"Waverley is the best and most interesting novel I have redde since—I don't know when. I like it as much as I hate * *, and * *, and * *, and all the feminine trash of the last four months. Besides, it is all easy to me, I have been in Scotland so much (though then young enough too), and feel at home with the people, Lowland and Gael.
"A note will correct what Mr. Hobhouse thinks an error (about the feudal system in Spain);—it is not Spain. If he puts a few words of prose any where, it will set all right.
"I have been ordered to town to vote. I shall disobey. There is no good in so much prating, since 'certain issues strokes should arbitrate.' If you have any thing to say, let me hear from you.
"Yours," &c.
LETTER 191. TO MR. MURRAY.
"August 3. 1814.
"It is certainly a little extraordinary that you have not sent the Edinburgh Review, as I requested, and hoped it would not require a note a day to remind you. I see advertisements of Lara and Jacqueline; pray, why? when I requested you to postpone publication till my return to town.
"I have a most amusing epistle from the Ettrick bard—Hogg; in which, speaking of his bookseller, whom he denominates the 'shabbiest' of the trade for not 'lifting his bills,' he adds, in so many words, 'G——d d——n him and them both.' This is a pretty prelude to asking you to adopt him (the said Hogg); but this he wishes; and if you please, you and I will talk it over. He has a poem ready for the press (and your bills too, if 'liftable'), and bestows some benedictions on Mr. Moore for his abduction of Lara from the forthcoming Miscellany.[44]