The record-union., 1893-03-11
Odd Incidents of Foreign Travel
and 0bServatiOn---XI.
An Abbey Tomb Beside the Songful
Tweed-Havana Cafes-MemorIes of
valdemusa-Sodden Contentment of
European Peasantry-Lowly Cali
clan Shrines-Glimpses of Conti-
mental Railroad Travels-Across the
Island of Cuba.
Special Correspondence of the RECORD
UNION. Copyright, 1881

/
UNION. Copyright. 1881
LONDON, January 80, 1898.
If Melrose Abbey, the Mecca of all
American tourists in Scotland, furnishes
examples of art nearly as bewitching as
the most delicate expressions Of nature
! itself, Dry yburgh Abbey, but four miles
distant down the Tweed, holds and fas-
cinates the wanderer with 1ar more ten
der and subtle charm. The founding of
Dryburgh is of remoter antiquity than
even that of the original Culdee House
of Old Melrose.
Before the advent of Christian mission
aries the place was resorted to by the
DruidS for the celebration of their mystic
rites-as Darach brauch or burgh, "the
bank cluster of sacred oaks" Dryburgh's
Celtic name implies. Modan, a Culdee
presbyter, set up the first Christian es-
tablishment of Dryburgh in 522. For 62S
years thereafter its history is insignificant,
The monks, from Alnwick under the
patronage OF Sir Hugh de Morville, Con-
stable OF Scotland under King David J.,
founded here a Premonstratentian Alb
bey OF SplenCad dimensions. This was
burned along with Melrose Abbey by
Edward H., and restored by aid granted
Dy IAlnS ROBERT the Bruce.
Twice, in l5S5 and in l554, it was pill
laged and devastated by the English.
The Reformation of doughty John knox,
sixteen years later, did the rest. The
ruins of Dryburgh Abbey show that the
walls OF the completed edifice stood on
different levels, and that the structure
illustrated at least four different STYLES OF
architecture. This is seen in the massive
Roman arch with its ample square sides,
the deem SnlnUQI and q IN M iua
Saxon arch, and the early English pointed
arch. The church was originally IN the
form of a cross with short transepts, and
small, but eXquisitely decorated choir,
wnll6 the interior was divided by light
AID graceful colonnades into a central
space and side aisles.
OF the transepts u portion of but one,
the north, called st. Mary's Aisle, is still
standing, but there is a no more beautiful
specimen of the early Gothic to be found
in Scotland, than is this, the solemn and
secluded burial place of Scotia's greatest
minstrel, the noble author of 'Waverly."
The chapter-houSe, tiny chapel of st.
Modan, and Norman arch, which formed
the western doorway, are yet standing. A
stately yew, over $40 years old, casts its
somber shade upon the lawn, opposite
where once the abbots sat at their case
ments to mock the huge pile of stone as it
crumbles into the earth.
Ou Ieel more IDan you can see at Dry
burgh. The whole place is instinct with
repose. The horizon is close, not half
mile away in any direction. 1t is fringed
with the boughs and Verdure of shelter
ing trees, save where, far To the south, the
weird Eildon hills of wizard renown peer
down from above their cloud mistS into
the sunny copse. The Tweed, moving in
silence for miles above, circling here,
sweeps wide and grandly over cleaning
shadows and sings its endless songs lust
at the edge OF the olden \ Abbey grounds.
You come to the place through hushed
and silent avenue, ankle deep in the
spring time, with hawthorn blossoms
white as snow. In the grazing days their
place is filled by the browns and puces of
ruStiing drift from the beech, elm and
sycamore. Only the lodge keepers habi-
tation reminds of earthly activities. Ma
ture alone holds sway. Bloom and birds.
grasses and vines, odor and song, russet
walls and emerald masses of moss, oriels
of ivy, tillets of vines, pointed arches OF
roses, towers of trees leaping from the
old walls themselves, reach the eye and
sense tenderously, slum berously, pull
sing with hush and balm.
Melrose eXalts. Dryburgh soothes.
The entIr6 spot is ruin merged into
Elysium, hallowedby one humble grave.
And so sweet and hushed is all, that even
your reverence for the ever-sIlent disap-
pears, for you feel that your mighty
friend lies here as on the bosom of the
land he so loved and immortaliZed, and
that Scott only sleeps while sweetly all
nature-songs TO him are sung.