"Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abi-ezer?" The first gleaning of Sir Walter's glorious harvest was done by Lockhart in his inimitable biography of his father-in-law. Many others have since gathered in the same field or a portion of it, and, in later days, Mr. David Douglas has ably edited the great man's journal and his familiar letters. Still a few fragments here and there remain unappropriated, and of these is a bundle of correspondence written to Mrs. Maclean Clephane of Torloisk (the burnt tower) and her daughter Miss Anna Jane Clephane. Mrs. Clephane was the widow of General Douglas Clephane, heir to the families of Douglas of Kirkness and Clephane of Carslogie, and his children, of whom the youngest was born after his death, bore the names of their three ancestral families, Douglas Maclean Clephane. General Douglas Clephane had appointed Sir Walter Scott guardian to his children, and the letters before us were written partly on business, partly as friendly correspondence. Everything that came from the pen of Sir Walter was colored by his individuality, and each of these letters gives some hint of the wizard's potent charm. His correspondents were ladies with whom he was in perfect sympathy, so that, in writing to them, he was able, as it were, to let himself go, and always to speak out of the fulness of his heart. Mrs. Clephane was a Highland dame of the noblest type, clever, brave, cultivated and, it may be, somewhat autocratic. From the casual references to her in his journal, and from the tone of his intercourse with her, we can quite imagine that, if required, she might have formed a characteristic figure in one of Sir Walter's romances. She was full of High

land lore, could join heartily in Sir Walter's quests for Highland ballad and melody, and was constantly referred to by him on doubtful points in verse and tune. Her three daughters were equally sympathetic with their guardian. They had many accomplishments: they were linguists, musicians, and artists, and their cultivation made them fit to take foremost places in Sir Walter's familiar society. The eldest, Margaret, married Earl Compton, and subsequently became Lady Northampton. The second, Miss Anna Jane, died unmarried, and the third, Miss Williamina, married and became the mother of poor Mr. de Norman, who, with Mr. Anderson and Mr. Bowlby, was tortured and done to death in 1860 by Chinese barbarity. The present Marquis of Northampton is the grandson of Margaret, and it is to his kindness that we owe the privilege of reading, and quoting from, Sir Walter's letters to Mrs. and Miss Anna Jane Clephane.

And now for the letters themselves. They are too many to reproduce here in extenso. Two of them have in great part already been published, having been included in Lockhart's Life, but the remainder, dating from 1809 to 1830, have each their value, from the fresh light that they throw upon the writer's idiosyncrasies and the broad geniality of his character and judgment. It is not intended to go through the letters seriatim, as if one proposed to make a precis, but we may venture to gather some of the fruit with which they are so richly adorned.

And it is only fitting that "Maga," now in her green old age, should first be allowed to quote with pride the hearty words of appreciation with which Sir Walter greeted her début, nigh a century ago, in the world of

letters. Writing from Edinburgh to Mrs. Clephane in 1818, he says

Our principal amusement here is "Blackwood's Magazine," which is very clever, very rash, very satirical, and what is rather uncommon nowadays when such superlatives are going invery aristocratical and Pittite. The conductors are John Wilson and John Gibson Lockhart. The former, well known by his poems, is very clever but somewhat whimsical. Lockhart is a very clever fellow, well informed in ancient and modern lore, has very good manners, and is, I think, likely to make a very distinguished figure in society. They have made themselves hated, but at the same time feared, by the Edinburgh Whigs, who are so much accustomed to have all the satire and fun their own way that they stare a little at finding their own batteries occupied and turned against them. I hate personal satire myselfit is a clumsy weapon and seldom fails to recoil on those who use it. But yet those who have set the example in such a kind of warfare are not entitled to consider themselves as ill-used when met by sharpshooters of their own description.

It was perhaps natural that Sir Walter fell into the universal error that gave the conduct of the Magazine unreservedly to Wilson and Lockhart. At no time did William Blackwood allow the supreme control to pass out of his own hands. It may be allowed that the young lions whom he had harnessed to his car had no little influence in choosing the road to be followed, but they ever were made to feel that the reins were firmly held, and, as the "Annals" record, "the veto was always in Blackwood's hands."

To go back to the first of the letters. It is dated Edinburgh, February 5, 1809, and it is a very sufficient index to the mutual pleasure that Mrs. Clephane and Sir Walter took in their intercourse about the subjects which they loved.

The air, my dear Mrs. Clephane. which you did me the honor to request, I have now the pleasure to send you. It is not, I am told, quite perfect, but it is going where any of its defects (the nature of which I don't understand) will be easily corrected, and its beauties, if it has any, improved. It is really a Highland air and sung by the reapers, so I dare say it is no stranger to you, to whom all lays are known that were ever sung or harped in Celtic bower or hall. I need not say how much I was obliged by your kind remembrance of my request about the Borderer's lament.

Mrs. Scott is not so fortunate as to play much herself, but our eldest girl begins to sing and to practise a little on the pianoforte with some hopes of success. She is indulged with a copy of the ballad, for the beautiful original is reserved to be inserted in a precious volume of mine, in which I keep what I value most. I have not heard of Miss Seward this long time, and grieve at your account of her health. She has a warm enthusiastic feeling of poetry, and an excellent heart, which is a better thing. I have some thoughts of being in London in a few weeks, when I hope to see you, as I have a world of questions to ask about Highland song and poetry, which no one but you can answer. One day or other I hope to attempt a Highland poem, as I am warmly attached both to the country and the character of its inhabitants. My father had many visitors from Argyllshire when I was a boy, chiefly old men who had been out in 1745, and I used to hang upon their tales with the utmost delight.

"You mention an air to Lochinvar, but, I believe, mean the enclosed. The said Lochinvar has been lately well set by Dr. Clark of Cambridge. I had no tune particularly in my view when the ballad was written.

The "War-Song of Lachlan, High Chief of Maclean," has been published among Sir Walter's miscellaneous poems, and is probably familiar to all students of his works; but it is interesting to know that it was, in the first

instance, written for and sent to Mrs. Clephane, an enthusiastic clans woman of Maclean, who, with her daughters, is asked to "accept my attempt" (to versify the Maclean's song) "as a trifling expression of my respect for the clan, and my gratitude for the pleasure I have received in your society particularly." And it is a signal instance of the rapidity with which the author's teeming brain shed its fruits, even amid distracting and uninspiring surroundings. The letter containing the song is dated Half-Moon Street, 1809, and in it Scott says: "On my return home before dinner, finding I had half-anhour good, I employed it in an attempt to versify the Maclean's song." This was when he was visiting London for the first time since his fame had been crowned by "Marmion," and he was in all the whirl of a society that was eager to offer him homage, besides being desired to be in town by the Lord Advocate with reference to some circumstances in the procedure of the Scottish Law Commission, which had the poet for its secretary. It may be remarked that the first draft of the song, as sent to Mrs. Clephane, differs in some small details from the published version. Whether Sir Walter himself made the alterations, or whether they have crept in by the pains of an editor, cannot be said. The first draft seems to a humble critic to be almost more vigorous than the published version.

As is sufficiently well known, Sir Walter was always ready to give anybody a helping hand, especially in literature, and was never more happy than when doing so. In 1809 he was much interested in making a success of Joanna Baillie's first drama, "The Family Legend," founded upon the story of the Lady's Rock,' and we find him inviting himself to tea with Mrs. Clephane and proposing to read to her

1 See Thomas Campbell's ballad, "Glenara."

the play which had been submitted to him by the authoress. He says: "I have promised to do my possible to bring it out at Edinburgh, and have no doubt of its success, but I wish to consult you about 'a commodity of good names' for the chieftains introduced, for Miss Baillie has not been fortunate in that particular." Mrs. Clephane must have been able to supply the names required, and the eventual representation of the play was a triumphant success. Probably it owed as much to Sir Walter's interest and exertions as to its own merit. As Lockhart says, "Scott appears to have exerted himself most indefatigably in its behalf. He was consulted about all the minutiæ of costume, attended every rehearsal, and supplied the prologue. The play was better received than any other which the gifted authoress has since submitted to the same experiment."

In a letter dated October 1809, a forecast was given to Mrs. Clephane of "The Lady of the Lake."

It is neither Ingratitude nor Forgetfulness, my dear Mrs. Clephane, which has kept me so long silent, but that foul fiend Procrastination, which has sometimes the aspect of the first and always the laziness of the other, without, I hope, the more odious qualities of either. Why we should wish to put off till to-morrow that which most we wish to do would be something difficult to conjecture, were there not riddles in our nature more worth solving and as difficult to answer. I will flatter myself, however, that you and my dear young friends sometimes think of me, and without more anger than may justly be bestowed upon a very lazy fellow who is daily thinking of your fireside, without having resolution to embody his enquiries and kind wishes in a piece of square folded paper. I have little to plead from serious occupation, for my autumn has been idly enough spent, heaven knows. I wandered, however, as far as Loch Lomond, and with difficulty checked my