Mr. S. and C---- returned from their trip to Glasgow much delighted with
the prospects indicated by the results of the temperance meetings they
attended there.
They were present at the meeting of the Scottish Temperance League, in
an audience of about four thousand people. The reports were encouraging,
and the feeling enthusiastic. One hundred and eighty ministers are on
the list of the League, forming a nucleus of able, talented, and
determined operators. It is the intention to make a movement for a law
which shall secure to Scotland some of the benefits of the Maine law.
It appears to me that on the questions of temperance and antislavery,
the religious communities of the two countries are in a situation
mutually to benefit each other. Our church and ministry have been
through a long struggle and warfare on this temperance question, in
which a very valuable experience has been, elaborated. The religious
people of Great Britain, on the contrary, have led on to a successful
result a great antislavery experiment, wherein their experience and
success can be equally beneficial and encouraging to us.
The day after we returned from Melrose we spent in resting and riding
about, as we had two engagements in the evening--one at a party at the
house of Mr. Douglas, of Cavers, and the other at a public temperance
_soirée_. Mr. Douglas is the author of several works which have excited
attention; but perhaps you will remember him best by his treatise on the
Advancement of Society in Religion and Knowledge. He is what is called
here a "laird," a man of good family, a large landed proprietor, a
zealous reformer, and a very devout man.
We went early to spend a short time with the family. I was a little
surprised, as I entered the hall, to find myself in the midst of a large
circle of well-dressed men and women, who stood apparently waiting to
receive us, and who bowed, courtesied, and smiled as we came in. Mrs. D.
apologized to me afterwards, saying that these were the servants of the
family, that they were exceedingly anxious to see me, and so she had
allowed them all to come into the hall. They were so respectable in
their appearance, and so neatly dressed, that I might almost have
mistaken them for visitors.
We had a very pleasant hour or two with the family, which I enjoyed
exceedingly. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas were full of the most considerate
kindness, and some of the daughters had intimate acquaintances in
America. I enjoy these little glimpses into family circles more than any
thing else; there is no warmth like fireside warmth.
In the evening the rooms were filled. I should think all the clergymen
of Edinburgh must have been there, for I was introduced to ministers
without number. The Scotch have a good many little ways that are like
ours; they call their clergy ministers, as we do. There were many
persons from ancient families, distinguished in Scottish history both
for rank and piety; among others, Lady Carstairs, Sir Henry Moncrief and
lady. There was also the Countess of Gainsborough, one of the ladies of
the queen's household, a very beautiful woman with charming manners,
reminding one of the line of Pope--
"Graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride."
I was introduced to Dr. John Brown, who is reckoned one of the best
exegetial scholars in Europe. He is small of stature, sprightly, and
pleasant in manners, but with a high bald forehead and snow-white hair.
There were also many members of the faculty of the university. I talked
a little with Dr. Guthrie, whom I described in a former letter. I told
him that one thing which had been an agreeable disappointment to me was,
the apparent cordiality between the members of the Free and the National
church. He seemed to think that the wounds of the old conflict were, to
a great extent, healed. He spoke in high terms of the Duchess of
Sutherland, her affability, kindness, and considerateness to the poor. I
forget from whom I received the anecdote, but somebody told me this of
her--that, one of her servants having lost a relative, she had left a
party where she was engaged, and gone in the plainest attire and
quietest way to attend the funeral. It was remarked upon as showing her
considerateness for the feelings of those in inferior positions.
About nine o'clock we left to go to the temperance _soirée_. It was in
the same place, and conducted in the same way, with the others which I
have described. The lord provost presided, and one or two of the working
men who spoke in the former _soirée_ made speeches, and very good ones
too. The meeting was greatly enlivened by the presence and speech of the
jovial Lord Conynghame, who amused us all by the gallant manner in which
he expressed the warmth of Scottish welcome towards "our American
guests." If it had been in the old times of Scottish hospitality, he
said, he should have proposed a _bumper_ three times three; but as that
could not be done in a temperance meeting, he proposed three cheers, in
which he led off with a hearty good will.
All that the Scotch people need now for the prosperity of their country
is the temperance reformation; and undoubtedly they will have it. They
have good sense and strength of mind enough to work out whatever they
choose.
We went home tired enough.
The next day we had a few calls to make, and an invitation from Lady
Drummond to visit "classic Hawthornden." Accordingly, in the forenoon,
Mr. S. and I called first on Lord and Lady Gainsborough; though, she is
one of the queen's household, she is staying here at Edinburgh, and the
queen at Osborne. I infer therefore that the appointment includes no
very onerous duties. The Earl of Gainsborough is the eldest brother of
Rev. Baptist W. Noel.
Lady Gainsborough is the daughter of the Earl of Roden, who is an Irish
lord of the very strictest Calvinistic persuasion: He is a devout man,
and for many years, we were told, maintained a Calvinistic church of the
English establishment in Paris. While Mr. S. talked with Lord
Gainsborough, I talked with his lady, and Lady Roden, who was present.
Lady Gainsborough inquired about our schools for the poor, and how they
were conducted. I reflected a moment, and then answered that we had no
schools for the poor as such, but the common school was open alike to
all classes.[K]
In England and Scotland, in all classes, from the queen downward, no
movements are so popular as those for the education and elevation of the
poor; one is seldom in company without hearing the conversation turn
upon them.
The conversation generally turned upon the condition of servants in
America. I said that one of the principal difficulties in American
housekeeping proceeded from the fact that there were so many other
openings of profit that very few were found willing to assume the
position of the servant, except as a temporary expedient; in fact, that
the whole idea of service was radically different, it being a mere
temporary contract to render certain services, not differing essentially
from the contract of the mechanic or tradesman. The ladies said they
thought there could be no family feeling among servants if that was the
case; and I replied that, generally speaking, there was none; that old
and attached family servants in the free states were rare exceptions.
This, I know, must look, to persons in old countries, like a hard and
discouraging feature of democracy. I regard it, however, as only a
temporary difficulty. Many institutions among us are in a transition
state. Gradually the whole subject of the relations of labor and the
industrial callings will assume a new form in America, and though we
shall never be able to command the kind of service secured in
aristocratic countries, yet we shall have that which will be as faithful
and efficient. If domestic service can be made as pleasant, profitable,
and respectable as any of the industrial callings, it will soon become
as permanent.
Our next visit was to Sir William Hamilton and lady. Sir William is the
able successor of Dugald Stewart and Dr. Brown in the chair of
intellectual philosophy. His writings have had a wide circulation in
America. He is a man of noble presence, though we were sorry to see that
he was suffering from ill health. It seems to me that Scotland bears
that relation to England, with regard to metaphysical inquiry, that New
England does to the rest of the United States. If one counts over the
names of distinguished metaphysicians, the Scotch, as compared with the
English, number three to one--Reid, Stewart, Brown, all Scotchmen.
Sir William still writes and lectures. He and Mr. S. were soon
discoursing on German, English, Scotch, and American metaphysics, while
I was talking with Lady Hamilton and her daughters. After we came away
Mr. S. said, that no man living had so thoroughly understood and
analyzed the German philosophy. He said that Sir William spoke of a call
which he had received from Professor Park, of Andover, and expressed
himself in high terms of his metaphysical powers.
After that we went to call on George Combe, the physiologist. We found
him and Mrs. Combe in a pleasant, sunny parlor, where, among other
objects of artistic interest, we saw a very fine engraving of Mrs.
Siddons. I was not aware until after leaving that Mrs. Combe is her
daughter. Mr. Combe, though somewhat advanced, seems full of life and
animation, and conversed with a great deal of warmth and interest on
America, where he made a tour some years since. Like other men in Europe
who sympathize in our progress, he was sanguine in the hope that the
downfall of slavery must come at no distant date.
After a pleasant chat here we came home; and after an interval of rest
the carriage was at the door for Hawthornden. It is about seven miles
out from Edinburgh. It is a most romantic spot, on the banks of the
River Esk, now the seat of Mr. James Walker Drummond. Scott has sung in
the ballad of the Gray Brother,--
Sweet are the paths, O, passing sweet,
By Esk's fair streams that run,
O'er airy steep, through copse-woods 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?
"Melville's beechy grove" is an allusion to the grounds of Lord
Melville, through which we drove on our way. The beech trees here are
magnificent; fully equal to any trees of the sort which I have seen in
our American forests, and they were in full leaf. They do not grow so
high, but have more breadth and a wider sweep of branches; on the whole
they are well worthy of a place in song.
I know in my childhood I often used to wish that I could live in a
ruined castle; and this Hawthornden would be the very beau ideal of one
as a romantic dwelling-place. It is an old castellated house, perched on
the airy verge of a precipice, directly over the beautiful River Esk,
looking down one of the most romantic glens in Scotland. Part of it is
in ruins, and, hung with wreaths of ivy, it seems to stand just to look
picturesque. The house itself, with its quaint, high gables, and gray,
antique walls, appears old enough to take you back to the times of
William Wallace. It is situated within an hour's walk of Roslin Castle
and Chapel, one of the most beautiful and poetic architectural remains
in Scotland.
Our drive to the place was charming. It was a showery day; but every few
moments the sun blinked out, smiling through the falling rain, and
making the wet leaves glitter, and the raindrops wink at each other in
the most sociable manner possible. Arrived at the house, our friend,
Miss S----, took us into a beautiful parlor overhanging the glen, each
window of which commanded a picture better than was ever made on
canvas.
We had a little chat with Lady Drummond, and then we went down to
examine the caverns,--for there are caverns under the house, with long
galleries and passages running from them through the rocks, some way
down the river. Several apartments are hollowed out here in the rock on
which the house is founded, which they told us belonged to Bruce; the
tradition being, that he was hidden here for some months. There was his
bed room, dining room, sitting room, and a very curious apartment where
the walls were all honeycombed into little partitions, which they called
his library, these little partitions being his book shelves. There are
small loophole windows in these apartments, where you can look up and
down the glen, and enjoy a magnificent prospect. For my part, I thought
if I were Bruce, sitting there with a book in my lap, listening to the
gentle brawl of the Esk, looking up and down the glen, watching the
shaking raindrops on the oaks, the birches and beeches, I should have
thought that was better than fighting, and that my pleasant little cave
was as good an arbor on the Hill Difficulty as ever mortal man enjoyed.
There is a ponderous old two-handed sword kept here, said to have
belonged to Sir William Wallace. It is considerably shorter than it was
originally, but, resting on its point, it reached to the chin of a good
six foot gentleman of our party. The handle is made of the horn of a
sea-horse, (if you know what that is,) and has a heavy iron ball at the
end. It must altogether have weighed some ten or twelve pounds. Think of
a man hewing away _on men_ with this!
There is a well in this cavern, down which we were directed to look and
observe a hole in the side; this we were told was the entrance to
another set of caverns and chambers under those in which we were, and
to passages which extended down and opened out into the valley. In the
olden days the approach to these caverns was not through the house, but
through the side of a deep well sunk in the court yard, which
communicates through a subterranean passage with this well. Those
seeking entrance were let down by a windlass into the well in the court
yard, and drawn up by a windlass into this cavern. There was no such
accommodation at present, but we were told some enterprising tourists
had explored the lower caverns. Pleasant kind of times those old days
must have been, when houses had to be built like a rabbit burrow, with
all these accommodations for concealment and escape.
After exploring the caverns we came up into the parlors again, and Miss
S. showed me a Scottish album, in which were all sorts of sketches,
memorials, autographs, and other such matters. What interested me more,
she was making a collection of Scottish ballads, words and tunes. I told
her that I had noticed, since I had been in Scotland, that the young
ladies seemed to take very little interest in the national Scotch airs,
and were all devoted to Italian; moreover, that the Scotch ballads and
memories, which so interested me, seemed to have very little interest
for people generally in Scotland. Miss S. was warm enough in her zeal to
make up a considerable account, and so we got on well together.
While we were sitting, chatting, two young ladies came in, who had
walked up the glen despite the showery day. They were protected by good,
substantial outer garments, of a kind of shag or plush, and so did not
fear the rain. I wanted to walk down to Roslin Castle, but the party
told me there would not be time this afternoon, as we should have to
return at a certain hour. I should not have been reconciled to this, had
not another excursion been proposed for the purpose of exploring
Roslin.
However, I determined to go a little way down the glen, and get a
distant view of it, and my fair friends, the young ladies, offered to
accompany me; so off we started down the winding paths, which were cut
among the banks overhanging the Esk. The ground was starred over with
patches of pale-yellow primroses, and for the first time I saw the
heather, spreading over rocks and matting itself around the roots of
trees. My companions, to whom it was the commonest thing in the world,
could hardly appreciate the delight which I felt in looking at it; it
was not in flower; I believe it does not blossom till some time in July
or August. We have often seen it in greenhouses, and it is so hardy that
it is singular it will not grow wild in America.
We walked, ran, and scrambled to an eminence which commanded a view of
Roslin Chapel, the only view, I fear, which will ever gladden my eyes,
for the promised expedition to it dissolved itself into mist. When on
the hill top, so that I could see the chapel at a distance, I stood
thinking over the ballad of Harold, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and
the fate of the lovely Rosabel, and saying over to myself the last
verses of the ballad:--
"O'er Roslin, all that dreary night,
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;
'Twas broader than the watchfire's light,
And redder than the bright moonbeam.
It glared on Roslin's castled rock,
It ruddied, all the copsewood glen;
'Twas seen from Deyden's groves of oak,
And seen from cavern'd 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 will 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!
And each St. Clair was buried there,
With candle, with book, and with knell;
But the sea caves rung, and the wild winds sung,
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle."
There are many allusions in this which show Scott's minute habits of
observation; for instance, these two lines:--
"Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair."
Every buttress, battlement, and projection of the exterior is incrusted
with the most elaborate floral and leafy carving, among which the rose
is often repeated, from its suggesting, by similarity of sound, Roslin.