t. 31, when he
wrote Scott as follows:--

"MY DEAR SCOTT,--I ought to blush 'terrestrial rosy-red, shame's proper
hue' for not sooner acknowledging your precious notes about Byron. One
conclusion, however, you might have drawn from my silence, namely, that
I was satisfied, and had all that I asked for. Your few pages indeed
will be the best ornament of my book. Murray wished me to write to you
(immediately on receipt of the last MS. you sent me) to press your
asking Hobhouse for the letter of your own (in 1812) that produced
Byron's reply. But I was doubtful whether you would like to authorise
the publication of this letter, and besides it would be now too late, as
the devils are in full hue and cry after my heels.

"Health and prosperity to you, my dear friend, and believe me, ever
yours most truly,

"THOMAS MOORE."

[344] Burns.

[345] _Merry Wives_, Act I. Sc. 3.

[346] Mr. Skene at this time was engaged upon a series of etchings,
regarding which he had several letters from Sir Walter, one of which may
be given here:--

"MY DEAR SKENE,--I enclose you Basil Hall's letter, which is very
interesting to me; but I would rather decline fixing the attention of
the public further on my old friend George Constable. You know the
modern rage for publication, and it might serve some newsmen's purpose
by publishing something about my old friend, who was an humourist, which
may be unpleasing to his friends and surviving relations.

"I did not think on Craignethan in writing about Tillietudlem, and I
believe it differs in several respects from my Chateau en Espagne. It is
not on the Clyde in particular, and, if I recollect, the view is limited
and wooded. But that can be no objection to adopting it as that which
public taste has adopted as coming nearest to the ideal of the place. Of
the places in the _Black Dwarf,_ Meiklestane Moor, Ellislie,
Earnscliffe, are all and each _vox et, praeterea nihil_. Westburnflat
once was a real spot, now there is no subject for the pencil. The
vestiges of a tower at the junction of two wild brooks with a rude
hillside, are all that are subjects for the pencil, and they are very
poor ones. Earnscliffe and Ganderscleuch are also visions.

"I hope your work is afloat[B] and sailing bobbishly. I have not heard
of or seen it.

"_Rob Roy_ has some good and real subjects, as the pass at Loch Ard, the
beautiful fall at Ledeard, near the head of the lake. Let me know all
you desire to be i