reached
Murray in Scott's own handwriting. There can, however, be no doubt at
all that Scott copied out his friend's MS., in order to increase the
mystification which he so much enjoyed as to the authorship of his
variously named series of tales. Possibly enough, too, he may have
drawn Erskine's attention to the evidence which justified his sketch
of the Puritans in _Old Mortality_, evidence which he certainly
intended at one time to embody in a reply of his own to the adverse
criticism on that book. But though Erskine was Scott's _alter ego_ for
literary purposes, it is certain that Erskine, with his fastidious,
not to say finical, sense of honour, would never have lent his name to
cover a puff written by Scott of his own works. A man who, in Scott's
own words, died "a victim to a hellishly false story, or rather, I
should say, to the sensibility of his own nature, which could not
endure even the shadow of reproach,--like the ermine, which is said to
pine if its fur is soiled," was not the man to father a puff, even by
his dearest friend, on that friend's own creations.
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