professor of the divine art. During the delightful summer evenings,
he would sit for hours on some cellar-door, producing strains from
a jews-harp, whose melody floated enchantingly upon the air, adding
still more to the witchery of the time, and causing a secret wish
to arise, that it might be evening all the year round. There is a
sympathy in music not to be withstood; and when a particular chord
is struck, if it find a unison in human feeling, the sternest heart
must melt at its thrill. Upon a particular moonlight night, our hero
established himself upon a door-sill, and taking out his instrument,
commenced the beautiful and pathetic ballad of 'Lord Lovell and
Lady Nancy.' For a while he played on with no more interest than a
performer usually exhibits in the execution of a piece. At length,
however, he began to revert to the sorrows of the Lady Nancy, and the
tears were seen stealing, one by one, down his countenance. Thought
begat thought, and sympathy begat sympathy, until Mr. Tumbler,
overpowered by his feelings, took the jews-harp from his mouth, and
commenced sobbing like a child. For a full half hour he continued
to weep, and might have kept on for an hour longer, had not a
hard-hearted servant girl emptied a bucket of ancient soap-suds upon
him, from the third-story window. This libation at once cooled his
sorrows. Shaking the unpleasing liquid from his garments, he crossed
over to the market-house, in order to seek that repose which always
waits upon innocence and self-approbation.
We come now to one of the darkest passages of our hero's life; an
event which we chronicle with a tear; and which nothing but an
imperative sense of duty, as faithful biographers, would compel us
to narrate. There breathes not the man, no matter where you may seek
him, whose career has been, in every instance, one of purity, who can
look back upon his past life, without remembering _some_ action that
brings a feeling of remorse, and who can declare upon his honor that
he has done nothing but what has been perfectly justifiable in the
eyes of God and his fellow-men. Why then should it be expected that
Mr. Tumbler should prove an exception to all mankind? It is not to
be--it ought not to be.
Mr. Tumbler was one day passing along the street, when his attention
was arrested by a stone jug, which he observed beside an awning-post.
He stopped, looked a moment at the vessel, and then at the pavers
who were working in the street, and to whom the jug evidently
belonged. Mr. Tumbler then reflected a moment, turned about to
satisfy himself that no one observed him, picked up the jug, shook
it, reconnoitred again, hesitated an instant, and placing it under
his coat, leisurely walked on. Unfortunately, however, for his
success, the jug was missed. He was seen, suspected, pursued, caught,
and taken by the collar before his honor the mayor. That dispenser
of justice was induced to believe that he was an old offender; and
accordingly ordered his pockets to be examined. But however Mr.
Tumbler might have erred, in regard to the abstraction of the jug, he
was nevertheless innocent of other crimes of the kind; and nothing
rewarded the search, save an onion, and the fragment of a Bologna
sausage. He was, however, in consequence of the affair on hand,
imprisoned in the city gaol for the space of thirty days; which
confinement, we have been informed, he bore with the resignation of
a Christian, and the fortitude of a hero. At length he was released;
but he came out an altered man. His spirits had been broken down by
the disgrace he had suffered, and he now plunged deeper than ever
into dissipation, seeking in its excitement to drive away the memory
of the past. Happy, indeed, would it have been, had his sensibilities
been less refined; but, like the flower which shrinks from the touch,
he avoided all intercourse with his fellow-men, wrapping himself
up in the gloom of his own thoughts, neglecting his jews-harp,
neglecting himself, and neglected by the world.
Not a great while after our hero's release from incarceration, he
might have been observed strolling leisurely along the wharf, with
the manner of one who has no definite object of pursuit, and who
is willing to amuse himself with whatever the time and place might
present. As his eye rolled onward, he espied a cask, upon the head of
which was written, in large black letters, the word '_Cogniac_.' But
he little thought that fatal word was to him what the hand-writing
upon the wall had been to the mighty Belshazzar. He little thought
that the simple word 'Cogniac' was applied to him, at that moment,
in as terrible a warning as was the 'Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin!'
which foretold to the Chaldean king the destruction of his life and
empire.
He regarded the cask for a moment, and then throwing his right leg
over, he mounted it. Seating himself firmly, he looked briefly about
him. Satisfied that he was unobserved, he very deliberately drew a
large gimlet from his pocket, and commenced boring a hole in one
of the staves, gazing over the river the while, as if attracted by
some interesting object on the opposite shore. When the perforation
was complete, he returned the instrument to his pocket, and took an
additional survey of the premises. Seeing that he was not watched by
any one, he produced the end of a tin tube--manufactured expressly
for such occasions--from beneath his vest, and inserting it in the
hole, applied his mouth to the other extremity of the conductor,
which protruded from the upper part of the garment, and in this
manner commenced extracting the contents of the cask. For the space
of an hour, he remained in one position, not even stirring a limb. At
length the curiosity of a passer-by was excited by his appearance;
and going up to the cask, he was surprised to find a man, as he
thought, asleep. The stranger shook him for a moment, as if to awaken
him; and when he relaxed his grasp, our hero tumbled to the ground.
Astonished that the fall did not rouse him, the stranger stooped
down to examine his features. They were fixed and rigid. He took
his hand; it was cold as marble. He felt for his pulse; but it had
ceased for ever. To make use of a novel phrase, 'the vital spark was
extinguished.' Mr. Tumbler had gone to a land of 'pure spirits;' a
place which he often said he longed to visit; since the spirits he
was in the habit of imbibing here were generally any thing but pure.
Thus died, in the prime of life, John Thomas Tumbler, Jr., a man
whom nature had endowed with many excellent qualities, which were,
however, all perverted by one vicious and unconquerable propensity.
Under more favorable circumstances, he might have proved an ornament
to society. Avoided, on all occasions, by the respectable of his
species; treated with broad indifference, if not contumely; a subject
of jest and ridicule for every body; how can we suppose he could
burst these shackles, and soar to distinction? Emulation withered
beneath the persecution which attended him through life, and which,
we blush to say, did not cease with his death; for the papers, in
noticing his demise, merely remarked, with cruel brevity: 'A loafer
was found dead upon the wharf this morning.'
DEATH-BED REMORSE.
HOW awful is that hour, when conscience stings
The hoary wretch, who on his death-bed hears,
Deep in his soul, the thundering voice that rings,
In one dark, damning moment, crimes of years,
And screaming like a vulture in his ears,
Tells one by one his thoughts and deeds of shame;
How wild the fury of his soul careers!
His swart eye flashes with intensest flame,
And like the torture's rack, the wrestling of his frame!
J. G. PERCIVAL.
LITERARY NOTICES.
MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart. By J. G. LOCKHART.
Part Second. pp. 198. Philadelphia: CAREY, LEA AND BLANCHARD.
IN a notice of the first part of these Memoirs, we expressed an
intention of renewing our broken intercourse with them, as they
should appear, at intervals. The publication of two additional parts
gives us ample scope for selection; and indeed this is all that a
reviewer, not inclined to iterate, or 'bestow his tediousness' upon
the reader, will be disposed to do. The pages before us are crowded
with incidents, and with characteristic sketches of the personal and
literary every-day life of their subject; and these, in themselves
abundantly attractive, are rendered still more so, as we have already
elsewhere remarked, by the pleasant style of the biographer, who will
win enduring fame by this contribution to a literature which he had
before not a little enriched.
Before entering upon our extracts, we cannot avoid remarking, that
throughout the minuter history of the illustrious poet and novelist
here presented, we are enabled to see the great secret of a literary
career, unparalleled since the era of Shakspeare, if he who wrote
for all mankind may be said to have had, or to have, an era. He
stands forth, in these volumes, a shining example to all authors
who would win a permanent hold upon the public regard. He _studied_
humanity, and the works of nature. He did not content himself with
portraying the invisible and non-existent, and with _conceiving_
scenes and personages which have no counterparts in nature or in
common life. He held rapt intercourse with the mountains, rivers,
and vales of Scotland; and he sought the teachings of those natural
instructors, the green fields. His ear was ever open to the 'silent
voice of Nature, speaking in forms and colors.' The humblest peasant
was a picture, and his qualities a study; and the lightest shade of
character, in high or low, was not beneath his scrutiny. To this
careful perception of nature, in all its forms and phases, he added
a course of reading more various and extended, we cannot doubt, than
any contemporary on the globe. But, unlike the many who lard their
lean books with the fat of other authors, he read only to digest,
and to _fuse_ his mind; hence, his resources were never exhausted,
even when he was a gray soldier in the literary field, wherein he had
borne arms so nobly and so long. How numerous the chaotic fictions,
how many the trumpery novels, how large the amount of still-born
poetry, now sunk into waste paper and oblivion, which might have been
saved to the world, had their producers but followed the example
of the author of Waverley! How much worse than useless labor might
have been saved to the thousands who, unable to inform have striven
to please, and have borne their ponderous loads into the literary
mart, and expanded them on the stalls of their hapless publishers!
We cannot but hope that, primarily, the publication of these Memoirs
will be widely beneficial to novelists and poets, and secondarily,
to the reading public; that they will improve the taste of those
authors who are content to indulge in superficialities merely; to
amuse the imagination, and convey infection to love-sick damsels,
without satisfying the judgment, or touching the heart. So mote it be!
We commence our extracts with a brief history of the Lay of the Last
Minstrel, a poem 'which has now kept its place for nearly a third of
a century:'
"It is curious to trace the small beginnings and gradual
development of his design. The lovely Countess of Dalkeith
bears a wild rude legend of Border _diablerie_, and sportively
asks him to make it the subject of a ballad. He had been
already laboring in the elucidation of the 'quaint Inglis'
ascribed to an ancient seer and bard of the same district,
and perhaps completed his own sequel, intending the whole to
be included in the third volume of the Minstrelsy. He assents
to Lady Dalkeith's request, and casts about for some new
variety of diction and rhyme, which might be adopted without
impropriety in a closing strain for the same collection. Sir
John Stoddart's casual recitation, a year or two before, of
Coleridge's unpublished Christabel, had fixed the music of
that noble fragment in his memory; and it occurs to him, that
by throwing the story of Gilpin Horner into somewhat of a
similar cadence, he might produce such an echo of the later
metrical romance, as would serve to connect his _Conclusion_
of the primitive Sir Tristrem with his imitations of the
common popular ballad in the Grey Brother and Eve of St. John.
A single scene of feudal festivity in the hall of Branksome,
disturbed by some pranks of a nondescript goblin, was probably
all that he contemplated; but his accidental confinement in
the midst of a volunteer camp gave him leisure to meditate his
theme to the sound of the bugle; and suddenly there flashes
on him the idea of extending his simple outline, so as to
embrace a vivid panorama of that old Border life of war and
tumult, and all earnest passions, with which his researches
on the 'Minstrelsy' had by degrees fed his imagination, until
every the minutest feature had been taken home and realized
with unconscious intenseness of sympathy; so that he had won
for himself in the past another world, hardly less complete
or familiar than the present. Erskine or Cranstoun suggests
that he would do well to divide the poem into cantos, and
prefix to each of them a motto explanatory of the action,
after the fashion of Spenser in the Faëry Queen. He pauses for
a moment--and the happiest conception of the frame-work of
a picturesque narrative that ever occurred to any poet--one
that Homer might have envied--the creation of the ancient
harper, starts to life. By such steps did the 'Lay of the Last
Minstrel' grow out of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.'
"A word more of its felicitous machinery. It was at Bowhill
that the Countess of Dalkeith requested a ballad on Gilpin
Horner. The ruined castle of Newark closely adjoins that seat,
and is now indeed included within its _pleasance_. Newark had
been the chosen residence of the first Duchess of Buccleuch,
and he accordingly shadows out his own beautiful friend in the
person of her lord's ancestress, the last of the original stock
of that great house; himself the favored inmate of Bowhill,
introduced certainly to the familiarity of its circle in
consequence of his devotion to the poetry of a by-past age, in
that of an aged minstrel, 'the last of all the race,' seeking
shelter at the gate of Newark, in days when many an adherent of
the fallen cause of Stewart--his own bearded ancestor, _who had
fought at Killiekrankie_, among the rest--owed their safety to
her who
'In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb.'"
The profits, to Scott, from the several editions of this poem were
£769. The sales are given as follows:
"The first edition of the Lay was a magnificent quarto, 750
copies; but this was soon exhausted, and there followed an
octavo impression of 1500; in 1806, two more, one of 2000
copies, another of 2550; in 1807, a fifth edition of 2000,
and a sixth of 3000; in 1803, 3550; in 1809, 3000--a small
edition in quarto (the ballads and lyrical pieces being
then annexed to it,) and another octavo edition of 3250; in
1811, 3000; in 1812, 3000; in 1816, 3000; in 1823, 1000. A
fourteenth impression of 2000 foolscap appeared in 1825; and
besides all this, before the end of 1836, 11,000 copies had
gone forth in the collected editions of his poetical works.
Thus, nearly forty-four thousand copies had been disposed of
in this country, and by the legitimate trade alone, before he
superintended the edition of 1830, to which his biographical
introductions were prefixed. In the history of British Poetry,
nothing had ever equalled the demand for the Lay of the Last
Minstrel."
Subsequently to a very interesting account of Scott's partnership
with Ballantine, and of his entering actively upon numerous literary
projects--including his editions of the British poets, Ancient
English Chronicles, Dryden, commencement of Waverley, etc.,--we find
the following account of his personal habits of industry:
"He rose by five o'clock, lit his own fire, when the
season required one, and shaved and dressed with great
deliberation--for he was a very martinet as to all but the
mere coxcomberies of the toilet, not abhorring effeminate
dandyism itself so cordially as the slightest approach to
personal slovenliness, or even those 'bed-gown and slipper
tricks,' as he called them, in which literary men are so apt
to indulge. Arrayed in his shooting-jacket, or whatever dress
he meant to use till dinner time, he was seated at his desk by
six o'clock, all his papers arranged before him in the most
accurate order, and his books of reference marshalled around
him on the floor, while at least one favorite dog lay watching
his eye, just beyond the line of circumvallation. Thus, by the
time the family assembled for breakfast between nine and ten,
he had done enough (in his own language) '_to break the neck
of the day's work_.' After breakfast, a couple of hours more
were given to his solitary tasks, and by noon he was, as he
used to say, 'his own man.' When the weather was bad, he would
labor incessantly all the morning; but the general rule was to
be out and on horseback by one o'clock at the latest; while,
if any more distant excursion had been proposed over night, he
was ready to start on it by ten; his occasional rainy days of
unintermitted study forming, as he said, a fund in his favor,
out of which he was entitled to draw for accommodation whenever
the sun shone with special brightness.
"It was another rule, that every letter he received should
be answered that same day. Nothing else could have enabled
him to keep abreast with the flood of communications that
in the sequel put his good nature to the severest test; but
already the demands on him in this way also were numerous; and
he included attention to them among the necessary business
which must be despatched before he had a right to close
his writing-box, or, as he phrased it, 'to say _out damned
spot_, and be a gentleman.' In turning over his enormous
mass of correspondence, I have almost invariably found some
indication that, when a letter had remained more than a day or
two unanswered, it had been so because he found occasion for
inquiry or deliberate consideration."
In illustration of the correctness of the remarks which introduce
these extracts, we give the following passage from a letter of an
early friend of Scott to his biographer. It is unnecessary to say,
that it is kindred with numerous others which might be selected:
"One of our earliest expeditions was to visit the wild scenery
of the mountainous tract above Moffat, including the cascade of
the 'Gray Mare's Tail,' and the dark tarn called 'Loch Skene.'
In our ascent to the lake, we got completely bewildered in the
thick fog which generally envelopes the rugged features of
that lonely region; and, as we were groping through the maze
of bogs, the ground gave way, and down went horse and horsemen
pell-mell into a slough of peaty mud and black water, out of
which, entangled as we were with our plaids and floundering
nags, it was no easy matter to get extricated. Indeed, unless
we had prudently left our gallant steeds at a farm-house below,
and borrowed hill ponies for the occasion, the result might
have been worse than laughable. As it was, we rose like the
spirits of the bog, covered _cap-à-pie_ with slime, to free
themselves from which, our wily ponies took to rolling about
on the heather, and we had nothing for it but following their
example. At length, as we approached the gloomy loch, a huge
eagle heaved himself from the margin and rose right over us,
screaming his scorn of the intruders; and altogether it would
be impossible to picture any thing more desolately savage
than the scene which opened, as if raised by enchantment on
purpose to gratify the poet's eye; thick folds of fog rolling
incessantly over the face of the inky waters, but rent asunder
now in one direction, and then in another--so as to afford us
a glimpse of some projecting rock or naked point of land, or
island, bearing a few scraggy stumps of pine--and then closing
again in universal darkness upon the cheerless waste. Much of
the scenery of Old Mortality was drawn from that day's ride.
"It was also in the course of this excursion that we
encountered that amusing personage introduced into Guy
Mannering as 'Tod Gabbie,' though the appellation by which he
was known in the neighborhood was 'Tod Willie.' He was one of
these itinerants who gain a subsistence among the moorland
farmers by relieving them of foxes, pole-cats, and the like
depredators--a half-witted, stuttering, and most original
creature."
The subjoined extract will serve to show the great humility with
which Scott bore his literary honors, at a time when he was
beleaguered by the importunities of fashionable admirers. His
bearing, says Mr. Lockhart, when first exposed to such influences,
was exactly what it was to the end. The Border Minstrel is writing
from London, whither he had proceeded upon business connected with an
important prospective situation as Clerk of the Edinburgh Sessions,
a lucrative and desirable station:
"It will give you pleasure to learn that, notwithstanding
some little rubs, I have been able to carry through the
transaction which your lordship sanctioned by your influence
and approbation, and that in a way very pleasing to my own
feelings. Lord Spencer, upon the nature of the transaction
being explained in an audience with which he favored me, was
pleased to direct the commission to be issued, as an act
of justice, regretting, he said, it had not been from the
beginning his own deed. This was doing the thing handsomely,
and like an English nobleman. I have been very much fêted and
caressed here, almost indeed to suffocation, but have been made
amends by meeting some old friends. One of the kindest was Lord
Somerville, who volunteered introducing me to Lord Spencer,
as much, I am convinced, from respect to your lordship's
protection and wishes, as from a desire to serve me personally.
He seemed very anxious to do any thing in his power which might
evince a wish to be of use to your protegé. Lord Minto was also
infinitely kind and active, and his influence with Lord Spencer
would, I am convinced, have been stretched to the utmost in
my favor, had not Lord Spencer's own view of the subject been
perfectly sufficient.
"After all, a little literary reputation is of some use here.
I suppose Solomon, when he compared a good name to a pot of
ointment, meant that it oiled the hinges of the hall-doors into
which the possessors of that inestimable treasure wished to
penetrate. What a _good_ name was in Jerusalem, a _known_ name
seems to be in London. If you are celebrated for writing verses
or for slicing cucumbers, for being two feet taller or two feet
less than any other biped, for acting plays when you should be
whipped at school, or for attending schools and institutions
when you should be preparing for your grave, your notoriety
becomes a talisman--'an Open Sesame' before which every thing
gives way--till you are voted a bore, and discarded for a new
plaything. As this is a consummation of notoriety which I am by
no means ambitious of experiencing, I hope I shall be very soon
able to shape my course northward, to enjoy my good fortune at
my leisure."
Elsewhere, a friend thus describes his bearing, in the presence of
his London entertainers:
"'Scott,' his friend says, 'more correctly than any other
man I ever knew, appreciated the value of that apparently
enthusiastic _engouement_ which the world of London shows to
the fashionable wonder of the year. During the sojourn of 1809,
the homage paid him would have turned the head of any less
gifted man of eminence. It neither altered his opinions, nor
produced the affectation of despising it; on the contrary, he
received it, cultivated it, and repaid it in his own coin. 'All
this is very flattering,' he would say, 'and very civil; and if
people are amused with hearing me tell a parcel of old stories,
or recite a pack of ballads to lovely young girls and gaping
matrons, they are easily pleased, and a man would be very
ill-natured who would not give pleasure so cheaply conferred.'
If he dined with us, and found any new faces, 'Well, do you
want me to play lion to-day?' was his usual question; 'I will
roar, if you like it, to your heart's content.' He would,
indeed, in such cases, put forth all his inimitable powers
of entertainment; and day after day surprised me by their
unexpected extent and variety. Then, as the party dwindled, and
we were left alone, he laughed at himself, quoted, 'Yet know
that I one Snug the joiner am--no lion fierce,' etc.,--and was
at once himself again.
"He often lamented the injurious effects for literature and
genius resulting from the influence of London celebrity on
weaker minds, especially in the excitement of ambition for this
subordinate and ephemeral _reputation du salon_. 'It may be a
pleasant gale to sail with,' he said, 'but it never yet led to
a port that I should like to anchor in.'"
In relation to the delightful introductory epistles to Marmion, we
find the following:
"He frequently wandered far from home, attended only by
his dog, and would return late in the evening, having let
hours after hours slip away among the soft and melancholy
wildernesses where Yarrow creeps from her fountains. The lines,
'Oft in my mind such thoughts awake,
By lone Saint Mary's silent lake,' &c.
paint a scene not less impressive than what Byron found amidst
the gigantic pines of the forest of Ravenna; and how completely
does he set himself before us in the moment of his gentler and
more solemn inspiration, by the closing couplet,