ossessed
it? I think, even without more than the usual waste of
margin, the Poems of David would make a decent
twelve-shilling touch. I shall think about it when I have
exhausted mine own _century of inventions_.

I do not know whether it is perverseness of state, or old
associations, but an excellent and very handsome modern
house, which Mr. Howard has lately built at Corby, does not,
in my mind, assimilate so well with the scenery as the old
irregular monastic hall, with its weather-beaten and antique
appearance, which I remember there some years ago.

Out of my Field of Waterloo has sprung an odd wild sort of
thing, which I intend to finish separately, and call it The
Dance of Death.[25] These matters take up my {p.072} time
so much, that I must bid you adieu for the present. Besides,
I am summoned to attend a grand _chasse_, and I see the
children are all mounted upon the ponies. By the way, Walter
promises to be a gallant horseman. Ever most truly yours,

Walter SCOTT.

[Footnote 25: This was published in the _Edinburgh
Annual Register_ in 1815.--See _Poetical Works_ (Ed.
1834), vol. xi. p. 297 [Cambridge Ed. p. 421].]

I shall close this chapter with a transcript of some _Notes_ on the
proof sheets of The Field of Waterloo. John Ballantyne being at
Abbotsford on the 3d of October, his brother the printer addressed the
packet containing the sheets to him. John appears to have considered
James's observations on the margin before Scott saw them; and the
record of the style in which the Poet repelled, or yielded to, his
critics, will at all events illustrate his habitual good-nature.

John Ballantyne writes on the fly-leaf of the proofs, to his
confidential clerk: "Mr. Hodgson, I beg these sheets and all the MS.
may be carefully preserved just as they stand, and put in my father's
desk. J. B."

James prefaces his animadversions with this quotation:--

"Cut deep and spare not.--_Penruddock._"

The _Notes_ are these:--

STANZA I.--"Fair Brussels, thou art far behind."

_James Ballantyne._--I do not like this line. It is tame, and the
phrase "far behind," has, to my feeling, some associated vulgarity.

_Scott._--Stet.

STANZA II.--"Let not _the_ stranger with disdain
_The_ architecture view."

_James._