* * * * In some ways Abbotsford to a
Scotsman is the saddest spot in all broad Scotland, for it was there that Sir Walter built that half stately, half incongruously absurd house that helped to ruin him, but the great good man's genius broods over it still,
as it does over all that country of' Tweedside which the green Eildons look down upon. That may be called the Scott country proper, but Mr. Baikie's book The Charm of the Scutt Country (Black, 7s. 6d., illustrated) takes a much wider sweep and carries us, with pleasant historical gossip and a fine patriotic pride, over all the country of the Scottish Border. An enchanted and romantic land truly, for was it not the home of True Thomas of Ercildoune (who had speech with the Queen of Faery) and the birthplace of the greatest body of ballad poetry to be found anywhere in the world ? Mr. Baikie is happy in his attempt to depict in words the essential spirit of that land, and is happy too in being accompanied by Major Gordon Home (himself a Borderer) and his dreaming pencil. How beautiful are the very names of the countryside-
Ashestiel, Clovenfords, Neidpath, Branxbohn and Bemer- syde, and of exquisite beauty, too, the remains of its four great
churches—Jedburgh, Kelso, Dryburgh (where Scott lies), and
Melrose.
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