in
sight. I hear that your daughter is married, and I suppose by this
time you are half a grandfather--a young one, by the way. I have
heard great things of Mrs. Lockhart's personal and mental charms,
and much good of her lord: that you may live to see as many novel
Scotts as there are Scots' novels, is the very bad pun, but sincere
wish of

"Yours ever most affectionately, &c.

"P.S. Why don't you take a turn in Italy? You would find yourself
as well known and as welcome as in the Highlands among the natives.
As for the English, you would be with them as in London; and I need
not add, that I should be delighted to see you again, which is far
more than I shall ever feel or say for England, or (with a few
exceptions 'of kith, kin, and allies') any thing that it contains.
But my 'heart warms to the tartan,' or to any thing of Scotland,
which reminds me of Aberdeen and other parts, not so far from the
Highlands as that town, about Invercauld and Braemar, where I was
sent to drink goat's _fey_ in 1795-6, in consequence of a
threatened decline after the scarlet fever. But I am gossiping, so,
good night--and the gods be with your dreams!

"Pray, present my respects to Lady Scott, who may, perhaps,
recollect having seen me in town in 1815.

"I see that one of your supporters (for like Sir Hildebrand, I am
fond of Guillin) is a _mermaid_; it is my _crest_ too, and with
precisely the same curl of tail. There's concatenation for you:--I
am building a little cutter at Genoa, to go a cruising in the
summer. I know _you_ like the sea too."

* * * * *

LETTER 476. TO ----.[73]

"Pisa, February 6. 1822.

"'Try back the deep lane,' till we find a publisher for the
'Vision;' and if none such is to be found, print fifty copies at my
expense, distribute them amongst my acquaintance, and you will soon
see that the booksellers _will_ publish them, even if we opposed
them. That they are now afraid is natural, but I do not see that I
ought to give way on that account. I know nothing of Rivington's
'Remonstrance' by the 'eminent Churchman;' but I suppose he wants a
living. I once heard of a preacher at Kentish Town against 'Cain.'
The same outcry was raised against Priestley, Hume, Gibbon,
Voltaire, and all the men who da