was not actually conferred till
after George's accession, namely, on the 30th March, 1820,--"The Duke
of Buccleuch and Scott of Harden, who, as the heads of my clan and the
sources of my gentry, are good judges of what I ought to do, have both
given me their earnest opinion to accept of an honour directly derived
from the source of honour, and neither begged nor bought, as is the
usual fashion. Several of my ancestors bore the title in the
seventeenth century, and, were it of consequence, I have no reason to
be ashamed of the decent and respectable persons who connect me with
that period when they carried into the field, like Madoc,

"The Crescent at whose gleam the Cambrian oft,
Cursing his perilous tenure, wound his horn,"

so that, as a gentleman, I may stand on as good a footing as other new
creations."[46] Why the honour was any greater for coming from such a
king as George, than it would have been if it had been suggested by
Lord Sidmouth, or even Lord Liverpool,--or half as great as if Mr.
Canning had proposed it, it is not easy to conceive. George was a fair
judge of literary merit, but not one to be compared for a moment with
that great orator and wit; and as to his being the fountain of honour,
there was so much dishonour of which the king was certainly the
fountain too, that I do not think it was very easy for two fountains
both springing from such a person to have flowed quite unmingled.
George justly prided himself on Sir Walter Scott's having been the
first creation of his reign, and I think the event showed that the
poet was the fountain of much more honour for the king, than the king
was for the poet.

When George came to Edinburgh in 1822, it was Sir Walter who acted
virtually as the master of the ceremonies, and to whom it was chiefly
due that the visit was so successful. It was then that George clad his
substantial person for the first time in the Highland costume--to wit,
in the Steuart Tartans--and was so much annoyed to find himself
outvied by a wealthy alderman, Sir William Curtis, who had gone and
done likewise, and, in his equally grand Steuart Tartans, seemed a
kind of parody of the king. The day on which the king arrived,
Tuesday, 14th of August, 1822, was also the day on which Scott's most
intimate friend, William Erskine, then Lord Kinnedder, died. Yet Scott
went on board the royal yacht, was most graciously received by George,
had his health drunk by the king in a bottle of High