told us that our "great countryman, Washington Ir- ving, said, 'there was a haill sarmon on the vanity of pomp in that single line.' " After his agency as our guide had terminated, we were invited to his apartments, where we saw his wife, and a variety of drawings and casts from Melrose, several of which he had himself executed; and were pleased to have an opportunity of purchasing some engravings from him.
The village of Melrose is situated at the foot of the Eildon hills. It has little to interest a traveller, except its famous old Abbey; and in this it is impossible to be disappointed, whether it is seen by the "pale moonlight," or not. The style of its architecture, its clustered columns, its niches filled with statues, its exquisite carvings, from whence the leaflets, flowers, and fruits stand out with great boldness and a delicate truth to nature, prove that the ornamental parts must have been executed several centuries later than its erection under David the First. Every visitant must admire, on the capital of a column, from whence the roof which it once supported has mouldered away, a carved hand, in exceedingly bold relief, clasping a garland of roses. It was pleasant to see, in a partially enclosed court-yard, a few sheep cropping the herbage that crept up among the stones and between the fragments of fallen pillars, reminding one of the flocks that some tourist has described, as feeding so quietly amid the ruins of the circus of Caracalla, at Rome.
