Heaven send it happy dew,
Earth lend it sap anew,

Gaily to bourgeon and broadly to grow;
While every highland glen

Sends our shout back agen,

Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!""

The ruins of Roslin Castle, the baronial residence. of the ancient family of St. Clair, located near a romantic and woody dell, are referred to in the "Gray Brother":

"Who knows not Melville's beechy grove

And Roslin's rocky glen,

Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,

And classic Hawthornden."

THORNE.

ABBOTSFORD: SCOTT'S HOME.

"I understand his romances the better for having seen his house, and his house the better for having read his romances."— NATHANIEL HAW

ABBOTSFORD is located about three miles west of Melrose, in the county of Roxburgh, Scotland. Before the estate became, in 1811, the property of Sir Walter Scott,

the site of the house and grounds formed a small farm known by the name of Clarty Hole. The new name was the invention of the poet, who loved thus to connect himself with the days when Melrose abbots passed over the fords of the River Tweed.

On a sloping bank overhanging the river, with the Selkirk hills behind, Scott built at first a small villa, now the western wing of the castle. Afterward, as his income. increased, he added the remaining portions of the building, on no uniform plan, but with the desire of combining in it some of the features of those ancient works of Scottish architecture which he most venerated. The result is a singularly picturesque and irregular pile, such an one as nobody but Scott would have thought of erecting, yet eminently imposing in its general effect, and in most of its details full of historic interest and beauty.

In a letter to his brother-in-law, Mr. Carpenter, Scott describes his new property, adding :

"I intend building a small cottage here for my summer abode, being obliged by law, as well as by inclination, to make this country my residence for some months of every year. This is the greatest incident which has lately taken place in our domestic concerns, and I assure you we are not a little proud of being greeted as laird and lady of Abbotsford."

The greatest practical romance of Scott's life was the improvement of the almost sterile soil and the construction of the quaint, picturesque edifice, as much castle as mansion, of Abbotsford. The most The most fascinating scheme among all the wild dreams of his fancy, it has been said, was to purchase lands; to raise himself a fairy castle; to become, not the minstrel of a lord as were many of those of old, but a minstrel-lord himself. The practical romance grew. On the banks of the Tweed began to rise the fairy castle, quaint and beautiful. Lands were added to lands; over hill and dale spread the dark embossment of future woods; Abbotsford was spoken of far and wide.