Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

ving herds of men and cattle before them. His disciplined forces soon forced them to yield, and even drove them back as far as the wall between the Forth and Clyde ; but it was only for the moment, and immediately on his leaving Britain, their incursions became as frequent and formi dable as ever. The Britons sent repeatedly imploring the assistance of Rome, and giving the most pathetic representation of their calamities; and a legion sent occasionally, procured them a momentary relief.The last was in 426; and the Roman commander then inculcated upon them the necessity of learning to defend themselves, as Rome could no longer spare any troops for so distant a province.

The Britons being thus deprived of all aid from this quarter, had recourse to a most fatal expedient in calling in the Saxons, by whom, as it is well known, they were quickly expelled from their own country.Most of them took refuge in Wales and the Western extremities of the island; a few, however, fled to the South of Scotland, among their ancient enemies, and formed a kingdom in Clydesdale. The Picts occupied most of the Roman provinces as far South as the Tyne. About the third century a colony of Scots had passed over from Ireland, and possessed themselves of Argyleshire, and some of the neighbouring lands and islands. These, in the fifth century, were reinforced by another colony of the same race, commanded by three brothers, called Lorn, Angus, and Fergus; and this people, beginning now to acquire the ascendency, Fergus is reckoned the first king of Scotland.

Concerning the commercial state of these tribes the intelligence which has come down to us is next to no. thing. They had now probably learned to construct vessels of tim

ber, though the leather boats were still in use, and in them they often performed voyages of considerable length, so far as from Ireland to the Orkneys, perhaps even to Iceland.—— They had now applied themselves with considerable attention to the fi shery on the western coasts, and employed nets for taking salmon and other fish. This, however, was only for their own immediate consump tion. Glass, in the form of drinking glasses, was in use, and was doubtless a favourite article; but whether manufactured or imported does not certainly appear. common drink was home - brewed ale; wine made its appearance occasionally. As water mills were introduced into Britain by the Romans, they may very probably have come down to Scotland.

Their

In the middle of the ninth century, Kenneth made war against the Picts so successfully, that he became master of almost all Scotland. About this time we have an account of the first naval battle fought in Britain, which took place between two hostile tribes of Scots settled in Argyleshire. The year 838 is marked by the first incursion of the Norwegian and Danish rovers. About this time Scotland is said to have acquired a considerable fishing trade, though Mr Macpherson is unable to discover any good authority on which to found this information.

The following centuries were singularly unfavourable to commerce and civilization throughout Europe, the degree of improvement which it had attained under the Roman empire being gradually extinguished by the prodigious influx of barbarism. Scotland, however, which had never emerged from its original rudeness, seems to have been in a more flourishing state than at any former period. It was now united under a king, and the frequency of petty wars

was

was thus diminished; while its vicinity to Flanders, which had begun to rise into commercial importance, must have been productive of many advantages. Macbeth, the celebrated usurper, seems to have sought to make his disputed title forgotten, by the prosperity which he procured to his people; and Scotland, under his reign, is said both to have enjoyed abundance at home, and to have car ried on a considerable trade with the produce of its fishery.

There seems no reason to think that any towns in Scotland during this period were of considerable magnitude. Brechin is mentioned as a great city; though there is no reason to suppose it to have been even larger than at present, when it contains only 50co inhabitants.

Malcolm Kenmore, having again mounted the throne of his ancestors, continued to encourage commerce and the importation of foreign luxuries. His own residence in England, and marriage with Margaret, daughter of Edmund Ironside, who had spent great part of her life on the continent, would naturally introduce a taste for these into his court; and if imported, there must, of course, have been native commodities to give in exchange for them.

In the year 1113, David founded a cathedral church on the north side of the Clyde; which is celebrated in commercial history by having given birth to Glasgow, now the first commercial city in Scotland. About this time, the pearl fishery of Scotland was in a very flourishing state, and its pearls much sought after abroad. Scotland must now have possessed considerable intercourse with foreign countries, since, among the bequests of king Alexander to the church of St Andrews, we find an Arabian horse, velvet furniture, and Turkish armour.

King David having received his education at the court of England,

paid great attention to the improvement of arts and commerce. He introduced into the principal towns a number of English settlers, more industrious and civilized than the natives. He enacted various laws for the regulation of commerce, and is supposed to have been the author of the Burgh laws, which are to be found in Regiam Majestatem. By these a vassal, who continued in a burgh a year and day without being claimed by his master, was declared free.The exclusive privilege of buying and selling wool, hides, and other articles, was granted to the burgesses; a restriction not founded on very liberal principles, but which shews, even at that early period, the disposition of the sovereign to patronize the industry of the towns. A regulation well adapted to the circumstances of the times was that which exempted from seizure the property of a foreign merchant while absent on business. The Firth of Forth was now much resorted to, not only by Scottish, but even by English and Belgic fishermen. In short, in the reign of king David, Scotland enjoyed a happy tranquil. lity, while the neighbouring country, in consequence of the usurpation of Stephen, was suffering all the miseries of civil war. This good king died in 1153.

At this time, Berwick upon Tweed was reckoned the first commercial town in Scotland, and had many vessels belonging to it. One of its citizens, called Knut the Opulent, is said to have sailed with a fleet of 14 vessels in pursuit of his wife, who had been carried off by pirates.Leith, Stirling, Perth, Aberdeen, and Duffeyras (perhaps Banff) are also mentioned as places possessed of some trade; but there is no account of any commercial towns on the west coast. It appears that the commerce of Scotland was at this time carried on almost entirely by foreign merchants.

Richard I. of England, being eager to procure money for his crusading expedition, sold to William of Scotland in 1190 the castles of Roxburgh and Berwick, as well as the acknowledgement of superiority which he had been accustomed to pay. In return for this William paid the sum of 10,000 merks, which is supposed to exceed, in value, a million of our money. In order to raise so large a sum, William was forced to lay an imposition even on the clergy. A few years after, he made a new coinage for the purpose of reforming the money, which had been debased, ap. parently with a view of making it go farther on this occasion.

(To be continued.)

Tour thro' the SOUTH of IRELAND, by an AMERICAN GENTLEMAN.

(Continued from p. 31.)

EXT morning, the 18th July, after an early breakfast, we set out in the gig, attended by our guide on foot, to visit Lord Kenmare's park, and the peninsula of Mucruss. We entered the park at a little distance without the eastern end of the town, and the porter joining us, lest he should lose his share of tax on curiosity, we drove over an elevated open lawn about half a mile, when coming to the glen, we alighted, and leaving our gig under the care of the guide, we descended by a fine gravel walk through a thick copse to a very handsome Chinese bridge, which crosses the Dinagh. We went over it, and pursued our walk by the path, which is continued with taste, through the wood along the right bank of the river, sometimes approaching, sometimes receding from it, sometimes impending over it at a considerable height, and sometimes close down to the edge, which shews every variety of torrent, cascade, and placid stream, in a length of about half a mile through this charming

We

glen, while rustic seats are placed in every picturesque or convenient situation. Crossing a plain bridge below, we returned up the left side of the glen, which is equally beautiful with the right, and getting again into the gig, and dismissing the porter, we proceeded across the park. Some fine herds of deer, as we approached them, cantered and gambolled down a hill on our left, across a valley, and up a fine slope beyond it, giving life and animation to the scene. From the most elevated situations in the park there are great variety of charming prospects, but, with the excep. tion of the glen, it has little other beauty to recommed it. It is, however, from its extent, and variety of wood and pasture, well calculated for its antlered inhabitants. left the park at a gate which opens into a small demesne belonging to Mr Cronen, round whose house, a large old-fashioned one, we drove, and ascending a steep little hill to the gate in front which opens to the Cork road, the whiffle tree of the gig broke, which detained us until we sent our guide to Mr Cronen's hostler for a halter, with which having given it a temporary repair, we pushed on towards Mucruss. The road was remarkably fine, and led across a good bridge of several arches over the little river Lech, or Lich, after which, passing on the right, the handsome houses and grounds of Mr Trent, Mr Herbert, and Mrs Delany, we came to the village of Mucruss, which consists of about twenty cottages and cabins, a parsonage house, and a small church. We entered the demesne on the right, while the guide went into the village for the sexton of the abbey, towards which we drove, as we saw its ruined turrets over the tops of the surrounding trees. The sexton was a woman who seemed well accustomed to her trade. She first led us round the ruin, turning an angle of which, we

were

were suddenly struck with a sight which was not very agreeable. It

was a heap, formed by several cart loads of sculls and other human bones, piled up in a corner together. Our female conductor told us that the consecrated ground not being large enough to contain the bodies of all who are brought here for burial, they are obliged to make the new graves through the old ones, and instead of re-burying the old bones, they pile them up as described. I asked her if she had ever known the living proprietors of any of the skulls before us? she answered that she had only known two, one a woman buried about five years ago, whose bones were taken up lately, and of whom every thing else had mouldered into dust, except a ribbon, which was round her neck, which was as perfect as when she was buried the other, she said, was a Serjeant Dogherty of one of the county militia regiments; and because his skull was one of the finest and largest here, I put it up on the top of this wall, and here it is; so saying, she took down the skull, and handled it with as little ceremony, and as expertly as a bricklayer would a brick.

:

This is the general cemetery of the surrounding country, and we obser. ved several tombs and vaults of the principal Roman Catholic fami. lies, and several very antient ones, particularly the tomb of the great M'Carthy More. It is one large stone, not so much the worse for the ravages of time as one would imagine. On it are some lines in, I suppose, the original Irish character, which the woman said no one who had seen them had been able to decypher.

The church was a cross, the outside walls of which, though much ruined, are still standing; and the stone frames of the large Gothick win. dows at the east end of the choir, and

the south end of the cross, are re markably fine, particularly the latter, which is beautiful. The cloisters, which are a square of 30 feet each way, contain, on each side, six handsome small arches of free-stone, very well cut, and in the centre a remarkably large yew tree spreads its melancholy dark shade. We ascended by a ruined stone stair to the top of the cloisters, where we observed some gooseberry bushes growing, which the sexton said were the remains of a little garden planted there about thirty years ago by a Capt. Roche of the Navy, who, she said, had been guilty of some unknown crime, which lay so heavy on his conscience, that he withdrew from the world, and took up his habitation in a small cell which she shewed us, in one of the angles over the cloisters, where he slept every night for 7 years, after which she understood that he had gone to the Rock of Cashell, and she had heard no more of him. In her youth she had seen him frequently, and she said that he used to hunt, fish, and shoot with the neighbouring gentry, but would never be prevailed on to sleep out of his cell. The cloisters are between the west end of the choir of the church and the refectory of the abbey, to both of which they join.Nothing of the latter remains except the outer walls, and immense old-fashioned fire places. I don't call them ancient, as the abbey was founded only in 1140 for mendicants of the or der of St Francis. In the middle of the refectory grows a very fine ash.

The site of this abbey is peculiarly beautiful, but that is not wonderful, as in those ages the church appropriated to itself every rich or beauti ful situation. The belfrey joins to the church and the cloisters, and its ruined walls, towering over the surrounding trees, are seen at a distance on all sides. From the abbey we drove round part of the demesne,

going near the house, which is a tol- Kenmare's house at the south end of the town is very old, and much out of repair. Some individuals have attempted to establish cotton manufactories here, but without success. Knitting seems to be the principal occupation of the poor, amongst whom I observed no spinning, nor any other sign of the ma nufacture of linen.

erably good one, built apparently sixty or seventy years ago. The gardens, which we stopped to look at, are simply good, and well stocked with fruit and vegetables, but not particularly beautiful. From the most elevated part of the peninsula, about half a mile S. W. from the house, we had a fine view of Mucruss lake, with Mr Herbert's cottage on the opposite shore, and Turk rising finely behind it to the left. Rain, which had threatened all morning, now began to fall, and we were obliged to hasten back to Killarney, which the unfortunate fracture of our gig prevented our reaching until we were well drenched. While the gig was repairing, we dined, and immediately after dinner set off for Tralee. KiÏlarney is a considerable inland town, the principal streets laid out in the form of a T, with some small lanes and back streets. The houses are generally superior to those in most inland towns of the south of Ireland, are all roofed with slate, and the walls rough cast and whitewashed. An uncommon air of neatness appears both in the houses and inhabitants, the latter being apparently fashionable in dress and customs, which perhaps is owing in part to its being the resort of numbers of strangers whom curiosity induces to visit the lakes; and in part, to its being the residence of several persons of small fortune and no business. Both these causes occasion its being, like all places of fashionable resort, excessively dear to travellers, tho' situated in a very plentiful country.

The titular or Roman Catholic Bishop of Aghadoc resides here. The old ruined church of Aghadoc, which gives title to the diocese, being only two miles distant, on the direct road to Limerick through Castle-island. Here there is a nunnery, and a fine large new chapel; but the Protestant church near Lord March 1806.

[ocr errors]

1

As we wished to see a little more of the S. W. of Ireland, instead of taking the shortest road to Li merick, we proceeded towards Tralee, on a very fine road, through a good grazing country. We observed the ruins of no less than three old castles, within sight of, and near each other, about six miles from Killarney; and a little further we began to ascend the lowest part of the mountain of Sleamish, which runs ten or twelve miles further to the westward, affording plenty of turf fuel to the surrounding inha bitants. A gentle northerly wind had driven back the south western vapours which had so annoyed us with rain in the morning. The sky was perfectly serene and clear, except to the S. W., where the tops of M-Gilly Cuddy's rocks, and the rest of the neighbouring mass of mountain, had arrested the dense clouds in their retreat. The view

in that direction was grand. From our elevated situation, we looked down on the extensive, level, and well-inhabited country between the opposite mountains and us, as upon a map, where every hamlet, house, ruin, fence, tree, or rivulet, were delineated; while the rays of the sun, nearly setting, piercing the humid veil which partially covered the huge mountains in the back ground, threw upon them every tint of colouring, and was productive of a sublime effect, impossible to be described. Our attention was arrested behind, until, to our regret, the top of Sleamish, which we began to descend to

the

« ZurückWeiter »