Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Walter Scott to George Ellis, 8 October 1808
The poet answers as follows:—“My giving my name to
Weber’s Romances is out of the
question, as assuredly I have not time to do any thing that can entitle it
to stand in his titlepage; but I will do all I can for him in the business.
By the by, I wish he would be either more chary in his communications on
the subject of my employments, or more accurate. I often employ his
assistance in making extracts, &c., and I may say to him as Lord Ogleby does to Canton, that he never sees me badiner a little with a subject, but he suspects mischief—to wit,
an edition. In the mean time, suffice it to say, that I have done with
poetry for some time—it is a scourging crop, and ought not to be hastily
repeated. Editing, there-![]()
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fore, may be considered as a
green crop of turnips or peas, extremely useful for those whose
circumstances do not admit of giving their farm a summer fallow. Swift is my grande opus at present, though I am
under engagements, of old standing, to write a Life of Thomson from some original materials. I
have completed an edition of some State Papers of Sir Ralph Sadler, which I believe you will find
curious; I have, moreover, arranged, for republication the more early
volumes of Somers’s
Tracts; but these are neither toilsome nor exhausting labours.
Swift, in fact, is my only task
of great importance. My present official employment leaves my time very
much my own, even while the courts are sitting and entirely so in the
vacation. My health is strong, and my mind active; I will therefore do as
much as I can with justice to the tasks I have undertaken, and rest when
advanced age and more independent circumstances entitle me to
repose.”
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Dean of St Patrick's, Scriblerian satirist, and author of
Battle of the
Books with
Tale of a Tub (1704),
Drapier
Letters (1724),
Gulliver's Travels (1726), and
A Modest Proposal (1729).
James Thomson (1700-1748)
Anglo-Scottish poet and playwright; while his descriptive poem,
The
Seasons (1726-30), was perhaps the most popular poem of the eighteenth century,
the poets tended to admire more his Spenserian burlesque,
The Castle of
Indolence (1748).
Henry William Weber (1783-1818)
The son of a Moravian father and English mother, he published an edition of the works of
John Ford and Beaumont and Fletcher; after working as an editorial assistant to Walter
Scott he spent his latter years in a lunatic asylum.
