ge sits down. Employ, therefore, your mornings in slumber
while you can, for soon it will be chased from your eyes. I plume
myself on my sagacity with regard to C. J. Fox.[81] I always
foretold you would tire of him--a vile brute. I have not yet
forgot the narrow escape of my fingers. I rejoice at James's[82]
intimacy with Miss Menzies. She promised to turn out a fine girl,
has a fine fortune, and could James get her, he might sing, "I'll
go no more to sea, to sea." Give my love to him when you
write.--"God preserve us, what a scrawl!" says one of the ladies
just now, in admiration at the expedition with which I scribble.
Well--I was never able in my life to do anything with what is
called gravity and deliberation.

I dined two days ago _tete-a-tete_ with Lord Buchan. Heard a
history of all his ancestors whom he has hung round his
chimney-piece. From counting of pedigrees, good {p.154} Lord
deliver us! He is thinking of erecting a monument to Thomson. He
frequented Dryburgh much in my grandfather's time. It will be a
handsome thing. As to your scamp of a boy, I saw nothing of him;
but the face is enough to condemn there. I have seen a man
flogged for stealing spirits on the sole information of his nose.
Remember me respectfully to your family.

Believe me yours affectionately,

WALTER SCOTT.

[Footnote 80: Books on Civil Law.]

[Footnote 81: A tame fox of Mr. Clerk's, which he soon
dismissed.]

[Footnote 82: Mr. James Clerk, R. N.]

After his return from the scene of these merry doings, he writes as
follows to his kind uncle. The reader will see that, in the course of
the preceding year, he had announced his early views of the origin of
what is called the feudal system, in a paper read before the _Literary
Society_. He, in the succeeding winter, chose the same subject for an
essay, submitted to Mr. Dugald Stewart, whose prelections on ethics he
was then attending. Some time later he again illustrated the same
opinions more at length in a disquisition before the Speculative
Society; and, indeed, he always adhered to them. One of the last
historical books he read, before leaving Abbotsford for Malta in 1831,
was Colonel Tod's interesting account of Rajasthan; and I well
remember the delight he expressed on finding his views con