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ir Walter himself, and his next and dearest brother, Thomas Scott. [Footnote 41: In Sir Walter Scott's desk, after his death, there was found a little packet containing six locks of hair, with this inscription in the handwriting of his mother:-- "1. Anne Scott, born March 10, 1759. 2. Robert Scott, born August 22, 1760. 3. John Scott, born November 28, 1761. 4. Robert Scott, born June 7, 1763. 5. Jean Scott, born March 27, 1765. 6. Walter Scott, born August 30, 1766. "All these are dead, and none of my present family was born till some time afterwards."] [Footnote 42: [No. 25.]] He says that his consciousness of existence dated from Sandy-Knowe; and how deep and indelible was the impression which its romantic localities had left on his imagination, I need not remind the readers of Marmion and The Eve of St. John. On the summit of the Crags which {p.068} overhang the farmhouse stands the ruined tower of Smailholme, the scene of that fine ballad; and the view from thence takes in a wide expanse of the district in which, as has been truly said, every field has its battle, and every rivulet its song:-- "That lady sat in mournful mood, Looked over hill and vale, O'er Tweed's fair flood, and Mertoun's wood, And all down Teviotdale."-- Mertoun, the principal seat of the Harden family, with its noble groves; nearly in front of it, across the Tweed, Lessudden, the comparatively small but still venerable and stately abode of the Lairds of Raeburn; and the hoary Abbey of Dryburgh, surrounded with yew-trees as ancient as itself, seem to lie almost below the feet of the spectator. Opposite him rise the purple peaks of Eildon, the traditional scene of Thomas the Rhymer's interview with the Queen of Faerie; behind are the blasted peel which the seer of Ercildoune himself inhabited, "the Broom of the Cowdenknowes," the pastoral valley of the Leader, and the bleak wilderness of Lammermoor. To the eastward, the desolate grandeur of Hume Castle breaks the horizon, as the eye travels towards the range of the Cheviot. A few miles westward, Melrose, "like some tall rock with lichens grey," appears clasped amidst the windings of the Tweed; and the distance presents the serrated mountains of the Gala, the Ettrick, and the Yarrow, all famous in song. Such were t
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