The year 1815 may be considered as, for Scott's peaceful tenor of life, an eventful one. That which followed has left almost its only traces in the successive appearance of nine volumes, which attest the prodigal genius, and hardly less astonishing industry of the man. Early in January were published Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk, of which I need not now say more than that they were received with lively curiosity, and general, though not vociferous applause. The first edition was an octavo, of 6000 copies; and it was followed, in the course of the next two or three years, by a second and a third, amounting together to 3000 more. The popularity of the novelist was at its height; and this admitted, if not avowed, specimen of Scott's prose must have been perceived, by all who had any share of discrimination, to flow from the same pen. Mr. Terry produced, in the spring of 1816, a dramatic {p.095} piece, entitled Guy Mannering, which met with great success on the London boards, and still continues to be a favorite with the theatrical public. What share the novelist himself had in this first specimen of what he used to call "the art of _Terryfying_," I cannot exactly say; but his correspondence shows that the pretty song of the Lullaby[30] was not his only contribution to it; and I infer that he had taken the trouble to modify the plot, and rearrange, for stage purposes, a considerable part of the original dialogue. The casual risk of discovery, through the introduction of the song which had, in the mean time, been communicated to one of his humble friends, the late Mr. Alexander Campbell,[31] editor of Albyn's Anthology--(commonly known at Abbotsford as, by way of excellence, _The Dunniewassal_,)--and Scott's suggestions on that difficulty will amuse the reader of the following letter:-- [Footnote 30: See Scott's _Poetical Works_ (Ed. 1834), vol. xi. p. 317 (Cambridge Ed. p. 425).] [Footnote 31: This Mr. Campbell was the same whom the poet's mother employed to teach her boys to sing, as recorded in the Autobiographical Fragment--_ante_, vol. i. p. 44. I believe he was also the "litigious Highlander" of a story told in Irving's _Abbotsford and Newstead_, p. 57. (In the November of this year, Scott writes to Lady Abercorn: "The only thing I have been doing of late is to write two or three songs for a poor man called Campbell.... He has made an immense collection of Highland airs, and I have given him words for some of them. One of them is the only good song I ever wrote--it is a fine Highland Gathering tune called _Pibroch an Donuil Dhu_, that is, the Pibroch of Donald the Black."--_Familiar Letters_, vol. i. p. 374.)] TO D. TERRY, ESQ., ALFRED PLACE, BLOOMSBURY, LONDON.