with a low and very richly carved roof of dark oak, a huge projecting bow-window, and the dais elevated more majorum. The ornaments of the roofs, niches for lamps, &c. in short, all the minor details, are said to be fac-similes after Melrose. A narrow passage leads to a charming breakfast-room, which looks to the Tweed on one side, and towards Yarrow and Ettrick on the other: the one end is filled with novels. romances, and poetry; the other walls are almost covered with a most valuable and beautiful collection of drawings, chiefly by Turner, and Thomson of Duddingston,-the designs, in short, for the magnificent work entitled, "Provincial Antiquities of Scotland."

Returning towards the armoury, there is on one side of a most religious-looking corridor, a small green-house, with a fountain playing before it-the very fountain that, in days of yore, at the cross of Auld Reckie, ran with claret at the coronation of the Stuarts; a pretty design, and a standing monument of the barbarity of modern innovation. From the small armoury one may pass into the drawing-room; a large, lofty, and splendid salon, with a profusion of antique ebony furniture, and crimson silk hangings, cabinets, china, and mirrors. Adjoining this room is the library. It is an oblong of some fifty feet by thirty, with a projection in the centre opposite the fire-place, terminating in a grand bow-window, also fitted up with books. The roof is of richly carved oak, and the book-cases, with reach high up the walls all round, are of the same material. The collection in this room amounts to some 20,000 volumes: British history and antiquities occupy the chief wall; English poetry, the drama, classics, and miscellanies, one end; and foreign literature, chiefly French and German, the other. One of the cases opposite the fire, locked and wired, is filled with books and MSS. relating to the insurrections of 1715 and 1745; and another, within the recess of the bow-window, with treatises de Re Magica, and are collections of the rarest curiosity. In one corner is a magnificent set of Montfaucon-ten volumes folio, bound in the richest manner in scarlet, stamped with the royal arms, and a gift of his late Majesty. There are few living authors of whose works presentation copies are not to be found here: the books are all in prime condition, and the bindings would even satisfy Mr. Dibdin. The only picture is that of the

present Sir Walter in hussar's uniform, by Allen of Edin burgh; and the only bust is that of Shakespeare, from the Avon monument, in a small niche in the centre of the east side. On a rich stand of porphyry in one corner reposes a tall silver urn, filled with bones from the Piræus, and bearing the inscription:-" Given by George Gordon, Lord Byron, to Sir Walter Scott, Bart." It contained the letter which accompanied it till lately: What a base scoundrel the thief must be! Although there are abundance of comfortable looking desks and arm-chairs, yet the room seemed rather too large and fine for work; and the conjecture is correct, for passing a double pair of doors, there is a sanctum within and beyond this library, the study of the late Sir Walter, which, though the least splendid, is by far the most interesting apartment in the house. It is about five-and-twenty feet square by twenty feet high ;-the furniture merely consists of a small writing-table, an arm-chair and a single chair; plain symptoms that this is no place for company. On both sides of the fire-place are books of reference; but except these there are no books, save the contents of a light gallery which runs round three sides of the room, and is reached by a hanging stair of carved oak in one corner. The gallery is much in the style of the Elysée or Bourbon Malmaison. There are only two portraits-an original of the beautiful and melan. choly head of Claverhouse, and a small full-length of Rob Roy. Various little antique cabinets stand round about, each having a bust on it: Stothard's Canterbury Pilgrims are on the mantel-piece; and in one corner is a collection of really useful weapons, those of the forest-craft, to wit, axes and bills and so forth of every calibre. There is only one window in a very thick wall, so that the place is somewhat sombre: the light tracery work of the gallery harmonizes with the books well. There are also some Highland claymores, clustered round a target over the Canterbury people, and a writingdesk of carved wood lined with crimson velvet, which, from the arms on the lid, seemed to have belonged to some Italian prince of the days of Leo the Magnificent.

The view to the Tweed from all the principal apartments is beautiful :-oue looks out from among bowers over a lawn of sweet turf upon the clearest of all streams, fringed with the wildest of birch woods, and backed with the green hills

of Ettrick Forest. The rest must be imagined. Altogether, the place destined to receive so many pilgrimages, contains within itself beauties not unworthy of its associations. Few poets ever inhabited such a place; none, ere now, ever created one. It is the realization of dreams: some Frenchman called it a romance in stone and lime."

DAY springs from distant Ocean-calm and bright,
Winds, like a glittering snake, the lovely Tweed-
Rock, dewy forest, catch the roy light-

The early bee is humming o'er the mead-
O'er white-wall'd cots the smoke is trailing fair
And the lark sings, and flowers scent all the air

The shepherd resting on his crook-the line

Of Cheviot mountains, distant, dim, and blueThe waters murmuring, as they flow and shineTowers, spires, the summer foliage glancing throughEnchant the gazer, till he dream he be

In Temple's vale, or Pan's own Arcady.

And here stands Abbotsford-romantic dome!
Attracting more than all this lovely scene:
For glorious Genius here hath made a home-
Its turrets whitening o'er the woods of green,
Slopes, larches, to the small forget-me-not,
A magic breathe, and tell of fame and Scott.
How sweet to view the scenes of his own song,
Reclined on this flower-damasked shady knoll!
Castles that held the gay and knightly throng,
Glens where, in silver, storied rivers roll,

And, faint as time long lapsed, mark Cheviot Fell,
And hear in fancy Melrose-abbey bell.

Peace, Abbotsford, to thee and him whose fame
Hath haloed thee with interest ne'er to die!

Link'd with this immortality, thy name

With "Vaucluse" and the "Hermitage" shall vie :* Pilgrims from southern land, and o'er the sea,

When we are dust, shall fondly bow to thee

N. MICHELL.

• The well-known retreats of Petrach and Rousseau.