I have this moment heard from Liverpool of the melancholy death of his and my dear friend, poor Londonderry. On Friday was the last time I saw him; my own mind was then filled with apprehensions respecting him, and they have, alas! been but too painfully verified. My great object, my good friend, in writing to you to-night, is to tell you that I have written to Liverpool, and I do implore you not to lend yourself to any arrangement whatever, until my return to town. This, indeed, is Lord Liverpool's own proposal, and as you may suppose, I have joined most cordially in the proposition. It will require the most prudent foresight on my part, relative to the new arrangements that must now necessarily take place. You may easily judge of the state of my mind.
Ever, believe me,
Your sincere Friend,
G. R.
The King's intention to visit the northern portion of his kingdom, made there as great a stir as had been created by his previous one to Ireland. Sir Walter Scott was at the time in Edinburgh, and took a prominent part in the preparations that were making in the Scottish capital to receive its Sovereign, and on the royal yacht coming to anchor in Leith Roads, he was the first Scotsman to venture on board, on a very rainy day (August 15th), to present his Majesty with a St. Andrew's Cross in silver, from the ladies of "Auld Reekie." The King, much gratified, invited the novelist to drink his health in a bumper of whisky, which having done, the latter requested permission to keep the glass as a relic to hand down to his posterity. This having graciously been granted, he put it very carefully in his pocket, and took his leave. On returning home, he found Crabbe the poet, who had just arrived from his English home, to pay a long promised visit; and Sir Walter was so earnest in welcoming his guest, that the precious relic was forgotten, till sitting down suddenly he crushed it to atoms, not without inflicting on himself a severe scratch from the sharp fragments.[91] ]
The King delighted his Scottish subjects by wearing the Highland garb, in which he was very carefully dressed by the Laird of Garth, but the pride of the Macgregors and Glengarries who thronged around the royal person, suffered a serious blow when a London alderman entered the circle clothed in a suit of the same tartan. The portly figure and civic dignity of Sir William Curtis gave to the costume too much the appearance of a burlesque to pass unnoticed either by the Sovereign or his loyal admirers, and it was some time before they recovered their gravity. On the 24th, the magistrates of "the gude town" entertained the King with a banquet in the Parliament House, in the course of which his Majesty gave as a toast, "The Chieftains and Clans of Scotland, and prosperity to the Land of Cakes." The King did not quit his Scottish dominions till the 29th, when he embarked from Lord Hopetoun's seat on the Firth of Forth, previously directing a letter to be written to Sir Walter Scott by Sir Robert Peel, expressing his warm personal acknowledgments for the deep interest he had taken in every ceremony and arrangement connected with his Majesty's visit.[92] ]
THE RIGHT HON. CHARLES W. WYNN TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.
East India Office, Friday.
My dear B——,
I have only time to write one hurried line to say that I am in town, but know nothing. Lord Liverpool very cast down, and depressed in the extreme. No arrangement or preparatory discussion to take place till after the King's return, and till we are collected from the different quarters in which we are at present scattered. The Duke of Wellington is expected back to-night or to-morrow, and is immediately to be dispatched with the instructions which had been prepared for Lord Londonderry, to Vienna.