so many happy, dreamy hours,—the Scotch ballads, which were the delight of our evening fireside, and which seemed almost to melt the soul out of me, before I was old enough to understand their words,—the songs of Burns, which had been a household treasure among us,—the enchantments of Scott,—all these dimly returned upon me. It was the result of them all which I felt in nerve and brain.And, by the by, that puts me in mind of one thing; and that is, how much of our pleasure in literature results from its reflection on us from, other minds. As we advance in life, the literature which has charmed us in the circle of our friends becomes endeared to us from the reflected remembrance of them, of their individualities, their opinions, and their sympathies, so that our memory of it is a many-colored cord, drawn from many minds.So in coming near to Scotland, I seemed to feel not only my own individuality, but all that my friends would have felt, had they been with me. For sometimes we seem to be encompassed, as by a cloud, with a sense of the sympathy of the absent and the dead.We left Liverpool with hearts a little tremulous and excited by the vibration of an atmosphere of universal sympathy and kindness. We found ourselves, at length, shut from the warm adieus of our friends, in a snug compartment of the railroad car. The English cars are models of comfort and good keeping. There are six seats in a compartment, luxuriously cushioned and nicely carpeted, and six was exactly the number of our party. Nevertheless, so obstinate is custom that we averred at first that we preferred our American cars, deficient as they are in many points of neatness and luxury, because they are so much more social."Dear me," said Mr. S., "six Yankees shut up in a car together! Not one Englishman to tell us any thing about the country! Just like the six old ladies that made their living by taking tea at each other's houses."But that is the way here in England: every arrangement in travelling is designed to maintain that privacy and reserve which is the dearest and most sacred part of an Englishman's nature. Things are so arranged here that, if a man pleases, he can travel all through England with his family, and keep the circle an unbroken unit, having just as little communication with any thing outside of it as in his own house.From one of these sheltered apartments in a railroad car, he can pass to preëngaged parlors and chambers in the hotel, with his own separate table, and all his domestic manners and peculiarities unbroken. In fact, it is a little compact home travelling about.Now, all this is very charming to people who know already as much about a country as they want to know; but it follows from it that a stranger might travel all through England, from one end to the other and not be on conversing terms with a person in it. He may be at the same hotel, in the same train with people able to give him all imaginable information, yet never touch them at any practicable point of communion. This is more especially the case if his party, as ours was, is just large enough to fill the whole apartment.As to the comforts of the cars, it is to be said, that for the same price you can get far more comfortable riding in America. Their first class cars are beyond all praise, but also beyond all price; their second class are comfortless, cushionless, and uninviting. Agreeably with our theory of democratic equality, we have a general car, not so complete as the one, nor so bare as the other, where all ride together; and if the traveller in thus riding sees things that occasionally annoy him, when he remembers that the whole population, from the highest to the lowest, are accommodated here together, he will certainly see hopeful indications in the general comfort, order, and respectability which prevail; all which we talked over most patriotically together, while we were lamenting that there was not a seventh to our party, to instruct us in the localities.Every thing upon the railroad proceeds with systematic accuracy. There is no chance for the most careless person to commit a blunder, or make a mistake. At the proper time the conductor marches every body into their places and locks them in, gives the word, "All right," and away we go. Somebody has remarked, very characteristically, that the starting word of the English is "all right," and that of the Americans "go ahead."Away we go through Lancashire, wide awake, looking out on all sides for any signs of antiquity. In being thus whirled through English scenery, I became conscious of a new understanding of the spirit and phraseology of English poetry. There are many phrases and expressions with which we have been familiar from childhood, and which, we suppose, in a kind of indefinite way, we understand, which, after all, when we come on English ground, start into a new significance: take, for instance, these lines from L'Allegro:—"Sometimes walking, not unseen,By hedge-row elms on hillocks green.* * * *Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,While the landscape round it measures;Russet lawns and fallows gray,Where the nibbling flocks do stray;Mountains, on whose barren breastThe laboring clouds do often rest;Meadows trim with daisies pied,Shallow brooks and livers wide:Towers and battlements it seesBosom'd high in tufted trees."Now, these hedge-row elms. I had never even asked myself what they were till I saw them; but you know, as I said in a former letter, the hedges are not all of them carefully cut; in fact many of them are only irregular rows of bushes, where, although the hawthorn is the staple element, yet firs, and brambles, and many other interlopers put in their claim, and they all grow up together in a kind of straggling unity; and in the hedges trees are often set out, particularly elms, and have a very pleasing effect.Then, too, the trees have more of that rounding outline which is expressed by the word "bosomed." But here we are, right under the walls of Lancaster, and Mr. S. wakes me up by quoting, "Old John o' Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster.""Time-honored," said I; "it looks as fresh as if it had been built yesterday: you do not mean to say that is the real old castle?""To be sure, it is the very old castle built in the reign of Edward III., by John of Gaunt."It stands on the summit of a hill, seated regally like a queen upon a throne, and every part of it looks as fresh, and sharp, and clear, as if it were the work of modern times. It is used now for a county jail. We have but a moment to stop or admire—the merciless steam car drives on. We have a little talk about the feudal times, and the old past days; when again the cry goes up,—"O, there's something! What's that?""O, that is Carlisle.""Carlisle!" said I; "what, the Carlisle of Scott's ballad?""What ballad?""Why, don't you remember, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, the song of Albert Graeme, which has something about Carlisle's wall in every verse?'It was an English, laydie brightWhen sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,And she would marry a Scottish knight,For love will still be lord of all.'I used to read this when I was a child, and wonder what 'Carlisle wall' was."Carlisle is one of the most ancient cities in England, dating quite back to the time of the Romans. Wonderful! How these Romans left their mark every where!Carlisle has also its ancient castle, the lofty, massive tower of which forms a striking feature of the town.This castle was built by William Rufus. David, King of Scots, and Robert Bruce both tried their hands upon it, in the good old times, when England and Scotland were a mutual robbery association. Then the castle of the town was its great feature; castles were every thing in those days. Now the castle has gone to decay, and stands only for a curiosity, and the cotton factory has come up in its place. This place is famous for cottons and ginghams, and moreover for a celebrated biscuit bakery. So goes the world,—the lively vigorous shoots of the present springing out of the old, mouldering trunk of the past.Mr. S. was in an ecstasy about an old church, a splendid Gothic, in which Paley preached. He was archdeacon of Carlisle. We stopped here for a little while to take dinner. In a large, handsome room tables were set out, and we sat down to a regular meal.One sees nothing of a town from a railroad station, since it seems to be an invariable rule, not only here, but all over Europe, to locate them so that you can see nothing from them.By the by, I forgot to say, among the historical recollections of this place, that it was the first stopping-place of Queen Mary, after her fatal flight into England. The rooms which she occupied are still shown in the castle, and there are interesting letters and documents extant from lords whom Elizabeth sent here to visit her, in which they record her beauty, her heroic sentiments, and even her dress; so strong was the fascination in which she held all who approached her. Carlisle is the scene of the denouement of Guy Mannering, and it is from this town that Lord Carlisle gets his title.And now keep up a bright lookout for ruins and old houses. Mr. S., whose eyes are always in every place, allowed none of us to slumber, but looking out, first on his own side and then on ours, called our attention to every visible thing. If he had been appointed on a mission of inquiry he could not have been more zealous and faithful, and I began to think that our desire for an English cicerone was quite superfluous.And now we pass Gretna Green, famous in story—that momentous place which marks the commencement of Scotland. It is a little straggling village, and there is a roadside inn, which has been the scene of innumerable Gretna Green marriages.Owing to the fact that the Scottish law of marriage is far more liberal in its construction than the English, this place has been the refuge of distressed lovers from time immemorial; and although the practice of escaping here is universally condemned as very naughty and improper, yet, like every other impropriety, it is kept in countenance by very respectable people. Two lord chancellors have had the amiable weakness to fall into this snare, and one lord chancellor's son; so says the guide book, which is our Koran for the time being. It says, moreover, that it would be easy to add a lengthened list ofdistinguésmarried at Gretna Green; but these lord chancellors (Erskine and Eldon) are quoted as being the most melancholy monuments. What shall meaner mortals do, when law itself, in all her majesty, wig, gown, and all, goes by the board?Well, we are in Scotland at last, and now our pulse rises as the sun declines in the west. We catch glimpses of the Solway Frith, and talk about Redgauntlet.One says, "Do you remember the scene on the sea shore, with which it opens, describing the rising of the tide?"And says another, "Don't you remember those lines in the Young Lochinvar song?—'Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide.'"I wonder how many authors it will take to enchant our country from Maine to New Orleans, as every foot of ground is enchanted here in Scotland.The sun went down, and night drew on; still we were in Scotland. Scotch ballads, Scotch tunes, and Scotch literature were in the ascendant. We sang "Auld Lang Syne," "Scots wha ha'," and "Bonnie Doon," and then, changing the key, sang Dundee, Elgin, and Martyrs."Take care," said Mr. S.; "don't get too much excited.""Ah," said I, "this is a thing that comes only once in a lifetime; do let us have the comfort of it. We shall never come into Scotland for thefirst timeagain.""Ah," said another, "how I wish Walter Scott was alive!"While we were thus at the fusion point of enthusiasm, the cars stopped at Lockerby, where the real Old Mortality is buried. All was dim and dark outside, but we soon became conscious that there was quite a number collected, peering into the window, and, with a strange kind of thrill, I heard my name inquired for in the Scottish accent. I went to the window; there were men, women, and children there, and hand after hand was presented, with the words, "Ye're welcome to Scotland!"Then they inquired for, and shook hands with, all the party, having in some mysterious manner got the knowledge of who they were, even down to little G——, whom they took to be my son. Was it not pleasant, when I had a heart so warm for this old country? I shall never forget the thrill of those words, "Ye're welcome to Scotland," nor the "Gude night."After that we found similar welcomes in many succeeding stopping-places; and though I did wave a towel out of the window, instead of a pocket handkerchief, and commit other awkwardnesses, from not knowing how to play my part, yet I fancied, after all, that Scotland and we were coming on well together. Who the good souls were that were thus watching for us through the night, I am sure I do not know; but that they were of the "one blood," which unites all the families of the earth, I felt.As we came towards Glasgow, we saw, upon a high hill, what we supposed to be a castle on fire—great volumes of smoke rolling up, and fire looking out of arched windows."Dear me, what a conflagration!" we all exclaimed. We had not gone very far before we saw another, and then, on the opposite side of the car, another still."Why, it seems to me the country is all on fire.""I should think," said Mr. S., "if it was in old times, that there had been a raid from the Highlands, and set all the houses on fire.""Or they might be beacons," suggested C.To this some one answered out of the Lay of the Last Minstrel,—"Sweet Teviot, by thy silver tideThe glaring bale-fires blaze no more."As we drew near to Glasgow these illuminations increased, till the whole air was red with the glare of them."What can they be?""Dear me," said Mr. S., in a tone of sudden recollection, "it's the iron works! Don't you know Glasgow is celebrated for its iron works?"So, after all, in these peaceful fires of the iron works, we got an idea how the country might have looked in the old picturesque times, when the Highlanders came down and set the Lowlands on fire; such scenes as are commemorated in the words of Roderick Dhu's song:—"Proudly our pibroch, has thrilled in Glen Fruin,And Banmachar's groans to our slogan replied;Glen Luss and Ross Dhu, they are smoking in ruins,And the best of Loch Lomond lies dead on her side."To be sure the fires of iron founderies are much less picturesque than the old beacons, and the clink of hammers than the clash of claymores; but the most devout worshipper of the middle ages would hardly wish to change them.Dimly, by the flickering light of these furnaces, we see the approach to the old city of Glasgow. There, we are arrived! Friends are waiting in the station house. Earnest, eager, friendly faces, ever so many. Warm greetings, kindly words. A crowd parting in the middle, through which we were conducted into a carriage, and loud cheers of welcome, sent a throb, as the voice of living Scotland.I looked out of the carriage, as we drove on, and saw, by the light of a lantern, Argyle Street. It was past twelve o'clock when I found myself in a warm, cozy parlor, with friends, whom I have ever since been glad to remember. In a little time we were all safely housed in our hospitable apartments, and sleep fell on me for the first time in Scotland.Letter IVDear Aunt E.:—The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and scarce could the charms of the social Scotch breakfast restore me. I say Scotch, for we had many viands peculiarly national. The smoking porridge, or parritch, of oatmeal, which is the great staple dish throughout Scotland. Then there was the bannock, a thin, wafer-like cake of the same material. My friend laughingly said when he passed it, "You are in the 'land o' cakes,' remember." There was also some herring, as nice a Scottish fish as ever wore scales, besides dainties innumerable which were not national.Our friend and host was Mr. Baillie Paton. I believe that it is to his suggestion in a public meeting, that we owe the invitation which brought us to Scotland.By the by, I should say that "baillie" seems to correspond to what we call a member of the city council. Mr. Paton told us, that they had expected us earlier, and that the day before quite a party of friends met at his house to see us, among whom was good old Dr. Wardlaw.After breakfast the calling began. First, a friend of the family, with three beautiful children, the youngest of whom was the bearer of a handsomely bound album, containing a pressed collection of the sea mosses of the Scottish coast, very vivid and beautiful.If the bloom of English children appeared to me wonderful, I seemed to find the same thing intensified, if possible, in Scotland. The children are brilliant as pomegranate blossoms, and their vivid beauty called forth unceasing admiration. Nor is it merely the children of the rich, or of the higher classes, that are thus gifted. I have seen many a group of ragged urchins in the streets and closes with all the high coloring of Rubens, and all his fulness of outline. Why is it that we admire ragged children on canvas so much more than the same in nature?All this day is a confused dream to me of a dizzy and overwhelming kind. So many letters that it took C—— from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon to read and answer them in the shortest manner; letters from all classes of people, high and low, rich and poor, in all shades and styles of composition, poetry and prose; some mere outbursts of feeling; some invitations; some advice and suggestions; some requests and inquiries; some presenting books, or flowers, or fruit.Then came, in their turn, deputations from Paisley, Greenock, Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Belfast in Ireland; calls of friendship, invitations of all descriptions to go every where, and to see every thing, and to stay in so many places. One kind, venerable minister, with his lovely daughter, offered me a retreat in his quiet manse on the beautiful shores of the Clyde.For all these kindnesses, what could I give in return? There was scarce time for even a grateful thought on each. People have often said to me that it must have been an exceeding bore. For my part, I could not think of regarding it so. It only oppressed me with an unutterable sadness.To me there is always something interesting and beautiful about a universal popular excitement of a generous character, let the object of it be what it may. The great desiring heart of man, surging with one strong, sympathetic swell, even though it be to break on the beach of life and fall backwards, leaving the sands as barren as before, has yet a meaning and a power in its restlessness, with which I must deeply sympathize. Nor do I sympathize any the less, when the individual, who calls forth such an outburst, can be seen by the eye of sober sense to be altogether inadequate and disproportioned to it.I do not regard it as any thing against our American nation, that we are capable, to a very great extent, of these sudden personal enthusiasms, because I think that, with an individual or a community, the capability of being exalted into a temporary enthusiasm of self-forgetfulness, so far from being a fault, has in it a quality of something divine.Of course, about all such things there is a great deal which a cool critic could make ridiculous, but I hold to my opinion of them nevertheless.In the afternoon I rode out with the lord provost to see the cathedral. The lord provost answers to the lord mayor in England. His title and office in both countries continue only a year, except in cases of reëlection.As I saw the way to the cathedral blocked up by a throng of people, who had come out to see me, I could not help saying, "What went ye out for to see? a reed shaken with the wind?" In fact, I was so worn out, that I could hardly walk through the building.It is in this cathedral that part of the scene of Rob Roy is laid. This was my first experience in cathedrals. It was a new thing to me altogether, and as I walked along under the old buttresses and battlements without, and looked into the bewildering labyrinths of architecture within, I saw that, with silence and solitude to help the impression, the old building might become a strong part of one's inner life. A grave yard crowded with flat stones lies all around it. A deep ravine separates it from another cemetery on an opposite eminence, rustling with dark pines. A little brook murmurs with its slender voice between.On this opposite eminence the statue of John Knox, grim and strong, stands with its arm uplifted, as if shaking his fist at the old cathedral which in life he vainly endeavored to battle down.Knox was very different from Luther, in that he had no conservative element in him, but warred equally against accessories and essentials.At the time when the churches of Scotland were being pulled down in a general iconoclastic crusade, the tradesmen of Glasgow stood for the defence of their cathedral, and forced the reformers to content themselves with having the idolatrous images of saints pulled down from their niches and thrown into the brook, while, as Andrew Fairservice hath it, "The auld kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the fleas are caimed aff her, and a' body was alike pleased."We went all through the cathedral, which is fitted up as a Protestant place of worship, and has a simple and massive grandeur about it. In fact, to quote again from our friend Andrew, we could truly say, "Ah, it's a brave kirk, nane o' yere whig-malceries, and curliewurlies, and opensteek hems about it—a' solid, weel-jointed mason wark, that will stand as lang as the warld, keep hands and gun-powther aff it."I was disappointed in one thing: the painted glass, if there has ever been any, is almost all gone, and the glare of light through the immense windows is altogether too great, revealing many defects and rudenesses in the architecture, which would have quite another appearance in the colored rays through painted windows—an emblem, perhaps, of the cold, definite, intellectual rationalism, which has taken the place of the many-colored, gorgeous mysticism of former times.After having been over the church, we requested, out of respect to Baillie Nicol Jarvie's memory, to be driven through the Saut Market. I, however, was so thoroughly tired that I cannot remember any thing about it.I will say, by the way, that I have found out since, that nothing is so utterly hazardous to a person's strength as looking at cathedrals. The strain upon the head and eyes in looking up through these immense arches, and then the sepulchral chill which abides from generation to generation in them, their great extent, and the variety which tempts you to fatigue which you are not at all aware of, have overcome, as I was told, many before me.Mr. S. and C——, however, made amends, by their great activity and zeal, for all that I could not do, and I was pleased to understand from them, that part of the old Tolbooth, where Rob Roy and the baillie had their rencontre, was standing safe and sound, with stuff enough in it for half a dozen more stories, if any body could be found to write them. And Mr. S. insisted upon it, that I should not omit to notify you of this circumstance.Well, in consequence of all this, the next morning I was so ill as to need a physician, unable to see any one that called, or to hear any of the letters. I passed most of the day in bed, but in the evening I had to get up, as I had engaged to drink tea with two thousand people. Our kind friends Dr. and Mrs. Wardlaw came after us, and Mr. S. and I went in the carriage with them.Dr. Wardlaw is a venerable-looking old man; we both thought we saw a striking resemblance in him to our friend Dr. Woods, of Andover. He is still quite active in body and mind, and officiates to his congregation with great acceptance. I fear, however, that he is in ill health, for I noticed, as we were passing along to church, that he frequently laid his hand upon his heart, and seemed in pain. He said he hoped he should be able to get through the evening, but that when he was not well, excitement was apt to bring on a spasm about the heart; but with it all he seemed so cheerful, lively, and benignant, that I could not but feel my affections drawn towards him. Mrs. Wardlaw is a gentle, motherly woman, and it was a great comfort to have her with me on such an occasion.Our carriage stopped at last at the place. I have a dim remembrance of a way being made for us through a great crowd all round the house, and of going with Mrs. Wardlaw up into a dressing room, where I met and shook hands with many friendly people. Then we passed into a gallery, where a seat was reserved for our party, directly in front of the audience. Our friend Baillie Paton presided. Mrs. Wardlaw and I sat together, and around us many friends, chiefly ministers of the different churches, the ladies and gentlemen of the Glasgow Antislavery Society, and others.I told you it was a tea party; but the arrangements were altogether different from any I had ever seen. There were narrow tables stretched up and down the whole extent of the great hall, and every person had an appointed seat. These tables were set out with cups and saucers, cakes, biscuit, &c., and when the proper time came, attendants passed along serving tea. The arrangements were so accurate and methodical that the whole multitude actually took tea together, without the least apparent inconvenience or disturbance.There was a gentle, subdued murmur of conversation all over the house, the sociable clinking of teacups and teaspoons, while the entertainment was going on. It seemed to me such an odd idea, I could not help wondering what sort of a teapot that must be, in which all this tea for two thousand people was made. Truly, as Hadji Baba says, I think they must have had the "father of all teakettles" to boil it in. I could not help wondering if old mother Scotland had put two thousand teaspoonfuls of tea for the company, and one for the teapot, as is our good Yankee custom.We had quite a sociable time up in our gallery. Our tea table stretched quite across the gallery, and we drank tea "in sight of all the people." Bywe, I mean a great number of ministers and their wives, and ladies of the Antislavery Society, besides our party, and the friends whom I have mentioned before. All seemed to be enjoying themselves.After tea they sang a few verses of the seventy-second psalm in the old Scotch version."The people's poor ones he shall judge,The needy's children save;And those shall he in pieces break,Who them oppressed have.For he the needy shall preserve,When he to him doth call;The poor, also, and him that hathNo help of man at all.Both from deceit and violenceTheir soul he shall set free;And in his sight right preciousAnd dear their blood shall be.Now blessed be the Lord, our God,The God of Israel,For he alone doth wondrous works,In glory that excel.And blessed be his glorious nameTo all eternity;The whole earth let his glory fill:Amen; so let it be."When I heard the united sound of all the voices, giving force to these simple and pathetic words, I thought I could see something of the reason why that rude old translation still holds its place in Scotland.The addresses were, many of them, very beautiful; the more so for the earnest and religious feeling which they manifested. That of Dr. Wardlaw, in particular, was full of comfort and encouragement, and breathed a most candid and catholic spirit. Could our friends in America see with what earnest warmth the religious heart of Scotland beats towards them, they would be willing to suffer a word of admonition from those to whom love gives a right to speak. As Christians, all have a common interest in what honors or dishonors Christianity, and an ocean between us does not make us less one church.Most of the speeches you will see recorded in the papers. In the course of the evening there was a second service of grapes, oranges, and other fruits, served round in the same quiet manner as the tea. On account of the feeble state of my health, they kindly excused me before the exercises of the evening were over.The next morning, at ten o'clock, we rode with a party of friends to see some of thenotabilia. First, to Bothwell Castle, of old the residence of the Black Douglas. The name had for me the quality of enchantment. I cannot understand nor explain the nature of that sad yearning and longing with which one visits the mouldering remains of a state of society which one's reason wholly disapproves, and which one's calm sense of right would think it the greatest misfortune to have recalled; yet when the carriage turned under the shadow of beautiful ancient oaks, and Mr. S. said, "There, we are in the grounds of the old Black Douglas family!" I felt every nerve shiver. I remembered the dim melodies of the Lady of the Lake. Bothwell's lord was the lord of this castle, whose beautiful ruins here adorn the banks of the Clyde.Whatever else we have or may have in America, we shall never have the wild, poetic beauty of these ruins. The present noble possessors are fully aware of their worth as objects of taste, and, therefore, with the greatest care are they preserved. Winding walks are cut through the grounds with much ingenuity, and seats or arbors are placed at every desirable and picturesque point of view.To the thorough-paced tourist, who wants todothe proprieties in the shortest possible time, this arrangement is undoubtedly particularly satisfactory; but to the idealist, who would like to roam, and dream, and feel, and to come unexpectedly on the choicest points of view, it is rather a damper to have all his raptures prearranged and foreordained for him, set down in the guide book and proclaimed by the guide, even though it should be done with the most artistic accuracy.Nevertheless, when we came to the arbor which commanded the finest view of the old castle, and saw its gray, ivy-clad walls, standing forth on a beautiful point, round which swept the brown, dimpling waves of the Clyde, the indescribable sweetness, sadness, wildness of the whole scene would make its voice heard in our hearts. "Thy servants take pleasure in her dust, and favor the stones thereof," said an old Hebrew poet, who must have felt the inexpressibly sad beauty of a ruin. All the splendid phantasmagoria of chivalry and feudalism, knights, ladies, banners, glittering arms, sweep before us; the cry of the battle, the noise of the captains, and the shouting; and then in contrast this deep stillness, that green, clinging ivy, the gentle, rippling river, those weeping birches, dipping in its soft waters—all these, in their quiet loveliness, speak of something more imperishable than brute force.The ivy on the walls now displays a trunk in some places as large as a man's body. In the days of old Archibald the Grim, I suppose that ivy was a little, weak twig, which, if he ever noticed, he must have thought the feeblest and slightest of all things; yet Archibald has gone back to dust, and the ivy is still growing on. Such force is there in gentle things.I have often been dissatisfied with the admiration, which a poetic education has woven into my nature, for chivalry and feudalism; but, on a closer examination, I am convinced that there is a real and proper foundation for it, and that, rightly understood, this poetic admiration is not inconsistent with the spirit of Christ.For, let us consider what it is we admire in these Douglases, for instance, who, as represented by Scott, are perhaps as good exponents of the idea as any. Was it their hardness, their cruelty, their hastiness to take offence, their fondness for blood and murder? All these, by and of themselves, are simply disgusting. What, then, do we admire? Their courage, their fortitude, their scorn of lying and dissimulation, their high sense of personal honor, which led them to feel themselves the protectors of the weak, and to disdain to take advantage of unequal odds against an enemy. If we read the book of Isaiah, we shall see that some of the most striking representations of God appeal to the very same principles of our nature.The fact is, there can be no reliable character which has not its basis in these strong qualities. The beautiful must ever rest in the arms of the sublime. The gentle needs the strong to sustain it, as much as the rock flowers need rocks to grow on, or yonder ivy the rugged wall which it embraces. When we are admiring these things, therefore, we are only admiring some sparkles and glimmers of that which is divine, and so coming nearer to Him in whom all fulness dwells.After admiring at a distance, we strolled through the ruins themselves. Do you remember, in the Lady of the Lake, where the exiled Douglas, recalling to his daughter the images of his former splendor, says,—"When Blantyre hymned, her holiest lays,And Bothwell's walls flung back the praise"?These lines came forcibly to my mind, when I saw the mouldering ruins of Blantyre priory rising exactly opposite to the castle, on the other side of the Clyde.The banks of the River Clyde, where we walked, were thick set with Portuguese laurel, which I have before mentioned as similar to our rhododendron. I here noticed a fact with regard to the ivy which had often puzzled me; and that is, the different shapes of its leaves in the different stages of its growth. The young ivy has this leaf; but when it has become more than a century old every trace and indentation melts away, and it assumes this form, which I found afterwards to be the invariable shape of all the oldest ivy, in all the ruins of Europe which I explored.This ivy, like the spider, takes hold with her hands in kings' palaces, as every twig is furnished with innumerable little clinging fingers, by which it draws itself close, as it were, to the very heart of the old rough stone.Its clinging and beautiful tenacity has given rise to an abundance of conceits about fidelity, friendship, and woman's love, which have become commonplace simply from their appropriateness. It might, also, symbolize that higher love, unconquerable and unconquered, which has embraced this ruined world from age to age, silently spreading its green over the rents and fissures of our fallen nature, giving "beauty for ashes, and garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness."There is a modern mansion, where the present proprietor of the estate lives. It was with an emotion partaking of the sorrowful, that we heard that the Douglas line, as such, was extinct, and that the estate had passed to distant connections. I was told that the present Lord Douglas is a peaceful clergyman, quite a different character from old Archibald the Grim.The present residence is a plain mansion, standing on a beautiful lawn, near the old castle. The head gardener of the estate and many of the servants came out to meet us, with faces full of interest. The gardener walked about to show us the localities, and had a great deal of the quiet intelligence and self-respect which, I think, is characteristic of the laboring classes here. I noticed that on the green sweep of the lawn, he had set out here and there a good many daisies, as embellishments to the grass, and these in many places were defended by sticks bent over them, and that, in one place, a bank overhanging the stream was radiant with yellow daffodils, which appeared to have come up and blossomed there accidentally. I know not whether these were planted there, or came up of themselves.We next went to the famous Bothwell bridge, which Scott has immortalized in Old Mortality. We walked up and down, trying to recall the scenes of the battle, as there described, and were rather mortified, after we had all our associations comfortably located upon it, to be told that it was not the same bridge—it had been newly built, widened, and otherwise made more comfortable and convenient.Of course, this was evidently for the benefit of society, but it was certainly one of those cases where the poetical suffers for the practical. I comforted myself in my despondency, by looking over at the old stone piers underneath, which were indisputably the same. We drove now through beautiful grounds, and alighted at an elegant mansion, which in former days belonged to Lockhart, the son-in-law of Scott. It was in this house that Old Mortality was written.As I was weary, the party left me here, while they went on to see the Duke of Hamilton's grounds. Our kind hostess showed me into a small study, where she said Old Mortality was written. The window commanded a beautiful view of many of the localities described. Scott was as particular to consult for accuracy in his local descriptions as if he had been writing a guide book.He was in the habit of noting down in his memorandum book even names and characteristics of the wild flowers and grasses that grew about a place. When a friend once remarked to him, that he should have supposed his imagination could have supplied such trifles, he made an answer that is worth remembering by every artist—that no imagination could long support its freshness, that was not nourished by a constant and minute observation of nature.Craignethan Castle, which is the original of Tillietudlem, we were informed, was not far from thence. It is stated in Lockhart's Life of Scott, that the ruins of this castle excited in Scott such delight and enthusiasm, that its owner urged him to accept for his lifetime the use of a small habitable house, enclosed within the circuit of the walls.After the return of the party from Hamilton Park, we sat down to an elegant lunch, where my eye was attracted more than any thing else, by the splendor of the hothouse flowers which adorned the table. So far as I have observed, the culture of flowers, both in England and Scotland, is more universally an object of attention than with us. Every family in easy circumstances seems, as a matter of course, to have their greenhouse, and the flowers are brought to a degree of perfection which I have never seen at home.I may as well say here, that we were told by a gentleman, whose name I do not now remember, that this whole district had been celebrated for its orchards; he added, however, that since the introduction of the American apple into the market, its superior excellence had made many of these orchards almost entirely worthless. It is a curious fact, showing how the new world is working on the old.After taking leave of our hospitable friends, we took to our carriages again. As we were driving slowly through the beautiful grounds, admiring, as we never failed to do, their perfect cultivation, a party of servants appeared in sight, waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and cheering us as we passed. These kindly expressions from them were as pleasant as any we received.In the evening we had engaged to attend anothersoirée, gotten up by the working classes, to give admission to many who were not in circumstances to purchase tickets for the other. This was to me, if any thing, a more interestingréunion, because this was just the class whom I wished to meet. The arrangements of the entertainment were like those of the evening before.As I sat in the front gallery and looked over the audience with an intense interest, I thought they appeared on the whole very much like what I might have seen at home in a similar gathering. Men, women, and children were dressed in a style which showed both self-respect and good taste, and the speeches were far above mediocrity. One pale young man, a watchmaker, as I was told afterwards, delivered an address, which, though doubtless it had the promising fault of too much elaboration and ornament, yet I thought had passages which would do honor to any literary periodical whatever.There were other orators less highly finished, who yet spoke "right on," in a strong, forcible, and really eloquent way, giving the grain of the wood without the varnish. They contended very seriously and sensibly, that although the working men of England and Scotland had many things to complain of, and many things to be reformed, yet their condition was world-wide different from that of the slave.One cannot read the history of the working classes in England, for the last fifty years, without feeling sensibly the difference between oppressions under a free government and slavery. So long as the working class of England produces orators and writers, such as it undoubtedly has produced; so long as it has in it that spirit of independence and resistance of wrong, which has shown itself more and more during the agitations of the last fifty years; and so as long as the law allows them to meet and debate, to form associations and committees, to send up remonstrances and petitions to government,—one can see that their case is essentially different from that of plantation slaves.I must say, I was struck this night with the resemblance between the Scotchman and the New Englander. One sees the distinctive nationality of a country more in the middle and laboring classes than in the higher, and accordingly at this meeting there was more nationality, I thought, than at the other.The highest class of mind in all countries loses nationality, and becomes universal; it is a great pity, too, because nationality is picturesque always. One of the greatest miracles to my mind about Kossuth was, that with so universal an education, and such an extensive range of language and thought, he was yet so distinctively a Magyar.One thing has surprised and rather disappointed us. Our enthusiasm for Walter Scott does not apparently meet a response in the popular breast. Allusions to Bannockburn and Drumclog bring down the house, but enthusiasm for Scott was met with comparative silence. We discussed this matter among ourselves, and rather wondered at it.The fact is, Scott belonged to a past, and not to the coming age. He beautified and adorned that which is waxing old and passing away. He loved and worshipped in his very soul institutions which the majority of the common people have felt as a restraint and a burden. One might naturally get a very different idea of a feudal castle by starving to death in the dungeon of it, than by writing sonnets on it at a picturesque distance. Now, we in America are so far removed from feudalism,—it has been a thing so much of mere song and story with us, and our sympathies are so unchecked by any experience of inconvenience or injustice in its consequences,—that we are at full liberty to appreciate the picturesque of it, and sometimes, when we stand overlooking our own beautiful scenery, to wish that we could see,"On yon bold brow, a lordly tower;In that soft vale, a lady's bower;In yonder meadow, far away,The turrets of a cloister gray;"when those who know by experience all the accompaniments of these ornaments, would have quite another impression.Nevertheless, since there are two worlds in man, the real and the ideal, and both have indisputably a right to be, since God made the faculties of both, we must feel that it is a benefaction to mankind, that Scott was thus raised up as the link, in the ideal world, between the present and the past. It is a loss to universal humanity to have the imprint of any phase of human life and experience entirely blotted out. Scott's fictions are like this beautiful ivy, with which all the ruins here are overgrown,—they not only adorn, but, in many cases, they actually hold together, and prevent the crumbling mass from falling into ruins.To-morrow we are going to have a sail on the Clyde.

Letter IIIGlasgow, April 16, 1853.Dear Aunt E.:—You shall have my earliest Scotch letter; for I am sure nobody can sympathize in the emotions of the first approach to Scotland as you can. A country dear to us by the memory of the dead and of the living; a country whose history and literature, interesting enough of itself, has become to us still more so, because the reading and learning of it formed part of our communion for many a social hour, with friends long parted from earth.The views of Scotland, which lay on my mother's table, even while I was a little child, and in poring over which I spent so many happy, dreamy hours,—the Scotch ballads, which were the delight of our evening fireside, and which seemed almost to melt the soul out of me, before I was old enough to understand their words,—the songs of Burns, which had been a household treasure among us,—the enchantments of Scott,—all these dimly returned upon me. It was the result of them all which I felt in nerve and brain.And, by the by, that puts me in mind of one thing; and that is, how much of our pleasure in literature results from its reflection on us from, other minds. As we advance in life, the literature which has charmed us in the circle of our friends becomes endeared to us from the reflected remembrance of them, of their individualities, their opinions, and their sympathies, so that our memory of it is a many-colored cord, drawn from many minds.So in coming near to Scotland, I seemed to feel not only my own individuality, but all that my friends would have felt, had they been with me. For sometimes we seem to be encompassed, as by a cloud, with a sense of the sympathy of the absent and the dead.We left Liverpool with hearts a little tremulous and excited by the vibration of an atmosphere of universal sympathy and kindness. We found ourselves, at length, shut from the warm adieus of our friends, in a snug compartment of the railroad car. The English cars are models of comfort and good keeping. There are six seats in a compartment, luxuriously cushioned and nicely carpeted, and six was exactly the number of our party. Nevertheless, so obstinate is custom that we averred at first that we preferred our American cars, deficient as they are in many points of neatness and luxury, because they are so much more social."Dear me," said Mr. S., "six Yankees shut up in a car together! Not one Englishman to tell us any thing about the country! Just like the six old ladies that made their living by taking tea at each other's houses."But that is the way here in England: every arrangement in travelling is designed to maintain that privacy and reserve which is the dearest and most sacred part of an Englishman's nature. Things are so arranged here that, if a man pleases, he can travel all through England with his family, and keep the circle an unbroken unit, having just as little communication with any thing outside of it as in his own house.From one of these sheltered apartments in a railroad car, he can pass to preëngaged parlors and chambers in the hotel, with his own separate table, and all his domestic manners and peculiarities unbroken. In fact, it is a little compact home travelling about.Now, all this is very charming to people who know already as much about a country as they want to know; but it follows from it that a stranger might travel all through England, from one end to the other and not be on conversing terms with a person in it. He may be at the same hotel, in the same train with people able to give him all imaginable information, yet never touch them at any practicable point of communion. This is more especially the case if his party, as ours was, is just large enough to fill the whole apartment.As to the comforts of the cars, it is to be said, that for the same price you can get far more comfortable riding in America. Their first class cars are beyond all praise, but also beyond all price; their second class are comfortless, cushionless, and uninviting. Agreeably with our theory of democratic equality, we have a general car, not so complete as the one, nor so bare as the other, where all ride together; and if the traveller in thus riding sees things that occasionally annoy him, when he remembers that the whole population, from the highest to the lowest, are accommodated here together, he will certainly see hopeful indications in the general comfort, order, and respectability which prevail; all which we talked over most patriotically together, while we were lamenting that there was not a seventh to our party, to instruct us in the localities.Every thing upon the railroad proceeds with systematic accuracy. There is no chance for the most careless person to commit a blunder, or make a mistake. At the proper time the conductor marches every body into their places and locks them in, gives the word, "All right," and away we go. Somebody has remarked, very characteristically, that the starting word of the English is "all right," and that of the Americans "go ahead."Away we go through Lancashire, wide awake, looking out on all sides for any signs of antiquity. In being thus whirled through English scenery, I became conscious of a new understanding of the spirit and phraseology of English poetry. There are many phrases and expressions with which we have been familiar from childhood, and which, we suppose, in a kind of indefinite way, we understand, which, after all, when we come on English ground, start into a new significance: take, for instance, these lines from L'Allegro:—"Sometimes walking, not unseen,By hedge-row elms on hillocks green.* * * *Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,While the landscape round it measures;Russet lawns and fallows gray,Where the nibbling flocks do stray;Mountains, on whose barren breastThe laboring clouds do often rest;Meadows trim with daisies pied,Shallow brooks and livers wide:Towers and battlements it seesBosom'd high in tufted trees."Now, these hedge-row elms. I had never even asked myself what they were till I saw them; but you know, as I said in a former letter, the hedges are not all of them carefully cut; in fact many of them are only irregular rows of bushes, where, although the hawthorn is the staple element, yet firs, and brambles, and many other interlopers put in their claim, and they all grow up together in a kind of straggling unity; and in the hedges trees are often set out, particularly elms, and have a very pleasing effect.Then, too, the trees have more of that rounding outline which is expressed by the word "bosomed." But here we are, right under the walls of Lancaster, and Mr. S. wakes me up by quoting, "Old John o' Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster.""Time-honored," said I; "it looks as fresh as if it had been built yesterday: you do not mean to say that is the real old castle?""To be sure, it is the very old castle built in the reign of Edward III., by John of Gaunt."It stands on the summit of a hill, seated regally like a queen upon a throne, and every part of it looks as fresh, and sharp, and clear, as if it were the work of modern times. It is used now for a county jail. We have but a moment to stop or admire—the merciless steam car drives on. We have a little talk about the feudal times, and the old past days; when again the cry goes up,—"O, there's something! What's that?""O, that is Carlisle.""Carlisle!" said I; "what, the Carlisle of Scott's ballad?""What ballad?""Why, don't you remember, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, the song of Albert Graeme, which has something about Carlisle's wall in every verse?'It was an English, laydie brightWhen sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,And she would marry a Scottish knight,For love will still be lord of all.'I used to read this when I was a child, and wonder what 'Carlisle wall' was."Carlisle is one of the most ancient cities in England, dating quite back to the time of the Romans. Wonderful! How these Romans left their mark every where!Carlisle has also its ancient castle, the lofty, massive tower of which forms a striking feature of the town.This castle was built by William Rufus. David, King of Scots, and Robert Bruce both tried their hands upon it, in the good old times, when England and Scotland were a mutual robbery association. Then the castle of the town was its great feature; castles were every thing in those days. Now the castle has gone to decay, and stands only for a curiosity, and the cotton factory has come up in its place. This place is famous for cottons and ginghams, and moreover for a celebrated biscuit bakery. So goes the world,—the lively vigorous shoots of the present springing out of the old, mouldering trunk of the past.Mr. S. was in an ecstasy about an old church, a splendid Gothic, in which Paley preached. He was archdeacon of Carlisle. We stopped here for a little while to take dinner. In a large, handsome room tables were set out, and we sat down to a regular meal.One sees nothing of a town from a railroad station, since it seems to be an invariable rule, not only here, but all over Europe, to locate them so that you can see nothing from them.By the by, I forgot to say, among the historical recollections of this place, that it was the first stopping-place of Queen Mary, after her fatal flight into England. The rooms which she occupied are still shown in the castle, and there are interesting letters and documents extant from lords whom Elizabeth sent here to visit her, in which they record her beauty, her heroic sentiments, and even her dress; so strong was the fascination in which she held all who approached her. Carlisle is the scene of the denouement of Guy Mannering, and it is from this town that Lord Carlisle gets his title.And now keep up a bright lookout for ruins and old houses. Mr. S., whose eyes are always in every place, allowed none of us to slumber, but looking out, first on his own side and then on ours, called our attention to every visible thing. If he had been appointed on a mission of inquiry he could not have been more zealous and faithful, and I began to think that our desire for an English cicerone was quite superfluous.And now we pass Gretna Green, famous in story—that momentous place which marks the commencement of Scotland. It is a little straggling village, and there is a roadside inn, which has been the scene of innumerable Gretna Green marriages.Owing to the fact that the Scottish law of marriage is far more liberal in its construction than the English, this place has been the refuge of distressed lovers from time immemorial; and although the practice of escaping here is universally condemned as very naughty and improper, yet, like every other impropriety, it is kept in countenance by very respectable people. Two lord chancellors have had the amiable weakness to fall into this snare, and one lord chancellor's son; so says the guide book, which is our Koran for the time being. It says, moreover, that it would be easy to add a lengthened list ofdistinguésmarried at Gretna Green; but these lord chancellors (Erskine and Eldon) are quoted as being the most melancholy monuments. What shall meaner mortals do, when law itself, in all her majesty, wig, gown, and all, goes by the board?Well, we are in Scotland at last, and now our pulse rises as the sun declines in the west. We catch glimpses of the Solway Frith, and talk about Redgauntlet.One says, "Do you remember the scene on the sea shore, with which it opens, describing the rising of the tide?"And says another, "Don't you remember those lines in the Young Lochinvar song?—'Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide.'"I wonder how many authors it will take to enchant our country from Maine to New Orleans, as every foot of ground is enchanted here in Scotland.The sun went down, and night drew on; still we were in Scotland. Scotch ballads, Scotch tunes, and Scotch literature were in the ascendant. We sang "Auld Lang Syne," "Scots wha ha'," and "Bonnie Doon," and then, changing the key, sang Dundee, Elgin, and Martyrs."Take care," said Mr. S.; "don't get too much excited.""Ah," said I, "this is a thing that comes only once in a lifetime; do let us have the comfort of it. We shall never come into Scotland for thefirst timeagain.""Ah," said another, "how I wish Walter Scott was alive!"While we were thus at the fusion point of enthusiasm, the cars stopped at Lockerby, where the real Old Mortality is buried. All was dim and dark outside, but we soon became conscious that there was quite a number collected, peering into the window, and, with a strange kind of thrill, I heard my name inquired for in the Scottish accent. I went to the window; there were men, women, and children there, and hand after hand was presented, with the words, "Ye're welcome to Scotland!"Then they inquired for, and shook hands with, all the party, having in some mysterious manner got the knowledge of who they were, even down to little G——, whom they took to be my son. Was it not pleasant, when I had a heart so warm for this old country? I shall never forget the thrill of those words, "Ye're welcome to Scotland," nor the "Gude night."After that we found similar welcomes in many succeeding stopping-places; and though I did wave a towel out of the window, instead of a pocket handkerchief, and commit other awkwardnesses, from not knowing how to play my part, yet I fancied, after all, that Scotland and we were coming on well together. Who the good souls were that were thus watching for us through the night, I am sure I do not know; but that they were of the "one blood," which unites all the families of the earth, I felt.As we came towards Glasgow, we saw, upon a high hill, what we supposed to be a castle on fire—great volumes of smoke rolling up, and fire looking out of arched windows."Dear me, what a conflagration!" we all exclaimed. We had not gone very far before we saw another, and then, on the opposite side of the car, another still."Why, it seems to me the country is all on fire.""I should think," said Mr. S., "if it was in old times, that there had been a raid from the Highlands, and set all the houses on fire.""Or they might be beacons," suggested C.To this some one answered out of the Lay of the Last Minstrel,—"Sweet Teviot, by thy silver tideThe glaring bale-fires blaze no more."As we drew near to Glasgow these illuminations increased, till the whole air was red with the glare of them."What can they be?""Dear me," said Mr. S., in a tone of sudden recollection, "it's the iron works! Don't you know Glasgow is celebrated for its iron works?"So, after all, in these peaceful fires of the iron works, we got an idea how the country might have looked in the old picturesque times, when the Highlanders came down and set the Lowlands on fire; such scenes as are commemorated in the words of Roderick Dhu's song:—"Proudly our pibroch, has thrilled in Glen Fruin,And Banmachar's groans to our slogan replied;Glen Luss and Ross Dhu, they are smoking in ruins,And the best of Loch Lomond lies dead on her side."To be sure the fires of iron founderies are much less picturesque than the old beacons, and the clink of hammers than the clash of claymores; but the most devout worshipper of the middle ages would hardly wish to change them.Dimly, by the flickering light of these furnaces, we see the approach to the old city of Glasgow. There, we are arrived! Friends are waiting in the station house. Earnest, eager, friendly faces, ever so many. Warm greetings, kindly words. A crowd parting in the middle, through which we were conducted into a carriage, and loud cheers of welcome, sent a throb, as the voice of living Scotland.I looked out of the carriage, as we drove on, and saw, by the light of a lantern, Argyle Street. It was past twelve o'clock when I found myself in a warm, cozy parlor, with friends, whom I have ever since been glad to remember. In a little time we were all safely housed in our hospitable apartments, and sleep fell on me for the first time in Scotland.

Glasgow, April 16, 1853.

Dear Aunt E.:—

You shall have my earliest Scotch letter; for I am sure nobody can sympathize in the emotions of the first approach to Scotland as you can. A country dear to us by the memory of the dead and of the living; a country whose history and literature, interesting enough of itself, has become to us still more so, because the reading and learning of it formed part of our communion for many a social hour, with friends long parted from earth.

The views of Scotland, which lay on my mother's table, even while I was a little child, and in poring over which I spent so many happy, dreamy hours,—the Scotch ballads, which were the delight of our evening fireside, and which seemed almost to melt the soul out of me, before I was old enough to understand their words,—the songs of Burns, which had been a household treasure among us,—the enchantments of Scott,—all these dimly returned upon me. It was the result of them all which I felt in nerve and brain.

And, by the by, that puts me in mind of one thing; and that is, how much of our pleasure in literature results from its reflection on us from, other minds. As we advance in life, the literature which has charmed us in the circle of our friends becomes endeared to us from the reflected remembrance of them, of their individualities, their opinions, and their sympathies, so that our memory of it is a many-colored cord, drawn from many minds.

So in coming near to Scotland, I seemed to feel not only my own individuality, but all that my friends would have felt, had they been with me. For sometimes we seem to be encompassed, as by a cloud, with a sense of the sympathy of the absent and the dead.

We left Liverpool with hearts a little tremulous and excited by the vibration of an atmosphere of universal sympathy and kindness. We found ourselves, at length, shut from the warm adieus of our friends, in a snug compartment of the railroad car. The English cars are models of comfort and good keeping. There are six seats in a compartment, luxuriously cushioned and nicely carpeted, and six was exactly the number of our party. Nevertheless, so obstinate is custom that we averred at first that we preferred our American cars, deficient as they are in many points of neatness and luxury, because they are so much more social.

"Dear me," said Mr. S., "six Yankees shut up in a car together! Not one Englishman to tell us any thing about the country! Just like the six old ladies that made their living by taking tea at each other's houses."

But that is the way here in England: every arrangement in travelling is designed to maintain that privacy and reserve which is the dearest and most sacred part of an Englishman's nature. Things are so arranged here that, if a man pleases, he can travel all through England with his family, and keep the circle an unbroken unit, having just as little communication with any thing outside of it as in his own house.

From one of these sheltered apartments in a railroad car, he can pass to preëngaged parlors and chambers in the hotel, with his own separate table, and all his domestic manners and peculiarities unbroken. In fact, it is a little compact home travelling about.

Now, all this is very charming to people who know already as much about a country as they want to know; but it follows from it that a stranger might travel all through England, from one end to the other and not be on conversing terms with a person in it. He may be at the same hotel, in the same train with people able to give him all imaginable information, yet never touch them at any practicable point of communion. This is more especially the case if his party, as ours was, is just large enough to fill the whole apartment.

As to the comforts of the cars, it is to be said, that for the same price you can get far more comfortable riding in America. Their first class cars are beyond all praise, but also beyond all price; their second class are comfortless, cushionless, and uninviting. Agreeably with our theory of democratic equality, we have a general car, not so complete as the one, nor so bare as the other, where all ride together; and if the traveller in thus riding sees things that occasionally annoy him, when he remembers that the whole population, from the highest to the lowest, are accommodated here together, he will certainly see hopeful indications in the general comfort, order, and respectability which prevail; all which we talked over most patriotically together, while we were lamenting that there was not a seventh to our party, to instruct us in the localities.

Every thing upon the railroad proceeds with systematic accuracy. There is no chance for the most careless person to commit a blunder, or make a mistake. At the proper time the conductor marches every body into their places and locks them in, gives the word, "All right," and away we go. Somebody has remarked, very characteristically, that the starting word of the English is "all right," and that of the Americans "go ahead."

Away we go through Lancashire, wide awake, looking out on all sides for any signs of antiquity. In being thus whirled through English scenery, I became conscious of a new understanding of the spirit and phraseology of English poetry. There are many phrases and expressions with which we have been familiar from childhood, and which, we suppose, in a kind of indefinite way, we understand, which, after all, when we come on English ground, start into a new significance: take, for instance, these lines from L'Allegro:—

"Sometimes walking, not unseen,By hedge-row elms on hillocks green.* * * *Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,While the landscape round it measures;Russet lawns and fallows gray,Where the nibbling flocks do stray;Mountains, on whose barren breastThe laboring clouds do often rest;Meadows trim with daisies pied,Shallow brooks and livers wide:Towers and battlements it seesBosom'd high in tufted trees."

"Sometimes walking, not unseen,

By hedge-row elms on hillocks green.

* * * *

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,

While the landscape round it measures;

Russet lawns and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;

Mountains, on whose barren breast

The laboring clouds do often rest;

Meadows trim with daisies pied,

Shallow brooks and livers wide:

Towers and battlements it sees

Bosom'd high in tufted trees."

Now, these hedge-row elms. I had never even asked myself what they were till I saw them; but you know, as I said in a former letter, the hedges are not all of them carefully cut; in fact many of them are only irregular rows of bushes, where, although the hawthorn is the staple element, yet firs, and brambles, and many other interlopers put in their claim, and they all grow up together in a kind of straggling unity; and in the hedges trees are often set out, particularly elms, and have a very pleasing effect.

Then, too, the trees have more of that rounding outline which is expressed by the word "bosomed." But here we are, right under the walls of Lancaster, and Mr. S. wakes me up by quoting, "Old John o' Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster."

"Time-honored," said I; "it looks as fresh as if it had been built yesterday: you do not mean to say that is the real old castle?"

"To be sure, it is the very old castle built in the reign of Edward III., by John of Gaunt."

It stands on the summit of a hill, seated regally like a queen upon a throne, and every part of it looks as fresh, and sharp, and clear, as if it were the work of modern times. It is used now for a county jail. We have but a moment to stop or admire—the merciless steam car drives on. We have a little talk about the feudal times, and the old past days; when again the cry goes up,—

"O, there's something! What's that?"

"O, that is Carlisle."

"Carlisle!" said I; "what, the Carlisle of Scott's ballad?"

"What ballad?"

"Why, don't you remember, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, the song of Albert Graeme, which has something about Carlisle's wall in every verse?

'It was an English, laydie brightWhen sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,And she would marry a Scottish knight,For love will still be lord of all.'

'It was an English, laydie bright

When sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,

And she would marry a Scottish knight,

For love will still be lord of all.'

I used to read this when I was a child, and wonder what 'Carlisle wall' was."

Carlisle is one of the most ancient cities in England, dating quite back to the time of the Romans. Wonderful! How these Romans left their mark every where!

Carlisle has also its ancient castle, the lofty, massive tower of which forms a striking feature of the town.

This castle was built by William Rufus. David, King of Scots, and Robert Bruce both tried their hands upon it, in the good old times, when England and Scotland were a mutual robbery association. Then the castle of the town was its great feature; castles were every thing in those days. Now the castle has gone to decay, and stands only for a curiosity, and the cotton factory has come up in its place. This place is famous for cottons and ginghams, and moreover for a celebrated biscuit bakery. So goes the world,—the lively vigorous shoots of the present springing out of the old, mouldering trunk of the past.

Mr. S. was in an ecstasy about an old church, a splendid Gothic, in which Paley preached. He was archdeacon of Carlisle. We stopped here for a little while to take dinner. In a large, handsome room tables were set out, and we sat down to a regular meal.

One sees nothing of a town from a railroad station, since it seems to be an invariable rule, not only here, but all over Europe, to locate them so that you can see nothing from them.

By the by, I forgot to say, among the historical recollections of this place, that it was the first stopping-place of Queen Mary, after her fatal flight into England. The rooms which she occupied are still shown in the castle, and there are interesting letters and documents extant from lords whom Elizabeth sent here to visit her, in which they record her beauty, her heroic sentiments, and even her dress; so strong was the fascination in which she held all who approached her. Carlisle is the scene of the denouement of Guy Mannering, and it is from this town that Lord Carlisle gets his title.

And now keep up a bright lookout for ruins and old houses. Mr. S., whose eyes are always in every place, allowed none of us to slumber, but looking out, first on his own side and then on ours, called our attention to every visible thing. If he had been appointed on a mission of inquiry he could not have been more zealous and faithful, and I began to think that our desire for an English cicerone was quite superfluous.

And now we pass Gretna Green, famous in story—that momentous place which marks the commencement of Scotland. It is a little straggling village, and there is a roadside inn, which has been the scene of innumerable Gretna Green marriages.

Owing to the fact that the Scottish law of marriage is far more liberal in its construction than the English, this place has been the refuge of distressed lovers from time immemorial; and although the practice of escaping here is universally condemned as very naughty and improper, yet, like every other impropriety, it is kept in countenance by very respectable people. Two lord chancellors have had the amiable weakness to fall into this snare, and one lord chancellor's son; so says the guide book, which is our Koran for the time being. It says, moreover, that it would be easy to add a lengthened list ofdistinguésmarried at Gretna Green; but these lord chancellors (Erskine and Eldon) are quoted as being the most melancholy monuments. What shall meaner mortals do, when law itself, in all her majesty, wig, gown, and all, goes by the board?

Well, we are in Scotland at last, and now our pulse rises as the sun declines in the west. We catch glimpses of the Solway Frith, and talk about Redgauntlet.

One says, "Do you remember the scene on the sea shore, with which it opens, describing the rising of the tide?"

And says another, "Don't you remember those lines in the Young Lochinvar song?—

'Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide.'"

'Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide.'"

I wonder how many authors it will take to enchant our country from Maine to New Orleans, as every foot of ground is enchanted here in Scotland.

The sun went down, and night drew on; still we were in Scotland. Scotch ballads, Scotch tunes, and Scotch literature were in the ascendant. We sang "Auld Lang Syne," "Scots wha ha'," and "Bonnie Doon," and then, changing the key, sang Dundee, Elgin, and Martyrs.

"Take care," said Mr. S.; "don't get too much excited."

"Ah," said I, "this is a thing that comes only once in a lifetime; do let us have the comfort of it. We shall never come into Scotland for thefirst timeagain."

"Ah," said another, "how I wish Walter Scott was alive!"

While we were thus at the fusion point of enthusiasm, the cars stopped at Lockerby, where the real Old Mortality is buried. All was dim and dark outside, but we soon became conscious that there was quite a number collected, peering into the window, and, with a strange kind of thrill, I heard my name inquired for in the Scottish accent. I went to the window; there were men, women, and children there, and hand after hand was presented, with the words, "Ye're welcome to Scotland!"

Then they inquired for, and shook hands with, all the party, having in some mysterious manner got the knowledge of who they were, even down to little G——, whom they took to be my son. Was it not pleasant, when I had a heart so warm for this old country? I shall never forget the thrill of those words, "Ye're welcome to Scotland," nor the "Gude night."

After that we found similar welcomes in many succeeding stopping-places; and though I did wave a towel out of the window, instead of a pocket handkerchief, and commit other awkwardnesses, from not knowing how to play my part, yet I fancied, after all, that Scotland and we were coming on well together. Who the good souls were that were thus watching for us through the night, I am sure I do not know; but that they were of the "one blood," which unites all the families of the earth, I felt.

As we came towards Glasgow, we saw, upon a high hill, what we supposed to be a castle on fire—great volumes of smoke rolling up, and fire looking out of arched windows.

"Dear me, what a conflagration!" we all exclaimed. We had not gone very far before we saw another, and then, on the opposite side of the car, another still.

"Why, it seems to me the country is all on fire."

"I should think," said Mr. S., "if it was in old times, that there had been a raid from the Highlands, and set all the houses on fire."

"Or they might be beacons," suggested C.

To this some one answered out of the Lay of the Last Minstrel,—

"Sweet Teviot, by thy silver tideThe glaring bale-fires blaze no more."

"Sweet Teviot, by thy silver tide

The glaring bale-fires blaze no more."

As we drew near to Glasgow these illuminations increased, till the whole air was red with the glare of them.

"What can they be?"

"Dear me," said Mr. S., in a tone of sudden recollection, "it's the iron works! Don't you know Glasgow is celebrated for its iron works?"

So, after all, in these peaceful fires of the iron works, we got an idea how the country might have looked in the old picturesque times, when the Highlanders came down and set the Lowlands on fire; such scenes as are commemorated in the words of Roderick Dhu's song:—

"Proudly our pibroch, has thrilled in Glen Fruin,And Banmachar's groans to our slogan replied;Glen Luss and Ross Dhu, they are smoking in ruins,And the best of Loch Lomond lies dead on her side."

"Proudly our pibroch, has thrilled in Glen Fruin,

And Banmachar's groans to our slogan replied;

Glen Luss and Ross Dhu, they are smoking in ruins,

And the best of Loch Lomond lies dead on her side."

To be sure the fires of iron founderies are much less picturesque than the old beacons, and the clink of hammers than the clash of claymores; but the most devout worshipper of the middle ages would hardly wish to change them.

Dimly, by the flickering light of these furnaces, we see the approach to the old city of Glasgow. There, we are arrived! Friends are waiting in the station house. Earnest, eager, friendly faces, ever so many. Warm greetings, kindly words. A crowd parting in the middle, through which we were conducted into a carriage, and loud cheers of welcome, sent a throb, as the voice of living Scotland.

I looked out of the carriage, as we drove on, and saw, by the light of a lantern, Argyle Street. It was past twelve o'clock when I found myself in a warm, cozy parlor, with friends, whom I have ever since been glad to remember. In a little time we were all safely housed in our hospitable apartments, and sleep fell on me for the first time in Scotland.

Letter IVDear Aunt E.:—The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and scarce could the charms of the social Scotch breakfast restore me. I say Scotch, for we had many viands peculiarly national. The smoking porridge, or parritch, of oatmeal, which is the great staple dish throughout Scotland. Then there was the bannock, a thin, wafer-like cake of the same material. My friend laughingly said when he passed it, "You are in the 'land o' cakes,' remember." There was also some herring, as nice a Scottish fish as ever wore scales, besides dainties innumerable which were not national.Our friend and host was Mr. Baillie Paton. I believe that it is to his suggestion in a public meeting, that we owe the invitation which brought us to Scotland.By the by, I should say that "baillie" seems to correspond to what we call a member of the city council. Mr. Paton told us, that they had expected us earlier, and that the day before quite a party of friends met at his house to see us, among whom was good old Dr. Wardlaw.After breakfast the calling began. First, a friend of the family, with three beautiful children, the youngest of whom was the bearer of a handsomely bound album, containing a pressed collection of the sea mosses of the Scottish coast, very vivid and beautiful.If the bloom of English children appeared to me wonderful, I seemed to find the same thing intensified, if possible, in Scotland. The children are brilliant as pomegranate blossoms, and their vivid beauty called forth unceasing admiration. Nor is it merely the children of the rich, or of the higher classes, that are thus gifted. I have seen many a group of ragged urchins in the streets and closes with all the high coloring of Rubens, and all his fulness of outline. Why is it that we admire ragged children on canvas so much more than the same in nature?All this day is a confused dream to me of a dizzy and overwhelming kind. So many letters that it took C—— from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon to read and answer them in the shortest manner; letters from all classes of people, high and low, rich and poor, in all shades and styles of composition, poetry and prose; some mere outbursts of feeling; some invitations; some advice and suggestions; some requests and inquiries; some presenting books, or flowers, or fruit.Then came, in their turn, deputations from Paisley, Greenock, Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Belfast in Ireland; calls of friendship, invitations of all descriptions to go every where, and to see every thing, and to stay in so many places. One kind, venerable minister, with his lovely daughter, offered me a retreat in his quiet manse on the beautiful shores of the Clyde.For all these kindnesses, what could I give in return? There was scarce time for even a grateful thought on each. People have often said to me that it must have been an exceeding bore. For my part, I could not think of regarding it so. It only oppressed me with an unutterable sadness.To me there is always something interesting and beautiful about a universal popular excitement of a generous character, let the object of it be what it may. The great desiring heart of man, surging with one strong, sympathetic swell, even though it be to break on the beach of life and fall backwards, leaving the sands as barren as before, has yet a meaning and a power in its restlessness, with which I must deeply sympathize. Nor do I sympathize any the less, when the individual, who calls forth such an outburst, can be seen by the eye of sober sense to be altogether inadequate and disproportioned to it.I do not regard it as any thing against our American nation, that we are capable, to a very great extent, of these sudden personal enthusiasms, because I think that, with an individual or a community, the capability of being exalted into a temporary enthusiasm of self-forgetfulness, so far from being a fault, has in it a quality of something divine.Of course, about all such things there is a great deal which a cool critic could make ridiculous, but I hold to my opinion of them nevertheless.In the afternoon I rode out with the lord provost to see the cathedral. The lord provost answers to the lord mayor in England. His title and office in both countries continue only a year, except in cases of reëlection.As I saw the way to the cathedral blocked up by a throng of people, who had come out to see me, I could not help saying, "What went ye out for to see? a reed shaken with the wind?" In fact, I was so worn out, that I could hardly walk through the building.It is in this cathedral that part of the scene of Rob Roy is laid. This was my first experience in cathedrals. It was a new thing to me altogether, and as I walked along under the old buttresses and battlements without, and looked into the bewildering labyrinths of architecture within, I saw that, with silence and solitude to help the impression, the old building might become a strong part of one's inner life. A grave yard crowded with flat stones lies all around it. A deep ravine separates it from another cemetery on an opposite eminence, rustling with dark pines. A little brook murmurs with its slender voice between.On this opposite eminence the statue of John Knox, grim and strong, stands with its arm uplifted, as if shaking his fist at the old cathedral which in life he vainly endeavored to battle down.Knox was very different from Luther, in that he had no conservative element in him, but warred equally against accessories and essentials.At the time when the churches of Scotland were being pulled down in a general iconoclastic crusade, the tradesmen of Glasgow stood for the defence of their cathedral, and forced the reformers to content themselves with having the idolatrous images of saints pulled down from their niches and thrown into the brook, while, as Andrew Fairservice hath it, "The auld kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the fleas are caimed aff her, and a' body was alike pleased."We went all through the cathedral, which is fitted up as a Protestant place of worship, and has a simple and massive grandeur about it. In fact, to quote again from our friend Andrew, we could truly say, "Ah, it's a brave kirk, nane o' yere whig-malceries, and curliewurlies, and opensteek hems about it—a' solid, weel-jointed mason wark, that will stand as lang as the warld, keep hands and gun-powther aff it."I was disappointed in one thing: the painted glass, if there has ever been any, is almost all gone, and the glare of light through the immense windows is altogether too great, revealing many defects and rudenesses in the architecture, which would have quite another appearance in the colored rays through painted windows—an emblem, perhaps, of the cold, definite, intellectual rationalism, which has taken the place of the many-colored, gorgeous mysticism of former times.After having been over the church, we requested, out of respect to Baillie Nicol Jarvie's memory, to be driven through the Saut Market. I, however, was so thoroughly tired that I cannot remember any thing about it.I will say, by the way, that I have found out since, that nothing is so utterly hazardous to a person's strength as looking at cathedrals. The strain upon the head and eyes in looking up through these immense arches, and then the sepulchral chill which abides from generation to generation in them, their great extent, and the variety which tempts you to fatigue which you are not at all aware of, have overcome, as I was told, many before me.Mr. S. and C——, however, made amends, by their great activity and zeal, for all that I could not do, and I was pleased to understand from them, that part of the old Tolbooth, where Rob Roy and the baillie had their rencontre, was standing safe and sound, with stuff enough in it for half a dozen more stories, if any body could be found to write them. And Mr. S. insisted upon it, that I should not omit to notify you of this circumstance.Well, in consequence of all this, the next morning I was so ill as to need a physician, unable to see any one that called, or to hear any of the letters. I passed most of the day in bed, but in the evening I had to get up, as I had engaged to drink tea with two thousand people. Our kind friends Dr. and Mrs. Wardlaw came after us, and Mr. S. and I went in the carriage with them.Dr. Wardlaw is a venerable-looking old man; we both thought we saw a striking resemblance in him to our friend Dr. Woods, of Andover. He is still quite active in body and mind, and officiates to his congregation with great acceptance. I fear, however, that he is in ill health, for I noticed, as we were passing along to church, that he frequently laid his hand upon his heart, and seemed in pain. He said he hoped he should be able to get through the evening, but that when he was not well, excitement was apt to bring on a spasm about the heart; but with it all he seemed so cheerful, lively, and benignant, that I could not but feel my affections drawn towards him. Mrs. Wardlaw is a gentle, motherly woman, and it was a great comfort to have her with me on such an occasion.Our carriage stopped at last at the place. I have a dim remembrance of a way being made for us through a great crowd all round the house, and of going with Mrs. Wardlaw up into a dressing room, where I met and shook hands with many friendly people. Then we passed into a gallery, where a seat was reserved for our party, directly in front of the audience. Our friend Baillie Paton presided. Mrs. Wardlaw and I sat together, and around us many friends, chiefly ministers of the different churches, the ladies and gentlemen of the Glasgow Antislavery Society, and others.I told you it was a tea party; but the arrangements were altogether different from any I had ever seen. There were narrow tables stretched up and down the whole extent of the great hall, and every person had an appointed seat. These tables were set out with cups and saucers, cakes, biscuit, &c., and when the proper time came, attendants passed along serving tea. The arrangements were so accurate and methodical that the whole multitude actually took tea together, without the least apparent inconvenience or disturbance.There was a gentle, subdued murmur of conversation all over the house, the sociable clinking of teacups and teaspoons, while the entertainment was going on. It seemed to me such an odd idea, I could not help wondering what sort of a teapot that must be, in which all this tea for two thousand people was made. Truly, as Hadji Baba says, I think they must have had the "father of all teakettles" to boil it in. I could not help wondering if old mother Scotland had put two thousand teaspoonfuls of tea for the company, and one for the teapot, as is our good Yankee custom.We had quite a sociable time up in our gallery. Our tea table stretched quite across the gallery, and we drank tea "in sight of all the people." Bywe, I mean a great number of ministers and their wives, and ladies of the Antislavery Society, besides our party, and the friends whom I have mentioned before. All seemed to be enjoying themselves.After tea they sang a few verses of the seventy-second psalm in the old Scotch version."The people's poor ones he shall judge,The needy's children save;And those shall he in pieces break,Who them oppressed have.For he the needy shall preserve,When he to him doth call;The poor, also, and him that hathNo help of man at all.Both from deceit and violenceTheir soul he shall set free;And in his sight right preciousAnd dear their blood shall be.Now blessed be the Lord, our God,The God of Israel,For he alone doth wondrous works,In glory that excel.And blessed be his glorious nameTo all eternity;The whole earth let his glory fill:Amen; so let it be."When I heard the united sound of all the voices, giving force to these simple and pathetic words, I thought I could see something of the reason why that rude old translation still holds its place in Scotland.The addresses were, many of them, very beautiful; the more so for the earnest and religious feeling which they manifested. That of Dr. Wardlaw, in particular, was full of comfort and encouragement, and breathed a most candid and catholic spirit. Could our friends in America see with what earnest warmth the religious heart of Scotland beats towards them, they would be willing to suffer a word of admonition from those to whom love gives a right to speak. As Christians, all have a common interest in what honors or dishonors Christianity, and an ocean between us does not make us less one church.Most of the speeches you will see recorded in the papers. In the course of the evening there was a second service of grapes, oranges, and other fruits, served round in the same quiet manner as the tea. On account of the feeble state of my health, they kindly excused me before the exercises of the evening were over.The next morning, at ten o'clock, we rode with a party of friends to see some of thenotabilia. First, to Bothwell Castle, of old the residence of the Black Douglas. The name had for me the quality of enchantment. I cannot understand nor explain the nature of that sad yearning and longing with which one visits the mouldering remains of a state of society which one's reason wholly disapproves, and which one's calm sense of right would think it the greatest misfortune to have recalled; yet when the carriage turned under the shadow of beautiful ancient oaks, and Mr. S. said, "There, we are in the grounds of the old Black Douglas family!" I felt every nerve shiver. I remembered the dim melodies of the Lady of the Lake. Bothwell's lord was the lord of this castle, whose beautiful ruins here adorn the banks of the Clyde.Whatever else we have or may have in America, we shall never have the wild, poetic beauty of these ruins. The present noble possessors are fully aware of their worth as objects of taste, and, therefore, with the greatest care are they preserved. Winding walks are cut through the grounds with much ingenuity, and seats or arbors are placed at every desirable and picturesque point of view.To the thorough-paced tourist, who wants todothe proprieties in the shortest possible time, this arrangement is undoubtedly particularly satisfactory; but to the idealist, who would like to roam, and dream, and feel, and to come unexpectedly on the choicest points of view, it is rather a damper to have all his raptures prearranged and foreordained for him, set down in the guide book and proclaimed by the guide, even though it should be done with the most artistic accuracy.Nevertheless, when we came to the arbor which commanded the finest view of the old castle, and saw its gray, ivy-clad walls, standing forth on a beautiful point, round which swept the brown, dimpling waves of the Clyde, the indescribable sweetness, sadness, wildness of the whole scene would make its voice heard in our hearts. "Thy servants take pleasure in her dust, and favor the stones thereof," said an old Hebrew poet, who must have felt the inexpressibly sad beauty of a ruin. All the splendid phantasmagoria of chivalry and feudalism, knights, ladies, banners, glittering arms, sweep before us; the cry of the battle, the noise of the captains, and the shouting; and then in contrast this deep stillness, that green, clinging ivy, the gentle, rippling river, those weeping birches, dipping in its soft waters—all these, in their quiet loveliness, speak of something more imperishable than brute force.The ivy on the walls now displays a trunk in some places as large as a man's body. In the days of old Archibald the Grim, I suppose that ivy was a little, weak twig, which, if he ever noticed, he must have thought the feeblest and slightest of all things; yet Archibald has gone back to dust, and the ivy is still growing on. Such force is there in gentle things.I have often been dissatisfied with the admiration, which a poetic education has woven into my nature, for chivalry and feudalism; but, on a closer examination, I am convinced that there is a real and proper foundation for it, and that, rightly understood, this poetic admiration is not inconsistent with the spirit of Christ.For, let us consider what it is we admire in these Douglases, for instance, who, as represented by Scott, are perhaps as good exponents of the idea as any. Was it their hardness, their cruelty, their hastiness to take offence, their fondness for blood and murder? All these, by and of themselves, are simply disgusting. What, then, do we admire? Their courage, their fortitude, their scorn of lying and dissimulation, their high sense of personal honor, which led them to feel themselves the protectors of the weak, and to disdain to take advantage of unequal odds against an enemy. If we read the book of Isaiah, we shall see that some of the most striking representations of God appeal to the very same principles of our nature.The fact is, there can be no reliable character which has not its basis in these strong qualities. The beautiful must ever rest in the arms of the sublime. The gentle needs the strong to sustain it, as much as the rock flowers need rocks to grow on, or yonder ivy the rugged wall which it embraces. When we are admiring these things, therefore, we are only admiring some sparkles and glimmers of that which is divine, and so coming nearer to Him in whom all fulness dwells.After admiring at a distance, we strolled through the ruins themselves. Do you remember, in the Lady of the Lake, where the exiled Douglas, recalling to his daughter the images of his former splendor, says,—"When Blantyre hymned, her holiest lays,And Bothwell's walls flung back the praise"?These lines came forcibly to my mind, when I saw the mouldering ruins of Blantyre priory rising exactly opposite to the castle, on the other side of the Clyde.The banks of the River Clyde, where we walked, were thick set with Portuguese laurel, which I have before mentioned as similar to our rhododendron. I here noticed a fact with regard to the ivy which had often puzzled me; and that is, the different shapes of its leaves in the different stages of its growth. The young ivy has this leaf; but when it has become more than a century old every trace and indentation melts away, and it assumes this form, which I found afterwards to be the invariable shape of all the oldest ivy, in all the ruins of Europe which I explored.This ivy, like the spider, takes hold with her hands in kings' palaces, as every twig is furnished with innumerable little clinging fingers, by which it draws itself close, as it were, to the very heart of the old rough stone.Its clinging and beautiful tenacity has given rise to an abundance of conceits about fidelity, friendship, and woman's love, which have become commonplace simply from their appropriateness. It might, also, symbolize that higher love, unconquerable and unconquered, which has embraced this ruined world from age to age, silently spreading its green over the rents and fissures of our fallen nature, giving "beauty for ashes, and garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness."There is a modern mansion, where the present proprietor of the estate lives. It was with an emotion partaking of the sorrowful, that we heard that the Douglas line, as such, was extinct, and that the estate had passed to distant connections. I was told that the present Lord Douglas is a peaceful clergyman, quite a different character from old Archibald the Grim.The present residence is a plain mansion, standing on a beautiful lawn, near the old castle. The head gardener of the estate and many of the servants came out to meet us, with faces full of interest. The gardener walked about to show us the localities, and had a great deal of the quiet intelligence and self-respect which, I think, is characteristic of the laboring classes here. I noticed that on the green sweep of the lawn, he had set out here and there a good many daisies, as embellishments to the grass, and these in many places were defended by sticks bent over them, and that, in one place, a bank overhanging the stream was radiant with yellow daffodils, which appeared to have come up and blossomed there accidentally. I know not whether these were planted there, or came up of themselves.We next went to the famous Bothwell bridge, which Scott has immortalized in Old Mortality. We walked up and down, trying to recall the scenes of the battle, as there described, and were rather mortified, after we had all our associations comfortably located upon it, to be told that it was not the same bridge—it had been newly built, widened, and otherwise made more comfortable and convenient.Of course, this was evidently for the benefit of society, but it was certainly one of those cases where the poetical suffers for the practical. I comforted myself in my despondency, by looking over at the old stone piers underneath, which were indisputably the same. We drove now through beautiful grounds, and alighted at an elegant mansion, which in former days belonged to Lockhart, the son-in-law of Scott. It was in this house that Old Mortality was written.As I was weary, the party left me here, while they went on to see the Duke of Hamilton's grounds. Our kind hostess showed me into a small study, where she said Old Mortality was written. The window commanded a beautiful view of many of the localities described. Scott was as particular to consult for accuracy in his local descriptions as if he had been writing a guide book.He was in the habit of noting down in his memorandum book even names and characteristics of the wild flowers and grasses that grew about a place. When a friend once remarked to him, that he should have supposed his imagination could have supplied such trifles, he made an answer that is worth remembering by every artist—that no imagination could long support its freshness, that was not nourished by a constant and minute observation of nature.Craignethan Castle, which is the original of Tillietudlem, we were informed, was not far from thence. It is stated in Lockhart's Life of Scott, that the ruins of this castle excited in Scott such delight and enthusiasm, that its owner urged him to accept for his lifetime the use of a small habitable house, enclosed within the circuit of the walls.After the return of the party from Hamilton Park, we sat down to an elegant lunch, where my eye was attracted more than any thing else, by the splendor of the hothouse flowers which adorned the table. So far as I have observed, the culture of flowers, both in England and Scotland, is more universally an object of attention than with us. Every family in easy circumstances seems, as a matter of course, to have their greenhouse, and the flowers are brought to a degree of perfection which I have never seen at home.I may as well say here, that we were told by a gentleman, whose name I do not now remember, that this whole district had been celebrated for its orchards; he added, however, that since the introduction of the American apple into the market, its superior excellence had made many of these orchards almost entirely worthless. It is a curious fact, showing how the new world is working on the old.After taking leave of our hospitable friends, we took to our carriages again. As we were driving slowly through the beautiful grounds, admiring, as we never failed to do, their perfect cultivation, a party of servants appeared in sight, waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and cheering us as we passed. These kindly expressions from them were as pleasant as any we received.In the evening we had engaged to attend anothersoirée, gotten up by the working classes, to give admission to many who were not in circumstances to purchase tickets for the other. This was to me, if any thing, a more interestingréunion, because this was just the class whom I wished to meet. The arrangements of the entertainment were like those of the evening before.As I sat in the front gallery and looked over the audience with an intense interest, I thought they appeared on the whole very much like what I might have seen at home in a similar gathering. Men, women, and children were dressed in a style which showed both self-respect and good taste, and the speeches were far above mediocrity. One pale young man, a watchmaker, as I was told afterwards, delivered an address, which, though doubtless it had the promising fault of too much elaboration and ornament, yet I thought had passages which would do honor to any literary periodical whatever.There were other orators less highly finished, who yet spoke "right on," in a strong, forcible, and really eloquent way, giving the grain of the wood without the varnish. They contended very seriously and sensibly, that although the working men of England and Scotland had many things to complain of, and many things to be reformed, yet their condition was world-wide different from that of the slave.One cannot read the history of the working classes in England, for the last fifty years, without feeling sensibly the difference between oppressions under a free government and slavery. So long as the working class of England produces orators and writers, such as it undoubtedly has produced; so long as it has in it that spirit of independence and resistance of wrong, which has shown itself more and more during the agitations of the last fifty years; and so as long as the law allows them to meet and debate, to form associations and committees, to send up remonstrances and petitions to government,—one can see that their case is essentially different from that of plantation slaves.I must say, I was struck this night with the resemblance between the Scotchman and the New Englander. One sees the distinctive nationality of a country more in the middle and laboring classes than in the higher, and accordingly at this meeting there was more nationality, I thought, than at the other.The highest class of mind in all countries loses nationality, and becomes universal; it is a great pity, too, because nationality is picturesque always. One of the greatest miracles to my mind about Kossuth was, that with so universal an education, and such an extensive range of language and thought, he was yet so distinctively a Magyar.One thing has surprised and rather disappointed us. Our enthusiasm for Walter Scott does not apparently meet a response in the popular breast. Allusions to Bannockburn and Drumclog bring down the house, but enthusiasm for Scott was met with comparative silence. We discussed this matter among ourselves, and rather wondered at it.The fact is, Scott belonged to a past, and not to the coming age. He beautified and adorned that which is waxing old and passing away. He loved and worshipped in his very soul institutions which the majority of the common people have felt as a restraint and a burden. One might naturally get a very different idea of a feudal castle by starving to death in the dungeon of it, than by writing sonnets on it at a picturesque distance. Now, we in America are so far removed from feudalism,—it has been a thing so much of mere song and story with us, and our sympathies are so unchecked by any experience of inconvenience or injustice in its consequences,—that we are at full liberty to appreciate the picturesque of it, and sometimes, when we stand overlooking our own beautiful scenery, to wish that we could see,"On yon bold brow, a lordly tower;In that soft vale, a lady's bower;In yonder meadow, far away,The turrets of a cloister gray;"when those who know by experience all the accompaniments of these ornaments, would have quite another impression.Nevertheless, since there are two worlds in man, the real and the ideal, and both have indisputably a right to be, since God made the faculties of both, we must feel that it is a benefaction to mankind, that Scott was thus raised up as the link, in the ideal world, between the present and the past. It is a loss to universal humanity to have the imprint of any phase of human life and experience entirely blotted out. Scott's fictions are like this beautiful ivy, with which all the ruins here are overgrown,—they not only adorn, but, in many cases, they actually hold together, and prevent the crumbling mass from falling into ruins.To-morrow we are going to have a sail on the Clyde.

Dear Aunt E.:—

The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and scarce could the charms of the social Scotch breakfast restore me. I say Scotch, for we had many viands peculiarly national. The smoking porridge, or parritch, of oatmeal, which is the great staple dish throughout Scotland. Then there was the bannock, a thin, wafer-like cake of the same material. My friend laughingly said when he passed it, "You are in the 'land o' cakes,' remember." There was also some herring, as nice a Scottish fish as ever wore scales, besides dainties innumerable which were not national.

Our friend and host was Mr. Baillie Paton. I believe that it is to his suggestion in a public meeting, that we owe the invitation which brought us to Scotland.

By the by, I should say that "baillie" seems to correspond to what we call a member of the city council. Mr. Paton told us, that they had expected us earlier, and that the day before quite a party of friends met at his house to see us, among whom was good old Dr. Wardlaw.

After breakfast the calling began. First, a friend of the family, with three beautiful children, the youngest of whom was the bearer of a handsomely bound album, containing a pressed collection of the sea mosses of the Scottish coast, very vivid and beautiful.

If the bloom of English children appeared to me wonderful, I seemed to find the same thing intensified, if possible, in Scotland. The children are brilliant as pomegranate blossoms, and their vivid beauty called forth unceasing admiration. Nor is it merely the children of the rich, or of the higher classes, that are thus gifted. I have seen many a group of ragged urchins in the streets and closes with all the high coloring of Rubens, and all his fulness of outline. Why is it that we admire ragged children on canvas so much more than the same in nature?

All this day is a confused dream to me of a dizzy and overwhelming kind. So many letters that it took C—— from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon to read and answer them in the shortest manner; letters from all classes of people, high and low, rich and poor, in all shades and styles of composition, poetry and prose; some mere outbursts of feeling; some invitations; some advice and suggestions; some requests and inquiries; some presenting books, or flowers, or fruit.

Then came, in their turn, deputations from Paisley, Greenock, Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Belfast in Ireland; calls of friendship, invitations of all descriptions to go every where, and to see every thing, and to stay in so many places. One kind, venerable minister, with his lovely daughter, offered me a retreat in his quiet manse on the beautiful shores of the Clyde.

For all these kindnesses, what could I give in return? There was scarce time for even a grateful thought on each. People have often said to me that it must have been an exceeding bore. For my part, I could not think of regarding it so. It only oppressed me with an unutterable sadness.

To me there is always something interesting and beautiful about a universal popular excitement of a generous character, let the object of it be what it may. The great desiring heart of man, surging with one strong, sympathetic swell, even though it be to break on the beach of life and fall backwards, leaving the sands as barren as before, has yet a meaning and a power in its restlessness, with which I must deeply sympathize. Nor do I sympathize any the less, when the individual, who calls forth such an outburst, can be seen by the eye of sober sense to be altogether inadequate and disproportioned to it.

I do not regard it as any thing against our American nation, that we are capable, to a very great extent, of these sudden personal enthusiasms, because I think that, with an individual or a community, the capability of being exalted into a temporary enthusiasm of self-forgetfulness, so far from being a fault, has in it a quality of something divine.

Of course, about all such things there is a great deal which a cool critic could make ridiculous, but I hold to my opinion of them nevertheless.

In the afternoon I rode out with the lord provost to see the cathedral. The lord provost answers to the lord mayor in England. His title and office in both countries continue only a year, except in cases of reëlection.

As I saw the way to the cathedral blocked up by a throng of people, who had come out to see me, I could not help saying, "What went ye out for to see? a reed shaken with the wind?" In fact, I was so worn out, that I could hardly walk through the building.

It is in this cathedral that part of the scene of Rob Roy is laid. This was my first experience in cathedrals. It was a new thing to me altogether, and as I walked along under the old buttresses and battlements without, and looked into the bewildering labyrinths of architecture within, I saw that, with silence and solitude to help the impression, the old building might become a strong part of one's inner life. A grave yard crowded with flat stones lies all around it. A deep ravine separates it from another cemetery on an opposite eminence, rustling with dark pines. A little brook murmurs with its slender voice between.

On this opposite eminence the statue of John Knox, grim and strong, stands with its arm uplifted, as if shaking his fist at the old cathedral which in life he vainly endeavored to battle down.

Knox was very different from Luther, in that he had no conservative element in him, but warred equally against accessories and essentials.

At the time when the churches of Scotland were being pulled down in a general iconoclastic crusade, the tradesmen of Glasgow stood for the defence of their cathedral, and forced the reformers to content themselves with having the idolatrous images of saints pulled down from their niches and thrown into the brook, while, as Andrew Fairservice hath it, "The auld kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the fleas are caimed aff her, and a' body was alike pleased."

We went all through the cathedral, which is fitted up as a Protestant place of worship, and has a simple and massive grandeur about it. In fact, to quote again from our friend Andrew, we could truly say, "Ah, it's a brave kirk, nane o' yere whig-malceries, and curliewurlies, and opensteek hems about it—a' solid, weel-jointed mason wark, that will stand as lang as the warld, keep hands and gun-powther aff it."

I was disappointed in one thing: the painted glass, if there has ever been any, is almost all gone, and the glare of light through the immense windows is altogether too great, revealing many defects and rudenesses in the architecture, which would have quite another appearance in the colored rays through painted windows—an emblem, perhaps, of the cold, definite, intellectual rationalism, which has taken the place of the many-colored, gorgeous mysticism of former times.

After having been over the church, we requested, out of respect to Baillie Nicol Jarvie's memory, to be driven through the Saut Market. I, however, was so thoroughly tired that I cannot remember any thing about it.

I will say, by the way, that I have found out since, that nothing is so utterly hazardous to a person's strength as looking at cathedrals. The strain upon the head and eyes in looking up through these immense arches, and then the sepulchral chill which abides from generation to generation in them, their great extent, and the variety which tempts you to fatigue which you are not at all aware of, have overcome, as I was told, many before me.

Mr. S. and C——, however, made amends, by their great activity and zeal, for all that I could not do, and I was pleased to understand from them, that part of the old Tolbooth, where Rob Roy and the baillie had their rencontre, was standing safe and sound, with stuff enough in it for half a dozen more stories, if any body could be found to write them. And Mr. S. insisted upon it, that I should not omit to notify you of this circumstance.

Well, in consequence of all this, the next morning I was so ill as to need a physician, unable to see any one that called, or to hear any of the letters. I passed most of the day in bed, but in the evening I had to get up, as I had engaged to drink tea with two thousand people. Our kind friends Dr. and Mrs. Wardlaw came after us, and Mr. S. and I went in the carriage with them.

Dr. Wardlaw is a venerable-looking old man; we both thought we saw a striking resemblance in him to our friend Dr. Woods, of Andover. He is still quite active in body and mind, and officiates to his congregation with great acceptance. I fear, however, that he is in ill health, for I noticed, as we were passing along to church, that he frequently laid his hand upon his heart, and seemed in pain. He said he hoped he should be able to get through the evening, but that when he was not well, excitement was apt to bring on a spasm about the heart; but with it all he seemed so cheerful, lively, and benignant, that I could not but feel my affections drawn towards him. Mrs. Wardlaw is a gentle, motherly woman, and it was a great comfort to have her with me on such an occasion.

Our carriage stopped at last at the place. I have a dim remembrance of a way being made for us through a great crowd all round the house, and of going with Mrs. Wardlaw up into a dressing room, where I met and shook hands with many friendly people. Then we passed into a gallery, where a seat was reserved for our party, directly in front of the audience. Our friend Baillie Paton presided. Mrs. Wardlaw and I sat together, and around us many friends, chiefly ministers of the different churches, the ladies and gentlemen of the Glasgow Antislavery Society, and others.

I told you it was a tea party; but the arrangements were altogether different from any I had ever seen. There were narrow tables stretched up and down the whole extent of the great hall, and every person had an appointed seat. These tables were set out with cups and saucers, cakes, biscuit, &c., and when the proper time came, attendants passed along serving tea. The arrangements were so accurate and methodical that the whole multitude actually took tea together, without the least apparent inconvenience or disturbance.

There was a gentle, subdued murmur of conversation all over the house, the sociable clinking of teacups and teaspoons, while the entertainment was going on. It seemed to me such an odd idea, I could not help wondering what sort of a teapot that must be, in which all this tea for two thousand people was made. Truly, as Hadji Baba says, I think they must have had the "father of all teakettles" to boil it in. I could not help wondering if old mother Scotland had put two thousand teaspoonfuls of tea for the company, and one for the teapot, as is our good Yankee custom.

We had quite a sociable time up in our gallery. Our tea table stretched quite across the gallery, and we drank tea "in sight of all the people." Bywe, I mean a great number of ministers and their wives, and ladies of the Antislavery Society, besides our party, and the friends whom I have mentioned before. All seemed to be enjoying themselves.

After tea they sang a few verses of the seventy-second psalm in the old Scotch version.

"The people's poor ones he shall judge,The needy's children save;And those shall he in pieces break,Who them oppressed have.For he the needy shall preserve,When he to him doth call;The poor, also, and him that hathNo help of man at all.Both from deceit and violenceTheir soul he shall set free;And in his sight right preciousAnd dear their blood shall be.Now blessed be the Lord, our God,The God of Israel,For he alone doth wondrous works,In glory that excel.And blessed be his glorious nameTo all eternity;The whole earth let his glory fill:Amen; so let it be."

"The people's poor ones he shall judge,

The needy's children save;

And those shall he in pieces break,

Who them oppressed have.

For he the needy shall preserve,

When he to him doth call;

The poor, also, and him that hath

No help of man at all.

Both from deceit and violence

Their soul he shall set free;

And in his sight right precious

And dear their blood shall be.

Now blessed be the Lord, our God,

The God of Israel,

For he alone doth wondrous works,

In glory that excel.

And blessed be his glorious name

To all eternity;

The whole earth let his glory fill:

Amen; so let it be."

When I heard the united sound of all the voices, giving force to these simple and pathetic words, I thought I could see something of the reason why that rude old translation still holds its place in Scotland.

The addresses were, many of them, very beautiful; the more so for the earnest and religious feeling which they manifested. That of Dr. Wardlaw, in particular, was full of comfort and encouragement, and breathed a most candid and catholic spirit. Could our friends in America see with what earnest warmth the religious heart of Scotland beats towards them, they would be willing to suffer a word of admonition from those to whom love gives a right to speak. As Christians, all have a common interest in what honors or dishonors Christianity, and an ocean between us does not make us less one church.

Most of the speeches you will see recorded in the papers. In the course of the evening there was a second service of grapes, oranges, and other fruits, served round in the same quiet manner as the tea. On account of the feeble state of my health, they kindly excused me before the exercises of the evening were over.

The next morning, at ten o'clock, we rode with a party of friends to see some of thenotabilia. First, to Bothwell Castle, of old the residence of the Black Douglas. The name had for me the quality of enchantment. I cannot understand nor explain the nature of that sad yearning and longing with which one visits the mouldering remains of a state of society which one's reason wholly disapproves, and which one's calm sense of right would think it the greatest misfortune to have recalled; yet when the carriage turned under the shadow of beautiful ancient oaks, and Mr. S. said, "There, we are in the grounds of the old Black Douglas family!" I felt every nerve shiver. I remembered the dim melodies of the Lady of the Lake. Bothwell's lord was the lord of this castle, whose beautiful ruins here adorn the banks of the Clyde.

Whatever else we have or may have in America, we shall never have the wild, poetic beauty of these ruins. The present noble possessors are fully aware of their worth as objects of taste, and, therefore, with the greatest care are they preserved. Winding walks are cut through the grounds with much ingenuity, and seats or arbors are placed at every desirable and picturesque point of view.

To the thorough-paced tourist, who wants todothe proprieties in the shortest possible time, this arrangement is undoubtedly particularly satisfactory; but to the idealist, who would like to roam, and dream, and feel, and to come unexpectedly on the choicest points of view, it is rather a damper to have all his raptures prearranged and foreordained for him, set down in the guide book and proclaimed by the guide, even though it should be done with the most artistic accuracy.

Nevertheless, when we came to the arbor which commanded the finest view of the old castle, and saw its gray, ivy-clad walls, standing forth on a beautiful point, round which swept the brown, dimpling waves of the Clyde, the indescribable sweetness, sadness, wildness of the whole scene would make its voice heard in our hearts. "Thy servants take pleasure in her dust, and favor the stones thereof," said an old Hebrew poet, who must have felt the inexpressibly sad beauty of a ruin. All the splendid phantasmagoria of chivalry and feudalism, knights, ladies, banners, glittering arms, sweep before us; the cry of the battle, the noise of the captains, and the shouting; and then in contrast this deep stillness, that green, clinging ivy, the gentle, rippling river, those weeping birches, dipping in its soft waters—all these, in their quiet loveliness, speak of something more imperishable than brute force.

The ivy on the walls now displays a trunk in some places as large as a man's body. In the days of old Archibald the Grim, I suppose that ivy was a little, weak twig, which, if he ever noticed, he must have thought the feeblest and slightest of all things; yet Archibald has gone back to dust, and the ivy is still growing on. Such force is there in gentle things.

I have often been dissatisfied with the admiration, which a poetic education has woven into my nature, for chivalry and feudalism; but, on a closer examination, I am convinced that there is a real and proper foundation for it, and that, rightly understood, this poetic admiration is not inconsistent with the spirit of Christ.

For, let us consider what it is we admire in these Douglases, for instance, who, as represented by Scott, are perhaps as good exponents of the idea as any. Was it their hardness, their cruelty, their hastiness to take offence, their fondness for blood and murder? All these, by and of themselves, are simply disgusting. What, then, do we admire? Their courage, their fortitude, their scorn of lying and dissimulation, their high sense of personal honor, which led them to feel themselves the protectors of the weak, and to disdain to take advantage of unequal odds against an enemy. If we read the book of Isaiah, we shall see that some of the most striking representations of God appeal to the very same principles of our nature.

The fact is, there can be no reliable character which has not its basis in these strong qualities. The beautiful must ever rest in the arms of the sublime. The gentle needs the strong to sustain it, as much as the rock flowers need rocks to grow on, or yonder ivy the rugged wall which it embraces. When we are admiring these things, therefore, we are only admiring some sparkles and glimmers of that which is divine, and so coming nearer to Him in whom all fulness dwells.

After admiring at a distance, we strolled through the ruins themselves. Do you remember, in the Lady of the Lake, where the exiled Douglas, recalling to his daughter the images of his former splendor, says,—

"When Blantyre hymned, her holiest lays,And Bothwell's walls flung back the praise"?

"When Blantyre hymned, her holiest lays,

And Bothwell's walls flung back the praise"?

These lines came forcibly to my mind, when I saw the mouldering ruins of Blantyre priory rising exactly opposite to the castle, on the other side of the Clyde.

The banks of the River Clyde, where we walked, were thick set with Portuguese laurel, which I have before mentioned as similar to our rhododendron. I here noticed a fact with regard to the ivy which had often puzzled me; and that is, the different shapes of its leaves in the different stages of its growth. The young ivy has this leaf; but when it has become more than a century old every trace and indentation melts away, and it assumes this form, which I found afterwards to be the invariable shape of all the oldest ivy, in all the ruins of Europe which I explored.

This ivy, like the spider, takes hold with her hands in kings' palaces, as every twig is furnished with innumerable little clinging fingers, by which it draws itself close, as it were, to the very heart of the old rough stone.

Its clinging and beautiful tenacity has given rise to an abundance of conceits about fidelity, friendship, and woman's love, which have become commonplace simply from their appropriateness. It might, also, symbolize that higher love, unconquerable and unconquered, which has embraced this ruined world from age to age, silently spreading its green over the rents and fissures of our fallen nature, giving "beauty for ashes, and garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness."

There is a modern mansion, where the present proprietor of the estate lives. It was with an emotion partaking of the sorrowful, that we heard that the Douglas line, as such, was extinct, and that the estate had passed to distant connections. I was told that the present Lord Douglas is a peaceful clergyman, quite a different character from old Archibald the Grim.

The present residence is a plain mansion, standing on a beautiful lawn, near the old castle. The head gardener of the estate and many of the servants came out to meet us, with faces full of interest. The gardener walked about to show us the localities, and had a great deal of the quiet intelligence and self-respect which, I think, is characteristic of the laboring classes here. I noticed that on the green sweep of the lawn, he had set out here and there a good many daisies, as embellishments to the grass, and these in many places were defended by sticks bent over them, and that, in one place, a bank overhanging the stream was radiant with yellow daffodils, which appeared to have come up and blossomed there accidentally. I know not whether these were planted there, or came up of themselves.

We next went to the famous Bothwell bridge, which Scott has immortalized in Old Mortality. We walked up and down, trying to recall the scenes of the battle, as there described, and were rather mortified, after we had all our associations comfortably located upon it, to be told that it was not the same bridge—it had been newly built, widened, and otherwise made more comfortable and convenient.

Of course, this was evidently for the benefit of society, but it was certainly one of those cases where the poetical suffers for the practical. I comforted myself in my despondency, by looking over at the old stone piers underneath, which were indisputably the same. We drove now through beautiful grounds, and alighted at an elegant mansion, which in former days belonged to Lockhart, the son-in-law of Scott. It was in this house that Old Mortality was written.

As I was weary, the party left me here, while they went on to see the Duke of Hamilton's grounds. Our kind hostess showed me into a small study, where she said Old Mortality was written. The window commanded a beautiful view of many of the localities described. Scott was as particular to consult for accuracy in his local descriptions as if he had been writing a guide book.

He was in the habit of noting down in his memorandum book even names and characteristics of the wild flowers and grasses that grew about a place. When a friend once remarked to him, that he should have supposed his imagination could have supplied such trifles, he made an answer that is worth remembering by every artist—that no imagination could long support its freshness, that was not nourished by a constant and minute observation of nature.

Craignethan Castle, which is the original of Tillietudlem, we were informed, was not far from thence. It is stated in Lockhart's Life of Scott, that the ruins of this castle excited in Scott such delight and enthusiasm, that its owner urged him to accept for his lifetime the use of a small habitable house, enclosed within the circuit of the walls.

After the return of the party from Hamilton Park, we sat down to an elegant lunch, where my eye was attracted more than any thing else, by the splendor of the hothouse flowers which adorned the table. So far as I have observed, the culture of flowers, both in England and Scotland, is more universally an object of attention than with us. Every family in easy circumstances seems, as a matter of course, to have their greenhouse, and the flowers are brought to a degree of perfection which I have never seen at home.

I may as well say here, that we were told by a gentleman, whose name I do not now remember, that this whole district had been celebrated for its orchards; he added, however, that since the introduction of the American apple into the market, its superior excellence had made many of these orchards almost entirely worthless. It is a curious fact, showing how the new world is working on the old.

After taking leave of our hospitable friends, we took to our carriages again. As we were driving slowly through the beautiful grounds, admiring, as we never failed to do, their perfect cultivation, a party of servants appeared in sight, waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and cheering us as we passed. These kindly expressions from them were as pleasant as any we received.

In the evening we had engaged to attend anothersoirée, gotten up by the working classes, to give admission to many who were not in circumstances to purchase tickets for the other. This was to me, if any thing, a more interestingréunion, because this was just the class whom I wished to meet. The arrangements of the entertainment were like those of the evening before.

As I sat in the front gallery and looked over the audience with an intense interest, I thought they appeared on the whole very much like what I might have seen at home in a similar gathering. Men, women, and children were dressed in a style which showed both self-respect and good taste, and the speeches were far above mediocrity. One pale young man, a watchmaker, as I was told afterwards, delivered an address, which, though doubtless it had the promising fault of too much elaboration and ornament, yet I thought had passages which would do honor to any literary periodical whatever.

There were other orators less highly finished, who yet spoke "right on," in a strong, forcible, and really eloquent way, giving the grain of the wood without the varnish. They contended very seriously and sensibly, that although the working men of England and Scotland had many things to complain of, and many things to be reformed, yet their condition was world-wide different from that of the slave.

One cannot read the history of the working classes in England, for the last fifty years, without feeling sensibly the difference between oppressions under a free government and slavery. So long as the working class of England produces orators and writers, such as it undoubtedly has produced; so long as it has in it that spirit of independence and resistance of wrong, which has shown itself more and more during the agitations of the last fifty years; and so as long as the law allows them to meet and debate, to form associations and committees, to send up remonstrances and petitions to government,—one can see that their case is essentially different from that of plantation slaves.

I must say, I was struck this night with the resemblance between the Scotchman and the New Englander. One sees the distinctive nationality of a country more in the middle and laboring classes than in the higher, and accordingly at this meeting there was more nationality, I thought, than at the other.

The highest class of mind in all countries loses nationality, and becomes universal; it is a great pity, too, because nationality is picturesque always. One of the greatest miracles to my mind about Kossuth was, that with so universal an education, and such an extensive range of language and thought, he was yet so distinctively a Magyar.

One thing has surprised and rather disappointed us. Our enthusiasm for Walter Scott does not apparently meet a response in the popular breast. Allusions to Bannockburn and Drumclog bring down the house, but enthusiasm for Scott was met with comparative silence. We discussed this matter among ourselves, and rather wondered at it.

The fact is, Scott belonged to a past, and not to the coming age. He beautified and adorned that which is waxing old and passing away. He loved and worshipped in his very soul institutions which the majority of the common people have felt as a restraint and a burden. One might naturally get a very different idea of a feudal castle by starving to death in the dungeon of it, than by writing sonnets on it at a picturesque distance. Now, we in America are so far removed from feudalism,—it has been a thing so much of mere song and story with us, and our sympathies are so unchecked by any experience of inconvenience or injustice in its consequences,—that we are at full liberty to appreciate the picturesque of it, and sometimes, when we stand overlooking our own beautiful scenery, to wish that we could see,

"On yon bold brow, a lordly tower;In that soft vale, a lady's bower;In yonder meadow, far away,The turrets of a cloister gray;"

"On yon bold brow, a lordly tower;

In that soft vale, a lady's bower;

In yonder meadow, far away,

The turrets of a cloister gray;"

when those who know by experience all the accompaniments of these ornaments, would have quite another impression.

Nevertheless, since there are two worlds in man, the real and the ideal, and both have indisputably a right to be, since God made the faculties of both, we must feel that it is a benefaction to mankind, that Scott was thus raised up as the link, in the ideal world, between the present and the past. It is a loss to universal humanity to have the imprint of any phase of human life and experience entirely blotted out. Scott's fictions are like this beautiful ivy, with which all the ruins here are overgrown,—they not only adorn, but, in many cases, they actually hold together, and prevent the crumbling mass from falling into ruins.

To-morrow we are going to have a sail on the Clyde.

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