Well might a few men of taste hold up protesting hands and exclaim, What

a site did nature give us for our New Town! Yet what insignificance in

its Plan! What poverty in all its details! But the most of the

citizens were quite contented with the Plan and the buildings. They

thought the idea of three main streets intersected by six cross streets

at right angles and at regular distances, a perfect inspiration of

genius. They talked of its beauty and elegance, and fondly believed

that the New Town had few equals in Europe. Certainly in one point the

contrast with the Old Town was in favour of the New. The streets were

made spacious and broad, giving the inestimable boon of free air. Along

with the New Town there gradually grew another monument, gigantic in

every sense, of the taste of Edinburgh citizens--'the Mound,' as it is

still called, a monument which justifies the city's love and pride in

being at least unique. It took fifty years to collect, it is eight

hundred feet long, its height at the north end is sixty feet, and at the

south end one hundred. Like every other great work, the Mound has had

its detractors. Lord Cockburn said of it, 'The creation of that

abominable incumbrance, the "Earthen Mound," by which the valley it

abridges and deforms was sacrificed for a deposit of rubbish, was not

only permitted without a murmur to be slowly raised, but throughout all

its progress was applauded as a noble accumulation.' It was originally

suggested by a Lawnmarket shopkeeper. Even at the present day there are

some who have their doubts about its beauty and elegance, but they are

easily silenced by recalling its vastness and its original cheapness.

The Mound, in fact, is here to stay.

After the peace, when Europe was immediately covered with travellers, it

became known to some Edinburgh natives that there were better things in

city architecture than the 'regular, elegant, and commodious' houses of

New Edinburgh. 'Not one of them, whether from taste, or conceit, or

mere chattering--but it all did good--failed to contrast the littleness

of almost all that the people of Edinburgh had yet done, with the

general picturesque grandeur and the unrivalled sites of their city. It

was about this time that the foolish phrase, "The Modern Athens," began

to be applied to the capital of Scotland; a sarcasm, or a piece of

affected flattery, when used in a moral sense; but just enough if meant

only as a comparison of the physical features of the two places.'

The existence of a New Town soon forced on the opening up of the city by

adequate routes of access. The narrow, steep, and crooked 'wynds' of the

Old Town had been constructed in the days when to keep enemies out was

the first, indeed the only consideration. Now it became a primary

necessity to provide broad, open, and convenient approaches from all

sides. The citizens soon enjoyed the privilege of issuing by wide and

pleasant highways, conducting to the open fields. And fortunately the

buildings now erected beside these spacious approaches were not

dominated by the 'Plan.' Cockburn himself considered the buildings

'very respectable; the owners being always tempted to allure the

spreading population by laying out their land attractively. Hence

Newington, Leith Walk, the grounds of Inverleith, the road to

Corstorphine, and to Queensferry, and indeed all the modern approaches,

which lead in every direction through most comfortable suburbs.'

It is clear from Lord Cockburn's invaluable testimony that the idea of

the more free and daring attempts in architecture, which have now given

the New Town a character so different from its 'planned' uniformity and

elegance, originated immediately after the peace. 'The influence of

these circumstances can only be appreciated by those who knew Edinburgh

during the war. It is they alone who can see the beauty of the bravery

which the Queen of the North has since been putting on. There were more

schemes, and pamphlets, and discussions, and anxiety about the

improvement of our edifices and prospects within ten years after the war

ceased, than throughout the whole of the preceding one hundred and fifty

years.'

Suburban Edinburgh of to-day rejoices in a profusion of trees. Had the

same taste been predominant at this period, how different even the

centre of the city might have been. It is tantalising to imagine the

pictures left us of what existed in those bygone days. 'There was no

Scotch city more strikingly graced by individual trees and by groups of

them than Edinburgh, since I knew it, used to be. How well the ridge of

the Old Town was set off by a bank of elms that ran along the front of

James' Court, and stretched eastward over the ground now partly occupied

by the Bank of Scotland. Some very respectable trees might have been

spared to grace the Episcopal Chapel of St. Paul in York Place. There

was one large tree near its east end which was so well placed that some

people conjectured it was on its account that the Chapel was set down

there. I was at a consultation in John Clerk's house, hard by, when

that tree was cut. On hearing that it was actually down we ran out, and

well did John curse the Huns. The old aristocratic gardens of the

Canongate were crowded with trees, and with good ones. There were

several on the Calton Hill; seven, not ill-grown, on its very summit.

And all Leith Walk and Lauriston, including the ground round Heriot's

Hospital, was fully set with wood. A group was felled about the year

1826 which stood to the west of St. John's Chapel, on the opposite side

of the Lothian Road, and formed a beautiful termination of all the

streets which join near that point. Moray Place, in the same way, might

have been richly decorated with old and respectable trees. But they

were all murdered.... I tried to save a very picturesque group, some of

which waved over the wall at the west end of the jail on the Calton

Hill. I succeeded with two trees; but in about four years they also

disappeared. The sad truth is that the extinction of foliage, and the

unbroken display of their bright freestone, is of itself a first object

with both our masons and their employers. The wooded gardens that we

have recently acquired are not inconsistent with this statement. There

was no competition between them and building. It is our horror of the

direct combination of trees with masonry, and our incapacity to effect

it, that I complain of. No apology is thought necessary for murdering a

tree; many for preserving it.'

*CHAPTER LI*

The 'Jury Court'--Chief-Commissioner Adam--His Work and

Success--Friendship with Scott--Character of Adam by Scott--The

Blairadam Club--Anecdotes--Death of Lord Adam.

Trial by jury in civil cases was introduced into Scotland by an

enactment of the year 1815. The first case was tried on 22nd January

1816. The change thus inaugurated was considered by reformers 'one of

the most important events in the progress of our law.' Though meeting

with strong opposition, headed by the old judges, the introduction of

the new system was managed successfully. It implied the arrangement of

a separate court, and the appointment of a special presiding judge

trained to English practice. The Lord Chief-Commissioner was the Right

Hon. William Adam, of Blairadam, and he was assisted by two other

judges, Lords Pitmilly and Meadowbank. Adam was then sixty-five years of

age. Cockburn says that he was handicapped by extravagant expectations

of what he was to do. He describes him as 'the person who had first

fought Fox, and then been his friend; who had spoken in debate with

Pitt; managed the affairs of Royal Dukes; been the standing counsel of

such clients as the East India Company and the Bank of England, and in

great practice in Parliamentary Committees.' His appearance was that of

a farming gentleman. He had a clear distinct voice, and an admirable

manner, but his great defect is said to have been 'obscurity of judicial

speech.' Lord Glenlee, listening for a long time, without getting any

definite idea, to his well-sounding sentences full of confusion, made

the epigram, 'He speaks as if he were an Act of Parliament.'

We have the testimony of Lord Cockburn to the success of his work. 'No

other man could have done his work. He had to guide a vessel over

shoals and among rocks. This was his special duty, and he did it

admirably. He protected his court from prejudices which, if not subdued

by his patience and dexterity, would have crushed it any week. So far

as we are to retain civil trial by jury in this country, we shall owe it

to him personally. When in 1830 the Jury Court ceased to exist as a

separate court his vocation was at an end; and he retired with the

respect and the affection of the whole legal profession and of the

public.'

Such was the task of the man with whom Scott was now to be connected

during the rest of his life in a constant interchange of hospitality,

and whom he so frequently mentions in his _Journal_ with epithets of

esteem and respect. Their acquaintance practically dated from Adam's

appointment, but soon grew into the closest friendship. The account of

their connection in the _Journal_ (January 1826) must be quoted for the

vivid, almost startling light it throws on Scott's own peculiarities.

'I have taken kindly to him as one of the most pleasant, kind-hearted,

benevolent, and pleasing men I have ever known. It is high treason

among the Tories to express regard for him, or respect for the Jury

Court in which he presides. I was against that experiment as much as

any one. But it is an experiment, and the establishment (which the

fools will not perceive) is the only thing which I see likely to give

some prospects of ambition to our Bar. As for the Chief-Commissioner, I

dare say he jobs, as all other people of consequence do, in elections,

and so forth. But he is the personal friend of the King, and the

decided enemy of whatever strikes at the constitutional rights of the

monarch. Besides, I love him for the various changes which he has

endured through life, and which have been so great as to make him

entitled to be regarded in one point of view as the most fortunate--in

the other, the most unfortunate--man in the world. He has gained and

lost two fortunes by the same good luck, and the same rash confidence,

which raised, and now threatens, my _peculium_. And his quiet,

honourable, and generous submission under circumstances more painful

than mine,--for the loss of world's wealth was to him aggravated by the

death of his youngest and darling son in the West Indies--furnished me

at the time and now with a noble example. So the Tories and Whigs may

go be d--d together, as names that have disturbed old Scotland, and torn

asunder the most kindly feelings since the first day they were

invented.... I cannot permit that strife to "mix its waters with my

daily meal," those waters of bitterness which poison all mutual love and

confidence betwixt the well-disposed on either side.'

Adam was fond of society, in which 'nothing could exceed his

delightfulness.' The Blairadam Club was for many years (from 1818

onwards) an institution. It was an annual gathering at midsummer of a

few bosom friends, among them Scott, William Clerk, and Sir Adam

Ferguson. The friends spent a day or two together, and generally made

it a gay and happy occasion. 'We hire a light coach-and-four, and scour

the country in every direction in quest of objects of curiosity.' The

last meeting attended by Scott was in 1830, when he says: 'Our meeting

was cordial, but our numbers diminished. Will Clerk has a bad cold,

Thomas Thomson is detained, but the Chief-Commissioner, Admiral Adam

(son of the host), Sir Adam, John Thomson and I, make an excellent

concert. The day was execrable (wet). But Sir Adam was in high

fooling, and we had an amazing deal of laughing.' It is pathetic, in

the midst of this, to see how he fretted to be at home, in order to be

at work again. In the _Journal_ we come across some remarks or

anecdotes of Adam's, of which one or two may be given. 'I came home

with Lord Chief-Commissioner Adam. He told me a dictum of old Sir

Gilbert Elliot, speaking of his uncles. "No chance of opulence," he

said, "is worth the risk of a competence." It was not the thought of a

great man, but perhaps that of a wise one.'

Again, 'Dined with Chief-Commissioner,--Admiral Adam, W. Clerk, Thomson

and I. The excellent old man was cheerful at intervals--at times sad,

as was natural. A good blunder he told us, occurred in the Annandale

case, which was a question partly of domicile. It was proved that

leaving Lochwood, the Earl had given up his _kain_ and _carriages_; this

an English counsel contended was the best of all possible proofs that

the noble Earl designed an absolute change of residence, since he laid

aside his _walking-stick_ and his _coach_.'[1]

[1] _Kain_ in Scots Law means 'payment in kind': carriages, 'services in

driving with horse and cart.'

Lockhart has recorded that 'this most amiable and venerable gentleman,

my dear and kind friend, died at Edinburgh, on the 17th February 1839,

in the eighty-ninth year of his age. He retained his strong mental

faculties in their perfect vigour to the last days of his long life, and

with them all the warmth of social feelings which had endeared him to

all who were so happy as to have any opportunity of knowing him.'

*CHAPTER LII*

1816--The _Antiquary_--Death of Major John Scott--The Aged

Mother--Buying Land--The Ballantynes--The _Black Dwarf_ and

Blackwood--Scott and a Judgeship--Anecdote of Authorship of _Waverley_.

The year 1816, says Lockhart, 'has almost its only traces in the

successive appearance of nine volumes, which attest the prodigal genius

and hardly less astonishing industry' of Walter Scott. Among these were

the _Antiquary_ and _Old Mortality_. The former appeared in the

beginning of May, and about the same time occurred the death of the

author's brother, Major John Scott, who had long been in weak health.

Writing to Morritt on this occasion Scott says, 'It is a heavy

consideration to have lost the last but one who was interested in our

early domestic life, our habits of boyhood, and our first friends and

connexions. It makes one look about and see how the scene has changed

around him, and how he himself has been changed with it. My mother, now

upwards of eighty, has now only one child left to her out of thirteen

whom she had borne. She is a most excellent woman, possessed, even at

her advanced age, of all the force of mind and sense of duty which have

carried her through so many domestic griefs, as the successive deaths of

eleven children, some of them come to men and women's estate, naturally

infers. She is the principal subject of my attention at present, and

is, I am glad to say, perfectly well in body and composed in mind.'

In the same letter he speaks of the _Antiquary_ as being 'not so

interesting' as its predecessors, but more fortunate than any of them in

the sale, six thousand copies having gone off in a week. Meantime he

was fast purchasing land to add to his estate. By this time it had

grown from 150 acres to nearly a thousand. There were signs that might

have warned him to be careful. At the time of James Ballantyne's fall he

appears to have been owing over L3000 to Scott of personal debt. But

Scott was sanguine by nature, and it was the interest of the Ballantynes

to keep their businesses going. 'Therefore, in a word' (this is

Lockhart's deliberate charge), 'John appears to have systematically

disguised from Scott the extent to which the whole Ballantyne concern

had been sustained by Constable--especially during his Hebridean tour of

1814, and his Continental one of 1815--and prompted and enforced the

idea of trying other booksellers from time to time, instead of adhering

to Constable, merely for the selfish purposes--first of facilitating the

immediate discount of bills;--secondly, of further perplexing Scott's

affairs, the entire disentanglement of which would have been, as he

fancied, prejudicial to his own personal importance.'

It was in this way that the Tales of my Landlord (that is, the _Black

Dwarf_ and _Old Mortality_) came to be published by Murray and

Blackwood. The latter, alarmed by Gifford's disapprobation of the

_Black Dwarf_, proposed that if the author would recast the later

chapters, he would gladly take upon himself the expense of cancelling

the sheets. Scott's reply, in a letter to Ballantyne, was emphatic:

'Tell him and his coadjutor that I belong to the Black Hussars of

Literature, who neither give nor receive quarter. I'll be cursed, but

this is the most impudent proposal that ever was made.'

An interesting fact in Scott's personal history which had previously

been unknown even to Lockhart, was discovered by the latter when Scott's

letters to the Duke of Buccleuch came into his hands after the death of

the Duke. During the winter of 1816-1817, it appears, Scott made an

attempt to exchange his Clerkship for a seat on the Bench of the Court

of Exchequer. The Duke was naturally most anxious to second the

proposal, but private reasons prevented him from exercising his

influence at that juncture. This seems to have set the matter at rest.

In later years, when such a step was suggested, Scott seems to have

become convinced that the less conspicuous position was more fit and

desirable for a literary man, and more especially a poet and novelist.

At all events the Tory party lost the opportunity of making Walter Scott

'Lord Abbotsford.'

After the publication of Tales of my Landlord by Murray, Scott, in

conjunction with his friend Erskine, contributed to the _Quarterly_ a

general review of the Waverley Novels and a reply to Dr. M'Crie's

strictures on the treatment of the Covenanters in _Old Mortality_. The

criticisms were the work of Erskine, though Scott was severely censured

after, as if he had been puffing his own works unfairly. The paper

closed with an allusion to the report of Thomas Scott's being the author

of _Waverley_. 'A better joke,' says Lockhart, 'was never penned, and I

think it includes a confession over which a misanthrope might have

chuckled.' This is the conclusion: 'We intended here to conclude this

long article, when a strong report reached us of certain Transatlantic

confessions, which, if genuine (though of this we know nothing), assign

a different author to these volumes than the party suspected by our

Scottish correspondents. Yet a critic may be excused seizing upon the

nearest suspicious person, on the principle happily expressed by

Claverhouse in a letter to the Earl of Linlithgow. He had been, it

seems, in search of a gifted weaver, who used to hold forth at

conventicles: "I sent for the webster (weaver), they brought in his

_brother_ for him; though he, may be, cannot preach like his brother, I

doubt not but he is as well-principled as he, wherefore I thought it

would be no great fault to give him the trouble to go to jail with the

rest."'

At this point we shall cease to attempt any detailed account of the

various novels and their publication. Our plan calls now only for a few

striking scenes in the closing years of the life whose outward

surroundings and personal environment in Edinburgh it is our main aim to

illustrate. We may, however, conclude this chapter with the admirable

summary by Lockhart of the qualities of _Old Mortality_, a work which

was the product of Scott's greatest intellectual effort, and which is

usually, and justly, ranked with _Guy Mannering_ as one of the best of

the Scotch Novels. 'The story,' he says, 'is framed with a deeper skill

than any of the preceding novels; the canvas is a broader one; the

characters are contrasted and projected with a power and felicity which

neither he nor any other master ever surpassed; and notwithstanding all

that has been urged against him as a disparager of the Covenanters, it

is to me very doubtful whether the inspiration of romantic chivalry ever

prompted him to nobler emotions than he has lavished on the reanimation

of their stern and solemn enthusiasm. The work has always appeared to

me the _Marmion_ of his novels.'

*CHAPTER LIII*

1817--Overwork and Illness--Kemble's 'Farewell Address'--The Kemble

Dinner--_Blackwood's Magazine_ and the Reign of Terror in Edinburgh.

During the times of trouble with the Ballantyne affairs, Scott, as has

been seen, taxed his strength to an extraordinary and dangerous extent.

The effects were presently felt in that which was the permanently weak

point of his physical constitution--the family tendency to paralysis.

His first serious illness was in March 1817. From his letters to

Morritt it appears that he had suffered all through the winter--while

working as usual in Edinburgh--with cramps in the stomach. He had got

temporary relief by means of drinking scalding water, but as the pains

continued to recur more frequently he had been obliged reluctantly to

have recourse to Dr. Baillie. 'But' (he says) 'before his answer

arrived, on the 5th, I had a most violent attack, which broke up a small

party at my house, and sent me to bed roaring like a bull-calf. All

sorts of remedies were applied, as in the case of Gil Blas' pretended

colic, but such was the pain of the real disorder, that it out-deviled

the Doctor hollow. Even heated salt, which was applied in such a state

that it burned my shirt to rags, I hardly felt when clapped to my

stomach. At length the symptoms became inflammatory, and dangerously

so, the seat being the diaphragm. They only gave way to very profuse

bleeding and blistering, which, under higher assistance, saved my life.

My recovery was slow and tedious from the state of exhaustion. I could

neither stir for weakness and giddiness, nor read for dazzling in my

eyes, nor listen for a whizzing sound in my ears, nor even think for

lack of the power of arranging my ideas. So I had a comfortless time of

it for about a week.' Lockhart adds that his friends in Edinburgh were

in great anxiety about him all the spring, the attacks being more than

once repeated. But he resumed work almost immediately, planning out, in

intervals of pain, the drama called _The Doom of Devorgoil_. Now also

he wrote the magnificent 'Farewell Address,' instinct with heart-felt

pathos, with which his friend John Philip Kemble took his leave of the

Edinburgh stage, on the evening of Saturday the 29th March 1817. The

character in which Kemble had appeared was Macbeth, and he wore the

dress of the character while he spoke the lines. 'Mr. Kemble' (says

James Ballantyne) 'delivered these lines with exquisite beauty, and with

an effect that was evidenced by the tears and sobs of many of the

audience. His own emotions were very conspicuous. When his farewell was

closed, he lingered long on the stage, as if unable to retire. The

house again stood up, and cheered him with the waving of hats and long

shouts of applause. At length he finally retired, and, in so far as

regards Scotland, the curtain dropped upon his professional life for

ever.'

'My last part is played, my knell is rung,

When e'en your praise falls faltering from my tongue;

And all that you can hear, or I can tell,

Is Friends and patrons, hail, and _Fare you well_!'

A few days after, the great tragedian was entertained to dinner by his

Edinburgh admirers. There was a company of about seventy notable

persons--among them Lockhart, who says, 'I was never present at any

public dinner in all its circumstances more impressive.' Jeffrey was

chairman, and the croupiers were Walter Scott and John Wilson. From the

_Life_ of Jeffrey we extract a curious anecdote of this interesting

scene. That evening Jeffrey 'did what he never did before or since. He

stuck a speech. He had to make the address and present a snuff-box to

Kemble. He began very promisingly, but got confused, and amazed both

himself and everybody else, by actually sitting down and leaving the

speech unfinished; and, until reminded of that part of his duty, not

even thrusting the box into the hand of the intended receiver. He

afterwards told me the reason of this. He had not premeditated the

scene, and thought he had nothing to do, except in the name of the

company to give the box. But as soon as he rose to do this, Kemble, who

was beside him, rose also, and with most formidable dignity. This

forced Jeffrey to look up to his man; when he found himself annihilated

by the tall tragic god; who sank him to the earth at every compliment,

by obeisances of overwhelming grace and stateliness.' The incident must

have been awkward for Kemble, but it was a genuine and involuntary

tribute to the majestic bearing of the great actor.

Shortly after this, in April 1817, there occurred an event which greatly

stirred the peaceful waters of Edinburgh social and literary life, and

with which Scott's future son-in-law and biographer, John Gibson

Lockhart, was to be very prominently associated. This was the founding

of the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_. The publisher was John Blackwood.

Wishing to develop the magazine on lines of his own, this far-seeing and

able gentleman, first shaking himself clear from the two editorial

personages who were hampering his energies, started the periodical

afresh at the seventh number under the title of _Blackwood's Edinburgh

Magazine_. The famous No. VII. came like a thunderbolt. All the world

wondered. From what sources had Blackwood evoked the wit, the

tremendous energy, the boundless audacity of personal attack which at

once shocked and delighted the public mind? The Whigs were both

tortured and alarmed. The days of their sole literary domination were

seen straightway to be over. For them especially a Reign of Terror had

begun. They were now to be subjected to the lash of an incomparable,

though often excessive, power of ridicule: a form of punishment which

always hurts most sorely those to whom the saving grace of humour has

been denied. Necessarily _Blackwood's Magazine_ was a political engine,

the organ of high Toryism. As such, it was liable to the sneer of

Cockburn (a sneer which tells with equal justness against all

theoretical defenders of current politics): 'In this department it has

adhered with respectable constancy to all the follies it was meant to

defend. It is a great depository of exploded principles; and indeed it

will soon be valuable as a museum of old errors.' But every device of

mystification, an example set by Scott, was employed to keep the secret

of who were really 'Blackwood's young Tory wags,' and this was further

secured by the entirely unsuspected fact, that the editor was actually

Blackwood himself. The marvellous thing, now that the facts are known,

is the enormous share performed by the two chiefs, Lockhart and Wilson.

In their buoyant eagerness to break up the monopoly of Whig literary and

political influence, they doubtless went too far, and sometimes knew it.

Later on, these early defects were acknowledged and analysed, in

_Peter's Letters_, by the authors themselves. Even they, it may be,

hardly realised how much pain they had given, but the almost solemn

words of Lord Cockburn indicate very clearly how intense it must have

been. 'Posterity,' he says, 'can never be made to feel the surprise and

just offence with which, till we were hardened to it, this work was

received. The minute circumstances which impart freshness to slander

soon evaporate; and the arrows that fester in living reputations and in

beating hearts are pointless, or invisible to the eyes of those who

search for them afterwards as curiosities.' It was, in fact, the work

of young and inexperienced men brimful of genius and spirit, but

untaught to discern the dangers in the use of the weapons with which

they played.

*CHAPTER LIV*

Personal Anecdotes of Scott--Washington Irving--The Minister's

Daughter--J. G. Lockhart--His Introduction to Scott--_Annual

Register_--39 Castle Street--Scott's 'Den'--Animal Favourites.

In the autumn of 1817 Washington Irving, with whose _History of New

York_ by Knickerbocker Scott had been greatly charmed, paid a visit to

Abbotsford, and received a hearty welcome. One of the anecdotes told by

Irving of this visit may be given here, as illustrating the beautiful

courtesy and fine sympathetic feeling with which it was Scott's nature

to treat sterling worth and generosity of mind in whatever rank he

discovered it. Irving tells how William Laidlaw and his wife came to

dinner one day, accompanied by a lady friend. He observed with some

curiosity that this by no means extraordinary person, who was

middle-aged and only remarkable for her intellectual qualities, was

treated by their host with particular attention and courtesy. The

occasion was in fact a specially pleasant one, and the company were made

to feel that they were cherished guests. On their leaving, Scott, to

Irving's great delight, launched into hearty praise of the lady visitor.

The daughter of a Scottish minister, who died in debt, she had been left

an orphan and destitute. She had at once faced the situation with a

brave heart, and though her education was not great, she set up a school

for young children, which soon proved in its way a success. But she

made her own concerns a secondary object. By submitting to all sorts of

privation, she managed to pay off all her father's debts, determined

that no slighting word or evil feeling might humble his memory. And

this was not all. To the martyr's self-sacrifice she added a divine

benevolence. To some who once had been kind to her father and were now

fallen on evil days, she did all the service she could by teaching their

little ones without reward or fee. Happily her memory is green in the

eulogy of the great neighbour to whom she was a kindred spirit: 'She's a

fine old Scotch girl, and I delight in her more than in many a fine lady

I have known, and I have known many of the finest.'

It was in the following year, in May 1818, that John Gibson Lockhart,

then a young barrister with pronounced literary leanings, was first

introduced to Scott. It was the moment when, as the great biographer

himself has eloquently put it, 'Scott's position was, take it for all in

all, what no other man had ever won for himself by the pen alone. His

works were the daily food, not only of his countrymen, but of all

educated Europe. His society was courted by whatever England could show

of eminence. Station, power, wealth, beauty, and genius, strove with

each other in every demonstration of respect and worship, and--a few

political fanatics and envious poetasters apart--wherever he appeared in

town or country, whoever had Scotch blood in him, "gentle or simple,"

felt it move more rapidly through his veins when he was in the presence

of Scott.' But in the midst of this blaze of glory, and while he was

dreaming dreams of fortune and family pride, what was it that struck the

most keen-eyed of critics when he first saw his hero? Only the plain

easy modesty, the kindness of heart which _pervaded_ every word, tone,

and gesture, the simple qualities which made him 'loved more and more'

by his earliest friends. It was at the house of Mr. Home Drummond, a

grandson of Lord Kames, that the meeting took place. Like every other

literary aspirant, Lockhart was astonished and gratified by the

cordiality and kindly appreciation of the elder writer. 'When the

ladies' (he says) 'retired from the dinner-table, I happened to sit next

him; and he, having heard that I had lately returned from a tour in

Germany, made that country and its recent literature the subject of some

conversation. In the course of it, I told him that when, on reaching

the inn at Weimar, I asked the waiter whether Goethe was then in the

town, the man stared as if he had not heard the name before; and that,

on my repeating the question, adding _Goethe der grosse Dichter_, he

shook his head as doubtfully as before--until the landlord solved our

difficulties, by suggesting that perhaps the traveller might mean "_Herr

Geheimer-Rath_ (Privy Councillor) _von Goethe_."--Scott seemed amused

with this and said, "I hope you will come one of these days and see me

at Abbotsford; and when you reach Selkirk or Melrose, be sure you ask

even the landlady for nobody but _the Sheriff_." I mentioned how much

any one must be struck with the majestic beauty of Goethe's

countenance--the noblest certainly by far that I have ever yet

seen--"Well," said he, "the grandest demi-god I ever saw was Dr.

Carlyle, minister of Musselburgh, commonly called _Jupiter Carlyle_,

from having sat more than once for the king of gods and men to Gavin

Hamilton--and a shrewd, clever old carle was he, no doubt, but no more a

poet than his precentor. As for poets, I have seen, I believe, all the

best of our own time and country--and though Burns had the most glorious

eyes imaginable, I never thought any of them would come up to an

artist's notion of the character, except Byron."'

Soon after this Lockhart was, on Scott's recommendation, invited by the

Ballantynes to take Scott's place in working up the historical part of

their _Annual Register_. Thus they met pretty frequently during the

ensuing summer session, a circumstance to which we owe Lockhart's very

complete and first-hand description of Scott's working 'den' at 39

Castle Street and of his social life at this period. The den was a

small square back-room behind the dining parlour. It looked out upon a

dull back-yard with a small square of turf. The walls of the room were

lined with books, mostly stately folios and quartos beautifully kept, as

befitted a lover of books. There was one massive table, on which was

his own desk, and one opposite for an occasional amanuensis. On the top

lay his law papers, while his MSS., letters, and proof-sheets were under

his hand on the desk below. Before the desk stood his large

elbow-chair, and there were only two other chairs in the room. Beside

the window was a pile of green tin boxes, on the top of which was a

fox's tail mounted on a handle of old silver and used for dusting the

top of a book as occasion required. He had a ladder for scaling the

high shelves, which is described as 'low, broad, well carpeted, and

strongly guarded with oaken rails.' His living companions in his den

were usually a venerable tom-cat called Hinse, which had a liking for

the top of the ladder, and the noble stag-hound Maida, whose lair was on

the hearth-rug. 'I venture to say' (Lockhart remarks) 'that Scott was

never five minutes in any room before the little pets of the family,

whether dumb or lisping, had found out his kindness for all their

generation.'

In conversation among his friends, Scott was always natural, sensible,

and good-humoured. His ideal society, as we have seen, was the simple

but high-toned friendliness, with courtly attention to old manners and

customs of the social board--the ways of the old-fashioned generation

before 1800, when Edinburgh society still took its tone from the

Scottish aristocracy and gentry. After this period Edinburgh table-talk

and manners were led by the lawyers. Men shone in society by contests

of dialectics, brilliant disquisitions, 'such as might be transferred

without alteration to the pages of a critical review.' Scott was of

another world from this. He admired the dexterity and skill displayed,

but he was not tempted to take part. It lacked the touch of nature

which would have made him acknowledge kin. So everybody else was

satisfied, and Scott was not displeased. The great poet, the writer of

conversations which had heightened the gaiety of millions, was perfectly

content to be considered inferior as a table-companion to 'this or that

master of luminous dissertation or quick rejoinder, who now sleeps as

forgotten as his grandmother.' To appreciate, it is necessary to know

something and to sympathise. The persons who called Scott's conversation

'common-place' were practically comparing the Waverley Novels to Dugald

Stewart's lectures, and would have denounced Shakespeare for making up

his _Hamlet_ out of popular quotations. It was 'ignorance, madam, pure

ignorance,' without the wit to acknowledge, and in many cases political

prejudice was also present. To one of the latter Lockhart heard Lord

Cockburn nobly reply: 'I have the misfortune to think differently from

you; in my humble opinion, Walter Scott's _sense_ is a still more

wonderful thing than his _genius_.' Nothing could be better: a noble

and excellent saying. And to similar effect in his _Memorials_ he

testifies that scarcely even in his novels was Scott more striking or

delightful than in society; where his halting limb, the bur in the

throat, the heavy cheeks, the high Goldsmith-forehead, the unkempt

locks, and general plainness of appearance, with the Scotch accent and

stories and sayings, all graced by gaiety, simplicity, and kindness,

made a combination most worthy of being enjoyed.

*CHAPTER LV*

Scotland Edinburgh Society--Lockhart's Opinion--Scott's Drives in

Edinburgh--Love of Antiquities--The Sunday Dinners at 39 Castle

Street--The Maclean Clephanes--Erskine, Clerk, C. K. Sharpe, Sir A.

Boswell, W. Allan,--Favourite Dishes.

Ignorant prejudice gradually disappeared. The charm of Scott's

conversation was found to be as great, in fact the same, as that of his

writings. Mingling with and wishing to emulate London society, Edinburgh

great folks came to understand that social intercourse ought to aim at

enjoyment and relaxation, not at the display of alleged wit and amateur

disquisitions on speculative themes. Then they discovered that Scott's

easy, natural humour, his ever-ready and picturesque descriptions, his

quaint old-world sayings and diverting sketches and anecdotes, nay, his

very prejudices, always honest and so very lovable when understood to

their foundation, were unique treasures even from the narrowest point of

view. This was what all, long before 1818, recognised whose opinion was

worth considering. But Lockhart, who had the best means of knowing, as

being himself 'one of them,' says that even then the old theory, that

Scott's conversation was 'commonplace,' lingered on in the general

opinion of the city, especially among the smart praters of the _Outer

House_. Of course it was the cue of these praters to differ from their

elders, and few of them, after all, had perhaps enjoyed what they made a

boast of affecting to depreciate. Lockhart, who was certainly in the

Whig sense the strongest _intellect_ that ever adorned Edinburgh, both

enjoyed and appreciated. And fortunately for us _minores_, he has told

what he saw and rejoiced in. He says: 'It was impossible to listen to

Scott's oral narrations, whether gay or serious, or to the felicitous

fun with which he parried absurdities of all sorts, without discovering

better qualities in his talk than _wit_--and of a higher order; I mean

especially a power of _vivid painting_--the true and primary sense of

what is called _Imagination_. He was like Jacques--though not a

"Melancholy Jacques"; and "moralised" a common topic into a "thousand

similitudes." Shakespeare and the banished Duke would have found him

"full of matter." He disliked mere disquisitions in Edinburgh, and

prepared _impromptus_ in London; and puzzled the promoters of such

things sometimes by placid silence, sometimes by broad merriment. To

such men he seemed _common-place_--not so to the most dexterous masters

in what was to some of them almost a science; not so to Rose, Hallam,

Moore, or Rogers,--to Ellis, Mackintosh, Croker, or Canning.'

When in Edinburgh, Scott's only formal outing was an afternoon drive in

an open carriage, sometimes to Blackford Hill, or Ravelston, and so home

by Corstorphine, sometimes to Portobello, keeping as close as possible

to the sea. An old man who died last year (1905) used to tell how, when

he was a boy, he remembered Scott alighting and coming some distance

across a field to speak a few kind words to him and ask after his

parents, in whom he took an interest. When he went home, his mother

told him about the great man and bade her son remember that day, for if

he lived to be an old man, he would be proud to talk of it to his

children's children. As he drove through the city, it was Scott's

greatest enjoyment to gaze and muse upon its natural beauties, and

especially its remaining antiquities. He would often make a long

circuit in order, as Lockhart observed, 'to spend a few minutes on the

vacant esplanade of Holyrood, or under the darkest shadows of the Castle

rock, where it overhangs the Grassmarket, and the huge slab that still

marks where the gibbet of Porteous and the Covenanters had its station.

His coachman knew him too well to move at a Jehu's pace amidst such

scenes as these. No funeral hearse crept more leisurely than did his

landau up the Canongate or the Cowgate; and not a queer tottering gable

but recalled to him some long-buried memory of splendour or bloodshed,

which, by a few words, he set before the hearer in the reality of life.

His image is so associated in my mind with the antiquities of his native

place, that I cannot now revisit them without feeling as if I were

treading on his gravestone.'

But of all pleasant memories of the Master well-beloved, the most

delightful to conjure up is that of the good Clerk as host at the Sunday

'dinner without the silver dishes,' as he was wont to call it. It was

always a gathering of dear and long-cherished friends. All were

delighted to meet, and all were prepared to be happy. Gladdest of all

was their host, who came into the room 'rubbing his hands, his face

bright and gleesome, like a boy arriving at home for the holidays, his

Peppers and Mustards gambolling about his heels, and even the stately

Maida grinning and wagging his tail in sympathy.' Most of the intimates

who came to these parties have already been mentioned. There was Mrs.

Maclean Clephane, with whom Scott would playfully dispute on the subject

of Ossian. Her daughters would accompany her, to delight all,

especially Scott, with the poetry and music of their native isles. They

had made him their guardian by their own choice, and were loved for

their own sakes. The eldest was that Lady Crompton with whom, as he

tells in the _Journal_, he travelled to Glasgow in September 1827, and

had 'as pleasant a journey as the kindness, wit, and accomplishments of

my companion could make it.' When they reached Glasgow, they met, at

the Buck's Head, Mrs. Maclean Clephane and her two daughters. He

mentions that after dinner the ladies sang, 'particularly Aunt Jane, who

has more taste and talent than half the people going with great

reputations on their backs.' Then there were the Skenes, the Macdonald

Buchanans, and all the _nieces_ and _nephews_ of the Clerks' table

alliance. 'The well-beloved Erskine,' says Lockhart, 'was seldom

absent; and very often Terry or James Ballantyne came with

him--sometimes, though less frequently, Constable. To say nothing of

such old cronies as Clerk, Thomson, and Kirkpatrick Sharpe.' It was of

his boyhood's friend and mentor, Clerk, that Scott said he feared he

would leave the world little more than the report of his fame. It was

his opinion, as well as that of other competent judges, that he had

never met a man of greater powers than Clerk. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe

was also regarded by Scott very highly, and is sketched in a lively page

in the _Journal_, 1825. His effeminacy of voice, his clever and

fanciful drawings--which he was too aristocratic to use for increasing

his small income--his odd curiosity for scandal centuries old, made

Sharpe a very remarkable figure. 'My idea is' (says Scott) 'that C. K.

S. with his oddities, tastes, satire, and high aristocratic feelings,

resembles Horace Walpole--perhaps in his person also, in a general way.'

Lockhart mentions also Sir Alexander Boswell, author of the humorous

song, _Jeannie dang the Weaver_, and a great bibliomaniac, Sir Alexander

Don of Newton, 'the model of a cavalier,' and William Allan, R.A., whom

Scott calls a very agreeable, simple-mannered, and pleasant man. Allan

became Sir William, President of the Royal Scottish Academy from 1838 to

1850. In July 1826 Scott mentions his having been to see Allan's

picture of 'the Landing of Queen Mary.' Three or four of these friends,

with Scott and his family, took their places every Sunday at the 'plain

dinner' in No. 39 Castle Street.

Scott kept a bounteously loaded table. He was himself a hearty eater,

preferring plain substantial fare. He was not a gourmand, still less a

glutton. His one good meal was breakfast. At dinner his appetite was

neither keen nor nice. 'The only dishes he was at all fond of were the

old-fashioned ones to which he had been accustomed in the days of

Saunders Fairford.' Readers of the Novels have heard of them all, and

few will forget the conclusion of the _Fortunes of Nigel_: 'My lords and

lieges, let us all to our dinner, for the _cock-a-leekie_ is cooling.'

*CHAPTER LVI*

The National Monument--Still incomplete--The Salisbury Crags--Danger of

their Destruction--The Path impassable--Construction of the Radical

Road--National Distress--Trials for Sedition--Anecdote of John

Clerk--The City Guard.

As a landmark of modern Edinburgh, the National Monument must now be

noticed. Its twelve massy columns of white Craigleith stone are

familiar to all who have spent an hour in the city. The idea of it

dates from 1816, for it was intended to commemorate Scotland's share in

the triumphs of the great war. During the following years it was often

discussed. The original proposal was to erect a lofty pillar. Then, as

we learn from Lord Cockburn, 'there were some who thought that the

prevailing effervescence of military patriotism created a good

opportunity for improving the public taste by the erection of a great

architectural model. The Temple of Minerva, placed on the Calton Hill,

struck their imaginations, and though they had no expectation of being

able to realise the magnificent conception, they resolved, by beginning,

to bring it within the vision of a distant practicability. What, if

any, age would finish it, they could not tell; but having got a site, a

statute, and about L20,000, they had the honour of commencing it.' The

hour of its completion has not arrived yet. Nearly a century has elapsed

since George IV. laid the foundation stone in 1822. Perhaps on the

occurrence of the centenary the project may once more lay hold of the

public imagination. At least the 'distant practicability' remains.

Imposing and sublime possibility! Perhaps, in an era of colossal

fortunes, some INDIVIDUAL may anticipate the city--engrossed with its

Usher Hall and water-fleas--and capture the national glory to crown with

immortality his own proud name.

One noble feature of our scenery was completed about this time by the

walk round the Salisbury Crags. When Henry Cockburn as a boy of nine

scrambled, as he tells us, for the first time to the top of that

romantic cliff, the path at its base was not six feet wide, while at

places there was no path at all. Between that time and the year 1816

certain persons quarried the rock to such an extent that what was

formerly a narrow footpath became, in many places, one hundred feet

wide. This impudent theft of public property would shortly have

destroyed the whole face of the rock. Fortunately the depredators were

stopped in time, and Edinburgh preserved at once a remarkable piece of

geological 'testimony,' and one of its finest natural features.

Cockburn records that Henry Brougham, 'who as a boy had often clambered

among these glorious rocks,' then, in the capacity of Lord Chancellor,

pronounced the judgment which finally saved a remnant of the Crags. The

old path is mentioned by Scott in the _Heart of Midlothian_ (Chap.

VIII.) as having been his favourite evening and morning resort, when

engaged with a favourite author or new subject of study. And he added

to his enthusiastic description of the view from the Salisbury Crags a

brief and mildly expressed reproach. 'It is, I am informed, now (1818)

become totally impassable; a circumstance which, if true, reflects

little credit on the taste of the Good Town or its leaders.' In a note,

added in a later addition, he says, 'A beautiful and solid pathway has,

within a few years, been formed around these romantic rocks; and the

author has the pleasure to think that the passage in the text gave rise

to the undertaking.' This was indeed the case; but, strange to say, the

path thus due to Sir Walter Scott got the name of the _Radical Road_.

In 1820, it appears, the 'unemployed' question was flagrant. The men,

stimulated by Radicals, were becoming dangerous, when Scott's happy

suggestion solved the problem by providing them with a substantial piece

of work. The discontent was allayed, and the road was constructed by

these vigorous Radicals. The name of the _Salisbury Crags_ commemorates

the English invasion of 1336. King Edward III.'s forces were commanded

by the famous Earl of Salisbury, who encamped on the Crags, and thus

gave the spot its foreign name.[1]

[1] James Grant, however, gives a Gaelic derivation of the name.

The distress which followed as a natural consequence of the prolonged

strain of the war, was in those years very severe. Outbreaks of

seditious talk were common in England, and led to many serious

disturbances. In Scotland they were fewer, because the law still made

transportation the penalty for this offence. There were, however, some

prosecutions for sedition, and in connection with the first of these, in

1817, Cockburn, who was, with Jeffrey, counsel for one of the

defendants, tells a characteristic anecdote of John Clerk, who was

counsel for another of the accused, along with James Campbell of

Craigie. 'Campbell called on Clerk on the morning of the trial. He

found him dressing, and in a frenzy at the anticipated iniquities of the

judges; against whom, collectively and individually, there was much slow

dogged vituperation throughout the process of shaving. He had on a

rather dingy-looking nightshirt: but a nice pure shirt was airing before

the fire. When the toilet reached the point at which it was necessary

to decide upon the shirt, instead of at once taking up the clean one, he

stopped and grumphed, and looked at the one and then at the other,

always turning with aversion from the dirty one; and then he approached

the other resolutely, as if his mind was made up; but at last he turned

away from it, saying fiercely, "No, I'll be d--d if I put on a clean

sark _for them_." Accordingly he insulted their Lordships by going to

Court with the foul one. Not like Falkland.'

About the end of the year 1817 Edinburgh streets finally lost the most

picturesque of their official figures. The City Guard, a body first

enrolled in 1696, now retired from view, their functions being better

fulfilled by the new police, and Robert Fergusson's well-known lines

became superfluous:

'Gude folk, as ye come frae the fair,

Bide yont frae this black squad;

There's nae sic savages elsewhere

Allowed to wear cockad.'

Scott gives a capital description of them in the _Heart of Midlothian_

(Chap. III.), where he says, 'The venerable corps may now be considered

as totally extinct.' From Cockburn we learn that one of these

stern-looking but half-dotard warriors used to sit as guard with the

prisoners at the bar of the Court of Justiciary. 'They sat so immovably,

and looked so severe, with their rugged weather-beaten visages, and hard

muscular trunks, that they were no unfit emblems of the janitors of the

region to which those they guarded were so often consigned. The

disappearance of these picturesque old fellows was a great loss.' He

wished they had been perpetuated, if only as curiosities. They were

probably the last of our soldiers who carried as their special weapon

the old genuine Lochaber axe, which Lord Cockburn styles 'a delightful

implement.' Fergusson, who saw its virtues in a more practical way,

speaks of the 'deadly paiks,' or blows, freely dealt by the hot-tempered

veterans.

'Gie not her bairns sic deadly paiks,

Nor be sae rude,

Wi' firelock or Lochaber axe,

As spill their bluid.'

Their last march (as mentioned in Scott's note) to do duty at

Hallow-fair, had something affecting in it. Their drums and fifes had

been wont on better days to play, on this joyous occasion, the lively

tune of _Jockey to the Fair_; but on this final occasion the afflicted

veterans moved slowly to the dirge of _The last time I came ower the

muir_. They were always greatly disliked by the commons of Edinburgh,

who never spoke of them by any better name than the loathsome

appellation 'the Toon Rottens' (Rats).

*CHAPTER LVII*

Scott and the Ballantynes--James in the Canongate--Ceremonies at the

'Waverley' Dinners--Reading of Scenes from the New Volume--John at

Trinity--His 'Bower of Bliss'--Anecdote by C. Mathews.

At this distance of time it is difficult either to understand or to

condone the wilful delusion in which Scott persisted to regard the two

reckless adventurers, James and John Ballantyne. They were lowborn and

vulgar: his deep-seated aristocratic feelings should have kept them at a

distance. They were utterly devoid of business capacity: his natural

shrewdness ought to have seen through them. They were neglectful of

duty: his own tireless devotion to work ought to have made him despise

them. But they were friends of his boyhood, and he loved them. James

was a shrewd critic and an excellent amanuensis, and Scott trusted his

judgment and enjoyed his services. John was a humorist, his social

clowning was inimitable, and in these capacities he was emphatically a

man after Scott's own heart. Both of them knew Scott down to the

minutest foible of his simple honest nature. They knew exactly what it

was in themselves which pleased him. All they had to do was to be

themselves--just as he conceived them. And this was what they did, each

in his own way, regardless of expense and consequences. Thus they

maintained a hold over their illustrious dupe, which no studied system

of flattery could have equalled in the case of the weakest and most

foolish of patrons. These two penniless and ruined adventurers lived

lives of splendour and luxury, and neither they nor Scott seemed to

realise or remember that every penny which supported them had come or

would have to come from Scott's estate. The house of James, the elder

brother, was not far from his printing works, No. 10 St. John Street,

Canongate, which had not long ceased to be the most fashionable street

in Edinburgh. Here, in the first house on the west side, was the

meeting-place of the ever-memorable Freemason Lodge, the Canongate

Kilwinning, whose 'poet-laureate' was no less a genius than Scotland's

second glory, Robert Burns. Here, in the town house of the Telfers of

Scotstoun, overlooking the Canongate, resided the greatest of Scottish

novelists after Scott himself, Tobias Smollett, on his last visit to the

capital. No. 13 was the house of Lord Monboddo, and at No. 15 lived the

famous Professor Gregory, already mentioned. The Kelso adventurer lived

here in grand style, a mighty city magnate, highly decorous and

respectable. It was his role, and his playing of it was admirable,

because it was simply his nature and bent: that he was at any moment

entirely ignorant of his real insolvency, or entirely unconscious of the

horror that he was accumulating for the most unselfish of friends, one

may be excused for doubting. Every one has heard of James Ballantyne's

famous dinners--a not uninteresting part of the story of the Waverley

Novels. He assembled all his own particular literary friends, and Scott

was among the company. It was James's delight to mention the author of

_Waverley_ always in mystic tones as 'the Great Unknown,' and the whole

affair must have been intensely amusing to the real author, who sat and

took part in the proceedings with smiles of good humour. After what the

host himself justly called a _gorgeous_ dinner, and after toasting the

company, the King, and Mr. Walter Scott, the ladies who might be present

retired, and the great 'business' of the little comedy began. Lockhart,

as an eyewitness, quaintly describes the scene: 'Then James rose once

more, every vein on his brow distended, his eyes solemnly fixed upon

vacancy, to propose, not as before in his stentorian key, but "with

bated breath," in the sort of whisper by which a stage conspirator

thrills the gallery--"_Gentlemen, a bumper to the immortal Author of_

Waverley!"--The uproar of cheering, in which Scott made a fashion of

joining, was succeeded by deep silence, and then Ballantyne proceeded--

"In his Lord Burleigh look, serene and serious,

A something of imposing and mysterious"--

to lament the obscurity in which his illustrious but too modest

correspondent still chose to conceal himself from the plaudits of the

world--to thank the company for the manner in which the _nominis umbra_

had been received, and to assure them that the Author of _Waverley_

would, when informed of the circumstance, feel highly delighted--"the

proudest hour of his life," etc. etc. The cool demure fun of Scott's

features during all this mummery was perfect; and Erskine's attempt at a

gay _nonchalance_ was still more ludicrously meritorious.' Upon this

Ballantyne would announce the name of the coming novel, a bumper would

be drained to its success, and that was all. The night 'drove on wi'

sangs and clatter,' till the senior and graver members, including Scott,

had withdrawn. 'Then,' says Lockhart, 'the scene was changed. The

claret and olives made way for broiled bones and a mighty bowl of punch;

and when a few glasses of the hot beverage had restored his powers,

James opened _ore rotunda_ on the merits of the forthcoming romance.

"One chapter--one chapter only,"--was the cry. After "_Nay, by 'r Lady,

nay_," and a few more coy shifts, the proof-sheets were at length

produced, and James, with many a prefatory hem, read aloud what he

considered as the most striking dialogue they contained.' Lockhart was

one of the fortunate company who listened to James, in these

circumstances, reading, from the _Heart of Midlothian_, the interview of

Jeanie Deans with the Queen in Richmond Park. James's declamation,

though marked, of course, by some of his 'pompous tricks,' seems to have

been really effective. The sitting ended with the 'Death of Marmion,'

delivered in imitation of the great Braham. Later on, James removed his

household gods to the New Town, No. 3 Heriot Row. The younger brother,

John, was much more original in his ways and doings, and equally

reckless of consequences and expense. He had a little villa in the

French style at Trinity, on the shore of the Firth. The gardens alone

of the ex-needleman must have cost a pretty penny, being laid out with

great art so as to seem of considerable extent, 'with many a shady tuft,

trellised alley, and mysterious alcove, interspersed among their bright

parterres.' His house, as became an auctioneer of curiosities, was

crowded with objects of _vertu_, numberless costly mirrors, and pictures

of a certain class, mostly, in fact, theatrical portraits, especially of

actresses, which were afterwards bought by Charles Mathews for his

gallery at Highgate. The house was furnished like a suburban 'Bower of

Bliss' in London or Paris, and had a private wing which his wife was

most effectively debarred from entering. If Bluebeard, the clumsy

villain, had only enjoyed the services of this clever, resourceful

voluptuary, he would have been able to shun the society of his

successive 'cleaving michiefs' without having recourse to tragic

methods. Johnnie, in fact, could have taught Milton a trick of

'defensive armour,' within which not even a wife could penetrate. This

was his ingenious plan: he made every door of entrance into the sacred

wing just so narrow as to render it absolutely impossible for Mrs.

Ballantyne to squeeze her body through. One can fancy the arrangement

giving rise to awkward difficulties, but its efficiency for the main

purpose was admirable. It was worthy of a Duc de Richelieu rather than

an ex-tailor. Johnnie's festive parties at Trinity were the great

social attraction of Edinburgh to the theatrical people of his day.

Mathews, Braham, Kean, and Kemble were all frequent guests when acting

in Edinburgh. In Mathews' _Memoirs_ there is an anecdote of John

Ballantyne which is of interest in itself, while happily illustrative of

the character of _Wee Johnny_. Ballantyne, Constable, and Terry were

dining with the Mathews family, when John, who had a certain indiscreet

vivacity when the wine began to affect him, was talking to Mathews about

some books, and concluded by saying, 'I shall soon send you _Scott's new

novel_.' The effect may be imagined, especially on Constable. 'He,'

says Mrs. Mathews, 'looked daggers--and Terry used some--for with a

stern brow and a correcting tone, he cried out _John!_ adding with a

growl, like one reproving a mischievous dog,--"Ah, what are you about?"

which made us droop our eyes for the indiscreet tatler; while wee Johnny

looked like an impersonation of _fear_--startled at the "sound himself

had made." Not another word was said: but our little good-natured

friend's lapse was sacred with us, and the secret was never divulged

while it was important to preserve it.'

*CHAPTER LVIII*

Anecdotes of Constable--'The Czar'--Plans the _Magnum Opus_--Anecdote of

Longmans and Co.--Constable's House and Equipage--John Ballantyne's

Habits--Horses and Dogs--Anecdote by Scott of his Liberality--Scott's

Sorrow at his Death.

At John Ballantyne's house in Trinity, his great co-adjutor Constable

was often to be seen. There Lockhart first met him. Struck by the

majestic appearance of the publisher, he made a remark to Scott on

Constable's 'gentlemanlike' (publishers were only 'booksellers' in those

days) 'and distinguished appearance.' 'Ay,' replied Scott, 'Constable

is indeed a grand-looking chield. He puts me in mind of Fielding's

apology for Lady Booby--to wit, that Joseph Andrews had an air which, to

those who had not seen many noblemen, would give an idea of nobility.'

He is said to have been a large feeder and deep drinker: of a violent

temper, but 'easily overawed by people of consequence.' He was, on the

whole, not one of Scott's favourites--a circumstance, however, which was

more owing to the great man's blind partiality for the Ballantynes, with

whom Constable necessarily came into frequent contact. Scott, however,

praises Constable as 'generous and far from bad-hearted.' Among his

brothers of 'the trade' Constable was nicknamed 'the Czar,'and also 'the

Crafty.' Scott declared that Constable was 'the prince of

book-sellers.' He considered that the Crafty knew more of the business

of a bookseller in planning and executing popular works than any man of

his time. His imperious style was natural to the man, and his unaided

rise to eminence in his important calling largely justified his pride.

His share in the blame for the disaster of 1826 was at the time

exaggerated, unfortunately also in the mind of Scott himself. It was

the Ballantyne co-partnery that led to the unfortunate bill

transactions, and the great pity was that both Constable and Scott took

these tragic jokers on their own fictitious valuation. Constable I

believe to have been truly a great man and in all respects a gentleman:

as different in mental qualities as he was in physical dignity from the

bounding brothers of Kelso. Who can fail to admit the genius of the man

who _foresaw_ the value of the Waverley Novels, and who provided Scott

with the greatest consolation of his last sad years--the _magnum opus_

of the collected edition, and thus enabled him to carry out his romantic

resolve to pay the so-called _debts_ to the full? John Ballantyne told

Lockhart a good story of Constable's fondness for bestowing nicknames.

'One day a partner of the house of Longman was dining with him in the

country, to settle an important piece of business, about which there

occurred a good deal of difficulty. "What fine swans you have in your

pond there!" said the Londoner, by way of parenthesis.--"Swans!" cried

Constable; "they are only geese, man. There are just five of them, if

you please to observe, and their names are Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme,

and Brown." This skit cost the Crafty a good bargain.' Lockhart soon

became a frequent visitor at Constable's country seat of Craigcrook

Castle (afterwards tenanted by Francis Jeffrey), and says that he did

the honours of the ancient home of noble Grahams with all the ease that

might have been looked for had he been the long-descended owner of the

place. He greatly admired Constable's 'manly and vigorous'

conversation, full of old Scotch anecdotes, which he told with a spirit

and humour only second to his great author's. 'His very equipage,'

Lockhart adds, 'kept up the series of contrasts between him and the two

Ballantynes. Constable went back and forward between the town and

Polton in a deep-hung and capacious green barouche, without any pretence

at heraldic blazonry, drawn by a pair of sleek, black, long-tailed

horses, and conducted by a grave old coachman in plain blue livery. The

Printer of the Canongate drove himself and his wife about the streets

and suburbs in a snug machine, which did not overburthen one powerful

and steady cob:--while the gay Auctioneer, whenever he left the saddle

for the box, mounted a bright blue dogcart, and rattled down the

Newhaven Road with two high-mettled steeds prancing tandem before him.'

Johnnie, indeed, kept up a good stable, hunted the fox at times, and had

the pleasant whim of naming his numerous steeds after various characters

in Scott's works. His daily mount was a milk-white hunter, y-clept Old

Mortality, and he was always attended by a leash or two of greyhounds,

which he named Die Vernon, Jenny Dennison, and so on. At business he

appeared in sporting half-dress,--'a light-grey frock, with emblems of

the chase on its silver buttons, white cord breeches, and jockey-boots

in Meltonian order.' Scott was a constant frequenter of his auction

rooms in Hanover Street, at the door of which his favourite Maida was to

be seen waiting his arrival from the Court, couched among Johnnie's

greyhounds. Such was the frivolous, but astute, underminer, who

succeeded to the end in maintaining a fatal hold on the great genius,

and finally left him to toil as a slave, often at a loss for money for

mere current expenses, during the last years of what might have been one

of the happiest of lives. It is a melancholy fact, and perhaps, after

all, his own favourite saying fits it best--that often the wisest of men

keep, as it were, the average stock of folly only in reserve, to be

_all_ expended on some one flagrant absurdity. One can at least

understand Scott's affection for John Ballantyne, when one thinks of

such an incident as this, related by Scott himself: 'A poor divinity

student was attending his sale one day, and Johnnie remarked to him that

he looked as if he were in bad health. The young man assented with a

sigh. "Come," said Ballantyne, "I think I ken the secret of a sort of

draft that would relieve you--particularly," he added, handing him a

cheque for L$ or L10--"particularly, my dear, if taken upon an empty

stomach."

John Ballantyne died at Edinburgh in the summer of 1821. Scott and

Lockhart attended his funeral in the Canongate churchyard. 'As we stood

together' (the latter relates), 'while they were smoothing the turf over

John's remains, the heavens, which had been dark and slaty, cleared

suddenly, and the midsummer sun shone forth in his strength. Scott,

ever awake to the "skiey influences," cast his eye along the overhanging

line of the Calton Hill, with its gleaming walls and towers, and then

turning to the grave again, "I feel," he whispered in my ear, "as if

there would be less sunshine for me from this day forth."'

John Ballantyne was thus taken away from the evil to come, but James

lived till 1833. Archibald Constable died on the 21st of July 1827.

His proud spirit could not survive the tremendous downfall of his

splendid fortunes. All his great undertakings, except the _Miscellany_,

had passed from his control. He was reduced to 'an obscure closet of a

shop,' and found himself without either capital or credit to start a new

career. Of all with whom Scott had to do in the business of life, he is

the only man in whose case Scott's natural generosity did not at once

overcome every shadow of well or ill founded resentment or grudge.

*CHAPTER LIX*

The Baronetcy--Reasons for accepting--Marriage of Sophia Scott to John

Gibson Lockhart--Charles Scott and Archdeacon Williams--Improvements in

Edinburgh--The 'Water Caddies'--Drama of _Rob Roy_--The Burns

Dinner--Henry Mackenzie.

It was in the end of the year 1818 that Scott received, through Lord

Sidmouth, intimation of the Prince Regent's desire to confer on him a

baronetcy. When informed of it privately, a few months before this, by

Chief-Commissioner Adam, he had hesitated about accepting such an

honour, feeling that it might dangerously affect the style of living and

the ideas and aspirations of a contented family. However, the sudden

death of Charles Charpentier altered all this. He left, as was

believed, a large fortune, and had settled the reversion on his sister's

family. The inheritance in the end came to nothing, but the expectation

removed Scott's doubts as to accepting the title. His eldest son having

by this time settled to enter the Army, it was obvious that the title

would be of real advantage to him in his profession. We have

fortunately Scott's views expressed in the frankest manner in a letter

to Morritt, and they certainly require no comment. 'It would be easy,'

he says, 'saying a parcel of fine things about my contempt of rank, and

so forth; but although I would not have gone a step out of my way to

have asked, or bought, or begged, or borrowed a distinction, which to me

personally will rather be inconvenient than otherwise, yet coming as it

does directly from the source of feudal honours, and as an honour, I am

really gratified with it;--especially as it is intimated that it is His

Royal Highness's pleasure to heat the oven for me expressly, without

waiting till he has some new _batch_ of Baronets ready in dough....

After all, if one must speak for themselves, I have my quarters and

emblazonments, free of all stain but Border theft and High Treason,

which I hope are gentlemanlike crimes; and I hope Sir Walter Scott will

not sound worse than Sir Humphry Davy, though my merits are as much

under his, in point of utility, as can well be imagined. But a name is

something, and mine is the better of the two.' It was not till March

1820 that he was able to go to London, having been prevented by illness

at one time, and on a second proposed occasion by family afflictions.

When he did go to London, his admirer was King George the Fourth. To

him, at all events, the event was an honour and a credit, for it

proceeded entirely from himself. His greeting to the new Baronet was,

'I shall always reflect with pleasure on Sir Walter Scott's having been

the first creation of my reign.' Shortly after this the two English

Universities offered him the honorary degree of D.C.L. He was never

able to avail himself of either offer.

On the 29th of April in this year, his daughter Sophia was married to

John Gibson Lockhart. The son-in-law mentions that Sir Walter hastened

his return from London--he had been sitting to Lawrence at the King's

request--in order to get the marriage over before the unlucky month of

May. Lockhart says too little of his own affairs, but he mentions that

the wedding took place, _more Scotico_, in the evening, and that Sir

Walter, adhering on all such occasions to ancient modes of observance

with the same punctiliousness which he mentions as distinguishing his

worthy father, gave a jolly supper afterwards to all the friends and

connections of the young couple.

Towards the end of the year the second son, Charles, also left the

family circle. He went to Lampeter to be under the celebrated scholar

John Williams, afterwards Archdeacon of Cardigan. Mr. Williams, who

became Rector of the Edinburgh Academy in 1824, was much appreciated by

Scott, not only for his erudition, but as being 'always pleasant

company.' At another time he calls him 'a heaven-born teacher.'

We may mention here another item in the constant process of modernising

the city. About this time a strong feeling was growing, and even

obtaining vent in public, against the sway of the Town Council. The

position of Edinburgh, 'always thirsty and unwashed,' was then, by Lord

Cockburn's account, in reference to water positively frightful. The

wretched shallow tank on the north side of the Pentlands, the only

source of supply, was often and for long periods empty. But the Town

Council would do nothing. A private company was therefore formed, and

the supply began to be regular. Then water-pipes were put into private

houses, and the ancient fraternity of water-carriers found their

occupation gone. 'In a very few years,' says Cockburn, 'there was not

one extant. They were a very curious tribe, consisting of both men and

women, but the former were perhaps the more numerous. Their days were

passed in climbing up lofty stairs to the "flats." The little casks of

water, when filled from the street wells, were slung upon their backs,

suspended by a leather strap, which was held in front by the hand. They

acquired a stopping attitude, by which they were easily recognised even

when off duty. They were all rather old, and seemed little; but this

last might be owing to their stooping. The men very generally had old

red jackets, probably the remnants of the Highland Watch, or of the City

Guard; and the women were always covered with thick duffle greatcoats,

and wore black hats like the men. Every house had its favourite "Water

Caddie." The fee (I believe) was a penny per barrel. In spite of their

splashy lives and public-well discussions, they were rather civil, and

very cracky creatures. What fretted them most was being obstructed in

going up a stair; and their occasionally tottering legs testified that

they had no bigotry against qualifying the water with a little whisky.

They never plied between Saturday night and Monday morning; that is,

their employers had bad hot water all Sunday. These bodies were such

favourites, that the extinction of their trade was urged seriously as a

reason against water being allowed to get into our houses in its own

way.'

In February 1819 a dramatised version of _Rob Roy_ was played in the

Edinburgh Theatre. The Bailie was played by the famous actor Charles

Mackay, who, being a native of Glasgow, was able to do full justice to

the dialect and all the little amusing peculiarities of the character.

Scott is said to have been greatly interested in this representation of

his story, and Lockhart says 'it was extremely diverting to watch the

play of his features during Mackay's admirable realisation of his

conception.' On his benefit night 'the Bailie' received an epistle of

kind congratulation from no less a personage than Jedediah Cleishbotham.

It is worth mentioning that, though his fellow-citizens greeted him on

entering his box with 'some mark of general respect and admiration,'

there was never anything said or done to embarrass him as hinting at his

authorship of the play.

While _Rob Roy_ was enjoying its successful run, a party of two or three

hundred Edinburgh gentlemen met, on February 22nd, at what has since

become the national cult--a Burns dinner. This function was

distinguished by a short speech from the veteran 'Man of Feeling,' who

had welcomed Burns and praised his genius more than thirty years before.

Scott's feeling towards Burns was one of constantly increasing

admiration. 'Long life to thy fame' (he says in his _Journal_) 'and

peace to thy soul, Rob Burns! When I want to express a sentiment which

I feel strongly, I find the phrase in Shakespeare--or thee.' For Henry

Mackenzie he had a strong regard. The old man surprised him by

unfolding literary schemes in his old age. He loved to unbosom himself

to Scott, and called him his 'literary confessor,' and 'I am sure' (said

the patient victim) 'I am glad to return the kindnesses which he showed

me long since in George Square.' Scott's description of the veteran in

1825 is as follows: 'No man is less known from his writings. We would

suppose a retired, modest, somewhat affected man, with a white

handkerchief and a sigh ready for every sentiment. No such thing: H. M.

is alert as a contracting tailor's needle in every sort of business--a

politician and a sportsman--shoots and fishes in a sort even to this

day--and is the life of the company with anecdote and fun. Sometimes,

his daughter tells me, he is in low spirits at home, but really I never

see anything of it in society.

In January 1831 Scott got the news of Henry Mackenzie's death. By this

time Scott was contemplating the near approach of his own end, but he

can still spare a regret for the old man, 'gayest of the gay, though

most sensitive of the sentimental,' who had so long filled a niche in

Scottish literature.

*CHAPTER LX*

The Commercial Disaster--Ruin of Ballantyne (Scott) and

Constable--Scott's Feeling--Universal Sympathy--Offer of Help--Brave

Reply--Cheerful Spirit--Constable--The Agreement--Removal from Castle

Street--Death of Lady Scott--The Visit to Paris.

James Ballantyne on his deathbed declared that all the appearances of

his prosperity were merely shadows. But Scott up to the end of 1825 had

no idea of the magnitude of the crisis that had been so long preparing.

On the 18th of December in that year he penned in his _Journal_ that

melancholy summary of his career: 'What a life mine has been!

Half-educated, almost wholly neglected or left to myself; stuffing my

head with most nonsensical trash, and undervalued by most of my

companions for a time; getting forward, and held a bold and clever

fellow, contrary to the opinion of all who thought me a mere dreamer;

broken-hearted for two years; my heart handsomely pieced again--but the

crack will remain till my dying day. Rich and poor four or five times;

once on the verge of ruin, yet opened a new source of wealth almost

overflowing. Now to be broken in my pitch of pride.... Nobody in the

end can lose a penny by me--that is one comfort.' Following entries

prove that Ballantyne professed confidence. Even on 14th January, when

Scott had received 'an odd mysterious letter' from Constable, hinting

calamity, James had no doubts! On Tuesday the 17th the blow fell.

Ballantyne came in the morning to say that he had arranged to stop. His

own account of the interview is: 'It was between eight and nine in the

morning that I made the final communication. No doubt he was greatly

stunned--but, upon the whole, he bore it with wonderful fortitude. He

asked--"Well, what is the actual step we must first take? I suppose we

must do something?" I reminded him that two or three thousand pounds

were due that day, so that we had only to do what we must do--refuse

payment--to bring the disclosure sufficiently before the world. He took

leave of me with these striking words--"Well, James, depend upon that, I

will never forsake you."'

In the _Journal_ of that day--'I felt rather sneaking as I came home

from the Parliament House--felt as if I were liable _monstrari digito_

in no very pleasant way. But this must be borne _cum caeteris_.' On

which Lord Cockburn remarks: 'very natural for him to feel so; but it

was the feeling of nobody else.'

From Cockburn's pages we can realise the astounding effect of the news

of Scott's implication in the disaster upon his friends and

fellow-citizens. The 'black Tuesday' became a recollection of sadness

and pain to all who personally knew him. The destruction of half the

city could not have caused greater astonishment and sorrow. His

professional brethren now for the first time learned that Scott had

'dabbled in trade.' 'How humbled,' says Cockburn, 'we felt when we saw

him--the pride of us all--dashed from his lofty and honourable station,

and all the fruits of his well-worked talents gone. He had not then

even a political enemy. There was not one of those whom his

thoughtlessness had so sorely provoked, who would not have given every

spare farthing he possessed to retrieve Sir Walter. Well do I remember

his first appearance after this calamity was divulged, when he walked

into Court one day in January 1826. There was no affectation, and no

reality, of _facing it_; no look of indifference or defiance; but the

manly and modest air of a gentleman conscious of some folly, but of

perfect rectitude, and of most heroic and honourable resolutions. It

was on that very day, I believe, that he said a very fine thing. Some

of his friends offered him, or rather proposed to offer him, enough of

money, as was supposed, to enable him to arrange with his creditors. He

paused for a moment; and then, recollecting his powers, said

proudly--"No! this right hand shall work it all off." His friend

William Clerk supped with him one night after his ruin was declared.

They discussed the whole affair openly and playfully; till at last they

laughed over their noggins at the change, and Sir Walter observed that

he felt something like Lambert and the other Regicides, who, Pepys says,

when he saw them going to be hanged and quartered, were as cheerful and

comfortable as any gentlemen could be in that situation.'

This probably refers to the evening, mentioned in Scott's _Journal_,

when his daughter was very greatly surprised by the loud hilarity of

Clerk and his host. 'But do people suppose,' adds Scott, 'that he was

less sorry for his poor sister,[1] or I for my lost fortune?' He

declares that pride was his strongest passion--a passion which never

hinged upon world's gear, which was always with him--light come, light

go!

[1] Miss Elizabeth Clerk's sudden death had also occurred on the 17th of

January.

Constable had stood like a hero in the breach to the last moment. His

last device, a good one if he could have by magic imparted his own

knowledge, foresight, and sublime faith to a board of directors, was to

take Lockhart (in the capacity of a confidential friend of the author of

_Waverley_) with him to the Bank of England, and to apply for a loan of

from L100,000 to L200,000 on the security of the copyrights. These, it

must be remembered, were the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, half of the

_Edinburgh Review_, nearly all Scott's poetry, the Waverley Novels, and

the _Life of Napoleon_, on which Scott was at the time working.

Lockhart refused to interfere without direct instructions from Sir

Walter. Poor Constable, he says, became livid with rage.

The claims against Scott were found in the end to amount to L130,000.

All the world knows the course Scott elected to take; how he at once put

his affairs in the hands of trustees, and became, by his own offer, the

vassal of his creditors for life, toiling henceforward to pay their

claims, not to enrich himself. From his side it was a noble sacrifice,

as noble as any ever offered on the altar of honour. If the debts had

been real, if he had actually had in possession the sum and used it, no

other course would have been possible _salvo honore_. But commercial

debts, the largely fictitious product of stamps and paper, should have

been paid commercially. Such a course, he himself said, he might have

advised a client to take, and it would have saved him much sorrow, pain,

and trouble, without harming any man. However, he preferred it

otherwise, and received the news of the acceptance of his offer as if it

had been a mighty favour. He wrote in his _Journal_: 'This is handsome

and confidential, and must warm my best efforts to get them out of the

scrape.'

The agreement was finally, not of course without harassment and

difficulty, passed. He was left in possession of Abbotsford, his

official salary was left him to support his family, everything else was

sold for behoof of the creditors, and all his future literary gains were

assigned to them in advance. On March 15th he left his house in Castle

Street, and on that night he wrote in his _Journal_: 'I never reckoned

upon a change in this particular so long as I held an office in the

Court of Session. In all my former changes of residence it was from

good to better--this is retrograding. I leave this house for sale, and

I cease to be an Edinburgh citizen, in the sense of being a proprietor,

which my father and I have been for sixty years at least. So farewell,

poor 39, and may you never harbour worse people than those who now leave

you.'

Very soon after the departure from Castle Street a second calamity,

probably hastened by the former, overtook the family. Lady Scott died

at Abbotsford on the 14th of May. Scott, who was engaged in his Court

duties at Edinburgh, and staying now in Mrs. Brown's lodgings, North St.

David Street, reached Abbotsford late in the evening of the 15th. His

weakly daughter Anne, worn out with attendance, was hysterical when he

arrived. The entries in his _Journal_ are sadly touching: 'When I

contrast what this place now is with what it has been not long since, I

think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of my family--all but

poor Anne; an impoverished, an embarrassed man, deprived of the sharer

of my thoughts, who could always talk down my sense of the calamitous

apprehensions which break the heart that must bear them alone.'

The funeral took place on the 22nd at Dryburgh. Scott mentions very

kindly the Rev. E. B. Ramsay, who performed the funeral service. This

gentleman afterwards became famous, when Dean of Edinburgh, by his

well-known book _Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life_.

And now Scott found the task he had imposed upon himself bracing him

against despondency. He returned to Edinburgh and his old 'task,'

thankful that it was of a graver nature (the _Life of Napoleon_), and

determined to fight on 'for the sake of the children and of my own

character.'

A visit to London and Paris was necessitated in October by his work on

Napoleon. The change did him good, and Lockhart mentions that his

behaviour under misfortunes so terrible had gained for him 'a deep and

respectful sympathy, which was brought home to him in a way not to be

mistaken.' This expedition for information had cost him L200--a matter

for serious consideration in his changed circumstances.

*CHAPTER LXI*

House in Walker Street--Ill-health--Extraordinary Labours--Article on

Hoffman--Kindness to Literary People--Murray's Party--Theatrical Fund

Dinner--_Life of Napoleon_--Payment of L28,000 to Creditors--The

Lockharts at Portobello--Grandfather's Tales--Domestic Happiness--Visit

of Adolphus.

On resuming his duties in Edinburgh at the end of November (1826), Scott

went to reside in a furnished house in Walker Street, which he had taken

for the winter. In his _Journal_, 27th November, he says: 'Walter came

and supped with us, which diverted some heavy thoughts. It is

impossible not to compare this return to Edinburgh with others in more

happy times. But we should rather recollect under what distress of mind

I took up my lodgings in Mrs. Brown's last summer, and then the balance

weighs deeply on the favourable side. This house is comfortable and

convenient.' It was for the sake of his daughter's company that he had

taken this house. The winter, however, proved a weary time. His

incessant toil at his _Napoleon_ was hampered by continual

ill-health--successive attacks of rheumatism, which might well have

excused him from work of any kind. But his watchword was, 'I am now at

my oar, and I must row hard.' To crown all his troubles, the weather

was exceptionally cold and trying. He could not but think often of the

days when rain and cold and long night journeys did him no harm, and he

was painfully conscious of a speedy break-up of the hard-wrought

machine. Bad nights were the rule, and he was sometimes sick with mere

pain. Sometimes he notes his work, proof-sheets and the like, as

'finished mechanically.' 'All well,' he ends up on 21st December, 'if

the machine would but keep in order, but "The spinning-wheel is auld and

stiff." I shall never see the threescore and ten, and shall be summed

up at a discount. No help for it, and no matter either.' Yet, even in

these circumstances, he wrote more than his task. One of these minor

pieces was an article on Hoffman for the _Foreign Quarterly_, a review

edited by R. P. Gillies. It was done purely as a kindness to Gillies,

giving, as Lockhart says, a poor brother author L100 at the expense of

considerable time and drudgery to himself. He had done the same in

numberless instances, often for persons whose only claim on him was that

of the common vocation. At this time he naturally went but little into

society, but his enjoyment of good company could still be keen. On

spending an evening with John A. Murray, he says: 'When I am out with a

party of my Opposition friends, the day is often merrier than when with

our own set. Is it because they are cleverer? Jeffrey and Harry

Cockburn are, to be sure, very extraordinary men; yet it is not owing to

that entirely. I believe both parties meet with the feeling of

something like novelty--we have not worn out our jests in daily

contact.'

On the 23rd of February 1827 he presided at the famous Theatrical Fund

Dinner, at which he publicly admitted his authorship of the Waverley

Novels. All he says of the incident is, 'Meadowbank taxed me with the

novels, and to end that farce at once I pleaded guilty, so that splore

is ended.' Of course, as a matter of fact, the secret had been an open

one from the day of the first meeting of Ballantyne's creditors. When

Scott was thinking of himself as liable _monstrari digito_ as the

partner of an insolvent firm, every one else was thinking of him as the

now-revealed 'author of _Waverley_.' 'Scott ruined,' Earl Dudley

exclaimed on hearing the news, 'the author of _Waverley_ ruined! Good

God! let every man to whom he has given months of delight give him a

sixpence, and he will rise to-morrow morning richer than Rothschild!'

That was probably what was in the mind of every man who gazed on Scott's

calm, honest face in the first days of trouble.

On the 7th of June he finished _Napoleon_, which had grown on his hands,

much beyond the original estimate, to nine closely-printed volumes. The

work produced L18,000 for his creditors, so that in eighteen months he

had actually diminished his obligations by L28,000.

One of the most touching episodes of Scott's life was his loving anxiety

for his invalid grandson, the child of Lockhart and Sophia. Knowing the

fearful strain that Sir Walter was now keeping up in working double

tides for his bondholding masters, Lockhart and his wife did what they

could to induce him to moderate his zeal. 'But nothing,' says Lockhart,

'was so useful as the presence of his invalid grandson. The poor child

was at this time so far restored as to be able to sit on his pony again;

and Sir Walter, who had conceived, the very day he finished _Napoleon_,

the notion of putting together a series of _Tales on the History of

Scotland_, somewhat in the manner of Mr. Croker's on that of England,

rode daily among the woods with his "Hugh Littlejohn," and told the

story, and ascertained that it suited the comprehension of boyhood,

before he reduced it to writing.' During the rest of this year he wrote

new matter which filled five to six volumes in the uniform edition of

his works, but this Lockhart thinks was light and easy compared with

'the perilous drudgery' of the preceding eighteen months.

Ill-health and the perpetual consciousness of his bondage had

marvellously little effect as yet on the quality of his work. To

friends who visited him casually he seems to have rarely alluded to any

of his troubles. Adolphus, however, mentions that once, when speaking

of his _Life of Napoleon_, he said in a quiet but touching tone, 'I

could have done it better, if I had written at more leisure, and with a

mind more at ease.' Adolphus was deeply impressed by the sight of his

quiet cheerfulness among his family and their young friends. He has

preserved one of Scott's remarks on the subject of happiness which is

both characteristic and, considering the time, strikingly suggestive.

Scott having said something about an accident which had spoiled the

promised pleasure of a visit to his daughter in London, then observed,

'I have had as much happiness in my time as most men, and I must not

complain now.' Adolphus replied that, whatever had been his share of

happiness, no one could have laboured better for it. Scott's answer

was, 'I consider the capacity to labour as part of the happiness I have

enjoyed.' In mentioning Adolphus (who had written a book on the

authorship of the Waverley Novels) and his visit, Scott wrote in his

_Journal_, 'He is a modest as well as an able man, and I am obliged to

him for the delicacy with which he treated a matter in which I was

personally so much concerned.'

*CHAPTER LXII*

Incident of Gourgaud--Expected Duel--Scott's Preparations--Tired of

Edinburgh--Changing Aspect of New Town--The 'Markets' superseded by

Shops--The Female Poisoner--Scott's opinion of 'Not Proven'--Points in

its Favour.

In the _Life of Napoleon_ Scott had made use of certain documents which

had been put at his disposal in the British Colonial Office. Founding

on these unimpeachable authorities, he had told how General Gourgaud,

one of Napoleon's aides-de-camp at St. Helena, though he had given the

British Government private information that Bonaparte's complaints of

ill-usage were utterly unfounded, had afterwards supported and

encouraged in France the idea that Sir Hudson Lowe's conduct towards his

illustrious prisoner had been cruel and tyrannical. About the end of

August Cadell sent extracts from French newspapers to Scott, stating

that Gourgaud was going to London to _verify_ the statements in the

history. This Cadell took to mean that the fire-eater intended to

fasten a quarrel on Scott and challenge him to a duel. The good

bookseller was alarmed, but Scott took it all very coolly. He had

really dealt very moderately and delicately with Gourgaud's shaky

reputation, and when the latter at last wrote his attack in the French

newspapers, Scott retorted by simply publishing in full the extracts he

had made from the records of the Colonial Office. The General, though

he continued to load Scott with abuse, did not dare to pen a direct

negative, and so the affair 'fizzled out.' Scott had expected a

challenge, and had quite made up his mind to fight, Clerk promising to

act as his second. 'He shall not dishonour the country through my

sides, I can assure him.' In the end he writes, 'I wonder he did not

come over and try his manhood otherwise. I would not have shunned him

nor any Frenchman who ever kissed Bonaparte's breech.'

At this period Scott's heart became more and more fixed upon Abbotsford,

his interest in Edinburgh proportionately less. Edinburgh was now only

the workshop, in which he must toil with fettered limbs, and without the

buoyancy of health and strength which used to make his labours a portion

of his happiness. 'Fagged by the Court'--'no time for _work_'--fagged by

the good company of Edinburgh, he is tempted to run off to

Abbotsford--'but it will not do; and, sooth to speak, it ought not to

do; though it would do me much pleasure if it would do.' Such was his

state of mind, and his interest in local affairs and changes of the city

was naturally diminished. About the time of the Ballantyne disaster,

the opening of the New Town markets at Stockbridge might perhaps have

drawn his attention to the great change going on in the city, which has

made it internally so modern, and so commonplace. The New Town was now

fast becoming a town of shops. The old 'market' system, so

characteristic of Edinburgh, was dying out. Formerly the dealers in any

one commodity were all grouped together in a certain fixed and limited

locality. This was what was meant by a 'market': a congregation of

shops or rather booths. For example, the Flesh Market was at the Tron:

the Cattle Market at King's Stables end of the Grassmarket, and so on.

Cockburn remembered when, about 1810, the only supply of fish for the

citizens was in the Fish Market Close, which he justly calls a steep,

narrow, stinking ravine. 'The fish' (he says) 'were generally thrown

out on the street at the head of the close, whence they were dragged

down by dirty boys or dirtier women; and then sold unwashed--for there

was not a drop of water in the place--from old, rickety, scaly wooden

tables, exposed to all the rain, dust and filth.... I doubt if there

was a single fish-shop in Edinburgh so early as the year 1822.' The

fruit and vegetable market was quite as bad, managed by 'a college of

old gin-drinking women, who congregated with stools and tables round the

Tron Church.' The fruit was put on the tables, but the vegetables were

thrown on the ground. 'I doubt, Cockburn adds, 'if there was a

fruit-shop in Edinburgh in 1815. All shops indeed meant for the sale of

any article on which there was a local tax or market-custom, were

discouraged by the magistrates or their tacksman as interfering with the

collection of the dues. The growth of shops of all kinds in the New

Town is remarkable. I believe there were not half a dozen of them in

the whole New Town, west of St. Andrew Street, in 1810. The dislike to

them was so great, that any proprietor who allowed one was abused as an

unneighbourly fellow.'

In February 1827 a poisoning case came up for trial which excited great

interest in the city. Scott has given a life-like sketch of the scene

in his _Journal_. 'In Court, and waited to see the poisoning woman.

She is clearly guilty, but as one or two witnesses said the poor wench

hinted an intention to poison herself, the jury gave that bastard

verdict, _Not Proven_. I hate that Caledonian _medium quid_. One who

is not _proven guilty_ is innocent in the eye of the law. It was a face

to do or die, or perhaps to do to die. Thin features, which have been

handsome, a flashing eye, an acute and aquiline nose, lips much marked,

as arguing decision, and, I think, bad temper--they were thin, and

habitually compressed, rather turned down at the corners, as one of a

rather melancholy disposition. There was an awful crowd; but, sitting

within the bar, I had the pleasure of seeing much at my ease; the

constables knocking the other folks about, which was of course very

entertaining.'

Referring to the same incident, Lord Cockburn says that Scott's

description of the woman is very correct; 'she was like a vindictive

masculine witch. I remember him sitting within the bar looking at her.

As we were moving out, Sir Walter Scott's remark upon the acquittal was,

"Well, sirs, all I can say is that if that woman was my wife I should

take good care to be my own cook."'

It is somewhat startling to find Scott so strongly denouncing our

Caledonian verdict of _Not Proven_. _Pace tanti viri_, his opinion is

not ours. A jury may be convinced of the guilt of a person, and yet

quite satisfied that the prosecution has failed to prove it. _Experto

crede_; in a criminal case in the Sheriff Court I have been on a jury

that was absolutely unanimous on both points, the police evidence having

been got up in a most perfunctory style. It was very satisfactory to us

to be able to say 'Not Proven,' which was absolutely accurate, and yet

not to be obliged to give the prisoner a certificate of innocence.

Probably this verdict, while at times favouring the guilty, has saved

the life of many an innocent victim of circumstantial fatality. It is

entirely in favour of the innocent 'suspect,' to whom every day of

respite is an additional chance of clearing his name: to the guilty it

is an effective punishment, since any day may bring to light the

defective links in the proof of his guilt.

*CHAPTER LXIII*

Visit of Richardson and Cockburn to Abbotsford--Sir Walter at

Home--Anecdote of Cranstoun--Patterson's Anecdotes--The Burke and Hare

Murders--Anecdote of Cockburn--Dr. Knox--Catholic Emancipation

Bill--Meeting in Edinburgh--Death of Terry and Shortreed--Severe Illness

of Scott--Death of Tom Purdie.

John Richardson, 'the learned Peerage lawyer,' was the intimate of Henry

Cockburn, and the favoured and highly prized friend of Sir Walter Scott.

He tells a good fishing story of earlier days when he visited Sir Walter

at Ashestiel. Richardson was fishing in the Tweed, Scott walking by his

side, when, after the capture of numerous fine trout, he hooked

something greater and unseen. Scott became greatly excited: to their

common alarm the rod broke; but climbing the bank and holding the rod

down, the angler at last managed to bring his mysterious prize round a

small peninsula towards the bank. Then 'Sir Walter jumped into the

water, seized him, and threw him out on the grass. Tom Purdie came up a

little time after, and was certainly rather discomposed at my success.

"It will be some sea brute," he observed; but he became satisfied that

it was a fine river-trout, and such as, he afterwards admitted, had not

been killed in Tweed for twenty years; and when I moved down the water,

he went, as Sir Walter afterwards observed, and gave it a kick on the

head, observing, "To be ta'en by the like o' him frae Lunnon!"'

The two friends met again in very different form in 1828, when Cockburn

accompanied Richardson to visit Scott at Abbotsford. Apropos of this

visit we have happily a very fine description by Cockburn of Scott and

his talk at this time. He describes his appearance thus: 'When fitted

up for dinner, he was like any other comfortably ill-dressed gentleman.

But in the morning, with the large coarse jacket, great stick, and

leathern cap, he was Dandy Dinmont or Dirk Hatteraick--a poacher or a

smuggler.' Scott gave them an anecdote of an early anticipation

regarding the professional prospects of their friend George Cranstoun,

who had been recently raised to the bench. Just after being called to

the Bar, Cranstoun, William Erskine, and Scott went to dine with an old

Selkirk writer, a devoted drinker of the old school. Cranstoun, who was

never anything at a debauch, was driven off the field, with a squeamish

stomach and a woful countenance, shamefully early. Erskine, always

ambitious, adhered to the bowl somewhat longer; but Scott who, as he

told us, 'was at home with the hills and the whisky punch,' not only

triumphed over these two, but very nearly over the landlord. As they

were mounting their horses to ride home, the entertainer let the other

two go without speaking to them; but he embraced Scott, assuring him

that he would rise high. 'And I'll tell ye what, Maister Walter, that

lad Cranstoun may get to the tap o' the bar if he can; but tak my word

for't--it's no be by drinking.'

In his _Journal_, 4th April 1829, it is mentioned that one David

Patterson wrote to Sir Walter to suggest that he should write on the

subject of the Burke and Hare murders, and to offer him for materials

his 'invaluable collection of anecdotes.' 'Did ever one hear of the

like?' adds Scott. 'The scoundrel has been the companion and patron of

such atrocious murderers and kidnappers, and he has the impudence to

write to any decent man!'

Burke and Hare were two desperadoes who, for about two years, had

carried on a regular trade of murder in Edinburgh, the scene being a

gloomy back house, recently demolished, in a close near the north corner

of the West Port and Lady Lawson Street. Here they had disposed of

sixteen victims, selling all the bodies to the doctors for dissection.

The popular excitement when the discovery was made, and when Burke,

Hare, and Helen Macdougal were brought to trial, was something

unexampled in the city. 'No case,' says Lord Cockburn, 'ever struck the

public heart or imagination with greater horror. And no wonder. The

regular demand for anatomical subjects, and the high prices given, held

out a constant premium to murder; and when it was shown to what danger

this exposed the unprotected, every one felt himself living among

persons to whom murder was a trade.' At this time Dr. Robert Knox, a

very clever surgeon, was the most popular lecturer in the medical

school, and into his hands most of the bodies had come. The populace

fully believed that he had known that the bodies were those of murdered

persons. Few could believe him entirely innocent--a supposition, of

course, inconsistent with his anatomical skill. He was, however,

acquitted of all blame by the report of an independent and influential

committee, and remained in Edinburgh till 1841. Lord Cockburn states

that all the Edinburgh anatomists incurred great odium, which he

considered most unjust. Tried in view of the invariable, and at that

time necessary practice of the profession, the anatomists were, in his

opinion, 'spotlessly correct, and Knox the most correct of them all.'

It was Cockburn who, as counsel for the defence, secured the acquittal

of Helen Macdougal. A story went round that, on finishing his address

to the jury and observing its effect, he whispered, 'Infernal hag! the

gudgeons swallow it!' This was utterly untrue. The evidence was really

insufficient to warrant a conviction, and the defence was, of course,

entirely honest. Of the two assassins, Hare escaped by turning King's

Evidence, and Burke, the less revolting of the two, was hanged. On the

evening of the execution Scott wrote, 'The mob, which was immense,

demanded Knox and Hare, but though greedy for more victims, received

with shouts the solitary wretch who found his way to the gallows out of

five or six who seem not less guilty than he.' Knox's brilliant career

was ruined by the incident. He passed the last twenty years of his life

in London, in a precarious struggle for a poor existence, and died in

1862.

In March 1829 Edinburgh had a great meeting in favour of Wellington and

Peel's measure of Catholic Emancipation. Scott and a number of Tories

supported it. His opinion was that the measure ought to satisfy all

lovers of peace. But he had his doubts about _Pat_, 'who with all his

virtues, is certainly not the most sensible person in the world.' The

petition got up by the meeting was signed by eight thousand persons, but

the two opposing petitions were much more numerously signed. When the

first petition was read in the House of Commons, the name of Sir Walter

Scott was received with a great shout of applause, which led Sir Robert

Peel to send him a special and very cordial letter of thanks. Of this

petition Cockburn, who was prominent in the whole affair, declares that

the eight thousand who signed were of a higher and more varied class

than ever concurred in any political measure in Edinburgh.

About the middle of May appeared _Anne of Geierstein_, which, as

Lockhart has put it, may almost be called the last work of Scott's

imaginative genius. To the reader who peruses this story, keeping in

mind the time and the circumstances in which it was written, it is full

of passages which touchingly depict the past and present emotions of the

writer's own career.

The next two months deprived him of two old friends--Terry and

Shortreed--with whom, he writes, 'many recollections die.' Meanwhile

there was great comfort in the success of his _Magnum Opus_--the

collected works.

At the end of this year, 1829, eight volumes had appeared, and the

monthly sale was thirty-five thousand. The effect on his spirits was

gratifying to his friends, for he had been almost prostrated by fears

and anxiety about the health of his eldest son. Then came the first

warning of the end. 'Good news of Walter' was succeeded by a serious

and alarming attack of illness--in fact a threatening of apoplexy. He

obtained relief by cupping, but he had apparently no delusions as to the

meaning of the stroke. Writing to tell Walter of his recovery, he talks

of coming death, and in view of 'the pro-di-gi-ous sale' of the Novels,

he says, 'I should be happy to die a free man; and I am sure you will

all be kind to poor Anne, who will miss me most. I don't intend to die a

minute sooner than I can help for all this; but when a man takes to

making blood instead of water, he is tempted to think on the possibility

of his soon making earth.'

Another warning was the loss of his 'old and faithful servant,' the

never-failing Tom Purdie. He died suddenly, and on his grave, close to

the Abbey at Melrose, may be seen the monument placed there by Sir

Walter 'in sorrow for the loss of a humble but sincere friend.' This

bereavement was felt so keenly that, for once in his life, Scott was

impatient to leave Abbotsford and resume the engrossing cares of the

city. 'I am so much shocked, that I really wish to be quit of the

country and safe in the town.'

*CHAPTER LXIV*

Last Winter in Edinburgh--The _Ayrshire Tragedy_--Apoplectic

Stroke--Retirement from the Clerkship--Visit to Edinburgh--Refusal to

stop Literary Work--John Nicolson--Scott at Cadell's House--His Will.

On reaching 'the safety of the town' he began work without delay. The

_Ayrshire Tragedy_, his most ambitious attempt in drama, was finished

before the close of the year. It is founded on the horrible story of

Mure of Auchindrane. The 'tragedy' is, however, really less interesting

and dramatic than the simple prose version of the story which forms the

preface.

So was Scott's life going on--the regular daily routine of his Court

duties and then the daily portion of 'work,' of which, in spite of all

that happened, he seems to have done as much in 1830 as in the previous

year. There was no immediate warning of the terrible collapse. On the

15th of February he returned from the Court as usual about two o'clock.

An old lady was waiting to show him some papers. He sat with her for

half an hour, seeming to be occupied with the MS. When he rose from his

chair to usher out his visitor, he sank back again. His features were

slightly convulsed. After a few minutes he rose and staggered to the

drawing-room. His daughter Anne and Miss Lockhart ran to him, but they

were not in time--he fell at full length on the floor. A surgeon was

fetched without delay, and bleeding proved effective. So fully did he

recover his faculties, that he was able shortly to go out as usual, and

few noticed any serious change. For a time he and his friends tried to

believe that 'the attack had proceeded merely from the stomach.' The

symptoms, however, too clearly indicated the more serious danger. 'When

we recollect,' says the biographer, 'that both his father and his elder

brother died of paralysis, and consider the violences of agitation and

exertion to which Sir Walter had been subjected during the four

preceding years, the only wonder is that this blow (which had, I

suspect, several indistinct harbingers) was deferred so long; there can

be none that it was soon followed by others of the same description.'

His health continued to improve till the autumn of this year. He was

now preparing to bid farewell to Edinburgh. In July he retired from the

Clerkship of Session, receiving an allowance of L800 a year, and

refusing (with consent of his masters) a pension of L500, which would

have made up the loss of income. The idea of leaving Edinburgh was, all

the same, very painful. 'I can hardly' (he wrote at this time) 'form a

notion of the possibility that I am not to return to Edinburgh.' The

breaking up of a routine which had lasted for twenty-six years, was in

itself a serious change. It meant also the loss, during the winter, of

the society which helped so much to cheer him. And then, as Lockhart

says, 'he had a love for the very stones of Edinburgh, and the thought

that he was never again to sleep under a roof of his own in his native

city, cost him many a pang.'

His return to Edinburgh in November was for the purpose of consulting

his physicians there after another slight attack of apoplexy. One of

these was the famous Abercrombie. They prescribed a severe regimen of

spare diet, and strongly urged him to cease from brain-work. Lockhart

and his relatives did the same. His reply was: 'I am not sure that I am

quite myself in all things; but I am sure that in one point there is no

change. I mean, that I foresee distinctly that if I were to be idle, I

should go mad. In comparison to this, death is no risk to shrink from.'

It can be seen from his diary what this 'work' meant; he speaks of being

'fogged with frozen vigils'--of working 'without intermission'--and

grudges an afternoon's chat with visitors, 'though well employed and

pleasantly.' And all this time the symptoms of physical collapse were

growing daily more plain and more painful. 'I speak with an

impediment--the constant increase of my lameness--the thigh-joint,

knee-joint, and ancle-joint. I should not care for all this, if I were

sure of dying handsomely.... But the fear is, lest the blow be not

sufficient to destroy life, and that I should linger on, "a driveller

and a show."'

In January 1831 he became convinced that it was now a pressing duty to

make his will. A heavy fall of snow began on the 30th, but next morning

he set out on horseback, attended only by his 'confidential attendant,'

John Nicolson, whose services in these last years were of extraordinary

value to the disabled man. Lockhart's praise of him was doubtless

well-deserved: 'He had been in the household from his boyhood, and was

about this time advanced to the chief place in it. Early and continued

kindness had made a very deep impression on this fine handsome young

man's warm heart; he possessed intelligence, good sense, and a calm

temper; and the courage and dexterity which Sir Walter had delighted to

see him display in sports and pastimes, proved henceforth of inestimable

service to the master whom he regarded, I verily believe, with the love

and reverence of a son.' On reaching Edinburgh, Sir Walter took up his

quarters for the night in a hotel. It was the first time he had done so

in his native city. He could not sleep, lay listening to the endless

noises of the street, and next day he yielded to Cadell's kindly

pressure and accepted the publisher's hospitality at his house in Atholl

Crescent. 'Here,' he mentions in a letter to Mrs. Lockhart, 'I saw

various things that belonged to poor No. 39. I had many sad thoughts on

seeing and handling them--but they are in kind keeping, and I was glad

they had not gone to strangers.' These were some articles which had

been bought in at the sale by a friend and returned to Scott, who

himself had presented them to Mrs. Cadell. With the Cadells the

snowstorm prolonged his stay for a week. He was cheered by the sight of

one or two old intimates, such as Clerk and Skene, but they could not

look on him without feeling pain at the great change. Even now he kept

on writing, working for some hours daily on _Count Robert of Paris_.

The will was duly completed, signed, and left in the safe keeping of

Cadell. The account of the visit in the _Journal_ concludes: 'I

executed my last will, leaving Walter burdened, by his own choice, with

L1000 to Sophia, and another received at her marriage, and L2000 to

Anne, and the same to Charles. I have made provisions for clearing my

estate by my publications, should it be possible.... My bequests must,

many of them, seem hypothetical.

'Besides during the unexpected stay in town, I employed Mr. Fortune, an

ingenious artist, to make a machine to assist my lame leg....

'The appearance of the streets was most desolate; the hackney coaches,

with four horses, strolling about like ghosts, and foot-passengers few

but the lowest of the people.

'I wrote a good deal of _Count Robert_, yet I cannot tell why my pen

stammers egregiously and I write horridly incorrect. I long to have

friend Laidlaw's assistance.'

*CHAPTER LXV*

The Paralytic Stroke--The Last Novels--Election Meetings--Disgraceful

Conduct of Radical Gangs--Scott's Journey for Health--The

Return--Collapse and Stupor--The Last Stay in Edinburgh--Death of Sir

Walter Scott.

Very soon after this came what Sir Walter himself could not fail to

recognise as 'a distinct stroke of paralysis affecting both nerves and

speech.' Lockhart describes the occasion on which it occurred as

follows: 'Sir Walter's friend Lord Meadowbank had come to Abbotsford, as

usual when on the Jedburgh circuit; and he would make an effort to

receive the Judge in something of the old style of the place; he

collected several of the neighbouring gentry to dinner, and tried to

bear his wonted part in the conversation. Feeling his strength and

spirits flagging, he was tempted to violate his physician's directions,

and took two or three glasses of champagne, not having tasted wine for

several months before. On retiring to his dressing-room he had this

severe shock of apoplectic paralysis, and kept his bed under the

surgeon's hands for several days.'

A fortnight after, when Lockhart came to see him, Sir Walter, having

been lifted on his pony, came about half a mile on the Selkirk road to

meet him, with one of his grand-children before him on a pillion.

Lockhart was sadly moved by the terrible change in his appearance, which

he describes thus: 'All his garments hung loose about him; his

countenance was thin and haggard, and there was an obvious distortion in

the muscles of one cheek. His look, however, was placid--his eye as

bright as ever--perhaps brighter than it ever was in health; he smiled

with the same affectionate gentleness, and though at first it was not

easy to understand everything he said, he spoke cheerfully and

manfully.'

Under such conditions, Sir Walter still continued to work, seldom

speaking even in the family circle about his illness at all, and only

then in a hopeful way. His one desire was to use his faculties, while

they remained responsive, for the benefit of those to whom he considered

himself a debtor. _Count Robert_ and _Castle Dangerous_ were both

finished at this time, the latter being perhaps the only permanent

evidence of the final decay of his powers.

Scott's strong sense of duty, combined with the calls of his official

position as Sheriff, obliged him to take part during the month of May in

several election meetings. He was from deep conviction opposed to the

great movement for reforming our political machinery by which the

country was then convulsed. At Jedburgh the mob, largely recruited from

Hawick, showed their political fanaticism by mobbing Sir Walter Scott

and putting his life in danger. At Selkirk, however, though it also was

invaded by a Radical contingent, no disrespect was shown to the great

man who was there personally known to all and 'all but universally

beloved as well as feared.' 'I am well pleased,' Lockhart remarks,

'that (Selkirk) the ancient capital of the _Forest_ did not stain its

fair name upon this miserable occasion; and I am sorry for Jedburgh and

Hawick. This last town stands almost within sight of Branksome Hall,

overhanging also _sweet Teviot's silver tide_. The civilised American

or Australian will curse these places, of which he would never have

heard but for Scott, as he passes through them in some distant century,

when perhaps all that remains of our national glories may be the high

literature adopted and extended in new lands planted from our blood.'

It is a bitter reflection that Sir Walter Scott's last hours were

haunted by the mob's brutal cry of 'Burke Sir Walter.'

But we must not dwell on the events of 1831. The European journey, the

last slender hope for the great novelist's recovery, was begun in

October, the Government putting at Sir Walter's disposal the _Barham_,

'a beautiful ship, a 74 cut down to a 50, and well deserving all the

commendations bestowed on her.'

There remains now only one more Edinburgh scene to notice--a sadder

scene than that of the death-bed. He had reached London on the 13th of

June 1832, being then in a state of extreme feebleness and exhaustion.

There he lay 'in the second-floor back-room' of a Jermyn Street hotel,

for some three weeks, in a state of almost unbroken stupor. When

conscious, he was for ever wishing to return to Abbotsford. At last it

was decided to gratify his desire, and on the 7th of July he was lifted

into his carriage and conveyed to the steamboat. On this journey he had

with him his two daughters, Cadell, Lockhart, and Dr. Thomas Watson, his

medical adviser. On board the steamer he seemed, after being laid in

bed, unconscious of the removal that had taken place. At Newhaven,

which the vessel reached late on the 9th, he was taken on shore, lying

prostrate in his carriage. Then he was conveyed, still apparently

unconscious, to Douglas's hotel in St. Andrew Square. This was his last

visit to Edinburgh.

Lockhart mentions that Mr. and Mrs. Douglas had made all preparations

that could have been desired for his accommodation, but he does not seem

even to have known that he was once more in 'his own romantic town.'

The old charm of Edinburgh had long resigned its power in favour of that

of Abbotsford. The tie of home was no longer connected with the city,

and the rousing of his memory only came when the carriage had made two

stages towards the Tweed.

And so he went on his way to Abbotsford, where he died, and to Dryburgh,

where he was laid in his grave. And the great city which he had loved,

died too, to him--on that summer morning when the sad little party drove

away from its gates. Some of the last lines he penned--the motto of

Chapter XIV. of _Castle Dangerous_--are fraught with the spirit of his

noble life--courage, truth, and steadfastness to endure--

'The way is long, my children, long and rough--

The moors are dreary, and the woods are dark;

But he that creeps from cradle on to grave

Unskilled save in the velvet course of fortune,

Hath miss'd the discipline of noble hearts.'

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty

at the Edinburgh University Press