Scott tells Ellis in reply (October 14), that he was
LASSWADE—OCTOBER 1803. | 399 |
* Schnurbartchen is German for mustachio. It appears from a page of an early note-book previously transcribed, that Scott had been sometimes a smoker of tobacco in the first days of his lighthorsemanship. He had laid aside the habit at the time when this letter was written; but he twice again resumed it, though he never carried the indulgence to any excess. |
400 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Poor Ritson is no more. All his vegetable soups and puddings have not been able to avert the evil day, which, I understand, was preceded by madness. It must be worth while to enquire who has got his MSS. I mean his own notes and writings. The ‘Life of Arthur,’ for example, must contain many curious facts and quotations, which the poor defunct had the power of assembling to an astonishing degree, without being able to combine any thing like a narrative, or even to deduce one useful inference—witness his ‘Essay on Romance and Minstrelsy,’ which reminds one of a heap of rubbish, which had either turned out unfit for the architect’s purpose, or beyond his skill to make use of. The ballads he had collected in Cumberland and Northumberland, too, would greatly interest me. If they have fallen into the hands of any liberal collector, I dare say I might be indulged with a sight of them. Pray enquire about this matter.
“Yesterday Charlotte and I had a visit which we owe to Mrs E. A rosy lass, the sister of a bold
yeoman in our neighbourhood, entered our cottage, towing in a monstrous sort of
bulldog, called emphatically Cerberus, whom she came
on the part of her brother to beg our acceptance of, understanding we were
anxious to have a son of Camp. Cerberus was no sooner loose (a pleasure which, I suspect, he had
rarely enjoyed) than his father (supposé) and he engaged in a battle which might have
been celebrated by the author of the
‘Unnatural
Combat,’ and which, for aught I know, might have turned out a
combat à
l’outrance, if I had not interfered with a horsewhip,
instead of a baton, as juge de Camp. The odds were
indeed greatly against the stranger knight—two fierce Forest greyhounds having
arrived, and, contrary
CORRESPONDENCE WITH ELLIS—1803. | 401 |