[143] _Cause of Truth defended_, etc. Two Trials of the Rev. T. Hill,
Methodist Preacher, for defamation of the character of Miss Bell, etc.
etc. 8vo. Hull and London, 1827.
[144] Coleridge's _Christabel_, Part II.
[145] James Ferrier, one of the Clerks of Session,--the father of the
authoress of _Marriage, The Inheritance_, and _Destiny_. Mr. Ferrier was
born in 1744, and died in 1829.
[146] "Authentic Memoirs of the remarkable Life and surprising Exploits
of Mandrin, Captain-General of the French Smugglers, who for the space
of nine months resolutely stood in defiance of the whole army of
France," etc. 8vo, Lond. 1755. See _Waverley Novels_, vol. xxxvii. p.
434, Note.--J.G.L.
[147] See _Tranent Muir_ by Skirving.
[148] Addison, _Cato_, i. 4.
[149] See p. 83.
[150] Variation from 2 _Henry IV._, Act II. Sc. 4.
[151] _See_ "Glee for King Charles," _Waverley Novels_, vol. xl. p.
40.--J.G.L.
[152] Lady Louisa Stuart, youngest daughter of John, third Earl of Bute,
and grand-daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
[153] The well-known Mathematician and Natural Philosopher. Professor
Playfair died in 1819 in his seventy-second year.
Have you seen the famed Bas bleu, the gentle dame Apreece,
Who at a glance shot through and through the Scots Review,
And changed its swans to geese?
Playfair forgot his mathematics, astronomy, and hydrostatics,
And in her presence often swore, he knew not two and two made four.
[Squib of 1811.]
[154] See _Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act II. Sc. 2.
[155] This journey was made in 1810.--_See Life_, Chapter xxi. vol. iii.
p. 271.
[156] Lady Davy survived her distinguished husband for more than a
quarter of a century; she died in London, May 1855.
[157] _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 3.
[158] Sir Patrick Murray of Ochtertyre, then a baron of the Court of
Exchequer in Scotland; he died in June 1837.
[159] This cherished and confidential friend had been living at Kaeside
from 1817, and acting as steward on the estate. Mr. Laidlaw died in
Ross-shire in 1845.
Mr. Lockhart says, "I have the best reason to believe that the kind and
manly character of Dandie [Dinmont in _Guy Mannering_], the gentle and
delicious one of his wife, and some at least of the most picturesque
peculiarities of the _ménage_ at Charlieshope were filled up from
Scott's observation, years after this period [1792], of a family, with
one of whose members he had, through the best part of his life, a close
and affectionate connection. To those who were familiar with him, I have
perhaps already sufficiently indicated the early home of his dear
friend, William Laidlaw." _Life_, vol. i. p. 268. See also vol. ii. p.
59; v. pp. 210-15, 251; vii. p. 168; viii. p. 68, etc.
[160] Flax on her distaff.
[161] _The English in Italy_, 3 vols., Lond. 1825, ascribed to the
Marquis of Normanby.
[162] "S.W.S." Scott, in writing of himself, often uses these three
letters in playful allusion to a freak of his trusty henchman Tom
Purdie, who, in his joy on hearing of the baronetcy, proceeded to mark
every sheep on the estate with a large letter "S" in addition to the
owner's initials, W.S., which, according to custom, had already been
stamped on their backs.
[163] Moore also felt that the morning was his happiest time for work,
but he preferred "composing" in bed! He says somewhere that he would
have passed half his days in bed for the purpose of composition had he
not found it too relaxing.
Macaulay, too, when engaged in his _History_, was in the habit of
writing three hours before breakfast daily.
[164] I am assured by Professor Butcher that there is no such passage in
the Odyssey, but he suggests "that what Scott had in his mind was merely
the Greek idea of a _waking vision_ being a true one. They spoke of it
as a ὕπαρ opposed to an ὄναρ, a mere dream. These waking visions are
usually said to be seen towards morning.
"In the Odyssey there are two such visions which turn out to be
realities:--that of Nausicaa, Bk. vi. 20, etc., and that of Penelope,
Bk. xix. 535, etc. In the former case we are told that the vision
occurred just before dawn; I. 48-49, αὐτίκα δ' Ἠὼςἦλθεν, 'straightway
came the Dawn,' etc. In the latter, there is no special mention of the
hour. The vision, however, is said to be not a dream, but a true vision
which shall be accomplished (547, οὐκ ὂναρ ἀλλ' ὕπαρ ἐσθλὸν, ὅ τοι
τετελεσμένον ἔσται).
"Such passages as these, which are frequent in Greek literature, might
easily have given rise to the notion of a 'matutinal inspiration,' of
which Scott speaks."
[165] General Sir James Steuart Denham of Coltness, Baronet, Colonel of
the Scots Greys. His father, the celebrated political economist, took
part in the Rebellion of 1745, and was long afterwards an exile. The
reader is no doubt acquainted with "Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters"
addressed to him and his wife, Lady Frances.--J.G.L. See also Mrs.
Calderwood's _Letters_, 8vo. Edin. 1884. Sir James died in 1839.
[166] "Had Prince Charles slept during the whole of the expedition,"
says the Chevalier Johnstone, "and allowed Lord George Murray to act for
him according to his own judgment, there is every reason for supposing
he would have found the crown of Great Britain on his head when he
awoke."--_Memoirs of the Rebellion of 1745_, etc. 4to, p. 140. London,
1810.--J.G.L.
[167] The lines are given in _Woodstock_, with the following apology:
"We observe this couplet in Fielding's farce of _Tumbledown Dick_,
founded on the same classical story. As it was current in the time of
the Commonwealth, it must have reached the author of _Tom Jones_ by
tradition, for no one will suspect the present author of making the
anachronism."
[168] Colonel Ranaldson Macdonell of Glengarry. He died in January
1828.--J.G.L.
[169] "We have had Maréchal Macdonald here. We had a capital account of
Glengarry visiting the interior of a convent in the ancient Highland
garb, and the effect of such an apparition on the nuns, who fled in all
directions."--Scott to Skene, Edinburgh, 24th June 1825.
[170] No. 39 Castle Street, which had been occupied by him from 1802,
when he removed from No. 10 in the same street. The situation suited
him, as the houses of nearly all his friends were within a circle of a
few hundred yards. For description see _Life_, vol. v. pp. 321, 333-4,
etc.
[171] See below, _March_ 12.
[172] Burns's _Dedication_ to Gavin Hamilton--
"May ne'er misfortune's gowling bark Howl through the dwelling o' the
_Clerk_."
[173]
"O born to arms! O worth in youth approved, O soft humanity in age
beloved!"
--See Pope, _Epitaphs_, 9.
[174] David Monypenny had been on the Bench from 1813; he retired in
1830, and died at the age of eighty-one in 1850.
[175] Parody on Moore's _Minstrel Boy_.--J.G.L.
[176] "Le Pas de la Fontaine des Pleurs."--_Chroniques Nationales_.
[177] This hint was taken up in _Count Robert of Paris_.--J.G.L.
[178] James Ballantyne gives an interesting account of an interview a
dozen years before this time, when "Tom Telltruth" had a somewhat
delicate task to perform:--
"_The Lord of the Isles_ was by far the least popular of the series, and
Mr. Scott was very prompt at making such discoveries. In about a week
after its publication he took me into his library, and asked me what the
people were saying about _The Lord of the Isles_. I hesitated, much in
the same manner that Gil Blas might be supposed to do when a similar
question was put by the Archbishop of Grenada, but he very speedily
brought the matter to a point--'Come, speak out, my good fellow, what
has put it in your head to be on ceremony with me? But the result is in
one word--disappointment!' My silence admitted his inference to its
fullest extent. His countenance certainly did look rather blank for a
few seconds (for it is a singular fact, that before the public, or
rather the booksellers, gave _their_ decision he no more knew whether he
had written well or ill, than whether a die, which he threw out of a
box, was to turn out a sise or an ace). However, he almost instantly
resumed his spirits and expressed his wonder rather that his popularity
had lasted so long, than that it should have given way at last. At
length, with a perfectly cheerful manner, he said, 'Well, well, James,
but you know we must not droop--for you know we can't and won't give
over--we must just try something else, and the question is, what it's to
be?' Nor was it any wonder he spoke thus, for he could not fail to be
unconsciously conscious, if I dare use such a term, of his own gigantic,
and as yet undeveloped, powers, and was somewhat under forty years old.
I am by no means sure whether he then alluded to _Waverley_, as if he
had mentioned it to me for the first time, for my memory has greatly
failed me touching this, or whether he alluded to it, as in fact appears
to have been the case, as having been commenced and laid aside several
years before, but I well recollect that he consulted me with his usual
openness and candour respecting his probability of succeeding as a
novelist, and I confess my expectations were not very sanguine. He saw
this and said, 'Well, I don't see why I should not succeed as well as
other people. Come, faint heart never won fair lady--let us try.' I
remember when the work was put into my hands, I could not get myself to
think much, of the Waverley Honour scenes, but to my shame be it spoken,
when he had reached the exquisite scenes of Scottish manners at
Tully-Veolan, I thought them, and pronounced them, vulgar! When the
success of the book so utterly knocked me down as a man of taste, all
that the good-natured Author observed was, 'Well, I really thought you
might be wrong about the Scotch. Why, Burns had already attracted
universal attention to all about Scotland, and I confess I could not see
why I should not be able to keep the flame alive, merely because I wrote
in prose in place of rhyme.'"--_Memorandum_.
[179] This was a club-house on the London plan, in Princes Street [No.
54], a little eastward from the Mound. On its dissolution soon
afterwards, Sir W. was elected by acclamation into the elder Society,
called the _New Club_, who had then their house in St. Andrew Square
[No. 3], and since 1837 in Princes Street [No. 85].
[180] Mr. Skene's house was No. 126 Princes Street. Scott's written
answer has been preserved:--
"MY DEAR SKENE,--A thousand thanks for your kind proposal. But I am a
solitary monster by temper, and must necessarily couch in a den of my
own. I should not, I assure you, have made any ceremony in accepting
your offer had it at all been like to suit me.
"But I must make an arrangement which is to last for years, and perhaps
for my lifetime; therefore the sooner I place myself on my footing it
will be so much the better.--Always, dear Skene, your obliged and
faithful, W. SCOTT."
[181] Pope's _Imitation of Horace_, Bk. ii Sat. 6.--J.G.L.
[182] These Letters appeared in the _Edinburgh Weekly Journal_ in
February and March 1826. "They were then collected into a pamphlet, and
ran through numerous editions; in the subsequent discussions in
Parliament, they were frequently referred to; and although an elaborate
answer by the then Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr. Croker, attracted
much notice, and was, by the Government of the time, expected to
neutralise the effect of the northern lucubrations--the proposed
measure, as regarded Scotland, was ultimately abandoned, and that result
was universally ascribed to Malachi Malagrowther."--Scott's _Misc.
Works_, vol. xxi.
[183] _Winter's Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 2, slightly altered.
[184] The late Mr. Williamson of Cardrona in Peeblesshire, was a strange
humorist, of whom Sir Walter told many stories. The allusion here is to
the anecdote of the _Leetle Anderson_ in the first of _Malachi_'s
Epistles.:--See Scott's _Prose Miscellanies_, vol. xxi. p.
289.--_J.G.L._
[185] _The Omen_, by Galt, had just been published.--See Sir Walter's
review of this novel in the _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vol. xviii. p.
333. John Gait died at Greenock in April 1839.--J.G.L.
[186] "A Letter from Malachi Malagrowther, Esq., to the Editor of the
_Edinburgh Weekly Journal_, on the proposed Change of Currency, and
other late alterations as they affect, or are intended to affect, the
Kingdom of Scotland. 8 vo, Edin. 1826."