Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Sir Walter Scott to Lady Louisa Stuart, 31 October 1830
“Abbotsford, October 31, 1830.
“I come before your Ladyship for once, in the
character of Not Guilty. I am a wronged man, who deny, with Lady Teazle, the butler and the coach-horse.
Positively, in sending a blow to explode old and worn ![]()
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out follies, I could not think I was
aiding and abetting those of this—at least I had no purpose of doing so. Your
Ladyship cannot think me such an owl as to pay more respect to animal
magnetism, or scullology, I forget its learned name, or any other ology of the present day. The sailors have an uncouth
proverb that every man must eat a peck of dirt in the course of his life, and
thereby reconcile themselves to swallow unpalatable messes. Even so say I,
every age must swallow a certain deal of superstitious nonsense; only,
observing the variety which nature seems to study through all her works, each
generation takes its nonsense, as heralds say, with a
difference. I was early behind the scenes, having been in childhood
patient of no less a man than the celebrated Dr
Graham, the great quack of that olden day. I had, being, as
Sir Hugh Evans says, a fine sprag boy,
a shrewd idea that his magnetism was all humbug; but Dr
Graham, though he used a different method, was as much admired
in his day as any of the French fops. I did once think of turning on the modern
mummers, but I did not want to be engaged in so senseless a controversy, which
would, nevertheless, have occupied some time and trouble. The inference was
pretty plain, that the same reasons which explode the machinery of witches and
ghosts proper to our ancestors, must be destructive of the supernatural
nonsense of our own days.
“Your acquaintance with Shakspeare is intimate, and you remember why, and when it is
said,
‘He words me, girl, he words me.’ |
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Our modern men of the day have done this to the country. They have devised
a new phraseology to convert ![]()
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good into evil, and evil into good, and the ass’s
ears of John Bull are gulled with it as if
words alone made crime or virtue. Have they a mind to excuse the tyranny of
Buonaparte? why, the Lord love you, he
only squeezed into his government a grain too much of civilisation. The fault
of Robespierre was too active
liberalism; a noble error. Thus the most blood-thirsty anarchy is glossed over
by opening the account under a new name. The varnish might be easily scraped
off all this trumpery; and I think my friends the brave
Belges are like to lead to the conclusion that the old names of murder
and fire-raising are still in fashion. But what is worse, the natural connexion
between the higher and lower classes is broken. The former reside abroad and
become gradually, but certainly, strangers to their country’s laws,
habits, and character. The tenant sees nothing of them but the creditor for
rent, following on the heels of the creditor for taxes. Our Ministers dissolve
the yeomanry, almost the last tie which held the laird and the tenant together.
The best and worthiest are squabbling together, like a mutinous crew in a
sinking vessel, who make the question, not how they are to get her off the
rocks, but by whose fault she came on them. In short but I will not pursue any
further the picture more frightful than any apparition in my Demonology. Would to God I could
believe it ideal! I have confidence still in the Duke
of Wellington, but even he has sacrificed to the great deity of
humbug, and what shall we say to meaner and more ordinary minds? God avert
evil, and, what is next best, in mercy remove those who could only witness
without preventing it. Perhaps I am somewhat despondent in all this. But
totally retired from the world as I now am, depression is a natural consequence
of so calamitous a prospect as politics now present. The only probable course
of safety would be a confederacy ![]()
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between the good and the honest; and
they are so much divided by petty feuds, that I see little chance of it.
“I will send this under Lord Montagu’s frank, for it is no matter how long such a
roll of lamentation may be in reaching your Ladyship. I do not think it at all
likely that I shall be in London next spring, although I suffer Sophia to think so. I remain, in all my bad
humour, ever your Ladyship’s most obedient and faithful humble servant,
James Graham (1745-1794)
Quack doctor and publisher who specialized in the treatment of nervous disorders; he died
in poverty.
Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his
abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St.
Helena (1815).
Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794)
The most dogmatic and aggressive of French revolutionary leaders; he sent Danton to the
guillotine.
Lady Louisa Stuart (1757-1851)
The youngest child of John Stuart, third earl of Bute; she corresponded with Sir Walter
Scott. Several volumes of her writings and memoirs were published after her death.
