Walter Scott Autograph Letter Signed, "Yours truly, W. Scott". One page, 4" x 4.25", "Sunday Morning", n.p. ...

Description

Scott's letter was probably written to his friend Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. When Sir Walter Scott began to keep a diary in November 1825, one of the first biographical descriptions was of Sharpe, "[He] is another very remarkable man. He was bred a clergyman, but never took orders. He has infinite wit, and a great turn for antiquarian lore, as the publications of Kirkton, &c., bear witness. His drawings are the most fanciful and droll imaginable - a mixture between Hogarth and some of those foreign masters who painted temptations of St. Anthony, and such grotesque subjects. As a poet he has not a very strong touch. Strange that his finger-ends can describe so well what he cannot bring out clearly and firmly in words! If he were to make drawing a resource it might raise him a large income. But though a lover of antiquities, and, therefore, of expensive trifles, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe is too aristocratic to use his art to assist his purse. He is a very complete genealogist, and has made many detections in Douglas and other books on pedigree, which our nobles would do well to suppress if they had in opportunity. Strange that a man should be so curious after scandal of centuries old!"