precious pages for so many hours, had I not promised to designate
it by some emphatic mode of printing, as {The Wardour
Manuscript}; giving it, thereby, an individuality as important as
the Bannatyne MS., the Auchinleck MS., and any other monument of
the patience of a Gothic scrivener. I have sent, for your
private consideration, a list of the contents of this curious
piece, which I shall perhaps subjoin, with your approbation, to
the third volume of my Tale, in case the printer's devil should
continue impatient for copy, when the whole of my narrative has
been imposed.

Adieu, my dear friend; I have said enough to explain, if not to
vindicate, the attempt which I have made, and which, in spite of
your doubts, and my own incapacity, I am still willing to believe
has not been altogether made in vain.

I hope you are now well recovered from your spring fit of the
gout, and shall be happy if the advice of your learned
physician should recommend a tour to these parts. Several
curiosities have been lately dug up near the wall, as well as at
the ancient station of Habitancum. Talking of the latter, I
suppose you have long since heard the news, that a sulky churlish
boor has destroyed the ancient statue, or rather bas-relief,
popularly called Robin of Redesdale. It seems Robin's fame
attracted more visitants than was consistent with the growth of
the heather, upon a moor worth a shilling an acre. Reverend as
you write yourself, be revengeful for once, and pray with me that
he may be visited with such a fit of the stone, as if he had all
the fragments of poor Robin in that region of his viscera where
the disease holds its seat. Tell this not in Gath, lest the