Illustrations of the Autobiography Continued. -- High School
of Edinburgh. -- Residence at Kelso.
1778-1783.
The report of Walter's progress in horsemanship probably reminded his
father that it was time he should be learning other things beyond the
department either of Aunt Jenny or Uncle Thomas, and after a few
months he was recalled to Edinburgh. But extraordinary as was the
progress he had by this time made in that self-education which alone
is of primary consequence to spirits of his order, he was found too
deficient in lesser matters to be at once entered in the High School.
Probably his mother dreaded, and deferred as long as she could, the
day when he should be exposed to the rude collision of a crowd of
boys. At all events he was placed first in a little private school
kept by one Leechman in Bristo Port; and then, that experiment not
answering expectation, under the domestic tutorage of Mr. James
French, afterwards minister of East Kilbride in Lanarkshire. This
respectable man considered him fit to join Luke Fraser's class in
October, 1778.
His own account of his progress at this excellent seminary is, on the
whole, very similar to what I have received from some of his surviving
schoolfellows. His quick apprehension and powerful memory enabled him,
at little cost of labor, to perform the usual routine of tasks, in
such a manner as to keep him generally "in a decent place" (so he once
expressed it to Mr. Skene) "about the middle of the class; with
which," he continued, "I {p.079} was the better contented, that it
chanced to be near the fire."[51] Mr. Fraser was, I believe, more
zealous in enforcing attention to the technicalities of grammar, than
to excite curiosity about historical facts, or imagination to strain
after the flights of a poet. There is no evidence that Scott, though
he speaks of him as his "kind master," in remembrance probably of
sympathy for his physical infirmities, ever attracted his special
notice with reference to scholarship; but Adam, the Rector, into whose
class he passed in October, 1782, was, as his situation demanded, a
teacher of a more liberal caste; and though never, even under his
guidance, did Walter fix and concentrate his ambition so as to
maintain an eminent place, still the vivacity of his talents was
observed, and the readiness of his memory in particular was so often
displayed, that (as Mr. Irving, his chosen friend of that day, informs
me) the Doctor "would constantly refer to him for dates, the
particulars of battles, and other remarkable events alluded to in
Horace, or whatever author the boys were reading, and used to call him
the historian of the class." No one who has read, as few have not, Dr.
Adam's interesting work on Roman Antiquities will doubt the author's
capacity for stimulating such a mind as young Scott's.
[Footnote 51: According to Mr. Irving's recollections,
Scott's place, after the first winter, was usually between
the 7th and the 15th from the top of the class. He adds, "Dr.
James Buchan was always the _dux_; David Douglas (Lord
Reston) _second_; and the present Lord Melville _third_."]
He speaks of himself as occasionally "glancing like a meteor from the
bottom to the top of the form." His schoolfellow, Mr. Claud Russell,
remembers that he once made a great leap in consequence of the
stupidity of some laggard on what is called the _dult's_ (dolt's)
bench, who being asked, on boggling at _cum_, "what part of speech is
_with_?" answered, "_a substantive_." The Rector, after a moment's
pause, thought it worth while to ask his _dux_--"Is _with_ ever a
substantive?" but all were silent {p.080} until the query reached
Scott, then near the bottom of the class, who instantly responded by
quoting a verse of the book of Judges:--"And Samson said unto Delilah,
If they bind me with seven green _withs_ that were never dried, then
shall I be weak, and as another man."[52] Another upward movement,
accomplished in a less laudable manner, but still one strikingly
illustrative of his ingenious resources, I am enabled to preserve
through the kindness of a brother poet and esteemed friend, to whom
Sir Walter himself communicated it in the melancholy twilight of his
bright day.
[Footnote 52: Chap. xvi. verse 7.]
Mr. Rogers says--"Sitting one day alone with him in your house, in the
Regent's Park--(it was the day but one before he left it to embark at
Portsmouth for Malta)--I led him, among other things, to tell me once
again a story of himself, which he had formerly told me, and which I
had often wished to recover. When I returned home, I wrote it down, as
nearly as I could, in his own words; and here they are. The subject is
an achievement worthy of Ulysses himself, and such as many of his
schoolfellows could, no doubt, have related of him; but I fear I have
done it no justice, though the story is so very characteristic that it
should not be lost. The inimitable manner in which he told it--the
glance of the eye, the turn of the head, and the light that played
over his faded features, as, one by one, the circumstances came back
to him, accompanied by a thousand boyish feelings, that had slept
perhaps for years--there is no language, not even his own, could
convey to you; but you can supply them. Would that others could do so,
who had not the good fortune to know him!--The memorandum (Friday,
October 21, 1831) is as follows:--
"There was a boy in my class at school, who stood always at the
top,[53] nor could I with all my efforts supplant him. {p.081} Day
came after day, and still he kept his place, do what I would; till at
length I observed that, when a question was asked him, he always
fumbled with his fingers at a particular button in the lower part of
his waistcoat. To remove it, therefore, became expedient in my eyes;
and in an evil moment it was removed with a knife. Great was my
anxiety to know the success of my measure; and it succeeded too well.
When the boy was again questioned, his fingers sought again for the
button, but it was not to be found. In his distress he looked down for
it; it was to be seen no more than to be felt. He stood confounded,
and I took possession of his place; nor did he ever recover it, or
ever, I believe, suspect who was the author of his wrong. Often in
after-life has the sight of him smote me as I passed by him; and often
have I resolved to make him some reparation; but it ended in good
resolutions. Though I never renewed my acquaintance with him, I often
saw him, for he filled some inferior office in one of the courts of
law at Edinburgh. Poor fellow! I believe he is dead; he took early to
drinking."
[Footnote 53: Mr. Irving inclines to think that this incident
must have occurred during Scott's attendance on Luke Fraser,
not after he went to Dr. Adam; and he also suspects that the
boy referred to sat at the top, not of the _class_, but of
Scott's own bench or division of the class.]
The autobiography tells us that his translations in verse from Horace
and Virgil were often approved by Dr. Adam. One of these little
pieces, written in a weak boyish scrawl, within pencilled marks still
visible, had been carefully preserved by his mother; it was found
folded up in a cover inscribed by the old lady--"_My Walter's first
lines_, 1782."
"In awful ruins Ætna thunders nigh,
And sends in pitchy whirlwinds to the sky
Black clouds of smoke, which, still as they aspire,
From their dark sides there bursts the glowing fire;
At other times huge balls of fire are toss'd,
That lick the stars, and in the smoke are lost:
Sometimes the mount, with vast convulsions torn,
Emits huge rocks, which instantly are borne
With loud explosions to the starry skies,
The stones made liquid as the huge mass flies,
Then back again with greater weight recoils,
While Ætna thundering from the bottom boils."
I {p.082} gather from Mr. Irving that these lines were considered as
the second best set of those produced on the occasion--Colin Mackenzie
of Portmore, through life Scott's dear friend, carrying off the
premium.
In his Introduction to the Lay, he alludes to an original effusion of
these "schoolboy days," prompted by a thunderstorm, which he says "was
much approved of, until a malevolent critic sprung up in the shape of
an apothecary's blue-buskined wife, who affirmed that my most sweet
poetry was copied from an old magazine. I never" (he continues)
"forgave the imputation, and even now I acknowledge some resentment
against the poor woman's memory. She indeed accused me unjustly when
she said I had stolen my poem ready made; but as I had, like most
premature poets, copied all the words and ideas of which my verses
consisted, she was so far right. I made one or two faint attempts at
verse after I had undergone this sort of daw-plucking at the hands of
the apothecary's wife, but some friend or other always advised me to
put my verses into the fire; and, like Dorax in the play, I submitted,
thought with a swelling heart." These lines, and another short piece
"On the Setting Sun," were lately found wrapped up in a cover,
inscribed by Dr. Adam, "Walter Scott, July, 1783," and have been
kindly transmitted to me by the gentleman who discovered them.
ON A THUNDERSTORM.
"Loud o'er my head though awful thunders roll,
And vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole,
Yet 't is thy voice, my God, that bids them fly,
Thy arm directs those lightnings through the sky.
Then let the good thy mighty name revere,
And hardened sinners thy just vengeance fear."
ON THE SETTING SUN.
"Those evening clouds, that setting ray
And beauteous tints, serve to display
Their great Creator's praise;
Then let the short-lived thing call'd man,
Whose {p.083} life's comprised within a span,
To Him his homage raise.
"We often praise the evening clouds,
And tints so gay and bold,
But seldom think upon our God,
Who tinged these clouds with gold!"[54]
[Footnote 54: I am obliged for these little memorials to the
Rev. W. Steven of Rotterdam, author of an interesting book on
the history of the branch of the Scotch Church long
established in Holland, and still flourishing under the
protection of the enlightened government of that country. Mr.
Steven found them in the course of his recent researches,
undertaken with a view to some memoirs of the High School of
Edinburgh, at which he had received his own early education.]
It must, I think, be allowed that these lines, though of the class to
which the poet himself modestly ascribes them, and not to be compared
with the efforts of Pope, still less of Cowley at the same period,
show, nevertheless, praiseworthy dexterity for a boy of twelve.
The fragment tells us that on the whole he was "more distinguished in
_the yards_ (as the High School playground was called) than in _the
class_;" and this, not less than the intellectual advancement which
years before had excited the admiration of Mrs. Cockburn, was the
natural result of his lifelong "rebellion against external
circumstances." He might now with very slender exertion have been the
_dux_ of his form; but if there was more difficulty, there was also
more to whet his ambition, in the attempt to overcome the
disadvantages of his physical misfortune, and in spite of them assert
equality with the best of his compeers on the ground which they
considered as the true arena of honor. He told me, in walking through
these same _yards_ forty years afterwards, that he had scarcely made
his first appearance there, before some dispute arising, his opponent
remarked that "there was no use to hargle-bargle with a cripple;" upon
which he replied, that if he might fight _mounted_, he would try his
hand with any one of his inches. "An elder boy," said he, "who had
perhaps been chuckling over our friend Roderick {p.084} Random when
his mother supposed him to be in full cry after Pyrrhus or Porus,
suggested that the two little tinklers might be lashed front to front
upon a deal board--and--'O gran bonta de' cavalier antichi'--the
proposal being forthwith agreed to, I received my first bloody nose in
an attitude which would have entitled me, in the blessed days of
personal cognizances, to assume that of a _lioncel seiant gules_. My
pugilistic trophies here," he continued, "were all the results of such
_sittings in banco_." Considering his utter ignorance of fear, the
strength of his chest and upper limbs, and that the scientific part of
pugilism never flourished in Scotland, I dare say these trophies were
not few.
The mettle of the High School boys, however, was principally displayed
elsewhere than in their own _yards_; and Sir Walter has furnished us
with ample indications of the delight with which he found himself at
length capable of rivalling others in such achievements as required
the exertion of active locomotive powers. Speaking of some scene of
his infancy in one of his latest tales, he says--"Every step of the
way after I have passed through the green already mentioned" (probably
the _Meadows_ behind George's Square) "has for me something of an
early remembrance. There is the stile at which I can recollect a cross
child's-maid upbraiding me with my infirmity as she lifted me coarsely
and carelessly over the flinty steps which my brothers traversed with
shout and bound. I remember the _suppressed bitterness_ of the moment,
and, conscious of my own infirmity, the envy with which I regarded the
easy movements and elastic steps of my more happily formed brethren.
Alas!" he adds, "these goodly barks have all perished in life's wide
ocean, and only that which seemed, as the naval phrase goes, so little
seaworthy, has reached the port when the tempest is over." How
touching to compare with this passage that in which he records his
pride in being found before he left the High School one of the
boldest {p.085} and nimblest climbers of "the kittle nine stanes," a
passage of difficulty which might puzzle a chamois-hunter of the Alps,
its steps, "few and far between," projected high in air from the
precipitous black granite of the Castle rock. But climbing and
fighting could sometimes be combined, and he has in almost the same
page dwelt upon perhaps the most favorite of all these juvenile
exploits--namely, "the manning of the Cowgate Port,"--in the season
when snowballs could be employed by the young scorners of discipline
for the annoyance of the Town-guard. To understand fully the feelings
of a High School boy of that day with regard to those ancient
Highlanders, who then formed the only police of the city of Edinburgh,
the reader must consult the poetry of the scapegrace Fergusson. It was
in defiance of their Lochaber axes that the Cowgate Port was
manned--and many were the occasions on which its defence presented a
formidable mimicry of warfare. "The gateway," Sir Walter adds, "is now
demolished, and probably most of its garrison lie as low as the
fortress! To recollect that I, however naturally disqualified, was one
of these juvenile dreadnoughts, is a sad reflection for one who cannot
now step over a brook without assistance."
I am unwilling to swell this narrative by extracts from Scott's
published works, but there is one juvenile exploit told in the General
Preface to the Waverley Novels, which I must crave leave to introduce
here in his own language, because it is essentially necessary to
complete our notion of his schoolboy life and character. "It is well
known," he says, "that there is little boxing at the Scottish schools.
About forty or fifty years ago, however, a far more dangerous mode of
fighting, in parties or factions, was permitted in the streets of
Edinburgh, to the great disgrace of the police, and danger of the
parties concerned. These parties were generally formed from the
quarters of the town in which the combatants resided, {p.086} those
of a particular square or district fighting against those of an
adjoining one. Hence it happened that the children of the higher
classes were often pitted against those of the lower, each taking
their side according to the residence of their friends. So far as I
recollect, however, it was unmingled either with feelings of democracy
or aristocracy, or indeed with malice or ill-will of any kind towards
the opposite party. In fact, it was only a rough mode of play. Such
contests were, however, maintained with great vigor with stones, and
sticks, and fisticuffs, when one party dared to charge, and the other
stood their ground. Of course, mischief sometimes happened; boys are
said to have been killed at these _bickers_, as they were called, and
serious accidents certainly took place, as many contemporaries can
bear witness.
"The author's father residing in George's Square, in the southern side
of Edinburgh, the boys belonging to that family, with others in the
square, were arranged into a sort of company, to which a lady of
distinction presented a handsome set of colors.[55] Now, this company
or regiment, as a matter of course, was engaged in weekly warfare with
the boys inhabiting the Cross-causeway, Bristo-Street, the
Potterrow--in short, the neighboring suburbs. These last were chiefly
of the lower rank, but hardy loons, who threw stones to a
hair's-breadth, and were very rugged antagonists at close quarters.
The skirmish sometimes lasted for a whole evening, until one party or
the other was victorious, when, if ours were successful, we drove the
enemy to their quarters, and were usually chased back by the
reinforcement of bigger lads who came to their assistance. If, on the
contrary, we were pursued, as was often the case, into the precincts
of our square, we were in our turn supported by our elder brothers,
domestic servants, and similar auxiliaries. It followed, from our
frequent opposition to each other, that, {p.087} though not knowing
the names of our enemies, we were yet well acquainted with their
appearance, and had nicknames for the most remarkable of them. One
very active and spirited boy might be considered as the principal
leader in the cohort of the suburbs. He was, I suppose, thirteen or
fourteen years old, finely made, tall, blue-eyed, with long fair hair,
the very picture of a youthful Goth. This lad was always first in the
charge, and last in the retreat--the Achilles at once and Ajax of the
Cross-causeway. He was too formidable to us not to have a cognomen,
and, like that of a knight of old, it was taken from the most
remarkable part of his dress, being a pair of old green livery
breeches, which was the principal part of his clothing; for, like
Pentapolin, according to Don Quixote's account, Green-breeks, as we
called him, always entered the battle with bare arms, legs, and feet.
[Footnote 55: This young patroness was the Duchess-Countess
of Sutherland.]
"It fell, that once upon a time when the combat was at its thickest,
this plebeian champion headed a charge so rapid and furious, that all
fled before him. He was several paces before his comrades, and had
actually laid his hands upon the patrician standard, when one of our
party, whom some misjudging friend had entrusted with a _couteau de
chasse_, or hanger, inspired with a zeal for the honor of the corps,
worthy of Major Sturgeon himself, struck poor Green-breeks over the
head, with strength sufficient to cut him down. When this was seen,
the casualty was so far beyond what had ever taken place before, that
both parties fled different ways, leaving poor Green-breeks, with his
bright hair plentifully dabbled in blood, to the care of the watchman,
who (honest man) took care not to know who had done the mischief. The
bloody hanger was thrown into one of the Meadow ditches, and solemn
secrecy was sworn on all hands; but the remorse and terror of the
actor were beyond all bounds, and his apprehensions of the most
dreadful character. The wounded hero was for a few days in the
Infirmary, {p.088} the case being only a trifling one. But though
inquiry was strongly pressed on him, no argument could make him
indicate the person from whom he had received the wound, though he
must have been perfectly well known to him. When he recovered and was
dismissed, the author and his brothers opened a communication with
him, through the medium of a popular gingerbread baker, of whom both
parties were customers, in order to tender a subsidy in the name of
smart-money. The sum would excite ridicule were I to name it; but sure
I am that the pockets of the noted Green-breeks never held as much
money of his own. He declined the remittance, saying that he would not
sell his blood; but at the same time reprobated the idea of being an
informer, which he said was _clam_, that is, base or mean. With much
urgency, he accepted a pound of snuff for the use of some old
woman--aunt, grandmother, or the like--with whom he lived. We did not
become friends, for the _bickers_ were more agreeable to both parties
than any more pacific amusement; but we conducted them ever after
under mutual assurances of the highest consideration for each other."
Sir Walter adds--"Of five brothers, all healthy and promising in a
degree far beyond one whose infancy was visited by personal infirmity,
and whose health after this period seemed long very precarious, I am,
nevertheless, the only survivor. The best loved, and the best
deserving to be loved, who had destined this incident to be the
foundation of a literary composition, died 'before his day,' in a
distant and foreign land; and trifles assume an importance not their
own when connected with those who have been loved and lost."
During some part of his attendance on the High School, young Walter
spent one hour daily at a small separate seminary of writing and
arithmetic, kept by one Morton, where, as was, and I suppose continues
to be, the custom of Edinburgh, young girls came for instruction as
{p.089} well as boys; and one of Mr. Morton's female pupils has been
kind enough to set down some little reminiscences of Scott, who
happened to sit at the same desk with herself. They appear to me the
more interesting, because the lady had no acquaintance with him in the
course of his subsequent life. Her nephew, Mr. James (the accomplished
author of Richelieu), to whose friendship I owe her communication,
assures me, too, that he had constantly heard her tell the same things
in the very same way, as far back as his own memory reaches, many
years before he had ever seen Sir Walter, or his aunt could have
dreamt of surviving to assist in the biography of his early days.
"He attracted," Mrs. Churnside says, "the regard and fondness of all
his companions, for he was ever rational, fanciful, lively, and
possessed of that urbane gentleness of manner which makes its way to
the heart. His imagination was constantly at work, and he often so
engrossed the attention of those who learnt with him, that little
could be done--Mr. Morton himself being forced to laugh as much as the
little scholars at the odd turns and devices he fell upon; for he did
nothing in the ordinary way, but, for example, even when he wanted ink
to his pen, would get up some ludicrous story about sending his doggie
to the mill again. He used also to interest us in a more serious way,
by telling us the _visions_, as he called them, which he had lying
alone on the floor or sofa, when kept from going to church on a Sunday
by ill health. Child as I was, I could not help being highly delighted
with his description of the glories he had seen--his misty and sublime
sketches of the regions above, which he had visited in his trance.
Recollecting these descriptions, radiant and not gloomy as they were,
I have often thought since that there must have been a bias in his
mind to superstition--the marvellous seemed to have such power over
him, though the mere offspring of his own imagination, that the
expression of his face, habitually that of genuine {p.090}
benevolence, mingled with a shrewd innocent humor, changed greatly
while he was speaking of these things, and showed a deep intenseness
of feeling, as if he were awed even by his own recital.... I may add,
that in walking he used always to keep his eyes turned downwards as if
thinking, but with a pleasing expression of countenance, as if
enjoying his thoughts. Having once known him, it was impossible ever
to forget him. In this manner, after all the changes of a long life,
he constantly appears as fresh as yesterday to my mind's eye."
This beautiful extract needs no commentary. I may as well, however,
bear witness, that exactly as the schoolboy still walks before her
"mind's eye," his image rises familiarly to mine, who never saw him
until he was past the middle of life: that I trace in every feature of
her delineation the same gentleness of aspect and demeanor which the
presence of the female sex, whether in silk or in russet, ever
commanded in the man; and that her description of the change on his
countenance when passing from the "doggie of the mill" to the dream of
Paradise is a perfect picture of what no one that has heard him recite
a fragment of high poetry, in the course of table talk, can ever
forget. Strangers may catch some notion of what fondly dwells on the
memory of every friend, by glancing from the conversational bust of
Chantrey to the first portrait by Raeburn, which represents the Last
Minstrel as musing in his prime within sight of Hermitage.
I believe it was about this time that, as he expresses it in one of
his latest works, "the first images of horror from the scenes of real
life were stamped upon his mind," by the tragical death of his
great-aunt, Mrs. Margaret Swinton. This old lady, whose extraordinary
nerve of character he illustrates largely in the introduction to the
story of Aunt Margaret's Mirror, was now living with one female
attendant, in a small house not far from Mr. Scott's residence in
George's Square. The maid-servant, in {p.091} a sudden access of
insanity, struck her mistress to death with a coal-axe, and then
rushed furiously into the street with the bloody weapon in her hand,
proclaiming aloud the horror she had perpetrated. I need not dwell on
the effects which must have been produced in a virtuous and
affectionate circle by this shocking incident. The old lady had been
tenderly attached to her nephew, "She was," he says, "our constant
resource in sickness, or when we tired of noisy play, and closed round
her to listen to her tales."
It was at this same period that Mr. and Mrs. Scott received into their
house, as tutor for their children, Mr. James Mitchell, of whom the
Ashestiel Memoir gives us a description, such as I could not have
presented had he been still alive. Mr. Mitchell was living, however,
at the time of his pupil's death, and I am now not only at liberty to
present Scott's unmutilated account of their intercourse, but enabled
to give also the most simple and characteristic narrative of the other
party. I am sure no one, however nearly related to Mr. Mitchell, will
now complain of seeing his keen-sighted pupil's sketch placed by the
side, as it were, of the fuller portraiture drawn by the unconscious
hand of the amiable and worthy man himself. The following is an
extract from Mr. Mitchell's MS., entitled "Memorials of the most
remarkable occurrences and transactions of my life, drawn up in the
hope that, when I shall be no more, they may be read with profit and
pleasure by my children." The good man was so kind as to copy out one
chapter for my use, as soon as he heard of Sir Walter Scott's death.
He was then, and had for many years been, minister of a Presbyterian
chapel at Wooler, in Northumberland, to which situation he had retired
on losing his benefice at Montrose, in consequence of the Sabbatarian
scruples alluded to in Scott's Autobiography.
"In 1782," says Mr. Mitchell, "I became a tutor in Mr. Walter
Scott's family. He was a Writer to the Signet in George's
{p.092} Square, Edinburgh. Mr. Scott was a fine-looking man,
then a little past the meridian of life, of dignified, yet
agreeable manners. His business was extensive. He was a man of
tried integrity, of strict morals, and had a respect for religion
and its ordinances. The church the family attended was the Old
Greyfriars, of which the celebrated Doctors Robertson and Erskine
were the ministers. Thither went Mr. and Mrs. Scott every
Sabbath, when well and at home, attended by their fine young
family of children, and their domestic servants--a sight so
amiable and exemplary as often to excite in my breast a glow of
heartfelt satisfaction. According to an established and laudable
practice in the family, the heads of it, the children, and
servants, were assembled on Sunday evenings in the drawing-room,
and examined on the Church Catechism and sermons they had heard
delivered during the course of the day; on which occasions I had
to perform the part of chaplain, and conclude with prayer. From
Mrs. Scott I learned that Mr. Scott was one that had not been
seduced from the paths of virtue; but had been enabled to
venerate good morals from his youth. When he first came to
Edinburgh to follow out his profession, some of his
schoolfellows, who, like him, had come to reside in Edinburgh,
attempted to unhinge his principles, and corrupt his morals; but
when they found him resolute, and unshaken in his virtuous
dispositions, they gave up the attempt; but, instead of
abandoning him altogether, they thought the more of him, and
honored him with their confidence and patronage; which is
certainly a great inducement to young men in the outset of life
to act a similar part.
"After having heard of his inflexible adherence to the cause of
virtue in his youth, and his regular attendance on the ordinances
of religion in after-life, we will not be surprised to be told
that he bore a sacred regard for the Sabbath, nor at the
following anecdote illustrative of it. An opulent farmer of East
Lothian had employed Mr. Scott as his agent, in a cause depending
before the Court of Session. Having a curiosity to see something
in the papers relative to the process, which were deposited in
Mr. Scott's hands, this worldly man came into Edinburgh on a
Sunday to have an inspection of them. As there was no immediate
necessity for this measure, Mr. Scott asked the farmer if an
ordinary week-day would not answer equally well. {p.093} The
farmer was not willing to take this advice, but insisted on the
production of his papers. Mr. Scott then delivered them to him,
saying, it was not his practice to engage in secular business on
the Sabbath, and that he would have no difficulty in Edinburgh to
find some of his profession who would have none of his scruples.
No wonder such a man was confided in, and greatly honored in his
professional line.--All the poor services I did to his family
were more than repaid by the comfort and honor I had by being in
the family, the pecuniary remuneration I received, and
particularly by his recommendation of me, some time afterwards,
to the Magistrates and Town Council of Montrose, when there was a
vacancy, and this brought me on the carpet, which, as he said,
was all he could do, as the settlement would ultimately hinge on
a popular election.
"Mrs. Scott was a wife in every respect worthy of such a
husband. Like her partner, she was then a little past the
meridian of life, of a prepossessing appearance, amiable manners,
of a cultivated understanding, affectionate disposition, and fine
taste. She was both able and disposed to soothe her husband's
mind under the asperities of business, and to be a rich blessing
to her numerous progeny. But what constituted her distinguishing
ornament was that she was sincerely religious. Some years
previous to my entrance into the family, I understood from one of
the servants she had been under deep religious concern about her
soul's salvation, which had ultimately issued in a conviction of
the truth of Christianity, and in the enjoyment of its divine
consolations. She liked Dr. Erskine's sermons; but was not fond
of the Principal's, however rational, eloquent, and well
composed, and would, if other things had answered, have gone,
when he preached, to have heard Dr. Davidson. Mrs. Scott was a
descendant of Dr. Daniel Rutherford, a professor in the Medical
School of Edinburgh, and one of those eminent men, who, by
learning and professional skill, brought it to the high pitch of
celebrity to which it has attained. He was an excellent linguist,
and, according to the custom of the times, delivered his
prelections to the students in Latin. Mrs. Scott told me, that,
when prescribing to his patients, it was his custom to offer up
at the same time a prayer for the accompanying blessing of
heaven; a laudable practice, in which, I fear, he has not been
generally imitated by those of his profession.
"Mr. {p.094} Scott's family consisted of six children, all of
which were at home except the eldest, who was an officer in the
army; and as they were of an age fit for instruction, they were
all committed to my superintendence, which, in dependence on God,
I exercised with an earnest and faithful regard to their temporal
and spiritual good. As the most of them were under public
teachers, the duty assigned me was mainly to assist them in the
prosecution of their studies. In all the excellencies, whether as
to temper, conduct, talents natural or acquired, which any of the
children individually possessed, to Master Walter, since the
celebrated Sir Walter, must a decided preference be ascribed.
Though, like the rest of the children, placed under my tuition,
the conducting of his education comparatively cost me but little
trouble, being, by the quickness of his intellect, tenacity of
memory, and diligent application to his studies, generally equal
of himself to the acquisition of those tasks I or others
prescribed to him. So that Master Walter might be regarded not so
much as a pupil of mine, but as a friend and companion, and, I
may add, as an assistant also; for, by his example and
admonitions, he greatly strengthened my hands, and stimulated my
other pupils to industry and good behavior. I seldom had occasion
all the time I was in the family to find fault with him even for
trifles, and only once to threaten serious castigation, of which
he was no sooner aware than he suddenly sprung up, threw his arms
about my neck, and kissed me. It is hardly needful to state, that
now the intended castigation was no longer thought of. By such
generous and noble conduct, my displeasure was in a moment
converted into esteem and admiration; my soul melted into
tenderness, and I was ready to mingle my tears with his. Some
incidents in reference to him in that early period, and some
interesting and useful conversations I had with him, then deeply
impressed on my mind, and which the lapse of near half a century
has not yet obliterated, afforded no doubtful presage of his
future greatness and celebrity. On my going into the family, as
far as I can judge, he might be in his twelfth or thirteenth
year, a boy in the rector's class. However elevated above the
other boys in genius, though generally in the list of the duxes,
he was seldom, as far as I recollect, the leader of the school:
nor need this be deemed surprising, as it has often been observed
that boys of original genius have been {p.095} outstripped, by
those that were far inferior to themselves, in the acquisition of
the dead languages. Dr. Adam, the rector, celebrated for his
knowledge of the Latin language, was deservedly held by Mr.
Walter in high admiration and regard; of which the following
anecdote may be adduced as a proof. In the High School, as is
well known, there are four masters and a rector. The classes of
those masters the rector in rotation inspects, and in the mean
time the master, whose school is examined, goes in to take care
of the rector's. One of the masters, on account of some grudge,
had rudely assaulted and injured the venerable rector one night
in the High School Wynd. The rector's scholars, exasperated at
the outrage, at the instigation of Master Walter, determined on
revenge, and which was to be executed when this obnoxious master
should again come to teach the class. When this occurred, the
task the class had prescribed to them was that passage in the
Æneid of Virgil, where the Queen of Carthage interrogates the
court as to the stranger that had come to her habitation--
'Quis novus hic hospes successit sedibus nostris?'[56]
[Footnote 56: This transposition of _hospes_ and _nostris_
sufficiently confirms his pupil's statement that Mr. Mitchell
"superintended his classical themes, but not classically."
The "obnoxious master" alluded to was Burns's friend Nicoll,
the hero of the song--
"Willie brewed a peck O' maut,
And Rob and Allan cam' to see," etc.]
Master Walter, having taken a piece of paper, inscribed upon it
these words, substituting _vanus_ for _novus_, and pinned it to
the tail of the master's coat, and turned him into ridicule by
raising the laugh of the whole school against him. Though this
juvenile action could not be justified on the footing of
Christian principles, yet certainly it was so far honorable that
it was not a dictate of personal revenge, but that it originated
in respect for a worthy and injured man, and detestation of one
whom he looked upon as a bad character.
"One forenoon, on coming from the High School, he said he wished
to know my opinion as to his conduct in a matter he should state
to me. When passing through the High School Yards, he found a
half-guinea piece on the ground. Instead of appropriating this to
his own use, a sense of honesty led him to look around, and on
doing so he espied a countryman, whom he suspected to be the
proprietor. Having asked the man if he had {p.096} lost
anything, he searched his pockets, and then replied that he had
lost half-a-guinea. Master Walter with pleasure presented him
with his lost treasure. In this transaction, his ingenuity in
finding out the proper owner, and his integrity in restoring the
property, met my most cordial approbation.
"When in church, Master Walter had more of a soporific tendency
than the rest of my young charge. This seemed to be
constitutional. He needed one or other of the family to arouse
him, and from this it might be inferred that he would cut a poor
figure on the Sabbath evening when examined about the sermons.
But what excited the admiration of the family was, that none of
the children, however wakeful, could answer as he did. The only
way that I could account for this was, that when he heard the
text, and divisions of the subject, his good sense, memory, and
genius, supplied the thoughts which would occur to the preacher.
"On one occasion, in the dining-room, when, according to custom,
he was reading some author in the time of relaxation from study,
I asked him how he accounted for the superiority of knowledge he
possessed above the rest of the family. His reply was:--Some
years ago he had been attacked by a swelling in one of his
ankles, which confined him to the house, and prevented him taking
amusement and exercise, and which was the cause of his lameness.
As under this ailment he could not romp with his brothers and the
other young people in the green in George's Square, he found
himself compelled to have recourse to some substitute for the
juvenile amusements of his comrades, and this was reading. So
that, to what he no doubt accounted a painful dispensation of
Providence, he probably stood indebted for his future celebrity.
When it was understood I was to leave the family, Master Walter
told me that he had a small present to give me, to be kept as a
memorandum of his friendship, and that it was of little value:
'But you know, Mr. Mitchell,' said he, 'that presents are not to
be estimated according to their intrinsic value, but according to
the intention of the donor.' This was his Adam's Grammar, which
had seen hard service in its day, and had many animals and
inscriptions on its margins. This, to my regret, is no longer to
be found in my collection of books, nor do I know what has become
of it.
"Since leaving the family, although no stranger to the widely
spreading {p.097} fame of Sir Walter, I have had few
opportunities of personal intercourse with him. When minister in
the second charge of the Established Church at Montrose, he paid
me a visit, and spent a night with me--few visits have been more
gratifying. He was then on his return from Aberdeen, where he, as
an advocate, had attended the Court of Justiciary in its northern
circuit. Nor was his attendance in this court his sole object:
another, and perhaps the principal, was, as he stated to me, to
collect in his excursion ancient ballads and traditional stories
about fairies, witches, and ghosts. Such intelligence proved to
me as an electrical shock; and as I then sincerely regretted, so
do I still, that Sir Walter's precious time was so much devoted
to the _dulce_, rather than the _utile_ of composition, and that
his great talent should have been wasted on such subjects. At the
same time I feel happy to qualify this censure, as I am generally
given to understand that his Novels are of a more pure and
unexceptionable nature than characterizes writings of a similar
description; while at the same time his pen has been occupied in
the production of works of a better and nobler order. Impressed
with the conviction that he would one day arrive at honor and
influence in his native country, I endeavored to improve the
occasion of his visit to secure his patronage in behalf of the
strict and evangelical party in the Church of Scotland, in
exerting himself to induce patrons to grant to the Christian
people liberty to elect their own pastors in cases of vacancy.
His answer struck me much: it was--"Nay, nay, Mr. Mitchell, I'll
not do that; for if that were to be done, I and the like of me
would have no life with such as you;" from which I inferred he
thought that, were the evangelical clergy to obtain the
superiority, they would introduce such strictness of discipline
as would not quadrate with the ideas of that party called _the
moderate_ in the Church of Scotland, whose views, I presume, Sir
Walter had now adopted. Some, however, to whom I have mentioned
Sir Walter's reply, have suggested that I had misunderstood his
meaning, and that what he said was not in earnest, but in
jocularity and good-humor. This may be true, and certainly is a
candid interpretation. As to the ideal beings already mentioned
as the subject of his inquiries, my materials were too scanty to
afford him much information."
Notwithstanding {p.098} the rigidly Presbyterian habits which this
chronicle describes with so much more satisfaction than the
corresponding page in the Ashestiel Memoir, I am reminded, by a
communication already quoted from a lady of the Ravelston family, that
Mrs. Scott, who had, she says, "a turn for literature quite uncommon
among the ladies of the time," encouraged her son in his passion for
Shakespeare; that his plays, and the Arabian Nights, were often read
aloud in the family circle by Walter, "and served to spend many a
happy evening hour;" nay, that, however good Mitchell may have frowned
at such a suggestion, even Mr. Scott made little objection to his
children, and some of their young friends, getting up private
theatricals occasionally in the dining-room after the lessons of the
day were over. The lady adds, that Walter was always the manager, and
had the whole charge of the affair, and that the favorite piece used
to be Jane Shore, in which he was the Hastings, his sister the Alicia.
I have heard from another friend of the family that Richard III. also
was attempted, and that Walter took the part of the Duke of
Gloucester, observing that "the limp would do well enough to represent
the hump."
A story which I have seen in print, about his partaking in the dancing
lessons of his brothers, I do not believe. But it was during Mr.
Mitchell's residence in the family that they all made their
unsuccessful attempts in the art of music, under the auspices of poor
_Allister_ Campbell--the Editor of Albyn's Anthology.
Mr. Mitchell appears to have terminated his superintendence before
Walter left Dr. Adam, and in the interval between this and his
entrance at College, he spent some time with his aunt, who now
inhabited a cottage at Kelso; but the Memoir, I suspect, gives too
much extension to that residence--which may be accounted for by his
blending with it a similar visit which he paid to the same place
during his College vacation of the next year.
Some {p.099} of the features of Miss Jenny's abode at Kelso are
alluded to in the Memoir, but the fullest description of it occurs in
his Essay on Landscape Gardening (1828), where, talking of grounds
laid out in the _Dutch taste_, he says:--"Their rarity _now_ entitles
them to some care as a species of antiques, and unquestionably they
give character to some snug, quiet, and sequestered situations, which
would otherwise have no marked feature of any kind. I retain an early
and pleasing recollection of the seclusion of such a scene. A small
cottage, adjacent to a beautiful village, the habitation of an ancient
maiden lady, was for some time my abode. It was situated in a garden
of seven or eight acres, planted about the beginning of the eighteenth
century by one of the Millars, related to the author of the Gardeners'
Dictionary, or, for aught I know, by himself. It was full of long,
straight walks, between hedges of yew and hornbeam, which rose tall
and close on every side. There were thickets of flowery shrubs, a
bower, and an arbor, to which access was obtained through a little
maze of contorted walks calling itself a labyrinth. In the centre of
the bower was a splendid Platanus, or Oriental plane--a huge hill of
leaves--one of the noblest specimens of that regularly beautiful tree
which I remember to have seen. In different parts of the garden were
fine ornamental trees, which had attained great size, and the orchard
was filled with fruit-trees of the best description. There were seats,
and hilly walks, and a banqueting house. I visited this scene lately,
after an absence of many years. Its air of retreat, the seclusion
which its alleys afforded, was entirely gone; the huge Platanus had
died, like most of its kind, in the beginning of this century; the
hedges were cut down, the trees stubbed up, and the whole character of
the place so destroyed that I was glad when I could leave it." It was
under this Platanus that Scott first devoured Percy's Reliques. I
remember well being with him, in 1820 or 1821, when he {p.100}
revisited the favorite scene, and the sadness of his looks when he
discovered that the "huge hill of leaves" was no more.
To keep up his scholarship while inhabiting _the garden_, he attended
daily, as he informs us, the public school of Kelso, and here he made
his first acquaintance with a family, two members of which were
intimately connected with the most important literary transactions of
his after-life--James Ballantyne, the printer of almost all his works,
and his brother John, who had a share in the publication of many of
them. Their father was a respectable tradesman in this pretty town.
The elder of the brothers, who did not long survive his illustrious
friend, was kind enough to make an exertion on behalf of this work,
while stretched on the bed from which he never rose, and dictated a
valuable paper of _memoranda_ from which I shall here introduce my
first extract:--
"I think," says James Ballantyne, "it was in the year 1783 that I
first became acquainted with Sir Walter Scott, then a boy about
my own age, at the Grammar School of Kelso, of which Mr. Lancelot
Whale was the Rector. The impression left by his manners was,
even at that early period, calculated to be deep, and I cannot
recall any other instance in which the man and the boy continued
to resemble each other so much and so long. Walter Scott was not
a constant schoolfellow at this seminary; he only attended it for
a few weeks during the vacation of the Edinburgh High School. He
was then, as he continued during all his after-life to be,
devoted to antiquarian lore, and was certainly the best
story-teller I had ever heard, either then or since. He soon
discovered that I was as fond of listening as he himself was of
relating; and I remember it was a thing of daily occurrence, that
after he had made himself master of his own lesson, I, alas,
being still sadly to seek in mine, he used to whisper to me,
'Come, slink over beside me, Jamie, and I'll tell you a story.' I
well recollect that he had a form, or seat, appropriated to
himself, the particular reason of which I cannot tell, but he was
always treated with a peculiar degree {p.101} of respect, not
by the boys of the different classes merely, but by the venerable
Master Lancelot himself, who, an absent, grotesque being, betwixt
six and seven feet high, was nevertheless an admirable scholar,
and sure to be delighted to find any one so well qualified to
sympathize with him as young Walter Scott; and the affectionate
gratitude of the young pupil was never intermitted, so long as
his venerable master continued to live. I may mention, in
passing, that old Whale bore, in many particulars, a strong
resemblance to Dominie Sampson, though, it must be admitted,
combining more gentlemanly manners with equal classical lore,
and, on the whole, being a much superior sort of person. In the
intervals of school hours, it was our constant practice to walk
together by the banks of the Tweed, our employment continuing
exactly the same, for his stories seemed to be quite
inexhaustible. This intercourse continued during the summers of
the years 1783--84, but was broken off in 1785-86, when I went
into Edinburgh to College."
Perhaps the separate seat assigned to Walter Scott by the Kelso
schoolmaster was considered due to him as a temporary visitor from the
great Edinburgh seminary. Very possibly, however, the worthy Mr. Whale
thought of nothing but protecting his solitary student of Persius and
Tacitus from the chances of being jostled among the adherents of
Ruddiman and Cornelius Nepos.
Another of his Kelso schoolfellows was Robert Waldie (son of Mr.
Waldie of Henderside), and to this connection he owed, both while
quartered in the garden, and afterwards at Rosebank, many kind
attentions, of which he ever preserved a grateful recollection, and
which have left strong traces on every page of his works in which he
has occasion to introduce the Society of Friends. This young
companion's mother, though always called in the neighborhood "Lady
Waldie," belonged to that community; and the style of life and manners
depicted in the household of Joshua Geddes of Mount Sharon and his
amiable sister, in some of the sweetest chapters of Redgauntlet, is a
slightly decorated edition of what he witnessed under {p.102} her
hospitable roof. He records, in a note to the novel, the "liberality
and benevolence" of this "kind old lady" in allowing him to "rummage
at pleasure, and carry home any volumes he chose of her small but
valuable library;" annexing only the condition that he should "take at
the same time some of the tracts printed for encouraging and extending
the doctrines of her own sect. She did not," he adds, "even exact any
assurance that I would read these performances, being too justly
afraid of involving me in a breach of promise, but was merely desirous
that I should have the chance of instruction within my reach, in case
whim, curiosity, or accident, might induce me to have recourse to it."
I remember the pleasure with which he read, late in life, Rome in the
Nineteenth Century, an ingenious work produced by one of Mrs. Waldie's
granddaughters, and how comically he pictured the alarm with which his
ancient friend would have perused some of its delineations of the high
places of Popery.
I shall be pardoned for adding a marginal note written, apparently
late in Scott's life, on his copy of a little forgotten volume,
entitled Trifles in Verse, by a Young Soldier. "In 1783," he says, "or
about that time, I remember John Marjoribanks, a smart recruiting
officer in the village of Kelso, the Weekly Chronicle of which he
filled with his love verses. His Delia was a Miss Dickson, daughter of
a shopkeeper in the same village--his Gloriana a certain prudish old
maiden lady, benempt Miss Goldie; I think I see her still, with her
thin arms sheathed in scarlet gloves, and crossed like two lobsters in
a fishmonger's stand. Poor Delia was a very beautiful girl, and not
more conceited than a be-rhymed miss ought to be. Many years
afterwards I found the Kelso _belle_, thin and pale, her good looks
gone, and her smart dress neglected, governess to the brats of a
Paisley manufacturer. I ought to say there was not an atom of scandal
in her flirtation with the young military poet. The bard's {p.103}
fate was not much better; after some service in India and elsewhere,
he led a half-pay life about Edinburgh, and died there. There is a
tenuity of thought in what he has written, but his verses are usually
easy, and I like them because they recall my schoolboy days, when I
thought him a Horace, and his Delia a goddess."