With all his acuteness Captain Basil
Hall does not seem to have caught any suspicion of the real purpose and
meaning of the ball for which he was invited back to Abbotsford on the 9th of January,
1825. That evening was one of the very proudest and happiest in Scott’s brilliant existence. Its festivities were held in honour of a
young lady, whom the Captain names cursorily
among the guests as “the pretty heiress of Lochore.” It was known to not
a few of the party, and I should have supposed it might have been surmised by the rest,
that those halls were displayed for the first time in all their splendour, on an occasion
not less interesting to the Poet than the conclusion of a treaty of marriage between the
heir of his name and fortunes, and the amiable niece of his friends, Sir Adam and Lady
Fer-
2 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
The lady’s fortune was a handsome one, and her guardians exerted the powers with which they were invested, by requiring that the marriage-contract should settle Abbotsford (with reservation of Sir Walter’s own liferent) upon the affianced parties, in the same manner as Lochore. To this condition he gave a ready assent, and the moment he had signed the deed, he exclaimed, “I have now parted with my lands with more pleasure than I ever derived from the acquisition or possession of them; and if I be spared for ten years, I think I may promise to settle as much more again upon these young folks.” It was well for himself and his children that his auguries, which failed so miserably as to the matter of worldly wealth, were destined to no disappointment as respected considerations of a higher description. I transcribe one of the letters by which he communicated the happy event to the wide circle of friends, who were sure to sympathize in his feelings of paternal satisfaction.
“As I know the kind interest which you take in your
very sincere friend and Scotch cousin, I think you will like to hear that my
eldest hope, who, not many years ago, was too bashful to accept your offered
salute, and procured me the happiness of a kiss on his account, beside that
which I always claim on my own, has, as he
JANUARY, 1825. | 3 |
‘Mount and go—mount and make you ready, Mount and go, and be a soldier’s lady.’ |
4 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
The marriage took place at Edinburgh on the 3d day of February, and when
the young couple left Abbotsford two or three weeks afterwards, Sir
Walter promised to visit them at their regimental quarters in Ireland in the
course of the summer. Before he fulfilled that purpose he had the additional pleasure of
seeing his
MARCH, 1825. | 5 |
“I had the great pleasure of receiving your kind and
attentive letter from London a few days later than I ought to have done,
because it was lying here while I was absent on a little excursion, of which I
have to give a most interesting account. Believe me, my love, I am very grateful for the time you bestow on me, and
that you cannot give so great happiness to any one as to me by saying you are
well and happy. My daughters, who deserve all the affection a father can
bestow, are both near me, and in safe guardianship, the one under the charge of
a most affectionate husband, and the other under the eye of her parents. For my
sons, I have taught them, and what was more difficult, I have taught myself the
philosophy, that for their own sake and their necessary advancement in life,
their absences from my house must be long, and their visits short; and as they
are both, I hope, able to conduct themselves wisely and honourably, I have
learned to be contented to hope the best, without making myself or them uneasy
by fruitless anxiety. But for you, my dear Jane, who have come among us with such
generous and confiding affection, my stoicism
6 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Now I will plague you with no more business; but give you an account of myself in the manner of Mr Jonathan Oldbuck, if ever you heard of such a person. You must suppose that you are busy with your work, and that I am telling you some long story or other, and that you now and then look round and say eh, as you do when you are startled by a question or an assertion—it is not quite eh neither, but just a little quiet interjection, which shows you are attending. You see what a close observer papa is of his child.
“Well then, when, as I calculate (as a Yankee would
say), you were tossing on the waves of the Irish Channel, I was also tossing on
the Vadum Scotticum of
LETTERS TO MRS WALTER SCOTT. | 7 |
* According to the general creed (out of the “Kingdom of Fife,” that is to say)—Mr Oldbuck was quite wrong as to the identification of this prætorium. |
8 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Well then, I am the most indulgent papa in the world, and so you see I have turned over a new leaf. The plain sense of all this rambling stuff, which escapes from my pen as it would from my tongue, is that I have visited for a day, with Isaac Bayley,* your dominions of Lochore, and was excellently entertained and as happy as I could be, where every thing was putting me in mind that she was absent whom I could most have wished present. It felt, somehow, like an intrusion; and as if it was not quite right that I should be in Jane’s house,
* A cousin of the young lady, and the legal manager of her affairs. |
LETTERS TO MRS WALTER SCOTT. | 9 |
“The day we arrived the weather was gloomy and rainy,
the climate sorrowful for your absence I suppose; the next, a fine sunny frost;
the third, when I came off, so checkered with hail showers as to prevent a
visit I had meditated to two very interesting persons in the neighbourhood.
‘The Chief Commissioner and
Charles Adam, I
suppose?’—‘Not a bit, guess again.’ O, Mr Beaton of
Contal, or Mr Sym of
Blair?’—‘Not a bit, guess again.’—‘I won’t guess
any more.’—Well then, it was two honest gentlemen hewn in stone—some of
the old knights of Lochore, who were described to me as lying under your
gallery in the kirk;
10 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“This puts me in mind of Warwick unvisited, and of my stupidity in not letting you know that the church is as well worth seeing as the castle, and you might have seen that, notwithstanding the badness of the morning. All the tombs of the mighty Beauchamps and Nevilles are to be seen there, in the most magnificent style of Gothic display, and in high preservation. However, this will be for another day, and you must comfort yourself that life has something still to show.
“I trust you will soon find yourself at Edgeworthstown, where I know you will be received with open arms, for Miss Edgeworth’s kindness is equal to her distinguished talents.
“I am glad you like my old acquaintance, Mathews. Some day I will make him show his talent for your amusement in private; for I know him well. It is very odd, he is often subject to fits of deep melancholy.
“This is a letter of formidable length, but our bargain is, long or short, just as the humour chances to be, and you are never to mend a pen or think upon a sentence, but write whatever comes readiest. My love to Walter. I am rather anxious to know if he has got his horses well over, and whether all his luggage has come safe. I am glad you have got a carriage to your mind; it is the best economy to get a good one at once. Above all, I shall be anxious to hear how you like the society of the ladies of the 15th. I know my Jane’s quiet prudence and good sense will save her from the risk of making sudden intimacies, and induce her to consider for a little while which of her new companions may suit her best; in the mean-while being civil to all.
“You see that I make no apology for writing silly
letters; and why should you think that I can think yours
LETTERS TO MRS WALTER SCOTT. | 11 |
“I am afraid you will think me a merciless
correspondent, assailing you with so close a fire of letters; but having a
frank, I thought it as well to send you an epistle, though it can contain
nothing more of interest excepting that we are all well. I can, however, add
more particularly than formerly, that I learn from Mrs
Bayley that Mrs
Jobson’s health is not only good, but her spirits are
remarkably so, so as to give the greatest pleasure to all friends. I can see, I
think, a very good reason for this; for, after the pain of the first separation
from so dear an object, and after having brought her mind to believe that your
present situation presented to you a fair chance for happiness, I can easily
suppose that her maternal anxiety is greatly relieved from fears and
apprehensions which formerly distressed her. Nothing can be more kind and more
handsome than the
12 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“My troops here are sadly diminished. I have only Anne to parade for her morning walk, and to domineer over for going in thin slippers and silk stockings through dirty paths, and in lace veils through bushes and thorn brakes. I think Jane sometimes came in for a share of the lecture on these occasions. So I walk my solitary round—generally speaking—look after my labourers, and hear them regularly enquire, ‘If I have heard from the ‘Captain and his Leddy?’ I wish I could answer them—yes; but have no reason to be impatient. This is the 23d, and I suppose Walter will be at Cork this evening to join the 15th, and that you are safe at Edgeworthstown to spend your first short term of widowhood. I hope the necessary hospitality to his mess will not occasion his dissipating too much; for, to be a very strong young man, I know no one with whom what is called hard living agrees so ill. A happy change in the manners of the times fortunately renders such abuse of the good creature, wine, much less frequent and less fashionable than it was in my days and Sir Adam’s. Drinking is not now the vice of the times, whatever vices and follies they may have adopted in its stead.
“I had proceeded thus far in my valuable
communication, when, lo! I was alarmed by the entrance of that terrific animal
a two-legged boar—one of the largest size and most tremendous powers. By the
way, I learned, from no less an authority than George Canning, what my own experience has since made good,
that an efficient bore must always have something respectable about him,
otherwise no one would permit him to exercise his occupation. He must be, for
example, a very rich man (which, perhaps, gives the greatest privilege of
all)—or
LETTERS TO MRS WALTER SCOTT. | 13 |
14 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“How nicely we could manage without the said railroad, now the great hobby of our Teviotdale lairds, if we could by any process of conjuration waft to Abbotsford some of the coal and lime from Lochore—though, if I were to wish for such impossibilities, I would rather desire Prince Houssein’s tapestry in the Arabian Nights to bring Walter and Jane to us now and then, than I would wish for ‘Fife and all the lands about it.’*
“By the by, Jane, after all, though she looks so demure, is a very sly girl, and keeps her accomplishments to herself. You would not talk with me about planting and laying out ground; and yet, from what you had been doing at Lochore, I see what a pretty turn you have for these matters. I wish you were here to advise me about the little pond which we passed, where, if you remember, there is a new cottage built. I intend to
* A song of Dr Blacklock’s. |
APRIL, 1825. | 15 |
“Mamma drove out your pony and carriage to-day. She was (twenty years ago), the best lady-whip in Edinburgh, and was delighted to find that she retained her dexterity. I hope she will continue to exercise the rein and whip now and then, as her health is much improved by moderate exercise.
“Adieu, my dear Jane. Mamma and Anne join in the kindest love and best wishes. I please myself with the idea that I shall have heard you are well and happy long before this reaches you.—Believe me always your affectionate father,
“I received your joint composition without a date,
16 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
‘Oh but I’m weary with wandering, Oh. but my fortunes are bad; It sets not a gentle young lady To follow a sodger lad.’ |
“We had a visit from Lockhart yesterday. He rode out on Saturday with a friend, and
they dined here,
LETTER TO MR AND MRS WALTER SCOTT. | 17 |
“We have had our share of casualties. Sibyl came down with me, but without any injury; but Tom Purdie being sent on some business by Mr Laidlaw, she fell with him, and rolled over him, and bruised him very much. This is rather too bad, so I shall be on the pavé for a pony, my neck being rather precious.
“Touching Colonel Thwackwell,† of whom I know nothing but the name, which would bespeak him a strict disciplinarian, I suppose you are now arrived at that time of life you can take your ground from your observation, without being influenced by the sort of cabal which often exists in our army, especially in the corps where the officers are men of fortunes or expectations, against a commanding officer. The execution of their duty is not always popular with young men, who may like the dress and show of a regimental officer; and it often happens that a little pettishness on the one side begets a little repulsiveness of manner on the other, so that it becomes the question how the one shall command, and the other obey, in the way most disagreeable to the other, without a tangible infringement of rules. This
* This alludes to an explosion of gas in Shandwick Place, Edinburgh. † Sir Walter had misread, or chose to miswrite, the name of his son’s new commandant, Lieutenant-Colonel Thackwell. |
18 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“The Catholic question seems likely to be carried at last. I hope, though I doubt it a little, that Ireland will be the quieter, and the people more happy. I suspect, however, that it is laying a plaster to the foot while the head aches, and that the fault is in the landholders’ extreme exactions, not in the disabilities of the Catholics, or any more remote cause.
“My dear Jane, pray take care of yourself, and write me soon how you are and what you are doing. I hope it will contain a more pleasant account of your travels than the last. Mamma and Anne send best loves. I hope my various letters have all come to your hand, and am, my dear children, always your affectionate father,
“I received to-day your interesting communication, and have written to Edinburgh to remit the price of this troop as soon as possible. I can make this out without troubling Mr Bayley; but it will pare my nails short for the summer, and I fear prevent my paying your carriage, as I had intended.
“Nicol is certainly going to sell Faldonside.* The Nabal asks L.40,000,—at least L.5000 too much. Yet in the present low rate of money, and general thirst for land, there is no saying but he may get a fool to offer
* See ante, Vol. iv. p. 303. |
APRIL, 1825. | 19 |
“I conclude, this being 27th April, that you are all snugly settled in Dublin. I am a little afraid of the gaieties for Jane, and hope she will be gay moderately that she may be gay long. The frequent habit of late hours is always detrimental to health, and sometimes has consequences which last for life. Avis au lecteur; of course I do not expect you to shut yourselves up at your period of life. Your course of gaiety at Cork reminds me of Jack Johnstone’s song—
‘Then we’ll visit the Callaghans, Brallaghans,
Nowlans, and Dowlans likewise,
And bother them all with the beauty
Which streams from my Judy’s
(or Jeanie’s) black eyes.’
|
“We have better accounts of little Johnnie of late—his cough is over for the present, and the learned cannot settle whether it has been the hooping-cough or no. Sophia talks of taking him to Germiston. Lockhart comes here for the Circuit, and I expect him to-morrow.
“Sir Adam and
Lady Ferguson bring most excellent
accounts of Mrs Jobson’s good
health and spirits. Sir Henry Jardine
(he writes himself no less now) hath had the dignity of knighthood inflicted on
him. Mamma and Anne join in kind love. I expect a long letter from Jane one of these days soon; she writes too
well not to
20 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“You have never said a word of your horses, nor how you have come on with your domestics, those necessary plagues of our life. Two or three days since, that cub of Sir Adam’s chose to amuse himself with flinging crackers about the hall here when we were at dinner. I think I gave him a proper jobation.
“Here is the first wet day we have had—very welcome, as the earth required it much, and the season was backward. I can hear Bogie whistling for joy.
In May 1825, Sir Walter’s friend Terry, and his able brother comedian, Mr Frederick Yates, entered on a negotiation, which terminated, in July, in their becoming joint lessees and managers of the Adelphi Theatre, London. Terry requested Scott and Ballantyne to assist him on this occasion by some advance of money, or if that should be inconvenient, by the use of their credit. They were both very anxious to serve him, but Sir Walter had a poor opinion of speculations in theatrical property, and, moreover, entertained suspicions, too well justified by the result, that Terry was not much qualified for conducting the pecuniary part of such a business. Ultimately Ballantyne, who shared these scruples, became Terry’s security for a considerable sum (I think L.500), and Sir Walter pledged his credit in like manner to the extent of L.1250. He had, in the sequel, to pay off both this sum and that for which Ballantyne had engaged.
Several letters were interchanged before Terry received the support he had requested from his Scotch friends;
ADELPHI THEATRE—1825. | 21 |
“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
22 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
LETTERS TO TERRY—MAY 1825. | 23 |
“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
24 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“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 |
‘The thing may to-morrow be all in your power, But the money, gadzooks, must be paid in an hour.’ |
“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,
26 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“You have long ere this heard from honest James that he accedes to your proposal of
becoming one of your sureties. I did not think it right in the first instance
either to encourage or deter him from taking this step, but sent him the whole
correspondence upon the subject, that he might judge for himself, and I fancy
he con-
LETTERS TO TERRY. | 27 |
“There is an idea among some of your acquaintance,
which I partly acquiesce in, that you are in general somewhat of a
procrastinator. I believe I have noticed the same thing myself; but then I
consider it the habit of one accustomed to alternations of severe exertion and
great indolence; and I have no doubt that it will give place to the necessity
of following out a regular, stated, and daily business—where every hour brings
its own peculiar duties, and you feel yourself like the mail-coach compelled to
be in to time. I know such routine always cures me of
the habit of indolence, which, on other occasions, I give way to as much as any
man. This objection to the success which all agree is in your own power, I have
heard coupled with another, which is also founded on close observation of your
character, and connected with an excellent point of it; it is, that you will be
too desirous to do things perfectly well—to consider the petite economie necessary to a very
extensive undertaking. This, however, is easily guarded against. I remember
Mrs John Kemble telling me how much
she had saved by degrading some unfortunate figurantes into paper veils and
ruffles. I think it was a round sum, and without going such lengths, I fear
severer economy than one would like to practise is essential to making a
theatre profitable. Now, I have mentioned the only two personal circumstances
which induce envy to lift her voice against your prospects. I think it right
you should know them, for there is something to be considered in both
particulars; I would not mention them till the affair was finished, because I
would not have you think I was sheltering myself under such apologies. That the
perils rising out of them are not formidable in my eyes, I have sufficiently
shown; and I think it right to mention them
28 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
While this business of Terry’s was under consideration, Scott asked me to go out with him one Saturday to Abbotsford, to meet
Constable and James
Ballantyne, who were to be there for a quiet consultation on some projects
of great importance. I had shortly before assisted at a minor conclave held at
Constable’s villa of Polton, and was not surprised that
Sir Walter should have considered his publisher’s new plans
worthy of very ample deliberation. He now opened them in more fulness of detail, and
explained his views in a manner that might well excite admiration, not unmixed with alarm.
Constable was meditating nothing less than a total revolution in
the art and traffic of bookselling; and the exulting and blazing fancy with which he
expanded and embellished his visions of success, hitherto undreamt of in the philosophy of
the trade, might almost have induced serious suspicions of his sanity, but for the curious
accumulation of pregnant facts on which he rested his justification, and the dexterous
sagacity with which he uncoiled his practical inferences. He startled us at the outset by
saying, “Literary genius may, or may not, have done its best; but printing and
bookselling, as instruments for enlightening and entertaining mankind, and, of course,
for making money, are as yet in mere infancy. Yes, the trade are in their
cradle.” Scott eyed the florid bookseller’s beaming
countenance, and the solemn stare with which the equally portly printer was listening, and
pushing round the bottles with a
CONSTABLE—MAY, 1825. | 29 |
30 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
CONSTABLE—MAY, 1825. | 31 |
Many a previous consultation, and many a solitary meditation too,
prompted Scott’s answer. “Your
plan,” said he “cannot fail, provided the books be really good, but you
must not start until you have not only leading columns, but depth upon depth of reserve
in thorough order. I am willing to do my part in this grand enterprise. Often, of late,
have I felt that the vein of fiction was nearly worked out; often, as you all know,
have I been thinking seriously of turning my hand to history. I am of opinion that
historical writing has no more been adapted to the demands of the increased circles
among which literature does already find its way, than you allege as to the shape and
price of
32 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
The reader does not need to be told that the series of cheap volumes, subsequently issued under the title of “Constable’s Miscellany,” was the scheme on which this great bookseller was brooding. Before he left Abbotsford it was arranged that the first number of this collection should consist of one half of Waverley; the second, of the first section of a “Life of Napoleon Buonaparte by the author of Waverley;” that this Life should be comprised in four of these numbers; and that, until the whole series of his novels should have been issued, a volume every second month, in this new and uncostly form, he should keep the Ballantyne press going with a series of historical works, to be issued on the alternate months. Such were, as far as Scott was concerned, the first outlines of a daring plan never destined to be carried into execution on the gigantic scale, or with the grand appliances which the projector contemplated, but destined, nevertheless, to lead the way in one of the greatest revolutions that literary history will ever have to record—a revolution not the less sure to be completed, though as yet, after the lapse of twelve years, we see only its beginnings.
Some circumstances in the progress of the Tales of the Crusaders, begun some months before,
and now on the eve of publication, must have been uppermost in Scott’s mind when he met Constable’s proposals on this occasion with so much alacrity. The
story of The
Betrothed—(to which he was mainly prompted by the lively and instructing
conversation on Welsh history and antiquities of his friend Archdeacon Williams)—found no favour as it advanced with James Ballantyne; and so heavily did the critical
printer’s candid remonstrances weigh on the author, that he at length lost heart
about
TALES OF THE CRUSADERS. | 33 |
Early in June, then, the Tales of the Crusaders were put forth; and, as Mr Ballantyne had predicted, the brightness of the Talisman dazzled the eyes of the million as to the defects of the twin-story. Few of these publications had a more enthusiastic greeting; and Scott’s literary plans were, as the reader will see reason to infer, considerably modified in consequence of the new burst of applause which attended the brilliant procession of his Saladin and Cœur de Lion.
To return for a moment to our merry conclave at Abbotsford. Constable’s vast chapter of embryo schemes
34 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
If the reader has not recently looked into the original Introduction to the Tales of the Crusaders, it will amuse him to trace in that little extravanza Sir Walter’s own embellishment of these colloquies with Constable and Ballantyne. The title is, “Minutes of Sederunt of the Shareholders designing to form a Joint-Stock Company, united for the purpose of Writing and Publishing the Class of Works called the Waverley Novels, held in the Waterloo Tavern, Regent Bridge, Edinburgh, on the 1st of June, 1825.” The notion of casting a preface into this form could hardly have occurred in any other year; the humorist had not far to seek for his “palpable hit.” The “Gentlemen and others interested in the celebrated publications called the Waverley Novels,” had all participated in the general delusions which presented so broad a mark; and their own proper “bubbles” were at the biggest—in other words, near enough the bursting.
As regards Sir Walter himself, it is
not possible now to recall the jocularities of this essay without wonder and sadness. His
own share in speculations, remote
TALES OF THE CRUSADERS. | 35 |
“In the patriarchal period,” we read, “a man is his own weaver, tailor, butcher, shoemaker, and so forth; and, in the age of Stock-companies, as the present may be called, an individual may be said, in one sense, to exercise the same plurality of trades. In fact, a man who has dipt largely into these speculations, may combine his own expenditure with the improvement of his own income, just like the ingenious hydraulic machine, which, by its very waste, raises its own supplies of water. Such a person buys his bread from his own Baking Company, his milk and cheese from his own Dairy Company, takes off a new coat for the benefit of his own Clothing Company, illuminates his house to advance his own Gas Establishment, and drinks an additional bottle of wine for the benefit of the General Wine Importation Company, of which he is himself a member. Every act, which would otherwise be one of mere extravagance, is, to such a person, seasoned with the odor lucri, and reconciled to prudence. Even if the price of the article consumed be extravagant, and the quality indifferent, the person, who is in a manner his own customer, is only imposed upon for his own benefit. Nay, if the Joint-stock Company of Undertakers shall unite with the Medical Faculty, as proposed by the late facetious Doctor G——, under the firm of Death and the Doctor, the shareholder might contrive to secure to his heirs a handsome slice of his own death-bed and funeral expenses.”
Since I have quoted this Introduction, I may as well give also the passage in which the “Eidolon Chairman” is made to announce the new direction his exertions were about to take, in furtherance of the grand “Joint-stock Adventure” for which Constable had been soliciting his alliance. The paternal shadow thus addresses his mutinous offspring Cleishbotham, Oldbuck, Clutterbuck, Dryasdust, and the rest:—
36 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“It signifies nothing speaking—I will no longer avail myself of such weak ministers as you—I will discard you—I will unbeget you, as Sir Anthony Absolute says—I will leave you and your whole hacked stock in trade—your caverns and your castles—your modern antiques, and your antiquated moderns—your confusion of times, manners, and circumstances—your properties, as player-folk say of scenery and dresses—the whole of your exhausted expedients, to the fools who choose to deal with them. I will vindicate my own fame with my own right hand, without appealing to such halting assistants,
‘Whom I have used for sport, rather than
need.’ |
“As the confusion began to abate, more than one member of the meeting was seen to touch his forehead significantly, while Captain Clutterbuck humm’d,
‘Be by your friends advised, Too rash, too hasty, dad, Maugre your bolts and wise head, The world will think you mad.’ |
“The world, and you, gentlemen, may think what you please,” said the Chairman, elevating his voice; “but I intend to write the most wonderful book which the world ever read—a book in which every incident shall be incredible, yet strictly true—a work recalling recollections with which the ears of this generation once tingled, and which shall be read by our children with an admiration approaching to incredulity. Such shall be the Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, by the Author of Waverley!”*
Sir Walter begun, without delay, what was meant to be a very short preliminary sketch of the French Revolution, prior to the appearance of his hero upon the scene of action. This, he thought, might be done almost currente calamo; for his personal recollection of all the great events as they occurred was vivid, and he had not failed to peruse every book of any considerable importance on these subjects as it issued from the press. He apprehended the necessity, on the other hand, of
* See Waverley Novels, Vol. xxxvii. p. 38. Introd. |
JUNE, 1825. | 37 |
“When with Poetry dealing
Room enough in a shieling:
Neither cabin nor hovel
Too small for a novel;
Though my back I should rub
On Diogenes’ tub,
How my fancy could prance
In a dance of romance!
But my house I must swap
With some Brobdignag chap,
Ere I grapple, God bless me! with Emperor
Nap.”
|
In the mean-time he advanced with his Introduction; and, catching fire
as the theme expanded before him, had so soon several chapters in his desk, without having
travelled over half the ground assigned for them, that Constable saw it would be in vain to hope for the completion of the work
within four tiny duodecimos. They resolved that it should be published, in the first
instance, as a separate book, in four volumes of the same size
38 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
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