Volume 2 — INDEX. (continued 2)

Hor. Lib. iii Od. 23.—J.G.L.

"I cannot repress the strong desire I have to express my regret at some parts of your kind letter just received. I shall lament most truly a purple article at this moment, when a strong, plain, moderate statement, not railing at Catholics and their religion, but reprobating the conduct of the Irish Catholics, and pointing out the necessary effects which that conduct must have on the Catholic Question, would have a powerful effect, and might really serve king and country. Nothing the agitators desire so much as to render the broil general, as a quarrel between Catholic and Protestant; nothing so essential to the Protestant cause as to confine it to its real causes. Southey, as much a fanatic as e'er a Catholic of them all, will, I fear, pass this most necessary landmark of debate. I like his person, admire his genius, and respect his immense erudition, but—non omnia. In point of reasoning and political judgment he is a perfect Harpado—nothing better than a wild bull. The circumstances require the interference of vir gravis pietate et moribus, and you bring it a Highland piper to blow a Highland charge, the more mischievous that it possesses much wild power of inflaming the passions.

"Your idea that you must give Southey his swing in this matter or he will quit the Review,—this is just a pilot saying, If I do not give the helm to such a passenger he will quit the ship. Let him quit and be d—d.

"My own confidence is, you know, entirely in the D. As Bruce said to the Lord of the Isles at Bannockburn, 'My faith is constant in thee.' Now a hurly-burly charge may derange his line of battle, and therein be of the most fatal consequence. For God's sake avail yourself of the communication I opened while in town, and do not act without it. Send this to the D. of W. If you will, he will appreciate the motives that dictate it. If he approves of a calm, moderate, but firm statement, stating the unreasonable course pursued by the Catholics as the great impediment to their own wishes, write such an article yourself; no one can make a more impressive appeal to common sense than you can.

"The circumstances of the times are—must be—an apology for disappointing Southey. But nothing can be an apology for indulging him at the expense of aggravating public disturbance, which, for one, I see with great apprehension.

"It has not yet come our length; those [to] whom you allude ought certainly to be served, but the D. is best judge how they may be best served. If the D. says nothing on the subject you can slip your Derwentwater greyhound if you like. I write hastily, but most anxiously. ... I repeat that I think it possible to put the Catholic Question as it now stands in a light which the most zealous of their supporters in this country cannot but consider as fair, while the result would be that the Question should not be granted at all under such guarantees; but I think this is scarce to be done by inflaming the topic with all mutual virulence of polemical discussion."

"DEAR SIR WALTER,—I pass over all those disastrous events that have arrived to us both since our last, as you justly call it, melancholy parting, to assure you how delighted I shall be if I can in the most inconsiderable degree assist in the illustrations of the great work, which we all hope may lighten or remove that load of troubles by which your noble spirit is at this time beset; considering it as only repaying a debt of obligation which you yourself have laid upon me when, with an unseen hand in the Antiquary, you took me up and claimed me, the humble painter of domestic sorrow, as your countryman."

"I had not time to write more than a line the other day under Croker's cover, having received it just at post time. He sent for me; I found him in his nightcap at the Admiralty, colded badly, but in audacious spirits. His business was this. The Duke of W[ellingto]n finds himself without one newspaper he can depend on. He wishes to buy up some evening print, such as the dull Star; and could I do anything for it? I said I was as well inclined to serve the Duke as he could be, but it must be in other fashion. He then said he agreed with me—but there was a second question: Could I find them an editor, and undertake to communicate between them and him—in short, save the Treasury the inconvenience of maintaining an avowed intercourse with the Newspaper press? He said he himself had for some years done this—then others. I said I would endeavour to think of a man for their turn and would call on him soon again.

"I have considered the matter at leisure, and resolve to have nothing to do with it. They CAN only want me as a writer. Any understrapper M.P. would do well enough for carrying hints to a newspaper office, and I will not, even to secure the Duke, mix myself up with the newspapers. That work it is which has damned Croker, and I can't afford to sacrifice the advantage which I feel I have gained in these later years by abstaining altogether from partisan scribbling, or to subject the Quarterly to risk of damage. The truth is, I don't admire, after all that has come and gone, being applied to through the medium of friend Crokey. I hope you will approve of my resolution."

In three volumes. Edinburgh: Printed for Cadell & Co., Edinburgh; and Simpkin & Marshall, London, 1829. (At the end) Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne & Company, Paul's Work, Canongate."

As a contrast to the criticisms of the printer and publisher, and a comment upon the author's own apprehensions, the subjoined extract from a letter written by Mr. G.P.R. James may be given:—"When I first read Anne of Geierstein I will own that the multitude of surpassing beauties which it contained frightened me, but I find that after having read it the public mind required to be let gently down from the tone of excitement to which it had been raised, and was contented to pause at my book (Richelieu), as a man who has been enjoying a fine prospect from a high hill stops before he reaches the valley to take another look, though half the beauty be already lost.... You cannot think how I long to acquit myself of the obligations which I lie under towards you, but I am afraid that fortune, who has given you both the will and the power to confer such great favours upon me, has not in any degree enabled me to aid or assist you in return."

The tree is still flourishing [1889], and the belief in its sympathy with the family is not yet extinct, as an old forester, on seeing a large branch fall from it on a quiet still day in July 1874, exclaimed, "The laird's deed noo!" and accordingly news came soon after that Fox Maule, 11th Earl of Dalhousie, had died.

"My DEAR SIR THOMAS,—I received your kind letter and interesting communication yesterday, and hasten to reply. I am ashamed of the limited hospitality I was able to offer Mr. Lauder, but circumstances permitted me no more. I was much pleased with his lively and intelligent manners, and hope he will live to be a comfort and a credit to Lady Lauder and you.

"I need not say I have the greatest interest in the MS. which you mention. In case it shall really prove an authentic document, there would not be the least difficulty in getting the Bannatyne Club to take, perhaps, 100 copies, or obtaining support enough so as, at the least, to preclude the possibility of loss to the ingenious Messrs. Hay Allan. But I think it indispensable that the original MS. should be sent for a month or so to the Register House under the charge of the Deputy Register, Mr. Thomson, that its antiquity be closely scrutinised by competent persons. The art of imitating ancient writing has got to a considerable perfection, and it has been the bane of Scottish literature, and disgrace of her antiquities, that we have manifested an eager propensity to believe without inquiry and propagate the errors which we adopt too hastily ourselves. The general proposition that the Lowlanders ever wore plaids is difficult to swallow. They were of twenty different races, and almost all distinctly different from the Scots Irish, who are the proper Scots, from which the Royal Family are descended. For instance, there is scarce a great family in the Lowlands of Scotland that is not to be traced to the Normans, the proudest as well as most civilised race in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Is it natural to think that holding the Scots in the contempt in which they did, they would have adopted their dress? If you will look at Bruce's speech to David I., as the historian Ælred tells the story, you will see he talks of the Scots as a British officer would do of Cherokees. Or take our country, the central and western part of the border: it was British, Welsh if you please, with the language and manners of that people who certainly wore no tartan. It is needless to prosecute this, though I could show, I think, that there is no period in Scottish History when the manners, language, or dress of the Highlanders were adopted in the Low Country. They brought them with them from Ireland, as you will see from the very curious prints in Derrick's picture of Ireland, where you see the chiefs and followers of the wild Irish in the ordinary Highland dress, tempore Queen Elizabeth. Besides this, where has slept this universal custom that nowhere, unless in this MS., is it even heard of? Lesley knew it not, though the work had been in his possession, and his attention must have been called to it when writing concerning the three races of Scots—Highlanders, Lowlanders, and Bordermen, and treating of their dress in particular. Andrew Borde knows nothing of it, nor the Frenchman who published the geographical work from which Pinkerton copied the prints of the Highlander and Lowlander, the former in a frieze plaid or mantle, while the Lowlander struts away in a cloak and trunk hose, liker his neighbour the Fleming. I will not state other objections, though so many occur, that the authenticity of the MS. being proved, I would rather suppose the author had been some tartan-weaver zealous for his craft, who wished to extend the use of tartan over the whole kingdom. I have been told, and believe till now, that the use of tartan was never general in Scotland (Lowlands) until the Union, when the detestation of that measure led it to be adopted as the national colour, and the ladies all affected tartan screens or mantles.

"Now, a word to your own private ear, my dear Sir Thomas. I have understood that the Messrs. Hay Allan are young men of talent, great accomplishments, enthusiasm for Scottish manners, and an exaggerating imagination, which possibly deceives even themselves. I myself saw one of these gentlemen wear the Badge of High Constable of Scotland, which he could have no more right to wear than the Crown. Davidoff used also to amuse us with stories of knighthoods and orders which he saw them wear at Sir William Cumming Gordon's. Now this is all very well, and I conceive people may fall into such dreaming habits easily enough, and be very agreeable and talented men in other respects, and may be very amusing companions in the country, but their authority as antiquaries must necessarily be a little apocryphal when the faith of MSS. rests upon their testimony. An old acquaintance of mine, Captain Watson of the navy, told me he knew these gentlemen's father, and had served with him; he was lieutenant, and of or about Captain Watson's age, between sixty I suppose, and seventy at present. Now what chance was there that either from age or situation he should be receiving gifts from the young Chevalier of Highland Manuscripts.

"All this, my dear Sir Thomas, you will make your own, but I cannot conceal from you my reasons, because I would wish you to know my real opinion. If it is an imitation, it is a very good one, but the title 'Liber Vestiarium' is false Latin I should think not likely to occur to a Scotsman of Buchanan's age. Did you look at the watermark of the MS.? If the Manuscript be of undeniable antiquity, I consider it as a great curiosity, and most worthy to be published. But I believe nothing else than ocular inspection will satisfy most cautious antiquaries....—Yours, my dear Sir Thomas, always,

WALTER SCOTT."

"EDINBURGH, 5 June 1829."

The Messrs. Hay Allan subsequently took the names of John Sobieski Stuart (who assumed the title of Comte d'Albanie) and Charles Edward Stuart. John Sobieski died in 1872, and Charles Edward in 1880. The "original" of Sir Richard Forrester's manuscript was never submitted to the inspection of the Deputy Register, as suggested by Scott; but it was published in a very handsome shape a dozen years later, and furnished a text for an article in the Quarterly, in which the authenticity of the book, and the claims of the author and his brother, were unsparingly criticised by the late Professor Skene of Glasgow.—See "The Heirs of the Stuarts" in Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxii.

"EDIN. Sept. 1, 1829.

"MY DEAR SIR WALTER,—I greet you well (which, by the way, is the proper mode of salutation in this cursed weather, that is enough to make us all greet). But to come to my proposal, which is to forward to you a communication I had within these few days from Sir Robert Horne Dalrymple Elphinstone.

"After expressing the great pleasure the perusal of your notes to the new edition of the Novels had given him, he adds: 'I wish you would give him a hint of what I formerly mentioned to you regarding my great-grandaunt and your own relative, the unfortunate Bride of Lammermoor. It was first mentioned to me by Miss Maitland, the daughter of Lady Rothes (they were the nearest neighbours of the Stair family in Wigtownshire), and I afterwards heard the tradition from others in that country. It was to the following effect, that when, after the noise and violent screaming in the bridal chamber, comparative stillness succeeded, and the door was forced, the window was found open, and it was supposed by many that the lover (Lord Rutherford) had, by the connivance of some of the servants, found means, during the bustle of the marriage feast, to secrete himself within the apartment, and that soon after the entry of the married pair, or at least as soon as the parents and others retreated and the door was made fast, he had come out from his concealment, attacked and desperately wounded the bridegroom, and then made his escape by the window through the garden. As the unfortunate bride never spoke after having uttered the words mentioned by Sir Walter, no light could be thrown on the matter by them. But it was thought that Bucklaw's obstinate silence on the subject favoured the supposition of the chastisement having been inflicted by his rival. It is but fair to give the unhappy victim (who was by all accounts a most gentle and feminine creature) the benefit of an explanation on a doubtful point.'

"So far my worthy friend, who seems a little jealous of the poor bride's reputation. I send you his note, and you can make what you like of it. I am intending a little jaunt to his country, and we mean to visit sundry old castles in Aberdeenshire, and wish you were of the party. I have heard nothing of Linton [cognomen for Sir Adam Ferguson] this summer. I hope you have been passing your time agreeably.—With best compliments to all friends, I remain, my dear Sir Walter, ever yours,

"WM. CLERK."

April 25th, 1829.

"My DEAR SCOTT,—It goes to my heart to bother you, knowing how bravely and gloriously you are employed for that task-mistress—Posterity. But you may thank your stars that I have let you off so long. All that you promised me about Mrs. Gordon and Gicht, and a variety of other things, is remitted to you; but I positively must have something from you of your recollections personally of Byron—and that as soon as possible, for I am just coming to the period of your acquaintance with him, which was, I think, in the year 1814. Tell me all the particulars of the presents you exchanged, and if his letters to you are really all lost (which I will still hope is not the case); try, as much as possible, with your memory

"You will have seen by the newspapers the sad loss my little circle of home has experienced, a loss never to be made up to us in this world, whatever it may be the will of God in another. Mrs. Moore's own health is much broken, and she is about to try what Cheltenham can do for her, while I proceed to finish my printing in town. It would be far better for me to remain in my present quiet retreat, where I am working quite alone, but the devils beckon me nearer them, and I must begin in a few days. Direct to me, under cover to Croker—you see I take for granted you will have a packet to send—and he will always know where to find me.

"My kindest remembrances to Miss Scott, and believe me ever, my very dear friend, your truly and affectionate,

"THOS. MOORE."

The "memoranda" were not acknowledged by Moore till Oct. 31, when he wrote Scott as follows:—

"MY DEAR SCOTT,—I ought to blush 'terrestrial rosy-red, shame's proper hue' for not sooner acknowledging your precious notes about Byron. One conclusion, however, you might have drawn from my silence, namely, that I was satisfied, and had all that I asked for. Your few pages indeed will be the best ornament of my book. Murray wished me to write to you (immediately on receipt of the last MS. you sent me) to press your asking Hobhouse for the letter of your own (in 1812) that produced Byron's reply. But I was doubtful whether you would like to authorise the publication of this letter, and besides it would be now too late, as the devils are in full hue and cry after my heels.

"Health and prosperity to you, my dear friend, and believe me, ever yours most truly,

"THOMAS MOORE."

"MY DEAR SKENE,—I enclose you Basil Hall's letter, which is very interesting to me; but I would rather decline fixing the attention of the public further on my old friend George Constable. You know the modern rage for publication, and it might serve some newsmen's purpose by publishing something about my old friend, who was an humourist, which may be unpleasing to his friends and surviving relations.

"I did not think on Craignethan in writing about Tillietudlem, and I believe it differs in several respects from my Chateau en Espagne. It is not on the Clyde in particular, and, if I recollect, the view is limited and wooded. But that can be no objection to adopting it as that which public taste has adopted as coming nearest to the ideal of the place. Of the places in the Black Dwarf, Meiklestane Moor, Ellislie, Earnscliffe, are all and each vox et, praeterea nihil. Westburnflat once was a real spot, now there is no subject for the pencil. The vestiges of a tower at the junction of two wild brooks with a rude hillside, are all that are subjects for the pencil, and they are very poor ones. Earnscliffe and Ganderscleuch are also visions.

"I hope your work is afloat^[B] and sailing bobbishly. I have not heard of or seen it.

"Rob Roy has some good and real subjects, as the pass at Loch Ard, the beautiful fall at Ledeard, near the head of the lake. Let me know all you desire to be informed without fear of bothering. Kindest compliments to Mrs. Skene and the young folks.—Always yours entirely, WALTER SCOTT."

"Anne would tell you of an awkward sort of fit I had on Monday last; it lasted about five minutes, during which I lost the power of articulation, or rather of speaking what I wished to say. I revived instantly, but submitted to be bled, and to keep the house for a week, except exercising walks. They seem to say it is from the stomach. It may or may not be a paralytic affection. We must do the best we can in either event. I think by hard work I will have all my affairs regulated within five or six years, and leave the means of clearing them in case of my death. I hope there will be enough for all, and provision besides for my own family. The present return of the novels to me is about £8000 a year, which moves fast on to clear off old scores.

"This awkward turn of health makes my motions very uncertain. On the one hand I want to save money and push forward work, both which motives urge me to stay at home this spring. On the other, besides my great wish to see you all, and besides my desire to look at the 'forty-five' affairs, I am also desirous to put in for my interest upon the changes at the Court.... It must be very much as health and weather shall determine, for if I see the least chance of a return of this irritation, my own house will be the only fit place for me. Do not suppose I am either low-spirited or frightened at the possibilities I calculate upon, but there is no harm in looking at what may be as what needs must be. I really believe the ugly symptoms proceed from the stomach particularly. I feel, thank God, no mental injury, which is most of all to be deprecated. Still, I am a good deal failed in body within these two or three last years, and the singula praedantur come by degrees to make up a sum. They say, 'Do not work,' but my habits are such that it is not easily managed, for I would be driven mad with idleness.... Adieu. Love to all. The odds are greatly against my seeing you till you come down here, but I will have the cottage in such order for you; and as Will Laidlaw comes back at Whitsunday, I will have him to lend me an arm to Chiefswood, and I have no doubt to do gallantly.

"EDINBURGH, 22d February [1830]."

"Your letter, this day received, namely Wednesday, gave me the greatest pleasure on account of the prosperous intelligence which it gives me of your own advancing prospects.... I take it for granted that you have looked to the income of future years before thinking of disposing of the profits of a successful one in a manner which cannot be supposed to produce positive Or direct advantage, but may rather argue some additional degree of expense.

"But this being premeesed, I cannot help highly approving of your going into Parliament, especially as a member entirely unfettered and left to act according to the weal of the public, or what you conceive such. It is the broad turnpike to importance and consequence which you, as a man of talents in the full vigour of your youth, ought naturally to be ambitious of. The present times threaten to bring in many occasions when there will and must be opportunities of a man distinguishing himself and serving his country.

"To go into the House without speaking would be useless. I will frankly tell you that when I heard you speak you seemed always sufficiently up to the occasion both in words and matter, but too indifferent in the manner in which you pressed your argument, and therefore far less likely to attract attention than if you had seemed more earnestly persuaded of the truth and importance of what you have been saying. I think you may gain advantage from taking this hint. No one is disposed to weigh any man's arguments more favourably than he himself does, and if you are not considered as gravely interested in what you say, and conscious of its importance, your audience will not be so....

"EDINBURGH, 20th May 1830."

"DEAR SKENE,—I observe from the papers that our invaluable friend is no more. I have reason to think, that as I surmised when I saw him last, the interval has been a melancholy one, at least to those who had to watch the progress. I never expected to see his kind face more, after I took leave of him in Charlotte Square; yet the certainty that such must be the case is still a painful shock, as I can never hope again to meet, during the remaining span of my own life, a friend in whom high talents for the business of life were more happily mingled with all those affections which form the dearest part of human intercourse. In that respect I believe his like hardly is to be found. I hope Mrs. Skene and you will make my assurance of deep sympathy, of which they know it is expressed by a friend of poor Colin of fifty years' standing.

"I hope my young friend, his son, will keep his father's example before his eyes. His best friend cannot wish him a better model.

"I am just setting off to the West for a long-promised tour of a week. I shall be at Abbotsford after Monday, 27th current, and I hope Mrs. Skene and you, with some of our young friends, will do us the pleasure to come here for a few days. We see how separations may happen among friends, and should not neglect the opportunity of being together while we can. Besides, entre nous, it is time to think what is to be done about the Society, as the time of my retirement draws nigh, and I am determined, at whatever loss, not to drag out the last sands of my life in that sand-cart of a place, the Parliament House. I think it hurt poor Colin. This is, however, subject for future consideration, as I have not breathed a syllable about resigning the Chair to any one, but it must soon follow as a matter of course.^[C]

"Should you think of writing to let me know how the distressed family are, you may direct, during the beginning of next week, to Drumlanrig, Thornhill, Dumfriesshire.

"My kind love attends my dear Mrs. Skene, girls, boys, and all the family, and I am, always yours,

"WALTER SCOTT.

"ABBOTSFORD, 18th September [1830]."

"November, 1830.

"MY DEAR SCOTT,—... I am sorry to read what you tell me of your lameness, but legs are not so obedient to many of us at our age as they were twenty years ago, non immunes ab illis malis sumus, as the learned Partridge and Lilly's Grammar tells us. I find mine swell, and am forced to bandage, and should not exert them with impunity in walking as I used to do, either in long walks or in rough ground. I am glad, however, you have escaped from the Court of Session, even at the risk of sometimes feeling the want you allude to of winter society. You think you shall tire of solitude in these months: and in spite of books and the love of them, I have discovered by experience the possibility of such a feeling; but can we not in some degree remedy this? Why should we both be within two days' march of each other and not sometimes together, as of old? How I have enjoyed in your house the summum bonum of Sir Wm. Temple's philosophy, 'something which is not Home and yet with the liberty of Home, which is not Solitude, and yet hath the ease of Solitude, and which is only found in the house of an old friend.' Our summer months are well provided with summer friends. You have plenty and to spare of sightseers, Lions, and their hunters, and I have travellers, moor-shooters, etc., in equal abundance, but now when the country is abandoned, and Walter is leaving you, how I wish you would bring dear Anne and partake for a while our little circle here—we stir not till Christmas—if before that time such a pleasure could be attainable. Well, then, for auld lang syne, will you not, now that the Session has no claim on you, combine our forces against the possibility of ennui. If you will do this, I will positively, and in good faith, hold myself in readiness to do as much by you in the next November, and in every alternate November, nor shall the month ever pass without bringing us together. Do not tell me, as Wm. Rose would not fail to do if I gave him so good an opportunity, that my proposal would be a greater bore than the solitude it destroyed. It shall be no such thing, but only the trouble of a journey. I feel too, as I grow older, the vis inertiæ, and fancy that locomotion is more difficult, but let us abjure the doctrine, for it baulks much pleasure. Pray—pray as the children say—come to us, think of it first as not impossible, then weigh fairly the objections, and if they resolve themselves into mere aversion to change, overcome them by an assurance that the very change will give value to the resumption of your home avocations. If I plead thus strongly, perhaps it is because I feel the advantage to myself. Time has made gaps in the list of old friends as in yours; young ones, though very cheering and useful, are not, and cannot be, the same. I enjoy them too when present, but in absence I regret the others. What remains but to make the most of those we have still left when both body and mind permit us [to enjoy] them. I have books; also a room that shall [be your own], and a [pony] off which I can shoot, which I will engage shall neither tumble himself or allow you to tumble in any excursion on which you may venture. Dear Anne will find and make my womenkind as happy as you will make me, and we have only to beg you to stay long and be most cordially welcome. ... Adieu, dear Scott. I fear you will not come for all I can say. I could almost lose a tooth or a finger (if it were necessary) to find myself mistaken. Come, and come soon; stay long; be assured of welcome.

"All unite in this and in love to you and Anne, with your assured friend,

J.B. MORRITT."

"MY DEAR SKENE,—I have had no very pleasant news to send you, as I know it will give Mrs. Skene and you pain to know that I am suffering under a hundred little ailments which have greatly encroached upon the custom of the season which I used to take. On this I could say much, but it is better to leave alone what must be said with painful feeling, and you would be vexed with reading.

"One thing I will put to rights with all others respecting my little personal affairs. I am putting [in order] this house with what it contains, and as Walter will probably be anxious to have a memorial of my better days, I intend to beg you and my dear Mrs. Skene ... to have it [the picture] copied by such an artist as you should approve of, to supply the blank which must then be made on your hospitable walls with the shadow of a shade. If the opportunity should occur of copying the picture to your mind, I will be happy to have the copy as soon as possible. You must not think that I am nervous or foolishly apprehensive that I take these precautions. They are necessary and right, and if one puts off too long, we sometimes are unfit for the task when we desire to take it up....

"When the weather becomes milder, I hope Mrs. Skene and you, and some of the children, will come out to brighten the chain of friendship with your truly faithful,

WALTER SCOTT.

"ABBOTSFORD, 16 January 1831."

—Life, vol. x. p. 37.

It was said of her by one who knew her well—

"She lived to a great age, dispensing kindness and benevolence to the last, and cheered in the sore infirmities of her later years by the love of friends of all ranks, and all parties of all ages.

"The Living Lamp of Lothian, which from Winton, has so long shed its beneficent lustre, has been extinguished, but not so will be lost the memory of the gifted lady, for by not a few will still be cherished the recollection of her noble nature, and of her Christian life."

Lady Ruthven prized the picture referred to. She would not, as Sir Francis Grant relates,^[D] permit him to touch the canvas after it left the Abbotsford studio; and it remained a cherished possession which she took pride in showing to appreciative guests, pointing out the details of face and form which she still saw with that inner eye, which time had not darkened.

It is now in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland—bequeathed to the nation with other pictures, as well as the magnificent collection of Greek archaeological objects gathered by herself and Lord Ruthven in their early married life. She was born in 1789, and died in 1885.

"When you can take an hour to think of this, I will be glad to hear from you.... I am in possession of five or six manuscripts, copies, or large extracts, taken under my own eyes. Croker thinks, and I am of his opinion, that if there was room for a personal narrative of the character, it would answer admirably."

"On referring to my Diary for the year 1831 I find the following entry: 'This Spring, on 31st April, I went with my father to Abbotsford and left on Sir Walter Scott being taken ill.' The date here given for my visit does not correspond with that in Sir Walter's Diary, but, as there are only thirty days in April it has evidently been written by mistake for the 13th. I had just attained my twenty-first year, and as such a visit at that early age was a great event in my life, I retain a very distinct recollection of the main features of it. I recollect that Lord Meadowbank and his eldest son Alan came at the same time, and the dinner party, at which Mr. Pringle of the Haining and his brother were present. The day after our arrival Sir Walter asked me to drive with him. We went in his open carriage to the Yarrow, where we got out, and Sir Walter, leaning on my arm, walked up the side of the river, pouring forth a continuous stream of anecdotes, traditions, and scraps of ballads. I was in the seventh heaven of delight, and thought I had never spent such a day. On Sunday Sir Walter did not come down to breakfast, but sent a message to say that he had caught cold and had taken some medicine for it the night before, which had made him ill, and would remain in bed. When we sat at either lunch or dinner, I do not recollect which, Sir Walter walked into the room and sat down near the table, but ate nothing. He seemed in a dazed state, and took no notice of any one, but after a few minutes' silence, during which his daughter Anne, who was at table, and was watching him with some anxiety, motioned to us to take no notice, he began in a quiet voice to tell us a story of a pauper lunatic, who, fancying he was a rich man, and was entertaining all sorts of high persons to the most splendid banquets, communicated to his doctor in confidence that there was one thing that troubled him much, and which he could not account for, and that was that all these exquisite dishes seemed to him to taste of oatmeal porridge. Sir Walter told this with much humour, and after a few minutes' silence began again, and told the same story over a second time, and then again a third time.^[E] His daughter, who was watching him with increasing anxiety, then motioned to us to rise from table, and persuaded her father to return to his bedroom. Next day the doctor, who had been sent for, told us that he was seriously ill, and advised that his guests should leave at once, so that the house might be kept quiet and his daughter devote herself entirely to the care of her father. We accordingly left at once, and I never saw Sir Walter again. I still, however, retain a memorial of my visit. I had fallen into indifferent health in the previous year, and been recommended Highland air. By Sir Walter's advice I was sent to live with a friend of his, the Reverend Doctor Macintosh Mackay, then minister of Laggan, in the Inverness-shire Highlands, and had passed my time learning from him the Gaelic language. This excited in me a taste for Celtic Antiquities, and finding in Sir Walter's Library a copy of O'Connor's Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores veteres, I sat up one night transcribing from it the Annals of Tighernac. This transcript is still in my library.—WILLIAM F. SKENE.

"This stone was erected by the Author of Waverley to the memory of Helen Walker, who died in the year of God 1791. This humble individual practised in real life the virtues with which fiction has invested the imaginary character of Jeanie Deans; refusing the slightest departure from veracity, even to save the life of a sister, she nevertheless showed her kindness and fortitude, in rescuing her from the severity of the law, at the expense of personal exertions, which the time rendered as difficult as the motive was laudable. Respect the grave of Poverty when combined with the love of Truth and dear affection."

It is well known that on the publication of Old Mortality many people were offended by what was considered a caricature of the Covenanters, and that Dr. M'Crie, the biographer of Knox, wrote a series of papers in the Edinburgh Christian Instructor, which Scott affected to despise, and said he would not read. He not only was obliged to read the articles, but found it necessary to inspire or write an elaborate defence of the truth of his own picture of the Covenanters in the Number for January 1817 of the Quarterly Review.

In June 1818, however, he made ample amends, and won the hearts of all classes of his countrymen by his beautiful pictures of national character in the Heart of Midlothian.

It is worth noticing also that ten years later, viz., in December 1828, his friend Richardson having written that in the Tales of a Grandfather "You have paid a debt which you owed to the manes of the Covenanters for the flattering picture which you drew of Claverhouse in Old Mortality. His character is inconceivable to me: the atrocity of his murder of those peasants, as undauntedly devoted to their own good cause as himself to his, his personal (almost hangman-like) superintendence of their executions, are wholly irreconcilable with a chivalrous spirit, which, however scornful of the lowly, could never, in my mind, be cruel," Scott, in reply, gave his matured opinion in the following words:—

"As to Covenanters and Malignants, they were both a set of cruel and bloody bigots, and had, notwithstanding, those virtues with which bigotry is sometimes allied. Their characters were of a kind much more picturesque than beautiful; neither had the least idea either of toleration or humanity, so that it happens that, so far as they can be distinguished from each other, one is tempted to hate most the party which chances to be uppermost for the time."

"I have got a key to the conjuring story of Alexandria and Grand Cairo. I have seen very distinct letters of Sir John Stoddart's son, who attended three of the formal exhibitions which broke down, though they were repeated afterwards with success. Young Stoddart is an excellent Arabian scholar—an advantage which I understand is more imperfectly enjoyed by Lord Prudhoe and Colonel Felix. Much remains to be explained, but the boldness of the attempt exceeds anything since the days of the Automaton chess-player, or the Bottle conjurer. The first time Shakespeare was evoked he appeared in the complexion of an Arab. This seems to have been owing to the first syllable of his name, which resembled the Arabian word Sheik, and suggested the idea of an Arabian chief to the conjurer. A gentleman named Galloway has bought the secret, and talks of being frightened. There can be little doubt that, having so far interested himself, it would become his interest to put the conjurer more up to the questions likely to be asked. So he was more perfect when consulted by Lord Prudhoe than at first, when he made various blunders, and when we must needs say falsum in uno falsum in omnibus. As all this will come out one day, I have no wish to mingle in the controversy.... There are still many things to explain, but I think the mystery is unearthed completely."

See also Lane's Egyptians for an account of what appears to be the same man in 1837. Also Quarterly Review, No. 117, pp. 196-208, for an examination of this "Magic Mirror" exhibition.

Talleyrand said to the Duke during the Reform Bill troubles, "Duke of Wellington, you have seen a great deal of the world. Can you point out to me any one place in Europe where an old man could go to and be quite sure of being safe and dying in peace?"—Stanhope Notes, p. 224.

For Scott's high opinion of Frere, as far back as 1804, see Life, vol. ii. p. 207 and note.

The pension from the Society or the Privy Purse of George iv., which Mr. Hookham Frere told Sir Walter he had made up to Coleridge, was one hundred guineas.

—Lockhart's Spanish Ballads, "The King of Arragon."

The transcript is now in the Library at Abbotsford, under the title, Old English Romances, transcribed from MSS. in the Royal Library at Naples, by Sticchini, 2 vols. sm. 8vo.

He examined, however, with more interest the "splendid mosaic representing a combat of the Greeks and the Persians."—Life, vol. x. p. 159.

Mr. Lockhart once said to a friend that he regretted that they had never met, and gave as a reason the state of Scott's health.