nd out the volumes.
Could I once get the head of the concern fairly round before
the wind again, I am sure I could make it L100 a year to
you. In the present instance it will be at least L50.

Yours truly,

W. S.

TO THE SAME.

EDINBURGH, July 3, 1817.

MY DEAR SIR,--I send you Adam's and Riley's Travels. You
will observe I don't want a review of the books, or a detail
of these persons' adventures, but merely a short article
expressing the light, direct or doubtful, which they have
thrown on the interior of Africa. "Recent Discoveries in
Africa" will be a proper title. I hope to find you
materially amended, or rather quite stout, when I come out
on Saturday. I am quite well this morning. Yours, in haste,

W. S.

P. S.--I add Mariner's Tonga Islands, and Campbell's Voyage.
Pray take great care of them, as I am a coxcomb about my
books, and hate specks or spots. Take care of yourself, and
want for nothing that Abbotsford can furnish.

These notes have carried us down to the middle of the year. But I must
now turn to some others, which show that before Whitsuntide, when
Laidlaw settled at Kaeside, negotiations were on foot respecting
another novel.

TO MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE, HANOVER STREET, EDINBURGH.

ABBOTSFORD, Monday. [April, 1817.]

DEAR JOHN,--I have a good subject for a work of fiction _in
petto_. What do you think Constable would give for a smell
of it? You ran away without taking {p.160} leave the other
morning, or I wished to have spoken to you about it. I don't
mean a continuation of Jedediah, because there might be some
delicacy in putting that by the original publishers. You may
write if anything occurs to you on this subject. It will not
interrupt my History. By the way, I have a great lot of the
Register ready for delivery, and no man asks for it. I shall
want to pay up some cash at Whitsunday, which will make me
draw on my brains. Yours truly,

W. SCOTT.

TO THE SAME.

ABBOTSFORD, Saturday, May 3, 1817.

DEAR JOHN,--I shall be much obliged to you to come here with
Constable on Monday, as he proposes a v