Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XLII

Mr. Terry produced, in the spring of 1816, a dramatic piece, entitled Guy Mannering, which met with great success on the London boards, and still continues to be a favorite with the theatrical public. What share the novelist himself had in this first specimen of what he used to call "the art of Terryfying," I cannot exactly say; but his correspondence shows that the pretty song of the Lullaby[30] was not his only contribution to it; and I infer that he had taken the trouble to modify the plot, and rearrange, for stage purposes, a considerable part of the original dialogue. The casual risk of discovery, through the introduction of the song which had, in the mean time, been communicated to one of his humble friends, the late Mr. Alexander Campbell,[31] editor of Albyn's Anthology—(commonly known at Abbotsford as, by way of excellence, The Dunniewassal,)—and Scott's suggestions on that difficulty will amuse the reader of the following letter:—