Dayton daily empire. [volume] (Dayton [Ohio]) 1850-1865, 1863-12-23

running Tweed in a skili and aifef Mort
walk through aisles Of iuimonse ,yew trees,
which are old enough to tell a great mmy in
tereating things IL they were Inclined To- we
came 10 the ruins Of Dryburgg Abbey. In a
little apartment there, under n Thasaiya gothic
arch, from which trespassors are excluded by
an iron grating, is the safcophagus which con-
taiSs all that Is left Of Sir Wallet on earth
The tomb is something like Washingtoh's, at
Moant Vernon, but the latter is brick edfce,
which will perish in few more generations
unless il be carefully renewed; while the build
ing Of which this tomb is q part, was ruin
three hundred years before Sir Walters body
was laid there, aud, protected as it is, by tho
tall trees and tho climbing ivy, will probably
need no care or repairing for q thousand years
TO come As we stood there, we naturally
thought OF the brilliant life OF the body which
lay crumbling to dust before us, before il ceas-
ed 10 be the tenement of that glorious soul.
Unassisted he gained for himself richeb and
honOrs, and seemed possessed Of oil that the
heart of n man could wish, but he leaves his
testimony also as TO vanity Of all things sarthi
| ly. A passage in his note book gives us his
estimate of life "What is this world2 A
dream within dream As we grow older
each step is an awakening. The youth swakes
as he thinks, from childhood; the full grown
man despises the pursuits Of youth as vision
ary; the old man looks on manhood as a fever.
ish dream Is the grave the last sleep2 No;
il is the last aud final awakening"
The graves of the Erskines are near by,
and the tombstone tells us that Henry was the
last born of the thirty three children Of his
father. Underneath the ruins the guide led
us through several dungeons, qWhatdid the
priests want with dungeons p was the very
natural inquiry of one OF our party ITO keep
the refractory monks lorder," was the reply;
~ expect they needed discipline occasionally
like ony body elss,
As we were crossing the river on our re-
turn, Scotch gentleman, recognizing us as
| Americans, asked If we had heard of the great
battle in America "The Feederals have been
getting whipped again, was the rather eKult
ing announcement he made, and then he pro-
duced an Edinboro' paper, which contained
few meager details of the fights near Gettys-
burg on the first, second and third of July.
We did not reflect much about runs after
| that. If it was true that Meade was whipped,
| of course, Washington, Baltimore, Philadel.
phia and New York were at Lees mercy, and
We were inclined to think that we had better
take the next steamer for home. BIZ the time
we reached Melrose, however, we had care.
| fully studied and digested the dispatches, and
had arrived at the conclusion that the fight
was not altogether so disastrous rs it Mt first
appeared, and we looked with some remains
OF interest upon tho rare old abbey there. We
could not take any very remote flights into
the misty realm of the Past however-the
things Of the Present were much more ao-
sorbing, t,,, a.ifIsf., eJtH#
This abbey was builtia the shape of cross
like all these Roman Catholic edi6ces, and
was very grand, it is even in ruins 1t was
built about the year ll00 and was destroyed
by the English in the wars Of the sixteenth
century The walls arches and windows are
full of fanciful and delicate specimens of Stone
carving, which are only surpassed in Great
Britain by those in Roslip Chapel One sees
there wreaths Of flowers, and clustering
foliage, and heads Of demons, catyrs, monks
and saints, in every available sport, about the
edfce, outside and in. Brackets on which
once stood beautiful statues and the canopies
above still remain in great numbers, but the
statues are gone, save three or four. One
carving represents an hour glass, a bell and
skull with the inscription under it "Fitgit
hore-Disoe NOR" and as we were looking
at H. the old clock, high up in the ruined tow
er whose face is almost wholly obliterated by
time; gave point to the motto by ringing out
the hour OF four. H4t ,eTE
Our days in Scotland thus ended