546 APPENDIX OF NOTES. 



to its clumsy plot, a lovely damsel from St KUda finds herself 

 unprotected in Edinburgh, because her brother and lover are in 

 Admiral Duncan's fleet. An old profligate begins his plots against 

 her by starting a report that the Dutch have been victorious and 

 are on their way to Edinburgh. Suddenly the brother and lover 

 appear on the scene. They bring officially the news of the victory 

 at Camperdown ; they have both been promoted from before the 

 mast to be commissioned officers ; and they act the deus ex machind 

 in putting everything right. 



Robert Heron, the author of the play, had a literary career of 

 his own. The eclipse of his dramatic ambition might perhaps have 

 been mentioned with more sympathy in the text had his sad history 

 been known to the author. It was too obscurely wretched to come 

 naturally in the way of a man with a great career ; but it served to 

 help Isaac Disraeli to a picture for his * Calamities of Authors.' 

 Heron had a ready pen, such as it was, and was prepared to under- 

 take any task. It was his misfortune that when he found himself 

 master, or likely to be in the course of time master, of a hundred 

 pounds, he set up his carriage and troop of footmen, as one whose 

 fortunes were in the ascendant. Among his multifarious literary 

 achievements, one was a history of Scotland in six volumes. It 

 is suggestive of the amount of research that . might suffice for his- 

 tory-writing at that period, that a great part of this work was 

 composed from such materials as the author could command in a 

 debtor's prison. 



XII. (p. 92.) 



In the journey described in the narrative (p. 92 et seq.),tla.e author 

 had for his companion, Charles Stuart, eldest son of Sir Charles 

 Stuart, who was the fourth son of John, third Earl of Bute. Lord 

 Brougham's travelling companion, not only on this excursion, but 

 afterwards in the tour he took in Sweden and Norway, was per- 

 haps the most intimate friend he ever had ; a friendship in no way 

 impaired by the wide difference of their political views. 



XIII. (p. 108.) 



This letter, apart from its other attractions, is a substantial ad- 

 dition to our scanty literature relating to St Kilda. A century 

 earlier in 1 698 we have ' A Voyage to Saint Kilda, the remotest 



