am still puzzled
to dispose of the birse[28] in a {p.089} becoming manner.
It is a most unmanageable decoration. I tried it upright on
the top of the cup; it looked like a shaving-brush, and the
goblet might be intended to make the lather. Then I thought
I had a brilliant idea. The arms of Selkirk are a female
seated on a sarcophagus, decorated with the arms of
Scotland, which will make a beautiful top to the cup. So I
thought of putting the birse into the lady's other hand;
but, alas, it looked so precisely like the rod of
chastisement uplifted over the poor child, that I laughed at
the drawing for half an hour. Next I tried to take off the
castigatory appearance, by inserting the bristles in a kind
of handle; but then it looked as if the poor woman had been
engaged in the capacities of housemaid and child-keeper at
once, and, fatigued with her double duty, had sat down on
the wine-cooler, with the broom in one hand, and the bairn
in the other. At length, after some conference with Charles
Sharpe, I have hit on a plan, which, I think, will look very
well, if tolerably executed,--namely, to have the lady
seated in due form on the top of the lid (which will look
handsome, and will be well taken), and to have a thistle
wreathed around the sarcophagus and rising above her head,
and from the top of the thistle shall proceed the birse. I
will bring a drawing with me, and they shall get the cup
ready in the mean time. I hope to be at Abbotsford on Monday
night, to stay for a week. My cat has eat two or three
birds, while regaling on the crumbs that were thrown for
them. This was a breach of hospitality; but _oportet
vivere_--and _micat inter omnes_--with which stolen pun, and
my respectful compliments to Lord Montagu and the ladies, I
am, very truly, your Grace's most faithful and obliged
servant,

Walter SCOTT.

[Footnote 28: A _birse_, or bunch of hog's _bristles_,
forms the cognizance of the Sutors. When a new burgess
is admitted into their community, _the birse_ passes
round with the cup of welcome, and every elder brother
dips it into the wine, and draws it through his mouth,
before it reaches the happy neophyte, who of course pays