* "In attempting aim has been to adhere stri them out. Of all the windows se. or in such a state of preservation, architecture renders it an casy task to. portion of the parapet above the east wi. the niches are still enriched with their origi north corner of the north transept is much d with a turret resembling the one on the west sic.. is still entire. One side of the centre tower stili turrets, furnished with crocketted pinnacles, whi the only example of the kind I have seen. Two on the west corners of the tower, and one of the pi joining the abbey. The west tower, slightly seen i the spire, are the only parts for which I have not are compositions from the details of the building w nent in the view." dour that we admire it, but because it is a fragment which only represents or shadows forth a matchless whole which has been, and whose merits we are, from this shattered specimen, completely disposed to allow. Melrose Abbey was first built by David I. in the year 1136, dedicated to St Mary, and devoted to the use of a body of Cistercian monks. The church, which alone remains, measures 287 feet in length, and 157 at the greatest breadth. It is built in the most ornate style of the Gothic architecture, and therefore decorated with an infinite variety of sculptures, most of which are exquisitely fine. While the western extremity of the building is entirely ruined and removed, the eastern and more important parts are fortunately in a state of tolerable preservation: in particular, the oriel window, and that which surmounts the south door, both alike admirable, are almost entire. It is also matter of great thankfulness, that a good many of the shapely pillars for the support of the roof are still extant. It is to these objects that the attention of travellers is chiefly directed. It is not to the zeal of reformers alone that the desecration of our best old religious buildings is to be attributed. The enthusiasm of individuals in more recent times has sometimes done that which the reformers left undone; as is testified by a notorious circumstance told by the person who shows Melrose. On the eastern window of the church, there were formerly thirteen effigies, supposed to represent our Saviour and his apostles.* These, harmless and beautiful as they were, happened to provoke the wrath of a praying weaver in Gattonside, who, in a moment of inspired zeal, went up one night by means of a ladder, and with a hammer and chisel, knocked off the heads and limbs of the figures. Next morning he made no scruple to publish the transaction, observing with a great deal of exultation, to every person whom he met, that he had "fairly stumpet thae vile paipist dirt nou!" The people sometimes catch up a remarkable word when uttered on a remarkable occasion by one of their number, and turn the utterer into ridicule, by attaching it to him as a nickname; and it is some consolation to think that this monster was therefore treated with the sobriquet of "Stumpie," and of course carried it about with him to his grave. It would require a distinct volume to do justice to the infinite details of Melrose Abbey; for the whole is built in a style of such elaborate ornament, that almost every foot-breadth has its beauty, and every beauty is worthy of notice. I shall content myself with merely * In the drawing of Melrose Abbey in Slezer's Theatrum Scotia, the niches are all filled with statues. Slezer took his drawings early in the reign of king William. 2 B |