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Updated: June 24, 2025
One day he passed by a gauger, who was so careless in his duties that the author of Waverley was able to smuggle into Edinburgh some whiskey that was supposed never to have paid duty. On reaching Abbotsford, "the Wizard of the North" was informed that he had met one of the greatest poets of North Britain. "So I suspected," he replied. "It must have been BURNS." Sir WALTER was right it was BURNS.
He continues "He was a proud man; not a proud poet, or historian, or novelist." His was the pride of ancestry a weakness, to be sure, but of a venial nature: "he loved to be looked on as a gentleman of old family, who built Abbotsford, and laid out its garden, and planted its avenues, rather than a genius, whose works influenced mankind, and diffused happiness among millions."
At forty-five years of age he has become a very wealthy man has bought for something like £30,000 a noble mansion on the Palatine Hill; and besides the old-fashioned family seat near Arpinum now become his own by his father's death he has built, or enlarged, or bought as they stood, villas at Antium, at Formiae, at Pompeii, at Cumae, at Puteoli, and at half-a-dozen other places, besides the one favourite spot of all, which was to him almost what Abbotsford was to Scott, the home which it was the delight of his life to embellish his country-house among the pleasant hills of Tusculum.
He talked about his proposed plans of Abbotsford: happy would it have been for him could he have contented himself with his delightful little vine-covered cottage, and the simple yet hearty and hospitable style in which he lived at the time of my visit.
"Do you see that pergola stretching along the highest terrace? That is where the garden begins, and the ivy running over it was started from a slip that Madam Chartley brought from Sir Walter Scott's home at Abbotsford. "It is the stateliest old garden you ever saw, and the pride of the school. There's a sun-dial in it, and hollyhocks from Ann Hathaway's cottage, and rhododendrons from Killarney.
But not even out of Melrose need you move a step to find the name of a faithful servant of Sir Walter. Tom Purdie lies in Melrose Abbey-Yard; and Scott himself had engraven on his tomb that he was "the Wood-forester of Abbotsford," probably the title which Tom gave himself.
Henry Cranstoun, elder brother of Lord Corehouse and Countess Purgstall. He resided for some years near Abbotsford, at the Pavilion on the Tweed, where he died in 1843, aged eighty-six. An interesting account of Countess Purgstall is given by Basil Hall, who was with her in Styria at her death in 1835.
His own narrative will best illustrate his labours of leisure at Abbotsford. He writes of that period which men familiarly call the turn of life: "With the satisfaction of having attained the fulfilment of an early and long-cherished hope, I commenced my improvements, as delightful in their progress as those of the child who first makes a dress for a new doll.
The noble-hearted man made a charming dwelling at last; but he was fighting against Nature in the matter of the landscape round it; and you can see yet, many a year after he left it, the poor little trees of his beloved plantations contrasting with the magnificent timber of various grand old places above and below Abbotsford.
There were a thousand other things, which I knew must be most curious, yet did not ask nor care about them, because so many curiosities drive one crazy, and fret one's heart to death. On the whole, there is no simple and great impression left by Abbotsford; and I felt angry and dissatisfied with myself for not feeling something which I did not and could not feel.
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