ir Walter
himself, and his next and dearest brother, Thomas Scott.

[Footnote 41: In Sir Walter Scott's desk, after his death,
there was found a little packet containing six locks of hair,
with this inscription in the handwriting of his mother:--

"1. Anne Scott, born March 10, 1759.
2. Robert Scott, born August 22, 1760.
3. John Scott, born November 28, 1761.
4. Robert Scott, born June 7, 1763.
5. Jean Scott, born March 27, 1765.
6. Walter Scott, born August 30, 1766.

"All these are dead, and none of my present family was born
till some time afterwards."]

[Footnote 42: [No. 25.]]

He says that his consciousness of existence dated from Sandy-Knowe;
and how deep and indelible was the impression which its romantic
localities had left on his imagination, I need not remind the readers
of Marmion and The Eve of St. John. On the summit of the Crags which
{p.068} overhang the farmhouse stands the ruined tower of Smailholme,
the scene of that fine ballad; and the view from thence takes in a
wide expanse of the district in which, as has been truly said, every
field has its battle, and every rivulet its song:--

"That lady sat in mournful mood,
Looked over hill and vale,
O'er Tweed's fair flood, and Mertoun's wood,
And all down Teviotdale."--

Mertoun, the principal seat of the Harden family, with its noble
groves; nearly in front of it, across the Tweed, Lessudden, the
comparatively small but still venerable and stately abode of the
Lairds of Raeburn; and the hoary Abbey of Dryburgh, surrounded with
yew-trees as ancient as itself, seem to lie almost below the feet of
the spectator. Opposite him rise the purple peaks of Eildon, the
traditional scene of Thomas the Rhymer's interview with the Queen of
Faerie; behind are the blasted peel which the seer of Ercildoune
himself inhabited, "the Broom of the Cowdenknowes," the pastoral
valley of the Leader, and the bleak wilderness of Lammermoor. To the
eastward, the desolate grandeur of Hume Castle breaks the horizon, as
the eye travels towards the range of the Cheviot. A few miles
westward, Melrose, "like some tall rock with lichens grey," appears
clasped amidst the windings of the Tweed; and the distance presents
the serrated mountains of the Gala, the Ettrick, and the Yarrow, all
famous in song. Such were t