beautiful windings of the Teviot. Right before my eye, Mr S pointed out a small round tower, perched upon some irregular crags, at the distance of some few miles-Smaylholm Tower, -the scene of the Eve of St John, and, what is still better, the scene of the early youth of the Poet himself. It was here, he told me, that in years of feebleness, which afforded little hope of the vigorous manhood which has followed them, he was entrusted to the care of some ancient female relations, who, in watching by his side, were never weary of chaunting, to the sad music of the Border, the scattered relics of that Minstrelsy of Love and War, which he himself has since gathered and preserved with so pious veneration. The situation of the Tower must be charming. I remember of no poet whose infancy was passed in so poetical a scene. But he has touched all this most gracefully himself:

"He passed the court-gate, and he oped the tower-grate,
And he mounted the narrow stair,

To the bartizan seat, where with maids that on her wait,
He found his Lady fair.

"That Lady sat in mournful mood,

Looked over hill and vale,

O'er Tweed's fair flood, and Mertoun's wood,

And all down Teviotdale."

Turning again to the left, Mr S

pointed out to me an opening in the hills, where the Leader comes down to mingle with the Tweedby whose side the remains of the Rhymer's old castle are yet, I believe, to be seen; although, in conformity with one of the Rhymer's own prophecies, the hall is deserted, and the land has passed to other blood. The whole scene has been embraced by Mr S himself, in the opening of one of his finest ballads :

"When seven years more were come and gone,
Was war through Scotland spread ;

And Ruberslaw shewed high Dunyon
His beacon blazing red.

"Then all by bonny Colding Know,
Pitched pallions took their room;
And crested helms and spears a-rowe,
Glanced gaily through the broom.

"The Leader, rolling to the Tweed,
Resounds the enzenzie;

They roused the deer from Caddenhead,
To distant Torwoodlee.

"The feast was spread in Ercildoune,
In Learmont's high and ancient hall;
And there were knights of high renown,
And ladies laced in pall," &c. &c.

* «The hare sall kittle on my hearth-stane,
And there never sall be Laird Learmont again."

But if I were to quote all the poetry connected with the scenes among which I now stood-in truth, my letter might easily become a volume.

After we had fairly descended the hill, we found that much more time had passed than we had thought of-and with me, indeed, I know not that time ever passed more delightfully-so we made haste and returned at a high trot-the chiding echoes of the dinner-bell coming to us long ere we reached A-d,

The evening passed as charmingly as the preceding. The younger part of the company danced reels to the music of the bag-pipe, and I believe I would have been tempted to join them, but for some little twitches I had in my left foot. Indeed, I still fear the good cheer of the North is about to be paid for in the usual way; but Heaven send the reckoning may not be a long one. At all events, I am glad the fit did not overtake me in the country, for I should have been sorry to give my company to anybody but Mr Oman during the visitation.

P. M.

324

LETTER LIII.

TO THE SAME.

ANOTHER morning was devoted to visiting, under the same best of all Cicerones, the two famous ruins of Melrose and Dryburgh, which I had seen from a distance, when on the top of the Eildon. The Abbey of Melrose has been so often the subject of the pencil of exquisite artists -and of late, above all, so much justice has been done to its beauties by Mr Blore, that I need not trouble you with any description of its general effect. The glorious Oriel Window, on which the moon is made to stream in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, is almost as familiar to you as if yourself had seen it-and so, indeed, must be the whole of the most striking outlines of this venerable pile. But there is one thing about it of which you can have no idea—at least, I had

none till I came to the spot-I mean the unrivalled richness and minuteness of all the decorations. Everywhere, without and within, the doors and windows are surrounded with specimens of sculpture, at once so delicately conceived, and so beautifully executed, that it would be quite ridiculous to compare them with any thing I ever saw, even in the most magnificent remains of Gothic architecture in England or Normandy. There is one cloister, in particular, along the whole length of which there runs a cornice of flowers and plants, entirely unrivalled, to my mind, by any thing elsewhere extant-I do not say in Gothic architecture merely, but in any architecture whatever. Roses, and lilies, and thistles, and ferns, and heaths, in all their varieties, and oak-leaves and ash-leaves, and a thousand beautiful shapes besides, are chiselled with such inimitable truth, and such grace of nature, that the finest botanist in the world could not desire a better hortus siccus, so far as they go. The wildest productions of the forest, and the most delicate ones of the garden, are represented with equal fidelity and equal taste— and they are all arranged and combined in such a way, that it is evident they were placed there