Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey

myself back again among my own honest gray hills; and if I did not see the heather at least once a year, I think I should die! ”
    The last words were said with an honest warmth, accompanied with a thump on the ground with his staff, by way of emphasis, that showed his heart was in his speech. He vindicated the Tweed, too, as a beautiful stream in itself, and observed that he did not dislike it for being bare of trees, probably from having been much of an angler in his time, and an angler does not like to have a stream overhung by trees, which embarrass him in the exercise of his rod and line.
    I took occasion to plead, in like manner, the associations of early life, for my disappointment in respect to the surrounding scenery. I had been so accustomed to hills crowned with forests, and streams breaking their way through a wilderness of trees, that all my ideas of romantic landscape were apt to be well wooded.
    “Aye, and that’s the great charm of your country,” cried Scott. “You love the forest as I do the heather—but I would not have you think I do not feel the glory of a great woodland prospect. There is nothing I should like more than to be in the midst of one of your grand, wild, original forests with the idea of hundreds of miles of untrodden forest around me. I once saw, at Leith, an immense stick of timber, just landed from America. It must have been an enormous tree when it stood on its native soil, at its full height, and with all its branches. I gazed at it with admiration; it seemed like one of the gigantic obelisks which are now and then brought from Egypt, to shame the pigmy monuments of Europe; and, in fact, these vast aboriginal trees, that have sheltered the Indians before the intrusion of the white men, are the monuments and antiquities of your country.”
    The conversation here turned upon Campbell’s poem of “Gertrude of Wyoming,” as illustrative of the poetic materials furnished by American scenery. Scott spoke of it in that liberal style in which I always found him to speak of the writings of his contemporaries. He cited several passages of it with great delight. “What a pity it is,” said he, “that Campbell does not write more and oftener, and give full sweep to his genius. He has wings that would bear him to the skies; and he does now and then spread them grandly, but folds them up again and resumes his perch, as if he was afraid to launch away. He don’t know or won’t trust his own strength. Even when he has done a thing well, he has often misgivings about it. He left out several fine passages of his Lochiel, but I got him to restore some of them.” Here Scott repeated several passages in a magnificent style. “What a grand idea is that,” said he, “about prophetic boding, or, in common parlance, second sight—
    ‘Coming events cast their shadows before.’
    “It is a noble thought, and nobly expressed, And there’s that glorious little poem, too, of ‘Hohenlinden;’ after he had written it, he did not seem to think much of it, but considered some of it’d—d drum and trumpet lines.’ I got him to recite it to me, and I believe that the delight I felt and expressed had an effect in inducing him to print it. The fact is,” added he, “Campbell is, in a manner, a bugbear to himself. The brightness of his early success is a detriment to all his further efforts. He is afraid of the shadow that his own fame casts before him .”
    While we were thus chatting, we heard the report of a gun among the hills. “That’s Walter, I think,” said Scott; “he has finished his morning’s studies, and is out with his gun. I should not be surprised if he had met with the blackcock; if so, we shall have an addition to our larder, for Walter is a pretty sure shot.” I inquired into the nature of Walter’s studies. “Faith,” said Scott, “I can’t say much on that head. I am not over bent upon making prodigies of any of my children. As to Walter, I taught him, while a boy, to ride, and shoot, and speak the truth; as to the other parts of his education, I leave them to a very worthy young man, the son of one of our clergymen, who instructs all my children.”
    I afterward became acquainted with the young man in question, George Thomson, son of the minister of Melrose, and found him possessed of much learning, intelligence, and modest worth. He used to come every day from his father’s residence at Melrose to superintend the studies of the young folks, and