[1] The following eloquent passage from an address by the Honorable Edward Everett, before the "Scots' Charitable Society," Boston, well illustrates the fact referred to.
"Not to speak of the worthies of ages long passed; of the Knoxes, the Buchanans, and the early minstrelsy of the border; the land of your fathers, sir, since it ceased to be a separate kingdom, has, through the intellect of her gifted sons, acquired a supremacy over the minds of men more extensive and more enduring, than that of Alexander or Augustus. It would be impossible to enumerate them all,—the Blairs of the last generation, the Chalmerses of this; the Robertsons, and Humes; the Smiths, the Reids, the Stuarts, the Browns; the Homes, the Mackenzies; the Mackintoshes, the Broughams, the Jeffreys, with their distinguished compeers, both on physical and moral science. The Marys and the Elizabeths, the Jameses and the Charleses will be forgotten, before these names will perish from the memory of men. And when I add to them those other illustrious names—Burns, Campbell, Byron, and Scott, may I not truly say, sir, that the throne and the sceptre of England will crumble into dust like those of Scotland: and Windsor Castle and Westminster Abbey will lie in ruins as poor and desolate as those of Scone and Iona, before the lords of Scottish song shall cease to reign in the hearts of men.
For myself, sir, I confess that I love Scotland. I have reason to do so. I have trod the soil of the
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
I have looked up to the cloud-capt summit of Ben Lomond; have glided among the fairy islets of Loch Katrine; and from the battlements of Stirling Castle, have beheld the links of Forth sparkling in the morning sun. I have done more, sir; I have tasted that generous hospitality of Scotland, which her Majesty's Consul has so justly commemorated; I have held converse with her most eminent sons; I have made my pilgrimage to Melrose Abbey, in company with that modern magician, who, mightier than the magician of old that sleeps beneath the marble floor of its chancel, has hung the garlands of immortal poesy upon its shattered arches, and made its moss-clad ruins a shrine, to be visited by the votary of the muse from the remotest corners of the earth, to the end of time. Yes, sir, musing as I did, in my youth, over the sepulchre of the wizard, once pointed out by the bloody stain of the cross and the image of the archangel:—standing within that consecrated enclosure, under the friendly guidance of him whose genius has made it holy ground; while every nerve within me thrilled with excitement, my fancy kindled with the inspiration of the spot. I seemed to behold, not the vision so magnificently described by the minstrel,—the light, which, as the tomb was opened,
broke forth so gloriously,
Streamed upward to the chancel roof,
And through the galleries far aloof:
But I could fancy that I beheld, with sensible perception, the brighter light, which had broken forth from the master mind; which had streamed from his illumined page all-gloriously upward, above the pinnacles of worldly grandeur, till it mingled its equal beams, with that of the brightest constellations, in the intellectual firmament of England."
[2] This is spoken, of course, of the great body of the people.
[3] Letter to Robert Burns, by Mr. Telford, of Shrewsbury, a native of Scotland.
[4] Withered cheeks.