DRYBURGH ABBEY
'Slender as a reed
Is the slim pillar on the transept tall,
Where the lush wall-flower blooms, and over all
A rowan grows, where some wind-wafted seed
Had lodged, and all is silent as a dream,
But for a throstle on the ancient yew,
But for the low faint murmur of the stream;
And sweet old-fashioned scents are floating through
The arch from thyme and briar, as for ever
Shall his sweet nature haunt this fabled river.'
The other inscriptions are:
DAME CHARLOTTE MARGARET CARPENTER,
WIFE OF
SIR WALTER SCOTT OF ABBOTSFORD, BARONET,
DIED AT ABBOTSFORD, MAY 15, 1826.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SIR WALTER SCOTT
OF ABBOTSFORD, SECOND BARONET,
DIED AT SEA, 8 FEBRUARY, 1847, AGED 45 YEARS.
HIS WIDOW PLACED THIS STONE OVER HIS GRAVE.
DAME JANE JOBSON,
HIS WIDOW,
DIED AT LONDON, 19 MARCH, 1877, AGED 76 YEARS.
These tombs and inscriptions follow each other from the back to the front of the aisle. And on the right of the others is Lockhart's, at right angles, with a bronze medallion at the top:
HERE,
AT THE FEET OF SIR WALTER SCOTT,
LIE
THE MORTAL REMAINS OF
JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART,
HIS SON-IN-LAW,
BIOGRAPHER AND FRIEND.
BORN 14 JUNE, 1794.
DIED 25 NOV., 1854.
If we be wise, we shall make the return journey by Dryburgh village and Newtown. What a magnificent river the Tweed is here, looking either up or down from the Baillie Suspension Bridge, or the high red bank beyond! Surely the Eildons never backgrounded a pleasanter picture than this. All the landscape is, in sooth, among the fairest of fair scenes, on which we shall want to feast the eye again and again, to be dreaming of Dryburgh when, it may be, over the seas and far away. On a summer's day, or at the early autumn, or even 'mid winter's mantling white, it seems to carry a perpetual charm.
Kelso, as a shrine of Scott, may not be left unvisited. Here he was schooled (partly), but better, it was at Kelso that the whole world of Romance opened out to his delighted fancy. Robert Burns is said to have gazed in wondrous and even prayerful rapture on the vision of Kelso Bridge and the Tweed, forming an almost perfect picture. And this, with the Abbey, 'like some antique Titan predominating over the dwarfs of a later world'; ruined Roxburgh, between Tweed's and Teviot's flow; and the near neighbourhood of other memory-moving spots, were just the scenes which made the best appeal to Scott, which influenced him most, and the fruits of whose inspiration we still daily reap. Jedburgh has some claim on the Scott student and for the lover of old romance. His best hours will be spent by its venerable Abbey, in the most excellent of situations (how well those old monks could gauge the lie of the land!), girt about with well-kept gardens, overlooking the bosky banks of the Jed—a veritable poem in Nature and Art.
KELSO ABBEY AND BRIDGE
'Bosom'd in woods where mighty rivers run,
Kelso's fair vale expands before the sun;
Its rising downs in vernal beauty swell,
And fringed with hazel winds each flowery dell;
Green-spangled plains to dimpling lawns succeed,
And Tempé rises on the banks of Tweed.
Blue o'er the river Kelso's shadow lies,
And copse clad isles amid the waters rise.'
There is one place which should not be overlooked. To him who writes it is the sweetest and the best, entwined with memories lasting as life itself. With the story of Thomas of Ercildoune he first heard that of Sir Walter Scott. Under the weird shadow of the Rhymer's Tower, other names fell upon his ear—Ashestiel, Abbotsford, 'Marmion,' 'Waverley.' Much has been since then! But home and the days of youth are never forgotten. One hears still in memory the music of the Leader. Across the years comes there again and again a sweet old-time fragrance of yellow broom from Cowdenknowes.
INDEX
Armoury, 191
Dining-room, 203
Drawing-room, 188
Entrance Hall, 199
Family, 90
Ferry, 168
Hunt, 57
Library, 181
'Noctes,' 79
'Notanda,' 82
Pronunciation of, 3
Study, 176
the Treasures of, 167
Abbotstown, 60
Adolphus, John Leycester, 93
Ale Water, 135
Allan, Sir William, 53
Allerly, 102
Ambrose, 79
American, ubiquitous, 67
Apsley House, 183
Ariosto, 91
Atkinson, 36
Baird, Rev. Principal, 121
Ballingry, 149
Balliol, 128
Hill, 215
Berwick, 16
Biggar, 112
Blore, Edward, 36
'Blucher,' the, 52
Bowden Moor, 135
'Bride of Lammermoor,' 108
British Peerage, 68
Broadmeadows, 19
Brown, Dr. John, 171
Bruce, Heart of, 126
Bullock, George, 36
Burne the Violer, 137
Burnfoot, 42
Burns, Captain, 143
Burritt, Elihu, 215
Byron, Lady, 89
Cadell, the publisher, 52, 113, 115, 119, 120, 167
Calais, 12
Cambusnethan, 125
'Camp,' 72
Campbell, 80
Tom, 83
Cardross, 128
Carpenter, Charles, 26
Charlotte, 50
Carruthers, Robert, 82
Carterhaugh, 135
Cartleyhole, 21
Catrail, 24
Loch, 41
Chambers, Robert, 171
Chantrey Bust, 183
Charge Law, 5
days, 141
Clarty Hole, 22
Cock-a-Pistol, 5
Cockburn, Alison, 6
Lord, 102
Colmslie, 214
Constable, 80
Contin, 66
'Count Robert of Paris,' 111, 113
Court Clerkship, 49
Cowdenknowes, 18, 87, 136, 219
Crabbe, 80
Crash, the, 67
Cross of Edinburgh, 172
Cunningham, Allan, 115
Cuthbert (St.), 210
Dalgleish, 65
Deloraine, 212
'Den,' the, at Castle Street, 133
Dial-stone, 113
Dickson, Dr., 121
Disraeli, Benjamin, 142
Douglas, 112
Dr. Robert, 21
Douglasdale, 143
Drumlanrig, 40
Drygrange, 18
Dunfermline Abbey, 199
Fair, 129
Edgeworth, Mr. Lovell, 93
Edgeworthstown, 93
Edinburgh, 114
Cross of, 172
Eildon, 23
Hall, 18
Tree Stone, 42
Eildons, the, 42, 114, 134, 214
Elibank, 112
Eliot, George, 102
Elwyndale, 214
Ercildoune, Thomas of, 219
Erskines of Cardross, 128
Faed's (Thomas) 'Scott and his Literary Friends,' 80
Fairnalee, 26
Fairy Dean, 214
Faldonside, 42
Ferguson, Captain, 71
Ferrier, Susan, 98
Fielding, 101
FitzGerald, Edward, 102
Floors, 18
Froude, 148
Gattonside, 169
Gibson, Elizabeth, 127
Gilfillan, George, 171
Gladstone, 163
Gleig, G. R., 147
Glendearg, 214
Goethe, 128
Goodfellow, William, 182
Gordon Arms in Yarrow, 102
Great King Street, 139
Guizards, 61
Gustavus, Prince, 68
'Journal' of, 61
Hallam, Arthur Henry, 96
'Hardyknute,' 114
Harleyburn, 42
Heart of Bruce, 126
'Heart of Midlothian,' 173
Heiton, John, 42
Hemans, Mrs., 98
Hillslap, 214
James's alleged insult, 101
Hogmanay, 61
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 102
Hope, James Fitzalan, M.P., 154
Howitt, William, 102
'Huntlee Bankis,' 42
Innerleithen, 112
Irving, Washington, 57, 82, 114
Italian tour, 114
'Ivanhoe,' 108
James V. (King), 5
James, G. P. R., 102
Abbey, 218
Jeffrey, Francis, 80
'Jock o' Hazeldean,' 114
John of Skye, 134
'Journal,' Basil Hall's, 61
Kaeside, 41
Bridge, 218
'Kennaquhair,' 210
Kensal Green Cemetery, 153
Ker, Andrew, 42
Killarney, 93
'Kingdom of Border Romance,' 136
Kinnedder, Lord, 140
Kirn, the, 60
Knox, John, 42
'Lady Anne,' 56
Laidlaw, 54, 65, 66, 82, 108, 113, 116, 122
Lammermoor, 88
Landseer, Sir Edwin, 54
Lang, Mr., 138
'Life of Lockhart,' 125
Langshaw, 214
Lasswade, 79
Cottage, 99
Lee, in Lanarkshire, 125
Penny, 126
Leopold, Prince, 68
Lessuden, 210
'Letters to Heber,' 93
'Life of Lockhart' (Mr. Lang's), 125
Lilliesleaf, 135
Lochore, 152
Lockhart, Charlotte Harriet Jane, 154
John Gibson, 4, 115-122, 125-148, 160
'Abridgment of the Life' by, 163
novels of, 140
verses on Immortality, 147
John Hugh, 141
Mrs., 145
Rev. John, D.D., 127
Walter Scott, 153
London, 44
'Lucy's Flittin',' 82
'Maga,' 129
Mary, Queen, 180
Mathieson, Peter, 65, 122, 196
Mediterranean, 143
Cross, 214
Session Records, 21
Melville, Lord, 134
Mercer, 63
Merse, the, 136
Miller, Hugh, 171
Milman, 114
Milne, Nicol, 42
Minchmoor, 135
'Minstrelsy,' 82
Moffat, 14
Moffatdale, 136
'Monastery,' 210
Montagu, Lord, 39
Morritt of Rokeby, 29
'Muffled drum,' the, 43
Murray, John, 89
Patrick, 12
Naples pilgrimage, 153
Newstead, 214
Newtown, 217
Nicholson, 118
Nimmo the Covenanter, 128
'Nixon, Cristal,' 65
Norham Castle, 17
'North, Kit,' 80
25, Northumberland Street, 139
O'Conor, Sir Nicholas, 155
Old Melrose, 210
Oxford, 128
Paterson, Adam, 44
Peebles, 112
Penrith, 172
'Peter's Letters,' 137
'Peveril of the Peak,' 109
Philiphaugh, 135
Piræus, 90
'Pirate, The,' 140
Purdie, Tom, 34, 65, 117, 196, 213
grave of, 66
Queensberry, Duke of, 40
Raeburn, 72
Ragman Roll, 157
Ravenswood, 18
'Redgauntlet,' 65
'Reliquiæ Trottcosianæ,' 167
Rhymer's Glen, 139
Tower, 219
Richardson of Kirklands, 83
Rizzio, 42
'Rob Roy,' 90
'Rokeby,' 25
Rome, Scott's residence in, 114
Rose, William Stewart, 91
Rosebank, 13
Roxburgh, 218
Russell, General, 18
St. Boswells, 210
St. Mary's Chapel of the Lowes, 93
Saintsbury, Mr., 125
Sampson, Dominie, 134
Scot, Michael, 212
Scott, Charles, 153
Charlotte Sophia, 153
Dr., of Darnlee, 63
James Robert Hope, 146, 155-163
Lady (second), 152
Lady Victoria Hope, 155
Major, 143
Mary Monica Hope (Hon. Mrs. Maxwell Scott), 155, 164
Sophia, 138
Scott, Sir Walter, 3, 5, 12, 219
death-mask, 180
desk, 178
grave, 216
laugh, 94
visitors, 67
'Scott and his Literary Friends' (Thomas Faed), 80
Sir Walter (the second), 183
Walter Joseph, 155
Scrope, William, 102
Sheriffdom, 49
Shillinglaw, Joseph (Darnick), 183
Shortreed, 59
Siddons, Mrs., 105