LIFE

  OF

  SIR WALTER SCOTT.




  LIFE OF
  SIR WALTER SCOTT

  BY
  ROBERT CHAMBERS. LL.D.
  WITH
  ABBOTSFORD NOTANDA
  BY
  ROBERT CARRUTHERS, LL.D.

  [Illustration: View of Abbotsford and grounds from the Tweed.]

  EDITED BY W. CHAMBERS.

  W. & R. CHAMBERS,
  EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
  1871.




  LIFE

  OF

  SIR WALTER SCOTT

  BY ROBERT CHAMBERS, LL.D.


  WITH

  ABBOTSFORD NOTANDA

  BY ROBERT CARRUTHERS, LL.D.


  EDITED BY W. CHAMBERS


  W. & R. CHAMBERS
  LONDON AND EDINBURGH
  1871




  Edinburgh:
  Printed by W. and R. Chambers.




PREFATORY NOTE.


The present Memoir of Sir Walter Scott was written by my brother,
the late Dr R. Chambers, immediately after the decease of the great
novelist, and having been issued at a small price for popular reading,
had what was then considered a large circulation--180,000 copies.
It was subsequently republished, with some improvements. The Memoir
is now reproduced in somewhat better style, as a small but fitting
contribution in homage of the great man, the centenary of whose birth,
15th August 1871, is about to be very generally celebrated. I have
taken the liberty of adding only a few paragraphs, distinguishable
by being enclosed within brackets. The principal of these insertions
refers to the manner in which my brother had the honour to become
acquainted with, and acquired the esteem of, Sir Walter Scott.

To the Memoir are now appropriately appended certain ‘Abbotsford
Notanda,’ descriptive of the friendly intercourse which long subsisted
between Sir Walter and his factor and amanuensis, William Laidlaw,
prepared by one well qualified to write on the subject, Dr R.
Carruthers, Inverness.

                                                                   W. C.

EDINBURGH, _June 1871_.




CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE

  PARENTAGE                                                            1

  BIRTH--BIRTHPLACE--EARLY SCENES                                      8

  THE LAND OF SCOTT                                                   10

  SCHOOL-BOY DAYS                                                     16

  UNIVERSITY                                                          25

  PROFESSION                                                          28

  POLITICAL OPINIONS--SOLDIERING                                      33

  VISIT TO PEEBLESSHIRE                                               35

  MARRIAGE                                                            37

  POEMS                                                               42

  WAVERLEY NOVELS                                                     51

  SIR WALTER AND MR R. CHAMBERS                                       64

  LATER NOVELS, AND LIFE OF NAPOLEON                                  67

  PECUNIARY MISFORTUNES                                               70

  LATER EXERTIONS                                                     82

  CONCLUDING YEARS--DECEASE                                           87

  PERSONAL APPEARANCE                                                 97

  CHARACTER                                                           99

  CONCLUSION                                                         105


  ABBOTSFORD NOTANDA                                                 109




LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.




PARENTAGE.


Sir Walter Scott was one of the sons of Walter Scott, Esq., Writer to
the Signet, by Anne, daughter of Dr John Rutherford, Professor of the
Practice of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh.

His paternal grandfather, Mr Robert Scott, farmer at Sandyknow, in
the vicinity of Smailholm Tower, in Roxburghshire, was the son of Mr
Walter Scott, a younger son of Walter Scott of Raeburn, who in his
turn was third son of Sir William Scott of Harden, in which family the
chieftainship of the race of Scott is now understood to reside. Sir
Walter’s grandfather, Mr Robert Scott, farmer at Sandyknow, as we learn
from the _Border Antiquities_, ‘though both descended from and allied
to several respectable Border families, was chiefly distinguished for
the excellent good sense and independent spirit which enabled him to
lead the way in agricultural improvement--then a pursuit abandoned to
persons of a very inferior description. His memory was long preserved
in Teviotdale, and still survives, as that of an active and intelligent
farmer, and the father of a family all of whom were distinguished by
talents, probity, and remarkable success in the pursuits which they
adopted.’

Walter, the third son of Sir William Scott of Harden, lived at the time
of the Restoration, and embraced the tenets of Quakerism, which at
that period made their way into Scotland. For this he endured a degree
of persecution for which it is now difficult to assign a reason. The
Scottish Privy-council, by an edict dated June 20, 1665, directed his
brother, the existing representative of the Harden family, to take away
his three children, and educate them separately, so that they might
not become infected with the same heresy; and, for doing so, he was to
be entitled to sue his brother for the maintenance of the children. By
a second edict, dated July 5, 1666, the Council directed two thousand
pounds Scots money to be paid by the Laird of Raeburn for this purpose;
and, as he was now confined in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, where he
was liable to be further tainted by converse with others of the same
sect there also imprisoned, the Council further ordered him to be
transported to the jail of Jedburgh, where no one was to have access
to him but such as might be expected, to convert him from his present
principles.

Walter, the second son of this gentleman, and father to the novelist’s
grandfather, received a good education at Glasgow College, under
the protection of his uncle. He was a zealous Jacobite--a friend and
correspondent of Dr Pitcairn--and made a vow never to shave his beard
till the exiled House of Stuart should be restored; whence he acquired
the name of _Beardie_.

Dr John Rutherford, maternal grandfather to the subject of this memoir,
was one of four Scottish pupils of Boerhaave, who, in the early part
of the last century, contributed to establish the high character of
the Edinburgh University as a school of medicine. He was the first
Professor of the Practice of Physic in the university, to which office
he was elected in 1727, and which he resigned in 1766, in favour of
the celebrated Dr John Gregory. He was also the first person who
delivered lectures on Clinical Medicine in the Infirmary. His son, Dr
Daniel Rutherford, maternal uncle to the novelist, was afterwards, for
a long period, Professor of Botany in the Edinburgh University, and
further distinguished by his great proficiency in chemistry. Dr D.
Rutherford was one of the cleverest scientific men of his day; and,
but for certain unimportant circumstances, would have been preferred
to the high honour of succeeding Black in the chair of Chemistry. When
he took his degree in 1772, Pneumatic Chemistry was in its infancy.
Upon this occasion he published a thesis, in which the doctrines
respecting gaseous bodies are laid down with great perspicuity, as
far as they were then known, and an account also given of a series of
experiments made by himself, which discover much ingenuity and address.
He was the first European chemist who, if the expression may be used,
_discovered_ nitrogen. Had he proceeded a single step farther, he would
have anticipated the discoveries of Priestley, Scheele, and Lavoisier,
respecting oxygen, which have rendered their names immortal. As it
was, the experiments and discoveries of Dr Rutherford made his name
respected all over Europe.

The wife of Dr John Rutherford, and maternal grandmother of Sir
Walter Scott, was Jean Swinton, daughter of Swinton of Swinton, in
Berwickshire, one of the oldest families in Scotland, and at one period
very powerful. Sir Walter has introduced a chivalric representative of
this race into his drama of _Halidon Hill_. The grandfather of Jean
Swinton was Sir John Swinton, the twentieth baron in lineal descent,
and the son of the celebrated Judge Swinton, to whom, along with Sir
William Lockhart of Lee, Cromwell intrusted the chief management of
civil affairs in Scotland during his usurpation. Lord Swinton, as he
was called, in virtue of his judicial character, was seized, after the
Restoration, and brought down to Scotland for trial, in the same vessel
with the Marquis of Argyll. It was generally expected that one who had
played so conspicuous a part in the late usurpation, would not elude
the vengeance of the new government. He escaped, however, by suddenly
adopting the tenets of the society to which Walter Scott of Raeburn
afterwards attached himself. On being brought before the parliament for
trial, he rejected all means of legal defence; and his simply penitent
appearance and venerable aspect wrought so far with his judges, that
he was acquitted, while less obnoxious men were condemned. It was
from this extraordinary person, and while confined along with him in
Edinburgh Castle, that Colonel David Barclay, father of Robert Barclay,
the eminent author of the _Apology for the Quakers_, contracted those
sentiments which afterwards shone forth with such remarkable lustre in
his son.

While the ancestry of Sir Walter Scott is thus shewn to have been
somewhat more than respectable, it must be also stated, that, in his
character as a man, a citizen, or a professional agent, there could not
be a more worthy member of society than his immediate parent. Mr Walter
Scott, born in 1729, and admitted as a Writer to the Signet in 1755,
was by no means a man of shining abilities. He was, however, a steady,
expert man of business, insomuch as to prosper considerably in life;
and nothing could exceed the gentleness, sincerity, and benevolence
of his character. For many years, he held the honourable office of an
elder in the parish church of Old Greyfriars, while Dr Robertson, the
historian of _America_ and _Charles V._, acted as one of the ministers.
The other clergyman was Dr John Erskine, much more distinguished as
a divine, and of whom Sir Walter has given an animated picture in
his novel of _Guy Mannering_. The latter person led the more zealous
party of the Church of Scotland, in opposition to his colleague, Dr
Robertson, who swayed the moderate and predominating party; and it is
believed that, although a Jacobite, and employed mostly by that party,
the religious impressions of Mr Scott were more akin to the doctrines
maintained by Erskine, than those professed by Robertson.

Mrs Scott, while she boasted a less prepossessing exterior than
her husband, was enabled, partly by the more literary character of
her connections and education, and more perhaps by native powers
of intellect, to make a greater impression in conversation. It has
thus become a conceded point, that Sir Walter derived his abilities
almost exclusively from this parent. Without pretending to judge in
a matter of such delicacy, it may at least be allowed that the young
poet was at first greatly indebted to his mother for an introduction
to the literary society of which her father and brother were such
distinguished ornaments. It has somewhere been alleged that Mrs
Scott, who was an intimate friend of Allan Ramsay, Blacklock, and
other poetical wits of the last century, wrote verses, like them, in
the vernacular language of Scotland. But this can be denied, upon
the testimony of her own son. The mistake has probably arisen in
consequence of a Mrs Scott of Wauchope, whose maiden name was likewise
Rutherford, having published poetry of her own composition. Mrs Walter
Scott, who was altogether a woman of the highest order of intellect
and character, was, at an early age, deemed worthy by her father
to be intrusted with the charge of his house, during his temporary
widowhood; and thus she possessed opportunities enjoyed by few young
ladies of her own age, and of the period when she lived, of mixing
in literary society. It is unquestionable that this circumstance
was likely to have some effect in later life upon her son, with the
training of whose mind she must, in virtue of her maternal character,
have had more to do than her husband. It may be further mentioned that
Mrs Scott had been principally educated by a reduced gentlewoman,
a Mrs Euphemia Sinclair (grand-daughter of Sir Robert Sinclair of
Longformacus), who kept a school for young ladies in the now wretched
precincts of Blackfriars’ Wynd, in Edinburgh, and who had the honour
of educating many of the female nobility and gentry of Scotland, some
of whom were her own relations. Sir Walter’s own words respecting
this person are given in the work entitled _Traditions of Edinburgh_:
‘To judge by the proficiency of her scholars, although much of what is
called accomplishment might then be left untaught, she must have been
possessed of uncommon talents for education; for all the ladies above
mentioned’ [the list includes Mrs Scott] ‘had well-cultivated minds,
were fond of reading, wrote and spelled admirably, were well acquainted
with history and with the belles-lettres, without neglecting the more
homely duties of the needle and accompt-book; and, while two of them’
[meaning, as there is reason to believe, Mrs Scott, and Mrs Murray
Keith, the Mrs Bethune Baliol of the _Chronicles of the Canongate_]
‘were women of extraordinary talents, all of them were perfectly well
bred in society.’ Sir Walter further communicated that his mother, and
many others of Mrs Sinclair’s pupils, were sent, according to a fashion
then prevalent in good society, to be _finished off_ by the Honourable
Mrs Ogilvie, lady of the Honourable Patrick Ogilvie of Longmay, whose
brother, the Earl of Seafield, was so instrumental, as Chancellor of
Scotland, in carrying through the union with England. Mrs Ogilvie
trained her young friends to a style of manners which would now be
considered intolerably stiff; for instance, no young lady, in sitting,
was permitted ever to touch the back of her chair. Such was the effect
of this early training upon the mind of Mrs Scott, that even when she
approached her eightieth year, she took as much care to avoid touching
her chair with her back as if she had still been under the stern eye of
Mrs Ogilvie.




BIRTH--BIRTHPLACE--EARLY SCENES.


Sir Walter Scott was born at Edinburgh on the 15th of August 1771,
being the birthday of the great European hero [Napoleon] whose deeds
he was afterwards to record. He was the third of a family consisting
of six sons and one daughter. The eldest son, John, attained to a
captaincy in an infantry regiment, but was early obliged to retire
from service on account of the delicate state of his health. Another
elder brother, Daniel, was a sailor, but died in early life. Of him Sir
Walter has often been heard to assert, that he was by far the cleverest
and most interesting of the whole. Thomas, the next brother to Sir
Walter, followed the father’s profession, and was for some years factor
to the Marquis of Abercorn, but eventually died in Canada in 1822, in
the capacity of paymaster to the 70th Regiment. Sir Walter himself
entertained a fondly high opinion of the talents of this brother; but
it is not borne out by the sense of his other friends. He possessed,
however, some burlesque humour, and an acquaintance with Scottish
manners and character--qualities which were apt to impose a little,
and even induced some individuals to believe, for some time, that he,
rather than his more gifted brother, was the author of ‘The Novels.’

Existence opened upon the author of _Waverley_ in one of the duskiest
parts of the ancient capital, which he has been pleased to apostrophise
in _Marmion_ as his ‘own romantic town.’ At the time of his birth, and
for some time after, his father lived at the head of the College Wynd,
a narrow alley leading from the Cowgate to the gate of the college.
The two lower flats of the house were occupied by Mr Keith, W.S.,
grandfather of the Knight Marischal of Scotland, and Mr Walter Scott
lodged on the third floor, his part of the mansion being accessible by
a stair behind.

It was a house of what would now be considered humble aspect, but at
that time neither humble from its individual appearance nor from its
vicinage. As it stood on the line necessary for the opening of a street
along the north skirt of the new university buildings, it was destroyed
on that occasion, and never rebuilt. Speaking of this house in a series
of notes communicated to a local antiquary in 1825, Sir Walter said:
‘It consisted of two flats above Mr Keith’s, and belonged to my father,
Mr Walter Scott, Writer to the Signet; there I had the chance to be
born, 15th August 1771. My father, soon after my birth, removed to
George’s Square, and let the house in the College Wynd, first to Mr
Dundas of Philipstoun, and afterwards to Mr William Keith, father of
Sir Alexander Keith. It was purchased by the public, together with Mr
Keith’s’ [the inferior floors], ‘and pulled down to make way for the
new college.’

It appears, however, that, before Sir Walter could receive any
impressions from the romantic scenery of the Old Town of Edinburgh, he
was removed, on account of the delicacy of his health, to the country,
and lived for a considerable period under the charge of his paternal
grandfather at Sandyknow. This farm is situated upon high ground, near
the bottom of Leader Water, and overlooks a large part of the vale of
Tweed. In the immediate neighbourhood of the farm-house, upon a rocky
foundation, stood the Border fortlet called Smailholm Tower, which
possessed many features to attract the attention of the young poet. It
was his early residence at this romantic spot that imparted an intense
affection for the southern part of Scotland, to which he finally
adjourned. Some account of the district which he so dearly loved may
here properly be given.




THE LAND OF SCOTT.


The district which this mighty genius has appropriated as his own,
may be described as restricted in a great measure to the counties of
Roxburgh and Selkirk, the former of which is the central part of the
frontier or Border of Scotland, noted of old for the warlike character
of its inhabitants, and even, till a comparatively late period, for
certain predatory habits, unlike anything that obtained at the same
time, at least in the southern portion of Scotland. Though born in
Edinburgh, Walter Scott was descended from Roxburghshire families,
and was familiar in his early years with both the scenery and the
inhabitants, and the history and traditions, of that romantic land.
He was indeed fed with the legendary lore of the Borders as with a
mother’s milk; and it was this, no doubt, which gave his mind so
remarkable a taste for the manners of the middle ages, to the exclusion
of all sympathy for either the ideas of the ancient classics, or the
literature of modern manners. There was something additionally engaging
to a mind like his in the poetical associations which have so long
rendered this region the very Arcadia of Scotland. The Tweed, flowing
majestically from one end of it to the other; the Teviot, a scarcely
less noble tributary; with all the lesser streams connected with these
two--the Jed, the Gala, the Ettrick, the Yarrow, and the Quair--had,
from the revival of Scottish poetry, been sung by unnumbered bards,
many of whose names have perished, like flowers, from the face of the
earth which they adorned. From all these associations mingled together,
did the mind of this transcendent genius draw its first and its
happiest inspiration.

The general character of this district of Scotland is pastoral. Here
and there, along the banks of the streams, there are alluvial strips
called _haughs_, all of which are finely cultivated; and the plough, in
many places, has ascended the hill to a considerable height; but the
land in general is a succession of pastoral eminences, which are either
green to the top, or swathed in dusky heath, unless where a patch of
young and green wood seeks to soften the climate and the soil. Much of
the land still belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch, and other descendants
of noted Border chiefs, and it annually supplies much of what both
clothes and feeds the British population. Being little intruded upon by
manufactures, or any other thing calculated to introduce new ideas, its
population exhibit, in general, those primitive features of character
which are so invariably found to characterise a pastoral people. Even
where, in such cases as Hawick and Galashiels, manufactures have
established an isolated seat, the people are hardly distinguishable, in
simplicity and homely virtues, from the tenants of the hills.

Starting at Kelso upon an excursion over this country, the traveller
would soon reach Roxburgh, where the Teviot and the Tweed are joined--a
place noted in early Scottish history for the importance of its town
and castle, now alike swept away. Pursuing upwards the course of the
Teviot, he would first be tempted aside into the sylvan valley of
the Jed, on the banks of which stands the ancient and picturesque
town of Jedburgh, and whose beauties have been rapturously described
by Thomson, who spent many of his youngest and happiest years amidst
its beautiful _braes_. Farther up, the Teviot is joined by the Aill,
and, farther up still, by the Rule, a rivulet whose banks were once
occupied almost exclusively by the warlike clans of Turnbull and
Rutherford. Next is the Slitrig, and next the Borthwick; after which,
the accessories of this mountain stream cease to be distinguished.
Every stream has its valley; every valley has its particular class
of inhabitants--its own tales, songs, and traditions; and when the
traveller contrasts its noble hills and clear trotting _burnies_ with
the tame landscapes of ‘merry England,’ he is at no loss to see how the
natives of a mountainous region come to distinguish their own country
so much in poetical recollection, and behold it with such exclusive
love. When the Englishman is absent from his home, he sees a scene
not greatly different from what he is accustomed to, and regards his
absence with very little feeling. But when a native of these secluded
vales visits another district, he finds an alien peculiarity in every
object; the hills are of a different height and vesture; the streams
are different in size, or run in a different direction. Everything
tells him that he is not at home. And, when returning to his own glen,
how every distant hill-top comes out to his sight as a familiar and
companionable object! How every less prominent feature reminds him of
that place which, of all the earth, he calls _his own_! Even when he
crosses what is termed the height of the country, and but sees the
waters running _towards_ that cherished place, his heart is distended
with a sense of home and kindred, and he throws his very soul upon
the stream, that it may be carried before him to the spot where he has
garnered up all his most valued affections.

There is one part of Roxburghshire which does not belong to the great
vale of the Tweed, and yet is as essentially as any a part of the Land
of Scott. This is Liddesdale, or the vale of the Liddel, a stream which
seeks the Solway, and forms part of the more westerly border. Nothing
out of Spain could be more wild or lonely than this pastoral vale,
which once harboured the predatory clans of Elliot and Armstrong, but
is now occupied by a race of more than usually primitive sheep-farmers.
It is absolutely overrun with song and legend, of which Sir Walter
Scott reaped an ample harvest for his _Border Minstrelsy_, including
the fine old ballads of _Dick o’ the Cow_ and _Jock o’ the Syde_.

It may be said, indeed, that, of all places in the south of Scotland,
the attention of the great novelist was first fixed upon Liddesdale.
In his second literary effort--the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_--he
confined himself in a great measure to Teviotdale, in the upper part
of which, about three miles above Hawick, stands Branxholm Castle, the
chief scene of the poem. The old house has been much altered since
the supposed era of the _Lay_; but it has nevertheless more of an
ancient than a modern appearance, and does not much disappoint a modern
beholder. For a long time, the Buccleuch family have left it to the
occupancy of the individuals who act as their agents or chamberlains
on this part of their extensive property; and it is at present kept in
the best order, and surrounded by some fine woods of ancient and modern
growth. Seated on a lofty bank, it still overlooks that stream, and is
overtopped by those hills, to which, it will be recollected, ‘the lady’
successively addressed her witching incantations.

The small vale of Borthwick Water, which starts off from the strath
of the Teviot a little above Hawick, contains a scene which cannot
well be overlooked--namely, Harden Castle, the original though now
deserted seat of the family of Scott of Harden, from which, through the
Raeburn branch, Sir Walter Scott was descended. This, though neglected
alike by its proprietor and by tourists, is one of the most remarkable
pieces of scenery which we, who have travelled over nearly the whole of
Scotland, have yet seen within its shores. Conceive, first, the lonely
pastoral beauty of the vale of Borthwick; next, a minor vale receding
from its northern side, full of old and emaciated, but still beautiful
wood: penetrating this recess for a little way, the traveller sees,
perched upon a lofty height in front, and beaming perhaps in the sun,
a house which, though not picturesque in its outline, derives that
quality in a high degree from its situation and accompaniments. This is
Harden House or Castle; but, though apparently near it, the wayfarer
has yet to walk a long way around the height before he can wind his
way into its immediate presence. When arrived at the platform whereon
the house stands, he finds it degraded into a farm-house; its court
forming perhaps a temporary cattle-yard; every ornament disgraced;
every memorial of former grandeur seen through a slough of plebeian
utility and homeliness, or broken into ruin. A pavement of black and
white diced marble is found in the vestibule, every square of which
is bruised to pieces, and the whole strewed with the details of a
dairy. The dining-room, a large apartment with a richly ornamented
stucco roof, is now used as the farmer’s kitchen. Other parts of the
house, still bearing the arms and initials of Walter Scott, Earl of
Tarras, great-grandfather of the late Mr Scott of Harden, and of his
second wife, Helen Hepburn, are sunk in a scarcely less proportion.
This nobleman was at first married to Mary, Countess of Buccleuch, who
died, however, without issue, leaving the succession open to her sister
Anne, who became the wife of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, eldest
natural son of Charles II. Through this family connection, the Earl of
Tarras was induced to join in the conspiracy which usually bears the
name of the Rye-house Plot, for which he was attainted, only saving his
life by giving evidence against his more steadfast companion, Baillie
of Jerviswood, the great-grandfather of another Scottish proprietor,
who happened to be an immediate neighbour of Harden. It may be asked
why Mr Scott did not inherit the title of his ancestor: the answer
is, that it was only thought necessary to invest the husband of the
Countess of Buccleuch with a title for his own life--which proves that
the hereditary character of the peerage has not always been observed
in our constitution. While all of this scene that springs from art is
degraded and wretched, it is striking to see that its natural grandeur
suffers no defalcation. The wide-sweeping hills stretch off grandly on
all hands, and the celebrated _den_, from which the place has taken its
name, still retains the features which have rendered it so remarkable
a natural curiosity. This is a large abyss in the earth, as it may
be called, immediately under the walls of the house, and altogether
unpervaded by running water--the banks clothed with trees of all kinds,
and one side opening to the vale, though the bottom is much beneath
the level of the surrounding ground. Old Wat of Harden--such is the
popular name of an aged marauder celebrated in the _Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border_--used to keep the large herds which he had draughted
out of the northern counties of England in this strange hollow; and
it seems to have been admirably adapted for the purpose. It was this
Border hero of whom the story is told somewhere by his illustrious
descendant, that, coming once homeward with a goodly prey of cattle,
and seeing a large haystack standing in a farm-yard by the way, he
could not help saying, with some bitterness: ‘By my saul, an ye had
four feet, ye should gang too!’




SCHOOL-BOY DAYS.


It is understood that, at the ‘evening fire’ of Sandyknow, Sir Walter
learned much of that Border lore which he afterwards wrought up in his
fictions. To what extent his residence there retarded his progress in
school instruction, is not discovered. After being at Sandyknow, he
was, for the sake of the mineral waters, sent, in his fourth year,
to Bath, where he attended a dame’s school, and received his first
lessons in reading. Returning to Edinburgh, he made some advances in
the rudiments of learning at a private school kept by a Mr Leechman in
Hamilton’s Entry, Bristo Street [now a small, decayed building, with
a tiled roof, occupied by a working blacksmith]. This was his first
school in Edinburgh. It is almost certain that his attendance at school
was rendered irregular by his delicate health. He entered Fraser’s
class at the High School in the _third year_--that is to say, when
that master had carried his class through one half of the ordinary
curriculum of the school; wherefore it is clear that any earlier
instruction he could have received must have been in some inferior
institution, and very probably communicated in a hurried and imperfect
manner. It is at the commencement of the school year in October 1779
that his name first appears in the school register: he must have then
been eight years of age, which, it may be remarked, is an unusually
early period for a boy to enter the third year of his classical course.
What is further remarkable, his elder brother attended the same class.
It is therefore to be suspected that his educational interests were
sacrificed, in some measure, to the circumstances of the school, which
were at that period in such an unhappy arrangement as to teachers,
that parents often precipitated their children into a class for which
they were unfitted, in order to escape a teacher whom they deemed
unqualified for his duties, and secure the instructions of one who bore
a superior character.

Although Mr Luke Fraser was one of the severest flagellators even of
the _old school_, he enjoyed the reputation of being a sound scholar,
so far as scholarship was required for his duties, and also that of
a most conscientious and painstaking teacher. He first caused his
scholars to get by heart Ruddiman’s _Rudiments_, and as soon as they
were thoroughly grounded in the declensions, the Vocabulary of the same
great grammarian was put into their hands, and a small number of words
prescribed to be repeated every morning. They then read in succession
the _Colloquies_ of Corderius, four or five lives of Cornelius Nepos,
and the first four books of Cæsar’s _Commentaries_. Ere this course
was perfected, the greater part of Ruddiman’s _Grammatica Minora_, in
Latin, was got by heart. Select passages from Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_,
the _Bucolics_ and the first _Æneid_ of Virgil, concluded the fourth
year; after which the boys were turned over to the rector, by whom
they were instructed for two years more; making the course in all six
years. It must also be understood, that every one of the three masters
besides Mr Fraser pursued the same system, bringing forward a class
from the first elements to the state in which it was fitted for the
attention of the rector; after which he returned once more to take up
a new set of boys in the first class--and so forth for one lustrum
after another, so long as he was connected with the school. If any
teacher could have brought a boy over such a difficulty as that which
attended the commencement of Sir Walter’s career at the High School,
it would have been Mr Fraser; for few of his profession at that time
were more anxious to explain away every obstruction in the path of his
pupils, or took so much pains to ascertain that they were carrying the
understandings of the boys along with them through all the successive
stages. Apparently, however, neither the care of the master nor the
inborn genius of the pupil availed much in this case, for it is said
that the twenty-fifth place was no uncommon situation in the class for
the future author of the Waverley Novels.

After two years of instruction, commenced under these unfavourable
circumstances, Sir Walter, in October 1781, entered the rector’s
class, then taught by Dr Alexander Adam, the author of many excellent
elementary books, and one of the most meritorious and most eminent
teachers that Scotland has ever produced. The authors read by Dr Adam’s
class at this period, and probably during the whole of his career, were
Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, and Terence; but it was not in
reading and translating alone that an education under this eminent man
consisted. Adam, who was an indefatigable student, as the number and
excellence of his works testify, was a complete contrast to Mr Fraser.
The latter hardly ever introduced a single remark but what was intended
to illustrate the _letter_ of the author; whereas Dr Adam commented at
great length upon whatever occurred in the course of reading in the
class, whether it related to antiquities, customs, and manners, or
to history. He was of so communicative a disposition, that whatever
knowledge he had acquired in his private studies, he took the first
opportunity of imparting to his class, paying little regard whether it
was above the comprehension of the greater number of his scholars or
not. He abounded in pleasant anecdote; and while he never neglected
the proper business of his class, it is certain that he inspired a
far higher love of knowledge and of literary history into the minds
of his pupils than any other teacher of his day. At the same time,
he displayed a benevolence of character which won the hearts of his
pupils, and nothing ever gave him so much pleasure as to hear of their
success in after-life. To this venerable person, Sir Walter was always
ready to acknowledge his obligations, and it is not improbable that
much of his literary character was moulded on that of Dr Adam.

As a scholar, nevertheless, the subject of this memoir never became
remarkable for proficiency. There is his own authority for saying,
that, even in the exercise of metrical translation, he fell far
short of some of his companions; although others preserve a somewhat
different recollection, and state that this was a department in which
he always manifested a superiority. It is, however, unquestionable,
that in his exercises he was remarkable, to no inconsiderable extent,
for blundering and incorrectness; his mind apparently not possessing
that aptitude for mastering small details, in which so much of
scholarship, in its earliest stages, consists.

Regarding his school-days, we may introduce an extract from an original
letter on the subject. ‘The following lines were written by Walter
Scott when he was between ten and eleven years of age, and while he was
attending the High School, Edinburgh. His master there had spoken of
him as a remarkably stupid boy, and his mother with grief acknowledged
that they spoke truly. She saw him one morning, in the midst of a
tremendous thunder-storm, standing still in the street, and looking at
the sky. She called to him repeatedly, but he remained looking upwards
without taking the least notice of her. When he returned into the
house, she was very much displeased with him: “Mother,” he said, “I
could tell you the reason why I stood still, and why I looked at the
sky, if you would only give me a pencil.” She gave him one, and, in
less than five minutes, he laid a bit of paper on her lap, with these
words written on it:

   “Loud o’er my head what awful thunders roll,
    What vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole,
    It is thy voice, my God, that bids them fly,
    Thy voice directs them through the vaulted sky;
    Then let the good thy mighty power revere,
    Let hardened sinners thy just judgments fear.”

The old lady repeated them to me herself, and the tears were in her
eyes: for I really believe, simple as they are, that she values these
lines, being the first effusion of her son’s genius, more than any
later beauties which have so charmed all the world besides.’

Before quitting the High School, he, along with his brothers, received
the advantages of some tutorial training under a Mr Mitchell, who
afterwards became a minister connected with the Scotch Church. Previous
to entering the university of Edinburgh, young Walter spent some time
with his aunt at Kelso. Here, in order that he might be kept up in his
classical studies, he attended the grammar-school, at that time under
the rectorship of Mr Lancelot Whale, a worthy man and good scholar,
who possessed traits of character not unlike some of those which have
been depicted in Dominie Sampson. It was while thus residing for a
short time at Kelso, about 1783, that Sir Walter made the acquaintance
of James Ballantyne, then a schoolboy of his own age, with kindred
literary tastes.

Sir Walter’s education being irregular from bad health, he did not
distinguish himself as a scholar, yet often surprised his instructors
by the miscellaneous knowledge which he possessed, and now and then was
acknowledged to display a sense of the beauties of the Latin authors
such as is seldom seen in boys. In the rough amusements which went
on out of school, his spirit enabled him to take a leading share,
notwithstanding his lameness. He would help to man the Cowgate Port
in a snow-ball match, and pass the Kittle Nine Steps on the Castle
Rock with the best of them. In the winter evenings, when out-of-door
exercise was not attractive, he would gather his companions round
him at the fireside, and entertain them with stories, real and
imaginary, of which he seemed to have an endless store. Unluckily, his
classical studies, neglected as they comparatively were, experienced an
interruption from bad health, just as he was beginning to acquire some
sense of their value.

It would, nevertheless, be difficult to say whether Scott was the worse
or the better of the interruptions he experienced in school learning.
He lost a certain kind of knowledge, it is true, but he gained another.
The vacant time at his disposal he gave to general reading. History,
travels, poetry, and prose fiction he devoured without discrimination,
unless it were that he preferred imaginative literature to every
other; and of all imaginative writers, was fondest of such as Spenser,
whose knights and ladies, and dragons and giants, he was never tired
of contemplating. Any passage of a favourite poet which pleased him
particularly was sure to remain on his memory, and thus he was able
to astonish his friends with his poetical recitations. At the same
time, he admits that solidly useful matters had a poor chance of
being remembered. His sober-minded parents and other friends regarded
these acquirements without pride or satisfaction; they marvelled at
the thirst for reading and the powers of memory, but thought it all
to little good purpose, and only excused it in consideration of the
infirm health of the young prodigy. Scott himself lived to lament the
indifference he shewed to that regular mental discipline which is
to be acquired at school. He says in his autobiography: ‘It is with
the deepest regret that I recollect in my manhood the opportunities
of study which I neglected in my youth; through every part of my
literary career, I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance;
and I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the
good-fortune to acquire, if by doing so I could rest the remaining part
upon a solid foundation of learning and science.’

It is the tradition of the family--and the fact is countenanced by this
propensity to tales of chivalric adventure--that Sir Walter wished at
this period of his life to become a soldier. The illness, however,
which had beset his early years rendered this wish bootless, even
although his parents had been inclined to gratify it. His malady had
had the effect of contracting his right leg, so that he could hardly
walk erect, even with the toes of that foot upon the ground. It has
been related by a member of his family that, on this being represented
to him as an insuperable obstacle to his entering the army, he left
the room in an agony of mortified feeling, and was found some time
afterwards suspended by the wrists from his bedroom window, somewhat
after the manner of the unfortunate Knight of the Rueful Countenance,
when beguiled by the treacherous Maritornes at the inn. On being asked
the cause of this strange proceeding, he said he wished to prove to
them that, however unfitted by his limbs for the profession of a
soldier, he was at least strong enough in the arms. He had actually
remained in that uneasy and trying posture for upwards of an hour.

His parents made many efforts to cure his lameness. Edinburgh at this
time boasted of an ingenious mechanist in leather, the first person
who extended the use of that commodity beyond ordinary purposes; on
which account there is an elaborate memoir of him in Dodsley’s _Annual
Register_ for 1793. His name was Gavin Wilson, and, being something of
a humorist, he exhibited a sign-board intended to burlesque the vanity
of his brother-tradesmen--his profession being thus indicated: ‘Leather
leg-maker, _not_ to his Majesty.’ Honest Gavin, on the application of
his parents, did all he could for Sir Walter, but in vain.

An attempt was made about the same time to give him instructions in
music, which used to be a branch of ordinary education in Scotland.
His preceptor was Mr Alexander Campbell, then organist of an Episcopal
chapel in Edinburgh, but known in later life as the editor of _Albyn’s
Anthology_, and author of various other publications. Mr Campbell’s
efforts were entirely in vain: he had to abandon his pupil in a
short time, with the declaration, that he was totally deficient in
that indispensable requisite to a musical education--an _ear_. It
may appear strange, that he who wrote so many musical verses, should
have wanted this natural gift; but there are other cases to shew
that a perception of metrical quantities does not depend on any such
peculiarity. Dr Johnson is a splendid instance. Throughout life, Sir
Walter, however capable of enjoying music, was incapable of producing
two notes consecutively that were either in tune or in time. He used to
be pressed, however, at an annual agricultural dinner, to contribute
his proper quota to the cantations of the evening; on which occasions
he would break forth with the song of _Tarry Woo_, in a strain of
unmusical vehemence, which never failed, on the same principle as Dick
Tinto’s ill-painted sign, to put the company into good-humour.




UNIVERSITY.


Sir Walter was placed in the University of Edinburgh, October 1783.
The usual course at this famed seminary is, for the first year, to
attend the classes of Latin and Greek, to which, during the second,
are added Mathematics and Logic; the third and last year of the course
of a merely liberal education is spent in attending the lectures on
Moral and Natural Philosophy. It would appear that Sir Walter did not
proceed regularly through this academical course. He was matriculated,
or booked, in 1783, at once for the Humanity or Latin class under
Professor Hill, and the Greek class under Professor Dalyell; and for
the latter, once more in 1784. But the only other class for which he
seems to have matriculated at the college was that of Logic, under
Professor Bruce, in 1785. Although he may perhaps have attended
other classes without matriculation, there is reason to believe that
his irregular health produced a corresponding irregularity in his
academical studies. The result, it is to be feared, was, that he
entered life much in the condition of his illustrious prototype, the
Bard of Avon--that is, ‘with a little Latin and less Greek.’

Between his twelfth and fifteenth year, young Scott had a particularly
favourite companion of his own age, John Irvine, the mutual attraction
being a love of fictions of a chivalrous description, furnished by
an eminent circulating library, which had been founded in Edinburgh
by Allan Ramsay, and situated in the High Street, a short way above
the Tron Church, and then belonged to Mr James Sibbald, a person of
literary tastes, who edited the _Edinburgh Magazine_, and a collection
of Scottish poetry. This old-fashioned library, the first of its kind,
passed in time into the hands of Mr Alexander Mackay; and was finally
sold off in 1831. With a volume from this precious repository, the two
youths sometimes adjourned to the picturesque sides of Arthur’s Seat,
where, seated together so as to read from the same page, they revelled
in the adventures of heroes and heroines of romance.

It will thus be observed that Sir Walter’s acquirements in his early
years did not lie nearly so much in ordinary branches of education, as
in a large stock of miscellaneous reading, taken up at the dictation
of his own taste. His thirst for reading is perhaps not described in
sufficiently emphatic terms, even in the above narrative. It amounted
to an enthusiasm. He was at that time very much in the house of his
uncle, Dr Rutherford, at foot of Hyndford’s Close, near the Netherbow,
and there, even at breakfast, he would constantly have a book open by
his side, to refer to while sipping his coffee, like his own Oldbuck
in the _Antiquary_. His uncle frequently commanded him to lay aside
his book while eating, and Sir Walter would only ask permission first
to read out the paragraph in which he was engaged. But no sooner was
one paragraph ended than another was begun, so that the doctor never
could find that his nephew finished a paragraph in his life. It may be
mentioned that Shakspeare was at this period frequently in his hands,
and that, of all the plays, the _Merchant of Venice_ was his principal
favourite.

Another choice companion at this period was young Adam
Ferguson--afterwards known as Sir Adam Ferguson--son of Dr Adam
Ferguson, author of the _History of the Roman Republic_, and who
remained an intimate friend during life. The house of Dr Ferguson was
a villa situated on the east side of a southern suburb of Edinburgh,
called _The Sciennes_, from its proximity to the remains of an ancient
monastery, dedicated to St Catherine of Sienna. Dr Ferguson’s house
is remarkable as that in which young Walter Scott had an opportunity
of being in the company of Robert Burns. Scott had read Burns’s
poetry, and he ardently desired to see the poet. An opportunity was
at length furnished, when Burns, on visiting Edinburgh in 1787, came
by invitation to the residence of Dr Ferguson. Of the meeting, Scott
has communicated an unaffected description to Mr Lockhart. Sir Adam
Ferguson favoured me with some particulars of the visit of Burns to his
father’s house on this occasion.

It was the custom of Dr Ferguson to have a conversazione at his house
in the Sciennes once a week, for his principal literary friends. Dr
Dugald Stewart, on this occasion, offered to bring Burns, a proposal
to which Dr Ferguson readily assented. The poet found himself amongst
the most brilliant literary society which Edinburgh then afforded.
Sir Adam thought that Black, Hutton, and John Home were among those
present. He had himself brought his young friend Walter Scott, as yet
unnoted by his seniors. Burns seemed at first little inclined to mingle
easily in the company; he went about the room, looking at the pictures
on the walls. The print described by Scott, from a painting by Bunbury,
attracted his attention. It represented a sad picture of the effects
of war: a soldier lying stretched dead on the snow, his dog sitting in
misery on one side, while on the other sat his widow, nursing a child
in her arms. The print was plain, yet touching; beneath were written
the following lines, which Burns read aloud:

   ‘Cold on Canadian hills or Minden’s plain,
    Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain;
    Bent o’er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
    The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
    Gave the sad presage of his future years,
    The child of misery baptised in tears.’

Before getting to the end of the lines, Burns’s voice faltered, and
his big black eye filled with tears. A little after, he turned with
much interest to the company, pointed to the picture, and, with some
eagerness, asked if any one could tell him who had written these
affecting lines. The philosophers were silent--no one knew; but, after
a decent interval, the pale lame boy near by said in a negligent
manner: ‘They’re written by one Langhorne.’ An explanation of the place
where they occur (poem of _The Country Justice_) followed, and Burns
fixed a look of half-serious interest on the youth, while he said:
‘You’ll be a man yet, sir.’ Scott may be said to have derived literary
ordination from Burns. Somewhat oddly, the name Langhorne is quoted
at the bottom of the lines, but in so small a character that the poet
might well fail to read it.[1]




PROFESSION.


About his sixteenth year, Sir Walter’s health experienced a sudden
but most decisive change for the better. Though his lameness remained
the same, his body became tall and robust, and he was thus enabled
to apply himself with the necessary degree of energy to his studies
for the bar. At the same time that he attended the Lectures of
Professor Dick on Civil Law in the college, he performed the duties of
a writer’s apprentice under his father; that being the most approved
method by which a barrister could acquire a technical knowledge of his
profession, though it has never been uniformly practised.

Respect for his parents and for the common duties of life, was always a
strong feeling in Scott; he therefore applied himself without a murmur
to the desk in his father’s office, though he acknowledges that the
recess beneath was generally stuffed with his favourite books, from
which, at intervals, he would ‘snatch a fearful joy.’ He even made his
diligence in copying law-papers a means of gratifying his intellectual
passions, often writing an unusual quantity, that with the result he
might purchase some book or object of virtù which he wished to possess.
It should be mentioned that the little room assigned to him on the
kitchen-floor of his father’s house in George Square was already made
a kind of museum by his taste for curiosities, especially those of an
antiquarian nature. He never was heard to grudge the years he had spent
in his father’s painstaking business; on the contrary, he recollected
them with pleasure, for it was always a matter of pride with him to be
a man of business as well as a man of letters. The discipline of the
office gave him a number of little technical habits, which he never
afterwards lost. He was, for instance, much of a formalist in the
folding and disposal of papers. The writer of this narrative recollects
folding a paper in a wrong fashion in his presence, when he instantly
undid it, and shewed, with a school-masterlike nicety, but with great
good-humour, the proper way to perform this little piece of business.

While advancing to manhood, and during its first few years, Scott,
besides keeping up his desultory system of reading, attended the
meetings of a literary society composed of such youths as himself. A
selection of these and of his early schoolfellows, became his ordinary
companions. Amongst them was William Clerk, son of Mr Clerk of Eldin,
and afterwards a distinguished member of the Scottish bar. It was
the pleasure of this group of young men to take frequent rambles in
the country, visiting any ancient castle or other remarkable object
within their reach. Scott, notwithstanding his limp, walked as stoutly,
and sustained fatigue as well, as any of them. Sometimes they would,
according to the general habits of those days, resort to taverns for
oysters and punch. Scott entered into such indulgences without losing
self-control; but he lived to think this ill-spent time. As to other
follies equally besetting to youth, it is admitted by all his early
friends that he was in a singular degree pure and blameless. His genial
good-humour made him a favourite with his young friends, and they could
not deny his possessing much out-of-the-way knowledge; yet it does not
appear that they saw in him any intellectual superiority, or reason to
expect the brilliant destiny which awaited him. The tendency of all
testimony from those who knew him at this time is rather to set him
down as one from whom nothing extraordinary was to be looked for in
mature manhood.

We can easily see the grounds of this opinion. Scott had not been
a good scholar. He shewed none of the peculiarities of the young
sonneteer, for poetry was not yet developed in his nature. Any
advantage he possessed over others of his own standing lay in a kind
of learning which seemed useless. It is not, then, surprising that he
ranked only with ordinary youths, or perhaps a little below them. It
is asserted, however, by James Ballantyne, that there was a certain
firmness of understanding in Scott, which enabled him to acquire
an ascendency over some of his companions; giving him the power of
allaying their quarrels by a few words, and disposing them to submit
to him on many other occasions. Still, this must have looked like a
quality of the common world, and especially unconnected with literary
genius.

When Scott’s apprenticeship expired, the father was willing to
introduce him at once into a business which would have yielded a
tolerable income; but the youth, stirred by ambition, preferred
advancing to the bar, for which his service in a writer’s office was
the reverse of a disqualification. Having therefore passed through the
usual studies, he was admitted of the Faculty of Advocates, July 1792.
This is a profession in which a young man usually spends a few years to
little purpose, unless peculiar advantages in the way of patronage help
him on. Scott does not appear to have done more for some sessions than
pass creditably enough through certain routine duties which his father
and others imposed upon him, and for which only moderate remuneration
was made. He wanted the ready fluent address which is required for
pleading, and his knowledge of law was not such as to attract business
to him as a consulting counsel. While lingering out the first few idle
years of professional life, he studied the German language and some
of its modern writers. He also continued the same kind of antiquarian
reading for which he had already become remarkable.

Amongst other things giving a character to his mind, were certain
annual journeys he made into the pastoral district of Liddesdale,
where the castles of the old Border chiefs, and the legends of their
exploits, were still rife. On these occasions, he was accompanied by an
intelligent friend, Mr Robert Shortreed, long after sheriff-substitute
at Jedburgh. No inns, and hardly any roads, were then in Liddesdale.
The farmers were a simple race, knowing nothing of the outward world.
So much was this the case, that one honest fellow, at whose house the
travellers alighted to spend a night, was actually frightened at the
idea of meeting an Edinburgh advocate. Willie o’ Milburn, as this hero
was called, at length took a careful survey of Scott round a corner of
the stable, and getting somewhat reassured from the sight, said to Mr
Shortreed: ‘Weel, de’il ha’e me if I’s be a bit feared for him now;
he’s just a chield like ourselves, I think.’ On these excursions, Scott
took down from old people anecdotes of the old rough times, and copies
of the ballads in which the adventures of the Elliots and Armstrongs
were recorded. Thus were laid the foundations of the collection which
became in time the _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_. The friendship
of Mr Edmonstone of Newton led him, in like manner, to visit those
districts of Stirlingshire and lower Perthshire where he afterwards
localised his _Lady of the Lake_. There he learned much of the more
recent rough times of the Highlands, and even conversed with one
gentleman who had had to do with Rob Roy. These things constituted the
real education of Scott’s mind, as far as his character as a literary
man is concerned.




POLITICAL OPINIONS--SOLDIERING.


From his earliest years, Sir Walter’s political leanings were towards
Conservatism, or that principle which disposes men to wish for the
preservation of existing institutions, and the continuance of power
in the hands which have heretofore possessed it. ‘As for politics,’
says Shenstone in his Letters, ‘I think poets are Tories by nature,
supposing them to be by nature poets. The love of an individual
person or family that has worn a crown for many successions, is an
inclination greatly adapted to the fanciful tribe. On the other
hand, mathematicians, abstract reasoners, of no manner of attachment
to persons, at least to the visible part of them, but prodigiously
devoted to the ideas of virtue, liberty, and so forth, are generally
Whigs.’ There is much in this passage that hits the particular case of
Sir Walter Scott. But moods of political feeling are not confined to
individuals--they sometimes become nearly general over entire nations.
At the time when Sir Walter entered public life, almost all the
respectable part of the community were replete with a Tory species of
feeling in behalf of the British constitution, as threatened by France;
and numerous bodies of volunteer militia were consequently formed, for
the purpose of local defence against invasion from that country. In the
beginning of the year 1797, it was judged necessary by the gentlemen
of Mid-Lothian to imitate the example already set by several counties,
by embodying themselves in a cavalry corps. This association assumed
the name of the Royal Mid-Lothian Regiment of Cavalry; and Mr Walter
Scott had the honour to be appointed its adjutant, for which office
his lameness was considered no bar, especially as he happened to be a
remarkably graceful equestrian. He was a signally zealous officer, and
very popular in the regiment, on account of his extreme good-humour and
powers of social entertainment. His appointment partly resulted from,
and partly led to, an intimacy with the most considerable man of his
name, Henry, Duke of Buccleuch, who had taken a great interest in the
embodying of the corps. It was also perhaps the means, to a certain
extent, of making him known to Mr Henry Dundas, who was now one of His
Majesty’s Secretaries of State, and a lively promoter of the scheme of
national defence in Scotland. Adjutant Scott composed a war-song, as he
called it, for the Mid-Lothian Cavalry, which he afterwards published
in the _Border Minstrelsy_. It is an animated poem, and might, as a
person is _now_ apt to suppose, have commanded attention, by whomsoever
written, or wherever presented to notice. Yet, to shew how apt men
are to judge of literary compositions upon general principles, and
not with a direct reference to the particular merits of the article,
it may be mentioned that the war-song was only a subject of ridicule
to many individuals of the troop. The individual, in particular, who
communicated this information, remembered a large party of the officers
dining together at Musselburgh, where the chief amusement, at a certain
period of the night, was to repeat the initial line, ‘To horse, to
horse!’ with burlesque expression, and laugh at ‘this attempt of
Scott’s’ as a piece of supreme absurdity.




[VISIT TO PEEBLESSHIRE.


In the autumn of 1797, Walter Scott, accompanied by his brother John,
and Adam Ferguson, made an excursion to the borders of Cumberland,
taking in their way the mansion of Hallyards, in the parish of Manor,
Peeblesshire, where Dr Adam Ferguson was now temporarily settled with
his family. Here Scott resided for a few days, visiting Barns and other
places in the neighbourhood. In a small cottage on the property of
Woodhouse resided a poor and singular recluse, dwarfed and decrepit, by
name David Ritchie, who was visited as one of the curiosities of the
district; and it was doubtless on this occasion that Scott received
those impressions which afterwards figured in the character of the
‘Black Dwarf.’

Ritchie, with all his oddities, had a deep veneration for learning;
and as he was told that Scott was a young advocate, he invested him
with extraordinary interest. Ferguson gave an amusing account of the
interview. He and his companion were accommodated with seats in the
lowly and dingy hut. After grinning upon Scott for a moment with
a smile less bitter than his wont, the dwarf passed to the door,
double-locked it, and then, coming up to the stranger, seized him by
the wrist with one of his hands, and said: ‘Man, hae ye ony poo’er?’
By this he meant magical power, to which he had himself some vague
pretensions, or which, at least, he had studied and reflected upon
till it had become with him a kind of monomania. Scott disavowed
the possession of any gifts of this kind, evidently to the great
disappointment of the inquirer, who then turned round and gave a signal
to a huge black cat, hitherto unobserved, which immediately jumped
up to a shelf, where it perched itself, and seemed to the excited
senses of the visitors as if it had really been the familiar spirit
of the mansion. ‘_He_ has poo’er,’ said the dwarf, in a voice which
made the flesh of the hearers thrill, and Scott, in particular, looked
as if he conceived himself to have actually got into the den of one
of those magicians with whom his studies had rendered him familiar.
‘Ay, he has poo’er,’ repeated the recluse, and then going to his usual
seat, he sat for some minutes grinning horribly, as if enjoying the
impression he had made; while not a word escaped from any of the party.
Mr Ferguson at length plucked up his spirits, and called to David to
open the door, as they must now be going. The dwarf slowly obeyed; and
when they had got out, Mr Ferguson observed that his friend was as
pale as ashes, while his person was agitated in every limb. Under such
striking circumstances was this extraordinary being first presented to
the _real_ magician, who was afterwards to give him such a deathless
celebrity.

Before quitting the district, Scott had an opportunity of visiting the
old inn and posting establishment of Miss Ritchie in Peebles, then, and
for ten or twelve years later, the principal place of accommodation for
travellers. Miss Ritchie, an elderly lady, was somewhat of an original
in manner, and there can be little doubt that her peculiarities
furnished such recollections as were afterwards matured in the
character of ‘Meg Dods of the Cleikum Inn, St Ronans.’ Proceeding
southwards, the tourists at length reached Carlisle, and extended their
excursion to Penrith and other places of interest in Cumberland, where
an incident occurred that requires more than a casual notice.]




MARRIAGE.


Two children, a boy and girl, named Charpentier, of French parentage,
fell by circumstances under the guardianship of the Marquis of
Downshire. In time, the boy received a lucrative appointment in
India; on his naturalisation as a British subject, changing his
name to Carpenter. Miss Carpenter was placed under the charge of a
governess, Miss Nicholson, and, requiring a change of scene, was,
through the kindness of Lord Downshire, sent with her governess to
Cumberland, where she was to live in such pleasant rural spot as might
be found by the Rev. Mr Burd, Dean of Carlisle. The two ladies arrived
unexpectedly, when Mrs Burd was setting out for the sake of her health
to Gilsland. This was at the end of the month of August or beginning of
September 1797.

Having duly arrived at Gilsland, which is situated near the borders of
Scotland, they took up their residence at the inn, where, according to
the custom of such places, they were placed, as the latest guests, at
the bottom of the table. It chanced that three young Scottish gentlemen
had arrived the same afternoon, and being also placed at the bottom of
the table, one of them happened accidentally to come into close contact
with the party of Mr Burd. Enough of conversation took place during
dinner to let the latter individuals understand that the gentleman was
a Scotchman, and this was in itself the cause of the acquaintance being
protracted. Mrs Burd was intimate with a Scotch military gentleman,
a Major Riddell, whose regiment was then in Scotland; and as there
had been a collision between the military and the people at Tranent,
on account of the Militia Act, she was anxious to know if her friend
had been among those present, or if he had received any hurt. After
dinner, therefore, as they were rising from table, Mrs Burd requested
her husband to ask the Scotch gentleman if he knew anything of the
late riots, and particularly if a Major Riddell had been concerned in
suppressing them. On these questions being put, it was found that the
stranger knew Major Riddell intimately, and he was able to assure them,
in very courteous terms, that his friend was quite well. From a desire
to prolong the conversation on this point, the Burds invited their
informant to drink tea with them in their own room, to which he very
readily consented, notwithstanding that he had previously ordered his
horse to be brought to the door in order to proceed upon his journey.
At tea, their common acquaintance with Major Riddell furnished much
pleasant conversation, and the parties became so agreeable to each
other, that, in a subsequent walk to the Wells, the stranger still
accompanied Mr Burd’s party. He had now ordered his horse back to
the stable, and talked no more of continuing his journey. It may be
easily imagined that a desire of discussing the major was not _now_ the
sole bond of union between the parties. Mr Scott--for so he gave his
name--had been impressed, during the earlier part of the evening, with
the elegant and fascinating appearance of Miss Carpenter, and it was
on her account that he was lingering at Gilsland. Of this young lady,
it will be observed, he could have previously known nothing: she was
hardly known even to the respectable persons under whose protection she
appeared to be living. She was simply a lovely woman, and a young poet
was struck with her charms.

Next day Mr Scott was still found at the Wells--and the next--and
the next--in short, every day for a fortnight. He was as much in the
company of Mr Burd and his family as the equivocal foundation of their
acquaintance would allow; and by affecting an intention of speedily
visiting the Lakes, he even contrived to obtain an invitation to the
dean’s country house in that part of England. In the course of this
fortnight, the impression made upon his heart by the young Frenchwoman
was gradually deepened; and it is not improbable that the effect was
already in some degree reciprocal. He only tore himself away, in
consequence of a call to attend certain imperative matters of business
at Edinburgh.

It was not long ere he made his appearance at Mr Burd’s house, where,
though the dean had only contemplated a passing visit, as from a
tourist, he contrived to enjoy another fortnight of Miss Carpenter’s
society. In order to give a plausible appearance to his intercourse
with the young lady, he was perpetually talking to her in French, for
the ostensible purpose of perfecting his pronunciation of that language
under the instructions of one to whom it was a vernacular. Though
delighted with the lively conversation of the young Scotchman, Mr and
Mrs Burd could not now help feeling uneasy about his proceedings, being
apprehensive as to the construction which Lord Downshire would put upon
them, as well as upon their own conduct in admitting a person of whom
they knew so little to the acquaintance of his ward. Miss Nicholson’s
sentiments were, if possible, of a still more painful kind, as, indeed,
her responsibility was more onerous and delicate. In this dilemma, it
was resolved by Mrs Burd to write to a friend in Edinburgh, in order
to learn something of the character and status of their guest. The
answer returned was to the effect that Mr Scott was a respectable young
man, and rising at the bar. It chanced at the same time that one of Mr
Scott’s female friends, who did not, however, entertain this respectful
notion of him, hearing of some love adventure in which he had been
entangled at Gilsland, wrote to this very Mrs Burd, with whom she was
acquainted, inquiring if she had heard of such a thing, and ‘what kind
of a young lady was it, who was going to take Watty Scott?’ The poet
soon after found means to conciliate Lord Downshire to his views in
reference to Miss Carpenter, and the marriage took place at Carlisle
within four months of the first acquaintance of the parties. The match,
made up under such extraordinary circumstances, was a happy one; a kind
and gentle nature resided in the bosoms of both parties, and they lived
accordingly in the utmost peace and amity.

Scott now commenced house-keeping in Edinburgh, where he had hitherto
lived in the paternal mansion. We now see him as a young married man,
spending the winter in the bosom of a frugal but elegant society in
Edinburgh, and the summer months in a retired cottage on the beautiful
banks of the Esk at Lasswade; cultivating, as before, literary tastes,
and storing his mind with his favourite kind of learning, but not as
yet conscious of his active literary powers, or thinking of aught but
the duties of his profession and the claims of his little family. As
an advocate, he had perhaps some little employment at the provincial
sittings of the criminal court, and occasionally acted in unimportant
causes as a junior counsel; but he neither obtained, nor seemed
qualified to obtain, a sufficient share of general business to insure
an independence. The truth is, his mind was not yet emancipated from
that enthusiastic pursuit of knowledge which had distinguished his
youth. His necessities, with only himself to provide for, and a sure
retreat behind him in the comfortable circumstances of his native
home, were not so great as to make an exclusive application to his
profession imperative; and he therefore seemed destined to join what a
sarcastic barrister has termed ‘the ranks of the gentlemen who are not
anxious for business.’ Although he could speak readily and fluently at
the bar, his intellect was not at all of a forensic cast. He appeared
to be too much of the abstract and unworldly scholar, to assume
readily the habits of an adroit pleader; and even although he had been
perfectly competent to the duties, it is a question if his external
aspect and general reputation would have permitted the generality of
agents to intrust them to his hands. Nevertheless, on more than one
occasion, he made a considerable impression on his hearers. Once,
in particular, when acting as counsel for a culprit before the High
Court of Justiciary, he exerted such powers of persuasive oratory as
excited the admiration of the court. It happened that there was some
informality in the verdict of the jury, which at that time was always
given in writing. This afforded a still more favourable opportunity for
displaying his rhetorical powers than what had occurred in the course
of the trial, and the sensation which he produced was long remembered
by those who witnessed it. The panel, as the accused person is termed
in Scotland, was acquitted.

Simple and manly in habits, good-humoured, and averse to disputation,
full of delightful information, kind and obliging to all who came near
him, yet possessed of a rectitude and solidity of understanding which
never allowed him to be the fool of any of his feelings, it is no
wonder that Walter Scott was a general favourite, or that he attracted
the regard of several persons of rank, as the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord
Melville, and others. It was through the kindness of the first of these
noblemen that, in 1799, he obtained the appointment of sheriff of
Selkirkshire, an office of light duty, with a salary of £300 per annum.
In the same year, Scott lost his father, who died in his 70th year,
after a long period of suffering.




POEMS.


It was not Scott’s destiny to attain distinction as a lawyer. While
never neglecting his professional duties, his mind had its main bent
towards literature. Having learned German, he translated and published
a version of Goethe’s _Goetz von Berlichingen_, a drama of such a
romantic cast as harmonised entirely with his peculiar taste. He also
was induced, by Mr M. G. Lewis, the well-known author of _The Monk_,
to write two or three ballads on supernatural themes for a collection
which was to be entitled _Tales of Wonder_. _Goetz_ appeared in
February 1799, but met the fate of the former publication. When the
_Tales of Wonder_ came out, Scott’s ballads, though unfortunate in
their association, obtained some praise, yet, on the whole, might also
be considered as a failure. These would have been disappointments to a
man who had set his heart on literary reputation. To Scott, who was at
all periods of his career humble-minded about his literary efforts,
they were nothing of the kind. In this respect, he was a pattern to all
authors, present and to come.

The circumstances seem to have been almost accidental which led
him to make his first serious adventure in the literary world. His
schoolfellow, James Ballantyne, was now settled at Kelso in the
management of a weekly newspaper. Merely to give employment to his
friend’s types during the intervals of their ordinary use, Scott
proposed to print a small collection of the old ballads which for
some years he had been collecting on the Border. When the design was
formed, he set about preparing the work, for which he soon obtained
some assistance from Richard Heber and John Leyden--the former an
Englishman of fortune, and an enthusiastic collector of books; the
latter a Scottish peasant’s son, who had studied for the church, and
become a marvel of learning, especially in languages and antiquities.
The _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ thus grew upon his hands,
until it became such an assemblage of ballads, ancient and modern,
and of historical annotation, as could only be contained in three
octavo volumes. The first two made their appearance in January 1802,
and met a favourable reception. Many of the ballads were entirely
new to the world; even those which had been published before, here
appeared in superior versions. Industry in the collection of copies,
and taste in the selection of readings, had enabled the editor to
present this branch of popular literature with attractions it never
possessed before; while the graceful and intelligent prose interspersed
throughout, rich with curious learning, and enlivened by many a
pleasant traditionary anecdote, served to constitute the whole as a
most agreeable mélange. The work gave Scott at once a respectable
place in the literary republic, more indeed as an editor than as an
author, though one would suppose few could be altogether insensible
to the spirit and graphic power displayed in the ballads of his own
composition.

The public generally, and the booksellers in particular, were agreeably
surprised to find the _Minstrelsy_, while bearing the unwonted imprint
of ‘Kelso,’ a marvel of beautiful typography; a circumstance owing to
the good taste of James Ballantyne, and which was of some avail in
increasing the popularity of the work. It appears that Scott, besides
some gains from the first edition, obtained soon after £500 for the
copyright.

About this time he inherited between five and six thousand pounds
from a paternal uncle. This, with his share of his deceased father’s
property, his sheriffship, and his wife’s allowance from her brother,
now advancing to fortune in India, made his income altogether about a
thousand a year. He had been ten years at the bar with little success;
his gains seldom reaching two hundred a year, and these from the merest
drudgeries of the profession. It began, therefore, to appear to him
that, in as far as any further income might be required to support his
station in life, and advance the prospects of his children, it would be
well to look for it rather to some post in the Court of Session, such
as one of the principal clerkships, than to practice as a barrister.
Assured in the meantime against want, and trusting to such a prospect
being realisable by his friends the Buccleuchs and Melvilles, he
gradually became disposed to give more of his regards to literature.
As to income from this source, he had little hope or faith. Literary
research and composition were as yet their own reward with him; if
any more solid remuneration accrued, he was happy to receive it; but
he would not depend on such gains. Let literature, he said, be at the
utmost a staff--not a crutch. It was natural for a prudent man of the
world to form these ideas at that time, when literary biography was
little besides a record of privation and sorrow. But it would have,
nevertheless, been well for Scott if he had been content with his
secured income, and the prospect of only such contingent additions to
it as a fixed post or the profits of literature might hold out. To his
over-anxious mind, when the temptation came, it appeared different, as
we shall presently see.

It was about the time when the _Minstrelsy_ was issuing from the press,
that Scott was asked by the lovely and amiable Countess of Dalkeith
to write a ballad upon a traditionary goblin story respecting the
Buccleuch family. He commenced such a composition accordingly, adopting
for its measure that of a recent poem of Coleridge; but it grew upon
his hands far beyond ballad size. It became, in short, a long romantic
narrative, divided into cantos, and _set_ in a subordinate narrative,
wherein the author represented it as a recitation by the last survivor
of the fraternity of minstrels. This was published in January 1805, as
_The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, and at once placed Scott in the first
rank as an original poet, besides determining his fate as henceforth
chiefly that of a man of letters. Immediately on the first edition
proving successful, the publishers gave £600 for the copyright.

Before this time, Mr Ballantyne had set up a printing-office in
Edinburgh, partly by the assistance of a loan from his old friend.
Getting rapidly into a considerable business, which his skill and
taste amply justified, he came to require additional capital, and
Scott at length agreed to advance the needful sum, on condition of his
being made a partner, but a secret one, in the concern. His dread of
dependence on literary gains seems to have blinded him to the fact,
that mercantile gains are also precarious, and usually attended by
risks.

By the interest of his titled friends, he soon after obtained an
appointment to the duties of a clerkship in the Court of Session;
the salary, however, which afterwards was fixed at £1300 a year, was
not to be realised till the death of a superannuated predecessor in
office, and, in fact, Scott touched nothing of it till 1812. With
such an addition to his solid prospects, one cannot but wonder at the
eagerness and assiduity with which he commenced and pursued literary
labours of a severely tasking kind; such as an edition of the works
of Dryden, a publication of Sadler’s State Papers, and a reprint of
Somers’s collection of Tracts. It seems as if a naturally ambitious
and ardent spirit had at length found a vent for its energies, and
felt a self-rewarding pleasure in their exercise. At the same time, he
gave much of his time to volunteer soldiering, to politics, and to the
affairs of literary men less fortunate than himself. The recollections
of his friends present a charming picture of his ordinary life at
his summer retreat of Ashestiel on the Tweed, where he had found it
necessary to establish himself on account of his duties as sheriff of
Selkirkshire. His household, enlivened by four healthy children, and
superintended by Mrs Scott, was marked by simple elegance. On Sundays,
being far from church, he read prayers and a sermon to his family;
then, if the weather was good, he would walk with them, servants
and all, to some favourite spot at a convenient distance, and dine
with them in the open air. Frequent excursions on horseback, and
coursing-matches, varied the tenor of common domestic life. Friends
coming to pay visits found him in constant good-humour, and at all
times willing to introduce them to the fine scenery and interesting
antiquities of the district. In the evenings, his conversation, in
which stories and anecdotes formed a large part, was a sure resource
against ennui. As a husband and father, he was most kind and indulgent.
His children had access to his room at all times; and when they
came--unconscious of the nature of his studies--and asked for a story,
he would take them on his knee, repeat a tale or a ballad, kiss them,
and then set them down again to their sports, never apparently feeling
the least annoyance at the interruption. His dogs, of which he always
had two or three, were even more privileged, for he kept his window
open in nearly all weathers, that they might leap out and in as they
pleased.

These were the happiest days of Scott’s life, when as yet in the
enjoyment of full vigour of body and mind, rather acquiring than
reposing upon fame, and unembarrassed by possessions and dignities
which afterwards made his position false and dangerous. He occasionally
visited London, and allowed himself to go through that kind of
exhibition called _lionising_, to which everything famous, or even
notorious, is liable to be subjected in the metropolis; but he never
was in the slightest degree spoiled by such idolatry. He fully shewed
that he estimated it at its real worth, and, after good-naturedly
submitting to it, could laugh at its absurdity. It is less pleasant
to record a change in his arrangements for study which took place
about this time. Finding the day apt to be broken in upon by little
duties and by visitors, he adopted the habit of rising and commencing
his literary toils at six in the morning, usually finishing them at
twelve, after the interruption of breakfast at ten. His biographer, Mr
Lockhart, tells us how careful he was to dress neatly before sitting
down, but he says nothing of his preparing for the duty before him by
taking food. We have come to understand such things better now, and can
easily see what fatal effects might arise in a few years from a habit
of performing the principal duties of life with an exhausted system.

The year 1808 saw his poetical reputation brought to its zenith by the
publication of the admirable romantic tale of _Marmion_, for which, to
the astonishment of the public, Mr Constable undertook beforehand to
pay a thousand guineas. Not long after, his zeal in Tory politics, or,
as he thought it, solicitude for the honour and safety of his country,
then harassed by the Bonaparte wars, led to his quarrelling with this
eminent publisher, and to his taking an interest in the establishment
of the _Quarterly_, as an opposition to the _Edinburgh Review_. It
would have been well if he had stopped here; but the same feelings,
helped, perhaps, by that trafficking spirit which had entered into him
since he lost hopes at the bar, induced the false step of his setting
up a publishing-house in Edinburgh, under the _firm_ of John Ballantyne
and Company, the ostensible manager being a younger brother of the
printer, a clever comical being, not overstocked with worldly prudence,
and possessed of few qualifications for business beyond a knowledge of
accounts.

From this house issued, in May 1810, his most pleasing poem, the _Lady
of the Lake_, which experienced even greater popularity than either
of its two predecessors, and might, if anything could, have made its
author a vain man. In this and his two preceding poems, the chief charm
lay in the vividness with which the author brought the past before the
minds of his readers. He gave the grace, the dignity, the gallantry
of old times, free from all their rudeness and grossness. All was
done, too, in such an easy and fluent style, that the reader was never
wearied. The singular fascination of these writings shewed itself in
numberless ways; for one thing, there was a rush of tourists to the
scene of the _Lady of the Lake_, so great, as to produce a marked
rise of the amount of post-horse duty raised in Scotland. Scott’s
own firm, in connection with another, undertook to pay two thousand
guineas for the _Lady of the Lake_, a fact in authorship at that time
without anything approaching to a parallel. Meanwhile, he was urging
into print, as a publisher, an _Annual Register_ (to commence with the
year 1808); an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, under the care of a
drudging German of the name of Weber; a huge quarto, under the title
of _Tixall Poetry_; an edition of Defoe’s novels; the _Secret Memoirs
of the Court of James I._; and some other books agreeable to his own
taste, but hardly to that of the public.

These huge indigestible masses of paper and print had brought his
outlay in the printing and publishing concerns up to £9000 before
the end of this year. Scarcely ever did the most thoughtless of the
tuneful tribe make a more unfortunate adventure than this publishing
affair was destined to prove itself. If Scott had instituted some safe
and modest copartnery, to give himself the publishing profits of his
own writings, diminished only by expenses and the small profits due
to his acting associates, he would have been doing what perhaps it
will yet be seen all authors of decided popularity may rightly do. But
he had an antiquarian taste, and a disposition to over-estimate all
literary productions save his own--he indulged these tendencies in his
firm of John Ballantyne and Company, and unavoidably became a great
loser. Before it was fully seen that such was to be his fate as a man
of business--namely, in the summer of 1811--he had thought so well of
his means and prospects--the clerkship salary being now on the eve of
realisation--as to resolve on purchasing a hundred acres of land on
Tweedside, in order to build a cottage residence for himself, and this
notwithstanding that the £4000 requisite in the very first place had to
be borrowed, the one half as a permanent burden on the property. Such
was the origin of his estate of Abbotsford, where ultimately he reared
a castle. The purchase would have been perfectly a right one, if he had
not involved his superfluous fortune in business: as things actually
stood, it was only preparing for himself needless embarrassments.

His removal to the little estate which he had purchased took place
in May 1812, and he soon became involved in the pleasant but costly
labours attendant on building, planting, and what is called _making
a place_. At the same time, besides attending to other literary
avocations, he was composing a fourth romance in verse, which appeared
just before the close of the year under the title of _Rokeby_, but in
point of popularity proved a comparative failure. Ere this time, the
concerns of John Ballantyne and Company were seriously embarrassed,
insomuch that Scott was glad to accept of a little credit from his
friend Mr Morritt of Rokeby Park. The difficulties had only increased
during the early months of 1813, and it then became necessary for
those who had begun in rivalry to Mr Constable, to resort to that
publisher for his friendly aid. To give an idea of the fatality of the
whole adventure, it appears that the single publication of _Tixall
Poetry_, which proved a dead failure, involved an outlay of £2500,
while the _Edinburgh Annual Register_ was attended by an annual loss
of £1000. At the same time, all the parties concerned were living in a
style rather suited to their hopes than to their realised profits. To
sustain so severe a drainage, the private fortune of Scott, and even
his unprecedented literary gains, were inadequate. Fortunately, the
hope of regaining the author of _Marmion_ as an adherent of his house,
induced Mr Constable to grant relief to some extent by the purchase
of stock, trusting that the rival house would as soon as possible be
extinguished. The Duke of Buccleuch also extended the favour of his
credit for the sum of £4000, by means of which, and of further sales
of stock to other publishers, the principal difficulties were passed,
though not without the most serious vexation to Scott for the greater
part of a year. In the midst of his worst perplexities, he resigned an
offer of the laureateship to Mr Southey, and was liberal as usual to
unfortunate men of letters, sending, for one thing, fifty pounds to Mr
Maturin, the Irish novelist.




WAVERLEY NOVELS.


Scott had, so early as 1805, commenced a prose fiction on the manners
of the Highlanders, which he designated _Waverley, or, ’Tis Sixty
Years Since_. Discouraged by the unfavourable opinion of his friends
regarding the first few chapters, he threw aside the manuscript, which
lay accordingly unthought of in an old desk for nine years. Happening
to find it while rummaging for fishing-tackle, he bethought him of
completing the story, and seriously trying his fortune in a new walk of
literature. Three weeks of June 1814 enabled him to add the second and
third volumes, and the tale appeared anonymously in the ensuing month.
The public almost immediately appreciated its merits, and the first
edition of a thousand copies meeting with a quick sale, was speedily
followed by a second and a third. The lifelike representation here
given of times not too remote for sympathy, and yet sufficiently so in
character to tell as eminently romantic, joined to the wonderful ease,
spirit, and mingled humour and pathos of the narrative, gave _Waverley_
at once a place far above all contemporary novels, and awakened great
curiosity regarding the unknown author.

Always unconcerned about the fate of his works, Scott immediately set
out on a six weeks’ yachting excursion round the north of Scotland,
with hardly a chance of hearing news from the world of letters
during that time. The excursion was performed in company with the
Commissioners of Northern Light-houses, of whom he was the guest. As
yet, the Commissioners had no steam-vessel for their annual trips,
but used a sailing yacht, provided with arms for defence, in case of
attack, against French privateers or other marauders. Sailing from
Leith on the 29th July 1814, the party first visited the Isle of May,
and thence proceeded northward. In passing, they landed on the Bell
Rock, and inspected the recently erected light-house on that dangerous
reef. In the album of the keepers, it is customary for visitors
to inscribe their name, along with any passing remark. Sir Walter
inscribed the following impromptu lines:


                           ‘PHAROS LOQUITUR.

    Far on the bosom of the deep,
    O’er these wild shelves my watch I keep;
    A ruddy gem of changeful light,
    Bound on the dusky brow of night:
    The seaman bids my lustre hail,
    And scorns to strike his timorous sail.’

It was in this northern maritime excursion that Sir Walter visited
Shetland, and stored his mind with those materials which afterwards
were so charmingly developed in the romance of the _Pirate_.

The secrecy which was maintained regarding the authorship of _Waverley_
and the succeeding novels, helped to give them a certain piquancy,
independently of their intrinsic merits. At the same time, many
reflecting persons were at no loss to see that only the same mind which
had reproduced the times of the Jameses in _Marmion_ and the _Lady of
the Lake_, could have resuscitated the court and camp of the Chevalier
in 1745; but with the mass of the public the mystery was successful.
Some thought it most likely that Scott’s brother, Thomas, had produced
this romance; there were even some who attributed it to Mr Jeffrey.
Of Thomas he had himself so high an opinion, that he about this time
offered him money from his own pocket for any novel he might produce.
But the opinion of Walter Scott regarding the literary powers of his
contemporaries was of absolutely not the least value, in consequence
of the peculiar generosity of his nature. Thomas Scott and many others
whom he stimulated, and helped to become authors, were in the eyes of
the world very ordinary persons, and can only be remembered because
they were the objects of this great man’s love and esteem.

The success of _Waverley_, and the necessity of money to relieve the
Ballantyne concern, quickly urged Scott to a new effort in the same
walk. During the short vacation at the Christmas of this year (1814),
he produced his tale of _Guy Mannering_, which, being published in
the ensuing February, was received with transports of delight (more
sober language would be quite inappropriate) by both the Scottish
and English public. The author had, only a month before, brought
out his last great poem, _The Lord of the Isles_, which met with a
reception so cool as to convince him that he must now resign the top
of the poetical walk to his young rival, Lord Byron. He heard the
report of the public decision on this point from James Ballantyne, was
disconcerted for a few minutes, and then, recovering his usual spirits,
tranquilly resumed the writing of his novel. How much it would tell to
the happiness of literary men in general, if they had but a tithe of
the equanimity of Scott about the success of their exertions! In the
summer of this memorable year he visited the field of Waterloo, and
wrote on that subject a descriptive work, entitled _Paul’s Letters to
his Kinsfolk_, and also a poem, which proved a failure in respect of
popular approbation. The results of these various labours, with his
professional income, not only set him free of the immediate pressure
of the publishing encumbrances, but enabled him to add somewhat to his
domains on Tweedside. This year was also memorable to him as that
which introduced him to the personal notice of the Prince Regent, who,
after greatly enjoying his society at Carlton House, sent him a present
of a gold snuff-box set in brilliants.

Scott was now at ease in his circumstances. He had a pleasant house in
Edinburgh, No. 39 Castle Street--‘dear 39,’ as he affectionately called
it--where he enjoyed the best society in the Scottish capital. Then,
for recreation, he had that fanciful but costly domain on the Tweed.
His ordinary and assured income sufficed for any domestic expenditure
he chose to indulge in; the recent embarrassments were at an end; and
he might calculate on easily adding a few occasional thousands, for
the sake of posterity, by no very great exertion of his ever-fertile
brain. But who of mortal mould can ever say ‘enough,’ especially when
the temptation of great facility in acquiring is before him. For
Scott at this time to grow from the idea of a cottage retreat in the
country, to that of a little lairdship and a good sort of mansion, was
certainly very natural, when he found that the work of little more
than a month at any time could secure him enough of money to buy from
fifty to a hundred acres of ground. It was the more so in his case,
as his education, and the original bent of his own feelings, alike
tended to create in him a veneration for the possession of land. Add
to this, that he had a taste for planting and decoration, and felt a
genial joy in being bread-giver to a retinue of that kindly peasantry
whose virtues he has himself depicted in such lively colours. Of vulgar
ambition for wealth and state, there was in Scott not one particle: to
be a chief of the soil and its people, and contemplate his children as
succeeding him in the same character, was only, with him, to realise,
or set forth in substance, one of the poetical dreams which haunted his
mind. It is therefore not surprising at this period to find him far
from being disposed to suspend his energies, even although he might
have done so under the excuse of somewhat broken health, for he now had
frequent visits of stomach-cramp--in no small degree a consequence of
some of his literary habits.

The spring of 1816 saw the public in possession of his novel of _The
Antiquary_, perhaps, of all his works, the one in which there is most
of the current matter of his own mind. It was scarcely published
before he had designed his _Tales of My Landlord_, the first series
of which came out, as by a new author, in December, and was at once
hailed with all the applause accorded to its predecessors, and set down
as another offshoot of the same tree. Early in 1817 appeared _Harold
the Dauntless_, which, not bearing his name, and being even a greater
failure than any of his recent poems, formed the last of that class
of his publications. The public might now, perhaps, have had a more
rapid succession of novels from his pen, if he had not thought proper
to write the historical part of his _Annual Register_, in a vain hope
to float that unfortunate work into popularity. As it was, he produced
this year his novel of _Rob Roy_, which came out at New Year 1818,
and experienced a brilliant reception. So great was his sense of the
encouragement extended to these novels, that in 1817 he made purchase
of an addition to his property, involving an outlay of no less than
£10,000. Just to shew, however, how much generosity towards others was
mixed with the no way mean ambition of Scott, his prime object here was
to secure a residence for his old school-friend, Adam Ferguson, and
his sisters, whom he was eager to plant near his own fireside. On his
concluding a rather hasty bargain for this estate, Ferguson expressed
his surprise and concern at seeing him exert so little pains to cheapen
it. ‘Never say a word about it,’ said Scott; ‘it will just answer you
and the ladies exactly; and it’s only scribbling a little more nonsense
some of these mornings, to pay anything it costs me more than enough.’
From calculations of this kind, Scott is understood to have bought
nearly the whole of his landed property at a very large percentage
above its actual value.

From this time till the close of 1825--a space of eight
years--prosperity reigned unchecked over the life of Scott. His novels
of _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_, _The Bride of Lammermoor_, _The Legend
of Montrose_, _Ivanhoe_, _The Monastery_, _The Abbot_, _The Pirate_,
_Kenilworth_, _The Fortunes of Nigel_, _Peveril of the Peak_, _Quentin
Durward_, _St Ronan’s Well_, _Redgauntlet_, and the _Tales of the
Crusaders_, streamed from his pen with a rapidity as wonderful as their
general merits were great. The public read with delight, and Scott was
happy to pipe to a dance which led to such solid results for his own
benefit. Generally, the first burst of sale called for ten thousand
copies, after which the books continued to go off in large numbers in
handsome collective reprints. It is odd after all, since Scott had
shewed a desire to increase his gains by being his own printer and
publisher, that he gave these books to be published by Constable, or
whatever other person, on the principle of a division of the profits--a
plan far too favourable to the tradesman, considering that the works
were sure to sell with little aid from that quarter. A more grasping
author would have given them to be published on commission, and thus
realised the whole profit excepting a fraction. The only deduction
he made from this liberality to the actual publisher consisted in
its being a point with him that the Ballantynes should have a share
of that portion of the profits--a mere grace on his part towards men
for whom he entertained a friendship. In 1819, Messrs Constable and
Company agreed to give him, for the copyright of the novels published
up to that time, and certain shares of poetical copyrights, the sum
of £12,000. Two years later, the same booksellers purchased for £5000
the copyright of four succeeding novels--little more than a year’s
work--from which the author had already drawn £10,000. After another
similar interval, the author received five thousand guineas for other
four novels, which likewise had previously yielded him half-profits.
Scott spoke of these sums with triumph and pleasure, as wonderful
prices for what he was pleased to call his _yeld kye_--that is, cows
which have ceased to give milk. Such a result of successful authorship
was a surprising novelty in its day. Nor was the author alone blessed
by the pecuniary productiveness of the Waverley Novels. We find the
Edinburgh theatrical manager realising £3000 by the brilliant run of
the drama formed from _Rob Roy_. A painter gets £300 for sketches to
illustrate a section of the tales.

If we reflect on the facility with which Scott could write these
inimitable novels--devoting to them merely the mornings of a life full
of other business and of amusement--we can hardly be surprised to learn
that he thought nothing of entering into engagements with Constable and
Company for producing four novels, not one line of which had then been
written, nor even the leading theme determined on. Nor was it wonderful
that he should have gradually been tempted to build additions to his
house on Tweedside till it became the architectural romance which it
now is, and fitted to receive and entertain a large assortment of
company.

The house of Abbotsford, where Sir Walter Scott chiefly spent the last
twenty years of his life, may be assumed as the centre of a great part
of that region which we have styled _his_. This ‘romance in stone and
lime,’ as some Frenchman termed it, is situated on the south bank of
the Tweed, at that part of its course where the river bursts forth
from the mountainous region of the forest into the more open country
of Roxburghshire, two or three miles above the abbey of Melrose, and
six-and-thirty from Edinburgh. Though upon a small scale, the Gothic
battlements and turrets have a good effect, and would have a still
better, if the site of the house were not somewhat straitened by the
bank rising above it, and by the too close neighbourhood of the public
road. Descriptions of the house, with its armoury, its library, its
curiosities, and other particular features, have been given in so many
different publications, that no repetition here is necessary. The
house, if it be properly preserved, will certainly be perused by future
generations as only a different kind of emanation of the genius of this
wonderful man; though, preserve it as you will, it will probably be, of
all his works, the soonest to perish.

All around Abbotsford, and what gave it a great part of its value in
his eyes, are the scenes commemorated in Border history, and tradition,
and song. The property itself comprises the spot on which the last
feudal battle was fought in this part of the country. The abbeys of
Melrose and Dryburgh, the latter of which now contains the revered
dust of the minstrel; the Eildon Hills, renowned in the annals of
superstition; Selkirk, whose brave burghers won glory in the field
where so much was lost by others, namely, at Flodden; Ettrick Forest,
with its lone and storied dales; and Yarrow, whose stream and ‘dowie
dens’ are not to be surveyed without involuntary poetry--are all in
the near neighbourhood of the spot. The love, the deep, heartfelt love
which Scott bore to the land which contains these places, was such as
no stranger can appreciate. It was a passion absorbing many others
which might have been expected to hold sway over him, and it survived
to the last.

Scott was social and good-natured; to see him and his mansion was an
object of ambition to half the public, including the highest persons in
the land. He was thus led, during the seven months of the year which
he spent in the country, to be the host of so many persons of every
kind, that his wife spoke of the house as a hotel in all but the name.
Not that he would have voluntarily indulged in any undue expense on
this account, if he had been in limited circumstances; but believing
himself to be able to afford it, benevolence gave her irresistible
dictate that he should thus make himself the servant of the public,
even at the expense of much personal inconvenience to himself and his
family. It is stated in Mr Lockhart’s biography that sixteen uninvited
parties came in one day to Abbotsford. These would pass quickly away;
but fashionable tourists, some of them of high rank, came in scarcely
smaller shoals, to stay one or two days. A lady reports to us, from the
conversation of Miss Anne Scott, the younger daughter of Sir Walter,
that on one occasion there were _thirteen ladies’-maids_ in the house.

In 1820, Scott was made a baronet. The honour was unsolicited, and he
considered himself as accepting it, partly because it was gratifying
to his family, and partly with a view to the interests of his eldest
son, who had entered a hussar regiment. If he had any enjoyment of the
honour in his own breast, it probably arose from no common worldly
vanity, but from its touching on some string of romantic feeling
amongst those to which we owe his delightful works. Though now a
_laird_ and a man of title, as well as the head idol in the temple of
the intellect-worshippers of his time, he was no whit different from
what he had been in his younger days, when content with love and a
cottage at Lasswade. His personal tastes and habits, his bearing to his
friends, his familiarity with the poor and lowly, remained the same.
As Wilkes is said to have never been a Wilkite, so Scott never, to
any appearance, joined the opinion which the world entertained about
him as an author. He spoke of his labours in this manner to Southey:
‘Dallying with time--tossing my ball and driving my hoop.’ Such men as
Davy and Watt he considered as the true honour of his age and country.
At home, in the bosom of his family, when the world would let him
alone, he was the most simple and kindly of associates. As he walked
about his grounds, he conversed freely and easily with his servants and
the peasantry, amongst whom he was an object of the deepest reverence
and affection. Often would this illustrious man work half a day at the
felling of trees in his woods, beside several workmen, trying which
could cut down one with the fewest blows, and laughing heartily when
he was victor. He delighted to walk in the evening towards the house
of an aged servant, that he might hear the psalm which the old man
was raising with his wife, as they conducted their evening devotions.
One of his retinue said to a visitor one day: ‘Sir Walter speaks to
every man as if they were blood-relations.’ It was not a condescending
kind of talk he indulged in with these people. He entered into their
feelings and tastes, and, speaking their own homely dialect, witched
them out of the idea that a master or a laird was before them.

The year 1822 was a somewhat memorable one in Scott’s life, on account
of the concern he had to take in the arrangements necessary on the
occasion of the king’s visit to Scotland. The external character of
this piece of pageantry was much determined by that revival of national
and medieval associations which the novels had effected. Everywhere we
were reminded of the Stuarts in Holyrood, and the plaided clansmen on
their mountains. Feelings due towards the romantic kings of an elder
day were expended, often ludicrously, on the battered beau of Carlton
House and St James’s Street. Amidst the delirium of the time, the man
chiefly concerned in giving it a peculiar character, moved in perfect
possession of his wonderful powers of management, dictating or advising
in the principal doings, and attending to the minutest details of many
of them. The king afterwards expressed, both formally and in private,
his deep sense of obligation to Scott for what he had done to make this
visit pass off well. The affair is interesting for the proof it gives
of the business genius of Scott, and his qualifications for the affairs
of the world. Assuredly never was high imagination united with so many
of the soberest mental qualities as in his instance.

His qualifications as a man of the world shone in various functions
which he consented to assume about this time, as the presidency of
the Royal Society of Edinburgh, that of an antiquarian book-printing
association called the Bannatyne Club, the chairmanship of an oil-gas
factory, and so forth. He had no inclination to thrust himself into
such situations, but having been drawn into them, he set about the
business which they involved with all the requisite zeal, and with a
marvellous amount of skill, good temper, and judgment. The common-sense
and sagacity which he exhibited in the performance of these duties,
form, perhaps, a greater distinction between Scott and the generality
of literary men than even his transcendent genius.

Sir Walter, as has been stated, had strong Conservative leanings, in
which respect he sometimes unfortunately went beyond the dictates
of prudence. In 1820, he endeavoured to prove the absurdity of the
popular excitement in favour of a more extended kind of parliamentary
representation, by three papers which he inserted in the _Edinburgh
Weekly Journal_ newspaper, under the title of ‘The Visionary.’ However
well intended, these were not by any means happy specimens of political
disquisition. The truth is, Sir Walter, with all his high literary
gifts, did not possess the art of concocting a short essay, either on
politics or on any moral or general topic. He appears, moreover, to
have been in a great measure ignorant of the arguments and strength
of his political opponents. He treats them as if they were in the
mass a set of simple and uninformed people, led away by a few raving
demagogues; and his attempt, accordingly, appears nearly as ridiculous
as it might be to address grown men with the arguments which prevail
only with children. Some months afterwards, it was deemed necessary
by a few of the Tory gentlemen and lawyers, to establish a newspaper
in which the more violent of the radical prints should be met upon
their own grounds, and reprisals made for a long course of insults
which had hitherto been endured with patience. To this association Sir
Walter subscribed, and, by means partly furnished upon his credit, a
weekly journal was commenced under the title of _The Beacon_. As the
scurrilities of this print inflicted much pain in very respectable
quarters, and finally led to the death of one of the writers in a
duel, it sunk, after an existence of a few months, amidst the general
execrations of the community. Sir Walter Scott, though he probably
never contemplated, and perhaps was hardly aware of the guilt of
_The Beacon_, was loudly blamed for his connection with it. It must
be allowed, in extenuation of his offence, that the whole affair was
only an experiment, to try the effect of violent argument on the Tory
side, and that, if it did not exceed the warmth of the radical prints,
there was nothing abstractly unfair in the attempt. On the other hand,
a party who stand in the light of governors, and who, in general,
are placed in comfortable circumstances, assume violence with a much
worse grace than the multitudinous plebeians, who are confessedly in a
situation from which complaint and irritation are almost inseparable.




[SIR WALTER AND MR R. CHAMBERS.


In his preface to the new edition of the _Traditions of Edinburgh_
(1869), Mr R. Chambers gives the following account of the manner in
which he became acquainted with Scott. ‘When not out of my teens,
I attracted some attention from Sir Walter Scott, by writing for
him and presenting him (through Mr Constable) a transcript of the
songs of the _Lady of the Lake_, in a style of peculiar caligraphy’
[resembling small print], ‘which I practised for want of any way of
attracting the notice of people superior to myself. When George IV.,
some months afterwards, came to Edinburgh’ [August 1822], ‘good Sir
Walter remembered me, and procured for me the business of writing the
address of the Royal Society of Edinburgh to His Majesty, for which I
was handsomely paid. Several other learned bodies followed the example,
for Sir Walter was the arbiter of everything during that frantic time,
and thus I was substantially benefited by his means.

‘According to what Mr Constable told me, the great man liked me, in
part, because he understood I was from Tweedside. On seeing the earlier
numbers of the _Traditions_’ [1823] ‘he expressed astonishment as to
“where a boy got all the information.” But I did not see or hear from
him till the first volume had been completed. He then called upon me
one day, along with Mr Lockhart. I was overwhelmed with the honour,
for Sir Walter was almost an object of worship to me. I literally
could not utter a word. While I stood silent, I heard him tell his
companion that Charles Sharpe was a writer in the _Traditions_. A few
days after this visit, Sir Walter sent me, along with a kind letter, a
packet of manuscript, consisting of sixteen folio pages, in his usual
close hand-writing, and containing all the reminiscences he could at
that time summon up of old persons and things in Edinburgh. Such a
treasure to me! And such a gift from the greatest literary man of the
age to the humblest! Is there a literary man of the present age who
would scribble as much for any humble aspirant? Nor was this the only
act of liberality of Scott to me. When I was preparing a subsequent
work, _The Popular Rhymes of Scotland_, he sent me whole sheets of his
recollections, with appropriate explanations. For years thereafter, he
allowed me to join him in his walks home from the Parliament House, in
the course of which he freely poured into my greedy ears anything he
knew regarding the subjects of my studies. His kindness and good-humour
on these occasions were untiring. I have since found, from his journal,
that I had met him on certain days when his heart was overladen with
woe. Yet, his welcome to me was the same. After 1826, however, I saw
him much less frequently than before, for I knew he grudged every
moment not spent in thinking and working on the fatal tasks he had
assigned to himself for the redemption of his debts.’

It was in one of their walks through the Old Town that Scott pointed
out the place of his birth to my brother; also the little old school
in Hamilton’s Entry, where he had received some of his rudimentary
instruction. On another occasion, he shewed him the house once occupied
by Dr Daniel Rutherford at the foot of Hyndford’s Close, where he
had often been when a boy. It is a fine antique edifice, reputed to
have been the residence of the Earl of Selkirk in 1742. Latterly, it
has undergone some changes, with a new entrance from the Mint Close,
and forms the residence of a Roman Catholic clergyman, in connection
with a neighbouring chapel. Sir Walter communicated to Robert a
curious circumstance connected with this old mansion. ‘It appears
that the house immediately adjacent was not furnished with a stair
wide enough to allow a coffin being carried down in decent fashion.
It had, therefore, what the Scottish law calls a _servitude_ upon Dr
Rutherford’s house, conferring the perpetual liberty of bringing the
deceased inmates through a passage into that house, and down its stair
into the lane.’]




LATER NOVELS, AND LIFE OF NAPOLEON.


Scott had at this time the appearance of a respectable elderly
country-gentleman. Tall, robust, and rather handsome in person, he was
deformed by the shortness of his right limb, the foot of which only
touched the ground at the toes, while he rocked from side to side on
the support of a stout walking-cane, which he moved along with the
foot, and put down at the same time. While living in town, he wore
a common black suit; in the country, he had gray trousers, a short
green jacket, and a white hat. The public is made familiar with his
face by numberless portraits; it is only necessary to mention, that at
this time it was ruddy with the glow of health, and at the same time
somewhat venerable from his thin gray hair. The countenance and quick
gray eye usually had a common-world expression, but of a benevolent
kind. All was changed, however, when he told anything serious, or
recited a piece of ballad poetry; he then seemed to become a being of a
totally different grade and sphere.

It has been hinted that Scott’s eldest son, Walter, had become an
officer in a hussar regiment. This youth, in 1825, wedded a young
heiress, Miss Jobson, much to the satisfaction of his father, who,
in the marriage-contract, placed against the young lady’s fortune a
settlement of the estate of Abbotsford upon his son, reserving only his
own liferent. He declared that he thus parted with the property of his
lands with more pleasure than he ever derived from the acquisition or
possession of them. He at the same time expended £3500 in purchasing a
company for his son. It was now that the great poet might be considered
as at the height of his fortunes. His career had hitherto been an
almost uninterrupted series of prosperous and happy events; he had
risen from the briefless barrister to the head of the literary world,
a title, and the possession of a landed fortune, with the prospect
of leaving a race of gentry to follow him. Alas! even while thus
triumphantly exalted, the ground was hollow beneath his feet, and a sad
prostration was approaching.

Keeping this reverse for its proper place, it is proper here to
mention that the novels had fallen off somewhat in popularity since
_The Monastery_. The author was not made aware of this fact; but he
nevertheless felt the necessity of varying his themes as much as
possible, in order to preserve the public favour. Hence his shifting
ground to England and France, and his attempt, in _St Ronan’s Well_,
to depict the society of the modern world. Latterly, he bethought him
that history was a field of some promise, and he was disposed to enter
it. It was now (June 1825) that Mr Constable, moved by some examples
of popular publishing in London, adopted the idea that that trade
had never been conducted on right principles, seeing that it sought
customers only in the more affluent classes, while the masses were
left to regard books as luxuries beyond their reach. He projected a
periodical issue of volumes, at a comparatively low price, to consist
of reprints of approved copyright works belonging to his house, mingled
with original works; and claiming and obtaining the support of Scott,
it was arranged that the Waverley Novels should reappear in this cheap
form, alternated at starting with the volumes of a _Life of Napoleon
Bonaparte_, to be composed for the purpose by the same author. Thus
was Scott set down, in 1825, to the history of one whose career he had
beheld, while it lasted, with the strongest sentiments of reprobation
and hatred, feeling, as he did, that the French emperor was the public
enemy of England in the first place, and all Europe in the second. It
was at first intended that the work should consist of four volumes, or
less than a half of what it ultimately became.

Just before going seriously into his task, he paid a visit to his son
in Ireland, where he was received and entertained with the greatest
enthusiasm by all classes--to his own surprise, as he had regarded
the Irish as not a reading people. He had not reflected that there
is such a thing as lionising great authors on the strength of their
fame, and without any but a superficial acquaintance, if so much,
with their writings. The contrast between the elegant mansions of the
gentry in which he lived, with the misery of the houses of the general
population, awoke painful feelings in his mind; but, upon the whole,
he much enjoyed his tour in Ireland. In the latter part of this year,
a second domestic change took place. His eldest daughter, Sophia, had
been married in 1820 to Mr J. G. Lockhart, a young barrister, whose
talents in literature have been fully acknowledged by the public.
Hitherto, the young couple had lived in his immediate neighbourhood,
both in town and country. He delighted in the ballads which Mrs
Lockhart sang to him with the accompaniment of her harp; he found Mr
Lockhart a useful adviser in literary matters, and a most agreeable
companion; and he felt the tenderest interest in their eldest child,
called John Hugh, or, familiarly, ‘Hugh Littlejohn,’ whose fatal
delicacy of constitution only heightened the affection he was otherwise
fitted to excite. In consequence of an offer of the editorship of the
_Quarterly Review,_ Mr Lockhart removed to London with his family,
by which Scott’s family circle was of course much contracted. This,
however, was but a trifling evil compared with others which were about
to befall the hitherto fortunate author of _Waverley_.




PECUNIARY MISFORTUNES.


The years 1824 and 1825 were distinguished by an extraordinary mania
for speculation, the consequence of which was, that, towards the close
of the latter year, a scarcity of money began to be generally felt. A
tightening of this kind always of course tells severely upon men who
have been keeping up their trade by means of fictitious bills; and of
this class it now appeared were Archibald Constable and Company. The
leading member of this firm had been fortunate in the proprietorship
of the _Edinburgh Review,_ and the publishing of many of the works of
Scott. Naturally grand in his ideas, and of an aspiring temper, at the
same time that he despised, and in practice wholly overlooked, common
mercantile calculations, he had come to conduct business in a manner
which usually leads to ruin. We have seen that the bookselling concern
of Scott (John Ballantyne and Company) was indebted to him for some
important assistance in enabling it to wind up; the printing concern
(James Ballantyne and Company) was also indebted to him for a vast
amount of business; while Scott, more personally, was so imprudent as
to take bill payments from him for works as yet unwritten, that he
might help out his equally imprudent purchases of land. By these means,
it came about very naturally that the name of James Ballantyne and
Company--that is, Sir Walter Scott--was lent to Constable and Company
for the raising of large sums amongst the banks. Scott, venerating
the supposed sagacity of Constable, recked not of the danger of
this traffic. Constable himself, inflated with a high sense of the
literary property and stock which he held, regarded himself as a rich
man, notwithstanding the large borrowings to which he condescended.
James Ballantyne, venerating both, easy of nature, and unprepared by
education or habit to keep a rigid supervision over business matters,
gave no alarm regarding the immense compromise of his own and his
friend’s name.

These explanations serve so far; for what more is necessary, it must,
we fear, be admitted that the whole group of persons concerned in
the poems and novels, including the mighty Magician himself, were
naturally enough intoxicated to a certain degree by a literary success
so infinitely exceeding all precedent. All of them, excepting James
Ballantyne, had lived in an expensive manner. Scott himself had gone
in this respect a good way beyond what prudence dictated, though it
is also very certain that if his writings had been published under
reasonably favourable circumstances for the realisation of profit, he
might have bought land, and kept house as he did, without injury to
anybody. All, moreover, had been culpably negligent about accounts
and bargainings--Scott ridiculously so, to his own injury, as there
appears no good reason for his dividing the six or eight thousand
pounds realised by the first issues of his novels with his booksellers,
to whom a commission on sales would have been remuneration sufficient.
There was, however, at that time a much more loose and heedless fashion
in most business affairs than now prevails, and this requires that
some allowance should be made with regard to individual cases. So it
was that one of the firmest, and, generally speaking, most sagacious
men of his time, discovered, in the course of January 1826, that he
was involved in obligations far exceeding the extent of his whole
fortune--was, in short, a ruined man.

On the 18th December 1825, fearing bad news of Constable’s affairs, he
says, in a diary which he kept, and surely few more touching words have
ever fallen from any man’s pen: ‘Men will think pride has had a fall.
Let them indulge their own pride in thinking that my fall will make
them higher, or seem so at least. I have the satisfaction to recollect
that my prosperity has been of advantage to many, and to hope that some
at least will forgive my transient wealth, on account of the innocence
of my intentions, and my real wish to do good to the poor. Sad hearts,
too, at Darnick and in the cottages of Abbotsford. I have half resolved
never to see the place again. How could I tread my hall with such a
diminished crest?--how live a poor indebted man, where I was once the
wealthy, the honoured? I was to have gone there on Saturday, in joy and
prosperity, to receive my friends. My dogs will wait for me in vain.
It is foolish--but the thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures
have moved me more than any of the painful reflections I have put down.
Poor things! I must get them kind masters. There may be yet those who,
loving me, may love my dog, because it has been mine. I must end these
gloomy forebodings, or I shall lose the tone of mind with which men
should meet distress. I feel my dogs’ feet on my knees--I hear them
whining and seeking me everywhere. This is nonsense, but it is what
they would do could they know how things may be.’

The evil day had not yet come in all its reality. Mr Constable went to
London, to endeavour to raise money on the copyrights he possessed, in
order to put over the difficulties. Moderate-minded men of the present
day read, as of something belonging to a different state of society,
of this ‘Napoleon of the realms of print’ seriously expecting to raise
one or two hundred thousand pounds on the pledge of his copyrights,
one large section of which afterwards, at a fair auction, brought only
£8500; his whole property being such as only in the long-run to pay 2s.
9d. a pound upon debts amounting to £256,000. Having utterly failed in
raising money on any terms amongst those who deal in it, he induced
Scott to advance him ten thousand, which the Laird of Abbotsford was
only able to do by acting upon a right he had reserved in his son’s
marriage-contract to borrow that sum on the security of his estate,
for the benefit of his younger children. And this last sacrifice for
Mr Constable he afterwards, very naturally, grudged more than all the
rest. It was on the 17th of January that Scott finally ascertained the
ruin of his affairs. ‘It was hard, after having fought such a battle,’
as he says in his diary; but he sustained the first shock with Roman
firmness. His resolution was immediately taken, to accept of no grace
from his creditors beyond time. ‘God grant me health and strength,’
he said in deep solemnity to his several friends, ‘and I will yet pay
every man his due.’ To those marvellous powers which he had exerted for
the purpose of buying land and keeping state, he trusted for the means
of clearing off the tremendous encumbrance which had fallen upon him.
At the same time, _state_ was to be given wholly up. He resolved to
sell his house in Edinburgh--‘dear 39’--and use a common lodging while
obliged to attend his duties in the Court of Session. At other times
he would join his family in strict retirement at Abbotsford, which
obviously could have been put to no better use. There was no bravado in
all this--nothing but a good, sound, honest resolution to redeem the
painful obligations into which his imprudence had hurried him. In the
same frame of mind, he declined many offers of money made to him by
friends.

He was engaged at the time of his misfortunes in writing the _Life of
Bonaparte_, taking up his new novel of _Woodstock_ at intervals, by
way of relief. These tasks he continued with steady perseverance in
the midst of all his distresses. Even on the day which brought him
assurance of the grand catastrophe, he resumed in the afternoon the
task which had engaged him in the morning. There was more triumph over
circumstances here than might be supposed, for he had lately begun to
feel the first touches of the infirmities of age--age, to which ease,
not hard work, is naturally appropriate. His sleep was now less sound
than it had been; his eyesight was failing; and, above all, he felt
that backwardness of the intellectual power which is inseparable from
years. The will, however, was green as ever, and, under the prompting
of an honourable spirit, it did its work nobly. Doggedly, doggedly did
this glorious old man rouse himself from his melancholy couch, and set
to his task at an hour when gaiety has little more than sought his.
Firmly did he keep to his desk during long hours, till he could satisfy
himself that he had done his utmost. The temptations of society, the
more insinuating claims of an overworked system for rest, were alike
resolutely rejected. The world must ever hear with wonder, that between
the third day after his bankruptcy and the fifteenth day thereafter,
he had written a volume of _Woodstock_, although several of these days
had been spent in comparative vacancy, to allow the imagination time
for brooding. He believed that, for a bet, he could have written this
volume _in ten days_! Just a fortnight after his final breach with
fortune, he says in his journal: ‘I have now no pecuniary provisions
to embarrass me, and I think, now the shock of the discovery is past
and over, I am much better off on the whole.... I shall be free of a
hundred petty public duties imposed on me as a man of consideration--of
the expense of a great hospitality--and, what is better, of the waste
of time connected with it. I have known in my day all kinds of society,
and can pretty well estimate how much or how little one loses by
retiring from all but that which is very intimate.... If I could see
those about me as indifferent to the loss of rank as I am, I should
be completely happy. As it is, time must salve that sore, and to time
I trust it.’ With such philosophy could Scott regard his reverses,
even in the very crisis of their occurrence, and yet from many other
passages we find a keen sensibility to the circumstances of his
downfall. It was rectitude of mind, and not stoicism, which enabled him
to rise above his misfortunes. Nothing, indeed, of sensibility appeared
in his external demeanour, even to his children. To them, as to the
world, it must have been a lost secret, but for his diary.

The obligations of James Ballantyne and Company--that is, of Sir Walter
Scott--were finally ascertained to amount to £117,000, of which only
£46,000 were the proper liabilities of his company.

Early in spring, the ministry made an effort to correct the unsound
state of things which had led to the late fatal mania, by attempting to
pass a bill for the limitation of bank circulation. It was determined
to suppress all notes under five pounds. In Scotland, where there is
a vast faith in the utility of one-pound bank-notes, and no other
circulation is so much liked, this measure was very unpopular. By the
banks, it was regarded as fraught with ruin to their interests. Scott,
who had disapproved of some recent changes affecting old Scottish
institutions, and whose mind, serene as it was, perhaps required some
kind of vent for its own vexations, was led to take a strong, perhaps
exaggerated view of this question, under which he wrote three letters,
in the character of Malachi Malagrowther, originally published in a
newspaper, afterwards as a pamphlet. His great humour and fund of
droll anecdote gave wings to this production, and helped to rouse
the Scottish people to an attitude of resistance, to which, in the
long-run, the ministry gave way. The affair presented Scott in a
new light--namely, as one setting himself up against authority, and
appealing to popular sentiment on the adverse side. The public was
somewhat surprised; the ministers, some of whom were his friends, felt
hurt at opposition from such a quarter; and there was actually some
dryness between him and Lord Melville for a short time. The explanation
is, that Scott never was a servile friend of power, but one only as
far as his view of what was good for the country led him; and there
was a manliness and independence in his character which admitted of
no hesitation about a course, when he saw only men on the one side,
and the land of his birth on the other. It is gratifying to think that
Scott lost no friendship by his conduct on this occasion, beyond a
temporary coldness on the part of a few persons.

The novel of _Woodstock_ came rapidly to completion, and, early in
April, the first edition of it was sold in the printed sheets for
£8228, in itself a proof that the author might have all along had a
better market for his works if he had chosen. This was a cheering
omen of what he was to do for his creditors. Removing at the close
of the winter session to Abbotsford, he continued there his habits
of application with unabated vigour, although, as appears from the
diary, not without some battlings between duty and inclination. The
daily amount of work he set to himself in the writing of Napoleon’s
life was four sheets of manuscript a day, making about twenty-four
of the printed pages. We find him on one occasion finishing this
before noon--a surprising effort, considering that reference to his
authorities or materials must have often been necessary during the
progress of the work. At the same time he commenced another work of
fiction, a series of tales entitled _Chronicles of the Canongate_, for
he felt the one task as a relief to the other.

He now of course received no company at his rural retreat. Only a few
intimate friends of his neighbourhood occasionally joined the family
circle. It was a melancholy spring to one whose life in the country
had hitherto been a constant holiday. To add to his griefs, the health
of his wife had sunk to a low pitch. His kind-hearted Charlotte died
on the 16th of May, of water in the chest, the end being somewhat
accelerated by the late disasters. Scott, absent at the moment on duty
in Edinburgh, quickly hurried home. The event itself, and the grief of
his younger daughter on the occasion, powerfully affected him. He thus
communes with himself in his journal: ‘It would have been inexpressibly
moving to me as a stranger--what was it, then, to the father and the
husband! For myself, I scarce know how I feel--sometimes as firm as the
Bass Rock, sometimes as weak as the water that breaks on it. I am as
alert at thinking and deciding as I ever was in my life. Yet, when I
contrast what this place now is with what it has been not long since, I
think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of my family--all but
poor Anne; an impoverished, an embarrassed man, deprived of the sharer
of my thoughts and counsels, who could always talk down my sense of
the calamitous apprehensions which break the heart that must bear them
alone. Even her foibles were of service to me, by giving me things to
think of beyond my weary self-reflections.’

Allowing himself little rest for the indulgence of grief, he quickly
resumed, or rather hardly interrupted his usual employments. Between
the 12th of June and the 12th of August he wrote the fourth volume of
_Napoleon_, besides a portion of his novel. Thus he wrought all the
summer, and part of the autumn, till it was found necessary that he
should pay a visit to London and Paris, in order to consult documents
necessary for _Napoleon_. This journey occupied six weeks, and
perhaps was useful as a rally to his spirits. It is hardly necessary
to say that, with high and low, wherever he went, he was an object
of as cordial admiration and interest as ever. The king, the Duke of
Wellington, and many other eminent persons, paid him marked attentions.
In France, he was treated with no less distinction. Public papers in
both countries were placed at his disposal without reserve; and in
London he obtained an assurance that his second son, Charles, would be
employed in the diplomatic department.

Till the failure of Messrs Constable and Company, the Waverley secret
was kept inviolate, though intrusted, as he has himself acknowledged,
to a considerable number of persons. The inquiries which took place
into the affairs of the house rendered it no longer possible to
conceal the nature of its connection with Sir Walter Scott; and he now
accordingly stood fully detected as the Author of _Waverley_, though he
did not himself think proper to make any overt claim to the honour. It
may be mentioned that, at the time of the failure, Sir Walter was in
possession of bills for the novel of _Woodstock_, of which but a small
part had as yet been written. A demand was made by the creditors of
Messrs Constable and Company upon the creditors of Sir Walter Scott,
for the benefits of this work, when it should be made public. But the
author, not reckoning this either just or legal, was resolved not to
comply. The bills, he said, were a mere promise to pay; since, then,
he had only promised to write, and they to pay, he would simply not
write, and then the transaction would fall to the ground. On the claim
being farther pressed, he said: ‘The work is in my head, and there
it shall remain.’ The question, however, was eventually submitted to
arbitration, and decided in favour of the creditors of the author, for
whose behoof the work was soon after published.

The fact of the authorship continued to waver between secrecy and
divulgement till the 23d of February 1827, when Sir Walter presided at
the first annual dinner of the Edinburgh Theatrical Fund Association,
in the Assembly Rooms. There Lord Meadowbank, in proposing the health
of the chairman, used language to the following effect: ‘It was no
longer possible, consistently with the respect to one’s auditors, to
use upon this subject terms either of mystification, or of obscure
or indirect allusion. The clouds have been dispelled; the _darkness
visible_ has been cleared away; and the Great Unknown--the Minstrel
of our native land--the mighty Magician who has rolled back the
current of time, and conjured up before our living senses the men and
manners of days which have long passed away, stands revealed to the
hearts and the eyes of his affectionate and admiring countrymen.’ Sir
Walter, though somewhat taken by surprise, immediately resolved to
throw off the mantle, which was getting somewhat tattered. ‘He did
not think,’ he said, ‘that, in coming here to-day, he would have the
task of acknowledging before three hundred gentlemen a secret which,
considering that it was communicated to more than twenty people, had
been remarkably well kept. He was now before the bar of his country,
and might be understood to be on trial before Lord Meadowbank as an
offender; yet he was sure that every impartial jury would bring in a
verdict of _Not Proven_. He did not now think it necessary to enter
into the reasons of his long silence. Perhaps caprice had a great
share in it. He had now to say, however, that the merits of these
works, if they had any, and their faults were entirely imputable to
himself.’ [Here the audience broke into an absolute shout of surprise
and delight.] ‘He was afraid to think on what he had done. “Look on’t
again I dare not.” He had thus far unbosomed himself, and he knew that
it would be reported to the public. He meant, then, seriously to state
that, when he said he was the author, he was the total and undivided
author. With the exception of quotations, there was not a single word
written that was not derived from himself, or suggested in the course
of his reading. The wand was now broken, and the rod buried. His
audience would allow him further to say, with Prospero: “Your breath
has filled my sails.”’

The spring of 1827 was past, and summer had gone to June, ere Scott’s
great task was completed. He then finished the last volume of his _Life
of Napoleon_, which he had been engaged upon for about two years, but
had actually written in scarcely more than a twelvemonth of continuous
time. The paper and print of the first and second editions, in nine
volumes, brought the creditors £18,000--an amount of gain, in relation
to amount of labour, unexampled in the history of literature, and
which will probably have no parallel for ages to come. The book was
unfortunate in its excessive length; and, written in such haste, it
could not be expected to be very perfect, either in style or in facts.
Yet it made a tolerably fair impression on the public, and it has
since rather advanced than receded in public esteem. The contrast
between the manner of its composition and that of Hume, Robertson,
and Gibbon’s works, is startling. All of these narratives were the
study and the production of years. It had never till now entered the
head of man to think of a great historical task being executed in a
twelvemonth. The last-century historians filed and polished their
writings sentence by sentence--Scott did not once reperuse the matter
which had flowed from his pen. And all this labour had been performed
in the midst of grief and shaken health, and without interfering with
official duties, one of which called for several hours a day during
five months of the twelve.




LATER EXERTIONS.


Immediately on concluding _Napoleon_, he commenced another historical
work, his delightful _Tales of a Grandfather_; presenting a selection
of the most striking points from the Scottish chroniclers, in a style
designed to suit the intelligence of his descendant, ‘Hugh Littlejohn.’
This he carried on alternately with his _Chronicles of the Canongate_,
the first series of which appeared early in the ensuing winter, and
was well, though not brilliantly received. He underwent at this period
some harassment from a Jewish London house, holding one of Constable
and Company’s bills for £2000. With a view to forcing payment by some
means, they threatened Scott with arrest; and he actually contemplated
at one moment resorting to that sanctuary (Holyrood), in which he
placed his imaginary hero, Chrystal Croftangry. At length the vexation
was taken off his head by Sir William Forbes, the leading member of a
banking company who were amongst his chief creditors. This generous
man paid the sum out of his own pocket, without letting Scott suppose
but that it was arranged for by the body of creditors. It is pleasant
to know that Scott unconsciously underwent several obligations of
this nature on the part of other old friends. The first series of
the _Tales of a Grandfather_ appeared before the end of 1827, and
was hailed with more rapture than any work of his for several years.
This was the date of another happy circumstance of a more important
kind. The copyrights of his novels and of a large proportion of his
poetical writings being presented for sale by Constable and Company’s
creditors, a purchase of them was made for £8500, on the part of his
own creditors as half-sharers, while the other half belonged to Mr
Robert Cadell, a member of Constable’s late house, now independently
in business. It was designed that the novels should be republished
by Cadell in a comparatively cheap form, with notes and prefaces by
the author, and certain trinkets of embellishment, such as--according
to his own phrase--elderly beauties are supposed to require. It was
hoped that the share of profits due to his creditors would tell
materially to the reduction of the debts; and this hope was more than
realised. Meanwhile, a first dividend was paid to these gentlemen
from the aggregate gains of Scott’s pen during the two past years,
amounting very nearly to the unheard-of sum of £40,000. Such were the
first-fruits of that hardy industry which he had determined to exert
for the redemption of his credit and good name.

Scott’s conduct and demeanour towards his old associates in business
affairs become a matter of some importance, as it too often happens
that commercial adversity introduces wrath into such fraternities. It
is pleasant to relate, that even towards Mr Constable, who had been the
cause of so much loss, he maintained a friendly bearing. He did not,
indeed, shut his eyes to the new view he had obtained of Mr Constable’s
character as a man of business; but though he could trust no longer, he
was far from hardening his heart. One thing he felt sorely--his last
advance for Constable when in the jaws of ruin. Nor was it a soothing
circumstance that the bookseller had endeavoured to get his credit for
£20,000 more, which would have only been an additional loss at the
speedy and inevitable day of reckoning. Still, he was willing to regard
all this as only the effect of sanguine calculations; and accordingly
all his expressions regarding the fallen publisher, both in his diary
and his letters, are of a mild and even kindly tenor. Mr Cadell, on
the other hand, had secured Sir Walter’s esteem and confidence by an
honest warning which he gave as to the above £20,000. From the first,
he determined to befriend this member of the late house in preference
to the other. With regard to James Ballantyne, Scott told him, on the
very day when ruin was declared, that he would never forsake him. Mr
Ballantyne now conducted business on his own account, and was honoured
with the steady friendship and patronage of his old schoolfellow, as of
yore.

On the other hand, the conduct of Scott’s immediate dependants had been
highly creditable. Deeply attached, in consequence of his long-enduring
kindness, all were anxious to remain, if possible, about his person.
His butler, Dalgleish, said he would take any or no wages, but go he
would not. His coachman, Peter Matheson, went to work with his horses
at the plough, glad to the core that he was allowed to remain at
Abbotsford on such terms.

The spring of 1828 gave the world _The Fair Maid of Perth_, his last
popular novel. He then indulged in a little relaxation, by spending
a few weeks in London, in the enjoyment of Mr and Mrs Lockhart’s
society, as well as that of many attached friends. We have at this
time a valuable addition to that testimony to his temper which the
second last paragraph affords. He had some years before engaged his
credit for £1200 in favour of his friend Daniel Terry the actor, who
was then undertaking the management of the Adelphi Theatre. Being now
informed of the ruin of Mr Terry’s affairs, he wrote him a letter, in
which the following passage occurs: ‘For my part, I feel as little
title, as God knows I have the wish, to make any reflections on the
matter, beyond the most sincere regret on your own account. The sum
for which I stand noted in the schedule is of no consequence in the
now more favourable condition of my affairs.... I told your solicitor
that I desired he would consider me as a friend of yours, desirous to
take, as a creditor, the measures which seemed best to forward your
interest.’ These are precious things to put into a biography; but they
do not exhaust the list. Even while drudging so hard for the means
of diminishing his own encumbrances, he is found pretty frequently
composing and giving away a paper for the benefit of some unfortunate
man of letters, little regarding, perhaps, the strict merits of the
object of his bounty. One of the most remarkable of these benefactions
consisted in his allowing the publication of two religious discourses
for the benefit of a young man endeared to him by misfortune as well
as merit. This publication yielded £250, a sum which few other literary
men would allow to pass from their own pockets in such a manner.

A great part of his time was now taken up with the new writing
connected with the popular edition of his works; yet before the end of
1828 he had advanced a good way with a new novel, the ground of which
he laid in Switzerland, notwithstanding his being acquainted with the
scenery of that country only by description and engravings. His mind
was now in a more cheerful mood regarding his affairs than it had been
since the dreadful January 1826; and if he had been free of various
ailments, inclusive of rheumatism, caught from a damp bed in France, he
might have enjoyed his life in the country almost as heartily as ever.
Suffer as he might, perseverance at his desk was a fixed principle
with him. Of this we have a striking trait in his finishing _Anne of
Geierstein_ before breakfast one morning, and commencing, as soon as
the meal was over, a new work, a _History of Scotland_, for Lardner’s
_Cabinet Cyclopædia_.

The prospectus of what he called his _opus magnum_--namely, the
re-issue of the Waverley Novels--came out in February 1829, and was so
exceedingly well received that an edition of 10,000 seemed the least he
could throw off, a number which in those days appeared immense. When
the book was published, it was quickly found that this edition would be
quite insufficient to supply the public demand. In short, the sale of
the early volumes was not under 35,000. This was of course magnificent
success, and afforded the prognostic of a much quicker and more easy
settlement of the debts than had been anticipated. The volumes were
sold at five shillings. It was easy to see that, when a certain section
of the public had been supplied at that rate, a still cheaper edition
might be issued with benefit to all concerned. Thus it might be hoped
that Sir Walter would in time rest a free man, with little help from
his own immediate exertions. His heart rebounded at the prospect; and
he even glanced at the possibility of adding to his son’s estate before
he died. The public, too, had their visions on the subject, and, under
the idea that his embarrassments were, comparatively speaking, at an
end, the old stream of tourists and friend-visitors began once more to
pour into Abbotsford. The only drawback was in the infirm and failing
health.




CONCLUDING YEARS--DECEASE.


In February 1830, Scott experienced the first decidedly bad symptom, in
an attack of an apoplectic nature, which caused him to fall speechless
and insensible on the floor. This, it seems, was a hereditary affection
in his family, and it therefore gave him the greater apprehension,
though his physicians were of opinion that the attack proceeded from
the stomach. On still went the pen of the ready-writer, now engaged
on a volume of _Demonology_ for Murray’s _Family Library_. To obtain
even more time for literary task-work, he now resigned his clerkship
on a retiring allowance of £800 a year, and went to fix himself at
Abbotsford as a permanent residence. It was an injudicious step, as it
deprived him of the society of most of his old friends, and threw him
more and more upon that task-work which had already been prosecuted
only too zealously. His friends, Cadell and Ballantyne, were now
sensible that he had carried his zeal for the discharge of his debts
too far, and would have fain restricted him to lighter duty; but it
was difficult to deal with a mind acting under such powerful impulses.
Greatly against their wishes, he commenced a new novel, styled _Count
Robert of Paris_, which, when it appeared, shewed very clearly how
glory had departed from him. He also embroiled his mind in the politics
of the crisis then passing, and wrote a long pamphlet against the
reforming measures of the day, which afterwards he was induced to
suppress. The exaggerated view which he took of the reform cause is a
painful chapter in his history, not merely as shewing him unusually ill
informed and weak of judgment on passing events, but because it gave a
needless addition to anxieties of a real kind which were now pressing
severely on the springs of life. Amidst the vexations arising to him
from public affairs, one ray of pleasure visited him when his creditors
(December 1830) presented him with his library, furniture, plate, and
articles of virtù, considered as equivalent to £10,000, thus enabling
him to make a provision for the younger branches of his family. These
gentlemen were led to this act of generosity by their sense of his
unparalleled exertions in their behalf. Their claims against Scott
had now been reduced to £54,000, and as he had insured £22,000 upon
his life in their favour, and the Waverley Novels were continuing to
produce large returns, all doubt of the ultimate discharge of the
claims had ceased. About this time, the honour of being made a member
of the Privy Council was offered to him, but peremptorily declined, as
unsuitable to his circumstances.

In November of the past year, Scott had had another slight stroke
of apoplexy. He lived in the most sparing manner, yet this did not
prevent a distinct paralytic affection befalling him in April 1831.
From this he recovered, by the care of a good surgeon, in a few days,
and was then placed, by way of caution, upon extremely low diet, which,
however, he did not always adhere to. He was now extremely infirm
in walking, and, from heedlessness, often tumbled over articles of
furniture or other impediments. The desire to be writing continued,
nevertheless, in full vigour as a ruling passion. Here, however, he
was destined to receive a shock more terrible to him than bodily
illness, when his friends, Cadell and Ballantyne, felt it right to tell
him that his tale of _Count Robert of Paris_ was, in their opinion,
an entire failure. ‘The blow is a stunning one, I suppose’--thus he
speaks in his diary--‘for I scarcely feel it.... I am at sea in the
dark, and the vessel leaky, I think, into the bargain. I have suffered
terribly, that is the truth, rather in body than in mind, and I often
wish I could lie down and sleep without waking. But I will fight it
out if I can.’ His friends and medical attendants strongly advised
him to intermit these severe exertions, which evidently were only
a gentle form of self-murder; but they preached to deaf ears. They
were equally unsuccessful in their endeavours to keep him back from a
county election in which he felt interested. He went--took part in the
proceedings--and came to a collision with the populace, which could
not but leave distressing effects on one who, on all other points,
delighted to stand in kindly relations towards the humbler classes.
In the very depth of this dark crisis he began a tale, called _Castle
Dangerous_, in which the failing powers of his mind became even
more painfully conspicuous. He was now fully sensible that, in all
probability, he had but a short time to live; but it only made him the
more eager to work for the acquittance of his great obligations. So
much was this the case, that, being at a country-house in Lanarkshire
on a short visit, the intelligence of a friend having fallen down
suddenly in a fit, from which it was not expected he would recover,
caused him instantly to break up his engagement, and go home; answering
to all remonstrances on the subject: ‘The night cometh when no man may
work.’

He was now advised to spend the ensuing winter in Italy; and the
government having handsomely placed a ship at his disposal, he sailed
for Naples in October, attended by his eldest son and younger daughter.
He was most unwilling to leave home, but a long-entertained wish to see
some of the continental countries besides France served to reconcile
him to the change. The voyage was a pleasant one: he enjoyed the
objects to be seen at Malta, so full of middle-age associations, and
thought of fictions he could found upon them. On the 17th December,
he reached Naples, where everything was done by the king and the best
society of the place, including many English, to render his residence
happy. His chief companion here was Sir William Gell, an invalid
English gentleman, who wrote upon the antiquities of Italy, and with
whom Scott at once became extremely intimate. He beheld most of the
classical antiquities with indifference--saying only at Pompeii: ‘The
city of the dead!’--but was keenly interested in any object or document
which took his mind into the middle ages. Here he actually wrote a new
tale (entitled _The Siege of Malta_), and commenced a second, neither
of which was deemed by his friends as fit to see the light. For some
time he entertained cheerful views about his health; he was also under
an impression that his debts were all discharged: it is needless to say
that in both particulars he was deceived. Thus about four months rolled
on. He then became anxious to return home, and, as he would not obey
rule either as to writing or his diet, it was thought best to gratify
him, in the hope that a more effectual control might there be exercised.

Attended by his younger son, who had been placed at Naples as an
attaché to the embassy there, and by his younger daughter as before,
Scott left Naples for Tweedside on the 16th of April. He paused a few
weeks at Rome, chiefly to gratify his daughter with the sights, of
which, however, he himself also partook, beholding, as before, the
medieval antiquities with the greater share of interest. The houses
occupied by the dethroned Stuarts, and their tombs in St Peter’s,
were objects of peculiar interest in his eyes. Here, as at Naples, he
was treated by persons of the highest rank, native and foreign, with
the greatest respect. Leaving Rome on the 11th of May, he proceeded
by Venice, through the Tyrol, to Frankfort, with a haste which must
have been unfavourable to him, but which nothing could control. It
was soon after necessary for him to have blood let by his servant
Nicolson, who had been instructed for that purpose. On the 13th of
June he reached London, totally exhausted. It was now evident that
this illustrious man was drawing near to the end of a greater journey.
He was kept three weeks in London, during which his friends saw in
him but occasional gleams of sense. He never knew distinctly where
he was: he knew, however, that he was not at Abbotsford, and there he
yearned to be. To gratify him, he was taken to Scotland by sea, and
from Edinburgh, as soon as possible, to his own house. As he approached
it, he began faintly to recognise familiar objects, and by and by it
was found difficult to keep him in the carriage, so greatly was he
excited. At length, alighting at the porch, and seeing his steward
and friend, he exclaimed: ‘Ha, Willie Laidlaw! O man, how often have
I thought of you!’ His dogs came about his knees, and he sobbed over
them until stupor fell again upon him. He remained in the sad state to
which he was now reduced for two months. Sometimes the mind cleared a
little, and on one occasion he caused himself to be placed at his desk
to write, where, however, the fingers failed to grasp the pen, and he
sunk back weeping in his chair. More generally he was in a state of
slumber. When sensible, he caused the Bible and church services to
be read to him. At length, on the 21st of September 1832, the scene
was gently closed. Sir Walter died in the sixty-second year of his
age--years undoubtedly being cut off from the sum of his existence by
that terrible exhaustion consequent on his later literary task-work.

The funeral of this illustrious Scotsman was appointed to take place
on Wednesday the 26th; and, preparatory to that melancholy ceremony,
about three hundred gentlemen were invited by Major Sir Walter Scott,
the eldest son of the deceased. Among the persons thus called upon
were many individuals whose acquaintance of Sir Walter Scott was
simply of a local character. On an occasion like this, when the most
honoured head in the country was to be laid in the grave, it might
have been expected that many individuals would have come of their own
accord, especially from the neighbouring capital, to form part in a
procession, which, however melancholy, was altogether of a historical
character. Considering what the deceased had done for literature--what,
more specially, he had done to popularise Scotland, its scenery,
traditions, and character--we might not unnaturally have looked for
some very marked demonstration of respect, gratitude, and affection.
But great events sometimes make less impression at the time than they
do many years after: and such was the apathy towards this extraordinary
solemnity, that only ten or twelve persons, including the writer of
this and his brother William, had come from Edinburgh. It is also a
very remarkable circumstance, that, as in ordinary funerals, not nearly
the whole of those who had been invited found it convenient to attend.

After a refection in the style usually observed on such occasions, the
funeral train set forward to Dryburgh, where the family of the deceased
possess a small piece of sepulchral ground, amidst the ruins of the
abbey. The spot originally belonged to the Halyburtons of Merton,
an ancient and respectable baronial family, of which Sir Walter’s
paternal grandmother was a member. It is composed simply of the area
comprehended by four pillars, in one of the aisles of the ruined
building. On a side-wall is the following inscription: ‘Sub hoc tumulo
jacet JOANNES HALIBURTONUS, Barro de Mertoun, vir religione et virtute
clarus, qui obiit 17 die Augusti, 1640;’ below which there is a coat
of arms. On the back wall, the latter history of the spot is expressed
on a small tablet, as follows: ‘Hunc locum sepulturæ D. Seneschallus,
Buchaniæ comes, GUALTERO, HOMÆ, et ROBERTO SCOTT, nepotibus
Haliburtoni, concessit, 1791.’--That is to say, the Earl of Buchan
(lately proprietor of the ruins and adjacent ground) granted this place
of sepulture, in 1791, to Walter, Thomas, and Robert Scott, descendants
of the Laird of Halyburton. The persons indicated were the father and
uncles of Sir Walter Scott; but though all are dead, no other member
of the family lies there, besides his uncle Robert and his deceased
lady. From the limited dimensions of the place, the body of the author
of _Waverley_ was placed in a direction north and south, instead of
the usual fashion; and thus, in death at least, he has resembled the
Cameronians, of whose character he was supposed to have given such an
unfavourable picture in one of his tales.

The funeral procession consisted of about sixty vehicles of different
kinds, and a few horsemen. It was melancholy at the very first to see
the deceased carried out of a house which bore so many marks of his
taste, and of which every point, and almost every article of furniture,
was so identified with himself. But it was doubly touching to see him
carried insensible and inurned through the beautiful scenery, which he
has in different ways rendered, from its most majestic to its minutest
features, a matter of interest unto all time. There lay the gray and
august ruin of Melrose Abbey, whose broken arches he has rebuilt in
fancy, and whose deserted aisles he has repeopled with all their former
tenants--as lovely in its decay as ever; while he who had given it all
its charm was passing by, unconscious of its existence, and never more
to behold it. At every successive turn of the way appeared some object
which he had either loved because it was the subject of former song,
or rendered delightful by his own--from the Eildon Hills, renowned in
the legendary history of Michael Scott--to

   ‘Drygrange, with the milk-white yowes,
    ’Twixt Tweed and Leader standing;’

to Cowdenknows, where once spear and helm

   ‘Glanced gaily through the broom;’

and so on to the heights above Gladswood, where Smailholm Castle
appeared in sight--the scene of his childhood being thus brought, after
all the transactions of a mighty and glorious life, into the same
prospect with his grave.

During the time of the funeral, all business was suspended at the
burgh of Selkirk and the villages of Darnick and Melrose; and in the
former of these hamlets several of the signs of the traders were
covered with black cloth, while a flag of crape was mounted on the
old tower of Darnick, which rears itself in the midst of the inferior
buildings. At every side avenue and opening, stood a group of villagers
at gaze--few of them bearing the external signs of mourning, but all
apparently impressed with a proper sense of the occasion. The village
matrons and children, clustered in windows or in lanes, displayed a
mingled feeling of sorrow for the loss, and curiosity and wonder for
the show. The husbandmen suspended their labour, and leaned pensively
over the enclosures. Old infirm people sat out of doors, where some of
them, perhaps, were little accustomed to sit, surveying the passing
cavalcade. And though the feelings of the gazers had, perhaps, as much
reference to the local judge--‘the _Shirra_’--as to the poet of the
world and of time, the whole had a striking effect. Those forming the
procession, so far as they could abstract themselves from the feeling
of the occasion, were also impressed with the extraordinary appearance
which it bore, as it dragged its enormous length through the long
reaches of the road--the hearse sometimes appearing on a far height,
while the rear vehicles were stealing their way through a profound
valley or chasm. The sky was appropriately hung, during the whole time
of the ceremony, with a thick mass of cloud, which canopied the vale
from one end to the other like a pall.

Towards nightfall the procession arrived within the umbrageous
precincts of Dryburgh; and the coffin, being taken from the hearse,
was borne along in slow and solemn wise through the shady walks,
the mourners following to the amount of about three hundred. Before
leaving Abbotsford, homage had been done to the religious customs of
the country by the pronunciation of a prayer by Dr Baird; the funeral
service of the Episcopal Church (to which the deceased belonged)
was now read in the usual manner by the Rev. John Williams, Rector
of the Edinburgh Academy, and Vicar of Lampeter, whose distinction
in literature and in scholarship eminently entitled him to this
honour. The scene was at this time worthy of the occasion. In a
small green space, surrounded by the broken but picturesque ruins of
a Gothic abbey, and overshadowed by wild foliage, just tinged with
the melancholy hues of autumn, with mouldering statuary, and broken
monuments meeting the eye wherever it attempted to pierce, stood the
uncovered group of mourners, amongst whom could be detected but one
feeling--a consciousness that the greatest man their country ever
produced was here receiving from them the last attentions that man
can pay to his brother man--which, however, in this case, reflected
honour, not from the living to the dead, but (and to such a degree!)
from the dead to the living. In this scene, where the efforts of man
seemed struck with desolation, and those of nature crowned with beauty
and triumph, the voice of prayer sounded with peculiar effect; for it
is rare that the words of Holy Writ are pronounced in such a scene;
and it must be confessed that they can seldom be pronounced over such
a ‘departed brother.’ The grave was worthy of a poet--was worthy of
Scott.--And so there he lies, amidst his own loved scenes, awaiting
throughout the duration of time the visits of yearly thousands, after
which the awakening of eternity, when alone can he be reduced to a
level with other men.




PERSONAL APPEARANCE.


In stature, Sir Walter Scott was upwards of six feet, bulky in the
upper part of the body, but never inclining in the least to what is
called corpulency. His right limb was shrunk from an early period of
boyhood, and required to be supported by a staff, which he carried
close to the toes, the heel turning a little inwards. The other limb
was perfectly sound, but the foot was too long to bring it within the
description of handsome. The chest, arms, and shoulders were those of
a strong man; but the frame, in its general movements, must have been
much enfeebled by his lameness, which was such as to give an ungainly,
though not inactive appearance to the figure. The most remarkable
part of Sir Walter’s person was his head, which was so very tall and
cylindrical as to be quite unique. The measurement of the part below
the eyes was fully an inch and a half less than that above, which,
both upon the old and the new systems of phrenology, must be held as
a striking mark of the intellectuality of his character. In early
life, the hair was of a sandy pale colour; but it was changed by his
illness in 1819 to a light gray, and latterly had become rather thin.
The eyebrows, of the same hue, were so shaggy and prominent, that,
when he was reading or writing at a table, they completely shrouded
the eyes beneath. The eyes were gray, and somewhat small, surrounded
by humorous diverging lines, and possessing the extraordinary property
of shutting as much from below as from above, when their possessor was
excited by a ludicrous idea. The nose was the least elegant feature,
though its effect in a front view was by no means unpleasing. The
cheeks were firm and close; and the chin small and undistinguished.
The mouth was straight in its general shape, and the lips rather thin.
Between the nose and mouth was a considerable space, intersected by
a hollow, which gave an air of firmness to the visage. When walking
alone, Sir Walter generally kept his eyes bent upon the ground, and had
a somewhat abstracted and even repulsive aspect. But when animated by
conversation, his countenance became full of pleasant expression. He
may be said to have had three principal kinds of aspects: _First_, when
totally unexcited, the face was heavy, with sometimes an appearance
of vacancy, arising from a habit of drawing the under-lip far into
his mouth, as if to facilitate breathing. _Second_, when stirred with
some lively thought, the face broke into an agreeable smile, and the
eyes twinkled with a peculiarly droll expression, the result of
that elevation of the lower eyelids which has been just noticed. In
no portrait is this aspect caught so happily as in that painted near
the close of his life by Watson Gordon, no other painter, apparently,
having detected the extraordinary muscular movement which occasions the
expression. The _third_ aspect of Sir Walter Scott was one of a solemn
kind, always assumed when he talked of anything which he respected,
or for which his good sense informed him that a solemn expression
was appropriate. For example, if he had occasion to recite but a
single verse of romantic ballad poetry, or if he were informed of any
unfortunate occurrence in the least degree concerning the individual
addressing him, his visage altered in a moment to an expression of deep
veneration or of grave sympathy. The general tone of his mind, however,
being decidedly cheerful, the humorous aspect was that in which he most
frequently appeared. It remains only to be mentioned, in an account of
his personal peculiarities, that his voice was slightly affected by the
indistinctness which is so general in the county of Northumberland in
pronouncing the letter _r_, and that this was more observable when he
spoke in a solemn manner, than on other occasions.




CHARACTER.


The character of Scott has already been indicated in the tenor of his
life, and it is not necessary to say much in addition. It certainly
included a wonderful amount of the very noblest and most lovable of
the qualities of humanity--rarely, perhaps, have so many been combined
in one person. The public had a stronger sense of this in Scott’s
lifetime than even now, for the revelations made by Mr Lockhart
and others regarding his commercial affairs have had the effect of
derogating considerably from his reputation. But we venture to predict
that this is only a temporary effect. It has damaged the ideal image
only; it has not injured the real man. Far better, we would say, to
look the actual character in the face, and judge of it from its shadows
as well as its lights; then only can we truly appreciate even the
worth and goodness of Scott, for then only do we see a bearer of our
own nature, charged with a share of its infirmities, as well as of its
glories. Admit, for instance, that he erred in his anxiety for wealth;
see, on the other hand, what objects he had here in view! There was
nothing sordid in this passion of his--the results were mainly used to
realise a poetic dream from which others were to derive the substantial
benefits. A large share was also devoted without a grudge to solace
the unfortunate. Grant, again, that he venerated rank; the feeling was
essentially connected with his historic taste. He worshipped not the
title or its living bearer; his idol was constituted by the romantic
associations which it awoke--and thus he has been known to pay far more
practical respect to a poor Highland chieftain than to a modern English
peer. It may, in like manner, be admitted that his judgments on passing
affairs were obsolete, and they may be excused by a similar reference
to his poetic habits. It was the same romance of the brain from which
we derived his novels, that misled him on these points.

Sir Walter Scott possessed, in an eminent degree, the power of
imagination, with the gift of memory. If to this be added his strong
tendency to venerate past things, we at once have the most obvious
features of his intellectual character. A desultory course of reading
had brought him into acquaintance with almost all the fictitious
literature that existed before his own day, as well as the minutest
points of British, and more particularly Scottish history. His easy and
familiar habits had also introduced him to an extensive observation
of the varieties of human character. His immense memory retained the
ideas thus acquired, and his splendid imagination gave them new shape
and colour. Thus, his literary character rests almost exclusively upon
his power of combining and embellishing past events, and his skill
in delineating natural character. In early life, accident threw his
exertions into the shape of verse--in later life, into prose; but, in
whatever form they appear, the powers are not much different. The same
magician is still at work, reawaking the figures and events of history,
or sketching the characters which we every day see around us, and
investing the whole with the light of a most extraordinary fancy. His
versified writings, though replete with good feeling, display neither
the high imaginings nor the profound sympathies which are expected
in poetry; their charm lies almost entirely in the re-creation of
beings long since passed away, or the conception of others who might
be supposed to have once existed. As some of the material elements of
poetry were thus wanting, it was fortunate that he at last preferred
prose as a vehicle for his ideas--a medium of communication in which no
more was expected than what he was able or inclined to give, while it
afforded a scope for the delineation of familiar character, which was
nearly denied in poetry. As the discoverer and successful cultivator of
this kind of fictitious writing, Sir Walter Scott must rank among the
very highest names in British literature--Shakspeare, Milton, and Byron
being the only others who can be said to stand on the same level.

Among the minor powers of his mind, humour was one of the most
prominent. Both in his prose writings and in private conversation,
he was perpetually making droll application of some ancient adage,
or some snatch of popular literature, or some whimsical anecdote of
real life, which he happened to think appropriate to the occasion.[2]
A strong feeling of nationality was another of the features of his
character, though perhaps it ought, in some measure, to be identified
with his tendency to admire whatever belonged to the past. He loved
Scotland and Scotchmen, but, it may be remarked, fully as much with
a view to what they were, and what they did long ago, as to their
later or present condition. Of the common people, when they came
individually before him, it cannot be said that he was a despiser:
to them, as to all who came in his way, he was invariably kind and
affable. Nevertheless, from the highly aristocratic tone of his mind,
he had no affection for the people as a body. He seems to have never
conceived the idea of a manly and independent character in middle or
humble life; and in his novels, where an individual of these classes is
introduced, he is never invested with any virtues, unless obedience, or
even servility to superiors, be of the number. Among the features of
his character, it would be improper to omit noticing his passion for
field-sports, and for all the machinery by which they are carried on.
He was so fond of a good horse, that the present writer has seen him
turn the most serious conversation, in order to remark the strength
and speed of one of these animals which he saw passing. He has also
recorded his attachment to dogs, by being frequently drawn with one by
his side.

The gravest charge against Sir Walter Scott lies undeniably in
his heedlessness regarding his affairs. Apart altogether from his
accommodations to Constable and Company, he had entered deeply into
a false system of credit on his own account; and while much debt was
consequently hanging over him, he is found transferring the only solid
security for it--his estate--to his son. This, however, should be
contemplated in connection with all the circumstances which we can
suppose to have justified it in his own mind. To one who was producing
ten thousand a year by his pen, and who had done so for years, who,
moreover, saw large possessions in his own hands, there might appear
no pressing reason for looking anxiously into the accounts concerning
even so large a sum of floating debt as forty-six thousand pounds; at
least to one whose temperament, we now see, was sanguine and ideal as
ever poet manifested, though in his case usually veiled under an air
of worldly seeming. When this is considered, the weight of the charge
will, we think, appear much lessened, though it cannot be altogether
done away. For what remains, let us reflect on the latter days of
Scott, and surely we must own that never was fault more nobly expiated,
or punishment more nobly borne, than by the great Minstrel.

It is by far the greatest glory of Sir Walter Scott, that he shone
equally as a good and virtuous man, as he did in his capacity of the
first fictitious writer of the age. His behaviour through life was
marked by undeviating integrity and purity, insomuch that no scandalous
whisper was ever yet circulated against him. The traditionary
recollection of his early life is burdened with no stain of any sort.
His character as a husband and father is altogether irreproachable.
Indeed, in no single relation of life does it appear that he ever
incurred the least blame. His good sense, and good feeling united,
appear to have guided him aright through all the difficulties and
temptations of life; and, even as a politician, though blamed by many
for his exclusive sympathy with the cause of established rule, he was
always acknowledged to be too benevolent and too unobtrusive to call
for severe censure. Along with the most perfect uprightness of conduct,
he was characterised by extraordinary simplicity of manners. He was
invariably gracious and kind, and it was impossible ever to detect in
his conversation a symptom of his grounding the slightest title to
consideration upon his literary fame, or of his even being conscious of
it. Of all men living, the most modest, as likewise the greatest and
most virtuous, was Sir Walter Scott.




[CONCLUSION.


The vast exertions made by Scott in his latter years to redeem his
financial blunders were happily successful. Since his death, the whole
of his debts have been cleared off by the profits of his writings. More
than a generation has elapsed since his decease, yet the popularity of
his works remains unabated. Written to satisfy no temporary feeling,
but founded on a knowledge of human character, and ever enduring
and elevating in their tendency, the fictions of Scott do not seem
destined to grow old or out of date. From the frantic novel-writing of
the period, too commonly the mere rack of invention, with characters
and incidents in violation of all known experience, one turns to the
fictions of Sir Walter with undiminished, if not increasing, delight
and admiration. Mr Cadell’s interest in the Waverley Novels having been
transferred in 1851 to Messrs A. & C. Black, innumerable editions have
since testified the lasting appreciation of these interesting works,
to which much justice has certainly been done as regards the method of
publication; though, like some others among the original readers of the
fictions, we could have spared the explanatory notes of the author,
which, with all their merits, are somewhat calculated to destroy the
vraisemblance of the respective narratives. A few years after the
death of Sir Walter, the citizens of Edinburgh resolved to erect a
monument to his memory, and the device adopted was that magnificent
Norman cross, from plans of Mr George M. Kemp, placed in so conspicuous
a situation in Princes Street as to strike the eye of every passing
traveller. It encloses, under open Gothic arches, a marble statue
(life-size) of the poet in a sitting posture, by a native artist, Mr
John Steell. The monument, which was completed in 1846, is open daily
for the inspection of strangers. The cost of the structure has been
upwards of £15,000.

There is something sorrowful in the failure of Scott’s high hopes of
founding a family. The fond dream of his life may be said to have come
to nought. He left two sons and two daughters, who did not long survive
him. Miss Anne Scott died in London, 25th June 1833. Sophia, who was
married to John Gibson Lockhart, and who, in appearance and character,
most resembled her father, died 17th May 1837. Charles Scott, the
second son, died, unmarried, while acting as an attaché to a diplomatic
embassy to Persia, 28th October 1841. Walter, the eldest son, who
succeeded to the baronetcy, and rose to be lieutenant-colonel in the
15th Hussars, died on his passage home from India, 8th February 1847.
He was married, but left no issue, and the baronetcy is extinct. Mrs
Lockhart had three children, John Hugh Lockhart--the ‘Hugh Littlejohn’
for whom Scott so lovingly wrote the _Tales of a Grandfather_--who died
15th December 1831; Walter Scott Lockhart, an officer in the army,
who died at Versailles, 10th January 1853; and Charlotte Harriet Jane
Lockhart, who was married in 1847 to James Robert Hope, barrister,
grandson of the Earl of Hopetoun. This lady, the last surviving child
of the novelist, died at Edinburgh 26th October 1858. She had three
children, two of whom died young, the only survivor being Mary Monica,
born 2d October 1852, who is now the only living descendant of Sir
Walter Scott. Mrs Hope having, in virtue of inheritance, succeeded to
the estate of Abbotsford, assumed with her husband the surname Scott,
in addition to that of Hope. Their daughter is accordingly known as
Miss Hope-Scott. Mr Hope-Scott, who occupies Abbotsford, was by a
second marriage united to a sister of the present Duke of Norfolk,
1861. All Sir Walter Scott’s brothers pre-deceased him. The only one of
them who was married was Thomas, who left a son and three daughters.

In the occupancy of Mr Hope-Scott, Abbotsford remains a central point
of attraction to tourists, who, for the purpose of visiting it, and
also the mausoleum at Dryburgh, make the village of Melrose the spot
to which they first direct their pilgrimage. Carefully preserved in
every respect, the mansion of Abbotsford will be found almost in
the condition in which it was left by the great Scottish novelist.
The lapse of forty years, however, has effected great changes on
the grounds. The belts and clumps of plantation, the laying out and
thinning of which afforded so much delight to Sir Walter in the days
of his prosperity, when accompanied by Tom Purdie or William Laidlaw,
have become thick, umbrageous woods, clothing with beauty the once
bare hill-sides, and otherwise realising the anticipations of one who
fondly watched over their early development. The scene, one of the
most admired in the south of Scotland, ought not to be passed over
hurriedly. Here, within the murmuring sound of the Tweed, Sir Walter
Scott breathed his last, and here is the memorable shrine of his
affections.]




  ABBOTSFORD NOTANDA

  OR

  SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS FACTOR

  BY

  ROBERT CARRUTHERS. LL.D.


Looking over the correspondence and other papers of my old friend,
William Laidlaw, long since deceased, and sleeping at the foot of a
Highland hill, far from his beloved Tweedside, it occurred to me that
certain portions of the letters and memoranda might possess interest
to some readers, and not be without value to future biographers. Mr
Laidlaw, it is well known, was factor or steward to Sir Walter Scott at
Abbotsford, and also occasional amanuensis. Lockhart has done justice
to his gentle, unassuming character, and merits, and to his familiar
intercourse with the Great Minstrel. Still, there are domestic details
and incidents unrecorded, such as we should rejoice to have concerning
Shakspeare at New Place, with his one hundred and seven acres of land
in the neighbourhood, or from Horace addressing the bailiff on his
Sabine farm. Such personal memorials of great men, if genuine and
correct, are seldom complained of, as Gibbon has observed, for their
minuteness or prolixity.

The following pages are reprinted partly from _Chambers’s Journal_, and
partly from the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, the proprietors of which kindly
permitted their republication.

                                                                   R. C.

INVERNESS.




ABBOTSFORD NOTANDA.


The death of Mr William Laidlaw, a man of fine natural powers, and
of most estimable character, removed another of the few individuals
connected directly and confidentially with the daily life and literary
history of Sir Walter Scott, and also with the revival of the antique
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The loss of Hogg, while the
twilight from Scott’s departed greatness still shone on the land, was
universally regretted; and by the death of Laidlaw, another ‘flower of
the forest,’ less bright, but a genuine product of the soil, was ‘wede
away.’ As the author of one of our sweetest and most characteristic
Scottish ballads, _Lucy’s Flittin’_, and as a collaborateur with Scott
in the collection of the ancient minstrelsy, Laidlaw is entitled to
honourable remembrance. Let us never forget those who have added even
one wild-rose to the chaplet of Scottish song! It is chiefly, however,
as the companion and factor or land-steward of Scott, that William
Laidlaw will be known in after-times. During most of those busy and
glorious years when Scott was pouring out so prodigally the treasures
of his prose fictions, and building up his baronial romance of
Abbotsford, Laidlaw was his confidential adviser and assistant. From
1817 to 1832, he was resident on the poet’s estate, and emphatically
one of his household friends. Not a shade of distrust or estrangement
came between them; and this close connection, notwithstanding
a disparity in circumstances and opinions, in fame and worldly
consequence, is too honourable to both parties to be readily forgotten.
The manly kindness and consideration of one noble nature was paralleled
by the affectionate devotion and admiration of another; and literary
history is brightened by the rare conjunction.

Scott’s early excursions to Liddesdale and Ettrick form one of the
most interesting epochs of his life. He was then young, not great,
but prosperous, high-spirited, and overflowing with enthusiasm. His
appointment as sheriff had procured him confidence and respect. He had
given hostages to fortune as a husband and a father, and no one felt
more strongly the force and tenderness of those ties. Friends were
daily gathering round him; his German studies and ballads inspired
visions of literary distinction; and he was full of hope and ambition.
In his Border raids, he revelled among the choice and curious stores
of Scottish poetry and antiquities. Almost every step in his progress
was marked by some memorable deed or plaintive ballad--some martial
achievement or fairy superstition. Every tragic tale and family
tradition was known to him. The old _peels_, or castles, the bare
hills and treeless forest, and solitary streams were all sacred in his
eyes. They told of times long past--of warlike feuds and forays--of
knights and freebooters, and of primitive manners and customs, fast
disappearing, yet embalmed in songs, often rude and imperfect, but
always energetic or tender. Thus, the Border towers, and streams, and
rocks were equally dear to him as memorials of feudal valour, and as
the scenes of lyric poetry and pastoral tranquillity. He contrasted
the strife and violence of the warlike Douglases, the Elliots, and
Armstrongs, with the peace and security of later times, when shepherds
ranged the silent hill, or Scottish maidens sang ancient songs, and,
like the Trojan dames,

    ‘Washed their fair garments in the days of peace.’

Much of this romance was in the scene, but more was in the mind of the
beholder.

William Laidlaw’s acquaintance with Scott commenced in the autumn
of 1802, after two volumes of the _Minstrelsy_ had been published,
and the editor was making collections for a third. The eldest son
of a respectable sheep-farmer, Mr Laidlaw was born at Blackhouse,
Selkirkshire, in November 1780. He had received a good education,
had a strong bias towards natural history and poetry, was modest and
retiring, and of remarkably mild and agreeable manners. The scheme of
collecting the old ballads of the Forest was exactly suited to his
taste. Burns had filled the whole land with a love of song and poetry,
James Hogg was his intimate friend and companion. Hogg had been ten
years a shepherd with Mr Laidlaw’s father, had taught the younger
members of the family their letters, and recited poetry to the old, and
was engaged in every _ploy_ and pursuit at Blackhouse, the name of the
elder Laidlaw’s farm.

A solitary and interesting spot is Blackhouse!--a wild extensive
sheep-walk, with its complement of traditional story, and the suitable
accompaniment of a ruined tower. The farm lies along the Douglas
Burn, a small mountain-stream which falls into the Yarrow about two
miles from St Mary’s Loch. Near the house, at the foot of a steep,
green hill, and surrounded with a belting of trees, is Blackhouse
Tower, or the Tower of Douglas, so called, according to tradition,
after the Black Douglas, one of whose ancestors, Sir John Douglas of
Douglas-burn, as appears from Godscroft’s history of the family, sat
in Malcolm Canmore’s first parliament. The tower has in one corner the
remains of a round turret, which contained the stair, and the walls
rise in high broken points, which altogether give the ruin a singular
and picturesque appearance. It is also the scene of a popular ballad,
_The Douglas Tragedy_, in which, as in the old Elizabethan dramas,
blood is shed and horrors are accumulated with no sparing hand. A
knightly lover, the ‘Lord William’ of so many ballads, carries off
a daughter of Lord Douglas, and is pursued by this puissant noble
and his seven sons. All these are slain by Lord William, while the
fair betrothed looks on, holding his steed; and the lover himself is
mortally wounded in the combat, and dies ere morn. The lady also falls
a prey to her grief; and, in the true vein of antique story and legend,
we are told

   ‘Lord William was buried in St Mary’s kirk,
      Lady Margaret in Mary’s quire;
    Out o’ the lady’s grave grew a bonny red rose,
      And out o’ the knight’s a brier.’

The tower and legend interested Scott as they had done Laidlaw. He
listened attentively to the traditionary narrative, and, like the
lovers in the ballad,

   ‘He lighted down to take a drink
      Of the spring that ran sae clear,’

and visited the seven large stones erected upon the neighbouring
heights of Blackhouse to mark the spot where the seven brethren were
slain.

Mr Laidlaw was prepared for Scott’s mission. He had heard from a
Selkirk man in Edinburgh, Mr Andrew Mercer--a Border rhymester,
and connected with the _Edinburgh Magazine_--that the sheriff was
meditating a poetical raid into Ettrick, accompanied by John Leyden,
and he had written down various ballads from the recitation of old
women and the singing of the servant-girls. He had also enlisted the
Ettrick Shepherd into this special service. The following is one of
Hogg’s rambling bizarre epistles, which relates chiefly to the ballad
of the Outlaw Murray:

    ‘DEAR SIR--I received yours, with the transcript, on the day before
    St Boswell’s Fair’ [17th of July], ‘and am sorry to say it will not
    be in my power to procure you manuscripts of the two old ballads,
    especially as they which Mr Scott hath already collected are so
    near being published. I was talking to my uncle concerning them,
    and he tells me they are mostly escaped his memory, and they really
    are so--in so much, that of the whole long transactions betwixt
    the Scottish king and Murray, he cannot make above half-a-dozen
    of stanzas to metre, and these are wretched. He attributed it to
    James V., but as he can mention no part of the song or tale from
    whence this is proven, I apprehend, from some expressions, it
    is much ancienter. Upon the whole, I think the thing worthy of
    investigation--the more so as he’ [Murray of the ballad] ‘was the
    progenitor of a very respectable family, and seems to have been
    a man of the utmost boldness and magnanimity. What way he became
    possessed of Ettrick Forest, or from whom he conquered it, remains
    to me a mystery. When taken prisoner by the king at Permanscore,
    above Hanginshaw, where the traces of the encampments are still
    visible, and pleading the justice of his claim to Ettrick Forest,
    he hath this remarkable expression:

   “I took it from the Soudan Turk
    When you and your men durstna come see.”[3]

    Who the devil was this Soudan Turk? I would be very happy in
    contributing any assistance in my power to the elucidating the
    annals of that illustrious and beloved though now decayed house,
    but I have no means of accession to any information. I imagine the
    whole manuscript might be procured from some of the connections of
    the family. Is it not in the library at Philiphaugh?[4] As to the
    death of the Baron of Oakwood and his brother-in-law on Yarrow,
    if Mr Mercer or Mr Scott, or either of them, wisheth to see it
    poetically described, they might wait until my tragedy is performed
    at the Theatre-royal; and if that shall never take place, they must
    sit in darkness and the shadow of death for what light the poets
    of Bruce’s time can afford them!

    ‘I believe I could get as much from these traditions as to make
    good songs out of them myself. But without Mr Scott’s permission
    this would be an imposition; neither would I undertake it without
    an order from him in his own handwriting, as I could not bring my
    language to bear with my date. As a supplement to his songs, if
    you please, you may send him the one I sent last to you: it will
    satisfy him, yea or nay, as to my abilities. Haste; communicate
    this to him; and ask him if, in his researches, he hath lighted on
    that of John Armstrong of Gilnockie Hall, as I can procure him a
    copy of that. My uncle says it happened in the same reign with that
    of Murray, and if so, I am certain it has been written by the same
    bard. I could procure Mercer some stories--such as the tragical,
    though well-authenticated one of the unnatural murder of the son
    and heir of Sir Robert Scott of Thirlstane, the downfall of the
    family of Tushilaw, and the horrid spirit that still haunts the
    Alders. And we might give him that of John Thomson’s Aumrie, and
    the Bogle of Bell’s Lakes.

    ‘My muse still lies dormant, and with me must sleep for ever, since
    a liberal public hath not given me what my sins and mine iniquities
    deserved.--I am yours for ever.

                                                             JAMES HOGG.

    ‘_July 20th, 1801._’

The ‘liberal public’ had given a reception ‘the north side of
friendly,’ as Bailie Nicol Jarvie says, to a small publication which
made its appearance about six months before the date of the above
letter, entitled ‘_Scottish Pastorals, Poems_, &c., by James Hogg,
Farmer at Ettrick’--a most unlucky speculation.

Mr Laidlaw was constantly annoyed, he said, to find how much the
affectation and false taste of Allan Ramsay had spoiled or superseded
many striking and beautiful old strains of which he got traces and
fragments, and how much Scott was too late in beginning his researches,
as many aged persons, who had been the bards and depositaries of a
former generation, were then gone.

‘I heard,’ he says, ‘from one of our servant-girls, who had all the
turn and qualifications for a collector, of a ballad called _Auld
Maitland_, that a grandfather of Hogg’s could repeat, and she herself
had several of the first stanzas (which I took a note of, and have
still the copy). This greatly aroused my anxiety to procure the whole,
for this was a ballad not even hinted at by Mercer in his list of
desiderata received from Mr Scott. I forthwith wrote to Hogg himself,
requesting him to endeavour to procure the whole ballad. In a week
or two, I received his reply, containing _Auld Maitland_ exactly as
he had copied it from the recitation of his uncle, Will Laidlaw of
Phawhope, corroborated by his mother, who both said they learned it
from their father, a still older Will of Phawhope, and an old man
called Andrew Muir, who had been servant to the famous Mr Boston,
minister of Ettrick.’[5] These services of the olden time were marked
by reciprocal kindness and attachment, not unworthy of the patriarchal
age. Son succeeded father in tending the _hirsel_ or herding the cows,
while in the case of ‘the master,’ the same hereditary or family
succession was often preserved.

The person of the sheriff was not unknown to the new friend with whom
he was afterwards destined to form so intimate a connection. ‘I first
saw Walter Scott,’ Laidlaw used to relate, ‘when the Selkirk troop of
yeomanry met to receive their sheriff shortly after his appointment. I
was on the right of the rear rank, and my front-rank man was _Archie
Park_, a brother of the traveller. Our new sheriff was accompanied by
a friend, and as they retired to the usual station of the inspecting
officer previous to the charges, the wonderful _springs_ and bounds
which Scott made, seemingly in the excitation and gaiety of his heart,
joined to the effect of his fine fair face and athletic appearance,
were the cause of a general murmur of satisfaction, bordering on
applause, which ran through the troop. Archie Park looked over his
shoulder to me, and growled, in his deep rough voice: “Will, what a
strong chield that would have been if his right leg had been like his
left ane!”’

Scott and Leyden duly appeared at Blackhouse, carrying letters of
introduction. They put up their horses, and experienced a homely
unostentatious hospitality, which afterwards served to heighten the
delightful traits of rustic character in the delineation of Dandie
Dinmont’s home at Charlies-Hope. If the sheriff did not ‘shoot
a blackcock and eat a blackcock too,’ the fault was not in his
entertainers. After the party had explored the scenery of the burn,
and inspected Douglas Tower, Laidlaw produced his treasure of _Auld
Maitland_. Leyden seemed inclined to lay hands on the manuscript, but
the sheriff said gravely that _he_ would read it. Instantly both Scott
and Leyden, from their knowledge of the subject, saw and felt that
the ballad was undoubtedly ancient, and their eyes sparkled as they
exchanged looks. Scott read with great fluency and emphasis. Leyden was
like a roused lion. He paced the room from side to side, clapped his
hands, and repeated such expressions as echoed the spirit of hatred to
King Edward and the Southrons, or as otherwise struck his fancy. ‘I had
never before seen anything like this,’ said the quiet Laidlaw; ‘and,
though the sheriff kept his feelings under, he, too, was excited, so
that his _burr_ became very perceptible.’ The wild Border energy and
abruptness are certainly seen in such verses as these:

   ‘As they fared up o’er Lammermore,
      They burned baith up and down,
    Until they came to a darksome house;
      Some call it Leader-Town.

    “Wha hauds this house?” young Edward cried,
      “Or wha gies’t ower to me?”
    A gray-haired knight set up his head,
      And crackit right crousely:

    “Of Scotland’s king I haud my house;
      He pays me meat and fee;
    And I will keep my gude auld house
      While my house will keep me.”

    They laid their sowies to the wall,
      Wi’ mony a heavy peal;
    But he threw ower to them agen
      Baith pitch and tar barrel.

    With springalds, stanes, and gads of airn,
      Among them fast he threw;
    Till mony of the Englishmen
      About the wall he slew.

    Full fifteen days that braid host lay,
      Sieging auld Maitland keen,
    Syne they hae left him, hail and fair,
      Within his strength of stane.’

Scott valued this ballad and his other lyrical acquisitions highly.
In a letter to Mr Laidlaw, dated 21st January 1803, he remarks as
follows: ‘_Auld Maitland_, laced and embroidered with antique notes
and illustrations, makes a most superb figure. I have got, through the
intervention of Lady Dalkeith, a copy of Mr Beattie of Meikledale’s
_Tamlane_. It contains some highly poetical stanzas descriptive of
fairy-land, which, after some hesitation, I have adopted, though they
have a very refined and modern cast. I do not suspect Mr Beattie of
writing ballads himself; but pray, will you inquire whether, within the
memory of man, there has been any poetical clergyman or schoolmaster
whom one could suppose capable of giving a coat of modern varnish to
this old ballad. What say you to this, for example?

   “We sleep on rose-buds soft and sweet,
      We revel in the stream,
    We wanton lightly on the wind,
      Or glide on a sunbeam.”

This seems quite modern, yet I have retained it.’

Laidlaw had procured a version of another ballad, _The Demon Lover_,
which he took down from the recitation of Mr Walter Grieve, then in
Craik, on Borthwick Water. Grieve sung it well to a singularly wild
tune; and the song embodies a popular but striking superstition, such
as Lewis introduced into his romance of _The Monk_. To complete the
fragment, Laidlaw added the 6th, 12th, 17th, and 18th stanzas; and
those who consult the ballad in Scott’s _Minstrelsy_ will see how well
our friend was qualified to excel in the imitation of these strains of
the elder muse. After the party had ‘quaffed their fill’ of old songs
and legendary story, they all took horse, and went to dine with Mr
Ballantyne of Whitehope, the uncle of Laidlaw.

‘There was not a minute of silence,’ says Mr Laidlaw’s memorandum,
‘as we rode down the narrow glen, and over by the way of Dryhope,
to get a view of St Mary’s Loch and of the Peel or Tower. When we
entered the Hawkshaw-doors, a pass between Blackhouse and Dryhope,
where a beautiful view of the lake opens, Leyden, as I expected, was
so struck with the scene that he suddenly stopped, sprung from his
horse (which he gave to Mr Scott’s servant), and stood admiring the
fine Alpine prospect. Mr Scott said little; but as this was the first
time he had seen St Mary’s Loch, doubtless more was passing in his mind
than appeared. Often, when returning home with my fishing-rod, had I
stopped at this place, and admired the effect of the setting sun and
the approaching twilight; and now when I found it admired by those whom
I thought likely to judge of and be affected with its beauty, I felt
the same sort of pleasure that I experienced when I found that Walter
Scott was delighted with Hogg. Had I at that time been gifted with a
glimpse--a very slight glimpse--of the second-sight, every word that
passed, and they were not few, until we reached Whitehope or Yarrow
Church, I should have endeavoured to record. Scott, as all the world
knows, was great in conversation; and Leyden was by no means a common
person. He had about him that unconquerable energy and restlessness
of mind that would have raised him, had he lived, very high among
the remarkable men of his native country. I cannot forget the fire
with which he repeated, on the Craig-bents, a half-stanza of an
irrecoverable ballad--

    “Oh swiftly gar speed the berry-brown steed
      That drinks o’ the Teviot clear!”--

which his friend, when finally no brother to it could be found, adopted
in the reply of William of Deloraine to the Lady of Branksome.’

The regret that Laidlaw here expresses at having omitted to note down
the conversation of his friends is extremely natural, but few men
could be less fitted for such a task. He had nothing of Boswell in his
mind or character. He wanted both the concentration of purpose and the
pliant readiness of talent and power of retention. At Abbotsford he
had ample opportunities for keeping such a record, and he was often
urged to undertake it. Scott himself on one occasion, after some
brilliant company had left the room, remarked half jocularly, that
many a one meeting such people, and hearing such talk, would make a
very lively and entertaining book of the whole, which might some day
be read with interest. Laidlaw instantly felt it necessary to put
in a disclaimer. He said he would consider it disreputable in him
to take advantage of his position, or of the confidence of private
society, and make a journal of the statements and opinions uttered
in free and familiar conversation. We may respect the delicacy and
sensitiveness of his feelings, but society, collectively, would lose
much by the rigid observance of such a rule. The question, we think,
should be determined by the nature and quality of the circumstances
recorded. It must be a special, not a general case. There is nothing
more discreditable in noting down a brilliant thought or interesting
fact, than in repeating it in conversation; while to play the part of a
gossiping and malicious eavesdropper, is equally a degradation in life
and in literature. It would have been detestable (if the idea could
for a moment be entertained) for Mr Laidlaw to pry into the domestic
details and personal feelings or failings of his illustrious friend
at Abbotsford; but we may wish that his pen had been as ready as his
ear when Scott ran over the story of his literary life and opinions,
or discriminated the merits of his great contemporaries--when Davy
expatiated on the discoveries and delights of natural philosophy--when
Miss Edgeworth painted Irish scenes and character--when Moore
discoursed of poetry, music, and Byron--when Irving kindled up like
a poet in his recollections of American lakes, and woods, and old
traditions--when Mackintosh began with the Roman law, and ended in
Lochaber--when some septuagenarian related anecdotes of the past--when
artists and architects talked of pictures, sculpture, and buildings--or
when some accomplished traveller and _savant_ opened up the interior of
foreign courts and the peculiarities of national manners. Many a wise
and witty saying and memorable illustration--the life-blood of the best
books--might thus have been preserved, though with occasional _lacunæ_
and mistakes; and all are now lost--

    ‘Gone glittering through the dream of things that were’--

and cannot be recalled. Surely society is the worse for the loss of
these racy, spontaneous fruits of intellect, study, and observation.

While dinner was getting ready at Whitehope, Laidlaw and Leyden
strolled into the neighbouring churchyard of Yarrow, and saw the
tomb of Mr Rutherford, the first minister of that parish after the
Revolution, and the maternal great-grandfather of Scott. Leyden recited
to his companion the ballads of _The Eve of St John_ and _Glenfinlas_,
which naturally impressed on the hearer a vivid idea of the poetical
talents of the sheriff, and Laidlaw felt towards him as towards an
old friend. This was increased by Scott’s partiality for dogs. He was
struck with a very beautiful and powerful greyhound which followed
Laidlaw, and he begged to have a brace of pups from the same dog,
saying he had now become a forester, as sheriff of Ettrick, and must
have dogs of the true mountain breed. ‘This request,’ said the other,
‘I took no little pains to fulfil. I kept the puppies till they were
nearly a year old. My youngest brother, then a boy, took great delight
in training them; and the way was this: he took a long pole having a
string and a piece of meat fastened to it, and made the dogs run in a
circular or oval course. Their eagerness to get the meat gave them, by
much practice, great strength in the loins, and singular expertness
in turning, besides singular alertness in _mouthing_, for which they
were afterwards famous. Scott hunted with them for two years over the
mountains of Tweedside and Yarrow, and never dreamed that a hare could
escape them. He mentions them in the Introduction to the second canto
of _Marmion_--

   “Remember’st thou my greyhounds true?
    O’er holt or hill there never flew,
    From slip or leash there never sprang,
    More fleet of foot, or sure of fang.”’

After this visit, Laidlaw doubled his diligence in gathering
up fragments of the elder Muse, and the sheriff was profuse in
acknowledgments:

    ‘MY DEAR SIR--I am very much obliged to you for your letter and
    the enclosure. The _Laird o’ Logie_ is particularly acceptable, as
    coming near the real history. Carmichael, mentioned in the ballad,
    was the ancestor of the Earl of Hyndford, and captain of James
    VI.’s guard, so that the circumstance of the prisoner’s being in
    his custody is highly probable. I will adopt the whole of this
    ballad instead of the common one called _Ochiltree_. _Geordie_ I
    have seen before: the ballad is curious, though very rude. _Ormond_
    may be curious, but is modern. The story of _Confessing the Queen
    of England_ is published by Bishop Percy, so I will neither trouble
    you about that nor about _Dundee_. “Glendinning” is a wrong
    reading: the name of the Highland chief who carries off the lady is
    Glenlyon, one of the Menzieses. Among Hogg’s ballads is a curious
    set of _Lamington_ or _Lochinvar_, which I incline to adopt as
    better than that in the _Minstrelsy_. Who was Katherine Janfarie,
    the heroine? She could hardly be a damsel of rank, as the estate
    of Whitebank is an ancient patrimony of the Pringles. I don’t know
    what to make of Cockburn’s name, unless it be Perys, the modern
    Pierce, which is not a common name in Scotland. I am very much
    interested about the Tushilaw lines, which, from what you mention,
    must be worth recovering. I forgot to bring with me from Blackhouse
    your edition of the _Goshawk_, in which were some excellent various
    readings. I am so anxious to have a complete Scottish _Otterburn_,
    that I will omit the ballad entirely in the first volume, hoping
    to recover it in time for insertion in the third. I would myself
    be well pleased to delay the publication of all three for some
    time, but the booksellers are mutinous and impatient, as a book is
    always injured by being long out of print. As to the Liddesdale
    traditions, I think I am pretty correct, although doubtless much
    more may be recovered. The truth is that, in these traditions, as
    you must have observed, old people are usually very positive about
    their own mode of telling a story, and as uncharitably critical in
    their observations on those who differ from them.--Yours faithfully,

                                                          WALTER SCOTT.’

Before the friends parted, Scott made a note of Hogg’s address, and
from that time never ceased to take a warm interest in his fortunes.
He corresponded with him, and becoming curious to see the poetical
Shepherd, made another visit to Blackhouse, for the purpose of
getting Laidlaw along with him as guide to Ettrick. The visit was
highly agreeable. The sheriff’s _bonhomie_ and lively conversation
had deeply interested his companion, and he rode by his side in a
sort of ecstasy as they journeyed again by St Mary’s Loch and the
green hills of Dryhope, which rise beyond the wide expanse of smooth
water. It was a fine summer morning, and the impressions of the day
and the scene have been recorded in imperishable verse.[6] Dryhope
Tower, so intimately associated with the memory of Mary Scott, the
‘Flower of Yarrow,’ made the travellers stop for a brief space; and
_Dhu Linn_ (where Marjory, the wife of Percy de Cockburn, sat while
men were hanging her husband), with Chapelhope and other scenes and
ruins famous in Border tradition, deeply interested Scott. At the west
end of the Loch of the Lowes, the surrounding mountains close in, in
the face of the traveller, apparently preventing all farther egress.
At this spot, as Laidlaw was trying to find a safe place where they
might cross the marsh through which the infant Yarrow finds its way
to the loch, Scott’s servant, an English boy, rode up, and, touching
his hat, respectfully inquired, with much interest, where the people
got their necessaries! This unromantic question, and the _naïveté_ of
the lad’s manner, was a source of great amusement to the sheriff. The
day’s journey was a favourite theme with Laidlaw. First, after passing
the spots we have described, the horsemen crossed the ridge of hills
that separates the Yarrow from her sister stream. These hills are high
and green, but the more lofty parts of the ridge are soft and boggy,
and they had often to pick their way, and proceed in single file. Then
they followed a foot-track on the side of a long _cleugh_ or _hope_,
and at last descended towards the Ettrick, where they had in view the
level green valley, walled in by high hills of dark green, with here
and there gray crags, the church and the old _place_ of Ettrick Hall
in ruins, embosomed in trees. Scott was somewhat chafed by having
left in his bedroom that morning his watch--a valuable gold repeater,
presented to him on the occasion of his marriage--and to Laidlaw’s
ejaculations of delight he sometimes replied quickly: ‘A savage enough
place--a very savage place.’ His good-humour, however, was restored
by the novelty of the scenes and the fine clear day, and he broke out
with snatches of song, and told endless anecdotes, either new, or
better told than ever they were before. The travellers went to dine at
Ramsey-cleugh, where they were sure of a cordial welcome and a good
farmer’s dinner; and Laidlaw sent off to Blackhouse for the sheriff’s
watch (which he received next morning), and to Ettrick House for Hogg,
that he might come and spend the evening with them. The Shepherd (who
then retained all his original simplicity of character) came _to tea_,
and he brought with him a bundle of manuscripts, of size enough at
least to shew his industry--all of course ballads, and fragments of
ballads. The penmanship was executed with more care than Hogg had ever
bestowed on anything before. Scott was surprised and pleased with
Hogg’s appearance, and with the hearty familiarity with which _Jamie_,
as he was called, was received by Laidlaw and the Messrs Bryden of
Ramsey-cleugh. Hogg was no less gratified. ‘The sheriff of a county
in those days,’ said Laidlaw, ‘was regarded by the class to whom Hogg
belonged with much of the fear and respect that their _forbears_
looked up to the ancient hereditary sheriffs, who had the power of
pit and gallows in their hands; and here Jamie found himself all at
once not only the chief object of the sheriff’s notice and flattering
attention, but actually seated at the same table with him.’ Hogg’s
genius was sufficient passport to the best society. His appearance was
also prepossessing. His clear ruddy cheek and sparkling eye spoke of
health and vivacity, and he was light and agile in his figure. When a
youth, he had a remarkably fine head of long curling brown hair, which
he wore coiled up under his bonnet; and on Sundays, when he entered
the church and let down his locks, the _lasses_ (on whom Jamie always
turned an expressive _espiègle_ glance) looked towards him with envy
and admiration. He doubtless thought of himself as the Gaelic bard did
of Allan of Muidart--

   ‘And when to old Kilphedar’s church
      Came troops of damsels gay,
    Say, came they there for Allan’s fame,
      Or came they there to pray?’

Mr Laidlaw thus speaks of the evening at Ramsey-cleugh: ‘It required
very little of that tact or address in social intercourse for which Mr
Scott was afterwards so much distinguished, to put himself and those
around him entirely at their ease. In truth, I never afterwards saw
him at any time apparently enjoy company so much, or exert himself
so greatly--or probably there was no effort at all--in rendering
himself actually fascinating; nor did I ever again spend such a night
of merriment. The qualities of Hogg came out every instant, and his
unaffected simplicity and fearless frankness both surprised and charmed
the sheriff. They were both very good mimics and story-tellers born and
bred; and when Scott took to employ his dramatic talent, he soon found
he had us all in his power; for every one of us possessed a quick sense
of the ludicrous, and perhaps of humour of all kinds. I well recollect
how the tears ran down the cheeks of my cousin, George Bryden; and
although his brother was more quiet, it was easy to see that he too
was delighted. Hogg and I were unbounded laughers when the occasion
was good. The best proof of Jamie’s enjoyment was, that he never sung
a song that blessed night, and it was between two and three o’clock
before we parted.’

Next morning, Scott and Laidlaw went, according to promise, to visit
Hogg in his low thatched cottage. The situation is fine, and the
opposite mountains, from the grand simplicity of their character,
may almost be termed sublime. The Shepherd and his aged mother--‘Old
Margaret Laidlaw,’ for she generally went by her maiden name--gave
the visitors a hearty welcome. James had sent for a bottle of wine,
of which each had to take a glass; and as the exhilarating effects
of the previous night had not quite departed, he insisted that they
should help him in drinking every drop in the bottle. Had it been
a few years earlier in Scott’s life, and before he was sheriff of
the county, the request would probably have been complied with; but
on this occasion the bottle was set aside. The scene was curious
and interesting. ‘Hogg may be a great poet,’ said Scott, ‘and, like
Allan Ramsay, come to be the founder of a sort of family.’ Hogg’s
familiarity of address, mingled with fits of deference and respect
towards the sheriff, was curiously characteristic. Many years after
this, we recollect a gentleman asking Laidlaw about an amusing anecdote
told of the Shepherd. Hogg had sagacity enough to detect the authorship
of the Waverley novels long before the secret was divulged, and had
the volumes as they appeared bound and lettered on the back ‘SCOTT’S
NOVELS.’ His friend discovered this one day when visiting Hogg at
Altrive, and, in a dry humorous tone of voice, remarked: ‘Jamie, your
bookseller must be a stupid fellow to spell _Scots_ with two _t_s.’
Hogg is said to have rejoined: ‘Ah, Watty, I am ower auld a cat to
draw that strae before.’ Laidlaw laughed immoderately at the story,
but observed: ‘Jamie never came lower down than _Walter_.’ Lockhart,
however, appears to think he did occasionally venture on such a descent.

From Hogg’s cottage the party proceeded up Rankleburn to see Buccleuch,
and inspect the old chapel and mill. They found nothing at the kirk of
Buccleuch, and saw only the foundations of the chapel. Scott, however,
was in high spirits, and, being a member of the Edinburgh Light
Cavalry, and Laidlaw one of the Selkirkshire Yeomanry, they sometimes
set off at a gallop--the sheriff leading as in a mimic charge, and
shouting: ‘Schlachten, meine kinder, schlachten!’ Hogg trotted up
behind, marvelling at the versatile powers of the ‘wonderful _shirra_.’
They all dined together with a ‘lady of the glen,’ Mrs Bryden,
Crosslee; and next morning Scott returned to Clovenford Inn, where he
resided till he took a lease of the house of Ashestiel.

Amidst these and similar scenes, Walter Scott inhaled inspiration, and
nursed those powers which afterwards astonished the world. The healthy
vigour of his mind, and his clear understanding, grew up under such
training, and his imagination was thence quickened and moulded. Byron
studied amidst the classic scenes of Greece and Italy--Southey and
Moore in their libraries, intent on varied knowledge. All the ‘shadowy
tribes of mind’ were known to the metaphysical Coleridge. Wordsworth
wandered among the lakes and mountains of Westmoreland, brooding over
his poetical and philosophical theories, from which his better genius,
in the hour of composition, often extricated him. Scott was in all
things the simple, unaffected worshipper of nature and of Scotland. His
chivalrous romances sprung from his national predilections; for the
warlike deeds of the Border chiefs first fired his fancy, and directed
his researches. In these mountain excursions he imbibed that love and
veneration of past times which coloured most of his compositions; and
human sympathies and solemn reflections were forced upon him by his
intercourse with the natives of the hills, and the simple and lonely
majesty of the scenes that he visited. These early impressions were
never forgotten. Nor could there have been a better nursery for a
romantic and national poet. Scholastic and critical studies would have
polished his taste and refined his verse; but we might have wanted the
strong picturesque vigour--the simple direct energy of the old ballad
style--the truth, nature, and observation of a stirring life--all
that characterises and endears old Scotland. Scott’s destiny was on
the whole pre-eminently happy; and when we think of the fate of other
great authors--of Spenser composing amidst the savage turbulence of
Ireland--of Shakspeare following a profession which he disliked--of
Milton, blind and in danger--Dante in exile--and Tasso and Cervantes
in prison--we feel how immeasurably superior was the lot of this noble
free-hearted Scotsman, whose genius was the proudest inheritance of his
country. ‘Think no man happy till he dies,’ said the sage. Scott’s star
became dim, but there was only a short period of darkness, and he never
‘bated one jot of heart or hope,’ nor lost the friendly and soothing
attentions of those he loved. The world’s respect and admiration he
always possessed.

The _Minstrelsy_ appeared complete in the spring of 1803--the first
two volumes being then reprinted, and a third volume added, containing
the editor’s more recent collections. The work was very favourably
received: indeed, so valuable a contribution to our native literature
had not appeared since the publication of Percy’s _Reliques_. And the
Introduction is an admirable historical summary, foreshadowing Scott’s
future triumphs as a prose writer.[7]

The sheriff made four visits to Blackhouse, the fourth time in company
with his attached friend, Mr Skene of Rubislaw. All the party turned
out to visit a fox-hunt, a successful one, for the fox was killed; and
Mr Skene made a spirited drawing of the scene, including a portrait
of old Will Tweedie, the fox-hunter. The visit was closed by the whole
party riding to see the wild scenery of the Grey Mare’s Tail and Loch
Skene, Hogg and Adam Ferguson being of the party. Laidlaw thus writes
of the expedition to Moffatdale:

‘We proceeded with difficulty up the rocky chasm to reach the foot
of the waterfall. The passage which the stream has worn by cutting
the opposing rocks of grey-wacke, is rough and dangerous. My brother
George and I, both in the prime of youth, and constantly in the habit
of climbing, had difficulty in forcing our way, and we felt for Scott’s
lameness. This, however, was unnecessary. He said he could not perhaps
climb so fast as we did, but he advised us to go on, and leave him.
This we did, but halted on a projecting point before we descended to
the foot of the fall, and looking back, we were struck at seeing the
motions of the sheriff’s dog _Camp_. The dog was attending anxiously on
his master; and when the latter came to a difficult part of the rock,
_Camp_ would jump down, look up to his master’s face, then spring up,
lick his master’s hand and cheek, jump down again, and look upwards, as
if to shew him the way, and encourage him. We were greatly interested
with the scene. Mr Scott seemed to depend much on his hands and the
great strength of his powerful arms; and he soon fought his way over
all obstacles, and joined us at the foot of the Grey Mare’s Tail, the
name of the cataract.’

This excursion, like most of the others, Scott described in _Marmion_
(Introd. to Canto II.) He was apt, on a journey among the hills,
especially if the district was new to him, to fall at times into fits
of silence, revolving in his mind, and perhaps throwing into language,
the ideas that were suggested at the moment by the landscape; and
hence those who had often been his companions knew the origin of many
of the beautiful passages in his future works. Of this Laidlaw used
to relate one instance. About a mile down Douglas-burn, a small brook
falls into it from the Whitehope hills; and at the junction of the
streams, at the foot of a bank celebrated in traditionary story, stood
the withered remains of what had been a very large old hawthorn tree,
that had often engaged the attention of the young men at Blackhouse.
Laidlaw on one occasion pointed out to the sheriff its beautiful site
and venerable appearance, and asked him if he did not think it might
be centuries old, and once a leading object in the landscape. As the
district had been famous for game and wild animals, he said there
could be little doubt that the red deer had often lain under the shade
of the tree, before they ascended to feed on the open hill-tops in
the evening. Scott looked on the tree and the green hills, but said
nothing. The enthusiastic guide repeated his admiration, and added,
that Whitehope-tree was famous for miles around; but still Scott was
silent. The subject was then dropped; ‘but some years afterwards,’ said
Laidlaw, ‘when the sheriff read to me his manuscript of _Marmion_, I
found that Whitehope-tree was not forgotten, and that he had felt all
the associations it was calculated to excite.’ The description of the
thorn is eminently suggestive and beautiful:

   ‘The scenes are desert now and bare,
    Where flourished once a Forest fair,
    When these waste glens with copse were lined,
    And peopled with the hart and hind.
    Yon Thorn, perchance, whose prickly spears
    Have fenced him for three hundred years,
    While fell around his green compeers--
    Yon lonely Thorn, would he could tell
    The changes of his parent dell.’[8]

We may here notice another poetical scene, the _Bush aboon Traquair_,
celebrated in the well-known popular song by Crawford. Burns says that
when he saw the old bush in 1787, it was composed of eight or nine
ragged birches, and that the Earl of Traquair had planted a clump
of trees near the place, which he called ‘The New Bush.’ Laidlaw
maintained that the new bush was in reality the old bush of the song.
One of the sons of Murray of Philiphaugh used to come over often on
foot, and meet one of the ladies of Traquair at the _Cless_, a green
hollow at the foot of the hill that overhangs Traquair House. This
was the scene of the song. The straggling birches that Burns saw are
half a mile up the water, the remains of a wooded bog--out of sight of
Traquair House, to be sure, but far out of the way between Hanginshaw,
on the Yarrow, and Traquair.

One morning in autumn 1804 was vividly impressed on the recollection of
Laidlaw; for Scott then recited to him nearly the whole of the _Lay of
the Last Minstrel_, as they journeyed together in the sheriff’s gig up
Gala Water. The wild, irregular structure of the poem, the description
of the old minstrel, the goblin machinery, the ballads interspersed
throughout the tale, and the exquisite forest scenes (the Paradise
of Ettrick), all entranced the listener. Now and then, Scott would
stop to tell an anecdote of the country they were passing through,
and afterwards, in his deep _serious_ voice, resume his recitation of
the poem. Laidlaw had, the night before, gone to Lasswade, where the
sheriff then resided in a beautiful cottage on the banks of the Esk;
and on the following morning, after breakfast, they went up the Gala,
when Scott poured forth what truly seemed to be an unpremeditated lay.
They returned about sunset, and found the sheriff’s young and beautiful
wife looking on at the few shearers engaged in cutting down their crop
in a field adjoining the cottage. Mrs Scott seemed to Laidlaw a ‘lovely
and interesting creature,’ and the sheriff met her with undisguised
tenderness and affection. This was indeed his golden prime:

    ‘How happily the days of Thalaba went by!’

After this period, Laidlaw commenced householder, entering on extensive
farming experiments; and, so long as the war lasted and high prices
prevailed, his schemes promised to be ultimately successful. But with
peace came a sudden fall in the market value of corn. He struggled on
with adverse circumstances for a twelvemonth, till capital and credit
failed, and he was obliged to abandon his lease.

In the summer of 1817, we find him at Kaeside, on the estate of
Abbotsford. At first, this seemed a temporary arrangement. The two
friends had kept up a constant intercourse after Scott’s visit to the
Yarrow in 1802. Presents of trout and blackcock from the country,
and return presents of books from Castle Street, in Edinburgh, were
interchanged; and, when Laidlaw’s evil day was at hand, Scott said:
‘Come to Abbotsford, and help me with my improvements. I can put you
into a house on the estate--Kaeside--and get you some literary work
from the Edinburgh publishers.’ The offer was cheerfully accepted, and
the connection became permanent. Scott had then commenced building and
planting on a large scale; and the same year he made his most extensive
purchase--the lands of Toftfield, for which he gave £10,000.

‘I have more than once--such was his modesty’--said Laidlaw, ‘heard
Sir Walter assert that had his father left him an estate of £500 or
£600 a year, he would have spent his time in miscellaneous reading,
not writing. This, to a certain extent, might have been the case; and
had he purchased the property of Broadmeadows, in Yarrow, as he at one
time was very anxious to do, and when the neighbourhood was in the
possession of independent proprietors, the effect might have been the
same. At Abbotsford, surrounded by little lairds, most of them ready
to sell their lands as soon as he had money to advance, the impulse to
exertion was incessant; for the desire to possess and to add increased
with every new acquisition, until it became a passion of no small
power. Then came the hope to be a large landed proprietor, and to found
a family.’

When the poet was in Edinburgh attending to his official duties as
Clerk of Session, he sighed for Abbotsford and the country, and
took the liveliest interest in all that was going on under the
superintendence of his friend. Passages like the following remind us of
the writings of Gilpin and Price on forest and picturesque scenery:

‘George must stick in a few wild-roses, honeysuckles, and sweet-briers
in suitable places, so as to produce the luxuriance we see in the
woods which Nature plants herself. We injure the effect of our
plantings, so far as beauty is concerned, very much by neglecting
underwood.... I want to know how you are forming your glades of hard
wood. Try to make them come handsomely in contact with each other,
which you can only do by looking at a distance on the spot, then and
there shutting your eyes as you have done when a child looking at the
fire, and forming an idea of the same landscape with glades of woodland
crossing it. Get out of your ideas about expense. It is, after all, but
throwing away the price of the planting. If I were to buy a picture
worth £500, nobody would wonder much. Now, if I choose to lay out £100
or £200 to make a landscape of my estate hereafter, and add so much
more to its value, I certainly don’t do a more foolish thing. I mention
this, that you may not feel limited so much as you might in other cases
by the exact attention to pounds, shillings, and pence, but consider
the whole on a liberal scale. We are too apt to consider plantations as
a subject of the closest economy, whereas beauty and taste have even a
marketable value after the effects come to be visible. Don’t dot the
plantations with small patches of hard wood, and always consider the
ultimate effect.’

It is pleasant to see from the Laidlaw manuscripts with what alacrity
and zeal the noble friends of the poet came forward with kindly
contributions. The Duke of Buccleuch sent bushels of acorns; the Earl
of Fife presented seed of Norway pines; Lord Montagu forwarded a box
of acorns and a packet of lime-seed. One arboricultural missive to the
factor says: ‘I send the seeds of the Corsican pine, got with great
difficulty, and also two or three of an unknown species which grows to
a great height on the Apennines. Dr Graham says they should be raised
in mould, finely prepared, under glass, but without artificial heat.’
A box of fine chestnuts came from Lisbon: the box was sent on from
Edinburgh to Abbotsford unopened, and before Laidlaw heard of them, the
chestnuts were peeled, and rendered useless for planting. ‘Confound the
chestnuts, and those who peeled them!’ exclaimed Scott; ‘the officious
blockheads did it by way of special favour.’ One object was to form
at the top of the dikes an impenetrable copse or natural hedge or
verdurous screen--the poet uses all the epithets (Milton has ‘verdurous
wall’); and for this purpose there were sent from Edinburgh 3000
laburnums, 2000 sweet-briers, 3000 Scotch elms, 3000 horse-chestnuts,
loads of hollies, poplars for the marshy ground, and filberts for the
glen. The graceful birch-tree, ‘the lady of the wood,’ was not, of
course, neglected. ‘I am so fond of the birch,’ writes the poet; ‘and
it makes such a beautiful and characteristic underwood, that I think
we can hardly have too many. Besides, we may plant them as hedges.’
He purchased at this time about 100,000 birches. Mr Morritt of Rokeby
writes to a friend: ‘He (Scott) tells me he never was so happy in his
life as in having a place of his own to create. In this Caledonian
Eden, he labours all day with his own hands; though, since the Fall, he
and his wife will not find many luxuriant branches to prune in Ettrick
Forest I sent him a bushel of Yorkshire acorns, which, except docks
and thistles, are, I believe, likely to be in three years the largest
vegetables upon the domain.’[9]

‘There are many little jobs about the walks,’ writes the busy and
happy laird, ‘which, though Tom Purdie contemns them, are not less
necessary towards comfort: a seat or two, for example, and covering any
drains, so as to let the pony pass. In the front of the old Rispylaw
(now Anne’s Hill) is an old quarry, which, a little made up and
accommodated with stone seats and some earth to grow a few honeysuckles
and sweet-briers, would make a very sweet place. Many of the walks will
_thole_’ [bear] ‘a mending; for instance, that to the thicket might be
completely gravelled, as Mrs Scott uses it so much.’

Here the kindly, loving nature of the man peeps out. To Tom himself,
Scott writes in a big, plain, round hand:

‘As Mrs Scott comes out on the 22d, and brings some plants to cover the
paling of the court, you must have a border of about a spade’s breadth
and a spade’s depth dug nicely, and made up with good earth and a
little dung, all along in front of the paling, and along the east end
of it. She will bring the plants from Edinburgh, so they can be put
into the ground the evening she arrives.’

Afterwards, as years ran on, a thread of business was intermixed with
the rural pleasure. The poet began to calculate on the probable return
from the woods, not omitting the value of the bark used for tanning
purposes.

    ‘DEAR WILLIE--How could you be such a gowk’ [fool] ‘as to suppose
    I meant to start a hare upon you by my special inquiries about the
    bark? I am perfectly sensible you take more care of my affairs
    than you would of your own; but anything about wood or trees
    amuses me, and I like to enter into it more particularly than
    into ordinary farming operations. In particular, this of drying
    and selling our bark--at present a trifle--is a thing which will
    one day be of great consequence, and I wish to attend to the
    details myself. I think it should not be laid on the ground, but
    dried upon stools made of the felled wood; and if you lay along
    these stools the peeled trees, and pile the bark on them, it will
    hide the former from the sun, and suffer them to dry gradually.
    I have been observing this at Blair-Adam. I have got a new light
    on larch-planting from the Duke of Athole’s operations. He never
    plants closer than eight feet, and says they answer admirably. If
    this be so, it will be easy to plant our hill-ground. Respecting
    the grass in the plantations, I have some fears of the scythe, and
    should prefer getting a host of women with their hooks, which would
    also be a good thing for the poor folks.’ [Another touch of the
    poet’s kindly nature.] ‘Tom must set about it instantly. He is too
    much frightened for the expense of doing things rapidly, as if it
    were not as cheap to employ twelve men for a week as six men for a
    fortnight.--Yours,

                                                                  W. S.’

In the matter of dwellings for the small tenants and labourers, the
laird of Abbotsford was equally careful and considerate. ‘I think
stone partitions would be desirable on account of vermin, &c. If
their houses are not comfortable, the people will never be cleanly.
For windows I would much prefer the cast-iron lattices, turning on a
centre, and not made too large. These windows being in small quarrels,
or panes, a little breach is easily repaired, and saves the substitute
of a hat or clout through a large hole. Certainly the cottages should
be rough-plastered.’ Perhaps the little iron lattices were as much
preferred for their antique, picturesque associations as for their
utility--‘something poetical,’ as Pope’s old gardener said of the
drooping willow; and the aged minstrel’s hut near Newark Tower, it will
be recollected, had such a window:

   ‘The little garden hedged with green,
    A cheerful hearth and lattice clean.’

When times were hard and winter severe, he thought of the firesides of
the labourers:

    ‘DEAR SIR--I have your letter, and have no doubt in my own mind
    that a voluntary assessment is the best mode of raising money to
    procure work for the present sufferers, because I see no other way
    of making this necessary tax fall equally upon the heritors.... I
    shall soon have money, so that if you can devise any mode by which
    hands can be beneficially employed at Abbotsford, I could turn £50
    or £100 extra into that service in the course of a fortnight. In
    fact, if it made the poor and industrious people a little easier, I
    should have more pleasure in it than in any money I ever spent in
    my life.--Yours, very truly,

                                                                  W. S.’

The same year, which was a period of some excitement and discontent, he
writes to Laidlaw:

‘I am glad you have got some provision for the poor. They are the
minors of the state, and especially to be looked after; and I believe
the best way to prevent discontent is to keep their minds moderately
easy as to their own provision. The sensible part of them may probably
have judgment enough to see that they could get nothing much better for
their class in general by an appeal to force, by which, indeed, if
successful, ambitious individuals might rise to distinction, but which
would, after much misery, leave the body of the people just where it
found them, or rather much worse.... Political publications must always
be caricatures. As for the mob of great cities, whom you accuse me of
despising too much, I think it is impossible to err on that side. They
are the very _riddlings_ of society, in which every useful cinder is,
by various processes, withdrawn, and nothing left but dust, ashes,
and filth. Mind, I mean the mob of cities, not the lowest people in
the country, who often, and, indeed, usually, have both character and
intelligence.’

Again:

‘I think of my books amongst this snow-storm; also of the birds, and
not a little of the poor. For benefit of the former, I hope Peggy
throws out the crumbs; and a corn-sheaf or two for the game would be
to purpose, if placed where poachers could not come at them. For the
poor people, I wish you to distribute five pounds or so among the
neighbouring poor who may be in distress, and see that our own folks
are tolerably off.’

Scott introduced his friendly factor to _Blackwood’s Magazine_, and
Laidlaw used to compile for it a monthly chronicle of events, besides
occasionally contributing a descriptive article, which the ‘Great
Magician’ overhauled previous to its transmission. There was, in the
autumn of 1817, a great combustion in Edinburgh about the _Chaldee
Manuscript_, inserted in the magazine for October. An edition of two
thousand copies was soon sold, and fifteen hundred more were printed;
so Blackwood writes to Scott. ‘He was dreadfully afraid,’ says Laidlaw,
‘that Mr Scott would be offended; and so he would, he says, were
it not on my account.’ The Ettrick Shepherd (who was the original
concocter of the satire) was also alarmed. ‘For the love of God, open
not your mouth about the _Chaldee Manuscript_,’ he writes to Laidlaw.
‘There have been meetings and proposals, and an express has arrived
from Edinburgh to me. Deny all knowledge, else, they say, I am ruined,’
&c. This once famous production is so local and personal that, although
it is now included in Professor Wilson’s works, it is almost unknown
to the present generation. The subject is a bookseller’s quarrel, a
contest between the rival magazines of Blackwood and Constable, and it
is one of the most harmless of all the parodies couched in Scriptural
phraseology. Professor Ferrier, the editor of Wilson’s works, says
it is quite as good, in its way, as Swift’s _Battle of the Books_;
but this is a monstrous delusion. There are some quaint touches of
character in the piece. It may be compared to the parodies by Hone; but
it is a sort of profanation to place it on a level with the classic
satire of Swift.

It is never too late to do justice. In one of these magazine missives,
written in January 1818, Blackwood refers to the Ettrick Shepherd.
‘If you see Hogg, I hope you will press him to send me instantly his
_Shepherd’s Dog_, and anything else. I received his _Andrew Gemmells_;
but the editor is not going to insert it in this number.’ [Had Ebony
really an editor, or was he not himself the great sublime?] ‘I expected
to have received from him the conclusion of the _Brownie of Bodsbeck_;
there are six sheets of it already printed.’

Now, the latter part of this extract seems distinctly to disprove
a charge which Hogg thoughtlessly brought against Mr Blackwood.
His novel, the _Brownie of Bodsbeck_, was published in 1818, and he
suffered unjustly, as he states in his autobiography, with regard
to that tale, as it was looked upon as an imitation of Scott’s _Old
Mortality_. It was wholly owing to Blackwood, he asserts, that his
story was not published a year sooner; and he relates the case as a
warning to authors never to intrust booksellers with their manuscripts.
But the fact is, _Old Mortality_ was published in December 1816; and
we have Blackwood, in the above letter to Laidlaw, stating that he had
not, in January 1818--more than a twelvemonth afterwards--received
the whole of the ‘copy’ of the _Brownie of Bodsbeck_. How could he go
to press with an unfinished story? How make bricks without straw? The
accusation is altogether a myth, or, to use one of the Shepherd’s own
expressions, ‘a mere shimmera’ [chimera] ‘of the brain.’

Of Hogg’s prose works, Scott writes: ‘Truly, they are sad daubing,
with, here and there, fine dashes of genius.’ The _daubing_ is chiefly
seen in the dialogues and attempts at humour; the _genius_ appears
in the descriptions of pastoral or wild scenery, as in the account
of the ‘Storms,’ and in the fine introduction to the _Brownie of
Bodsbeck_, and in some of the delineations of humble Scottish life
and superstition. Hogg is as true and literal as Crabbe. His peasants
always speak and think as peasants; but he gives us, sometimes, coarse
and poor specimens. It is certain, however, that, even in the worst of
his stories, there are gleams of fancy--‘fairy blinks of the sun’--far
above the reach of writers immensely his superiors in taste and
acquirements.

There was another person in whom Scott was interested with
reference to the slashing articles in _Blackwood’s Magazine_. He
writes to Laidlaw: ‘So they let poor Charles Sharpe alone, they
may satirise all Edinburgh, your humble servant not excepted.’
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, with his antiquarian tastes, personal
oddities, and aristocratic leanings, was a special favourite with
Scott. He was a kind of Scotch Horace Walpole (so considered by his
illustrious friend), but much feebler; perhaps stronger with the
pencil, but infinitely weaker with the pen. His celebrated sketch of
the ‘Inimitable Virago,’ or Queen Elizabeth dancing _disposedly_, as
described by the Scotch ambassador, Sir James Melville, was esteemed
by Scott as an unrivalled production. It is highly ludicrous and
effective as a picture, but is too extravagant to serve even as a
caricature representation of Elizabeth. Neither face nor figure has any
resemblance. Hogarth, in his etching of old Simon Lord Lovat of the
’45, seems, by a happy stroke of genius, to have hit the true medium
in works of this class. He preserved the strong points in personal
appearance and character--combining them with irresistible humour and
drollery of expression.

Here is another scrap:

‘I am glad to send you Maga, which continues to be clever. I hope for
two or three happy days on the brae-sides about the birthday’ [the
king’s birthday, June 4]. ‘Blackwood has been assaulted by a fellow who
came from Glasgow on purpose, and returned second-best. The bibliopole
is like the little French lawyer, who never found out he could fight
till he was put to it, and was then for cudgelling all and sundry. You
never saw anything so whimsical.

‘I think often, of course, about my walks; and I am sickening to
descend into the glen at the little waterfall by steps. We could cut
excellent ones out where the quarry has been. It is the only way we
shall ever make what Tom Purdie calls a _neat job_; for a deep descent
will be ugly, and difficult to keep. I would plant betwixt the stair
and the cascade, so as to hide the latter till you came down to the
bottom.’

Visitors now began to appear at Abbotsford, an increasing stream
every season from 1817 to 1825. They consisted of persons of rank and
fashion, literary men and artists of all nations, who travelled to the
Tweed to pay homage to the poet. There was no envy or jealousy with
the Great Minstrel. Indeed, with the single exception of Byron, his
position was such that he had no cause to fear any rival, and he could
afford to throw largess to the crowd. All were welcome at Abbotsford.
Washington Irving has described the cordial reception he experienced on
the occasion of his visit in 1817, and Laidlaw thus notes the event:

‘We had a long walk up by the glen and round by the loch. It was fine
sunshine when we set out, but we met with tremendous dashing showers.
Mr Irving told me he had a kind of devotional reverence for Scotland,
and most of all for its poetry. He looked upon it as fairy-land, and
he was beyond measure surprised at Mr Scott, his simple manners and
brotherly frankness. He was very anxious to see Hogg, and said that
several editions of Hogg’s different poems had been published in
America.’

Irving always regretted that he had not met with the Shepherd. Such a
meeting could not have failed to give infinite pleasure to both. The
gentle manners and literary enthusiasm of the American author would
at once have attached the Shepherd; while the rustic frankness,
liveliness, and perfect originality of Hogg possessed an indescribable
attraction and charm which the other would have fully appreciated.
Many years after this period, Hogg retained a careless brightness of
conversation and joyous manner which were seen in no other man. The
union of the shepherd and the poet formed a combination as rare and
striking as that of the soldado with the divinity student of Marischal
College, in the person of the renowned Dugald Dalgetty.

One day, after Hogg had been in London--and ‘The Hogg,’ as Lockhart
said, ‘was the lion of the season’--Allan Cunningham chanced to meet
James Smith of the _Rejected Addresses_ at the table of the great
bibliopole, John Murray. ‘How,’ said Smith, aloud, to Allan, ‘how
does Hogg like Scotland’s small cheer after the luxury of London?’
‘Small cheer!’ echoed Allan; ‘he has the finest trout in the Yarrow,
the finest lambs on its braes, the finest grouse on its hills, and,
besides, he as good as keeps a _sma’ still_’ [smuggled whisky]. ‘Pray,
what better luxury can London offer?’ All these sumptuosities the
Shepherd cheerfully shared with the wayfarers who flocked to Altrive
Cottage.

Another visitor at Abbotsford during the season of 1817, was Lady
Byron. ‘I have had the honour,’ says Laidlaw, ‘of dining in the company
of Lady Byron and Lord Somerville. Her ladyship is a beautiful little
woman with fair hair, a fine complexion, and rather large blue eyes;
face not round. She looked steadily grave, and seldom smiled. I thought
her mouth indicated great firmness, or rather obstinacy. Miss Anne
Scott and Lady Byron rode to Newark.’ After the date of this visit
by Lady Byron, Laidlaw says he had many conversations with Scott
concerning the life and poetry of Byron. ‘He seemed to regret very
much that Byron and he had not been thrown more together. He felt the
influence he had over his great contemporary’s mind, and said there was
so much in it that was very good and very elevated, that any one whom
he much liked could, as he (Scott) thought, have withdrawn him from
many of his errors.’

All went on smoothly and gaily at Abbotsford. Every year had added to
the beauty of the poet’s domain, and to the richness of his various
collections and library. His opinion of Gothic architecture is thus
expressed: ‘I have got a very good plan from Atkinson for my addition,
but I do not like the outside, which is modern Gothic, a style I hold
to be equally false and foolish. Blore and I have been at work to
_Scotify_ it, by turning battlements into bartisans, and so on. I think
we have struck out a picturesque, appropriate, and entirely new line
of architecture.’ Abbotsford must certainly be considered picturesque,
but it is a somewhat incongruous, ill-placed pile; and without the
beautiful garden-screen in front, the general effect would be heavy.

In the Waverley Novels, then appearing in that marvellously rapid
succession which astonished the world, there was an ample reservoir
of wealth, if it had been wisely secured, as well as of fame. But an
alarming interruption was threatened by the illness of the novelist.
His malady--cramp of the stomach, with jaundice--was attended with
exquisite pain; but in the intervals of comparative ease his literary
labours were continued; and it certainly is an extraordinary fact in
literary history that under such circumstances the greater part of
the _Bride of Lammermoor_, the whole of the _Legend of Montrose_,
and almost the whole of _Ivanhoe_ were produced. The novelist lay
on a sofa, dictating to John Ballantyne or to Laidlaw; chiefly to
the latter, as he was always at hand, whereas Ballantyne was only an
occasional visitor at Abbotsford. Sometimes, in his most humorous
or elevated scenes, Scott would break off with a groan of torture,
as the cramp seized him, but when the visitation had passed, he was
ever ready gaily to take up the broken thread of his narrative and
proceed _currente calamo_. It was evident to Laidlaw that before he
arrived at Abbotsford (generally about ten o’clock) the novelist had
arranged his scenes for the day, and settled in his mind the course
of the narrative. The _language_ was left to the inspiration of the
moment; there was no picking of words, no studied _curiosa felicitas_
of expression. Even the imagery seemed spontaneous. Laidlaw abjured
with some warmth the old-wife exclamations which Lockhart ascribes to
him--as, ‘Gude keep us a’’--‘The like o’ that!’--‘Eh, sirs! eh, sirs!’
But he admitted that while he held the pen he was at times so deeply
interested in the scene or in the development of the plot, that he
could not help exclaiming: ‘Get on, Mr Scott, get on!’ on which the
novelist would reply, smiling: ‘Softly, Willie; you know I have to make
the story,’ or some good-humoured remark of a similar purport. It was
quite true, he said, that when dictating some of the animated scenes
and dialogues in _Ivanhoe_, Scott would rise from his seat and act the
scene with every suitable accompaniment of tone, gesture, and manner.
Both the military and dramatic spirit were strong in him--too strong
even for the cramp and calomel! The postscript to a short business
letter from Edinburgh, June 14, 1819, refers to this business of
dictation. ‘Put your fingers in order, and buy yourself pens!--I won’t
_stand_ the expense of your quills, so pluck the goose ’a God’s name!’
And it was plucked on this occasion to record the sorrows of the Bride
of Lammermoor.

According to Mr Laidlaw, Scott did not like to speak about his novels
after they were published, but was fond of canvassing the merits and
peculiarities of the characters while he was engaged in the composition
of the story. ‘He was peculiarly anxious,’ says Laidlaw, ‘respecting
the success of Rebecca in _Ivanhoe_. One morning, as we were walking
in the woods after our forenoon’s labour, I expressed my admiration
of the character, and, after a short pause, he broke out with: “Well,
I think I shall make something of my Jewess.” Latterly, he seemed to
indulge in a retrospect of the useful effect of his labours. In one of
these serious moods, I remarked that one circumstance of the highest
interest might and ought to yield him very great satisfaction--namely,
that his narratives were the best of all reading for young people.
I had found that even his friend Miss Edgeworth had not such power
in engaging attention. His novels had the power, beyond any other
writings, of arousing the better passions and finer feelings; and the
moral effect of all this, I added, when one looks forward to several
generations--every one acting upon another--must be immense. I well
recollect the place where we were walking at this time--on the road
returning from the hill towards Abbotsford. Sir Walter was silent
for a minute or two, but I observed his eyes filled with tears.... I
never saw him much elated or excited in composition but one morning,
out of doors, when he was composing that simple but humorous song,
_Donald Caird_. I watched him limping along at good five miles an hour
along the ridge or sky-line opposite Kaeside, and when he came in, he
recited to me the fruits of his walk. His memory was an inexhaustible
repertory, so that Hogg, in his moments of super-exaltation and vanity,
used to say that if he had the _shirra’s_ memory he would beat him as a
poet!’

The memory of Sir Walter Scott was vast, but inexact. In this respect
he was inferior to Macaulay or Sir James Mackintosh. In quoting poetry,
Sir Walter was seldom verbally correct, and sometimes the harmony of
the verse suffered. The two famous lines of Milton’s _Comus_:

   ‘The aery tongues that syllable men’s names,
    On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses,’

are thus given in the _Letters on Demonology_:

   ‘The aery tongues that syllable men’s names,
    On shores, in desert sands, and wildernesses.’

Thomas Campbell used to relate, as an instance of Sir Walter’s
extraordinary memory, that he read to him his poem of _Locheil’s
Warning_ before it was printed; after which his friend asked permission
to read it himself. He then perused the manuscript slowly and
distinctly, and on returning it to its author, said: ‘Campbell, look
after your copyright, for I have got your poem.’ And he repeated, with
very few mistakes, the whole sixty lines of which the poem (which was
subsequently enlarged) then consisted.

Hogg was generally exalted and buoyant enough. On one occasion we
find him writing to Laidlaw: ‘I rode through the whole of Edinburgh
yesterday in a barouche by myself, having four horses and two
postillions! Never was there a poet went through it before in such
style since the world began!’ We may exclaim with Johnson on the amount
of Goldsmith’s debts, ‘Was ever poet so trusted before!’

In the midst of his business details and directions, Scott’s peculiar
humour and felicity of illustration are perpetually breaking out. Of
a neighbouring county magnate he says: ‘I have heard of a Christian
being a Jew, but our friend is the essence of a whole synagogue.’ His
relation of the simplest occurrence is vivid and characteristic. A high
wind in Edinburgh, in January 1818, he thus notices: ‘I had more than
an anxious thought about you all during the gale of wind. The Gothic
pinnacles were blown from the top of Bishop Sandford’s Episcopal chapel
at the end of Princes Street, and broke through the roof and flooring,
doing great damage. This was sticking the horns of the mitre into the
belly of the church. The devil never so well deserved the title of
Prince of the power of the air, since he has blown down this handsome
church, and left the ugly mass of new building standing on the North
Bridge.’ One incidental remark illustrates the deception men often
practise on themselves: ‘I have not,’ he says, ‘a head for accounts,
and detest debt. When I find expense too great, I strike sail, and
diminish future outlay, which is the only principle for careless
accountants to act upon.’ Happy would it have been for him if his
practice had corresponded with his theory!

The year 1820 was, in the family calendar of the poet, one of peculiar
interest and importance. It was the year in which his eldest daughter
was married; the year in which he received the honour of the baronetcy;
and the year in which he sat to Chantrey for his bust--that admirable
work of art which has made his features familiar in every quarter of
the globe. He sat also this year to Sir Thomas Lawrence. ‘The king,’
he writes, ‘has commanded me to sit to Sir Thomas Lawrence for a
portrait, for his most sacred apartment. I want to have in _Maida_’
[his favourite deer-hound], ‘that there may be one handsome fellow of
the party.’ Late in life, Sir Walter sat to Lawrence Macdonald the
sculptor, and Laidlaw says of the artist and his work:

‘We were much pleased with some days of Macdonald the sculptor, who
modelled Sir Walter while he was dictating to me. Macdonald’s model
was in a higher style of art than Chantrey’s, and from that cause, had
not so much character. Macdonald confessed this was not so much his
object. It was a faithful likeness, nevertheless, but not so familiar.
For the same reason, he would not take the exact figure of the head,
which is irregular. Chantrey likewise declined to shew this, which the
phrenologists will probably regret.’

Mr Lawrence Macdonald still lives to delight his friends, and pursue
his art in Rome, where he has long resided. He has no recollection
of the ‘irregularity,’ referred to. Laidlaw knew nothing of art, and
by ‘high style,’ he probably meant an idealised likeness--a look
to ‘elevate and surprise.’ The extreme length of the upper lip was
a personal characteristic of Sir Walter, which he was glad to see
artists reduce, and which none of the portraits fully represents. It
is by no means uncommon among the stalwart men of the Border, but is
unquestionably a defect as respects personal appearance. The Stratford
bust of Shakspeare, it will be recollected, has the same long upper
lip, as well as the memorable high forehead, that distinguished Scott.
Of Chantrey, Laidlaw writes:

‘I met at breakfast Chantrey the sculptor, a real blunt, spirited, fine
Yorkshireman, with great good-humour, and an energy of character about
him that would have made his fortune--and a great one--had he gone
to London as a tailor. He killed a fine salmon in the Tweed, and led
another a long time, but let it go among the great stones and cut his
line. Colonel Ferguson said he believed he would rather have given his
best statue than lost the fish.’

Chantrey was an enthusiastic angler.

The baronetcy was a step of rank which Sir Walter said was the king’s
own free motion, and none of his seeking. To a lady whom he highly
esteemed--the late Hon. Mrs Stewart Mackenzie of Seaforth--he wrote:

‘The circumstance of my children being heirs to their uncle’s fortune,
relieved me in a great degree of the chief objection to accepting with
gratitude what was so graciously offered, namely, that which arose from
a more limited income than becomes even the lowest step of hereditary
rank.... Mr Lockhart, to whom Sophia is now married, is the husband of
her choice. He is a man of excellent talents, master of his pen and
of his pencil, handsome in person, and well-mannered, though wanting
that ease which the _usage du monde_ alone can give. I like him very
much; for having no son who promises to take a literary turn, it is
of importance to me, both in point of comfort and otherwise, to have
some such intimate friend and relation, whose pursuits and habits are
similar to my own--so that, upon the whole, I trust I have gained a son
instead of losing a daughter.’[10]

Early next year (1821), Scott was in London, and on February 16, took
place the unfortunate duel, in which John Scott, editor of the _London
Magazine_, fell. The antagonist of John Scott was Mr Christie, a
barrister, the friend of Lockhart. ‘I have had much to plague me here,’
writes Sir Walter, ‘besides the death of John Scott, who departed last
night; so much for being slow to take the field!’ And in another letter
he recurs to the subject: ‘The death of my unlucky namesake, John
Scott, you will have heard of. The poor man fought a most unnecessary
duel to regain his lost character, and so lost his life into the
bargain.’ The loss of life was chiefly owing to the blundering of John
Scott’s second in the duel, who permitted a second fire to take place
after Mr Christie had discharged his pistol down the field.

The visit of King George IV. to Scotland in 1822, was an event sure
to call forth the enthusiastic loyalty of Sir Walter. His Majesty’s
personal attentions, besides the distinction of the baronetcy, elicited
his warmest gratitude, and, in addition, all his fervid nationality and
veneration for the throne were kindled on this occasion. To see the
king in the ancient palace of Holyrood, was itself an incident like
the realisation of a dream. The whole city was in a state of frantic
excitement: ‘Edinburgh is irrecoverably mad,’ said Scott. To Laidlaw,
the chivalrous poet writes:

    ‘DEAR WILLIE--You are quite right in your opinion of Saunders. He
    never shewed himself a more true-blooded gentleman. The extreme
    tact and taste of all ranks has surprised the king and all about
    him. No rushing or roaring, but a devoted attachment, expressed
    by a sort of dignified reverence, which seemed divided betwixt
    a high veneration for their sovereign and a suitable regard for
    themselves. I have seen in my day many a levee and drawing-room,
    but none so august and free from absurdity and ridicule as those
    of Holyrood. The apartments also, desolate and stripped as they
    have been, are worth a hundred of Carlton or Buckingham House; but
    the singular and native good-breeding of the people, who never
    saw a court, is the most remarkable of all. The populace without,
    shew the same propriety as the gentles within. The people that
    our carriages passed amongst to-day were all full of feeling,
    and it was remarkable that, instead of huzzaing, they shewed the
    singular compliment of lifting up their children to see them--the
    most affecting thing you ever witnessed. When Saunders goes wrong,
    it must be from _malice prepense_; for no one knows so well how
    to do right. Mamma (Lady Scott), Sophia, and Anne were dreadfully
    frightened, and I, of course, though an old courtier, in such a
    court as Holyrood, was a good deal uneasy. The king, however, spoke
    to them, and they were all kissed in due form, though they protest
    they are still at a loss how the ceremony was performed. The king
    leaves on Wednesday, to my great joy, for strong emotions cannot
    last. He has lived entirely within doors. To-morrow, I suppose,
    there is a dinner-party at Dalkeith, as I am commanded there, but
    it is the first. I have had, from over-exertion and distress of
    mind, a strong cutaneous eruption in my legs and arms. You would
    think I had adopted the national musical instrument to regale his
    Majesty; but, seriously, I believe I should have been ill but for
    the relief Nature has been pleased to afford me in this ungainly
    way. Fortunately, my hands and face are clear.

                                                                  W. S.’

And Laidlaw, writing to a friend, gives some further particulars:

‘Sir Walter was very full of the king for a while, but we went up
Ettrick, and I have seen but little of him since. He had serious work
with the English noblemen in the king’s train, who did not seem to
wish that Scotland should shew off as an independent kingdom, which,
by the articles of the Union, was provided for in the event of the
king’s coming to Edinburgh. They wanted all to be done according to
English form, as was the case in Ireland, but he settled them. They
proposed, too, that the Highland guard (indeed they objected to the
guard altogether) should have the flints taken from their pistols! A
deputy, Colonel Stevenson, had the management, and corresponded with
Sir Walter; and as he was to dine at Castle Street with a number of
the Highland chiefs, Sir Walter proposed that the colonel should speak
to them on the subject. After they were a little warmed with wine, Sir
Walter addressed Stevenson, who sat beside him, saying he had better
now propose what he had mentioned before. The Highlanders had got to
telling old stories, and were in high spirits; they were, of course,
in full dress. Colonel Stevenson said he saw now that he had mistaken
the sort of people beside him; and on Sir Walter pressing him (rather
slyly) to proceed, he declared he would rather not.

‘The king was greatly surprised and affected with the behaviour of the
people on Sunday. They did not cheer as usual, but took off their hats
and bowed as they passed along. He expressed himself strongly to Sir
Walter about this. Sir Walter said the verses of the cavalier to his
mistress might be applied to the people:

   “Yet this inconstancy is such
      As you too shall adore;
    I could not love thee, dear, so much,
      Loved I not honour more.”

I found the lines were by Lovelace, addressed to his Lucasta, on his
going to the wars. The king witnessed an incident that seemed, as Sir
Walter said, to have made a deep impression on his mind. As he came
along the Calton Hill road, the crowd made a rush down hill towards the
royal carriage, and the king saw a child fall. Had it been in London,
he said, the child would have been trampled to death, and he expected
nothing else. But in a moment there was a loud cry of “Stop!” and five
or six men linked themselves together arm-in-arm, and set themselves to
keep off the crowd, standing like an arch; then a man stepped before
them and lifted the boy, and held him up above the crowd, to shew that
he was not hurt. Sir Walter heard the king relate this incident twice.’

In the autumn of 1825, Sir Walter visited Ireland, and thus, in homely
confidential style, records his impressions:

    ‘MY DEAR WILLIE--I conclude you are now returned, with wife and
    bairns, to Kaeside, and not the worse of your tour. I have been
    the better of mine; and Killarney being the extreme point, I am
    just about to commence my return to Dublin, where I only intend to
    remain two or three days at farthest. I should like to find a line
    from you, addressed “Care of David Macculloch, Esq., Cheltenham,”
    letting me know how matters go on at Abbotsford--if you want money
    (as I suppose you do), and so forth.

    ‘I have every reason to make a good report of Ireland, having
    been received with distinction, which is flattering, and with
    warm-hearted kindness, which is much better. I am happy to say the
    country is rapidly improving every year, which argues the spirit
    that is afloat, and indicates that British capital is finding its
    way into a country where it can be employed to advantage. The idea
    of security is gaining ground even in those districts which are, or
    rather were, the most unsettled, and plenty has brought her usual
    companion content, in her hand. But the public peace is secured
    chiefly by large bodies of armed police, called by the civil term
    of constables, but very unlike the Dogberries of England, being,
    in fact, soldiers on foot and horse, well armed and mounted, and
    dressed exactly like our yeomen. It is not pleasant to see this,
    but it is absolutely necessary for some time at least; and from all
    I can hear, the men are under strict discipline, and behave well.
    They are commanded by the magistracy, and are very alert.

    ‘The soil is in most places extremely rich, but cultivation is
    not as yet well understood. That accursed system of making peats
    interferes with everything; and I have passed through whole
    counties where a very noble harvest, ripe for the sickle, was
    waiting for the next shower of rain; while all the population who
    should cut were up to the midst in bogs. Not a single field of
    turnips have I seen, owing probably to the same reason.

    ‘The political disputes are of far less consequence here than we
    think in Britain; but, on the whole, it would be highly desirable
    that the Catholic Bill should pass. It would satisfy most of the
    higher classes of that persuasion, who seem much inclined to form a
    sort of Low Church, differing in ceremonies more than in essential
    points from that of the English Church. I mean they would do this
    tacitly and gradually. The lower class will probably continue for a
    long time bigoted Papists; but education becoming general, it is to
    be supposed that popery, in its violent tenets, will decline even
    amongst them. By the way, education is already far more general
    than in England. I saw in the same village four hundred Catholic
    children attending school, and about two hundred Protestants
    attending another. The peculiar doctrines of neither church were
    permitted to be taught; and there were Protestants amongst the
    Papist children, and Papists among the Protestant.

    ‘The general condition of the peasantry requires much improvement.
    Their cabins are wretched, and their dress such a labyrinth of
    rags, that I have often feared some button would give way, and
    shame us all. But this is mending, and the younger people are all
    more decently dressed, and the new huts which are arising are
    greatly better than the old pigsties. In short, all is on the move
    and the mend. But as I must be on the move myself, I must defer the
    rest of my discoveries till we meet. We have in our party, Anne,
    Lockhart, Walter and his wife, and two Miss Edgeworths, so we are a
    jolly party. Will you shew this to Lady Scott? I wrote to her two
    days since.--Always truly yours,

                                                           WALTER SCOTT.

    ‘KILLARNEY, _8th August_.’

The brilliance of Abbotsford had now reached its culminating point.
The commercial crisis of 1825–26 was close at hand, and the first
note of the alarm and confusion in the money-market suspended all
improvements, and occasioned intense anxiety to Sir Walter. We add two
letters as supplementing Lockhart’s narrative:

    ‘MY DEAR WILLIAM--The money-market in London is in a tremendous
    state, so much so that, whatever good reason I have, and I have
    the best, for knowing that Constable and his allies, Hurst and
    Robinson, are in perfect force, yet I hold it wise and necessary to
    prepare myself for making good my engagements, which come back on
    me suddenly, or by taking up those which I hold good security for.
    For this purpose I have resolved to exercise my reserved faculty
    to burden Abbotsford with £8000 or £10,000. I can easily get the
    money, and having no other debts, and these well secured, I hold it
    better to “put money in my purse,” and be a debtor on my land for a
    year or two, till the credit of the public is restored. I may not
    want the money, in which case I will buy into the funds, and make
    some cash by it. But I think it would be most necessary, and even
    improper not to be fully prepared.

    ‘What I want of you is to give me a copy of the rental of
    Abbotsford, as it now stands, mentioning the actual rents of ground
    let, and the probable rents of those in my hand. You gave me one
    last year, but I would rather have the actual rents, and as such
    business is express, I would have you send it immediately, and keep
    it all as much within as you think fair and prudent. Your letter
    need only contain the rental, and you may write your remarks
    separately. I have not the slightest idea of losing a penny, but
    the distrust is so great in London that the best houses refuse the
    best bills of the best tradesmen, and as I have retained such a
    sum in view of protecting my literary commerce, I think it better
    to make use of it, and keep my own mind easy, than to carry about
    bills to unwilling banks, and beg for funds which I can use of my
    own. I have more than £10,000 to receive before Midsummer, but then
    I might be put to vexation before that, which I am determined to
    prevent.

    ‘By all I can learn, this is just such an embarrassment as may
    arise when pickpockets cry “Fire!” in a crowd, and honest men
    get trampled to death. Thank God, I can clear myself of the
    _mêlée_, and am not afraid of the slightest injury. If the money
    horizon does not clear up in a month or two, I will abridge my
    farming, &c. I cannot find there is any real cause for this; but
    an imaginary one will do equal mischief. I need not say this is
    confidential.--Yours truly,

                                                           WALTER SCOTT.

    ‘_16th December_ [1825], EDINBURGH.’

‘The confusion of 1814 is a joke to this. I have no debts of my own. On
the contrary, £3000 and more lying out on interest, &c. It is a little
hard that, making about £7000 a year, and working hard for it, I should
have this botheration. But it arises out of the nature of the same
connection which gives, and has given me, a fortune, and therefore I am
not entitled to grumble.’

                                        [EDINBURGH, _January 26, 1826_.]

    ‘MY DEAR WILLIE--I wrote to you some days since, but from yours by
    the carrier I see my letter has not reached you. It does not much
    signify, as it was not, and could not be, of any great consequence
    until I see how these untoward matters are to turn up. Of course,
    everything will depend on the way the friends of the great house
    in London, and those of Constable here, shall turn out. Were they
    to be ultimately good, or near it, this would pass over my head
    with little inconvenience. But I think it better to take the worst
    point of view, and suppose that I do not receive from them above
    five shillings in the pound; and even in that case, I am able to
    make a proposal to my creditors, that if they allow me to put my
    affairs into the hands of a private trustee, or trustees, and
    finish the literary engagements I have on hand, there is no great
    chance of their being ultimate losers. This is the course I should
    choose. But if they wish rather to do what they can for themselves,
    they will, in that case, give me a great deal of pain, and make
    a great deal less of the funds. For, it is needless to say, that
    no security can make a man write books, and upon my doing so--I
    mean completing those in hand--depends the instant payment of a
    large sum. I have no reason to apprehend that any of the parties
    concerned are blind to their interest in this matter. I have had
    messages from all the banks, &c., offering what assistance they
    could give, so that I think my offer will be accepted. Indeed, as
    they cannot sell Abbotsford, owing to its being settled in Walter’s
    marriage contract, there can be little doubt they will adopt the
    only way which promises, with a little time, to give them full
    payment, and my life may, in the meanwhile, be insured. My present
    occupations completed, will enable me to lay down, in the course of
    the summer, at least £20,000 of good cash, which, if things had
    remained sound among the booksellers, would have put me on velvet.

    ‘The probable result being that we must be accommodated with the
    delay necessary, our plan is to sell the house and furniture
    in Castle Street, and Lady S. and Anne to come to Abbotsford,
    with a view of economising, while I take lodgings in Edinburgh,
    and work hard till the Session permits me to come out. All our
    farming operations must, of course, be stopped so soon as they can
    with least possible loss, and stock, &c., disposed of. In short,
    everything must be done to avoid outlay. At the same time, there
    can be no want of comfort. I must keep Peter and the horses for
    Lady Scott’s sake, though I make sacrifices in my own [case].
    Bogie, I think, we will also keep, but we must sell the produce of
    the garden. As for Tom, he and I go to the grave together. All idle
    horses, &c., must be dispensed with.

    ‘For you, my dear friend, we must part--that is, as laird and
    factor--and it rejoices me to think that your patience and
    endurance, which set me so good an example, are like to bring
    round better days. You never flattered my prosperity, and in my
    adversity it is not the least painful consideration that I cannot
    any longer be useful to you. But Kaeside, I hope, will still be
    your residence; and I will have the advantage of your company and
    advice, and probably your services as amanuensis. Observe, I am
    not in indigence, though no longer in affluence; and if I am to
    exert myself in the common behalf, I must have honourable and easy
    means of life, although it will be my inclination to observe the
    most strict privacy, both to save expense and also time; nor do we
    propose to see any one but yourself and the Fergusons.

    ‘I will be obliged to you to think over all these matters; also
    whether anything could be done in leasing the saw-mill, or Swanston
    working it for the public. I should like to keep him if I could. I
    imagine they must leave me my official income, which, indeed, is
    not liable to be attached. That will be £1600 a year, but there
    is Charles’s college expenses come to £300 at least. I can add,
    however, £200 or £300 without interrupting serious work. Three or
    four years of my favour with the public, if my health and life
    permit, will make me better off than ever I have been in my life. I
    hope it will not inconvenience the Miss Smiths to be out of their
    money for a little while. It is a most unexpected chance on my part.

    ‘All that I have said is for your consideration and making up your
    mind, for nothing can be certain till we hear what the persons
    principally concerned please to say. But then, if they accede to
    the trust, we will expect to have the pleasure of seeing you here
    with a list of stock and a scheme of what you think best to be
    done. My purpose is that everything shall be paid ready money from
    week to week.

    ‘I have £180 to send to you, and it is in my hands. Of course it
    will be paid, but I am unwilling to send it until I know the exact
    footing on which I am to stand. The gentleman whom I wish should be
    my trustee--or one of them--is John Gibson, the Duke’s factor.

    ‘Lady Scott’s spirits were affected at first, but she is getting
    better. For myself, I feel like the Eildon Hills--quite firm,
    though a little cloudy. I do not dislike the path which lies
    before me. I have seen all that society can shew, and enjoyed
    all that wealth can give me, and I am satisfied much is vanity,
    if not vexation of spirit. I am arranging my affairs, and mean to
    economise a good deal, and I will pay every man his due.--Yours
    truly,

                                                          WALTER SCOTT.’

There was some delusion in all this. Sir Walter never fully
comprehended the state of his pecuniary affairs. It was one of his
weaknesses, as James Ballantyne has said, to shrink too much from
looking evil in the face, and he was apt to carry a great deal too far
‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’ Laidlaw mentions another
small weakness: ‘he was always in alarm lest the servants should
suspect he was in want of money.’ This, of course, was subsequent to
the public declaration of the failure. Laidlaw went to Edinburgh to
report to the trustees with respect to the best way of closing the farm
business, and there met Sir Walter.

‘He bears himself wonderfully. Miss Scott does not seem to be quite
aware or sensible of anything but that they are to reside in retirement
at Abbotsford. Lady Scott is rather unwilling to believe it, and does
not see the necessity of such complete retrenchment as Sir Walter tells
her is absolutely necessary. I have dined three times there, and there
is not much difference in their manner. Sir W. is often merry, and so
are they all, but still oftener silent. I think that if they were a
week or two at Abbotsford they would be more happy than they have been
for many a day. I am sure this would be the case with Sir Walter, for
the weight of such an immense system of bills sent for his signature
every now and then would be off his mind. I heard to-day that the Duke
of Somerset and another English nobleman have written to Sir Walter,
offering him £30,000 each, which he has firmly refused; and it is
reported that the young Duke of Buccleuch has written him, offering to
take the whole loss on himself, and to pay the interest of Sir Walter’s
debt until he comes of age. If that is true, Sir Walter should accept
the offer for the Duke’s own sake--for the glorious moral effect it
would have upon the truly noble young fellow. But, apart from all
this, cannot they set up Constable again? He has likewise been a real
benefactor to his country, and then Sir Walter would, of course, be
relieved.’

The private grief of Scott was for a short time merged in what he
considered an important public cause. The Liverpool Administration at
this time proposed to change the Scotch system of currency, abolishing
the small bank-notes, and assimilating the monetary system of Scotland
to that of England. This project was assailed by the wit, humour,
sound sense, and nationality of Scott, in a series of letters signed
‘Malachi Malagrowther,’ and the letters of Malachi were as successful
as those of Swift’s ‘M. B. Drapier’ concerning the currency of Ireland.
The English government, in both cases, was compelled to abandon the
denationalising scheme. Scott writes to Laidlaw, March 1, 1826:

‘I enclose a couple of copies of a pamphlet on the currency, which may
amuse you. The other copy is for Mr Craig, Galashiels. I have got off
some bile from my stomach which has been disturbing me for some years.
The Scotch have a fair opportunity now to give battle, if they dare
avail themselves of it. One would think I had little to do, that I
should go loose upon politics.’

He had, in fact, entered upon his herculean task of paying off some
£120,000 of debt by his pen! The _Life of Napoleon_ was commenced, and
in the autumn the biographer set off for London and Paris to consult
state-papers and gather information. He succeeded well in his errand.
‘My collection of information,’ he writes, ‘goes on faster than I
can take it in; but, then, it is so much coloured by passion and
party-feeling, that it requires much scouring. I spent a day at the
Royal Lodge at Windsor, which was a grand affair for John Nicholson, as
he got an opportunity to see his Majesty.’ And the incident, no doubt,
afforded as much gratification to the kind, indulgent master as it did
to the servant.

After the Abbotsford establishment was broken up, Laidlaw was some time
engaged in cataloguing the large library of Scott of Harden, and at
times visiting his brothers, sheep-farmers in Ross-shire. The following
description of a scene he witnessed, a Highland Summer Sacrament out of
doors, evinces no mean powers of observation and description:

‘The people here gather in thousands to the sacraments, as they did
in Ettrick in Boston’s time. We set out on Sunday to the communion
at Ferrintosh, near Dingwall, to which the people resort from fifty
miles’ distance. Macdonald, the minister who attracts this concourse
of persons, was the son of a piper in Caithness (but from the Celtic
population of the mountains there). He preached the sermon in the
church in English, with a command of language and a justness of tone,
action, and reasoning--keeping close to the pure metaphysics of
Calvin--that I have seldom, if ever, heard surpassed. He had great
energy on all points, but it never touched on extravagance. The
Highland congregation sat in a _cleugh_, or dell, of a long, hollow,
oval shape, bordered with hazel and birch and wild roses. It seemed
to be formed for the purpose. We walked round the outside of the
congregated thousands, and looked down on the glen from the upper end,
and the scene was really indescribable. Two-thirds of those present
were women, dressed mostly in large, high, wide muslin caps, the back
part standing up like the head of a paper kite, and ornamented with
ribbons. They had wrapped round them bright-coloured plaid shawls, the
predominant hue being scarlet.

‘It was a warm, breezy day, one of the most glorious in June. The
place will be about half a mile from the Frith on the south side, and
at an elevation of five hundred feet. Dingwall was just opposite at
the foot of Ben Wyvis, still spotted with wreaths of snow. Over the
town, with its modern castle, its church, and Lombardy poplars, we
saw up the richly cultivated valley of Strathpeffer. The tufted rocks
and woods of Brahan (Mackenzie of Seaforth) were a few miles to the
south, and fields of wheat and potatoes, separated with hedgerows of
trees, intervened. Further off, the high-peaked mountains that divide
the county of Inverness from Ross-shire towered in the distance. I
never saw such a scene. We sat down on the brae among the people,
the long white communion tables being conspicuous at the bottom. The
congregation began singing the psalm to one of the plaintive, wild old
tunes that I am told are only sung in the Gaelic service. The people
all sing, but in such an extended multitude they could not sing all
together. They chanted, as it were, in masses or large groups. I can
compare the singing to nothing earthly, except it be imagining what
would be the effect of a gigantic and tremendous Æolian harp with
hundreds of strings! There was no resisting the impression. After
coming a little to myself, I went and paced the length and breadth of
the amphitheatre, taking averages, and carefully noting, as well as I
could, how the people were sitting together, and I could not, in this
way, make them less than 9500, besides those in the church, amounting
perhaps to 1500. Most of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, with their
families, were there. I enjoyed the scene as something perfect in its
way, and of rare beauty and excellence--like Melrose Abbey under a fine
light, or the back of old Edinburgh during an illumination, or the Loch
of the Lowes in a fine calm July evening, five minutes after sunset!’

The following brief and pleasant note, without date, must be referred
to 1827, as it was in June of that year that the _Life of Napoleon_ was
published:

    ‘MY DEAR MR LAIDLAW--I would be happy if you would come down
    at _kail-time_ to-day. _Napoleon_ (6000 copies) is sold for
    £11,000.--Yours truly,

                                                                   W. S.

    ‘_SUNDAY._’

Mr Gibson, W.S., in his _Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott_ (1871),
says of the transactions of this period: ‘Of _Woodstock_, 9850 copies
were sold for £9500; and of the _Life of Napoleon_, 8000 copies were
sold for £18,200, and these sums, with some other funds realised, were
speedily divided amongst the creditors.’ Under the date of August 1827,
Sir Walter writes in the following affectionate strain:

‘Your leaving Kaeside makes a most melancholy blank to us. You, Mrs
Laidlaw, and the bairns, were objects we met with so much pleasure,
that it is painful to think of strangers being there. But they do
not deserve good weather who cannot endure the bad, and so I would
“set a stout heart to a stey” [steep] “brae;” yet I think the loss of
our walks, plans, discussions, and debates, does not make the least
privation that I experience from the loss of world’s gear. But, _sursum
corda_, and we shall have many happy days yet, and spend some of them
together. I expect Walter and Jane, and then our long-separated family
will be all together in peace and happiness. I hope Mrs Laidlaw and
you will come down and spend a few days with us, and revisit your old
haunts. I miss you terribly at this moment, being engaged in writing a
planting article for the _Quarterly_, and not having patience to make
some necessary calculations.’

Mr Laidlaw has written on the back of the communication: ‘This letter
lies in the drawer in which the unfinished manuscript of _Waverley_ was
found, amongst fishing-tackle, &c. which yet remain. I got the desk as
a present from Sir Walter.’

The death, in the autumn of 1829, of faithful Tom Purdie--forester,
henchman, and humble friend--was a heavy blow to Sir Walter, then fast
sinking in vigour and alacrity. The proverbial difficulty of obtaining
a precisely exact account of any contemporary event, even from parties
most closely connected with it, is illustrated in this case. Lockhart
reports the death as follows:

‘Thomas Purdie leaned his head one evening on the table, and dropped
asleep. This was nothing uncommon in a hard-working man; and his family
went and came about him for several hours, without taking any notice.
When supper came, they tried to awaken him, and found that life had
been for some time extinct.’

Scott’s account is different:

    ‘MY DEAR WILLIE--I write to tell you the shocking news of poor
    Tom Purdie’s death, by which I have been greatly affected. He had
    complained, or rather spoken, of a sore throat; and the day before
    yesterday, as it came on a shower of rain, I wanted him to walk
    fast on to Abbotsford before me, but you know well how impossible
    that was. He took some jelly, or trifle of that kind, but made no
    complaint. This morning he rose from bed as usual, and sat down
    by the table with his head on his hand; and when his daughter
    spoke to him, life had passed away without a sigh or groan. Poor
    fellow! There is a heart cold that loved me well, and, I am sure,
    thought of my interest more than his own. I have seldom been so
    much shocked. I wish you would take a ride down and pass the night.
    There is much I have to say, and this loss adds to my wish to see
    you. We dine at four. The day is indifferent, but the sooner the
    better.--Yours very truly,

                                                           WALTER SCOTT.

    ‘ABBOTSFORD, _31st October_.’

A few days afterwards (November 5), Laidlaw thus relates the story:

‘Tom Purdie, poor fellow! died on Friday night or Saturday morning. He
had fallen asleep with his head on his hands resting on the table, his
usual practice. Margaret and Mary’ [his wife and daughter] ‘left him
to go to bed when he should awaken; and Margaret found him exactly in
the same situation when she rose, but dead, cold, and stiff. Sir Walter
wrote to me, in great distress, to come down. I did so on Sunday, and
on Tuesday I went to poor Tom’s funeral. Sir Walter had my pony put
in again, and made me stay all day. He was in very great distress
about Tom, and will miss him continually, and in many ways that come
nearest to him. Sir Walter wants us to return to Kaeside at Whitsunday.
_Kindness of heart is positively the reigning quality of Sir Walter’s
character!_’

A noble eulogium, and pronounced by one better qualified, perhaps, than
any of his contemporaries, to form the opinion so expressed. Of the
greatest author of his age it might truly be said:

    ‘His highest honours to the heart belong.’

William Laidlaw _did_ return to Kaeside. At Whitsuntide 1830, he
dropped anchor safely at his old roadstead, which had been suitably
prepared for his reception. But before doing so, we find him putting in
a kind word for the Ettrick Shepherd, who was in difficulties. In March
1830, Laidlaw wrote to Sir Walter:

‘I had your letter from Bowhill, and was much gratified to learn that
you and Miss Scott had passed so much time with the duke and duchess.
I have no doubt that His Grace would bring our friend the Shepherd
and his concerns before you, and I am anxious to know if it is the
duke’s intention to render him a little more comfortable at Altrive.
You know that Hogg built the cottage there, at his own expense (with
an allowance of wood, perhaps), and he likewise built a considerable
addition to Mount Benger, and a barn--all which cost him a great sum
of money, quite disproportionate to a holding of £7 a year, even at a
nominal rent. The cottage was intended for a bachelor’s abode, and is
very inadequate to what is now required by the bard’s family; and I see
that if His Grace does not think of giving him some allowance as an
addition, it will most likely banish him from the district with which
his poetry and feeling are so closely associated. I mention all this
because I have observed that there is a prejudice against him among the
sub-agents since Christie left the service, or rather, since the late
duke’s death. One of them said to me, when I mentioned Hogg’s genius
and amiable character, _Cui bono?_ I, too, say, _Cui bono?_ What is the
use of all his poetry, and the rest? Now, from R.’s usage of him, there
is every reason to suspect that he is a _cui bono_ man too, and Hogg
stands a bad chance among them, and I believe the duke knows nothing
about the truth of the matter.’

Nothing was done. ‘As to the success of an application to the duke,’
writes Scott, ‘I am doubtful. The duke seemed to have made up his mind
on the subject, and I saw no chance of being of service.’ Literature
and the journey to London did something for the Shepherd. He wrote and
struggled on at Altrive till November 1835, when the ‘world’s poor
strife’ was over, and he sank to rest.

Among the dearest and most valued of all the visitors at Abbotsford
were the Fergusons of Huntly Burn. Here is a kindly note sent to
Kaeside:

    ‘Miss Ferrier is to be at Abbotsford this day, being Tuesday, 20th
    October’ [1829], ‘and Mr Wilkie is to be there on Thursday; so, if
    you come, you will have painting, poetry, history, and music--as
    Miss Wilkie is a musician. In short, all the Muses will be there.
    If this does not tempt you, I don’t know what will.--Yours truly,

                                                     ISABELLA FERGUSON.’

Ill-health and political agitation brought darker days to Abbotsford.
The Reform Bill was Sir Walter’s _bête noire_. The neighbouring Tory
lairds, proud of his co-operation, induced him to join in their local
movement against the bill, and this still further aggravated his morbid
feeling. In March 1831, he was present at a meeting of the freeholders
of Roxburgh, held at Jedburgh, to pass resolutions against the Reform
Bill. He was dragged to the meeting by the young Duke of Buccleuch and
Mr Henry Scott of Harden, contrary to his prior resolution, and his
promise to Miss Scott; for his health was then much shattered. ‘He
made a confused imaginative speech,’ says Laidlaw, ‘which was full of
evil forebodings and mistaken views. The people who were auditors,
in proportion to their love and reverence for him, felt disappointed
and sore, and, like himself, were carried away by their temporary
chagrin, to the great regret of the country around.’ At the election in
Jedburgh, Sir Walter was hooted at, and hissed, and saluted with cries
of ‘Burke Sir Walter!’ Laidlaw adds: ‘The same people, a few weeks
afterwards, when Mr Oliver, the sheriff of Roxburgh, was foolishly
swearing in constables at Melrose, said boldly they need not bring them
to fight against reform, for they would fight for it; but if any one
meddled with Sir Walter Scott, they would fight for him.’ Amidst all
the excitement of politics, and in sinking health, Sir Walter continued
to write, or rather to dictate, and worked steadily at his novel of
_Count Robert of Paris_.

‘I am now writing as amanuensis for Sir Walter,’ said Laidlaw; ‘and
have the satisfaction of finding that I am of essential service to him,
as he was attacked with chilblains on his hands to such a degree as to
unfit him for writing long unless with great pain. We go on with almost
as great spirit as when he dictated _Ivanhoe_. He has become a good
deal lamer, which prevents him from taking his usual walks; and he gets
upon a pony with great difficulty. But of late he has been in excellent
spirits. His memory seems to be as good as ever; at least, it is far
beyond that of other people. I come down at seven o’clock, and write
until nine; we are at it again before ten, and continue until one. He
is impatient and miserable when not employed.’

About this time--the spring of 1831--Joanna Baillie published a thin
volume of selections from the New Testament ‘regarding the nature and
dignity of Jesus Christ.’ The tendency of the work was Socinian, or
at least Arian; and Scott was indignant that his friend should have
meddled with such a subject. ‘What had _she_ to do with questions of
that sort?’ He refused to add the book to his library, and gave it to
Laidlaw. One day Sir Walter was loud in praise of one of the workmen
engaged at Abbotsford, a native of the neighbouring village of Darnick.
‘Yes,’ added Laidlaw; ‘and do you know, Sir Walter, he is an excellent
Burgher preacher.’[11] ‘A preacher, d--n him!’ exclaimed Scott
jocularly, and wheeling round as if to whistle the Burgher preacher
down the wind.

In a very manly and interesting letter, addressed to Lockhart (of which
he had kept a copy), Laidlaw enters into further particulars concerning
the studies at Abbotsford:

‘Sir Walter is very greatly better. He has given up smoking, and takes
porridge to his supper instead of the long and hearty pull of brown
stout. He is full of jokes and glee. Were it possible to prevail upon
him to wear a greatcoat when he rides out to the hills in a north-west
wind, and to take champagne and water instead of a monstrous tumbler
of strong ale after tea, I am positive--and so are the regular medical
people--that he would get right again. He drinks no wine, and has
been advised to take gin-toddy instead of whisky. He has given up the
regular dram out of a _quaich_, but takes a sly taste of the excellent
hollands before he _coups_ it into the tumbler, thereby satisfying
his conscience, no doubt, by reducing it to the half-glass which, it
seems, is the Abercromby law as to strong liquors. Don’t you mind the
style of his letters; that is all, or nearly all, humbug. What he
dictates of _Robert of Paris_ is, much of it, as good as anything he
ever wrote. He does not go on so fast; but I do not see that he is
much more apt to make blunders--that is, to let his imagination get
ahead of his speech--than when he wrote _Ivanhoe_. The worst business
was that accursed nonsensical petition in the name of the magistrates,
justices of the peace, and freeholders of the extensive, influential,
and populous county of Selkirk! We were more than three days at it.
At the beginning of the third day, he walked backwards and forwards,
enunciating the half-sentences with a deep and awful voice, his
eyebrows seemingly more shaggy than ever, and his eyes more fierce and
glaring--altogether, like the royal beast in his cage! It suddenly came
over me, as politics was always Sir Walter’s weak point, that he was
crazy, and that I should have to come down to Abbotsford, and write
on and away at the petition until the crack of doom! I was seized at
the same moment with an inclination, almost uncontrollable, to burst
into laughter. But seriously, you know, as well as anybody, his great
excitability on political matters; and I must say it surprised me not a
little that a person of your sagacity and acuteness should have thought
of writing him upon politics at all, the more, because I believe that
if a magpie were to come and chatter politics, or even that body,
Lord M., he would believe all they said, if they spoke of change, and
danger, and rumours of war--_belli servilis_ more than all. (May I
speak and live!) I felt inclined to doubt whether you had not _gane
gyte_’ [gone crazy] ‘yourself! Could you not have sent him literary
chit-chat and amusing anecdotes from London, which would have been the
very thing for him, as it was of great consequence that his mind should
be kept calm and cheerful?’

Mental disease and physical infirmity continued to increase, and a
winter at Naples, with complete abstinence from literary labour, was
prescribed. Wordsworth prayed for favouring gales:

                        ‘Be true,
    Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea,
    Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope!’

Alas! it was all in vain. Before quitting the country, Sir Walter gave
Laidlaw a mandate, or letter of authority, to represent him at county
meetings, and a paper of directions as to keeping the house, the books,
and garden in order. Two items are worth quoting as characteristic:

‘The dogs to be taken care of, especially to shut them up separately
when there is anything to quarrel about.

‘When Mr Laidlaw thinks it will be well taken, to consult Mr Nicol
Milne, and not to stop young Mr Nicol when shooting on our side of the
hedge.’

Having made these arrangements, the invalid thought of taking a
farewell look of Melrose Abbey. One morning Mr Laidlaw’s family were
startled to see Sir Walter approaching Kaeside, feeble, and wearing
his nightcap, which apparently he had forgotten to exchange for a
hat. No notice was taken of the circumstance. After the usual kindly
salutations, he said, with a tremulous voice, that he had come to take
a last look of the abbey. He proceeded to an elevated point commanding
a view of the spot, and after gazing long and anxiously down on the
town and abbey, he said slowly: ‘It is a venerable ruin!’ and returned
to Abbotsford.

The government, as is well known, placed a frigate at his disposal
for the voyage to the Mediterranean. The reception at Portsmouth, and
the arrangements on board the _Barham_, were highly gratifying to Sir
Walter and his family. ‘The ship is magnificent,’ writes Mrs Lockhart,
‘and carries four hundred and eighty men. The rooms are excellent, and
everything that could be thought of for papa’s comfort, in every way,
has been done.’ Hopes of his ultimate recovery were entertained. Cadell
writes, December 29, 1831: ‘I have two long letters from Sir Walter,
one dated “Off Trafalgar, 14th November,” and finished at Malta on the
23d. He is in great glee, and must be much better. He has made some
progress with a new novel, _The Siege of Malta_.’ At the date of the
second letter, he had got through thirty of his own pages. Major Scott
arrived from Naples on the 1st of April 1832, and brought no very
flattering tidings. ‘From his talk,’ writes Lockhart, ‘and from a huge
bundle of letters which he conveyed, we draw one inference--namely,
that though the bodily strength of your friend has improved since he
left us, there has been rather, if anything, a further dislocation and
prostration of the better part. Cadell is here, and he and I and the
major spent a sad enough evening over the budget.’ All hope was soon
dispelled. The hurried journey home from Italy induced another attack
of apoplexy. He was struck while in the steamboat on the Rhine at
Cologne, and fell into Miss Scott’s arms. Nicholson bled him instantly,
and restored animation. They pushed on for Rotterdam, and got there
just as the London boat was setting off for England. Laidlaw writes to
a friend:

‘You will see by the newspapers that Sir Walter is coming home to die,
I fear, or worse. It has come to what I always feared since he told
me that Mr Cadell had half the proceeds of the great new edition.
Sir Walter’s permanent income is, as you know, reduced salary, £840;
sheriffdom, £300--total, £1140. No person can live at Abbotsford, and
keep it up, in a country-gentlemanly way, under £2000 a year, for it
will take nearly £1200 for servants, taxes, coals, garden, horses,
&c. The run of strangers was immense. Sir Walter wrote for Keepsakes,
Reviews, &c., and kept things going; but of late this stream dried up,
and he has been confused in his notions of money matters. He is much
involved, and will not be able to draw any more than his salaries. He
has all this winter taken it into his head that his debts are paid
off, and this was from catching at an idea of Cadell’s of borrowing
money and paying the creditors all except the interest. He will know
the truth when he comes to London, and this, with the winter and cold
weather, will kill him. How can a man with his sensibility, used
for thirty years to the strongest excitement, and living on popular
applause, in luxury, glitter, and show, survive when all is gone, and
nothing but ruin, coldness, and darkness remain?’

Deprived of the use of his right arm and side, weak and depressed, Sir
Walter reached London on the evening of the 13th of June 1832. Five
days later, Cadell writes: ‘Our poor friend is still alive, but very
ill. He took leave of his children to-day, very clearly and distinctly.
In the morning, he mistook Lockhart for me; and it was some time before
he could be put right. The doctors doubt his getting over to-night.’ He
rallied, however, and next month was conveyed to Abbotsford. Laidlaw’s
account of Sir Walter’s arrival (written the day after) differs in some
particulars from the narrative of Lockhart--one of the most affecting
narratives in the language.

‘I was at the door when he’ [Sir Walter], ‘Mr and Mrs Lockhart, and
Miss Scott arrived. They said he would not know me. He was in a sort
of long carriage that opened at the back. He had an uncommon stupid
look, staring straight before him; and assuredly he did not know
where he was. It was very dismal. I began to feel myself agitated in
spite of all my resolution. Lockhart ordered away the ladies; and two
servants, in perfect silence, lifted him out, and carried him into
the dining-room. I followed, of course. They had placed him in a low
arm-chair, where he reclined. Mrs Lockhart made a sign for me to step
forward to see if he would recognise me. She said: “Mr Laidlaw, papa.”
He raised his eyes a little, and when he caught mine, he started, and
exclaimed: “Good God, Mr Laidlaw! I have thought of you a thousand
times!” and he held out his hand. They were all very much surprised;
and it being quite unexpected, I was much affected. He was put to bed.
I had gone into one of the empty rooms, and some little time after
Nicholson came to tell me that Sir Walter wished to see me. He spoke
a little confusedly, but inquired if the people were suffering any
hardship, if they were satisfied, &c. I had written to him that I had
paid off nine or ten of the men after he had gone away last year. I did
not remain long.

‘I understand Sir Walter’s mind has been wandering from one dream
to another; but now and then breaking through the cloud that hangs
over it, and surprising his attendants with glimpses of his original
intellect. Alas, alas! However, he has rested better than for some
time past, and was wheeled into the library’ [July 12], ‘and seemed
gratified. When I called about eleven o’clock, he was sound asleep.’

A fortnight later, Laidlaw writes:

‘Sir Walter is generally collected in the morning, and very restless
and troublesome to his daughters during the afternoon and night; often
raving, but always quiet, and generally shewing command of himself when
Lockhart comes in. Sometimes he seemed gratified at being at home, and
even once or twice made pertinent quotations, and spoke of books, &c.
Until yesterday, he always knew me, and I clearly saw he had then a
distressing desire to speak to me. I perceived that although he might
appear to feel little pain, he was really suffering a great deal,
partly from a sense of his situation and inaction, but chiefly from the
overpowering cloud and weight upon his great intellect. Yesterday,
he was apparently unconscious; he could not speak, but was wheeled
into the library for awhile. I never witnessed a more moving or more
melancholy sight. Once, when Lockhart spoke of his restlessness, he
replied: “There will be rest in the grave.”’

One delusion under which the illustrious sufferer laboured was
preparing Abbotsford for the reception of the Duke of Wellington.
Another was, his personation of the character of a Scottish judge
trying his own daughters. In the course of the latter, there were
painful bursts of violence and excitement. ‘It is strange,’ said
Laidlaw, ‘that he never refers to any of his works or literary plans.’
The truth is, he had thrown them off, to use an expression of his own,
with ‘an effort as spontaneous as that of a tree resigning its leaves
to the wind,’ and they soon passed from his memory. Besides, he had,
when in health, always practised a modest reticence respecting his
works, which had become habitual. The following points to the end of
the struggle:

    ‘Poor papa still lingers, although in the most hopeless state of
    mind and body. For this week past, the doctor has taken leave every
    day, saying he could not survive the twenty-four hours; and to-day,
    he says the pulse is weaker and worse than ever it has been, and
    that his living is almost a miracle. How thankful we shall be when
    it pleases God he is at rest, for a more complete aberration of
    mind never was before; and he even now is so violent we sometimes
    dare not go within reach of his hand. And the miserable scenes we
    have witnessed before his strength was reduced as it now is! One
    great comfort has been, all suffering, so far as we can judge,
    mental or bodily, has been spared, and that for two months past he
    has not for an instant been aware of his situation. My brothers
    were sent for, and have been here for two days. When all is over,
    Anne and I and the children will leave this now miserable place for
    ever. Lockhart is obliged to go straight to London, but we mean
    to spend a couple of weeks with his relations in Lanarkshire, and
    perhaps take Rokeby in our way up. We are both much better than you
    would expect under such sad circumstances. Excuse this miserable
    scrawl; I hardly know what I write....

                                                     C. SOPHIA LOCKHART.

    ‘ABBOTSFORD, _Sunday’ [September 16, 1832]_.[12]

On the day succeeding that on which this melancholy letter would seem
to have been written, Sir Walter had a brief interval of consciousness,
as described by Lockhart, although the biographer would appear to
have misdated the arrival of the sons of the poet. A few more days
terminated the struggle; Sir Walter died on the 21st of September. In
October, Laidlaw notes that Major Scott had given him, accompanied with
a most gratifying letter, the locket which Sir Walter constantly wore
about his neck. This was presented to Sir Walter by Major Scott and his
wife (inscribed ‘From Walter and Jane’) on the day of their marriage,
and it contained some of the hair of each. Major Scott enclosed as
much of Sir Walter’s hair as would supply the place of theirs, which
he wished to be taken out of the locket. ‘I shall try to find room for
all,’ said Mr Laidlaw; and he did find room, interlacing the various
hairs, and wearing the invaluable jewel to his dying day. ‘What a
change the loss of Abbotsford must be to the Fergusons and you all!’
writes Mrs Lockhart, ‘the gentle Sophia,’ as Miss Martineau describes
the fair sufferer. ‘It breaks my heart when I think of the silence and
desolation that now reign there. They talk of a monument! God knows
papa needs no monument; he has left behind him that which won’t pass
away. But if the people of Melrose do anything, I think a great cairn
on one of the hills would be what he would have chosen himself.’ Let
the hills themselves suffice!

   ‘A mightier monument command
    The mountains of his native land.’[13]

After the death of his chief, Mr Laidlaw removed to the county of Ross,
and was successively factor on the estates of Seaforth and Balnagown.
His health failing, he went to reside with his brother, Mr James
Laidlaw, sheep-farmer at Contin, also in Ross-shire, and there he died
May 18, 1845. His remains were interred in the churchyard of Contin,
a retired spot under the shade of Tor Achilty, one of the loftiest
and most picturesque of the Ross-shire mountains, and amidst the most
enchanting Highland scenery. The lord of the manor, Sir George S.
Mackenzie of Coul, Bart., erected a tomb, with a marble tablet, to his
memory.

Mr Laidlaw cherished with religious care all his memorials of
Abbotsford, where, indeed, his heart may be said to have remained
till its last pulsation. The desk in which the first manuscript of
_Waverley_ was deposited stood in his room; the works inscribed and
presented by the author were carefully ranged on his shelves; the
letters he had received from him were treasured up; the pens with
which _Ivanhoe_ was written were laid past, and kept as a sacred
thing; but above all he valued the brooch which was round the neck of
Scott when he died. That most interesting ornament Mr Laidlaw wore
while a trace of sensibility remained, and it has descended to another
generation--one of the most precious of the personal _reliquiæ_ of a
splendid but melancholy friendship.

       *       *       *       *       *

The biographer of Scott, John Gibson Lockhart, was not a social or
clubable man. He was fastidious and reserved, silent in mixed company
(he heard with only one ear, and was too proud to acknowledge it),
and was inveterately prone to satire, so that he earned for himself
the appellation of ‘The Scorpion,’ and he was a victim to dyspepsia,
which, perhaps, like charity, ought to cover a multitude of sins.
His fine acute intellect and classic taste were often obscured and
his better sympathies chilled by pain and languor. To a few friends,
however, Lockhart at times unbosomed himself. With them his cold,
sarcastic, haughty manner melted away--at least for a season--and
in those genial hours he was the most confiding and delightful of
companions. As shewing the better nature and higher feelings of the
man, we are tempted to subjoin one of his letters to William Laidlaw,
in which he speaks of the sense of duty and responsibility under which
he wrote the Memoirs of Scott--a work which, with all its faults, is
unquestionably the best biography since Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_.
There is great tenderness in the following letter; and the picture
which the writer draws of his happy fireside contrasts painfully with
his latter years, when broken health, a desolate hearth, and feelings
lacerated by paternal troubles and anxieties, might have made him join
in that lamentation of the ancient British bard which he applied to the
old age of Thomas Campbell:

   ‘God hath provided unpleasant things for me;
    Dead is Morgeneu, dead is Mordav,
    Dead is Morien, dead are those I love.’[14]

Few letters of Lockhart’s are so generally interesting or so valuable,
biographically, as the following:

                                            ‘LONDON, _January 19, 1837_.

    ‘MY DEAR LAIDLAW--I received yesterday your letter and a very
    munificent donation of ptarmigan, for both which accept my best
    thanks. They were both welcome as remembrancers of Scotland,
    of old days, and of your kindness and affection, of which last,
    though I am the worst of correspondents, neither I nor my wife are
    ever forgetful. The account you give of your situation at present
    is, considering how the world wags, not unsatisfactory. Would it
    were possible to find myself placed in something of a similar
    locality, and with the means of enjoying the country by day and my
    books at night, without the necessity of dividing most of my time
    between the labours of the desk--mere drudge-labours mostly--and
    the harassing turmoil of worldly society, for which I never had
    much, and now-a-days have rarely indeed any, relish! But my wife
    and children bind me to the bit, and I am well pleased with the
    fetters. Walter is now a tall and very handsome boy of near eleven
    years; Charlotte, a very winsome gipsy of eight--both intelligent
    in the extreme, and both, notwithstanding all possible spoiling,
    as simple, natural, and unselfish as if they had been bred on a
    hillside and in a family of twelve. Sophia is your old friend--fat,
    fair, and by-and-by to be forty, which I now am, and over, God
    bless the mark! but though I think I am wiser, at least more sober,
    neither richer nor more likely to be rich than I was in the days of
    Chiefswood and Kaeside--after all, _our_ best days, I still believe.

    ‘Politics, over which we used sometimes to dispute, I have quite
    forsworn. I have satisfied myself that the age of Toryism is by
    for ever; and the business of a party which can in reason propose
    to itself nothing but a defensive attitude, without hope either of
    plunder or honour, seems to me to have few claims on those who,
    when it was in power, never were permitted to share any of the
    advantages it so lavishly bestowed on fools and knaves. So I am a
    very tranquil and indifferent observer.

    ‘Perhaps, however, much of this equanimity as to passing affairs
    has arisen from the call which has been made on me to live in
    the past, bestowing for so many months all the time I could
    command, and all the care I have had really any heart in, upon
    the manuscript remains of our dear friend. I am glad that Cadell
    and the few others who have seen what I have done with these are
    pleased, but I assure you none of them can think more lightly of
    my own part in the matter than I do myself. My sole object is to
    do him justice, or rather to let him do himself justice, by so
    contriving it that he shall be as far as possible, from first to
    last, his own historiographer; and I have therefore willingly
    expended the time that would have sufficed for writing a dozen
    books on what will be no more than the compilation of one. A stern
    sense of duty--that kind of sense of it which is combined with the
    feeling of his actual presence in a serene state of elevation above
    all terrestrial and temporary views--will induce me to touch the
    few darker points in his life and character as freely as the others
    which were so predominant; and my chief anxiety on the appearance
    of the book will be, not to hear what is said by the world, but
    what is _thought_ by you and the few others who can really compare
    the representation as a whole with the facts of the case. I shall,
    therefore, desire Cadell to send you the volumes as they are
    printed, though long before publication, in the confidence that
    they will be kept sacred, while unpublished, to yourself and your
    own household; and if you can give me encouragement on seeing the
    first and second, now I think nearly out of the printer’s hands,
    it will be very serviceable to me in the completion of the others.
    I have waived all my own notions as to the manner of publication,
    &c., in deference to the bookseller,[15] who is still so largely
    our creditor, and, I am grieved to add, will probably continue to
    be so for many years to come.

    ‘Your letters of the closing period I wish you would send to me;
    and of these I am sure some use, and some good use, may be made, as
    of those addressed to myself at the same time, which all, however
    melancholy to compare with those of the better day, have traces of
    the man. Out of these confused and painful scraps I think I can
    contrive to put together a picture that will be highly touching of
    a great mind shattered, but never degraded, and always to the last
    noble, as his heart continued pure and warm as long as it could
    beat.--Ever affectionately yours,

                                                        J. G. LOCKHART.’

We are tempted to add a short extract from another letter of
Lockhart’s, because it mentions a pleasing incident in the life of the
second Sir Walter Scott. He writes, 25th May 1843, that Major Scott and
his wife enjoyed perfect health in India, and he adds: ‘He (Sir W. S.)
tells me that hearing a Highland battalion was to pass about fifty
miles off from his station (Bangalore), he rode that distance one day,
and back the next, merely to hear the _skirl_ of the pipes! No doubt
there would be a jolly mess for his reception besides; but I could not
but be pleased with the touch of the “auld man.”’


                            LUCY’S FLITTIN’.

   ‘’Twas when the wan leaf frae the birk-tree was fa’in,
      And Martinmas dowie had wound up the year,
    That Lucy row’d up her wee kist wi’ her a’ in ’t,
      And left her auld master and neebours sae dear.

    For Lucy had serv’d i’ the Glen[16] a’ the simmer;
      She cam there afore the bloom cam on the pea;[17]
    An orphan was she, an’ they had been gude till her;
      Sure that was the thing brought the tear to her ee.

    She gaed by the stable, where Jamie was stan’in’,
      Right sair was his kind heart her flittin’ to see;
    Fare ye weel, Lucy! quo’ Jamie, and ran in--
      The gatherin’ tears trickled fast frae her ee.

    As down the burn-side she gaed slow wi’ her flittin’,
      Fare ye weel, Lucy! was ilka bird’s sang;
    She heard the craw sayin ’t, high on the tree sittin’,
      And Robin was chirpin ’t the brown leaves amang.

    O what is’t that pits my puir heart in a flutter?
      And what gars the tears come sae fast to my ee?
    If I wasna ettled to be ony better,
      Then what gars me wish ony better to be?

    I ’m just like a lammie that loses its mither,
      Nae mither nor frien’ the poor lammie can see;
    I fear I hae tint my bit heart a’ thegither;
      Nae wonder the tear fa’s sae fast frae my ee.

    Wi’ the rest o’ my claes, I hae row’d up the ribbon,
      The bonnie blue ribbon that Jamie gae me;
    Yestreen, when he gae me ’t, and saw I was sabbin’,
      I’ll never forget the wae blink o’ his ee.

    Though now he said naething but Fare ye weel, Lucy!
      It made me I neither could speak, hear, nor see;
    He couldna say mair but just Fare ye weel, Lucy!
      Yet that I will mind till the day that I dee.

    The lamb likes the gowan wi’ dew when it’s droukit;
      The hare likes the brake and the braird on the lea;
    But Lucy likes Jamie;--she turn’d, and she lookit;
      She thought the dear place she wad never mair see!’

In publishing the ballad, Hogg added the following verse, in order,
as he said, to _complete the story_; but it will be felt, we think,
that he has marred the pathetic simplicity of the original, which was
complete enough as a picture of the flittin’:

   ‘Ah, weel may young Jamie gang dowie and cheerless,
      And weel may he greet on the bank o’ the burn!
    His bonnie sweet Lucy, sae gentle and peerless,
      Lies cauld in her grave, and will never return.’

Lockhart has truly characterised Laidlaw’s ballad as ‘a simple and
pathetic picture of a poor Ettrick maiden’s feelings in leaving a
service where she had been happy,’ and he adds that it has ‘long been
and must ever be a favourite with all who understand the delicacies
of the Scottish dialect, and the manners of the district in which the
scene is laid.’ A no less flattering or discriminating notice had
been previously given by a critic in the _Edinburgh Review_, who, in
quoting _one_ song from the four volumes of Allan Cunningham’s _Songs
of Scotland, Ancient and Modern_, selected Laidlaw’s ‘simple ditty’ as
a ‘fair example of the lowly pathetic’ which would ‘go to the heart of
many a village-bred Scotchman in remote regions and all conditions of
society.’


                                THE END.


                               Edinburgh:
                      Printed by W. & R. Chambers.




FOOTNOTES


[1] This print, glazed in a black frame, was presented by Sir Adam
Ferguson to my brother Robert, and it is now in my possession.--W. C.

[2] [For a number of years after the decease of Sir Walter, there were
many small floating anecdotes and memorabilia of his habits, and the
happy way in which he would make some pleasantry out of very ordinary
occurrences. Two or three instances occur to recollection.--One
day, when walking along Princes Street, Edinburgh, my brother, who
accompanied him, made the remark that he was evidently well known,
for many persons looked back at him on passing. ‘Oh, ay, ay,’ replied
Scott jocosely; ‘more know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows!’--The late Mr
Thomas Tegg, publisher, Cheapside, having, on the occasion of visiting
Scotland, ventured with a friend to call on Sir Walter at Abbotsford,
was somewhat doubtful of his reception, for he had published a small
book in doggerel verse, designed to bring Scott’s muse into ridicule.
He was speedily relieved of his apprehensions. ‘I am sorry to say,’
said Tegg apologetically, ‘that I happen to be the publisher of
_Jokeby, a Burlesque on Rokeby_.’ ‘Glad to see you, Mr Tegg,’ replied
Sir Walter; ‘the more jokes the better!’--Mrs John Ballantyne, in
her reminiscences of Scott, states that, besides his story-telling
manner, he had another quite distinct, in which he was accustomed to
utter any snatch of poetry, such as a verse of a Border ballad, or a
simple but touching popular rhyme. ‘I can never forget,’ she says,
‘the awe-striking solemnity with which he pronounced an elegiac stanza
inscribed on a tombstone in Melrose Abbey:

    “Earth walketh on the earth
      Glistering like gold;
    Earth goeth to the earth
      Sooner than it wold.
    Earth buildeth on the earth
      Palaces and towers;
    Earth sayeth to the earth,
      All shall be ours.”’

--On the occasion of an excursion with a friend to Dumfriesshire and
Galloway, Scott’s money happened to run out; and he borrowed from his
companion a pound-note at Tinwald Manse, and two pounds at the inn of
Beattock Bridge. The payment of the loan became the subject of a bit
of pleasantry. Returning home, he enclosed three pounds to his friend,
with the following lines:

   ‘One at Tinwald Manse, and two at Beattock Brig,
    That makes three, if Cocker’s worth a fig;
    Borrow while you may, pay when you can,
    And at the last you’ll die an honest man!’]


[3]

   ‘From Soldan Turk I this Forest wan
    When the king and his men was not to see.’

In the copy printed in the _Border Minstrelsy_, this is _Soudron_--i.
e., Southron or English, which I have no doubt is the proper
reading.--_Aytoun._

[4] The Shepherd’s conjecture proved correct. Mr Aytoun procured his
copy of the ballad from the charter-chest at Philiphaugh. The copy in
the _Border Minstrelsy_ was printed from one found among the papers of
Mrs Cockburn, authoress of _The Flowers of the Forest_.

[5] MS. notes by W. Laidlaw. Professor Aytoun says that one cause of
his doubts as to the antiquity of _Auld Maitland_ was that it wanted
a clear intelligible story and main plot, so that it could not be
retained in memory for a couple of months. If the Professor (alas,
now no more!) had chanced, in any of his angling excursions on the
Tweed, to have fallen in with a brother of the rod, Mr Stirling, Depute
Sheriff-clerk of Peebles (also now gone), he would have found at least
one gentleman who could repeat the whole ballad without a break, though
he had not read a line of it for more than twenty years. Hogg states
explicitly that when the sheriff visited his cottage at Ettrick,
his mother recited or chanted the ballad; and in a poetical address
to Scott congratulating him on his elevation to the baronetcy, the
Shepherd says:

   ‘When Maitland’s song first met your ear,
    How the furled visage up did clear,
    Beaming delight! though now a shade
    Of doubt would darken into dread,
    That some unskilled presumptuous arm
    Had marred tradition’s mighty charm.
    Scarce drew thy lurking dread the less
    Till she, the ancient Minstreless,
    With fervid voice and kindling eye,
    And withered arms waving on high,
    Sung forth these words in eldritch shriek,
    While tears stood on thy nut-brown cheek:

        “Na, we are nane o’ the lads o’ France,
          Nor e’er pretend to be;
        We be three lads of fair Scotland,
          Auld Maitland’s sons a’ three!”

    Thy fist made all the table ring--
    “By ----, sir, but that is the thing!”’


[6] _Marmion_--Introduction to Canto II.

[7] He rarely made corrections on his published works, but there is one
alteration worth noting in the opening of this Introduction. In the
first edition he says: ‘From the remote period when the Roman deity
TERMINUS retired behind the ramparts of SEVERUS,’ &c. This seemed a
little inflated, and also inappropriate, for it represents Terminus as
if capable of motion, though the Romans represented the god as wanting
legs and arms, to shew that he was immovable; and Scott reduced the
illustration to sober historical limits: ‘From the remote period when
the Roman province was contracted by the ramparts of SEVERUS,’ &c.

[8] _Marmion_: Introd. to Canto II. When the poem was published, its
author wrote to his friend at Blackhouse: ‘This accompanies a copy
of _Marmion_, which I will see put up with my own eyes. Constable is
greatly too busy to be uniformly accurate.’

[9] Letter to Hon. Mrs Stewart Mackenzie.

[10] Seaforth Papers at Brahan Castle, Ross-shire.

[11] The Burghers were a religious sect, now merged in the United
Presbyterian body.

[12] Letter to Hon. Mrs Stewart Mackenzie.

[13] Lockhart also was in favour of a cairn: ‘As to monuments, if I
could choose--passing Abbotsford--I should say, put a plain sitting
statue of Sir W. S. on Princes Street, Edinburgh, at the south end
of Castle Street, backed by the rock; and put a cairn on the Eildon
Hill, that every lad might carry his stone to. As for _temples_ and
_pillars_, they have been vulgarised in Edinburgh. A friend said to
me: ‘Good God, what a grand thing it will be to have Sir Walter put
on a level with the late Lord Melville! Let us have another pillar at
the west end of George Street, by all means.’ This man is a sensible
one, and was dead serious. On a level with Lord Melville, whose name
will appear only in the fag-end of a note to the future history of
this country, and really will be kept in memory chiefly by the pillar!
Dugald Stewart and Playfair, admirable dominies both, have their
temples; so I fancy will now Sir John Leslie. The Calton Hill had
better be left to the schoolmasters; in a hundred years they will have
covered it; but, if they please, they may keep a place in the midst for
Sir John Sinclair.’--_Letter to Hon. Mrs Stewart Mackenzie._

[14] Vide _Quarterly Review_, June 1849.

[15] Mr Cadell. In the autumn of the same year, the enterprising
bookseller writes to Laidlaw: ‘Strange that all the Ballantynes and
Constable are gone, and I am left alone of those behind the curtain
during so many critical years! Born at Cockenzie, in East Lothian,
educated for business above five years in Glasgow, I came here’ [to
Edinburgh] ‘a raw young man of twenty-one in the winter of 1809–10, and
have cuckooed all these men out of their nests, firmly seated in which
they all were at that time. And here is Lockhart telling about all of
us to posterity. We will all be handed down as appendages to the great
man!’ Mr Cadell died January 20, 1849, having, it is said, made about
£100,000 in business, chiefly by Scott’s works. ‘Our late illustrious
friend used to joke me about a Waverley Cottage or Waverley Hall: I am
now rated for a palace!’ (Cadell to Laidlaw, July 1834.) Latterly, he
was proprietor of the estate of Ratho, near Edinburgh.

[16] The Glen is a small mountain valley on the banks of the Quair,
about four and a half miles from Innerleithen. A magnificent residence
has been built on the estate by the proprietor, Charles Tennant, Esq.
Vide description and engraving in Chambers’s _History of Peeblesshire_.

[17] Hogg altered this line as follows:

    ‘She cam there afore the flower bloom’d on the pea.’




Transcriber’s Notes


Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.