CONTENTS. Page Introduction History of old Melrose, with an account of Saint Cuthbert, History of the foundation of the Abbey of Melrose, and Virgin and Child Stair-case pinnacle Description of the south window and entrance Of the grand east window From the north side, including the cloister Description of the inside from the west of the nave Of the aisles and monuments South trancept. Of the Architect Stone Coffins Traditional history The grand Altar King Alexander II. or Waldevus tomb, and the Douglasses North trancepts description Abbots of Melrose Monks of Melrose Revenues of the Abbey Ministers since the Reformation The town of Melrose and the environs ΤΟ Sir Walter Scott, Bart. ABBOTSFORD. SIR, I know no one next to his Grace the Duke of Buccleugh and Queensberry, the Noble Patron of the parish, to whom I could dedicate my Description of the Abbies of Melrose and Old Melrose, with greater propriety than yourself, from whom I have ventured to solicit, and have been so fortunate as to obtain the favour, which I wanted both courage and opportunity to ask of his Grace. For, though the venerable ruin at Melrose has been long known and admired, yet you, who may be said to have lent its beauties a tongue, have certainly principally contributed to its being now more generally known, and rendered it an object of much greater interest, not only in its more immediate vicinity, but also to strangers. But the apology which may be necessary to the public for the defects of a production like this, will I hope be found in its proceeding from the pen of a man who attempts no more than a plain description of some of the beauties which he is from his situation daily called on to point out, and who ventures even on this only, after being many times pressed to it, and having long waited in expectation of seeing it undertaken by some one more able to do it justice. That your very interesting pen may be long employed to rouse the noblest feelings of the soul to the highest ends-to lead men by every art through the flowery mazes of fancy to views of their supremest good, and ever succeed in leaving them better than it found them, is (as one who, from daily contemplating some of the finest productions of art mouldering into dust, and consigning the most admirable frame in nature to its last abode, must be often led to serious reflection on those things which will survive the wreck of time), the earnest prayer of, SIR, Your most devoted and obliged humble Servant, JOHN BOWER. |