t on
his journey. "Ay," said he, "these creatures have many thoughts of
their own, no doubt, that we can never penetrate." Then, laughing,
"Troth," said he, "maybe some bird had whispered Daisy that I had been
to see the grand reviews at Paris on a little scrag of a Cossack,
while my own gallant trooper was left behind bearing Peter and the
post-bag to Melrose."

A few letters, written shortly after this return to Abbotsford, will,
among other things, show with what zeal he at once resumed his
literary industry, if indeed that can be said to have been at all
interrupted by a journey, in the course of which a great part of
Paul's narrative, and also of the poem of The Field of Waterloo, must
have been composed.

TO J. B. S. MORRITT, ESQ., M. P., ROKEBY PARK.

ABBOTSFORD, 2d October, 1815.

MY DEAR MORRITT,--Few things could have given me more real
pain, than to see Mrs. Morritt under such severe suffering,
and the misery you sustain in witnessing it. Yet let us
trust in the goodness of Providence, which restored the
health so deservedly dear to you, from as great a state of
depression upon a former occasion. Our visit was indeed a
melancholy one, and, I fear, added to your distress, when,
God knows, it required no addition.--The contrast of this
quiet bird's-nest of a place, with the late scene of
confusion and military splendor which I have witnessed, is
something of a stunning {p.070} nature--and, for the first
five or six days, I have been content to fold my hands, and
saunter up and down in a sort of indolent and stupefied
tranquillity, my only attempt at occupation having gone no
farther than pruning a young tree now and then. Yesterday,
however, and to-day, I began, from necessity, to prune
verses, and have been correcting proofs of my little attempt
at a poem on Waterloo. It will be out this week, and you
shall have a copy by the Carlisle coach, which pray judge
favorably, and remember it is not always the grandest
actions which are best adapted for the arts of poetry and
painting. I believe I shall give offence to my old friends
the Whigs, by not condoling with Buonaparte. Since his
sentence of transportation, he has begun to look wonderfully
comely in their eyes. I would they had hanged him, that he
might have died a perfect Adonis.