Don Quixote
which has outlived Lope's two thousand triumphant dramas--so Scott,
abandoning verse to Byron, should have rebounded from his fall by the
only prose romances, which seem to be classed with the masterpiece of
Spanish genius, by the general judgment of Europe.

I shall insert two letters, in which he announces the publication of
Harold the Dauntless. In the first of them he also mentions the light
and humorous little piece entitled The Sultan of Serendib, or the
Search after Happiness, originally published in a weekly paper, after
the fashion of the old Essayists, which about this time issued from
John Ballantyne's premises, under the appropriate name of "The
SALE-ROOM." The paper had slender success; and though Scott wrote
several things for it, none of them, except this metrical essay,
attracted any notice. The Sale-Room was, in fact, a dull and hopeless
concern; and I should scarcely have thought it worth mentioning, but
for the confirmation it lends to my suspicion that Mr. John Ballantyne
was very unwilling, after all his warnings, to retire completely from
the field of publishing.

{p.137} TO J. B. S. MORRITT, ESQ., M. P., ROKEBY PARK.

EDINBURGH, January 30, 1817.

MY DEAR MORRITT,--I hope to send you in a couple of days
Harold the Dauntless, which has not turned out so good as I
thought it would have done. I begin to get too old and
stupid, I think, for poetry, and will certainly never again
adventure on a grand scale. For amusement, and to help a
little publication that is going on here, I have spun a
doggerel tale called The Search after Happiness, of which I
shall send you a copy by post, if it is of a frankable size;
if not, I can put it up with the Dauntless. Among other
misfortunes of Harold is his name, but the thing was partly
printed before Childe Harold was in question.

My great and good news at present is, that the bog (that
perpetual hobby-horse) has produced a commodity of most
excellent marle, and promises to be of the very last
consequence to my wild ground in the neighborhood; for
nothing can equal the effect of marle as a top-dressing.
Methinks (in my mind's eye, Horatio) I see all the
blue-bank, the hinny-lee, and the other provinces of my poor
kingdom, waving with deep rye-grass and clover, like the
meadows at Rokeby. In honest trut