Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Sir Walter Scott to Lord Montagu of Boughton, 17 July 1823
“My dear Lord,
“I am delighted that you have got such a tutor for
Walter as entirely satisfies a person
so well acquainted with mankind as your Lordship; and I am not afraid that a
friend of yours should be imbued with any of very dangerous qualities, which
are sometimes found in the instructors placed around our noble youths. Betwixt
a narrow-minded pedantry, which naturally disgusts a young man, and the far
more formidable vices of flattery, assentation, and self-seeking of all kinds,
there are very few of the class of men who are likely to adopt the situation of
tutor, that one is not afraid to trust near the person of a boy of rank and
fortune. I think it is an argument of your friend’s good sense and
judgment, that he thinks the knowledge of domestic history essential to his
pupil. It is in fact the accomplishment which, of ![]()
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all others, comes most home to the business
and breast of a public man—and the Duke of Buccleuch can
never be regarded as a private one. Besides, it has, in a singular degree, the
tendency to ripen men’s judgment upon the wild political speculations now
current. Any one who will read Clarendon
with attention and patience, may regard veluti in
specula the form and pressure of our own times, if you
will just place the fanaticism of atheism and irreligion instead of that of
enthusiasm, and combine it with the fierce thirst after innovation proper to
both ages. Men of very high rank are, I have noticed, in youth peculiarly
accessible to the temptations held out to their inexperience by the ingenious
arguers upon speculative politics. There is popularity to be obtained by
listening to these lecturers—there is also an idea of generosity, and
independence, and public spirit, in affecting to hold cheap the privileges
which are peculiarly their own—and there may spring in some minds the idea (a
very vain one) that the turret would seem higher, and more distinguished, if
some parts of the building that overtop it were pulled down. I have no doubt
Mr Blakeney is aware of all this,
and will take his own time and manner in leading our young friend to draw from
history, in his own way, inferences which may apply to his own times. I will
consider anxiously what your Lordship mentions about a course of Scottish
study. We are still but very indifferently provided with Scotch histories of a
general description.* Lord Hailes’
Annals are the
foundation-stone, and an excellent book, though dryly written. * See some remarks on the Scottish historians in
Sir Walter’s reviewal of the first and
second volumes of Mr P. F.
Tytler’s elaborate work—a work which he had meant to
criticize throughout in similar detail, for he considered it as a very
important one in itself, and had, moreover, a warm regard for the
author—the son of his |
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| 274 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. | |
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Pinkerton, in two very unreadable
quartos, which yet abound in information, takes up the thread where
Hailes drops it—and then you have Robertson, down to the Union of the crowns.
But I would beware of task-work, which Pinkerton at least
must always be, and I would relieve him every now and then by looking at the
pages of old Pitscottie, where events
are told with so much naïveté, and even
humour, and such individuality as it were, that it places the actors and scenes
before the reader. The whole history of James
V. and Queen Mary may be
read to great advantage in the elegant Latin of Lesly, Bishop of Ross, and, collated with the account which his
opponent, Buchanan, in language still
more classical, gives of the same eventful reigns. Laing is but a bad guide through the seventeenth century, yet I
hardly know where a combined account of these events is to be had, so far as
Scotland is concerned, and still less where we could recommend to the young
Duke an account of Scottish jurisprudence that is not too technical. All this I
will be happy to talk over with your Lordship, for that our young friend should
possess this information in a general way is essential to his own comfort and
the welfare of many.
“About the land I have no doubt your Lordship is
quite right, but I have something of what is called the yeard
hunger.* I dare say you will get the other lots à bon marche, when you wish to have
them; and, to be sure, a ducal dignity is a monstrous beast for devouring ready
early friend Lord Woodhouselee. His own Tales of a
Grandfather have, however unambitiously undertaken, supplied
a more just and clear guide of Scottish history to the general reader,
than any one could have pointed out at the time when this letter was
addressed to Lord Montagu. * Earth~hunger. |
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| LETTER TO LORD MONTAGU. | 275 |
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cash. I do not fear, on the
part of Duke Walter, those ills which might
arise to many from a very great command of ready money, which sometimes makes a
young man, like a horse too full of spirits, make too much play at starting,
and flag afterwards. I think improvident expenditure will not be his fault,
though I have no doubt he will have the generous temper of his father and
grandfather, with more means to indulge an expense which has others for its
object more than mere personal gratification. This I venture to foretell, and
hope to see the accomplishment of my prophecy; few things could give me more
pleasure.
“My court-yard rises, but masons, of all men but
lovers, love the most to linger ere they depart. Two men are now tapping upon
the summit of my gate as gently as if they were laying the foundation-stone of
a Methodist meeting-house, and one plumber ‘sits, sparrow-like,
companionless,’ upon the top of a turret which should have been
finished a month since. I must go, and, as Judge
Jefferies used to express it, give them a lick with the rough
side of my tongue, which will relieve your Lordship sooner than might otherwise
have been.
“Melrose is looking excellently well. I begin to
think taking off the old roof would have hurt it, at least externally, by
diminishing its effect on the eye. The lowering the roofs of the aisles has had
a most excellent effect. Sir Adam is
well, and his circle augmented by his Indian brother, Major Ferguson, who has much of the family
manners an excellent importation, of course, to Tweedside Ever yours truly,
John Theophilus Blakeney (1774 c.-1856)
The son of Colonel William Blakeney; he was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge and
the Inner Temple, and was fellow of St. John's (1816-56).
George Buchanan (1506-1582)
Scottish historian, scholar, and respected Latin poet; he was tutor to James VI. and
author of
Rerum Scoticarum historia (1582).
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.
James V, king of Scotland (1512-1542)
He was king of Scotland from 1513 and father of Mary Queen of Scots; he died following
the Scottish defeat at Solway Moss.
George Jeffreys, first baron Jeffreys (1645-1689)
Known as the “hanging judge,” he was chief justice of king's bench (1683-1685) in which
capacity he presided over the trial of Algernon Sidney and the Rye House plotters; he died
in the Tower of London.
Malcolm Laing (1762-1818)
Scottish advocate and historian, educated at Edinburgh University; he was Whig MP for
Orkney and Shetland (1807-12). In 1805 he published
The Poems of Ossian,
containing the Poetical Works of James Macpherson in Prose and Verse.
John Lesley (1527-1596)
Bishop of Ross (1566); he was a Scottish historian who served Queen Mary as advisor and
ambassador to the court of Elizabeth.
Queen Mary of Scotland (1542-1587)
The controversial queen of Scotland (1561-1567) who found a number of champions in the
romantic era; Sir Walter Scott treats her sympathetically in
The
Abbott (1820).
John Pinkerton [Robert Heron] (1758-1826)
Scottish poet and antiquary patronized by Horace Walpole; editor of
Ancient Scottish Poems (1786), published
A Dissertation on the
Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths (1787)
History of
Scotland (1797),
Modern Geography (1802) and other
works.
William Robertson (1721-1793)
Educated at Edinburgh University of which he became principal (1762), he was a
highly-regarded historian, the author of
History of Scotland in the Reign
of Queen Mary and of King James VI (1759) and
The History of the
Reign of Charles V (1769).
Patrick Fraser Tytler (1791-1849)
Sottish barrister, son of Alexander Fraser Tytler; he published
The
Life of the Admirable Crichton (1819),
History of Scotland
(1828-43), and other works.
