# Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Abbotsford

ABBOTSFORD.
Master of Abbotsford!
 Magician strange and strong! Whose voice of power is heard
 By an admiring throng,
From court to peasant's cot,—
 We come, but thou art gone,
We speak, thou answerest not,—
 Thy work is done.
Thou slumberest with the noble dead,
 In Dryburgh's solemn pile,
Amid the peer and warrior bold,
And mitred abbots stern and old,
 Who sleep in sculptured aisle,
While Scotia's skies, with azure gleaming,
Are through the oriel window streaming,
 Where ivied mosses creep;
And touched with symmetry sublime,
The moss-clad towers that mock at time,
 Their mouldering legends keep.
Yet shouldst thou not have chose
 Thy latest couch at fair Melrose,
Whence burst thy first, most ardent song,
And swept with murmuring force along,
 Where Tweed in silver flows?
There the young moonbeam quivering faint,
O'er mural tablet sculptured quaint,
 Reveals a lordly race,
While knots of roses richly wrought,
And tracery light as poet's thought,
 The clustered columns grace.
There good king David's rugged mien
Fast by his faithful spouse is seen,
 And 'neath the stony floor
Lie chiefs of Douglas' haughty breast,
Contented now to take their rest,
 And rule their kings no more.
There, if we heed thy witching strain,
The fearless knight of Deloraine
Achieved his purpose strange and bold,
At rifled tomb and midnight cold;
And there amid the roofless wall,
Where blended shower and sunlight fall,
With stealthy step and half afraid,
The lambkin crops the scanty blade;
While near is seen the seat of stone,
 Whereon thou oft didst rest,
When thou hadst tower and transept shown
 To many a grateful guest,
And still a voice of friendly tone
 Doth speak and call thee blest.
'T was but a mournful sight to see
 Trim Abbotsford so gay,
The rose-trees flaunting there so bold,
The ripening fruits in rind of gold,
 And thou their lord away.
There stood the lamp, with oil unspent,
O'er which thy thoughtful brow was bent,
 When erst with magic skill
Unearthly beings heard thy call,
And buried ages thronged the hall,
 Obedient to thy will.
This fair domain was all thine own,
From towering rock to threshold stone;
 Yet didst thou lavish pay
The coin that caused life's wheels to stop,
The heart's blood oozing, drop by drop,
 Through the tired brain away?
I said thy lamp unspent was there,
Thy books arranged in order fair,
But none of all thy kindred race
Found in those lordly halls a place.
Thine only son in foreign lands
Leads bravely on his martial bands,
And stranger lips, unmoved and cold,
The legends of thy mansion told,—
Thy lauded glittering brand and spear,
And costly gift from prince and peer,
And broad claymore, with silver dight,
And hunting-horn of border knight,
 What were such gauds to me?
More dear had been one single word,
From those whose veins thy blood had stirred
 To Scotia's accents free.
Yet one there was in humble cell,
 One poor retainer, lone and old,
Who of thy youth remembered well,
 And many a treasured story told;
While pride upon her wrinkled face
 Mixed strangely with the trickling tear,
As memory from its choicest place
Brought forth, in wildly varied trace,
 Thy boyhood's gambols dear;
Or pointed out with withered hand
Where erst thy garden-seat did stand,
When thou, returned from travel vain,
Wrapped in thy plaid and pale with pain,
 Didst gaze with vacant eye,
For stern disease had drained the fount
 Of mental vision dry.
Ah! what avails with giant power
To wrest the trophies of an hour,
One moment write with flashing eye
Our name on castled turrets high,
And yield, the next, a broken trust,
To earth, to ashes, and to dust.
 Master of Abbotsford
 No more thou art!
But prouder trace and mightier word,
Than palace-dome or arch sublime
Have ever won from wrecking time,
 Do keep thy record in the heart.
Thou, who with tireless hand didst sweep
Away the damps of ages deep,
And fire with wild, baronial strain
The harp of chivalry again,
And bid its long-forgotten swell
Thrill through the soul, farewell! farewell!
Thou, who didst make from shore to shore
Bleak Caledonia's mountains hoar,
Her clear lakes bosomed in their shade,
Her sheepfolds scattered o'er the glade,
Her rills with music leaping down,
The perfume of her heather brown,
Familiar, as their native glen,
To differing tribes of distant men,
Patriot and bard! Edina's care
Shall keep thine image fresh and fair,
Embalming to remotest time
The Shakspeare of her tuneful clime.
Thursday, October 1, 1840.
"In Dryburgh's solemn pile."
Dryburgh is among the most beautiful of the ancient abbeys of Scotland. The effect of its ruins is heightened by their standing forth in solitary prominence, amidst a charming landscape. The Tweed sweeps around them like a crescent, and the lofty back-ground is shrouded in rich foliage, where the oak, the beech, and the mournful yew predominate. Among other noble and striking points of the structure, the windows are conspicuous. One large one, in the southern part of the transept, divided by four mullions, rises to a lofty height, and is seen majestically in the distance; another, of a circular form, in the western gable of what was formerly the refectory, with the dark foliage seen through it, is singularly picturesque.
Several stone coffins, or sarcophagi, of apparently great antiquity, have been discovered in these precincts, and are shown with their venerable coating of green moss and mould. In the place appropriated to the burial of the Erskines, or Earls of Mar, we observed an inscription bearing date in 1168, and another commemorating the youngest of the thirty-three children of Ralph Erskine. In the chapter-house, which resembles a spacious cellar, we were surprised by a vast assemblage of figures and busts, in plaster of Paris. They seemed a deputation from every age and clime. We could scarcely have anticpitated, in a ru​inous vault of Teviotdale, thus to meet Socrates and Cicero and Julius Cæsar, Shakspeare and Locke and Brutus—Abbot of Melrose, with his pastoral staff, John Knox, Charles Fox and the Ettrick shepherd, Count Rumford and Benjamin Franklin, and Watt of Birmingham, a strangely assorted and goodly company.
But the visitant of Dryburgh goes first and last to the grave where, on September 26, 1832, Sir Walter Scott was laid with the Haliburtons, his maternal ancestors. Around it are gathered many of the objects that in life he loved. Luxuriant vines, with their clasping tendrils, the overhanging ivy, the melancholy cypress, the mellow song of birds, the distant voice of Tweed, Gothic arches with their solemn shadow, and kindred dust reposing near, hallow the poet's tomb.
"And still, a voice of friendly tone,
Doth speak, and call thee blest."
Our guide through Melrose was Mr. John Bower, quite an original character, and somewhat of an artist, who interspersed his services with anecdotes, to which his broad Scotch dialect imparted additional interest. He is the same person whom Washington Irving thus characterizes, as "the showman of Melrose. He was loud in his praises of the affability of Scott. 'He'll come here sometimes,' said he, 'with great ​folks in his company, and the first I'll know of it is hearing his voice calling out Johnny! Johnny Bower! and when I go out, I'm sure to be greeted with a joke, or a pleasant word. He'll stand and crack and laugh wi' me, just like an auld wife, and to think that of a man that has sich an awfu' knowledge o' history." Johnny Bower spoke with enthusiasm of Sir Walter Scott, and requested us to sit on the stone seat, where he used to rest, when fatigued with walking about on his lame limb, to exhibit the favorite abbey to his numerous guests. "It was all a trick," said he, "the getting him to be buried at Dryburgh. This was the place. Every body knows that he cam here sax times and mair, to his ance visiting the Dryburgh ruin."
On pointing out the marble slab, which covers the dust of Alexander the Second, some remark was made about the period of his accession, to which Johnny Bower, as he called himself, responded in two lines from Marmion—
"A clerk might tell what years are flown,
Since Alexander filled the throne."
Large portions of the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" were familiar to him, which he recited when any surrounding object awakened them. Directing our attention to a rough, red stone in the wall, on which were the words, "Here lye the race of the house of Year," or Carr, the present Dukes of Roxburgh, he ​told us that our "great countryman, Washington Irving, said, 'there was a haill sarmon on the vanity of pomp in that single line.'" After his agency as our guide had terminated, we were invited to his apartments, where we saw his wife, and a variety of drawings and casts from Melrose, several of which he had himself executed; and were pleased to have an opportunity of purchasing some engravings from him.
The village of Melrose is situated at the foot of the Eildon hills. It has little to interest a traveller, except its famous old Abbey; and in this it is impossible to be disappointed, whether it is seen by the "pale moonlight," or not. The style of its architecture, its clustered columns, its niches filled with statues, its exquisite carvings, from whence the leaflets, flowers, and fruits stand out with great boldness and a delicate truth to nature, prove that the ornamental parts must have been executed several centuries later than its erection under David the First. Every visitant must admire, on the capital of a column, from whence the roof which it once supported has mouldered away, a carved hand, in exceedingly bold relief, clasping a garland of roses. It was pleasant to see, in a partially enclosed court-yard, a few sheep cropping the herbage that crept up among the stones and between the fragments of fallen pillars, reminding one of the flocks that some tourist has described, as feeding so quietly amid the ruins of the circus of Caracalla, at Rome.
"'T was but a mournful sight to see
Trim Abbotsford so gay."
When we visited Abbotsford, it was rich with a profusion of roses and ripening fruits. Embosomed in shades, it presents an irrégular assemblage of turret, parapet, and balcony. The principal hall is hung with armor, and the emblazoned shields of border chieftains. It is about forty feet in length, and paved with black and white marble. It leads to a room of smaller dimensions called the armory, where are multitudes of antique implements of destruction, and curiosities from various climes. Scott's antiquarian tastes are inwrought with the structure of the building. Here and there is a wall or pannel, richly carved from the oak of Holyrood, and the old palace of Dunfermline. We were also shown a chimney-piece from Melrose, and told that there was a roof from Roslin Chapel, and a gate from Linlithgow. In the drawing-room, dining-room, and breakfast-parlor, are many pictures, and gifts from persons of distinction. There are chairs presented by the Pope and by George the Fourth, an ebony writing-desk, by George the Third, and ornaments in Italian marble, by Lord Byron.
The magnificence of the library strikes every eye. It is sixty feet, by fifty, and contains more than twenty thousand volumes, beautifully arranged. It has a bold projecting window, commanding a lovely view of rural scenery and the classic Tweed. Shakspeare's ​bust and his own, by Chantry, and a full-length portrait of his eldest son, in military costume, are among the ornaments of this noble apartment. It is a pleasing instance of the filial piety of this eldest and only surviving son, that every article throughout the mansion remains, by his orders, in exactly the same situation in which it was left by his father. The books, the antiquarian relics, all remain in their places, and the last suit of clothes that he wore is preserved under a glass case in his closet.
But it was in the smaller room, used as a study, that one most feelingly realizes the truth, that
"Hushed is the harp, the minstrel gone!"
It is lighted by only one window, and its furniture is extremely simple. I think there was but one chair in it, beside the one that he was accustomed to occupy. Here was the working spot, where, dismissing all extraneous objects, he bent his mind to its mighty tasks. We were told that the lamp over the mantel-piece, by which he wrote, he was in the habit of lighting himself. It was still partially filled with oil. But the eye that drew light from it, and threw the mental ray to distant regions, was closed in the darkness of the grave.
It was in this apartment that, after his mind had received its fatal shock from disease, he made his last ineffectual effort to write. The sad scene can never be as well described, as in the words of Lockhart.
​ "He repeated his desire so earnestly to be taken to his own room, that we could not refuse. His daughters went into his study, opened his writing desk, and laid paper and pens in the usual order. I then moved him through the hall into the spot where he had always been accustomed to work. When the chair was placed at the desk, and he found himself in the old position, he smiled and thanked us, and said, 'Now give me my pen, and leave me for a little to myself.' Sophia put the pen into his hand, and he endeavoured to close his fingers upon it. But they refused their office, and it dropped upon the paper. He sunk back among his pillows, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. But composing himself by and by, he motioned to me to wheel him out of doors again. After a little while he dropt into a slumber. On his awaking, Laidlaw said to me, 'Sir Walter has had a little repose.' 'No, Willie,' he replied, 'no repose for Sir Walter but in the grave.'"
"Yet one there was, in humble cell,
One poor retainer, lone and old."
After walking about the grounds of Abbotsford, we found in a small, smoky hut, the widow of Purdie, so long Scott's forester, and confidential servant. She told us stories of the Laird with zeal and pleasure. Her wrinkled face lighted up as she spoke of the days of his prosperity, when his house overflowed with ​guests. She dwelt mournfully upon his kind farewell at her door, when he left for his continental tour, and the sad change in his appearance after his return. We were the more pleased to listen to her tales, and see her honest sympathy, from having just been annoyed by a different demeanor in the person appointed to show the apartments at Abbotsford. We had been forewarned of this by Johnny Bower, who told us that we should be waited upon by an English woman, who felt little interest in Sir Walter, whom she had never seen, and who would try to hurry us through our researches. "But ne'er ye mind thaut," said he, "staund firm." Yet we did not find it quite so easy to "staund firm," almost forcibly hastened as we were from room to room, our questions answered in a most laconic style, and the explanations that we desired denied. The cause of this singular want of attention seemed to be, in some measure, to be ready for another party who appeared upon the grounds, and whose expected fee she was probably impatient to add to our own. Yet it is desirable that a spot like Abbotsford, one of the "Mecca- shrines" of Scotland, should be exhibited to pilgrims, either by a native of its clime, or at least by one not deficient in the common courtesy of a guide.
A picture of Tom Purdie, the faithful servant, hangs in the dining-room at Abbotsford, in the vicinity of dukes and princes. And near the Abbey of Melrose is his grave, and monument, with this inscription from the pen of his beloved master.
In grateful remembrance
of the faithful and attached services
of twenty-two years,
and in sorrow for the loss of a humble, but sincere friend,
this stone was erected by
Sir Walter Scott, of Abbotsford.
Here lies the body of Thomas Purdie,
Wood-Forester, at Abbotsford,
who died 29th of October, 1829, aged sixty-two years.
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things;
I will make thee ruler over many things."
Matt. xxv. 21