[286] Son of Lord Medwyn. Mr. Forbes had lately returned from Italy,
where he had had as travelling companion Mr. Cleasby, and it was owing
to Mr. Forbes's recommendation that Mr. Cleasby came to Edinburgh to
pursue his studies. Mr. Forbes possessed a fine tenor voice, and his
favourite songs at that time were the Neapolitan and Calabrian
canzonetti, to which Sir Walter alludes under April 4.
[287] Mr. Lockhart's own account of the overture is sufficiently amusing
and characteristic of the men and the times:--
"I had not time to write more than a line the other day under Croker's
cover, having received it just at post time. He sent for me; I found him
in his nightcap at the Admiralty, colded badly, but in audacious
spirits. His business was this. The Duke of W[ellingto]n finds himself
without one newspaper _he_ can depend on. He wishes to buy up some
evening print, such as the _dull Star_; and could I do anything for it?
I said I was as well inclined to serve the Duke as he could be, but it
must be in other fashion. He then said _he agreed_ with me--but there
was a second question: Could I find them an editor, and undertake to
communicate between them and him--in short, save the Treasury the
inconvenience of maintaining an avowed intercourse with the Newspaper
press? He said he himself had for some years done this--then others. I
said I would endeavour to think of a man for their turn and would call
on him soon again.
"I have considered the matter at leisure, and resolve to have nothing to
do with it. They CAN only want me as a _writer_. Any understrapper M.P.
would do well enough for carrying hints to a newspaper office, and I
will not, even to secure the Duke, mix myself up with the newspapers.
That work it is which has damned Croker, and I can't afford to sacrifice
the advantage which I feel I have gained in these later years by
abstaining altogether from partisan scribbling, or to subject the
_Quarterly_ to risk of damage. The truth is, I don't admire, after all
that has come and gone, being applied to through the medium of friend
Crokey. I hope you will approve of my resolution."
[288] Peel, in writing to Scott, says, "The mention of your name [in
Parliament] as attached to the Edinburgh petition was received with loud
cheers."
[289] Richard Cleasby, afterwards the well-known scholar who spent many
years in gathering materials for an Icelandic Dictionary. Mr. Cleasby
died in 1847, but the work he had planned was not published until 1874,
when it appeared under the editorship of Mr. Vigfusson,[A] assisted by
Sir George Dasent.
[290] Bickerstaff's _Padlock_, Act I. Sc. 6.
[A] An Icelandic-English Dictionary based on the MS. collections of the
late Richard Cleasby, enlarged and completed by G. Vigfusson. 4to,
Oxford, 1874.
[291] _Don Quixote_, Pt. I. Bk. II. Cap. 2.
[292] Friends of Joanna Baillie's and John Richardson's.
[293] This must have been an unusual experience for the head of a family
that considered itself to be the oldest in Christendom. Their château
contained, it was said, two pictures: one of the Deluge, in which Noah
is represented going into the Ark, carrying under his arm a small trunk,
on which was written "_Papiers de la maison de Lévis_;" the other a
portrait of the founder of the house bowing reverently to the Virgin,
who is made to say, "_Couvrez-vous, mon cousin_."--See Walpole's
_Letters_. The book referred to by Sir Walter is _The Carbonaro: a
Piedmontese Tale_, by the Duke de Lévis. 2 vols. London, 1829.
[294] No. 152--May, 1829.
[295] Burns's Lines to a Mouse: "a daimen-icker in a thrave," that is,
an ear of corn out of two dozen sheaves.
[296] John, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich.
[297] These biographies, intended for _The Family Library_, were never
written.
[298] _Romeo and Juliet_, Act v. Sc. 1.
[299]
"When I think on the world's pelf May the shame fa' and the blethrie o
't." Burden of old Scottish Song.
[300] That these afternoon rambles with the dogs were not always so
tranquil may be gathered from an incident described by Mr. Adolphus, in
which an unsuspecting cat at a cottage door was demolished by Nimrod in
one of his gambols.--_Life_, vol. ix. p. 362. This deer-hound was an old
offender. Sir Walter tells his friend Richardson, _à propos_ of a story
he had just heard of Joanna Baillie's cat having worried a dog: "It is
just like her mistress, who beats the male race of authors out of the
pit in describing the higher passions that are more proper to their sex
than hers. Alack-a-day! my poor cat Hinse, my acquaintance, and in some
sort my friend of fifteen years, was snapped at even by the paynim
Nimrod. What could I say to him but what Brantôme said to some
_ferrailleur_ who had been too successful in a duel, 'Ah! mon grand ami,
vous avez tué mon autre grand ami.'"
[301] Manager of the _Foreign Review_.
[302] Robert Pitcairn, author of _Criminal Trials in Scotland_, 3 vols.
4to.
[303] William Scott, Esq., afterwards Laird of Raeburn, was commonly
thus designated from a minor possession, during his father's lifetime.
Whatever, in things of this sort, used to be practised among the French
noblesse, might be traced, till very lately, in the customs of the
Scottish provincial gentry.--- J.G.L.
[304] _Life_, vol. vi. p. 90.
[305]
"They have ty'd me to a stake; I cannot fly, But bear-like I must fight
the course."--_Macbeth_, Act v. Sc. 7.
[306] The work was published in May30 under the following title:--"_Anne
of Geierstein_, or _The Maiden of the Mist_. By the Author of
_Waverley_, etc.
What! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground?
SHAKESPEARE.
In three volumes. Edinburgh: Printed for Cadell & Co., Edinburgh; and
Simpkin & Marshall, London, 1829. (At the end) Edinburgh: Printed by
Ballantyne & Company, Paul's Work, Canongate."