I am taking leave of Abbotsford _multum gemens_, and have been just giving directions for planting upon _Turn-again_. When shall we eat a cold luncheon there, and look at the view, and root up the monster in his abyss? I assure you none of your numerous vassals can show a finer succession of _distant_ prospects. For the home-view--ahem!--We must wait till the trees grow. Ever your Grace's truly faithful W. SCOTT. While the abortive negotiation as to the exchequer was still pending, Scott was visited, for the first time since his childish years, with a painful illness, which proved the harbinger of a series of attacks, all nearly of the same kind, continued at short intervals during more than two years. Various letters, already introduced, have indicated how widely his habits of life when in Edinburgh differed from those of Abbotsford. They at all times did so to a great extent; but he had pushed his liberties with a most robust constitution to a perilous extreme while the affairs of the Ballantynes were laboring, and he was now to pay the penalty. This first serious alarm occurred towards the close of a merry dinner-party in Castle Street (on the 5th of March), when Scott suddenly sustained such exquisite torture from cramp in the stomach, that his masculine powers of endurance gave way, and he retired from the room with a scream of agony which electrified his guests. This scene was often repeated, as we shall see presently. His friends in Edinburgh continued all that spring in great anxiety on his account. Scarcely, however, had the first symptoms yielded to severe medical treatment, than he is found to have beguiled the intervals of his suffering by planning a dramatic piece on a story supplied to him by one of Train's communications, which he desired to {p.147} present to Terry, on behalf of the actor's first-born son who had been christened by the name of Walter Scott.[58] Such was the origin of the Fortunes of Devorgoil--a piece which, though completed soon afterwards, and submitted by Terry to many manipulations with a view to the stage, was never received by any manager, and was first published, towards the close of the author's life, under the title, slightly altered for an obvious reason, of The Doom of Devorgoil. The sketch of the story which he gives in the following letter will probably be considered by many besides myself as well worth the drama. It appears that the actor had mentioned to Scott his intention of _Terryfying_ The Black Dwarf. [Footnote 58: This young gentleman is now an officer in the East India Company's army.--(1837.) Mr. W. S. Terry lived to distinguish himself as a soldier, and fell in action against the Afghans.--(1848.)] TO DANIEL TERRY, ESQ., LONDON. EDINBURGH, 12th March, 1817.