fan BinHf H Pi I SH i ffiSiffi ■ ™* I 'J <", KSttKfll HM^HIIHBiMBi HI^HHHIIShHmHS 'JIM ■ i ■ ' H$8 ■HMH ■BBS81 1 5K Ifi'yfflfMwnfifl iij! _ m.. !iH Jit M . m>»4 This ' V : * HT^ on thf 2883 ** ■ 1 > . ' • » * • • • * t ' • • • * * ' * r * Abdndel Castle, April 10, 1871. My dear Gladstone, — Although our friendship has endured for many years, and has survived great changes, it is not on account of my affection for you that I have desired to connect these lines with your name. It is because from you, more than from any one who is now alive, I have received assurances of that strong and deep admiration of Walter Scott, both as an author and as a man, which I have long felt myself, and which I heartily agree with you in wish- ing to extend and to perpetuate. On my part, such a desire might on other grounds be natural ; on yours, it can only spring from the conviction, which I know you entertain, that both the writings and the personal history of that extraordinary man, while affording entertainment of the purest kind, and supplying stores of information which can nowhere else be so pleasantly acquired, have in them a great deal which no student of human nature ought to neglect, and much also which those who engage in the struggle of life with high purposes — men who are prepared to a * VI PREFATORY LETTER. work earnestly, and to endure nobly — cannot pass by without loss. This, then, is my object in addressing you. I wish, after the manner of my profession, to call the best witness I can find, and by the weight alike of your authority and of your example to revive and strengthen a taste which, to the no small discredit of a portion, and that not the least educated, of our modern society, appears to need encouragement. It was in the autumn of 1868, when you were on the eve of a great enterprise, and with care and labour enough on your hands to weigh down a spirit which possessed less of Scott's own energy, that you wrote to me : — " With great delight, and under fascination, I have been treading (in mind) much ground familiar to you, and have been upon a regular perusal of Lockhart's ' Life of Scott,' from end to end. I am already reflecting with concern how soon I shall probably read the last page of the last volume." It was at that time too that you concluded a letter on the absorbing topics of the day, by saying : — u I wish I had time to write about the ' Life of Scott.' I may be wrong, but I am vaguely under the impression that it has never had a really wide circulation.* If so, it is the saddest pity : and I * Between 1837 and 1856 there were sold, of all the editions, 38,900 copies. Between 1856 and 1871, only 1900. PREFATORY LETTER. Vll should greatly like (without any censure on its pre- sent length) to see published an abbreviation of it." To the suggestion made in the last extract, I paid, as I was bound to do, immediate attention ; but, mis- led, not by your intimation, but by some from other quarters, I began by supposing that what the public needed was a wholly new work ; and being unable to attempt this myself, and, at the same time, being jealous of intrusting it to less reverent, even though more skilful, hands, I found it difficult to pro- ceed. One eminent man, to whom I proposed the work combined all the qualifications which I could desire, but his own pursuits prevented him from undertaking it ; and, after his refusal, the prospect of a new Life, such as alone I could have wished to see published, became gradually more uncertain. But while thus engaged, I learnt, with great sur- prise, how little Lockhart's own abridgment of the larger Life, published in 1848, and here reprinted, was known, even among professed admirers of Scott. The charms of the original work appear to have hindered its progress from the first, and to have justified Lockhart's unwillingness to undertake it.* I found that it was unknown to you, and that the able writer of an article which appeared in the Quarterly Revieio of January 1868, seemed also to have been ignorant * See the preface to this vtjlume. Vlll PREFATORY LETTER. of it, for he refers to the "veil of mystery" which Lockhart had thrown over the story of Scott's first and unsuccessful love, and which, while denying its necessity, he declines to withdraw ; yet in this abridgment the names of the lady and of her eventual husband are both fully given (p. 64). This circumstance, and a further consideration of the subject, led me to abandon altogether the idea of a new Life. Lockhart had a personal familiarity with his subject, and the command of a mass of materials such as cannot fall to the share of any other writer ; and therefore, even if his mode of dealing with his subject were less admirable than it confessedly is, his larger work would, of necessity, form the foundation of any fresh attempt. But when we examine that work, and observe the skill of its construction, its wonderful diction, and the glow of feeling which per- vades it, the conclusion seems inevitable that any effort, worthy of the name, must take the form either of a review or of an abridgment of this great model of biography. But as regards a review, the Quarterly has within a few years furnished, in the article above mentioned, nearly all that could be desired ; and, for a good abridgment, conditions are required which scarcely any one but the author himself can properly fulfil. A work of art in writing is subject to the same rules as one in painting or in architecture. Those PREFATORY LETTER. IX who seek to represent it in a reduced form, must, above all things, study its proportions, and make their reduction equal over all its parts. But in the case of written composition there are no mechanical appli- ances, as there are in painting and architecture, for varying the scale, and there is, moreover, a greater difficulty in catching the leading principle of the design, and thus establishing the starting-point for the process which is to follow. Hence an abridgment by the author himself must necessarily be the best, indeed the only true abridg- ment of what he has intended in his larger work ; and I deem it a very fortunate thing that Cadell's influence overcame Lockhart's repugnance to the task. These, then, are my reasons for proposing to the public, as the best of all the easier modes of studying the life of Scott, the cheap and convenient reprint to which this letter is prefixed. Nor is it an objection, to my mind, that it is the work of one who grudged to shorten, and wished rather to extend ; for, though many of those for whom Lockhart wrote have passed, or are passing, from the scene, and much of the pri- vate interest which attended Scott's manifold rela- tions with almost every class of his contemporaries must by degrees die out, there is an abiding reason why Scott's personal history should not be too freely generalised, and an abstract notion be substituted for the real man. X PREFATORY LETTER. When Keble, himself a true admirer of Scott, seeka to restrain unquiet minds by telling them that — , "The trivial round, the common task," afford ample means for attaining to Christian perfec- tion, he points to a rule of life which it is most difficult to observe, whether in the pursuit of holiness or in the exercise of natural gifts. But in Scott, if in any man, what was remarkable was the sustained and continuous force of his character. It is to be traced in the smallest things as well as in the greatest, in his daily habits as much as in his public actions, in his fancies and follies as well as in his best and wisest doings. Everywhere we find the same power of imagination, and the same energy of will; and though it has been said that " no man is a hero to his valet de chambre," I am satisfied that Scott's most familiar attendant never doubted his greatness, or looked upon him with less respect than those who judged him as he stood forth amidst the homage of the world. In dealing with such a character, it is hardly necessary to say that the omission of details becomes, after a certain point, a serious injury to the truth of the whole portrait; and if any man should object that this volume is not short enough, I should be tempted to answer, that if he reads by foot-rule, he had better not think of studying, in any shape, the life of Walter Scott. But besides the reduction of bulk, by which eighty- PREFATORY LETTER. XI four chapters have been compressed into eighteen, this edition has other claims upon attention. The larger Life, which was first published in seven volumes in 1837-8, was succeeded by one in ten volumes in 1839, and by another in one volume, with double columns, in 1842 ; but though both the latter were entered at Stationers' Hall a3 new editions "with alterations," and did, in fact, each differ, in some respects, from the original edition, and from each other,, yet Lockhart did not think the changes worthy of a public notice, and the preface of the edition of 1837-8 was published, unaltered, with the two later editions. But the preface of the abridgment of 1848 intimates changes arising from later information, and the book itself more than bears out this promise. Time and death had been at work in the interval, and to these causes we owe some alterations and additions of interest. One of these I have already mentioned, and I cannot refrain from recommending to special notice the touching memorials of Scott's two sons, Walter and Charles, which occur towards the con- clusion of this volume. Those who read them will see new proofs of that depth and tenderness of feeling which Lockhart, in daily life, so often hid under an almost fierce reserve, and will be able to form some idea — though, after all, it can be but a very faint one — of what he suffered on the death of his surviving son. Xll PREFATORY LETTER. They may imagine too how much he was spared by dying before his only daughter — that daughter whose singular likeness to her mother must have continually recalled to him both the features and the character of her of whom he wrote — " She whom I may now sadly record as, next to Sir Walter himself, the chief ornament and delight at all those simple meetings — she to whom I owed my own place in them — Scott's eldest daughter, the one of all his children who, in countenance, mind, and manners, most resembled himself, and who indeed was as like him in all things as a gentle innocent woman can ever be to a great man deeply tried and skilled in the struggles and perplexities of active life — she too is no more."* As regards the preparation of this reprint, I have not been able to do what I had proposed. It was my intention to have revised the text, and to have added notes ; but, as the time which I had destined for this work drew near, it pleased God suddenly to stay my hand, and so to occupy my thoughts that even this easy task became impossible to me. With the excep- tion, therefore, of the change of form from two volumes to one, and of the addition f of a short and * See Chapter liv. of the larger biography. Who but Lock- hart himself would have dared to reduce this passage to the monumental terseness of the two lines which occur at p. 801 of this abridgment ? t See the footnote to page 804. \, Cal. PREFATORY LETTER. xili melancholy notice, which it seemed impossible to withhold, this narrative goes forth as Lockhart left it ; and since I am sure that I could not have added to its substantial interest without unduly increasing its bulk, I feel but little regret that my intention failed. And now, my dear Gladstone, Vive valeque. You have already earned a noble place in the history of your country, and, though there is one great subject on whioh we differ, I am able heartily to desire that your future career may be as distinguished as your past. But since it is only too certain that the highest honours of statesmanship can neither be won nor held without exertions which are full of danger to those who make them, I will add the further wish, that you may long retain, as safeguards to your health, your happiness, and your usefulness, that fresh and versatile spirit, and that strong sense of the true and the beautiful, which have caused you to be addressed on this occasion by Your affectionate friend, JAMES R. HOPE SCOTT. The Riqht Hon. W. E. Gladstone, kc. &c. PREFACE. TlIE closing pages of this book will explain the transac- tion from which it sprang. When in May 1847 the publisher of Sir Walter Scott's Works proposed to take to himself the whole remaining Copyright in them, he stipulated that I should prepare an abridgment of the Memoirs of the Author, originally comprised in seven volumes, and since reprinted in various forms. If I had been to consult my own feelings, I should have been more willing to produce an enlarged edition : for the interest of Sir Walter's history lies, I think, even pecu- liarly, in its minute details — especially in the details set down by himself in his Letters and Diaries: and, of course, after the lapse of ten years, more copious use might be made of those materials without offence or in- decorum. Mr Cadell, however, considered that a book of smaller bulk, embracing only what may be called more strictly narrative, might be acceptable to certain classes of readers : and the manner in which this gentleman had throughout conducted himself towards Sir Walter, his family, and his memory — together with otlier circum- stances on which it is not necessary to say more — overcame my reluctance. It will be understood that whenever the narrative now given at all differs from that of the larger book, I have been endeavouring to profit by letters recently communi- cated. J. G. L. Londoh, Uh August 1848. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Pase Memoir of Sir Walter Scott's early tears, written BY HIMSELF, ... . . • * CHAPTER II. Call to the Bar— Early Friendships and Pursuits— Excur- sions to the Highlands and Border — Light-Horse Volun- teers — Disappointment in Love — Publication of Ballads •" after Burger— 1792-1797, 57 CHAPTER III. Tour to the English Lakes— Miss Carpenter— Marriage— Lass wade Cottage — Original Ballads— Monk Lewis— Goetz of Berlichengen— John Leyden— James Hogg— James Ballan- tyne— Sheriffship of Selkirk— Publication of the Minstrelsy ^ of the Border— 1797-1803, 97 CHAPTER IV. Contributions to the Edinburgh Review — Wordsworth- Hogg— Sir Tristrem— Removal to Ashesteil— Mungo Park —Publication of the Lay of the Last Minstrel— Partner- ship with James Ballantyne— Visit to London— Appoint- ment as Clerk of Session— 1804-1806, . • .139 XVU1 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. Page Marmion — Edition of Dryden, &c. — Morritt — Domestic Life — Quarrel with Constable & Co. — John Ballantyne started as a Publisher — The Quarterly Review begun — 1806- 1809, 193 CHAPTER VI. London — Theatrical Anecdotes — Byron's Satire — The Lady \J of the Lake — Excursion to the Hebrides — Vision of Don Roderick — Byron — Davy — Crabbe — Purchase of Abbots- ford— 1809-1812, 243 CHAPTER VII. Publication of Rokeby and the Bridal of Triermain — Com- mercial difficulties — Reconciliation with Constable — Death of Weber — Voyage to the Shetland, Orkney, and Hebri- dean Islands — Publication of the Life and Works of Swift — andofWaverley— 1812-1814, 278 CHAPTER VIII. Publication of the Lord of the Isles and Guy Mannering — Meeting with Byron — Carlton House Dinner — Excursion to Paris — Publication of the Field of Waterloo — Paul's Letters — The Antiquary — Harold the Dauntless, and the First Tales of my Landlord— 1815-1816, . . 317 CHAPTER IX. Serious illness — Laidlaw settled at Kaeside, and the Fergus- sons at Huntley Burn — New house begun — Washington Irving — Publication of Rob Roy and the Heart of Mid- Lothian— Scott in Edinburgh— 1817-1818, . . .363 CONTENTS. XIX CHAPTER X. Paga Sketches of Abbotsford — Illness and Domestic Afflictions— The Bride of Lammermoor— The Legend of Montrose— Ivanhoe— 1818-1819, 41 ° CHAPTER XI. Scott's Baronetcy— Portrait by Lawrence, and Bust by Chan- t r ey— Presidency of the Royal Society of Edinburgh- Hospitalities and Sports at Abbotsford— Publication of the Monastery— The Abbot— and Kenilworth— 1820, . . 456 CHAPTER XII. Death of John Ballantyne— and William Erskine— George IV. at Edinburgh— Visits of Mr Crabbe and Miss Edge- worth— Reminiscences by Mr Adolphus— Publication of Lives of the Novelists— Halidon Hill— The Pirate— The Fortunes of Nigel— Peveril of the Peak— Quentin Durward —and St Ronan's Well— 1821-1823, . . - -486 CHAPTER XIII. Publication of Redgauntlet- Abbotsford completed— Marriage of Captain Scott— Constable's Miscellany projected— Life of Napoleon begun — Tales of the Crusader3 published— Tour iu Ireland— Visit to Windermere— Moore at Abbotsford— Rumours of evil among the Booksellers -1824-1 825, . 553 CHAPTER XIV. Ruin of the Houses of Constable and Ballantyne— Death of Lady Scott — Publication of Woodstock — Journey to London and Paris— Publication of the Life of Napoleon - 1825-1827, . ... 606 XX CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. Page Death of Constable — Controversy with Gourgaud— Excursion to Durham — Publication of the Chronicles of the Canon- gate and Tales of a Grandfather — Religious Discourses — Fair Maid of Perth— Anne of Geierstein — Threatening of Apoplexy— Death of Thomas Purdie — 1827-1829, . 661 CHAPTER XVI. Publication of the Ayrshire Tragedy — Letters on Demonology — Tales on the History of France, &c. — Apoplectic seizure — Retirement from the Court of Session— Offers of a pen- sion and of additional rank declined — Count Robert of Paris begun— Death of George IV. — Political Commotions —Fourth Epistle of Malagrowther — Speech on reform at Jedburgh— 1830-1831, ... .703 CHAPTER XVII. Apoplectic Paralysis— Miss Ferrier— Election Scenes at Jed- burgh and Selkirk— Castle Dangerous begun — Excursion to Douglasdale— Visits of Captain Burns and Wordsworth — Departure from Abbotsford — London — Voyage in the Barham— Malta — Naples — Rome — Notes by Mrs Davy, Sir W. Gell, and Mr E. Cheney— Publication of the last Tales of my Landlord— 1831-1832, . . . .728 CHAPTER XVIII. Return to England — Seizure at Nimeguen — Jermyn Street, London — Edinburgh — Abbotsford — Death and funeral of Scott in September 1832 — His Character — Monuments to his Memory — Pictures, Busts, and Statues, . . 766 Index, 813 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. CHAPTER I. MEMOIR OF HIS EARLY YEARS, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. Ashestiel, April 26th, 1808. The present age has discovered a desire, or rather a rage, for literary anecdote and private history, that may be well permitted to alarm one who has engaged in a certain degree the attention of the public. That I have had more than my own share of popularity, my contemporaries will be as ready to admit as I am to confess that its measure has exceeded not only my hopes, but my merits, and even wishes. I may be therefore permitted, without an extra- ordinary degree of vanity, to take the precaution of re- cording a few leading circumstances (they do not merit the name of events) of a very quiet and uniform life- — that, should my literary reputation survive my temporal exis- tence, the public may know from good authority all that they are entitled to know of an individual who has contri- buted to their amusement. From the lives of some poets a most important moral lesson may doubtless be derived, and few sermons can be read with so much profit as the Memoirs of Burns, of Chatterton, or of Savage. Were I conscious of any thing peculiar in my own moral character which could render such devclopcment necessary or useful, I would as readilv A* LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. consent to it as I would bequeath my body to dissection, if the operation could tend to point out the nature and the means of curing any peculiar malady. But as my habits of thinking and acting, as well as my rank in society, were fixed long before I had attained, or even pretended to, any poetical reputation, 1 and as it produced, when acquired, no remarkable change upon either, it is hardly to be expected that much information can be derived from minutely investi- gating frailties, follies, or vices, not very different in num- ber or degree from those of other men in my situation. As / 1 have not been blessed with the talents of Burns or Chat- terton, I have been happily exempted from the influence of their violent passions, exasperated by the struggle of feel- ings which rose up against the unjust decrees of fortune. Yet, although I cannot tell of difficulties vanquished, and distance of rank annihilated by the strength of genius, • those who shall hereafter read this little Memoir may find in it some hints to be improved, for the regulation of their own minds, or the training those of others. Every Scottishman has a pedigree. It is a national prerogative, as unalienable as his pride and his poverty. 1 I do not mean to say that my success in literature has not led me to mix familiarly in society much above my birth and original pretensions, since I have been readily received in the first circles in Britain. But there is a certain intuitive knowledge of the world, to which most well-educated Scotchmen are early trained, that prevents them from being much dazzled by this species of elevation. A man who to good nature adds the general rudiments of good breeding, provided he rest contented with a simple and unaffected manner of behaving and expressing himself, will never be ridiculous in the best society, and, so far as his talents and information permit, may be an agreeable part of the company. I have therefore never felt much elevated, nor did I experience any violent change in situation, by the passport which my poetical character afforded me into higher company than my birth war- ranted.— 1826. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. ! bfccC My birth was neither distinguished nor sordid. According to the prejudices of my country, it was esteemed gentle, as 1 1 was connected, though remotely, with ancient families both by my father's and mother's side. My father's grand- father was Walter Scott, well known in Teviotdale by the surname of Beardie. He was the second son of Walter Scott, first Laird of Raeburn, who was third son of Sir William Scott, and the grandson of Walter Scott, com- monly called in tradition Auld Watt of Harden. I am therefore lineally descended from that ancient chieftain, whose name I have made to ring in many a ditty, and from nis fair dame, the Flower of Yarrow — no bad genealogy for a Border minstrel. 1 Beardie, my great-grandfather aforesaid, derived his cognomen from a venerable beard, which he wore unblemished by razor or scissors, in token' 1 [In whom the male representation of the old Scotts of Bue- cleuch is now vested, there is great dispute among heraldic wri- ters, — some upholding the claim of Lord Napier, the male heir of the Scotts of Thirlestane, — others that of Lord Polwarth, head of what was always considered, in point of importance, the second family of the clan, viz., the Scotts of Harden, origi- nally designed Scotts of Sinton. Of his ancestors of this branch, Sir Walter has recorded many anecdotes in the notes to the Border Minstrelsy, the Lay of the last Minstrel, and elsewhere. In conversation he often alluded to the remarkable circumstance of two of them having been lame, and, nevertheless, both especially distinguished by the old rhythmical chronicler of the clan, Scott of Satchells (1688), who says of the first, — ■ " It la four hundred winters past in order Since that Buccleuch was Warden in the Border ; A son he had at that same tide, Which was so lame could neither run nor ride. John, this lame, if my author speaks true, lie sent him to St Mungo's in Glasgu, Where he remained a scholar's time, Then he married a wife according to his mind. . . . And betwixt them twa they did procreat Headshaw, Askirk, Sinto.n, and alack." Bnt, if the scholarship of John the Lamiter furnished his debcend- ant with many a mirthful allusion, a far greater favourite was the 4 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. of his regret for the banished dynasty of Stuart. It would have been well that his zeal had stopped there. But he took arms, and intrigued in their cause, until he lost all he had in the world, and, as I have heard, run a narrow risk of being hanged, had it not been for the inter- ference of Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, Beardie's elder brother, William Scott of Raeburn, my great-granduncle, was killed about the age of twenty-one, in a duel with Pringle of Crichton, grandfather of the present Mark Pringle of Clifton. They fought with swords, as was the fashion of the time, in a field near Sel- kirk, called from the catastrophe the Raeburn Meadow- spot. Pringle fled from Scotland to Spain, and was long a captive and slave in Barbary. Beardie became, of course, Tutor of Raeburn, as the old Scottish phrase called him — that is, guardian to his infant nephew, father of the present Walter Scott of Raeburn. He also managed the estates of Makerstoun, being nearly related to that family by his mother^ Isobel MacDougal. I suppose he had some allow- ance for his care in either case, and subsisted upon that and the fortune which he had by his wife, a Miss Campbell of Silvercraigs, in the west, through which connexion my father used to call cousin, as they say, with the Campbells of Blythswood. Beardie was a man of some learning, and a friend of Dr Pitcairn, to whom his politics probably made him acceptable. They had a Tory or Jacobite club in Edinburgh, in which the conversation is said to have been maintained in Latin. memory of William the Boltfoot, who followed hiin in the sixth generation " The Laird and Lady of Harden Betwixt them procreat was a son Called William Boltfoot of Harden- ing did survive to be a man. He was, in fact, one of the " prowest knights " of the whole genea- logy — a fearless horseman and expert spearsman, renowned &nd dreaded. — Ed.] AUTOBIOGRAPHY. O He left three sons. The eldest, Walter, had a family, of which any that now remain have been long settled in •America : — the male heirs are long since extinct. The third was William, father of James Scott, well known in India as one of the original settlers of Prince of Wales island. The second, Robert Scott, -was my grandfather. He -was originally bred to the sea ; but, being shipwrecked near Dundee in his trial-voyage, he took such a sincere dislike to that element, that he could not be persuaded to a second attempt. This occasioned a quarrel beween him and his father, who left him to shift for himself. Robert was one of those active spirits to whom this was no misfor- tune. He turned Whig upon the spot, and fairly abjured his father's politics, and his learned poverty. His chief and relative, ]\Ir Scott of Harden, gave him a lease of the farm of Sandy-Knowe, comprehending the rocks in the centre of which Smailholm or Sandy-Knowe Tower is situ- ated. He took for his shepherd an old man called Hogg, who willingly lent him, out of respect to his family, his whole savings, about £30, to stock the new farm. With this sum, which it seems was at the time sufficient for the purpose, the master and servant set off to purchase a stock of sheep at Whitsun-Tryste, a fair held on a hill near Wooler in Northumberland. The old shepherd went care- fully from drove to drove, till he found a Mrsel likely to answer their purpose, and then returned to tell his master to come up and conclude the bargain. But what was his surprise to see him galloping a mettled hunter about the race-course, and to find he had expended the whole stock in this extraordinary purchase ! — Moses's bargain of green spectacles did not strike more dismay into the Vicar of Wakefield's family, than my grandfather's rashness into the poor old shepherd. The thing, however, was irre- trievable, and they returned without the sheep. In the course of a few days, however, my grandfather, who was one of the best horsemen of his time, attended John Scott < 6 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. of Harden's hounds on this same horse, and displayed him to such advantage that he sold him for double the original price. The farm was now stocked in earnest ; and the ■ rest of my grandfather's career was that of successful indus- try. He was one of the first who were active in the cattle trade, afterwards carried to such extent between the High- lands of Scotland and the leading counties in England, and by his droving transactions acquired a considerable sum of money. He was a man of middle stature, extremely ac- tive, quick, keen, and fiery in his temper, stubbornly honest, and so distinguished for his skill in country matters, that he was the general referee in all points of dispute which occurred in the neighbourhood. His birth being admitted as gentle, gave him access to the best society in the county, and his dexterity in country sports, particularly hunting, made him an acceptable companion in the field as well as at the table. 1 Kobert Scott of Sandy-Knowe, married, in 1728, Bar- bara Haliburton, daughter of Thomas Haliburton of New- mains, an ancient and respectable family in Berwickshire. Among other patrimonial possessions, they enjoyed the part of Dryburgh, now the property of the Earl of Buchan, comprehending the ruins of the Abbey. My granduncle, Kobert Haliburton, having no male heirs, this estate, as well as the representation of the family, would have de- volved upon my father, and indeed Old Newmains had settled it upon him ; but this was prevented by the mis- fortunes of my granduncle, a weak silly man, who engaged in trade, for which he had neither stock nor talents, and became bankrupt. The ancient patrimony was sold for a trifle (about £3000), and my father, who might have pur- 1 The present Lord Haddington, and other gentlemen conver- sant with the south country, remember my grandfather well. Ha was a fine alert figure, and wore a jockey cap over his grey hair. — 1826. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 7 chased it with ease, was dissuaded by my grandfather, who at that time believed a more advantageous purchase might have been made of some lands which Raeburn thought of selling. And thus we have nothing left of Dryburgh, although my father's maternal inheritance, but the right of stretching our bones where mine may perhaps be laid ere any eye but my own glances over these pages. "W alter Sco tt, my father, was born in 1729, and educated to the profession of a "Writer to the Signet. He was the eldest of a large family, several of whom I shall have occa- sion to mention with a tribute of sincere gratitude. My father was a singular instance of a man rising to eminence in a profession for which nature had in some degree unfitted him. He had indeed a turn for labour, and a pleasure in analyzing the abstruse feudal doctrines connected with con- veyancing, which would probably have rendered him un- rivalled in the line of a special pleader, had there been such a profession in Scotland ; but in the actual business of the profession which he embraced, in that sharp and intuitive perception which is necessary in driving bargains for himself and others, in availing himself of the wants, necessities, caprices, and follies of some, and guarding against the knavery and malice of others, Uncle Toby himself could not have conducted himself with more simplicity than my father. Most attorneys have been suspected, more or less justly, of making their own fortune at the expense of their clients — my father's fate was to vindicate his calling from the stain in one instance, for in many cases his clients con- trived to ease him of considerable sums. Many worshipful and be-knighted names occur to my memory, who did him the honour to run in his debt to the amount of thousands, and to pay him with a lawsuit, or a commission of bankruptcy, as the case happened. But they are gone to a different accounting, and it would be ungenerous to visit their dis- grace upon their descendants. My father was wont also to give openings, to those who were pleased to take them, to g LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. pick a quarrel with him. He had a zeal for his clients which was almost ludicrous : far from coldly discharging the duties of his employment towards them, he thought for them, felt for their honour as for his own, and rather risked disobliging them than neglecting anything to which he con- ceived their duty bound them. If there was an old mother or aunt to be maintained, he was, I am afraid, too apt to administer to their necessities from what the young heir had destined exclusively to his pleasures. This ready discharge of obligations which the Civilians tell us are only natural and not legal, did not, I fear, recommend him to his em- ployers. Yet his practice was, at one period of his life, very extensive. He understood his business theoretically, and was early introduced to it by a partnership with George Chalmers, Writer to the Signet, under whom he had served his apprenticeship. His person and face were uncommonly handsome, with an expression of sweetness of temper, which was not falla- cious ; his manners were rather formal, but full of genuine kindness, especially when exercising the duties of hospitality. His general habits were not only temperate, but severely abstemious^ but upon a festival occasion, there were few whom a moderate glass of wine exhilarated to such a lively de°ree. His religion, in which he was devoutly sincere, was Calvinism of the strictest kind, and his favourite study related to church history. I suspect the good old man was often engaged with Knox and Spottiswoode's folios, when, iuiniured in his solitary room, he was supposed to be im- mersed in professional researches. In his political principles he was a steady friend to freedom, with a bias, however, to the monarchical part of our constitution, which he considered as peculiarly exposed to danger during the later years of his life. He had much of ancient Scottish prejudice respecting the forms of marriages, funerals, christenings, and so forth, and was always vexed at any neglect of etiquette upon such occasions. As his education had not been upon an enlarged AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 9 plan, it could not be expected that he should be an en- lightened scholar, but he had not passed through a busy life •without observation ; and his remarks upon times and manners often exhibited strong traits of practical though untaught philosophy. Let me conclude this sketch, which I am imconscious of having overcharged, with a few lines written by the late Mrs Cockburn 1 upon the subject. They made one among a set of poetical characters -which were given as toasts among a few friends, and we must hold them to contain a striking likeness, since the original was recog- nised so soon as they were read aloud : — " To a thing that 's uncommon — a youth of discretion, Who, though vastly handsome, despises flirtation : To the friend in affliction, the heart of affection, Who may hear the last trump without dread of detection." In April 1758, my father married Anne Rutherford, eldest dajughter of Dr John Rutherford, professor of medi- cine in the University of Edinburgh. He was one of those pupils of Boerhaave, to whom the school of medicine in our northern metropolis owes its rise, and a man distinguished for professional talent, for lively wit, and for literary ac- quirements. Dr Rutherford was twice married. His first wife, of whom my mother is the sole surviving child, was a daughter of Sir John Swinton of Swinton, a family which produced many distinguished warriors during the middle ages, and which, for antiquity and honourable alliances, may rank with any in Britain. My grandfather's second wife was Miss Mackay, by whom he had a second family, of whom are now (1808) alive, Dr Daniel Rutherford, professor of botany in the University of Edinburgh, and Misses Janet and Christian Rutherford, amiable and accomplished women. 1 Mrs Cockhurn (born Miss Rutherford of Fairnalie) was the authoress of the beautiful song — " 1 Have seen the smiling of fortune beguiling " 10 LIVE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. My father and mother had a very numerous family, no fewer, I believe, than twelve children, of whom many were highly promising, though only five survived very early youth. My eldest brother Robert was bred in the King's service, and was in most of Rodney's battles. His temper was bold and haughty, and to me was often checkered with what I felt to be capricious tyranny. In other respects I loved him much, for he had a strong turn for literature, read poetry with taste and judgment, and composed verses himself, which had gained him great applause among his messmates. Witness the following elegy upon the supposed loss of the vessel, composed the night before Rodney's celebrated battle of April the 12th, 1782. It alludes to the various amuse- ments of his mess : — " No more the geese shall cackle on the poop, No more the bagpipe through the orlop sound, No more the midshipmen, a jovial group, Shall toast the girls, and push the bottle round. In death's dark road at anchor fast they stay, Till Heaven's loud signal shall in thunder roar ; Then starting up, all hands shall quick obey, Sheet home the topsail, and with speed unmoor." Robert sung agreeably — (a virtue which was never seen in me ) — understood the mechanical arts, and when in good humour, could regale us with many a tale of bold adventure and narrow escapes. When in bad humour, however, he gave us a practical taste of what was then man-of-war's discipline, and kicked and cuffed without mercy. I have often thought how he might have distinguished himself had he continued in the navy until the present times, so glorious for nautical exploit. But the peace of 1783 cut off all hopes of promotion for those who had not great interest ; and some disgust which his proud spirit had taken at harsh usage from a superior officer, combined to throw poor Robert into the East-India Company's service, for which AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 1 1 his habits were ill adapted. He made two voyages to the East, and died a victim to the climate. John Scott, my second brother, is about three years older than nig. He addicted himself to the military service, °[ and is now brevet-major in the 73d regiment. 1 I had an only sister, Anne Scott, who seemed to be from her cradle the butt for mischance to shoot arrows at. Her childhood was marked by perilous escapes from the most extraordinary accidents. Among others, I remember an iron-railed door leading into the area in the centre of George's Square being closed by the wind, while her fingers were betwixt the hasp and staple. Her hand was thus locked in, and must have been smashed to pieces, had not the bones of her fingers been remarkably slight and thin. As it was, the hand was cruelly mangled. On another occasion, she was nearly drowned in a pond, or old quarry- hole, in what was then called Brown's Park, on the south side of the square. But the most unfortunate accident, and which, though it happened while she was only six years old, proved the remote cause of her death, was her cap acci- dentally taking fire. The child was alone in the room, and before assistance could be obtained, her head was dreadfully scorched. After a lingering and dangerous illness, she re- covered — but never to enjoy perfect health. The slightest cold occasioned swellings in her face, and other indications of a delicate constitution. At length [in 1801], poor Anne was taken ill, and died after a very short interval. Her temper, like that of her brothers, was peculiar, and in her, perhaps, it shewed more odd, from the habits of indulgence which her nervous illness had formed. But she was at 1 He was this year made major of the second battalion by the kind intercession of Mr Canning at the War-Office — 1809. He retired from the army, and kept house with my mother. His health was totally broken, and he died, yet a young man, on 8th May 1816.— 1826. 12 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. heart an affectionate and kind girl, neither void of talent nor of feeling, though living in an ideal world which she had framed to herself by the force of imagination. Anne was my junior by about a year. A year lower in the list was my brother Thomas Scott, who is still alive. 1 Last, and most unfortunate of our family, was my youngest brother, Daniel. With the same aversion to labour, or rather, I should say, the same determined indolence that marked us all, he had neither the vivacity of intellect which supplies the want of diligence, nor the pride which renders the most detested labour better than depend- ence or contempt. His career was as unfortunate as might be augured from such an unhappy combination ; and, after various unsuccessful attempts to establish himself in life, he died on his return from the West Indies, in July 1806. Having premised so much of my family, I return to my own story. I was born, as I believe, on the 15th August 1771, in a house belonging to my father, at the head of the College Wynd. It was pulled down, with others, to make room for the northern front of the new College. I was an uncommonly healthy child, but had nearly died in conse- quence of my first nurse being ill of a consumption, a cir- cumstance which she chose to conceal, though to do so was murder to both herself and me. She went privately to consult Dr Black, the celebrated professor of chemistry, who 1 Poor Tom, a man of infinite humour and excellent parts, pur- sued for some time my father's profession ; but he was unfortunate, from engaging in speculations respecting farms and matters out of the line of his proper business. He afterwards became paymaster of the 70th regiment, and died in Canada. Tom married Elizabeth, a daughter of the family of M'Culloch of Ardwell, an ancient Gal- wegian stock, by whom he left- a son, Walter Scott, now second lieutenant of Engineers in the East India Company's service, Bom- bay — and three daughters, Jessie, married to Lieutenant-Colonel Huxley ; 2. Anne; 3. Eliza — the two last still unmarried — 1826. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 13 put my father on his guard. The woman was dismissed, and I was consigned to a healthy peasant, who is still alive to boast of her laddie being what she calls a grand gentleman. I .shewed every sign of health and strength until I was about eighteen months old. One night, I have been often told, I shewed great reluctance to be caught and put to bed ; and after being chased about the room, was appre- hended and consigned to my dormitory with some difficulty. It was the last time I was to shew such personal agility. In the morning, I was discovered to be affected with the fever which often accompanies the cutting of large teeth. It held me three days. On the fourth, when they went to bathe me as usual, they discovered that I had lost the power of my right leg. My grandfather, an excellent anatomist as well as physician, the late worthy Alexander Wood, and many others of the most respectable of the faculty, were consulted. There appeared to be no dislocation or sprain ; blisters and other topical remedies were applied in vain. When the efforts of regular physicians had been exhausted, without the slightest success, my anxious parents, during the course of many years, eagerly grasped at every prospect of cure which was held out by the promise of empirics, or of ancient ladies or gentlemen who conceived themselves entitled to recommend various remedies, some of which were of a nature sufficiently singular. But the advice of my grandfather, Dr Rutherford, that I should be sent to reside in the country, to give the chance of natural exer- tion, excited by free air and liberty, was first resorted to ; and before I have the recollection of the slightest event, I was, agreeably to this friendly counsel, an inmate in the ,, farm-house of Sandy-Knowe. ' An odd incident is worth recording. It seems my mo- ther had sent a maid to take charge of me, that I might be no inconvenience in the family. But the damsel sent on that important mission had left her heart behind her, in the keeping of some wild fellow, it is likely, who had 14 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. done and said more to her than he was like to make good. She became extremely desirous to return to Edinburgh, and as my mother made a point of her remaining where she was, she contracted a sort of hatred at poor me, as the cause of her being detained at Sandy-Knowe. This rose, I suppose, to a sort of delirious affection, for she confessed to old Alison Wilson, the housekeeper, that she had carried me up to the Craigs, meaning, under a strong temptation of the Devil, to cut my throat with her scissors, and bury me in the moss. Alison instantly took possession of my person, and took care that her confidant should not be subject to any farther temptation, so far as I was concerned. She was dismissed, of course, and I have heard became afterwards a lunatic. 1 1 [The epistle prefixed to the 6th canto of Marmion, contains a charming picture of the infant poet's feelings amidst the scenery and associations of Smailholm Tower and Sandy-Knowe. " It was a barren scene and wild, Where naked cliffs were rudely piled," Ac. &c. There are still (1836) living in that neighbourhood two old wo- men, who were in the domestic service of Sandy-Knowe, when the lame child was brought thither in the third year of his age. One of them, Tibby Hunter, remembers his coming well ; and that " he was a sweet-tempered bairn, a darling with all about the house." The young ewe-milkers delighted, she says, to carry him about on their backs among the crags ; and he was " very gleg (quick) at the uptake, and soon kenned every sheep and lamb by head-mark as well as any of them." His great pleasure, however, was in the society of the " aged hind" recorded in the epistle to Erskine. " Auld Sandy Ormiston," called, from the most dignified part of his func- tion, " the Cow-bailie," who had the chief superintendence of the flocks that browsed upon "the velvet tufts of loveliest green." If the child saw him in the morning, he could not be satisfied unless the old man would set him astride on his shoulder, and take him to keep him company as he lay watching his charge. " Here was poetic impulse given By the green hill and clear blue heaven." The Cow-bailie blew a particular note on his whistle, which signi- AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 15 It is here at Sandy-Knowe, in the residence of my paternal grandfather, already mentioned, that I have the first jxmsciousness of existence ; and I recollect distinctly that my situation and appearance were a little whimsical. Among the odd remedies recurred to to aid my lameness, some one had recommended, that so often as a sheep was killed for the use of the family, I should be stripped, and swathed up in the skin, warm as it was flayed from the carcase of the animal. In this Tartar- like habiliment I well remember lying upon the floor of the little parlour in the farm-house, while my grandfather, a venerable old man with white hair, used every excitement to make me try to 'crawl. I also distinctly remember the late Sir George MacDougal of Mackerstoun, father of the present Sir Henry Hay MacDougal, joining in this kindly attempt. He was, God knows how, 1 a relation of ours, and I still fied to the maid servants in the house below when the little hoy wished to be carried home again. He told his friend, Mr Skene of Kubislaw, when spending a summer day in his old age among these well-remembered crags, that he delighted to roll about on the grass all day long in the midst of the flock, and that " the sort of fellowship he thus formed with the sheep and lambs had im- pressed his mind with a degree of affectionate feeling towards them which had lasted throughout life." There is a story of his having been forgotten one day among the knolls when a thunder storm came on ; and his aunt, suddenly recollecting his situation, and running out to bring him home, is said to have found him lying on his back, clapping his hands at the lightning, and crying out, " Bonny ! bonny !" at every flash. — Ed.] 1 He was a second-cousin of my grandfather's. Isobel Mac- Dougal, wife of Walter, the first Laird of Raeburn, and mother of Walter Scott, called Beardie, was grand aunt, I take it, to the late Sir George MacDougal. There was always great friendship be- tween us and the Makerstoun family. It singularly happened, that at the burial of the late Sir Henry MacDougal, my cousin William Scott, younger of Raeburn, and I myself, were the nearest blood- relations present, although our connexion was of so old a date, and ranked as pall-bearers accordingly. — 1826. 16 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. recollect him in his old-fashioned military habit (he had been colonel of the Greys), with a small cocked hat, deeply laced, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, and a light-co- loured coat, with milk-white locks tied in a military fashion, kneeling on the ground before me, and dragging his watch along the carpet to induce me to follow it. The benevolent old soldier and the 'infant wrapped in his sheepskin would have afforded an odd group to uninterested spectators. This must have happened about my third year, for Sir George MacDougal and my grandfather both died shortly after that period. My grandmother continued for some years to take charge of the farm, assisted by my father's second brother, Mr Thomas Scott, who resided at Crailing, as factor or land- steward for Mr Scott of Danesfield, then proprietor of that estate. 1 This was during the heat of the American war,: and I remember being as anxious on my uncle's weekly visits (for we heard news at no other time) to hear of the defeat of Washington, as if I had had some deep and per- sonal cause of antipathy to him. I know not how this was combined with a very strong prejudice in favour of the Stuart family, which I had originally imbibed from the songs and tales of the Jacobites. This latter political pro- pensity was deeply confirmed by the stories told in my hearing of the cruelties exercised in the executions at Car- lisle, and in the Highlands, after the battle of Culloden. One or two of our own distant relations had fallen on that occasion, and I remember of detesting the name of Cum- berland with more than infant hatred. Mr Curie, farmer ^ 1 My uncle afterwards resided at Elliston, and then took from Mr Cornelius Elliot the estate of Woollee. Finally he retired to Monklaw, in the neighbourhood of Jedburgh, where he died, 1823, at the advanced age of ninety years, and in full possession of his faculties. It was a fine thing to hear him talk over the change of the country which he had witnessed. — 1826. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. at Yetbyre, husband of one of my aunts, had been present at their execution ; and it was probably from him that I first heard these tragic tales which made so great an im- pression On me. Thpjnfal irifnrmafi'n n, whir h-E-rwrmDiVo had some share in forming my future taste and pursuits, -^T'deriVetrrrom the~ oIcTsongs and tales which then formed the amusement of a retired country .family. My grand- mother, in whose youth the old Border depredations were matter of recent tradition, used to tell me many a tale of Watt of Harden, Wight Willie oFAlkwood, Jamie TeTferof the fair Dodhead, and other heroes — merrymen all of the persuasion and calling of Robin Hood and Little John. A more recent hero, but not of less note, was the cele- brated Did of Littledean, whom she well remembered, as he had married her mother's sister. Of this extraordinary person I learned many a story, grave and gay, comic and warlike. Two or three old books which lay in the window- seat were explored for my amusement in the tedious winter days. Automathes, and Kamsay's Tea-table Miscellany, were my favourites, although at a later period an odd volume of Josephus's Wars of the Jews divided my par- tiality. My kind and affectionate aunt, Miss Janet Scott, whose memory will ever be dear to me, used to read these works to me with admirable patience, until I could repeat lon<* passages by heart. The ballad of Hardyknute I was early master of, to the great annoyance of almost our only visiter, the worthy clergyman of the parish, Dr Duncan, who had not patience to have a sober chat interrupted by my shouting forth this ditty. Methinks I now see his tall thin emaciated figure, his legs cased in clasped gambadoes, and his face of a length that would have rivalled the Knight of La Mancha's, and hear him exclaiming, " One may as well speak in the mouth of a cannon as where that child is." With this little acidity, which was natural to him, he was a most excellent and benevolent man, a gentleman in B* j g LIKE OF SIK WALTER SCOTT. every feeling, and altogether different from those of his order who cringe at the tables of the gentry, or domineer and riot at those of the yeomanry. In his youth he had been chaplain in the family of Lord Marchmont— had seen p p e _and could talk familiarly of many characters who had survived the Augustan age of Queen Anne. Though valetudinary, he lived to be nearly ninety, and to welcome to Scotland his son, Colonel William Duncan, who, with the highest character for military and civil merit, had made a considerable fortune in India. In [1795], a few days before his death, I paid him a visit, to inquire after his health. I found him emaciated to the last degree, wrapped in a tartan night-gown, and employed with all the activity of health and youth in correcting a history of the Revolu- tion, which he intended should be given to the public when he was no more. He read me several passages with a voice naturally strong, and which the feelings of an author then raised above the depression of age and declining health. I begged him to spare this fatigue, which could not but injure his health. His answer was remarkable. " I know," lie said, " that I cannot survive a fortnight — and what sig- nifies an exertion that can at worst only accelerate my death a few days ?" I marvelled at the composure of this reply, for his appearance sufficiently vouched the truth of his prophecy, and rode home to my uncle's (then my abode), musing what there could be in the spirit of author- ship that could inspire its votaries with the courage of martyrs. He died within less than the period he assigned — with which event I close my digression. . I was in my fourth year when my father was advised that the Bath waters might be of some advantage to my lame- ' ness. My affectionate aunt, although such a journey pro- mised to a person of her retired habits any thing but plea- sure or amusement, undertook as readily to accompany me to the wells of Bladud, as if she had expected all the delight that ever the prospect of a watering-place held out AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 1 9 to its most impatient visitants. My health was by this time a good deal confirmed by the country air, and the influence of that imperceptible and unfatiguing exercise to which the good sense of my grandfather had subjected me ; for when the day was fine, I was usually carried out and laid down beside the old shepherd, among the crags or rocks round which he fed his sheep. The impatience of a child soon inclined me to struggle with my infirmity, and I began by degrees to stand, to walk, and to run. Although the limb affected was much shrunk and contracted, my general health, which was of more importance, was much strength- ened by being frequently in the open air ; and, in a word, I who in a city had probably been condemned to hopeless and helpless decrepitude, was now a healthy, high-spirited, and, my lameness apart, a sturdy child — non sine diis ani- mosus infans. We went to London by sea, and it may gratify the curi- osity of minute biographers to learn that our voyage was performed in the Duchess of Buccleuch, Captain Beatson, master. At London we made a short stay, and saw some of the common shows exhibited to strangers. When, twenty-five years afterwards, I visited the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, I was astonished to find how accurate my recollections of these celebrated places of visitation proved to be, and I have ever since trusted more implicitly to my juvenile reminiscences. A t Ba $h, where I lived about a jyear, I went through all the usual discipline of the pump-room and baths, but I believe with- out the least advantage to my lameness. During my resi- dence at Bath, I acquired the rudiments of reading at a day-school, kept by an old dame near our lodgings, and I had never a more regular teacher, although I think I did not attend her a quarter of a year. An occasional lesson from my aunt supplied the rest. Afterwards, when grown a big boy, I had a few lessons from Mr Stalker of Edin- burgh, and finally from the Rev. Mr Cleevo But I never 20 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SOOTT. acquired a just pronunciation, nor could I read with much propriety. In other respects my residence at Bath is marked by very pleasing recollections. The venerable John Home, author of Douglas, was then at the watering-place, and paid much attention to my aunt and to me. His wife, who has survived him, was then an invalid, and used to take the air in her carriage on the Downs, when I was often invited to accompany her. But the most delightful recollections of Bath are dated after the arrival of my uncle, Captain Robert Scott, who introduced me to all the little amuse- ments which suited my age, and above all, to the theatre. The play was As You Like It ; and the witchery of the whole scene is alive in my mind at this moment. I made, I believe, noise more than enough, and remember being so much scandalized at the quarrel between Orlando and hia brother in the first scene, that I screamed out, " A'n't they brothers ?' u A few weeks' residence at home convinced me, who had till then been an only child in the house of my grandfather, that a quarrel between brothers was a very natural event. The other circumstances I recollect of my residence in Bath are but trifling, yet I never recall them without a feeling of pleasure. The beauties of the parade (which of them I know not), with the river of Avon winding around it, and the lowing of the cattle from the opposite hdls, are warm in my recollection, and are only rivalled by the splendours of a toy-shop somewhere near the Orange Grove. I had acquired, I know not by what means, a kind of superstitious terror for statuary of all kinds. No an- cient Iconoclast or modern Calvinist could have looked on the outside of the Abbey church (if I mistake not the princi- pal church at Bath is so called) with more horror than the 1 [See Scott's Eeview of the Life of John Kemblo, MiscelL Prose, vol. xx. p. 154.— Ed. J AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 21 image of Jacob's Ladder, with all its angels, presented to my infant eye. My uncle effectually combated my terrors, and formally introduced me to a statue of Neptune, which perhaps still keeps guard at the side of the Avon, where a pleasure boat crosses to Spring Gardens. After being a year at Bath, I returned first to Edin- burgh, and afterwards for a season to Sandy-Knowe ; — and thus the time whiled away till about my eighth year, when it was thought sea-bathing might be of service to my lame- ness. For this purpose, still under my aunt's protection, I re- mained some weeks at Prestonpans ; a circumstance not worth mentioning, excepting to record my juvenile inti- macy with an old military veteran, Dalgetty by name, who had pitched his tent in that little village, after all his cam- paigns, subsisting upon an ensign's half-pay, though called by courtesy a Captain. As this old gentleman, who had been in all the German wars, found very few to listen to his tales of military feats, he formed a sort of alliance with me, and I used invariably to attend him for the plea- sure of hearing those communications. Sometimes our conversation turned on the American war, which was then raging. It was about the time of Burgoyne's unfortunate expedition, to which my Captain and I augured different conclusions. Somebody had shewed me a map of North America, and, struck with the rugged appearance of the country, and the quantity of lakes, I expressed some doubts on the subject of the General's arriving safely at the end of his journey, which were very indignantly refuted by the Captain. The news of the Saratoga disaster, while it gave me a little triumph, rather shook my intimacy with the ve- teran. 1 1 Besides this veteran, I found another ally at Prestonpans, in the person of George Constable, an old friend of my father's, edu- cated to the law, but retired upon his independent property, and generally residing near Dundee. He had many of those pecu- 22 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. From Prestonpans I was transported back to my father's house in George's Square, 1 which continued to be my most established place of residence, until my marriage in 1797. I felt the change from being a single indulged brat, to be- coming a member of a large family, very severely, for under the gentle government of my kind grandmother, who was meekness itself, and of my aunt, who, though of an higher temper, was exceedingly attached to me, I had acquired a degree of licence which could not be permitted in a large family. I had sense enough, however, to bend my temper to my new circumstances ; but such was the agony 1 [No. 25.] liarities of temper which long afterwards I tried to develope in the character of Jonathan Oldbuck. It is very odd, that though I am unconscious of anything in which I strictly copied the manners of my old friend, the resemblance was nevertheless detected by George Chalmers, Esq., solicitor, London, an old friend, both of my father and Mr Constable, and who affirmed to my late friend, Lord Kinedder, that I must needs be the author of The Antiquary, since he recognised the portrait of George Constable. But my friend George was not so decided an enemy to womankind as his representative Monkbarns. On the contrary, I rather suspect that he had a tendresse for my aunt Jenny, who even then was a most beautiful woman, though somewhat advanced in life. To the close of her life, she had the finest eyes and teeth I ever saw, and though she could be sufficiently sharp w r hen she had a mind, her general behaviour was genteel and ladylike. However this might be, I derived a great deal of curious information from George Constable, both at this early period, and afterwards. He was con- stantly philandering about my aunt, and of course very kind to me. He was the first person who told me about Falstaff and Hot- spur, and other characters in Shakspeare. What idea I annexed to them I know not, but I must have annexed some, for I remem- ber quite well being interested on the subject. Indeed, I rather suspect that children derive impulses of a powerful and important kind in hearing things which tliey cannot entirely comprehend ; and therefore, that to write down to children's understanding is a mistake : set them on the scent, and let them puzzle it out. To AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 23 which I internally experienced, that I have guarded against nothing more in the education of my own family, than against their acquiring habits of self-willed caprice and domination. I found much consolation during this period of mortification, in the partiality of my mother. She joined to a light and happy temper of mind a strong turn to study poetry and works of imagination. She was sincerely devout, but her religion was, as became her sex, of a cast less austere than my father's. Still, the discipline of the Presbyterian Sabbath was severely strict, and I think injudiciously so. Although Bunyan's Pilgrim, Ges- return to George Constable : I knew him well at a much later pe- riod. He used always to dine at my father's house of a Sunday, and was authorized to turn the conversation out of the austere and Calvinistic tone, which it usually maintained on that day, upon subjects of history or auld langsyne. He remembered the forty- five, and told many excellent stories, all with a strong dash of a peculiar caustic humour. George's sworn ally as a brother antiquary was John Davidson, then Keeper of the Signet ; and I remember his flattering and compelling me to go to dine there. A writer's apprentice with the Keeper of the Signet, whose least officer kept us in order !— It was an awful event. Thither, however, I went with some secret expectation of a scantling of good claret. Mr D. had a son whose taste inclined him to the army, to which his father, who had de- signed him for the bar, gave a most unwilling consent. He was at this time a young officer, and he and I, leaving the two seniors to proceed in their chat as they pleased, never once opened our mouths either to them or each other. The Pragmatic Sanction happened unfortunately to become the theme of their conversation, when Constable said in jest, "Now, John, Til wad you a plack that neither of these two lads ever heard of the Pragmatic Sanc- tion."—" Not heard of the Pragmatic Sanction !" said John Davidson • " I would like to see that ;" and with a voice of thun- der he asked his son the fatal question. As young D. modestly allowed he knew nothing about it, his father drove him from tne table in a rage, and I absconded during the confusion ; nor could Constable ever bring me back ngain to his friend Dav.dson's.- 1826. 24 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. ner's Death of Abel, Rowe's Letters, and one or two other books, which, for that reason, I still have a favour for, were admitted to relieve the gloom of one dull ser- mon succeeding to another— there was far too much tedium annexed to the duties of the day; and in the end it did none of us any good. My week-day tasks were more agreeable. My lameness and my solitary habits had made me a tolerable reader, and my hours of leisure were usually spent in reading aloud to my mother Pope's translation of Homer, which, ex- cepting a few traditionary ballads, and the songs in Allan Ramsay's Evergreen, was the first poetry which I perused. My mother had good natural taste and great feeling : she used to make me pause upon those passages which ex- pressed generous and worthy sentiments, and if she could not divert me from those which were descriptive of battle and tumult, she contrived at least to divide my atten- tion between them. My own enthusiasm, however, was ) chiefly awakened by the wonderful and the terrible— the/ common taste of children, but in which I have remained a child even unto this day. I got by heart, not as a task, but almost without intending it, the passages with which I was most pleased, and used to recite them aloud, both when alone and to others— more willingly, however, in my hours of solitude, for I had observed some auditors smile, and I dreaded ridicule at that time of life more than I have ever done since. In [1778] I was sent to the second class of the Gram- mar School, or High School of Edinburgh, then taught by Mr Luke Fraser, a good Latin scholar and a very wor- thy man. Though I had received, with my brothers, in private, lessons of Latin from Mr James French, now a minister of the Kirk of Scotland, I was nevertheless rather behind the class in which I was placed both in years and in progress. This was a real disadvantage, and one to which a boy of lively temper and talents ought to be as ' STATE NORMAL SCtt&GL, ATJTOBIOGRAPJTY. 25 little exposed as one who might be less expected to make up his lee-way, as it is called. The situation has the un- fortunate effect of reconciling a boy of the former charac- ter (which in a posthumous work I may claim for my own) to holding a subordinate station among his class-fellows — to which he woidd otherwise affix disgrace. There is also, from the constitution of the High School, a certain danger not sufficiently attended to. The boys take precedence in their places, as they are called, according to their merit, and it requires a long while, in general, before even a clever boy, if he falls behind the class, or is put into one for which he is not quite ready, can force his way to the situation 'which his abilities really entitle him to hold. But, in the meanwhile, he is necessarily led to be the associate and companion of those inferior spirits with whom he is placed ; for the system of precedence, thougli it does not limit the general intercourse among the boys, has never- theless the effect of throwing them into clubs and coteries, according to the vicinity of the seats they hold. A boy of good talents, therefore, placed even for a time among his inferiors, especially if they be also his elders, learns to participate in their pursuits and objects of ambition, which are usually very distinct from the acquisition of learning ; and it will be well if he does not also imitate them in that indifference which is contented with bustling over a lesson so as to avoid punishment, without affecting superiority or aiming at reward. It was probably owing to this circum- stance, that, although at a more advanced period of life I have enJQyed considerable facility in acquiring languages, I did not make any great figure at the High School — or, at least, any exertions which I made were desultory and little to be depended on. 1 Our class contained some very excellent scholars. The 1 [The story of Green-lireks, and other passages in the General Preface to the Waverley Novels, afford some curious glimpses of High School life in Scott's days. — En.] 26 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. first Dux was James Buchan, -who retained his honoured place, almost without a day's interval, all the while we were at the High School. He was afterwards at the head of the medical staff in Egypt, and in exposing himself to the plague infection, by attending the hospitals there, dis- played the same well-regulated and gentle, yet determined perseverance, which placed him most worthily at the head of his school-fellows, while many lads of livelier parts and dispositions held an inferior station. The next best scho- lars (sed longo intervallo) were my friend David Douglas, the heir and eleve of the celebrated Adam Smith, and James Hope, now a Writer to the Signet, both since well known and distinguished in their departments of the law. As for myself, I glanced like a meteor from one end of the class to the other, and commonly disgusted my kind master as much by negligence and frivolity, as I occasionally pleased him by flashes of intellect and talent. Among my companions, my good-nature and a flow of ready imagina- tion rendered me very popular. Boys are uncommonly just in their feelings, and at least equally generous. My lame-' ness, and the efforts which I made to supply that disadvan- tage, by making up in address what I wanted in activity, , . engaged the latter principle in my favour ; and in the win- ter play hours, when hard exercise was impossible, my tales used to assemble an admiring audience round Lucky Brown's fire-side, and happy was he that could sit next to the inexhaustible narrator. I was also, though often neg- ligent of my own task, always ready to assist my friends ; and hence I had a little party of staunch partisans and ad- herents, stout of hand and heart, though somewhat dull of head — the very tools for raising a hero to eminence. So, on the whole, I made a brighter figure in the yards than in the class. 1 1 I read not long since, in that authentic record called the Percy Anecdotes, that I had been educated at Musselburgh school, where AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 27 My father did not trust our education solely to our High School lessons. We had a tutor at home [Mr James Mitchell], a young man of an excellent disposition, and a laborious student. He was bred to the Kirk, but unfortu- nately took such a very strong turn to fanaticism, that he afterwards resigned an excellent living in a seaport town, merely because he could not persuade the mariners of the guilt of setting sail of a Sabbath, — in which, by the by, he was less likely to be successful, as, ceteris paribus, sailors, from an opinion that it is a fortunate omen, always choose to weigh anchor on that day. The calibre of this young man's understanding may be judged of by this anecdote ; but in other'respects, he was a faithfid and active instructor ; and from him chiefly I learned writing and arithmetic. I repeated to him my French lessons, and studied with him my themes in the classics, but not classically. I also acquired, by disputing with him (for this he readily permitted), some knowledge of school-divinity and church-history, and a great acquaintance in particular with the old books describ- ing the early history of the Church of Scotland, the wars and sufferings of the Covenanters, and so forth. I, with a head on fire for chivalry, was a Cavalier ; my friend was a Roundhead : I was a Tory, and he was a Whig. I hated Presbyterians, and admired Montrose with his vic- torious Highlanders; he liked the Presbyterian Ulysses, the dark and politic Argyle : so that we never wanted sub- jects of dispute ; but our disputes were always amicable. In all these tenets there was no real conviction on my part, I had been distinguished as an absolute dunce ; only Dr Blair, seeing farther into the mill-stone, had pronounced there was fire in it. I never was at Musselburgh school in my life, and though I have met Dr Blair at my father's and elsewhere, I never had the good fortune to attract his notice, to my knowledge. Lastly, I was never a dunce, nor thought to be so, but an incorrigibly idle imp, who was always longing to do something elso than what was enjoined him. —1826 28 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. arising out of acquaintance with the views or principles of either party ; nor had my antagonist address enough to turn the debate on such topics. I took up my politics at that period, as King Charles II. did his religion, from an idea that the Cavalier creed was the more gentlemanlike persuasion of the two. After having been three years under Mr Fraser, our class was, in the usual routine of the school, turned over to Dr Adam, the Rector. It was from this respectable man that I first learned the value of the knowledge I had hitherto considered only as a burdensome task. It was the fashion to remain two years at his class, where we read Caesar, and Livy, and Sallust, in prose ; Virgil, Horace, and Terence, in verse. I had by this time .mastered, in some degree, the difficulties of the language, and began to be sensible of its beauties. This was really gathering grapes from thistles ; nor shall I soon forget the swelling of my little pride when the Rector pronounced, that though many of my school-fellows understood the Latin better, Gualterus Scott was behind few in following and enjoying the au- thor's meaning. Thus encouraged, I distinguished myself by some attempts at poetical versions from Horace and Virgil. 1 Dr Adam used to invite his scholars to such essays, but never made them tasks. I gained some dis- tinction upon these occasions, and the Rector in future took 1 [One of these little pieces, written in a weak boyish scrawl, within pencilled marks still visible, had been carefully preserved by his mother ; it was folded up in a cover inscribed by the old lady — "My Walter's first lines, 1782." " In awful ruins Mtna. thunders nigh, ' And sends in pitchy whirlwinds to the sky Black clouds of smoke, which, still as they aspire. From their dark sides there bursts the glowing fire; At other times huge balls of fire are toss'd, That lick the stars, and in the smoke are lost : Sometimes the mount, with vast convulsions torn, Emits huge rocks, which instantly are borne With loud explosions to the starry skies, The stones made liquid as the huge mass flies. Then back again with greater weight recoils, 7/hile ^Etna thundering from the bottom boils. •*— Ed ] AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 29 much notice of me ; and his judicious mixture of censure and praise went far to counterbalance my habits of indo- lence and inattention. I saw I was expected to do well, and I was piqued in honour to vindicate my master's favour- able opinion. I climbed, therefore, to the first form ; and, though I never made a first-rate Latinist, my school-fellows, and what was of more consequence, I myself, considered that I had a character for learning to maintain. Dr Adam, to whom I owed so much, never failed to remind me of my obligations when I had made some figure in the literary world. He was, indeed, deeply imbued with that fortunate vanity which alone could induce a man who has arms to pare anefburn a muir, to submit to the yet more toilsome task of cultivating youth. As Catholics confide in the im- puted righteousness of their saints, so did the good old Doctor plume himself upon the success of his scholars in life, all of which he never failed (and often justly) to claim as the creation, or at least the fruits, of his early instruc- tions. He remembered the fate of every boy at his school during the fifty years he had superintended it, and always traced their success or misfortunes entirely to their atten- tion or negligence when under his care. His " noisy man- sion," which to others would have been a melancholy bedlam, was the pride of his heart ; and the only fatigues he felt, amidst din and tumult, and the necessity of reading themes, hearing lessons, and maintaining some degree of order at the same time, were relieved by comparing himself to Caesar, who could dictate to three secretaries at once ; — so ready is vanity to lighten the labours of duty. It is a pity that a man so learned, so admirably adapted for his station, so useful, so simple, so easily contented, should have had other subjects of mortification. But the magistrates of Edinburgh, not knowing the treasure they possessed in Dr Adam, encouraged a savage fellow, called Nicol, one of the undermasters, in insulting his person and 80 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. authority. This man was an excellent classical scholar, and an admirable convivial humourist (which latter quality re- commended him to the friendship of Burns) ; but worthless, drunken, and inhumanly cruel to the boys under his charge.' He carried his feud against the Rector within an inch of assassination, for he waylaid and knocked him down in the dark. The favour which this worthless rival obtained in the town-council led to other consequences, which for some time clouded poor Adam's happiness and fair fame When the French Revolution broke out, and parties ran h lg h m approving or condemning it, the Doctor incauti- ously joined the former. This was very natural, for as all his ideas of existing governments were derived from his ex- perience of the town-council of Edinburgh, it must be admitted they scarce brooked comparison with the free states of Rome and Greece, from which he borrowed his opinions concerning republics. His want of caution in speaking on the political topics of the day lost him the re- spect of the boys, most of whom were accustomed to hear very different opinions on those matters in the bosom of their families. This, however (which was long after my time), passed away with other heats of the period, and the Doctor continued his labours till about a year since, when he was struck with palsy while teaching his class. He survived a few days, but becoming delirious before his dis- solution, conceived he was still in school, and after some expressions of applause or censure, he said, " But it grows dark— the boys may dismiss,"— and instantly expired. From Dr Adam's class I should, according to the usual routine, have proceeded immediately to college. But, for- tunately, I was not yet to lose, by a total dismission 'from constraint, the acquaintance with the Latin which I had acquired. My health had become rather delicate from rapid growth, and my father was easily persuaded to allow me to spend half-a-year at Kelso with my kind aunt, Miss AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 3 1 Janet Scott, whose inmate I again became. It was hardly worth mentioning that I had frequently visited her during our short vacations. At this time she resided in a small house, situated very pleasantly in a large garden, to the eastward of the church- yard of Kelso, which extended down to the Tweed. It was then my father's property, from whom it was after- wards purchased by my uncle. My grandmother was now dead, and my aunt's only companion, besides an old maid- servant, was my cousin, Miss Barbara Scott, now Mrs Meik. My time was here left entirely to my own disposal except- ing for about four hours in the day, when I was expected to attend the Grammar-school of the village. The teacher, at that time, was Mr Lancelot Whale, an excellent classical scholar, a humourist, and a worthy man. He had a su- preme antipathy to the puns which his very uncommon name frequently gave rise to ; insomuch, that he made his son spell the word Wale, which only occasioned the young man being nicknamed the Prince of Wales by the military mess to which he belonged. As for Whale, senior, the least allusion to Jonah, or the terming him an odd fish, or any similar quibble, was sure to put him beside himself. In point of knowledge and taste, he was far too good for the situation he held, which only required that he should give his scholars a rough foundation in the Latin language. My time with him, though short, was spent greatly to my ad- vantage and his gratification. He was glad to escape to Persius and Tacitus from the eternal Rudiments and Cor- nelius Nepos ; and as perusing these authors with one who began to understand them was to him a labour of love, I made considerable progress under his instructions. I sus- pect, indeed, that some of the time dedicated to me was withdrawn from the instruction of his more regular scholars ; but I was as grateful as I could. I acted as usher, and heard the inferior classes, and I spouted the speech of Galgacus at the public examination, which did not make, LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. the less impression on the audience that few of them pro- bably understood one word of it. In the mean while my acquaintance with English litera- ture was gradually extending itself. In the intervals of my school hours I had always perused with avidity such books of history or poetry or voyages and travels as chance presented to me — not forgetting the usual, or rather ten times the usual, quantity of fairy tales, eastern stories, ^romances, &c. These studies were totally unregulated and undirected. My tutor thought it almost a sin to open a profane play or poem ; and my mother, besides that she might be in some degree trammelled by the religious scruples which he suggested, had no longer the opportu- nity to hear me read poetry as formerly. I found, how- ever, in her dressing-room (where I slept at one time) some odd volumes of Shakspeare, nor can I easily forget the rap- ture with which I sate up in my shirt reading them by the light of a fire in her apartment, until the bustle of the family rising from supper warned me it was time to creep back to my bed, where I was supposed to have been safely deposited since nine o'clock. Chance, however, threw in my way a poetical preceptor. This was no other than the excellent and benevolent Dr Biacklock, well known at that time as a literary character. I know not how I attracted his attention, and that of some of the young men who boarded in his family ; but so it was that I became a fre- quent and favoured guest. The kind old man opened to me the stores of his Ubrary, and through his recommenda- tion I became intimate with Ossian and Spenser. I was delighted with both, yet I think chiefly with the latter poet. The tawdry repetitions of the Ossianic phraseology disgusted me rather sooner than might have been expected from my age. But Spenser I could have read for ever. Too young to trouble myself about the allegory, I considered all the knights and ladies and dragons and giants in their outward and exoteric sense, and God only knows how delighted I AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 88 was to find myself in such society. As I had always a wonderful facility in retaining in my memory whatever verses pleased me, the quantity of Spenser's stanzas which I could repeat was really marvellous. But this memory of mine was a very fickle ally, and has through my whole life acted merely upon its own capricious motion, and might have enabled me. to adopt old Beattie of Meikledale's answer, when complimented by a certain reverend divine on the strength of the same faculty: — " No, sir," answered the old Borderer, " I have no command of my memory. It only retains what hits my fancy, and probably, sir, if you were to preach to me for two hours, I would not be able when you finished to remember a word you had been say- ing." My memory was precisely of the same kind : it seldom failed to preserve most tenaciously a favourite passage of poetry, a play-house ditty, or, above all, a Border-raid ballad ; but names, dates, and the other tech- nicalities of history, escaped me in a most melanchoh degree. The philosophy of history, a much more impor-^ tant subject, was also a sealed book at this period of my life ; but I gradually assembled much of what was striking and picturesque in historical narrative ; and when, in riper years, I attended more to the deduction of general princi- ples, I was furnished with a powerful host of examples in illustration of them. I was, in short, like an ignorant gamester, who kept up a good hand until he knew how to play it. I left the High School, therefore, with a great quantity of general information, ill arranged, indeed, and collected without system ; yet deeply impressed upon my mind ; readily assorted by my power of connexion and memory, and gilded, if I may be permitted to say so, by a vivid and active imagination. If my studies were not under any direction at Edinburgh, in the country, it may be well imagined, they were less so. A respectable subscription library, a circulating library of ancient standing, and some C * 34 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. private book-shelves, were open to my random perusal, and I waded into the stream like a blind man into a ford, with- out the power of searching my way, unless by groping for it. My appetite for books was as ample and indiscriminating as it was indefatigable,, and I since have had too frequently reason to repent that few ever read so much, and to so little purpose. Among the valuable acquisitions I made about this time, was an acquaintance with Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, through the flat medium of Mr Hoole's translation. But above all, I then first became acquainted with Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry. As I had been from infancy devoted to legendary lore of this nature, and only reluctantly withdrew my attention, from the scarcity of materials and the rudeness of those which I possessed, it may be imagined, but cannot be described, with what de- light I saw pieces of the same kind which had amused my childhood, and still continued in secret the Delilahs of my imagination, considered as the subject of sober research, grave commentary, and apt illustration, by an editor who shewed his poetical genius was capable of emulating the best qualities of what his pious labour preserved. I re- member well the spot where I read these volumes for the first time. It was beneath a huge platanus-tree, in the ruins of what had been intended for an old-fashioned arbour in the garden I have mentioned. The summer-day sped onward so fast, that notwithstanding the sharp appetite of thirteen, I forgot the hour of dinner, was sought for with anxiety, and was still found entranced in my intellectual banquet. To read and to remember was in this instance the same thing, and henceforth I overwhelmed my school- fellows, and all who would hearken to me, with tragical recitations from the ballads of Bishop Percy. The°first time, too, I could scrape a few shillings together, which were not common occurrences with me, I bought unto my- self a copy of these beloved volumes ; nor do I believe I AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 35 ever read a book half so frequently, or with half the en- thusiasm. About this period also I became acquainted with the works of Richardson, and those of Mackenzie — (whom in later years I became entitled to call my friend) — with Fielding, Smollet, and some others of our best novelists. v To this period also I can trace" distinctly the awaking of ' that delightful feeling for the beauties of natural object? which has never since deserted me. The neighbourhood of Kelso, the most beautiful, if not the most romantic village in Scotland, is eminently calculated to awaken these ideas./ It presents objects, not only grand in themselves, but venerable from their association. The meeting of two superb rivers, the Tweed and the Teviot, both renowned in song — the ruins of an ancient Abbey — the more distant vestiges of Roxburgh Castle — the modern mansion of Fleurs, which is so situated as to combine the ideas of ancient baronial grandeur with those of modern taste — are in them- selves objects of the first class ; yet are so mixed, united, and melted among a thousand other beauties of a less prominent description, that they harmonize into one general picture, and please rather by unison than by concord. I believe I have written unintelligibly upon this subject, but it is fitter for the pencil than the pen. The romantic feelings) which I have described as predominating in my mind, naturally rested upon and associated themselves with these grand features of the landscape around me ; and the his- torical incidents, or traditional legends connected with many of them, gave to my admiration a sort of intense impres-, sion of reverence, which at times made my heart feel too big ftir its bosom. From this time the love of natural beauty, more especially when combined with ancient ruins, or remains of our fathers' piety or splendour, became with me an insatiable passion, which, if circumstances had per- mitted, I would willingly have gratified by travelling ovei half the globe. 36 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTf. I was recalled to Edinburgh about the time when the College meets, and put at once to the Humanity class, under Mr Hill, and the first Greek class, taught by Mr Dalzell. The former held the reins of discipline very loosely, and though beloved by his students— for he was a good-natured man as well as a good sfcholar— he had not the art of exciting our attention as well as liking. This was a dangerous character with whom to trust one who relished labour as little as I did; and amid the riot of his class I speedily lost much of what I had learned under Adam and Whaie. At the Greek class, I might have made a better figure, for Professor Dalzell maintained a great deal of authority, and was not only himself an admirable scholar, but was always deeply interested in the progress of his students. But here lay the villany. Almost all my com- panions who had left the High School at the same time with myself, had acquired a smattering of Greek before they came to College. I, alas ! had none ; and finding my- self far inferior to all my fellow-students, I could hit upon no better mode of vindicating my equality than by profess- ing my contempt for the language, and my resolution not to learn it. A youth who died early, himself an excellent Greek scholar, saw my negligence and folly with pain, in- stead of contempt. He came to call on me in George's Square, and pointed out in the strongest terms the silliness of the conduct I had adopted, told me I was distinguished by the name of the Greek Blockhead, and exhorted me to redeem my reputation while it was called to-day. My stubborn pride received this advice with sulky civility ; the birth of my Mentor (whose name was Archibald, the son of an inn-keeper) did not, as I thought in my folly, authorize him to intrude upon me his advice. The other was not sharp-sighted, or his consciousness of a generous intention overcame his resentment. He offered me his daily and nightly assistance, and pledged himself to bring me forward with the foremost of my class. I felt some twinges of con- AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 37 (science, but they were unable to prevail over my pride and self-conceit. The poor lad left me more in sorrow than in anger, nor did we ever meet again. All hopes of my pro- gress in the Greek were now over ; insomuch that when we were required to write essays on the authors we had studied, I had the audacity to produce a composition in which I weighed Homer against Ariosto, and pronounced him wanting in the balance. I supported this heresy by a profusion of bad reading and flimsy argument. The wrath of the Professor was extreme, while at the same time he could not suppress his surprise at the quantity of out-of- the-way knowledge which I displayed. He pronounced upon me the severe sentence — that dunce I was, and dunce was to remain — which, however, my excellent and learned friend lived to revoke over a bottle of Burgundy, at our literary Club at Fortune's, of which he was a distinguished member. Meanwhile, as if to eradicate my slightest tincture oi Greek, I fell ill during the. middle of Mr Dalzell's second class, and migrated a second time to Kelso — where I agauo continued a long time reading what and how I pleased, and of course reading nothing but what afforded me immediate entertainment. The only thing which saved my mind from utter dissipation, was that turn for historical pursuit, which never abandoned me even at the idlest period. I had for- sworn the Latin classics for no reason I know of, unless be- cause they were akin to the Greek ; but the occasional perusal of Buchanan's history, that of Mathew of Paris, anil other monkish chronicles, kept up a kind of familiarity with the language even in its rudest state. But I forgot tbe very letters of the Greek alphabet ; a loss never to be re- paired, considering what that language is, and who they were who employed it in their compositions. About this period — or soon afterwards — myfather judged it proper I should study mathematics ; a study upon which I entered with all the ardour of novelty. My tutor was 38 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. an aged person, Dr MacFait, who had in his time been distinguished as a teacher of this science. Age, however, and some domestic inconveniences, had diminished his pupils, and lessened his authority amongst the few who remained. I think, that had I been more fortunately placed for in- struction, or had I had the spur of emulation, I might have made some progress in this science,, of which, under the circumstances I have mentioned, I only acquired a very superficial smattering. In other studies I was rather more fortunate. I made some progress in Ethics under Professor John Bruce, and was selected as one of his students whose progress he ap- proved, to read an essay before Principal Robertson. I was farther instructed in Moral Philosophy at the class of Mr Dugald Stewart, whose striking and impressive elo- quence riveted the attention even of the most volatile student. To sum up my academical studies, I attended the class of History, then taught by the present Lord Woodhouselee, and, as far as I remember, no others, excepting those of the Civil and Municipal Law. So that, if my learning be flimsy and inaccurate, the reader must have some compas- sion even for an idle workman who had so narrow a foun- dation to build upon. If, however, it should ever fall to the lot of youth to peruse these pages — let such a reader re- member, that it is with the deepest regret that I recollect in/ my manhood the opportunities of learning which I neglectec in my youth ; that through every part of my literary career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance ;\ and that I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the good fortune to acquire, if by doinc so I could rest the remaining part upon a sound foundation of learning and science. I imagine my father's reason for sending me to so few classes in the College, was a desire that I should apply my- self particularly to my legal studies. He had not determined whether I should fill the situation of an Advocate or a AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 39 Writer ; but judiciously considering the technical know- ledge of the latter to be useful at least, if not essential, to a barrister, he resolved I should serve the ordinary ap- prenticeship of five years to his own profession. I accord- ingly entered into indentures with my father about 1785—6 and entered upon the dry and barren wilderness of forms and conveyances. I cannot reproach myself with being entirely an idle apprentice — far less, as the reader might reasonably have expected, " A clerk foredoom 'd my father's soul to cross." The drudgery, indeed, of the office I disliked, and the con- finement I altogether detested ; but I loved my father, and I felt the rational pride and pleasure of rendering myself useful to him. I was ambitious also ; and among my com- panions in labour, the only way to gratify ambition was to labour hard and well. Other circumstances reconciled me in some measure to the confinement. The allowance for copy- money furnished a little fund for the mentis plaisirs of the circulating library and the Theatre ; and this was no trifling incentive to labour. When actually at the oar, no man could pull it harder than I ; and I remember writing up- wards of 120 folio pages with no interval either for food or rest. Again, the hours of attendance on the office were lightened by the power of choosing my own books, and reading them in my own way, which often consisted in beginning at the middle or the end of a volume. A deceased friend, who was a fellow-apprentice with me, used often to express his surprise that, after such a hop-step-and-jump perusal, I knew as much of the book as he had been able to acquire from reading it in the usual manner. My desk usually contained a store of most miscellaneous volumes, especially works of fiction of every kind, which were my su- preme delight. I might except novels, unless those of the better and higher class ; for though I read many of them. 40 LIFE OF 8IR WALTER SCOTT. yet it was with more selection than might have been ex- pected. The whole Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy tribe I abhorred ; and it required the art of Burney, or the feeling of Mackenzie, to fix my attention upon a domestic tale. But all that was adventurous and romantic I devoured without much discrimination, and I really believe I have read as much nonsense of this class as any man now living. Everything which touched on knight-errantry was particu- larly acceptable to me, and I soon attempted to imitate what I so greatly admired. My efforts, however, were in the manner of the tale-teller, not of the bard. My greatest intimate, from the days of my school-tide, was Mr John Irving, now a Writer to the Signet. 1 We I lived near each other, and by joint agreement were wont, each of us, to compose a romance for the other's amuse - J ment. These legends, in which the martial and the mira- culous always predominated, we rehearsed to each other during our walks, which were usually directed to the most solitary spots about Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags. We naturally sought seclusion, for we were conscious no small degree of ridicule would have attended our amuse- ment, if the nature of it had become known. Whole holi- days were spent in this singular pastime, which continued 1 [In speaking of the High School period, Mr John Irving says : " He began early to collect old ballads, and as my mother could repeat a great many, he used to come and learn those she could recite to him. He used to get all the copies of these ballads he could, and select the best." These, no doubt, were among the germs of a collection of ballads in six little volumes, which, from the hand- writing, had been begun at this early period, and which is still pre- served at Abbotsford. And it appears, that at least as early a date must be ascribed to another collection of little humorous stories in prose, the Penny Chap-books, as they are called, still in high favour among the lower classes in Scotland, which stands on the same shelf. In a letter of 1830, he states that he had bound up things of this kind to the extent of several volumes, before lie was ten years oW. — Ed.] AUTOBIOGRAPHY. . 41 for two or three years, and had, I believe, no small effect in directing the turn of my imagination to the: chivalrous and romantic in poetry and prose. Meanwhile, the translations of Mr Hoole having made me acquainted with Tasso and Ariosto, I learned from his notes on the latter, that the Italian language contained a fund of romantic lore. A part of my earnings was dedi- cated to an Italian class which I attended twice a-week, and rapidly acquired some proficiency. I had previously renewed and extended my knowledge of the French lan- guage, from the same principle of romantic research. Tres- san's romances, the Bibliotheque Bleue, and Bibliotheque de Romans, 'were already familiar to me ; and I now acquired similar intimacy with the works of Dante, Boiardo, Pulci, and other eminent Italian authors. I fastened also, like a tiger, upon every collection of old songs or romances which chance threw in my way, or which my scrutiny was able to discover on the dusty shelves of James Sibbald's circulating library in the Parliament Square. This collection, now dis- mantled and dispersed, contained at that time many rare and curious works, seldom found in such a collection. Mr Sibbald himself, a man of rough manners but of some taste and judgment, cultivated music and poetry, and in his shop I had a distant view of some literary characters, besides the privilege of ransacking the stores of old French and Italian books, which were in little demand among the bulk of his subscribers. Here I saw the unfortunate Andrew Mac- donald, author of Vimonda ; and here, too, I saw at a dis- tance, the boast of Scotland, Robert Burns. Of the lat- ter I shall presently have occasion to speak more fully. 1 1 [" As for Burns," he writes, " I may truly say, ' VirgiUuni vidi tantum.'' I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came fiist to Edinburgli. but had sense and feeling enough to be much interest- ed in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him ; but 1 had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, — the two sets that he most 42 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. I am inadvertently led to confound dates while I talk of this remote period, for, as I have no notes, it is impossible for me to remember with accuracy the progress of studies, if they deserve the name, so irregular and miscellaneous. frequented. Mr Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word, otherwise I might have seen more of this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor Fer- gusson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputa- tion, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr Dugald Stewart. Of course we youngsters sate silent, looked and listened. The only thing I remember which was remarkable in Burns' manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of Bunbury's, repre- senting a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on the one side, on the other his widow, with a child in her arms. These lines were written beneath, — • Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain. Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain ; Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew ; The bij drops, mingling with the milk he drew. Gave the sad presage of his future years. The child of misery baptised in tears.' Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Lang- home's, called by the unpromising title of ' The Justice of the Peace.' I whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received, and still recollect, with very great pleasure His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least in- trusive forwardness ; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it 'firmly, yet at the same time with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I ever see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he should."— Letter to J. G. L. 1827.] AUTOBIOGRAPH Y. 4 S But about the second year of my apprenticeship, my health, which from rapid growth and other causes, had been hither- to rather uncertain and delicate, was affected by the break • mg of a blood-vessel. The regimen I had to undergo on this occasion was far from agreeable. It was Spring, and the weather raw and cold, yet I was confined to bed with a single blanket, and bled and blistered till I scarcely had a pulse left. I had all the appetite of a growing boy, but was prohibited any sustenance beyond what was absolutely necessary for the support of nature, and that in vegetables alone. Above all, with a considerable disposition to talk, I was not permitted to open my lips without one or two old ladies who watched my couch being ready at once to souse upon me, " imposing silence with a stilly sound." 1 My only refuge was reading and playing at chess. To the romances and poetry, which I chiefly, delighted in, I had always added the study of history, especially as connected with military events. I was encouraged in this latter study by a toler- able acquaintance with geography, and by the opportu- nities I had enjoyed while with Mr MacFait to learn the meaning of the more ordinary terms of fortification. While, therefore, I lay in this dreary and silent solitude, I fell upon the resource of illustrating the battles I read of by the childish expedient of arranging shells, and seeds, and peebles, so as to represent encountering armies. Diminu- tive cross-bows were contrived to mimic artillery, and with the assistance of a friendly carpenter, I contrived to model a fortress, which, like that of uncle Toby, represented what- ever place happened to be uppermost in my imagination. I fought my way thus through Vertot's Knights of Malta — a book which, as it hovered between history and romance, was exceedingly dear to me ; and Orme's interesting and beauti- ful History of Indostan, whose copious plans, aided by the clear and luminous explanations of the author, rendered my 1 Home's Tragedy of Douglas. 44 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. imitative amusement peculiarly easy. Other moments of these weary weeks were spent in looking at the Meadow Walks, by assistance of a combination of mirrors so arranged that, while lying in bed, I could see the troops march out to exercise, or any other incident which occurred on that promenade. After one or two relapses, my constitution recovered the injury it had sustained, though for several months afterwards I was restricted to a severe vegetable diet. And I must say, in passing, that though I gained health under this ne- cessary restriction, yet it was far from being agreeable to me, and I was affected whilst under its influence with a nervous- ness which I never felt before or since. A disposition to start upon slight alarms — a want of decision in feeling and act- ing, which has not usually been my failing, an acute sensi- bility to trifling inconveniences — rand an unnecessary appre- hension of contingent misfortunes, rise to my memory as con- nected with my vegetable diet, although they may very possibly have been entirely the result of the disorder, and not of the cure. Be this as it may, with this illness I bade farewell both to disease and medicine ; for since that time, till the hour I am now writing, I have enjoyed a state of the most robust health, having only had to complain of oc- casional headaches or stomachic affections when I have been long without taking exercise, or have lived too con- vivially — the latter having been occasionally, though not habitually, the error of my youth, as the former has been of my advanced life. My frame gradually became hardened with my constitu- tion, and being both tall and muscular, I was rather dis- figured than disabled by my lameness. This personal disadvantage did not prevent me from taking much exer- cise on horseback, and making long journeys on foot, in the course of which I often walked from twenty to thirty miles a day. A distinct instance occurs to me. I re- member walking with poor James Ramsay, my fellow-ap- AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 45 prentice, now no more, and two other friends, to break- last at Prestonpans. We spent the forenoon in visiting the ruins at Seton and the field of battle at Preston — dined at Prestonpans on tiled haddocks very sumptuously — drank half a bottle of port each, and returned in the evening. This could not be less than thirty miles, nor do I remem- ber being at all fatigued upon the occasion. 1 These excursions on foot or horseback formed by far my most favourite amusement. I have all my life delighted in travelling, though I have never enjoyed that pleasure upon a large scale. It was a propensity which I sometimes in- 1 [If he is quite accurate in referring [Preface to Waverley No- vels) his first acquaintance with the Highlands to his fifteenth year, this incident belongs to the first season of his apprenticeship. His father had, among a rather numerous list of Highland clients, Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle, an enthusiastic Jacobite, who had survived to recount, in secure and vigorous old age, his active experiences in the insurrections both of 1715 and 1745. He had, it appears, attracted Walter's attention and admiration at a very early date ; for he speaks of having " seen him in arms," and heard him " exult in the prospect of drawing his claymore once more before he died," when Paul Jones threatened the descent on Edin- burgh ; which occurred in September 1779. The eager delight with which the young apprentice now listened to the tales of this fine old man's early days, produced an invitation to his residence among the mountains ; and to this excursion he probably devoted the few weeks of an autumnal vacation — whether in 1786 or 1787, it is of no great consequence to ascertain. It was, however, to his allotted task of enforcing the execution of a legal instrument against some Maclarens, refractory tenants of Stewart of Appin, brother- in-law to Invernahyle, that Scott owed his introduction to the scenery of the Lady of the Lake. " An escort of a sergeant and six men," he says, "was obtained from a Highland Regiment lying in Stirling, and the author, then a writer's apprentice, equivalent to the honourable situation of an attorney's clerk, was invested with the superintendence of the expedition. The sergeant was abso- lutely a Highland Sergeant Kite, full of stories of Rob Roy and of himself, and a very good companion." — Introduction to Rob lioy. — Ed.] 4:6 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. dulged so unduly as to alarm and vex my parents. Wood, water, wilderness itself, had an inexpressible charm for me, and I had a dreamy way of going much further than I in- tended, so that unconsciously my return was protracted, and my parents had sometimes serious cause of uneasi- ness. * For example, I once set out with Mr George Abercromby 1 (the son of the immortal General), Mr "William Clerk, and some others, to fish in the lake above Howgate, and the stream which descends from it into the Esk. We breakfasted at Howgate, and fished the whole day ; and while we were on our return next morning, 1 was easily seduced by William Clerk, then a great intimate, to visit Pennycuik-House, the seat of his family. Here he and John Irving, and I for their sake, were overwhelmed with kindness by the late Sir John Clerk and his lady, the present Dowager Lady Clerk. The pleasure of looking at fine pictures, the beauty of the place, and the flattering hospitality of the owners, drowned all recollection of home for a day or two. Meanwhile our companions, who had • walked on without being aware of our digression, returned to Edinburgh without us, and excited no small alarm in my father's household. At length, however, they became ac- customed to my escapades. My father used to protest to me on such occasions that he thought I was born to be a strolling pedlar ; and though the prediction was intended to mortify my conceit, I am not sure that I altogether dis- liked it. I was now familiar with Shakspeare, and thought of Autolycus's song — " Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, And merrily hent the stile-a ; A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a." My principal object in these excursions was the pleasure 1 Now Lord Abercromby.— 1826. AUTOBIOGRAPHY 47 of seeing romantic scenery, or what afforded me at least equal pleasure, the places which had been distinguished by remarkable historical events. The delight with which I regarded the former, of course had general approbation, but I often found it difficult to procure sympathy with the interest I felt in the latter. Yet to me, the wandering over the field of Bannockburn was the source of more ex- quisite pleasure than gazing upon the celebrated landscape from the battlements of Stirling castle. I do not by any means infer that I was dead to the feeling of picturesque scenery ; on the contrary, few delighted more in its gene- ral effect. But I was unable with the eye of a painter to dissect the various parts of the scene, to comprehend how the one bore upon the other, to estimate the effect which various features of the view had in producing its leading and general effect. I have never, indeed, been capable of doing this with precision or nicety, though my latter studies have led me to amend and arrange my original ideas upon the subject. Even the humble ambition, which I long cherished, of making sketches of those places which interest- ed me, from a defect of eye or of hand was totally ineffec- tual. After long study and many efforts, I was unable to apply the elements of perspective or of shade to the scene before me, and was obliged to relinquish in despair an art which I was most anxious to practise. But^shew me an old castle or a field of battle, and I was at home at once, filled it with its combatants in their proper costume, and overwhelmed my hearers by the enthusiasm of my descrip- tion. In crossing Magus Moor, near St Andrews, the spirit moved me to give a picture of the assassination of the Archbishop of St Andrews to some fellow-travellers with whom I was accidentally associated, and one of them, though well acquainted with the story, protested my nar- rative had frightened away his night's sleep. I mention this to shew the distinction between a sense of the pic- turesque in action and in scenery. If I have since been 48 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. able ir poetry to trace with some success the principles of the latter, it has always been with reference to its general and leading features, or under some alliance with moral feeling ; and even this proficiency has cost me study. — Meanwhile I endeavoured to make amends for my ignorance of drawing, by adopting a sort of technical memory respect- ing the scenes I visited. Wherever I went I cut a piece of a branch from a tree — these constituted what I called my log-book ; and I intended to have a set of chessmen out of them, each having reference to the place where it was cut — as the kings from Falkland and Holy-Rood ; the queens from Queen Mary's yew tree at Crookston ; the bishops from abbeys or episcopal palaces ; the knights from baronial residences ; the rooks from royal fortresses 5 and the pawns generally from places worthy of historical note. But this whimsical design I never carried into exe- cution. With music it was even worse than with painting. My mother was anxious we should at least learn Psalmody , but the incurable defects of my voice and ear soon drove my teacher to despair. 1 It is only by long practice that I 1 The late Alexander Campbell, a warm-hearted man, and an enthusiast in Scottish music, which ho sang most beautifully, had this ungrateful task imposed on him. He was a man of many accomplishments, but dashed with a bizarrtrie of temper which made them useless to their proprietor. He wrote several books — as a Tour in Scotland, &c. ; — and he made an advantageous mar- riage, but fell nevertheless into distressed circumstances, which I had the pleasure of relieving, if I could not remove. His sense of gratitude was very strong, and shewed itself oddly in one respect. He would never allow that I had a bad ear ; but contended, that if I did not understand music, it was because I did not choose to learn it. But when he attended us in George's Square, our neigh- bour. Lady Cumming, sent to beg the boys might not be all flogged precisely at the same hour, as, though she had no doubt the punisn- ment was deserved, the noise of the concord was really dreadful. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 49 have acquired the power of selecting or distinguishing melodies ; and although now few things delight or affect me more than a simple tune sung with feeling, yet I am sensible that even this pitch of musical taste has only been gained by attention and habit, and, as it were, by my feel- ing of the words being associated with the tune. I have therefore been usually unsuccessful in composing words to a tune, although my friend Dr Clarke, and other musical composers, have sometimes been able to make a happy union between then music and my poetry. In other points, however, I began to make some amends for the irregularity of my education. It is well known I that in Edinburgh one great spur to emulation among youthful students is in those associations called literary societies, formed not only for the purpose of debate, but. of composition. These undoubtedly have some disadvan- tages, where a bold, petulant, and disputatious temper happens to be combined with considerable information and talent. Still, however, in order to such a person being actually spoiled by his mixing in such debates, his talents must be of a very rare nature, or his effrontery must be proof to every species of assault ; for there is generally, in a well-selected society of this nature, talent sufficient to meet the forwardest, and satire enough to penetrate the most undaunted. I am particularly obliged to this sort of/ club for introducing me about my seventeenth year into the society which at one time I had entirely dropped ; for, from the time of my illness at college, I had had little or no intercourse with any of my class- companions, one or two only excepted. Now, however, about 1788, I began to feel and take my ground in society. A ready wit, a good deal of enthusiasm, and a perception that soon ripen- Kobert was the only one of our family who could sing, though my father was musical, and a performer on the violoncello at the gen- uemen's concerts. — 1826. i>* 60 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. ed into tact and observation of character, rendered me an acceptable companion to many young men whose acquisi- tions in philosophy and science were infinitely superior to any thing I could boast. In the business of these«societies — for I was a member of more than one successively — I cannot boast of having made any great figure. I never was a good speaker, unless upon some subject which strongly animated my feel- ings ; and, as I was totally unaccustomed to composition, as well as to the art of generalizing my ideas upon any sub- ject, my literary essays were but very poor work. I never attempted them unless when compelled to do so by the re- gulations of the society, and then I was like the Lord of Castle Rackrent, who was obliged to cut down a tree to get a few faggots to boil the kettle ; for the quantity of ponderous and miscellaneous knowledge which I really possessed on many subjects, was not easily condensed, or brought to bear upon the object I wished particularly to become master of. Yet there occurred opportunities when this odd lumber of my brain, especially that which was con- nected with the recondite parts of history, did me, as Hamlet says, " yeoman's service." My memory of events was like one of the large, old-fashioned stone-cannons of the Turks — very difficult to load well and discharge, but making a powerful effect when by good chance any object did come within range of its shot. Such fortunate oppor- tunities of exploding with effect maintained my literary character among my companions, with whom I soon met with great indulgence and regard. The persons with whom I chiefly lived at this period of my youth were Wil- liam Clerk, already mentioned ; James Edmonstoune, of Newton ; George Abercromby ; Adam Fergusson, son of the celebrated Professor Fergusson, and who combined the lightest and most airy temper with the best and kindest disposition ; John Irving, already mentioned ; the Ho- nourable Thomas Douglas, now Earl of Selkirk ; David AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 51 Boyle, 1 — and two or three others, who sometimes plunged deeply into politics and metaphysics, and not unfrequently " doffed the world aside, and bid it pass." Looking back on these times, I cannot applaud in all respects the way in which wtir days were spent. There was too much idleness, and sometimes too much convivia- lity : but our hearts were warm, our minds honourably bent on knowledge and literary distinction ; and if I, cer- tainly the least informed of the party, may be permitted to bear witness, we were not without the fair and creditable means of attaining the distinction to which we aspired. In this society I was naturally led to correct my former use- less coufse of reading ; for — feeling myself greatly infe- rior .to my companions in metaphysical philosophy and other branches of regular study — I laboured, not without some success, to acquire at least such a portion of know- / ledge as might enable me to maintain my rank in conver- sation. In this I succeeded pretty well ; but unfortunately then, as often since through my life, I incurred the de- served ridicule of my friends from the superficial nature of my acquisitions, which being, in the mercantile phrase, got tip for society, very often proved flimsy in the texture ; and thus the gifts of an uncommonly retentive memory and acute powers of perception were sometimes detrimental to their possessor, by encouraging him to a presumptuous re- liance upon them. 2 Amidst these studies, and in this society, the time of my 1 Now Lord Justice-Clerk. — 1826. 2 [Scott was admitted into the most celebrated of the Edinburgh debating Societies, The Speculative, in January 1791. Soon after he was elected their librarian ; and in the November following, he became also their secretary and treasurer : — all which appoint- ments indicate the reliance placed on his careful habits of busi- ness, the fruit of his chamber education. The minutes kept in his band-writing attest the strict regularity of his attention to the affair.- of the club ; but they shew also, as do all his early letters. 52 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. apprenticeship elapsed ; and in 1790, or thereabouts, it be- came necessary that I should seriously consider to which department of the law I was to attach myself. My father behaved with the most parental kindness. He offered, if I preferred his own profession, immediately to take me into partnership with him, which, though his business was much diminished, still afforded me an immediate prospect of a handsome independence. But he did not disguise his wish a strange carelessness in spelling. His constant good temper softened the asperities of debate, while his multifarious lore, and the quaint humour with which he enlivened its display, made him more a favourite as a speaker than some whose powers of rheto- ric were far above his. Mr Francis Jeffrey, on the first night of his attendance at The Speculative, heard Scott read an essay on ballads, which so much interested the new member, that he requested to be introduced to him. Mr Jeffrey called on him next evening, and found him " in a small den, on the sunk floor of his father's house in George's Square, surrounded with dingy books," from which they adjourned to a tavern, and supped together. Such was the commencement of an acquaintance, which, by degrees ripened into friendship, between the two most distinguished men of letters whom Edin- burgh produced in their time. I may add here the description of that early den, with which I am favoured by a lady of Scott's family: — " Walter had soon begun to collect out-of-the-way things of all sorts. He had more books than shelves ; a small painted ca- binet, with Scotch and Eoman coins in it, and so forth. A clay- more and Lochaber axe, given him by old Invernahyle, mounted guard on a little print of Prince Charlie ; and Broughton's Sau- cer was hooked up against the wall below it." But I must explain Broughton's Saucer. Mrs Scott's curio- sity was strongly excited one autumn by the regular appearance, at a certain hour every evening, of a sedan chair, to deposit a person carefully muffled up in a mantle, who was immediately ushered into her husband's private room, and commonly remained with him there until long after the usual bed -time of this orderly family. Mr Scott answered her repeated inquiries with a vague- ness which irritated the lady's feelings more and more; until, at last, she could bear the thing no longer ; but one evening, just AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 58 that I should relinquish this situation to my younger bro- ther, and embrace the more ambitious profession of the bar. I had little hesitation in making my choice — for I was never very fond of money ; and in no other particular do the professions admit of a comparison. Besides, I knew and felt the inconveniences attached to that of a Writer ; and I thought (like a young man) many of them were " ingenio non subeunda meo." 1 The appearance of personal depen- as she heard the hell ring as for the stranger's chair to carry him off, she made her appearance within the forbidden parlour with a salver in her hand, observing, that she thought the gentlemen had sat so long, they would be the better of a dish of tea, and had ven- tured accordingly to bring some for their acceptance. The stranger, a person of distinguished appearance, and richly dressed, bowed to the lady, and accepted a cup ; but her husband knit his brows, and refused very coldly to partake the refreshment. A moment after- wards the visitor withdrew — and Mr Scott lifting up the window- sash, took the cup, which he had left empty on the table, and tossed it out upon the pavement. The lady exclaimed for her china, but was put to silence by her husband's saying, " I can forgive your little curiosity, madam, but you must pay the penalty. I may admit into my house, on a piece of business, persons wholly un- worthy to be treated as guests by my wife. Neither lip of me nor of mine comes after Mr Murray of Broughton's." This was the unhappy man who, after attending Prince Charles Stuart as his secretary throughout the greater part of his expedition, conde- scended to redeem his own life and fortune by bearing evidence against the noblest of his late master's adherents, when " Pitied by gentle hearts Kilmarnock died— The brave, Balmerino, were on thy side." When confronted with Sir John Douglas of Kelhead (ancestor of the Marquess of Queensberry) , before the Privy Council in St James's, the prisoner was asked, "Do you know tin's witness? " " Not I," answered Douglas ; " I once knew a person who bore the designation of Murray of Broughton — but that was a gentle- man and a man of honour, and one that could hold up his head ! " The saucer belonging to Broughton's tea-cup chanced to be pre- served; and Walter had made prize of it. — Ed.] 1 Milton, Eky. Lib. 1. 54: LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTL dence which that profession requires was disagreeable to me ; the sort of connexion between the client and the attorney seemed to render the latter more subservient than was quite agreeable to my nature ; and, besides, I had seen many sad examples, while overlooking my father's business, that the utmost exertions, and the best meant services, do not secure the man of business, as he is called, from great loss, and most ungracious treatment on the part of his employers. The bar, though I was conscious of my defi- ciencies as a public speaker, was the line of ambition and liberty ; it was that also for which most of my contempo- rary friends were destined. And, lastly, although I would willingly have relieved my father of the labours of his business, yet I saw plainly we could not have agreed on some particulars if we had attempted to conduct it toge- ther, and that I should disappoint his expectations if I did not turn to the^bar. So to that object my studies were directed with great ardour and perseverance during the years 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792. In the usual course of study, the Roman or Civil Law was the first object of my attention — the second, the Municipal Law of Scotland. In the course of reading on both subjects, I had the advantage of studying in conjunc- tion with my friend William Clerk, a man of the most acute intellects and powerful apprehension, and who, should he ever shake loose the fetters of indolence by which he has been hitherto trammelled, cannot fail to be distinguished in the highest degree. We attended the regular classes of both laws in the University of Edinburgh. The Civil Law chair, now worthily filled by Mr Alexander Irving, might at that time be considered as in abeyance, since the person by whom it was occupied had never been fit for the situation, and was then almost in a state of dotage. But the Scotch Law lectures were those of Mr David Hume, who still continues to occupy that situation with as much honour to himself as advantage to his country. I copied over his AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 55 lectures twice with my own hand, from notes taken in the class, and when I have had occasion to consult them, I can never sufficiently admire the penetration and clearness of conception which were necessary to the arrangement of the fabric of law, formed originally under the strictest influence of feudal principles, and innovated, altered, and broken in upon by the change of times, of habits, and of manners, until it resembles some ancient castle, partly entire, partly ruinous, partly dilapidated, patched and altered during the succession of ages by a thousand additions and combina- tions, yet still exhibiting, with the marks of its antiquity, symptoms of the skill and wisdom of its founders, and capable of being analyzed and made the subject of a methodical plan by an architect who can understand the various styles of the different ages in which it was subjected to alteration. Such an architect has Mr Hume been to the law of Scotland, neither wandering into fanciful and abstruse disquisitions, which are the more proper subject of the an- tiquary, nor satisfied with presenting to his pupils a dry and undigested detail of the laws in their present state, but combining the past state of our legal enactments with the present, and tracing clearly and judiciously the changes which took place, and the causes which led to them. Under these auspices, I commenced my legal studies. A little parlour was assigned me in my father's house, which was spacious and convenient, and I took the exclu- sive possession of my new realms with all the feelings of novelty and liberty. Let me do justice to the only years of my life in which I applied to learning with stern, steady, and undeviating industry. The rule of my friend Clerk and myself was, that we should mutually qualify ourselves for undergoing an examination upon certain points of law every morning in the week, Sundays excepted. This was at first to have taken place alternately at each other's houses, but we soon discovered that my friend's resolution was inadequate to severing him from his couch at the early 56 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. hour fixed for this exercitation. Accordingly, I agreed to go every morning to his house, which, being at the ex- tremity of Prince's Street, New Town, was a walk of two miles. With great punctuality, however, I beat him up to his task every morning before seven o'clock, and in the course of two summers, we went, by way of question and answer, through the whole of Heineccius's Analysis of the Institutes and Pandects, as well as through the smaller copy of Erskine's Institutes of the Law of Scotland. This course of study enabled us to pass with credit the usual trials, which, by the regulations of the Faculty of Advocates, must be undergone by every candidate for admission into their body. My friend William Clerk and I passed these ordeals on the same days — namely, the Civil Law trial on the [30th June 1791], and the Scots Law trial on the [6th July 1792]. On the [11th July 1792], we both assumed the gown with all its duties and honours. My progress in life during these two or three years had been gradually enlarging my acquaintance, and facilitating my entrance into good company. My father and mother, already advanced in fife, saw little society at home, except- ing that of near relations, or upon particular occasions, so that I was left to form connexions in a great measure for myself. It is not difficult for a youth with a real desire to please and be pleased, to make his way into good society in Edinburgh — or indeed anywhere ; and my family con- nexions, if they did not greatly further, had nothing to embarrass my progress. I was a gentleman, and so wel- come anywhere, if so be I could behave myself, as Tony Lumpkin says, " in a concatenation accordingly." ***** LIFE OK SIR WALTER SCOTT. 57 CHAPTER II. Call to the Bar — Early Friendships and Pursuits — Excursions to the Highlands and Border — Light-Horse Volunteers — Disap- pointment in Love — Publication of Ballads after Burger.— 1792-1797. Walter Scott, the eldest son of Robert of Sandy- Knowe, appears to have been the first of the family that ever adopted a town life, or anything claiming to be classed among the learned professions./ His branch of the law, however, ^could not in those days be advantageously prose- cuted without extensive connexions in the country ; his own were too respectable not to be of much service to him in his calling, and they were cultivated accordingly. His professional visits to Roxburghshire and Ettrick Forest were, in the vigour of his life, very frequent ; and though he was never supposed to have any tincture either of ro- mance or poetry in his composition, ihe retained to the last a warm affection for his native district, with a certain reluc- tant flavour of the old feelings and prejudices of the Borderer. \ I have little to add to Sir Walter's short and respectful notice of his father, except that I have heard it confirmed by the testimony of many less partial observers. " He passed from the cradle to the grave," says his daughter-in-law, , Mrs Thomas Scott, "'without making an enemy or losing a friend. I He was a most affectionate parent, and if he dis- couraged, rather than otherwise, his son's early devotion to the pursuits which led him to the height of literary emi- nence, it was only because he did not understand what such things meant, and considered it his duty to keep his young man to that path in which good sense and industry might, humanly speaking, be thought sure of success."^ We have, according to William Clerk, a very accurate representation of the old gentleman in the elder Fairford of Redgauntlet ; and there is as little doubt that Walter drew from himself 58 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. in the younger Fairford, and from his friend Clerk in the Darsie Latimer of that tale. His mother was short of stature, and by no means come- ly, at least after the days of her early youth. The pny- siognomy of the poet bore, if their portraits may be trusted, no resemblance to either of his parents ; while, on the other hand, a very strong likeness to him is observable in the pic- tures both of the shrewd farmer and sportsman, Robert of Sandy-Knowe, and of the venerable Jacobite, Beardie. But Scott's mother, there is no doubt, was, in talents as well as tastes, superior to her husband. / She had strong powers of observation, with a lively relish for the humorous, and was noted for her skill in story-telling. She had, more- over, like Irving's mother, a love of ancient ballads and Scotch traditions and legends of all sorts, and her Cal- vinistic prejudices did not save her from the worship of Shakspeare.; Her sister, Christian Rutherford, appears to have been still more accomplished ; and as she was com- paratively young, the intimacy between her and her nephew was more like what occurs commonly between a youth and an elder sister. In the house of his uncle, Dr Rutherford, Scott must have had access, from his earliest days, to a scientific and scholarlike circle of society. His own parents, too, were, as we have seen, personal friends of John Home, the author of Douglas, at whose villa near Edinburgh young Walter was a frequent visitor: ybut, above all, his in- timacy with the son of Dr Adam Fergusson, the moralist and historian, who was then one of the chief ornaments of the University, afforded easy opportunity of mixing, in aa far as his ambition might gradually aspire, with the most in- tellectual and cultivated society of his native place. It was under that roof that he conversed with Burns when in his seventeenth year. I shall only add to what he sets down on the subject of his early academical studies, that in this, as in almost every case, he appears to have underrated his own attainments. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 59 He had, indeed, no pretensions to the name of an exten- sive, far less of an accurate, Latin scholar ; but he could read, I believe, any Latin author, of any age, so as to catch without difficulty his meaning ; and although his favourite Latin poet, as well as historian, in later days, was Buchanan, he had preserved, or subsequently acquired, a strong relish for some others of more ancient date. I may mention, in particular, Lucan and Claudian. The autobiography has informed us of the early period at which he enjoyed the real Tasso and Ariosto. I presume he had at least as soon as this enabled himself to read Gil Bias in the original ; and, in all probability, we may refer to the same time of his life, or one not much later, his acquisition of as much Spanish as served for the Guerras Civiles de Grenada, Lazarillo de Tormes, and, above all, Don Quixote. He read all these languages in after life with about the same facility. I never but once heard him attempt to speak any of them, and that was when some of the courtiers of Charles X. came to Abbotsford, soon after that unfortunate prince took up his residence for the second time at Holyroodhouse. Finding that one or two of these gentlemen could speak no English at all, he made some efforts to amuse them in their own language after the champagne had been passing briskly round the table ; and I was amused next morning with the expression of one of the party, who, alluding to the sort of reading in which Sir AValter seemed to have chiefly occupied himself, said — " Mon Dieu ! comme il estropiait, entre deux vins, le Francais du bon sire de Joinville !" Of all these tongues, as of German some- what later, he acquired as much as was needful for his owr purposes, of which a critical study of any foreign language made at no time any part. In them he sought for incidents, and he found images ; but for the treasures of diction he was content to dig on British soil. He had all he wanted in the old wells of " English undented," and the still living, though fast shrinking, waters of that sister idiom, which I\ 60 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. had not always, as he flattered himself, deserved the name of a dialect. As may be said, I believe, with perfect truth of every really great man,|Scott was self-educated in every branch I of knowledge which he ever turned to account in the works of his genius— and he has himself told us that his real ' studies were those lonely and desultory ones of which he has given a copy in the first chapter of Waverley, where the hero is represented as " driving through the sea of books, like a vessel without pilot or rudder ;" that is to say, obeying nothing but the strong breath of native inclina- tion. The literary details of that chapter may all be con- sidered as autobiographical. In all the studies of the two or three years preceding his call to the bar, his chief associate was WilHam-GlerkT \ and, indeed, of all the connections he formed in life, I now doubt if there was one to whom he owed more. He always continued to say that Clerk was unsurpassed in strength and acuteness of faculties, by any man he had ever conversed with familiarly ; and though he has left no lite- rary monument whatever behind him, he was from youth to a good old age indefatigable in study, and rivalled, I be- lieve, by very few of his contemporaries, either in the va- riety or the accuracy of his acquired knowledge. He en- tered zealously from the first into all Scott's antiquarian v pursuits, and he it was who mainly aided and stimulated him throughout the few years which he did devote to his proper training for the profession of the bar. But these were not all the obligations : it was Clerk that first or \ mainly awakened his social ambition : it was he that drew ] him out of the company of his father's apprentices, and taught him to rise above their clubs and festivities, and the rough irregular habits of all their intervals of relaxa- tion. It was probably very much in consequence of the tacit influence of this tie that he resolved on following the upper and more precarious branch of his profession, instead LIFE OF Sill WALTER SCOTT. 61 of that in which his father's eldest son had, if he chose, the certain prospect of early independence, and every likeli- hood of a plentiful fortune in the end. Yet both in his adoption, soon after that friendship began, of a somewhat superior tone of manners and habits generally, and in his ultimate decision for the bar, as well as in his strenuous preparation during a considerable space of time for that career, there is little question that another influence must have powerfully co-operated. Of the few early letters of Scott that have been preserved, almost all are addressed to Clerk, who says, " I ascribe my little hand- ful to a sort of instinctive prophetic sense of his future greatness ;" — but a great mass of letters addressed to Scott himself, during his early years, are still in being, and they are important documents in his history, for, as Southey well remarks, letters often tell more of the character of the man they are to be read by than of him who writes them. Throughout all these, then, there occurs no coarse or even jocular suggestion as to the conduct of Scott in that particular, as to which most youths of his then age are so apt to lay up stores of self-reproach. In that season of hot and impetuous blood he may not have escaped quite blameless ; but I have the concurrent testi- mony of all the most intimate among his surviving asso- ciates, that he^jcas- remarkably free from «arh indiscre- tions ; that while his high sense of honour shielded him from Ithe remotest dream of tampering with female inno- cence, he had an instinctive delicacy about him which made him recoil with utter disgust from low and vulgar debaucheries. His friends, I have heard more than one of them confess, used often to rally him on the coldness of his nature. By degrees they discovered that he had, from al- most the dawn of the passions, cherished a secret attachment! which continued, through all the most perilous stage of life, to act as a romantic charm in safeguard of virtue. J This was the early and innocent affection to which we owe the AS^ 62 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. tenderest pages, not only of Redgauntlet, but of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and of Rokeby. In all of these works the heroine has certain distinctive features, drawn from one and the same haunting dream of his manly adoles- cence. It was about 1790, according to Mr William Clerk, that Scott was observed to lay aside that carelessness, not to say slovenliness, as to dress, which used to furnish matter for joking at the beginning of their acquaintance. He now did himself more justice in these little matters, became fond of mixing in general female society, and, as his friend expresses it, " began to set up for a squire of dames." His personal appearance at this time was not unengaging. \y A lady of high rank, who well remembers him in the old Assembly Rooms, says, " Young Walter Scott was a comely creature." 1 He had outgrown the sallowness of early ill health, and had afresh brilliant complexion. His eyes were clear, open, and well set, with a changeful radiance, to which teeth of the most perfect regularity and whiteness lent their assistance, while the noble expanse and elevation of the brow gave to the whole aspect a dignity far above the charm of mere features. His smile was always delightful ; and I can easily fancy the peculiar intermixture of tender- ness and gravity, with playful innocent hilarity and humour in the expression, as being well calculated to fix a fair lady's eye. His figure, excepting the blemish in one limb, must in those days have been eminently handsome'; Vail, much above the usual standard, it was cast in the very mould of a young Hercules \ the head set on with singular grace, the throat and chest after the truest model of the antique, the hands delicately finished ; the whole outline that of extra- ordinary vigour, without as yet a touch of clumsiness. When he had acquired a little facility of manner, his conversation ' The late Duchess Countess of Sutherland. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 63 must have been such as could have dispensed with any ex- terior advantages, and certainly brought swift forgiveness for the one unkindness of nature. I have heard him, in talking of this part of his life, say, with an arch simplicity of look and tone, which those who were familiar with him can fill in for themselves — " It was a proud night with me when I first found that a pretty young woman could think it worth her while to sit and talk with me, hour after hour, in a corner of the ball-room, while all the world were capering in our view." I believe, however, that the M pretty young woman" here specially alluded to, had occupied his attention before he ever appeared in the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms, or any of his friends took note of him as " setting up for a, squire of dames." I have been told that their acquaintance began in the Greyfriars' churchyard, where rain beginning to fall one Sunday as the congregation were dispersing, Scott happened to offer his umbrella, and the tender being accepted, so escorted the lady of the green mantle to her residence, which proved to be at no great distance from his own. 1 To return from church together had, it seems, grown into something like a custom before they met in society, Mrs Scott being of the party. It then appeared that she and the lady's mother had been companions in their youth, though, both living secludedly, they had scarcely seen each other for many years ; and the two matrons now renewed their former intercourse. But no acquaintance appears to have existed between the fathers of the young people, until things had advanced in appearance farther than met the approbation of the good Clerk to the Signet. Being aware that the young lady — Margaret, daughter 1 In one of his latest essays we read — " There have been in- Ftances of love-tales being favourably received in England, when told under an umbrella, and in the middle of a shower." — Mis- cellaneous Prose Works, vol. xviii. p. 390. 64 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. of Sir John and Lady Jane Stuart Belches of Invermay. had prospects of fortune far above his son's, Mr Scott conceived it his duty to give her parents warning that he observed a degree of intimacy which, if allowed to go on, might involve the parties in pain and disappointment. He had "heard his son talk of a contemplated excursion to the part of the country in which his neighbour's estates lay, and not doubting that Walter's real object was different from that which he announced, introduced himself with a frank statement that he wished no such affair to proceed, without the express sanction of those most interested in the happiness of persons as yet too young to calculate conse- quences for themselves. — The northern Baronet had heard , nothing of the young apprentice's intended excursion, and appeared to treat the whole business very lightly. He thanked Mr Scott for his scrupulous attention — but added, that he believed he was mistaken ; and this paternal inter- ference, which Walter did not hear of till long afterwards, produced no change in his relations with the object of his growing attachment. I have neither the power nor the wish to give in detail the sequel of this story. It is sufficient to say, at present, that after he had through several years nourished the dream of an ultimate union with this lady, his hopes termi- nated in her being married to the late Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo, Baronet, a gentleman of the highest character, to whom some affectionate allusions occur in one of the greatest of his works, and who lived to act the part of a most generous friend to his early rival throughout the anxieties and distresses of 1826 and 1827. The actual dispersion of the romantic vision and its immediate con- sequences will be mentioned in due time. Eedgauntlet shadows very distinctly many circumstances connected with the first grand step in the professional history of Man Fairford. The real thesis, however, was on the Title of the Pandects, Concerning the disposal of the LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 65 dead bodies of Criminals. It was dedicated (I doubt not by the careful father's advice) to his friend and neighbour in George's Square, Macqueen of Braxfield, Lord Justice- Clerk (or President of the Supreme Criminal Court) of Scotland. Darsie was present at Alan's "bit chack of dinner," and the old Clerk of the Signet was very joyous on the occasion. 1 have often heard both Alan and Darsie lauo-h over their reminiscences of the important day when they "put on the gown." After the ceremony was completed, and they had mingled for some time with the crowd of barris- ters in the Outer Court, Scott said to his comrade, mi- micking the air and tone of a Highland lass waiting at the Cross of Edinburgh to be hired for the harvest work — " We've stood here an hour by the Tron, hinny, and de'il a ane has speered our price." Some friendly solicitor, however, gave him a guinea fee before the Court rose ; and as they walked down the High Street together, he said to Mr Clerk, in passing a hosier's shop — " This is a sort of a wedding-day, Willie ; I think I must go in and buy me a new night-cap." He did so accordingly ; but his first fee of any consequence was expended on a silver taper-stand for his mother, which the old lady used to point to with great satisfaction, as it stood on her chimney-piece five- and-twenty years afterwards. The friends had assumed the gown only the day before the Court of Session rose for the autumn vacation, and Scott appears to have escaped immediately afterwards to the familiar scenery of Kelso, where his kind uncle Robert, the retired East Indian Captain, had acquired the prettv villa of Rosebank, overhanging the Tweed. He had on a former occasion made an excursion into Northumberland as far as Flodden, and given, in a letter to Mr Clerk, the results of a close inspection of that famous battle-field. He now induced his uncle to accompany him ; n another E* 66 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Northumbrian expedition, which extended to Hexham, •where the grand Saxon Cathedral was duly studied. An epistle to Clerk (Sept. 13) gives this picture of his existence after returning from that trip : — " I am lounging about the country here, to speak sincerely, as idle as the day is long. Two old companions of mine, brothers of Mr "Walker of Wooden, having come to this country, we have renewed a great intimacy. As they live directly upon the opposite bank of the river, we have signals agreed upon by which we concert a plan of operations for the day. They are both officers, and very intelligent young fellows, and what is of some consequence, have a brace of fine greyhounds. Yesterday forenoon we killed seven hares, so you see how plenty the game is with us. I have turned a keen duck- shooter, though my success is not very great ; and when wading through the mosses upon this errand, accoutred with the long gun, a jacket, musquito trousers, and a rough cap, I might well pass for one of my redoubted moss-trooper progenitors, Walter Fire-the-Braes, or rather Willie wi' the Bolt-foot. For about-doors' amusement, I have con- structed a seat in a large tree, which spreads its branches horizontally over the Tweed. This is a favourite situation of mine for reading, especially in a day like this, when the west wind rocks the branches on which I am perched, and the river rolls its waves below me of a turbid blood colour. I have, moreover, cut an embrasure, through which I can fire upon the gulls, herons, and cormorants, as they fly screaming past my nest. To crown the whole, I have carved an inscription upon it in the ancient Roman taste." It was, however, within a few days after Scott's return from his excursion to Hexham, that he made another ex- pedition of more importance to the history of his life. While attending the Michaelmas head-court at Jedburgh, he was introduced to Mr Robert Shortreed, who spent the greater part of his life in the enjoyment of much respect ad LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Sheriff-substitute of Roxburghshire. Scott expressed his wish to visit the then -wild and inaccessible district of Lid- desdale, particularly with a view to examine the ruins of the famous castle of Hermitage, and to pick up some of the ancient riding ballads, said to be still preserved among the descendants of the moss-troopers who had followed the ban- ner of the Douglasses, when lords of that grim and remote fastness ; and his new acquaintance offered to be his guide. During seven successive years he made a raid, as he called it, into Liddesdale, in company with Mr Shortreed : exploring every rivulet to its source, and every ruined peel from foundation to battlement. At this time no wheeled carriage had ever been seen in the district — the first, in- deed, that ever appeared there was a gig, driven by Scott himself for a part of his way, when on the last of these seven excursions. There was no inn nor public-house of any kind in the whole valley ; the travellers passed from the shepherd's hut to the minister's manse, and again from the cheerful hospitality of the manse to the rough and jolly welcome of the homestead ; gathering, wherever they went, songs and tunes, and occasionally more tangible relics of antiquity — even such " a rowth of auld nicknackets " as ^. Burns ascribes to Captain Grose. To these rambles Scott owed much of the materials of his " Minstrelsy of the Border ;" and not less of that intimate acquaint- ance with the living manners of these unsophisticated regions, which constitutes the chief charm of one of the most charming of his prose works. But how soon he had any definite object before him in his researches, seems very doubtful. " He was makiii' Jdmsell a' the time," said Mr Shortreed ; " but he didna ken maybe what he was about till, years had passed : At first he thought o' little, I dare say, but the queerness and the fun." "In those days," says the Memorandum before me, u advocates were not so plenty — at least about Liddes- 68 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. dale j" 1 and the worthy Sheriff-substitute goes on to de- scribe the sort of bustle, not unmixed with alarm, produced at the first farm-house they visited (Willie Elliot's at Mill- burnholm), when the honest man was informed of the quality of one of his guests. When they dismounted, accordingly, he received the stranger with great ceremony, and insisted upon himself leading his horse to the stable. Shortreed accompanied Willie, however, and the latter, after taking a deliberate peep at Scott, " out by the edge of the door-cheek," whispered, " Weel, Robin, I say, de'il hae me if I's be a bit feared for him now ; he's just a chield like om-selves, I think." Half-a-dozen dogs of all degrees had already gathered round " the advocate," and his way of returning their compliments had set Willie at his ease. According to Mr Shortreed, this good-man of Milburn- holm was the great original of Dandie Dinmont. As he seems to have been the first of these upland sheep-farmers that Scott ever knew, there can be little doubt that he sat for some parts of that inimitable portraiture ; and it is certain that the James Davidson, who carried the name of Dandie to his grave with him, and whose thoroughbred deathbed scene is told in the Notes to Guy Mannering, was first pointed out to Scott by Mr Shortreed himself, several years after the novel had established the man's celebrity all over the Border ; some accidental report about his terriers, and their odd names, having alone been turned to account in the tale. But I have the best reason to believe that the kind and manly character of Dandie, the gentle and 1 I am obliged to Mr John Elliot Shortreed, for some memo- randa of his father's conversations on this subject. I had, how- ever, many opportunities of hearing Mr Shortreed's stories from his own lips, having often been under his hospitable roof in com- pany with Sir Walter, who, to the last, was his old friend's guest whenever business took him to Jedburgh. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 69 delicious one of his wife, and some at least of the most pic- turesque peculiarities of the menage at Charlieshope, were filled up from Scott's observation, years after this period, of a family, with one of whose members he had, through the best part of his life, a close and affectionate connexion. To those who were familiar with him, I have perhaps al- ready sufficiently indicated the early home of his dear friend William Laidlaw, among " the braes of Yarrow." They dined at Millburnholin, and after having lingered over "Willie Elliot's punch-bowl, until, in Mr Shortreed's phrase, they were " half glowrin," mounted their steeds again, and proceeded to Dr Elliot's at Cleughhead, where (" for," s"ays my Memorandum, " folk were na very nice in those days ") the two travellers slept in one bed — as, in- deed, seems to have been the case throughout most of their excursions in this district. Dr Elliot had already a MS. collection of ballads ; but he now exerted himself, for seve- ral years, with redoubled diligence, in seeking out the living depositaries of such lore among the darker recesses of the mountains. "The Doctor," says Mi- Shortreed, "would have gane through fire and water for Sir Walter, when he ance kenned him." Next morning they seem to have ridden a long way, for the express, purpose of visiting one " auld Thomas o'- Twizzlehope," — another Elliot, I suppose, who was cele- brated for his skill on the Border pipe, and in particular for being in possession of the real lilt of Dick o 1 the Cow. Before starting, that is, at six o'clock, the ballad-hunters had, "just to lay the stomach, a devilled duck or twae, and some London porter." Auld Thomas found them, nevertheless, well disposed for " breakfast " on their arrival at Twizzlehope ; and this being over, he delighted them with one of the most hideous and unearthly of all t'ie specimens of "riding music," and, moreover, with considerable libations of whisky-punch, manufactured in a certain wooden vessel, resembling a very sinail milk- 70 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. pail, which he called Wisdom, because it " made " only a few spoonfuls of spirits — though he had the art of re- plenishing it so adroitly, that it had been celebrated for fifty years as more fatal to sobriety than any bowl in the parish. Having done due honour to Wisdom, they again mounted, and proceeded over moss and moor to some other equally hospitable master of the pipe. " Eh me !" says Shortreed, " sic an endless fund o' humour and drollery as he then had wi' him 1 Never ten yards but we were either laughing or roaring and singing. Wherever we stopped, how brawlie he suited himsel' to everybody! He ay did as the lave did ; never made himsel' the great man, or took ony airs in the company. I've seen him in a' moods in these jaunts, grave and gay, daft and serious, sober and drunk — (this, however, even in our wildest rambles, was but rare) — but, drunk or sober, he was ay the gentleman. He looked excessively heavy and stupid when he was/ou, but he was never out o' gude-humour." On reaching, one evening, some Charlieshope or other (I forget the name) amo.ng those wildernesses, they found a kindly reception as usual ; but to their agreeable surprise, after some days of hard living, a measured and orderly hospitality as respected liquor. Soon after supper, at which a bottle of elderberry wine alone had been pro- duced, a young student of divinity, who happened to be in the house, was called upon to take the " big ha' Bible," in the good old fashion of Burns's Saturday Night ; and some progress had been already made in the service, when the goodman of the farm, whose "tendency was soporific," scandalized his wife and the dominie by starting suddenly from his knees, and rubbing his eyes, with a stentorian ex- clamation of "By , here's the keg at last !" and in tumbled, as he spake the word, a couple of sturdy herds- men, whom, on hearing a day before of the advocate's ap- proaching visit, he had dispatched to a certain smuggler's haunt, at some considerable distance, in quest of a supply LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 71 of run brandy from the Solway Frith. The pious " ex- ercise" of the household was hopelessly interrupted. With a thousand apologies for his hitherto shabby entertain- ment, this jolly Elliot, or Armstrong, had the welcome keg mounted on the table without a moment's delay, — and gentle and simple, not forgetting the dominie, continued carousing about it until daylight streamed in upon the party. Sir Walter Scott seldom failed, when I saw him in company with his Liddesdale companion, to mimic the sudden outburst of his old host, on hearing the clatter of horses' feet, which he knew to indicate the arrival of the keg — the consternation of the dame — and the rueful de- spair with which the young clergyman closed the book. " It was in that same season, I think," says Mr Short- reed, " that Sir Walter got from Dr Elliot the large old border war-horn, which ye may still see hanging in the armoury at Abbotsford. How great he was when he was made master o' that I I believe it had been found in Her- mitage Castle — and one of the Doctor's servants had used it many a day as a grease-horn for his scythe, before they discovered its history. When cleaned out, it was never a hair the worse — the original chain, hoop, and mouth-piece of steel, were all entire, just as you now see them. Sir Walter carried it home all the way from Liddesdale to Jedburgh, slung about his neck like Johnny Gilpin's bottle, while I was intrusted with an ancient bridle-bit, which we had likewise picked up. 4 The feint o' pride — na pride had he . . . A lang kail-gully hung down by his side, And a great meikle nowt-horn to rout on had he,' and meikle and sair we routed on't, and ' hotched and blew, wi' micht and main.' O what pleasant days ! And then a' the nonsense we had cost us naething. We never put hand in pocket for a week on end. Toll-bars there were nane — and indeed I think our haill charges were a 72 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. feed o' corn to our horses in the gangin' and comin' at Riccartoun mill." It is a pity that we have no letters of Scott's describing this first raid into Liddesdale ; but as he must have left Kelso for Edinburgh very soon after its conclusion, he pro- bably chose to be the bearer of his own tidings. I have found, however, two note -books, inscribed "Wal- , ter Scott, 1792," containing a variety of scraps and hints which may help us to fill up our notion of his private studies during that year. We have here a most miscellane- ous collection, in which there is whatever might have been looked for, with perhaps the single exception of original verse. One of the books opens with " VegtanCs Kvitha, or The Descent of Odin, with the Latin of Thomas Bartho- line, and the English poetical version of Mr Gray ; with some account of the death of Balder, both as narrated in the Edda, and as handed down to us by the northern his- torians — Auctore Gualtero Scott:'' The Norse orioinal. and the two versions, are then transcribed ; and the his- torical account appended, extending to seven closely writ- ten quarto pages, was, I doubt not, read before one or other of his debating societies. Next comes a page, headed " Pecuniary Distress of Charles the First," and containing a transcript of a receipt for some plate lent to the King in 1643. He then copies Langhorne's Owen of Carron ; the verses of Canute, on passing Ely; the lines to a cuckoo, given by Warton as the oldest specimen of Eng- lish verse ; a translation, " by a gentleman in Devon- shire," of the death-song of Regner Lodbrog ; and the beautiful quatrain omitted in Gray's elegy, — " There scattered oft, the earliest of the year," &c. After this we have an Italian canzonet on the praises of blue eyes (whioh were much in favour at this time ;) several pages of etymologies from Ducange ; some more of notes on the Morte Arthur ; extracts from the Books of Adjournal LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 73 about Dame Janet Beaton, the Ladv of Branxome of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and her husband " Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, called Wicked Watt ;" other extracts about witches and fairies ; various couplets from Hall's Sa- tires ; a passage from Albania ; notes on the Second Sight, with extracts from Aubrey and Glanville ; a " List of Bal- lads to be discovered or recovered ;" extracts from Guerin de Montglave ; and after many more similar entries, a table of the Maeso-Gothic, Anglo-Saxon and Runic alphabets ; — with a fourth section, headed German, but left blank. In November 1792, Scott and Clerk began their regular attendance at the Parliament House, and Scott, to use Mr Clerk's words, " by and by crept into a tolerable share of such business as may be expected from a writer's con- nexion." By this we are to understand that he was em- ployed from time to time by his father, and probably a few other solicitors, in that dreary every-day taskwork, chiefly of long written informations, and other papers for the Court, on which young counsellors of the Scotch Bar were then expected to bestow a great deal of trouble for very scanty pecuniary remuneration, and with scarcely a chance of finding reserved for their hands any matter that could elicit the display of superior knowledge or understanding. He had also his part in the cases of persons suing in forma pauperis ; but how little important those that came to his share were, and how slender was the impression they had left on his mind, we may gather from a note on Redgaunt- let, wherein he signifies his doubts whether he really had ever been engaged in what he has certainly made the cause celebre of Poor Peter Peebles. But he soon became as famous for his powers of story- telling among the lawyers of the Outer-House, as he had been among the companions of his High-School days. The place where these idlers mostly congregated was called, it seems, by a name which sufficiently marks the date — it was the Mountain. Here, as Roger North says of the Court of 7i LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOT1. King's Bench in his early day, " there was more new3 than law ;" — here hour after hour passed away, month after month, and year after year, in the interchange of light-hearted merriment among a circle of young men, more than one of whom, in after times, attained the highest honours of the profession. Among the most intimate of Scott's daily associates from this time, and during all his subsequent attendance at the Bar, were, besides various since eminent persons that have been already named, the first legal antiquary of our time in Scotland, Mr Thomas Thomson, and William Erskine, afterwards Lord Kinedder. Mr Clerk remembers complaining one morning on finding the group convulsed with laughter, that Duns Scotus had been forestalling him in a good story, which he had com- municated privately the day before — adding, moreover, that his friend had not only stolen, but disguised it. " "Why," answered he, skilfully waving the main charge, " this is al- ways the way with the Baronet. 1 He is continually saying that I change his stories, whereas in fact I only put a cocked hat on their heads, and stick a cane into their hands — to make them fit for going into company." Some interest had been excited in Edinburgh as to the rising literature of Germany, by an essay of Mackenzie's in 1778, and a subsequent version of The Robbers, by Mr Tytler (Lord Woodhouselee). About Christmas 1792, a Ger- man class was formed under a Dr Willick, which included Scott, Clerk, Thomson, and Erskine ; all of whom soon quali- fied themselves to taste the beauties of Schiller and Goethe in the original. This class contributed greatly to Scott's familiarity with Erskine ; a familiarity which grew into one of the warmest and closest of his friendships. All the others above named, except Erskine, were by descent and 1 Buns Scotus was an old college-club nickname for "Walter Scott, a tribute to his love of antiquities. Clerk was with the same set the Baronet, as belonging to the family of the Baronets cf Pennycuick. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 75 connection Whigs ; and though politics never shook the affection of any of these early companions, the events and controversies of the immediately ensuing years could not but disturb, more or less, the social habits of young bar- risters who adopted opposite views on the French Revolu- tion and the policy of Pitt. On such subjects Erskine en- tirely sympathized with Scott ; and though in many respects, indeed in strength of mind and character, and in the general turn of opinion and manners, others of his con- temporaries must always have seemed far more likely to suit Walter Scott, Erskine became, and continued during the brightest part of his life to be, the nearest and most confidential of all his Edinburgh associates. Nor can it be doubted that he exercised, at the active period we have now reached, a very important influence on his friend's literary tastes, and especially on his German studies. William Erskine was the son of an Episcopalian clergyman in Perthshire, of a good family, but far from wealthy. He had received his early education at Glasgow, where he was boarded under the roof of Andrew Macdonald, the author of Vimonda, who then officiated as minister to a small congregation of Episcopalian nonconformists. From this unfortunate but very ingenious man, Erskine had de- rived, in boyhood, a strong passion for old English litera- ture, more especially the Elizabethan dramatists ; which, however, he combined with a far livelier relish for the classics of antiquity than either Scott or his master ever possessed. From the beginning, accordingly, Scott had in Erskine a monitor who, entering most warmly into his taste for national lore — the life of the past — and the bold and picturesque style of the original English school — was con- stantly urging the advantages to be derived from combining with its varied and masculine breadth of delineation such attention to the minor graces of arrangement and diction as might conciliate the fastidiousness of modern taste \ 76 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Directed, as Scott mainly was in the ultimate determination of his literary ambition, by the example of the great founders of the German drama and romance, he appears to have run at first no trivial hazard of adopting the extravagances, both of thought and language, which he found blended in their works with such a captivating display of genius, and genius em- ployed on subjects so much in unison with the deepest of his own juvenile predilections. His friendly critic was just as well as delicate ; and severity as to the mingled absur- dities and vulgarities of German detail, commanded deli- berate attention from one who admired not less enthusi- astically than himself the sublimity and pathos of his new favourites. In March, 1793, when the Court rose, he proceeded into Galloway, in order to make himself acquainted with the case of a certain Eev. Mr M 'Naught, minister of Girthon, whose trial, on charges of habitual drunkenness, singing of lewd and profane songs, dancing and toying at a penny- wedding with a "sweetie wife" (that is, an itinerant vender of gingerbread, &c), and, moreover, of promoting irregular marriages as a justice of the peace, was about to take place before the General Assembly of the Kirk. The " case of M'Naught " (fee five guineas) is the earliest of Scott's legal papers that has been discovered ; and it is perhaps as plausible a statement as the circum- stances could bear. In May he was called on to support it at the bar of the Assembly ; and he did so in a speech of considerable length. This was by far the most important business in which any solicitor had as yet em- ployed him, and The Mountain mustered strong in the gal- lery. He began in a low voice, but by degrees gathered more confidence ; and when it became necessary for him to analyse the evidence touching the penny-wedding, repeated 6ome coarse specimens of his client's alleged conversation, m a tone so bold and free, that he was called to order LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 77 with orreat austerity by one of the leading members of the Venerable Court. This seemed to confuse him not a little ; so when, by and by, he had to recite a stanza of one of M'Naught's convivial ditties, he breathed it out in a faint and hesitating style : whereupon, thinking he needed en- couragement, the allies in the gallery astounded the As- sembly by cordial shouts of hear ! hear ! — encore ! encore ! They were immediately turned out, and Scott got through the rest of his harangue very little to his own satisfaction. He believed, in a word, that he had made a complete failure, and issued from the Court in a melancholy mood. At the door he found Adam Fergusson waiting to inform him that the brethren so unceremoniously extruded from the gallery had sought shelter in a neighbouring tavern, where they hoped he would join them. He complied with the invitation, but seemed for a long while incapable of enjoying the merriment of his friends. " Come, Duns," cried the Baronet; — " cheer up, man, and fill another tum- bler ; here 's * * * * * going to give us The Tailor." — "Ah!" he answered with a groan — "the tailor was a better man than me, sirs ; for he didna venture ben until he kenned the way." A certain comical old song, which had, perhaps, been a favourite with the minister of Girthon — " The tailor he came here to sew, And weel he kenn'd the way o't," &c. was, however, sung and chorussed ; and the evening ended in High Jinks. Mr M'Naught was deposed from the ministry. It is to be observed, that the research made with a view to plead- ing this cause, carried Scott for the first, and I believe for the last time, into the scenery of his Guy Mannering ; and several of the names of the minor characters of the novel (M'Guffog, for example) appear in the list of witnesses. If the preceding autumn forms a remarkable point in his history, as first introducing him to the manners of 78 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. the wilder Border country, the summer which followed left traces of equal importance. He then visited some of tho finest districts of Stirlingshire and Perthshire ; and not in the percursory manner of his more boyish expeditions but taking up his residence for a week or ten days in succession at the family residences of several of his young allies of The Mountain, and from thence familiarizing himself at leisure with the country and the people round about. In this way he lingered some time at Tullibody, the seat of the father of Sir Ralph Abercromby, and grand- father of his friend George Abercromby ; and heard from the old gentleman's own lips the narrative of a journey which he had been obliged to make to the re- treat of Rob Roy. The venerable laird told how he was received by the cateran " with much courtesy," in a cavern exactly such as that of Bean Lean ; dined on collops cut from some of his own cattle, which he re- cognised hanging by their heels from the rocky roof beyond ; and returned in all safety, after concluding a bargain of black-mail — in virtue of which annual payment, Rob Roy guaranteed the future security of his herds against, not his own followers merely, but all freebooters whatever. Scott next visited his friend Edmonstone, at Newton, a beautiful seat close to the ruins of the once magnificent Castle of Doune, and heard another aged gen- tleman's vivid recollections of all that happened there when John Home, the author of Douglas, and othei Hanoverian prisoners, escaped from the Highland garrison in 1745. Proceeding towards the sources of the Teith, he was received for the first time under a roof which, in subsequent years, he regularly revisited, that of another of his associates, Buchanan, the young Laird of Cambusmore. It was thus that the scenery of Loch Katrine came to be so associated with u the recollection of many a dear friend and merry expedition of former days," that to compose the UFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Lad) of the Lake was " a labour of love, and no less so to recall the manners and incidents introduced." 1 It was starting from the same house, when the poem itself had made some progress, that he put to the test the practi- cability of riding from the banks of Loch Vennachar to the Castle of Stirling within the brief space which he had assigned to Fitz-James's Grey Bayard, after the duel with Roderick Dhu ; and the principal land-marks in the description of that fiery progress are so many hospitable mansions, all familiar to him at the same period : — Blair- drummond, the residence of Lord Kaimes ; Ochtertyre, that of John Ramsay, the scholar and antiquary (now best remembered for his kind and sagacious advice to Burns ;) and " the lofty brow of ancient Kier," the fine seat of the chief family of the name of Stirling ; from which, to say nothing of remoter objects, the prospect has on one hand the rock of " Snowdon," and in front the field of Bannockburn. Another resting place was Craighall, in Perthshire, the seat of the Rattrays, a family related to Mr Clerk, who accompanied him. From the position of this striking place, as Mr Clerk at once perceived, and as the author af- terwards confessed to him, that of Tully -Veolan was faithfully copied ; though in the description of the house itself, and its gardens, many features were adopted from Bruntsfield and Ravelstone. Mr Clerk told me that he went through the first chapters of Waverley without more than a vague suspicion of the new novelist ; but that when he read the arrival at Tully -Veolan, his suspicion was converted into certainty, and he handed the book to a common friend of his and the author's, saying, " This is Scott's — and I'll lay a bet you'll find such and such things in the next chapter." I hope to be forgiven for mention- ing the circumstance that flashed conviction. Li the course 1 Introduction to 'Hie Lady. 80 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. of a ride from Craighall, they had both become consider- ably fagged and heated, and Clerk, seeing the smoke of a clachan a little way before them, ejaculated — " How agree- able if we should here fall in with one of those signposts where a red lion predominates over a punch-bowl ! " The phrase happened to tickle Scott's fancy — he often intro- duced it on similar occasions afterwards — and at the dis- tance of twenty years Mr Clerk was at no loss to recoo-- nise an old acquaintance in the " huge bear" which " pre- dominates" over the stone basin in the courtyard of Baron Bradwardine. I believe the longest stay was at Meigle in Forfarshire, the seat of Patrick Murray of Simprim, whose passion for antiquities, especially military antiquities, had peculiarly endeared him both to Scott and Clerk. Here Adam Fergusson, too, was of the party ; and I have often heard them each and all dwell on the thousand scenes of adven- ture and merriment which diversified that visit. In the village churchyard, close beneath Mr Murray's gardens, tradition still points out the tomb of Queen Guenever ; and the whole district abounds in objects of historical interest. Amidst them they spent their wandering days, while their evenings passed in the joyous festivity of a wealthy youn<* bachelor's establishment, or sometimes under the roofs of neighbours less refined than their host, the Balmawhapples of the Braes of Angus. From Meigle they made a trip to Dunottar Castle, the ruins of the huge old fortress of the Earls Marischall, and it was in the churchyard of that place that Scott then saw for the first and last time Peter Paterson, the living Old Mortality. He and Mr Walker, the minister of the parish, found the poor man refreshing the epitaphs on the tombs of certain Cameronians who had fallen under the oppressions of James the Second's brief insanity. Being invited into the manse after dinner to take a glass of whisky punch, " to which he was supposed to have no objections," he joined the minister's party ac- Si Ait NUHfflAL aunuuL, Los Angeles. Cal. LIFE OK SIR WALTER SCOTT. 81 cordingly ; but " he was in bad humour." says Scott, " and, to use his own phrase, had no freedom for conver- sation. His spirit had been sorely vexed by hearing, in a certain Aberdonian kirk, the psalmody directed by a pitch- pipe or some similar instrument, which was to Old Mor- tality the abomination of abominations." It was also while he had his headquarters at Meigle at this time, that Scott visited for the first time Glammis, the residence of the Earls of Strathmore, by far the noblest specimen of the real feudal castle, entire and perfect, that had as yet come under his inspection. What its aspect was when he first saw it, and how grievously he lamented the change it had undergone when he revisited it some years afterwards, he has recorded in one of the most striking passages of his Essay on Landscape Gardening. The night he spent at the yet unprofaned Glammis in 1793 was, as he tells us in his Demonology, one of the " two periods distant from each other" at which he could recollect experiencing " that degree of superstitious awe which his countrymen call een'e." "After a very hospitable reception from the late Peter Proctor, seneschal of the castle, I was conducted," he says, " to my apartment in a distant part of the building. I must own, that when I heard door after door shut, after my conductor had retired, I began to con- sider myself as too far from the living, and somewhat too near the dead," &c. But one of his notes on Waverley touches a certain not unimportant part of the story more distinctly ; for we are there informed, that the silver bear of Tully-Veolan, " the poculum potatorium of the valiant baron," had its prototype at Glammis — a massive beaker of silver, double gilt, moulded into the form of a lion, the name and bearing of the Earls of Strathmore, and contain- ing about an English pint of wine. " The author," he says, " ought perhaps to be ashamed of recording that he had the henour of swallowing the contonts of the lion ; and the recollection of the feat suggested the story of the Bear of Bradwardine." 82 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. From this pleasant tour, so rich in its results, he re- turned in time to attend the autumnal assizes at Jedburgh, on which occasion he made his first appearance as counsel in a criminal court ; and had the satisfaction of helping a veteran poacher and sheep-stealer to escape through some of the meshes of the law. " You're a lucky scoundrel," Scott whispered to his client, when the verdict was pro- nounced. — " I'm just o' your mind," quoth the desperado, " and I'll send ye a maukin [viz. a hare] the morn, man." I am not sure whether it was at these assizes or the next in the same town, that he had less success in the case of a certain notorious housebreaker. The man, however, was well aware that no skill could have baffled the clear evi- dence against him, and was, after his fashion, grateful for such exertions as had been made in his behalf. He re- quested the young advocate to visit him once more before he left the place. Scott's curiosity induced him to accept this invitation, and his friend, as soon as they were alone together in the condemned cell, said — " I am very sorry, sir, that I have no fee to offer you — so let me beg your acceptance of two bits of advice which may be useful per- haps when you come to have a house of your own. I am done with practice, you see, and here is my legacy. Never keep a large watchdog out of doors — we can always silence them cheaply — indeed if it be a dog, 'tis easier than whistling — but tie a little tight yelping terrier within ; and secondly, put no trust in nice, clever, gimcrack locks — the only thing that bothers us is a huge old heavy one, no matter how simple the construction, — and the ruder and rustier the key, so much the better for the housekeeper." I remember hearing him tell this story some thirty years after at a Judges' dinner at Jedburgh, and he summed it up with a rhyme — " Ay, ay, my lord," (he addressed his friend Lord Meadowbank) — " ' Yelping terrier, rusty key, Was Walter Scott's best Jeddart fee.' " The winter of 1793-4 appears to have been passed like LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 83 the preceding one : the German class resumed thoir sit- tings ; Scott spoke in his debating club on the questions of Parliamentary Reform and the Inviolability of the Person of the First Magistrate ; his love-affair continued on the same footing as before ; — and for the rest, like the young heroes in Redgauntlet, he " swept the boards of the Par- liament House with the skirts of his gown ; laughed, and made others laugh ; drank claret at Bayle's, Fortune's, and Walker's, and ate oysters in the Covenant Close." On his desk " the new novel most in repute lay snugly intrenched beneath Stair's Institute, or an open volume of Decisions ;" and his dressing-table was littered with " old play-bills, letters respecting a meeting of the Faculty, Pules of the Speculative, Syllabus of Lectures — all the miscellaneous contents of a young advocate's pocket, which contains everything but briefs and bank-notes." His professional occupation was still very slender ; but he took a lively in- terest in the proceedings of the criminal court, and more especially in those arising out of the troubled state of the public feeling as to politics. In the spring of 1794 I find him writing to his friends in Roxburghshire with great exultation about the " good spirit " manifesting itself among the upper classes of the citizens of Edinburgh, and above all, the organization of a regiment of volunteers, in which his brother Thomas was enrolled as a grenadier, while, as he remarks, his own " unfortunate infirmity " condemned him to be "a mere spectator of the drills." In the course of the same year, the plan of a corps of volunteer light horse was started ; and if the recollection of Mr Skene be accurate, the suggestion originally proceeded from Scott himself, who certainly had a principal share in its subsequent success. He writes to his uncle at Rosebank, requesting him to be on the look-out for a " strong gelding, such as would suit a stalwart dragoon ;" and intimating his intention to part with his collection of Scottish coins, rather than not be mounted to his mind. The corps, however, was not orga- 84 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. nized for some time ; and in the meanwhile he had an op- portunity of displaying his zeal in a manner which Captain Scott by no means considered as so respectable. A party of Irish medical students began, towards the end of April, to make themselves remarkable in the Edin- burgh Theatre, where they mustered in a particular corner of the pit, and lost no opportunity of insulting the loyalists of the boxes, by calling for revolutionary tunes, applauding every speech that could bear a seditious meaning, and drowning the national anthem in howls and hootings. The young Tories of the Parliament House resented this licence warmly, and after a succession of minor distur- bances, the quarrel was put to the issue of a regular trial by combat. Scott was conspicuous among the juvenile advocates and solicitors who on this grand night assembled in front of the pit, armed with stout cudgels, and deter- mined to have God save the King not only played without interruption, but sung in full chorus by both company and audience. The Irishmen were ready at the first note of the anthem. They rose, clapped on their hats, and bran- dished their shillelahs ; a stern battle ensued, and after many a head had been cracked, the lawyers at length found themselves in possession of the field. In writing to Simprim a few days afterwards, Scott says — " You will be glad to hear that the affair of Saturday passed over with- out any worse consequence to the Loyalists than that five, including your friend and humble servant Colonel Grogg, 1 have been bound over to the peace, and obliged to give bail for their good behaviour, which, you may believe, was easily found. The said Colonel had no less than three broken heads laid to his charge by as many of the Demo- crats." Sir Alexander Wood, says — " AValter was certainly our Coryphasus, and signalized himself splendidly in this desperate fray." After this exhibition of zeal, it will not per- 1 This was Scott's nickname in a boyish club : derived, it is fiaid, from a remarkable pair of Grogram breeches — but anothel Ptvmon migrht have its claim. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 85 haps surprise the reader of Scott's letters, to find him re- turning to Edinburgh from a remote ramble in the High- lands during the next autumn, on purpose to witness the execution of Watt, who had been tried and condemned for his share in a plot for seizing the Castle, and proclaiming a provisional republican government. He expresses great contempt for the unhappy man's pusillanimous behaviour in his last scene ; and soon after, on occasion of another formidable riot, he appears as active among the special constables sworn in by the magistracy. His rambles continued to give his father considerable vexation. Some sentences in a letter to his aunt, Miss Christian Rutherford, may be worth quoting for certain allusions to this and other domestic matters. Mr Scott, though on particular occasions he could permit himself like Saunders Fairford, to play the part of a good Am- phytrion, was habitually ascetic in his habits. I have heard his son tell, that it was common with him, if any one observed that the soup was good, to taste it again, and say, — "Yes, it is too good, bairns," and dash a tumbler of cold water into his plate. It is easy, therefore, to imagine with what rigidity he must have enforced the ultra- Catholic severities which marked, in those days, the yearly or half-yearly retreat of the descendants of John Knox. Walter writes : — " 1 want the assistance of your eloquence to convince my honoured father that nature did not mean me either for a vagabond or travelling merchant, when she honoured me with the wandering propensity lately so conspicuously displayed. I saw D r - R. yesterday, who is well. I did not choose to intrude upon the little lady, this being sermon week ; for the same reason we are looking very religious and very sour at home. However, it is with some folk selon les regies, that in proportion as they are pure themselves, they are entitled to render uncomfortable those whom they consider as less perfect." If his father had some reason to complain of want of ardour as to the weightier matters of the law, it probably 86 LIFE OF SIR WAXTER SCOTT. gave him little consolation to bear, in June 1795, of his appointment to be one of tbe curators of tbe Advocates' Library, an office always reserved for tbose members of the Faculty who have the reputation of superior zeal in literary affairs. He had for colleagues David Hume, the Professor of Scots Law, and Malcolm Laing, the historian ; and his discharge of his functions must have given satisfaction, for I find him further nominated, in March 1796, together with Mr Robert Cay, — an accomplished gentleman, after- wards Judge of the Admiralty Court in Scotland — to M put the Faculty's cabinet of medals in proper arrange- ment." From the first assumption of the gown, he had been accustomed to spend many of his hours in the low gloomy vaults under the Parliament House, which then formed the only receptacle for their literary and antiqua- rian collections. This habit, it may be supposed, grew by what it fed on. MSS. can only be consulted within the library, and his highland and border raids were constantly suggesting inquiries as to ancient local history and legends, which could nowhere else have been pursued with equal ad- vantage. He became an adept in the deciphering of old deeds ; and whoever examines the rich treasure of the MacFarlan MSS., and others serviceable for the illustration of Scotch topography and genealogy, will, I am told, soon become familiar with the marks of his early pencil. His re- putation for skill in such researches reached George Chal- mers, the celebrated antiquary, then engaged in the pre- paration of his Caledonia. They met at Jedburgh, and a correspondence ensued which proved very useful to the veteran author. The border ballads, as they were gradually collected, and numberless quotations from MSS. in illus- tration of them, were eagerly placed at his disposal. It must, I think, have been while he was indulging his vagabond vein, during the autumn of 1795, that Mrs Barbauld paid her visit to Edinburgh, and entertained a party at Mr Dugald Stewart's, by reading William Taylor's then unpublished version of Burger's Lenore. In LIFK OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 87 the essay on Imitation of Popular Poetry, the reader has a full account of the interest with which Scott heard, some weeks afterwards, a friend's imperfect recollections of this performance ; the anxiety with which he sought after a copy of the original German ; the delight with which he at length perused it ; and how, having just been reading the specimens of ballad poetry introduced into Lewis 1 Romance of The Monk, he called to mind the early facility of versi- fication which had lain so long in abeyance, and ventured to promise his friend a rhymed translation of Lenore from his own pen. The friend in question was Miss Cranstoun, afterwards Countess of Purgstall, the sister of George Cranstoun (Lord Corehouse.) He began the task, he tells us, after supper, and did not retire to bed until he had finished it, having by that time worked himself into a state of excitement which set sleep at defiance. Next morning, before breakfast, he carried his MS. to Miss Cranstoun, who was not only delighted but astonished at it ; for I have seen a letter of hers to a friend in the country, in which she says — " Upon my word, Walter Scott is going to turn out a poet — something of a cross I think between Burns and Gray." The same day he read it also to Sir Alexander Wood, who retains a vivid re- collection of the high strain of enthusiasm into which he had been exalted by dwelling on the wild unearthly imagery of the German bard. " He read it over to me," says Sir Alexander, "in a very slow and solemn tone, and after we had said a few words about its merits, continued to look at the fire silent and musing for some minutes, until he at length burst out with ' I wish to Hea- ven I could get a skull and two crossbones.' " Wood said, that if Scott would accompany him to the house of John Bell, the celebrated surgeon, he had no doubt this wish might be easily gratified.* They went thither accord- l Sir A. Wood was himself the son of a distinguished surgeon in Edinburgh. He married one of the daughters of Sir W. Forbes of Pitsligo — rose in the diplomatic service — and died in 1846. 88 J.IFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. ingly on the instant ; — Mr Bell smiled on hearing the object of their visit, and pointing to a closet, at the corner of his library, bade Walter enter and choose. From a well furnished-museum of mortality, he selected forthwith what seemed to him the handsomest skull and pair of cross- bones it contained, and wrapping them in his handkerchief, carried the formidable bundle home to George's Square. The trophies were immediately mounted on the top of his little bookcase ; and when Wood visited him, after manv years of absence from this country, he found them in pos- session of a similar position in his dressing-room at Abbots- ford. All this occurred in the beginning of April 1796. A few days afterwards Scott went to pay a visit at a country house, where he expected to meet the " lady of his love." Jane Anne Cranstoun was in the secret of his attachment. and knew, that however doubtful might be Miss Stuart's feeling on that subject, she had a high admiration of Scott's abilities, and often corresponded with him on literary mat- ters ; so, after he had left Edinburgh, it occurred to her that she might perhaps forward his views in this quarter, by presenting him in the character of a printed author. William Erskine being called in to her councils, a few copies of the ballad were forthwith thrown off in the most elegant style, and one, richly bound and blazoned, followed Scott in the course of a few days to the country. The verses were read and approved of, and Miss Cranstoun at least flattered herself that he had not made his first appear- ance in types to no purpose. 1 In autumn he saw again his favourite haunts in Perth- shire and Forfarshire, — among others, the residence of Miss Stuart ; and that his reception was not adequate to his expectations, may be gathered from some expressions 1 This story was told by the Countess of Purgstall on her death-bed to Captain Basil Hall. See his Schloss Hainfeld, p. 338. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 89 in a letter addressed to him when at Montrose by his con- fidante, Miss Cranstoun : — "Dear Scott," — (she says) — " I bless the gods for conducting your poor dear soul safely to Perth. When I consider the wilds, the forests, the lakes, the rocks — and the spirits in which you must have whispered to their startled echoes, it amazeth me how you escaped. Had you but dismissed your little squire and Earwig [a pony], and spent a few days as Orlando would have done, all posterity might have profited by it ; but to trot quietly away, without so much as one stanza to Despair — never talk to me of love again — never, never, never ! I am dying for your collection of exploits. When will you return ? In the meantime, Heaven speed you ! Be sober, and hope to the end." The affair in which Miss Cranstoun took so lively an interest was now approaching its end. It was known, before autumn closed, that the lady of his vows had finally promised her hand to his amiable rival ; and, when the fact was announced, some of those who knew Scott the best, appear to have entertained very serious apprehensions as to the effect which the disappointment might have upon his feelings. For example, one of those brothers of The Mountain wrote as follows to another of them, on the 12th October 1796: — "Mr Forbes marries Miss Stuart. This is not good news. I always dreaded there was some self-deception on the part of our romantic friend, and I now shudder at the violence of hi3 most irritable and un- governable mind. Who is it that says, ' Men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love ? ' I hope sincerely it may be verified on this occasion." Scott had, however, in all likelihood, digested his agony during the solitary ride in the Highlands to which Miss Cranstoun's last letter alludes. I venture to recall here to the reader's memory the opening of the twelfth chapter of Peveril of the Peak, written twenty-six years after this youthful disappoint- 90 LIFE OF SIR "WALTER SCOTT. ment : — " The period at which love is formed for the first time, and felt most strongly, is seldom that at which there is much prospect of its being brought to a happy issue. The state of artificial society opposes many complicated obstructions to eai-ly marriages ; and the chance is very great that such obstacles prove insurmountable. In fine, there are few men who do not look back in secret to some period of their youth, at which a sincere and early affection was repulsed, or betrayed, or became abortive from oppos- ing circumstances. It is these little passages of secret history which leave a tinge of romance in every bosom, scarce permitting us, even in the most busy or the most advanced period of life, to listen with total indifference to a tale of true love." Rebelling, as usual, against circumstances, Scott seems to have turned with renewed ardour to his literary pursuits ; and in that same October, 1796, he was "prevailed on," as he playfully expresses it, " by the request of friends, to indulge his own vanity, by publishing the translation of Le.nore, with that of the Wild Huntsman, also from Bur- ger, in a thin quarto." The little volume, which has no author's name on the title-page, was printed for Manners and Miller of Edinburgh. He had owed his copy of Burger to a young gentlewoman of high German blood, who in 1795 became the wife of his friend and chief Hugh Scott of Harden. She was daughter of Count Briihl of Martkir- chen, long Saxon ambassador at the Court of St James's, by his wife Almeria, Countess-Dowager of Egremont. The young kinsman was introduced to her soon after her arrival at Mertoun, and his attachment to German studies excited her attention and interest. The ballad of the Wild Huntsman appears to have been executed during the month that preceded his first publication ; and he was thenceforth engaged in a succession of versions from the dramas of Meier and Ifiland. several of which are still extant in his MS., marked 1796 and 1797. These are LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 91 all in prose like their originals ; but he also versified at the same time some lyrical fragments of Goethe, as, for example, the Morlachian Ballad, " What yonder glim- mers so white on the mountain?" and the song from Claudina von Villa Bella. He consulted his friend at Mertoun on all these essays ; and I have often heard him say, that among those many " obligations of a distant date which remained impressed on his memory, after a life spent in a constant interchange of friendship and kindness," he counted not as the least the lady's frank- ness in correcting his Scotticisms, and more especially his Scottish rhymes. His obligations to this lady were indeed various ; but I doubt, after all, whether these were the most important. He used to say, that she was the first woman of real fashion that took him up ; that she used the privileges of her sex and station in the truest spirit of kindness ; set him right as to a thousand little trifles, which no one else would have ventured to notice ; and, in short, did for him what no one but an elegant woman can do for a young man, whose early days have been spent in narrow and provincial cir- cles. " When I first saw Sir Walter," she writes to me, " he was about four or five-and-twenty, but looked much younger. He seemed bashful and awkward ; but there were from the first such gleams of superior sense and spirit in his conversation, that I was hardly surprised when, after our acquaintance had ripened a little, I felt myself to be talking with a man of genius. He was most modest about himself, and shewed his little pieces apparently without any consciousness that they could possess any claim on particular attention. Nothing so easy and good-humoured as the way in which he received any hints I might offer, when he seemed to be tampering with the King's English. 1 remember particularly how he laughed at himself, when I made him take notice that ' the little two dogs,' in soma 92 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. of his lines, did not please an English ear accustomed to ' the two little does.' " Nor was this the only person at Mertoun who took a lively interest in his pursuits. Harden entered into all the feelings of his beautiful bride on this subject; and his mother, the Lady Diana Scott, daughter of the last Earl of Marchmont, did so no less. She had conversed, in her early days, with the brightest ornaments of the cycle of Queen Anne, and preserved rich stores of anecdote, well calculated to gratify the curiosity and excite the ambition of a young enthusiast in literature. Lady Diana soon ap- preciated the minstrel of the clan ; and, surviving to a remarkable age, she had the satisfaction of seeing him at the height of his eminence — the solitary person who could give the author of Marmion personal reminiscences of Pope. With these friends, as well as in his Edinburgh cir- cle, the little anonymous volume found warm favour ; Dugald Stewart, Ramsay of Ochtertyre, and George Chalmers, especially prophesied for it great success. The many inaccuracies and awkwardness of rhyme and dic- tion to which Scott alludes in republishing its two bal- lads towards the close of his life, did not prevent real lovers of poetry from seeing that no one but a poet could have transfused the daring imagery of the German in a style so free, bold, masculine, and full of life ; but, wearied as all such readers had been with that succession of flimsy, lackadaisical trash which followed the appearance of the Reliques by Bishop Percy, the opening of such a new vein of popular poetry as these verses revealed, would have been enough to produce lenient critics for inferior translations. Many, as we have seen, sent forth copies of the Lenore about the same time ; and some of these might be thought better than Scott's in particular passages ; but, on the whole, it seems to have been felt and acknowledged LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 93 by those best entitled to judge, that he deserved the palm. Meantime, we must not forget that Scotland had lost that very year the great poet Burns, — her glory and her shame. It is at least to be hoped that a general sentiment of self- reproach, as well as of sorrow, had been excited by the pre- mature extinction of such a light ; and, at all events, it is agreeable to know that they who had watched his career with the most affectionate concern, were among the first to hail the promise of a more fortunate successor. The anticipations of these gentlemen, that Scott's ver- sions would attract general attention in the south, were not fulfilled. He himself attributes this to the contempora- neous appearance of so many other translations from Lenore. " I was coldly received," he says, " by strangers, but my reputation began rather to increase among my own friends ; and on the whole I was more bent to shew the world that it had neglected something worth notice than to be affronted by its indifference ; or rather, to speak candidly, I found pleasure in the literary labours in which I had almost by accident become engaged, and laboured less in the hope of pleasing others, though cer- tainly without despair of doing so, than in pursuit of a new and agreeable amusement to myself." In his German studies, Scott acquired, about this time, another assistant in Mr Skene of Rubislaw — a gentleman considerably his junior, who had just returned to Scot- land from a residence of several years in Saxony. Their fondness for the same literature, with Scott's eager- ness to profit by his new acquaintance's superior attain- ment in it, opened an intercourse which general simila- rity of tastes, and I venture to add, in many of the most important features of character, soon ripened into the familiarity of a tender friendship — "An intimacy," Mr Skene says, in a paper before me, " of which I shall ever think with so much pride — a friendship so pure and cor- dial as to have been able to withstand all the vicissitudes 94 UFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. of nearly forty years, without ever having sustained even a casual chill from unkind thought or word." Mr Skene adds — " During the whole progress of his varied life, to that eminent station which he could not but feel he at length held in the estimation, not of his countrymen alone, but of the whole world, I never could perceive the slightest shade of variance from that simplicity of character with which he impressed me on the first hour of our meeting." Among the common tastes which served to knit these friends together, was their love of horsemanship, in which, ns in all other manly exercises, Skene highly excelled ; and the fears of a French invasion becoming every day more serious, their thoughts were turned with corresponding zeal to the project of mounted volunteers. " The London Light- horse had set the example," says Mr Skene ; " but in truth it was to Scott's ardour that this force in the North owed its origin. Unable, by reason of his lame- ness, to serve amongst his friends on foot, he had no- thing for it but to rouse the spirit of the moss-trooper, with which he readily inspired all who possessed the means of substituting the sabre for the musket." On the 14th February 1797, these friends and many more met and drew up an offer to serve as a body of volunteer cavalry in Scotland ; which was accepted by Government. The organization of the corps proceeded rapidly ; they ex- tended their offer to serve in any part of the island in case of invasion ; and this also being accepted, the whole ar- rangement was shortly completed ; when Charles Mait- land of Kankeillor was elected Major-Commandant ; Wil- liam Rae of St Catharine's, Captain ; William Forbes of Pitsligo, and James Skene of Kubislaw, Cornets ; Wal- ter Scott, Paymaster, Quartermaster, and Secretary. But the treble duties thus devolved on Scott were found to interfere too severely with his other avocations, and Colin Mackenzie of Portmore relieved him from those of pay- master. LIKE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 95 M The part of quartermaster," says Mr Skene, " was pur- posely selected for him, that lie might be spared the rough usage of the ranks ; but, notwithstanding his infirmity, he had a remarkably firm seat on horseback, and in all situa- tions a fearless one : no fatigue ever seemed too much for him, and his zeal and animation served to sustain the en- thusiasm of the whole corps, while his ready ' mot a rire' kept up, in all, a degree of good-humour and relish for the service, without which, the toil and privations of long daily drills would not easily have been submitted to by such a body of gentlemen. At every interval of exercise, the order, sit at ease, was the signal for the quartermaster to lead the squadron to merriment ; every eye was intuitively turned on • Earl Walter,' as he was familiarly called by his associates of that date, andhis ready joke seldom failed to raise the ready laugh. He took his full share in all the labours and duties of the corps, had the highest pride in its progress and proficiency, and was such a trooper himself, as only a very powerful frame of body and the warmest zeal in the cause could have enabled any one to be. But his habitual good-humour was the great charm, and at the daily mess (for we all dined together when in quarters) that reigned supreme." Earl Walter's first charger, by the way, was a tall and powerful animal, named Lenore. These daily drills appear to have been persisted in during the spring and summer of 1797 - t the corps spending moreover some weeks in quarters at Musselburgh. The majority of the troop having professional duties to attend to, the ordinary hour for drill was five in the morning ; and when we reflect, that after some hours of hard work in this way, Scott had to produce himself regularly in the Parliament House with gown and wig, for the space of four or five hours at least, while his chamber practice, though still humble, was on the increase — and that he had found a plentiful source of new social engagements in his troop connexions — it certainly could have excited no surprise had his literary studies been 96 LIVE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. found suffering total intermission during this busy period. That such was not the case, however, his correspondence and note-books afford ample evidence. His fee-book shews that he made by his first year's practice L.24, 3s. ; by the second, L.57, 15s. ; by the third, L.84, 4s. ; by the fourth, L.90 ; and in his fifth year at the Bar — that is, from November 1796 to July 1797 — L.144, 10s. ; of which L.50 were fees from his father's chamber. He had no turn, at this time of his life, for early rising ; so that the regular attendance at the morning drills was of itself a strong evidence of his military zeal ; but he must have, in spite of them, and of all other circumstances, persisted in what was the usual custom of all his earlier life, namely, the devotion of the best hours of the night to solitary study. In general, both as a young man, and in more advanced age, his constitution required a good allowance of sleep, and he, on principle, indulged in it, saying, "he was but half a man if he had not full seven hours of utter unconsciousness ;" but his whole mind and tempera- ment were, at this period, in a state of most fervent exal- tation, and spirit triumphed over matter. LIFE OF SIR WAXTER SCOTT. 97 CHAPTER III. Tour to the English Lakes — Miss Carpenter — Marriage — Lass- wade Cottage — Original Ballads — Monk Lewis — Goetz of Ber- lichingen — John Leyden — James Hogg — James Ballantyne — Sheriffship of Selkirk — Publication of the Minstrelsy of the Bor- der. 1797-1803. After the rising of the Court of Session in July 1797, Scott set out on a tour to the English lakes, accompanied by his brother John and Adam Fergusson. Their first stage was Halyards in Tweeddale, then' inhabited by his friend's father, the philosopher and historian ; and they stayed there for a day or two, in the course of which he had his first and only interview with David Ritchie, the original of his Black Dwarf. Proceeding southwards, the tourists visited Carlisle, Penrith, — the vale of the Eamont, inclu- ding Mayburgh and Brougham Castle, — Ulswater and Windermere ; and at length fixed their head-quarters at the then peaceful and sequestered little watering place of Gilsland, making excursions from thence to the various scenes of romantic interest which are commemorated in The Bridal of Triermain, and otherwise leading very much the sort of life depicted among the loungers of St Ronan's Well. Scott was, on his first arrival at Gilsland, not a little engaged with the beauty of one of the young ladies lodged under the same roof with him ; and it was on occa- sion of a visit in her company to some part of the Roman Wall that he indited his lines — " Take these flowers which, purple waving, On the ruin'd rampart grew," &c. But this was only a passing glimpse of flirtation. A week or so afterwards commenced a more serious affair. G* Q8 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Riding one day with Fergusson, they met, some miles from their quarters, a young lady taking the air on horseback, whom neither of them had previously remarked, and whose appearance instantly struck both so much, that they kept her in view until they had satisfied themselves that she also was one of the party at Gilsland. The same evening there was a ball, at which Captain Scott produced himself in his regimentals, and Fergusson also thought proper to be equipped in the uniform of the Edinburgh Volunteers. There was no little rivalry among the young travellers as to who should first get presented to the unknown beauty of the morning's ride ; but though both the gentlemen in scarlet had the advantage of being dancing partners, their friend succeeded in handing the fair stranger to supper — and such was his first introduction to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter. Without the features of a regular beauty, she was rich in personal attractions ; "a form that was fashioned as light as a fay's ;" a complexion of the clearest and lightest olive ; eyes large, deep-set and dazzling, of the finest Italian brown ; and a profusion of silken tresses, black as the raven's wing ; her address hovering between the reserve of a pretty young Englishwoman who has not mingled largely in general society, and a certain natural archness and gaiety that suited well with the accompaniment of a French accent. A lovelier vision, as all who remember her in the bloom of her days have assured me, could hardly have been imagined ; and from that hour the fate of the young poet was fixed. She was the daughter of Jean Charpentier, of Lyons, a devoted royalist, who held an office under Government, and Charlotte Volere, his wife. She and her only brother, Charles Charpentier, had been educated in the Protestant religion of their mother ; and when then- father died, which occurred in the beginning of the Revolution, Madame Charpentier made her escape with her children first to LIFE OF SIR "WALTER SCOTT. 99 Faris, and then to England, where they found a warm friend and protector in Arthur, the second Marquis of Downshire, who had, in the course of his travels in France, formed an intimate acquaintance with the family, and, in- deed, spent some time under their roof. M. Charpentier had, in his first alarm as to the coming Revolution, invested L.4000 in English securities — part in a mortgage upon Lord Downshire's estates. On the mother's death, which occurred soon after her arrival in London, this nobleman took on himself the character of sole guardian to her chil- dren ; and Charles Charpentier received in due time, through his interest, an appointment in the service- of the East India Company, in which he had by this time risen to the lucrative situation of commercial resident at Salem. His sister was now making a little excursion, under the care of the lady who had superintended her education, Miss Jane Nicholson, a daughter of Dr Nicholson, Dean of Exeter, and grand- daughter of William Nicholson, Bishop of Carlisle, well known as the editor of "The English Historical Library." To some connexions which the learned prelate's family had ever since his time kept up in the diocese of Carlisle, Miss Carpenter owed the direction of her summer tour. Scott's father was now in a very feeble state of health, which accounts for his first announcement of this affair be- ing made in a letter to his mother ; it is undated ; — but by this time the young lady had left Gilsland for Carlisle, were she remained until her destiny was settled. He says : — " My dear Mother, — I should very ill deserve the care and affection with which you have ever regarded me, were I to neglect my duty so far as to omit consulting my father and you in the most important step which I can pos- sibly take in life, and upon the success of which my future happiness must depend. It is with pleasure I think that I can avail myself of your advice and instructions in an i 100 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 1 5 \ affair of so great importance as that which I have at pre- sent on my hands. You will probably guess from thi* preamble,, that I am engaged in a matrimonial plan, which is really the case. Though my acquaintance with the young lady has not been of long standing, this circumstance is in some degree counterbalanced by the intimacy in which we have lived, and by the opportunities which that intimacy has afforded me of remarking her conduct and sentiments on many different occasions, some of which were rather of a delicate nature, so that in fact I have seen more of her during the few weeks we have been together, than I could have done after a much longer acquaintance, shackled by the common forms of ordinary life. You will not expect from me a description of her person — for which I refer you to my brother, as also for a fuller account of all the circum- stances attending the business than can be comprised in the compass of a letter. Without flying into raptures, for I must assure you that my judgment as well as my affec- tions are consulted upon this occasion — without flying into raptures, then, I may safely assure you, that her temper is sweet and cheerful, her understanding good, and, what I know will give you pleasure, her principles of religion very serious. I have been very explicit with her upon the nature of my expectations, and she thinks she can accom- modate herself to the situation which I should wish her to hold in society as my wife, which, you will easily compre- hend, I mean should neither be extravagant nor degrading. Her fortune, though partly dependent upon her brother, who is high in office at Madras, is very considerable — at present L.500 a-year. This, however, we must, in some degree, regard as precarious — I mean to the full extent ; and indeed, when you know her, you will not be sur- prised that I regard this circumstance chiefly because it re- moves those prudential considerations which would other- wise render our union impossible for the present. Betwixt LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 101 her income and my own professional exertion's, 1 have little doubt we will be enabled to hold the rank in so- ciety which my family and situation entitle me to fill. Write to me very fully upon this important subject — send me your opinion, your advice, and, above all, your blessing." Scott remained in Cumberland until the Jedburgh as- sizes recalled him to his legal duties. On arriving in that town, he immediately sent for his friend Shortreed, whose Memorandum records that the evening of the 30th Sep- tember 1797 was one of the most joyous he ever spent. " Scott," he says, " was sair beside himself about Miss Carpenter ; — we toasted her twenty times over — and sat together, he raving about her, until it was one in the morning." He soon returned to Cumberland ; and re- mained there until various difficulties presented by the prudence and prejudices of family connexions had been overcome. It appears that at one stage of the business he had seriously contemplated leaving the bar of Edin- burgh, and establishing himself with his bride (I know not in what capacity) in one of the colonies. He attended the Court of Session as usual in November ; and was married at Carlisle during the Christmas recess. I ex- tract the following entries from the fly-leaf of his black- letter bible :■ — " Secundum morem majorum hcec de familia Gualteri Scott, Jurisconsulti Edinensis, in librum nunc sacrum manu sua con- scripta sunt. " Gualterus Scott, Jiliiis Gualteri Scott et Annoe Ruther- ford, natus erat apud Edinam \bmo die Augusti. a.d. 1771. " Socius Facultatis Juridical Edinensis receptus erat 1 1 mo die Julii, a.d. 1792. " In ecclcsiam Sanctoz Marioz apud Carlisle, uxorem duxit Margaretam Charlottam Carpenter, Jiliam quondam Joannis 102 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Charpentier et Charlottce Volere, Lugdunensem, 2ito die De- cembris 1797." l Scott carried his bride to a lodging in George Street, Edinburgh ; a house which he had taken, not being quite prepared for her reception. The first fortnight was, I be- lieve, sufficient to convince her husband's family that, how- ever rashly he had formed the connexion, she had the ster- ling qualities of a wife. Notwithstanding some little lean- ing to the pomps and vanities of the world, she had made up her mind to find her happiness in better things ; and so lone as their circumstances continued narrow, no woman could have conformed herself to them with more of good feeling and good sense. I cannot fancy that her man- ners or ideas could ever have amalgamated very well with those of her husband's parents ; but the feeble state of the old gentleman's health prevented her from seeing them constantly ; and without any affectation of strict intimacy, they soon were, and always continued to be, 1 The account in the text of Miss Carpenter's origin has been, I am aware, both spoken and written of as an uncandid one : it had been expected that even in 1837 I would not pass in silence a rumour of early prevalence, which represented her and her brother as children of Lord Downshire by Madame Charpentier. I did not think it necessary to allude to this story while any of Sir Walter's own children were living ; and I presume it will be suffi- cient for me to say now, that neither I, nor, I firmly believe, any one of them, ever heard either from Sir Walter, or from his wife, or from Miss Nicholson (who survived them both) the slightest hint as to the rumour in question. There is not an expression in the preserved correspondence between Scott, the young lady, and the Marquis, that gives it a shadow of countenance. Lastly, Lady Scott always kept hanging by her bedside, and repeatedly kissed in her dying moments, a miniature of her father which is now in my hands ; and it is the well painted likeness of a handsome gentle- man — but I am assured the features have no resemblance to Lord Downshire or any of the Hill family. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 108 very good friends. Anne Scott, the delicate sister to whom the Ashestiel Memoir alludes so tenderly, speedily formed a warm and sincere attachment for the stranger ; but death, in a short time, carried off that interesting creature, who seems to have had much of her brother's imaginative and romantic temperament, without his power of controlling it. Mrs Scott's arrival was welcomed with unmingled de- light by the brothers of The Mountain. The two ladies who had formerly given life and grace to their society, were both recently married. Scott's house in South Castle Street (soon after exchanged for one of the same sort in North Castle Street, which he purchased, and inhabited down to 1826) became now what Cranstoun's and Er- skine's had been while their accomplished sisters remained with them. The officers of the Light Horse, too, esta- blished a club among themselves, supping once a-week at each other's houses in rotation. The lady thus found two somewhat different, but both highly agreeable circles ready to receive her with cordial kindness ; and the evening hours passed in a round of innocent gaiety, all the arrangements being conducted in a simple and inexpensive fashion, suit- able to young people whose days were mostly laborious, and very few of their purses heavy. Scott and Erskine had always been fond of the theatre ; the pretty bride was passionately so — and I doubt if they ever spent a week in Edinburgh without indulging themselves in this amusement. But regular dinners and crowded assemblies were in those years quite unthought of. Perhaps nowhere else could have been found a society on so small a scale including more of vigorous intellect, varied information, elegant tastes, and real virtue, affection, and mutual confidence. How often have I heard its members, in the midst of the wealth and honours which most of them in due season at- tained, sigh over the recollection of those humbler days, when love and ambition were young and buoyant — and no 104 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. difference of opinion was able to bring even a momentary chill over the warmth of friendship. In the summer of 1798 Scott hired a cottage at Lass- wade, on the Esk, about six miles from Edinburgh. It is a small house, but with one room of good dimensions, which Mrs Scott's taste set off to advantage at very humble cost — a paddock or two — and a garden (commanding a most beautiful view) in which Scott delighted to train his flowers and creepers. Never, I have heard him say, was he prouder of his handiwork than when he had completed the fashioning of a rustic archway, now overgrown with hoary ivy, by way of ornament to the entrance from the Edin- burgh road. In this retreat they spent some happy sum- mers, receiving the visits of their few chosen friends from the neighbouring city, and wandering at will amidst some of the most romantic scenery that Scotland can boast — Scott's dearest haunt in the days of his boyish ramblin^s. They had neighbours, too, who were not slow to cultivate their acquaintance. With the Clerks of Pennycuick, with Mackenzie the Man of Feeling, who then occupied the charming villa of Auchendinny, and with Lord Woodhouse- lee, Scott had from an earlier date been familiar ; and it was while at Lasswade that he formed intimacies, even more important in their results, with the noble families of Melville and Buccleuch, both of whom have castles in the same valley. " Sweet are the paths, passing sweet, By Esk's fair streams that run, O'er airy steep, thro' copsewood deep Impervious to the sun ; " From that fair dome where suit is paid By blast of bugle free, To Auchendinny's hazle shade, And haunted Woodhouselee. " Who knows not Melville's beechy grove, And Eoslin's rocky glen ; Dalkeith, which all the virtues love, And classic Hawthornden ?" LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 106 Another verse reminds us that " There the rapt poet's step may rove ;" — and it was amidst these delicious solitudes that he did pro- duce the pieces which laid the imperishable foundations of all his fame. It was here, that when his warm heart was beating with young and happy love, and his whole mind and spirit were nerved by new motives for exertion — it was here, that in the ripened glow of manhood he seems to have first felt something of his real strength, and poured himself out in those splendid original ballads which were at once to fix his name. I must, however, approach these more leisurely. When William Efskine was in London in the spring of this year, he happened to meet in society with Matthew Gregory Lewis, M.P. for Hindon, whose romance of The Monk, with the ballads which it included, had made for him, in those barren days, a brilliant reputation. This good- natured fopling, the pet and plaything of certain fashion- able circles, was then busy with that miscellany which at length came out in 1801, under the name of Tales of Wonder, and was beating up in all quarters for contribu- tions. Erskine shewed Lewis the versions of Lenore and the Wild Huntsman ; and when he mentioned that his friend had other specimens of the German diablerie in his portfolio, the collector anxiously requested that Scott might be enlisted in his cause ; — and he, who was perhaps at all times rather disposed to hold popular favour as the surest test of literary merit, and who certainly continued through life to overestimate all talents except his own, considered this invitation as a very flattering compliment. He imme- diately wrote to Lewis, placing whatever pieces he had translated and imitated from the German Volkslieder at his disposal. In the autumn Lewis made a tour into the north ; and Scott told Allan Cunningham, thirty years afterwards, that he thought he had never felt such elation as when the 106 LTFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. " Monk" invited him to dine with him for the first time at his hotel. Since he gazed on Burns in his seventeenth year, he had seen no one enjoying, by general consent, the fame of a poet ; and Lewis, whatever Scott might, on ma- turer consideration, think of his title to such fame, had cer- tainly done him no small service ; for the ballads of Alonzo the Brave, &c, had rekindled effectually in his breast the spark of poetical ambition. Lady Charlotte Campbell (now Bury), always distinguished by her passion for let- ters, was ready, " in pride of rank, in beauty's bloom," to do the honours of Scotland to the Lion of Mayfair ; and I believe Scott's first introduction to Lewis took place at one of her Ladyship's parties. But they met fre- quently, and, among other places, at Dalkeith — as witness one of Scott's marginal notes, written in 1825, on Lord Byron's Diary : — " Lewis was fonder of great people than he ought to have been, either as a man of talent or as a man of fashion. He had always dukes and duchesses in his mouth, and was pathetically fond of any one that had a title. You would have sworn he had been a parvenu of yesterday, yet he had lived all his life in good society. Ilis person was extremely small and boyish — he was indeed the least man I ever saw, to be strictly well and neatly made. I remember a picture of him by Saunders being handed round at Dalkeith House. The artist had ingeniously flung a dark folding-mantle around the form, under which was half-hid a dagger, a dark lantern, or some such cut-throat appurtenance ; with all this the features were preserved and ennobled. It passed from hand to hand into that of Henry, Duke of Buccleuch, who, hearing the general voice affirm that it was very like, said aloud, ' Like Mat Lewis ! Why that picture 's like a Man !' He looked, and lo, Mat Lewis's head was at his elbow. ' Lewis spent a day or two with Scott at Musselburgh, where the yeomanry corps were in quarters. Scott re- ceived him in his lodgings, under the roof of an ancient LIFE OF SIR WAXTEK SCOTT. 107 dame, who afforded him much amusement by her daily colloquies with the fish women — the Mucklebackets of the place. His delight in studying the dialect of these people is well remembered by the survivors of the cavalry, and must have astonished the stranger dandy. While walking about before dinner on one of these days, Mr Skene's re- citation of the German Kriegslied, " Der Abschied's Tag ist da" (the day of departure is come), delighted both Lewis and the Quarter-Master ; and the latter produced next morning that spirited little piece in the same measure, which, embodying the volunteer ardour of the time, was forthwith adopted as the troop-song of the Edinburgh Light-Horse. In January 1799, Mr Lewis appears negotiating with a bookseller, named Bell, for the publication of Scott's version of Goethe's Tragedy, " Goetz von Berlichingen of the Iron Hand." Bell seems finally to have purchased the copy-right for twenty-five guineas, and twenty-five more to be paid in case of a second edition — which was never called for until long after the copy -right had expired. Lewis writes, " I have made him distinctly understand, that, if you accept so small a sum, it will be only because this is your first publication :" — the tiny adventure in 1796 had been completely forgotten. The Goetz appeared ac- cordingly, with Scott's name on the title-page, in the fol- lowing February. In March 1799, he carried his wife to London, this being the first time that he had seen the metropolis since the days of his infancy. The acquaintance of Lewis served to introduce him to some literary and fashionable society, with which he was much amused ; but his great anxiety was to examine the antiquities of the Tower and Westmin- ster Abbey, and to make some researches among the MSS. of the British Museum. He found his Goetz spoken of favourably, on the whole, by the critics of the time ; but it does not appear to have attracted general attention. The ^08 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. truth is, that, to have given Goethe anything like a fair chance with the English public, his first drama ought to have been translated at least ten years before. The imi- tators had been more fortunate than the master, and this work, which constitutes one of the landmarks in the his- tory of German literature, had not come even into Scott's hands, until he had familiarized himself with the ideas which it first opened, in the puny mimicries of writers already for- gotten. He readily discovered the vast gulf which separated Goethe from the German dramatists on whom he had hereto- fore been employing himself ; but the public in general drew no such distinctions, and the English Goetz was soon after- wards condemned to oblivion, through the unsparing ridi- cule showered on whatever bore the name of German play, by the inimitable caricature of The Rovers. The tragedy of Goethe, however, has in truth nothing in common with the wild absurdities against which Canning and Ellis levelled the arrows of their wit. It is a broad, bold, free, and most picturesque delineation of real cha- racters, manners, and events ; the first fruits, in a word, of that passionate admiration for Shakespeare, to which all that is excellent in the recent imaginative literature of Germany must be traced. With what delight must Scott have found the scope and manner of our Elizabethan drama revived on a foreign stage at the call of a real master ! — with what double delight must he have seen Goethe seizing for the noblest purposes of art, men and modes of life, scenes, in- cidents, and transactions, all claiming near kindred with those that had from boyhood formed the chosen theme of his own sympathy and reflection ! In the baronial robbers of the Rhine, stern, bloody, and rapacious, but frank, ge- nerous, and, after their fashion, courteous — in their forays upon each other's domains, the besieged castles, the plun- dered herds, the captive knights, the browbeaten bishop, and the baffled liege-lord, who vainly strove to quell all these turbulences — Scott had before him a vivid image of LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 109 the life of his own and the rival Border clans, familiarized to him by a hundred nameless minstrels. If it be doubt- ful whether, but for Percy's Reliques, he would ever have thought of editing their Ballads, I think it not less so, whether, but for the Ironhanded Goetz, it would ever have flashed upon his mind, that in the wild traditions which these recorded, he had been unconsciously assembling materials for more works of high art than the longest life could serve him to elaborate. He executed about the same time his " House of Aspen," rather a rifacimento than a translation from one of the minor dramatists that had crowded to partake the popu- larity of Goetz. It also was sent to Lewis in London, where, having been read and commended by the celebrated actress, Mrs Esten, it was taken up by Kemble, and I be- lieve actually put in rehearsal for the stage. If so, the trial did not encourage further preparation, and the notion was abandoned. Discovering the play thirty years after among his papers, Scott sent it to the Keepsake of 1829. In the advertisement he says, " He had lately chanced to look over these scenes with feelings very different from those of the adventurous period of his literary life during which they were written, and yet with such, perhaps, as a reformed libertine might regard the illegitimate production of an early amour." He adds, " there is something to be ashamed of, certainly ; but, after all, paternal vanity whis- pers that the child has some resemblance to the father." The scenes are interspersed with some lyrics, the numbers of which, at least, are worthy of attention. One has the metre — and not a little of the spirit — of the boat-song of C'lan-Alpin : — " Joy to the victors, the sons of old Aspen, Joy to the race of the battle and scar I" &c. &c. His return to Edinburgh was accelerated by the tidings of his father's death. This worthy man had had a succession of paralytic attacks, under which, mind as well as body 110 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. had by degrees been laid quite prostrate. When the first Chronicles of the Canongate appeared, a near relation of the family said to me — " I had been out of Scotland for some time, and did not know of my good friend's illness until I reached Edinburgh, a few months before his death. Walter carried me to visit him, and warned me that I should see a great change. I saw the very scene that is here painted of the elder Croftangry's sickroom — not a feature different — poor Anne Scott, the gentlest of creatures, was treated by the fretful patient precisely like this niece." I have lived to see the curtain rise and fall once more on a like scene. Mr Thomas Scott continued to manage his father's bu- siness. He married early j x he was in his circle of society extremely popular ; and his prospects seemed fair in all things. The property left by the old gentleman was less than had been expected, but sufficient to make ample pro- vision for his widow, and a not inconsiderable addition to the resources of those among whom the remainder was divided. Scott's mother and sister, both much exhausted with their attendance on a protracted sickbed, and the latter al- ready in the first stage of the malady which in two years more carried her also to her grave, spent the greater part of the following summer and autumn in his cottage at Lass- wade. There he was now again labouring assiduously in the service of Lewis's "hobgoblin repast;" and in an essay of 1830, he gives us sufficient specimens of the Monk's Editorial Letters to his contributor — the lectures of a " martinet in rhymes and numbers — severe enough, but useful eventually, as forcing on a young and careless ver- sifier criticisms absolutely necessary to his future success." As to his imperfect rhymes of this period, I have no doubt 1 Mrs Thomas Scott, born Miss Macculloch of Ardwell, was one of the best, and wisest, and most agreeable women I have ever known. She had a motherly affection for all Sir Walter's family — and she survived them all. She died at Canterbury in April 1848, aged 72. 1XFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Ill he owed theni to his recent zeal about collecting the bal- lads of the Border. He had, in his familiarity with com- positions so remarkable for merits of a higher order, ceased to be offended, as in the days of his devotion to Lang- home and Mickle he would probably have been, with their loose and vague assonances, which are often, in fact, not rhymes at all ; a licence pardonable enough in real min- strelsy, meant to be chanted to moss-troopers with the accompanying tones of the war-pipe, but certainly not worthy of imitation in verses written for the eye of a polished age. Of this carelessness as to rhyme, we see little or no- thing in our few specimens of his boyish verse, and it does not occur, to any extent that has ever been thought worth notice, in his great works. But Lewis's collection did not engross the leisure of this summer. It produced also what Scott justly calls his " first serious attempts in verse ;" and of these, the earliest ap- pears to have been the Glenfinlas. Here the scene is laid in the most favourite district of his favourite Perthshire Highlands : and the Gaelic tradition on which it is founded was far more likely to draw out the secret strength of his genius, as well as to arrest the feelings of his countrymen, than any subject with which the stores of German diablerie could have supplied him. It has been alleged, however, that the poet makes a German use of his Scottish materials ; that the legend, as briefly told in the simple prose of his preface, is more affecting than the lofty and sonorous stanzas themselves ; that the vague terror of the original dream loses, instead of gaining, by the expanded elaboration of the detail. There may be something in these objections : but no man can pretend to be an impartial critic of the piece which first awoke his own childish ear to the power of poetry and the melody of verse. The next of these compositions was, I believe, the Eve of St John, in which Scott re-peoples the tower of Smail- 112 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. holm, the awe -inspiring haunt of his infancy ; and here he touches, for the first time, the one superstition which can still be appealed to with full and perfect effect ; the only one which lingers in minds long since weaned from all sympathy with the machinery of witches and goblins. And surely this mystery was never touched with more thrilling skill than in that noble ballad. It is the first of his origi- nal pieces, too, in which he uses the measure of his own favourite Minstrels; a measure which the monotony of mediocrity had long and successfully been labouring to degrade, but in itself adequate to the expression of the high- est thoughts, as well as the gentlest emotions ; and capable, in fit hands, of as rich a variety of music as any other of modern times. This was written at Mertoun-house in the autumn of 1799. Some dilapidations had taken place in the tower of Smailholm, and Harden, being informed of the fact, and entreated with needless earnestness by his kinsman to arrest the hand of the spoiler, requested play- fully a ballad, of which Smailholm should be the scene, as the price of his assent. Then came The Grey Brother, founded on another su- perstition, which seems to have been almost as ancient as the belief in ghosts ; namely, that the holiest service of the altar cannot go on in the presence of an unclean per- son — a heinous sinner unconfessed and unabsolved. The fragmentary form of this poem greatly heightens the awful- ness of its impression ; and in construction and metre, the verses which really belong to the story appear to me the happiest that have ever been produced expressly in imita- tion of the ballad of the middle age. In the stanzas, pre- viously quoted, on the scenery of the Esk, however beauti- ful in themselves, and however interesting now as marking the locality of the composition, he must be allowed to have lapsed into another strain, and produced a pannus purpu- reus which interferes with and mars the general texture. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 118 He wrote at the same period the fine chivalrous ballad entitled The Fire-King, in which there is more than enough to make us forgive the machinery. It was in the course of this autumn that he first visited Bothwell Castle, the seat of Archibald Lord Douglas, -who had married Lady Frances Scott, sister to Henry Duke of Buccleuch ; a woman whose many amiable virtues were combined with extraordinary strength of mind, and -who had, from the first introduction of the young poet at Dal- keith, formed high anticipations of his future career. Lady Douglas was one of his dearest friends through life ; and now, under her roof, he improved an acquaintance (begun also at Dalkeith) with one whose abilities and accomplish- ments not less qualified her to estimate him, and who still sur- vives to lament the only event that could have interrupted their cordial confidence — Lady Louisa Stuart, daughter of the celebrated John Earl of Bute. These ladies, who were sisters in mind, feeling, and affection, he visited among scenes the noblest and most interesting that all Scotland can shew — alike famous in history and romance ; and he was not unwilling to make Bothwell and Blantyre the subject of another ballad ; of which, however, only a first and im- perfect draft has been recovered. One morning, during his visit to Bothwell, was spent on an excursion to the ruins of Craignethan Castle, the seat, in former days, of the great Evandale branch of the house of Hamilton, but now the property of Lord Douglas ; and the poet expressed such rapture with the scenery, that his hosts urged him to accept, for his lifetime, the use of a small habitable house, enclosed within the circuit of the ancient walls. This offer was not at once declined ; but circumstances occurred before the end of the year which rendered it impossible for him to establish his summer residence in Lanarkshire. The castle of Craignethan is the original of his " Tillietudlem." His note-book of this year has supplied the recent edi- ii* 114 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. tions of his poetry with several other ballads in an incom- plete state : but notwithstanding all these varied essays, and the charms of the distinguished society into which hia reputation had already introduced him, his friends do not appear to have as yet entertained the slightest notion that literature was to be the main business of his life. A letter of one very early correspondent, Mr Kerr of Abbotrule, congratulates him on his having had more to do at the autumnal assizes of Jedburgh this year than on any former occasion, which intelligence he seems himself to have com- municated with no feeble expressions of satisfaction. " I greatly enjoy this," says Kerr. "Go on ; and with your strong sense and hourly ripening knowledge, that you must rise to the top of the tree in the Parliament House in due season, I hold as certain as that Murray died Lord Mans- field. But don't let many an Ovid, 1 or rather many a Burns (which is better), be lost in you. I rather think men of business have produced as good poetry in their by- hours as the professed regulars ; and I don't see any suffi- cient reason why Lord President Scott should not be a famous poet (in the vacation time), when we have seen a President Montesquieu step so nobly beyond the trammels in the Esprit des Loix. I suspect Dryden would have been a happier man had he had your profession. The reasoning talents visible in his verses, assure me that he would have ruled in Westminster Hall as easily as he did at Button's, and he might have found time enough besides for every- thing that one really honours his memory for." This friend appears to have entertained, in October 1799, the very opinion as to the profession of literature on which Scott acted through life. Having again given a week to Liddesdale, in company with Mr Sbortreed, he spent a few days at Rosebank, and 1 How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast ; How many Martials were in Pult'ney lost. — Dunciad, iv. 1 70. I1FE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. ] 15 was preparing to return to Edinburgh for the winter, when lie received a visit which had consequences of importance. In the early days of Launcelot Whale, he had had for a classfellow Mr James Ballantyne, the eldest son of a decent shopkeeper in Kelso, and their acquaintance had never been altogether broken off, as Scott's visits to Rosebank were frequent, and the other had resided for a time in Edin- burgh, when pursuing his education with a view to the profession of a solicitor. Mr Ballantyne had not been suc- cessful in his attempts to establish himself in that branch of the law, and was now the printer and editor of a weekly newspaper in his native town. He called at Rosebank one morning, and requested his old acquaintance to supply a few paragraphs on some legal question of the day for his Kelso Mail. Scott complied ; and carrying his article himself to the printing-office, took with him also some of his recent pieces, designed to appear in Lewis's Collection. With these, especially, as his Memorandum says, the " Mor- lachian fragment after Goethe," Ballantyne was charmed, and he expressed his regret that Lewis's book was so long in appearing. Scott talked of Lewis with rapture ; and, alter reciting some of his stanzas, said — " I ought to apolo- gise to you for having troubled you with anything of my own when I had things like this for your ear." — " I felt at once," says Ballantyne, " that his own verses were far above what Lewis could ever do, and though, when I said this, he dissented, yet he seemed pleased with the warmth of my approbation." At parting, Scott threw out a casual observation, that he wondered his old friend did not try to get some little booksellers' work, " to keep his types in play during the rest of the week." Ballantyne answered, that such an idea had not before occurred to him — that he had no acquaintance with the Edinburgh " trade ;" but, : i he had, his types were good, and he thought he could afford to work more cheaply than town -printers. Scott, " with his good humoured smile," said, — " You had better 1 1 (> LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. try what you cau do. You have been praising my little ballads ; suppose you print off a dozen copies or so of as many as will make a pamphlet, sufficient to let my Edin- burgh acquaintances judge of your skill for themselves." Ballantyne assented ; and I believe exactly twelve copies of William and Ellen, The Fire-King, The Chase, and a few more of those pieces, were thrown off accordingly, with the title (alluding to the long delay of Lewis's Collection) of "Apology for Tales of Terror— 1799." This first specimen of a press, afterwards so celebrated, pleased Scott ; and he said to Ballantyne — " I have been for years collecting old Border ballads, and I think I could, with little trouble, put together such a selection from them as might make a neat little volume, to sell for four or five shillings. I will talk to some of the booksellers about it when I get to Edinburgh, and if the thing goes on, you shall be the printer." Ballantyne highly relished the pro- posal ; and the result of this little experiment changed wholly the course of his worldly fortunes, as well as of his friend's. Mr Ballantyne, after recounting this conversation, says : — " I do not believe that even at this time he seriously contem- plated giving himself much to literature ;" but I think a letter addressed to Ballantyne, in the following April, affords considerable reason to doubt the accuracy of this impression. Scott there states, that he and another acquain- tance of the printer's had been consulting together as to the feasibility of "no less than a total plan of migration from Kelso to Edinburgh ;" and proceeds to say, that, in his opinion, there was then a very favourable opening in Edinburgh for a new printing establishment, conducted by a man of talent and education. He mentions — besides the chance of a share in the printing of law-papers — firstly, a weekly newspaper of the higher class ; secondly, a month- ly magazine ; and thirdly, an annual register, as undertak- ings all likely to be well received ; suggests that the general LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 117 publishing trade itself was in a very languid condition ; and ends with a hint that " pecuniary assistance, if wanted, might (no doubt) be procured on terms of a share, or otherwise." The coincidence of most of these air-drawn schemes with things afterwards realized, is certainly very striking. At the same time, between October 1799 and April 1800, there had occurred a change in Scott's per- sonal affairs very likely to have strengthened, if not origi- nated the design, which Ballantyne did not believe him to have seriously entertained at the time of their autumnal interview. Shortly after the commencement of the Winter Session, the office of Sheriff- depute of Selkirkshire became vacant by the death of an early ally of Scott's, Andrew Plummer of Middlestead, a scholar and antiquary, who had entered with zeal into his ballad researches, and whose name occurs accordingly more than once in the notes to the Border Minstrelsy. Perhaps the community of their tastes may have had some part in suggesting to the Duke of Buccleuch, that Scott might fitly succeed Mr Plummer in the magistra- ture. Be that as it might, his Grace's influence was used with Mr Henry Dundas (afterwards Viscount Melville) who in those days had the general control of the Crown patronage in Scotland, and was prepared to look favour- ably on Scott's pretensions to some office of this descrip- tion. Though neither the Duke nor this able Minister were at all addicted to literature, they had both seen him frequently under their own roofs, and been pleased with his manners and conversation ; and he had by this time come to be on terms of affectionate intimacy with some of the younger members of either family. The Earl of Dalkeith (afterwards Duke Charles of Buccleuch), and his brother Lord Montagu, both participating with kindred ardour in the military patriotism of the period, had been thrown into his society under circumstances well qualified to ripen acquaintance into confidence. Robert Dundas, eldest son 118 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. of the Minister, had been one of Scott's companions in the High School ; and he, too, had been of late a lively partaker in the business of the yeomanry cavalry; and, last not least, Scott always remembered with gratitude the strong inter- cession on this occasion of Lord Melville's nephews, Robert Dundas of Arniston, the Lord Advocate of the time, and William Dundas, then Secretary to the Board of Control. His appointment to the Sheriffship bears date 16th De- cember 1799. It secured him an annual salary of L.300 ; an addition to his resources which at once relieved his mind from whatever degree of anxiety he might have felt in considering the prospect of an increasing family, along with the ever precarious chances of a profession, in the daily drudgery of which it is impossible to suppose that he ever could have found much pleasure. The duties of the office were far from heavy ; the territory, small, peaceful, and pastoral, was in great part the property of the Duke of Buccleuch ; and he turned with redoubled zeal to his project of editing the ballads, many of the best of which belonged to this very district of his favourite Border — those " tales " which, as the Dedication of the Minstrelsy ex- presses it, had " in elder times celebrated the prowess and cheered the halls" of his noble patron's ancestors. Scott found able assistants in the completion of his de- sign. Richard Heber (long Member of Parliament for the University of Oxford) happened to spend this winter in Edinburgh, and was welcomed, as his talents and accom- plishments entitled him to be, by the cultivated society of the place. With Scott, his multifarious learning, particu- larly his profound knowledge of the literary monuments of the middle ages, soon drew him into habits of close alliance ; the stores of his library, even then extensive, were freely laid open, and his own oral commentaries were not less valuable. But through him Scott made acquaintance with a person still more qualified to give effectual aid in this un- dertaking. Few who read these pages can be unacquainted LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 119 with the leading facts in the history of John Ley den. Few can need to be reminded that this extraordinary man, born in a shepherd's cottage in one of the wildest valleys of Rox- burghshire, and of course almost entirely self-educated, had, before he attained his nineteenth year, confounded the doc- tors of Edinburgh by the portentous mass of his acquisitions in almost every department of learning. He had set the extremest penury at utter defiance, or rather he had never been conscious that it could operate as a bar; for bread and water, and access to books and lectures, comprised all within the bounds of his wishes ; and thus he toiled and battled at the gates of science after science, until his unconquerable perseverance carried everything be- fore it ; and yet with this monastic abstemiousness and iron hardness of will, perplexing those about him by manners and habits in which it was hard to say whether the moss- trooper or the schoolman of former days most prevailed, he was at heart a poet. Archibald Constable, in after life one of the most emi- nent of British publishers, was at this period the keeper of a small book-shop, into which few but the poor students of Leyden's order had hitherto found their way. Heber, in the course of his bibliomanical prowlings, discovered that it contained some of " The small old volumes, dark with tarnished gold," which were already the Delilahs of his imagination ; and, moreover, that the young bookseller had himself a strong taste for such charmers. Frequenting the place, accordingly, he observed with some curiosity the countenance and gestures of another daily visitant, who came not to purchase, evi- dently, but to pore over the more recondite articles — often balanced for hours on a ladder with a folio in his hand like Dominie Sampson. The English virtuoso was on the look- out for any books or MSS. that might be of use to the editor of the projected " Minstrelsy," and some casual colloquy led to the discovery that this new stranger was, amidst the 120 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. endless labyrinth of his lore, a master of legend and tradi- tion — an enthusiastic collector and skilful expounder of these very Border ballads. Scott heard with much in- terest Heber's account of his odd acquaintance, and found, when introduced, the person whose initials, affixed to a series of pieces in verse, chiefly translations from Greek, Latin, and the northern languages, scattered, during the last three or four years, over the pages of the " Edinburgh Magazine," had often much excited his curiosity, as various indications pointed out the Scotch Border to be the native district of this unknown "J. L." These new friendships led to a great change in Leyden's position, purposes, and prospects. He was presently re- ceived into the best society of Edinburgh, where his un- couthness of demeanour does not seem to have at all in- terfered with the general appreciation of his genius, his endowments, and amiable virtues. Fixing his ambition on the East, where he hoped to rival the achievements of Sir William Jones, he at length, about the beginning of 1802, obtained the promise of some literary appointment in the East India Company's service ; but when the time drew near, it was discovered that the patronage of the season had been exhausted, with the exception of one surgeon- assistant's commission — which had been with difficulty se- cured for him by Mr William Dundas ; who, moreover, was obliged to inform him, that if he accepted it, he must be qualified to pass his medical trials within six months. This news, which would have crushed any other man's hopes to the dust, was only a welcome fillip to the ardour of Leyden. He that same hour grappled with a new science in full confidence that whatever ordinary men could do in three or four years, his energy could accomplish in as many months ; took his degree accordingly in the beginning of 1803, having just before published his beautiful poem, The Scenes of Infancy ; sailed to India ; raised for himself, within seven short years, the reputation of the most mar- LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 12 L vellous of Orientalists ; and died, in the midst of the proudest hopes, at the same age with Burns and Byron, in 1811. But to return : — Leyden was enlisted by Scott in the service of Lewis, and immediately contributed a ballad, called The Elf- King, to the Tales of Terror. Those highly- spirited pieces, the Cout of Keeldar, Lord Soulis, and The Mermaid, were furnished for the original department of Scott's own collection : and the Dissertation on Fairies, pre- fixed to its second volume, " although arranged and di- gested by the editor, abounds with instances of such curious reading as Leyden only had read, and was originally com- piled by him ;" but not the least of his labours was in the collection of the old ballads themselves. When he first conversed with Ballantyne on the subject of the proposed work, and the printer signified his belief that a single volume of moderate size would be sufficient for the materials, Leyden exclaimed — " Dash it, does Mr Scott mean another thin thins like Goetz of Berlichingen? I have more than that in my head myself: we shall turn out three or four such volumes at least." He went to work stoutly in the realization of these wider views. " In this labour," says Scott, " he was equally interested by friendship for the editor, and by his own patriotic zeal for the honour of the Scottish borders ; and both may be judged of from the following circumstance. An interesting fragment had been obtained of an ancient historical ballad ; but the remainder, to the great disturbance of the editor and his coadjutor, was not to be recovered. Two days afterwards, while the editor was sitting with some company after dinner, a sound was heard at a distance like that of the whistling of a tempest through the torn rigging of the vessel which scuds before it. The sounds increased as they approached more near ; and Leyden (to the great astonishment of such of the guests as did not know him) burst into the room, chanting tlic desiderated ballad with the most enthusiastic 1 22 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. gesture, and all the energy of what he used to call the saw- tones of his voice. It turned out that he had walked be- tween forty and fifty miles and back again, for the sole pur- pose of visiting an old person who possessed this precious remnant of antiquity." l During the years 1800 and 1801, the Minstrelsy formed its editor's chief occupation — a labour of love truly, if ever such there was ; but neither this nor his sheriffship inter- fered with his regular attendance at the Bar, the abandon- ment of which was all this while as far as it ever had been from his imagination, or that of any of his friends. He continued to have his summer headquarters at Lasswade ; and Sir John Stoddart, who visited him there in the course of his Scottish tour (published in 1801), dwells on " the simple unostentatious elegance of the cottage, and the do- mestic picture which he there contemplated — a man of native kindness and cultivated talent, passing the intervals of a learned profession amidst scenes highly favourable to his poetic inspirations, not in churlish and rustic solitude, but in the daily exercise of the most precious sympathies as a husband, a father, and a friend." His means of hospitality were now much enlarged, and the cottage on a Saturday and Sunday at least, was seldom without visitors. Among other indications of greater ease in his circum- stances, which I find in his letter-book, he writes to Heber, after his return to London in May 1800, to request his good offices on behalf of Mrs Scott, who had " set her 1 Essay on the Life of Leyden — Miscellaneous Prose. Many tributes to his memory are scattered over his friend's works, both prose and verse ; and, above all, Scott did not forget him when exploring, three years after his death, the scenery of The Lord of the Isles : — " Scenes sung by him who sings no more : His bright and brief career is o'er. And mute his tuneful strains ; Quench'd is his lamp of varied lore. That loved the light of song to pour; A distant and a deadly shore Has Leyden's cold remains!" LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 128 heart on a phaeton, at once strong, and low, and hand- some, and not to cost more than thirty guineas ;" -which combination of advantages Heber seems to have found by no means easy of attainment. The phaeton was, however, discovered ; and its springs must soon have been put to a sufficient trial, for this was " the first wheeled carriage that ever penetrated into Liddesdale" — namely, in August 1800. The friendship of the Buccleuch family now placed better means of research at his disposal, and Lord Dalkeith had taken special care that there should be a band of pioneers in waiting when he reached Hermitage. Though he had not given up Lasswade, his sheriffship now made it necessary for him that he should be frequently in Ettrick Forest. On such occasions he took up his lodg- ings in the little inn at Clovenford, a favourite fishing sta- tion on the road from Edinburgh to Selkirk. From this place he could ride to the county town whenever business required his presence, and he was also within a few miles of the vales of Yarrow and Ettrick, where he obtained large accessions to his store of ballads. It was in one of these excursions that, penetrating beyond St Mary's lake, he found a hospitable reception at the farm of Blockhouse, situated on the Douglas-burn, then tenanted by a remark- able family, to which I have already made allusion — that of William Laidlaw. He was then a very young man, but the extent of his acquirements was already as noticeable as the vigour and originality of his mind ; and their corre- spondence where " Sir" passes, at a few bounds, through " Dear Sir," and " Dear Mr Laidlaw," to " Dear Willie," shews how speedily this new acquaintance had warmed into a very tender affection. Laidlaw's zeal about the ballads was repaid by Scott's anxious endeavours to get him re- moved from a sphere for which, he writes, " it is no flat- tery to say that you are much too good." It was then, and always continued to be, his opinion, that his friend was particularly qualified for entering with advantage on the 124 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. study of the medical profession ; but such designs, if Laid- law himself ever took them up seriously, were not ultimately persevered in ; and I question whether any worldly success could, after all, have overbalanced the retrospect of an honourable life spent happily in the open air of nature, amidst scenes the most captivating to the eye of genius, and in the intimate confidence of, perhaps, the greatest of con- temporary minds. James Hogg spent ten years of his life in the service of Mr Laidlaw's father, but he had passed into that of an- other sheep-farmer in a neighbouring valley, before Scott first visited Blackhouse. William Laidlaw and Hogg were, however, most intimate friends, and the former took care that Scott should see, without delay, one whose fondness for the minstrelsy of the Forest was equal to his own, and whose aged mother was celebrated for having by heart several ballads in a more perfect form than any other inhabitant of the vale of Ettrick. The personal history of James Hogg must have interested Scott even more than any acquisition of that sort which he owed to this acquaintance with, perhaps, the most remarkable man that ever wore the maud of a shepherd. Under the garb, aspect, and bearing of a rude peasant — and rude enough he was in most of these things, even after no inconsiderable experience of society — Scott found a brother poet, a true son of nature and genius, hardly conscious of his powers. He had taught himself to write by copying the letters of a printed book as he lay watching his flock on the hill-side, and had probably reached the utmost pitch of his ambition, when he first found that his artless rhymes could touch the heart of the ewe-milker who partook the shelter of his mantle during the passing storm. As yet his naturally kind and simple character had not been exposed to any of the dan- gerous flatteries of the world ; his heart was pure, his en- thusiasm buoyant as that of a happy child ; and well as Scott knew that reflection, sagacity, wit, and wisdom, were LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 125 scattered abundantly among the humblest rangers of these pastoral solitudes, there was here a depth and a brightness that filled him with wonder, combined with a quaintness of humour, and a thousand little touches of absurdity, which afforded him more entertainment, as I have often heard him say, than the best comedy that ever set the pit in a roar. Scott opened in the same year a correspondence with the venerable Bishop of Dromore, who seems, however, to have done little more than express a warm interest in an undertaking so nearly resembling that which will ever keep his own name in remembrance. He had more success in his applications to a more unpromising quarter — namely, with Joseph Bitson, the ancient and virulent assailant of Bishop Percy's editorial character. This narrow-minded, sour, and dogmatical little word-catcher had hated the very name of a Scotsman, and was utterly incapable of sympathizing with any of the higher views of his new cor- respondent. Yet the bland courtesy of Scott disarmed even this half-crazy pedant ; and he communicated the stores of his really valuable learning in a manner that seems to have greatly surprised all who had hitherto held any intercourse with him on antiquarian topics. It asto- nished, above all, the amiable and elegant George Ellis, whose acquaintance was about the same time opened to Scott through their common friend Heber. Mr Ellis was now busily engaged in collecting the materials for his charming works, entitled Specimens of Ancient English Poetry, and Specimens of Ancient English Bomance. The correspondence between him and Scott soon came to be constant. They met personally, before many letters had been exchanged, conceived for each other a cordial respect and affection, and continued on a footing of almost bro- therly intimacy ever after. To this alliance, Scott owed, among other advantages, his early and ready admission to the acquaintance and familiarity of Ellis's bosom friend, his 126 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. coadjutor in the Anti-jacobin, and the confidant of all his literary schemes, Mr Canning. Scott spent the Christmas of 1801 at Hamilton Palace, in Lanarkshire. To Lady Anne Hamilton he had been introduced by her friend, Lady Charlotte Campbell, and both tho late and present Dukes of Hamilton appear to have partaken of Lady Anne's admiration for Glenfinlas and the Eve of St John. A morning's ramble to the ma- jestic ruins of the old baronial castle on the precipitous banks of the Evan, and among the adjoining remains of the primeval Caledonian forest, suggested to him a ballad, not inferior in execution to any he had hitherto produced, and especially interesting as the first in which he grapples with the world of picturesque incident unfolded in the authentic annals of Scotland. With the magnificent localities before him he skilfully interwove the daring assassination of the Regent Murray by one of the clansmen of " the princely Hamilton." Had the subject been taken up in after years, we might have had another Marmion or Heart of Mid-Lo- thian ; for in Cadyow Castle we have the materials and outline of more than one of the noblest of ballads. About two years before this piece began to be handed about in Edinburgh, Thomas Campbell had made his ap- pearance there, and at once seized a high place in the lite- rary world by his " Pleasures of Hope." Among the most eager to welcome him had been Scott ; and I find the bro- ther-bard thus expressing himself concerning the MS. of Cadyow : — " The verses of Cadyow Castle are perpetually ringing in my imagination — Where, mightiest of the beasts of chase That roam in woody Caledon, Crashing the forest in his race, The mountain bull comes thundering on — and the arrival of Hamilton, when Reeking from the recent deed, He dashed his carbine on the ground. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 127 I have repeated these lines so often on the North Bridge, that the -whole fraternity of coachmen know me by tongue as I pass. To be sure, to a mind in sober, serious street-walk- ing humour, it must bear an appearance of lunacy when one stamps with the hurried pace and fervent shake of the head, which strong, pithy poetry excites." According to the original intention, the Sir Tristrem, an imperfect romance, ascribed to Thomas of Ercildoune, the famous aid seer and bard of the border, was to have had a prominent place in the first livraison of the Minstrelsy ; but from the rapid accumulation of matter for notes, as well as of unprinted ballads, this plan was dropped. The Cad- yow Castle^ too, was ready, but " two volumes," as Ballan- tyne says, " were already full to overflowing ;" so it also was reserved for a third. Volumes I. and II. appeared in January 1802, from the respectable house of Cadell and Davies in the Strand ; and, owing to the cold reception of Lewis's Tales of Wonder, which had come forth a year earlier, these may be said to have first introduced Scott as an original writer to the English public. In his Remarks on the imita- tion of Popular Poetry, he says : — " When the book came out, the imprint, Kelso, was read with wonder by amateurs of typography, who had never heard of such a place, and were astonished at the example of handsome printing which so obscure a town had produced." One of the embellish- ments was a view of Hermitage Castle, the history of which is rather curious. Scott executed a rough sketch of it durin" the last of his " Liddesdale raids" with Shortreed, standing for that purpose for an hour or more up to Ins middle in the snow. Nothing can be ruder than the per- formance; but his friend William Clerk made a better drawing from it ; and from his, a third and further im- proved copy was done by Hugh Williams, the elegant ar- tist, afterwards known as " Greek Williams." l Scott used 1 His Travels in Greece were published in 1820. 128 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. to say, the oddest thing of all was, that the engraving, founded on the labours of three draughtsmen, one of whom could not drawa straight line, and the two others had never seen the place meant to be represented, was nevertheless pronounced by the natives of Liddesdale to give a very fair notion of the ruins of Hermitage. The edition was ex- hausted in the course of the year, and the terms of publi- cation having been that Scott should have half the clear profits, his share was exactly L. 7 8, 10s. — a sum which certainly could not have repaid him for the actual expendi- ture incurred in the collection of his materials. The work was received with very great delight by Ellis \ and I might fill many pages by transcribing applausive letters from others of acknowledged discernment in this branch of literature. John Duke of Roxburgh is among the number, and he conveys also a complimentary message from Lord Spencer ; Pinkerton issues his decree of appro- bation as ex cathedra ; Chalmers overflows with heartier praise; and even Joseph Ritson extols his presentation copy as " the most valuable literary treasure in his pos- session." There follows enough of female admiration to have been dangerous for another man ; a score of fine ladies contend who shall be the most extravagant in en- cormum — and as many professed blue-stockings come after ; among, or rather above the rest, Anna Seward, " the Swan of Lichfield," who laments that her " bright lumi- nary," Darwin, does not survive to partake her raptures ; — observes, that " in the Border Ballads the first strong rays of the Delphic orb illuminate Jellon Graeme ;" and concludes with a fact indisputable, but strangely expressed, viz. that " the Lady Anne Both well's Lament, Cowden- knowes, &c. &c, climatically preceded the treasures of Burns, and the consummate Glenfinlas and Eve of St John." The reception of the first volumes elated naturally their printer, whom George Ellis dubs " the Bulmer of Kelso." Los Angeles. Cal. LIFE OP SIR WALTER SCOTT. 129 He also went up to London to cultivate acquaintance with . publishers, and on his return writes thus to his employer : — " I shall ever think the printing the Scottish Minstrelsy one of the most fortunate circumstances of my life. I have gained, not lost by it, in a pecuniary light ; and the pros- pects it has been the means of opening to me, may ad- vantageously influence my future destiny. I can never be sufficiently grateful for the interest you unceasingly take in my welfare. One thing is clear — that Kelso cannot be my abiding place for aye." The great bookseller, Long- man, repaired to Scotland soon after this, and made an of- fer for the copyright of the Minstrelsy, the third volume in- cluded. This was accepted, and it was at last settled that Sir Tristrern should appear in a separate shape. In July Scott proceeded to the Borders with Leyden. " We have just concluded," he tells Ellis, " an excursion of two or three weeks through my jurisdiction of Selkirkshire, where, in defiance of mountains, rivers, and bogs, damp and dry, we have penetrated the very recesses of Ettrick Forest, to which district, if I ever have the happiness of welcoming you, you will be convinced that I am truly the sheriff of the ' cairn and the scaur.' In the course of our grand tour, besides the risks of swamping and breaking our necks, we encountered the formidable hard- ships of sleeping upon peat-stacks, and eating mutton slain by no common butcher, but deprived of life by the judgment of God, as a coroner's inquest would express themselves. I have, however, not only escaped safe ' per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum,' but returned loaded with the treasures of oral tradition. The principal result of our inquiries has been a complete and perfect copy of Maitland with his Auld Berd Graie, referred to by Douglas in his Palice of Honour. You may guess the surprise of Leyden and myself when this was presented to us, copied down from the recitation of an old shepherd, by a country farmer, and with no greater corruptions than 130 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. might be supposed to be introduced by the lapse of time, and the ignorance of reciters." Leyden seems to have spent much of that autumn at the Lasswade cottage, and here he encountered Joseph Ritson. Their host delighted to detail the scene that oc- curred when his two rough allies first met at dinner. Well knowing Ritson's holy horror of all animal food, Leyden complained that the joint on the table was overdone. "Indeed, for that matter," cried he, " meat can never be too little done, and raw is best of all." He sent to the kitchen accordingly for a plate of literally raw beef, and manfully ate it up, with no sauce but the exquisite ruefulness of the Pythagorean's glances. Mr R. Gillies, a gentleman of the Scotch Bar (since known for some excellent translations from the German), was present an- other day when Ritson was in Scotland. " In approach- ing the cottage," he says, " I was struck with the ex- ceeding air of neatness that prevailed around. The hand of tasteful cultivation had been there, and all methods employed to convert, an ordinary thatched cottage into a handsome and comfortable abode. At this early period, Scott was more like the portrait by Saxon, engraved for the Lady of the Lake, than to any subsequent picture. He retained in features and form an impress of that elas- ticity and youthful vivacity, which he used to complain wore off after he was forty, and by his own account was exchanged for the plodding heaviness of an operose student. He had now, indeed, somewhat of a boyish gaiety of look, and in person was tall, slim, and extremely active." He and Erskine were about to start on a walk to Roslin, and Mr Gillies accompanied tbem. In the course of their walk, Scott's foot slipped, as he was scrambling towards a cave on the edge of a precipitous bank, and " had there been no trees in the way" (says this writer), " he must have been killed ; but midway he was stopped by a large root of h&zel, when, instead of struggling, which would have made LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT matters greatly worse, he seemed perfectly resigned to his fate, and slipped through the tangled thicket till he lay flat on the river's brink. He rose in an instant from his recumbent attitude, and with a hearty laugh called out — Now, let me see who else will do the like. He scrambled up the cliff with alacrity, and entered the cave, where we had a long dialogue." Even after he was an old and hoary man, he continually encountered such risks with the same recklessness. The extraordinary strength of his hands and arms was his great reliance in all such difficulties, and if he could see anything to lay hold of, he was afraid of no leap, or rather hop, that came in his way. Mr Gillies adds, that when they drew near the famous chapel of lloslin, Erskine expressed a hope that they might, as ha- bitual visitors, escape hearing the usual endless story of the old woman that shewed the ruins ; but Scott answered, " There is a pleasure in the song which none but the song- stress knows, and by telling her we know it all already, we should make the poor devil unhappy." On their return to the cottage, Scott inquired for the learned cabbage- eater, who had been expected to dinner. " Indeed," answered his wife, " you may be happy he is not here — he is so very disagreeable. Mr Leyden, I be- lieve, frightened him away." It turned out that it was even so. "When Ritson appeared, a round of cold beef was on the luncheon-table, and Mrs Scott, forgetting his peculiar creed, offered him a slice. " The antiquary, in his indignation, expressed himself in such outrageous term? to the lady, that Leyden first tried to correct him by ridi- cule, and then, on the madman growing more violent, be- came angry in his turn, till at last he threatened, that if he were not silent, he would thraw his neck. Scott shook his head at this recital, which Leyden observing, grew vehe- ment in his own justification. Scott said not a word in reply, but took up a large bunch of feathers fastened to a stick, denominated a duster, and shook it about the stu- 132 LIFE OV SIR WALTER SCOTT. dent's ears till he laughed — then changed the subject." All this is very characteristic of the parties. — Scott's play- ful aversion to dispute was a trait in his mind and manners, that could alone have enabled him to make use at one and the same time, and for the same purpose, of two such per- sons as Bitson and Leyden. 1 Shortly after this visit, Leyden went to London, and in the letter that introduced him to Ellis, Scott me itions, among other things to be included in the third volume of the Minstrelsy, " a long poem" from his own pen — " a kind of romance of Border chivalry, in a light-horseman sort of stanza." This refers to the first draught of The Lay of the Last Minstrel ; and the author's description of it as being " in a light-horseman sort of stanza," was pro- bably suggested by the circumstances under which the greater part of that draught had been accomplished. He has told us, in his Introduction of 1830, that the poem originated in a request of the young and lovely Countess of Dalkeith, that he would write a ballad on the legend of Gilpin Hor- ner : that he began it at Lasswade, and read the opening stanzas, as soon as they were written, to Erskine and Cranstoun : that their reception of these was apparently so cold as to disgust him with what he had done ; but that finding, a few days afterwards, that the verses had nevertheless excited their curiosity, and haunted their memory, he was encouraged to resume the undertak- ing. The scene and date of this resumption I owe to the recollection of the then Cornet of the Light-horse. While the troop were on permanent duty at Mussel- burgh, in the autumnal recess of 1802, the Quarter- Master, during a charge on Portobello sands, received a kick of a horse, which confined him for three days to his lodgings. Mr Skene found him busy with his pen ; and he produced before these three days expired the first 1 See Gillies's Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 138 canto of the Lay, very nearly, if his friend's memory may be trusted, in the state in which it was ultimately pub- lished. That the whole poem was sketched and filled in with extraordinary rapidity, there can be no difficulty in believing. He himself says (in the Introduction of 1830), that after he had once got fairly into the vein, it proceeded at the rate of about a canto in a week. The Lay, how- ever, 'ike the Tristrem, soon outgrew the dimensions which he had originally contemplated ; the design of including it in the third volume of the Minstrelsy was of course aban- doned ; and it did not appear until nearly three years after that fortunate mishap on the beach of Portobello. Next spring, Scott hurried up to London as soon as the Court rose, in hopes of seeing Leyden once more before he left England ; but he came too late. He thus writes to Ballantyne, on the 21st April 1803 : — "I have to thank you for the accuracy with which the Minstrelsy is thrown off. Longman and Rees are delighted with the printing. I mean this note to be added; by way of advertisement : — ' In the press, and will speedly be published, the Lay of the Last Minstrel, by Walter Scott, Esq., Editor of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Also Sir Tristrem, a Metrical Romance, by Thomas of Ercildouue, called the Rhymer, edited from an ancient MS., with an Introduction and Notes, by Walter Scott, Esq.' Will you cause such a thing to be appended in your own way and fashion ?" This letter is dated « No. 15 Piccadilly West," — he and Mrs Scott being there domesticated under the roof of the late M. Charles Dumergue, a man of superior abilities and excellent education, well known as surgeon-dentist to the royal family — who had been intimately acquainted with the Charpentiers in France, and warmly befriended Mrs Scott's mother on her first arrival in England. M. Dumergue's house was, throughout the whole period of the emigration, liberally opened to the exiles of his native coun- try ; nor did some of the noblest of those unfortunate re- 134 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. i'ugees scruple to make a free use of his purse, as well as of his hospitality. Here Scott met much highly interesting French society, and until a child of his own was established in London, he never thought of taking up his abode any- where else, as often as he had occasion to be in town. The letter is addressed to " Mr James Ballantyne, prin- ter, Abbey-hill, Edinburgh ;" which shews, that before the third volume of the Minstrelsy passed through the press, the migration recommended two years earlier had at leno-th taken place. " It was about the end of 1802," says Bal- lantyne, " that I closed with a plan so congenial to my wishes. I removed, bag and baggage, to Edinburgh, finding accommodation for two presses, and a proof one, in the precincts of Holyrood-house, then deriving new lustre and interest from the recent arrival of the royal exiles of France. In these obscure premises some of the most beautiful productions of what we called The Bor- der Press were printed." The Memorandum states, that Scott having renewed his hint as to pecuniary assistance, as soon as the printer found his finances straitened, " a liberal loan was advanced accordingly." Heber, and Macintosh, then at the height of his repu- tation as a conversationist, and daily advancing also at the Bar, had been ready to welcome Scott in town as old friends ; and Rogers, William Stewart Rose, and several other men of literary eminence, were at the same time added to the list of his acquaintance. His principal ob- ject, however — having missed Leyden — was to make ex- tracts from some MSS. in the library of John Duke of Roxburgh, for the illustration of the Tristrem ; and he derived no small assistance in other researches of the like kind from the collections which the indefatigable and obliging Douce placed at his disposal. Having completed these labours, he and Mrs Scott went, with Heber and Douce, to visit Ellis at Sunninghill, where they spent a happy week, and their host and hostess heard the first two L1FK OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 185 or three cantos of the Lay of the Last Minstrel read under an old oak in Windsor Forest. From thence they proceeded to Oxford, accompanied by Heber ; and it was on this occasion that Scott first saw his friend's brother, Reginald, in afterdays the apostolic Bishop of Calcutta. He had just been declared the successful candidate for that year's poetical prize, and read to Scott at breakfast, in Brazen Nose College, the MS. of his Palestine. Scott observed that, in the verses on Solo- mon's Temple, one striking circumstance had escaped him, namely, that no tools were used in its erection. Reginald retired for a few minutes to the corner of the room, and returned with the beautiful lines, — " No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung, Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung. Majestic silence," &c. After inspecting the University and Blenheim, Scott re- turned to Edinburgh, where the completed Minstrelsy was published in the end of May. The reprint of the 1st and 2d volumes went to 1000 copies — of volume third Messrs Longman had ordered 1500. A complete edition of 1250 copies followed in 1806 ; a fourth, also of 1250, in 1810 ; a fifth, of 1500, in 1812 ; a sixth, of 500, in 1820 ; and since then it has been incorporated in Scott's Collected Poetry. Of the Continental and American editions I can say nothing, except that they have been very numerous. The book was soon translated into German, Danish, and Swe- dish ; and the structure of those languages being very fa- vourable to the undertaking, the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border has thus become widely naturalized among nations themselves rich in similar treasures of legendary lore. He speaks, in an Essay of his closing years, as if the first reception of the Minstrelsy on the south of the Tweed had been cold. "The curiosity of the English," he says, "was not much awakened by poems in the rude garb of antiquity, 136 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. accompanied with notes referring to the obscure feuds of barbarous clans, of whose very names civilized history was ignorant." In writing those beautiful Introductions of 1830, however, he seems to have trusted entirely to his recollection of days long gone by, and he has accord- ingly let fall many statements which we must take with some allowance. His impressions as to the reception of the Minstrelsy were different, when writing to his brother- in-law, Charles Carpenter, on the 3d March 1803, for the purpose of introducing Leyden, he said — " I have con- trived to turn a very slender portion of literary talents to some account, by a publication of the poetical antiquities of the Border, where the old people had preserved many bal- lads descriptive of the manners of the country during the wars with England. This trifling collection was so°well received by a discerning public, that, after receiving about L.100 profit for the first edition, which my vanity cannot omit informing you went off in six months, I have sold the copyright for L.500 more." This is not the language of disappointment ; and though the edition of 1803 did not move off quite so rapidly as the first, and the work did not perhaps attract much notice beyond the more cultivated students of literature, until the Editor's own Lay lent gene- ral interest to whatever was connected with his name, I sus- pect there never was much ground for accusing the English public of regarding the Minstrelsy with more coldness than the Scotch— the population of the Border districts them- selves being, of course, excepted. Had the sale of the origi- nal edition been chiefly Scotch, I doubt whether Messrs Longman would have so readily offered L.500, in those days of the trade a large sum, for the second. Scott had be- come habituated, long before 1830, to a scale of bookselling transactions, measured by which the largest editions and copy-monies of his own early days appeared insignificant ; but the evidence seems complete that he was well contented at the time. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 137 He certainly bad every reason to be so as to tbe impres- sion which tbe Minstrelsy made on tbe minds of tbose en- titled to tbink for tbemselves upon sucb a subject. Tbe ancient baUads in his collection, wbicb bad never been printed at all before, were in number forty-three ; and of tbe others — most of which were in fact all but new to the modern reader — it is little to say that his editions were superior in all respects to those that had preceded them. He had, I firmly bebeve, interpolated hardly a line or even an epithet of bis own ; but his diligent zeal had put him in possession of a variety of copies in different stages of pre- servation ; and to the task of selecting a standard text among sucb a diversity of materials, he brought a know- ledge of old manners and phraseology, and a manly sim- pbcity of taste, such as had never before been united in the person of a poetical antiquary. From among a hundred corruptions he seized, with instinctive tact, the primitive diction and imagery ; and produced strains in which the unbroken en erg)' of half- civilized ages, their stern and deep passions, then- daring adventures and cruel tragedies, and even their rude wild humour, are reflected with almost tbe brightness of a Homeric mirror, interrupted by hardly a blot of what deserves to be called vulgarity, and totally free from any admixture of artificial sentimentalism. As a picture of manners, the Scottish Minstrelsy is not surpassed, if equalled, by any similar body of poetry preserved in any other country ; and it unquestionably owes its superiority in this respect over Percy's Rebques, to the Editor's con- scientious fidelity, on the one hand, which prevented the in- troduction of anything new — to his pure taste, on the other, in the balancing of discordant recitations. His introduc- tory essays and notes teemed with curious knowledge, not hastily grasped for the occasion, but gradually gleaned and sifted by the patient labour of years, and presented with an easy, unaffected propriety and elegance of arrangement and expression, which it may be doubted if be ever materially 138 LIFE OF SIK WAITER! SCOTT. surpassed in the hajjpiest of his imaginative narrations. I well remember, when Waverley was a new book, and all the world were puzzling themselves about its authorship, to have heard the Poet of " The Isle of Palms" exclaim im- patiently — " I wonder what all these people are perplexing themselves with : have they forgotten the prose of the Min- strelsy ?" Even had the Editor inserted none of his own verse, the work would have contained enough, and more than enough, to found a lasting and graceful reputation. It is not to be denied, however, that the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border has derived a very large accession of interest from the subsequent career of its Editor. One of the critics of that day said that the book contained " the elements of a hundred historical romances ; " — and this critic was a prophetic one. No person who has not gone through its volumes for the express purpose of comparing their contents with his great original works, can have formed a conception of the endless variety of incidents and images now expanded and emblazoned by his mature art. of which the first hints may be found either in the text of those primitive ballads, or in the notes, which the happy rambles of his youth had gathered together for their illus- tration. In the edition of the Minstrelsy published since his death, not a few such instances are pointed out ; but the list might have been extended far beyond the limits which such an edition allowed. The taste and fancy of Scott appear to have been formed as early as his moral character ; and he had, before he passed the threshold of authorship, assembled about him, in the uncalculating de- light of native enthusiasm, almost all the materials on which his genius was destined to be employed for the gratification and instruction of the world. LLFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 139 CHAPTER IV. Contributions to the Edinburgh Review — Wordsworth — Hogg — Sir Tristrem — Removal to Ashestiel — Mungo Park — Publica- tion of the Lay of the Last Minstrel — Partnership with James Ballantvne — Visit to London — Appointment as Clerk of Ses- sion. 1804-1806. Shortly after the complete " Minstrelsy" issued from the press, Scott made his first appearance as a reviewer. The Edinburgh Review had been commenced in October 1802, under the superintendence of the Rev. Sydney Smith, with whom, during his short residence in Scotland, he had lived on terms of great kindness and familiarity. Mr Smith soon resigned the editorship to Mr Jeffrey, who had by this time been for several years among the most valued of Scott's friends and companions at the Bar ; and, the new journal being far from committing itself to violent politics at the outset, he appreciated the brilliant talents regularly engaged in it far too highly, not to be well pleased with the oppor- tunity of occasionally exercising his pen in its service. His first contribution was an article on Southey's Amadis of Gaul. The reader may now trace the sequence of his articles in the Collective edition of his Miscellaneous Prose (1836). During the summer of 1803, his chief literary work was on the Sir Tristrem, but the Lay of the Last Minstrel made progress at intervals — mostly, it would seem, when he was in quarters with his troop of horse, and neces- sarily without his books of reference. The resumption of the war (after the short peace of Amiens) had given renewed animation to the volunteers, and their spirit was kept up 140 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. during two or three years more by the unintermitted threats of invasion. His letters abound in sketches of the camp-life at Musselburgh. To Miss Seward, for example, he says, in July : — " We are assuming a very military ap- pearance. Three regiments of militia, with a formidable park of artillery, are encamped just by us. The Edin- burgh Troop, to which I have the honour to be quarter- master, consists entirely of young gentlemen of family, and is, of course, admirably well mounted and armed. There are other four troops in the regiment, consisting of yeomanry, whose iron faces and muscular forms an- nounce the hardness of the climate against which they wrestle, and the powers which nature has given them to contend with and subdue it. These corps have been easily raised in Scotland, the farmers being in general a high-spirited race of men, fond of active exercises, and patient in hardship and fatigue. For myself, I must own that to one who has, like myself, la tete un peu exaltee, ' the pomp and circumstance of war ' gives, for a time, a very poignant and pleasing sensation. The imposing appearance of cavalry, in particular, and the rush which marks their onset, appear to me to partake highly of the sublime. Perhaps I am the more attached to this sort of sport of swords because my health requires much active exercise, and a lameness contracted in childhood renders it incon- venient for me to take it otherwise than on horseback. I have, too, a hereditary attachment to the animal — not, I natter myself, of the common jockey cast, but because I re- gard him as the kindest and most generous of the subor- dinate tribes. I hardly even except the dogs ; at least they are usually so much better treated, that compassion for the steed should he thrown into the scale when we weigh their comparative merits. My wife (a foreigner) never sees a horse ill-used without asking what the poor horse has done in his state of pre-existence ? I would fain hope they have been carters or hackney-coachmen, and are LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 141 only experiencing a retort of the ill-usage they have for- merly inflicted. What think you ?" It was in that autumn that Scott first saw Wordsworth. Their common acquaintance, Stoddart, had so often talked of them to each other, that they met as if they had not been strangers ; and they parted friends. Mr and Miss Wordsworth had just completed their tour in the Highlands, of which so many incidents have since been immortalized, both in the poet's verse and in the hardly less poetical prose of his sister's Diary. On the morning of the 17th of September, having left their car- riage at Roslin, they walked down the valley to Lasswade, and arrived there before Mr and Mrs Scott had risen. " We were received," Mr Wordsworth has told me, " with that frank cordiality which, under whatever circum- stances I afterwards met him, always marked his manners ; and, indeed, I found him then in every respect — except, v perhaps, that his animal spirits were somewhat higher — pre- cisely the same man that you knew him in later life ; the same lively, entertaining conversation, full of anecdote, and averse from disquisition ; the same unaffected modesty about himself; the same cheerful and benevolent and hope- ful views of man and the world. He partly read and partly recited, sometimes in an enthusiastic style of chant, the first four cantos of the Lay of the Last Minstrel ; and the novelty of the manners, the clear picturesque descriptions, and the easy glowing energy of much of the verse, greatly delighted me." After this he walked with the tourists to Eoslin, and promised to meet them in two days at Melrose. The night before they reached Melrose they slept at the little quiet inn of Clovenford, where, on mentioning his name, they were received with all sorts of attention and kindness, — the landlady observing that Mi Scott, " who was a very clever gentleman," was an old friend of the house, and 142 LIFE OF Silt WALTER SCOTT. usually spent a good deal of time there during the fishing season ; but, indeed, says Mr Wordsworth, " wherever we named him, we found the word acted as an open sesamum ; and I believe that, in the character of the Sheriff's friends, we might have counted on a hearty welcome under any roof in the Border country." He met them at Melrose on the 19th, and escorted them through the Abbey, pouring out his rich stores of history and tradition. They then dined together at the inn ; but Miss Wordsworth observed that there was some difficulty about arranging matters for the night, " the landlady re- fusing to settle anything until she had ascertained from the Sheriff himself that he had no objection to sleep in the same room with William." Scott was thus far on his way to the Circuit Court at Jedburgh, in his capacity of Sheriff, and there his new friends again joined him ; but he begged that they would not enter the court, " for," said he, " I really would not like you to see the sort of figure I cut there." They did see him casually, however, in his cocked hat and sword, marching in the Judge's procession to the sound of one cracked trumpet, and were then not surprised that he should have been a little ashamed of the whole ceremonial. He introduced to them his friend William Laidlaw, who was attending the court as a juryman, and who, having read some of Wordsworth's verses in a news- paper, was exceedingly anxious to be of. the party, when they explored at leisure, all the law-business being over, the beautiful valley of the Jed, and the ruins of the Castle of Fernieherst, the original fastness of the noble family of Lothian. The grove of stately ancient elms about and below the ruin was seen to great advantage in a fine, grey, breezy autumnal afternoon ; and Mr Wordsworth hap- pened to say, " What life there is in trees !" — " How different," said Scott, " was the feeling of a very intelligent young lady, born and bred in the Orkney Islands, who LIFE OK SIR WALTER gCOTT. 143 lately came to spend a season in this neighbourhood ! She told me nothing in the mainland scenery had so much disappointed her as woods and trees. She found them so dead and lifeless, that she could never help pining after the eternal motion and variety of the ocean. And so back she has gone, and I believe nothing will ever tempt her from the ivind-sweep Orcades again." Next day they proceeded up the Teviot to Hawick, Scott entertaining his friends with some legend or ballad connected with every tower or rock they passed. He made them stop to admire particularly a scene of deep and solemn retirement, called Home's Pool, from its having been the daily haunt of a contemplative schoolmaster, known to him in his youth ; and at Kirkton he pointed out the little village schoolhouse, to which his friend Leyden had walked six or eight miles every day across the moors, " when a poor barefooted boy." From Hawick, where they spent the night, he led them next morning to the brow of a hill, from which they could see a wide ran^e of the Border mountains, Ruberslaw, the Carter, and the Cheviots ; and lamented that neither their engage- ments nor his own would permit them to make at this time an excursion into the wilder glens of Liddesdale, " where," said he, " I have strolled so often and so long, that I may say I have a home in every farm-house." " And, indeed," adds Mr "Wordsworth, " wherever we went with him, he seemed to know everybody, and everybody to know and like him.'* Here they parted, — the Wordsworths to pur- sue their journey homeward by Eskdale — he to return to Lasswade. The impression on Mr Wordsworth's mind was, that on the whole he attached much less importance to his literary labours and reputation than to his bodily sports, exercises, and social amusements ; and yet he spoke of his profession as if he had already given up almost all hope of rising by it ; and some allusion being made to its profits, observed 144 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. that " he was sure he could, if he chose, get more money than he should ever wish to have from the booksellers." * This confidence in his own literary resources appeared to Mr Wordsworth remarkable — the more so, from the care- less way in which its expression dropt from him. As to his despondence concerning the Bar, I confess his fee-hook indicates less ground for such a feeling than I should bave expected to discover there. His practice brought him, as we have seen, in the session of 1796-7, L.144, 10s. ; — its proceeds fell down, in the first year of his married fife, to L.79, 17s. ; but they rose again, in 1798-9, to L.135, 9s. ; amounted, in 1799-1800, to L.129, 13s.; in 1800-1, to L.170 ; in 1801-2, to L.202, 12s. ; and in the session that had just elapsed (which is the last included in the record before me), to L.228, 18s. I have already said something of the beginning of Scott's acquaintance with " the Ettrick Shepherd." Shortly after their first meeting, Hogg, coming into Edinburgh with a flock of sheep, was seized with a sudden ambition of seeing himself in type, and lie wrote out that same night a few ballads, already famous in the Forest, which some obscure bookseller gratified him by printing accordingly ; but they appear to have attracted no notice beyond their original sphere. Hogg then made an excursion into the Highlands, in quest of employment as overseer of some extensive sheep-farm; but, though Scott had furnished him with strong recommendations to various friends, he returned without success. He printed an account of his travels, however, in a set of letters in the Scots Magazine, which, though exceedingly rugged and uncouth, had abundant traces of the native shrewdness and genuine poetical feeling 1 I have drawn up the account of this meeting from my recollec- tion partly of Mr Wordsworth's conversation — partly from that of his sister's charming " Diary," which he was so kind as to read over to me on the 16th May 1836. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 145 of this remarkable man. These also failed to excite atten- tion ; but, undeterred by such disappointments, the Shep- herd no sooner read the third volume of the " Minstrelsy," than he made up his mind that the Editor's " Imitations of the Ancients" were by no means what they should have been. " Immediately," he says, in one of his many me- moirs of himself, " I chose a number of traditional facts, and set about imitating the manner of the ancients myself." These imitations he transmitted to Scott, who warmly praised the many striking beauties scattered over their rough surface. The next time that business carried him to Edinburgh, Scott invited him to dinner, in company with Laidlaw, who happened also to be in town, and some other admirers of the rustic genius. When Hogg entered the drawing-room, Mrs Scott, being at the time in a delicate state of health, was reclining on a sofa. The Shepherd, after being presented, and making his best bow, took possession of another sofa placed opposite to hers, and stretched himself thereupon at all his length ; for, as he said afterwards, " I thought I could never do wrong to copy the lady of the house." As his dress at this period was precisely that in which any ordinary herdsman attends cattle to the market, and his hands, moreover, bore most legible marks of a recent sheep-smearing, the lady of the house did not observe with perfect equanimity the novel usage to which her chintz was exposed. The Shepherd, however, remarked nothing of all this — dined heartily and drank freely, and, by jest, anecdote, and song, afforded plentiful merriment. As the liquor operated, his familia- rity increased ; from Mr Scott, he advanced to " Sherra," and thence to " Scott," "Walter," and "Wattie,"— until, at supper, he fairly convulsed the whole party by address- ing Mrs Scott, as " Charlotte." The collection entitled "The Mountain Bard" was even- tually published by Constable, in consequence of Scott's recommendation, and this work did at last afford Hogg no K* 146 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. slender share of the reputation for which he had so long thirsted. It is not my business, however, to pursue the details of his story. " Sir Tristrem " was at length published on the 2d of May 1804, by Constable, who, however, expected so lit- tle popularity for the work, that the edition consisted only of 150 copies. These were sold at a high price (two guineas), otherwise they would not have been enough to cover the expenses of paper and printing. Mr Ellis and other friends were much dissatisfied with these arrange- ments ; but I doubt not that Constable was a better judge than any of them. The work, however, partook in due time of the favour attending its editor's name, and had been twice reprinted before it was included in the collec- tive editions of his poetry. It was not a performance from which he had ever anticipated any pecuniary profit, but it maintained at least, if it did not raise, his reputation in the circle of his fellow- antiquaries ; and his own Con- clusion, in the manner of the original romance, must always be admired as a specimen of skill and dexterity. As to the arguments of the Introduction, I shall not in this place attempt any discussion. Whether the story of Tristrem was first told in Welsh, Armorican, French, or English verse, theue can, I think, be no doubt that it had been told in verse, with such success as to ob- tain very general renown, by Thomas of Ercildoune, and that the copy edited by Scott was either the composi- tion of one who had heard the old Rhymer recite his lay, or the identical lay itself. The introduction of Thomas's name in the third person, as not the author, but the author's authority, appears to have had a great share in convincinsr Scott that the Auchinleck MS. contained not the original, but the copy of an English admirer and con- temporary. This point seems to have been rendered more doubtful by some quotations in the recent edition of War- ton's History of English Poetry ; but the argument de- LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 1 47 rived from the enthusiastic exclamation, " God help Sir Tristrem the knight — he fought for England," still re- mains ; and stronger perhaps even than that, in the opinion of modern philologists, is the total absence of any Scottish or even Northumbrian peculiarities in the diction. All this controversy may be waived here. Scott's object and de- light was to revive the fame of the Ehymer, whose tradi- tional history he had listened to while yet an infant among the crags of Smailholme. He had already celebrated him in a noble ballad j 1 he now devoted a volume to elucidate a fragment supposed to be substantially his work ; and we shall find that thirty years after, when the lamp of his own genius was all but spent, it could still revive and throw out at least some glimmerings of its original brightness at the name of Thomas of Ercildoune. 2 In the course of the preceding summer, the Lord- Lieu- tenant of Selkirkshire complained of Scott's military zeal as interfering sometimes with the discharge of his shrieval functions, and took occasion to remind him, that the law, requiring every Sheriff to reside at least four months in the year within his own jurisdiction, had not hitherto been complied with. While, in consequence of a renewal of this hint, he was seeking about for some " lodge in the Forest," his kinsman of Harden suggested that the tower of Auld Wat (the Stammscliloss of their family) might be refitted, so as to serve his purpose ; and he received the proposal with enthusiastic delight. On a more careful in- spection of the localities, however, he became sensible that he would be practically at a greater distance from county business of all kinds at Harden, than if he were to con- tinue at Lasswade. Just at this time, the house of Ashes- tiel, situated on the southern bank of the Tweed, a few miles from Selkirk, became vacant by the death of its pro- prietor, Colonel Russell, who had married a sister of 1 See Poetical Works (Edition 1841), pp. 572-581. ■ Compare the Fifth Chapter of Castle Dangerous. 148 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Scott's mother, and the consequent dispersion of the fa- mily. The young Laird of Ashestiel, his cousin, was then in India ; and the Sheriff took a lease of the house, with a small farm adjoining. On the 4th May, two days after the Tristrem had been published, he says to Ellis, who was meditating a northern tour — " I have been engaged in travelling backwards and forwards to Selkirkshire upon little pieces of business, just important enough to prevent my doing anything to purpose. One great matter, however, I have achieved, which is, procuring myself a place of resi- dence, which will save me these teasing migrations in future, so that though I part with my sweet little cottage on the banks of the Esk, you will find me this summer in the very centre of the ancient Reged, in a decent farm-house overhanging the Tweed, and situated in a wild pastoral country." And again, on the 19th, he thus apologizes for not having answered a letter of the tenth : — " For more than a month my head was fairly tenanted by ideas, which, though strictly pastoral and rural, were neither literary nor poetical. Long sheep and short sheep, and tups and gim- mers, and hogs and dinmonts, had made a perfect sheepfold of my understanding, which is hardly yet cleared of them. 1 I hope Mrs Ellis will clap a bridle on her imagination. Ettrick Forest boasts finely shaped hills and clear roman- tic streams ; but, alas ! they are bare to wildness, and de- nuded of the beautiful natural wood with which they were formerly shaded. It is mortifying to see that, though wherever the sheep are excluded, the copse has imme- diately sprung up in abundance, so that enclosures only are wanting to restore the wood wherever it might be useful or i Hogg describes the amusement of the Sheriff in 1801, upon hearing a discussion on the meaning of long sheep and short sheep (so called according to the length of the fleece) ; and adds — " When I saw the very same words repeated near the beginning (p. 4) of the Black Dwarf, how could I be mistaken of the nuthor?" — Autobiography prefixed to Altrive Tales. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 149 ornamental, yet hardly a proprietor has attempted to give it fair play for a resurrection." On the 10th of June 1804, died, at his seat of Rosebank, Captain Robert Scott, the affectionate uncle whose name has often occurred in this narrative. " He was," says his nephew to Ellis, on the 18th, "a man of universal bene- volence and great kindness towards his friends, and to me individually. His manners were so much tinged with the habits of celibacy as to render them peculiar, though by no means unpleasingly so, and his profession (that of a^eaman) gave a high colouring to the whole. The loss is one which, though the^ course of nature led me to expect it, did not take place at last without considerable pain to my feelings. The arrangement of his affairs, and the distribution of his small fortune among his relations, will devolve in a great measure upon me. He has distinguished me by leaving me a beautiful little villa on the banks of the Tweed, °with every possible convenience annexed to it, and about thirty acres of the finest land in Scotland. Notwithstanding, however, the temptation that this bequest offers, I con- tinue to pursue my Reged plan, and expect to be settled at Ashestiel in the course of a month. Rosebank is situated so near the village of Kelso, as hardly to be sufficiently a country residence ; besides, it is hemmed in by hedges and ditches, not to mention Dukes and Lady Dowagers, which are bad tilings for little people. It is expected to sell to great advantage. I shall buy a mountain farm with the purchase-money, and be quite the Laird of the Cairn and the Scaur." Scott sold Rosebank in the course of the year for L.5000. This bequest made an important change in his pecuniary position, and i lfluenced accordingly the arrangements of his future life. Independently of practice at the Bar, and of literary profits, he was now, with his little patrimony, his Sheriffship, and about L.200 per annum arising from the 150 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 6tock ultimately settled on his wife, in possession of a fixed revenue of nearly L.1000 a-year. Ashestiel will be visited by many for his sake, as long ;is Waverley and Marmion are remembered. A more beau- tiful situation for the residence of a poet could not be con- ceived. The house was then a small one, but, compared with the cottage at Lasswade, its accommodations were amply sufficient. You approached it through an old- fashioned garden, with holly hedges, and broad, green, terrace walks. On one side, close under the windows, is a deep ravine, clothed with venerable trees, down which a mountain rivulet is heard, more than seen, in its progress to the Tweed. The river itself is separated from the high bank on which the house stands only by a narrow meadow of the richest verdure. Opposite, and all around, are the green hills. The valley there is narrow, and the aspect in every direction is that of perfect pastoral repose. The heights immediately behind are those which divide the Tweed from the Yarrow ; and the latter celebrated stream lies within an easy ride, in the course of which the tra- veller passes through a variety of the finest mountain scenery in the south of Scotland. No town is within seven miles but Selkirk, which was then still smaller and quieter than it is now ; there was hardly even a gentleman's family within visiting distance, except at Yair, a few miles lower on the Tweed, the ancient seat of the Pringles of Whyt- bank, and at Bowhill, between the Yarrow and Ettrick, where the Earl of Dalkeith used occasionally to inhabit a small shooting-lodge, which has since grown into a du- cal residence. The country all around, with here and there an insignificant exception, belongs to the Buc- cleuch estate ; so that, whichever way he chose to turn, the bard of the clan had ample room and verge enough for every variety of field sport ; and being then in the prime vigour of manhood, he was not slow to profit by LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 151 these advantages. Meantime, the concerns of his own little farm, and the care of his absent relation's woods, gave him healthful occupation in the intervals of the chase ; and he had long, solitary evenings for the uninterrupted exercise of his pen ; perhaps, on the whole, better oppor- tunities of study than he had ever enjoyed before, or was to meet with elsewhere in later days. When he first examined Ashestiel, with a view to being his cousin's tenant, he thought of taking home James Hogg to superintend the sheep-farm, and keep watch over the house also during the winter. I am not able to tell ex- actly in what manner this proposal fell to the ground ; but in truth the Sheriff had hardly been a week in possession of his new domains, before he made acquaintance with a character much better suited to his purpose than James Hogg ever could have been. I mean honest Thomas Purdie, his faithful servant — his affectionately devoted humble friend from this time until death parted them. Tom was first brought before him, in his capacity of Sheriff, on a charge of poaching, when the poor fellow gave such a touching account of his circumstances, — a wife, and I know not how many children, depending on his exertions — work scarce and grouse abundant, — and all this with a mixture of odd sly humour, — that the Sheriff's heart was moved. Tom escaped the penalty of the law — was taken into em- ployment as shepherd, and shewed such zeal, activity, and shrewdness in that capacity, that Scott never had any oc- casion to repent of the step he soon afterwards took, in promoting him to the position which had been originally offered to James Hogg. It was also about the same time that he took into his service as coachman Peter Mathieson, brother-in-law to Thomas Purdie, another faithful servant, who never after- wards left him, and still (1848) survives his kind master. Scott's awkward management of the little phaeton had ex- posed his wife to more than one perilous overturn, before he 152 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCO'IT. agreed to set up a close carriage, and call in tlie assistance of this steady charioteer. During this autumn Scott formed the personal acquain- tance of Mungo Park, the celebrated victim of African dis- covery. On his return from his first expedition, Park endeavoured to establish himself as a medical practitioner in the town of Hawick, but the drudgeries of that calling in such a district soon exhausted his ardent temper, and he was now living in seclusion in his native cottage at Fowlsheils on the Yarrow, nearly opposite Newark Castle. His brother, Archibald Park (then tenant of a large farm on the Buccleuch estate), a man remarkable for strength both of mind and body, introduced the traveller to the Sheriff. They soon became much attached to each other ; and Scott supplied some interesting anecdotes of their brief intercourse to Mr Wishaw, the editor of Park's Pos- thumous Journal, with which I shall blend a few minor circumstances, gathered from him in conversation long afterwards. " On one occasion," he says, " the traveller communicated some very remarkable adventures which had befallen him in Africa, but which he had not recorded in his book." On Scott's asking the cause of this si- lence, Mungo answered, " That in all cases where he had information to communicate, which he thought of im- portance to the public, he had stated the facts boldly, leaving it to his readers to give such credit to his state- ments as they might appear justly to deserve ; but that he would not shock their faith, or render his travels more mar- vellous, by introducing circumstances, which, however true, were of little or no moment, as they related solely to his own personal adventures and escapes." This reply struck Scott as highly characteristic of the man ; and though strongly tempted to set down some of these marvels for Mr Wishaw's use, he on reflection abstained from doing so, holding it unfair to record what the adventurer had delibe- rately chosen to suppress in his own narrative. He con- LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 153 firms the account given by Park's biographer of his cold and reserved manners to strangers ; and, in particular, of his disgust with the indirect questions which curious visiters would often put to him upon the subject of his travels. " This practice," said Mungo, " exposes me to two risks ; either that I may not understand the questions meant to be put, or that my answers to them may be misconstrued ;" and he contrasted such conduct with the frankness of Scott's revered friend, Dr Adam Ferguson, who, the very first day the traveller dined with him at Hallyards, spread a large map of Africa on the table, and made him trace out his progress thereupon, inch by inch, questioning him minutely as to every step he had taken. " Here, however,'* says Scott, " Dr F. was using a privilege to which he was well entitled by his venerable age and high literary charac- ter, but which could not have been exercised with pro- priety by any common stranger." Calling one day at Fowlsheils, and not finding Park at home, Scott walked in search of him along the banks of the Yarrow, which in that neighbourhood passes over va- rious ledges of rock, forming deep pools and eddies be- tween them. Presently he discovered his friend standing alone on the bank, plunging one stone after another into the water, and watching anxiously the bubbles as they rose to the surface. " This," said Scott, " appears but an idle amusement for one who has seen so much stirring adven- ture." " Not so idle, perhaps, as you suppose," answered Mungo: — " This was the manner in which I used to ascer- tain the depth of a river in Africa before I ventured to cross it — judging whether the attempt would be safe, by the time the bubbles of air took to ascend." At this time Park's intention of a second expedition had never been re- vealed to Scott ; but he instantly formed the opinion that these experiments on Yarrow were connected with some such purpose. His thoughts had always continued to be haunted with 154 LIFK OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Africa. He told Scott, that whenever he awoke suddenly in the night, owing to a nervous disorder with which he was troubled, he fancied himself still a prisoner in the tent of Ali ; but when the poet expressed some surprise that he should design again to revisit those scenes, he answered, that he would rather brave Africa and all its horrors, than wear out his life in long and toilsome rides over the hills of Scotland, for which the remuneration was hardly enough to keep soul and body together. Towards the end of the autumn, when about to quit his country for the last time, Park paid Scott a farewell visit, and slept at Ashestiel. Next morning his host accom- panied him homewards over the wild chain of hills between the Tweed and the Yarrow. Park talked much of his new scheme, and mentioned his determination to tell his family that he had some business for a day or two in Edinburgh, and send them his blessing from thence, without returning to take leave. He had married, not long before, a prettj and amiable woman, and when they reached the William- hope ridge, " the autumnal mist floating heavily and slowly down, the valley of the Yarrow," presented to Scott's imagi- nation " a striking emblem of the troubled and uncertain prospect which his undertaking afforded." He remained, however, unshaken, and at length they reached the spot at which they had agreed to separate. A small ditch di- vided the moor from the road, and in going over it, Park's horse stumbled, and nearly fell. " I am afraid, Mungo," said the Sheriff, " that is a bad omen." To which he answered, smiling, " Freits (omens) follow those who look to them." With this expression Mungo struck the spurs into his horse, and Scott never saw him again. His part- ing proverb, by the way, was probably suggested by one of the Border ballads, in which species of lore he was al- most as great a proficient as the Sheriff himself; for we read in " Edom o' Gordon," — " Them look to freits, my master dear, Then freits will follow them." LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 155 The brother of Mungo Park remained in Scott's neigh- bourhood for some years, and was frequently his com- panion in his mountain rides. Though a man of the most dauntless temperament, he was often alarmed at Scott's reckless horsemanship. " The de'il 's in ye, Sherra," he would say ; " ye'll never halt till they bring you hame with your feet foremost." He rose greatly in favour, in consequence of the gallantry with which he assisted the Sheriff in seizing a gipsy, accused of murder, from amidst a group of similar desperadoes, on whom they had come unexpectedly in a desolate part of the country. To return to the Lay of the Last Minstrel : Ellis, under- standing it to be now nearly ready for the press, writes to Scott, urging him to set it forth with some engraved illus- trations — if possible, after Flaxman, whose splendid de- signs from Homer had shortly before made their appear- ance. He answers, August 21 — " I should fear Flaxman's genius is too classic to stoop to body forth my Gothic Bor- derers. "Would there not be some risk of their resembling the antique of Homer's heroes, rather than the iron race of Salvator ? I should like at least to be at his elbow when at work. I wish very much I could have sent you the Lay while in MS., to have had the advantage of your opinion and corrections. But Ballantyne galled my kibes so se- verely during an unusual fit of activity, that I gave him the whole story in a sort of pet both with him and with it." There is a circumstance which' must already have struck such of :ny readers as knew the author in his latter days, namely, the readiness with which he seems to have com- municated this poem, in its progress, not only to his own familiar friends, but to new and casual acquaintances. We shall find him following the same course with his Marmion — but not, I think, with any of his subsequent works. His determination to consult the movements of his own mind alone in the conduct of his pieces, was probably taken before he began the Lay ; and he soon resolved to trust 156 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. for the detection of minor inaccuracies to two persons only — James Ballantyne and William Erskine. The printer was himself a man of considerable literary talents : his own style had the incurable faults of pomposity and affectation ; but his eye for more venial errors in the writings of others was quick, and, though his personal address was apt to give a stranger the impression of insincerity, he was in reality an honest man, and conveyed his mind on such matters with equal candour and delicacy during the whole of Scott's brilliant career. In the vast majority of instances he found his friend acquiesce at once in the propriety of his sug- gestions ; nay, there certainly were cases, though rare, in which his advice to alter things of much more consequence than a word or a rhyme, was frankly tendered, and on de- liberation adopted by Scott. Mr Erskine was the referee whenever the poet hesitated about taking the hints of the zealous typographer ; and his refined taste and gentle manners rendered his critical alliance highly valuable. With two such faithful friends within his reach, the author of the Lay might safely dispense with sending his MS. to be revised even by George Ellis. In the first week of January 1805, "The Lay" was pub- lished ; and its success at once decided that literature should form the main business of Scott's life. I shall not mock the reader with many words as to the merits of a poem which has now kept its place for nearly half a century ; but one or two additional remarks on the history of the compo- sition may be pardoned. It is curious to trace the small beginnings and gradual development of his design. The lovely Countess of Dal- keith hears a wild rude legend of Border diablerie, and sportively asks him to make it the subject of a ballad. He had been already labouring in the elucidation of the "quaint Inglis" ascribed to an ancient seer and bard of the same district, and perhaps completed his own sequel, intending the whole to be included in the third volume of LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 157 the Minstrelsy. He assents to Lady Dalkeith's request, and casts about for some new variety of diction and rhyme, which might be adopted without impropriety in a closing strain for the same collection. Sir John Stoddart's casual recitation, a year or two before, of Coleridge's unpublished Christabel, had fixed the music of that noble fragment in his memory ; and it occurs to him, that by throwing the story of Gilpin Horner into somewhat of a similar cadence, he might produce such an echo of the later metrical ro- mance, as would serve to connect his Conclusion of the primitive Sir Tristrem with his imitations of the common popular ballad in the Grey Brother and Eve of St John. A single scene of feudal festivity in the hall of Branksome, disturbed by some pranks of a nondescript goblin, was pro- bably all that he contemplated ; but his accidental con- finement in the midst of a volunteer camp gave him leisure to meditate his theme to the sound of the bugle : — and suddenly there flashes on him the idea of extending his simple outline, so as to embrace a vivid panorama of that old Border life of war and tumult, and all earnest passions, with which his researches on the "Minstrelsy" had by de- grees fed his imagination, until even the minutest feature had been taken home and realized with unconscious in- tenseness of sympathy ; so that he had won for himself in the past, another world, hardly less complete or familiar than the present. Erskine or Cranstoun suggests that he would do well to divide the poem into cantos, and prefix to each of them a motto explanatory of the action, after the fashion of Spenser in the Faery Queen. He pauses for a moment — and the happiest conception of the framework of a picturesque narrative that ever occurred to any poet — one that Homer might have envied — the creation of the ancient harper, starts to life. By such steps did the Lay of the Last Minstrel grow out of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. A word more of its felicitous machinery. It was at Bow- 168 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. hill that the Countess of Dalkeith requested a ballad on Gilpin Horner. The ruined castle of Newark closely ad- joins that seat, and is now indeed included within its plea- sance. Newark had been the chosen residence of the first Duchess of Buccleuch, and he accordingly shadows out his own beautiful friend in the person of her lord's ancestress, the last of the original stock of that great house ; himself the favoured inmate of Bowhill, introduced certainly to the familiarity of its circle in consequence of his devotion to the poetry of a by-past age, in that of an aged minstrel, "the last of all the race," seeking shelter at the gate of Newai-k, in days when many an adherent of the fallen cause of Stuart, — his own bearded ancestor, who had fought at Killiecrankie, among the rest, — owed their safety to her who " In pride of power, m beauty's bloom, Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb." The arch allusions which run through all these Intro- ductions, without in the least interrupting the truth and graceful pathos of their main impression, seem to me ex- quisitely characteristic of Scott, whose delight and pride was to play with the genius which nevertheless mastered him at will. For, in truth, what is it that gives to all his works their unique and marking charm, except the match- less effect which sudden effusions of the purest heart-blood of nature derive from their being poured out, to all ap- pearance involuntarily, amidst diction and sentiment cast equally in the mould of the busy world, and the seemingly habitual desire to dwell on nothing but what might be likely to excite curiosity, without too much disturbing deeper feelings, in the saloons of polished life ? Such out- bursts come forth dramatically in all his writings ; but in the interludes and passionate parentheses of the Lay of the Last Minstrel we have the poet's own inner soul and tem- perament laid bare and throbbing before us. Even here. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 159 indeed, he has a mask, and he trusts it — but fortunately it is a transparent one. Many minor personal allusions have been explained in the notes to the last edition of the Lay. It was hardly necessary even then to say that the choice of the hero had been dictated by the poet's affection for the living descen- dants of the Baron of Cranstoun ; and now — none who have perused the preceding pages can doubt that he had dressed out his Margaret of Branksome in the form and features of his own first love. This poem may be considered as the "bright consummate flower" in which all the dearest dreams of his youthful fancy had at length found expansion for their strength, spirit, tenderness, and beauty. In the closing lines — " Hush'd is the harp — the Minstrel gone ; And did he wander forth alone ? No ! — close beneath proud Newark's tower Arose the Minstrel's humble bower," &c. — in these charming lines he has embodied what was, at the time when he penned them, the chief day-dream of Ashestiel. From the moment that his uncle's death placed a considerable sum of ready money at his command, he pleased himself, as we have seen, with the idea of buying a mountain farm, and becoming not only the " sheriff" (as he had in former days delighted to call himself), but " the laird of the cairn and the scaur." While he was " labour- ing doucement at the Lay" (as in one of his letters he ex- presses it), during the recess of 1804, circumstances ren- dered it next to certain that the small estate of Broad- meadows, situated just over against the ruins of Newark, on the northern bank of the Yarrow, would soon be exposed to sale ; and many a time did he ride round it in company with Lord and Lady Dalkeith, " When summer smiled on sweet Bowhill," surveying the beautiful little domain with wistful eyes, and anticipating that 160 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. " There would he sing achievement high And circumstance of chivalry, And Yarrow, as he rolled along, Bear burden to the Minstrel's song." I consider it as, in one point of view, the greatest mis- fortune of his life that this vision was not realized ; but the success of the poem itself changed "the spirit of his dream." The favour which it at once attained had not been equalled in the case of any one poem of considerable length during at least two generations : it certainly had not been ap- proached in the case of any narrative poem since the days of Dryden. Before it was sent to the press it had received warm commendation from the ablest and most influential critic of the time ; but when Mr Jeffrey's reviewal appeared, a month after publication, laudatory as its language was, it scarcely came up to the opinion which had already taken root in the public mind. It, however, quite satisfied the author ; and I think it just to state, that I have not disco- vered in any of the letters which he received from brother- poets — no, not even in those of Wordsworth or Campbell — a strain of approbation higher, on the whole, than that of the chief professional reviewer of the period. When the happy days of youth are over, even the most genial and generous of minds are seldom able to enter into the strains of a new poet with that full and open delight which he awakens in the bosoms of the rising generation about him. Their deep and eager sympathies have already been drawn upon to an extent of which the prosaic part of the species can never have any conception ; and when the fit of creative inspira- tion has subsided, they are apt to be rather cold critics even of their own noblest appeals to tne simple primary feelings of their kind. " It would be great affectation," says the Introduction of 1830, "not to own that the author expected some success from the Lay of the Last Minstrel. The attempt to return to a more simple and natural poetry was likely to LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 161 be welcomed, at a time when the public had become tired of heroic hexameters, with all the buckram and binding chat belong to them in modern days. But whatever mi. 384 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. but how I should like to have a talk with him about trees !" I mentioned how much any one must be struck with the majestic beauty of Goethe's countenance — the noblest cer- tainly by far that I have ever yet seen — " Well," said he, " the grandest demigod I ever saw was Dr Carlyle, mini- ster of Musselburgh, commonly called Jupiter Carlyle, from having sat more than once for the king of gods and men to Gavin Hamilton — and a shrewd, clever old carle was he, no doubt, but no more a poet than his precentor. As for poets, I have seen, I believe, all the best of our own time and country — and though Burns had the most glorious eyes imaginable, I never thought any of them would come up to an artist's notion of the character, except Byron." Principal Nicol of St Andrew's expressed his regret that he had never seen Lord Byron. " And the prints," resumed Scott, " give one no impression of him — the lustre is there, Doctor, but it is not lighted up. Byron's countenance is a thing to dream of. A certain fair lady, whose name has been too often mentioned in connection with his, told a friend of mine,' that when she first saw Byron, it was in a crowded room, and she did not know who it was, but her eyes were instantly nailed, and she said to herself, that pale face is my fate. And, poor soul, if a godlike face and god- like powers could have made any excuse for devilry, to be sure she had one." In the course of this talk, Sir P. Mur- ray of Ochtertyre, an old friend and schoolfellow of Scott's, asked him, across the table, if he had any faith in the an- tique busts of Homer. " No, truly," he answered, smiling, " for if there had been either limners or stuccoyers worth their salt in those days, the owner of such a headpiece would never have had to trail the poke. They would have alimented the honest man decently among them for a lay-figure." A few days after this, I received a communication from the Messrs Ballantyne, to the effect that Mr Scott's various avocations had prevented him from fulfilling his agreement with them as to the historical department of the Edin- LIFE OF SIK WALTER SCOTT. 385 burgh Annual Register for 1816, and that it would be acceptable to him as well as them, if I could undertake to supply it in the course of the autumn. This proposal was agreed to, and I had consequently occasion to meet him pretty often during that summer session. He told .me. that if the war had gone on, he should have liked to do the historical summary as before ; but that the prospect of having no events to record but radical riots, and the pass- ing or rejecting of corn bills and poor bills, sickened him ; that his health was no longer what it had been ; and that though he did not mean to give over writing altogether (here he smiled significantly, and glanced his eye towards a pile of MS. on the desk by him) — he thought himself now entitled to write nothing but what would rather be an amusement than a fatigue to him— " Juniores ad labores." He at this time occupied as his den a small square room, behind the dining parlour in Castle Street. It had but a single Venetian window, opening on a patch of turf not much larger than itself, and the aspect of the place was on the whole sombrous. The walls were entirely clothed with books ; most of them folios and quartos, and all in that complete state of repair which at a glance reveals a tinge of bibliomania. A dozen volumes or so, needful for imme- diate purposes of reference, were placed close by him on a small moveable frame — something like a duinb-waiter. All the rest were in their proper niches, and wherever a volume had been lent, its room was occupied by a wooden block of the same size, having a card with the name of (lie borrower and date of the loan, tacked on its front. The old bindings had obviously been retouched and regilt in the most approved manner ; the new, when the books were of any mark, were rich, but never gaudy— a large propor- tion of blue morocco — all stamped with bis device of the portcullis, and its motto, ciausus tutus ero — being an ana- gram of his name in Latin. Ever)' case and Bhelf was accurately lettered, and the works arranged systematically; 2ii* 386 LiPT' OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. history and biography on one side — poetry and the drama on another— law books and dictionaries behind his own chair. The only table was a massive piece of furniture which he had had constructed on the model of one at Rokeby ; with a desk and all its appurtenances on either side, that an amanuensis might work opposite to him when he chose ; and with small tiers of drawers, reaching all round to the floor. The top displayed a goodly array of session papers, and on the desk below were, besides the MS. at which he was working, sundry parcels of letters, proof-sheets, and so forth, all neatly done up with red tape. His own writing apparatus was a very handsome old box, richly carved, lined with crimson velvet, and containing ink-bottles, taper- stand, &c. in silver— the whole in such order that it might have come from the silversmith's window half an hour be- fore. Besides his own huge elbow-chair, there were but two others in the room, and one of these seemed, from its position, to be reserved exclusively for the amanuensis. I observed, during the first evening I spent with him in this sanctum, that while he talked, his hands were hardly ever idle ; sometimes he folded letter -covers— sometimes he twisted paper into matches, performing both tasks with great mechanical expertness and nicety ; and when there was no loose paper fit to be so dealt with, he snap- ped his fingers, and the noble Maida aroused himself from his lair on the hearth-rug, and laid his head across his master's knees, to be caressed and fondled. The room had no space for pictures except one, a por- trait of Claverhouse, which hung over the chimneypiece, with a Highland target on either side, and broadswords and dirks (each having its own story) disposed star-fashion round them. A few green tin-boxes, such as solicitors keep title-deeds in, were piled over each other on one side of the window ; and on the top of these lay a fox's tail, mounted on an antique silver handle, wherewith, as often as he had occasion to take down a book, he gently brushed the LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 387 dust off the upper leaves before opening it. I think I have mentioned all the furniture of the room except a sort of ladder, low, broad, well carpetted, and strongly guarded with oaken rails, by which he helped himself to books from his higher shelves. On the top step of this convenience, Hinse of Hinsfeldt (so called from one of the German Kinder-marchen), a venerable tom-cat, fat and sleek, and no longer very locomotive, usually lay watching the pro- ceedings of his master and Maida with an air of dignified equanimity ; but when Maida chose to leave the party, he signified his inclinations by thumping the door with his huge paw, as violently as ever a fashionable footman han- dled a knocker in Grosvenor Square ; the Sheriff rose and opened it for him with courteous alacrity, — and then Hinse came down purring from his perch, and mounted guard by the footstool, vice Maida absent upon furlough. Whatever discourse might be passing, was broken every now and then by some affectionate apostrophe to these four-footed friends. He said they understood everything he said to them — and I believe they did understand a great deal of it. But at all events, dogs and cats, like children, have some infallible tact for discovering at once who is, and who is not, really fond of their company ; and I venture to say, Scott was never five minutes in any room before the little pets of the family, whether dumb or lisping, had found out his kindness for all their generation. I never thought it lawful to keep a journal of what passes in private society, so that no one need expect from the sequel of this 'narrative any detailed record of Scott's familiar talk. What fragments of it have happened to ad- here to a tolerably retentive memory, and may be put into black and white without wounding any feelings which un- friend, were he alive, would have wished to spare, I shall introduce as the occasion suggests or serves. But I dis- claim on the threshold anything more than this ; and I also wish to enter a protest once for all againsl the general 388 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. fidelity of several literary gentlemen who have kindly for- warded to me private lucubrations of theirs, designed to Boswellize Scott, and which they may probably publish hereafter. To report conversations fairly, it is a necessary pre-requisite that we should be completely familiar with all the interlocutors, and understood thoroughly all their minutest relations, and points of common knowledge and common feeling, with each other. He who does not, must be perpetually in danger of misinterpreting sportive allusions into serious statement ; and the man who was only recalling by some jocular phrase or half-phrase, to an old companion, some trivial reminiscence of their boyhood or youth, may be represented as expressing, upon some per- son or incident casually tabled, an opinion which he had never framed, or if he had, would never have given words to in any mixed assemblage — not even among what the world calls friends at his own board. In proportion as a man is witty and humorous, there will always be about him and his a widening maze and wilderness of cues and catch- words, which the uninitiated will, if they are bold enough to try interpretation, construe, ever and anon, egregiously amiss — not seldom into arrant falsity. For this one reason, to say nothing of many others, I consider no man justified in journalizing what he sees and hears in a domestic circle where he is not thoroughly at home ; and I think there are still higher and better reasons why he should not do so where he is. Before I ever met Scott in private, I had, of course, heard many people describe and discuss his style of con- versation. Everybody seemed to agree that it overflowed with hearty good-humour, as well as plain unaffected good sense and sagacity ; but I had heard not a few persons of undoubted ability and accomplishment maintain, that the genius of the great poet and novelist rarely, if ever, re- vealed itself in his talk. It is needless to say, that the per- sons I allude to were all his own countrymen, and themselves LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 389 imbued, more or less, with the conversational habits deriv- ed from a system of education in which the study of me- taphysics occupies a very large share of attention. The best table-talk of Edinburgh was, and probably still is, in a very great measure made up of brilliant disquisition — such as might be transferred without alteration to a professor's note-book, or the pages of a critical Review — and of sharp word-catchings, ingenious thrusting and parrying of dialectics, and all the quips and quibblets of bar pleading. It was the talk of a society to which lawyers and lecturers had, for at least a hundred years, given the tone. From the date of the Union, Edinburgh ceased to be the head- quarters of the Scotch nobility — and long before the time of which I speak, they had all but entirely abandoned it as a place of residence. I think I never knew above two or three of the Peerage to have houses there at the same time — and these were usually among the poorest and most insignificant of their order. The wealthier gentry had followed their example. Very few of that class ever spent any considerable part of the year in Edinburgh, ex- cept for the purposes of educating their children, or super- intending the progress of a lawsuit ; and these were not more likely than a score or two of comatose and le- thargic old Indians, to make head against the established influences of academical and forensic celebrity. Now Scott's tastes and resources had not much in common with those who had inherited and preserved the chief authority in this provincial hierarchy of rhetoric. He was highly amused with watching their dexterous logomachies — but his delight in such displays arose mainly, I cannot doubt, from the fact of their being, both as to subject-matter and style and method, remote a Sccevolce studiis. He sat by, as he would have done at a stage-play or a fencing-match, en- joying and applauding the skill exhibited, but without feeling much ambition to parade himself as a rival either of the foil or the buskin. I can easily believe, therefore, 390 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. that in the earlier part of his life — before the blaze of universal fame had overawed local prejudice, and a new generation, accustomed to hear of that fame from their in- fancy, had grown up — it may have been the commonly adopted creed in Edinburgh, that Scott, however distin- guished otherwise, was not to be named as a table-compa- nion in the same day with this or that master of luminous dissertation or quick rejoinder, who now sleeps as forgot- ten as his grandmother. It was natural enough that per- sons brought up in the same circle with him, who remem- bered all his beginnings, and had but slowly learned to acquiesce in the justice of his claim to unrivalled honour in literature, should have clung all the closer for that late acquiescence to their original estimate of him as inferior to themselves in other titles to admiration. It was also na- tural that their prejudice on that score should be readily taken up by the young aspirants who breathed, as it were, the atmosphere of their professional renown. Perhaps, too, Scott's steady Toryism, and the effect of his genius and example in modifying the intellectual sway of the long dominant Whigs in the north, may have some share in this matter. However, all that may have been, the substance of what I had been accustomed to hear certainly was, that Scott had a marvellous stock of queer stories, which he often told with happy effect, but that, bating these drafts on a portentous memory, set off with a simple old-fashioned naivete of humour and pleasantry, his strain of talk was remarkable neither for depth of remark nor felicity of illustration ; that his views and opinions on the most im- portant topics of practical interest were hopelessly per- verted by his blind enthusiasm for the dreams of by-gone ages ; and that, but for the grotesque phenomenon pre- sented by a great writer of the nineteenth century gravely uttering sentiments worthy of his own Dundees and Inver- nahyles, the main texture of his discourse would be pro- uounced by any enlightened member of modern society, LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 391 rather bald and poor than otherwise. I think the epithet most in vogue was commonplace. It will be easily believed, that, in companies such as I have been alluding to, made up of, or habitually domineered over, by voluble Whigs and political economists, Scott was often tempted to put forth his Tory doctrines and antiqua- rian prejudices in an exaggerated shape, in colours, to say the truth, altogether different from what they assumed un- der other circumstances, or which had any real influence upon his mind and conduct on occasions of practical mo- ment. But I fancy it will seem equally credible, that the most sharp-sighted of these social critics may not always have been capable of tracing, and doing justice to, the powers which Scott brought to bear upon the topics which they, not he, had chosen for discussion. In passing from a gas-lit hall into a room with wax candles, the guests some- times complain that they have left splendour for gloom ; but let them try by what sort of light it is most satisfac- tory to read, write, or embroider, or consider at leisure under which of the two either men or women look their best. The strongest, purest, and least observed of ail lights, is, however, daylight ; and his talk was commonplace, just as sunshine is, which gilds the most indifferent objects, and adds brilliancy to the brightest. As for the old- world anecdotes which these clever persons were conde- scending enough to laugh at as pleasant extravagances, serving merely to relieve and set off' the main stream of debate, they were often enough, it may be guess- ed, connected with the theme in hand by links not the less apt that they might be too subtle to catch their bedazzled and self-satisfied optics. There might be keener knowledge of human nature than was " dreamt of in their philosophy"--which passed with them for commonplace, only because it was clothed in plain familiar household words, not dressed up in some pedantic masquerade of antithesis. 392 LIFE OF SIR W ALTER SCOTT. " There are people," says Landor, " who think they write and speak finely, merely because they have forgotten the language in which their fathers and mothers used to talk to them ;" and surely there are a thousand homely old pro- verbs, which many a dainty modern would think it beneath his dignity to quote either in speech or writing, any one of which condenses more wit (take that word in any of its senses) than could be extracted from all that was ever said or written by the doctrinaires of the Edinburgh school. Many of those gentlemen held Scott's conversation to be commonplace exactly for the same reason that a child thinks a perfectly limpid stream, though perhaps deep enough to drown it three times over, must needs be shallow. But it will be easily believed that the best and highest of their own idols had better means and skill of measurement : I can never forget the pregnant expression of one of the ablest of that school and party — Lord Cockburn — who, when some glib youth chanced to echo in his hearing the consolatory tenet of local mediocrity, answered quietly — "I have the misfortune to think differently from you — in my humble opinion, Walter Scott : s sense is a still more wonderful thing than his genius." Indeed I have no sort of doubt that, long before 1818, full justice was done to Scott, even in these minor things, by all those of his Edinburgh acquaintance, whether Whig or Tory, on whose personal opinion he could have been supposed to set much value. With few exceptions, the really able lawyers of his own or nearly similar standing, had ere that time attained stations of judicial dignity, or were in the springtide of practice ; and in either case they were likely to consider general society much in his own fashion, as the joyous relaxation of life, rather than the theatre of exertion and display. Their tables were ele- gantly, some of them sumptuously spread ; and they lived in a pretty constant interchange of entertainments, in every circumstance of which, conversation included, it was their LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 393 ambition to imitate those voluptuous metropolitan circles, wherein most of them had from time to time mingled, and se- veralof them with distinguished success. Among such pros- perous gentlemen, like himself past the mezzo cammin, Scott's picturesque anecdotes, rich easy humour, and gay involun- tary glances of mother-wit, were, it is not difficult to sup- pose, appreciated above contributions of a more ambitious stamp ; and no doubt his London reputation de salon (which had by degrees risen to a high pitch, although he cared nothing for it) was not without its effect in Edinburgh. But still the old prejudice lingered on in the general opi- nion of the place, especially among the smart praters of the Outer-House. In truth, it was impossible to listen to Scott's oral nar- rations, whether gay or serious, or to the felicitous fun with which he parried absurdities of all sorts, without disco- vering better qualities in his talk than wit — and of a higher order ; I mean especially a power of vivid painting — the true and primary sense of what is called Imagination. He was like Jacques — though not a " Melancholy Jacques ;"' and " moralized" a common topic " into a thousand simi- litudes." Shakspeare and the banished Duke would have found him " full of matter." He disliked mere disquisitions in Edinburgh, and prepared impromptus in London ; and puzzled the promoters of such things sometimes by placid silence, sometimes by broad merriment. To such men he seemed commonplace — not so to the most dexterous masters in what was to some of them almost a science ; not so to Rose, Hallam, Moore, or Rogers, — to Ellis, Mackintosh, Croker, or Canning. Scott managed to give and receive such great dinners as I have been alluding to, at least as often as any other pri- vate gentleman in Edinburgh ; but he very rarely accom- panied his wife and daughters to the evening assemblies. which commonly ensued under oilier roofs — for early to me, unless in the case of spare-led anchorites, takes for 394: LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. granted early to bed. When he had no dinner engagement, he frequently gave a few hours to the theatre ; but still more frequently, when the weather was fine, and still more, I believe, to his own satisfaction, he drove out with some of his family, or a single friend, in an open carriage ; the favourite rides being either to the Blackford Hills, or to Ravelston, and so home by Corstorphine ; or to the beach of Portobello, where Peter was always instructed to keep his horses as near as possible to the sea. More than once, even in the first summer of my acquaintance with him, I had the pleasure of accompanying him on these evening excursions , and never did he seem to enjoy himself more fully than when placidly surveying, at such sunset or nioon- lio-ht hours, either the massive outlines of his " own ro- mantic town," or the tranquil expanse of its noble estuary. He delighted, too, in passing when he could, through some of the quaint windings of the ancient city itself, now de- serted, except at mid-day, by the upper world. How of- ten have I seen him go a long way round about, rather than miss the opportunity of halting for a few minutes on the vacant esplanade of Holyrood, or under the darkest shadows of the Castle rock, where it overhangs the Grass- market, and the huge slab that still marks where the gib- bet of Porteous and the Covenanters had its station. His coachman knew him too well to move at a Jehu's pace amidst such scenes as these. No funeral hearse crept more leisurely than did his landau up the Canongate or the Cow- gate ; and not a queer tottering gable but recalled to him some long-buried memory of splendour or bloodshed, which, by a few words, he set before the hearer in the reality of life. His image is so associated in my mind with the anti- quities of his native place, that I cannot now revisit them without feeling as if I were treading on his gravestone. Whatever might happen on the other evenings of the week, he always dined at home on Sunday, and usually some few friends were then with him, but never any per- LrFE OF SIR AV ALTER SCOTT. 395 son with whom he stood on ceremony. These were, it may be readily supposed, the most agreeable of his entertain- ments. He came into the room rubbing his hands, his face bright and gleesome, like a boy arriving at home for the holidays, his Peppers and Mustards gambolling about his heels, and even the stately Maida grinning and wagging his tail in sympathy. Among the most regu- lar guests on these happy evenings were, in my time, as had long before been the case, Mrs Maclean Clephane of Torloisk (with whom be agreed cordially on all subjects ex- cept the authenticity of Ossian), and her daughters, whose guardian he had become at their choice. The eldest of them had been for some years married to the Earl of Compton (now Marquis of Northampton), and was of course seldom in the north ; but the others had much of the same tastes and accomplishments which so highly distinguished the late Lady Northampton ; and Scott delighted especially in their proficiency in the poetry and music of their native isles. Mr and Mrs Skene of Rubis- law were frequent attendants — and so were the Macdo- nald-Buchanans of Drumakiln, whose eldest daughter, Isa- bella, was his chief favourite among all his nieces of the Clerks' table — as was, among the nephews, my own dear friend and companion, Joseph Hume, a singularly graceful young man, rich in the promise of hereditary genius, but, alas ! cut off in the early bloom of his days. The well-be- loved Erskine was seldom absent ; and very often Terry or James Ballantyne came with him — sometimes, though less frequently, Constable. Among other persons who now and then appeared at these " dinners without the silver dishes." as Scott called them, I may mention — to say nothing of such old cronies as Mr Clerk, Mr Thomson, and Mr Kirk- patrick Sharpe — Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchinluck, who had all his father Bozzy's cleverness, good-humour, and jo- vialty, without one touch of his meaner qualities — wrote Jenny dang the Weaver, and some other popular songs, 896 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. which he sang capitally — and was moreover a thorough bibliomaniac ; the late Sir Alexander Don of Newton, in all courteous and elegant accomplishments the model of a ca- valier ; and last, not least, William Allan, R.A., who had shortly before this time returned to Scotland from several years of travel in Russia and Turkey. At one of these plain hearty dinners, however, the company rarely exceeded three or four, besides the as yet undivided family. Scott had a story of a topping goldsmith on the Bridge, who prided himself on being the mirror of Amphitryons, and accounted for his success by stating that it was his in- variable custom to set his own stomach at ease, by a beef- steak and a pint of port in his back-shop, half-an-hour be- fore the arrival of his guests. But the host of Castle Street had no occasion to imitate this prudent arrangement, for his appetite at dinner was neither keen nor nice. Break- fast was his chief meal. Before that came, he had gone through the severest part of his day's work, and then he set to with the zeal of Oabbe's Squire Tovell — " And laid at once a pound upon his plate." No foxhunter ever prepared himself for the field by more substantial appliances. His table was always provided, in addition to the usually plentiful delicacies of a Scotch breakfast, with some solid article, on which he did most lusty execution — a round of beef — a pasty, such as made Gil Bias's eyes water — or, most welcome of all, a cold sheep's head, the charms of which primitive dainty he has so gallantly defended against the disparaging sneers of Dr Johnson and his bear-leader. 1 A huge brown loaf flanked his elbow, and it was placed upon a broad wooden trencher, that he might cut and come again with the bolder knife. Often did the Clerks 1 coach, commonly called among them- selves the Lively — which trundled round every morning to pick up the brotherhood, and then deposited them at the proper minute in the Parliament Close — often did this lum« 1 See Croker's Boswell (edit. 1831), vol. iii. p. 38. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. bering hackney arrive at his door before he had fully ap- peased what Homer calls " the sacred rage of hunger ;' ; and vociferous was the merriment of the learned uncles, wten the surprised poet swung forth to join them, -with an extemporized sandwich, that looked like a ploughman's luncheon in his hand. But this robust supply would have served him in fact for the day. He never tasted anything more before dinner, and at dinner he ate almost as spa- ringly as Squire Tovell's niece from the boarding-school — " Who cut the sanguine flesh in frustums fine, And marvelled much to see the creatures dine." The only dishes he was at all fond of were the old-fa shioned ones to which he had been accustomed in the days of Saunders Fairford ; and which really are excellent dishes, — such, in truth, as Scotland borrowed from France before Catherine de Medicis brought in her Italian virttiosi to revolutionize the kitchen like the court. Of most of these, I believe, he has in the course of his novels found some opportunity to record his esteem. But, above all, who can inrget that his King Jamie, amidst the splendours of Whitehall, thinks himself an ill-used monarch unless his first course includes cockyleekie f It is a fact, which some philosophers may think worth setting down, that Scott's organization, as to more than one of the senses, was the reverse of exquisite. He had very little of what musicians call an ear ; his smell was hardly more delicate. I have seen him stare about, quite unconscious of the cause, when his whole company be- trayed their uneasiness at the approach of an over-kept haunch of venison ; and neither by the nose or the palate could he distinguish corked wine from sound. lie could never tell Madeira from Sherry ; nay, an Oriental friend having sent him a butt of sheeraz, when he remembered the circumstance some time afterwards, and called for a bottle to have Sir John Malcolm's opinion of its quality, it turned out that his butler, mistaking the label, had already serve.) 398 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. up half the binn as sherry. Port he considered as physic: he never willingly swallowed more than one glass of it, and was sure to anathematize a second, if offered, by repeating John Home's epigram — " Bold and erect the Caledonian stood, Old was his mutton, and his claret good ; Let him drink port, the English statesman cried — He drank the poison, and his spirit died." I n truth, he liked no wines except sparkling champaign and claret ; but even as to this last he was no connoisseur ; and sincerely preferred a tumbler of whisky-toddy to the most precious u liquid ruby" that ever flowed in the cup of a prince. He rarely took any other potation when quite alone with his family ; but at the Sunday board he circu- lated the champaign briskly during dinner, and considered a pint of claret each man's fair share afterwards. I should not omit, however, that his Bourdeaux was uniformly pre- ceded by a small libation of the genuine mountain dew, which he poured with his- own hand, more majorum, for each guest — making use for the purpose of such a multifarious collection of ancient Highland quaighs (little cups of curi- ously dovetailed wood, inlaid with silver) as no Lowland sideboard but his was ever equipped with — but commonly reserving for himself one that was peculiarly precious in his eyes, as having travelled from Edinburgh to Derby in the canteen of Prince Charlie. This relic had been presented to " the wandering Ascanius" by some very careful fol- lower, for its bottom is of glass, that he who quaffed might keep his eye the while upon the dirk hand of his com- panion. The sound of music — (even, I suspect, of any sacred music but psalm-singing) — would be considered indecorou? in the streets of Edinburgh on a Sunday night ; so, upon the occasions I am speaking of, the harp was silent, and Otterburne and The Bonnie House of Airlie must needs be dispensed with. To make amends, after tea in the draw- LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 3% in a -room, Scott usually read some favourite author for the amusement of his little circle ; or Erskine, Ballantyne, 01 Terry, did so, at his request. He himself read aloud high poetry with far greater simplicity, depth, and effect, than any other man I ever heard ; and in Macbeth or Julius Cjesar, or the like, I doubt if Kemble could have been more impressive. Yet the changes of intonation were so gently managed, that he contrived to set the different in- terlocutors clearly before us, without the least approach to theatrical artifice. Not so the others I have mentioned ; they all read cleverly and agreeably, but with the decided trickery of stage recitation. To them he usually gave the book when it was a comedy, or, indeed, any other drama than Shakspeare's or Joanna Baillie's. Dryden's Fables, Johnson's two Satires, and certain detached scenes of Beau- mont and Fletcher, especially that in the Lover's Progress, where the ghost of the musical innkeeper makes his appear- ance, were frequently selected. Of the poets, his contem- poraries, however, there was not one that did not come in fur his part. In Wordsworth, his pet pieces were, I think, the Song for Brougham Castle, the Laodamia, and some of the early sonnets : — in Southey, Queen Orraca, Fernando Ramirez, the Lines on the Holly Tree — and, of his larger poems, the Thalaba. Crabbe was perhaps, next to Shak- speare, the standing resource ; but in those days Byron was pouring out his spirit fresh and full ; and, if a new piece from his hand had appeared, it was sure to be; read by Scott the Sunday evening afterwards, and that with such delighted emphasis, as shewed how completely the elder bard had kept all his enthusiasm for poetry at the pitch of youth, all his admiration of genius, free, pure, and un- stained by the least drop of literary jealousy. Ban; and beautiful example of a happily constituted and virtuously disciplined mind and character ! Let me turn, meanwhile, to a table very different from his own, at which, from this time forward, I often met Scott 400 MFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. James Ballantyne then lived in St John Street, a row of good, old-fashioned, and spacious houses, adjoining the Canongate and Holyrood, and at no great distance from his printing establishment. He had married a few } r ears before the daughter of a wealthy farmer in Berwickshire — a quiet amiable woman, of simple manners, and perfectly domestic habits : a group of fine young children were growing up about him ; and he usually, if not constantly, had under his roof his a^ed mother, his and his wife's tender care of whom it was most pleasing to witness. As far as a stranger might judge, there could not be a more exemplary household, or a happier one ; and I have occa- sionally met the poet in St John Street when there were no other guests but Erskine, Terry, George Hogarth, 1 and another intimate friend or two, and when James Ballan- tyne was content to appear in his own true and best colours, the kind head of his family, the respectful but honest schoolfellow of Scott, the easy landlord of a plain, comfortable table. But when any great event was about to take place in the business, especially on the eve of a new novel, there were doings of a higher strain in St John Street ; and to be present at one of those scenes was truly a rich treat, even — if not especially — for persons who, like myself, had no more knowledge than the rest of the world as to the authorship of Waverley. Then were con- gregated about the printer all his own literary allies, of whom a considerable number were by no means personally familiar with " the great unknown : " — who, by the way, owed to him that widely adopted title ; — and He appeared among the rest with his usual open aspect of buoyant good-humour — although it was not difficult to trace, in the occasional play of his features, the diversion 1 George Hogarth, Esq. W.S., brother of Mrs James Ballantyne. This gentleman is now well known in the literary world ; especially by a History of Music, of which all who understand that science speak highly — 1848. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 401 it afforded hiin to watch all the procedure of his swelling confidant, and the curious neophytes that surrounded the well-spread board. ■The feast was, to use one of James's own favourite epithets, gorgeous ; an aldermanic display of turtle and venison, with the suitable accompaniments of iced punch, potent ale, and generous Madeira. When the cloth was drawn, the burley preses arose, with all he could muster of the port of John Kemble, and spouted with a sonorous voice the formula of Macbeth — " Fill full ! I drink to the general joy of the whole table !" This was followed by "The King, God bless him!" and second came — " Gentlemen, there is another toast whicb never has been nor shall be omitted in this house of mine — I give you the health of Mr Walter Scott with three times three !" — All honour having been done to this health, and Scott having briefly thanked the company with some expressions of warm affection to then- host, Mrs Ballantyne retired ; — the bottles passed round twice or thrice in the usual way ; — and then James rose once more, every vein on his brow distended, his eyes solemnly fixed upon va- cancy, to propose, not as before in his stentorian key, but with " 'bated breath," in the sort of whisper by which a stage conspirator thrills the gallery — " Gentlemen., a bumper to the immortal Author of Waverley!" — The uproar of cheering, in which Sccrtt made a fashion of joining, was succeeded by deep silence, and then Ballantyne pro- ceeded — . " In his Lord -Burleigh look, serene and serious, A something of imposing and mysterious" — to lament the obscurity in which his illustrious but too modest correspondent still chose to conceal himself from the plaudits of the world — to thank the company for the. manner in which the nominis umbra had been received — and to assure them that the Author of Waverley would, 2c* 4()2 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. when informed of the circumstance, feel highly delighted « the proudest hour of his life," &c. &c. The cool de- mure fun of Scott's features during all this mummery was perfect ; and Erskine's attempt at a gay nonchalance was still more ludicrously meritorious. Aldiborontiphosco- phornio, however, bursting as he was, knew too well to allow the new novel to be made the subject of discussion. Its name was announced, and success to it crowned another cup ; but after that, no more of Jedediah. To cut the thread, he rolled out unbidden some one of his many theatrical songs, in a style that would have done no dis- honour to almost any orchestra — The Maid of Lodi — or perhaps, The Bay of Biscay, oh ! — or The sweet Utile cherub that sits up aloft. Other toasts followed, interspersed with ditties from other performers ;— old George Thomson, the friend of Burns, was ready, for one, with The Moorland Wedding, or Willie brew'd a peck o' maut ; — and so it went on, until Scott and Erskine, with any clerical or very staid personage that had chanced to be admitted, saw fit to with- draw. Then the scene was changed. The claret and olives made way for broiled bones and a mighty bowl of punch 5 and when a few glasses of the hot beverage had restored his powers, James opened ore rotundo on the merits of the forthcoming romance. " One chapter— one chapter only"— was the cry. After ;« Nay, by'r Lady, nay!" and a few more coy shifts, the proof-sheets were at length produced, and James, with many a prefatory hem, read aloud what he considered as the most striking dialogue they contained. The first I heard so read was the interview between Jeanie Deans, the Duke of Argyle, and Queen Caroline, in Richmond Park ; and notwithstanding some spice of the pompous tricks to which he was addicted, I must say he did the inimitable scene great justice. At all events, the effect it produced was deep and memorable, and no wonder that the exulting typographer's one bumper more to Jedediah LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 403 Cleishbotham preceded his parting stave, which was uni- formly The Last Words of Marmion, executed certainly with 110 contemptible rivalry of Braham. "What a different affair was a dinner, although probably including many of the same guests, at the junior partner's ! He in those days retained, I think, no private apartments attached to his auction-rooms in Hanover Street, over the door of which he still kept emblazoned " John Ballantyne and Company, Booksellers." At any rate, such of his en- tertainments as I ever saw Scott partake of, were given at his villa near to the Frith of Forth, by Trinity ; — a retreat which the little man had invested with an air of dainty voluptuous finery, contrasting strikingly enough with the substantial citizen-like snugness of his elder brother's domestic appointments. His house was surrounded by gardens so contrived as to seem of considerable extent, having many a shady tuft, trellised alley, and mysterious alcove, interspersed among their bright parterres. His professional excursions to Paris and Brussels in quest of objects of vertu, had supplied both the temptation and the means to set forth the interior in a fashion that might have satisfied the most fastidious petite maitresse of Norwood or St Denis. John, too, was a married man : he had, how- ever, erected for himself a private wing, the accesses to which, whether from the main building or the bosquet, were so narrow that it was physically impossible for the handsome and portly lady who bore his name to force her person through any one of them. His dinners were in al! respects Parisian, 'for his wasted palate disdained such John Bull luxuries as were all in all with James. The piquant pasty of Strasburg or Perigord was never to seek ; and even the piece de resistance was probably a boar's Ik ad from Coblentz, or a turkey ready stuffed with truffles from the Palais Royal. The pictures scattered among John's innumerable mirrors were chiefly of theatrical subjects — many of them portraits of beautiful actresses — the same 404 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Peg Woffingtons, Bellamys, Kitty Clives, and so forth, that found their way in the sequel to Charles Mathews's gallery at Highgate. Here that exquisite comedian's own mimicries and parodies were the life and soul of many a festival, and here, too, he gathered from his facetious host not a few of the richest materials for his at homes and monopolylogues. But, indeed, whatever actor or singer of eminence visited Edinburgh, of the evenings when he did not perform several were sure to be reserved for Trinity. Here Braham quavered, and here Liston drolled his best —here Johnstone, and Murray, and Yates, mixed jest and Bt , ave — here Kean revelled and rioted — and here the Ro- man Kemble often played the Greek from sunset to dawn. Nor did the popular danseuse of the time disdain to freshen her roses, after a laborious week, amidst these Paphian arbours. Johnny had other tastes that were equally expensive. He had a well-furnished stable, and followed the fox- hounds whenever the covert was within an easy distance. His horses were all called after heroes in Scott's poems or novels ; and at this time he usually rode up to his auction on a tall milk-white hunter, yclept Old Mortality, attended by a leash or two of greyhounds,— Die Vernon, Jenny Dennison, and so forth, by name. The featherweight himself appeared uniformly, hammer-in-hand, in the half- dress of some sporting-club— a light grey frock, with em- blems of the chase on its silver buttons, white cord breeches, and jockey-boots in Meltonian order. Yet he affected in the pulpit rather a grave address ; and was really one of the most plausible and imposing of the Puff tribe. Pro- bably Scott's presence overawed his ludicrous propensities ; for the poet was, when sales were going on, almost a daily attendant in Hanover Street, and himself not the least energetic of the numerous competitors for Johnny's uncut fiftecners, Venetian lamps, Milanese cuirasses, and old Dutch cabinets. Maida, by the way, was so well aware of his LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 405 master's habits, that about the time when the Court oi Session was likely to break up for the day, he might usu- ally be seen couched in expectation among Johnny's own tdil of greyhounds at the threshold of the mart. It was at one of those Trinity dinners this summer that I first saw Constable. Being struck with his appearance, I asked Scott who he was, and he told me — expressing some surprise that anybody should have lived a winter or two in Edinburgh without knowing, by sight at least, a citizen whose name was so familiar to the world. I happened to say that I had not been prepared to find the great bookseller a man of such gentlemanlike and even distinguished bearing. Scott smiled, and answered — " Ay, Constable is indeed a grand-looking chield. He puts me in mind of Fielding's apology for Lady Booby — to wit. that Joseph Andrews had an air which, to those who had not seen many noblemen, would give an idea of nobility." I had not in those days been much initiated in the private jokes of what is called, by way of excellence, the trade, and was puzzled when Scott, in the course of the dinner, said to Constable, " Will your Czarish Majesty do me the honour to take a glass of champaign ? " I asked the master of the feast for an explanation. "Oh!" said he, "are you so green as not to know that Constable long since dubbed himself The Czar of Muscovy, John Murray The Emperor of the West, and Longman and his string of part- ners TJie Divan?" — " And what title," I asked, " has Mr John Ballantyne himself found in this new almanack im- perial?" — " Let that flee stick to the wa'," quoth Johnny: " When I set up for a bookseller, The Crafty christened me The Dey of Alljeers — but he now considers me as next thing to dethroned." lie added — " His Majesty the autocrat is too fond of these nicknames. One day a part- ner of the house of Longman was dining with him in the country, to settle an important piece of business, about which there occurred a good deal of difficulty. ' What 406 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. fine swans you have in your pond there ! ' said the Lon- doner, by -way of parenthesis. — ' Swans ! ' cried Constable ; ' they are only geese, man. There are just five of them, if you please to observe, and their names are Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.' This skit cost The Crafty a good bargain." It always appeared to me that James Ballantyne felt his genius rebuked in the presence of Constable : his man- ner was constrained, his smile servile, his hilarity elaborate. Not so with Johnny : the little fellow never seemed more airily frolicsome than when he capered for the amusement of the Czar. When I visited Constable, as I often did at a period somewhat later than that of which I now speak, and for the most part in company with Scott, I found the book- seller established in a respectable country gentleman's seat, some six or seven miles out of Edinburgh, and doing the honours of it with all the ease that might have been looked for had he been the long-descended owner of the place ; — there was no foppery, no show, no idle luxury, but to all appearance the plain abundance and simple enjoyment of hereditary wealth. His conversation was manly and vigo- rous, abounding in Scotch anecdotes of the old time, which he told with a degree of spirit and humour only second to his wreat author's. No man could more effectually control, when he had a mind, either the extravagant vanity which, on too many occasions, made him ridiculous, or the despotic temper which habitually held in fear and trembling all such as were in any sort dependent on his Czarish Majesty's pleasure. Tn him I never saw (at this period) anything but the unob- trusive sense and the calm courtesy of a well-bred gentleman. His very equipage kept up the series of contrasts between him and the two Ballantynes. Constable went back and forward between the town and Polton in a deep hung and capacious green barouche, without any pretence at heraldic blazonry, drawn by a pair of sleek, black, long-tailed horses, LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 407 and conducted by agrave old coachman in plain blue livery. The Printer of the Canongate drove himself and his wife about the streets and suburbs in a snug machine, which did not overburthen one powerful and steady cob ; — while the way Auctioneer, whenever he left the saddle for the box, mounted a bright blue dog-cart, and rattled down the New- haven road with two high-mettled steeds prancing tandem before him. The Sheriff told with peculiar unction the following anecdote of this spark : — The first time he went over to pick up curiosities at Paris, it happened that he met, in the course of his traffickings, a certain brother bookseller of Edin- burgh, as unlike him as one man could well be to another — a grave, dry Presbyterian, rigid in all his notions as the buckle of his wig. This precise worthy having ascertained John's address, went to call on him a day or two afterwards, with the news of some richly illuminated missal, which he might possibly be glad to make prize of. On asking for his friend, a smiling laquais de place informed him that Monsieur had gone out, but that Madame was at home. Not doubting that Mrs Ballantyne had accompanied her husband on his trip, he desired to pay his respects to Ma- dame, and was ushered in accordingly. " But oh, Mr Scott ! " said, or rather groaned the austere elder on his return from this modern Babylon — " oh, Mr Scott, there was nae Mrs John yonder, but a painted Jezabel sittin' up in her bed, wi' a wheen impudent French limmers like her- sel', and twa or three whiskered blackguards, takin' their collation o' nicknacks and champagne wine. I ran out o' the house as if I had been shot. What judgment will this wicked warld come to ! The Lord pity us ! " Scott was a severe enough censor in the general of such levities, but somehow, in the case of Rigdumfunnidos, he seemed to regard them with much the same toleration as the naughty tricks of a monkey in the " Jardin des Plantcs." Why did Scott persist in mixing up all his most impor- 408 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. tant concerns -with these Ballantynes ? The reader of these pages will have all my materials for an answer ; but in the meantime let it suffice to say, that he was the most patient, long-suffering, affectionate, and charitable of mankind ; that in the case of both the brothers he could count, after all, on a sincerely, nay, a passionately devoted attachment to his person ; that, with the greatest of human beings, use is in all but unconquerable power ; and that he who so loftily tossed aside the seemingly most dangerous assaults of flat- tery, the blandishment of dames, the condescension of princes, the enthusiasm of crowds — had still his weak point, upon which two or three humble besiegers, and one un- wearied, though most frivolous underminer, well knew how to direct their approaches. It was a favourite saw of his own, that the wisest of our race often reserve the average stock of folly to be all expended uj>on some one flagrant absurdity. I alluded to James Ballantyne's reading of the famous scene in Richmond Park.- According to Scott's original intention, the second series of Jedediah was to have included two tales ; but his Jeanie Deans soon grew so on his fancy as to make this impossible ; and the Heart .of Mid-Lothian alone occupied the four volumes which appeared in June 1818, and were at once placed by acclamation in the fore- most rank of his writings. Lady Louisa Stuart's picture of the southern rapture may be found elsewhere ; but I must not omit here her own remarks on the principal cha- racter : — " People were beginning to say the author would wear himself out ; it was going on too long in the same key, and no striking notes could possibly be produced. On the contrary, I think the interest is stronger here than in any of the former ones — (always excepting my first-love Waverley) — and one may congratulate you upon having effected what many have tried to do, and nobody yet suc- ceeded in, making the perfectly good character the most interesting. Of late days, especially since it has been the LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 409 fashion to write moral and even religious novels, one might almost say of some of the wise good heroines, what a livelj girl once said of her well-meaning aunt — ' Upon my word she is enough to make anybody wicked.' And though beauty and talents are heaped on the right side, the writer, in spite of himself, is sure to put agreeableness on the wrong ; the person from whose errors he means you should take warning, runs away with your secret partiality in the meantime. Had this very story been conducted by a common hand, Effie would have attracted our concern and sympathy — Jeanie only cold approbation. Whereas Jeanie, without youth, beauty, genius, warm passions, or any other novel-perfection, is here our object from begin ning to end. This is ' enlisting the affections in the cause of virtue ' ten times more than ever Richardson did ; for whose male and female pedants, all-excelling as they are, I never could care half so much as I found myself inclined to do for Jeanie before I finished the first volume." From the choice of localities, and the splendid blazoning of tragical circumstances that had left the strongest impres- sion on the memory and imagination of every inhabitant, the reception of this tale in Edinburgh was a scene of all- engrossing enthusiasm, such as I never witnessed there on the appearance of any other literary novelty. But the admiration and delight were the same all over Scotland. Never before had he seized such really noble features of the national character as were canonized in the person of his homely heroine : no art had ever devised a happier running contrast than that of her and her sister, or inter- woven a portraiture of lowly manners and simple virtues, with more graceful delineations of polished life, or with Insider shadows of terror, guilt, crime, remorse, madness, and all the agony of the passions. 410 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. CHAPTER X. Sketches of Abbotsford— Illness and Domestic Afflictions —The Bride of Lammermoor — The Legend of Montrose— Ivanhoe — 1818-1819. The 12th of July [1818] restored Scott as usual to the supervision of his trees and carpenters ; but he had already- told the Ballantynes, that the story which he had found it impossibleto include in the recent series should be forthwith taken up as the opening one of a third ; and instructed John to embrace the first .favourable opportunity of offer- ing Constable the publication of this, on the footing of 10,000 copies again forming the first edition ; but now at length without any more stipulations connected with the " old stock." One of his visiters of September was Mr. R. Cadell, who was now in all the secrets of his father-in-law and partner Constable ; and observing how his host was ha- rassed with lion-hunters, and what a number of hours he spent daily in the company of his work-people, he ex- pressed, during one of their walks, his wonder that Scott should ever be able to write books at all while in the coun- try. " I know," he said, " that you contrive to get a few hours in your own room, and that may do for the mere pen- work ; but when is it that you think ? "— " Oh," said Scott, " I lie simmering over things for an hour or so before I get up — and there's the time I am dressing to overhaul my LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 411 half-sleeping, half- waking, projei de chapitre — and when 1 get the paper before me, it commonly runs off pretty easily. Besides, I often take a dose in the plantations, and while Tom marks out a dyke or a drain, as I have directed, one's fancy may be running its ain riggs in some other world." It was in the month following that I first saw Abbots- ford. He invited my friend John Wilson (now Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh) and myself to visit him for a day or two on our return from an excursion to Mr Wilson's beautiful villa ou Windermere, but named the particular day (October 8th) on which it would be most convenient for him to receive us ; and we discovered on our arrival, that he had fixed it from a good-natured motive. We found him walking at no great distance from the house, with five or six young people, and his friends Lord Melville and Adam Fergusson. Having presented us to the first Lord of the Admiralty, he fell back a little and said " I am glad you came to-day, for I thought it might be of use to you both, some time or other, to be known to my old school-fellow here, who is, and I hope will long continue to be, the great giver of good things in the Parliament House. I trust you have had enough of certain pranks with your friend Ebony, and if so, Lord Melville will have too much sense to remember them." 1 AVe then walked round a plantation called the Thicket, and came back to the house by a formidable work which he was constructing for the defence of his haugh against the wintry violences of the Tweed ; and he discoursed for some time with keen interest, upon the comparative merits of different 1 Ebony was Mr Blackwood's own usual designation in the jeux (Tesprit of his young Magazine, in many of which the persons thus addressed by Scott were conjoint culprits. They both wre then, as may be inferred, sweeping the boards of the Parliament IIoun* is "briefless barristers." 412 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. methods of embankment, but stopped now and then to give us the advantage of any point of view in which his new building on the eminence above pleased his eye. It had a fantastic appearance — being but a fragment of the ex- isting edifice — and not at all harmonizing in its outline with the original tenement to the eastward. Scott, how- ever, expatiated con amove on the rapidity with which, being chiefly of darkish granite, it was assuming a " time- honoured " aspect. Fergusson, with a grave and respect- ful look observed, " Yes, it really has much the air of some old fastness hard by the river Jordan." This allu- sion to a so-called Chaldee MS., in the manufacture of which Fergusson fancied Wilson and myself to have had a share, gave rise to a burst of laughter among Scott's merry young folks, while he himself drew in his nether lip and rebuked the Captain with " Toots, Adam ! Toots, Adam !" He then returned to his embankment, and de- scribed how a former one had been entirely swept away in one night's flood. But the Captain was ready with ano- ther verse of the Oriental MS., and groaned out by way f echo—" Verily my fine gold hath perished !" * Where- upon the " Great Magician " elevated his huge oaken staff as if to lay it on the waggish soldier's back — but flourished it gaily over his own head, and laughed louder than the youngest of the company. As we walked and talked, the Pepper and Mustard terriers kept snuffing about among the bushes and heather near us, and started every five mi- nutes a hare, which scudded away before them and the ponderous stag-hound Maida — the Sheriff and all his tail hollowing and cheering in perfect confidence that the dogs could do no more harm to poor puss than the venerable tom-cat, Hinse of Hinsfeldt, who pursued the vain chase with the rest. At leno-th we drew near Peterhouse, and found sober Peter himself, and his brother-in-law the facetious factotum 1 See Blackwood for October 1817. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 413 Tom Purdie, superintending, pipe in mouth, three or four sturdy labourers busy in laying down the turf for a bowl- ing-green. " I have planted hollies all round it, you see," said Scott, " and laid out an arbour on the right-hand side for the laird ; and here I mean to have a game at bowls after dinner every day in fine weather — for I take that to have been among the indispensables of our old vie de cha- teau." But I must not forget the reason he gave me some time afterwards for having fixed on that spot for his bowl- in°--£reen. " In truth," he then said, " I wished to have a smooth walk and a canny seat for myself within ear-shot of Peter's evening psalm." The coachman was a devout Presbyterian, and many a time have I in after years accom- panied Scott on his evening stroll, when the principal ob- ject was to enjoy, from the bowling-green, the unfailing melody of this good man's family-worship — and heard him repeat, as Peter's manly voice led the humble choir within, that beautiful stanza of Burns's Saturday Night : — " They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim," &c. It was near the dinner-hour before we reached the house, and presently I saw assembled a larger company than I should have fancied to be at all compatible with the exist- ing accommodations of the place ; but it turned out that Adam Fergusson, and the friends whom I have not as yet mentioned, were to find quarters elsewhere for the night. His younger brother, Captain John Fergusson of the Royal Navy (a favourite lieutenant of Lord Nelson's), had come over from Huntly Burn ; there were present also, Mr Scott of Gala, whose residence is within an easy distance ; Sir Henry Hay Macdougal of Mackerston, an old baronet, with gay, lively, and highly polished manners, related in the same degree to both Gala and the Sheriff; Sir Alexander Don, the member for Roxburghshire, whose elegant social qua- lities had been alluded to in a preceding chapter ; and Dr Scott of Damlee, a modest and intelligent gentleman, 414 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. who, haviug realized a fortune in the East India Company's medical service, had settled within two or three miles of Abbotsford, and, though no longer practising his profession, had kindly employed all the resources of his skill in the endeavour to counteract his neighbour's recent liability to attacks of cramp. Our host and one or two others appeared, as was in those days a common fashion with country gen- tlemen, in the lieutenancy uniform of their county. How fourteen or fifteen people contrived to be seated in the then dining-room of Abbotsford I know not — for it seemed quite full enough when it contained only eight or ten ; but so it was — oior, as Sir Harry Macdougal's fat valet, warned by former experience, did not join the train of attendants, was there any perceptible difficulty in the detail of the ar- rangements. Everything about the dinner was, as the phrase runs, in excellent style ; and in particular the^ota^e a la Meg Merrilees, announced as an attempt to imitate a device of the Duke of Buccleuch's celebrated cook — by name Monsieur Florence— seemed, to those at least who were better acquainted with the Kaim of Derncleugh than with the cuisine of Bowhill, 1 a very laudable specimen of the art. The champaign circulated nimbly — and I never was present at a gayer dinner. It had advanced a little beyond the soup when it received an accompaniment which would not, perhaps, have improved the satisfaction of southern guests, had any such been present. A tall and stalwart bagpiper, in complete Highland costume, appeared pacing to and fro on the green before the house, and the window being open, it seemed as if he might as well have been straining his lungs within the parlour. At a pause of his strenuous performance, Scott took occasion to explain, that John of Skye was a recent acquisition to the rising hamlet of Abbotstown ; that the man was a capital hedger and 1 I understand that this now celebrated soup was extemporized by M. Florence on Scott's first visit to Bowhill after the publics tion of Guy Mannering. LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 415 ditchei , and only figured with the pipe and philabeg on hioh occasions in the after part of the day ; " but indeed," he added, laughing, u I fear John will soon be discovering that the hook and mattock are unfavourable to his chanter hand." When the cloth was drawn, and the never-failing salver of quaighs introduced, John Bruce, upon some well- known signal, entered the room, but en militaire, without removing his bonnet, and taking his station behind the landlord, received from his hand the largest of the Celtic bickers brimful of Glenlivet. The man saluted the com- pany in his own dialect, tipped off the contents (probably a quarter of an English pint of raw aquavitse) at a gulp, wheeled about as solemnly as if the whole ceremony had been a movement on parade, and forthwith recommenced his pibrochs and gatherings, which continued until long after the ladies had left the table, and the autumnal moon was streaming in upon us so brightly as to dim the candles. I had never before seen Scott in such buoyant spirits as he shewed this evening — and I never saw him in higher afterwards ; and no wonder, for this was the first time that he, Lord Melville, and Adam Fergusson, daily companions at the High School of Edinburgh, and partners in many joyous scenes of the early volunteer period, had met since the commencement of what I may call the serious part of any of their lives. The great poet and novelist was re- ceiving them under his own roof, when his fame was at its acme, and his fortune seemed culminating to about a cor- responding height — and the generous exuberance of his hilarity might have overflowed without moving the spleen of a Gynic. Old stories of the Yards and the Crosscau*- way were relieved by sketches of real warfare, such as none but Fergusson (or Charles Mathews, had he been a sol- dier), could ever have given; and they touted the memory of Greenhreeks and the health of the Beau with equal devo- tion. When we rose from table, Scott proposed that we should 416 LtlfE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. all ascend bis western turret, to enjoy a moonlight view of the valley. The younger part of his company were toe happy to do so : some of the seniors, who had tried the thing before, found pretexts for hanging back. The stairs were dark, narrow, and steep ; but the Sheriff piloted the way, and at length there were as many on the top as it could well afford footing for. Nothing could be more lovely than the panorama ; all the harsher and more naked features being lost in the delicious moonlight ; the Tweed and the Gala winding and sparkling beneath our feet ; and the distant ruins of Melrose appearing, as if carved of ala- baster, under the black mass of the Eildons. The poet, leaning on his battlement, seemed to hang over the beauti- ful vision as if he had never seen it before. " If I live,' T he exclaimed, " I will build me a higher tower, with a more spacious platform, and a staircase better fitted for an old fellow's scrambling." The piper was heard retuning his instrument below, and he called to him for Lochaber no more. John of Skye obeyed, and as the music rose, soft- ened by the distance, Scott repeated in a low key the me- lancholy words of the song of exile. On descending from the tower, the whole company were assembled in the new dining-room, which was still under the hands of the carpenters, but had been brilliantly illu- minated for the occasion. Mr Bruce took his station, and old and young danced reels to his melodious accompaniment until they were weary, while Scott and the Dominie looked on with gladsome faces, and beat time now and then, the one with his staff, the other with his wooden leg. A tray with mulled wine and whisky punch was then introduced, and Lord Melville proposed a bumper, with all the ho- nours, to the Roof -tree. Captain Fergusson having sung Johnnie Cope, called on the young ladies for Kenmure's on and awa 1 ; and our host then insisted that the whole party should join, standing in a circle hand- in-hand more majo- rum, in the hearty chorus of 2883 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. «fcEPl51972 m L9— Series 444 A UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 376 909 8 1 ) ■¥ / V -hi Ur