e, and many are
not yet dressed. There are 20,000 wounded in this town,
besides those in the hospitals, and the many in the other
towns;--only 3000 prisoners; 80,000, they say, killed and
wounded on both sides."

I think it not wonderful that this extract should have set Scott's
imagination effectually on fire; that he should have grasped at the
idea of seeing probably the last shadows of real warfare that his own
age would afford; or that some parts of the great surgeon's simple
phraseology are reproduced, almost verbatim, in the first of Paul's
Letters to his Kinsfolk. No sooner was Scott's purpose known, than
some of his young neighbors in the country proposed to join his
excursion; and, in company with three of them, namely, his kinsman,
John Scott of Gala, Alexander Pringle, the younger, of Whytbank (now
M. P. for Selkirkshire), and Robert Bruce, advocate (now Sheriff of
Argyle), he left Edinburgh for the south, at 5. A. M. on the 27th of
July.

They travelled by the stage-coach, and took the route of Hull and
Lincoln to Cambridge; for Gala and Whytbank, being both members of
that university, were anxious to seize this opportunity of revisiting
it themselves, and showing its beautiful architecture to their friend.
After this wish had been gratified, they proceeded to Harwich, and
thence, on the 3d of August, took ship for Helvoetsluys.

"The weather was beautiful," says Gala, "so we all went
outside the coach from Cambridge to Harwich. At starting,
there was a general complaint of thirst, the consequence of
some experiments overnight on the celebrated _bishop_ of my
_Alma Mater_; our friend, however, was in great glee, and
{p.043} never was a merrier _basket_ than he made it all
the morning. He had cautioned us, on leaving Edinburgh,
never to _name names_ in such situations, and our adherence
to this rule was rewarded by some amusing incidents. For
example, as we entered the town where we were to dine, a
heavy-looking man, who was to stop there, took occasion to
thank Scott for the pleasure his anecdotes had afforded him:
'You have a good memory, sir,' said he; 'mayhap, now, you
sometimes write down what you hear or be a-reading about?'
He answered, very gravely, that he did occasionally put down
a _few_ notes, if anything struck him particularly. In the
afternoon, it happened that he sat on the box, while