never neglecting his professional duties, his mind had its main bent
towards literature. Having learned German, he translated and published
a version of Goethe’s _Goetz von Berlichingen_, a drama of such a
romantic cast as harmonised entirely with his peculiar taste. He also
was induced, by Mr M. G. Lewis, the well-known author of _The Monk_,
to write two or three ballads on supernatural themes for a collection
which was to be entitled _Tales of Wonder_. _Goetz_ appeared in
February 1799, but met the fate of the former publication. When the
_Tales of Wonder_ came out, Scott’s ballads, though unfortunate in
their association, obtained some praise, yet, on the whole, might also
be considered as a failure. These would have been disappointments to a
man who had set his heart on literary reputation. To Scott, who was at
all periods of his career humble-minded about his literary efforts,
they were nothing of the kind. In this respect, he was a pattern to all
authors, present and to come.
The circumstances seem to have been almost accidental which led
him to make his first serious adventure in the literary world. His
schoolfellow, James Ballantyne, was now settled at Kelso in the
management of a weekly newspaper. Merely to give employment to his
friend’s types during the intervals of their ordinary use, Scott
proposed to print a small collection of the old ballads which for
some years he had been collecting on the Border. When the design was
formed, he set about preparing the work, for which he soon obtained
some assistance from Richard Heber and John Leyden--the former an
Englishman of fortune, and an enthusiastic collector of books; the
latter a Scottish peasant’s son, who had studied for the church, and
become a marvel of learning, especially in languages and antiquities.
The _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ thus grew upon his hands,
until it became such an assemblage of ballads, ancient and modern,
and of historical annotation, as could only be contained in three
octavo volumes. The first two made their appearance in January 1802,
and met a favourable reception. Many of the ballads were entirely
new to the world; even those which had been published before, here
appeared in superior versions. Industry in the collection of copies,
and taste in the selection of readings, had enabled the editor to
present this branch of popular literature with attractions it never
possessed before; while the graceful and intelligent prose interspersed
throughout, rich with curious learning, and enlivened by many a
pleasant traditionary anecdote, served to constitute the whole as a
most agreeable mélange. The work gave Scott at once a respectable
place in the literary republic, more indeed as an editor than as an
author, though one would suppose few could be altogether insensible
to the spirit and graphic power displayed in the ballads of his own
composition.
The public generally, and the booksellers in particular, were agreeably
surprised to find the _Minstrelsy_, while bearing the unwonted imprint
of ‘Kelso,’ a marvel of beautiful typography; a circumstance owing to
the good taste of James Ballantyne, and which was of some avail in
increasing the popularity of the work. It appears that Scott, besides
some gains from the first edition, obtained soon after £500 for the
copyright.
About this time he inherited between five and six thousand pounds
from a paternal uncle. This, with his share of his deceased father’s
property, his sheriffship, and his wife’s allowance from her brother,
now advancing to fortune in India, made his income altogether about a
thousand a year. He had been ten years at the bar with little success;
his gains seldom reaching two hundred a year, and these from the merest
drudgeries of the profession. It began, therefore, to appear to him
that, in as far as any further income might be required to support his
station in life, and advance the prospects of his children, it would be
well to look for it rather to some post in the Court of Session, such
as one of the principal clerkships, than to practice as a barrister.
Assured in the meantime against want, and trusting to such a prospect
being realisable by his friends the Buccleuchs and Melvilles, he
gradually became disposed to give more of his regards to literature.
As to income from this source, he had little hope or faith. Literary
research and composition were as yet their own reward with him; if
any more solid remuneration accrued, he was happy to receive it; but
he would not depend on such gains. Let literature, he said, be at the
utmost a staff--not a crutch. It was natural for a prudent man of the
world to form these ideas at that time, when literary biography was
little besides a record of privation and sorrow. But it would have,
nevertheless, been well for Scott if he had been content with his
secured income, and the prospect of only such contingent additions to
it as a fixed post or the profits of literature might hold out. To his
over-anxious mind, when the temptation came, it appeared different, as
we shall presently see.
It was about the time when the _Minstrelsy_ was issuing from the press,
that Scott was asked by the lovely and amiable Countess of Dalkeith
to write a ballad upon a traditionary goblin story respecting the
Buccleuch family. He commenced such a composition accordingly, adopting
for its measure that of a recent poem of Coleridge; but it grew upon
his hands far beyond ballad size. It became, in short, a long romantic
narrative, divided into cantos, and _set_ in a subordinate narrative,
wherein the author represented it as a recitation by the last survivor
of the fraternity of minstrels. This was published in January 1805, as
_The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, and at once placed Scott in the first
rank as an original poet, besides determining his fate as henceforth
chiefly that of a man of letters. Immediately on the first edition
proving successful, the publishers gave £600 for the copyright.
Before this time, Mr Ballantyne had set up a printing-office in
Edinburgh, partly by the assistance of a loan from his old friend.
Getting rapidly into a considerable business, which his skill and
taste amply justified, he came to require additional capital, and
Scott at length agreed to advance the needful sum, on condition of his
being made a partner, but a secret one, in the concern. His dread of
dependence on literary gains seems to have blinded him to the fact,
that mercantile gains are also precarious, and usually attended by
risks.
By the interest of his titled friends, he soon after obtained an
appointment to the duties of a clerkship in the Court of Session;
the salary, however, which afterwards was fixed at £1300 a year, was
not to be realised till the death of a superannuated predecessor in
office, and, in fact, Scott touched nothing of it till 1812. With
such an addition to his solid prospects, one cannot but wonder at the
eagerness and assiduity with which he commenced and pursued literary
labours of a severely tasking kind; such as an edition of the works
of Dryden, a publication of Sadler’s State Papers, and a reprint of
Somers’s collection of Tracts. It seems as if a naturally ambitious
and ardent spirit had at length found a vent for its energies, and
felt a self-rewarding pleasure in their exercise. At the same time, he
gave much of his time to volunteer soldiering, to politics, and to the
affairs of literary men less fortunate than himself. The recollections
of his friends present a charming picture of his ordinary life at
his summer retreat of Ashestiel on the Tweed, where he had found it
necessary to establish himself on account of his duties as sheriff of
Selkirkshire. His household, enlivened by four healthy children, and
superintended by Mrs Scott, was marked by simple elegance. On Sundays,
being far from church, he read prayers and a sermon to his family;
then, if the weather was good, he would walk with them, servants
and all, to some favourite spot at a convenient distance, and dine
with them in the open air. Frequent excursions on horseback, and
coursing-matches, varied the tenor of common domestic life. Friends
coming to pay visits found him in constant good-humour, and at all
times willing to introduce them to the fine scenery and interesting
antiquities of the district. In the evenings, his conversation, in
which stories and anecdotes formed a large part, was a sure resource
against ennui. As a husband and father, he was most kind and indulgent.
His children had access to his room at all times; and when they
came--unconscious of the nature of his studies--and asked for a story,
he would take them on his knee, repeat a tale or a ballad, kiss them,
and then set them down again to their sports, never apparently feeling
the least annoyance at the interruption. His dogs, of which he always
had two or three, were even more privileged, for he kept his window
open in nearly all weathers, that they might leap out and in as they
pleased.
These were the happiest days of Scott’s life, when as yet in the
enjoyment of full vigour of body and mind, rather acquiring than
reposing upon fame, and unembarrassed by possessions and dignities
which afterwards made his position false and dangerous. He occasionally
visited London, and allowed himself to go through that kind of
exhibition called _lionising_, to which everything famous, or even
notorious, is liable to be subjected in the metropolis; but he never
was in the slightest degree spoiled by such idolatry. He fully shewed
that he estimated it at its real worth, and, after good-naturedly
submitting to it, could laugh at its absurdity. It is less pleasant
to record a change in his arrangements for study which took place
about this time. Finding the day apt to be broken in upon by little
duties and by visitors, he adopted the habit of rising and commencing
his literary toils at six in the morning, usually finishing them at
twelve, after the interruption of breakfast at ten. His biographer, Mr
Lockhart, tells us how careful he was to dress neatly before sitting
down, but he says nothing of his preparing for the duty before him by
taking food. We have come to understand such things better now, and can
easily see what fatal effects might arise in a few years from a habit
of performing the principal duties of life with an exhausted system.
The year 1808 saw his poetical reputation brought to its zenith by the
publication of the admirable romantic tale of _Marmion_, for which, to
the astonishment of the public, Mr Constable undertook beforehand to
pay a thousand guineas. Not long after, his zeal in Tory politics, or,
as he thought it, solicitude for the honour and safety of his country,
then harassed by the Bonaparte wars, led to his quarrelling with this
eminent publisher, and to his taking an interest in the establishment
of the _Quarterly_, as an opposition to the _Edinburgh Review_. It
would have been well if he had stopped here; but the same feelings,
helped, perhaps, by that trafficking spirit which had entered into him
since he lost hopes at the bar, induced the false step of his setting
up a publishing-house in Edinburgh, under the _firm_ of John Ballantyne
and Company, the ostensible manager being a younger brother of the
printer, a clever comical being, not overstocked with worldly prudence,
and possessed of few qualifications for business beyond a knowledge of
accounts.
From this house issued, in May 1810, his most pleasing poem, the _Lady
of the Lake_, which experienced even greater popularity than either
of its two predecessors, and might, if anything could, have made its
author a vain man. In this and his two preceding poems, the chief charm
lay in the vividness with which the author brought the past before the
minds of his readers. He gave the grace, the dignity, the gallantry
of old times, free from all their rudeness and grossness. All was
done, too, in such an easy and fluent style, that the reader was never
wearied. The singular fascination of these writings shewed itself in
numberless ways; for one thing, there was a rush of tourists to the
scene of the _Lady of the Lake_, so great, as to produce a marked
rise of the amount of post-horse duty raised in Scotland. Scott’s
own firm, in connection with another, undertook to pay two thousand
guineas for the _Lady of the Lake_, a fact in authorship at that time
without anything approaching to a parallel. Meanwhile, he was urging
into print, as a publisher, an _Annual Register_ (to commence with the
year 1808); an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, under the care of a
drudging German of the name of Weber; a huge quarto, under the title
of _Tixall Poetry_; an edition of Defoe’s novels; the _Secret Memoirs
of the Court of James I._; and some other books agreeable to his own
taste, but hardly to that of the public.
These huge indigestible masses of paper and print had brought his
outlay in the printing and publishing concerns up to £9000 before
the end of this year. Scarcely ever did the most thoughtless of the
tuneful tribe make a more unfortunate adventure than this publishing
affair was destined to prove itself. If Scott had instituted some safe
and modest copartnery, to give himself the publishing profits of his
own writings, diminished only by expenses and the small profits due
to his acting associates, he would have been doing what perhaps it
will yet be seen all authors of decided popularity may rightly do. But
he had an antiquarian taste, and a disposition to over-estimate all
literary productions save his own--he indulged these tendencies in his
firm of John Ballantyne and Company, and unavoidably became a great
loser. Before it was fully seen that such was to be his fate as a man
of business--namely, in the summer of 1811--he had thought so well of
his means and prospects--the clerkship salary being now on the eve of
realisation--as to resolve on purchasing a hundred acres of land on
Tweedside, in order to build a cottage residence for himself, and this
notwithstanding that the £4000 requisite in the very first place had to
be borrowed, the one half as a permanent burden on the property. Such
was the origin of his estate of Abbotsford, where ultimately he reared
a castle. The purchase would have been perfectly a right one, if he had
not involved his superfluous fortune in business: as things actually
stood, it was only preparing for himself needless embarrassments.
His removal to the little estate which he had purchased took place
in May 1812, and he soon became involved in the pleasant but costly
labours attendant on building, planting, and what is called _making
a place_. At the same time, besides attending to other literary
avocations, he was composing a fourth romance in verse, which appeared
just before the close of the year under the title of _Rokeby_, but in
point of popularity proved a comparative failure. Ere this time, the
concerns of John Ballantyne and Company were seriously embarrassed,
insomuch that Scott was glad to accept of a little credit from his
friend Mr Morritt of Rokeby Park. The difficulties had only increased
during the early months of 1813, and it then became necessary for
those who had begun in rivalry to Mr Constable, to resort to that
publisher for his friendly aid. To give an idea of the fatality of the
whole adventure, it appears that the single publication of _Tixall
Poetry_, which proved a dead failure, involved an outlay of £2500,
while the _Edinburgh Annual Register_ was attended by an annual loss
of £1000. At the same time, all the parties concerned were living in a
style rather suited to their hopes than to their realised profits. To
sustain so severe a drainage, the private fortune of Scott, and even
his unprecedented literary gains, were inadequate. Fortunately, the
hope of regaining the author of _Marmion_ as an adherent of his house,
induced Mr Constable to grant relief to some extent by the purchase
of stock, trusting that the rival house would as soon as possible be
extinguished. The Duke of Buccleuch also extended the favour of his
credit for the sum of £4000, by means of which, and of further sales
of stock to other publishers, the principal difficulties were passed,
though not without the most serious vexation to Scott for the greater
part of a year. In the midst of his worst perplexities, he resigned an
offer of the laureateship to Mr Southey, and was liberal as usual to
unfortunate men of letters, sending, for one thing, fifty pounds to Mr
Maturin, the Irish novelist.
WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Scott had, so early as 1805, commenced a prose fiction on the manners
of the Highlanders, which he designated _Waverley, or, ’Tis Sixty
Years Since_. Discouraged by the unfavourable opinion of his friends
regarding the first few chapters, he threw aside the manuscript, which
lay accordingly unthought of in an old desk for nine years. Happening
to find it while rummaging for fishing-tackle, he bethought him of
completing the story, and seriously trying his fortune in a new walk of
literature. Three weeks of June 1814 enabled him to add the second and
third volumes, and the tale appeared anonymously in the ensuing month.
The public almost immediately appreciated its merits, and the first
edition of a thousand copies meeting with a quick sale, was speedily
followed by a second and a third. The lifelike representation here
given of times not too remote for sympathy, and yet sufficiently so in
character to tell as eminently romantic, joined to the wonderful ease,
spirit, and mingled humour and pathos of the narrative, gave _Waverley_
at once a place far above all contemporary novels, and awakened great
curiosity regarding the unknown author.
Always unconcerned about the fate of his works, Scott immediately set
out on a six weeks’ yachting excursion round the north of Scotland,
with hardly a chance of hearing news from the world of letters
during that time. The excursion was performed in company with the
Commissioners of Northern Light-houses, of whom he was the guest. As
yet, the Commissioners had no steam-vessel for their annual trips,
but used a sailing yacht, provided with arms for defence, in case of
attack, against French privateers or other marauders. Sailing from
Leith on the 29th July 1814, the party first visited the Isle of May,
and thence proceeded northward. In passing, they landed on the Bell
Rock, and inspected the recently erected light-house on that dangerous
reef. In the album of the keepers, it is customary for visitors
to inscribe their name, along with any passing remark. Sir Walter
inscribed the following impromptu lines:
‘PHAROS LOQUITUR.
Far on the bosom of the deep,
O’er these wild shelves my watch I keep;
A ruddy gem of changeful light,
Bound on the dusky brow of night:
The seaman bids my lustre hail,
And scorns to strike his timorous sail.’
It was in this northern maritime excursion that Sir Walter visited
Shetland, and stored his mind with those materials which afterwards
were so charmingly developed in the romance of the _Pirate_.
The secrecy which was maintained regarding the authorship of _Waverley_
and the succeeding novels, helped to give them a certain piquancy,
independently of their intrinsic merits. At the same time, many
reflecting persons were at no loss to see that only the same mind which
had reproduced the times of the Jameses in _Marmion_ and the _Lady of
the Lake_, could have resuscitated the court and camp of the Chevalier
in 1745; but with the mass of the public the mystery was successful.
Some thought it most likely that Scott’s brother, Thomas, had produced
this romance; there were even some who attributed it to Mr Jeffrey.
Of Thomas he had himself so high an opinion, that he about this time
offered him money from his own pocket for any novel he might produce.
But the opinion of Walter Scott regarding the literary powers of his
contemporaries was of absolutely not the least value, in consequence
of the peculiar generosity of his nature. Thomas Scott and many others
whom he stimulated, and helped to become authors, were in the eyes of
the world very ordinary persons, and can only be remembered because
they were the objects of this great man’s love and esteem.
The success of _Waverley_, and the necessity of money to relieve the
Ballantyne concern, quickly urged Scott to a new effort in the same
walk. During the short vacation at the Christmas of this year (1814),
he produced his tale of _Guy Mannering_, which, being published in
the ensuing February, was received with transports of delight (more
sober language would be quite inappropriate) by both the Scottish
and English public. The author had, only a month before, brought
out his last great poem, _The Lord of the Isles_, which met with a
reception so cool as to convince him that he must now resign the top
of the poetical walk to his young rival, Lord Byron. He heard the
report of the public decision on this point from James Ballantyne, was
disconcerted for a few minutes, and then, recovering his usual spirits,
tranquilly resumed the writing of his novel. How much it would tell to
the happiness of literary men in general, if they had but a tithe of
the equanimity of Scott about the success of their exertions! In the
summer of this memorable year he visited the field of Waterloo, and
wrote on that subject a descriptive work, entitled _Paul’s Letters to
his Kinsfolk_, and also a poem, which proved a failure in respect of
popular approbation. The results of these various labours, with his
professional income, not only set him free of the immediate pressure
of the publishing encumbrances, but enabled him to add somewhat to his
domains on Tweedside. This year was also memorable to him as that
which introduced him to the personal notice of the Prince Regent, who,
after greatly enjoying his society at Carlton House, sent him a present
of a gold snuff-box set in brilliants.
Scott was now at ease in his circumstances. He had a pleasant house in
Edinburgh, No. 39 Castle Street--‘dear 39,’ as he affectionately called
it--where he enjoyed the best society in the Scottish capital. Then,
for recreation, he had that fanciful but costly domain on the Tweed.
His ordinary and assured income sufficed for any domestic expenditure
he chose to indulge in; the recent embarrassments were at an end; and
he might calculate on easily adding a few occasional thousands, for
the sake of posterity, by no very great exertion of his ever-fertile
brain. But who of mortal mould can ever say ‘enough,’ especially when
the temptation of great facility in acquiring is before him. For
Scott at this time to grow from the idea of a cottage retreat in the
country, to that of a little lairdship and a good sort of mansion, was
certainly very natural, when he found that the work of little more
than a month at any time could secure him enough of money to buy from
fifty to a hundred acres of ground. It was the more so in his case,
as his education, and the original bent of his own feelings, alike
tended to create in him a veneration for the possession of land. Add
to this, that he had a taste for planting and decoration, and felt a
genial joy in being bread-giver to a retinue of that kindly peasantry
whose virtues he has himself depicted in such lively colours. Of vulgar
ambition for wealth and state, there was in Scott not one particle: to
be a chief of the soil and its people, and contemplate his children as
succeeding him in the same character, was only, with him, to realise,
or set forth in substance, one of the poetical dreams which haunted his
mind. It is therefore not surprising at this period to find him far
from being disposed to suspend his energies, even although he might
have done so under the excuse of somewhat broken health, for he now had
frequent visits of stomach-cramp--in no small degree a consequence of
some of his literary habits.