Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/145

 MELROSE AND ABBOTSFORD.

��THE village of Melrose nestles at the foot of the protecting Eildon Hills. It has little power to interest the traveller, save through its famous old Abbey. In this it is impossible to be disappointed, whether it is seen by the &quot; pale moonlight,&quot; or not. The style of its architecture, its clustered columns, its niches filled with statues, its exquisite carvings, from whence the leaflets, flowers, and fruits stand out with great bold ness and a delicate truth to nature, prove that the orna mental parts must have been executed several centu ries later than its erection under David the First. Every visitant must admire, on the capital of a column, from whence the roof which it once supported has mouldered away, a carved hand, in exceedingly bold relief, clasping a garland of roses. It was pleasant to see, in a partially enclosed courtyard, a few sheep cropping the herbage that crept up among the stones and between the fragments of fallen pillars. It reminded us of the flocks that some tourist has de scribed, as feeding so quietly amid the ruins of the circus of Caracalla, at Rome.

�� �