TO MISS EDGEWORTH, EDGEWORTHSTOWN, IRELAND.Edinburgh, 11th November, 1814.Madam,—I am desired by the Author of Waverley to acknowledge, in his name, the honor you have done him byyour most flattering approbation of his work—a distinction which he receives as one of the highest that could be paid him, and which he would have been proud to have himself stated his sense of, only that beingimpersonal, he thought it more respectful to require my assistance than to write an anonymous letter.There are very few who have had the opportunities that have been presented to me, of knowing how very elevated is the admiration entertained by the Author of Waverley for the genius of Miss Edgeworth. From the intercourse that took place betwixt us while the work was going through my press,I knowthat the exquisite truth and power of your characters operated on his mind at once to excite and subdue it. He felt that the success of his book was to depend upon the characters, much more than upon the story; and he entertained so just and so high an opinion of your eminence in the management of both, as to have strong apprehensions of any comparison which might be instituted betwixt his picture and story and yours; besides, that there is a richness andnaïvetéin Irish character and humor, in which the Scotch are certainly defective, and which could hardly fail, as he thought, to render his delineations cold and tame by the contrast. "If I could but hit Miss Edgeworth's wonderful power of vivifying all her persons, and making them live asbeingsin your mind, I should not be afraid:"—Often has the Author of Waverley used such language to me; and I knew that I gratified him most when I could say,—"Positively thisisequal to Miss Edgeworth." You will thus judge, Madam, how deeply he must feel such praise as you have bestowed upon his efforts. I believe he himself thinks the Baron the best drawn character in his book—I mean the Bailie—honest Bailie Macwheeble. He protests it is the mosttrue, though from many causes he did not expect it to be the most popular. It appears to me, that amongst so many splendid portraits, all drawn with such strength and truth, it is more easy to say which is your favorite, than which is best. Mr. Henry Mackenzie agrees with you in your objection to the resemblance to Fielding. He says you should never be forced to recollect,maugreall its internal evidence to the contrary, that such a work is a work of fiction, and all its fine creations but of air. The character ofRose is less finished than the author had at one period intended; but I believe the characters of humor grew upon his liking, to the prejudice, in some degree, of those of a more elevated and sentimental kind. Yet what can surpass Flora, and her gallant brother?I am not authorized to say—but I will not resist my impulse to say to Miss Edgeworth, that another novel, descriptive of more ancient manners still, may be expected erelong from the Author of Waverley. But I request her to observe, that I say this in strict confidence—not certainly meaning to exclude from the knowledge of what will give them pleasure, her respectable family.Mr. Scott's poem, The Lord of the Isles, promises fully to equal the most admired of his productions. It is, I think, equally powerful, and certainly more uniformly polished and sustained. I have seen three cantos. It will consist of six.I have the honor to be, Madam, with the utmost admiration and respect,Your most obedient and most humble servant,James Ballantyne.
TO MISS EDGEWORTH, EDGEWORTHSTOWN, IRELAND.
Edinburgh, 11th November, 1814.
Madam,—I am desired by the Author of Waverley to acknowledge, in his name, the honor you have done him byyour most flattering approbation of his work—a distinction which he receives as one of the highest that could be paid him, and which he would have been proud to have himself stated his sense of, only that beingimpersonal, he thought it more respectful to require my assistance than to write an anonymous letter.
There are very few who have had the opportunities that have been presented to me, of knowing how very elevated is the admiration entertained by the Author of Waverley for the genius of Miss Edgeworth. From the intercourse that took place betwixt us while the work was going through my press,I knowthat the exquisite truth and power of your characters operated on his mind at once to excite and subdue it. He felt that the success of his book was to depend upon the characters, much more than upon the story; and he entertained so just and so high an opinion of your eminence in the management of both, as to have strong apprehensions of any comparison which might be instituted betwixt his picture and story and yours; besides, that there is a richness andnaïvetéin Irish character and humor, in which the Scotch are certainly defective, and which could hardly fail, as he thought, to render his delineations cold and tame by the contrast. "If I could but hit Miss Edgeworth's wonderful power of vivifying all her persons, and making them live asbeingsin your mind, I should not be afraid:"—Often has the Author of Waverley used such language to me; and I knew that I gratified him most when I could say,—"Positively thisisequal to Miss Edgeworth." You will thus judge, Madam, how deeply he must feel such praise as you have bestowed upon his efforts. I believe he himself thinks the Baron the best drawn character in his book—I mean the Bailie—honest Bailie Macwheeble. He protests it is the mosttrue, though from many causes he did not expect it to be the most popular. It appears to me, that amongst so many splendid portraits, all drawn with such strength and truth, it is more easy to say which is your favorite, than which is best. Mr. Henry Mackenzie agrees with you in your objection to the resemblance to Fielding. He says you should never be forced to recollect,maugreall its internal evidence to the contrary, that such a work is a work of fiction, and all its fine creations but of air. The character ofRose is less finished than the author had at one period intended; but I believe the characters of humor grew upon his liking, to the prejudice, in some degree, of those of a more elevated and sentimental kind. Yet what can surpass Flora, and her gallant brother?
I am not authorized to say—but I will not resist my impulse to say to Miss Edgeworth, that another novel, descriptive of more ancient manners still, may be expected erelong from the Author of Waverley. But I request her to observe, that I say this in strict confidence—not certainly meaning to exclude from the knowledge of what will give them pleasure, her respectable family.
Mr. Scott's poem, The Lord of the Isles, promises fully to equal the most admired of his productions. It is, I think, equally powerful, and certainly more uniformly polished and sustained. I have seen three cantos. It will consist of six.
I have the honor to be, Madam, with the utmost admiration and respect,
Your most obedient and most humble servant,
James Ballantyne.
END OF VOLUME FOUR
1: The epitaph of this favorite greyhound may be seen on the edge of the bank, a little way below the house of Abbotsford.2: The Reverend Alexander Dyce says, "N. T. stands forNathaniel Thompson, the Tory bookseller, who published theseLoyal Poems."—(1839.)3: An edition of the British Dramatists had, I believe, been projected by Mr. Terry.4: Mr. Thomson died 8th January, 1838, before the publication of the first edition of these Memoirs had been completed.—(1839.)5:Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott, p. 56.6: [From a passage in a letter to Lady Abercorn, written September 10, 1818, on the return from a similar journey (seeFamiliar Letters, vol. ii. p. 24), it seems probable that some at least of the incidents of this visit belong to that of the later date.]7: This alluded to a ridiculous hunter of lions, who, being met by Mr. Morritt in the grounds at Rokeby, disclaimed all taste for picturesque beauties, but overwhelmed their owner with Homeric Greek; of which he had told Scott.8:Burnfootis the name of a farmhouse on the Buccleuch estate, not far from Langholm, where the late Sir John Malcolm and his distinguished brothers were born. Their grandfather had, I believe, found refuge there after forfeiting a good estate and an ancient baronetcy in theaffairof 1715. A monument to the gallant General's memory has recently been erected near the spot of his birth.9:3d King Henry VI.Act I. Scene 4.10: SeeLife of Dryden, Scott'sMiscellaneous Prose Works, vol. i. p. 293.11:Much Ado about Nothing, Act IV. Scene 2.12: Several of these letters having been enclosed in franked covers, which have perished, I am unable to affix the exact dates to them.13: The Rev. Alexander Dyce informs me thatnineof Carey's pieces were printed in 1771, for J. Murray of Fleet Street, in a quarto of thirty-five pages, entitledPoems from a MS. written in the time of Oliver Cromwell. This rare tract had never fallen into Scott's hands.—(1839.)14: Byron'sLife and Works, vol. ii. p. 169.15: Several letters to Ballantyne on the same subject are quoted in the notes to the last edition ofRokeby. See Scott'sPoetical Works, 1834, vol. ix. pp. 1-3; and especially the note on p. 300, from which it appears that the closing stanza was added, in deference to Ballantyne and Erskine, though the author retained his own opinion that "it spoiled one effect without producing another."16: [SeeFamiliar Letters, vol. ii. p. 16.]17:"My noontide, India may declare;Like her fierce sun, I fired the air!Like him, to wood and cave bid flyHer natives, from mine angry eye.And now, my race of terror ran,Mine be the eye of tropic sun!No pale gradations quench his ray,No twilight dews his wrath allay;With disk like battle-target red,He rushes to his burning bed.Dyes the wide wave with bloody light,Then sinks at once—and all is night."—Cantovi. 21.18: "Scott found peculiar favor and imitation among the fair sex. There was Miss Holford, and Miss Mitford, and Miss Francis; but, with the greatest respect be it spoken, none of his imitators did much honor to the original except Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, until the appearance ofThe Bridal of TriermainandHarold the Dauntless, which, in the opinion of some, equalled if not surpassed him; and, lo! after three or four years, they turned out to be the master's own compositions."—Byron, vol. xv. p. 96.19: See, for instance, the Epistle of Lady Corke—or that of Messrs. Lackington, booksellers, to one of their dandy authors,—"Should you feel any touch ofpoeticalglow,We've a scheme to suggest—Mr. Scott, you must know(Who, we're sorry to say it, now works for theRow),Having quitted the Borders to seek new renown,Is coming by long Quarto stages to town,And beginning with Rokeby (the job's sure to pay),Means to do all the gentlemen's seats on the way.Now the scheme is, though none of our hackneys can beat him,To start a new Poet through Highgate to meet him;Who by means of quick proofs—no revises—long coaches—May do a few Villas before Scott approaches;Indeed if our Pegasus be not curst shabby,He'll reach, without foundering, at least Woburn-Abbey," etc., etc.20: Seeante, vol. i. p. 246.21: It is included in theBorder Minstrelsy, vol. i. p. 270.22: This murder, perpetrated in November, 1806, remains a mystery in 1836. The porter's name was Begbie. [SeeFamiliar Letters, vol. i. p. 63.]23: Mr. Hunter died in March, 1812.24: "These and after purchases of books from the stock of J. Ballantyne and Co. were resold to the trade by Constable's firm, at less than one half and one third of the prices at which they were thus obtained."—Note from Mr. R. Cadell.25: Dr. Brewster's edition of Ferguson'sAstronomy, 2 vols. 8vo, with plates, 4to, Edin. 1811. 36s.26: Dr. Singers'sGeneral View of the County of Dumfries, 8vo, Edin. 1812. 18s.27: A trade sale of Messrs. Cadell and Davies in the Strand.28: Since this work was first published, I have been compelled to examine very minutely the details of Scott's connection with the Ballantynes, and one result is, that both James and John had trespassed so largely, for their private purposes, on the funds of the Companies, that, Scott being, as their letters distinctly state, the only "monied partner," and his over-advances of capital having been very extensive, any inquiry on their part as to his uncommercial expenditure must have been entirely out of the question. To avoid misrepresentation, however, I leave my text as it was.—(1839.)29:Merchant of Venice, Act II. Scene 2.30: The court of offices, built on the haugh at Abbotsford in 1812, included a house for the faithful coachman, Peter Mathieson. One of Scott's Cantabrigian friends, Mr. W. S. Rose, gave the whole pile soon afterwards the name, which it retained to the end, ofPeter-House. The loft at Peter-House continued to be occupied by occasional bachelor guests until the existing mansion was completed.31: Mrs. Thomas Scott had met Burns frequently in early life at Dumfries. Her brother, the late Mr. David MacCulloch, was a great favorite with the poet, and the best singer of his songs that I ever heard.32: John Ballantyne had embarked no capital—not a shilling—in the business; and was bound by the contract to limit himself to an allowance of £300 a year, in consideration of hismanagement, until there should be an overplus of profits!—(1839.)33: He probably alludes to the final settlement of accounts with the Marquis of Abercorn.34: The Royal Librarian had forwarded to Scott presentation copies of his successive publications—The Progress of Maritime Discovery—Falconer'sShipwreck, with a Life of the Author—Naufragia—A Life of Nelson, in two quarto volumes, etc., etc., etc.35: Poor Gay—"In wit a man, simplicity a child"—was insulted, on the accession of George II., by the offer of a gentleman-ushership to one of the royal infants. His prose and verse largely celebrate his obligations to Charles, third Duke of Queensberry, and the charming Lady Catharine Hyde, his Duchess—under whose roof the poet spent the latter years of his life.36: See the Preface to the third volume of the late Collective Edition of Mr. Southey'sPoems, p. xii., where he corrects a trivial error I had fallen into in the first edition of these Memoirs, and adds, "Sir Walter's conduct was, as it always was, characteristically generous, and in the highest degree friendly."—(1839.)37: Garrick'sBon Ton, or High Life Above Stairs.38:Twelfth Night, Act V. Scene 1.39: The letter in question has not been preserved in Scott's collection of correspondence. This leaves some allusions in the answer obscure.40: Scott's old friend, Mr. John Richardson, had shortly before this time taken a house in Miss Baillie's neighborhood, on Hampstead Heath.41: Miss Baillie had apologized to him for having sent an extract of one of his letters to her friend at Edgeworthstown.42: Milton,Sonnet No. VIII.[When the Assault was intended to the City.]43: [On May 3, Scott had written to his daughter, that this hair was light brown, and later, writing to Joanna Baillie, he says, "I did not think Charles's hair had been quite so light; that of his father, and I believe of all the Stuarts till Charles II., was reddish." Of the king, he goes on to say: "Tory, as I am, my heart only goes with King Charles in his struggles and distresses, for the fore part of his reign was a series of misconduct; however, if he sow'd the wind, God knows he reap'd the whirlwind.... Sound therefore be the sleep, and henceforward undisturbed the ashes, of this unhappy prince.... His attachment to a particular form of worship was in him conscience, for he adhered to the Church of England ... when by giving up that favorite point he might have secured his reëstablishment; and in that sense he may be justly considered as a martyr, though his early political errors blemish his character as King of England."—Familiar Letters, vol. i. p. 288.]44: Letter from the Right Hon. W. Dundas, dated 6th December, 1813.45: See Scott'sPoetical Works, vol. xi. p. 309, Edition 1834 [Cambridge Edition, p. 409].46: The late Sir John Marjoribanks of Lees, Bart.47: The inscription for this tankard was penned by the late celebrated Dr. James Gregory, Professor of the Practice of Physic in the University of Edinburgh; and I therefore transcribe it.GUALTERUM SCOTTDE ABBOTSFORDVIRUM SUMMI INGENIISCRIPTOREM ELEGANTEMPOETARUM SUI SECULI FACILE PRINCIPEMPATRIÆ DECUSOB VARIA ERGA IPSAM MERITAIN CIVIUM SUORUM NUMERUMGRATA ADSCRIPSIT CIVITAS EDINBURGENSISET HOC CANTHARO DONAVITA. D. M.DCCC.XIII.48:2d King Henry IV.Act V. Scene 3.49: A good many French officers, prisoners of war, had been living on parole in Melrose, and the adjoining villages; and Mr. and Mrs. Scott had been particularly kind and hospitable to them.50: The battle of Toulouse.51: Sir Adam Ferguson, who had been taken prisoner in the course of the Duke of Wellington's retreat from Burgos.52: The names which he particularly mentions are those of the late Matthew Weld Hartstonge, Esq., of Dublin, Theophilus Swift, Esq., Major Tickell, Thomas Steele, Esq., Leonard Macnally, Esq., and the Rev. M. Berwick.53: Entertaining one night a small party of friends, Erskine read the proof sheets of this volume after supper, and was confirmed in his opinion by the enthusiastic interest they excited in his highly intelligent circle. Mr. James Simpson and Mr. Norman Hill, advocates, were of this party, and from the way in which their host spoke, they both inferred that they were listening to the first effort of some unknown aspirant. They all pronounced the work one of the highest classical merit. The sitting was protracted till daybreak.—(1839.)54: Mr. Morritt had, in the spring of this year, been present at the first levee held at the Tuileries by Monsieur (afterwards Charles X.), as representative of his brother Louis XVIII. Mr. M. had not been in Paris till that time since 1789.55: [The old writing-desk, in which, while searching for some fishing-tackle for a guest, Scott found the long-lost manuscript, was given by him to William Laidlaw, who till his death cherished with religious care all his memorials of Abbotsford. The desk is now a treasured possession of his grandson, Mr. W. L. Carruthers, of Inverness.]56:Count Borowlaskiwas a Polish dwarf, who, after realizing some money as an itinerant object of exhibition, settled, married, and died (September 5, 1837) at Durham. He was a well-bred creature, and much noticed by the clergy and other gentry of that city. Indeed, even when travelling the country as a show, he had always maintained a sort of dignity. I remember him as going from house to house, when I was a child, in a sedan chair, with a servant in livery following him, who took the fee—M. le Comtehimself (dressed in a scarlet coat and bag wig) being ushered into the room like any ordinary visitor.The Count died in his 99th year—"ASpiritbrave, yet gentle, has dwelt, as it appears,Within three feet of flesh for near one hundred years;Which causes wonder, like his constitution, strong,That oneso short aliveshould bealive so long!"Bentley's Miscellanyfor November, 1837.57:Othello, Act III. Scene 3.58: Burns—linesOn my early days.59: [Robert Stevenson, the eminent civil engineer, for nearly half a century the engineer to the Board of Northern Lights. He inaugurated the present Scottish lighthouse system, and no less than twenty lighthouses were designed and constructed under his superintendence, the most remarkable being the famous Bell Rock tower. He died in 1850. Three of his sons, one of whom became his biographer, greatly distinguished themselves in their father's profession. Robert Louis Stevenson, in his fragment of family history,Records of a Family of Engineers, has left a vivid picture of his grandfather, though it be but an unfinished sketch.]60: On being requested, while at breakfast, to inscribe his name in the album of the tower, Scott penned immediately the following lines:—Pharos Loquitur."Far in the bosom of the deep,O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep;A ruddy gem of changeful light,Bound on the dusky brow of night,The seaman bids my lustre hail,And scorns to strike his timorous sail."61: This is, without doubt, an allusion to some happy day's excursion when hisfirst lovewas of the party.62: Erskine—Sheriff of Shetland and Orkney.63: Here occurs a rude scratch of drawing.64: Lord Dundas was created Earl of Zetland in 1838, and died in February, 1839.65: Campbell—Pleasures of Hope.66: Robert Hamilton, Sheriff of Lanarkshire, and afterwards one of the Clerks of Session, was a particular favorite of Scott—first, among many other good reasons, because he had been a soldier in his youth, had fought gallantly and been wounded severely in the American war, and was a very Uncle Toby in military enthusiasm; secondly, because he was a brother antiquary of the genuine Monkbarns breed; thirdly (last, not least), because he was, in spite of the example of the head of his name and race, a steady Tory. Mr. Hamilton sent for Scott when upon his deathbed in 1831, and desired him to choose and carry off as a parting memorial any article he liked in his collection of arms. Sir Walter (by that time sorely shattered in his own health) selected the sword with which his good friend had been begirt at Bunker's Hill.67: During the winter of 1837-38, this worthy clergyman's wife, his daughter, and a servant, perished within sight of the manse, from a flaw in the ice on the loch—which they were crossing as the nearest way home.—(1839.)68: In his reviewal of Pitcairn'sTrials(1831), Scott says: "In erecting this Earl's Castle of Scalloway, and other expensive edifices, the King's tenants were forced to work in quarries, transport stone, dig, delve, climb, and build, and submit to all possible sorts of servile and painful labor, without either meat, drink, hire, or recompense of any kind. 'My father,' said Earl Patrick, 'built his house at Sumburgh on the sand, and it has given way already; this of mine on the rock shall abide and endure.' He did not or would not understand that the oppression, rapacity, and cruelty, by means of which the house arose, were what the clergyman really pointed to in his recommendation of a motto. Accordingly, the huge tower remains wild and desolate—its chambers filled with sand, and its rifted walls and dismantled battlements giving unrestrained access to the roaring sea blast."—For more of Earl Patrick, see Scott'sMiscellaneous Prose Works, vol. xxi. pp. 230, 233; vol. xxiii. pp. 327, 329.69: Mr. W. S. Rose informs me, that when he was at school at Winchester, the morris-dancers there used to exhibit a sword-dance resembling that described at Camacho's wedding in Don Quixote; and Mr. Morritt adds, that similar dances are even yet performed in the villages about Rokeby every Christmas.70: This is a solitary island, lying about halfway between Orkney and Zetland.71: An American Commodore.72: Mr. Marjoribanks.73:Thalaba, Book VIII.74: "This noted oppressor was finally brought to trial, and beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh (6th February, 1614). It is said that the King's mood was considerably heated against him by some ill-chosen and worse written Latin inscriptions with which his father and himself had been unlucky enough to decorate some of their insular palaces. In one of these, Earl Robert, the father, had given his own designation thus: 'Orcadiæ ComesRexJacobi Quinti Filius.' In this case he was not, perhaps, guilty of anything worse than bad Latin. But James VI., who had a keen nose for puzzling out treason, and with whom an assault and battery upon Priscian ranked in nearly the same degree of crime, had little doubt that the use of the nominativeRex, instead of the genitiveRegis, had a treasonable savor."—Scott'sMiscellaneous Prose Works, vol. xxiii. p. 232.75: Henry Mackenzie's Introduction toThe Fatal Sisters.—Works, 1808, vol. viii. p. 63.76: "A Skerrie means a flattish rock which the sea does not overflow."—Edmonstone'sView of the Zetlands.77: Clerk Colvill falls a sacrifice to a meeting with "a fair Mermaid," whom he found washing her "Sark of Silk" on this romantic shore. He had been warned by his "gay lady" in these words:—"O promise me now, Clerk Colvill,Or it will cost ye muckle strife,Ride never by the Wells of Slane,If ye wad live and brook your life."78: Sir William Honeyman, Bart.—a Judge of the Court of Session by the title of Lord Armadale.79:Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol. v. p. 355.80:History of the Orkney Islands, by the Rev. George Barry, D. D., 4to, Edinburgh, 1805.81: Lord Teignmouth, in his recentSketches of the Coasts and Islands of Scotland, says: "The publication ofThe Piratesatisfied the natives of Orkney as to the authorship of the Waverley Novels. It was remarked by those who had accompanied Sir Walter Scott in his excursions in these Islands, that the vivid descriptions which the work contains were confined to those scenes which he visited."—Vol. i. p. 28.82: The whole of the immense district calledLord Reay's country—the habitation, as far back as history reaches, of the clan Mackay—has passed, since Sir W. Scott's journal was written, into the hands of the noble family of Sutherland.83: The Harris has recently passed into the possession of the Earl of Dunmore.—(1839.)84: Miss Macleod, now Mrs. Spencer Perceval.85: See Note,Lord of the Isles, Scott'sPoetical Works, vol. x. p. 294 [Cambridge Ed. p. 558].86: The following passage, from the last of Scott'sLetters on Demonology(written in 1830), refers to the night of this 23d of August, 1814. He mentions that twice in his life he had experienced the sensation which the Scotch calleerie: gives a night-piece of his early youth in the castle of Glammis, which has already been quoted (ante, vol. i. p. 197), and proceeds thus: "Amid such tales of ancient tradition, I had from Macleod and his lady the courteous offer of the haunted apartment of the castle, about which, as a stranger, I might be supposed interested. Accordingly I took possession of it about the witching hour. Except, perhaps, some tapestry hangings, and the extreme thickness of the walls, which argued great antiquity, nothing could have been more comfortable than the interior of the apartment; but if you looked from the windows, the view was such as to correspond with the highest tone of superstition. An autumnal blast, sometimes clear, sometimes driving mist before it, swept along the troubled billows of the lake, which it occasionally concealed, and by fits disclosed. The waves rushed in wild disorder on the shore, and covered with foam the steep pile of rocks, which, rising from the sea in forms something resembling the human figure, have obtained the name of Macleod's Maidens, and, in such a night, seemed no bad representative of the Norwegian goddesses, called Choosers of the Slain, or Riders of the Storm. There was something of the dignity of danger in the scene; for, on a platform beneath the windows, lay an ancient battery of cannon, which had sometimes been used against privateers even of late years. The distant scene was a view of that part of the Quillen mountains, which are called, from their form, Macleod's Dining-Tables. The voice of an angry cascade, termed the Nurse of Rorie Mhor, because that chief slept best in its vicinity, was heard from time to time mingling its notes with those of wind and wave. Such was the haunted room at Dunvegan; and, as such, it well deserved a less sleepy inhabitant. In the language of Dr. Johnson, who has stamped his memory on this remote place,—'I looked around me, and wondered that I was not more affected; but the mind is not at all times equally ready to be moved.' In a word, it is necessary to confess that, of all I heard or saw, the most engaging spectacle was the comfortable bed in which I hoped to make amends for some rough nights on shipboard, and where I slept accordingly without thinking of ghost or goblin, till I was called by my servant in the morning."87:"Rarely human eye has knownA scene so stern as that dread lake,With its dark ledge of barren stone.Seems that primeval earthquake's swayHath rent a strange and shatter'd wayThrough the rude bosom of the hill,And that each naked precipice,Sable ravine, and dark abyss,Tells of the outrage still.The wildest glen, but this, can showSome touch of Nature's genial glow;On high Benmore green mosses grow,And heath-bells bud in deep Glencroe,And copse on Cruchan-Ben;But here—above, around, below,On mountain or in glen,Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower,Nor aught of vegetative power,The weary eye may ken;For all is rocks at random thrown,Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone,As if were here deniedThe summer's sun, the spring's sweet dew,That clothe with many a varied hueThe bleakest mountain-side."Lord of the Isles, iii. 14.88: The Rev. Alexander Brunton, D. D., now (1836) Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of Edinburgh.89:Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands.90:"So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,They cannot see the Sun on high."Southey'sInchcape Rock.91: Southey'sInchcape Rock.92: SeeMinstrelsy of the Border, vol. iv. pp. 285-306 (Edin. Ed.).93:The Boy and the Mantle—Percy'sReliques, vol. iii. p. 10.94: Harriet, Duchess of Buccleuch, died August 24, 1814.95: Adam Duff, Esq., afterwards and for many years Sheriff of the county of Edinburgh, died on 17th May, 1840.—(1845.)96: The Scotts of Scotstarvet, and other families of the name in Fife and elsewhere, claim no kindred with the great clan of the Border—and their armorial bearings are different.97: Lord Byron writes to Mr. Moore, August 3, 1814: "Oh! I have had the most amusing letter from Hogg, the Ettrick Minstrel and Shepherd. I think very highly of him as a poet, but he and half of these Scotch and Lake troubadours are spoilt by living in little circles and petty coteries. London and the world is the only place to take the conceit out of a man—in the milling phrase. Scott, he says, is gone to the Orkneys in a gale of wind, during which wind, he affirms, the said Scott, he is sure, is not at his ease, to say the least of it. Lord! Lord! if these home-keeping minstrels had crossed your Atlantic or my Mediterranean, and tasted a little open boating in a white squall—or a gale in 'the Gut,'—or the Bay of Biscay, with no gale at all—how it would enliven and introduce them to a few of the sensations!—to say nothing of an illicit amour or two upon shore, in the way of Essay upon the Passions, beginning with simple adultery, and compounding it as they went along."—Life and Works, vol. iii. p. 102. Lord Byron, by the way, had written on July the 24th to Mr. Murray, "Waverleyis the best and most interesting novel I have redde since—I don't know when," etc.—Ibid.p. 98.98: Mr. Grieve was a man of cultivated mind and generous disposition, and a most kind and zealous friend of the Shepherd.99: Major Riddell, the Duke's Chamberlain at Branksome Castle.100: See letter to Mr. Morritt,ante, p. 120.101: This alludes to some mummery in which David Hinves, of merry memory, wore a Caliban-like disguise. He lived more than forty years in the service of Mr. W. S. Rose, and died in it last year. Mr. Rose was of course extremely young when he first picked up Hinves—a bookbinder by trade, and a preacher among the Methodists. A sermon heard casually under a tree in the New Forest had such touches of good feeling and broad humor, that the young gentleman promoted him to be his valet on the spot. He was treated latterly more like a friend than a servant by his master, and by all his master's intimate friends. Scott presented him with a copy of all his works; and Coleridge gave him a corrected (or rather an altered) copy ofChristabel, with this inscription on the flyleaf: "Dear Hinves,—Till this book is concluded, and with it 'Gundimore, a poem, by the same author,' accept of thiscorrectedcopy ofChristabelas asmalltoken of regard; yet such a testimonial as I would not pay to any one I did not esteem, though he were an emperor. Be assured I shall send you for your private library every work I have published (if there be any to be had) and whatever I shall publish. Keep steady to theFAITH. If the fountain-head be always full, the stream cannot be long empty. Yours sincerely,S. T. Coleridge."11th November, 1816—Muddeford.Mr. Rose imagines that the warning, "keep steady to the faith," was given in allusion to Ugo Foscolo's "supposed license in religious opinions."—Rhymes(Brighton, 1837), p. 92.—(1839.)102: Garrick's Epilogue toPolly Honeycombe, 1760.103: ["Except the first opening of theEdinburgh Review, no work that has appeared in my time made such an instant and universal impression. It is curious to remember it. The unexpected newness of the thing, the profusion of original characters, the Scotch language, Scotch scenery, Scotch men and women, the simplicity of the writing, and the graphic force of the descriptions, all struck us with an electric shock of delight. I wish I could again feel the sensations produced by the first year of these two Edinburgh works. If the concealment of the authorship of the novels was intended to make mystery heighten their effect, it completely succeeded. The speculations and conjectures, and nods and winks, and predictions and assertions were endless, and occupied every company, and almost every two men who met and spoke in the street. It was proved by a thousand indications, each refuting the other, and all equally true in fact, that they were written by old Henry Mackenzie, and by George Cranstoun, and William Erskine, and Jeffrey, and above all by Thomas Scott.... But 'the great unknown' as the true author was then called, always took good care, with all his concealment, to supply evidence amply sufficient for the protection of his property and his fame; in so much that the suppression of the name was laughed at as a good joke not merely by his select friends in his presence, but by himself. The change of line, at his age, was a striking proof of intellectual power and richness. But the truth is that these novels were rather the outpourings of old thoughts than new inventions."—Lord Cockburn'sMemorials of His Time.]104: [Miss Edgeworth wrote from Edgeworthstown, October 23, 1814, addressing her letter to the Author ofWaverley(seeLife and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, vol. i. pp. 239-244):—Aut Scotus, aut Diabolus.We have this moment finishedWaverley. It was read aloud to this large family, and I wish the author could have witnessed the impression it made—the strong hold it seized of the feelings both of young and old—the admiration raised by the beautiful description, of nature—by the new and bold delineations of character—the perfect manner in which every character is sustained in every change of situation from first to last, without effort, without the affectation of making the persons speak in character—the ingenuity with which each person introduced in the drama is made useful and necessary to the end—the admirable art with which the story is constructed and with which the author keeps his own secrets till the proper moment when they should be revealed, whilst in the mean time, with the skill of Shakespeare, the mind is prepared by unseen degrees for all the changes of feeling and fortune, so that nothing, however extraordinary, shocks us as improbable; and the interest is kept up to the last moment. We were so possessed with the belief that the whole story and every character in it was real, that we could not endure the occasional addresses from the author to the reader. They are like Fielding; but for that reason we cannot bear them, we cannot bear that an author of such high powers, of such original genius, should for a moment stoop to imitation. This is the only thing we dislike, these are the only passages we wish omitted in the whole work; and let the unqualified manner in which I say this, and the very vehemence of my expression of this disapprobation, be a sure pledge to the author of the sincerity of all the admiration I feel for his genius.I have not yet said half we felt in reading the work. The characters are not only finely drawn as separate figures, but they are grouped with great skill, and contrasted so artfully, and yet so naturally, as to produce the happiest dramatic effect and at the same time to relieve the feelings and attention in the most agreeable manner. The novelty of the Highland world which is discovered to our view excites curiosity and interest powerfully; but though it is all new to us it does not embarrass or perplex, or strain the attention. We never are harassed by doubts of the probability of any of these modes of life; though we did not know them, we are quite certain they did exist exactly as they are represented. We are sensible that there is a peculiar merit in the work which is in a measure lost upon us, the dialects of the Highlanders and Lowlanders, etc. But there is another and a higher merit with which we are as much struck and as much delighted as any true-born Scotchman could be: the various gradations of Scotch feudal character, from the high-born chieftain and the military baron, to the noble-minded lieutenant Evan Dhu, the robber Bean Lean, and the savage Callum Beg. The Pre—the Chevalier is beautifully drawn,—"A prince: aye, every inch a prince!"His polished manners, his exquisite address, politeness, and generosity, interest the reader irresistibly, and he pleases the more from the contrast between him and those who surround him. I think he is my favorite character; the Baron Bradwardine is my father's. He thinks it required more genius to invent, and more ability uniformly to sustain, this character than any one of the masterly characters with which the book abounds. There is indeed uncommon art in the manner in which his dignity is preserved by his courage and magnanimity, in spite of all his pedantry and hisridicules.... I acknowledge that I am not as good a judge as my father and brothers are of his recondite learning and his law Latin, yet I feel the humor, and was touched to the quick by the strokes of generosity, gentleness, and pathos in this old man, who is, by the bye, all in good time worked up into a very dignified father-in-law for the hero....Jinker, in the battle, pleading the cause of the mare he had sold to Balmawhapple, and which had thrown him for want of the proper bit, is truly comic; my father says that this and some other passages respecting horsemanship could not have been written by any one who was not master both of the great and little horse.I tell you without order the great and little strokes of humor and pathos just as I recollect, or am reminded of them at this moment by my companions.... Judging by our own feeling as authors, we guess that he would rather know our genuine first thoughts, than wait for cool second thoughts, or have a regular eulogium or criticism put in the most lucid manner, and given in the finest sentences that ever were rounded.Is it possible that I have got thus far without having named Flora or Vich Ian Vohr—the last Vich Ian Vohr! Yet our minds were full of them the moment before I began this letter; and could you have seen the tears forced from us by their fate, you would have been satisfied that the pathos went to our hearts. Ian Vohr from the first moment he appears, till the last, is an admirably drawn and finely sustained character—new, perfectly new to the English reader—often entertaining—always heroic—sometimes sublime. The gray spirit, the Bodach Glas, thrills us with horror.Us!What effect must it have upon those under the influence of the superstitions of the Highlands?...Flora we could wish was never called Miss MacIvor, because in this country there are tribes of vulgar Miss Macs, and this association is unfavorable to the sublime and beautiful of your Flora—she is a true heroine.... There is one thing more we could wish changed or omitted in Flora's character.... In the first visit to her, where she is to sing certain verses, there is a walk, in which the description of the place is beautiful, but too long, and we did not like the preparation for a scene—the appearance of Flora and her harp was too like a common heroine; she should be far above all stage effect or novelist's trick.These are, without reserve, the only faults we found or can find in this work of genius. We should scarcely have thought them worth mentioning, except to give you proof positive that we are not flatterers. Believe me, I have not, nor can I convey to you the full idea of the pleasure, the delight we have had in readingWaverley, nor of the feeling of sorrow with which we came to the end of the history of persons whose real presence had so filled our minds—we felt that we must return to the flat realities of life, that our stimulus was gone, and we were little disposed to read the "Postscript, which should have been a Preface.""Well, let us hear it," said my father, and Mrs. Edgeworth read on.Oh! my dear sir, how much pleasure would my father, my mother, my whole family as well as myself have lost, if we had not read to the last page! And the pleasure came upon us so unexpectedly—we had been so completely absorbed that every thought of ourselves, of our own authorship, was far, far away.Thank you for the honor you have done us, and for the pleasure you have given us, great in proportion to the opinion we had formed of the work we had just perused—and believe me, every opinion I have in this letter expressed was formed before any individual in the family had peeped to the end of the book or knew how much we owed you.Your obliged and gratefulMaria Edgeworth.
1: The epitaph of this favorite greyhound may be seen on the edge of the bank, a little way below the house of Abbotsford.
2: The Reverend Alexander Dyce says, "N. T. stands forNathaniel Thompson, the Tory bookseller, who published theseLoyal Poems."—(1839.)
3: An edition of the British Dramatists had, I believe, been projected by Mr. Terry.
4: Mr. Thomson died 8th January, 1838, before the publication of the first edition of these Memoirs had been completed.—(1839.)
5:Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott, p. 56.
6: [From a passage in a letter to Lady Abercorn, written September 10, 1818, on the return from a similar journey (seeFamiliar Letters, vol. ii. p. 24), it seems probable that some at least of the incidents of this visit belong to that of the later date.]
7: This alluded to a ridiculous hunter of lions, who, being met by Mr. Morritt in the grounds at Rokeby, disclaimed all taste for picturesque beauties, but overwhelmed their owner with Homeric Greek; of which he had told Scott.
8:Burnfootis the name of a farmhouse on the Buccleuch estate, not far from Langholm, where the late Sir John Malcolm and his distinguished brothers were born. Their grandfather had, I believe, found refuge there after forfeiting a good estate and an ancient baronetcy in theaffairof 1715. A monument to the gallant General's memory has recently been erected near the spot of his birth.
9:3d King Henry VI.Act I. Scene 4.
10: SeeLife of Dryden, Scott'sMiscellaneous Prose Works, vol. i. p. 293.
11:Much Ado about Nothing, Act IV. Scene 2.
12: Several of these letters having been enclosed in franked covers, which have perished, I am unable to affix the exact dates to them.
13: The Rev. Alexander Dyce informs me thatnineof Carey's pieces were printed in 1771, for J. Murray of Fleet Street, in a quarto of thirty-five pages, entitledPoems from a MS. written in the time of Oliver Cromwell. This rare tract had never fallen into Scott's hands.—(1839.)
14: Byron'sLife and Works, vol. ii. p. 169.
15: Several letters to Ballantyne on the same subject are quoted in the notes to the last edition ofRokeby. See Scott'sPoetical Works, 1834, vol. ix. pp. 1-3; and especially the note on p. 300, from which it appears that the closing stanza was added, in deference to Ballantyne and Erskine, though the author retained his own opinion that "it spoiled one effect without producing another."
16: [SeeFamiliar Letters, vol. ii. p. 16.]
17:
"My noontide, India may declare;Like her fierce sun, I fired the air!Like him, to wood and cave bid flyHer natives, from mine angry eye.And now, my race of terror ran,Mine be the eye of tropic sun!No pale gradations quench his ray,No twilight dews his wrath allay;With disk like battle-target red,He rushes to his burning bed.Dyes the wide wave with bloody light,Then sinks at once—and all is night."—Cantovi. 21.
18: "Scott found peculiar favor and imitation among the fair sex. There was Miss Holford, and Miss Mitford, and Miss Francis; but, with the greatest respect be it spoken, none of his imitators did much honor to the original except Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, until the appearance ofThe Bridal of TriermainandHarold the Dauntless, which, in the opinion of some, equalled if not surpassed him; and, lo! after three or four years, they turned out to be the master's own compositions."—Byron, vol. xv. p. 96.
19: See, for instance, the Epistle of Lady Corke—or that of Messrs. Lackington, booksellers, to one of their dandy authors,—
"Should you feel any touch ofpoeticalglow,We've a scheme to suggest—Mr. Scott, you must know(Who, we're sorry to say it, now works for theRow),Having quitted the Borders to seek new renown,Is coming by long Quarto stages to town,And beginning with Rokeby (the job's sure to pay),Means to do all the gentlemen's seats on the way.Now the scheme is, though none of our hackneys can beat him,To start a new Poet through Highgate to meet him;Who by means of quick proofs—no revises—long coaches—May do a few Villas before Scott approaches;Indeed if our Pegasus be not curst shabby,He'll reach, without foundering, at least Woburn-Abbey," etc., etc.
20: Seeante, vol. i. p. 246.
21: It is included in theBorder Minstrelsy, vol. i. p. 270.
22: This murder, perpetrated in November, 1806, remains a mystery in 1836. The porter's name was Begbie. [SeeFamiliar Letters, vol. i. p. 63.]
23: Mr. Hunter died in March, 1812.
24: "These and after purchases of books from the stock of J. Ballantyne and Co. were resold to the trade by Constable's firm, at less than one half and one third of the prices at which they were thus obtained."—Note from Mr. R. Cadell.
25: Dr. Brewster's edition of Ferguson'sAstronomy, 2 vols. 8vo, with plates, 4to, Edin. 1811. 36s.
26: Dr. Singers'sGeneral View of the County of Dumfries, 8vo, Edin. 1812. 18s.
27: A trade sale of Messrs. Cadell and Davies in the Strand.
28: Since this work was first published, I have been compelled to examine very minutely the details of Scott's connection with the Ballantynes, and one result is, that both James and John had trespassed so largely, for their private purposes, on the funds of the Companies, that, Scott being, as their letters distinctly state, the only "monied partner," and his over-advances of capital having been very extensive, any inquiry on their part as to his uncommercial expenditure must have been entirely out of the question. To avoid misrepresentation, however, I leave my text as it was.—(1839.)
29:Merchant of Venice, Act II. Scene 2.
30: The court of offices, built on the haugh at Abbotsford in 1812, included a house for the faithful coachman, Peter Mathieson. One of Scott's Cantabrigian friends, Mr. W. S. Rose, gave the whole pile soon afterwards the name, which it retained to the end, ofPeter-House. The loft at Peter-House continued to be occupied by occasional bachelor guests until the existing mansion was completed.
31: Mrs. Thomas Scott had met Burns frequently in early life at Dumfries. Her brother, the late Mr. David MacCulloch, was a great favorite with the poet, and the best singer of his songs that I ever heard.
32: John Ballantyne had embarked no capital—not a shilling—in the business; and was bound by the contract to limit himself to an allowance of £300 a year, in consideration of hismanagement, until there should be an overplus of profits!—(1839.)
33: He probably alludes to the final settlement of accounts with the Marquis of Abercorn.
34: The Royal Librarian had forwarded to Scott presentation copies of his successive publications—The Progress of Maritime Discovery—Falconer'sShipwreck, with a Life of the Author—Naufragia—A Life of Nelson, in two quarto volumes, etc., etc., etc.
35: Poor Gay—"In wit a man, simplicity a child"—was insulted, on the accession of George II., by the offer of a gentleman-ushership to one of the royal infants. His prose and verse largely celebrate his obligations to Charles, third Duke of Queensberry, and the charming Lady Catharine Hyde, his Duchess—under whose roof the poet spent the latter years of his life.
36: See the Preface to the third volume of the late Collective Edition of Mr. Southey'sPoems, p. xii., where he corrects a trivial error I had fallen into in the first edition of these Memoirs, and adds, "Sir Walter's conduct was, as it always was, characteristically generous, and in the highest degree friendly."—(1839.)
37: Garrick'sBon Ton, or High Life Above Stairs.
38:Twelfth Night, Act V. Scene 1.
39: The letter in question has not been preserved in Scott's collection of correspondence. This leaves some allusions in the answer obscure.
40: Scott's old friend, Mr. John Richardson, had shortly before this time taken a house in Miss Baillie's neighborhood, on Hampstead Heath.
41: Miss Baillie had apologized to him for having sent an extract of one of his letters to her friend at Edgeworthstown.
42: Milton,Sonnet No. VIII.[When the Assault was intended to the City.]
43: [On May 3, Scott had written to his daughter, that this hair was light brown, and later, writing to Joanna Baillie, he says, "I did not think Charles's hair had been quite so light; that of his father, and I believe of all the Stuarts till Charles II., was reddish." Of the king, he goes on to say: "Tory, as I am, my heart only goes with King Charles in his struggles and distresses, for the fore part of his reign was a series of misconduct; however, if he sow'd the wind, God knows he reap'd the whirlwind.... Sound therefore be the sleep, and henceforward undisturbed the ashes, of this unhappy prince.... His attachment to a particular form of worship was in him conscience, for he adhered to the Church of England ... when by giving up that favorite point he might have secured his reëstablishment; and in that sense he may be justly considered as a martyr, though his early political errors blemish his character as King of England."—Familiar Letters, vol. i. p. 288.]
44: Letter from the Right Hon. W. Dundas, dated 6th December, 1813.
45: See Scott'sPoetical Works, vol. xi. p. 309, Edition 1834 [Cambridge Edition, p. 409].
46: The late Sir John Marjoribanks of Lees, Bart.
47: The inscription for this tankard was penned by the late celebrated Dr. James Gregory, Professor of the Practice of Physic in the University of Edinburgh; and I therefore transcribe it.
GUALTERUM SCOTTDE ABBOTSFORDVIRUM SUMMI INGENIISCRIPTOREM ELEGANTEMPOETARUM SUI SECULI FACILE PRINCIPEMPATRIÆ DECUSOB VARIA ERGA IPSAM MERITAIN CIVIUM SUORUM NUMERUMGRATA ADSCRIPSIT CIVITAS EDINBURGENSISET HOC CANTHARO DONAVITA. D. M.DCCC.XIII.
48:2d King Henry IV.Act V. Scene 3.
49: A good many French officers, prisoners of war, had been living on parole in Melrose, and the adjoining villages; and Mr. and Mrs. Scott had been particularly kind and hospitable to them.
50: The battle of Toulouse.
51: Sir Adam Ferguson, who had been taken prisoner in the course of the Duke of Wellington's retreat from Burgos.
52: The names which he particularly mentions are those of the late Matthew Weld Hartstonge, Esq., of Dublin, Theophilus Swift, Esq., Major Tickell, Thomas Steele, Esq., Leonard Macnally, Esq., and the Rev. M. Berwick.
53: Entertaining one night a small party of friends, Erskine read the proof sheets of this volume after supper, and was confirmed in his opinion by the enthusiastic interest they excited in his highly intelligent circle. Mr. James Simpson and Mr. Norman Hill, advocates, were of this party, and from the way in which their host spoke, they both inferred that they were listening to the first effort of some unknown aspirant. They all pronounced the work one of the highest classical merit. The sitting was protracted till daybreak.—(1839.)
54: Mr. Morritt had, in the spring of this year, been present at the first levee held at the Tuileries by Monsieur (afterwards Charles X.), as representative of his brother Louis XVIII. Mr. M. had not been in Paris till that time since 1789.
55: [The old writing-desk, in which, while searching for some fishing-tackle for a guest, Scott found the long-lost manuscript, was given by him to William Laidlaw, who till his death cherished with religious care all his memorials of Abbotsford. The desk is now a treasured possession of his grandson, Mr. W. L. Carruthers, of Inverness.]
56:Count Borowlaskiwas a Polish dwarf, who, after realizing some money as an itinerant object of exhibition, settled, married, and died (September 5, 1837) at Durham. He was a well-bred creature, and much noticed by the clergy and other gentry of that city. Indeed, even when travelling the country as a show, he had always maintained a sort of dignity. I remember him as going from house to house, when I was a child, in a sedan chair, with a servant in livery following him, who took the fee—M. le Comtehimself (dressed in a scarlet coat and bag wig) being ushered into the room like any ordinary visitor.
The Count died in his 99th year—
"ASpiritbrave, yet gentle, has dwelt, as it appears,Within three feet of flesh for near one hundred years;Which causes wonder, like his constitution, strong,That oneso short aliveshould bealive so long!"Bentley's Miscellanyfor November, 1837.
"ASpiritbrave, yet gentle, has dwelt, as it appears,Within three feet of flesh for near one hundred years;Which causes wonder, like his constitution, strong,That oneso short aliveshould bealive so long!"
Bentley's Miscellanyfor November, 1837.
57:Othello, Act III. Scene 3.
58: Burns—linesOn my early days.
59: [Robert Stevenson, the eminent civil engineer, for nearly half a century the engineer to the Board of Northern Lights. He inaugurated the present Scottish lighthouse system, and no less than twenty lighthouses were designed and constructed under his superintendence, the most remarkable being the famous Bell Rock tower. He died in 1850. Three of his sons, one of whom became his biographer, greatly distinguished themselves in their father's profession. Robert Louis Stevenson, in his fragment of family history,Records of a Family of Engineers, has left a vivid picture of his grandfather, though it be but an unfinished sketch.]
60: On being requested, while at breakfast, to inscribe his name in the album of the tower, Scott penned immediately the following lines:—
Pharos Loquitur."Far in the bosom of the deep,O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep;A ruddy gem of changeful light,Bound on the dusky brow of night,The seaman bids my lustre hail,And scorns to strike his timorous sail."
Pharos Loquitur.
"Far in the bosom of the deep,O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep;A ruddy gem of changeful light,Bound on the dusky brow of night,The seaman bids my lustre hail,And scorns to strike his timorous sail."
61: This is, without doubt, an allusion to some happy day's excursion when hisfirst lovewas of the party.
62: Erskine—Sheriff of Shetland and Orkney.
63: Here occurs a rude scratch of drawing.
64: Lord Dundas was created Earl of Zetland in 1838, and died in February, 1839.
65: Campbell—Pleasures of Hope.
66: Robert Hamilton, Sheriff of Lanarkshire, and afterwards one of the Clerks of Session, was a particular favorite of Scott—first, among many other good reasons, because he had been a soldier in his youth, had fought gallantly and been wounded severely in the American war, and was a very Uncle Toby in military enthusiasm; secondly, because he was a brother antiquary of the genuine Monkbarns breed; thirdly (last, not least), because he was, in spite of the example of the head of his name and race, a steady Tory. Mr. Hamilton sent for Scott when upon his deathbed in 1831, and desired him to choose and carry off as a parting memorial any article he liked in his collection of arms. Sir Walter (by that time sorely shattered in his own health) selected the sword with which his good friend had been begirt at Bunker's Hill.
67: During the winter of 1837-38, this worthy clergyman's wife, his daughter, and a servant, perished within sight of the manse, from a flaw in the ice on the loch—which they were crossing as the nearest way home.—(1839.)
68: In his reviewal of Pitcairn'sTrials(1831), Scott says: "In erecting this Earl's Castle of Scalloway, and other expensive edifices, the King's tenants were forced to work in quarries, transport stone, dig, delve, climb, and build, and submit to all possible sorts of servile and painful labor, without either meat, drink, hire, or recompense of any kind. 'My father,' said Earl Patrick, 'built his house at Sumburgh on the sand, and it has given way already; this of mine on the rock shall abide and endure.' He did not or would not understand that the oppression, rapacity, and cruelty, by means of which the house arose, were what the clergyman really pointed to in his recommendation of a motto. Accordingly, the huge tower remains wild and desolate—its chambers filled with sand, and its rifted walls and dismantled battlements giving unrestrained access to the roaring sea blast."—For more of Earl Patrick, see Scott'sMiscellaneous Prose Works, vol. xxi. pp. 230, 233; vol. xxiii. pp. 327, 329.
69: Mr. W. S. Rose informs me, that when he was at school at Winchester, the morris-dancers there used to exhibit a sword-dance resembling that described at Camacho's wedding in Don Quixote; and Mr. Morritt adds, that similar dances are even yet performed in the villages about Rokeby every Christmas.
70: This is a solitary island, lying about halfway between Orkney and Zetland.
71: An American Commodore.
72: Mr. Marjoribanks.
73:Thalaba, Book VIII.
74: "This noted oppressor was finally brought to trial, and beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh (6th February, 1614). It is said that the King's mood was considerably heated against him by some ill-chosen and worse written Latin inscriptions with which his father and himself had been unlucky enough to decorate some of their insular palaces. In one of these, Earl Robert, the father, had given his own designation thus: 'Orcadiæ ComesRexJacobi Quinti Filius.' In this case he was not, perhaps, guilty of anything worse than bad Latin. But James VI., who had a keen nose for puzzling out treason, and with whom an assault and battery upon Priscian ranked in nearly the same degree of crime, had little doubt that the use of the nominativeRex, instead of the genitiveRegis, had a treasonable savor."—Scott'sMiscellaneous Prose Works, vol. xxiii. p. 232.
75: Henry Mackenzie's Introduction toThe Fatal Sisters.—Works, 1808, vol. viii. p. 63.
76: "A Skerrie means a flattish rock which the sea does not overflow."—Edmonstone'sView of the Zetlands.
77: Clerk Colvill falls a sacrifice to a meeting with "a fair Mermaid," whom he found washing her "Sark of Silk" on this romantic shore. He had been warned by his "gay lady" in these words:—
"O promise me now, Clerk Colvill,Or it will cost ye muckle strife,Ride never by the Wells of Slane,If ye wad live and brook your life."
78: Sir William Honeyman, Bart.—a Judge of the Court of Session by the title of Lord Armadale.
79:Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol. v. p. 355.
80:History of the Orkney Islands, by the Rev. George Barry, D. D., 4to, Edinburgh, 1805.
81: Lord Teignmouth, in his recentSketches of the Coasts and Islands of Scotland, says: "The publication ofThe Piratesatisfied the natives of Orkney as to the authorship of the Waverley Novels. It was remarked by those who had accompanied Sir Walter Scott in his excursions in these Islands, that the vivid descriptions which the work contains were confined to those scenes which he visited."—Vol. i. p. 28.
82: The whole of the immense district calledLord Reay's country—the habitation, as far back as history reaches, of the clan Mackay—has passed, since Sir W. Scott's journal was written, into the hands of the noble family of Sutherland.
83: The Harris has recently passed into the possession of the Earl of Dunmore.—(1839.)
84: Miss Macleod, now Mrs. Spencer Perceval.
85: See Note,Lord of the Isles, Scott'sPoetical Works, vol. x. p. 294 [Cambridge Ed. p. 558].
86: The following passage, from the last of Scott'sLetters on Demonology(written in 1830), refers to the night of this 23d of August, 1814. He mentions that twice in his life he had experienced the sensation which the Scotch calleerie: gives a night-piece of his early youth in the castle of Glammis, which has already been quoted (ante, vol. i. p. 197), and proceeds thus: "Amid such tales of ancient tradition, I had from Macleod and his lady the courteous offer of the haunted apartment of the castle, about which, as a stranger, I might be supposed interested. Accordingly I took possession of it about the witching hour. Except, perhaps, some tapestry hangings, and the extreme thickness of the walls, which argued great antiquity, nothing could have been more comfortable than the interior of the apartment; but if you looked from the windows, the view was such as to correspond with the highest tone of superstition. An autumnal blast, sometimes clear, sometimes driving mist before it, swept along the troubled billows of the lake, which it occasionally concealed, and by fits disclosed. The waves rushed in wild disorder on the shore, and covered with foam the steep pile of rocks, which, rising from the sea in forms something resembling the human figure, have obtained the name of Macleod's Maidens, and, in such a night, seemed no bad representative of the Norwegian goddesses, called Choosers of the Slain, or Riders of the Storm. There was something of the dignity of danger in the scene; for, on a platform beneath the windows, lay an ancient battery of cannon, which had sometimes been used against privateers even of late years. The distant scene was a view of that part of the Quillen mountains, which are called, from their form, Macleod's Dining-Tables. The voice of an angry cascade, termed the Nurse of Rorie Mhor, because that chief slept best in its vicinity, was heard from time to time mingling its notes with those of wind and wave. Such was the haunted room at Dunvegan; and, as such, it well deserved a less sleepy inhabitant. In the language of Dr. Johnson, who has stamped his memory on this remote place,—'I looked around me, and wondered that I was not more affected; but the mind is not at all times equally ready to be moved.' In a word, it is necessary to confess that, of all I heard or saw, the most engaging spectacle was the comfortable bed in which I hoped to make amends for some rough nights on shipboard, and where I slept accordingly without thinking of ghost or goblin, till I was called by my servant in the morning."
87:
"Rarely human eye has knownA scene so stern as that dread lake,With its dark ledge of barren stone.Seems that primeval earthquake's swayHath rent a strange and shatter'd wayThrough the rude bosom of the hill,And that each naked precipice,Sable ravine, and dark abyss,Tells of the outrage still.The wildest glen, but this, can showSome touch of Nature's genial glow;On high Benmore green mosses grow,And heath-bells bud in deep Glencroe,And copse on Cruchan-Ben;But here—above, around, below,On mountain or in glen,Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower,Nor aught of vegetative power,The weary eye may ken;For all is rocks at random thrown,Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone,As if were here deniedThe summer's sun, the spring's sweet dew,That clothe with many a varied hueThe bleakest mountain-side."Lord of the Isles, iii. 14.
"Rarely human eye has knownA scene so stern as that dread lake,With its dark ledge of barren stone.Seems that primeval earthquake's swayHath rent a strange and shatter'd wayThrough the rude bosom of the hill,And that each naked precipice,Sable ravine, and dark abyss,Tells of the outrage still.The wildest glen, but this, can showSome touch of Nature's genial glow;On high Benmore green mosses grow,And heath-bells bud in deep Glencroe,And copse on Cruchan-Ben;But here—above, around, below,On mountain or in glen,Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower,Nor aught of vegetative power,The weary eye may ken;For all is rocks at random thrown,Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone,As if were here deniedThe summer's sun, the spring's sweet dew,That clothe with many a varied hueThe bleakest mountain-side."
Lord of the Isles, iii. 14.
88: The Rev. Alexander Brunton, D. D., now (1836) Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of Edinburgh.
89:Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands.
90:
"So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,They cannot see the Sun on high."Southey'sInchcape Rock.
"So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,They cannot see the Sun on high."
Southey'sInchcape Rock.
91: Southey'sInchcape Rock.
92: SeeMinstrelsy of the Border, vol. iv. pp. 285-306 (Edin. Ed.).
93:The Boy and the Mantle—Percy'sReliques, vol. iii. p. 10.
94: Harriet, Duchess of Buccleuch, died August 24, 1814.
95: Adam Duff, Esq., afterwards and for many years Sheriff of the county of Edinburgh, died on 17th May, 1840.—(1845.)
96: The Scotts of Scotstarvet, and other families of the name in Fife and elsewhere, claim no kindred with the great clan of the Border—and their armorial bearings are different.
97: Lord Byron writes to Mr. Moore, August 3, 1814: "Oh! I have had the most amusing letter from Hogg, the Ettrick Minstrel and Shepherd. I think very highly of him as a poet, but he and half of these Scotch and Lake troubadours are spoilt by living in little circles and petty coteries. London and the world is the only place to take the conceit out of a man—in the milling phrase. Scott, he says, is gone to the Orkneys in a gale of wind, during which wind, he affirms, the said Scott, he is sure, is not at his ease, to say the least of it. Lord! Lord! if these home-keeping minstrels had crossed your Atlantic or my Mediterranean, and tasted a little open boating in a white squall—or a gale in 'the Gut,'—or the Bay of Biscay, with no gale at all—how it would enliven and introduce them to a few of the sensations!—to say nothing of an illicit amour or two upon shore, in the way of Essay upon the Passions, beginning with simple adultery, and compounding it as they went along."—Life and Works, vol. iii. p. 102. Lord Byron, by the way, had written on July the 24th to Mr. Murray, "Waverleyis the best and most interesting novel I have redde since—I don't know when," etc.—Ibid.p. 98.
98: Mr. Grieve was a man of cultivated mind and generous disposition, and a most kind and zealous friend of the Shepherd.
99: Major Riddell, the Duke's Chamberlain at Branksome Castle.
100: See letter to Mr. Morritt,ante, p. 120.
101: This alludes to some mummery in which David Hinves, of merry memory, wore a Caliban-like disguise. He lived more than forty years in the service of Mr. W. S. Rose, and died in it last year. Mr. Rose was of course extremely young when he first picked up Hinves—a bookbinder by trade, and a preacher among the Methodists. A sermon heard casually under a tree in the New Forest had such touches of good feeling and broad humor, that the young gentleman promoted him to be his valet on the spot. He was treated latterly more like a friend than a servant by his master, and by all his master's intimate friends. Scott presented him with a copy of all his works; and Coleridge gave him a corrected (or rather an altered) copy ofChristabel, with this inscription on the flyleaf: "Dear Hinves,—Till this book is concluded, and with it 'Gundimore, a poem, by the same author,' accept of thiscorrectedcopy ofChristabelas asmalltoken of regard; yet such a testimonial as I would not pay to any one I did not esteem, though he were an emperor. Be assured I shall send you for your private library every work I have published (if there be any to be had) and whatever I shall publish. Keep steady to theFAITH. If the fountain-head be always full, the stream cannot be long empty. Yours sincerely,
S. T. Coleridge."
11th November, 1816—Muddeford.
Mr. Rose imagines that the warning, "keep steady to the faith," was given in allusion to Ugo Foscolo's "supposed license in religious opinions."—Rhymes(Brighton, 1837), p. 92.—(1839.)
102: Garrick's Epilogue toPolly Honeycombe, 1760.
103: ["Except the first opening of theEdinburgh Review, no work that has appeared in my time made such an instant and universal impression. It is curious to remember it. The unexpected newness of the thing, the profusion of original characters, the Scotch language, Scotch scenery, Scotch men and women, the simplicity of the writing, and the graphic force of the descriptions, all struck us with an electric shock of delight. I wish I could again feel the sensations produced by the first year of these two Edinburgh works. If the concealment of the authorship of the novels was intended to make mystery heighten their effect, it completely succeeded. The speculations and conjectures, and nods and winks, and predictions and assertions were endless, and occupied every company, and almost every two men who met and spoke in the street. It was proved by a thousand indications, each refuting the other, and all equally true in fact, that they were written by old Henry Mackenzie, and by George Cranstoun, and William Erskine, and Jeffrey, and above all by Thomas Scott.... But 'the great unknown' as the true author was then called, always took good care, with all his concealment, to supply evidence amply sufficient for the protection of his property and his fame; in so much that the suppression of the name was laughed at as a good joke not merely by his select friends in his presence, but by himself. The change of line, at his age, was a striking proof of intellectual power and richness. But the truth is that these novels were rather the outpourings of old thoughts than new inventions."—Lord Cockburn'sMemorials of His Time.]
104: [Miss Edgeworth wrote from Edgeworthstown, October 23, 1814, addressing her letter to the Author ofWaverley(seeLife and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, vol. i. pp. 239-244):—
Aut Scotus, aut Diabolus.We have this moment finishedWaverley. It was read aloud to this large family, and I wish the author could have witnessed the impression it made—the strong hold it seized of the feelings both of young and old—the admiration raised by the beautiful description, of nature—by the new and bold delineations of character—the perfect manner in which every character is sustained in every change of situation from first to last, without effort, without the affectation of making the persons speak in character—the ingenuity with which each person introduced in the drama is made useful and necessary to the end—the admirable art with which the story is constructed and with which the author keeps his own secrets till the proper moment when they should be revealed, whilst in the mean time, with the skill of Shakespeare, the mind is prepared by unseen degrees for all the changes of feeling and fortune, so that nothing, however extraordinary, shocks us as improbable; and the interest is kept up to the last moment. We were so possessed with the belief that the whole story and every character in it was real, that we could not endure the occasional addresses from the author to the reader. They are like Fielding; but for that reason we cannot bear them, we cannot bear that an author of such high powers, of such original genius, should for a moment stoop to imitation. This is the only thing we dislike, these are the only passages we wish omitted in the whole work; and let the unqualified manner in which I say this, and the very vehemence of my expression of this disapprobation, be a sure pledge to the author of the sincerity of all the admiration I feel for his genius.I have not yet said half we felt in reading the work. The characters are not only finely drawn as separate figures, but they are grouped with great skill, and contrasted so artfully, and yet so naturally, as to produce the happiest dramatic effect and at the same time to relieve the feelings and attention in the most agreeable manner. The novelty of the Highland world which is discovered to our view excites curiosity and interest powerfully; but though it is all new to us it does not embarrass or perplex, or strain the attention. We never are harassed by doubts of the probability of any of these modes of life; though we did not know them, we are quite certain they did exist exactly as they are represented. We are sensible that there is a peculiar merit in the work which is in a measure lost upon us, the dialects of the Highlanders and Lowlanders, etc. But there is another and a higher merit with which we are as much struck and as much delighted as any true-born Scotchman could be: the various gradations of Scotch feudal character, from the high-born chieftain and the military baron, to the noble-minded lieutenant Evan Dhu, the robber Bean Lean, and the savage Callum Beg. The Pre—the Chevalier is beautifully drawn,—"A prince: aye, every inch a prince!"His polished manners, his exquisite address, politeness, and generosity, interest the reader irresistibly, and he pleases the more from the contrast between him and those who surround him. I think he is my favorite character; the Baron Bradwardine is my father's. He thinks it required more genius to invent, and more ability uniformly to sustain, this character than any one of the masterly characters with which the book abounds. There is indeed uncommon art in the manner in which his dignity is preserved by his courage and magnanimity, in spite of all his pedantry and hisridicules.... I acknowledge that I am not as good a judge as my father and brothers are of his recondite learning and his law Latin, yet I feel the humor, and was touched to the quick by the strokes of generosity, gentleness, and pathos in this old man, who is, by the bye, all in good time worked up into a very dignified father-in-law for the hero....Jinker, in the battle, pleading the cause of the mare he had sold to Balmawhapple, and which had thrown him for want of the proper bit, is truly comic; my father says that this and some other passages respecting horsemanship could not have been written by any one who was not master both of the great and little horse.I tell you without order the great and little strokes of humor and pathos just as I recollect, or am reminded of them at this moment by my companions.... Judging by our own feeling as authors, we guess that he would rather know our genuine first thoughts, than wait for cool second thoughts, or have a regular eulogium or criticism put in the most lucid manner, and given in the finest sentences that ever were rounded.Is it possible that I have got thus far without having named Flora or Vich Ian Vohr—the last Vich Ian Vohr! Yet our minds were full of them the moment before I began this letter; and could you have seen the tears forced from us by their fate, you would have been satisfied that the pathos went to our hearts. Ian Vohr from the first moment he appears, till the last, is an admirably drawn and finely sustained character—new, perfectly new to the English reader—often entertaining—always heroic—sometimes sublime. The gray spirit, the Bodach Glas, thrills us with horror.Us!What effect must it have upon those under the influence of the superstitions of the Highlands?...Flora we could wish was never called Miss MacIvor, because in this country there are tribes of vulgar Miss Macs, and this association is unfavorable to the sublime and beautiful of your Flora—she is a true heroine.... There is one thing more we could wish changed or omitted in Flora's character.... In the first visit to her, where she is to sing certain verses, there is a walk, in which the description of the place is beautiful, but too long, and we did not like the preparation for a scene—the appearance of Flora and her harp was too like a common heroine; she should be far above all stage effect or novelist's trick.These are, without reserve, the only faults we found or can find in this work of genius. We should scarcely have thought them worth mentioning, except to give you proof positive that we are not flatterers. Believe me, I have not, nor can I convey to you the full idea of the pleasure, the delight we have had in readingWaverley, nor of the feeling of sorrow with which we came to the end of the history of persons whose real presence had so filled our minds—we felt that we must return to the flat realities of life, that our stimulus was gone, and we were little disposed to read the "Postscript, which should have been a Preface.""Well, let us hear it," said my father, and Mrs. Edgeworth read on.Oh! my dear sir, how much pleasure would my father, my mother, my whole family as well as myself have lost, if we had not read to the last page! And the pleasure came upon us so unexpectedly—we had been so completely absorbed that every thought of ourselves, of our own authorship, was far, far away.Thank you for the honor you have done us, and for the pleasure you have given us, great in proportion to the opinion we had formed of the work we had just perused—and believe me, every opinion I have in this letter expressed was formed before any individual in the family had peeped to the end of the book or knew how much we owed you.Your obliged and gratefulMaria Edgeworth.
Aut Scotus, aut Diabolus.
We have this moment finishedWaverley. It was read aloud to this large family, and I wish the author could have witnessed the impression it made—the strong hold it seized of the feelings both of young and old—the admiration raised by the beautiful description, of nature—by the new and bold delineations of character—the perfect manner in which every character is sustained in every change of situation from first to last, without effort, without the affectation of making the persons speak in character—the ingenuity with which each person introduced in the drama is made useful and necessary to the end—the admirable art with which the story is constructed and with which the author keeps his own secrets till the proper moment when they should be revealed, whilst in the mean time, with the skill of Shakespeare, the mind is prepared by unseen degrees for all the changes of feeling and fortune, so that nothing, however extraordinary, shocks us as improbable; and the interest is kept up to the last moment. We were so possessed with the belief that the whole story and every character in it was real, that we could not endure the occasional addresses from the author to the reader. They are like Fielding; but for that reason we cannot bear them, we cannot bear that an author of such high powers, of such original genius, should for a moment stoop to imitation. This is the only thing we dislike, these are the only passages we wish omitted in the whole work; and let the unqualified manner in which I say this, and the very vehemence of my expression of this disapprobation, be a sure pledge to the author of the sincerity of all the admiration I feel for his genius.
I have not yet said half we felt in reading the work. The characters are not only finely drawn as separate figures, but they are grouped with great skill, and contrasted so artfully, and yet so naturally, as to produce the happiest dramatic effect and at the same time to relieve the feelings and attention in the most agreeable manner. The novelty of the Highland world which is discovered to our view excites curiosity and interest powerfully; but though it is all new to us it does not embarrass or perplex, or strain the attention. We never are harassed by doubts of the probability of any of these modes of life; though we did not know them, we are quite certain they did exist exactly as they are represented. We are sensible that there is a peculiar merit in the work which is in a measure lost upon us, the dialects of the Highlanders and Lowlanders, etc. But there is another and a higher merit with which we are as much struck and as much delighted as any true-born Scotchman could be: the various gradations of Scotch feudal character, from the high-born chieftain and the military baron, to the noble-minded lieutenant Evan Dhu, the robber Bean Lean, and the savage Callum Beg. The Pre—the Chevalier is beautifully drawn,—
"A prince: aye, every inch a prince!"
His polished manners, his exquisite address, politeness, and generosity, interest the reader irresistibly, and he pleases the more from the contrast between him and those who surround him. I think he is my favorite character; the Baron Bradwardine is my father's. He thinks it required more genius to invent, and more ability uniformly to sustain, this character than any one of the masterly characters with which the book abounds. There is indeed uncommon art in the manner in which his dignity is preserved by his courage and magnanimity, in spite of all his pedantry and hisridicules.... I acknowledge that I am not as good a judge as my father and brothers are of his recondite learning and his law Latin, yet I feel the humor, and was touched to the quick by the strokes of generosity, gentleness, and pathos in this old man, who is, by the bye, all in good time worked up into a very dignified father-in-law for the hero....
Jinker, in the battle, pleading the cause of the mare he had sold to Balmawhapple, and which had thrown him for want of the proper bit, is truly comic; my father says that this and some other passages respecting horsemanship could not have been written by any one who was not master both of the great and little horse.
I tell you without order the great and little strokes of humor and pathos just as I recollect, or am reminded of them at this moment by my companions.... Judging by our own feeling as authors, we guess that he would rather know our genuine first thoughts, than wait for cool second thoughts, or have a regular eulogium or criticism put in the most lucid manner, and given in the finest sentences that ever were rounded.
Is it possible that I have got thus far without having named Flora or Vich Ian Vohr—the last Vich Ian Vohr! Yet our minds were full of them the moment before I began this letter; and could you have seen the tears forced from us by their fate, you would have been satisfied that the pathos went to our hearts. Ian Vohr from the first moment he appears, till the last, is an admirably drawn and finely sustained character—new, perfectly new to the English reader—often entertaining—always heroic—sometimes sublime. The gray spirit, the Bodach Glas, thrills us with horror.Us!What effect must it have upon those under the influence of the superstitions of the Highlands?...
Flora we could wish was never called Miss MacIvor, because in this country there are tribes of vulgar Miss Macs, and this association is unfavorable to the sublime and beautiful of your Flora—she is a true heroine.... There is one thing more we could wish changed or omitted in Flora's character.... In the first visit to her, where she is to sing certain verses, there is a walk, in which the description of the place is beautiful, but too long, and we did not like the preparation for a scene—the appearance of Flora and her harp was too like a common heroine; she should be far above all stage effect or novelist's trick.
These are, without reserve, the only faults we found or can find in this work of genius. We should scarcely have thought them worth mentioning, except to give you proof positive that we are not flatterers. Believe me, I have not, nor can I convey to you the full idea of the pleasure, the delight we have had in readingWaverley, nor of the feeling of sorrow with which we came to the end of the history of persons whose real presence had so filled our minds—we felt that we must return to the flat realities of life, that our stimulus was gone, and we were little disposed to read the "Postscript, which should have been a Preface."
"Well, let us hear it," said my father, and Mrs. Edgeworth read on.
Oh! my dear sir, how much pleasure would my father, my mother, my whole family as well as myself have lost, if we had not read to the last page! And the pleasure came upon us so unexpectedly—we had been so completely absorbed that every thought of ourselves, of our own authorship, was far, far away.
Thank you for the honor you have done us, and for the pleasure you have given us, great in proportion to the opinion we had formed of the work we had just perused—and believe me, every opinion I have in this letter expressed was formed before any individual in the family had peeped to the end of the book or knew how much we owed you.
Your obliged and grateful
Maria Edgeworth.
Transcriber's note: Only obvious printer's errors have been corrected (e.g.: 3 s instead of 2, etc.). The author's spelling has been maintained and inconsistencies have not been standardised.