Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

After a short time, a domestic, clad in a rich but very
antique dress, appeared before the old couple, and commanded
them to attend his lord and lady in the great hall. They
went with tottering steps, and to their great terror found
themselves in the midst of a most brilliant and joyous
company; but the fearful part of it was, that most of the
guests resembled the ancestors of John's family, and were
known to him by their resemblance to pictures which
mouldered in the castle, or by traditionary description. At
the head, the founder of the race, dressed like some mighty
baron, or rather some Galwegian prince, sat with his lady.
There was a difference of opinion between these ghostly
personages concerning our honest John. The chief was
inclined to receive him graciously; the lady considered him,
from his mean marriage, as utterly unworthy of their name
and board. The upshot is, that the chief discovers to his
descendant the means of finding a huge treasure concealed in
the castle; the lady assures him that the discovery shall
never avail him.--In the morning no trace can be discovered
of {p.150} the singular personages who had occupied the
hall. But John sought for and discovered the vault where the
spoils of the Southrons were concealed, rolled away the
covering stone, and feasted his eyes on a range of massy
chests of iron, filled doubtless with treasure. As he
deliberated on the best means of bringing them up, and
descending into the vault, he observed it began slowly to
fill with water. Bailing and pumping were resorted to, and
when he had exhausted his own and his wife's strength, they
summoned the assistance of the neighborhood. But the
vengeance of the visionary lady was perfect; the waters of
the lake had forced their way into the vault, and John,
after a year or two spent in draining and so forth, died
broken-hearted, the last Baron of Plenton.

Such is the tale, of which the incidents seem new, and the
interest capable of being rendered striking; the story
admits of the highest degree of decoration, both by poetry,
music, and scenery, and I propose (in behalf of my godson)
to take some pains in dramatizing it. As thus;--you shall
play John, as you can speak a little Scotch; I will make him
what the Baron of Bradwardine would have been in his
circumstances, and he shall be alternately ridiculous from
his family pride and prejudices, contrasted with his
poverty, and respectable from his just and independent tone
of feeling and character. I think Scotland is entitled to
have something on the stage to balance Macklin's two
worthies.[59] You understand the dialect will be only tinged
with the national dialect--not that the baron is to speak
broad Scotch, while all the others talk English. His wife
and he shall have one child, a daughter, suitored unto by
the conceited young parson or schoolmaster of the village,
whose addresses are countenanced by her mother,--and by
Halbert the hunter, a youth of unknown descent. Now this
youth shall be the rightful heir and representative of the
English owners of the treasure, of which they had been
{p.151} robbed by the baron's ancestors, for which unjust
act, their spirits still walked the earth. These, with a
substantial character or two, and the ghostly personages,
shall mingle as they may--and the discovery of the youth's
birth shall break the spell of the treasure-chamber. I will
make the ghosts talk as never ghosts talked in the body or
out of it; and the music may be as unearthly as you can get
it. The rush of the shadows into the castle shall be seen
through the window of the baron's apartment in the flat
scene. The ghosts' banquet, and many other circumstances,
may give great exercise to the scene-painter and dresser. If
you like this plan, you had better suspend any other for the
present. In my opinion it has the infinite merit of being
perfectly new in plot and structure, and I will set about
the sketch as soon as my strength is restored in some
measure by air and exercise. I am sure I can finish it in a
fortnight then. Ever yours truly,

W. SCOTT.

[Footnote 59: Sir Archy Mac-Sarcasm and Sir Pertinax
Mac-Sycophant.]

About the time when this letter was written, a newspaper paragraph having excited the apprehension of two--or I should say three--of his dearest friends, that his life was in actual danger, Scott wrote to them as follows:--

TO J. B. S. MORRITT, ESQ., M. P., PORTLAND PLACE, LONDON.

EDINBURGH, 20th March, 1817.

MY DEAR MORRITT,--I hasten to acquaint you that I am in the
land of life, and thriving, though I have had a slight
shake, and still feel the consequences of medical treatment.
I had been plagued all through this winter with cramps in my
stomach, which I endured as a man of mould might, and
endeavored to combat them by drinking scalding water, and so
forth. As they grew rather unpleasantly frequent, I had
reluctant recourse to Baillie. But before his answer arrived
on the 5th, I had a most violent attack, which broke up a
small party at {p.152} my house, and sent me to bed roaring
like a bull-calf. All sorts of remedies were applied, as in
the case of Gil Blas's pretended colic, but such was the
pain of the real disorder, that it outdevilled the Doctor
hollow. Even heated salt, which was applied in such a state
that it burned my shirt to rags, I hardly felt when clapped
to my stomach. At length the symptoms became inflammatory,
and dangerously so, the seat being the diaphragm. They only
gave way to very profuse bleeding and blistering, which
under higher assistance saved my life. My recovery was slow
and tedious from the state of exhaustion. I could neither
stir for weakness and giddiness, nor read for dazzling in my
eyes, nor listen for a whizzing sound in my ears, nor even
think for lack of the power of arranging my ideas. So I had
a comfortless time of it for about a week. Even yet I by no
means feel, as the copy-book hath it,

"The lion bold, which the lamb doth hold--"

on the contrary, I am as weak as water. They tell me (of
course) I must renounce every creature comfort, as my friend
Jedediah calls it. As for dinner and so forth, I care little
about it--but toast and water, and three glasses of wine,
sound like hard laws to me. However, to parody the
lamentation of Hassan, the camel-driver,

"The lily health outvies the grape's bright ray,
And life is dearer than the usquebæ--"

so I shall be amenable to discipline. But in my own secret
mind I suspect the state of my bowels more than anything
else. I take enough of exercise and enough of rest; but
unluckily they are like a Lapland year, divided as one night
and one day. In the vacation I never sit down; in the
session-time I seldom rise up. But all this must be better
arranged in future; and I trust I shall live to weary out
all your kindness.

I am obliged to break off hastily. I trust I shall be able
to get over the Fell in the end of summer, which {p.153}
will rejoice me much, for the sound of the woods of Rokeby
is lovely in mine ear. Ever yours,

Walter SCOTT.

TO MRS. MACLEAN CLEPHANE, OF TORLOISK, MULL.

EDINBURGH, 23d March, 1817.

MY DEAR Mrs. AND MISS CLEPHANE,--Here comes to let you know
you had nearly seen the last sight of me, unless I had come
to visit you on my red beam like one of Fingal's heroes,
which, Ossianic as you are, I trow you would readily
dispense with. The cause was a cramp in my stomach, which,
after various painful visits, as if it had been sent by
Prospero, and had mistaken me for Caliban, at length chose
to conclude by setting fire to its lodging, like the
Frenchmen as they retreated through Russia, and placed me in
as proper a state of inflammation as if I had had the whole
Spafields committee in my unfortunate stomach. Then bleeding
and blistering was the word; and they bled and blistered
till they left me neither skin nor blood. However, they beat
off the foul fiend, and I am bound to praise the bridge
which carried me over. I am still very totterish, and very
giddy, kept to panada, or rather to porridge, for I spurned
at all foreign slops, and adhered to our ancient oatmeal
manufacture.[60] But I have no apprehension of any return of
the serious part of the malady, and I am now recovering my
strength, though looking somewhat cadaverous upon the
occasion.

[Footnote 60: [On the 17th of March, Scott had written
to Joanna Baillie: "Two _remarkables_ struck me in my
illness: the first was, that my great wolf-dog clamored
wildly and fearfully about my bed when I was very ill,
and would hardly be got out of the room; the other, that
when I was recovering, all acquired and factitious
tastes seemed to leave me, and I could eat nothing but
porridge, and listen to no better reading than a stupid
Scottish diary which would have made a whole man
sick."--_Familiar Letters_, vol. i. p. 421.]]

I much approve of your going to Italy by sea; indeed it is
the only way you ought to think of it. I am only {p.154}
sorry you are going to leave us for a while; but indeed the
isle of Mull might be Florence to me in respect of
separation, and cannot be quite Florence to you, since Lady
Compton is not there. I lately heard her mentioned in a
company where my interest in her was not known, as one of
the very few English ladies now in Italy whom their
acquirements, conduct, and mode of managing time, induce
that part of foreign society, whose approbation is valuable,
to consider with high respect and esteem. This I think is
very likely; for, whatever folks say of foreigners, those of
good education and high rank among them, must have a supreme
contempt for the frivolous, dissatisfied, empty, gad-about
manners of many of our modern belles. And we may say among
ourselves, that there are few upon whom high accomplishments
and information sit more gracefully.

John Kemble is here to take leave, acting over all his great
characters, and with all the spirit of his best years. He
played Coriolanus last night (the first time I have ventured
out) fully as well as I ever saw him; and you know what a
complete model he is of the Roman. He has made a great
reformation in his habits; given up wine, which he used to
swallow by pailfuls,--and renewed his youth like the eagles.
He seems to me always to play best those characters in which
there is a predominating tinge of some overmastering
passion, or acquired habit of acting and speaking, coloring
the whole man. The patrician pride of Coriolanus, the
stoicism of Brutus and Cato, the rapid and hurried vehemence
of Hotspur, mark the class of characters I mean. But he
fails where a ready and pliable yielding to the events and
passions of life makes what may be termed a more natural
personage. Accordingly I think his Macbeth, Lear, and
especially his Richard, inferior in spirit and truth. In
Hamlet, the natural fixed melancholy of the prince places
him within Kemble's range;--yet many delicate and sudden
turns of passion slip through his fingers. He is {p.155} a
lordly vessel, goodly and magnificent when going large
before the wind, but wanting the facility to go "_ready
about_," so that he is sometimes among the breakers before
he can wear ship. Yet we lose in him a most excellent
critic, an accomplished scholar, and one who graced our
forlorn drama with what little it has left of good sense and
gentlemanlike feeling. And so exit he. He made me write some
lines to speak when he withdraws, and he has been here
criticising and correcting till he got them quite to his
mind, which has rather tired me.

Most truly yours while

Walter SCOTT.

On the 29th of March, 1817, John Philip Kemble, after going through the round of his chief parts, to the delight of the Edinburgh audience, took his final leave of them as Macbeth, and in the costume of that character delivered a farewell address, penned for him by Scott.[61] No one who witnessed that scene, and heard the lines as then recited, can ever expect to be again interested to the same extent by anything occurring within the walls {p.156} of a theatre; nor was I ever present at any public dinner in all its circumstances more impressive than was that which occurred a few days afterwards, when Kemble's Scotch friends and admirers assembled around him--Francis Jeffrey being chairman, Walter Scott and John Wilson the croupiers.

[Footnote 61: See _Poetical Works_, vol. xi. p. 348
[Cambridge Ed. p. 436]. Scott's farewell for Kemble
first appeared in _The Sale-Room_ for April 5, 1817; and
in the introductory note James Ballantyne says: "The
character fixed upon, with happy propriety, for Kemble's
closing scene, was Macbeth. He had labored under a
severe cold for a few days before, but on the memorable
night the physical annoyance yielded to the energy of
his mind. 'He was,' he said in the Green-room,
immediately before the curtain rose, 'determined to
leave behind him the most perfect specimen of his art
which he had ever shown;' and his success was complete.
At the moment of the tyrant's death, the curtain fell by
the universal acclamation of the audience. The applauses
were vehement and prolonged; they ceased--were
resumed--rose again--were reiterated--and again were
hushed. In a few minutes the curtain ascended, and Mr.
Kemble came forward, in the dress of Macbeth (the
audience by a consentaneous movement rising to receive
him), to deliver his _farewell_." ... "Mr. Kemble
delivered the lines with exquisite beauty, and with an
effect that was evidenced by the tears and sobs of many
of the audience. His own emotions were very conspicuous.
When his farewell was closed, he lingered long on the
stage, as if unable to retire. The house again stood up,
and cheered him with the waving of hats and long shouts
of applause."]

Shortly before this time, Mr. William Laidlaw had met with misfortunes, which rendered it necessary for him to give up the lease of a farm, on which he had been for some years settled, in Mid-Lothian. He was now anxiously looking about him for some new establishment, and it occurred to Scott that it might be mutually advantageous, as well as agreeable, if his excellent friend would consent to come and occupy a house on his property, and endeavor, under his guidance, to make such literary exertions as might raise his income to an amount adequate for his comfort. The prospect of obtaining such a neighbor was, no doubt, the more welcome to "Abbotsford and Kaeside," from its opening at this period of fluctuating health; and Laidlaw, who had for twenty years loved and revered him, considered the proposal with far greater delight than the most lucrative appointment on any noble domain in the island could have afforded him. Though possessed of a lively and searching sagacity as to things in general, he had always been as to his own worldly interests simple as a child. His tastes and habits were all modest; and when he looked forward to spending the remainder of what had not hitherto been a successful life, under the shadow of the genius that he had worshipped almost from boyhood, his gentle heart was all happiness. He surveyed with glistening eyes the humble cottage in which his friend proposed to lodge him, his wife, and his little ones, and said to himself that he should write no more sad songs on _Forest Flittings_.[62]

[Footnote 62: Mr. Laidlaw has not published many verses;
but his song of _Lucy's Flitting_--a simple and pathetic
picture of a poor Ettrick maiden's feelings in leaving a
service where she had been happy--has long been, and
must ever be, a favorite with all who understand the
delicacies of the Scottish dialect, and the manners of
the district in which the scene is laid.]

{p.157} Scott's notes to him at this time afford a truly charming picture of thoughtful and respectful delicacy on both sides. Mr. Laidlaw, for example, appears to have hinted that he feared his friend, in making the proposal as to the house at Kaeside, might have perhaps in some degree overlooked the feelings of "Laird Moss," who, having sold his land several months before, had as yet continued to occupy his old homestead. Scott answers:--

TO MR. W. LAIDLAW.

EDINBURGH, April 5, 1817.

MY DEAR SIR,--Nothing can give me more pleasure than the
prospect of your making yourself comfortable at Kaeside till
some good thing casts up. I have not put Mr. Moss to any
inconvenience, for I only requested an answer, giving him
leave to sit if he had a mind--and of free will he leaves my
premises void and redd at Whitsunday. I suspect the house is
not in good order, but we shall get it brushed up a little.
Without affectation I consider myself the obliged party in
this matter--or at any rate it is a mutual benefit, and you
shall have grass for a cow, and so forth--whatever you want.
I am sure when you are so near I shall find some literary
labor for you that will make ends meet. Yours, in haste,

W. SCOTT.

He had before this time made considerable progress in another historical sketch (that of the year 1815) for the Edinburgh Annual Register; and the first literary labor which he provided for Laidlaw appears to have been arranging for the same volume a set of newspaper articles, usually printed under the head of _Chronicle_, to which were appended some little extracts of new books of travels, and the like miscellanies. The Edinburgh {p.158} Monthly Magazine, subsequently known by the name of its projector, Blackwood, commenced in April of this year; and one of its editors, Mr. Thomas Pringle, being a Teviotdale man and an old acquaintance of Laidlaw's, offered to the latter the care of its _Chronicle department_ also,--not perhaps without calculating that, in case Laidlaw's connection with the new journal should become at all a strict one, Scott would be induced to give it occasionally the benefit of his own literary assistance. He accordingly did not write--being unwell at the time--but _dictated_ to Pringle a collection of anecdotes concerning Scottish gypsies, which attracted a good deal of notice;[63] and, I believe, he also assisted Laidlaw in drawing up one or more articles on the subject of Scottish superstitions. But the bookseller and Pringle soon quarrelled, and the Magazine assuming, on the retirement of the latter, a high Tory character, Laidlaw's Whig feelings induced him to renounce its alliance; while Scott, having no kindness for Blackwood personally, and disapproving (though he chuckled over it) the reckless extravagance of juvenile satire which, by and by, distinguished his journal, appears to have easily acquiesced in the propriety of Laidlaw's determination. I insert meantime a few notes, which will show with what care and kindness he watched over Laidlaw's operations for the Annual Register.

[Footnote 63: These anecdotes were subsequently inserted
in the Introduction to _Guy Mannering_.]

TO MR. LAIDLAW, AT KAESIDE.

EDINBURGH, June 16, 1817.

DEAR SIR,--I enclose you "rare guerdon," better than
remuneration,--namely, a cheque for £25, for the Chronicle
part of the Register. The incidents selected should have
some reference to amusement as well as information, and may
be occasionally abridged in the narration; but, after all,
paste and scissors form your principal {p.159} materials.
You must look out for two or three good original articles;
and, if you would read and take pains to abridge one or two
curious books of travels, I would send out the volumes.
Could I once get the head of the concern fairly round before
the wind again, I am sure I could make it £100 a year to
you. In the present instance it will be at least £50.

Yours truly,

W. S.

TO THE SAME.

EDINBURGH, July 3, 1817.

MY DEAR SIR,--I send you Adam's and Riley's Travels. You
will observe I don't want a review of the books, or a detail
of these persons' adventures, but merely a short article
expressing the light, direct or doubtful, which they have
thrown on the interior of Africa. "Recent Discoveries in
Africa" will be a proper title. I hope to find you
materially amended, or rather quite stout, when I come out
on Saturday. I am quite well this morning. Yours, in haste,

W. S.

P. S.--I add Mariner's Tonga Islands, and Campbell's Voyage.
Pray take great care of them, as I am a coxcomb about my
books, and hate specks or spots. Take care of yourself, and
want for nothing that Abbotsford can furnish.

These notes have carried us down to the middle of the year. But I must now turn to some others, which show that before Whitsuntide, when Laidlaw settled at Kaeside, negotiations were on foot respecting another novel.

TO MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE, HANOVER STREET, EDINBURGH.

ABBOTSFORD, Monday. [April, 1817.]

DEAR JOHN,--I have a good subject for a work of fiction _in
petto_. What do you think Constable would give for a smell
of it? You ran away without taking {p.160} leave the other
morning, or I wished to have spoken to you about it. I don't
mean a continuation of Jedediah, because there might be some
delicacy in putting that by the original publishers. You may
write if anything occurs to you on this subject. It will not
interrupt my History. By the way, I have a great lot of the
Register ready for delivery, and no man asks for it. I shall
want to pay up some cash at Whitsunday, which will make me
draw on my brains. Yours truly,

W. SCOTT.

TO THE SAME.

ABBOTSFORD, Saturday, May 3, 1817.

DEAR JOHN,--I shall be much obliged to you to come here with
Constable on Monday, as he proposes a visit, and it will
save time. By the way, you must attend that the usual
quantity of stock is included in the arrangement--that is
£600 for 6000 copies. My sum is £1700, payable in May--a
round advance, by'r Lady, but I think I am entitled to it,
considering what I have twined off hitherto on such
occasions.

I make a point on your coming with Constable, health
allowing. Yours truly,

W. S.

The result of this meeting is indicated in a note, scribbled by John Ballantyne at the bottom of the foregoing letter, before it was seen by his brother the printer:--

Half-past 3 o'clock, Tuesday.

DEAR JAMES,--I am at this moment returned from Abbotsford,
with entire and full success. Wish me joy. I shall gain
above £600--Constable taking my share of stock also. This
title is _Rob Roy--by the Author of Waverley!!!_ Keep this
letter for me.

J. B.

On the same page there is written, in fresher ink, which marks, no doubt, the time when John pasted it into his collection of private papers now before me,--

N. B.--I did gain above £1200.--J. B.

{p.161} The title of this novel was suggested by Constable, and he told me years afterwards the difficulty he had to get it adopted by the author. "What!" said he, "Mr. Accoucheur, must you be setting up for Mr. Sponsor too?--but let's hear it." Constable said the name of the real hero would be the best possible name for the book. "Nay," answered Scott, "never let me have to write up to a name. You well know I have generally adopted a title that told nothing."--The bookseller, however, persevered; and after the trio had dined, these scruples gave way.

On rising from table, according to Constable, they sallied out to the green before the door of the cottage, and all in the highest spirits enjoyed the fine May evening. John Ballantyne, hopping up and down in his glee, exclaimed, "Is Rob's gun here, Mr. Scott; would you object to my trying the auld barrel with a _few de joy_?"--"Nay, Mr. Puff," said Scott, "it would burst, and blow you to the devil before your time."--"Johnny, my man," said Constable, "what the mischief puts drawing at sight into _your_ head?" Scott laughed heartily at this innuendo; and then observing that the little man felt somewhat sore, called attention to the notes of a bird in the adjoining shrubbery. "And by the bye," said he, as they continued listening, "'tis a long time, Johnny, since we have had the Cobbler of Kelso." Mr. Puff forthwith jumped up on a mass of stone, and seating himself in the proper attitude of one working with his awl, began a favorite interlude, mimicking a certain son of Crispin, at whose stall Scott and he had often lingered when they were schoolboys, and a blackbird, the only companion of his cell, that used to sing to him, while he talked and whistled to it all day long. With this performance Scott was always delighted: nothing could be richer than the contrast of the bird's wild sweet notes, some of which he imitated with wonderful skill, and the accompaniment of the Cobbler's hoarse cracked {p.162} voice, uttering all manner of endearing epithets, which Johnny multiplied and varied in a style worthy of the Old Women in Rabelais at the birth of Pantagruel. I often wondered that Mathews, who borrowed so many good things from John Ballantyne, allowed this Cobbler, which was certainly the masterpiece, to escape him.

Scott himself had probably exceeded that evening the three glasses of wine sanctioned by his Sangrados. "I never," said Constable, "had found him so disposed to be communicative about what he meant to do. Though he had had a return of his illness but the day before, he continued for an hour or more to walk backwards and forwards on the green, talking and laughing--he told us he was sure he should make a hit in a Glasgow weaver, whom he would _ravel up with Rob_; and fairly outshone the Cobbler, in an extempore dialogue between the bailie and the cateran--something not unlike what the book gives us as passing in the Glasgow tolbooth."

Mr. Puff might well exult in the "full and entire success" of this trip to Abbotsford. His friend had made it a _sine qua non_ with Constable that he should have a third share in the bookseller's moiety of the bargain--and though Johnny had no more trouble about the publishing or selling of Rob Roy than his own Cobbler of Kelso, this stipulation had secured him a _bonus_ of £1200, before two years passed. Moreover, one must admire his adroitness in persuading Constable, during their journey back to Edinburgh, to relieve him of that fraction of his own old stock, with which his unhazardous share in the new transaction was burdened. Scott's kindness continued, as long as John Ballantyne lived, to provide for him a constant succession of similar advantages at the same easy rate; and Constable, from deference to Scott's wishes, and from his own liking for the humorous auctioneer, appears to have submitted with hardly a momentary grudge to this heavy tax on his most important ventures.

{p.163} The same week Scott received Southey's celebrated letter to Mr. William Smith, M. P. for Norwich. The poet of Keswick had also forwarded to him somewhat earlier his Pilgrimage to Waterloo, which piece contains a touching allusion to the affliction the author had recently sustained in the death of a fine boy. Scott's letter on this occasion was as follows:--

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ., KESWICK.

SELKIRK, May 9, 1817.

MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--I have been a strangely negligent
correspondent for some months past, more especially as I
have had you rarely out of my thoughts, for I think you will
hardly doubt of my sincere sympathy in events which have
happened since I have written. I shed sincere tears over the
Pilgrimage to Waterloo. But in the crucible of human life,
the purest gold is tried by the strongest heat, and I can
only hope for the continuance of your present family
blessings to one so well formed to enjoy the pure happiness
they afford. My health has, of late, been very indifferent.
I was very nearly succumbing under a violent inflammatory
attack, and still feel the effects of the necessary
treatment. I believe they took one third of the blood of my
system, and blistered in proportion: so that both my flesh
and my blood have been in a woefully reduced state. I got
out here some weeks since, where, by dint of the insensible
exercise which one takes in the country, I feel myself
gathering strength daily, but am still obliged to observe a
severe regimen. It was not to croak about myself, however,
that I took up the pen, but to wish you joy of your
triumphant answer to that coarse-minded William Smith. He
deserved all he has got, and, to say the truth, you do not
spare him, and have no cause. His attack seems to have
proceeded from the vulgar insolence of a low mind desirous
of attacking genius at disadvantage. It is the ancient and
eternal strife of which the witch speaks in {p.164}
Thalaba. Such a man as he, feels he has no alliance with
such as you, and his evil instincts lead him to treat as
hostile whatever he cannot comprehend. I met Smith once
during his stay in Edinburgh,[64] and had, what I seldom
have with any one in society, a high quarrel with him. His
mode of travelling had been from one gentleman's seat to
another, abusing the well-known hospitality of the Highland
lairds, by taking possession of their houses, even during
their absence, domineering in them when they were present,
and not only eating the dinner of to-day, but requiring that
the dinner of to-morrow should also be made ready and
carried forward with him, to save the expense of inns. All
this was no business of mine, but when, in the middle of a
company consisting of those to whom he had owed this
hospitality, he abused the country, of which he knew
little--the language, of which he knew nothing--and the
people, who have their faults, but are a much more harmless,
moral, and at the same time high-spirited population, than,
I venture to say, he ever lived amongst--I thought it was
really too bad, and so e'en took up the debate, and gave it
him over the knuckles as smartly as I could. Your pamphlet,
therefore, fed fat my ancient grudge against him as well as
the modern one, for you cannot doubt that my blood boiled at
reading the report of his speech. Enough of this gentleman,
who, I think, will not walk out of the round in a hurry
again, to slander the conduct of individuals.

[Footnote 64: Scott's meeting with this Mr. Smith
occurred at the table of his friend and colleague,
Hector Macdonald Buchanan. The company, except Scott and
Smith, were all, like their hospitable landlord,
Highlanders.]

I am at present writing at our head-court of freeholders--a
set of quiet, unpretending, but sound-judging country
gentlemen, and whose opinions may be very well taken as a
fair specimen of those men of sense and honor, who are not
likely to be dazzled by literary talent, which {p.165} lies
out of their beat, and who, therefore, cannot be of partial
counsel in the cause; and I never heard an opinion more
generally, and even warmly expressed, than that your
triumphant vindication brands Smith as a slanderer in all
time coming. I think you may not be displeased to know this,
because what men of keen feelings and literary pursuits must
have felt, cannot be unknown to you, and you may not have
the same access to know the impression made upon the general
class of society.

I have to thank you for the continuation of the History of
Brazil--one of your gigantic labors; the fruit of a mind so
active, yet so patient of labor. I am not yet far advanced
in the second volume, reserving it usually for my hour's
amusement in the evening, as children keep their dainties
for _bonne bouche_: but as far as I have come, it possesses
all the interest of the commencement, though a more
faithless and worthless set than both Dutch and Portuguese I
have never read of; and it requires your knowledge of the
springs of human action, and your lively description of
"hair-breadth 'scapes," to make one care whether the hog
bites the dog, or the dog bites the hog. Both nations were
in rapid declension from their short-lived age of heroism,
and in the act of experiencing all those retrograde
movements which are the natural consequence of selfishness
on the one hand, and bigotry on the other.

I am glad to see you are turning your mind to the state of
the poor. Should you enter into details on the subject of
the best mode of assisting them, I would be happy to tell
you the few observations I have made--not on a very small
scale neither, considering my fortune, for I have kept about
thirty of the laborers in my neighborhood in constant
employment this winter. This I do not call charity, because
they executed some extensive plantations and other works,
which I could never have got done so cheaply, and which I
always intended {p.166} one day to do. But neither was it
altogether selfish on my part, because I was putting myself
to inconvenience in incurring the expense of several years
at once, and certainly would not have done so, but to serve
mine honest neighbors, who were likely to want work but for
such exertion. From my observation, I am inclined greatly to
doubt the salutary effect of the scheme generally adopted in
Edinburgh and elsewhere for relieving the poor. At
Edinburgh, they are employed on public works at so much a
day--tenpence, I believe, or one shilling, with an advance
to those who have families. This rate is fixed below that of
ordinary wages, in order that no person may be employed but
those who really cannot find work elsewhere. But it is
attended with this bad effect, that the people regard it
partly as charity, which is humiliating--and partly as an
imposition, in taking their labor below its usual salable
value; to which many add a third view of the
subject--namely, that this sort of half-pay is not given
them for the purpose of working, but to prevent their rising
in rebellion. None of these misconceptions are favorable to
hard labor, and the consequence is, that I never have seen
such a set of idle _fainéants_ as those employed on this
system in the public works, and I am sure that,
notwithstanding the very laudable intention of those who
subscribed to form the fund, and the yet more praiseworthy,
because more difficult, exertions of those who superintend
it, the issue of the scheme will occasion full as much
mischief as good to the people engaged in it. Private
gentlemen, acting on something like a similar system, may
make it answer better, because they have not the lazy dross
of a metropolis to contend with--because they have fewer
hands to manage--and, above all, because an individual
always manages his own concerns better than those of the
country can be managed. Yet all who have employed those who
were distressed for want of work at under wages, have had,
less or more, similar complaints to make. I {p.167} think I
have avoided this in my own case, by inviting the country
people to do piece-work by the contract. Two things only are
necessary--one is, that the nature of the work should be
such as will admit of its being ascertained, when finished,
to have been substantially executed. All sort of spade-work
and hoe-work, with many other kinds of country labor, fall
under this description, and the employer can hardly be
cheated in the execution if he keeps a reasonable lookout.
The other point is, to take care that the undertakers, in
their anxiety for employment, do not take the job too cheap.
A little acquaintance with country labor will enable one to
regulate this; but it is an essential point, for if you do
not keep them to their bargain, it is making a jest of the
thing, and forfeiting the very advantage you have in
view--that, namely, of inducing the laborer to bring his
heart and spirit to his work. But this he will do where he
has a fair bargain, which is to prove a good or bad one
according to his own exertions. In this case you make the
poor man his own friend, for the profits of his good conduct
are all his own. It is astonishing how partial the people
are to this species of contract, and how diligently they
labor, acquiring or maintaining all the while those habits
which render them honorable and useful members of society. I
mention this to you, because the rich, much to their honor,
do not, in general, require to be so much stimulated to
benevolence, as to be directed in the most useful way to
exert it.

I have still a word to say about the poor of our own parish
of Parnassus. I have been applied to by a very worthy
friend, Mr. Scott of Sinton, in behalf of an unfortunate Mr.
Gilmour, who, it seems, has expended a little fortune in
printing, upon his own account, poems which, from the sample
I saw, seem exactly to answer the description of Dean
Swift's country house:--

"Too bad for a blessing, too good for a curse,
I wish from my soul they were better or worse."

{p.168} But you are the dean of our corporation, and, I am
informed, take some interest in this poor gentleman. If you
can point out any way in which I can serve him, I am sure my
inclination is not wanting, but it looks like a very
hopeless case. I beg my kindest respects to Mrs. Southey,
and am always sincerely and affectionately yours,

Walter SCOTT.

About this time Hogg took possession of Altrive Lake, and some of his friends in Edinburgh set on foot a subscription edition of his Queen's Wake (at a guinea each copy), in the hope of thus raising a sum adequate to the stocking of the little farm. The following letter alludes to this affair; and also to the death of Frances, Lady Douglas, sister to Duke Henry of Buccleuch, whose early kindness to Scott has been more than once mentioned.

TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD MONTAGU.

ABBOTSFORD, June 8, 1817.

MY DEAR LORD,--I am honored with your letter, and will not
fail to take care that the Shepherd profits by your kind
intentions, and those of Lady Montagu. This is a scheme
which I did not devise, for I fear it will end in
disappointment, but for which I have done, and will do, all
I possibly can. There is an old saying of the seamen's,
"Every man is not born to be a boatswain," and I think I
have heard of men born under a sixpenny planet, and doomed
never to be worth a groat. I fear something of this vile
sixpenny influence had gleamed in at the cottage window when
poor Hogg first came squeaking into the world. All that he
made by his original book he ventured on a flock of sheep to
drive into the Highlands to a farm he had taken there, but
of which he could not get possession, so that all the stock
was ruined and sold to disadvantage. Then he tried another
farm, which proved too dear, so that he fairly broke upon
it. Then put forth divers publications, {p.169} which had
little sale--and brought him accordingly few pence, though
some praise. Then came this Queen's Wake, by which he might
and ought to have made from £100 to £200--for there were, I
think, three editions--when lo! his bookseller turned
bankrupt, and paid him never a penny. The Duke has now, with
his wonted generosity, given him a cosie bield, and the
object of the present attack upon the public is to get if
possible as much cash together as will stock it. But no one
has loose guineas now to give poor poets, and I greatly
doubt the scheme succeeding, unless it is more strongly
patronized than can almost be expected. In bookselling
matters, an author must either be the conjurer, who commands
the devil, or the witch who serves him--and few are they
whose situation is sufficiently independent to enable them
to assume the higher character--and this is injurious to the
indigent author in every respect, for not only is he obliged
to turn his pen to every various kind of composition, and so
to injure himself with the public by writing hastily, and on
subjects unfitted for his genius; but, moreover, those
honest gentlemen, the booksellers, from a natural
association, consider the books as of least value, which
they find they can get at least expense of copy-money, and
therefore are proportionally careless in pushing the sale of
the work. Whereas a good round sum out of their purse, like
a moderate rise of rent on a farm, raises the work thus
acquired in their own eyes, and serves as a spur to make
them clear away every channel, by which they can discharge
their quires upon the public. So much for bookselling, the
most ticklish and unsafe and hazardous of all professions,
scarcely with the exception of horse-jockeyship.

You cannot doubt the sincere interest I take in Lady
Montagu's health. I was very glad to learn from the Duke,
that the late melancholy event had produced no permanent
effect on her constitution, as I know how {p.170} much her
heart must have suffered.[65] I saw our regretted friend for
the last time at the Theatre, and made many schemes to be at
Bothwell this next July. But thus the world glides from us,
and those we most love and honor are withdrawn from the
stage before us. I know not why it was that among the few
for whom I had so much respectful regard, I never had
associated the idea of early deprivation with Lady Douglas.
Her excellent sense, deep information, and the wit which she
wielded with so much good-humor, were allied apparently to a
healthy constitution, which might have permitted us to
enjoy, and be instructed by her society for many years. _Dis
aliter visum_, and the recollection dwelling on all the
delight which she afforded to society, and the good which
she did in private life, is what now remains to us of her
wit, wisdom, and benevolence. The Duke keeps his usual
health, with always just so much of the gout, however, as
would make me wish that he had more--a kind wish, for which
I do not observe that he is sufficiently grateful. I hope to
spend a few days at Drumlanrig Castle, when that ancient
mansion shall have so far limited its courtesy as to stand
covered in the presence of the wind and rain, which I
believe is not yet the case. I am no friend to ceremony, and
like a house as well when it does not carry its roof _en
chapeau bras_. I heartily wish your Lordship joy of the new
mansion at Ditton, and hope my good stars will permit me to
pay my respects there one day. The discovery of the niches
certainly bodes good luck to the house of Montagu, and as
there are three of them, I presume it is to come threefold.
From the care with which they were concealed, I presume they
had been closed in the days of Cromwell, or a little before,
and that the artist employed (like the {p.171} General, who
told his soldiers to fight bravely against the Pope, since
they were Venetians before they were Christians) had more
professional than religious zeal, and did not even,
according to the practice of the time, think it necessary to
sweep away Popery with the besom of destruction.[66] I am
here on a stolen visit of two days, and find my mansion
gradually enlarging. Thanks to Mr. Atkinson (who found out a
practical use for our romantic theory), it promises to make
a comfortable station for offering your Lordship and Lady
Montagu a pilgrim's meal, when you next visit Melrose Abbey,
and that without any risk of your valet (who I recollect is
a substantial person) sticking between the wall of the
parlor and the backs of the chairs placed round the table.
This literally befell Sir Harry Macdougal's fat butler, who
looked like a ship of the line in the loch at Bowhill,
altogether unlike his master, who could glide wherever a
weasel might make his way. Mr. Atkinson has indeed been more
attentive than I can express, when I consider how valuable
his time must be.[67] We are attempting no castellated
conundrums to rival those Lord Napier used to have executed
in sugar, when he was Commissioner, and no cottage neither,
but an irregular somewhat--like an old English hall, in
which your squire of £500 a year used to drink his ale in
days of yore.

[Footnote 65: Lady Montagu was the daughter of the late
Lord Douglas by his first marriage with Lady Lucy
Graham, daughter of the second Duke of Montrose.]

[Footnote 66: Lord Montagu's house at Ditton Park, near
Windsor, had recently been destroyed by fire--and the
ruins revealed some niches with antique candlesticks,
etc., belonging to a domestic chapel that had been
converted to other purposes from the time, I believe, of
Henry VIII.]

[Footnote 67: Mr. Atkinson, of St. John's Wood, was the
architect of Lord Montagu's new mansion at Ditton, as
well as the artist ultimately employed in arranging
Scott's interior at Abbotsford.]

I am making considerable plantations (that is, considering),
being greatly encouraged by the progress of those I formerly
laid out. Read the veracious Gulliver's account of the
Windsor Forest of Lilliput, and you will {p.172} have some
idea of the solemn gloom of my Druid shades. Your Lordship's
truly faithful

Walter SCOTT.

This is the 8th of June, and not an ash-tree in leaf yet.
The country cruelly backward, and whole fields destroyed by
the grub. I dread this next season.

{p.173} CHAPTER XXXIX.

Excursion to the Lennox, Glasgow, and Drumlanrig. --
Purchase of Toftfield. -- Establishment of the Ferguson
Family at Huntly Burn. -- Lines Written in Illness. --
Visits of Washington Irving, Lady Byron, and Sir David
Wilkie. -- Progress of the Building at Abbotsford. --
Letters to Morritt, Terry, etc. -- Conclusion of Rob Roy.

1817.

During the summer term of 1817, Scott seems to have labored chiefly on his History of 1815 for the Register, which was published in August; but he also found time to draw up the Introduction for a richly embellished quarto, entitled Border Antiquities, which came out a month later. This valuable essay, containing large additions to the information previously embodied in the Minstrelsy, has been included in the late collection of his Miscellaneous Prose, and has thus obtained a circulation not to be expected for it in the original costly form.

Upon the rising of the Court in July, he made an excursion to the Lennox, chiefly that he might visit a cave at the head of Loch Lomond, said to have been a favorite retreat of his hero, Rob Roy. He was accompanied to the seat of his friend, Mr. Macdonald Buchanan, by Captain Adam Ferguson--the _long Linton_ of the days of his apprenticeship; and thence to Glasgow, where, under the auspices of a kind and intelligent acquaintance, Mr. John Smith, bookseller, he refreshed his recollection of the noble cathedral, and other localities of the birthplace of Bailie Jarvie. Mr. Smith took care also {p.174} to show the tourists the most remarkable novelties in the great manufacturing establishments of his flourishing city; and he remembers particularly the delight which Scott expressed on seeing the process of _singeing_ muslin--that is, of divesting the finished web of all superficial knots and irregularities, by passing it, with the rapidity of lightning, over a bar of red-hot iron. "The man that imagined this," said Scott, "was _the Shakespeare of the Wabsters_,--

'Things out of hope are compass'd oft with vent'ring.'"[68]

[Footnote 68: Shakespeare's Poems--_Venus and Adonis_.]

The following note indicates the next stages of his progress:--

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH, DRUMLANRIG CASTLE.

SANQUHAR, 2 o'clock, July 30,[69] 1817.

From Ross, where the clouds on Benlomond are sleeping--
From Greenock, where Clyde to the Ocean is sweeping--
From Largs, where the Scotch gave the Northmen a drilling--
From Ardrossan, whose harbor cost many a shilling--
From Old Cumnock, where beds are as hard as a plank, sir--
From a chop and green pease, and a chicken in Sanquhar,
This eve, please the Fates, at Drumlanrig we anchor.

W. S.

[Footnote 69: [A misprint of some earlier date, possibly
the _16th_. See the more detailed account of Scott's
movements at this time, to be found in _Familiar
Letters_, vol. i. pp. 432-436.]]

The Poet and Captain Ferguson remained a week at Drumlanrig, and thence repaired together to Abbotsford. By this time, the foundations of that part of the existing house, which extends from the hall westwards to the original courtyard, had been laid; and Scott now found a new source of constant occupation in watching the proceedings of his masons. He had, moreover, no lack of employment further a-field,--for he was now negotiating with another neighboring landowner for the purchase of an addition, of more consequence than any he had hitherto {p.175} made, to his estate. In the course of the autumn he concluded this matter, and became, for the price of £10,000, proprietor of the lands of _Toftfield_,[70] on which there had recently been erected a substantial mansion-house, fitted, in all points, for the accommodation of a genteel family. This circumstance offered a temptation which much quickened Scott's zeal for completing his arrangement. The venerable Professor Ferguson had died a year before; Captain Adam Ferguson was at home on half-pay; and Scott now saw the means of securing for himself, henceforth, the immediate neighborhood of the companion of his youth, and his amiable sisters. Ferguson, who had written, from the lines of Torres Vedras, his hopes of finding, when the war should be over, some sheltering cottage upon the Tweed, within a walk of Abbotsford, was delighted to see his dreams realized; and the family took up their residence next spring at the new house of Toftfield, on which Scott then bestowed, at the ladies' request, the name of Huntly Burn: this more harmonious designation being taken from the mountain brook which passes through its grounds and garden,--the same famous in tradition as the scene of Thomas the Rhymer's interviews with the Queen of Fairy. The upper part of the _Rhymer's Glen_, through which this brook finds its way from the Cauldshiels Loch to Toftfield, had been included in a previous purchase. He was now master of all these haunts of "True Thomas," and of the whole ground of the battle of Melrose, from _Skirmish-field_ to _Turn-again_. His enjoyment of the new territories was, however, interrupted by various returns of his cramp, and the depression of spirit which always attended, in his case, the use of opium, {p.176} the only medicine that seemed to have power over the disease.[71]

[Footnote 70: On completing this purchase, Scott writes
to John Ballantyne:--"DEAR JOHN,--I have closed with
Usher for his beautiful patrimony, which makes me a
great laird. I am afraid the people will take me up for
coining. Indeed, these novels, while their attractions
last, are something like it. I am very glad of _your_
good prospects. Still I cry, _Prudence!
Prudence!_--Yours truly,
W. S."]

[Footnote 71: [On August 1, 1817, Jeffrey writes to
Scott, asking if he could not be induced to write a
notice of Mr. C. K. Sharpe's edition of Kirkton's
_Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland_, for
the _Edinburgh Review_, to which Scott replies, August
5:--