ell,
with frequent fainting fits, the result no doubt of over anxieties of
late, I have been obliged to let my wife and children depart by
tomorrow's steamer without me, and I remain to attend to Sir Walter
thro' his land progress, which will begin on Friday, and end, I hope
well, on Wednesday. If this should give any inconvenience to you, God
knows I regret it, and God knows also I couldn't do otherwise without
exposing Sir W. and his daughter to a feeling that I had not done my
duty to them. On the whole, public affairs seem to be so dark, that I am
inclined to think our best course, in the _Quarterly_, may turn out to
have been and to be, that of not again appearing until the fate of this
Bill has been quite settled. My wife will, if you are in town, be much
rejoiced with a visit; and if you write to me, so as to catch me at
Rokeby Park, Greta Bridge, next Saturday, 'tis well.

Yours,

J.G. LOCKHART.

P.S.--But I see Rokeby Park would not do. I shall be at Major Scott's,
15th Hussars, Nottingham, on Monday night.

It would be beyond our province to describe in these pages the closing
scenes of Sir Walter Scott's life: his journey to Naples, his attempt to
write more novels, his failure, and his return home to Abbotsford to
die. His biography, by his son-in-law Lockhart, one of the best in the
whole range of English literature, is familiar to all our readers; and
perhaps never was a more faithful memorial erected, in the shape of a
book, to the beauty, goodness, and faithfulness of a noble literary
character.

In this work we are only concerned with Sir Walter's friendship and
dealings with Mr. Murray, and on these the foregoing correspondence,
extending over nearly a quarter of a century, is sufficient comment.
When a committee was formed in Sir Walter's closing years to organize
and carry out some public act of homage and respect to the great genius,
Mr. Murray strongly urged that the money collected, with which
Abbotsford was eventually redeemed, should be devoted to the purchase of
all the copyrights for the benefit of Scott and his family: it cannot
but be matter of regret that this admirable suggestion was not adopted.

During the year 1827 Mr. Murray's son, John Murray the Third, was
residing in Edinburgh as a student at the University, and attended the
memorable dinner at which Scott was forced to declare himself the author
of the "Waverley Novels."

His account of the scene, as given in a letter to h