to a fallen enemy, by the same party who last year, with better grounds, assailed them for having left him in a situation again to disturb the tranquillity of Europe.--My young friend Gala has left me, after a short visit to Abbotsford. He is my nearest (conversible) neighbor, and I promise myself much comfort in him, as he has a turn both for the sciences and for the arts, rather uncommon among our young Scotch lairds. He was delighted with Rokeby and its lord, though he saw both at so melancholy a period, and endured, not only with good-humor but with sympathy, the stupidity of his fellow-traveller, who was not by {p.071} any means _dans son brillant_ for some time after leaving you. We visited Corby Castle on our return to Scotland, which remains, in point of situation, as beautiful as when its walks were celebrated by David Hume, in the only rhymes he was ever known to be guilty of. Here they are, from a pane of glass in an inn at Carlisle:-- "Here chicks in eggs for breakfast sprawl, Here godless boys God's glories squall, Here Scotchmen's heads do guard the wall, But Corby's walks atone for all." Would it not be a good quiz to advertise _The Poetical Works of David Hume_, with notes, critical, historical, and so forth--with an historical inquiry into the use of eggs for breakfast, a physical discussion on the causes of their being addled; a history of the English Church music, and of the choir of Carlisle in particular; a full account of the affair of 1745, with the trials, last speeches, and so forth, of the poor _plaids_ who were strapped up at Carlisle; and, lastly, a full and particular description of Corby, with the genealogy of every family who ever possessed it? I think, even without more than the usual waste of margin, the Poems of David would make a decent twelve-shilling touch. I shall think about it when I have exhausted mine own _century of inventions_. I do not know whether it is perverseness of state, or old associations, but an excellent and very handsome modern house, which Mr. Howard has lately built at Corby, does not, in my mind, assimilate so well with the scenery as the old irregular monastic hall, with its weather-beaten and antique appearance, which I remember there some years ago. Out of my Field of Waterloo has sprung an odd wild sort of thing, which I intend to finish separately, and call it The Dance of Death.[25] These matters take up my {p.072} time so much, that I must bid you adieu for the present. Besides, I am summoned to attend a grand _chasse_, and I see the children are all mounted upon the ponies. By the way, Walter promises to be a gallant horseman. Ever most truly yours, Walter SCOTT.