Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Sir Walter Scott to Daniel Terry, [April? 1825]
“Edinburgh, May 5th, 1825.
“I received your long confidential letter; and as the
matter is in every respect important, I have given it my anxious consideration.
The plot is a good plot, and the friends, though I know them only by your
report, are, I doubt not, good friends, and full of expectation. There are,
however, two particulars unfavourable to all theatrical speculations, and of
which you are probably better aware than I am. The first is, that every scheme
depending on public caprice must be irregular in its returns. I remember
John Kemble, complaining to me of
Harry Siddons’ anxious and
hypochondriac fears about his Edinburgh concern, said, ‘He does not
consider that no theatre whatever can be considered as a regular source of
income, but must be viewed as a lottery, at one time strikingly successful,
at another a total failure.’ Now this affects your scheme in two
ways. First, you can hardly expect, I fear, your returns to be so regular every
season, even though your calculation be just as to the recent average. And,
secondly, you must secure some fund, either of money or credit, to meet those
blanks and bad seasons which ![]()
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must occasionally occur. The
best business is ruined when it becomes pinched for money, and gets into the
circle of discounting bills, and buying necessary articles at high prices and
of inferior quality, for the sake of long credit. I own your plan would have
appeared to me more solid, though less splendid, if Mr Jones, or any other monied man, had retained one-half or
one-third of the adventure; for every speculation requires a certain command of
money, and cannot be conducted with any plausibility upon credit alone. It is
easy to make it feasible on paper, but the times of payment arrive to a
certainty. Those of supply are less certain, and cannot be made to meet the
demands with the same accuracy. A month’s difference between demand and
receipt makes loss of credit; loss of credit is in such a case ruin. I would
advise you and Mr Yates to consider
this, and sacrifice some view of profit to obtain stability by the assistance
of some monied man—a class of whom many are in your great city just gaping for
such an opportunity to lay out cash to advantage. This difficulty, the want of
solid cash, is an obstacle to all attempts whatsoever; but there is something,
it would seem, peculiarly difficult in managing a theatre. All who practise the
fine arts in any department are, from the very temperament necessary to
success, more irritable, jealous, and capricious than other men made up of
heavier elements; but the jealousy among players is signally active, because
their very persons are brought into direct comparison, and from the crown of
the head to the sole of the foot they are pitted by the public in express
rivalry against each other. Besides, greatly as the profession has risen in
character of late years, theatrical talent must still be found frequently
allied with imperfect general education, low habits, and sometimes the follies
and vices which arise out of them. All this makes, I should ![]()
| LETTERS TO TERRY—MAY 1825. | 23 |
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think, a theatre very difficult to manage,
and liable to sudden checks when your cattle jibb or do
not work kindly. I think you have much of the talent to manage this; and bating
a little indolence, which you can always conquer when you have a mind and a
motive, I know no one whose taste, temper, and good sense make him more likely
to gain and secure the necessary influence over the performers. But
il faut de l’
argent—you must be careful in your situation, that a check shall
not throw you on the breakers, and for this there is no remedy but a handsome
provision of the blunt. This is the second particular, I think, unfavourable to
undertakings of a theatrical description, and against which I would wish to see
you guarded by a more ample fund than your plan involves.
“You have of course ascertained from the books of the
theatre that the returns of receipts are correct; but I see no provision made
for wear and tear of stock, expense of getting up new pieces, &c. which, in
such an undertaking, must be considerable. Perhaps it is included in the charge
of L.36 per night; but if not, it seems to me that it will materially alter
your calculations for the worse, for you are naturally disposed to be liberal
in such expenses, and the public will expect it. Without baits the fish cannot
be caught. I do not state these particulars from any wish to avoid assisting
you in this undertaking; much the contrary. If I saw the prospect of your
getting fairly on the wing, nothing could give me more pleasure than to assist
to the extent of my means, and I shall only, in that case, regret that they are
at present more limited than I could wish by circumstances which I will
presently tell you. But I should not like to see you take flight, like the
ingenious mechanist in Rasselas only to flutter a few yards, and fall into the lake. This
would be a most heart-breaking business, and would ![]()
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hang
like a millstone about your neck for all your life. Capital and talent will do
excellent things together; but depend on it, talent without capital will no
more carry on an extensive and progressive undertaking of this nature than a
race-horse will draw a Newcastle waggon. Now, I cannot at present assist you
with ready money, which is the great object in your undertaking. This year has
been, owing to many reasons, the heaviest of my expenditure, and the least
fruitful of profit, because various anxieties attending Walter’s marriage, and feasting, &c.
after it, have kept me from my usual lucrative labours. It has no doubt been a
most advantageous concern, for he has got an amiable girl, whom he loves, and
who is warmly attached to him, with a very considerable fortune. But I have had
to find cash for the purchase of a troop for him about L.3500; item, the bride’s jewels, and so forth, becoming
her situation and fortune, L.500: item, for a remount to
him on joining his regiment, equipage for quarters, carriage, and other things,
that they may enter life with a free income, L.1000 at least. Moreover, I am a
sharer to the extent of L.1500 on a railroad, which will bring coals and lime
here at half price, and double the rent of the arable part of my property, but
is dead outlay in the mean-time; and I have shares in the oil-gas, and other
promising concerns, not having resisted the mania of the day, though I have
yielded to it but soberly; also, I have the dregs of Abbotsford House to pay
for and all besides my usual considerable expenditure; so I must look for some
months to be put to every corner of my saddle. I could not let my son marry her
like a beggar; but, in the mean-time, I am like my namesake in the days of the
crusades—Walter the Penniless.
“Every one grumbles at his own profession, but here
is the devil of a calling for you, where a man pays L.3000 ![]()
| LETTERS TO TERRY—MAY, 1825. | 25 |
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for an annuity of L.400 a-year and less
renounces his free will in almost every respect;—must rise at five every
morning to see horses curried—dare not sleep out of a particular town without
the leave of a cross Colonel, who is often disposed to refuse it merely because
he has the power to do so; and, last of all, may be sent to the most unhealthy
climates to die of the rot, or be shot like a black-cock. There is a per
contra, to be sure—fine clothes and fame; but the first must be paid for, and
the other is not come by by one out of the hundred. I shall be anxious to know
what you are able to do. Your ready is the devil— ‘The thing may to-morrow be all in your power, But the money, gadzooks, must be paid in an hour.’ |
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If you were once set a-rolling, time would come round with me, and then I
should be able to help you a little more than at present. Mean-while, I am
willing to help you with my credit by becoming one of your guarantees to the
extent of L.1250.
“But what I am most anxious about is to know how you
raise the L.5000 cash; if by bills and discounts, I beg to say I must decline
having to do with the business at all; for besides the immense expense of
renewals, that mode of raising money is always liable to some sudden check,
which throws you on your back at once, and I should then have hurt myself and
deprived myself of the means of helping you some other way. If you can get such
a sum in loan for a term of years certain, that would do well. Still better, I
think, could you get a monied partner in the concern to pay the sum down, and
hold some L.2000 more ready for current expenses. I wish to know whether in the
L.36 for nightly expenses you include your own salary, within which you would
probably think it prudent to restrain your own expenses, at least for a year or
two; for, ![]()
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believing as I do, that your calculation of L.70
per night (five per cent on the outlay) is rather sanguine, I would like to
know that your own and Mr Yates’s
expenses were provided for, so as to leave the receipts, whatever they may be,
free to answer the burdens. If they do so, you will have great reason to be
contented. I need not add that Theodore
Hook’s assistance will be impayable. On the whole, my apprehension is for want of
money in the outset. Should you either start with marked success, or have
friends sufficient to carry on at some disadvantage for a season or two, I
should have little fear; but great attention and regularity will be necessary.
You are no great accountant yourself, any more than I am, but I trust
Mr Yates is. All rests with prudence and management.
Murray is making a fortune for his
sister and family on the very bargain which Siddons, poor fellow, could not have sustained for two years
longer. If I have seemed more cautious in this matter than you might expect
from my sincere regard for you, it is because caution is as necessary for you
as myself; and I assure you I think as deeply on your account as on my own. I
beg kind compliments to Mrs Terry, and
inclose a lock of my gray hair, which Jane desired me to send you for some brooch or clasp at
Hamlet’s.—Ever yours, very truly,
Theodore Edward Hook (1788-1841)
English novelist, wit, and friend of the Prince of Wales; he edited the
John Bull (1820) and appears as the Lucian Gay of Disraeli's
Conigsby and as Mr. Wagg in
Vanity Fair.
John Philip Kemble (1757-1823)
English actor renowned for his Shakespearean roles; he was manager of Drury Lane
(1783-1802) and Covent Garden (1803-1808).
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.
Lady Jane Scott [née Jobson] (1801 c.-1877)
The daughter of William Jobson of Lochore; in 1825 she married Sir Walter Scott's eldest
son, Walter.
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.”
Henry Siddons (1774-1815)
English actor and playwright, the son of the actress Sarah Siddons; with the assistance
of Walter Scott he obtained patent of the Edinburgh Theatre Royal in 1809.
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.
Frederick Henry Yates (1797-1842)
English actor and theater manager educated at Charterhouse; he performed with Charles
Kemble and was a partner of Charles Mathews in the Adelphi Theatre (1825-35).
