Chapter XLV (2)

MY DEAR LORD,--I am honored with your Buxton letter.... _Anent_
Prince Leopold, I only heard of his approach at eight o'clock in
the morning, and he was to be at Selkirk by eleven. The
magistrates sent to ask me to help them to receive him. It
occurred to me he might be coming to Melrose to see the Abbey, in
which case I could not avoid asking him to Abbotsford, as he must
pass my very door. I mentioned this to Mrs. Scott, who was lying
quietly in bed, and I wish you had heard the scream she gave on
the occasion. "What have we to offer him?"--"Wine and cake," said
I, thinking to make all things easy; but she ejaculated, in a
tone of utter despair, "Cake!! where am I to get cake?" However,
being partly consoled with the recollection that his visit was a
very improbable incident, and curiosity, as usual, proving too
strong for alarm, she set out with me in order not to miss a peep
of the great man. James Skene and his lady were with us, and we
gave our carriages such additional dignity as a pair of leaders
could add, and went to meet him in full puff. The Prince very
civilly told me, that, though he could not see Melrose on this
occasion, he wished to come to Abbotsford for an hour. New
despair on the part of Mrs. Scott, who began to institute a
domiciliary search for cold meat through the whole city of
Selkirk, which produced _one shoulder of cold lamb_. In the mean
while, his Royal Highness received the civic honors of the
BIRSE[55] very graciously. I had hinted to Bailie Lang,[56] that
it ought only to be licked _symbolically_ on the present
occasion; so he flourished it three times before his mouth, but
without touching it with his lips, and the Prince followed his
example as directed. Lang made an excellent speech--sensible, and
feeling, and well delivered. The Prince seemed much surprised at
this great propriety of expression and behavior in a magistrate,
whose people seemed such a rabble, and whose whole band of music
consisted in a drum and fife. He noticed to Bailie Anderson that
Selkirk seemed very populous in proportion to its extent. "On an
occasion like this it seems so," answered the Bailie,--neatly
enough, I thought. I question if any magistrates in the kingdom,
lord mayors and aldermen not excepted, could have behaved with
more decent and quiet good-breeding. Prince Leopold repeatedly
alluded to this during the time he was at Abbotsford. I do not
know how Mrs. Scott ultimately managed; but with broiled salmon,
and blackcock, and partridges, she gave him a very decent lunch;
and I chanced to have some very fine old hock, which was mighty
germane to the matter.

The Prince seems melancholy, whether naturally or from habit, I
do not pretend to say; but I do not remember thinking him so at
Paris, where I saw him frequently, then a much poorer man than
myself; yet he showed some humor, for, alluding to the crowds
that followed him everywhere, he mentioned some place where he
had gone out to shoot, but was afraid to proceed for fear of
"bagging a boy." He said he really thought of getting some
shooting-place in Scotland, and promised me a longer visit on his
return. If I had had a day's notice to have _warned the waters_,
we could have met him with a very respectable number of the
gentry; but there was no time for this, and probably he liked it
better as it was. There was only young Clifton who could have
come, and he was shy and cubbish, and would not, though requested
by the Selkirk people. He was perhaps ashamed to march through
Coventry with them. It hung often and sadly on my mind that _he_
was wanting who could and would have received him like a Prince
indeed; and yet the meeting betwixt them, had they been fated to
meet, would have been a very sad one. I think I have now given
your Lordship a very full, true, and particular account of our
royal visit, unmatched even by that of King Charles at the Castle
of Tillietudlem. That we did not speak of it for more than a week
after it happened, and that that emphatic monosyllable, _The
Prince_, is not heard amongst us more than ten times a day, is,
on the whole, to the credit of my family's understanding. The
piper is the only one whose brain he seems to have endangered;
for, as the Prince said he preferred him to any he had heard in
the Highlands--(which, by the way, shows his Royal Highness knows
nothing of the matter)--the fellow seems to have become incapable
of his ordinary occupation as a forester, and has cut stick and
stem without remorse to the tune of _Phail Phranse_, _i. e._, the
Prince's Welcome.

I am just going to the head-court with Donaldson, and go a day
sooner to exhume certain old monuments of the Rutherfords at
Jedburgh. Edgerstone[57] is to meet me at Jedburgh for this
research, and then we shall go up with him to dinner. My best
respects attend Lady Montagu. I wish this letter may reach you on
a more lively day than it is written in, for it requires little
to add to its dulness. Tweed is coming down very fast, the first
time this summer. Believe me, my dear Lord, most truly yours,

WALTER SCOTT.

[Footnote 55: See _ante_, vol. v. p. 88.]

[Footnote 56: Scott's good friend, Mr. Andrew Lang, Sheriff-Clerk for Selkirkshire, was then chief magistrate of the county town. [He was the grandfather of the accomplished man of letters who bears his name.]]

[Footnote 57: The late John Rutherford of Edgerstone, long M. P. for Roxburghshire, was a person of high worth, and universally esteemed. Scott used to say Edgerstone was his _beau ideal_ of the character of a country gentleman. He was, I believe, the head of the once great and powerful clan of Rutherford.]

TO W. SCOTT, ESQ., 18TH HUSSARS, CORK.

ABBOTSFORD, 14th October, 1819.

DEAR WALTER,--I had your last letter, and am very glad you find
pleasant society. Mrs. Dundas of Arniston is so good as to send
you some introductions, which you will deliver as soon as
possible. You will be now in some degree accustomed to meet with
strangers, and to form your estimate of their character and
manners. I hope, in the mean time, the French and German are
attended to; please to mention in your next letter what you are
reading, and in what languages. The hours of youth, my dear
Walter, are too precious to be spent all in gayety. We must lay
up in that period when our spirit is active, and our memory
strong, the stores of information which are not only to
facilitate our progress through life, but to amuse and interest
us in our later stage of existence. I very often think what an
unhappy person I should have been, if I had not done something
more or less towards improving my understanding when I was at
your age; and I never reflect, without severe self-condemnation,
on the opportunities of acquiring knowledge which I either
trifled with, or altogether neglected. I hope you will be wiser
than I have been, and experience less of that self-reproach.

My last acquainted you with Mrs. Erskine's death, and I grieve to
say we have just received intelligence that our kind neighbor and
good friend Lord Somerville is at the very last gasp. His disease
is a dysentery, and the symptoms, as his brother writes to Mr.
Samuel Somerville, are mortal. He is at Vevay, upon his road, I
suppose, to Italy, where he had purposed spending the winter. His
death, for I understand nothing else can be expected, will be
another severe loss to me; for he was a kind, good friend, and at
my time of day men do not readily take to new associates. I must
own this has been one of the most melancholy years I ever passed.
The poor Duke, who loved me so well--Mrs. Erskine--Lord
Somerville--not to mention others with whom I was less intimate,
make it one year of mourning. I should not forget the Chief
Baron, who, though from ill health we met of late seldom, was
always my dear friend, and indeed very early benefactor. I must
look forwards to seeing in your success and respectability, and
in the affection and active improvement of all of you, those
pleasures which are narrowed by the death of my contemporaries.
Men cannot form new intimacies at my period of life, but must be
happy or otherwise according to the good fortune and good conduct
of those near relatives who rise around them.

I wish much to know if you are lucky in a servant. Trust him with
as little cash as possible, and keep short accounts. Many a good
servant is spoiled by neglecting this simple precaution. The man
is tempted to some expense of his own, gives way to it, and then
has to make it up by a system of overcharge and peculation; and
thus mischief begins, and the carelessness of the master makes a
rogue out of an honest lad, and cheats himself into the bargain.

I have a letter from your uncle Tom, telling me his eldest
daughter is to be forthwith married to a Captain Huxley of his
own regiment. As he has had a full opportunity of being
acquainted with the young gentleman, and approves of the match, I
have to hope that it will be a happy one. I fear there is no
great fortune in the case on either side, which is to be
regretted.

Of domestic affairs I have little to tell you. The harvest has
been excellent, the weather delightful; but this I must often
have repeated. To-day I was thinning out fir-trees in the
thicket, and the men were quite exhausted with the heat, and I
myself, though only marking the trees, felt the exercise
sufficiently warm. The wood is thriving delightfully. On the 28th
we are to have a dance in honor of your birthday. I wish you
could look in upon us for the day at least--only I am afraid we
could not part with you when it was over, and so you would be in
the guise of Cinderella, when she outstayed her time at the ball,
and all her finery returned into its original base materials.
Talking of balls, the girls would tell you the Melrose hop, where
mamma presided, went off well.

I expect poor Erskine and his daughter next week, or the week
after. I went into town to see him--and found him bearing his
great loss with his natural gentleness and patience. But he was
sufficiently distressed, as he has great reason to be. I also
expect Lord and Lady Melville here very soon. Sir William Rae
(now Lord Advocate) and his lady came to us on Saturday. On
Sunday Maida walked with us, and in jumping the paling at the
Greentongue park contrived to hang himself up by the hind leg. He
howled at first, but seeing us making towards him he stopped
crying, and waved his tail, by way of signal, it was supposed,
for assistance. He sustained no material injury, though his leg
was strangely twisted into the bars, and he was nearly hanging
by it. He showed great gratitude, in his way, to his deliverers.
This is a long letter, and little in it; but that is nothing
extraordinary. All send best love--and I am ever, dear Walter,
your affectionate father,

WALTER SCOTT.

TO THOMAS SCOTT, ESQ., PAYMASTER, 70th REGIMENT, CANADA.

ABBOTSFORD, 16th October, 1819.

DEAR TOM,--I received yesterday your very acceptable letter,
containing the news of Jessie's approaching marriage, in which,
as a match agreeable to her mother and you, and relieving your
minds from some of the anxious prospects which haunt those of
parents, I take the most sincere interest. Before this reaches
you the event will probably have taken place. Meantime, I enclose
a letter to the bride or wife, as the case may happen to be. I
have sent a small token of good-will to ballast my good wishes,
which you will please to value for the young lady, that she may
employ it as most convenient or agreeable to her. A little more
fortune would perhaps have done the young folks no harm; but
Captain Huxley, being such as you describe him, will have every
chance of getting forward in his profession; and the happiest
marriages are often those in which there is, at first, occasion
for prudence and economy. I do certainly feel a little of the
surprise which you hint at, for time flies over our heads one
scarce marks how, and children become marriageable ere we
consider them as out of the nursery. My eldest son, Walter, has
also wedded himself--but it is to a regiment of hussars. He is at
present a cornet in the 18th, and quartered in Cork barracks. He
is capital at most exercises, but particularly as a horseman. I
do not intend he shall remain in the cavalry, however, but shall
get him into the line when he is capable of promotion. Since he
has chosen this profession, I shall be desirous that he follows
it out in good earnest, and that can only be done by getting into
the infantry.

My late severe illness has prevented my going up to London to
receive the honor which the Prince Regent has announced his
intention to inflict upon me. My present intention is, if I
continue as well as I have been, to go up about Christmas to get
this affair over. My health was restored (I trust permanently) by
the use of calomel, a very severe and painful remedy, especially
in my exhausted state of body, but it has proved a radical one.
By the way, _Radical_ is a word in very bad odor here, being used
to denote a set of blackguards a hundred times more mischievous
and absurd than our old friends in 1794 and 1795. You will learn
enough of the doings of the _Radical Reformers_ from the papers.
In Scotland we are quiet enough, excepting in the manufacturing
districts, and we are in very good hands, as Sir William Rae, our
old commander, is Lord Advocate. Rae has been here two or three
days, and left me yesterday; he is the old man, sensible,
cool-headed, and firm, always thinking of his duty, never of
himself. He inquired kindly after you, and I think will be
disposed to serve you, should an opportunity offer. Poor William
Erskine has lost his excellent wife, after a long and wasting
illness. She died at Lowood on Windermere, he having been
recommended to take her upon a tour about three weeks before her
death. I own I should scarce forgive a physician who should
contrive to give me this addition to family distress. I went to
town last week to see him, and found him, upon the whole, much
better than I expected. I saw my mother on the same occasion,
admirably well indeed. She is greatly better than this time two
years, when she rather quacked herself a little too much. I have
sent your letter to our mother, and will not fail to transmit to
our other friends the agreeable news of your daughter's
settlement. Our cousin, Sir Harry Macdougal, is marrying his
eldest daughter to Sir Thomas Brisbane, a very good match on
both sides. I have been paying a visit on the occasion, which
suspends my closing this letter. I hope to hear very soon from
you. Respecting our silence, I, like a ghost, only waited to be
spoken to, and you may depend on me as a regular correspondent,
when you find time to be one yourself. Charlotte and the girls
join in kind love to Mrs. Scott and all the family. I should like
to know what you mean to do with young Walter, and whether I can
assist you in that matter. Believe me, dear Tom, ever your
affectionate brother,

W. SCOTT.

TO DANIEL TERRY, ESQ., LONDON.

ABBOTSFORD, November 10, 1819.

MY DEAR TERRY,--I should be very sorry if you thought the
interest I take in you and yours so slight as not to render your
last letter extremely interesting. We have all our various
combats to fight in this best of all possible worlds, and, like
brave fellow-soldiers, ought to assist one another as much as
possible. I have little doubt, that if God spares me till my
little namesake be fit to take up his share of the burden, I may
have interest enough to be of great advantage to him in the
entrance of life. In the present state of your own profession,
you would not willingly, I suppose, choose him to follow it; and,
as it is very seductive to young people of a lively temper and
good taste for the art, you should, I think, consider early how
you mean to dispose of little Walter, with a view, that is, to
the future line of life which you would wish him to adopt. Mrs.
Terry has not the good health which all who know her amiable
disposition and fine accomplishments would anxiously wish her;
yet, with impaired health and the caution which it renders
necessary, we have very frequently instances of the utmost verge
of existence being attained, while robust strength is cut off in
the middle career. So you must be of good heart, and hope the
best in this as in other cases of a like affecting nature. I go
to town on Monday, and will forward under Mr. Freeling's cover as
much of Ivanhoe as is finished in print. It is completed, but in
the hands of a very slow transcriber; when I can collect it, I
will send you the MS., which you will please to keep secret from
every eye. I think this will give a start, if it be worth taking,
of about a month, for the work will be out on the 20th of
December. It is certainly possible to adapt it to the stage, but
the expense of scenery and decorations would be great, this being
a tale of chivalry, not of character. There is a tale in
existence, by dramatizing which, I am certain, a most powerful
effect might be produced: it is called Undine, and I believe has
been translated into French by Mademoiselle Montolieu, and into
English from her version: do read it, and tell me your opinion:
in German the character of Undine is exquisite. The only
objection is, that the catastrophe is unhappy, but this might be
altered. I hope to be in London for ten days the end of next
month; and so good-by for the present, being in great haste, most
truly yours,

W. SCOTT.

I conclude this chapter with a letter written two or three days before Scott quitted Abbotsford for the winter session. It is addressed to his friend Hartstonge, who had taken the opportunity of the renewal of Scott's correspondence to solicit his opinion and assistance touching a MS. drama; and the reader will be diverted with the style in which the amiable tragedian is treated to his _quietus_:--

TO MATTHEW WELD HARTSTONGE, ESQ., DUBLIN.

ABBOTSFORD, 11th November, 1819.

MY DEAR SIR,--I was duly favored with your packet, containing the
play, as well as your very kind letter. I will endeavor (though
extremely unwilling to offer criticism on most occasions) to meet
your confidence with perfect frankness. I do not consider the
Tragedy as likely to make that favorable impression on the public
which I would wish that the performance of a friend should
effect--and I by no means recommend to you to hazard it upon the
boards. In other compositions, the neglect of the world takes
nothing from the merit of the author; but there is something
ludicrous in being _affiche_ as the author of an unsuccessful
play. Besides, you entail on yourself the great and eternal
plague of altering and retrenching to please the humors of
performers, who are, speaking generally, extremely ignorant, and
capricious in proportion. These are not vexations to be
voluntarily undertaken; and the truth is, that in the present day
there is only one reason which seems to me adequate for the
encountering the plague of trying to please a set of conceited
performers and a very motley audience,--I mean the want of money,
from which, fortunately, you are exempted. It is very true that
some day or other a great dramatic genius may arise to strike out
a new path; but I fear till this happens no great effect will be
produced by treading in the old one. The reign of Tragedy seems
to be over, and the very considerable poetical abilities which
have been lately applied to it, have failed to revive it. Should
the public ever be indulged with small theatres adapted to the
hours of the better ranks in life, the dramatic art may recover;
at present it is in abeyance--and I do therefore advise you in
all sincerity to keep the Tragedy (which I return under cover)
safe under your own charge. Pray think of this as one of the most
unpleasant offices of friendship--and be not angry with me for
having been very frank, upon an occasion when frankness may be
more useful than altogether palatable.

I am much obliged to you for your kind intentions towards my
young Hussar. We have not heard from him for three weeks. I
believe he is making out a meditated visit to Killarney. I am
just leaving the country for Edinburgh, to attend my duty in the
courts; but the badness of the weather in some measure reconciles
me to the unpleasant change. I have the pleasure to continue the
most satisfactory accounts of my health; it is, to external
appearance, as strong as in my strongest days--indeed, after I
took once more to Sancho's favorite occupations of eating and
sleeping, I recovered my losses wonderfully. Very truly yours,

WALTER SCOTT.