J. G. Lockhart: Life of Walter Scott

It had been Scott’s purpose to spend the Easter vacation in London, and receive his baronetcy; but this was prevented by the serious recurrence of the malady which so much alarmed his friends in the early part of the year 1817, and which had continued ever since to torment him at intervals. The subsequent correspondence will show that afflictions of various sorts were accumulated on his head at the same period:

Before this letter reached Lord Montagu, his brother

* “I am sure I produced two volumes of Jacobite Relics, such as no man in Scotland or England could have produced but myself.” So says Hogg,—ipse—see his Autobiography, 1832, p. 88. I never saw the Shepherd so elated as he was on the appearance of a very severe article on this book in the Edinburgh Review; for, to his exquisite delight, the hostile critic selected tor exceptive encomium one “old Jacobite strain,” viz. “Donald M’Gillavry,” which Hogg had fabricated the year before. Scott, too, enjoyed this joke almost as much as the Shepherd.

APRIL, 1819.

235

had sailed for Lisbon. The Duke of Wellington had placed his house in that capital (the Palace das Necessidades) at the Duke of Buccleuch’s disposal; and in the affectionate care and cheerful society of Captain Ferguson, the invalid had every additional source of comfort that his friends could have wished for him. But the malady had gone too far to be arrested by a change of climate; and the letter which he had addressed to Scott, when about to embark at Portsmouth, is endorsed with these words “The last I ever received from my dear friend the Duke of Buccleuch. Alas! alas!” The principal object of this letter was to remind Scott of his promise to sit to Raeburn for a portrait, to be hung up in that favourite residence where the Duke had enjoyed most of his society. “My prodigious undertaking,” writes his Grace, “of a west wing at Bowhill, is begun. A library of forty-one feet by twenty-one, is to be added to the present drawing-room. A space for one picture is reserved over the fire-place, and in this warm situation I intend to place the Guardian of Literature. I should be happy to have my friend Maida appear. It is now almost proverbial, ‘Walter Scott and his Dog.’ Raeburn should be warned that I am as well acquainted with my friend’s hands and arms as with his nose—and Vandyke was of my opinion. Many of R.’s works are shamefully finished—the face studied, but every thing else neglected. This is a fair opportunity of producing something really worthy of his skill.”

“Abbotsford, 15th April, 1819.

“My dear Lord Duke,

“How very strange it seems that this should be the first letter I address your Grace, and you so long absent from Scotland, and looking for all the news and nonsense of which I am in general such a faithful reporter. Alas! I have been ill—very—very—ill—only Dr Baillie says there is nothing of consequence about my malady except the pain—a pretty exception—said pain being intense enough to keep me roaring as loud as
* “Sir Walter got not only the recipe for making bread from us—but likewise learnt the best mode of cutting it ‘in a family way.’ The bread-board and large knife used at Abbotsford at breakfasttime, were adopted by Sir Walter, after seeing them ‘work well’ in our family.”—Note by Mr Andrew Shortrede.

APRIL, 1819. 243
your Grace’s ci-devant John of Lorn, and of, generally speaking, from six to eight hours’ incessant duration, only varied by intervals of deadly sickness. Poor Sophia was alone with me for some time, and managed a half distracted pack of servants with spirit, and sense, and presence of mind, far beyond her years, never suffering her terror at seeing me in a state so new to her and so alarming to divert her mind an instant from what was fit and proper to be done. Pardon this side compliment to your Grace’s little Jacobite, to whom you have always been so kind. If sympathy could have cured me, I should not have been long ill. Gentle and simple were all equally kind, and even old Tom Watson crept down from Falshope to see how I was coming on, and to ejaculate ‘if any thing ailed the Shirra, it would be sair on the Duke.’ The only unwelcome resurrection was that of old * * *, whose feud with me (or rather dryness) I had well hoped was immortal; but he came jinking over the moor with daughters and ponies, and God knows what, to look after my precious health. I cannot tolerate that man; it seems to me as if I hated him for things not only past and present, but for some future offence which is as yet in the womb of fate.

“I have had as many remedies sent me for cramp and jaundice as would set up a quack doctor—three from Mrs Plummer, each better than the other one—at least from every gardener in the neighbourhood—besides all sort of recommendations to go to Cheltenham, to Harrowgate, to Jericho for aught I know. Now if there is one thing I detest more than another, it is a watering-place, unless a very pleasant party be previously formed, when, as Tony Lumpkin says, ‘a gentleman may be in a concatenation.’ The most extraordinary recipe was that of my Highland piper, John
244 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
Bruce, who spent a whole Sunday in selecting twelve stones from twelve south-running streams, with the purpose that I should sleep upon them, and be whole. I caused him to be told that the recipe was infallible, but that it was absolutely necessary to success that the stones should be wrapt up in the petticoat of a widow who had never wished to marry again, upon which the piper renounced all hope of completing the charm. I had need of a softer couch than Bruce had destined me, for so general was the tension of the nerves all over the body, although the pain of the spasms in the stomach did not suffer the others to be felt, that my whole left leg was covered with swelling and inflammation, arising from the unnatural action of the muscles, and I had to be carried about like a child. My right leg escaped better, the muscles there having less irritability, owing to its lame state. Your grace may imagine the energy of pain in the nobler parts, when cramps in the extremities, sufficient to produce such effects, were unnoticed by me during their existence. But enough of so disagreeable a subject.

“Respecting the portrait, I shall be equally proud and happy to sit for it, and hope it may be so executed as to be in some degree worthy of the preferment to which it is destined.* But neither my late golden hue, for I was covered with jaundice, nor my present silver complexion (looking much more like a spectre than a man) will present any idea of my quondam beef-eating physiognomy. I must wait till the age of brass, the true juridical bronze of my profession, shall again appear on my frontal. I hesitate a little about Rae-
* The position in the Library at Bowhill, originally destined by the late Duke of Buccleuch for a portrait that never was executed, is now filled by that which Raeburn painted in 1808 for Constable, and which has been engraved for the first volume of this work.

APRIL, 1819. 245
burn, unless your Grace is quite determined. He has very much to do; works just now chiefly for cash, poor fellow, as he can have but a few years to make money; and has twice already made a very chowder-headed person of me. I should like much (always with your approbation) to try Allan, who is a man of real genius, and has made one or two glorious portraits, though his predilection is to the historical branch of the art. We did rather a handsome thing for him, considering that in Edinburgh we are neither very wealthy nor great amateurs. A hundred persons subscribed ten guineas a-piece to raffle* for his fine picture of the Circassian Chief
* Three pictures were ultimately raffled for; and the following note, dated April the 1st, 1819, shows how keenly and practically Scott, almost in the crisis of his malady, could attend to the details of such a business:
To J. G. Lockhart, Esq., Advocate, Edinburgh.
“I have been dreadfully ill since I wrote to you, but I think I have now got the turn fairly. It was quite time, for though the doctors say the disease is not dangerous, yet I could not have endured six days more agony. I have a summons from the ingenious Mr David Bridges to attend to my interests at his shop next Saturday, or send some qualified person to act on my behalf. I suppose this mysterious missive alludes to the plan about Allan’s pictures, and at any rate I hope you will act for me. I should think a raffle with dice would give more general satisfaction than a lottery. You would be astonished what unhandsome suspicions well educated and sensible persons will take into their heads, when a selfish competition awakens the mean and evil passions of our nature. Let each subscriber throw the dice in person or by proxy, leaving out all who throw under a certain number, and let this be repeated till the number is so far reduced that the three who throw highest may hold the prizes. I have much to say to you, and should you spare me a day about the end of next week, I trust you will find me pretty bobbish. Always yours affectionately,
W. S.
The Mr David Bridges here mentioned has occurred already.—

246 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
selling slaves to the Turkish Pacha a beautiful and highly poetical picture. There was another small picture added by way of second prize, and, what is curious enough, the only two peers on the list, Lord Wemyss and Lord Fife, both got prizes. Allan has made a sketch which I shall take to town with me when I can go, in hopes Lord Stafford, or some other picture-buyer, may fancy it, and order a picture. The subject is the murder of Archbishop Sharp on Magus Moor, prodigiously well treated. The savage ferocity of the assassins, crowding one on another to strike at the old prelate on his knees—contrasted with the old man’s figure—and that of his daughter endeavouring to interpose for his protection, and withheld by a ruffian of milder mood than his fellows:—the dogged fanatical severity of Rathillet’s countenance, who remained on horseback witnessing, with stern fanaticism, the murder he did not choose to be active in, lest it should be said that he struck out of private revenge—are all amazingly well combined in the sketch. I question if the artist can bring them out with equal spirit in the painting which he meditates. Sketches give a sort of fire to the imagination of the spectator, who is apt to fancy a great deal more for himself than the pencil, in the finished picture, can possibly present to his eye afterwards. Constable has offered Allan three hundred pounds to make sketches for an edition of the Tales of My Landlord, and other novels of that cycle, and says he will give him the same sum next year, so, from being pinched enough, this very deserving artist suddenly finds himself at his ease. He was long at Odessa with the Duke of Richelieu, and is a very entertaining person.

“I saw with great pleasure Wilkie’s sketch of your
See ante, p. 172. The jokers in Blackwood made him happy, by dubbing him “The Director-General of the Fine Arts for Scotland.”

LETTER TO THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH. 247
Grace, and I think when I get to town I shall coax him out of a copy, to me invaluable. I hope, however, when you return, you will sit to Lawrence. We should have at least one picture of your Grace from the real good hand. Sooth to speak, I cannot say much for the juvenile representations at Bowhill and in the library at Dalkeith. Return, however, with the original features in good health, and we shall not worry you about portraits. The library at Bowhill will be a delightful room, and will be some consolation to me who must, I fear, lose for some time the comforts of the eating-room, and substitute panada and toast and water for the bonny haunch and buxom bottle of claret. Truth is, I must make great restrictions on my creature-comforts, at least till my stomach recovers its tone and ostrich-like capacity of digestion. Our spring here is slow, but not unfavourable: the country looking very well, and my plantings for the season quite completed. I have planted quite up two little glens, leading from the Aid-de-Camp’s habitation up to the little loch, and expect the blessings of posterity for the shade and shelter I shall leave where, God knows, I found none.

“It is doomed this letter is not to close without a request. I conclude your Grace has already heard from fifty applicants that the kirk of Middlebie is vacant, and I come forward as the fifty-first (always barring prior engagements and better claims) in behalf of George Thomson, a son of the minister of Melrose, being the grinder of my boys, and therefore deeply entitled to my gratitude and my good offices, as far as they can go. He is nearer Parson Abraham Adams than any living creature I ever saw—very learned, very religious, very simple, and extremely absent. His father, till very lately, had but a sort of half stipend, during the incumbency of a certain notorious Mr MacLagan, to
248 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
whom he acted only as assistant. The poor devil was brought to the grindstone (having had the want of precaution to beget a large family), and became the very figure of a fellow who used to come upon the stage to sing, ‘Let us all be unhappy together.’ This poor lad George was his saving angel, not only educating himself, but taking on him the education of two of his brothers, and maintaining them out of his own scanty pittance. He is a sensible lad, and by no means a bad preacher, a staunch Anti-Gallican, and orthodox in his principles. Should your Grace find yourself at liberty to give countenance to this very innocent and deserving creature, I need not say it will add to the many favours you have conferred on me, but I hope the parishioners will have also occasion to say, ‘Weel bobbit, George of Middlebie.’ Your Grace’s Aide-de-camp, who knows young Thomson well, will give you a better idea of him than I can do. He lost a leg by an accident in his boyhood, which spoiled as bold and fine looking a grenadier as ever charged bayonet against a Frenchman’s throat. I think your Grace will not like him the worse for having a spice of military and loyal spirit about him. If you knew the poor fellow, your Grace would take uncommon interest in him, were it but for the odd mixture of sense and simplicity, and spirit and good morals. Somewhat too much of him.

“I conclude you will go to Mafra, Cintra, or some of these places, which Baretti describes so delightfully, to avoid the great heats, when the Palace de las Necessidades must become rather oppressive. By the by, though it were only for the credit of the name, I am happy to learn it has that useful English comfort, a water closet. I suppose the armourer of the Liffey has already put it in complete repair. Your Grace sees the most secret passages respecting great men cannot be
APRIL 16, 1819. 249
hidden from their friends. There is but little news here but death in the clan. Harden’s sister is dead—a cruel blow to Lady Die,* who is upwards of eighty-five, and accustomed to no other society. Again, Mrs Frank Scott, his uncle’s widow, is dead, unable to survive the loss of two fine young men in India, her sons, whose death closely followed each other. All this is sad work; but it is a wicked and melancholy world we live in. God bless you, my dear, dear Lord. Take great care of your health, for the sake of all of us. You are the breath of our nostrils, useful to thousands, and to many of these thousands indispensable. I will write again very soon, when I can keep my breast longer to the desk without pain, for I am not yet without frequent relapses, when they souse me into scalding water without a moment’s delay, where I lie, as my old grieve Tom Purdie said last night, being called to assist at the operation, ‘like a haulded saumon’ I write a few lines to the Aide-de-Camp, but I am afraid of putting this letter beyond the bounds of Lord Montagu’s frank. When I can do any thing for your Grace here, you know I am most pleased and happy. Ever respectfully and affectionately your Grace’s

Walter Scott.”

The accounts of Scott’s condition circulated in Edinburgh in the course of this April were so alarming that I should not have thought of accepting his invitation to

* The Duke of Buccleuch had given Scott some old oak-roots from Drumlanrig, out of which a very beautiful set of dinner-tables had been manufactured by Messrs Bullock.

APRIL—1819.

257

revisit Abbotsford, unless John Ballantyne had given me better tidings, about the end of the month. He informed me that his “illustrious friend” (for so both the Ballantynes usually spoke of him) was so much recovered as to have resumed his usual literary tasks, though with this difference, that he now, for the first time in his life, found it necessary to employ the hand of another. I have now before me a letter of the 8th April, in which Scott says to Constable, “Yesterday I began to dictate, and did it easily and with comfort. This is a great point—but I must proceed by little and little; last night I had a slight return of the enemy—but baffled him;” and he again writes to the bookseller on the 11th,—“John Ballantyne is here, and returns with copy, which my increasing strength permits me to hope I may now furnish regularly.”

“Dear James,—These matters will need more than your usual carefulness. Look sharp—double sharp—my trust is constant in thee:—

But to return—I rode out to Abbotsford with John Ballantyne towards the end of the spring vacation, and though he had warned me of a sad change in Scott’s appearance, it was far beyond what I had been led to anticipate. He had lost a great deal of flesh—his clothes hung loose about him—his countenance was meagre, haggard, and of the deadliest yellow of the jaundice—and his hair, which a few weeks before had been but slightly sprinkled with grey, was now almost literally snow-white. His eye, however, retained its fire unquenched; indeed it seemed to have gained in brilliancy from the new langour of the other features; and he received us with all the usual cordiality, and even with little perceptible diminishment in the sprightliness of his manner. He sat at table while we dined, but partook only of some rice pudding; and after the cloth was drawn, while sipping his toast and water, pushed round the bottles in his old style, and talked with easy cheerfulness of the stout battle he had fought, and which he now seemed to consider as won.

I told Ballantyne that I saw this was no time for my

* See Scott’s Poetical Works (Edition, 1834), Vol. vi. p. 343.

ABBOTSFORD—MAY, 1819.

261

visit, and that I should start for Edinburgh again at an early hour and begged he would make my apologies in the propriety of which he acquiesced. But as I was dressing, about seven next morning, Scott himself tapped at my door, and entered, looking better I thought than at my arrival the day before. “Don’t think of going,” said he, “I feel hearty this morning, and if my devil does come back again, it won’t be for three days at any rate. For the present, I want nothing to set me up except a good trot in the open air, to drive away the accursed vapours of the laudanum I was obliged to swallow last night. You have never seen Yarrow, and when I have finished a little job I have with Jocund Johnny, we shall all take horse and make a day of it.” When I said something about a ride of twenty miles being rather a bold experiment after such a night, he answered, that he had ridden more than forty, a week before, under similar circumstances, and felt nothing the worse. He added that there was an election on foot, in consequence of the death of Sir John Riddell of Riddell, Member of Parliament for the Selkirk district of Burghs, and that the bad health and absence of the Duke of Buccleuch rendered it quite necessary that he should make exertions on this occasion. “In short,” said he, laughing, “I have an errand which I shall perform—and as I must pass Newark, you had better not miss the opportunity of seeing it under so excellent a Cicerone as the old minstrel,

‘Whose withered cheek and tresses grey

Shall yet see many a better day.’”

About eleven o’clock, accordingly, he was mounted, by the help of Tom Purdie, upon a staunch, active cob yclept Sybil Grey, exactly such a creature as is described in Mr Dinmont’s Dumple—while Ballantyne sprung into the saddle of noble Old Mortality, and we

262

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

proceeded to the town of Selkirk, where Scott halted to do business at the Sheriff-Clerk’s, and begged us to move onward at a gentle pace until he should overtake us. He came up by and by at a canter, and seemed in high glee with the tidings he had heard about the canvass. And so we rode by Philiphaugh, Carterhaugh, Bowhill, and Newark, he pouring out all the way his picturesque anecdotes of former times—more especially of the fatal field where Montrose was finally overthrown by Leslie. He described the battle as vividly as if he had witnessed it; the passing of the Ettrick at daybreak by the Covenanting General’s heavy cuirassiers, many of them old soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus, and the wild confusion of the Highland host when exposed to their charge on an extensive haugh as flat as a bowling-green. He drew us aside at Slain-men’s-lee, to observe the green mound that marks the resting-place of the slaughtered royalists; and pointing to the apparently precipitous mountain, Minchmoor, over which Montrose and his few cavaliers escaped, mentioned that, rough as it seemed, his mother remembered passing it in her early days in a coach and six, on her way to a ball at Peebles—several footmen marching on either side of the carriage to prop it up, or drag it through bogs, as the case might require. He also gave us, with all the dramatic effect of one of his best chapters, the history of a worthy family who, inhabiting at the time of the battle a cottage on his own estate, had treated with particular kindness a young officer of Leslie’s army quartered on them for a night or two before. When parting from them to join the troops, he took out a purse of gold, and told the good woman that he had a presentiment he should not see another sun set, and in that case would wish his money to remain in her kind hands; but, if he should survive, he had no doubt

RIDDELL—MAY, 1819.

263

she would restore it honestly. The young man returned mortally wounded, but lingered awhile under her roof, and finally bequeathed to her and hers his purse and his blessing. “Such,” he said, “was the origin of the respectable lairds of ——, now my good neighbours.”

The Bride of Lammermoor, and the Legend of Montrose, would hare been read with indulgence, had they needed it; for the painful circumstances under which they must have been produced were known wherever an English newspaper made its way; but I believe that, except in numerous typical errors, which sprung of necessity from the author’s inability to correct any proof-sheets, no one ever affected to perceive in either tale the slightest symptom of his malady. Dugald Dalgetty was placed by acclamation in the same rank with Bailie Jarvie—a conception equally new, just, and humorous, and worked out in all the

* Mr William Clerk. † A shilling.

‡ The Lord Chief-Commissioner Adam.

274

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

details, as if it had formed the luxurious entertainment of a chair as easy as was ever shaken by Rabelais; and though the character of Montrose himself seemed hardly to have been treated so fully as the subject merited, the accustomed rapidity of the novelist’s execution would have been enough to account for any such defect. Of Caleb Balderstone—(the hero of one of the many ludicrous delineations which he owed to the late Lord Haddington, a man of rare pleasantry, and one of the best tellers of old Scotch stories that I ever heard)—I cannot say that the general opinion was then, nor do believe it ever since has been, very favourable. It was pronounced at the time, by more than one critic, a mere caricature; and, though Scott himself would never in after days admit this censure to be just, he allowed that “he might have sprinkled rather too much parsley over his chicken.” But even that blemish, for I grant that I think it a serious one, could not disturb the profound interest and pathos of the Bride of Lammermoor—to my fancy the most pure and powerful of all the tragedies that Scott ever penned. The reader will be well pleased, however, to have, in place of any critical observations on this work, the following particulars of its composition from the notes which its printer dictated when stretched on the bed from which he well knew he was never to rise.

As I had no opportunity of seeing him again until he was almost entirely re-established, I shall leave the progress of his restoration to be collected from his correspondence. But I must not forget to set down what his daughter Sophia afterwards told me of his conduct upon one night, in June, when he really did despair of himself. He then called his children about his bed, and took leave of them with solemn tenderness. After giving them, one by one, such advice as suited their years and characters, he added, “For myself, my dears, I am unconscious of ever having done any man an injury, or omitted any fair opportunity of doing any man a benefit. I well know that no human life can appear otherwise than weak and filthy in the eyes of God; but I rely on the merits and intercession of our Redeemer.” He then laid his hand on their heads, and said, “God bless you! Live so that you may all hope to meet each other in a better place hereafter. And now leave me that I may turn my face to the wall.” They obeyed him: but he presently fell into a deep sleep; and when he awoke from it after many hours, the crisis of extreme danger was felt by himself, and pronounced by his physician, to have been overcome.

≪ PREV

NEXT ≫

William Adam (1751-1839) Scottish barrister, Whig MP (1784-1812) and ally of Charles James Fox (whom he once wounded in a duel); he was privy councillor (1815) and a friend of Sir Walter Scott.

Sir William Allan (1782-1850) Scottish painter who traveled in Russia and exhibited at the Royal Academy to which he was elected in 1835; he was president of the Royal Scottish Academy (1838).

William Atkinson (1774-1839) English architect who worked at Sir Walter Scott's Abbotsford; he published Views of Picturesque Cottages (1805).

Matthew Baillie (1761-1823) Physician and brother of Joanna Baillie; as successor to the anatomist William Hunter he treated the pedal deformities of both Walter Scott and Lord Byron.

James Ballantyne (1772-1833) Edinburgh printer in partnership with his younger brother John; the company failed in the financial collapse of 1826.

John Ballantyne (1774-1821) Edinburgh publisher and literary agent for Walter Scott; he was the younger brother of the printer James Ballantyne.

Giuseppe Marc'Antonio Baretti (1719-1789) Italian literary critic and lexicographer who was a member of Samuel Johnson's circle.

David Bridges (1776-1840) Edinburgh clothier, connoisseur, and secretary of the Society of Dilettanti.

Henry Peter Brougham, first baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868) Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a founder of the Edinburgh Review in which he chastised Byron's Hours of Idleness; he defended Queen Caroline in her trial for adultery (1820), established the London University (1828), and was appointed lord chancellor (1830).

John Bruce [John o’ Skye] (d. 1847) Sir Walter Scott's piper at Abbotsford, afterwards major in the 72nd Foot.

Charles Bucke (1781-1846) English poet and miscellaneous writer involved in a bitter controversy with the actor Edmund Kean regarding Bucke's play The Italians, or, The Fatal Accusation: a Tragedy (1819).

George Bullock (1782-1818) English cabinetmaker in Liverpool and London, the brother of the museum-director William Bullock; his clients included Walter Scott.

William Bullock (1780 c.-1849) Naturalist and antiquary who in 1795 opened a museum in Liverpool; in 1809 his collections opened in London as the Liverpool Museum.

Robert Burns (1759-1796) Scottish poet and song collector; author of Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786).

Alexander Cannon (1689 fl.) He was second in command under John Graham of Claverhouse at the Battle of Killicrankie.

Francis Charteris, eighth earl of Wemyss (1772-1853) Scottish peer, the son of Francis Wemyss Charteris, Lord Elcho.

Charles Chisholme of Chisholme (1783-1823) The natural son of William Chisholme; he married Helena Anne, sister of the politician Edward Ellice.

William Clerk (1771-1847) Edinburgh lawyer, the son of John Clerk of Eldin and brother of Lord Eldin (1757-1832); he was Clerk of the Jury Court (1815) and a friend of Sir Walter Scott. He is said to be the model for Darsie Latimer in Redgauntlet.

Joseph Green Cogswell (1786-1871) American bibliographer; he was professor of geology at Harvard, editor of the New York Review, and superintendent of the Astor Library.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) English poet and philosopher who projected Lyrical Ballads (1798) with William Wordsworth; author of Biographia Literaria (1817), On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other works.

Archibald Constable (1774-1827) Edinburgh bookseller who published the Edinburgh Review and works of Sir Walter Scott; he went bankrupt in 1826.

Georges Bernard Depping (1784-1853) Franco-German historian, author of Les Juifs dans le Moyen Age (1834); he wrote for the New Monthly Magazine.

William Dick (d. 1821) Of Tullymet, Perthshire, physician in the East India Company who in retirement successfully treated Sir Walter Scott's violent stomach complaints.

James Duff, fourth earl of Fife (1776-1857) Son of the third earl (d. 1811); after study at Westminster and Oxford he fought at the Battle of Talavera, was Major-General in the Spanish Army, and was Tory MP for Banffshire (1818-27).

Robert Saunders Dundas, second viscount Melville (1771-1851) Son of the first viscount (d. 1811); he was keeper of the signet for Scotland, MP, president of the board of control, and first lord of the Admiralty (1812-27).

Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533-1603) Queen of England 1558-1603.

David Steuart Erskine, eleventh earl of Buchan (1742-1829) Founder of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1780), he contributed essays to the Gentleman's Magazine, Scots Magazine, The Bee, and the Literary Gazette.

Henry Erskine (1746-1817) Scottish barrister, poet, and wit, the elder brother of Thomas Erskine; he was MP for Haddington (1806) and Dumfries (1806-07), and was Lord Advocate (1783, 1806).

Thomas Erskine, first baron Erskine (1750-1823) Scottish barrister who was a Whig MP for Portsmouth (1783-84, 1790-1806); after defending the political radicals Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall in 1794 he was lord chancellor in the short-lived Grenville-Fox administration (1806-07).

William Fearman (1823 fl.) New Bond Street bookseller who wrote a spurious continuation of Scott's Tales of my Landlord and defended himself in Blackwood's for November 1819.

Sir Adam Ferguson (1771-1855) Son of the philosopher and classmate and friend of Sir Walter Scott; he served in the Peninsular Campaign under Wellington, afterwards living on his estate in Dumfriesshire.

John Macpherson Ferguson (1783-1855) Scottish naval officer, youngest son of the philosopher Adam Ferguson and the brother of Sir Walter Scott's friend Sir Adam Ferguson.

Frederick Augustus, Duke of York (1763-1827) He was commander-in-chief of the Army, 1798-1809, until his removal on account of the scandal involving his mistress Mary Anne Clarke.

Jane Gordon, duchess of Gordon [née Maxwell] (1748-1812) One of London's most prominent hostesses; in 1767 she married Alexander Gordon, fourth duke of Gordon. She was active in Tory politics and married three of her daughters to dukes.

George Granville Leveson- Gower, first duke of Sutherland (1758-1833) The son of the first marquess of Stafford (d. 1803); he was one of the wealthiest men in Britain with an annual income of £200,000; his program for Scottish clearances and resettlement was widely unpopular. He was created duke in 1833.

James Graham, first marquess of Montrose (1612-1650) Scottish Cavalier, famed for his exploits as lieutenant-general in Scotland (1644-1645).

King Gustavus II of Sweden (1594-1632) King of Sweden 1611-32 during the Thirty Years War, a famed military commander.

David Hackston of Rathillet (d. 1680) Scottish Covenanter; in 1679 he was present at the murder of Archbishop Sharp and at the battle of Bothwell Bridge; he was executed at Edinburgh the following year.

Sir James Hall of Dunglass, fourth baronet (1761-1832) Scottish geologist and friend of John Playfair; he was MP and president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Charles Hamilton, eighth earl of Haddington (1753-1828) Son of Thomas, the seventh earl (d. 1794); he was a Scottish representative peer and according to John Gibson Lockhart, a fine story-teller.

James Hogg [The Ettrick Shepherd] (1770-1835) Scottish autodidact, poet, and novelist; author of The Queen's Wake (1813) and Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824).

Charles Hope, Lord Granton (1763-1851) Educated at Edinburgh University, he was Tory MP for Edinburgh (1803-05) and Lord President of Court of Session (1811-41).

Charles Hope (1798-1854) Naval officer, son of Rt. Hon. Charles Hope, Lord Granton and brother of John Hope, Lord Justice Clerk.

David Hume (1757-1838) The nephew of the philosopher; he was educated at University of Edinburgh and Glasgow University and was a member of the Speculative Society, professor of Scots law in the University of Edinburgh, and baron of the exchequer. He contributed to The Mirror and The Lounger.

Joseph Hume (d. 1819) Scottish advocate, the son of David Hume of Ninewells; he was a friend of Walter Scott and John Gibson Lockhart.

Washington Irving [Geoffrey Crayon] (1783-1859) American writer living in England in 1815, where he made his reputation with The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent (1820).

John Jamieson (1759-1838) Scottish clergyman and antiquary educated at Glasgow University; he published Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 2 vols (1808).

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English man of letters, among many other works he edited A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) and Shakespeare (1765), and wrote Lives of the Poets (1779-81).

Edmund Kean (1787-1833) English tragic actor famous for his Shakespearean roles.

William Laidlaw (1779-1845) The early friend of James Hogg and Sir Walter Scott's steward and amanuensis.

Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) English portrait painter who succeeded Joshua Reynolds as painter in ordinary to the king (1792); he was president of the Royal Academy (1820).

David Leslie, first Lord Newark (1601-1682) Scottish general who in 1645 defeated James Graham, Marquis of Montrose at the Battle of Philiphaugh; in 1651 he was defeated by Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester.

John Liston (1776 c.-1846) English comic actor who performed at the Haymarket and Covent Garden.

John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854) Editor of the Quarterly Review (1825-1853); son-in-law of Walter Scott and author of the Life of Scott 5 vols (1838).

Sophia Lockhart [née Scott] (1799-1837) Walter Scott's eldest daughter, who married John Gibson Lockhart in 1820.

Louis XIV, king of France [the Sun King] (1638-1715) The son of Louis XIII (d. 1643); he was King of France 1643-1715.

Charles Mackay (1787-1857) Scottish actor who performed characters from Walter Scott's novels, notably Bailie Nichol Jarvie.

Frederick Maclagan (1738-1818) Minister of Melrose Parish (1768-88); about 1785 he was charged with adultery but acquitted.

Peter Mathieson (1770-1854) Sir Walter Scott's coachman.

George Brudenell Montagu, duke of Montagu (1712-1790) The son of George Brudenell, third earl of Cardigan (d. 1732); 1730 he married Lady Mary Montagu, daughter of the second duke of Montagu; on her father's death he assumed the name of Montagu.

Henry James Scott- Montagu, second baron Montagu of Boughton (1776-1845) The son of Henry Scott, third Duke of Buccleuch; he was educated at Eton and St. John's College, Cambridge; he was Lord-Lieutenant of Selkirkshire (1823).

Jane Margaret Montagu [née Douglas] (1779-1859) The daughter of Archibald James Edward Douglas, first Baron Douglas of Douglas; in 1804 she married Henry James Montagu-Scott, second Baron Montagu, son of the third Duke of Buccleuch.

William Henry Murray (1790-1852) Actor and theater manager, the illegitimate son of the playwright Charles Murray; he performed in Ediburgh adaptations of Walter Scott's novels.

Mary Plummer [née Pringle] (d. 1838) The daughter of James Pringle of Bowland; she married Andrew Plummer, who preceded Walter Scott as Sheriff of Selkirkshire.

John Pringle of Clifton and Haining (1796-1831) The son of Mark Pringle of Clifton and Haining; educated at Oxford, he was a Whig MP for Linlithgow burghs (1819-20).

Bryan Waller Procter [Barry Cornwall] (1787-1874) English poet; a contemporary of Byron at Harrow, and friend of Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb. He was the author of several volumes of poem and Mirandola, a tragedy (1821).

Thomas Purdie (1767-1829) Sir Walter Scott's forester; they originally met when Purdie was brought before Sheriff Scott on charges of poaching.

Francçois Rabelais (1494 c.-1533) French physician and satirist; author of Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34, 1546-52, 1562); the English translation by Urquhart and Motteux (1653, 1693-94) has been much admired.

Sir Henry Raeburn (1756-1823) Scottish portrait painter and friend of Sir Walter Scott.

Armand-Emmanuel de Vignerot du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu (1766-1822) French nobleman who during the Napoleonic Wars served as a general in the Russian Imperial Army; after the Bourbon Restoration he succeeded Talleyrand as the Prime Minister of France.

Sir John Buchanan Riddell, ninth baronet (1768 c.-1819) He was a Scottish MP for Linlithgow burghs (1812-19).

William Riddell of Camieston (1746-1829) Son of Thomas Riddell of Camieston; he was a Writer to the Signet (1770) who quarreled with Walter Scott.

Louis de Rouvroy duc de Saint-Simon (1675-1755) French courtier, author of Mémoires (1788).

Charles William Henry Montagu- Scott, fourth duke of Buccleuch (1772-1819) Son of the third duke and friend of Walter Scott; he was a Tory MP before succeeding to the title in 1812.

Charles Scott (1805-1841) The younger son of Sir Walter Scott; educated at Oxford, he pursued a career in diplomacy and died in Tehran.

Diana Scott [née Hume Campbell] (1735-1827) The daughter of the third earl of Marchmont; in 1754 she married Walter Scott, eleventh laird of Harden. She was an early patroness of Walter Scott.

Lady Elizabeth Scott, duchess of Buccleuch [née Montagu] (1743-1827) The daughter of George Montagu, first Duke of Montagu; in 1767 she married Henry Scott, third Duke of Buccleuch.

Harriet Katherine Scott, duchess of Buccleuch [née Townshend] (1773-1814) The daughter of Thomas Townshend, first Viscount Sydney of St. Leonards; in 1795 she married Charles William Henry Montagu-Scott, fourth Duke of Buccleuch.

Henry Scott, third duke of Buccleuch (1746-1812) The son of Francis Scott, styled earl of Dalkeith (1721-1750), he succeeded his grandfather in the dukedom. He was an improver and close friend of Henry Dundas.

Hugh Hepburne- Scott of Harden, sixth baron Polwarth (1758-1841) He inherited Harden in 1793, assumed the name of Hepburne in 1820, and became sixth baron Polwarth in 1835.

Lady Margaret Charlotte Scott [née Carpenter] (1770-1826) The impoverished daughter of French parents who married Walter Scott in 1797.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Scottish poet, novelist, antiquary, biographer, editor, and sheriff.

Sir Walter Scott, second baronet (1801-1847) The elder son and heir of Sir Walter Scott; he was cornet in the 18th Hussars (1816), captain (1825), lieut.-col. (1839). In the words of Maria Edgeworth, he was “excessively shy, very handsome, not at all literary.”

Walter Francis Montagu-Douglas- Scott, fifth duke of Buccleuch (1806-1884) Son of the fourth duke whom he succeeded in 1819; he was educated at Eton College and at St John's College and was lord privy seal in Peel's ministry (1842-46).

James Sharp, archbishop of St Andrews (1618-1679) Professor of Philosophy at St. Andrews; after his conversion to episcopacy he was made archbishop in 1661. He was murdered by Covenenters on Magus Moor.

Andrew Shortreed (1805-1858) Son of Walter Scott's friend, Robert Shortreed; he was an Edinburgh printer who at one time worked for James Ballantyne.

Robert Shortreed (1762-1829) Sheriff-substitute of Roxburghshire; he was a ballad-collector and close friend of Sir Walter Scott.

Charles Cuthbert Southey (1819-1888) Son of Robert Southey whose Life and Correspondence (1849-1850) he edited. Educated at Queen's College, Oxford, he was curate of Plumbland in Cumberland, vicar of Kingsbury Episcopi, Somerset (1855-79) and Askham, near Penrith (1885).

Edith Southey [née Fricker] (1774-1837) The daughter of Stephen Fricker, she was the first wife of Robert Southey and the mother of his children; they married in secret in 1795.

Robert Southey (1774-1843) Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose works, among them the Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813), History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).

Daniel Terry (1789-1829) English actor; after a career in provincial theater made his London debut in 1812. A close friend of Walter Scott, he performed in theatrical adaptations of Scott's novels.

Elizabeth Wemyss Terry [née Nasmyth] (1793-1862) Painter and wife of Walter Scott's friend Daniel Terry; after the death of her first husband she married the lexicographer Charles Richardson (1775-1865) in 1835.

Walter Scott Terry (1816-1842) The son of the actor Daniel Terry; he was a lieutenant in the Bombay Artillery, mortally wounded fighting at the Khyber Pass. Walter Scott was his godfather.

George Thomson (1792-1838) The son of George Thomson (1758-1835), clergyman at Melrose; he was the wooden-legged tutor and chaplain in the family of Sir Walter Scott. He was the model for Dominie Sampson in Guy Mannering.

George Ticknor (1791-1871) American author and Harvard professor of modern languages who travelled extensively in Europe 1815-19.

Sir Anthony Van Dyke (1599-1641) Flemish painter who studied under Rubens and spent the last decade of his life as a court painter to Charles I.

Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington (1769-1852) Soldier and statesman; commander in the Peninsular Campaign (1809-1813), he defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and was prime minister (1828-1830).

John Wesley (1703-1791) English clergyman and author; with George Whitefield he was a founder of Methodism.

Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841) Scottish-born artist whose genre-paintings were much admired; he was elected to the Royal Academy in 1811.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. (1817-1980). Begun as the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, Blackwood's assumed the name of its proprietor, William Blackwood after the sixth number. Blackwood was the nominal editor until 1834.

Edinburgh Annual Register. 19 vols (1808-1826). Edited by Walter Scott; it was a perennial money-sink for the Ballantyne concern.

The Edinburgh Weekly Journal. (1798-). Published by William Brown; at one time it was edited by James Ballantyne.

Henry Peter Brougham, first baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868) “The Jacobite Relics” in Edinburgh Review. Vol. 34 (August 1820): 148-60. A negative review of Hogg's first volume of Relics.

Charles Bucke (1781-1846) The Italians, or, the Fatal Accusation: a Tragedy, with a Preface; containing the Correspondence with the Committee of Drury Lane Theatre; P. Moore; and Mr. Kean. (London: G. and W. B. Whittaker, 1819).

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in Lyrical Ballads. (Bristol: T. N. Longman, 1798). The tale of a sailor doomed to wander the globe in appeasement for guilt.

William Fearman (1823 fl.) Tales of my Landlord: New Series, containing Pontefract Castle. 3 vols (London: William Fearman, 1820). A spurious continuation of Scott's novels.

James Hogg [The Ettrick Shepherd] (1770-1835) The Jacobite Relics of Scotland: being the Songs, Airs, and Legends, of the Adherents to the House of Stuart. 2 vols (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1819-1821). With the musical scores.

James Hogg [The Ettrick Shepherd] (1770-1835) “Memoir of the Author's Life” in Altrive Tales. (London: J. Cochrane and Co., 1832). One of several personal memoirs written by Hogg.

Edmund Kean (1787-1833) A Defense of Edmund Kean ... being a Reply to Mr. Buck's Preface, and remarks on his Tragedy of the Italians. (London: J. Lowndes, 1819). In reply to Charles Bucke.

Bryan Waller Procter [Barry Cornwall] (1787-1874) The Life of Edmund Kean. 2 vols (London: Edward Moxon, 1835). By “Barry Cornwall.”

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) “The Bride of Lammermoor” in Tales of my Landlord: third series. 4 vols (Edinburgh: Constable, 1819). The story of Lucy Ashton's love for Edgar, master of Ravenswood, dispossessed in the aftermath of 1689.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) “Charles, Duke of Buccleuch” in The Edinburgh Weekly Journal. (12 May 1819). Scott's obituary was reprinted in the Miscellaneous Prose Works (1827).

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) The Doom of Devorgoil: a Melo-drama; Auchindrane or, the Ayrshire Tragedy. (Edinburgh: Cadell, 1830). Written long before for Scott's friend, the actor Daniel Terry.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) “The Heart of Mid-Lothian” in Tales of my Landlord, second series. 4 vols (Edinburgh: Constable, 1818). The story of Effie Deans, set in eighteenth century Edinburgh.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Ivanhoe: a Romance. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Constable, 1820). A tale of the crusades.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) “Legend of Montrose” in Tales of my Landlord: third series. 4 vols (Edinburgh: Constable, 1819). Set in the 1640s during the Civil War.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) The Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, bart.. 28 vols (Edinburgh: R. Cadell, 1834-40). An earlier edition in six volumes had been published in Scott's lifetime.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) “The Noble Moringer” in Edinburgh Annual Register for 1816. (Edinburgh: 1820). Translated from the German; not signed.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Poetical Works. 12 vols (Edinburgh: R. Cadell, 1833-34).

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Rob Roy. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co., 1818). Published anonymously, as the rest of the Waverley novels.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Tales of my Landlord. (Edinburgh: 1816-31). The four series consist of: The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality (1), The Heart of Mid-lothian (2), The Bride of Lammermoor and Legend of Montrose (3) and Count Robert and Castle Dangerous (4).

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Waverley: or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Constable, 1814). Scott's first historical novel, set against the backdrop of the Jacobite rising of 1745.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Waverley Novels. 48 vols (Edinburgh: Cadell & Co., 1829-33). The Magnum Opus edition, with the author's revisions and new prefaces. Collected editions began appearing in 1820.

Robert Southey (1774-1843) History of Brazil. 3 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1810-1819).

Robert Southey (1774-1843) The Life of Wesley; and the Rise and Progress of Methodism. 2 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820). A second edition was published in 1820.

Daniel Terry (1789-1829) The Heart of Mid-Lothian: a Musical Drama in Three Acts. (London: W. Stockdale, 1819). Based on the novel by Walter Scott.

INFORMATION FROM TEI HEADER

Source Description:

Author: Lockhart, J. G. (John Gibson), 1794-1854

Title: Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 7 vols (Edinburgh: Robert Cadell, 1837).

Electronic Edition:

Series: Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org

Encoding Description: Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed. Obvious and unambiguous compositors’ errors have been silently corrected.

Markup and editing by: David Hill Radcliffe

Completed January 2011

Publication Statement:

Publisher: Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities, Virginia Tech

Availability: Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License