He

secured the unpublished Journal of Sir George Cockburn, the admiral who took Napoleon out to St. Helena. was rather overwhelmed by the thought of the "communication" that awaited him, "more than I can well use or trust to," but got through some hard work before crossing the Channel. Tom Moore would have liked to accompany him, but was misled by some busybody or other into thinking that his presence would have been unwelcome. Scott found the French inns much improved since his last experience of them ten years before. There was no longer any occasion for “that rascally practice of combien-ing your landlady before you unharnesss your horses": the road was thronged with English. The demand for firewood, which caused the waysides to be bordered by elms "cruelly cropped, pollarded, and switched," struck the Abbotsford planter painfully, and made him reflect that the thinnings of his own woods might afford a little fortune here. "But then to switch and mutilate my trees! Not for a thousand francs," adds the Laird.

At Paris the Scotts settled snugly in an hotel in the Rue de Rivoli at fifteen francs a day. Sir Walter found that he understood the language less than he had ten or eleven years since, but spoke it as it came On the second day from his arrival, Bonaparte's enemy, Pozzo di Borgo, came to the hotel, and was "quite kind and communicative," and the British ambassador invited

himself and his daughter to dinner. In the evening Scott had the strange experience of hearing an opera

S

concocted out of his own Ivanhoe. He thought it superbly got up, though the dialogue was "in a great part nonsense. The gloomy November days were not very favourable for showing the Lady Anne the sights of Paris, yet she saw most during her brief stay. When she and her father went to the Tuileries they were almost as much looked at as the Royal Family, and the King (Charles X.), whom Scott had known when an exile at Holyrood, did him the honour to say a few words; the Dauphin and the Duchesse de Berri were also very gracious, the courtiers naturally followed suit.

Sir Walter became a little restive under the showers of compliments that the French, as is their wont, bestowed upon him as an illustrious foreigner, though from ladies he confessed he could swallow a great deal of whipped cream. But he felt like a bee sipping treacle, and wished for a little of the old Scotch causticity. Out of sheer good nature he sat to the fashionable painter Madame Mirbel for his portrait. The lady had wet cheeks at their parting! Scott saw not a little while in Paris of Fenimore Cooper, and made him some flattering speeches, though remarking his "want of manner.” The American novelist, on his side, thought of him as the Master, and was very urgent for a scheme to protect the sale of his works in the United States. As to the main object, Scott considered himself successful. He had more than one important interview with the chivalrous Marshal Macdonald, whose society he had enjoyed a year before in Scotland, and at his

house met Marmont, another of Napoleon's marshals. He found his previous impressions as to the Emperor's character confirmed strongly, and considered that he had done a good deal for the Life by his visit.

During a stay of ten days in London he saw much of "magnificoes and potent signors," besides lesser lights like the facetious Theodore Hook, Allan Cunningham, and John Wilson Croker. He gave Lawrence some final sittings for the portrait commissioned by George IV. The likeness the sitter commended, wondering how Sir Thomas had made so much out of the "old weatherbeaten block." This is the portrait which shows us "the stout blunt carle" in the act of composition. He was introduced by Rogers to Fanny Burney, or Madame D'Arblay as she then was, who told him that he and George people she had always wished to see. a compliment to be pleased with-a nice little handsome pat of butter made up by a neat-handed Phillis of a dairymaid, instead of the grease, fit only for cartwheels," with which he had been only too plentifully dosed.

JOHN KNOX'S HOUSE

Wellington he met on several occasions, and also his political ally Peel. At Mrs. Arbuthnot's the Iron Duke talked away about Bonaparte, Russia, and France; but

when unfortunately the novelist was entertained by him at his own house, the evening was spoiled by one of the guests discoursing at engrossing length upon a recent gambling scandal. However, next morning Scott received from him a bundle of remarks on Bonaparte's Russian campaign written in his carriage during his recent mission to St. Petersburg. It was "furiously scrawled," but perspicuously reasoned, and Sir Walter thought it demonstrated clearly that French writers had taken advantage of the snow to cover all their General's blunders. At another interview a correspondence between the two great men was arranged. At a dinner given by Croker Scott met no less than five Cabinet Ministers, including, besides Wellington, Canning and Peel. Among those whom he told Lockhart, on returning, that he had seen for the last time, Canning was one and Huskisson, his henchman, was another. Another night, when Peel was the host, Lord Liverpool, the aged Prime Minister, was present. Scott was probably right in thinking that, had he chosen to press his claims, he might have had a Scotch Judgeship very soon. this would not have served his creditors and was never seriously contemplated; however, he wished he could have used some of his popularity with the grandees to his son-in-law's advantage.

But

On leaving London for Oxford to see his second son Scott writes that he had never previously met with such general respect and attention. He felt his self-consequence raised-but of this he never possessed an undue

amount. The old university town did not raise his enthusiasm as it had twenty-five years before, when in his rooms at Brasenose* he had given Heber suggestions for his prize poem. Then, during a visit to the Bodleian, he had felt like the Persian magician who went to an enchanted library in the bowels of the mountain and gaily suffered himself to be enclosed in its recesses: now, when in the same place, “I had some base thoughts concerning luncheon." After a short stay with his sister-in-law at Cheltenham, Sir Walter pushed northwards by Worcester, Birmingham, and Macclesfield, where the travellers found their inn guarded by a special watchman, owing to the disturbed state of the manufacturing districts. Breakfasting next day at Manchester, they slept at Kendal, and took two pair of horses over Shap Fell in order to reach Penrith; then rolled on in snowy weather "till we found our own horses at Hawick, and returned to our own home at Abbotsford about three in the morning" of November 25th. "This skirmish" had cost him, Sir Walter calculated, some £200. But these expenses were afterwards allowed him by the

trustees.

Before the end of the month he was again in Edinburgh resuming his legal duties; but instead of returning to Mrs. Brown's lodgings he took a furnished house, No. 3, Walker Street, for the winter. He suffered

These rooms were "one pair left on staircase No. 6, a square high room with one window looking on the Lane and one on the Radcliffe Square" (Brasenose College, by John Buchan: F. E. Robinson, 1898).