Tom Moore came in 1825--the culminating year. Scott and he had only once met, in public, some twenty years earlier. Abbotsford, curiously, but luckily for Moore, was absolutely guestless during his visit. Scott enjoyed having the author of 'Lalla Rookh' all to himself, and sacrificed his mornings, usually sacred to work, in honour of the occasion. The liking between the two men was immediate, but none the less profound. To Moore--and tired, doubtless, of the long mask-wearing--Scott confessed the Novels' authorship, the first avowal outside his own circle. On the third day Moore's Diary notes that Scott, 'laying his hand cordially on my breast, said: "Now, my dear Moore, we are friends for life."' Together they called on Laidlaw at Kaeside, the Fergusons at Huntlyburn, saw Melrose, and in the evening Scott 'collected his neighbours to enjoy his guest, with the wit and humour of Sir Adam Ferguson, his picturesque stories of the Peninsula, and his inimitable singing of the old Jacobite ditties.' 'I parted from Scott,' says Moore, 'with the feeling that all the world might admire him in his works, but that those only could learn to love him as he deserved who had seen him at Abbotsford.' And there is no passage in Moore's memoirs more evidently sincere than that in which he expresses (only a few months later) his 'deep and painful sympathy' in the news of Scott's financial misfortune: 'For poor devils like me (who have never known better) to fag and to be pinched for means, becomes, as it were, a second nature; but for Scott, whom I saw living in such luxurious comfort, and dispensing such cordial hospitality, to be thus suddenly reduced to the necessity of working his way is too bad, and I grieve for him from my heart.' Arthur Henry Hallam, of 'In Memoriam,' cut off in the very bloom of life and genius, accompanied by his father, the historian, was at Abbotsford in 1829. His beautiful verses, 'written after visiting Melrose Abbey in company of Scott,' have been often reprinted: 'I lived an hour in fair Melrose; It was not when the "pale moonlight" Its magnifying charm bestows; Yet deem I that I "viewed it right." The wind-swept shadows fast careered, Like living things that joyed or feared, Adown the sunny Eildon Hill, And the sweet winding Tweed the distance crownèd well. 'I inly laughed to see that scene Wear such a countenance of youth, Though many an age those hills were green, And yonder river glided smooth, Ere in these now disjointed walls The Mother Church held festivals, And full-voiced anthemings the while Swelled from the choir, and lingered down the echoing aisle.