perfectly new in plot and structure, and I will set about
the sketch as soon as my strength is restored in some
measure by air and exercise. I am sure I can finish it in a
fortnight then. Ever yours truly,

W. SCOTT.

[Footnote 59: Sir Archy Mac-Sarcasm and Sir Pertinax
Mac-Sycophant.]

About the time when this letter was written, a newspaper paragraph
having excited the apprehension of two--or I should say three--of his
dearest friends, that his life was in actual danger, Scott wrote to
them as follows:--

TO J. B. S. MORRITT, ESQ., M. P., PORTLAND PLACE, LONDON.

EDINBURGH, 20th March, 1817.

MY DEAR MORRITT,--I hasten to acquaint you that I am in the
land of life, and thriving, though I have had a slight
shake, and still feel the consequences of medical treatment.
I had been plagued all through this winter with cramps in my
stomach, which I endured as a man of mould might, and
endeavored to combat them by drinking scalding water, and so
forth. As they grew rather unpleasantly frequent, I had
reluctant recourse to Baillie. But before his answer arrived
on the 5th, I had a most violent attack, which broke up a
small party at {p.152} my house, and sent me to bed roaring
like a bull-calf. All sorts of remedies were applied, as in
the case of Gil Blas's pretended colic, but such was the
pain of the real disorder, that it outdevilled the Doctor
hollow. Even heated salt, which was applied in such a state
that it burned my shirt to rags, I hardly felt when clapped
to my stomach. At length the symptoms became inflammatory,
and dangerously so, the seat being the diaphragm. They only
gave way to very profuse bleeding and blistering, which
under higher assistance saved my life. My recovery was slow
and tedious from the state of exhaustion. I could neither
stir for weakness and giddiness, nor read for dazzling in my
eyes, nor listen for a whizzing sound in my ears, nor even
think for lack of the power of arranging my ideas. So I had
a comfortless time of it for about a week. Even yet I by no
means feel, as the copy-book hath it,

"The lion bold, which the lamb doth hold--"

on the contrary, I am as weak as water. They tell me (of
course) I must