378 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Of the L.4000 which Scott paid for the original farm of Abbotsford, he borrowed one half from his eldest brother. Major John Scott; the other moiety was raised by the Ballantynes, and advanced on the security of the as yet unwritten, though long meditated poem of Rokeby. He immediately, I believe by Terry’s counsel, requested Mr Stark of Edinburgh, an architect of whose talents he always spoke warmly, to give him a design for an ornamental cottage in the style of the old English vicarage-house. But before this could be done, Mr Stark died; and Scott’s letters will show how, in the sequel, his building plans, checked for a season by this occurrence, gradually expanded,—until twelve years afterwards the site was occupied not by a cottage but a castle.
His first notions are sketched as follows, in a letter addressed to
Mr Morritt very shortly after the purchase.
“We stay at Ashestiel this season, but migrate the next to our new
settlements. I have fixed only two points
ROKEBY—1811. | 379 |
Three months later (December 20th, 1811), he opens the design of his new poem in another letter to the squire of Rokeby, whose household, it appears, had just been disturbed by the unexpected accouchement of a fair visitant. The allusion to the Quarterly Review, towards the close, refers to an humorous article on Sir John Sinclair’s pamphlets about the Bullion Question—a joint production of Mr Ellis and Mr Canning.
“I received your kind letter a week or two ago. The little interlude of the bantling at Rokeby reminds me of a lady whose mother happened to produce her upon very short notice, between the hands of a game at whist, and who, from a joke of the celebrated David Hume, who was one of the players, lived long distinguished by the name of The Parenthesis. My wife had once nearly made a similar blunder in very awkward circumstances. We were invited to dine at Melville Castle (to which we were then near neighbours), with the Chief Baron* and his lady, its temporary inhabitants,—when behold, the Obadiah whom I despatched two hours before dinner from our cottage to summon the Dr Slop of Edinburgh, halting at Melville Lodge to rest his wearied horse,
* The late Right Honourable Robert Dundas, Chief Baron of the Scotch Court of Exchequer. |
380 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“And now, I have a grand project to tell you of.
Nothing less than a fourth romance, in verse; the theme, during the English
civil wars of Charles I., and the scene,
your own domain of Rokeby. I want to build my cottage a little better than my
limited finances will permit out of my ordinary income; and although it is very
true that an author should not hazard his reputation, yet, as Bob Acres says, I really think Reputation should
take some care of the gentleman in return. Now, I have all your scenery deeply
imprinted in my memory, and moreover, be it known to you, I intend to refresh
its traces this ensuing summer, and to go as far as the borders of Lancashire,
and the caves of Yorkshire, and so perhaps on to Derbyshire. I have sketched a
story which pleases me, and I am only anxious to keep my theme quiet, for its
being piddled upon by some of your Ready-to-catch
literati, as John Bunyan calls them,
would be a serious misfortune to me. I am not without hope of seducing you to
be my guide a little way on my tour. Is there not some book (sense or nonsense,
I care not) on the beauties of Teesdale I mean a descriptive work? If you can
point it out or lend it me, you will do me a great favour, and no less if you
can tell me any traditions of the period. By which party was Barnard Castle
occupied? It strikes me that it should be held for the Parliament. Pray, help
me in this, by truth, or fiction, or tradition,—I care not which, if it be
picturesque. What the deuce is the name of that wild glen, where we had
ROKEBY—1811. | 381 |
“The Quarterly is beyond my praise, and as much beyond me as I was beyond that of my poor old nurse who died the other day. Sir John Sinclair has gotten the golden fleece at last. Dogberry would not desire a richer reward for having been written down an ass. L.6000 a-year!† Good faith, the whole reviews in Britain should rail at me, with my free consent, better cheap by at least a cypher. There is no chance, with all my engagements, to be at London this spring. My little boy Walter is ill with the measles, and I expect the rest to catch the disorder, which appears,* thank God, very mild. Mrs Scott joins in kindest compliments to Mrs Morritt, many merry Christmases to you and believe me, truly yours,
I insert Mr Morritt’s answer, both for the light which
* See note, Ivanhoe, Waverley Novels, vol. xvii. pp. 335-339. † Shortly after the appearance of the article alluded to, Sir John Sinclair was appointed cashier of Excise for Scotland. “It should be added,” says his biographer, “that the emoluments of the situation were greatly reduced at the death of Sir James Grant, his predecessor.”—Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, September 1836, p. 125. |
382 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I begin at the top of my paper, because your
request must be complied with, and I foresee that a letter on the antiquities
of Teesdale will not be a short one. Your project delights me much, and I
willingly contribute my mite to its completion. Yet, highly as I approve of the
scene where you lay the events of your romance, I have, I think, some
observations to make as to the period you have chosen for it. Of this, however,
you will be a better judge after I have detailed my antiquarian researches.
Now, as to Barnard Castle, it was built in Henry
I.’s time, by Barnard, son of
Guy Baliol, who landed with the Conqueror. It remained
with the Baliols till their attainder by Edward I. The tomb of Alan of Galloway was here in Leland’s time; and he gives the inscription.
Alan, if you remember, married Margaret of
Huntingdon, David’s
daughter, and was father, by her, of Devorgild, who married John
Baliol, and from whom her son, John
Baliol, claimed the crown of Scotland. Edward
I. granted the castle and liberties to Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick; it descended (with that title) to
the Nevills, and by Ann Nevill to
Richard Duke of Gloucester, afterwards King Richard III. It does not appear to whom
Henry VII. or his son re-granted it, but
it fell soon into the hands of the Nevills, Earls of Westmoreland, by whom it
was
LETTER FROM MR MORRITT. | 383 |
“The Rokebys were at all times
loyal, at least from Henry IV. downward. They
lived early at Mortham
384 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
* The heiress of Mortham married Rokeby in the reign of Edward II.; and his own castle at Rokeby having been destroyed by the Scotch after the battle of Bannockburn, he built one on his wife’s estate—the same of which considerable remains still exist—on the northern bank of the Greta. |
LETTER FROM MR MORR1TT—DEC. 1811. | 385 |
“There is a book of a few pages, describing the rides through and about Teesdale; I have it not, but if I can get it I will send it. It is very bare of information, but gives names. If you can get the third volume of Hutchinson’s History of Durham, it would give you some useful bits of information, though very ill written. The glen where we clambered up to Cat-castle is itself called Deepdale. I fear we have few traditions that have survived the change of farms, and property of all sorts,
* Mr Morritt alludes to the mutilation of a curious vaulted roof of extreme antiquity, in the great tower of Barnard Castle, occasioned by its conversion into a manufactory of patent shot;—an improvement at which the Poet had expressed some indignation. |
386 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
LETTER FROM MR MORRITT—DEC. 1811. | 387 |
“I have almost filled my letter with antiquarianism;
but will not conclude without repeating how much your intention has charmed us.
The scenery of our rivers deserves to become classic ground, and I hope the
scheme will induce you to visit and revisit it often. I will contrive to ride
with you to Wenslydale and the Caves at least, and the border of Lancashire,
&c. if I can; and to facilitate that trip, I hope you will bring Mrs Scott here, that our dames may not be
impatient of our absence. ‘I know each dale, and every alley
green,’ between
388 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
In January, 1812, Scott entered upon the enjoyment of his proper salary as a clerk of Session, which, with his sheriffdom, gave him from this time till very near the close of his life, a professional income of L.1600 a-year. On the 11th of the same month he lost his kind friend and first patron, Henry, third Duke of Buccleuch, and fifth of Queensberry. Both these events are mentioned in the following letter to Joanna Baillie, who, among other things, had told Scott that the materials for his purse were now on her table, and expressed her anxiety to know who was the author of some beautiful lines on the recent death of their friend, James Grahame, the poet of the Sabbath. These verses had, it appears, found their way anonymously into the newspapers.
“The promise of the purse has flattered my imagi-
CORRESPONDENCE—1812. | 389 |
390 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I am very glad that you met my dear friend, George Ellis,—a wonderful man, who, through the life of a statesman and politician, conversing with princes, wits, fine ladies, and fine gentlemen, and acquainted with all the intrigues and tracasseries of the cabinets and ruelles of foreign courts, has yet retained all warm and kindly feelings which render a man amiable in society, and the darling of his friends.
“The author of the elegy upon poor Grahame, is John
Wilson, a young man of very considerable poetical powers. He is
now engaged in a poem called the Isle of Palms, something in the style of
Southey. He is an eccentric genius,
and has fixed himself upon the banks of Windermere, but occasionally resides in
Edinburgh, where he now is. Perhaps you have seen him;—his father was a wealthy Paisley manufacturer—his
mother a sister of Robert Sym. He seems an excellent, warm-hearted,
LETTER TO MISS BAILLIE—JAN. 1812. | 391 |
“Our streets in Edinburgh are become as insecure as your houses in Wapping. Only think of a formal association among nearly fifty apprentices, aged from twelve to twenty, to scour the streets and knock down and rob all whom they found in their way. This they executed on the last night of the year with such spirit, that two men have died, and several others are dangerously ill, from the wanton treatment they received. The watchword of these young heroes when they met with resistance was—Mar him, a word of dire import; and which, as they were all armed with bludgeons loaded with lead, and were very savage, they certainly used in the sense of Ratcliffe Highway. The worst of all this is not so much the immediate evil, which a severe example* will probably check for the present, as that the formation and existence of such an association, holding regular meetings and keeping regular minutes, argues a woful negligence in the masters of these boys, the tradesmen and citizens of Edinburgh, of that wholesome domestic discipline which they ought, in justice to God and to man, to exercise over the youth intrusted to their charge; a negligence which cannot fail to be productive of every sort of vice, crime, and folly, among boys of that age.
“Yesterday I had the melancholy task of attending the funeral of the good old Duke of Buccleuch. It was, by his own direction, very private; but scarce a
392 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
The next of his letters to Joanna Baillie is curious, as giving his first impressions on reading Childe Harold. It contains also a striking sketch of the feelings he throughout life expressed, as to what he had observed of society in London with a not less characteristic display of some of his own minor amusements.
“I ought not, even in modern gratitude, which may be moved by the gift of a purse, much less in minstrel sympathy, which values it more as your work than if it were stuffed with guineas, to have delayed thanking you, my kind friend, for such an elegant and acceptable token of your regard. My kindest and best thanks also attend the young lady who would not permit the purse to travel untenanted.* I shall be truly glad when I can offer them in person, but of that there is no speedy prospect. I don’t believe I shall see London this great while again, which I do not very much regret, were it
* The purse contained an old coin from Joanna Baillie’s niece, the daughter of the Doctor. |
LETTERS TO MISS BAILLIE—1812. | 393 |
394 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Have you seen the Pilgrimage of Childe Harold, by Lord Byron? It
is, I think, a very clever poem, bat gives no good symptom of the
writer’s heart or morals; his hero, notwithstanding the affected
antiquity of the style in some parts, is a modern man of fashion and fortune,
worn out and satiated with the pursuits of dissipation, and although there is a
caution against it in the preface, you cannot for your soul avoid concluding
that the author, as he gives an account of his own travels, is also doing so in
his own character. Now really this is too bad; vice ought to be a little more
modest, and it must require impudence at least equal to the noble Lord’s
other powers, to claim sympathy gravely for the ennui arising from his being
tired of his wassailers and his paramours. There is a monstrous deal of conceit
in it too, for it is informing the inferior part of the world that their little
old-fashioned scruples of limitation are not worthy of his regard, while his
fortune and possessions are such as have put all sorts of gratifications too
much
LETTER TO MISS BAILLIE—CHILDE HAROLD. | 395 |
“I have got Rob Roy’s gun, a long Spanish-barrelled piece, with his initials, R. M. C., for Robert Macgregor Campbell, which latter name he assumed in compliment to the Argyle family, who afforded him a good deal of private support, because he was a thorn in the side of their old rival house of Montrose. I have, moreover, a relic of a more heroic character; it is a sword which was given to the great Marquis of Montrose by Charles I., and appears to have belonged to his father, our gentle King Jamie. It had been preserved for a long time at Gartmore, but the present proprietor was selling his library, or great part of it, and John Ballantyne, the purchaser, wishing to oblige me, would not conclude a bargain, which the gentleman’s necessity made him anxious about, till he flung the sword into the scale; it is, independent of its other merits, a most beautiful blade. I think a dialogue between this same sword and Rob Roy’s gun, might be composed with good effect.
“We are here in a most extraordinary
pickle—considering that we have just entered upon April, when according to the
poet, ‘primroses paint the gay plain,’ instead of which both
hill and valley are doing penance in a sheet of snow of very respectable depth.
Mail-coaches have been stopt—shepherds, I grieve to say, lost in the snow; in
short, we experience all the hardships of a January storm at this late period
of the spring; the snow has been near a fortnight, and if it departs with dry
weather, we may do well enough, but if wet weather should ensue, the wheat crop
through Scotland will be totally lost. My thoughts are anxiously turned to the
Peninsula, though I think the Spaniards have
396 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I hope Campbell’s plan of lectures will answer.† I think the brogue may be got over, if he will not trouble himself by attempting to correct it, but read with fire and feeling; he is an animated reciter, but I never heard him read.
“I have a great mind, before sealing this long scrawl, to send you a list of the contents of the purse as they at present stand,
“1st. Miss Elizabeth Baillie’s purse-penny, called by the learned a denarius of the Empress Faustina.
“2d. A gold brooch, found in a bog in Ireland,
* Mrs Siddons made a farewell appearance at Covent Garden, as Lady Macbeth, on the 29th of June, 1812; but she afterwards resumed her profession for short intervals more than once, and did not finally bid adieu to the stage until the 9th of June, 1819. † Mr Thomas Campbell had announced his first course of lectures on English Poetry about this time. |
LETTER TO MISS BAILLIE—APRIL, 1812. | 397 |
“3d. A toadstone—a celebrated amulet, which was never lent to any one unless upon a bond for a thousand merks for its being safely restored. It was sovereign for protecting new born children and their mothers from the power of the fairies, and has been repeatedly borrowed from my mother, on account of this virtue.
“4th. A coin of Edward I., found in Dryburgh Abbey.
“5th. A funeral ring, with Dean Swift’s hair.
“So you see my nicknackatory is well supplied, though the purse is more valuable than all its contents.
“Adieu, my dear friend, Mrs Scott joins in kind respects to your sister, the Doctor, and Mrs Baillie,
A month later, the Edinburgh Review on Lord Byron’s Romaunt having just appeared, Scott says to Mr Morritt (May 12), “I agree very much in what you say of Childe Harold. Though there is something provoking and insulting to morality and to feeling in his misanthropical ennui, it gives, nevertheless, an odd piquancy to his descriptions and reflections. This is upon the whole a piece of most extraordinary power, and may rank its author with our first poets. I see the Edinburgh Review has hauled its wind.”
Lord Byron was, I need not say, the prime object of
interest this season in the fashionable world of London; nor did the Prince Regent owe the subsequent hostilities of the noble Poet
to any neglect on his part of the brilliant genius which had just been fully revealed in
the Childe Harold. Mr Murray, the publisher of the Romaunt, on hearing, on
the 29th of June, Lord Byron’s
398 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I am uncertain if I ought to profit by the apology which is afforded me, by a very obliging communication from our acquaintance, John Murray of Fleet Street, to give your Lordship the present trouble. But my intrusion concerns a large debt of gratitude due to your Lordship, and a much less important, one of explanation, which I think I owe to myself, as I dislike standing low in the opinion of any person whose talents rank so highly in my own, as your Lordship’s most deservedly do.
“The first count, as our technical language expresses it, relates to the high pleasure I have received from the Pilgrimage of Childe Harold, and from its precursors; the former, with all its classical associations, some of which are lost on so poor a scholar as I am, possesses the additional charm of vivid and animated description, mingled with original sentiment;—
* Life and Works of Lord Byron, vol. ii. p. 155. |
LETTER TO LORD BYRON—JULY, 1812. | 399 |
Esurit, intactam Paridi nisi vendit Agaven. |
“As for my attachment to literature, I sacrificed
for the pleasure of pursuing it very fair chances of opulence and professional
honours, at a time of life when I fully knew their value, and I am not ashamed
to say, that in deriving advantages in compensation from the partial
400 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Leaving this foolish matter where it lies, I have to request your Lordship’s acceptance of my best thanks for the flattering communication which you took the trouble to make Mr Murray on my behalf, and which could not fail to give me the gratification, which I am sure you intended. I dare say our worthy bibliopolist overcoloured his report of your Lordship’s conversation with the Prince Regent, but I owe my thanks to him nevertheless, for the excuse he has given me for intruding these pages on your Lordship. Wishing you health, spirit, and perseverance, to continue your pilgrimage through the interesting countries which you have still to pass with Childe Harold, I have the honour to be, my Lord, your Lordship’s obedient servant,
“P.S. Will your Lordship permit me a verbal
criticism on Childe Harold,
were it only to show I have read his Pilgrimage with attention?
‘Nuestra Dama de la Pena’
means, I suspect, not our Lady of Crime or
CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD BYRON. | 401 |
Lord Byron’s answer was in these terms:—
“I have just been honoured with your letter.—I feel
sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the evil works of
my nonage, as the thing is suppressed voluntarily, and
your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The Satire was written when I was very young and
very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now I am
haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. I cannot sufficiently thank
you for your praise; and now, waiving myself, let me talk to you of the
Prince Regent. He ordered me to be
presented to him at a ball: and after some sayings, peculiarly pleasing from
royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your
immortalities; he preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which
of your works pleased me most. It was a difficult question. I answered, I
thought the Lay. He said his own
opinion was nearly similar. In speaking of the others, I told him that I
thought you more particularly the poet of Princes, as
they never appeared more fascinating than in Marmion and the Lady of the Lake. He was pleased to
coincide, and to dwell on the description of your Jameses as no less royal than
poetical. He spoke alternately of Homer and
yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both; so that (with the exception of
the Turks and your humble servant) you were in very good company. I defy
Murray to have exaggerated his
402 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“This interview was accidental. I never went to the levee; for having seen the courts of Mussulman and Catholic sovereigns, my curiosity was sufficiently allayed: and my politics being as perverse as my rhymes, I had, in fact, no business there. To be thus praised by your Sovereign must be gratifying to you; and if that gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately, and sincerely, your obliged and obedient servant,
Scott immediately replied as follows:—
“I am much indebted to your Lordship for your kind
and friendly letter: and much gratified by the Prince
Regent’s good opinion of my literary attempts. I know so
little of courts or princes, that any success I may have had in hitting off the
Stuarts is, I am afraid, owing to a little old Jacobite leaven which I sucked
in with the numerous traditionary tales that amused my infancy. It is a
fortunate thing for the Prince himself that he has
CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD BYRON. | 403 |
“I hope your Lordship intends to give us more of
Childe Harold. I was
delighted that my friend Jeffrey—for
such, in despite of many a feud, literary and political, I always esteem
him—has made so handsomely the amende
honorable for not having discovered in the bud the merits of
the flower; and I am happy to understand that the retractation so handsomely
made was received with equal liberality. These circumstances may perhaps some
day lead you to revisit Scotland, which has a maternal claim upon you, and I
need not say what pleasure I should have in returning my personal thanks for
the honour you have done me. I am labouring here to contradict an old proverb,
and make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, namely, to convert a bare haugh and brae, of about 100
acres, into a comfortable farm. Now, although I am living in a gardener’s
hut, and although the adjacent ruins of Melrose have little to tempt one who
has seen those of Athens, yet, should you take a tour which is so fashionable
at this season, I should be very happy to have an opportunity of introducing
you to any thing remarkable in my fatherland. My neighbour, Lord Somerville, would, I am sure, readily
supply the accommodations which I want, unless you prefer a couch in a closet,
which is the utmost hospitality I have at present to offer. The fair, or shall
I say the sage, Apreece that was, Lady Davy that is, is soon to show us how much
science she leads captive in Sir
Humphrey; so your Lordship sees, as the citizen’s wife says in
the farce—‘Threadneedle Street has some charms,’ since they
procure us such celebrated visitants. As for me, I would rather cross-question
your Lordship about the outside of Parnassus, than learn the nature of the
contents of all the other mountains in the world. Pray,
404 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“A wise man said—or, if not, I, who am no wise man, now say, that there is no surer mark of regard than when your correspondent ventures to write nonsense to you. Having, therefore, like Dogberry, bestowed all my tediousness upon your Lordship, you are to conclude that I have given you a convincing proof that I am very much your Lordship’s obliged and very faithful servant,
From this time the epistolary intercourse between Scott and Byron continued to be kept up; and it erelong assumed a tone of friendly confidence equally honourable to both these great competitors, without rivalry, for the favour of the literary world.
The date of the letter last quoted immediately preceded that of Scott’s second meeting with another of the most illustrious of his contemporaries. He had met Davy at Mr Wordsworth’s when in the first flush of his celebrity in 1804, and been, as one of his letters states, much delighted with “the simple and unaffected style of his bearing—the most agreeable characteristic of high genius.” Sir Humphrey, now at the summit of his fame, had come by his marriage with Scott’s accomplished relation, into possession of an ample fortune; and he and his bride were among the first of the poet’s visitants in the original cabin at Abbotsford.
The following letter is an answer to one in which Mr
BYRON—DAVY—SOUTHEY—1812. | 405 |
“It is scarcely necessary to say that the instant I
had your letter I wrote to the only friend I have in power, Lord Melville (if indeed he be now in power),
begging him for the sake of his own character, for the remembrance of his
father who wished you sincerely well, and by every other objuration I could
think of, to back your application. All I fear, if administration remain, is
the influence of the clergy, who have a strange disposition to job away among
themselves the rewards of literature. But I fear they are all to
406 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I can hardly think there could have been any serious intention of taking the hint of the Review, and yet liberty has so often been made the pretext of crushing its own best supporters, that I am always prepared to expect the most tyrannical proceedings from professed demagogues.
“I am uncertain whether the Chamberlain will be
LETTER TO MR SOUTHEY—JUNE, 1812. | 407 |
Mr Southey’s application was unsuccessful—the office he wished for having been bestowed, as soon as it fell vacant, on a person certainly of vastly inferior literary pretensions—the late Rev. J. S. Clarke, D.D., private librarian to the Regent.
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