self from wandering farther and farther. I think the main drag-chain was that I could not hope to find you in Mull, and consequently must forego all hopes of learning Gaelic and acquiring the traditional information with which I should otherwise expect to be delighted. I have besides my Highland epic still in view. I have indeed begun to skirmish a little upon the frontiers of Perthshire and Lennox, into which I was led by the romantic scenery, the number of strange stories connected with it, and above all by the inveterate habit of coupling the lines together by jingling rhymes, as I used to couple spaniels in sporting days. But I reserve my grand effort till I should know a little more of the language, and above all till I can have the honor of visiting you in your lovely isle. The Douglases enter a good deal into my present sketches, which I have some thoughts of working into a romance, or romantic poem, to be called The Lady of the Lake. It will, should I find time to continue my plan, contain a good many lyrical pieces. As to the rest, I have been idle as comfortably as a man can be, when there is no sun on the brae and no fire in the chimney, one or other of which I hold to be indispensable to the pleasures of indolence. Among other attempts to supply the want of their exhilarating influence, one of the happiest has been to let my little Sophia croon over Montrose's lines, and hope I might one day introduce her to the young songstresses who introduced them to me in their musical dress.

The same letter goes on to tell of his eldest son Walter's entrance at the High School, and of his own feelings being like those of Leontes in "A Winter's Tale." But the same sentiments are expressed, and the same quotation is referred to, in a letter to Joanna Baillie, already published by Lockhart, so they need not now be repeated. In a voluminous correspondence, such as that of Sir Walter, it is inevitable that the same train of thought and almost identical passages should be found in

letters addressed to different friends, and, for that reason, it is unnecessary to notice some of the letters now be

fore us. It seems wonderful, however, that in the masses of his letters which have been brought to light, so few should be found to overlap each other in ideas and expression, even when the original recipients were people not likely to meet, and who might well have been fobbed off with du

plicate epistles.

In a letter of January 18, 1812, there is an expression of Sir Walter's delight in his new purchase, Abbotsford, and of his consciousness that his brain must be called upon to pay the expenses which he contemplated.

I have not only been planting and enclosing and gallantly battling nature for the purpose of converting a barren brae and haugh into a snug situation for a cottage, but, moreover, I have got the prettiest plan you ever saw, and everything, in short, excepting a great pouchful of money, which is the most necessary thing of all. I am terribly afraid I must call in the aid of Amphion and his harp, not indeed to build a city, but if it can rear a cottage, it will be very fair for a modern lyre.

And in a later letter he again tells in classical analogy how he looks to neeting the expenses of his property by the harvest of his brain

I continued to be at Abbotsford for ten days in the vacation after Christmas, and kept the moor gallantly from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon, working away at my new territories, which now embrace all the beautiful bogs and springs which we passed so wearily upon Sunday forenoon in the last autumn. It promises me as much work as ever the bog of Ballygalley, &c., gave to the successive lords of Castle Rackrent-only, God forbid I should have a lawsuit about it. I would not for a penny that people in general knew how much I would give up rather than defend

myself at the law. But I shall be halfruined with drains, dykes, and planting accompts, only that by good luck my farm on the verge of Parnassus has been so productive as to make amends for the losses which I must sustain by my possessions on terra firma, for by good luck, like the nobility of Laputa, I have possessions both in the flying island of my imagination and the bogs and brambles of earthly mainland.

One is not accustomed to look upon Sir Walter Scott as a matchmaker, except in dealing with his heroes and heroines in fiction, but once at least he appears in that character, whether or not of conscious purpose may not perhaps be absolutely certain. In 1815 he begs "to introduce to your” (Mrs. Clephane) "kind notice and hospitality two young friends, of whom, both by our friend Morritt's report and from the little I have seen, I am inclined to think very well: the one is Earl Compton, son of Lord Northampton, the other Mr. Pemberton-they are well acquainted with some friends of yours." An ulterior design might be surmised in the succeeding words: "Lord C. will give Margaret a book with my kind compliments. It contains a very pretty panegyric upon your father." Apparently Mrs. Cle

phane and her daughters were living in Edinburgh at the time, for soon afterwards a note was sent: "My dear Mrs. Clephane,-Lord C. dines with me to-morrow, chiefly that I may introduce him to our little friend Donaldson. Will you and the young ladies look in in the evening at eight o'clock, and if Miss Clephane can come, I hope she will prevail on Miss Dalrymple to honor us. I think Lady Hood and Miss Frances Mackenzie will be with us, and no one else, unless perchance Will. Erskine." If Sir Walter had a definite benevolent purpose in introducing two young people to each other, he must have had much satisfaction in

the result, for in April 1815 we find him in London writing to Lady Abercorn: "I am tied to this town just now as l'homme de confiance of a fair Scotch woman who is about to be married into your high circle, and so we are up to the ears in settlements, &c., but for which circumstance I would have offered my personal respects at the Priory." How great was the affection felt by the bride-elect towards her guardian is shown by a letter that she wrote announcing her engagement. In it she says: "Do you know, through it all, who has been father, brother, everything to me?-Mr. Scott." And she also very clearly saw and appreciated Sir Walter's intellectual magnetism, for she tells elsewhere how she had been meeting a very dull man: "When I met him before, at Mr. Scott's, I did not think him dull, but he inspires and enlivens everybody who comes within his reach."

Another instance presents itself of Sir Walter generously devoting his great powers to the assistance of a more humble toiler in the same fields with himself. Alexander Campbell's "Albyn's Anthology," once very popular, is little known nowadays, but Sir Walter furnished the words of several of the songs and ballads contained in it, notably the "Macgregor's Gathering," "Nora's Vow," and the last three verses of "Jock o' Hazeldean," and these have since been included in collections of his poetry. There is a short mention of Campbell in a letter written to Lady Abercorn and published in Sir Walter's "Familiar Letters," in which he calls him "a poor man, a decayed artist and musician, who tried to teach me music many years ago." fuller references to Sir Walter's connection with Campbell, occurring in letters to Miss Clephane, are of great interest.

The

It was, I believe, during your absence from Mull that Alexander Camp

bell, the publisher of a new and ample collection of Highland and Scottish tunes, made his rounds in the Western Isles. He has been very successful and has recovered some beautiful airs, which he gives nearly as you would sing them, that is, in their own simplicity, with no other ornament than the taste of the performer can give, and a few notes of characteristic symphony. I have taken the liberty to put your name down as a subscriber, as I think you would like to encourage the undertaking. Campbell is half musician, half poet, and, in right of both capacities, half mad. If he trav

els again this year, I will send him to Torloisk. I assure you he travels like a Highland Bhaird in his complete tartans, "with dirk and pistol by his side," like Master Frog when he went a-wooing. I wish you very much to give him your advice and assistance in his labors, that is, if you approve of what he has already done. He is a thorough-bred musician, and can take down music readily from hearing it sung. Some of his tunes are really very prettily arranged, and I am beginning to give him words for them. One tune I am quite engoué about. It is decidedly an old Scottish air, but is entirely new to me. The only words which were remembered by the young woman (a Miss Pringle) who sang it were these.

Here follows the first verse of "Jock o' Hazeldean." Sir Walter eventually composed and added the three succeeding verses which complete the well-known song. In a later letter

I am unhappily answerable and most reluctantly so for the imperfections of Allan Moidart. The truth is, that I had promised Campbell to get him a proper sett of words, and always forgot to write for them, till the man of music, who is a kind of warrior, came and besieged me with account of press stopping, and Lord in heaven knows what of grievance and vexation, till between hope and despair I ran down and dictated the verses I remembered, and as I remembered them. One verse I was sensible I omitted, but my ut

most efforts could not recall it to my memory. Pray send me a correct copy, for “Albyn's Anthology” (blessings on their harmony who gave so absurd a name) is thriving like a green bay tree, and we shall have a new edition forthwith.

It will always be a curious matter of speculation why Sir Walter Scott was careful to conceal for so long a time the fact that he was the author of the Waverley Novels, going so far on several occasions as to deny categorically that he had written theme. g., in a letter from him to Mrs. Hughes, "I really assure you I am not the author of the novels which the world ascribes to me so pertinaciously. If I were, what good reason should I have for concealing, being such a hackneyed scribbler as I am?" He said in the famous speech at the theatrical dinner in 1827, when he at last acknowledged the authorship, "Perhaps caprice might have a considerable share in the matter," but it is hard to believe that such a marvellous abnegation of literary renown, and perhaps advantage, is to be attributed to caprice alone. Dear and intimate friends as the Clephanes were, they were deliberately mystified by Sir Walter, equally with others. But in their case it was only mystification of a most legitimate kind that was practised, and we do not encounter the blunt denial, which somehow always jars a little upon us when we meet it elsewhere. Writing to Miss Clephane in 1816 Sir Walter says

I will take care that you get a curious and interesting work, which, notwithstanding an affected change of publishers, &c., and a total silence concerning former adventures in literature, I believe you will agree with me can only be by the author of "Waverley." They call it "Tales of my Landlord," and I have not laughed so much this some time as at parts of the second tale. The first is hurried and I

think flat, but the second opens new ground (the scene being laid in the Covenanting times), and possesses great power of humor and pathos. Such at least is the opinion of all here and in London, who are madder about it than about anything I remember.

This reminds one of Sir Walter's letter to John Murray (who, though he along with William Blackwood first published "Tales of my Landlord," and had no doubt in his own mind as to the authorship, had not been admitted to the inner circle of the illuminati) denying "a paternal interest" in the "Tales," and supporting his denial by offering to review them. "I have a mode of convincing you that I am perfectly serious in my denial,-pretty similar to that by which Solomon distinguishes the fictitious from the real mother, and that is by reviewing the work, which I take to be an operation equal to that of quartering the child." After the final collapse of Napoleon's power at Waterloo, many English people rushed to the Continent, from which they had been so long excluded; and a strong light is thrown upon the apprehensions entertained at that time about foreign travel by the advice and many cautions given by Sir Walter to the Clephanes, who in 1816 were contemplating a visit to Italy.

As for your journey, I would to God you had a gentleman with you. Why not Captain Clephane, who has not much to do? I really fear you will find travelling uncomfortable, notwithstanding Mrs. Clephane's firmness and good sense. At least, when I was on the Continent I found more than once a pair of loaded pistols in my pocket were necessary to secure both respect and security. It may doubtless be better now, but the English are always unpopular on the Continent, and the innkeepers extremely encroaching and insolent when they see occasion, and the speedy legal redress of the next Justice of Peace altogether out of the

are

question. And I believe the banditti very troublesome just now in Italy, although it applies rather to the road between Rome and Naples than to Northern Italy. Do ponder all this well. If you were men in your persons as you are in your sense and spirit, I would wish you to go by all means. As it is, I sincerely hope you will have some proper male companion.

In a later letter from which we will not quote at length, as it has already been published in Lockhart's Life, Sir Walter much approves of the ladies going to Italy by sea. It is amusing to note, however, how here he lapses into a form of remark which, like complaints of the deterioration of servants, seems to be common to all generations. He says, "Whatever folks may say of foreigners, those of good education and high rank among them must have a supreme contempt for the frivolous, dissatisfied, empty, gad-about manners of many of our modern belles." We, in our day, hear a good deal of the independence and restless pursuit of amusement by the contemporary fair sex as contrasted with their more staid grandmothers; and "Maga's" latest recruit tells, in his delightful romance, "The Old Country," how a high-born dame in the fourteenth century criticised the young ladies of her day, "Who dress more like men than women, and waste all their time and money in going about from one tournament to another."

2

There was considerable political excitement in Edinburgh in 1821, and it was accompanied by an attempt to get up an illumination. Neither Sir Walter Scott nor Mrs. Clephane were in sympathy with this, and did not propose to light up their houses. Sir Walter writes thus to Mrs. Clephane

I cannot think the magistrates will be so absurd as to refuse their protection to us non-illuminés, nor do I 2 The Old Country. By Henry Newbolt. London: Smith, Elder, & Co.

think there will be any riot, the night being so bad. But I think, without any male friends in the house, you would subject yourself to much alarm, and unnecessarily, and therefore I would be in readiness to light up, if they command you, or when they approach your street. I intend patiently to submit to broken panes, but, if they proceed to break doors, which they have the impudence to threaten in case of obstinate recusants

"Ils seront reçus, Biribi,

A la façon de Barbaru, Mon ami."

In one of his visits to France Sir Walter must have met Béranger, or at least come across some of his newly published songs, for the refrain of one of them, "Biribi," &c., was ever ringing in our great Scotsman's ears. We find it in this note to Mrs. Clephane; it is quoted in the Journal, and also in one, if not in two, other of his pieces of familiar writing. Spirited song in any tongue ever appealed to his sympathetic taste.

A long letter was written to Miss Clephane, March 2, 1824, which is so interesting and characteristic, and contains so much wisdom, that most of it must be transcribed. After some advice about the investment of a sum of money, Sir Walter proceeds to talk about Thurtell the murderer, who was a subject of "national" interest at the time:

Notoriety is a fine thing, even when one is notorious only as a villain. Think of a Miss stretching her memory so far as to recollect that she had danced with Jack Thurtell, when he was an officer of marines on board of Admiral Otway's flagship at Leith. The only chance of a man living in her memory was his becoming a murderer. I am very happy to hear that Mrs. Clephane's factor continues to do well. I hope she will not spoil him as ladies do gentlemen by too much confidence

and indulgence. Laidlaw will be happy to hear that he does credit to his recommendation. By too much indulgence I particularly mean the suffering accompts to get ahead. There is no such bar as settling them regularly, excepting the certain inconvenience that arises from their smacking of age. Besides, sums of money are always apt, without gross dishonesty, to melt into the hands of factors, who perhaps use a few pounds at first in advance of their own salary, and end by getting into deep and serious arrearage. Sophia has had rather a distressing time of it, but is now much better, indeed quite well, excepting weakness. I am very sorry for the loss of her infant, because I would willingly have had a cautioner for poor Johnnie Hugh. He is not strongon the contrary, very delicate, and the parents are so much wrapped up in him that it makes me tremble when I look at the poor little fellow. He is so very smart and clever, and at the same time holds his existence apparently by so frail a tenure, that one is inclined to think of the alarming adage of Gloster, "So wise and young they say never live long." It is however wrong to anticipate evil, and I have seen so many instances of wise young children growing up into buirdly hussars and stark young fellows with no more wit than is necessary to keep them out of fire and water, that I will e'en harden myself on the subject, and croak no more about the matter.

I think it more than likely that the defunct gamekeeper and his dog have fallen under unjust suspicion in the matter of poor Puss. It is the instinct both of dogs and cats, but particularly of the last, when in the extremity of age and sensible of the approaches of death, to seek some secret place to die in, and thus the remains of these creatures are seldom seen, unless of such as have been killed by accident or violence. I have known many instances of this, but one I witnessed was so singular that, even now, I cannot think how the creature managed. It was an old cat which belonged to a bachelor uncle of mine, and was, almost of course, a great favorite. We found it on the garden walk, apparently in a