“I had the pleasure of your letter two days since, being the first symptom of your being alive and well which I have had directly since you left Abbotsford. I beg you will be more frequent in your communications, which must always be desirable when you are at such a distance. I am very glad to hear you are attending closely to make up lost time. Sport is a good thing both for health and pastime; but you must never allow it to interfere with serious study. You have, my dear boy, your own fortune to make, with better assistance of every kind than I had when the world first opened on
assuming a peculiarly saturnine aspect. This queer grimness of look was invaluable to the comedian in several of his best parts; and in private he often called it up when his heart was most cheerful. |
| LETTER TO MR CHARLES SCOTT. | 145 |
“Our Abbotsford hunt went off extremely well. We killed seven hares, I think, and our dogs behaved very well. A large party dined, and we sat down about twenty-five at table. Every gentleman present sung a song, tant bien que mal, excepting Walter, Lockhart, and I myself. I believe I should add the melancholy Jaques, Mr Waugh, who, on this occasion, however, was not melancholy.† In short, we had a very merry and social party.
“There is, I think, no news here. The hedger, Captain Davidson,‡ has had a bad accident, and injured
* Mr Villiers Surtees, a school-fellow of Charles Scott’s at Lampeter, had spent the vacation of this year at Abbotsford, He is now one of the Supreme Judges at the Mauritius. † Mr Waugh was a retired West Indian, of very dolorous aspect, who had settled at Melrose, built a large house there, surrounded it and his garden with a huge wall, and seldom emerged from his own precincts except upon the grand occasion of the Abbotsford Hunt. The villagers called him “the Melancholy Man”—and considered him as already “dreein’ his dole for doings amang the poor niggers.” ‡ This hedger had got the title of Captain, in memory of his gallantry at some row. |
| 146 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“You ask me about reading history. You are quite right
to read Clarendon—his style is a little
long-winded; but, on the other hand, his characters may match those of the
ancient historians, and one thinks they would know the very men if you were to
meet them in society. Few English writers have the same precision, either in
describing the actors in great scenes, or the deeds which they performed. He
was, you are aware, himself deeply engaged in the scenes which he depicts, and
therefore colours them with the individual feeling, and sometimes, doubtless,
with the partiality of a partisan. Yet I think he is, on the whole, a fair
writer; for though he always endeavours to excuse King
Charles, yet he points out his mistakes and errors, which
certainly were neither few nor of slight consequence. Some of his history
regards the country in which you are now a resident; and you will find that
much of the fate of that Great Civil War turned on the successful resistance
made by the city of Gloucester, and the relief of that place by the Earl of Essex, by means of the trained bands of
London, a sort of force resembling our local militia or volunteers. They are
the subject of ridicule in all the plays and poems of the time; yet the sort of
practice of arms which they had acquired enabled them to withstand the charge
of Prince Rupert and his gallant cavalry,
who were then foiled for the first time. Read, my dear Charles, read, and read that which is useful.
Man only differs from birds and beasts, because he has the means of availing
himself of the knowledge acquired by his predecessors. The swallow builds the
same nest which its father and mother built; and the
| MESSRS CONSTABLE—1821. | 147 |
“I beg my compliments to Mr and Mrs Williams; I have left no room to sign myself your affectionate father,
