110 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



David, — Ihe first among thirteen more, for the yropagation of God's 

 glory, but to the great i7npairing of the crown lands," But it was 

 with the situation of Kelso that I was most gratified. It stands in a sort 

 of vale of Tempe, abounding in every thing that pleases the eye of taste; 

 and upon the classic banks of the Tweed and Teviot, who join their waters 

 as they flow through it, are to be seen noble specimens both of nature 

 and of art. The variety of landscape in fact appears to have no bounds 

 when viewed and appreciated in its merely pastoral character; but when 

 associated with the deeds of " auld lang syne," and contrasted with its 

 present peaceable appearance, the soul of that man must be dead indeed 

 who could stand quite unmoved upon Kelso-bridge, on his first visit to 

 this country. At one glance of his eye he could see a palace in which a 

 duke lives ; with another, a ruin before which a monarch died. He 

 would see all that remains of bv far the stronoest of the border fortresses, 

 and observe the ravages the hand of time has made, for he might almost 

 exclaim " periere ruinse." Of course I am alluding to the castle of 

 Roxburgh on the Duke of Roxburgh's domain; and his recollections of 

 history would furnish him with the names and characters of its illustrious 

 inhabitants in olden times. Kings were born, marriages were celebrated, 

 birth-days were kept within its massive walls, and though last, not least, 

 the crown of Scotland was here tendered to the crown of England. 

 Here then is the transition of all human greatness ; for in the words of 

 Dyer, that very celebrated describer of a ruin — 



'* 'Tis now the raven's bleak abode ; 

 ' Tis now the apartment of the toad ; 

 And there the fox securely feeds ; 

 And there the poisonous adder breeds, 

 Conceal'd in ruins, moss, and weeds. 



