[17] Right Hon. Joseph Planta (son of Joseph Planta, Principal Librarian
of the British Museum from 1799) was at this time one of the Secretaries
to the Treasury. He died in 1847.
[18] _Personal Memoirs_ by P.L. Gordon, 2 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1830.
[19] General David Stewart of Garth, author of _Sketches of the
Highlanders_. 2 vols. 8vo, Edin. 1822. General Stewart died in St. Lucia
in 1829. Sir Walter said of him that no man was "more regretted, or
perhaps by a wider circle of friends and acquaintance."
[20] Resulting in the duel of 21st September 1809.--See Croker's
_Correspondence_, vol. i. p. 20; and _Life_, vol. iii. ch. xix.
[21] Afterwards Lord Polwarth.
[22] Persian _chitty_ = a short note.
[23] _Letters to Richard Heber, Esq., containing Critical Remarks on the
Series of Novels beginning with_ "Waverley," _and an Attempt to
ascertain their Author_. 8vo, London, 1821.
[24] They were published under the title _Ancient Ballads and Songs_, 2
vols. 8vo, 1828.
[25] _The Forester's Guide and Profitable Planter_, reviewed in the
_Quarterly_, Oct. 1827. See also "On Planting Waste Lands," in _Misc.
Prose Works_, vol. xxi. pp. 1-76.
[26] Daughter of Mrs. Maclean Clephane, and afterwards Marchioness of
Northampton.
[27] Scott's indorsation of this letter is characteristic--"Prodigious,
bold request, Tom Thumb."
[28] Among the documents laid before Scott in the Colonial Office, when
he was in London at the close of 1826, "were some which represented one
of Bonaparte's attendants at St. Helena, General Gourgaud, as having
been guilty of gross unfairness, giving the English Government private
information that the Emperor's complaints of ill-usage were utterly
unfounded, and yet then and afterwards aiding and assisting the delusion
in France as to the harshness of Sir Hudson Lowe's conduct towards his
captive. Sir Walter, when using these remarkable documents, guessed that
Gourgaud might be inclined to fix a personal quarrel on himself; and
there now appeared in the newspapers a succession of hints that the
General was seriously bent on this purpose. He applied as _Colonel
Grogg_ would have done forty years before to _The Baronet_" [W.
Clerk].--_Life_, vol. ix. pp. 142-3.
A short time previously Gourgaud had had a quarrel with Count Ségur
regarding the latter's _History of the Russian Campaign_, to which he
wrote a reply in 1825, and then fought a duel with the author in support
of his allegations. In Scott's case, however, it came to nothing beyond
a paper war, which Sir Walter declined to prolong, leaving the question
to be decided by the general public. It is due to Gourgaud to state that
on two occasions he saved Napoleon's life, though his subsequent
information to the British Government did not tend to increase his
popularity with the Bonapartists. He died at Paris in his sixty-ninth
year on July 25th, 1852.
[29] _Life_, vol. i. pp. 47, 155-156.
[30] _The Planters' Guide_, by Sir Henry Seton Steuart.
[31] In the _North British Review_, No. 82, there is an extremely
interesting sketch of this learned Peerage lawyer. He died in his 85th
year, in 1864, at his country seat, Kirklands in Roxburghshire, which he
had purchased by Sir Walter's advice.
The following amusing narrative of what took place on Tweedside when
these two old friends were in their prime is given in Mr. Richardson's
own words:--
"On a beautiful morning in September 1810 I started with Sir Walter from
Ashiestiel. We began nearly under the ruins of Elibank, and in sight of
the 'Hanging Tree.' I only had a rod, but Sir Walter walked by my side,
now quoting Izaak Walton, as, 'Fish me this stream by inches,' and now
delighting me with a profusion of Border stories. After the capture of
numerous fine trout, I hooked something greater and unseen, which
powerfully ran out my line. Sir Walter got into a state of great
excitement, exclaiming, 'It's a fish! It's a fish! Hold up your rod!
Give him line!' and so on. The rod, which belonged to one of his boys,
broke, and put us both into great alarm; but I contrived, by ascending
the steep bank and holding down the rod, still to give play to the reel,
till, after a good quarter of an hour's struggle, a trout, for so it
turned out to be, was conducted round a little peninsula. 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, exclaiming, 'To be ta'en by the like o' him
frae Lunnon!'"