[445] Henry Liddell, second Baron Ravensworth, author of a translation
of the Odes of Horace, a volume of Latin Poems, etc.
[446] In a letter from Sir Walter to his son-in-law, of April 11th, he
says:--
"When you can take an hour to think of this, I will be glad to hear from
you.... I am in possession of five or six manuscripts, copies, or large
extracts, taken under my own eyes. Croker thinks, and I am of his
opinion, that if there was room for a personal narrative of the
character, it would answer admirably."
[447] This gentleman, a brother to the Laird of Raeburn, had made some
fortune in the East Indies, and bestowed the name of Ravenswood on a
villa which he built near Melrose. He died in 1831.--J.G.L.
[448] The Manuscripts were sold by auction in London on August 19th,
1831, and the prices realised fell far short of what might have been
expected, _e.g._ (1) _Monastery_, £18; (2) _Guy Mannering_, £27, 10s.;
(3) _Old Mortality_, £33; (4) _Antiquary_, £42; (5) _Rob Roy_, £50; (6)
_Peveril of the Peak_, £42; (7) _Waverley_, £18; (8) _Abbot_, £14; (9)
_Ivanhoe_, £12; (10) _Pirate_, £12; (11) _Nigel_, £16, 16s.; (12)
_Kenilworth_, £17; (13) _Bride of Lammermoor_, £14, 14s.--Total
£317.--See David Laing's Catalogue, pp. 99-108, for an account of the
dispersion and sales of the original MSS., prose and poetry.
[449] Miss J. Erskine, a daughter of Lord Kinnedder's. She died in
1838.--J.G.L.
[450] The Rev. N. Paterson, author of _The Manse Garden_; afterwards
minister of St. Andrew's, Glasgow. He died in 1871. Mr. Paterson was a
grandson of Robert Paterson, "Old Mortality," and brother of the Rev.
Walter Paterson, minister of Kirkurd, author of the _Legend of Iona_--a
poem written in imitation of the style of Scott, and in which he
recognises his obligations to Sir Walter in the following terms:--"From
him I derived courage to persevere in an undertaking on which I had
often reflected with terror and distrust."--_Legend_, notes, p. 305.
[451] Mr. John Smith of Darnick, the builder of Abbotsford, and
architect of these bridges.--J.G.L.
[452] This gentleman died in Edinburgh on the 4th February 1838.--J.G.L.
[453] The late Captain Watson, R.N., was distantly related to Sir
Walter's mother. His son, Sir John Watson Gordon, rose to great eminence
as a painter; and his portraits of Scott and Hogg rank among his best
pieces. He became President of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1850, died
in 1864, leaving funds to endow a Chair of Fine Arts in the Edinburgh
University.
[454] Mr. W.F. Skene, Historiographer Royal for Scotland, and son of
Scott's dear friend, has been good enough to give me his recollections
of these days:--
"On referring to my Diary for the year 1831 I find the following entry:
'This Spring, on 31st April, I went with my father to Abbotsford and
left on Sir Walter Scott being taken ill.' The date here given for my
visit does not correspond with that in Sir Walter's Diary, but, as there
are only thirty days in April it has evidently been written by mistake
for the 13th. I had just attained my twenty-first year, and as such a
visit at that early age was a great event in my life, I retain a very
distinct recollection of the main features of it. I recollect that Lord
Meadowbank and his eldest son Alan came at the same time, and the dinner
party, at which Mr. Pringle of the Haining and his brother were present.
The day after our arrival Sir Walter asked me to drive with him. We went
in his open carriage to the Yarrow, where we got out, and Sir Walter,
leaning on my arm, walked up the side of the river, pouring forth a
continuous stream of anecdotes, traditions, and scraps of ballads. I was
in the seventh heaven of delight, and thought I had never spent such a
day. On Sunday Sir Walter did not come down to breakfast, but sent a
message to say that he had caught cold and had taken some medicine for
it the night before, which had made him ill, and would remain in bed.
When we sat at either lunch or dinner, I do not recollect which, Sir
Walter walked into the room and sat down near the table, but ate
nothing. He seemed in a dazed state, and took no notice of any one, but
after a few minutes' silence, during which his daughter Anne, who was at
table, and was watching him with some anxiety, motioned to us to take no
notice, he began in a quiet voice to tell us a story of a pauper
lunatic, who, fancying he was a rich man, and was entertaining all sorts
of high persons to the most splendid banquets, communicated to his
doctor in confidence that there was one thing that troubled him much,
and which he could not account for, and that was that all these
exquisite dishes seemed to him to taste of oatmeal porridge. Sir Walter
told this with much humour, and after a few minutes' silence began
again, and told the same story over a second time, and then again a
third time.[E] His daughter, who was watching him with increasing
anxiety, then motioned to us to rise from table, and persuaded her
father to return to his bedroom. Next day the doctor, who had been sent
for, told us that he was seriously ill, and advised that his guests
should leave at once, so that the house might be kept quiet and his
daughter devote herself entirely to the care of her father. We
accordingly left at once, and I never saw Sir Walter again. I still,
however, retain a memorial of my visit. I had fallen into indifferent
health in the previous year, and been recommended Highland air. By Sir
Walter's advice I was sent to live with a friend of his, the Reverend
Doctor Macintosh Mackay, then minister of Laggan, in the Inverness-shire
Highlands, and had passed my time learning from him the Gaelic language.
This excited in me a taste for Celtic Antiquities, and finding in Sir
Walter's Library a copy of O'Connor's _Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores
veteres_, I sat up one night transcribing from it the Annals of
Tighernac. This transcript is still in my library.--WILLIAM F. SKENE.
"27 INVERLEITH ROW, Sept. 1890."
[E] An echo of one of his own singular illustrations (see _Letters on
Demonology_) of the occasional collision between a disturbed imagination
and the organs of sense.
[455] _Æneid_ II. 62.