“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,
