My Dear Wright,

Although I intend to do myself the pleasure of calling upon Mr. Constable at your house tomorrow immediately after church (for it is our charity sermon at Wimbledon, and I must attend), yet I should be most happy, if it were agreeable to you and to him, to favour us with your company at dinner at, I will say, five tomorrow.  Mr. Constable is godfather to my son, who will be at home, and I am anxious to introduce him to Mr. C., who may not be long in town.

Mr. Constable and his friend accordingly dined with Murray, and that the meeting was very pleasant may be inferred from Mr. Constable’s letter of a few days later, in which he wrote to Murray, “It made my heart glad to be once more happy together as we were the other evening.”  The rest of Mr. Constable’s letter referred to Hume’s Philosophical Writings, which were tendered to Murray, but which he declined to publish.

Constable died two years later, John Ballantyne, Scott’s partner, a few years earlier; and Scott entered in his diary, “It is written that nothing shall flourish under my shadow.”

CHAPTER XXVI

SIR WALTER’S LAST YEARS

Owing to the intimate relations which were now established between Murray and Lockhart, the correspondence is full of references to Sir Walter Scott and to the last phases of his illustrious career.

Lockhart had often occasion to be at Abbotsford to see Sir Walter Scott, who was then carrying on, single-handed, that terrible struggle with adversity, which has never been equalled in the annals of literature.  His son-in-law went down in February 1827 to see him about further articles, but wrote to Murray:  “I fear we must not now expect Sir W. S.’s assistance ere ‘Napoleon’ be out of hand.”  In the following month of June Lockhart wrote from Portobello:  “Sir W. Scott has got ‘Napoleon’ out of his hands, and I have made arrangements for three or four articles; and I think we may count for a paper of his every quarter.”  Articles accordingly appeared from Sir Walter Scott on diverse subjects, one in No. 71, June 1827, on the “Works of John Home “; another in No. 72, October 1827, on “Planting Waste Lands “; a third in No. 74, March 1828, on “Plantation and Landscape Gardening “; and a fourth in No. 76, October 1828, on Sir H. Davy’s “Salmonia, or Days of Fly-Fishing.”  The last article was cordial and generous, like everything proceeding from Sir Walter’s pen.  Lady Davy was greatly pleased with it.  “It must always be a proud and gratifying distinction,” she said, “to have the name of Sir Walter Scott associated with that of my husband in the review of ‘Salmonia.’  I am sure Sir Humphry will like his bairn the better for the public opinion given of it by one whose immortality renders praise as durable as it seems truly felt.”

With respect to “Salmonia” the following anecdote may be mentioned, as related to Mr. Murray by Dr. Gooch, a valued contributor to the Quarterly.