been issued with a dedication to the
King. The series was completed in 48 vols., published at the beginning
of each month, between 1829-33, and the circulation went on increasing
until it reached 35,000 monthly.

[329] Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, which stood at that time in Shakespeare
Square, the site of the present General Post-Office.

[330] Mr. Lockhart remarks that, besides the usual allowance of
rheumatism, and other lesser ailments, Sir Walter had an attack that
season of a nature which gave his family great alarm, and which for some
days he himself regarded with the darkest prognostications. After some
weeks, during which he complained of headache and nervous irritation,
certain haemorrhages indicated the sort of relief required, and he
obtained it from copious cupping.--_Life_, vol. ix. p. 327-8.

[331] See _infra_, p. 299.

[332] _The Beaux's Stratagem_, Farquhar.

[333] Through the courtesy of Miss Dick Lauder I am enabled to give the
letter referred to:--

"My DEAR SIR THOMAS,--I received your kind letter and interesting
communication yesterday, and hasten to reply. I am ashamed of the
limited hospitality I was able to offer Mr. Lauder, but circumstances
permitted me no more. I was much pleased with his lively and intelligent
manners, and hope he will live to be a comfort and a credit to Lady
Lauder and you.

"I need not say I have the greatest interest in the MS. which you
mention. In case it shall really prove an authentic document, there
would not be the least difficulty in getting the Bannatyne Club to take,
perhaps, 100 copies, or obtaining support enough so as, at the least, to
preclude the possibility of loss to the ingenious Messrs. Hay Allan. But
I think it indispensable that the original MS. should be sent for a
month or so to the Register House under the charge of the Deputy
Register, Mr. Thomson, that its antiquity be closely scrutinised by
competent persons. The art of imitating ancient writing has got to a
considerable perfection, and it has been the bane of Scottish
literature, and disgrace of her antiquities, that we have manifested an
eager propensity to believe without inquiry and propagate the errors
which we adopt too hastily ourselves. The general proposition that the
Lowlanders ever wore plaids is difficult to swallow. They were of twenty
different races, and almost all distinctly different from the Scots
Irish, who are the proper Scots, from which the Royal Family are
descended