The Catholics Were Already Establishing Their Schools, And
Building Their Churches With Their Own Means:
And this act of applying the
money of the nation to the education of their priests is a gratuitous
Offense offered by the government to its best friends." In a sermon which
I heard from the Dean of York, in the magnificent old minster of that
city, he commended the liberality of the motives which had induced the
government to make the grant, but spoke of the measure as one which the
friends of the English Church viewed with apprehension and anxiety.
"They may dismiss their fears," said a shrewd friend of mine, with whom I
was discussing the subject. "Endowments are a cause of lukewarmness and
weakness. Our Presbyterian friends here, instead of protesting so
vehemently against what Sir Robert Peel has done, should thank him for
endowing the Catholic Church, for in doing it he has deprived it of some
part of its hold upon the minds of men."
There is much truth, doubtless, in this remark. The support of religion to
be effectual should depend upon individual zeal. The history of the
endowed chapels of dissenting denominations in England is a curious
example of this. Congregations have fallen away and come to nothing, and
it is a general remark that nothing is so fatal to a sect as a liberal
endowment, which provides for the celebration of public worship without
individual contributions.
Letter XXIII.
The Scottish Lakes.
Glasgow, _July_ 19, 1845.
I must not leave Scotland without writing you another letter.
On the 17th of this month I embarked at Newhaven, in the environs of
Edinburgh, on board the little steamer Prince Albert, for Stirling. On our
way we saw several samples of the Newhaven fishwives, a peculiar race,
distinguished by a costume of their own; fresh-colored women, who walk the
streets of Edinburgh with a large wicker-basket on their shoulders, a
short blue cloak of coarse cloth under the basket, short blue petticoats,
thick blue stockings, and a white cap. I was told that they were the
descendants of a little Flemish colony, which long ago settled at
Newhaven, and that they are celebrated for the readiness and point of
their jokes, which, like those of their sisters of Billingsgate, are not
always of the most delicate kind. Several of these have been related to
me, but on running them over in my mind, I find, to my dismay, that none
of them will look well on paper. The wit of the Newhaven fishwives seems
to me, however, like that of our western boatmen, to consist mainly in
the ready application of quaint sayings already current among themselves.
It was a wet day, with occasional showers, and sometimes a sprinkling of
Scotch mist. I tried the cabin, but the air was too close. The steamboats
in this country have but one deck, and that deck has no shelter, so I was
content to stand in the rain for the sake of the air and scenery. After
passing an island or two, the Frith, which forms the bay of Edinburgh,
contracts into the river Forth. We swept by country seats, one of which
was pointed out as the residence of the late Dugald Stewart, and another
that of the Earl of Elgin, the plunderer of the Parthenon; and castles,
towers, and churches, some of them in ruins ever since the time of John
Knox, and hills half seen in the fog, until we came opposite to the Ochil
mountains, whose grand rocky buttresses advanced from the haze almost to
the river. Here, in the windings of the Forth, our steamer went many times
backward and forward, first towards the mountains and then towards the
level country to the south, in almost parallel courses, like the track of
a ploughman in a field. At length we passed a ruined tower and some
fragments of massy wall which once formed a part of Cambus Kenneth Abbey,
seated on the rich lands of the Forth, for the monks, in Great Britain at
least, seem always to have chosen for the site of their monasteries, the
banks of a stream which would supply them with trout and salmon for
Fridays. We were now in the presence of the rocky hills of Stirling, with
the town on its declivity, and the ancient castle, the residence of the
former kings of Scotland, on its summit.
We went up through the little town to the castle, which is still kept in
perfect order, and the ramparts of which frown as grimly over the
surrounding country as they did centuries ago. No troops however are now
stationed here; a few old gunners alone remain, and Major somebody, I
forget his name, takes his dinners in the banqueting-room and sleeps in
the bed-chamber of the Stuarts. I wish I could communicate the impression
which this castle and the surrounding region made upon me, with its
vestiges of power and magnificence, and its present silence and desertion.
The passages to the dungeons where pined the victims of state, in the very
building where the court held its revels, lie open, and the chapel in
which princes and princesses were christened, and worshiped, and were
crowned and wed, is turned into an armory. From its windows we were shown,
within the inclosure of the castle, a green knoll, grazed by cattle, where
the disloyal nobles of Scotland were beheaded. Close to the castle is a
green field, intersected with paths, which we were told was the
tilting-ground, or place of tournaments, and beside it rises a rock, where
the ladies of the court sat to witness the combats, and which is still
called the Ladies' Rock. At the foot of the hill, to the right of the
castle, stretches what was once the royal park; it is shorn of its trees,
part is converted into a race-course, part into a pasture for cows, and
the old wall which marked its limits is fallen down.
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