to organise all the ceremonies and the festivities necessary for the
King's reception. In Lockhart's phrase, Scott stage-managed the whole
business. And it was on Scott's return from receiving the King on board
the Royal yacht on the 14th of August that he found awaiting him in
Castle Street one who must have been an inconvenient guest. The
incidents of this first meeting are so charmingly related by Lockhart
that I cannot resist repeating them in his words, well known though they
may be:--

"On receiving the poet on the quarter-deck, his Majesty
called for a bottle of Highland whisky, and having drunk his
health in this national liquor, desired a glass to be filled for
him. Sir Walter, after draining his own bumper, made a
request that the king would condescend to bestow on him the
glass out of which his Majesty had just drunk his health: and
this being granted, the precious vessel was immediately
wrapped up and carefully deposited in what he conceived to
be the safest part of his dress. So he returned with it to
Castle Street; but--to say nothing at this moment of graver
distractions--on reading his house he found a guest established
there of a sort rather different from the usual visitors
of the time. The Poet Crabbe, to whom he had been introduced
when last in London by Mr. Murray of Albemarle
Street, after repeatedly promising to follow up the acquaintance
by an excursion to the North, had at last arrived in the
midst of these tumultuous preparations for the royal advent.
Notwithstanding all such impediments, he found his quarters
ready for him, and Scott entering, wet and hurried, embraced
the venerable man with brotherly affection. The royal gift
was forgotten--the ample skirt of the coat within which it had