the midst of his Alexander's
Feast. From this you pass into the largest of all the apartments, the
library, which, I must say, is really a noble room. It is an oblong of
some fifty feet by thirty, with a projection in the centre, opposite the
fireplace, terminating in a grand bow window, fitted up with books also,
and, in fact, constituting a sort of chapel to the church. The roof is
of carved oak again--a very rich pattern--I believe chiefly _a la_
Roslin, and the bookcases, which are also of richly carved oak, reach
high up the walls all round. The collection amounts, in this room, to
some fifteen or twenty thousand volumes, arranged according to their
subjects: British history and antiquities, filling the whole of the
chief wall; English poetry and drama, classics and miscellanies, one
end: foreign literature, chiefly French and German, the other. The cases
on the side opposite the fire are wired and locked, as containing
articles very precious and very portable. One consists entirely of books
and MSS. relating to the insurrections of 1715 and 1745; and another
(within the recess of the bow window), of treatises _de re magica_,
both of these being (I am told, and can well believe), in their several
ways, collections of the rarest curiosity. My cicerone pointed out, in
one corner, a magnificent set of Mountfaucon, ten volumes folio, bound
in the richest manner in scarlet, and stamped with the royal arms, the
gift of his present majesty. There are few living authors of whose works
presentation copies are not to be found here. My friend showed me
inscriptions of that sort in, I believe, every European dialect extant.
The books are all in prime condition, and bindings that would satisfy
Mr. Dibdin. The only picture is Sir Walter's eldest son, in hussar
uniform, and holding his horse, by Allan of Edinburgh, a noble portrait,
over the fireplace; and the only bust is that of Shakspeare, from the
Avon monument, in a small niche in the centre of the east side. On a
rich stand of porphyry, in one corner, reposes a tall silver urn,
filled with bones from the Piraeus, and bearing the inscription,
"Given by George Gordon, Lord Byron, to Sir Walter Scott, Bart." It
_contained_ the letter which accompanied the gift till lately: it
has disappeared; no one guesses who took it, but whoever he was, as my
guide observed, he must have been a thief for thieving's sake truly,
as he durst no more exhibit his autograph than tip himself a bare