Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

MY DEAR MORRITT,--I have been occupied of late with scenes
of domestic distress, my poor brother, Major John Scott,
having last week closed a life which wasting disease had
long rendered burthensome. His death, under all the
circumstances, cannot be termed a subject of deep
affliction; and though we were always on fraternal terms of
mutual kindness and good-will, yet our habits of life, our
taste for society and circles of friends, were so totally
different, that there was less frequent intercourse between
us than our connection and real liking to each other might
have occasioned. Yet it is a heavy consideration to have
lost the last but one who was interested in our early
domestic life, our habits of boyhood, and our first friends
and connections. It makes one look about and see how the
scene has changed around him, and how he himself has been
changed with it. My only remaining brother is in Canada, and
seems to have an intention of remaining there; so that my
mother, now upwards of eighty, has now only one child left
to her {p.102} out of thirteen whom she has borne. She is a
most excellent woman, possessed, even at her advanced age,
of all the force of mind and sense of duty which have
carried her through so many domestic griefs, as the
successive deaths of eleven children, some of them come to
men and women's estate, naturally infers. She is the
principal subject of my attention at present, and is, I am
glad to say, perfectly well in body and composed in mind.

Nothing can give me more pleasure than the prospect of
seeing you in September, which will suit our motions
perfectly well. I trust I shall have an opportunity to
introduce you to some of our glens which you have not yet
seen. But I hope we shall have some mild weather before that
time, for we are now in the seventh month of winter, which
almost leads me to suppose that we shall see no summer this
season. As for spring, that is past praying for. In the
month of November last, people were skating in the
neighborhood of Edinburgh; and now, in the middle of May,
the snow is lying white on Arthur's Seat, and on the range
of the Pentlands. It is really fearful, and the sheep are
perishing by scores. _Jam satis terræ nivis_, etc., may well
be taken up as the song of eighteen hundred and sixteen.

So Lord Byron's romance seems to be concluded for one
while--and it is surely time, after he has announced, or
rather they themselves have announced, half-a-dozen
blackguard newspaper editors, to have been his confidants on
the occasion. Surely it is a strange thirst of public fame
that seeks such a road to it. But Lord Byron, with high
genius and many points of a noble and generous feeling, has
Childe Harolded himself, and outlawed himself, into too
great a resemblance with the pictures of his imagination. He
has one excuse, however, and it is a sad one. I have been
reckoned to make a good hit enough at a pirate, or an
outlaw, or a smuggling bandit; but I cannot say I was ever
so much enchanted with my {p.103} work as to think of
carrying off a _drift_ of my neighbor's sheep, or half a
dozen of his milk cows. Only I remember, in the rough times,
having a scheme with the Duke of Buccleuch, that when the
worst came to the worst, we should repair Hermitage Castle,
and live, like Robin Hood and his merry men, at the expense
of all round us. But this presupposed a grand
_bouleversement_ of society. In the mean while, I think my
noble friend is something like my old peacock, who chooses
to bivouac apart from his lady, and sit below my bedroom
window, to keep me awake with his screeching lamentation.
Only I own he is not equal in melody to Lord Byron, for
_Fare-thee-well--and if for ever_, etc., is a very sweet
dirge indeed. After all, _C'est génie mal logé_, and that's
all that can be said about it.

I am quite reconciled to your opinions on the income-tax,
and am not at all in despair at the prospect of keeping £200
a year in my pocket, since the ministers can fadge without
it. But their throwing the helve after the hatchet, and
giving up the malt-duty because they had lost the other, was
droll enough. After all, our fat friend[35] must learn to
live within compass, and fire off no more crackers in the
Park, for John Bull is getting dreadfully sore on all sides
when money is concerned.

[Footnote 35: Shortly after Beau Brummell (immortalized
in _Don Juan_) fell into disgrace with the Prince
Regent, and was dismissed from the society of Carlton
House, he was riding with another gentleman in the Park,
when the Prince met them. His Royal Highness stopt to
speak to Brummell's companion--the Beau continued to jog
on--and when the other dandy rejoined him, asked with an
air of sovereign indifference, "Who is your fat friend?"
Such, at least, was the story that went the round of the
newspapers at the time, and highly tickled Scott's
fancy. I have heard that nobody enjoyed so much as the
Prince of Wales himself an earlier specimen of the
Beau's assurance. Taking offence at some part of His
Royal Highness's conduct or demeanor, "Upon my word,"
observed Mr. Brummell, "if this kind of thing goes on, I
shall be obliged to cut Wales, and bring the old King
into fashion."]

I sent you, some time since, The Antiquary. It is not so
interesting as its predecessors--the period did not {p.104}
admit of so much romantic situation. But it has been more
fortunate than any of them in the sale, for 6000 went off in
the first six days, and it is now at press again; which is
very flattering to the unknown author. Another incognito
proposes immediately to resume the second volume of
Triermain, which is at present in the state of the Bear and
Fiddle.[36] Adieu, dear Morritt.

Ever yours,

Walter SCOTT.

[Footnote 36: See _Hudibras_.]

Speaking of his third novel in a letter of the same date to Terry, Scott says: "It wants the romance of Waverley and the adventure of Guy Mannering; and yet there is some salvation about it, for if a man will paint from nature, he will be likely to amuse those who are daily looking at it."

After a little pause of hesitation, The Antiquary attained popularity not inferior to Guy Mannering; and though the author appears for a moment to have shared the doubts which he read in the countenance of James Ballantyne, it certainly was, in the sequel, his chief favorite among all his novels. Nor is it difficult to account for this preference, without laying any stress on the fact, that, during a few short weeks, it was pretty commonly talked of as a falling off from its immediate predecessors--and that some minor critics reëchoed this stupid whisper in print. In that view, there were many of its successors that had much stronger claims on the parental instinct of protection. But the truth is, that although Scott's Introduction of 1830 represents him as pleased with fancying that, in the principal personage, he had embalmed a worthy friend of his boyish days, his own antiquarian propensities, originating perhaps in the kind attentions of George Constable of Wallace-Craigie, and fostered not a little, at about as ductile a period, by those of old Clerk of Eldin, and John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, had by degrees so developed themselves, that he {p.105} could hardly, even when The Antiquary was published, have scrupled about recognizing a quaint caricature of the founder of Abbotsford Museum, in the inimitable portraiture of the Laird of Monkbarns. The Descriptive Catalogue of that collection, which he began towards the close of his life, but, alas, never finished, is entitled "Reliquiæ Trottcosianæ--or the Gabions of the late Jonathan Oldbuck, Esq."

But laying this, which might have been little more than a good-humored pleasantry, out of the question, there is assuredly no one of all his works on which more of his own early associations have left their image. Of those early associations, as his full-grown tastes were all the progeny, so his genius, in all its happiest efforts, was the "Recording Angel;" and when George Constable first expounded his "Gabions" to the child that was to immortalize his name, they were either wandering hand in hand over the field where the grass still grew rank upon the grave of _Balmawhapple_, or sauntering on the beach where the _Mucklebackets_ of Prestonpans dried their nets, singing,--

"Weel may the boatie row, and better may she speed,
O weel may the boatie row that wins the bairns' bread"--

or telling wild stories about cliff-escapes and the funerals of shipwrecked fishermen.

Considered by itself, without reference to these sources of personal interest, this novel seems to me to possess, almost throughout, in common with its two predecessors, a kind of simple unsought charm, which the subsequent works of the series hardly reached, save in occasional snatches: like them it is, in all its humbler and softer scenes, the transcript of actual Scottish life, as observed by the man himself. And I think it must also be allowed that he has nowhere displayed his highest art, that of skilful contrast, in greater perfection. Even the tragic romance of Waverley does not set off its Macwheebles and Callum Begs better than the oddities of {p.106} Jonathan Oldbuck and his circle are relieved, on the one hand, by the stately gloom of the Glenallans, on the other, by the stern affliction of the poor fisherman, who, when discovered repairing the "auld black bitch o' a boat" in which his boy had been lost, and congratulated by his visitor on being capable of the exertion, makes answer,--"And what would you have me to do, unless I wanted to see four children starve, because one is drowned? _It's weel wi' you gentles, that can sit in the house wi' handkerchers at your een, when ye lose a friend; but the like o' us maun to our wark again, if our hearts were beating as hard as my hammer._"

It may be worth noting, that it was in correcting the proof sheets of this novel that Scott first took to equipping his chapters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On one occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him, to hunt for a particular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did as he was bid, but did not succeed in discovering the lines. "Hang it, Johnnie," cried Scott, "I believe I can make a motto sooner than you will find one." He did so accordingly; and from that hour, whenever memory failed to suggest an appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the inexhaustible mines of "_old play_" or "_old ballad_," to which we owe some of the most exquisite verses that ever flowed from his pen.

Unlike, I believe, most men, whenever Scott neared the end of one composition, his spirits seem to have caught a new spring of buoyancy, and before the last sheet was sent from his desk, he had crowded his brain with the imagination of another fiction. The Antiquary was published, as we have seen, in May, but by the beginning of April he had already opened to the Ballantynes the plan of the first Tales of my Landlord; and--to say nothing of Harold the Dauntless, which he began shortly after The Bridal of Triermain was finished, and which he seems to have kept before him for two years {p.107} as a congenial plaything, to be taken up whenever the coach brought no proof sheets to jog him as to serious matters--he had also, before this time, undertaken to write the historical department of the Register for 1814. Mr. Southey had, for reasons upon which I do not enter, discontinued his services to that work: and it was now doubly necessary, after trying for one year a less eminent hand, that if the work were not to be dropped altogether, some strenuous exertion should be made to sustain its character. Scott had not yet collected the materials requisite for his historical sketch of a year distinguished for the importance and complexity of its events; but these, he doubted not, would soon reach him, and he felt no hesitation about pledging himself to complete, not only that sketch, but four new volumes of prose romances--and his Harold the Dauntless also, if Ballantyne could make any suitable arrangement on that score--between the April and the Christmas of 1816.

The Antiquary had been published by Constable, but I presume that, in addition to the usual stipulations, he had been again, on that occasion, solicited to relieve John Ballantyne and Co.'s stock to an extent which he did not find quite convenient; and at all events he had of late shown a considerable reluctance to employ James Ballantyne and Co. as printers. One or other of these impediments is alluded to in a note of Scott's, which, though undated, has been pasted into John Ballantyne's private letter-book among the documents of the period in question. It is in these words:--

DEAR JOHN,--I have seen the great swab, who is supple as a
glove, and will do ALL, which some interpret NOTHING.
However, we shall do well enough.

W. S.

Constable had been admitted, almost from the beginning, into the _secret_ of the Novels--and for that, among {p.108} other reasons, it would have been desirable for the Novelist to have him continue the publisher without interruption; but Scott was led to suspect, that if he were called upon to conclude a bargain for a fourth novel before the third had made its appearance, his scruples as to the matter of _printing_ might at least protract the treaty; and why Scott should have been urgently desirous of seeing the transaction settled before the expiration of the half-yearly term of Whitsunday is sufficiently explained by the fact, that though so much of the old unfortunate stock of John Ballantyne and Co. still remained on hand--and with it some occasional recurrence of commercial difficulty as to floating bills was to be expected--while James Ballantyne's management of the pecuniary affairs of the printing-house had continued to be highly negligent and irregular[37]--nevertheless, the sanguine author had gone on purchasing one patch of land after another, until his estate at Abbotsford had already grown from 150 to nearly 1000 acres. The property all about his original farm had been in the hands of various small holders (Scotticè _cock-lairds_;) these persons were sharp enough to understand, erelong, that their neighbor could with difficulty resist any temptation that might present itself in the shape of an offer of more acres; and thus he proceeded buying up lot after lot of unimproved ground, at extravagant prices,--his "appetite increasing by what it fed on," while the ejected yeomen set themselves down elsewhere, to fatten at their leisure upon the profits--most commonly the anticipated profits--of "The Scotch Novels."

[Footnote 37: In February, 1816, when James Ballantyne
married, it is clearly proved by letters in his
handwriting, that he owed to Scott more than £3000 of
personal debt.--(1839.)]

He was ever and anon pulled up with a momentary misgiving,--and resolved that the latest acquisition should be the last, until he could get rid entirely of "John Ballantyne and Co." But John Ballantyne was, {p.109} from the utter lightness of his mind, his incapacity to look a day before him, and his eager impatience to enjoy the passing hour, the very last man in the world who could, under such circumstances, have been a serviceable agent. Moreover, John, too, had his professional ambition: he was naturally proud of his connection, however secondary, with the publication of these works--and this connection, though subordinate, was still very profitable; he must have suspected, that should his name disappear altogether from the list of booksellers, it would be a very difficult matter for him to retain any concern in them; and I cannot, on the whole, but consider it as certain that, the first and more serious embarrassments being overcome, he was far from continuing to hold by his patron's anxiety for the total abolition of their unhappy copartnership. He, at all events, unless when some sudden emergency arose, flattered Scott's own gay imagination, by uniformly representing everything in the most smiling colors; and though Scott, in his replies, seldom failed to introduce some passing hint of caution--such as "_Nullum numen abest si sit prudentia_"--he more and more took home to himself the agreeable cast of his _Rigdum's_ anticipations, and wrote to him in a vein as merry as his own;--_e. g._--"As for our stock,

"'T will be wearing awa', John,
Like snaw-wreaths when it's thaw, John," etc., etc., etc.

I am very sorry, in a word, to confess my conviction that John Ballantyne, however volatile and light-headed, acted at this period with cunning selfishness, both by Scott and by Constable. He well knew that it was to Constable alone that his firm had more than once owed its escape from utter ruin and dishonor; and he must also have known, that had a fair straightforward effort been made for that purpose, after the triumphant career of the Waverley series had once commenced, nothing could have been more easy than to bring all the affairs of his "back-stock," etc., to a complete close, by entering {p.110} into a distinct and candid treaty on that subject, in connection with the future works of the great Novelist, either with Constable or with any other first-rate house in the trade. But John, foreseeing that, were that unhappy concern quite out of the field, he must himself subside into a mere clerk of the printing company, seems to have parried the blow by the only arts of any consequence in which he ever was an adept. He appears to have systematically disguised from Scott the extent to which the whole Ballantyne concern had been sustained by Constable--especially during his Hebridean tour of 1814, and his Continental one of 1815--and prompted and enforced the idea of trying other booksellers from time to time, instead of adhering to Constable, merely for the selfish purposes,--first, of facilitating the immediate discount of bills;--secondly, of further perplexing Scott's affairs, the entire disentanglement of which would have been, as he fancied, prejudicial to his own personal importance.

It was resolved, accordingly, to offer the risk and half profits of the first edition of another new novel--or rather collection of novels--not to Messrs. Constable, but to Mr. Murray of Albemarle Street, and Mr. Blackwood, who was then Murray's agent in Scotland; but it was at the same time resolved, partly because Scott wished to try another experiment on the public sagacity, but partly also, no question, from the wish to spare Constable's feelings, that the title-page of the Tales of my Landlord should not bear the magical words "By the Author of Waverley." The facility with which both Murray and Blackwood embraced such a proposal, as no untried novelist, being sane, could have dreamt of hazarding, shows that neither of them had any doubt as to the identity of the author. They both considered the withholding of the avowal on the forthcoming title-page as likely to check very much the first success of the book; but they were both eager to prevent Constable's acquiring {p.111} a sort of prescriptive right to publish for the unrivalled novelist, and willing to disturb his tenure at this additional, and, as they thought it, wholly unnecessary risk.

How sharply the unseen parent watched this first negotiation of his _Jedediah Cleishbotham_ will appear from one of his letters:--

TO MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE, HANOVER STREET, EDINBURGH.

ABBOTSFORD, April 29, 1816.

DEAR JOHN,--James has made one or two important mistakes in
the bargain with Murray and Blackwood. Briefly as follows:--

1stly, Having only authority from me to promise 6000 copies,
he proposes they shall have the copyright _forever_. I will
see their noses cheese first.

2dly, He proposes I shall have twelve months' bills--I have
always got six. However, I would not stand on that.

3dly, He talks of volumes being put into the publisher's
hands to consider and decide on. No such thing; a bare
perusal at St. John Street[38] only.

[Footnote 38: James Ballantyne's dwelling-house was then
in this street, adjoining the Canongate of Edinburgh.]

Then for omissions--It is NOT stipulated that we supply the
paper and print of successive editions. This must be nailed,
and not left to understanding.--Secondly, I will have London
bills as well as Blackwood's.

If they agree to these conditions, good and well. If they
demur, Constable must be instantly tried; giving half to the
Longmans, and _we_ drawing on _them_ for that moiety, or
Constable lodging their bill in our hands. You will
understand it is a four-volume touch--a work totally
different in style and structure from the others; a new
cast, in short, of the net which has hitherto made
miraculous draughts. I do not limit you to terms, because I
think you will make them better than I can do. {p.112} But
he must do more than others, since he will not or cannot
print with us. For every point but that, I would rather deal
with Constable than any one; he has always shown himself
spirited, judicious, and liberal. Blackwood must be brought
to the point _instantly_; and _whenever_ he demurs,
Constable must be treated with; for there is no use in
suffering the thing to be blown on. At the same time, you
need not conceal from him that there were some proposals
elsewhere, but you may add, with truth, I would rather close
with him. Yours truly,

W. S.

P. S.--I think Constable should jump at this affair; for I
believe the work will be very popular.

Messrs. Murray and Blackwood agreed to all the author's conditions here expressed. They also relieved John Ballantyne and Co. of stock to the value of £500; and at least Mr. Murray must, moreover, have subsequently consented to anticipate the period of his payments. At all events, I find, in a letter of Scott's, dated in the subsequent August, this new echo of the old advice:--

TO MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE.

DEAR JOHN,--I have the pleasure to enclose Murray's
acceptances. I earnestly recommend to you to push, realizing
as much as you can.

"Consider weel, gude man,
We hae but borrowed gear;
The horse that I ride on,
It is John Murray's mear."

Yours truly,

W. SCOTT.

I know not how much of the tale of The Black Dwarf had been seen by Blackwood, in St. John Street, before he concluded this bargain for himself and his friend Murray; but when the closing sheets of that novel {p.113} reached him, he considered them as by no means sustaining the delightful promise of the opening ones. He was a man of strong talents, and, though without anything that could be called learning, of very respectable information--greatly superior to what has, in this age, been common in his profession; acute, earnest, eminently zealous in whatever he put his hand to; upright, honest, sincere, and courageous. But as Constable owed his first introduction to the upper world of literature and of society in general to his Edinburgh Review, so did Blackwood his to the Magazine, which has now made his name familiar to the world--and at the period of which I write, that miscellany was unborn; he was known only as a diligent antiquarian bookseller of the old town of Edinburgh, and the Scotch agent of the great London publisher, Murray. The abilities, in short, which he lived to develop, were as yet unsuspected--unless, perhaps, among a small circle; and the knowledge of the world, which so few men gather from anything but painful collision with various conflicting orders of their fellow-men, was not his. He was to the last plain and blunt; at this time I can easily believe him to have been so to a degree which Scott might look upon as "ungracious"--I take the epithet from one of his letters to James Ballantyne. Mr. Blackwood, therefore, upon reading what seemed to him the lame and impotent conclusion of a well-begun story, did not search about for any glossy periphrase, but at once requested James Ballantyne to inform the unknown author that such was his opinion. This might possibly have been endured; but Blackwood, feeling, I have no doubt, a genuine enthusiasm for the author's fame, as well as a just tradesman's anxiety as to his own adventure, proceeded to suggest the outline of what would, in his judgment, be a better upwinding of the plot of The Black Dwarf, and concluded with announcing his willingness, in case the proposed alteration were agreed to, that the whole expense of cancelling {p.114} and reprinting a certain number of sheets should be charged to his own account. He appears to have further indicated that he had taken counsel with some literary person, on whose taste he placed great reliance, and who, if he had not originated, at least approved of the proposed process of recasting. Had Scott never possessed any such system of inter-agency as the Ballantynes supplied, he would, among other and perhaps greater inconveniences, have escaped that of the want of personal familiarity with several persons, with whose confidence,--and why should I not add?--with the innocent gratification of whose little vanities--his own pecuniary interests were often deeply connected. A very little personal contact would have introduced such a character as Blackwood's to the respect, nay, to the affectionate respect, of Scott, who, above all others, was ready to sympathize cordially with honest and able men, in whatever condition of life he discovered them. He did both know and appreciate Blackwood better in after-times; but in 1816, when this communication reached him, the name was little more than a name, and his answer to the most solemn of go-betweens was in these terms, which I sincerely wish I could tell how Signior Aldiborontiphoscophornio translated into any dialect submissible to Blackwood's apprehension:--

DEAR JAMES,--

I have received Blackwood's impudent proposal. G---- d----
his soul! Tell him and his coadjutor that I belong to the
Black Hussars of Literature, who neither give nor receive
criticism. I'll be cursed but this is the most impudent
proposal that ever was made.

W. S.[39]

[Footnote 39: _May_, 1839. Since this book was first
published, I have received from the representatives of
Mr. Blackwood several documents which throw light on the
transaction here mentioned. It will be apparent from one
of those I am about to quote, that Blackwood, before he
sent his message to Jedediah Cleishbotham, had
ascertained that no less a person than Mr. Gifford
concurred in his opinion--nay, that James Ballantyne
himself took the same view of the matter. But the reader
will be not less amused in comparing the "Black
Hussar's" missive in the text, with the edition of it
which actually reached Blackwood--and which certainly
justifies the conjecture I had ventured to express.

TO WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, ESQ.

EDINBURGH, 4th October, 1816.

MY DEAR SIR,--Our application to the author of _Tales of my
Landlord_ has been anything but successful; and in order to
explain to you the reason why I must decline to address him
in this way in future, I shall copy his answer _verbatim_:--

"My respects to our friends the Booksellers. I belong to the
Death-head Hussars of Literature, who neither _take_ nor
_give_ criticism. I am extremely sorry they showed my work
to Gifford, nor would I cancel a leaf to please all the
critics of Edinburgh and London; and so let that be as it
is: They are mistaken if they think I don't know when I am
writing ill, as well as Gifford can tell me. I beg there may
be no more communications with critics."

Observe--that I shall at all times be ready to convey
anything from you to the author in a written form, but I do
not feel warranted to interfere farther.

Yours very truly,

J. BALLANTYNE.

TO JAMES BALLANTYNE, ESQ.

EDINBURGH, 5th October, 1816.

MY DEAR SIR,--I am not a little vexed at having ventured to
suggest anything to the author of the _Tales of my
Landlord_, since I find he considers it in the light of
_sutor ultra crepidam_. I never had for one moment the
vanity to think, that from any poor remark of mine, or
indeed of any human being, he would be induced to blot one
line or alter a single incident, unless the same idea
occurred to his own powerful mind. On stating to you what
struck me, and finding that your opinion coincided with
mine, I was induced to request of you to state it to the
author, in order that he might be aware that the expense of
cancelling the sheets was no object to me. I was the more
anxious to do this, in case the author should have given you
the MS. of this portion of the work sooner than he intended,
in order to satisfy the clamoring for it which I teased you
with. I trust the author will do me the justice to believe
that it is quite impossible for any one to have a higher
admiration of his most extraordinary talents; and speaking
merely as a bookseller, it would be quite unnecessary to be
at the expense of altering even one line, although the
author himself (who alone can be the proper judge) should
wish it, as the success of the work must be rapid, great,
and certain.

With regard to the first volume having been shown to Mr.
Gifford, I must state in justification of Mr. Murray, that
Mr. G. is the only friend whom he consults on all occasions,
and to whom his most secret transactions are laid open. He
gave him the work, not for the purpose of criticism, but
that as a friend he might partake of the enjoyment he had in
such an extraordinary performance. No language could be
stronger than Mr. Gifford's, as I mentioned to you; and as
the same thing had occurred to Mr. G. as to you and me, you
thought there would be no harm in stating this to the
author.

I have only again to express my regret at what has taken
place, and to beg you will communicate this to the author in
any way you may think proper.

Yours, etc.,

W. BLACKWOOD.

(A much fuller and more accurate knowledge of this whole
transaction, than that possessed by Lockhart, can be
gathered from the annals of the two great publishing
houses concerned in it;--Smiles's _Memoir of John
Murray_ (vol. i. chap. xviii.), and Mrs. Oliphant's
_William Blackwood and his Sons_ (vol. i. pp. 56-92),
especially from the latter work, in which the whole
incident is set in its proper light. Notwithstanding the
heavy preliminary tax for unsalable books from the
Ballantynes' "wretched stock," neither publisher seems
to have had a moment's doubt as to the acceptance of the
offer of the ostensibly anonymous Work of Fiction,
though they were much fretted by the delays,
uncertainties, and mysteries attending the matter. "One
in business must submit to many things, and swallow many
a bitter pill, when such a man as Walter Scott is the
object in view," writes Blackwood to Murray,--the
bitterness being largely the dealing with James
Ballantyne. "John I always considered as no better than
a swindler, but James I put some trust and confidence
in. You judged him more accurately." ... And on another
occasion,--"Except my wife, there is not a friend whom I
dare advise with. I have not ventured to mention the
business to my brother on account of the cursed
mysteries and injunctions of secrecy connected with it.
I know he would blame me for engaging in it, for he has
a very small opinion of the Ballantynes." Apart from the
vexations attending their office as intermediaries, for
which the Ballantynes were only partially responsible,
this shrewd, if irritated, observer appears to have
formed opinions of the brothers as business men, in some
respects not differing greatly from those held by
Lockhart in later days.

The delight of the two publishers in at last receiving
the MS. of _The Black Dwarf_ and the manner in which it
passed into the hands of Constable, even before the
stipulated 6000 copies were disposed of,--it must be
owned he treated his rivals somewhat unhandsomely,
finally severing them from Scott's literary career,--are
fully set forth by the historian of the House of
Blackwood. With her "one cannot but feel that this was
one of those tragically insignificant circumstances
which so often shape life apart from any consciousness
of ours. Probably ruin would never have overtaken Sir
Walter had he been in the steady and careful hands of
Murray and Blackwood, for it is unlikely that even the
glamour of the great Magician would have turned heads so
reasonable and sober.")]

{p.115} While these volumes were in progress, Scott found time to make an excursion into Perthshire and Dumbartonshire, {p.116} for the sake of showing the scenery, made famous in The Lady of the Lake and Waverley, to his {p.117} wife's old friends, Miss Dumergue and Mrs. Sarah Nicolson,[40] who had never before been in Scotland. The account which he gives of these ladies' visit at Abbotsford, and this little tour, in a letter to Mr. Morritt, shows the "Black Hussar of Literature" in his gentler and more habitual mood.

[Footnote 40: The sister of Miss Jane Nicolson.--See
_ante_, vol. i. p. 248. Vol. ii. p. 82.]

TO J. B. S. MORRITT, ESQ., M. P., ROKEBY PARK.

ABBOTSFORD, 21st August, 1816.

MY DEAR MORRITT,--I have not had a moment's kindly leisure
to answer your kind letter, and to tell how delighted I
shall be to see you in this least of all possible dwellings,
but where we, nevertheless, can contrive a pilgrim's
quarters and the warmest welcome for you and any friend of
your journey;--if young Stanley, so much the better. Now, as
to the important business with the which I have been
occupied: You are to know we have had our kind hostesses of
Piccadilly upon a two months' visit to us. We owed them so
much hospitality, that we were particularly anxious to make
Scotland agreeable to the good girls. But, alas, the wind
has blown, and the rain has fallen, in a style which beats
all that ever I remembered. We accomplished, with some
difficulty, a visit to Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, and, by
dint of the hospitality of Cambusmore and the Ross, we
defied bad weather, wet roads, and long walks. But the
weather settled into regular tempest, when we settled at
Abbotsford; and, though the natives, accustomed to bad
weather (though not at such a time of year), contrived to
brave the extremities of the season, it only served to
increase the dismay of our unlucky visitors, who, accustomed
only to Paris and London, expected _fiacres_ at the
Milestane Cross, and a pair of oars at the Deadman's Haugh.
Add to this a strong disposition to _commérage_, when there
was no possibility of gratifying it, and a {p.118} total
indisposition to scenery or rural amusements, which were all
we had to offer--and you will pity both hosts and guests. I
have the gratification to think I fully supported the
hospitality of my country. I walked them to death, I talked
them to death, I showed them landscapes which the driving
rain hardly permitted them to see, and told them of feuds
about which they cared as little as I do about their
next-door news in Piccadilly. Yea, I even played at cards,
and as I had Charlotte for a partner, so ran no risk of
being scolded, I got on pretty well. Still the weather was
so execrable, that, as the old drunken landlord used to say
at Arroquhar, "I was perfectly ashamed of it;" and, to this
moment, I wonder how my two friends fought it out so
patiently as they did. But the young people and the cottages
formed considerable resources. Yesterday they left us,
deeply impressed with the conviction, which I can hardly
blame, that the sun never shone in Scotland,--which that
noble luminary seems disposed to confirm, by making this the
first fair day we have seen this month--so that his beams
will greet them at Longtown, as if he were determined to put
Scotland to utter shame.

In you I expect a guest of a different calibre; and I think
(barring downright rain) I can promise you some sport of one
kind or other. We have a good deal of game about us; and
Walter, to whom I have resigned my gun and license, will be
an excellent attendant. He brought in six brace of moor-fowl
on the 12th, which had (_si fas est diceri_) its own effect
in softening the minds of our guests towards this unhappy
climate. In other respects things look melancholy enough
here. Corn is, however, rising, and the poor have plenty of
work, and wages which, though greatly inferior to what they
had when hands were scarce, assort perfectly well with the
present state of the markets. Most folks try to live as much
on their own produce as they can, by way of fighting off
distress; and though speculating {p.119} farmers and
landlords must suffer, I think the temporary ague-fit will,
on the whole, be advantageous to the country. It will check
that inordinate and unbecoming spirit of expense, or rather
extravagance, which was poisoning all classes, and bring us
back to the sober virtues of our ancestors. It will also
have the effect of teaching the landed interest, that their
connection with their farmers should be of a nature more
intimate than that of mere payment and receipt of rent, and
that the largest offerer for a lease is often the person
least entitled to be preferred as a tenant. Above all, it
will complete the destruction of those execrable quacks,
terming themselves land-doctors, who professed, from a two
days' scamper over your estate, to tell you its
constitution,--in other words its value,--acre by acre.
These men, paid according to the golden hopes they held out,
afforded by their reports one principal means of deceiving
both landlord and tenant, by setting an ideal and
extravagant value upon land, which seemed to entitle the one
to expect, and the other to offer, rent far beyond what any
expectation formed by either, upon their own acquaintance
with the property, could rationally have warranted. More
than one landed gentleman has cursed, in my presence, the
day he ever consulted one of those empirics, whose
prognostications induced him to reject the offers of
substantial men, practically acquainted with the _locale_.

Ever, my dear Morritt, most truly yours,

Walter SCOTT.

In October, 1816, appeared the Edinburgh Annual Register, containing Scott's historical sketch of the year 1814--a composition which would occupy at least four such volumes as the reader has now in his hand.[41] Though executed with extraordinary rapidity, the sketch is as clear as spirited; but I need say no more of it here, as the author travels mostly over the same ground again in his Life of Napoleon.

[Footnote 41: [Referring to the edition of 1839, in ten
volumes.]]

{p.120} Scott's correspondence proves, that during this autumn he had received many English guests besides the good spinsters of Piccadilly and Mr. Morritt. I regret to add, it also proves that he had continued all the while to be annoyed with calls for money from John Ballantyne; yet before the 12th of November called him to Edinburgh, he appears to have nearly finished the first Tales of my Landlord. He had, moreover, concluded a negotiation with Constable and Longman for a series of Letters on the History of Scotland: of which, however, if he ever wrote any part, the MS. has not been discovered. It is probable that he may have worked some detached fragments into his long-subsequent Tales of a Grandfather.[42] The following letter shows likewise that he was now busy with plans of building at Abbotsford, and deep in consultation on that subject with an artist eminent for his skill in Gothic architecture,--Mr. Edward Blore:--

[Footnote 42: [Scott says in a letter to John Murray,
written October 20, 1814: "In casting about how I might
show you some mark of my sense of former kindness, a
certain MS. History of Scotland in _Letters to my
Children_ has occurred to me, which I consider as a
desideratum; it is upon the plan of _Lord Lyttelton's
Letters_, as they are called." Nearly a year later he
returns to the subject, and says: "I intend to revise my
letters on Scottish History for you, but I will not get
to press till November, for the country affords no
facilities for consulting the necessary authorities. I
hope it may turn out a thing of some interest, though I
rather intend to keep to its original purpose as a book
of instruction to children." These references seem to
show that the work may have been further advanced than
Lockhart supposed. The announcement of the proposed book
by Constable and Longman naturally excited the
indignation of Blackwood and Murray, as is shown in a
vigorous letter from the Edinburgh to the London
publisher, blaming equally the Ballantynes and
Constable.--See _Memoirs of John Murray_, vol. i. pp.
245, 246, 462.]]

TO DANIEL TERRY, ESQ.

November 12, 1816.

MY DEAR TERRY,--I have been shockingly negligent in
acknowledging your repeated favors; but it so happened, that
I have had very little to _say_, with a great {p.121} deal
to _do_; so that I trusted to your kindness to forgive my
apparent want of kindness, and indisputable lack of
punctuality. You will readily suppose that I have heard with
great satisfaction of the prosperity of your household,
particularly of the good health of my little namesake and
his mother. Godmothers of yore used to be fairies; and
though only a godfather, I think of sending you, one day, a
_fairy_ gift--a little drama, namely, which, if the audience
be indulgent, may be of use to him. Of course, you will
stand godfather to it yourself: it is yet only in embryo--a
sort of poetical Hans in Kelder--nor am I sure when I can
bring him forth; not for this season, at any rate. You will
receive, in the course of a few days, my late _whereabouts_
in four volumes: there are two tales--the last of which I
really prefer to any fictitious narrative I have yet been
able to produce--the first is wish-washy enough. The subject
of the second tale lies among the old Scottish
Cameronians--nay, I'll tickle ye off a Covenanter as readily
as old Jack could do a young Prince; and a rare fellow he
is, when brought forth in his true colors. Were it not for
the necessity of using Scriptural language, which is
essential to the character, but improper for the stage, it
would be very dramatic. But of all this you will judge by
and by. To give the go-by to the public, I have doubled and
leaped into my form, like a hare in snow: that is, I have
changed my publisher, and come forth like a maiden knight's
white shield (there is a conceit!) without any adhesion to
fame gained in former adventures (another!) or, in other
words, with a virgin title-page (another!)--I should not be
so light-hearted about all this, but that it is very nearly
finished and out, which is always a blithe moment for Mr.
Author. And now to other matters. The books came safe, and
were unpacked two days since, on our coming to town--most
ingeniously were they stowed in the legs of the very
handsome stand for Lord Byron's vase, with which our
{p.122} friend George Bullock has equipped me. I was made
very happy to receive him at Abbotsford, though only for a
start; and no less so to see Mr. Blore, from whom I received
your last letter. He is a very fine young man, modest,
simple, and unaffected in his manners, as well as a most
capital artist. I have had the assistance of both these
gentlemen in arranging an addition to the cottage at
Abbotsford, intended to connect the present farmhouse with
the line of low buildings to the right of it. Mr. Bullock
will show you the plan, which I think is very ingenious. He
has promised to give it his consideration with respect to
the interior; and Mr. Blore has drawn me a very handsome
elevation, both to the road and to the river. I expect to
get some decorations from the old Tolbooth of Edinburgh,
particularly the cope-stones of the doorway, or lintels, as
we call them, and a _niche_ or two--one very handsome
indeed! Better get a niche _from_ the Tolbooth than a niche
_in_ it, to which such building operations are apt to bring
the projectors. This addition will give me: first, a
handsome boudoir, in which I intend to place Mr. Bullock's
Shakespeare,[43] with his superb cabinet, which serves as a
pedestal. This opens into the little drawing-room, to which
it serves as a chapel of ease; and on the other side, to a
handsome dining-parlor of 27 feet by 18, with three windows
to the north, and one to the south,--the last to be Gothic,
and filled with stained glass. Besides these commodities,
there is a small conservatory or greenhouse; and a study for
myself, which we design to fit up with ornaments from
Melrose Abbey. Bullock made several casts with his own
hands--masks, and so forth, delightful for cornices, etc.

[Footnote 43: A cast from the monumental effigy at
Stratford-upon-Avon--now in the library at
Abbotsford--was the gift of Mr. George Bullock, long
distinguished in London as a collector of curiosities.
This ingenious man was, as the reader will see in the
sequel, a great favorite with Scott.]

Do not let Mrs. Terry think of the windows till little
{p.123} Wat is duly cared after.[44] I am informed by Mr.
Blore that he is a fine thriving fellow, very like papa.
About my armorial bearings: I will send you a correct
drawing as I can get hold of Blore; namely--of the
scutcheons of my grandsires on each side, and my own. I
could detail them in the jargon of heraldry, but it is
better to speak to your eyes by translating them into
colored drawings, as the sublime science of armory has
fallen into some neglect of late years, with all its
mascles, buckles, crescents, and boars of the first, second,
third, and fourth.

[Footnote 44: Mrs. Terry had offered the services of her
elegant pencil in designing some windows of painted
glass for Scott's armory, etc.]

I was very sorry I had no opportunity of showing attention
to your friend Mr. Abbot, not being in town at the time. I
grieve to say that neither the genius of Kean nor the charms
of Miss O'Neill could bring me from the hillside and the
sweet society of Tom Purdie. All our family are very
well--Walter as tall nearly as I am, fishing salmon and
shooting moor-fowl and blackcock, in good style; the girls
growing up, and, as yet, not losing their simplicity of
character; little Charles excellent at play, and not
deficient at learning, when the young dog will take pains.
Abbotsford is looking pretty at last, and the planting is
making some show. I have now several hundred acres thereof,
running out as far as beyond the lake. We observe with great
pleasure the steady rise which you make in public opinion,
and expect, one day, to hail you stage-manager. Believe me,
my dear Terry, always very much yours,

W. SCOTT.

P. S.--The Counsellor and both the Ballantynes are well and
hearty.

On the first of December, the first series of the Tales of my Landlord appeared, and notwithstanding the silence of the title-page, and the change of publishers, and {p.124} the attempt which had certainly been made to vary the style both of delineation and of language, all doubts whether they were or were not from the same hand with Waverley had worn themselves out before the lapse of a week.--The enthusiasm of their reception among the highest literary circles of London may be gathered from the following letter:--

TO WALTER SCOTT, ESQ., EDINBURGH.

ALBEMARLE STREET, 14th December, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Although I dare not address you as the author of
certain "Tales" (which, however, must be written either by
Walter Scott or the Devil), yet nothing can restrain me from
thinking it is to your influence with the author that I am
indebted for the essential honor of being one of their
publishers, and I must intrude upon you to offer my most
hearty thanks--not divided, but doubled--alike for my
worldly gain therein, and for the great acquisition of
professional reputation which their publication has already
procured me. I believe I might, under any oath that could be
proposed, swear that I never experienced such unmixed
pleasure as the reading of this exquisite work has afforded
me; and if you could see me, as the author's literary
chamberlain, receiving the unanimous and vehement praises of
every one who has read it, and the curses of those whose
needs my scanty supply could not satisfy, you might judge of
the sincerity with which I now entreat you to assure him of
the most complete success. Lord Holland said, when I asked
his opinion--"Opinion! We did not one of us go to bed last
night--nothing slept but my gout." Frere, Hallam,
Boswell,[45] Lord Glenbervie, William Lamb,[46] all agree
that it surpasses all the other novels. Gifford's estimate
is increased at every reperusal. Heber says there are only
two men in the world--Walter Scott and Lord Byron. Between
you, you have given existence to a third--Ever your faithful
servant,

John MURRAY.

[Footnote 45: The late James Boswell, Esq., of the
Temple--second son of _Bozzy_.]

[Footnote 46: The Honorable William Lamb--now Lord
Melbourne.]

To this cordial effusion Scott returned the following answer. It was necessary, since he had fairly resolved {p.125} against compromising his incognito, that he should be prepared not only to repel the impertinent curiosity of strangers, but to evade the proffered congratulations of overflowing kindness. He contrived, however, to do so, on this and all similar occasions, in a style of equivoque which could never be seriously misunderstood:[47]--

[Footnote 47: [Even such keen observers as Murray and
Blackwood had their intervals of doubt regarding the
authorship of the Novels. In June, 1816, Blackwood
writes: "There have been various rumors with regard to
Greenfield being the author, but I never paid much
attention to it; the thing appeared to me so very
improbable.... But from what I have heard lately, and
from what you state, I now begin to think that
Greenfield may probably be the author." And only a month
after the date of his letter to Scott, here given,
Murray writes to Blackwood:--

"I can assure you, but _in the greatest confidence_,
that I have discovered the author of all these Novels to
be Thomas Scott, Walter Scott's brother. He is now in
Canada. I have no doubt but that Mr. Walter Scott did a
great deal to the first Waverley Novel, because of his
anxiety to save his brother, and his doubt about the
success of the work. This accounts for the many stories
about it. Many persons had previously heard from Mr.
Scott, but you may rely upon the certainty of what I
have told you." By this time Blackwood is firm in the
faith of Scott's authorship; but Bernard Barton writes
to Murray that he has heard that James Hogg is the
author of _Tales of my Landlord_, and that he has had
intimation from himself to that effect; while Lady
Mackintosh is informed on excellent authority that the
writer is Mrs. Thomas Scott. Writing to Blackwood in
February, 1817, Murray avers,--"I will believe, till
within an inch of my life, that the author of _Tales of
my Landlord_ is Thomas Scott."--See Smiles's _Memoir of
John Murray_, vol. i. pp. 461, 473, 474.]]

TO JOHN MURRAY, ESQ., ALBEMARLE STREET, LONDON.

EDINBURGH, 18th December, 1816.