Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1

As we all were packed into a tight coach, the rain still pouring, I began to wish mute Nature would not be quite so energetic in distilling her tears. A few sprinkling showers, or a graceful wreath of mist, might be all very well; but a steady, driving rain, that obliged us to shut up the carriage windows, and coated them with mist so that we could not look out, why, I say it is enough to put out the fire of sentiment in any heart. We might as well have been rolled up in a bundle and carried through the country, for all the seeing it was possible to do under such circumstances. It, therefore, should be stated, that we did keep bravely up in our poetic zeal, which kindly Mrs. W. also reënforced, by distributing certain very delicate sandwiches to support the outer man.

At length, the coach stopped at the entrance of Abbotsford grounds, where there was a cottage, out of which, due notice being given, came a trim, little old woman in a black gown, with pattens on; she put up her umbrella, and we all put up ours; the rain poured harder than ever as we went dripping up the gravel walk, looking much, I inly fancied, like a set of discomforted fowls fleeing to covert. We entered the great court yard, surrounded with a high wall, into which were built sundry fragments of curious architecture that happened to please the poet's fancy.

I had at the moment, spite of the rain, very vividly in my mind Washington Irving's graceful account of his visit to Abbotsford while this house was yet building, and the picture which he has given of Walter Scott sitting before his door, humorously descanting on various fragments of sculpture, which lay scattered about, and which he intended to immortalize by incorporating into his new dwelling.

Viewed as a mere speculation, or, for aught I know, as an architectural effort, this building may, perhaps, be counted as a mistake and a failure. I observe, that it is quite customary to speak of it, among some, as a pity that he ever undertook it. But viewed as a development of his inner life, as a working out in wood and stone of favorite fancies and cherished ideas, the building has to me a deep interest. The gentle-hearted poet delighted himself in it; this house was his stone and wood poem, as irregular, perhaps, and as contrary to any established rule, as his Lay of the Last Minstrel, but still wild and poetic. The building has this interest, that it was throughout his own conception, thought, and choice; that he expressed himself in every stone that was laid, and made it a kind of shrine, into which he wove all his treasures of antiquity, and where he imitated, from the beautiful, old, mouldering ruins of Scotland, the parts that had touched him most deeply.

The walls of one room were of carved oak from the Dunfermline Abbey; the ceiling of another imitated from Roslin Castle; here a fireplace was wrought in the image of a favorite niche in Melrose; and there the ancient pulpit of Erskine was wrought into a wall. To him, doubtless, every object in the house was suggestive of poetic fancies; every carving and bit of tracery had its history, and was as truly an expression of something in the poet's mind as a verse of his poetry.

A building wrought out in this way, and growing up like a bank of coral, may very possibly violate all the proprieties of criticism; it may possibly, too, violate one's ideas of mere housewifery utility; but by none of these rules ought such a building to be judged. We should look at it rather as the poet's endeavor to render outward and visible the dream land of his thoughts, and to create for himself a refuge from the cold, dull realities of life, in an architectural romance.

These were thoughts which gave interest to the scene as we passed through the porchway, adorned with petrified stags' horns, into the long entrance hall of the mansion. This porch was copied from one in Linlithgow palace. One side of this hall was lighted by windows of painted glass. The floor was of black and white marble from the Hebrides. Round the whole cornice there was a line of coats armorial, richly blazoned, and the following inscription in old German text:

"These be the coat armories of the clanns and chief men of name wha keepit the marchys of Scotland in the old tyme for the kynge. Trewe men war they in their tyme, and in their defence God them defendyt."

There were the names of the Douglases, the Elliots, the Scotts, the Armstrongs, and others. I looked at this arrangement with interest, because I knew that Scott must have taken a particular delight in it.

The fireplace, designed from a niche in Melrose Abbey, also in this room, and a choice bit of sculpture it is. In it was an old grate, which had its history also, and opposite to it the boards from the pulpit of Erskine were wrought into a kind of side table, or something which served that purpose. The spaces between the windows were decorated with pieces of armor, crossed swords, and stags' horns, each one of which doubtless had its history. On each side of the door, at the bottom of the hall, was a Gothic shrine, or niche, in both of which stood a figure in complete armor.

Then we went into the drawing room; a lofty saloon, the woodwork of which is entirely of cedar, richly wrought; probably another of the author's favorite poetic fancies. It is adorned with a set of splendid antique ebony furniture; cabinet, chairs, and piano—the gift of George IV. to the poet.

We went into his library; a magnificent room, on which, I suppose, the poet's fancy had expended itself more than any other. The roof is of carved oak, after models from Roslin Castle. Here, in a niche, is a marble bust of Scott, as we understood a present from Chantrey to the poet; it was one of the best and most animated representations of him I ever saw, and very much superior to the one under the monument in Edinburgh. On expressing my idea to this effect, I found I had struck upon a favorite notion of the good woman who showed us the establishment; she seemed to be an ancient servant of the house, and appeared to entertain a regard for the old laird scarcely less than idolatry. One reason why this statue is superior is, that it represents his noble forehead, which the Edinburgh one suffers to be concealed by falling hair: to cover such a forehead seems scarcely less than a libel.

The whole air of this room is fanciful and picturesque in the extreme. The walls are entirely filled with the bookcases, there being about twenty thousand volumes. A small room opens from the library, which was Scott's own private study. His writing table stood in the centre, with his inkstand on it, and before it a large, plain, black leather arm chair.

In a glass case, I think in this room, was exhibited the suit of clothes he last wore; a blue coat with large metal buttons, plaid trousers, and broad-brimmed hat. Around the sides of this room there was a gallery of light tracery work; a flight of stairs led up to it, and in one corner of it was a door which the woman said led to the poet's bed room. One seemed to see in all this arrangement how snug, and cozy, and comfortable the poet had thus ensconced himself, to give himself up to his beloved labors and his poetic dreams. But there was a cold and desolate air of order and adjustment about it which reminds one of the precise and chilling arrangements of a room from which has just been carried out a corpse; all is silent and deserted.

The house is at present the property of Scott's only surviving daughter, whose husband has assumed the name of Scott. We could not learn from our informant whether any of the family was in the house. We saw only the rooms which are shown to visitors, and a coldness, like that of death, seemed to strike to my heart from their chilly solitude.

As we went out of the house we passed another company of tourists coming in, to whom we heard our guide commencing the same recitation, "this is," and "this is," &c., just as she had done to us. One thing about the house and grounds had disappointed me; there was not one view from a single window I saw that was worth any thing, in point of beauty; why a poet, with an eye for the beautiful, could have located a house in such an indifferent spot, on an estate where so many beautiful sites were at his command, I could not imagine.

As to the external appearance of Abbotsford, it is as irregular as can well be imagined. There are gables, and pinnacles, and spires, and balconies, and buttresses any where and every where, without rhyme or reason; for wherever the poet wanted a balcony, he had it; or wherever he had a fragment of carved stone, or a bit of historic tracery, to put in, he made a shrine for it forthwith, without asking leave of any rules. This I take to be one of the main advantages of Gothic architecture; it is a most catholic and tolerant system, and any kind of eccentricity may find refuge beneath its mantle.

Here and there, all over the house, are stones carved with armorial bearings and pious inscriptions, inserted at random wherever the poet fancied. Half way up the wall in one place is the door of the old Tolbooth at Edinburgh, with the inscription over it, "The Lord of armeis is my protector; blissit ar thay that trust in the Lord. 1575."

A doorway at the west end of the house is composed of stones which formed the portal of the Tolbooth, given to Sir Walter on the pulling down of the building in 1817.

On the east side of the house is a rude carving of a sword with the words, "Up with ye, sutors of Selkyrke. A.D. 1525." Another inscription, on the same side of the house, runs thus:—

"By night, by day, remember ay
The goodness of ye Lord;
And thank his name, whose glorious fame
Is spread throughout ye world.—A.C.M.D. 1516."

In the yard, to the right of the doorway of the mansion, we saw the figure of Scott's favorite dog Maida, with a Latin inscription—

"Maidæ marmorea dormis sub imagine, Maida,
Ad januam domini: sit tibi terra levis."

Which in our less expressive English we might render—

At thy lord's door, in slumbers light and blest,
Maida, beneath this marble Maida, rest:
Light lie the turf upon thy gentle breast.

One of the most endearing traits of Scott was that sympathy and harmony which always existed between him and the brute creation.

Poor Maida seemed cold and lonely, washed by the rain in the damp grass plat. How sad, yet how expressive is the scriptural phrase for indicating death! "He shall return to his house no more, neither shall his place know him any more." And this is what all our homes are coming to; our buying, our planting, our building, our marrying and giving in marriage, our genial firesides and dancing children, are all like so many figures passing through the magic lantern, to be put out at last in death.

The grounds, I was told, are full of beautiful paths and seats, favorite walks and lounges of the poet; but the obdurate pertinacity of the rain compelled us to choose the very shortest path possible to the carriage. I picked a leaf of the Portugal laurel, which I send you.

Next we were driven to Dryburgh, or rather to the banks of the Tweed, where a ferryman, with a small skiff waits to take passengers over.

The Tweed is a clear, rippling river, with a white, pebbly bottom, just like our New England mountain streams. After we landed we were to walk to the Abbey. Our feet were damp and cold, and our boatman invited us to his cottage. I found him and all his family warmly interested in the fortunes of Uncle Tom and his friends, and for his sake they received me as a long-expected friend. While I was sitting by the ingleside,—that is, a coal grate,—warming my feet, I fell into conversation with my host. He and his family, I noticed, spoke English more than Scotch; he was an intelligent young man, in appearance and style of mind precisely what you might expect to meet in a cottage in Maine. He and all the household, even the old grandmother, had read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and were perfectly familiar with all its details. He told me that it had been universally read in the cottages in the vicinity. I judged from his mode of speaking, that he and his neighbors were in the habit of reading a great deal. I spoke of going to Dryburgh to see the grave of Scott, and inquired if his works were much read by the common people. He said that Scott was not so much a favorite with the people as Burns. I inquired if he took a newspaper. He said that the newspapers were kept at so high a price that working men were not able to take them; sometimes they got sight of them through clubs, or by borrowing. How different, thought I, from America, where a workingman would as soon think of going without his bread as without his newspaper!

The cottages of these laboring people, of which there were a whole village along here, are mostly of stone, thatched with straw. This thatch sometimes gets almost entirely grown over with green moss. Thus moss-covered was the roof of the cottage where we stopped, opposite to Dryburgh grounds.

There was about this time one of those weeping pauses in the showery sky, and a kind of thinning and edging away of the clouds, which gave hope that perhaps the sun was going to look out, and give to our persevering researches the countenance of his presence. This was particularly desirable, as the old woman, who came out with her keys to guide us, said she had a cold and a cough: we begged that she would not trouble herself to go with us at all. The fact is, with all respect to nice old women, and the worthy race of guides in general, they are not favorable to poetic meditation. We promised to be very good if she would let us have the key, and lock up all the gates, and bring it back; but no, she was faithfulness itself, and so went coughing along through the dripping and drowned grass to open the gates for us.

This Dryburgh belongs now to the Earl of Buchan, having been bought by him from a family of the name of Haliburton, ancestral connections of Scott, who, in his autobiography, seems to lament certain mischances of fortune which prevented the estate from coming into his own family, and gave them, he said, nothing but the right of stretching their bones there. It seems a pity, too, because the possession of this rich, poetic ruin would have been a mine of wealth to Scott, far transcending the stateliest of modern houses.

Now, if you do not remember Scott's poem, of the Eve of St. John, you ought to read it over; for it is, I think, the most spirited of all his ballads; nothing conceals the transcendent lustre and beauty of these compositions, but the splendor of his other literary productions. Had he never written any thing but these, they would have made him a name as a poet. As it was, I found the fanciful chime of the cadences in this ballad ringing through my ears. I kept saying to myself—

"The Dryburgh bells do ring,
And the white monks do sing
For Sir Richard of Coldinghame."

And as I was wandering around in the labyrinth, of old, broken, mossy arches, I thought—

"There is a nun in Dryburgh bower
Ne'er looks upon the sun;
There is a monk in Melrose tower,
He speaketh word to none.

That nun who ne'er beholds the day,
That monk who speaks to none,
That nun was Smaylhome's lady gay,
That monk the bold Baron."

It seems that there is a vault in this edifice which has had some superstitious legends attached to it, from having been the residence, about fifty years ago, of a mysterious lady, who, being under a vow never to behold the light of the sun, only left her cell at midnight. This little story, of course, gives just enough superstitious chill to this beautiful ruin to help the effect of the pointed arches, the clinging wreaths of ivy, the shadowy pines, and yew trees; in short, if one had not a guide waiting, who had a bad cold, if one could stroll here at leisure by twilight or moonlight, one might get up a considerable deal of the mystic and poetic.

There is a part of the ruin that stands most picturesquely by itself, as if old Time had intended it for a monument. It is the ruin of that part of the chapel called St. Mary's Aisle; it stands surrounded by luxuriant thickets of pine and other trees, a cluster of beautiful Gothic arches supporting a second tier of smaller and more fanciful ones, one or two of which have that light touch of the Moorish in their form which gives such a singular and poetic effect in many of the old Gothic ruins. Out of these wild arches and windows wave wreaths of ivy, and slender harebells shake their blue pendants, looking in and out of the lattices like little capricious fairies. There are fragments of ruins lying on the ground, and the whole air of the thing is as wild, and dreamlike, and picturesque as the poet's fanciful heart could have desired.

Underneath these arches he lies beside his wife; around him the representation of the two things he loved most—the wild bloom and beauty of nature, and the architectural memorial of by-gone history and art. Yet there was one thing I felt I would have had otherwise; it seemed to me that the flat stones of the pavement are a weight too heavy and too cold to be laid on the breast of a lover of nature and the beautiful. The green turf, springing with flowers, that lies above a grave, does not seem, to us so hopeless a barrier between us and what was warm and loving; the springing grass and daisies there seem, types and assurances that the mortal beneath shall put on immortality; they come up to us as kind messages from the peaceful dust, to say that it is resting in a certain hope of a glorious resurrection.

On the cold flagstones, walled in by iron railings, there were no daisies and no moss; but I picked many of both from, the green turf around, which, with some sprigs of ivy from the walls, I send you.

It is strange that we turn away from the grave of this man, who achieved to himself the most brilliant destiny that ever an author did,—raising himself by his own unassisted efforts to be the chosen companions of nobles and princes, obtaining all that heart could desire of riches and honor,—we turn away and say, Poor Walter Scott! How desolately touching is the account in Lockhart, of his dim and indistinct agony the day his wife was brought here to be buried! and the last part of that biography is the saddest history that I know; it really makes us breathe a long sigh of relief when we read of the lowering of the coffin into this vault.