Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland , livre ebook

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. I had desired to visit the Hebrides, or Western Islands of Scotland, so long, that I scarcely remember how the wish was originally excited; and was in the Autumn of the year 1773 induced to undertake the journey, by finding in Mr. Boswell a companion, whose acuteness would help my inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation and civility of manners are sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel, in countries less hospitable than we have passed.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819937333
Langue	English

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A JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND
INCH KEITH
I had desired to visit the Hebrides, or WesternIslands of Scotland, so long, that I scarcely remember how the wishwas originally excited; and was in the Autumn of the year 1773induced to undertake the journey, by finding in Mr. Boswell acompanion, whose acuteness would help my inquiry, and whose gaietyof conversation and civility of manners are sufficient tocounteract the inconveniences of travel, in countries lesshospitable than we have passed.
On the eighteenth of August we left Edinburgh, acity too well known to admit description, and directed our coursenorthward, along the eastern coast of Scotland, accompanied thefirst day by another gentleman, who could stay with us only longenough to shew us how much we lost at separation.
As we crossed the Frith of Forth, our curiosity wasattracted by Inch Keith, a small island, which neither of mycompanions had ever visited, though, lying within their view, ithad all their lives solicited their notice. Here, by climbing withsome difficulty over shattered crags, we made the first experimentof unfrequented coasts. Inch Keith is nothing more than a rockcovered with a thin layer of earth, not wholly bare of grass, andvery fertile of thistles. A small herd of cows grazes annually uponit in the summer. It seems never to have afforded to man or beast apermanent habitation.
We found only the ruins of a small fort, not soinjured by time but that it might be easily restored to its formerstate. It seems never to have been intended as a place of strength,nor was built to endure a siege, but merely to afford cover to afew soldiers, who perhaps had the charge of a battery, or werestationed to give signals of approaching danger. There is thereforeno provision of water within the walls, though the spring is sonear, that it might have been easily enclosed. One of the stoneshad this inscription: ‘Maria Reg. 1564. ’ It has probably beenneglected from the time that the whole island had the sameking.
We left this little island with our thoughtsemployed awhile on the different appearance that it would havemade, if it had been placed at the same distance from London, withthe same facility of approach; with what emulation of price a fewrocky acres would have been purchased, and with what expensiveindustry they would have been cultivated and adorned.
When we landed, we found our chaise ready, andpassed through Kinghorn, Kirkaldy, and Cowpar, places not unlikethe small or straggling market-towns in those parts of Englandwhere commerce and manufactures have not yet produced opulence.
Though we were yet in the most populous part ofScotland, and at so small a distance from the capital, we met fewpassengers.
The roads are neither rough nor dirty; and itaffords a southern stranger a new kind of pleasure to travel socommodiously without the interruption of toll-gates. Where thebottom is rocky, as it seems commonly to be in Scotland, a smoothway is made indeed with great labour, but it never wants repairs;and in those parts where adventitious materials are necessary, theground once consolidated is rarely broken; for the inland commerceis not great, nor are heavy commodities often transported otherwisethan by water. The carriages in common use are small carts, drawneach by one little horse; and a man seems to derive some degree ofdignity and importance from the reputation of possessing atwo-horse cart.
ST. ANDREWS
At an hour somewhat late we came to St. Andrews, acity once archiepiscopal; where that university still subsists inwhich philosophy was formerly taught by Buchanan, whose name has asfair a claim to immortality as can be conferred by modern latinity,and perhaps a fairer than the instability of vernacular languagesadmits.
We found, that by the interposition of someinvisible friend, lodgings had been provided for us at the house ofone of the professors, whose easy civility quickly made us forgetthat we were strangers; and in the whole time of our stay we weregratified by every mode of kindness, and entertained with all theelegance of lettered hospitality.
In the morning we rose to perambulate a city, whichonly history shews to have once flourished, and surveyed the ruinsof ancient magnificence, of which even the ruins cannot long bevisible, unless some care be taken to preserve them; and where isthe pleasure of preserving such mournful memorials? They have beentill very lately so much neglected, that every man carried away thestones who fancied that he wanted them.
The cathedral, of which the foundations may be stilltraced, and a small part of the wall is standing, appears to havebeen a spacious and majestick building, not unsuitable to theprimacy of the kingdom. Of the architecture, the poor remains canhardly exhibit, even to an artist, a sufficient specimen. It wasdemolished, as is well known, in the tumult and violence of Knox’sreformation.
Not far from the cathedral, on the margin of thewater, stands a fragment of the castle, in which the archbishopanciently resided. It was never very large, and was built with moreattention to security than pleasure. Cardinal Beatoun is said tohave had workmen employed in improving its fortifications at thetime when he was murdered by the ruffians of reformation, in themanner of which Knox has given what he himself calls a merrynarrative.
The change of religion in Scotland, eager andvehement as it was, raised an epidemical enthusiasm, compounded ofsullen scrupulousness and warlike ferocity, which, in a people whomidleness resigned to their own thoughts, and who, conversing onlywith each other, suffered no dilution of their zeal from thegradual influx of new opinions, was long transmitted in its fullstrength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercoursewith England, is now visibly abating, and giving way too fast tothat laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which men,not sufficiently instructed to find the middle point, too easilyshelter themselves from rigour and constraint.
The city of St. Andrews, when it had lost itsarchiepiscopal pre-eminence, gradually decayed: One of its streetsis now lost; and in those that remain, there is silence andsolitude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopulation.
The university, within a few years, consisted ofthree colleges, but is now reduced to two; the college of St.Leonard being lately dissolved by the sale of its buildings and theappropriation of its revenues to the professors of the two others.The chapel of the alienated college is yet standing, a fabrick notinelegant of external structure; but I was always, by some civilexcuse, hindred from entering it. A decent attempt, as I was sincetold, has been made to convert it into a kind of green-house, byplanting its area with shrubs. This new method of gardening isunsuccessful; the plants do not hitherto prosper. To what use itwill next be put I have no pleasure in conjecturing. It issomething that its present state is at least not ostentatiouslydisplayed. Where there is yet shame, there may in time bevirtue.
The dissolution of St. Leonard’s college wasdoubtless necessary; but of that necessity there is reason tocomplain. It is surely not without just reproach, that a nation, ofwhich the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth encreasing,denies any participation of its prosperity to its literarysocieties; and while its merchants or its nobles are raisingpalaces, suffers its universities to moulder into dust.
Of the two colleges yet standing, one is by theinstitution of its founder appropriated to Divinity. It is said tobe capable of containing fifty students; but more than one mustoccupy a chamber. The library, which is of late erection, is notvery spacious, but elegant and luminous.
The doctor, by whom it was shewn, hoped to irritateor subdue my English vanity by telling me, that we had no suchrepository of books in England.
Saint Andrews seems to be a place eminently adaptedto study and education, being situated in a populous, yet a cheapcountry, and exposing the minds and manners of young men neither tothe levity and dissoluteness of a capital city, nor to the grossluxury of a town of commerce, places naturally unpropitious tolearning; in one the desire of knowledge easily gives way to thelove of pleasure, and in the other, is in danger of yielding to thelove of money.
The students however are represented as at this timenot exceeding a hundred. Perhaps it may be some obstruction totheir increase that there is no episcopal chapel in the place. Isaw no reason for imputing their paucity to the present professors;nor can the expence of an academical education be very reasonablyobjected. A student of the highest class may keep his annualsession, or as the English call it, his term, which lasts sevenmonths, for about fifteen pounds, and one of lower rank for lessthan ten; in which board, lodging, and instruction are allincluded.
The chief magistrate resident in the university,answering to our vice-chancellor, and to the rectormagnificus on the continent, had commonly the title of LordRector; but being addressed only as Mr. Rector in an inauguratoryspeech by the present chancellor, he has fallen from his formerdignity of style. Lordship was very liberally annexed by ourancestors to any station or character of dignity: They said, theLord General, and Lord Ambassador; so we still say, my Lord, to thejudge upon the circuit, and yet retain in our Liturgy the Lords ofthe Council.
In walking among the ruins of religious buildings,we came to two vaults over which had formerly stood the house ofthe sub-prior. One of the vaults was inhabited by an old woman, whoclaimed the right of abode there, as the widow of a man whoseancestors had possessed the same gloomy mansion for no less thanfour generations. The right, however it began, was considered asestablished by legal prescription, and the old woman livesundisturbed. She thinks however that she has a claim