LOCKHART AND THE BALLANTYNE CONTROVERSY
Into the merits of the disputes which arose over the disastrous
business transactions it is not necessary, perhaps, to enter at length.
What is brought together here is mainly drawn from materials left by
contemporaries of the persons immediately concerned. Recent criticism
has not supported Lockhart’s view that Scott was unaware how things were
going, and it has never been explained how a man, so exact about his
personal expenses, could have been so careless in his commercial dealings
as partner in a printing firm. Lockhart was well known in literary
circles to be a pungent critic, and his severity as a reviewer gained
for him the name of the “Scorpion.” His studiously insolent tone and his
wilful misrepresentations led to the publication by James Ballantyne’s
trustees of “The Refutation of the Misstatements and Calumnies contained
in Mr. Lockhart’s ‘Life of Sir Walter Scott’ respecting the Messrs.
Ballantyne.” This was followed by “The Ballantyne Humbug Handled” from
Lockhart; and this again was answered by a “Reply to Mr. Lockhart’s
Pamphlet. By the Authors of the Refutation.”
[Illustration: JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, LL.D.
PAINTED BY SIR FRANCIS GRANT P.R.A.]
A review of these pamphlets in _Tait’s Magazine_ for 1839 states that
Lockhart “had done gross and, everything considered, pitiful injustice
to Mr. James Ballantyne; but, in our opinion, the case stood still worse
as to Dr. John Leyden, Thomas Pringle, the Ettrick Shepherd, Alister
Campbell and other men of genius, who had no sons or friendly trustees
to do justice to their true characters, and defend their memories from
clumsy ridicule, and wanton and unprovoked misrepresentation.... The
editor of the _Quarterly_ (Lockhart) has been as condescending in the
free use of abusive and insolent language, and in calling names and
giving nicknames, as the veriest Grub Street author could desire; and,
all the while, this vulgarity is directed against persons whom he assumes
to treat as immeasurably his inferiors. The trustees, whether tradesmen
or professional men, though sufficiently acute and cutting at times, have
a manifest advantage over Mr. Lockhart, in never abandoning that decent
propriety of language which they owed to themselves, if not to their
supercilious and unceremonious adversary; while they have carefully and
ably elaborated every point in Mr. Lockhart’s statements, and knocked
them down one by one....
“For the unfounded assertions in the earlier volumes regarding the
Ballantynes, Mr. Lockhart makes a sort of _amende honorable_: ‘I
have been entirely mistaken, if those to whom I allude (Ballantyne’s
relatives), or any other of my readers, have interpreted any expressions
of mine as designed to cast _the slightest imputation upon the moral
rectitude_ of the elder Ballantyne. I believe James _to have been
from first to last a perfectly upright man_; that his principles were
of a lofty stamp—_his feelings pure even to simplicity_.’... It was
sufficiently proved from the documents given in the controversy that on
all occasions he (Scott) made use of James Ballantyne & Co. as the means
of supplying his wants. If he wanted money, and they happened to have it,
he drew it out; if not, he made use of their firm to raise it. Such was
his uniform practice, from the first formation of the company to the last
day of its existence.”[40]
John Gibson Lockhart died at Abbotsford on the 25th November 1854, in his
sixty-first year. “In a letter addressed to me,” says Dr. Charles Rogers,
“a few days afterwards, Mr. Robert Chambers referred to the event in
these words: ‘It is melancholy to think of Lockhart sinking at sixty—and
all through heart-break. Sir Adam Ferguson feels assured that such is
the remote but true cause of his death. He was perhaps the least amiable
man of letters I ever knew; but these considerations make his departure
somewhat touching.’
“Naturally a cynic, Lockhart was latterly prone to irritation; he
possessed that unhappy temperament which magnifies trifles and distorts
judgment. His perversity is in a measure illustrated by his harsh
treatment of James Hogg; it was wholly unexpected by the Shepherd’s
family, who supplied him with papers, and to whom his visits had (as Mrs.
Hogg assured me) been frequent and cordial. But Archibald Constable and
the brothers Ballantyne he cruelly wronged. By Sir Walter Scott they were
loved and trusted; and his biographer had no cause to heap censures on
their memory. That Sir Walter’s character might appear bright and pure,
it was unnecessary that his associates should be charged with baseness.
“The detractor succeeds at the outset. Lockhart, who, as has been shown
by an unprejudiced witness, Mrs. Gordon, in the life of her father
(Christopher North), was not unwilling to inflict pain, succeeded in
deeply wounding the families of Constable and the Ballantynes. But the
day of reparation came. The Ballantynes were vindicated at once, and the
censorious vehemence with which Lockhart returned to the charge invoked
wide disapproval. In 1873 appeared a memoir of Archibald Constable by his
son; in the third volume of that work the great bookseller obtains full
and complete exculpation.”[41]
Sir Walter Scott contributed not only capital to the firm, but great
literary influence, which attracted a copious supply of work to the
Ballantyne Press; yet the other partners were not very far behind him in
their influence upon the business. In addition to some capital, James
Ballantyne brought what in many ways was as important, experience in
literary matters and great talent as a practical printer, while John’s
pleasant manners and social accomplishments must have gained not a few
customers for the house. It cannot be denied that Sir Walter had a chief
share in maintaining the firm, for he always insisted that his own works
should be printed there, no matter who the publishers were; but he was
also largely responsible for the collapse, owing to those unsuccessful
publications previously referred to, which through his influence had
been printed by the firm. Moreover, his excessive desire for family
aggrandisement and his profuse baronial hospitality were extremely
unfortunate for all concerned; and before the collapse came he had spent
£29,000 on land alone, while his expenditure on house and grounds was
estimated at £76,000.
The following observations are from one who was acquainted with all the
circumstances: “It is a curious instance of Lockhart’s moral obtuseness
that he could make some most painful and needless disclosures in regard
to Scott himself in that Life (of Scott), to say nothing of his foul
and elaborate misrepresentation of the Ballantynes throughout. To that
evil deed it is necessary only to refer; for the confutation immediately
published was so complete, and the establishment of the fair fame of
the Ballantynes so triumphant, that their libeller had his punishment
very soon. Some lovers of literature and of Scott still struggled to
make out that the Ballantynes and their defenders, as tradesmen, could
know nothing of the feelings, nor judge of the conduct, of Scott as a
gentleman. The answer was plain: the Ballantynes were not mere tradesmen;
and if they had been, Scott made himself a tradesman, in regard to his
coadjutors, and must be judged by the laws of commercial integrity. The
exposures made by the Ballantynes and their friends of Scott’s pecuniary
obligations to them were forced upon them by Lockhart’s attacks upon
their characters and misrepresentation of their conduct and affairs. The
whole controversy was occasioned by Lockhart’s spontaneous indulgence in
caustic satire; and the Ballantynes came better out of it than either he
or his father in-law.”[42]
Another of Lockhart’s charges was that of professional incompetence, made
not from his own knowledge, but on the conjectural statements of Robert
Cadell, the partner of Constable and afterwards his supplanter in the
publication of the Waverley Novels. This objection mainly rested on the
assertion that James Ballantyne had not been trained as a printer, but it
need count for little. Neither Caxton nor Chepman, nor yet Baskerville,
all of them celebrated typographers, received the education of a printer;
and of how many printer-capitalists of the present day can it be said
that they have been subjected to the technical training of a skilled
workman? This, however, may be better answered from some notes by Dr.
Robert Chambers, a printer and a publisher,[43] who personally knew both
Scott and the Ballantynes. He maintains that Scott watched closely over
all the arrangements, was cognisant of the most minute transactions,
and alone planned all the necessary ways and means for carrying on the
business. He says further that “the printing business, which was James
Ballantyne’s legitimate work, was always prosperous, and we can say
with equal confidence from what we have ascertained through our own
experience, and that of friends, that his printing-office was decidedly
the most ably and carefully managed for all ends with which its customers
had to do in Edinburgh.” And Mr. R. P. Gillies, in his “Recollections of
Sir Walter Scott,”[44] observes regarding James Ballantyne: “A character
of more sterling integrity, or more friendly disposition, never existed.
As he was by no means of an over-sanguine temperament, it is possible
that by following his advice the subsequent embarrassments might have
been avoided.”
Again, as late as 1897, the _British Weekly_, in noticing Leslie
Stephen’s article on Scott in the _Cornhill Magazine_ of April that
year, says: “Although nothing will ever explain Scott’s extraordinary
recklessness, one comes nearer to an understanding when reading that
Scott drew from the Ballantyne business in four years £7000 for building
at Abbotsford, £5000 for his son’s commission, and nearly £900 to
a wine-merchant. Altogether it appears that during the four years
(1822-1826) Ballantyne & Co. had paid on Scott’s account £15,000 more
than they had received from him.”
This chapter may be concluded with Sir Walter’s own testimony to James
Ballantyne. In his “Journal” under date of December 18, 1825, he writes:
“Ballantyne behaves like himself, and sinks his own ruin in contemplating
mine. I tried to enrich him indeed, and now all—all is gone.” In a letter
to Lockhart, January 20, 1826, Scott again exonerates James Ballantyne
from being a primary cause of his misfortunes, and says: “It is easy,
no doubt, for any friend to blame me for entering into connection with
commercial matters at all. But I wish to know what I could have done
better.... Literature was not in those days what poor Constable has
made it; and with my little capital I was too glad to make commercially
the means of supporting my family.... I have been far from suffering by
James Ballantyne. _I owe it to him to say that his difficulties as well
as his advantages, are owing to me_.” We have here the crux of the whole
matter; and with this manly admission on the part of Sir Walter a painful
controversy may now be allowed to rest.
[Illustration: JAMES BALLANTYNE & CO’S. PRINTING OFFICE.]