THE BALLANTYNE PRESS AND ITS FOUNDERS
[Illustration: JAMES BALLANTYNE
From the Picture at Abbotsford.]
THE
BALLANTYNE PRESS
AND ITS FOUNDERS
1796-1908
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO OFFICES
OF OLD PAUL’S WORK]
EDINBURGH
BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
1909
_PREFACE_
_At the Centenary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott, in the year 1871,
a sketch of the Ballantyne Press was issued, setting forth its close
connection with him, and giving statistics of the Novels. But the story
of the Press, its rise and vicissitudes under the control of James
Ballantyne and Sir Walter, its progress and development, and its collapse
and new birth, as gleaned from Lockhart’s “Life of Scott” and other
sources, has not been given in a succinct form. For this purpose the
late Mr. W. T. Dobson, for some forty years one of the principal Readers
at the Press, gathered together considerable material which it has been
thought might prove to be of general interest. The Press has therefore,
with the assistance of Mr. W. L. Carrie, M.A., put the story into its
present book-form._
PAUL’S WORK, _April 1909_.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE 1
II. REMOVAL TO EDINBURGH 15
III. THE BALLANTYNE BROTHERS 26
IV. SCOTT’S POETICAL ROMANCES 32
V. JOHN BALLANTYNE, PUBLISHER 42
VI. THE WAVERLEY NOVELS 62
VII. THE “GREAT UNKNOWN” 82
VIII. COMMERCIAL TROUBLES AND SUCCESSES—“THE WEEKLY JOURNAL” 98
IX. THE AUTHOR AND THE REVISER 118
X. LOCKHART AND THE BALLANTYNE CONTROVERSY 132
XI. THROUGH OLD PAUL’S WORK, CANONGATE 143
XII. END OF OLD PAUL’S WORK 152
XIII. BIBLIOGRAPHY—EARLY DECADES OF PAUL’S WORK 158
APPENDIX 181
ILLUSTRATIONS & FACSIMILES
JAMES BALLANTYNE (_Photogravure_) _Frontispiece_
PAGE
KELSO IN 1797 _To face_ 2
FIRST PAGE OF FIRST ISSUE OF “KELSO MAIL” ” 4
TITLE—“AN APOLOGY FOR TALES OF TERROR” 9
TITLE—“MEMOIRS OF JOSEPH BORUWLASKI” 11
PLAYBILL PRINTED BY JAMES BALLANTYNE IN KELSO 13
TITLE—“MINSTRELSY OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER” (KELSO, 1802) 19
TITLE—“MINSTRELSY OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER” (EDINBURGH, 1803) 23
ST. JOHN STREET _To face_ 24
JOHN BALLANTYNE (_Photogravure_) ” 42
SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. (_Photogravure_) ” 62
TITLE—“WAVERLEY” 63
THE “GREAT UNKNOWN” _To face_ 82
A PAGE OF THE MS. OF “WAVERLEY” ” 96
OLD WOODEN PRESS AT PAUL’S WORK (_Photogravure_) ” 106
TITLE—“LIFE OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE” 129
CORRECTED PAGE-PROOF OF “LIFE OF BUONAPARTE” 131
JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, LL.D. (_Photogravure_) _To face_ 132
OLD PAUL’S WORK (_Photogravure_) ” 143
ENTRANCE TO THE OFFICES OF OLD PAUL’S WORK 145
WINDOW IN PAUL’S WORK OF THE PRESENT DAY _To face_ 156
DESK USED BY SIR WALTER SCOTT IN PAUL’S WORK 185
SIR WALTER SCOTT’S CHAIR IN PAUL’S WORK 187
THE BALLANTYNE PRESS
CHAPTER I
ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE
The History of the Art of Printing in Edinburgh shows periods of
fluctuating progress—times of decadence and revival—at recurring
intervals. These are found in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
and towards the close of the eighteenth century another period of
decadence seems to have arisen, although a few of the printers in the
city strove to maintain the fairer traditions of the art and did good
work. Among these it is interesting to note that the firms of Neill &
Co., Pillans & Wilson, and Oliver & Boyd are survivors of that far-off
time.
With the origin of the Ballantyne Press at Kelso in 1796, and its removal
a few years afterwards to Paul’s Work in Edinburgh, a revival took place
which inaugurated a new era for printing in Scotland. The advent of James
Ballantyne was productive of great changes, as he helped to diffuse
a taste for correct and elegant workmanship till then comparatively
unknown. Curwen, in his “History of Booksellers,” referring to the high
level of English typography, mentions the Ballantynes of Edinburgh as
founding a press, the excellent work of which had gained the good-will of
many authors and publishers both in Edinburgh and London.
[Illustration: KELSO IN 1797]
James Ballantyne was the son of a merchant in the Border town of Kelso,
and was born in 1772. He was educated at the grammar-school of that
town, then kept by Lancelot Whale, an admirable scholar and teacher,
who is said to have resembled Dominie Sampson in “Guy Mannering.” For a
short time in 1783 James had as schoolfellow and companion the youthful
Walter Scott, who was staying at Rosebank for the benefit of his health.
The two became associated, perhaps to the neglect of their tasks during
school hours, through the story-telling propensities of Scott.[1]
After school they would wander along the banks of the Tweed, and these
rambles had many pleasant associations—the one happy in drinking in the
romantic stories and legendary lore which the other was equally happy
in pouring out. This school friendship was never broken off, as Scott
paid frequent visits to the Border town for some years afterwards; and
when James Ballantyne went to Edinburgh to complete his legal training,
after finishing his apprenticeship in Kelso, it is more than probable
that he would meet Walter Scott, who was then attending the law-classes
of the University. The intercourse would be renewed in the class-rooms
and also in the monthly symposiums of the Teviotdale Club, to which they
both belonged. On the conclusion of his legal studies, James Ballantyne
commenced business as a lawyer in Edinburgh, but success proving slow he
returned in 1795 to his native town; and here, whatever legal or other
work he may have carried on, he seems, according to an advertisement
in No. 1 of the _Kelso Mail_, to have acted as agent for the Sun Fire
Insurance Co. Being a young man of literary ability as well, he soon
attracted the attention of the county people, who prevailed upon him,
in 1796, to become the editor and manager of a new weekly newspaper,
the _Kelso Mail_, which they were promoting in opposition to the _Kelso
Chronicle_, a paper of advanced democratic principles, circulating in
Roxburgh and the other Border counties. In this way he established his
first practical connection with printing.
[Illustration: REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST NUMBER OF
THE “KELSO MAIL”]
In the prospectus of the paper given in No. 1, April 13, 1797, there
occurs this paragraph: “In the Miscellany we present to the Public, it
shall be our endeavour to combine amusement with information. Literary
speculations, poetical productions of merit, extracts from popular works,
and interesting anecdotes, shall occasionally be called in to relieve the
more important details, which they shall not, however, in any instance
be suffered to supersede. In this department of our undertaking, we
hope from the arrangements we have made, to be able to furnish to the
Public a species of entertainment, which will be a source of innocent
and agreeable relaxation, while it will afford an opportunity for those
of our young countrymen who are partial to the lighter species of
literature, to indulge the excursions of their fancy, and ascertain,
without abusing their time, how far they may be qualified to succeed in
pleasing the Public.”
The somewhat lengthy Prospectus does not parade the usual phrase about
“the felt want,” but it implies it all the same, and it is pleasant to
record that the _Kelso Mail_ is still flourishing, having published
its centenary number in April 1897. By the courtesy of the present
proprietor, there is given here a reduced facsimile of the first page of
No. 1.
For the purposes of the new paper James Ballantyne had to make several
journeys—first to London, to arrange for correspondents, and also to
Edinburgh and Glasgow, in order to obtain type and other printing
appliances—Glasgow at that time having one of the best type-foundries in
the country.
In October 1799, when Walter Scott was returning from a ballad-hunting
raid through Ettrick Forest and Liddesdale, he stayed at Rosebank in
Kelso for some days, and the school friends again met. Scott had recently
published translations of the German ballads of Bürger—“Lenore” and
“The Wild Huntsman,”—through the publishing house of Manners & Miller
of Edinburgh. This little book had been well received in Scotland, but
had gained no general acceptance in the south. It had led, however, to a
correspondence with a few who were interested in ballad lore, especially
with Matthew Gregory Lewis (known generally as “Monk” Lewis), who was
then engaged upon a similar work called “Tales of Wonder,” but who had
delayed its progress in such a way as to cause considerable annoyance
to Scott and to others who had promised their aid.[2] In the meantime
it happened that, while Scott was at Rosebank, James Ballantyne called
one morning and asked him to supply a few paragraphs on some legal
question of the day for his newspaper. Scott complied, and, carrying his
manuscript to the printing-office, took with him also some ballads of
his own composition designed to appear in “Monk” Lewis’s collection of
“Tales of Wonder.” “With these, especially the ‘Morlachian fragment after
Goethe,’ Ballantyne was charmed. Scott talked of Lewis with rapture;
and, after reciting some of his stanzas, said: ‘I ought to apologise to
you for having troubled you with anything of my own, when I had things
like this for your ear.’ ‘I felt at once,’ says Ballantyne, ‘that his
own verses were far above what Lewis could ever do, and though, when I
said this, he dissented, yet he seemed pleased with the warmth of my
approbation.’”
On parting, Scott made a casual remark that he wondered his old friend
did not try to get some work from the booksellers, “to keep his types
in play” during the intervals of publication of the weekly _Mail_.
Ballantyne replied that such an idea had not occurred to him, and that,
moreover, he had little acquaintance with the Edinburgh publishers; but
that his types were good, and he thought he could produce work equal to
that of any of the town printers. “Scott, with his good-humoured smile,
said, ‘You had better try what you can do. You have been praising my
little ballads; suppose you print off a dozen copies or so of as many
as will make a pamphlet, sufficient to let my Edinburgh acquaintances
judge of your skill for themselves.’ Ballantyne assented; and exactly
twelve copies of ‘William and Helen,’ ‘The Fire King,’ ‘The Chase,’ and
a few other pieces, not all Scott’s own, were thrown off accordingly,
with the title (alluding to the long delay in the publication of Lewis’s
collection) of ‘An Apology for Tales of Terror, 1799.’”[3] A reproduction
of the title is given on the opposite page.
It happened also that Hughes, Ballantyne’s chief workman, had been
trained in one of the foremost printing-houses of the time, and was
capable of using his materials to the best advantage; and this, joined to
James Ballantyne’s excellent taste in the selection of type, contributed
to the production of the ballads in a style of typographical perfection
worthy of the most eminent printers before him.
[Illustration]
In the beginning of 1894 a copy of this very limited edition of the
“Apology” was advertised at a moderate price by a bookseller in London.
It was immediately purchased by an Edinburgh bookseller, who had a
higher opinion of its value than his London brother. This copy bore an
inscription in James Ballantyne’s handwriting, of which the following is
a slightly reduced facsimile—
[Illustration]
Evidently, however, John Murray had given it away some time after, as it
shows the further enrichment of the poet Campbell’s book-plate pasted on
the title-page. The book is rare, and, till this copy was discovered,
the only one known to exist was that at Abbotsford. It consists of
seventy-six pages and a title, and from a printer’s point of view
deserves the high praise bestowed upon it—having meadows of margin, wide
leading, good spacing and colour.
[Illustration]
In chronological order another Kelso book falls to be noticed here,
before we come to the important time of the association of Scott and
Ballantyne with the “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.” The reproduced
title shows it to be the life of Count Boruwlaski, a celebrated dwarf,
who died in 1837 at Durham, in the ninety-ninth year of his age.[4] The
book, a copy of which is at Paul’s Work, bears the date of 1801, and
must of course have been issued during the dwarf’s lifetime. In a letter
to Mr. Morritt, soon after the publication of “Waverley,” Scott has
the following humorous reference to the Count:—“I am heartily glad you
continued to like ‘Waverley’ to the end. The hero is a sneaking piece of
imbecility; and if he had married Flora, she would have set him up upon
the chimney-piece, as Count Boruwlaski’s wife used to do with him.”
[Illustration]
In connection with this chapter on Kelso work, it is gratifying to be
able to print here, besides the facsimile of the first page of No. 1 of
the _Kelso Mail_, a reduced facsimile of a playbill for the “New Theatre”
at Kelso for Monday, November 16, 1801.[5]