room looking down the Tweed, a beautiful view, Scott wrote Marmion, and the first part of Waverley, as well as the conclusion of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and the whole of the Lady of the Lake. That room is now the center sitting-room, and Sir Walter's little drawing-room is Sir James's bedroom. Sir James has greatly enlarged and improved the house. He has built a wing at each end, running at right angles with the old front, and his dining-room now enjoys the view which Scott's sitting-room had before. The house is very elegantly furnished, as well as beautifully situated. The busts of Sir Walter Scott and Captain Basil Hall occupy conspicuous places in the dining-room, and recall the associations of the past and the present. The grounds which face the front that is turned from the river and looks up the hill, are very charming; and at a distance of a field is the mound in the wood called "The Shirra's knowe," because Scott was fond of sitting there. Its views are now obstructed by the growth of the trees, but if they were opened again would be wildly woodland, looking down on the Tweed, and on a brook which rushes down a deep glen close by, called the Stiel burn. The knowe has all the character of a cairn or barrow, and I should think there is little doubt that it is one. It does not, however, stand on Sir James's property, and therefore it is not kept in order. Above the knowe, and Sir James's gardens, stretch away the uplands, and on the distant hill lies the mound and trench called Wallace's trench. One would have thought that Scott was sufficiently withdrawn from the world at Ashestiel; but the world poured in upon him even here, and beside the visits of Southey, Heber, John Murray, and other of his distant friends, the fashionable and far wandering tribes found him out. "In this little drawing-room of his," said Sir James Russell, "he entertained three duchesses at once." Adding, "Happy had it been for him had he been contented to remain here, and have left unbuilt the castle of Abbotsford, so much more in the highway of the tourist, and offering so much more accommodation." That is too true. The present house is good enough for a lord, and yet not too good for a private gentleman; while its situation is, in some respects, more beautiful than that of Abbotsford. The site of the house is more elevated, standing amid its fine woods, and yet commanding the course of the bold river deep beneath it, with its one bank with dark hanging forests, and that beyond open to the bare and moorland hills. But Scott would to Abbotsford, and so must we.