Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets Part 34

[26] Bishop Carpenter.

[27] Height.

[28] Horace Walpole's Letters, vol. ii., 1840.

[29] For an account of this extraordinary woman, see "The Visits to Remarkable Places," vol. i., p. 318.

[30] I am still, however, afraid that it is too true that the country people are not allowed to visit "Mary's Thorn," though held in such high honor by them. Not only the boards at the park gates, but other information, confirmed this fact; and my pa.s.sing the house to the tree brought all the family to the window, servants as well as gentlemen, ladies, and children, and no few in number, as if some extraordinary circ.u.mstance had occurred.

[31] I must mention one fact regarding the neighborhood of Ayr. Never, sure, Wales not excepted, was there a country so infested with toll-bars. In going to Mauchline, twelve miles, including a slight divergence to take a view of Mount Oliphant, and thus going out of Ayr by one road and coming in by the other, I paid at nine bars, five of them sixpence each. At no one did they give you a ticket to another. New bars were, moreover, building! "How did you like the country?" asked my landlord, on my return. "Oh!" said I, "it is a most _barbarous_ country." "Barbarous?" "Yes; there is nothing but _bars_. I must send Rebecca to you." "True," said he, "Rebecca never found any thing more abominable."

[32] In the center of the town is erected a granite statue of the late Duke of Gordon. Seeing a decent-looking man near it, I asked him if he could tell me who executed that figure. "Sir!" replied the honest Aberdonian, with unfeigned surprise, "he never was _executed_ at all. It is the Duke of Gordon!"