With the Act of Union the stream grows steady and full. There is Ben Jonson, trudging along the green roadway out yonder; for on foot, and all the way from London, he came northward to visit William Drummond of Hawthornden. Who would not journey to such a name? But, alas, a fire destroyed "my journey into Scotland sung with all the adventures." All that I know of Ben is that he was impressed with Lomond—two hundred years before Scott.
And there trails Taylor, "water poet," hoping to rival Rare Ben, on his "Pennyless Pilgrimage," when he actually went into Scotland without a penny, and succeeded in getting gold to further him on his way—"Marr, Murraye, Elgin, Bughan, and the Lord of Erskine, all of these I thank them, gave me gold to defray my charges in my journey."
James Howell, carries a thin portfolio as he travels the highway. But we must remember that he wrote his "Perfect Description of the People and Country of Scotland" in the Fleet.
Here is Doctor Johnson, in a post chaise. Of course, Sir! "Mr. Boswell, an active lively fellow is to conduct me round the country." And he's still a lively conductor. Surely you can see the Doctor, in his high boots, and his very wide brown cloth great coat with pockets which might be carrying two volumes of his folio dictionary, and in his hand a large oak staff. One tries to forget that years before this journey he had said to Boswell, "Sir, the noblest prospect that a Scotchman ever sees is the highroad that leads him to London." And, was there any malice in Boswell's final record—"My illustrious friend, being now desirous to be again in the great theater of life and animated existence"?
The poet Gray preceded him a little, and even John Wesley moves along the highroad seeking to save Scottish souls as well as English. A few years afterward James Hogg comes down this way to visit his countryman, Tammas Carlyle in London; who saw Hogg as "a little red-skinned stiff rock of a body with quite the common air of an Ettrick shepherd."
There is Scott, many times, from the age of five when he went to Bath, till that last journey back from Italy—to Dryburgh! And Shadowy Jeanie Deans comes downward, walking her "twenty-five miles and a bittock a day," to save her sister from death.
Disraeli comes up this way when he was young and the world was his oyster. Stevenson passes up and down, sending his merry men up and down. And one of the most native is William Winter—"With a quick sense of freedom and of home, I dashed across the Border and was in Scotland."
There is a barricade of the Cheviots stretching across between the two countries, but the Romans built a Wall to make the division more apparent. In the dawn of the centuries the Romans came hither, and attempting to come to Ultima Thule, Picts and Scots—whatever they were, at least they were brave—met the Romans on the Border, as yet unreported in the world's history and undefined in the world's geography, and sent them back into what is England. The Romans in single journeys, and in certain imperial attempts, did penetrate as far as Inverness. But they never conquered Scotland. Only Scotland of all the world held them back. And in order to define their defeat and to place limits to the unlimited Roman Empire, the Great Wall was built, built by Hadrian, that men might know where civilization, that splendid thing called Roman civilization, and barbarism did meet. Scotland was barbarism. And I think, not in apology but in all pride, she has remained something of this ever since. Never conquered, never subdued.
The Wall was, in truth, a very palpable thing, stretching from the Solway to the North Sea at the Tyne, with ample width for the constant patrol, with lookout towers at regular and frequent intervals, with soldiers gathered from every corner of the Empire, often the spawn of it, and with much traffic and with even permanent villas built the secure side of the barrier. If you meet Puck on Pook's hill, he will tell you all about it.
Our fast express moves swiftly northward, through the littoral of Northumberland, as the ship bearing Sister Clare moved through the sea—