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Memoirs of the life of Sir Walter Scott, bart ...
Memoirs of the life of Sir Walter Scott bart Author:John Gibson Lockhart Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER LXXIV. Excursion to St Andrews—Deaths of Lady Diana Scott, Constable, and Canning—Extract from Mr Adolphus's Memoranda—Affair of General Gourgaud — Le... more »tter to Mr Clerk — Blythswood — Corehouse — Duke of Wellington's Visit to Durham—Dinner in the Castle—Sunderland— Ravensworth—Alnwick— Verses to Sir Cuth- bert Sharp—Affair of Abud f y Co Publication of the Chronicles of the Canongate, series Jirst—and of the first Tales of a Grandfather— Essay on Planting, fyc Miscellaneous prose works collected—Sale of the Waverley Copyrights—Dividend to Creditors. June—Dec. 1827. My wife and I spent the summer of 1827, partly at a sea-bathing place near Edinburgh, and partly in Roxburghshire; and I shall, in my account of the sequel of this year, draw, as it may happen, on Sir Walter's Diary, his letters, the memoranda of friendly visitors, or my own recollections. The arrival of his daughter and her children at Portobello was a source of constant refreshment to him during June; for every other day he came down and dined there, and strolled about afterwards on the beach; thus interrupting, beneficially for his health, and I doubt not for the result of his labours also, the new custom of regular night-work, or, as he called it, of serving double-tides. When the Court released him, and he returned to Abbotsford, his family did what they could to keep him to his ancient evening habits; but nothing was so useful as the presence of his invalid grandson. The poor child was at this time so far restored as to be able to sit his pony again ; and Sir Walter, who had, as the reader observed, conceived, the very day he finished Napoleon, the notion of putting together a series of stories on the history of Scotland, somewhat in the manner of Mr Croker's on that of that England, rode d...« less