hospitality, and giving an excellent account of you. Were
you not struck with the fantastical coincidence of our
nocturnal disturbances at Abbotsford with the melancholy
event that followed? I protest to you the noise resembled
half-a-dozen men hard at work putting up boards and
furniture, and nothing can be more certain than that there
was nobody on the premises at the time. With a few
additional touches, the story would figure in Glanville or
Aubrey's Collection. In the mean time you may set it down
with poor Dubisson's warnings,[105] as a remarkable
coincidence coming under your own observation. I trust we
shall see you this season. I think we could hammer a neat
_comedie bourgeoise_ out of The Heart of Mid-Lothian. Mrs.
Scott and family join in kind compliments to Mrs. Terry; and
I am ever yours truly,

Walter SCOTT.

[Footnote 105: See _ante_, vol. iii. p. 220.]

It appears from one of these letters to Terry, that, so late as the
30th of April, Scott still designed to include two separate stories in
the second series of the Tales of my Landlord. But he must have
changed his plan soon after that date; since the four volumes,
entirely occupied with The Heart of Mid-Lothian, were before the
public in the course of June. The story thus deferred, in consequence
of the extent to which that of Jeanie Deans grew on his hands, was The
Bride of Lammermoor.

{p.236} CHAPTER XLI.

Dinner at Mr. Home Drummond's. -- Scott's Edinburgh Den. --
Details of his Domestic Life in Castle Street. -- His Sunday
Dinners. -- His Evening Drives, etc. -- His Conduct in the
General Society of Edinburgh. -- Dinners at John
Ballantyne's Villa, and at James Ballantyne's in St. John
Street, on the Appearance of a New Novel. -- Anecdotes of
the Ballantynes, and of Constable.

1818.

On the 12th of May, as we have seen, Scott left Abbotsford, for the
summer session in Edinburgh.

At this moment, his position, take it for all in all, was, I am
inclined to believe, what no other man had ever won for himself by the
pen alone. His works were the daily food, not only of his countrymen,
but of all educated Europe. His society was courted by whatever
England could show of eminence. Station, power, wealth, beauty, and
genius, strove with each other in every demonstration of respec