Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott

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I hope you are now well recovered from
your spring fit of the gout, and shall be happy
if the advice of your learned physician should
recommend a tour to these parts. Several
curiosities have been lately dug up near the
wall, as well as at the ancient station of Habitancum.
Talking of the latter, I suppose you
have long since heard the news, that a sulky
churlish boor has destroyed the ancient statue,
or rather bas-relief, popularly called Robin of
Redesdale. It seems Robin's fame attracted
more visitants than was consistent with the
growth of the heather, upon a moor worth a
shilling an acre. Reverend as you write yourself,
be revengeful for once, and pray with me
that he may be visited with such a fit of the
stone, as if he had all the fragments of poor
Robin in that region of his viscera where the
disease holds its seat. Tell this not in Gath,
lest the Scots rejoice that they have at length
found a parallel instance among their neighbours,
to that barbarous deed which demolished
Arthur's Oven. But there is no end to
lamentation, when we betake ourselves to such
subjects. My respectful compliments attend
Miss Dryasdust; I endeavoured to match the
spectacles agreeable to her commission, during
my late journey to London, and hope she has
received them safe, and found them satisfactory.
I send this by the blind carrier, so that
probably it may be some time upon its journey.*

* This anticipation proved but too true, as my learned correspondent
* did not receive my letter until a twelvemonth after
* it was written. I mention this circumstance, that a gentleman
* attached to the cause of learning, who now holds the principal
* control of the post-office, may consider whether by some mitigation
* of the present enormous rates, some favour might not be
* shown to the correspondents of the principal Literary and Antiquarian
* Societies. I understand, indeed, that this experiment
* was once tried, but that the mail-coach having broke down under
* the weight of packages addressed to members of the Society
* of Antiquaries, it was relinquished as a hazardous experiment.
* Surely, however it would be possible to build these vehicles in a
* form more substantial, stronger in the perch, and broader in the
* wheels, so as to support the weight of Antiquarian learning;
* when, if they should be found to travel more slowly, they would
* be not the less agreeable to quiet travellers like myself.---L. T.

The last news which I hear from Edinburgh
is, that the gentleman who fills the situation
of Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland,* is the best amateur draftsman

* Mr Skene of Rubislaw is here intimated, to whose taste
* and skill the author is indebted for a series of etchings, exhibiting
* the various localities alluded to in these novels.

in that kingdom, and that much is expected
from his skill and zeal in delineating
those specimens of national antiquity, which
are either mouldering under the slow touch of
time, or swept away by modern taste, with
the same besom of destruction which John
Knox used at the Reformation. Once more adieu;
_vale tandem, non immemor mei_. Believe me to be,

Reverend, and very dear Sir,

Your most faithful humble Servant.

Laurence Templeton.

Toppingwold, near Egremont,
Cumberland, Nov. 17, 1817.