“I have both your packets. I have been quite well since my attack, only for some time very downhearted with the calomel and another nasty stuff they call hyoscyamus—and to say truth, the silence of my own household, which used to be merry at this season.
“I enclose the article on Pepys. It is totally uncorrected, so I wish of course much to see it in proof if possible, as it must be dreadfully inaccurate; the opiate was busy with my brain when the beginning was written, and as James Ballantyne complains wofully, so will your printer, I doubt. The subject is like a good sirloin, which requires only to be basted with its own drippings. I had little trouble of research or reference; perhaps I have made it too long, or introduced too many extracts—if so, use the pruning-knife, hedgebill, or axe, ad libitum. You know I don’t care a curse about what I write or what becomes of it.
“To-morrow, snow permitting, we go into Edinburgh;
mean-time ye can expect no news from this place. I
| 216 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Pardon my sending you such an unwashed, uncombed thing as the enclosed. I really can’t see now to read my own hand, so bad have my eyes or my fingers or both become.—Always yours affectionately,
