_ LETTER IX
EDINBURGH, April.
My DEAR SISTER:--
Mr. S. and C---- returned from their trip to Glasgow much delighted with the prospects indicated by the results of the temperance meetings they attended there.
They were present at the meeting of the Scottish Temperance League, in an audience of about four thousand people. The reports were encouraging, and the feeling enthusiastic. One hundred and eighty ministers are on the list of the League, forming a nucleus of able, talented, and determined operators. It is the intention to make a movement for a law which shall secure to Scotland some of the benefits of the Maine law.
It appears to me that on the questions of temperance and antislavery, the religious communities of the two countries are in a situation mutually to benefit each other. Our church and ministry have been through a long struggle and warfare on this temperance question, in which a very valuable experience has been, elaborated. The religious people of Great Britain, on the contrary, have led on to a successful result a great antislavery experiment, wherein their experience and success can be equally beneficial and encouraging to us.
The day after we returned from Melrose we spent in resting and riding about, as we had two engagements in the evening--one at a party at the house of Mr. Douglas, of Cavers, and the other at a public temperance _soiree_. Mr. Douglas is the author of several works which have excited attention; but perhaps you will remember him best by his treatise on the Advancement of Society in Religion and Knowledge. He is what is called here a "laird," a man of good family, a large landed proprietor, a zealous reformer, and a very devout man.
We went early to spend a short time with the family. I was a little surprised, as I entered the hall, to find myself in the midst of a large circle of well-dressed men and women, who stood apparently waiting to receive us, and who bowed, courtesied, and smiled as we came in. Mrs. D. apologized to me afterwards, saying that these were the servants of the family, that they were exceedingly anxious to see me, and so she had allowed them all to come into the hall. They were so respectable in their appearance, and so neatly dressed, that I might almost have mistaken them for visitors.
We had a very pleasant hour or two with the family, which I enjoyed exceedingly. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas were full of the most considerate kindness, and some of the daughters had intimate acquaintances in America. I enjoy these little glimpses into family circles more than any thing else; there is no warmth like fireside warmth.
In the evening the rooms were filled. I should think all the clergymen of Edinburgh must have been there, for I was introduced to ministers without number. The Scotch have a good many little ways that are like ours; they call their clergy ministers, as we do. There were many persons from ancient families, distinguished in Scottish history both for rank and piety; among others, Lady Carstairs, Sir Henry Moncrief and lady. There was also the Countess of Gainsborough, one of the ladies of the queen's household, a very beautiful woman with charming manners, reminding one of the line of Pope--
"Graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride."
I was introduced to Dr. John Brown, who is reckoned one of the best exegetial scholars in Europe. He is small of stature, sprightly, and pleasant in manners, but with a high bald forehead and snow-white hair.
There were also many members of the faculty of the university. I talked a little with Dr. Guthrie, whom I described in a former letter. I told him that one thing which had been an agreeable disappointment to me was, the apparent cordiality between the members of the Free and the National church. He seemed to think that the wounds of the old conflict were, to a great extent, healed. He spoke in high terms of the Duchess of Sutherland, her affability, kindness, and considerateness to the poor. I forget from whom I received the anecdote, but somebody told me this of her--that, one of her servants having lost a relative, she had left a party where she was engaged, and gone in the plainest attire and quietest way to attend the funeral. It was remarked upon as showing her considerateness for the feelings of those in inferior positions.
About nine o'clock we left to go to the temperance _soiree_. It was in the same place, and conducted in the same way, with the others which I have described. The lord provost presided, and one or two of the working men who spoke in the former _soiree_ made speeches, and very good ones too. The meeting was greatly enlivened by the presence and speech of the jovial Lord Conynghame, who amused us all by the gallant manner in which he expressed the warmth of Scottish welcome towards "our American guests." If it had been in the old times of Scottish hospitality, he said, he should have proposed a _bumper_ three times three; but as that could not be done in a temperance meeting, he proposed three cheers, in which he led off with a hearty good will.
All that the Scotch people need now for the prosperity of their country is the temperance reformation; and undoubtedly they will have it. They have good sense and strength of mind enough to work out whatever they choose.
We went home tired enough.
The next day we had a few calls to make, and an invitation from Lady Drummond to visit "classic Hawthornden." Accordingly, in the forenoon, Mr. S. and I called first on Lord and Lady Gainsborough; though, she is one of the queen's household, she is staying here at Edinburgh, and the queen at Osborne. I infer therefore that the appointment includes no very onerous duties. The Earl of Gainsborough is the eldest brother of Rev. Baptist W. Noel.
Lady Gainsborough is the daughter of the Earl of Roden, who is an Irish lord of the very strictest Calvinistic persuasion: He is a devout man, and for many years, we were told, maintained a Calvinistic church of the English establishment in Paris. While Mr. S. talked with Lord Gainsborough, I talked with his lady, and Lady Roden, who was present. Lady Gainsborough inquired about our schools for the poor, and how they were conducted. I reflected a moment, and then answered that we had no schools for the poor as such, but the common school was open alike to all classes.[K]
[Footnote K: Had I known all about New York and Boston which recent examinations have developed, I should have answered very differently. The fact is, that we in America can no longer congratulate ourselves on not having a degraded and miserable class in our cities, and it will be seen to be necessary for us to arouse to the very same efforts which, have been so successfully making in England.]
In England and Scotland, in all classes, from the queen downward, no movements are so popular as those for the education and elevation of the poor; one is seldom in company without hearing the conversation turn upon them.
The conversation generally turned upon the condition of servants in America. I said that one of the principal difficulties in American housekeeping proceeded from the fact that there were so many other openings of profit that very few were found willing to assume the position of the servant, except as a temporary expedient; in fact, that the whole idea of service was radically different, it being a mere temporary contract to render certain services, not differing essentially from the contract of the mechanic or tradesman. The ladies said they thought there could be no family feeling among servants if that was the case; and I replied that, generally speaking, there was none; that old and attached family servants in the free states were rare exceptions.
This, I know, must look, to persons in old countries, like a hard and discouraging feature of democracy. I regard it, however, as only a temporary difficulty. Many institutions among us are in a transition state. Gradually the whole subject of the relations of labor and the industrial callings will assume a new form in America, and though we shall never be able to command the kind of service secured in aristocratic countries, yet we shall have that which will be as faithful and efficient. If domestic service can be made as pleasant, profitable, and respectable as any of the industrial callings, it will soon become as permanent.
Our next visit was to Sir William Hamilton and lady. Sir William is the able successor of Dugald Stewart and Dr. Brown in the chair of intellectual philosophy. His writings have had a wide circulation in America. He is a man of noble presence, though we were sorry to see that he was suffering from ill health. It seems to me that Scotland bears that relation to England, with regard to metaphysical inquiry, that New England does to the rest of the United States. If one counts over the names of distinguished metaphysicians, the Scotch, as compared with the English, number three to one--Reid, Stewart, Brown, all Scotchmen.
Sir William still writes and lectures. He and Mr. S. were soon discoursing on German, English, Scotch, and American metaphysics, while I was talking with Lady Hamilton and her daughters. After we came away Mr. S. said, that no man living had so thoroughly understood and analyzed the German philosophy. He said that Sir William spoke of a call which he had received from Professor Park, of Andover, and expressed himself in high terms of his metaphysical powers.
After that we went to call on George Combe, the physiologist. We found him and Mrs. Combe in a pleasant, sunny parlor, where, among other objects of artistic interest, we saw a very fine engraving of Mrs. Siddons. I was not aware until after leaving that Mrs. Combe is her daughter. Mr. Combe, though somewhat advanced, seems full of life and animation, and conversed with a great deal of warmth and interest on America, where he made a tour some years since. Like other men in Europe who sympathize in our progress, he was sanguine in the hope that the downfall of slavery must come at no distant date.
After a pleasant chat here we came home; and after an interval of rest the carriage was at the door for Hawthornden. It is about seven miles out from Edinburgh. It is a most romantic spot, on the banks of the River Esk, now the seat of Mr. James Walker Drummond. Scott has sung in the ballad of the Gray Brother,--
Sweet are the paths, O, passing sweet,
By Esk's fair streams that run,
O'er airy steep, through copse-woods deep,
Impervious to the sun.
Who knows not Melville's beechy grove,
And Roslin's rocky glen,
Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,
And classic Hawthornden?
"Melville's beechy grove" is an allusion to the grounds of Lord Melville, through which we drove on our way. The beech trees here are magnificent; fully equal to any trees of the sort which I have seen in our American forests, and they were in full leaf. They do not grow so high, but have more breadth and a wider sweep of branches; on the whole they are well worthy of a place in song.
I know in my childhood I often used to wish that I could live in a ruined castle; and this Hawthornden would be the very beau ideal of one as a romantic dwelling-place. It is an old castellated house, perched on the airy verge of a precipice, directly over the beautiful River Esk, looking down one of the most romantic glens in Scotland. Part of it is in ruins, and, hung with wreaths of ivy, it seems to stand just to look picturesque. The house itself, with its quaint, high gables, and gray, antique walls, appears old enough to take you back to the times of William Wallace. It is situated within an hour's walk of Roslin Castle and Chapel, one of the most beautiful and poetic architectural remains in Scotland.
Our drive to the place was charming. It was a showery day; but every few moments the sun blinked out, smiling through the falling rain, and making the wet leaves glitter, and the raindrops wink at each other in the most sociable manner possible. Arrived at the house, our friend, Miss S----, took us into a beautiful parlor overhanging the glen, each window of which commanded a picture better than was ever made on canvas.
We had a little chat with Lady Drummond, and then we went down to examine the caverns,--for there are caverns under the house, with long galleries and passages running from them through the rocks, some way down the river. Several apartments are hollowed out here in the rock on which the house is founded, which they told us belonged to Bruce; the tradition being, that he was hidden here for some months. There was his bed room, dining room, sitting room, and a very curious apartment where the walls were all honeycombed into little partitions, which they called his library, these little partitions being his book shelves. There are small loophole windows in these apartments, where you can look up and down the glen, and enjoy a magnificent prospect. For my part, I thought if I were Bruce, sitting there with a book in my lap, listening to the gentle brawl of the Esk, looking up and down the glen, watching the shaking raindrops on the oaks, the birches and beeches, I should have thought that was better than fighting, and that my pleasant little cave was as good an arbor on the Hill Difficulty as ever mortal man enjoyed.
There is a ponderous old two-handed sword kept here, said to have belonged to Sir William Wallace. It is considerably shorter than it was originally, but, resting on its point, it reached to the chin of a good six foot gentleman of our party. The handle is made of the horn of a sea-horse, (if you know what that is,) and has a heavy iron ball at the end. It must altogether have weighed some ten or twelve pounds. Think of a man hewing away _on men_ with this!
There is a well in this cavern, down which we were directed to look and observe a hole in the side; this we were told was the entrance to another set of caverns and chambers under those in which we were, and to passages which extended down and opened out into the valley. In the olden days the approach to these caverns was not through the house, but through the side of a deep well sunk in the court yard, which communicates through a subterranean passage with this well. Those seeking entrance were let down by a windlass into the well in the court yard, and drawn up by a windlass into this cavern. There was no such accommodation at present, but we were told some enterprising tourists had explored the lower caverns. Pleasant kind of times those old days must have been, when houses had to be built like a rabbit burrow, with all these accommodations for concealment and escape.
After exploring the caverns we came up into the parlors again, and Miss S. showed me a Scottish album, in which were all sorts of sketches, memorials, autographs, and other such matters. What interested me more, she was making a collection of Scottish ballads, words and tunes. I told her that I had noticed, since I had been in Scotland, that the young ladies seemed to take very little interest in the national Scotch airs, and were all devoted to Italian; moreover, that the Scotch ballads and memories, which so interested me, seemed to have very little interest for people generally in Scotland. Miss S. was warm enough in her zeal to make up a considerable account, and so we got on well together.
While we were sitting, chatting, two young ladies came in, who had walked up the glen despite the showery day. They were protected by good, substantial outer garments, of a kind of shag or plush, and so did not fear the rain. I wanted to walk down to Roslin Castle, but the party told me there would not be time this afternoon, as we should have to return at a certain hour. I should not have been reconciled to this, had not another excursion been proposed for the purpose of exploring Roslin.
However, I determined to go a little way down the glen, and get a distant view of it, and my fair friends, the young ladies, offered to accompany me; so off we started down the winding paths, which were cut among the banks overhanging the Esk. The ground was starred over with patches of pale-yellow primroses, and for the first time I saw the heather, spreading over rocks and matting itself around the roots of trees. My companions, to whom it was the commonest thing in the world, could hardly appreciate the delight which I felt in looking at it; it was not in flower; I believe it does not blossom till some time in July or August. We have often seen it in greenhouses, and it is so hardy that it is singular it will not grow wild in America.
We walked, ran, and scrambled to an eminence which commanded a view of Roslin Chapel, the only view, I fear, which will ever gladden my eyes, for the promised expedition to it dissolved itself into mist. When on the hill top, so that I could see the chapel at a distance, I stood thinking over the ballad of Harold, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and the fate of the lovely Rosabel, and saying over to myself the last verses of the ballad:--
"O'er Roslin, all that dreary night,
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;
'Twas broader than the watchfire's light,
And redder than the bright moonbeam.
It glared on Roslin's castled rock,
It ruddied, all the copsewood glen;
'Twas seen from Deyden's groves of oak,
And seen from cavern'd Hawthornden.
Seemed all on fire that chapel proud,
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie,
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.
Seemed all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altar's pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
And glimmered, all the dead men's mail.
Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair,
So will they blaze, when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair.
There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried, within that proud chapelle;
Each one the holy vault doth hold;
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!
And each St. Clair was buried there,
With candle, with book, and with knell;
But the sea caves rung, and the wild winds sung,
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle."
There are many allusions in this which show Scott's minute habits of observation; for instance, these two lines:--
"Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair."
Every buttress, battlement, and projection of the exterior is incrusted with the most elaborate floral and leafy carving, among which the rose is often repeated, from its suggesting, by similarity of sound, Roslin.
Again, this line--
"Shone every pillar foliage-bound"--
suggests to the mind the profusion and elaborateness of the leafy decorations in the inside. Among these, one pillar, garlanded with spiral wreaths of carved foliage, is called the "Apprentice's Pillar;" the tradition being, that while the master was gone to Rome to get some further hints on executing the plan, a precocious young mason, whom he left at home, completed it in his absence. The master builder summarily knocked him on the head, as a warning to all progressive young men not to grow wiser than their teachers. Tradition points out the heads of the master and workmen among the corbels. So you see, whereas in old Greek times people used to point out their celebrities among the stars, and gave a defunct hero a place in the constellations, in the middle ages he only got a place among the corbels.
I am increasingly sorry that I was beguiled out of my personal examination of this chapel, since I have seen the plates of it in my Baronial Sketches. It is the rival of Melrose, but more elaborate; in fact, it is a perfect cataract of architectural vivacity and ingenuity, as defiant of any rules of criticism and art as the leaf-embowered arcades and arches of our American forest cathedrals. From the comparison of the plates of the engravings, I should judge there was less delicacy of taste, and more exuberance of invention, than in Melrose. One old prosaic commentator on it says that it is quite remarkable that there are no two cuts in it precisely alike; each buttress, window, and pillar is unique, though with such a general resemblance to each other as to deceive the eye.
It was built in 1446, by William St. Clair, who was Prince of Orkney, Duke of Oldenburgh, Lord of Roslin, Earl of Caithness and Strathearn, and so on _ad infinitum_. He was called the "Seemly St. Clair," from his noble deportment and elegant manners; resided in royal splendor at this Castle of Roslin, and kept a court there as Prince of Orkney. His table was served with vessels of gold and silver, and he had one lord for his master of household, one for his cup bearer, and one for his carver. His princess, Elizabeth Douglas, was served by seventy-five gentlewomen, fifty-three of whom were daughters of noblemen, and they were attended in all their excursions by a retinue of two hundred gentlemen.
These very woods and streams, which now hear nothing but the murmurs of the Esk, were all alive with the bustle of a court in those days.
The castle was now distinctly visible; it stands on an insulated rock, two hundred and twenty yards from the chapel. It has under it a set of excavations and caverns almost equally curious with those of Hawthornden; there are still some tolerably preserved rooms in it, and Mrs. W. informed me that they had once rented these rooms for a summer residence. What a delightful idea! The barons of Roslin were all buried under this Chapel, in their armor, as Scott describes in the poem. And as this family were altogether more than common folks, it is perfectly credible that on the death of one of them a miraculous light should illuminate the castle, chapel, and whole neighborhood.
It appears, by certain ancient documents, that this high and mighty house of St. Clair were in a particular manner patrons of the masonic craft. It is known that the trade of masonry was then in the hands of a secret and mysterious order, from whom probably our modern masons have descended.
The St. Clair family, it appears, were at the head of this order, with power to appoint officers and places of meeting, to punish transgressors, and otherwise to have the superintendence of all their affairs. This fact may account for such a perfect Geyser of architectural ingenuity as has been poured out upon their family chapel, which was designed for a _chef-d'oeuvre_, a concentration of the best that could be done to the honor of their patron's family. The documents which authenticate this statement are described in Billings's Baronial Antiquities. So much for "the lordly line of high St. Clair."
When we came back to the house, and after taking coffee in the drawing room, Miss S. took me over the interior, a most delightful place, full of all sorts of out-of-the-way snuggeries, and comfortable corners, and poetic irregularities. There she showed me a picture of one of the early ancestors of the family, the poet Drummond, hanging in a room, which tradition has assigned to him. It represents a man with a dark, Spanish-looking face, with the broad Elizabethan ruff, earnest, melancholy eyes, and an air half cavalier, half poet, bringing to mind the chivalrous, graceful, fastidious bard, accomplished scholar, and courtier of his time, the devout believer in the divine right of kings, and of the immunities and privileges of the upper class generally. This Drummond, it seems, was early engaged to a fair young lady, whose death rendered his beautiful retreat of Hawthornden insupportable to him, and of course, like other persons of romance, he sought refuge in foreign travel, went abroad, and remained eight years. Afterwards he came back, married, and lived here for some time.
Among other traditions of the place, it is said that Ben Jonson once walked all the way from London to visit the poet in this retreat; and a tree is still shown on the grounds under which they are said to have met. It seems that Ben's habits were rather too noisy and convivial to meet altogether the taste of his fastidious and aristocratic host; and so he had his own thoughts of him, which, being written down in a diary, were published by some indiscreet executor, after they were both dead.
We were shown an old, original edition of the poems. I must confess I never read them. Since I have seen the material the poet and novelist has on this ground, all I wonder at is, that there have not been a thousand poets to one. I should have thought they would have been as plenty as the mavis and merle, and sprouting out every where, like the primroses and heather bells.
Our American literature is unfortunate in this respect--that our nation never had any childhood, our day never had any dawn; so we have very little traditionary lore to work over.
We came home about five o'clock, and had some company in the evening. Some time to-day I had a little chat with Mrs. W. on the Quakers. She is a cultivated and thoughtful woman, and seemed to take quite impartial views, and did not consider her own sect as by any means the only form of Christianity, but maintained--what every sensible person must grant, I think--that it has had an important mission in society, even in its peculiarities. I inferred from her conversation that the system of plain dress, maintained with the nicety which they always use, is by no means a saving in a pecuniary point of view. She stated that one young friend, who had been brought up in this persuasion, gave it as her reason for not adopting its peculiar dress, that she could not afford it; that is to say, that for a given sum of money she could make a more creditable appearance were she allowed the range of form, shape, and trimming, which the ordinary style of dressing permits.
I think almost any lady, who knows the magical value of bits of trimming, and bows of ribbon judiciously adjusted in critical locations, of inserting, edging, and embroidery, considered as economic arts, must acknowledge that there is some force in the young lady's opinion. Nevertheless the Doric simplicity of a Quaker lady's dress, who is in circumstances to choose her material, has a peculiar charm. As at present advised, the Quaker ladies whom I have seen very judiciously adhere to the spirit of plain attire, without troubling themselves to maintain the exact letter. For instance, a plain straw cottage, with its white satin ribbon, is sometimes allowed to take the place of the close silk bonnet of Fox's day.
For my part, while I reverence the pious and unworldly spirit which dictated the peculiar forms of the Quaker sect, I look for a higher development of religion still, when all the beautiful artistic faculties of the soul being wholly sanctified and offered up to God, we shall no longer shun beauty in any of its forms, either in dress or household adornment, as a temptation, but rather offer it up as a sacrifice to Him who has set us the example, by making every thing beautiful in its season.
As to art and letters, I find many of my Quaker friends sympathizing in those judicious views which were taken by the society of Friends in Philadelphia, when Benjamin West developed a talent for painting, regarding such talent as an indication of the will of Him who had bestowed it. So I find many of them taking pleasure in the poetry of Scott, Longfellow, and Whittier, as developments of his wisdom who gives to the human soul its different faculties and inspirations.
More delightful society than a cultivated Quaker family cannot be found: the truthfulness, genuineness, and simplicity of character, albeit not wanting, at proper times, a shrewd dash of worldly wisdom, are very refreshing.
Mrs. W. and I went to the studio of Hervey, the Scotch artist. Both he and his wife received us with great kindness. I saw there his Covenanters celebrating the Lord's Supper--a picture which I could not look at critically on account of the tears which kept blinding my eyes. It represents a bleak hollow of a mountain side, where a few trembling old men and women, a few young girls and children, with one or two young men, are grouped together, in that moment of hushed prayerful repose which precedes the breaking of the sacramental bread. There is something touching always about that worn, weary look of rest and comfort with which a sick child lies down on a mother's bosom, and like this is the expression with which these hunted fugitives nestle themselves beneath the shadow of their Redeemer; mothers who had seen their sons "tortured, not accepting deliverance"--wives who had seen the blood of their husbands poured out on their doorstone--children with no father but God--and bereaved old men, from whom, every child had been rent--all gathering for comfort round the cross of a suffering Lord. In such hours they found strength to suffer, and to say to every allurement of worldly sense and pleasure as the drowning Margaret Wilson said to the tempters in her hour of martyrdom, "I am _Christ's child_--let me go."
Another most touching picture of Hervey's commemorates a later scene of Scottish devotion and martyr endurance scarcely below that of the days of the Covenant. It is called Leaving the Manse.
We in America all felt to our heart's core a sympathy with that high endurance which led so many Scottish ministers to forsake their churches, their salaries, the happy homes where their children were born and their days passed, rather than violate a principle.
This picture is a monument of this struggle. There rises the manse overgrown with its flowering vines, the image of a lovely, peaceful home. The minister's wife, a pale, lovely creature, is just locking the door, out of which her husband and family have passed--leaving it forever. The husband and father is supporting on his arm an aged, feeble mother, and the weeping children are gathering sorrowfully round him, each bearing away some memorial of their home; one has the bird cage. But the unequalled look of high, unshaken patience, of heroic faith, and love which seems to spread its light over every face, is what I cannot paint. The painter told me that the faces were _portraits_, and the scene by no means imaginary.
But did not these sacrifices bring with them, even in their bitterness, a joy the world knoweth not? Yes, they did. I know it full well, not vainly did Christ say, There is no man that hath left houses or lands for my sake and the gospel's but he shall receive manifold more _in this life_.
Mr. Hervey kindly gave me the engraving of his Covenanters' Sacrament, which I shall keep as a memento of him and of Scotland.
His style of painting is forcible and individual. He showed us the studies that he has taken with his palette and brushes out on the mountains and moors of Scotland, painting moss, and stone, and brook, just as it is. This is the way to be a national painter.
One pleasant evening, not long before we left Edinburgh, C., S., and I walked out for a quiet stroll. We went through the Grass Market, where so many defenders of the Covenant have suffered, and turned into the churchyard of the Gray Friars; a gray, old Gothic building, with multitudes of graves around it. Here we saw the tombs of Allan Ramsay and many other distinguished characters. The grim, uncouth sculpture on the old graves, and the quaint epitaphs, interested me much; but I was most moved by coming quite unexpectedly on an ivy-grown slab, in the wall, commemorating the martyrs of the Covenant. The inscription struck me so much, that I got C---- to copy it in his memorandum book.
"Halt, passenger! take heed what you do see.
Here lies interred the dust of those who stood
'Gainst perjury, resisting unto blood,
Adhering to the Covenant, and laws
Establishing the same; which was the cause
Their lives were sacrificed unto the last
Of prelatists abjured, though here their dust
Lies mixed with murderers and other crew
Whom justice justly did to death pursue;
But as for them, no cause was to be found
Worthy of death, but only they were found
Constant and steadfast, witnessing
For the prerogatives of Christ their King;
Which truths were sealed, by famous Guthrie's head,
And all along to Mr. Renwick's blood
They did endure the wrath of enemies,
Reproaches, torments, deaths, and injuries;
But yet they're those who from such troubles came
And triumph now in glory with the Lamb.
"From May 27, 1681, when the Marquis of Argyle was beheaded, to February 17, 1688, when James Renwick suffered, there were some eighteen thousand one way or other murdered, of whom were executed at Edinburgh about one hundred noblemen, ministers, and gentlemen, and others, noble martyrs for Christ."
Despite the roughness of the verse, there is a thrilling power in these lines. People in gilded houses, on silken couches, at ease among books, and friends, and literary pastimes, may sneer at the Covenanters; it is much easier to sneer than to die for truth and right, as they died. Whether they were right in all respects is nothing to the purpose; but it is to the purpose that in a crisis of their country's history they upheld a great principle vital to her existence. Had not these men held up the heart of Scotland, and kept alive the fire of liberty on her altars, the very literature which has been used to defame them could not have had its existence. The very literary celebrity of Scotland has grown out of their grave; for a vigorous and original literature is impossible, except to a strong, free, self-respecting people. The literature of a people must spring from the sense of its nationality; and nationality is impossible without self-respect, and self-respect is impossible without liberty.
It is one of the trials of our mortal state, one of the disciplines of our virtue, that the world's benefactors and reformers are so often without form or comeliness. The very force necessary to sustain the conflict makes them appear unlovely; they "tread the wine press alone, and of the people there is none with them." The shrieks, and groans, and agonies of men wrestling in mortal combat are often not graceful or gracious; but the comments that the children of the Puritans, and the children of the Covenanters, make on the ungraceful and severe elements which marked the struggles of their great fathers, are as ill-timed as if a son, whom a mother had just borne from a burning dwelling, should criticize the shrieks with which she sought him, and point out to ridicule the dishevelled hair and singed garments which show how she struggled for his life. But these are they which are "sown in weakness, but raised in power; which are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory:" even in this world they will have their judgment day, and their names which went down in the dust like a gallant banner trodden in the mire, shall rise again all glorious in the sight of nations.
The evening sky, glowing red, threw out the bold outline of the castle, and the quaint old edifices as they seemed to look down on us silently from their rocky heights, and the figure of Salisbury Crags marked itself against the red sky like a couchant lion.
The time of our sojourn in Scotland had drawn towards its close. Though feeble in health, this visit to me has been full of enjoyment; full of lofty, but sad memories; full of sympathies and inspirations. I think there is no nobler land, and I pray God that the old seed here sown in blood and tears may never be rooted out of Scotland. _