Chapter VII: The Artist and His Realm (2)

Thus it is through art and literature alone that national individualities _really_ communicate with each other; it is through them that what is _characteristic_ in each is made known to all; it is through them that embittered, long-seated, and deeply-rooted national prejudices must be dissipated; through them that the fusion of minds, violently hostile to each other only because of their mutual ignorance and misconception of character, must eventually be effected. Before the means of constant intercommunication, daily becoming more rapid and perfect, shall have compassed the whole earth with their lines of lightning, before all nations shall be known to one another as inhabitants of the same city--the artists, through art and literature, will have confided to the human heart of their brethren their own most sacred feelings, the hidden beatings of their life-pulse, so that when the material barriers separating souls shall fall, when steam and iron shall subdue space and time, men of distant climes will no longer stand as strangers to one another, but meet with all the enthusiasm of near and dear friends long since initiated in all the holy and tender secrets of the home hearth; the due place of affection, honor, and gratitude ready for all true souls at the sacred fireside of appreciative fraternal love.

It is remarkable that the art marked and conditioned by the necessity of the most _perfect unity_, the art almost exclusively intended for the expression of and appeal to the feelings of the soul, the art without material model of any kind, and consequently the most ideal and original of all, in which the pulse of time itself marshals the tones in order, symmetry, and proportion, coloring them with the joys and woes, hopes and fears of humanity--should now be undoubtedly entering upon a new era of far higher and wider development. This fact contains a germ which is to blossom in the most brilliant bloom; the crowning flower in that _living unity_, which is, indeed, the '_manifest Destiny_' of our race.

There is certainly something exceedingly remarkable in the unitive powers of music. In the first place, its present popularization cannot fail to multiply the relations of men with one another, as each separate instrument, like an arithmetical figure, has an _absolute_, as well as a _relative_ value. It may not be sufficient in itself to produce _harmony_; but when placed in UNION with others, it gains a double or triple value, according to the part assigned it in a musical Whole. A single _jar_ in time or tune spoils the entire effect of the marvellous variety and order, attained in the _utter oneness_ of any good musical work. The desire to increase the limits of art, to multiply its delicious emotions, will infallibly lead those who cultivate this ethereal study to frequent reunions, in order that they may produce the Beautiful in more fulness, obtain a greater variety of effect and tone, cradled, as it must ever be in music, in the bosom of the strictest unity.

Music has its own trinity, composed of Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony. _Rhythm_ is the pulse of time; the tones register its heart beats and manifest its soul, its _melody_; _harmony_ is the concurrent sympathy or antagonism elicited by its annunciation in the invisible realm in which it moves. Unity is first manifested in the rhythm; then, as the tones _consecutively_ follow each other, the succeeding one always born and growing immediately from the one just expiring, in the consequent _melody_; and lastly, as the tones progress _simultaneously_, hand to hand, and heart to heart, with the single line or passion of the melody, conditioned and responding to it in all its varied phases--(the individual and collective, the soul and its surroundings)--the grand diapason of harmony rolls on--and the magic _unity_ of music is complete! Hence, part of its power over men. But like all organic, basic life-principles, its relations with the human spirit defy analysis. Its unitive influence cannot be denied, even by those who do not feel its charm. Let them but consider that no public act of humanity implying the _primeval unity_ of the race, is considered complete without it, and they must be convinced that it is pre-eminently the art of social union. When an entire nation collects as a band of brothers to resist aggression, to repel invasion, it is music, the unitive art, which animates them to seek death itself to resist wrongs which would burden all, its very rhythm keeping in massive _unison_, _together_, the tread of thousands, causing all hearts to throb in _one_ measure, and so regulating the most heterogenous masses that they move as it were as _one_ mighty man. And in all public acknowledgments of our collective dependence as _one_ race upon the _one_ God, music alone is considered sufficiently symbolic and tender to express the universal sense of helplessness, of generic trust in His marvellous mercy.

Music blesses the innocent bride with the first chant of forever _united_, and consequently holy love. It hallows at the baptismal font the introduction of the infant into the mystical _oneness_ of the children of Christ. Even at the grave it softens human sorrow by its heavenly whisperings of _eternal union_ in the bosom of Infinite love.

France is ever ready to receive Italian, Sclavonic, and German artists with characteristic and appreciative enthusiasm; and America applauds with _naïve_ rapture that skill, as yet, alas! foreign to her native soil.

'I pant for the music which is divine,
My heart in its thirst is a dying flower;
Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine;
Loosen the notes in a silver shower;
Like an herbless plain, for the gentle rain,
I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.

'Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound--
More--oh, more--I am thirsting yet!
It loosens the serpent which care has bound
Upon my heart to stifle it;
The dissolving strain, in every vein,
Passes into my heart and brain.'

SHELLEY.

Artists and litterateurs are the true representatives of the countries in which they live; because they alone reveal to us the secret throbbings of the great national heart; and the warm and sympathetic feelings which they excite in foreign climes, are _golden links_ drawing more closely the ties of mutual understanding and affection, welding them together in that generous _reciprocal_ esteem and comprehension, which is destined to _unite_ all climes and tongues.

'A touch of nature makes the whole world kin.'

The sympathies of life are widening and increasing. Societies are constantly arising devoting themselves to the solacing of human misery; eager sympathies are evinced by different countries in the sufferings of distant lands; ready and substantial aid is gladly tendered in cases of pestilence and famine; and religious intolerance and bigotry are raving themselves to rest. Christ is more and creeds are less than of old. The fact that a free government is now in successful operation, in which (when one false element, slavery, shall be forever eliminated) the voluntary annexation of new states and new countries would be but new ties of strength, with the consentaneous and related facts above quoted, tend to prove that humanity is entering upon a new era; that it is not destined to trail its passionate and quivering wings much longer through the mire of mere materialism; but that newer and higher life is spreading _simultaneously_ through all its members; that the elevating love of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, is hourly penetrating it more deeply; that after its intellect shall have been trained by the sciences--its force increased by industry, commerce, and statesmanship--its inmost heart will be developed by the Charities, now, as with the subtile Greeks, _one_ with the Graces--the arts for the manifestation of the Beautiful. Everything tends to prove, even the wars now waging for national entities, that the human race is approaching that _promised_ phase of civilization, in which _all_ the elements are to combine in glorious _unity_, sound in witching harmony, and men, full of love to God and man, are to become living stones in the vast temple of the redeemed, _one_ through the loving heart of the Brother who died for them all; _one_ through Him with the Infinite God, since in Him finite and Infinite are forever _one_!

A few words in the cause of those in advance of their times, and we attain the close of our first volume.

It is a startling fact, in the history of humanity, that the benefactors of the race have always been its martyrs and victims; dyeing every glorious gift which they have won for their brethren in the royal purple of the kingly blood of their own hearts. Is this, brethren, to last forever? Shall we never requite the dauntless Columbus, in the wide sea of Beauty? Of all men living, the artist most requires the boon of sympathy. The most susceptible of them all, the musician, plunging into the unseen depths of the time-ocean to wrestle for his gems, feels his heart die within him, when he sees his fellow men turn coldly away from the pure and priceless pearls which he has won for them from the stormy waves and whirlpools of chaotic and compassless sound.

As the artists must be considered as the standard-bearers of that blissful banner of progress to be effected through the culture of the _sympathies_ of the race, unrolling that great Oriflamme of humanity, on which bloom the Heavenly Lilies of that chaste Passion of the Soul--_the longing for the infinite_--let us acknowledge that we have failed to render happy the great spirits no longer among us; and let us strive, for the future, not to chill with our mistrust and coldness, not to drive into the sickness of despair with our want of intelligent sympathy, the gifted living, who, as angels of a better covenant, still lovingly linger among us! Let us strive to learn the lesson set before us with such tenderness in the following eloquent words of Ruskin, fitting close as they are to the many which we have already collated and combined with our work from his glowing pages.

'He who has once stood beside the grave to look back upon the
companionship now forever closed, feeling how impotent _there_ are
the wild love and keen sorrow to give one moment's pleasure to the
pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed
spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future
incur that debt to the _heart_ which can only be discharged to the
_dust_. But the lessons which men receive as _individuals_, they
never learn as _nations_. Again and again they have seen their
_noblest_ descend into the grave, and have thought it enough to
garland the tombstone when they have not crowned the brow, and to
pay the honor to the _ashes_ which they had denied to the _spirit_.
Let it not displease them that they are bidden, amidst the tumult
and glitter of their busy life, to listen for the few voices and
watch for the few lamps which God has toned and lighted to charm
and guide them, that they may not learn their sweetness by their
silence, nor their light by their decay.'

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the highest poet of our own century, has thus given us the artist's creed of resignation, closing her chant with his sublime Te Deum:

VOICE OF THE CREATOR.

''And, O ye gifted givers, ye
Who give your liberal hearts to me,
To make the world this harmony,--

''Are ye resigned that they be spent
To such world's help?' The spirits bent
Their awful brows, and said--'Content!

''We ask no wages--seek no fame!
Sew us for shroud round face and name,
God's banner of the oriflamme.

''We are content to be so bare
Before the archers! everywhere
Our wounds being stroked by heavenly air.

''We lay our souls before thy feet,
That Images of fair and sweet
Should walk to other men on it.

''We are content to feel the step
Of each pure Image!--let those keep
To mandragore, who care to sleep:

''For though we must have, and have had
Right reason to be earthly sad--
THOU POET-GOD, ART GREAT AND GLAD!''

END OF VOLUME FIRST.

THE LIONS OF SCOTLAND.

The 'restoration' mania which now pervades Great Britain, however much it be declaimed against by certain hypercritical architects, is yet certain to have at least one favorable result, in preserving to the future tourist the noblest monuments of the past. The abbeys and castles and tombs of England and Scotland are now so well cared for, that, ruins though they be, they will last for centuries. And yet the observant traveller can note, year by year, little changes, trifling alterations, which, though without great importance, are not destitute of interest; for he who has once visited Melrose, will be interested to learn that even one more stone has fallen from the ruin.

It is intended, in the following pages, to review the present condition, and state the recent changes in the 'Lions of Scotland,' and particularly in the localities with which the memories of Burns and Scott--memories so dear, both to the untravelled and travelled American--are most closely associated. Of the thousands of visitors who yearly flock to do mental homage at the tomb of Shakespeare, one out of every ten is from the United States; and so a large minority of the tourists in Scotland, and particularly of those most deeply interested in Scotland's greatest bards, hail from the New World. The conclusion of the war will probably be the signal for an unusual hegira from America to Europe; and these notes of the actual condition, in A.D. 1863, of Scotland's famed shrines, may serve to whet the increasing appetite for foreign travel.

'Bobby Burns' is buried at Dumfries, a rather dull town, which, fortunately for the tourist, has no notable church or ruin to be visited _nolens volens_. The place has, however, a Continental air, caused principally by the very curious clock tower in the market place; a quaint spire, in the background, adding to the effect of the architectural picture.

At one end of the town is St. Michael's church--a huge, square box, pierced by windows, and guarded by a big sentinel of a bell tower, surmounted by another quaint spire. The graveyard is one of the oddest in the kingdom, presenting long rows of huge tombstones, twelve or fifteen feet high, usually painted of a muddy cream color, each one serving for an entire family, and recording the trades or professions as well as the names and ages of the deceased. One of these enormous stones is in commemoration of the victims of the cholera in 1832.

In one corner of the cemetery is the tasteless mausoleum of Burns--a circular Grecian temple, the spaces between the pillars glazed, and a low dome, shaped like an inverted washbowl, clapped on top. The interior is occupied by Turnerelli's fine marble group of Burns at the plough, interrupted by the Muse of Poetry. At the foot of this group, and covering the poet's remains, is the freshly painted slab, bearing these inscriptions:

IN MEMORY OF
ROBERT BURNS,
WHO DIED THE 21ST OF JULY, 1796,
IN THE 37TH YEAR OF HIS AGE:

AND

MAXWELL BURNS,
WHO DIED THE 25TH APRIL, 1799,
AGED 2 YEARS AND 9 MONTHS;

FRANCIS WALLACE BURNS,
WHO DIED THE 9TH JULY, 1803,
AGED 14 YEARS--HIS SONS.

THE REMAINS OF BURNS,
REMOVED INTO THE VAULT BELOW
19TH SEPTEMBER, 1815--AND HIS TWO SONS.

ALSO THE REMAINS OF
JEAN ARMOUR,
RELICT OF THE POET,
BORN 6TH FEBRUARY, 1765,
DIED 26TH MARCH, 1834;

AND ROBERT, HIS ELDEST SON,
DIED MAY 14, 1857,
AGED 70 YEARS.

Visitors are allowed to enter the cheerful, if not elegant mausoleum, though all it contains can be seen through the windows. All the memorials of Burns, by the way, seem to be of the same tasteless style--the same wearisome imitation of the antique. The monument at Ayr, and that on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, are but additional examples.

Before leaving Dumfries, let me allude to a very curious custom, observed only in St. Michael's church, and even there beginning to fall into desuetude. The Scotch, who are alike noted for snuff and religious austerity, are equally devoted to footstools. In many families, where economy is the rule, one footstool--they are mere little wooden benches--serves both for the fireside and the kirk. To facilitate transportation, these benches are provided with little holes perforating the centre of the seat, large enough to admit the ferule of an umbrella or cane; and thus, borne aloft on these articles, the little benches are carried proudly above the shoulders of the bearers, like triumphant banners. In order to avoid the noise arising from the clatter of these benches as they are lowered into the pews, the congregation are accustomed to assemble some time before divine service begins.

A similar custom once prevailed in the cathedral at Glasgow. In 1588 the kirk session decided that seats in the church would be a great luxury, and certain ash trees in the churchyard were cut down, and devoted to the then novel purpose; but ungallantly enough, the women of the congregation were forbidden to sit on the new seats, and were ordered to bring stools along with them. Tradition, however, fails to record whether the Glasgow ladies carried their stools on the tops of umbrellas, like their sisters of Dumfries.

The grave of Burns owes to its uncouth monument the unsatisfactory feeling which it inspires in visitors. Alloway kirk is the place where the remains of the favorite Scottish poet should lie. Instead of artificial temples, badly copied from a clime and nation with which he had no sympathy or affinity, the young daisy and the fresh grass should mark his resting place.

'Alloway's kirk haunted wall' is preserved with such faithful care, that this year it looks very much the same as it did when Burns knew it. As a ruin, apart from the interest with which the poet has invested it, it possesses nothing to attract attention. Two end walls, which once supported a gable roof, and two low side walls, all without ornament of any kind--without gothic tracing or oriel wonders--without even graceful ivy flung over its ruggedness--are all that remain of Alloway, if we except the old bell, which yet hangs in the little belfry; a sign board below insulting visitors by requesting them not to throw stones at it!

The little churchyard of Alloway continues to be a burial place; but the gravestones seem, in many instances, sadly inconsistent with the poetical associations of the place. As at Dumfries, the business occupations of the deceased are mentioned; and we find here the family tombs of 'Robert Anderson, molecatcher,' of 'James Wallace, blacksmith,' and the like. David Watt Miller, who was buried here in 1823, was the last person baptized in the old Alloway kirk--his tombstone recording the fact. Near the entrance to the graveyard, and opposite the new gothic edifice which has taken the place of the old kirk, is the slab to the poet's father and sister, thus inscribed:

'Sacred to the memory of WILLIAM BURNS, farmer
in Lochie, who died February 13, 1784, in
the 63d year of his age.

Also of ISABELLA, relict of JOHN BELL; his
youngest daughter, born at Mount Oliphant,
June 27, 1771; died December 4, 1858, much
respected and esteemed by a wide circle of
friends, to whom she endeared herself by her
life of piety, her mild urbanity of manner, and
her devotion to the memory of BURNS.'

The reader is aware that Alloway's kirk, the Burns monument, the cottage where the poet was born, the elaborate temple, erected to his memory, and Tam O'Shanter's brig, are all within a few rods of each other, at about two miles' distance from Ayr. The view of the temple, kirk, and 'brig,' from the opposite side of the stream, is worthy of Arcadia. The temple is familiar from engravings; but the bridge, with its graceful arch, draped by low-hanging ivy, is far more beautiful. Yet this exquisite scene is identified with one of Burns's coarsest efforts--one which, with all its vividness and humor, cannot be read aloud in the family circle. Fortunately, however, for the poet, his fame by no means rests on this unequal mixture of the humorous, the beautiful, and the vulgar; and instead of admiring Tam O'Shanter's bridge itself, it is much more pleasant to stand upon it, and gaze therefrom at the river which laves the 'banks and braes o' bonnie Doon'--at the fields besprinkled with the 'wee, crimsoned-tipped flower'--at the cottages where once lived the 'auld acquaintance' of 'lang syne,' and where occurred the scenes of 'The Cotter's Saturday Night.' 'Highland Mary' has crossed this bridge, and this sanctifies it far more than the imaginary terrors of Tam O'Shanter.

An hour's railway ride takes the tourist from the land of Burns to the scenes rendered sacred by the genius of Scott.

Abbotsford, the favorite home, of course is still open to visitors, who are hurried though it with the most disgusting celerity, by the guide engaged by the family to 'do'--at a shilling a head--the hospitalities of the place. The home of Scott retains all the characteristics it did when he died; but is shown in such a heartless, museum-like manner, that the visitor need not expect much gratification from the inspection.

A few miles farther up the Tweed is Ashetiel, the former home of Walter Scott, a place seldom seen by tourists, though here he wrote his finest poems. Some time ago I was invited to spend a night with a farmer who resides on the estate. Those who have read Washington Irving's graphic description of his visit to Abbotsford, will remember Mr. Laidlaw, of whom he thus writes:

'One of my pleasant rambles with Scott, about the neighborhood of Abbotsford, was taken in company with Mr. William Laidlaw, the steward of his estate. This was a gentleman for whom Scott entertained a particular value. He had been born to a competency, had been well educated; his mind was richly stored with varied information, and he was a man of sterling moral worth. Having been reduced by misfortune, Scott had got him to take charge of his estate. He lived at a small farm on the hillside above Abbotsford, and was treated by Scott as a cherished and confidential friend, rather than a dependant.' My worthy host was the son of this old gentleman, who is still alive and in good health. Several years ago he emigrated to Australia, where he now resides, still taking a lively interest in literary affairs, and reading, though an octogenarian, all the new works, that are regularly sent to him by his son. The old gentleman was as intimately acquainted with Hogg as with Scott, and my host remembers both these personages, though he was but a boy when they died.

Early one September morning Mr. Laidlaw was kind enough to take me about the grounds of Ashestiel, where 'Sir Walter' (they never add the name of Scott, in speaking of him here) passed thirteen of the best years of his life, and where he wrote the greater parts of 'Marmion' and the 'Lay.' We walked over the dewy fields (romantic but damp), and down to the banks of the Tweed, where I was shown a large outspreading oak, under which Sir Walter was wont to sit and frame his ideas into fitting words. Under this tree, with Tweed rippling at his feet, he spent many an hour in communion with himself, quietly weaving those strains that have immortalized him. From this place we passed on to the house itself--Ashestiel--now the residence of Sir William Johnstone, from whose family Sir Walter had leased it during the building of Abbotsford. It is a fine old building; but much altered and improved since it was occupied by Scott. Lockhart says of this place: 'No more beautiful situation, for the residence of a poet, could be imagined. The house was then a small one; but, compared with the cottage of Lasswade, its accommodations were amply sufficient. The approach was through an old-fashioned garden, with holly hedges, and broad, green terrace walks. On one side, close under the windows, is a deep ravine, clothed with venerable trees, down which a mountain rivulet is heard, more than seen, on its progress to the Tweed. The river itself is separated from the high bank, on which the house stands, only by a narrow meadow, of the richest verdure; while opposite, and all around are the green hills. The valley there is narrow, and the aspect in every direction is that of perfect pastoral repose.' This picture still holds good, with the exception of the 'old-fashioned garden,' which has made way for a new lawn and carriage road. The proprietor was an intimate friend of Walter Scott, and an India officer of merit, who has now returned to his old home, having bidden farewell to the neighing steed and all the pomp and circumstance of war.

From the house I was conducted to another of Scott's haunts--a little wooded grassy knoll, still known by the name of 'Wattie's Knowe,' or 'Sheriff's Knowe,' for Scott enjoyed both the familiar title of 'Wattie' and the official one of 'Sheriff.' It is a lovely spot, this Wattie's Knowe. The trees are old and gnarled; the grass is overrun with green moss and graceful fern-leaves, and if you are quite still, you can hear the murmur of Glenkinnon Burn, as it leaps over its pebbly bed, and hastens on to the Tweed. Here, between the branching trunks of a huge elm, Scott had fixed a rustic seat, to which he resorted nearly as often as to his favorite oak tree on the banks of the Tweed. While he resided here, Abbotsford was building; and almost daily he would ride over to superintend its progress.

Melrose is this year guarded with unusual vigilance. Hitherto visitors have been allowed to pass hours in the ruin, at their leisure, and read the wizard scene of the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' in the very locality where it is supposed to have occurred. At present, however, a sable widow, of the most unimpeachable respectability, casts a melancholy gloom over the place by the dejected yet resigned manner in which she unlocks the wooden gate and ushers strangers through the nave and transepts. Her orders, she says, are to allow no one to remain a moment in the ruin without her superintending presence--which is safe, but unpoetical.

Dryburgh, the ruin in which is the tomb of Walter Scott, is shown by an intelligent man who oversees the place. At the foot of Sir Walter's granite tomb is that recently erected to the memory of 'the son-in-law, biographer, and friend,' Lockhart. A bronze medallion likeness of the eminent reviewer adorns the red polished granite of his tomb. The Erskine family, the Haigs of Bemerside, and the earls of Buchan, are the only families, besides Sir Walter's ancestors, the Haliburtons, who are allowed to bury in this ruin. It was of the Haigs that Thomas the Rhymer, centuries ago, made a prediction to the effect that the line would never become extinct--a prediction which threatens to fail, as two maiden ladies now alone represent the family.

That 'proud chapelle,'

'----where Roslyn's chiefs uncoffined lie,'

has seen some notable changes of late. A few years ago, it contained only tombs; but the present Earl of Roslyn recently fitted it up for a divine service, according to the Church of England ritual, though the altar, the sedilia, the candles, the purple cloths, the painted organ, and other ecclesiastical decorations suggest an imitation of the Roman Catholic services, to which the chapel was formerly devoted. The people in the vicinity, who are all Scotch Presbyterians, do not attend these services, the select congregation being formed by 'the quality'--the gentry and nobility, who have their country seats near by.

The readers of 'Marmion' will, of course, remember Norham and Twisell castles. The former, as seen, from the railways, is a most uninviting pile of rude masonry, worn and broken by time and decay; but a nearer inspection reveals many phases of interest. The castle stands on the summit of a cliff, overhanging the Tweed, yet almost buried in rich foliage. The outer walls are crumbled away, and overgrown with short grass, forming a series of green mounds, which mark the graves of feudal grandeur. The south, east, and west walls of the keep, however, remain standing, a huge shell or screen of dull red stone, while to the north stretches a fragment of wall, along which it is easy to scramble to a point overlooking the Tweed, the village of Norham, and the adjacent scenery. Pleasant and thrilling it is to lie here on this deserted ruin, and read that spirited opening canto! With what renewed brilliancy do those chivalric lines bring back the long-past scenes of other days!

'Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone:
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loophole grates where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round them sweep,
In yellow lustre shone.'

And imagination can almost bring to the ear the welcome to Marmion:

'The guards their morrice pikes advanced,
The trumpets flourished brave,
The cannon from the ramparts glanced,
And thundering welcome gave.
A blythe salute in martial sort
The minstrels well might sound,
For, as Lord Marmion crossed the court,
He scattered angels round.
Welcome to Norham, Marmion!
Stout heart, and noble hand!
Well dost thou back thy gallant roan,
Thou flower of English land.'

* * * * *

'They marshall'd him to the castle hall,
Where the guests stood all aside,
And loudly flourished the trumpet call,
And the heralds loudly cried:
'Room, lordlings, room for Lord Marmion,
With the crest and helm of gold!
Full well we know the trophies won
In the lists at Cottiswold.
Place, nobles, for the Falcon Knight!
Room, room, ye gentles gay,
For him who conquered in the right,
Marmion of Fontenaye.''

Scott is already becoming old-fashioned, and his poems are not now sought after, as they were ten years ago; but any one who wishes to revive all the boyish enthusiasm with which he first read 'Marmion,' has only to take the book with him to the ruins of Norham and again read the glowing page!

The village of Norham is a quaint place dominated by the castle, and as humble nowadays, with its little thatched cottages, as in the times when the villagers were mere vassals of

'Sir Hugh, the Heron bold,
Baron of Twisell, and of Ford,
And Captain of the Hold.'

A limpid stream runs down the principal street of Norham--a gutter, which in the sunlight gleams like a band of silver. Village damsels wash potatoes therein. Among the residents of Norham, by the way, is the hostess of the principal inn, who was in the train of Joseph Bonaparte, during his stay in America, living in his household at Bordentown, New Jersey. She claims to be a personal acquaintance of Napoleon III; but I have not heard what strange wave of fortune stranded the friend of the Emperor of the French in the remote and unknown port of Norham.

A curious family romance hangs about Twisell castle, also mentioned in 'Marmion.' The present building, an immense quadrangular edifice, was begun by Sir Francis Drake, who never had means to finish it. His heirs tried to complete the castle, which is now the property of a lady over seventy years old, residing in Edinburgh, who devotes all her spare means to the work. Indeed, the building of Twisell castle is a hereditary monomania in the family; but the estate belonging to the magnificent structure is only forty acres in extent--utterly insufficient to support such a castle with the household it will ultimately need. As yet Twisell is a granite shell; no partitions are put up in the interior. Vast sums of money must be expended before it can be made tenantable.

But I must forego any allusions to Crichton and Pantallon castles, the former the place where Marmion was entertained, and the latter the spot where the bold chief dared

'----to beard the lion in his den,
The Douglas in his hall.'

And I must also omit 'Newark's stately tower,' where the last minstrel sang his lay--and Branksome, the scene of the opening canto--and the scenery of Lomond and Katrine, rendered famous by the success of the Lady of the Lake. All these, and many other localities, hallowed by poesy, can be easily visited by the enthusiastic tourist; but I prefer to devote my pen and space to the most neglected and most beautiful of them all--to Lindisfarn, the Holy Isle.

Though really in England, it is yet near enough to the border to be included among the Lions of Scotland. It lies on the coast, about a dozen miles south of Berwick-upon-Tweed, the nearest approach to it, being from the railway station of Beal. Here the visitor will find the one-horse cart of the postmaster, offering the only conveyance to one of the most romantic and retired spots in the kingdom.

Holy Island, in circumference about eight miles, lies three miles from the land; but is only an island at high tide. At other times, the receding waters leave the sands bare, with the exception of two or three channels, not more than six inches deep, and afford a passage for vehicles, marked by a long row of stakes, intended especially to guide travellers in winter, when the snow falls thickly on the path. In summer there is always a strong wind blowing over these sands, drying them from the salt water, forming picturesque patterns along the ever-changing ground, and dashing a thin veil of sand along the way. Woe to the unlucky wight who loses his hat in this place! With nothing to intercept it, the unfortunate headgear is at once taken by the wind and sent flying over the sandy plain, faster than human foot can run, far out to the island, and often over it to the sea beyond. The frolicsome dog, which generally accompanies the postmaster's cart, is the only hope on which the hatless wretch can then rely; and usually this reliance is not in vain.

Holy Island contains a population of some 600 souls, mostly fishermen. Not a tree grows on the island; but at the south end, where a low village crouches down against the continual sweepings of the stormy winds, are a few fields, fragrant with clover, and gleaming with buttercups; and, in one of these fields, scarce a stone's throw from the beating surf, stand the ruins of Lindisfarn Abbey, one of the earliest seats of Christianity in Great Britain, and one closely identified with the traditionary career of St. Cuthbert. The front walls, portions of the side walls, a diagonal arch richly ornamented, and the chancel recently repaired to arrest further decay, remain to tell of its former beauty. The area within the ruins is strewn with sea shells and pebbles, while about the bases, whence once sprang aloft the clustered pillars of the nave, grow in rich profusion hardy yellow flowers. The sharp sea winds have eaten into the stone in many places, reducing it to an apparent honeycomb. No ripple of gentle streamlet falls on the ear; no luxuriant foliage offers its pleasant shade; no ivy drapery, stirred by the summer breeze, floats from the decaying walls; but instead of these gentle attractions, which Tinter and Bolton and Valle Crucis offer, we have at Lindisfarn the boom of the ocean surf and the biting freshness of the keen sea wind.

Scott thus describes Holy Island and Lindisfarn:

'The tide did now its floodmark gain,
And girdled in the saint's domain:
For, with the flow and ebb, its style
Varied from continent to isle;
Dryshod, o'er sands, twice every day,
The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
Twice every day, the waves efface
Of staves and sandalled feet the trace.
As to the port the galley flew,
Higher and higher rose to view
The castle, with its battled walls,
The ancient monastery's halls--
A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile,
Placed on the margin of the isle.
In Saxon strength that abbey frowned,
With massive arches broad and round,
That rose alternate, row on row,
On ponderous columns, short and low,
Built ere the art was known,
By pointed aisle, and shafted stalk,
The arcades of an alley'd walk,
To emulate in stone.'

The scenes of Sarrow and Ettrick vales, associated with the life and described in the poetry of the Ettrick shepherd, deserve more attention from tourists than they usually receive. The single tomb in Ettrick kirkyard, the site of his birthplace near by, marked by a stone in the wall, bearing the letters J. H., Poet; Chapelhope, the scene of the 'Brownie o' Bodsbeck,' 'Sweet St. Mary's Lake,' Mount Benger, and the new monument recently erected on the shores of St. Mary's, representing the poet seated on a rock, his plaid thrown loosely over his shoulders, and his shepherd's dog by his side--all these localities cannot fail to interest those who know James Hogg, either by his works, or by his character, so powerfully and singularly delineated in the pages of 'Noctes Ambrosianæ.'

Burns, the Ploughman--Scott, the Minstrel--Hogg, the Shepherd! How much does Scotland owe to the magic of their pens! Without them, her mountains and lakes and streams would never have known the presence of that indefatigable, money-spending feature of modern life--the tourist; for, without them, few indeed would be the Lions of Scotland.

WE TWO.

We own no houses, no lots, no lands;
No dainty viands for us are spread;
By sweat of our brows, and toil of our hands,
We earn the pittance that buys us bread.
And yet we live in a grander state,
Sunbeam and I, than the millionaires
Who dine off silver or golden plate,
With liveried lacqueys behind their chairs.

We have no riches in bonds or stocks;
No bank books show, our balance to draw;
Yet we carry a safe-key, that unlocks
More treasure than Croesus ever saw.
We wear no velvets, nor satins fine;
We dress in a very homely way;
But, ah! what luminous lustres shine
About Sunbeam's gowns and my hodden gray.

When we walk together--(we do not ride,
We are far too poor)--it is very rare
We are bowed unto from the other side
Of the street--but not for this do we care.
We are not lonely; we pass along,
Sunbeam and I, and you cannot see
(We can) what tall and beautiful throng
Of angels we have for company.

No harp, no dulcimer, no guitar,
Breaks into singing at Sunbeam's touch;
But do not think that our evenings are
Without their music; there is none such
In the concert halls where the palpitant air
In musical billows floats and swims;
Our lives are as psalms, and our foreheads wear
A calm like the feel of beautiful hymns.

When cloudy weather obscures our skies,
And some days darken with drops of rain,
We have but to look in each other's eyes,
And all is balmy and bright again.
Ah! ours is the alchemy that transmutes
The dregs to elixir, the dross to gold;
And so we live on Hesperian fruits,
Sunbeam and I, and never grow old.

Never grow old: and we live in peace,
And we love our fellows, and envy none;
And our hearts are glad at the large increase
Of plenteous virtue under the sun.
And the days pass by with their thoughtful tread,
And the shadows lengthen toward the west;
But the wane of our young years brings no dread,
To break our harvest of quiet rest.

Sunbeam's hair will be streaked with gray,
And Time will furrow my darling's brow;
But never can Time's hand take away
The tender halo that clasps it now.
So we dwell in wonderful opulence,
With nothing to hurt us, nor upbraid;
And my life trembles with reverence,
And Sunbeam's spirit is not afraid.

PATRIOTISM AND PROVINCIALISM.

In that memorable parliamentary battle between Webster and Hayne, the broad nationalism of the former stands out in splendid contrast with the narrow provincialism of the latter. Hayne's theme was small and sectional--it wanted bulk; hence, he continually intrudes himself in his subject: the subject is half, and Hayne and Webster the other and more important half. Webster, on the contrary, is completely absorbed in the magnitude of his subject; he forgets the very existence of such facts as Webster and Hayne, and considers only that the destinies of millions hang upon the great principles he is enunciating. Hayne is burdened with an inferior sense of personality, and never gets beyond the clouds; Webster's massive intellect shines out calm and bright as a fixed star--far beyond the gross atmosphere of personal strife or sectional antagonism. Hayne looks through a glass dimly, and sees only South Carolina--a part; Webster, with his grand _coup d'oeil_ sweeps the horizon, and his eagle glance takes in the entire Union as one perfect, organic whole. Hayne's logic, granting the premises, was a finished and splendid piece of mechanism; Webster started from a deeper and broader vantage-ground of universal principle and intuitive truth, and by one terrible wrench, of his giant intellect, Hayne's premises fell from under, and the labored superstructure of his logic went down in one confused mass of ruin with its foundations.

General Banks, in his late order, welcoming the return of our brave soldiers from their two years' captivity in Texas, after recounting their heroic history, gives utterance to the following noble sentiment: 'They refused to substitute the misguided ambition of a vulgar, low-bred provincialism, for the hallowed hopes of a national patriotism.'

A great truth, like 'a thing of beauty, is a joy forever.' We feel it as the wine of life in our spiritual organisms, quickening thought, ennobling our aims, fortifying virtue, and expanding our immortal statures. Such a truth is contained in that pointed antithesis: 'A vulgar, low-bred provincialism, and the hallowed hopes of a national patriotism.'

The human soul, in its process of development, grows from the centre to the circumference, from a part to the whole, from a unit to the universe. Its first conception is that of self-consciousness, and its first emotion that of self-love. As it expands its immortal germs, it becomes conscious of its relation to objects outside of self; it seeks new outlets of sympathy in love of parents and kindred--then of political communities, nations, and races; ever expanding the grand circle of its sympathies as it grows more and more into a perfect image of the divine spirit of the universe.

This tendency of the soul to the universal is a sure index of its highest moral and intellectual culture; it is one of the divine instincts of our nature, and shines out as God's autograph upon the great representative minds of all ages. In Marcus Curtius, William Tell, Garibaldi, and our own loved Washington, it makes the cream of history and the highest poetry of nations. Its perfect manifestation is seen in that grandest of all epics, 'Christ on the Cross,' wherein we behold a most complete absorption of the self of the individual in the universal self of the race.

There are men with little, narrow souls, that never radiate beyond the centre of self; they have no conception of pure, fixed, absolute principles, but are wholly governed by their local surroundings, provincial prejudices, and the lower instincts of their nature. The large, liberal mind of the true patriot, however, can never be dwarfed down to mere sectional standards, but, true to the law of its attraction, will ever point to the Pole-star of national unity and national brotherhood.

Universality of soul, in the sense above adverted to, distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon race as the best government-builders of the world. England, by her subordination of the sectional to the national, by her reverence for organic law and national unity, has survived the fiercest shocks of her civil convulsions, and built upon their ruins a more perfect and enduring fabric of government. In Southern latitudes, where the temperament grows mercurial, and the emotional nature predominates, as in France and the Italian States, governments seem founded on _volcanic strata_, liable to frequent and radical eruptions. In the hot Huguenot blood of South Carolina was kindled the first fatal spark that now threatens to set our entire Union in a blaze of ruin.

The Christian draws nearer to the angels as he forgets self in the love of God and his kind; and that nation is the most prosperous, happy, and powerful that subordinates all selfish local interests, all sectional antagonisms, to the higher law of national unity and brotherhood, that holds 'the hallowed hopes of a national patriotism' as ever paramount to the misguided ambition of a vulgar, low-bred provincialism.

LITERARY NOTICES.

GALA DAYS. By GAIL HAMILTON, Author of 'Country Living and Country
Thinking.' Ticknor & Fields, Boston. For sale by D. Appleton & Co.,
New York.

Who will not welcome another book from the pen of Gail Hamilton, nor name a 'gala day' indeed the one devoted to a perusal of these pleasant pages? As Americans, we are very proud of Gail Hamilton. We regard her books as blessings to the community. We know of no familiar essays comparable to hers; we prefer them greatly to those of Elia. Everything she touches assumes a sudden interest, no matter how trivial in itself it may be. She pours sunshine over the pettiest details of every-day life. We have known and felt all she tells us, lived it as life, and instantaneously recognize it as truth; but who before has ever recorded it for us--nay, who could do it for us, save this gifted woman, who accepts all with a spirit so brave and true? How acute her analysis of character! Every house has its own Halicarnassus. He is a typal man, as is shown in the fact that husbands, brothers, sons, and lovers are constantly called 'Halicarnassus' by the ladies most closely associated with them. Halicarnassus--tantalizing and antagonistic, slow to work and ready to jeer, the plague and pest of the home hearth, but at the same time its pride and joy, true and helpful in all real emergencies, though full of irritating taunts and desperate indolence. Such books keep our spirits up in these days of national calamity and domestic losses. Their charm is indescribable. Their style is sharp and brusque, but telling of wide culture; keen, but tender; clear as mountain brook, but varied and full as a river. Gail Hamilton will write of the daily trifles of which life is made, then boldly grapple with the highest truths; she mounts from the hut to the skies, and pours the light of heaven on all she touches by the way. Humor and pathos, fun and earnestness, fiery indignation and loving charity, detailed truths and bold imaginations meet in her singularly rich, graphic, natural, and original pages. We have often heard fault found with them by the artificial, as fault is always found with things fresh and natural; but for ourselves we would not willingly lose a single line she has ever written. No affectation, no cant, no sickly feeling, no weakness, no inflation, no appealing for petty sympathy, no writing for the sake of seeming fine, does she ever indulge in. She coins words at will, for she writes from her heart and is no purist; but we feel them to be appropriate, and requisite to express the shade of thought in question: we may laugh at them at first, but so natural and naive are they that we soon find them stealing into our own vocabulary.

The beneficial effect of such writings upon American women cannot be overestimated. They act as invigorating tonics, courses of beefsteak and iron upon the somewhat too fragile loveliness, the exacting and fastidious fine-ladyism, the morbid helplessness, far too prevalent among them. Their ideal of womanhood has been wrong, narrow and contracted, wanting in strength, breadth, and charity. Miss Muloch and Gail Hamilton, while cherishing the sanctity of womanhood, are giving broader views, higher aims, truer delicacy, and greater self-reliance to their plastic sex. Their lessons and examples are bracing as the sea breeze, and soothing as air fresh from the piny mountain.

Gail Hamilton dares to call things by their right names; humbugs die and shams perish as her clear, deep eyes gaze upon them. She has the bravery of virtue, and battles courageously with wrong, selfishness, and weakness, though we always feel it is a woman's arm that strikes the blow, and the Halicarnassuses of earth are ready to kneel to receive it. But that she has explicitly forbidden all intrusion into her privacy, we would say more about her. Meantime we frankly offer her our sympathy and humble admiration, our true and leal homage, our grateful appreciation of her strong, womanly, truthful, pure, and generous nature. Move on in peace, fair iconoclast of false idols, stripper of tinsel shrines, bringer of pleasant hours to the quiet home-hearth, vigorous painter of home tasks and duties; and may Halicarnassus feed upon your pungent and salty wit, drink the wine of your valiant and patriotic heart, and bask in the sunshine of your loyal and loving soul forever and ever!

OUR OLD HOME: A Series of English Sketches. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New
York.

Messrs. Ticknor & Fields are daily doing their countrymen service by publishing good books, and thus increasing the means for promoting general and solid culture. To them as well as to the gifted author are due our thanks for this agreeable volume of truthful and instructive sketches. It is, in fact, the portfolio of a genuine artist. He tells us that the picture to have been evolved from a combination of these faithful outlines is now never to be completed. This is certainly to be regretted so far as artistic enjoyment is concerned; but, in regard to exact portrayal of subject matter, sketches are ofttimes more valuable, because more precise, than the finished work as seen through the haze of the artist's imagination, wrought upon by the softening influences of time, distance, and the necessary requirements of beauty in every such creation.

Americans, until recently, have been prone either to sneer indiscriminately at everything foreign, or to undervalue their own country and advantages, and find nothing tolerable which was not the growth of the eastern shore of the Atlantic. These tendencies are now, we think, giving place to a calmer impartiality, a broader and more enlightened spirit of inquiry. Patriotism is no longer a mere matter of scoff among politicians, self-sacrifice the object of newspaper sneers, _our country_ a spread-eagle figure for a Fourth-of-July oration. American men and women now know that in a good cause they can cheerfully resign fortune, and even bravely send forth to the battle field, or to the still more fatal hospital, the dearest members of their household; and they hence feel lifted up above petty scoffs and political or commercial jealousies. Having proven their continued manhood and womanhood, they can look their brother men of whatever nation in the face, quietly yielding precedence where deserved, and as quietly claiming their own dues. The spirit of Hawthorne's book is strictly in accordance with this growing feeling. Fanatics, either for or against England and the English, may find too much praise or too much blame; but the impartial reader cannot fail to be impressed by the author's fairness, even by the keen-sighted appreciation of either virtues or faults resulting from a sincere and long-seated affection.

The chapter on "Outside Glimpses of English Poverty" is written as if with the heart's blood of the writer; and we may all of us ponder it well, lest some day its graphic but melancholy outlines may only too vividly delineate the condition of our own poor. Let it teach every man of us to strive without ceasing to bridge the wide chasm almost necessarily dividing rich and poor. Let us untiringly pour into that chasm love, pity, help, forbearance, our best of constructive thinking, but last as well as first, love--Christian love--until vice and despair no longer find excuse in circumstance.

We are glad again to welcome within the ranks of American literature the author whose "Twice-Told Tales," "Manse Mosses," and "Scarlet Letter" so thrilled our youthful souls; and we hope the pressure of the times, weighing heavily upon him as upon all men of imagination who have outlived their first youth, may ere long be lifted, and his mind naturally revert to the treatment of mystic themes he of all writers seems empowered to render dreamily interesting and suggestive.

METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. By L. AGASSIZ. Boston: Ticknor
& Fields, 1863. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.