wind in our faces, like the rustling of a whole army of spirits down the staircase; whereat we all tumbled back promiscuously on to each other, and concluded we would not go up. In fact we had done the thing, and so we went home; and I dreamed of arches, and corbels, and gargoyles all night. And so, farewell to Melrose Abbey

LETTER IX.

DOUGLAS OF CAVERS.-TEMPERANCE SOIREE.-CALLS.-LORD GAINSBOROUGH.-SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. GEORGE COMBE. VISIT TO HAWTHORNDEN. - ROSLIN CASTLE. THE QUAKERS.-HERVEY'S STUDIO. GRASS MARKET. — GRAY FRIARS'

CHURCHYARD.

EDINBURGH, April.

MY DEAR SISTER :Mr. S. and C- returned from their trip to Glasgow much delighted with the prospects indicated by the results of the temperance meetings they attended there.

They were present at the meeting of the Scottish Temperance League, in an audience of about four thousand people. The reports were encouraging, and the feeling enthusiastic. One hundred and eighty ministers are on the list of the League, forming a nucleus of able, talented, and determined operators. It is the intention to make a movement for a law which shall secure to Scotland some of the benefits of the Maine law.

It appears to me that on the questions of temperance and antislavery, the religious communities of the two countries are in a situation mutually to benefit each other. Our church and ministry have been through a long struggle and warfare on this temperance question, in which a very valuable experience has been elaborated. The religious people of Great Britain, on the contrary, have led on to a successful result a great antislavery experiment, wherein their experience and success can be equally beneficial and encouraging to us.

The day after we returned from Melrose we spent in resting and riding about, as we had two engagements in the evening--one at a party at the house of Mr. Douglas, of Cavers, and the other at a public temperance soirée. Mr. Douglas is the author of several works which have excited attention; but perhaps you will remember him best by his treatise on the Advancement of Society in Religion and Knowledge. He is what is called here a "laird," a man of good family, a large landed proprietor, a zealous reformer, and a very devout man.

We went early to spend a short time with the family. I was a little surprised, as I entered the hall, to find myself in the midst of a large circle of well-dressed men and women, who stood apparently waiting to receive us, and who bowed, courtesied, and smiled as we came in. Mrs. D. apologized to me afterwards, saying that those were the servants of the family, that they were exceedingly anxious to see me, and so she had allowed them all to come into the hall. They were so respectable in their appearance, and so neatly dressed, that I might almost have mis

taken them for visitors.

We had a very pleasant hour or two with the family, which I enjoyed exceedingly. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas were full of the most considerate kindness, and some of the daughters had intimate acquaintances in America.

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I enjoy these little glimpses into family circles more than anything else; there is no warmth like fireside warmth.

In the evening the rooms were filled. I should think all the clergymen of Edinburgh must have been there, for I was introduced to ministers without number. The Scotch have a good many little ways that are like ours; they call their clergy ministers, as we do. There were many persons

from ancient families, distinguished in Scottish history both for rank and piety; among others, Lady Carstairs, Sir Henry Moncrief and lady. There was also the Countess of Gainsborough, one of the ladies of the queen's household, a very beautiful woman with charming manners, reminding one of the line of Pope

"Graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride."

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I was introduced to Dr. John Brown, who is reckoned one of the best exegetical scholars in Europe. He is small of stature, sprightly, and pleasant in manners, with a high, bald forehead, and snow-white hair. There were also many members of the faculty of the university. talked a little with Dr. Guthrie, whom I described in a former letter. I told him that one thing which had been an agreeable disappointment to me was, the apparent cordiality between the members of the Free and the National church. He seemed to think that the wounds of the old conflict were, to a great extent, healed. He spoke in high terms of the Duchess of Sutherland, her affability, kindness, and considerateness for the poor. forget from whom I received the anecdote, but somebody told me this of her -that, one of her servants having lost a relative, she had left a party where she was engaged, and gone in the plainest attire and quietest way to attend the funeral. It was remarked upon as showing her considerateness for the feelings of those in inferior positions.

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About nine o'clock we left to go to the temperance soirée. It was in the same place, and conducted in the same way, with the others which I have described. The lord provost presided, and one or two of the working men who spoke in the former soirée made speeches, and very good ones too. The meeting was greatly enlivened by the presence and speech of the jovial Lord Conynghame, who amused us all by the gallant manner in which he expressed the warmth of Scottish welcome towards "our American guests." If it had been in the old times of Scottish hospitality, he said, he should have proposed a bumper three times three; but as that could not be done in a temperance meeting, he proposed three cheers, in which he led off with a hearty good will.

All that the Scotch people need now for the prosperity of their country is the temperance reformation; and undoubtedly they will have it. They have good sense and strength of mind enough to work out whatever they choose.

We went home tired enough.

The next day we had a few calls to make, and an invitation from Lady Drummond to visit "classic Hawthornden." Accordingly, in the forenoon, Mr. S. and I called first on Lord and Lady Gainsborough; though she is one of the queen's household, she is staying here at Edinburgh, and the queen at Osborne. I infer, therefore, that the appointment includes no very onerous duties. The Earl of Gainsborough is the eldest brother of Rev. Baptist W. Noel.

Lady Gainsborough is the daughter of the Earl of Roden, who is an Irish lord of the very strictest Calvinistic persuasion. He is a devout man, and for many years, we were told, maintained a Calvinistic church of the English establishment in Paris. While Mr. S. talked with Lord Gainsborough, I talked with his lady and Lady Roden, who was present. Lady Gainsborough inquired about our schools for the poor, and how they were conducted. I reflected a moment, and then answered that we had no schools for the poor as such, but the common school was open alike to all classes.*

In England and Scotland, in all classes, from the queen downward, no movements are so popular as those for the education and elevation of the poor; one is seldom in company without hearing the conversation turn upon them.

The conversation generally turned upon the condition of servants in America. I said that one of the principal difficulties in American housekeeping proceeded from the fact that there were so many other openings of profit that very few were found willing to assume the position of the servant, except as a temporary expedient; in fact, that the whole idea of service was radically different, it being a mere temporary contract to render certain service, not differing very essentially from the contract of the mechanic or tradesman. The ladies said they thought there could be no family feeling among servants if that was the case; and I replied that, generally speaking, there was none; that old and attached family servants in the free states were rare exceptions.

This, I know, must look, to persons in old countries, like a hard and discouraging feature of democracy. I regard it, however, as only a temporary difficulty. Many institutions among us are in a transition state. Gradually the whole subject of the relations of labour and the industrial callings will assume a new form in America, and though we shall never be able to command the kind of service secured in aristocratic countries, yet we shall have that which will be as faithful and efficient. If domestic service can be made as pleasant, profitable, and respectable as any of the industrial callings, it will soon become as permanent.

Our next visit was to Sir William Hamilton and lady. Sir William is the able successor of Dugald Stewart and Dr. Brown in the chair of intellectual philosophy. His writings have had a wide circulation in America. He is a man of noble presence, though we were sorry to see that he was suffering from ill health. It seems to me that Scotland bears that relation to England, with regard to metaphysical inquiry, that New England does to the rest of the United States. If one counts over the names of distinguished metaphysicians, the Scotch, as compared with the English, number three to one-Reid, Stewart, Brown, all Scotchmen.

Sir William still writes and lectures. He and Mr. S. were soon discoursing on German, English, Scotch, and American metaphysics, while I was talking with Lady Hamilton and her daughters. After we came away Mr. S. said, that no man living had so thoroughly understood and analyzed

* Had I known all about New York and Boston which recent examinations have developed, I should have answered very differently. The fact is, that we in America can no longer congratulate ourselves on not having a degraded and miserable class in our cities, and it will be seen to be necessary for us to arouse to the very same efforts which have been so successfully making in England.

the German philosophy. He said that Sir William spoke of a call which he had received from Professor Park, of Andover, and expressed himself in high terms of his metaphysical powers.

After that we went to call on George Combe, the physiologist. We found him and Mrs. Combe in a pleasant sunny parlour, where, among other objects of artistic interest, we saw a very fine engraving of Mrs. Siddons. I was not aware until after leaving that Mrs. Combe is her daughter. Mr. Combe, though somewhat advanced, seems full of life and animation, and conversed with a great deal of warmth and interest on America, where he made a tour some years since. Like other men who sympathize in our progress, he was sanguine in the hope that the downfall of slavery must come at no distant date.

After a pleasant chat here we came home; and after an interval of rest the carriage was at the door for Hawthornden. It is about seven miles from Edinburgh. It is a most romantic spot, on the banks of the river Esk, now the seat of Sir James Walker Drummond. Scott has sung in the ballad of the Gray Brother :—

"Sweet are the paths, O, passing sweet,

By Esk's fair streams that run,

O'er airy steep, through copse-woods deep,
Impervious to the sun.

"Who knows not Melville's beechy grove,
And Roslin's rocky glen,

Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,

And classic Hawthornden?"

"Melville's beechy grove" is an allusion to the grounds of Lord Melville, through which we drove on our way. The beech trees here are magnificent; fully equal to any trees of the sort which I have seen in our American forests, and they were in full leaf. They do not grow so high, but have more breadth and a wider sweep of branches; on the whole they are well worthy of a place in song.

I know in my childhood I often used to wish that I could live in a ruined castle; and this Hawthornden would be the very beau ideal of one as a romantic dwelling-place. It is an old castellated house, perched on the airy verge of a precipice, directly over the beautiful river Esk, looking down one of the most romantic glens in Scotland. Part of it is in ruins, and, hung with wreaths of ivy, it seems to stand just to look picturesque. The house itself, with its quaint high gables, and grey antique walls, appears old enough to take you back to the times of William Wallace. It is situated within an hour's walk of Roslin Castle and Chapel, one of the most beautiful and poetic architectural remains in Scotland.

Our drive to the place was charming. It was a showery day; but every few moments the sun blinked out, smiling through the falling rain, and making the wet leaves glitter, and the raindrops wink at each other in the most sociable manner possible. Arrived at the house, our friend, Miss S- took us into a beautiful parlour overhanging the glen, each window of which commanded a picture better than was ever made on canvas.

We had a little chat with Lady Drummond, and then we went down to examine the caverns-for there are caverns under the house, with long galleries and passages running from them through the rocks, some way down the river. Several apartments are hollowed out here in the rock on which the house is founded, which they told us belonged to Bruce; the

There was

tradition being, that he was hidden here for some months. his bed room, dining room, sitting room, and a very curious apartment where the walls were all honeycombed into little partitions, which they called his library, these little partitions being his book shelves. There are small loophole windows in these apartments, where you can look up and down the glen, and enjoy a magnificent prospect. For my part, I thought if I were Bruce, sitting there with a book in my lap, listening to the gentle brawl of the Esk, looking up and down the glen, watching the shaking rain drops on the oaks, the birches, and beeches, I should have thought that was better than fighting, and that my pleasant little cave was as good an arbour on the Hill Difficulty as ever mortal man enjoyed.

There is a ponderous old two-handed sword kept here, said to have belonged to Sir William Wallace. It is considerably shorter than it was originally, but, resting on its point, it reached to the chin of a good six foot gentleman of our party. The handle is made of the horn of a seahorse (if you know what that is), and has a heavy iron ball at the end. It must altogether have weighed some ten or twelve pounds. Think of a man hewing away on men with this!

There is a well in this cavern, down which we were directed to look and observe a hole in the side; this we were told was the entrance to another set of caverns and chambers under those in which we were, and to passages which extended down and opened out into the valley. In the olden days the approach to these caverns was not through the house, but through the side of a deep well sunk in the court-yard, which communicates through a subterranean passage with this well. Those seeking entrance were let down by a windlass into the well in the court-yard, and drawn up by a windlass into this cavern. There was no such accommodation at present, but we were told some enterprising tourists had explored the lower caverns. Pleasant kind of times those old days must have been, when houses had to be built like a rabbit burrow, with all these accommodations for concealment and escape.

After exploring the caverns we came up into the parlours again, and Miss S. showed me a Scottish album, in which were all sorts of sketches, memorials, autographs, and other such matters. What interested me more, she was making a collection of Scottish ballads, words and tunes. I told her that I had noticed, since I had been in Scotland, that the young ladies seemed to take very little interest in the national Scotch airs, and were all devoted to Italian; moreover, that the Scotch ballads and memories, which so interested me, seemed to have very little interest for people generally in Scotland. Miss S. was warm enough in her zeal to make up a considerable account, and so we got on well together.

While we were sitting, chatting, two young ladies came in, who had walked up the glen despite the showery day. They were protected by good, substantial outer garments, of a kind of shag or plush, and so did not fear the rain. I wanted to walk down to Roslin Castle, but the party told me there would not be time this afternoon, as we should have to return at a certain hour. I should not have been reconciled to this, had not another excursion been proposed for the purpose of exploring Roslin.

However, I determined to go a little way down the glen, and get a distant view of it, and my fair friends, the young ladies, offered to accompany me; so off we started down the winding paths, which were cut among