last but one. His armorial bearings are still on the walls of the Abbey; it has a crozier instead of a crest, with J. S. on each side of it in Roman characters. The first and fourth quarters are checkers for Stewart, surrounded by a border of buckles. The second and third, three fleurs-de-lis for Darnley. In the centre of the shield is a smaller shield en potence, a St. Andrew's cross, with four roses in each space. The last Commendator was David Erskine, a natural son of Robert Lord Erskine. The lands and revenues of the Abbey were annexed to the property of the Crown of Scotland in 1587. James VI. granted this Abbey, with the Abbey of Cambuskennett, and priory of Makmahome, to the Lord Treasurer, John Earl of Mar, in 1604, to enable him the better to provide for his six younger sons. The King afterwards erected Dryburgh into a temporal lordship and peerage, with the title of Lord Cardross, to the same Earl, who made it over to his third son Henry, ancestor of the Earl of Buchan. The Abbey was afterwards sold to John Haliburton of Mertown, who built a house for himself called Newmains afterwards it passed to the Erskine family again by re-purchase, and is now the property of Sir D. Erskine, son of the late Earl of Buchan.

*

;

From a minute inspection of the ruins, there are portions of the work of an earlier date than that of its foundation in 1150. The arch is the distinctive feature of all structures of the middle ages, as the column was of those of classic antiquity; and among these ruins occur no fewer than four distinct styles of arches, namely, the massive Roman arch, with its square sides; the imposing deep-splayed Saxon; the pillared and intersected Norman; and last, the early English. Those not only differ in design, but in the quality of the materials, and in the execution. The Chapter-house, and the Abbot's Parlour, with the contiguous domestic dwellings of the monks, are of great antiquity.

The Abbey, it would appear, was never wholly repaired after its destruction in 1322. In clearing out the rubbish at various times, masses of melted lead and vitrified glass have been found. The Church, like other buildings of the same nature, was built

* Crawford, p. 104

in the form of a cross, divided in the breadth into three parts by two colon. naded arcades. A part of the north transept, saved from the conflagration, is still standing and called St. Mary's Aile it is of the early English style. It is divided into three burial places; the first, that belonging to Sir Walter Scott, in which repose the remains of the great Novelist, in right of his grandmother, Lady Haliburton; the second, that of Erskine of Thieldfield; and third, that of the Craigs of Bameseyde, a very ancient family, whose perpetuity was prophesied by the celebrated Thomas the Rhymer as follows: Whate'er betide There'll be a Haig In Bemersyde.

Whate'er befa' There'll be a Knight Of Purvis Ha'.

The burial-place of Sir Walter Scott is an area comprehended by four pillars. On a side wall is the following inscription: :- "Sub hoc tumulo jacet Joannes Haliburtonus, Baro de Mertoun, vir religione et virtute clarus, qui obiit 17 die Augusti, 1640;" below which there is a shield of arms. On the back wall, the latter history of this spot is expressed in a small tablet, as follows: "Hunc locum sepulturæ D. Seneschallus Buchania Comes, Gualtero, Thomæ, et Roberto Scott, nepotibus Haliburtoni, concessit 1791." The persons indicated were the father and uncles of Sir Walter Scott; but, though all are dead, his uncle Robert and his deceased lady had alone been previously laid there. From the limited dimensions of the place, the body of the author of Waverley has been placed north and south, instead of the usual fashion; and thus, in his interment at least, he has resembled the Cameronians, of whose character he was supposed to have given so unfavourable a character in one of his

tales.

The Gothic roof is in perfect repair; it is under the Choristers' gallery, having arched openings towards the centre of the Church. The remains of Thomas Haliburton repose here likewise. The arms of the Haliburton family are erected over the aile; they are the same as those mounted by Sir Walter Scott, viz. the crest a stag, and the motto " Watch Weel."

The great west door of the Church is still entire; it is a fine round arch, ornamented with roses. Westall some years ago published an ele

gant engraving of this doorway, with the old St. Mary's ivied ailes peeping through it. St. Moden's Chapel, on the south, is quite entire, having the altar at the east, and a window beautifully ornamented with stained glass. A fine statue of Sir Isaac Newton is here also, at the foot of which is the locus sepulturæ of the Earl of Buchan. In the cloister adjoining, at the upper end, are beautifully intersecting arches, forming both Norman and Pointed.

In his " Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," Sir Walter relates the following anecdote of a poor female who tenanted one of the many vaults beneath the abbey. It is appended as a note to the ballad of " The Nun who never saw the day.”

"About the year 1745 an unfortunate female wanderer took up her residence in a vault in Dryburgh Abbey, which, during the day, she never quitted: when night fell, she issued from her miserable retreat to the houses of some charitable families in the neighbourhood, from whom she obtained such necessaries as she could be prevailed upon to accept.

"At 12 each night she returned with her lighted candle to her vault; assuring her friendly neighbours that, during her absence, her habitation was arranged by a spirit to whom she gave the uncouth name of Fatlips,' describing him as a little man wearing heavy iron shoes, with which he tramped her vault to dispel the damps. The circumstance caused her to "be viewed by the well-informed with compassion, and by the vulgar with terror. The cause of her adopting this extraordinary course of life she never would explain-it was however believed to have been occasioned by a vow that during the absence of a man to whom she was attached, she had resolved never to behold the light of day, which she faithfully kept for many years. Her lover never returned; it was supposed he fell in the civil wars of 1745-6."

Gower the poet, the friend and contemporary of Chaucer, was a visitor of Dryburgh Abbey. Here also Chaucer passed some time on a visit to Ralph Strode, a distinguished poet and philosopher, who in the early part of his career devoted himself to literary pursuits in this Abbey. Chaucer, at the conclusion of his "Troilus and Cresseide," inscribes that poem to the moral Gower," and to "the philosophical Strode." It was at Dry burgh also that Thomson composed -his beautiful poem of Winter, the first

of his classical Seasons, during his residence with the Haliburtons, Sir Walter Scott's ancestors.

The face of the country around Dryburgh is extremely beautiful. On the adjoining hill of Bamerayde, on a natural terrace, may be seen the beautiful windings of the Tweed, through herds, and flocks, and corn fields, and the country sloping with ascent to the Scottish Parnassus, the three Ealdon hills or Trimontium of the Romans. From the adjoining hill (Wallace hill, on which the statue of that great and ill-requited Chief is placed), the beautiful river winds towards Kelso, and a fine champagne country feasts the delighted eye to the horizon, bounded by the Cheviot hills, checquered in their undulating distance by Rubers Law and the Crags of Minto.

The Abbey, as well as the modern mansion-house, inhabited by Sir David Erskine, is completely embosomed in a wood. Around this sylvan spot the Tweed winds in a beautiful crescent form, and the scene is interesting to excess, embracing both wood and water, mountain and rock scenery, by which the picturesque ruins of the Abbey are surrounded. * The variety of the forms is very striking, and the whole scene gives rise to the most pleasing sentiments of religious tranquillity. The ruins are overgrown with foliage, and everywhere nature usurps the place of art. In one roofless apartment a fine spruce and holly are to be seen flourishing in the rubbish; in others the walls are completely covered with ivy, and even on the top of some of the arches, trees have sprung up to a considerable growth, and there, clustering with the aspiring pinnacles, add character to the Gothic pile.

Dryburgh is now consecrated to all time by the ashes of the great Novelist. Many a pilgrim foot will bend its steps to this hallowed spot; and, unenticed by the meretricious lures of monkish idolatry, the willing votary will seek with pious solicitude the shrine where genius reposes, and drop a tear on it to the memory of WALTER SCOTT. I.

* A distant view of Dryburgh Abbey, from a drawing by Mr. Wathen, is in our vol. xc. ii. p. 297; and a plan and two good views of it, drawn and engraved by Lizars, will be found in Morton's account of the Monasteries of Teviotdale.

Mr. URBAN, Oct. 23. MY opinion having been asked respecting the Fragment of the Baccha of Euripides, printed in your last Number, I have just read it; and now sit down to write you a few hasty remarks which have occurred to me in its perusal. I must premise, however, that my observations can be of very little value, as, although I was formerly a diligent reader of Euripides, many years have elapsed since I bade farewell to such studies; nor have I at this time leisure to look into a single book which a person who pretends to criticize a Greek passage ought to inspect. It rests with you, therefore, to determine whether you will make any use of remarks written under such circumstances.

The inspection of almost every part of this production will, I think, be sufficient to satisfy your learned readers, that it is a lusus of your Correspondent; who having amused himself with an attempt to supply the lacuna in the last scene of the Bacchæ, chooses to try what reception it will meet with, when it appears in your pages pretending to come from the genuine hand of Euripides. I should. be very sorry to insinuate that there is any intention of committing a fraud upon you or upon your readers: but as it is, I believe, certain that many persons were imposed upon by the pretended Shakspeare Manuscripts, and that the late Dr. Parr not only declared, but subscribed his full belief in them, your Grecian friend X. Y. may have thought it fair to try what degree of credulity may exist among your learned readers. Whoever may be the author of these iambics, I beg leave to pay my humble tribute to the scholarship and spirit of the composition, and the intimate acquaintance which it displays with the works of the Tragedians, at the same time, that it is free from servile imitation,

It is justly remarked in your Magazine, that this pretended fragment of the Baccha does not present such faults in prosody as those which mark the spurious addition to the Iphigenia in Aulis, and the Fragment of the Danaë: but had these verses been taken from an old Palimpsest manuscript, as hinted by X. Y. it is probable that they would have exhibited many metrical errors similar to those which are found in most manuscripts, arising from the ignorance of the suc

cessive copyists, respecting the true laws of the tragic metres.

The first line is from Euripides. In v. 10, there is either a false quantity, or an anapæst for the second foot; Μὴ δριμυτέραν τῷ συμφορὰν συσσκευάσῃ.

In v. 15. Εἰ νεκρὸν ὀρθοῖς σῶμ ̓ ὁρᾷν ὄσσοις φέροις. Euripides would rather have written, Εἰ νεκρὸν ὀρθοῖς ὄμμασιν λεύσσειν ἔχοις.

V. 22. I do not recollect the adverb opoops in the Tragedians.

V. 23. ἄπιστ ̓ ἄπιστα, καινὰ καινὰ δέρκομαι. This verse is borrowed from a play of Euripides; I think the Hecuba, but am not quite sure, and have no time to look for it. The line however is certainly taken parts of the Tragedy. Two such repetitions would not have been found in a line constituting part of the regular iambic dialogue.

from the melic

V. 31. ' is here only inserted for the metre.

V. 32 and 33. I have met with these two lines elsewhere, unless my memory greatly deceives me.

V. 42. καθ', οἳ ἂν ἦν ἐλεινὰ Διονύσῳ ', exe. This seems an imitation of the Latin, miseranda vel hosti: but the Greek words do not accurately express their intended meaning.

V. 48. βλέπειν σέ γ' οὐ φέρω. Should it not rather have been ού σθένω ?

V. 49. τῶν χειλέων, Ὅτοις. The last word should rather have been οἷσπερ.

V. 56. οἴσομαι βλέπειν, and v. 62, pépovoa Bλenew. These translations of the English bear to see, by dépo ẞλéπew, four times within a few lines, would have detected your new Euripides, even had his mask been better than it is.

There are many other remarks of a similar nature which I could make; (though I trust I have advanced sufficient to substantiate my opinion,) but have not time; and must conclude with begging you to excuse the haste with which these are written, and assuring you that I am, with much respect for yourself, and no disrespect for your Correspondent, your very humble serE. G.

vant,

*Another learned correspondent ob serves, "The Greek Iambics, which are printed as a fragment of the Bacchæ, are written by some scholar of the present day, who is betrayed, amongst other signs, by some Anglicisms. The preliminary notice signed X. Y. is of itself sufficient to discredit the pretended Fragment."

Mr. URBAN,

Bath, Oct. 20. YOU will confer a favour on a constant reader and occasional correspondent, by allowing a place to the Letter which I now inclose. It is quite unnecessary for me to add one word in corroboration of what Mr. Bright has stated in it. Most true it is that many years ago he did me the favour to admit me an acquaintance with this long-concealed and most curious truth; and that I have from time to time taken the liberty of suggesting to him that it was due to his own literary reputation, and due to other inquirers in this department of literary history, not to withhold the public communication of the fact, and of the curious and most recondite researches by which he had first established and then illustrated it. I may add that not only the fact itself, but the evidence was submitted to me, and the many important conclusions also which follow on the establishment of the connection between Lord Pembroke and the Poet: the whole disquisition being an admirable specimen of inductive reasoning, from the comparison of facts which could be found only by deep research, equally creditable to the diligence and the power of combination of its author. JOSEPH HUNTER. [Copy.]

MY DEAR SIR,-The communication of J. B. respecting the person to whom Shakespeare addressed his Sonnets, which occurs in the Gentleman's Magazine of this month, and to which you have so kindly directed my attention, occasions, I am half ashamed to confess, some selfish regrets.

It is now more than 13 years ago, in 1819, I think, since I detailed to you the progress of the discovery I had then made, that William Herbert the third Earl of Pembroke was undoubtedly the person to whom Shakepeare addressed the first 126 Sonnets. Another friend, Dr. Holme of Manchester, had been informed of my secret a year earlier; and from both, as ever since from time to time I have spoken or corresponded on the subject, I have received warnings, that by delaying to give the result of my researches to the public, I was putting to hazard an honourable opportunity of securing to myself some literary reputation. The truth is, I have in the long interval been much and actively engaged in matters more immediately

ment.

Under these circumstances, and before J. B. actually announces his discovery, I thus put in my claim. I readily acknowledge that he who unnecessarily hoards information of any kind, rightly loses the privilege of first communicating it; and I anticipate with my best philosophy the interesting conclusion of J. B.'s very excellent and original paper.

When I can again apply myself to the subject, I will come before the public as a fellow-labourer, and it shall be in the spirit of one who, whilst he feels-for human nature— somewhat jealously of his own longtreasured discovery, recollects that the claim he is now preferring may be the cause of similar feelings in another, who has much more justly appreciated what is due to himself, and what the interests of literature demand from all its worshippers.

I am, my dear Sir, your obliged friend, B. HEYWOOD BRIGHT. Stone-buildings, Lincoln's Inn, Oct. 16, 1832. Rev. Joseph Hunter.

YOUR description of the old Hungerford Market, and the former connexion of the estate with the Hungerford family, has reminded me of an old mansion in Wiltshire, once the seat of some of that ancient name.

Behind the church of White Parish, situated on the road between Romsey and Salisbury, was a house of no mean size, appearing to have been erected at different periods. On a narrow projecting part of this building, composed of flint, and said to have been erected by Edward St. Barbe, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and who died in 1616, are three windows of the fashion of that day, one above the other; between the uppermost and middle one, on a square stone tablet, a rose surmounted by a crown and encircled with the garter, and usual motto of "Honi soit qui mal y pense.'