Rode over to Roslin castle. The country between Dalhousie castle and Roslin, including the village of Lasswade, is of uncommon loveliness. Lasswade itself clings to the two sides of a small valley, with its village church buried in trees, and the country seat of Lord Melvill looking down upon it, from its green woods; and away over the shoulder of the hill, swell the forests and rocks which imbosom Hawthornden (the residence of Drummond, the poet, in the days of Ben Jonson,) and the Pentland Hills, with their bold outline, form a background that completes the picture.
We left our horses at the neighboring inn, and walked first to Roslin chapel. This little gem of florid architecture is scarcely a ruin, so perfect are its arches and pillars, its fretted cornices and its painted windows. A whimsical booby undertook the cicerone, with a long cane-pole to point out the beauties. We entered the low side door, whose stone threshold the feet of Cromwell’s church stabled troopers assisted to wear, and walked at once to a singular column of twisted marble, most curiously carved, standing under the choir. Our friend with the cane-pole, who had condescended to familiar Scotch on the way, took his distance from the base, and drawing up his feet like a soldier on drill, assumed a most extraordinary elevation of voice, and recited its history in a declamation of which I could only comprehend the words “Awbraham and Isaac.” I saw by the direction of the pole that there was a bas relief of the Father of the Faithful, done on the capital—but for the rest I was indebted to Lord Ramsay, who did it into English as follows: “The master-mason of this chapel, meeting with some difficulties in the execution of his design, found it necessary to go to Rome for information, during which time his apprentice carried on the work, and even executed some parts concerning which his master had been most doubtful; particularly this fine fluted column, ornamented with wreaths of foliage and flowers twisting spirally round it. The master on his return, stung with envy at this proof of the superior abilities of his apprentice, slew him by a blow of his hammer.”
The whole interior of the chapel is excessively rich. The roof, capitals, key-stones, and architraves, are covered with sculptures. On the architrave joining the apprentice’s pillar to a smaller one, is graved the sententious inscription, “Forte est vinum, fortior est rex, fortiores sunt mulieres; super omnia vincit veritas.” It has been built about four hundred years, and is, I am told, the most perfect thing of its kind in Scotland.
The ruins of Roslin castle are a few minutes’ walk beyond. They stand on a kind of island rock, in the midst of one of the wildest glens of Scotland, separated from the hill nearest to the base by a drawbridge, swung over a tremendous chasm. I have seen nothing so absolutely picturesque in my travels. The North Esk runs its dark course, unseen, in the ravine below; the rocks on every side frown down upon it in black shadows, the woods are tangled and apparently pathless, and were it not for a most undeniable two-story farm house, built directly in the court of the old castle, you might convince yourself that foot had never approached it since the days of Wallace.
The fortress was built by William St. Clair, of whom Grose writes: “He kept a great court, and was royally served at his own table in vessels of gold and silver; Lord Dirleton being his master-household; Lord Borthwick his cup-bearer, and Lord Fleming his carver; in whose absence they had deputies to attend, viz: Stewart, Laird of Drumlanrig; Tweddie, Laird of Drumerline, and Sandilands, Laird of Calder. He had his halls and other apartments richly adorned with embroidered hangings. He flourished in the reigns of James the First and Second. His princess, Elizabeth Douglas, was served by seventy-five gentlewomen, whereof fifty-three were daughters of noblemen, all clothed in velvets and silks, with their chains of gold and other ornaments, and was attended by two hundred riding gentlemen in all her journeys; and, if it happened to be dark when she went to Edinburgh, where her lodgings were at the foot of the Black Fryar’s Wynd, eighty torches were carried before her.”
With a scrambling walk up the glen, which is, as says truly Mr. Grose, “inconceivably romantic,” we returned to our horses, and rode back to our dinner at Dalhousie, delighted with Roslin castle, and uncommonly hungry.
LETTER V.
“CHRISTOPHER NORTH”—MR. BLACKWOOD—THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD—LOCKHART—NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ—WORDSWORTH—SOUTHEY—CAPTAIN HAMILTON AND HIS BOOK ON AMERICA—PROFESSOR WILSON’S FAMILY, ETC.
One of my most valued letters to Scotland was an introduction to Professor Wilson—the “Christopher North” of Blackwood, and the well known poet. The acknowledgment of the reception of my note came with an invitation to breakfast the following morning, at the early hour of nine.
The professor’s family were at a summer residence in the country, and he was alone in his house in Gloucester-place, having come to town on the melancholy errand of a visit to poor Blackwood—(since dead.) I was punctual to my hour, and found the poet standing before the fire with his coat skirts expanded—a large, muscular man, something slovenly in his dress, but with a manner and face of high good humor, and remarkably frank and prepossessing address. While he was finding me a chair, and saying civil things of the noble friend who had been the medium of our acquaintance, I was trying to reconcile my idea of him, gathered from portraits and descriptions, with the person before me. I had imagined a thinner and more scholar-like looking man, with a much paler face, and a much more polished exterior. His head is exceedingly ample, his eye blue and restless, his mouth full of character, and his hair, of a very light sandy color, is brushed up to cover an incipient baldness, but takes very much its own way, and has the wildness of a highlander’s. He has the stamp upon him of a remarkable man to a degree seldom seen, and is, on the whole, fine-looking and certainly a gentleman in his appearance; but (I know not whether the impression is common) I expected in Christopher North, a finished and rather over-refined man of the world of the old school, and I was so far disappointed.