Hogg in his low thatched cottage. The situation is fine, and the
opposite mountains, from the grand simplicity of their character,
may almost be termed sublime. The Shepherd and his aged mother--‘Old
Margaret Laidlaw,’ for she generally went by her maiden name--gave
the visitors a hearty welcome. James had sent for a bottle of wine,
of which each had to take a glass; and as the exhilarating effects
of the previous night had not quite departed, he insisted that they
should help him in drinking every drop in the bottle. Had it been
a few years earlier in Scott’s life, and before he was sheriff of
the county, the request would probably have been complied with; but
on this occasion the bottle was set aside. The scene was curious
and interesting. ‘Hogg may be a great poet,’ said Scott, ‘and, like
Allan Ramsay, come to be the founder of a sort of family.’ Hogg’s
familiarity of address, mingled with fits of deference and respect
towards the sheriff, was curiously characteristic. Many years after
this, we recollect a gentleman asking Laidlaw about an amusing anecdote
told of the Shepherd. Hogg had sagacity enough to detect the authorship
of the Waverley novels long before the secret was divulged, and had
the volumes as they appeared bound and lettered on the back ‘SCOTT’S
NOVELS.’ His friend discovered this one day when visiting Hogg at
Altrive, and, in a dry humorous tone of voice, remarked: ‘Jamie, your
bookseller must be a stupid fellow to spell _Scots_ with two _t_s.’
Hogg is said to have rejoined: ‘Ah, Watty, I am ower auld a cat to
draw that strae before.’ Laidlaw laughed immoderately at the story,
but observed: ‘Jamie never came lower down than _Walter_.’ Lockhart,
however, appears to think he did occasionally venture on such a descent.
From Hogg’s cottage the party proceeded up Rankleburn to see Buccleuch,
and inspect the old chapel and mill. They found nothing at the kirk of
Buccleuch, and saw only the foundations of the chapel. Scott, however,
was in high spirits, and, being a member of the Edinburgh Light
Cavalry, and Laidlaw one of the Selkirkshire Yeomanry, they sometimes
set off at a gallop--the sheriff leading as in a mimic charge, and
shouting: ‘Schlachten, meine kinder, schlachten!’ Hogg trotted up
behind, marvelling at the versatile powers of the ‘wonderful _shirra_.’
They all dined together with a ‘lady of the glen,’ Mrs Bryden,
Crosslee; and next morning Scott returned to Clovenford Inn, where he
resided till he took a lease of the house of Ashestiel.
Amidst these and similar scenes, Walter Scott inhaled inspiration, and
nursed those powers which afterwards astonished the world. The healthy
vigour of his mind, and his clear understanding, grew up under such
training, and his imagination was thence quickened and moulded. Byron
studied amidst the classic scenes of Greece and Italy--Southey and
Moore in their libraries, intent on varied knowledge. All the ‘shadowy
tribes of mind’ were known to the metaphysical Coleridge. Wordsworth
wandered among the lakes and mountains of Westmoreland, brooding over
his poetical and philosophical theories, from which his better genius,
in the hour of composition, often extricated him. Scott was in all
things the simple, unaffected worshipper of nature and of Scotland. His
chivalrous romances sprung from his national predilections; for the
warlike deeds of the Border chiefs first fired his fancy, and directed
his researches. In these mountain excursions he imbibed that love and
veneration of past times which coloured most of his compositions; and
human sympathies and solemn reflections were forced upon him by his
intercourse with the natives of the hills, and the simple and lonely
majesty of the scenes that he visited. These early impressions were
never forgotten. Nor could there have been a better nursery for a
romantic and national poet. Scholastic and critical studies would have
polished his taste and refined his verse; but we might have wanted the
strong picturesque vigour--the simple direct energy of the old ballad
style--the truth, nature, and observation of a stirring life--all
that characterises and endears old Scotland. Scott’s destiny was on
the whole pre-eminently happy; and when we think of the fate of other
great authors--of Spenser composing amidst the savage turbulence of
Ireland--of Shakspeare following a profession which he disliked--of
Milton, blind and in danger--Dante in exile--and Tasso and Cervantes
in prison--we feel how immeasurably superior was the lot of this noble
free-hearted Scotsman, whose genius was the proudest inheritance of his
country. ‘Think no man happy till he dies,’ said the sage. Scott’s star
became dim, but there was only a short period of darkness, and he never
‘bated one jot of heart or hope,’ nor lost the friendly and soothing
attentions of those he loved. The world’s respect and admiration he
always possessed.
The _Minstrelsy_ appeared complete in the spring of 1803--the first
two volumes being then reprinted, and a third volume added, containing
the editor’s more recent collections. The work was very favourably
received: indeed, so valuable a contribution to our native literature
had not appeared since the publication of Percy’s _Reliques_. And the
Introduction is an admirable historical summary, foreshadowing Scott’s
future triumphs as a prose writer.[7]
The sheriff made four visits to Blackhouse, the fourth time in company
with his attached friend, Mr Skene of Rubislaw. All the party turned
out to visit a fox-hunt, a successful one, for the fox was killed; and
Mr Skene made a spirited drawing of the scene, including a portrait
of old Will Tweedie, the fox-hunter. The visit was closed by the whole
party riding to see the wild scenery of the Grey Mare’s Tail and Loch
Skene, Hogg and Adam Ferguson being of the party. Laidlaw thus writes
of the expedition to Moffatdale:
‘We proceeded with difficulty up the rocky chasm to reach the foot
of the waterfall. The passage which the stream has worn by cutting
the opposing rocks of grey-wacke, is rough and dangerous. My brother
George and I, both in the prime of youth, and constantly in the habit
of climbing, had difficulty in forcing our way, and we felt for Scott’s
lameness. This, however, was unnecessary. He said he could not perhaps
climb so fast as we did, but he advised us to go on, and leave him.
This we did, but halted on a projecting point before we descended to
the foot of the fall, and looking back, we were struck at seeing the
motions of the sheriff’s dog _Camp_. The dog was attending anxiously on
his master; and when the latter came to a difficult part of the rock,
_Camp_ would jump down, look up to his master’s face, then spring up,
lick his master’s hand and cheek, jump down again, and look upwards, as
if to shew him the way, and encourage him. We were greatly interested
with the scene. Mr Scott seemed to depend much on his hands and the
great strength of his powerful arms; and he soon fought his way over
all obstacles, and joined us at the foot of the Grey Mare’s Tail, the
name of the cataract.’
This excursion, like most of the others, Scott described in _Marmion_
(Introd. to Canto II.) He was apt, on a journey among the hills,
especially if the district was new to him, to fall at times into fits
of silence, revolving in his mind, and perhaps throwing into language,
the ideas that were suggested at the moment by the landscape; and
hence those who had often been his companions knew the origin of many
of the beautiful passages in his future works. Of this Laidlaw used
to relate one instance. About a mile down Douglas-burn, a small brook
falls into it from the Whitehope hills; and at the junction of the
streams, at the foot of a bank celebrated in traditionary story, stood
the withered remains of what had been a very large old hawthorn tree,
that had often engaged the attention of the young men at Blackhouse.
Laidlaw on one occasion pointed out to the sheriff its beautiful site
and venerable appearance, and asked him if he did not think it might
be centuries old, and once a leading object in the landscape. As the
district had been famous for game and wild animals, he said there
could be little doubt that the red deer had often lain under the shade
of the tree, before they ascended to feed on the open hill-tops in
the evening. Scott looked on the tree and the green hills, but said
nothing. The enthusiastic guide repeated his admiration, and added,
that Whitehope-tree was famous for miles around; but still Scott was
silent. The subject was then dropped; ‘but some years afterwards,’ said
Laidlaw, ‘when the sheriff read to me his manuscript of _Marmion_, I
found that Whitehope-tree was not forgotten, and that he had felt all
the associations it was calculated to excite.’ The description of the
thorn is eminently suggestive and beautiful:
‘The scenes are desert now and bare,
Where flourished once a Forest fair,
When these waste glens with copse were lined,
And peopled with the hart and hind.
Yon Thorn, perchance, whose prickly spears
Have fenced him for three hundred years,
While fell around his green compeers--
Yon lonely Thorn, would he could tell
The changes of his parent dell.’[8]
We may here notice another poetical scene, the _Bush aboon Traquair_,
celebrated in the well-known popular song by Crawford. Burns says that
when he saw the old bush in 1787, it was composed of eight or nine
ragged birches, and that the Earl of Traquair had planted a clump
of trees near the place, which he called ‘The New Bush.’ Laidlaw
maintained that the new bush was in reality the old bush of the song.
One of the sons of Murray of Philiphaugh used to come over often on
foot, and meet one of the ladies of Traquair at the _Cless_, a green
hollow at the foot of the hill that overhangs Traquair House. This
was the scene of the song. The straggling birches that Burns saw are
half a mile up the water, the remains of a wooded bog--out of sight of
Traquair House, to be sure, but far out of the way between Hanginshaw,
on the Yarrow, and Traquair.
One morning in autumn 1804 was vividly impressed on the recollection of
Laidlaw; for Scott then recited to him nearly the whole of the _Lay of
the Last Minstrel_, as they journeyed together in the sheriff’s gig up
Gala Water. The wild, irregular structure of the poem, the description
of the old minstrel, the goblin machinery, the ballads interspersed
throughout the tale, and the exquisite forest scenes (the Paradise
of Ettrick), all entranced the listener. Now and then, Scott would
stop to tell an anecdote of the country they were passing through,
and afterwards, in his deep _serious_ voice, resume his recitation of
the poem. Laidlaw had, the night before, gone to Lasswade, where the
sheriff then resided in a beautiful cottage on the banks of the Esk;
and on the following morning, after breakfast, they went up the Gala,
when Scott poured forth what truly seemed to be an unpremeditated lay.
They returned about sunset, and found the sheriff’s young and beautiful
wife looking on at the few shearers engaged in cutting down their crop
in a field adjoining the cottage. Mrs Scott seemed to Laidlaw a ‘lovely
and interesting creature,’ and the sheriff met her with undisguised
tenderness and affection. This was indeed his golden prime:
‘How happily the days of Thalaba went by!’
After this period, Laidlaw commenced householder, entering on extensive
farming experiments; and, so long as the war lasted and high prices
prevailed, his schemes promised to be ultimately successful. But with
peace came a sudden fall in the market value of corn. He struggled on
with adverse circumstances for a twelvemonth, till capital and credit
failed, and he was obliged to abandon his lease.
In the summer of 1817, we find him at Kaeside, on the estate of
Abbotsford. At first, this seemed a temporary arrangement. The two
friends had kept up a constant intercourse after Scott’s visit to the
Yarrow in 1802. Presents of trout and blackcock from the country,
and return presents of books from Castle Street, in Edinburgh, were
interchanged; and, when Laidlaw’s evil day was at hand, Scott said:
‘Come to Abbotsford, and help me with my improvements. I can put you
into a house on the estate--Kaeside--and get you some literary work
from the Edinburgh publishers.’ The offer was cheerfully accepted, and
the connection became permanent. Scott had then commenced building and
planting on a large scale; and the same year he made his most extensive
purchase--the lands of Toftfield, for which he gave £10,000.
‘I have more than once--such was his modesty’--said Laidlaw, ‘heard
Sir Walter assert that had his father left him an estate of £500 or
£600 a year, he would have spent his time in miscellaneous reading,
not writing. This, to a certain extent, might have been the case; and
had he purchased the property of Broadmeadows, in Yarrow, as he at one
time was very anxious to do, and when the neighbourhood was in the
possession of independent proprietors, the effect might have been the
same. At Abbotsford, surrounded by little lairds, most of them ready
to sell their lands as soon as he had money to advance, the impulse to
exertion was incessant; for the desire to possess and to add increased
with every new acquisition, until it became a passion of no small
power. Then came the hope to be a large landed proprietor, and to found
a family.’
When the poet was in Edinburgh attending to his official duties as
Clerk of Session, he sighed for Abbotsford and the country, and
took the liveliest interest in all that was going on under the
superintendence of his friend. Passages like the following remind us of
the writings of Gilpin and Price on forest and picturesque scenery:
‘George must stick in a few wild-roses, honeysuckles, and sweet-briers
in suitable places, so as to produce the luxuriance we see in the
woods which Nature plants herself. We injure the effect of our
plantings, so far as beauty is concerned, very much by neglecting
underwood.... I want to know how you are forming your glades of hard
wood. Try to make them come handsomely in contact with each other,
which you can only do by looking at a distance on the spot, then and
there shutting your eyes as you have done when a child looking at the
fire, and forming an idea of the same landscape with glades of woodland
crossing it. Get out of your ideas about expense. It is, after all, but
throwing away the price of the planting. If I were to buy a picture
worth £500, nobody would wonder much. Now, if I choose to lay out £100
or £200 to make a landscape of my estate hereafter, and add so much
more to its value, I certainly don’t do a more foolish thing. I mention
this, that you may not feel limited so much as you might in other cases
by the exact attention to pounds, shillings, and pence, but consider
the whole on a liberal scale. We are too apt to consider plantations as
a subject of the closest economy, whereas beauty and taste have even a
marketable value after the effects come to be visible. Don’t dot the
plantations with small patches of hard wood, and always consider the
ultimate effect.’
It is pleasant to see from the Laidlaw manuscripts with what alacrity
and zeal the noble friends of the poet came forward with kindly
contributions. The Duke of Buccleuch sent bushels of acorns; the Earl
of Fife presented seed of Norway pines; Lord Montagu forwarded a box
of acorns and a packet of lime-seed. One arboricultural missive to the
factor says: ‘I send the seeds of the Corsican pine, got with great
difficulty, and also two or three of an unknown species which grows to
a great height on the Apennines. Dr Graham says they should be raised
in mould, finely prepared, under glass, but without artificial heat.’
A box of fine chestnuts came from Lisbon: the box was sent on from
Edinburgh to Abbotsford unopened, and before Laidlaw heard of them, the
chestnuts were peeled, and rendered useless for planting. ‘Confound the
chestnuts, and those who peeled them!’ exclaimed Scott; ‘the officious
blockheads did it by way of special favour.’ One object was to form
at the top of the dikes an impenetrable copse or natural hedge or
verdurous screen--the poet uses all the epithets (Milton has ‘verdurous
wall’); and for this purpose there were sent from Edinburgh 3000
laburnums, 2000 sweet-briers, 3000 Scotch elms, 3000 horse-chestnuts,
loads of hollies, poplars for the marshy ground, and filberts for the
glen. The graceful birch-tree, ‘the lady of the wood,’ was not, of
course, neglected. ‘I am so fond of the birch,’ writes the poet; ‘and
it makes such a beautiful and characteristic underwood, that I think
we can hardly have too many. Besides, we may plant them as hedges.’
He purchased at this time about 100,000 birches. Mr Morritt of Rokeby
writes to a friend: ‘He (Scott) tells me he never was so happy in his
life as in having a place of his own to create. In this Caledonian
Eden, he labours all day with his own hands; though, since the Fall, he
and his wife will not find many luxuriant branches to prune in Ettrick
Forest I sent him a bushel of Yorkshire acorns, which, except docks
and thistles, are, I believe, likely to be in three years the largest
vegetables upon the domain.’[9]
‘There are many little jobs about the walks,’ writes the busy and
happy laird, ‘which, though Tom Purdie contemns them, are not less
necessary towards comfort: a seat or two, for example, and covering any
drains, so as to let the pony pass. In the front of the old Rispylaw
(now Anne’s Hill) is an old quarry, which, a little made up and
accommodated with stone seats and some earth to grow a few honeysuckles
and sweet-briers, would make a very sweet place. Many of the walks will
_thole_’ [bear] ‘a mending; for instance, that to the thicket might be
completely gravelled, as Mrs Scott uses it so much.’
Here the kindly, loving nature of the man peeps out. To Tom himself,
Scott writes in a big, plain, round hand:
‘As Mrs Scott comes out on the 22d, and brings some plants to cover the
paling of the court, you must have a border of about a spade’s breadth
and a spade’s depth dug nicely, and made up with good earth and a
little dung, all along in front of the paling, and along the east end
of it. She will bring the plants from Edinburgh, so they can be put
into the ground the evening she arrives.’
Afterwards, as years ran on, a thread of business was intermixed with
the rural pleasure. The poet began to calculate on the probable return
from the woods, not omitting the value of the bark used for tanning
purposes.
‘DEAR WILLIE--How could you be such a gowk’ [fool] ‘as to suppose
I meant to start a hare upon you by my special inquiries about the
bark? I am perfectly sensible you take more care of my affairs
than you would of your own; but anything about wood or trees
amuses me, and I like to enter into it more particularly than
into ordinary farming operations. In particular, this of drying
and selling our bark--at present a trifle--is a thing which will
one day be of great consequence, and I wish to attend to the
details myself. I think it should not be laid on the ground, but
dried upon stools made of the felled wood; and if you lay along
these stools the peeled trees, and pile the bark on them, it will
hide the former from the sun, and suffer them to dry gradually.
I have been observing this at Blair-Adam. I have got a new light
on larch-planting from the Duke of Athole’s operations. He never
plants closer than eight feet, and says they answer admirably. If
this be so, it will be easy to plant our hill-ground. Respecting
the grass in the plantations, I have some fears of the scythe, and
should prefer getting a host of women with their hooks, which would
also be a good thing for the poor folks.’ [Another touch of the
poet’s kindly nature.] ‘Tom must set about it instantly. He is too
much frightened for the expense of doing things rapidly, as if it
were not as cheap to employ twelve men for a week as six men for a
fortnight.--Yours,
W. S.’
In the matter of dwellings for the small tenants and labourers, the
laird of Abbotsford was equally careful and considerate. ‘I think
stone partitions would be desirable on account of vermin, &c. If
their houses are not comfortable, the people will never be cleanly.
For windows I would much prefer the cast-iron lattices, turning on a
centre, and not made too large. These windows being in small quarrels,
or panes, a little breach is easily repaired, and saves the substitute
of a hat or clout through a large hole. Certainly the cottages should
be rough-plastered.’ Perhaps the little iron lattices were as much
preferred for their antique, picturesque associations as for their
utility--‘something poetical,’ as Pope’s old gardener said of the
drooping willow; and the aged minstrel’s hut near Newark Tower, it will
be recollected, had such a window:
‘The little garden hedged with green,
A cheerful hearth and lattice clean.’
When times were hard and winter severe, he thought of the firesides of
the labourers:
‘DEAR SIR--I have your letter, and have no doubt in my own mind
that a voluntary assessment is the best mode of raising money to
procure work for the present sufferers, because I see no other way
of making this necessary tax fall equally upon the heritors.... I
shall soon have money, so that if you can devise any mode by which
hands can be beneficially employed at Abbotsford, I could turn £50
or £100 extra into that service in the course of a fortnight. In
fact, if it made the poor and industrious people a little easier, I
should have more pleasure in it than in any money I ever spent in
my life.--Yours, very truly,
W. S.’
The same year, which was a period of some excitement and discontent, he
writes to Laidlaw:
‘I am glad you have got some provision for the poor. They are the
minors of the state, and especially to be looked after; and I believe
the best way to prevent discontent is to keep their minds moderately
easy as to their own provision. The sensible part of them may probably
have judgment enough to see that they could get nothing much better for
their class in general by an appeal to force, by which, indeed, if
successful, ambitious individuals might rise to distinction, but which
would, after much misery, leave the body of the people just where it
found them, or rather much worse.... Political publications must always
be caricatures. As for the mob of great cities, whom you accuse me of
despising too much, I think it is impossible to err on that side. They
are the very _riddlings_ of society, in which every useful cinder is,
by various processes, withdrawn, and nothing left but dust, ashes,
and filth. Mind, I mean the mob of cities, not the lowest people in
the country, who often, and, indeed, usually, have both character and
intelligence.’
Again:
‘I think of my books amongst this snow-storm; also of the birds, and
not a little of the poor. For benefit of the former, I hope Peggy
throws out the crumbs; and a corn-sheaf or two for the game would be
to purpose, if placed where poachers could not come at them. For the
poor people, I wish you to distribute five pounds or so among the
neighbouring poor who may be in distress, and see that our own folks
are tolerably off.’
Scott introduced his friendly factor to _Blackwood’s Magazine_, and
Laidlaw used to compile for it a monthly chronicle of events, besides
occasionally contributing a descriptive article, which the ‘Great
Magician’ overhauled previous to its transmission. There was, in the
autumn of 1817, a great combustion in Edinburgh about the _Chaldee
Manuscript_, inserted in the magazine for October. An edition of two
thousand copies was soon sold, and fifteen hundred more were printed;
so Blackwood writes to Scott. ‘He was dreadfully afraid,’ says Laidlaw,
‘that Mr Scott would be offended; and so he would, he says, were
it not on my account.’ The Ettrick Shepherd (who was the original
concocter of the satire) was also alarmed. ‘For the love of God, open
not your mouth about the _Chaldee Manuscript_,’ he writes to Laidlaw.
‘There have been meetings and proposals, and an express has arrived
from Edinburgh to me. Deny all knowledge, else, they say, I am ruined,’
&c. This once famous production is so local and personal that, although
it is now included in Professor Wilson’s works, it is almost unknown
to the present generation. The subject is a bookseller’s quarrel, a
contest between the rival magazines of Blackwood and Constable, and it
is one of the most harmless of all the parodies couched in Scriptural
phraseology. Professor Ferrier, the editor of Wilson’s works, says
it is quite as good, in its way, as Swift’s _Battle of the Books_;
but this is a monstrous delusion. There are some quaint touches of
character in the piece. It may be compared to the parodies by Hone; but
it is a sort of profanation to place it on a level with the classic
satire of Swift.