Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1880-09-10
walter Scots House and Tomb.

a ~
The next point Of attraction Is OF course,
Abbotsford-th realization of that dream
which prompted the great magician to
make himself border laird. The man-
sion stands on he~banks of the Tweed,
about two miles above Melrose The situa-
ton is beautiful, and the view of the
house as seen from the riverside on either
bank is very impressive. 1t is buried in
woods and is surrounded by lawns and
gardens amid which the gray towers and
crowfoo gables designed in the Scottish
baronial style, rise grandly. #, i.
But the visitor who proceeds to make
closer acquaintance with this shrine OF
hallowed memories can hardly escape
feeling of disappointment, and even OF
melancholy. He is invi ed to enter the
grounds by postern in a wooden door.
way forming back garden entrance ne
is conducted to the house by a sem1-sub-
terranean passage, which suggests that he
is being led surreptitiously to the Kitchen
door He is ushered into a low+roofed and
cherries chamber, whence he ascends by
the back stairs, to the level OF the main
floor of the house. a door is thrown
open, and it is almost with shock that
he finds himself at once in the sanctum
sanctorum, the private study of the author
of Waverley," wi h its simple furniture
its clumsy desk and heavy leathern chair,
its antique cabinet, and its general air OF
| hard work. q zeeTFsErT osFks8 GsYc es|
You would like to be left alone here
| to realize the scenes of which its walls
were the silent witnesses; but your guide
hurries you onward, and you are forced to
proceed under his or her mechanical
| guidance to the other rooms of the house
There is the library, with Its costly
treasures and it's cabinet of curiosities; the
drawing room with its pictures and its
ebony furni, ure, presented by George ~;
the armory, with its quaint curiOsltles;
thh dining room, with its grotesque cor
nices and its sacred memory that here
the ''darling wizard of the north" breath,
ed his last, within sight and sound of the
ripple of the Tweed The entrance hall
is one of the most interesting parts of the
house, with its antique wainscoting from
the dismantled palace of LinlithgoW
This is also receptacle for curiosjties =
ancient suits of armOr, ancient Kettles
and arms and other relics, among which
the ponderous keys of the Tolbooth-tht
Heart of Midlothian hold the chiefplace
However interesting many of the de
tails may be, the general effect is disap
pointing You have come to do. homas'
ut shrine of genius, and you witness onl!
museum of curiOsities-at the fixed rat'
of one shilling head. If a charge mus
be made for such exhibitions, it is perhap
better hat the rate should be uniform
but one may imagine the horror wi
which Sir Waiter Scott would have re
garded the possibility of his study and bi
Ii brary being turned into public show
One is disturbed by no such incong nj
ties in visiting Scott S tomb in Dryburg
Abbey The place-One of the mos
charming of the ecclesiastical ruins {
} SEQ land strikes one as being in a
: respects fit resting place for the roman
, tic poe and the historical antiquary Ii
, sleeps appropriately among his own kl
! in St Mary aisle, the most beautifl
l corner of the ruin; for his mother ances
t tors the HaliburtOns of Newmains (onc
y owners OF the Abbey are buried her
! and the poet lies between the remains
his wife and those of his eldest son. I'll
: drive from Melrose to Dryburgh by tt
: Bemerside road is magnificent There
1 a more direct road, but the longer on
b is much to be preferredson he score
4 picturesqueness. The view from Beme
: side hill is one that will not soon
forgotten, embracing as it does long al
y varied stretch of the valley of rweed-ul
9 ward toward M erose and downward t
: ward Dryburgh. The situation OF DR.
T burgh Abbey is exquisite 1t stands In
wooded meadow encompassed by lo'
l. or link of the Tweed, which here makes
t. wide circuit = Edinburgh correspondent
d of the London Times.