Chapter LXV (8)

'I have taken kindly to him as one of the most pleasant, kind-hearted, benevolent, and pleasing men I have ever known. It is high treason among the Tories to express regard for him, or respect for the Jury Court in which he presides. I was against that experiment as much as any one. But it is an experiment, and the establishment (which the fools will not perceive) is the only thing which I see likely to give some prospects of ambition to our Bar. As for the Chief-Commissioner, I dare say he jobs, as all other people of consequence do, in elections, and so forth. But he is the personal friend of the King, and the decided enemy of whatever strikes at the constitutional rights of the monarch. Besides, I love him for the various changes which he has endured through life, and which have been so great as to make him entitled to be regarded in one point of view as the most fortunate--in the other, the most unfortunate--man in the world. He has gained and lost two fortunes by the same good luck, and the same rash confidence, which raised, and now threatens, my _peculium_. And his quiet, honourable, and generous submission under circumstances more painful than mine,--for the loss of world's wealth was to him aggravated by the death of his youngest and darling son in the West Indies--furnished me at the time and now with a noble example. So the Tories and Whigs may go be d--d together, as names that have disturbed old Scotland, and torn asunder the most kindly feelings since the first day they were invented.... I cannot permit that strife to "mix its waters with my daily meal," those waters of bitterness which poison all mutual love and confidence betwixt the well-disposed on either side.'

Adam was fond of society, in which 'nothing could exceed his delightfulness.' The Blairadam Club was for many years (from 1818 onwards) an institution. It was an annual gathering at midsummer of a few bosom friends, among them Scott, William Clerk, and Sir Adam Ferguson. The friends spent a day or two together, and generally made it a gay and happy occasion. 'We hire a light coach-and-four, and scour the country in every direction in quest of objects of curiosity.' The last meeting attended by Scott was in 1830, when he says: 'Our meeting was cordial, but our numbers diminished. Will Clerk has a bad cold, Thomas Thomson is detained, but the Chief-Commissioner, Admiral Adam (son of the host), Sir Adam, John Thomson and I, make an excellent concert. The day was execrable (wet). But Sir Adam was in high fooling, and we had an amazing deal of laughing.' It is pathetic, in the midst of this, to see how he fretted to be at home, in order to be at work again. In the _Journal_ we come across some remarks or anecdotes of Adam's, of which one or two may be given. 'I came home with Lord Chief-Commissioner Adam. He told me a dictum of old Sir Gilbert Elliot, speaking of his uncles. "No chance of opulence," he said, "is worth the risk of a competence." It was not the thought of a great man, but perhaps that of a wise one.'

Again, 'Dined with Chief-Commissioner,--Admiral Adam, W. Clerk, Thomson and I. The excellent old man was cheerful at intervals--at times sad, as was natural. A good blunder he told us, occurred in the Annandale case, which was a question partly of domicile. It was proved that leaving Lochwood, the Earl had given up his _kain_ and _carriages_; this an English counsel contended was the best of all possible proofs that the noble Earl designed an absolute change of residence, since he laid aside his _walking-stick_ and his _coach_.'[1]

[1] _Kain_ in Scots Law means 'payment in kind': carriages, 'services in driving with horse and cart.'

Lockhart has recorded that 'this most amiable and venerable gentleman, my dear and kind friend, died at Edinburgh, on the 17th February 1839, in the eighty-ninth year of his age. He retained his strong mental faculties in their perfect vigour to the last days of his long life, and with them all the warmth of social feelings which had endeared him to all who were so happy as to have any opportunity of knowing him.'

*CHAPTER LII*

1816--The _Antiquary_--Death of Major John Scott--The Aged Mother--Buying Land--The Ballantynes--The _Black Dwarf_ and Blackwood--Scott and a Judgeship--Anecdote of Authorship of _Waverley_.

The year 1816, says Lockhart, 'has almost its only traces in the successive appearance of nine volumes, which attest the prodigal genius and hardly less astonishing industry' of Walter Scott. Among these were the _Antiquary_ and _Old Mortality_. The former appeared in the beginning of May, and about the same time occurred the death of the author's brother, Major John Scott, who had long been in weak health. Writing to Morritt on this occasion Scott says, 'It is a heavy consideration to have lost the last but one who was interested in our early domestic life, our habits of boyhood, and our first friends and connexions. It makes one look about and see how the scene has changed around him, and how he himself has been changed with it. My mother, now upwards of eighty, has now only one child left to her out of thirteen whom she had borne. She is a most excellent woman, possessed, even at her advanced age, of all the force of mind and sense of duty which have carried her through so many domestic griefs, as the successive deaths of eleven children, some of them come to men and women's estate, naturally infers. She is the principal subject of my attention at present, and is, I am glad to say, perfectly well in body and composed in mind.'

In the same letter he speaks of the _Antiquary_ as being 'not so interesting' as its predecessors, but more fortunate than any of them in the sale, six thousand copies having gone off in a week. Meantime he was fast purchasing land to add to his estate. By this time it had grown from 150 acres to nearly a thousand. There were signs that might have warned him to be careful. At the time of James Ballantyne's fall he appears to have been owing over L3000 to Scott of personal debt. But Scott was sanguine by nature, and it was the interest of the Ballantynes to keep their businesses going. 'Therefore, in a word' (this is Lockhart's deliberate charge), 'John appears to have systematically disguised from Scott the extent to which the whole Ballantyne concern had been sustained by Constable--especially during his Hebridean tour of 1814, and his Continental one of 1815--and prompted and enforced the idea of trying other booksellers from time to time, instead of adhering to Constable, merely for the selfish purposes--first of facilitating the immediate discount of bills;--secondly, of further perplexing Scott's affairs, the entire disentanglement of which would have been, as he fancied, prejudicial to his own personal importance.'

It was in this way that the Tales of my Landlord (that is, the _Black Dwarf_ and _Old Mortality_) came to be published by Murray and Blackwood. The latter, alarmed by Gifford's disapprobation of the _Black Dwarf_, proposed that if the author would recast the later chapters, he would gladly take upon himself the expense of cancelling the sheets. Scott's reply, in a letter to Ballantyne, was emphatic: 'Tell him and his coadjutor that I belong to the Black Hussars of Literature, who neither give nor receive quarter. I'll be cursed, but this is the most impudent proposal that ever was made.'

An interesting fact in Scott's personal history which had previously been unknown even to Lockhart, was discovered by the latter when Scott's letters to the Duke of Buccleuch came into his hands after the death of the Duke. During the winter of 1816-1817, it appears, Scott made an attempt to exchange his Clerkship for a seat on the Bench of the Court of Exchequer. The Duke was naturally most anxious to second the proposal, but private reasons prevented him from exercising his influence at that juncture. This seems to have set the matter at rest. In later years, when such a step was suggested, Scott seems to have become convinced that the less conspicuous position was more fit and desirable for a literary man, and more especially a poet and novelist. At all events the Tory party lost the opportunity of making Walter Scott 'Lord Abbotsford.'

After the publication of Tales of my Landlord by Murray, Scott, in conjunction with his friend Erskine, contributed to the _Quarterly_ a general review of the Waverley Novels and a reply to Dr. M'Crie's strictures on the treatment of the Covenanters in _Old Mortality_. The criticisms were the work of Erskine, though Scott was severely censured after, as if he had been puffing his own works unfairly. The paper closed with an allusion to the report of Thomas Scott's being the author of _Waverley_. 'A better joke,' says Lockhart, 'was never penned, and I think it includes a confession over which a misanthrope might have chuckled.' This is the conclusion: 'We intended here to conclude this long article, when a strong report reached us of certain Transatlantic confessions, which, if genuine (though of this we know nothing), assign a different author to these volumes than the party suspected by our Scottish correspondents. Yet a critic may be excused seizing upon the nearest suspicious person, on the principle happily expressed by Claverhouse in a letter to the Earl of Linlithgow. He had been, it seems, in search of a gifted weaver, who used to hold forth at conventicles: "I sent for the webster (weaver), they brought in his _brother_ for him; though he, may be, cannot preach like his brother, I doubt not but he is as well-principled as he, wherefore I thought it would be no great fault to give him the trouble to go to jail with the rest."'

At this point we shall cease to attempt any detailed account of the various novels and their publication. Our plan calls now only for a few striking scenes in the closing years of the life whose outward surroundings and personal environment in Edinburgh it is our main aim to illustrate. We may, however, conclude this chapter with the admirable summary by Lockhart of the qualities of _Old Mortality_, a work which was the product of Scott's greatest intellectual effort, and which is usually, and justly, ranked with _Guy Mannering_ as one of the best of the Scotch Novels. 'The story,' he says, 'is framed with a deeper skill than any of the preceding novels; the canvas is a broader one; the characters are contrasted and projected with a power and felicity which neither he nor any other master ever surpassed; and notwithstanding all that has been urged against him as a disparager of the Covenanters, it is to me very doubtful whether the inspiration of romantic chivalry ever prompted him to nobler emotions than he has lavished on the reanimation of their stern and solemn enthusiasm. The work has always appeared to me the _Marmion_ of his novels.'

*CHAPTER LIII*

1817--Overwork and Illness--Kemble's 'Farewell Address'--The Kemble Dinner--_Blackwood's Magazine_ and the Reign of Terror in Edinburgh.

During the times of trouble with the Ballantyne affairs, Scott, as has been seen, taxed his strength to an extraordinary and dangerous extent. The effects were presently felt in that which was the permanently weak point of his physical constitution--the family tendency to paralysis. His first serious illness was in March 1817. From his letters to Morritt it appears that he had suffered all through the winter--while working as usual in Edinburgh--with cramps in the stomach. He had got temporary relief by means of drinking scalding water, but as the pains continued to recur more frequently he had been obliged reluctantly to have recourse to Dr. Baillie. 'But' (he says) 'before his answer arrived, on the 5th, I had a most violent attack, which broke up a small party at my house, and sent me to bed roaring like a bull-calf. All sorts of remedies were applied, as in the case of Gil Blas' pretended colic, but such was the pain of the real disorder, that it out-deviled the Doctor hollow. Even heated salt, which was applied in such a state that it burned my shirt to rags, I hardly felt when clapped to my stomach. At length the symptoms became inflammatory, and dangerously so, the seat being the diaphragm. They only gave way to very profuse bleeding and blistering, which, under higher assistance, saved my life. My recovery was slow and tedious from the state of exhaustion. I could neither stir for weakness and giddiness, nor read for dazzling in my eyes, nor listen for a whizzing sound in my ears, nor even think for lack of the power of arranging my ideas. So I had a comfortless time of it for about a week.' Lockhart adds that his friends in Edinburgh were in great anxiety about him all the spring, the attacks being more than once repeated. But he resumed work almost immediately, planning out, in intervals of pain, the drama called _The Doom of Devorgoil_. Now also he wrote the magnificent 'Farewell Address,' instinct with heart-felt pathos, with which his friend John Philip Kemble took his leave of the Edinburgh stage, on the evening of Saturday the 29th March 1817. The character in which Kemble had appeared was Macbeth, and he wore the dress of the character while he spoke the lines. 'Mr. Kemble' (says James Ballantyne) 'delivered these lines with exquisite beauty, and with an effect that was evidenced by the tears and sobs of many of the audience. His own emotions were very conspicuous. When his farewell was closed, he lingered long on the stage, as if unable to retire. The house again stood up, and cheered him with the waving of hats and long shouts of applause. At length he finally retired, and, in so far as regards Scotland, the curtain dropped upon his professional life for ever.'

'My last part is played, my knell is rung,
When e'en your praise falls faltering from my tongue;
And all that you can hear, or I can tell,
Is Friends and patrons, hail, and _Fare you well_!'

A few days after, the great tragedian was entertained to dinner by his Edinburgh admirers. There was a company of about seventy notable persons--among them Lockhart, who says, 'I was never present at any public dinner in all its circumstances more impressive.' Jeffrey was chairman, and the croupiers were Walter Scott and John Wilson. From the _Life_ of Jeffrey we extract a curious anecdote of this interesting scene. That evening Jeffrey 'did what he never did before or since. He stuck a speech. He had to make the address and present a snuff-box to Kemble. He began very promisingly, but got confused, and amazed both himself and everybody else, by actually sitting down and leaving the speech unfinished; and, until reminded of that part of his duty, not even thrusting the box into the hand of the intended receiver. He afterwards told me the reason of this. He had not premeditated the scene, and thought he had nothing to do, except in the name of the company to give the box. But as soon as he rose to do this, Kemble, who was beside him, rose also, and with most formidable dignity. This forced Jeffrey to look up to his man; when he found himself annihilated by the tall tragic god; who sank him to the earth at every compliment, by obeisances of overwhelming grace and stateliness.' The incident must have been awkward for Kemble, but it was a genuine and involuntary tribute to the majestic bearing of the great actor.

Shortly after this, in April 1817, there occurred an event which greatly stirred the peaceful waters of Edinburgh social and literary life, and with which Scott's future son-in-law and biographer, John Gibson Lockhart, was to be very prominently associated. This was the founding of the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_. The publisher was John Blackwood. Wishing to develop the magazine on lines of his own, this far-seeing and able gentleman, first shaking himself clear from the two editorial personages who were hampering his energies, started the periodical afresh at the seventh number under the title of _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_. The famous No. VII. came like a thunderbolt. All the world wondered. From what sources had Blackwood evoked the wit, the tremendous energy, the boundless audacity of personal attack which at once shocked and delighted the public mind? The Whigs were both tortured and alarmed. The days of their sole literary domination were seen straightway to be over. For them especially a Reign of Terror had begun. They were now to be subjected to the lash of an incomparable, though often excessive, power of ridicule: a form of punishment which always hurts most sorely those to whom the saving grace of humour has been denied. Necessarily _Blackwood's Magazine_ was a political engine, the organ of high Toryism. As such, it was liable to the sneer of Cockburn (a sneer which tells with equal justness against all theoretical defenders of current politics): 'In this department it has adhered with respectable constancy to all the follies it was meant to defend. It is a great depository of exploded principles; and indeed it will soon be valuable as a museum of old errors.' But every device of mystification, an example set by Scott, was employed to keep the secret of who were really 'Blackwood's young Tory wags,' and this was further secured by the entirely unsuspected fact, that the editor was actually Blackwood himself. The marvellous thing, now that the facts are known, is the enormous share performed by the two chiefs, Lockhart and Wilson. In their buoyant eagerness to break up the monopoly of Whig literary and political influence, they doubtless went too far, and sometimes knew it. Later on, these early defects were acknowledged and analysed, in _Peter's Letters_, by the authors themselves. Even they, it may be, hardly realised how much pain they had given, but the almost solemn words of Lord Cockburn indicate very clearly how intense it must have been. 'Posterity,' he says, 'can never be made to feel the surprise and just offence with which, till we were hardened to it, this work was received. The minute circumstances which impart freshness to slander soon evaporate; and the arrows that fester in living reputations and in beating hearts are pointless, or invisible to the eyes of those who search for them afterwards as curiosities.' It was, in fact, the work of young and inexperienced men brimful of genius and spirit, but untaught to discern the dangers in the use of the weapons with which they played.

*CHAPTER LIV*

Personal Anecdotes of Scott--Washington Irving--The Minister's Daughter--J. G. Lockhart--His Introduction to Scott--_Annual Register_--39 Castle Street--Scott's 'Den'--Animal Favourites.

In the autumn of 1817 Washington Irving, with whose _History of New York_ by Knickerbocker Scott had been greatly charmed, paid a visit to Abbotsford, and received a hearty welcome. One of the anecdotes told by Irving of this visit may be given here, as illustrating the beautiful courtesy and fine sympathetic feeling with which it was Scott's nature to treat sterling worth and generosity of mind in whatever rank he discovered it. Irving tells how William Laidlaw and his wife came to dinner one day, accompanied by a lady friend. He observed with some curiosity that this by no means extraordinary person, who was middle-aged and only remarkable for her intellectual qualities, was treated by their host with particular attention and courtesy. The occasion was in fact a specially pleasant one, and the company were made to feel that they were cherished guests. On their leaving, Scott, to Irving's great delight, launched into hearty praise of the lady visitor. The daughter of a Scottish minister, who died in debt, she had been left an orphan and destitute. She had at once faced the situation with a brave heart, and though her education was not great, she set up a school for young children, which soon proved in its way a success. But she made her own concerns a secondary object. By submitting to all sorts of privation, she managed to pay off all her father's debts, determined that no slighting word or evil feeling might humble his memory. And this was not all. To the martyr's self-sacrifice she added a divine benevolence. To some who once had been kind to her father and were now fallen on evil days, she did all the service she could by teaching their little ones without reward or fee. Happily her memory is green in the eulogy of the great neighbour to whom she was a kindred spirit: 'She's a fine old Scotch girl, and I delight in her more than in many a fine lady I have known, and I have known many of the finest.'

It was in the following year, in May 1818, that John Gibson Lockhart, then a young barrister with pronounced literary leanings, was first introduced to Scott. It was the moment when, as the great biographer himself has eloquently put it, 'Scott's position was, take it for all in all, what no other man had ever won for himself by the pen alone. His works were the daily food, not only of his countrymen, but of all educated Europe. His society was courted by whatever England could show of eminence. Station, power, wealth, beauty, and genius, strove with each other in every demonstration of respect and worship, and--a few political fanatics and envious poetasters apart--wherever he appeared in town or country, whoever had Scotch blood in him, "gentle or simple," felt it move more rapidly through his veins when he was in the presence of Scott.' But in the midst of this blaze of glory, and while he was dreaming dreams of fortune and family pride, what was it that struck the most keen-eyed of critics when he first saw his hero? Only the plain easy modesty, the kindness of heart which _pervaded_ every word, tone, and gesture, the simple qualities which made him 'loved more and more' by his earliest friends. It was at the house of Mr. Home Drummond, a grandson of Lord Kames, that the meeting took place. Like every other literary aspirant, Lockhart was astonished and gratified by the cordiality and kindly appreciation of the elder writer. 'When the ladies' (he says) 'retired from the dinner-table, I happened to sit next him; and he, having heard that I had lately returned from a tour in Germany, made that country and its recent literature the subject of some conversation. In the course of it, I told him that when, on reaching the inn at Weimar, I asked the waiter whether Goethe was then in the town, the man stared as if he had not heard the name before; and that, on my repeating the question, adding _Goethe der grosse Dichter_, he shook his head as doubtfully as before--until the landlord solved our difficulties, by suggesting that perhaps the traveller might mean "_Herr Geheimer-Rath_ (Privy Councillor) _von Goethe_."--Scott seemed amused with this and said, "I hope you will come one of these days and see me at Abbotsford; and when you reach Selkirk or Melrose, be sure you ask even the landlady for nobody but _the Sheriff_." I mentioned how much any one must be struck with the majestic beauty of Goethe's countenance--the noblest certainly by far that I have ever yet seen--"Well," said he, "the grandest demi-god I ever saw was Dr. Carlyle, minister 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."'

Soon after this Lockhart was, on Scott's recommendation, invited by the Ballantynes to take Scott's place in working up the historical part of their _Annual Register_. Thus they met pretty frequently during the ensuing summer session, a circumstance to which we owe Lockhart's very complete and first-hand description of Scott's working 'den' at 39 Castle Street and of his social life at this period. The den was a small square back-room behind the dining parlour. It looked out upon a dull back-yard with a small square of turf. The walls of the room were lined with books, mostly stately folios and quartos beautifully kept, as befitted a lover of books. There was one massive table, on which was his own desk, and one opposite for an occasional amanuensis. On the top lay his law papers, while his MSS., letters, and proof-sheets were under his hand on the desk below. Before the desk stood his large elbow-chair, and there were only two other chairs in the room. Beside the window was a pile of green tin boxes, on the top of which was a fox's tail mounted on a handle of old silver and used for dusting the top of a book as occasion required. He had a ladder for scaling the high shelves, which is described as 'low, broad, well carpeted, and strongly guarded with oaken rails.' His living companions in his den were usually a venerable tom-cat called Hinse, which had a liking for the top of the ladder, and the noble stag-hound Maida, whose lair was on the hearth-rug. 'I venture to say' (Lockhart remarks) 'that 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.'

In conversation among his friends, Scott was always natural, sensible, and good-humoured. His ideal society, as we have seen, was the simple but high-toned friendliness, with courtly attention to old manners and customs of the social board--the ways of the old-fashioned generation before 1800, when Edinburgh society still took its tone from the Scottish aristocracy and gentry. After this period Edinburgh table-talk and manners were led by the lawyers. Men shone in society by contests of dialectics, brilliant disquisitions, 'such as might be transferred without alteration to the pages of a critical review.' Scott was of another world from this. He admired the dexterity and skill displayed, but he was not tempted to take part. It lacked the touch of nature which would have made him acknowledge kin. So everybody else was satisfied, and Scott was not displeased. The great poet, the writer of conversations which had heightened the gaiety of millions, was perfectly content to be considered inferior as a table-companion to 'this or that master of luminous dissertation or quick rejoinder, who now sleeps as forgotten as his grandmother.' To appreciate, it is necessary to know something and to sympathise. The persons who called Scott's conversation 'common-place' were practically comparing the Waverley Novels to Dugald Stewart's lectures, and would have denounced Shakespeare for making up his _Hamlet_ out of popular quotations. It was 'ignorance, madam, pure ignorance,' without the wit to acknowledge, and in many cases political prejudice was also present. To one of the latter Lockhart heard Lord Cockburn nobly reply: '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_.' Nothing could be better: a noble and excellent saying. And to similar effect in his _Memorials_ he testifies that scarcely even in his novels was Scott more striking or delightful than in society; where his halting limb, the bur in the throat, the heavy cheeks, the high Goldsmith-forehead, the unkempt locks, and general plainness of appearance, with the Scotch accent and stories and sayings, all graced by gaiety, simplicity, and kindness, made a combination most worthy of being enjoyed.

*CHAPTER LV*

Scotland Edinburgh Society--Lockhart's Opinion--Scott's Drives in Edinburgh--Love of Antiquities--The Sunday Dinners at 39 Castle Street--The Maclean Clephanes--Erskine, Clerk, C. K. Sharpe, Sir A. Boswell, W. Allan,--Favourite Dishes.

Ignorant prejudice gradually disappeared. The charm of Scott's conversation was found to be as great, in fact the same, as that of his writings. Mingling with and wishing to emulate London society, Edinburgh great folks came to understand that social intercourse ought to aim at enjoyment and relaxation, not at the display of alleged wit and amateur disquisitions on speculative themes. Then they discovered that Scott's easy, natural humour, his ever-ready and picturesque descriptions, his quaint old-world sayings and diverting sketches and anecdotes, nay, his very prejudices, always honest and so very lovable when understood to their foundation, were unique treasures even from the narrowest point of view. This was what all, long before 1818, recognised whose opinion was worth considering. But Lockhart, who had the best means of knowing, as being himself 'one of them,' says that even then the old theory, that Scott's conversation was 'commonplace,' lingered on in the general opinion of the city, especially among the smart praters of the _Outer House_. Of course it was the cue of these praters to differ from their elders, and few of them, after all, had perhaps enjoyed what they made a boast of affecting to depreciate. Lockhart, who was certainly in the Whig sense the strongest _intellect_ that ever adorned Edinburgh, both enjoyed and appreciated. And fortunately for us _minores_, he has told what he saw and rejoiced in. He says: 'It was impossible to listen to Scott's oral narrations, whether gay or serious, or to the felicitous fun with which he parried absurdities of all sorts, without discovering 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 "moralised" a common topic into a "thousand similitudes." Shakespeare 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 _common-place_--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.'

When in Edinburgh, Scott's only formal outing was an afternoon drive in an open carriage, sometimes to Blackford Hill, or Ravelston, and so home by Corstorphine, sometimes to Portobello, keeping as close as possible to the sea. An old man who died last year (1905) used to tell how, when he was a boy, he remembered Scott alighting and coming some distance across a field to speak a few kind words to him and ask after his parents, in whom he took an interest. When he went home, his mother told him about the great man and bade her son remember that day, for if he lived to be an old man, he would be proud to talk of it to his children's children. As he drove through the city, it was Scott's greatest enjoyment to gaze and muse upon its natural beauties, and especially its remaining antiquities. He would often make a long circuit in order, as Lockhart observed, 'to spend a few minutes on the vacant esplanade of Holyrood, or under the darkest shadows of the Castle rock, where it overhangs the Grassmarket, and the huge slab that still marks where the gibbet 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 Cowgate; 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 antiquities of his native place, that I cannot now revisit them without feeling as if I were treading on his gravestone.'

But of all pleasant memories of the Master well-beloved, the most delightful to conjure up is that of the good Clerk as host at the Sunday 'dinner without the silver dishes,' as he was wont to call it. It was always a gathering of dear and long-cherished friends. All were delighted to meet, and all were prepared to be happy. Gladdest of all was their host, who 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.' Most of the intimates who came to these parties have already been mentioned. There was Mrs. Maclean Clephane, with whom Scott would playfully dispute on the subject of Ossian. Her daughters would accompany her, to delight all, especially Scott, with the poetry and music of their native isles. They had made him their guardian by their own choice, and were loved for their own sakes. The eldest was that Lady Crompton with whom, as he tells in the _Journal_, he travelled to Glasgow in September 1827, and had 'as pleasant a journey as the kindness, wit, and accomplishments of my companion could make it.' When they reached Glasgow, they met, at the Buck's Head, Mrs. Maclean Clephane and her two daughters. He mentions that after dinner the ladies sang, 'particularly Aunt Jane, who has more taste and talent than half the people going with great reputations on their backs.' Then there were the Skenes, the Macdonald Buchanans, and all the _nieces_ and _nephews_ of the Clerks' table alliance. 'The well-beloved Erskine,' says Lockhart, 'was seldom absent; and very often Terry or James Ballantyne came with him--sometimes, though less frequently, Constable. To say nothing of such old cronies as Clerk, Thomson, and Kirkpatrick Sharpe.' It was of his boyhood's friend and mentor, Clerk, that Scott said he feared he would leave the world little more than the report of his fame. It was his opinion, as well as that of other competent judges, that he had never met a man of greater powers than Clerk. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe was also regarded by Scott very highly, and is sketched in a lively page in the _Journal_, 1825. His effeminacy of voice, his clever and fanciful drawings--which he was too aristocratic to use for increasing his small income--his odd curiosity for scandal centuries old, made Sharpe a very remarkable figure. 'My idea is' (says Scott) 'that C. K. S. with his oddities, tastes, satire, and high aristocratic feelings, resembles Horace Walpole--perhaps in his person also, in a general way.'

Lockhart mentions also Sir Alexander Boswell, author of the humorous song, _Jeannie dang the Weaver_, and a great bibliomaniac, Sir Alexander Don of Newton, 'the model of a cavalier,' and William Allan, R.A., whom Scott calls a very agreeable, simple-mannered, and pleasant man. Allan became Sir William, President of the Royal Scottish Academy from 1838 to 1850. In July 1826 Scott mentions his having been to see Allan's picture of 'the Landing of Queen Mary.' Three or four of these friends, with Scott and his family, took their places every Sunday at the 'plain dinner' in No. 39 Castle Street.

Scott kept a bounteously loaded table. He was himself a hearty eater, preferring plain substantial fare. He was not a gourmand, still less a glutton. His one good meal was breakfast. At dinner his appetite was neither keen nor nice. 'The only dishes he was at all fond of were the old-fashioned ones to which he had been accustomed in the days of Saunders Fairford.' Readers of the Novels have heard of them all, and few will forget the conclusion of the _Fortunes of Nigel_: 'My lords and lieges, let us all to our dinner, for the _cock-a-leekie_ is cooling.'

*CHAPTER LVI*

The National Monument--Still incomplete--The Salisbury Crags--Danger of their Destruction--The Path impassable--Construction of the Radical Road--National Distress--Trials for Sedition--Anecdote of John Clerk--The City Guard.

As a landmark of modern Edinburgh, the National Monument must now be noticed. Its twelve massy columns of white Craigleith stone are familiar to all who have spent an hour in the city. The idea of it dates from 1816, for it was intended to commemorate Scotland's share in the triumphs of the great war. During the following years it was often discussed. The original proposal was to erect a lofty pillar. Then, as we learn from Lord Cockburn, 'there were some who thought that the prevailing effervescence of military patriotism created a good opportunity for improving the public taste by the erection of a great architectural model. The Temple of Minerva, placed on the Calton Hill, struck their imaginations, and though they had no expectation of being able to realise the magnificent conception, they resolved, by beginning, to bring it within the vision of a distant practicability. What, if any, age would finish it, they could not tell; but having got a site, a statute, and about L20,000, they had the honour of commencing it.' The hour of its completion has not arrived yet. Nearly a century has elapsed since George IV. laid the foundation stone in 1822. Perhaps on the occurrence of the centenary the project may once more lay hold of the public imagination. At least the 'distant practicability' remains. Imposing and sublime possibility! Perhaps, in an era of colossal fortunes, some INDIVIDUAL may anticipate the city--engrossed with its Usher Hall and water-fleas--and capture the national glory to crown with immortality his own proud name.

One noble feature of our scenery was completed about this time by the walk round the Salisbury Crags. When Henry Cockburn as a boy of nine scrambled, as he tells us, for the first time to the top of that romantic cliff, the path at its base was not six feet wide, while at places there was no path at all. Between that time and the year 1816 certain persons quarried the rock to such an extent that what was formerly a narrow footpath became, in many places, one hundred feet wide. This impudent theft of public property would shortly have destroyed the whole face of the rock. Fortunately the depredators were stopped in time, and Edinburgh preserved at once a remarkable piece of geological 'testimony,' and one of its finest natural features. Cockburn records that Henry Brougham, 'who as a boy had often clambered among these glorious rocks,' then, in the capacity of Lord Chancellor, pronounced the judgment which finally saved a remnant of the Crags. The old path is mentioned by Scott in the _Heart of Midlothian_ (Chap. VIII.) as having been his favourite evening and morning resort, when engaged with a favourite author or new subject of study. And he added to his enthusiastic description of the view from the Salisbury Crags a brief and mildly expressed reproach. 'It is, I am informed, now (1818) become totally impassable; a circumstance which, if true, reflects little credit on the taste of the Good Town or its leaders.' In a note, added in a later addition, he says, 'A beautiful and solid pathway has, within a few years, been formed around these romantic rocks; and the author has the pleasure to think that the passage in the text gave rise to the undertaking.' This was indeed the case; but, strange to say, the path thus due to Sir Walter Scott got the name of the _Radical Road_. In 1820, it appears, the 'unemployed' question was flagrant. The men, stimulated by Radicals, were becoming dangerous, when Scott's happy suggestion solved the problem by providing them with a substantial piece of work. The discontent was allayed, and the road was constructed by these vigorous Radicals. The name of the _Salisbury Crags_ commemorates the English invasion of 1336. King Edward III.'s forces were commanded by the famous Earl of Salisbury, who encamped on the Crags, and thus gave the spot its foreign name.[1]

[1] James Grant, however, gives a Gaelic derivation of the name.

The distress which followed as a natural consequence of the prolonged strain of the war, was in those years very severe. Outbreaks of seditious talk were common in England, and led to many serious disturbances. In Scotland they were fewer, because the law still made transportation the penalty for this offence. There were, however, some prosecutions for sedition, and in connection with the first of these, in 1817, Cockburn, who was, with Jeffrey, counsel for one of the defendants, tells a characteristic anecdote of John Clerk, who was counsel for another of the accused, along with James Campbell of Craigie. 'Campbell called on Clerk on the morning of the trial. He found him dressing, and in a frenzy at the anticipated iniquities of the judges; against whom, collectively and individually, there was much slow dogged vituperation throughout the process of shaving. He had on a rather dingy-looking nightshirt: but a nice pure shirt was airing before the fire. When the toilet reached the point at which it was necessary to decide upon the shirt, instead of at once taking up the clean one, he stopped and grumphed, and looked at the one and then at the other, always turning with aversion from the dirty one; and then he approached the other resolutely, as if his mind was made up; but at last he turned away from it, saying fiercely, "No, I'll be d--d if I put on a clean sark _for them_." Accordingly he insulted their Lordships by going to Court with the foul one. Not like Falkland.'

About the end of the year 1817 Edinburgh streets finally lost the most picturesque of their official figures. The City Guard, a body first enrolled in 1696, now retired from view, their functions being better fulfilled by the new police, and Robert Fergusson's well-known lines became superfluous:

'Gude folk, as ye come frae the fair,
Bide yont frae this black squad;
There's nae sic savages elsewhere
Allowed to wear cockad.'

Scott gives a capital description of them in the _Heart of Midlothian_ (Chap. III.), where he says, 'The venerable corps may now be considered as totally extinct.' From Cockburn we learn that one of these stern-looking but half-dotard warriors used to sit as guard with the prisoners at the bar of the Court of Justiciary. 'They sat so immovably, and looked so severe, with their rugged weather-beaten visages, and hard muscular trunks, that they were no unfit emblems of the janitors of the region to which those they guarded were so often consigned. The disappearance of these picturesque old fellows was a great loss.' He wished they had been perpetuated, if only as curiosities. They were probably the last of our soldiers who carried as their special weapon the old genuine Lochaber axe, which Lord Cockburn styles 'a delightful implement.' Fergusson, who saw its virtues in a more practical way, speaks of the 'deadly paiks,' or blows, freely dealt by the hot-tempered veterans.

'Gie not her bairns sic deadly paiks,
Nor be sae rude,
Wi' firelock or Lochaber axe,
As spill their bluid.'

Their last march (as mentioned in Scott's note) to do duty at Hallow-fair, had something affecting in it. Their drums and fifes had been wont on better days to play, on this joyous occasion, the lively tune of _Jockey to the Fair_; but on this final occasion the afflicted veterans moved slowly to the dirge of _The last time I came ower the muir_. They were always greatly disliked by the commons of Edinburgh, who never spoke of them by any better name than the loathsome appellation 'the Toon Rottens' (Rats).

*CHAPTER LVII*

Scott and the Ballantynes--James in the Canongate--Ceremonies at the 'Waverley' Dinners--Reading of Scenes from the New Volume--John at Trinity--His 'Bower of Bliss'--Anecdote by C. Mathews.

At this distance of time it is difficult either to understand or to condone the wilful delusion in which Scott persisted to regard the two reckless adventurers, James and John Ballantyne. They were lowborn and vulgar: his deep-seated aristocratic feelings should have kept them at a distance. They were utterly devoid of business capacity: his natural shrewdness ought to have seen through them. They were neglectful of duty: his own tireless devotion to work ought to have made him despise them. But they were friends of his boyhood, and he loved them. James was a shrewd critic and an excellent amanuensis, and Scott trusted his judgment and enjoyed his services. John was a humorist, his social clowning was inimitable, and in these capacities he was emphatically a man after Scott's own heart. Both of them knew Scott down to the minutest foible of his simple honest nature. They knew exactly what it was in themselves which pleased him. All they had to do was to be themselves--just as he conceived them. And this was what they did, each in his own way, regardless of expense and consequences. Thus they maintained a hold over their illustrious dupe, which no studied system of flattery could have equalled in the case of the weakest and most foolish of patrons. These two penniless and ruined adventurers lived lives of splendour and luxury, and neither they nor Scott seemed to realise or remember that every penny which supported them had come or would have to come from Scott's estate. The house of James, the elder brother, was not far from his printing works, No. 10 St. John Street, Canongate, which had not long ceased to be the most fashionable street in Edinburgh. Here, in the first house on the west side, was the meeting-place of the ever-memorable Freemason Lodge, the Canongate Kilwinning, whose 'poet-laureate' was no less a genius than Scotland's second glory, Robert Burns. Here, in the town house of the Telfers of Scotstoun, overlooking the Canongate, resided the greatest of Scottish novelists after Scott himself, Tobias Smollett, on his last visit to the capital. No. 13 was the house of Lord Monboddo, and at No. 15 lived the famous Professor Gregory, already mentioned. The Kelso adventurer lived here in grand style, a mighty city magnate, highly decorous and respectable. It was his role, and his playing of it was admirable, because it was simply his nature and bent: that he was at any moment entirely ignorant of his real insolvency, or entirely unconscious of the horror that he was accumulating for the most unselfish of friends, one may be excused for doubting. Every one has heard of James Ballantyne's famous dinners--a not uninteresting part of the story of the Waverley Novels. He assembled all his own particular literary friends, and Scott was among the company. It was James's delight to mention the author of _Waverley_ always in mystic tones as 'the Great Unknown,' and the whole affair must have been intensely amusing to the real author, who sat and took part in the proceedings with smiles of good humour. After what the host himself justly called a _gorgeous_ dinner, and after toasting the company, the King, and Mr. Walter Scott, the ladies who might be present retired, and the great 'business' of the little comedy began. Lockhart, as an eyewitness, quaintly describes the scene: 'Then James rose once more, every vein on his brow distended, his eyes solemnly fixed upon vacancy, 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 Scott made a fashion of joining, was succeeded by deep silence, and then Ballantyne proceeded--

"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, when informed of the circumstance, feel highly delighted--"the proudest hour of his life," etc. etc. The cool demure fun of Scott's features during all this mummery was perfect; and Erskine's attempt at a gay _nonchalance_ was still more ludicrously meritorious.' Upon this Ballantyne would announce the name of the coming novel, a bumper would be drained to its success, and that was all. The night 'drove on wi' sangs and clatter,' till the senior and graver members, including Scott, had withdrawn. 'Then,' says Lockhart, 'the scene was changed. The claret and olives made way for broiled bones and a mighty bowl of punch; and when a few glasses of the hot beverage had restored his powers, James opened _ore rotunda_ 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.' Lockhart was one of the fortunate company who listened to James, in these circumstances, reading, from the _Heart of Midlothian_, the interview of Jeanie Deans with the Queen in Richmond Park. James's declamation, though marked, of course, by some of his 'pompous tricks,' seems to have been really effective. The sitting ended with the 'Death of Marmion,' delivered in imitation of the great Braham. Later on, James removed his household gods to the New Town, No. 3 Heriot Row. The younger brother, John, was much more original in his ways and doings, and equally reckless of consequences and expense. He had a little villa in the French style at Trinity, on the shore of the Firth. The gardens alone of the ex-needleman must have cost a pretty penny, being laid out with great art so as to seem of considerable extent, 'with many a shady tuft, trellised alley, and mysterious alcove, interspersed among their bright parterres.' His house, as became an auctioneer of curiosities, was crowded with objects of _vertu_, numberless costly mirrors, and pictures of a certain class, mostly, in fact, theatrical portraits, especially of actresses, which were afterwards bought by Charles Mathews for his gallery at Highgate. The house was furnished like a suburban 'Bower of Bliss' in London or Paris, and had a private wing which his wife was most effectively debarred from entering. If Bluebeard, the clumsy villain, had only enjoyed the services of this clever, resourceful voluptuary, he would have been able to shun the society of his successive 'cleaving michiefs' without having recourse to tragic methods. Johnnie, in fact, could have taught Milton a trick of 'defensive armour,' within which not even a wife could penetrate. This was his ingenious plan: he made every door of entrance into the sacred wing just so narrow as to render it absolutely impossible for Mrs. Ballantyne to squeeze her body through. One can fancy the arrangement giving rise to awkward difficulties, but its efficiency for the main purpose was admirable. It was worthy of a Duc de Richelieu rather than an ex-tailor. Johnnie's festive parties at Trinity were the great social attraction of Edinburgh to the theatrical people of his day. Mathews, Braham, Kean, and Kemble were all frequent guests when acting in Edinburgh. In Mathews' _Memoirs_ there is an anecdote of John Ballantyne which is of interest in itself, while happily illustrative of the character of _Wee Johnny_. Ballantyne, Constable, and Terry were dining with the Mathews family, when John, who had a certain indiscreet vivacity when the wine began to affect him, was talking to Mathews about some books, and concluded by saying, 'I shall soon send you _Scott's new novel_.' The effect may be imagined, especially on Constable. 'He,' says Mrs. Mathews, 'looked daggers--and Terry used some--for with a stern brow and a correcting tone, he cried out _John!_ adding with a growl, like one reproving a mischievous dog,--"Ah, what are you about?" which made us droop our eyes for the indiscreet tatler; while wee Johnny looked like an impersonation of _fear_--startled at the "sound himself had made." Not another word was said: but our little good-natured friend's lapse was sacred with us, and the secret was never divulged while it was important to preserve it.'

*CHAPTER LVIII*

Anecdotes of Constable--'The Czar'--Plans the _Magnum Opus_--Anecdote of Longmans and Co.--Constable's House and Equipage--John Ballantyne's Habits--Horses and Dogs--Anecdote by Scott of his Liberality--Scott's Sorrow at his Death.