[467] Biographical Notices had been sent to the Weekly Journal in 1826, and are now included in the Miscell. Prose Works, vol. iv. pp. 322-342.

[468] Afterwards included in The Pilgrimage and other Poems, Lond. 1856.

[469] See Craig Brown's Selkirkshire, vol. i. pp. 285-86.

[470] Milton's Lycidas, varied.

Burns.—J.G.L.

[472] For letter and reply see Life, vol. ix. pp. 92, 98.

[473] Sir Walter at this date returned the valuable MSS. lent him by the Duke of Wellington in Nov. 1826 (see ante, p. 306) with the following letter:—

"EDINBURGH, 15th February 1827.

"My dear Lord Duke,—The two manuscripts safely packed leave this by post to-day, as I am informed your Grace's franks carry any weight. * * * "I have been reading with equal instruction and pleasure the memoir on the Russian campaign, which demonstrates as plainly as possible that the French writers have taken advantage of the snow to cover under it all their General's blunders, and impute to it all their losses. This I observe is Bonaparte's general practice, and that of his admirers. Whenever they can charge anything upon the elements or upon accident, he and they combine in denying all bravery and all wisdom to their enemies. The conduct of Kutusow on more than one occasion in the retreat seems to have been singularly cautious, or rather timorous. For it is impossible to give credit to the immense superiority claimed by Ségur, Beauchamp, etc., for the French troops over the Russians. Surely they were the same Russians who had fought so bravely against superior force, and how should the twentieth part of the French army have been able to clear their way without cavalry or artillery in a great measure? and it seems natural to suppose that we must impute to tardy and inactive conduct on the part of their General what we cannot account for on the idea of the extremely superior valour or discipline claimed for the French soldiers by their country. The snow seems to have become serious on the 6th November, when Napoleon was within two marches of Smolensk, which he soon after reached, and by that time it appears to me that his army was already mouldered away from 100,000 men who left Moscow, to about 35,000 only, so that his great loss was incurred before the snow began.

"I am afraid your Grace has done me an unparalleled injury in one respect, that the clearness, justice, and precision of your Grace's reasoning puts me out of all patience with my own attempts. I dare hardly hope in this increase of business for a note or two on Waterloo; but if your Grace had any, however hasty, which could be copied by a secretary, the debt would be never to be forgotten.

"I am going to mention a circumstance, which I do with great apprehension, lest I should be thought to intrude upon your Grace's goodness. It respects a youth, the son of one of my most intimate friends, a gentleman of good family and fortune, who is extremely desirous of being admitted a cadet of artillery. His father is the best draughtsman in Scotland, and the lad himself shows a great deal of talent both in science and the ordinary branches of learning. I enclose a note of the youth's age, studies, and progress, in case your Grace might think it possible to place on your list for the Engineer service the name of a poor Scots Hidalgo; your Grace knows Scotland is a breeding not a feeding country, and we must send our sons abroad, as we send our black cattle to England; and, as old Lady Campbell of Ardkinglas proposed to dispose of her nine sons, we have a strong tendency to put our young folks 'a' to the sword.'

"I have too long detained you, my Lord Duke, from the many high occupations which have been redoubled upon your Grace's head, and beg your Grace to believe me, with an unusually deep sense of respect and obligation, my dear Lord Duke, your Grace's much honoured and grateful, humble servant, WALTER SCOTT."—Wellington's Despatches, etc. (Continuation), vol. iii. pp. 590-1. London, 8vo, 1868.

[474] Smollett's Peregrine Pickle, VOL. i. cap. 13.

[475] One page of his MS. answers to four or five of the close printed pages of the original edition of his Bonaparte.—J.G.L.

[476] Lord Cockburn says:—"Scott's description of the woman is very correct; she was like a vindictive masculine witch. I remember him sitting within the bar looking at her. As we were moving out, Sir Walter's remark upon the acquittal was, 'Well, sirs, all I can say is that if that woman was my wife I should take good care to be my own cook.'"—Circuit Journeys, 8vo, Edinburgh, 1888, p. 12.

[477] This can scarcely be taken to refer to Brougham, though at the time

It may, however, stand for Lord Bathurst, who became President of the Council shortly afterwards in Wellington's Administration.

[478] Mr. W.H. Murray, Manager of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. This excellent actor retired from the stage with a competency, and spent the last years of his life in St. Andrews, where he died in March 1852, aged 61.

[479] This was the dinner at which the veil was publicly withdrawn from the authorship of Waverley; it took place on Friday, 23d February 1827, and a full account of the proceedings is given in the Life, vol. ix. pp. 79-84.

[480] Sir Walter parodies the conclusion of King Robert the Bruce's "Maxims or Political Testament."—See Hailes' Annals, A.D. 1311.—J.G.L.

[481] See Townley's Farce.

[482] Hamesucken.—The crime of beating or assaulting a person in his own house. A Scotch law term.

[483] King had retired from the stage in 1801. He died four years later.

[484] Cramond Brig is said to have been written by Mr. W.H. Murray, the manager of the Theatre, and is still occasionally acted in Edinburgh.

[485] Marginal Note in Original MSS. "I never saw it—not mine.—J.G.L."

[486] By Dodsley.

[487] That singular personage, the late M'Nab of that ilk, spent his life almost entirely in a district where a boat was the usual conveyance.—J.G.L.

[488] Ancient Scottish Ballads, recovered from tradition, with notes, etc., by George R. Kinloch, 8vo, London, 1827.

[489] Issued by the Club, June 4, 1827.

[490] Zanga in The Revenge, Act I. Sc. 1.—J.G.L.

[491] Nimrod, a staghound.—J.G.L.

[492] Anecdotes of Cranbourne Chase, etc., by Chafin. 8vo, London, 1818. Mr. Lockhart says, "I am sorry Sir Walter never redeemed his promise to make it the subject of an article in the Quarterly Review."—See Life, vol. vii. pp. 43-44.

[493] The article appeared in the Number for June 1827, and is now included in the Prose Misc. Works, vol. xix. pp. 283-367.

[494] See Captain John Pringle's remarks on the campaign of 1815 in App. to Scott's Napoleon, vol. ix. pp. 115-160.

[495] Lear, Act III. Sc. 4.

[496] "Pearling Jean," the name of the ghost of the Spanish Nun at Allanbank, Berwickshire. See Sharpe's Letters, vol. i. pp. 303-5, and Ingram's Haunted Homes, Lond. 1884, vol. i. pp. 1-4.

[497] This quaint saying, arising out of some forgotten joke, has been thought to be Scott's own, as it was a favourite with him and his intimates, and he introduces it in more than one of his works.^[A] But though its origin cannot be traced, Swift uses it in that very curious collection of proverbs and saws, which he strung together under the title of Polite Conversation, and published about 1738.^[B] Fielding also introduces it in Amelia,^[C] 1752. See Notes and Queries, first series, vol. i. p. 385; ii. p. 45; iv. p. 450; x. p. 173; sixth series, vol. iii. p. 213; iv. p. 157.

[A] e.g. Redgauntlet, ch. xii. Pate-in-Peril at Dumfries.

[B] Lord Smart—"Well, Tom, can you tell me what's Latin for a candle?"

Neverout—"O, my Lord, I know that [answer]: Brandy is Latin for a goose! and Tace is Latin for a candle."—SCOTT'S Swift, vol. ix. p. 457.

[C] "Tace, Madam," added Murphy, "is Latin for a candle."—Amelia, Bk. 1. cap. xi.

[498] Sheridan's Play, Act II. Sc. 1.

[499] William Simson, R.S.A., landscape painter. He died in London, 1847.

[500] See Shenstone's Pastoral Ballad, Part ii., Hope.

[501] The coach to Edinburgh.

[502] See "The Braes of Ballochmyle;" Currie's Burns, vol. iv. p. 294.

[503] The conduct of the Quarterly at this time was in after years thus commented upon by John Wilson.

"North.—While we were defending the principles of the British constitution, bearding its enemies, and administering to them the knout, the Quarterly Review was meek and mum as a mouse.

"Tickler.—Afraid to lose the countenance and occasional assistance of Mr. Canning.

"North.—There indeed, James, was a beautiful exhibition of party politics, a dignified exhibition of personal independence."—Noctes Ambrosianae.

It is understood that Canning, who had received the King's commands in April 10, felt keenly the loneliness of his position—estranged from his old comrades, and deterred by the remembrance of many bitter satires against them from having close intimacy with his new co-adjutors.

[504] See Spectator.

[505] "... Your letter has given me the vertigo—my head turns round like a chariot wheel, and I am on the point of asking—

"The Duke of Wellington out?—bad news at home, and worse abroad. Lord Anglesea in his situation?—does not much mend the matter. Duke of Clarence in the Navy?—wild work. Lord Melville, I suppose, falls of course—perhaps cum totâ sequelâ, about which sequela, unless Sir W. Rae and the Solicitor, I care little. The whole is glamour to one who reads no papers, and has none to read. I must get one, though, if this work is to go on, for it is quite bursting in ignorance. Canning is haughty and prejudiced—but, I think, honourable as well as able: nous verrons. I fear Croker will shake, and heartily sorry I should feel for that...."—Scott to Lockhart: Life, vol. ix. p. 99.

[506] R. Plumer Ward.—See July 4.

[507] A fuller statement of Scott's views at this crisis will be found in his letters to Lockhart and Morritt in Life, vol. ix. (April, May, and June, 1827).

[508] Count Itterburg, then in his 20th year, was the name under which Gustavus, the ex-Crown Prince of Sweden, visited Scotland in 1819. It was his intention to study at the University of Edinburgh during the winter session, but, his real name becoming known, this was rendered impracticable by the curiosity and attention of the public. He devoted himself mainly to the study of military matters, and out-door exercises, roughing it in all sorts of weather, sometimes,—to his mentor Baron Polier's uneasiness,—setting out on dark and stormy nights, and making his way across country from point to point. This self-imposed training was no doubt with the secret hope that he might some day be called upon by the Swedes to oust Bernadotte, and mount the throne of the great Gustavus. Mr. Skene saw a good deal of him, and gives many interesting details of his life in Edinburgh, such as the following account of a meeting at his own house. "He was interested with a set of portraits of the two last generations of the Royal Family of Scotland, which hung in my dining-room, and which had been presented to my grandfather by Prince Charles Edward, in consideration of the sacrifices he had made for the Prince's service during the unfortunate enterprise of the year 1745, having raised and commanded one of the battalions of Lord Lewis Gordon's brigade. The portrait of Prince Charles Edward, taken about the same age as Comte Itterburg, and no doubt also the marked analogy existing in the circumstances to which they had been each reduced, seemed much to engage his notice; and when the ladies had retired he begged me to give him some account of the rebellion, and of the various endeavours of the Stewarts to regain the Scottish crown. The subject was rather a comprehensive one, but having done my best to put him in possession of the leading features, it seemed to have taken very strong hold of his mind, as he frequently, at our subsequent meetings, reverted to the subject. Upon another occasion by degrees the topic of conversation slipped into its wonted channel—the rebellion of 1745, its final disaster, and the singular escape of the Prince from the pursuit of his enemies. The Comte inquired what effect the failure of the enterprise had produced upon the Prince's character, with whose gallant bearing and enthusiasm, in the conduct of his desperate enterprise, he evinced the strongest interest and sympathy. I stated briefly the mortifying disappointments to which Charles Edward was exposed in France, the hopelessness of his cause, and the indifference generally shown to him by the continental courts, which so much preyed on his mind as finally to stifle every spark of his former character, so that he gave himself up to a listless indifference, which terminated in his becoming a sot during the latter years of his life. On turning round to the Prince, who had been listening to these details, I perceived the big drops chasing each other down his cheeks and therefore changed the subject, and he never again recurred to it."—Reminiscences.

Count Itterburg, or Prince Gustavus Vasa, to give him the title of an old family dignity which he assumed in 1829, entered the Austrian army, in which he attained the rank of Lieutenant Field-Marshal. His services, it is needless to say, were never required by the Swedes, though he never relinquished his pretensions, and claimed the throne at his father's death in 1837. He died at Pillnitz on the 4th August 1877, leaving one daughter, the present Queen of Saxony.

Notices of his visits to 39 Castle Street and Abbotsford are given in the 6th vol. of Life.

[509] This refers to the Miscellaneous Prose Works, forming 24 vols., the publication of which did not commence until May 1834, although, as is shown by the Journal, the author was busy in its preparation. The "criticism on Defoe" will be found in the fourth volume, pp. 247-296, forming a supplement to John Ballantyne's Biographical Notice of Defoe in the same volume. The "Essay on Border Antiquities" appeared, notwithstanding Scott's misgivings, in the seventh volume.

[510] Lord Pitmilly.—See ante, p. 125.

[511] The rude inscription on the stone placed over the grave of this Border amazon, slain at Ancrum Moor, A.D. 1545, ran thus—

See New Stat. Account Scot., "Roxburgh," p. 244.

[512] Tempest, Act I. Sc. 2.

[513] An article for the Foreign Quarterly Review, regarding which Mr. Lockhart says:—"It had then been newly started under the Editorship of Mr. R.P. Gillies. This article, it is proper to observe, was a benefaction to Mr. Gillies, whose pecuniary affairs rendered such assistance very desirable. Scott's generosity in this matter—for it was exactly giving a poor brother author £100 at the expense of considerable time and drudgery to himself—I think it necessary to mention; the date of the exertion requires it of me."—Life, vol. ix. pp. 72-3; see Misc. Prose Works, vol. xviii. p. 270.

[514] See note 1, p. 387.

[515] Merry Wives, Act I. Sc. 1.

[516] The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton, by Captain Thomas Hamilton, had just been published anonymously.

[517] Mr. Lockhart adds the following lines:—

(Poems by the Hon. W.R. Spencer, London, 1811, p. 68.) "The best writer of vers de société in our time, and one of the most charming of companions, was exactly Sir Walter's contemporary, and, like him, first attracted notice by a version of Bürger's Lenore. Like him, too, this remarkable man fell into pecuniary distress in the disastrous year 1825, and he was now (1826) an involuntary resident in Paris, where he died in October 1834, anno ætat. 65."—J.G.L.

[518] The following note to Mr. and Mrs. Skene belongs to this day:—

My dear Friends,—I am just returned from Court dreeping like the Water Kelpy when he had finished the Laird of Morphey's Bridge, and am, like that ill-used drudge, disposed to sing—

In fact I have the rheumatism in head and shoulders, and am obliged to deprive myself of the pleasure of waiting upon you to-day to dinner, to my great mortification.—Always yours, WALTER SCOTT.

WALKER STREET,

Friday, 18th May, 1827.

—Skene's Reminiscences.

Border Minstrelsy, vol. iii. pp. 360, 365.

[519] Afterwards (in 1840) eighth Karl of Stair.

[520] 126 Princes Street.

[521] George Dempster of Skibo had just married a daughter of the House of Arniston. This lady has had the singular gratification of listening to these pleasant impressions of a dinner party given in her honour sixty-two years ago, and which she never forgot, nor Sir Walter's talk as he sat next her at table, and with unfeigned kindness devoted himself to her entertainment.

[522] See Life, vol. ix. p. 114.

[523] Coriolanus, Act III. Sc. 3.

[524] Sir Walter varies a verse of The tight little Island.—J.G.L.

[525] The engraving from Raeburn's picture.—See ante, p. 212.

[526] Mr. Robert Hogg relates that during these few days Sir W. and he laboured from six in the morning till the same hour in the evening, with the exception of the intervals allowed for breakfast and lunch, which were served in the room to save time. He noted a striking peculiarity in Scott's dictation, that with the greatest ease he was able to carry on two trains of thought at one time, "one of which was already arranged, and in the act of being spoken, while at the same time he was in advance considering what was afterwards to be said."—See his interesting letter to Mr. Lockhart, Life, vol. ix. pp. 115-117.

[527] Sheridan's Critic, Act I. Sc, 1.

[528] "No sooner had the Sun uttered these words than Fortune, as if she had been playing on a cymbal, began to unwind her wheel, which, whirling about like a hurricane, huddled all the world into an unparalleled confusion. Fortune gave a mighty squeak, saying, 'Fly, wheel, and the devil drive thee.'"—Fortune in her Wits, Quevedo. English trans. (1798), vol. iii. p. 107.

[529] Burns: "On a Scotch Bard, gone to the West Indies."

[530] Vivian Grey, by Benjamin Disraeli, was published anonymously in 5 vols. 12mo, 1826-7.

[531] If the reader turns to December 18, 1825, he will see that this is not the first allusion in the Journal to his "first love,"—an innocent attachment, to which we owe the tenderest pages, not only of Redgauntlet (1824), but of the Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), and of Rokeby (1813). In all these works the heroine has certain distinctive features drawn from one and the same haunting dream. The lady was "Williamina Belches, sole child and heir of a gentleman who was a cadet of the ancient family of Invermay, and who afterwards became Sir John Stuart of Fettercairn." She married Sir William Forbes in 1797 and died in 1810.—Life, vol. i. p. 333; Shairp's Memoirs of Principal Forbes, pp. 4, 5, 8vo, London, 1873, where her portrait, engraved from a miniature, is given.

[532] Hugh Cleghorn had been Professor of Civil History in St. Andrews for ten years, afterwards becoming tutor to the Earl of Home, and subsequently employed by our Government in various foreign missions. A glimpse of his work is obtainable in Southey's Life, of Dr. Andrew Bell. Mr. Cleghorn died in 1833, aged 83.

[533] Count Paul de Rémusat has been good enough to give me another view of this visit which will be read with interest:—"118 Faubourg St. Honoré, February 10, 1890.—.... My father has often spoken to me of this visit to Sir Walter Scott—for it was indeed my father, Charles de Rémusat, member of the French Academy, and successively Minister of the Interior and for Foreign Affairs, who went at the age of thirty to Abbotsford, and he retained to the last days of his life a most lively remembrance of the great novelist who did not acknowledge the authorship of his novels, and to whom it was thus impossible otherwise than indirectly to pay any compliment. It gives me great pleasure to learn that the visit of those young men impressed him favourably. My father's companion was his contemporary and friend, M. Louis de Guizard, who, like my father, was a contributor at that time to the Liberal press of the Restoration, the Globe and La Revue Française, and who, after the Revolution of 1830, entered, as did my father likewise, upon political life. M. de Guizard was first préfet, then député, and after 1848 became Directeur-général des Beaux Arts. He died about 1877 or 1878, after his retirement from public life."

[534] "Woodstock placed upwards of £8000 in the hands of Sir Walter's creditors. The Napoleon (first and second editions) produced for them a sum which it even now startles me to mention—£18,000. As by the time the historical work was published nearly half of the First Series of Chronicles of the Canongate had been written, it is obvious that the amount to which Scott's literary industry, from the close of 1825 to the 10th of June 1827, had diminished his debt, cannot be stated at less than £28,000. Had health been spared him, how soon must he have freed himself from all his encumbrances!"—J.G.L.

[535] See Life, vol. vi. p. 89. In Mr. Ballantyne's Memorandum, there is a fuller account of the mode in which The Bride of Lammermoor, The Legend of Montrose, and almost the whole of Ivanhoe were produced, and the mental phenomenon which accompanied the preparation of the first-named work:—

"During the progress of composing The Heart of Midlothian, The Bride of Lammermoor, and Legend of Montrose—a period of many months—Mr. Scott's health had become extremely indifferent, and was often supposed to place him in great danger. But it would hardly be credited, were it not for the notoriety of the fact, that although one of the symptoms of his illness was pain of the most acute description, yet he never allowed it to interrupt his labours. The only difference it produced, that I am aware of, was its causing him to employ the hand of an amanuensis in place of his own. Indeed, during the greater part of the day at this period he was confined to his bed. The person employed for this purpose was the respectable and intelligent Mr. Wm. Laidlaw, who acted for him in this capacity in the country, and I think also attended him to town. I have often been present with Mr. Laidlaw during the short intervals of his labour, and it was deeply affecting to hear the account he gave of his patron's severe sufferings, and the indomitable spirit which enabled him to overmaster them. He told me that very often the dictation of Caleb Balderston's and the old cooper's best jokes was mingled with groans extorted from him by pains; but that when he, Mr. L., endeavoured to prevail upon him to take a little respite, the only answer he could obtain from Mr. Scott was a request that he would see that the doors were carefully shut, so that the expressions of his agony might not reach his family—'As to stopping work, Laidlaw,' he said, 'you know that is wholly out of the question.' What followed upon these exertions, made in circumstances so very singular, appears to me to exhibit one of the most singular chapters in the history of the human intellect. The book having been published before Mr. Scott was able to rise from his bed, he assured me that, when it was put into his hands, he did not recollect one single incident, character, or conversation it contained. He by no means desired me to understand, nor did I understand, that his illness had erased from his memory all or any of the original family facts with which he had been acquainted from the period probably of his boyhood. These of course remained rooted where they had ever been, or, to speak more explicitly, where explicitness is so entirely important, he remembered the existence of the father and mother, the son and daughter, the rival lovers, the compulsory marriage, and the attack made by his bride upon the unhappy bridegroom, with the general catastrophe of the whole. All these things he recollected, just as he did before he took to his bed, but the marvel is that he recollected literally nothing else—not a single character woven by the Romancer—not one of the many scenes and points of exquisite humour, nor anything with which he was connected as writer of the work. 'For a long time I felt myself very uneasy,' he said, 'in the course of my reading, always kept on the qui vive lest I should be startled by something altogether glaring and fantastic; however, I recollected that the printing had been performed by James Ballantyne, who I was sure would not have permitted anything of this sort to pass.' 'Well,' I said, 'upon the whole, how did you like it?' 'Oh,' he said, 'I felt it monstrous gross and grotesque, to be sure, but still the worst of it made me laugh, and I trusted therefore the good-natured public would not be less indulgent.' I do not think that I ever ventured to lead to this singular subject again. But you may depend upon it, that what I have said is as distinctly reported as if it had been taken down at the moment in shorthand. I should not otherwise have imparted the phenomenon at all."—Mr. Ballantyne's MSS.

[536] Mr. Lockhart says:—"My wife and I spent the summer of 1827 partly at a sea-bathing place near Edinburgh, and partly in Roxburghshire. The arrival of his daughter and her children at Portobello was a source of constant refreshment to him during June, for every other day he came down and dined there, and strolled about afterwards on the beach, thus interrupting, beneficially for his health, and I doubt not for the result of his labours also, the new custom of regular night-work, or, as he called it, serving double tides."

[537] See Swift, "Mary the cook to Dr. Sheridan."

[538] The answer is printed in the Scott Centenary Catalogue by David Laing, from which the following extracts are given:—

"The expression of the old metrical translation, though homely, is plain, forcible, and intelligible, and very often possesses a rude sort of majesty, which perhaps would be ill-exchanged for mere elegance." "They are the very words and accents of our early Reformers—sung by them in woe and gratitude, in the fields, in the churches, and on the scaffold." "The parting with this very association of ideas is a serious loss to the cause of devotion, and scarce to be incurred without the certainty of corresponding advantages. But if these recollections are valuable to persons of education, they are almost indispensable to the edification of the lower ranks whose prejudices do not permit them to consider as the words of the inspired poetry, the versions of living or modern poets, but persist, however absurdly, in identifying the original with the ancient translation."—p. 158.

[539] Sir James Stuart, the last baronet of Allanbank.

[540] "The Life of Bonaparte, then, was at last published about the middle of June 1827."—Life, ix. 117.

[541] Archdeacon Williams, Rector of the New Edinburgh Academy from 1824 to 1847.

[542] Among the letters which Sir Walter found time to write before leaving Edinburgh, was one to congratulate his old and true friend Mrs. Coutts on her marriage, which took place on the 16th of June. That letter has not been preserved, but it drew from her Grace the following reply:—

"My dear Sir Walter Scott,—Your most welcome letter has 'wandered mony a weary mile after me.' Thanks, many thanks for all your kind congratulations. I am a Duchess at last, that is certain, but whether I am the better for it remains to be proved. The Duke is very amiable, gentle, and well-disposed, and I am sure he has taken pains enough to accomplish what he says has been the first wish of his heart for the last three years. All this is very flattering to an old lady, and we lived so long in friendship with each other that I was afraid I should be unhappy if I did not say I will—yet (whisper it, dear Sir Walter) the name of Coutts—and a right good one it is—is, and ever will be, dear to my heart. What a strange, eventful life has mine been, from a poor little player child, with just food and clothes to cover me, dependent on a very precarious profession, without talent or a friend in the world! 'to have seen what I have seen, seeing what I see.' Is it not wonderful? is it true? can I believe it?—first the wife of the best, the most perfect, being that ever breathed, his love and unbounded confidence in me, his immense fortune so honourably acquired by his own industry, all at my command, ... and now the wife of a Duke. You must write my life; the History of Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant Killer, and Goody Two Shoes, will sink compared with my true history written by the Author of Waverley; and that you may do it well I have sent you an inkstand. Pray give it a place on your table in kind remembrance of your affectionate friend,

"HARRIETT ST. ALBANS.

"STRATTON STREET, July 16th, 1827."

[543] Next morning the following pleasant little billet was despatched to Kaeside:—

"My dear Mr. Laidlaw, I would be happy if you would come at kail-time to-day. Napoleon (6000 copies) is sold for £11,000.—Yours truly,

"Sunday. W.S."

—Abbotsford Notanda, by R. Carruthers, Edin. 1871.