Architectural Jottings.

Architectural Jottings .

FOUR WELL-KNOWN ABBEYS .

WE take this interesting paper from the Durham University Journal , and which we eommerid to the notice of our . readers . Though David I , the sainted King of Scotland , was said by some of his successors to have been " a sair saunct for

the croon , " because he had handed over to the monks so many of the royal lands , there is no doubt that herein he showed himself to be , whatever else he was , a " cannie Scot . " His political wisdom in founding a line of monasteries along the

English border has been pointed out by a distinguished countryman of his own in our time , and , in calling attention to it , we cannot do better than quote the following words of the author of " Waverley : ""His possessions in Northumberland

and Cumberland became precarious after the loss of the Battle of the Standard , and since the comparatively fertile valley of Teviotdale was likely to become the frontier of his kingdom , it is probable he wished to secure at least a part of those valuable possessions by jilaeing them in

the hands of the monks , whose property was for a long time respected even amidst the rage of a frontier war . In this manner alone had the king some chance of ensuring protection and security to the cultivation of the soil , and , in fact , for

several ages the possessions of those Abbeys were each a sort of Goshen , enjoying the calm li ght of peace and immunity , while the rest of the country , occujiied b y wild clans and marauding barons , was one dark scene of confusion ,

blood , and unremitted outrage . " But " Time rolls his ceaseless course , " and those Abbeys which some time were each a sort of "Goshen , " are now like unto Ai . Not , however , are they so farmade into ruinous heaps that nothing is

left to tell of their former grandeur or beauty . Everyone knows something about "fair Melrose , " and how it should be viewed ari ght from a poetical standing point . We take leave to think that a fairer scene would be presented to the sight of him who should visit Dryburgh according to the poet ' s directions for

Melrose . It is , however , as archceologists rather than as poets , or lovers of poetry , that some few make pilgrimages to ruined Abbeys , although there are not , probably , many archaeologists in whom the poetic and imaginative faculty is altogether

absent . To those who either do regard or desire to regard such places in a somewhat more scientific spirit than that of the average tourist , it is thought that a few passages from the note-book of one who has recently visited KelsoJedburgh

, , Dryburgh , and Melrose , may not be unaccejitable . The order in which these places are here mentioned is adopted advisedly , with reference to the dates of their foundation , and to their architectural characteristics .

All were founded in the twelfth century , that great abbey-building era , and all owe their foundation to the Scottish king above referred to , so that not Melrose alone , hut any one of the four , may claim to be

" St . David's ruined pile . " Kelso and Jedburgh exhibit , in a very remarkable degree , the unmistakeable features of the styles which prevailed in England as well as in Scotland at the time when they were built . They are Norman

near the ground , and apjrroach through Transitional to something bordering ou Early English as they rise towards the sky . Dryburgh was founded later than the two just named , and contains no work earlier than , late Transitional or Early

English . Melrose was entirely rebuilt in the fifteenth century by an architect whose " freakish " disposition showed itself not only in the tracery of the famous east window , but in almost every detail of his work . Kelso was founded in 1128 , for Reformed Benedictine Monks of the

Tironensian order , so named from Tiron m Picardy , where the order was first established- The dedication , as was usual in Abbeys belonging to this order , was to the Blessed Virgin and St . John , the Beloved Disciple . The existing remains include a considerable portion of the

Church , but little else . The view as we ajiproach by the bridge is one of the finest of its kind in the United Kingdom , and the main feature in it is the tower of the abbey church , with its two remaining sides towards the river , and in its massive