Nor does time ever end legend, or the love of it, in the true legendary lands. Time's embalming yields the incense, which, like the sweetness of the vestal lamp, is fragrant for ever. Every recital, and every listening, is a triumph of the genius of tradition; but, as if the past were a thing of endless development, we are continually meeting with new instances, to add to the treasury of the old, and increase the stock for those who are to come after us, and live our feelings, and our throbbings, and our sighs, over again, even as did those of the dearly-beloved ones who have gone before, and now know the traditions of eternity. Though every nook and corner has been searched, there is something always left for such gleaners as we; and even now we are discoverers at the very side and within the verge of the wand of a magician. Notwithstanding that the old tower or peel of Darnick is described in the "Monastery," it was practically known to Sir Walter Scott principally as an ancient pile, which he wanted to possess, to impart some dignity of antiquity to the domains of Abbotsford. If he knew that it had been for ages the residence of the good old family of the Heitons, with the sturdy bull for their crest, the sooner their representative was engulfed in the Abbotsford swirl the better; for the new edifice was not only to be composed of old armorial stones, but to represent an _old_ family just brought into being by the modern Libitina, Genius.[13] [Footnote 13: Darnick Tower, so exquisite a bit of Border antiquities, was the chief object of Sir Walter Scott's passion for acquisition, and so well known was this foible of his, that he soon obtained the name of the Duke of Darnick. Mr Heiton, though inclined to dispose of a portion of the lands, was unwilling to part with the old tower, which had been for hundreds of years in his family. We do not believe that Sir Walter himself ever viewed with any feelings of disrespect a resolution so much akin to his own family predilection; but his son-in-law, Mr Lockhart, in his Life of Sir Walter, indulged in a sneer, that the proprietor of the tower, _having made money_ in Edinburgh, was unwilling to part with it. He forgot probably the counterpart, that Sir Walter, having also made money in Edinburgh, was very anxious to get it. The passage is as foolish as it is unjust, because it assumes that, while Sir Walter had a right to be proud of _founding_ a family, Mr Heiton was not entitled to hold the mark of _representing_ one.--ED.]