I have, somewhere else, expressed how greatly the landlords of Scotland are indebted to Scott. It is to him that thousands of them owe not merely subsistence, but ample fortunes. In every part of the country where he has touched the earth with his magic wand, roads have run along the heretofore impassable morass, rocks have given way for men, and houses have sprung up full of the necessary "entertainment for man and horse." Steamers convey troops of summer tourists to the farthest west and north of the Scottish coast; and every lake and mountain swarms with them. On arriving at Melrose, I was greatly struck with the growth of this traffic of picturesque and romantic travel. It was twenty years since I was in that village before. Scott was then living at Abbotsford, and drew up to the inn door to take post-horses on to Kelso. While these were got out, we had a full and fair view of him as he sat, without his hat, in the carriage reading, as we ourselves were breakfasting near the window of a room just opposite. Then, there was one small inn in the place, and very few people in it; now, there were two or three; and these, beside lodging-houses, all crammed full of guests. The inn-yards stood full of traveling carriages, and servants in livery were lounging about in motley throngs. The ruins of the abbey were like a fair for people, and the intelligent and very obliging woman who shows them said, that every year the numbers increased, and, that every year, foreigners seemed to arrive from more and more distant regions. At Abbotsford it was the same. It must be recollected, that there had been a summer of incessant rain, yet both at the inn and at the abbey the people said that it had appeared to make no difference, they had been constantly full. As I drove up toward Abbotsford it was getting toward evening, and I feared I might be almost too late to be allowed to see through the house, but I met three or four equipages returning thence, and as many fresh ones arrived while I was there. Some of these were obliged to wait a long time, as the housekeeper would not admit above a dozen persons or so at once; and carriages stood about the court as though it were some great visiting day there. That visiting day endures the whole summer through; and the money received for inspection alone must be a handsome income. If the housekeeper gets it all, as she receives it all, she will eventually match the old housekeeper of the Duke of Devonshire, at Chatsworth, who is said to have died a few years ago, worth £120,000! and was still most anxious to secure the reversion of the post for her niece, but in vain; the duke probably and very justly thinking, that there should be turn-about even in the office of such liberal door-keeping.