[26] Daughter of Mrs. Maclean Clephane, and afterwards Marchioness of Northampton.

[27] Scott’s indorsation of this letter is characteristic—­“Prodigious, bold request, Tom Thumb.”

[28] Among the documents laid before Scott in the Colonial Office, when he was in London at the close of 1826, “were some which represented one of Bonaparte’s attendants at St. Helena, General Gourgaud, as having been guilty of gross unfairness, giving the English Government private information that the Emperor’s complaints of ill-usage were utterly unfounded, and yet then and afterwards aiding and assisting the delusion in France as to the harshness of Sir Hudson Lowe’s conduct towards his captive.  Sir Walter, when using these remarkable documents, guessed that Gourgaud might be inclined to fix a personal quarrel on himself; and there now appeared in the newspapers a succession of hints that the General was seriously bent on this purpose.  He applied as Colonel Grogg would have done forty years before to The Baronet” [W.  Clerk].—­Life, vol. ix. pp. 142-3.

A short time previously Gourgaud had had a quarrel with Count Segur regarding the latter’s History of the Russian Campaign, to which he wrote a reply in 1825, and then fought a duel with the author in support of his allegations.  In Scott’s case, however, it came to nothing beyond a paper war, which Sir Walter declined to prolong, leaving the question to be decided by the general public.  It is due to Gourgaud to state that on two occasions he saved Napoleon’s life, though his subsequent information to the British Government did not tend to increase his popularity with the Bonapartists.  He died at Paris in his sixty-ninth year on July 25th, 1852.

[29] Life, vol. i. pp. 47, 155-156.

[30] The Planters’ Guide, by Sir Henry Seton Steuart.

[31] In the North British Review, No. 82, there is an extremely interesting sketch of this learned Peerage lawyer.  He died in his 85th year, in 1864, at his country seat, Kirklands in Roxburghshire, which he had purchased by Sir Walter’s advice.

The following amusing narrative of what took place on Tweedside when these two old friends were in their prime is given in Mr. Richardson’s own words:—­

“On a beautiful morning in September 1810 I started with Sir Walter from Ashiestiel.  We began nearly under the ruins of Elibank, and in sight of the ‘Hanging Tree.’  I only had a rod, but Sir Walter walked by my side, now quoting Izaak Walton, as, ‘Fish me this stream by inches,’ and now delighting me with a profusion of Border stories.  After the capture of numerous fine trout, I hooked something greater and unseen, which powerfully ran out my line.  Sir Walter got into a state of great excitement, exclaiming, ’It’s a fish!  It’s a fish!  Hold up your rod!  Give him line!’ and so on.  The rod, which belonged to one of his boys, broke, and put us both into great