University of Virginia Library

The ruins of the Tower of Ercildoune, once the abode and property of the famous True Thomas, the poet and soothsayer, are still to be seen at a little distance from the village of the same name in Lauderdale, pleasantly situated on the eastern bank of the Leader, which, in pronunciation, has been corrupted into Earlstoun. About the ruins themselves there is nothing peculiar or remarkable, save their authenticated antiquity, and the renown shed upon them as the relics of “Learmonth's high and ancient hall.” Part of the walls, and nearly the whole of the subterranean vaults, yet remain. A stone in the wall of the church of Earlstoun still bears the inscription—

He must have died previous to 1299; for in that year his son resigned the property of his deceased father to the Trinity House of Soltra, as a document testifying this circumstance is preserved in the Advocates' Library. On a beautiful morning in September, “long, long ago,” when I was yet ignorant that any part of the ruins were in existence, they were pointed out to me, and, I need not add, awakened a thousand stirring associations connected with the legends, the superstitions, and the history of the mediæval ages—when nature brought forth “Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire,” and social life seemed entirely devoted to “Ladye love, and war, renown, and knightly worth.”

The ruins of the magician's tower are still regarded with a superstitious dread by the neighbouring peasantry; and to hint a doubt to such of their being haunted by “forms that come not from earth or Heaven,” would imply the hardihood and daring scepticism of the Sadducee. No doubt, this awe has greatly added to the desolation and solitude of the place; for the imputed prophecy of Thomas regarding the destruction of his house and home has been literally verified—

In reference to this topic, Sir Walter Scott, in his notes to the Border Minstrelsy, tells a good story. “The veneration,” he says, “paid to his dwelling-place, even attached itself in some degree to a person who, within the memory of man, chose to set up his residence in the ruins of Learmonth's Tower. The name of this man was Murray, a kind of herbalist, who, by dint of some knowledge of simples, the possession of a musical clock, an electrical machine, and a stuffed alligator, added to a supposed communication with Thomas the Rhymer, lived for many years in very good credit as a wizard.”

Although the matter has been made one of dispute, there seems little reason to doubt that Thomas the Rhymer was really and truly the author of Sir Tristrem—a romance which obtained almost universal popularity in its own day, and which was paraphrased, or rather imitated, by the minstrels of Normandy and Bretagne. The principal opponent of this conclusion is the able antiquary, Mr Price, who, in his edition of Warton's History of English Poetry, has appended some elaborate remarks to the first volume, with the purpose of proving that the story of Sir Tristrem was known over the continent of Europe before the age of Thomas of Ercildoune. That, however, by no means disproves that Thomas was the author of the Auchinleck MS., edited by Sir Walter Scott. That its language may have suffered from passing orally from one person to another before being committed to writing at all, is not improbable.

Be this as it may, such was the instability of literary popularity before the invention of printing, that at last only one copy of True Thomas' romance was known to exist. From this, which belongs to the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, and is the earliest specimen of Scottish poetry extant, the author of Marmion gave the world his edition in 1804, filling up the blanks in the narrative, and following out the story in a style of editorial emendation, and competency for his task, not often to be met with. Taken all in all, the rifacimento is not one of the least extraordinary achievements of a most extraordinary literary career.

The more hurried reader will find a succinct, and very luminous account of Sir Tristrem, with illustrative extracts, in Mr Ellis' Specimens of Ancient Poetry, vol. i., where that distinguished scholar evinces his usual taste, research, and critical discrimination.

Tradition reports that, from under this tree, the Rhymer was wont to utter his prophecies, and also, that it was from this spot he was enticed away by the Queen of Fairyland:—

A small stream in the neighbourhood of the Eildon Tree (or rather Stone, as its quondam site is now pointed out by a piece of rock) has received the name of the Bogle Burn, from the spirits which were thought to haunt the spot in attendance on the prophet.

Among the prophecies ascribed to the Rhymer is the following, evidently relating to the junction of the crowns under James VI.:—

That severe, yet acute and candid, expurgator of historical truth, the late Lord Hailes, in a dissertation devoted to the prophecies of Bede, Merlin, Gildas, and our bard, makes it pretty distinctly appear that the lines just quoted are an interpolation, and do not appertain to True Thomas at all, but to Berlington, another approved soothsayer of a later age.

As the boundaries of science are enlarged, those of poetry are proportionately curtailed. The contrary is arbitrarily maintained by many, for whose judgment in other matters I have respect; but in this I cannot believe them: for in what does poetry consist? It may be defined to be objects or subjects viewed through the mirror of imagination, and descanted on in harmonious language. If such a definition be adopted—and it will be found not an incomprehensive one—then it must be admitted, that the very exactness of knowledge is a barrier to the laying on of that colouring, through which alone facts can be converted into poetry. The best proof of this would be a reference to what has been generally regarded as the best poetry of the best authors, in ancient and modern times, more especially with reference to the external world—for of the world of mind all seems to remain, from Plato downwards, in the same state of glorious uncertainty, and probably will ever do so. The precision of science would at once annul the grandest portions of the Psalms—of Isaiah—of Ezekiel—of Job—of the Revelation. It would convert the Medea of Euripides—the Metamorphoses of Ovid—and the Atys of Catullus, into rhapsodies; and render the Fairy Queen of Spenser—the Tempest and Mid-Summer Night's Dream of Shakspeare—the Ancient Mariner of Coleridge—the Kilmeny of Hogg—the Edith and Nora of Wilson—the Thalaba of Southey—the Cloud and Sensitive Plant of Shelley, little better than rant, bombast, and fustian. In the contest between Bowles, Byron, and Campbell on this subject, the lesser poet had infinitely the better of the two greater; but he did not make sufficient use of his advantage, either in argument or illustration—for no one could be hardy enough to maintain that a newly-built castle is equally poetical with a similar one in ruins, or a man-of-war, fresh from the stocks, to one that had long braved the battle and the breeze. Stone and lime, as well as wood and sail-cloth, require associations. Of themselves they are prose: it is only what they acquire that renders them subjects for poetry. Were it otherwise, Pope's Essay on Criticism would be, as a poem, equal to his Eloisa, for it exhibits the same power, and the same judgment; and Darwin's Botanic Garden and Temple of Nature might displace from the shelf Milton's Comus and Paradise Lost. Wherever light penetrates the obscure, and dispels the uncertain, a demesne has been lost to the realm of imagination.

That poetry can never be robbed of its chief elements I firmly believe, for these elements are indestructible principles in human nature, and while men breathe there is room for a new Sappho, or a new Simonides; nor in reference to the present state of poetical literature, although we verily believe that neither even Marmion nor Childe Harold would be now received as we delight to know they were some thirty or forty years ago, still we do not despair that poetry will ultimately recover from the staggering blows which science has inflicted, in the shape of steam—of railway—of electro-magnetism—of geology—of political economy and statistics—in fact, by a series of disenchantments. Original genius may form new elements, extract new combinations, and, at least, be what the kaleidoscope is to the rainbow. But this alters not the position with which we set out. In the foamy seas we can never more expect to behold Proteus leading out his flocks; nor, in the stream, another Narcissus admiring his fair face; nor Diana again descending to Endymion. We cannot hope another Macbeth to meet with other witches on the blasted heath, or another Faust to wander amid the mysteries of another Walpurgis Night. Rocks are stratified by time as exactly as cloth is measured by tailors, and Echo, no longer a vagrant, is compelled quietly to submit to the laws of acoustics.