"Yesterday determined Sir W. Scott's motions. He owes to Croker the offer of a passage to Naples in a frigate which sails in about a fortnight. He will therefore proceed southwards by land next week, halting at Rokeby, and with his son at Notts, by the way. We shall leave Edinburgh by next Tuesday's steamer, so as to be in town before him, and ready for his reception. We are all deeply obliged to Croker on this occasion, for Sir Walter is quite unfit for the fatigues of a long land journey, and the annoyances innumerable of Continental inns; and, above all, he will have a good surgeon at hand, in case of need. The arrangement has relieved us all of a great burden of annoyances and perplexities and fears."
Another, and the last of Lockhart's letters on this subject, may be given:
Mr. Lockhart to John Murray.
CHIEFSWOOD, September 19, 1831.
DEAR MURRAY,
In consequence of my sister-in-law, Annie Scott, being taken unwell, with frequent fainting fits, the result no doubt of over anxieties of late, I have been obliged to let my wife and children depart by tomorrow's steamer without me, and I remain to attend to Sir Walter thro' his land progress, which will begin on Friday, and end, I hope well, on Wednesday. If this should give any inconvenience to you, God knows I regret it, and God knows also I couldn't do otherwise without exposing Sir W. and his daughter to a feeling that I had not done my duty to them. On the whole, public affairs seem to be so dark, that I am inclined to think our best course, in the Quarterly, may turn out to have been and to be, that of not again appearing until the fate of this Bill has been quite settled. My wife will, if you are in town, be much rejoiced with a visit; and if you write to me, so as to catch me at Rokeby Park, Greta Bridge, next Saturday, 'tis well.
Yours,
J.G. LOCKHART.
P.S.—But I see Rokeby Park would not do. I shall be at Major Scott's, 15th Hussars, Nottingham, on Monday night.
It would be beyond our province to describe in these pages the closing scenes of Sir Walter Scott's life: his journey to Naples, his attempt to write more novels, his failure, and his return home to Abbotsford to die. His biography, by his son-in-law Lockhart, one of the best in the whole range of English literature, is familiar to all our readers; and perhaps never was a more faithful memorial erected, in the shape of a book, to the beauty, goodness, and faithfulness of a noble literary character.