A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain III

A TOUR THROUGH THE WHOLE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN III

England in applying to the improvement of their country, erecting manufactures, employing the poor, and propagating the trade at home, which they may see plainly has made their united neighbours of England so rich.

Why might not the wool, which they send to England, be manufactur’d in Scotland? If they say they know not how to make the goods, or how to dispose of them when made, my answer is short; I know ’tis not the work of gentlemen to turn manufacturers and merchants: And I know also a number of projectors, that is to say, thieves and cheats, have teas’d and hang’d about them, to draw them into manufacturing, only to bubble them of their wool and money.

But here is a plain scheme, let the Scots gentlemen set but their stewards to work to employ the poor people to spin the wool into yarn, and send the yarn into England; ’tis an easy manufacture, and what the Scots are very handy at, and this could never be difficult. They may have patterns of the yarn given them here, a price agreed on, and good security for payment: This can have no difficulty; the Irish are fallen into this way, to such a degree, that 40,000 packs of wool and worsted yarn are brought into England now every year, and sold here, where, about thirty years ago, not a pound of it was imported ready spun.

This, and many such advantages in trade, Scotland might find in her own bounds, her gentlemen assisting the poor only with their stocks of wool; by which means the poverty and sloth of the meaner people would be remov’d, and Scotland enrich’d: But I have done my part, and have not room to enlarge; nature will dictate enough to the gentlemen to go to

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work upon it, if they have any design to do their country good, and if a narrow and selfish spirit does not continue to prevail among them.

The decay’d burghs being pass’d, we came to a village call’d the Weems, or by way of distinction, the Wester Weems, or Wemys. This is a small town, and no burrough, belonging to the Earl of Weemys, whose house stands a little farther east, on the top of a high cliff, looking down upon the sea, as Dover Castle looks down upon the strait, between it and Calais, tho’ not so high.

The account given lately of this noble castle of the Weemys is very romantick, and must necessarily be laugh’d at by the family itself who know the house. It is a very good house, and has one large front to the sea, but without any Wind- sor-like terrass between the house and it, as is represented. At the west end, upon the same cliff, is a small plain, where had been a bowling-green, and where the late earl, being admiral, had some small field-pieces planted to answer salutes. Behind the house is a small and irregular court-yard, with two wings of building, being offices to the house on one side, and stables on the other. Nor is there any gardens, or room for any, much less a spacious park, on the north side of the house; but the road from the Wester Weemys to the Easter passing between, there is a large, well planted orchard, and it is no other, nor otherwise intended; and as to a spacious park, there is nothing like it. There is a piece of wast ground planted with firr-trees, at the east end of the house, but they do not thrive; nor would any man call it a park, especially for a nobleman too, that had seen what a park means in Eng-

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land; but, indeed, in Scotland they call all enclos’d grounds parks, whether for grass or corn: And so they call all gardens yards; as St. Ann’s Yards, at the palace of Haly-Rood House, and the like in other places.

From hence you pass through the East Weemys to another village, call’d Buckhaven, inhabited chiefly, if not only, by fishermen, whose business is wholly to catch fresh fish every day in the firth, and carry them to Leith and Edinburgh markets. And though this town be a miserable row of cottage-like buildings, and people altogether meer fishermen, as I have said, yet there is scarce a poor man in the town, and in general the town is rich.

Here we saw the shore of the sea cover’d with shrimps, like the ground cover’d with a thin snow; and as you rode among them they would rise like a kind of dust, being scar’d by the footing of the horse, and hopping like grasshoppers.

The fishermen of this town have a great many boats of all sorts and sizes, and some larger, which lye upon the beach unrigg’d, which every year they fit out for the herring season, in which they have a very great share.

Beyond this is the Methuel, a little town, but a very safe and good harbour, firmly built of stone, almost like the Cobb at Lime, though not wholly projecting into the sea, but standing within the land, and built out with two heads, and walls of thick strong stone: It stands a little on the west side of the mouth of the River Leven; the salmon of this river are esteem’d the best in this part of Scotland.

Here my Lord Weemys brings his coal, which he digs above two miles off, on the banks of the River Leven, and here it

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is sold or shipp’d off; as also what salt he can make, which is not a great deal. Nor is the estate his lordship makes from the said coal-works equal to what it has been, the water having, after an immense charge to throw it off, broken in upon the works, and hinder’d their going on, at least to any considerable advantage. The people who work in the coal mines in this country, what with the dejected countenances of the men, occasion’d by their poverty and hard labour, and what with the colour or discolouring, which comes from the coal, both to their clothes and complexions, are well describ’d by their own countryman Samuel Colvil, in his famous macaronick poem, call’d, Polemo Midinia; thus,

Cole-hewersNigri, Girnantes more Divelli. Pol. Mid.

They are, indeed, frightful fellows at first sight: But I return to my progress from the Methuel; we have several small towns on the coast, as Criel or Crail, Pitten-Ween, Anstruther, or Anster, as ’tis usually call’d: these are all Royal Burghs, and send members to parliament, even still upon the new establishment, in consequence only that now they join three or four towns together to choose one or two members, whereas they chose every town for itself.

Over against this shore, and in the mouth of the Forth, opposite to the Isle of the Bass, lyes the Isle of May, known to mariners by having a light-house upon it; the only constant inhabitant; is said to be the man maintain’d there by the Government, to take care of the fire in the light-house.

Here (you may observe) the French fleet lay with some assurance, when the Pretender was on board: And here the English four-a-clock-gun, on board their approaching

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squadron, unhappily gave them the alarm; so that they immediately weigh’d, got under sail, and made the best of their way, the English pursuing them in vain, except only that they took the Salisbury, which was a considerable way behind the fleet, and could not come up with the rest; the story is well known, so I need not repeat it.

The shore of the firth or frith ends here, and the aestuarium or mouth opening, the land of Fife falls off to the north, making a promontory of land, which the seamen call Fife-Ness, looking east to the German ocean, after which the coast trends away north, and the first town we saw there was St Andrew’s, an antient city, the seat of an archbishop, and an university.

As you must expect a great deal of antiquity in this country of Fife, so you must expect to find all those antient pieces mourning their own decay, and drooping and sinking in ashes. Here it was, that old limb of St. Lucifer, Cardinal Beaton, massacred and murther’d that famous sufferer and martyr of the Scots Church, Mr. William Wishart, whom he caus’d to be burnt in the parade of the castle, he himself sitting in his balcony to feed and glut his eyes with the sight of it.

The old church here was a noble structure; it was longer than St. Paul’s in London, by a considerable deal, I think, by six yards, or by twenty-five foot. This building is now sunk into a simple parish church, though there are many plain discoveries of what it has been, and a great deal of project and fancy may be employ’d to find out the antient shape of it.

The city is not large, nor is it contemptibly small; there are some very good buildings in it, and the remains of many more: The colleges are handsome buildings, and well supply’d with

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men of learning in all sciences, and who govern the youth they instruct with reputation; the students wear gowns here of a scarlet-like colour, but not in grain, and are very numerous: The university is very ancient as well as the city; the foundation was settled, and the publick buildings appointed in the beginning of the fifteenth century by King James I. ’Tis true, they tell us here were private schools set up many ages before that, even as far back as 937; but I see no evidence of the fact, and so do not propose it for your belief, though ’tis very likely there was some beginnings made before the king came to encourage them, so far as to form an university.

There are three colleges in all; the most antient, and which, they say, was the publick school so long before, is call’d St. Salvadore. How it was made to speak Portuguese, I know not, unless it might be that some Portuguese clergymen came over hither as the first professors or teachers; in English it is St. Saviour’s, in Spanish it would be call’d Nostra Seigniora, or Our Lord; and so St. Mary’s would be call’d Nostra Dame de St. Andrew, or Our Lady of St. Andrew’s. This college of St. Mary’s is call’d the New College, and the middle-most (for age) is call’d St. Leonard’s College.

The old college, as I have said, though it was a school, as they affirm, above 200 years before, was turn’d into a college, or founded as such by James Kennedy, the son of the Lord Kennedy by Mary, daughter of King Robert III. This James Kennedy was a clergyman of great fame in those days, and rose by the reputation of his wisdom, prudence, and beneficence to all mankind, to the highest posts of honour in the state and dignity in the Church; for he was Lord Chancellor of Scot-

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land under James II. and archbishop of this See of St. Andrew’s

. He was a great lover of learning, and of learned men; and was the first who encourag’d men of learning from abroad, to come there and take upon them the governing and instructing the youth in the great school, which, as I say above, had been there so long, as that it was then call’d the antient school of St. Andrew. These learned men put him upon founding and endowing a college, or rather turning the school into a college or academy, which he did.

The building is antient, but appears to have been very magnificent considering the times it was erected in, which was 1456. The gate is large, and has a handsome spire over it all of stone. In the first court, on the right side as you go in, is the chapel of the college, not extraordinary large, but sufficient. There is an antient monument of the archbishop the founder, who lyes buried in the church of his own building. Beyond the chapel is the cloister, after the antient manner, not unlike that in Canterbury, but not so large. Opposite to this are offices, and proper buildings for the necessary use of the colleges. In the second court are the schools of the college, on the same spot where stood the antient grammar school, mention’d above, if that part is to be depended upon. Over these schools is a very large hall for the publick exercises, as is usual in other universities; but this is a most spacious building, and far larger than there is any occasion for.

In the same court are the apartments for the masters, professors, and regents, which (as our fellows) are in sallary, and are tutors and governors to the several students; were this college supported by additional bounties and donations, as has

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been the case in England; and were sufficient funds appointed to repair and keep up the buildings, there would few colleges in England go beyond it for magnificence: But want of this, and other encouragements, causes the whole building to seem as if it was in its declining state, and looking into its grave: The truth is, the college wants nothing but a good fund to be honestly apply’d for the repair of the building, finishing the first design, and encouraging the scholars. Dr. Skeen, principal of this college, shew’d the way to posterity to do this, and laid out great sums in repairs, especially of the churches, and founded a library for the use of the house.

They tell you a story here of nine maces found under the archbishop’s tomb, after the restoration of King Charles II. But to me the story does not tell well at all. First, it does not appear of what use, or to what purpose so many maces were made and kept there, the like not being known to be us’d in any cathedral or college in other countries: And in the next place how came they to rummage the good founder’s grave, and that in King Charles the IId’s time too; if it had been in Oliver Cromwell’s domination, it would have seem’d rational to expect it; but after the Restoration to ravage the monuments of the dead, is something extraordinary: But be that as it will, there are three maces kept in the college; whether they were found in the king’s tomb or not, that I leave to tradition, as I find it. One of these maces is of very fine workmanship, all of silver, gilt, and very heavy, of fine imagery, and curious workmanship, made at Paris by the archbishop’s special directions, as appears by an inscription on a plate, fasten’d to the mace by a little chain, and preserv’d with it.

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The story of St. Andrew and of his bones being buried here; of the first stone of the cathedral church being laid upon one of St. Andrew’s legs or thigh-bone, and of those bones being brought from Patras in the Morea, near the Gulph of Lepanto; these things are too antient, and sound too much of the legend for me to meddle with.

In the second college, which is call’d St. Leonard’s, is a principal, who must be a Doctor of Divinity by the foundation; but the present Church Government insisting upon the parity of the clergy, are pleas’d to dispense with that part: There are also four Professors of Philosophy, to whom the late Sir John Scot, a bountiful benefactor to this college, has added a Professor of Philology, and has settled a very handsome stipend upon the professor: Also the same gentleman augmented the college library with several valuable books to a very considerable sum. And since that Sir John Wedderburn, a gentleman of a very antient family, and a great lover of learning, has given a whole library, being a great and choice collection of books, to be added to the library of this college.

The revenue of this college is larger than that of the old college; it has also more students. It was founded and endow’d by the Earl of Lenox, being before that a religious house, of the Order of St. Benedict, as appears by the register and Charter of the Foundation.

It is not so large and magnificent as St. Salvador originally was; but ’tis kept in much better repair. It has but one court or square, but it is very large. The old building of the monastery remains entire, and makes the south side, and the old cells of the monks make now the chambers for the students: The chapel takes up the north side, and a large side of more modern

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apartments on the west, which are nevertheless old enough to be falling down; but they are now repairing them, and adding a great pile of building to compleat the square, and join that side to the north where the chapel stands.

This college has large yards, as they call them, that is to say gardens, or rather orchards, well planted, and good walks in them as well as good fruit.

This college has many benefactors, which makes it flourish much behond the first; and they talk of a large gift yet to come from a noble family, which, if it falls, will enable them to put the whole house in compleat repair.

The new college, call’d St. Mary’s, was founded by Cardinal Beaton Archbishop of St. Andrew’s, and is very singular in its reserv’d and limited laws. Here are no scholars at all; but all those scholars who have pass’d their first studies, and gone through a course of philosophy in any of the other colleges, may enter themselves here to study Hebrew and the mathematicks, history, or other parts of science.

It was in this college King Charles I. held a parliament; the place is call’d the Parliament Room to this day, and is a very large, spacious room, able to receive 400 people, plac’d on seats to sit down; the form is reserv’d very plain, and the place, where the tables for the clarks and other officers were set, is to be seen. There is a library also to this college, but not very valuable, or so well furnish’d as that of St. Leonard’s . Here are, however, two Professors of Divinity; one is call’d the Principal Professor of Theology, and the other barely the Professor of Theology: To these was afterwards added a Professor of the Mathematicks; and he that was the first who enjoy’d the place, viz. Dr. Gregory, obtain’d an observatory to

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