Illustrations Continued. -- Scott's Apprenticeship to his
Father. --Excursions to the Highlands, etc. -- Debating
Societies. -- Early Correspondence, etc. -- Williamina
Stuart.
1786-1790.
In the Minute-books of the Society of Writers to the Signet appears
the following entry: "Edinburgh, 15th May, 1786. Compeared Walter
Scott, and presented an indenture, dated 31st March last, entered into
between him and Walter Scott, his son, for five years from the date
thereof, under a mutual penalty of £40 sterling."
An inauspicious step this might at first sight appear in the early
history of one so strongly predisposed for pursuits wide as the
antipodes asunder from the dry technicalities of conveyancing; but he
himself, I believe, was never heard, in his mature age, to express any
regret that it should have been taken; and I am convinced for my part
that it was a fortunate one. It prevented him, indeed, from passing
with the usual regularity through a long course of Scotch metaphysics;
but I extremely doubt whether any discipline could ever have led him
to derive either pleasure or profit from studies of that order. His
apprenticeship left him time enough, as we shall find, for continuing
his application to the stores of poetry and romance, and those old
chroniclers, who to the end were his darling historians. Indeed, if he
had wanted any new stimulus, the necessity of devoting certain hours
of every day to a routine of drudgery, however it might have operated
on a spirit more prone to earth, must have tended {p.117} to quicken
his appetite for "the sweet bread eaten in secret." But the duties
which he had now to fulfil were, in various ways, directly and
positively beneficial to the development both of his genius and his
character. It was in the discharge of his functions as a Writer's
Apprentice that he first penetrated into the Highlands, and formed
those friendships among the surviving heroes of 1745, which laid the
foundation for one great class of his works. Even the less attractive
parts of his new vocation were calculated to give him a more complete
insight into the smaller workings of poor human nature than can ever
perhaps be gathered from the experience of the legal profession in its
higher walk;--the etiquette of the bar in Scotland, as in England,
being averse to personal intercourse between the advocate and his
client. But finally, and I will say chiefly, it was to this prosaic
discipline that he owed those habits of steady, sober diligence, which
few imaginative authors had ever before exemplified--and which, unless
thus beaten into his composition at a ductile stage, even he, in all
probability, could never have carried into the almost professional
exercise of some of the highest and most delicate faculties of the
human mind. He speaks, in not the least remarkable passage of the
preceding Memoir, as if constitutional indolence had been his portion
in common with all the members of his father's family. When Gifford,
in a dispute with Jacob Bryant, quoted Doctor Johnson's own confession
that he knew little Greek, Bryant answered, "Yes, young man; but how
shall we know what Johnson would have called much Greek?" and Gifford
has recorded the deep impression which this hint left on his own mind.
What Scott would have called constitutional diligence, I know not; but
surely, if indolence of any kind had been inherent in his nature, even
the triumph of Socrates was not more signal than his.
It will be, by some of my friends, considered as trivial to remark on
such a circumstance--but the reader who is {p.118} unacquainted with
the professional habits of the Scotch lawyers may as well be told that
the Writer's Apprentice receives a certain allowance in money for
every page he transcribes; and that, as in those days the greater part
of the business, even of the supreme courts, was carried on by means
of written papers, a ready penman, in a well-employed chamber, could
earn in this way enough, at all events, to make a handsome addition to
the pocket-money which was likely to be thought suitable for a youth
of fifteen by such a man as the elder Scott. The allowance being, I
believe, threepence for every page containing a certain fixed number
of words, when Walter had finished, as he tells us he occasionally
did, 120 pages within twenty-four hours, his fee would amount to
thirty shillings; and in his early letters I find him more than once
congratulating himself on having been, by some such exertion, enabled
to purchase a book, or a coin, otherwise beyond his reach. A
schoolfellow, who was now, like himself, a Writer's Apprentice,
recollects the eagerness with which he thus made himself master of
Evans's Ballads, shortly after their publication; and another of them,
already often referred to, remembers, in particular, his rapture with
Mickle's Cumnor Hall, which first appeared in that collection. "After
the labors of the day were over," says Mr. Irving, "we often walked in
_the Meadows_"--(a large field intersected by formal alleys of old
trees, adjoining George's Square)--"especially in the moonlight
nights; and he seemed never weary of repeating the first stanza--
'The dews of summer night did fall--
The Moon, sweet regent of the sky,
Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall,
And many an oak that grew thereby.'"
I have thought it worth while to preserve these reminiscences of his
companions at the time, though he has himself stated the circumstance
in his Preface to Kenilworth. "There is a period in youth," he there
says, "when {p.119} the mere power of numbers has a more strong
effect on ear and imagination than in after-life. At this season of
immature taste, the author was greatly delighted with the poems of
Mickle and Langhorne. The first stanza of Cumnor Hall especially had a
peculiar enchantment for his youthful ear--the force of which is not
yet (1829) entirely spent." Thus that favorite elegy, after having
dwelt on his memory and imagination for forty years, suggested the
subject of one of his noblest romances.
It is affirmed by a preceding biographer, on the authority of one of
these brother-apprentices, that about this period Scott showed him a
MS. poem on the Conquest of Granada, in four books, each amounting to
about 400 lines, which, soon after it was finished, he committed to
the flames.[63] As he states in his Essay on the Imitation of Popular
Poetry, that, for ten years previous to 1796, when his first
translation from the German was executed, he had written no verses
"except an occasional sonnet to his mistress's eyebrow," I presume
this Conquest of Granada, the fruit of his study of the Guerras
Civiles, must be assigned to the summer of 1786--or, making allowance
for trivial inaccuracy, to the next year at latest. It was probably
composed in imitation of Mickle's Lusiad:--at all events, we have a
very distinct statement, that he made no attempts in the manner of the
old minstrels, early as his admiration for them had been, until the
period of his acquaintance with Bürger. Thus with him, as with most
others, genius had hazarded many a random effort ere it discovered the
true keynote. Long had
"Amid the strings his fingers stray'd,
And an uncertain warbling made,"
before "the measure wild" was caught, and
"In varying cadence, soft or strong,
He swept the sounding chords along."
[Footnote 63: _Life of Scott_, by Mr. Allan, p. 53.]
His {p.120} youthful admiration of Langhorne has been rendered
memorable by his own record of his first and only interview with his
great predecessor, Robert Burns. Although the letter in which he
narrates this incident, addressed to myself in 1827, when I was
writing a short biography of that poet, has been often reprinted, it
is too important for my present purpose to be omitted here.
"As for Burns," he writes, "I may truly say, _Virgilium vidi tantum_.
I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-87, when he came first to Edinburgh,
but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry,
and would have given the world to know him; but I had very little
acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry
of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented. Mr. Thomas
Grierson was at that time a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and
promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity
to keep his word, otherwise I might have seen more of this
distinguished man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable
Professor Ferguson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary
reputation, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart.
Of course we youngsters sat silent, looked, and listened. The only
thing I remember which was remarkable in Burns's manner was the effect
produced upon him by a print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier
lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on the one side, on
the other his widow, with a child in her arms. These lines were
written beneath,--
'Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain;
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops, mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery baptized in tears.'
Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather the ideas which it
suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the
lines were, and it chanced that {p.121} nobody but myself remembered
that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the
unpromising title of The Justice of the Peace. I whispered my
information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who
rewarded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I
then received, and still recollect, with very great pleasure.
"His person was strong and robust: his manners rustic, not clownish; a
sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its
effect perhaps from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His
features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture, but to me it
conveys the idea that they are diminished as if seen in perspective. I
think his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the
portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known what he was,
for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school--_i. e._,
none of your modern agriculturists, who keep laborers for their
drudgery, but the _douce gudeman_ who held his own plough. There was a
strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the
eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament.
It was large, and of a dark cast, and glowed (I say literally
_glowed_) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such
another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished
men in my time. His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence,
without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most
learned of their time and country he expressed himself with perfect
firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he
differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at
the same time with modesty. I do not remember any part of his
conversation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I ever see him
again, except in the street, where he did not recognize me, as I could
not expect he should. He was much caressed in Edinburgh, but
(considering what literary emoluments {p.122} have been since his
day) the efforts made for his relief were extremely trifling.
"I remember on this occasion I mention, I thought Burns's acquaintance
with English poetry was rather limited, and also, that having twenty
times the abilities of Allan Ramsay and of Fergusson, he talked of
them with too much humility as his models; there was doubtless
national predilection in his estimate."
I need not remark on the extent of knowledge and justness of taste
exemplified in this early measurement of Burns, both as a student of
English literature and as a Scottish poet. The print, over which Scott
saw Burns shed tears, is still in the possession of Dr. Ferguson's
family, and I had often heard him tell the story, in the room where
the precious relic hangs, before I requested him to set it down in
writing--how little anticipating the use to which I should ultimately
apply it![64]
[Footnote 64: ["Long life to thy fame and peace to thy soul,
Rob Burns! When I want to express a sentiment which I feel
strongly, I find the phrase in Shakespeare--or
thee."--_Journal_, December 11, 1826.]]
His intimacy with Adam (now Sir Adam) Ferguson was thus his first
means of introduction to the higher literary society of Edinburgh; and
it was very probably to that connection that he owed, among the rest,
his acquaintance with the blind poet Blacklock, whom Johnson, twelve
years earlier, "beheld with reverence." We have seen, however, that
the venerable author of Douglas was a friend of his own parents, and
had noticed him even in his infancy at Bath. John Home now inhabited a
villa at no great distance from Edinburgh, and there, all through his
young days, Scott was a frequent guest. Nor must it be forgotten that
his uncle, Dr. Rutherford, inherited much of the general
accomplishments, as well as the professional reputation of his
father--and that it was beneath that roof he saw, several years before
this, Dr. Cartwright, then in the enjoyment of some fame as a poet. In
this family, indeed, he had more than one kind {p.123} and strenuous
encourager of his early literary tastes, as will be shown abundantly
when we reach certain relics of his correspondence with his mother's
sister. Dr. Rutherford's good-natured remonstrances with him, as a
boy, for reading at breakfast, are well remembered, and will remind my
reader of a similar trait in the juvenile manners both of Burns and
Byron; nor was this habit entirely laid aside even in Scott's advanced
age.
If he is quite accurate in referring his first acquaintance with the
Highlands to his fifteenth year, this incident also belongs to the
first season of his apprenticeship. His father had, among a rather
numerous list of Highland clients, Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle,
an enthusiastic Jacobite, who had survived to recount, in secure and
vigorous old age, his active experiences in the insurrections both of
1715 and 1745. He had, it appears, attracted Walter's attention and
admiration at a very early date; for he speaks of having "seen him in
arms" and heard him "exult in the prospect of drawing his claymore
once more before he died," when Paul Jones threatened a descent on
Edinburgh; which transaction occurred in September, 1779. Invernahyle,
as Scott adds, was the only person who seemed to have retained
possession of his cool senses at the period of that disgraceful alarm,
and offered the magistrates to collect as many Highlanders as would
suffice for cutting off any part of the pirate's crew that might
venture, in quest of plunder, into a city full of high houses and
narrow lanes, and every way well calculated for defence. The eager
delight with which the young apprentice now listened to the tales of
this fine old man's early days produced an invitation to his residence
among the mountains; and to this excursion he probably devoted the few
weeks of an autumnal vacation--whether in 1786 or 1787 it is of no
great consequence to ascertain.
In the Introduction to one of his Novels he has preserved a vivid
picture of his sensations when the vale of Perth {p.124} first burst
on his view, in the course of his progress to Invernahyle, and the
description has made classical ground of the _Wicks of Baiglie_, the
spot from which that beautiful landscape was surveyed. "Childish
wonder, indeed," he says, "was an ingredient in my delight, for I was
not above fifteen years old, and as this had been the first excursion
which I was permitted to make on a pony of my own, I also experienced
the glow of independence, mingled with that degree of anxiety which
the most conceited boy feels when he is first abandoned to his own
undirected counsels. I recollect pulling up the reins without meaning
to do so, and gazing on the scene before me as if I had been afraid it
would shift, like those in a theatre, before I could distinctly
observe its different parts, or convince myself that what I saw was
real. Since that hour the recollection of that inimitable landscape
has possessed the strongest influence over my mind, and retained its
place as a memorable thing, while much that was influential on my own
fortunes has fled from my recollection." So speaks the poet; and who
will not recognize his habitual modesty in thus undervaluing, as
uninfluential in comparison with some affair of worldly business, the
ineffaceable impression thus stamped on the glowing imagination of his
boyhood?
I need not quote the numerous passages scattered over his writings,
both early and late, in which he dwells with, fond affection on the
chivalrous character of Invernahyle--the delight with which he heard
the veteran describe his broadsword duel with Rob Roy--his campaigns
with Mar and Charles Edward--and his long seclusion (as pictured in
the story of Bradwardine) within a rocky cave situated not far from
his own house, while it was garrisoned by a party of English soldiers,
after the battle of Culloden. Here, too, still survived the trusty
henchman who had attended the chieftain in many a bloody field and
perilous escape, the same "grim-looking old Highlander" who was in the
act of cutting down Colonel Whitefoord {p.125} with his Lochaber axe
at Prestonpans when his master arrested the blow--an incident to which
Invernahyle owed his life, and we are indebted for another of the most
striking pages in Waverley.
I have often heard Scott mention some curious particulars of his first
visit to the remote fastness of one of these Highland friends; but
whether he told the story of Invernahyle, or of one of his own
relations of the Clan Campbell, I do not recollect; I rather think the
latter was the case. On reaching the brow of a bleak eminence
overhanging the primitive tower and its tiny patch of cultivated
ground, he found his host and three sons, and perhaps half-a-dozen
attendant _gillies_, all stretched half asleep in their tartans upon
the heath, with guns and dogs, and a profusion of game about them;
while in the courtyard, far below, appeared a company of women
actively engaged in loading a cart with manure. The stranger was not a
little astonished when he discovered, on descending from the height,
that among these industrious females were the laird's own lady, and
two or three of her daughters; but they seemed quite unconscious of
having been detected in an occupation unsuitable to their
rank--retired presently to their "bowers," and when they reappeared in
other dresses, retained no traces of their morning's work, except
complexions glowing with a radiant freshness, for one evening of which
many a high-bred beauty would have bartered half her diamonds. He
found the young ladies not ill informed, and exceedingly agreeable;
and the song and the dance seemed to form the invariable termination
of their busy days. I must not forget his admiration at the principal
article of this laird's first course; namely, a gigantic _haggis_,
borne into the hall in a wicker basket by two half-naked Celts, while
the piper strutted fiercely behind them, blowing a tempest of
dissonance.
These Highland visits were repeated almost every summer for several
successive years, and perhaps even the {p.126} first of them was in
some degree connected with his professional business. At all events,
it was to his allotted task of enforcing the execution of a legal
instrument against some Maclarens, refractory tenants of Stewart of
Appin, brother-in-law to Invernahyle, that Scott owed his introduction
to the scenery of The Lady of the Lake. "An escort of a sergeant and
six men," he says, "was obtained from a Highland regiment lying in
Stirling, and the author, then a Writer's Apprentice, equivalent to
the honorable situation of an attorney's clerk, was invested with the
superintendence of the expedition, with directions to see that the
messenger discharged his duty fully, and that the gallant sergeant did
not exceed his part by committing violence or plunder. And thus it
happened, oddly enough, that the author first entered the romantic
scenery of Loch Katrine, of which he may perhaps say he has somewhat
extended the reputation, riding in all the dignity of danger, with a
front and rear guard, and loaded arms. The sergeant was absolutely a
Highland Sergeant Kite, full of stories of Rob Roy and of himself, and
a very good companion. We experienced no interruption whatever, and
when we came to Invernenty, found the house deserted. We took up our
quarters for the night, and used some of the victuals which we found
there. The Maclarens, who probably had never thought of any serious
opposition, went to America, where, having had some slight share in
removing them from their _paupera regna_, I sincerely hope they
prospered."[65]
[Footnote 65: Introduction to _Rob Roy_.]
That he entered with ready zeal into such professional business as
inferred Highland expeditions with comrades who had known Rob Roy, no
one will think strange; but more than one of his biographers allege
that in the ordinary indoor fagging of the chamber in George's Square,
he was always an unwilling, and rarely an efficient assistant. Their
addition, that he often played chess with one of his companions in the
office, and had to conceal the {p.127} board with precipitation when
the old gentleman's footsteps were heard on the staircase, is, I do
not doubt, true; and we may remember along with it his own insinuation
that his father was sometimes poring in his secret nook over
Spottiswoode or Wodrow, when his apprentices supposed him to be deep
in Dirleton's Doubts, or Stair's decisions. But the Memoir of 1808, so
candid--indeed more than candid--as to many juvenile irregularities,
contains no confession that supports the broad assertion to which I
have alluded; nor can I easily believe, that with his affection for
his father, and that sense of duty which seems to have been inherent
in his character, and, lastly, with the evidence of a most severe
training in industry which the habits of his after-life presented, it
is at all deserving of serious acceptation. His mere handwriting,
indeed, continued, during the whole of his prime, to afford most
striking and irresistible proof how completely he must have submitted
himself for some very considerable period to the mechanical discipline
of his father's office. It spoke to months after months of this humble
toil, as distinctly as the illegible scrawl of Lord Byron did to his
self-mastership from the hour that he left Harrow. There are some
little technical tricks, such as no gentleman who has not been
subjected to a similar regimen ever can fall into, which he practised
invariably while composing his poetry, which appear not unfrequently
on the MSS. of his best novels, and which now and then dropt
instinctively from his pen, even in the private letters and diaries of
his closing years. I allude particularly to a sort of flourish at the
bottom of the page, originally, I presume, adopted in engrossing as a
safeguard against the intrusion of a forged line between the
legitimate text and the attesting signature. He was quite sensible
that this ornament might as well be dispensed with; and his family
often heard him mutter, after involuntarily performing it, "There goes
the old shop again!"
I {p.128} dwell on this matter because it was always his favorite
tenet, in contradiction to what he called the cant of sonneteers, that
there is no necessary connection between genius and an aversion or
contempt for any of the common duties of life; he thought, on the
contrary, that to spend some fair portion of every day in any matter
of fact occupation is good for the higher faculties themselves in the
upshot. In a word, from beginning to end, he piqued himself on being
_a man of business_; and did--with one sad and memorable
exception--whatever the ordinary course of things threw in his way, in
exactly the businesslike fashion which might have been expected from
the son of a thoroughbred old Clerk to the Signet, who had never
deserted his father's profession.
In the winter of 1788, however, his apprentice habits were exposed to
a new danger; and from that date I believe them to have undergone a
considerable change. He was then sent to attend the lectures of the
Professor of Civil Law in the University, this course forming part of
the usual professional education of Writers to the Signet, as well as
of Advocates. For some time his companions, when in Edinburgh, had
been chiefly, almost solely, his brother-apprentices and the clerks in
his father's office. He had latterly seen comparatively little even of
the better of his old High School friends, such as Ferguson and
Irving--for though both of these also were writer's apprentices, they
had been indentured to other masters, and each had naturally formed
new intimacies within his own chamber. The Civil Law class brought him
again into daily contact with both Irving and Ferguson, as well as
others of his earlier acquaintance of the higher ranks; but it also
led him into the society of some young gentlemen previously unknown to
him, who had from the outset been destined for the Bar, and whose
conversation, tinctured with certain prejudices natural to scions of
what he calls in Redgauntlet _the Scottish noblesse de la robe_, soon
banished from his mind every {p.129} thought of ultimately adhering
to the secondary branch of the law. He found these future barristers
cultivating general literature, without the least apprehension that
such elegant pursuits could be regarded by any one as interfering with
the proper studies of their professional career; justly believing, on
the contrary, that for the higher class of forensic exertion some
acquaintance with almost every branch of science and letters is a
necessary preparative. He contrasted their liberal aspirations, and
the encouragement which these received in their domestic circles, with
the narrower views which predominated in his own home; and resolved to
gratify his ambition by adopting a most precarious walk in life,
instead of adhering to that in which he might have counted with
perfect security on the early attainment of pecuniary independence.
This resolution appears to have been foreseen by his father, long
before it was announced in terms; and the handsome manner in which the
old gentleman conducted himself upon the occasion is remembered with
dutiful gratitude in the preceding Autobiography.
The most important of these new alliances was the intimate friendship
which he now formed with Mr. John Irving's near relation, William
Clerk of Eldin, of whose powerful talents and extensive
accomplishments we shall hereafter meet with many enthusiastic
notices. It was in company with this gentleman that he entered the
debating societies described in his Memoir; through him he soon became
linked in the closest intimacy with George Cranstoun (now Lord
Corehouse), George Abercromby (now Lord Abercromby), John James
Edmonstone[66] of Newton (whose mother was sister of Sir Ralph
Abercromby), Patrick Murray of Simprim, Sir Patrick Murray of
Ochtertyre, and a group of other young men, all high in birth and
connection, and all remarkable in early life for the qualities which
afterwards led them to eminent station, {p.130} or adorned it. The
introduction to their several families is alluded to by Scott as
having opened to him abundantly certain advantages, which no one could
have been more qualified to improve, but from which he had hitherto
been in great measure debarred in consequence of the retired habits of
his parents.
[Footnote 66: Mr. Edmonstone died 19th April, 1840.--(1848.)]
Mr. Clerk says that he had been struck from the first day he entered
the Civil Law class-room with something odd and remarkable in Scott's
appearance; what this something was he cannot now recall, but he
remembers telling his companion some time afterwards that he thought
he looked like a _hautboy player_. Scott was amused with this notion,
as he had never touched a musical instrument of any kind; but I fancy
his friend had been watching a certain noticeable but altogether
indescribable play of the upper lip when in an abstracted mood. He
rallied Walter, he says, during one of their first evening walks
together, on the slovenliness of his dress: he wore a pair of corduroy
breeches, much glazed by the rubbing of his staff, which he
immediately flourished--and said, "They be good enough for drinking
in--let us go and have some oysters in the Covenant Close."
Convivial habits were then indulged among the young men of Edinburgh,
whether students of law, solicitors, or barristers, to an extent now
happily unknown; and this anecdote recalls some striking hints on that
subject which occur in Scott's brief Autobiography. That he partook
profusely in the juvenile bacchanalia of that day, and continued to
take a plentiful share in such jollities down to the time of his
marriage, are facts worthy of being distinctly stated; for no man in
mature life was more habitually averse to every sort of intemperance.
He could, when I first knew him, swallow a great quantity of wine
without being at all visibly disordered by it; but nothing short of
some very particular occasion could ever induce him to put this
strength of head to a trial; and {p.131} I have heard him many times
utter words which no one in the days of his youthful temptation can be
the worse for remembering:--"Depend upon it, of all vices, drinking is
the most incompatible with greatness."
The liveliness of his conversation--the strange variety of his
knowledge--and above all, perhaps, the portentous tenacity of his
memory--riveted more and more Clerk's attention, and commanded the
wonder of all his new allies; but of these extraordinary gifts Scott
himself appeared to be little conscious; or at least he impressed them
all as attaching infinitely greater consequence--(exactly as had been
the case with him in the days of the Cowgate Port and the kittle nine
steps)--to feats of personal agility and prowess. William Clerk's
brother, James, a midshipman in the navy, happened to come home from a
cruise in the Mediterranean shortly after this acquaintance began, and
Scott and the sailor became almost at sight "sworn brothers." In order
to complete his time under the late Sir Alexander Cochrane, who was
then on the Leith station, James Clerk obtained the command of a
lugger, and the young friends often made little excursions to sea with
him. "The first time Scott dined on board," says William Clerk, "we
met before embarking at a tavern in Leith--it was a large party,
mostly midshipmen, and strangers to him, and our host introducing his
landsmen guests said, 'My brother you know, gentlemen; as for Mr.
Scott, mayhap you may take him for a poor lamiter, but he is the first
to begin a row, and the last to end it;' which eulogium he confirmed
with some of the expletives of Tom Pipes."[67] When, many years
afterwards, Clerk read The Pirate, he was startled by the resurrection
of a hundred traits of the table-talk of this lugger; but the author
has since traced {p.132} some of the most striking passages in that
novel to his recollection of the almost childish period when he hung
on his own brother Robert's stories about Rodney's battles and the
haunted _keys_ of the West Indies.
[Footnote 67: "Dinna steer him," says Hobbie Elliot; "ye may
think Elshie's but a lamiter, but I warrant ye, grippie for
grippie, he'll gar the blue blood spin frae your nails--his
hand's like a smith's vice."--_Black Dwarf_, chap. xvii.]
One morning Scott called on Clerk, and, exhibiting his stick all cut
and marked, told him he had been attacked in the streets the night
before by three fellows, against whom he had defended himself for an
hour. "By Shrewsbury clock?" said his friend. "No," said Scott,
smiling, "by the Tron." But thenceforth, adds Mr. Clerk, and for
twenty years after, he called his walking stick by the name of
"Shrewsbury."
With these comrades Scott now resumed, and pushed to a much greater
extent, his early habits of wandering over the country in quest of
castles and other remains of antiquity, his passion for which derived
a new impulse from the conversation of the celebrated John Clerk of
Eldin,[68] the father of his friend. William Clerk well remembers his
father telling a story which was introduced in due time in The
Antiquary. While he was visiting his grandfather, Sir John Clerk, at
Dumcrieff, in Dumfriesshire, many years before this time, the old
Baronet carried some English virtuosos to see a supposed Roman camp;
and on his exclaiming at a particular spot, "This I take to have been
the Prætorium," a herdsman who stood by answered, "Prætorium here
Prætorium there, I made it wi' a slaughter spade."[69] Many traits of
the elder Clerk were, his son has no doubt, embroidered on the
character of George Constable in the composition of Jonathan Oldbuck.
The old gentleman's enthusiasm, for antiquities was often played on by
these young friends, but more effectually by his eldest son, John
Clerk (Lord Eldin), who, having a great genius for art, used to amuse
himself with manufacturing mutilated heads, which, after being buried
for a convenient time in the {p.133} ground, were accidentally
discovered in some fortunate hour, and received by the laird with
great honor as valuable accessions to his museum.[70]
[Footnote 68: Author of the famous Essay on dividing the Line
in Sea-fights.]
[Footnote 69: Compare _The Antiquary_, chap. iv.]
[Footnote 70: The most remarkable of these _antique heads_
was so highly appreciated by another distinguished
connoisseur, the late Earl of Buchan, that he carried it off
from Mr. Clerk's museum, and presented it to the Scottish
Society of Antiquaries--in whose collection, no doubt, it may
still be admired.]
On a fishing excursion to a loch near Howgate, among the Moorfoot
Hills, Scott, Clerk, Irving, and Abercromby spent the night at a
little public-house kept by one Mrs. Margaret Dods. When St. Ronan's
Well was published, Clerk, meeting Scott in the street, observed,
"That's an odd name; surely I have met with it somewhere before."
Scott smiled, said, "Don't you remember Howgate?" and passed on. The
name alone, however, was taken from the Howgate hostess.
At one of their drinking bouts of those days William Clerk, Sir P.
Murray, Edmonstone, and Abercromby, being of the party, the sitting
was prolonged to a very late hour, and Scott fell asleep. When he
awoke, his friends succeeded in convincing him that he had sung a song
in the course of the evening, and sung it extremely well. How must
these gentlemen have chuckled when they read Frank Osbaldistone's
account of his revels in the old hall! "It has even been reported by
maligners that I sung a song while under this vinous influence; but as
I remember nothing of it, and never attempted to turn a tune in all my
life, either before or since, I would willingly hope there is no
actual foundation for the calumny."[71]
[Footnote 71: _Rob Roy_, chap. xii.]
On one of his first long walks with Clerk and others of the same set,
their pace, being about four miles an hour, was found rather too much
for Scott, and he offered to contract for three, which measure was
thenceforth considered as the legal one. At this rate they often
continued to wander from five in the morning till eight in the
{p.134} evening, halting for such refreshment at mid-day as any
village alehouse might afford. On many occasions, however, they had
stretched so far into the country, that they were obliged to be absent
from home all night; and though great was the alarm which the first
occurrence of this sort created in George's Square, the family soon
got accustomed to such things, and little notice was taken, even
though Walter remained away for the better part of a week. I have
heard him laugh heartily over the recollections of one protracted
excursion, towards the close of which the party found themselves a
long day's walk--thirty miles, I think--from Edinburgh, without a
single sixpence left among them. "We were put to our shifts," said he;
"but we asked every now and then at a cottage door for a drink of
water; and one or two of the good-wives, observing our worn-out looks,
brought forth milk in place of water--so with that, and hips and haws,
we came in little the worse." His father met him with some impatient
questions as to what he had been living on so long, for the old man
well knew how scantily his pocket was supplied. "Pretty much like the
young ravens," answered he; "I only wished I had been as good a player
on the flute as poor George Primrose in The Vicar of Wakefield. If I
had his art I should like nothing better than to tramp like him from
cottage to cottage over the world."--"I doubt," said the grave Clerk
to the Signet, "I greatly doubt, sir, you were born for nae better
than a _gangrel scrape gut_." Some allusions to reproaches of this
kind occur in the Memoir; and we shall find others in letters
subsequent to his admission at the Bar.[72]
[Footnote 72: After the cautious father had had further
opportunity of observing his son's proceedings, his wife
happened one night to express some anxiety on the protracted
absence of Walter and his brother Thomas. "My dear Annie,"
said the old man, "Tom is with Walter this time; and have you
not yet perceived that wherever Walter goes, he is pretty
sure to find his bread buttered on both sides?"--_From Mrs.
Thomas Scott._--(1839.)]
The debating club formed among these young friends at {p.135} this
era of their studies was called _The Literary Society_; and is not to
be confounded with the more celebrated Speculative Society, which
Scott did not join for two years later. At _The Literary_ he spoke
frequently, and very amusingly and sensibly, but was not at all
numbered among the most brilliant members. He had a world of knowledge
to produce; but he had not acquired the art of arranging it to the
best advantage in a continued address; nor, indeed, did he ever, I
think, except under the influence of strong personal feeling, even
when years and fame had given him full confidence in himself, exhibit
upon any occasion the powers of oral eloquence. His antiquarian
information, however, supplied many an interesting feature in these
evenings of discussion. He had already dabbled in Anglo-Saxon and the
Norse Sagas: in his Essay on Imitations of Popular Poetry, he alludes
to these studies as having facilitated his acquisition of German:--But
he was deep especially in Fordun and Wyntoun, and all the Scotch
chronicles; and his friends rewarded him by the honorable title of
_Duns Scotus_.
A smaller society, formed with less ambitious views, originated in a
ride to Pennycuik, the seat of the head of Mr. Clerk's family, whose
elegant hospitalities are recorded in the Memoir. This was called, by
way of excellence, _The Club_, and I believe it is continued under the
same name to this day. Here, too, Walter had his sobriquet; and--his
corduroy breeches, I presume, not being as yet worn out--it was
_Colonel Grogg_.[73]
[Footnote 73: "The members of _The Club_ used to meet on
Friday evenings in a room in Carrubber's Close, from which
some of them usually adjourned to sup at an oyster tavern in
the same neighborhood. In after-life, those of them who
chanced to be in Edinburgh dined together twice every year,
at the close of the winter and summer sessions of the Law
Courts; and during thirty years, Sir Walter was very rarely
absent on these occasions. It was also a rule, that when any
member received an appointment or promotion, he should give a
dinner to his old associates; and they had accordingly two
such dinners from him--one when he became Sheriff of
Selkirkshire, and another when he was named Clerk of Session.
The original members were, in number, nineteen--viz., _Sir
Walter Scott_, Mr. William Clerk, Sir A. Ferguson, Mr. James
Edmonstone, Mr. George Abercromby (Lord Abercromby), Mr. D.
Boyle (now Lord Justice-Clerk), Mr. James Glassford
(Advocate), Mr. James Ferguson (Clerk of Session), Mr. David
Monypenny (Lord Pitmilly), Mr. Robert Davidson (Professor of
Law at Glasgow), Sir William Rae, Bart., Sir Patrick Murray,
Bart., _David Douglas_ (Lord Reston), Mr. Murray of Simprim,
Mr. Monteith of Closeburn, _Mr. Archibald Miller_ (son of
Professor Miller), _Baron Reden_, a Hanoverian; the Honorable
_Thomas Douglas_, afterwards Earl of Selkirk,--and John
Irving. Except the five whose names are _underlined_, these
original members are all still alive."--_Letter from Mr.
Irving_, dated 29th September, 1836.]
Meantime {p.136} he had not broken up his connection with Rosebank;
he appears to have spent several weeks in the autumn, both of 1788 and
1789, under his uncle's roof; and it was, I think, of his journey
thither, in the last named year, that he used to tell an anecdote,
which I shall here set down--how shorn, alas, of all the accessories
that gave it life when he recited it. Calling, before he set out, on
one of the ancient spinsters of his family, to inquire if she had any
message for Kelso, she retired, and presently placed in his hands a
packet of some bulk and weight, which required, she said, very
particular attention. He took it without examining the address, and
carried it in his pocket next day, not at all to the lightening of a
forty miles' ride in August. On his arrival, it turned out to contain
one of the old lady's pattens, sealed up for a particular cobbler in
Kelso, and accompanied with fourpence to pay for mending it, and
special directions that it might be brought back to her by the same
economical conveyance.
It will be seen from the following letter, the earliest of Scott's
writing that has fallen into my hands, that professional business had
some share in this excursion to Kelso; but I consider with more
interest the brief allusion to a day at Sandy-Knowe:--
TO {p.137} MRS. SCOTT, GEORGE'S SQUARE, EDINBURGH.
(_With a parcel._)
ROSEBANK, 5th September, 1788.
DEAR MOTHER,--I was favored with your letter, and send you Anne's
stockings along with this: I would have sent them last week, but
had some expectations of a private opportunity. I have been very
happy for this fortnight; we have some plan or other for every
day. Last week my uncle, my cousin William,[74] and I, rode to
Smailholm, and from thence walked to Sandy-Knowe Craigs, where we
spent the whole day, and made a very hearty dinner by the side of
the Orderlaw Well, on some cold beef and bread and cheese: we had
also a small case-bottle of rum to make grog with, which we drank
to the Sandy-Knowe bairns, and all their connections. This jaunt
gave me much pleasure, and had I time, I would give you a more
full account of it.
The fishing has been hitherto but indifferent, and I fear I shall
not be able to accomplish my promise with regard to the wild
ducks. I was out on Friday, and only saw three. I may probably,
however, send you a hare, as my uncle has got a present of two
greyhounds from Sir H. MacDougall, and as he has a license, only
waits till the corn is off the ground to commence coursing. Be it
known to you, however, I am not altogether employed in
amusements, for I have got two or three clients besides my uncle,
and am busy drawing tacks and contracts,--not, however, of
marriage. I am in a fair way of making money, if I stay here
long.
Here I have written a pretty long letter, and nothing in it; but
you know writing to one's friends is the next thing to seeing
them. My love to my father and the boys, from, Dear Mother, your
dutiful and affectionate son,
WALTER SCOTT.
[Footnote 74: The present Laird of Raeburn.]
It {p.138} appears from James Ballantyne's _memoranda_, that having
been very early bound apprentice to a solicitor in Kelso, he had no
intercourse with Scott during the three or four years that followed
their companionship at the school of Lancelot Whale; but Ballantyne
was now sent to spend a winter in Edinburgh, for the completion of his
professional education, and in the course of his attendance on the
Scots Law class, became a member of a young Teviotdale club, where
Walter Scott seldom failed to make his appearance. They supped
together, it seems, once a month; and here, as in the associations
above mentioned, good fellowship was often pushed beyond the limits of
modern indulgence. The strict intimacy between Scott and Ballantyne
was not at this time renewed,--their avocations prevented it,--but the
latter was no uninterested observer of his old comrade's bearing on
this new scene. "Upon all these occasions," he says, "one of the
principal features of his character was displayed as conspicuously as
I believe it ever was at any later period. This was the remarkable
ascendency he never failed to exhibit among his young companions, and
which appeared to arise from their involuntary and unconscious
submission to the same firmness of understanding, and gentle exercise
of it, which produced the same effects throughout his after-life.
Where there was always a good deal of drinking, there was of course
now and then a good deal of quarrelling. But three words from Walter
Scott never failed to put all such propensities to quietness."
Mr. Ballantyne's account of his friend's peace-making exertions at
this club may seem a little at variance with some preceding details.
There is a difference, however, between encouraging quarrels in the
bosom of a convivial party, and taking a fair part in a _row_ between
one's own party and another. But Ballantyne adds, that at _The
Teviotdale_, Scott was always remarkable for being the most temperate
of the set; and if the club consisted chiefly {p.139} of persons,
like Ballantyne himself, somewhat inferior to Scott in birth and
station, his carefulness both of sobriety and decorum at their
meetings was but another feature of his unchanged and unchangeable
character--_qualis ab incepto_.
At one of the many merry suppers of this time Walter Scott had said
something, of which, on recollecting himself next morning, he was
sensible that his friend Clerk might have reason to complain. He sent
him accordingly a note apologetical, which has by some accident been
preserved, and which I am sure every reader will agree with me in
considering well worthy of preservation. In it Scott contrives to make
use of _both_ his own club designations, and addresses his friend by
another of the same order, which Clerk had received in consequence of
comparing himself on some forgotten occasion to Sir John Brute in the
play. This characteristic document is as follows:--
TO WILLIAM CLERK, ESQ.
DEAR BARONET,--I am sorry to find that our friend Colonel Grogg
has behaved with a very undue degree of vehemence in a dispute
with you last night, occasioned by what I am convinced was a
gross misconception of your expressions. As the Colonel, though a
military man, is not too haughty to acknowledge an error, he has
commissioned me to make his apology as a mutual friend, which I
am convinced you will accept from yours ever,
DUNS SCOTUS.
Given at Castle Duns,
Monday.
I should perhaps have mentioned sooner that when first _Duns Scotus_
became _the Baronet's_ daily companion, this new alliance was observed
with considerable jealousy by some of his former inseparables of the
writing office. At the next annual supper of the clerks and
apprentices, the _gaudy_ of the chamber, this feeling showed itself
{p.140} in various ways, and when the cloth was drawn, Walter rose
and asked what was meant. "Well," said one of the lads, "since you
will have it out, you are _cutting_ your old friends for the sake of
Clerk and some more of these dons that look down on the like of us."
"Gentlemen," answered Scott, "I will never _cut_ any man unless I
detect him in scoundrelism; but I know not what right any of you have
to interfere with my choice of my company. If any one thought I had
injured him, he would have done well to ask an explanation in a more
private manner. As it is, I fairly own, that though I like many of you
very much, and have long done so, I think William Clerk well worth you
all put together." The senior in the chair was wise enough to laugh,
and the evening passed off without further disturbance.
As one effect of his office education, Scott soon began to preserve in
regular files the letters addressed to him; and from the style and
tone of such letters, as Mr. Southey observes in his Life of Cowper, a
man's character may often be gathered even more surely than from those
written by himself. The first series of any considerable extent in his
collection includes letters dated as far back as 1786, and proceeds,
with not many interruptions, down beyond the period when his fame had
been established. I regret, that from the delicate nature of the
transactions chiefly dwelt upon in the earlier of these
communications, I dare not make a free use of them; but I feel it my
duty to record the strong impression they have left on my own mind of
high generosity of affection, coupled with calm judgment, and
perseverance in well-doing, on the part of the stripling Scott. To
these indeed every line in the collection bears pregnant testimony. A
young gentleman, born of good family, and heir to a tolerable fortune,
is sent to Edinburgh College, and is seen partaking, along with Scott,
through several apparently happy and careless years, of the studies
and amusements {p.141} of which the reader may by this time have
formed an adequate notion. By degrees, from the usual license of his
equal comrades, he sinks into habits of a looser description--becomes
reckless, contracts debts, irritates his own family almost beyond hope
of reconciliation, is virtually cast off by them, runs away from
Scotland, forms a marriage far below his condition in a remote part of
the sister kingdom--and, when the poor girl has made him a father,
then first begins to open his eyes to the full consequences of his mad
career. He appeals to Scott, by this time in his eighteenth year, "as
the truest and noblest of friends," who had given him "the earliest
and the strongest warnings," had assisted him "the most generously
throughout all his wanderings and distresses," and will not now
abandon him in his "penitent lowliness of misery," the result of his
seeing "virtue and innocence involved in the punishment of his
errors." I find Scott obtaining the slow and reluctant assistance of
his own careful father--who had long before observed this youth's
wayward disposition, and often cautioned his son against the
connection--to intercede with the unfortunate wanderer's family, and
procure, if possible, some mitigation of their sentence. The result is
that he is furnished with the scanty means of removing himself to a
distant colony, where he spends several years in the drudgery of a
very humble occupation, but by degrees establishes for himself a new
character, which commands the anxious interest of strangers;--and I
find these strangers, particularly a benevolent and venerable
clergyman, addressing, on his behalf, without his privacy, the young
person, as yet unknown to the world, whom the object of their concern
had painted to them as "uniting the warm feelings of youth with the
sense of years"--whose hair he had, "from the day he left England,
worn next his heart." Just at the time when this appeal reached Scott,
he hears that his exiled friend's father has died suddenly, and, after
all, intestate; he has actually been {p.142} taking steps to
ascertain the truth of the case at the moment when the American
despatch is laid on his table. I leave the reader to guess with what
pleasure Scott has to communicate the intelligence that his repentant
and reformed friend may return to take possession of his inheritance.
The letters before me contain touching pictures of their meeting--of
Walter's first visit to the ancient hall, where a happy family are now
assembled--and of the affectionately respectful sense which his friend
retained ever afterwards of all that he had done for him in the season
of his struggles. But what a grievous loss is Scott's part of this
correspondence! I find the comrade over and over again expressing his
admiration of the letters in which Scott described to him his early
tours both in the Highlands and the Border dales: I find him
prophesying from them, as early as 1789, "one day your pen will make
you famous,"--and already, in 1790, urging him to concentrate his
ambition on a "history of the clans."[75]
[Footnote 75: All Scott's letters to the friend here alluded
to are said to have perished in an accidental fire.]
This young gentleman appears to have had a decided turn for
literature; and, though in his earlier epistles he makes no allusion
to Scott as ever dabbling in rhyme, he often inserts verses of his
own, some of which are not without merit. There is a long letter in
doggerel, dated 1788, descriptive of a ramble from Edinburgh to
Carlisle--of which I may quote the opening lines, as a sample of the
simple habits of these young people:--
"At four in the morning, I won't be too sure,
Yet, if right I remember me, that was the hour,
When with Fergusson, Ramsay, and Jones, sir, and you,
From Auld Reekie I southward my route did pursue.
But two of the dogs (yet God bless them, I said)
Grew tired, and but set me half way to Lasswade,
While Jones, you, and I, Wat, went on without flutter,
And at Symonds's feasted on good bread and butter;
Where I, wanting a sixpence, you lugged out a shilling,
And paid for me too, though I was most unwilling.
We {p.143} parted--be sure I was ready to snivel--
Jones and you to go home--I to go to the devil."
In a letter of later date, describing the adventurer's captivation
with the cottage maiden whom he afterwards married, there are some
lines of a very different stamp. This couplet at least seems to me
exquisite:--
"Lowly beauty, dear friend, beams with primitive grace,
And 't is innocence' self plays the rogue in her face."
I find in another letter of this collection--and it is among the first
of the series--the following passage:--"Your Quixotism, dear Walter,
was highly characteristic. From the description of the blooming fair,
as she appeared when she lowered her _manteau vert_, I am hopeful you
have not dropt the acquaintance. At least I am certain some of our
more rakish friends would have been glad enough of such an
introduction." This hint I cannot help connecting with the first scene
of _The Lady Green Mantle_ in Redgauntlet; but indeed I could easily
trace many more coincidences between these letters and that novel,
though at the same time I have no sort of doubt that William Clerk
was, in the main, _Darsie Latimer_, while Scott himself unquestionably
sat for his own picture in young _Alan Fairford_.
The allusion to "our more rakish friends" is in keeping with the whole
strain of this juvenile correspondence. Throughout there occurs no
coarse or even jocular suggestion as to the conduct of _Scott_ in that
particular, as to which most youths of his then age are so apt to lay
up stores of self-reproach. In this season of hot and impetuous blood
he may not have escaped quite blameless, but I have the concurrent
testimony of all the most intimate among his surviving associates,
that he was remarkably free from such indiscretions; that while his
high sense of honor shielded him from the remotest dream of tampering
with female innocence, he had an instinctive delicacy about him which
made him recoil with utter disgust from low and vulgar debaucheries.
His {p.144} friends, I have heard more than one of them confess,
used often to rally him on the coldness of his nature. By degrees they
discovered that he had, from almost the dawn of the passions,
cherished a secret attachment, which continued, through all the most
perilous stage of life, to act as a romantic charm in safeguard of
virtue. This--(however he may have disguised the story by mixing it up
with the Quixotic adventure of the damsel in the Green Mantle)--this
was the early and innocent affection to which we owe the tenderest
pages, not only of Redgauntlet, but of The Lay of the Last Minstrel,
and of Rokeby. In all of these works the heroine has certain
distinctive features, drawn from one and the same haunting dream of
his manly adolescence.
It was about 1790, according to Mr. William Clerk, that Scott was
observed to lay aside that carelessness, not to say slovenliness, as
to dress, which used to furnish matter for joking at the beginning of
their acquaintance. He now did himself more justice in these little
matters, became fond of mixing in general female society, and, as his
friend expresses it, "began to set up for a squire of dames."
His personal appearance at this time was not unengaging. A lady of
high rank,[76] who well remembers him in the Old Assembly Rooms, says,
"Young Walter Scott was a comely creature." He had outgrown the
sallowness of early ill health, and had a fresh, brilliant complexion.
His eyes were clear, open, and well set, with a changeful radiance, to
which teeth of the most perfect regularity and whiteness lent their
assistance, while the noble expanse and elevation of the brow gave to
the whole aspect a dignity far above the charm of mere features. His
smile was always delightful; and I can easily fancy the peculiar
intermixture of tenderness and gravity, with playful innocent hilarity
and humor in the expression, as being well calculated to fix a fair
lady's eye. His figure, {p.145} excepting the blemish in one limb,
must in those days have been eminently handsome; tall, much above the
usual standard, it was cast in the very mould of a young Hercules; the
head set on with singular grace, the throat and chest after the truest
model of the antique, the hands delicately finished; the whole outline
that of extraordinary vigor, without as yet a touch of clumsiness.
When he had acquired a little facility of manner, his conversation
must have been such as could have dispensed with any exterior
advantages, and certainly brought swift forgiveness for the one
unkindness of nature. I have heard him, in talking of this part of his
life, say, with an arch simplicity of look and tone which those who
were familiar with him can fill in for themselves--"It was a proud
night with me when I first found that a pretty young woman could think
it worth her while to sit and talk with me, hour after hour, in a
corner of the ballroom, while all the world were capering in our
view."
[Footnote 76: The late Countess-Duchess of
Sutherland.--(1848.)]
I believe, however, that the "pretty young woman" here specially
alluded to had occupied his attention long before he ever appeared in
the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms, or any of his friends took note of him
as "setting up for a squire of dames." I have been told that their
acquaintance began in the Greyfriars' Churchyard, where rain beginning
to fall one Sunday as the congregation were dispersing, Scott happened
to offer his umbrella, and the tender being accepted, so escorted her
to her residence, which proved to be at no great distance from his
own.[77] To return from church together had, it seems, grown into
something like a custom, before they met in society, Mrs. Scott being
of the party. It then appeared that she and the lady's mother had been
companions in their youth, though, both living secludedly, they
{p.146} had scarcely seen each other for many years; and the two
matrons now renewed their former intercourse. But no acquaintance
appears to have existed between the fathers of the young people, until
things had advanced in appearance farther than met the approbation of
the good Clerk to the Signet.
[Footnote 77: In one of his latest articles for the
_Quarterly Review_, Scott observes, "There have been
instances of love tales being favorably received in England,
when told under an umbrella, and in the middle of a
shower."--_Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vol. xviii.]
Being aware that the young lady, who was very highly connected, had
prospects of fortune far above his son's, the upright and honorable
man conceived it his duty to give her parents warning that he observed
a degree of intimacy which, if allowed to go on, might involve the
parties in future pain and disappointment. He had heard his son talk
of a contemplated excursion to the part of the country in which his
neighbor's estates lay, and not doubting that Walter's real object was
different from that which he announced, introduced himself with a
frank statement that he wished no such affair to proceed without the
express sanction of those most interested in the happiness of persons
as yet too young to calculate consequences for themselves. The
northern Baronet had heard nothing of the young apprentice's intended
excursion, and appeared to treat the whole business very lightly. He
thanked Mr. Scott for his scrupulous attention--but added that he
believed he was mistaken; and this paternal interference, which Walter
did not hear of till long afterwards, produced no change in his
relations with the object of his growing attachment.
I have neither the power nor the wish to give in detail the sequel of
this story. It is sufficient to say, that after he had through several
long years nourished the dream of an ultimate union with this lady,
his hopes terminated in her being married to a gentleman of the
highest character, to whom some affectionate allusions occur in one of
the greatest of his works, and who lived to act the part of a most
generous friend to his early rival throughout the anxieties and
distresses of 1826 and 1827. I have said enough for my purpose--which
was only to render {p.147} intelligible a few allusions in the
letters which I shall by and by have to introduce; but I may add that
I have no doubt this unfortunate passion, besides one good effect
already adverted to, had a powerful influence in nerving Scott's mind
for the sedulous diligence with which he pursued his proper legal
studies, as described in his Memoir, during the two or three years
that preceded his call to the Bar.[78]
[Footnote 78: (The object of the strongest, or perhaps it
should be said the single, passion of Scott's life was
Williamina, the only child of Sir John Wishart Belsches
Stuart of Fettercairn, and his wife, the Lady Jane Leslie,
daughter of David, Earl of Leven and Melville. Beside beauty
of person, sweetness of disposition, a quick intelligence,
and cultivated tastes, Miss Stuart seems to have possessed in
large measure that indefinable but potent gift, which is
called charm. Through some misapprehension, Lockhart appears
to have antedated the beginning of her influence over Scott,
as in 1790 she was hardly more than a child, and she was not
sixteen when he was called to the Bar, though the meeting in
the Greyfriars' Churchyard had probably already taken place.
The "three years of dreaming" were ended, as the biographer
narrates, in the autumn of 1796. On January 19, 1797, Miss
Stuart was married to William Forbes, son and heir of Sir
William Forbes of Pitsligo, an eminent banker, and the author
of a Life of his friend Beattie. Scott's affectionate
allusions to his early rival will be found in the
Introduction to the Fourth Canto of _Marmion_:--
"And one whose name I may not say,--
For not mimosa's tender tree
Shrinks sooner from the touch than he,"--
an Introduction inscribed to James Skene of Rubislaw, whose
marriage to a daughter of Sir William had been speedily
followed by the father's death. Mr. Forbes succeeded to the
baronetcy in 1806, and his wife, on the death of Sir John
Stuart, inherited Fettercairn. She died December 5, 1810,
after thirteen years of unclouded happiness. Dean Boyle has
recorded that Lockhart once read to him the letter "full of
beauty," which Scott wrote to the bereaved husband at this
time. Lady Stuart-Forbes left six children, four sons and two
daughters. The three sons who survived to maturity all were
men of unusual ability.
The story of Williamina Stuart's brief life was told for the
first time with any fulness by Miss F. M. F. Skene in the
_Century Magazine_ for July, 1899. As the daughter of one of
Scott's earliest and dearest friends and the niece of Sir
William Forbes, she could write with knowledge. She says that
from the day of his wife's death, "so far as society and the
outer world were concerned, Sir William Forbes may be said to
have died with her. He retired into the most complete
seclusion, maintaining the heart-stricken silence of a grief
too deep for words, and scarcely seeing even his own nearest
relatives. Only at the call of duty did he ever emerge from
his [retirement," as when he proved so stanch a friend to
Scott in the darkest days of 1826 and 1827.
A charming portrait, after a miniature by Cosway, accompanies
Miss Skene's sketch of Lady Stuart-Forbes,--a pleasing
contrast to the picture, without merit, either as a work of
art or as a likeness, which was engraved for the Memoir of
her youngest son, James David Forbes.)]