it. I will cause him send it by the Ferry Carrier.

'I beg to assure you that I am particularly sensible of the kind and
accomodating view you have taken of this matter, in which I am sensible
I acted very thoughtlessly because it would have been easy to have
written to enquire into your intentions. Indeed I intended to do so, but
the thing had gone out of my head. I leave Edin'r in July, should you
come after the 12 of that month may I hope to see you at Abbotsford,
which would be very agreeable, but if you keep your purpose of being
here in the beginning of June I hope you will calculate on dining here
on Sunday 2d at five o'clock. I will get Sharpe to meet you who knows
more about L'd Fountainhall than any one.--I am with great penitence,
dear Sir Thomas, your very faithful humble servant,

'WALTER SCOTT.'

[12] _sic_ for rejecting.

[13] A word is omitted, perhaps 'assistance.'

'N.B.--The foregoing letter from Sir Walter, written in answer to mine of
the 25th May,[14] sufficiently shows the extent of the dilemma he found
himself thrown into. It is full of strange contradictions. He talks of
"_printing_ rather than _publishing_" a book which was _publickly_
advertised _and publickly_ sold. He assures me that he believed that it was
_Fountainhall's Life_, and not his _works_ I meant to publish, though the
former part of the correspondence between us must have made him fully aware
that it was _the works_ I had in view; and he unwittingly proves to me
immediately afterwards that he had not altogether forgotten that it was
_the works_ I had taken in hand to publish, for he says, "I expected to see