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ated, as we shall see presently. His friends in Edinburgh continued all that spring in great anxiety on his account. Scarcely, however, had the first symptoms yielded to severe medical treatment, than he is found to have beguiled the intervals of his suffering by planning a dramatic piece on a story supplied to him by one of Train's communications, which he desired to {p.147} present to Terry, on behalf of the actor's first-born son who had been christened by the name of Walter Scott.[58] Such was the origin of the Fortunes of Devorgoil--a piece which, though completed soon afterwards, and submitted by Terry to many manipulations with a view to the stage, was never received by any manager, and was first published, towards the close of the author's life, under the title, slightly altered for an obvious reason, of The Doom of Devorgoil. The sketch of the story which he gives in the following letter will probably be considered by many besides myself as well worth the drama. It appears that the actor had mentioned to Scott his intention of _Terryfying_ The Black Dwarf. [Footnote 58: This young gentleman is now an officer in the East India Company's army.--(1837.) Mr. W. S. Terry lived to distinguish himself as a soldier, and fell in action against the Afghans.--(1848.)] TO DANIEL TERRY, ESQ., LONDON. EDINBURGH, 12th March, 1817. DEAR TERRY,--I am now able to write to you on your own affairs, though still as weak as water from the operations of the medical faculty, who, I think, treated me as a recusant to their authority, and having me once at advantage, were determined I should not have strength to rebel again in a hurry. After all, I believe it was touch and go; and considering how much I have to do for my own family and others, my elegy might have been that of the Auld Man's Mare,-- "The peats and turf are all to lead, What ail'd the beast to die?" You don't mention the nature of your undertaking in your last, and in your former you spoke both of the Black Dwarf and of Triermain. I have some doubts whether the town will endure a second time the following up a well-known tale with a dramatic representation--and there is no _vis comica_ to redeem the Black Dwarf, as in the case of Dominie Sampson. I have thou
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