"DEAR SIR WALTER,--I pass over all those disastrous events that have
arrived to us both since our last, as you justly call it, melancholy
parting, to assure you how delighted I shall be if I can in the most
inconsiderable degree assist in the illustrations of the great work,
which we all hope may lighten or remove that load of troubles by which
your noble spirit is at this time beset; considering it as only repaying
a debt of obligation which you yourself have laid upon me when, with an
unseen hand in the _Antiquary_, you took me up and claimed me, the
humble painter of domestic sorrow, as your countryman."