Chapter IX: Front Matter (9)

I agree entirely with you on the necessity of your remaining
in the regiment while it is stationary, and retiring on
half-pay when it marches; but I cannot so easily acquiesce
in your plan of settling in Canada. On the latter event
taking place, on the contrary, I think it would be highly
advisable that you should return to your native country. In
the course of nature you must soon be possessed of
considerable property, now life-rented by our mother, and I
should think that even your present income would secure you
comfort and independence here. Should you remain in Canada,
you must consider your family as settlers in that state, and
as I cannot believe that it will remain very long separated
from America, I should almost think this equal to depriving
them of the advantages of British subjects--at least of
those which they might derive from their respectable
connections in this country. With respect to your son, in
particular, I have little doubt that I could be of
considerable service to him in almost any line of life he
might chance to adopt here, but could of course have less
influence on his fortunes were he to remain on the Niagara.
I certainly feel anxious on this subject, because the
settlement of your residence in America would be saying, in
other words, that we two, the last remains of a family once
so numerous, are never more to meet upon this side of time.
My own health is very much broken up by the periodical
recurrence of violent cramps in the stomach, which neither
seem disposed to yield to medicine nor to abstinence. The
complaint, the doctors say, is not dangerous in itself, but
I cannot look forward to its continued recurrence, without
being certain that it is to break my health, and {p.200}
anticipate old age in cutting me short. Be it so, my dear
Tom--_Sat est vixisse_--and I am too much of a philosopher
to be anxious about protracted life, which, with all its
infirmities and deprivations, I have never considered as a
blessing. In the years which may be before me, it would be a
lively satisfaction to me to have the pleasure of seeing you
in this country, with the prospect of a comfortable
settlement. I have but an imperfect account to render of my
doings here. I have amused myself with making an addition to
my cottage in the country. One little apartment is to be
fitted up as an armory for my old relics and curiosities. On
the wicket I intend to mount your _deer's foot_[83]--as an
appropriate knocker. I hope the young ladies liked their
watches, and that all your books, stationery, etc., came
safe to hand. I am told you have several kinds of the oak
peculiar to America. If you can send me a few good acorns,
with the names of the kinds they belong to, I will have them
reared with great care and attention. The heaviest and
smoothest acorns should be selected, as one would wish them,
sent from such a distance, to succeed, which rarely happens
unless they are particularly well ripened. I shall be as
much obliged to you as Sancho was to the Duchess, or, to
speak more correctly, the Duchess to Sancho, for a similar
favor. Our mother keeps her health surprisingly well now,
nor do I think there is any difference, unless that her
deafness is rather increased. My eldest boy is upwards of
six feet high; therefore born, as Sergeant Kite says, to be
a great man. I should not like such a rapid growth, but that
he carries strength along with it; my youngest boy is a very
sharp little fellow--and the girls give us great
satisfaction. Ever affectionately yours,

Walter SCOTT.

[Footnote 83: Thomas Scott had sent his brother the
horns and feet of a gigantic stag, shot by him in
Canada. The feet were ultimately suspended to bell-cords
in the armory at Abbotsford; and the horns mounted as
drinking-cups.]

{p.201} The following note is without date. It accompanied, no doubt, the last proof sheet of Rob Roy, and was therefore in all probability written about ten days before the 31st of December, 1817--on which day the novel was published.

TO MR. JAMES BALLANTYNE, ST. JOHN STREET.

DEAR JAMES,--

With great joy
I send you Roy.
'T was a tough job,
But we're done with Rob.

I forget if I mentioned Terry in my list of Friends. Pray
send me two or three copies as soon as you can. It were pity
to make the Grinder[84] pay carriage.

Yours ever,

W. S.

[Footnote 84: They called Daniel Terry among themselves
"The Grinder," in double allusion to the song of _Terry
the Grinder_, and to some harsh under-notes of their
friend's voice.]

The novel had indeed been "a tough job"--for lightly and airily as it reads, the author had struggled almost throughout with the pains of cramp or the lassitude of opium. Calling on him one day to dun him for copy, James Ballantyne found him with a clean pen and a blank sheet before him, and uttered some rather solemn exclamation of surprise. "Ay, ay, Jemmy," said he, "'tis easy for you to bid me get on, but how the deuce can I make Rob Roy's wife speak, with such a _curmurring_ in my guts?"

{p.202} CHAPTER XL.

Rob Roy Published. -- Negotiation Concerning the Second
Series of Tales of my Landlord. -- Commission to Search for
the Scottish Regalia. -- Letters to the Duke of Buccleuch,
Mr. Croker, Mr. Morritt, Mr. Murray, Mr. Maturin, etc. --
Correspondence on Rural Affairs with Mr. Laidlaw, and on the
Buildings at Abbotsford with Mr. Terry. -- Death Of Mrs.
Murray Keith and Mr. George Bullock.

1818.

Rob Roy and his wife, Bailie Nicol Jarvie and his housekeeper, Die Vernon and Rashleigh Osbaldistone--these boldly drawn and happily contrasted personages--were welcomed as warmly as the most fortunate of their predecessors.[85] Constable's resolution to begin with an {p.203} edition of 10,000 proved to have been as sagacious as brave; for within a fortnight a second impression of 3000 was called for; and the subsequent sale of this novel has considerably exceeded 40,000 more.

[Footnote 85: [On the 16th of February, Lady Louisa
Stuart wrote:--

"I have read _Rob Roy_ twice.... The scale with me would
be _Waverley_, _Old Mortality_, _Guy Mannering_--so far
I am sure. I am not sure which of the others I could
positively prefer; there are striking beauties in each.
In _Rob Roy_ the painting of character is as vivid as in
anything the author ever wrote. Rob himself, Die Vernon,
Nicol Jarvie, Andrew Fairservice, not to speak of the
Tory baronet and his cubs, or the Jesuit Rashleigh. The
beginning and end, I am afraid, I quarrel with; ... but
beginnings signify little; ends signify more. Now, I
fear the end of this is huddled, as if the author were
tired and wanted to get rid of his personages as fast as
he could, knocking them on the head without mercy. Die
Vernon has what a Lord Bellamont (famous in my day and
before it for profligacy and affectation) used to call
such 'a catastrophical countenance' that one cannot
reconcile oneself to her being married and settled like
her sober neighbors. It is almost as bad as if Flora
MacIvor had married the Colonel's nephew.... You see I
give my opinion (let it be worth something or nothing)
as if I were writing to a person not supposed to be in
any way sib to the mysterious Unknown; but it is because
I believe you have too distinguishing a taste to relish
all sugar and treacle. Goldsmith's metaphor was bad when
he said, 'Who peppers the highest is surest to please,'
for flattery resembles neither pepper nor salt. Apropos
of the mystery, those who see far into a millstone are
now sure that the _Tales of my Landlord_ were written by
a different person, and parts of them by different
hands. When they give their reasons with a complacent
delight in their own sagacity, I think to myself, how
often must I have talked as much wise nonsense upon
subjects which I knew nothing about."--_Familiar
Letters_, vol. ii. p. 11.]]

Scott, however, had not waited for this new burst of applause. As soon as he came within view of the completion of Rob Roy, he desired John Ballantyne to propose to Constable and Co. a second series of the Tales of my Landlord, to be comprised, like the first, in four volumes, and ready for publication by "the King's birthday;" that is, the 4th of June, 1818. "I have hungered and thirsted," he wrote, "to see the end of those shabby borrowings among friends; they have all been wiped out except the good Duke's £4000--and I will not suffer either new offers of land or anything else to come in the way of that clearance. I expect that you will be able to arrange this resurrection of Jedediah, so that £5000 shall be at my order."

Mr. Rigdum used to glory in recounting that he acquitted himself on this occasion with a species of dexterity not contemplated in his commission. He well knew how sorely Constable had been wounded by seeing the first Tales of Jedediah published by Murray and Blackwood--and that the utmost success of Rob Roy would only double his anxiety to keep them out of the field, when the hint should be dropt that a second MS. from Gandercleuch might shortly be looked for. John therefore took a convenient opportunity to mention the new scheme as if casually--so as to give Constable the impression {p.204} that the author's purpose was to divide the second series also between his old rival in Albemarle Street, of whom his jealousy was always sensitive, and his neighbor Blackwood, whom, if there had been no other grudge, the recent conduct and rapidly increasing sale of his Magazine would have been sufficient to make Constable hate with a perfect hatred. To see not only his old "Scots Magazine" eclipsed, but the authority of the Edinburgh Review itself bearded on its own soil by this juvenile upstart, was to him gall and wormwood; and, moreover, he himself had come in for his share in some of those grotesque _jeux d'esprit_ by which, at this period, Blackwood's young Tory wags delighted to assail their elders and betters of the Whig persuasion. To prevent the proprietor of this new journal from acquiring anything like a hold on the author of Waverley, and thus competing with himself not only in periodical literature, but in the highest of the time, was an object for which, as John Ballantyne shrewdly guessed, Constable would have made at that moment almost any sacrifice. When, therefore, the haughty but trembling bookseller--"The Lord High Constable" (as he had been dubbed by these jesters)--signified his earnest hope that the second Tales of my Landlord were destined to come out under the same auspices with Rob Roy, the plenipotentiary answered with an air of deep regret, that he feared it would be impossible for the author to dispose of the work--unless to publishers who should agree to take with it _the whole_ of the remaining stock of "John Ballantyne and Co.;" and Constable, pertinaciously as he had stood out against many more modest propositions of this nature, was so worked upon by his jealous feelings, that his resolution at once gave way. He agreed on the instant to do all that John seemed to shrink from asking--and at one sweep cleared the Augean stable in Hanover Street of unsalable rubbish to the amount of £5270! I am assured by his surviving partner, that when he had finally {p.205} redisposed of the stock, he found himself a loser by fully two thirds of this sum.

Burthened with this heavy condition, the agreement for the sale of 10,000 copies of the embryo series was signed before the end of November, 1817; and on the 7th January, 1818, Scott wrote as follows to his noble friend:--

TO THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH, ETC., ETC.

MY DEAR LORD DUKE,--I have the great pleasure of enclosing
the discharged bond which your Grace stood engaged in for
me, and on my account. The accommodation was of the greatest
consequence to me, as it enabled me to retain possession of
some valuable literary property, which I must otherwise have
suffered to be sold at a time when the booksellers had no
money to buy it. My dear Lord, to wish that all your
numerous and extensive acts of kindness may be attended with
similar advantages to the persons whom you oblige, is
wishing you what to your mind will be the best recompense;
and to wish that they may be felt by all as gratefully as by
me, though you may be careless to hear about that part of
the story, is only wishing what is creditable to human
nature. I have this moment your more than kind letter, and
congratulate your Grace that, in one sense of the word, you
can be what you never will be in any other, _ambidexter_.
But I am sorry you took so much trouble, and I fear _pains_
besides, to display your new talent.

Ever your Grace's truly faithful,

Walter SCOTT.

The closing sentence of this letter refers to a fit of the gout which had disabled the Duke's right hand, but not cooled his zeal on a subject which, throughout January, 1818, occupied, I firmly believe, much more of his correspondent's thoughts by day and dreams by night, than any one, or perhaps than all others, besides. The time {p.206} now approached when a Commission to examine the Crown-room in the Castle of Edinburgh, which had sprung from one of Scott's conversations with the Prince Regent in 1815, was at length to be acted upon. The minstrel of the "Rough Clan" had taken care that the name of his chief should stand at the head of the document; but the Duke's now precarious health ultimately prevented him from being present at the discovery of the long buried and almost forgotten Regalia of Scotland. The two following letters on this subject are of the same date--Edinburgh, 14th January, 1818.

TO THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH, ETC., ETC., BOWHILL.

MY DEAR LORD,--You will hear from the Advocate that the
Commission for opening the Regalia is arrived, and that the
Commissioners held their first meeting yesterday. They have
named next Wednesday (in case your Grace can attend) for
opening the mysterious chest. So this question will be put
to rest forever.

I remember among the rebel company which debauched my youth,
there was a drunken old Tory, who used to sing a ballad made
about these same Regalia at the time of the Union, in which
they were all destined to the basest uses; the crown, for
example,

"To make a can for Brandy Nan
To puke in when she's tipsy."

The rest of the song is in a tone of equally pure humor; the
chorus ran:--

"Farewell, thou ancient kingdom--
Farewell, thou ancient kingdom.
Who sold thyself for English pelf--
Was ever such a thing done?"

I hope your Grace feels yourself sufficiently interested in
the recovery of these ancient symbols of national
independence, so long worn by your forefathers, and which
were never profaned by the touch of a monarch of a foreign
{p.207} dynasty. Here is fine planting weather. I trust it
is as good in the Forest and on Tweedside.

Ever your Grace's truly faithful

Walter SCOTT.

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

DEAR MORRITT,--Our fat friend has remembered a petition
which I put up to him, and has granted a Commission to the
Officers of State and others (my unworthy self
included)--which trusty and well-beloved persons are to
institute a search after the Regalia of Scotland. There has
an odd mystery hung about the fate of these royal symbols of
national independence. The spirit of the Scotch at the Union
clung fondly to these emblems; and to soothe their jealousy
it was specially provided by an article of the Union, that
the Regalia should never be removed, under any pretext, from
the kingdom of Scotland. Accordingly they were deposited,
with much ceremony, as an authentic instrument bears, in a
strong chest, secured by many locks, and the chest itself
placed in a strong room, which again was carefully bolted up
and secured, leaving to national pride the satisfaction of
pointing to the barred window, with the consciousness that
there lay the Regalia of Scotland. But this gratification
was strangely qualified by a surmise, which somehow became
generally averred, stating, that the Regalia had been sent
to London; and you may remember that we saw at the Jewel
Office a crown, _said to be_ the ancient Crown of Scotland.
If this transfer (by the way, highly illegal) was ever made,
it must have been under some secret warrant; for no
authority can be traced for such a proceeding in the records
of the Secretary of State's Office. Fifteen or twenty years
ago, the Crown-room, as it is called, was opened by certain
Commissioners, under authority of a sign-manual. They saw
the fatal chest, strewed with the dust of an hundred years,
about six inches thick: a coating of like thickness lay on
{p.208} the floor; and I have heard the late President
Blair say, that the uniform and level appearance of the dust
warranted them to believe that the chest, if opened at all
after 1707, must have been violated within a short time of
that date, since, had it been opened at a later period, the
dust accumulated on the lid, and displaced at opening it,
must have been lying around the chest. But the Commissioners
did not think their warrant entitled them to force this
chest, for which no keys could be found; especially as their
warrant only entitled them to search for _records_--not for
crowns and sceptres.

The mystery, therefore, remained unpenetrated; and public
curiosity was left to console itself with the nursery
rhyme:--

"On Tintock tap there is a mist,
And in the mist there is a kist."

Our fat friend's curiosity, however, goes to the point at
once, authorizing and enjoining an express search for the
Regalia. Our friend of Buccleuch is at the head of the
Commission, and will, I think, be as keen as I or any one,
to see the issue.

I trust you have read Rob by this time. I think he smells of
the cramp. Above all, I had too much flax on my distaff; and
as it did not consist with my patience or my plan to make a
fourth volume, I was obliged at last to draw a rough,
coarse, and hasty thread. But the book is well liked here,
and has reeled off in great style. I have two stories on the
anvil, far superior to Rob Roy in point of interest. Ever
yours,

Walter SCOTT.

The Commissioners, who finally assembled on the 4th of February, were, according to the record, "the Right Hon. Charles Hope, Lord President of the Court of Session; the Right Hon. David Boyle, Lord Justice-Clerk; the Right Hon. William Adam, Lord Chief Commissioner of the Jury Court; Major-General John Hope {p.209} (Commanding the Forces in Scotland); the Solicitor-General (James Wedderburn, Esq.); the Lord Provost of Edinburgh (Kincaid Mackenzie, Esq.); William Clerk, Esq., Principal Clerk of the Jury Court; Henry Jardine, Esq., Deputy Remembrancer in the Exchequer; Thomas Thomson, Esq., Deputy Clerk-Register of Scotland; and Walter Scott, Esq., one of the Principal Clerks of Session."

Of the proceedings of this day, the reader has a full and particular account in an Essay which Scott penned shortly afterwards, and which is included in his Prose Miscellanies (vol. vii.). But I must not omit the contemporaneous letters in which he announced the success of the quest to his friend the Secretary of the Admiralty, and through him to the Regent:--

TO J. W. CROKER, ESQ., M. P., ETC., ETC., ADMIRALTY, LONDON.

EDINBURGH, 4th February, 1818.

MY DEAR CROKER,--I have the pleasure to assure you the
Regalia of Scotland were this day found in perfect
preservation. The Sword of State and Sceptre showed marks of
hard usage at some former period; but in all respects agree
with the description in Thomson's work.[86] I will send you
a complete account of the opening to-morrow, as the official
account will take some time to draw up. In the mean time, I
hope you will remain as obstinate in your unbelief as St.
Thomas, because then you will come down to satisfy yourself.
I know nobody entitled to earlier information, save ONE, to
whom you can perhaps find the means of communicating the
result of our researches. The post is just going off.

Ever yours truly,

Walter SCOTT.

[Footnote 86: _Collection of Inventories and other
Records of the Royal Wardrobe and Jewel-House, etc._
Edin. 1815, 4to.]

{p.210} TO THE SAME.

EDINBURGH, 5th February, 1818.

MY DEAR CROKER,--I promised I would add something to my
report of yesterday, and yet I find I have but little to
say. The extreme solemnity of opening sealed doors of oak
and iron, and finally breaking open a chest which had been
shut since 7th March, 1707, about a hundred and eleven
years, gave a sort of interest to our researches, which I
can hardly express to you, and it would be very difficult to
describe the intense eagerness with which we watched the
rising of the lid of the chest, and the progress of the
workmen in breaking it open, which was neither an easy nor a
speedy task. It sounded very hollow when they worked on it
with their tools, and I began to lean to your faction of the
Little Faiths. However, I never could assign any probable or
feasible reason for withdrawing these memorials of ancient
independence; and my doubts rather arose from the conviction
that many absurd things are done in public as well as in
private life, merely out of a hasty impression of passion or
resentment. For it was evident the removal of the Regalia
might have greatly irritated people's minds here, and
offered a fair pretext of breaking the Union, which for
thirty years was the predominant wish of the Scottish
nation.

The discovery of the Regalia has interested people's minds
much more strongly than I expected, and is certainly
calculated to make a pleasant and favorable impression upon
them in respect to the kingly part of the constitution. It
would be of the utmost consequence that they should be
occasionally shown to them, under proper regulations, and
for a small fee. The Sword of State is a most beautiful
piece of workmanship, a present from Pope Julius II. to
James IV. The scabbard is richly decorated with filigree
work of silver, double gilded, representing oak leaves and
acorns, executed in {p.211} a taste worthy that classical
age in which the arts revived. A draughtsman has been
employed to make sketches of these articles, in order to be
laid before his Royal Highness. The fate of these Regalia,
which his Royal Highness's goodness has thus restored to
light and honor, has on one or two occasions been singular
enough. They were, in 1652, lodged in the Castle of
Dunnottar, the seat of the Earl Marischal, by whom,
according to his ancient privilege, they were kept. The
castle was defended by George Ogilvie of Barra, who,
apprehensive of the progress which the English made in
reducing the strong places in Scotland, became anxious for
the safety of these valuable memorials. The ingenuity of his
lady had them conveyed out of the castle in a bag on a
woman's back, among some _hards_, as they are called, of
lint. They were carried to the Kirk of Kinneff, and
entrusted to the care of the clergyman, named Grainger, and
his wife, and buried under the pulpit. The Castle of
Dunnottar, though very strong and faithfully defended, was
at length under necessity of surrendering, being the last
strong place in Britain on which the royal flag floated in
those calamitous times. Ogilvie and his lady were threatened
with the utmost extremities by the Republican General
Morgan, unless they should produce the Regalia. The governor
stuck to it that he knew nothing of them, as in fact they
had been carried away without his knowledge. The lady
maintained she had given them to John Keith, second son of
the Earl Marischal, by whom, she said, they had been carried
to France. They suffered a long imprisonment, and much ill
usage. On the Restoration, the old Countess Marischal,
founding upon the story Mrs. Ogilvie had told to screen her
husband, obtained for her own son, John Keith, the earldom
of Kintore, and the post of Knight Marischal, with £400 a
year, as if he had been in truth the preserver of the
Regalia. It soon proved that this reward had been too
hastily given, for Ogilvie of Barra {p.212} produced the
Regalia, the honest clergyman refusing to deliver them to
any one but those from whom he received them. Ogilvie was
made a Knight Baronet, however, and got a new charter of the
lands, acknowledging the good service. Thus it happened
oddly enough, that Keith, who was abroad during the
transaction, and had nothing to do with it, got the earldom,
pension, etc., Ogilvie only inferior honors, and the poor
clergyman nothing whatever, or, as we say, _the hare's foot
to lick_. As for Ogilvie's lady, she died before the
Restoration, her health being ruined by the hardships she
endured from the Cromwellian satellites. She was a Douglas,
with all the high spirit of that proud family. On her
deathbed, and not till then, she told her husband where the
honors were concealed, charging him to suffer death rather
than betray them. Popular tradition says, not very probably,
that Grainger and his wife were _booted_ (that is, tortured
with the engine called the boots). I think that the Knight
Marischal's office rested in the Kintore family until 1715,
when it was resumed on account of the bearded Earl's
accession to the Insurrection of that year. He escaped well,
for they might have taken his estate and his earldom. I must
save post, however, and conclude abruptly. Yours ever,

Walter SCOTT.

On the 5th, after the foregoing letter had been written at the Clerk's table, Scott and several of his brother Commissioners revisited the Castle, accompanied by some of the ladies of their families. His daughter tells me that her father's conversation had worked her feelings up to such a pitch, that when the lid was again removed, she nearly fainted, and drew back from the circle. As she was retiring, she was startled by his voice exclaiming, in a tone of the deepest emotion, "something between anger and despair," as she expresses it,--"By G----, No!" One of the Commissioners, not quite entering {p.213} into the solemnity with which Scott regarded this business, had, it seems, made a sort of motion as if he meant to put the crown on the head of one of the young ladies near him, but the voice and aspect of the Poet were more than sufficient to make the worthy gentleman understand his error; and, respecting the enthusiasm with which he had not been taught to sympathize, he laid down the ancient diadem with an air of painful embarrassment. Scott whispered, "Pray, forgive me;" and turning round at the moment, observed his daughter deadly pale, and leaning by the door. He immediately drew her out of the room, and when the air had somewhat recovered her, walked with her across the Mound to Castle Street. "He never spoke all the way home," she says, "but every now and then I felt his arm tremble; and from that time I fancied he began to treat me more like a woman than a child. I thought he liked me better, too, than he had ever done before."

These little incidents may give some notion of the profound seriousness with which his imagination had invested this matter. I am obliged to add, that in the society of Edinburgh at the time, even in the highest Tory circles, it did not seem to awaken much even of curiosity--to say nothing of any deeper feeling. There was, however, a great excitement among the common people of the town, and a still greater among the peasantry, not only in the neighborhood, but all over Scotland; and the Crown-room, becoming thenceforth one of the established _lions_ of a city much resorted to, moreover, by stranger tourists, was likely, on the most moderate scale of admission-fee, to supply a revenue sufficient for remunerating responsible and respectable guardianship. This post would, as Scott thought, be a very suitable one for his friend, Captain Adam Ferguson; and he exerted all his zeal for that purpose. The Captain was appointed: his nomination, however, did not take place for some months after; and the postscript of a {p.214} letter to the Duke of Buccleuch, dated May 14, 1818, plainly indicates the interest on which Scott mainly relied for its completion: "If you happen," he writes, "to see Lord Melville, pray give him a jog about Ferguson's affair; but between ourselves, I depend chiefly on the kind offices of Willie Adam, who is an auld sneck-drawer." The Lord Chief-Commissioner, at all times ready to lend Scott his influence with the Royal Family, had, on the present occasion, the additional motive of warm and hereditary personal regard for Ferguson.

I have placed together such letters as referred principally to the episode of the Regalia; but shall now give, in the order of time, a few which will sufficiently illustrate the usual course of his existence, while The Heart of Mid-Lothian was in progress. It appears that he resumed, in the beginning of this year, his drama of Devorgoil. His letters to Terry are of course full of that subject, but they contain, at the same time, many curious indications of his views and feelings as to theatrical affairs in general--and mixed up with these a most characteristic record of the earnestness with which he now watched the interior fitting up, as he had in the season before the outward architecture, of the new edifice at Abbotsford. Meanwhile it will be seen that he found leisure hours for various contributions to periodical works,--among others, an article on Kirkton's Church History, and another on (of all subjects in the world) _military bridges_, for the Quarterly Review; a spirited version of the old German ballad on the Battle of Sempach, and a generous criticism on Mrs. Shelley's romance of Frankenstein, for Blackwood's Magazine. This being the first winter and spring of Laidlaw's establishment at Kaeside, communications as to the affairs of the farm were exchanged weekly whenever Scott was in Edinburgh, and they afford delightful evidence of that paternal solicitude for the well-being of his rural dependents, which all along kept pace with Scott's zeal as to the economical {p.215} improvement, and the picturesque adornment of his territories.

TO D. TERRY, ESQ., LONDON.

EDINBURGH, 23d January, 1818.

MY DEAR TERRY,--You have by this time the continuation of
the drama, down to the commencement of the third act, as I
have your letter on the subject of the first. You will
understand that I only mean them as sketches; for the first
and second acts are too short, and both want much to combine
them with the third. I can easily add music to Miss
Devorgoil's part. As to Braham, he is a beast of an actor,
though an angel of a singer, and truly I do not see what he
could personify. Let me know, however, your thoughts and
wishes, and all shall be moulded to the best of my power to
meet them: the point is to make it _take_ if we can; the
rest is all leather and prunella. A great many things must
occur to you technically better, in the way of alteration
and improvement, and you know well that, though too indolent
to amend things on my own conviction, I am always ready to
make them meet my friends' wishes if possible. We shall both
wish it better than I can make it, but there is no reason
why we should not do for it all that we can. I advise you to
take some sapient friend into your counsels, and let me know
the result, returning the MS. at the same time.

I am now anxious to complete Abbotsford. I think I told you
I mean to do nothing whatever to the present house, but to
take it away altogether at some future time, so that I
finish the upper story without any communication with Mrs.
Redford's _ci-devant_ mansion, and shall place the opening
in the lower story, wherever it will be most suitable for
the new house, without regard to defacing the temporary
drawing-room. I am quite feverish about the armory. I have
two pretty complete suits of armor--one Indian one, and a
cuirassier's, with {p.216} boots, casque, etc.; many
helmets, corselets, and steel caps, swords and poniards
without end, and about a dozen of guns, ancient and modern.
I have besides two or three battle-axes and maces, pikes and
targets, a Highlander's accoutrement complete, a great
variety of branches of horns, pikes, bows and arrows, and
the clubs and creases of Indian tribes. Mr. Bullock promised
to give some hint about the fashion of disposing all these
matters; and now our spring is approaching, and I want but
my plans to get on. I have reason to be proud of the
finishing of my castle, for even of the tower, for which I
trembled, not a stone has been shaken by the late terrific
gale, which blew a roof clear off in the neighborhood. It
was lying in the road like a saddle, as Tom Purdie expressed
it. Neither has a slate been lifted, though about two yards
of slating were stripped from the stables in the haugh,
which you know were comparatively less exposed.

I am glad to hear of Mrs. Terry's improved health and good
prospects. As for young Master Mumblecrust, I have no doubt
he will be a credit to us all.

Yours ever truly,

W. SCOTT.

As the letters to Mr. Laidlaw did not travel by post, but in the basket which had come laden with farm-produce for the use of the family in Edinburgh, they have rarely any date but the day of the week. This is, however, of no consequence.

TO MR. LAIDLAW, KAESIDE.

Wednesday. [January, 1818.]

DEAR WILLIE,--Should the weather be rough, and you
nevertheless obliged to come to town, do not think of
riding, but take the Blucher.[87] Remember, your health is
of consequence to your family. Pray talk generally with the
notables of Darnick--I mean Rutherford, {p.217} and so
forth--concerning the best ordering of the road to the
marle; and also of the foot-road. It appears to me some
route might be found more convenient than the present, but
that which is most agreeable to those interested shall also
be most agreeable for me. As a patriotic member of the
community of Darnick, I consider their rights equally
important as my own.

[Footnote 87: A stage-coach, so called, which ran
betwixt Edinburgh and Jedburgh.]

I told you I should like to convert the present steading at
Beechland into a little hamlet of laborers, which we will
name Abbotstown. The art of making people happy is to leave
them much to their own guidance, but some little regulation
is necessary. In the first place, I should like to have
active and decent people there; then it is to be considered
on what footing they should be. I conceive the best possible
is, that they should pay for their cottages, and cow-grass,
and potato ground, and be paid for their labor at the
ordinary rate. I would give them some advantages sufficient
to balance the following conditions, which, after all, are
conditions in my favor: _1st_, That they shall keep their
cottages and little gardens, and doors, tolerably neat; and
_2d_, That the men shall on no account shoot, or the boys
break timber or take birds' nests, or go among the planting.
I do not know any other restrictions, and these are easy. I
should think we might settle a few families very happily
here, which is an object I have much at heart, for I have no
notion of the proprietor who is only ambitious to be lord of
the "beast and the brute," and chases the human face from
his vicinity. By the bye, could we not manage to have a
piper among the colonists?

We are delighted to hear that your little folks like the
dells. Pray, in your walks try to ascertain the locality of
St. John's Well, which cures the botts, and which John Moss
claims for Kaeside; also the true history of the Carline's
Hole. Ever most truly yours,

W. SCOTT.

{p.218} I hope Mrs. Laidlaw does not want for anything that she can get from the garden or elsewhere.

TO DANIEL TERRY, ESQ.

8th February, 1818.

MY DEAR TERRY,--Yours arrived, unluckily, just half an hour
after my packet was in the post-office, so this will cost
you 9_d._, for which I grieve. To answer your principal
question first,--the drama is

"Yours, Terry, yours in every thought."

I should never have dreamed of making such an attempt in my
own proper person; and if I had such a vision, I should have
been anxious to have made it something of a legitimate
drama, such as a literary man, uncalled upon by any
circumstance to connect himself with the stage, might have
been expected to produce. Now this is just what any
gentleman in your situation might run off, to give a little
novelty to the entertainment of the year, and as such will
meet a mitigated degree of criticism, and have a better
chance of that _productive_ success, which is my principal
object in my godson's behalf. If any time should come when
you might wish to disclose the secret, it will be in your
power, and our correspondence will always serve to show that
it was only at my earnest request, annexed as the condition
of bringing the play forward, that you gave it your name--a
circumstance which, with all the attending particulars, will
prove plainly that there was no assumption on your part.

A beautiful drama might be made on the concealment of the
Scotch Regalia during the troubles. But it would interfere
with the democratic spirit of the times, and would probably

---- "By party rage,
Or right or wrong, be hooted from the stage."

{p.219} I will never forgive you if you let any false idea
of my authorial feelings prevent your acting in this affair
as if you were the real parent, not the godfather of the
piece. Our facetious friend J. B. knows nought of such a
matter being _en train_, and never will know. I am delighted
to hear my windows are finished. Yours very truly,

Walter SCOTT.

[Footnote 88: Slightly altered from Dr. Johnson's
Prologue to the comedy of _A Word to the Wise_.]

TO MR. LAIDLAW, KAESIDE.

Wednesday. [February, 1818.]

DEAR WILLIE,--I am not desirous to buy more land at present,
unless I were to deal with Mr. Rutherford or Heiton, and I
would rather deal with them next year than this, when I
would have all my payments made for what I am now buying.
Three or four such years as the last would enable me with
prudence and propriety to ask Nicol[89] himself to flit and
remove.

[Footnote 89: Mr. Nicol Milne of Faldonside. This
gentleman's property is a valuable and extensive one,
situated immediately to the westward of Abbotsford; and
Scott continued, year after year, to dream of adding it
also to his own.]

I like the idea of the birch-hedge much, and if intermixed
with holly and thorns, I think it might make an impenetrable
thicket, having all the advantages of a hedge without the
formality. I fancy you will also need a great number of
(black) Italian poplars--which are among the most useful and
best growers, as well as most beautiful of plants which love
a wet soil.

I am glad the saws are going.[90] We may begin by and by
with wrights, but I cannot but think that a handy laborer
might be taught to work at them. I shall insist on Tom
learning the process perfectly himself.

[Footnote 90: A sawmill had just been erected at
Toftfield.]

As to the darkness of the garrets, they are intended for the
accommodation of travelling geniuses, poets, painters, and
so forth, and a little obscurity will refresh their
shattered brains. I dare say Lauchie[91] will _shave_
{p.220} his knoll, if it is required--it may to the
barber's with the Laird's hebdomadal beard--and Packwood
would have thought it the easier job of the two.

[Footnote 91: A cocklaird adjoining Abbotsford at the
eastern side. His farm is properly _Lochbreist_; but in
the neighborhood he was generally known as _Laird
Lauchie_--or _Lauchie Langlegs_. Washington Irving
describes him in his _Abbotsford_, with high gusto. He
was a most absurd original.]

I saw Blackwood yesterday, and Hogg the day before, and I
understand from them you think of resigning the Chronicle
department of the Magazine. Blackwood told me that if you
did not like that part of the duty, he would consider
himself accountable for the same sum he had specified to you
for any other articles you might communicate from time to
time. He proposes that Hogg should do the Chronicle: He will
not do it so well as you, for he wants judgment and caution,
and likes to have the appearance of eccentricity where
eccentricity is least graceful; that, however, is
Blackwood's affair. If you really do not like the Chronicle,
there can be no harm in your giving it up. What strikes me
is, that there is a something certain in having such a
department to conduct, whereas you may sometimes find
yourself at a loss when you have to cast about for a subject
every month. Blackwood _is_ rather in a bad pickle just
now--sent to Coventry by the trade, as the booksellers call
themselves, and all about the parody of the two beasts.[92]
{p.221} Surely these gentlemen think themselves rather
formed of porcelain clay than of common potter's ware.
Dealing in satire against all others, their own dignity
suffers so cruelly from an ill-imagined joke! If B. had good
books to sell, he might set them all at defiance. His
Magazine does well, and beats Constable's: but we will talk
of this when we meet.[93]

[Footnote 92: An article in one of the early numbers of
_Blackwood's Magazine_, entitled _The Chaldee MS._, in
which the literati and booksellers of Edinburgh were
quizzed _en masse_--Scott himself among the rest. It was
in this lampoon that Constable first saw himself
designated in print by the _sobriquet_ of "The Crafty,"
long before bestowed on him by one of his own most
eminent Whig supporters; but nothing nettled him so much
as the passages in which he and Blackwood are
represented entreating the support of Scott for their
respective Magazines, and waved off by "the Great
Magician" in the same identical phrases of contemptuous
indifference. The description of Constable's visit to
Abbotsford may be worth transcribing--for Sir David
Wilkie, who was present when Scott read it, says he was
almost choked with laughter, and he afterwards confessed
that the Chaldean author had given a sufficiently
accurate version of what really passed on the
occasion:--

"26. But when the Spirits were gone, he (The Crafty)
said unto himself, I will arise and go unto a magician,
which is of my friends: of a surety he will devise some
remedy, and free me out of all my distresses.

"27. So he arose and came unto that great magician which
hath his dwelling in the old fastness, hard by the River
Jordan, which is by the Border.

"28. And the magician opened his mouth and said, Lo! my
heart wisheth thy good, and let the thing prosper which
is in thy hands to do it.

"29. But thou seest that my hands are full of working,
and my labor is great. For, lo, I have to feed all the
people of my land, and none knoweth whence his food
cometh; but each man openeth his mouth, and my hand
filleth it with pleasant things.

"30. Moreover, thine adversary also is of my familiars.

"31. The land is before thee: draw thou up thine hosts
for the battle on the mount of Proclamation, and defy
boldly thine enemy, which hath his camp in the place of
Princes; quit ye as men, and let favor be shown unto him
which is most valiant.

"32. Yet be thou silent; peradventure will I help thee
some little.

"33. But the man which is Crafty saw that the magician
loved him not. For he knew him of old, and they had had
many dealings; and he perceived that he would not assist
him in the day of his adversity.

"34. So he turned about, and went out of his fastness.
And he shook the dust from his feet, and said, Behold I
have given this magician much money, yet see now, he
hath utterly deserted me. Verily, my fine gold hath
perished."--Chap. iii.]

[Footnote 93: [The story of the composition of _The
Chaldee Manuscript_, its publication in the first number
of the magazine, destined to so long and brilliant a
career, and the extraordinary commotion caused thereby,
is admirably told in the _Annals of a Publishing House_,
which also gives the details regarding Laidlaw's brief
connection with the new periodical, and the
correspondence of Scott and Blackwood during its early
months.--See Mrs. Oliphant's _William Blackwood and His
Sons_, vol. i. chap, iii.]]

As for Whiggery in general, I can only say, that as no man
can be said to be utterly overset until his rump has been
higher than his head, so I cannot read in history of any
free state which has been brought to slavery until the
rascal and uninstructed populace had had their short hour of
anarchical government, which naturally {p.222} leads to the
stern repose of military despotism. Property, morals,
education, are the proper qualifications for those who
should hold political rights, and extending them very widely
greatly lessens the chance of these qualifications being
found in electors. Look at the sort of persons chosen at
elections where the franchise is very general, and you will
find either fools who are content to flatter the passions of
the mob for a little transient popularity, or knaves who
pander to their follies, that they may make their necks a
footstool for their own promotion. With these convictions, I
am very jealous of Whiggery, under all modifications; and I
must say, my acquaintance with the total want of principle
in some of its warmest professors does not tend to recommend
it. Somewhat too much of this. My compliments to the
goodwife. Yours truly,

Walter SCOTT.

TO THE SAME.

Wednesday. [February, 1818.]

DEAR WILLIE,--I have no idea Usher[94] will take the
sheepland again, nor would I press it on him. As my
circumstances stand, immediate revenue is much less my
object than the real improvement of this property, which
amuses me besides; our wants are amply supplied by my £1600
a year official income: nor have we a wish or a motive to
extend our expenses beyond that of the decencies and
hospitality of our station in life; so that my other
resources remain for buying land in future, or improving
what we have. No doubt Abbotsford, in maintaining our
establishment during the summer, may be reckoned £150 or
£200 saved on what we must otherwise buy; and if we could
arrange to have mutton and beef {p.223} occasionally from
the farm in winter, it would be a still greater saving. All
this you will consider: for Tom, thoroughly honest and very
clever in his way, has no kind of generalizing, and would
often like to save sixpence in his own department at the
expense of my paying five shillings in another. This is his
fault, and when you join to it a Scotch slovenliness which
leads him to see things half-finished without pain or
anxiety, I do not know any other he has--but such as they
are, these must be guarded against. For our housemaid (for
housekeeper we must not call her), I should like much a hawk
of a nest so good as that you mention: but would not such a
place be rather beneath her views? Her duty would be to look
to scrupulous cleanliness within doors, and employ her
leisure in spinning, or plain-work, as wanted. When we came
out for a blink, she would be expected to cook a little in a
plain way, and play maid of all work; when we were
stationary, she would assist the housemaid and superintend
the laundry. Probably your aunt's granddaughter will have
pretensions to something better than this; but as we are to
be out on the 12th March, we will talk it over. Assuredly a
well-connected steady person would be of the greatest
consequence to us. I like your plan of pitting much; and to
compromise betwixt you and Tom, do one half with superior
attention, and slit in the others for mere nurses. But I am
no friend to that same slitting.

[Footnote 94: John Usher, the ex-proprietor of
Toftfield, was eventually Scott's tenant on part of
those lands for many years. He was a man of far superior
rank and intelligence to the rest of the displaced
lairds--and came presently to be one of Scott's trusty
rural friends, and a frequent companion of his sports.]

I adhere to trying a patch or two of larches, of a quarter
of an acre each, upon the Athole plan, by way of experiment.
We can plant them up if they do not thrive. On the whole,
three-and-a-half feet is, I think, the right distance. I
have no fear of the ground being impoverished. Trees are not
like arable crops, which necessarily derive their sustenance
from the superficial earth--the roots of trees go far and
wide, and, if incommoded by a neighbor, they send out
suckers to procure nourishment elsewhere. They never hurt
each other till {p.224} their tops interfere, which may be
easily prevented by timely weeding.

I rejoice in the sawmill. Have you settled with Harper?--and
how do Og and Bashan[95] come on? I cannot tell you how
delighted I am with the account Hogg gives me of Mr. Grieve.
The great Cameron was chaplain in the house of my great
something grandfather, and so I hope Mr. Grieve will be
mine. If, as the King of Prussia said to Rousseau, "a little
persecution is necessary to make his home entirely to his
mind," he shall have it; and what persecutors seldom
promise, I will stop whenever he is tired of it. I have a
pair of thumbikins also much at his service, if he requires
their assistance to glorify God and the Covenant. Sincerely,
I like enthusiasm of every kind so well, especially when
united with worth of character, that I shall be delighted
with this old gentleman. Ever yours,

W. SCOTT.

[Footnote 95: A yoke of oxen.]

The last paragraph of this letter refers to an uncle of Laidlaw's (the father of Hogg's friend, John Grieve), who at this time thought of occupying a cottage on Scott's estate. He was a preacher of the Cameronian sect, and had long ministered to a very small remnant of "the hill-folk" scattered among the wilds of Ettrick. He was a very good man, and had a most venerable and apostolical benignity of aspect; but his prejudices were as extravagant as those of Cameron, his patriarch, himself could have been. The project of his removal to Tweedside was never realized.

The following admirable letter was written at the request of Messrs. Constable, who had, on Scott's recommendation, undertaken the publication of Mr. Maturin's novel, Women, or _Pour et Contre_. The reverend author's Bertram had, it may be remembered, undergone some rather rough usage in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria; {p.225} and he was now desirous to revenge himself by a preface of the polemical sort:--

TO THE REV. C. R. MATURIN, DUBLIN.

26th February, 1818.