[142] Oldham--"Lines addressed to a friend about to leave the
University."--_Poems and Translations_, 8vo. Lond. 1694.
[143] On the 20th April Moore writes to Scott: "I am delighted you do
not reject my proffered dedication, though between two such names as
yours and Byron's I shall but realise the description in the old couplet
of Wisdom and Wit,
'With folly at full length between.'
However, never mind; in cordial feeling and good fellowship I flatter
myself I am a match for either of you."
[144] By Mrs. Centlivre.
[145] See _Life_, vol. viii. p. 257 _n_.
[146] Miss Graham tells us in her _Mystifications_ (Edin. 1864) that Sir
Walter, on leaving the room, whispered in her ear, "Awa, awa, the Deil's
ower grit wi' you." "To meet her in company," wrote Dr. John Brown half
a century later, when she was still the charm and the delight as well as
the centre of a large circle of friends, "one saw a quiet, unpretending,
sensible, shrewd, kindly little lady; perhaps you would not remark
anything extraordinary in her, but let her _put on the old lady_; it was
as if a warlock spell had passed over her; not merely her look but her
nature was changed: her spirit had passed into the character she
represented; and jest, quick retort, whimsical fancy, the wildest
nonsense flowed from her lips, with a freedom and truth to nature which
appeared to be impossible in her own personality."
With this faculty for satire and imitation, Miss Graham never used it to
give pain. She was as much at home, too, with old Scotch sayings as Sir
Walter himself. For example, speaking of a field of cold, wet land she
said, "It grat a' winter and girned a' simmer," and of herself one
morning at breakfast when she thought she was getting too much attention
from her guests (she was at this time over ninety) she exclaimed, "I'm
like the bride in the old song:--
'Twa were blawing at her nose And three were buckling at her shoon.'"
Miss Graham's friends will never forget the evenings they have spent at
29 Forth Street, Edinburgh, or their visits at Duntrune, where the
venerable lady died in her ninety-sixth year in September 1877.
[147] Miss Elizabeth Bell, daughter of the Rev. James Bell, minister of
the parish of Coldstream from 1778 to 1794. This lady lived all her life
in her native county, and died at a great age at a house on the Tweed,
named Springhill, in 1876.
[148] _Ante_, vol. i. p. 253.
[149] _The Murder Hole_, a story founded on the tradition and under this
name, was printed in _Blackwood's Mag_., vol. xxv. p. 189: 1829.
[150] Written by Gerald Griffin
[151] _St. Valentine's Eve_, or _The Fair Maid of Perth_.
[152] _Coriolanus_, Act VI. Sc. 6.
[153] _Ante_, p. 40.
[154] It may have been with this packet that the following admonitory
note was sent to Ballantyne:--"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_.--Yours truly, however, W.S." So
printed in first edition, vol. ii. p. 129, but corrected in the
subsequent editions to "a miserable cart jade."
[155] Gray's _Ode on Eton_.
[156] By Richard Thomson, author of _Chronicles of London Bridge_, etc.
He died in 1865.
[157] Dr. Ebenezer Clarkson, a Surgeon of distinguished merit at Selkirk
and through life a trusty friend and crony of the Sheriffs.--J.G.L.
"In Mr. Gideon Gray, in _The Surgeon's Daughter_, Sir Walter's
neighbours on Tweedside saw a true picture--a portrait from life of
Scott's hard-riding and sagacious old friend to all the country
dear."--_Life_, vol. ix. p. 181.