“Dear James,—I return the sheets of ‘Tales,’ with some waste of ‘Napoleon’ for ballast. Pray read like a lynx, for with all your devoted attention things will escape. Imagine your printing that the Douglases, after James II. had dirked the Earl, trailed the royal safe-conduct at the tail of a serving man, instead of the tail of a starved mare.”
So printed in the first edition, but corrected in subsequent editions to “a miserable cart jade.”
The accompanying facsimiles are from proof-sheets in the possession of Lord Rosebery, who has courteously given permission for their reproduction. One shows the title-page of a volume of the “Life of Napoleon,” while the other is a page of the same work, with Sir Walter’s corrections, and one of James Ballantyne’s remarks. The playful missives sent by the author to his printer have been already referred to, and there is to be seen along with the MS. of “Rob Roy,” and bound up with the last proof-sheet, the following note to James Ballantyne:—
“Dear James—
With great joy
I send you Roy;
’Twas a tough job,