[55]: [The old writing-desk, in which, while searching for some fishing-tackle for a guest, Scott found the long-lost manuscript, was given by him to William Laidlaw, who till his death cherished with religious care all his memorials of Abbotsford. The desk is now a treasured possession of his grandson, Mr. W. L. Carruthers, of Inverness.]
[56]: Count Borowlaski was a Polish dwarf, who, after realizing some money as an itinerant object of exhibition, settled, married, and died (September 5, 1837) at Durham. He was a well-bred creature, and much noticed by the clergy and other gentry of that city. Indeed, even when travelling the country as a show, he had always maintained a sort of dignity. I remember him as going from house to house, when I was a child, in a sedan chair, with a servant in livery following him, who took the fee—M. le Comte himself (dressed in a scarlet coat and bag wig) being ushered into the room like any ordinary visitor.
The Count died in his 99th year—
"A Spirit brave, yet gentle, has dwelt, as it appears,
Within three feet of flesh for near one hundred years;
Which causes wonder, like his constitution, strong,
That one so short alive should be alive so long!"
Bentley's Miscellany for November, 1837.
[57]: Othello, Act III. Scene 3.
[58]: Burns—lines On my early days.
[59]: [Robert Stevenson, the eminent civil engineer, for nearly half a century the engineer to the Board of Northern Lights. He inaugurated the present Scottish lighthouse system, and no less than twenty lighthouses were designed and constructed under his superintendence, the most remarkable being the famous Bell Rock tower. He died in 1850. Three of his sons, one of whom became his biographer, greatly distinguished themselves in their father's profession. Robert Louis Stevenson, in his fragment of family history, Records of a Family of Engineers, has left a vivid picture of his grandfather, though it be but an unfinished sketch.]
[60]: On being requested, while at breakfast, to inscribe his name in the album of the tower, Scott penned immediately the following lines:—
Pharos Loquitur.