Footnote 78: Mr. Magrath has now been long established in his native city of Dublin. His musical excellence was by no means the only merit that attached Scott to his society while he remained in Edinburgh.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 79: This fine greyhound, a gift from Terry, had been sent to Scotland under the care of Mr. Magrath. Terry had called the dog Marmion, but Scott rechristened him Hamlet, in honor of his "inky coat."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 80: Before the second and larger part of the present house of Abbotsford was built, the small room, subsequently known as the breakfast parlor, was during several years Scott's sanctum.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 81: This alludes to certain pieces of painted glass, representing the heads of some of the old Scotch kings, copied from the carved ceiling of the presence-chamber in Stirling Castle. There are engravings of them in a work called Lacunar Strevelinense. Edinb. 4to, 1817.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 82: Adam Paterson was the intelligent foreman of the company of masons then employed at Abbotsford.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 83: Thomas Scott had sent his brother the horns and feet of a gigantic stag, shot by him in Canada. The feet were ultimately suspended to bell-cords in the armory at Abbotsford; and the horns mounted as drinking-cups.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 84: They called Daniel Terry among themselves "The Grinder," in double allusion to the song of Terry the Grinder, and to some harsh under-notes of their friend's voice.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 85: [On the 16th of February, Lady Louisa Stuart wrote:—
"I have read Rob Roy twice.... The scale with me would be Waverley, Old Mortality, Guy Mannering—so far I am sure. I am not sure which of the others I could positively prefer; there are striking beauties in each. In Rob Roy the painting of character is as vivid as in anything the author ever wrote. Rob himself, Die Vernon, Nicol Jarvie, Andrew Fairservice, not to speak of the Tory baronet and his cubs, or the Jesuit Rashleigh. The beginning and end, I am afraid, I quarrel with; ... but beginnings signify little; ends signify more. Now, I fear the end of this is huddled, as if the author were tired and wanted to get rid of his personages as fast as he could, knocking them on the head without mercy. Die Vernon has what a Lord Bellamont (famous in my day and before it for profligacy and affectation) used to call such 'a catastrophical countenance' that one cannot reconcile oneself to her being married and settled like her sober neighbors. It is almost as bad as if Flora MacIvor had married the Colonel's nephew.... You see I give my opinion (let it be worth something or nothing) as if I were writing to a person not supposed to be in any way sib to the mysterious Unknown; but it is because I believe you have too distinguishing a taste to relish all sugar and treacle. Goldsmith's metaphor was bad when he said, 'Who peppers the highest is surest to please,' for flattery resembles neither pepper nor salt. Apropos of the mystery, those who see far into a millstone are now sure that the Tales of my Landlord were written by a different person, and parts of them by different hands. When they give their reasons with a complacent delight in their own sagacity, I think to myself, how often must I have talked as much wise nonsense upon subjects which I knew nothing about."—Familiar Letters, vol. ii. p. 11.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 86: Collection of Inventories and other Records of the Royal Wardrobe and Jewel-House, etc. Edin. 1815, 4to.[Back to Main Text]