[Sidenote: LEUCHARS CHURCH.]
Johnson, closing his description of St. Andrews with his lament over
its declining University, goes on to say like a wise man:—“As we knew
sorrow and wishes to be vain, it was now our business to mind our way.”
Perhaps, as he wrote these words he had in his memory two lines of
Matthew Green, though they were originally used of quitting, not what
was painful, but what was pleasant—
“Though pleased to see the dolphins play,
I mind my compass and my way.”[489]
[Illustration: VIEW ON THE TAY.]
He and Boswell started about noon for Montrose on the other side
of the Firth of Tay, a distance of a little over forty miles, but
with good reason made a halt at Leuchars, on observing the fine old
Norman church.[490] They were fortunate enough to see it before it
was “restored” for nothing ancient remains but the apse and chancel.
The new portion in the interior is ugly in the most approved Scottish
fashion; in the outside it would be insignificant were it not added
as a vast excrescence to the ancient building. It stands on a little
hill at the end of the village, with the churchyard round it falling
away on the southern side in steep slopes to the road. Hard by are
some well-grown trees round the Manse where Boswell waited on the
aged minister, a very civil old man, to learn what he could. He was
told that the church was supposed to have stood eight hundred years.
St. Andrews certainly can show nothing so ancient. The village is
built solidly enough of stone, but seems careless of pleasing the
eye. There are no little gardens before the houses, no roses trained
up the walls, scarcely any flowers in the windows. “Take care of the
beautiful, the useful will take care of itself” has not been a gospel
sounded in Scottish ears.
[Illustration: MONTROSE
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, LTD, PUBLISHERS, LONDON.
IMP. & HÉLIOG. LEMERCIER & C^{IE.} PARIS.]
The road to the Tay, which Boswell enlivened by leading Johnson to
discuss the doctrine of transubstantiation, lay through a pleasant
undulating country that bears luxuriant crops and at the present time
is no longer wanting in trees. Their chaise was taken across the
Firth in a ferry-boat at a charge of four shillings. How Johnson, who
always delighted in what he called “the accommodations of life,” would
have exulted in the great bridge which now spans the flood! He would
have noticed too with pleasure the long avenue of young trees planted
along the bank. [Sidenote: ABERBROTHICK.] Passing through Dundee,
“a dirty despicable town” as he describes it, but now the seat
of a vast commerce, they came about the close of the day to the
ruined abbey of Aberbrothick.[491] The sight of these fragments
of “stupendous magnificence” struck Johnson perhaps more than
anything which he saw on the whole of his tour. “I should scarcely
have regretted my journey,” he said, “had it afforded nothing
more than the sight of Aberbrothick.” John Wesley declared that
he “knew nothing like the Abbey in all North Britain. I paced it
and found it an hundred yards long. The breadth is proportionable.
Part of the west-end which is still standing shows it was full
as high as Westminster Abbey.”[492] It had been left in much the
same state of neglect as the Cathedral of St. Andrews. Boswell,
“whose inquisitiveness was seconded by great activity,” wanted to
climb one of the towers. “He scrambled in at a high window, but
found the stairs within broken, and could not reach the top.” The
entrance to the other tower they could not discern, and as the
night was gathering upon them he gave up the attempt. Not clearly
remembering Johnson’s account, I told the old man who shows the
Abbey that I had read in an old book that a hundred years and more
ago the staircase was broken down. “Then they _leed_,” he answered
angrily, indignant for its reputation for antiquity. I learnt from
him that an ancient inn, which had been recently pulled down, had
been found to have been built of the hewn stones taken from the
Abbey. In the ruins no doubt for many a long year the town had
had its quarry. Johnson noticed one room of which he could not
conjecture the use, “as its elevation was very disproportionate
to its area.” [Sidenote: THE CHAPTER HOUSE.] I was told that it
was the Chapter House, but my informant, a queer little urchin who
acted as under-guide, was not trustworthy, for he informed me that
the ruins had been caused by a fire in which the Abbey was burnt
down a thousand years ago. In this room I found hanging on the wall
likenesses of Mary Queen of Scots and of Pope Pius IX. Surely the
bitterness of the Reformation has passed away even in Scotland.
[Illustration: ABERBROTHICK.]
[Sidenote: RUINS AND ADVERTISEMENTS.]
The grounds are still used as a graveyard. Here and elsewhere in
Scotland I noticed in the inscriptions that the English term _wife_
is slowly supplanting the old Scotch term _spouse_. On one side of
the great gateway two ugly arches have been lately built as entrances
to pompous family burial places. These excrescences should surely
be removed and the dead left to their quiet insignificance. On the
outside, underneath a lofty wall, a pleasant bowling-green has been
laid out for public enjoyment, with flower borders running round. The
town was keeping a public holiday the day I was there, and the ground
was thronged with players and spectators. I was sorry to see in many
places that ivy in the true cockney spirit has been trained up the
ruins. Unless the strong sea-breezes, which cut off the tops of the
trees as soon as they show their heads too high, come to the rescue,
it will in time hide the dark red sandstone beneath a uniform mantle
of green. Though the ruins are now cared for, and the ground cleared
of the long grass and weeds which hindered Johnson from tracing the
foundations, nevertheless the lofty wall close to the main entrance
is disgraced by huge advertisements. As the stranger approaches the
venerable pile from the High Street he gives one angry thought to the
Town Council which leases it to the dealers in sewing machines, in
blue, and in Irish whisky for advertising their wares. “Where there is
yet shame there may in time be virtue.” Would that this protest of mine
may rouse a feeling of shame in the unworthy guardians of so glorious a
ruin!