Chapter XVII: Part 17

_June_ 30.--_Redd up_ my things for moving,[542] which will clear my hands a little on the next final flitting. Corrected proof-sheets. Williams told me an English bull last night. A fellow of a college, deeply learned, sitting at a public entertainment beside a foreigner, tried every means to enter into conversation, but the stranger could speak no dead language, the Doctor no living one but his own. At last the scholar, in great extremity, was enlightened by a happy "_Nonne potes loqui cum digitis_?"--said as if the difficulty was solved at once.

_Abbotsford_.--Reached this about six o'clock.[543]

FOOTNOTES:

[527] Sheridan's _Critic_, Act I. Sc, 1.

[528] "No sooner had the Sun uttered these words than Fortune, as if she had been playing on a cymbal, began to unwind her wheel, which, whirling about like a hurricane, huddled all the world into an unparalleled confusion. Fortune gave a mighty squeak, saying, 'Fly, wheel, and the devil drive thee.'"--_Fortune in her Wits_, Quevedo. English trans. (1798), vol. iii. p. 107.

[529] Burns: "On a Scotch Bard, gone to the West Indies."

[530] _Vivian Grey_, by Benjamin Disraeli, was published anonymously in 5 vols. 12mo, 1826-7.

[531] If the reader turns to December 18, 1825, he will see that this is not the first allusion in the Journal to his "first love,"--an innocent attachment, to which we owe the tenderest pages, not only of _Redgauntlet_ (1824), but of the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (1805), and of _Rokeby_ (1813). In all these works the heroine has certain distinctive features drawn from one and the same haunting dream. The lady was "Williamina Belches, sole child and heir of a gentleman who was a cadet of the ancient family of Invermay, and who afterwards became Sir John Stuart of Fettercairn." She married Sir William Forbes in 1797 and died in 1810.--_Life_, vol. i. p. 333; Shairp's _Memoirs of Principal Forbes_, pp. 4, 5, 8vo, London, 1873, where her portrait, engraved from a miniature, is given.

[532] Hugh Cleghorn had been Professor of Civil History in St. Andrews for ten years, afterwards becoming tutor to the Earl of Home, and subsequently employed by our Government in various foreign missions. A glimpse of his work is obtainable in Southey's _Life, of Dr. Andrew Bell_. Mr. Cleghorn died in 1833, aged 83.

[533] Count Paul de Rémusat has been good enough to give me another view of this visit which will be read with interest:--"118 Faubourg St. Honoré, February 10, 1890.--.... My father has often spoken to me of this visit to Sir Walter Scott--for it was indeed my father, Charles de Rémusat, member of the French Academy, and successively Minister of the Interior and for Foreign Affairs, who went at the age of thirty to Abbotsford, and he retained to the last days of his life a most lively remembrance of the great novelist who did not acknowledge the authorship of his novels, and to whom it was thus impossible otherwise than indirectly to pay any compliment. It gives me great pleasure to learn that the visit of those young men impressed him favourably. My father's companion was his contemporary and friend, M. Louis de Guizard, who, like my father, was a contributor at that time to the Liberal press of the Restoration, the _Globe_ and _La Revue Française,_ and who, after the Revolution of 1830, entered, as did my father likewise, upon political life. M. de Guizard was first _préfet_, then _député_, and after 1848 became Directeur-général des Beaux Arts. He died about 1877 or 1878, after his retirement from public life."

[534] "_Woodstock_ placed upwards of £8000 in the hands of Sir Walter's creditors. The _Napoleon_ (first and second editions) produced for them a sum which it even now startles me to mention--£18,000. As by the time the historical work was published nearly half of the First Series of _Chronicles of the Canongate_ had been written, it is obvious that the amount to which Scott's literary industry, from the close of 1825 to the 10th of June 1827, had diminished his debt, cannot be stated at less than £28,000. Had health been spared him, how soon must he have freed himself from all his encumbrances!"--J.G.L.

[535] See _Life_, vol. vi. p. 89. In Mr. Ballantyne's _Memorandum_, there is a fuller account of the mode in which _The Bride of Lammermoor_, _The Legend of Montrose_, and almost the whole of _Ivanhoe_ were produced, and the mental phenomenon which accompanied the preparation of the first-named work:--

"During the progress of composing _The Heart of Midlothian_, _The Bride of Lammermoor_, and _Legend of Montrose_--a period of many months--Mr. Scott's health had become extremely indifferent, and was often supposed to place him in great danger. But it would hardly be credited, were it not for the notoriety of the fact, that although one of the symptoms of his illness was pain of the most acute description, yet he never allowed it to interrupt his labours. The only difference it produced, that I am aware of, was its causing him to employ the hand of an amanuensis in place of his own. Indeed, during the greater part of the day at this period he was confined to his bed. The person employed for this purpose was the respectable and intelligent Mr. Wm. Laidlaw, who acted for him in this capacity in the country, and I think also attended him to town. I have often been present with Mr. Laidlaw during the short intervals of his labour, and it was deeply affecting to hear the account he gave of his patron's severe sufferings, and the indomitable spirit which enabled him to overmaster them. He told me that very often the dictation of Caleb Balderston's and the old cooper's best jokes was mingled with groans extorted from him by pains; but that when he, Mr. L., endeavoured to prevail upon him to take a little respite, the only answer he could obtain from Mr. Scott was a request that he would see that the doors were carefully shut, so that the expressions of his agony might not reach his family--'As to stopping work, Laidlaw,' he said, 'you know that is wholly out of the question.' What followed upon these exertions, made in circumstances so very singular, appears to me to exhibit one of the most singular chapters in the history of the human intellect. The book having been published before Mr. Scott was able to rise from his bed, he assured me that, when it was put into his hands, he did not recollect one single incident, character, or conversation it contained. He by no means desired me to understand, nor did I understand, that his illness had erased from his memory all or any of the original family facts with which he had been acquainted from the period probably of his boyhood. These of course remained rooted where they had ever been, or, to speak more explicitly, where explicitness is so entirely important, he remembered the existence of the father and mother, the son and daughter, the rival lovers, the compulsory marriage, and the attack made by his bride upon the unhappy bridegroom, with the general catastrophe of the whole. All these things he recollected, just as he did before he took to his bed, but the marvel is that he recollected literally nothing else--not a single character woven by the Romancer--not one of the many scenes and points of exquisite humour, nor anything with which he was connected as writer of the work. 'For a long time I felt myself very uneasy,' he said, 'in the course of my reading, always kept on the _qui vive_ lest I should be startled by something altogether glaring and fantastic; however, I recollected that the printing had been performed by James Ballantyne, who I was sure would not have permitted anything of this sort to pass.' 'Well,' I said, 'upon the whole, how did you like it?' 'Oh,' he said, 'I felt it monstrous gross and grotesque, to be sure, but still the worst of it made me laugh, and I trusted therefore the good-natured public would not be less indulgent.' I do not think that I ever ventured to lead to this singular subject again. But you may depend upon it, that what I have said is as distinctly reported as if it had been taken down at the moment in shorthand. I should not otherwise have imparted the phenomenon at all."--_Mr. Ballantyne's MSS_.

[536] Mr. Lockhart says:--"My wife and I spent the summer of 1827 partly at a sea-bathing place near Edinburgh, and partly in Roxburghshire. The arrival of his daughter and her children at Portobello was a source of constant refreshment to him during June, for every other day he came down and dined there, and strolled about afterwards on the beach, thus interrupting, beneficially for his health, and I doubt not for the result of his labours also, the new custom of regular night-work, or, as he called it, serving double tides."

[537] See Swift, "Mary the cook to Dr. Sheridan."

[538] The answer is printed in the _Scott Centenary Catalogue_ by David Laing, from which the following extracts are given:--

"The expression of the old metrical translation, though homely, is plain, forcible, and intelligible, and very often possesses a rude sort of majesty, which perhaps would be ill-exchanged for mere elegance." "They are the very words and accents of our early Reformers--sung by them in woe and gratitude, in the fields, in the churches, and on the scaffold." "The parting with this very association of ideas is a serious loss to the cause of devotion, and scarce to be incurred without the certainty of corresponding advantages. But if these recollections are valuable to persons of education, they are almost indispensable to the edification of the lower ranks whose prejudices do not permit them to consider as the words of the inspired poetry, the versions of living or modern poets, but persist, however absurdly, in identifying the original with the ancient translation."--p. 158.

[539] Sir James Stuart, the last baronet of Allanbank.

[540] "The _Life of Bonaparte_, then, was at last published about the middle of June 1827."--_Life_, ix. 117.

[541] Archdeacon Williams, Rector of the New Edinburgh Academy from 1824 to 1847.

[542] Among the letters which Sir Walter found time to write before leaving Edinburgh, was one to congratulate his old and true friend Mrs. Coutts on her marriage, which took place on the 16th of June. That letter has not been preserved, but it drew from her Grace the following reply:--

"My dear Sir Walter Scott,--Your most welcome letter has 'wandered mony a weary mile after me.' Thanks, many thanks for all your kind congratulations. I am a Duchess at last, that is certain, but whether I am the better for it remains to be proved. The Duke is very amiable, gentle, and well-disposed, and I am sure he has taken pains enough to accomplish what he says has been the first wish of his heart for the last three years. All this is very flattering to an old lady, and we lived so long in friendship with each other that I was afraid I should be unhappy if I did not say I _will_--yet (whisper it, dear Sir Walter) the name of Coutts--and a right good one it is--is, and ever will be, dear to my heart. What a strange, eventful life has mine been, from a poor little player child, with just food and clothes to cover me, dependent on a very precarious profession, without talent or a friend in the world! 'to have seen what I have seen, seeing what I see.' Is it not wonderful? is it true? can I believe it?--first the wife of the best, the most perfect, being that ever breathed, his love and unbounded confidence in me, his immense fortune so honourably acquired by his own industry, all at my command, ... and now the wife of a Duke. You must write my life; the History of Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant Killer, and Goody Two Shoes, will sink compared with my true history written by the Author of _Waverley_; and that you may do it well I have sent you an inkstand. Pray give it a place on your table in kind remembrance of your affectionate friend,

"HARRIETT ST. ALBANS.

"STRATTON STREET, _July 16th, 1827_."

[543] Next morning the following pleasant little billet was despatched to Kaeside:--

"My dear Mr. Laidlaw, I would be happy if you would come at _kail-time_ to-day. _Napoleon_ (6000 copies) is sold for £11,000.--Yours truly,

"_Sunday._ W.S."

--_Abbotsford Notanda_, by R. Carruthers, Edin. 1871.

APPENDIX.

SCOTT'S LETTERS TO ERSKINE.--P. 61.

Sir Walter was in the habit of consulting him in those matters more than any of his other friends, having great reliance upon his critical skill. The manuscripts of all his poems, and also of the earlier of his prose works, were submitted to Kinnedder's judgment, and a considerable correspondence on these subjects had taken place betwixt them, which would, no doubt, have constituted one of the most interesting series of letters Sir Walter had left.

Lord Kinnedder was a man of retired habits, but little known except to those with whom he lived on terms of intimacy, and by whom he was much esteemed, and being naturally of a remarkably sensitive mind, he was altogether overthrown by the circumstance of a report having got abroad of some alleged indiscretions on his part in which a lady was also implicated. Whether the report had any foundation in truth or not, I am altogether ignorant, but such an allegation affecting a person in his situation in life as a judge, and doing such violence to the susceptibility of his feelings, had the effect of bringing a severe illness which in a few days terminated his life. I never saw Sir Walter so much affected by any event, and at the funeral, which he attended, he was quite unable to suppress his feelings, but wept like a child. The family, suddenly bereft of their protector, were young, orphans, their mother, daughter of Professor John Robertson, having previously died, found also that they had to struggle against embarrassed circumstances; neither had they any near relative in Scotland to take charge of their affairs. But a lady, a friend of the family, Miss M----, was active in their service, and it so happened, in the course of arranging their affairs, the packet of letters from Sir Walter Scott, containing the whole of his correspondence with Lord Kinnedder, came into her hands. She very soon discovered that the correspondence laid open the secret of the authorship of the Waverley Novels, at that period the subject of general and intense interest, and as yet unacknowledged by Sir Walter.

Considering what under these circumstances it was her duty to do, whether to replace the letters and suffer any accident to bring to light what the author seemed anxious might remain unknown, or to seal them up, and keep them in her own custody undivulged--or finally to destroy them in order to preserve the secret,--with, no doubt, the best and most upright motives, so far as her own judgment enabled her to decide in the matter, in which she was unable to take advice, without betraying what it was her object to respect, she came to the resolution, most unfortunately for the world, of destroying the letters. And, accordingly, the whole of them were committed to the flames; depriving the descendants of Lord Kinnedder of a possession which could not fail to be much valued by them, and which, in connection with Lord Kinnedder's letters to Sir Walter, which are doubtless preserved, would have been equally valuable to the public, as containing the contemporary opinions, prospects, views, and sentiments under which these works were sent forth into the world. It would also have been curious to learn the unbiased impression which the different works created on the mind of such a man as Lord Kinnedder, before the collision of public opinion had suffused its influence over the opinions of people in general in this matter.--_Skene's Reminiscences_.

END OF VOLUME I.

THE JOURNAL OF

SIR WALTER SCOTT

FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT

AT ABBOTSFORD

VOLUME II

BURT FRANKLIN NEW YORK

Published by BURT FRANKLIN 235 East 44th St., New York, N.Y. 10017 Originally Published: 1890 Reprinted: 1970 Printed in the U.S.A.

S.B.N. 32110 Library of Congress Card Catalog No.: 73-123604 Burt Franklin: Research and Source Works Series 535 Essays in Literature and Criticism 82

"_I must home to work while it is called day; for the night cometh when no man can work. I put that text, many a year ago, on my dial-stone; but it often preached in vain_."--Scott's _Life_, x. 88.]

"_The evening sky of life does not reflect those brilliant flashes
of light that shot across its morning and noon, yet I think God it
is neither gloomy nor disconsolately lowering--a sober
twilight--that is all_."

ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOL. II.

Portrait, painted by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., for the Baroness Ruthven, and now in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland. Copied by permission of the Hon. The Board of Manufactures, _Frontispiece_

Vignette on Title-page

"The Dial-Stone" in the Garden, from drawing made at Abbotsford by
George Reid, R.S.A.

"THE NIGHT COMETH."

ΝΥΞ ΓΑΡ ΕΡΧΕΤΑΙ.

"_I must home to work while it is called day; for the night cometh
when no man can work. I put that text, many years ago, on my
dial-stone; but it often preached in vain_."--Scott's _Life_, x.
88.

SIR WALTER SCOTT'S JOURNAL.

JULY.

_July_ 1, [_Abbotsford_].--A most delicious day, in the course of which I have not done

"The least right thing."

Before breakfast I employed myself in airing my old bibliomaniacal hobby, entering all the books lately acquired into a temporary catalogue, so as to have them shelved and marked. After breakfast I went out, the day being delightful--warm, yet cooled with a gentle breeze, all around delicious; the rich luxuriant green refreshing to the eye, soft to the tread, and perfume to the smell. Wandered about and looked at my plantations. Came home, and received a visit from Sir Adam. Loitered in the library till dinner-time. If there is anything to be done at all to-day, it must be in the evening. But I fear there will be nothing. One can't work always _nowther_.

"_Neque semper arcum tendit Apollo_."

There's warrant for it.

_July_ 2.--Wrote in the morning, correcting the Essay on the Highlands, which is now nearly completed. Settled accounts with Tom and Bogie. Went over to Huntly Burn at two o'clock, and reconnoitred the proposed plantation to be called Jane's Wood. Dined with the Fergusons.

_July_ 3--- Worked in the morning upon the Introduction to the _Chronicles_; it may be thought egotistical. Learned a bad accident had happened yesterday. A tinker (drunk I suppose) entered the stream opposite to Faldonside with an ass bearing his children. The ass was carried down by the force of the stream, and one of the little creatures was drowned; the other was brought out alive, poor innocent, clinging to the ass. It had floated as far down as Deadwater-heugh. Poor thing, it is as well dead as to live a tinker! The Fergusons dine with us _en masse_; also Dr. Brewster.

_July_ 4, [_Edinburgh_].--Worked a little in the morning, and took a walk after breakfast, the day so delicious as makes it heart-breaking to leave the country. Set out, however, about four o'clock, and reached Edinburgh a little after nine. Slept part of the way; read _De Vere_ the rest.[1] It is well written, in point of language and sentiment, but has too little action in it to be termed a pleasing novel. Everything is brought out by dialogue--or worse: through the medium of the author's reflections, which is the clumsiest of all expedients.

_July_ 5.--This morning worked, and sent off to J.B. the Introduction to the _Chronicles_, containing my Confessions,[2] and did something, but not fluently, to the Confessions themselves. Not happy, however; the black dog worries me. Bile, I suppose. "But I will rally and combat the reiver." Reiver it is, that wretched malady of the mind; got quite well in the forenoon. Went out to Portobello after dinner, and chatted with little Johnnie, and told him the history of the Field of Prestonpans. Few remain who care about these stories.

_July_ 6.--This morning wrought a good deal, but scarce a task. The Court lasted till half-past three; exhausting work in this hot weather. I returned to dine alone, Anne going to Roslin with a party. After noon a Miss Bell broke in upon me, who bothered me some time since about a book of hers, explaining and exposing the conduct of a Methodist Tartuffe, who had broken off (by anonymous letters) a match betwixt her and an accepted admirer. Tried in vain to make her comprehend how little the Edinburgh people would care about her wrongs, since there was no knowledge of the parties to make the scandal acceptable. I believe she has suffered great wrong.[3] Letter from Longman and Co. to J.B. grumbling about bringing out the second edition, because they have, forsooth, 700 copies in hand out of 5000, five days after the first edition[4] is out. What would they have? It is uncomfortable, though.

_July_ 7.--Night dreadfully warm, and bilious; I could not be fool enough surely to be anxious for these wise men of the East's prognostication. Letters from Lockhart give a very cheerful prospect; if there had been any thundering upsetting broadside, he would have noticed it surely more or less. R. Cadell quite stout, and determined to go on with the second edition. Well, I hope all's right--thinking won't help it. Charles came down this morning penniless, poor fellow, but we will soon remedy that. Lockhart remits £100 for reviewing; I hope the next will be for Sophia, for cash affairs loom well in the offing, and if the trust funds go right, I was never so easy. I will take care how I get into debt again. I do not like this croaking of these old owls of Saint Paul's when all is done. The pitcher has gone often to the well. But--However, I worked away at the _Chronicles_. I will take pains with them. I will, by Jove!

_July_ 8.--I did little to-day but arrange papers, and put bills, receipts, etc., into apple-pie order. I believe the fair prospect I have of clearing off some encumbrances, which are like thorns in my flesh, nay, in my very eye, contribute much to this. I did not even correct proof-sheets; nay, could not, for I have cancelled two sheets, _instante Jacobo_, and I myself being of his opinion; for, as I said yesterday, we must and will take pains. The fiddle-faddle of arranging all the things was troublesome, but they give a good account of my affairs. The money for the necessary payments is ready, and therefore there is a sort of pleasure which does not arise out of any mean source, since it has for its object the prospect of doing justice and achieving independence. J.B. dined with me, poor fellow, and talked of his views as hopeful and prosperous. God send honest industry a fair riddance.

_July_ 9.--Wrote in the morning. At eleven went by appointment with Colin Mackenzie to the New Edinburgh Academy. In the fifth class, Mr. Mitchell's, we heard Greek, of which I am no otherwise a judge than that it was fluently read and explained. In the rector Mr. Williams's class we heard Virgil and Livy admirably translated _ad aperturam libri_, and, what I thought remarkable, the rector giving the English, and the pupils returning, with singular dexterity, the Latin, not exactly as in the original, but often by synonymes, which showed that the exercise referred to the judgment, and did not depend on the memory. I could not help saying, with great truth, that, as we had all long known how much the pupils were fortunate in a rector, so we were now taught that the rector was equally lucky in his pupils. Of my young friends, I saw a son of John Swinton, a son of Johnstone of Alva, and a son of Craufurd Tait.[5] Dined at John Murray's; Mr. and Mrs. Philips of Liverpool, General and Charles Stuart of Blantyre, Lord Abercromby, Clerk and Thomson. Pleasant evening.

_July_ 10.--Corrected proofs, but wrote nothing. To Court till two o'clock. I went to Cadell's by the Mound, a long roundabout; transacted some business. I met Baron Hume coming home, and walked with him in the Gardens. His remarkable account of his celebrated uncle's last moments is in these words:--Dr. Black called on Mr. D. Hume[6] on the morning on which he died. The patient complained of having suffered a great deal during the night, and expressed a fear that his struggle might be prolonged, to his great distress, for days or weeks longer. "No, sir," said Dr. Black, with the remarkable calmness and sincerity which characterised him, "I have examined the symptoms, and observe several which oblige me to conclude that dissolution is rapidly approaching." "Are you certain of that, Doctor?" "Most assuredly so," answered the physician. The dying philosopher extended his arm, and shook hands with his medical friend. "I thank you," he said, "for the news." So little reason there was for the reports of his having been troubled in mind when on his deathbed.

Dined at Lord Abercromby's, to meet Lord Melville in private. We had an interview betwixt dinner and tea. I was sorry to see my very old friend, this upright statesman and honourable gentleman, deprived of his power and his official income, which the number of his family must render a matter of importance. He was cheerful, not affectedly so, and bore his declension like a wise and brave man. I had nursed the idea that he had been hasty in his resignation; but, from the letters which he showed me confidentially, which passed betwixt him and Canning, it is clear his resignation was to be accomplished, not I suppose for personal considerations, but because it rendered the Admiralty vacant for the Duke of Clarence, as his resignation was eagerly snapped at. It cannot be doubted that if he had hesitated or hung back behind his friends, forcible means would have been used to compel to the measure, which with more dignity he took of his own accord--at least so it seemed to me. The first intimation which Lord Melville received of his successor was through Mr.----, who told him, as great news, that there was to be a new Duke of York[7]. Lord M. understood the allusion so little, as to inquire whether his informant meant that the Duke of Cambridge had taken the Duke of York's situation, when it was explained to refer to the Duke of Clarence getting the Admiralty. There are some few words that speak volumes. Lord Melville said that none of them suspected Canning's negotiations with the Whigs but the Duke of Wellington, who found it out through the ladies ten days before. I asked him how they came to be so unprepared, and could not help saying I thought they had acted without consideration, and that they might have shown a face even to Canning. He allowed the truth of what I said, and seemed to blame Peel's want of courage. In his place, he said, he would have proposed to form a government disclaiming any personal views for himself as being Premier and the like, but upon the principle of supporting the measures of Lord Castlereagh and Lord Liverpool. I think this would have been acceptable to the King. Mr. Peel obviously feared his great antagonist Canning, and perhaps threw the game up too soon. Canning said the office of Premier was his inheritance; he could not, from constitution, hold it above two years, and then it would descend to Peel. Such is ambition! Old friends forsaken--old principles changed--every effort used to give the vessel of the State a new direction, and all to be Palinurus for two years!

_July_ 11, [_Abbotsford_].--Worked at proofs in the morning; composed nothing. Got off by one, and to this place between six and seven. Weather delicious.

_July 12_.--Unpacking and arranging; the urchins are stealing the cherries in the outer garden. But I can spare a thousand larch-trees to put it in order with a good fence for next year. It is not right to leave fruit exposed; for if Adam in the days of innocence fell by an apple, how much may the little _gossoon_ Jamie Moffatt be tempted by apples of gold in an age of iron! Anne and I walked to Huntly Burn--a delicious excursion. That place is really become beautiful; the Miss Fergusons have displayed a great deal of taste.

_July_ 13.--Two agreeable persons--Rev. Mr. Gilly[8], one of the prebendaries of Durham, with his wife, a pretty little woman--dined with us, and met Mr. Scrope. I heard the whole history of the discovery of St. Cuthbert's[9] body at Durham Cathedral. The Catholics will deny the identity, of course; but I think it is _constaté_ by the dress and other circumstances. Made a pleasant day of it, and with a good conscience, for I had done my task this morning.

_July_ 14.--Did task this morning, and believe that I shall get on now very well. Wrote about five leaves. I have been baking and fevering myself like a fool for these two years in a room exposed to the south; comfortable in winter, but broiling in the hot weather. Now I have removed myself into the large cool library, one of the most refreshing as well as handsomest rooms in Scotland, and will not use the study again till the heats are past. Here is an entry as solemn as if it respected the Vicar of Wakefield's removal from the yellow room to the brown. But I think my labours will advance greatly in consequence of this arrangement. Walked in the evening to the lake.

_July_ 15.--Achieved six pages to-day, and finished volume i. of _Chronicles_. It is rather long; but I think the last story interesting, and it should not be split up into parts. J.B. will, I fear, think it low; and if he thinks so, others will. Yet--vamos. Drove to Huntly Burn in the evening.

_July_ 16.--Made a good morning's work of the _Tales_. In the day-time corrected various proofs. J.B. thinks that in the proposed introduction I contemn too much the occupation by which I have thriven so well, and hints that I may easily lead other people to follow my opinion in vilipending my talents, and the use I have made of them. I cannot tell. I do not like, on the one hand, to suppress my own opinion of the _flocci-pauci-nihili-pilification_ with which I regard these things; but yet, in duty to others, I cannot afford to break my own bow, or befoul my own nest, and there may be something like affectation and _nolo episcopari_ in seeming to underrate my own labours; so, all things considered, I will erase the passage. Truth should not be spoke at all times. In the evening we had a delightful drive to Ashestiel with Colonel and Miss Ferguson.

_July 17_.--I wrote a laborious task; seven pages of _Tales_. Kept about the doors all day. Gave Bogie £10 to buy cattle to-morrow at St. Boswell's Fair. Here is a whimsical subject of affliction. Mr. Harper, a settler, who went from this country to Botany Bay, thinking himself obliged to me for a recommendation to General M'Allister and Sir Thomas Brisbane, has thought proper to bring me home a couple of Emus. I wish his gratitude had either taken a different turn, or remained as quiescent as that of others whom I have obliged more materially. I at first accepted the creatures, conceiving them, in my ignorance, to be some sort of blue and green parrot, which, though I do not admire their noise, might scream and yell at their pleasure if hung up in the hall among the armour. But your emu, it seems, stands six feet high on his stocking soles, and is little better than a kind of cassowary or ostrich. Hang them! they might [eat] up my collection of old arms for what I know. It reminds me of the story of the adjutant birds in Theodore Hook's novel[10]. No; I'll no Emuses!

_July 18_.--Entered this morning on the history of Sir William Wallace. I wish I may be able to find my way between what the child can comprehend and what shall not yet be absolutely uninteresting to the grown readers. Uncommon facts I should think the best receipt. Learn that Mr. Owen Rees and John Gibson have amicably settled their differences about the last edition of _Napoleon_, the Trustees allowing the publishers nine months' credit. My nerves have for these two or three last days been susceptible of an acute excitement from the slightest causes; the beauty of the evening, the sighing of the summer breeze, brings the tears into my eyes not unpleasingly. But I must take exercise, and caseharden myself. There is no use in encouraging these moods of the mind. It is not the law we live on.

We had a little party with some luncheon at the lake, where Mr. Bainbridge fished without much success. Captain Hamilton and two Messrs. Stirling, relatives of my old friend Keir, were there, and walked with me a long round home. I walked better than I had done for some days. Mr. Scrope dined with us; he was complaining of gout, which is a bad companion for the stag-shooting.

_July 19_.--I made out my task this forenoon, and a good deal more. Sent five or six pages to James Ballantyne, _i.e._ got them ready, and wrote till the afternoon, then I drove over to Huntly Burn, and walked through the glens till dinner-time. After dinner read and worked till bed-time. Yet I have written well, walked well, talked well, and have nothing to regret.

_July 20_.--Despatched my letters to J.B., with supply of copy, and made up more than my task--about four leaves, I think. Offered my Emuses to the Duke of Buccleuch. I had an appointment with Captain Hamilton and his friends the Stirlings, that they were to go up Yarrow to-day. But the weather seems to say no.

My visitors came, however, and we went up to Newark. Here is a little misfortune, for Spice left me, and we could not find her. As we had no servant with us on horseback, I was compelled to leave her to her fate, resolving to send in quest of her to-morrow morning. The keepers are my _bonos socios_, as the host says in the Devil of Edmonton[11], and would as soon shoot a child as a dog of mine. But there are scamps and traps, and I am ashamed to say how reluctantly I left the poor little terrier to its fate.

She came home to me, however, about an hour and a half after we were home, to my great delectation. Our visitors dined with us.

_July_ 21.--This morning wrote five pages of children's history. Went to Minto, where we met, besides Lord M. and his delightful countess, Thomas Thomson, Kennedy of Dunure[12], Lord Carnarvon, and his younger son and daughter-in-law; the dowager Lady Minto also, whom I always delight to see, she is so full of spirit and intelligence. We rubbed up some recollections of twenty years ago, when I was more intimate with the family till Whig and Tory separated us for a time. By the way, nobody talks Whig or Tory just now, and the fighting men on each side go about muzzled and mute like dogs after a proclamation about canine madness. Am I sorry for this truce or not? Half and half. It is all we have left to stir the blood, this little political brawling; but better too little of it than too much.

_July_ 22, [_Abbotsford_].--Rose a little later than usual, and wrote a letter to Mrs. Joanna Baillie. She is writing a tragedy[13] on witchcraft. I shall be curious to see it. Will it be real witchcraft--the _ipsissimus diabolus_--or an impostor, or the half-crazed being who believes herself an ally of condemned spirits, and desires to be so? That last is a sublime subject. We set out after breakfast, and reached this about two. I walked from two till four; chatted a long time with Charles after dinner, and thus went my day _sine linea_. But we will make it up. James Ballantyne dislikes my "Drovers." But it shall stand. I must have my own way sometimes.

I received news of two deaths at once: Lady Die Scott, my very old friend, and Archibald Constable, the bookseller.

_July_ 23.--Yes! they are both for very different reasons subjects of reflection. Lady Diana Scott, widow of Walter Scott of Harden, was the last person whom I recollect so much older than myself, that she kept always at the same distance in point of years, so that she scarce seemed older to me (relatively) two years ago, when in her ninety-second year, than fifty years before. She was the daughter (alone remaining) of Pope's Earl of Marchmont, and, like her father, had an acute mind and an eager temper. She was always kind to me, remarkably so indeed when I was a boy.

Constable's death might have been a most important thing to me if it had happened some years ago, and I should then have lamented it much. He has lived to do me some injury; yet, excepting the last £5000, I think most unintentionally. He was a prince of booksellers; his views sharp, powerful, and liberal; too sanguine, however, and, like many bold and successful schemers, never knowing when to stand or stop, and not always calculating his means to his objects with mercantile accuracy. He was very vain, for which he had some reason, having raised himself to great commercial eminence, as he might also have attained great wealth with good management. He knew, I think, more of the business of a bookseller in planning and executing popular works than any man of his time. In books themselves he had much bibliographical information, but none whatever that could be termed literary. He knew the rare volumes of his library not only by the eye, but by the touch, when blindfolded. Thomas Thomson saw him make this experiment, and, that it might be complete, placed in his hand an ordinary volume instead of one of these _libri rariores_. He said he had over-estimated his memory; he could not recollect that volume. Constable was a violent-tempered man with those that he dared use freedom with. He was easily overawed by people of consequence, but, as usual, took it out of those whom poverty made subservient to him. Yet he was generous, and far from bad-hearted. In person good-looking, but very corpulent latterly; a large feeder, and deep drinker, till his health became weak. He died of water in the chest, which the natural strength of his constitution set long at defiance. I have no great reason to regret him; yet I do. If he deceived me, he also deceived himself.[14]

Wrote five pages to-day, and went to see Mr. Scrope, who is fast with the gout--a bad companion to attend him

"to Athole Braes,
To shoot the dun deer down, down--
To shoot the dun deer down."

_July_ 24.--Finished five pages before eleven o'clock, at which time Mr. Deputy Register[15] arrived from Minto, and we had an agreeable afternoon, talking about the old days we have had together. I was surprised to find that Thomson knew as little as I do myself how to advise Charles to a good course of Scottish History. Hailes and Pinkerton, Robertson and Laing--there is nothing else for it--and Pinkerton is poor work. Laing, besides his party spirit, has a turn for generalising, which renders him rather dull, which was not the nature of the acute Orcadian.

_July_ 25.--Thomson left us this morning early. I finished four pages, and part of a fifth, then drove to Huntly Burn and returned through the Glen; I certainly turn _heavy-footed_, not in the female sense, however. I had one or two falls among the slippy heather, not having Tom Purdie to give me his arm. I suppose I shall need a go-cart one of these days; and if it must be so--so let it be. _Fiat voluntas tua_.

A letter from John Gibson in the evening brought me word that Lord Newton had adjudged the profits of _Woodstock_ and _Napoleon_ to be my own. This is a great matter, and removes the most important part of my dispute with Constable's creditors. I waked in the middle of the night. Sure I am not such a feather-headed gull as not to be able to sleep for good news. I am thankful that it is as it is. Had it been otherwise, I could have stood it. The money realised will pay one-third of all that I owe in the world--and what will pay the other two-thirds? I am as well and as capable as when those misfortunes began--January was a year. The public favour may wane, indeed, but it has not failed as yet, and I must not be too anxious about that possibility.

James B. has found fault with my tales for being too historical; formerly it was for being too infantine. He calls out for starch, and is afraid of his cravat being too stiff. O ye critics, will nothing melt ye?

_July_ 26.--Wrote till one o'clock, and finished the first volume of _Tales_--about six leaves. To-morrow I resume the _Chronicles_, tooth and nail. They must be good, if possible. After all, works of fiction, viz., cursed lies, are easier to write, and much more popular than the best truths. Walked over to the head of the Roman road, coming round by Bauchland and the Abbot's Walk. Wrote letters in the evening.

_July_ 27.--In the morning still busied with my correspondence. No great desire to take up the _Chronicles_. But it must be done. Devil take the necessity, and the folly and knavery, that occasioned it! But this is no matter now. Accordingly I set tightly to work, and got on till two, when I took a walk. Was made very happy by the arrival of Sophia and her babies, all in good health and spirits.

_July_ 28.--Worked hard in the morning. The two Ballantynes, and Mr. Hogarth with them. Owen Rees came early in the day. Fergusons came to dinner. Rees in great kindness and good-humour, but a little drumlie, I think, about _Napoleon_. We heard Sandie's violin after dinner--

"----Whose touch harmonious can remove
The pangs of guilty power and hopeless love."[16]

I do not understand or care about fine music; but there is something in his violin which goes to the very heart. Sophia sung too, and we were once more merry in hall--the first time for this many a month and many a day.

_July_ 29.--Could not do more than undertake my proofs to-day, of which J.B. has brought out a considerable quantity. Walked at one with Hogarth and Rees--the day sultry, hot, and we hot accordingly, but crept about notwithstanding. I am sorry to see my old and feal friend James rather unable to walk--once so stout and active--so was I in my way _once_. Ah! that vile word, what a world of loss it involves!

_July_ 30.--One of the most peppering thunder-storms which I have heard for some time. Routed and roared from six in the morning till eight continuously.

"The thunder ceased not, nor the fire reposed;
Well done, old Botherby."

Time wasted, though very agreeably, after breakfast. At noon, set out for Chiefswood in the carriage, and walked home, footing it over rough and smooth, with the vigour of early days. James Ballantyne marched on too, somewhat meltingly, but without complaint. We again had beautiful music after dinner. The heart of age arose. I have often wondered whether I have a taste for music or no. My ear appears to me as dull as my voice is incapable of musical expression, and yet I feel the utmost pleasure in any such music as I can comprehend, learned pieces always excepted. I believe I may be about the pitch of Terry's connoisseurship, and that "I have a reasonable good ear for a jig, but your solos and sonatas give me the spleen."

_July_ 31.--Employed the morning writing letters and correcting proofs; this is the second day and scarce a line written, but circumstances are so much my apology that even Duty does not murmur, at least not _much_. We had a drive up to Galashiels, and sent J.B. off to Edinburgh in the Mail. Music in the evening as before.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Written by R. Plumer Ward, author of _Tremaine_ and other works. Mr. Ward's _Political Life_, including a _Diary_ to 1820, was published in 1850. in two vols. 8vo, edited by Hon. E. Phipps.

[2] See _post_, p. 60, note.

[3] See _ante_, vol. i. pp. 101-2.

[4] _Napoleon_.

[5] Archibald Campbell Tait, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.

[6] David Hume, the historian, died August 25, 1776.

[7] To please the king, Canning appointed the Duke of Clarence as first Lord of the Admiralty, but Greville says it was a most judicious stroke of policy, and nothing served so much to disconcert his opponents. Lord Melville had held the office from March 25, 1812, to April 13, 1827. The Duke resigned in the following year.--See Croker's _Correspondence_, vol. i. pp. 264 (letter to Blomfield), 427, 429; also _ante_, vol. i. p. 262. Lord Melville was President of the India Board in the Duke of Wellington's administration in 1828, and again First Lord from Sept. 17 of the same year until Nov. 22, 1830.

[8] The Rev. William Stephen Gilly, D.D., Vicar of Norham, author of _Narrative of an Excursion to the Mountains of Piemont_, 1823; _Researches among the Vaudois or Waldenses_, 1827-31.

[9] See Raine's _St. Cuthbert_, 4to, Durham, 1828.

[10] See _Danvers_ in First Series of _Sayings and Doings_.

[11] _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_, a play by "T.B.," which has also been attributed to Anthony Brewer.

[12] Right Hon. Thomas Francis Kennedy, M.P. for Ayr Burghs, 1818-34. Died at the age of ninety at Dalquharran in 1879.

[13] This powerful drama, entitled _Witchcraft: a Tragedy in Prose_, was suggested, as the author says in her preface, by reading a scene in _The Bride of Lammermoor_.

[14] Did Constable ruin Scott, as has been generally supposed? It is right to say that such a charge was not made during the lifetime of either. Immediately after Scott's death Miss Edgeworth wrote to Sir James Gibson-Craig and asked him for authentic information as to Sir Walter's connection with Constable. Sir James in reply stated that to his personal knowledge Mr. Constable had, in his anxiety to save Scott, about 1814 [1813], commenced a system of accommodation bills which could not fail to produce, and actually did produce, the ruin of both parties. To another correspondent, some years later, he wrote still more strongly (_Memoirs,_ vol. iii. p. 457).

Scott appears to have been aware of the facts so far, as he says to Laidlaw, in a letter of December 16, 1825, "The confusion of 1814 is a joke to this ... but it arises out of the nature of the same connection which gives, and has given, me a fortune;" and Mr. Lockhart says that the firm of J.B. & Co. "had more than once owed its escape from utter ruin and dishonour" through Constable's exertions.--_Life_, vol. v. p. 150.

On reading the third volume of Constable's Memoirs (3 vols. 8vo, 1873), one cannot fail to see that all the three parties--printer, publisher, and author--were equal sharers in the imprudences that led to the disaster in 1826. Whether Mr. Constable was right in recommending further advances to the London house is doubtful; but if it was an error of judgment, it was one which appears to have been shared by Mr. Cadell and Mr. James Ballantyne. It must be admitted that the three firms were equally culpable in maintaining for so many years a system of fictitious credit. Constable, at least, from a letter to Scott, printed in vol. iii. p. 274, had become seriously alarmed as early as August 8, 1823.

That Constable was correct in his estimate of the value of the literary property has been shown by the large sums realised from the sale of Scott's works since 1829; and that his was the brain ("the pendulum of the clock" as Scott termed it) to plan is also shown by the fact that the so-called "favourite" edition, the _magnum opus_, appears to have been Constable's idea (_Memoirs_, vol. iii. p. 255), although, according to the _Annual Register_ of 1849, Mr. Cadell claimed the merit of a scheme which he had "quietly and privately matured."

[15] Thomas Thomson, Depute-Clerk Register for Scotland under Lord Frederick Campbell.

[16] Johnson's _Epitaph on Claude Phillips_.

AUGUST.

_August_ 1.--My guests left me and I thought of turning to work again seriously. Finished five pages. Dined alone, excepting Huntly Gordon, who is come on a visit, poor lad. I hope he is well fixed under Mr. Planta's[17] patronage. Smoked a cigar after dinner. Laughed with my daughters, and read them the review of Hoffmann's production out of Gillies's new _Foreign Review_.

The undertaking would do, I am convinced, in any other person's hands than those of the improvident editor; but I hear he is living as thoughtlessly as ever in London, has hired a large house, and gives Burgundy to his guests. This will hardly suit £500 a year.

_August_ 2.--Got off my proofs. Went over to breakfast at Huntly Burn; the great object was to see my cascade in the Glen suitably repaired. I have had it put to rights by puddling and damming. What says the frog in the Fairy Tale?--

"Stuff with moss, and clog with clay,
And that will weize the water away."

Having seen the job pretty tightly done, walked deliciously home through the woods. But no work all this while. Then for up and at it. But in spite of good resolutions I trifled with my children after dinner, and read to them in the evening, and did just nothing at all.

_August_ 3.--Wrote five pages and upwards--scarce amends for past laziness. Huntly Gordon lent me a volume of his father's manuscript memoirs.[18] They are not without interest, for Pryse Gordon, though a bit of a _roué_, is a clever fellow in his way. One thing struck me, being the story of an Irish swindler, who called himself Henry King Edgeworth, an impudent gawsey fellow, who deserted from Gordon's recruiting party, enlisted again, and became so great a favourite with the Colonel of the regiment which he joined, that he was made pay-sergeant. Here he deserted to purpose with £200 or £300, escaped to France, got a commission in the Corps sent to invade Ireland, was taken, recognised, and hanged. What would Mr. Theobald Wolfe Tone have said to such an associate in his regenerating expedition? These are thy gods, O Israel! The other was the displeasure of the present Cameron of Lochiel, on finding that the forty Camerons, with whom he joined the Duke of Gordon's Northern Fencible regiment, were to be dispersed. He had wellnigh mutinied and marched back with them. This would be a good anecdote for Garth.[19]

_August_ 4.--Spent the morning at Selkirk, examining people about an assault. When I returned I found Charlotte Kerr here with a clever little boy, Charles Scott, grandson of Charles of the Woll, and son of William, and grand-nephew of John of Midgehope. He seems a smart boy, and, considering that he is an only son with expectations, not _too_ much spoiled. General Yermoloff called with a letter from a Dr. Knox, whom I do not know. If it be Vicesimus, we met nearly twenty-five years ago and did not agree. But General Yermoloff's name was luckily known to me. He is a man in the flower of life, about thirty, handsome, bold, and enthusiastic; a great admirer of poetry, and all that. He had been in the Moscow campaign, and those which followed, but must have been very young. He made not the least doubt that Moscow was burned by Rostopchin, and said that there was a general rumour before the French entered the town, and while the inhabitants were leaving it, that persons were left to destroy it. I asked him why the magazine of gunpowder had not been set fire to in the first instance. He answered that he believed the explosion of that magazine would have endangered the retreating Russians. This seemed unsatisfactory. The march of the Russians was too distant from Moscow to be annoyed by the circumstance. I pressed him as well as I could about the slowness of Koutousoff's operations; and he frankly owned that the Russians were so much rejoiced and surprised to see the French in retreat, that it was long ere they could credit the extent of the advantage which they had acquired. This has been but an idle day, so far as composition is concerned, but I was detained late at Selkirk.

_August_ 5.--Wrote near six pages. General Yermoloff left me with many expressions of enthusiastic regard, as foreigners use to do. He is a kinsman of Princess Galitzin, whom I saw at Paris. I walked with Tom after one o'clock. Dined _en famille_ with Miss Todd, a pretty girl, and wrote after dinner.