LITERARY AND DOMESTIC LD7E. 203 



Unknown, are ' too much for any company.' Tom Purdie is well, 

 and sends his compts. ;* so does Laidlaw. f I have invited Hogg to 

 dine here to-morrow, to meet Miss Edge worth. She has a great 

 anxiety to see the Bore. 



"If you answer this letter, I shall write you a whole budget of 

 news next week ; if not, I hope to see you and Mrs. Wilson in good 

 health next 12th of November, till when I shall remain your silent 

 and affectionate brother-glutton, J. G. Lockhart. 



" A r . JB. — Hodge-podge is in glory ; also Fish. Potatoes damp and 

 small. Mushrooms begin to look up. Limes abundant. Weather 

 just enough to make cold punch agreeable. Miss Edge worth says 

 Peter Robertson is a man of genius, and if on the stage, would be a 

 second Liston. How are the Misses Watson ? Give my. love to 

 Miss Charlotte when you see her ; and do let me know what passed 

 between you and the Stamp-Master,J the Opium-Eater, etc., etc. 

 LL. D. Southey is, I suppose, out of your beat." 



The remainiug portion of this season spent at Elleray contributed 

 (as appears by allusions in the following letters) not a small share 

 of its occupations to the satisfaction and gratitude of Mr. Black- 

 wood : — 



in his removal from the world one important link between the Old and the New is severed. 

 It will be almost startling to our readers to hear that there lived so lately one who could say 

 he had sat on the knee of David Hume.'' He was about a year older than Sir Walter. 



* Scott's faithful servant, and affectionately devoted, humble friend, from the time that Tom 

 was brought before Sir Walter in his capacity as Sheriff, on a charge of poaching, and promoted 

 into his service, till his death, which took place in 1S29. A full account of his peculiarities will 

 be found in Lockhart's Life of Scott. 



t William, or, as he was always called, Willie Laidlaw, was the factor and friend of Sir Walter 

 Scott at Abbotsford, and latterly his amanuensis; and in this case "the manly kindness and 

 consideration of one noble nature was paralleled by the affectionate devotion and admiration of 

 another." His family still retains as sacred the pens with which he wrote Iranhoe to his mus- 

 ter's dictation ; and he used to tell that at the most intense parts of the story, when Scott hap- 

 pened to pause, which he very seldom did, running off, as he said, "like lintseed oot o 1 a pock," 

 Laidlaw eagerly asked, "What next?" "Ay, Willie man, what next! that's the deevil o't !'" so 

 possessed with the reality of the tale was the busy penman. It is a curious subject how much 

 and how little an author such as Scott can control his own creatures. If they live and move, 

 they possess him often as much as he them. That " shaping spirit" within him is by turns 

 master and slave. Some one asked the consummate author of Esm on </, "Why did you let Es- 

 mond marry his mother-in-law?" "I! itwas'ntl; they did it themselves." 



Of his Lucy's Flitting, my father said, "'Tis one of the sweetest things in the world: not a 

 few staves of his have I sung in the old days when we used to wash our faces in the Douglas 

 Burn, and you, James, were the herd in the hill. Oh mo I those sweet, sweet days o' langsyne, 

 Jamie. Here's Willie Laidlaw's health, gentlemen !" — Xoctes. 



Mr. Laidlaw died in lb45. 



% Wordsworth. 



