had undergone considerable interruption in the latter part of John's life; but the close was in all respects fraternal.

A year and half before John's exit, namely, on the last day of 1819, he happened to lay his hand on an old pocketbook which roused his reflections, and he filled two or three of its pages with a brief summary of the most active part of his life, which I think it due to his character, as well as Sir Walter Scott's, to transcribe in this place.

"31st Dec. 1819. In moving a bed from the fire-place to-day up stairs, I found an old memorandum-book, which enables me to trace the following recollections of this day, the last of the year.

"1801. A shopkeeper in Kelso; at this period my difficulties had not begun in business; was well, happy, and 27 years old; new then in a connexion which afterwards gave me great pain, but can never be forgotten.

"1802. 28 old: In Kelso as before could scarcely be happier hunted, shot, kept *******'s company, and neglected business, the fruits whereof I soon found.

"1803. 29: Still fortunate, and happy from same cause. James in Edinburgh thriving as a printer. When I was ennuied at home, visited him. Business neglected every way.

"1804. 30: Material change; getting into difficulties; all wrong, and changes in every way approaching.

"1805. 31: All consummated; health miserable all summer and **** designated in an erased mem., the scoundrel. I yet recollect the cause can I ever forget it? My furniture, goods, &c. sold at Kelso, previous to my going to Edinburgh to become

my brother's clerk; whither I did go, for which God be praised eternally, on Friday, 3d January 1806, on £200 a-year. My effects at Kelso, with labour, paid my debts, and left me pennyless.

"From this period till 1808. 34: I continued in this situation-then the scheme of a bookselling concern in Hanover Street was adopted, which I was to manage; it was £300 a-year, and one-fourth of the profits besides.

"1809. 35: Already the business in Hanover Street getting into difficulty, from our ignorance of its nature, and most extravagant and foolish advances from its funds to the printing concern. I ought to have resisted this, but I was thoughtless, although not young, or rather reckless, and lived on as long as I could make ends meet.

"1810.

36: Bills increasing the destructive system of accommodations adopted.

"1811. 37: Bills increased to a most fearful degree. Sir Wm. Forbes and Co. shut their account. No bank would discount with us, and everything leading to irretrievable failure.

"1812. 38: The first partner stepped in, at a crisis so tremendous, that it shakes my soul to think of it. By the most consummate wisdom, and resolution, and unheard-of exertions, he put things in a train that finally (so early as 1817) paid even himself (who ultimately became the sole creditor of the house) in full, with a balance of a thousand pounds.

"1813. 39: In business as a literary auctioneer in Prince's Street; from which period to the present I have got gradually forward, both in that line and as third of a partner of the works of the Author of Waverley, so that I am now, at 45, worth about (I owe £2000) £5000, with, however, alas! many changes my strong constitution much broken; my father and mother dead, and James estranged the chief enjoyment and glory of my life being the possession of the friendship and confidence of the greatest of men."

In communicating John's death to the Cornet, Sir Walter says, "I have had a very great loss in poor John Ballantyne, who is gone, after a long illness. He persisted to the very last in endeavouring to take exercise, in which he was often imprudent, and was up and dressed the very morning before his death. In his will the grateful creature has left me a legacy of £2000, liferented, however, by his wife; and the rest of his little fortune goes betwixt his two brothers. I shall miss him very much, both in business, and as an easy and lively companion, who was eternally active and obliging in whatever I had to do."

I am sorry to take leave of John Ballantyne with the remark, that his last will was a document of the same class with too many of his states and calendars. So far from having £2000 to bequeath to Sir Walter, he died as he had lived, ignorant of the situation of his affairs, and deep in debt.*

The two following letters, written at Blair-Adam, where the Club were, as usual, assembled for the

* No specimen of John's inaccuracy as to business-statements could be pointed out more extraordinary than his assertion in the above sketch of his career, that the bookselling concern, of which he had had the management, was finally wound up with a balance of £1000 in favour of the first partner. At the time he refers to (1817), John's name was on floating bills to the extent of at least £10,000, representing part of the debt which had been accumulated on the bookselling house, and which, on its dissolution, was assumed by the printing company in the Canon. gate. [1839.]

dog-days, have been selected from among several which Scott at this time addressed to his friends in the South, with the view of promoting Mr Mackay's success in his debut on the London boards as Bailie Jarvie.

"To Miss Joanna Bailie, Hampstead.

"The immediate motive of my writing to you, my dearest friend, is to make Mrs Agnes and you aware that a Scots performer, called Mackay, is going up to London to play Bailie Nicol Jarvie for a single night at Covent Garden, and to beg you of all dear loves to go and see him; for, taking him in that single character, I am not sure I ever saw anything in my life possessing so much truth and comic effect at the same time: he is completely the personage of the drama, the purse-proud consequential magistrate, humane and irritable in the same moment, and the true Scotsman in every turn of thought and action; his variety of feelings towards Rob Roy, whom he likes, and fears, and despises, and admires, and pities all at once, is exceedingly well expressed. In short, I never saw a part better sustained, certainly; I pray you to collect a party of Scotch friends to see it. I have written to Sotheby to the same purpose, but I doubt whether the exhibition will prove as satisfacfactory to those who do not know the original from which the resemblance is taken. I observe the Eng

lish demand (as is natural), broad caricature in the depicting of national peculiarities: they did so as to the Irish till Jack Johnstone taught them better, and at first I should fear Mackay's reality will seem less ludicrous than Liston's humorous extravagances. So let it not be said that a dramatic genius of Scotland wanted the countenance and protection of Joanna Baillie: the Doctor and Mrs Baillie will be much diverted if they go also, but somebody said to me that they were out of town. The man, I am told, is perfectly respectable in his life and habits, and consequently deserves encouragement every way. There is a great difference betwixt his bailie and all his other performances: one would think the part made for him, and him for the part-and yet I may do the poor fellow injustice, and what we here consider as a falling off may arise from our identifying Mackay so completely with the worthy Glasgow magistrate, that recollections of Nicol Jarvie intrude upon us at every corner, and mar the personification of any other part which he may represent for the time.

"I am here for a couple of days with our Chief Commissioner, late Willie Adam, and we had yesterday a delightful stroll to Castle Campbell, the Rumbling Brig, Cauldron Linns, &c. The scenes are most romantic, and I know not by what fatality it has been, that living within a step of them, I never visited any of them before. We had Sir Samuel Shepherd with us, a most delightful person, but with