Near Chagford, at Holy Street, on the brow of a hill near the same river was another Logan stone, of less dimensions, but which no longer vibrates. At Shilston, in the same neighbourhood, is a Cromlech,* That the Cromlech was not confined to the Northern nations is evident from the views of two Cromlechs, in Malabar, given by Sir R. C. Hoare, in his "History of Wiltshire." Judging from the following particulars, the Rocking stone is not unknown in the East Indies. We extract the passage from the "Pen and ink sketches of India," (vol. ii. p. 114), by Captain Mundy, who attended Lord Combermere in his tour through that country. "Our route lay through a country, the surface of which is undulated here and there with gentle eminences thickly clad with forest trees, and interspersed with those gigantic natural Cairns of fantastically-piled rocks, peculiar to the province of Bundelcund. These accumulations are usually of a conical form, and the huge round blocks of stone are sometimes heaped up to the height of one hundred, or two hundred feet. Were it not for the unweildy size of the component portions, the traveller would almost be led to imagine that the mechanical ingenuity of man had been employed in the structure. The rocky masses being of a circular form, wide interstices, admitting the light, are frequently found half-way down the pile; and the enormous crag, which generally forms the apex of the natural pyramid, is, in many cases, so nicely poised, that it looks as though a puff of wind would destroy its delicate equilibrium, and the whole edifice would dissolve partnership, and roll away into independent masses, like a pile of oranges. The most obvious way of accounting for these phænomena, is by the supposition that the blocks of hard rock were formerly embedded in a stratum of a softer nature, which, yielding before the lapse of ages and the fury of the elements, crumbled down in sandy particles to the base, and left the more durable portions to support themselves as they could, and take up such positions as the laws of gravity dictated." ED. bearing the name of the Spinster's Rock, from a tradition that three spinsters, or unmarried damsels, constructed it one morning, for their amusement before breakfast. Dartmoor, indeed, abounds in British and Druidical vestiges of many descriptions. DRYBURGH ABBEY. "The echoes of its vaults are eloquent! The stones have voices; and the walls do live. It is the house of memory! C. R. MATURIN. WALTER SCOTT and DRYBURGH will be enshrined in our hearts with SHAKSPEARE and Stratford-on-Avon. Its aged ruins are situated in a land renowned in song and story; the district is rife with historical mementos and classic associations; but the name of him who has been taken from us, alone confers a deathless interest over the spot hallowed with his remains,—had it been the most barren in this lower world. The literary pilgrim from every civilized land will draw nigh the last earthly dwelling-place of the great, and what is more, the GOOD Sir Walter Scott, with deep and overpowering interest; and it is with similar feelings that we sit down to describe the ruins of 'Dryburgh's dark Abbaie.” 66 It has been conjectured, that the name of Dryburgh takes its derivation from the Celtic Darach-Bruach, the bank of the sacred grove of oaks, or the settlement of the Druids." Some vestiges of Pagan worship have been found on the Bass Hill,-an eminence in its vicinity,-among which was an instrument used for killing the victims for sacrifice, that was in the possession of the late Earl of Buchan.* In the early part of the sixth century a monastery was founded here by St. Modan, one of the first preachers of Christianity in Scotland. This eminent man was abbot in 522, but it is supposed that after his death the community was transferred to Melrose, since no subsequent mention is made of the monastery by the ancient historians, and many centuries must undoubtedly have elapsed between its desertion and re-establishment. Mr. Morton ob • See "Monastic Annals of Teviotdale," by the Rev. James Morton: p. 290. fol. 1831. To that splendid, and at the present period, doubly-interesting work, we have been greatly indebted in the present paper. + Vide Sir Nicholas Carlisle's "Scotland." Relics of St. Modan were long preserved in a church dedicated to him at Roseneath, and he was the patron saint of the High Church at Stirling. serves, that it "was probably destroyed by the fero- | had been previously destroyed by the troops of Sir cious Saxon invaders under Ida, the flame-bearer, George Bowes. The last head of this house (the who landed on the coast of Yorkshire in 547, and lands and revenues of which were annexed to the after subduing Northumberland, added this part of crown in 1587) was David Erskine, natural son of Scotland to his dominions by his victory over the Lord Erskine, who is described as ane exceeding Scoto-Britons at Cattraeth." Part of the original modest, honest, and shamefast man." The abbey and monastery is supposed to remain in the sub-structure its demesnes were then granted by James VI. of Scotof the existing ruins. land to Henry Erskine, Lord Cardross; the second son of John, Earl of Mar, the Lord Treasurer, and Mary, daughter of Esme Stewart, Duke of Lennox,the direct ancestor of David Stewart Erskine, Earl of Buchan, elder brother of Thomas Lord Erskine, Lord Chancellor, and uncle to the present proprietor, Sir David Erskine. The present structure was founded by Hugh de Morville, Lord of Lauderdale, the district in which it is situated, and Constable of Scotland, about the year 1150. According to the Chronicle of Melros, Beatrix de Beauchamp, wife of the above, obtained a charter of confirmation for the new foundation, from David I., a munificent patron of religious establishments in Scotland. The cemetery was consecrated on St. Martin's day, 1150, "that no demons might haunt it;" but the community did not come to reside here until the 13th of December, 1152. The monks were Premonstratensians, who came from Alnwick; and they styled, says Mr. Pennant, "the Irish Abbies of Drum le Croix and Woodburn, their daughters." This abbey fell under a heavy calamity in 1322. "Tradition says, that the English, under Edward II., in their retreat in that year, were provoked by the imprudent triumph of the convent in joyfully ringing the church bells at their departure; the sound of which made them return and burn the abbey in revenge. King Robert the Bruce contributed liberally towards its repair, but it has been doubted whether it ever was fully restored to its original magnificence."-" Certain flagrant disorders," which occurred here in the fourteenth century, drew down the severe censure of Pope Gregory XI. upon the inmates. Many of the Abbots of Dryburgh were persons of high rank and consequence. James Stewart, who was abbot in 1545, occasionally exchanged the cowl for the helmet. Having united his retainers with those of some neighbouring nobles, they boldly determined on making a raid on the English border, and crossing the Tweed, burned the village of Horncliffe in Northumberland, with a great quantity of corn; but the garrisons of Norham and Berwick, assisted by other hearts of oak, attacked and drove them across the border with considerable loss, before they could effect much more damage. In the same year, Dryburgh Abbey was destined again to be laid in ruins, it being plundered and burnt by an English force under the Earl of Hertford: the market town of Dryburgh * This conjecture is greatly strengthened by the fact that masses of melted lead and vitrified glass have been recently found in clearing out the rubbish from the interior of the church. Dryburgh, in Berwickshire, is situated about four miles from Melrose, on the north bank of the Tweed, in the most delightful part of the vale, famed as it is for beauty along its whole extent. The abbey stands amidst the gloom of wood, on a verdant level, above the high banks of red earth which confine the course of the river, whose rapid stream makes a bold sweep around it in its passage onwards. In the background, hills covered with luxuriant foliage rise in picturesque beauty; and whether we contemplate the time-worn ruin, the harmony of nature, or the remembrance of the past, the scene (particularly when viewed from the opposite banks of the river) is one of singular interest. 66 Mr. George Smith, architect, states that the ruins are so overgrown with foliage, that he found great difficulty in taking accurate measurements of them. 'Everywhere you behold the usurpation of nature over 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 these clustering with the aspiring pinnacles, add character to the Gothic pile. These aged trees on the summit of the walls are the surest records we have of the antiquity of its destruction." The structure was originally cruciform, "divided in the breadth into three parts by two colonnaded arcades; the cross or transepts and choir have all been short; a part of the north transept which is still standing, is called St. Mary's Aisle; it is a beautiful early English Gothic work." Perhaps the most striking feature in the remains is a fine Norman arch, which was originally the western doorway. Its enrichments are in the style of the twelfth century, and little affected by time. The monastery is a complete ruin. Nothing is entire but the Chapter-House, St. Modan's Chapel, and the adjoining passages. The chapter-house is forty-seven feet long, twenty-three broad, and twenty in height. At the east end there are five early Eng-resides close to the Abbey, preserves the ruins, we lish pointed windows; the western extremity contains are told, with great care. a circular-headed centre window, with a smaller one Sir Walter Scott, in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish on either side. The hall is adorned with a row of Border," gives an interesting account of the Nun of intersected arches. Mr. Smith concludes his valu- | Dryburgh, an unfortunate female wanderer, who took able description with the following remarks: "From up her abode about eighty years ago, in a vault, amongst a minute inspection of the ruins we are led to believe the ruins of the Abbey, which during the day she that there are portions of the work of a much earlier never quitted. It was supposed from an account she date. The arch was the distinctive feature of all gave, of a spirit who used to arrange her habitation, structures of the middle ages, as the column was of at night, during her absence in search of some food or those of classic antiquity; and among these ruins we charity at the residences of gentlemen in the neighobserved no fewer than four distinct styles of arches, bourhood, that the vault was haunted; and it is namely, the massive Roman arch with its square still regarded with terror by many among the lower sides; the imposing deep-splayed Saxon; the pillared orders. She never could be prevailed upon to relate to and intersected Norman; and last, the early English her friends, the reason why she adopted so singular a pointed arch. These differ not only in design, but in course of life; "but it was believed," says Sir Walter, the quality of the materials and in the execution. "that it was occasioned by a vow that during the The chapter-house and abbot's parlour, with the con- absence of a man to whom she was attached, she would tiguous domestic dwellings of the monks we consider never look upon the sun. of much greater antiquity than the church.*" These structures were built of "hard pinkishcoloured" sandstone (which is in fine preservation,) and they exhibited a remarkable diversity in their levels. Near the ruins still flourishes a fine tree which there is good reason to suppose was planted seven hundred years ago. The late Earl of Buchan was devotedly attached to this place. At a short distance from the Abbey, he constructed an elegant wire suspension-bridge over the Tweed, two hundred and sixty feet in length. His lordship also erected a colossal statue of Sir William Wallace, on the summit of an adjoining hill; which was placed on its pedestal 22nd of September, 1814, the anniversary of the victory at Stirling Bridge, in 1297. "It occupies so eminent a situation," says Mr. Chambers, "that Wallace frowning towards England, is visible even from Berwick, a distance of more than thirty miles." The statue is twenty feet high and is formed of red sandstone, painted white. Upon a tablet there is an appropriate inscription. Lord Buchan fitted up one of the ruined apartments of the Abbey in a style corresponding to the original, to which he loved to resort. Sir David Erskine, who Her lover never returned. He fell during the Civil war of 1745-6, and she never more beheld the light of day." Allan Cunningham tells us, that the late Earl of Buchan waited upon Lady Scott in 1819, when the illustrious author of Waverley was brought nigh to the grave by a grievous illness, and "begged her to intercede with her husband to do him the honour of being buried in Dryburgh. The place,' said the Earl, is very beautiful,-just such a place as the poet loves, and as he has a fine taste that way, he is sure of being gratified with my offer.' Scott, it is reported, goodhumouredly promised to give Lord Buchan the refusal, since he seemed so solicitous ;"--but the peer, dying the first, was himself laid the first in Dryburgh church-yard.* * Vide, "Athenæum," No. 258. The last resting place of Sir Walter Scott, is a small spot of ground in an area formed by four pillars, in one of the ruined aisles, which belonged to his family. We derive the subjoined particulars from the valuable memoirs which has appeared in "Chambers' Edinburgh Journal." The ground originally belonged to the Halyburtons of Merton, an ancient and respectable baronial family, of which Sir Walter's paternal grandmother was a member. On a side wall is the following inscription. "Sub hoc tumulo jacet Joannes Haliburtonus, Barro de Mertoun, vir religione et virtute clarus, qui obiit 17 die Augusti, 1640;" below which there is a coat of arms. On the back wall, the latter history of the spot is expressed on a small tablet, as follows;-" Hunc + Pennant, in his "Tour in Scotland" in 1769, thus describes locum sepulturæ D. Seneschallus, Buchani comes, Gualtero, the ruins: "" There are scarce any relics of the church, but much Thomæ et Roberto Scott, nepotibus Haliburtoni, concessit, of the convent; the refectory supported by two pillars; se- 1791."-that is to say, the Earl of Buchan (lately proprietor veral vaults and other offices; part of the cloister walls, and of the ruins and adjacent grounds,) granted this place of sepula fine radiated window of stone work," [similar to that at Jed- ture in 1791, to Walter, Thomas, and Robert Scott, descendburgh]. These remains are not inelegant but are unadorn-ants of the Laird of Halyburton. The persons indicated were the ed." The refectory fell after Pennant's visit, leaving little father and uncles of Sir Walter Scott; but, though all are dead, else but the gable-ends remaining. no other member of the family lies there, except his uncle * "Mon. Ann. of Teviotdale," p. 323. We cannot attempt to describe, nor even to enumerate, all the beauties of this enchanting district. Melrose, whose stately abbey has risen again in fresh beauty under the poet's magic pencil; the venerable ruins at Jedburgh and Kelso; the vale of Glendearg with its towers and wonders; Abbotsford; and the Eildon Hills, (once one lofty eminence, but cleft into three by the wizard wand of Michael Scott,) from whose summits we are told by the immortal author himself that," you may see the scenes of forty-two songs, and ballads, and battles, all of old renown," have been elsewhere immortalized. "Even as the tenderness that hour instils HOUGHTON CHAPEL, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. VYVYAN. ABOUT four miles to the north-west of Tuxford, in Nottinghamshire, upon the River Idle, and on the verge of the ancient Forest of Sherwood, is Houghton Park; where was once a stately mansion, successively the residence of the Malluvels, the Stanhopes, and the Holleses, Earls of Clare. The park, now cut up into enclosures, still retains features of its former magnificence. Noble avenues of limes and other trees exist to denote the approaches to a patrician abode; and on the margin of the slowly-gliding Idle, embosed in a thicket which causes a twilight gloom even Robert, and his deceased lady. From the limited dimensions of the place, the body of the author of Waverley has been placed in a direction north and south, instead of the usual fashion; and thus, in death at least, he has resembled the Came ronians, of whose character he was supposed to have given such an unfavourable picture in one of his tales." May no unhallowed hand ever violate his sepulchre ! at mid-day, stand the remains of the CHAPEL where the lords of Houghton formerly worshipped the Deity, and where they found their "long home." Some idea of the desolation which reigns over this oncehallowed spot is conveyed by a reference to the accompanying delineation; and it is indeed, mournful to witness the havock, not merely of time, but that made by sacrilegious hands. The sanctity of the grave has not been respected; and the last encasements of mortality have been sought to be exposed to the gaze of every visitor. On viewing this place, in the month of August last, we found that many of the floor stones had been displaced, evident attempts made to discover the coffins of the dead,-and, in one instance, with success. A leaden coffin,-that of some high-born lord or dame, had been reached and opened, and pieces of the wooden shell were strewed around the uncovered grave! "Fire and sword and desolation A godly, thorough, reformation;" How this Chapel came to ruin in the first instance | ations, and been originally of larger extent, there we know not—whether during the Civil Wars, which being arches walled up on the north side. It consists preceded the Commonwealth, when all our eccle- of a nave, chancel, and a small cemetery on the north siastical edifices suffered spoilation by those who side of the chancel. The doorway on the south side thoughtis very ancient, and presents a specimen of the AngloNorman style. Close beside it, on the outside of the Chapel, are two flat stones, having each a head rudely carved in relief,---one, apparently that of a male, and the other of a female. In the interior are, a plain circular font, a small piscena, and a niche on the right of where the altar once stood, intended perhaps for the image of the Patron Saint. The cemetery contains a large slab stone, marked with a cross having, in the old character, the words, " Jhe (Jesu) mercy,” lady helpe," and at the foot (as well as we could decypher) "orate p aia Johe' Stanhop ux Herici Stanhop armig," surmounted by a shield impaled; the male arms those of Stanhope, (adopted from those of Lungvillers,) viz. sable, a bend between six cross crosslets arg.; the female arms are too much defaced to be ascertained. This stone is supposed to be in memory of Joan, the wife of Henry Stanhope, who lived in the reign of Edward IV. On the outside of the Chapel, on the north side, is a mutilated effigy of a recumbent female, her head supported by angels, and her feet resting upon a dog. Possibly if the weeds and rubbish which cover the floor of this sanctuary were removed, other inscriptions might be discovered; and it is hoped, that the few vestiges remaining, which we have thus noticed, will be protected from further devastation. or whether it fell into gradual decay and neglect, after the Mansion itself had become deserted by its noble owner the fourth Earl of Clare,-who, having married the co-heiress of Henry, Duke of Newcastle, was upon the death of his father-in-law himself created Duke of Newcastle, and went to reside at Welbeck Abbey, which, with other estates, came into his possession by his wife. Thoroton merely observes of the Chapel, that it "was accounted to belong to Tickhill;"* that is, probably, to some religious house at that place in Yorkshire; but respecting the estate he is more diffuse, and traces its succession from the Lungvillers to the Earl of Clare. Among its owners he notices "good Sir William Holles," whose father (Lord Mayor of London in the reign of Henry VIII.,) purchased it of John Babington, and whose grandson, Sir John Holles, was first created Baron of Houghton, and afterwards Earl of Clare, by James I. Of good Sir William," it is recorded, that he lived at Houghton in great splendour and hospitality. "He began his Christmas at Allhallowtide, and continued it until Candlemas; during which time any man was permitted to stay three days, without being asked whence he came, or what he was." His retinue was large, for "he was at the Coronation of Edward VI. with fifty retainers with blue coats and badges." His great grandson, Deuzil Holles, (second son of the first Earl of Clare,) was one of the five members who, when Charles I. was about to dissolve parliament, forcibly held the speaker in the chair until certain resolutions were passed. He was afterwards accused by Charles, of high treason; but nevertheless he strongly opposed the execution of the monarch, and took an active part in the restoration of Charles II., who created him Lord Holles of Isfield, in Sussex. Another great grandson of "good Sir William," Gervas Holles, whom Thoroton styles "a great lover of antiquities," left several MSS. Collections for the county of Lincoln (now in the British Museum,) in which are memoirs of his own family, and probably notices of this place. But to digress no further, we proceed to give a brief description of the Chapel as it now appears. This edifice has evidently undergone various alterAntiq. Notts. p. 357. VOL. I. NOV. 17, 1832. TOPOGRAPHICAL EXCURSION IN THE (Continued from p. 208.) In the Close, besides buildings belonging to the Dean, Prebends, &c. "there is a Pallace built castlelike, at the entrance whereof we mounted some dozen stayres into a spacious goodly Hall, as large as any we yet met with, all the roofe whereof is of Irish Timber, richly and curiously caru'd, and the couering of Lead, Church-like, the carving expressing sundry strange formes, and a great part thereof gilded." The City.-"Some few Knights and Gentlemen reside therein; but amongst all their Gentlewomen, one more glorious then the rest was, by one of these Trauellers, accidentally (yet happily) discouer'd to be the rarest and most pfect modell and mistresse-peece of peeces they met wth in all their Journey. She was U |