By WASHINGTON IRVING.


I sit down to perform my promise of giving you an account of a visit
made many years since to Abbotsford. I hope, however, that you do not
expect much from me, for the travelling notes taken at the time are so
scanty and vague, and my memory so extremely fallacious, that I fear I
shall disappoint you with the meagreness and crudeness of my details.

Late in the evening of August 29, 1817, I arrived at the ancient little
border town of Selkirk, where I put up for the night. I had come down
from Edinburgh, partly to visit Melrose Abbey and its vicinity, but
chiefly to get sight of the "mighty minstrel of the north." I had a
letter of introduction to him from Thomas Campbell, the poet, and had
reason to think, from the interest he had taken in some of my earlier
scribblings, that a visit from me would not be deemed an intrusion.

On the following morning, after an early breakfast, I set off in a
postchaise for the Abbey. On the way thither I stopped at the gate of
Abbotsford, and sent the postilion to the house with the letter of
introduction and my card, on which I had written that I was on my way
to the ruins of Melrose Abbey, and wished to know whether it would be
agreeable to Mr. Scott (he had not yet been made a Baronet) to receive
a visit from me in the course of the morning.

While the postilion was on his errand, I had time to survey the
mansion. It stood some short distance below the road, on the side of a
hill sweeping down to the Tweed; and was as yet but a snug gentleman's
cottage, with something rural and picturesque in its appearance. The
whole front was overrun with evergreens, and immediately above the