270 Statements concerning Sir Walter Scott. 



to the end of Maj'. It was not till long after this time 

 that public intimations superseded private ones. There must, 

 however, I should think, have been some trade journal in 

 which it would be noticed. 



There is something of the same kind of uncertainty about 

 the locality. Sir Walter says he had been grumbling at 

 Tenterden Street and all its works, and Lockhart explains 

 this to have been the street in which Bullock's manufactory 

 was situated ; while he subsequently refers to the death as 

 what had happened in Tenterden Street. A high-class 

 tradesman was more likely to be living over his works then 

 than now, but it does not follow frotn this that Bullock 

 was. Sir Walter's grumbling is of interest; that the doors 

 and windows for Abbotsford were much in arrear would 

 account for the failing brain of his poor friend worrying 

 itself about the unfinished work. 



There is a third possibility about the death ; we know no 

 details, and there may have been a seizure of some kind 

 on the first night, followed by a fatal one on the second. 

 Sir Walter's full and graphic account of the disturbance, 

 written before a letter could have reached him from London, 

 makes the matter of some scientific importance. 



N.B. — Since the above was written, on referring to the 

 Life, I observe Lockhart does say that Bullock's death did 

 happen on the night and at the hour when Scott sallied from 

 his chamber, etc. 



While anyone who has had to study Lockhart's style, 

 knows that this means nothing whatever in the way of 

 scientific statement, and that it is quite likely that he did 

 not know which night it was himself ; this certainly justifies 

 Myers and Guruey in supposing the death took- place on the 

 second night. 



(It appears — which, I think, was not generally known — 

 that Lockhart was an intimate personal friend of Carlyle's, 

 showing the justice of Mr Leland's estimate of Carlyle in 

 his social capacity ; which was that he would have been 

 much pleasanter if he had had somebody to put on the 

 gloves with him — that is, have a fight — once a week, for 

 Lockhart would certainly give him as good as he got.) 



The fact of a rather large addition having been made to 

 the house at Ashiesteel, with the natural consequence that 



