ABBOTSFORD, 18th April, 1816. MY DEAR TERRY,--I give you joy of your promotion to the dignity of an householder, and heartily wish you all the success you so well deserve, to answer the approaching enlargement of your domestic establishment. You will find a house a very devouring monster, and that the purveying for it requires a little exertion, and a great {p.096} deal of self-denial and arrangement. But when there is domestic peace and contentment, all that would otherwise be disagreeable, as restraining our taste and occupying our time, becomes easy. I trust Mrs. Terry will get her business easily over, and that you will soon "dandle Dickie on your knee."--I have been at the spring circuit, which made me late in receiving your letter, and there I was introduced to a man whom I never saw in my life before, namely, the proprietor of all the Pepper and Mustard family,--in other words, the genuine Dandie Dinmont. Dandie is himself modest, and says, "he b'lives it's only the dougs that is in the buik, and no himsel'." As the surveyor of taxes was going his ominous rounds past Hyndlea, which is the abode of Dandie, his whole pack rushed out upon the man of execution, and Dandie followed them (conscious that their number greatly exceeded his return), exclaiming, "The tae hauf o' them is but whalps, man." In truth, I knew nothing of the man, except his odd humor of having only two names for twenty dogs. But there are lines of general resemblance among all these hill-men, which there is no missing; and Jamie Davidson of Hyndlea certainly looks Dandie Dinmont remarkably well. He is much flattered with the compliment, and goes uniformly by the name among his comrades, but has never read the book. Ailie used to read it to him, but it set him to sleep. All this you will think funny enough. I am afraid I am in a scrape about the song, and that of my own making; for as it never occurred to me that there was anything odd in my writing two or three verses for you, which have no connection with the novel, I was at no pains to disown them; and Campbell is just that sort of crazy creature, with whom there is no confidence, not from want of honor and disposition to oblige, but from his flighty temper. The music of _Cadil gu lo_ is already printed in his publication, and nothing can be done with him, for fear of setting his tongue a-going. Erskine and {p.097} you may consider whether you should barely acknowledge an obligation to an unknown friend, or pass the matter altogether in silence. In my opinion, my _first_ idea was preferable to both, because I cannot see what earthly connection there is between the song and the novel, or how acknowledging the one is fathering the other.