DEAR SIR,--I enclose you "rare guerdon," better than remuneration,--namely, a cheque for £25, for the Chronicle part of the Register. The incidents selected should have some reference to amusement as well as information, and may be occasionally abridged in the narration; but, after all, paste and scissors form your principal {p.159} materials. You must look out for two or three good original articles; and, if you would read and take pains to abridge one or two curious books of travels, I would send out the volumes. Could I once get the head of the concern fairly round before the wind again, I am sure I could make it £100 a year to you. In the present instance it will be at least £50. Yours truly, W. S. TO THE SAME. EDINBURGH, July 3, 1817. MY DEAR SIR,--I send you Adam's and Riley's Travels. You will observe I don't want a review of the books, or a detail of these persons' adventures, but merely a short article expressing the light, direct or doubtful, which they have thrown on the interior of Africa. "Recent Discoveries in Africa" will be a proper title. I hope to find you materially amended, or rather quite stout, when I come out on Saturday. I am quite well this morning. Yours, in haste, W. S. P. S.--I add Mariner's Tonga Islands, and Campbell's Voyage. Pray take great care of them, as I am a coxcomb about my books, and hate specks or spots. Take care of yourself, and want for nothing that Abbotsford can furnish. These notes have carried us down to the middle of the year. But I must now turn to some others, which show that before Whitsuntide, when Laidlaw settled at Kaeside, negotiations were on foot respecting another novel. TO MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE, HANOVER STREET, EDINBURGH. ABBOTSFORD, Monday. [April, 1817.] DEAR JOHN,--I have a good subject for a work of fiction _in petto_. What do you think Constable would give for a smell of it? You ran away without taking {p.160} leave the other morning, or I wished to have spoken to you about it. I don't mean a continuation of Jedediah, because there might be some delicacy in putting that by the original publishers. You may write if anything occurs to you on this subject. It will not interrupt my History. By the way, I have a great lot of the Register ready for delivery, and no man asks for it. I shall want to pay up some cash at Whitsunday, which will make me draw on my brains. Yours truly, W. SCOTT. TO THE SAME. ABBOTSFORD, Saturday, May 3, 1817.