should have it, as his male representative--which I can only accept on condition _your_ little Walter will accept a similar token of regard from his remaining uncle.--Yours affectionately, W. S. The letter in which Scott communicated his brother's death to Mr. Morritt gives us his own original opinion of The Antiquary. It has also some remarks on the separation of Lord and Lady Byron--and the "domestic verses" of the noble poet. TO J. B. S. MORRITT, ESQ., M. P., LONDON. EDINBURGH, May 16, 1816. MY DEAR MORRITT,--I have been occupied of late with scenes of domestic distress, my poor brother, Major John Scott, having last week closed a life which wasting disease had long rendered burthensome. His death, under all the circumstances, cannot be termed a subject of deep affliction; and though we were always on fraternal terms of mutual kindness and good-will, yet our habits of life, our taste for society and circles of friends, were so totally different, that there was less frequent intercourse between us than our connection and real liking to each other might have occasioned. Yet it is a heavy consideration to have lost the last but one who was interested in our early domestic life, our habits of boyhood, and our first friends and connections. It makes one look about and see how the scene has changed around him, and how he himself has been changed with it. My only remaining brother is in Canada, and seems to have an intention of remaining there; so that my mother, now upwards of eighty, has now only one child left to her {p.102} out of thirteen whom she has borne. She is a most excellent woman, possessed, even at her advanced age, of all the force of mind and sense of duty which have carried her through so many domestic griefs, as the successive deaths of eleven children, some of them come to men and women's estate, naturally infers. She is the principal subject of my attention at present, and is, I am glad to say, perfectly well in body and composed in mind.