and for the protection which the strong affords to the weak.[8] The horizontal profile of the house is fine, crowded with towers and clustered chimneys:  it looks half castle, half monastery.  The workmanship, too, is excellent:  indeed we never saw such well-dressed, cleanly, and compactly laid whinstone course and gage in our life:  it is a perfect picture."[9] “The external walls of Abbotsford, as also the walls of the adjoining garden, are enriched with many old carved stones, which, having originally figured in other situations, to which they were calculated by their sculptures and inscriptions, have a very curious effect.  Among the various relics which Sir Walter has contrived to collect, may be mentioned the door of the old Tolbooth of Edinburgh, which, together with the hewn stones that composed the gateway, are now made to figure in a base court at the west end of the house."[10]

    [8] Sir Walter possessed a practical as well as theoretical
        knowledge of Landscape Gardening, as may be seen in a
        valuable paper contributed by him to No. 47, of the
        Quarterly Review.  The details of this paper were,
        however, disputed by some writers on the subject.

    [9] Communicated to No. 199, of The Athenaeum.  The mansion
        was built from designs by Atkinson.  Sir Walter may,
        however, be termed the amateur architect of the pile, and
        this may somewhat explain its irregularities.  We have been
        told that the earliest design of Abbotsford was furnished
        by the late Mr. Terry, the comedian, who was an intimate
        friend of Sir Walter, and originally an architect by
        profession.  His widow, one of the Nasmyths, has painted a
        clever View of Abbotsford, from the opposite bank of the
        Tweed; which is engraved in No. 427, of The Mirror.

    [10] Picture of Scotland, by Chambers.

[Illustration:  (Armoury.)]

It would occupy a whole sheet to describe the interior of the mansion; so that we select only two apartments, as graphic memorials of the lamented owner.  First, is the Armoury, (from a coloured lithograph, published by Ackermann)—­an arched apartment, with a richly-blazoned window, and the walls filled all over with smaller pieces of armour and weapons, such as swords, firelocks, spears, arrows, darts, daggers, &c.  These relics will be found enumerated in a description of Abbotsford, in the Anniversary, quoted in vol. xv. of the Mirror.  The second of the interiors is the poet’s Study—­a room about twenty-five feet square by twenty feet high, containing of what is properly called furniture, nothing but a small writing-table and an antique arm-chair.  On either side of the fire-place various pieces of armour are hung on the wall; but, there are no books, save the contents of a light gallery, which runs round three sides of the