nded at Turnberry from
Arran, the same meteoric gleam which had attended his voyage
reappeared, unfailingly, in the same quarter of the heavens. With this
circumstance Scott was much struck. "Your information," he writes on
the 22d November, "was particularly interesting and acceptable,
especially that which {p.006} relates to the supposed preternatural
appearance of the fire, etc., which I hope to make some use of." What
use he did make of it, if any reader has forgotten, will be seen by
reference to stanzas 7-17 of the 5th Canto of the Poem; and the notes
to the same Canto embody, with due acknowledgment, the more authentic
results of Mr. Train's pilgrimage to Carrick.

I shall recur presently to this communication from Mr. Train; but must
pause for a moment to introduce two letters, both written in the same
week with Scott's request as to the localities of Turnberry. They both
give us amusing sketches of his buoyant spirits at this period of
gigantic exertion;--and the first of them, which relates chiefly to
Maturin's Tragedy of Bertram, shows how he could still contrive to
steal time for attention to the affairs of brother authors less
energetic than himself.

TO DANIEL TERRY, ESQ.

ABBOTSFORD, November 10, 1814.

MY DEAR TERRY,--I should have long since answered your kind
letter by our friend Young, but he would tell you of my
departure with our trusty and well-beloved Erskine, on a
sort of a voyage to Nova Zembla. Since my return, I have
fallen under the tyrannical dominion of a certain Lord of
the Isles. Those Lords were famous for oppression in the
days of yore, and if I can judge by the posthumous despotism
exercised over me, they have not improved by their demise.
The _peine forte et dure_ is, you know, nothing in
comparison to being obliged to grind verses; and so devilish
repulsive is my disposition, that I can never put my wheel
into constant and regular motion, till Ballantyne's devil
claps in his proofs, like the hot cinder which you Bath
folks used to clap in beside an unexperienced turnspit, as a
hint to be expeditious in his duty. O long life to the old
hermit of Prague, who never saw pen and ink!--much happier
in {p.007} that negative circumstance than in his alliance
with the niece of King Gorboduc.

To talk upon a blither subject, I wish you saw Abbotsfor