errors." I find Scott obtaining the slow and reluctant assistance of
his own careful father--who had long before observed this youth's
wayward disposition, and often cautioned his son against the
connection--to intercede with the unfortunate wanderer's family, and
procure, if possible, some mitigation of their sentence. The result is
that he is furnished with the scanty means of removing himself to a
distant colony, where he spends several years in the drudgery of a
very humble occupation, but by degrees establishes for himself a new
character, which commands the anxious interest of strangers;--and I
find these strangers, particularly a benevolent and venerable
clergyman, addressing, on his behalf, without his privacy, the young
person, as yet unknown to the world, whom the object of their concern
had painted to them as "uniting the warm feelings of youth with the
sense of years"--whose hair he had, "from the day he left England,
worn next his heart." Just at the time when this appeal reached Scott,
he hears that his exiled friend's father has died suddenly, and, after
all, intestate; he has actually been {p.142} taking steps to
ascertain the truth of the case at the moment when the American
despatch is laid on his table. I leave the reader to guess with what
pleasure Scott has to communicate the intelligence that his repentant
and reformed friend may return to take possession of his inheritance.
The letters before me contain touching pictures of their meeting--of
Walter's first visit to the ancient hall, where a happy family are now
assembled--and of the affectionately respectful sense which his friend
retained ever afterwards of all that he had done for him in the season
of his struggles. But what a grievous loss is Scott's part of this
correspondence! I find the comrade over and over again expressing his
admiration of the letters in which Scott described to him his early
tours both in the Highlands and the Border dales: I find him
prophesying from them, as early as 1789, "one day your pen will make
you famous,"--and already, in 1790, urging him to concentrate his
ambition on a "history of the clans."[75]

[Footnote 75: All Scott's letters to the friend here alluded
to are said to have perished in an accidental fire.]

This young gentleman appears to have had a decided turn for
literature; and, though in his earlier epistles he makes no allusion
to Scott as ever dabbling in rhyme, he often inserts