Grampian Club > Leaves from my autography

LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 251
posed verses chiefly on sacred themes, and died in
1831, at the age of twenty-four.
In collecting materials for the ''Modern Scottish
Minstrel," I made an early visit to Ettrick Forest, or
Selkirkshire. Of that county Sir Walter Scott was
sheriff; and as, at the period of my inquiries, in
1854, the great minstrel had been dead only twenty-
two years, I had an opportunity of conversing with
many who were familiar with his habits. I never
met any one who spoke of him otherwise than in
terms of affectionate admiration ; he had won all
hearts.
Sir Walter facially resembled the members of the
clan Scott ; their lineaments are of the Saxon type ;
massive, rugged, heavy, almost stolid. A member of
the sept, whose engraved portrait might be accepted
as that of the minstrel, was the late Mr William
Scott of Teviot Bank. From his maternal ancestors
Sir AValter derived his honhommie. The Rutherfords
were a genial, cultivated people — of mild and retiring-
manners. With a cousin of Sir Walter, the late Mr
Robert Rutherford, writer to the signet, I enjoyed
some acquaintance. He expressed admiration of his
illustrious relative, but shrank from referring to his
relationship ; he was extremely diffident.
Ambitious of founding a family, Scott much valued
his descent, through his paternal grandmother, from
the family of Haliburton of Newmains. He inherited
from the Haliburtons a right of sepulture in Dry-