“I received your very kind letter with the feelings
it was calculated to excite, those of great affection mixed with pain, which,
indeed, I had already felt and anticipated before taking the step which I knew
you must all feel as awkward, coming from one who has been honoured with so
much personal regard. I need not, I am sure, say, that I acted from nothing but
an honest desire of serving this country. Depend upon it, that if a succession
of violent and experimental changes are made from session to session, with
bills to amend bills, where no want of legislation had been at all felt,
Scotland will, within ten or twenty years, perhaps much sooner, read a more
fearful commentary on poor Malachi’s Epistles than any statesman residing out of the
country, and stranger to the habits and feelings which are entertained here,
can possibly anticipate. My head may be low—I hope it will—before the time
comes. But Scotland, completely liberalized, as she is in a fair way of being,
will be the most dangerous neighbour to England that she has had since 1639.
There is yet time to make a stand, for there is yet a great deal of good and
genuine feeling left in the country. But if you unscotch
us, you will find us damned mischievous Englishmen. The restless and yet
laborious and constantly watchful character of the people, their desire for
speculation in politics or any thing else, only restrained by some proud
feelings about their own country, now become antiquated, and which late
measures will tend much to destroy, will make them,
| 272 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“But I shall say no more on this subject so far as politics are concerned, only you will remember the story of the shield, which was on one side gold, and on the other silver, and which two knights fought about till they were mutually mortally wounded, each avowing the metal to be that which he himself witnessed. You see the shield on the golden, I, God knows, not on the silver side—but in a black, gloomy, and most ominous aspect.
“With respect to your own share in the controversy,
it promised me so great an honour that I laboured under a strong temptation to
throw my hat into the ring, tie my colours to the ropes, cry, Hollo there, Saint Andrew for Scotland! and try
what a good cause might do for a bad, at least an inferior, combatant. But then
I must have brought forward my facts; and, as these must have compromised
friends individually concerned, I felt myself obliged, with regret for
forfeiting some honour, rather to abstain from the contest. Besides, my dear
Croker, I must say, that you sported
too many and too direct personal allusions to myself, not to authorize and even
demand some retaliation dans le meme
genre; and however good-humouredly men begin this sort of
‘sharp encounter of their wits,’ their temper gets the
better of them at last. When I was a cudgel-player, a sport at which I was once
an ugly customer, we used to bar rapping over the knuckles, because it always
ended in breaking heads; the matter may be remedied by baskets
| MALACHI MALAGROWTHER. | 273 |
“As for my affairs, which you allude to so kindly, I can safely say, that no oak ever quitted its withered leaves more easily than I have done what might be considered as great wealth. I wish to God it were as easy for me to endure impending misfortunes of a very different kind. You may have heard that Lockhart’s only child is very ill, and the delicate habits of the unfortunate boy have ended in a disease of the spine, which is a hopeless calamity, and in my daughter’s present situation, may have consequences on her health terrible for me to anticipate. To add to this, though it needs no addition—for the poor child’s voice is day and night in my ear—I have, from a consultation of physicians, a most melancholy account of my wife’s health, the faithful companion of rough and smooth, weal and wo, for so many years. So if you compare me to Brutus in the harsher points of his character, you must also allow me some of his stoical fortitude ‘no man bears sorrow better.’
“I cannot give you a more absolute assurance of the uninterrupted regard with which I must always think of you, and the confidence I repose in your expressions of cordiality, than by entering on details, which one reluctantly mentions, except to those who are sure to participate in them.
“As for Malachi, I am like poor Jean
Gordon, the prototype of Meg
Merrilees, who was ducked to death at Carlisle for being a
Jacobite, and till she was smothered outright, cried out every time she got her
head above water, Charlie yet. But I have said my
say, and have
| 274 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“And so God bless you—and believe, though circumstances have greatly diminished the chance of our meeting, I have the same warm sense of your kindness as its uniform tendency has well deserved. Yours affectionately,
