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PREFACE
It has not been from the want
of frequent and urgent entreaty that the present work has been so long in
making its appearance before the public. Every encouragement which could
have been held out from friends in the North, and every incitement which
could have been given from friends in the South, have helped to urge me
forward to the undertaking of this Bibliographical, Antiquarian, and
Picturesque Tour. Add to this, there has been a latent, and I hope
honourable pride, to do that for my own which I have done for another
country.
But in a work of such magnitude and cost, involving so much of personal
exertion and contingent expense—it was fitting to give the matter a second
and a due consideration; and to reflect maturely before I acted decidedly.
Several years, not altogether passed without sorrow and solicitude, have
occasionally distracted my resolutions and retarded my efforts : for in a
journey like the present, which has comprehended a circuit of seventeen
hundred miles, unless the start be decided and buoyant, the prosecution of
it will be languid, and the return perhaps abrupt. It cannot also be
dissembled (to keep down the elastic vigour of a traveller who meditates the
eventual publication of his labours) that the “auld lang syne” days of the
Biltomanta appear to be fast receding in splendour and attraction. In no one
public pursuit is there a more capricious taste manifested than in that for
Books. Twenty years ago, an editio princeps of an ancient classical writer
produced a sensation amounting to little short of enthusiastic veneration;
and the possession of a genuine large-paper Dutch Classic, of the
Hemsterhuis or Burmann school, was contended for with so many lusty strokes,
as sometimes almost to endanger the bodily condition of the combatant. At
that time the French laughed at us for our exclusive love of their old
black-letter Chronicles and Romances. Now, we turn our backs without
hesitation or remorse upon editiones principes and large-paper Amsterdam
quartos,—while our Gallic neighbours are become absolutely frenzied in the
acquisition of Verards and Pigouchets. When will all this pirouetting cease?
Or is the age of book-chivalrv gone, never to return?
Still, the field, in the point of view in which I felt disposed to scan it,
appeared to me to be new, varied, and productive; and if I have more than
ordinarily qualified, or merged, the first epithet of my Tour into the
second or third, it has been in deference to the present prevailing taste,
which it were as hopeless to resist, as it may be bold to question. If, on
the one hand, by appearing again, in yet gayer costume, to gather flowers
and fruits in the same vocation, I have spared no expense, and grudged no
toil, so, on the other, I hope to be cheered for my enthusiasm, and
commended for my patriotic ardour. The experienced Reader need hardly be
informed, that, in an attempt of this kind, it were folly to anticipate an
abundance of pecuniary reward.
And yet, it were impossible, as indeed it would be ungrateful, to deny,
that, in the course of this extended “Tour” I have met with every
encouragement which could arise from a ready and social reception, and from
laborious and effectual aid. The hospitality of the mansion (for which the
North is proverbially distinguished) has been in many instances only
secondary to the assistance derived in researches among the stores of Public
Libraries and Museums. The most joyous dreams of early life could scarcely
have led to the expectation of such civilities and kindnesses as those which
it has been my fortunate lot to experience; and although this journey was
carried on during one of the most untoward seasons ever remembered in
Scotland, yet, from the beginning to the end, my path may be fairly said to
have been strewn with flowers. To particularize were nugatory and
ill-judged. As I have thrown all my feelings into my narrative, so no
individual, I would fondly hope, will have cause to complain of attentions
slighted, or of kindnesses overlooked. In such a succession of the most
cordial hospitalities, the only difficulty has been in varying the theme of
thanksgiving.
Were I to bespeak the attention of the reader in anything like a Precis of
the contents of the following pages, I might in part direct it to those
accounts of the magnificent Cathedrals in the North of England which involve
some of the most curious and interesting details of Ecclesiastical
Biography; which sometimes invest the mitre with a sort of undying halo ;
and rank our Archbishops and Bishops among the most enterprising,
intelligent, honourable, and beneficent public actors and politicians of the
day.
I had intended to subjoin a brief chapter on the Ecclesiastical Architecture
of Scotland; w but two considerations forbade its execution. The first, that
I was not able to visit some of its more distinguished ruins, such as those
at Elgin, Dunfermline, Dunblane, Dunkeld, Linlithgow, and at other places;
the second, that no material truth or novel feature could be elicited by the
examination. The ecclesiastical edifices of the North, from the eleventh to
the sixteenth century, are, in plan and ornament, precisely those of the
South. The circular headed Norman arch of the twelfth century is nearly
similar in both countries. The following specimen however, from one of the
early arches of Dunfermline Abbey, may challenge competition with any of its
Southern neighbours ; while the head of an intersecting arch, in the ruins
of Kelso Abbey, exhibits great beauty as well as singularity of ornament.
The Border History, which belongs more particularly to Northumberland, is
one of great interest; occasionally exhibiting the Percys, Nevilles, and
Greys, as clothed with the power and renown of potentates. The achievements
of these heroes have all the vivid colouring of romance. They lived in an
age, and for an age, of which however no renewal can be desired. The use of
gunpowder, which shook or battered down their ponderous castles, was
conducive in the end to the softening of their characteristic ferocity. The
realities of Ridpath* have all the charm of fiction; while some of the
ballads of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border attest a period of
insubordination of mingled interest and astonishment.
It were perhaps impossible, now and then, not to vary the stream of text
with a few little rivulets of historical anecdote subjoined in the notes.
There is no country of which the civil history is more abundantly
diversified and enriched with such anecdotes, than that of Scotland.
Mountains, lakes, waterfalls, deserted or densely populated towns, are
scattered in a measure all over the globe; but it is the peculiarities of
such national character as we see in the North, that help to give our
descriptions of the first-named objects a livelier and a more winning charm.
I feel to be in duty bound to repeat here what has been already observed by
me in the Prospectus of this work: “A stranger to Scotland, I had hardly
planted my foot upon its soil, when it seemed to take firm and deep root.
Her mountains, passes, glens, lakes, and waterfalls — the thickly scattered
ruins of castles, built sometimes upon rocks of granite, beetling over the
ever-restless wave—the ocean, like a broad blue belt, encircling her
indented shores—the numerous and magnificent steamboats borne upon its
yielding bosom, with the shouts of commerce, and the rush of interminable
vessels, that cover and ever agitate the surfaces of the Forth, the Clyde,
and the Tay— all these, and much more of a similar description, may be
supposed to furnish vivid and interesting materials for the pages of a work
like the present.
But, while it has been impossible for me to neglect such objects of
picturesque attraction, I hope to have introduced topics which may be said
to come more immediately home to “men’s bosoms and businesses.” The social
warmth and friendly offices constantly manifested towards me in Scotland,
have strong and lasting claims upon my remembrance and gratitude. I found
friends in strangers; and generous hearts beating in almost every new
alliance. Some of the most splendid ornaments of this work owe their
existence to the prompt and liberal munificence of Scotch friends. In public
as well as private Libraries, it was impossible to be more fortunate in
attentions received and assistance granted; and if these pages afford not
evidence of the value of such aid—as well by the beauty of decoration, as by
the importance of information—I have been labouring unto no commendable
purpose.
Scotland has a thousand trumpet-tongued evidences of her former struggles
for independence and glory. Her earlier historians, although inferior in
weight and importance to those of England, are nevertheless numerous and
trustworthy ; and it will be found that I have sometimes strayed from the
broad beaten road of history, to gather a curious fact, or to illustrate a
doubtful point, from the strain of some of her rhyming Chroniclers. Her
Barbour, Wyntoun, and Blind Harry, are among the brightest feathers in her
historical bonnet. Yet in spite even of the
Caledonia
of George Chalmers,[1] a body of Scotch History is still a great
national desideratum.
On one score this volume may entitle me to the prompt and hearty thanks of
my Scotch friends. It is the first book, on so large and expensive a scale
of embellishment, of which a full seven-eighths of the engravings have been
executed by the burins of Edinburgh and Glasgow Artists. Among these
embellishments there will be doubtless found varying shades of merit; but I
predict for some of the younger hands which have achieved them, a long
career of honourable prosperity. In diligence, skill, and moderation of
charge, here will be found instances of surpassing merit and worth. In my
zeal to do them justice, 1 have perhaps too frequently exceeded the limits
of a sober discretion ; as will appear 011 examining the illustrations of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St. Andrew's : but as the
cop-per-plates will have been destroyed on the completion of the number of
copies of the work, this superabundance of illustration may be at once
pardoned and endured. Wherever I have gone, indigenous Art, both in the
pencil and burin, have rewarded my enquiries.
Such is the Companion to those volumes of a Continental Tour, which have
long ago experienced the favourable patronage of the public. In labour,
anxiety, and cost, these volumes have greatly exceeded all that have gone
before them; and midst the fluctuating fashions and capricious pursuits of
modern literature, it is, to their author, no small consolation that the
matter here developed will be as useful and interesting to distant periods,
as to the age in which he lives.
Exning Vicarage, .
March 28, 1838.
[1] This stupendous work, the achievement of one mortal Scotchman, is called
by its author “the fruits of the agreeable amusements of many evenings."
What attic nights are these! It is a thousand pities that the materials left
behind by the Author, have not found patronage sufficient for their
publicity; the more so, as these complete the work. The three volumes
already extant cry aloud for a general Index.
Volume 1 - England |
Volume 2 - Scotland |
