Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

dour that we admire it, but because it is a fragment which only represents or shadows forth a matchless whole which has been, and whose merits we are, from this shattered specimen, completely disposed to allow.

Melrose Abbey was first built by David I. in the year 1136, dedicated to St Mary, and devoted to the use of a body of Cistercian monks. The church, which alone remains, measures 287 feet in length, and 157 at the greatest breadth. It is built in the most ornate style of the Gothic architecture, and therefore decorated with an infinite variety of sculptures, most of which are exquisitely fine. While the western extremity of the building is entirely ruined and removed, the eastern and more important parts are fortunately in a state of tolerable preservation: in particular, the oriel window, and that which surmounts the south door, both alike admirable, are almost entire. It is also matter of great thankfulness, that a good many of the shapely pillars for the support of the roof are still extant. It is to these objects that the attention of travellers is chiefly directed.

It is not to the zeal of reformers alone that the desecration of our best old religious buildings is to be attributed. The enthusiasm of individuals in more recent times has sometimes done that which the reformers left undone; as is testified by a notorious circumstance told by the person who shows Melrose. On the eastern window of the church, there were formerly thirteen effigies, supposed to represent our Saviour and his apostles.* These, harmless and beautiful as they were, happened to provoke the wrath of a praying weaver in Gattonside, who, in a moment of inspired zeal, went up one night by means of a ladder, and with a hammer and chisel, knocked off the heads and limbs of the figures. Next morning he made no scruple to publish the transaction, observing with a great deal of exultation, to every person whom he met, that he had "fairly stumpet thae vile paipist dirt nou!" The people sometimes catch up a remarkable word when uttered on a remarkable occasion by one of their number, and turn the utterer into ridicule, by attaching it to him as a nickname; and it is some consolation to think that this monster was therefore treated with the sobriquet of "Stumpie,” and of course carried it about with him to his grave.

It would require a distinct volume to do justice to the infinite details of Melrose Abbey; for the whole is built in a style of such elaborate ornament, that almost every foot-breadth has its beauty, and every beauty is worthy of notice. I shall content myself with merely

* In the drawing of Melrose niches are all filled with statues. of king William.

IV.

Abbey in Slezer's Theatrum Scotia, the
Slezer took his drawings early in the reign

2 B

adding the description which Sir Walter Scott has given of it in

his Lay of the Last Minstrel.

If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,

Go visit it by the pale moonlight;

For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild but to flout the ruins gray.

When the broken arches are dark in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white ;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruin'd central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;

When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;

When distant Tweed is heard to rave,

And the howlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,

Then go but go alone the while

Then view St David's ruined pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair.

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

By a steel-clench'd postern door,
They enter'd now the chancel tall;
The darken'd roof rose high aloof

On pillars, lofty, light, and small;
The key-stone, that lock'd each ribbed aisle,
Was a fleur-de-lys or a quatre-feuille ;

The corbells were carved grotesque and grim;
And the pillars, with cluster'd shafts so trim,

With base and capital furnish'd around,

Seem'd bundles of lances which garlands had bound.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

The moon on the east oriel shone,

Through slender shafts of shapely stone,

By foliaged tracery combined;

Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand

'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand

In many a freakish knot had twined;

Then framed a spell, when the work was done,
And changed the willow-wreaths to stone.

At the time of the Reformation the inmates of this abbey shared in the general reproach of sensuality and irregularity thrown upon the Romish churchmen, as is testified by a ballad then popular, which contained the following verse:

The monks of Melrose made gude kail

On Fridays, when they fasted;
Nor wanted they gude beef and ale,

As lang as their neighbours' lasted.

Corbells, the projections from which the arekes spring, usually cut in a fantastic face, or mask.

Whatever might be the sensuality of the monks of Melrose, it is certain that some of their power was sometimes matter of real inconvenience to the public. The abbot had such an extensive jurisdiction, and the privileges of girth and sanctuary interfered so much with the execution of justice, that James V. is said to have once acted as baron baillie, in order to punish those malefactors in the character of the abbot's deputy, whom his own sovereign power, and that of the laws were unable to reach otherwise. But, whatever may be thought of this, there can be no doubt that the protection extended to criminals by the religious was a true blessing in the main, at a time when the law could neither inflict punishment, nor protect a criminal from the rash and unmeasured retribution of those whom he had offended.

After the Reformation, a brother of the earl of Morton became commendator of the abbey, and out of the ruins built himself a house, which may still be seen about fifty yards to the north-east of the church. The regality soon after passed into the hands of lord Binning, an eminent lawyer, ancestor to the earl of Haddington: and about a century ago, the whole became the property of the Buccleuch family.

MIDNIGHT REVIEW OF NAPOLEON'S SHADE.*

AT midnight, from his grave,

The drummer woke and rose,

And, beating loud the drum,
Forth on his round he goes.

Stirr'd by his fleshless arms,
The drumsticks patly fall ;
He beats the loud retreat,
Reveillé, and roll-call.

So strangely rolls that drum,
So deep it echoes round,
Old soldiers in their graves
Start to life at the sound;

Both they in farthest north,
Stiff in the ice that lay,
And who too warm repose
Beneath Italian clay,

Below the mud of Nile,

And 'neath Arabian sand ;

* Various versions have been given of this striking piece, in different languages. The original is probably French. The present English version is the best which we have seen, and first appeared in the Foreign Quarterly Review.

Their burial place they quit,
And soon to arms they stand.

And at midnight, from his grave
The trumpeter arose :
And, mounted on his horse,

A loud shrill blast he blows.

On aery coursers then
The cavalry are seen,
Old squadrons erst renown'd,
Gory and gash'd, I ween.

Beneath the casque their blanched skulls
Sinile grim, and proud their air,
As in their bony hands

Their long sharp swords they bear.

And at midnight, from his tomb
THE CHIEF awoke and rose;
And, followed by his staff,
With slow steps on he goes.

A little hat he wears,

A coat quite plain has he,

A little sword for arms,

At his left side hangs free.

O'er the vast plain the moon
A paly lustre threw ;
The man with the little hat

The troops goes to review.

The ranks present their arms,
Deep roll the drums the while;
Recovering then, the troops
Before the chief defile.

Captains and generals round
In circle form'd appear;
The Chief to the first a word
Then whispers in his ear.

The word goes round the ranks,
Resounds along the Seine ;
That word they give is France !
The answer-Sainte Helene!

'Tis there, at midnight hour The grand review, they say,

Is by dead Cæsar held

In the Champs-Elysées.

OSWALD THE BLIGHTED.

A TALE OF AYRSHIRE.*

In my early manhood I am led to note the most remarkable passages of my life. My age little exceeds twenty-three years, yet already have I a strong sense of the flight and the ravages of dark-handed time. The revolutions wrought in my own estate and condition, even within the lapse of these few late years, are marvellous to myself. I am not what I was. Not less altered is the current of my every-day conduct and manners from that of my early youth, than are the lineaments of my countenance, or the contour of my frame.—But to my story:

My father died when I was five years old and therefore of him I can have little to tell from my own recollections. One particular transaction descriptive of his behaviour to me, that greatly endears his memory in my heart, is, however, freshly and minutely remembered; nor shall it ever depart but with my reason or my life. A few days before his last illness, which was short, he took me into the garden after a heavy shower of snow, and there, in the strength of his love, playfully tempted me to a mimic fight with snow-balls. Oh! soft were those he threw; most careful and gentle the blows. Then the loud laugh he set up, to see me waxing hot in the encounter, was a hearty delightful utterance of over-flowing joy. At length he allowed me to become victor; but as I closed upon him, still in battle, he took me up into his arms, and almost smothered me with caresses, his eyes filling with parental tears, which in his exultation he could

not stem.

On my father's death, Learigg, one of the richest farms in my native parish, descended to me. But my mother, who long survived him, was a far more valuable residue and inheritance. It would be tiresome to a stranger, were I to tell all that I feel is due to her excellencies. Suffice it to say, that to a judgment originally firm, and affections intensely tender, she possessed the best habits assiduously studied and cherished. The character of her mind was forcibly indicated by the style of her sway over her dependants, which was gained entirely by the dignity of kindliness. I often observed that it was by striving to deserve her approbation that they earned their own. But it was towards me, her fatherless boy, that the power of her nature and character had full display. Who could compute the amount of her parental love-that inextinguishable triumphant love? It was deep and pure and sacred as that of a seraph. Endless were the expedients, infinite the modes, by which it wrought. She cares. * Abridged from "The Metropolitan."

« AnteriorContinuar »