Walter Scott "laid the imperishable foundation of all his fame. It was
here that when his warm heart was beating with young and happy love, and
his whole mind and spirit were nerved by new motives for exertion--it
was here that in the ripened glow of manhood he seems to have first felt
something of his real strength, and poured himself out in those splendid
original ballads which were at once to fix his name."
"Sweet are the paths, O passing sweet!
By Esk's fair streams that run,
O'er airy steep through copsewood deep,
Impervious to the sun.
* * * * *
Who knows not Melville's beechy grove
And Roslin's rocky glen,
Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,
And classic Hawthornden?"
[Illustration: HAWTHORNDEN]
The visitor who would see "Roslin's rocky glen" may take a coach in
Edinburgh and soon reach the spot after a pleasant drive over a
well-kept road. But if he would see "classic Hawthornden" in the same
day, he must go there first. For the gate which separates the two opens
out from Hawthornden and the traveler cannot pass in the opposite
direction. We therefore took the train from Edinburgh, and after half
an hour alighted at a little station, from which we walked a few hundred
yards along a quiet country road, until we reached a lodge marking the
entrance to a large estate. Entering here, a few steps brought us to the
house of the gardener, who first conducted us to the place that
interests him the most--a large and well-kept garden, full of fruits and
vegetables, beautiful flowers and well-trained vines. His pride
satisfied by our sincere admiration of his handiwork, our guide was
ready to reveal to us the glory of Hawthornden, and conducted us to the
edge of a precipice known as John Knox's Pulpit. In front is a deep
ravine of stupendous rocks partly bare and partly covered with bushes
and pendent creepers. The tall trees on the border, the wooded hill in
the distance, and the grand sweep of the river far below, form a scene
of majestic grandeur as nearly perfect as one could wish. To the left,
on the very edge of a perpendicular rock, is a strong, well-built
mansion, so situated that the windows of its principal rooms command a
view of the wondrous vale. On the other side of the house are the
ivy-covered ruins of an older castle, dating back many centuries.
Since the middle of the sixteenth century, Hawthornden has been the home
of a family of Drummonds--a famous Scottish name. William Drummond, the
most distinguished of them all, whose name is inseparably associated
with the place, was born in 1585. His father was a gentleman-usher at
the court of King James VI, and through his association with the
Scottish royalty had acquired the Hawthornden property. The boy grew up
amid such surroundings, was educated at the University of Edinburgh, and
traveled on the Continent for three years before settling down to his
life-work, which he then thought would be the practice of law. But
scarcely had he returned to Edinburgh for this purpose, when his father
died, and young Drummond, at the age of twenty-four, found himself
master of Hawthornden with ample means at his command. All thought of
the law was abandoned forthwith. The quiet of Hawthornden and the beauty
of its natural scenery fitted his temperament exactly. He had already
acquired a scholar's tastes, had read extensively, and possessed a large
library in which the Latin classics predominated, though there were many
books in Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, French, and English. He
retired to his delightful home to live among his books, and if he found
that such surroundings became a tacit invitation from the Muses to keep
them company, who could wonder? "Content with my books and the use of my
eyes," he said, "I learnt even from my boyhood to live beneath my
fortune; and, dwelling by myself as much as I can, I neither sigh for
nor seek aught that is outside me."
It has been said that Drummond's three stars were Philosophy,
Friendship, and Love. Some three or four years after the poet began his
contented life at Hawthornden, the latter star began to shine so
brightly as to eclipse the other two. In 1614 he met an attractive girl
of seventeen or eighteen, the daughter of Alexander Cunningham, of
Barns, a country-seat on a little stream known as the Ore, in Fifeshire,
on the opposite side of the Firth of Forth. His poems began at once to
reveal the extent to which the loveliness of the fair Euphame had taken
possession of him:--
"Vaunt not, fair Heavens, of your two glorious lights,
Which, though most bright, yet see not when they shine,
And shining cannot show their beams divine
Both in one place, but part by days and nights;
Earth, vaunt not of those treasures ye enshrine,
Held only dear because hid from our sights,
Your pure and burnished gold your diamonds fine,
Snow-passing ivory that the eye delights;
Nor, Seas, of those dear wares are in you found;
Vaunt not rich pearl, red coral, which do stir
A fond desire in fools to plunge your ground.
Those all more fair are to be had in her:
Pearl, ivory, coral, diamond, suns, gold,
Teeth, neck, lips, heart, eyes, hair, are to behold."
On seeing her in a boat on the Forth he declared her perfection:--
"Slide soft, fair Forth, and make a crystal plain;
Cut your white locks, and on your foaming face
Let not a wrinkle be, when you embrace
The boat that earth's perfections doth contain."
The river Ore, on the banks of which he first met his lady-love, became
to Drummond the greatest river in the world. In one sonnet he compares
the tiny stream with every famous river from the Arno to the Nile; and
finds that none of them
"Have ever had so rare a cause of praise."
Unfortunately, his happiness was of brief duration, for on the very eve
of the marriage, the young lady died. Drummond's grief was intense. One
can almost imagine him mournfully gazing down the beautiful glen, which
she might have enjoyed with him, and exclaiming--
"Trees, happier far than I,
That have the grace to heave your heads so high,
And overlook those plains;
Grow till your branches kiss that lofty sky
Which her sweet self contains.
Then make her know my endless love and pains
And how those tears, which from mine eyes do fall
Helpt you to rise so tall.
Tell her, as once I for her sake loved breath
So, for her sake, I now court lingering death."
[Illustration: THE SYCAMORE]
For some years after her death, Euphame was to Drummond what Beatrice
was to Dante--the inspirer of all that was good in him. Later in life
he married Elizabeth Logan, a lady who was said to resemble Euphame
Cunningham, and she became the mother of his five sons and four
daughters.
In front of the mansion of Hawthornden is a venerable sycamore, said to
be five hundred years old. In the month of January, 1619, according to a
favorite and oft-told story, Drummond was sitting beneath this tree,
when he saw and recognized the huge form of Ben Jonson, as that
rollicking hero sauntered toward him along the private road. Jonson had
walked all the way from London to see what could be seen in Scotland,
and one of the attractions had been an invitation from Drummond, who was
now beginning to be known in England, to spend two or three weeks at his
home. As he approached, Drummond arose and greeted him heartily,
saying,--
"Welcome, welcome, royal Ben!"
To which Jonson quickly replied replied--
"Thankee, thankee, Hawthornden!"
Upon which they both laughed and felt well acquainted at once.
The contrast between these two men, as they stood under the old
sycamore, must have been strongly marked. Drummond, quiet, reserved, and
gentle in manner--Jonson, boisterous and offensively vulgar: Drummond,
well dressed and refined in appearance--Jonson, fat, coarse, and
slovenly; Drummond, a country gentleman, accustomed to live well, but
always within his means, caring little for society, a man of correct
habits and strict piety, and later in life a loving husband and a tender
father--Jonson, the dictator of literary London, who waved his scepter
in the "Devil Tavern" in Fleet Street, egotistical and quarrelsome,
self-assertive, a bully in disposition, his life a perpetual round of
dissipation and debt, his means of livelihood dependent on luck or
favor, and his greatest enjoyment centering in association with those
who, like himself, were most at home in the theaters and taverns of the
great bustling city.
Yet both were poets and men of genius, though in different ways. In
spite of his peculiarities, Drummond found "rare Ben Jonson" a most
interesting companion. He kept a close record of the conversations which
passed between them, and might well be called the father of modern
interviewing. But unlike the interviewer of to-day, Drummond did not
rush to the nearest telegraph station to get his story "on the wire" and
"scoop" his contemporaries. There were no telegraphs nor newspapers to
call for such effort, and Drummond had too much respect for the courtesy
due a guest to think of publishing their private talks. But a portion of
the material was published in 1711, long after Drummond's death, and
probably the whole of it in 1832. These conversations with one who knew
intimately most of the literary leaders of his time have proved
invaluable. They contain Ben's opinions of nearly everybody--Queen
Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester, King James, Spenser, Raleigh,
Shakespeare, Bacon, Drayton, Beaumont, Chapman, Fletcher, and many other
contemporaries. Most of all they contain his opinion of himself and his
writings, which needless to say is quite exalted.
With no thought of his notes being published, Drummond allowed himself
perfect frankness in writing about his guest. His summary of the
impression made by Ben's visit is as follows:--
He is a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and scorner of
others; given rather to lose a friend than a jest; jealous of every
word and action of those about him (especially after drink, which is
one of the elements in which he liveth); a dissembler of ill parts
which reign in him, a bragger of some good that he wanteth; thinketh
nothing well but what either he himself or some of his friends and
countrymen hath said or done: he is passionately kind and angry;
careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but, if he be well
answered, at himself. For any religion, as being versed in both.
Interpreted best sayings and deeds often to the worst. Oppressed with
phantasy which hath ever mastered his reason, a general disease in
many poets.... He was in his personal character the very reverse of
Shakespeare, as surly, ill-natured, proud and disagreeable as
Shakespeare, with ten times his merit, was gentle, good-natured, easy,
and amiable.
Jonson expressed with equal frankness his opinion of Drummond, to whom
he said that he "was too good and simple, and that oft a man's modesty
made a fool of his wit."
Drummond as a poet was classed by Robert Southey and Thomas Campbell in
the highest rank of the British poets who appeared before Milton. His
sonnets, which are remarkable for their exquisite delicacy and
tenderness, won for him the title of "the Scottish Petrarch." It has
been said that they come as near to perfection as any others of this
kind of writing and that as a sonneteer Drummond is surpassed only by
Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth among the poets who have written in
English.
Before taking leave of the Scottish poet and his picturesque home, we
paused for a few minutes to visit the wondrous caverns, cut out of the
solid rock upon which the house is built. Antiquarians have insisted
that these caves date back to the time of the Picts, at least as far as
the ninth or tenth century.
This, too, was the popular understanding before the scientists offered
their opinion. In a curious old volume, published in 1753,[2] we are
told:--
Underneath [the house of Drummond] are the noted Caverns of
_Hawthorn-Den_, by Dr. _Stuckely_ in his _Itinerarium-Curiosa_, said
to have been the King of _Pictlands_ Castle or Palace; which nothing
can shew the Doctor's Credulity more than by suffering himself to be
imposed upon by the Tattle of the Vulgar, who in all things they
cannot account for, are ascribed to the _Picts_, without the least
Foundation. For those caves, instead of having been a Castle or
Palace, I take them either to have been a Receptacle for Robbers, or
Places to secure the People and their Effects in, during the
destructive Wars between the _Picts_ and _English_, and _Scots_ and
_English_.
During the contests between Bruce and Baliol for the Scottish crown,
these caves became a place of refuge for Bruce and his friends, and one
of the rooms is still pointed out as Bruce's bedchamber.
"Here, too, are labyrinthine paths
To caverns dark and low,
Wherein they say King Robert Bruce
Found refuge from his foe."
In the walls are many square holes, from twelve to eighteen inches deep,
supposed to have been used as cupboards. On a rough table near one of
the openings is a rude and very much damaged desk, said to have been the
property of John Knox.
Leaving these gloomy resorts of ancient heroes--perhaps of ancient
robbers--we sought a brighter and more cheerful scene. Descending the
path we reached a bridge over the Esk on which is a gate that permitted
us to leave Hawthornden, although it does not allow wanderers on the
other side to enter. The bridge gave a fine opportunity for a farewell
view of the grand old mansion, high in the air at the top of the cliff,
which we were now viewing from below.
A delightful stroll along the left bank of the stream for about two
miles brought us to Roslin Castle, situated on a rocky promontory high
above the river. At the point of the peninsula the river is narrowed by
a large mass of reddish sandstone over which it falls. When flooded this
becomes a beautiful cascade,--whence the name, "Ross," a Gaelic word
meaning promontory or jutting rock, and "Lyn," a waterfall,--the "Rock
of the Waterfall." The Esk, where it forms the cascade, is still called
"the Lynn." The view from the promontory is one of the most delightful
to be imagined. The banks are precipitous and covered with a luxurious
growth of natural wood. The vale seems to be crowded with every possible
combination of trees and cliffs, foliage and sparkling stream, that
nature can put together to form a region of romantic suggestion.
[Illustration: RUINS OF ROSLIN CASTLE]
Little now remains of the ancient castle of Roslin, which was formerly
two hundred feet long and ninety feet wide. A few ivy-covered walls and
towers may still be seen, in the midst of which is a more modern
dwelling rebuilt in 1653. The ancient foundation walls, nine feet thick,
still visible below the surface, and the almost inaccessible location of
the castle tell the story of its original purpose. A huge kitchen,
with the fireplace alone occupying as much space as the entire kitchen
of one of our modern houses, suggests the lavish scale upon which the
establishment was once conducted.
The castle was built by a family of St. Clairs, whose ancestor,
Waldernus de St. Clair, came over with the Conqueror. William St. Clair,
Baron of Roslin, Earl of Caithness and Prince of the Orkneys, who
flourished in the middle of the fifteenth century, was one of the most
famous of these barons. He lived in the magnificence of royal state.
He kept a great court and was royally served at his own table in
vessels of gold and silver.... He had his halls and other apartments
richly adorned with embroidered hangings. His princess, Elizabeth
Douglas, was served by seventy-five gentlewomen, whereof fifty-three
were daughters of noblemen, all clothed in velvet and silks, with
their chains of gold, and other ornaments; and was attended by two
hundred riding gentlemen in all her journeys; and if it happened to be
dark when she went to Edinburgh, where her lodgings were at the foot
of the Black Friar's Wynd, eighty lighted torches were carried before
her.[3]
The castle was accidentally set on fire in 1447 and badly damaged, and
was leveled to the ground by English forces under the Earl of Hertford,
in 1544, who was sent to Scotland by Henry VIII to seek to enforce the
marriage of his son Edward to the infant Mary of Scotland, the daughter
of James V. In 1650 it was again destroyed, during Cromwell's campaign
in Scotland, by General Monk, and rising again, suffered severely at the
hands of a mob from Edinburgh in 1688.
It was William St. Clair, the feudal baron above referred to, who built
the exquisitely beautiful chapel which stands not far from the castle.
The same ancient manuscript, previously quoted, informs us that
His age creeping on him made him consider how he had spent his time
past, and how to spend that which was to come. Therefore to the end he
might not seem altogether unthankfull to God for the benefices
receaved from Him, it came in his minde to build a house for God's
service of most curious work, the which, that it might be done with
greater glory and splendour he caused artificers to be brought from
other regions and forraigne kingdoms and caused dayly to be abundance
of all kinde of workemen present, etc., etc.
The foundation of Roslin Chapel was laid in 1446. It was originally
intended to be a cruciform structure with a high central tower. The
existing chapel is, therefore, really only a small part of what the
church was meant to be. Its style is called "florid Gothic," but this is
probably for want of a better name. There is no other piece of
architecture like it in the world. It is a medley of all architectures,
the Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, and Saracenic being intermingled with all
kinds of decorations and designs, some exquisitely beautiful and others
quaint and even grotesque. There are thirteen different varieties of the
arch. The owner, who possessed great wealth, desired novelty. He secured
it by engaging architects and builders from all parts of Europe. The
most beautiful feature of the interior is known as the "'Prentice's
Pillar." It is a column with richly carved spiral wreaths of beautiful
foliage twined about from floor to ceiling. It is said that the
master-builder, when he came to erect this column, found himself unable
to carry out the design, and traveled to Rome to see a column of similar
description there. When he returned he found that his apprentice had
studied the plans in his absence and with greater genius than his own,
had overcome the difficulties and fashioned a pillar more beautiful than
any ever before dreamed of. The master, stung with jealous rage, struck
the apprentice with his mallet, killing him instantly. This, at least,
is the accepted legend.
The barons of Roslin were buried beneath the chapel side by side,
encased in their full suits of armor. There was a curious superstition
that when one of the family died, the chapel was enveloped in flames,
but not consumed. This and the "uncoffined chiefs" are referred to by
Scott in "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." The lady is lost in the storm
while crossing the Firth on her way to Roslin:--
"O'er Roslin all that dreary night
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;
'Twas broader than the watch-fire light,
And redder than the bright moonbeam.
"It glared on Roslin's castled rock,
It ruddied all the copsewood glen;
'Twas seen from Dreyden's groves of oak,
And seen from caverned Hawthornden.
"Seemed all on fire that chapel proud
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie,
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.
"Seemed all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altar's pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
And glimmered all the dead men's mail.
"Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair--
So still they blaze when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair.
"There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle;
Each one the holy vault doth hold--
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle."
Commemorated by a tablet in the chapel is another interesting legend.
Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, in following the chase on Pentland Hills
near Roslin, had often started "a white faunch deer" which invariably
escaped from his hounds. In his vexation he asked his nobles whether any
of them had hounds which would likely be more successful. All hesitated
for fear that the mere suggestion of possessing dogs superior to those
of the king might be an offense. But Sir William St. Clair (one of the
predecessors of the builder of the chapel) boldly and unceremoniously
came forward and said he would wager his head that his two favorite dogs
Hold and Help would kill the deer before it could cross the March burn.
The king promptly accepted the rash wager, and betted the forest of
Pentland Moor.
The hunters reach the heathern steeps and Sir William, posting himself
in the best situation for slipping his dogs, prayed devoutly to
Christ, the Virgin Mary, and St. Katherine. The deer is started, the
hounds are slipped; when Sir William spurs his gallant steed and
cheers the dogs. The deer reaches the middle of the March-burn brook,
the hounds are still in the rear, and our hero's life is at its
crisis. An awful moment; the hunter threw himself from his horse in
despair and Fate seemed to sport with his feelings. At the critical
moment Hold fastened on the game, and Help coming up, turned the deer
back and killed it close by Sir William's side. The generous monarch
embraced the knight and bestowed on him the lands of Kirktown, Logan
House, Earnsham, etc., in free forestrie.[4]
The grateful Sir William erected a chapel to St. Katherine, at the spot,
to commemorate the saint's intervention.
One more tale of Roslin remains to be told. Not far away, on Roslin
Moor, occurred one of the famous battles of Scottish history. There were
really three battles, all fought in one day, the 24th of February, 1303.
Three divisions of the English army, consisting of thirty thousand men,
were successively attacked by the valiant Scots with only ten thousand
men, who, after overpowering the first division, attacked the second,
and then the third, defeating all three in the same day.
And so, with history and legend, poetry and romance, real life and
fiction, the glory of nature's art and the achievements of human
handicraft all happily intermingled in our thought and blended into one
pleasant memory, we brought to its close our walk through the valley of
the Esk, from Hawthornden to Roslin Glen.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Maitland's _History of Scotland_.
[3] From an old manuscript, in the Advocates' Library, collection of
Richard Augustine Hay.
[4] Britton's _Architectural Antiquities_.
V
THE COUNTRY OF MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
V
THE COUNTRY OF MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
I
MRS. WARD AND HER WORK
"'Why does any one stay in England who _can_ make the trip to Paradise?'
said the duchess, as she leaned lazily back in the corner of the boat
and trailed her fingers in the waters of Como."
These words from "Lady Rose's Daughter" came to mind as we glided
swiftly in a little motor-boat, late in the afternoon of a perfect April
day, over the smooth waters of Como and into the arm of the lake known
as Lecco, where we were to enjoy our cup of tea in a little _latteria_
high up on a rocky crag. In the stern sat Mrs. Ward, looking the picture
of contentment, a light summer hat with simple trimmings giving an
almost girlish aspect to a face in which strong intellectuality and
depth of moral purpose were clearly the predominating features. A day's
work done,--for Mrs. Ward goes to Como for work, not play,--this little
trip across the lake was one of her favorite recreations, in which, for
the time, we were hospitably permitted to share. About us were the
scenes "enchanted, incomparable," which are best described in the words
of Mrs. Ward herself:--