Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-09-28

thousand feet from the abbey itself. is a smart
railway station looking contemptutuously down
upon the huddled drearinesS and decay below.
From this, or better from the Eildon hills, Mel
rose sets in Melrose vale by the Tweed like q
brown and ragged wind-whipped Gypsy tent,
embosomed in mellow grasses where quivers
like silver thread hesitant, vegrant stream.
But this surprising ruin to which you have
come was not the first Melrose abbey. Three
miles below the Melrose OF to-day the Tweed
almost forms an island in the valley. This
peninsular is a geatie eminence. Its Gaelic ap-
pellation was Meall-rois, the projecting hill. -
Hence '.Mairos' - and finally Melrose. The
locality is now known as Old Melrose. The
strong natural defences, with the seclusion
and righteousness of the vale, attracted a
Culdee monastery OF Iona, in the Hebrides,
who here founded rude chapter house in
the seventh century. Its first abbott was
Eata. Old yelrose became renowned, but
its brethren were banished in 1919 their
fusal to acknowledge Malcolm III. as their
sovereign. chapel, dedicated to st. Cuth-
followed. Nearly a century later, in 1l36,
magnificent monastery or abbey was founded by
the Scottish King David I. for Cistertian monks
at the then hamlet of Fordel, now Melrose, the
precise site of the Melrose abbey of to-day. 1t
was consecrated in 1l46, and about two centuries
later, in 1872, was nearly destroyed by Edward
II. of England during one OF his last forays
north OF the border. The restoration. or rather
reconstruction, of the Meross abbey founded in
l1S6 gave Scotland this surprising ruin of to-
day. Its original completion was the
most ardent desire of Scotland's great
est hero patriot, King Robert Bruce,
who, in 1926, granted to its abbott ''all the
dale;' and on the death of Bruce at Cafdross,
in 1879, his heart, which was embaimed to be
rescued from the Moors, who slaughtered the
chivalrous Douglas, and brought to, and Sc
pultured in, the noble abbey which Bruce SO
loved. 1t is authenticated that while the ssruc-
ture itself, covering the outlines of area exist
ing and traceable a. the present time, was COM
pleted in ten years after its spoilation by Ed
tfa( stgFa tfarNr
that age in architecture and statuary will remain
THE WONDER OF ALL TIMES.
and who regarded the lavish ornamentation Of
ecclesiastic edinces as one OF the highest ex-
pressions OF religious feeling, were jealousy
employed over two hundred years upon its dec
Grafton: OF all the religious editices created
which prevailed from the thirteenth censury to
about the middle OF the fifteenth, or to the time
was incomparably the most magnificent and
stately, exquisitely chaste and marvelously
beautiful.
Surprising in its day and time of massive
feudal piles and vast religious structures, it still
holds the same regal prominence among all the
countless impressive ruins throughout Great
Britain. The immediate surroundings Of the
abbeyIare distressing to the stranger. On one
side is a grazing ground for sheep. On another
drear, forlorn, modern graveyard, with thin
and peager headstones, is crowded agains, it.
On another matched novels and cabins huddle
beneath its graceful bIttresses. And on another
that Cerberus horror, gu arding all that is
sWeStt saSASu anu IL SSotiduu, o ColLi-
bined Jun and toll gate, lays in wait at the only
entrance. Scarcely tree, shrub or plant is
there to kindly hide the squalor and ayar-
ice, or soften tine hurtful ravsges of time. II
you love to contemplate the glorious in pure art,
Melrose is q never-ending feast. If, in your
liking, even marvellous ruins must be set in the
tender framework wrought by natures recover
ing and rehabilitating ands, you Will be bit
terly disappointed. The church itself is in the
form of the cross of st. John of Jerusalem. Its
length from east to west is 25S feet, the cross
aisle. lS1 feet; while the breadth OF the nave is
sixty mine feet between the walls. From the
center Of the Latin cross rises square tower
eighty-four feet high, of which the west side
on.y remains. This tower rests on lofty
pointed arch, the summit OF which terminates
in stone balusirade with quatrefoil rails, under
which is bas-reiief frieze Of roses. The
north trancept is rooiess. The east
ern part OF the nave is still covered and was
used during the first quarter of this century as
parish church; but the western part is roofless,
and the great west entrance is gone. In the
south wall are eight windows, sixteen feet by
eight, well preserved and OF wondrous beauty.
The roof above the eastern part Of the choir,
and the marvellous east window at its end, are
STILL ALMOST PERFECT.
This least oriel'' is the one everybody has
seen through Sir Walter Scott's description in
the Lay of the Last Minstrel:''
THE moon on the east oriel shone
Through slender sha ats of shapely stone,
By foliage tracery combined.
Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand
'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand
In many freakish knot had twined;
Then framed spell, when the work was done,
And changed the willow wreaths to stone"
Indeed the keynote of the wondrous art ex-
hibited in Nelrose abbey seems to have been this