verses of his
own, some of which are not without merit. There is a long letter in
doggerel, dated 1788, descriptive of a ramble from Edinburgh to
Carlisle--of which I may quote the opening lines, as a sample of the
simple habits of these young people:--

"At four in the morning, I won't be too sure,
Yet, if right I remember me, that was the hour,
When with Fergusson, Ramsay, and Jones, sir, and you,
From Auld Reekie I southward my route did pursue.
But two of the dogs (yet God bless them, I said)
Grew tired, and but set me half way to Lasswade,
While Jones, you, and I, Wat, went on without flutter,
And at Symonds's feasted on good bread and butter;
Where I, wanting a sixpence, you lugged out a shilling,
And paid for me too, though I was most unwilling.
We {p.143} parted--be sure I was ready to snivel--
Jones and you to go home--I to go to the devil."

In a letter of later date, describing the adventurer's captivation
with the cottage maiden whom he afterwards married, there are some
lines of a very different stamp. This couplet at least seems to me
exquisite:--

"Lowly beauty, dear friend, beams with primitive grace,
And 't is innocence' self plays the rogue in her face."

I find in another letter of this collection--and it is among the first
of the series--the following passage:--"Your Quixotism, dear Walter,
was highly characteristic. From the description of the blooming fair,
as she appeared when she lowered her _manteau vert_, I am hopeful you
have not dropt the acquaintance. At least I am certain some of our
more rakish friends would have been glad enough of such an
introduction." This hint I cannot help connecting with the first scene
of _The Lady Green Mantle_ in Redgauntlet; but indeed I could easily
trace many more coincidences between these letters and that novel,
though at the same time I have no sort of doubt that William Clerk
was, in the main, _Darsie Latimer_, while Scott himself unquestionably
sat for his own picture in young _Alan Fairford_.

The allusion to "our more rakish friends" is in keeping with the whole
strain of this juvenile correspondence. Throughout there occurs no
coarse or even jocular suggestion as to the conduct of _Scott_ in that
particular, as to which most youths of his then age are so apt to lay
up stores of self-reproach. In this season of