I accompanied them; and the hour so spent--in the course of which the fine old man gave us some most touching anecdotes of his early struggles--was a truly delightful contrast to the bustle and worry of miscellaneous society which consumed so many of his few hours in Scotland.

Scott's family were more fortunate than himself in this respect.

They had from infancy been taught to reverence Crabbe's genius, and they now saw enough of him to make them think of him ever afterwards with tender affection." Yet one more trait of Scott's interest in his guest should not be omitted.

The strain upon Scott's strength of the King's visit was made more severe by the death during that fortnight of Scott's old and dear friend, William Erskine, only a few months before elevated to the bench, with the title of Lord Kinedder.

Erskine had been irrecoverably wounded by the circulation of a cruel and unfounded slander upon his moral character.