Magic Lantern Lectures on Sir Walter Scott
 

27
 

though time urges the lecturer on from Abbotsford, "the lAdecca
of the borderland," to Melrose, "the capital of the Scott country,"
his excitement and depth of feeling hold him back while he raises
the spirit of Scott by the magic lantern.
 

Smailholme Tower near the farm where Scott spent his
childhood holidays.

The lecturer reveals the earliest possible date of his talk by
referring to "Smailholme, which I was in 1908," emended in ink
to "when I saw it." All this calls for a scrapping of the bookseller,
R. & J. Balding's identification of the speaker as George Washing¬
ton Wilson, photographer to Queen Victoria in Scotland until
his death in 1893 at the age of seventy. The combined lecture re¬
ports that Scott died "on the 17th September 1832—just a hun¬
dred years ago." My conjecture is that the two presentations were
laid aside some time after 1908, only to be rcvi\'cd and combined
years later in response to the multi-level tributes of the centenary.
This lantern talk could well have been the last delivered on the
"Northern Magician" Sir Walter Scott.