In consequence of my sister-in-law, Annie Scott, being taken unwell, with frequent fainting fits, the result no doubt of over anxieties of late, I have been obliged to let my wife and children depart by tomorrow’s steamer without me, and I remain to attend to Sir Walter thro’ his land progress, which will begin on Friday, and end, I hope well, on Wednesday.  If this should give any inconvenience to you, God knows I regret it, and God knows also I couldn’t do otherwise without exposing Sir W. and his daughter to a feeling that I had not done my duty to them.  On the whole, public affairs seem to be so dark, that I am inclined to think our best course, in the Quarterly, may turn out to have been and to be, that of not again appearing until the fate of this Bill has been quite settled.  My wife will, if you are in town, be much rejoiced with a visit; and if you write to me, so as to catch me at Rokeby Park, Greta Bridge, next Saturday, ’tis well.

Yours,

J.G.  LOCKHART.

P.S.—­But I see Rokeby Park would not do.  I shall be at Major Scott’s, 15th Hussars, Nottingham, on Monday night.

It would be beyond our province to describe in these pages the closing scenes of Sir Walter Scott’s life:  his journey to Naples, his attempt to write more novels, his failure, and his return home to Abbotsford to die.  His biography, by his son-in-law Lockhart, one of the best in the whole range of English literature, is familiar to all our readers; and perhaps never was a more faithful memorial erected, in the shape of a book, to the beauty, goodness, and faithfulness of a noble literary character.

In this work we are only concerned with Sir Walter’s friendship and dealings with Mr. Murray, and on these the foregoing correspondence, extending over nearly a quarter of a century, is sufficient comment.  When a committee was formed in Sir Walter’s closing years to organize and carry out some public act of homage and respect to the great genius, Mr. Murray strongly urged that the money collected, with which Abbotsford was eventually redeemed, should be devoted to the purchase of all the copyrights for the benefit of Scott and his family:  it cannot but be matter of regret that this admirable suggestion was not adopted.

During the year 1827 Mr. Murray’s son, John Murray the Third, was residing in Edinburgh as a student at the University, and attended the memorable dinner at which Scott was forced to declare himself the author of the “Waverley Novels.”

His account of the scene, as given in a letter to his father, forms a fitting conclusion to this chapter.

“I believe I mentioned to you that Mr. Allan had kindly offered to take me with him to a Theatrical Fund dinner, which took place on Friday last.  There were present about 300 persons—­a mixed company, many of them not of the most respectable order.  Sir Walter Scott took the chair, and there was scarcely another person of any note to support him except the actors.  The dinner, therefore, would have been little better than endurable, had it not been remarkable for the confession of Sir Walter Scott that he was the author of the ‘Waverley Novels.’