heartrending diary which makes me suppose a possibility that after such a lapse of years, the publication may possibly (as that which cannot but do the highest honour to the memory of the amiable authoress) may not be judged altogether inadmissible. You may and will, of course, act in this matter with your natural feeling of consideration, and ascertain whether that which cannot but do honour to the memory of those who are gone can be made public with the sacred regard due to the feelings of survivors. [Footnote 35: Lady De Lancey married again in 1819 Captain Henry Hervey, Madras Infantry, and died in 1822. _Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. lxxxix, Part I., p. 368, and vol. cii., Part II., p. 179.] "Lady Scott begs to add the pleasure she must have in seeing Mrs Hall and you at Abbotsford, and in speedy expectation of that honour I am always, "Dear Sir, "Most truly yours, "WALTER SCOTT. "ABBOTSFORD, 13_th_ _October_ 1825." * * * * * "DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, "_Tuesday evening_, 16_th_ _March_ 1841. "MY DEAR HALL, "For I see it must be 'juniores priores,' and that I must demolish the ice at a blow. "I have not had courage until last night to read Lady De Lancey's narrative, and, but for your letter, I should not have mastered it even then. One glance at it, when through your kindness it first arrived, had impressed me with a foreboding of its terrible truth, and I really have shrunk from it in pure lack of heart. "After working at Barnaby all day, and wandering about the most wretched and distressful streets for a couple of hours in the evening--searching for some pictures I wanted to build upon--I went at it, at about ten o'clock. To say that the reading that most astonishing and tremendous account has constituted an epoch in my life--that I shall never forget the lightest word of it--that I cannot throw the impression aside, and never saw anything so real, so touching, and so actually present before my eyes, is nothing. I am husband and wife, dead man and living woman, Emma and General Dundas, doctor and bedstead--everything and everybody (but the Prussian officer--damn him) all in one. What I have always looked upon as masterpieces of powerful and affecting description, seem as nothing in my eyes. If I live for fifty years, I shall dream of it every now and then, from this hour to the day of my death, with the most frightful reality. The slightest mention of a battle will bring the whole thing before me. I shall never think of the Duke any more, but as he stood in his shirt with the officer in full-dress uniform, or as he dismounted from his horse when the gallant man was struck down.