At Bowness, about midway of the lake, we left the coach for the first time for any other kind of conveyance. After enjoying a rare treat in a sail up and down the lake in the pretty steamer, we rejoined the coach at Ambleside, where we had ordered it to await us.
Passing Storr's Hall, the mind wandered back to the meeting there of Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Christopher North, and greater than all, our own Walter Scott; and surely not in all the earth could a fitter spot than this have been found for their gathering. How much the world of to-day owes to the few names who spent days together here! Not often can you say of one little house, "Here had we our country's honor roofed" to so great an extent as it would be quite allowable to say in this instance. But behold the vanity of human aspirations! If there was one wish dearer than another to the greatest of these men, it was that Abbotsford should remain from generation to generation the home of his race. This very hour, while sailing on the lake, a newspaper was handed to me, and my eye caught the advertisement, "Abbotsford to let," followed by the stereotyped description, so many reception-rooms, nursery, outbuildings, and offices, suitable for a gentleman's establishment. Shade of the mighty Wizard of the North, has it come to this! Oh, the pity of it! the pity of it! Well for your fame that you built for mankind other than this stately home of your pride. It will crumble and pass utterly away long before the humble cot of Jeannie Deans shall fade from the memory of man. The time will come when the largest son of time, who wandering sang to a listening world, shall be as much forgot
"As the canoe that crossed a lonely lake A thousand years ago."
But even the New Zealander who stands on the ruins of London Bridge will know something of Walter Scott if he knows much worth knowing. "Abbotsford to let!" This to come to us just as we were passing one of the haunts of Scott, than whom no greater Scot ever lived save one. Fortunately no such blow is possible for the memory of Burns.
"After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, ... nothing, Can touch him further!"