Chapter XLIV (1)

Recurrence of Scott's Illness. -- Death of the Duke of Buccleuch.
-- Letters to Captain Ferguson, Lord Montagu, Mr. Southey, and
Mr. Shortreed. -- Scott's Sufferings while Dictating the Bride of
Lammermoor. -- Anecdotes by James Ballantyne, Etc. -- Appearance
of the Third Series of Tales of My Landlord. -- Anecdote of the
Earl of Buchan.

1819

It had been Scott's purpose to spend the Easter vacation in London, and receive his baronetcy; but this was prevented by the serious recurrence of the malady which so much alarmed his friends in the early part of the year 1817, and which had continued ever since to torment him at intervals. The subsequent correspondence will show that afflictions of various sorts were accumulated on his head at the same period:--

TO THE LORD MONTAGU, DITTON PARK, WINDSOR.

EDINBURGH, 4th March, 1819.

MY DEAR LORD,--The Lord President tells me he has a letter from
his son, Captain Charles Hope, R. N., who had just taken leave of
our High Chief, upon the deck of the Liffey. He had not seen the
Duke for a fortnight, and was pleasingly surprised to find his
health and general appearance so very much improved. For my part,
having watched him with such unremitting attention, I feel very
confident in the effect of a change of air and of climate. It is
with great pleasure that I find the Duke has received an answer
from me respecting a matter about which he was anxious, and on
which I could make his mind quite easy. His Grace wished Adam
Ferguson to assist him as his confidential secretary; and with
all the scrupulous delicacy that belongs to his character, he did
not like to propose this, except through my medium as a common
friend. Now, I can answer for Adam, as I can for myself, that he
will have the highest pleasure in giving assistance in every
possible way the Duke can desire; and if forty years' intimacy
can entitle one man to speak for another, I believe the Duke can
find nowhere a person so highly qualified for such a confidential
situation. He was educated for business, understands it well, and
was long a military secretary;--his temper and manners your
Lordship can judge as well as I can, and his worth and honor are
of the very first water. I confess I should not be surprised if
the Duke should wish to continue the connection even afterwards,
for I have often thought that two hours' letter-writing, which is
his Grace's daily allowance, is rather worse than the duty of a
Clerk of Session, because there is no vacation. Much of this
might surely be saved by an intelligent friend, on whose style of
expression, prudence, and secrecy, his Grace could put perfect
reliance. Two words marked on any letter by his own hand would
enable such a person to refuse more or less positively--to grant
directly or conditionally--or, in short, to maintain the exterior
forms of the very troublesome and extensive correspondence which
his Grace's high situation entails upon him. I think it is
Monsieur le Duc de Saint-Simon who tells us of one of Louis
XIV.'s ministers _qu'il avoit la plume_--which he explains by
saying that it was his duty to imitate the King's handwriting so
closely, as to be almost undistinguishable, and make him on all
occasions _parler tres noblement_. I wonder how the Duke gets on
without such a friend. In the mean time, however, I am glad I can
assure him of Ferguson's willing and ready assistance while
abroad; and I am happy to find still further that he had got that
assurance before they sailed, for tedious hours occur on board of
ship, when it will serve as a relief to talk over any of the
private affairs which the Duke wishes to entrust to him.

I have been very unwell from a visitation of my old enemy, the
cramp in my stomach, which much resembles, as I conceive, the
process by which _the deil_ would make one's _king's-hood_ into a
_spleuchan_,[16] according to the anathema of Burns.
Unfortunately, the opiates which the medical people think
indispensable to relieve spasms, bring on a habit of body which
has to be counteracted by medicines of a different tendency, so
as to produce a most disagreeable see-saw--a kind of pull-devil,
pull-baker contention, the field of battle being my unfortunate
_praecordia_. I am better to-day, and I trust shall be able to
dispense with these alternations. I still hope to be in London in
April.

I will write to the Duke regularly, for distance of place acts in
a contrary ratio on the mind and on the eye: trifles, instead of
being diminished, as in prospect, become important and
interesting, and therefore he shall have a budget of them. Hogg
is here busy with his Jacobite songs. I wish he may get
handsomely through, for he is profoundly ignorant of history, and
it is an awkward thing to read in order that you may write.[17] I
give him all the help I can, but he sometimes poses me. For
instance, he came yesterday, open mouth, inquiring what great
dignified clergyman had distinguished himself at
Killiecrankie--not exactly the scene where one would have
expected a churchman to shine--and I found, with some difficulty,
that he had mistaken Major-General Canon, called, in Kennedy's
Latin Song, _Canonicus Gallovidiensis_, for the canon of a
cathedral. _Ex ungue leonem._ Ever, my dear Lord, your truly
obliged and faithful

WALTER SCOTT.

[Footnote 16: _King's-Hood_--"The second of the four stomachs of ruminating animals." JAMIESON.--_Spleuchan_--The Gaelic name of the Highlander's tobacco-pouch.]

[Footnote 17: "I am sure I produced two volumes of Jacobite Relics, such as no man in Scotland or England could have produced but myself." So says Hogg, _ipse_--see his _Autobiography_, 1832, p. 88. I never saw the Shepherd so elated as he was on the appearance of a very severe article on this book in the _Edinburgh Review_; for, to his exquisite delight, the hostile critic selected for _exceptive_ encomium one "old Jacobite strain," namely, _Donald M'Gillavry_, which Hogg had fabricated the year before. Scott, too, enjoyed this joke almost as much as the Shepherd.]

Before this letter reached Lord Montagu, his brother had sailed for Lisbon. The Duke of Wellington had placed his house in that capital (the Palace _das Necessidades_) at the Duke of Buccleuch's disposal; and in the affectionate care and cheerful society of Captain Ferguson, the invalid had every additional source of comfort that his friends could have wished for him. But the malady had gone too far to be arrested by a change of climate; and the letter which he had addressed to Scott, when about to embark at Portsmouth, is endorsed with these words: "_The last I ever received from my dear friend the Duke of Buccleuch.--Alas! alas!_" The principal object of this letter was to remind Scott of his promise to sit to Raeburn for a portrait, to be hung up in that favorite residence where the Duke had enjoyed most of his society. "My prodigious undertaking," writes his Grace, "of a west wing at Bowhill, is begun. A library of forty-one feet by twenty-one is to be added to the present drawing-room. A space for one picture is reserved over the fireplace, and in this warm situation I intend to place the Guardian of Literature. I should be happy to have my friend Maida appear. It is now almost proverbial, 'Walter Scott and his Dog.' Raeburn should be warned that I am as well acquainted with my friend's hands and arms as with his nose--and Vandyke was of my opinion. Many of R.'s works are shamefully finished--the face studied, but everything else neglected. This is a fair opportunity of producing something really worthy of his skill."

I shall insert by and by Scott's answer--which never reached the Duke's hand--with another letter of the same date to Captain Ferguson; but I must first introduce one, addressed a fortnight earlier to Mr. Southey, who had been distressed by the accounts he received of Scott's health from an American traveller, Mr. George Ticknor of Boston--a friend, and worthy to be such, of Mr. Washington Irving.[18] The Poet Laureate, by the way, had adverted also to an impudent trick of a London bookseller, who shortly before this time announced certain volumes of Grub Street manufacture, as "A New Series of the Tales of my Landlord," and who, when John Ballantyne, as the "agent for the Author of Waverley," published a declaration that the volumes thus advertised were not from that writer's pen, met John's declaration by an audacious rejoinder--impeaching his authority, and asserting that nothing but the personal appearance in the field of the gentleman for whom Ballantyne pretended to act, could shake his belief that he was himself in the confidence of the true Simon Pure.[19] This affair gave considerable uneasiness at the time, and for a moment the dropping of Scott's mask seems to have been pronounced advisable by both Ballantyne and Constable. But he was not to be worked upon by such means as these. He calmly replied, "The author who lends himself to such a trick must be a blockhead--let them publish, and that will serve our purpose better than anything we ourselves could do." I have forgotten the names of the "tales," which, being published accordingly, fell still-born from the press. Mr. Southey had likewise dropped some allusions to another newspaper story of Scott's being seriously engaged in a dramatic work--a rumor which probably originated in the assistance he had lent to Terry in some of the recent highly popular adaptations of his novels to the purposes of the stage; though it is not impossible that some hint of the _Devorgoil_ matter may have transpired. "It is reported," said the Laureate, "that you are about to bring forth a play, and I am greatly in hopes it may be true; for I am verily persuaded that in this course you might run as brilliant a career as you have already done in narrative--both in prose and rhyme;--for as for believing that you have a double in the field--not I! Those same powers would be equally certain of success in the drama, and were you to give them a dramatic direction, and reign for a third seven years upon the stage, you would stand alone in literary history. Indeed already I believe that no man ever afforded so much delight to so great a number of his contemporaries in this or in any other country. God bless you, my dear Scott, and believe me ever yours affectionately, R. S." Mr. Southey's letter had further announced his wife's safe delivery of a son; the approach of the conclusion of his History of Brazil; and his undertaking of the Life of Wesley.

[Footnote 18: [In _The Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor_ will be found some interesting notes regarding his visits to Castle Street, and two days spent at Abbotsford in March, 1819.]]

[Footnote 19: June, 1839.--A friend has sent me the following advertisement from an Edinburgh newspaper of 1819:--

TALES OF MY LANDLORD.

"The Public are respectfully informed, that the Work announced
for publication under the title of 'TALES OF MY LANDLORD, Fourth
Series, containing _Pontefract Castle_,' is not written by the
Author of the First, Second, and Third Series of TALES OF MY
LANDLORD, of which we are the Proprietors and Publishers.

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO."]

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ., KESWICK.

ABBOTSFORD, 4th April, 1819.

MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--Tidings from you must be always acceptable,
even were the bowl in the act of breaking at the fountain--and my
health is at present very _totterish_. I have gone through a
cruel succession of spasms and sickness, which have terminated in
a special fit of the jaundice, so that I might sit for the image
of Plutus, the god of specie, so far as complexion goes. I shall
like our American acquaintance the better that he has sharpened
your remembrance of me, but he is also a wondrous fellow for
romantic lore and antiquarian research, considering his country.
I have now seen four or five well-lettered Americans, ardent in
pursuit of knowledge, and free from the ignorance and forward
presumption which distinguish many of their countrymen. I hope
they will inoculate their country with a love of letters, so
nearly allied to a desire of peace and a sense of public
justice--virtues to which the great Transatlantic community is
more strange than could be wished. Accept my best and most
sincere wishes for the health and strength of your latest pledge
of affection. When I think what you have already suffered, I can
imagine with what mixture of feelings this event must necessarily
affect you; but you need not to be told that we are in better
guidance than our own. I trust in God this late blessing will be
permanent, and inherit your talents and virtues. When I look
around me, and see how many men seem to make it their pride to
misuse high qualifications, can I be less interested than I truly
am in the fate of one who has uniformly dedicated his splendid
powers to maintaining the best interests of humanity? I am very
angry at the time you are to be in London, as I must be there in
about a fortnight, or so soon as I can shake off this depressing
complaint, and it would add not a little that I should meet you
there. My chief purpose is to put my eldest son into the army. I
could have wished he had chosen another profession, but have no
title to combat a choice which would have been my own had my
lameness permitted. Walter has apparently the dispositions and
habits fitted for the military profession, a very quiet and
steady temper, an attachment to mathematics and their
application, good sense, and uncommon personal strength and
activity, with address in most exercises, particularly
horsemanship.

--I had written thus far last week when I was interrupted, first
by the arrival of our friend Ticknor with Mr. Cogswell, another
well-accomplished Yankee--(by the bye, we have them of all sorts,
_e. g._, one Mr. ****, rather a fine man, whom the girls have
christened, with some humor, the Yankee Doodle _Dandie_). They
have had Tom Drum's entertainment, for I have been seized with
one or two successive _crises_ of my cruel malady, lasting in the
utmost anguish from eight to ten hours. If I had not the strength
of a team of horses, I could never have fought through it, and
through the heavy fire of medical artillery, scarce less
exhausting--for bleeding, blistering, calomel, and ipecacuanha
have gone on without intermission--while, during the agony of the
spasms, laudanum became necessary in the most liberal doses,
though inconsistent with the general treatment. I did not lose my
senses, because I resolved to keep them, but I thought once or
twice they would have gone overboard, top and top-gallant. I
should be a great fool, and a most ungrateful wretch, to complain
of such inflictions as these. My life has been, in all its
private and public relations, as fortunate perhaps as was ever
lived, up to this period; and whether pain or misfortune may lie
behind the dark curtain of futurity, I am already a sufficient
debtor to the bounty of Providence to be resigned to it. Fear is
an evil that has never mixed with my nature, nor has even
unwonted good fortune rendered my love of life tenacious; and so
I can look forward to the possible conclusion of these scenes of
agony with reasonable equanimity, and suffer chiefly through the
sympathetic distress of my family.

--Other ten days have passed away, for I would not send this
Jeremiad to tease you, while its termination seemed doubtful. For
the present,

"The game is done--I've won, I've won,
Quoth she, and whistles thrice."[20]

I am this day, for the first time, free from the relics of my
disorder, and, except in point of weakness, perfectly well. But
no broken-down hunter had ever so many sprung sinews, whelks, and
bruises. I am like Sancho after the doughty affair of the
Yanguesian Carriers, and all through the unnatural twisting of
the muscles under the influence of that _Goule_, the cramp. I
must be swathed in Goulard and Rosemary spirits--_probatum est_.

I shall not fine and renew a lease of popularity upon the
theatre. To write for low, ill-informed, and conceited actors,
whom you must please, for your success is necessarily at their
mercy, I cannot away with. How would you, or how do you think I
should relish being the object of such a letter as Kean[21] wrote
t'other day to a poor author, who, though a pedantic blockhead,
had at least the right to be treated as a gentleman by a
copper-laced, twopenny tearmouth, rendered mad by conceit and
success? Besides, if this objection were out of the way, I do not
think the character of the audience in London is such that one
could have the least pleasure in pleasing them. One half come to
prosecute their debaucheries, so openly that it would degrade a
bagnio. Another set to snooze off their beef-steaks and port
wine; a third are critics of the fourth column of the newspaper;
fashion, wit, or literature, there is not; and, on the whole, I
would far rather write verses for mine honest friend Punch and
his audience. The only thing that could tempt me to be so silly,
would be to assist a friend in such a degrading task who was to
have the whole profit and shame of it.

Have you seen decidedly the most full and methodized collection
of Spanish romances (ballads) published by the industry of
Depping (Altenburgh and Leipsic), 1817? It is quite delightful.
Ticknor had set me agog to see it, without affording me any hope
it could be had in London, when by one of these fortunate chances
which have often marked my life, a friend, who had been lately on
the Continent, came unexpectedly to inquire for me, and plucked
it forth _par maniere de cadeau_. God prosper you, my dear
Southey, in your labors; but do not work too hard--_experto
crede_. This conclusion, as well as the confusion of my letter,
like the Bishop of Grenada's sermon, savors of the apoplexy. My
most respectful compliments attend Mrs. S.

Yours truly,

WALTER SCOTT.

P. S.--I shall long to see the conclusion of the Brazil history,
which, as the interest comes nearer, must rise even above the
last noble volume. Wesley you alone can touch; but will you not
have the hive about you? When I was about twelve years old, I
heard him preach more than once, standing on a chair, in Kelso
churchyard. He was a most venerable figure, but his sermons were
vastly too colloquial for the taste of Saunders. He told many
excellent stories. One I remember, which he said had happened to
him at Edinburgh. "A drunken dragoon," said Wesley, "was
commencing an assertion in military fashion, G--d eternally d--n
me, just as I was passing. I touched the poor man on the
shoulder, and when he turned round fiercely, said calmly, you
mean _God bless you_." In the mode of telling the story he failed
not to make us sensible how much his patriarchal appearance, and
mild yet bold rebuke, overawed the soldier, who touched his hat,
thanked him, and, I think, came to chapel that evening.

[Footnote 20: These lines are from Coleridge's _Ancient Mariner_.]

[Footnote 21: The reader will find something about this actor's quarrel with Mr. Bucke, author of _The Italians_, in Barry Cornwall's _Life of Kean_, vol. ii. p. 178.]

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

ABBOTSFORD, 13th April, 1819.

DEAR BOB,--I am very desirous to procure, and as soon as
possible, Mrs. Shortreed's excellent receipt for making yeast.
The Duke of Buccleuch complains extremely of the sour yeast at
Lisbon as disagreeing with his stomach, and I never tasted half
such good bread as Mrs. Shortreed has baked at home. I am sure
you will be as anxious as I am that the receipt should be
forwarded to his Grace as soon as possible. I remember Mrs.
Shortreed giving a most distinct account of the whole affair. It
should be copied over in a very distinct hand, lest Monsieur
Florence makes blunders.

I am recovering from my late indisposition, but as weak as water.
To write these lines is a fatigue. I scarce think I can be at the
circuit at all--certainly only for an hour or two. So on this
occasion I will give Mrs. Shortreed's kind hospitality a little
breathing time. I am tired even with writing these few lines.
Yours ever,

WALTER SCOTT.[22]

[Footnote 22: "Sir Walter got not only the recipe for making bread from us--but likewise learnt the best mode of cutting it 'in a family way.' The breadboard and large knife used at Abbotsford at breakfast-time were adopted by Sir Walter, after seeing them 'work well' in our family."--_Note by Mr. Andrew Shortreed._]

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH, ETC., LISBON.

ABBOTSFORD, 15th April, 1819.

MY DEAR LORD DUKE,--How very strange it seems that this should be
the first letter I address to your Grace, and you so long absent
from Scotland, and looking for all the news and nonsense of which
I am in general such a faithful reporter. Alas, I have been
ill--very--very ill--only Dr. Baillie says there is nothing of
consequence about my malady _except the pain_--a pretty
exception--said pain being intense enough to keep me roaring as
loud as your Grace's _ci-devant_ John of Lorn, and of, generally
speaking, from six to eight hours' incessant duration, only
varied by intervals of deadly sickness. Poor Sophia was alone
with me for some time, and managed a half-distracted pack of
servants with spirit, and sense, and presence of mind, far
beyond her years, never suffering her terror at seeing me in a
state so new to her, and so alarming, to divert her mind an
instant from what was fit and proper to be done. Pardon this side
compliment to your Grace's little Jacobite, to whom you have
always been so kind. If sympathy could have cured me, I should
not have been long ill. Gentle and simple were all equally kind,
and even old Tom Watson crept down from Falshope to see how I was
coming on, and to ejaculate "if anything ailed the Shirra, it
would be sair on the Duke." The only unwelcome resurrection was
that of old ****, whose feud with me (or rather dryness) I had
well hoped was immortal; but he came jinking over the moor with
daughters and ponies, and God knows what, to look after my
precious health. I cannot tolerate that man; it seems to me as if
I hated him for things not only past and present, but for some
future offence, which is as yet in the womb of fate.

I have had as many remedies sent me for cramp and jaundice as
would set up a quack doctor: three from Mrs. Plummer, each better
than the other--one at least from every gardener in the
neighborhood--besides all sorts of recommendations to go to
Cheltenham, to Harrowgate, to Jericho for aught I know. Now if
there is one thing I detest more than another, it is a
watering-place, unless a very pleasant party be previously
formed, when, as Tony Lumpkin says, "a gentleman may be in a
concatenation." The most extraordinary recipe was that of my
Highland piper, John Bruce, who spent a whole Sunday in selecting
twelve stones from twelve _south-running_ streams, with the
purpose that I should sleep upon them, and be whole. I caused him
to be told that the recipe was infallible, but that it was
absolutely necessary to success that the stones should be wrapt
up in the petticoat of a widow who had never wished to marry
again; upon which the piper renounced all hope of completing the
charm. I had need of a softer couch than Bruce had destined me,
for so general was the tension of the nerves all over the body,
although the pain of the spasms in the stomach did not suffer the
others to be felt, that my whole left leg was covered with
swelling and inflammation, arising from the unnatural action of
the muscles, and I had to be carried about like a child. My right
leg escaped better, the muscles there having less irritability,
owing to its lame state. Your Grace may imagine the energy of
pain in the nobler parts, when cramps in the extremities,
sufficient to produce such effects, were unnoticed by me during
their existence. But enough of so disagreeable a subject.

Respecting the portrait, I shall be equally proud and happy to
sit for it, and hope it may be so executed as to be in some
degree worthy of the preferment to which it is destined.[23] But
neither my late golden hue (for I was covered with jaundice), nor
my present silver complexion (looking much more like a spectre
than a man), will present any idea of my quondam beef-eating
physiognomy. I must wait till the _age of brass_, the true
juridical bronze of my profession, shall again appear on my
frontal. I hesitate a little about Raeburn, unless your Grace is
quite determined. He has very much to do; works just now chiefly
for cash, poor fellow, as he can have but a few years to make
money; and has twice already made a very chowder-headed person of
me. I should like much (always with your approbation) to try
Allan, who is a man of real genius, and has made one or two
glorious portraits, though his predilection is to the historical
branch of the art. We did rather a handsome thing for him,
considering that in Edinburgh we are neither very wealthy nor
great amateurs. A hundred persons subscribed ten guineas apiece
to raffle[24] for his fine picture of the Circassian Chief
selling Slaves to the Turkish Pacha--a beautiful and highly
poetical picture. There was another small picture added by way of
second prize, and, what is curious enough, the only two peers on
the list, Lord Wemyss and Lord Fife, both got prizes. Allan has
made a sketch which I shall take to town with me when I can go,
in hopes Lord Stafford, or some other picture-buyer, may fancy
it, and order a picture. The subject is the murder of Archbishop
Sharp on Magus Moor, prodigiously well treated. The savage
ferocity of the assassins, crowding one on another to strike at
the old prelate on his knees--contrasted with the old man's
figure--and that of his daughter endeavoring to interpose for his
protection, and withheld by a ruffian of milder mood than his
fellows:--the dogged fanatical severity of Rathillet's
countenance, who remained on horseback, witnessing, with stern
fanaticism, the murder he did not choose to be active in, lest it
should be said that he struck out of private revenge--are all
amazingly well combined in the sketch. I question if the artist
can bring them out with equal spirit in the painting which he
meditates.[25] Sketches give a sort of fire to the imagination of
the spectator, who is apt to fancy a great deal more for himself,
than the pencil, in the finished picture, can possibly present to
his eye afterwards.--Constable has offered Allan three hundred
pounds to make sketches for an edition of the Tales of my
Landlord, and other novels of that cycle, and says he will give
him the same sum next year, so, from being pinched enough, this
very deserving artist suddenly finds himself at his ease. He was
long at Odessa with the Duke of Richelieu, and is a very
entertaining person.

[Footnote 23: The position in the Library at Bowhill, originally destined by the late Duke of Buccleuch for a portrait that never was executed, is now filled by that which Raeburn painted in 1808 for Constable.]

[Footnote 24: Three pictures were ultimately raffled for; and the following note, dated April the 1st, 1819, shows how keenly and practically Scott, almost in the crisis of his malady, could attend to the details of such a business:--

TO J. G. LOCKHART, ESQ., ADVOCATE, EDINBURGH.

... I have been dreadfully ill since I wrote to you, but I think
I have now got the turn fairly. It was quite time, for though the
doctors say the disease is not dangerous, yet I could not have
endured six days more agony. I have a summons from the ingenious
Mr. David Bridges to attend to my interests at his shop next
Saturday, or send some qualified person to act on my behalf. I
suppose that this mysterious missive alludes to the plan about
Allan's pictures, and at any rate I hope you will act for me. I
should think a raffle with dice would give more general
satisfaction than a lottery. Yon would be astonished what
unhandsome suspicions well-educated and sensible persons will
take into their heads, when a selfish competition awakens the
mean and evil passions of our nature. Let each subscriber throw
the dice in person or by proxy, leaving out all who throw under a
certain number, and let this be repeated till the number is so
far reduced that the three who throw highest may hold the prizes.
I have much to say to you, and should you spare me a day about
the end of next week, I trust you will find me pretty _bobbish_.

Always yours affectionately, W. S.

The Mr. David Bridges here mentioned has occurred already.--See _ante_, vol. v. p. 262. The jokers in _Blackwood_ made him happy by dubbing him, "The Director-General of the Fine Arts for Scotland."--He says the subscribers for the Allan-Raffle were not so numerous as Scott had supposed. (Mr. Bridges died in November, 1840, in his 64th year.)]

[Footnote 25: The fine picture which Allan executed is in the possession of Mr. Lockhart of Milton-Lockhart, and has been well engraved.]

I saw with great pleasure Wilkie's sketch of your Grace, and I
think when I get to town I shall coax him out of a copy, to me
invaluable. I hope, however, when you return, you will sit to
Lawrence. We should have at least one picture of your Grace from
the real good hand. Sooth to speak, I cannot say much for the
juvenile representations at Bowhill and in the library at
Dalkeith. Return, however, with the original features in good
health, and we shall not worry you about portraits. The library
at Bowhill will be a delightful room, and will be some
consolation to me who must, I fear, lose for some time the
comforts of the eating-room, and substitute panada and toast and
water for the bonny haunch and buxom bottle of claret. Truth is,
I must make great restrictions on my creature-comforts, at least
till my stomach recovers its tone and ostrich-like capacity of
digestion. Our spring here is slow, but not unfavorable: the
country looking very well, and my plantings for the season quite
completed. I have planted quite up two little glens, leading
from the Aide-de-Camp's habitation up to the little loch, and
expect the blessings of posterity for the shade and shelter I
shall leave, where, God knows, I found none.

It is doomed this letter is not to close without a request. I
conclude your Grace has already heard from fifty applicants that
the kirk of Middlebie is vacant, and I come forward as the
fifty-first (always barring prior engagements and better claims)
in behalf of George Thomson, a son of the minister of Melrose,
being the grinder of my boys, and therefore deeply entitled to my
gratitude and my good offices, as far as they can go. He is
nearer Parson Abraham Adams than any living creature I ever
saw--very learned, very religious, very simple, and extremely
absent. His father, till very lately, had but a sort of half
stipend, during the incumbency of a certain notorious Mr.
MacLagan, to whom he acted only as assistant. The poor devil was
brought to the grindstone (having had the want of precaution to
beget a large family), and became the very figure of a fellow who
used to come upon the stage to sing "Let us all be unhappy
together." This poor lad George was his saving angel, not only
educating himself, but taking on him the education of two of his
brothers, and maintaining them out of his own scanty pittance. He
is a sensible lad, and by no means a bad preacher, a stanch
Anti-Gallican, and orthodox in his principles. Should your Grace
find yourself at liberty to give countenance to this very
innocent and deserving creature, I need not say it will add to
the many favors you have conferred on me; but I hope the
parishioners will have also occasion to say, "Weel bobbit, George
of Middlebie." Your Grace's Aide-de-Camp, who knows young Thomson
well, will give you a better idea of him than I can do. He lost a
leg by an accident in his boyhood, which spoiled as bold and
fine-looking a grenadier as ever charged bayonet against a
Frenchman's throat. I think your Grace will not like him the
worse for having a spice of military and loyal spirit about him.
If you knew the poor fellow, your Grace would take uncommon
interest in him, were it but for the odd mixture of sense and
simplicity, and spirit and good morals. Somewhat too much of him.

I conclude you will go to Mafra, Cintra, or some of these places,
which Baretti describes so delightfully, to avoid the great
heats, when the Palace de las Necessidades must become rather
oppressive. By the bye, though it were only for the credit of the
name, I am happy to learn it has that useful English comfort, a
water-closet. I suppose the armorer of the Liffey has already put
it in complete repair. Your Grace sees the most secret passages
respecting great men cannot be hidden from their friends. There
is but little news here but death in the clan. Harden's sister is
dead--a cruel blow to Lady Die,[26] who is upwards of
eighty-five, and accustomed to no other society. Again, Mrs.
Frank Scott, his uncle's widow, is dead, unable to survive the
loss of two fine young men in India, her sons, whose death
closely followed each other. All this is sad work; but it is a
wicked and melancholy world we live in. God bless you, my dear,
dear Lord. Take great care of your health for the sake of all of
us. You are the breath of our nostrils, useful to thousands, and
to many of these thousands indispensable. I will write again very
soon, when I can keep my breast longer to the desk without pain,
for I am not yet without frequent relapses, when they souse me
into scalding water without a moment's delay, where I lie, as my
old _grieve_ Tom Purdie said last night, being called to assist
at the operation, "like a _haulded saumon_." I write a few lines
to the Aide-de-Camp, but I am afraid of putting this letter
beyond the bounds of Lord Montagu's frank. When I can do anything
for your Grace here, you know I am most pleased and happy.--Ever
respectfully and affectionately your Grace's

WALTER SCOTT.

[Footnote 26: See _ante_, vol. i. p. 230.]

TO CAPTAIN ADAM FERGUSON, ETC., ETC., ETC.

ABBOTSFORD, April 16, 1819.

MY DEAR ADAM,--Having only been able last night to finish a long
letter to the Chief, I now add a few lines for the Aide-de-Camp.
I have had the pleasure to hear of you regularly from Jack,[27]
who is very regular in steering this way when packets arrive; and
I observe with great satisfaction that you think our good Duke's
health is on the mending hand. Climate must operate as an
alterative, and much cannot perhaps be expected from it at first.
Besides, the great heat must be a serious drawback. But I hope
you will try by and by to get away to Cintra, or some of those
sequestered retreats where there are shades and cascades to cool
the air. I have an idea the country there is eminently beautiful.
I am afraid the Duke has not yet been able to visit Torres
Vedras, but _you_ must be meeting with things everywhere to put
you in mind of former scenes. As for the Senhoras, I have little
doubt that the difference betwixt your military hard fare and
Florence's high sauces and jellies will make them think that time
has rather improved an old friend than otherwise. Apropos of
these ticklish subjects. I am a suitor to the Duke, with little
expectation of success (for I know his engagements), for the kirk
of Middlebie to George Thomson, the very Abraham Adams of
Presbytery. If the Duke mentions him to you (not otherwise) pray
lend him a lift. With a kirk and a manse the poor fellow might
get a good farmer's daughter, and beget grenadiers for his
Majesty's service. But as I said before, I dare say all St.
Hubert's black pack are in full cry upon the living, and that he
has little or no chance. It is something, however, to have tabled
him, as better may come of it another day.

All at Huntly Burn well and hearty, and most kind in their
attentions during our late turmoils. Bauby[28] came over to offer
her services as sick-nurse, and I have drunk scarce anything but
delicious ginger-beer of Miss Bell's brewing, since my troubles
commenced. They have been, to say the least, damnable; and I
think you would hardly know me. When I crawl out on Sibyl Grey, I
am the very image of Death on the pale horse--lanthorn-jawed,
decayed in flesh, stooping as if I meant to eat the pony's ears,
and unable to go above a footpace. But although I have had, and
must expect, frequent relapses, yet the attacks are more slight,
and I trust I shall mend with the good weather. Spring sets in
very pleasantly, and in a settled fashion. I have planted a
number of shrubs, etc., at Huntly Burn, and am snodding up the
drive of the old farmhouse, enclosing the Toftfield, and making a
good road from the parish road to your gate. This I tell you to
animate you to pick up a few seeds both of forest trees, shrubs,
and vegetables; we will rear them in the hot-house, and divide
honorably. _Avis au lecteur._ I have been a good deal entrusted
to the care of Sophia, who is an admirable sick-nurse. Mamma has
been called to town by two important avocations: to get a
cook--no joking matter,--and to see Charles, who was but
indifferent, but has recovered. You must have heard of the death
of Joseph Hume, David's only son. Christ! what a calamity!--just
entering life with the fairest prospects--full of talent, and the
heir of an old and considerable family--a fine career before him:
all this he was one day, or rather one hour--or rather in the
course of five minutes--so sudden was the death--and then--a heap
of earth. His disease is unknown; something about the heart, I
believe; but it had no alarming appearance, nothing worse than a
cold and sore throat, when convulsions came, and death ensued. It
is a complete smash to poor David, who had just begun to hold
his head up after his wife's death. But he bears it stoutly, and
goes about his business as usual. A woeful case. London is now
out of the question with me; I have no prospect of being now able
to stand the journey by sea or land; but the best is, I have no
pressing business there. The Commie[29] takes charge of Walter's
matters--cannot, you know, be in better hands; and Lord Melville
talks of gazetting _quam primum_. I will write a long letter very
soon, but my back, fingers, and eyes ache with these three pages.
All here send love and fraternity. Yours ever most truly,

WALTER SCOTT.

P. S.--By the bye, old Kennedy, the tinker, swam for his life at
Jedburgh, and was only, by the sophisticated and timid evidence
of a seceding doctor, who differed from all his brethren, saved
from a well-deserved gibbet. He goes to botanize for fourteen
years. Pray tell this to the Duke, for he was

"An old soldier of the Duke's,
And the Duke's old soldier."

Six of his brethren, I am told, were in court, and kith and kin
without end. I am sorry so many of the clan are left. The cause
of quarrel with the murdered man was an old feud between two
gypsy clans, the Kennedies and Irvings, which, about forty years
since, gave rise to a desperate quarrel and battle on Hawick
Green, in which the grandfathers of both Kennedy, and Irving whom
he murdered, were engaged.

[Footnote 27: Captain John Ferguson, R. N.]

[Footnote 28: Bauby--_i. e._, Barbara, was a kind old housekeeper of the Miss Fergusons.]

[Footnote 29: The Lord Chief-Commissioner Adam.]

In the next of these letters there is allusion to a drama, on the story of The Heart of Mid-Lothian, of which Mr. Terry had transmitted the MS. to Abbotsford--and which ultimately proved very successful. Terry had, shortly before this time, become the acting manager of the Haymarket Theatre.

TO D. TERRY, ESQ., HAYMARKET, LONDON.

ABBOTSFORD, 18th April, 1819.

DEAR TERRY,--I am able (though very weak) to answer your kind
inquiries. I have thought of you often, and been on the point of
writing or dictating a letter, but till very lately I could have
had little to tell you of but distress and agony, with constant
relapses into my unhappy malady, so that for weeks I seemed to
lose rather than gain ground, all food nauseating on my stomach,
and my clothes hanging about me like a potato-bogle,[30] with
from five or six to ten hours of mortal pain every third day;
latterly the fits have been much milder, and have at last given
way to the hot bath without any use of opiates; an immense point
gained, as they hurt my general health extremely. Conceive my
having taken, in the course of six or seven hours, six grains of
opium, three of hyoscyamus, near 200 drops of laudanum--and all
without any sensible relief of the agony under which I labored.
My stomach is now getting confirmed, and I have great hopes the
bout is over; it has been a dreadful set-to. I am sorry to hear
Mrs. Terry is complaining; you ought not to let her labor,
neither at Abbotsford sketches nor at anything else, but to study
to keep her mind amused as much as possible. As for Walter, he is
a shoot of an _Aik_,[31] and I have no fear of him: I hope he
remembers Abbotsford and his soldier namesake.

I send the MS.--I wish you had written for it earlier. My
touching, or even thinking of it, was out of the question; my
corrections would have smelled as cruelly of the cramp as the
Bishop of Grenada's homily did of the apoplexy. Indeed I hold
myself inadequate to estimate those criticisms which rest on
stage effect, having been of late very little of a play-going
person. Would to Heaven these sheets could do for you what Rob
Roy has done for Murray; he has absolutely netted upwards of
L3000: to be sure, the man who played the Bailie made a piece of
acting equal to whatever has been seen in the profession. For my
own part, I was actually electrified by the truth, spirit, and
humor which he threw into the part. It was the living Nicol
Jarvie: conceited, pragmatical, cautious, generous, proud of his
connection with Rob Roy, frightened for him at the same time, and
yet extremely desirous to interfere with him as an adviser: the
tone in which he seemed to give him up for a lost man after
having provoked him into some burst of Highland violence, "Ah
Rab! Rab!" was quite inimitable. I do assure you I never saw a
thing better played. It is like it may be his only part, for no
doubt the Patavinity and knowledge of the provincial character
may have aided him much; but still he must be a wonderful fellow;
and the houses he drew were tremendous.

I am truly glad you are settled in London--"a rolling
stone"--"the proverb is something musty:"[32] it is always
difficult to begin a new profession; I could have wished you
quartered nearer us, but we shall always hear of you. The
becoming stage-manager at the Haymarket I look upon as a great
step: well executed, it cannot but lead to something of the same
kind elsewhere. You must be aware of stumbling over a propensity
which easily besets you from the habit of not having your time
fully employed--I mean what the women very expressively call
_dawdling_. Your motto must be _Hoc age_. Do instantly whatever
is to be done, and take the hours of reflection or recreation
after business, and never before it. When a regiment is under
march, the rear is often thrown into confusion because the front
do not move steadily and without interruption. It is the same
thing with business. If that which is first in hand is not
instantly, steadily, and regularly despatched, other things
accumulate behind till affairs begin to press all at once, and
no human brain can stand the confusion: pray mind this, it is one
of your few weak points--ask Mrs. Terry else. A habit of the mind
it is which is very apt to beset men of intellect and talent,
especially when their time is not regularly filled up, but left
at their own arrangement. But it is like the ivy round the oak,
and ends by limiting, if it does not destroy, the power of manly
and necessary exertion. I must love a man so well to whom I offer
such a word of advice, that I will not apologize for it, but
expect to hear you are become as regular as a Dutch clock--hours,
quarters, minutes, all marked and appropriated. This is a great
cast in life, and must be played with all skill and caution.

We wish much to have a plan of the great bed, that we may hang up
the tester. Mr. Atkinson offered to have it altered or exchanged;
but with the expense of land-carriage and risk of damage, it is
not to be thought of. I enclose a letter to thank him for all his
kindness. I should like to have the invoice when the things are
shipped. I hope they will send them to Leith, and not to Berwick.
The plasterer has broke a pane in the armory. I enclose a sheet
with the size, the black lines being traced within the lead; and
I add a rough drawing of the arms, which are those of my mother.
I should like it replaced as soon as possible, for I will set the
expense against the careless rascal's account.

I have got a beautiful scarlet paper, inlaid with gold (rather
crimson than scarlet) in a present from India, which will hang
the parlor to a T; but we shall want some articles from town to
enable us to take possession of the parlor--namely, a
_carpet_--you mentioned a _wainscot pattern_, which would be
delightful--item, _grates_ for said parlor and armory--a plain
and unexpensive pattern, resembling that in my room (which vents
most admirably), and suited by half-dogs for burning wood. The
sideboard and chairs you have mentioned. I see Mr. Bullock
(George's brother) advertises his museum for sale. I wonder if a
good set of _real tilting_ armor could be got cheap there. James
Ballantyne got me one very handsome bright steel cuirassier of
Queen Elizabeth's time, and two less perfect, for L20--dog cheap;
they make a great figure in the armory. Hangings, curtains, etc.,
I believe we shall get as well in Edinburgh as in London; it is
in your joiner and cabinet work that your infinite superiority
lies.

Write to me if I can do aught about the play--though I fear not:
much will depend on Dumbiedikes, in whom Listen will be strong.
Sophia has been chiefly my nurse, as an indisposition of little
Charles called Charlotte to town. She returned yesterday with
him. All beg kind compliments to you and Mrs. Terry and little
Walter. I remain your very feeble but convalescent to command,

WALTER SCOTT.

P. S.--We must not forget the case for the leaves of the table
while out of use; without something of the kind, I am afraid they
will be liable to injury, which is a pity, as they are so very
beautiful.[33]

[Footnote 30: _Anglice_--Scarecrow.]

[Footnote 31: _Anglice_--an Oak.]

[Footnote 32: _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 2.]

[Footnote 33: The Duke of Buccleuch gave Scott some old oak-roots from Drumlanrig, out of which a very beautiful set of dinner-tables were manufactured by Messrs. Bullock.]

The accounts of Scott's condition circulated in Edinburgh in the course of this April were so alarming, that I should not have thought of accepting his invitation to revisit Abbotsford, unless John Ballantyne had given me better tidings about the end of the month.[34] He informed me that his "illustrious friend" (for so both the Ballantynes usually spoke of him) was so much recovered as to have resumed his usual literary tasks, though with this difference, that he now, for the first time in his life, found it necessary to employ the hand of another. I have now before me a letter of the 8th April, in which Scott says to Constable: "Yesterday I began to dictate, and did it easily and with comfort. This is a great point, but I must proceed by little and little; last night I had a slight return of the enemy, but baffled him;"--and he again writes to the bookseller on the 11th, "John Ballantyne is here, and returns with copy, which my increasing strength permits me to hope I may now furnish regularly."

[Footnote 34: [An extract from a letter of March 23 will show how warm a regard Scott already felt for Lockhart: "I am but just on my feet after a fourth very severe spasmodic affection, which held me from half-past six last night to half-past three this morning in a state little short of the extreme agony, during which time, to the infinite consternation of my terrified family, I waltzed with Madam Cramp to my own sad music.

I sighed and howl'd,
And groaned and growl'd,
A wild and wondrous sound;

incapable of lying in one posture, yet unable to find any possible means of changing it. I thought of you amid all this agony, and of the great game which with your parts and principles lies before you in Scotland, and having been for very many years the only man of letters who at least stood by, if he could not support, the banner of ancient faith and loyalty, I was mentally bequeathing to you my baton, like old Douglas:--

'Take _thou_ the vanguard of the three
And bury me by the bracken bush,
That grows upon yon lily lea.'

"I believe the women thought I was growing light-headed as they heard me repeat a rhyme apparently so little connected with my situation. I have much to say to you on these subjects, for which I hope we shall have a fit time; for, like old Sir Anthony Absolute, I hope still to live long and be very troublesome to you. Indeed, the surgeon could not help expressing his astonishment at the great strength of my temperament, and I think had an eye to my ribs as glorious hoops for a skeleton."--_Familiar Letters_, vol. ii. p. 38.]]