176 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Hoping to be forgiven for a long digression, the biographer willingly returns to the thread of Scott’s story. The Heart of Mid-Lothian appeared, as has been mentioned, before the close of June 1818; and among the letters which he received soon afterwards from the friends by this time in the secret, there is one which (though I do not venture to name the writer) I am tempted to take the liberty of quoting:
“ . . . . . . Now for it . . . . I can speak to the
purpose, as I have not only read it myself, but am in a house where every body
is tearing it out of each other’s hands, and talking of nothing else. So
much for its success—the more flattering, because it overcomes a prejudice.
People were beginning to say the author would wear himself out; it was going on
too long in the same key, and no striking notes could possibly be produced. On
the contrary, I think the interest is stronger here than in any of the former
ones (always excepting my first-love Waverley) and one may congratulate you upon having effected what
many have tried to do, and nobody yet succeeded in, making the
HEART OF MID-LOTHIAN. | 177 |
“You know I tell you my opinion just as I should do
to a third person, and I trust the freedom is not unwelcome. I was a little
tired of your Edinburgh lawyers in the introduction; English people in general
will be more so, as well as impatient of the passages alluding to Scotch law
throughout. Mr Saddletree will not
entertain them. The latter part of the fourth volume unavoidably flags to a
certain degree; after Jeanie is happily
settled at Roseneath, we have no more to wish for. But the chief fault I have
to find relates to the reappearance and shocking fate of the boy. I hear on all
sides—‘Oh I do not like that!’—I cannot say what I would
have had instead; but I do not like it either; it is a lame, huddled
conclusion. I know you so well in
178 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
HEART OF MID-LOTHIAN. | 179 |
“Did you ever hear the history of John Duke of Argyle’s marriage, and constant attachment, before and after, to a woman not handsomer or much more elegant than Jeanie Deans, though very unlike her in understanding? I can give it you, if you wish it, for it is at my finger’s ends. Now I am ancient myself, I should be a great treasure of anecdote to any body who had the same humour, but I meet with few who have. They read vulgar tales in books, Wraxall, and so forth, what the footmen and maids only gave credit to at the moment, but they desire no farther information. I dare swear many of your readers never heard of the Duke of Argyle before. ‘Pray, who was Sir Robert Walpole,’ they ask me, ‘and when did he live?’—or perhaps—‘Was not the great Lord Chatham in Queen Anne’s days?’
“We have, to help us, an exemplification on two legs
in our country apothecary, whom you have painted over and over without the
honour of knowing him; an old, dry, arguing, prosing, obstinate Scotchman, very
shrewd, rather sarcastic, a sturdy Whig and Presbyterian, tirant un peu sur le democrat. Your books
are birdlime to him, however; he hovers about the house to obtain a volume when
others have done with it. I long to ask him whether douce Davie was any way sib to him. He acknowledges he would
not now go to
180 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“P.S.—If I had known nothing, and the whole world had told me the contrary, I should have found you out in that one parenthesis,—‘for the man was mortal, and had been a schoolmaster.’”
This letter was addressed from a great country house in the south; and may, I presume, be accepted as a fair index of the instantaneous English popularity of Jeanie Deans. From the choice of localities, and the splendid blazoning of tragical circumstances that had left the strongest impression on the memory and imagination of every inhabitant, the reception of this tale in Edinburgh was a scene of all-engrossing enthusiasm, such as I never witnessed there on the appearance of any other literary novelty. But the admiration and delight were the same all over Scotland. Never before had he seized such really noble features of the national character as were canonized in the person of his homely heroine: no art had ever devised a happier running contrast than that of her and her sister or interwoven a portraiture of lowly manners and simple virtues, with more graceful delineations of polished life, or with bolder shadows of terror, guilt, crime, remorse, madness, and all the agony of the passions.
In the introduction and notes to the Heart of MidLothian, drawn up in 1830, we are presented with details concerning the suggestion of the main plot, and the chief historical incidents made use of, to which I can add nothing of any moment.
The 12th of July restored the author as usual to the
SEPTEMBER 10, 1818. | 181 |
Before he settled himself to his work, however, he made a little tour of the favourite description with his wife and children—halting for a few days at Drumlanrig, thence crossing the Border to Carlisle and Rokeby, and returning by way of Alnwick. On the 17th August, he writes thus to John Ballantyne from Drumlanrig: “This is heavenly weather, and I am making the most of it, as I shall have a laborious autumn before me. I may say of my head and fingers as the farmer of his mare, when he indulged her with an extra feed—
‘Ye ken that Maggie winna sleep For that or Simmer.’ |
The following seems to have been among the first letters he wrote after his return.
“We have been cruising to and fro since we left your
land of woods and streams. Lord Melville
wished me to come and stay two days with him at Melville Castle, which has
broken in upon my time a little, and
182 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I wish you would allow your coachman to look out for me among your neighbours a couple of young colts (rising three would be the best age) that would match for a carriage some two years hence. I have plenty of grass for them in the mean while, and should never know the expense of their keep at Abbotsford. He seemed to think he could pick them up at from L.25 to L.30, which would make an immense saving hereafter. Peter Matheson and he had arranged some sort of plan of this kind. For a pair of very ordinary carriage-horses in Edinburgh they ask L.140 or more; so it is worth while to be a little provident. Even then you only get one good horse, the other being usually a brute. Pray you excuse all this palaver—
‘These little things are great to little men.’ |
SEPTEMBER 10, 1818. | 183 |
Of the same date I find written in pencil, on what must have been the envelope of some sheriff’s-process, this note, addressed to Mr Charles Erskine, the sheriff-substitute of Selkirkshire:—
“I have read these papers with all attention this morning but think you will agree with me that there must be an Eke to the Condescendence. Order the Eke against next day. Tom leaves with this packet a blackcock, and (more’s the pity) a grey hen. Yours,
And again he thus writes by post to James Ballantyne:—
184 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I am quite satisfied with what has been done as to the London bills. I am glad the presses move. I have been interrupted sadly since my return by tourist gazers—this day a confounded pair of Cambridge boys have robbed me of two good hours, and you of a sheet of copy—though whether a good sheet or no, deponent saith not. The story is a dismal one, and I doubt sometimes whether it will bear working out to much length after all. Query, if I shall make it so effective in two volumes as my mother does in her quarter of an hour’s crack by the fireside. But nil desperandum. You shall have a bunch to-morrow or next day—and when the proofs come in, my pen must and shall step out. By the by, I want a supply of pens—and ditto of ink. Adieu for the present, for I must go over to Toftfield, to give orders anent the dam and the footpath, and see item as to what should be done anent steps at the Rhymer’s Waterfall, which I think may be made to turn out a decent bit of a linn, as would set True Thomas his worth and dignity. Ever yours,
It must, I think, be allowed that these careless scraps, when combined,
give a curious picture of the man who was brooding over the first chapters of the Bride of Lammermoor. One of his visitors of
that month was Mr R. Cadell, who was of course in
all the secrets of the house of Constable; and
observing how his host was harassed with lion-hunters, and what a number of hours he spent
daily in the company of his work-people, he expressed, during one of their walks, his
wonder that Scott should ever be able to write books at
all while in
ABBOTSFORD, OCT. 8, 1818. | 185 |
It was in the month following that I first saw Abbotsford. He invited my friend John Wilson (now Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh) and myself to visit him for a day or two on our return from an excursion to Mr Wilson’s beautiful villa on the Lake of Windermere, but named the particular day (October 8th) on which it would be most convenient for him to receive us; and we discovered on our arrival, that he had fixed it from a good-natured motive. We found him walking in one of his plantations, at no great distance from the house, with five or six young people, and his friends Lord Melville and Captain Ferguson. Having presented us to the First Lord of the Admiralty, he fell back a little and said, “I am glad you came to-day, for I thought it might be of use to you both, some time or other, to be known to my old schoolfellow here, who is, and I hope will long continue to be, the great giver of good things in the Parliament House. I trust you have had enough of certain pranks with your friend Ebony, and if so, Lord Melville will have too much sense to remember them.”* We then walked round the
* Ebony was Mr Blackwood’s own usual designation in the jeux d’esprit of his young Magazine, in many of which the persons thus |
186 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
addressed by Scott were conjoint culprits. They both were then, as may be inferred, sweeping the boards of the Parliament House as “briefless barristers.” |
ABBOTSFORD, OCT. 8, 1818. | 187 |
At length we drew near Peterhouse, and found sober Peter himself and his brother-in-law, the facetious factotum Tom Purdie, superintending, pipe in mouth, three or four sturdy labourers busy in laying down the turf for a bowling-green. “I have planted hollies all round it, you see,” said Scott, “and laid out an arbour on the right-hand side for the laird; and here I mean to have a game at bowls after dinner every day in fine weather—for I take that to have been among the indispensables of our old vie de chateau.” But I must not forget the reason he gave me some time afterwards for having fixed on that spot for his bowling-green. “In truth,” he then said, “I wished to have a smooth walk and a canny seat for myself within earshot of Peter’s evening psalm.” The coachman was a devout Presbyterian, and many a time have I in after-years accompanied Scott on his evening stroll, when the principal object was to enjoy, from the bowling-green, the unfailing melody of this good man’s family worship and heard him repeat, as Peter’s manly voice led the humble choir within, that beautiful stanza of Burns’s Saturday Night:—
“They chaunt their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim,” &c. |
It was near the dinner-hour before we reached the house, and presently I
saw assembled a larger company
188 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
ABBOTSFORD, OCT. 8, 1818. | 189 |
* I understand that this new celebrated soup was extemporized by M. Florence on Scott’s first visit to Bowhill after the publication of Guy Mannering. Florence had served—and Scott having on some sporting party made his personal acquaintance, he used often afterwards to gratify the Poet’s military propensities by sending up magnificent representations in pastry of citadels taken by the Emperor, &c. |
190 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
I had never before seen Scott in such buoyant spirits as he showed this evening—and I never saw him in higher afterwards; and no wonder, for this was the first time that he, Lord Melville, and Adam Ferguson, daily companions at the High-school of Edinburgh, and partners in many joyous scenes of the early volunteer period, had met since the commencement of what I may call the serious part of any of their lives. The great poet and novelist was receiving them under his own roof, when his fame was at its acmé, and his fortune seemed culminating to about a corresponding height—and the generous exuberance of his hilarity might have overflowed without moving the spleen of a Cynic. Old stories of the Yards and the Crosscauseway were relieved by sketches of real warfare, such as none but Ferguson (or Charles Matthews, had he been a soldier) could ever have given; and they toasted the memory of Greenbreeks and the health of the Beau with equal devotion.
When we rose from table, Scott
proposed that we should all ascend his western turret, to enjoy a moonlight view of the
valley. The younger part of his company were too happy to do so: some of the seniors, who
had tried the thing before, found pretexts for hanging back. The stairs were dark, narrow,
and steep; but the Sheriff piloted the way, and at length there were as many on the top as
it could well afford footing for. Nothing could be more lovely than the panorama; all the
harsher and more naked features being lost in the delicious moonlight; the Tweed and the
Gala winding and spark-
ABBOTSFORD, OCT. 8, 1818. | 191 |
On descending from the tower, the whole company were assembled in the new dining-room, which was still under the hands of the carpenters, but had been brilliantly illuminated for the occasion. Mr Bruce took his station, and old and young danced reels to his melodious accompaniment until they were weary, while Scott and the Dominie looked on with gladsome faces, and beat time now and then, the one with his staff, the other with his wooden leg. A tray with mulled wine and whisky punch was then introduced, and Lord Melville proposed a bumper, with all the honours, to the Roof-tree. Captain Ferguson having sung Johnnie Cope, called on the young ladies for Kenmures on and awa; and our host then insisted that the whole party should join, standing in a circle hand-in-hand more majorum, in the hearty chorus of
“Weel may we a’ be, Ill may we never see, God bless the king and the gude companie!” |
192 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
When I began this chapter I thought it would be a short one, but it is
surprising how, when one digs into his memory, the smallest details of a scene that was
interesting at the time, shall by degrees come to light again. I now recall, as if I had
seen and heard them yesterday, the looks and words of eighteen years ago. Awaking between
six and seven next morning, I heard Scott’s voice
close to me, and looking out of the little latticed window of the then detached cottage
called the chapel, saw him and Tom Purdie pacing
together on the green before the door, in earnest deliberation over what seemed to be a
rude daub of a drawing, and every time they approached my end of their parade I was sure to
catch the words Blue Bank. It turned out in the course of the day,
that a field of clay near Toftfield went by this name, and that the draining of it was one
of the chief operations then in hand. My friend Wilson, mean while, who lodged also in the chapel, tapped at my door, and
asked me to rise and take a walk with him by the river, for he had some angling project in
his head. He went out and joined in the consultation about the Blue Bank, while I was
dressing; presently Scott hailed me at the casement, and said he had
observed a volume of a new edition of Goethe on my
table—would I lend it him for a little? He carried off the volume accordingly, and
retreated with it to his den. It contained the Faust, and, I believe, in a more complete shape than he had before seen that
masterpiece of his old favourite. When we met at breakfast a couple of hours after, he was
full of the poem—dwelt with enthusiasm on the airy beauty of its lyrics, the terrible
pathos of the scene before the Mater Dolorosa, and the
deep skill shown in the various subtle shadings of character between Mephistophiles and poor Margaret. He remarked, however, of the Introduction (which I suspect was
new
ABBOTSFORD, OCT. 9, 1818. | 193 |
* In the Introduction to The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1830, Sir Walter says, “Were I ever to take the unbecoming freedom of censuring a man of Mr Coleridge’s extraordinary talents, it would be on account of the caprice and indolence with which he has thrown from him, as in mere wantonness, those unfinished scraps of poetry, which, like the Torso of antiquity, defy the skill of his poetical brethren to complete them. The charming fragments which the author abandons to their fate, are surely too valuable to be treated like the proofs of careless engravers, the sweepings of whose studios often make the fortune of some pains-taking collector.” And in a note to The Abbot, alluding to Coleridge’s beautiful and tantalizing fragment of Christabel, he adds, “Has not our own imaginative poet cause to fear that future ages will desire to summon him from his place of rest, as Milton longed
|
194 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
While this criticism proceeded, Scott was cutting away at his brown loaf and a plate of kippered salmon in a style which strongly reminded me of Dandie Dinmont’s luncheon at Mump’s Hall; nor was his German topic at all the predominant one. On the contrary, the sentences which have dwelt on my memory dropt from him now and then, in the pauses, as it were, of his main talk; for though he could not help recurring, ever and anon, to the subject, it would have been quite out of his way to make any literary matter the chief theme of his conversation, when there was a single person present who was not likely to feel much interested in its discussion.—How often have I heard him quote on such occasions Mr Vellum’s advice to the butler in Addison’s excellent play of the Drummer—“Your conjuror, John, is indeed a twofold personage—but he eats and drinks like other people!”
I may, however, take this opportunity of observing, that nothing could
have been more absurdly unfounded than the statement which I have seen repeated in various
sketches of his Life and Manners, that he habitually abstained from conversation on
literary topics. In point of fact, there were no topics on which he talked more openly or
more earnestly; but he, when in society, lived and talked for the persons with whom he
found himself surrounded, and if he did not always choose to enlarge upon the subjects
which his companions for the time suggested, it was simply because he thought or fancied
that these had selected, out of deference or flattery, subjects about which they really
cared little more than they knew. I have already repeated, over and again, my
OCTOBER 9, 1818. | 195 |
Before breakfast was over the post-bag arrived, and its contents were so
numerous, that Lord Melville asked Scott what election was on hand—not doubting that there must
be some very particular reason for such a shoal of letters. He answered that it was much
the same most days, and added, “though no one has kinder friends in the franking
line, and though Freeling and Croker especially are always ready to stretch the
point of privilege in my favour, I am nevertheless a fair contributor to the revenue,
for I think my bill for letters seldom comes under L.150 a-year; and as to
coach-parcels, they are a perfect ruination.” He then told with high
merriment a disaster that had lately befallen him. “One morning last
spring,” he said, “I opened a huge lump of a despatch, without looking
how it was addressed, never doubting that it had travelled under some omnipotent frank
like the First Lord of the Admiralty’s, when, lo and behold, the contents proved
to be a MS. play, by a young lady of New York, who kindly requested me to read and
correct it, equip it with prologue and epilogue, procure for it a favourable reception
from the manager of Drury Lane, and make Murray
or Constable bleed handsomely for the copyright;
and on
196 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Scott said he must retire to answer his letters, but
that the sociable and the ponies would be at the door by one o’clock, when he
proposed to show Melrose and Dryburgh to Lady Melville
and any of the rest of the party that chose to accompany them; adding that his son
Walter would lead any body who preferred a gun
to the likeliest place for a black-cock, and that Charlie Purdie
(Tom’s brother) would attend upon
Mr Wilson and whoever else chose to try a cast
of the salmon-rod. He withdrew when all this was arranged, and appeared at the time
appointed, with perhaps a dozen letters sealed for the post, and a coach-parcel addressed
to James Ballantyne, which he dropt at the
turnpike-gate as we drove to Melrose. Seeing it picked up by a dirty urchin, and carried
into a hedge pothouse, where half-adozen nondescript wayfarers were smoking and tippling, I
could not but wonder that it had not been the fate of some one of those innumerable packets
to fall into unscrupulous hands, and betray the grand secret. That very morning we had seen
two post-chaises drawn up at his gate, and the enthusiastic travellers, seemingly decent
tradesmen and their families, who must have been packed in a manner worthy of Mrs Gilpin, lounging
OCTOBER 9, 1818. | 197 |
Scott showed us the ruins of Melrose in detail; and as
we proceeded to Dryburgh, descanted learnedly and sagaciously on the good effects which
must have attended the erection of so many great monastic establishments in a district so
peculiarly exposed to the inroads of the English in the days of the Border wars.
“They were now and then violated,” he said, “as their
aspect to this hour bears witness; but for once that they suffered, any lay property
similarly situated must have been harried a dozen times. The
bold Dacres, Liddells, and
Howards, that could get easy absolution at York or Durham for
any ordinary breach of a truce with the Scots, would have had to dree
a heavy dole had they confessed plundering from the fat brothers, of the same
order perhaps, whose lines had fallen to them on the wrong side of the
Cheviot.” He enlarged too on the heavy penalty which the Crown of Scotland had
paid for its rash acquiescence in the wholesale robbery of the church at the Reformation.
“The proportion of the soil in the hands of the clergy had,” he
said, “been very great—too great to be continued. If we may judge by their share
in the public burdens, they must have had nearly a third of the land in their
possession. But this vast wealth was now distributed among a turbulent nobility, too
powerful before; and the Stuarts soon found that in the bishops
and lord ab-
198 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
OCTOBER 9, 1818. | 199 |
At Dryburgh Scott pointed out to us the sepulchral aisle of his Haliburton ancestors, and said he hoped, in God’s appointed time, to lay his bones among their dust. The spot was, even then, a sufficiently interesting and impressive one; but I shall not say more of it at present.
On returning to Abbotsford, we found Mrs
Scott and her daughters doing penance under the merciless curiosity of a
couple of tourists who had arrived from Selkirk soon after we set out for Melrose. They
were rich specimens—tall, lanky young men, both of them rigged out in new jackets and
trowsers of the Macgregor tartan; the one, as they had revealed, being
a lawyer, the other a Unitarian preacher, from New England. These gentlemen, when told on
their arrival that Mr Scott was not at home, had shown
such signs of impatience, that the servant took it for granted they must have serious
business, and asked if they would wish to speak a word
200 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
‘Porter, ale, and British spirits, Painted bright between twa trees;’ |
OCTOBER 9, 1818. | 201 |
From this banter it may be inferred that the younger Ferguson had not as yet been told the Waverley secret—which to any of that house could never have been any mystery. Probably this, or some similar occasion soon afterwards, led to his formal initiation; for during the many subsequent years that the veil was kept on, I used to admire the tact with which, when in their topmost high-jinks humour, both “Captain John” and “The Auld Captain” eschewed any the most distant allusion to the affair.
And this reminds me that, at the period of which I am writing, none of
Scott’s own family, except of course his wife,
had the advantage in that matter of the Skipper. Some of them too, were apt, like him, so
long as no regular confidence had been reposed in them, to avail themselves of the
author’s reserve for their own sport among friends. Thus one morning, just as
Scott
202 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
I remember nothing particular about our second day’s dinner, except that it was then I first met my dear and honoured friend William Laidlaw. The evening passed rather more quietly than the preceding one. Instead of the dance in the new dining-room, we had a succession of old ballads sung to the harp and guitar by the young ladies of the house; and Scott, when they seemed to have done enough, found some reason for taking down
* When playing, in childhood, with the young ladies of the Buccleuch family, she had been overheard saying to her namesake Lady Anne Scott, “Well, I do wish I were Lady Anne too—it is so much prettier than Miss;” thenceforth she was commonly addressed in the family by the coveted title. |
OCTOBER 9, 1818. | 203 |
“Grave Jonas Kindred, Sybil Kindred’s sire, Was six feet high, and looked six inches higher,” &c. |
There was much talk between the Sheriff and Mr Pringle about the Selkirkshire Yeomanry Cavalry, of which the latter had
been the original commandant. Young Walter Scott had
been for a year or more Cornet in the corps, and his father was consulting Torwoodlee about
an entertainment which he meant to give them on his son’s approaching birthday. It
was then that the
204 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Many thanks for your kind letter of 29th October. The matter of the colts being as you state, I shall let it lie over until next year, and then avail myself of your being in the neighbourhood to get a good pair of four-year-olds, since it would be unnecessary to buy them a year younger, and incur all the risks of disease and accident, unless they could have been had at a proportional under value.
“* * * * * * leaves us this morning after a visit of about a week. He improves on acquaintance, and especially seems so pleased with every thing, that it would be very hard to quarrel with him. Certainly, as the Frenchman said, il a un grand talent pour le silence. I take the opportunity of his servant going direct to Rokeby to charge him with this letter, and a plaid which my daughters entreat you to accept of as a token of their warm good wishes. Seriously, you will find it a good bosom friend in an easterly wind, a black frost, or when your country avocations lead you to face a dry wap of snow. I find it by far the lightest and most comfortable integument which I can use upon such occasions.
“We had a grand jollification here last week: the
whole troop of Forest Yeomanry dining with us. I assure you the scene was gay
and even grand, with glittering sabres, waving standards, and screaming
bagpipes;
NOVEMBER, 1818. | 205 |
“I sympathize with you for the dole which you are dreeing under the inflictions of your honest proser. Of all the boring machines ever devised, your regular and determined storyteller is the most peremptory and powerful in his operations. This is a rainy day, and my present infliction is an idle cousin, a great amateur of the pipes, who is performing incessantly in the next room for the benefit of a probationary minstrel, whose pipes scream à la distance, as the young hoarse cock-chicken imitates the gallant and triumphant screech of a veteran Sir Chanticleer. Yours affectionately,
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