"I am not given to great misguiding,
But coin my pouches will na bide in,
With me it ne'er was under hiding,
I dealt it free."
I must, however, and will, be independent.
_June_ 26. - Well, if ever I saw such another thing since my mother bound
up my head![537] Here is nine of clock strucken and I am still fast
asleep abed. I have not done the like of this many a day. However, it
cannot be helped. Went to Court, which detained me till two o'clock. A
walk home consumed the hour to three! Wrote in the Court, however, to
the Duke of Wellington and Lord Bloomfield. and that is a good job over.
I have a letter from a member of the Commission of the Psalmody of the
Kirk, zealous and pressing. I shall answer him, I think.[538] One from
Sir James Stuart,[539] on fire with Corfe Castle, with a drawing of King
Edward, occupying one page, as he hurries down the steep, mortally
wounded by the assassin. Singular power of speaking at once to the eye
and the ear. Dined at home. After dinner sorted papers. Rather idle.
_June_ 27. - Corrected proofs and wrote till breakfast. Then the Court.
Called on Skene and Charles K. Sharpe, and did not get home until three
o'clock, and then so wet as to require a total change. We dine at Hector
Buchanan Macdonald's, where there are sometimes many people and little
conversation. Sent a little chest of books by the carrier to Abbotsford.
A visit from a smart young man, Gustavus Schwab of Königsberg; he gives
a flattering picture of Prussia, which is preparing for freedom. The
King must keep his word, though, or the people may chance to tire of
waiting. Dined at H.B. Macdonald's with rather a young party for Colin
M'Kenzie and me.
_June_ 28. - Wrote a little and corrected proofs. How many things have I
unfinished at present?
Chronicles, first volume not ended.
do., second volume begun.
Introduction to ditto.
Tales of My Grandfather.
Essay on Highlands. This unfinished, owing to certain causes, chiefly
want of papers and books to fill up blanks, which I will get at
Abbotsford. Came home through rain about two, and commissioned John
Stevenson to call at three about binding some books. Dined with Sophia;
visited, on invitation, a fine old little Commodore Trunnion, who, on
reading a part of Napoleon's history, with which he had himself been
interested, as commanding a flotilla, thought he had detected a mistake,
but was luckily mistaken, to my great delight.
"I fear thee, ancient mariner."
To be cross-examined by those who have seen the true thing is the devil.
And yet these eye-witnesses are not all right in what they repeat
neither, indeed cannot be so, since you will have dozens of
contradictions in their statements.
_June_ 29. - A distressing letter from Haydon; imprudent, probably, but
who is not? A man of rare genius. What a pity I gave that £10 to Craig!
But I have plenty of ten pounds sure, and I may make it something. I
will get £100 at furthest when I come back from the country. Wrote at
proofs, but no copy; I fear I shall wax fat and kick against Madam Duty,
but I augur better things.
Just as we were sitting down to dinner, Cadell burst in in high spirits
with the sale of _Napoleon_[540] the orders for which pour in, and the
public report is favourable. Detected two gross blunders though, which I
have ordered for cancel. Supped (for a wonder) with Colin Mackenzie and
a bachelor party. Mr. Williams[541] was there, whose extensive
information, learning, and lively talent makes him always pleasant
company. Up till twelve - a debauch for me nowadays.
_June_ 30. - _Redd up_ my things for moving,[542] which will clear my
hands a little on the next final flitting. Corrected proof-sheets.
Williams told me an English bull last night. A fellow of a college,
deeply learned, sitting at a public entertainment beside a foreigner,
tried every means to enter into conversation, but the stranger could
speak no dead language, the Doctor no living one but his own. At last
the scholar, in great extremity, was enlightened by a happy "_Nonne
potes loqui cum digitis_?" - said as if the difficulty was solved at
once.
_Abbotsford_. - Reached this about six o'clock.[543]
[Illustration: MAP OF ABBOTS FORD FROM THE ORDNANCE SURVEY 1858.]
FOOTNOTES:
[527] Sheridan's _Critic_, Act I. Sc, 1.
[528] "No sooner had the Sun uttered these words than Fortune, as if she
had been playing on a cymbal, began to unwind her wheel, which, whirling
about like a hurricane, huddled all the world into an unparalleled
confusion. Fortune gave a mighty squeak, saying, 'Fly, wheel, and the
devil drive thee.'" - _Fortune in her Wits_, Quevedo. English trans.
(1798), vol. iii. p. 107.
[529] Burns: "On a Scotch Bard, gone to the West Indies."
[530] _Vivian Grey_, by Benjamin Disraeli, was published anonymously in
5 vols. 12mo, 1826-7.
[531] If the reader turns to December 18, 1825, he will see that this is
not the first allusion in the Journal to his "first love," - an innocent
attachment, to which we owe the tenderest pages, not only of
_Redgauntlet_ (1824), but of the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (1805), and
of _Rokeby_ (1813). In all these works the heroine has certain
distinctive features drawn from one and the same haunting dream. The
lady was "Williamina Belches, sole child and heir of a gentleman who was
a cadet of the ancient family of Invermay, and who afterwards became Sir
John Stuart of Fettercairn." She married Sir William Forbes in 1797 and
died in 1810. - _Life_, vol. i. p. 333; Shairp's _Memoirs of Principal
Forbes_, pp. 4, 5, 8vo, London, 1873, where her portrait, engraved from
a miniature, is given.
[532] Hugh Cleghorn had been Professor of Civil History in St. Andrews
for ten years, afterwards becoming tutor to the Earl of Home, and
subsequently employed by our Government in various foreign missions. A
glimpse of his work is obtainable in Southey's _Life, of Dr. Andrew
Bell_. Mr. Cleghorn died in 1833, aged 83.
[533] Count Paul de Rémusat has been good enough to give me another view
of this visit which will be read with interest: - "118 Faubourg St.
Honoré, February 10, 1890. - .... My father has often spoken to me of
this visit to Sir Walter Scott - for it was indeed my father, Charles de
Rémusat, member of the French Academy, and successively Minister of the
Interior and for Foreign Affairs, who went at the age of thirty to
Abbotsford, and he retained to the last days of his life a most lively
remembrance of the great novelist who did not acknowledge the authorship
of his novels, and to whom it was thus impossible otherwise than
indirectly to pay any compliment. It gives me great pleasure to learn
that the visit of those young men impressed him favourably. My father's
companion was his contemporary and friend, M. Louis de Guizard, who,
like my father, was a contributor at that time to the Liberal press of
the Restoration, the _Globe_ and _La Revue Française,_ and who, after
the Revolution of 1830, entered, as did my father likewise, upon
political life. M. de Guizard was first _préfet_, then _député_, and
after 1848 became Directeur-général des Beaux Arts. He died about 1877
or 1878, after his retirement from public life."
[534] "_Woodstock_ placed upwards of £8000 in the hands of Sir Walter's
creditors. The _Napoleon_ (first and second editions) produced for them
a sum which it even now startles me to mention - £18,000. As by the time
the historical work was published nearly half of the First Series of
_Chronicles of the Canongate_ had been written, it is obvious that the
amount to which Scott's literary industry, from the close of 1825 to the
10th of June 1827, had diminished his debt, cannot be stated at less
than £28,000. Had health been spared him, how soon must he have freed
himself from all his encumbrances!" - J.G.L.
[535] See _Life_, vol. vi. p. 89. In Mr. Ballantyne's _Memorandum_,
there is a fuller account of the mode in which _The Bride of
Lammermoor_, _The Legend of Montrose_, and almost the whole of _Ivanhoe_
were produced, and the mental phenomenon which accompanied the
preparation of the first-named work: -
"During the progress of composing _The Heart of Midlothian_, _The Bride
of Lammermoor_, and _Legend of Montrose_ - a period of many months - Mr.
Scott's health had become extremely indifferent, and was often supposed
to place him in great danger. But it would hardly be credited, were it
not for the notoriety of the fact, that although one of the symptoms of
his illness was pain of the most acute description, yet he never allowed
it to interrupt his labours. The only difference it produced, that I am
aware of, was its causing him to employ the hand of an amanuensis in
place of his own. Indeed, during the greater part of the day at this
period he was confined to his bed. The person employed for this purpose
was the respectable and intelligent Mr. Wm. Laidlaw, who acted for him
in this capacity in the country, and I think also attended him to town.
I have often been present with Mr. Laidlaw during the short intervals of
his labour, and it was deeply affecting to hear the account he gave of
his patron's severe sufferings, and the indomitable spirit which enabled
him to overmaster them. He told me that very often the dictation of
Caleb Balderston's and the old cooper's best jokes was mingled with
groans extorted from him by pains; but that when he, Mr. L., endeavoured
to prevail upon him to take a little respite, the only answer he could
obtain from Mr. Scott was a request that he would see that the doors
were carefully shut, so that the expressions of his agony might not
reach his family - 'As to stopping work, Laidlaw,' he said, 'you know
that is wholly out of the question.' What followed upon these exertions,
made in circumstances so very singular, appears to me to exhibit one of
the most singular chapters in the history of the human intellect. The
book having been published before Mr. Scott was able to rise from his
bed, he assured me that, when it was put into his hands, he did not
recollect one single incident, character, or conversation it contained.
He by no means desired me to understand, nor did I understand, that his
illness had erased from his memory all or any of the original family
facts with which he had been acquainted from the period probably of his
boyhood. These of course remained rooted where they had ever been, or,
to speak more explicitly, where explicitness is so entirely important,
he remembered the existence of the father and mother, the son and
daughter, the rival lovers, the compulsory marriage, and the attack made
by his bride upon the unhappy bridegroom, with the general catastrophe
of the whole. All these things he recollected, just as he did before he
took to his bed, but the marvel is that he recollected literally nothing
else - not a single character woven by the Romancer - not one of the many
scenes and points of exquisite humour, nor anything with which he was
connected as writer of the work. 'For a long time I felt myself very
uneasy,' he said, 'in the course of my reading, always kept on the _qui
vive_ lest I should be startled by something altogether glaring and
fantastic; however, I recollected that the printing had been performed
by James Ballantyne, who I was sure would not have permitted anything of
this sort to pass.' 'Well,' I said, 'upon the whole, how did you like
it?' 'Oh,' he said, 'I felt it monstrous gross and grotesque, to be
sure, but still the worst of it made me laugh, and I trusted therefore
the good-natured public would not be less indulgent.' I do not think
that I ever ventured to lead to this singular subject again. But you may
depend upon it, that what I have said is as distinctly reported as if it
had been taken down at the moment in shorthand. I should not otherwise
have imparted the phenomenon at all." - _Mr. Ballantyne's MSS_.
[536] Mr. Lockhart says: - "My wife and I spent the summer of 1827 partly
at a sea-bathing place near Edinburgh, and partly in Roxburghshire. The
arrival of his daughter and her children at Portobello was a source of
constant refreshment to him during June, for every other day he came
down and dined there, and strolled about afterwards on the beach, thus
interrupting, beneficially for his health, and I doubt not for the
result of his labours also, the new custom of regular night-work, or, as
he called it, serving double tides."
[537] See Swift, "Mary the cook to Dr. Sheridan."
[538] The answer is printed in the _Scott Centenary Catalogue_ by David
Laing, from which the following extracts are given: -
"The expression of the old metrical translation, though homely, is
plain, forcible, and intelligible, and very often possesses a rude sort
of majesty, which perhaps would be ill-exchanged for mere elegance."
"They are the very words and accents of our early Reformers - sung by
them in woe and gratitude, in the fields, in the churches, and on the
scaffold." "The parting with this very association of ideas is a serious
loss to the cause of devotion, and scarce to be incurred without the
certainty of corresponding advantages. But if these recollections are
valuable to persons of education, they are almost indispensable to the
edification of the lower ranks whose prejudices do not permit them to
consider as the words of the inspired poetry, the versions of living or
modern poets, but persist, however absurdly, in identifying the original
with the ancient translation." - p. 158.
[539] Sir James Stuart, the last baronet of Allanbank.
[540] "The _Life of Bonaparte_, then, was at last published about the
middle of June 1827." - _Life_, ix. 117.
[541] Archdeacon Williams, Rector of the New Edinburgh Academy from 1824
to 1847.
[542] Among the letters which Sir Walter found time to write before
leaving Edinburgh, was one to congratulate his old and true friend Mrs.
Coutts on her marriage, which took place on the 16th of June. That
letter has not been preserved, but it drew from her Grace the following
reply: -
"My dear Sir Walter Scott, - Your most welcome letter has 'wandered mony
a weary mile after me.' Thanks, many thanks for all your kind
congratulations. I am a Duchess at last, that is certain, but whether I
am the better for it remains to be proved. The Duke is very amiable,
gentle, and well-disposed, and I am sure he has taken pains enough to
accomplish what he says has been the first wish of his heart for the
last three years. All this is very flattering to an old lady, and we
lived so long in friendship with each other that I was afraid I should
be unhappy if I did not say I _will_ - yet (whisper it, dear Sir Walter)
the name of Coutts - and a right good one it is - is, and ever will be,
dear to my heart. What a strange, eventful life has mine been, from a
poor little player child, with just food and clothes to cover me,
dependent on a very precarious profession, without talent or a friend in
the world! 'to have seen what I have seen, seeing what I see.' Is it not
wonderful? is it true? can I believe it? - first the wife of the best,
the most perfect, being that ever breathed, his love and unbounded
confidence in me, his immense fortune so honourably acquired by his own
industry, all at my command, ... and now the wife of a Duke. You must
write my life; the History of Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant Killer, and
Goody Two Shoes, will sink compared with my true history written by the
Author of _Waverley_; and that you may do it well I have sent you an
inkstand. Pray give it a place on your table in kind remembrance of your
affectionate friend,
"HARRIETT ST. ALBANS.
"STRATTON STREET, _July 16th, 1827_."
[543] Next morning the following pleasant little billet was despatched
to Kaeside: -
"My dear Mr. Laidlaw, I would be happy if you would come at _kail-time_
to-day. _Napoleon_ (6000 copies) is sold for £11,000. - Yours truly,
"_Sunday._ W.S."
- _Abbotsford Notanda_, by R. Carruthers, Edin. 1871.
APPENDIX.
SCOTT'S LETTERS TO ERSKINE. - P. 61.
Sir Walter was in the habit of consulting him in those matters more than
any of his other friends, having great reliance upon his critical skill.
The manuscripts of all his poems, and also of the earlier of his prose
works, were submitted to Kinnedder's judgment, and a considerable
correspondence on these subjects had taken place betwixt them, which
would, no doubt, have constituted one of the most interesting series of
letters Sir Walter had left.
Lord Kinnedder was a man of retired habits, but little known except to
those with whom he lived on terms of intimacy, and by whom he was much
esteemed, and being naturally of a remarkably sensitive mind, he was
altogether overthrown by the circumstance of a report having got abroad
of some alleged indiscretions on his part in which a lady was also
implicated. Whether the report had any foundation in truth or not, I am
altogether ignorant, but such an allegation affecting a person in his
situation in life as a judge, and doing such violence to the
susceptibility of his feelings, had the effect of bringing a severe
illness which in a few days terminated his life. I never saw Sir Walter
so much affected by any event, and at the funeral, which he attended, he
was quite unable to suppress his feelings, but wept like a child. The
family, suddenly bereft of their protector, were young, orphans, their
mother, daughter of Professor John Robertson, having previously died,
found also that they had to struggle against embarrassed circumstances;
neither had they any near relative in Scotland to take charge of their
affairs. But a lady, a friend of the family, Miss M - - , was active in
their service, and it so happened, in the course of arranging their
affairs, the packet of letters from Sir Walter Scott, containing the
whole of his correspondence with Lord Kinnedder, came into her hands.
She very soon discovered that the correspondence laid open the secret of
the authorship of the Waverley Novels, at that period the subject of
general and intense interest, and as yet unacknowledged by Sir Walter.
Considering what under these circumstances it was her duty to do,
whether to replace the letters and suffer any accident to bring to light
what the author seemed anxious might remain unknown, or to seal them up,
and keep them in her own custody undivulged - or finally to destroy them
in order to preserve the secret, - with, no doubt, the best and most
upright motives, so far as her own judgment enabled her to decide in the
matter, in which she was unable to take advice, without betraying what
it was her object to respect, she came to the resolution, most
unfortunately for the world, of destroying the letters. And,
accordingly, the whole of them were committed to the flames; depriving
the descendants of Lord Kinnedder of a possession which could not fail
to be much valued by them, and which, in connection with Lord
Kinnedder's letters to Sir Walter, which are doubtless preserved, would
have been equally valuable to the public, as containing the contemporary
opinions, prospects, views, and sentiments under which these works were
sent forth into the world. It would also have been curious to learn the
unbiased impression which the different works created on the mind of
such a man as Lord Kinnedder, before the collision of public opinion had
suffused its influence over the opinions of people in general in this
matter. - _Skene's Reminiscences_.
END OF VOLUME I.
THE JOURNAL OF
SIR WALTER SCOTT
FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT
AT ABBOTSFORD
[Illustration]
VOLUME II
BURT FRANKLIN NEW YORK
Published by BURT FRANKLIN
235 East 44th St., New York, N.Y. 10017
Originally Published: 1890
Reprinted: 1970
Printed in the U.S.A.
S.B.N. 32110
Library of Congress Card Catalog No.: 73-123604
Burt Franklin: Research and Source Works Series 535
Essays in Literature and Criticism 82
[Illustration: ΝΥΞ ΓΑΡ ΕΡΧΕΤΑΙ.
"_I must home to work while it is called day; for the night cometh when
no man can work. I put that text, many a year ago, on my dial-stone; but
it often preached in vain_." - Scott's _Life_, x. 88.]
"_The evening sky of life does not reflect those brilliant flashes
of light that shot across its morning and noon, yet I think God it
is neither gloomy nor disconsolately lowering - a sober
twilight - that is all_."
ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. II.
Portrait, painted by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., for the Baroness
Ruthven, and now in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland. Copied by
permission of the Hon. The Board of Manufactures, _Frontispiece_
Vignette on Title-page
"The Dial-Stone" in the Garden, from drawing made at Abbotsford by
George Reid, R.S.A.
"THE NIGHT COMETH."
ΝΥΞ ΓΑΡ ΕΡΧΕΤΑΙ.
"_I must home to work while it is called day; for the night cometh
when no man can work. I put that text, many years ago, on my
dial-stone; but it often preached in vain_." - Scott's _Life_, x.
88.
SIR WALTER SCOTT'S JOURNAL.
JULY.
_July_ 1, [_Abbotsford_]. - A most delicious day, in the course of which
I have not done
"The least right thing."
Before breakfast I employed myself in airing my old bibliomaniacal
hobby, entering all the books lately acquired into a temporary
catalogue, so as to have them shelved and marked. After breakfast I went
out, the day being delightful - warm, yet cooled with a gentle breeze,
all around delicious; the rich luxuriant green refreshing to the eye,
soft to the tread, and perfume to the smell. Wandered about and looked
at my plantations. Came home, and received a visit from Sir Adam.
Loitered in the library till dinner-time. If there is anything to be
done at all to-day, it must be in the evening. But I fear there will be
nothing. One can't work always _nowther_.
"_Neque semper arcum tendit Apollo_."
There's warrant for it.
_July_ 2. - Wrote in the morning, correcting the Essay on the Highlands,
which is now nearly completed. Settled accounts with Tom and Bogie. Went
over to Huntly Burn at two o'clock, and reconnoitred the proposed
plantation to be called Jane's Wood. Dined with the Fergusons.
_July_ 3 - - Worked in the morning upon the Introduction to the
_Chronicles_; it may be thought egotistical. Learned a bad accident had
happened yesterday. A tinker (drunk I suppose) entered the stream
opposite to Faldonside with an ass bearing his children. The ass was
carried down by the force of the stream, and one of the little
creatures was drowned; the other was brought out alive, poor innocent,
clinging to the ass. It had floated as far down as Deadwater-heugh. Poor
thing, it is as well dead as to live a tinker! The Fergusons dine with
us _en masse_; also Dr. Brewster.
_July_ 4, [_Edinburgh_]. - Worked a little in the morning, and took a
walk after breakfast, the day so delicious as makes it heart-breaking to
leave the country. Set out, however, about four o'clock, and reached
Edinburgh a little after nine. Slept part of the way; read _De Vere_ the
rest.[1] It is well written, in point of language and sentiment, but has
too little action in it to be termed a pleasing novel. Everything is
brought out by dialogue - or worse: through the medium of the author's
reflections, which is the clumsiest of all expedients.
_July_ 5. - This morning worked, and sent off to J.B. the Introduction to
the _Chronicles_, containing my Confessions,[2] and did something, but
not fluently, to the Confessions themselves. Not happy, however; the
black dog worries me. Bile, I suppose. "But I will rally and combat the
reiver." Reiver it is, that wretched malady of the mind; got quite well
in the forenoon. Went out to Portobello after dinner, and chatted with
little Johnnie, and told him the history of the Field of Prestonpans.
Few remain who care about these stories.
_July_ 6. - This morning wrought a good deal, but scarce a task. The
Court lasted till half-past three; exhausting work in this hot weather.
I returned to dine alone, Anne going to Roslin with a party. After noon
a Miss Bell broke in upon me, who bothered me some time since about a
book of hers, explaining and exposing the conduct of a Methodist
Tartuffe, who had broken off (by anonymous letters) a match betwixt her
and an accepted admirer. Tried in vain to make her comprehend how little
the Edinburgh people would care about her wrongs, since there was no
knowledge of the parties to make the scandal acceptable. I believe she
has suffered great wrong.[3] Letter from Longman and Co. to J.B.
grumbling about bringing out the second edition, because they have,