But if I were to quote all the poetry connected with the scenes among which I now stood-in truth, my letter might easily become a volume.

After we had fairly descended the hill, we found that much more time had passed than we had thought of-and with me, indeed, I know not that time ever passed more delightfully—so we made haste and returned at a high trot-the chiding echoes of the dinner-bell coming to us long ere we reached Abbotsford,

"Swinging slow with sullen roar."

The evening passed as charmingly as the preceding. The younger part of the company danced reels to the music of the bag-pipe, and I believe I would have been tempted to join them, but for some little twitches I had in my left foot. Indeed, I still fear the good cheer of the North is about to be paid for in the usual way; but Heaven send the reckoning may not be a long one. At all events, I am glad the fit did not overtake me in the country, for I should have been sorry to give my company to anybody but Mr Oman during the visitation.

P. M.

324

LETTER LIIÍ.

TO THE SAME.

ANOTHER morning was devoted to visiting, under the same best of all Cicerones, the two famous ruins of Melrose and Dryburgh, which I had seen from a distance, when on the top of the Eildon. The Abbey of Melrose has been so often the subject of the pencil of exquisite artists —and of late, above all, so much justice has been done to its beauties by Mr Blore, that I need not trouble you with any description of its general effect. The glorious Oriel Window, on which the moon is made to stream in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, is almost as familiar to you as if yourself had seen it-and so, indeed, must be the whole of the most striking outlines of this venerable pile. But there is one thing about it of which you can have no idea-at least, I had

none till I came to the spot-I mean the unrivalled richness and minuteness of all the decorations. Everywhere, without and within, the doors and windows are surrounded with specimens of sculpture, at once so delicately conceived, and so beautifully executed, that it would be quite ridiculous to compare them with any thing I ever saw, even in the most magnificent remains of Gothic architecture in England or Normandy. There is one cloister, in particular, along the whole length of which there runs a cornice of flowers and plants, entirely unrivalled, to my mind, by anything elsewhere extant-I do not say in Gothic architecture merely, but in any architecture whatever. Roses, and lilies, and thistles, and ferns, and heaths, in all their varieties, and oak-leaves and ash-leaves, and a thousand beautiful shapes besides, are chiselled with such inimitable truth, and such grace of nature, that the finest botanist in the world could not desire a better hortus siccus, so far as they go. The wildest productions of the forest, and the most delicate ones of the garden, are represented with equal fidelity and equal tasteand they are all arranged and combined in such a way, that it is evident they were placed there

under the eye of some most skilful admirer of all the beauties of external Nature. Nay, there is a human hand in another part, holding a garland loosely in the fingers, which, were it cut off, and placed among the Elgin Marbles, would, I am quite sure, be kissed by the cognoscenti as one of the finest of them all. Nothing can be more simply-more genuinely easy-more full of expression. It would shame the whole gallery of the Boisserées. And yet all this was the work of an age, which the long-headed Presbyterians round about are pleased to talk of in a tone of contempt, scarcely compatible even with pity. Alas! how easy it is to be satisfied with ourselves, when there is no capacity to understand the works of others.

"The ruin has been sadly disfigured in former times, by the patch-work repairs of some disciples of the Covenant, who fitted up part of the nave for a place of worship, long after the arches that supported the original roof had given way in that quarter. Such was the perfection of their barbarity, that they sprung new arches in the midst of this exquisite church, entirely devoid, not only of correspondence with that which they were meant to repair, but of conformity

with any of the most simple rules of the art rude clumsy circles, deforming with their sacrilegious intrusion, one of the most airy canopies of stone that was ever hung on high by the hand of human skill-memorable trophies of the triumph of self-complacent ignorance. Surely it was beneath the shadow of some such outrage as this, that the bones of John Knox would have found their most grateful repose! But the Presbyterians have now removed from the precincts of the old sanctuary; and the miserable little kirk they have erected at the distance of a few fields, does not disturb the impression of its awful beauty. The Abbey itself stands on the ground of the Duke of Buccleuch, who has enclosed it carefully, so that what yet remains is likely to remain long as beautiful as it is.

It must have been, in its perfect days, a building of prodigious extent-for even the church (of which only a part is standing) stretches over a larger space than that of Tintern-and there is no question, the accommodations of the lordly Abbot and his brethren must have been in a suitable style of magnificence. All about the walls and outskirts of the place, may yet be seen scattered knots of garden-flowers, springing up among the tall grass-and the old apple-trees