From Cupar Fife came a beautiful edition of the complete works of Sir Walter Scott—ninety-eight volumes in all. In each is a fly-leaf stating for whom and for what services this unique edition was prepared, the inscription being as complimentary as were the inscriptions accompanying the other testimonials. My father was a lifelong admirer of Scott; and when the Cupar Fife Testimonial Committee wrote to ask what form their tribute should take, he was unfeignedly glad to please his Scots admirers by choosing the works of their most honoured author, and, at the same time, by possessing them, to realise a very many years long dream of his own. As young men, he and his brothers had always welcomed each successive work as it fell from pen and press, duly receiving their copy direct from the publishers, and straightway devouring it. Younger generations have decided that Scott is “dry.” Had they lived in those dark, early decades of the nineteenth century, when literature was perhaps at its poorest level, they also might have greeted with enthusiasm the creations of “the Great Unknown,” and wondered who could be their author.[234] My father set so high a value on these beautiful presentation volumes that, from the first, he laid down a stringent rule that not one of them should leave the house, no matter who might wish to borrow it. The National Testimonial—to which allusion has already been made—was raised about three years after Rowland Hill's dismissal from the Treasury, and before his restoration to office by Lord John Russell's Administration, by which time the country had given the new postal system a trial, and found out its merits. In 1845 Sir George Larpent, in the name of the Mercantile Committee, sent my father a copy of its Resolutions, together with a cheque for £10,000, the final presentation being deferred till the accounts should be made up. This was done in June 1846, on the occasion of a public dinner at which were assembled Rowland Hill's aged father, his only son—then a lad of fourteen—and his brothers, in addition to many of those good friends who had done yeoman service for the reform. The idea of the testimonial originated with Mr John Estlin,[235] an eminent surgeon of Bristol, and was speedily taken up in London by _The Inquirer_, the article advocating it being written by the editor, the Rev. Wm. Hinks. The appeal once started was responded to by the country cordially and generously.