INTRODUCTION.

THE ancient little town of Melrose occupies a situation of great beauty, on the northern base of the Eildon Hills, near the river Tweed. Its neighbourhood is thickly studed with villages, villas, and rural cottages, many of which are delightfully embowered amid orchards of fruit-trees, the highly cultivated condition of which gives to the Vale of Melrose, when viewed from the neighbouring heights, the appearance of one extensive garden.

As a place of residence, even to men of the most opposite tastes and habits, the vicinity of Melrose holds out many temptations. It partakes abundantly of these finest features of natural scenery, wood and water, hill and dale, in all their best

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and most beautiful varieties, so completely diversified with every description of romantic form, as to afford material for the delightful studies of the landscape painter almost inexhaustable. A gentleman, whose professional eminence in that line has procured him the honor of knighthood, has been heard to say, that he could spend fifty years of ceaseless industry in the neighbourhood of Melrose, upon scenes every way worthy of an artist's deepest enthusiasm, without being reduced to the necessity of taking the same view twice.

Men of letters have long shown a remarkable predilection for this beautiful district. Sir Walter Scott erected here the home of his heart; and, soothed by the murmurings of the Tweed, Sir David Brewster pursued for many years a course of philosophical study, attended by results so splendid, as to render him one of the brightest ornaments of the age. Captain Hamilton, the gifted author of " Cyril Thornton," a novel of the most facinating interest, occupied for several years Chiefswood Cottage, a lovely little spot not more than a mile distant from Melrose, J. G. Lockhart, Esq., the accomplished Editor

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of the Quarterly Review, resided during the summer months, for several years previous to the death of Sir Walter Scott, in the same delightful retirement. R. James, Esq., the distinguished author of Richelieu, Darnley, &c., was for two years tenant of Maxpoffle, the seat of John Ainslie, Esq., also a gentleman of literary talent. Mr William Laidlaw, the secretary and friend of Sir Walter Scott, lived for many years at Kae Side, near by Abbotsford. Mr Thomas Aird, the author of Religious Characteristics, several beautiful tales, and many admired pieces of poetry, is a native of the village of Bowden. Sir William Jardine, the author of that beautiful work at present in the course of publication, entitled "The Naturalist's Library," is now residing at Holmes, a few miles farther down the Tweed than Melrose; while, beneath the classic shades of Dryburgh, Sir David Erskine has long wooed both the tragic and comic muse.

In addition to the beauties of nature, there are other, and to many people, strong inducements to reside in the neighbourhood of Melrose; for not only do the

Gala, the Allan, and the Leader, abound with excellent trout, but the Tweed, to which these streams are tributaries, is periodically visited by the finest of salmon and grilse, so that the lover of angling can now here enjoy his favourite pastime in greater perfection. But this is not all: Saint Boswell's Green, the Melton-Mowbray of Scotland, where the Duke of Buccleuch has built extensive accommodations for his fox-hounds and huntingstud, is not more than four miles distant from Melrose, and situated in the centre of the finest hunting district on the Scottish Border.

But it is neither to the beauty of its scenery, the excellence of its fishing, nor its vicinity to the Buccleuch Hunt, that Melrose is indebted for the immense number of strangers that annually resort to it. The still beautiful ruin of its once magnificient Abbey, has had a glory thrown around it by the pen of Sir Walter Scott that brings pilgrims to the ruined shrine of Saint Mary from the most distant parts of Europe and America; and since Dryburgh received the mortal remains of that great man, it has become

an object of almost greater interest than Melrose itself; while Abbotsford is no longer visited as an object of curiosity merely, but as one that none can pass regardlessly by who either admire genius or revere departed worth.

The main design of this little volume is, to give a brief History of the Abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh, as well as to point out such other objects of historical and classical interest as are to be found in the neighbourhood, and to give such ballads and traditions connected with these as may appear to be sufficiently interesting. Pleasure tours are generally set about under happy circumstances. The cares of life and business are for the time laid aside, and the mind left at freedom to expand with the delightful sensations invariably produced in every lover of nature by the sight of new and beautiful scenery. Unlike the traveller in the every-day business of life, whose chief aim is to annihilate distance and get to the end of his journey with all possible speed, the tourist finds every height and turn of the road full of the promise of things unseen, while the various objects of natural beauty