difficult to calculate what was its pristine elevation.

"Destroy the nests," said J. Knox, "and the crows will exist no longer." Every step that a traveller takes in Scotland, he meets with some ruin, which attests the realization of the reformer's admonition; and to whatever faith he may appertain, he is tempted to utter a malediction on the man who preached Vandalism under the abused name of Christ.

The Church of Melrose Abbey was modelled on the plan of a St. John's cross. The mutilated arms of the Scotch kings and abbots may still be discerned on the stones. Eight casements of the nave still exist, laterally adorned with heads of monks and nuns; and surmounted with pinnacles of consummately beautiful sculpture. In a niche is a Virgin, which Sir W. Scott has caused to be copied for his Chateau. The head of the infant Saviour is wanting. According to a tradition, which has been perpetuated in spite of Protestantism, the Calvinist Erostratus who dared to mutilate this sculpture had his arm struck with palsy.* This part of the edifice is curious on account of an eccentric decoration of Gothic sculptures, all of the finest execution. They consist of roses, crowns, lilies, heads of cherubims and syrens, a sow playing on a bagpipe, a fox holding two doves in his mouth, an old monk playing a guitar, while oppressed by the weight of another image which has disappeared; a cripple on the shoulders of a blind

* His name was Thomson.

man; dragon's heads, and I know not what, grotesque or graceful figures, which I can only compare to a mock heroic canto of Ariosto or Pulci. One of these figures on the side of the great casement of the south, represents a man whose head emerges from the midst of a tuft of ivy, and who is exhibited in the act of cutting his throat with a knife. Lower are some musicians; then a monk who applies his hand to his ear in imitation of a speaking trumpet, and another follows, whose eyes are protruding from his head with the effort he makes to rise under

a heavy load. All these fanciful caprices of the sculptor, demonstrate a remarkable facility of execution. Every face appears speaking to you. The suicide has a distressed air, which excites sympathy; the monk, whose gesture is that of an attentive listener, really seems in the act of receiving a confession; the musicians execute their airs with expressive gaiety. You feel inclined to assist the poor monks, who appear to tell you that they are overloaded, &c. In short, there is life and motion throughout this gallery of sculptures.

But a part of our admiration must be reserved for the casements, which, notwithstanding their vast proportions, are of rare lightness, richness and elegance. The great casement of the west is thirty-six feet high by sixteen feet wide. Every fragment of the moulding appears to have been elaborated with a delicacy which the lapidary devotes to the cutting of a diamond. Having been stopped by a closed door, while seeking to go

into the cloisters, I recollected Mr. Bower, and proceeded to his residence. He accompanied me into the interior of the Abbey, where I saw with satisfaction that scaffoldings had been recently erected, by order of the Buccleugh family, with a view to the repairing of this imposing edifice.

I am inadequate to describe the spectacle which displays itself to the spectator's astonished eyes, beneath these roofs:

"The pillared arches were over their head,

And beneath their feet the bones of the dead."

Lay of the Last Minstrel.

In consequence of the delicacy of its numerous details, this magnificent fabric might be compared to a basket of flowers artificially arranged. From the capitals of each columnar faisceau issue branches, in sheafs and garlands, which form arcades with surprising boldness of design. What elegance, and at the same time, what variety in the sculptures of the flowers on the ceiling!

"The darkened roof rose high aloof."

Lay of the Last Minstrel.

Along the walls of the nave are chapels, which still supply places of sepulture for the Pringles, the Kerrs, the Scotts, and other families descended from the Border Chiefs. Besides the marble slabs which indicate their family vaults by their epitaphs, other monumental stones preserve the names of some monks, who little thought that their ashes would one day be mingled with the ashes of heretics. It is moreover surmised, that

one of those chapels contain the mortal remains of Alexander the Second King of Scotland, and Mr. Bower pointed out to me a still more illustrious monument, that of the magician Michael Scott. His head is sculptured on a tablet of marble let into the wall; and thanks to my host's good wine, I felt myself capable of maintaining a fair front, if the magician himself had appeared to us as he did to William of Deloraine. It may be readily believed that Michael was a worthy and honourable sorcerer, since he deserved being buried in the same Abbey where reposed so many holy abbots, whose every miracle was a blessing to the country. Such was the monk Waldeve, who during a famine multiplied the corn in the granaries of Melrose to such a degree, as to supply 40,000 poor people during three months. John Knox would probably have succeeded in convicting Waldeve of pious fraud; but if the monks had never committed others, John Knox would probaby have never raised his voice against them. Melrose Abbey, also boasted formerly of possessing the heart of Robert Bruce.

The cloister of the Abbey is worthy of the rest of the edifice. The sculpture which adorns it, in perfect preservation, represents flowers of all kinds in bas relief,

"Spreading herbs, and flowerets bright, Glistened with the dew of night;

Nor herb, nor floweret, glistened there,

But was carved in the cloister-arches as fair."

Lay of the Last Minstrel.

The poet is alone requisite to describe these characteristics. In order to depict what he depicts, prose is compelled to translate his poetry.

Before I quitted the Abbey I had an opportunity of enjoying the spectacle to which Sir W. Scott invites us at the beginning of the second canto of the Lay. The moon arose to throw the magic of her light over these noble ruins, which delineated their shadow on the turf of the cemetery. Melrose Abbey appertains to the Gothic florid style. This superb convent was founded by King David in 1136, and dedicated to the Virgin. But for ages there had previously existed on the same spot, a still more ancient monastery, with which several fabulous traditions were connected.

King David conferred the new edifice on monks of the Cistertian order, who remained there up to the time of the reformation. Few kings have founded more religious establishments than King David, who having been, as he deserved, canonized by the monks, is called by the historians, a saint of fatal influence to the crown: but concessions must be made to the spirit of each successive age, and it must be confessed that David considered convents as one of the means of civilization. He guaranteed, moreover, the lands he conferred upon them from the continual invasions of the English, at that time at war with Scotland; and his subjects found in their vicinity an inviolable protection. David was an enlightened monarch, who has left a body of ordinances and laws as a monument of his