Abbotsford, the seat of Sir Walter Scott, from which his baronet's title was taken. It is situated in the parish of Melrose, in Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire, on the right bank of the Tweed, and in the neighborhood of the abbeys of Melrose, Jedburgh, and Dryburgh, and the towns of Selkirk and Galashiels. Sir Walter bought the estate in 1811, built the mansion, and gave it its present name, adopted from an adjoining ford in the Tweed. The house is irregular, and after the pattern of the old English manor houses; flourishing plantations hem it round, and a beautiful haugh or meadow on the opposite side of the Tweed forms its immediate prospect. The external walls of the house and garden are intercalated with antique carved stones taken from old castles and abbeys. The inside was decorated with beautiful paintings, the work of D. B. Hay of Edinburgh, and a library of curious works and British antiquities. Ab-botsford was occupied by James Hope Scott, Esq., and his wife, the sole surviving granddaughter of Sir Walter Scott, until that lady's death, Oct. 26, 1858. Since that period, pending the minority of Miss Scott, the only surviving child, the mansion has been let for the use of a Roman Catholic seminary for girls.

Abbotsford.