true-hearted man, breathed his last on the 18th of May, 1845. Those who wander through the woods of Abbotsford, and find their senses regaled by the rich odor of sweet-brier and woodbines, with shrubs oftener found in gardens, as I did with some degree of surprise, will read with interest the following direction of Scott to Laidlaw, in which he explains the mystery:--"George must stick in a few wild roses, honeysuckles, and sweet-briers, in suitable places, so as to produce the luxuriance we see in the woods which nature plants herself. We injure the effect of our plantings, so far as beauty is concerned, very much by neglecting underwood." In the woods of Abbotsford the memory of Laidlaw will be often recalled by the sight and odor of these fragrant plants. Descending into a valley beyond Kaeside, I came to the forester's lodge, on the edge of a little solitary loch. Was this cottage formerly the abode of another worthy--Tom Purdie, whom Scott has, on his grave-stone in Melrose abbey-yard, styled "Wood-forester of Abbotsford?"--a double epithet which may be accounted for by foresters being often nowadays keepers of forests where there is no wood, as in Ettrick, etc. Whether this was Tom Purdie's abode or not, however, I found it inhabited by a very obliging and intelligent fellow, as porter there. The little loch here I understood him to be called Abbotsford Loch, in contradiction to Cauldshiels Loch, which is still further up the hills. This Cauldshiels Loch was a favorite resort of Scott's at first. It had its traditions, and he had a boat upon it; but finding that it did not belong to his estate, as he supposed, by one of his purchases, he would never go upon it again, though requested to use it at his pleasure by the proprietor. By the direction of the forester, I now steered my way onward from wood to wood, toward the Eildon hills, in quest of the glen of Thomas the Rhymer. The evening was now drawing on, and there was a deep solitude and solemnity over the dark pine woods through which I passed. The trees which Scott had planted were now in active process of being thinned out, and piles of them lay here and there by the cart tracks through the woods, and heaps of the peeled bark of the larch for sale. I thought with what pleasure would Scott have now surveyed these operations, and the beginning of the marketable profit of the woods of his own planting. But that day was passed. I went on over fields embosomed in the black forest, where the grazing herds gazed wildly at me, as if a stranger were not often seen there; crossed the deep glen, where the little stream roared on, lost in the thick growth of now lofty trees; and then passed onward down the Rhymer's glen to Huntly burn: every step bearing fresh evidence of the vanished romance of Abbotsford. How long was it since Miss Edgeworth sat by the little water-fall in the Rhymer's glen, and gave her name to the stone on which she was seated? The house at Huntly burn, which Scott had