while Scott, with his face
swollen with a grievous toothache, and one hand pressed hard to his
cheek, with the other was writing the inimitably humorous opening
chapters of "The Antiquary," which he passed across the table, sheet by
sheet, to his friend, saying, "Now, Adam, d'ye think that'll do?" Such a
picture of mental triumph over outward circumstances has surely seldom
been surpassed: house-builders, smoky chimney, damp draughts, restless,
dripping dog, and toothache form what our friend, Miss Masson, called a
"concatenation of exteriorities" little favorable to literary
composition of any sort; but considered as accompaniments or inspiration
of that delightfully comical beginning of "The Antiquary," they are all
but incredible.

To my theatrical avocation I have been indebted for many social
pleasures and privileges; among others, for Sir Walter Scott's notice
and acquaintance; but among the things it has deprived me of was the
opportunity of enjoying more of his honorable and delightful
intercourse. A visit to Abbotsford, urged upon us most kindly, is one of
the lost opportunities of my life that I think of always with bitter
regret. Sir Walter wanted us to go down and spend a week with him in the
country, and our professional engagements rendered it impossible for us
to do so; and there are few things in my whole life that I count greater
loss than the seven days I might have passed with that admirable genius
and excellent, kind man, and had to forego. I never saw Abbotsford until
after its master had departed from all earthly dwelling-places. I was
staying in the neighborhood, at the house of my friend, Mrs. M----, of
Carolside, and went thither with her and my youngest daughter. The house
was inhabited only by servants; and the housekeeper, whose charge it was
to show it, waited till a sufficient number of tourists and sight-seers
had collected, and then drove us all together from room to room of the
house in a body, calling back those who outstripped her, and the laggers
who would fain have fallen a few paces out of the sound of the dreary
parrotry of her inventory of the contents of each apartment. There was
his writing-table and chair, his dreadnaught suit and thick walking
shoes and staff there in the drawing-room; the table, fitted like a
jeweler's counter, with a glass cover, protecting and exhibiting all the
royal and precious tokens of honor and admiration, in the shape of
orders, boxes, miniatures, e