Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume IV Part 5

TO MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE, LONDON.

EDINBURGH, 21st May, 1813.

DEAR JOHN,--Let it never escape your recollection, that shutting your own eyes, or blinding those of your friends, upon the actual state of business, is the high road to ruin. Meanwhile, we have recovered our legs for a week or two. Constable will, I think, come in to the Register. He is most anxious to maintain the printing-office; he sees most truly that the more we print the less we publish; and for the same reason he will, I think, help us off with our heavy quire-stock.

I was aware of the distinction between the _state_ and the _calendar_ as to the latter including the printing-office bills, and I summed and docked them (they are marked with red ink), but there is still a difference of 2000 and upwards on the calendar against the business.

I sometimes fear that, between the long dates of your bills, and the tardy settlements of the Edinburgh trade, some difficulties will occur even in June; and July I always regard with deep anxiety. As for loss, if I get out without public exposure, I shall not greatly regard the rest. Radcliffe the physician said, when he lost 2000 on the South Sea scheme, it was only going up 2000 pair of stairs; I say, it is only writing 2000 couplets, and the account is balanced. More of this hereafter. Yours truly,

W. SCOTT.

P. S.--James has behaved very well during this whole transaction, and has been most steadily attentive to business. I am convinced that the more he works the better his health will be. One or other of you will need to be constantly in the printing-office henceforward,--it is the sheet-anchor.

The allusion in this _postscript_ to James Ballantyne's health reminds me that Scott's letters to himself are full of hints on that subject, even from a very early period of their connection; and these hints are all to the same effect. James was a man of lazy habits, and not a little addicted to the more solid, and perhaps more dangerous, part of the indulgences of the table. One letter (dated Ashestiel, 1810) will be a sufficient specimen:--

TO MR. JAMES BALLANTYNE.

MY DEAR JAMES,--I am very sorry for the state of your health, and should be still more so, were I not certain that I can prescribe for you as well as any physician in Edinburgh. You have naturally an athletic const.i.tution and a hearty stomach, and these agree very ill with a sedentary life and the habits of indolence which it brings on.

Your stomach thus gets weak; and from those complaints of all others arise most certainly flatulence, hypochondria, and all the train of unpleasant feelings connected with indigestion. We all know the horrible sensation of the nightmare arises from the same cause which gives those waking nightmares commonly called the blue devils. You must positively put yourself on a regimen as to eating, not for a month or two, but for a year at least, and take regular exercise--and my life for yours. I know this by myself, for if I were to eat and drink in town as I do here, it would soon finish me, and yet I am sensible I live too genially in Edinburgh as it is. Yours very truly,

W. SCOTT.

Among Scott's early pets at Abbotsford there was a huge raven, whose powers of speech were remarkable, far beyond any parrot's that he had ever met with; and who died in consequence of an excess of the kind to which James Ballantyne was addicted. Thenceforth, Scott often repeated to his old friend, and occasionally scribbled by way of postscript to his notes on business--

"When you are craving, Remember the Raven."

Sometimes the formula is varied to--

"When you've dined half, Think on poor Ralph!"

His preachments of regularity in book-keeping to John, and of abstinence from good cheer to James Ballantyne, were equally vain; but on the other hand it must be allowed that they had some reason for displeasure--(the more felt, because they durst not, like him, express their feelings)[28]--when they found that scarcely had these "hard skirmishes" terminated in the bargain of May 18, before Scott was preparing fresh embarra.s.sments for himself, by commencing a negotiation for a considerable addition to his property at Abbotsford. As early as the 20th of June he writes to Constable as being already aware of this matter, and alleges his anxiety "to close at once with a very capricious person," as the only reason that could have induced him to make up his mind to sell the whole copyright of an as yet unwritten poem, to be ent.i.tled The Nameless Glen. This copyright he then offered to dispose of to Constable for 5000; adding, "this is considerably less in proportion than I have already made on the share of Rokeby sold to yourself, and surely that is no unfair admeasurement." A long correspondence ensued, in the course of which Scott mentions The Lord of the Isles, as a t.i.tle which had suggested itself to him in place of The Nameless Glen; but as the negotiation did not succeed, I may pa.s.s its details. The new property which Scott was so eager to acquire was that hilly tract stretching from the old Roman road near Turn-again towards the Cauldshiels Loch: a then desolate and naked mountain-mere, which he likens, in a letter of this summer (to Lady Louisa Stuart), to the Lake of the Genie and the Fisherman in the Arabian Tale. To obtain this lake at one extremity of his estate, as a contrast to the Tweed at the other, was a prospect for which hardly any sacrifice would have appeared too much; and he contrived to gratify his wishes in the course of that July, to which he had spoken of himself in May as looking forward "with the deepest anxiety."

Nor was he, I must add, more able to control some of his minor tastes. I find him writing to Mr. Terry, on the 20th of June, about "that splendid lot of ancient armor, advertised by Winstanley," a celebrated auctioneer in London, of which he had the strongest fancy to make his spoil, though he was at a loss to know where it should be placed when it reached Abbotsford; and on the 2d of July, this acquisition also having been settled, he says to the same correspondent: "I have written to Mr. Winstanley. My bargain with Constable was otherwise arranged, but Little John is to find the needful article, and I shall take care of Mr. Winstanley's interest, who has behaved too handsomely in this matter to be trusted to the mercy of our little friend the Picaroon, who is, notwithstanding his many excellent qualities, a little on the score of old Gobbo--doth somewhat smack--somewhat grow to.[29] We shall be at Abbotsford on the 12th, and hope soon to see you there. I am fitting up a small room above _Peter-House_, where an unceremonious bachelor may consent to do penance, though the place is a c.o.c.k-loft, and the access that which leads many a bold fellow to his last nap--a ladder."[30] And a few weeks later, he says, in the same sort, to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Thomas Scott: "In despite of these hard times, which affect my patrons the booksellers very much, I am buying old books and old armor as usual, and adding to what your old friend Burns[31] calls--

'A fouth of auld nick-nackets, Rusty airn caps and jingling jackets, Wad haud the Lothians three in tackets A towmont gude, And parritch-pats and auld saut-backets, Before the flude.'"

Notwithstanding all this, it must have been with a most uneasy mind that he left Edinburgh to establish himself at Abbotsford that July.

The a.s.sistance of Constable had not been granted, indeed it had not been asked, to an extent at all adequate for the difficulties of the case; and I have now to transcribe, with pain and reluctance, some extracts from Scott's letters, during the ensuing autumn, which speak the language of anxious, and, indeed, humiliating distress; and give a most lively notion of the incurable recklessness of his younger partner.

TO MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE.

ABBOTSFORD, Sat.u.r.day, 24th July.

DEAR JOHN,--I sent you the order, and have only to hope it arrived safe and in good time. I waked the boy at three o'clock myself, having slept little, less on account of the money than of the time.

Surely you should have written, three or four days before, the probable amount of the deficit, and, as on former occasions, I would have furnished you with means of meeting it. These expresses, besides every other inconvenience, excite surprise in my family and in the neighborhood. I know no justifiable occasion for them but the unexpected return of a bill. I do not consider you as answerable for the success of plans, but I do and must hold you responsible for giving me, in distinct and plain terms, your opinion as to any difficulties which may occur, and that in such time that I may make arrangements to obviate them if possible.

Of course, if anything has gone wrong you will come out here to-morrow. But if, as I hope and trust, the cash arrived safe, you will write to me, under cover to the Duke of Buccleuch, Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfries-shire. I shall set out for that place on Monday morning early.

W. S.

TO MR. JAMES BALLANTYNE.

ABBOTSFORD, 25th July, 1813.

DEAR JAMES,--I address the following jobation for John to you, that you may see whether I do not well to be angry, and enforce upon him the necessity of constantly writing his fears as well as his hopes.

You should rub him often on this point, for his recollection becomes rusty the instant I leave town and am not in the way to rack him with constant questions. I hope the presses are doing well, and that you are quite stout again. Yours truly,

W. S.

(_Enclosure._)

TO MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE.

MY GOOD FRIEND JOHN,--The post brings me no letter from you, which I am much surprised at, as you must suppose me anxious to learn that your express arrived. I think he must have reached you before post-hours, and James or you _might_ have found a minute to say so in a single line. I once more request that you will be a businesslike correspondent, and state your provisions for every week prospectively.

I do not expect you to _warrant them_, which you rather perversely seem to insist is my wish, but I do want to be aware of their nature and extent, that I may provide against the possibility of miscarriage.

The calendar, to which you refer me, tells me what sums are due, but cannot tell your shifts to pay them, which are naturally altering with circ.u.mstances, and of which alterations I request to have due notice.

You say you _could not suppose_ Sir W. Forbes would have refused the long dated bills; but that you _had_ such an apprehension is clear, both because in the calendar these bills were rated two months lower, and because, three days before, you wrote me an enigmatical expression of your apprehensions, instead of saying plainly there was a chance of your wanting 350, when I would have sent you an order to be used conditionally.

All I desire is unlimited confidence and frequent correspondence, and that you will give me weekly at least the fullest antic.i.p.ation of your resources, and the probability of their being effectual. I may be disappointed in my own, of which you shall have equally timeous notice. Omit no exertions to procure the use of money, even for a month or six weeks, for time is most precious. The large balance due in January from the trade, and individuals, which I cannot reckon at less than 4000, will put us finally to rights; and it will be a shame to founder within sight of harbor. The greatest risk we run is from such ill-considered despatches as those of Friday. Suppose that I had gone to Drumlanrig--suppose the pony had set up--suppose a thousand things--and we were ruined for want of your telling your apprehensions in due time. Do not plague yourself to vindicate this sort of management; but if you have escaped the consequences (as to which you have left me uncertain), thank G.o.d, and act more cautiously another time. It was quite the same to me on what day I sent that draft; indeed it must have been so if I had the money in my cash account, and if I had not, the more time given me to provide it the better.

Now, do not affect to suppose that my displeasure arises from your not having done your utmost to realize funds, and that utmost having failed. It is one mode, to be sure, of exculpation, to suppose one's self accused of something they are not charged with, and then to make a querulous or indignant defence, and complain of the injustice of the accuser. The head and front of your offending is precisely your not writing explicitly, and I request this may not happen again. It is your fault, and I believe arises either from an ill-judged idea of smoothing matters to me--as if I were not behind the curtain--or a general reluctance to allow that any danger is near, until it is almost unparriable. I shall be very sorry if anything I have said gives you pain; but the matter is too serious for all of us, to be pa.s.sed over without giving you my explicit sentiments. To-morrow I set out for Drumlanrig, and shall not hear from you till Tuesday or Wednesday. Make yourself master of the post-town--Thornhill, probably, or Sanquhar. As Sir W. F. & Co. have cash to meet my order, nothing, I think, can have gone wrong, unless the boy perished by the way.

Therefore, in faith and hope, and--that I may lack none of the Christian virtues--in charity with your dilatory worship, I remain very truly yours,

W. S.

Scott proceeded, accordingly, to join a gay and festive circle, whom the Duke of Buccleuch had a.s.sembled about him on first taking possession of the magnificent Castle of Drumlanrig, in Nithsdale, the princ.i.p.al messuage of the dukedom of Queensberry, which had recently lapsed into his family. But, _post equitem sedet atra cura_--another of John Ballantyne's unwelcome missives, rendered necessary by a neglect of precisely the same kind as before, reached him in the midst of this scene of rejoicing. On the 31st, he again writes:--

TO MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE, BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH.

DRUMLANRIG, Friday.

DEAR JOHN,--I enclose the order. Unfortunately, the Drumlanrig post only goes thrice a week; but the Marquis of Queensberry, who carries this to Dumfries, has promised that the guard of the mail-coach shall deliver it by five to-morrow. I was less anxious, as your note said you could clear this month. It is a cruel thing that no State you furnish excludes the arising of such unexpected claims as this for the taxes on the printing-office. What unhappy management, to suffer them to run ahead in such a manner!--but it is in vain to complain. Were it not for your strange concealments, I should antic.i.p.ate no difficulty in winding up these matters. But who can reckon upon a State where claims are kept out of view until they are in the hands of a _writer_?

If you have no time to say that _this_ comes safe to hand, I suppose James may favor me so far. Yours truly,

W. S.

Let the guard be rewarded.

Let me know exactly what you _can_ do and _hope_ to do for next month; for it signifies nothing raising money for you, unless I see it is to be of real service. Observe, I make you responsible for nothing but a fair statement.[32] The guard is known to the Marquis, who has good-naturedly promised to give him this letter with his own hand; so it must reach you in time, though probably past five on Sat.u.r.day.

Another similar application reached Scott the day after the guard delivered his packet. He writes thus, in reply: