The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and scarce could the charms of
the social Scotch breakfast restore me. I say Scotch, for we had many
viands peculiarly national. The smoking porridge, or parritch, of
oatmeal, which is the great staple dish throughout Scotland. Then there
was the bannock, a thin, wafer-like cake of the same material. My friend
laughingly said when he passed it, "You are in the 'land o' cakes,'
remember." There was also some herring, as nice a Scottish fish as ever
wore scales, besides dainties innumerable which were not national.
Our friend and host was Mr. Baillie Paton. I believe that it is to his
suggestion in a public meeting, that we owe the invitation which brought
us to Scotland.
By the by, I should say that "baillie" seems to correspond to what we
call a member of the city council. Mr. Paton told us, that they had
expected us earlier, and that the day before quite a party of friends
met at his house to see us, among whom was good old Dr. Wardlaw.
After breakfast the calling began. First, a friend of the family, with
three beautiful children, the youngest of whom was the bearer of a
handsomely bound album, containing a pressed collection of the sea
mosses of the Scottish coast, very vivid and beautiful.
If the bloom of English children appeared to me wonderful, I seemed to
find the same thing intensified, if possible, in Scotland. The children
are brilliant as pomegranate blossoms, and their vivid beauty called
forth unceasing admiration. Nor is it merely the children of the rich,
or of the higher classes, that are thus gifted. I have seen many a group
of ragged urchins in the streets and closes with all the high coloring
of Rubens, and all his fulness of outline. Why is it that we admire
ragged children on canvas so much more than the same in nature?
All this day is a confused dream to me of a dizzy and overwhelming kind.
So many letters that it took C---- from nine in the morning till two in
the afternoon to read and answer them in the shortest manner; letters
from all classes of people, high and low, rich and poor, in all shades
and styles of composition, poetry and prose; some mere outbursts of
feeling; some invitations; some advice and suggestions; some requests
and inquiries; some presenting books, or flowers, or fruit.
Then came, in their turn, deputations from Paisley, Greenock, Dundee,
Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Belfast in Ireland; calls of friendship,
invitations of all descriptions to go every where, and to see every
thing, and to stay in so many places. One kind, venerable minister, with
his lovely daughter, offered me a retreat in his quiet manse on the
beautiful shores of the Clyde.
For all these kindnesses, what could I give in return? There was scarce
time for even a grateful thought on each. People have often said to me
that it must have been an exceeding bore. For my part, I could not think
of regarding it so. It only oppressed me with an unutterable sadness.
To me there is always something interesting and beautiful about a
universal popular excitement of a generous character, let the object of
it be what it may. The great desiring heart of man, surging with one
strong, sympathetic swell, even though it be to break on the beach of
life and fall backwards, leaving the sands as barren as before, has yet
a meaning and a power in its restlessness, with which I must deeply
sympathize. Nor do I sympathize any the less, when the individual, who
calls forth such an outburst, can be seen by the eye of sober sense to
be altogether inadequate and disproportioned to it.
I do not regard it as any thing against our American nation, that we are
capable, to a very great extent, of these sudden personal enthusiasms,
because I think that, with an individual or a community, the capability
of being exalted into a temporary enthusiasm of self-forgetfulness, so
far from being a fault, has in it a quality of something divine.
Of course, about all such things there is a great deal which a cool
critic could make ridiculous, but I hold to my opinion of them
nevertheless.
In the afternoon I rode out with the lord provost to see the cathedral.
The lord provost answers to the lord mayor in England. His title and
office in both countries continue only a year, except in cases of
reëlection.
As I saw the way to the cathedral blocked up by a throng of people, who
had come out to see me, I could not help saying, "What went ye out for
to see? a reed shaken with the wind?" In fact, I was so worn out, that I
could hardly walk through the building.
It is in this cathedral that part of the scene of Rob Roy is laid. This
was my first experience in cathedrals. It was a new thing to me
altogether, and as I walked along under the old buttresses and
battlements without, and looked into the bewildering labyrinths of
architecture within, I saw that, with silence and solitude to help the
impression, the old building might become a strong part of one's inner
life. A grave yard crowded with flat stones lies all around it. A deep
ravine separates it from another cemetery on an opposite eminence,
rustling with dark pines. A little brook murmurs with its slender voice
between.
On this opposite eminence the statue of John Knox, grim and strong,
stands with its arm uplifted, as if shaking his fist at the old
cathedral which in life he vainly endeavored to battle down.
Knox was very different from Luther, in that he had no conservative
element in him, but warred equally against accessories and essentials.
At the time when the churches of Scotland were being pulled down in a
general iconoclastic crusade, the tradesmen of Glasgow stood for the
defence of their cathedral, and forced the reformers to content
themselves with having the idolatrous images of saints pulled down from
their niches and thrown into the brook, while, as Andrew Fairservice
hath it, "The auld kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the fleas are
caimed aff her, and a' body was alike pleased."
We went all through the cathedral, which is fitted up as a Protestant
place of worship, and has a simple and massive grandeur about it. In
fact, to quote again from our friend Andrew, we could truly say, "Ah,
it's a brave kirk, nane o' yere whig-malceries, and curliewurlies, and
opensteek hems about it--a' solid, weel-jointed mason wark, that will
stand as lang as the warld, keep hands and gun-powther aff it."
I was disappointed in one thing: the painted glass, if there has ever
been any, is almost all gone, and the glare of light through the immense
windows is altogether too great, revealing many defects and rudenesses
in the architecture, which would have quite another appearance in the
colored rays through painted windows--an emblem, perhaps, of the cold,
definite, intellectual rationalism, which has taken the place of the
many-colored, gorgeous mysticism of former times.
After having been over the church, we requested, out of respect to
Baillie Nicol Jarvie's memory, to be driven through the Saut Market. I,
however, was so thoroughly tired that I cannot remember any thing about
it.
I will say, by the way, that I have found out since, that nothing is so
utterly hazardous to a person's strength as looking at cathedrals. The
strain upon the head and eyes in looking up through these immense
arches, and then the sepulchral chill which abides from generation to
generation in them, their great extent, and the variety which tempts you
to fatigue which you are not at all aware of, have overcome, as I was
told, many before me.
Mr. S. and C----, however, made amends, by their great activity and
zeal, for all that I could not do, and I was pleased to understand from
them, that part of the old Tolbooth, where Rob Roy and the baillie had
their rencontre, was standing safe and sound, with stuff enough in it
for half a dozen more stories, if any body could be found to write them.
And Mr. S. insisted upon it, that I should not omit to notify you of
this circumstance.
Well, in consequence of all this, the next morning I was so ill as to
need a physician, unable to see any one that called, or to hear any of
the letters. I passed most of the day in bed, but in the evening I had
to get up, as I had engaged to drink tea with two thousand people. Our
kind friends Dr. and Mrs. Wardlaw came after us, and Mr. S. and I went
in the carriage with them.
Dr. Wardlaw is a venerable-looking old man; we both thought we saw a
striking resemblance in him to our friend Dr. Woods, of Andover. He is
still quite active in body and mind, and officiates to his congregation
with great acceptance. I fear, however, that he is in ill health, for I
noticed, as we were passing along to church, that he frequently laid his
hand upon his heart, and seemed in pain. He said he hoped he should be
able to get through the evening, but that when he was not well,
excitement was apt to bring on a spasm about the heart; but with it all
he seemed so cheerful, lively, and benignant, that I could not but feel
my affections drawn towards him. Mrs. Wardlaw is a gentle, motherly
woman, and it was a great comfort to have her with me on such an
occasion.
Our carriage stopped at last at the place. I have a dim remembrance of a
way being made for us through a great crowd all round the house, and of
going with Mrs. Wardlaw up into a dressing room, where I met and shook
hands with many friendly people. Then we passed into a gallery, where a
seat was reserved for our party, directly in front of the audience. Our
friend Baillie Paton presided. Mrs. Wardlaw and I sat together, and
around us many friends, chiefly ministers of the different churches, the
ladies and gentlemen of the Glasgow Antislavery Society, and others.
I told you it was a tea party; but the arrangements were altogether
different from any I had ever seen. There were narrow tables stretched
up and down the whole extent of the great hall, and every person had an
appointed seat. These tables were set out with cups and saucers, cakes,
biscuit, &c., and when the proper time came, attendants passed along
serving tea. The arrangements were so accurate and methodical that the
whole multitude actually took tea together, without the least apparent
inconvenience or disturbance.
There was a gentle, subdued murmur of conversation all over the house,
the sociable clinking of teacups and teaspoons, while the entertainment
was going on. It seemed to me such an odd idea, I could not help
wondering what sort of a teapot that must be, in which all this tea for
two thousand people was made. Truly, as Hadji Baba says, I think they
must have had the "father of all teakettles" to boil it in. I could not
help wondering if old mother Scotland had put two thousand teaspoonfuls
of tea for the company, and one for the teapot, as is our good Yankee
custom.
We had quite a sociable time up in our gallery. Our tea table stretched
quite across the gallery, and we drank tea "in sight of all the people."
By _we_, I mean a great number of ministers and their wives, and ladies
of the Antislavery Society, besides our party, and the friends whom I
have mentioned before. All seemed to be enjoying themselves.
After tea they sang a few verses of the seventy-second psalm in the old
Scotch version.
"The people's poor ones he shall judge,
The needy's children save;
And those shall he in pieces break,
Who them oppressed have.
For he the needy shall preserve,
When he to him doth call;
The poor, also, and him that hath
No help of man at all.
Both from deceit and violence
Their soul he shall set free;
And in his sight right precious
And dear their blood shall be.
Now blessed be the Lord, our God,
The God of Israel,
For he alone doth wondrous works,
In glory that excel.
And blessed be his glorious name
To all eternity;
The whole earth let his glory fill:
Amen; so let it be."
When I heard the united sound of all the voices, giving force to these
simple and pathetic words, I thought I could see something of the reason
why that rude old translation still holds its place in Scotland.
The addresses were, many of them, very beautiful; the more so for the
earnest and religious feeling which they manifested. That of Dr.
Wardlaw, in particular, was full of comfort and encouragement, and
breathed a most candid and catholic spirit. Could our friends in America
see with what earnest warmth the religious heart of Scotland beats
towards them, they would be willing to suffer a word of admonition from
those to whom love gives a right to speak. As Christians, all have a
common interest in what honors or dishonors Christianity, and an ocean
between us does not make us less one church.
Most of the speeches you will see recorded in the papers. In the course
of the evening there was a second service of grapes, oranges, and other
fruits, served round in the same quiet manner as the tea. On account of
the feeble state of my health, they kindly excused me before the
exercises of the evening were over.
The next morning, at ten o'clock, we rode with a party of friends to see
some of the _notabilia_. First, to Bothwell Castle, of old the residence
of the Black Douglas. The name had for me the quality of enchantment. I
cannot understand nor explain the nature of that sad yearning and
longing with which one visits the mouldering remains of a state of
society which one's reason wholly disapproves, and which one's calm
sense of right would think it the greatest misfortune to have recalled;
yet when the carriage turned under the shadow of beautiful ancient oaks,
and Mr. S. said, "There, we are in the grounds of the old Black Douglas
family!" I felt every nerve shiver. I remembered the dim melodies of
the Lady of the Lake. Bothwell's lord was the lord of this castle, whose
beautiful ruins here adorn the banks of the Clyde.
Whatever else we have or may have in America, we shall never have the
wild, poetic beauty of these ruins. The present noble possessors are
fully aware of their worth as objects of taste, and, therefore, with the
greatest care are they preserved. Winding walks are cut through the
grounds with much ingenuity, and seats or arbors are placed at every
desirable and picturesque point of view.
To the thorough-paced tourist, who wants to _do_ the proprieties in the
shortest possible time, this arrangement is undoubtedly particularly
satisfactory; but to the idealist, who would like to roam, and dream,
and feel, and to come unexpectedly on the choicest points of view, it is
rather a damper to have all his raptures prearranged and foreordained
for him, set down in the guide book and proclaimed by the guide, even
though it should be done with the most artistic accuracy.
Nevertheless, when we came to the arbor which commanded the finest view
of the old castle, and saw its gray, ivy-clad walls, standing forth on a
beautiful point, round which swept the brown, dimpling waves of the
Clyde, the indescribable sweetness, sadness, wildness of the whole scene
would make its voice heard in our hearts. "Thy servants take pleasure in
her dust, and favor the stones thereof," said an old Hebrew poet, who
must have felt the inexpressibly sad beauty of a ruin. All the splendid
phantasmagoria of chivalry and feudalism, knights, ladies, banners,
glittering arms, sweep before us; the cry of the battle, the noise of
the captains, and the shouting; and then in contrast this deep
stillness, that green, clinging ivy, the gentle, rippling river, those
weeping birches, dipping in its soft waters--all these, in their quiet
loveliness, speak of something more imperishable than brute force.
The ivy on the walls now displays a trunk in some places as large as a
man's body. In the days of old Archibald the Grim, I suppose that ivy
was a little, weak twig, which, if he ever noticed, he must have thought
the feeblest and slightest of all things; yet Archibald has gone back to
dust, and the ivy is still growing on. Such force is there in gentle
things.
I have often been dissatisfied with the admiration, which a poetic
education has woven into my nature, for chivalry and feudalism; but, on
a closer examination, I am convinced that there is a real and proper
foundation for it, and that, rightly understood, this poetic admiration
is not inconsistent with the spirit of Christ.
For, let us consider what it is we admire in these Douglases, for
instance, who, as represented by Scott, are perhaps as good exponents of
the idea as any. Was it their hardness, their cruelty, their hastiness
to take offence, their fondness for blood and murder? All these, by and
of themselves, are simply disgusting. What, then, do we admire? Their
courage, their fortitude, their scorn of lying and dissimulation, their
high sense of personal honor, which led them to feel themselves the
protectors of the weak, and to disdain to take advantage of unequal odds
against an enemy. If we read the book of Isaiah, we shall see that some
of the most striking representations of God appeal to the very same
principles of our nature.
The fact is, there can be no reliable character which has not its basis
in these strong qualities. The beautiful must ever rest in the arms of
the sublime. The gentle needs the strong to sustain it, as much as the
rock flowers need rocks to grow on, or yonder ivy the rugged wall which
it embraces. When we are admiring these things, therefore, we are only
admiring some sparkles and glimmers of that which is divine, and so
coming nearer to Him in whom all fulness dwells.
After admiring at a distance, we strolled through the ruins themselves.
Do you remember, in the Lady of the Lake, where the exiled Douglas,
recalling to his daughter the images of his former splendor, says,--
"When Blantyre hymned, her holiest lays,
And Bothwell's walls flung back the praise"?
These lines came forcibly to my mind, when I saw the mouldering ruins of
Blantyre priory rising exactly opposite to the castle, on the other side
of the Clyde.
The banks of the River Clyde, where we walked, were thick set with
Portuguese laurel, which I have before mentioned as similar to our
rhododendron. I here noticed a fact with regard to the ivy which had
often puzzled me; and that is, the different shapes of its leaves in the
different stages of its growth. The young ivy has this leaf; but when it
has become more than a century old every trace and indentation melts
away, and it assumes this form, which I found afterwards to be the
invariable shape of all the oldest ivy, in all the ruins of Europe which
I explored.
This ivy, like the spider, takes hold with her hands in kings' palaces,
as every twig is furnished with innumerable little clinging fingers, by
which it draws itself close, as it were, to the very heart of the old
rough stone.
Its clinging and beautiful tenacity has given rise to an abundance of
conceits about fidelity, friendship, and woman's love, which have become
commonplace simply from their appropriateness. It might, also, symbolize
that higher love, unconquerable and unconquered, which has embraced this
ruined world from age to age, silently spreading its green over the
rents and fissures of our fallen nature, giving "beauty for ashes, and
garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness."
There is a modern mansion, where the present proprietor of the estate
lives. It was with an emotion partaking of the sorrowful, that we heard
that the Douglas line, as such, was extinct, and that the estate had
passed to distant connections. I was told that the present Lord Douglas
is a peaceful clergyman, quite a different character from old Archibald
the Grim.
The present residence is a plain mansion, standing on a beautiful lawn,
near the old castle. The head gardener of the estate and many of the
servants came out to meet us, with faces full of interest. The gardener
walked about to show us the localities, and had a great deal of the
quiet intelligence and self-respect which, I think, is characteristic of
the laboring classes here. I noticed that on the green sweep of the
lawn, he had set out here and there a good many daisies, as
embellishments to the grass, and these in many places were defended by
sticks bent over them, and that, in one place, a bank overhanging the
stream was radiant with yellow daffodils, which appeared to have come up
and blossomed there accidentally. I know not whether these were planted
there, or came up of themselves.
We next went to the famous Bothwell bridge, which Scott has immortalized
in Old Mortality. We walked up and down, trying to recall the scenes of
the battle, as there described, and were rather mortified, after we had
all our associations comfortably located upon it, to be told that it was
not the same bridge--it had been newly built, widened, and otherwise
made more comfortable and convenient.
Of course, this was evidently for the benefit of society, but it was
certainly one of those cases where the poetical suffers for the
practical. I comforted myself in my despondency, by looking over at the
old stone piers underneath, which were indisputably the same. We drove
now through beautiful grounds, and alighted at an elegant mansion, which
in former days belonged to Lockhart, the son-in-law of Scott. It was in
this house that Old Mortality was written.
As I was weary, the party left me here, while they went on to see the
Duke of Hamilton's grounds. Our kind hostess showed me into a small
study, where she said Old Mortality was written. The window commanded a
beautiful view of many of the localities described. Scott was as
particular to consult for accuracy in his local descriptions as if he
had been writing a guide book.
He was in the habit of noting down in his memorandum book even names and
characteristics of the wild flowers and grasses that grew about a place.
When a friend once remarked to him, that he should have supposed his
imagination could have supplied such trifles, he made an answer that is
worth remembering by every artist--that no imagination could long
support its freshness, that was not nourished by a constant and minute
observation of nature.
Craignethan Castle, which is the original of Tillietudlem, we were
informed, was not far from thence. It is stated in Lockhart's Life of
Scott, that the ruins of this castle excited in Scott such delight and
enthusiasm, that its owner urged him to accept for his lifetime the use
of a small habitable house, enclosed within the circuit of the walls.
After the return of the party from Hamilton Park, we sat down to an
elegant lunch, where my eye was attracted more than any thing else, by
the splendor of the hothouse flowers which adorned the table. So far as
I have observed, the culture of flowers, both in England and Scotland,
is more universally an object of attention than with us. Every family in
easy circumstances seems, as a matter of course, to have their
greenhouse, and the flowers are brought to a degree of perfection which
I have never seen at home.
I may as well say here, that we were told by a gentleman, whose name I
do not now remember, that this whole district had been celebrated for
its orchards; he added, however, that since the introduction of the
American apple into the market, its superior excellence had made many of
these orchards almost entirely worthless. It is a curious fact, showing
how the new world is working on the old.
After taking leave of our hospitable friends, we took to our carriages
again. As we were driving slowly through the beautiful grounds,
admiring, as we never failed to do, their perfect cultivation, a party
of servants appeared in sight, waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and
cheering us as we passed. These kindly expressions from them were as
pleasant as any we received.
In the evening we had engaged to attend another _soirée_, gotten up by
the working classes, to give admission to many who were not in
circumstances to purchase tickets for the other. This was to me, if any
thing, a more interesting _réunion_, because this was just the class
whom I wished to meet. The arrangements of the entertainment were like
those of the evening before.
As I sat in the front gallery and looked over the audience with an
intense interest, I thought they appeared on the whole very much like
what I might have seen at home in a similar gathering. Men, women, and
children were dressed in a style which showed both self-respect and good
taste, and the speeches were far above mediocrity. One pale young man, a
watchmaker, as I was told afterwards, delivered an address, which,
though doubtless it had the promising fault of too much elaboration and
ornament, yet I thought had passages which would do honor to any
literary periodical whatever.
There were other orators less highly finished, who yet spoke "right on,"
in a strong, forcible, and really eloquent way, giving the grain of the
wood without the varnish. They contended very seriously and sensibly,
that although the working men of England and Scotland had many things to
complain of, and many things to be reformed, yet their condition was
world-wide different from that of the slave.
One cannot read the history of the working classes in England, for the
last fifty years, without feeling sensibly the difference between
oppressions under a free government and slavery. So long as the working
class of England produces orators and writers, such as it undoubtedly
has produced; so long as it has in it that spirit of independence and
resistance of wrong, which has shown itself more and more during the
agitations of the last fifty years; and so as long as the law allows
them to meet and debate, to form associations and committees, to send up
remonstrances and petitions to government,--one can see that their case
is essentially different from that of plantation slaves.
I must say, I was struck this night with the resemblance between the
Scotchman and the New Englander. One sees the distinctive nationality of
a country more in the middle and laboring classes than in the higher,
and accordingly at this meeting there was more nationality, I thought,
than at the other.
The highest class of mind in all countries loses nationality, and
becomes universal; it is a great pity, too, because nationality is
picturesque always. One of the greatest miracles to my mind about
Kossuth was, that with so universal an education, and such an extensive
range of language and thought, he was yet so distinctively a Magyar.
One thing has surprised and rather disappointed us. Our enthusiasm for
Walter Scott does not apparently meet a response in the popular breast.
Allusions to Bannockburn and Drumclog bring down the house, but
enthusiasm for Scott was met with comparative silence. We discussed this
matter among ourselves, and rather wondered at it.
The fact is, Scott belonged to a past, and not to the coming age. He
beautified and adorned that which is waxing old and passing away. He
loved and worshipped in his very soul institutions which the majority of
the common people have felt as a restraint and a burden. One might
naturally get a very different idea of a feudal castle by starving to
death in the dungeon of it, than by writing sonnets on it at a
picturesque distance. Now, we in America are so far removed from
feudalism,--it has been a thing so much of mere song and story with us,
and our sympathies are so unchecked by any experience of inconvenience
or injustice in its consequences,--that we are at full liberty to
appreciate the picturesque of it, and sometimes, when we stand
overlooking our own beautiful scenery, to wish that we could see,
"On yon bold brow, a lordly tower;
In that soft vale, a lady's bower;
In yonder meadow, far away,
The turrets of a cloister gray;"
when those who know by experience all the accompaniments of these
ornaments, would have quite another impression.
Nevertheless, since there are two worlds in man, the real and the ideal,
and both have indisputably a right to be, since God made the faculties
of both, we must feel that it is a benefaction to mankind, that Scott
was thus raised up as the link, in the ideal world, between the present
and the past. It is a loss to universal humanity to have the imprint of
any phase of human life and experience entirely blotted out. Scott's
fictions are like this beautiful ivy, with which all the ruins here are
overgrown,--they not only adorn, but, in many cases, they actually hold
together, and prevent the crumbling mass from falling into ruins.
To-morrow we are going to have a sail on the Clyde.