[Footnote 70: On completing this purchase, Scott writes to John Ballantyne:--"DEAR JOHN,--I have closed with Usher for his beautiful patrimony, which makes me a great laird. I am afraid the people will take me up for coining. Indeed, these novels, while their attractions last, are something like it. I am very glad of _your_ good prospects. Still I cry, _Prudence! Prudence!_--Yours truly, W. S."] [Footnote 71: [On August 1, 1817, Jeffrey writes to Scott, asking if he could not be induced to write a notice of Mr. C. K. Sharpe's edition of Kirkton's _Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland_, for the _Edinburgh Review_, to which Scott replies, August 5:-- "I flatter myself it will not require many protestations to assure you with what pleasure I would undertake any book that can give you pleasure; but in the present case I am hampered by two circumstances: one, that I promised Gifford a review of this very Kirkton for the _Quarterly_; the other that I shall certainly be unable to keep my word with him. I am obliged to take exercise three or four hours in the forenoon and two after dinner, to keep off the infernal spasms which since last winter have attacked me with such violence, as if all the imps that used to plague poor Caliban were washing, wringing, and ironing the unshapely but useful bag which Sir John Sinclair treats with such distinction--my stomach, in short. Now, as I have much to do of my own, I fear I can hardly be of use to you in the present case, which I am very sorry for, as I like the subject, and would be pleased to give my own opinion respecting the Jacobitism of the editor, which, like my own, has a good spice of affectation in it, mingled with some not unnatural feelings of respect for a cause which, though indefensible in common sense and ordinary policy, has a great deal of high-spirited Quixotry about it.