162 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



Not far from this ancient monastery, and within our sight this day, was 

 a still more splendid structure which superstition reared in the dark ages 

 of this country — the far-famed Abbey of Melrose, which I ought to feel 

 ashamed of myself for not having gone purposely to inspect. But w hat 

 said the poet of whom I have just been speaking? 



" If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright. 

 Go visit it by the pale moonlight." 



Now there was no moon during the week I was at Kelso; neither if there 

 had, could I have spared a day or rather a night for that purpose ; nor indeed 

 by his own admission, had Sir Walter himself ever seen it by that light, 

 when he at the time strongly recommended it to others. But this goes 

 for nothing. Although a story may be fabulous the moral may be just, 

 nor is truth weakened by the ornamental language in which it is conveyed 

 to us. But I will borrow words more expressively elegant than my own. 

 *' The shaft of the stately column," says a writer in an Edinburgh 

 Review*, " is not weakened by the Acanthus which curls at its summit, 

 nor is reason less enlightened when it derives a ray from the imagi- 

 nation." The Douglas of ** Chevy Chace" lies interred in this abbey. 



From the circumstance of its being what may be called a second 

 hand fixture, in addition to the unfavourable state of the country from 

 the remains of the frost, and Lord Elcho's and theGalewood hounds also 

 being out, we had a very small field, which rendered the disappointment 

 the less ; and to myself it was none at all. I rode a horse King had sent 

 me from Edinburgh in lieu of one I had returned to him, and which 

 appeared never to have seen hounds before One solitary incident, then, 

 is all I have more to relate of this inauspicious day. When within half 



* January, 1835. Article, " Britisli Scientific Association." 



