land." On leaving the island we saw the Goblin's Cave in the side of Ben
Venue, called by the Gaels "Coiran-Uriskin." Near it is Beal-nam-bo--the
"Pass of Cattle"--overhung with gray weeping birch-trees.
Here the boatmen stopt to let us hear the fine echo, and the names of
Rob Roy and Roderick Dhu were sent back to us apparently as loud as they
were given. The description of Scott is wonderfully exact, tho the
forest that feathered o'er the sides of Ben Venue has since been cut
down and sold by the Duke of Montrose.
When we reached the end of the lake, it commenced raining, and we
hastened on through the pass of Beal-an-Duine, scarcely taking time to
glance at the scenery, till Loch Achray appeared through the trees, and
on its banks the ivy-grown front of the inn of Ardcheancrochan--with its
unpronounceable name.
TO THE HEBRIDES [Footnote: From "A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
with Samuel Johnson, LL.D."]
BY JAMES BOSWELL.
My acquaintance, the Reverend Mr. John Macauley, one of the ministers of
Inverary, and brother to our good friend at Calder, came to us this
morning, and accompanied us to the castle, where I presented Dr. Johnson
to the Duke of Argyle. We were shown through the house; and I never
shall forget the impression made upon my fancy by some of the ladies'
maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a long
time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay, inviting
appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought for the moment, I could
have been a knight-errant for them.
We then got into a low one-horse chair, ordered for us by the duke, in
which we drove about the place. Dr. Johnson was much struck by the
grandeur and elegance of this princely seat. He thought, however, the
castle too low, and wished it had been a story higher. He said, "What I
admire here, is the total defiance of expense." I had a particular pride
in showing him a great number of fine old trees, to compensate for the
nakedness which had made such an impression on him on the eastern coast
of Scotland.
When we came in, before dinner, we found the duke and some gentlemen in
the hall. Dr. Johnson took much notice of the large collection of arms,
which are excellently disposed there. I told what he had said to Sir
Alexander Macdonald, of his ancestors not suffering their arms to rust.
"Well," said the doctor, "but let us be glad we live in times when arms
may rust. We can sit to-day at his grace's table without any risk of
being attacked, and perhaps sitting down again wounded or maimed." The
duke placed Dr. Johnson next himself at the table. I was in fine
spirits, and tho sensible that I had the misfortune of not being in
favor with the duchess I was not in the least disconcerted, and offered
her grace some of the dish that was before me. It must be owned that I
was in the right to be quite unconcerned, if I could. I was the Duke of
Argyle's guest, and I had no reason to suppose that he adopted the
prejudices and resentments of the Duchess of Hamilton....
The duchess was very attentive to Dr. Johnson. I know not how a middle
state came to be mentioned. Her Grace wished to hear him on that point.
"Madam," said he, "your own relation, Mr. Archibald Campbell, can tell
you better about it than I can. He was a bishop of the Nonjuring
communion, and wrote a book upon the subject." He engaged to get it for
her grace. He afterward gave a full history of Mr. Archibald Campbell,
which I am sorry I do not recollect particularly.
He said Mr. Campbell had been bred a violent Whig, but afterward "kept
better company, and became a Tory." He said this with a smile, in
pleasant allusion, as I thought, to the opposition between his own
political principles and those of the duke's clan. He added that Mr.
Campbell, after the revolution, was thrown into jail on account of his
tenets; but, on application by letter to the old Lord Townshend, was
released; that he always spoke of his lordship with great gratitude,
saying, "tho a Whig, he had humanity."
A gentleman in company, after dinner, was desired by the duke to go into
another room, for a specimen of curious marble, which his grace wished
to show us. He brought a wrong piece, upon which the duke sent him back
again. He could not refuse, but, to avoid any appearance of servility,
he whistled as he walked out of the room, to show his independence. On
my mentioning this afterward to Dr. Johnson, he said, it was a nice
trait of character.
Dr. Johnson talked a great deal, and was so entertaining, that Lady
Betty Hamilton, after dinner, went and placed her chair close to his,
leaned upon the back of it, and listened eagerly. It would have made a
fine picture to have drawn the sage and her at this time in their
several attitudes. He did not know, all the while, how much he was
honored. I told him afterward. I never saw him so gentle and complaisant
as this day.
We went to tea. The duke and I walked up and down the drawing room,
conversing. The duchess still continued to show the same marked coldness
for me; for which, tho I suffered from it, I made every allowance,
considering the very warm part I had taken for Douglas, in the cause in
which she thought her son deeply interested. Had not her grace
discovered some displeasure toward me, I should have suspected her of
insensibility or dissimulation....
He was much pleased with our visit at the castle of Inverary. The Duke
of Argyle was exceedingly polite to him, and, upon his complaining of
the shelties which he had hitherto ridden being too small for him, his
grace told him he should be provided with a good horse to carry him
next day.
STAFFA AND IONA [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."]
BY WILLIAM HOWITT.
We are bound for the regions of ghosts and fays, mermaids and kelpies,
of great sea-snakes, and a hundred other marvels and miracles. To
accomplish all this, we have nothing more to do than step on board the
steam-packet that lies at the Broomielaw, or great quay at Glasgow. The
volume of heavy black smoke, issuing from its nickled chimney, announces
that it means to be moving on its way speedily....
Emerging from the Crinan canal, you issue forth into the Sound of Jura,
and feel at once that you are in the stern and yet beautiful region of
your youthful admiration. There is the heavy swell and the solemn roar
of the great Atlantic. You feel the wild winds that sweep over it. You
see around you only high and craggy coasts, that are bleak and naked
with the lashings of a thousand tempests. All before you, are scattered
rocks that emerge from the restless sea, and rocky isles, with patches
of the most beautiful greensward, but with scarcely a single tree. The
waves are leaping in whiteness against the cliffs, and thousands of
sea-birds are floating in long lines on the billows, or skimming past
you singly, and diving into the clear hissing waters as they near your
vessel. One of the very first objects which arrests your senses is the
Coryvreckan, or great whirlpool of the Hebrides, an awful feature in all
the poetry and ballads belonging to these regions.
I never visited any part of Great Britain which more completely met my
anticipated ideas than this. The day was fine, but with a strong breeze.
The sea was rough; the wild-fowl were flying, scudding, and diving on
all hands; and, wherever the eye turned, were craggy islands-mountains
of dark heath or bare splintered stone, and green, solitary slopes,
where scarcely a tree or a hut was to be discovered; but now and then
black cattle might be descried grazing, or flocks of sheep dotted the
hill sides. Far as we could look, were naked rocks rising from the sea,
that were worn almost into roundness, or scooped into hollows by the
eternal action of the stormy waters. Some of them stood in huge arches,
like temples of some shaggy seagod, or haunts of sea-fowl--daylight and
the waves passing freely through them. Everywhere were waves, leaping in
snowy foam against these rocks and against the craggy shores. It was a
stern wilderness of chafing billows and of resisting stone. The rocks
were principally of dark red granite, and were cracked across and
across, as if by the action of fire or frost. Every thing spake to us of
the wild tempests that so frequently rage through these seas....
Staffa rose momently in its majesty before us! After all the
descriptions which we had read, and the views we had seen of this
singular little island, we were struck with delighted astonishment at
its aspect. It is, in fact, one great mass of basaltic columns, bearing
on their heads another huge mass of black stone, here and there covered
with green turf. We sailed past the different caves--the Boat Cave and
the Cormorant Cave, which are themselves very wonderful; but it was
Fingal's Cave that struck us with admiration and awe. To see this
magnificent cavern, with its clustered columns on each side, and pointed
arch, with the bleak precipices above it, and the sea raging at its
base, and dashing and roaring into its gloomy interior, was worth all
the voyage. There are no words that can express the sensation it
creates. We were taken in the boats on shore at the northeast point, and
landed amid a wilderness of basaltic columns thrown into almost all
forms and directions. Some were broken, and lay in heaps in the clear
green water. Others were piled up erect and abrupt; some were twisted up
into tortuous pyramids at a little distance from the shore itself, and
through the passage which they left, the sea came rushing--all foam, and
with the most tremendous roar. Others were bent like so many leaden
pipes, and turned their broken extremities toward us.
We advanced along a sort of giant's causeway, the pavement of which was
the heads of basaltic columns, all fitting together in the most
beautiful symmetry; and, turning round the precipice to our right hand,
found ourselves at the entrance of the great cave. The sea was too
stormy to allow us to enter it, as is often done in boats, we had
therefore to clamber along one of its sides, where a row of columns is
broken off, at some distance above the waves, and presents an
accessible, but certainly very formidable causeway, by which you may
reach the far end. I do not believe that any stranger, if he were there
alone, would dare to pass along that irregular and slippery causeway,
and penetrate to the obscure end of the cave; but numbers animate one
another to anything. We clambered along this causeway or corridor, now
ascending and now descending, as the broken columns required, and soon
stood--upward of seventy of us--ranged along its side from one end to
the other. Let it be remembered that this splendid sea cave is forty-two
feet wide at the entrance; sixty-six feet high from low water; and runs
into the rock two hundred and twenty-seven feet. Let it be imagined that
at eight or ten feet below us it was paved with the sea, which came
rushing and foaming along it, and dashing up against the solid rock at
its termination; while the light thrown from the flickering billows
quivered in its arched roof above us, and the whole place was filled
with the solemn sound of the ocean; and if any one can imagine to
himself any situation more sublime, I should like to know what that is.
The roof is composed of the lower ends of basaltic columns, which have
yet been so cut away by nature as to give it the aspect of the roof of
some gigantic cathedral aisle; and lichens of gold and crimson have
gilded and colored it in the richest manner.
It was difficult to forget, as we stood there, that, if any one slipt,
he would disappear forever, for the billows in their ebb would sweep him
out to the open sea, as it were in a moment. Yet the excitement of the
whole group was too evident to rest with any seriousness on such a
thought. Some one suddenly fired a gun in the place, and the concussion
and reverberated thunders were astounding.
When the first effect was gone off, one general peal of laughter rung
through the cave, and then nearly the whole company began to sing "The
Sea! the sea!" The captain found it a difficult matter to get his
company out of this strange chantry--where they and the wind and waves
seemed all going mad together--to embark them again for Iona.
Venerable Iona--how different! and with what different feelings
approached! As we drew near, we saw a low bleak shore, backed by naked
hills, and at their feet a row of miserable Highland huts, and at
separate intervals the ruins of the monastery and church of Ronad, the
church of St. Oran and its burying-ground, and lastly, the cathedral....
Nothing is more striking, in this wild and neglected spot, than to walk
among these ruins, and behold amid the rank grass those tombs of ancient
kings, chiefs, and churchmen, with their sculpture of so singular and
yet superior a style. It is said that there were formerly three hundred
and sixty stone crosses in the Island of Iona, which since the
Reformation have been reduced to two, and the fragments of two others.
The Synod of Argyle is reported to have caused no less than sixty of
them to be thrown into the sea at one time, and fragments of others,
which were knocked in pieces, are to be seen here and there, some of
them now converted into gravestones.
They lie on the margin of the stormy Atlantic; they lie among walls
which, tho they may be loosened for years, seem as tho they never could
decay, for they are of the red granite of which the rocks and islets
around are composed, and defended only by low enclosures piled up of the
same granite, rounded into great pebbles by the washing of the sea. But
perhaps the most striking scene of all was our own company of voyagers
landing amid the huge masses of rock that scatter the strand; forming
into long procession, two and two, and advancing in that order from one
ruin to another.
We chanced to linger behind for a moment; and our eye caught this
procession of upward of seventy persons thus wandering on amid those
time-worn edifices--and here and there a solitary cross lifting its head
above them. It was a picture worthy of a great painter. It looked as tho
the day of pilgrimages was come back again, and that this was a troop of
devotees thronging to this holy shrine. The day of pilgrimages is,
indeed come back again; but they are the pilgrimages of knowledge and an
enlightened curiosity. The day of that science which the saints of Iona
were said to diffuse first in Britain has now risen to a splendid noon;
and not the least of its evidences is that, every few days through every
summer, a company like this descends on this barren strand to behold
what Johnson calls "that illustrious island which was once the luminary
of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians
derived the benefit of knowledge and the blessings of religion." A more
interesting or laudable excursion the power of steam and English money
can not well enable our countrymen to make.
VII
IRELAND
A SUMMER DAY IN DUBLIN [Footnote: From "The Irish Sketch Book."]
BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Our passage across from the Head [Holyhead] was made in a rain so
pouring and steady, that sea and coast were entirely hidden from us, and
one could see very little beyond the glowing tip of the cigar which
remained alight nobly in spite of the weather. When the gallant
exertions of that fiery spirit were over for ever, and, burning bravely
to the end, it had breathed its last in doing its master service, all
became black and cheerless around; the passengers had dropt off one by
one, preferring to be dry and ill below rather than wet and squeamish
above; even the mate, with his gold-laced cap (who is so astonishingly
like Mr. Charles Dickens, that he might pass for that gentleman)--even
the mate said he would go to his cabin and turn in. So there remained
nothing for it but to do as all the world had done....
A long pier, with a steamer or two at hand, and a few small vessels
lying on either side of the jetty; a town irregularly built, with
showy-looking hotels; a few people straggling on the beach; two or three
ears at the railroad station, which runs along the shore as far as
Dublin; the sea stretching interminably eastward; to the north the Hill
of Howth, lying gray behind the mist; and, directly under his feet, upon
the wet, black, shining, slippery deck, an agreeable reflection of his
own legs, disappearing seemingly in the direction of the cabin from
which he issues; are the sights which a traveler may remark on coming on
deck at Kingstown pier on a wet morning--let us say on an average
morning; for according to the statement of well-informed natives, the
Irish day is more often rainy than otherwise. A hideous obelisk, stuck
upon four fat balls, and surmounted with a crown on a cushion (the
latter were no bad emblems perhaps of the monarch in whose honor they
were raised), commemorates the sacred spot at which George IV. quitted
Ireland: you are landed here from the steamer; and a carman, who is
dawdling in the neighborhood, with a straw in his mouth, comes leisurely
up to ask whether you'll go to Dublin?
Is it natural indolence, or the effect of despair because of the
neighboring railroad, which renders him so indifferent? He does not even
take the straw out of his mouth as he proposes the question, and seems
quite careless as to the answer. He said he would take me to Dublin "in
three quarthers," as soon as we began a parley; as to the fare, he would
not hear of it--he said he would leave it to my honor; he would take me
for nothing. Was it possible to refuse such a genteel offer?
Before that day, so memorable for joy and sorrow, for rapture at
receiving its monarch and tearful grief at losing him, when George IV.
came and left the maritime resort of the citizens of Dublin, it bore a
less genteel name than that which it owns at present, and was called
Dunleary. After that glorious event Dunleary disdained to be Dunleary
any longer, and became Kingstown, henceforward and forever. Numerous
terraces and pleasure-houses have been built in the place--they stretch
row after row along the banks of the sea, and rise one above another on
the hill. The rents of these houses are said to be very high; the Dublin
citizens crowd into them in summer; and a great source of pleasure and
comfort must it be to them to have the fresh sea-breezes and prospects
so near to the metropolis.
The better sort of houses are handsome and spacious; but the fashionable
quarter is yet in an unfinished state, for enterprising architects are
always beginning new roads, rows and terraces; nor are those already
built by any means complete. [Footnote: This was written in 1842.]
Besides the aristocratic part of the town is a commercial one, and
nearer to Dublin stretch lines of low cottages which have not a
Kingstown look at all, but are evidently of the Dunleary period.... The
capabilities of the country, however, are very, very great, and in many
instances have been taken advantage of; for you see, besides the misery,
numerous handsome houses and parks along the road, having fine lawns and
woods, and the sea in our view, at a quarter of an hour's ride from
Dublin. It is the continual appearance of this sort of wealth which
makes the poverty more striking; and thus between the two (for there is
no vacant space of fields between Kingstown and Dublin) the car
reaches the city.
The entrance to the capital is very handsome. There is no bustle and
throng of carriages, as in London; but you pass by numerous rows of neat
houses, fronted with gardens, and adorned with all sorts of gay-looking
creepers. Pretty market-gardens, with trim beds of plants and shining
glass-houses, give the suburbs a riante and cheerful look; and, passing
under the arch of the railway, we are in the city itself. Hence you come
upon several old-fashioned, well-built, airy, stately streets, and
through Fitzwilliam Square, a noble place, the garden of which is full
of flowers and foliage. The leaves are green, and not black as in
similar places in London; the red-brick houses tall and handsome.
Presently the ear stops before an extremely big red house, in that
extremely large square, Stephen's Green, where Mr. O'Connell says there
is one day or other to be a Parliament. There is room enough for that,
or for any other edifice which fancy or patriotism may have a mind to
erect, for part of one of the sides of the square is not yet built, and
you see the fields and the country beyond....
The hotel to which I had been directed is a respectable old edifice,
much frequented by families from the country, and where the solitary
traveler may likewise find society. For he may either use the Shelburne
as a hotel or a boarding-house, in which latter case he is comfortably
accommodated at the very moderate daily charge. For this charge a
copious breakfast is provided for him in the coffee-room, a perpetual
luncheon is likewise there spread, a plentiful dinner is ready at six
o'clock; after which, there is a drawing-room and a rubber of whist,
with tay and coffee and cakes in plenty to satisfy the largest appetite.
The hotel is majestically conducted by clerks and other officers; the
landlord himself does not appear, after the honest comfortable English
fashion, but lives in a private mansion hard by, where his name may be
read inscribed on a brass-plate, like that of any other private
gentleman.
A woman melodiously crying "Dublin Bay herrings" passed just as we came
up to the door, and as that fish is famous throughout Europe, I seized
the earliest opportunity and ordered a broiled one for breakfast. It
merits all its reputation: and in this respect I should think the Bay of
Dublin is far superior to its rival of Naples. Are there any herrings in
Naples Bay? Dolphins there may be; and Mount Vesuvius, to be sure, is
bigger than even the Hill of Howth: but a dolphin is better in a sonnet
than at a breakfast, and what poet is there that, at certain periods of
the day, would hesitate in his choice between the two?
With this famous broiled herring the morning papers are served up; and a
great part of these, too, gives opportunity of reflection to the
newcomer, and shows him how different this country is from his own. Some
hundred years hence, when students want to inform themselves of the
history of the present day, and refer to files of "Times" and
"Chronicle" for the purpose, I think it is possible that they will
consult, not so much those luminous and philosophical leading articles
which call our attention at present both by the majesty of their
eloquence and the largeness of their type, but that they will turn to
those parts of the journals into which information is squeezed into the
smallest possible print, to the advertisements, namely, the law and
police reports, and to the instructive narratives supplied by that
ill-used body of men who transcribe knowledge at the rate of a penny
a line....
The papers being read, it became my duty to discover the town; and a
handsomer town, with fewer people in it, it is impossible to see on a
summer's day. In the whole wide square of Stephen's Green, I think there
were not more than two nursery-maids, to keep company with the statue of
George I., who rides on horseback in the middle of the garden, the horse
having his foot up to trot, as if he wanted to go out of town too. Small
troops of dirty children (too poor and dirty to have lodgings at
Kingstown) were squatting here and there upon the sunshiny steps, the
only clients at the thresholds of the professional gentlemen whose names
figure on brass-plates on the doors. A stand of lazy carmen, a policeman
or two with clinking boot-heels, a couple of moaning beggars leaning
against the rails and calling upon the Lord, and a fellow with a toy and
book stall, where the lives of St. Patrick, Robert Emmet, and Lord
Edward Fitzgerald may be bought for double their value, were all the
population of the Green.... In the courts of the College, scarce the
ghost of a gyp or the shadow of a bed-maker. In spite of the solitude,
the square of the College is a fine sight--a large ground, surrounded by
buildings of various ages and styles, but comfortable, handsome, and in
good repair; a modern row of rooms; a row that has been Elizabethan
once; a hall and senate-house, facing each other, of the style of George
I.; and a noble library, with a range of many windows, and a fine manly
simple façade of cut stone.