[307] See _Foreign Quarterly Review_, vol. iv. p. 355.
[308] This short History of Scotland, it was found, could not be
comprised in a single volume, and the publishers handsomely agreed to
give the author £1500 for two volumes, forming the first and fourth
issues of their own _Cabinet Cyclopædia_, the publication of which was
commenced before the end of the year.
[309] Right Hon. Charles Hope.
[310] Adam Rolland, Principal Clerk of Session, a nephew of Adam Rolland
of Gask, who was in some respects the prototype of Pleydell, and whose
face and figure have been made familiar to the present generation by
Raeburn's masterpiece of portraiture, now in the possession of Miss
Abercrombie, Edinburgh.
[311] Sir Walter had written to Mr. Lockhart on 8th May:--"_Anne of
Geierstein_ is concluded; but as I do not like her myself, I do not
expect she will be popular."
As a contrast to the criticisms of the printer and publisher, and a
comment upon the author's own apprehensions, the subjoined extract from
a letter written by Mr. G.P.R. James may be given:--"When I first read
_Anne of Geierstein_ I will own that the multitude of surpassing
beauties which it contained frightened me, but I find that after having
read it the public mind required to be let gently down from the tone of
excitement to which it had been raised, and was contented to pause at my
book (_Richelieu_), as a man who has been enjoying a fine prospect from
a high hill stops before he reaches the valley to take another look,
though half the beauty be already lost.... You cannot think how I long
to acquit myself of the obligations which I lie under towards you, but I
am afraid that fortune, who has given you both the will and the power to
confer such great favours upon me, has not in any degree enabled me to
aid or assist you in return."
[312] _The Bee Preserver_, or _Practical Directions for the Management
and Preservation of Hives_. Translated from the French of J. De Gelieu.
1829.
[313] "An oak tree which grows by the side of a fine spring near the
Castle of Dalhousie; very much observed by the country people, who give
out that before any of the family died a branch fell from the Edgewell
Tree. The old tree some few years ago fell altogether, but another
sprang from the same root, which is now [1720] tall and flourishing; and
lang be it sae."--Allan Ramsay's _Works_, vol. i. p. 329: "Stocks in
1720." 2 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1800.
The tree is still flourishing [1889], and the belief in its sympathy
with the family is not yet extinct, as an old forester, on seeing a
large branch fall from it on a quiet still day in July 1874, exclaimed,
"The laird's deed noo!" and accordingly news came soon after that Fox
Maule, 11th Earl of Dalhousie, had died.
[314] The Coalstoun Pear was removed from Dalhousie to Coalstoun House
in 1861.
[315] _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.
[316] _Macbeth_, Act IV. Sc. 1.
[317] Lord Forbes was at this time His Majesty's High Commissioner to
the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland: he had been appointed in
1826.
[318] Rev. Edward Irving, minister of the Scottish Church in London, was
deposed March 1833, and died Dec. 1834, aged forty-two.
[319] That is as a lay-member of the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland.
[320] _Lear_, Act I. Sc. 4.
[321] 2_d Henry IV_., Act V. Sc. 3.
[322] No. 25.
[323] The manuscript referred to is now at Abbotsford. It is a small
quarto of 8-3/4 x 6-1/2 inches, bound in old mottled leather, and
consisting of 251 leaves of paper, written on both sides in the Irish
character, apparently in the reign of James VI. It bears the following
inscription in Sir Walter's hand:--"The kind donor of this book is the
Right Rev. Bishop of Cloyne, famed for his skill in science, and
especially as an astronomer." For contents of vol. see Appendix. Dr.
John Brinkley, Bishop of Cloyne, was Astronomer Royal for Ireland.
[324] See letter to Principal Baird, _ante_, vol, i, p. 412 _n._
[325] The first line of the Scottish metrical version of the hundredth
Psalm. Mr. Lockhart tells us, in his affecting account of Sir Walter's
illness, that his love for the old metrical version of the Psalms
continued unabated to the end. A story has been told, on the authority
of the nurse in attendance, that on the morning of the day on which he
died, viz., on the 21st Sept. 1832, he opened his eyes once more, quite
conscious, and calmly asked her to read to him a psalm. She proceeded to
do so, when he gently interposed, saying, "No! no! the Scotch Psalms."
After reading to him a little while, he expressed a wish to be moved
nearer the window, through which he looked long and earnestly up and
down the valley and towards the sky, and then on the woman's face,
saying: "_I'll know it all before night_." This story will find some
confirmation from the entry in the Journal under September 24, 1830: "I
think _I will be in the secret next week_; unless I recruit greatly."
[326] In a letter to his son at this time he says the "sale of the
Novels is pro-di-gi-ous. If it last but a few years it will clear my
feet of old encumbrances."--_Life_, vol. ix. p. 32.
[327] Jeffrey, who had just retired from the editorship of the
_Edinburgh Review_, was succeeded by Macvey Napier, whose first No. was
published in October 1829.