“I find our friend James Ballantyne is very anxious about printing the new edition of the Tales, which I hope you will allow him to do, unless extreme haste be an extreme object. I need not remind you that we three are like the shipwrecked crew of a vessel, cast upon a desolate island, and fitting up out of the remains of a gallant bark such a cock-boat as may transport us to some more hospitable shore. Therefore, we are bound by the strong tie of common misfortune to help each other, in so far as the claim of self-preservation will permit, and I am happy to think the plank is large enough to float us all.
“Besides my feelings for my own old friend and
schoolfellow, with whom I have shared good and bad weather for so many years, I
must also remember that, as in your own case, his friends have made great
exertions to support him in the printing-office, under an implied hope and
trust that these publications would take in ordinary
cases their usual direction. It is true no engagement was
| 110 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Messrs Longman really keep matters a little too quiet for my convenience. The next thing they may tell me is, that Napoleon must go to press instantly to a dozen of printers. I must boot and saddle, off and away at a fortnight’s warning. Now this I neither can nor will do. My character as a man of letters is deeply interested in giving a complete revisal of that work, and I wish to have time to do so without being hurried. Yours very truly,
