Autograph letter signed from Walter Scott to an unnamed correspondent asking him to "accept Lady Scott's best thanks and mine for the ... haunch of venison which will enable me ... God willing to show Lord Gifford the Vice Chancellor and my excellent friend the Lord Chief Baron ... our miraculous produce. Lady Scott desires me to say how very sensible she is of your kind attendance, which enables her to face ... Beings of such distinction who, being eminent judges of everything else be must necessarily be decisive in articles of good cheer ... I think that your Country is settling into such a state as will soon make it equal to the most flourishing part of the empire. The policies are indeed very strict even severe - but then it is under good regulations ... it is working well in practise. The Nobility and Gentry seem to be returning to their country seats & giving employment to the people and I am much disposed to hope things are in a fair way of mending. I beg my most respectful Compliments to the Duke of Atholl & the Duchess one of my earliest acquaintances in life. I had the pleasure of seeing Lord Fowers doing his new and venerable office ... return of the King to the Scottish Kirk in which he gives universal satisfaction. I am always due, very truly yours Walter Scott ... ". Two sides quarto, Abbotsford, no year, but 1825 trimmed with the loss of a line or two of text on the first side.

The addressee is probably the artist William Scrope who sent Scott a haunch of venison from Blair Atholl and a recipe along with a letter dated 25 September 1825. Lord Gifford and Sir Samuel Shepherd (the Lord Chief Baron) visited Scott at Abbotsford at the beginning of October 1825.