[22] All who do not skip such things must have enjoyed these scraps, sometimes labelled particularly, sometimes merely dubbed 'Old Play'; and they are well worth reading together, as they appear in the editions of the Poems. At the same time, they have been, in some cases, too hastily attributed to Sir Walter himself. For instance, that in The Legend of Montrose, ch. xiv., assigned to The Tragedy of Brennoralt (not 'valt,' as misprinted), is really from Sir John Suckling's sententious play (act iv. sc. 1), though loosely quoted.
[23] In the earlier months had taken place that famous rediscovery of the Regalia of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle, which was one of the central moments of Scott's life, and in which, as afterwards in the restoring of Mons Meg, he took a great, if not the chief, part. His influence with George IV. as Prince and King had much to do with both, and in the earlier he took the very deepest interest. The effect on himself (and on his daughter Sophia) of the actual finding of the Crown jewels is a companion incident to that previously noticed (p. [52]) as occurring on the Mound. Those who cannot sympathise with either can hardly hope to understand either Scott or his work.
[24] From March to May 1819 he had a series of attacks of the cramp, so violent that he once took solemn leave of his children in expectation of decease, that the eccentric Earl of Buchan forced a way into his bedchamber to 'relieve his mind as to the arrangements of his funeral,' and that he entirely forgot the whole of the Bride itself. This, too, was the time of his charge to Lockhart (Familiar Letters, ii. 38), as to his successor in Tory letters and politics—
'Take thou the vanguard of the three,
And bury me by the bracken-bush
That grows upon yon lily lee.'
[25] It has always struck me that the other form of the legend itself—that in which the 'open window' suggests that the bridegroom's wounds were due to his rival—has far greater capabilities.
[26] Said to embody certain mental peculiarities of that ingenious draughtsman, but rather unamiable person, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe.
[27] He had said in a letter to Terry, as early as November 20, 1822, that he feared Peveril 'would smell of the apoplexy.' But he made no definite complaint to any one of a particular seizure, and the date, number, and duration of the attacks are unknown.
[28] Some say £130,000, but this seems to include the £10,000 mortgage on Abbotsford. This, however, was a private affair of Scott's own, not a transaction of the firm.
[29] I have consulted high authority on the legal side of this counter-bill story, and have been informed (with the expected caution that, the facts being so doubtful, the law is hard to give) that under Scots law these counter-bills, if they existed, would probably be allowed to rank, supposing that twenty shillings in the pound had not been paid on the first set, and to an extent sufficient to make up that sum. But Lockhart's allegation clearly is that they were so used as to charge Scott's estate to the extent of forty shillings in the pound.
[30] John Ballantyne had died in 1821, before the mischief was punished, but after it was done.