| LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. | 187 |
Scott was called to the bar only the day before the closing of the session, and he appears to have almost immediately escaped to the country. On the 2d of August I find his father writing, “I have sent the copies of your thesis as desired;” and on the 15th he addressed to him at Rosebank a letter, in which there is this paragraph, an undoubted autograph of Mr Saunders Fairford, anno ætatis sixty-three
‘ . . . I am glad that your expedition to the west proved agreeable. You do well to warn your mother against Ashestiel. Although I said little, yet I never thought that road could be agreeable; besides, it is taking too wide a circle. Lord Justice-Clerk is in town attending the Bills.* He called here yesterday, and enquired very particularly for you. I told him where you was, and he expects to see you at Jedburgh upon the 21st. He is to be at Mellerstain† on the 20th, and
| 188 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
This last quiet hint, that the young lawyer might as well be at Makerstoun (the seat of a relation) when His Lordship breakfasted there, and of course swell the train of His Lordship’s little procession into the county town, seems delightfully characteristic. I think I hear Sir Walter himself lecturing me, when in the same sort of situation, thirty years afterwards. He declined, as one of the following letters will show, the opportunity of making his first appearance on this occasion at Jedburgh. He was present, indeed, at the Court during the assizes, but “durst not venture.” His accounts to William Clerk of his vacation amusements, and more particularly of his second excursion to Northumberland, will, I am sure, interest every reader.
‘Taking the advantage of a very indifferent day, which
is likely to float away a good deal of corn, and of my father’s leaving
this place, who will take charge of this scrawl, I sit down to answer your
favour. I find you have been, like myself, taking advantage of the
| LETTER FROM ROSEBANK. | 189 |
‘I am lounging about the country here, to speak sincerely, as idle as the day is long. Two old companions of mine, brothers of Mr Walker of Wooden, having come to this country, we have renewed a great intimacy. As they live directly upon the opposite bank of the river, we have signals agreed upon by which we concert
* Mr Russell, surgeon, afterwards Professor of Clinical Surgery at Edinburgh. † Sir William Miller (Lord Glenlee). ‡ Mr Gibb was the Librarian of the Faculty of Advocates. § Clerk, Abercromby, Scott, Fergusson, and others, had occasional boating excursions from Leith to Inchcolm, Inchkeith, &c.; on one of these their boat was neared by a Newhaven one—Fergusson, at the moment, was standing up talking; one of the Newhaven fishermen, taking him for a brother of his own craft, bawled out, “Linton, you lang bitch, is that you?” From that day Adam Fergusson’s cognomen among his friends of The Club was Linton. |
| 190 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
‘For about-doors’ amusement, I have constructed a seat in a large tree which spreads its branches horizontally over the Tweed. This is a favourite situation of mine for reading, especially in a day like this, when the west wind rocks the branches on which I am perched, and the river rolls its waves below me of a turbid blood colour. I have, moreover, cut an embrasure, through which I can fire upon the gulls, herons, and cormorants, as they fly screaming past my nest. To crown the whole, I have carved an inscription upon it in the ancient Romant taste. I believe I shall hardly return into town, barring accidents, sooner than the middle of next month, perhaps not till November. Next week, weather permitting, is destined for a Northumberland expedition, in which I shall visit some parts of that country which I have not yet seen, particularly about Hexham. Some days ago I had nearly met with a worse accident than the tramp I took at Moorfoot;† for having bewildered myself among the Cheviot hills, it was nearly nightfall before I got to the village of Hownam, and
* Walter Scott of Synton (elder brother of Bolt-Foot, the first Baron of Harden) was thus designated. He greatly distinguished himself in the battle of Melrose, A.D. 1526. † This alludes to being lost in a fishing excursion. |
| LETTER FROM ROSEBANK. | 191 |
Compliments to all who are in town, and best respects to your own family, both in Prince’s Street and at Eldin. Believe me ever most sincerely yours,
‘I suppose this will find you flourishing like a green bay-tree on the mountains of Perthshire, and in full enjoyment of all the pleasures of the country. All that I envy you is the noctes cenæque deum, which, I take it for granted, you three merry men will be spending together, while I am poring over Bartholine in the long evenings, solitary enough; for, as for the lobsters, as you call them, I am separated from them by the Tweed, which precludes evening meetings, unless in fine weather and full moons. I have had an expedition through Hexham and the higher parts of Northumberland, which would have delighted the very cockles of your heart, not so much on account of the beautiful romantic appearance of the country, though that would have charmed you also, as because you would have seen more Roman inscriptions built into gate-posts, barns, &c., than perhaps are to be found in any other part of Britain. These have been all dug up from the neighbouring Roman wall, which is still in many places very entire, and gives a stupendous idea of the perseverance of its founders, who carried such an erection from sea to sea, over rocks, mountains, rivers, and morasses. There are
* The companions of The Club. |
| 192 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
‘We intended to visit the lakes in Cumberland, but our
jaunt was cut short by the bad weather. I went to the circuit at Jedburgh, to
make my bow to Lord J. Clerk, and might have had
employment, but durst
| LETTER FROM ROSEBANK. | 193 |
* William Hamilton of Wishaw,—who afterwards established his claim to the peerage of Belhaven. |
| 194 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
It was within a few days after Scott’s return from his excursion to Hexham, that, while attending
the Michaelmas head-court, as an annual county-meeting is called, at Jedburgh, he was
introduced, by an old companion, Charles Kerr of
Abbotrule, to Mr Robert Shortreed,
that gentleman’s near relation, who spent the greater part of his life in the
enjoyment of much respect as Sheriff-substitute of Roxburghshire.
Scott had been expressing his wish to visit the then wild and
inaccessible district of Liddesdale, particularly with a view to examine the ruins of the
famous castle of Hermitage, and to pick up some of the ancient riding
ballads, said to be still preserved among the descendants of the moss-troopers,
who had followed the banner of the Douglasses, when lords of that grim and remote fastness.
Mr Shortreed had many connexions in Liddesdale, and knew its
passes well, and he was pointed out as the very guide the young advocate wanted. They
started accordingly, in a day or two afterwards, from Abbotrule; and the laird meant to
have been of the party; but ‘it was well for
| LIDDESDALE. | 195 |
During seven successive years Scott made a raid, as he called it, into Liddesdale, with Mr Shortreed for his guide; exploring every rivulet to its source, and every ruined peel from foundation to battlement. At this time no wheeled carriage had ever been seen in the district the first, indeed, that ever appeared there was a gig, driven by Scott himself for a part of his way, when on the last of these seven excursions. There was no inn nor public-house of any kind in the whole valley; the travellers passed from the shepherd’s hut to the minister’s manse, and again from the cheerful hospitality of the manse to the rough and jolly welcome of the homestead; gathering, wherever they went, songs and tunes, and occasionally more tangible relics of antiquity—even such ‘a rowth of auld nicknackets’ as Burns ascribes to Captain Grose. To these rambles Scott owed much of the materials of his ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border;’ and not less of that intimate acquaintance with the living manners of these unsophisticated regions, which constitutes the chief charm of one of the most charming of his prose works. But how soon he had any definite object before him in his researches, seems very doubtful. ‘He was makin’ himsell a’ the time,’ said Mr Shortreed; ‘but he didna
* I am obliged to Mr John Elliot Shortreed, a son of Scott’s early friend, for some memoranda of his father’s conversations on this subject, which are the more interesting that they represent the worthy Sheriff-substitute’s dialect exactly as it was. These notes were written in 1824; and I shall make several quotations from them. I had, however, many opportunities of hearing Mr Shortreed’s stories from his own lips, having often been under his hospitable roof in company with Sir Walter, who to the last always lodged there when any business took him to Jedburgh. |
| 196 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
‘In those days,’ says the Memorandum before me, ‘advocates were not so plenty—at least about Liddesdale;’ and the worthy Sheriff-substitute goes on to describe the sort of bustle, not unmixed with alarm, produced at the first farm-house they visited (Willie Elliot’s, at Millburnholm), when the honest man was informed of the quality of one of his guests. When they dismounted, accordingly, he received Mr Scott with great ceremony, and insisted upon himself leading his horse to the stable. Shortreed accompanied Willie, however, and the latter, after taking a deliberate peep at Scott, ‘out-by the edge of the door-cheek,’ whispered, ‘Weel, Robin, I say, de’il hae me if I’s be a bit feared for him now; he’s just a chield like ourselves, I think.’ Half-a-dozen dogs of all degrees had already gathered round ‘the advocate,’ and his way of returning their compliments had set Willie Elliot at once at his ease.
According to Mr Shortreed, this
good-man of Millburnholm was the great original of Dandie
Dinmont. As he seems to have been the first of these upland sheep-farmers
that Scott ever visited, there can be little doubt that
he sat for some parts of that inimitable portraiture; and it is certain that the James Davidson, who carried the name of Dandie to his grave with him, and whose thoroughbred deathbed
scene is told in the Notes to Guy
Mannering, was first pointed out to Scott by Mr
Shortreed himself, several years after the novel had established the
man’s celebrity all over the Border; some accidental report about his terriers, and
their odd names, having alone been turned to account in the original composition of the
tale. But I have the best reason to believe that the
| LIDDESDALE. | 197 |
They dined at Millburnholm, and after having lingered over Willie Elliot’s punch-bowl, until, in Mr Shortreed’s phrase, they were ‘half-glowrin,’ mounted their steeds again, and proceeded to Dr Elliot’s at Cleughhead, where (‘for,’ says my Memorandum, ‘folk were na very nice in those days’) the two travellers slept in one and the same bed as, indeed, seems to have been the case with them throughout most of their excursions in this primitive district. Dr Elliot (a clergyman) had already a large MS. collection of the ballads Scott was in quest of; and finding how much his guest admired his acquisitions, thenceforth exerted himself, for several years, with redoubled diligence, in seeking out the living depositaries of such lore among the darker recesses of the mountains. ‘The doctor,’ says Mr Shortreed, ‘would have gane through fire and water for Sir Walter, when he ance kenned him.’
Next morning they seem to have ridden a long way, for the express purpose
of visiting one ‘auld Thomas o’ Tuzzilehope,’
another Elliot, I suppose, who was celebrated for his skill on the
Border pipe, and in particular for being in possession of the real lilt of Dick o’ the
Cow. Before starting,” that is, at six o’clock, the
ballad-hunters had, ‘just to lay the stomach, a devilled duck or twae, and some
London porter.’ Auld
| 198 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
On reaching, one evening, some Charlieshope or
other (I forget the name) among those wildernesses, they found a kindly reception as usual;
but, to their agreeable surprise after some days of hard living, a measured and orderly
hospitality as respected liquor. Soon after supper, at which a bottle of elderberry wine
alone had been produced, a young student of divinity, who happened to be in the house, was
called upon to take the ‘big ha’ Bible,’ in the good old fashion
of Burns’s
| LIDDESDALE. | 199 |
‘It was that same season, I think,’ says Mr Shortreed, ‘that Sir
Walter got from Dr Elliot, the large old border war horn, which ye may
still see hanging in the armoury at Abbotsford. How great he was
when he was made master o’ that! I believe it had been
found in Hermitage Castle—and one of the doctor’s servants had used it many a day
as a grease-horn for his scythe, before they discovered its history. When cleaned out,
it was never a hair the worse—the original chain, hoop, and mouthpiece of steel were
all entire, just as you now
| 200 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“The feint o’ pride—na pride had he . . . A lang kail-gully hung down by his side, And a great meikle nowt-horn to rout on had he,” |
It is a pity that we have no letters of Scott’s describing this first raid into Liddesdale; but as he must have left Kelso for Edinburgh very soon after its conclusion, he probably chose to be the bearer of his own tidings. At any rate the wonder perhaps is not that we should have so few letters of this period, as that any have been recovered. ‘I ascribe the preservation of my little handful,’ says Mr Clerk, ‘to a sort of instinctive prophetic sense of his future greatness.’
I have found, however, two note-books, inscribed ‘Walter Scott, 1792,’ containing a variety of scraps and
hints which may help us to fill up our notion of his private studies during that year. He
appears to have used them indiscriminately. We have now an extract from the author he
happened to be reading; now a memorandum of something that had struck him in conversation;
a fragment of an essay; transcripts of favourite poems; remarks on curious cases in the old
records of the Justiciary Court; in short, a most miscellaneous collection, in which there
is whatever might have been looked for, with perhaps the single exception of original
verse.
| NOTE-BOOKS OF 1792. | 201 |
“There scattered oft, the earliest of the year,” &c. |
| 202 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
In November 1792, Scott and Clerk began their regular attendance at the Parliament House, and Scott, to use Mr Clerk’s words, “by and by crept into a tolerable share of such business as may be expected from a writer’s connexion.” By this we are to understand that he was employed from time to time by his father, and probably a few other solicitors, in that dreary everyday taskwork, chiefly of long written informations, and other papers for the court, on which young counsellors of the Scotch bar were then expected to bestow a great deal of trouble for very scanty pecuniary remuneration, and with scarcely a chance of finding reserved for their hands any matter that could elicit the display of superior knowledge or understanding. He had also his part in the cases of persons suing in forma pauperis; but how little important those that came to his share were, and how slender was the impression they had left on his mind, we may gather from a note on Redgauntlet, wherein he signifies his doubts whether he really had ever been engaged in what he has certainly made the cause célèbre of Poor Peter Peebles.
But he soon became as famous for his powers of story-telling among the
lawyers of the Outer-House, as he had been among the companions of his High School days.
The place where these idlers mostly congregated was called, it seems, by a name which
sufficiently marks the date—it was the Mountain. Here, as Roger North says of the Court of King’s Bench in his
early day, “there was more News than Law;” here hour after hour passed
away, week after week, month after month, and year after year, in the interchange of
light-hearted merriment, among a circle of young men, more than one of whom, in after
times, attained the highest honours of the profes-
| GERMAN STUDIES. | 203 |
The German class, of which we have an account in one of the Prefaces of
1830, was formed before the Christmas of 1792, and it included almost all these loungers of
the Mountain. In the essay now referred to, Scott traces the interest excited in Scotland on the subject
of German literature to a paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, on the 21st of
April, 1788, by the author of the Man of
Feeling. ‘The literary persons of Edinburgh,’ he says,
‘were then first made aware of the existence of works of genius in a language
cognate with the English, and possessed of the same manly force of expression; they
learned at the same time that the taste which dictated the German compositions was of a
kind as nearly allied to the English as their language: those who were from their youth
accustomed to admire Shakspeare and Milton, became acquainted for the first time with a
race of poets, who had the same lofty ambition to spurn the flaming boundaries of the
universe, and investigate the realms of
| 204 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
| WILLIAM ERSKINE. | 205 |
These studies were much encouraged by the example, and assisted by the advice, of an accomplished person, considerably Scott’s superior in standing, Alexander Fraser Tytler, afterwards a Judge of the Court of Session by the title of Lord Woodhouselee. His version of Schiller’s Robbers, was one of the earliest from the German theatre, and no doubt stimulated his young friend to his first experiments in the same walk.
The contemporary familiars of those days almost all survive; but one, and
afterwards the most intimate of them all, went before him; and I may therefore hazard in
this place a few words on the influence which he exercised at this critical period on
Scott’s literary tastes and studies. William Erskine was the son of an Episcopalian clergyman
in Perthshire, of a good family, but far from wealthy. He had received his early education
at Glasgow, where, while attending the college lectures, he was boarded under the roof of
Andrew Macdonald, the author of Vimonda, who then officiated as minister
to a small congregation of Episcopalian nonconformists. From this unfortunate but very
ingenious man, Erskine had derived, in boyhood, a strong passion for old English
literature, more especially the Elizabethan dramatists; which, however, he combined with a
far livelier relish for the classics of antiquity than either Scott or
his master ever possessed. From the beginning, accordingly, Scott had
in Erskine a monitor who—entering most warmly into his taste for
national lore the life of the past—and the bold and picturesque style of the original
English school was constantly urging the advantages to be derived from combining with its
varied and masculine breadth of delineation such attention to the minor graces of
| 206 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
These German studies divided Scott’s attention with the business of the courts of law, on which he was at least a regular attendant, during the winter of 1792-3.
If the preceding autumn forms a remarkable point in Scott’s history, as first introducing him to the man-
| HIGHLAND EXCURSION, 1793. | 207 |
Accompanied by Adam Fergusson, he
visited on this occasion some of the finest districts of Stirlingshire and Perthshire; and
not in the percursory manner of his more boyish expeditions, but taking up his residence
for a week or ten days in succession at the family residences of several of his young
allies of the Mountain, and from thence familiarizing himself at
leisure with the country and the people round about. In this way he lingered some time at
Tullibody, the seat of the father of Sir Ralph
Abercromby, and grandfather of his friend Mr George
Abercromby (now Lord Abercromby); and heard from the
old gentleman’s own lips his narrative of a journey which he had been obliged to
make, shortly after he first settled in Stirlingshire, to the wild retreat of Rob Roy. The venerable laird told how he was received by
the cateran ‘with much courtesy,’ in a cavern exactly such as that of Bean Lean; dined on collops cut from
some of his own cattle, which he recognised hanging by their heels from the rocky roof
beyond; and returned in all safety, after concluding a bargain of black-mail—in virtue of which annual payment Rob Roy
guaranteed the future security of his herds against, not his own followers merely, but all
freebooters whatever. Scott next visited his friend Edmonstone, at Newton, a beautiful seat close to the ruins
of the once magnificent Castle or Doune, and heard another aged gentleman’s vivid
recollections of all that happened there when John
Home,
| 208 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Another resting place was Craighall, in Perthshire, the seat of the Rattrays, a family related to Mr Clerk, who accompanied him. From the position of this striking place, as Mr Clerk at once perceived, and as the author
* Waverley, vol. ii. p. 82. † Introduction to The Lady of the Lake. 1830. |
| CRAIGHALL—MEIGLE. | 209 |
I believe the longest stay he made this autumn was at Meigle in Forfarshire, the seat of Patrick Murray of Simprim, a gentleman whose enthusiastic passion for antiquities, and especially military antiquities, had peculiarly endeared him both to Scott and Clerk. Here Adam Fergusson too was of the party; and 1 have often heard them each and all dwell on the thousand scenes of adventure and merriment which diversified that visit. In
* Waverley, vol. i. p. 82. |
| 210 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
It was also while he had his headquarters at Meigle at this time that
Scott visited for the first time Glammis, the
residence of the Earls of Strathmore, by far the noblest specimen of
the real feudal castle entire and perfect that had as yet come under his inspection. What
its aspect was when he first saw it, and how grievously he lamented the change it had
undergone when he revisited it some years afterwards, he has recorded in one of the most
striking passages that I think ever came from his pen. Commenting, in his Essay on Landscape
| GLAMMIS. | 211 |
“Leaving an ancient dome and towers like these Beggar’d and outraged.”’* |
The night he spent at the yet unprofaned Glammis in
* Wordsworth’s Sonnet on Neidpath Castle. |
| 212 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
| GLAMMIS. | 213 |
He alludes here to the hospitable reception which had preceded the mingled sensations of this eerie night; but one of his notes on Waverley touches this not unimportant part of the story more distinctly; for we are there informed, that the silver bear of Tully-Veolan, ‘the poculum potatorium of the valiant baron,’ had its prototype at Glammis—a massive beaker of silver, double gilt, moulded into the form of a lion, the name and bearing of the Earls of Strathmore, and containing about an English pint of wine. ‘The author,’ he says, ‘ought perhaps to be ashamed of recording that he had the honour of swallowing the contents of the lion, and the recollection of the feat suggested the story of the Bear of Bradwardine.’
From this pleasant tour, so rich in its results, Scott returned in time to attend the October assizes at Jedburgh, on which occasion he made his first appearance as counsel in a criminal court; and had the satisfaction of helping a veteran poacher and sheepstealer to escape through some of the meshes of the law. ‘You’re a lucky scoundrel,’ Scott whispered to his client, when the verdict was pronounced. ‘I’m just o’ your mind,’ quoth the desperado, ‘and I’ll send ye a maukin† the
* Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 398. † i. e. a hare. |
| 214 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Yelping terrier, rusty key, Was Walter Scott’s best Jeddart
fee.” |
At these, or perhaps the next assizes, he was also counsel in an appeal
case touching a cow which his client had sold as sound, but which the court below (the
Sheriff) had pronounced to have what is called the cliers—a disease
analogous to glanders in a horse. In opening his case before Sir
David Rae, Lord Eskgrove,
| JEDBURGH ASSIZES. | 215 |
A day or two after this Scott and his old companion were again on their way into Liddesdale, and ‘just,’ says the Shortreed Memorandum, ‘as we were passing by Singdon, we saw a grand herd o’ cattle a’ feeding by the roadside, and a fine young bullock, the best in the whole lot, was in the midst of them, coughing lustily. “Ah,” said Scott, “what a pity for my client that old Eskgrove had not taken Singdon on his way to the town. That bonny creature would have saved us—
‘A Daniel come to judgment, yea a
Daniel; O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!;” |
The winter of 1793-4 appears to have been passed like the preceding one;
the German class resumed their sittings; Scott spoke in
his debating club on the questions of Parliamentary Reform and the Inviolability of the
Person of the First Magistrate, which the circumstances of the time had invested with
extraordinary interest, and in both of which he no doubt took the side adverse to the
principles of the English, and the practice of the French Liberals. His love affair
continued on exactly the same footing as before—and for the rest, like the young heroes in
Redgauntlet, he ‘swept the
boards of the Parliament House with the skirts of his gown; laughed, and made others
laugh; drank claret at Bayle’s,
Fortune’s, and Walker’s, and
eat oysters in the Covenant Close.’ On his desk ‘the new novel most
in repute lay snugly intrenched beneath Stair’s Institute, or an open volume of Decisions;’ and his dressing-
| 216 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
In the spring of 1794 I find him writing to his friends in Roxburghshire with great exultation about the ‘good spirit’ manifesting itself among the upper classes of the citizens of Edinburgh, and above all, the organization of a regiment of volunteers, in which his brother Thomas, now a fine active young man, equally handsome and high-spirited, was enrolled as a grenadier; while, as he remarks, his own ‘unfortunate infirmity’ condemned him to be ‘a mere spectator of the drills.’ In the course of the same year the plan of a corps of volunteer light horse was started; and, if the recollection of Mr Skene be accurate, the suggestion originally proceeded from Scott himself, who certainly had a principal share in its subsequent success. He writes to his uncle at Rosebank, requesting him to be on the look out for a ‘strong gelding, such as would suit a stalwart dragoon;’ and intimating his intention to part with his collection of Scottish coins, rather than not be mounted to his mind. The corps, however, was not organized for some time; and in the mean while he had an opportunity of displaying his zeal in a manner which Captain Scott by no means considered as so respectable.
A party of Irish medical students began, towards the end of April, to
make themselves remarkable in the
| PLAYHOUSE RIOT—1794. | 217 |
| 218 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Scott spent the long vacation of this year chiefly in
Roxburghshire, but again visited Keir, Cambusmore, and others of his friends in Perthshire, and came
to Edinburgh, early in September, to be present at the trials of Watt and Downie, on a charge of high
treason. Watt seems to have tendered his services to Government as a
spy upon the Society of the Friends of the People in Edinburgh, but ultimately, considering
himself as underpaid, to have embraced, to their wildest extent, the schemes he had become
acquainted with in the course of this worthy occupation; and he and one
Downie, a mechanic, were now arraigned as having taken a prominent
part in the organizing of a plot for a general rising in Edinburgh, to seize the castle,
the bank, the persons of the Judges, and proclaim a provisional Republican Government; all
which was supposed to have beer arranged in concert with the Hardies, Thelwalls, Holcrofts, and so
| POLITICAL TRIALS 1794. | 219 |
“My dear Miss
Christy will perceive, from the date of this epistle, that I
have accomplished my purpose of coming to town to be present at the trial of
the Edinburgh traitors. I arrived here on Monday evening from Kelso, and was
present at Watt’s trial on
Wednesday, which displayed to the public the most atrocious and deliberate plan
of villany which has occurred, perhaps, in the annals of Great Britain. I refer
you for particulars to the papers, and shall only add, that the equivocations
and perjury of the witnesses (most of them being accomplices in what they
called the great plan) set the abilities of Mr
Anstruther, the King’s counsel, in the most striking point
of view. The patience and temper with which he tried them on every side, and
screwed out of them the evidence they were so anxious to conceal, showed much
knowledge of human nature; and the art with which he arranged the information
he received, made the trial, upon the whole, the most interesting I ever was
present at. Downie’s trial is just
now going forwards over my head; but as the evidence is just the same as
formerly brought against Watt, is not so interesting. You
will easily believe that on Wednesday my curiosity was too much excited to
retire at an early hour, and, indeed, I sat in the Court from seven in the
morning till two the next morning; but as I had provided my-
| 220 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“As to home intelligence—know that my mother and Anne had projected a jaunt to
Inverleithing; fate, however, had destined otherwise. The intended day of
departure was ushered in by a most complete deluge, to which, and the
consequent disappointment, our proposed travellers did not submit with that
Christian meekness which might have beseemed. In short, both within and without
doors, it was a devil of a day. The second was like unto
it. The third day came a post, a killing post, and in the shape of a letter
from this fountain of health, informed us no lodgings were to be had there, so,
whatever be its virtues, or the grandeur attending a journey to its streams, we
might as well have proposed to visit
| LETTER TO MISS RUTHERFORD. | 221 |
† Captain John Scott had been for some time with his regiment at Gibraltar. ‡ Colonel Russell of Ashestiel, married to a sister of Scott’s mother. |
| 222 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
The letter, of which the following is an extract, must have been written in October or November—Scott having been in Liddesdale, and again in Perthshire, during the interval. It is worth quoting for the little domestic allusions with which it concludes, and which every one who has witnessed the discipline of a Presbyterian family of the old school at the time of preparation for the Communion, will perfectly understand. Scott’s father, though on particular occasions he could permit himself, like Saunders Fairford, to play the part of a good Amphytrion, was habitually ascetic in his habits. I have heard his son tell, that it was common with him, if any one observed that the soup was good, to taste it again, and say, “Yes, it is too good, bairns,” and dash a tumbler of cold water into his plate. It is easy, therefore, to imagine with what rigidity he must have enforced the ultra-Catholic severities which marked, in those days, the yearly or half-yearly retreat of the descendants of John Knox.
“Previous to my ramble, I stayed a single day in town
to witness the exit of the ci-devant
Jacobin, Mr Watt. It was a very solemn
scene, but the pusillanimity of the unfortunate victim was astonishing,
considering the boldness of his nefarious plans. It is matter of general regret
that his associate Downie should have
received a reprieve, which, I understand, is now prolonged for a second month,
I suppose to wait the issue of the London trials. Our volunteers are now
com-
| POLITICAL TRIALS. | 223 |
‘how bleak and bare He wanders o’er the heights of Yair?’ |
In March, 1795, when the court rose, he proceeded into Galloway, where he
had not before been, in order to
| 224 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
As his “Case for M’Naught,” dated May 22, 1795, is the first of his legal papers that I have discovered, and contains several characteristic enough turns, I make no apology for introducing a few extracts:
“At the head of the first class of offences stands
the extraordinary assertion, that, being a minister of the gospel, the respondent had
illegally undertaken the office of a justice of peace. It is, the respondent believes,
the first time that ever the undertaking an office of such extensive utility was stated
as a crime; for he humbly apprehends, that by conferring the office of a justice of the
peace upon clergymen, their influence may, in the general case be rendered more
extensive among their parishioners, and many trifling causes be settled by them, which
might lead the litigants to enormous expenses, and become the subject of much
contention before other courts. The duty being only occasional, and not daily, cannot
be said to interfere with those of their function; and their education, and presumed
character, render them most proper for the office. It is indeed alleged, that the act
1584, chap. 133, excludes clergymen from acting under a commission of the peace. This
act, however, was passed at a time when it was of the highest importance to the Crown
to wrench from the hands of the clergy the power of administering justice in civil
cases, which had, from the ignorance of the laity, been enjoyed by them almost
exclusively. During the whole reign of James VI., as
is well known to the Reverend Court, such a jealousy subsisted betwixt the Church and
the State, that those who were at the head of the latter endeavoured, by every means in
their power, to diminish the influence of the former. At present, when these
dissensions happily no longer subsist, the law, as far as respects the office of
justice of the peace, appears to have fallen into disuse; and the respondent conceives,
that any minister is capable of acting in that, or any other
| CASE OF M’NAUGHT. | 225 |
* * * * “Another branch of the accusation against the defender as a justice of peace, is the ratification of irregular marriages. The defender must here also call the attention of his reverend brethren and judges to the expediency of his conduct. The girls were usually with child at the time the application was made to the defender. In this situation the children born out of matrimony, though begot under promise of marriage, must have been thrown upon the parish, or perhaps murdered in infancy, had not the men been persuaded to consent to a solemn declaration of betrothment, or private marriage, emitted before the defender as a justice of peace. The defender himself, commiserating the situation of such women, often endeavoured to persuade their seducers to do them justice; and men frequently acquiesced in this sort of marriage, when they could by no means have been prevailed upon to go through the ceremonies of proclamation of banns, or the expense and trouble of a public wedding. The declaration of a previous marriage was sometimes literally true; sometimes a fiction voluntarily emitted by the parties themselves, under the belief that it was the most safe way of constituting a private marriage de presenti. The defender had been induced, from the practice of other justices, to consider the receiving these declarations, whether true or false, as a part of his duty which he could not decline, even had he been willing to do so. Finally, the defender must remind the Venerable Assembly that he acted upon these occasions as a justice of peace, which brings him back to the point from which he set out, viz., that the Reverend Court are utterly incompetent to take cognizance of his conduct in that character, which no sentence that they can pronounce could give or take away.
“The second grand division of the libel against the
defender refers to his conduct as a clergyman and a Christian. He was charged in the
libel with the most gross and vulgar behaviour, with drunkenness, blasphemy, and
impiety; yet all the evidence which the appellants have been able to bring forward
tends only to convict him of three acts of drunkenness during the course of fourteen
years; for even the Presbytery, severe as they have been, acquit him quoad
| 226 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“The defender must premise, by observing, that the
crime of drunkenness consists not in a man’s having been in that situation twice
or thrice in his life, but in the constant and habitual practice of the vice; the
distinction between ebrius and ebriosus being founded in common sense, and
recognised by law. A thousand cases may be supposed, in which a man, without being
aware of what he is about, may be insensibly led on to intoxication, especially in a
country where the vice is unfortunately so common, that upon some occasions a man may
go to excess from a false sense of modesty, or a fear of disobliging his entertainer.
The defender will not deny, that after losing his senses upon the occasions, and in the
manner to be afterwards stated, he may have committed improprieties which fill him with
sorrow and regret; but he hopes, that in case he shall be able to show circumstances
which abridge and palliate the guilt of his imprudent excess, the Venerable Court will
consider these improprieties as the effects of that excess only, and not as arising
from any radical vice in his temper or disposition. When a man is bereft of his
judgment by the influence of wine, and commits any crime, he can only be said to be
morally culpable, in proportion to the impropriety of the excess he has committed, and
not in proportion to the magnitude of its evil consequences. In a legal view, indeed, a
man must be held as answerable and punishable for such a crime, precisely as if he had
been in a state of sobriety; but his crime is, in a moral light, comprised in the
origo mali, the drunkenness only. His
senses being once gone, he is no more than a human machine, as insensible of
misconduct, in speech and action, as a parrot or an automaton. This is more
particularly the case with respect to indecorums, such as the defender is accused of;
for a man can no more be held a common swearer, or a habitual talker of obscenity,
because he has been guilty of using such expressions when intoxicated, than he can be
termed an idiot, because, when intoxicated, he has spoken nonsense. If, therefore, the
defender can extenuate the guilt of his intoxication, he hopes that its consequences
will be numbered rather among his misfortunes than faults; and his Reverend Brethren
will consider him, while in that state, as acting from a mechanical impulse, and as
incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, For the scandal which his
behaviour may
| CASE OF M’NAUGHT. | 227 |
* * * * “The Venerable Court will now consider how far three instances of ebriety, and their consequences, should ruin at once the character and the peace of mind of the unfortunate defender, and reduce him, at his advanced time of life, about sixty years, together with his aged parent, to a state of beggary. He hopes his severe sufferings may be considered as some atonement for the improprieties of which he may have been guilty; and that the Venerable Court will, in their judgment, remember mercy.
This argument (for which he received five guineas) was sustained by Scott
in a speech of considerable length at the bar of the Assembly. It was far the most
important business in which any solicitor had as yet employed him, and The Club mustered strong in the gallery. He began in a low voice, but by degrees
gathered more confidence; and when it became necessary for him to analyse the evidence
touching a certain penny-wedding, repeated some very coarse specimens of his client’s
alleged conversation in a tone so bold and free, that he was called to order with great
austerity by one
| 228 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
He believed, in a word, that he had made a complete failure, and issued from the Court in a melancholy mood. At the door he found Adam Fergusson waiting to inform him that the brethren so unceremoniously extruded from the gallery had sought shelter in a neighbouring tavern, where they hoped he would join them. He complied with the invitation, but seemed for a long while incapable of enjoying the merriment of his friends. “Come, Duns,” cried the Baronet—“cheer up, man, and fill another tumbler; here’s ******** going to give us The Tailor.”—“Ah!” he answered, with a groan, “the tailor was a better man than me, sirs; for he didna venture ben until he kenned the way.” A certain comical old song, which had, perhaps, been a favourite with the Minister of Girthon—
“The tailor he cam here to sew, And weel he kenn’d the way o’t,” &c.— |
Mr M’Naught was deposed from the ministry,
and his young advocate has written out at the end of the printed papers on the case two of
the songs which had been alleged in the evidence. They are both grossly indecent. It is to
be observed, that the research he had made with a view to pleading this man’s cause,
carried
| LAW PAPERS, 1795. | 229 |
In the following July, a young lad, who had served for some time with excellent character on board a ship of war, and been discharged in consequence of a wound which disabled one of his hands, had the misfortune, in firing off a toy cannon in one of the narrow wynds of Edinburgh, to kill on the spot one of the doorkeepers of the Advocates’ Library; a button, or some other hard substance, having been accidentally inserted with his cartridge. Scott was one of his counsel when he was arraigned for murder, and had occasion to draw up a written argument or information for the prisoner, from which also I shall make a short quotation. Considered as a whole, the production seems both crude and clumsy, but the following passages have, I think, several traces of the style of thought and language which he afterwards made familiar to the world.
“Murder,” he writes, “or the
premeditated slaughter of a citizen, is a crime of so deep and scarlet a dye, that
there is scarce a nation to be found in which it has not, from the earliest period,
been deemed worthy of a capital punishment. ‘He who sheddeth man’s blood,
by man shall his blood be shed,’ is a general maxim which has received the assent
of all times and countries. But it is equally certain, that even the rude legislators
of former days soon perceived, that the death of one man may be occasioned by another,
without the slayer himself being the proper object of the lex talionis. Such an accident may happen either by the
carelessness of the killer, or through that excess and vehemence of passion to which
humanity is incident. In either case, though blameable, he ought not to be confounded
with the cool and deliberate assassin, and the species of criminality attaching itself
to those acts has been distinguished by the term dolus, in opposition to the milder term culpa. Again, there may be a third species of homicide, in
which the per-
| 230 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Admitting there may have been a certain degree of culpability in the panel’s conduct, still there is one circumstance which pleads strongly in his favour, so as to preclude all presumption of dole. This is the frequent practice, whether proper or improper, of using this amusement in the streets. It is a matter of public notoriety, that boys of all ages and descriptions are, or at least till the late very proper proclamation of the magistrates, were to be seen every evening in almost every corner of this city amusing themselves with firearms and small cannons, and that without being checked or interfered with. When the panel, a poor ignorant raw lad, lately discharged from a ship of war, certainly not the most proper school to learn a prudent aversion to unlucky or mischievous practices, observed the sons of gentlemen of the first respectability engaged in such amusements, unchecked by their parents or by the magistrates, surely it can hardly be expected that he should discover that in imitating them in so common a practice, he was constituting himself hostis humani generis, a wretch the pest and scourge of mankind.
“There is, no doubt, attached to every even the most innocent of casual slaughter, a certain degree of blame, inasmuch as almost every thing of the kind might have been avoided had the slayer exhibited the strictest degree of diligence. A well-known and authentic story will illustrate the proposition. A young gentleman just married to a young lady of which he was passionately fond, in affectionate trifling presented at her a pistol, of which he had drawn the charge some days before. The lady, entering into the joke, desired him to fire: he did so, and shot her dead; the pistol having been again charged by his servant without his knowledge. Can any one read this story, and feel any emotion but that of sympathy towards the unhappy husband? Can they ever connect the case with an idea of punishment? Yet, divesting it of these interesting circumstances which act upon the imagination, it is precisely that of the panel at your Lordships’ bar; and though no one will pretend to say that such a homicide is other than casual, yet there is not the slightest question but it might have been avoided had the killer taken the precaution of examining his piece. But this is not the degree of culpa which can raise a misfortune to the pitch of a crime. It is only an instance that no accident can take place without its afterwards being discovered that the chief actor might have avoided committing it, had he been gifted with the spirit of prophecy, or with such an extreme degree of prudence as is almost equally rare.
| LOVE-AFFAIR. | 231 |
“In the instance of shooting at butts, or at a bird, the person killed must have been somewhat in the line previous to the discharge of the shot, otherways it could never have come near him. The shooter must therefore have been guilty cuius levis seu levissimæ in firing while the deceased was in such a situation. In like manner, it is difficult to conceive how death should happen in consequence of a boxing or wrestling match, without some excess upon the part of the killer. Nay, in the exercise of the martial amusements of our forefathers, even by royal commission, should a champion be slain in running his barriers, or performing his tournament, it could scarcely happen without some culpa sen levis seu levissima on the part of his antagonist. Yet all these are enumerated in the English law-books as instances of casual homicide only; and we may therefore safely conclude, that by the law of the sister country a slight degree of blame will not subject the slayer per infortuniam to the penalties of culpable homicide.
“Guilt, as an object of punishment, has its origin in the mind and intention of the actor; and therefore, where that is wanting, there is no proper object of chastisement. A madman, for example, can no more properly be said to be guilty of murder than the sword with which he commits it, both being equally incapable of intending injury. In the present case, in like manner, although it ought no doubt to be matter of deep sorrow and contrition to the panel that his folly should have occasioned the loss of life to a fellow-creature; yet as that folly can neither be termed malice, nor yet doth amount to a gross negligence, he ought rather to be pitied than condemned. The fact done can never be recalled, and it rests with your Lordships to consider the case of this unfortunate young man, who has served his country in an humble though useful station,—deserved such a character as is given him in the letter of his officers,—and been disabled in that service. You will best judge how (considering he has suffered a confinement of six months) he can in humanity be the object of further or severer punishment, for a deed of which his mind at least, if not his hand, is guiltless. When a case is attended with some nicety, your Lordships will allow mercy to incline the balance of justice, well considering, with the legislator of the east, ‘It is better ten guilty should escape than that one innocent man should perish in his innocence.’”
The young sailor was acquitted,
To return for a moment to Scott’s love-affair. I find him writing
as follows, in March 1795, to his cousin,
| 232 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
To another friend he writes thus, from Rosebank, on the 23d of August, 1795:
“It gave me the highest satisfaction to find, by the
receipt of your letter of the 14th current, that you have formed precisely the
same opinion with me, both with regard to the interpretation of —— ——’s letter as highly flattering and
favourable, and to the mode of conduct I ought to pursue for, after all, what
she has pointed out is the most prudent line of conduct for us both, at least
till better days, which, I think myself now entitled to suppose, she, as well
as I myself, will look forward to with pleasure. If you were surprised at
reading the important billet, you may guess how agreeably I was so at receiving
it; for I had, to anticipate disappointment,—struggled to suppress every rising
gleam of hope, and it would be very difficult to describe the mixed feelings
her letter occasioned, which, entre
nous, terminated in a very hearty fit of crying. I read over
her epistle about ten times a-day, and always with new admiration of her
generosity and candour—and as often take shame to myself for the mean
suspicions, which, after knowing her so long, I could listen to, while
endeavouring to guess how she would conduct herself. To tell you the truth, I
cannot but confess, that my amour
propre, which one would expect should have been exalted, has
suffered not a little upon this occasion, through a sense of my own
unworthiness, pretty similar to that which afflicted Linton upon sitting down at Keir’s table. I ought perhaps to tell
you, what, indeed, you will perceive from her letter, that I was always
attentive, while con-
| LETTER FROM ROSEBANK. | 233 |
* Crab was the nickname of a friend who had accompanied Fergusson this summer on an Irish tour. Dr Black, celebrated for his discoveries in chemistry, was Adam Fergusson’s uncle; and had, it seems, given the young travellers a strong admonition touching the dangers of Irish hospitality. |
| 234 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
‘Who is that upon the pony, So long, so lean, so raw, so bony?’* |
“We have a great marriage towards here Scott of Harden, and a daughter of Count Bruhl, the famous chess-player, a lady of sixteen quarters, half-sister to the Wyndhams. I wish they may come down soon, as we shall have fine racketting, of which I will, probably, get my share. I think of being in town sometime next month, but whether for good and all, or only for a visit, I am not certain. O, for November! Our meeting will be a little embarrassing one. How will she look, &c. &c. &c., are the important subjects of my present conjectures—how different from what they were three weeks ago! I give you leave to laugh, when I tell you seriously, I had begun to ‘dwindle, peak, and pine,’ upon the subject—but now, after the charge I have received, it were a shame to resemble Pharoah’s lean kine. If good living and plenty of exercise can avert that calamity, I am in little danger of disobedience, and so, to conclude classically,
|
* These lines are part of a song on the Parliamentary orator Littleton. They are quoted in Boswell’s Life of Johnson, originally published in 1791. |
| TRANSLATION OF LENORE. | 235 |
I have had much hesitation about inserting the preceding letter, but could not make up my mind to omit what seems to me a most exquisite revelation of the whole character of Scott at this critical period of his history, both literary and personal; more especially of his habitual effort to suppress, as far as words were concerned, the more tender feelings, which were in no heart deeper than in his.
It must, I think, have been, while he was indulging his vagabond vein, during the autumn of 1794, that Miss Aikin (afterwards Mrs Barbauld) paid her visit to Edinburgh, and entertained a party at Mr Dugald Stewart’s, by reading Mr William Taylor’s then unpublished version of Bürger’s Lenore. In the Essay on Imitation of Popular Poetry the reader has a full account of the interest with which Scott heard, some weeks afterwards, a friend’s imperfect recollections of this performance; the anxiety with which he sought after a copy of the original German; the delight with which he at length perused it; and how, having just been reading the specimens of ballad poetry introduced into Lewis’s romance of The Monk, he called to mind the early facility of versification which had lain so long in abeyance, and ventured to promise his friend a rhymed translation of “Lenore” from his own pen. The friend in question was Miss Cranstoun, afterwards Countess of Purgstall, the sister of his friend George Cranstoun, now Lord Corehouse. He began the task, he tells us, after supper, and did not retire to bed until he had finished it, having by that time worked himself into a state of excitement which set sleep at defiance.
Next morning, before breakfast, he carried his MS. to Miss Cranstoun, who was not only delighted but astonished
at it; for I have seen a letter of hers to a mutual
| 236 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
All this occurred in the beginning of April, 1796. A few days afterwards,
Scott went to pay a visit at a country house, where
he expected to meet the “lady of his love.” Jane
Anne Cranstoun was in the secret of his attachment, and knew, that however
doubtful might
| KING’S BIRTH-DAY 1796. | 237 |
I ought to have mentioned before, that in June, 1795, he was appointed one of the curators of the Advocates’ Library, an office always reserved for those members of the faculty who have the reputation of superior zeal in literary affairs. He had for colleagues David Hume, the Professor of Scots Law, and Malcolm Laing, the historian; and his discharge of his functions must have given satisfaction, for I find him further nominated, in March, 1796, together with Mr Robert Hodgson Cay, an accomplished gentleman, afterwards Judge of the Admiralty Court in Scotland, to ‘put the Faculty’s cabinet of medals in proper arrangement.’
On the 4th of June, 1796 (the birth-day of George III.), there seems to have been a formidable riot in Edinburgh, and Scott is found again in the front. On the 5th, he writes as follows to his aunt, Christian Rutherford, who was then in the north of Scotland, and had meant to visit, among other places, the residence of the chère adorable.’
|
* This story was told by the Countess of Purgstall on her deathbed to Captain Basil Hall. See his Schloss Hainfeld, p. 333. |
| 238 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Nothing doubting that your curiosity will be upon the
tenters to hear the wonderful events of the long-expected 4th of June, I take
the pen to inform you that not one worth mentioning has taken place. Were I
inclined to prolixity, I might, indeed, narrate at length how near a thousand
gentlemen (myself among the number) offered their services to the magistrates
to act as constables for the preservation of the
peace—how their services were accepted—what fine
speeches were made upon the occasion—how they were
furnished with pretty painted brown batons—how they were
assembled in the aisle of the New Church, and treated with claret and
sweetmeats—how Sir
John Whiteford was chased by the mob, and how
Tom, Sandy Wood,
and I rescued him, and dispersed his tormentors à beaux coups de batons—how
the Justice-Clerk’s windows were broke by a few boys, and how a large
body of constables and a press-gang of near two hundred men arrived, and were
much disappointed at finding the coast entirely clear; with many other matters
of equal importance, but of which you must be contented to remain in ignorance
till you return to your castle. Seriously, every thing, with the exception of
the very trifling circumstances above mentioned, was perfectly quiet—much more
so than during any King’s birth-day I can recollect. That very stillness,
however, shows that something is brewing among our friends the Democrats, which
they will take their own time of bringing forward. By the wise precautions of
the magistrates, or rather of the provost, and the spirited conduct of the
gentlemen, I hope their designs will be frustrated. Our association meets
to-night, when we are to be divided into districts according to the place of
our abode, places of rendezvous and captains named; so that, upon the
| LOVE AFFAIR. | 239 |
During the autumn of 1796 he visited again his favourite haunts in
Perthshire and Forfarshire. It was in the course of this tour that he spent a day or two at
Montrose with his old tutor Mitchell, and astonished
and grieved that worthy Presbyterian by his zeal about witches and fairies. The only letter
of his written during this expedition, that I have recovered, was addressed to another of
his clerical friends—one by no means of Mit-
| 240 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Dear Scott,—Far be it from me to affirm that there are no diviners in the land. The voice of the people and the voice of God are loud in their testimony. Two years ago, when I was in the neighbourhood of Montrose, we had recourse for amusement one evening to chiromancy, or, as the vulgar say, having our fortunes read; and read mine were in such a sort, that either my letters must have been inspected, or the devil was by in his own proper person. I never mentioned the circumstance since, for obvious reasons; but now that you are on the spot, I feel it my bounden duty to conjure you not to put your shoes rashly from off your feet, for you are not standing on holy ground.
“I bless the gods for conducting your poor dear soul safely to Perth. When I consider the wilds, the forests, the lakes, the rocks and the spirits in which you must have whispered to their startled echoes, it amazeth me how you escaped. Had you but dismissed your little squire and Earwig,* and spent a few days as Or-
* A servant boy and pony. |
| LOVE AFFAIR. | 241 |
“William Taylor’s translation of your ballad is published, and so inferior, that I wonder we could tolerate it. Dugald Stewart read yours to ********** the other day. When he came to the fetter dance,* he looked up, and poor ********** was sitting with his hands nailed to his knees, and the big tears rolling down his innocent nose in so piteous a manner, that Mr Stewart could not help bursting out a laughing. An angry man was
| 242 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“This here place is very, very dull. Erskine is in London; my dear Thomson at Daily; Macfarlan hatching Kant and George* Fountainhall.† I have nothing more to tell you, but that I am most affectionately yours. Many an anxious thought I have about you. Farewell.—J. A. C.”
The affair in which this romantic creature took so lively an interest, was now approaching its end. It was known, before this autumn closed, that the lady of his vows had finally promised her hand to his amiable rival; and, when the fact was announced, some of those who knew Scott the best appear to have entertained very serious apprehensions as to the effect which the disappointment might have upon his feelings. For example, one of those brothers of the Mountain wrote as follows to another of them, on the 12th October 1796: “Mr —— marries Miss ——. This is not good news. I always dreaded there was some self-deception on the part of our romantic friend, and I now shudder at the violence of his most irritable and ungovernable mind. Who is it that says, ‘Men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love?’ I hope sincerely it may be verified on this occasion.”
Scott had, however, in all likelihood, digested his agony during the solitary ride in the Highlands to which Miss Cranstoun’s last letter alludes.
Talking of this story with Lord Kinedder, I once asked him whether Scott never made it the subject
* George Cranstoun, Lord Corehouse. † Decisions by Lord Fountainhall. |
| LOVE AFFAIR. | 243 |
|
“The violet in her greenwood bower,
Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle,
May boast itself the fairest flower
In glen or copse or forest dingle.
|
|
“Though fair her gems of azure hue
Beneath the dewdrop’s weight reclining,
I’ve seen an eye of lovelier blue
More sweet through watery lustre shining.
|
|
“The summer sun that dew shall dry,
Ere yet the sun be past its morrow,
Nor longer in my false love’s eye
Remained the tear of parting sorrow!”
|
In turning over a volume of MS. papers, I have found a copy of verses,
which, from the hand, Scott had evidently written down
within the last ten years of his life. They are headed, “To Time—by a Lady”—but
certain initials on the back satisfy me, that the authoress
| 244 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
|
“Friend of the wretch oppress’d with grief,
Whose lenient hand, though slow, supplies
The balm that lends to care relief,
That wipes her tears—that checks her sighs!
|
|
“’Tis thine the wounded soul to heal
That hopeless bleeds for sorrow’s smart,
From stern misfortune’s shaft to steal
The barb that rankles in the heart.
|
|
“What though with thee the roses fly,
And jocund youth’s gay reign is o’er;
Though dimm’d the lustre of the eye,
And hope’s vain dreams enchant no more;
|
|
“Yet in thy train come soft-eyed peace,
Indifference with her heart of snow;
At her cold touch, lo! sorrows cease,
No thorns beneath her roses grow.
|
|
“O haste to grant the suppliant’s prayer,
To me thy torpid calm impart;
Rend from my brow youth’s garland fair,
But take the thorn that’s in my heart.
|
|
‘Ah, why do fabling poets tell,
That thy fleet wings outstrip the wind?
Why feign thy course of joy the knell,
And call thy slowest pace unkind?
|
|
“To me thy tedious feeble pace
Comes laden with the weight of years;
With sighs I view morn’s blushing face,
And hail mild evening with my tears.”
|
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