30 REPORT OF THE MEETINGS FOR 1896 



The President then conducted the party over the ruins, 

 giving architectural and historical details as they passed along. 

 The fine cloister and chapter-house doorways, the superb 

 circular window in the refectory gable, the great western 

 entrance to the Church, and the exquisite fragment of the north 

 transept, received a large share of attention. Speaking of the 

 church, the President gave a series of interesting figures, 

 showing its limited dimensions as compared with those of 

 similar structures in other parts of the country ; but he added 

 that however much others might have surpassed it in size, " it 

 yielded to none in the elegance of its design, or the grace and 

 beauty of its mouldings." 



When the remains of the Abbey had been fully gone over 

 and inspected, the President conducted the company to the 

 burial place of Sir Walter Scott, and concluded his remarks 

 as follows: — "I have reserved to the last that portion of the 

 church which possesses the deepest interest for us all — the 

 Chapel of St. Mary — where, under granite imperishable as his 

 own fame, rests all that was mortal of Sir Walter Scott. I 

 need do no more than point out the fact that the architectural 

 features partake of the same grace and beauty which dis- 

 tinguish the rest of the edifice ; for here we think more readily 

 of the slumbering tenant than of his abode, and the casket, 

 beautiful though it be, is less precious far than what it 

 enshrines. If such men as St. Columba, Eobert the Bruce, 

 and John Knox were, under Divine Providence, the makers 

 of the Scottish nation and its history, it was no less certainly 

 Scott's function to reveal their work to the world. To him 

 as to none other it was given to understand and pourtray the 

 character of his nation, in its weakness and its strength ; to 

 show to mankind at large its courage, its loyalty, its earnestness, 

 its dourness, its outward hardness and roughness, its inner 

 reverence and tenderness. And because he did this, because 

 he knew and loved us so well, no leal Scotsman, no true- 

 hearted Borderer, whether he dwell by Tweed or Tyne, can 

 stand by his grave, as we do to-day, without a strange blending 

 of love and pride and sadness, or leave it without a feeling of 

 satisfaction that, while his genius and its wonderful fruits are 

 the common heritage of the race, no foreign shore, but his own 

 native soil, holds his ashes. The first, we know, are secure of 

 immortality; to the other we may address the fine line of 



