Scott’s metrical romances, as they were composed with unexampled rapidity, commanded also unexampled prices from the booksellers. And at the same time he found leisure for a variety of laborious works in criticism, biography, and miscellaneous literature, which added considerably both to his funds and his reputation. Among these were new editions of the works of Dryden and Swift, with biographical accounts; Sadler’s State Papers; Somers’s Tracts; Lives of the Novelists; besides numerous contributions to encyclopædias, reviews, and other periodical publications. His scheme of devoting himself to literature had borne fruit of fame and profit beyond his brightest anticipations. His certain income (we presume after the year 1812) is said by Mr. Pringle to have exceeded 2000_l._: and he was supposed to double that sum by the exuberant harvest of his brain. “Amidst all this labour Scott found abundant leisure not only for his official avocations, but for social enjoyment and rural recreation. While the Court of Session was sitting, he lived in Edinburgh, in a good substantial house in North Castle Street. During the vacations he resided in the country, and appeared to enter with ardour into the ordinary occupations and amusements of country gentlemen. After he was appointed Sheriff of Selkirk he hired for his summer residence the house and farm of Ashiesteil, on the banks of the Tweed; and here many of his poetical works were written. But with the increase of his resources grew the desire to possess landed property of his own, where he might indulge his tastes for building, planting, and gardening. Commencing with moderation, he purchased a small farm of about one hundred acres, lying on the south bank of the Tweed, three miles above Melrose, and in the very centre of that romantic and legendary country which his first great poem has made familiar to every reader. This spot, then called Cartly Hole, had a northern exposure, and at that time a somewhat bleak and uninviting aspect: the only habitable house upon it was a small and inconvenient farm-house. Such was the nucleus of the mansion and estate of Abbotsford. By degrees, as his resources increased, he added farm after farm to his domain, and reared his chateau, turret after turret, till he completed what a French tourist not inaptly terms ‘a romance of stone and lime,’ clothing meanwhile the hills behind, and embowering the lawns before, with flourishing woods of his own planting. The embellishment of his house and grounds, and the enlargement of his landed property, became, after the establishment of his literary reputation, the objects, apparently, of Scott’s most engrossing interest; and whatever may be the intrinsic value of the estate as a heritage to his posterity, he has at least succeeded in erecting a scene altogether of no ordinary attractions, and worthy of being associated with his distinguished name.”