Chapter V: Part 5

While dinner was getting ready at Whitehope, Laidlaw and Leyden strolled into the neighbouring churchyard of Yarrow, and saw the tomb of Mr Rutherford, the first minister of that parish after the Revolution, and the maternal great-grandfather of Scott. Leyden recited to his companion the ballads of _The Eve of St John_ and _Glenfinlas_, which naturally impressed on the hearer a vivid idea of the poetical talents of the sheriff, and Laidlaw felt towards him as towards an old friend. This was increased by Scott’s partiality for dogs. He was struck with a very beautiful and powerful greyhound which followed Laidlaw, and he begged to have a brace of pups from the same dog, saying he had now become a forester, as sheriff of Ettrick, and must have dogs of the true mountain breed. ‘This request,’ said the other, ‘I took no little pains to fulfil. I kept the puppies till they were nearly a year old. My youngest brother, then a boy, took great delight in training them; and the way was this: he took a long pole having a string and a piece of meat fastened to it, and made the dogs run in a circular or oval course. Their eagerness to get the meat gave them, by much practice, great strength in the loins, and singular expertness in turning, besides singular alertness in _mouthing_, for which they were afterwards famous. Scott hunted with them for two years over the mountains of Tweedside and Yarrow, and never dreamed that a hare could escape them. He mentions them in the Introduction to the second canto of _Marmion_--

“Remember’st thou my greyhounds true?
O’er holt or hill there never flew,
From slip or leash there never sprang,
More fleet of foot, or sure of fang.”’

After this visit, Laidlaw doubled his diligence in gathering up fragments of the elder Muse, and the sheriff was profuse in acknowledgments:

‘MY DEAR SIR--I am very much obliged to you for your letter and
the enclosure. The _Laird o’ Logie_ is particularly acceptable, as
coming near the real history. Carmichael, mentioned in the ballad,
was the ancestor of the Earl of Hyndford, and captain of James
VI.’s guard, so that the circumstance of the prisoner’s being in
his custody is highly probable. I will adopt the whole of this
ballad instead of the common one called _Ochiltree_. _Geordie_ I
have seen before: the ballad is curious, though very rude. _Ormond_
may be curious, but is modern. The story of _Confessing the Queen
of England_ is published by Bishop Percy, so I will neither trouble
you about that nor about _Dundee_. “Glendinning” is a wrong
reading: the name of the Highland chief who carries off the lady is
Glenlyon, one of the Menzieses. Among Hogg’s ballads is a curious
set of _Lamington_ or _Lochinvar_, which I incline to adopt as
better than that in the _Minstrelsy_. Who was Katherine Janfarie,
the heroine? She could hardly be a damsel of rank, as the estate
of Whitebank is an ancient patrimony of the Pringles. I don’t know
what to make of Cockburn’s name, unless it be Perys, the modern
Pierce, which is not a common name in Scotland. I am very much
interested about the Tushilaw lines, which, from what you mention,
must be worth recovering. I forgot to bring with me from Blackhouse
your edition of the _Goshawk_, in which were some excellent various
readings. I am so anxious to have a complete Scottish _Otterburn_,
that I will omit the ballad entirely in the first volume, hoping
to recover it in time for insertion in the third. I would myself
be well pleased to delay the publication of all three for some
time, but the booksellers are mutinous and impatient, as a book is
always injured by being long out of print. As to the Liddesdale
traditions, I think I am pretty correct, although doubtless much
more may be recovered. The truth is that, in these traditions, as
you must have observed, old people are usually very positive about
their own mode of telling a story, and as uncharitably critical in
their observations on those who differ from them.--Yours faithfully,

WALTER SCOTT.’

Before the friends parted, Scott made a note of Hogg’s address, and from that time never ceased to take a warm interest in his fortunes. He corresponded with him, and becoming curious to see the poetical Shepherd, made another visit to Blackhouse, for the purpose of getting Laidlaw along with him as guide to Ettrick. The visit was highly agreeable. The sheriff’s _bonhomie_ and lively conversation had deeply interested his companion, and he rode by his side in a sort of ecstasy as they journeyed again by St Mary’s Loch and the green hills of Dryhope, which rise beyond the wide expanse of smooth water. It was a fine summer morning, and the impressions of the day and the scene have been recorded in imperishable verse.[6] Dryhope Tower, so intimately associated with the memory of Mary Scott, the ‘Flower of Yarrow,’ made the travellers stop for a brief space; and _Dhu Linn_ (where Marjory, the wife of Percy de Cockburn, sat while men were hanging her husband), with Chapelhope and other scenes and ruins famous in Border tradition, deeply interested Scott. At the west end of the Loch of the Lowes, the surrounding mountains close in, in the face of the traveller, apparently preventing all farther egress. At this spot, as Laidlaw was trying to find a safe place where they might cross the marsh through which the infant Yarrow finds its way to the loch, Scott’s servant, an English boy, rode up, and, touching his hat, respectfully inquired, with much interest, where the people got their necessaries! This unromantic question, and the _naïveté_ of the lad’s manner, was a source of great amusement to the sheriff. The day’s journey was a favourite theme with Laidlaw. First, after passing the spots we have described, the horsemen crossed the ridge of hills that separates the Yarrow from her sister stream. These hills are high and green, but the more lofty parts of the ridge are soft and boggy, and they had often to pick their way, and proceed in single file. Then they followed a foot-track on the side of a long _cleugh_ or _hope_, and at last descended towards the Ettrick, where they had in view the level green valley, walled in by high hills of dark green, with here and there gray crags, the church and the old _place_ of Ettrick Hall in ruins, embosomed in trees. Scott was somewhat chafed by having left in his bedroom that morning his watch--a valuable gold repeater, presented to him on the occasion of his marriage--and to Laidlaw’s ejaculations of delight he sometimes replied quickly: ‘A savage enough place--a very savage place.’ His good-humour, however, was restored by the novelty of the scenes and the fine clear day, and he broke out with snatches of song, and told endless anecdotes, either new, or better told than ever they were before. The travellers went to dine at Ramsey-cleugh, where they were sure of a cordial welcome and a good farmer’s dinner; and Laidlaw sent off to Blackhouse for the sheriff’s watch (which he received next morning), and to Ettrick House for Hogg, that he might come and spend the evening with them. The Shepherd (who then retained all his original simplicity of character) came _to tea_, and he brought with him a bundle of manuscripts, of size enough at least to shew his industry--all of course ballads, and fragments of ballads. The penmanship was executed with more care than Hogg had ever bestowed on anything before. Scott was surprised and pleased with Hogg’s appearance, and with the hearty familiarity with which _Jamie_, as he was called, was received by Laidlaw and the Messrs Bryden of Ramsey-cleugh. Hogg was no less gratified. ‘The sheriff of a county in those days,’ said Laidlaw, ‘was regarded by the class to whom Hogg belonged with much of the fear and respect that their _forbears_ looked up to the ancient hereditary sheriffs, who had the power of pit and gallows in their hands; and here Jamie found himself all at once not only the chief object of the sheriff’s notice and flattering attention, but actually seated at the same table with him.’ Hogg’s genius was sufficient passport to the best society. His appearance was also prepossessing. His clear ruddy cheek and sparkling eye spoke of health and vivacity, and he was light and agile in his figure. When a youth, he had a remarkably fine head of long curling brown hair, which he wore coiled up under his bonnet; and on Sundays, when he entered the church and let down his locks, the _lasses_ (on whom Jamie always turned an expressive _espiègle_ glance) looked towards him with envy and admiration. He doubtless thought of himself as the Gaelic bard did of Allan of Muidart--

‘And when to old Kilphedar’s church
Came troops of damsels gay,
Say, came they there for Allan’s fame,
Or came they there to pray?’

Mr Laidlaw thus speaks of the evening at Ramsey-cleugh: ‘It required very little of that tact or address in social intercourse for which Mr Scott was afterwards so much distinguished, to put himself and those around him entirely at their ease. In truth, I never afterwards saw him at any time apparently enjoy company so much, or exert himself so greatly--or probably there was no effort at all--in rendering himself actually fascinating; nor did I ever again spend such a night of merriment. The qualities of Hogg came out every instant, and his unaffected simplicity and fearless frankness both surprised and charmed the sheriff. They were both very good mimics and story-tellers born and bred; and when Scott took to employ his dramatic talent, he soon found he had us all in his power; for every one of us possessed a quick sense of the ludicrous, and perhaps of humour of all kinds. I well recollect how the tears ran down the cheeks of my cousin, George Bryden; and although his brother was more quiet, it was easy to see that he too was delighted. Hogg and I were unbounded laughers when the occasion was good. The best proof of Jamie’s enjoyment was, that he never sung a song that blessed night, and it was between two and three o’clock before we parted.’

Next morning, Scott and Laidlaw went, according to promise, to visit Hogg in his low thatched cottage. The situation is fine, and the opposite mountains, from the grand simplicity of their character, may almost be termed sublime. The Shepherd and his aged mother--‘Old Margaret Laidlaw,’ for she generally went by her maiden name--gave the visitors a hearty welcome. James had sent for a bottle of wine, of which each had to take a glass; and as the exhilarating effects of the previous night had not quite departed, he insisted that they should help him in drinking every drop in the bottle. Had it been a few years earlier in Scott’s life, and before he was sheriff of the county, the request would probably have been complied with; but on this occasion the bottle was set aside. The scene was curious and interesting. ‘Hogg may be a great poet,’ said Scott, ‘and, like Allan Ramsay, come to be the founder of a sort of family.’ Hogg’s familiarity of address, mingled with fits of deference and respect towards the sheriff, was curiously characteristic. Many years after this, we recollect a gentleman asking Laidlaw about an amusing anecdote told of the Shepherd. Hogg had sagacity enough to detect the authorship of the Waverley novels long before the secret was divulged, and had the volumes as they appeared bound and lettered on the back ‘SCOTT’S NOVELS.’ His friend discovered this one day when visiting Hogg at Altrive, and, in a dry humorous tone of voice, remarked: ‘Jamie, your bookseller must be a stupid fellow to spell _Scots_ with two _t_s.’ Hogg is said to have rejoined: ‘Ah, Watty, I am ower auld a cat to draw that strae before.’ Laidlaw laughed immoderately at the story, but observed: ‘Jamie never came lower down than _Walter_.’ Lockhart, however, appears to think he did occasionally venture on such a descent.

From Hogg’s cottage the party proceeded up Rankleburn to see Buccleuch, and inspect the old chapel and mill. They found nothing at the kirk of Buccleuch, and saw only the foundations of the chapel. Scott, however, was in high spirits, and, being a member of the Edinburgh Light Cavalry, and Laidlaw one of the Selkirkshire Yeomanry, they sometimes set off at a gallop--the sheriff leading as in a mimic charge, and shouting: ‘Schlachten, meine kinder, schlachten!’ Hogg trotted up behind, marvelling at the versatile powers of the ‘wonderful _shirra_.’ They all dined together with a ‘lady of the glen,’ Mrs Bryden, Crosslee; and next morning Scott returned to Clovenford Inn, where he resided till he took a lease of the house of Ashestiel.

Amidst these and similar scenes, Walter Scott inhaled inspiration, and nursed those powers which afterwards astonished the world. The healthy vigour of his mind, and his clear understanding, grew up under such training, and his imagination was thence quickened and moulded. Byron studied amidst the classic scenes of Greece and Italy--Southey and Moore in their libraries, intent on varied knowledge. All the ‘shadowy tribes of mind’ were known to the metaphysical Coleridge. Wordsworth wandered among the lakes and mountains of Westmoreland, brooding over his poetical and philosophical theories, from which his better genius, in the hour of composition, often extricated him. Scott was in all things the simple, unaffected worshipper of nature and of Scotland. His chivalrous romances sprung from his national predilections; for the warlike deeds of the Border chiefs first fired his fancy, and directed his researches. In these mountain excursions he imbibed that love and veneration of past times which coloured most of his compositions; and human sympathies and solemn reflections were forced upon him by his intercourse with the natives of the hills, and the simple and lonely majesty of the scenes that he visited. These early impressions were never forgotten. Nor could there have been a better nursery for a romantic and national poet. Scholastic and critical studies would have polished his taste and refined his verse; but we might have wanted the strong picturesque vigour--the simple direct energy of the old ballad style--the truth, nature, and observation of a stirring life--all that characterises and endears old Scotland. Scott’s destiny was on the whole pre-eminently happy; and when we think of the fate of other great authors--of Spenser composing amidst the savage turbulence of Ireland--of Shakspeare following a profession which he disliked--of Milton, blind and in danger--Dante in exile--and Tasso and Cervantes in prison--we feel how immeasurably superior was the lot of this noble free-hearted Scotsman, whose genius was the proudest inheritance of his country. ‘Think no man happy till he dies,’ said the sage. Scott’s star became dim, but there was only a short period of darkness, and he never ‘bated one jot of heart or hope,’ nor lost the friendly and soothing attentions of those he loved. The world’s respect and admiration he always possessed.

The _Minstrelsy_ appeared complete in the spring of 1803--the first two volumes being then reprinted, and a third volume added, containing the editor’s more recent collections. The work was very favourably received: indeed, so valuable a contribution to our native literature had not appeared since the publication of Percy’s _Reliques_. And the Introduction is an admirable historical summary, foreshadowing Scott’s future triumphs as a prose writer.[7]

The sheriff made four visits to Blackhouse, the fourth time in company with his attached friend, Mr Skene of Rubislaw. All the party turned out to visit a fox-hunt, a successful one, for the fox was killed; and Mr Skene made a spirited drawing of the scene, including a portrait of old Will Tweedie, the fox-hunter. The visit was closed by the whole party riding to see the wild scenery of the Grey Mare’s Tail and Loch Skene, Hogg and Adam Ferguson being of the party. Laidlaw thus writes of the expedition to Moffatdale:

‘We proceeded with difficulty up the rocky chasm to reach the foot of the waterfall. The passage which the stream has worn by cutting the opposing rocks of grey-wacke, is rough and dangerous. My brother George and I, both in the prime of youth, and constantly in the habit of climbing, had difficulty in forcing our way, and we felt for Scott’s lameness. This, however, was unnecessary. He said he could not perhaps climb so fast as we did, but he advised us to go on, and leave him. This we did, but halted on a projecting point before we descended to the foot of the fall, and looking back, we were struck at seeing the motions of the sheriff’s dog _Camp_. The dog was attending anxiously on his master; and when the latter came to a difficult part of the rock, _Camp_ would jump down, look up to his master’s face, then spring up, lick his master’s hand and cheek, jump down again, and look upwards, as if to shew him the way, and encourage him. We were greatly interested with the scene. Mr Scott seemed to depend much on his hands and the great strength of his powerful arms; and he soon fought his way over all obstacles, and joined us at the foot of the Grey Mare’s Tail, the name of the cataract.’

This excursion, like most of the others, Scott described in _Marmion_ (Introd. to Canto II.) He was apt, on a journey among the hills, especially if the district was new to him, to fall at times into fits of silence, revolving in his mind, and perhaps throwing into language, the ideas that were suggested at the moment by the landscape; and hence those who had often been his companions knew the origin of many of the beautiful passages in his future works. Of this Laidlaw used to relate one instance. About a mile down Douglas-burn, a small brook falls into it from the Whitehope hills; and at the junction of the streams, at the foot of a bank celebrated in traditionary story, stood the withered remains of what had been a very large old hawthorn tree, that had often engaged the attention of the young men at Blackhouse. Laidlaw on one occasion pointed out to the sheriff its beautiful site and venerable appearance, and asked him if he did not think it might be centuries old, and once a leading object in the landscape. As the district had been famous for game and wild animals, he said there could be little doubt that the red deer had often lain under the shade of the tree, before they ascended to feed on the open hill-tops in the evening. Scott looked on the tree and the green hills, but said nothing. The enthusiastic guide repeated his admiration, and added, that Whitehope-tree was famous for miles around; but still Scott was silent. The subject was then dropped; ‘but some years afterwards,’ said Laidlaw, ‘when the sheriff read to me his manuscript of _Marmion_, I found that Whitehope-tree was not forgotten, and that he had felt all the associations it was calculated to excite.’ The description of the thorn is eminently suggestive and beautiful:

‘The scenes are desert now and bare,
Where flourished once a Forest fair,
When these waste glens with copse were lined,
And peopled with the hart and hind.
Yon Thorn, perchance, whose prickly spears
Have fenced him for three hundred years,
While fell around his green compeers--
Yon lonely Thorn, would he could tell
The changes of his parent dell.’[8]

We may here notice another poetical scene, the _Bush aboon Traquair_, celebrated in the well-known popular song by Crawford. Burns says that when he saw the old bush in 1787, it was composed of eight or nine ragged birches, and that the Earl of Traquair had planted a clump of trees near the place, which he called ‘The New Bush.’ Laidlaw maintained that the new bush was in reality the old bush of the song. One of the sons of Murray of Philiphaugh used to come over often on foot, and meet one of the ladies of Traquair at the _Cless_, a green hollow at the foot of the hill that overhangs Traquair House. This was the scene of the song. The straggling birches that Burns saw are half a mile up the water, the remains of a wooded bog--out of sight of Traquair House, to be sure, but far out of the way between Hanginshaw, on the Yarrow, and Traquair.

One morning in autumn 1804 was vividly impressed on the recollection of Laidlaw; for Scott then recited to him nearly the whole of the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, as they journeyed together in the sheriff’s gig up Gala Water. The wild, irregular structure of the poem, the description of the old minstrel, the goblin machinery, the ballads interspersed throughout the tale, and the exquisite forest scenes (the Paradise of Ettrick), all entranced the listener. Now and then, Scott would stop to tell an anecdote of the country they were passing through, and afterwards, in his deep _serious_ voice, resume his recitation of the poem. Laidlaw had, the night before, gone to Lasswade, where the sheriff then resided in a beautiful cottage on the banks of the Esk; and on the following morning, after breakfast, they went up the Gala, when Scott poured forth what truly seemed to be an unpremeditated lay. They returned about sunset, and found the sheriff’s young and beautiful wife looking on at the few shearers engaged in cutting down their crop in a field adjoining the cottage. Mrs Scott seemed to Laidlaw a ‘lovely and interesting creature,’ and the sheriff met her with undisguised tenderness and affection. This was indeed his golden prime:

‘How happily the days of Thalaba went by!’

After this period, Laidlaw commenced householder, entering on extensive farming experiments; and, so long as the war lasted and high prices prevailed, his schemes promised to be ultimately successful. But with peace came a sudden fall in the market value of corn. He struggled on with adverse circumstances for a twelvemonth, till capital and credit failed, and he was obliged to abandon his lease.

In the summer of 1817, we find him at Kaeside, on the estate of Abbotsford. At first, this seemed a temporary arrangement. The two friends had kept up a constant intercourse after Scott’s visit to the Yarrow in 1802. Presents of trout and blackcock from the country, and return presents of books from Castle Street, in Edinburgh, were interchanged; and, when Laidlaw’s evil day was at hand, Scott said: ‘Come to Abbotsford, and help me with my improvements. I can put you into a house on the estate--Kaeside--and get you some literary work from the Edinburgh publishers.’ The offer was cheerfully accepted, and the connection became permanent. Scott had then commenced building and planting on a large scale; and the same year he made his most extensive purchase--the lands of Toftfield, for which he gave £10,000.

‘I have more than once--such was his modesty’--said Laidlaw, ‘heard Sir Walter assert that had his father left him an estate of £500 or £600 a year, he would have spent his time in miscellaneous reading, not writing. This, to a certain extent, might have been the case; and had he purchased the property of Broadmeadows, in Yarrow, as he at one time was very anxious to do, and when the neighbourhood was in the possession of independent proprietors, the effect might have been the same. At Abbotsford, surrounded by little lairds, most of them ready to sell their lands as soon as he had money to advance, the impulse to exertion was incessant; for the desire to possess and to add increased with every new acquisition, until it became a passion of no small power. Then came the hope to be a large landed proprietor, and to found a family.’

When the poet was in Edinburgh attending to his official duties as Clerk of Session, he sighed for Abbotsford and the country, and took the liveliest interest in all that was going on under the superintendence of his friend. Passages like the following remind us of the writings of Gilpin and Price on forest and picturesque scenery:

‘George must stick in a few wild-roses, honeysuckles, and sweet-briers in suitable places, so as to produce the luxuriance we see in the woods which Nature plants herself. We injure the effect of our plantings, so far as beauty is concerned, very much by neglecting underwood.... I want to know how you are forming your glades of hard wood. Try to make them come handsomely in contact with each other, which you can only do by looking at a distance on the spot, then and there shutting your eyes as you have done when a child looking at the fire, and forming an idea of the same landscape with glades of woodland crossing it. Get out of your ideas about expense. It is, after all, but throwing away the price of the planting. If I were to buy a picture worth £500, nobody would wonder much. Now, if I choose to lay out £100 or £200 to make a landscape of my estate hereafter, and add so much more to its value, I certainly don’t do a more foolish thing. I mention this, that you may not feel limited so much as you might in other cases by the exact attention to pounds, shillings, and pence, but consider the whole on a liberal scale. We are too apt to consider plantations as a subject of the closest economy, whereas beauty and taste have even a marketable value after the effects come to be visible. Don’t dot the plantations with small patches of hard wood, and always consider the ultimate effect.’

It is pleasant to see from the Laidlaw manuscripts with what alacrity and zeal the noble friends of the poet came forward with kindly contributions. The Duke of Buccleuch sent bushels of acorns; the Earl of Fife presented seed of Norway pines; Lord Montagu forwarded a box of acorns and a packet of lime-seed. One arboricultural missive to the factor says: ‘I send the seeds of the Corsican pine, got with great difficulty, and also two or three of an unknown species which grows to a great height on the Apennines. Dr Graham says they should be raised in mould, finely prepared, under glass, but without artificial heat.’ A box of fine chestnuts came from Lisbon: the box was sent on from Edinburgh to Abbotsford unopened, and before Laidlaw heard of them, the chestnuts were peeled, and rendered useless for planting. ‘Confound the chestnuts, and those who peeled them!’ exclaimed Scott; ‘the officious blockheads did it by way of special favour.’ One object was to form at the top of the dikes an impenetrable copse or natural hedge or verdurous screen--the poet uses all the epithets (Milton has ‘verdurous wall’); and for this purpose there were sent from Edinburgh 3000 laburnums, 2000 sweet-briers, 3000 Scotch elms, 3000 horse-chestnuts, loads of hollies, poplars for the marshy ground, and filberts for the glen. The graceful birch-tree, ‘the lady of the wood,’ was not, of course, neglected. ‘I am so fond of the birch,’ writes the poet; ‘and it makes such a beautiful and characteristic underwood, that I think we can hardly have too many. Besides, we may plant them as hedges.’ He purchased at this time about 100,000 birches. Mr Morritt of Rokeby writes to a friend: ‘He (Scott) tells me he never was so happy in his life as in having a place of his own to create. In this Caledonian Eden, he labours all day with his own hands; though, since the Fall, he and his wife will not find many luxuriant branches to prune in Ettrick Forest I sent him a bushel of Yorkshire acorns, which, except docks and thistles, are, I believe, likely to be in three years the largest vegetables upon the domain.’[9]

‘There are many little jobs about the walks,’ writes the busy and happy laird, ‘which, though Tom Purdie contemns them, are not less necessary towards comfort: a seat or two, for example, and covering any drains, so as to let the pony pass. In the front of the old Rispylaw (now Anne’s Hill) is an old quarry, which, a little made up and accommodated with stone seats and some earth to grow a few honeysuckles and sweet-briers, would make a very sweet place. Many of the walks will _thole_’ [bear] ‘a mending; for instance, that to the thicket might be completely gravelled, as Mrs Scott uses it so much.’

Here the kindly, loving nature of the man peeps out. To Tom himself, Scott writes in a big, plain, round hand:

‘As Mrs Scott comes out on the 22d, and brings some plants to cover the paling of the court, you must have a border of about a spade’s breadth and a spade’s depth dug nicely, and made up with good earth and a little dung, all along in front of the paling, and along the east end of it. She will bring the plants from Edinburgh, so they can be put into the ground the evening she arrives.’

Afterwards, as years ran on, a thread of business was intermixed with the rural pleasure. The poet began to calculate on the probable return from the woods, not omitting the value of the bark used for tanning purposes.

‘DEAR WILLIE--How could you be such a gowk’ [fool] ‘as to suppose
I meant to start a hare upon you by my special inquiries about the
bark? I am perfectly sensible you take more care of my affairs
than you would of your own; but anything about wood or trees
amuses me, and I like to enter into it more particularly than
into ordinary farming operations. In particular, this of drying
and selling our bark--at present a trifle--is a thing which will
one day be of great consequence, and I wish to attend to the
details myself. I think it should not be laid on the ground, but
dried upon stools made of the felled wood; and if you lay along
these stools the peeled trees, and pile the bark on them, it will
hide the former from the sun, and suffer them to dry gradually.
I have been observing this at Blair-Adam. I have got a new light
on larch-planting from the Duke of Athole’s operations. He never
plants closer than eight feet, and says they answer admirably. If
this be so, it will be easy to plant our hill-ground. Respecting
the grass in the plantations, I have some fears of the scythe, and
should prefer getting a host of women with their hooks, which would
also be a good thing for the poor folks.’ [Another touch of the
poet’s kindly nature.] ‘Tom must set about it instantly. He is too
much frightened for the expense of doing things rapidly, as if it
were not as cheap to employ twelve men for a week as six men for a
fortnight.--Yours,

W. S.’

In the matter of dwellings for the small tenants and labourers, the laird of Abbotsford was equally careful and considerate. ‘I think stone partitions would be desirable on account of vermin, &c. If their houses are not comfortable, the people will never be cleanly. For windows I would much prefer the cast-iron lattices, turning on a centre, and not made too large. These windows being in small quarrels, or panes, a little breach is easily repaired, and saves the substitute of a hat or clout through a large hole. Certainly the cottages should be rough-plastered.’ Perhaps the little iron lattices were as much preferred for their antique, picturesque associations as for their utility--‘something poetical,’ as Pope’s old gardener said of the drooping willow; and the aged minstrel’s hut near Newark Tower, it will be recollected, had such a window:

‘The little garden hedged with green,
A cheerful hearth and lattice clean.’

When times were hard and winter severe, he thought of the firesides of the labourers:

‘DEAR SIR--I have your letter, and have no doubt in my own mind
that a voluntary assessment is the best mode of raising money to
procure work for the present sufferers, because I see no other way
of making this necessary tax fall equally upon the heritors.... I
shall soon have money, so that if you can devise any mode by which
hands can be beneficially employed at Abbotsford, I could turn £50
or £100 extra into that service in the course of a fortnight. In
fact, if it made the poor and industrious people a little easier, I
should have more pleasure in it than in any money I ever spent in
my life.--Yours, very truly,

W. S.’

The same year, which was a period of some excitement and discontent, he writes to Laidlaw:

‘I am glad you have got some provision for the poor. They are the minors of the state, and especially to be looked after; and I believe the best way to prevent discontent is to keep their minds moderately easy as to their own provision. The sensible part of them may probably have judgment enough to see that they could get nothing much better for their class in general by an appeal to force, by which, indeed, if successful, ambitious individuals might rise to distinction, but which would, after much misery, leave the body of the people just where it found them, or rather much worse.... Political publications must always be caricatures. As for the mob of great cities, whom you accuse me of despising too much, I think it is impossible to err on that side. They are the very _riddlings_ of society, in which every useful cinder is, by various processes, withdrawn, and nothing left but dust, ashes, and filth. Mind, I mean the mob of cities, not the lowest people in the country, who often, and, indeed, usually, have both character and intelligence.’

Again:

‘I think of my books amongst this snow-storm; also of the birds, and not a little of the poor. For benefit of the former, I hope Peggy throws out the crumbs; and a corn-sheaf or two for the game would be to purpose, if placed where poachers could not come at them. For the poor people, I wish you to distribute five pounds or so among the neighbouring poor who may be in distress, and see that our own folks are tolerably off.’

Scott introduced his friendly factor to _Blackwood’s Magazine_, and Laidlaw used to compile for it a monthly chronicle of events, besides occasionally contributing a descriptive article, which the ‘Great Magician’ overhauled previous to its transmission. There was, in the autumn of 1817, a great combustion in Edinburgh about the _Chaldee Manuscript_, inserted in the magazine for October. An edition of two thousand copies was soon sold, and fifteen hundred more were printed; so Blackwood writes to Scott. ‘He was dreadfully afraid,’ says Laidlaw, ‘that Mr Scott would be offended; and so he would, he says, were it not on my account.’ The Ettrick Shepherd (who was the original concocter of the satire) was also alarmed. ‘For the love of God, open not your mouth about the _Chaldee Manuscript_,’ he writes to Laidlaw. ‘There have been meetings and proposals, and an express has arrived from Edinburgh to me. Deny all knowledge, else, they say, I am ruined,’ &c. This once famous production is so local and personal that, although it is now included in Professor Wilson’s works, it is almost unknown to the present generation. The subject is a bookseller’s quarrel, a contest between the rival magazines of Blackwood and Constable, and it is one of the most harmless of all the parodies couched in Scriptural phraseology. Professor Ferrier, the editor of Wilson’s works, says it is quite as good, in its way, as Swift’s _Battle of the Books_; but this is a monstrous delusion. There are some quaint touches of character in the piece. It may be compared to the parodies by Hone; but it is a sort of profanation to place it on a level with the classic satire of Swift.

It is never too late to do justice. In one of these magazine missives, written in January 1818, Blackwood refers to the Ettrick Shepherd. ‘If you see Hogg, I hope you will press him to send me instantly his _Shepherd’s Dog_, and anything else. I received his _Andrew Gemmells_; but the editor is not going to insert it in this number.’ [Had Ebony really an editor, or was he not himself the great sublime?] ‘I expected to have received from him the conclusion of the _Brownie of Bodsbeck_; there are six sheets of it already printed.’

Now, the latter part of this extract seems distinctly to disprove a charge which Hogg thoughtlessly brought against Mr Blackwood. His novel, the _Brownie of Bodsbeck_, was published in 1818, and he suffered unjustly, as he states in his autobiography, with regard to that tale, as it was looked upon as an imitation of Scott’s _Old Mortality_. It was wholly owing to Blackwood, he asserts, that his story was not published a year sooner; and he relates the case as a warning to authors never to intrust booksellers with their manuscripts. But the fact is, _Old Mortality_ was published in December 1816; and we have Blackwood, in the above letter to Laidlaw, stating that he had not, in January 1818--more than a twelvemonth afterwards--received the whole of the ‘copy’ of the _Brownie of Bodsbeck_. How could he go to press with an unfinished story? How make bricks without straw? The accusation is altogether a myth, or, to use one of the Shepherd’s own expressions, ‘a mere shimmera’ [chimera] ‘of the brain.’

Of Hogg’s prose works, Scott writes: ‘Truly, they are sad daubing, with, here and there, fine dashes of genius.’ The _daubing_ is chiefly seen in the dialogues and attempts at humour; the _genius_ appears in the descriptions of pastoral or wild scenery, as in the account of the ‘Storms,’ and in the fine introduction to the _Brownie of Bodsbeck_, and in some of the delineations of humble Scottish life and superstition. Hogg is as true and literal as Crabbe. His peasants always speak and think as peasants; but he gives us, sometimes, coarse and poor specimens. It is certain, however, that, even in the worst of his stories, there are gleams of fancy--‘fairy blinks of the sun’--far above the reach of writers immensely his superiors in taste and acquirements.

There was another person in whom Scott was interested with reference to the slashing articles in _Blackwood’s Magazine_. He writes to Laidlaw: ‘So they let poor Charles Sharpe alone, they may satirise all Edinburgh, your humble servant not excepted.’ Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, with his antiquarian tastes, personal oddities, and aristocratic leanings, was a special favourite with Scott. He was a kind of Scotch Horace Walpole (so considered by his illustrious friend), but much feebler; perhaps stronger with the pencil, but infinitely weaker with the pen. His celebrated sketch of the ‘Inimitable Virago,’ or Queen Elizabeth dancing _disposedly_, as described by the Scotch ambassador, Sir James Melville, was esteemed by Scott as an unrivalled production. It is highly ludicrous and effective as a picture, but is too extravagant to serve even as a caricature representation of Elizabeth. Neither face nor figure has any resemblance. Hogarth, in his etching of old Simon Lord Lovat of the ’45, seems, by a happy stroke of genius, to have hit the true medium in works of this class. He preserved the strong points in personal appearance and character--combining them with irresistible humour and drollery of expression.

Here is another scrap:

‘I am glad to send you Maga, which continues to be clever. I hope for two or three happy days on the brae-sides about the birthday’ [the king’s birthday, June 4]. ‘Blackwood has been assaulted by a fellow who came from Glasgow on purpose, and returned second-best. The bibliopole is like the little French lawyer, who never found out he could fight till he was put to it, and was then for cudgelling all and sundry. You never saw anything so whimsical.

‘I think often, of course, about my walks; and I am sickening to descend into the glen at the little waterfall by steps. We could cut excellent ones out where the quarry has been. It is the only way we shall ever make what Tom Purdie calls a _neat job_; for a deep descent will be ugly, and difficult to keep. I would plant betwixt the stair and the cascade, so as to hide the latter till you came down to the bottom.’

Visitors now began to appear at Abbotsford, an increasing stream every season from 1817 to 1825. They consisted of persons of rank and fashion, literary men and artists of all nations, who travelled to the Tweed to pay homage to the poet. There was no envy or jealousy with the Great Minstrel. Indeed, with the single exception of Byron, his position was such that he had no cause to fear any rival, and he could afford to throw largess to the crowd. All were welcome at Abbotsford. Washington Irving has described the cordial reception he experienced on the occasion of his visit in 1817, and Laidlaw thus notes the event:

‘We had a long walk up by the glen and round by the loch. It was fine sunshine when we set out, but we met with tremendous dashing showers. Mr Irving told me he had a kind of devotional reverence for Scotland, and most of all for its poetry. He looked upon it as fairy-land, and he was beyond measure surprised at Mr Scott, his simple manners and brotherly frankness. He was very anxious to see Hogg, and said that several editions of Hogg’s different poems had been published in America.’

Irving always regretted that he had not met with the Shepherd. Such a meeting could not have failed to give infinite pleasure to both. The gentle manners and literary enthusiasm of the American author would at once have attached the Shepherd; while the rustic frankness, liveliness, and perfect originality of Hogg possessed an indescribable attraction and charm which the other would have fully appreciated. Many years after this period, Hogg retained a careless brightness of conversation and joyous manner which were seen in no other man. The union of the shepherd and the poet formed a combination as rare and striking as that of the soldado with the divinity student of Marischal College, in the person of the renowned Dugald Dalgetty.

One day, after Hogg had been in London--and ‘The Hogg,’ as Lockhart said, ‘was the lion of the season’--Allan Cunningham chanced to meet James Smith of the _Rejected Addresses_ at the table of the great bibliopole, John Murray. ‘How,’ said Smith, aloud, to Allan, ‘how does Hogg like Scotland’s small cheer after the luxury of London?’ ‘Small cheer!’ echoed Allan; ‘he has the finest trout in the Yarrow, the finest lambs on its braes, the finest grouse on its hills, and, besides, he as good as keeps a _sma’ still_’ [smuggled whisky]. ‘Pray, what better luxury can London offer?’ All these sumptuosities the Shepherd cheerfully shared with the wayfarers who flocked to Altrive Cottage.

Another visitor at Abbotsford during the season of 1817, was Lady Byron. ‘I have had the honour,’ says Laidlaw, ‘of dining in the company of Lady Byron and Lord Somerville. Her ladyship is a beautiful little woman with fair hair, a fine complexion, and rather large blue eyes; face not round. She looked steadily grave, and seldom smiled. I thought her mouth indicated great firmness, or rather obstinacy. Miss Anne Scott and Lady Byron rode to Newark.’ After the date of this visit by Lady Byron, Laidlaw says he had many conversations with Scott concerning the life and poetry of Byron. ‘He seemed to regret very much that Byron and he had not been thrown more together. He felt the influence he had over his great contemporary’s mind, and said there was so much in it that was very good and very elevated, that any one whom he much liked could, as he (Scott) thought, have withdrawn him from many of his errors.’

All went on smoothly and gaily at Abbotsford. Every year had added to the beauty of the poet’s domain, and to the richness of his various collections and library. His opinion of Gothic architecture is thus expressed: ‘I have got a very good plan from Atkinson for my addition, but I do not like the outside, which is modern Gothic, a style I hold to be equally false and foolish. Blore and I have been at work to _Scotify_ it, by turning battlements into bartisans, and so on. I think we have struck out a picturesque, appropriate, and entirely new line of architecture.’ Abbotsford must certainly be considered picturesque, but it is a somewhat incongruous, ill-placed pile; and without the beautiful garden-screen in front, the general effect would be heavy.

In the Waverley Novels, then appearing in that marvellously rapid succession which astonished the world, there was an ample reservoir of wealth, if it had been wisely secured, as well as of fame. But an alarming interruption was threatened by the illness of the novelist. His malady--cramp of the stomach, with jaundice--was attended with exquisite pain; but in the intervals of comparative ease his literary labours were continued; and it certainly is an extraordinary fact in literary history that under such circumstances the greater part of the _Bride of Lammermoor_, the whole of the _Legend of Montrose_, and almost the whole of _Ivanhoe_ were produced. The novelist lay on a sofa, dictating to John Ballantyne or to Laidlaw; chiefly to the latter, as he was always at hand, whereas Ballantyne was only an occasional visitor at Abbotsford. Sometimes, in his most humorous or elevated scenes, Scott would break off with a groan of torture, as the cramp seized him, but when the visitation had passed, he was ever ready gaily to take up the broken thread of his narrative and proceed _currente calamo_. It was evident to Laidlaw that before he arrived at Abbotsford (generally about ten o’clock) the novelist had arranged his scenes for the day, and settled in his mind the course of the narrative. The _language_ was left to the inspiration of the moment; there was no picking of words, no studied _curiosa felicitas_ of expression. Even the imagery seemed spontaneous. Laidlaw abjured with some warmth the old-wife exclamations which Lockhart ascribes to him--as, ‘Gude keep us a’’--‘The like o’ that!’--‘Eh, sirs! eh, sirs!’ But he admitted that while he held the pen he was at times so deeply interested in the scene or in the development of the plot, that he could not help exclaiming: ‘Get on, Mr Scott, get on!’ on which the novelist would reply, smiling: ‘Softly, Willie; you know I have to make the story,’ or some good-humoured remark of a similar purport. It was quite true, he said, that when dictating some of the animated scenes and dialogues in _Ivanhoe_, Scott would rise from his seat and act the scene with every suitable accompaniment of tone, gesture, and manner. Both the military and dramatic spirit were strong in him--too strong even for the cramp and calomel! The postscript to a short business letter from Edinburgh, June 14, 1819, refers to this business of dictation. ‘Put your fingers in order, and buy yourself pens!--I won’t _stand_ the expense of your quills, so pluck the goose ’a God’s name!’ And it was plucked on this occasion to record the sorrows of the Bride of Lammermoor.

According to Mr Laidlaw, Scott did not like to speak about his novels after they were published, but was fond of canvassing the merits and peculiarities of the characters while he was engaged in the composition of the story. ‘He was peculiarly anxious,’ says Laidlaw, ‘respecting the success of Rebecca in _Ivanhoe_. One morning, as we were walking in the woods after our forenoon’s labour, I expressed my admiration of the character, and, after a short pause, he broke out with: “Well, I think I shall make something of my Jewess.” Latterly, he seemed to indulge in a retrospect of the useful effect of his labours. In one of these serious moods, I remarked that one circumstance of the highest interest might and ought to yield him very great satisfaction--namely, that his narratives were the best of all reading for young people. I had found that even his friend Miss Edgeworth had not such power in engaging attention. His novels had the power, beyond any other writings, of arousing the better passions and finer feelings; and the moral effect of all this, I added, when one looks forward to several generations--every one acting upon another--must be immense. I well recollect the place where we were walking at this time--on the road returning from the hill towards Abbotsford. Sir Walter was silent for a minute or two, but I observed his eyes filled with tears.... I never saw him much elated or excited in composition but one morning, out of doors, when he was composing that simple but humorous song, _Donald Caird_. I watched him limping along at good five miles an hour along the ridge or sky-line opposite Kaeside, and when he came in, he recited to me the fruits of his walk. His memory was an inexhaustible repertory, so that Hogg, in his moments of super-exaltation and vanity, used to say that if he had the _shirra’s_ memory he would beat him as a poet!’

The memory of Sir Walter Scott was vast, but inexact. In this respect he was inferior to Macaulay or Sir James Mackintosh. In quoting poetry, Sir Walter was seldom verbally correct, and sometimes the harmony of the verse suffered. The two famous lines of Milton’s _Comus_:

‘The aery tongues that syllable men’s names,
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses,’

are thus given in the _Letters on Demonology_:

‘The aery tongues that syllable men’s names,
On shores, in desert sands, and wildernesses.’

Thomas Campbell used to relate, as an instance of Sir Walter’s extraordinary memory, that he read to him his poem of _Locheil’s Warning_ before it was printed; after which his friend asked permission to read it himself. He then perused the manuscript slowly and distinctly, and on returning it to its author, said: ‘Campbell, look after your copyright, for I have got your poem.’ And he repeated, with very few mistakes, the whole sixty lines of which the poem (which was subsequently enlarged) then consisted.

Hogg was generally exalted and buoyant enough. On one occasion we find him writing to Laidlaw: ‘I rode through the whole of Edinburgh yesterday in a barouche by myself, having four horses and two postillions! Never was there a poet went through it before in such style since the world began!’ We may exclaim with Johnson on the amount of Goldsmith’s debts, ‘Was ever poet so trusted before!’

In the midst of his business details and directions, Scott’s peculiar humour and felicity of illustration are perpetually breaking out. Of a neighbouring county magnate he says: ‘I have heard of a Christian being a Jew, but our friend is the essence of a whole synagogue.’ His relation of the simplest occurrence is vivid and characteristic. A high wind in Edinburgh, in January 1818, he thus notices: ‘I had more than an anxious thought about you all during the gale of wind. The Gothic pinnacles were blown from the top of Bishop Sandford’s Episcopal chapel at the end of Princes Street, and broke through the roof and flooring, doing great damage. This was sticking the horns of the mitre into the belly of the church. The devil never so well deserved the title of Prince of the power of the air, since he has blown down this handsome church, and left the ugly mass of new building standing on the North Bridge.’ One incidental remark illustrates the deception men often practise on themselves: ‘I have not,’ he says, ‘a head for accounts, and detest debt. When I find expense too great, I strike sail, and diminish future outlay, which is the only principle for careless accountants to act upon.’ Happy would it have been for him if his practice had corresponded with his theory!

The year 1820 was, in the family calendar of the poet, one of peculiar interest and importance. It was the year in which his eldest daughter was married; the year in which he received the honour of the baronetcy; and the year in which he sat to Chantrey for his bust--that admirable work of art which has made his features familiar in every quarter of the globe. He sat also this year to Sir Thomas Lawrence. ‘The king,’ he writes, ‘has commanded me to sit to Sir Thomas Lawrence for a portrait, for his most sacred apartment. I want to have in _Maida_’ [his favourite deer-hound], ‘that there may be one handsome fellow of the party.’ Late in life, Sir Walter sat to Lawrence Macdonald the sculptor, and Laidlaw says of the artist and his work: