Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Walter Scott to George Ellis, 20 April 1801
“Lasswade Cottage, 20th April, 1801.
“My dear Sir,
“I should long ago have acknowledged your instructive
letter, but I have been wandering about in the wilds of Liddesdale and Ettrick
Forest, in search of additional materials for the Border Minstrelsy. I cannot, however, boast
much of my success. One of our best reciters has turned religious in his later
days, and finds out that old songs are unlawful. If so, then, as Falstaff says, is many an acquaintance of mine
damned. I now send you an accurate analysis of Sir Tristrem.
Philo-Tomas, whoever he was, must surely have been an
Englishman; when his hero joins battle with Moraunt, he exclaims,
God help Tristrem the Knight, He fought for Ingland.’ |
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This strain of national attachment would hardly have proceeded from a
Scottish author, even though he had laid his scene in the sister country. In
other respects the language appears to be Scottish, and certainly contains the
essence of Tomas’s work. . . . . You ![]()
| CORRESPONDENCE WITH ELLIS—1801. | 333 |
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shall have Sir Otuel in a week or two, and I shall be happy to
compare your Romance of Merlin with our Arthur and Merlin, which is a very good poem, and may
supply you with some valuable additions. I would very fain lend your elephant*
a lift, but I fear I can be of little use to you. I
have been rather an observer of detached facts respecting antiquities, than a
regular student. At the same time, I may mention one or two circumstances, were
it but to place your elephant upon a tortoise. From Selkirkshire to Cumberland,
we have a ditch and bulwark of great strength, called the Catrail, running
north and south, and obviously calculated to defend the western side of the
island against the inhabitants of the eastern half. Within this bulwark, at
Drummelzier, near Peebles, we find the grave of Merlin, the account of whose madness and death you will find in
Fordun. The same author says he was
seized with his madness during a dreadful battle on the Liddle, which divides
Cumberland from Scotland. All this seems to favour your ingenious hypothesis,
that the sway of the British Champion [Arthur] extended over Cumberland and Strathcluyd, as well as
Wales. Ercildoune is hardly five miles from the Catrail. . . . .
“Leyden has
taken up a most absurd resolution to go to Africa on a journey of discovery.
Will you have the goodness to beg Heber
to write to him seriously on so ridiculous a plan, which can promise nothing
either pleasant or profitable. I am certain he would get a church in Scotland
with a little patience and prudence, and it gives me great pain to see a
valuable young man of uncommon genius and acquirements fairly throw himself
away. Yours truly,
John Fordun (1363 fl.)
Scottish historian whose writings were incorporated into the
Scotichronicon of Walter Bower.
Richard Heber (1774-1833)
English book collector, he was the elder half-brother of the poet Reginald Heber and the
friend of Walter Scott: member of the Roxburghe Club and MP for Oxford 1821-1826.
John Leyden (1775-1811)
Scottish antiquary, poet, and orientalist who assisted Walter Scott in compiling the
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.
