Scott's affairs, there had apparently been no renewal of the
acquaintanceship until now.

[205] See _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vol. iv. p. 20.

[206] David Hinves, Mr. W. Stewart Rose's faithful and affectionate
attendant, furnished Scott with some hints for his picture of Davie
Gellatly in _Waverley_.

Mr. Lockhart tells us that Hinves was more than forty years in Mr.
Rose's service; he had been a bookbinder by trade and a preacher among
the Methodists.

"A sermon heard casually under a tree in the New Forest contained such
touches of good feeling and broad humour that Rose promoted the preacher
to be his valet on the spot. He was treated more like a friend than a
servant by his master and by all his master's intimate friends. Scott
presented him with all his works; and Coleridge gave him a corrected (or
rather an altered) copy of _Christabel_ with this inscription on the
fly-leaf: 'Dear Hinves,--Till this book is concluded, and with it
_Gundimore_, a poem by the same "author," accept of this _corrected_
copy of _Christabel_ as a _small_ token of regard; yet such a
testimonial as I would not pay to any one I did not esteem, though he
were an emperor.

"'Be assured I will send you for your private library every work I have
published (if there be any to be had) and whatever I shall publish. Keep
steady to the FAITH. If the fountainhead be always full, the stream
cannot be long empty.--Yours sincerely, S.T. COLERIDGE.

"'11 _November_ 1816, _Mudford.'"--Life,_ vol. iv. pp. 397-8.

Hinves died in Mr. Rose's service _circa_ 1838, and his master followed
him on the 30th April 1843, a few weeks after his friend Morritt.

[207] An analysis of these letters was published by Mr. Lockhart in the
_Life_, vol. vi. pp. 346-386.

[208] Created Earl of Leicester in 1837.

[209] It is worth noting that Sir Walter first wrote "grasp"--and then
deleted the word in favour of the technical term--"fathom."

[210] W. Withers had just published a _Letter to Sir Walter Scott
exposing certain fundamental errors in his late Essay on
Planting_,--Holt: Norfolk, 1828.

[211] A deep pool in the Tweed, in which Scott had had a singular
nocturnal adventure while "burning the water" in company with Hogg and
Laidlaw. Hogg records that the crazy coble went to the bottom while
Scott was shouting--

"An' gin the boat were bottomless, An' seven miles to row."

The scene was not forgotten when he came to write the twenty-sixth
chapter o