CHAPTER XLOCKHART AND THE BALLANTYNE CONTROVERSY
Into the merits of the disputes which arose over the disastrous business transactions it is not necessary, perhaps, to enter at length. What is brought together here is mainly drawn from materials left by contemporaries of the persons immediately concerned. Recent criticism has not supported Lockhart’s view that Scott was unaware how things were going, and it has never been explained how a man, so exact about his personal expenses, could have been so careless in his commercial dealings as partner in a printing firm. Lockhart was well known in literary circles to be a pungent critic, and his severity as a reviewer gained for him the name of the “Scorpion.” His studiously insolent tone and his wilfulmisrepresentations led to the publication by James Ballantyne’s trustees of “The Refutation of the Misstatements and Calumnies contained in Mr. Lockhart’s ‘Life of Sir Walter Scott’ respecting the Messrs. Ballantyne.” This was followed by “The Ballantyne Humbug Handled” from Lockhart; and this again was answered by a “Reply to Mr. Lockhart’s Pamphlet. By the Authors of the Refutation.”
JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, LL.D.PAINTED BY SIR FRANCIS GRANT P.R.A.
JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, LL.D.PAINTED BY SIR FRANCIS GRANT P.R.A.
JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, LL.D.
PAINTED BY SIR FRANCIS GRANT P.R.A.
A review of these pamphlets inTait’s Magazinefor 1839 states that Lockhart “had done gross and, everything considered, pitiful injustice to Mr. James Ballantyne; but, in our opinion, the case stood still worse as to Dr. John Leyden, Thomas Pringle, the Ettrick Shepherd, Alister Campbell and other men of genius, who had no sons or friendly trustees to do justice to their true characters, and defend their memories from clumsy ridicule, and wanton and unprovoked misrepresentation.... The editor of theQuarterly(Lockhart) has been as condescending in the free use of abusive and insolent language, and in calling names and giving nicknames, as the veriest Grub Street author could desire;and, all the while, this vulgarity is directed against persons whom he assumes to treat as immeasurably his inferiors. The trustees, whether tradesmen or professional men, though sufficiently acute and cutting at times, have a manifest advantage over Mr. Lockhart, in never abandoning that decent propriety of language which they owed to themselves, if not to their supercilious and unceremonious adversary; while they have carefully and ably elaborated every point in Mr. Lockhart’s statements, and knocked them down one by one....
“For the unfounded assertions in the earlier volumes regarding the Ballantynes, Mr. Lockhart makes a sort ofamende honorable: ‘I have been entirely mistaken, if those to whom I allude (Ballantyne’s relatives), or any other of my readers, have interpreted any expressions of mine as designed to castthe slightest imputation upon the moral rectitudeof the elder Ballantyne. I believe Jamesto have been from first to last a perfectly upright man; that his principles were of a lofty stamp—his feelings pure even to simplicity.’... It was sufficiently proved from the documents givenin the controversy that on all occasions he (Scott) made use of James Ballantyne & Co. as the means of supplying his wants. If he wanted money, and they happened to have it, he drew it out; if not, he made use of their firm to raise it. Such was his uniform practice, from the first formation of the company to the last day of its existence.”[40]
John Gibson Lockhart died at Abbotsford on the 25th November 1854, in his sixty-first year. “In a letter addressed to me,” says Dr. Charles Rogers, “a few days afterwards, Mr. Robert Chambers referred to the event in these words: ‘It is melancholy to think of Lockhart sinking at sixty—and all through heart-break. Sir Adam Ferguson feels assured that such is the remote but true cause of his death. He was perhaps the least amiable man of letters I ever knew; but these considerations make his departure somewhat touching.’
“Naturally a cynic, Lockhart was latterly prone to irritation; he possessed that unhappy temperament which magnifies trifles and distorts judgment. His perversity is ina measure illustrated by his harsh treatment of James Hogg; it was wholly unexpected by the Shepherd’s family, who supplied him with papers, and to whom his visits had (as Mrs. Hogg assured me) been frequent and cordial. But Archibald Constable and the brothers Ballantyne he cruelly wronged. By Sir Walter Scott they were loved and trusted; and his biographer had no cause to heap censures on their memory. That Sir Walter’s character might appear bright and pure, it was unnecessary that his associates should be charged with baseness.
“The detractor succeeds at the outset. Lockhart, who, as has been shown by an unprejudiced witness, Mrs. Gordon, in the life of her father (Christopher North), was not unwilling to inflict pain, succeeded in deeply wounding the families of Constable and the Ballantynes. But the day of reparation came. The Ballantynes were vindicated at once, and the censorious vehemence with which Lockhart returned to the charge invoked wide disapproval. In 1873 appeared a memoir of Archibald Constable by his son; in the third volume of that work thegreat bookseller obtains full and complete exculpation.”[41]
Sir Walter Scott contributed not only capital to the firm, but great literary influence, which attracted a copious supply of work to the Ballantyne Press; yet the other partners were not very far behind him in their influence upon the business. In addition to some capital, James Ballantyne brought what in many ways was as important, experience in literary matters and great talent as a practical printer, while John’s pleasant manners and social accomplishments must have gained not a few customers for the house. It cannot be denied that Sir Walter had a chief share in maintaining the firm, for he always insisted that his own works should be printed there, no matter who the publishers were; but he was also largely responsible for the collapse, owing to those unsuccessful publications previously referred to, which through his influence had been printed by the firm. Moreover, his excessive desire for family aggrandisement and his profuse baronial hospitalitywere extremely unfortunate for all concerned; and before the collapse came he had spent £29,000 on land alone, while his expenditure on house and grounds was estimated at £76,000.
The following observations are from one who was acquainted with all the circumstances: “It is a curious instance of Lockhart’s moral obtuseness that he could make some most painful and needless disclosures in regard to Scott himself in that Life (of Scott), to say nothing of his foul and elaborate misrepresentation of the Ballantynes throughout. To that evil deed it is necessary only to refer; for the confutation immediately published was so complete, and the establishment of the fair fame of the Ballantynes so triumphant, that their libeller had his punishment very soon. Some lovers of literature and of Scott still struggled to make out that the Ballantynes and their defenders, as tradesmen, could know nothing of the feelings, nor judge of the conduct, of Scott as a gentleman. The answer was plain: the Ballantynes were not mere tradesmen; and if they had been, Scott made himself a tradesman, in regard to his coadjutors,and must be judged by the laws of commercial integrity. The exposures made by the Ballantynes and their friends of Scott’s pecuniary obligations to them were forced upon them by Lockhart’s attacks upon their characters and misrepresentation of their conduct and affairs. The whole controversy was occasioned by Lockhart’s spontaneous indulgence in caustic satire; and the Ballantynes came better out of it than either he or his father in-law.”[42]
Another of Lockhart’s charges was that of professional incompetence, made not from his own knowledge, but on the conjectural statements of Robert Cadell, the partner of Constable and afterwards his supplanter in the publication of the Waverley Novels. This objection mainly rested on the assertion that James Ballantyne had not been trained as a printer, but it need count for little. Neither Caxton nor Chepman, nor yet Baskerville, all of them celebrated typographers, received the education of a printer; and of how many printer-capitalists of the present day can it be said that they have been subjectedto the technical training of a skilled workman? This, however, may be better answered from some notes by Dr. Robert Chambers, a printer and a publisher,[43]who personally knew both Scott and the Ballantynes. He maintains that Scott watched closely over all the arrangements, was cognisant of the most minute transactions, and alone planned all the necessary ways and means for carrying on the business. He says further that “the printing business, which was James Ballantyne’s legitimate work, was always prosperous, and we can say with equal confidence from what we have ascertained through our own experience, and that of friends, that his printing-office was decidedly the most ably and carefully managed for all ends with which its customers had to do in Edinburgh.” And Mr. R. P. Gillies, in his “Recollections of Sir Walter Scott,”[44]observes regarding James Ballantyne: “A character of more sterling integrity, or more friendly disposition, never existed. As he wasby no means of an over-sanguine temperament, it is possible that by following his advice the subsequent embarrassments might have been avoided.”
Again, as late as 1897, theBritish Weekly, in noticing Leslie Stephen’s article on Scott in theCornhill Magazineof April that year, says: “Although nothing will ever explain Scott’s extraordinary recklessness, one comes nearer to an understanding when reading that Scott drew from the Ballantyne business in four years £7000 for building at Abbotsford, £5000 for his son’s commission, and nearly £900 to a wine-merchant. Altogether it appears that during the four years (1822-1826) Ballantyne & Co. had paid on Scott’s account £15,000 more than they had received from him.”
This chapter may be concluded with Sir Walter’s own testimony to James Ballantyne. In his “Journal” under date of December 18, 1825, he writes: “Ballantyne behaves like himself, and sinks his own ruin in contemplating mine. I tried to enrich him indeed, and now all—all is gone.” In a letter to Lockhart, January 20, 1826, Scott againexonerates James Ballantyne from being a primary cause of his misfortunes, and says: “It is easy, no doubt, for any friend to blame me for entering into connection with commercial matters at all. But I wish to know what I could have done better.... Literature was not in those days what poor Constable has made it; and with my little capital I was too glad to make commercially the means of supporting my family.... I have been far from suffering by James Ballantyne.I owe it to him to say that his difficulties as well as his advantages, are owing to me.” We have here the crux of the whole matter; and with this manly admission on the part of Sir Walter a painful controversy may now be allowed to rest.
JAMES BALLANTYNE & CO’S. PRINTING OFFICE.
JAMES BALLANTYNE & CO’S. PRINTING OFFICE.
JAMES BALLANTYNE & CO’S. PRINTING OFFICE.