Footsteps of Dr. Johnson (Scotland)/Chapter 5
Leuchars and Aberbrothick. (August 20.)
Johnson, closing his description of St. Andrews with his lament over its declining University, goes on to say like a wise man:—
LEUCHARS.
"As we knew sorrow and wishes to be vain, it was now our business to mind our way." Perhaps, as he wrote these words he had in his memory two lines of Matthew Green, though they were originally used of quitting, not what was painful, but what was pleasant—
"Though pleased to see the dolphins play,
I mind my compass and my way."[1]
VIEW ON THE TAY.was "restored" for nothing ancient remains but the apse and chancel. The new portion in the interior is ugly in the most approved Scottish fashion; in the outside it would be insignificant were it not added as a vast excrescence to the ancient building. It stands on a little hill at the end of the village, with the churchyard round it falling away on the southern side in steep slopes to the road. Hard by are some well-grown trees round the Manse where Boswell waited on the aged minister, a very civil old man, to learn what he could. He was told that the church was supposed to have stood eight hundred years. St. Andrews certainly can show nothing so ancient. The village is built solidly enough of stone,
MONTROSE
but seems careless of pleasing the eye. There are no little gardens before the houses, no roses trained up the walls, scarcely any flowers in the windows. "Take care of the beautiful, the useful will take care of itself" has not been a gospel sounded in Scottish ears.
The road to the Tay, which Boswell enlivened by leading Johnson to discuss the doctrine of transubstantiation, lay through a pleasant undulating country that bears luxuriant crops and at the present time is no longer wanting in trees. Their chaise was taken across the Firth in a ferry-boat at a charge of four shillings. How Johnson, who always delighted in what he called "the accommodations of life," would have exulted in the great bridge which now spans the flood! He would have noticed too with pleasure the long avenue of young trees planted along the bank. Passing through Dundee, "a dirty despicable town" as he describes it, but now the seat of a vast commerce, they came about the close of the day to the ruined abbey of Aberbrothick.[3] The sight of these fragments of "stupendous magnificence" struck Johnson perhaps more than anything which he saw on the whole of his tour. "I should scarcely have regretted my journey," he said, "had it afforded nothing more than the sight of Aberbrothick." John Wesley declared that he "knew nothing like the Abbey in all North Britain. I paced it and found it an hundred yards long. The breadth is proportionable. Part of the west-end which is still standing shows it was full as high as Westminster Abbey."[4] It had been left in much the same state of neglect as the Cathedral of St. Andrews. Boswell, "whose inquisitiveness was seconded by great activity," wanted to climb one of the towers. "He scrambled in at a high window, but found the stairs within broken, and could not reach the top." The entrance to the other tower they could not discern, and as the night was gathering upon them he gave up the attempt. Not clearly remembering Johnson's account, I told the old man who shows the Abbey that I had read in an old book that a hundred years and more ago the staircase was broken down. "Then they leed" he answered angrily, indignant for its reputation for antiquity. I learnt from him that an ancient inn, which had been recently pulled down, had been found to have been built of the hewn stones taken from the Abbey. In the ruins no doubt for many a long year the town had had its quarry. Johnson noticed one room of which he could not conjecture the use, "as its elevation was very disproportionate to its area." I was told that it was the Chapter Mouse, but my informant, a queer little urchin who acted as under-guide, was
ABERBROTHICK. not trustworthy, for he informed me that the ruins had been caused by a fire in which the Abbey was burnt down a thousand years ago. In this room I found hanging on the wall likenesses of Mary Queen of Scots and of Pope Pius IX. Surely the bitterness of the Reformation has passed away even in Scotland.
The grounds are still used as a graveyard. Here and elsewhere in Scotland I noticed in the inscriptions that the English term wife is slowly supplanting the old Scotch term spouse. On one side of the great gateway two ugly arches have been lately built as entrances to pompous family burial places. These excrescences should surely be removed and the dead left to their quiet insignificance. On the outside, underneath a lofty wall, a pleasant bowling-green has been laid out for public enjoyment, with flower borders running round. The town was keeping a public holiday the day I was there, and the ground was thronged with players and spectators. I was sorry to see in many places that ivy in the true cockney spirit has been trained up the ruins. Unless the strong sea-breezes, which cut off the tops of the trees as soon as they show their heads too high, come to the rescue, it will in time hide the dark red sandstone beneath a uniform mantle of green. Though the ruins are now cared for, and the ground cleared of the long grass and weeds which hindered Johnson from tracing the foundations, nevertheless the lofty wall close to the main entrance is disgraced by huge advertisements. As the stranger approaches the venerable pile from the High Street he gives one angry thought to the Town Council which leases it to the dealers in sewing machines, in blue, and in Irish whisky for advertising their wares. "Where there is yet shame there may in time be virtue." Would that this protest of mine may rouse a feeling of shame in the unworthy guardians of so glorious a ruin!