dvl %. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 4 // A 4ij iLo V MPr ^/ -/:>^^' Zl ^ / ^ 1.0 I.I ^m iiiiiM 1^ iU 12.2 ^ lis IIIIIM 1.8 11.25 11.4 il.6 VI symbols V signifie "FIN". le Les cartes, planches, tableeux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s d das taux de reduction dlff6rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reprodult en un seul cllch6, 11 est fllm6 d partir de Tangle supirleur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'Images nicessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 aaUND BV.T.M.BROw./v:e .ee.SOUTMAMPTON.ROW.W.C THE LITERARY LIFE, AND MISCELLANIES, OP JOHN GALT. When I was yet a child, no childish play To me was pleasing j all my mind was set Serious to learn and know, and thence to do What might be public good. Milton. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH; AND T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON. M.DCCCXXXIV. ^^ f^^hfo^.Q^i-Z^ igSf. V z. KDINBURGH : I'RINTBD BY BALLANTYNE AND CO., PAUL'S WoHli. TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. SiRB, The manner in which the Author was permitted to dedicate this Work to your Majesty, has exalted the sentiment of duty into personal gratitude for an honour that can only be ascribed to the fatherly graciousness of William the Fourth. He has the happiness to be. Sire, Your Majesty's faithful and favoured subject, JOHN GALT. Edinburgh, 31*/ July, 1834. VOL. I. a 164005 CONTENTS OF VOLUME FIRST. Paos The Litehart Life op Johk Gait. Chap. I. — Origin of Literary predilections — First Composition — Early Reading— Jack the Giant- Killer — A pathetic inci- dent anent two Giants — Leper the Tailor — Chevy Chase— The Babes in the Wood — Early Friends — Anecdote of the Iliad — First Chirp, • f Chap. IL — Learn Frendi— Mathematics— A Scientific Excur- sion — Sent to the Custom-house — Musical Powers— An Ode— A Tragedy— Antiquarian Taste— Ode from Horace, 9 Chap. IIL— Confusion— Two Theatres — A Farce— The Rob- bers of Schiller— Mrs Radcliffe's Romances — ^the Confessor^ Learn Italian — The Greenock Advertiser, 21 Chap, IV. — Patriotic Effusions — A Letter from Park The Battle of Largs, .„ 32 Chap. V — The Battle of Largs, 41 Chap. VI — General Reflections relative to die State of my Mind at the close of 1804, ,, ...^..«.. ..«,.,., £4 Chap. VII.— -Desultory reading — Astrology and Alchymy The Discovery of the Imperishable Ink — Witchcraft, 61 Chap. VIII. — Life of Wolsey — Oi-igin— -Hume and Robertson —Letter from Park — Researches at Oxford — In the Jesuits' Library at Palermo, ,....„....^.„^ 71 ii CONTENTS. Paob Chap. IX.— Voyages and Travels, and Letters from the Levant, 7f» CiiAr. X.— Publication of Voyages and Travels— Critiques — Mr Croker's in the Quarterly Review, 87 CiiAV. XL— Reception of the Life of Wolsey— Defective Criti- cism — and Criticism of Defects ^3 Chap. XII — Dramas J0'» Chai'. XIII Criticisms on the Dramas, 114 Chap. XIV. Relative to Editing Redhead Yorke's Publication, 122 Chap. XV. — Change of Character previous to going to Gib- i raltar ^3^ Chap. XVL — Supposition of having described only from memory The harmony which genius discerns— My Novels taken . promiscuously~Men and Women— Reflections, 144 Chap. XVIL— Annals of the Parish 152 Chap. XVIII The New British Theatre, 161 . Chap. XIX The death of Mr Spence 174 Chap. XX. — The Majolo — The Earthquake, and other Works, 181 Chap. XXI The Life of Mr West, P. R. A., 190 Chap, XXII. — Summary respecting Junius, 20.'{ Chap. XXIII The Crusade— The Lives of the Admirals— and the Hermit Petsr, 207 Chap. XXIV.— Death of Park 212 Chap. XXV Literary Avocations — Historical Pictures — The Wandering Jew, 219 Chap. XXVL — The Ayrshire Legatees, The Provost, regarded as Novels — Origin of the Ayrshire Legatees— Rule of Art — 1 Anecdotes, ..«-. 224 Chap. XXVII The Steam-boat, and the Gathering of the West, 235 Chap. XXVIIL- Sir Andrew Wyllie, and the Entail, 244 Chap. XXIX.— Ringhan Gilhaize, and Genealogies, 250 Chap. XXX The Spaewife, and Rothelan, 259 CONTENTS. ill Paoi Cii.M', XXXI.— Go to America— Effects of the Annals of the Parish— The Last of the Lairds— The Omen, 267 CiiAi'. XXXIL — Dramas in America, 275 Chap. XXXIII.— Fatalism, and Particular Providence 283 Chap. XXXIV. — Lawrio Todd, 292 Chap. XXXV.— Southennan and Byron, 300 Chap. XXXVI.— The Courier— Lives of the Players Bogle Corbet — Stanley Buxton, 30;! Chap. XXXVII — Novels—The Member, and the Radical— — Eben Erskine — On the lax Nature of Literary Property, as respects Authors — The Royal Castle of Dunoon, 317 Chap. XXXVIII — Stolen Child, and Reflections of an Invalid, 328 Chap. XXXIX. — My Autobiography, 33(5 Chap. XL — Stories of the Study 343 Conclusion qkq Estimate of Myself, oka Repinings, , 3^2 PREFACE. I DID not myself imagine any of my literary attempts could be deemed so important as to furnish matter for more than an incidental re- mark in a general work 3 but friends, whose judgments are deserving of confidence by their repute and estimation among those who know them best, have thought differently. I there- fore presume to offer this book to the public, and entreat the reader to have the candour to believe that I am sincere in what I say. The miscellanies will, it is hoped, be re- ceived as proofs of the various topics to which u PREFACE. I i I, Liy attention has been directed ; but only a small part of many projects are given. The poetical pieces may perhaps be thought too numerous J but it is easier to compose verses in bed than even to dictate prose ; and they may be worthy of being read. The dramatic pieces are the productions of younger years, with the exception of the Masque, which was composed in bed after having suffered ten aggravations of my ano- malous affliction. It should be received with indulgence, and ought not to be regarded as within the pale of customary criticism. I feel myself also obliged to offer some apology for the querulous tone which may bo discovered here and there in the Literary Life. The work, as I have said, was written under the influence of a depressing malady : yet. :$ PREFACE, lU lit only a e thought compose rose ; and uctions of n of the bed after f my ano- sived with jgarded as 111. )fFer some ch may be erary Life, tten under lady : yet. were I not quite lame, and in every bodily function cramped and enfeebled, there is no- thing in my age or dispositions to make me such a cumberer of the ground ; but I must submit. This Preface ought not to be concluded without mentioning, that I have derived unex- pected pleasure from the mode of publication. A general subscription did not accord with my notions of what is due to the booksell- Qi's ; and in consequence, adopting the sug- gestion of limiting the subscription to the mere cost of publication, I made my inten- tion only known to a few friends, by wliose kindness the requisite number of subscribers was soon obtained. My early associates, with whom I have had little intercourse for thirty years, have voluntarily come forward with an alacrity truly gratifying. I only wish that the IV PREFACE. ■ * public may discover as much reason to approve of their heads, as I have in recording the kind- ness of their hearts. I should likewise state another circumstance particularly agreeable. Advised to obtain the King's permission to dedicate the work to his Majesty, I made the application, and the fol- lowing most gracious consent, given in a letter from Sir Herbert Taylor, was the answer :— « Windsor Castle, March 12, 1834. *' Sir, — I have had the honour of submitting your letter of yesterday to the King, and I have received his Majesty's commands to assure you of his ready acquiescence in your wish to dedicate your Literary Life and Miscellanies to him. *' His Majesty, indeed, feels obliged to those who have suggested an application which offers him the opportunity of manifesting the interest he must, in common with his subjects, take in the success of the proposed publication, and his sense of the merits of an individual whose works have so well established his own reputation, while they have . PREFACE, approve the kind- 1 instance btain the rk to his I the fol- i a letter wer : — 2, 1834. your letter s Majesty's ice in your ellanies to who have •pportunity )n with his mblication, bose works 3 they have raised thd literary character of this country. I have the honour to be, with great regard, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, H. TAyLon. " John Gait, Esq." Permit me also to explain, that the sub- scription might have, allowed me to send the work to press on the 8th April ; but on the 7th of that month I was attacked with excru- ciating pains, and an aggravation of my dis- ease, which confined me to bed till the 22d May, when the remaining strength of my limbs departed; — circumstances which should exte- nuate many faults and blemishes. The inex- tinguishable sense of helplessness, sharpened with anguish, and the apprehensions which have usurped the seats of hope and health for ever, should be received as a suiEcient excuse. I must, however, conclude; for although a man who has wrestled eleven times with para- VI PREFACE. lysis cannot bide his weakness, his imbecility need not be shown too obviously. I! 1 mi N.B. It was my intention to publish the names of subscribers with the work, but some of the papers are mislaid; the list will, however, be after\vards printed. Edinburgh, 1st August, 1834. Ill imbecilitv THE I the names f the papers J aftenvards LITERARY LIFE 01' JOHN GALT. CHAPTER I. Oritjln of Literary predilections—First Composition— Early Reading- Jack the Giant- Killer- A pathetic incident anent tico Giants-Leper the Tailor-Chevy Chase— The Babes in f^tf^Wood—Early Friends- Anccdoteofthelliad-First Chirp. I REMEMBER very distinctly the occasion on which I was first sensible of the influence of the Muses, though I do not recollect the exact date. It was in 1785 or 86, when about six years old,i during ' My youngest son far transcends me in precocity. When between two and three years old, he composed a poem which liad all the essentials of an epic ; viz. a beginning, a middle, and an end. It was — Johnnie a beau, he wont to the fair, And when he was there He bouglit two apples and a pear ; And when he was coming back, He tumbled into a dirty pond, And when he was in he was drownded, VOL. I. A ffS^ i i ml i i 1 2 THE LITERARY LIFE OF one of those annual migratory transits from Irvine to Greenock, alluded to in the early part of my Auto- biography. I had received two young larks, on leaving Irvine, to take with me to Greenock, and on the road, I sup- pose, caught from them some tuneful infection, for I was induced to begin a kind of ballad in celebration of their birth, parentage, and intended education. Nothing of the poetry can now be rescued from ob- livion, but the birds were carried to Greenock ; one of them, however, was soon after crushed to death beneath my heel. In consequence of a nefarious cat attempting to kidnap his brother with the zest and zeal of an Edinburgh critic seizing a poetling. In the endeavour to defend the one minor, the other fell from my hand, and while in the act of inflicting sum- mary vengeance on the unprincipled aggressor, I trode the helpless victim as flat as a pancake. The re- membrance of the accident makes my heart bleed even unto this day. This propensity continues. Before he was twelve, some of his tales, mended a very little, had been published and republished. The Black Pirate, in my Tales of the Study, is entirely his; I onlv substituted in it the word " torn" for " cut." ■M JOHN GALT. ing Irvine, •oad, I sup- ction, for I celebration education. kI from ob- 3nock ; one d to death ^farious cat est and zeal g. In the B other fell icting siim- ssor, I trode The re- heart bleed e, some of his d republished, sntirely bis; I The proficiency which I made in the study of let- ters, or rather in the alpha of erudition, for a consider- able time after, was, I suspect, not miraculous ; nor have I any recollection of again intromitting, as the Scottish lawyers say, with the Muses for several years. I continued, nevertheless, a very assiduous reader of all those sort of books, and " excellent new songs," that might be purchased between the national debt of a shilling, and the easy charge of one half- penny ; comprehending, for instance, the adventures of Jack the Giant- Killer, Leper the Tailor, the epic poem of Chevy Chase, and the monody that every body knows, and is so universally celebrated, The Babes in the Wood. Of Jack the Giant- Killer I have no particular im- pression, except of that pathetic incident which pierced my pityful heart, and was never forgotten— where Jack, in the defence of a castle, threw a rope over the heads of two giants that were knocking at the gate, and strangled them. The narrative, in mentioning that the helpless giants were unable to defend them- selves, deeply affected my compassion. Of Leper the Tailor I recollect more, and some of ! I I 4 THE LITERARY LIFE OF his pranks still make me smile ; especially the whole story of his master feigning to be dead, and being, in the opinion of the widow, " a bonny corp, of a lively colour." I do not know whether there have been any recent editions of those two renowned works, ornamented, according to the fashion of the age, with exquisite engravings ; but I recommend them to the attention of the courteous reader, and particularly to George Cruikshank, Chevy Chase is odorous as the blossomy heath on the Cheviot hills in my memory, and the Babes in the Wood is with me, as with all men, embalmed in the catacombs of the mind : neither Osiris, nor Busiris, nor he of the Memphian pyramid, had in death half such beauty. When the fulness of time arrived, at which it be-- Iioved me to learn arithmetic, I was sent to a school kept by one M'Gregor, at Greenock, an excellent teacher, but of a temper — every pupil remembers it ; and while I was there I made friends who continued such to the end of their lives, particularly with Loga- rithmic Transcendent Spence, and with Park. There JOHN GALT. 5 y the whole id being, in I, of a lively 1 any recent )rnamente(l, h exquisite le attention >■ to George ly heath on 3abes in the Imed in the nor Busiris, I death half ^hich it be-" to a school n excellent aembers it ; 3 continued with Loga- ^rk. There i was another boy of our coterie^ called M'Clarty, a very dressy chap, with Spartan locks, alias long hair. He was rather older than me, and was renowned among us by a very Amadis de Gaul mode of expres- sion. It happened that one of the other tyros had somehow offended him, and, to the consternation of all around, he put on a very La Mancha frown, and told the culprit, that if he repeated his words, he would send daylight through his body. At this important era. Park lent me Pope's Iliad ; and when I had finished the perusal in my bedroom, I went, with all the enthusiasm of a young mind, that feels more than it reasons, to my bedside, and prayed that I might be able to produce something like it. The poetical vein being thus opened, my first tuneful chirp was a rebus on a lime-kiln, which stood on the side of the road that led to a house where Park's family resided during the summer. This classical structure— this awrwrn milariumoi my poetical career occupied the crown of a beautiful rising ground at Finnart. I see it still ; it stood a little west from the house where I resided during my abortive sojourn at Greenock, in the year 1818. V I! m A^ ||4f G THE I4ITERARY LIFE OF This firstling rhyme was shown with great triumph and mystical secrecy to Park, on whom it had a vast effect, for he began immediately also to rhyme, and, much to my humiliation, produced several heroic verses, that sounded very like the chime of Pope's, and were certainly far beyond the capability of my ambition. From this great ado, we began to labour at verse- making; but I imagine our productions were not quite so good as Milton's Lycidas. The images of a stanza or two of mine are still recollected, but the metre has, in the course of time, slipped from my memory. One of them was a simile of a hero defend- ing himself against a swarm of banditti, which he did manfully. He was represented like Ailsa Craig, of poetical notoriety. These things are light and cheerful in the remem- brance, but I can assure " my public," if it do not already suspect the fact, that I have some doubt of ever having since been engaged in more serious and im- pressive business ; for, although it would not be easy now to conserve a lime-kiln in the amber of verse, I did so in those days, not only to my own satisfaction, ^ 1 JOHN GALT. 7 but even to that of Park, who, by the by, was a year older. Had he not shown that he could endite in the heroic measure, I would, indeed, have been very proud of my achievement, but I well recollect my mortification at being so outdone. However, there is some compensation in thinking that if, in those epochs of antiquity, there were humiliation and suiFering, time has since so mellowed the memory, that it has now a delicious flavour, and causes years and cares to drop away, like Christian's pack of original sin in the Pilgrim's Progress. The very day returns on which the kiln was, as far as I could, im- mortalized. It was wet and blustering, and the scene of the disclosure to Park was in his father's office. The day, the place, and the occupation, are in sad con- trast to the circumstances around me. " After life's fitful fever he sleeps well ;" and the placid tenor of his modest life was free alike from vicissitude and stain. Before me, how- ever, lowers a bleak evening, and the rest to which " The day's hard journey soundly invites," is disturbed by the consciousness of having on the n »■ 8 THE LITERARY LIFE OF clammy cloak of disease, as well as of being pinched with an inclemency that was then far out of sight, and from which his more sequestered lot was to him a kind of shelter. ig pinched t of sight, was to him JOHN GALT. CHAPTER II. Ltam French-Mathematics— A Scientijic Excursion—Sent to theCustom-house— Musical Powers— AnOde— A Traged,/ —Antiquarian Taste— Ode from Horace. About the time of the lime-kiln inspiration I was sent to learn French. Park was at the school before me, and was eminent for his proficiency ; indeed, for the remainder of his days he was an excellent French scholar; and I believe afterwards he was one of the ori- ginators of the Foreign Library at Greenock, the era of which was subsequent to my time. In the French language I never was at all equal to him, and in the speaking could not rank myself high, nor did I ever aitempt it ; the utmost I could do was to make my way with the little that a traveUer requires. I be- |came afterwards, however, a better Italian scholar, in iwhich language he made no progress. rf 10 THE LITERARY LIFE OF II When we had about completed our French studies, we were sent to another school to learn mathematics, *« Geometry, astronomy, and that Which philosophers ge'-^graphy call." In this, too, I think Park preceded me by a season, in attending the lectures on geography ; but we were together in mathematics, and we made mahogany quadrants, built beacons on the mountain tops, and measured angles — •« Tho space betwixt Dumbarton and that hill. On earth called Mistilaw, from whence the eye All Ayrshire can survey upon the west." It was to an exploit of this kind that he alludes in the poem of the Astronomer, whom he describes as fol- lowed by a crowd " Of young adventurers, whom thou did'st load With quadrant and theodolite." I do not remember who were of the party ; but the present chief magistrate of Greenock, and first pro- vost thereof, my worthy friend, was loaded with the theodolite, the case of which bore a mongrel re- semblance to a pedlar's pack. It was on the very day that the news arrived at Greenock of Howe's victory JOHN GALT. It jnch studies, Qathematics, by a season, but we were e mahogany lin tops, and i hill, le eye alludes in the cribes as foi- st load arty ; but the and first pro- ; loaded with a mongrel re- i the very day [owe's victory of the 1st of June, and it stands vivid in my recollec- tion as a day of grievous fasting, for we got nothing to eat. When the school process of education was over. Park and I were desked in the Custom-house. At that time it was the practice at Greenock to send lads^ destined for the mercantile profession, to improve their writing by copying entries in the Cus- tom-house. I have very little remembrance of what passed while there, but Mr Campbell, who is now the comptroller, was then collector's clerk, and under his particular surveillance we mounted the tripod. It is among the agreeable occurrences of my later years, to have renewed ^ly early intimacy with that gentleman. Park left the Custom-house before me, but I have no very vivid recollection of this period, except that there was another stripling, one Billy Gould, who could jangle upon a paralytic spinnet, and who first had the honour and glory of awakening my musical ' By the by, the Scottish use of this word is one of those idio- matic inflections which mark the diiferencc between the Eno-lish and Scotch languages. In England, it is strictly used as synony- mous with stripling, but north the Tweed, as denoting a single young man of a certain grade. I use it in the English sense. h i ii! 'i;,! W, it- -ti i! I 12 THE LITERARY LIFE OF genius by the manner in which he performed a Cir- cus tune, called The Indian Queen, which I have sometimes heard since, from strollers doing tragedy. We frequently drank tea with Gould, for he lodged by himself. I think he was two years older than me. Saving and excepting by his achievements on the spin- net, I do not now recollect that he had any influence in the developement of my mind ; nor, indeed, have I any remembrance of feeling at this time an inclina- tion for particular pursuits. But after leaving the Custom-house, I became again rhapsodical, and wrote a most absurd Ode on the Seasons. Every word of it is, however, fortu- nately forgotten, but it had the same effect on Park as the lime-kiln fytte ; for, on hearing it, he wrote another of the same that evening, which he showed to me next morning, and I thought it was not without merit, as it praised the genius displayed in my com- position. We continued our studies, in which, now that it is no flattery, I must acknowledge he was of inestimable use to me. He both directed me to books that he had himself read, and recommended others that have stored rx- i >• JOHN GALT, 13 ■med a Clr- lich I have ig tragedy. : lie lodged er than me. on the spin- ny influence lead, have I an inclina- I became ;urd Ode on i^ever, fortu- 'ect on Park it, he wrote 1 he showed 5 not without in my com- ow that it is f inestimable s that he had t have stored my recollection with facts far from being yet ex- hausted. He had not, however, I think, even in those days, so much activity of mind as me ; for although greatly in many things my superior, our friend Spence often said afterwards that I was better in abstruser propensities, and much more acute in musical know- ledge. To be sure that was not much, but still it was something. Indeed Park was more of a critic than an author, and was altogether free of the useless predilection of Spence and I for mechanical contri- vances—contrivances never of use to him, nor turned by me to any account. Some time after the grand Pindaric ode to the Seasons, I happened to be laid up in bed, where I em- ployed myself in writing a tragedy upon that highly original topic, Mary Queen of Scots. When it was finished, I sent it to Constable the bookseller ; but he thought little of it, and it was returned, I solemnly believe, unread, except perhaps in a few passages. However, this Is the common fate of dramatic enter- prises, and \vould now excite no surprise ; but the reader shall judge for himself, as the manuscript has been preserved. iii'; 14 THE LITERARY LIFE OF :i :;' if ' -""I It was called the Royal Victim, and the sequence of events in Gilbert Stuart's history appear to have been adhered to with considerable fidelity; but in general it is a sad juvenile production. Here and there, however, flakes of poetical expression may be dis- covered ; nor is it without even something of the ele- ment of passion or feeling, which perhaps entitle it to be not regarded as so despicable as I at one time thought ; but those passages worthy of attention are certainly few and far between. The first scene is a conference between Murray, Morton, and Lethington, on the return of the Earl from France, respecting the flight of Boswell. It is manao-ed in very ordinary prose, of the shape of blank verse; with an air of seriousness, however, in the dialogue, at least natural, if not poetical. One idea in it is tolerable, but I have afterwards made use of the same thought. It is where Murray is made to express his chagrin at the escape of Boswell. He says — 'i Murraij. Was no apothecary to be found, Nor skilful cook to dross his Grace's supper ? I would have play'd the scullion's part myself, JOHN GALT. 15 be sequence lear to have ity; but in re and there, nay be dis- r of the ele- ips entitle it at one time attention are 3en Murray, i of the Earl •swell. It is lape of blank ever, in the 1. One idea made use of ly is made to Joswell. He And spiced the dishes, ratlier than the Duke Had tales to tell of our uncourteous modes. I Nor is the character of Mary by Lethington, in the I same scene, ill expressed. LetJiiniiton. -To mo it seems •is elf, That Mary's faults spring from too soft a heart. She trusted much, and yet she hoped for more. There is a kind credulity about her — So brief in anger, that, when most offended, A well-made promise has disarm 'd her passion. The next scene is quite bad ; but the third, on the battlements of Lochleven Castle, among the atten- dants of Mary, has some descriptive merit. It opens with one of the ladies saying — 1*/ Lad^j. How fresh and balmy is the odorous breath Of pensive evening at the vesper hour, When from the east with dewy feet she comes. And o'er reposing Nature spreads her veil ! See, with the past'ral Ochiels' verdant tops The sunbeams hold a lingering adieu — Thoy flit— they vanish — Lo ! again they gild The lofty forehead of yon northern hill. * # * 2d Lady. Look, the hoarse crows That cross'd the lake at sunrise, woodward hie With heavier flight : I ween, well surfeited, Like Borderers from a lucky enterprise'. What bird is yon that glides on stca ly wing, Swift as a dart despatched from tlie bow ? Hi 16 THE LITERARY LIFE OF i- i^ - l !'■ ': : ' n i t ■■ ' ■ ■ 1st Laxly. 'Tis a fell kite. Young Douglas oft has seen it, And says that nightly since the Queen came here, It doth encompass the fortalice thrice. And then departs. The Warden's pigeons dread it. 2fi? Ladi/. Oh, holy Virgin ! 'tis some wily goblin. In league with Morton, sent to watch and spy. Then Douglas, enters, and he informs them of the Earl of Murray's return from France, and that he is to be at the castle with the Queen that evening. The fourth scene, I remember, was the first writ- ten, and perhaps in many respects, particularly in natural emotion, is the best in the piece ; which, however, is not saying a great deal in its favour. The scene opens with Mary reading the Scottish history, during which she exclaims — Mary. What piteous wrecks upon the tide of time Do all my royal ancestors appear I O hapless me ! the fiercest turbulence That ever pelted the ill- fat ?d Stuarts, Beats on the frailest relic of the race. At this juncture, Murray enters ; but the subsequent dialogue, though earnestly written, does not afford much for quotation. Here and there, however, are touches of tenderness and animation. For example, Mary says to her brother— JOHN GALT. 17 i oft has seen it, i here, dread it. ■ goblin, py. them of the and that he hat evening', he first writ- irticularly in iece ; which, 1 its favour, the Scottish le of time e subsequent 3S not afford however, are ?0T example. Maiy. And you have been in Franco ? O sit and tell me Of all your pleasures in that gentle land ; Delightful land, that I have bade farewell. Long ! long and far 'tis since I left dear France, And harsh and haggard has the time appear'd. The business of the scene then commences, and the Earl, unmannerly enough, reproaches her with misrule. She defends herself with some pathos and energy, but in the end Murray succeeds in obtaining- from her the Royal authority. The poetry, how- ever, is not of first quality. Murray is made to over- act his part, and to her reproaches replies Mirrar/. Your dearest brother Would not for all the radiance of the crown,— The glorious vertex of ambition's aim ; That gorgeous resting-place of enterprise; Tlie far-seen bright Olympian peak that Fate Has fenced with crimes to keep the virtuous down,— Give credence to that most unnatural tale, Which the poor kingdom, fev'rish from its gashes, Deliriously repeats. Mary then attempts to vindicate herself, and does it with something like eloquence; but Murray is none seduced from his purpose by her declaration of P'ood intentions, and proceeds to tax her with her partiality VOL. I. B f : ■: IB THE MTEUAUY LIFE OF for llizzio, her liglit affection for Darnley, and with tlio alliance for cutting off tlic Protestants, formed with the Duke of Alva, — concluding with exhorting her to surrender the royal authority. Act Second opens with another repose scene by moonlight on the leads of Lochleven Castle, where Mary, after the foregoing interview, is seen walking with much agitation. In the end, Douglas, who is with the attendants, reveals his plans for her escape. One of the observations of Mary is tolerable. Man;. Impatient youth, With the excess of hccolth and fancy restive, Vaults o'er the narrow probable, and roves Throu"hout the boundless possibles of chance. Till strong adversity, with goad and curb. Back to his natural station drives the ranger, And binds him to liie's common yoke again. But the whole piece does not deserve so much atten- tion ; and I can only plead in excuse the curious partiality which one somehow has for an early work. One sentence, however, is even a little more than pretty ; and though I have afterwards made use of it in another drama, it may be quoted here. It is an exclamation of J>.Iary's. JOHN GALT. 19 f, and with nts, formed Ii exhorting ie scene by istle, where eon walking ti;las, who is her escape, iblc. ;o, much atten- the curious I early work. e more than made use of LM'e. It is an What thonj^li this mortal pageant crumble down, And bo resolv'd into its natural dust, Wliich with the sentenced globe shall then return Into the elements, and tliese to nothing ! That which is I shall purified ascend, And with the ?(? • ^fl^l '.•ifM. :,n» Mill ,'i ,*»,•■ J<^ ..■tuiin 'til" ■ill .1.10 . ^Hlll ■M years, have I employed my pen for a higher object than the tailor does his needle, or the cobbler his awl. But it is not because of my own mediocrity that I af- fect to think comparatively little of the trade. It is because I more esteem a greater and a brighter pur- suit, and believe that there is truth in the old adage, which says, " the man who makes a blade of corn grow where it never did before, does more good to the world than did Julius Caesar." With this aim I have long been animated, and if at times I have felt a higher motive in literary tasks than the mere provi- ding of forage for the animal, it was in the hope of showing to some one hereafter, that I was not inca- pable of attaining more renown as aa author, had I not been actuated by a better purpose. Indeed, though never a sportsman with a gun, nor a courser with harrier, I am conscious of having been a mighty hunter. The wild beasts of the wilderness have been chased by my schemes, and have fled in alarm from my progeny.* ik > This is literally true, my youngest son has this day, (20th Nov. 1833,) a letter from his eldest brother, who intends to settle on the banks of Lake Huron, in which he mentions, that ! .„;;a J JOHN GALT.. 31 a^her object »ler his awl. y that I af- rade. It is ighter pur- old adage, ide of corn re good to I this aim I have felt a Here provi- he hope of s not inca- thor, had I Indeed, ►r a courser n a mighty i have been alarm from being alone in the forest, he lost his way, and was obliged to sleep out, and that during the night a wolf or a deer came upon him, which his pointer scared. I think, by the way, this a good subject for a picture, — a boy asleep, attended by a dog, lost in the primeval woods, and a wild beast coming upon him. is day, (20th o intends to entions, that J J. 32 THE LITERARY LIFE OF iiharpa }4 ' ,..*♦ ■»DI ' .' ^)'l '■illttu .-, ''Illl „: miliH "^ ;'*(* i,, .i. 1 ly 1 ^ 4 Li I 1 CHAPTER IV. Patriotic Effusions — A Letter from Park — The Battle of Largs. When the late war was renewed, for I consider the republican and imperial aggressions of France but as different stages of the same conflict, Park and I wrote various songs of a Tyrtsean character, and secretly sent them to Constable's Magazine. As they were afterwards copied into the newspapers, they were probably deemed above par ; at least we thought so, especially when the second brace appeared. If ever induced to collect my poems, I will not forget these effusions. But our patriotism was not confined, like that of poets in general, to song-making ; we wrote also prose exhortations, and then I sounded the depths of our townsmen's ardour, by originating their offer of ser- vice to form two companies of volunteer riflemen or JOHN GALT. 33 Battle of consider ranee but rk and I eter, and As they srs, they i thought ired. If ot forget e that of ilso prose lis of our ;r of ser- lemen or sharpshooters. But soon after this the incident occurred which induced me to quit Greenock. Till, however, the Exodus actually took place, there was no material alteration in my way of life. I am conscious, however, from the period I decided on that step, of inwardly experiencing a transmutation of character, although the full effect of it did not manifest itself till some time after my arrival in London : I felt towards my different friends and companions a kind of resolu- tion, mingled with the habitude of regard, by which their position was materially changed in my estima- tion. I do not know if this was amiable ; but I sus- pect something of the same sort happens to everyone . from the period he first determines to quit the bosom of the community in which he has spent, his youth. The change, however, may not have much to do with the will. It is probably only an involuntary effect of the new topics which the measure of removal natu- rally leads the mind to consider ; and what I regarded as resolution, may have been no more than the influ- ence arising from the adventurous way of life I had resolved upon. But it is not my object, neither in this book, nor was it in my Autobiography, to ascertain m 34 THE LITERARY LIFE OF 14 i ■If/ '■'I'lil j^ in what manner mutations of character can be account- ed for. I only propose to myself to give a fair de- scription of facts as they happened, without inten- tionally biassing their impression on the reader. The leaning of all men in their own favour is, I hope, not with me greater than with my neighbours, though it may probably be obviously enough strong to incline me in doubtful matters to think myself in the right. But what is here stated is not the thought of the moment ; evidence exists, and shall be quoted, calcu- lated to show that I do not state a post opinion ; and the reader can determine for himself how far I am justified by facts in alleging that there was at this period a mingling of resolution with my habitual affec- tions. In burning my correspondence with Park, I pre- served a few scraps of the letters ; some of them are curious as biographical documents. What induced me to do so is no longer remembered, but a friend met with them lately in looking over my old papers, and they are inserted here to show the state of my mind at the very threshold of life. The first is dated on the 28th of August, 1804, about three months ki L ji JOHN GALT. 35 be account- '^e a fair de- thout inten- eader. The I hope, not 5, though it r to incline the right, ught of the oted, calcu- pinion ; and w far I am was at this bitual aifec- ark, I pre- 3f them are lat induced ut a friend old papers, itate of my irst is dated ree months after I first left home, and it must have been saved from the flames on account of the verses to which it refers. " There is no pleasure that I receive equal to what your letters afford, except when I sit down to reply to them, which I always do when my time is most desolate, for then I get into green pastures that refresh and invigorate my spirits, and enable me to pass two or three days of desert with some alacrity and cheerfulness. — More poetry, you see! The above came off with great fluency the other evening when I was musing in a sombre mood upon more things than words can express, which, if they could, one would be shy and blate of communicating, even to the indulgent ear of friendship. In spite of all my efforts I shall grow romantic. I fear 1 have mistaken my own character, and that it is unfit for struggling through the crowd of puddling citizens. In time I may get well forward, but I shall be more obliged to the influence of those who know me than to my own exertions. My exertions will only preserve ; they cannot ex- plore and enquire, for I am too sensitive to fame to venture much on chance, and I believe that the supposed modesty of my dis- position was really but a kind of Oriental pride, that expected to be courted when my acquaintance thought I blushed to intrude. I say my acquaintance, for your penetration must have long seen the bias of my character. When any plain direct object whatever is to be attained by the suppression of a series of com- prehensible diflficulties, I am very capable of perseverance — I think myself capable of reaching the goal ; but to pry and peep after an infinitude of little affairs that may yield a few pounds, and not one atom of honour, is what I shall never be able to do with success ; and not to succeed where even comparative igno- 36 THE LITEIIARY LIFE OF '. *] 11 '•Ifl: •* ■ :M' rt-Cfl' l,rf J."'* 1; rance and stupidity gain affluent distinction, liow low should I become ! This, however, is all perhaps the result of the multitu- dinous impression which the first view of this vast city fixed on the mind ; for when I reflect on the extraordinary changes to which the dispositions of individuals are liable, I still entertain the hope of being able to contend on the arena of the Exchange with the subtlest Jew that frecjuents it. I have become very knowing in my investigations of character. I examine with the microscope of the naturalist and the knife of the anatomist, and often where I should smile I suffer emotions of dis.Lta 5.t, -t^l 1 f ■ 43 THE LITERARY LIFE OF lii The Edda, though somewhat bald, gives, however, a clearer notion of its peculiarities. It abounds in per- sonifications and occult allusions, and differs as much from works of classical taste, as a Gothic cathedral does from a Grecian temple. The Battle of Largs is a sort of Gothic epic ; and I remember very well that it cost me a great deal of research altogether distinct from the composition. To enable the reader, however, to judge of it for himself, I shall quote a few verses. The subject is the invasion of Scotland in the year 1 263, by Hako, King of Norway, and the repulse of the Danes and Norwegians by Alexander III. The construction would have extorted approbation from Aristotle himself. It opens by the weird sisters being summoned together by the thunder drum, to work war and woe ; and the description of a magical conjuration to the Scandinavian God Lok, whom they propitiate, to assist them in influencing the destiny of Hako, is not badly imagined. Lok, wheedled by their spell, sends Erie, a personification of superstitious dread, to awe the mind of the Norwegian King. The first canto concludes with an account of his military preparations. JOHN GALT. 43 tiowever, a nds in per- rs as much 2 cathedral ; epic ; and reat deal of imposition, e of it for in the year ; repulse of III. The ation from jird sisters f drum, to ■ a magical whom they f destiny of ed by their iperstitious ECing. The lis military Canto second opens with an account of a dream, with which Erie had tainted the mind of Hako. Then the " herald scalds" call the chiefs to a state meeting, at which the king declares his intention to invade Scot- land : a kind of Homeric account of the diflferent inter- locutors follows. After the debate, the peers adjourn to a royal evening party, at which a bard sings the adventures of Odin. The third canto brings again the three fatal sisters on the stage. In the course of their conversation it ap- pears King Hako, with all his fleet, is at sea, which naturally leads to a description of their voyage till the ships arrive in Kirkwall Bay. After having passed the winter there, the passage in the spring to the Hebrides is described. The fourth canto opens with an account of the King of Scotland residing at Falkland, when a mes- senger arrives with the news of Hako having landed at Largs. The effect of the alarm is narrated, and the march of the Scottish army to meet the invaders. The fifth and last canto relates to the battle, and the employment, during the contest, of the weird sisters in spinning and cutting the thread of life. 44 THE LITERARY LIFE OF The Story concludes with the discomfiture of Hako, and the victory of the Scots. A fable is not of very great importance, as Homer has shown, to an epic poem, and no great pains ap- pear to have been taken in that respect with the Bat- tle of Largs, the character of which must be judged by extracts. The address in the first canto to Lok, by the weird sisters, is characteristic of Gothic poetry. Mi '■ f i f 1 Ai!! Oh, sire of woe, thy dreadful will Alert and daily we fulfil — Around hoarse Maelstrom's roaring tide, The white-maned billows oft we ride, And shrieking shrill for thee incite Nature's fierce fitful bedlamite. The howling wind, to chase and hurry Kich-laden barks to the sea-fury. • •••** The hideous Storm that dozing lay. Thick blanketed in clouds all day, Behind sulphureous Hecla, we Roused to this wrecking wrath for thee. And sent him raging round the world, High in a thund'ring chariot hurl'd ; Whose steeds exulting with their load. As the grim fiend they drag abroad, Whisk with their tails the turrets down Of many a temple, tower, and town. JOHN GALT. 45 The description of Lok also may be quoted for the freedom of the outline, — Lok, wrapt in secrecy and gloom, Bent lus vast eye through hell's dense fume He saw, and stretch'd his truncheon forth, Whose length extends from south to north, And as he waves it east or west. The turns are by the winds express'd — As his wide scarf evolves or folds, Or day or night the world beholds. The plumes that crest his dreadful helm The wintry welkin oft o'erwhelm— The hills, that strength to kingdoms yield, Are but the bosses of his shield ; And when the deadly lightnings glare, 'Tis but his polish'd falchion bare. The appearance of the Baltic, with the Norwegian fleet, is also not destitute of picturesque circum- stances. The Baltic, vext by prows and oars, Murmur'd from all her sounds and shores. The shores, with glittering armour bright, Flash'd o'er the sea portentous light. Such as along the polar sky The sad seer-swains of Scotland eye With pallid hearts, and thence forewarn What shall make many a matron mourn. And spangled Kings infect with pain. The hurling human hurricane. •1 1 46 THE LITERARY LIFE OF I The description, by Hako, of Erie, is also not with- out spirit. Methought A silent-footed phariom sought My couch. Her looks sulphureous glow Her furnuce-eyes, that burn'd below A dismal forehead, glaring wide, Like caves by night in Hecla's side, And what her fangs for staff did grasp, 'Twas fir'd ir'n— Hell's hatchway's hasp. • • • • • By frowning cliffs, and moaning caves. That grudged and gloom'd the ocean waves. She lured my steps. At length she stood, And scowling o'er the weltering flood. That louder raged, she stretch'd her hand. Clutching the red Tartarean brand. Aloft, and as the black clouds sunder'd, Dared the high Heavens till they thunder'd. In what follows, there may not be a very quotable passage, but there are several verses and similes which display more freedom of expression than I thought myself possessed of. The simile of an old soldier is picturesque. It is, however, not original. Like some old tower that decks the plains, For which the garrulous village swains. While sitting on the sward at eve, With many a pensive survey grieve ; And to the enquiring pilgrims tell, What chiefs around its ramparts fell. JOHN GALT. 47 p'd. y quotable nd similes on than I ! of an old ot original. And how their fathers saw it stand. The pride and refuge of the land. Again, the picture to the mind of a rough savage scene is better. As in some shaggy alpine wild, Amidst a hundred mountains piled, His far-seen head of granite rears Some huger hill, and sternly bears The cloud-wrapt storm, while all his woods, And rock precipitated floods, In dreadful dissonance combined, Astound the ear, and awe the mind. The description of the Royal feast having been izme the published in the Scots M not be repeated; but the voyage of the invaders affords a few verses that display something at least not common. The speech of Wirandi to her sisters, in particular, possesses touches of poetic wildness; and the following account of a phenomenon of the northern sea, is striking, — The silenced winds had ceased to sigh. The sun stood lonnly in the sky, No bird the viewless air sustain'd, But only sky and sea remain'd, When slowly up the northern skies A dusky spire began to rise. ,>f1 48 THE LITERARY LIFE OF Still high, and higher still it grew — Amazement through the navy flew ; Still high, and higher still it rose, And fill'd the fleet with fancied woes ; Still high — so high it now had reach'd, That every eye, upturn 'd and stretch'd. Could gaze no more — it seem'd to bend. And to the western verge descend ;— Bridging the sea from north to west, A living arch appear'd confest. A rustling fluttering stirs the ear, And wearied straggling birds appear. While the slope sun his radiance flings On countless breasts and twinkling wings ; For, lo ! the sign so dread and strange Was birds upon their annual range. The appearance of winter, in my opinion, is in a few words impressive. Sad Iceland saw black Winter come. Brushing the ocean into foam. And the Spring afterwards disarming the warrior Winter, is not without prettiness. Ill}': Hi — Till spritely Spring's appeasing smile Drew warring Winter from his toil ; Who fondly fain, and gruflly shy, Reviews and shuns her radiant eye ; While she, with soft and gay caresses. His dreadful dazzling mail unbraces. S '■ -cs that I would not be ashamed of having recently written. The fifth and last canto opens spiritedly. Unfurl the standard, sound the horn. High on the battlements of morn The warder of the day appears, And, hark, the eager army cheers I The foe already shines prepared, And deems unconquer'd Scotland shared. The following simile has merit and originality :-— As o'er the waves an isle of ice Comes with its crystal precipice, And silvery spires^ and dazzling streams, All orient in the summer beams ; Awhile the seaman pleased surveys The glorious pageant's distant blaze. But as it nears, the freezing air Turns his delight to chill despair, And oft he strives, and strives in vain. The open rippling sea to gain, Till shipwreck-crush'd he hopeless lies. And more by fear than suffering dies : So gay afar, so dreadful near. Did bold Strathern in fight appear. Perhaps the employment of the wtlrd sisters during the battle is one of the best passages in the poem. • i^ i" jr. ' J* t 52 THE LITERARY LIFE OF Deep in their dark eternal den The sisters spun the fates of men. Urd turn'd the wheel, whose booming jar RoU'd horribly to suit the war. The orbed spokes, with furious sweep, Send stormy blast across the deep ; Wirandi twines with backward tread And stretched arms the destin'd thread, > Which Sculdi, wrapt in shades and fears, Parts with her loud resounding shears, And as the fatal texture falls, The mortal's earthly name she calls. * This image is derived from a reminiscence of my childhood. When very young, I had great delight and wonderment in looking at a woman spinning wool on what is called in the west of Scotland " the muckle wheel," turning the periphery round most majestically with one hand, and drawing the thread out from the rowan with the other, gradually stretch- ing her arm as she drew out the thread walking backwards. The em- ployment stands in my fancy as the most sublime and mystical of human avocations. The rowan, for the benefit of my English readers, I should explain, was the roll into which the wool was carded. One particular person is recol- lected for spinning and singing at the same time — her song was Death and the Lady, beginning, " Fair lady, lay thy costly robes asides" and the reader may be thankful I do not recollect more of it. x aiust, however, then have been very young, for the idea of the lady — God knows liow ! came to be associated with the name of the late Duchess of Gordon. I had not then seen her Grace, nor indeed till long afterwards, when I had her in my arms. I was behind her coming out of Westminster Hall at Lord Melville's trial, and, her carriage horses startling as she was about to go in, she flew back, and was caught by me as she stumbled. The impres i:-\ But I I hav€ the hii discov names the pr JOHN GALT. 53 The song, while the spinsters are spinning, is impressive. " Twine quickly, weird sister, twine Dread Destiny's mysterious line," Dark Sculdi sings. " The wolf of war, Rude Buclian, dies with many a scar ; Grim Sweno, tower of Danish force. Is stretch'd a ghastly, gory corse. Lo ! in the air, high arching, flies A rainbow in the stormy skies. The glittering lance of bold Strathern!" But I fear the patience of the reader is exhausted. I have only to add one circumstance connected with the history of this composition, — ^my delight when I discovered that Urd, Wirandi, and Sculdi, the names of the weird sisters, signified literally the past, the present, and the future. V < ; > hi 54 THE LITER.VRY LIFE OF CHAPTER VI. •f- „,i., General Reactions relatine to the State of my Mind at the close of 1804. I DO not at this time recollect the particular rea- sons which induced me to suppress the Battle of Largs, but it was probably owing to my general dissatisfac- tion with the work. The printing of a manuscript is like the varnishing of a picture — it requires experience to predict what will be the result. It would, how- ever, be more prudent perhaps to say that I was in- fluenced by considerations arising from my mercan- tile connexions ; but, in plain truth, matters of that sort never weiglied so much with me as my own likes and dislikes, for I have always been a little wayward in my dispositions, and I do not hesitate to confess this, especially as it is of little consequence now to JOHN GALT. 55 what extent the infirmity may have predominated; but, at that time, a very great change took place in my character, and I almost recollect the day on which it happened. Previously, I was, like most young men, inclined to cultivate ostentatious means of attract- ing attention, but very suddenly I became, upon resolution, comparatively a retired person, and a reso- lution with me was always of the most immediate and decisive eiFect. This acknowledgment is not an after- thought, for it happens, strangely enough, that docu- mentary evidence exists of the fact. Among my papers has been found a letter to Park, written at that time, recording the nature of my cogita- tions : how it has been preserved, cannot now be explained, but it is a singular voucher, and in the records of decisive resolutions deserves a place, turn- ing up, as it does, at the close of a very various life, when the object has been in some degree attained. •' London, 8ifi November, 1804. " My deau Friend, " Foreseeing a vast stock of communicable subject, I have determined to write with as much brevity as is consistent witJi persjncuiti/. Give yourself no uneasiness about the advice in your letter of the 30th ult. A wonderful change has taken place in my estimation of mankind, and if I had not been disap- r 1 56 THE LITERARY LIFE OF "''■"' , ijffr f- ^ 1 I ■ I'll \M pointed ofii private opportunity last Saturday, you should have received a full exposition of my sentiments. I consider ^our advice as a disinterested proof of your attachment, and, so far as it coincides with my own opinion, it shall be adopted. This is all I can promise, but it will be performed. My friends at Lloyds ! I am about to unfold my whole bosom. The disclosure will, I know, affect you ; but be not uneasy, I am now certain of mv condition. The spells of hope are really gone ; and while I re- gret the explosion of dreams so delightful, thejierte of independ- ence lifts me so far above despondency, that I almost exult at mj- unpatronized and unfriended denization. I am deeper than you imagine ; there is a system pervading all my desires that may be accomplished. But it was not till I felt myself solitary in London, till I had ruminated on my past enjoyments, that I wjis convinced of the bias of my inclinations, and the inordinate am- bition that influenced the whole of my undertakings and projects. I was unknown to myself; and though sensible of acting by a plan, I was not aware that it was the constitutional tendency of my mind. To come, however, to the point, that by a detail of the past, you may have a key to the motives of my future con- duct ; know, that whatever the world, that is the circle of our youthful companions, may think, I have always been the same person that I shall in future appear. I have only changed my objects, and it has given me pain beyond expression and suffering, that those who know the vehemence of my feelings only can con- ceive. Perfectly acquainted with my father's circumstances, which, though decent, are not opulent, and certain that in all the train of my relations, there was not one who could promote my fortunes, I was very early impressed with the necessity of ren- dering myself the architect of my own elevation. I therefore applied to business with assiduity * • * the consequence of which was, that I received many compliments, and my igno- ranee of mankind led me to receive them as tokens of friendshii>. JOHN GALT. 57 My profession, nor even my share of its toil, did not sufficiently engross my mind ; and poetry, the common evaporation of ardent spirits, carried off that ennui, which would have embittered my leisure, since I had not the materials of being a blood. But even in my poetry a design entered, and I was seized at an earlier period than you suppose, with the notion of showing that literary studies were not incompatible with business ; and whatever the world may afterwards think, you know the times and hours of my devotion to the muse, were those that our companions spent in idlo conversations, or worse. And I cannot, with more pro- priety than in this place, disclose an anecdote, which has often diverted me since, and which I once, in one of our favourite walks, had almost attained the fortitude of relating. Do you recollect when we were at M'Gregor's, that you lent me the Iliad ? when I had finished the perusal— it was in my old bed- room— I went with all the enthusiasm of a young mind that feels more than it reasons, and prayed that I might be able to produce something like it. From that moment my poetical vein opened, although it was not till I left the Custom-house that I did any thing but meditate. When I had finished the absurd ode of the Seasons, the idea struck me to prove, that literary propensities were not disorderly ; and the resolution, with different degrees of sincerit)--, operated on my conduct till the heinous business of , which, with the narrowness of my prospects, determined me to quit Greenock. " You may guess from the querulous tone of my letters, that after the first interviews here, I was not very well pleased with my new friends. To detail this part of my memoirs would occupy too much of my paper ; I must therefore leave it till I see you next month. Suffice it for the present, that after the invitations bestowed in compliment to the writers of my letters, I observed indifference gradually inserted between me and those new friends, till some of them passed me as if I had been a stranger. . i' li m ) i ■ 1 i..s" i . I 1, h -I 58 THE LITERARY LIFE OF f All this stung me to the quicL But it was not till the other day, when asked my name, that I would discharge my hopes that constantly extenuated the almost general neglect which I saw ensuing. Provoked and enraged at this circumstance, I tore the delusion from my mind, and never again will I address myself to the friendship of merchants. I will speak to them through their interest, but no longer than it serves my own purpose ; and I will act for myself, regardless of their opinion, and of the opinion of every body, so far as my conduct remains agreeable to a con- science alive even to improprieties of speech. Fortunately my thoughts recoil now from that gaud of condition to which I was prone b> the deference that I saw bestowed upon wealth. But deference is not respect, and happily my recollection, always attached to Mm; scene of my infancy, enables me to say, that with ♦ independence and a crust,' I shall not be flir removed from hap- piness. If I obtain affluence, I hope I can use it with discretion ; and if I must contract my wishes, I hope to have sufficient phi- losophy to embrace my destiny without fear. I am alone. But it is not necessary that I should play antics to show my freedom ; at the same time, my ambition shall have full scope, and nothing of honourable and fair procedure shall be omitted to obtain the distinction which I have so long coveted, and which gravitated all my actions, even when the neighbours praised the prudent Mr Inkle. When I say I am alone, it is with respect to the objects of my actions as they will tinge my fortune. The friends and the associates of my %>;,/V*^///'^, I trust, shall always prevent me from saying that I am alone in the world. However, my dear friend, if with this unsophisticated confession, and your owii knowledge of my nature, you should think that the intimacy of our familiarity is too lax a state of communication to hold with a man that is resolved to be distinguished, act wholly as you please, although I should deeply and sorely regret an -dienation that would disappoint the flattery of my faith in your a Section. I JOHN GALT. 59 'I must here stop, for Solitude, that nourishes egotism, also softens the heart ; and the tears that the mirth of society sometimes carries off, accumulate and dim the eye of the Hermit, often overflowing their reservoirs when no vidble sorrow can be discovered. " The heat in which I have written has given a tone of romance to some of my expressions, or perhaps the subject itself is of a character where common phrases would have failed to convey the ideas. Now for business." This letter shows how green I must have been in my knowledge of the world, not to think ignorance and folly had as much to do with human affairs as inte- rest. Interest may be a very solid fulcrum for states- men who have to move mankind in masses, but Pro- vidence works with individuals, and the hero and the sparrow are of equal importance in the great system of its beneficence. A man thinks too much of himself who imagines general maxims may be applied to his petty affairs. The whole tendency of my experience has been to convince me, that Pope, and all such philosophical reasoners, err when they suppose that the world is ruled by general laws. They see that it is not by universal laws, and therefore suppose it is by the nearest modification possible of that principle. Hence their inference ; but in my opinion Providence rules 1 60 THE LITEHARY LIFE OF '\ ...'I by pnrticular laws ; and it appears to me consonant to all ideas of an Omnipotent Deity that it should do so, nor do I imagine that the frame of things is liable to those vicissitudes which are spoken of as instances of a particular providence, for I can see nothing in Nature that is not systematic— a continual preordi- nation of causes and effects, demonstrating that some incomprehensible intelligence must have been oxer- cised from the beginning. J "*■ y / e i*' r;n-, iijii l;p JOHN GALT. 61 CHAPTER VII. Desultory Reading—Astrology and Alchymy—The Discovery of the Imperishable Ink— Witchcraft. After my return from Scotland, my attention to literature continued, but I wrote little. It seemed to me that true learning consisted not in the recollection of things, but in knowing the books that treated of them best. Accordingly, I was a voracious reader ; and such was my desire for knowledge, that in some respects it gave rise to very ludicrous aberrations. For example, I became most learned in astrology, but soon discovered the fallacy that is in the judicial pre- tension. I had gone, however, far enough to see with what ingenuity professors of my kind often conceal their recondite lore ; nor can I yet describe the sort of chuckling pleasure I had in discovering that the mathematical Solomon, Sir Isaac Newton, as well as Milton, were both astrologers of the genus to which 62 THE LITEHAIIY LIFE OF I aspired, and that the far-famed doctrine of the Tides and Seasons \\x.. not astronomical, but astrological, thoiigh Sir Isaac was cunning enough to give it a heavenly character. Milton, in the following verses, seemed always to me not entirelv free from astrolo- gical cogitations : — ** Lot there bo lights High in the expanse of heaven, to divide Tlie day from night ; and let them be for signs^ For seasons, and for days and circHng years." " And made the stars. And set them in the firmament of heaven To illuminate the earth, and rule the day In their vicissitude, and ride the night." " For heaven Is as the Book of God before thee set, Wherein to read his wond'rous works, and learn His seasons, hours, or days, or months, or years.'* *' What if the sun Be centre to the world, and otiier stars By his ailradive virtue and their own Incited, dance about him various rounds ?'* But the Seventh and Eighth Books of the " Pa- radise Lost," had better be consulted bv the reader who may be curious on this point. They abound in JOHN GALT. 63 give it a Ing verses, m astrolo- ».?.. Ejarn ■ars." the « Pa- the reader abound in 3 ? astrological allusions, and the very principles with which the poet seems to have conceived the world to have been endowed from the Creation, are derived from that species of astrology to which I refer. The difference, indeed, between it and the science called astronomy, is simply and comprehensively this : the astrologers suppose that the stars have an influence that extends to the earth — the astronomers do not re- cognise the existence of this influence, but acknow- ledge that when certain stars are visible in the hea- vens, certain phenomena take place on the earth. Whether there is such an influence as the astroloofers have assumed, is not in the power of man to deter- mine ; but, saving the hypothesis of this influence, there is no difference between the doctrines of the old astrologer who dwelt in London,* and the royal com- missioner who has his watch-tower on Greenwich Hill. La Place was undoubtedly an astrologer, or perhaps, more discreetly speaking, an astronomer of the old school. The fact is, that astrology, in its philosophical * " There was an old astrologer, in London he. did dwell." Old Ballad. :¥ It i>;^ It t" , G4 THE LITERARY LIFE OF if I-; sense, is very little understood now ; and perhaps when I say that it professes only to index, by the stars, the changes on the earth, there may be some who will not think it so very ridiculous as the belie- vers in fortune-telling, by their credulity and misap- f I plication of the name, make it appear. I was also a reader of alchymical books to a very great extent, both in rhyme and reason. It must strike the reader, as he opens the first alchymical book, that it is a science most absurdly arranged. Instead of deriving its nomenclature from the qualities of substances, it consists of arbitrary names for all the things of which it takes cognizance. In a word, the study of the science is in ascertaining the qualities of things to which the names give no cue. Beyond this, the reader need not be told, how- ever, that I made no great progress ; certainly, at least, I never learned the art of making gold, but I went so far as to see that gold could be made, at a cost, however, that showed they were not very wise I i who pursued it. But, for all this, I made some sort of discoveries, or resuscitations^ odd as it may seem even to those JOHN GALT. 05 who think they know me best. For example, I found out the mode of making the black imperishable ink, used anciently by the most accomplished writers of manuscripts. Gather round, oh, courteous readers, and I will make the discovery to you, for the benefit of all printers and painters ; — it is no other than bruising coal into an impalpable powder, and this may be done by crushing it either in water or oil.' The process costs so little, that I hope my disinte- restedness in making the disclosure, will not be reckoned with as little gratitude as corporations reckon, but remembered with the story of Columbus' problem of the egg. I have been acquainted with gentlemen who knew that the best black ink or paint was made simply from coal, but they did not know how to make a proper impalpable powder, and made themselves in consequence like chimney-sweeps ; wasted their money in vain attempts, or blew it away by fanners, unphllosophically forgetting that a current of air moves masses in proportion to its strength. ' I wonder the painters have never thought of making use of a preparation of gums in place of oil. VOL. I. F I ' 06 THE LITERARY LIFE OF li: 1 1 I w My old friend, President West, made a curious discovery, which almost encroached upon my secret ; namely, he found that Titian and many of the old painters painted with pure colours, and afterwards employed black paint to tone their pictures. In his latter days he painted in this style, but he employed the common black paint, which is not at all equal to what I call the alchymical black. My ingenious and imaginative friend, Mr Martin, got from some- body a hint of coal as the best principle of black, but in his attempts he employed too much oil, and in consequence made a brown, which not finding good, he abandoned, on the first experiment. After- wards, I set him right, by telling him, that what made in his case only a brown, carried a little fur- ther would make a black. I have likewise told Mr Moyes, the printer, how to produce printers' ink, of a permanent and unchangeable black, from coal ; and now that the world at large is in my confidence, it owes me something for the disclosure. By the by the alchymists say that the hue of black made from coal may be deepened by heating the mineral. So simple a process as making blacking of coal JOHN GALT. 67 Df coal i i i may be known to many, though, in the alchymical books, it is wrapped up in great mystery. Were I, however, a younger man, and able to go about, I would render this knowledge merchantable; for, considering the quantity of the article in use, it de- serves this attention. I ought to mention, that I discovered a painter in the dockyards of Portsmouth, who had stumbled on the secret without being aware of its value. He made a kind of paint from coal, not very good, of which he showed me stripes as com- pared with other black paint on a door; little aware that he was speaking to a man who was already acquainted to a much finer degree with what he thought a discovery. I do not know if the slighting manner in which I spoke to him of what he thought a wonderful hit had any effect, but I have never since heard of his discovery. It may seem that this disquisition relative to the alchymical black has not any legitimate connexion with literature. Considering, however, the import- ance of ink both to printers and authors, it is not quite irrelevant, especially as it serves to show that, in my multifarious quests, I did not always grope [ < li.l j •1 t h '■■ I ''" «» "'e a phrase of Cardinal Wolsey, could indite ; but instead of afflicting, as he had hoH, ■t only tickled me exceedingly, owing to an accident little foreseen. At that time there was a foreign nobleman in London, who occasionally came to see me. He spoke and wrote English very well for a foreigner, but with- out that perception of the inflexions in the meaning of words, so seldom attained by outlandish people. The day that the Review was published, he received H copy, and read Croker's article with all the delight and enthusiasm of a friend,_not perceiving it was ironical. Perhaps it was, indeed, so clumsily done, that even a native might have been mistaken. Next morning, however, at an uncommonly early hour, he came to congratulate me on being acknowledged by the Review as another Shakspeare, a name which he had somewhere read of. Not imagining that he could have been mystified, for he possessed great talent, I felt all the ecstasy of an author at the intel- 1 1 'j^K ' oSlu^ I ■ ' ^^PH f' wmm x WKiX^^^^M IIG THE LITEIIARY LIFE OP I ligence, and immediately after breakfast sent for the publication, which presently, alas I set all right as to the character of the criticism. But before reading the article half through, I was so amused at the con- sternation of my friend, as I explained to him the real meaning, that although the irony seemed to enter his soul, it was to me really diverting, beautifully illustrating that mercifulness with which Providence tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.' Probably, however, the fortitude which in all cases I have ever evinced to the flagellations of the critics, was in this instance partly owing to the discipline to which I was accustomed in private. My friend Park, for example, was never satisfied unless my produc- tions were first-rate, and took a special pleasure in constantly reminding me of the excellences of authors before whom I durst not, in a metaphorical sense, ' I wonder how I have attracted so much of Mr Croker's critical kindness, for I must suppose, in charity, that he bears in mind, and endeavours to imitate the example, that "the Lord chasteneth whom he loveth." He must be a bold man to med- die in the way he has done with my poetry ; did ever he forget his own ? I mean how he put the London Gazette into rhyme and called it " The Battle of Talavera," publishing it to encourage the Duke. JOHN OALT. 117 venture to lift my eyelids. Cowper, the poet, was a rank Pickle among the Westminster boys,-as dauntless as the champion of England at a coronation, compared to me in blushing b^shfulness before the worthies he, and be hanged to him, was ever preaching up as models for me to study. Thus it came to pass, that although the spirit of exoteric criticisms was merciless enough, it was ever mitigated to that of the Mephis- topheles that sat grinning at my own table. In looking over Park's letters I have found one pat to the occasion. It is chiefly concerning the very dramas that furnish the matter of this chapter, and I appeal to every skinless author if there was ever shown more hard-heartedness. It is, however, valua- ble as a morceau of criticism, and I expect, in perusing it, the courteous reader will, therefore, forget that it relates to my dramas, and take it only for its own merits. " Greenock, 13th Mai/, 1812. " My dear Friend, " I have received your book, which is really a very handsome one. but, as you remark, exceedingly incorrect in point of typo- graphy. With regard to the comparative merit of the several pieces. I am still decidedly i„ favour of Clytemnestra, the last act If t*'V'*^fj iLU. .'. 118 THE LITERARY LIFE OF ft;: 'I m of which especially displays a tragic energy and a force of senti- ment which I have not found in any of the others. Antonia, I think, comes nearest to it in the interest of the story ; but the character of Carravagio, though an able delineation, is not dra- matic, according to my conception of the term. It is a maxim which should never be lost sight of by those who write for the stage, that tragedy lias to do only with the passions. Professional peculiarities, such as those described in Carravagio, are properly within the province of comedy. They belong to manners. Accordingly, with a little heightening, Carravagio might easily be made a comic character. Upon the whole, however, this is perhaps the best written play in the collection. Tiie diction is less strained and distorted, and possesses a more equable and musical flow than in those places where you have attempted greater things. In Lady Macbeth, for instance, you have been led, by your admiration of Shakspeare, to assume a mystical pomp of language not easily supported — and the misfortune is that a fall from such a * pernicious height' is always exceedingly cl^vious. As a dramatic performance, however, the chief defect of this play is the want of a story — there are no events in pre- paration, nor is the final catastrophe brought about by the agency of the characters in the piece. The superstitious con- sultations of Macbeth appear to the reader to be conversations held merely out of a kind of half philosophical curiosity ; and Baudron, (by the way a most uncouth name, even to an English ear, and to a Scottish one, I fear, almost burlesque,) Baudron is much too rational and benevolent to be a fit companion for Hecate and the weird sisters. Tliere are some highly poetical passages, however, which redeem these faults, and, to readers of the imaginative class, will compensate for the want of dramatic interest. At the head of these I place Lady Macbeth's dream, I JOHN GALT. 119 he pamtmg of which is horribly distinct. It is indeed a singular fact and I cannot help pointing it out to your attention, that aU the dramas m this volume turn upon incidents either disgusting or hornble, and of course the impression which they leave upo! the mmd ,s m the main disagreeable. In the first, a father and a son are rivals in love, an idea certainly unpleasing from the feehng of andehcacy which it creates. I„ Antonia. the principal event ,s a rape ; and, a. the whole interest of the performance rests upon this nefarious deed, it is of course never a moment out of the reader's head, which would. I think, be very distress- .ng m the representation. In Agamemnon, a wife conspires with her paramour to murder her husband ; and in Clytemnestra |t IS a son who puts his mother to death on the altar. I do not mstance Lady Macbeth, as hers are legitimate horrors, and are ree from any mixture of indelicacy. I „,ention this merely for the sake of remmding you, that it is always dangerous for an author when a disagreeable impression is made on the reader, from whatever source, as the bulk of mankind are not skilful enough to discern what pertains to the author and what to his subject. A connoisseur may be in raptures with a picture repre seating the flaying of Marsyas, but an ordinary spectator will turn from it ,n disgust, however great the abilities of the artist rnay be. Upon the whole, had you not written the third act of Clytemnestra, I must confess I should have formed a different opinion of your dramatic powers from what I now entertain • but I conceive that even one undoubted proof of capacity in any de- partment of art may justly overbalance a number of defective performances, as we see that the greatest masters are liable to fa. at least as often as they succeed. Dramatic composition I believe to be the most precarious of any. "lam very glad to hear tiiat Mr Davies gives so good an account MM !..'" 'fm ('231 s«3 'M .-* • "'i ■ ^^1 .' '■?! ' ^ ^1 / ( 1., ni 120 THE LITERARY LIFE OF ra, of the sale of the Travels. If they come to a second edition, I hope you will give them a complete revisal, as in that case they will become in some degree a standard work, and will deserve your care. Pray, what do you think of the Edinburgh review of Lord Byron's new poem ? I should be glad to hear how his Lordship feels upon the occasion ; but I should think he must be satisfied that he has at least received justice, if no favour has been shown. The extracts in the Review show great poetical powers. Yours, James Park." I think Thomson's idea of the subjects fit for tragedy more ingenious and better than Park's. Com- mon passions do not, in my opinion, furnish occa- sions for those bursts of pathos from which the sub- limity of tragedy arises. It is in the delicacy of the management, as I conceive, that the whole peculiar art of the tragedian lies, and, of course, the more strange and horrible the topic is, the greater the difficulty of rendering it tolerable. The overcoming of difficulty is the triumph of art. It is scarcely possible to conceive a more frightful subject, for example, than the story of Myrrha ; but who can read Alfieri's drama without the most poig- nant sorrow ? I saw it once on the stage, and several of the scenes are as vivid still in my recollection as JOHN GAIT. 121 Mrs Siddons in any part of Lady Macbeth. Horace Walpole's Mysterious Mother is only not sublime because he has not treated the story delicately enough. But odious as it is, who can read it without emotion-who, indeed, would read it twice ?_not however, for the same reason that on. does not wish to weaken by a second perusal the fine horror pro- -luced by the Robbers of Schiller, but because it " files the mind." My friend, however, thought that the ordinary distrc^es of the world are fit for trage- dies. In my opinion it is only the perpetration of extraordinary crimes which awaken rare and dreadful sentiments; and accordingly I accede to Thomson's notion. ".it VOL. I. !|l 122 THE LITEEABY LIFE OF CHAPTER XIV. Relative to Editing Redhead Yorhe's Publication^ It is mentioned in my Autobiography that I have been always subjcJt to occasional fits of absence of mind, sometimes to such a degree that all else but the present thought has been forgotten, or only allowed to occupy a very subordinate place in my attention. I called it self-absorption, having no other term, which so well expressed the predominance which interesting topics often acquired in my reflections. There is pro- bably something morbid in the mood, for it cannot uniformly be counteracted by resolution, and it leads frequently to inconvenience, by lessening, as it were, the importance of many things deserving of more consideration than they obtain, giving to my occulta- tions of others an air of concealment, when the total uselessness of such an artifice is as palpable as the Jf JOHN GALT. 123 cunning of the ostrich, which believes, when it has hidden its head in a tuft of grass, that its huge bodjr is not seen. To myself this characteristic does not appear so remarkable as it may have done to others, and the consciousness of no deception being intended, always lightens the recollection of the inadvertencies to which it gives rise. Of these was the total suspension in my memory, during the dictation of the Autobio- graphy, of having written the Crusade ; a work that the publishers must have recoUected, and which being known to others, could not, in consequence, be owing to any desire to overlook it on my part. Therefore, I wish to say, once for all, that when it seems I con- ceal any circumstance which others may know, it ought to be ascribed to that leakiness of memory which arises from the infirmity aUudcd to, and is not intentional. This prefatory matter is by way of introduction to a transaction still more (in my own opinion) curious than even the neglect of the Crusade. I forgot en- tirely that I had at one time undertaken to edit a few is'- i ' h . 'II U I. 9 r^fl '\^Hw ^^^1 'ii'iii^i I ^.^MHHHHHHj t- '^jiH^Hi^^^^^H ll!;i I! 124 THE LITERARY LIFE OP M M Ik «'^! numbers of Redhead Yorke's Review, with the design of continuing it if I liked the labour. This was at the time I found myself so indisposed to the continu- ance of an adventurous life, on failing to excite that attention to my scheme of transmitting British goods into the heart of the continent, through Turkey, de- spite the Berlin and Milan decrees. I do not myself now comprehend why the aflfair has been so long ba- nished from my mind as to be almost quite oblitera- ted, for in it I appear to have acted in no discreditable manner. Even in the end, I obtained something like approbation from my considerate friend. However, certain it is the transaction escaped me, and I hasten here to make amends for the omission. About the end of 1811, it appears that I communi- cated to Mr Park my intention to take up Mr Yorke's paper, the chief proprietor of which was the Rev. Dr Locke, a collateral descendant of the celebrated meta- physician. Park's answer is highly characteristic, and shows, at the same time, the freedom of that mental intercourse which existed between us, and which, since his death, has never been supplied. JOHN GALT. 125 " My dear Friend, " Although you do not say so, you are no doubt anticipating a senous expostulation on the subject of your letter, and I .ill not deny that I am both surprised and alarmed by it. I have what appear to me the strongest objections to the plan you i,ave announced of conducting Redhead Yorke's paper; and I hope you w,ll not take it ill if I state what they are, as I enter J„ some hopes that you have not yet gone beyond the power of re- tractmg in this affair. My objections are founded upon two di.. •net v,ews of tho matter. In the first place, it is clear, and I thmk on reflection you will acknowledge it yourself, that the step wdl decde the colour of your whole future life, and fix you down for the remamder of your days an author by profession, a writer for bread. Now this is certainly a consideration which dema.uls a pause for reflection, and that a long and a serious one. With regard to the literary profession in general, I appeal to your own observation, and to the uniform experience of mankind in a^l countries, if it is not. of all the various ways of gaining alive- liliood, the most uncertain, the most harassing, and, with a fcv a very few exceptions, the most degrading, in its practical effects, to a man of spirit and talent, and such men only are fit tor It. It ,s, m fact, only the desperate resource of men who have no profession, which they abandon as soon as they can find any other employment. No man takes it up as an eligible business (except perhaps one or two newspaper editors, and I believe even th.s exception is scarcely necessary), and if the necessity hat ongmally drove him into it obliges him to continue, it is no- thing to the argument. But surely the case is widely different with you, who have a profession, and along with it habits and in- formauon that should command the services of mankind, instead - m 1(1 fii i$M r^^'^M ■u^H X i \SMm BH^^B ] \ M il "'1^ F>''^^l '-Mi iiMi'^^l ^"M K^>^^^l -.1 l^^l :l.'.'J ii^l %ti il llift IS 126 THE LITERARY LIFE OF of depending on their opinions or caprices. In short, it appears to me that the employment you are about to embark in, is nei- ther, in point of respectability, comfort, or emoUiment, such as I would desire for you, or rather, as you should desire for yourself. Besides, it is attended with considerable personal hazard, as the late ex officio trials sufficiently testify. Further, Nvith regard to the particular work in question, there are several things that deserve attention, and that require to be explained. Upon what political principles do you propose to carry it on ? You must be aware of its present character, and that its circulation is chiefly confined to the most devoted adherents of the ministry, to whom alone its violence can be in any degree acceptable. In accepting the ma- nagement of such a paper, an editor of a different way of think- in" certainly places himself in a very disagreeable and embarrass- inT situation. In the first place, he is in some degree bound to continue the work on its own principles, by the very act of taking it with the advantage of an established circulation ; and if he at- tempt to alter its tone in a gradual manner, so as to avoid giving immediate umbrage, he is sure to be sooner or later detected and abandoned by the old set of subscribers, and most probably with- out acquiring any others in their place, as the work will, in ap- pearance at least, still wear the badge of its former party. Setting these considerations aside, however, and viewing it merely as a literary undertaking, I must warn you that you will have a strong prejudice to overcome in your outset, as thesuccessor of aAvritcr whose offences against good taste and sound reason have been so disgusting to men of sense and moderation, I do not know wliat Mr Yorke's private character may be, and I suppose it respect- able, but as an author he is detestable. This, in my estimation, is an objection of no small weight. Another is, that in the course even of this winter, important political changes are likely to take JOHN GALT, 127 place. If this were to happen, it would make a great difference in the fortunes of party publications, or publications that were thought so. Should it not, your risk would be the greater, for I am satisfied that in no longer period of time, you would become an opposition writer, or at least you would not fail to let fly^ome obnoxious truth, which would bring you under the purview of theAttorney.General. In the present state of the law oflibeland of politics in this country, I do not know a situation of more hazard than that of a public writer, or one that requires more coolnes«y more address in the use of words, or more anxious vigilance and attention. The sword is constantly suspended over his head by a single hair. And what is the great inducement that counter- balances such terrible evils ? Not emolument, for I am certain that your plan will not answer as a pecuniary speculation, and this for a highly creditable reason. Your mind is too impartial and too honourable to modify and suppress its opinions to please, a particular set of men, and no political writer ever succeeded in tins country but by means of a party. Such are the reasons upon which my unfavourable opinion of your plan is grounded. You ^ill probably think them timorous, and likewise harsh, and I cer tainly have not pleased myself in the manner of stating them, but my object is merely to awaken your own reflections. If yo.'i can by any fair means shake yourself clear of this paper, it will afford me most sincere pleasure. Should this bo out of your power, however, you may depend on all the aid my feeble pen can give you; and. in the meantime, you are welcome to make any use you think proper of the essay you mention. I need not give you any caution about names. By the way, I hope your own name wiU not appear in the work, at least at present. I have not yet mentioned your design to the good people at home ; but if I do it before hearing from you, you may trust to my dis- cretion in softening matters. I can tell you it will cause alamen- tation. I beg you will write me in course, after a serious recon- ^•■la 128 THE LlTJiRAllY LIFE Or 111 sideration of the matter in question; and whatever may be your determination, I shall receive it with the acquiescence due to a man in his own afFairs. At the same time, I never was more in earnest than I am at this moment. I wish you many happy years. Yours always, " James Park." What answer I returned to my friend's remon- strance is no longer recollected. It is probable I reminded him of my circumstances, and the frustra- tion of the hopes I had cherished of establishing a transit business. I say so without the slightest re- collection of what passed, and altogether as an infe- rence from the contrition which he expressed for the friendly candour of his expostulation, which was as follows : — " Greenock, 7th January, 1812. " Mv|dear Friend, " I know not vvhen I was seized with such poignant remor.^c as on reading your last letter, and my regret was increased by the mildness with which you treat my ill-timed representations. However, that is past now, and by way of reparation I intend to exert myself with still greater zeal in promoting your project than I did in opposing it I fear the annexed performance will not arrive in time for your next publication, but it will per- haps be as well to reserve it for the next, as you must not be too lavish of original matter. Once for all, I give you full powers to reject, expunge, and alter whatever you think proper in an}' of my lucubrations. It will be as well to omit the initials, as they might betray me to your readers here. I am much pleased JOHN GALT. 129 ^.th your first numl.er, and not a little pleased with the notice you have taken of my essay on education, which is better than I thought, and most wonderfully in point to the times. I shaU be glad to hear at your leisure if it makes any impression; but do not waste your time in writing long letters. I hope the pre- sent communication is not ill adapted to your paper. The most part of n » written oiT-hand. and not very legible; but if you will indulge me m this practice. I may have it in my power to be a more frequent correspondent. I have great plans in my head. «nd the foreign library will afford me valuable materials on French affairs-for instance, the designs of Hochc on Ireland, and other things of a similar kind. I shall also endeavour to set Mr M'Cartney a-going, but I doubt if his favourite subjects would suit your work. As I have much at heart the correctness of your paper in style and typography, I shall mention occasionally any habitual errors I may observe. I recollect two in this number-prece^ding for preceding-and dicta prefixed to a verb m the singular. I am happy to say that the old folks have much less to say against the plan than I had supposed from former ex- pericnce would have been the case. Your father is highly pleased with the book, and is proud of it as the production of his son. This, I think, is a veiy pleasing circumstance. You must give in my name to your publisher as a subscriber for the Review, as it has not come forward. " I am, yours always, " jAiiEs Park. " It will obLge me if you wiU attend particularly to the cor- Tection of the press in printing my matters. There is only one error in the essay, but it is a puzzhng one." This letter affords a pleasing view of Park's cha- 1 \ M "i '(3 i. ' u 130 THE LITERARY LIFE OF .1 I: te racter. In the remonstrance given in the preceding letter, he was as frank and plain as the occasion seemed to demand. But when he saw that I was no longer in a condition to choose, he drove from his mind the vexatious thoughts which troubled him, and gave me all the aid in his power. I am willing to think that this was such an instance of true friend- ship as few have experienced, and ought to lighten the blame, if I have incurred any, for entertaining a better opinion of mankind than those who have suffered less from the errors or malevolence of indi- viduals. The next letter from him contained another com- munication, and intimates that our old schoolfellow, Spence, was at work for me — one of those few inge- nious men who are slow of reaching the meridian, because they are ultimately destined to attain a great height, and to be long brilliant. When I had conducted the Political Review about a month, I began to tire of it. My habits were at that time active, and the sedentary considera- tion which a weekly publication necessarily requires, was not in unison with my restless disposition. JOHN GALT. 131 But the following epistle from Park merits more at- tention than I can at this distance of time presume to expect will be paid to any thing I can say. My letters to him are destroyed. ♦ • Greenock, 2d February, 1812. •' My deau Fiuend, "I hope the foregoing will be in time. Let me know if it is in your next, as Sunday is my most convenient day to lucubrate. W. Spence is at work on a most interesting subject, a com- parison of the English and Scotch administration of Criminal law; but you need not take any notice till you receive the paper. We are highly pleased with your last number. Go on. but in the midst of your boldness remember discretion. The manner is of more consequence than the matter, in political writing. I recommend the above to your fatherly care in cor- recting the press. I still want the first number. Yours, " James Park." " Greenock, Uth February, 1812. •' My DEAR Friend, " Your letter found me in the midstof my balance— a business that will allow nothing to interfere with it—otherwise it was entitled to an earlier answer. The day after I received it, your father told me that you had been prevailed upon to conduct the Review a litUe longer; but as I imagine you are not anxious now for the success of the paper, or very desirous of obtaining communications, I have for this week omitted my usual contri- bution. As I am so little acquainted with the circumstances connected with your change of plan, I am at a loss whether to . IfrtI f '■ J'l Mi ' ■ 1. T 132 THE L1T£RAIIY"L1FE OF V' mmm m' K. m congratulate you or condole with you on the occasion ; only, as I really think that you exposed yourself to some risk by the bold- ness of certain passages in the numbers you have published, and when I also perceive that you were preparing for still greater enormities, I am disposed to consider your relinquishing the paper as at least a safe proceeding. I observe you have put your name to the principal article in the last number. It is, fortunately, one of the ablest papers that ever proceeded from your pen, though strongly marked with peculiarities, and even eccentricities, which greatly weaken, I think, the impression it ought to make by the vigour and comprehension of the reason- ing. You are so extreme a mannerist in style, tliat your readers would almost require to be your personal friends and acquaint- ance before they can do you justice. You write from the very peculiar associations of your own mind, instead of attending to those general associations which are common to the bulk of man- kind. This I presume you will admit to be a fault in a public writer, who certainly ought to write popularly, otherwise he must be perpetually misconceived, and of course misrepresented. An ordinary reader fastens upon an outre expression, and being unable to penetrate the recondite meaning that lurks under its fantastic disguise, thinks it downright nonsense and raving. You may guess from these remarks, that though I admired your fourth number, the fifth was not to my taste. I was indeed seriously angry with you for taking so little pains on the form of your observations, especially as the matter was good. Our coffee-room readers, though no conjurers, are probably a pretty fair sample of readers in general ; and therefore I think it worth while to observe how they are affected by any remarkable pas- sage. I find that any odd or very peculiar expression uniformly shocks their taste, and injures the impression of the composition. " With regard to the project you mention, you may of course ■'■^. # JOHN GALT. 133 t Z T ''! ' ^-°P«ation. as far as my ability and leisure wm adm, . At the same time. I really do not consider any occa.onalmd that I could give worth reckoning upon in esta' hlishmg a periodical work. For one thing. I find an absolute necessuy, m these wretched times, to devote more of my time to busmess than I have been in the habit of givin. to if and the quantity of exercise lam obliged to take'in Trdtr t^ pre' serve myself in health, greatly abridges my hours of study. I am now fully convinced that a man of business, who has a daily routme of transactions to go through without intermission, can- not be .u^riter to any purpose. I could certainly, however, do ahttle, but I fear our friend the mathematician, however well disposed, will scarcely do any thing. When a man has a avour.te study, in which he is led on by the ardour of discovery rom one vast labour to another, it is impossible to drag him from ,t by any other motive than absolute necessity. He is also fasmous with regard to his own compositions, a disposition which IS a great enemy to produciiveness, however it may favour correctness. I observe that you have put the Cardinal to the I)ress. I shall be glad to hear what arrangement you have made with respect to this work, and when it will be out. Pray send my engravings for the Travels, and likewise the first number of the Review. Have Cadell and Davies had many orders for copies? Yours, t ^ James Park." It does not appear that I continued much after the date of the last letter in my editorial capacity ; but in the whole business, it will be allowed that Park acted in the most friendly and most disinterested manner. Sometimes it suggests to me a pleasing ri i m .':ii "as ''m :1 'if J PI I I I i" ? 134 THE LITERARY LIFE OP reminiscence, when I call to mind the general scope of his friendship. The whole of his conduct, in the affair of the Review, is unique and complete within itself; beautiful for its consistency, pathetic by its anxieties, and such as seldom illuminates the obscu- rity of private hfe. i JOHN GALT. 135 CHAPTER XV. Change of CJiaracter previous to going to Gibraltar. The time at which I resolved to have nothing more to do with the Political Review, until I went to Gibraltar, with the intention of being settled there, was perhaps the most important short period of my whole life, and yet not distinguished by any incident worthy of being recorded. In outward seeming, it was calculated to excite only a kind of wonder in my friends at what I was < oir ' h ■ It VtM'llltUMll III (lu« t<((MMIul tlKll UlliviMDul ^ItlimiHiy U i^Mruliul III (Itiilr riii'iimtloii i niul lltif t*xtu'HitiMM whU s\iiU
  • (iiingii \sUu>\\ mniUu^M Im« MMiniiliUtnl, OtiHkMitMmlly 1 lmvt« IImKimimI niyituli' iliul. I iJOMntiNMitl ti liulo |uii'Uon ol' Uuk innulr cndiiwdit^nl, tt niyMolt' iMumoionn ol* huvin^ luirl my >llooli iViH>iUHiu»n uiuwv any «»Un'r I'on til itrilnit ion. 1 ) UlVli ImU tl( ono us tlio puinUMH «lo, — niudo fonipoMitions l>y tlovetailin^- dilVuront skotdios to^t'thor. Moreover, »' ImI^I '^M m 'kii ; "i in: 'I 'I I 170 THE LITERARY LIFE OF circumstance, as the success of your attempts will give you en- couragement to persevere. But I am afraid that the rapid com- position which such an undertaking demands, will prevent your succeeding greatly in any one piece, and will exhaust your peculiar stock of ideas in a series of mere essays. You must lon: '^ 'ss /;' om /A Sciences Corporation f\ 4- •^ <^ !V ^ 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 V <*ii *'* 172 THE LITERARY LIFE OF the close of the Edinburgh season. Mr Murray is a most re- spectable man, the son of Mr Murray of Covent Garden, and the brother of Mrs Henry Siddons. *' I am perfectly sensible of the very great honour you do me in proposing to inscribe this work to me ; and I beg that you will do me the justice to believe, that my declining that honour is in nowise inconsistent with the sentiment that I ought to entertain, and do sincerely entertain. I say nothing of the absolute obscu- rity of my own name in the literary world ; but I have the most decided and instinctive aversion to every species of what is called notoriety. I desire never to see my name in print, except when it is appended to a law paper ; and should be as much vexed and pained by the execution of your intention, (and I cannot say more,) as I am now gratified and flattered by your having formed that intention. I entreat you will think no more of it. *• I have come here for a few days with some of the younger members of my family, and return to Edinburgh on Monday. " Yours sincerely, " William Erskine. " Kinedder, July 19, 1817= " John Galt, Esq." With his effectual mediation, the piece, with some changes suggested by the manager, was accepted. The prologue, ostensibly written by Professor Wilson, was in truth, I believe, the joint composition of Mr Lockhart and Captain Hamilton, the author of Cyril Thornton. Such sort of liberties with one another was in those days among the mystifications JOHN GALT. 173 of the contributors to Blackwood's Magazine. Sir Walter Scott wrote the epilogue, which I one of the few comic efforts of his muse.. He wrote me to conceal his name. The performance took place, and the result, I will not affect to deny, much exceeded my expectation- indeed, I do not know who would not have been proud to have had any production ushered into notice under such combined auspices-there has been nothing superior to it in the theatrical exhibitions of our time; but it was not then consistent with my plan of life to make more ado about it than I actually did ; for I had long committed myself to the unbiassed judgment of the world, and, conscious that I might one day be at liberty to make this disclosure, I was content with having obtained some applause without seeking it by means which would have ensured it without any merit, even could I have supposed the friends to whom I was so indebted would have lent themselves to bolster up what they did not sincerely approve. 5 i ■' fi •M M U! Mt 174 THE LITERAUY LIFE OF CHAPTER XIX. T/ie death of Mr Spence. In the year 1815 I met with a great misfortune, and it is not easy to convey to the reader the kind of feelinjD^ which the remembrance of it still occasions. I allude to the death of my early playmate, school- fellow, and friend of riper years, Mr Spence, of "whose singular proficiency in the sublime mathema- tics, some idea may be formed by his Essay on Loga- rithmic Transcendants, part of a magnificent work "which he had projected. After his death, I got Sir John Herschell to edit the Essay, — a circumstance in itself the best proof that could be given to his country and old companions how much his genius deserved what he has not yet obtained, true fame ; "but genius like his, though long, is sure of coming at last to its kingdom. Not in any business, Spence was wholly devoted JOHN GALT. 175 to literary pursuits, for in such I include his predo- minant attachment to mathematics, and his taste for the practice and composition of music, in both of which departments he excelled. In point of original genius, he far surpassed our mutual companion Park —indeed most men. But he was inferior in critical acumen, and neither possessed Park's ease nor ele- gance in writing. In poetry he was not at all dis- tinguished, nor do I recollect to have ever seen any of his verses ; but I have some recollection of having heard, when a boy, that he had written something which was at least rhyme. In fact, the endowments of Spcnce were not at all to be estimated by his attempts in belles lettres; and those who would have formed an opinion of his intellectual powers by his essays in general literature, would have done him immeasurable injustice. His genius was entirely scientific, not mechanical, and his superiority con- sisted in that species of refined reasoning which is so rare, so subtle, and so little understood by the com- monalty. Moreover, h( possessed from nature a fluency and cUgnity of expression that in public life would have enabled him to play the part of <« the m 176 THE LITEKARY LIFE OF eloquent orator," especially when in any degree excited. But although it was an irreparable loss to be de- prived of one whose early familiarity lent zest, rs it were, to the wisdcn of manhood, there is a kind of mournful pleasure in reckoning among the gifts of good fortune such a friend ; indeed, sometimes when a sense of disease and ineffectuality comes upon me in the twilight a little too strongly, the remembrance of Spence and Park, and of the glaiks occasionally bright in other days, appeases sorrow. Few have seen so many of the lights of the world, and still fewer have numbered among their intimates from boyhood such estimable and accomplished companions. But Spence was lost in Greenock ; I speak of the town as it was in my time, more than thirty years ago. Our acquaintances there were too much occu- pied with mercantile engagements to appreciate the value of his investigations or the objects of his patient studies. They were not, however, insensible of his superiority, for it is one of the peculiarities of my townsfolk never to be reluctant to acknowledge merit. At his death they erected a tablet to his memory in JOHN GALT. 177 the principal church,^a token of respect at once to his character, and of their own gratitude, for he left to the town library his valuable collection of scienti- fie books. While I am thus recaUing old reminiscences, I should mention a curious peculiarity in the intimacy which so long exUted between Park, Spence, and me. I have no recollection of ever having shown to Spenceanyof my various attempts in verse, although he knew how much I was once addicted to the art. Nor have I any remembrance of Park's interest in our musical propensities-he had none in mine-and I rather think that, beyond listening now and then to a tune. Park had nothing to do with our melodious endeavours. His excellent judgment, no doubt, enabled him to select favourite airs, but he had no particular predilection for music; and Spence was rcaUy superior in the study. Indeed, I greatly regret that I have only my own opinion to give to the reader, of Spence's musical talent, for an accident has prevented me from inserting here one of his composi- tions, which undoubtedly possessed a fine Mozart-like air, and which I am sure would of itself have begot a 1 ■ 1 ■■■! J, m «i f m ;" «l' 178 THE LITERARY LIFE OF high idea of his sensibility and genius. It was at first adapted to the verses of Holcroft, beginning— " All hail to the hero," &c. but afterwards I made other words to it. When the Essay on Logarithmic Transcendants was ready for publication, I prefixed to it a short memoir of the author ; but the life of Spence had flowed too uniformly and sequestered to afford many materials for the biographer. And mine was pre- cisely one of those kind of works which only the subject can do properly himself, for it consisted of few incidents, and none of them striking. It is the enterprises of the mind that make the lives of studious men interesting ; and of all men that I have ever known, no one was more reluctant to creep out of the modesty in which he had inshelled himself, than the man whom I cannot even yet think no more, feeling towards his memory as if he were still waiting for something not received. Nor is this altogether a phantasm, for certainly he has not yet been honoured with the renown which he so laboured to achieve, and which I am well assured by competent judges he has demonstrated as having had the capacity to deserve. JOHN GALT, 179 An author in the ninety-fourth number of the Quar- terly Review, says, " The most remarkable of these is the « Essay on the various Orders of Logarithmic Transcendants,' by the late W. Spenee of Greenock, the first formal essay in our language on any distinct and considerable branch of the integral calculus, which had appeared since the publication of Hellin's papers on the « Rec- tification of the Conic Sections.' A premature death carried off, in Spenee, one who might have become the ornament of his country in this department of knowledge. His posthumous essays, which were not, however, collected and published till 1819, prove him to have been both a learned and inventive ana- lyst. He appears to have studied entirely without assistance, and to have formed his taste and strenirth- ened his powers by a diligent perusal of the conti- nental models. In consequence, he was enabled to attack questions which none of his countrymen had entered upon, such as the general integration of equa- tions of finite difi'erences, and others of that difficult and elevated class." I'-if ili;,. 180 THE LITERARY LIFE OF I'l i It is singular that Greenock, in James Watt, the improver of the steam-engine, and in Spence, should have produced two of the greatest geniuses of their time in practical and sublime science, and contempo- raries. I < m JOHN GALT. 181 CHAPTER XX. The Majolo-.The Earthquake, and other W.rfts. My next publication to the New British Theatre was the Majolo. I am not very sure, but I think it was-, occasional essays and reviews I reckon of no account. The cause of my writing that work is utterly for- 1,'otten ; but at all times addicted to imaginative lite- rature, I conceive that 1 must have been actuated by a wish to try how far a story could be constructed by a combination of incidents calculated to illustrate the mystical feelings connected with our sympathies and antipathies. I thought it had been quite neglected, and in my Autobiography was very dolorous on the subject, for I considered it an original work containing passages and descriptions not despicable. I mentioned even one incident that I imagine ought to have drawn < i^'l 182 THE LITERARY LIFE OF some attention to the book, stating that, except by- one of the Monthly Reviews, it was wholly over- looked. The incident alluded to was the manner in which the Emperor Napoleon is said to have dis- covered the leader of Pichegru's conspiracy. The Majolo was long published before the event referred to happened. I had made the hero discover a mur- derer by the same process of thought which in the Emperor was considered at the time very absurd, if not an imposition. The case with me was this r— . . I have observed in life that men are sometimes affected by very unaccountable feelings, and that when these antipathies or sympathies make a perma- nent impression they always terminate in some remarkable event, as if the demon of destiny were in the patient's feelings. To illustrate this I made a young man, under the influence of that manomania •which is called demoniacism, poison his master, and my hero discovered him, by a mental process, to be the murderer. The same reiterated return of the same conjecture, arising from some indescribable antipathy, took place in Bonaparte's case. This is, however, not the place to enter into any explanation on the JOHN GALT. 183 except by lolly over- manner in have dis- acy. The nt referred ver a mur- lieh in the f absurd, if 8 this : — sometimes , and that :e a perma- e in some iny were in 3 I made a manomania master, and )ces9, to be of the same B antipathy, s, however, ition on the subject ; but it is curious that the book itself gave rise to a very striking coincidence of the same sort. On the 1st of October last, (1833,) I was advised by my medical friends to make an excursion into the Ci>untry, so, taking my youngest son with me, as I could not walk, I went into town to take the Windsor stage. When we arrived it was gone. But as any kind of locomotion was troublesome, I took the first coach in readiness, not caring which way we went, and it happened to be a Maidstone stage. When we got to that town in the evening I was much tired, and in no humour to hold any conversa- tion ; but "as the old cock crows the young cock learns," the boy sent one of the waiters to a circuUting library for a book. The book brought, strangely enough, was a Glas- gow publication, and, among other things, it contained a biographical sketch of me— wonderfully correct upon the whole— and the tale of the Physiognomist, taken from the Majolo, and from the self-same story that I have just alluded to. But this was not all. On returning home next evening I found the Eclectic Review on my table, containing a very shrewd critique ';fl 184 THE LITERARY LH;E OF on my Autobiography just published, by which it appeared that it was the periodical that had given what really a-peared to be a fair notice of the Majolo. With these incidents I was mightily pleased, be- cause I had supposed the work had been quite ne- glected, and had said a short time before, " It would be great presumption in any man to say that his own work deserved more consideration than it had receiv- ed ;" but still I do think that the merits and originality of the sentiments described in the Majolo have not been adequately valued, either for their truth, their simplicity, or the influence which they are shown to have in action. Thereupon I took occasion to de- claim in good set terms on my favourite maxim, namely, if a man can only wait he never fails to attain the substance of his ends. " Here is a work," quoth I, «' that Mr All-the-world had turned, as I thought, his back on, but in two little days it seems not only deserving of a dressing and combing, but worthy of a new bib and tucker." The first volume of the Majolo was published by itself, and I was induced to add the second in conse- quence of an opinion expressed of it by the late Lord JOHN GALT. 185 which it ad given 3 Maiolo. ;ased, be- quite ne- It would it his own ad receiv- riginality have not uth, their shown to ion to de- c maxim, s to attain k," quoth [ thought, 3 not only 'orthy of a blished by in conse- late Lord Kinedder, the Park of Sir Walter Scott, who told me himself that the story which I afterwards wove into tlie Physiognomist showed powers that could not be enough cultivated for their rareness. But I do not intend to furnish the astrologers who may be among my courteous readers, with epochs, cycles, or eras, to help theni to construct the horo- scopes of my diiTerent progeny, or to make them look into the seeds of time and tell us which will grow, and therefore will despa' ch a number of odds and ends in the remainder of this Chapter. The Majolo, of which I have been speaking, was the last of my publications as an amateur author ; hitherto I had written only to please myself, and had published more to acquire the reputation of a clever fellow than with the hope of making money; but almost immediately on sending forth the second vo- lume, I saw that hereafter I was destined to eke out my income with mypen-with the causes the public, according to my opinion, have nothing to do, and it would be exceedingly impertinent to enquire, at least VOL. I. Q i 11 186 THE LITERARY LIFE OF n it so happens that I have always cherished an unut- terable aversion — «' to wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at." The first person to whom I disclosed the impending- necessity, was my old and worthy and feeling friend, Dr S , to whom I owe not only the kindest sym- pathy, but an alacrity of disposition to lighten the evil in this case, that softened the pressure of inevitable mis- fortune ; but I only apprehended the half of what I ■was doomed to suffer, and in consequence, thought only of temporary expedients, not then imagining that ruin was complete. In fact, I was like the nun of Catania, who, when she beheld the coming stream of lava approaching the convent, went out with a basin of water to extinguish the fire. In this predicament the Doctor introduced me to Sir Richard Phillips, with whom he was acquainted, and who at once, in a very gentlemanly manner, of- fered me twelve guineas a-sheet, if I would write for the Monthly Magazine occasionally. I had made up my mind to ask ten if he offered less ; but his JOHN GALT, 187 liberality at once more than satisfied me. In some respects this first transaction as a " bookseller's hack," as the Right Honourable Sir John Cam Hobhouse called me—he who wrote so many unreadable volumes with the hope of becoming one himself— was in some respects curious : it determined the scope of my future life. Soon after the affair with Sir Richard, I accepted a proposal which led me for a time to make mjr residence at Finnart, near Greenock, the most irk- some period till then of my whole life. Convinced, after a short time, that the scheme must be abortive, as it had been formed on an estimate of circumstances before the rebellion of the Spanish colonies, how I did long for a plausible pretext to quit the business I and yet could lay hold of no circumstance sufficiently prominent to justify me to others for acting as I saw I must sooner or later do. However, though I passed a very tedious time, I was not idle, I continued to employ my leisure in writing for the periodicals. At last a Godsend happened, by the Union Canal Com- pany requesting me to superintend a bill for them through Parliament, to which considerable opposition I ']¥ ii- !i! ^^■Hi^' ^^^^^Hu'. Jli 188 THE LITERARY LIFE OF was anticipated, and it afforded me a reason to give my friends for proceeding abruptly to London. In London, saving in the business of the bill, I had very little to do, but the necessity of closer appli- cation to literary labour was obvious. Still, how- ever, the hope existed that it was only a passing cloud, and when, as I believed the inconvenience only transient, my temperament did not allow me to fret much, however I might feel inclined to be indig- nant at prejudice or wrong, I worked very hard, and several books were the fruit. Among others I wrote the Earthquake, which was afterwards published by Blackwood. It did not, how- ever, take with the public, and yet it contains pas- sages that are equal to any thing I ever wrote. As pictures of foreign manners and characters, the de- scriptions are, in my own opinion, not less just than in my Scottish tales, which are supposed to possess some merit. For a long time I was unable to explain to myself how this should be, and I endeavoured to soothe disappointment, by supposing that I had erred in choosing the subject, till I heard a very good judge 11 JOHN GALT. 1S9 express his dislike at some of the characters. His objections opened my eyes. I saw that the fault of the work, and it was irremediable, lay in what ought to have been considered as its chief merit, namel3 , "i its accuracy as an exhibition of manners. It was an exhibition, however, altogether foreign, and not bein^ relieved by any British portraiture to mark the dif- ference, it M^as supposed to be unnatural. I rectified, however, this error of conception long afterwards. In Eben Erskine I introduced British characters with the foreigners, and it has in consequence been alleged to possess greater merit, while to myself it appears a far inferior work to the Earthquake. It is of no use, however, to say so, the public knows best what gives it the most satisfaction, and it is by that criterion it judges. It is not by the pains an author takes in the composition of his work that its popularity will be determined, but by the amusement which it will give altogether, distinct from the care and solicitude he exerts in the composition. i'-'iS Si' t 190 THE LITERARY LIFE OF i '-1 i,,' i CHAPTER XXI. The Life of Mr West, P. R. A. I HAVE as little as I possibly could, transplanted extracts from my Autobiography into this work, but a few sentences here and there have been unavoid- able, and, among others, I am constrained to make use again of what I have already said respecting my life of Mr West. The whole materials were derived from him, and it may be said to have been all but written by himself. The manuscript of the first part he carefully corrected ; the second was undertaken at his own request when he was on his deathbed, and nearly all the last proof in the printing submitted to him. The work is chiefly curious, however, for bring- ing forward no less a personage than a new candidate for the honours of the mysterious Junius, and one too whom subsequent enquiries certainly tend to show that JOHN GALT. 191 the conjecture respecting him was not ill founded. But I shall not recapitulate here what is stated in that bio- graphy, because I have subsequently discovered that it does not relate the actual circumstances of the case accurately; I do not hold myself, however, respon- sible for the statement, because it was revised by Mr West ; and I perfectly remember at the time, that he had some doubt if what is related there about the Aurora frigate was quite correct, though he allowed it to stand. The origin of what is said in it with respect to the loss of that ship, was suggested by the late Sir Archibald Macdonald, Lord Chief Baron. I happened one day to mention to him what Mr West had told me respecting Lauchlin MacLean, and he immediately said that he recollected some stir having been made at the time, about a distinguished person who perished with that ship. In repeating this story to Mr West, he conjectured that it must have been in her that MacLean was a passenger. Other enquiries, however, have since corrected my notions on the subject, and I shall here state the additional circumstances which I have since acquired, premising, that the declaration of Governor Hamilton, as stated in my Life of West, <.*: I 192 THE LITERARY LIFE OF fomes as near to the proof of fact as presumptive evi- dence can do ; namely, that the writer of the first letter of Junius was the same individual who had addressed him in the newspapers in Philadelphia, and that he was a surgeon, and that his name was Mac Lean. Now, what respects this Mac Lean is very curious, and I beg to quote a narrative, written by a lady in whose family he was particularly intimate, — Mrs Bowden, the daughter of the Honourable General Monckton, by whose plan of operations Wolfe attack- ed Quebec, and who being obliged to retire wounded from the field of battle. General Townsend impro- perly signed the capitulation, by which Monckton has been deprived of the honour of being recognised as the conqueror of Canada. Narrative respecting MacLean. <* Lauchlin MacLean studied medicine in Scot- land, where he married Helen Hewit, who was the friend and companion of the Lady Jane Douglas, (sister of the last Duke of Douglas, and wife of Sir JOHN GALT. 193 James Stewart,) and who was with Lady Jane when she gave birth to a son, who was afterwards created Lord Douglas. Helen Hewit (subsequently Mrs MacLean) was the principal evidence in the celebra- ted Douglas cause, when it was endeavoured to be proved, on the part of the Duke of Hamilton, that in consequence of the death of Lady Jane's child, the son of a French glass-grinder had been substituted in his place, and was the person who assumed the name of Douglas, and laid claim to the family estates as heir to the Lady Jane. The testimony of Helen Hewit was conclusive, and estabUshed Mr Douglas in his rights. " Disagreements between Mr MacLean and his wife occasioned their separation, and was probably the cause of his going to America. He settled at Phila- delphia, where he was in high repute for his medical skill, and much esteemed by several of the most re- spectable inhabitants of that city, and particularly by the Rev. William Peters, who introduced him to the notice of the Hon. General Monckton. To this in- troduction Mr MacLean was indebted for the ap- pointment of vendue master, given to him by the Ge- r 4? }M VOL. I. R T* K 1 »J I; f f ^ 194 THE LI'IEllARY LIFE OF neral after the conquest of Martinique, and for other marks of his favour. Mr MacLean did not, how- ever, remain very long in that island after the de- parture of his patron, but followed him to his govern- ment of New York, and from thence to England, in the ensuing year. " Whether it was through General Monckton that Mr MacLean became acquainted with Lord Shel- burne, the writer of this article will not venture to assert, but thinks it probable, because MacLean con- tinued, under all circumstances, to consider General Monckton as his patron and best friend, and received from the General the most unequivocal marks of his regard and entire confidence in him. A connexion was formed between them, unfortunate for both. They engaged in speculating in the funds, and were in some way connected with Sir George Cockburn at the time of his failure. The loss sustained by Gene- ral Monckton was very great, and much increased by his becoming surety for Mr MacLean, to the amount of nearly twenty thousand pounds. Their losses would, however, have been all repaid, if Mr MacLean, who had gone to India, and become agent to the Nabob n JOHN GALT. 195 or other t, how- the de- govern- ;land, in ton that d Shel- titure to Ban con- General received cs of his mnexion or both, md were kburn at y Gene- eased by 1 amount IS would, ;an, who e Nabob of Arcot, had survived to reach the shores of Eng- land, but the vessel in which he sailed from India was lost. Its precis, fate was never ascertained. For many months, it was reported and believed that he had been captured by the Americans, but the hopes this rumour had raised, were not destined to be realized ; and Mac- Lean's untimely end, when he was returning to England with money to pay every demand against him, proved the ruin of the patron and friend whom he loved and honoured, and whom it was his anxious wish, his ardent desire, to serve. " It is a mistake supposing that Lauchlin MacLean had any claim to the rank of colonel Major Allan MacLean, his near relation, was the person who car- ried the letter from Mr MacLean to Mr Wilkes, which will be found in the London Magazine for February 1771, at p. 74." It is necessary to add the letter with which this statement was accompanied, as it shows the origin of that reciprocal attachment cherished between MacLean and General Monckton. It is also, in other respects, curious. Colonel Barry, who is sup- posed by Mr West, to have been Colonel of the regiment in which MacLean was thouo-ht bv him to urn THE LlTERAftY LIFE OF i1 !i luive been serving, appears to have had very little to do with him, nor am I (luite sure that the Major Barry, who has been mixed up with these transactions, was the orator. •• 79, Connaught Terrace, 4th Jan., 1H33. ♦• My deah Sib, '« I am afraid you will think I have been sadly remiss in not sending Mr MacLean's letter to you sooner, but the truth is, that I have had matters of such urgent necessity, to which I have been compelled to attend, that it has not been in my power to be more expeditious. The few particulars which I have added respecting Mr MacT.ean are partly from old memorandums- paitlv supplied by my own memory. The Rev. William Peters, whom I have mentioned as the person through whom my father became accpiainted with MacLeau, was a clergyman of exemplary conduct; and to us particular care my father had committed my mother and lus children, during his absence upon service. My brother, a very voun.^ child, was alarmingly ill ; d my mother, upon the recom- ;nend"^ation of her excellent fr. ad, sent for MacLean. I have often heard her tell, that MacLean, who, in common conversation, stuttered very much, was so greatly enraged at finding that the child's illness was solely occasioned by his nurse havmg given him a large dose oUUacodium to put him to sleep, andwh.ch had produced a dangerous degree of stupor, that he co. ' '-.uJly give utterance to his words. The child was speedily - • ' and MacLean's skill, and the excessive anxiety which ne evinced upon this occasion, laid the foundation of the friendship, which ended so fatally to my fother and his family. Yet, notwithstand- inc. A^. rhe distress which it occasioned, I am sure that not one et ,,/. -T renioached MacLean's memory, even in thought, so firm ^1 as our conviction of his strong attachment to my father. 1 JOHN GALT. 197 have mislaid the moniorarulm,, upon which I hud writtfu the name of the appointine.it at Murtini even to a weak r incapa- ny thing of God of Him I natural ,ee, how- 10 higher I " mine ler, only es to the died the Legend of St Anthony, which I undertook with the intention of depicting comical phantasms ; but I had not proceeded far till I was induced to change my mind, by observing that my most extravagant fancies were only things of curious patchwork ; and that the same defect might be discerned in all those tilings in which the " creative' power of genius was said to be more indisputable. Hence it is that I could not since see ought in the Caliban of Shakspeare but an idiot, a Betty Foy's son, though his mother was the " damned witch Sycorax." That I did at one time fancy that inventions were better than things of na- ture, is admitted, and in the Mermaid I have attempted to embody one of this poetical progeny; but subse- quent observation has convinced me that only in nature excellence is to be found, and that the merit of my creation of Marina is only in her being more than ordinarily endowed with gentle human feelings. I therefore give up all pretension to belonging to that class who deal in the wild and wonderful ; my wish is to be estimated by the truth of whatever I try to represent. But independent of the rule I prescribed to myself 232 THE LITERARY LIFE OP in the composition of the Provost, I, very simply perhaps, acknowledge, that to myself it has always appeared superior to the Annals of the Parish, to which work it was written as a companion ; and I shall quote from my Autobiography two anecdotes which have probably contributed to produce this effect. " The friend to whom it was dedicated, lent it to Mr Canning, who read it during a dull debate,— no uncommon thing in the House of Commons. Mr Canning spoke of it afterwards always with com- mendation. " But besides exhibiting a tolerably correct pic- ture of a Scottish borough, I had in view, while writing it, a gentleman who, when I was a boy at school, had the chief management of the corporation in my native town. He was unblemished in repu- tation, with considerable talent for his sphere, and, it was alleged, possessed that pawkie art, in which the hero is delineated to have excelled. I left the place when about ten years old, but his peculiarities had even then struck me, and when I determined on composing a companion to the Annals of the Parish, JOHN GALT, 233 he seemed to have been made for me. I believed he was dead, and had no scruple about choosing him for my model. " Long after the publication, and when I had re- turned from my first voyage to Canada, I went, accompanied by my mother and sister, to Ayrshire, and in passing through Irvine, it was proposed to give me the freedom of the borough, for which purpose the town councU invited me to the clerk's chamber. " As we had a long journey to perform in the course of that day, I stepped out of the post-chaise, at the door of the tolbooth, to wait on the magistrates, when, to my astonishment, I beheld my old friend alive, then a very venerable man, sitting in the chair. The sight upon me for a moment was as an apparition, but I was recalled to myself by the manner in which he delivered the diploma, with an address ; Provost Pawkie himself could never have said any thing half so good. " His speech partook of his character, and evinced a degree of good sense, of tact, and taste, though delivered in the Scottish dialect, quite extraordinary. 'JL VJU. I, V 1 i'i''^^^i '- ' ^m ifi!^H ^^ l^'i^^^^H ii| R^^H im ^^H 234 THE LITEKARY LIFE OF Instead of speaking the sort of balderdash, common on such occasions, he passed over every thing which related to myself, conceiving, as I suppose, that the honour of bestowing on me a burgess ticket, was a sufficient recognition of my supposed deservings ; but he paid a well-expressed compliment to the character of my father and mother, telling how much they were held in esteem by their townsfolk, and con- cluded with saying, that not the least proof of their merits was in bringing up their children to be deemed ivorthy of a public testimony of respect," , JOHN GALT. 235 CHAPTER XXVII. The Steam-boat, and tlie Gathering of the West. I WAS surely bom a Radical, and owe my Tory predilections entirely to a prankful elf, who, delight- ing in the ridiculous, has in high times and holidays, so serious to those who think themselves the great of the earth, ever turned towards me the comic aspect of things. This feeling of the « te'en-awa" I have often experienced; indeed I may say on every occasion when I ought to have been most debonair, Euphro- syne, as she is called in Heaven, according to Milton, " And by men heart- easing Mirth," has stood laughing at my elbow in her sleeve ; on none, however, did she ever exceed a titter, save at the gorgeous coronation of George IV., and in wit- nessing the pageantries of his most gracious and ever memorable visit to Scotland, 236 THE LITERARY LIFE OF " The Steam-boat" and " The Gathering of the West," originally published in Blackwood's Magazine, contain some taste of her quality ; but at the time when they were written a more powerful spirit was in predominance, that restrained the ready levity of my pen. The sister, however, of Mephistopheles was not easily restrained from giving way to bursts of the most profane laughter, though, unlike his sneers, they were very good-natured. Notwithstanding the deference for magnates and magnificence under which these works were written, the original sin may be detected here and there peep- ing out, insomuch that those who consider Toryism as consisting of the enjoyment of at least pensions, must be dreadfully shocked to think even a moderate ^politician of any sort could be so far left to himself as to speak so irreverently of things which concerned the affairs of empires and burgh towns. in the Steam-boat I was anxious to give such an account of the coronation as I thought an abortive bailie likely to do, and which might not be offensive to those who enjoyed the show ; but somehow so many ludicrous objects ^ fascinated my attention that JOHN GALT. 237 it was very difficult to be serious. In consequence I was obliged to have recourse to an old account of the Presbyterian coronation of "his sacred Majesty" King Charles II. at Perth, to avoid being, as the Yankees say, too special. The spectacle of the Duke of Wellington as Constable of England in the exhibition of the champion, was much too high for me ; besides I thought it would have been better done at Astley's. Saving that incident, however, the rest of the exhibition was only titillating. But it could no longer be denied that the days of pageants were over ; though the fools in the nation may not have decreased, as the population has been prodigiously augmented—I regard them as very foolish who think that pageants which have become obsolete, can ever be again rendered impressive. In one respect the tomfoolery of the coronation of George IV. was not, however, altogether « a vain show" in my eyes, and, when not tickled with the kything of the ridiculous, I had occasional moments of sedate reflection which assumed the gravity of philosophy. It seemed to me that such things now did not harmonize with our natural national character, m 238 THE LITERARY LIFE OP and that although the ceremony in its essence was sacred in the highest degree, yet there were few present yvho felt that it was so. The instant that the performance was finished, the spectators all rose and became as fluent in their talk as the scattering audience after a stage-play ; no vestige of solemnity remaining, if during the exhibition they experienced any. The whole affair seemed bottomed in imitation of something contrary to the taste of the people, and I belief'© myself not wrong in thinking, that there was much affectation in the masques put on for the occasion around me. Some years before, soon after the restoration of Louis XVIII., I was present in the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris when the grand mass was celebrated for the royal victims of the Revolution ; and although the occasion was funereal and sombre, as compared with a coronation, it seemed to aflford a glimpse of the idiomatic difference, as it may be call- ed, of the English and French character. As a mere pageant, there was no comparison between the Parisian church and Westminster Hall. In conception the latter was infinitely finer and more gorgeous. The JOHN GALT. 23fy Henriad compared with the Paradise Lost, does not afford a more striking contrast in comparison ; and yet the French Rpectacle was transcendently more impressive, chiefly, I think, to the reverential awe with which in the church the congregation dispersed. Without, it was much the same with the multitude as in London ; but within, the order was sublime. If the coronation, however, of George IV. was the dirge of the feudal system, no heirs nor legatees^ immediately after any burial, could be more voracious than the scene which ensued at the termination of the banquet. If any thing were calculated to inspire laughable contempt for the melo-drama of earthly grandeur, it was the hurly-burly in Westminster Hall subsequent to the King's departure. I can neither repress my derision at the commotion, nor conceive why it was permitted, though " the swinish multitude" were in court dresses. But there is a stronger infection in folly than in wisdom, and, though I despised the pastime, I could not resist joining in the game. In the plunder of the tables I got hold of a golden Britannia as big as a doll, with which I made proud a Bishop's lady, as I understood. M m I 'M M M • m 1 ^ .' -ai 0M -Am.'' I ;# (I i^l 240 THE LITERARY LIFE OF and gave to another " gorgeous dame" of high de- gree, a really beautiful basket of crystal, and bestowed gilded vessels on longing ladies. But what added to the delight was the discovery that all the magnificence was as artificial as courtesies! The goblets and imagery, the plates and epergnes, at the coronation festival of the greatest monarch on the earth, wf gilded wood and pewter trenchers ! This, however, was wise, and showed the improved intelligence, alias the pohtical economy, of the age; but wherefore cheat the eye ? At the time, the coronation aflorded me inconceivable pleasure, for I could only see things, bating the occasion, worthy to provoke heart-easing laughter; the remembrance, however, hke many other sv^^eets, sours in the rumination. It did more to lessen my respect for the tricks of state than any- thing I ever witnessed. If the coronation disclosed the folly that sits in high places, the gathering to see the King in Edin- burgh fully matched it, by showing the depths of absurdity to which the mass will descend. Certainly the sight was gay and jocund, but it was a nation in its " Sunday clothes." What kings should seek to JOHN GALT, 241 see, is not how their subjects can appear when put to a stress, but how they daily do when in fabrication of those things which are the sinews and the muscles of power. Had George the Fourth's performance of Crispianus in the Scottish metropolis been a truly royal avatar, as it was given out to be, he would at least have given one day to the inspection of the hospitals, of the receptacles of the houseless, and of the haunts and habitations of the miserable and forlorn. I have an utter loathing of royal visitations to the bright side of things, and for many a year have seen but in them that flattering which too many think it is the business of kings to receive. The Edinburgh citizens cuckoo about George the Fourth calling them gentlemen, and their town a city of palaces, as if he had not read enough of other places to know the truth, and thought but of outdoing them in cajolery. To speak thus of that aftair may be not very pru» dent, nor will I maintain that disease has not given a morbid bias to my ideas of many things, now that I am constrained to sequestration and musing, but I think rulers were raised to their superiority for other purposes than to look out on sunny gardens. They VOL. I. X I 242 THE LITERARY LIFE OP must visit the charnel-house — lift the lid, and learn what is man, as they shudder at the carcass; or, in other words, make themselves acquainted with the inevitable lot of humanity, which so many around them — mistaken virtue ! — hide from their knowledge, as if for a moment it could be supposed that the in- terests of the high can have any other nutrition than the prosperity of the low. The Steam-boat, and The Gathering of the West, must therefore be considered, in what relates to the Coronation and the Royal Visit, as mere occa- sional jeu-d'esprits. But I ought not to conclude this chapter without mentioning an incident from which I derived entire pleasure, and I do think that no unpremeditated occurrence was ever so truly sublime. It was the exhibition in the High Street of Edinburgh, on the. Sabbath when the King went in state to St Giles's. A countless multitude crowded the pavement, but the royal cortege was allowed to pass along in silence, the spectators only uncovering respectfully as it passed, Nothing could have given me a higher notion of the good sense of my countrymen. This occurrence JOHN GALT, 243 rendered me unable to speak. I have seen the sultan of Turkey, with all his pomp, proceed at the Biram to the mosque— the procession of the host in Catholic capitals— the apocalypse of the images of saints on great festivals— executions by the guil- lotine in Paris, and the coronation of George IV. ; but I had never imagined that any manifestation of simple human feeling could reach to sucli solemnity; nor can I better describe the nature of my own senti- ments with respect to grandeur than by this state- ment :— many instances may be traced in my diiferent literary essays. ft Mr IK J n J ^ m 244 THE LITERARY LIFE OP r 'I* CHAPTER XXVIII. Sir Andrew Wyllie, and the Entail. Sir Andrew Wyllie was published before The Gathering of the West. It is, perhaps, much better than what I intended, but I repine at the change I was induced to make on my original, which was the exhibition of the rise and progress of a humble Scotchman in London. The incidents are by far too romantic and uncommon to my own taste, and are only redeemed from their extravagance, by the natural portraiture of the characters. In saying this, how- ever, I do not mean in any degree to insinuate, that as far as the book itself is concerned, the reader of it has lost any thing — on the contrary he has, perhaps, gained, — but only that it is too much like a common novel, to afford me satisfaction. Perhaps so much of the first conception has been made use of in it, that I cannot hope to find another subject in which the proper JOHN GALT, 245 developement may be employed. But it will be better to insert here the few sentences I have said about it in my Autobiography. [No particular story is engrafted on my original idea, and perhaps the work is, by the alterations, improved, as it has been always popular. It is not, however, the work I had planned, in which there Avould certainly have been no such episode as the gipsies introduced—an episode, however, which I have heard frequently mentioned as the best part of the production. The second edition was inscribed to my amiable friend the Earl of Blessington, in consequence of a remark which his Lordship made while he was reading it. Speaking of Lord Sandiford's character, he observed, that it must be very natural, for, in the same circumstances, he would have acted in a similar manner ; but he seemed not to have the least idea that he was himself the model of the character. I never received so pleasing a compliment. Of course the story has nothing to do with any thing that ever happened to his Lordship. I only aspired to make my dramatis persome speak and act after the *i. 'i J ' M ^« its ,M' 246 THE LITERARY LIFE OF II i i manner of the models, somewhat in the way that Sir Joshua Reynolds used the first Lord Duncan, when he induced him to stand as Jupiter, while he painted for Catherine II. his celebrated picture of Hercules strangling the serpents, as emblematic of the progress of the Russian policy.] There is, however, another anecdote of Sir Andrew Wyllie, which has given me a kind of pleasure that, in this u7ifolding of feeling, should not be suppressed. Since I became so very ineffectual, the keeper of a circulating library wrote to me for some information about emigrating to Canada, and mentioned in his letter, as a proof of the badness of the times, that his 'subscribers had even ceased to call for Sir Andrew. I knew nothing of the man, but what was to him a cause of lamentation, gave me satisfaction, for it implied that the work had been at one time popular. The Entail is founded on an anecdote related to me by the present Lord Provost of Glasgow. The sunny summer storm was introduced to allow of a description of the northern coast of Scotland, which I very vividly received from Miss Sinclair, o daughter of the distingiiished Baronet. The work is considered V" M JOHN GALT. 247 among my best, and has been honoured by the particular approbation of two distinguished men, to whose judg- ment the bravest critic will defer. I was told by a friend that Sir Walter Scott thought so well of it, as to have read it thrice,— a tribute to its deservinss* that any author would be proud of; and the Earl of Blessington not only wrote to me that Lord Byron had also read it three times, but, when we afterwards met, reported his Lordship's opinion still more flatter- ingly. A friend found the Earl's note among my letters, and I- may be excused for inserting it. " Mont joy Forest, Omagh, Co. Tt/rone, August S, 1823. " My dear Galt, " Yours followed me here, where, if you do come to Ireland this month, I shall be truly happy to see you, and give the best accommodation this poor cottage will afford. " Lady B. js at Naples, and, I believe, pursuing her account of what she sees and marks and inwardly digests. " I got a copy of Ringhan Gilhaize, mais, cntre nous, jc ne Mmepas.^ Ever yours most truly, B." " Lord Byron read the Entail three times." ' There is more in this little expression than appears. To me, however, it is very plain. The Earl of Blessington was, in my opinion, one of the politest men—taking as my standard, respect for the feelings of others ; indeed, for delicacy, I never met with his equal. In such a matter as this, a genuine man of the world would have been civilly compliment- ary ; an honest man used sterling English ; and a Sir John Brute have said ili«i^^l 248 THE LITERARY LIFE OF But v>'hlle I confess my weakness in being pleased with hearing any thing like praise, I trust that I am not unconscious of my own defects. Only the fact of having published so many books can justify the pre- sumption of undertaking this work, for, in truth and sincerity, I am not actuated with a doting fondness for my litfrary offspring. I think, indeed, so little about them, that I can speak of their faults with impartiality. Pope may truly say of the builders of pyramids, that " They had no poet, and they died." But he does not express my feeling. Bards are but conservatives, and I do not regard the bird-stuifer as the equal of the maker of the bird ; nor would it have stimulated what was my ambition, to have been told " To fight and record Myself in Druid songs ;" tliat the book was d — d bad. His Lordship's tact was in employing the medium of a foreign language to convey an opinion I am sure was sincere. But it was not the favourable sentiments of the two first ffenii of the flgc, that made me think the Entail not a failure. One day, when dining with the Earl of Ripon, at Leamington, he remarked that Leddy Grippy was like an acquaintance. His expression was, " One thinks one knows her." This I considered very flattering, because states- men are thought to have other fish to fry than to read " clishmaclavers." They are obliged to endure enough in Parliament. JOHN GALT. 249 yet few delight more in the exploits of bravery, and none in the undaunted front of fortitude. My incen- tive was, I own, the hope of making a bird which some stufFer might have preserved, and the oppor- tunity and the materials were in my power, but I was prevented. A little indulgence may, therefore, be granted to the querulousness of a disappointed man, even though he were not, in his prime, laid pro- strate on bed, by many successive blows of an im- placable and unrelenting disease. i 250 THE LITEllAIlY LIFE OF CHAPTER XXIX. JRinghan Gilhaizey and Genealogies. ' There is one of my works which I do not thiiik has given me much reason to be proud of its popula- rity in England, and yet, perhaps, it is the only novel extant that has ever been recommended from the pulpit ; I mean Ringhan Gilhaize. One of the mi- nisters of Aberdeen conferred on it, as I was told, this unique and distinguished honour. I have supposed a Covenanter relating the adven- tures of his grandfather, who lived during the Refor- mation. It was therefore necessary that I should conceive distinctly what a Covenanter would think of a Reformer in the church, to enable him to relate what such a person would do in the time of John Knox. There was here, if I may be allowed the ex- pression, a transfusion of character that could only be rightly understood by showing how a Reformer him- JOHN GALT, 251 self acted and felt in the opinion of a Covenanter. To enable the reader to estimate the invention put forth in the work, and to judge of the manner in which the Covenanter performed his task, I made him give his autobiography, in which was kept out of view every thing that might recall the separate existence of John Gait. But I cannot have succeeded in my object ; not one person has ever evinced an apprehension of the intention which I thought would have attracted consideration, and yet I do not see myself that I have failed in my object. Ringhan Gilhaize is no doubt a fiction, and as such may be called a novel, but memory does not furnish me with the knowledge of a work of the same kind. The sentiments which it breathes are not mine, nor the austerity that it enforces, nor at all the colour of the piety with which the enthusiasm of the hero is tinged. But in every case where I have seen it noticed, his sentiments have been regarded as mine, which, though perhaps respectable to me as a man, I disclaim as an author, merely, however, because they are not mine. It happens that at this time a notice of the work is t 252 THE LITERARY LIFE OF lyln^ before me, in which the error here adverted to is very prominent. For example, it says that I make my heroes " perform acts not at all in keeping witii their characters ; for instance, Ringhan Gilhaize, at the battle of Killiecrankie, snaps his carabine from behind a fence, at Claverhouse, then hammers his flint and tries again, and it burns priming, and the reader almost cries, murder." Now, when this judg- ment was pronounced, I do say the book must have l)een read inattentively, for, if the critic had not been in the error of ascribing the sentiments of Ringhan Gilhaize to me, he would have seen that the hero was under a vow, and acting as the persecuted Co- venanter. Moreover, the incident, as described in the book, is historically true. I went myself to Rin- rory-house to gather traditions.^ However, I men- tion the oversight in the criticism, because I have been exceedingly mortified to observe that Ringhan Gilhaize was mistaken for John Gait. > It may amuse the reader to know, that I picked up in the liouse part of Claverhouse's armour ; on the field of battle, a cannon-ball ; and bought from a peasant on the spot, the blade of a sword which had belonged to some officer. JOHN GALT. 203 Another circumstance may as well be meiuIo»- ed, in which I think the critic will himself readily acknowledge his error. - He," says ho, meaning me, "loads the character, too, of Archbishop Sharpe, with more varied infamy than necessary." Surely he cannot have read Woodrow's History of the Persecu- tion, which is drawn up with surprising candour, when he expressed himself in this manner, for I have rather softened than hardened the character of that political priest ; and it was consistent, according to my conception of Ringhan Gilhaize, that I should do so, for I make Ringhan a man of strong affections, and his deeds the effects of wrongs that he had suffered in the persecution. Of Sharpe, myself, I think he was only an unprincipled man, decorous enough in his personal conduct ; but no one who thinks as a Cove- nanter, can conceive that he was not worse than what Kinghan Gilhaize has made him. In short, I have only endeavoured to engrain the Covenanting dispo- sitions of one who thought himself animated by Hea- ven in a righteous cause; besides, it should have been recollected that Archbishop Sharpe was actually assassinated by the Covenanters. ► t] '■'''.,4" 254 THE LITERARY LIFE OF The history of the novel of Ringhan Gilhaize is curious. The book itself was certainly suggested by Sir Walter Scott's Old Mortality, in which I thought he treated the defenders of the Presbyterian Church with too much levity, and not according to my im- pressions derived from the history of that time. In- deed, to tell the truth, I was hugely provoked that he, the descendant of Scott of Harden, who was fined in those days forty thousand pounds Scots for being a Presbyterian, or rather for countenancing his lady for being so, should have been so forgetful of what was due to the spirit of that epoch, as to throw it into what I felt was ridicule. The fact is, that I am not myself quite a disinte- rested person on the subject of the Covenant, though^ God knows, I have no pretensions to the purity it implied in the conduct of those who signed it. A collateral ancestor of mine, namely, John Gait of Gateside, was banished, in 1684, to Carolina, for re- fusing to call the affair of Bothwell Bridge a rebellion, and to renounce the Covenant. On this occasion he was assigned to the Gibsons of Glasgow, merchants, and by them transported to America. The li^iv. JOHN GALT. 255 William Dunlop, afterwards Principal of the Univeiv sity of Glasgow, deemed it prudent to go to America m the same ship, which was commanded by one of the Gibsons, a harsh irreligious fellow, who permitted the exiles to be robbed of their money, and when they attempted to sing psalms, shut the hatches upon them. In a proclamation of Charles the Second, dated the 5th May, 1684, another ancestral relation, William Gait, of Wark, in the parish of Stewarton, was also proscribed. I have always understood that some re- lation of my father's, a grand-uncle, was banished for his part in the battle of Bothwell Brig, and I believe that the John Gait, before mentioned, is the indivi- dual alluded to. A very remarkable circumstance may be here men- tioned : When my friend Dr Dunlop, the lineal de- scendant of the Principal, went on board the fet American steam-boat on Lake Huron, in her first trip, he found an American general officer, with an aide-de-camp, who was a Major Gait, probably a de- seendant of the " banished man," as he came from the south part of the country; and I may mention, to heighten a little these biographical hints, that I have 'I ''r Jill 256 THE LITERARY LIFE OF v..n ¥ 4' not a single relation of the name of Gait, that I am aware of, now living, unmarried, being myself the last of the line, unless I count my own children. In rummaging among the old papers, relative to Cardinal Wolsey in the British Museum, I fell in with an original letter from the celebrated Bishop Gawin Douglas, the translator of Virgil, to the Car- dinal, complaining of one with an obscure name, seemingly a Gait, the secretary to the Duke of Al- bany, then Regent of Scotland, for his animosity ao-ainst him and the house of Douglas. I think that the latter circumstance indeed proves the secre- tary to have been of our family, for the Douglases, great as they were, were not likely to daunton some of the race. My friend, the late General Stewart of Garth, told me that there was some ground near Blair- Athol Castle, called Gait's Craft, which the late Duke of Athol entailed ; and it has been reported by tradition that we came from that part of the country, and, with som*^ of the Stuarts, got hold of the lands of Stuarton or Stewarton, and Galston in Ayrshire. However, whether there be any truth or not in this, it is certain that we have been remarkable for a Tea- JOHN GALT, 257 ture disappearing, namely, black eyes of a peculiar formation, the left eye-lid somewhat depressed, and that the name is Gaelic, and implies stranger. But I shall not trouble the reader further ; only I know that my researches about the name of Gait ought to have proved us the lineal descendants of Galdus. Indeed, my late acquaintance Glengarry, who was great on genealogies, advised me seriously, when I mentioned Galdus, to stick by that hero as my ancestor. To return to Ringhan Gilhalze. It is a curious and singular fact, that none has ever to myself per- sonally mentioned that book. Several have spoken of it, no doubt, but always in reply to some enquiry, M-ith the single exception of my old colleague in the commission to Canada, Sir John Harvey. How there happened to be a copy in the Romney man-of-war, which took the commissioners to New York, I do rot recollect now; but he read it on the voyage, and I well remember he confirmed my own opinion of different passages, particularly that in which I describe Ringhan going with his son, a Uttle chitter- ing boy, to avenge what he deemed the holy cause of VOL. I. Y ll ^t Ir^ 258 TIIE'LITERARY LIFE OF r- \ 1 Heaven, on a great offending but anointed king. It becomes not an author to say what he thinks of his own works, but it would be affectation to conceal my chasrrin to find this novel so little known. However, I have the author's consolation, and can say, that whatever may be the blindness of the present age, thank God there will be a posterity — when I am neither to hear 't nor to see 't. JOHN GALT. 259 :ing. It ks of his nceal my lowever, say, that ent age, en I am CHAPTER XXX. The Spaeu'ife, and Rothelan. The Spaewife was not particularly mentioned in my Autobiography, not because I had forgot the work, but to the pressure of matters more important, and to an intention not to notice any thing that was not, in some measure, influential to the production of events, if the incj ^nts of a private man's life can be dignified with the use of a term so magnificent. In fact, though it has been alleged that it contains pas- sages equal to my best efforts, and I have seen some of them quoted with approbation, the period spent in its composition has left as little trace on my memory as the keel does in the sea, or the wing in the air. Yet there are occurrences connected with it, which in a work of this kind should not be overlooked. By what circumstance I was drawn to the story. U 1 '11 ^^1 .'II 260 THE LITERARY LIFE OF is no longer remembered. I only know that the character and fate of James I. of Scotland early- seemed to me possessed of many dramatic capabilities ; and in the dream of my youth to illustrate by tales, ballads, and dramas, the ancient history of my coun- try, it obtained such a portion of my attention, that I have actually made a play on the subject. In riper life, many years after, I wrote the novel ; and ^ ^^°>-' ^ '/ Photographic Sdences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 i 266 THE LITERARY LIFE OF frights affiliated to me. I did not perhaps at the time become absolutely demented, but even yet I can scarcely believe that it happened. Alas, alas ! the two " dismal croones" are in the book. I ought to men- tion that it was this " printer's error" that induced me to give the airs piinted in the Appendix to my Autobiography. One of them, " Loch-na-Gar," is one of the identical tunes sent with the manuscript ; the other, " The Morning of Life," I have not been able to lay my hands on. " The Morning of Life" I only discovered was not to its own proper tune when I was getting it copied out for the printer of my Autobiography, for I had been so horror-struck at the substitution of the other air that I had never looked at it. While it was being written out, a musical friend came in, and, seeing it on the table, took it up and commenced humming it, when to my amazement I found it was not my air, and accused him of mistaking it. But, alas ! it was too true» At the time I was excessively angry; but the incident now appears only laughable. JOHN GALT, 267 CHAPTER XXXI. Go to America-Ejects of the Annals of the Parish-^ The Last of the Lairds^ The Omen. By the time I had finished Rothelan, my attention was wholly occupied with business ; and being ap. pointed one of the commissioners to value the land which the Canada Company had agreed to purchase from Government, I prepared to go with the other gentlemen to America. It thus happened that my literary pursuits were necessarily suspended. The Romney was nominated to convey us to New York; but although my knowledge received some addition from the economy of the man-of-war, and afterwards from the hurried view which I was afforded of society in the United States, it cannot be said that my first voyage to America produced any other decisive in- fluence on my mind, than that insensible effect which arises from the tranquillity of the landscape, and something different in the aspect of the scenery. 268 THE LITERARY LIFE OP At Albany the commissioners separated, taking different routes. I chose the most circuitous, and I have to record the pleasure of a dinner from the cele- brated De Witt Clinton, chiefly, I think, owing to the benign spirit of Micah Balwhidder bespeaking kindly in my behalf the hospitable intents of his lady, in whom I recognised at once a very striking likeness to my own mother, such as I at one time recollected she had been. Mrs Clinton had also much of her manner, thus confirming, what I have long thought, that likeness indicates a similarity of disposition. She had not, however, the same humour, and picturesque way of discerning the weak or the strong points of character; but she was, in my opinion, a person worthy of taking pains to know, owing to the inde- pendence and energy of her mind. In travelling from Albany up the country, I saw the chief things that I have noticed in the United States, and fell in with several examples, in the north- west parts of the State of New York, of that kind of the common character which I have attempted to describe. I was particularly amused by a very ge- neral practice of the inhabitants iri the north-eastern JOHN GALT. 269 , taking IS, and I the cele- Aving to speaklnj^ bis ladv, likeness collected 1 of her ;hought, on. She turesque loints of , person be inde- ji I saw United e north- kind of ipted to '^ery jre- -eastern shoulder of the province, to cut off the first syllable of long-nebbed words, the effect of which was often diverting, if not humorous, combined with an extrava- gance of comparison, to me singularly ludicrous. Yet in this journey I saw but little greatly to interest me, and it was not till I had travelled through the same tract of country several times, that I was sensi- ble of not being in a coarse, raw, and thinly populated part of England ; but I ought to mention, that al- though I thought the roads very bad, the inns and means of travelling were letter than those in my remembrance of Scotland, especially the inns. After my return to London from Canada, being engaged as a commissioner in a controversy with the clergy corporation of the province relative to the value of their reserves, which were also, as well as those of the crown, to be sold to the Canada Com- pany, I had some leisure, and as I never could be idle, I betook myself again to study, and produced several things ; among others, a little tale called The Omen, which, by the way, has never been ascribed to me. It is founded on the story to which I alluded to Lord Byron on speaking one day of the Bride of V 'A 270 THE MTEIURY LIFE OF Abydos. One circumstance connected with it was to me ;;;reatly gratifying. It was reviewed by Sir Walter Scott in Blackwood's Magazine, and with, in my opinion, a commendable degree of approbation, and facts stated corroborative of incidents that were pure metaphysical inventions. Although the conception of the Omen may prevent it from becoming popular, it has, I think myself, some merit in the execution, and Is not without the expression of natural feeling in several passages. During the same interval I wrote the sketch of the Last of the Lairds. I meant it to belong to that series of fictions of manners, of which the Annals of the Parish is the beginning ; but owing to some cause^ which I no longer remember, instead of an autobiography I was induced to make it a narrative, and in this respect it lost that appearance of truth and nature which is, in my opinion, the great charm of such works. I have no recollection how this hap- pened, nor what caused me to write it as it is, but the experiment was a very unwise one, and some day I will try to supply what is wanted, namely, the autobiography of one of the last race of lairds. h it was d by Sir with, in robation, hat were f prevent mvself, hout the ges. ch of the ; to that Innals of to some id of an arrative, of truth it charm this hap- it is, but ome day ely, the 8. JOHN GALT. But although the work lacks essentially in being a story, it ought to have been more amusing than it is, and yet it is not deficient in that kind of carica- ture which is at once laughable and true. The character I had in view was a Laird of Smiths- town, who was alive in my boyhood. His first leddy was the first corpse that I saw, and the scene, though it must have been contemplated when I could not have been above three or four years old, is still very vivid in my recollection, and so exceedingly ludicrous, that no effort of reason can oblige gossip memory to de- scribe it with becoming seriousness. My grandmother took me to see the spectacle, and as it is one of those old Scottish exhibitions which no longer can anywhere now be seen, I may be ex- cused for introducing some account of it here, mo- derating as much as possible with decorum the unac- countable propensity I feel to laugh whenever I think of that death-chamber. It was, of course, a bedroom, and the windows admitted a dim funereal light, the panes being co- vered with napkins in the most melancholious man- ner. The looking-glass was also covered ; indeed. 272 THE LITERARY LIFE OF W V i as I have said in the dirgie, one of my excellent songs in the vernacular of my beloved country, *' A damask servit co'er the glass, And a' was very decent." The bottom of every chair was also dressed with white towels. The laird himself sat in a solemn elbow-chair at the bed head, and some three or four old women opposite to it, all in the most mournful postures. But the bed itself was *' the observed of all observers." On it lay the mortal remains, at full length, of the leddy in her shroud of white crape, most ingeniously ornamented with bows and scallop- ing (as I must call it, not knowing the technical name), and on her bosom was a white mystical plate of mingled earth and salt. What was deficient in the funereal paraphernalia cannot now be called to mind, but something so tickled " The wond'ring innocence of my young fancy," that I began to laugh and ask questions, which obli- ged my grandmother, as I stood at her knee, to roughly shake me into silence. I noticed one thing, JOHN GALT. 273 jnt songs sed with . solemn or four aournful jrved of ains, at e crape, scallop- echnical al plate tiernalia ling so ;Ii obli- nee, to thing, however, which no intimidation could awe me from enquiring what it meant. The laird was well stricken in years, and not being, of course, the wisest of men, had an unseemly custom of making his lips go as if talking to himself, and I hearing no sound issuing from the « country gentle- man," became very importunate to know if he were con- versing with the dead leddy, as his words were so like nothing; but the answer vouchsafed to my inqui- sition at the time, has accidentally fallen into the pit of oblivion. The question, however, afterwards gave rise to a very philosophical controversy among the matrons when we retired, in which one of them stated it as her opinion that he was praying. In that pious notion the others were on the point of concurring. I happened to hear her hypothesis, and enquired, with all the sagacity becoming my years, how he could expect to be heard so far up as the skies, for although I had said my prayers every night with all my bir, I was not sure of having yet been heard ? Here I may once for all state, that the cherishing of a preference myself for some of my compositions, which are not well thought of by « my pubhc," is "M 274 THE LITERARY LIFE OF owing to no feeling of disrespect towards the opinion of my readers. It is a pardonable egotism to suppose that some of them may not have excited so much attention as they deserve. ■ i ^ ( f I e 1: V JOHN GALT. 275 :'jt,i e opinion suppose so much CHAPTER XXXII. Dramas in America, When the controversy with ♦he Canadian Clergy was finished, and the Canada Company in a legal condition to go into operation, I was again sent to America to organize a system of proceedings, and I took another lover's farewell of the muses. I saw before me only important business to do, and by a strange eddy of destiny, found myself placed in a situation to realize all the dreams of my ambition. But I had not been long in the province till it was necessary to go to Quebec, where I was in- duced, both by business and the season, to remain four weeks. In the course of this time, the gentle- men of the garrison got up an amateur theatre, and I engaged to write for them a farce, in which the pecu- liarities of the inhabitants were to be caricatured. It was not, however, all mine. No less than thirty-three I M 276 THE LIT£RARV LIFE OF 111 I! k li I i ti .1' contributors gave jokes and hints to the composition, and some of the characters were outlined by the per- formers themselves. It was admirablv acted, and what was as good, it yielded fifty pounds to the Emigrant Society of the city, and left a considerable balance, nearly as much, to be appropriated to the expenses of fitting up the theatre. Their Excellencies the Go- vernor-in Chief, Lord Dalhousie, and the Countess, came in state, and as every body was resolved to be pleased, nothing could go oft' better. There is a custom in Quebec of all the inhabitants of a certain rank calling on strangers whom they regard as worthy of their acquaintance, and leaving for them their cards. It thus happens that the fortress being a metropolis, a vast number of officials are of rank sufficient to assume this honour, and, for distinc- tion, place the initials of their respective dignities on their cards, which admit sometimes of curious, but local interpretations. The farce was entitled Visitors, or, a Trip to Quebec, in which an American family figures as the visitors, and the piece opens with a scene in a hotel, where a waiter brings in, after a short colloquy, a JOHN OALT. 277 tea-tray loaded with cards of callers. Without any disguise, the mass consisted of real cards of actual inhabitants. The American party take them up and decipher to one another, so that no mistake as to who were the parties alluded to could arise, and the explanation of the initials being sketches of the cha- racters, who were probably in the pit, was exceed- ingly amusing. I do not recollect many of them, but a few were really good. My friend, an unaffected,' plain, sterling person, the Hon. Captain M , was one of the aides-de-camp of the Governor, and having the initials A. D. C., the Yankee interpreted them to signify a d-d Corinthian ; and my humorous colleague Mr D , who M'as joined in the former commission, being a member of the legislature, had the initials M. P. P. on his card, which the Yankee read mighty pleasant person. I mention these to show the character of the performance, which, in other re- spects, was really exceedingly good, notwithstanding its locality. Among others present at the represen- tation, was a Mr P W , of whom some idea may be formed by Mr Hoskins, in my novel of Law- rie Todd. The original, however, was far more racy than my sober caricature. There was an exhibition <'f, J: 278 THE LITERARY LIFE OF ■'■ ,!t of him on the stage, at which I saw himself several times grin a ghastly smile. Some time after we had a dinner at. the Castle, to which Mr W was in- vited by their Excellencies, but he was late of coming ; the table was, in fact, cleared, and the dessert set, be- fore he made his appearance. That night he drank tvine with the Countess in a very civilized manner, but her Ladyship told me herself, that he had once ad- dressed her by the name of Mrs Dalhousie. By the way, I should not forget that Dunlop, the " Backwoodsman," better known as the Tiger, per- formed the part of a Highland Chieftain. To those who know his appearance and grotesque man- ner, I need not say how : the rest of the world cannot conceive a moiety of his excellence. Of my friend I cannot give a more descriptive character than a gen- tleman once gave of him to me. He said Mr Dunlop was a compound of a bear and a gentleman. I did not know that bears were so good-natured. Had the business of the farce ended here, still it would have deserved commemoration, but the drift of the performance was hideously misrepresented, and it was said that I had most ungratefully ridiculed the Americans, notwithstanding the distinction and JOHN GALT. 279 f several r we had - was in- coming ; ; set, be- [le drank iner, but once ad- ilop, the yer, per- in. To ue man- d cannot friend I n a gen- Dunlop i. I did e, still it the drift ited, and ridiculed tion and hospitality with which they had received me. Nothing could be more untrue, for it is well known among my friends that I have taken every opportunity of show, ing my sense of their kindness. The misrepresenta- tion, however, being in a Quebec newspaper, excited, in the States where it circulated, a most unfavourable impression, and the New York papers began in consequence to bark and bow-wow in the most alarm- ing manner. Fortunately as I was known personally to one of the editors, my cause was speedily espoused, and in due time the matter was set right. Thus, it came to pass, that I promised, when next in New York, to write another farce, in which as great liberty should be taken with my own coun- trymen as I had done with the Americans. Accord- ingly, about twelve months after, having occasion to be in that city, I composed, in fulfilment of my pro- mise, the farce of An Aunt in Virginia, of which a sketch may be seen in Blackwood's Magazine, with a few verbal alterations, and a change of scene from New York to London. It is there given as a tale, under the name of Scotch and Yankees.^ 'One evening, when at this time in New York, in my wav to the Bowery theatre, my attention was attracted by a musical I t -J, • r'^ 280 THE LITERARY LIFE OF These two dramatic sketches are the only literary productions which I wrote in America. I had, how- ever, during the period immediately before my return, while waiting till accounts were made up, designed to amuse the settlers at Guelph with an opera, for which purpose I called the gentlemen in the Com- pany's service to see if I could muster among them sufficient dramatis ^^srsorKB for my design. Nature had for this provided a most extraordinary mass of materials. I had in my own house a young lady with a beautiful voice. For her 1 composed myself " The Golden Light," starting upon a Swiss air. dissonance, and turning aside, I found it proceeded from a penny show, where Mr Punch, the wooden Jack Reeve, was the star of the evening. I do not know what induced me at the moment to go in ; but judge of my astonishment when, in addition to the vagaries of the popular performer, I beheld spectacles of Nature quite as wonderful. They consisted of enormous bones, which beggared the skeleton of the Mammoth to that of a Guinea pig. I think they must have belonged to some short four-leggod creature of the crocodile kind. A bone of the head weighed twelve hundred pounds. A knee-pan was as large as a large Cheshire cheese, and several vertebrae were much thicker than the body of an exquisite. How they were brought there, or from what place, I could not learn from the Negro who kept the show, but certainly they belonged to a skeleton of not less than one hundred and twenty feet in length I Such were, I presume, the animals that inha'.jited our globe when the moon was parcel and incorporate of the earth — at least this is as plausible as any other hypothesis respecting them. w. JOHN GALT, 281 We had also an accomplished tenor and a counter alto, who had probably never heard of his musical name. These I set down secretly as number ones. But the most extraordinary curiosities of all were a Dutch colonel, a descendant of the famous Van Egmond, and his vrow. Colonel Van Egmond had commanded a regiment of the Dutch guards quartered at Milan for a long time, and, in attending the theatre on duty, he had acquired quite the taste and manner of the Italian school, singing some of the finest airs with delicious effect. His wife was even still more extraordinary; I have heard much worse singers of no mean name, not her equal, either in point of execution or voice, in the King's Theatre. With these materials I intended to get up a drama under the name of the « Husking Bee ,•" and my house was so construct- ed, that with little trouble it could be converted into a suitable theatre ; but I found myself sooner than I expected in a condition to go home, and accordingly the project was abandoned. Perhaps it is necessary to explain the meaning of the term husking bee. It is quite peculiar to VOL. I. o . m If ' 2»2 THE LITERARY LIFE OF ! it'i America, where bee signifies a gathering of neigh- hovirs to assist one of their number, as labour is clear there, to accomplish any piece of work, and is a kind of festival ; it would be called a harvest-home in England, or a kirn in Scotland. A husking bee means a gathering to assist in getting in the Indian com. My intention was to have embodied an enter- tainment of this kind, in which one of the clerks, as I was told, got into some scrape, and my plot was to have been founded on the incident. Colonel Van Egmond was destined to be a landlord of a public house, but I could find no place suitable for his lady ; however, it certainly was a very remarkable thing to find in the forest such various talent of one kind so remote from any village, being no less than eighteen miles from the town of Gait, and without premedita- tion or research. Verily there is more in the system of the world than we yet imagine. ** Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear ; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air !'* JOHN GALT. 283 CHAPTER XXXIII. Fatalism, and Particular Providence. During one of the excursions which I was obliged to make from Upper Canada to New York, I met with what to me was a treat beyond all price— an original character— in Mr Grant Thorburn. His singularities were well known, and I was taken by the Consul to see him in his seed-store; but although I had formed some previous notion, from what I had heard, of the kind of person I should see, a little acquaintance con- vinced me that I had found a rarer bird than even the ancient Egyptian phoenix, for that had successive heirs by the eggs of its own laying, while he was unique, alone in all creation, at least he has ever so seemed to me. I have attempted, in Lawrie Todd, to give a sketch of Mr Thorburn, a little poetical; and the first part %:\ w m at f'' P ■ i St 284 THE LITERARY LIFE OF of that work contains nearly his own autobiography, for the manuscript of which I gave him an author's, not a publisher's price. The story of the book is only, however, the de- velopement of what I conceived a character like Mr Thorburn would be, in the scenes and operations amidst which I have represented Lawrie. He has been my model in the composition j but the incidents in which he is placed are imaginary, with the excep- tion of those alluded to, and some little softening of his peculiar belief in a particular Providence, a belief which Mr Thorburn, to my feelings, is rather ostentatious in professing. I do not say he is at all wrong in doing so, but I think man has nothing to do with what lies solely between a man and his Creator. Moreover, I was writing a work for amusement, into which religious topics could only be as sparingly as possible introduced. Perhaps to some of my readers it may seem incon- sistent that I, who profess myself openly a predes- tinarian, should object to the freedom, as irreverent, of his constant confession of his faith ; but the one ■sort of conviction is of a meditative reflecting kind, J . <%'i i..*, JOHN GALT. 285 which endeavours to see, in ,I,e passing event, the progeny of those which have gone before, while the other is of a perpetual excitement, and seems akin to the interjectional mood of the spectator at a proces- s.on, wondering at every new manifestation of the pageant as something unexpected. Being, however, of opinion that man has no choice in matters of faith,' but must believe in what is set before his understand- ing, as the eye does in the existence of the objects of sight, it would be presumptuous to offer any opinion on another's faith. The reason is the sight of the mind, given to discern the false from the true, as the eye of the body is given to distmguish the qualities of thmgs ; and the one has no more to do with selecting Its creed, than the other with the choice of the objects that may happen to come before it. In thus deviating from the current of my narrative, I hope, in not making my hero so prominent a belie- ver in the doctrine of a particular providence as my model, although he is made so obviously, that it will be discovered I was not actuated by any design to undervalue its importance in the creed of many serious persons. I am incapable of conceiving in what man- IM 286 THE LITEKARY LIFE OF ner a Scotchman can reconcile it with the unchange- able nature and purposes of the Deity, to suppose that the existence of a particular providence can be admitted into his creed. But, without farther discussion, I may be allowed to remark, that, in one respect, it seems to me that a vague countenance is derived from nature to the doc- trine of a particular providence, inasmuch as every thing which exists, even in species, seems to be an individual ; and that although a general resemblance constitutes what may be properly, called a class, yet the class itself is made up of individuals, of which no two are exactly alike, or, in other words, the regula- tion of nature is the very opposite of that which the Bolingbroke school inculcates. — The doctrine of a particular providence implies a temporary meddling and uncertainty in the universe, while predestinarianism is steady and eternal, and implies a foreknowledge of whatsoever is to come to pass. The very notion of every individual thing being regulated, is calculated to exalt and enlarge our ideas of the omnipresence and infinitude of God. Nor is predestinarianism, even in a philosophical JOHN GALT. 287 View, as fatalism, irreconcilable to the Christian rcU- g'on ; at least, not in the view I take of it, which m w be concisely stated, and in such a manner that my ow>. sentiments shall be perspicuously seen, and the reader placed in a condition to reject or admit them. God is a being of infinite wisdom and power. He created all things, and arranged the order and succes- sion of every event. Religion is the opinion which man entertains of the nature and character of God, and reveUtion furnishes that knowledge of them which the mind could not of Itself attain. In the order of things and the succession of events the providence of God is constantly seen ; and such .s the harmony of the unive^e, that the smallest occurrence affects its whole frame and system. The simplest form in which we can contempla*. providence, is by considering the whole universe as one machine. It consists of parts, each an entire thing of itself, endowed with distinct qualities, and placed in such a situation with respect to others, that « .s constantly acted upon by them, and reacts upon them at the same time. Every part is subject to the ml M v-i i *m m 1^1 'fibiW 2S8 THE LITERARY LIFE OF 14 14 principles or laws of its own particular organization, as well as to those of the universe, and every part is essential to the accomplishment of the object for which the whole was formed. The tact of human sense is not sufficiently fine to discover the principle of motion, we only know of its existence by effects ; but there is no fact in existence of which the mind is more assured, than that every thing hath both an individual and a universal motion. The individual motion consists of augmentation or diminution of growth or of decay ; and the universal motion consists of the revolutions which the thing as a part of the universe performs, in connexion with the other parts. If, therefore, the universe consists of things in mo- tion, arranged according to a plan, it must also be allowed that the action of one thing upon another will produce an effect previously determined. This is the law of necessity, philosophical fatality, re- ligious predestinarianism ; but it is not according to the doctrine of a particular Providence. The motion that propels one part against another generates a new motion, the effect of the reaction which arises from JOHN CALT. 289 the thing impelled and that of the thing which it in its turn propel,. Hence, though all the eiTects of motion have one universal similarity, no two of them can be exactly alike, unless we suppose that there are two parts of the universe also exactly alike_an idea that implies a limit to the number and extent of the things in the universe, a notion at once impious and absurd. To the infinite variety of the effects of the two motions, individual and universal, the different appear, ances of things may be ascribed ; and as each new impulse produces a new modification from every new appearance, a different phenomenon of effects must arise. It is affirmed by astronomers that all the great movements of the solar system are periodical, and revert to an original position ; but although science only goes to this point, it is not the less certain that the solar system itself belongs, as a part, to another, which part is connected with a third, and so on. And to suppose, in such an amazing and admirable frame of things, there can be any molestation allowed to proceed from the particular motion of an indivi- ■.■!W'< P VOL. I. 2b 290 THE LITERARY LIFE OF dual, is to imagine that the inventor of the machine allowed the interference of another power, independ- ent of himself, or, in other words, a power which acts regardless of him, and whose interference he is by a particular providence called to correct. If, however, we admit that all his works are framed into one another, it is not difficult '.o conceive how he may discern effects, and may predict, as he does, by revelation, whatsoever shall come to pass; yet this power of revealing what must ensue cannot be admitted by those who argue for a particular pro-» vidence. It is, however, unnecessary to pursue the argu- ment farther. I have only taken this opportunity of explaining, that a lOUgh in Lawrie Todd I have represented a believer in a special providence, and even drawn from that belief a courage in underta- kings only reconcilable to the unalterable nature of things, yet I am not myself a bebever ir the doc- trine. I think it, indeed, far moie vonsistent with what is disclosed to us of God, to be creatures full of humility and awe, lest in his dread purpose we are ordained to a woful doom, than to suppose aught can JOHN GALT. 291 occur in our destiny that he has not foreseen nor pro- vided for. The manner in which this ig to be done to the human race is by observing the Christian precepts. i +*«ii.'ii ^ ( ■*' ■Hi lit ■5 292 THE LITERARY LIFE OP CHAPTER XXXIV. Laurie Todd. ^ K 4'.' l' •^ 5 .. » But whether the world is regulated by a pre-ordered system, according to the opinion of the predestinarians, or subject to those uncertainties in which the be- lievers in a particular providence think they expe- rience, it is not for man to offer any opinion ; both articles of belief are too intimately connected with religion to be ever properly submitted to the tribunal of human judgment. There is, however, something sublime, as well, if the expression may be used, as picturesque in supposing that the lidless eye of Providence is ever fixed on mortal beings with a fearful vigilance to anticipate the attacks of incom- prehensible evil. I am naturally led to make this remark, because in Lawrie Todd, and in those productions which are supposed to be my best, I have endeavoured to John galt. 293 assume respectively the characters depicted, and therefore ought not to be held responsible for the notions they are made to express. The question is, are those notions in conformity with the conception of the character ? There is, indeed, something of a dramatic nature in the assumption, and the author should not be held responsible for the sentiments he ascribes to his per- sons. It has never yet been considered that drama- tists committed any error in the thoughts and deeds which they made their characters utter and perform, if relevant and appropriate. There is something, no doubt, in the style of the furniture of Shakspeare's stage which has a certain influence on his dialogue, but it does not follow that so much attention should be paid to that matter as to making it appropriate to the developement of the moral peculiarities of the parties introduced on the scene. I speak in this matter with the more freedom, because several gentlemen, in whose discernment and acumen I have great faith, have separately concurred in thinking well of those incidents which I myself thought most deserving of consideration. For ex- 294 THE LITERARY LIFE OP ! ample, the whole operations in the forest have met with their decided approbation, and have excited much more attention than the early part of the nar- rative which was derived from Mr Thorburn, and, although I have endeavoured to work with human characters of no very elevated cast, there is yet a spirit in the assumed narrator that is of the very highest poetical kind. Even in the descriptions of the silvan scenery, the woods, and the wilderness, this spirit is attempted to be embodied, though with the lowly imagery of the narrator's circumstances. In noticing the real autobiography of my model it should be added, that my narration is probably no less accurate though the individual may not exist who experienced all the incidents and adventures narrated. For example, I did not go about with my eyes shut either with respect to the character of settlers, or of colonial operations, under my own parti- cular charge, and although I could not specify the originals from which the drawings as it were have been made, I yet do not recollect of having taken so many different models in any work as in this composi- tion. JOHN GALT. 295 It is quite true that in Bailie Waft there was no actual prototype ; but the description of his person was derived from a settler whose image is now before me, and the turn of his mind from another who acted precisely in the way Lawrie Todd describes him to have done. Nature no doubt has made a better dis- play in her two separate men than I have done in my one ; but it is the province of art to select and combine, and I think for all the purposes intended by the introduction of the Bailie, he is a better represen- tation than either of the other two would have been separately. However, the book is before the public in various forms, and the reader can judge of its merits for himself, and also (as Mr Thorburn has published his memoirs) of the degree to which I have been indebted to him. Lawrie Todd, however, belongs I hope to a superior class of mental personages, though the lineaments are certainly derived from Mr Thor- burn. It is perhaps not very important to mention, but in a book which professes to give anecdotes concern- ing literary works it may be as well introduced. Mr Lockhart was the godfather of Lawrie Todd. I 296 THE LITERARY LIFE OP happened one day to say to him that I had such a novel on the carpet, but was not quite sure what to call it, mentioning among others the name of Todd Lawrie, saying, however, it did not quite please me, as it denoted a person more remarkable for mere cunning than any other quality, explaining what sort of character was in view, whereupon he suggest- ed the transposition of the terms, which is now the name of the book. Few occurrences have given me such pleasure as Mr Thorburn's publication, because, from the time it was known that I took him as my model of character, it has been supposed that I owed much more to him than I did, and the merits of Lawrie Todd were depreciated by those who imagined this. All con- troversy, however, is now put an end to, as it should be, by the evidence of facts. It was for this reason that I waived my claim to the copyright of his life, and did what in me lay to identify his work with mine. But Lawrie Todd has a value independent of its interest as an autobiographical memoir. 1 am not aware that any book existed prior to that publi- cation which gave a just account of backwood ope- JOHN GALT. 297 rations, at least those operations which it was my duty to study, and of which an authentic account could not but lessen many of the privations and hard- ships of settling. No man, however, can contradict what is set forth on this head in Lawrie Todd, and though possibly here and there a slip of jocularity may be detected, it was written with a sincere desire to hold the mirror up to real transactions—it will thus increase in value as it becomes obsolete, for many of those things which are described will here- after be familiar in all settlements. At present, though they are stated as existences, they are, except in a few instances, but the embodying of theories. I say this with a perfect recollection of Mr Cooper's descriptions applicable to settlers, which are as little like reality as his sea pictures are inimitable. Saving the obligations I owe to Mr Thor- burn, there is nothing which further concerns the public in the history of this work, except that the notes to the last edition were dictated from bed, and several errors were afterwards discovered when it was too late to alter them ; in other respects what I have stated in them is correct, and the mistakes may be ■I;, ■( •lUl 298 THE LITERARY LIFE OF summed up in a few orthographical inadvertencies with respect to names and persons, the most remark- able of which is, that although I speak of Mr Thor- burn I called him Mr Thornton. Lawrie Todd was written after my return from America, and may be considered as the beginning of that new series of publications in which the disposition to be didactic was more indulged than I had previously thought could be rendered consistent with a regular story. But the misfortune is that the lessons taught by the instances of the book are altogether disregarded, and it is only valued for the amusement it gives. But of this it is needless to complain — nor do I complain — for the reader has the privilege of considering what is before him as he chooses. The bee gathers honey or wax from the same flower. But it is a little irksome to see those things noted as omissions which were never intended to be given, and those lessons overlooked to which the author attached most impor- tance. It is this that makes me regret that Lawrie Todd is considered so much as a mere pastime novel. Before concluding this chapter, one of those coin- cidences ought to be mentioned which I take so JOHN GALT. 299 much delight in noting, though in this instance I perhaps may be deemed presumptuous in speaking of it. I have often been of opinion, and have heard others similarly remark, that Lawrie Todd might be classed with Robinson Crusoe ; and it is very curious that somewhat in its circumstances and history it resembles that celebrated production, for Alexander Selkirk's little narrative may be matched with Mr Thorburn's autobiography. But what I allude to is, that the house of Defoe in Freeman's Court, Corn- hill, was where the British American Land Com- pany's temporary office was in my time. The coin- cidence was purely accidental, and it was not till I had been some considerable time in the occupancy of the apartments, that I heard of this singular fact. 'i■ X< 'M 306 THE LITERARY LIFE OF critic may believe me oi- not, but T had no ill will to him, only I saw that he made me feel that there are noblemen, be their own talents what they may, who are little enough to presume on the mere rank derived from the merits of their ancestors. When the story of his difference with Lady Byron became public, I happened to meet his valet in Pic- cadilly, and enquired for his Lordship. Fletcher, after answering my question, suggested to me to call, and perhaps I might have done so, but it so happened that I did not. I had, however, good reason to be- lieve afterwards that he regarded me in some sort as a friend ; and I am bound to say, that there was pro- bably as little conciliation on my pait as on his, for although there was a great deal of surface ripple, the pool was deep, and, I conscientiously believe, abound- ed in wholesome fish. By the by, I ought to mention, that his Address for the Caledoniati Asylum, published by Mr Moore, was written at my request. Being acquainted with Mr Douglas Kinnaird, I requested him to apply to Byron, which ha did ; but on looking at the poem he told me that it would not do, and he advised his JOHN GALT. 307 Lordship to withhold it. At that time, Byron's reputation, only rising, could not afford the drawback of such a humdrum performance ; and I wonder how Moore could have published what Byron himself con- demned. I have no respect for picking out and bringing into light the grubs and worms that are best concealed in the folds of the winding-sheet. I should also mention, that I continue to think that the novel of the Three Brothers was a juvenile work written by Lord Byron. Since the publication of my Autobiography, I have observed in it numberless aUusions of thought and expression which are quite Byronic,— youthful, however. At first I thought it highly improbable that so young a lad should have written such an extensive work ; but I am no longer of that opinion, for my youngest son, under the age that Lord Byron must have been at the time the Three Brothers was writ- ten, writes as well, I think better, than the general complexion of that work ; and therefore, instead of thinking the novel to which Byron owes so much, the production of one PickersgiU, I believe it was really written by his Lordship. But though firm in this VOL. I. <":,;■ 308 THE LITERARY LIFE OF opinion, I am not now in a condition to renew the controversy on the subject. It is, however, a curious point in the history of English literature, and worthy of being elucidated. Before I finish what I have to say respecting Byron, I should mention a characteristic anecdote which has often tickled me. He delighted in mystifi- cations, especially when he thought any one could be taken in. Accordingly, in one of his playful fits, he told me very gravely that his mother had been a pupil of Miss Hannah More's, but left her. " Why ?" said I. " Because it was reported that Hannah had a child by Wilberforce." JOHN GALT. 309 liil CHAPTER XXXVI. The Courier-Lives of the Players-Bogle Corbet- Stanle?j Buxton. For my recommendation to be editor of the Cou- rier, I was indebted to Mr Lockhart. One day he called with Mr Murray, as I have mentioned in my Autobiography, and intimated that I might have the situation ; after some time had elapsed, Mr William Stewart, one of the proprietors, also called. I was then duly inducted. It did not appear, after a very short trial, that any particular craft was requisite to conduct a newspaper, especially one published in the afternoon, and I knew myself possessed of sources of information which might occasionally be of some use. The only kind of scruple I experienced arose from thinking the politics of the journal a little too ardent for the spirit of the times ; but they were congenial to those ill 310 THE LITERARY LIFE OP opinions to which from boyhood I had been at- tached.' My first object, on becoming editor of the Courier, was to render the comments more suitable to what I apprehended was the state of public opinion, prepara- tory to introducing more of disquisition. A change of the kind contemplated did not require to be preceded by a flourish of trumpets; and, be it rememberr-i, that any flagrant and sudden alteration in the dogmas of a newspaper, especially of one so • I ought to state, that the designation of the Whigs, strictly so called, and of the Tories, have always appeared as descriptive of the parties in and out of power, and that in principle they were nearly similar ; but I thought the Whigs were not satisfied with only the mere moral influence of principle, and were in con- sequence in the practice of employing the physical demonstrations of the people to help themselves into office. I continue to be of this notion still, though my best friends have always been Whigs, and though I owe particular obligations botii to Earl Grey and Mr Ellice. It would indeed be an ill compliment to such men to affect any change in my sentiments ; but I was never much of a politician, nor one whom it could serve any purpose to conci- liate, although I must plead guilty to having been always a Tory, in so far that I thought Governments should be constantly con- ducted with reference to indisputable principles, and to state this unequivocally, in contempt of popular opinion. JOHN GALT. 311 been at- 3 Courier, to what I I, prepara- A change re to be nd, be it alteration of one so higs, strictly s descriptive rinciple they not satisfied were in con- monstrations inue to be of been Whigs, irl Grey and I such men to 3r much of" a )se to conci- ways a Tory, nstantly con- 1 to state this influential as the Courier, is hazardous to the pro- perty embarked in it. When I had finished the Life of Lord Byron, and retired from the Courier, I undertook the compilation of my Lives of the Players— a work which disap- pointed me, for although it is probably one of the most amusing books in the language, it owes very little of its best quality to the author. The humour of the characters is derived from themselves, or is the invention of other biographers, and I have no other merit than in giving a uniform style to a variety of compositions. But still the Lives of the Players is a singular book, and must gradually be- come popular by the mere force of the eccentricities it describes. After the Lives of the Players, my publisher sug- gested Bogle Corbet to me ; but although a tolerable book, it is another proof, if one were wanting, that booksellers step from their Une when they give orders, like to an upholsterer for a piece of furniture. Short and simple tales, any person may suggest, but to write three volumes at the request of an- other, in a satisfactory manner, and without an 11 I'. ^iMm Ijlpi Ijlla 312 THE LITERARY LIFE OP occasional sense of drudgery, is beyond my power. In Bogle Corbet, however, I was desirous to exhibit the causes which now in this country induce a gen- teeler class of persons to emigrate than those who did 90 formerly. I do not mean to say, however, that the incidents described in that work happen to those kind of persons, for whom it was intended, but only to show the natural effects, in some degree, of introdu- cing the cotton manufactures into Scotland, and the consequences of that commercial hiflation, which the late war, both in its republican and imperial stages, tended to encourage. In one respect, Bogle Corbet is the most peculiar of all my literary essays. I had familiar models for all the principal characters in my eye, and in few have I been more successful in the portraiture ; and yet I have failed to awaken by it any very vivid pleasure, which inclines me to suspect that it is not enough to select models from nature. Characters that are pleasant in private life ought to be pre- ferred ; and I say this the more emphatically, because those to whom I looked at as my models in Bogle Corbet are not distinguished for their agreeable JOHN GALT. 313 qualities, whatever their virtues and modes of action may be. But the work is really worth more than it seems, for it is an attempt to embody facts and obser- vations collected and made on actual occurrences. After the publication of Bogle Corbet, circum- stances of business, as well as a consciousness of having attained the climacterical period of life, obliged me to relax in my literary pursuits, and I had recourse to various modes of pastime to consume my leisure, for the suspension of study allowed me too much, and it hung about me with embarrassment, like a giant's robe upon a dwarf. The relaxation, as it was called, may have been proper, but it is not easy to convey to others, what a man feels when he becomes idle, especially when his mind has been previously filled, not so much with cares as with intentions, and when all his habits were prone to enterprise. I think the first few months after the publication of Bogle Corbet were the most uncomfortable of my whole lif^, always excepting the early period of my residence in London. To one of such alert habits, there could not have been, it may be supposed, such ennui experienced as I gave encouragement to ; but those who think so !:i'li';ii''f I i ;!#■:. I. •p.: I, it mJ It : Ml- wk: ' 1 ^f!li VOL. I. 2d 314 THE LITERARY LIFE OP have not been very observant of their own feelings, at least I am inclined to be of that opinion ; for, as a man advances in years, his mind invariably becomes more acrid. The world no longer appears the same ; many things which in the coming seemed gay and desirable have passed by, and when he looks on their backs, they appear scarcely worth half the thought which they had once excited ; mean, too, and slovenly, altogether undeserving of that attention which so short-lived a being as man bestows upon the hopes that cajole him onward unto age and ailing. Another unpleasant result of this kind of inde- scribable "all-overishness" of the mind, the imme- diate effect of premature indisposition, is, that it takes away the relish of many things as well as food, and that many objects and considerations attract regard, which in early life were unheeded. You discern that the rising generation begins to affect you in a manner not before imagined ; wholly engrossed with your seniors, you had previously regarded those around you, and particularly your juniors, as objects of no care. But when you see the old making their exit, and the young coming upon the scene, and who JOHN OALT. 315 push you from your stools— the tables are turned .indeed. Reluctant to admit this to yourself, you become inordinately busy, but at last you find all your efforts vain, and sullenly, in some cases it may be, submit to be elbowed from the thoroughfares of life. Besides the internal consciousness of having passed the meridian of life, and that all those things which partook of amusement are left for ever behind, there is, I think, a still more painful feeling pro- duced by observing the developements of the suc- ceeding generation. Experience has made you sharp to notice the faults of others, and you see with alarm the symptoms, though they be but symptoms, and may disappear, of qualities in younger persons that you cannot approve, and there is a secret bitterness in this reflection, which few have the magnanimity to withstand. But reflections of this kind are perhaps out of place here ; at the same time, if they are, I may be pardoned for introducing them, as I write with a free pen, and think more about telling the reader how I feel, than of making claims on his favour for a work of pretension. Of Stanley Buxton, I have no particular recollec- m Ih, m ;uG THE I-ITERAllY LIFE OF tion of having heard of the circumstance on which it is founded. It appeared to afford me an opportunity of painting curious feelings, and as such I wrote it. It is, in fact, as a story, most improbable, and considered as such, is worth nothing ; but the feelings cjdled up by the various incidents, I am led to think, have been naturally limned, because I have not observed that the improbabilities have been noticed. .lOrrN GALT. 317 CHAPTER XXXVII. Novels- The Member, and theRudical-Eben Ershine-^On the lax Nature of Literary Property, as respects Authors- The Royal Castle of Dunoon. Foil some time I had endeavoured to please the public, more than to gratify myself, in the composi- tion of my works. This was not judicious : booksel- lers, in fact, judge as men of business— not always as critics ; they have little perception of originality, and estimate the probability of the sale of a new work by its resemblance to others that have sold well. The consequence is, that but for the conceit of authors, all literature would become as commonplace and similar in every department as a town built of bricks. I feel, therefore, no great diffidence in acknowledging, that I would not wish to be estimated by my later novels. Any talent that I ever possessed lay in the delineation of what may be called moral and visible description; and I am sure, when I worked with a story, it was in I, - as a novel. I had a mercenary object in view, besides other considerations, while I dictated the Autobio- graphy ; and I cannot see that there was a great deal in what my lot had been that might not be told even to a stranger ; nor do I feel any diffidence in express- ing a wish that the reader may be indulgent. I ■■i JOHN GALT. 343 CHAPTER XL. Stories of the Study. While employed on my Autobiography, my two eldest sons resolved to go to Canada. The eldest, in my opinion very prudently, determined to be nothino- but a farmer ; the other carried with him a recom- mendation from the Directors of the Canada Compa- ny, to be received into their establishment, which I do think was very kind of them to give, after the manner I had been obliged to speak from experience of my own treatment by the Company. I say this, because the simple fact itself might seem to imply that there was some sentiment of regret towards me in conferring this favour; but I consider it purely and entirely as kindness, and I hope my son will also con- sider it as such, for it so happens that I cannot but regard the treatment I experienced as altogether owing much more to the want of information, than to my. I • J 344 THE LITERARY LIFE OF des!i,^n to affect me in the way their mode of umx^Q has tlune. But this is a digression — all I meant to say was, that the outfit of my two sons occasioned an extra expense ; ami having no other means of j)ro\'i- ding for it, I Lutook myself to the composition and dictation of another three-volume book ; — the Storlos of the Study is the result. They are chiefly remarkable for their variety ; per- haps a curious metaphysician may here and there detect reflections suggested by my situation— at least I can do so myself; but it is for the public to deter- mine the respective merits of the Tales. I do not hesitate to say, however, that their defects are entitled to some indulgence, for they were written under cir- cumstances of great depression, and in bad health, during which I was twice, at diflerent periods, speech- less, and once, for several days, deprived of the use of my sight ; but it has been my fate to suffer uncom- mon vicissitudes, and not the strangest is, that in a period considerably less than two years of great suf- fering, I have been enabled to dictate and publish ten volumes — much of them from bed, and often in JOHN OALT. 345 circumstances of anguish that there is no great bene- volence in wishing the reader may never know. Ill one respect, to myself at least, the Stories of the Study have a particular interest, and sometimes I fancy that there are readers who will enter into my feelings. The tale of the Black Pirate, I have already mentioned, is, with only the alteration of one single word, the entire composition of my youngest son, and I think exhibits veiy uncommon eloquence and con- ception for a lad of fifteen. It is certainly not very like a lucubration of mine, but the critics, with only one exception, have noticed it with approbation as such ; the exception is Captain Marryatt, of the Metropo- litan, who seems to have discerned, with great shrewd- ness, a discrepancy between it and my other works ; he does not appear to find fault with it so much on its own account, as on account of the difference dis- cernible between it and my Scottish stories. Another circumstance respecting the Stories of the Study should be mentioned. Being in a great hurry to get them finished, the work was sent to press be- fore it was completed, and the Scottish story of The Jaunt was suggested by a friend, actually written by i 346 THE LITERARY LIFE OF liimself as my amanuensis, and printed from his ma- nuscript. The Phrenological Story was intended seriously to expose the absurdities into which craniology may hetray its votaries; but it must have been too seriously done, for the irony is not obvious, and those critics who have spoken the most indul<^ently of the woik have regarded it as a German story, if not real, a composition of the Teutonic order. The Greenwich Pensioner was not so well spoken of in the Metropolitan as in other publications in which it has been noticed, and here again I am obliged to acknowledge that Captain Marryatt's professional tact enabled him to discover its infirmities ; he spoke of it as a sailor, and perceived its marine defects, for which I have no excuse but my ignorance of nautical affairs to plead. As a picture of the workings of the human heart, however, I am sure it is not a failure — simply because it was conceived with emotion, related with pathos, and with that soft kind of compassion which assures an author of his being under the in- fluence of natural feeling. Of the rest of the book I have no particular recol- JOHN GALT. 347 loction, or at least nothing to 8ay about the different stories in ^vhich the reader can be interested, beyond what I have stated in the work itself. At the time I published the Stories of the Study, I was induced to make a collection of some poe- tical scraps which were found lying about. I did not, at the time, think very much of them, chiefly because my youthful standard of poetry wa. very elevated, and a long period, from a consciousness of deficiency, had elapsed since I had abandoned the cultivation of the art. But their reception by parti- cular persons in whose discernment I have long had great faith, led me to think that I had probably un- dervalued them, particularly The Hermit Peter. In consequence I was induced to complete it in two additional cantos, and to open up again my poetical lode or vein. This, however, was not entirely a reso- lution of choice, but, in some degree, a work of necessity. My invalid condition disabled me from writing, and the state of my sight often from reading, so that I had no other pastime at the fireside, but stringing blethers up in rhyme." Before I conclude this chapter, I should mention « •M 348 THE LITERARY LIFE OF that I have been long a very general contributor to periodical works. Except in occasional tales, I was actuated, in this kind of employment, by a wish to give my notions on temporary subjects ; some of these papers I must suppose were above par, because at the time they attracted particular notice, and were, in several cases, republished. The effect to myself of being a contributor of these kind of disquisitions was undoubtedly agreeable, for the variety of life that I have happened to see, ena- bled me sometimes to give inferences of the under- standing not common— I will not say original, but they were at least more or less remarkable. I do not, however, intend to trouble the reader with an account of my ephemeral productions, only I \/ould observe as a lesson to others, that from the moment I began to draw upon Nature, my stock of materials seemed inexhaustible; but although recourse to the ever teem- ing fountainhead is without question the path that leads to excellence, it yet often induces a carelessness fatal to progression. An author finds abundance of topics, but somehow plenty makes him indolent, for when he makes Nature his handmaid he ceases to be scrupu- ms .fOIIN GALT. butor to !S, I was wish to some of because rid were, of these ible, for ee, ena- ) under- lal, but do not, account observe I began seemed ir teem- ;at leads !ss fatal ■ topics, s^hen he scrupu- 349 8 i lous in selocthig what she offers, and is in conse- quence more apt to be heedless of repetitions than even his reader in remarking them. He also becomes indif- ferent respecting many things about which he ought to be solicitous, because he observes that such mattL are often more common than is generally supposed ; besides, be his powers ever so great, they are neces- sarily limited in their scope, while Nature always remainr- ^neasureless in her variety and infinity. I had brought this work to this point this day, viz. 24th June, 1834, when a friend reminded me that I had omitted in my catalogue two productions. The omission could not be intentional, as one of them, Glenfell, was supposed to have some merit, and I instantly recollected it. The other, he says, M^as called Andrew of Padua, but it has entirely, even to the name, escaped my memory. There can, however, have been nothing remarkable about the history of either, or I would have remembered them ; and I only mention tfulnes the fi ict as an illustration of the kind of tor- O' IS to which I am subject, perhaps I should say of the little heed which I oiye to but nobody will believe me. my own works, 11 [ 350 ] CONCLUSION. I HAVE thus endeavoured to give an account of my separate productions to the best of my recollection, and also something of the feeling which I entertain myself towards them ; I do not say cherish, because I doubt if I could do so justly, and because some of them have been preferred by the public more than others, which I seriously think have been consigned to unmerited neglect. Before considering the materials of this particular lucubration, 1 had no right notion of having attempt- ed so much; I had kept no account of my essays, nor do I know where even many of my novels may be found ; yet those who see with what rapt ardour I enter into a subject, can have no idea that, after the task is finished, I could ever become so indifferent to the result. It is not, however, altogether o^ing to this indif- JOHN GjlLT. 351 ference that I have been led apparently to undervalue the mere literary character. Many years ago " A change came o'er the spirit of my dream" of life, and I was moved to desire, rather than to make books from topics suppUed by others, to furnish a topic from myself. I cannot state when this happened, but the place and the occasion are still vividly in remem- brance. I was reading in the Lazaretto of Messina the hfe of Alfieri, and was prodigiously affected by the incidental observation, where he remarks, that the test of greatness is the magnitude of a man's undertakings to benefit the world. The truth descended on me like inspiration. I rose agitated from my seat, and could , thmk of nothing all the remainder of the day, but of corroborative circumstances. Since that time I have ever held literature to be a secondary pursuit-the n>ea„s of recording what has been done ; and thus, although a voluminous author, I cannot persuade myself how in that way I should have ever merited the distinction to which I aspired, or attained the glittering goal towards which my hopes struggled. The sentiment of Alfieri did not, however, cause me to enter on a new line of life ; but it elevated my ill ■It i 352 THE LITERARY LIFE OF motives, and lent energy to the impulses by which I was actuated, for I had previously determined, as I have narrated, to he distinfruished ; it only made mc sensible that distinction without benevolence was un- worthy of a rational being's pursuit. The creation of books did not appear to me to fall within the scope of his sublime idea of greatness, and therefore I con- ceive that, although few authors have published, in so short a time, more various productions, I have not earned, estimated by his test, which I think the true one, any claim to a better reward than is due to inde- fatigable exertion. However I am not the first in whom the desire of fame has been greater than the talent to acquire it. From my earliest recollection, both by meditation and action, I have been devoted to what I thought the accomplishment of useful purpo- ses, and my chief recompense is the satisfaction, un- dviubtedly, of my own bosom. Yet my efforts, I think, have not been altogether ineffectual, and the consciousness of this emboldens me to say, that I nuist be much misunderstood by those who imagine that the pressure of disease, and the embraces of poverty, could greatly darken the cheerfulness of my mind in JOHN GALT. 353 y which I ined, as I made mc e was un- reation of e scope of re I con- hed, in so have not c the true e to inde- le first in than the ollection, levoted to "ul purpo- 3tion, un- efforts, I , and the {, that I igine that poverty, r mind in reflecting that I have not been ordained in vain. A puling sickly expression, no doubt, often escapes me, but I am in the habitual practice of uttering what I tJiink, and it may indulgently be called to mind, tJiat in addition to being deprived of locomotion and ren- dered helpless, I often suffer anguish and merciless pain to a degree tJiat ought to be allowed in extenu- ation of this human offence. I do not, however, always repine, and I can look on the moral green around me, though I see arid spots here and there, with com- parative complacency and pleasure, as I repeat a sen- timent of Diy aspiring years. " Bei'evolence is like the generous suii, Who; ;roe impartial splendour fosters all ; It is the radiance of the human soul. The proof and sign of its celestial birth. All other creatures of corporeal ore Partake the common (qualities of man ; Love, hatred, anger, all particular aims ; But in that infinite and pure effusion,— That only passion of divinity, He owns no rival but the Heavenly God." Antonia. END OF THE LITERARY LIFE, VOL. I. 2g [ ?54 ] ESTIMATE OF MYSELF. Although T have endeavoured to speak of myself with no more partiality than a friend, it may be imagined that I have a higher notion of my own powers than I really lay claim to. It may be so, but this essay will be at least curious as an effort of candour. The love of fame was my ruling passion, nor do I ever recollect being vain of any praise that my own judgment did not in some degree ratify as deserved. The consciousness of this has made me often assert, and I believe conscientiously, that those who thought me capable of being ruled by vanity mistook my character. I was much too sensitive to approbation ever to think myself meritorious, a feeling the reverse of vanity, which always imagines itself entitled to more honour than it receives. But no man could ESTIMATE or MYSELF. 355 of myself ; may be my own ly be so, 1 eiFort of nor do I my own deserved, n assert, > thought took my •robatlon 3 reverse titled to m could inhale praise with a keener relish, and few so enter- prising have received less of it in a substantial form. But the absence of vanity was compensated by a more ungracious feeling, I would say unamiable. There is, however, no reason to be too harsh in speaking of one's-self.—Knowhig that I was always frank and sincere, far beyond what I saw myself sup- posed to be, I have uniformly resented, perhaps some- times too ardertly, not only every imputation, but every suspicion, of being actuated by sinister motives. At the same time I have been too credulous, ascribing sincerity to others, that was not verified ])y the result. I was indeed no match for the hypocritical, whether so by design or delusion ; nor did it abate my chagrin to know, " That neither man nor angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible except to God alone. " I was never vindictive, though often resentful ; nor, when the indignation of the moment cooled, did I feel the sentiment of revengo,_the desire to inflict vengeance for wrong. From the day I went to Lon- don till I returned a hopeless invalid, exceeded thirty 356 ESTIMATi: OF MYSELF. years, and no man could, in his heart, accuse me, in that period, of havinir done hhn any evil. When I left Scotland, I had not, I believe, an enemy. • Of the quality of my little talent I am more diffi- dent to say what I think, because I am conscious of a great short-coming in endeavours to hopes. But my publications, in little more than twenty years, with long intervals of toilsome activity and of indis- position, prove my sedentary industry. I have never seen the clerk or amanuensis who could exhaust my assiduity, I might say, perhaps, whom I could not tire. In my works I have not attained excellence, but some of them are considered not without merit, and those have made their way to their little prominence without the advocacy of any associate, or any eft'ort on my own part, directly or indirectly, to make them known. My volumes of Travels evince some observation, ingenuity, and enterprise. The Life of Wolsey, and my Historical Sketches, afford evidence of research. In my biographical works candour is not wanting. ESTIMATE OF MYSELF. 357 My various Essays show that I was not ignorant of the subjects of which they treated. My Novels and " clishmaclavers," of that class of fiction to which they belong, are said to show know- ledge of the human heart, as well as picturesque de- scription. Much of my Poetry is little known as mine, audit is only lately that I have set up any pretensions at all as a verse-maker. And my published Dramas, for number and variety, entitle me to be ranked among the most considerable dramatic authors of my native land, and I have seve- ral manuscripts of plays, at least half-a-dozen, lying by me. Enough, however, of literature is before the public, by which my station as an author may bo determined.' But I shall not be justly dealt with if I am considered merely as a literary man : all that I have done ought to be taken into the estimate, and against many faults and blemishes many cares should be placed, disap- pointments, ill-requited struggles, and misfortunes of no common kind, with the depressing feeling, in cala- m 358 ESTIMATE OF MYSELF. mitous circumstances, of how much I stood in the need of heartening from a friend. But when my numerous books are forgotten, I shall yet be remembered. At a period when all the assu- rance of a provision for my family was announced to be a fallacy, I contrived the Canada Company, which will hereafter be spoken of among the eras of a nation destined to greatness. That project, flourishingly carried into effect, I not only projected, but establish- ed myself; and lands, now more extensive than all the arable land of Scotland, are in process of settlement, and attractive to the superabundant population of the United Kingdom. With having accomplished the establishment of so great an undertaking, I would have been satisfied; but my recompense was a mystery. However, con- vinced of my own rectitude, I set myself to the renewal of my colonial schemes, and the British Ame- rican Land Company is the result. Subsequently, when a little recovered from the malady and impres- sions which induced me to give up my connexions with that second project, the Secretary of State for d in the 1, 1 shall he assu- unced to y^, which a nation ishingly stablish- n all the tlement, n of the nt of so atisfied ; er, con- to the ih Ame- luently, impres- nexions Itate for ESTIMATE OF MYSELF. 359 the Colonies gave me leave to attempt the formation of a third Land Company, but which an indiscreet grant of a former Government rendered unavailing.* SCO t, ,„, ^„, ^^,j^^_.^^ .^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ot the Un.on Canal between Eclinbu,,h and Glasgow, bee us I Hd not nng to do with the conception ofeither of the e wo L 1" htotZ" " ''' ^^"^^' ' '' - «ene.n,.no:: ;• rnuch Scotland owes to me. The story is diverting, not onir on us own account, but as a biographical anecdote "" I am not aware of having, in any other instance, so palp.blv addressed myself to the selfishness of mankind; , r^ If bavmg so perfectly ascertained the farcical form of goi;"! il I uunont w.h private bills. I suppose some occult onsci.sners of tins . the cause why I have seldom spoken of it. ZZ .ast't^^^^^^^^ - - ^^^ L— ^ when he o Aote. fo I had then upwards of sixty acquaintances mem w/ ti; ';""' '" ''' ''' ''^' y-- -'^«-- ^^ r n ^P'"^' '"'P^"^^^' '"« «g«'" ft>rmally and Lord Me V le was ostensibly at the head of the opposing'; ; 'l'- Z^Lr:^Lm Tr ^^^-^^' ^-dii/pUed' try, but the first Lord of the Admiralty was a scaring boole However, the second reading of the bill happened to be Si for an evenmg on which the Catholic question le learned Lord of tlmt name, was the secretarv of th. r. «.o crcumseance, and proposed .„ „i„ .„ canvass .he ZZ i UMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 11.25 ,56 |3^ '^ Ml IS 2.5 2.2 l!f li£ IIIIIM iillU mil 1.6 <^ w n 7 'eA /^ / Photographic Sdences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 372-4503 V (v -^ \\ "^ .V ;\ €^./^^\ # ^/"^ ^ ^ 360 ESTIMATE OF MYSELF. These endeavours place me, I think, somewhat extra to common men ; few so alone in the world, and Commons individually. We both, however, thought at the time, that public men were in the practice of using their influ- ence in private matters, and the canvassing of the House seemed a very vain proceeding against a minister. However, I told MoncriefF that gouty heels were as good in such a case as intellectual heads, and the second reading of our bill was an order of the day. Accordingly, we resolved to apply to the members individually, which we did to a great extent ; and I dare say, there are sapient personages still alive who recollect two very agreeable saponaceous gentlemen calling on them with most constitutional ideas of the wisdom of members of Par- liament. In this matter we were very successful, and the predestined night arrived. Mr MoncreifF, and Mr Downie of Appin, were with me ia''the gallery. Tiie House was full— the appear- ance seemed more than usually sombre, and all was as solemn as a dirgie. The order of the day came on — a debate ensued — a division was ordered—the gallery cleared— the " Noes" went into the lobby. I looked behind— I saw the old, the fat, the gouty, the bald-headed and the intelligent, keeping their seats. "We went down stairs—the solicitor was in a pucker. At last we heard the number of the votes, and that the second reading was carried in a very full house, by a majority of about two to one, as may be seen by the journals. The canal completed, exists a monument of the stratagem. In the end, the Directors of the Canal Company paid me for a carriage and all expenses, and haadsomely, like a counsel on a case where a good estate is in jeopardy. Indeed, I must say, that they are the only organs of a corporation which I ever served zealously and reaped satisfaction. ESTIMATE OF MYSELF. 361 amewhat ^rld, and lit at the heir influ- ise seemed er, I told a case as 11 was an )ly to the and I dare ollect two liem with •s of Par- redestined •pin, were e appoar- is solemn ensued — 5es" went e fat, the leir seats. V.t last we ading was o to one, i, exists a id me for )unsel on must say, ;h I ever SO environed with perplexities, have originated such undertakings with higher or with purer aims. Other things might be mentioned, still more illustrative of my adventurous and speculative views, but they are minutely enough noticed in my- Autobiography, and I can have no wish to claim more than the candid will readily allow. It is my fate to be thankful for less than I might expect, but a resolution to depend only on myself has often stifled complaint when perhaps it might have been justified, and I feel still my nature so unsubdued, that but for total lameness, and ever- varying depression and infirmity, I see nothing that should not make me as independent in my conduct as other men.* * The/cr/e which I still feel, was thirty years ago not stronger than it is at this moment when the aim is eclipsed. I was then getting a new seal with armorial bearings, and I wrote to one of my companions that I had an intention of takiftgfor my motto, *• I wiU myself," or « Hope and Try." The former I thought ra! ther arrogant, and took the latter; but on the panel of a cariole, which I bought at Quebec, conceiving I had attained something, I changed it then to « ettle" (aim). Feathers in the air show how the wind breathes, nor is it owing to the world that I am now so helpless-^the groan of anguish should not, therefore, be mistaken for the moan of disappointment or sorrow. VOL. I, ' 2 H [ 362 ] REPININGS. Shade of the friend who earliest taught The glory meet for manly thought, And hopes of fame refulgent brought Bright from the sky ; Deem'dst thou my lot with this was fraught > Lo ! where I lie ! Yes— I may check the hopeless tear, Were anguish all I had to fear ; Who knows the bed is but a bier, Would e'er complain ? But life to wrench from famine here In helpless pain ! I thought the boundless flying wind That sweeps the welkin unconfined, riew not more charter'd than the mind From earth to heaven, hepinings. "When flowers and stars, a garland twined, To Hope were given. Stern Fortitude ! effectless power To him that feels affliction lower, And ling'ring lies in restless bower, As time creeps slow, Thou can'st but soothe to them the hour That see the woe, O Death I and wilt thou still impend. Nor bid this weary languor end ? Art thou indeed a worldly friend, And spar'st for grief ? Thy sweet entrancing opiate send, Oh, grant relief I END OF VOLUME FIRST, 363 HDINBURGH : PRINTED BV BALLAATYNE AND CO., PAUL'S WORK.