Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Walter Scott to Joanna Baillie, 17 December 1811
“My dear Friend,
“ . . . . It is too little to say I am enchanted
with the said third volume,
especially with the two first plays, which in every point not only sustain, but
even exalt your reputation as a dramatist. The whole character of
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Orra is exquisitely supported
as well as imagined, and the language distinguished by a rich variety of fancy,
which I know no instance of excepting in Shakspeare. After I had read Orra
twice to myself, Terry read it over to
us a third time, aloud, and I have seldom seen a little circle so much affected
as during the whole fifth act. I think it would act charmingly, omitting,
perhaps, the baying of the hounds, which could not be happily imitated, and
retaining only the blast of the horn and the halloo of the huntsmen at a
distance. Only I doubt if we have now an actress that could carry through the
mad scene in the fifth act, which is certainly one of the most sublime that
ever were written. Yet I have a great quarrel with this beautiful drama, for
you must know you have utterly destroyed a song of mine, precisely in the turn
of your outlaw’s ditty, and sung by persons in somewhat the same
situation. I took out my unfortunate manuscript to look at it, but alas! it was
the encounter of the iron and the earthen pitchers in the fable. I was clearly
sunk, and the potsherds not worth gathering up. But only conceive that the
chorus should have run thus verbatim— ‘’Tis mirk midnight with peaceful men, With us ’tis dawn of day ’ |
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And again—
‘Then boot and saddle, comrades boon, Nor wait the dawn of day.’* |
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* These lines were accordingly struck out of the
outlaw’s song in Rokeby. The verses of Orra, to which Scott alludes, are no doubt the following:—
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“The wild-fire dances on the fen,
The red star sheds its ray,
Up rouse ye, then, my merry men,
It is our opening day,” &c.
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“I think the Dream extremely powerful indeed, but I am rather glad we did
not hazard the representation. It rests so entirely on Osterloo, that I am
almost sure we must have made a bad piece of work of it. By-the-by a story is
told of an Italian buffoon, who had contrived to give his master, a petty
prince of Italy, a good hearty ducking, and a fright to boot, to cure him of an
ague; the treatment succeeded, but the potentate, by way of retaliation, had
his audacious physician tried for treason, and condemned to lose his head; the
criminal was brought forth, the priest heard his confession, and the poor
jester knelt down to the block. Instead of wielding his axe, the executioner,
as he had been instructed, threw a pitcher of water on the bare neck of the
criminal; here the jest was to have terminated, but poor Gonella was found dead on the spot. I believe the
catastrophe is very possible.* The latter half of the volume I have not perused
with the same attention, though I have devoured both the Comedy and the Beacon in a hasty manner. I think the
approbation of the public will make you alter your intention of taking up the
knitting-needle—and that I shall be as much to seek for my purse as for the
bank-notes which you say are to stuff it—though I have no idea where they are
to come from. But I shall think more of the purse than the notes, come when or
how they may.
“To return, I really think Fear the most dramatic
passion you have hitherto touched, because capable of being drawn to the most
extreme paroxysm on the stage. In Orra you have all gradations, from a timidity excited by a strong
and irritable imagination, to the extremity which altogether unhinges the
understanding. The most dreadful fright I ever had in my life (being neither
* This story is told, among others, by
Montaigne. |
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| 368 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. | |
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constitutionally timid, nor in the way of being exposed
to real danger), was in returning from Hampstead the day which I spent so
pleasantly with you. Although the evening was nearly closed, I foolishly chose
to take the short cut through the fields, and in that enclosure, where the path
leads close by a thick and high hedge—with several gaps in it, however—did I
meet one of your very thorough-paced London ruffians, at least judging from the
squalid and jail-bird appearance and blackguard expression of countenance. Like
the man that met the devil, I had nothing to say to him, if he had nothing to
say to me, but I could not help looking back to watch the movements of such a
suspicious figure, and to my great uneasiness saw him creep through the hedge
on my left hand. I instantly went to the first gap to watch his motions, and
saw him stooping, as I thought, either to lift a bundle or to speak to some
person who seemed lying in the ditch. Immediately after, he came cowering back
up the opposite side of the hedge, as returning towards me under cover of it. I
saw no weapons he had, except a stick, but as I moved on to gain the stile
which was to let me into the free field—with the idea of a wretch springing
upon me from the cover at every step I took—I assure you I would not wish the
worst enemy I ever had to undergo such a feeling as I had for about five
minutes; my fancy made him of that description which usually combines murder
with plunder, and though I was well armed with a stout stick and a very
formidable knife, which when opened becomes a sort of skene-dhu, or dagger, I confess my sensations, though those of a man
much resolved not to die like a sheep, were vilely short of heroism; so much
so, that when I jumped over the stile, a sliver of the wood run a third of an
inch between my nail and flesh, without my feeling the pain, or being sensible
such a thing had happened. However, I ![]()
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saw
my man no more, and it is astonishing how my spirits rose when I got into the
open field;—and when I reached the top of the little mount, and all the bells
in London (for aught I know) began to jingle at once, I thought I had never
heard any thing so delightful in my life—so rapid are the alternations of our
feelings. This foolish story,—for perhaps I had no rational ground for the
horrible feeling which possessed my mind for a little while, came irresistibly
to my pen when writing to you on the subject of terror.
“Poor Grahame, gentle, and amiable, and enthusiastic, deserves all you
can say of him; his was really a hallowed harp, as he was himself an Israelite
without guile. How often have I teazed him, but never out of his good-humour,
by praising Dundee and laughing at the
Covenanters!—but I beg your pardon, you are a Westland Whig too, and will
perhaps make less allowance for a descendant of the persecutors. I think his
works should be collected and published for the benefit of his family. Surely
the wife and orphans of such a man have a claim on the generosity of the
public.*
“Pray make my remembrance to the lady who so kindly
remembers our early intimacy. I do perfectly remember being an exceedingly
spoiled, chattering monkey, whom indifferent health and the cares of a kind
Grandmamma and Aunt, had made, I suspect, extremely
abominable to every body who had not a great deal of sympathy and good-nature,
which I daresay was the
* James
Grahame, author of The Sabbath, had been originally a
member of the Scotch Bar, and was an early friend of Scott’s. Not
succeeding in the law, he—(with all his love for the Covenanters)—took
orders in the Church of England, obtained a curacy in the county of
Durham, and died there, on the 14th of September 1811, in the 47th year
of his age. See a Memoir of his
Life and Writings in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1812, Part
ii., pp. 384-415. |
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| 370 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. | |
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case of my quondam bedfellow, since she recollects me so
favourably. Farewell, and believe me faithfully and respectfully, your sincere
friend,
James Grahame (1765-1811)
Scottish poet; author of the oft-reprinted blank-verse poem,
The
Sabbath (1804). He corresponded with Annabella Milbanke.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
French writer and moralist, magistrate and mayor of Bordeaux (1581-85); he was the author
of
Essais (1580, 1595).
Barbara Scott [née Haliburton] (1706-1775 fl.)
The daughter of Thomas Haliburton of Newmains and grandmother of Sir Walter Scott; in
1828 she married Robert Scott of Sandyknowe.
Janet Scott (d. 1805)
Walter Scott's aunt, the daughter of Robert Scott of Sandyknowe; she died
unmarried.
Daniel Terry (1789-1829)
English actor; after a career in provincial theater made his London debut in 1812. A
close friend of Walter Scott, he performed in theatrical adaptations of Scott's
novels.
