less work, and the key of the
ale-cellar. I was greatly delighted with the circumstances of
your investiture. It reminded me of the porters at Calais with Dr.
Smollett's baggage, six of them seizing upon one small portmanteau,
and bearing it in triumph to his lodgings. You see what it is to
laugh at the superstitions of a gentleman-usher, as I think you do
somewhere. 'The whirligig of Time brings about his revenges.'

Adieu, my dear Southey; my best wishes attend all that you do, and my
best congratulations every good that attends you--yea even this, the
very least of Providence's mercies, as a poor clergyman said when
pronouncing grace over a herring. I should like to know how the prince
received you; his address is said to be excellent, and his knowledge
of literature far from despicable. What a change of fortune even
since the short time when we met! The great work of retribution is now
rolling onward to consummation, yet am I not fully satisfied--_pereat
iste_--there will be no permanent peace in Europe till Buonaparte
sleeps with the tyrants of old.

TO J.B.S. MORRITT

_A small anonymous sort of a novel_

Edinburgh, 9 _July_, 1814.

MY DEAR MORRITT,

I owe you many apologies for not sooner answering your very
entertaining letter upon your Parisian journey. I heartily wish I had
been of your party, for you have seen what I trust will not be seen
again in a hurry; since, to enjoy the delight of a restoration, there
is a necessity for a previous _bouleversement_ of everything that is
valuable in morals and policy which seems to have been the case in
France since 1790. The Duke of Buccleugh told me yesterday of a very
good reply of Louis to some of his attendants, who proposed shutting
the doors of his apartments to keep out the throng of people. 'Open
the door,' he said, 'to John Bull; he has suffered a great deal in
keeping the door open for me.'

Now, to go from one important subject to another, I must account for
my own laziness, which I do by referring you to a small anonymous sort
of a novel, in three volumes, _Waverley_, which you will receive by
the mail of this day. It was a very old attempt of mine to embody some
traits of those characters and manners peculiar to Scotland, the last
remnants of which vanished during my own youth, so that few or no
traces now remain. I had written great part of the first volume, and
sketched other passages, when I mislaid the MS., and only found it by
the merest