At last, during one of his visits to London, I had the honour of a personal interview with Sir Walter Scott at Mr. Lockhart’s in Sussex Place. The number of the house had escaped my memory; but seeing a fine dog down an area, I knocked without hesitation at the door. It happened however to be the wrong one. I afterwards mentioned the circumstance to Sir Walter. It was not a bad point, he said, for he was very fond of dogs; but he did not care to have his own animals with him, about London, “for fear he should be taken for Bill Gibbons.” I then told him I had lately been reading the Fair Maid of Perth, which had reminded me of a very pleasant day spent many years before, beside the Linn of Campsie, the scene of Conachar’s catastrophe. Perhaps he divined what had really occurred to me,--that the Linn, as a cataract, had greatly disappointed me; for he smiled, and shook his head archly, and said he had since seen it himself, and was rather ashamed of it. “But I fear, Mr. Hood, I have done worse than that before now, in finding a Monastery where there was none to be found; though there was plenty (here he smiled again) of Carduus Benedictus, or Holy Thistle.” In the meantime he was finishing his toilet, in order to dine at the Duchess of Kent’s; and before he put on his cravat I had an opportunity of noticing the fine massive proportions of his bust. It served to confirm me in my theory that such mighty men are, and must be, physically, as well as intellectually, gifted beyond ordinary mortals; that their strong minds must be backed by strong bodies. Remembering all that Sir Walter Scott had done, and all that he had suffered, methought he had been in more than one sense “a Giant in the Land.” After some more conversation, in the course of which he asked me if I ever came to Scotland, and kindly said he should be glad to see me at Abbotsford, I took my leave, with flattering dreams in my head that never were, and now, alas! never can be, realised! * * * * * And now, not to conclude in too melancholy a tone, allow me, gentle reader, to present to you the following genuine letter, the names, merely, for obvious reasons, being disguised. _To T. Hood, Esq._