offer, rent far beyond what any
expectation formed by either, upon their own acquaintance
with the property, could rationally have warranted. More
than one landed gentleman has cursed, in my presence, the
day he ever consulted one of those empirics, whose
prognostications induced him to reject the offers of
substantial men, practically acquainted with the _locale_.

Ever, my dear Morritt, most truly yours,

Walter SCOTT.

In October, 1816, appeared the Edinburgh Annual Register, containing
Scott's historical sketch of the year 1814--a composition which would
occupy at least four such volumes as the reader has now in his
hand.[41] Though executed with extraordinary rapidity, the sketch is
as clear as spirited; but I need say no more of it here, as the author
travels mostly over the same ground again in his Life of Napoleon.

[Footnote 41: [Referring to the edition of 1839, in ten
volumes.]]

{p.120} Scott's correspondence proves, that during this autumn he had
received many English guests besides the good spinsters of Piccadilly
and Mr. Morritt. I regret to add, it also proves that he had continued
all the while to be annoyed with calls for money from John Ballantyne;
yet before the 12th of November called him to Edinburgh, he appears to
have nearly finished the first Tales of my Landlord. He had, moreover,
concluded a negotiation with Constable and Longman for a series of
Letters on the History of Scotland: of which, however, if he ever
wrote any part, the MS. has not been discovered. It is probable that
he may have worked some detached fragments into his long-subsequent
Tales of a Grandfather.[42] The following letter shows likewise that
he was now busy with plans of building at Abbotsford, and deep in
consultation on that subject with an artist eminent for his skill in
Gothic architecture,--Mr. Edward Blore:--

[Footnote 42: [Scott says in a letter to John Murray,
written October 20, 1814: "In casting about how I might
show you some mark of my sense of former kindness, a
certain MS. History of Scotland in _Letters to my
Children_ has occurred to me, which I consider as a
desideratum; it is upon the plan of _Lord Lyttelton's
Letters_, as they are called." Nearly a year later he
returns to the subject