CHAPTER I. MR. CHRYSTAL CROFTANGRY’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF.

Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer

CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.

By Sir Walter Scott, Bart.

Transcriber’s Note: Footnotes and references to the notes at the end of

the printed book have been inserted in the etext in square brackets

(“[]”) close to the place where they were indicated by a suffix in the

original text. The notes at the end are now numbered instead of using

pages to identify them as was done in the printed text.

Text in italics has been written in capital letters.

The Pound Sterling symbol has been written as “L”.

CONTENTS.

Introduction to Chronicles of the Canongate.

Appendix to Introduction--The Theatrical Fund Dinner.

Introductory--Mr. Chrystal Croftangry.

The Highland Widow.

The Two Drovers.

Notes.

INTRODUCTION TO CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.

The preceding volume of this Collection concluded the last of the pieces

originally published under the NOMINIS UMBRA of The Author of Waverley;

and the circumstances which rendered it impossible for the writer to

continue longer in the possession of his incognito were communicated

in 1827, in the Introduction to the first series of Chronicles of the

Canongate, consisting (besides a biographical sketch of the imaginary

chronicler) of three tales, entitled “The Highland Widow,” “The Two

Drovers,” and “The Surgeon’s Daughter.” In the present volume the two

first named of these pieces are included, together with three detached

stories which appeared the year after, in the elegant compilation called

“The Keepsake.” “The Surgeon’s Daughter” it is thought better to defer

until a succeeding volume, than to

“Begin, and break off in the middle.”

I have, perhaps, said enough on former occasions of the misfortunes

which led to the dropping of that mask under which I had, for a long

series of years, enjoyed so large a portion of public favour. Through

the success of those literary efforts, I had been enabled to indulge

most of the tastes which a retired person of my station might be

supposed to entertain. In the pen of this nameless romancer, I seemed

to possess something like the secret fountain of coined gold and pearls

vouchsafed to the traveller of the Eastern Tale; and no doubt believed

that I might venture, without silly imprudence, to extend my personal

expenditure considerably beyond what I should have thought of, had my

means been limited to the competence which I derived from inheritance,

with the moderate income of a professional situation. I bought, and

built, and planted, and was considered by myself, as by the rest of the

world, in the safe possession of an easy fortune. My riches, however,

like the other riches of this world, were liable to accidents, under

which they were ultimately destined to make unto themselves wings, and

fly away. The year 1825, so disastrous to many branches of industry and

commerce, did not spare the market of literature; and the sudden

ruin that fell on so many of the booksellers could scarcely have been

expected to leave unscathed one whose career had of necessity connected

him deeply and extensively with the pecuniary transactions of that

profession. In a word, almost without one note of premonition, I found

myself involved in the sweeping catastrophe of the unhappy time,

and called on to meet the demands of creditors upon commercial

establishments with which my fortunes had long been bound up, to the

extent of no less a sum than one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

The author having, however rashly, committed his pledges thus largely

to the hazards of trading companies, it behoved him, of course, to

abide the consequences of his conduct, and, with whatever feelings, he

surrendered on the instant every shred of property which he had been

accustomed to call his own. It became vested in the hands of gentlemen

whose integrity, prudence, and intelligence were combined with all

possible liberality and kindness of disposition, and who readily

afforded every assistance towards the execution of plans, in the

success of which the author contemplated the possibility of his ultimate

extrication, and which were of such a nature that, had assistance of

this sort been withheld, he could have had little prospect of carrying

them into effect. Among other resources which occurred was the project

of that complete and corrected edition of his Novels and Romances (whose

real parentage had of necessity been disclosed at the moment of

the commercial convulsions alluded to), which has now advanced with

unprecedented favour nearly to its close; but as he purposed also to

continue, for the behoof of those to whom he was indebted, the exercise

of his pen in the same path of literature, so long as the taste of his

countrymen should seem to approve of his efforts, it appeared to him

that it would have been an idle piece of affectation to attempt getting

up a new incognito, after his original visor had been thus dashed from

his brow. Hence the personal narrative prefixed to the first work of

fiction which he put forth after the paternity of the “Waverley Novels”

had come to be publicly ascertained; and though many of the particulars

originally avowed in that Notice have been unavoidably adverted to in

the Prefaces and Notes to some of the preceding volumes of the present

collection, it is now reprinted as it stood at the time, because some

interest is generally attached to a coin or medal struck on a special

occasion, as expressing, perhaps, more faithfully than the same artist

could have afterwards conveyed, the feelings of the moment that gave

it birth. The Introduction to the first series of Chronicles of the

Canongate ran, then, in these words:--

INTRODUCTION.

All who are acquainted with the early history of the Italian stage are

aware that Arlecchino is not, in his original conception, a mere worker

of marvels with his wooden sword, a jumper in and out of windows, as

upon our theatre, but, as his party-coloured jacket implies, a buffoon

or clown, whose mouth, far from being eternally closed, as amongst us,

is filled, like that of Touchstone, with quips, and cranks, and witty

devices, very often delivered extempore. It is not easy to trace how he

became possessed of his black vizard, which was anciently made in

the resemblance of the face of a cat; but it seems that the mask was

essential to the performance of the character, as will appear from the

following theatrical anecdote:--

An actor on the Italian stage permitted at the Foire du St. Germain, in

Paris, was renowned for the wild, venturous, and extravagant wit, the

brilliant sallies and fortunate repartees, with which he prodigally

seasoned the character of the party-coloured jester. Some critics,

whose good-will towards a favourite performer was stronger than their

judgment, took occasion to remonstrate with the successful actor on

the subject of the grotesque vizard. They went wilily to their purpose,

observing that his classical and Attic wit, his delicate vein of humour,

his happy turn for dialogue, were rendered burlesque and ludicrous by

this unmeaning and bizarre disguise, and that those attributes would

become far more impressive if aided by the spirit of his eye and the

expression of his natural features. The actor’s vanity was easily so

far engaged as to induce him to make the experiment. He played Harlequin

barefaced, but was considered on all hands as having made a total

failure. He had lost the audacity which a sense of incognito bestowed,

and with it all the reckless play of raillery which gave vivacity to

his original acting. He cursed his advisers, and resumed his grotesque

vizard, but, it is said, without ever being able to regain the careless

and successful levity which the consciousness of the disguise had

formerly bestowed.

Perhaps the Author of Waverley is now about to incur a risk of the same

kind, and endanger his popularity by having laid aside his incognito. It

is certainly not a voluntary experiment, like that of Harlequin; for

it was my original intention never to have avowed these works during my

lifetime, and the original manuscripts were carefully preserved (though

by the care of others rather than mine), with the purpose of supplying

the necessary evidence of the truth when the period of announcing

it should arrive. [These manuscripts are at present (August 1831)

advertised for public sale, which is an addition, though a small one,

to other annoyances.] But the affairs of my publishers having,

unfortunately, passed into a management different from their own, I had

no right any longer to rely upon secrecy in that quarter; and thus my

mask, like my Aunt Dinah’s in “Tristram Shandy,” having begun to wax a

little threadbare about the chin, it became time to lay it aside with

a good grace, unless I desired it should fall in pieces from my face,

which was now become likely.

Yet I had not the slightest intention of selecting the time and place in

which the disclosure was finally made; nor was there any concert betwixt

my learned and respected friend LORD MEADOWBANK and myself upon that

occasion. It was, as the reader is probably aware, upon the 23rd

February last, at a public meeting, called for establishing a

professional Theatrical Fund in Edinburgh, that the communication took

place. Just before we sat down to table, Lord Meadowbank [One of the

Supreme Judges of Scotland, termed Lords of Council and Session.] asked

me privately whether I was still anxious to preserve my incognito on the

subject of what were called the Waverley Novels? I did not immediately

see the purpose of his lordship’s question, although I certainly might

have been led to infer it, and replied that the secret had now of

necessity become known to so many people that I was indifferent on the

subject. Lord Meadowbank was thus induced, while doing me the great

honour of proposing my health to the meeting, to say something on the

subject of these Novels so strongly connecting them with me as the

author, that by remaining silent I must have stood convicted, either of

the actual paternity, or of the still greater crime of being supposed

willing to receive indirectly praise to which I had no just title. I

thus found myself suddenly and unexpectedly placed in the confessional,

and had only time to recollect that I had been guided thither by a most

friendly hand, and could not, perhaps, find a better public opportunity

to lay down a disguise which began to resemble that of a detected

masquerader.

I had therefore the task of avowing myself, to the numerous and

respectable company assembled, as the sole and unaided author of these

Novels of Waverley, the paternity of which was likely at one time to

have formed a controversy of some celebrity, for the ingenuity with

which some instructors of the public gave their assurance on the subject

was extremely persevering. I now think it further necessary to say

that, while I take on myself all the merits and demerits attending these

compositions, I am bound to acknowledge with gratitude hints of subjects

and legends which I have received from various quarters, and have

occasionally used as a foundation of my fictitious compositions, or

woven up with them in the shape of episodes. I am bound, in particular,

to acknowledge the unremitting kindness of Mr. Joseph Train, supervisor

of excise at Dumfries, to whose unwearied industry I have been indebted

for many curious traditions and points of antiquarian interest. It was

Mr. Train who brought to my recollection the history of Old Mortality,

although I myself had had a personal interview with that celebrated

wanderer so far back as about 1792, when I found him on his usual task.

He was then engaged in repairing the Gravestones of the Covenanters who

had died while imprisoned in the Castle of Dunnottar, to which many of

them were committed prisoners at the period of Argyle’s rising. Their

place of confinement is still called the Whigs’ Vault. Mr. Train,

however, procured for me far more extensive information concerning

this singular person, whose name was Patterson, than I had been able

to acquire during my own short conversation with him. [See, for

some further particulars, the notes to Old Mortality, in the present

collective edition.] He was (as I think I have somewhere already

stated) a native of the parish of Closeburn, in Dumfriesshire; and it

is believed that domestic affliction, as well as devotional feeling,

induced him to commence the wandering mode of life which he pursued

for a very long period. It is more than twenty years since Robert

Patterson’s death, which took place on the highroad near Lockerby, where

he was found exhausted and expiring. The white pony, the companion of

his pilgrimage, was standing by the side of its dying master the whole

furnishing a scene not unfitted for the pencil. These particulars I had

from Mr. Train.

Another debt, which I pay most willingly, I owe to an unknown

correspondent (a lady), [The late Mrs. Goldie.] who favoured me with the

history of the upright and high-principled female, whom, in the Heart

of Mid-Lothian, I have termed Jeanie Deans. The circumstance of her

refusing to save her sister’s life by an act of perjury, and undertaking

a pilgrimage to London to obtain her pardon, are both represented as

true by my fair and obliging correspondent; and they led me to consider

the possibility of rendering a fictitious personage interesting by mere

dignity of mind and rectitude of principle, assisted by unpretending

good sense and temper, without any of the beauty, grace, talent,

accomplishment, and wit to which a heroine of romance is supposed to

have a prescriptive right. If the portrait was received with interest by

the public, I am conscious how much it was owing to the truth and force

of the original sketch, which I regret that I am unable to present to

the public, as it was written with much feeling and spirit.

Old and odd books, and a considerable collection of family legends,

formed another quarry, so ample that it was much more likely that the

strength of the labourer should be exhausted than that materials should

fail. I may mention, for example’s sake, that the terrible catastrophe

of the Bride of Lammermoor actually occurred in a Scottish family of

rank. The female relative, by whom the melancholy tale was communicated

to me many years since, was a near connection of the family in which

the event happened, and always told it with an appearance of melancholy

mystery which enhanced the interest. She had known in her youth the

brother who rode before the unhappy victim to the fatal altar, who,

though then a mere boy, and occupied almost entirely with the gaiety of

his own appearance in the bridal procession, could not but remark that

the hand of his sister was moist, and cold as that of a statue. It

is unnecessary further to withdraw the veil from this scene of family

distress, nor, although it occurred more than a hundred years since,

might it be altogether agreeable to the representatives of the families

concerned in the narrative. It may be proper to say that the events

alone are imitated; but I had neither the means nor intention of copying

the manners, or tracing the characters, of the persons concerned in the

real story. Indeed, I may here state generally that, although I have

deemed historical personages free subjects of delineation, I have never

on any occasion violated the respect due to private life. It was indeed

impossible that traits proper to persons, both living and dead, with

whom I have had intercourse in society, should not have risen to my

pen in such works as Waverley, and those which followed it. But I have

always studied to generalize the portraits, so that they should still

seem, on the whole, the productions of fancy, though possessing some

resemblance to real individuals. Yet I must own my attempts have not

in this last particular been uniformly successful. There are men whose

characters are so peculiarly marked, that the delineation of some

leading and principal feature inevitably places the whole person before

you in his individuality. Thus, the character of Jonathan Oldbuck, in

the Antiquary, was partly founded on that of an old friend of my youth,

to whom I am indebted for introducing me to Shakespeare, and other

invaluable favours; but I thought I had so completely disguised the

likeness that his features could not be recognized by any one now alive.

I was mistaken, however, and indeed had endangered what I desired

should be considered as a secret; for I afterwards learned that a

highly-respectable gentleman, one of the few surviving friends of my

father, and an acute critic, [James Chalmers, Esq., Solicitor at Law,

London, who (died during the publication of the present edition of these

Novels. Aug. 1831.)] had said, upon the appearance of the work, that

he was now convinced who was the author of it, as he recognized in the

Antiquary of Monkbarns traces of the character of a very intimate friend

of my father’s family.

I may here also notice that the sort of exchange of gallantry which is

represented as taking place betwixt the Baron of Bradwardine and Colonel

Talbot, is a literal fact. The real circumstances of the anecdote, alike

honourable to Whig and Tory, are these:--

Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle--a name which I cannot write without

the warmest recollections of gratitude to the friend of my childhood,

who first introduced me to the Highlands, their traditions, and their

manners--had been engaged actively in the troubles of 1745. As he

charged at the battle of Preston with his clan, the Stewarts of Appin,

he saw an officer of the opposite army standing alone by a battery of

four cannon, of which he discharged three on the advancing Highlanders,

and then drew his sword. Invernahyle rushed on him, and required him to

surrender. “Never to rebels!” was the undaunted reply, accompanied with

a lunge, which the Highlander received on his target, but instead of

using his sword in cutting down his now defenceless antagonist, he

employed it in parrying the blow of a Lochaber axe aimed at the officer

by the Miller, one of his own followers, a grim-looking old Highlander,

whom I remember to have seen. Thus overpowered, Lieutenant-Colonel Allan

Whitefoord, a gentleman of rank and consequence, as well as a brave

officer, gave up his sword, and with it his purse and watch, which

Invernahyle accepted, to save them from his followers. After the affair

was over, Mr. Stewart sought out his prisoner, and they were introduced

to each other by the celebrated John Roy Stewart, who acquainted Colonel

Whitefoord with the quality of his captor, and made him aware of the

necessity of receiving back his property, which he was inclined to leave

in the hands into which it had fallen. So great became the confidence

established betwixt them, that Invernahyle obtained from the Chevalier

his prisoner’s freedom upon parole; and soon afterwards, having been

sent back to the Highlands to raise men, he visited Colonel Whitefoord

at his own house, and spent two happy days with him and his Whig

friends, without thinking on either side of the civil war which was then

raging.

When the battle of Culloden put an end to the hopes of Charles Edward,

Invernahyle, wounded and unable to move, was borne from the field by

the faithful zeal of his retainers. But as he had been a distinguished

Jacobite, his family and property were exposed to the system of

vindictive destruction too generally carried into execution through the

country of the insurgents. It was now Colonel Whitefoord’s turn to exert

himself, and he wearied all the authorities, civil and military, with

his solicitations for pardon to the saver of his life, or at least for

a protection for his wife and family. His applications were for a long

time unsuccessful. “I was found with the mark of the Beast upon me in

every list,” was Invernahyle’s expression. At length Colonel Whitefoord

applied to the Duke of Cumberland, and urged his suit with every

argument which he could think of, being still repulsed, he took his

commission from his bosom, and having said something of his own and

his family’s exertions in the cause of the House of Hanover, begged to

resign his situation in their service, since he could not be permitted

to show his gratitude to the person to whom he owed his life. The duke,

struck with his earnestness, desired him to take up his commission, and

granted the protection required for the family of Invernahyle.

The chieftain himself lay concealed in a cave near his own house, before

which a small body of regular soldiers were encamped. He could hear

their muster-roll called every morning, and their drums beat to quarters

at night, and not a change of the sentinels escaped him. As it was

suspected that he was lurking somewhere on the property, his family were

closely watched, and compelled to use the utmost precaution in supplying

him with food. One of his daughters, a child of eight or ten years

old, was employed as the agent least likely to be suspected. She was an

instance, among others, that a time of danger and difficulty creates a

premature sharpness of intellect. She made herself acquainted among the

soldiers, till she became so familiar to them that her motions escaped

their notice; and her practice was to stroll away into the neighbourhood

of the cave, and leave what slender supply of food she carried for that

purpose under some remarkable stone, or the root of some tree, where her

father might find it as he crept by night from his lurking-place. Times

became milder, and my excellent friend was relieved from proscription by

the Act of Indemnity. Such is the interesting story which I have rather

injured than improved by the manner in which it is told in Waverley.

This incident, with several other circumstances illustrating the Tales

in question, was communicated by me to my late lamented friend,

William Erskine (a Scottish judge, by the title of Lord Kinedder),

who afterwards reviewed with far too much partiality the Tales of my

Landlord, for the Quarterly Review of January 1817. [Lord Kinedder died

in August 1822. EHEU! (Aug. 1831.)] In the same article are contained

other illustrations of the Novels, with which I supplied my accomplished

friend, who took the trouble to write the review. The reader who is

desirous of such information will find the original of Meg Merrilies,

and, I believe, of one or two other personages of the same cast of

character, in the article referred to.

I may also mention that the tragic and savage circumstances which are

represented as preceding the birth of Allan MacAulay in the Legend of

Montrose, really happened in the family of Stewart of Ardvoirlich.

The wager about the candlesticks, whose place was supplied by Highland

torch-bearers, was laid and won by one of the MacDonalds of Keppoch.

There can be but little amusement in winnowing out the few grains of

truth which are contained in this mass of empty fiction. I may, however,

before dismissing the subject, allude to the various localities which

have been affixed to some of the scenery introduced into these Novels,

by which, for example, Wolf’s Hope is identified with Fast Castle in

Berwickshire, Tillietudlem with Draphane in Clydesdale, and the valley

in the Monastery, called Glendearg, with the dale of the river Allan,

above Lord Somerville’s villa, near Melrose. I can only say that, in

these and other instances, I had no purpose of describing any particular

local spot; and the resemblance must therefore be of that general kind

which necessarily exists between scenes of the same character. The

iron-bound coast of Scotland affords upon its headlands and promontories

fifty such castles as Wolf’s Hope; every county has a valley more or

less resembling Glendearg; and if castles like Tillietudlem, or mansions

like the Baron of Bradwardine’s, are now less frequently to be met with,

it is owing to the rage of indiscriminate destruction, which has removed

or ruined so many monuments of antiquity, when they were not protected

by their inaccessible situation. [I would particularly intimate the Kaim

of Uric, on the eastern coast of Scotland, as having suggested an

idea for the tower called Wolf’s Crag, which the public more generally

identified with the ancient tower of Fast Castle.]

The scraps of poetry which have been in most cases tacked to the

beginning of chapters in these Novels are sometimes quoted either from

reading or from memory, but, in the general case, are pure invention. I

found it too troublesome to turn to the collection of the British Poets

to discover apposite mottoes, and, in the situation of the theatrical

mechanist, who, when the white paper which represented his shower of

snow was exhausted, continued the storm by snowing brown, I drew on

my memory as long as I could, and when that failed, eked it out with

invention. I believe that in some cases, where actual names are affixed

to the supposed quotations, it would be to little purpose to seek them

in the works of the authors referred to. In some cases I have been

entertained when Dr. Watts and other graver authors have been ransacked

in vain for stanzas for which the novelist alone was responsible.

And now the reader may expect me, while in the confessional, to explain

the motives why I have so long persisted in disclaiming the works of

which I am now writing. To this it would be difficult to give any other

reply, save that of Corporal Nym--it was the author’s humour or caprice

for the time. I hope it will not be construed into ingratitude to the

public, to whose indulgence I have owed my SANG-FROID much more than

to any merit of my own, if I confess that I am, and have been, more

indifferent to success or to failure as an author, than may be the

case with others, who feel more strongly the passion for literary fame,

probably because they are justly conscious of a better title to it. It

was not until I had attained the age of thirty years that I made any

serious attempt at distinguishing myself as an author; and at that

period men’s hopes, desires, and wishes have usually acquired something

of a decisive character, and are not eagerly and easily diverted into

a new channel. When I made the discovery--for to me it was one--that by

amusing myself with composition, which I felt a delightful occupation,

I could also give pleasure to others, and became aware that literary

pursuits were likely to engage in future a considerable portion of my

time, I felt some alarm that I might acquire those habits of jealousy

and fretfulness which have lessened, and even degraded, the character

even of great authors, and rendered them, by their petty squabbles and

mutual irritability, the laughing-stock of the people of the world.

I resolved, therefore, in this respect to guard my breast--perhaps an

unfriendly critic may add, my brow--with triple brass, [Not altogether

impossible, when it is considered that I have been at the bar since

1792. (Aug. 1831.)] and as much as possible to avoid resting my thoughts

and wishes upon literary success, lest I should endanger my own peace of

mind and tranquillity by literary failure. It would argue either stupid

apathy or ridiculous affectation to say that I have been insensible to

the public applause, when I have been honoured with its testimonies;

and still more highly do I prize the invaluable friendships which

some temporary popularity has enabled me to form among those of my

contemporaries most distinguished by talents and genius, and which I

venture to hope now rest upon a basis more firm than the circumstances

which gave rise to them. Yet, feeling all these advantages as a man

ought to do, and must do, I may say, with truth and confidence, that I

have, I think, tasted of the intoxicating cup with moderation, and

that I have never, either in conversation or correspondence, encouraged

discussions respecting my own literary pursuits. On the contrary, I

have usually found such topics, even when introduced from motives most

flattering to myself, Rather embarrassing and disagreeable.

I have now frankly told my motives for concealment, so far as I am

conscious of having any, and the public will forgive the egotism of the

detail, as what is necessarily connected with it. The author, so long

and loudly called for, has appeared on the stage, and made his obeisance

to the audience. Thus far his conduct is a mark of respect. To linger in

their presence would be intrusion.

I have only to repeat that I avow myself in print, as formerly in words,

the sole and unassisted author of all the Novels published as works of

“The Author of Waverley.” I do this without shame, for I am unconscious

that there is any thing in their composition which deserves reproach,

either on the score of religion or morality; and without any feeling of

exultation, because, whatever may have been their temporary success,

I am well aware how much their reputation depends upon the caprice of

fashion; and I have already mentioned the precarious tenure by which it

is held, as a reason for displaying no great avidity in grasping at the

possession.

I ought to mention, before concluding, that twenty persons, at least,

were, either from intimacy, or from the confidence which circumstances

rendered necessary, participant of this secret; and as there was no

instance, to my knowledge, of any one of the number breaking faith, I

am the more obliged to them, because the slight and trivial character of

the mystery was not qualified to inspire much respect in those entrusted

with it. Nevertheless, like Jack the Giant-Killer, I was fully confident

in the advantage of my “Coat of Darkness;” and had it not been from

compulsory circumstances, I would have, indeed, been very cautious how I

parted with it.

As for the work which follows, it was meditated, and in part printed,

long before the avowal of the novels took place, and originally

commenced with a declaration that it was neither to have introduction

nor preface of any kind. This long proem, prefixed to a work intended

not to have any, may, however, serve to show how human purposes in the

most trifling, as well as the most important affairs, are liable to

be controlled by the course of events. Thus we begin to cross a strong

river with our eyes and our resolution fixed on that point of the

opposite shore on which we purpose to land; but gradually giving way

to the torrent, are glad, by the aid perhaps of branch or bush, to

extricate ourselves at some distant and perhaps dangerous landing-place,

much farther down the stream than that on which we had fixed our

intentions.

Hoping that the Courteous Reader will afford to a known and familiar

acquaintance some portion of the favour which he extended to a disguised

candidate for his applause, I beg leave to subscribe myself his obliged

humble servant,

WALTER SCOTT.

ABBOTSFORD, OCTOBER 1, 1827.

*****

Such was the little narrative which I thought proper to put forth in

October 1827; nor have I much to add to it now. About to appear for the

first time in my own name in this department of letters, it occurred to

me that something in the shape of a periodical publication might carry

with it a certain air of novelty, and I was willing to break, if I may

so express it, the abruptness of my personal forthcoming, by investing

an imaginary coadjutor with at least as much distinctness of individual

existence as I had ever previously thought it worth while to bestow on

shadows of the same convenient tribe. Of course, it had never been in

my contemplation to invite the assistance of any real person in the

sustaining of my quasi-editorial character and labours. It had long been

my opinion, that any thing like a literary PICNIC is likely to end

in suggesting comparisons, justly termed odious, and therefore to

be avoided; and, indeed, I had also had some occasion to know, that

promises of assistance, in efforts of that order, are apt to be more

magnificent than the subsequent performance. I therefore planned a

Miscellany, to be dependent, after the old fashion, on my own resources

alone, and although conscious enough that the moment which assigned to

the Author of Waverley “a local habitation and a name,” had seriously

endangered his spell, I felt inclined to adopt the sentiment of my old

hero Montrose, and to say to myself, that in literature, as in war,--

“He either fears his fate too much,

Or his deserts are small,

Who dares not put it to the touch,

To win or lose it all.”

To the particulars explanatory of the plan of these Chronicles, which

the reader is presented with in Chapter II. by the imaginary Editor, Mr.

Croftangry, I have now to add, that the lady, termed in his narrative,

Mrs. Bethune Balliol, was designed to shadow out in its leading points

the interesting character of a dear friend of mine, Mrs. Murray Keith,

whose death occurring shortly before, had saddened a wide circle, much

attached to her, as well for her genuine virtue and amiable qualities of

disposition, as for the extent of information which she possessed, and

the delightful manner in which she was used to communicate it. In truth,

the author had, on many occasions, been indebted to her vivid memory for

the SUBSTRATUM of his Scottish fictions, and she accordingly had been,

from an early period, at no loss to fix the Waverley Novels on the right

culprit.

[The Keiths of Craig, in Kincardineshire, descended from John Keith,

fourth son of William, second Earl Marischal, who got from his father,

about 1480, the lands of Craig, and part of Garvock, in that county. In

Douglas’s Baronage, 443 to 445, is a pedigree of that family. Colonel

Robert Keith of Craig (the seventh in descent from John) by his wife,

Agnes, daughter of Robert Murray of Murrayshall, of the family of

Blackbarony, widow of Colonel Stirling, of the family of Keir, had one

son--namely Robert Keith of Craig, ambassador to the court of Vienna,

afterwards to St. Petersburgh, which latter situation he held at the

accession of King George III.--who died at Edinburgh in 1774. He married

Margaret, second daughter of Sir William Cunningham of Caprington, by

Janet, only child and heiress of Sir James Dick of Prestonfield;

and, among other children of this marriage were the late well-known

diplomatist, Sir Robert Murray Keith, K.B., a general in the army, and

for some time ambassador at Vienna; Sir Basil Keith, Knight, captain in

the navy, who died Governor of Jamaica; and my excellent friend, Anne

Murray Keith, who ultimately came into possession of the family estates,

and died not long before the date of this Introduction (1831).]

In the sketch of Chrystal Croftangry’s own history, the author has been

accused of introducing some not polite allusions to respectable

living individuals; but he may safely, he presumes, pass over such an

insinuation. The first of the narratives which Mr. Croftangry proceeds

to lay before the public, “The Highland Widow,” was derived from Mrs.

Murray Keith, and is given, with the exception of a few additional

circumstances--the introduction of which I am rather inclined to

regret--very much as the excellent old lady used to tell the story.

Neither the Highland cicerone Macturk nor the demure washingwoman, were

drawn from imagination; and on re-reading my tale, after the lapse of

a few years, and comparing its effect with my remembrance of my worthy

friend’s oral narration, which was certainly extremely affecting, I

cannot but suspect myself of having marred its simplicity by some of

those interpolations, which, at the time when I penned them, no doubt

passed with myself for embellishments.

The next tale, entitled “The Two Drovers,” I learned from another old

friend, the late George Constable, Esq. of Wallace-Craigie, near Dundee,

whom I have already introduced to my reader as the original Antiquary of

Monkbarns. He had been present, I think, at the trial at Carlisle,

and seldom mentioned the venerable judges charge to the jury, without

shedding tears,--which had peculiar pathos, as flowing down features,

carrying rather a sarcastic or almost a cynical expression.

This worthy gentleman’s reputation for shrewd Scottish sense, knowledge

of our national antiquities, and a racy humour peculiar to himself, must

be still remembered. For myself, I have pride in recording that for many

years we were, in Wordsworth’s language,--

“A pair of friends, though I was young,

And ‘George’ was seventy-two.”

W. S.

ABBOTSFORD, AUG. 15, 1831.

*****

APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION.

[It has been suggested to the Author that it might be well to reprint

here a detailed account of the public dinner alluded to in the foregoing

Introduction, as given in the newspapers of the time; and the reader

is accordingly presented with the following extract from the EDINBURGH

WEEKLY JOURNAL for Wednesday, 28th February, 1827.]

THE THEATRICAL FUND DINNER.

Before proceeding with our account of this very interesting

festival--for so it may be termed--it is our duty to present to

our readers the following letter, which we have received from the

President:--

TO THE EDITOR OF THE “EDINBURGH WEEKLY JOURNAL.”

Sir,--I am extremely sorry I have not leisure to correct the copy

you sent me of what I am stated to have said at the dinner for the

Theatrical Fund. I am no orator, and upon such occasions as are alluded

to, I say as well as I can what the time requires.

However, I hope your reporter has been more accurate in other instances

than in mine. I have corrected one passage, in which I am made to speak

with great impropriety and petulance, respecting the opinions of those

who do not approve of dramatic entertainments. I have restored what I

said, which was meant to be respectful, as every objection founded in

conscience is, in my opinion, entitled to be so treated. Other errors

I left as I found them, it being of little consequence whether I spoke

sense or nonsense in what was merely intended for the purpose of the

hour.

I am, sir,

Your obedient servant,

EDINBURGH, MONDAY. WALTER SCOTT.

*****

The Theatrical Fund Dinner, which took place on Friday, in the Assembly

Rooms, was conducted with admirable spirit. The Chairman, Sir WALTER

SCOTT, among his other great qualifications, is well fitted to enliven

such an entertainment. His manners are extremely easy, and his style of

speaking simple and natural, yet full of vivacity and point; and he has

the art, if it be art, of relaxing into a certain homeliness of manner,

without losing one particle of his dignity. He thus takes off some of

that solemn formality which belongs to such meetings, and, by his easy,

and graceful familiarity, imparts to them somewhat of the pleasing

character of a private entertainment. Near Sir W. Scott sat the Earl

of Fife, Lord Meadowbank, Sir John Hope of Pinkie, Bart., Admiral Adam,

Baron Clerk Rattray, Gilbert Innes, Esq., James Walker, Esq., Robert

Dundas, Esq., Alexander Smith, Esq., etc.

The cloth being removed, “Non nobis, Domine,” was sung by Messrs.

Thorne, Swift, Collier, and Hartley, after which the following toasts

were given from the chair:--

“The King”--all the honours.

“The Duke of Clarence and the Royal Family.”

The CHAIRMAN, in proposing the next toast, which he wished to be drunk

in solemn silence, said it was to the memory of a regretted-prince, whom

we had lately lost. Every individual would at once conjecture to whom he

alluded. He had no intention to dwell on his military merits. They had

been told in the senate; they had been repeated in the cottage; and

whenever a soldier was the theme, his name was never far distant. But it

was chiefly in connection with the business of this meeting, which

his late Royal Highness had condescended in a particular manner to

patronize, that they were called on to drink his health. To that charity

he had often sacrificed his time, and had given up the little leisure

which he had from important business. He was always ready to attend on

every occasion of this kind, and it was in that view that he proposed to

drink to the memory of his late Royal Highness the Duke of York.--Drunk

in solemn silence.

The CHAIRMAN then requested that gentlemen would fill a bumper as full

as it would hold, while he would say only a few words. He was in the

habit of hearing speeches, and he knew the feeling with which long ones

were regarded. He was sure that it was perfectly unnecessary for him to

enter into any vindication of the dramatic art, which they had come

here to support. This, however, he considered to be the proper time

and proper occasion for him to say a few words on that love of

representation which was an innate feeling in human nature. It was the

first amusement that the child had. It grew greater as he grew up; and

even in the decline of life nothing amuses so much as when a common tale

is told with appropriate personification. The first thing a child does

is to ape his schoolmaster by flogging a chair. The assuming a character

ourselves, or the seeing others assume an imaginary character, is an

enjoyment natural to humanity. It was implanted in our very nature to

take pleasure from such representations, at proper times and on proper

occasions. In all ages the theatrical art had kept pace with the

improvement of mankind, and with the progress of letters and the fine

arts. As man has advanced from the ruder stages of society, the love

of dramatic representations has increased, and all works of this nature

have keen improved in character and in structure. They had only to turn

their eyes to the history of ancient Greece, although he did not pretend

to be very deeply versed in its ancient drama. Its first tragic poet

commanded a body of troops at the battle of Marathon. Sophocles and

Euripides were men of rank in Athens when Athens was in its highest

renown. They shook Athens with their discourses, as their theatrical

works shook the theatre itself. If they turned to France in the time of

Louis the Fourteenth--that era which is the classical history of that

country--they would find that it was referred to by all Frenchmen as the

golden age of the drama there. And also in England in the time of Queen

Elizabeth the drama was at its highest pitch, when the nation began to

mingle deeply and wisely in the general politics of Europe, not only

not receiving laws from others, but giving laws to the world, and

vindicating the rights of mankind. (Cheers.) There have been various

times when the dramatic art subsequently fell into disrepute. Its

professors have been stigmatized, and laws have been passed against

them, less dishonourable to them than to the statesmen by whom they were

proposed, and to the legislators by whom they were adopted. What were

the times in which these laws were passed? Was it not when virtue was

seldom inculcated as a moral duty that we were required to relinquish

the most rational of all our amusements, when the clergy were enjoined

celibacy, and when the laity were denied the right to read their Bibles?

He thought that it must have been from a notion of penance that they

erected the drama into an ideal place of profaneness, and spoke of the

theatre as of the tents of sin. He did not mean to dispute that there

were many excellent persons who thought differently from him, and he

disclaimed the slightest idea of charging them with bigotry or hypocrisy

on that account. He gave them full credit for their tender consciences,

in making these objections, although they did not appear relevant to

him. But to these persons, being, as he believed them, men of worth

and piety, he was sure the purpose of this meeting would furnish some

apology for an error, if there be any, in the opinions of those who

attend. They would approve the gift, although they might differ in other

points. Such might not approve of going to the theatre, but at least

could not deny that they might give away from their superfluity what was

required for the relief of the sick, the support of the aged, and the

comfort of the afflicted. These were duties enjoined by our religion

itself. (Loud cheers.)

The performers are in a particular manner entitled to the support or

regard, when in old age or distress, of those who have partaken of the

amusements of those places which they render an ornament to society.

Their art was of a peculiarly delicate and precarious nature. They

had to serve a long apprenticeship. It was very long before even the

first-rate geniuses could acquire the mechanical knowledge of the stage

business. They must languish long in obscurity before they can avail

themselves of their natural talents; and after that they have but a

short space of time, during which they are fortunate if they can provide

the means of comfort in the decline of life. That comes late, and lasts

but a short time; after which they are left dependent. Their limbs

fail--their teeth are loosened--their voice is lost and they are left,

after giving happiness to others, in a most disconsolate state. The

public were liberal and generous to those deserving their protection.

It was a sad thing to be dependent on the favour, or, he might say, in

plain terms, on the caprice, of the public; and this more particularly

for a class of persons of whom extreme prudence is not the character.

There might be instances of opportunities being neglected. But let

each gentleman tax himself, and consider the opportunities THEY had

neglected, and the sums of money THEY had wasted; let every gentleman

look into his own bosom, and say whether these were circumstances which

would soften his own feelings, were he to be plunged into distress. He

put it to every generous bosom--to every better feeling--to say what

consolation was it to old age to be told that you might have made

provision at a time which had been neglected--(loud cheers)--and to find

it objected, that if you had pleased you might have been wealthy. He

had hitherto been speaking of what, in theatrical language, was called

STARS; but they were sometimes falling ones. There was another class of

sufferers naturally and necessarily connected with the theatre, without

whom it was impossible to go on. The sailors have a saying, Every man

cannot be a boatswain. If there must be a great actor to act Hamlet,

there must also be people to act Laertes, the King, Rosencrantz, and

Guildenstern, otherwise a drama cannot go on. If even Garrick himself

were to rise from the dead, he could not act Hamlet alone. There must

be generals, colonels, commanding-officers, subalterns. But what are the

private soldiers to do? Many have mistaken their own talents, and have

been driven in early youth to try the stage, to which they are not

competent. He would know what to say to the indifferent poet and to the

bad artist. He would say that it was foolish, and he would recommend to

the poet to become a scribe, and the artist to paint sign-posts. (Loud

laughter.) But you could not send the player adrift; for if he cannot

play Hamlet, he must play Guildenstern. Where there are many labourers,

wages must be low and no man in such a situation can decently support a

wife and family, and save something off his income for old age. What is

this man to do in later life? Are you to cast him off like an old hinge,

or a piece of useless machinery, which has done its work? To a person

who had contributed to our amusement, this would be unkind, ungrateful,

and unchristian. His wants are not of his own making, but arise from the

natural sources of sickness and old age. It cannot be denied that there

is one class of sufferers to whom no imprudence can be ascribed, except

on first entering on the profession. After putting his hand to the

dramatic plough, he cannot draw back, but must continue at it, and toil,

till death release him from want, or charity, by its milder influence,

steps in to render that want more tolerable. He had little more to say,

except that he sincerely hoped that the collection to-day, from

the number of respectable gentlemen present, would meet the views

entertained by the patrons. He hoped it would do so. They should not

be disheartened. Though they could not do a great deal, they might do

something. They had this consolation, that everything they parted with

from their superfluity would do some good. They would sleep the better

themselves when they had been the means of giving sleep to others. It

was ungrateful and unkind that those who had sacrificed their youth to

our amusement should not receive the reward due to them, but should be

reduced to hard fare in their old age. We cannot think of poor Falstaff

going to bed without his cup of sack, or Macbeth fed on bones as

marrowless as those of Banquo. (Loud cheers and laughter.) As he

believed that they were all as fond of the dramatic art as he was in his

younger days, he would propose that they should drink “The Theatrical

Fund,” with three times three.

Mr. MACKAY rose, on behalf of his brethren, to return their thanks

for the toast just drunk. Many of the gentlemen present, he said,

were perhaps not fully acquainted with the nature and intention of the

institution, and it might not be amiss to enter into some explanation

on the subject. With whomsoever the idea of a Theatrical Fund might have

originated (and it had been disputed by the surviving relatives of two

or three individuals), certain it was that the first legally constituted

Theatrical Fund owed its origin to one of the brightest ornaments of the

profession, the late David Garrick. That eminent actor conceived that,

by a weekly subscription in the theatre, a fund might be raised among

its members, from which a portion might be given to those of his

less fortunate brethren, and thus an opportunity would be offered for

prudence to provide what fortune had denied--a comfortable provision

for the winter of life. With the welfare of his profession constantly at

heart, the zeal with which he laboured to uphold its respectability, and

to impress upon the minds or his brethren, not only the necessity, but

the blessing of independence, the Fund became his peculiar care. He drew

up a form of laws for its government, procured at his own expense the

passing of an Act of Parliament for its confirmation, bequeathed to it

a handsome legacy, and thus became the father of the Drury Lane Fund. So

constant was his attachment to this infant establishment, that he chose

to grace the close of the brightest theatrical life on record by the

last display of his transcendent talent on the occasion of a benefit for

this child of his adoption, which ever since has gone by the name of

the Garrick Fund. In imitation of his noble example, funds had been

established in several provincial theatres in England; but it remained

for Mrs. Henry Siddons and Mr. William Murray to become the founders

of the first Theatrical Fund in Scotland. (Cheers.) This Fund commenced

under the most favourable auspices. It was liberally supported by the

management, and highly patronized by the public. Notwithstanding,

it fell short in the accomplishment of its intentions. What those

intentions were, he (Mr. Mackay) need not recapitulate, but they failed;

and he did not hesitate to confess that a want of energy on the part

of the performers was the probable cause. A new set of Rules and

Regulations were lately drawn up, submitted to and approved of at a

general meeting of the members of the Theatre, and accordingly the Fund

was remodelled on the 1st of January last. And here he thought he did

but echo the feelings of his brethren, by publicly acknowledging the

obligations they were under to the management for the aid given and

the warm interest they had all along taken in the welfare of the Fund.

(Cheers.) The nature and object of the profession had been so well

treated of by the President that he would say nothing; but of the

numerous offspring of science and genius that court precarious fame,

the actor boasts the slenderest claim of all--the sport of fortune, the

creatures of fashion, and the victims of caprice, they are seen, heard,

and admired, but to be forgot. They leave no trace, no memorial of their

existence--they “come like shadows, so depart.” (Cheers.) Yet humble

though their pretensions be, there was no profession, trade, or

calling where such a combination of requisites, mental and bodily, were

indispensable. In all others the principal may practise after he has

been visited by the afflicting hand of Providence--some by the loss of

limb, some of voice, and many, when the faculty of the mind is on the

wane, may be assisted by dutiful children or devoted servants. Not so

the actor, He must retain all he ever did possess, or sink dejected to

a mournful home. (Applause.) Yet while they are toiling for ephemeral

theatric fame, how very few ever possess the means of hoarding in

their youth that which would give bread in old age! But now a brighter

prospect dawned upon them, and to the success of this their infant

establishment they looked with hope, as to a comfortable and peaceful

home in their declining years. He concluded by tendering to the meeting,

in the name of his brethren and sisters, their unfeigned thanks for

their liberal support, and begged to propose “The Health of the Patrons

of the Edinburgh Theatrical Fund.” (Cheers.)

Lord MEADOWBANK said that, by desire of his Hon. Friend in the chair,

and of his Noble Friend at his right hand, he begged leave to return

thanks for the honour which had been conferred on the Patrons of this

excellent institution. He could answer for himself--he could answer for

them all--that they were deeply impressed with the meritorious

objects which it has in view, and of their anxious wish to promote its

interests. For himself, he hoped he might be permitted to say that he

was rather surprised at finding his own name as one of the Patrons,

associated with so many individuals of high rank and powerful influence.

But it was an excuse for those who had placed him in a situation so

honourable and so distinguished, that when this charity was instituted

he happened to hold a high and responsible station under the Crown, when

he might have been of use in assisting and promoting its objects. His

Lordship much feared that he could have little expectation, situated as

he now was, of doing either; but he could confidently assert that

few things would give him greater gratification than being able

to contribute to its prosperity and support. And indeed, when one

recollects the pleasure which at all periods of life he has received

from the exhibitions of the stage, and the exertions of the meritorious

individuals for whose aid this Fund has been established, he must be

divested both of gratitude and feeling who would not give his best

endeavours to promote its welfare. And now, that he might in some

measure repay the gratification which had been afforded himself, he

would beg leave to propose a toast, the health of one of the Patrons,

a great and distinguished individual, whose name must always stand by

itself, and which, in an assembly such as this, or in any other assembly

of Scotsmen, can never be received, not, he would say, with ordinary

feelings of pleasure or of delight, but with those of rapture and

enthusiasm. In doing so he felt that he stood in a somewhat new

situation. Whoever had been called upon to propose the health of his

Hon. Friend to whom he alluded, some time ago, would have found himself

enabled, from the mystery in which certain matters were involved, to

gratify himself and his auditors by allusions which found a responding

chord in their own feelings, and to deal in the language, the sincere

language, of panegyric, without intruding on the modesty of the

great individual to whom he referred. But it was no longer possible,

consistently with the respect to one’s auditors, to use upon this

subject terms either of mystification or of obscure or indirect

allusion. The clouds have been dispelled; the DARKNESS VISIBLE has

been cleared away; and the Great Unknown--the minstrel of our native

land--the mighty magician who has rolled back the current of time, and

conjured up before our living senses the men and the manners of days

which have long passed away--stands revealed to the hearts and the eyes

of his affectionate and admiring countrymen. If he himself were capable

of imagining all that belonged to this mighty subject--were he even able

to give utterance to all that, as a friend, as a man, and as a Scotsman,

he must feel regarding it--yet knowing, as he well did, that this

illustrious individual was not more distinguished for his towering

talents than for those feelings which rendered such allusions ungrateful

to himself, however sparingly introduced, he would, on that account,

still refrain from doing that which would otherwise be no less pleasing

to him than to his audience. But this his Lordship, hoped he would be

allowed to say (his auditors would not pardon him were he to say less),

we owe to him, as a people, a large and heavy debt of gratitude. He it

is who has opened to foreigners the grand and characteristic beauties of

our country. It is to him that we owe that our gallant ancestors and the

struggles of our illustrious patriots--who fought and bled in order to

obtain and secure that independence and that liberty we now enjoy--have

obtained a fame no longer confined to the boundaries of a remote

and comparatively obscure nation, and who has called down upon their

struggles for glory and freedom the admiration of foreign countries. He

it is who has conferred a new reputation on our national character, and

bestowed on Scotland an imperishable name, were it only by her having

given birth to himself. (Loud and rapturous applause.)

Sir WALTER SCOTT certainly did not think that, in coming here to-day, he

would have the task of acknowledging, before three hundred gentlemen, a

secret which, considering that it was communicated to more than twenty

people, had been remarkably well kept. He was now before the bar of his

country, and might be understood to be on trial before Lord Meadowbank

as an offender; yet he was sure that every impartial jury would bring in

a verdict of Not Proven. He did not now think it necessary to enter into

the reasons of his long silence. Perhaps caprice might have a consider

able share in it. He had now to say, however, that the merits of these

works, if they had any, and their faults, were entirely imputable to

himself. (Long and loud cheering.) He was afraid to think on what he had

done. “Look on’t again I dare not.” He had thus far unbosomed himself

and he knew that it would be reported to the public. He meant, then,

seriously to state, that when he said he was the author, he was the

total and undivided author. With the exception of quotations, there was

not a single word that was not derived from himself, or suggested in the

course of his reading. The wand was now broken, and the book buried. You

will allow me further to say, with Prospero, it is your breath that has

filled my sails, and to crave one single toast in the capacity of the

author of these novels; and he would dedicate a bumper to the health

of one who has represented some of those characters, of which he had

endeavoured to give the skeleton, with a degree of liveliness which

rendered him grateful. He would propose “The Health of his friend Bailie

Nicol Jarvie”--(loud applause)--and he was sure that when the author of

Waverley and Rob Roy drinks to Nicol Jarvie, it would be received

with that degree of applause to which that gentleman has always been

accustomed, and that they would take care that on the present occasion

it should be PRODIGIOUS! (Long and vehement applause.)

Mr. MACKAY, who here spoke with great humour in the character of Bailie

Jarvie.--My conscience! My worthy father the deacon could not have

believed that his son could hae had sic a compliment paid to him by the

Great Unknown!

Sir WALTER SCOTT.--The Small Known now, Mr. Bailie.

Mr. MACKAY.--He had been long identified with the Bailie, and he was

vain of the cognomen which he had now worn for eight years; and

he questioned if any of his brethren in the Council had given such

universal satisfaction. (Loud laughter and applause.) Before he sat

down, he begged to propose “The Lord Provost and the City of Edinburgh.”

Sir WALTER SCOTT apologized for the absence of the Lord Provost, who had

gone to London on public business.

Tune--“Within a mile of Edinburgh town.”

Sir WALTER SCOTT gave “The Duke of Wellington and the army.”

Glee--“How merrily we live.”

“Lord Melville and the Navy, that fought till they left nobody to fight

with, like an arch sportsman who clears all and goes after the game.”

Mr. PAT. ROBERTSON.--They had heard this evening a toast, which had

been received with intense delight, which will be published in every

newspaper, and will be hailed with joy by all Europe. He had one toast

assigned him which he had great pleasure in giving. He was sure that the

stage had in all ages a great effect on the morals and manners of the

people. It was very desirable that the stage should be well regulated;

and there was no criterion by which its regulation could be better

determined than by the moral character and personal respectability of

the performers. He was not one of those stern moralists who objected to

the theatre. The most fastidious moralist could not possibly apprehend

any injury from the stage of Edinburgh, as it was presently managed,

and so long as it was adorned by that illustrious individual, Mrs. Henry

Siddons, whose public exhibitions were not more remarkable for feminine

grace and delicacy than was her private character for every virtue which

could be admired in domestic life. He would conclude with reciting a few

words from Shakespeare, in a spirit not of contradiction to those stern

moralists who disliked the theatre, but of meekness: “Good, my lord,

will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well

used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.”

He then gave “Mrs. Henry Siddons, and success to the Theatre Royal of

Edinburgh.”

Mr. MURRAY.--Gentlemen, I rise to return thanks for the honour you have

done Mrs. Siddons, in doing which I am somewhat difficulted, from the

extreme delicacy which attends a brother’s expatiating upon a sister’s

claims to honours publicly paid--(hear, hear)--yet, gentlemen, your

kindness emboldens me to say that, were I to give utterance to all

a brother’s feelings, I should not exaggerate those claims. (Loud

applause.) I therefore, gentlemen, thank you most cordially for the

honour you have done her, and shall now request permission to make an

observation on the establishment of the Edinburgh Theatrical Fund. Mr.

Mackay has done Mrs. Henry Siddons and myself the honour to ascribe the

establishment to us. But no, gentlemen, it owes its origin to a higher

source--the publication of the novel of Rob Roy--the unprecedented

success of the opera adapted from that popular production. (Hear,

hear.) It was that success which relieved the Edinburgh Theatre from

its difficulties, and enabled Mrs. Siddons to carry into effect the

establishment of a fund she had long desired, but was prevented from

effecting from the unsettled state of her theatrical concerns. I

therefore hope that in future years, when the aged and infirm actor

derives relief from this fund, he will, in the language of the gallant

Highlander, “Cast his eye to good old Scotland, and not forget Rob Roy.”

(Loud applause.)

Sir WALTER SCOTT here stated that Mrs. Siddons wanted the means but not

the will of beginning the Theatrical Fund. He here alluded to the great

merits of Mr. Murray’s management, and to his merits as an actor, which

were of the first order, and of which every person who attends the

Theatre must be sensible; and after alluding to the embarrassments with

which the Theatre had been at one period threatened, he concluded by

giving “The Health of Mr. Murray,” which was drunk with three times

three.

Mr. MURRAY.--Gentlemen, I wish I could believe that in any degree I

merited the compliments with which it has pleased Sir Walter Scott to

preface the proposal of my health, or the very flattering manner in

which you have done me the honour to receive it. The approbation of such

an assembly is most gratifying to me, and might encourage feelings of

vanity, were not such feelings crushed by my conviction that no man

holding the situation I have so long held in Edinburgh could have

failed, placed in the peculiar circumstances in which I have been

placed. Gentlemen, I shall not insult your good taste by eulogiums

upon your judgment or kindly feeling, though to the first I owe any

improvement I may have made as an actor, and certainly my success as

a manager to the second. (Applause.) When, upon the death of my dear

brother, the late Mr. Siddons, it was proposed that I should undertake

the management of the Edinburgh Theatre, I confess I drew back, doubting

my capability to free it from the load of debt and difficulty with which

it was surrounded. In this state of anxiety, I solicited the advice of

one who had ever honoured me with his kindest regard, and whose name no

member of my profession can pronounce without feelings of the deepest

respect and gratitude. I allude to the late Mr. John Kemble. (Great

applause.) To him I applied, and with the repetition of his advice I

shall cease to trespass upon your time--(hear, hear)--“My dear William,

fear not. Integrity and assiduity must prove an overmatch for all

difficulty; and though I approve your not indulging a vain confidence in

your own ability, and viewing with respectful apprehension the judgment

of the audience you have to act before, yet be assured that judgment

will ever be tempered by the feeling that you are acting for the widow

and the fatherless.” (Loud applause.) Gentlemen, those words have never

passed from my mind; and I feel convinced that you have pardoned my

many errors, from the feeling that I was striving for the widow and

the fatherless. (Long and enthusiastic applause followed Mr. Murray’s

address.)

Sir WALTER SCOTT gave “The Health of the Stewards.”

Mr. VANDENHOFF.---Mr. President and Gentlemen, the honour conferred upon

the Stewards, in the very flattering compliment you have just paid us,

calls forth our warmest acknowledgments. In tendering you our thanks

for the approbation you have been pleased to express of our humble

exertions, I would beg leave to advert to the cause in which we have

been engaged. Yet, surrounded as I am by the genius--the eloquence--of

this enlightened city, I cannot but feel the presumption which ventures

to address you on so interesting a subject. Accustomed to speak in the

language of others, I feel quite at a loss for terms wherein to clothe

the sentiments excited by the present occasion. (Applause.) The nature

of the institution which has sought your fostering patronage, and the

objects which it contemplates, have been fully explained to you. But,

gentlemen, the relief which it proposes is not a gratuitous relief, but

to be purchased by the individual contribution of its members towards

the general good. This Fund lends no encouragement to idleness or

improvidence, but it offers an opportunity to prudence in vigour and

youth to make provision against the evening of life and its attendant

infirmity. A period is fixed at which we admit the plea of age as an

exemption from professional labour. It is painful to behold the veteran

on the stage (compelled by necessity) contending against physical decay,

mocking the joyousness of mirth with the feebleness of age, when the

energies decline, when the memory fails! and “the big, manly voice,

turning again towards childish treble, pipes and whistles in the sound.”

We would remove him from the mimic scene, where fiction constitutes the

charm; we would not view old age caricaturing itself. (Applause.) But as

our means may be found, in time of need, inadequate to the fulfilment

of our wishes--fearful of raising expectations which we may be unable to

gratify--desirous not “to keep the word of promise to the ear, and break

it to the hope”--we have presumed to court the assistance of the friends

of the drama to strengthen our infant institution. Our appeal has been

successful beyond our most sanguine expectations. The distinguished

patronage conferred on us by your presence on this occasion, and the

substantial support which your benevolence has so liberally afforded

to our institution, must impress every member of the Fund with the most

grateful sentiments--sentiments which no language can express, no time

obliterate. (Applause.) I will not trespass longer on your attention.

I would the task of acknowledging our obligation had fallen into abler

hands. (Hear, hear.) In the name of the Stewards, I most respectfully

and cordially thank you for the honour you have done us, which greatly

overpays our poor endeavours. (Applause.)

[This speech, though rather inadequately reported, was one of the best

delivered on this occasion. That it was creditable to Mr. Vandenhoff’s

taste and feelings, the preceding sketch will show; but how much it was

so, it does not show.]

Mr. J. CAY gave “Professor Wilson and the University of Edinburgh, of

which he was one of the brightest ornaments.”

Lord MEADOWBANK, after a suitable eulogium, gave “The Earl of Fife,”

which was drunk with three times three.

Earl FIFE expressed his high gratification at the honour conferred on

him. He intimated his approbation of the institution, and his readiness

to promote its success by every means in his power. He concluded with

giving “The Health of the Company of Edinburgh.”

Mr. JONES, on rising to return thanks, being received with considerable

applause, said he was truly grateful for the kind encouragement he

had experienced, but the novelty of the situation in which he now

was renewed all the feelings he experienced when he first saw himself

announced in the bills as a young gentleman, being his first appearance

on any stage. (Laughter and applause.) Although in the presence of those

whose indulgence had, in another sphere, so often shielded him from the

penalties of inability, he was unable to execute the task which had so

unexpectedly devolved upon him in behalf of his brethren and himself. He

therefore begged the company to imagine all that grateful hearts could

prompt the most eloquent to utter, and that would be a copy of their

feelings. (Applause.) He begged to trespass another moment on their

attention, for the purpose of expressing the thanks of the members

of the Fund to the Gentlemen of the Edinburgh Professional Society of

Musicians, who, finding that this meeting was appointed to take place

on the same evening with their concert, had, in the handsomest manner,

agreed to postpone it. Although it was his duty thus to preface the

toast he had to propose, he was certain the meeting required no further

inducement than the recollection of the pleasure the exertions of those

gentlemen had often afforded them within those walls, to join heartily

in drinking “Health and Prosperity to the Edinburgh Professional Society

of Musicians.” (Applause.)

Mr. PAT. ROBERTSON Proposed “The Health of Mr. Jeffrey,” whose absence

was owing to indisposition. The public was well aware that he was the

most distinguished advocate at the bar. He was likewise distinguished

for the kindness, frankness, and cordial manner in which he communicated

with the junior members of the profession, to the esteem of whom his

splendid talents would always entitle him.

Mr. J. MACONOCHIE gave “The Health of Mrs. Siddons, senior, the most

distinguished ornament of the stage.”

Sir W. SCOTT said that if anything could reconcile him to old age, it

was the reflection that he had seen the rising as well as the setting

sun of Mrs. Siddons. He remembered well their breakfasting near to

the Theatre--waiting the whole day--the crushing at the doors at six

o’clock--and their going in and counting their fingers till seven

o’clock. But the very first step--the very first word which she

uttered--was sufficient to overpay him for all his labours. The house

was literally electrified; and it was only from witnessing the effects

of her genius that he could guess to what a pitch theatrical excellence

could be carried. Those young gentlemen who have only seen the setting

sun of this distinguished performer, beautiful and serene as that was,

must give us old fellows, who have seen its rise and its meridian, leave

to hold our heads a little higher.

Mr. DUNDAS gave “The Memory of Home, the author of Douglas.”

Mr. MACKAY here announced that the subscriptions for the night amounted

to L280, and he expressed gratitude for this substantial proof of their

kindness. [We are happy to state that subscriptions have since flowed in

very liberally.]

Mr. MACKAY here entertained the company with a pathetic song.

Sir WALTER SCOTT apologized for having so long forgotten their native

land. He would now give “Scotland, the land of Cakes.” He would give

every river, every loch, every hill, from Tweed to Johnnie Groat’s

house--every lass in her cottage and countess in her castle--and may her

sons stand by her, as their fathers did before them; and he who would

not drink a bumper to his toast, may he never drink whisky more!

Sir WALTER SCOTT here gave “Lord Meadowbank,” who returned thanks.

Mr. H. G. BELL said that he should not have ventured to intrude himself

upon the attention of the assembly, did he not feel confident that the

toast he begged to have the honour to propose would make amends for the

very imperfect manner in which he might express his sentiments regarding

it. It had been said that, notwithstanding the mental supremacy of the

present age--notwithstanding that the page of our history was studded

with names destined also for the page of immortality--that the genius of

Shakespeare was extinct, and the fountain of his inspiration dried up.

It might be that these observations were unfortunately correct, or it

might be that we were bewildered with a name, not disappointed of the

reality; for though Shakespeare had brought a Hamlet, an Othello, and a

Macbeth, an Ariel, a Juliet, and a Rosalind, upon the stage, were there

not authors living who had brought as varied, as exquisitely painted,

and as undying a range of characters into our hearts? The shape of the

mere mould into which genius poured its golden treasures was surely

a matter of little moment, let it be called a Tragedy, a Comedy, or a

Waverley Novel. But even among the dramatic authors of the present day,

he was unwilling to allow that there was a great and palpable decline

from the glory of preceding ages, and his toast alone would bear him out

in denying the truth of the proposition. After eulogizing the names of

Baillie, Byron, Coleridge, Maturin, and others, he begged to have the

honour of proposing “The Health of James Sheridan Knowles.”

Sir WALTER SCOTT. Gentlemen, I crave a bumper all over. The last toast

reminds me of a neglect of duty. Unaccustomed to a public duty of this

kind, errors in conducting the ceremonial of it may be excused, and

omissions pardoned. Perhaps I have made one or two omissions in the

course of the evening for which I trust you will grant me your pardon

and indulgence. One thing in particular I have omitted, and I would now

wish to make amends for it by a libation of reverence and respect to

the memory of SHAKESPEARE. He was a man of universal genius, and from a

period soon after his own era to the present day he has been universally

idolized. When I come to his honoured name, I am like the sick man who

hung up his crutches at the shrine, and was obliged to confess that he

did not walk better than before. It is indeed difficult, gentlemen, to

compare him to any other individual. The only one to whom I call at all

compare him is the wonderful Arabian dervise, who dived into the body of

each, and in this way became familiar with the thoughts and secrets of

their hearts. He was a man of obscure origin, and, as a player, limited

in his acquirements; but he was born evidently with a universal genius.

His eyes glanced at all the varied aspects of life, and his fancy

portrayed with equal talents the king on the throne and the clown who

crackles his chestnuts at a Christmas fire. Whatever note he takes, he

strikes it just and true, and awakens a corresponding chord in our own

bosoms, Gentlemen, I propose “The Memory of William Shakespeare.”

Glee--“Lightly tread, ‘tis hallowed ground.”

After the glee, Sir WALTER rose and begged to propose as a toast the

health of a lady, whose living merit is not a little honourable to

Scotland. The toast (said he) is also flattering to the national vanity

of a Scotchman, as the lady whom I intend to propose is a native of this

country. From the public her works have met with the most favourable

reception. One piece of hers, in particular, was often acted here of

late years, and gave pleasure of no mean kind to many brilliant and

fashionable audiences. In her private character she (he begged leave

to say) is as remarkable as in a public sense she is for her genius. In

short, he would in one word name--“Joanna Baillie.”

This health being drunk, Mr. THORNE was called on for a song, and sung,

with great taste and feeling, “The Anchor’s Weighed.”

W. MENZIES, Esq., Advocate, rose to propose the health of a gentleman

for many years connected at intervals with the dramatic art in Scotland.

Whether we look at the range of characters he performs, or at the

capacity which he evinces in executing those which he undertakes, he is

equally to be admired. In all his parts he is unrivalled. The individual

to whom he alluded is (said he) well known to the gentlemen present,

in the characters of Malvolio, Lord Ogleby, and the Green Man; and in

addition to his other qualities, he merits, for his perfection in these

characters, the grateful sense of this meeting. He would wish, in

the first place, to drink his health as an actor. But he was not less

estimable in domestic life, and as a private gentleman; and when he

announced him as one whom the chairman had honoured with his friendship,

he was sure that all present would cordially join him in drinking “The

Health of Mr. Terry.”

Mr. WILLIAM ALLAN, banker, said that he did not rise with the intention

of making a speech. He merely wished to contribute in a few words to

the mirth of the evening--an evening which certainly had not passed off

without some blunders. It had been understood--at least he had learnt

or supposed from the expressions of Mr. Pritchard--that it would be

sufficient to put a paper, with the name of the contributor, into the

box, and that the gentleman thus contributing would be called on for

the money next morning. He, for his part, had committed a blunder but

it might serve as a caution to those who may be present at the dinner

of next year. He had merely put in his name, written on a slip of paper,

without the money. But he would recommend that, as some of the gentlemen

might be in the same situation, the box should be again sent round, and

he was confident that they, as well as he, would redeem their error.

Sir WALTER SCOTT said that the meeting was somewhat in the situation

of Mrs. Anne Page, who had L300 and possibilities. We have already got,

said he, L280, but I should like, I confess, to have the L300. He would

gratify himself by proposing the health of an honourable person, the

Lord Chief Baron, whom England has sent to us, and connecting with it

that of his “yokefellow on the bench,” as Shakespeare says, Mr. Baron

Clerk--The Court of Exchequer.

Mr. Baron CLERK regretted the absence of his learned brother. None, he

was sure, could be more generous in his nature, or more ready to help a

Scottish purpose.

Sir WALTER SCOTT,--There is one who ought to be remembered on

this occasion. He is, indeed, well entitled to our grateful

recollection--one, in short, to whom the drama in this city owes much.

He succeeded, not without trouble, and perhaps at some considerable

sacrifice, in establishing a theatre. The younger part of the company

may not recollect the theatre to which I allude, but there are some who

with me may remember by name a place called Carrubber’s Close. There

Allan Ramsay established his little theatre. His own pastoral was not

fit for the stage, but it has its admirers in those who love the Doric

language in which it is written; and it is not without merits of a

very peculiar kind. But laying aside all considerations of his literary

merit, Allan was a good, jovial, honest fellow, who could crack a bottle

with the best. “The Memory of Allan Ramsay.”

Mr. MURRAY, on being requested, sung “‘Twas merry in the hall,” and at

the conclusion was greeted with repeated rounds of applause.

Mr. JONES.--One omission I conceive has been made. The cause of the Fund

has been ably advocated, but it is still susceptible, in my opinion, of

an additional charm--

“Without the smile from partial beauty won,

Oh, what were man?--a world without a sun!”

And there would not be a darker spot in poetry than would be the corner

in Shakespeare Square, if, like its fellow, the Register Office,

the Theatre were deserted by the ladies. They are, in fact, our most

attractive stars. “The Patronesses of the Theatre, the Ladies of the

City of Edinburgh.” This toast I ask leave to drink with all the honours

which conviviality can confer.

Mr. PATRICK ROBERTSON would be the last man willingly to introduce any

topic calculated to interrupt the harmony of the evening; yet he felt

himself treading upon ticklish ground when he approached the region of

the Nor’ Loch. He assured the company, however, that he was not about to

enter on the subject of the Improvement Bill. They all knew that if the

public were unanimous--if the consent of all parties were obtained--if

the rights and interests of everybody were therein attended to, saved,

reserved, respected, and excepted--if everybody agreed to it--and,

finally, a most essential point, if nobody opposed it--then, and in

that case, and provided also that due intimation were given, the bill

in question might pass--would pass--or might, could, would, or should

pass--all expenses being defrayed. (Laughter.) He was the advocate of

neither champion, and would neither avail himself of the absence of the

Right Hon. the Lord Provost, nor take advantage of the non-appearance

of his friend, Mr. Cockburn. (Laughter.) But in the midst of these

civic broils there had been elicited a ray of hope that, at some future

period, in Bereford Park, or some other place, if all parties were

consulted and satisfied, and if intimation were duly made at the kirk

doors of all the parishes in Scotland, in terms of the statute in that

behalf provided--the people of Edinburgh might by possibility get a

new Theatre. (Cheers and laughter.) But wherever the belligerent powers

might be pleased to set down this new Theatre, he was sure they all

hoped to meet the Old Company in it. He should therefore propose “Better

Accommodation to the Old Company in the new Theatre, site unknown.”--Mr.

Robertson’s speech was most humorously given, and he sat down amidst

loud cheers and laughter.

Sir WALTER SCOTT.--Wherever the new Theatre is built, I hope it will not

be large. There are two errors which we commonly commit--the one arising

from our pride, the other from our poverty. If there are twelve plans,

it is odds but the largest, without any regard to comfort, or an eye

to the probable expense, is adopted. There was the College projected on

this scale, and undertaken in the same manner, and who shall see the end

of it? It has been building all my life, and may probably last during

the lives of my children, and my children’s children. Let not the

same prophetic hymn be sung when we commence a new Theatre, which was

performed on the occasion of laying the foundation-stone of a certain

edifice, “Behold the endless work begun.” Playgoing folks should attend

somewhat to convenience. The new Theatre should, in the first place,

be such as may be finished in eighteen months or two years; and, in the

second place, it should be one in which we can hear our old friends with

comfort. It is better that a moderate-sized house should be crowded now

and then, than to have a large theatre with benches continually

empty, to the discouragement of the actors and the discomfort of the

spectators. (Applause.) He then commented in flattering terms on the

genius of Mackenzie and his private worth, and concluded by proposing

“The Health of Henry Mackenzie, Esq.”

Immediately afterwards he said:--Gentlemen, it is now wearing late, and

I shall request permission to retire. Like Partridge, I may say, “NON

SUM QUALIS ERAM.” At my time of day I can agree with Lord Ogilvie as to

his rheumatism, and say, “There’s a twinge.” I hope, therefore, you will

excuse me for leaving the chair.--The worthy Baronet then retired amidst

long, loud, and rapturous cheering.

Mr. PATRICK ROBERTSON was then called to the chair by common

acclamation.

Gentlemen, said Mr. Robertson, I take the liberty of asking you to fill

a bumper to the very brim. There is not one of us who will not

remember, while he lives, being present at this day’s festival, and

the declaration made this night by the gentleman who has just left the

chair. That declaration has rent the veil from the features of the Great

Unknown--a name which must now merge in the name of the Great Known.

It will be henceforth coupled with the name of SCOTT, which will become

familiar like a household word. We have heard the confession from his

own immortal lips--(cheering)--and we cannot dwell with too much or

too fervent praise on the merits of the greatest man whom Scotland has

produced.

After which several other toasts were given, and Mr. Robertson left

the room about half-past eleven. A few choice spirits, however, rallied

round Captain Broadhead of the 7th Hussars, who was called to the chair,

and the festivity was prolonged till an early hour on Saturday morning.

The band of the Theatre occupied the gallery, and that of the 7th

Hussars the end of the room, opposite the chair, whose performances were

greatly admired. It is but justice to Mr. Gibb to state that the dinner

was very handsome (though slowly served in), and the wines good. The

attention of the stewards was exemplary. Mr. Murray and Mr. Vandenhoff,

with great good taste, attended on Sir Walter Scott’s right and left,

and we know that he has expressed himself much gratified by their

anxious politeness and sedulity.

*****

CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE--INTRODUCTORY.

CHAPTER I. MR. CHRYSTAL CROFTANGRY’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF.

Sic itur ad astra.

“This is the path to heaven.” Such is the ancient motto attached to the

armorial bearings of the Canongate, and which is inscribed, with greater

or less propriety, upon all the public buildings, from the church to the

pillory, in the ancient quarter of Edinburgh which bears, or rather

once bore, the same relation to the Good Town that Westminster does

to London, being still possessed of the palace of the sovereign, as it

formerly was dignified by the residence of the principal nobility and

gentry. I may therefore, with some propriety, put the same motto at

the head of the literary undertaking by which I hope to illustrate the

hitherto undistinguished name of Chrystal Croftangry.

The public may desire to know something of an author who pitches at such

height his ambitious expectations. The gentle reader, therefore--for I

am much of Captain Bobadil’s humour, and could to no other extend myself

so far--the GENTLE reader, then, will be pleased to understand that I

am a a Scottish gentleman of the old school, with a fortune, temper,

and person, rather the worse for wear. I have known the world for these

forty years, having written myself man nearly since that period--and I

do not think it is much mended. But this is an opinion which I keep

to myself when I am among younger folk, for I recollect, in my youth,

quizzing the Sexagenarians who carried back their ideas of a perfect

state of society to the days of laced coats and triple ruffles, and

some of them to the blood and blows of the Forty-five. Therefore I am

cautious in exercising the right of censorship, which is supposed to

be acquired by men arrived at, or approaching, the mysterious period

of life, when the numbers of seven and nine multiplied into each other,

form what sages have termed the Grand Climacteric.

Of the earlier part of my life it is only necessary to say, that I swept

the boards of the Parliament-House with the skirts of my gown for the

usual number of years during which young Lairds were in my time expected

to keep term--got no fees--laughed, and made others laugh--drank claret

at Bayle’s, Fortune’s, and Walker’s--and ate oysters in the Covenant

Close.

Becoming my own master, I flung my gown at the bar-keeper, and commenced

gay man on my own account. In Edinburgh, I ran into all the expensive

society which the place then afforded. When I went to my house in the

shire of Lanark, I emulated to the utmost the expenses of men of large

fortune, and had my hunters, my first-rate pointers, my game-cocks, and

feeders. I can more easily forgive myself for these follies, than for

others of a still more blamable kind, so indifferently cloaked over,

that my poor mother thought herself obliged to leave my habitation,

and betake herself to a small inconvenient jointure-house, which she

occupied till her death. I think, however, I was not exclusively to

blame in this separation, and I believe my mother afterwards condemned

herself for being too hasty. Thank God, the adversity which destroyed

the means of continuing my dissipation, restored me to the affections of

my surviving parent.

My course of life could not last. I ran too fast to run long; and when

I would have checked my career, I was perhaps too near the brink of the

precipice. Some mishaps I prepared by my own folly, others came upon

me unawares. I put my estate out to nurse to a fat man of business,

who smothered the babe he should have brought back to me in health and

strength, and, in dispute with this honest gentleman, I found, like a

skilful general, that my position would be most judiciously assumed by

taking it up near the Abbey of Holyrood. [See Note 1.--Holyrood.] It was

then I first became acquainted with the quarter, which my little work

will, I hope, render immortal, and grew familiar with those magnificent

wilds, through which the Kings of Scotland once chased the dark-brown

deer, but which were chiefly recommended to me in those days, by their

being inaccessible to those metaphysical persons, whom the law of the

neighbouring country terms John Doe and Richard Roe. In short, the

precincts of the palace are now best known as being a place of refuge at

any time from all pursuit for civil debt.

Dire was the strife betwixt my quondam doer and myself; during which my

motions were circumscribed, like those of some conjured demon, within

a circle, which, “beginning at the northern gate of the King’s

Park, thence running northways, is bounded on the left by the King’s

garden-wall, and the gutter, or kennel, in a line wherewith it crosses

the High Street to the Watergate, and passing through the sewer, is

bounded by the walls of the Tennis Court and Physic Gardens, etc. It

then follows the wall of the churchyard, joins the north west wall of St

Ann’s Yards, and going east to the clackmill-house, turns southward to

the turnstile in the King’s Park wall, and includes the whole King’s

Park within the Sanctuary.”

These limits, which I abridge from the accurate Maitland, once marked

the Girth, or Asylum, belonging to the Abbey of Holyrood, and which,

being still an appendage to the royal palace, has retained the privilege

of an asylum for civil debt. One would think the space sufficiently

extensive for a man to stretch his limbs in, as, besides a reasonable

proportion of level ground (considering that the scene lies in

Scotland), it includes within its precincts the mountain of Arthur’s

Seat and the rocks and pasture land called Salisbury Crags. But yet it

is inexpressible how, after a certain time had elapsed, I used to long

for Sunday, which permitted me to extend my walk without limitation.

During the other six days of the week I felt a sickness of heart, which,

but for the speedy approach of the hebdomadal day of liberty, I could

hardly have endured. I experienced the impatience of a mastiff who tugs

in vain to extend the limits which his chain permits.

Day after day I walked by the side of the kennel which divides the

Sanctuary from the unprivileged part of the Canongate; and though the

month was July, and the scene the old town of Edinburgh, I preferred

it to the fresh air and verdant turf which I might have enjoyed in

the King’s Park, or to the cool and solemn gloom of the portico which

surrounds the palace. To an indifferent person either side of the gutter

would have seemed much the same, the houses equally mean, the children

as ragged and dirty, the carmen as brutal--the whole forming the same

picture of low life in a deserted and impoverished quarter of a large

city. But to me the gutter or kennel was what the brook Kidron was to

Shimei: death was denounced against him should he cross it, doubtless

because it was known to his wisdom who pronounced the doom that, from

the time the crossing the stream was debarred, the devoted man’s desire

to transgress the precept would become irresistible, and he would be

sure to draw down on his head the penalty which he had already justly

incurred by cursing the anointed of God. For my part, all Elysium

seemed opening on the other side of the kennel; and I envied the little

blackguards, who, stopping the current with their little dam-dykes of

mud, had a right to stand on either side of the nasty puddle which best

pleased them. I was so childish as even to make an occasional excursion

across, were it only for a few yards, and felt the triumph of a

schoolboy, who, trespassing in an orchard, hurries back again with a

fluttering sensation of joy and terror, betwixt the pleasure of having

executed his purpose and the fear of being taken or discovered.

I have sometimes asked myself what I should have done in case of actual

imprisonment, since I could not bear without impatience a restriction

which is comparatively a mere trifle; but I really could never answer

the question to my own satisfaction. I have all my life hated those

treacherous expedients called MEZZO-TERMINI, and it is possible with

this disposition I might have endured more patiently an absolute

privation of liberty than the more modified restrictions to which my

residence in the Sanctuary at this period subjected me. If, however, the

feelings I then experienced were to increase in intensity according

to the difference between a jail and my actual condition, I must

have hanged myself, or pined to death--there could have been no other

alternative.

Amongst many companions who forgot and neglected me, of course, when my

difficulties seemed to be inextricable, I had one true friend; and

that friend was a barrister, who knew the laws of his country well,

and tracing them up to the spirit of equity and justice in which

they originate, had repeatedly prevented, by his benevolent and manly

exertions, the triumphs of selfish cunning over simplicity and folly.

He undertook my cause, with the assistance of a solicitor of a character

similar to his own. My quondam doer had ensconced himself chin-deep

among legal trenches, hornworks, and covered ways; but my two protectors

shelled him out of his defences, and I was at length a free man, at

liberty to go or stay wheresoever my mind listed.

I left my lodgings as hastily as if it had been a pest-house. I did not

even stop to receive some change that was due to me on settling with my

landlady, and I saw the poor woman stand at her door looking after my

precipitate flight, and shaking her head as she wrapped the silver which

she was counting for me in a separate piece of paper, apart from the

store in her own moleskin purse. An honest Highlandwoman was Janet

MacEvoy, and deserved a greater remuneration, had I possessed the power

of bestowing it. But my eagerness of delight was too extreme to pause

for explanation with Janet. On I pushed through the groups of children,

of whose sports I had been so often a lazy, lounging spectator. I sprung

over the gutter as if it had been the fatal Styx, and I a ghost, which,

eluding Pluto’s authority, was making its escape from Limbo lake. My

friend had difficulty to restrain me from running like a madman up the

street; and in spite of his kindness and hospitality, which soothed me

for a day or two, I was not quite happy until I found myself aboard of

a Leith smack, and, standing down the Firth with a fair wind, might snap

my fingers at the retreating outline of Arthur’s Seat, to the vicinity

of which I had been so long confined.

It is not my purpose to trace my future progress through life. I had

extricated myself, or rather had been freed by my friends, from the

brambles and thickets of the law; but, as befell the sheep in the

fable, a great part of my fleece was left behind me. Something remained,

however: I was in the season for exertion, and, as my good mother used

to say, there was always life for living folk. Stern necessity gave my

manhood that prudence which my youth was a stranger to. I faced danger,

I endured fatigue, I sought foreign climates, and proved that I belonged

to the nation which is proverbially patient of labour and prodigal of

life. Independence, like liberty to Virgil’s shepherd, came late, but

came at last, with no great affluence in its train, but bringing enough

to support a decent appearance for the rest of my life, and to induce

cousins to be civil, and gossips to say, “I wonder whom old Croft will

make his heir? He must have picked up something, and I should not be

surprised if it prove more than folk think of.”

My first impulse when I returned home was to rush to the house of my

benefactor, the only man who had in my distress interested himself in my

behalf. He was a snuff-taker, and it had been the pride of my heart to

save the IPSA CORPORA of the first score of guineas I could hoard,

and to have them converted into as tasteful a snuff-box as Rundell and

Bridge could devise. This I had thrust for security into the breast of

my waistcoat, while, impatient to transfer it to the person for whom it

was destined, I hastened to his house in Brown Square. When the front of

the house became visible a feeling of alarm checked me. I had been long

absent from Scotland; my friend was some years older than I; he might

have been called to the congregation of the just. I paused, and gazed

on the house as if I had hoped to form some conjecture from the outward

appearance concerning the state of the family within. I know not how

it was, but the lower windows being all closed, and no one stirring, my

sinister forebodings were rather strengthened. I regretted now that I

had not made inquiry before I left the inn where I alighted from the

mail-coach. But it was too late; so I hurried on, eager to know the best

or the worst which I could learn.

The brass-plate bearing my friend’s name and designation was still on

the door, and when it was opened the old domestic appeared a good deal

older, I thought, than he ought naturally to have looked, considering

the period of my absence. “Is Mr. Sommerville at home?” said I, pressing

forward.

“Yes, sir,” said John, placing himself in opposition to my entrance, “he

is at home, but--”

“But he is not in,” said I. “I remember your phrase of old, John. Come,

I will step into his room, and leave a line for him.”

John was obviously embarrassed by my familiarity. I was some one, he

saw, whom he ought to recollect. At the same time it was evident he

remembered nothing about me.

“Ay, sir, my master is in, and in his own room, but--”

I would not hear him out, but passed before him towards the well-known

apartment. A young lady came out of the room a little disturbed, as it

seemed, and said, “John, what is the matter?”

“A gentleman, Miss Nelly, that insists on seeing my master.”

“A very old and deeply-indebted friend,” said I, “that ventures to press

myself on my much-respected benefactor on my return from abroad.”

“Alas, sir,” replied she, “my uncle would be happy to see you, but--”

At this moment something was heard within the apartment like the falling

of a plate, or glass, and immediately after my friend’s voice called

angrily and eagerly for his niece. She entered the room hastily, and

so did I. But it was to see a spectacle, compared with which that of my

benefactor stretched on his bier would have been a happy one.

The easy-chair filled with cushions, the extended limbs swathed in

flannel, the wide wrapping-gown and nightcap, showed illness; but the

dimmed eye, once so replete with living fire--the blabber lip, whose

dilation and compression used to give such character to his animated

countenance--the stammering tongue, that once poured forth such floods

of masculine eloquence, and had often swayed the opinion of the sages

whom he addressed,--all these sad symptoms evinced that my friend was in

the melancholy condition of those in whom the principle of animal life

has unfortunately survived that of mental intelligence. He gazed a

moment at me, but then seemed insensible of my presence, and went

on--he, once the most courteous and well-bred--to babble unintelligible

but violent reproaches against his niece and servant, because he himself

had dropped a teacup in attempting to place it on a table at his elbow.

His eyes caught a momentary fire from his irritation; but he struggled

in vain for words to express himself adequately, as, looking from his

servant to his niece, and then to the table, he laboured to explain that

they had placed it (though it touched his chair) at too great a distance

from him.

The young person, who had naturally a resigned Madonna-like expression

of countenance, listened to his impatient chiding with the most humble

submission, checked the servant, whose less delicate feelings would have

entered on his justification, and gradually, by the sweet and soft tone

of her voice, soothed to rest the spirit of causeless irritation.

She then cast a look towards me, which expressed, “You see all that

remains of him whom you call friend.” It seemed also to say, “Your

longer presence here can only be distressing to us all.”

“Forgive me, young lady,” I said, as well as tears would permit; “I am a

person deeply obliged to your uncle. My name is Croftangry.”

“Lord! and that I should not hae minded ye, Maister Croftangry,” said

the servant. “Ay, I mind my master had muckle fash about your job. I hae

heard him order in fresh candles as midnight chappit, and till’t again.

Indeed, ye had aye his gude word, Mr. Croftangry, for a’ that folks said

about you.”

“Hold your tongue, John,” said the lady, somewhat angrily; and then

continued, addressing herself to me, “I am sure, sir, you must be sorry

to see my uncle in this state. I know you are his friend. I have heard

him mention your name, and wonder he never heard from you.” A new cut

this, and it went to my heart. But she continued, “I really do not know

if it is right that any should--If my uncle should know you, which I

scarce think possible, he would be much affected, and the doctor says

that any agitation--But here comes Dr. -- to give his own opinion.”

Dr. -- entered. I had left him a middle-aged man. He was now an elderly

one; but still the same benevolent Samaritan, who went about doing

good, and thought the blessings of the poor as good a recompense of his

professional skill as the gold of the rich.

He looked at me with surprise, but the young lady said a word of

introduction, and I, who was known to the doctor formerly, hastened to

complete it. He recollected me perfectly, and intimated that he was well

acquainted with the reasons I had for being deeply interested in the

fate of his patient. He gave me a very melancholy account of my poor

friend, drawing me for that purpose a little apart from the lady. “The

light of life,” he said, “was trembling in the socket; he scarcely

expected it would ever leap up even into a momentary flash, but more

was impossible.” He then stepped towards his patient, and put some

questions, to which the poor invalid, though he seemed to recognize the

friendly and familiar voice, answered only in a faltering and uncertain

manner.

The young lady, in her turn, had drawn back when the doctor approached

his patient. “You see how it is with him,” said the doctor, addressing

me. “I have heard our poor friend, in one of the most eloquent of his

pleadings, give a description of this very disease, which he compared

to the tortures inflicted by Mezentius when he chained the dead to the

living. The soul, he said, is imprisoned in its dungeon of flesh, and

though retaining its natural and unalienable properties, can no more

exert them than the captive enclosed within a prison-house can act as

a free agent. Alas! to see HIM, who could so well describe what this

malady was in others, a prey himself to its infirmities! I shall

never forget the solemn tone of expression with which he summed up the

incapacities of the paralytic--the deafened ear, the dimmed eye, the

crippled limbs--in the noble words of Juvenal,--

“‘Omni

Membrorum damno major, dementia, quae nec

Nomina servorum, nec vultum agnoscit amici.’”

As the physician repeated these lines, a flash of intelligence seemed to

revive in the invalid’s eye--sunk again--again struggled, and he spoke

more intelligibly than before, and in the tone of one eager to say

something which he felt would escape him unless said instantly. “A

question of death-bed, a question of death-bed, doctor--a reduction EX

CAPITE LECTI--Withering against Wilibus--about the MORBUS SONTICUS. I

pleaded the cause for the pursuer--I, and--and--why, I shall forget my

own name--I, and--he that was the wittiest and the best-humoured man

living--”

The description enabled the doctor to fill up the blank, and the

patient joyfully repeated the name suggested. “Ay, ay,” he said, “just

he--Harry--poor Harry--” The light in his eye died away, and he sunk

back in his easy-chair.

“You have now seen more of our poor friend, Mr. Croftangry,” said the

physician, “than I dared venture to promise you; and now I must take my

professional authority on me, and ask you to retire. Miss Sommerville

will, I am sure, let you know if a moment should by any chance occur

when her uncle can see you.”

What could I do? I gave my card to the young lady, and taking my

offering from my bosom--“if my poor friend,” I said, with accents as

broken almost as his own, “should ask where this came from, name me, and

say from the most obliged and most grateful man alive. Say, the gold of

which it is composed was saved by grains at a time, and was hoarded with

as much avarice as ever was a miser’s. To bring it here I have come a

thousand miles; and now, alas, I find him thus!”

I laid the box on the table, and was retiring with a lingering step. The

eye of the invalid was caught by it, as that of a child by a glittering

toy, and with infantine impatience he faltered out inquiries of his

niece. With gentle mildness she repeated again and again who I was,

and why I came, etc. I was about to turn, and hasten from a scene so

painful, when the physician laid his hand on my sleeve. “Stop,” he said,

“there is a change.”

There was, indeed, and a marked one. A faint glow spread over his pallid

features--they seemed to gain the look of intelligence which belongs

to vitality--his eye once more kindled--his lip coloured--and drawing

himself up out of the listless posture he had hitherto maintained, he

rose without assistance. The doctor and the servant ran to give him

their support. He waved them aside, and they were contented to place

themselves in such a position behind as might ensure against accident,

should his newly-acquired strength decay as suddenly as it had revived.

“My dear Croftangry,” he said, in the tone of kindness of other days, “I

am glad to see you returned. You find me but poorly; but my little niece

here and Dr. -- are very kind. God bless you, my dear friend! We shall

not meet again till we meet in a better world.”

I pressed his extended hand to my lips--I pressed it to my bosom--I

would fain have flung myself on my knees; but the doctor, leaving the

patient to the young lady and the servant, who wheeled forward his

chair, and were replacing him in it, hurried me out of the room. “My

dear sir,” he said, “you ought to be satisfied; you have seen our poor

invalid more like his former self than he has been for months, or than

he may be perhaps again until all is over. The whole Faculty could

not have assured such an interval. I must see whether anything can be

derived from it to improve the general health. Pray, begone.” The last

argument hurried me from the spot, agitated by a crowd of feelings, all

of them painful.

When I had overcome the shock of this great disappointment, I renewed

gradually my acquaintance with one or two old companions, who, though

of infinitely less interest to my feelings than my unfortunate friend,

served to relieve the pressure of actual solitude, and who were not

perhaps the less open to my advances that I was a bachelor somewhat

stricken in years, newly arrived from foreign parts, and certainly

independent, if not wealthy.

I was considered as a tolerable subject of speculation by some, and

I could not be burdensome to any. I was therefore, according to the

ordinary rule of Edinburgh hospitality, a welcome guest in several

respectable families. But I found no one who could replace the loss I

had sustained in my best friend and benefactor. I wanted something more

than mere companionship could give me, and where was I to look for it?

Among the scattered remnants of those that had been my gay friends of

yore? Alas!

“Many a lad I loved was dead,

And many a lass grown old.”

Besides, all community of ties between us had ceased to exist, and

such of former friends as were still in the world held their life in a

different tenor from what I did.

Some had become misers, and were as eager in saving sixpence as ever

they had been in spending a guinea. Some had turned agriculturists;

their talk was of oxen, and they were only fit companions for graziers.

Some stuck to cards, and though no longer deep gamblers, rather played

small game than sat out. This I particularly despised. The strong

impulse of gaming, alas! I had felt in my time. It is as intense as it

is criminal; but it produces excitation and interest, and I can conceive

how it should become a passion with strong and powerful minds. But to

dribble away life in exchanging bits of painted pasteboard round a green

table for the piddling concern of a few shillings, can only be excused

in folly or superannuation. It is like riding on a rocking-horse, where

your utmost exertion never carries you a foot forward; it is a kind of

mental treadmill, where you are perpetually climbing, but can never rise

an inch. From these hints, my readers will perceive I am incapacitated

for one of the pleasures of old age, which, though not mentioned by

Cicero, is not the least frequent resource in the present day--the

club-room, and the snug hand at whist.

To return to my old companions. Some frequented public assemblies, like

the ghost of Beau Nash, or any other beau of half a century back, thrust

aside by tittering youth, and pitied by those of their own age. In fine,

some went into devotion, as the French term it, and others, I fear, went

to the devil; a few found resources in science and letters; one or two

turned philosophers in a small way, peeped into microscopes, and became

familiar with the fashionable experiments of the day; some took to

reading, and I was one of them.

Some grains of repulsion towards the society around me--some painful

recollections of early faults and follies--some touch of displeasure

with living mankind--inclined me rather to a study of antiquities, and

particularly those of my own country. The reader, if I can prevail on

myself to continue the present work, will probably be able to judge in

the course of it whether I have made any useful progress in the study of

the olden times.

I owed this turn of study, in part, to the conversation of my kind man

of business, Mr. Fairscribe, whom I mentioned as having seconded the

efforts of my invaluable friend in bringing the cause on which my

liberty and the remnant of my property depended to a favourable

decision. He had given me a most kind reception on my return. He was

too much engaged in his profession for me to intrude on him often, and

perhaps his mind was too much trammelled with its details to permit his

being willingly withdrawn from them. In short, he was not a person of

my poor friend Sommerville’s expanded spirit, and rather a lawyer of the

ordinary class of formalists; but a most able and excellent man. When

my estate was sold! he retained some of the older title-deeds, arguing,

from his own feelings, that they would be of more consequence to the

heir of the old family than to the new purchaser. And when I returned

to Edinburgh, and found him still in the exercise of the profession to

which he was an honour, he sent to my lodgings the old family Bible,

which lay always on my father’s table, two or three other mouldy

volumes, and a couple of sheepskin bags full of parchments and papers,

whose appearance was by no means inviting.

The next time I shared Mr. Fairscribe’s hospitable dinner, I failed not

to return him due thanks for his kindness, which acknowledgment, indeed,

I proportioned rather to the idea which I knew he entertained of the

value of such things, than to the interest with which I myself

regarded them. But the conversation turning on my family, who were old

proprietors in the Upper Ward of Clydesdale, gradually excited some

interest in my mind and when I retired to my solitary parlour, the first

thing I did was to look for a pedigree or sort of history of the family

or House of Croftangry, once of that Ilk, latterly of Glentanner. The

discoveries which I made shall enrich the next chapter.