LETTER TO LADY LOUISA STUART

- 1808. 37

enough this morning to knock him on the head with two or three thumping stanzas. I thought I should have seen Lady Douglas while she was at Dalkeith, but all the Clerks of Session (excepting myself, who have at present no salary) are subject to the gout, and one of them was unluckily visited with a fit on the day I should have been at the Duke's, so I had his duty and my own to discharge. Pray, Lady Louisa, don't look for Marmion in Hawthornden or any where else, excepting in the too thick quarto which bears his name. As to the fair ******* I beg her pardon with all my heart and spirit; but I rather think that the habit of writing novels or romances, whether in prose or verse, is unfavourable to rapid credulity; at least these sort of folks know that they can easily make fine stories themselves, and will be therefore as curious in examining those of other folks as a cunning vintner in detecting the sophistication of his neighbour's claret by the help of his own experience. Talking of fair ladies and fables reminds me of Mr Sharpe's ballads,* which I suppose Lady Douglas carried with her to Bothwell. They exhibit, I think, a very considerable portion of imagination, and occasionally, though not uniformly, great flow of versification. There is one verse, or

*

A small volume, entitled "Metrical Legends and other Poems," was published in 1807 by Scott's friend Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq.

rather the whole description of a musical ghost lady sitting among the ruins of her father's tower, that pleased me very much. But his language is too flowery and even tawdry, and I quarrelled with a lady in the first poem who yielded up her affection upon her lover showing his white teeth. White teeth ought to be taken great care of and set great store by; but I cannot allow them to be an object of passionate admiration—it is too like subduing a lady's heart by grinning. Grieved am I for Lady Douglas's indisposition, which I hope will be short, and I am sure will be tolerable with such stores of amusement around her. Last night I saw all the Dalkeith family presiding in that happy scene of mixed company and Babylonian confusion, the Queen's Assembly. I also saw Mr Alison there.

hope your ladyship has not renounced your intention of coming to Edinburgh for a day or two, and that I shall have the honour to see you. We have here a very diverting lion and sundry wild beasts; but the most meritorious is Miss Lydia White, who is what Oxonians call a lioness of the first order, with stockings nineteen times nine dyed blue, very lively, very good-humoured, and extremely absurd. It is very diverting to see the sober Scotch ladies staring at this phenomenon. I am, with great respect, your ladyship's honoured and obliged

WALTER SCOTT."

Marmion was published on the 23d of February. The letter which accompanied the presentation copy to Sunninghill, had been preceded a few weeks before by one containing an abstract of some of Weber's German researches, which were turned to account in the third edition of Sir Tristrem; but Mr Ellis was at this time in a very feeble state of health, and that communication had elicited no reply.

"To George Ellis, Esq.

66

Edinburgh, February 23, 1808.

Sleepest thou, wakest thou, George Ellis ?'

"Be it known that this letter is little better than a fehde brief,-as to the meaning of which is it not written in Wachter's Thesaurus and the Lexicon of Adelung? To expound more vernacularly, I wrote you, I know not how long ago, a swinging epistle of and concerning German Romances, with some discoveries not of my own discovering, and other matter not furiously to the present purpose. And this I caused to be conveyed to you by ane gentil knizt, Sir William Forbes, knizt, who assures me he left it as directed, at Sir Peter Parker's. Since,' to vary my style to that of the ledger, none of yours.' To avenge myself of this unusual silence, which is a manifest usurpation of my privi

leges (being the worst correspondent in the world, Heber excepted), I have indited to you an epistle in verse, and that I may be sure of its reaching your hands, I have caused to be thrown off 2000 copies thereof, that you may not plead ignorance.

"This is oracular, but will be explained by perusing the Introduction to the 5th canto of a certain dumpy quarto, entitled Marmion, a Tale of Floddenfield, of which I have to beg your acceptance of a copy. So wonder on till time makes all things plain.' One thing I am sure you will admit, and that is, that—the hobby-horse is not forgot ;'* nay, you will see I have paraded in my Introductions a plurality of hobby-horses-a whole stud, on each of which I have, in my day, been accustomed to take an airing. This circumstance will also gratify our friend Douce, whose lucubrations have been my study for some days. They will, I fear, be caviare to the multitude, and even to the soi-disant connoisseurs, who have never found by experience what length of time, of reading, and of reflection, is necessary to collect the archæological knowledge of which he has displayed such profusion. The style would also, in our Scotch phrase, thole amends, i. e. admit

*"For, O, For, O, the hobby-horse is forgot." Hamlet. + Mr Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare were published late

in 1807.

of improvement. But his extensive and curious researches place him at the head of the class of black-letter antiquaries; and his knowledge is communicated without the manifest irritation, which his contemporaries have too often displayed in matters of controversy,-without ostentation, and without self-sufficiency. I hope the success of his work will encourage this modest and learned antiquary to give us more collectanea. There are few things I read with more pleasure. Charlotte joins in kindest respects to Mrs Ellis. I have some hopes of being in town this spring, but I fear you will be at Bath. When you have run over Marmion, I hope you will remember how impatient I shall be to hear your opinion sans phrase. I am sensible I run some risk of being thought to fall below my former level, but those that will play for the gammon must take their chance of this. I am also anxious to have particular news of your health. Ever yours faithfully, W. S."

The letter reached Ellis before the book; but how well he anticipated the immediate current of criticism, his answer will show. "Before I have seen the stranger," he says, " and while my judgment is unwarped by her seduction, I think I can venture, from what I remember of the Lay, to anticipate the fluctuations of public opinion concerning her. The