expressly, without waiting till he has some new batch of Baronets ready in dough. In plain English, I am to be gazetted per se. My poor friend Carpenter's bequest to my family has taken away a certain degree of impecuniosity, a necessity of saving cheese-parings and candle-ends, which always looks inconsistent with any little pretension to rank. But as things now stand, Advance banners in the name of God and Saint Andrew. Remember, I anticipate the jest, 'I like not such grinning honours as Sir Walter hath.'* After all, if one must speak for themselves, I have my quarters and emblazonments, free of all stain but Border theft and High Treason, which I hope are gentlemanlike crimes; and I hope Sir Walter Scott will not sound worse than Sir Humphry Davy, though my merits are as much under his, in point of utility, as can well be imagined. But a name is something, and mine is the better of the two. Set down this flourish to the account of national and provincial pride, for you must know we have more Messieurs de Sotenville† in our Border counties than any where else in the Lowlands- -I cannot say for the Highlands. The Duke of Buceleuch, greatly to my joy, resolves to go to France for a season. Adam Fergusson goes with him, to glad him by the way. Charlotte and the young folks join in kind compliMost truly yours, WALTER SCOTT."

ments.

* Sir Walter Blunt- 1st King Henry IV., Act V. Scene 3. + See Moliere's "George Dandin."

A few additional circumstances are given in a letter of the same week to Joanna Baillie.

To her,

after mentioning the testamentary provisions of Mr Carpenter, Scott says,

My Dear Friend, I am going to tell you a little secret. I have changed my mind, or rather existing circumstances have led to my altering my opinions in a case of sublunary honour. I have now before me Lord Sidmouth's letter, containing the Prince's gracious and unsolicited intention to give me a Baronetcy. It will neither make me better nor worse than I feel myself— in fact it will be an incumbrance rather than otherwise; but it may be of consequence to Walter, for the title is worth something in the army, although not in a learned profession. The Duke of Buccleuch and Scott of Harden, who, as the heads of my clan and the sources of my gentry, are good judges of what I ought to do, have both given me their earnest opinion to accept of an honour directly derived from the source of honour, and neither begged nor bought, as is the usual fashion. Several of my ancestors bore the title in the 17th century; and were it of consequence, I have no reason to be ashamed of the decent and respectable persons who connect me with that period when they carried into the field, like Madoc

The crescent, at whose gleam the Cambrian oft,
Cursing his perilous tenure, wound his horn'.

so that, as a gentleman, I may stand on as good a footing as other new creations. Respecting the reasons peculiar to myself which have made the Prince show his respect for general literature in my person, I cannot be a good judge, and your friendly zeal will make you a partial one: the purpose is fair, honourable, and creditable to the Sovereign, even though it should number him among the monarchs who made blunders in literary patronage. You know Pope

The Hero William, and the Martyr Charles,

One knighted Blackmore, and one pension'd Quarles.'*

So let the intention sanctify the error, if there should be one, on this great occasion. The time of this grand affair is uncertain; it is coupled with an invitation to London, which it would be inconvenient to me to accept, unless it should happen that I am called to come up by the affairs of poor Carpenter's estate. Indeed, the prospects of my children form the principal reason for a change of sentiments upon this flattering offer, joined to my belief that, though I may still be a scribbler from inveterate habit, I shall hardly engage again in any work of consequence.

"We had a delightful visit from the Richardsons, only rather too short; he will give you a picture of Abbotsford, but not as it exists in my mind's eye,

* Imitations of Horace, B. ii. Ep. 1. v. 386.

waving with all its future honours.

The pinasters

At

are thriving very well, and in a year or two more Joanna's Bower will be worthy of the name. present it is like Sir Roger de Coverley's portrait, which hovered between its resemblance to the good knight and to a Saracen. Now the said bower has still such a resemblance to its original character of a gravel pit, that it is not fit to be shown to bairns and fools,' who, according to our old canny proverb, should never see half-done work; but Nature, if she works slowly, works surely, and your laurels at Abbotsford will soon flourish as fair as those you have won on Parnassus. I rather fear that a quantity of game which was shipped awhile ago at Inverness for the Doctor, never reached him: it is rather a transitory commodity in London; there were ptarmigan, grouse, and black game. I shall be grieved if they have miscarried. My health, thank God, continues as strong as at any period in my life; only I think of rule and diet more than I used to do, and observe as much as in me lies the advice of my friendly physician, who took such kind care of me: my best respects attend him, Mrs Baillie, and Mrs Agnes. Ever, my dear friend, most faithfully yours, W. S.”

In the next of these letters Scott alludes, among other things, to a scene of innocent pleasure which I often witnessed afterwards. The whole of the ancient ceremonial of the daft days, as they are called in

Scotland, obtained respect at Abbotsford.

He said

it was uncanny, and would certainly have felt it very uncomfortable, not to welcome the new year in the midst of his family and a few old friends, with the immemorial libation of a het pint; but of all the consecrated ceremonies of the time, none gave him such delight as the visit which he received as Laird from all the children on his estate, on the last morning of every December-when, in the words of an obscure poet often quoted by him,

"The cottage bairns sing blythe and gay,

At the ha' door for hogmanay."

"To Miss Joanna Baillie, Hampstead.

"My Dear Friend,

66

"Abbotsford, 1st January 1819.

Many thanks for your kind letter: ten brace of ptarmigan sailed from Inverness about the 24th, directed for Dr Baillie; if they should have reached, I hope you would seize some for yourself and friends, as I learn the Doctor is on duty at Windsor. I do not know the name of the vessel, but they were addressed to Dr Baillie, London, which I trust was enough, for there are not two. The Doctor has been exercising his skill upon my dear friend and chief, the Duke of Buccleuch, to whom I am more attached than to any person beyond the reach of my own family, and has advised him to do what, by my ear