“I went to dine as usual at the kind house of Huntly-Burn; but the cloud still had its influence. The effect of grief upon persons who, like myself and Sir Adam, are highly susceptible of humour, has, I think, been, finely touched by Wordsworth in the character of the merry village teacher Matthew, whom Jeffrey profanely calls “a half crazy sentimental person.”* But, with my friend Jeffrey’s pardon, I think he loves to see imagination best when it is bitted and managed, and ridden upon the grand pas. He does not make allowance for starts and sallies, and bounds, when Pegasus is beautiful to behold, though sometimes perilous to his rider. Not that I think the amiable bard of Rydale shows judgment in choosing such subjects as the popular mind cannot sympathize in. It is unwise and unjust to himself. I do not compare myself, in point of imagination, with Wordsworth, far from it; for his is naturally exquisite, and highly cultivated from constant exercise. But I can see as many castles in the clouds as any man, as many genii in the curling smoke of a steam-engine, as perfect a Persepolis in the embers of a sea-coal fire. My life has been spent in such day-dreams. But I cry no roast-meat. There are times a man should remember what Rousseau used to say, Tait-toi, Jean Jacques, car on ne t’entend pas!

“Talking of Wordsworth, he told Anne a story, the object of which, as she understood it, was to show that Crabbe

* See Edinburgh Review, No. xxiii., p. 135.

6

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

had no imagination. Crabbe, Sir George Beaumont, and Wordsworth were sitting together in Murray’s room in Albemarle Street. Sir George, after sealing a letter, blew out the candle which had enabled him to do so, and exchanging a look with Wordsworth, began to admire in silence the undulating thread of smoke which slowly arose from the expiring wick, when Crabbe put on the extinguisher. Anne laughed at the instance, and enquired if the taper was wax, and being answered in the negative, seemed to think that there was no call on Mr Crabbe to sacrifice his sense of smell to their admiration of beautiful and evanescent forms. In two other men I should have said ‘Why, it is affectations,’ with Sir Hugh Evans; ‘but Sir George is the man in the world most void of affectation; and then he is an exquisite painter, and no doubt saw where the incident would have succeeded in painting. The error is not in you yourself receiving deep impressions from slight hints, but in supposing that precisely the same sort of impression must arise in the mind of men, otherwise of kindred feeling, or that the common-place folk of the world can derive such inductions at any time or under any circumstances.

“January 13.—The Fergusons, with my neighbours Mr Scrope and Mr Bainbridge, eat a haunch of venison from Drummond Castle, and seemed happy. We had music and a little dancing, and enjoyed in others the buoyancy of spirit that we no longer possess ourselves. Yet I do not think the young people of this age so gay as we were. There is a turn for persiflage, a fear of ridicule among them, which stifles the honest emotions of gaiety and lightness of spirit; and people, when they

* Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I. Scene 1.

TORWOODLEE, &c.

7

give in the least to the expansion of their natural feelings, are always kept under by the fear of becoming ludicrous. To restrain your feelings and check your enthusiasm in the cause even of pleasure, is now a rule among people of fashion, as much as it used to be among philosophers.

“Edinburgh, January 15.—Off we came, and in despite of rheumatism I got through the journey tolerably. Coming through Galashiels, we met the Laird of Torwoodlee, who, on hearing how long I had been confined, asked how I bore it, observing that he had once in his life—Torwoodlee must be between 60 and 70—been confined for five days to the house, and was like to hang himself. I regret God’s free air as much as any man, but I could amuse myself were it in the Bastile.

“February 19.—Very cold weather. What says Dean Swift?

“When frost and snow come both together, Then sit by the fire and save shoe leather.’

I read and wrote at the bitter account of the French retreat from Moscow, in 1812, till the little room and coal fire seemed snug by comparison. I felt cold in its rigour in my childhood and boyhood, but not since. In youth and middle life I was yet less sensible to it than now—but I remember thinking it worse than hunger. Uninterrupted to-day, and did eight leaves.*

“March 3.—Very severe weather, and home covered with snow. White as a frosted plum-cake, by jingo. No matter; I am not sorry to find I can stand a brush of weather yet. I like to see Arthur’s Seat and the stern

* One page of his MS. answers to from four to five of the close-printed pages of the original edition of his Buonaparte.

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LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

old Castle with their white watch-cloaks on. But, as Byron said to Moore, d——n it, Tom, don’t be poetical. I settled to Boney, and wrote right long and well.

“Abbotsford, March 12.—Away we set, and came safely to Abbotsford amid all the dulness of a great thaw, which has set the rivers a streaming in full tide. The wind is high, but for my part

‘I like this rocking of the battlements.’*

I was received by old Tom and the dogs with the unsophisticated feelings of good-will. I have been trying to read a new novel which I had heard praised. It is called Almacks, and the author has so well succeeded in describing the cold selfish fopperies of the time, that the copy is almost as dull as the original. I think I shall take up my bundle of Sheriff-Court processes instead of Almacks, as the more entertaining avocation of the two.

“March 13.—Before breakfast, prepared and forwarded the processes to Selkirk. Had a pleasant walk to the thicket, though my ideas were olla-podrida-ish. I expect this will not be a day of work but of idleness, for my books are not come. Would to God I could make it light, thoughtless idleness, such as I used to have when the silly smart fancies ran in my brain like the bubbles in a glass of champagne,—as brilliant to my thinking, as intoxicating, as evanescent. But the wine is somewhat on the lees. Perhaps it was but indifferent cyder after all. Yet I am happy in this place, where every thing looks friendly, from old Tom to young Nym.† After all, he has little to complain of who has left so many things that like him.

MARCH, APRIL, 1827.

9

“March 21.—Wrote till twelve, then out upon the heights, though the day was stormy, and faced the gale bravely. Tom Purdie was not with me. He would have obliged me to keep the sheltered ground. There is a touch of the old spirit in me yet, that bids me brave the tempest,—the spirit that, in spite of manifold infirmities, made me a roaring boy in my youth, a desperate climber, a bold rider, a deep drinker, and a stout player at single-stick, of all which valuable qualities there are now but slender remains. I worked hard when I came in, and finished five pages.

“March 26.—Despatched packets. Colonel and Captain Ferguson arrived to breakfast. I had previously determined to give myself a day to write letters; and this day will do as well as another. I cannot keep up with the world without shying a letter now and then. It is true the greatest happiness I could think of would be to be rid of the world entirely. Excepting my own family, I have little pleasure in the world, less business in it, and am heartily careless about all its concerns.

10

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

“May 13.—A most idle and dissipated day. I did not rise till half-past eight o’clock. Col. and Capt. Ferguson came to breakfast. I walked half-way home with them, then turned back and spent the day, which was delightful, wandering from place to place in the woods, sometimes reading the new and interesting volumes of Cyril Thornton, sometimes ‘chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies’ which alternated in my mind, idly stirred by the succession of a thousand vague thoughts and fears, the gay strangely mingled with those of dismal melancholy; tears which seemed ready to flow unbidden; smiles which approached to those of insanity; all that wild variety of mood which solitude engenders. I scribbled some verses, or rather composed them in my memory. The contrast at leaving Abbotsford to former departures, is of an agitating and violent description. Assorting papers, and so forth. I never could help admiring the concatenation between Ahithophel’s setting his house in order and hanging himself.* The one seems to follow the other as a matter of course. But what frightens and disgusts me is those fearful letters from those who have been long dead, to those who linger on their wayfare through the valley of tears. Those fine lines of Spencer came into my head—

“The shade of youthful hope is there, That lingered long, and latest died; Ambition all dissolved to air, With phantom honours by his side.

“What empty shadows glimmer nigh? They once were Friendship, Truth, and Love! Oh die to thought, to Memory die, Since lifeless to my heart ye prove.”†

* 2d Sam. xvii. 23. † Poems by the late Honourable W. R. Spencer, London, 1835, 45. See ante, vol. vi. p. 373, note.

MAY, 1827.

11

Ay, and can I forget the Author the frightful moral of his own vision? What is this world?—a dream within a dream as we grow older—each step is an awakening. The youth awakes, as he thinks, from childhood—the full-grown man despises the pursuits of youth as visionary—the old man looks on manhood as a feverish dream. The grave the last sleep? No; it is the last and final awakening.

“Edinburgh, May 15.—It is impossible not to compare this return to Edinburgh with others in more happy times. But we should rather recollect under what distress of mind I took up my lodgings in Mrs Brown’s last summer. Went to Court and resumed old habits. Heard the true history of ——* Imagination renders us liable to be the victims of occasional low spirits. All belonging to this gifted, as it is called, but often unhappy class, must have felt that but for the dictates of religion, or the natural recoil of the mind from the idea of dissolution, there have been times when they would have been willing to throw away life as a child does a broken toy. I am sure I know one who has often felt so. O God! what are we?—Lords of nature?—Why a tile drops from a house-top, which an elephant would not feel more than the fall of a sheet of pasteboard, and there lies his lordship. Or something of inconceivably minute origin, the pressure of a bone, or the inflammation of a particle of the brain takes place, and the emblem of the Deity destroys himself or some one else. We hold our health and our reason on terms slighter than one would desire, were it in their choice, to hold an Irish cabin.”

“January 9.—This morning received the long-expected news of the Duke of York’s death. I am sorry both on public and private accounts. His R. H. was, while he occupied the situation of next in succession, a Break-water behind the throne. I fear his brother of Clarence’s opinions may be different, and that he may hoist a standard under which men of desperate hopes and evil designs will rendezvous. I am sorry, too, on my own account. The Duke of York was uniformly kind to me, and though I never tasked his friendship, yet I find a powerful friend is gone. His virtues were

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LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

honour, good sense, integrity; and by exertion of these qualities, he raised the British army from a very low ebb to be the pride and dread of Europe. His errors were those of a sanguine and social temper—he could not resist the temptation of deep play, which was fatally allied with a disposition to the bottle. This last is incident to his complaint, which vinous influence soothes for the time, while it insidiously increases it in the end.

“January 17.—I observe in the papers my old friend Gifford’s funeral. He was a man of rare attainments and many excellent qualities. His Juvenal is one of the best versions ever made of a classical author, and his satire of the Baviad and Mæviad squabashed at one blow a set of coxcombs, who might have humbugged the world long enough. As a commentator he was capital, could he but have suppressed his rancours against those who had preceded him in the task; but a misconstruction or misinterpretation, nay, the misplacing of a comma was, in Gifford’s eyes, a crime worthy of the most severe animadversion. The same fault of extreme severity went through his critical labours, and in general he flagellated with so little pity, that people lost their sense of the criminal’s guilt in dislike of the savage pleasure which the executioner seemed to take in inflicting the punishment. This lack of temper probably arose from indifferent health, for he was very valetudinary, and realized two verses, wherein he says Fortune assigned him—

——‘One eye not over good, Two sides that to their cost have stood A ten years’ hectic cough, Aches, stitches, all the various ills That swell the devilish doctor’s bills, And sweep poor mortals off.’

WILLIAM GIFFORD.

23

But he might also justly claim, as his gift, the moral qualities expressed in the next fine stanza—

————————‘A soul That spurns the crowd’s malign control, A firm contempt of wrong; Spirits above affliction’s power, And skill to soothe the lingering hour With no inglorious song.’

He was a little man, dumpled up together, and so ill made as to seem almost deformed, but with a singular expression of talent in his countenance. Though so little of an athlete, he nevertheless beat off Dr Wolcott, when that celebrated person, the most unsparing calumniator of his time, chose to be offended with Gifford for satirizing him in his turn. Peter Pindar made a most vehement attack, but Gifford had the best of the affray,* and remained, I think, in triumphant possession of the field of action, and of the assailant’s cane. G. had one singular custom. He used always to have a duenna of a housekeeper to sit in his study with him while he wrote. This female companion died when I was in London, and his distress was extreme. I afterwards heard he got her place supplied. I believe there was no scandal in all this.

“January 28.—Hear of Miss White’s death. Poor Lydia! she gave a dinner on the Friday before, and had written with her own hand invitations for another party.

* See Epistle to Peter Pindar, Gifford’s Baviad and Mæviad, pp. 181-191, ed. 1812.

24

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Twenty years ago she used to tease me with her youthful affectations—her dressing like the Queen of Chimney-sweeps on May-day morning, &c.—and sometimes with letting her wit run wild. But she was a woman of wit, and had a feeling and kind heart. Poor Lydia! I saw the Duke of York and her in London, when Death, it seems, was brandishing his dart over them.

‘The view o’t gave them little fright.’

“February 10.—I got a present of Lord Francis Gower’s printed but unpublished Tale of the Mill. It is a fine tale of terror in itself, and very happily brought out. He has certainly a true taste for poetry. I do not know why, but from my childhood I have seen something fearful, or melancholy at least, about a mill. Whether I had been frightened at the machinery when very young, of which, I think, I have some shadowy remembrance—whether I had heard the stories of the Miller of Thirlestane, and similar molendinar tragedies, I cannot tell; but not even recollections of the Lass of Patie’s Mill, or the Miller of Mansfield, or ‘he who dwelt on the river Dee,’ have ever got over my inclination to connect gloom with a mill, especially when the sun is setting. So I entered into the spirit of the terror with which Lord Francis has invested his haunted spot.

“February 14.—‘Death’s gi’en the art an unco devel.’* Sir George Beaumont’s dead; by far the most sensible and pleasing man I ever knew, kind, too, in his nature, and generous—gentle in society, and of those mild manners which tend to soften the causticity of the general London tone of persiflage and personal satire. As an amateur painter, he was of the very highest dis-

* “Death’s gi’en the lodge an unco devel, Tam Sampson’s dead.”—Burns.

SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT.

25

tinction; and though I know nothing of the matter, yet I should hold him a perfect critic on painting, for he always made his criticisms intelligible, and used no slang. I am very sorry—as much as it is in my nature to be for one whom I could see but seldom. He was the great friend of Wordsworth, and understood his poetry, which is a rare thing, for it is more easy to see his peculiarities than to feel his great merit, or follow his abstract ideas.

“February 20.—At Court, and waited to see the poi-

26

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

soiling woman tried. She is clearly guilty, but as one or two witnesses said the poor wench hinted an intention to poison herself, the jury gave that bastard verdict, Not proven. I hate that Caledonian medium quid. One who is not proved guilty, is innocent in the eyes of law. It was a face to do or die, or perhaps to do to die. Thin features, which had been handsome, a flashing eye, an acute and aquiline nose, lips much marked as arguing decision, and I think, bad temper—they were thin, and habitually compressed, rather turned down at the corners, as one of a rather melancholy disposition. There was an awful crowd; but, sitting within the bar, I had the pleasure of seeing much at my ease; the constables knocking the other folks about, which was of course very entertaining.

“I have a letter from Baron Von Goethe, which I must have read to me; for though I know German, I have forgot their written hand. I make it a rule seldom to read, and never to answer foreign letters from literary folks. It leads to nothing but the battledore and shuttle-cock intercourse of compliments, as light as cork and feathers. But Goethe is different, and a wonderful fellow, the Ariosto at once, and almost the Voltaire of Germany. Who could have told me thirty years ago I should correspond and be on something like an equal footing with the author of the Goetz? Ay, and who could have told me fifty things else that have befallen me?”

“Mr H——, well known to me as a collector of

LETTER FROM GOETHE.

27

objects of art, has given me a likeness, I hope authentic and accurate, of the late Lord Byron, and it awakens anew the sorrow which I could not but feel for the loss of one whom all the world prized, and I in particular: since how could I fail to be delighted with the many expressions of partiality for me which his writings contain?

“Can I remember that such a man in his youth made himself acquainted with my writings, and even (unless I have been misinformed) introduced them in part to the knowledge of his own nation, and yet defer any longer, at my now very advanced years, to express my sense of such an honour? It becomes me, on the contrary, not to lose the opportunity now offered of praying for a continuance of your kindly regard, and telling you how

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LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

much a direct assurance of good-will from your own hand would gratify my old age.

* * * * * “Your letter has given me the vertigo—my head turns round like a chariot-wheel, and I am on the point of asking

‘Why, how now? Am I Giles, or am I not?’

The Duke of Wellington out?—bad news at home, and worse abroad. Lord Anglesea in his situation? does not much mend the matter. Duke of Clarence in the Navy? wild work. Lord Melville, I suppose, falls of course—perhaps cum totâ sequelâ, about which sequela, unless Sir W. Rae and the Solicitor, I care little. The whole is glamour to one who reads no papers, and has none to read. I must get one, though, if this work is to go on, for it is quite bursting in ignorance. Canning is haughty and prejudiced but, I think, honourable as well as able—nous verrons. I fear Croker will shake, and heartily sorry I should feel for that.” * * * * *

“The news you send is certainly the most wonderful of my time, in a party point of view, especially as I can’t but think all has turned on personal likings and dislikings. I hope they won’t let in the Whigs at the breach, for I suppose, if Lansdowne come in, he must be admitted with a tail on, and Lauderdale will have the weight in Scotland. How our tough Tories may like that, I wot not; but they will do much to keep the key of the corn-chest within reach. The Advocate has not used me extremely kindly, but I shall be sorry if he suffers in this State tempest. For me, I remain, like the Lilliputian poet—‘In amaze—Lost I gaze’—or rather as some other bard sings

‘So folks beholding at a distance Seven men flung out of a casement, They never stir to their assistance, But just afford them their amazement.’*

—You ask why the wheels of Napoleon tarry; not by my fault, I swear;

‘We daily are jogging, While whistling and flogging, While whistling and flogging, The coachman drives on, With a hey hoy, gee up gee ho,’ &c. &c. &c.

* Crazy Tales, by John Hall Stevenson.

POLITICS—MAY, 1827.

31

To use a more classical simile

‘Wilds immeasurably spread Seem lengthening as I go.’*

I have just got some very curious papers from Sweden. I have wrought myself blind between writing and collating, and, except about three or four hours for food and exercise, I have not till to-day devauled from my task. . . . .

O, Bony, I’ll owe you a curse, if Hereafter To my vision your tyrannous spectre shall show, But I doubt you’ll be pinned on old Nick’s reddest rafter, While the vulgar of Tophet howl back from below. . . .

I shall, however, displease Ultras such as Croker, on the subject of Bony, who was certainly a great man, though far from a good man, and still farther from a good king. But the stupidest Roitelet in Europe has his ambition and selfishness, and where will you find his talents? I own I think Ultra-writing only disgusts people, unless it is in the way of a downright invective, and that in history you had much better keep the safe side, and avoid colouring too highly. After all, I suspect, were Croker in presence of Bony to-morrow, he might exclaim, as Captain T. did at one of the Elba levees, ‘Well, Bony’s a d——d good fellow after all.’”

. . . “To speak seriously of these political movements, I cannot say that I approve of the dissidents. I understand Peel had from the King carte blanche for an Anti-Catholic Administration, and that he could not accept it because there was not strength enough to form such. What is this but saying in plain

* Goldsmith’s Hermit.

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words that the Catholics had the country and the Question? And because they are defeated in a single question, and one which, were it to entail no farther consequences, is of wonderfully little import, they have abandoned the King’s service—given up the citadel because an exterior work was carried, and marched out into Opposition. I can’t think this was right. They ought either to have made a stand without Canning, or a stand with him; for to abdicate as they have done was the way to subject the country to all the future experiments which this Catholic Emancipation may lead those that now carry it to attempt, and which may prove worse, far worse, than any thing connected with the Question itself. Thus says the old Scotch Tory. But I for one do not believe it was the question of Emancipation, or any public question, which carried them out. I believe the predominant motive in the bosom of every one of them was personal hostility to Canning, and that with more prudence, less arbitrary manners, and more attention to the feelings of his colleagues, he would have stepped nem. con. into the situation of Prime Minister, for which his eloquence and talent naturally point him out. They objected to the man more than the statesman, and the Duke of Wellington, more frank than the rest, almost owns that the quarrel was personal. Now, acting upon that, which was, I am convinced, the real ground, I cannot think the dissidents acted well and wisely. It is very possible that they might not have been able to go on with Canning; but I think they were bound, as loyal subjects and patriots, to ascertain that continuing in the Cabinet with him as Premier was impossible, before they took a step which may change the whole policy, perhaps eventually the whole destiny of the realm, and lead to the prevalence of those principles which the dis-

CANNING, &c.—MAY, 1827.

33

sidents have uniformly represented as destructive to the interests of Britain. I think they were bound to have made a trial before throwing Canning, and alas! both the King and the country, into the hand of the Whigs. These are the sort of truths more visible to the lookers-on than to those who play.

“As for Canning, with his immense talent, wit, and eloquence, he unhappily wants prudence and patience, and in his eager desire to scramble to the highest point, is not sufficiently select as to his assistants. The Queen’s affair is an example of this—Lord Castlereagh’s was another. In both he threw himself back by an over-eager desire to press forward, and something of the kind must have been employed now. It cannot be denied that he has placed himself (perhaps more from compulsion than choice) in a situation which greatly endangers his character. Still, however, he has that character to maintain, and unluckily it is all we have to rest upon as things go. The sons of Zeruiah would be otherwise too many for us. It is possible, though I doubt it, that the Whigs will be satisfied with their share of orts and grains, and content themselves with feeding out of the trough without overturning it. My feeling, were I in the House of Commons, would lead me to stand up and declare that I supported Canning so far, and so far only, as he continued to preserve and maintain the principles which he had hitherto professed—that my allegiance could not be irredeemably pledged to him, because his camp was filled with those against whom I had formerly waged battle under his command—that, however, it should not be mere apprehension of evil that would make me start off—reserving to myself to do what should be called for when the crisis arrived. I think if a number of intelligent and able men were to hold by Canning on these grounds, they might yet enable him to

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LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

collect a Tory force around him, sufficient to check at least, if not on all points to resist the course of innovation. If my old friend is wise he will wish to organize such a force, for nothing is more certain than that if the champion of Anti-Jacobinism should stoop to become the tool of the Whigs, it is not all his brilliancy of talents, eloquence and wit, which can support him in such a glaring want of consistency. Meliora spero. I do not think Canning can rely on his Whig confederates, and some door of reconciliation may open itself as unexpectedly as the present confusion has arisen.”

Diary “May 11.—The Boar of the Forest called this morning to converse about trying to get him on the pecuniary list of the Royal Literary Society. Certainly he deserves it, if genius and necessity can do so. But I do not belong to the society, nor do I propose to enter it as a coadjutor. I do not like your royal academies of this kind; they almost always fall into jobs, and the members are seldom those who do credit to the literature of a country. It affected, too, to comprehend those men of letters who are specially attached to the Crown, and though I love and honour my King as much as any of them can, yet I hold it best, in this free country, to preserve the exterior of independence, that my loyalty may be the more impressive, and tell more effectually. Yet I wish sincerely to help poor Hogg, and have written to Lockhart about it. It may be my own desolate feelings—it may be the apprehension of evil from this political hocus-pocus; but I have seldom felt more moody and uncomfortable than while writing these lines. I have walked, too, but without effect. W. Laidlaw, whose very ingenious mind is delighted with all novelties, talked

MAY, 1827.

35

nonsense about the new government, in which men are to resign principle, I fear, on both sides.

“Parliament House a queer sight. Looked as if people were singing to each other the noble song of ‘The sky’s falling chickie diddle.’ Thinks I to myself, I’ll keep a calm sough.

‘Betwixt both sides I unconcerned stand by— Hurt can I laugh, and harmless need I cry?’

“May 15,—I dined at a great dinner given by Sir George Clerk to his electors, the freeholders of Mid-Lothian; a great attendance of Whig and Tory, huzzaing each other’s toasts. If is a good peace-maker, but quarter-day is a better. I have a guess the best gamecocks would call a truce, if a handful or two of oats were scattered among them.

“May 27.—I got ducked in coming home from the Court. Made a hard day of it. Scarce stirred from one room to another, but by bed-time finished a handsome handful of copy. I have quoted Gourgaud’s evidence; I suppose he will be in a rare passion, and may be addicted to vengeance, like a long-moustached son of a French bitch as he is.

‘Frenchman, Devil, or Don, Damn him let him come on, He shan’t scare a son of the Island.’*

“May 28.—Another day of uninterrupted study; two such would finish the work with a murrain. What shall I have to think of when I lie down at night and awake in the morning? What will be my plague and my pastime—my curse and my blessing—as ideas come and the pulse rises, or as they flag and something like a snow-haze covers my whole imagination?—I have my Highland

* Sir W. varies a verse of “The tight little Island.”

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LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Tales—and then—never mind—sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.—Letter from John touching public affairs; don’t half like them, and am afraid we shall have the Whig alliance turn out like the calling in of the Saxons. I told this to Jeffrey, who said they would convert us as the Saxons did the British. I shall die in my Paganism for one. I don’t like a bone of them as a party. Ugly reports of the King’s health; God pity this poor country should that be so, but I hope it is a thing devised by the enemy.

“June 3.—Wrought hard. I thought I had but a trifle to do, but new things cast up; we get beyond the Life, however, for I have killed him to-day. The newspapers are very saucy; the Sun says I have got L.4000 for suffering a Frenchman to look over my manuscript. Here is a proper fellow for you! I wonder what he thinks Frenchmen are made of—walking money-bags, doubtless. ‘Now,’ as Sir Fretful Plagiary says, ‘another person would be vexed at this,’ but I care not one brass farthing.

“June 5.—Proofs. Parliament-House till two. Commenced the character of Buonaparte. To-morrow being a Teind-day, I may hope to get it finished.

“June 10.—Rose with the odd consciousness of being free of my daily task. I have heard that the fish-women go to church of a Sunday with their creels new washed, and a few stones in them for ballast, just because they cannot walk steadily without their usual load. I feel something like them, and rather inclined to take up some light task, than to be altogether idle. I have my proof-sheets, to be sure; but what are these to a whole day? A good thought came in my head to write Stories for little Johnnie Lockhart, from the History of Scot-

LETTER TO MORRITT—JUNE, 1827.

37

land, like those taken from the History of England. But I will not write mine quite so simply as Croker has done. I am persuaded both children and the lower class of readers hate books which are written down to their capacity, and love those that are composed more for their elders and betters. I will make, if possible, a book that a child shall understand, yet a man will feel some temptation to peruse should he chance to take it up. It will require, however, a simplicity of style not quite my own. The grand and interesting consists in ideas, not in words. A clever thing of this kind might have a race.”

“Napoleon has been an absolute millstone about my neck, not permitting me for many a long day to think my own thoughts, to work my own work, or to write my own letters—which last clause of prohibition has rendered me thus long your debtor. I am now finished—valeat quod valere potest—and as usual not very anxious about the opinion of the public, as I have never been able to see that such anxiety has any effect in mollifying the minds of the readers, while it renders that of the author very uncomfortable—so vogue la galère.

“How are you, as a moderate pro-Catholic, satisfied with this strange alliance in the Cabinet? I own I look upon it with doubt at best, and with apprehensions. At the same time I cannot approve of the late Ministers leaving the King’s councils in such a hurry. They could hardly suppose that Canning’s fame, talent, and firm disposition would be satisfied with less than the condition of Premier, and such being the case—

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LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

‘To fly the boar before the boar pursued, Was to incense the boar to follow them.’*

On the other hand, his allying himself so closely and so hastily with the party against whom he had maintained war from youth to age seems to me, at this distance, to argue one of two things;—either that the Minister has been hoodwinked by ambition and anger—that he looks upon the attachment of those gentlemen to the opinions which he has always opposed as so slight, unsubstantial, and unreal, that they will not insist upon them, or any of them, provided they are gratified personally with a certain portion of the benefits of place and revenue. Now, not being disposed to think over well of the Whigs, I cannot suppose that a large class of British statesmen, not deficient certainly in talents, can be willing to renounce all the political maxims and measures which they have been insisting upon for thirty years, merely to become placeholders under Canning. The supposition is too profligate. But then if they come in the same Whigs we have known them, where, how, or when are they to execute their favourite notions of Reform of Parliament? and what sort of amendments will they be which are to be brought forward when the proper time comes? or how is Canning to conduct himself when the Saxons, whom he has called in for his assistance, draw out to fight for a share of the power which they have assisted him to obtain? When such strange and unwonted bedfellows are packed up together, will they not kick and struggle for the better share of the coverlid and blankets? Perhaps you will say that I look gloomily on all this, and have forgotten the way of the world, which sooner or later shows that the principles of statesmen are regulated by their advance towards; or retreat from

* King Richard III. Act. III. Sc. 2.

LETTER FROM MR R. HOGG.

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power; and that from men who are always acting upon the emergencies of the moment, it is in vain to expect consistency. Perfect consistency, I agree, we cannot look for—it is inconsistent with humanity. But that gross inconsistency which induces men to clasp to their bosom the man whom they most hated, and to hold up to admiration the principles which they have most forcibly opposed, may gain a temporary triumph, but will never found a strong Ministry or a settled Government. My old friend Canning, with his talents and oratory, ought not, I think, to have leagued himself with any party, but might have awaited, well assured that the general voice must have carried him into full possession of power. I am sorry he has acted otherwise, and argue no good from it, though when or how the evil is to come I cannot pretend to say.

“My best compliments wait on your fireside. I conclude you see Lady Louisa Stuart very often, which is a happiness to be envied. . . . . .

“Having been for a few days employed by Sir Walter Scott, when he was finishing his Life of Buonaparte, to copy papers connected with that work, and to

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LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

write occasionally to his dictation, it may perhaps be in my power to mention some circumstances relative to Sir Walter’s habits of composition, which could not fall under the observation of any one except a person in the same situation with myself, and which are therefore not unlikely to pass altogether without notice.

“When, at Sir Walter’s request, I waited upon him to be informed of the business in which he needed my assistance, after stating it, he asked me if I was an early riser, and added that it would be no great hardship for me, being a young man, to attend him the next morning at six o’clock. I was punctual, and found Sir Walter already busy writing. He appointed my tasks, and again sat down at his own desk. We continued to write during the regular work hours till six o’clock in the evening, without interruption, except to take breakfast and dinner, which were served in the room beside us, so that no time was lost; we rose from our desks when every thing was ready, and resumed our labours when the meals were over. I need not tell you that during these intervals Sir Walter conversed with me as if I had been on a level of perfect equality with himself.

“I had no notion it was possible for any man to undergo the fatigue of composition for so long a time at once, and Sir Walter acknowledged he did not usually subject himself to so much exertion, though it seemed to be only the manual part of the operation that occasioned him any inconvenience. Once or twice he desired me to relieve him, and dictated while I wrote with as much rapidity as I was able. I have performed the same service to several other persons, most of whom walked up and down the apartment while excogitating what was to be committed to writing; they sometimes stopt too, and, like those who fail in a leap and return upon their course to take the advantage of another race, endeavoured to hit upon something additional by peru-

LETTER FROM MR R. HOGG.

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sing over my shoulder what was already set down,—mending a phrase perhaps, or recasting a sentence, till they should recover their wind. None of these aids were necessary to Sir Walter: his thoughts flowed easily and felicitously, without any difficulty to lay hold of them or to find appropriate language; which was evident by the absence of all solicitude (miserta cogitandi) from his countenance. He sat in his chair, from which he rose now and then, took a volume from the bookcase, consulted it, and restored it to the shelf—all without intermission in the current of ideas, which continued to be delivered with no less readiness than if his mind had been wholly occupied with the words he was uttering. It soon became apparent to me, however, that he was carrying on two distinct trains of thought, one of which was already arranged and in the act of being spoken, while at the same time he was in advance considering what was afterwards to be said. This I discovered by his sometimes introducing a word which was wholly out of place—entertained instead of denied, for example,—but which I presently found to belong to the next sentence, perhaps four or five lines farther on, which he had been preparing at the very moment that he gave me the words of the one that preceded it. Extemporaneous orators of course, and no doubt many writers, think as rapidly as was done by Sir Walter; but the mind is wholly occupied with what the lips are uttering or the pen is tracing. I do not remember any other instance in which it could be said that two threads were kept hold of at once connected with each other indeed, but grasped at different points. I was, as I have said, two or three days beside Sir Walter, and had repeated opportunities of observing the same thing. I am, Sir, respectfully your obliged humble servant,