B 3 332 EST 
 

LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT; 
 
 ADDRESSED TO 
 
 THE REV. R. POLWHELE; D. GILBERT, ESQ, 
 FRANCIS DOUCE, ESQ. &c. &c. 
 
 ACCOMPANIED BY AX AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF 
 
 LIEUT. -GENERAL SIR HUSSEY VIVIAN, 
 
 BART. K.C.B. K.G.H. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 J. b. NICHOLS AND SON, 25, PARLIAMENT STREET. 
 1832. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 It will be perceived that the greater part of the present 
 publication is a memorial of the intercourse enjoyed with 
 Sir Walter Scott by the Rev. Mr. Polwhele. The Pub- 
 lishers have to express their thanks to Francis Douce, Esq. 
 for the communication of two original letters, one of them 
 immediately connected with a subject discussed between Sir 
 Walter and Mr. Polwhele ; and the other relating to Mr. 
 Douce's own celebrated work, the " Illustrations of Shak- 
 speare." To these they have ventured to append a miscel- 
 laneous collection ; being assured that, at this period, nothing 
 that has ever proceeded from the pen of Walter Scott will 
 be unacceptable to the public. 
 
 n 
 
 47683 
 
 
 V? 
 
 
TO 
 JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, ESQ. 
 
 Sir, 
 May I presume to hope that you will condescend to ac- 
 cept with candour this very humble offering, from the 
 • humblest of authors, as a tribute of gratitude to your 
 
 DEPARTED FRIEND. 
 
 The individual, who thus presumes to address you, 
 would fain, amidst the universal pceans, lift up his voice. 
 How feeble ! Yet, were it to resound from " one end of 
 the earth to the other," inadequate indeed were the ap- 
 plause to the merits of its illustrious object ! Come, 
 then, " expressive silence ! " 
 
 With the liveliest sentiments of regard for yourself, and 
 all related and so justly dear to "that Good and Great 
 
 Man," believe me 
 
 Most respectfully yours, 
 
 R. P. 
 Polwhele, near Truro ; 
 Nov. 30, 1832. 
 
INTRODUCTORY LINES. 
 
 THE following introductory lines (so far as they are 
 marked with inverted commas) formed part of a letter to 
 Sir Walter Scott, in answer to one of his kind communica- 
 tions to a very humble individual, who, notwithstanding 
 the vain fancies of youth, or the garrulous egotism of old 
 age, never trusted to his own strength — never confided in 
 his own judgment ; but, in all his literary productions, in- 
 variably looked up to others for assistance or support. 
 
 " Yes ! I have many a ditty sung, 
 When Hope was gay, and Fancy young ; 
 Here, where along the glimmering lawn 
 The blackbird's clarion thrill'd the dawn; 
 And to the dim declining day 
 The redbreast ponr'd her plaintive lay. 
 
 " Sweet o'er the dews, how sweet the breeze 
 Whispering thro' my infant trees — 
 A 3 
 
VI INTRODUCTORY LINES. 
 
 My sycamores, that firm display'd 
 (First of all the varied shade) 
 Purpling sprays and buds between ; 
 So large a leaf — so bright a green ; 
 That, with a schoolboy's fond delight, 
 I rear'd, I wooed their southern site ; 
 As Mira to my labours lent 
 A sister's care and sentiment ! 
 
 " Her pretty flowers, that learn'd to breathe 
 Down the gentle slope beneath, 
 And open'd to the summer sun — 
 The brother's mutual tendance won. 
 And we had melody at will 
 For every jasmine and jonquil! 
 And we had music — such a store — 
 We sang to every sycamore ! 
 
 " Sweet, too, was our sequester'd dell : 
 It had its grotto and a well, 
 Fair willows and a water-fall ; 
 An ancient beech that shelter'd all. 
 
 ' Nymph of the grot' our nymph was Taste 
 
 Her light, in shadowy softness, chaste; 
 Mild as the summer's vesper-hour: 
 Nor toil could ask a cooler bower. 
 
INTRODUCTORY LINES. 
 
 Clear was our well, and running o'er ; 
 
 And polish'd was its pebbled floor. 
 
 To moontide beams, that pierc'd the glade, 
 
 Its crisped waters sparkling play'd. 
 
 Thus Innocence bids sunshine rest 
 
 On the pure untroubled breast ! 
 
 " And lo ! as headlong down the rock 
 On the beach roots the torrent broke, 
 Its broad foam flashing to the sight, 
 It wash'd the spreading fibres white. 
 Yet, tho' it pleas'd, yet, all the while, 
 (Such is the world's deceitful smile,) 
 Our hoary friend it undermin'd : 
 Attractive thus is treachery kind. 
 
 " Blest were, indeed, those fleeting years i 
 But soon my solitary tears, 
 Staining the crystal of my well, 
 Drop after drop in silence fell, 
 To speak a brother's earliest grief, — 
 So falls the sad autumnal leaf ! 
 
 " And now, to yon responsive stream 
 Half-utter'd was Eliza's name. 
 Lone on its banks the lover stray'd, 
 And thither lured his charming maid ; 
 
Vill INTRODUCTORY LINES. 
 
 The foliage twinkled from above, 
 Conscious of inspiring love; 
 The winding pathway's easy flow 
 Waved in a gentler curve below ; 
 Each flower assumed a softer hue, 
 And closed its cup in balmier dew. 
 
 " But 'twas my lot ere long to roam 
 A listless exile, far from home — 
 Far from these walls that mark my birth : 
 To rear my unambitious hearth, 
 Where Courtenay's turrets crown the groves, 
 And vermeil meads that Isca loves, 
 And, nearer to the admiring gaze, 
 Exotic Flora's gorgeous blaze ! 
 'Twas then, on topographic lore, 
 Some evil genius bade me pore ; 
 Borne on swift steed of keen research, 
 Hunt out a ruin or a church ; 
 Unfold, tho' faint from wan disease, 
 By lurid lamps, dull pedigrees ; 
 The look of blank indifference rue, 
 But still the thankless toil pursue, 
 And brave the insidious critic's flame, 
 Unrecompensed by gold or fame. 
 
INTRODUCTORY LINES. IX 
 
 " Vain — vain regrets, avaunt ! The Muse 
 Tints Life's decline with mellower hues. 
 The grove I nurst, when yet a child, 
 Tho' now a thicket dark and wild, 
 Where rise my statelier sycamores, 
 Its spirit to my soul restores : 
 And midst the ivied boughs, I break, 
 And listen to the hawk's shrill shriek, 
 Flush from her nook the barn-owl gray, 
 And chase — how pert — the painted jay. 
 
 " But though long years have sped their flight, 
 I languish for my grotto light; 
 I languish for my water-fall, 
 And my old beech that shadow'd all. 
 Alas ! the flood hath ceased to roar ; 
 And my beech-roots are blancht no more ; 
 The green brook on its sedges sleeps ; 
 With foxgloves shagg'd, the grotto weeps ; 
 And one poor willow seems to join 
 In widovv'd woe its sighs with mine ! 
 
 " And thou, lov'd stream! again I court 
 Thy mossy marge, my lone resort ; 
 Delightful stream ! whose murmurs clear 
 Soothe, once again, my pensive ear ; 
 
X INTRODUCTORY LINES. 
 
 Tliat wanderest down thine osier'd vale, 
 Where passion told the melting tale ; 
 Thy twilight banks, to memory sweet, 
 Again I tread with pilgrim feet. 
 
 " Tho' not the same the scene appear, 
 As when in youth I sauntered here, 
 'lis with no languid glance I see 
 This winding path, that aspen tree ; 
 But eager catch, at every pace, 
 Of former joys some fading trace. 
 
 " Nor do I mourn the cold regard 
 Of sordid minds that slight the Bard, 
 As thus, tho' care or sorrow lour, 
 I steal from gloom a cheerful hour ; 
 As, no mean intermeddler nigh, 
 My boyish steps I still descry ; 
 Still, midst my budding lilacs pale, 
 Refresh'd their vernal promise hail ; 
 If jocund May waft life and bloom, 
 Still see some fairy power illume 
 The orient hills with richer light ; 
 Still see, with fluid radiance bright. 
 Some fairy power the pencil hold, 
 To streak the evening cloud with gold. 
 
INTRODUCTORY LINES. XI 
 
 " And if, in sooth, a wish aspires 
 Beyond these satisfied desires ; 
 'Tis that my song, tho' unrefined, 
 May not displease some kindred mind, 
 And (haply far remote from me) 
 That mine one generous heart may be, 
 If Heaven to Truth and Feeling lend 
 The last best meed in Scott, my friend!" 
 
 So did I blend, in simple measure, 
 With gladness sorrow— pain with pleasure. 
 Such was my too aspiring song, 
 The lowliest of the tuneful tV.iong. 
 
 He, I presumed "my Friend" to call, 
 He was alike the friend of all ! 
 A gracious smile was mine at most, — 
 His friendship was too proud a boast ! 
 And now his cordial wishes seem 
 The sweet illusion of a dream. 
 
 Last-left of all the minstrel choir, 
 Who bade me wake my trembling lyre, 
 Eliciting a deeper tone, 
 He, too, alas ! how lov'd ! — is gone ; 
 And moaning to his distant bier, 
 A ieeble shade, I linger here: 
 
XII INTRODUCTORY LINES. 
 
 Here, where the dark Bolerium raves, 
 Where oft I hail the dashing waves ; 
 Or roam thro' caverns scoop'd on high, 
 And heave unnoticed many a sigh, 
 Thro' caverns fit for moody minds 
 To chaunt, unheeded, to the winds ! 
 
 Yet Fancy's witchery could impart 
 Some comfort to an old man's heart ; 
 As genial spirits seem'd to say, 
 'Midst glens and mountains far away : 
 " String thy neglected harp anew, 
 Nor need detraction's hissing crew, 
 Stern glances showing hearts of flint, 
 The jealous scowl, the satyr-squint!" 
 
 Ah me ! as from among the dead, 
 The voice is lost — the vision tied ! 
 And scenes long past of joy and pain 
 Come wildering o'er my aged brain ! 
 I try to tune my harp in vain ! # 
 
 R. P. 
 
 * See " Lay of the Last Minstrel." 
 
LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 COMMUNICATION FROM MR. SCOTT (THROUGH CLE- 
 MENT CARLYON, ESQ.) TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE, 
 MANACCAN. 
 
 dear sir, Edinburgh, Sept. 1, 1803. 
 
 You will excuse my troubling you with a 
 letter on the bare chance of giving you 
 some trifling information with respect to 
 Cornwall. Mr. Scott, of Edinburgh, is pre- 
 paring to republish an old metrical romance, 
 entitled Sir Tristrcm, the particulars of 
 which are, that it was written by Thomas of 
 Erceldoune, commonly called the Rhymer 
 
 B 
 
Z LETTERS OF 
 
 who flourished in the reign of Alexander the 
 Third of Scotland, and is believed to have 
 died previous to 1299. The story treats 
 of the loves of Ysonde and Tristrem, and the 
 scene is laid in Cornwall. The edition in 
 question will be made from an unique copy 
 in the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, not 
 for the intrinsic merit of the romance as a 
 poetical production, which certainly would 
 never have caused its being rescued from 
 confinement, but as a genuine record, too 
 valuable to remain hanging by a single 
 thread. 
 
 This sole relic of Thomas the Rhymer's 
 muse is the oldest specimen we possess of 
 compositions of the kind, and one of the 
 few that can be proved decidedly of British 
 origin. It is referred to by Robert de 
 Brunne, in his Metrical Annals of England, 
 (published by Hearne,) and was translated 
 into French verse early in the 13th century, 
 after which probably it was dilated into a prose 
 romance in French of considerable length, in 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 3 
 
 which Sir Tristrem figures as a Knight of 
 the Round Table, whereas no mention is 
 made of King Arthur, either by Thomas of 
 Erceldoune or his French translator. The 
 principal dramatis persona? are Mark King 
 of Cornwall, Ysonde his Queen, and his 
 nephew Sir Tristrem. Of course the story 
 abounds in wondrous exploits ; but from the 
 frequent references that have been made to it, 
 and the veneration that attaches still to the 
 memory of the author, the fiction perhaps is 
 more closely interwoven with truth than 
 usually happens. The topography may for 
 the most part be ascertained at the present 
 day, and the few exceptions fairly referable 
 to the stroke of time, may consequently be 
 looked upon as no inaccurate guides towards 
 ascertaining the former existence of places 
 now withdrawn from view. Mention is 
 more than once made of a Cornish port of 
 the name of Carlioun, with which perhaps 
 the origin of our name is connected ; but 
 b 2 
 
4 LETTERS OF 
 
 this is rather a private concern, and I con- 
 tent myself with touching on it. If the cir- 
 cumstance of the existence of the romance 
 interest you at all, in the developement of 
 your history, it will sufficiently gratify me. 
 I need hardly add that I shall readily prose- 
 cute any enquiries respecting it that may 
 suggest themselves to you as of any im- 
 portance, and I am happy in my friend Mr. 
 Scott's permission, to say that the respect 
 which he entertains for you as an historian, 
 and the sympathies by which the Muses have 
 in a peculiar degree connected you, make 
 him anxious to assist you, should it lie in 
 his power, in your literary pursuits. If his 
 Minstrelsy of the Borders has fallen into 
 your hands, of which I can hardly allow my- 
 self to doubt, it is superfluous for me to say 
 more of him ; if otherwise, I certainly do 
 not incur the risk of future apologies in 
 pointing out to you a very elegant and 
 generally interesting specimen of the fruits 
 of Local Attachment. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 5 
 
 Mr. Scott is desirous that our worthy His- 
 torian of Manchester should be acquainted 
 likewise with the high esteem in which he 
 is held on this side of the Tweed ; nor does 
 any one 5 I am sensible, esteem him more 
 highly than Mr. Scott himself, which I 
 should have been less forward in adding had 
 he been less capable of appreciating Mr. 
 Whitaker's merit. 
 
 As my sheet admits of it, I shall subjoin 
 the first stanza of the romance ; the rest are 
 equally devoid of poetical merit. 
 
 I was at Erceldoune, 
 
 With Tomas spak y thare ; 
 Ther herd y rede in roune, 
 
 Who Tristrem gat and bare, 
 Who was king with crown ; 
 
 And who him foster'd yare ; 
 And who was bold baroun, 
 
 As their elders ware, 
 Bi yere ; 
 
 Tomas telles in tonn, 
 This aventours as thai ware. 
 
6 
 
 LETTERS OF 
 
 With compliments to Mrs Polwhele, I 
 remain, dear Sir, very truly yours, 
 
 Cl. Carlyon. 
 
 P. S. Mr. Scott's directions are, Walter- 
 Scott, Esq. Edinburgh ; but with regard to 
 myself I hardly know where a letter is most 
 likely to find me for the next month to 
 come, as my intention is to move from 
 hence in a very few days ; probably my first 
 fixed point will be Pembroke Hall, Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 WALTER SCOTT, ESQ. TO REV. R. POLWHELE. 
 
 sir, Castle-street, Edinburgh, 27 Jan. 1804. 
 
 I am honoured with your letter of the 16 
 
 January, and lose no time in communicating 
 
 such information about Sir Tristrem as I 
 
 think may interest you. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. / 
 
 Tristrem (of whose real existence I cannot 
 persuade myself to doubt) was nephew to 
 Mark King of Cornwall. He is said to have 
 slain in single combat Morough of Ireland, 
 and by his success in that duel to have deli- 
 vered Cornwall from a tribute which that 
 kingdom paid to Angus King of Leinster. 
 Tristrem was desperately wounded by the 
 Irish warrior's poisoned sword, and was 
 obliged to go to Dublin, to be cured in the 
 country where the venom had been con- 
 fected. Ysonde, or Ysende, daughter of 
 Angus, accomplished his cure, but had 
 nearly put him to death upon discovering 
 that he was the person who had slain her 
 uncle. Tristrem returned to Cornwall, and 
 spoke so highly in praise of the beautiful 
 Ysonde, that Mark sent him to demand 
 her in marriage. This was a perilous ad- 
 venture for Sir Tristrem, but by conquering 
 a dragon, or, as other authorities bear, by 
 assisting King Angus in battle, his embassy 
 
O LETTERS OF 
 
 became successful, and Ysonde was delivered 
 into his hands, to be conveyed to Cornwall. 
 But the Queen of Ireland had given an at- 
 tendant damsel a philtre, or aphrodisiac, to 
 be presented to Mark and Ysonde on their 
 bridal night. Unfortunately, the young 
 couple, while at sea, drank this beverage 
 without being aware of its effects. The 
 consequence was the intrigue betwixt Tris- 
 treni and Ysonde, which was very famous in 
 the middle ages. The romance is occupied 
 in describing the artifices of the lovers to 
 escape the observation of Mark, the counter- 
 plots of the courtiers, jealous of Tristrem's 
 favour, and the uxorious credulity of the 
 King of Cornwall, who is always imposed 
 upon, and always fluctuating betwixt doubt 
 and confidence. At length he banishes 
 Tristrem from his court, who retires to Brit- 
 tanye (Bretagne), where he marries another 
 Ysonde, daughter of the Duke of that British 
 settlement. From a vivid recollection of his 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. V 
 
 first attachment he neglects his bride, and, 
 returning to Cornwall in various disguises, 
 renews his intrigue with the wife of his 
 uncle. At length, while in Brittanye, he is 
 engaged in a perilous adventure, in which 
 he receives an arrow in his old wound. No 
 one can cure the gangrene but the Queen of 
 Cornwall, and Tristrem dispatches a mes- 
 senger entreating her to come to his relief. 
 The confident of his passion is directed if 
 his embassy be successful to hoist a white 
 sail upon his return, and if otherwise a 
 black one. Ysonde of Brittanye, the wife 
 of Tristrem, overhears these instructions, 
 and on the return of the vessel with her 
 rival on board, fired with jealousy, she tells 
 her husband falsely that the sails are black. 
 Tristrem concluding himself abandoned by 
 Ysonde of Cornwall, throws himself back 
 and dies. Meantime the Queen lands and 
 hastens to the succour of her lover — finding 
 b 5 
 
10 LETTERS OF 
 
 him dead she throws herself on the body, 
 and dies also. 
 
 This is the outline of the story of Tris- 
 trem, so much celebrated in ancient times. 
 As early as the eleventh century his famous 
 sword is said to have been found in the 
 grave of a King of the Lombards. The 
 loves of Tristrem and Ysonde are alluded to 
 in the songs of the King of Navarre, who 
 flourished about 1226, and also in Chretien 
 de Troyes, who died about 1200. During the 
 13th century Thomas of Erceldoune, Earls- 
 town in Berwickshire, called the Rhymer, 
 composed a metrical history of their amours. 
 He certainly died previous to 1299. His 
 work is quoted by Robert de Brunne with 
 very high encomium. For some account of 
 this extraordinary personage I venture to 
 refer you to a compilation of ballads, enti- 
 tled, the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 
 v. II. p. 262, where I have endeavoured to 
 trace his history. It is his metrical romance 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 11 
 
 which I am publishing, not from a Scottish 
 manuscript of coeval date, but from an 
 English manuscript apparently written dur- 
 ing the minority of Edward III. The tran- 
 scriber quotes Tomas as his authority, and 
 professes to tell the tale of Sir Tristrem as 
 it was told to him by the author. The 
 stanza is very peculiar, and the language 
 concise to obscurity ; in short what Robert 
 de Brunne called, in speaking of Sir Tris- 
 trem, " queinte Inglis," not to be generally 
 understood even at the time when it was 
 written. The names are all of British, or, 
 if you please, Cornish derivation, as Morgan, 
 Riis, Brengwain, Urgan, Meriadoc, &c. 
 Tomas of Erceldoune lived precisely upon 
 the Borders of what had been the kingdom 
 of Strath Cluyd ; and. though himself an 
 English author, naturally adopted from his 
 British neighbours a story of such fame. 
 Perhaps he might himself be utriusque lin- 
 guae doctor, and a translator of British Bards. 
 
12 LETTERS OF 
 
 It happens by a most fortunate coinci- 
 dence, that Mr. Douce, with whose literary 
 fame and antiquarian researches you are 
 probably acquainted, possesses two frag- 
 ments of a metrical history of Sir Tristrem 
 in the French, or I should rather say in the 
 Romance language. One of them refers ex- 
 pressly to Tomas as the best authority upon 
 the history of Tristrem, though he informs us 
 that other minstrels told the story somewhat 
 differently. All the incidents of these frag- 
 ments occur in my manuscript, though much 
 more concisely narrated in the latter. The 
 language resembles that of Mademoiselle 
 Marie. Tintagel Castle is mentioned as 
 Mark's residence, a fairy castle which was 
 not always visible. In Tomas's Romance the 
 capital of Cornwall is called Caerlioun, as I 
 apprehend Castrum Leonense, the chief town 
 of the inundated district of Lionesse, from 
 which Sir Tristrem took his surname. The 
 English and French poems throw great light 
 upon each other. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 13 
 
 When the art of reading became more 
 common, the books of chivalry were re- 
 duced into prose, the art of the minstrel 
 being less frequently exercised. Tristrem 
 shared this fate, and his short story was 
 swelled into a large folio now before me, 
 beautifully printed at Paris in 1514. In 
 this work the story of Tristrem is engrafted 
 upon that of King Arthur, the romance of 
 the Round Table being then at the height of 
 popularity. Many circumstances are added 
 which do not occur in the metrical copies. It 
 is here that the heresy concerning the cow- 
 ardice of the Cornish nation first appears ; 
 there is not the least allusion to it in the 
 ancient poems, and it is merely introduced 
 to give effect to some comic adventures in 
 which Mark (le roy coux) is very roughly 
 handled, and to others in which certain 
 knights, presuming upon the universal pol- 
 troonery of the Cornish, attack Tristrem, and 
 according to the vulgar phrase " catch a 
 
14 
 
 LETTERS OF 
 
 Tartar." This volume is stated to be com- 
 piled by Luce, Lord of the castle of Gast, 
 near Salisbury, a name perhaps fictitious. 
 But Luce, if that was his real name, is not 
 singular in chusing the history of Tristrem 
 for the groundwork of his folio. There are 
 two immense manuscripts on the same sub- 
 ject in the Duke of Roxburghe's Library, 
 and one in the National Library at Paris, 
 and probably many others. The Morte Arthur 
 which you mention, is a book of still less 
 authority than the Paris folio. It is not a 
 history of the Cornish hero in particular ; 
 but a bundle of extracts made by Sir T. 
 Mallory, from the French romances of the 
 Table Round, as Sir Lancelot du Lac, and 
 the other folios printed on that subject at 
 Paris in the beginning of the 16th century. 
 It is therefore of no authority whatever, 
 being merely the shadow of a shade, an 
 awkward abridgement of prose romances, 
 themselves founded on the more ancient 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 15 
 
 metrical lais and gests, I suppose, how- 
 ever, Gibbon had not Mallory's authority for 
 his observation ; which he probably derived 
 from the elegant abridgement of Sir Tris- 
 trem (I mean of the prose folio) published 
 by Tressan, in " Extracts des Romans de la 
 Chevalerie." 
 
 I would willingly add to this scrambling 
 letter a specimen of the romance of Tomas 
 of Erceldoune ; but I am deterred by the 
 hope of soon having it in my power to send 
 the book itself, which is in the press. 
 
 I fear that in wishing fully to gratify your 
 curiosity I have been guilty of conferring 
 much tediousness upon you ; but, as it is 
 possible I may have omitted some of the 
 very particulars you wished to know, I have 
 only to add that it will give me the highest 
 pleasure to satisfy, as far as I am able, any 
 of Mr. Polwhele's enquiries, to whose literary 
 and poetical fame our northern capital is no 
 stranger. On my part I am curious to know 
 
10 LETTERS OF 
 
 if any recollection of Sir Tristrem (so me- 
 morable elsewhere) subsists in his native 
 county, whether by tradition or in the 
 names of places. Also whether tradition or 
 history points at the existence of such a 
 place as Carlioun, which Tomas thus de- 
 scribes : 
 
 Tristrem's schip was yare, 
 He asked his benisoun, 
 The haven he gan out frere, 
 
 It hight Carlioun ; 
 Nyen woukes and mare, 
 
 He hohled up and doun, 
 A winde to vvil him bare, 
 
 To a stede ther him was boun 
 
 Neighe hand, 
 Deivelin hight the toun, 
 An haven in Ireland. 
 
 1 may just add that Tristrem is described 
 as a celebrated musician and chess-player, 
 and as the first who laid down regular rules 
 for hunting. 
 
 I beg to be kindly remembered to Mr. 
 Carlyon, to whom I am much obliged 
 for giving me an opportunity to subscribe 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 17 
 
 myself, Sir, your most obedient humble 
 servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 P. S. Do you not conceive it possible that 
 the name of our friend Carlyoris family, 
 which I understand is of original Cornish 
 extraction, may have been derived from the 
 lost Caerlionn ? 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 TO FRANCIS DOUCE, ESQ. F.S.A. 
 
 sir, Edinburgh, Castle-street, May 7, ISOi. 
 
 The warm recollection of your kindness, 
 during my short stay in London, would have 
 induced me to find out some means of ac- 
 knowledgment, however trifling, even if the 
 volume which I have now the honour to re- 
 quest you to accept had not derived a great 
 share of any interest it may be found to pos- 
 sess, from the curious fragments upon the 
 same subject which you so liberally com- 
 
18 LETTERS OF 
 
 municated to me. I hope that in both 
 points of view, the copy of Sir Tristrem 
 now sent will be thought deserving of a 
 place among your literary treasures. It is 
 one of twelve thrown off, without a castra- 
 tion which I adopted in the rest of the edi- 
 tion, against my own opinion, and in com- 
 pliance with that of some respectable friends : 
 for I can by no means think that the coarse- 
 ness of an ancient romance is so dangerous 
 to the, public as the mongrel and inflamma- 
 tory sentimentality of a modern novelist. 
 
 By honouring with your acceptance a 
 " Tristrem entier," you will greatly oblige, 
 Sir, your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 TO DAVIES GILBERT, ESQ. 
 
 Sir, Edinburgh, 29M Jan 1808. 
 
 Ill availing myself of your kind offices to 
 transmit the inclosed to Mr. Polwhele, I 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 19 
 
 should be very ungrateful did I omit to 
 make my best acknowledgments to you for 
 the favourable opinion which you have been 
 pleased to express of my literary attempts. 
 I have been labouring (at least working) 
 upon another legend connected with the 
 Battle of Flodden : I have only to wish that 
 it may experience half the kindness with 
 which its predecessor was received, and will 
 be particularly happy should it be the case 
 in your instance. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obliged humble servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE. 
 
 dear sir, AsheUiel by Selkirk, 21 July, 1808. 
 
 Owing to my residence in London for 
 
 these some months past, I did not receive 
 
 your letter till my return to Edinburgh 
 
20 LETTERS OF 
 
 about a fortnight ago, since which time I 
 have been overwhelmed with the professional 
 duty that had been accumulating during my 
 absence. 
 
 I consider it as no slight favour that vou 
 are willing to entrust to me the task of re- 
 viewing my early and great favourite the 
 beautiful poem on Local Attachment, and I 
 will write to Mr. Gilford, our chief com- 
 mander, offering my services. The only ob- 
 jection I can foresee is the poem having been 
 for some time printed ; but it has been cus- 
 tomary of late years to get over this. I will 
 at the same time mention to Mr. G. your 
 obliging offer of assistance, which I do not 
 doubt he will consider as highly valuable. It 
 may be necessary to say, however, that I my- 
 self have no voice in the management of the 
 Quarterly Review, and am only a sincere 
 well-wisher and occasional contributor to 
 the work. The management is in much 
 better hands ; but I am sure Mr. Gifford will 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 21 
 
 be as sensible of the value of your co-opera- 
 tion as I should be in his situation. 
 
 Believe me, dear Sir, your much obliged 
 truly faithful humble servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 A writer, signing himself Alcaens, in one of the 
 public prints, observes, that " in the ' Lay of the 
 last Minstrel,' there is an evident imitation of the 
 1 Local Attachment ;' which, however, Walter Scott 
 has had the ingenuousness to acknowledge. The 
 latter poem opens with the following stanza : 
 
 ' Breathes there a spirit in this ample orb 
 That owns affection for no fav'rite clime ; 
 
 Such as the sordid passions ne'er absorb, 
 Glowing in gen'rous hearts, unchill'd by time ? 
 Is it — ye sophists ! say — a venial crime 
 
 To damp the love of home with scornful mirth ? 
 Though, led by scientific views sublime, 
 
 Ye range, with various search, the realms of earth, — 
 Seeks no returning sigh the region of your birth ?' 
 
 " The sixth canto of the ' Lay' opens thus: 
 
 ' Breathes there a man, with soul so dead, 
 Who never to himself hath said, 
 
 This is my own — my native land ?' 
 
22 LETTERS OF 
 
 Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned 
 As home his footsteps he hath turned 
 From wandering on a foreign strand ? ' 
 
 " In a note on this passage, Scott says, 'the In- 
 fluence of Local Attachment has been so exquisitely 
 painted by my friend, Mr. Pohvhele, in the poem 
 which bears that title, as might well have dispensed 
 with the more feeble attempt of any contemporary 
 poet. To the reader who has not been so fortunate 
 as to meet with this philosophical and poetical detail 
 of the nature and operations of the love of our 
 country, the following brief extract cannot fail to 
 be acceptable : 
 
 ' Yes ! Home still charms : and he, who, clad in fur, 
 His rapid rein-deer drives o'er plains of snow, 
 
 Would rather to the same wild tracts recur, 
 That various life had marked with joy or woe, 
 Than wander where the spicy breezes blow, 
 
 To kiss the hyacinths of Azza's hair ; — 
 Rather than where luxuriant summers glow, 
 
 To the white mosses of his hills repair, 
 And bid his antler train the simple banquet share.' 
 
 " Perhaps the above poem is more read in Scot- 
 land than in Cornwall. In a masterly criticism on 
 the c Living Poets of Great Britain,' (where the wri- 
 ter is extremely cautious of admitting those into his 
 exhibition who do not deserve the name of poets), 
 the ' Local Attachment' is spoken of very favourably. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 23 
 
 'Among those poems,' says the reviewer, 'which 
 have not received their due share of public attention, 
 we are disposed to reckon Mr. Polwhele's ' Influ- 
 ence of- Local Attachment,' which contains some 
 passages of great beauty." See Edinburgh Annual 
 Register, 1808. 
 
 " That an author is better known at a distance 
 than at home, is a fact which is still more strikingly 
 exemplified in the fate of a little poem entitled the 
 ' Unsexed Females.' A large edition of this pro- 
 duction was sold by Cobbett, in America, before a 
 single copy of it, perhaps, had made its way into a 
 Cornish library ! 
 
 "August 1817. alcjEus." 
 
 The writer, who thus assumed the signature of 
 Alcceus, was a physician of high eminence. But he 
 no longer exists among us ; to search (if any human 
 intelligence could search) into the deep arcana of 
 that mysterious disease, with which all around are 
 at this moment threatened or afflicted ! Of the 
 poem in question, I was some time since employed 
 in correcting it for a new edition, and had interwo- 
 ven in the MS. the following (and many other) 
 stanzas : 
 
 ***** 
 
 " But, oh! if torn from all we value most, 
 The inevitable doom be ours, to seek 
 
 A country distant from our own dear coast ■ 
 If fortune bear us, where with carnage reek 
 
24 LETTERS OF 
 
 Gaunt wolves that emulate the vulture's beak ; 
 
 'Tis not from battle-fields with fear we start: 
 We feel the vital strings asunder break, 
 
 When from the scene ' so native to our heart' — 
 When from our earliest love our boding sorrows part. 
 
 "There, where the blossom'd bough, the berried bush, 
 (Snapt, and by yester winds hurl'd down the steep,) 
 
 Gleams thro' subsiding waves ; where oft would rush 
 The thunder-torrent with terrific sweep; 
 Poor peasant ! in thy southern hollow deep, 
 
 That casement, kiss'd by pearly grapes, was thine 
 From simple childhood ! — But I see thee weep, 
 
 Snatcht from thy cottage, thy coeval vine, 
 
 As close about thy home thy first pure pleasures twine. 
 
 " There, in the transience of a rainbow shower, 
 Now darksome, now with various lustre clear, 
 
 Glistens the lattice of that Gothic tower ! 
 And hark ! how pleasant to the pensive ear 
 Its mellow music ! Down yon watery meer, 
 
 Hark ! how the stealing sweetness sinks away ! 
 'Midst sad adieus, alas ! the boding fear 
 
 Flutters around those pinnacles so gray ; 
 And faint Hope lingers there, and looks with fond 
 delay. 
 
 M Perhaps, more duteous than the vulgar tribe, 
 Thy virtue bade thee cling, when life was new, 
 
 To thy loved sire attacht — without a bribe ! 
 Lo, kind affection to thy parent true, 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 2.5 
 
 There bore thee, where the wholesome cresses grew, 
 Or to the elder bourne, the hurtle nook — 
 
 Or to the yellow pear, the plum's rich blue, — 
 Or, with thy pitcher to the limpid brook, — 
 
 Or, to the dame, whose imps each thumbs his blister'd 
 book. 
 
 " Perhaps a lover's, from its living bed 
 Yon cavern'd rock a softer tale may tell ! 
 
 The pine-tree, that above its mantle spread, 
 And bade to Eve's fresh breeze its whispers swell ; 
 And from the mossy roof the meek hare-bell — 
 
 All — all — (tho' mark'd with slight regard before) 
 Ask from thy feeling a distinct farewell ! 
 
 And, yearning, thou wilt number o'er and o'er 
 The pebbles, red or white, that pave the gleamy floor. 
 ***** 
 
 " Such were the ideas which electric ran 
 Thro' Xenophon's dishearten'd troops, when bright 
 
 A prospect of the sea surpris'd the van, 
 Now as they gain'd the sacred mountain's height, 
 ' The sea ! the sea !' they shouted with delight ; 
 
 And sparkled quick in every eye the tear ! 
 Each o'er the billows strain'd his aching sight; 
 
 And, as ' The sea !' re-echoed from the rear, 
 Already seem'd to grasp the Home his soul held dear." 
 
 Here, who but in sorrow could imagine the 
 dying Poet of " The Lay" returning with all pos- 
 sible expedition to his native country, — and ap- 
 
 C 
 
26 LETTERS OF 
 
 proaching Abbotsford with a momentary renovation 
 of strength and spirits ? 
 
 Descending the vale, at the bottom of which the 
 prospect of Abbotsford first opens, " it was found 
 difficult to keep him quiet in his carriage ; so anxious 
 was he to rear himself up, to catch an early glimpse 
 of his beloved scene." !*• 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE. 
 
 my dear sir, Edinburgh, 11 Oct. 1810. 
 
 This accompanies a set of poor Miss 
 Seward's Poems, which I hope you will 
 have the kindness to accept. Another cover 
 will convey to you my three poems, which 
 I regret to find have not reached you. 
 Miss Seward left the greater part of her 
 correspondence to Mr. Constable, of Edin- 
 burgh, who is I believe taking measures to 
 publish them. It is very extensive, occu- 
 pying many folio MSS., for she kept a copy 
 of almost every letter which she wrote. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 27 
 
 I will be much obliged to you to send 
 your valued publications under cover to Mr. 
 Freeling, or to John Wilson Croker, Esq. 
 either of whom will forward them in safety. 
 
 As I know you are a great master of 
 northern lore, and interested in all that be- 
 longs to it, I am anxious to bespeak your 
 interest in favour of a publication intended 
 to illustrate these studies. It is a quarto 
 volume entitled Northern Antiquities, to be 
 published by the Ballantynes of Edinburgh, 
 for Messrs. Weber and Robert Jameson. 
 May I hope that you will, either for this or 
 the next volume, favour us with a commu- 
 nication ? The subject (provided it be con- 
 nected with antiquities) is entirely at your 
 choice. I wished to add to the packet I 
 transmit for your acceptance, a copy of Sir 
 Tristrem, in whom as a hero of Cornwall 
 you must doubtless be interested ; but the 
 edition is entirely out of print. 
 
 I am very glad indeed you like the Lady 
 c 2 
 
28 LETTERS OF 
 
 of the Lake ; hut, if you knew how much I 
 admire your poem on Local Attachment, you 
 would not have threatened me with so ter- 
 rible a compliment as that of laying down 
 your own harp. Believe me, my dear Sir, 
 very truly, your much obliged, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 P. S. Some time ago (several years now) 
 I met with two very pleasant young men 
 from Cornwall, Mr. Carl yon and Mr. 
 Collins ; to the former of whom I was in- 
 debted for the honor of being introduced to 
 your notice. When you favour me with a 
 line, I should like much to know how they 
 have fared in life, which they were then 
 about to enter upon. 
 
 1 have read Miss Seward's Letters with great sa- 
 tisfaction. With her scenes in general I am but 
 little acquainted : but I am well acquainted with 
 many of her characters. 
 
 In the first volume of the Letters, Miss Hannah 
 More and "the Bristol Milkmaid" are introduced. I 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 29 
 
 know something of this transaction. Miss H. More 
 treated Lactilla contumeliously — I mean, as a poet 
 would treat a poet : — but infinitely superior was 
 Lactilla's poetry to Miss Hannah's ! In the second 
 volume is printed, very incorrectly, a lyric effusion 
 which, though a mere trifle, I have reprinted (not 
 cum omnibus erroribus) at pp. 647 and 6'-V8 of my 
 "Traditions and Recollections." 
 
 In the fifth volume, Miss Seward, addressing Mr. 
 Cary, says, — " Several of the simply beautiful and 
 touching parts in Shenstone's charming Pastorals, 
 have been laughably travestied." This burlesque 
 appears in the " Devon and Cornwall Poets." It is 
 ostensibly my old friend Major Drewe's. Had I 
 told Miss Seward, that the ridicule which has thus 
 raised her indignation, was started and pursued by 
 the Major and myself, over a bottle of claret, my 
 name would never, perhaps, have occurred in the 
 list of her honoured friends. P- 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE. 
 
 my dear sir, Edinburgh, 15 Oct. 1810. 
 
 I had the pleasure to write to you yester- 
 day under the frank of Mr. Croker of the 
 
30 LETTERS OF 
 
 Admiralty, forwarding a set of Miss Seward's 
 works. But as I am uncertain whether this 
 parcel may not reach you first, I trouble you 
 with these few lines, to say that I enclose 
 the Poems which you ought to have had long 
 ago. I am sorry the Marmion does not 
 rank with the others ; but by some whim of 
 the proprietors they have put it in the pre- 
 sent shape, and I cannot find an octavo 
 copy. The volumes you so kindly destine 
 me, will reach me safely if sent under cover 
 to J. Wilson Croker, Esq. Secretary to the 
 Admiralty. 
 
 Referring myself for other matters to my 
 former letter, I am ever yours truly, 
 
 W. Scott. 
 
 Archdeacon Nares was much pleased with my re- 
 view of " Marmion," in the British Critic. P. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 31 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 TO REV. R. POLWHELE, KENWYN. 
 
 my dear sir, Marlowe House, 30 Dec. 1810. 
 It was very late this season before I got 
 to Edinburgh, and consequently before I 
 had the pleasure of receiving your valued 
 present, on which I have been making my 
 Christmas cheer ever since, until an ancient 
 and hereditary engagement brought me here 
 to spend the holidays with my chief, the Laird 
 of Harden. I should be very ungrateful in- 
 deed, if I longer delayed the acknoweldg- 
 ment of the pleasure I have received from 
 the re-perusal of the " Local Attachment," and 
 the " Old English Gentleman ;" which, I take 
 great credit to my taste in boasting, have 
 been long favourites of mine, as well as from 
 reading the other curious and interesting 
 volumes with which I had yet to form an 
 acquaintance. I have never had the good 
 
32 LETTERS OF 
 
 fortune to see topographical labours con- 
 ducted at once with the accuracy of the 
 antiquary and the elegance of the man of 
 general literature, until you were so kind as 
 to send me your county histories ; which, 
 under a title not very inviting beyond the 
 bounds of the provinces described, contain 
 so much interesting to the general reader, 
 and essential to the purpose of the English 
 historian. You have furnished a folio and 
 an octavo shelf in my little bookroom, with 
 treasures which I shall often resort to with 
 double pleasure, as pledges of the kindness 
 of the ingenious author. 
 
 I wrote to Gifford about three weeks ago, 
 mentioning my wish to take up the " Local 
 Attachment." But he answers me that the 
 present number is filled up ; and in case he 
 does not make room for me in the next, I 
 must seek another corner for my critique, 
 and I have cast my eyes upon the Edinburgh 
 Annual Register, but I will wait to see what 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 33 
 
 our Generalissimo says about his next num- 
 ber. I shall not be sorry if he still declines 
 my criticism, because I think I can weave 
 it into a tolerably independent article, for 
 the Register aforesaid. 
 
 Our " Northern Antiquities," as we have 
 ventured to christen a quarto undertaken 
 by Mr. Weber and Mr. R. Jamieson, both 
 friends of mine, are to contain a great deal 
 of Teutonic lore. Much of the first volume 
 is occupied by an account, rather protracted 
 I fear, of the Heldenbuck, a series of ro- 
 mances, referring to the history of Attila 
 and Theodoric, and therefore very curious. 
 Theodoric was to the Germans what King- 
 Arthur was to the English, and Charlemagne 
 to the French Romancers — a leading King 
 and champion, who assembled at his court 
 a body of chivalrous Knights, whose various 
 adventures furnish the theme of the various 
 cantos of this very curious work. 
 
 This is executed by Henry Weber, who is 
 c 5 
 
34 LETTERS OF 
 
 skin-deep in all that respects ancient Teuto- 
 nic poetry, and it is perfectly new to the 
 English Antiquary. Jamieson gives some 
 translations from the Kiempe Visis, a collec- 
 tion of Heroic Ballads, published in Den- 
 mark, about the end of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. Their curiosity consists in a great 
 measure in the curious relation they bear to 
 the popular ballads of England and Scotland. 
 Then I have promised to translate some 
 Swiss war songs and other scraps of poetry. 
 In short, our plan is entirely miscellaneous, 
 and embraces any thing curious that is allied 
 to the study of history, or more particularly 
 to that of poetry. This is our plan, my good 
 friend, and if you have any thing lying by 
 you which you would intrust to this motley 
 caravan, we will be much honoured. But 
 I hope soon to send you the first volume, 
 when you will judge how far we deserve your 
 countenance. I will take care you have it 
 so soon as published, and perhaps you may 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 35 
 
 like to review it for the Quarterly. I have 
 little share in it, excepting my wish to pro- 
 mote the interest of the prime conductors, 
 whose knowledge is rather more extensive 
 than their financial resources. 
 
 I am very glad to hear that Drs. Collins 
 and Carlyon are well, and settled in their 
 native country. Though I have little chance 
 of ever meeting them again, I cannot easily 
 forget the agreeable hours their society 
 afforded me at our chance meeting on the 
 hills of Selkirkshire. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, with the best 
 wishes of this season, your obliged and grate- 
 ful humble servant, Walter Scott, 
 
 The gentlemen whom this letter celebrates, 
 were indeed congenial spirits. One of them (my 
 excellent relation, Dr. Collins) is "gone hence, 
 to be no more seen !" But the other, we hope, will 
 be long spared to us ; from affluence, talent, and 
 science, a distinguished member of a grateful com- 
 munity. P- 
 
36 LETTERS OF 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE, KENWYN, TRURO. 
 
 my dear sir, Edinburgh, July 3, 1811. 
 
 I should be very ungrateful indeed, if in 
 distributing the few copies I have retained 
 of the inclosed drum and trumpet thing, 
 I should forget to request your kind accept- 
 ance of it, especially as I am sure you will 
 applaud the purpose, and pardon imperfec- 
 tions in the execution. I am so busy 
 making up all my little parcels, that I have 
 only a moment to add that I hope this will 
 find you as well as I wish you. Believe 
 me, dear Sir, your truly obliged, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 "The Vision of Don Roderick." 
 
 With one of the "private copies" of which fifty 
 only were printed, I was presented by the benevo- 
 lent author. 
 
 It was often insinuated, during the publication of 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 37 
 
 his poems in the ballad style, that Scott had not 
 " that eagle wing" to carry him above the ballad 
 song. How false ! The Introduction in the Spen- 
 serian stanza, has an inimitable grandeur ; and be- 
 fore the whole Poem, Beattie's Minstrel " hides his 
 diminished head." P. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE, KENWYN, TRURO. 
 
 dear sir, Edinburgh, 1st Dec. 1811. 
 
 I received yours, when I was in the very 
 bustle of leaving Ashiestiel, which has been 
 my summer residence (and a very sweet one) 
 for these eight years past. It was not, how- 
 ever, for a distant migration, as I was only re- 
 moving to a small property of my own about 
 five miles lower down the Tweed. Now, al- 
 though, with true masculine indifference, I 
 leave to my better half the care of furniture 
 and china, yet there are such things as books 
 and papers, not to mention broad-swords and 
 
38 LETTERS OF 
 
 targets, battle-axes and helmets, guns, pis- 
 tols, and dirks, the care of which devolved 
 upon me, besides the bustle of ten thousand 
 directions, to be given in one breath of time, 
 concerning ten thousand queries, carefully 
 reserved for that parting moment, by those 
 who might as well have made them six 
 months before. Besides, I really wished to 
 be here, and consult with my friends and 
 publishers, the Messrs. Ballantynes, before 
 answering the most material part of your 
 letter. They will esteem themselves happy 
 and proud to publish any thing of yours, and 
 to observe the strictest incognito so long as 
 you think that necessary. They only hesi- 
 tate upon the scruple of its not being an 
 original work, but a continuation of one al- 
 ready before the public ; one or two attempts 
 of the same kind having already been made 
 unsuccessfully. I told them I thought the 
 title-page might be so moulded, as not to 
 express the poem to be a continuation of 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 39 
 
 Beattie's work, and that that explanation 
 might be reserved for the preface or intro- 
 duction. As this was an experiment, they 
 proposed the terms should be those of shar- 
 ing profits with the author — they being at 
 the expense of print and paper. I can an- 
 swer for their dealing honourably and justly, 
 having already had occasion to know their 
 mode of conducting business thoroughly well. 
 With respect to the work itself, I believe 
 Beattie says, in some of his letters, that he 
 did intend the Minstrel to play the part of 
 Tyrteeus in some invasion of his country. 
 But I conceive one reason of his deserting 
 the task he had so beautifully commenced, was 
 the persuasion that he had given his hero an 
 education and tone of feeling inconsistent 
 with the plan he had laid down for his subse- 
 quent exploits ; and I entirely agree with you, 
 that vour termination of Edwin's history will 
 be much more natural and pleasing than that 
 intended by the author himself. 
 
40 LETTERS OF 
 
 The MS. may be sent under cover to Mr. 
 Croker or to Mr. Freeling. I will have the 
 utmost pleasure in attending to its progress 
 through the press, and doing all in my power 
 to give it celebrity. I was under the necessity 
 of making the Ballantynes my confidents as 
 to the name of the author, for they would 
 not listen to any proposal from an unknown 
 Scottish bard, as such effusions have not of 
 late been very fortunate. I flatter myself 
 you will not think less of the caution, when 
 I assure you your name smoothed all diffi- 
 culties, as they are both readers of poetry, 
 and no strangers to the " Local Attachment." 
 
 Believe me, dear Sir, I esteem myself ho- 
 noured in the confidence you repose in me ; 
 and that I am very much your faithful servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
S[R WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 41 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE, KENWYN, TRURO. 
 
 my dear sir, Abbotsford, 29 Feb. 1812. 
 
 Your favour, and soon after your poem, 
 reached me here when I was busy in planting, 
 ditching, and fencing a kingdom, like that 
 of Virgil's Melibaeus, of about one hundred 
 acres. I immediately sent your poem to 
 Ballantyne, without the least intimation 
 whence it comes. But I greatly doubt his 
 venturing on the publication, nor can I 
 much urge him to it. The disputes of the 
 Huttonians and Wernerians, though they 
 occasioned, it is said, the damning of a tra- 
 gedy in Edinburgh last month, have not 
 agitated our northern Athens in any degree 
 like the disputes between the Bellonians and 
 Lancastrians. The Bishop of Meath, some 
 time a resident with us, preached against the 
 Lancastrian system in our Episcopal chapel. 
 
42 LETTERS OF 
 
 The Rev. Sir Henry Moncrieff, a Scottish 
 Baronet, and leader of the stricter sect of 
 the Presbyterians, replied in a thundering 
 discourse of an hour and a half in length. 
 Now, every body being engaged on one side 
 or the other, I believe no one will care to 
 bring forth a poem which laughs at both. 
 As for me, upon whom the suspicion of au- 
 thorship would probably attach, I say with 
 Mrs. Quickly, " I will never put my finger 
 in the fire, and need not ! indeed no, la !" I 
 shall be in Edinburgh in the course of a 
 week, and learn the publishers' determina- 
 tion ; and if it be as I anticipate, I will find 
 means to return the MS. safely under an 
 office frank. 
 
 I like the poetry very much, and much of 
 the sentiment also, being distinctly of opi- 
 nion that the actual power of reading, whe- 
 ther English or Latin or Greek, acquired at 
 school, is of little consequence compared 
 to the habits of discipline and attention ne- 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 43 
 
 eessarily acquired in the course of regular 
 study. I fear many of the short-hand acqui- 
 sitions will be found " in fancy ripe, in rea- 
 son rotten." After all, however, this applies 
 chiefly to the easier and higher classes ; for, 
 as to the lower, we are to consider the sav- 
 ing of time in learning as the means of 
 teaching many who otherwise would not 
 learn at all. So I quietly subscribe to both 
 schools, and give my name to neither. I 
 trust the charlatanism of both systems 
 will subside into something useful. I have 
 no good opinion of either of the cham- 
 pions. Lancaster is a mountebank ; and 
 there is a certain lawsuit depending in our 
 courts here between Dr. Bell and his wife, 
 which puts him in a very questionable point 
 of view. 
 
 Believe me, dear Sir, yours ever truly, 
 
 W. Scott. 
 
44 LETTERS OF 
 
 " The Deserted Village-School," a poem, was 
 printed with the following mottoes : 
 
 " The Athenians, we know, in the decline of their 
 state, spent their time in nothing else but either to 
 tell or to hear some new thing. In this respect, we 
 fall but little short of that refined people. Hence all 
 those corruptions in literature : hence all those disco- 
 veries in the education of youth." (Bishop Porteus.) 
 " Plus habet ostentationis quam operis. (Quintihan.) 
 " Cito prudentes, cito omnis officii capaces et cu- 
 riosi." (Seneca.) 
 
 at Edinburgh, by James Ballantyne and Co., for 
 John Ballantyne and Co., Edinburgh ; and Long- 
 man, Hurst, Rees, Orrne, and Brown, London ; in 
 1812. P. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 TO THE REV. MR. POLWHELE, KENWYN, TRURO. 
 
 my dear sir, Abbotsford, 10 Sept. 1812. 
 
 Nothing but my present residence being 
 so distant from the Ballantynes, prevented 
 my immediately satisfying you on the sub- 
 ject of the " Minstrel." I have been led from 
 day to day to expect one or both of them 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 45 
 
 here, but did not see them till a few days 
 since. I find from the state of my own 
 transactions with them, that they are not 
 disposed in the present state of mercantile 
 credit, to publish any thing for which they 
 are not under actual engagements. The 
 facility of commercial discounts has been 
 narrowed from nine and ten to three months, 
 which of course obliges all prudent adven- 
 turers who have not the means of extending 
 their capital, to meet the inconvenience by 
 retrenching their trade. To this, therefore, 
 the Muse must give way for the present, so 
 far at least as Edinburgh is concerned. 
 This is the real state of the case ; otherwise, 
 independent of the merit of the performance 
 itself, vour name alone would have been 
 sufficient to recommend any thing to a pub- 
 lisher in Scotland. But at present there is 
 nothing to be done. I have a poem on the 
 stocks myself ; but shall find some difficulty 
 in getting it launched, at least in the way I 
 
46 
 
 LETTERS OF 
 
 expected, and must make considerable sacri- 
 fices to the pressure of the times. 
 
 I am busy here beautifying a farm which 
 nothing but the influence of Local Attach- 
 ment could greatly recommend, unless a 
 Christian wished to practise at once the 
 virtues of faith, hope, and charity, for it 
 requires the whole to judge of it favourably, 
 its present state being altogether unpromising. 
 It has, however, about a mile of Tweedside, 
 and that is a sufficient recommendation to 
 a Borderer. I am delighted to hear of the 
 good success of Drs. Carlyon and Collins, 
 who struck me as young men of great pro- 
 mise, and likely to make a good figure in 
 life. 
 
 Adieu, my dear Sir. So soon as I go to 
 Edinburgh, which will be next month or the 
 beginning of November at furthest, I will 
 transmit to you the MS. Should you wish 
 to have it sooner, and will direct to Messrs. 
 Ballantyne's, they will attend to your in- 
 structions. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 47 
 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, very much your 
 faithful humble servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE, KENWYN, TRURO. 
 
 my dear sir, Edinburgh, 16 Nov. 1812. 
 
 I regret most extremely that my absence 
 from Edinburgh should have occasioned the 
 delay of which you most justly complain, 
 but which, not having been here for six 
 months, I had it not in my power to pre- 
 vent. I only returned the day before yester- 
 day, and have been since engaged in official 
 attendance on the election of our Scottish 
 Peers, where we are returning officers. I will 
 not delay a moment returning the MS. As I 
 have no criticism to offer, which can, in the 
 slightest degree, affect your feelings, I can 
 have no hesitation to state the only circum- 
 
48 LETTERS OF 
 
 stance which, I think, may possibly interfere 
 with the popularity of "The Minstrel;" 
 which is, its being founded upon the plan of 
 another poet, which has been long before the 
 public in the shape of a fragment. In read- 
 ing a fragment, the mind naturally forms 
 some sketch of its probable conclusion, 
 and is more or less displeased, however un- 
 reasonably, with a conclusion which shocks 
 and departs from its own preconceptions ; 
 and it is to this feeling that I am tempted 
 to ascribe the failure of almost all attempts, 
 which I can recollect, to continue a well- 
 known poem or story. But, although this 
 is, in my opinion, a radical objection to the 
 plan you have adopted, yet your plan is car- 
 ried on with so much poetical spirit and ta- 
 lent, that it would never have weighed with 
 me in advising that the publication of the 
 poem should be delayed ; and, had matters 
 stood with my friendly booksellers as they 
 did this time twelvemonth, I am certain they 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 49 
 
 would have considered the adventure as a very 
 favourable speculation. But the state of the 
 commercial world, in every branch, is at pre- 
 sent such as necessarily compels all prudent 
 persons rather to get rid of the stock now 
 on their hands, than to make additions to it 
 even under the most favourable circum- 
 stances. 
 
 I have not seen the bibliopolists since I 
 came to town, but will call in upon them 
 to-day, to get your valuable manuscript, and 
 to enquire into the progress of the " Village 
 School." 
 
 Ballantynes. 
 
 On coming here, I find the manuscript 
 has been sent, which I regret, as I would 
 certainly have gone over it with more atten- 
 tion than in my former cursory view. 
 
 I send the " Lay" to ballast this scrawl, and 
 am ever yours most truly, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
50 LETTERS OF 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWIIELE, KENWYN, TRURO. 
 
 mv dear sir, Abbotsford, 2 Aug. 1813. 
 
 Your letter has had a most weary dance 
 after me through the North of England, 
 where I have been rambling: a <jood while ; 
 and, being disappointed in an intended visit 
 to my friend Morris at Rokeby, all my let- 
 ters miscarried for a season, being sent to 
 his charge. Assuredly I will have the great- 
 est pleasure in reading any thing of yours, 
 and recommending it to the booksellers. 
 
 I trust this glorious news from Spain may 
 eventually lead this Disturber of Europe to 
 think of offering fair and honourable terms 
 of peace, which would be as advantageous, 
 I am convinced, for the literary as for the 
 commercial public. 
 
 I will not omit any opportunity of doing 
 what you wish ; but Jeffrey and Gifford are 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 51 
 
 the only managers of these reviews, and are, 
 like other great men, sufficiently arbitrary in 
 their admission or rejection of articles. 
 
 My present address is " Abbotsford, Mel- 
 rose," where I have settled myself in a little 
 cottage, with about one hundred acres of 
 land, as my " hoc erat in votis." We have 
 the living fountain and the silver Tweed ; 
 but, alas ! the groves are yet to rise. 
 
 Believe me, dear Sir, with sincere regard, 
 vcur faithful humble servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWIIELE, KEN'WYX, TRURO. 
 
 my dear sir, Edinburgh, 3 April, 1814. 
 
 Immediately upon coming to town, I en- 
 quired after your papers, having previously 
 done so by letter, and had the satisfaction to 
 d 2 
 
52 LETTERS OF 
 
 learn that they had been sent to your address 
 in London, and arrived safe. I have been 
 considering the subject you propose for his- 
 torical composition. It is certainly a desi- 
 deratum in Scottish story, and I should be 
 delighted to see it in your hands ; but there 
 is a woeful deficiency of materials. Boethius 
 is altogether fabulous ; and to follow him. 
 as Buchanan has done, would only be add- 
 ing to exploded error. Something might be 
 gleaned from the English Chronicles, and a 
 good deal from old Wintown and Barlowe. 
 But I apprehend the only way to get at 
 something like historical fact, would be to 
 consult the few records which remain of that 
 early period. These, indeed, are very few, 
 have suffered much, and are not over and 
 above legible. They consist of charters, and 
 of various rolls and chamberlains' accompts, 
 kept by our monarchs and their officers of 
 state. If these were carefully examined, I 
 am convinc ed much fable might be corrected 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 53 
 
 by the application of dates to facts, and per- 
 haps some important truths recovered. Lord 
 Thurles was the first who introduced accu- 
 racy into Scottish history. All who precede 
 him may be considered as absolutely legen- 
 dary. There is, therefore, a fair field for pa- 
 tient and persevering research and industry, 
 and I have not the least doubt that, should you 
 think so seriously of the task as to make 
 Edinburgh your residence for the time neces- 
 sary to collect these scattered materials, every 
 facility of access will be afforded you. Indeed, 
 my own official situation, which is collaterally 
 connected with that of the Lord Register, 
 puts something in my power; and Mr. 
 Thomson, the Deputy Register, is a man of 
 most liberal disposition and great historical 
 knowledge. But I fear that, without a re- 
 sidence of many months in this place, very 
 little could be done ; and I should rejoice to 
 think this were possible for you, as I should 
 then have the pleasure to improve our epis- 
 
54 LETTERS OF 
 
 tolary into personal acquaintance. But I 
 doubt whether your other avocations will 
 permit your making so great a sacrifice to 
 vour literary pursuits. 
 
 I take the liberty to send you a copy of a 
 poem I lately published, but which was ori- 
 ginally in rather a cumbrous form to be 
 transmitted so many hundred miles. 
 
 Believe me, dear Sir, yours very truly and 
 
 respectfully, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE. 
 
 my dear sir, Edinburgh, 10 July, 1814. 
 
 I wrote to you in winter upon the subject 
 of your curious and valuable MS. which I 
 think fully equal to any which you have yet 
 written ; as that letter did not reach you, I 
 will mention its principal points, in the par- 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 9§ 
 
 eel consisting of the MS. itself, which I will 
 return tomorrow. Your poem, with some 
 material papers of my own, has been for some 
 months in a situation rather secure than ac- 
 cessible ; for, in the hurry attending my re- 
 moval from one house in the country to ano- 
 ther, my furniture was deposited in a hay-loft ; 
 and at the bottom of a heap of old arms, hel- 
 mets, and broad-swords, fenced in with a che- 
 veux-de-frise of chairs, tables, and bed-posts, 
 stood a small bureau, containing all my own 
 papers and your beautiful poem. I could not 
 trust the key of this treasure-chest to any 
 one but myself, and I only got my matters a 
 little arranged last week, when I recovered 
 your verses, and brought them to town 
 with me. 
 
 I wish you joy of the marvellous conclu- 
 sion of the strange and terrible drama which 
 our eyes have seen opened, and I trust 
 finally closed, upon the grand stage of Eu- 
 rope. I used to be fond of war when I was 
 
56 LETTERS OF 
 
 a younger man, and longed heartily to be a 
 soldier ; but now I think there is no prayer 
 in the service with which I could close more 
 earnestly, than "Send peace in our time, 
 good Lord." 
 
 I send this under Mr. Davies Giddy's 
 cover, and conclude hastily that I am, my 
 dear Sir, yours very truly, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE. 
 
 my dear sir, Edinburgh, Sept. 1814. 
 
 Baal is neither dead nor sleeping ; he had 
 only gone a journey, which was likely to 
 have landed him on the coast of Cornwall, 
 and near your door, in which case I should 
 have had the honour to have made your per- 
 sonal acquaintance. I have been engaged 
 for these two months last upon a pleasure- 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 57 
 
 voyage with some friends. We had a good 
 light cutter, well fitted up and manned, be- 
 longing to the service of the Northern Light- 
 houses, of which department my friends are 
 Commissioners. We therefore lived much 
 at our ease ; and had our motions as much 
 under our own command, as winds and 
 waves would permit. We visited the Shet- 
 land and Orkney Isles, and rounding the 
 island by Cape Wrath, wandered for some 
 time among the Hebrides; then went to the 
 Irish coast, and viewed the celebrated Giant's 
 Causeway, and would have pursued our 
 vovage Heaven knows how far, but that the 
 American privateers were a little too near 
 us, and the risk of falling in with them cut 
 short our cruise ; otherwise I might have 
 landed upon the ancient shores of Corinreus, 
 and made the " Fair Isabel" my introduction 
 to the Bard of the West. I now return the 
 MS. which I grieve I have detained so long. 
 I hope, however, there will be no delay in 
 d 5 
 
58 LETTERS OF 
 
 getting it printed by January, which is, I be- 
 lieve, the earliest approved publishing season. 
 I believe I shall make another adventure 
 myself about the same time, upon a subject 
 of Scottish history ; I have called my work 
 the " Lord of the Isles." The greater part 
 has been long written, but I am stupid at 
 drawing ideal scenery, and waited until I 
 should have a good opportunity to visit, or 
 rather to re-visit, the Hebrides, where the 
 scene is partly laid. 
 
 On my return, I was much shocked by 
 finding I had lost my amiable and constant 
 friend, the Duchess of Buccleuch — a cala- 
 mity of unspeakable consequence to her fa- 
 mily, her friends, and the country at large. 
 She was at once an example to those of her 
 own rank, and a protectress of virtue and 
 merit in those whom fortune had placed un- 
 der her. My long intimacy in the family 
 enabled me to observe some instances of her 
 judgment and beneficence, which I now can 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 59 
 
 hardly recollect without tears. I thought to 
 have inscribed to her the work at which I 
 was labouring ; but, alas ! it will now only re- 
 cord my severe pain and peculiar share in a 
 grief which is almost national. I beg par- 
 don for intruding this melancholy subject 
 upon you, but it will be long uppermost in 
 the thoughts of those who shared the friend- 
 ship of this lovely and lamented woman. 
 
 Believe me, my dear friend, ever most 
 truly vour.5, Walter Scott. 
 
 " The Fair Isabel." 
 
 To a critic in the Augustan Review (a Review of 
 short duration, I believe) 1 am obliged for his cour- 
 teous attention to my " Fair Isabel." His gal- 
 lantry to my heroine is sufficiently discoverable in 
 this outline of the poem. 
 
 " Sir Richard Edgcumbe, father of Isabel, hav- 
 ing lost his lady, sets off from Cotehele, in obedience 
 to the mandate of his bigot queen, to combat the 
 Protestant rebels under Trevanion, leaving the 
 young Isabel to the care of her sister (Mawd), — a 
 prioress (Jacqueline), who had taken refuge in the 
 castle on the dissolution of her nunnery — and a 
 
60 LETTERS OF 
 
 monk (father Nicholas); all distinguished, as ap- 
 pears in the sequel, by the worst crimes that too 
 commonly disgraced those lazy drones who battened 
 on the hive of Roman Catholic credulity, in the 
 most splendid days of papistical usurpation. Isa- 
 bel, wandering in the wood of Cotehele, is accosted 
 by a gipsey, in whom she recognizes her lover, Ed- 
 ward Trevanion, who had been left, when an or- 
 phan, to the care of his uncle, Sir Richard Edg- 
 cumbe ; but the latter, jealous of the growing at- 
 tachment between the young 'heretic' and his 
 daughter, had sent him abroad. From the relation 
 of his adventures, given by the youth, it appears 
 that on his return from France he found Sir Richard 
 and Trevanion, at the head of their respective forces, 
 engaged in battle ; the various turns of which he is 
 describing — when his narrative is interrupted by se- 
 veral strange songs, in the Oriental style, and some 
 mysterious appearances : on which the lovers hastily 
 part. The unseasonable minstrel is discovered to 
 be Erisey, a youth strongly tinctured with the su- 
 perstitions of the Catholic church, and who, with 
 many others, on the banishment of Edward, had 
 aspired to the hand of Isabel. Erisey, having ob- 
 tained an inadvertent promise from Isabel, on con- 
 dition of his performing a pilgrimage to the Holy 
 Land, had now returned from his travels to claim 
 its fulfilment. He is accompanied by Callimachi, 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 61 
 
 a young Greek, who is also smitten by the charms 
 of Isabel. The fair heroine, refusing either to marry 
 Erisey, to give up Trevanion, or to go to a nunnery 
 on the continent — notwithstanding the threats of the 
 prioress and the monk — is secretly conveyed to the 
 vault of her mother, there to be immured alive. 
 Callimachi, interposing in her behalf, is assassinated 
 by the priest ; who, with his accomplices, deceives 
 Sir Richard, by informing him that his daughter is 
 drowned in the Tamar. The knight institutes a 
 search for the body, and whilst the prioress is relat- 
 ing the circumstances of the pretended accident, a 
 boat passes on the river below, filled with ' shadowy 
 figures,' who intimate darkly, in songs, the guilt of 
 the prioress and Mawd ; upon which these aban- 
 doned characters, stung with shame and despair, 
 clasp each other, leap over the precipice, and perish 
 in the flood below. It subsequently appears that 
 the ' ancient bard' of the house of Cotehele, having 
 overheard a part of the conversation of the prioress 
 and the monk relative to Isabel, had repaired, by a 
 private and unobserved way, to the family vault, 
 which lay near the sea, for the purpose of counter- 
 acting their intentions. There he found the Lady 
 Alice awaking from a trance, in which she had been 
 prematurely interred ; and had scarcely time to 
 afford her the assistance necessary to the reco- 
 of animation, when Isabel was let down 
 
62 
 
 LETTERS OF 
 
 into the vault. The party escaped in a boat be- 
 longing to William (the lover of Jesse, Isabel's 
 confidante), and were conveyed to Mount Edg- 
 cumbe, whither Sir Richard repairs. Several in- 
 teresting explanations ensue; and poetical justice is 
 done to all parties, by the death of the priest, — bv 
 the discovery that JVlawd was the daughter of the 
 prioress, and not of Lady Edgcumbe (an exchange 
 of children having been accomplished through the 
 subtlety of the former), — by the recovery of the real 
 daughter, — the reconciliation of Sir Richard and 
 Trevanion, — the union of Isabel and Edward, and 
 of William and Jesse,— and the festivities of 
 Christmas, observed according to the ancient rites 
 of English hospitality, and to which the wonderful 
 adventures of the preceding days could not fail to 
 give a peculiar zest. 
 
 "Such is the ground-work on which Mr. Pol- 
 whele has raised the superstructure of his romance. 
 It abounds with incidents, many of which are pe- 
 culiarly striking, and are told in a style that cannot 
 fail to add to their dramatic effect, as will be seen 
 from the following quotations : 
 
 "Isabel, with hurried gaze 
 Through the wreathed window high, 
 Beheld the thin clouds scattering fly 
 Across the ruffled sky, 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 63 
 
 And, through their fleecy fragments white, 
 A smoky, fiery light ; 
 When, quick as vision, trail'd afar, 
 And, shooting to the earth its blaze, 
 Burst into myriad sparks, a star. 
 
 " ' Hark to the voices in the blast ! 
 c See — see that spirit — thy sire — it pass'd 
 ' On the careering cloud ! 
 1 It is his winding-sheet ! his shroud !' 
 She thought she saw a lifted cowl ; 
 She thought she saw a demon-scowl ! 
 * What means,' (she cried) * for mercy say ! ' — 
 A gleamy figure sank away.' " p. 62, 63. 
 
 " Again : 
 
 " She stopp'd and trembled. And he cried — 
 ' Thy sire is safe ! I joy to say — 
 ' Though yester was a bloody day !' 
 When his gipsey-dress half flung aside, 
 High youth appear'd in manly pride. 
 And a radiance from the sun, aslant 
 Through sprays that veil'd the sylvan haunt, 
 Was, on his brow, a lustrous streak, 
 A blush on his brown glowing cheek, 
 And (gradual beauty to unfold) 
 On his dark eye-lash, a shadowy ray, 
 That languish'd, as in am'rous play, 
 And on his bright hair, fluid gold. 
 
64 LETTERS OF 
 
 But, as the breeze, his locks between, 
 Fann'd the left temple's azure vein, 
 The sun-beam touch'd a recent scar, 
 Disclos'd amidst the parted hair." p. 112, 113. 
 
 (t Some of the delineations from nature are very 
 beautiful ; as in the following lines : 
 
 " Arising in the moody blast, 
 The sleety storm had well-nigh pass'd 
 (Ere the struggling day's first gleam) 
 Cotehele's old tow'rs and Tamar stream. 
 And now a few snow-feathers light 
 Twinkled in the rear of night. 
 Still was the sullen hour and dark : 
 The castle-roof no eye could mark, 
 Nor window-shaft, nor portal gray, 
 Nor oaken branch, nor ashen spray ; 
 When, suddenly, the bulwark'd wall, 
 Rampires, portcullis, windows, all, 
 And hollows down the steep wood-side, 
 And rocks amidst the foamy tide, 
 The oak's broad crest, and far below 
 Its cavern'd trunk that held the snow ; 
 The dusky fir, the berried ash — 
 Discover'd in one azure flash, 
 No sooner shone 
 Than they were gone 
 In the elemental crash." p. 24. 
 
 " From the preceding extracts, our readers will 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 65 
 
 perceive that ' The Fair Isabel' is a poem not 
 without merit. Passages might be cited from it 
 equal to any in Scott's poems. Scott, however, 
 appears to have laboured diligently to give all his 
 lines the highest degree of polish of which they 
 were susceptible : in Mr. Polwhele's poem, in- 
 stances of inattention or haste are continually oc- 
 curring. The following lines, amongst others, ought 
 to be carefully revised : 
 
 " Sail'd down the wood, and brush'd the ice-drops." 
 " As now a lone star, the last left." 
 
 (See Augustan Review for Sept. 1816.) 
 
 P. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE. 
 
 my dear sir, Abbotsford, 4 Nov. 1815. 
 
 I have been a long and distant wanderer 
 from home ; and, though I reached this 
 cottage six weeks ago, I only got " Isa- 
 bel" yesterday. She was in my house at 
 
66 LETTERS OF 
 
 Castle Street, in possession of an old house- 
 keeper ; who, knowing perhaps from youth- 
 ful experience the clangers which attend 
 young ladies on their travels, kept her with 
 some other captives until my wife, going 
 to town to attend a grand musical festival, 
 made a general jail delivery, and sent among 
 many, but none so welcome packets, the fair 
 maiden of Cotehele. What I liked so much 
 in manuscript, gained of course by being 
 made more legible ; and, did it rest with me, 
 would rank " Isabel" with " Local Attach- 
 ment," that is with one of the poems of mo- 
 dern times which has afforded me the most 
 sincere pleasure. 
 
 I will not fail to put into the hands of 
 Mr. Jeffrey the copy you have sent for him, 
 and to request him to read it with attention. 
 The rest must depend on his own taste. 
 But I will deliver the work with my own 
 hand. No time is yet lost ; for Mr. Jeffrey, 
 like myself and other gaping sawnies, has 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 67 
 
 for some time been in France. I am ignorant 
 if he be yet returned ; but at any rate the 
 sitting of the courts, which calls me from my 
 oaks of a fathom's growth, will bring him 
 also to Edinburgh. 
 
 Allow me to inclose you a small poem, on 
 the greatest of all events which has digni- 
 fied our eventful time. I was gradually 
 induced to commit myself upon this very 
 perilous ground, first by wishing to give 
 something to the fund more handsome than 
 usual, for the poor fellows and their rela- 
 tives who suffered, and then from a sort o( 
 pride which was unwilling to retreat from a 
 peril once encountered. In you the verses 
 will find a lenient critic ; for you can well 
 appreciate the difficulty of a theme unma- 
 nageable in proportion to its magnificence, 
 and rendered still more difficult in propor- 
 tion to its business. It is done and dared* 
 however, and there let it pass, cum cceteris 
 erroribus, 
 
68 LETTERS OF 
 
 My stay in France, which was pretty long 
 for a flying visit, has still more endeared 
 my own country, and the manly rectitude 
 of its morals and simplicity of its habits. 
 
 Adieu, my dear Sir. I hardly hope the 
 enclosed will prove an excuse for some 
 delay in correspondence ; but under an ac- 
 cumulation of business both personal and 
 official, and the natural disposition to lounge 
 with my family when I had not seen them 
 for several weeks, and with the absence of the 
 Maid of Cotehele, daily expected, it may go 
 some length to make my apology. Trusting 
 to your experienced goodness, I venture as 
 usual to subscribe myself, my dear Sir, very 
 much your obliged and faithful servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 The beautiful verses to Sir Hussey Vivian 
 also arrived during my Gallick tour, and in 
 fact reached me only two or three days 
 before " Isabel." 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 69 
 
 " Sir Hussey Vivian." 
 
 In this letter, Sir W. Scott is pleased "to be de- 
 lighted " with my poetical tribute to Sir Hussey 
 Vivian ; which "arrived during his Gallic tour." 
 
 In reference to these verses, I arn very glad to 
 have an opportunity of adverting to some incidents 
 in the life of Sir Hussey, which cannot be noticed 
 with indifference. They were communicated to me by 
 Sir Hussey himself; too late for insertion in the vo- 
 lumes of the " Cornish Worthies." To the Com- 
 mander of the Forces in Ireland, Cornwall looks up 
 with honest pride ; and every true Briton will re- 
 joice in the following memoir : 
 
 "I was born," says Sir Hussey, "28th July, 
 1775. In 1783 I went to Truro grammar-school, 
 under Dr. Cardew ; where I remained nine months, 
 and from thence was sent to Lostwithiel grammar- 
 school, under Dr. M'Gilvray. I remained there 
 four years, and then went to Harrow on the Hill, 
 of which school Dr. Drury was then master. At 
 Harrow I remained until Easter, 1791 ; when I 
 was entered at Exeter College, Oxford. I kept 
 two terms, and then went to France, where I re- 
 mained until the spring of 1792, learning the lan- 
 guage. 1 then returned to my father, who, flatter- 
 ing himself that I might tread in the steps of my 
 great uncle, Mr. Richard Hussey (who was very 
 eminent as a counsel, and the great friend of Pratt 
 
70 LETTERS OF 
 
 and Dunning, and who no doubt, had he lived 
 would have obtained an equally high situation in the 
 country — (having, at an early age, become Attorney- 
 general to the Queen), wished me to go to the bar ; 
 and, as T was at this time very young, he sent me 
 to his particular friend, Mr. Jonathan Elford, a 
 most excellent man, and very able solicitor and con- 
 veyancer, to study the law, prior to my entering the 
 Middle Temple, which I was destined to do. But 
 Mr. Elford residing at Plymouth Dock, threw me 
 into acquaintance with several officers of the army, 
 and my disposition prompting me to follow the steps 
 of my other great-uncle, Colonel Hussey, who was 
 killed with Wolfe on the heights of Abraham, [ 
 was, in 1793, appointed to an ensigncy in the 20th' 
 regt. of infantry ; and shortly after, to a lieutenancy 
 in the 54th, in which regiment I immediately em- 
 barked, on an expedition under the command of Sir 
 C. Grey, for the West Indies. But our destina- 
 tion was fortunately changed, and we were sent, 
 with five other regiments, to the relief of Newport, 
 then threatened by the French. The regiment was 
 shortly after placed in the army under the command 
 of the Earl of Moira, destined to create a diversion 
 on the coast of France, and assist the Vendeans. 
 In 1 794 I was appointed to a company in the 28th 
 regiment, belonging to the same army, and in June 
 the whole force under the orders of Lord Moira, 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 71 
 
 disembarked at Ostend, and joined the Duke of 
 York's army. During this campaign, I was in all 
 the a flairs that took place between the French and 
 British ; and in one, during the retreat of the army 
 which occurred at Geldermalsem, the 28th regiment 
 suffered severely, and gained great credit. In 1795 
 the British army returned to England ; and I then 
 embarked with my regiment for the -\\ est Indies, 
 forming part of the army under Sir Ralph Aber- 
 crombie. We were nine weeks at sea, attempting 
 the passage in the fleet commanded by Sir Hugh 
 Christian ; and the transport, in which I was, re- 
 turned with that part of the fleet driven back. The 
 regiment was then sent to Gibraltar, where I re- 
 mained with it from 1796 to 1798, when I ex- 
 changed into the 7th Light Dragoons. In 1799 
 that regiment formed part of the expedition to the 
 H elder, and I was engaged in every action that took 
 place there, with the exception of the landing. After 
 this I continued in the 7th, quartered in England, (in 
 1803 having obtained the rank of Major, and in 1804 
 that of Lieut. -Colonel, with the command of the regi- 
 ment,) until 1808, when I embarked with my re- 
 giment on the expedition under the orders of Sir 
 John Moore, for the coast of Spain, and landed at 
 Corunna. I was engaged in most of the affairs of 
 cavalry that took place during that campaign; and 
 in the retreat, the regiment under my command 
 formed the rear-guard from Astorga to Corunna ; 
 
72 LETTERS OF 
 
 and during that retreat I personally, accompanied 
 only by an Adjutant-Corporal, collected about 600 
 stragglers of the infantry that were attacked by 
 a body of French cavalry, formed them, and beat 
 off the enemy, for which I received Sir G. Paget's 
 (who witnessed it) and Sir John Moore's thanks. 
 In 1810 my regiment, having recruited its losses in 
 the Corunna campaign, was sent to Ireland, where 
 it continued until the Spring of 1813, when it re- 
 turned to England ; and in the August of that year 
 landed at Bilbao, and joined the Duke of Wel- 
 lington's army. I had, in 1812, been appointed 
 aide-de-camp to His Royal Highness the Prince 
 Regent, with the rank of Colonel in the army ; and 
 in the same year also, I had the further honour of 
 being appointed one of his Royal Highness's 
 equerries. Shortly after my arrival with the Duke 
 of Wellington's army, I was appointed a Colonel 
 on the staff, and to the command of a brigade of 
 cavalry; in this command I was engaged in the 
 battle of Orthes, and in most of the affairs of cavalry 
 that took place towards the end of the campaign of 
 1813; and in that of 1814, at Thoulouse, I was 
 severely wounded, at the head of the 18th Hussars, 
 in remembrance of which occasion the Duke of 
 Wellington was pleased to speak of me in the fol- 
 lowing very flattering terms : ' The 18th Hussars, 
 under the immediate command of Colonel Vivian, 
 had an opportunity of making a most gallant attack 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 73 
 
 upon a superior body of the enemy's cavalry, which 
 they drove through the village of Croix d'Orade, 
 and took about 100 prisoners, and gave us posses- 
 sion of an important bridge over the river Eis, by 
 which it was necessary to pass in order to attack 
 the enemy's position. Colonel Vivian was unfortu- 
 nately wounded upon this occasion, and I am afraid 
 I shall lose the benefit of his assistance for some 
 time.' 
 
 " The 18th Hussars presented me with a sword, 
 on which is the following inscription : ' The offi- 
 cers of the 18th Hussars express by this token, 
 their regard for, and confidence in, Major-General 
 Richard Hussey Vivian, who was wounded at the 
 head of their regiment ;' which sword was sent to 
 me with a very flattering and complimentary letter.* 
 
 i( In 1814, on the peace, I returned with the army 
 to England, and was raised to the rank of Major- 
 General. Soon after I was appointed to the com- 
 mand of the Sussex district, and stationed at Biigh- 
 ton. On the occasion of my quitting the 7th, that 
 regiment presented me with a piece of plate of the 
 value of 250 guineas, on which is the following in- 
 scription : 
 
 * " I have no copy of this letter ; it was sent to my 
 poor father, and, if I mistake not, published in one of 
 the Truro papers at the time." 
 E 
 
74 LETTERS OF 
 
 1 Presented by the officers of the 7th Queen's 
 own Hussars to Major-General Sir Richard Hus- 
 sey Vivian, as a mark of their regard and esteem, 
 and a memorial of their respect for the services he 
 had rendered that regiment during the ten years he 
 commanded it. August 1, 1814.' 
 
 " In 1815, on the extension of the Order of the 
 Bath, I was created a Knight Commander; and I 
 was the first Major-General sent, in command of a 
 brigade of cavalry, to join the army assembling at 
 Brussels, on the return of Napoleon to France. I 
 covered with my brigade the retreat of the left of 
 the British from Quatre Bras; and in the battle of 
 Waterloo, I, having moved from the left, to re- 
 inforce the right centre, towards the end of the day, 
 arrived at the moment Buonaparte made his last 
 attack, in which the brigade suffered severely. In 
 the advance of the army it fell to my lot, with my 
 brigade, to lead ; and the charge I made contributed 
 most materially, if not altogether, to the total dis- 
 persion of that part of the French army which had 
 formed to cover their retreat.* The whole of the 
 
 * In a " description of that part of the Battle of Water- 
 loo, following the repulse of the last attack of the French, 
 with the death of Major the Hon. F. Howard," our coun 
 tryman is thus happily characterised : 
 
 " "Who, with a hero's port and lofty form, 
 With waving sabre, onward guides the storm, 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. /O 
 
 French writers, who have given an account of the 
 battle,* invariably attribute it to this attack. From 
 Waterloo to Paris my brigade had, during the 
 whole march, the advanced guard of the British 
 army. When, after the restoration of Louis 
 XVI 11. an allied force wis left in occupation of 
 part of France, the brigade under- my command 
 
 While thro' the tangled corn and yielding clay, 
 His spurs incessant urge his panting grey ?T 
 'Tis Vivian, pride of old Cornubia's hills, 
 His veins the untainted blood of Britons fills. 
 Him follows close a Manners, glorious name, 
 In whom a Granby's soul aspires to fame. 
 
 ' Front, form the line,' cries Vivian — still its course 
 The head maintained : the rear, with headlong force, 
 Speeds at the word, till troops with troops combine, 
 And each firm squadron forms the serried line." 
 
 The elegant little poem from which I have made this ex- 
 tract, was written by Colonel Taylor, of the 10th Hussars. 
 It never, I believe, was printed. 
 
 * " On the occasion of the Battle of Waterloo. I 
 received the orders of Knight of Maria Theresa from 
 the Emperor of Austria, of St. Wladomir from the 
 Emperor of Russia, and of Hanover from the Prince 
 Regent." 
 
 t Sir Hussey Vivian had mounted a troop horse of the 
 10th, nearly milk-white. 
 
 E 2 
 
76 LETTERS OF 
 
 formed part of it, and during the three years I com- 
 manded in Picardy. 
 
 " On the return of the army in 1818, for the first 
 time for three-and-tvventy years, I was unemployed. 
 Shortly after this, on the reduction of the British 
 army, the 18th regiment of Hussars, which had 
 formed part of my brigade, both in the Peninsula 
 and at Waterloo ; was reduced, and this regiment, 
 as a mark of their attachment, paid me a most 
 fluttering compliment by presenting me with a silver 
 trumpet, that had been purchased for the trumpet- 
 major of the regiment, out of part of the proceeds 
 of the money obtained for horses of the French 
 cavalry, captured at Waterloo, on which are the 
 following inscriptions: 
 
 1st. ( Purchased by the desire of the soldiers of 
 the 18th Hussars, out of part of the prize monev 
 arising out of the sale of horses captured from the 
 enemy by the brigade under the command of Major- 
 General Sir Hussey Vivian, in the Battle of Wa- 
 terloo, 18 June 1815.'* 
 
 2nd. ' On the 10th of September 1821, the day 
 
 * " Each regiment of my brigade, viz. 10th Hussars 
 and 18th Hussars British, and 1st Hussars Hanoverian, 
 purchased a silver trumpet with the prize money, to 
 be kept in the regiments in remembrance of this great 
 victory." 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 77 
 
 on which the 18th Hussars was disbanded, this 
 trumpet was presented to Major-General Sir Rich- 
 ard Hussey Vivian, K.C.B. &.c. Having com- 
 manded them upon many glorious occasions they 
 offer to him this memorial of the last victory to 
 which it was their good fortune to be led by him, 
 as an assurance that while he gained their admira- 
 tion as a soldier, he secured their lasting and un- 
 feigned esteem as a friend, and in the hope of living 
 in his recollection and estimation when they shall 
 have ceased to exist as a corps.' 
 
 "In the year 1819 I was called from my retirement 
 and sent in command to Newcastle on Tyne, in con- 
 sequence of some disturbances that had taken place 
 in that part of the country ; from thence I was 
 shortlv sent on to Glasgow, where serious riots 
 were apprehended. In 1820, on the death of 
 George the Third, I was elected to Parliament for 
 my native town, which [ represented until the dis- 
 solution in 1825. I was afterwards returned for 
 Windsor, for which borough I continued to sit un- 
 til the very distressing state of Lady Vivian's health, 
 which prevented my attending my duty, and its 
 having been intimated to me that I was destined to 
 command the army in Ireland, occasioned my re- 
 signing my seat. On the accession of William 
 IV. to the throne, he did me the honour to name 
 me one of the Grooms of His Majesty's Bed- 
 
78 LETTERS OF 
 
 chamber; and on my being appointed to the com- 
 mand in Ireland he was pleased to create me a 
 Grand Cross of the Royal Hanoverian order of 
 (iuelph. 
 
 " During the time I was in Parliament [ constantly 
 spoke on all military subjects, and sometimes on 
 others, and I acquired more credit than I deserved 
 on one or two occasions when so doing; especially 
 on the speech I made on the question of Catholic 
 Emancipation, and on the distress of the country in 
 1830: in the former of which I foretold O'Con- 
 nell's present course, and almost pointed out my 
 line of conduct in the situation I now fill, and in 
 the latter clearly anticipated the outrages which took 
 place in the end of that year. 
 
 " Thus, my dear Sir, I have given you, in reply 
 to your letter, a concise and, I believe, very faithful 
 history of my life. I omitted, however, to state 
 that in 1804 I married Eliza, the daughter of Philip 
 Champion Crespigny, Esq. of Aldborough, Suffolk, 
 which borough was his property, and for which he 
 and one of his sons had sat for many years. Mr. 
 C was a descendant of a distinguished family of 
 Normandy, and became a refugee in this country, 
 with many others, at the time of the Edict of 
 Nantes. 
 
 " Royal Hospital, Dublin, Hussey Vivian." 
 March 9, 1832. 
 
SIR WALTER SCO! T. 79 
 
 " P.S. [ have omitted to mention a circumstance 
 very honourable and flattering to me ; which is, that 
 immediately before I came to this country I was 
 offered the appointment of Secretary at War, but 
 I preferred pursuing the line of my profession." 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 TO THE REV. MR. POLWHELE. 
 DEAR SIR, 1816. 
 
 I am very much flattered indeed by your 
 obliging letter, and the praises which it con- 
 tains, which, coming from you, are very 
 valuable. I did not forget that I had some 
 title to request your acceptance of a copy ; 
 but the booksellers I suppose thought my 
 list of my friends too numerous, as they 
 curtailed it in one or two instances. Truly 
 glad am I, that you are so kind as to give 
 me an opportunity to make amends for their 
 negligence ; and the first opportunity that 
 occurs to send such a thing to London, I 
 
80 LETTERS OF 
 
 will beg your acceptance of a copy somewhat 
 superior to those generally sold to the public. 
 I will not fail to persecute Messrs. Cadell 
 and Davies, until they are pleased to obey 
 your obliging order. Perhaps I may dun 
 them in person, as I believe I shall be in 
 London in the course of a week or two ; 
 my motions, however, are rather uncertain. 
 It would give me great pleasure were I to 
 have any hope of seeing you while in town. 
 I cannot close my letter without inquiring- 
 after Mr. Carlyon, whom I met very acciden- 
 tally on the Banks of the Tweed, and was 
 much pleased with. There is another friend of 
 mine at present in Cornwall, the Rev. Mr. 
 Marriot, lately tutor to young Lord Scott, 
 my little chieftain ; but obliged to leave a 
 situation equally eligible and pleasant, and 
 where he had a friend in every member of 
 the family, from a tendency to pulmonary 
 complaints. Should you meet him, may I 
 hope you will give him a minstrel greeting 
 
SIR WALTER SCO'lT. 
 
 81 
 
 for ray sake ; but, if he happens to be al- 
 ready known to you, I am sure further intro- 
 duction will be unnecessary. 
 
 The Editor of the Edinburgh Review is 
 my particular friend ; but he and I often 
 differ in points of criticism. If I find he 
 views your poems with the same eye that I 
 have done for many years, I am sure he will 
 give them an honourable niche in his temple 
 of Fame, or rather his theatre of Anatomy- 
 I have myself long ceased to write in a 
 work, the political sentiments of which do 
 by no means correspond with mine ; indeed, 
 I never did touch upon any poetical produc- 
 tions, conscious that either my praise or 
 censure might be easily misconstrued. The 
 articles I used sometimes to furnish had 
 chiefly relation to antiquities. 
 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 e 5 
 
82 LETTERS OF 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE, NEWLYN VICARAGE. 
 
 my dear sik, Abbotsford, 6 Sept. 1825. 
 
 I am so dreadful a correspondent that with 
 those I esteem most highly, and certainly 
 Mr. Polwhele ranks high among them, I 
 very often am obliged to declare a bank- 
 ruptcy in the way of correspondence, rather 
 than make those small payments, which 
 would at least show a sense of the debt if 
 they deal little towards satisfaction. I am 
 sure you could not wish to publish any of 
 my letters, containing in them matter not fit 
 for the public eye. At the same time, bear- 
 ing no recollection of the subjects at this 
 distance of time^ I should be glad to have 
 an opportunity of looking them over before 
 publication, as they may possibly regard 
 topics on which my more mature age may 
 have induced me to change my mind, or 
 
SIR WALTER. SCOTT. 83 
 
 perhaps opinions hastily and inaccurately ex- 
 pressed in the confidence of private corres- 
 pondence. I will be therefore greatly obliged 
 to you if you would have the goodness 
 to transmit me the letters under the cover of 
 Mr. Croker, of the Admiralty, who if the 
 parcel is addressed to him will forward them 
 safely to me. I have little reason to suppose 
 that there will be any cause to refuse com- 
 pliance with your wishes, and certainly shall 
 be very little disposed to decline compliance 
 with any thing you can wish. 
 
 I have to thank you, amongst other fa- 
 vours, for a copy of Sermons, which from 
 the nature of the subjects are interesting 
 and curious, though some of them may, I 
 suppose, be considered as condones ad 
 clerum, rather than ad populum, from the 
 abstruse disquisitions into which they con- 
 duct the reader. 
 
 I am writing in the midst of moor-fowl 
 shooters and tourists, which occasions my 
 
84 LETTERS OF 
 
 hastening to subscribe myself, dear Sir, your 
 obliged humble servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE, NEWLYN VICARAGE. 
 
 dear sir, Abbotsford, 6 Oct. 1825. 
 
 I return the enclosed, and can have no 
 possible objection to your disposing of them 
 as you please.* I would, however, submit 
 to you that the greater part of them are too 
 frivolous to interest the public ; and I hope 
 you will be so good as to mention that I 
 have consented to your wish merely because 
 it was your wish, and without any idea on 
 my part, that what was written for your own 
 eye deserved a more extensive circulation. 
 
 I am, with best wishes, always, dear Sir, 
 
 very truly yours, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 * The preceding correspondence. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 85 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 TO THE REV. R. POLWHELE, POLWHELE, TRURO. 
 
 my dear sir, Abbotsford, 17 April, 1829. 
 I received your letter, and will be most 
 happy in placing your Memoir of Whitaker 
 on my shelves, in addition to your other va- 
 luable works. I have far less interest in the 
 literary circles in Scotland than you may 
 imagine ; but if I can be of service to you it 
 will make me happy. I made several en- 
 quiries to know whether I could find the 
 means of aiding your very natural wish on 
 behalf of your young relatives ; but Scot- 
 land is in every respect a trading country, 
 and our sons are sent off to the Colonies as 
 our black cattle to England, and every outlet 
 that a Scotsman has command of is more 
 than choked with long-legged red-haired 
 cousins, so I hope you have access to better 
 interest than mine ; though you should be 
 
86 LETTERS OF 
 
 welcome to it if I possessed any, being my 
 dear friend, ever yours most faithfully, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 u Life of Whitaker." Sir Walter Scott was on 
 the Continent, never " to return himself again," 
 when that " Life," and the '' Cornish Worthies," and 
 the " Rural Rector," were destined for his library. 
 I am certain he would have liked the preface to the 
 u Rural Rector." The greater part of the book is 
 but an illustration and exemplification of the opi- 
 nions and characters, political ;.nd religious, which 
 in the preface are maintained or exhibited. 
 
 In several letters to Sir Walter Scott, respecting 
 the March of Intellect, my sentiments were sub- 
 stantially the same as I have expressed in these 
 volumes. The following passage embodies the 
 substance of an after-dinner conversation, carried 
 on between a sceptic and the Rural Rector: 
 
 " There was something extremely restless in the dis- 
 position of Raymond. He had religious doubts con- 
 tinually haunting him ; in truth, he was a sceptic. To 
 superficial observers he was lively and gay ; but he 
 had not a cheerful heart. His smile was like a gleam 
 of sunshine through a cloud of the winter ; and fre- 
 quently in his laugh there was bitterness. No sooner 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 87 
 
 was the dessert set in order, and the servants gone, 
 than he began to ply the Rector with his questions, 
 not in a strain of impertinence, as her ladyship had 
 done at the churching interview, but with an air of 
 diffidence or deference. 
 
 " From a desire by communication to relieve an un- 
 easy mind, he could not even wait for the withdraw- 
 ing of the ladies from the dining-room, but (as was 
 his wont) abruptly introduced topics of the most 
 serious nature, even before the Stretton burgesses had 
 been recognised in the customary toasts, or the new 
 Christian, just fresh from the font, had been comme- 
 morated. Speaking of some recent geological pheno- 
 mena : ' How are they (said R.) to be reconciled 
 with your Bible ? What is the Mosaic account of the 
 deluge?' 'Perhaps (said the Rector), if you can- 
 didly and deliberately compare that account, as you 
 call it, with the late discoveries, you will be inclined 
 to think, that these discoveries concur with the more 
 obvious appearances of nature, in proving the truth 
 of the Noachian history. The phenomena of a dilu- 
 vian action, which are every where presented to us, 
 are, in my opinion, perfectly unintelligible without 
 recourse to a deluge exerting its ravages, at a period 
 not more ancient than that announced in the book of 
 Genesis. And ' mankind (says Cuvier) every where 
 speak the same language with nature.' With respect 
 to the human race, the conclusions deducible from 
 geological reasoning appear in strict accordance with 
 Revelation ; since no human remains have been found, 
 
88 LETTERS OF 
 
 except in beds of no remote antiquity. As to the 
 time requisite for the formation of the secondary 
 strata, (if we refuse to admit the existence of another 
 order of things, previous to the scriptural) we might 
 find, I think, a sufficient space in the interval between 
 the creation and the deluge, as' recorded by Moses. 
 It seems, then, that instead of being hostile to the 
 Mosaic history, the phenomena which you have ad- 
 verted to, confirm it. And we are here providentially 
 furnished with proofs of the truth of revelation. The 
 Bible, in fact, is much more philosophical than is ge- 
 nerally conceived, much more than the writings of 
 Aristotle, or Plato, or any of the ancient philosophers. 
 Who, of old time, for instance, ever considered water 
 and air as convertible into each other ; supposed to 
 be unchangeable elements. Yet, acquainted as we 
 now are with their constituent principles, we receive 
 it as philosophically correct, that when God made the 
 firmament of Heaven, the waters which were above 
 the firmament, were, on chemical principles, divided 
 from the waters which were under the firmament, to 
 produce rain and dew, and the other phenomena of 
 the atmosphere necessary to the existence of man. 
 And is not Job philosophical to a degree of accuracy 
 not to be expected, when he tells us that the ' earth 
 hangeth upon nothing ? ' Was he ignorant of the 
 laws of gravitation ? " 
 
 " But the Scripture (said Raymond) speaks in a 
 language not always in the strictest accordance with 
 the Copernican system, such as " the sun went not 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 89 
 
 down for a whole day. What is your opinion of this 
 passage?" " Why, that it is only the familiar lan- 
 guage of the world. The Bible does not profess to 
 teach men philosophy. And recollect yourself; does 
 the most formal man of science blush to say; ' the sun 
 rises, the sun sets?' My dear Sir ! I think you can- 
 not but allow, that our modern sophists are too apt to 
 pride themselves on their own independent acquisi- 
 tions. Conversant with second causes, they would 
 exclude God from his works. Yet, notwithstanding 
 all the novelties which are daily rising to observation 
 as discoveries in natural philosophy, the most acute 
 and experienced in science must confess, that the 
 causes of numberless phenomena are still past finding 
 out, and that the modes of their operation remain in- 
 explicable. In his disclosure of the secrets of nature, 
 the philosopher thinks he breaks through barriers 
 ' strong as the adamantine doors ! ' It is here he 
 sounds his trumpet of defiance. It is here the chemist 
 boasts his original productions ! But exhibiting sub- 
 stances as he may, in endless combinations, can he 
 create an atom ? This is a question which, exposing 
 his feebleness, should teach him humility. And the 
 circumstance, that in his discoveries, he has brought 
 forward, unintentionally, proofs againsthimself, against 
 his own infidelity, should show him what a blind crea- 
 ture he is, a mere instrument in the hands of that 
 Providence which he affects to deny.' 
 
 " Raymond appeared confounded, but not convinced. 
 His opponent was a priest. And to a priest he could 
 
90 LETTERS OF 
 
 give no credit. ' Still (said he) the philosopher does 
 not see himself such a blind creature groping in dark- 
 ness. Who, of all our chemists, have dismissed their 
 doubts in consequence of their discoveries, so strik- 
 ingly confirmatory (as you suppose) of the truth of 
 Revelation? Men of enlightened unbiassed minds 
 cannot embrace your mysteries, cannot bring Revela- 
 tion to the test of reason." " To the argument um ad 
 hominem (the Doctor observed) I seldom resort. But 
 to our sceptical men of science, who vaunt a superi- 
 ority of intellect, I would say, Christianity may boast 
 in her train philosophers truly so called. She may 
 enumerate disciples mighty in human literature, and 
 high in Christian Faith, accurate and conclusive rea- 
 soners, modest and sincere believers ! They are many, 
 and have been often recounted. I shall remind you 
 only of a Ray, a Derham, a Newton, a Locke, a Hale, 
 a Boyle, an Addison, a Nelson, a Lyttelton. Are 
 there any other names under Heaven that inspire 
 sublimer notions of mental greatness ? They are the 
 names of men who brought Revelation to the test of 
 reason. But they saw the limits of reason clearly and 
 distinctly. They approached so far, and no further ; 
 for they approached with trembling ! They plainly 
 perceived the finger of God in the works of creation. 
 On the boundaries of the world of spirits they paused ; 
 they stood firm ; but they stood in faith and with fear ! 
 On those boundaries, which no earthly step hath 
 passed, they stood ; whereon rest ' clouds and thick 
 darkness ! ' — beyond which are things that ' eye hath 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 91 
 
 not seen, nor ear heard' — beyond which are things 
 which no mortal ' ever saw and lived' ! " P. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 TO FRANCIS DOUCE, F.S.A. 
 
 dear sir, Edinburgh, 9 Feb. 1808. 
 
 I have deferred from day to day returning 
 you my best thanks for the kind and most 
 acceptable token of your remembrance,* 
 which I received about a fortnight since, 
 and which, notwithstanding an unusual press 
 of business, of various kinds, has been my 
 companion for an hour or two every after- 
 noon since. Every admirer of Shakespeare, 
 and I hope that comprehends all that can 
 read or hear reading, must be necessarily 
 delighted with the profusion of curious and 
 interesting illustration which your remarks 
 contain. 
 
 * Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Man- 
 ners. 
 
92 LETTERS OF 
 
 I meant to have offered the few remarks 
 that occurred to me while I was going 
 through your volumes, which would at least 
 have shown the attention 1 had paid in the 
 perusal ; but I have never had a moment's 
 time to accomplish my purpose. In parti- 
 cular, concerning the Fools of Shakespeare, 
 a subject of so much curiosity, and which 
 you have so much elucidated, it might be 
 interesting to you to know, that fifty years 
 ago there was hardly a great house in Scot- 
 land where there was not an all-licensed 
 fool — half crazy and half knavish — many of 
 whose bon mots are still recited and pre- 
 served. The late Duke of Argyle had a 
 jester of this description, who stood a. the 
 sideboard among the servants, and was a 
 great favourite, until he got into disgrace by 
 rising up in the kirk before sermon, and 
 proclaiming the bans of marriage between 
 himself and my friend Lady Charlotte 
 Campbell. So you see it is not so very long, 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 93 
 
 at least in this country, since led captains, 
 pimps, and players have superseded the 
 roguish clowns of Shakespeare. But all 
 this, with any other scantlings of informa- 
 tion which have occurred to me, I must 
 now reserve till I have the pleasure of re- 
 turning my thanks in person, which will 
 probably be in the course of a few weeks, as 
 I have some prospect of being called to Lon- 
 don this spring. 
 
 In this hope, I am, dear Sir, your much 
 obliged humble servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 The Lady Charlotte Campbell, mentioned in this 
 letter, is the same lady whose talents, in a similar 
 walk of literature to that of the author of VVaverley, 
 have obtained for her a considerable share of cele- 
 brity. Having declined the hand of her first aspir- 
 ing suitor, she was married in 1802 to John Camp- 
 bell, Esq. of Shawfield, and secondly, in 1818, to 
 the Rev. Edward Bury. 
 
94 LETTERS OF 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 TO JOHN BOWYER NICHOLS, ESQ. 
 
 sir, Edinburgh, 8 Dec. 1829. 
 
 I am honoured with your letter, and would 
 feel happy to do any thing which could 
 show my respect for the " Gentleman's Ma- 
 gazine," from which I have often derived, 
 and continue to derive, a quantity of literary 
 information not to be seen elsewhere ; and 
 my respect for the literary patriarchs, Messrs. 
 Cave and Nichols, would lead me to the same 
 wish, without the slightest desire to put the 
 publishers to expense. 
 
 But at present I am so deeply and indispen- 
 sably occupied by the necessity of bringing 
 forward the Waverley books in due season, 
 that it is impossible for me, within the time 
 you propose, to supply you with any pre- 
 fatory matter which could be of service to 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 95 
 
 the publication, or to which I would like to 
 put my name. 
 
 I am greatly obliged to you for the cu- 
 rious memoir of Cave, and am, Sir, your 
 obedient servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 This letter was the reply to an application which, at 
 the suggestion of some friends of the " Gentleman's 
 Magazine," had been made to Sir Walter Scott, to 
 request him to write a preface on that publication 
 arriving at the Hundredth Year of its existence. 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 TO MR. HARDING, BOOKSELLER, LOXDOX. 
 
 The following letter will, perhaps, be familiar to 
 almost every reader : but it is inserted here, with 
 others upon similar subjects, not merely as another 
 instance of Sir Walter Scott's encouragement to 
 deserving literary undertakings, but to give to the 
 just and noble sentiments which it contains, a less 
 fugitive receptacle than, it is believed, they have 
 hitherto obtained. 
 
96 LETTERS OF 
 
 sir, Abbot sford, March 25, 1828. 
 
 I am much obliged by your letter, re- 
 questing that I would express to you my 
 sentiments respecting Mr. Lodge's splendid 
 work, consisting of the Portraits of the most 
 celebrated persons of English history, accom- 
 panied with memoirs of their lives. I was 
 at first disposed to decline offering any opi- 
 nion on the subject ; not because I had the 
 slightest doubt on my mind concerning the 
 high value of the work, but because in ex- 
 pressing my sentiments I might be exposed 
 to censure, as if attaching to my own judg- 
 ment more importance than it could deserve. 
 Mr. Lodge's work is, however, one of such 
 vast consequence, that a person attached, as 
 I have been for many years, to the study of 
 history and antiquities, may, I think, in a case 
 of this rare and peculiar kind, be justly 
 blamed for refusing his opinion, if required, 
 concerning a publication of such value and 
 importance. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 97 
 
 Mr. Lodge's talents as a historian and an- 
 tiquary are well known to the public by his 
 admirable collection of ancient letters and 
 documents, entitled " Illustrations of British 
 History," a book which I have very fre- 
 quently consulted ; and have almost always 
 succeeded in finding out not only the infor- 
 mation required, but collected a great deal 
 more as I went in search of it. The present 
 work presents the same talents and industry ; 
 the same patient powers of collecting infor- 
 mation from the most obscure and hidden 
 sources, and the same talent for selecting 
 the facts which are the rarest and most in- 
 teresting, and presenting them to the gene- 
 ral reader in a luminous and concise man- 
 ner. 
 
 It is impossible for me to conceive a work 
 which ought to be more interesting to the 
 present age than that which exhibits before 
 our eyes our " fathers as they lived," accom- 
 panied with such memorials of their lives 
 
 F 
 
98 LETTERS OF 
 
 and characters as enable us to compare their 
 persons and countenances with their senti- 
 ments and actions. 
 
 I pretend to offer no opinion upon the 
 value of the work in respect to art — my 
 opinion on that subject is literally worth 
 nothing in addition to that of the numerous 
 judges of paramount authority which have 
 already admitted its high merits. But I 
 may presume to say, that this valuable and 
 extended series of the Portraits of the Illus- 
 trious Dead, affords to every private gentle- 
 man, at a moderate expense, the interest at- 
 tached to a large Gallery of British Portraits, 
 on a plan more extensive than any collec- 
 tion which exists, and at the same time the 
 essence of a curious library of historical, bib- 
 liographical, and antiquarian works. It is 
 a work which, in regard to England, might 
 deserve the noble motto rendered with such 
 dignity by Dryden : 
 
 " From hence the line of Alban fathers come, 
 And the long glories of majestic Rome." 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 99 
 
 I will enlarge no more on the topic, be- 
 cause I am certain that it requires not the 
 voice of an obscure individual to point out 
 to the British public the merits of a collec- 
 tion which at once satisfies the imagination 
 and the understanding, showing us by the 
 pencil, how the most distinguished of our 
 ancestors looked, moved, and dressed, and 
 informs us by the pen how they thought, 
 acted, lived, and died. I should, in any 
 other case, have declined expressing an opi- 
 nion in this public, and almost intrusive 
 manner ; but I feel that, w T hen called upon 
 to bear evidence in such a cause, it would 
 be unmanly to decline appearing in court, 
 although expressing an opinion to which, 
 however just, my name can add but little 
 weight. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
100 LETTERS OF 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 TO MR. CHARLES TILT, BOOKSELLER, FLEET STREET, 
 LONDON. 
 
 sir, May 1830. 
 
 I have very ungraciously left unacknow- 
 ledged your present of the Landscape Illus- 
 trations of Waverley. I pretend to no 
 knowledge of Art ; so my opinion ought 
 to go for nothing. But I think they are 
 very beautiful, and sincerely hope they will 
 answer the purpose of the artists and pub- 
 lishers. 
 
 I remain, Sir, your obliged humble ser- 
 vant, Walter Scott. 
 
 Of this a remarkably accurate fac-simile has been 
 printed in lithography. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 101 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 TO SAMUEL PARKER, ESQ. BRONZE WORKS, ARGYLL 
 PLACE, LONDON. 
 
 sir, Edinburgh, 29th May. 
 
 I would long ere now have answered your 
 very obliging letter with the medals. That 
 representing our Sovereign seems most 
 beautifully executed, and is a striking re- 
 semblance. I have very little turn for ima- 
 gining mottoes, it being long since I read 
 the classics, which are the great storehouse 
 of such things. I incline to think, that a 
 figure or head of Neptune upon the reverse, 
 with the motto round the exergue, " Tridens 
 Neptuni sceptrum mundi." I think this 
 would be better than any motto more per- 
 sonally addressed to the King himself than 
 to his high kingly office. I cannot, of course, 
 be ajudge of the other medal ; but such of my 
 family as are with me think it is very like. 
 f 3 
 
102 LETTERS OF 
 
 If there is any motto to be added, I should 
 like the line : 
 
 " Bardorum citharas patrio qui reddidit Istro," 
 
 because I am far more vain of having been 
 able to fix some share of public attention 
 upon the ancient poetry and manners of my 
 country, than of any original efforts which I 
 have been able to make in literature. 
 
 I beg you will excuse the delay which has 
 taken place. Your obliging communication, 
 with the packet which accompanied it, tra- 
 velled from country to town, and from town 
 to country, as it chanced to miss me upon 
 the road. 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, your obliged 
 humble servant, Walter Scott. 
 
 The medal of Sir Walter, one of the subjects of 
 this letter, has been engraved by Mr. A. J. Stot- 
 hard, from the bust of Mr. Chantrey. It of course 
 bears the motto selected by the Bard himself. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 103 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 The following answer to a stranger, a juvenile 
 collector of autographs, is an instance proving the 
 truth of the observation made by the biographer of 
 Sir Walter in the Penny Magazine: "He was 
 most punctual in answering letters, though the la- 
 bour which the task involved, and much of it 
 caused by uninvited correspondents, was often a real 
 affliction." 
 
 sir, Edinburgh, March 3, 1828. 
 
 Although the modern passion for collect- 
 ing autographs of literary persons, has ren- 
 dered the frequent recurrence of such re- 
 quest as yours a little inconvenient, yet it is 
 impossible to decline an application, so 
 complimentary in itself, made in so civil a 
 manner. 
 
 I presume these lines will serve your pur- 
 pose, and have the honour to be, Sir, your 
 obliged humble servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 In reference to some passages in the Letters and 
 Appendix, let it be observed, that (with every predi- 
 lection for the new School of Poetry, at the head 
 of which stands our deeply lamented friend) — 
 "the British Critics" have sent their readers (more 
 than once) to Pope and his contemporaries for sound 
 sense, and for feeling, taste, and imagination, sur- 
 passing all poets of recent celebrity. 
 
 There are several articles in the British Critic, where 
 the present writer was disposed to prefer regular ver- 
 sification to unlicensed measures ; chaste colouring to 
 the wild dashes of the pencil ; landscape, distinct and 
 clear, to scenes exuberantly rich and glowing ; the 
 pathos that comes home to our business and bosoms, 
 to the monodies of romantic sensibility ; characters 
 drawn from nature and the life, and exhibiting actual 
 manners and fashions, to personages disfeatured by 
 caprice or distorted by demoniac fancy ; statesmen to 
 be recognised in peaceful councils, and heroes on the 
 fields of war, to robbers or assassins from their un- 
 earthly aspect appalling, and chieftains breathing alter- 
 nately " airs from Heaven and blasts from Hell ;" and, 
 in short, the repose that tranquillizes the mind and 
 refreshes the spirits, to the " earthquake or the storm." 
 f 5 
 
106 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Peculiarly striking, therefore, was the coincidence 
 of the following sentiments (just offered to my notice) 
 with such preconceived opinions. 
 
 *' In regard to Poetry in general, I am convinced," 
 said Lord Byron, " that Moore, and all of us — Scott, 
 Southey, Wordsworth, Campbell, and all— are in the 
 wrong, one as much as another ; — that we are upon a 
 wrong revolutionary poetical system, not worth a 
 damn in itself, and from which none but Rogers and 
 Crabbe are free ; and that the present and next gene- 
 rations will finally be of that opinion. I am the more 
 confirmed in this, by having lately gone over some of 
 our Classics, particularly Pope, whom I tried in this 
 way : — I took Moore's poems, and my own, and some 
 others, and went over them, side by side, with Pope's ; 
 and I was really astonished (I ought not to have been 
 so) and mortified at the ineffable distance, in point of 
 sense, learning, effect, and even imagination, passion, 
 and invention, between the little Queen Anne's man, 
 and us of the Lower Empire. Depend upon it, it was 
 all Horace then, and is Claudian now, among us : and 
 if I had to begin again, I would mould myself ac- 
 cordingly. Crabbe's the man ; but he has got a coarse 
 and impracticable subject ; and * * * * 
 
 is retired upon half-pay; and has done enough, unless 
 he were to do as he did formerly." (Moore's Works 
 of Byron, vol. iv. pp. 63, 64.) 
 
 * "There is more good sense, and feeling, and judgment, 
 in this passage, than in any other I ever read or Byron 
 wrote." So said Gifford, in a note on the above letter. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 107 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, however, the new school 
 has indisputable pretensions to the palm of originality. 
 And, among its more distinguished disciples, I deem 
 Southey great indeed ! Southey was always, in my 
 mind, the first of modern poets. Maugre the politics 
 of his early life (such as were natural to a sanguine 
 temperament, and such as young sincerity could not 
 disguise), I have praised Southey even in the Anti- 
 Jacobin Review, and had almost incurred my friend* 
 Gifford's displeasure, by such criticism as he chose 
 not to print, without a considerable abatement of my 
 warm panegyric. 
 
 At that time Scott had not shone out in our literary 
 hemisphere. It was long before Scott had flung 
 through cathedral glooms his " dark illuminations, "f 
 that, in a playful jeu d'esprit, Southey was described 
 as superior to all our Bards of almost every period : 
 
 " Such metrical monsters, ah ! why do I mark, 
 While beams in my presence ' the Poet of Arc' ? 
 Full soon great Eliza (though Tragedy lend her 
 From one Bard all the blaze of poetical splendour) 
 Shall yield to an era fast opening ; and Anne, 
 (Though their race her prime poets so gloriously ran) 
 Shall veil to a Coleridge — a Southey — her bonnet, 
 Compared to a Pope, like an Ode to a Sonnet \"% 
 
 * The Editor of the Anti-Jacobin Review, 
 f Such was T. Walton's fine expression. 
 % Sec "Visitation of the Poets," in the Appendix to 
 Biographical Sketches of Cornwall, vol. ii. 
 
108 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 This, perhaps, is extravagant praise — clashing with 
 the " British Critic's" cooler judgment. 
 
 Still I would place Southey on a level with Scott. 
 Not only as poets, but as prose-writers, I hail them 
 pre-eminent over all our British authors that exist, 
 or have existed, in this or the last century ; and, for 
 the virtues of the heart, I may justly add — 
 " quales neque candidiores 
 Terra tulit." 
 
 Pohvhcle, Nov. 30. R- P- 
 
POETRY, HISTORY, DIVINITY, MISCELLANIES; 
 
 OF WHICH THE REMAINING* COPIES MAY BE HAD OF 
 
 MESSRS. NICHOLS and SON, 
 
 25, PARLIAMENT STREET, LONDON. 
 
 1. The Fate of Lewellyn, and the Genius of Karnhre. Cruttwell, 
 
 Bath. — 1773. 
 
 2. The Castle of Tintagel and the Isle of Poplars. — See Rack's 
 
 Essays at pp. 330 — and 451. Cruttwell, Bath. 1781. 
 
 3. Theocritus, Bion, Moschus and Tyrtaeus — translated into Eng- 
 
 lish verse. 4to. Cadell and Davies 1786. 
 
 4. Theocritus, &c. 2 volumes 8vo. new edit. Cruttwell, Batli 
 
 1792. 
 •5. Theocritus, &e. Sharpe's edit. — 1810. 
 
 6. The English Orator, in four books Cadell and Dilly, 1780', 
 
 1789. 
 
 7, Poems ; by Gentlemen of Devon and Cornwall, 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Bath, Cruttwell. — 1792. 
 
 5. Local Attachment. — 1796'. 
 
 9. Local Attachment, 2nd edit. Johnson. 
 
 10. Local Attachment, 3rd edit. Cradock and Joy 1810. 
 
 11. Poetic Trifles, 8vo. Cadell and Davies. — 1796. 
 
 12. Sketches in Verse, with Prose Illustrations. Cadell and Davies. 
 
 — 1796 — 1797. 
 
 13. The Genius of Danmonium. — See Essays by a Society, &c. II. 
 
 542. Cadell. — 1796. 
 14. The Old English Gentleman, 8vo. 17.0". 
 
 15. The Uusex'd Females 1798. 
 
 16. The Unsex'd Females, with various annotations ; republished by 
 
 Cobbett at New York. — 1 S00. 
 
 17. Grecian Prospects. Cadell and Davies 1799. 
 
 * The greater part have been long ago disposed of. But the 
 above list will facilitate the inquiries of any future publisher, who 
 may wish to reprint the author's works. 
 
18. Translations from Lucretius. [See Anti-jacobin Review, vol. 
 
 V. 341, 164. VI. 132, 141.] 
 
 19. Warlike Ode to Faithful Cornwall. Truro, Flindell. 1803. 
 
 20. Poems, in 3 vols. Cadell and Davies 1806. 
 
 21. The Family Picture 1808. 
 
 22. Poems, in 5 vols. Rivington. — 1810. 
 
 23. The Minstrel, in 3 cantos, in continuation of Reattie's. [See 
 
 Poet. Regist. VII. 48, 86. Rivington — 1814.] 
 
 24. The Fair Isabel. Caw-thorn — 1815. 
 
 25. An Epistle to a V. President of the R. S. of Literature, from an 
 
 Hon. Associate. Hatchard and Son. — 1824. 
 
 26. The Cave of Lemorna. [See " Forget Me Not" for 1831, at 
 
 p. 51.] 
 
 1. History of Devonshire, in 3 vols. fol. — 1794, 1809 — with plates. 
 
 ■2. History of Cornwall, in 7 vols. 4to, with plates 1809. 
 
 3. Historical Views of Devon, 4to. 
 
 3. Memoir of Edm. Rack, in Collinson's " Somerset." 
 
 DIVINITY. 
 
 1. Discourses, 2 vols. 8vo. — 1788. 
 
 2. Discourses, new edit. — 1 811. 
 
 3. A Sermon, preached at Kenton in 1793. 
 
 4. A Sermon, preached at Topsham, at the Archdeacon of Exeter's 
 
 Visitation, in 1794. See Orthodox Churchman's Magazine 
 for this and several other Sermons. 
 
 5. A Visitation Sermon, preached at Helston in 1796. 
 
 6. A Discourse on two melancholy events. Cadell and Davies. — 
 
 1797. 
 
 7. A Letter to Dr. Hawker on his late expedition into Cornwall. 
 
 Cadell and Davies. — 1799. 
 
 8. A second Letter, &c. — 1799. 
 
 9. A third Letter, &c. with a Sermon. — 1 S00. 
 
 10. The three Letters, 2d edit — 1800. 
 
 1 1 . The three Letters, 3d edit. — 1 800. 
 
 12. Anecdotes of Methodism, with a Sermon, 1800. 
 
 13. Anecdotes of Methodism, new edit, to which is prefixed a Let- 
 
 ter to Le Grice on Revivalism. 
 
 14. Flindell's Bible. — 1800. 
 
 15. An Assize Sermon. Flindell. — 1801. 
 
 16. Illustrations of Scriptural Characters. Cobbet and Morgan. — 
 
 1802. 
 
 17. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, a Sermon. — 1806. 
 
 18. Sermons ; a new volume. — 1810. 
 
 19. The Churchman and Methodist contrasted, a Sermon ; 1812. 
 
20. Twenty-five Sermons, 2 vols. 8vo Rivington 1813. 
 
 21. A Sermon preached at Kenwyn Nov. 16', IS 17, on the death 
 
 of the Princess Charlotte. Law and Whittaker. 
 
 22. Two Prize-Essays, on Adultery, and on the state of the Soul 
 
 betweeu Death and the Resurrection. 
 
 23. An Essay on the state of the Soul, &c. 2d edit Nichols and 
 
 Son. — 181.9. 
 
 24. An Essay on the state of the Soul after Death by Eusebius De- 
 
 vnniensis. [See Class. Journal, XXII. 141, 15-5, 262, 276".] 
 
 25. Bishop Lavington's Enthusiasm of Methodism. Valpy 1S20. 
 
 26'. Outlines of four Sermons. Hatchard and Son. — 1824. 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 1. Essavs on the Neglect of Authors in their own neighbourhood, 
 
 and on tht Partiality of Authors to their Brethren. [European 
 Mag. 1795, pj>. 262, 2.99.] 
 
 2. Historical Parallels; Diversity of Sentiment, &e. [Gent. Mag. 
 
 LXIII. 8.99, 987.] 
 8. An Essay on Falconry. [See Essays by a Society, &c. I. 131, 
 164.] 
 
 4. An Essay on Principle and Feeling. [See Essays by a Society, 
 
 II. 315, 336.] 
 
 5. Essays in the " Spirit of Anli- Jacobinism " for 1802, at pp. 117, 
 
 173, 27S, 291. 
 
 6. Traditions and Recollections, in 2 volumes 8vo. with plates. 
 
 Nichols. 
 
 7. The Rural Rector, in 3 volumes, 12mo. 
 
 S. Biographical Sketches in Cornwall, in 3 volumes, 12mo. 
 
 INTENDED FOR PUBLICATION : 
 
 1. The Pleasures of Taste, a poem, in three parts. 
 
 2. The Nesting-Season, in six epistles. 
 
 3. The Merchant of Smyrna, a Dramatic poem. 
 
 4. The Syrian Princess ; a Dramatic poem. 
 
 5. A poetic Sketch of Dartmoor and its vicinities. 
 
 6. Constantinople, a poem. 
 
 7. The Grotto of Xenocrates. 
 
 8. The Choephorae of /Eschylus , the Electra of Sophocles ; the 
 
 Electra of Euripides ; and the Agamemnon of Seneca ; trans- 
 lated into English verse — school exercises revised and correct- 
 ed ; such as were the translations of Theocritus, Bion, Mos- 
 chus, and Tvitaeus. 
 
1. Sermons, in 2 vols. 12mo. the first entitled " The Happy Family 
 
 on Earth ;" the second, " The Happy Family in Heaven." 
 
 2, A Sermon, preached at St. Mary's, Truro, on the evening of the 
 
 late King's Funeral, July 15, 1830. 
 
 ;!. Doctrines and Duties ; or, the Practical Scripture Expositor ; 
 containing a text from the Bible for every day in the year. 
 In "Daily Food for Christians," "The Daily Scripture Exposi- 
 tor," and in " Daily Bread," we have Doctrine enough, but 
 little or no Duty. 
 
 4. The Bible Calendar of Nature ; containing texts from Scripture; 
 appropriate to every month. 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 1. Letters from Badcock, Simcoe, and Drew, to their literary 
 
 friends. 
 
 2. Six Letters from R. P. to a Magistrate, on the moral and reli- 
 
 gious state of the poorer classes in the County of Cornwall. 
 
 J. 15. Nichols and Son, 25, Parliament Street 
 
to ™tt; ON THE LAST DATE 
 THIS BOOH IS^DOTON eloW 
 
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