The lands of Scott

Preface

w OME reason should, at least, be alleged for preparing another book about travel in Europe ; and to show a reason for this one the writer may be pardoned the rather simple statement that he has, as a reader or traveller, found assistance or interest in records made by persons who have visited places he has endeavored to know by sight or by description ; and that he has ventured to think he may, similarly, be of some service to others, by collecting scattered items of information that have enabled him to explore certain Old-World places where he has spent many pleasant days, and by adding to these items some account of what he has thus found.

These places are united by associations in which the writer, during earlier life, became strongly interested. Like thousands of persons, he then read, enjoyed, and admired the compositions of Walter Scott ; and, like some such readers, he desired to see the objects and places with which those compositions are identified, or that once knew or influenced or inspired that great author. The writer has since been able to see, possibly, more of them than are usually seen by travellers. At various times he has visited — disconnectedly indeed — nearly all the objects and places that he proposes to describe. In order, however, to arrange

VI PREFACE.

and complete a plan for a single tour through a large and somewhat ideal division of earth containing them, he has added to his own account quoted remarks about several places, some of which he has not seen.

Experience shows that travel-books with mistakes may be found, consequently the writer of this one does not flatter himself that he may not be among those who have failed to attain absolute truth, — a characteristic of travellers not always acknowledged by critics and sceptics. One who passes through a strange country, sometimes rapidly, receiving statements from various persons, and liable to disadvantageous positions for observations, is quite likely to develop some of the imperfection attributed to human nature. And yet, however inadequately this book may present its subject, the writer believes that it contains an amount of relevant matter not hitherto gathered within a single volume. In addition to accounts of his own observations, are illustrative extracts from more than fifty works beside those of Scott, — some of the works scarce, and all in some degree serviceable, and forming a library of reference not commonly portable, or indeed accessible.

The writer feels that he may, not improperly, allude to his spelling of several geographical names, — chiefly Scottish. He has, in many instances, found the same word spelled in three or four ways by as many " authorities." A rule propounded by a certain eminent master of composition appears to have prevailed in these instances ; and the writer, yielding to Welleristic example, may possibly be pardoned, if, in this important particular, he has depended too much on " taste and fancy."

The Lands of Scott, with their variety of scenery and antiquities, their history and romance, certainly present attractions enough to reward a long tour, — as annual crowds of travellers on many routes in them demonstrate.

PREFACE. Vii

While some of the places that are visited on these routes may be thought so generally familiar that nothing novel or useful can now be said about them, there are not a few to which such an estimate cannot properly apply ; for visits to every portion of his Lands lead to nearly all the shires of Scotland, through much of England, a part of Wales, the Isle of Man, France, Spain, Belgium, the valley of the upper Rhine, Switzerland, and even the far East.

The writer, without attempting a general essay upon so great a subject as that expressed by the name of Sir Walter Scott, but feeling affection and gratitude for the pleasure and the profit he has conferred, proposes that this book shall contain sketches of the long and wonderfully varied series of his works ; of the not less remarkable story of his life, and of the places with which both works and life are associated. These sketches are necessarily so numerous that almost constant abridgment of extremely abundant and diversified materials has been found to be required, in order that this book should not become undesirably large.

If in thus following this one (and rather personal) general subject, there appears to be any thing of what has, for want of another name, been called " Boswellism," this quality may explain and assert itself by suggesting an application of the old anecdote relating George II. 's reply to a remark charging General Wolfe with madness, — a reply that may be recalled though not expressed here ; and this application may signify that there is, at least, not only no harm in personalities similar to those chiefly occupying these pages, but, also, no harm if they affect more than the writer and his subject. He simply hopes that he may furnish some help to others, enabling them to enjoy many pleasant things that he has enjoyed, and to do so without the trouble of collecting much, and quite scattered, information needed for the tour proposed ; that, indeed, he may be of some use to

Vlii PREFACE.

those who derive pleasure or satisfaction from Old-World stories and scenes, mediaeval art, aspects of former social life, healthy walks over green fields, or fresh heather, or breezy hills, and the real romance told by the life of a true-hearted man, — and that man one of the noblest in genius and spirit the world has known.

J. F. H.

Charlestown, March, 1871.

Contents

Chapters. Pages.

Preface v-viii

I., II. Introduction 9-13

Introduction

A T first, some may think that in this busy, " practical " age, a •*■ ^- tour into the regions of Romance is hardly worthy occupation for those experiencing the benefits and responsibilities of existing civilization. Afterward, some may reflect that rather a large number of persons wish to be amused, and are endowed with imagination, curiosity, and love of the beautiful, and inclination to use these qualities in obtaining pleasure from many objects and places, enriching earth with not a few of her truest charms. At some time, indeed, and in some manner, almost every one feels the fascinations of that World of the Past, animated by beings historical, legendary, or created by poets and romancers, — beings who, though unseen, yet active, will then make their existence felt, haunting some scene associated with a story of country, of familiar neighborhood, or, perhaps, become the home of creatures of mind or of fancy, grown to be among our inseparable friends. Evidence enough there is, even if but little is produced, that never was this feeling stronger or more general than in this generation, however prosaic some may rate it. Never before has there been more careful guard of historic monuments, art-treasures, or memorials of famous dead. Never before has there been such frequent visiting of places hardly known, except for charms with which Genius has invested them. From pedestal, or sculptured wall, or shafted window, the memorials — every year more numerous — look out on city, town, and rural scenery. Few pilgrimages there may be now to saints' shrines, but the visits of literally a travelling world

IO INTRODUCTION.

continually re-consecrating such poets' shrines as Stratford and Abbotsford. Scores of Scotch inns and travel-routes, hosts of sight-showers scattered almost everywhere, earn subsistence quite real to many families, because this generation feels the fascinations of those beings and creations of that world, that, though of Romance or of the Historic Past, yet speaks to us. With pleasure, and no small instruction, if we choose to receive it, we realize to ourselves this modern conversion of mythology, haunting with some of its innumerable unseen spirits almost every spot of countries longest civilized, or, visibly, appearing to us in statue or in picture. Few of us, indeed, who would not visit, and enjoy the story of, that San Carlo looking majestically over his great and beautiful lake ; Martin Luther in his mighty company of witnesses at Worms ; sublime Dante at Florence ; brilliant Sir Peter Paul beneath the incomparable spire at his own Antwerp ; or the nearly endless palacewalls bright with " All the Glories of France ; " that richly-colored, stately hemicycle of Delaroche ; or those wonderful pictures of the great eras of humanity with which Kaulbach has glorified the vast staircase hall at Berlin ; that frescoed Niebelungenlied in Munich ; or the " Wizard of the North," sitting among those whom he made to live, looking down on Edinburgh. Few of us who would refuse, even if only in fancy, to follow towards Canterbury Chaucer's " nine-and-twenty in a cumpany of sundrie folk ; " few refuse to linger beneath the limes and elms of Stratford churchyard, or among quiet old English haunts of Shakspeare's creations ; few who, sometime, could not love those charming, heathery, birch-grown shores where one feels that Ellen Douglas must have been ; few not enjoy storied Rhenish hill-sides, that fountain at Vaucluse, those mightier shores where Trojan exiles sought divinely designated homes ; or, grandest of all, that vast extent of scenes through which the course of empire marks its way. For few of us, indeed, have not sometime, in some place, experienced — thanks for growing civilization — the feeling expressed by Dr. Johnson in his introduction to desscription of his visit to " that illustrious island " Iona.

" To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavored, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as may conduct

INTRODUCTION. II

us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue." And when first treading the soil of

That isle that is itself a world

Where " glory with its dust has blended,

And Britain keeps her noble dead

Till earth and seas and skies are rended,' : —

that isle

" One half " whose " soil has walked the rest In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages " —

how many have felt the same thoughts !

To these many, — to Americans peculiarly, — how especially present are such thoughts among scenes almost everywhere throughout that venerable island, Britain. Notwithstanding any antipathies, any greater or less causes for even exasperation, Americans, by lineage, by education, by disposition sometimes, of all people most allied to Old England, may, and do, among her nearly countless shrines of the World of the Past, affectionately and delightedly feel their fascinations, — and feel thus, perhaps, for the first time profoundly. There, indeed, Americans may feel a certain inherited ownership in places dreamed about during school-life, or thought about during readings in later years, — places in whose history their ancestors, possibly, held interest common with the ancestors of the people now occupying them, — places animated by creations of authors who have been and continue household companions, whose language renders those creations not foreigners, but kinsfolk and near friends. There, indeed, amid the busy occupations of an active, living people, Americans quite likely, to a greater or less degree, first, if ever, become pilgrims of our every-day world among the shrines and the fascinations of the World of the Past.

Washington Irving wrote : " To an American visiting Europe the long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of worldly scenes and employments produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters that separates the hemispheres is like a blank page in existence. There is no gradual transition by which, as in Europe, the features and population of one country blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy until you step on the opposite shore, and are launched at once into the bustle and novelties of another world."

12 INTRODUCTION.

Notwithstanding the quite evident fact that times and circumstances have changed greatly since Washington Irving's voyage to Europe, yet conditions he describes continue applicable to travellers after instruction or pleasure. Those who are not as good sailors as he is reported to have been, especially those who persistently reside in a " seven-by-two " berth during a whole Atlantic passage, cannot naturally be expected to believe their voyage "an excellent preparative " to any thing, — certainly to a " sentimental journey." Yet it is a departure from accustomed routine of life productive of " a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions," — a departure for which, indeed, the afflicted mentioned are to a degree indemnified by particular development of such a state.

Confusion is apt to beset a traveller who arrives in a land crowded with scenes and objects of interest, and who has not formed some special plan of observation. A mode of avoiding this confusion may be suggested to others, as it was to the writer, by putting researches of the latter systematically together, and forming a tour that, in whole or in part, he hopes others may find as agreeable as he found it. And this is a tour that may be travelled over mentally, if not bodily, while one is reading astonishingly varied and extended pages of romance, around which lingers a spirit enchanting them even more fascinatingly than it enchants the long series of shrines and places ranged throughout the route of this tour, and that this spirit everywhere glorifies.

To begin this tour, one may be supposed mentally or bodily to have reached Old England.

II

THOSE who search for picturesque and suggestive scenes of that World of the Past and of Romance into which journeying is proposed, may, at first, think they find " Passing Away " expressed upon many — too many — of its monuments and scenes. Notwithstanding frequent " restorations " or preservations, things existing are apt to seem to be retaining few of its real or fancied aspects.

INTRODUCTION. 1 3

And truly enough, the essential qualities of the life and scenes peculiarly those of Europe of the Past are mostly gone, and partially also the very aspects. During three-quarters of a century just elapsed, strange changes have been wrought ; yet readers, especially those of Walter Scott's works, have found that there can yet be present to them a power investing many of the old scenes with expressions of their former life.

And taking Walter Scott — his still living power — to be a guide, it will be found that he can lead through widely extended Old- World lands, — that he has made peculiarly his own, and that he still occupies, — and lead, as no other can, through what no other has so united in an

" Attaching maze, — The brilliant, fair, and soft, — the glories of old days."

Years ago, but not longer ago than the memories of many now living can reach, when young in public life, Scott wrote, —

" Yet live there still who can remember well, How, when a mountain-chief his bugle blew, Both field and forest, dingle, cliff, and dell,

And solitary heath, the signal knew ; And fast the faithful clan around him drew."

That period to which these lines refer was one of rapid transition, when old Jacobite times and influences in Great Britain were passing away, and, with them, clan-life in Scotland ; when, also, the old regime in France and its institutions became buried things ; when Venice with her thirteen hundred years of life and rule changed before the great innovator ; when ancient social usages, and the habitations, the works, the thoughts, and, it seemed, even the very characters of men, were changing. It was just then — at this intensest expression of the passing away of Old Europe — ■ that he appeared to grow up, through this period of transition, into marvellous capacity for picturing the life thus changing, — picturing it so vividly as to make it seem again around us in many a scene, to which he, our proposed guide, can lead (may be said again) as can no other.

14 BIRTHPLACE AND EARLY LIFE OF SCOTT.

III. Birthplace and Early Life of Scott

THE geographical route of the tour proposed, being part of the geography of Romance Land, might hardly be considered be<nnning at any one point on material earth ; the route certainly has a convenient quality of being accessible and useful anywhere along its extent. There is, however, a natural beginning to it at the place where the proposed guide, during it, first appeared in bodily form, and that place is Edinburgh ; a city otherways rendered a very proper starting-point, not only because every one who travels in Great Britain is supposed to visit it, but because it is a place abounding in objects to arouse, to interest, to inspire those journeying among Old- World scenes. It is a city with few rivals of its own characteristics and remarkable combinations. It is a city of unusually varied picturesqueness and beauty, — a thoroughly storied city surrounded by a thoroughly storied country ; a place in which one can now see and feel, as in few others, the Present joined with the Past ; and this tour will necessarily lead to quite thorough exploration of it. Description of its rather well-known o-eneral natural formation and historical and architectural features may be omitted now, while, in proper custom, preliminary research is bein°" made about our guide, — where and when he came into existence, and how he grew and gained the power that attaches us to him.

It must be confessed that the enthusiasm of a pilgrim to shrines of romance, finds severe test in an excursion to the College Wynd, as existing in the old town of Edinburgh, leading from the Cowgate upward behind the great college edifice. This wynd, or lane, is by no means lovely now ; or it was not when the writer saw it, for it was steep, narrow, dirty, and ill-smelling, and the houses along it were ordinary and dingy enough. Yet a hundred years ago it was respectable, — inhabited by professional gentlemen. Through it, then, was the main access to the college, the decorated gateway of which faced directly down it. By the side of this wynd, near the site of that gateway, in a house destroyed with others to

BIRTHPLACE AND EARLY LIFE OF SCOTT. 15

make room for the present northern front of the college, we find, that, on the 15th of August, 1771, our guide came into this world, to rise, even from a spot now so forbidding, and grow into the wonderful power that he attained ; that there and then was born Walter Scott, whose creations and whose influences, expressed in verse and prose, have become (it is pardonable to repeat) inseparably and fascinatingly associated with such extent of scenes and compass of history and of romance, as are thus associated with no other one. Shakespeare or Byron or Southey may have written of more widely scattered places or have created scenes in them ; but neither of these — with all his power — or any other one of the masters of literary art, has invested with his own personality and creations more objects, or won to himself a domain more thoroughly his own, than has Walter Scott.

From that narrow wynd came the " Great Magician " to animate those enchanted lands, through which it is proposed that he, " but present still though now unseen," conduct us ; and since his name as guide has been already repeated, — indeed since it has once been told, — commendation sufficient of his ability and agreeableness, as such, has also been told.

After briefly recalling, as has been suggested, how and where he grew up, the writer proposes excursions to those scenes in his Lands, successively, associated with the stories of the great poems that he wrote, and then exploration, in more geographical order, of the wide-spread scenes associated with the more numerous prose romances, — his later works ; and that all the while there be observation of whatever is found associated with the quite as nobly romantic story formed by his own life.

Walter Scott had early opportunity to see more of the world than appeared in his native wynd. When only eighteen months old, being ill, he was sent to live with his paternal grandfather at Sandy Knowe, a farm-house from which a long reach of the vale of lower Tweed is overlooked. In his fourth year, he was taken by London to Bath, where he lived nearly a year. After this, he was again at Edinburgh and Sandy Knowe. When about eight years old, he was some time at Prestonpans, and was already exploring historical or other scenes that afterwards appeared in his works. Thence he went to a new residence of his father, house No. 25, George's Square, Edinburgh, — in which Iris father lived many years, — and that continued the : ' most established place of residence " of this son, until

1 6 BIRTHPLACE AND EARLY LIFE OF SCOTT.

his marriage in 1797. During the earlier portion, even of this boyhood time, he was becoming acquainted with many old stories, and, during a school-life of three years succeeding, was learning very much of English literature and Border Ballads, and additionally, during the latter portion of this period, — influenced by the beauties of Tweed-dale at Kelso, where he spent several months, — he was experiencing, as he informs us, an awaking of a delightful feeling for the beauties of natural objects, which never afterward deserted him. In his fifteenth year he began that knowledge of the affairs of law, and of the active living world, which so much aided in his development, being then apprenticed to his father, a Writer to the Signet. Soon afterward he made his first excursion to the Highlands. During four years, 1789 to 1792, he was studying for the bar, and with great ardor and perseverance, at the University of Edinburgh. Through all his boyhood and youth, he was reading immensely of whatever was adventurous or romantic or poetic in general literature, — Italian, German, French, as well as British. Meanwhile, also, he was both delighting and fashioning his already characterized tastes, by visits, on foot or on horseback, to ruins, to castlehalls, to battle-fields and famous landscapes, — loving most the places invested with historical and legendary associations. Thus he intimately learned the environs of his native, or, as he called it, " his own romantic town."

Growing older, he became familiar with more distant scenes. In '"91," and again in " '92," he went to Northumberland and Flodden Field. In the latter year he for the first time made an excursion to Liddesdale ; and, as Mr. Lockhart pleasantly informs us, " during seven successive years Scott made a raid, as he called it, into Liddesdale, with Mr. Shortreed for his guide ; exploring every rivulet to its source, and every ruined peel from foundation to battlement. At this time no wheeled carriage had even been seen in the district — the first, indeed, that ever appeared there was a gig, driven by Scott himself for a part of his way, when on the last of these seven excursions. There was no inn nor public house of any kind in the whole valley ; the travellers passed from the shepherd's hut to the minister's manse, and again from the cheerful hospitality of the manse to the rough and jolly welcome of the homestead ; gathering, wherever they went, songs and tunes, and occasionally more tangible relics of antiquity — even such "a rowth of auld nicknackets " as Burns ascribes to Captain Grose. To these rambles

Scott owed much of the materials of his " Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border ; " and not less of that intimate acquaintance with the living manners of these unsophisticated regions, which constitutes the chief charm of one of the most charming of his prose works. But how soon he had any definite object before him in his researches seems very doubtful. " He was makirf himsell a' the time," said Mr. Shortreed ; " but he didna ken maybe what he was about till years had passed. At first he thought o' little, I dare say, but the queerness and the fun."

And thus, insensibly or sensibly, he " made himself."

In 1796 his first book appeared, — a translation from the German of Burger, — a mere preliminary exercise. In "'97 " occurred his romantic introduction to Miss Carpenter at Gilsland, and their acquaintance and marriage, of which more hereafter. His residences during his early married life were at Edinburgh in George Street and in South Castle Street. There is not much that is noticeable in either of these places.

During the summer of 1798 he hired Lasswade Cottage, in which he lived until he removed to Ashestiel in 1804. While his home was at Lasswade, he began his career in authorship and other public life.

IV

A N excursion to lasswade and its neighborhood is one of the -^*- most delightful of the many that can be made from Edinburgh, including as it may, in a day, a visit to the stately park and palace of the Duke of Buccleuch, at Dalkeith, a stroll of three or four miles along the picturesque Esk Vale, and explorations of Hawthornden, — that exquisitely romantic spot where the poet Drummond lived, — and of Roslin Castle and Chapel. This chapel is the well-known elaborated example of Spanish Gothic, unique in Scotland, now " restored " and well kept. The castle, near by and quite ruinous, stands on a steep point at the end of a wild ravine, and closely over a bend of the dashing Esk. Its most remarkable characteristics are tiers of massive internal vaults, but nearly all its parts are capitally disposed for sketches. Both Castle and Chapel are scenes of Scott's ballad " Rosabelle " in " The Lay."

Local guide-books and time-tables will tell the traveller how to reach these several places ; and to publications in those classes the traveller is referred, not only for similar direction during this excursion, but also during most of those that will be hereafter mentioned.

Several years ago the writer found Lasswade village made up mostly of irregular, red-tiled cottages along steep, small streets. The house of Scott, secluded among trees and shrubbery, appeared built of cut stone and covered by a deeply thached roof. Its ground plan appeared shaped like an inverted letter q, and its height but a single story. The entrance was beneath a veranda at the inner angle. On the outer side was a large ivy-mantled chimney-shaft. The windows, also ivy-mantled, opened upon pleasant grounds. Although the house was a private residence, and the writer was a stranger, he was kindly shown the interior. The parlor — the chief room, perhaps twenty feet square — was as comfortable, social, home-like an apartment as one may find ; and the whole place was as quietly and rurally beautiful as a young poet would seek or find or enjoy. Here, as already stated, Scott began to live during the summer of 1798 ; here was the home of most of his earlier married life, and while here he really began his experience in authorship.

The next year, 1799, was an important year in his development. On the 16th of December he was appointed Sheriff of Selkirk, and this office he held thirty-three years, until his death. Early in this year he published a translation of Goethe's tragedy " Goetz von Berlichingen." He also visited London with his wife, and examined the antiquities of Westminster, and of the Tower and the British Museum. At about this time he was beginning to compose original ballads. The first of his metrical work was partially that in his drama " The House of Aspen," a sort of Teutonic composition (one of the results of his German readings), written this year. More important, however, were his contributions to " Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border ; " " Thomas the Rhymer " (a balladtale of the Rhymer's Glen near Abbotsford) ; and "Glenfinlas" (the scene of which is that tract of wild heath and mountain bearing the same name, near the Trosachs in the Perthshire Highlands) ; and " The Eve of Saint John," a ballad telling a story of Smaylho'me Tower, an old baronial keep near by his boyhood home, at Sandy Knowe. The scenery of these poems will be more fully described when the "tour" reaches them. In 1802-3 he published the collection of ballads, songs, and legendary poems that became so celebrated under the title already mentioned, " The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." In 1804 he published the metrical romance, " Sir Tristrem." At various times, at about this period, he composed a few short works like the " Fire King." But it was in 1805 that his first great and really characterized composition appeared, " The Lay of the Last Minstrel." Then his power also began to appear ; power that may now be first realized (where it was first associated with Old-World places) during an excursion to the scenery of this Lay, in that region so distinctively rendered by him his own, the Midland Border of Scotland. *

V. Excursion to Scenery of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel."

'T V HIS scenery in the Midland Border of Scotland — a region ■*- peculiarly romantic, in which many enjoyable excursions may be made — can be pleasantly reached now by a railway ride occupying less than two hours, from Edinburgh to Selkirk, and from that town by an easy and agreeable walk or drive of four or five miles up Yarrowdale to Newark Castle, to which, some time during the last decade of the seventeenth century, the " Latest Minstrel " is described wandering ; where he sang this " Lay " to Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, who represented its ancient lords. A visit to this castle may also be made during the long tour that will be arranged hereafter, as shown in chapter xxxiii.