George Douglas was the son of Dr. Douglas of Galashiels, the near neighbour and bosom friend of Sir Walter Scott. I met him at Smyrna, late in the summer of 1827. It was at a cheerful merchant supper, after the departure of the post for Constantinople; a supper such as we are beginning to lose the remembrance of, not only in the West, but in the westified East.
We sat together and swore an eternal friendship; not quite so ungroundedly as the two ladies in George Canning’s mock drama;* for he had known something of me through a friend of twelve years’ standing, and I had known something of him, and a good deal of his father, the Doctor.
George had been merchandising at Trieste, and was now attempting to merchandise at Smyrna.
In my great ignorance of the subject, I should not like to venture anything at all approaching to a decisive opinion, but it seemed to me that Douglas had small aptitude, and still less taste, for commercial pursuits. He also had a competency which relieved him from any vigorous attention to trade, or to figs, opium, valonia, carpets, rugs, or to anything of that kind. He was a man of humour, if there ever were one; he was a man of wit, with a marvellous memory. I shall never forget that, for months and
* “The Rovers; or. The Double Arrangement,” a Parody, by Canning and Frere, of Schiller’s “Robbers” and Goethe’s “Stella” (Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, 4th June, 1798). |
| CHAP. III] | THE WAVERLEY NOVELS | 23 |
He came home, and having nothing in the world to do—about the worst calamity that can befall any man—he took to late whist parties and Glasgow punch, and so died, prematurely, and to my great grief, in the city of St. Mungo.
He stayed with me in London in 1831, and he was my host at Glasgow in the spring of 1832, when he, William Hamilton, and I, planned and executed a delightful trip through a part of Argyllshire, which included dear old Arrochar, the chief nido, or nest, of Clan MacFarlane. George had quite a reverence for Walter Scott, whom he had known from his youth upwards; and through the great intimacy his father, the Doctor, had enjoyed with the poet and novelist, he was in hereditary possession of many facts regarding the author of “The Lay of the Last Minstrel” and of “Waverley.” He said that the mystery, so long maintained, about the Waverley novels was no mystery to him, for from the first he recognized so many of the anecdotes, Scottish quiddities, and odd sayings which he had heard from his own father, and which his father had told to Scott.
“Many of the good things in those tales,” said he, “were quite family property, for my poor father, who was amazingly fond of such things, had inherited most of them from his father, who also was amazingly fond of old stories, bits of humour, and drollery.
“Sir Walter never seemed to be
more happy than when there was nobody with him but his own family and my father, myself, or my sister. He would generally lead
off with some ‘auld tale,’ which my father would cap; then would follow
another from Sir Walter, and then this would be capped by
| 24 | GEORGE DOUGLAS | [CHAP. III |
“And so,” continued George, “we stayed into the small hours, and then walked home by clear moonlight. By habit, Scott was not at all a late sitter, for he liked to rise early, and to get through a good day’s work before many of his neighbours were out of their beds.
“But he did not mind making a night of it now and then, and generally when my father, or that brave old soldier, Adam Ferguson, was with him, he would sit rather late. I remember his coming into Galashiels one morning very early, and looking as if he had not been in bed, or had not slept. My father noticed his unusual appearance, and asked him what he had been about. ‘To confess the truth, Doctor,’ said he, ‘I have been sitting up all night with that wild Hielander, Captain Mac——, drinking brandy and water.’ ‘Brandy and water! And all night!’ said my father, in astonishment. ‘Just so, Doctor; but the Captain drank the brandy, and I the water.’” There was another tie that united the Doctor and the poet. Both were exceedingly fond of agriculture, planting, and all rural occupations; and the Doctor was, to a very great extent, an agricultural improver.
| CHAP. III] | SCOTT AT ABBOTSFORD | 25 |
He had written and published several valuable treatises, which Scott took for his guides, and he had made some valuable innovations on the farming system of the district. When they were not at their anecdotes, they were almost invariably talking about plantations or farms, kine or other stock.
It was from Dr. Douglas, who had inherited it from his father, that Scott purchased the small property which became the nucleus of Abbotsford. It consisted of only a few acres, and a small fishing-house, used by the Doctor and his family as a place of occasional resort during the summer and autumn. Well had it been for Scott if he had merely enlarged the house, and had abstained from land purchases! He was so ill-provided with “siller” when he made his first purchase, that the whole of the money was not paid up for several years. In remitting the last cheque Scott very characteristically enclosed it in a rhyming letter. I forget most of the doggerel, but remember that it ended thus—
“So, Doctor and friend, We come to an end; The goud’s thine, And the land’s mine.” |
Dr. Douglas was very reluctant to sell that little
bit of paternal estate, but he was fond of Scott, and
could not resist his importunities. The poet must have that fishing-lodge, that bit of
Tweedside, and nothing else; and he had a hundred reasons to show why it suited him and his
poetical avocations better than any other place on the beautiful river. Yet Abbotsford,
even now that it has been improved by Scott’s plantations, is
very far from being the most picturesque place in that vicinity. Ashestiel, higher up the
Tweed, where Scott lived so long, and spent by far the happiest part
of his life, is far preferable; and both above and below Abbotsford there are sites
infinitely more picturesque. But Sir Walter loved Abbotsford for its
traditions, as may be learned
| 26 | GEORGE DOUGLAS | [CHAP. III |
“By means unknown to me,” he said, “my father became aware of the fact that Scott’s affairs were in an embarrassed and rather perilous state some years before the great crash of 1825, and he used to groan over the enormous expenses the poet was incurring in entertaining great lords and ladies, and every stranger that presented himself, and in purchasing at unreasonable prices unproductive and most unprofitable lands. He saw, too, that the poet’s hilarity was somewhat on the decline, that his brow was not unfrequently clouded, and he used to say to my sister: ‘Eh, lassie! poor Scott was a happier man before he set up for a great laird, and turned the fishing-lodge into a château!’
“I was in Italy,” continued Douglas, “when the blow fell. I was deeply grieved, but not astonished. I have not seen Sir Walter since then, but learn from my sister that he is sadly altered.”
This was said at Smyrna in 1827. In the summer of 1831, my friend, who had just returned from Turkey, accompanied me, one fine morning, to the British Museum. As he wanted to see everything, I took him through the library; and there, in an inner, private room, seated at a table with an open black-letter volume before him, was the author of the Waverley novels. Douglas started, coloured, and involuntarily exclaimed, “Sir Walter!”
Scott rose, perused his face, and in an instant grasped
his hand most heartily, saying, “Georgie,
my man! Is it really you? I thought you were living like a Mussulman among the infidel
Turks! In the name of the Prophet, figs! I hope you have
| CHAP. III] | SCOTT AT BRITISH MUSEUM | 27 |
When I was quite a boy, the poet had been pointed out to me in the streets of Edinburgh as one that did honour to old Scotland; but this was my first meeting and shaking hands with him. At the time, I could scarcely have desired anything more delightful. We sat with him for a good hour, when we were interrupted by old Sir Henry Ellis, the Chief Librarian, who brought in from the public reading-room a dingy lady in black—an authoress or bas bleu, I presumed—who was dying for a sight of the bard.
“He is sadly altered,” said George, as we walked to another part of the Museum, “but I have not seen him for a good many years; and time, even without troubles, works sad changes. Did you observe how lame he is, and how feeble? His voice and his laugh are lowered, quite altered. I can remember him when he was the boldest rider, the most active man in all Selkirkshire, and when you might have heard his loud, hearty laugh half a mile off. How grieved would have been my father if he had lived to see this change!”
I believe it was the very day after this rencontre in the library that I
met Sir Walter at Albemarle Street, in John Murray’s well-known, and at that time
much-frequented drawing-room. He told me in rather a melancholy tone, and with an
expression of countenance that plainly said, “I would rather stay at home by my
own Tweedside!” that he was going for the benefit of his health to Malta and
Italy,
| 28 | GEORGE DOUGLAS | [CHAP. III |
When he returned in 1832, and stayed for a short time in London, at the Waterloo Hotel, Jermyn Street, St. James’s, he was too ill to receive any but members of his own family, a physician, and a very few old and particular friends.
I well remember the bright June day, when, in a dying state as I was told, he was lifted into his carriage to be conveyed to Abbotsford, where he died on the 21st September. Quite a crowd had gathered in Jermyn Street, and there were heads projected from nearly every shop door and window. A proper reverence was paid to departing genius and worth. Nearly every man, gentle or simple, took off his hat as the carriage rolled past.
