144 SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



with anecdote and native song, may enjoy those delightful hours which, in after 

 life, haunt the mind like a dream, and, in the midst of the brighter but more 

 studied enjoyments of the great world, conjure back the simplicity of rural life 

 on the banks of the Devon. 



We now enter the county of Fife,* where the royal burgh of Dunfermline 

 recalls the splendour of past days, and furnishes subjects innumerable for 

 observation and reflection. But its claims on the patriot, the historian, and the 

 antiquary, are so fully admitted and known, that we shall confine ourselves 

 chiefly to the subject chosen for illustration. Here, when the palace of the 

 sovereign, and the rich pile of the lord abbot were thronged with pilgrims and 

 courtiers with the ensigns of religion and the pomp and circumstance of 

 royalty when the king, in proof of his state, " sate in Dunfermline toun," 

 as the minstrel has described, " drinking the bluid-red wine" when the 

 abbot, uniting the splendour of things spiritual and temporal, with the chanting 

 of mass and the chiming of bells, followed the royal example and conjoined the 

 more substantial cheer of the refectory Dunfermline must, indeed, have 

 presented a scene of mixed royalty and religion which might have yielded 

 materials not unworthy of our greatest dramatist. But the scene is changed ; 

 the royal cavalcade and the religious procession have long vanished from its 

 streets ; the grass waves over the hearth of kings ; Desolation has shaken her 

 rod over the crumbling shrine ; under our feet is deposited the dust of many 

 generations those who served at the altar, who wielded the affairs of state, or 

 lifted the battle-axe in the cause of BRUCE. But, amidst all the changes of 

 times and circumstances with which this ancient town has been visited, one 

 magnificent landmark is still left, and, within its hallowed enclosure are the 

 thrice consecrated ashes of Bruce. Here the patriot will feel a warmer devotion 

 to the liberty of his country, and, at the tomb of her greatest hero and wisest 

 king, breathe a prayer for her prosperity. 



The Abbey of Dunfermline was of the Benedictine order, founded by Malcolm 

 Canmore, finished by Alexander the Fierce, and invested with additional 

 sanctity as the sepulchre of the Scottish kings, among whom was the heroic 

 monarch above named. After the Reformation, this interesting fact was only 

 traditional ; for, although a splendid mausoleum had enclosed the spot, not a 



This county lies chiefly on tlie eastern coast of Scotland, forming a peninsula, with the Frith of Forth 

 on the south, and the Frith of Tay on the north. The extreme length of the county is upwards of sixty 

 miles and its breadth, from Kinghorn to Newburgh, about thirty miles. It is fertile, highly cultivated, 

 populous, interspersed with many thriving towns and villages, and richly embellished with sixty-four 

 seats of the nobility and landed proprietors, who form a numerous and powerful aristocracy. The popu- 

 lation, according to the latest report, amounts to one hundred and thirty thousand. 



