In the first case, they will probably find it difficult to
convict the guilty author, although he is far from escaping suspicion.
Jeffrey has offered to make oath that it is mine, and another great
critic has tendered his affidavit _ex contrario_; so that these
authorities have divided the Gude Town. However, the thing has
succeeded very well, and is thought highly of. I don't know if it has
got to London yet. I intend to maintain my _incognito_. Let me know
your opinion about it....
24 _July_.
... I had just proceeded thus far when your kind favour of the
21st reached Abbotsford. I am heartily glad you continued to like
_Waverley_ to the end. The hero is a sneaking piece of imbecility;
and if he had married Flora, she would have set him up upon the
chimney-piece, as Count Borowlaski's wife used to do with him. I am
a bad hand at depicting a hero properly so called, and have an
unfortunate propensity for the dubious characters of borderers,
buccaneers, Highland robbers, and all others of a Robin-Hood
description. I do not know why it should be, as I am myself, like
Hamlet, indifferent honest; but I suppose the blood of the old
cattle-drivers of Teviotdale continues to stir in my veins.
TO THE SAME
_Acceptance of a baronetcy_
Edinburgh, 7 _Dec._, 1818.
MY DEAR MORRITT,
... There is another thing I have to whisper in your faithful ear. Our
fat friend being desirous to honour Literature in my unworthy person,
has intimated to me, by his organ the Doctor, that, with consent ample
and unanimous of all the potential voices of all his ministers,
each more happy than another of course on so joyful an occasion, he
proposes to dub me Baronet.
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