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I interrupt, for a moment, Sir Walter’s Diary, to introduce a few collateral
illustrations of the period embraced in the foregoing chapter. When he returned to
Edinburgh from Abbotsford on Monday the 16th of January, he found (as we have seen) that
Hurst & Co. had dishonoured a bill of
Constable’s; and then proceeded, according
to engagement, to dine at Mr Skene of
Rubislaw’s. Mr Skene assures me that he appeared that evening
quite in his usual spirits, conversing on whatever topic was started as easily and gaily as
if there had been no impending calamity; but at parting, he whispered,
“Skene, I have something to speak to you about; be so
good as to look in on me as you go to the Parliament-House to-morrow.” When
Skene called in Castle Street, about half-past nine o’clock
next morning, he found Scott writing in his study. He rose, and said,
“My friend, give me a shake of your hand—mine is that of a beggar.”
He then told him that Ballantyne had just been with
him, and that his ruin was certain and complete; explaining, briefly, the nature of
| 214 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
The reader may be curious to see what account James Ballantyne’s memorandum gives of that dark announcement on the morning of Tuesday the 17th. It is as follows: “On the evening of the 16th, I received from Mr Cadell a distinct message putting me in possession of the truth. I called immediately in Castle Street, but found Sir Walter had gained an unconscious respite by being engaged out at dinner. It was between eight and nine next morning that I made the final communication. No doubt he was greatly stunned—but, upon the whole, he bore it with wonderful fortitude. He then asked, ‘Well, what is the actual step we must first take—I suppose we must do something?’ I reminded him that two or three thousand pounds were due that day, so that we had only to do what we must do—refuse payment—to bring the disclosure sufficiently before the world. He took leave of me with these striking words, ‘Well, James, depend upon that, I will never forsake you.’”
After the ample details of Scott’s Diary, it would be idle to quote here many of his private
letters in January 1826; but I must give two of those addressed
| LETTERS TO J. G. LOCKHART. | 215 |
“I have both your packets. I have been quite well since my attack, only for some time very downhearted with the calomel and another nasty stuff they call hyoscyamus—and to say truth, the silence of my own household, which used to be merry at this season.
“I enclose the article on Pepys. It is totally uncorrected, so I wish of course much to see it in proof if possible, as it must be dreadfully inaccurate; the opiate was busy with my brain when the beginning was written, and as James Ballantyne complains wofully, so will your printer, I doubt. The subject is like a good sirloin, which requires only to be basted with its own drippings. I had little trouble of research or reference; perhaps I have made it too long, or introduced too many extracts—if so, use the pruning-knife, hedgebill, or axe, ad libitum. You know I don’t care a curse about what I write or what becomes of it.
“To-morrow, snow permitting, we go into Edinburgh;
mean-time ye can expect no news from this place. I
| 216 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Pardon my sending you such an unwashed, uncombed thing as the enclosed. I really can’t see now to read my own hand, so bad have my eyes or my fingers or both become.—Always yours affectionately,
“I have your kind letter. Whenever I heard that Constable had made a cessio fori, I thought it became me to make public how far I was concerned in these matters, and to offer my fortune so far as it was prestable, and the completion of my literary engagements—(the better thing almost of the two) to make good all claims upon Ballantyne and Co.; and even supposing that neither Hurst and Co. nor Constable and Co. ever pay a penny they owe me, my old age will be far from destitute—even if my right hand should lose its cunning. This is the very worst that can befall me; but I have little doubt that, with ordinary management, the affairs of those houses will turn out favourably. It is needless to add that I will not engage myself, as Constable desires, for L.20,000 more—or L.2000—or L.200. I have
* A gardener, by name James Scott, who lived at a place called popularly Cock-a-pistol, because the battle of Melrose (A.D. 1526) began there. |
| LETTERS TO MR J. G. LOCKHART. | 217 |
“I have made my matters public, and have had splendid offers of assistance, all which I have declined, for I would rather bear my own burden than subject myself to obligation. There is but one way in such cases.
“It is easy, no doubt, for any friend to blame me for
entering into connexion with commercial matters at all. But, I wish to know
what I could have done better; excluded from the bar, and then from all profits
for six years, by my colleague’s prolonged life. Literature was not in
those days what poor Constable has made
it; and, with my little capital, I was too glad to make commercially the means
of supporting my family. I got but L.600 for the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and it was a price that
made men’s hair stand on end—L.1000 for Marmion. I have been far from suffering by
James Ballantyne. I owe it to him to
say, that his difficulties, as well as his advantages, are owing to me. I
trusted too much to Constable’s assurances of his
own and his correspondents’ stability, but yet I believe he was only
sanguine. The upshot is just what Hurst
and Co. and Constable may be able to pay me; if 15s. in
the pound, I shall not complain of my loss, for I have gained many thousands in
my day. But while I live I shall regret the downfall of
Constable’s house, for never did there exist so
intelligent and so liberal an establishment. They went too far when money was
plenty, that is certain; yet if every author in Britain had taxed himself half
a year’s income, he should have kept up the house which
| 218 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I have had visits from all the monied people, offering their purses—and those who are creditors, sending their managers and treasurers to assure me of their joining in and adopting any measures I may propose. I am glad of this for their sake, and for my own—for although I shall not desire to steer, yet I am the only person that can cann, as Lieutenant Hatchway says, to any good purpose. A very odd anonymous offer I had of L.30,000,* which I rejected, as I did every other. Unless I die, I shall beat up against this foul weather. A penny I will not borrow from any one. Since my creditors are content to be patient, I have the means of righting them perfectly, and the confidence to employ them. I would have given a good deal to have avoided the coup d’ eclat; but that having taken place, I would not give sixpence for any other results. I fear you will think I am writing in the heat of excited resistance to bad fortune. My dear Lockhart, I am as calm and temperate as you ever saw me, and working at Woodstock like a very tiger. I am grieved for Lady Scott and Anne, who cannot conceive adversity can have the better of them, even for a moment. If it teaches a little of the frugality which I never had the heart to enforce when money was plenty, and it seemed cruel to interrupt the enjoyment of it in the way they liked best it will be well.
“Kindest love to Sophia, and tell her to study the song† and keep her spirits up. Tyne heart, tyne all; and it is making more of money than it is worth to grieve about it. Kiss Johnnie for me. How glad I am fortune carried you to London before these reverses happened, as they would have embittered parting, and made it
* Sir Walter never knew the name of this munificent person, † “Up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee.” |
| LETTER TO MR MORRITT. | 219 |
From Sir Walter’s letters of the same period, to friends out of his own family, I select the following:
“It is very true I have been, and am in danger, of a
pecuniary loss, and probably a very large one, which, in the uncertainty, I
look at as to the full extent, being the manly way of calculating such matters,
since one may be better, but can hardly be worse. I can’t say I feel
overjoyed at losing a large sum of hard-earned money in a most unexpected
manner, for all men, considered Constable’s people secure as the Bank; yet, as I have
obtained an arrangement of payment convenient for every body concerned, and
easy for myself, I cannot say that I care much about the matter. Some
economical restrictions I will make; and it happened oddly that they were such
as Lady Scott and myself had almost
determined upon without this compulsion. Abbotsford will henceforth be our only
establishment; and during the time I must be in town, I will take my bed at the
Albyn Club. We shall also break off the rather excessive hospitality to which
we were exposed, and no longer stand host and hostess to all that do pilgrimage
to Melrose. Then I give up an expensive farm, which I always hated, and turn
all my odds and ends into cash. I do not reckon much on my literary exertions—I
mean in proportion to former success—because popular taste may fluctuate. But
with a moderate degree of the favour which I have always had, my time my own,
and my
| 220 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“In these circumstances, I should be unjust and ungrateful to ask or accept the pity of my friends. I for one, do not see there is much occasion for making moan about it. My womankind will be the greater sufferers,—yet even they look cheerily forward; and, for myself, the blowing off my hat in a stormy day has given me more uneasiness.
“I envy your Brighton party, and your fine weather.
When I was at Abbotsford the mercury was down at six or seven in the morning
more than once. I am hammering away at a bit of a story from the old affair of
the diablerie at Woodstock in the Long Parliament times.
I don’t like it much. I am obliged to hamper my fanatics greatly too much
to make them effective; but I make the sacrifice on principle; so, perhaps, I
shall deserve good success in other parts of the work. You will be surprised
when I tell you that I have written a volume in exactly fifteen days. To be
sure, I permitted no interruptions. But then I took exercise, and for ten days
of the fifteen attended the Court of Session from two to four hours every day.
This is nothing, however, to writing Ivanhoe when I had the actual cramp in my stomach; but I have no
idea of these things preventing a man from doing what he has a mind. My love to
all the party at Brighton—fireside party I had almost said, but you scorn my
words—seaside party then be it. Lady Scott
and Anne join in kindest love. I must
close my letter, for one of the consequences of our misfortunes is, that we
dine every day at half-past four o’clock; which premature hour arises, I
suppose, from sorrow being hungry as well as thirsty. One most laughable part
of our tragic comedy was, that every friend in the world came formally, just as
they do here
| LETTER TO LADY DAVY. | 221 |
“We heard an unpleasant report that your nephew was ill. I am glad to see from your letter it is only the lady, and in the right way; and I hope, Scottice loquens, she will be worse before she is better. This mistake is something like the Irish blunder in Faulkner’s Journal, “For his Grace the Duchess of Devonshire was safely delivered—read her Grace the Duke of Devonshire, &c.”—Always yours, affectionately,
“A very few minutes since, I received your kind letter, and answer it in all frankness, and, in Iago’s words, ‘I am hurt, ma’am, but not killed’—nor even kilt. I have made so much by literature, that, even should this loss fall in its whole extent, and we now make preparations for the worst, it will not break, and has not broken my sleep. If I have good luck, I may be as rich again as ever; if not, I shall have still far more than many of the most deserving people in Britain—soldiers, sailors, statesmen, or men of literature.
“I am much obliged to you for your kindness to
Sophia, who has tact, and great
truth of character, I believe. She will wish to take her company, as the
scandal said ladies liked their wine, little and good; and I need not say I
shall be greatly obliged by your conti-
| 222 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Lockhart is, I think, in his own line, and therefore I do not regret his absence, though, in our present arrangement, as my wife and Anne propose to remain all the year round at Abbotsford, I shall be solitary enough in my lodgings. But I always loved being a bear and sucking my paws in solitude, better than being a lion and ramping for the amusement of others; and as I propose to slam the door in the face of all and sundry for these three years to come, and neither eat nor give to eat, I shall come forth bearish enough, should I live, to make another avatar. Seriously, I intend to receive nobody, old and intimate friends excepted, at Abbotsford this season, for it cost me much more in time than otherwise.
“I beg my kindest compliments to Sir Humphry, and tell him Ill Luck, that direful chemist, never put into his crucible a more indissoluble piece of stuff than your affectionate cousin and sincere well-wisher,
I offer no cold comments on the strength of character which Sir Walter Scott exhibited in the crisis of his calamities. But for the revelations of his Diary it would never have been known to his most intimate friends, or even to his own affectionate children, what struggles it cost him to reach the lofty serenity of mind which was reflected in all his outward conduct and demeanour.
As yet, however, he had hardly prepared himself for
| JANUARY—FEBRUARY, 1826. | 223 |
The firm of James Ballantyne and
Co. might have allowed itself to be declared bankrupt, and obtained a speedy discharge, as
the bookselling concerns did, for all its obligations; but that Sir
Walter Scott was a partner. Had he chosen to act in the manner commonly
adopted by commercial insolvents, the matter would have been settled in a very short time.
The creditors of Ballantyne and Co.—(whose claims, including sheafs of
bills of all descriptions, amounted to L.117,000)—would have brought into the market
whatever property, literary or otherwise, he at the hour of failure possessed; they would
have had a right to his life-rent of Abbotsford, among other things—and to his reversionary
interest in the estate, in case either his eldest son or his daughter-in-law should die
without leaving issue, and thus void the provisions of their marriage-contract. All this
being brought into the market, the result would have been a dividend very far superior to
what the creditors of Constable and Hurst
received; and in return, the partners in the printing firm would have been left at liberty
to reap for themselves the profits of their future exertions. Things were, however,
complicated in consequence of the transfer of Abbotsford in January, 1825. At first, some
creditors seem to have had serious thoughts of contesting the validity of that transaction;
but a little reflection and examination satisfied them that nothing could be gained by such
an attempt. But, on the other hand, Sir Walter felt that he had done
wrong in placing any
| 224 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“The glory dies not, and the grief is past.” |
As soon as Parliament met, the recent convulsion in the commercial world
became the subject of some very remarkable debates in the Lower House; and the Ministers,
tracing it mainly to the rash facility of bankers in yielding credit to speculators,
proposed to strike at the root of the evil by taking from private banks the privilege of
circulating their own notes as money, and limiting even the Bank of England to the issue of
notes of L.5 value and upwards. The Government designed that this regulation should apply
to Scotland as well as England; and the northern public received the announcement with
almost universal reprobation. The
| MALACHI MALAGUOWTHER. | 225 |
These diatribes produced in Scotland a sensation not, perhaps, inferior
to that of the Drapier’s letters
in Ireland; a greater one, certainly, than any political tract had excited in the British
public at large since the appearance of Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution. They were answered most elaborately and
acutely in the London Courier (then the
semi-official organ of Lord Liverpool’s
Government) by Sir Walter’s friend, the Secretary
of the Admiralty, Mr Croker, who, perhaps, hazarded,
in the heat of his composition, a few personal allusions that might as well have been
spared, and which might have tempted a less good-natured antagonist to a fiery rejoinder.
Meeting, however, followed meeting, and petition on petition came up with thousands
| 226 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
I believe, with these hints, the reader is sufficiently prepared for resuming Sir Walter’s Diary.
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