The powerful dramatic writer, the graceful and witty lyrist, and the
sweet and gentle woman, who has for so many years, in her quiet
retreat at Hampstead, let the world flow past her as if she had
nothing to do with it, nor cared to be mentioned by it, was born in
one of the most lovely and historical districts of Scotland. She was
born in a Scottish manse, in the upper dale of the Clyde, which has,
for its mild character and lavish production of fruit, been termed
"Fruitland." As you pass along the streets of Scotch towns, you see on
fruit-stalls in the summer, piles of plums, pears, and other fruits,
labeled "Clydesdale Fruit." One of the finest specimens of the fruit
of this luxuriant and genial dale, is Joanna Baillie, a name never
pronounced by Scot or Briton of any part of the empire, but with the
veneration due to the truest genius, and the affection which is the
birthright of the truest specimens of womanhood. The sister of the
late amiable and excellent Dr. Baillie, the friend of Walter Scott,
the woman whose masculine muse every great poet has for nearly
half-a-century delighted to honor, Joanna Baillie, wrote because she
could not help pouring out the fullness of her heart and mind, and the
natural consequence was fame; otherwise, whoever sees that quiet,
amiable, and unassuming lady, easy and cheerful as when she played
beneath the fruit-laden boughs of her native garden, sees that, though
not scorning the fair reputation of well exercised intellect, she is
at home in the bosom of home, and lets no restless desire for mere
fame disturb the pure happiness of a serene life, and the honor and
love of those nearest and dearest to her. Had the lambent flame of
genius not burned in the breast of Joanna Baillie, that of a pure
piety and a spirit made to estimate the blessings of life, and to
enjoy all the other blessings of peace and social good which it
brings, would have still burned brightly in her bosom, and made her
just as happy though not as great.
The birthplace of Joanna Baillie is the pretty manse of Bothwell, in
the immediate neighborhood of Bothwell brig; and, therefore, as will
at once be seen, in the center of ground where stirring deeds have
been done, and where the author of Waverley has added the vivid
coloring of romance to those deeds. Bothwell manse, from its elevated
site, looks directly down upon the scene of the battle at Bothwell
brig; upon the park of Hamilton, where the Covenanters were encamped;
and upon Bothwellhaugh, the seat of Hamilton, who shot the regent
Murray. This is no mean spot in an historical point of view, and it is
richly endowed by nature. Near it also, a little farther down the
river, stands Bothwell Castle, on _Bothwell bank_, on which the
charm of poetry has been conferred with an almost needless
prodigality, for it is so delightful in its own natural beauty.
The country as you proceed to Bothwell from Glasgow, from which it is
distant about ten miles, though from the first rich and well
cultivated, is not so agreeable, from the quantity of coal that is
found along the roads into Glasgow, and which seems to have given a
blackness to every thing. As you advance, however, it grows
continually more elevated, open, airy, and pleasant. About a mile
before you reach Bothwell, the tall, square church steeple of which,
seen far before you, serves you for a guide, a pair of lodge gates on
your right hand marks the entrance to the grounds of Bothwell Castle.
By writing your name and address in a book kept by the gate-keeper,
you are admitted, and can then pursue your way alone to the castle,
and make your own survey without the nuisance of a guide. The castle
lies about half-a-mile from the high-road. You first arrive at very
beautifully kept pleasure grounds, in which stands a good modern
mansion, the seat of the proprietor, Lord Douglas. Passing through
these grounds, and close to the right of the house, you soon behold
the ruins of the old castle. It is of a very red sandstone, extensive
in its remains, and bearing evidence of having been much more
extensive. Its tall red walls stand up amid fine trees and masses of
ivy, and seem as if created by Time to beautify the modern scene with
which they blend so well. The part remaining consists of a great
oblong square, with two lofty and massy towers overlooking the river
which lies to your left. There are also remains of an ample chapel.
From the openings in the ruins, the river below, and its magnificent
valley or glen, burst with startling effect upon you. The bank from
the foot of the castle descends with considerable steepness to the
river far below, but soft and green as possible; and beyond the dark
and hurrying river, rise banks equally high, and as finely wooded and
varied. Advancing beyond the castle you come again to the river, which
sweeps round the ruins in a fine curve. Here every charm of scenery,
the great river in its channel, its lofty and well wooded banks, the
picturesque views of Blantyre Priory opposite, the slopes and swells
of most luxurious green, and splendid lime-trees hanging their
verdurous boughs to the ground, mingle the noble and the beautiful
into an enchanting whole. A gravel walk leads you down past the front
of the castle, and presents you with a new and still more impressive
view of it. Here it stands aloft on the precipice above you, a most
stately remnant of the old times; and nature has not stinted her
labors in arraying it in tree, bush, and hanging-plant, so as to give
it the grace of life in its slow decay, making it in perfect harmony
with herself. Few scenes are more fascinating than this. Above you the
towers of the castle, which once received as its victorious guest
Edward I. of England; which again sheltered the English chiefs fleeing
from the disastrous field of Bannockburn; which was the stronghold of
Archibald the Grim, and the proud hall of the notorious Earl Bothwell.
Below, slopes down in softest beauty the verdant bank, and the stately
Clyde, dark and deep, flows on amid woods and rocks worthy of all
their fame. The taste of the proprietor has seized on every
circumstance to give a finish to a scene so lovely; and it is
impossible not to exclaim, in the words of the celebrated old ballad--
"Oh, Bothwell bank, thou bloomest fair."
The village of Bothwell is, as I have said, a mile farther on the way
toward Hamilton. The church and manse lie to the left hand as you
enter it, and the latter is buried, as it were, in a perfect sea of
fruit trees. You may pass through the church-yard to it, and then
along a footpath between two high hedges, which leads you to the
carriage-road from the village to its front. The house in which Miss
Baillie was born, and where she lived till her fourth year, seems to
stand on a sort of mount, on one side overlooking the valley of the
Clyde, and on the other the church-yard and part of the village. The
situation is at once airy and secluded. Between the manse and the
church-yard lies the garden, full of fruit trees; and other gardens,
or rather orchards, between that and the village, add to the mass of
foliage, in which it is immersed. Between the church-yard and the
manse garden commences a glen, which runs down, widening and deepening
as it goes, on the side of the manse most distant from the village, to
the great Clyde valley. This gives the house a picturesqueness of
situation peculiarly attractive. It has its own little secluded glen,
its sloping crofts, finely shaded with trees, and beyond again other
masses of trees shrouding cottages and farms.
The church has been rebuilt within these few years, of the same red
stone as Bothwell Castle; but the old chancel of the church still
remains standing, in a state of ruin. The church-yard is extensive,
scattered with old-fashioned tombs, and forming a famous playground
for the children of the neighboring village school, who were out
leaping in the deep damp soil, and galloping among its rank hemlocks
and mallows to their hearts' content. Having, by the courtesy of the
minister, Dr. Matthew Gardner, seen the manse, and had a stroll in the
garden, I again wandered over the church-yard, watching the boys at
their play, and reading the inscriptions on the tombs and headstones;
one of which I copied in evidence of the state of parochial education
in Scotland, where it has existed as a national institution, I believe
ever since the days of Knox:--
"Erected by Margaret Scott, in memory of her husband, Robert
Stobo, Late Smith and Farrier o' Gowkthrapple, who died 7th of May
1834, in the 70th year of his age.
"My sledge and hammer lies declined,
My bellows pipes have lost its wind;
My forge's extinct, my fires decayed,
And in the dust my vice is laid.
My coal is spent, my iron is gone,
My nails are drove, my work is Done."
What struck me as not less curious was the following handbill, posted
on the jamb of the church door:--"Gooseberries for sale, by public
roup. The gooseberries in the orchards of Bothwell manse, also at
Captain Bogles Laroyet, and in, etc., etc. Sale to begin at Bothwell
manse, at five o'clock, P.M. 10th of July." This was, certainly,
characteristic of "Fruitland."
Though Miss Baillie only spent the first four years of her life at
this sweet and secluded parsonage, it is the place which she has said
she likes best to think of, of any in her native country. And this we
may well imagine; it is just the place for a child's paradise,
embosomed amid blossoming trees, with its garden lying like a little
hidden yet sunny fairy land in the midst of them, with its flowers and
its humming bees, that old church and half-wild church-yard alongside
of it, and its hanging crofts, and little umbrageous valley.
To Bothwell brig you descend the excellent highway toward Hamilton,
and coming at it in something less than a mile, are surprised to find
what a rich and inviting scene it is. The brig, which you suppose,
from being described as a narrow, steep, old-fashioned concern in the
days of the Covenanters, to be something gray and quaint, reminding
you of Claverhouse and the sturdy Gospelers, is, really, a very
respectable, modern-looking affair. The gateway which used to stand in
the center of it has been removed, the breadth has been increased, an
additional arch or arches have been added at each end, and the whole
looks as much like a decent, everyday, well-to-do, and toll-taking
bridge as bridge well can do. There is a modern toll-bar at the
Bothwell end of it. There is a good house or two, with their gardens
descending to the river. The river flows on full and clear, between
banks well cultivated and well covered with plantations. Beyond the
bridge and river the country again ascends with an easy slope toward
Hamilton, with extensive plantations, and park walls belonging to the
domain of the Duke of Hamilton. You have scarcely ascended a quarter
of a mile, when, on your left hand, a handsome gateway, bearing the
ducal escutcheons, and with goodly lodges, opens a new carriage way
into the park. Every thing has an air of the present time, of wealth,
peace, and intellectual government, that make the days of the battle
of Bothwell brig seem like a piece of the romance work of Scott, and
not of real history.
Scott himself tells us in his Border Minstrelsy, in his notes to the
old Ballad of Bothwell Brig, that "the whole appearance of the ground
as given in the picture of the battle at Hamilton Palace, even
including a few old houses, is the same as the scene now presents. The
removal of the porch or gateway, upon the bridge, is the only
perceptible difference." There must have been much change here since
Scott visited the spot. The old houses have given way to new houses.
The old bridge is metamorphosed into something that might pass for a
newish bridge. The banks of the river, and the lands of the park
beneath, are so planted and wooded, that the pioneers would have much
to do before a battle could be fought. All trace of moorland has
vanished, and modern inclosure and cultivation have taken possession
of the scene. When we bring back by force of imagination the old view
of the place, it is a far different one.
"Where Bothwell's bridge connects the margin steep,
And Clyde below runs silent, strong, and deep,
The hardy peasant, by oppression driven
To battle, deemed his cause the cause of Heaven.
Unskilled in arms, with useless courage stood,
While gentle Monmouth grieved to shed his blood;
But fierce Dundee, inflamed with deadly hate,
In vengeance for the great Montrose's fate,
Let loose the sword, and to the hero's shade
A barbarous hecatomb of victories paid."
_Wilson's Clyde._
When we picture to ourselves the Duke of Monmouth ordering his brave
footguards under command of Lord Livingstone, to force the bridge,
which was defended by Hackstone of Rathillet, and Claverhouse sitting
on his white horse on the hillside near Bothwell, watching the
progress of the fray, and ready to rush down with his cavalry and fall
on the infatuated Covenanters who were quarreling among themselves on
Hamilton haughs, we see a wild and correspondent landscape, rough as
the Cameronian insurgents, and rude as their notions. The Bothwell
brig of the present day has all the old aspect modernized out of it.
Its smiling fields, and woods that speak of long peaceful times, and
snug modern homes--oh! how far off are they from the grand old
melancholy tone of the old ballad:--
"Now farewell father, and farewell mother,
And fare ye weel, my sisters three;
An' fare ye weel, my Earlstoun,
For thee again I'll never see!
"So they're away to Bothwell hill,
An' waly they rode bonily!
When the Duke of Monmouth saw them comin'
He went to view their company.
* * * *
"Then he set up the flag o' red,
A' set about wi' bonny blue;
'Since ye'll no cease, and be at peace,
See that ye stand by ither true.'
"They stelled their cannons on the height,
And showered their shot down in the howe;
An' beat our Scots' lads even down,
Thick they lay slain on every knowe.
* * * *
"Alang the brae, beyond the brig,
Mony brave man lies cauld and still;
But lang we'll mind, and sair we'll rue,
The bloody battle of Bothwell hill."
To the left, looking over the haughs or meadows of Hamilton, from
Bothwell brig, you discern the top of the present house of
Bothwellhaugh over a mass of wood. Here another strange historical
event connects itself with this scene. Here lived that Hamilton who
shot in the streets of Linlithgow the Regent Murray, the half-brother
of the Queen of Scots. The outrage had been instigated by another,
which was calculated especially in an age like that when men took the
redress of their wrongs into their own hands without much ceremony, to
excite to madness a man of honor and strong feeling. The regent had
given to one of his favorites Hamilton's estate of Bothwellhaugh, who
proceeded to take possession with such brutality that he turned
Hamilton's wife out naked, in a cold night, into the open fields,
where before morning she became furiously mad. The spirit of vengeance
took deep hold of Hamilton's mind, and was fanned to flame by his
indignant kinsmen. He followed the regent from place to place seeking
an opportunity to kill him. This at length occurred by his having to
pass through Linlithgow on his way from Stirling to Edinburgh.
Hamilton placed himself in a wooden gallery, which had a window toward
the street, and as the regent slowly, on account of the pressure of
the crowd, rode past, he shot him dead.
Add to these scenes and histories that Hamilton Palace, in its
beautiful park, lies within a mile of the Bothwell brig, and it must
be admitted that no poetess could desire to be born in a more
beautiful or classical region. Joanna Baillie's father was at the time
of her birth minister of Bothwell. When she was four years old he
quitted it, and was removed to different parishes, and finally, only
three years before his death, was presented to the chair of divinity
at Glasgow. After his death Miss Baillie spent with her family six or
more years in the bare muirlands of Kilbride, a scenery not likely to
have much attraction for a poetical mind, but made agreeable by the
kindness and intelligence of two neighboring families. She never saw
Edinburgh till on her way to England when about twenty-two years of
age. Before that period she had never been above ten or twelve miles
from home, and, with the exception of Bothwell, never formed much
attachment to places. Since then she has only seen Scotland as a
visitor, and at distant intervals.
For many years Joanna Baillie has been a resident of Hampstead, where
she has been visited by nearly all the great writers of the age.
Scott, as may be seen in his letters to Joanna Baillie, delighted to
make himself her guest, and on her visit to Scotland, in 1806, she
spent some weeks in his house at Edinburgh. From this time they were
most intimate friends; she was one of the persons to whom his letters
were most frequently addressed, and he planted, in testimony of his
friendship for her, a bower of pinasters, the seeds of which she had
furnished, at Abbotsford, and called it Joanna's bower. In 1810 her
drama, The Family Legend, was through his means brought out at
Edinburgh. It was the first new play brought out by Mr. Henry Siddons,
and was very well received, a fortune which has rarely attended her
able tragedies, which are imagined to be more suitable for the closet
than the stage. There they will continue to charm, while vigor of
conception, a clear and masterly style, and healthy nobility of
sentiment, retain their hold on the human mind.
[Illustration: Grasmere]