each Gothic building is a record of the growth,
character, and individualities of its builder's soul; and hence no two
can be alike.

I was really disappointed to miss in the abbey the stained glass which
gives such a lustre and glow to the poetic description. I might have
known better; but somehow I came there fully expecting to see the
window, where--

"Full in the midst his cross of red
Triumphant Michael brandished;
The moonbeam kissed the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement the bloody stain."

Alas! the painted glass was all of the poet's own setting; years ago it
was shattered by the hands of violence, and the grace of the fashion of
it hath perished.

The guide pointed to a broken fragment which commanded a view of the
whole interior. "Sir Walter used to sit here," he said. I fancied I
could see him sitting on the fragment, gazing around the ruin, and
mentally restoring it to its original splendor; he brings back the
colored light into the windows, and throws its many-hued reflections
over the graves; he ranges the banners along around the walls, and
rebuilds every shattered arch and aisle, till we have the picture as it
rises on us in his book.

I confess to a strong feeling of reality, when my guide took me to a
grave where a flat, green, mossy stone, broken across the middle, is
reputed to be the grave of Michael Scott. I felt, for the moment, verily
persuaded that if the guide would pry up one of the stones we should see
him there, as described:--

"His hoary beard in silver rolled,
He seemed some seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapped, him round,
With a wrought Spanish baldric bound,
Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea:
His left hand held his book of might;
A silver cross was in his right;
The lamp was placed beside his knee:
High and majestic was his look,
At which, the fellest fiends had shook,
And all unruffled, was his face:
They trusted his soul had gotten grace."

I never knew before how fervent a believer I had been in the realities
of these things.

There are two graves that I saw, which correspond to those mentioned in
these lines:--

"And there the dying lamps did burn
Before thy lone and lowly urn,
O gallafit chief of Otterburne,
And thine, dark knight of Liddesdale."

The Knight of Otterburne was one of the Earls Douglas, killed in a
battle with Henry Percy, called Hotspur, in 1388. The Knight of
Liddesdale was another Dou