but if you cannot wait till then, you may go in Sir Walter's name; and the housekeeper will shew you every thing with pleasure."

"I shall be happy to avail myself of your politeness; for I should not be satisfied with quitting Scotland without having seen Melrose and Abbotsford."

Lady SCOTT." You will do well also not to omit Dryburgh Abbey."

I postpone the rest of this conversation till another day. I have suppressed, as you may conceive, many common places, the writing of which would make them appear more insignificant still; but the little nothings of the conversation acquired a real charm from the lips of Sir W. Scott; a more agreeable relater of an anecdote, and a more polite host, could not be met with. Sir Walter combines in the highest degree, the inspirations of a man of genius, and the not less rare gifts of the man of the world.

P.S. The work of C. Nodier has been translated by Mr. Clifford, with an elegant fidelity. Blackwood's Magazine, in noticing it, expresses its astonishment that a Frenchman has been enabled to describe Scotland like a great poet. It is true, that Mr. Blackwood asked me yesterday, if my friend Charles Nodier was not a petit maitre, and the author of the article in Blackwood's Magazine depicts him, in fact, as a Parisian petit maitre. I am no longer surprised at his astonishment. On my return to France, I find a new Voyage en Ecosse, by a young man who permits himself to treat C.

Nodier rather cavalierly. This he is at liberty to do. M. Nodier will not deign to be troubled at it. But it is not M. Nodier who translates "plumb pudding" by pouding de plomb; "Jolly wine" by joli (pretty) vin, not to mention the levity with which the author judges of the whole English stage, from a pretty melo-drama acted at a summer theatre.

LETTER LXXXV.

TO M. BILLING.

NOTHING can be more smiling and variegated than the course of the two little rivers, which under the name of the Esk of the south and the Esk of the north, unite and terminate in the Forth, at Musselburgh. You sometimes traverse sterile plains, searching in vain for some interesting locality, when suddenly a gentle murmur reveals the vicinity of one of those twin rivulets of Mid Lothian. If you follow its windings, it will sometimes lead you across rocks, which the water, becoming more rapid, overleaps in a cascade, or along the skirts of a copse, the shade of which will for a while arrest your steps. The two rivulets unite at the park of Dalkeith, a charming residence of the

Buccleugh family, where I stopped an hour in proceeding to Melrose. The existing chateau was built on the site of that which was formerly the property of the Douglases. Under the minority of James VI., the regent Morton frequently sojourned there: Dalkeith was then called the Lion's Cave. This domain was acquired by the Buccleugh family at the end of the 17th century.

The farther one proceeds from the charming scenery of Dalkeith, the more the country one traverses, as far as Borthwick, changes its aspect. It consists of a succession of eminences, vallies and little plains, alternately barren and cultivated. The approaches to Borthwick prepare us for a more picturesque, and at the same time a more graceful prospect. It is a valley, which a rivulet named Gore waters and fertilizes. A thick growth of heath borders its course, and some old trees, old as the dungeon keep, have remained faithful to its decay.

Borthwick castle is one of the most curious models of the feudal architecture of Scotland. The Baron, who founded it, by an express permission, recorded in a charter of James I. (1430,) took care, as Sir W. Scott informs us, to build it on the farthest limits of his domain, according to the usage of the barons of his time, in order to be enabled to invade with more facility the neighbouring demesnes. The Lords of Borthwick often figure in the annals of Scotland; but I shall limit myself to the relation of one anecdote of this house, which I select, because it has probably sup

plied the author of the Abbot with one of the most curious scenes of that novel.

Towards the middle of the 16th century, the Lord of Borthwick had been visited by the excommunication of the prelate of St. Andrew's. William Langlands, the Bacularius of the Archbishop, carried the letters of excommunication to the curate of Borthwick, requiring him to publish them in his sermons. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the chateau employed themselves in acting the singular farce of the election of a masquerade prelate, who under the designation of the Abbot of Foolery, exercised all the ecclesiastical powers in order to turn them into derision. The successful candidate repaired in grand procession to the church, proclaimed therein his sovereign authority, without any respect for the mission of the Bacularius, caused him to be hurried to the mill dam, and compelled him to jump into the water. Not content with this partial immersion, he gave orders to his people to duck poor Mr. Langlands; then carrying him back to the church, he tore up the letters of the prelate, and caused them to be infused in some wine, which the Bacularius was compelled to swallow. The recollection of this scene of ecclesiastical Saturnalia, naturally recalls the affair of which the respectable prior of Melrose suffers the mortification, in the time of the Barons of Avenel. At twelve or fifteen miles from Kennaquhair, the Monastery and the Abbot are no longer fabulous narratives.

Mary Stuart resided some time at Borthwick,

with Bothwell. She there listened to the seductions of love, and considered herself happy, at all events tranquil, when the novelty of an insurrection occurred to interrupt one of her fêtes, and she was obliged to escape in the disguise of a page. The Lords of Borthwick were constantly attached to the fortune of the Stuarts; Cromwell entered the castle in the character of a master; but it was by means of the breach which his cannon had effected in the old rampart.

Beneath the shadow, it may be said, of Borthwick's keep, was a fortified tower, which formerly served as a place of refuge to one of the ancestors of Sir W. Scott. This tower, situated at a little distance from Borthwick, in a ravine, was called the retreat or cavern of Scott of Harden. This Scott was a determined freebooter, whom Sir Walter has introduced in his Lay of the Last Minstrel.

"An aged knight to danger steeled,

With many a moss-trooper came on;
And azure in a golden field,

The stars and crescent graced his shield,
Without the bend of Murdieston.
Wide lay his lands round Oakwood tower,
And wide round haunted Castle-Ower;
High over Borthwick's mountain-flood,
His wood-embosomed mansion stood;
In the dark glen, so deep below,
The herds of plundered England low;
His bold retainers' daily food,

And bought with danger, blows, and blood.
Marauding chief! his sole delight
The moonlight raid, the morning fight;
Not even the Flower of Yarrow's charms,
In youth, might tame his rage for arms;