How congenial to the Highlands are solitude and silence! We may deplore the present desolateness and depopulation of those most interesting scenes, but they certainly increase their beauty and solemnity. I always admire the ocean most when there are no vessels whatever on its waves; and the solitude, stillness, and depopulation of the Highlands, were to me, heighteners of their charms.

Mrs. Opie also visited Abbotsford, and thus describes what she saw and felt:—

Eighteen years had passed since I first crossed the Tweed; and Abbotsford, an entirely new creation since that time, was already without inhabitants, and the burial-place of the Scotts, already tenanted! “Well, (said I to myself,) I will see the wonderful man’s house in life, and his house in death.” And at length, at six o’clock on a misty wintry morning, I reluctantly bade farewell to the kindest of friends, and set off for Melrose, where, as soon as I arrived, I ordered a post-chaise and drove to Abbotsford.

It was with considerable emotion that I beheld the gates of this far famed, but now untenanted, house!—but the mind of Walter Scott still seemed to pervade everything around. All the objects, all the furniture, spoke of him, and realized, as it were, all the creations of his pen—nay, evidently had helped to create them. It was action and reaction. He began to write with warlike weapons, and things of auld lang syne about him, and these stores, accumulating, impressed themselves powerfully on his imagination, and his imagination in turn stamped them upon his paper, till his pages resembled his rooms, and his rooms resembled his pages.

How much was I interested in examining the varied curiosities which the rooms contained—the beauty of the apartments themselves—the pictures—the gate of the Tolbooth and its massy keys—the silver vase, the gift of Lord Byron, containing the ashes of the Greeks, found under the walls of the Acropolis—and the various other objects around me!

But the sight of all these things did not tend to elevate my spirits, and I quitted the place with feelings suited to a scene more melancholy still. As I drove past Melrose Abbey, the rain prevented me from stopping to see those picturesque ruins again; but they seemed changed since I saw them in 1816, and less in size—nor was I mistaken, for part of the ruin had fallen down. I also thought that the red colour of the stone was faded; but then, when I saw them before, they were lighted up by a summer sun, and now I beheld them through a thick-falling rain in winter.

The fatigue of my journey from Edinburgh had disposed me to sleep, but I was aroused from my slumbers by a strange sensation, like that produced by the motion of a steam vessel. We were fording the Tweed, and going against a very strong current, and, in spite of my admiration of that river, I did not relish the idea of being drowned, even in its classic waters; not that there was any real danger, but the tide rolled darkly and powerfully along, and I was tired and depressed.

I soon found a guide to the ruins,[[40]] and followed her along a narrow path covered with fallen leaves, the emblems of decay; a fitting carpet for the road to the abode of death, which now met my view in unmitigated dreariness. For though the carved roof of the crypt remained entire in its beauty, the sides of the ruin were open to every wind that blew. The graves of Sir Walter and Lady Scott, raised several feet from the ground, were placed immediately beneath the arch of the building, and therefore, in a degree, sheltered from the weather. But not one blade of grass grew on those graves of clay; and, giving the unconscious dead my own feelings, I was weak enough to wish, while the rain fell and the wind whistled around, that their last dwelling had been warmed, at least, by a covering of vegetation. To my judgment, this seemed indeed an idle desire, but feeling, or rather folly perhaps, was predominant. It was with many affecting associations that I gazed on the grave nearest me, that of Sir Walter Scott, and it was some minutes before I could prevail on myself to quit the spot, and go to the burying-ground of Lord and Lady Buchan, where I experienced an absurd feeling of satisfaction in finding that their remains were deposited under stones of memorial, and in a building covered in from the weather. But the sight of these tombs did not call forth in me either regret or emotion. Their inhabitants had died at a good old age, surviving even the usual term of man’s existence; but their far-famed neighbour, in the abode of death, had fallen a victim to premature decay! * * * *

[39] See “Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers.”