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