Chapter VIII: {p.227} (1)

Publication of Ballads After Bürger. -- Scott Quartermaster
of the Edinburgh Light Horse. -- Excursion to Cumberland. --
Gilsland Wells. -- Miss Carpenter. -- Marriage.

1796-1797.

Rebelling, as usual, against circumstances, Scott seems to have turned with renewed ardor to his literary pursuits; and in that same October, 1796, he was "prevailed on," as he playfully expresses it, "by the _request of friends_, to indulge his own vanity, by publishing the translation of Lenore, with that of The Wild Huntsman, also from Bürger, in a thin quarto." The little volume, which has no author's name on the title-page, was printed for Manners and Miller of Edinburgh. The first named of these respectable publishers had been a fellow-student in the German class of Dr. Willich; and this circumstance probably suggested the negotiation. It was conducted by William Erskine, as appears from his postscript to a letter addressed to Scott by his sister, who, before it reached its destination, had become the wife of Mr. Campbell Colquhoun of Clathick and Killermont--in after-days Lord Advocate of Scotland. This was another of Scott's dearest female friends. The humble home which she shared with her brother during his early struggles at the Bar had been the scene of many of his happiest hours; and her letter affords such a pleasing idea of the warm affectionateness of the little circle that I cannot forbear inserting it:--

TO {p.228} WALTER SCOTT, ESQ., ROSEBANK, KELSO.

Monday evening.

If it were not that etiquette and I were constantly at war, I
should think myself very blamable in thus trespassing against one
of its laws; but as it is long since I forswore its dominion, I
have acquired a prescriptive right to act as I will--and I shall
accordingly anticipate the station of a _matron_ in addressing _a
young man_.

I can express but a very, very little of what I feel, and shall
ever feel, for your unintermitting friendship and attention. I
have ever considered you as a brother, and shall _now_ think
myself entitled to make even larger claims on your confidence.
Well do I remember the _dark_ conference we lately held together!
The intention of unfolding _my own_ future fate was often at my
lips.

I cannot tell you my distress at leaving this house, wherein I
have enjoyed so much real happiness, and giving up the service of
so gentle a master, whose yoke was indeed easy. I will therefore
only commend him to your care as the last bequest of Mary Anne
Erskine, and conjure you to continue to each other through all
your pilgrimage as you have commenced it. May every happiness
attend you! Adieu!

Your most sincere friend and sister,

M. A. E.

Mr. Erskine writes on the other page, "The poems are gorgeous, but I have made no bargain with any bookseller. I have told M. and M. that I won't be satisfied with indemnity, but an offer must be made. They will be out before the end of the week." On what terms the publication really took place, I know not.

It has already been mentioned that Scott owed his copy of Bürger's works to the young lady of Harden, whose marriage occurred in the autumn of 1795. She was daughter of Count Brühl of Martkirchen, long Saxon ambassador at the Court of St. James's, by his wife Almeria, Countess-Dowager of Egremont. The young kinsman was introduced to her soon after her arrival {p.229} at Mertoun, and his attachment to German studies excited her attention and interest. Mrs. Scott supplied him with many standard German books, besides Bürger; and the gift of an Adelung's dictionary from his old ally, George Constable (Jonathan Oldbuck), enabled him to master their contents sufficiently for the purposes of translation. The ballad of The Wild Huntsman appears to have been executed during the month that preceded his first publication; and he was thenceforth engaged in a succession of versions from the dramas of Meier and Iffland, several of which are still extant in his MS., marked 1796 and 1797. These are all in prose like their originals; but he also versified at the same time some lyrical fragments of Goethe, as, for example, the Morlachian Ballad,

"What yonder glimmers so white on the mountain,"

and the song from Claudina von Villa Bella. He consulted his friend at Mertoun on all these essays; and I have often heard him say, that, among those many "obligations of a distant date which remained impressed on his memory, after a life spent in a constant interchange of friendship and kindness," he counted not as the least, the lady's frankness in correcting his Scotticisms, and more especially his Scottish _rhymes_.

His obligations to this lady were indeed various; but I doubt, after all, whether these were the most important. He used to say that she was the first _woman of real fashion_ that _took him_ up; that she used the privileges of her sex and station in the truest spirit of kindness; set him right as to a thousand little trifles, which no one else would have ventured to notice; and, in short, did for him what no one but an elegant woman can do for a young man, whose early days have been spent in narrow and provincial circles. "When I first saw Sir Walter," she writes to me, "he was about four-or five-and-twenty, but looked much younger. He seemed bashful and {p.230} awkward; but there were from the first such gleams of superior sense and spirit in his conversation, that I was hardly surprised when, after our acquaintance had ripened a little, I felt myself to be talking with a man of genius. He was most modest about himself, and showed his little pieces apparently without any consciousness that they could possess any claim on particular attention. Nothing so easy and good-humored as the way in which he received any hints I might offer, when he seemed to be tampering with the King's English. I remember particularly how he laughed at himself, when I made him take notice that 'the little two dogs,' in some of his lines, did not please an English ear accustomed to 'the two little dogs.'"

Nor was this the only person at Mertoun who took a lively interest in his pursuits. Harden entered into all the feelings of his beautiful bride on this subject; and his mother, the Lady Diana Scott, daughter of the last Earl of Marchmont, did so no less. She had conversed, in her early days, with the brightest ornaments of the cycle of Queen Anne, and preserved rich stores of anecdote, well calculated to gratify the curiosity and excite the ambition of a young enthusiast in literature. Lady Diana soon appreciated the minstrel of the clan; and, surviving to a remarkable age, she had the satisfaction of seeing him at the height of his eminence--the solitary person who could give the author of Marmion personal reminiscences of Pope.[128]

[Footnote 128: Mr. Scott of Harden's right to the peerage of
Polwarth, as representing, through his mother, the line of
Marchmont, was allowed by the House of Lords in 1835.]

On turning to James Ballantyne's Memorandum (already quoted), I find an account of Scott's journey from Rosebank to Edinburgh, in the November after the Ballads from Bürger were published, which gives an interesting notion of his literary zeal and opening ambition at this remarkable epoch of his life. Mr. Ballantyne had settled {p.231} in Kelso as a solicitor in 1795; but, not immediately obtaining much professional practice, time hung heavy on his hands, and he willingly listened, in the summer of 1796, to a proposal of some of the neighboring nobility and gentry respecting the establishment of a weekly newspaper,[129] in opposition to one of a democratic tendency, then widely circulated in Roxburghshire and the other Border counties. He undertook the printing and editing of this new journal, and proceeded to London, in order to engage correspondents and make other necessary preparations. While thus for the first time in the metropolis, he happened to meet with two authors, whose reputations were then in full bloom,--namely, Thomas Holcroft and William Godwin,--the former, a popular dramatist and novelist; the latter, a novelist of far greater merit, but "still more importantly distinguished," says the Memorandum before me, "by those moral, legal, political, and religious heterodoxies, which his talents enabled him to present to the world in a very captivating manner. His Caleb Williams had then just come out, and occupied as much public attention as any work has done before or since." "Both these eminent persons," Ballantyne continues, "I saw pretty frequently; and being anxious to hear whatever I could tell about the literary men in Scotland, they both treated me with remarkable freedom of communication. They were both distinguished by the clearness of their elocution, and very full of triumphant confidence in the truth of their systems. They were as willing to speak, therefore, as I could be to hear; and as I put my questions with all the fearlessness of a very young man, the result was, that I carried away copious and interesting stores of thought and information: that the greater part of what I heard was full of error, never entered into my contemplation. Holcroft at this time was a fine-looking, lively man, of green old age, somewhere about sixty. Godwin, some twenty {p.232} years younger, was more shy and reserved. As to me, my delight and enthusiasm were boundless."

[Footnote 129: _The Kelso Mail._]

After returning home, Ballantyne made another journey to Glasgow for the purchase of types; and on entering the Kelso coach for this purpose, "It would not be easy," says he, "to express my joy on finding that Mr. Scott was to be one of my partners in the carriage, the only other passenger being a fine, stout, muscular, old Quaker. A very few miles reëstablished us on our ancient footing. Travelling not being half so speedy then as it is now, there was plenty of leisure for talk, and Mr. Scott was exactly what is called _the old man_. He abounded, as in the days of boyhood, in legendary lore, and had now added to the stock, as his recitations showed, many of those fine ballads which afterwards composed the Minstrelsy. Indeed, I was more delighted with him than ever; and, by way of reprisal, I opened on him my London budget, collected from Holcroft and Godwin. I doubt if Boswell ever showed himself a more skilful _Reporter_ than I did on this occasion. Hour after hour passed away, and found my borrowed eloquence still flowing, and my companion still hanging on my lips with unwearied interest. It was customary in those days to break the journey (only forty miles) by dining on the road, the consequence of which was, that we both became rather oblivious; and after we had reëntered the coach, the worthy Quaker felt quite vexed and disconcerted with the silence which had succeeded so much conversation. 'I wish,' said he, 'my young friends, that you would cheer up, and go on with your pleasant songs and tales as before: they entertained me much.' And so," says Ballantyne, "it went on again until the evening found us in Edinburgh; and from that day, until within a very short time of his death--a period of not less than five-and-thirty years--I may venture to say that our intercourse never flagged."

The reception of the two ballads had, in the mean time, {p.233} been favorable, in his own circle at least. The many inaccuracies and awkwardnesses of rhyme and diction, to which he alludes in republishing them towards the close of his life, did not prevent real lovers of poetry from seeing that no one but a poet could have transfused the daring imagery of the German in a style so free, bold, masculine, and full of life; but, wearied as all such readers had been with that succession of feeble, flimsy, lackadaisical trash which followed the appearance of the Reliques by Bishop Percy, the opening of such a new vein of popular poetry as these verses revealed would have been enough to produce lenient critics for far inferior translations. Many, as we have seen, sent forth copies of the Lenore about the same time; and some of these might be thought better than Scott's in particular passages; but, on the whole, it seems to have been felt and acknowledged by those best entitled to judge, that he deserved the palm. Meantime, we must not forget that Scotland had lost that very year the great poet Burns,--her glory and her shame. It is at least to be hoped that a general sentiment of self-reproach, as well as of sorrow, had been excited by the premature extinction of such a light; and, at all events, it is agreeable to know that they who had watched his career with the most affectionate concern were among the first to hail the promise of a more fortunate successor. Scott found on his table, when he reached Edinburgh, the following letters from two of Burns's kindest and wisest friends:--

TO WALTER SCOTT, ESQ., ADVOCATE, GEORGE'S SQUARE.

MY DEAR SIR,--I beg you will accept of my best thanks for the
favor you have done me by sending me four copies of your
beautiful translations. I shall retain two of them, as Mrs.
Stewart and I both set a high value on them as gifts from the
author. The other two I shall take the earliest opportunity of
transmitting to a friend in England, who, I hope, may be
instrumental in making their merits more generally known at the
time {p.234} of their first appearance. In a few weeks, I am
fully persuaded they will engage public attention to the utmost
extent of your wishes, without the aid of any recommendation
whatever. I ever am, Dear Sir, yours most truly,

DUGALD STEWART.

CANONGATE, Wednesday evening.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR,--On my return from Cardross, where I had been for a
week, I found yours of the 14th, which had surely loitered by the
way. I thank you most cordially for your present. I meet with
little poetry nowadays that touches my heart; but your
translations excite mingled emotions of pity and terror,
insomuch, that I would not wish any person of weaker nerves to
read William and Helen before going to bed. Great must be the
original, if it equals the translation in energy and pathos. One
would almost suspect you have used as much liberty with Bürger as
Macpherson was suspected of doing with Ossian. It is, however,
easier to _backspeir_ you. Sober reason rejects the machinery as
unnatural; it reminds me, however, of the magic of Shakespeare.
Nothing has a finer effect than the repetition of certain words,
that are echoes to the sense, as much as the celebrated lines in
Homer about the rolling up and falling down of the stone: _Tramp,
tramp! splash, splash!_ is to me perfectly new; and much of the
imagery is nature. I should consider this muse of yours (if you
carry the intrigue far) more likely to steal your heart from the
law than even a wife. I am, Dear Sir, your most obedient, humble
servant,

JO. RAMSAY.

OCHTERTYRE, 30th November, 1796.

Among other literary persons at a distance, I may mention George Chalmers, the celebrated antiquary, with whom he had been in correspondence from the beginning of this year, supplying him with Border ballads for the illustration of his researches into Scotch history. This gentleman had been made acquainted with Scott's large collections in that way by a common friend, Dr. Somerville, minister of Jedburgh, author of the History of Queen {p.235} Anne;[130] and the numerous MS. copies communicated to him in consequence were recalled in the course of 1799, when the plan of the Minstrelsy began to take shape. Chalmers writes in great transports about Scott's versions; but weightier encouragement came from Mr. Taylor of Norwich, himself the first translator of the Lenore.

[Footnote 130: Some extracts from this venerable person's
unpublished Memoirs of his own Life have been kindly sent to
me by his son, the well-known physician of Chelsea College,
from which it appears that the reverend doctor, and, more
particularly still, his wife, a lady of remarkable talent and
humor, had formed a high notion of Scott's future eminence at
a very early period of his life. Dr. S. survived to a great
old age, preserving his faculties quite entire, and I have
spent many pleasant hours under his hospitable roof in
company with Sir Walter Scott. We heard him preach an
excellent circuit sermon when he was upwards of eighty-two,
and at the Judges' dinner afterwards he was among the gayest
of the company.]

I need not tell you, sir [he writes], with how much eagerness I
opened your volume--with how much glow I followed The Chase--or
with how much alarm I came to William and Helen. Of the latter I
will say nothing; praise might seem hypocrisy--criticism envy.
The ghost nowhere makes his appearance so well as with you, or
his exit so well as with Mr. Spenser. I like very much the
recurrence of

"The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
The flashing pebbles flee;"

but of William and Helen I had resolved to say nothing. Let me
return to The Chase, of which the metric stanza style pleases me
entirely; yet I think a few passages written in too elevated a
strain for the general spirit of the poem. This age leans too
much to the Darwin style. Mr. Percy's Lenore owes its coldness to
the adoption of this; and it seems peculiarly incongruous in the
ballad--where habit has taught us to expect simplicity. Among the
passages too stately and pompous, I should reckon--

"The mountain echoes startling wake--
And for devotion's choral swell
Exchange the rude discordant noise--
Fell Famine marks the maddening throng
With cold Despair's averted eye,"--

and perhaps one or two more. In the twenty-first stanza, I
prefer {p.236} Bürger's _trampling the corn into chaff and
dust_, to your more metaphorical, and therefore less picturesque,
"destructive sweep the field along." In the thirtieth, "On
whirlwind's pinions swiftly borne," to me seems less striking
than the still disapparition of the tumult and bustle--the earth
has opened, and he is sinking with his evil genius to the nether
world--as he approaches, _dumpf rauscht es wie ein fernes
Meer_--it should be rendered, therefore, not by "Save what a
distant torrent gave," but by some sounds which shall necessarily
excite the idea of being _hell-sprung_--the sound of simmering
seas of fire--pinings of goblins damned--or some analogous noise.
The forty-seventh stanza is a very great improvement of the
original. The profanest blasphemous speeches need not have been
softened down, as, in proportion to the impiety of the
provocation, increases the poetical probability of the final
punishment. I should not have ventured upon these criticisms, if
I did not think it required a microscopic eye to make any, and if
I did not on the whole consider The Chase as a most spirited and
beautiful translation. I remain (to borrow in another sense a
concluding phrase from the Spectator), your constant admirer,

W. TAYLOR, Jun.

NORWICH, 14th December, 1796.

The anticipations of these gentlemen, that Scott's versions would attract general attention in the south, were not fulfilled. He himself attributes this to the contemporaneous appearance of so many other translations from Lenore. "In a word," he says, "my adventure, where so many pushed off to sea, proved a dead loss, and a great part of the edition was condemned to the service of the trunkmaker. This failure did not operate in any unpleasant degree either on my feelings or spirits. I was coldly received by strangers, but my reputation began rather to increase among my own friends, and on the whole I was more bent to show the world that it had neglected something worth notice, than to be affronted by its indifference; or rather, to speak candidly, I found pleasure in the literary labors in which I had almost by accident become engaged, and labored less in the hope of pleasing {p.237} others, though certainly without despair of doing so, than in a pursuit of a new and agreeable amusement to myself."[131]

[Footnote 131: _Remarks on Popular Poetry._ 1830.]

On the 12th of December Scott had the curiosity to witness the trial of one James Mackean, a shoemaker, for the murder of Buchanan, a carrier, employed to convey money weekly from the Glasgow bank to a manufacturing establishment at Lanark. Mackean invited the carrier to spend the evening in his house; conducted family worship in a style of much seeming fervor; and then, while his friend was occupied, came behind him, and almost severed his head from his body by one stroke of a razor. I have heard Scott describe the sanctimonious air which the murderer maintained during his trial--preserving throughout the aspect of a devout person, who believed himself to have been hurried into his accumulation of crime by an uncontrollable exertion of diabolical influence; and on his copy of the "Life of James Mackean, executed 25th January, 1797," I find the following marginal note:--

"I went to see this wretched man when under sentence of death, along with my friend, Mr. William Clerk, advocate. His great anxiety was to convince us that his diabolical murder was committed from a sudden impulse of revengeful and violent passion, not from deliberate design of plunder. But the contrary was manifest from the accurate preparation of the deadly instrument--a razor strongly lashed to an iron bolt--and also from the evidence on the trial, from which it seems he had invited his victim to drink tea with him on the day he perpetrated the murder, and that this was a reiterated invitation. Mackean was a good-looking elderly man, having a thin face and clear gray eye; such a man as may be ordinarily seen beside a collection-plate at a seceding meeting-house, a post which the said Mackean had occupied in his day. All Mackean's account of the murder is {p.238} apocryphal. Buchanan was a powerful man, and Mackean slender. It appeared that the latter had engaged Buchanan in writing, then suddenly clapped one hand on his eyes, and struck the fatal blow with the other. The throat of the deceased was cut through his handkerchief to the back bone of the neck, against which the razor was hacked in several places."

In his pursuit of his German studies, Scott acquired, about this time, a very important assistant in Mr. Skene of Rubislaw, in Aberdeenshire--a gentleman considerably his junior,[132] who had just returned to Scotland from a residence of several years in Saxony, where he had obtained a thorough knowledge of the language, and accumulated a better collection of German books than any to which Scott had, as yet, found access. Shortly after Mr. Skene's arrival in Edinburgh, Scott requested to be introduced to him by a mutual friend, Mr. Edmonstone of Newton; and their fondness for the same literature, with Scott's eagerness to profit by his new acquaintance's superior attainment in it, thus opened an intercourse which general similarity of tastes, and I venture to add, in many of the most important features of character, soon ripened into the familiarity of a tender friendship--"An intimacy," Mr. Skene says, in a paper before me, "of which I shall ever think with so much pride--a friendship so pure and cordial as to have been able to withstand all the vicissitudes of nearly forty years, without ever having sustained even a casual chill from unkind thought or word." Mr. Skene adds, "During the whole progress of his varied life, to that eminent station which he could not but feel he at length held in the estimation, not of his countrymen alone, but of the whole world, I never could perceive the slightest shade of variance from that simplicity of character with which he impressed me on the first hour of our meeting."[133]

[Footnote 132: [James Skene, son of George Skene of Rubislaw,
was born in 1775.]]

[Footnote 133: [Beside the memoranda placed by Mr. Skene in
Lockhart's hands and used by him in various portions of the
_Life_, the friend's unpublished _Reminiscences_, from which
Mr. Douglas has fortunately been enabled to draw largely in
annotating the _Journal_, contains recollections of peculiar
interest.]]

Among {p.239} the common tastes which served to knit these friends together was their love of horsemanship, in which, as in all other manly exercises, Skene highly excelled; and the fears of a French Invasion becoming every day more serious, their thoughts were turned with corresponding zeal to the project of organising a force of mounted volunteers in Scotland. "The London Light Horse had set the example," says Mr. Skene; "but in truth it was to Scott's ardor that this force in the North owed its origin. Unable, by reason of his lameness, to serve amongst his friends on foot, he had nothing for it but to rouse the spirit of the moss-trooper, with which he readily inspired all who possessed the means of substituting the sabre for the musket."

On the 14th February, 1797, these friends and many more met and drew up an offer to serve as a body of volunteer cavalry in Scotland; which offer being transmitted through the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord-Lieutenant of Mid-Lothian, was accepted by Government. The organization of the corps proceeded rapidly; they extended their offer to serve in any part of the island in case of invasion; and this also being accepted, the whole arrangement was shortly completed; when Charles Maitland of Rankeillor was elected Major-Commandant; (Sir) William Rae of St. Catharine's Captain; James Gordon of Craig, and George Robinson of Clermiston, Lieutenants; (Sir) William Forbes of Pitsligo, and James Skene of Rubislaw, Cornets; Walter Scott, Paymaster, Quartermaster, and Secretary; John Adams, Adjutant. But the treble duties thus devolved on Scott were found to interfere too severely with his other avocations, and Colin Mackenzie of Portmore relieved him soon afterwards from those of paymaster.

"The {p.240} part of quartermaster," says Mr. Skene, "was purposely selected for him, that he might be spared the rough usage of the ranks; but, notwithstanding his infirmity, he had a remarkably firm seat on horseback, and in all situations a fearless one: no fatigue ever seemed too much for him, and his zeal and animation served to sustain the enthusiasm of the whole corps, while his ready 'mot à rire' kept up, in all, a degree of good-humor and relish for the service, without which the toil and privations of long _daily_ drills would not easily have been submitted to by such a body of gentlemen. At every interval of exercise, the order, _sit at ease_, was the signal for the quartermaster to lead the squadron to merriment; every eye was intuitively turned on 'Earl Walter,' as he was familiarly called by his associates of that date, and his ready joke seldom failed to raise the ready laugh. He took his full share in all the labors and duties of the corps, had the highest pride in its progress and proficiency, and was such a trooper himself as only a very powerful frame of body and the warmest zeal in the cause could have enabled any one to be. But his habitual good-humor was the great charm, and at the daily mess (for we all dined together when in quarters) that reigned supreme."

_Earl Walter's_ first charger, by the way, was a tall and powerful animal, named Lenore. These daily drills appear to have been persisted in during the spring and summer of 1797; the corps spending moreover some weeks in quarters at Musselburgh. The majority of the troop having professional duties to attend to, the ordinary hour for drill was five in the morning; and when we reflect, that after some hours of hard work in this way, Scott had to produce himself regularly in the Parliament House with gown and wig, for the space of four or five hours at least, while his chamber practice, though still humble, was on the increase--and that he had found a plentiful source of new social engagements in his troop {p.241} connections--it certainly could have excited no surprise had his literary studies been found suffering total intermission during this busy period. That such was not the case, however, his correspondence and note-books afford ample evidence.

He had no turn, at this time of his life, for early rising; so that the regular attendance at the morning drills was of itself a strong evidence of his military zeal; but he must have, in spite of them, and of all other circumstances, persisted in what was the usual custom of all his earlier life, namely, the devotion of the best hours of the night to solitary study. In general, both as a young man, and in more advanced age, his constitution required a good allowance of sleep, and he, on principle, indulged in it, saying, "He was but half a man if he had not full seven hours of utter unconsciousness;" but his whole mind and temperament were, at this period, in a state of most fervent exaltation, and spirit triumphed over matter. His translation of Steinberg's Otho of Wittelsbach is marked "1796-7;" from which, I conclude, it was finished in the latter year. The volume containing that of Meier's Wolfred of Dromberg, a drama of Chivalry, is dated 1797; and, I think, the reader will presently see cause to suspect, that though not alluded to in his imperfect note-book, these tasks must have been accomplished in the very season of the daily drills.

The letters addressed to him in March, April, and June, by Kerr of Abbotrule, George Chalmers, and his uncle at Rosebank, indicate his unabated interest in the collection of coins and ballads; and I shall now make a few extracts from his private note-book, some of which will at all events amuse the survivors of the Edinburgh Light Horse;--

"_March 15, 1797._--Read Stanfield's trial, and the conviction
appears very doubtful indeed. Surely no one could seriously
believe, in 1688, that the body of the murdered {p.242} bleeds
at the touch of the murderer, and I see little else that directly
touches Philip Stanfield. He was a very bad character, however;
and tradition says, that having insulted Welsh, the wild
preacher, one day in his early life, the saint called from the
pulpit that God had revealed to him that this blasphemous youth
would die in the sight of as many as were then assembled. It was
believed at the time that Lady Stanfield had a hand in the
assassination, or was at least privy to her son's plans; but I
see nothing inconsistent with the old gentleman's having
committed suicide.[134] The ordeal of touching the corpse was
observed in Germany. They call it _barrecht_.

"_March 27._--

'The friers of Fail
Gat never owre hard eggs, or owre thin kale;
For they made their eggs thin wi' butter,
And their kale thick wi' bread.
And the friers of Fail they made gude kale
On Fridays when they fasted;
They never wanted gear enough
As lang as their neighbours' lasted.'

"Fairy-rings.--_N. B._ Delrius says the same appearance occurs
wherever the witches have held their Sabbath.

"For the ballad of 'Willie's lady,' compare Apuleius, lib. i. p.
33....

"_April 20._--The portmanteau to contain the following articles:
2 shirts; 1 black handkerchief; 1 nightcap, woollen; 1 pair
pantaloons, blue; 1 flannel shirt with sleeves; 1 pair flannel
drawers; 1 waistcoat; 1 pair worsted stockings or socks.

"In the slip, in cover of portmanteau, a case with
shaving-things, combs, and a knife, fork, and spoon; a German
pipe and tobacco-bag, flint, and steel; pipe-clay and {p.243}
oil, with brush for laying it on; a shoe-brush; a pair of shoes
or hussar-boots; a horse-picker, and other loose articles.

"Belt with the flap and portmanteau, currycomb, brush, and
mane-comb, with sponge.

"Over the portmanteau, the blue overalls, and a spare jacket for
stable; a small horse-sheet, to cover the horse's back with, and
a spare girth or two.

"In the cartouche-box, screw-driver and picker for pistol, with
three or four spare flints.

"The horse-sheet may be conveniently folded below the saddle, and
will save the back in a long march or bad weather. Beside the
holster, two forefeet shoes.[135]

"_May 22._--Apuleius, lib. ii.... Anthony-a-Wood.... Mr.
Jenkinson's name (now Lord Liverpool) being proposed as a
difficult one to rhyme to, a lady present hit off this verse
extempore.--_N. B._ Both father and son (Lord Hawkesbury) have a
peculiarity of vision:--

'Happy Mr. Jenkinson,
Happy Mr. Jenkinson,
I'm sure to you
Your lady's true,
For you have got a winking son.'

"23.--Delrius....

"24--'I, John Bell of Brackenbrig, lies under this stane;
Four {p.244} of my sons laid it on my wame.
I was man of my meat, and master of my wife,
And lived in mine ain house without meikle strife.
Gif thou be'st a "better man in thy time than I was in mine,
Tak this stane off my wame, and lay it upon thine.'

"25.--Meric Casaubon on Spirits....

"26.--'There saw we learned Maroe's golden tombe;
The way he cut an English mile in length
Thorow a rock of stone in one night's space.'

"Christopher Marlowe's Tragicall History of Dr. Faustus--a very
remarkable thing. Grand subject--end grand.... Copied Prophecy of
Merlin from Mr. Clerk's MS.

"27.--Read Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business, by Andrew
Moreton. This was one of Defoe's many _aliases_--like his pen, in
parts....

'To Cuthbert, Car, and Collingwood, to Shafto and to Hall;
To every gallant generous heart that for King James did fall.'

"28.--... Anthony-a-Wood.... Plain Proof of the True Father and
Mother of the Pretended Prince of Wales, by W. Fuller. This
fellow was pilloried for a forgery some years later.... Began
_Nathan der Weise_.

"_June 29._--Read Introduction to a Compendium on Brief
Examination, by W. S.--viz., William Stafford--though it was for
a time given to no less a W. S. than William Shakespeare. A
curious treatise--the Political Economy of the Elizabethan
Day--worth reprinting....

"_July 1._--Read Discourse of Military Discipline, by Captain
Barry--a very curious account of the famous Low Countries
armies--full of military hints worth note.... _Anthony Wood_
again.

"3.--_Nathan der Weise._ ... _Delrius_....

"5.--Geutenberg's _Braut_ begun.

"6.--The Bride again. _Delrius._"

[Footnote 134: See particulars of Stanfield's case in Lord
Fountainhall's _Chronological Notes of Scottish Affairs_,
1680-1701, edited by Sir Walter Scott. 4to, Edinburgh, 1822.
Pp. 233-236.]

[Footnote 135: Some of Scott's most intimate friends at the
Bar, partly, no doubt, from entertaining political opinions
of another caste, were by no means disposed to sympathize
with the demonstrations of his military enthusiasm at this
period. For example, one of these gentlemen thus writes to
another in April, 1797: "By the way, Scott is become the
merest trooper that ever was begotten by a drunken dragoon on
his trull in a hayloft. Not an idea crosses his mind, or a
word his lips, that has not an allusion to some d----d
instrument or evolution of the Cavalry--'Draw your swords--by
single files to the right of front--to the left
wheel--charge!' After all, he knows little more about wheels
and charges than I do about the wheels of Ezekiel, or the
King of Pelew about charges of horning on six days' date. I
saw them charge on Leith Walk a few days ago, and I can
assure you it was by no means orderly proceeded. Clerk and I
are continually obliged to open a six-pounder upon him in
self-defence, but in spite of a temporary confusion, he soon
rallies and returns to the attack."]

The note-book from which I have been copying is chiefly filled with extracts from Apuleius and Anthony-a-Wood--most of {p.245} them bearing, in some way, on the subject of popular superstitions. It is a pity that many leaves have been torn out; for if unmutilated, the record would probably have enabled one to guess whether he had already planned his Essay on Fairies.

I have mentioned his business at the Bar as increasing at the same time. His _fee-book_ is now before me, and it shows that he made by his first year's practice £24 3s.; by the second, £57 15s.; by the third, £84 4s.; by the fourth, £90; and in his fifth year at the Bar--that is, from November, 1796 to July, 1797--£144 10s.; of which £50 were fees from his father's chamber.

His friend, Charles Kerr of Abbotrule, had been residing a good deal about this time in Cumberland: indeed, he was so enraptured with the scenery of the lakes, as to take a house in Keswick with the intention of spending half of all future years there. His letters to Scott (March, April, 1797) abound in expressions of wonder that he should continue to devote so much of his vacations to the Highlands of Scotland, "with every crag and precipice of which," says he, "I should imagine you would be familiar by this time; nay, that the goats themselves might almost claim you for an acquaintance;" while another district lay so near him, at least as well qualified "to give a swell to the fancy."

After the rising of the Court of Session in July, Scott accordingly set out on a tour to the English lakes, accompanied by his brother John, and Adam Ferguson. Their first stage was Halyards in Tweeddale, then inhabited by his friend's father, the philosopher and historian; and they stayed there for a day or two, in the course of which Scott had his first and only interview with David Ritchie, the original of his Black Dwarf.[136] Proceeding southwards, the tourists visited Carlisle, Penrith,--the vale of the Eamont, including Mayburgh and Brougham Castle,--Ullswater and Windermere; and at length fixed {p.246} their headquarters at the then peaceful and sequestered little watering-place of Gilsland, making excursions from thence to the various scenes of romantic interest which are commemorated in The Bridal of Triermain, and otherwise leading very much the sort of life depicted among the loungers of St. Ronan's Well. Scott was, on his first arrival in Gilsland, not a little engaged with the beauty of one of the young ladies lodged under the same roof with him; and it was on occasion of a visit in her company to some part of the Roman Wall that he indited his lines--

"Take these flowers, which, purple waving,
On the ruined rampart grew," etc.[137]

[Footnote 136: See the Introduction to this novel in the
edition of 1830.]

[Footnote 137: I owe this circumstance to the recollection of
Mr. Claud Russell, accountant in Edinburgh, who was one of
the party. Previously I had always supposed these verses to
have been inspired by Miss Carpenter.]

But this was only a passing glimpse of flirtation. A week or so afterwards commenced a more serious affair.

Riding one day with Ferguson, they met, some miles from Gilsland, a young lady taking the air on horseback, whom neither of them had previously remarked, and whose appearance instantly struck both so much that they kept her in view until they had satisfied themselves that she also was one of the party at Gilsland. The same evening there was a ball, at which Captain Scott produced himself in his regimentals, and Ferguson also thought proper to be equipped in the uniform of the Edinburgh Volunteers. There was no little rivalry among the young travellers as to who should first get presented to the unknown beauty of the morning's ride; but though both the gentlemen in scarlet had the advantage of being dancing partners, their friend succeeded in handing the fair stranger to supper--and such was his first introduction to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter.

Without the features of a regular beauty, she was rich in personal attractions; "a form that was fashioned as light as a fay's;" a complexion of the clearest and lightest olive; {p.247} eyes large, deep-set and dazzling, of the finest Italian brown; and a profusion of silken tresses, black as the raven's wing; her address hovering between the reserve of a pretty young Englishwoman who has not mingled largely in general society, and a certain natural archness and gayety that suited well with the accompaniment of a French accent. A lovelier vision, as all who remember her in the bloom of her days have assured me, could hardly have been imagined; and from that hour the fate of the young poet was fixed.[138]

[Footnote 138: ["You may perhaps have remarked Miss Carpenter
at a Carlisle ball, but more likely not, as her figure is not
very _frappant_. A smart-looking little girl with dark brown
hair would probably be her portrait if drawn by an
indifferent hand. But I, you may believe, should make a piece
of work of my sketch, as little like the original as Hercules
to me."--Scott to P. Murray, December, 1797.--_Familiar
Letters_, vol. i. p. 10.]]

She was the daughter of Jean Charpentier, of Lyons, a devoted royalist, who held an office under Government,[139] and Charlotte Volere, his wife. She and her only brother, Charles Charpentier, had been educated in the Protestant religion of their mother; and when their father died, which occurred in the beginning of the Revolution, Madame Charpentier made her escape with her children, first to Paris, and then to England, where they found a warm friend and protector in the late Marquis of Downshire, who had, in the course of his travels in France, formed an intimate acquaintance with the family, and, indeed, spent some time under their roof. M. Charpentier had, in his first alarm as to the coming Revolution, invested £4000 in English securities--part in a mortgage upon Lord Downshire's estates. On the mother's death, which occurred soon after her arrival in London, this nobleman took on himself the character of sole guardian to her children; and Charles Charpentier received in due time, through his interest, an appointment in {p.248} the service of the East India Company, in which he had by this time risen to the lucrative situation of Commercial Resident at Salem. His sister was now making a little excursion, under the care of the lady who had superintended her education, Miss Jane Nicolson, a daughter of Dr. Nicolson, Dean of Exeter, and granddaughter of William Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle, well known as the editor of The English Historical Library. To some connections which the learned prelate's family had ever since his time kept up in the diocese of Carlisle, Miss Carpenter owed the direction of her summer tour.

[Footnote 139: In several deeds which I have seen, M.
Charpentier is designed "Écuyer du Roi;" one of those
purchasable ranks peculiar to the latter stages of the old
French Monarchy. What the post he held was, I never heard.]

Scott's father was now in a very feeble state of health, which accounts for his first announcement of this affair being made in a letter to his mother; it is undated;--but by this time the young lady had left Gilsland for Carlisle, where she remained until her destiny was settled,

TO MRS. SCOTT, GEORGE'S SQUARE, EDINBURGH.

MY DEAR MOTHER,--I should very ill deserve the care and affection
with which you have ever regarded me, were I to neglect my duty
so far as to omit consulting my father and you in the most
important step which I can possibly take in life, and upon the
success of which my future happiness must depend. It is with
pleasure I think that I can avail myself of your advice and
instructions in an affair of so great importance as that which I
have at present on my hands. You will probably guess from this
preamble that I am engaged in a matrimonial plan, which is really
the case. Though my acquaintance with the young lady has not been
of long standing, this circumstance is in some degree
counterbalanced by the intimacy in which we have lived, and by
the opportunities which that intimacy has afforded me of
remarking her conduct and sentiments on many different occasions,
some of which were rather of a delicate nature, so that in fact I
have seen more of her during the few weeks we have {p.249} been
together than I could have done after a much longer acquaintance,
shackled by the common forms of ordinary life. You will not
expect from me a description of her person--for which I refer you
to my brother, as also for a fuller account of all the
circumstances attending the business than can be comprised in the
compass of a letter. Without flying into raptures, for I must
assure you that my judgment as well as my affections are
consulted upon this occasion--without flying into raptures, then,
I may safely assure you that her temper is sweet and cheerful,
her understanding good, and, what I know will give you pleasure,
her principles of religion very serious. I have been very
explicit with her upon the nature of my expectations, and she
thinks she can accommodate herself to the situation which I
should wish her to hold in society as my wife, which, you will
easily comprehend, I mean should neither be extravagant nor
degrading. Her fortune, though partly dependent upon her brother,
who is high in office at Madras, is very considerable--at present
£500 a year. This, however, we must, in some degree, regard as
precarious--I mean to the full extent; and indeed, when you know
her, you will not be surprised that I regard this circumstance
chiefly because it removes those prudential considerations which
would otherwise render our union impossible for the present.
Betwixt her income and my own professional exertions, I have
little doubt we will be enabled to hold the rank in society which
my family and situation entitle me to fill.

My dear mother, I cannot express to you the anxiety I have that
you will not think me flighty nor inconsiderate in this business.
Believe me, that experience, in one instance--you cannot fail to
know to what I allude--is too recent to permit my being so hasty
in my conclusions as the warmth of my temper might have otherwise
prompted. I am also most anxious that you should be prepared to
show her kindness, which I know the goodness {p.250} of your
own heart will prompt, more especially when I tell you that she
is an orphan, without relations, and almost without friends. Her
guardian is--I should say _was_, for she is of age--Lord
Downshire, to whom I must write for his consent,--a piece of
respect to which he is entitled for his care of her,--and there
the matter rests at present. I think I need not tell you that if
I assume the new character which I threaten, I shall be happy to
find that in that capacity I may make myself more useful to my
brothers, and especially to Anne, than I could in any other. On
the other hand, I shall certainly expect that my friends will
endeavor to show every attention in their power to a woman who
forsakes for me prospects much more splendid than what I can
offer, and who comes into Scotland without a single friend but
myself. I find I could write a great deal more upon this subject,
but as it is late, and as I must write to my father, I shall
restrain myself. I think (but you are best judge) that in the
circumstances in which I stand, you should write to her, Miss
Carpenter, under cover to me at Carlisle.

Write to me very fully upon this important subject--send me your
opinion, your advice, and, above all, your blessing; you will see
the necessity of not delaying a minute in doing so, and in
keeping this business _strictly private_, till you hear farther
from me, since you are not ignorant that even at this advanced
period an objection on the part of Lord Downshire, or many other
accidents, may intervene; in which case, I should little wish my
disappointment to be public.

Believe me, my dear Mother,
Ever your dutiful and affectionate son,
WALTER SCOTT.

Scott remained in Cumberland until the Jedburgh assizes recalled him to his legal duties. On arriving in that town, he immediately sent for his friend Shortreed, whose {p.251} _memorandum_ records that the evening of the 30th September, 1797 was one of the most joyous he ever spent. "Scott," he says, "was _sair_ beside himself about Miss Carpenter;--we toasted her twenty times over--and sat together, he raving about her, until it was one in the morning." He soon returned to Cumberland; and the following letters will throw light on the character and conduct of the parties, and on the nature of the difficulties which were presented by the prudence and prejudices of the young advocate's family connections. It appears, that at one stage of the business, Scott had seriously contemplated leaving the Bar at Edinburgh, and establishing himself with his bride (I know not in what capacity) in one of the colonies.

TO WALTER SCOTT, ESQ., ADVOCATE, EDINBURGH.

CARLISLE, October 4, 1797.

It is only an hour since I received Lord Downshire's letter. You
will say, I hope, that I am indeed very good to write so soon,
but I almost fear that all my goodness can never carry me through
all this plaguy writing. Lord Downshire will be happy to hear
from you. He is the very best man on earth--his letter is kind
and affectionate, and full of advice, much in the style of _your
last_. I am to consult _most carefully my heart_. Do you believe
I did not do it when I gave you my consent? It is true, I don't
like to reflect on that subject. I am afraid. It is very awful to
think it is for life. How can I ever laugh after such tremendous
thoughts? I believe never more. I am hurt to find that your
friends don't think the match a prudent one. If it is not
agreeable to them all, you must then forget me, for I have too
much pride to think of connecting myself in a family were I not
equal to them. Pray, my dear sir, write to Lord D.
immediately--explain yourself to him as you would to me, and he
will, I am sure, do all he can to serve us. If you {p.252}
really love me, you must love him, and write to him as you would
to a friend.

Adieu,--au plaisir de vous revoir bientôt.

C. C.

TO ROBERT SHORTREED, ESQ., SHERIFF-SUBSTITUTE, JEDBURGH.

SELKIRK, 8th October, 1797.

DEAR BOB,--This day a long train of anxieties was put an end to
by a letter from Lord Downshire, couched in the most flattering
terms, giving his consent to my marriage with his ward. I am thus
far on my way to Carlisle--only for a visit--because, betwixt her
reluctance to an immediate marriage and the imminent approach of
the session, I am afraid I shall be thrown back to the Christmas
holidays. I shall be home in about eight days.

Ever yours sincerely,

W. SCOTT.

TO MISS CHRISTIAN RUTHERFORD, ASHESTIEL, BY SELKIRK.