Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 290, December 29, 1827», страница 3
EPITAPH
The earth goeth on the earth,
Glist'ring like Gold;
The earth goes to the earth sooner than it wold.
The earth builds on the earth castles and towers;
The earth says to the earth, all shall be ours.
Here the contemplative wanderer may pass many an hour, with profit and pleasure,
"Mid epitaphs and tombs,
Wrapt in the dreams of other days."
HISTORY OF THE ABBEY
I have arranged a few particulars of the history, &c. of this relic of monkish times, which will form an appropriate conclusion to these desultory remarks.
"Hail! ye bold turrets, and thou rev'rend pile,
That seem in age's hoary rest to smile!
All trail! for here creative fancy reads
Of ages past the long-forgotten deeds.
With trembling footsteps I approach thy gates,
The massy door upon the hinges grates!
Hark! as it opens what a hollow groan
'Cross the dark hall and down the aisles is thrown!"
SIR EGERTON BAYDGES.
It is handed down by tradition that an abbey was founded at Melrose about the end of the sixth century. The famous St. Cuthbert was one of the abbots in 643; he, however, left, and went to Holy Island, in Northumberland. Many wonderful stories are related of St. Cuthbert; that eleven years after his death in Holy Island, (in 687,) his body, on being taken up, exhibited no marks of corruption, seeming as if asleep, &c. &c. Ethelwold succeeded St. Cuthbert, and sometime after the monastery was ruined by the Danes. The place where this abbey is supposed to have stood is called Old Melrose, and is a mile and a half from the present abbey.
Melrose Abbey was founded by king David of Scotland in 1136. It is supposed to have been built in ten years. The church of the convent was dedicated to St. Mary on the 28th of July, 1146. It was the mother church of the Cistertian order in Scotland. The monks were brought from Rievaulx Abbey, in Yorkshire. Their habit was white; and they soon superseded the order of the Benedictines.
The abbey is built in the form of St. John's cross, of the Gothic style of architecture, and is 258 feet in length; the breadth 137-1/2 feet; and 943 feet in circumference. A considerable part of the principal tower is now in ruins; its present height is 84 feet. There are many very superb windows; the principal one at the east end (which is the top nave of the cross,) appears to have been more recently built than the others, and is 57 feet in extreme height, and 28 feet wide. It has been ornamented with statues, &c. The beauty of the carved work, with which the abbey is profusely decorated, is seldom equalled, and deservedly celebrated:
"Spreading herbs and flow'rets bright,
Glisten'd with the dew of night;
Nor herb nor flow'ret glisten'd there,
But was carved in the cloister'd arches as fair."
There are in the external view of the building 50 windows, 4 doors, 54 niches, and above 50 buttresses. The abbey was much injured by the English in 1322 and 1384. Richard II. made it a grant in 1389, as some compensation for the injuries it had sustained in the retreat of his army. It was also greatly defaced during the reformation. A stronger proof of their infatuated and (partly) misplaced zeal cannot be adduced, than the destruction of religious edifices by the reformers. There were one hundred monks, without including the abbot and dignitaries. The last abbot was James Stuart, natural son of James V., who died in 1559. The privileges and possessions of the abbey were very extensive,.and it was endowed by its founder, David, with the lands of Melrose, Eildon, &c., &c., right of fishery on the Tweed, &c.; and succeeding monarchs increased its property. Sixty of the monks, it is said, renounced popery at the reformation. In 1542, the revenue of the abbey was, "1758l. in money, 14 chalders nine bolls of wheat, 56 chal. 5 bolls of barley, 78 chal. 13 bolls of meal, 44 chal. 10 bolls of oats, 84 capons, 620 poultry, 105 stone of butter, 8 chal. of salt, 340 loads of peats, and 500 carriages;" besides 60 bolls of corn, 300 barrels of ale, and 18 hogsheads of wine, for the service of the mass: a large quantity for the entertainment of strangers; 4,000l. for the care of the sick; and 400l. to the barber. These were given up at the commencement of the reformation in 1561. The lands were either seized by the crown, or divided amongst the nobles. A large portion fell into the hands of the Buccleugh family.
A stone coffin, supposed to be that of the famous Michael Scott, the wizard, was found in the small aisle on the south of the chancel in 1812. It was authenticated that his remains had been laid here. There was an altar erected to say mass for his soul. The length of the skeleton was six feet. A stone head at the foot of the coffin bears a very rude wizard-like appearance. Alexander II. and many of the Scottish kings and nobles are buried here. The best view is obtained of the building from the south east, which, indeed, commands the whole of the ruin. The village contains 500 or 600 inhabitants, and is 35 miles distant from Edinburgh. The remains of several Roman camps are to be seen in its neighbourhood, and one of the hills bears the marks of having been a volcano. Sir Walter Scott's residence at Abbotsford is within a few miles.
VYVYAN
ON WAITS
(To the Editor of the Mirror.)
MR. EDITOR,—It may not be unacceptable to many of your readers to receive some elucidation of a custom which is still prevalent at the present season. I allude to the waits, who visit us in the month of December, with instrumental music, going from house to house.
Waites, or waits, formerly wayghtes is derived from the latter noun, and originally signified hautbois, (or hautbois, as we have it in English,) of which it is not unworthy remark, there is no singular number. From the instrument its signification was, after a time, transferred to the performers themselves; concerning whom, it is well known,.the appellation is now applied to all who follow the practice above adverted to, especially those who, at the approach of. Christmas, salute us with their nightly concerts.
The wayghtes of ancient times were, as some historians say, so called, because they attended or waited on potentates, judges, magistrates, and bodies corporate, pomp and processions, &c.; they were also sometimes appointed to keep a sort of Watch at night, and were then generally decorated with superb dresses, splendid cloaks, &c. In Rymers' Fardera there is an account of such an establishment, of the minstrels and waites who were in the service of the court of Edward IV., wherein is mentioned "a waite that nighteleye, from Michaelmas to Shrove Thorsday, pipeth the watch within this court;" "i. fewer times, in the somere nightes iij. times." Todd derives the term waits from wahts, (Goth.) nocturnal itinerant musicians, (Beaumont and Fletcher;) Bayley, on account of their waiting on magistrates, &c.; or of guet, a watch; or from the French guetter, to watch, because anciently they kept a sort of watch a night. From what I have narrated, then, it appears that the persons formerly called waites, or waits, were musical watchmen, the word implying obees. They were, in fact, minstrels, at first annexed to the king's court, who sounded the watch every night; and in towns paraded the streets during winter, to prevent theft, &c. At Exeter they were set up, with a regular salary, in 1400; and although suppressed by the Puritans, were reinstated in 1660. M.A. Boyer, in his French and English Dictionary, Rivington. 1747, under the word waits, s. has the following: "in the French, sorte de hautbois, (ho-boy,) corresponding with the signification of the term waits, as itinerant or wandering (music or) musicians. These nocturnal perambulators, it seems, were anciently called, as they now are, waits; and persons, bearing the same name, still go about our streets during the month of December, (previous to the 25th.) Whatsoever may be the reasons or the motives of those (maunderers) who now call themselves waits, I must leave for the consideration of such as are favoured with their visits. I am of opinion it can have neither allusion nor similitude to the Christmas carol as some have suggested, which was an imitation, however humble, of 'The glory to God on high,' &c., as sung by the angels who hovered over the fields of Bethlehem on the morning of our Saviour's nativity." It is true, indeed, that our modern angels, the waits of 1897, have hovered about, and they may (without a pun) be styled angels (of darkness), not only on account of the watch they keep a nights, but on account of those spirit-uous propensities, for the attainment of which, principally, some have supposed, we are indebted to them for their waits, and also for their wait-ing upon us on the day ycleped boxing-day.
But to return to our subject; independent of the origin of the waits, or of the persons so called, as relates to the institution in England, which is, comparatively, of modern date, it appears there were peculiar to the Romans a description of individuals, who, in their offices and character, answered to our waits, and from whom there is no doubt the latter were derived; these, among the Romans, were called spondaulae, from which I conceive the waightes, or waites, of our ancient kings were borrowed. The Roman waites, or spondaulae, were a description of vocal and instrumental musicians, who performed a hymn, whose measure consisted of spondees, (a poetic foot, formed of two long syllables,) which was sung, accompanied by the flute, or other wind instrument, while the priest offered the sacrifice, and the incense was burning, to procure the favour of the gods; the waits, or spondaulae, continuing their music, to prevent the priest from hearing sounds of ill omen, which might disturb the ceremony, or divert his attention. It has been suggested, in this view of the origin of the waits, which many writers consider to be the real source of the custom, that they are altogether anti-christian, and of heathen and idolatrous foundation, and of consequence have neither allusion to, nor connexion with, our festivities at Christmas at any period.
City Road.
