k, and
thence, as far as they could be followed, either on the paternal or
maternal side, they were to be found moving in the highest ranks of
our baronage. When he fitted up, in his later years, the beautiful
hall of Abbotsford, he was careful to have the armorial bearings of
his forefathers blazoned in due order on the compartments of its roof;
and there are few in Scotland, under the titled nobility, who could
trace their blood to so many stocks of historical distinction.

In {p.052} the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and Notes to The
Lay of the Last Minstrel, the reader will find sundry notices of the
"Bauld Rutherfords that were sae stout," and the Swintons of Swinton
in Berwickshire, the two nearest houses on the maternal side. An
illustrious old warrior of the latter family, Sir John Swinton,
extolled by Froissart, is the hero of the dramatic sketch, Halidon
Hill; and it is not to be omitted, that through the Swintons Sir
Walter Scott could trace himself to William Alexander, Earl of
Stirling, the poet and dramatist.[35] His respect for the worthy
barons of Newmains and Dryburgh, of whom, in right of his father's
mother, he was the representative, and in whose venerable sepulchre
his remains now rest, was testified by his Memorials of the
Haliburtons, a small volume printed (for private circulation only) in
the year 1820. His own male ancestors of the family of Harden, whose
lineage is traced by Douglas in his Baronage of Scotland back to the
middle of the fourteenth century, when they branched off from the
great blood of Buccleuch, have been so largely celebrated in his
various writings, that I might perhaps content myself with a general
reference to those pages, their only imperishable monument. The
antique splendor of the ducal house itself has been dignified to all
Europe by the pen of its remote descendant; but it may be doubted
whether his genius could have been adequately developed, had he not
attracted, at an early and critical period, the kindly recognition and
support of the Buccleuchs.

[Footnote 35: On Sir Walter's copy of _Recreations with the
Muses, by William, Earl of Stirling_, 1637, there is the
following MS. note:--"Sir William Alexander, sixth Baron of
Menstrie, and first Earl of Stirling, the friend of Drummond
of Hawthornden and Ben Jonson, died in 1640. His eldest son,
William, Viscount Canada, died before his father, leaving one