Still lives, and long may he live! As he was never born, possibly he may
never die; be it so, he will miss us when we are gone. I could say much
of him, but agree with the lively and admirable Dr. Jortin, when, in his
dedication of his _Remarks on Ecclesiastical History_ to the then (1752)
Archbishop of Canterbury, he excuses himself for not following the
modern custom of praising his Patron, by reminding his Grace "that it
was a custom amongst the ancients, _not to sacrifice to heroes till
after sunset_." I defer my sacrifice till Dick's sun is set.
I think every family should have a dog; it is like having a perpetual
baby; it is the plaything and crony of the whole house. It keeps them
all young. All unite upon Dick. And then he tells no tales, betrays no
secrets, never sulks, asks no troublesome questions, never gets into
debt, never coming down late for breakfast, or coming in through his
Chubb _too early_ to bed--is always ready for a bit of fun, lies in wait
for it, and you may, if choleric, to your relief, kick him instead of
some one else, who would not take it so meekly, and, moreover, would
certainly not, as he does, ask your pardon for being kicked.
Never put a collar on your dog--it only gets him stolen; give him only
one meal a day, and let that, as Dame Dorothy, Sir Thomas Browne's wife,
would say, be "rayther under." Wash him once a week, and always wash the
soap out; and let him be carefully combed and brushed twice a week.
By the bye, I was wrong in saying that it was Burns who said Man is the
God of the Dog--he got it from Bacon's _Essay on Atheism_.
_QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN._
If any one wants a pleasure that is sure to please, one over which he
needn't growl the sardonic beatitude of the great Dean, let him, when
the Mercury is at "Fair," take the nine A.M. train to the North and a
return-ticket for Callander, and when he arrives at Stirling, let him
ask the most obliging and knowing of station-masters to telegraph to
"the Dreadnought" for a carriage to be in waiting. When passing Dunblane
Cathedral, let him resolve to write to the _Scotsman_, advising the
removal of a couple of shabby trees which obstruct the view of that
beautiful triple end window which Mr. Ruskin and everybody else admires,
and by the time he has written this letter in his mind, and turned the
sentences to it, he will find himself at Callander and the carriage all
ready. Giving the order for the _Port of Monteith_, he will rattle
through this hard-featured, and to our eye comfortless village, lying
ugly amid so much grandeur and beauty, and let him stop on the crown of
the bridge, and fill his eyes with the perfection of the view up the
Pass of Leny--the Teith lying diffuse and asleep, as if its heart were
in the Highlands and it were loath to go, the noble Ben Ledi imaged in
its broad stream. Then let him make his way across a bit of pleasant
moorland--flushed with maidenhair and white with cotton grass, and
fragrant with the _Orchis conopsia_, well deserving its epithet
_odoratissima_.
He will see from the turn of the hill-side the Blair of Drummond waving
with corn and shadowed with rich woods, where eighty years ago there was
a black peat-moss; and far off, on the horizon, Damyat and the Touch
Fells; and at his side the little loch of Ruskie, in which he may see
five Highland cattle, three tawny brown and two brindled, standing in
the still water--themselves as still, all except their switching tails
and winking ears--the perfect images of quiet enjoyment. By this time he
will have come in sight of the Lake of Monteith, set in its woods, with
its magical shadows and soft gleams. There is a loveliness, a gentleness
and peace about it more like "lone St. Mary's Lake," or Derwent Water,
than of any of its sister lochs. It is lovely rather than beautiful, and
is a sort of gentle prelude, in the _minor_ key, to the coming glories
and intenser charms of Loch Ard and the true Highlands beyond.
You are now at the Port, and have passed the secluded and cheerful
manse, and the parish kirk with its graves, close to the lake, and the
proud aisle of the Grahams of Gartmore washed by its waves. Across the
road is the modest little inn, a Fisher's Tryst. On the unruffled water
lie several islets, plump with rich foliage, brooding like great birds
of calm. You somehow think of them as on, not in the lake, or like
clouds lying in a nether sky--"like ships waiting for the wind." You get
a coble, and a _yauld_ old Celt, its master, and are rowed across to
_Inchmahome, the Isle of Rest_. Here you find on landing huge Spanish
chestnuts, one lying dead, others standing stark and peeled, like
gigantic antlers, and others flourishing in their _viridis senectus_,
and in a thicket of wood you see the remains of a monastery of great
beauty, the design and workmanship exquisite. You wander through the
ruins, overgrown with ferns and Spanish filberts, and old fruit-trees,
and at the corner of the old monkish garden you come upon one of the
strangest and most touching sights you ever saw--an oval space of about
18 feet by 12, with the remains of a double row of boxwood all round,
the plants of box being about fourteen feet high, and eight or nine
inches in diameter, healthy, but plainly of great age.
What is this? it is called in the guide-books Queen Mary's Bower; but
besides its being plainly not in the least a bower, what could the
little Queen, then five years old, and "fancy free," do with a bower? It
is plainly, as was, we believe, first suggested by our keen-sighted and
diagnostic Professor of Clinical Surgery,[7] _the Child-Queen's Garden_,
with her little walk, and its rows of boxwood, left to themselves for
three hundred years. Yes, without doubt, "here is that first garden of
her simpleness." Fancy the little, lovely royal child, with her four
Marys, her playfellows, her child maids of honor, with their little
hands and feet, and their innocent and happy eyes, pattering about that
garden all that time ago, laughing, and running, and gardening as only
children do and can. As is well known, Mary was placed by her mother in
this Isle of Rest before sailing from the Clyde for France. There is
something "that tirls the heartstrings a' to the life" in standing and
looking on this unmistakable living relic of that strange and pathetic
old time. Were we Mr. Tennyson, we would write an Idyll of that child
Queen, in that garden of hers, eating her bread and honey--getting her
teaching from the holy men, the monks of old, and running off in wild
mirth to her garden and her flowers, all unconscious of the black,
lowering thunder-cloud on Ben Lomond's shoulder.
[7] The same seeing eye and understanding mind, when they were
eighteen years of age, discovered and published the Solvent
of Caoutchouc, for which a patent was taken out afterwards
by the famous Mackintosh. If the young discoverer had
secured the patent, he might have made a fortune as large as
his present reputation--I don't suppose he much regrets that
he didn't.
"Oh, blessed vision! happy child!
Thou art so exquisitely wild;
I think of thee with many fears
Of what may be thy lot in future years.
I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest,
Lord of thy house and hospitality.
And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest
But when she sat within the touch of thee.
What hast thou to do with sorrow,
Or the injuries of to-morrow?"