Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Sir Walter Scott to Joanna Baillie, 12 February 1824
“Edinburgh, Feb. 12, 1824.
“My dearest Friend,
“I hasten to answer your kind enquiries about
Sophia. You would learn from my last
that she was in a fair way of recovery, and I am happy to say she continues so
well that we have no longer any apprehensions on her account. She will soon get
into her sitting-room again, and of course have good rest at night, and gather
strength gradually. I have been telling her that her face, which was last week
the size of a sixpence, has, in three or four days attained the diameter of a
shilling, and will soon attain its natural and most extensive circumference of
half-a-crown. If we live till 12th of next month we shall all go to Abbotsford,
and between the black doctor and the red nurse (pony and cow, videlicet) I
trust she will be soon well again. As for little Johnnie I have no serious apprehensions, being quite of your
mind that his knowingness is only a proof that he is much with grown-up people;
the child is active enough, and I hope will do well—yet an only child is like a
blot at backgammon, and fate is apt to hit it. I am particularly entertained
with your answer to Montgomery, because
it happened to be precisely the same with mine; he applied to me for a sonnet
or an elegy, instead of which I sent him an account of a manner of constructing
chimneys so as scarcely to contract soot; and 2dly, of a very simple and
effectual machine for sweeping away what soot does adhere. In all the new part
of Abbotsford I have lined the chimney-vents with a succession of cones made of
the same stuff with common flower-pots, ![]()
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about one and a
half inch thick, and eighteen inches or two feet high, placed one above
another, and the vent built round them, so that the smoke passing up these
round earthen tubes, finds neither corner nor roughness on which to deposit the
soot, and in fact there is very little collected. What sweeping is required is
most easily performed by a brush like what housemaids call a pope’s head, the handle of which consists of a succession of
pipes, one slipping on the top of another like the joints of a fishing-rod, so
that the maid first sweeps the lower part of the vent, then adds another pipe
and sweeps a little higher, and so on. I have found this quite effectual, but
the lining of the chimneys makes the accumulations of soot very trifling in
comparison with the common case. Montgomery thanked me,
but I think he would rather have had a sonnet; which puts me in mind of
Mr Puff’s intended comedy of The
Reformed Housebreaker, in which he was to put burglary in so ridiculous a point
of view, that bolts and bars were likely to become useless by the end of the
season. Verily I have no idea of writing verse on a grave subject of utility,
any more than of going to church in a cinque pace. Lottery tickets and Japan
blacking may indeed be exceptions to the general rule. I am quite delighted at
us two cool Scots answering in exactly the same manner, but I am afraid your
sooty men (who are still in regular discharge of
their duty) and my pope’s head and lined vents
will not suit the committee, who seem more anxious for poetry than for common
sense. For my part, when I write on such subjects, I intend it shall be a grand
historico-philosophico poem upon oil-gas, having been made president of the
Oil-gas Company of this city; the whale fishery might be introduced, and
something pretty said about palm oil, which we think is apt to be popular among
our lawyers. I am very sorry for poor Richardson, so much ![]()
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attached to his wife, and suffering so much in her suffering. I hope Tom Campbell gets on pretty well, and wish he
would do something to sustain his deserved reputation. I wrote with Mrs Siddons’s consent to give Mrs Hemans’s tragedy a trial. I hope that her
expectations are not very high, for I do not think our ordinary theatrical
audience is either more judicious or less fastidious than those of England.
They care little about poetry on the stage—it is situation, passion, and
rapidity of action, which seem to be the principal requisites for ensuring the
success of a modern drama; but I trust, by dint of a special jury, the piece
may have a decent success—certainly I should not hope for much more. I must see
they bring it out before 12th March, if possible, as we go to the country that
day. I have not seen Mrs Siddons and her brother William Murray since their obliging answer,
for one of my colleagues is laid up with gout, and this gives me long seats in
the Court, of which you have reaped the fruits in this long epistle from the
Clerk’s table, done amid the bustle of pleaders, attorneys, and so forth.
I will get a frank, however, if possible, for the matter is assuredly not worth
a shilling postage. My kindest remembrances attend Mrs Baillie and Mrs
Agnes.—Always yours, with sincere respect and affection,
Agnes Baillie (1760-1861)
The daughter of the Scottish cleric James Baillie and elder sister of the poet Joanna
Baillie with whom she lived in Hampstead for many decades.
Sophia Baillie [née Denman] (1771-1845)
The daughter of the obstetrician Thomas Denman and sister of Lord Denman; in 1791 she
married the physician Matthew Baillie, brother of Joanna Baillie.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)
Scottish poet and man of letters; author of
The Pleasures of Hope
(1799),
Gertrude of Wyoming (1808) and lyric odes. He edited the
New Monthly Magazine (1821-30).
Felicia Dorothea Hemans [née Browne] (1793-1835)
English poet; author of
Tales, and Historic Scenes (1819),
Records of Woman (1828), and other volumes. She was much in demand
as a contributor to the literary annuals.
John Hugh Lockhart (1821-1831)
The first child of John Gibson Lockhart and his wife Sophia, for whom Sir Walter Scott
wrote
Tales of a Grandfather (1828-1831).
James Montgomery (1771-1854)
English poet and editor of the
Sheffield Iris (1795-1825); author
of
The Wanderer of Switzerland (1806) and
The
World before the Flood (1813).
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.
John Richardson of Kirklands (1780-1864)
Scottish lawyer and parliamentary solicitor in London from 1806; he was Thomas Campbell's
legal advisor and a friend of Sir Walter Scott.
Sarah Siddons [née Kemble] (1755-1831)
English tragic actress, sister of John Philip Kemble, famous roles as Desdemona, Lady
Macbeth, and Ophelia. She retired from the stage in 1812.
