Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume IV Part 19

I wrote a hasty and unconnected letter immediately on landing. I am detained for two days in this place, but shall wait upon your Grace immediately on my return to Abbotsford. If my society cannot, in the circ.u.mstances, give much pleasure, it will, I trust, impose no restraint.

Mrs. Scott desires me to offer her deepest sympathy upon this calamitous occasion. She has much reason, for she has lost the countenance of a friend such as she cannot expect the course of human life again to supply. I am ever, with much and affectionate respect, your Grace's truly faithful humble servant,

WALTER SCOTT.

TO J. B. S. MORRITT, ESQ., M. P., WORTHING.

EDINBURGH, September 14, 1814.

MY DEAR MORRITT,--"At the end of my tour on the 22d August"!!! Lord help us!--this comes of going to the Levant and the h.e.l.lespont, and your Euxine, and so forth. A poor devil who goes to Nova Zembla and Thule is treated as if he had been only walking as far as Barnard Castle or Cauldshiels Loch.[97] I would have you to know I only returned on the 10th current, and the most agreeable thing I found was your letter. I am sure you must know I had need of something pleasant, for the news of the death of the beautiful, the kind, the affectionate, and generous d.u.c.h.ess of Buccleuch gave me a shock, which, to speak G.o.d's truth, could not have been exceeded unless by my own family's sustaining a similar deprivation. She was indeed a light set upon a hill, and had all the grace which the most accomplished manners and the most affable address could give to those virtues by which she was raised still higher than by rank. As she always distinguished me by her regard and confidence, and as I had many opportunities of seeing her in the active discharge of duties in which she rather resembled a descended angel than an earthly being, you will excuse my saying so much about my own feelings on an occasion where sorrow has been universal. But I will drop the subject. The survivor has displayed a strength and firmness of mind seldom equalled, where the affection has been so strong and mutual, and amidst the very high station and commanding fortune which so often render self-control more difficult, because so far from being habitual. I trust, for his own sake, as well as for that of thousands to whom his life is directly essential, and hundreds of thousands to whom his example is important, that G.o.d, as He has given him fort.i.tude to bear this inexpressible shock, will add strength of const.i.tution to support him in the struggle. He has written to me on the occasion in a style becoming a man and a Christian, submissive to the will of G.o.d, and willing to avail himself of the consolations which remain among his family and friends. I am going to see him, and how we shall meet, G.o.d knows; but though "an iron man of iron mould" upon many of the occasions of life in which I see people most affected, and a peculiar contemner of the commonplace sorrow which I see paid to the departed, this is a case in which my stoicism will not serve me. They both gave me reason to think they loved me, and I returned their regard with the most sincere attachment--the distinction of rank being, I think, set apart on all sides. But G.o.d's will be done. I will dwell no longer upon this subject. It is much to learn that Mrs. Morritt is so much better, and that if I have sustained a severe wound from a quarter so little expected, I may promise myself the happiness of your dear wife's recovery.

I will shortly mention the train of our voyage, reserving particulars till another day. We sailed from Leith, and skirted the Scottish coast, visiting the Buller of Buchan and other remarkable objects--went to Shetland--thence to Orkney--from thence round Cape Wrath to the Hebrides, making descents everywhere, where there was anything to be seen--thence to Lewis and the Long Island--to Skye--to Iona--and so forth, lingering among the Hebrides as long as we could.

Then we stood over to the coast of Ireland, and visited the Giant's Causeway and Port Rush, where Dr. Richardson, the inventor (discoverer, I would say) of the celebrated fiorin-gra.s.s, resides. By the way, he is a chattering charlatan, and his fiorin a mere humbug.

But if he were Cicero, and his invention were potatoes, or anything equally useful, I should detest the recollection of the place and the man, for it was there I learned the death of my friend. Adieu, my dear Morritt; kind compliments to your lady; like poor Tom, "I cannot daub it farther." When I hear where you are, and what you are doing, I will write you a more cheerful epistle. Poor Mackenzie, too, is gone--the brother of our friend Lady Hood--and another Mackenzie, son to the Man of Feeling. So short time have I been absent, and such has been the harvest of mortality among those whom I regarded!

I will attend to your corrections in Waverley. My princ.i.p.al employment for the autumn will be reducing the knowledge I have acquired of the localities of the islands into scenery and stage-room for The Lord of the Isles, of which renowned romance I think I have repeated some portions to you. It was elder born than Rokeby, though it gave place to it in publishing.

After all, scribbling is an odd propensity. I don't believe there is any ointment, even that of the Edinburgh Review, which can cure the infected. Once more, yours entirely,

WALTER SCOTT.

Before I pa.s.s from the event which made August, 1814, so black a month in Scott's calendar, I may be excused for once more noticing the kind interest which the d.u.c.h.ess of Buccleuch had always taken in the fortunes of the Ettrick Shepherd, and introducing a most characteristic epistle which she received from him a few months before her death. The d.u.c.h.ess--"fearful" (as she said) "of seeing herself in print"--did not answer the Shepherd, but forwarded his letter to Scott, begging him to explain that circ.u.mstances did not allow the Duke to concede what he requested, but to a.s.sure him that they both retained a strong wish to serve him whenever a suitable opportunity should present itself. Hogg's letter was as follows:--

TO HER GRACE THE d.u.c.h.eSS OF BUCCLEUCH, DALKEITH PALACE. FAVORED BY MESSRS. GRIEVE AND SCOTT, HATTERS, EDINBURGH.[98]

ETTRICKBANK, March 17, 1814.

May it please your Grace,--I have often grieved you by my applications for this and that. I am sensible of this, for I have had many instances of your wishes to be of service to me, could you have known what to do for that purpose. But there are some eccentric characters in the world, of whom no person can judge or know what will prove beneficial, or what may prove their bane. I have again and again received of your Grace's private bounty, and though it made me love and respect you the more, I was nevertheless grieved at it. It was never your Grace's money that I wanted, but the honor of your countenance; indeed my heart could never yield to the hope of being patronized by any house save that of Buccleuch, whom I deemed bound to cherish every plant that indicated anything out of the common way on the Braes of Ettrick and Yarrow.

I know you will be thinking that this long prelude is to end with a request. No, Madam! I have taken the resolution of never making another request. I will, however, tell you a story, which is, I believe, founded on a fact:--

There is a small farm at the head of a water called *****, possessed by a mean fellow named ****. A third of it has been taken off and laid into another farm--the remainder is as yet unappropriated. Now, there is a certain poor bard, who has two old parents, each of them upwards of eighty-four years of age; and that bard has no house nor home to shelter those poor parents in, or cheer the evening of their lives. A single line from a certain very great and very beautiful lady, to a certain Mr. Riddle,[99] would insure that small pendicle to the bard at once. But she will grant no such thing! I appeal to your Grace if she is not a very bad lady that? I am your Grace's ever obliged and grateful

JAMES HOGG, THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES HOGG

_From the water-color portrait by Denning_]

Though the Duke of Buccleuch would not dismiss a poor tenant merely because Hogg called him "a mean fellow," he had told Scott that if he could find an unappropriated "pendicle," such as this letter referred to, he would most willingly bestow it on the Shepherd. It so happened, that when Scott paid his first visit at Bowhill after the death of the d.u.c.h.ess, the Ettrick Shepherd was mentioned: "My friend," said the Duke, "I must now consider this poor man's case as _her_ legacy;" and to this feeling Hogg owed, very soon afterwards, his establishment at Altrive, on his favorite braes of Yarrow.

As Scott pa.s.sed through Edinburgh on his return from his voyage, the negotiation as to The Lord of the Isles, which had been protracted through several months, was completed--Constable agreeing to give fifteen hundred guineas for one half of the copyright, while the other moiety was retained by the author. The sum mentioned had been offered by Constable at an early stage of the affair, but it was not until now accepted, in consequence of the earnest wish of Scott and Ballantyne to saddle the publisher of the new poem with part of their old "quire stock,"--which, however, Constable ultimately persisted in refusing. It may easily be believed that John Ballantyne's management of money matters during Scott's six weeks'

absence had been such as to render it doubly convenient for the Poet to have this matter settled on his arrival in Edinburgh--and it may also be supposed that the progress of Waverley during that interval had tended to put the chief parties in good-humor with each other.

In returning to Waverley, I must observe most distinctly that nothing can be more unfounded than the statement which has of late years been frequently repeated in memoirs of Scott's life, that the sale of the first edition of this immortal Tale was slow. It appeared on the 7th of July, and the whole impression (1000 copies) had disappeared within five weeks; an occurrence then unprecedented in the case of an anonymous novel, put forth at what is called among publishers _the dead season_. A second edition, of 2000 copies, was at least projected by the 24th of the same month;[100]--that appeared before the end of August, and it, too, had gone off so rapidly, that when Scott pa.s.sed through Edinburgh, on his way from the Hebrides, he found Constable eager to treat, on the same terms as before, for a third of 1000 copies. This third edition was published in October, and when a fourth of the like extent was called for in November, I find Scott writing to John Ballantyne, "I suppose Constable won't quarrel with a work on which he has netted 612 in four months, with a certainty of making it 1000 before the year is out;" and, in fact, owing to the diminished expense of advertising, the profits of this fourth edition were to each party 440. To avoid recurring to these details, I may as well state at once, that a fifth edition of 1000 copies appeared in January, 1815; a sixth of 1500 in June, 1816; a seventh of 2000 in October, 1817; an eighth of 2000 in April, 1821; that in the collective editions, prior to 1829, 11,000 were disposed of; and that the sale of the current edition, with notes, begun in 1829, has already reached 40,000 copies. Well might Constable regret that he had not ventured to offer 1000 for the whole copyright of Waverley!

I must now look back for a moment to the history of the composition.--The letter of September, 1810, was not the only piece of discouragement which Scott had received, during the progress of Waverley, from his first confidant. James Ballantyne, in his deathbed _memorandum_, says: "When Mr. Scott first questioned me as to my hopes of him as a novelist, it somehow or other did chance that they were not very high. He saw this, and said: 'Well, I don't see why I should not succeed as well as other people. At all events, faint heart never won fair lady--'tis only trying.' When the first volume was completed, I still could not get myself to think much of the Waverley-Honor scenes; and in this I afterwards found that I sympathized with many. But, to my utter shame be it spoken, when I reached the exquisite descriptions of scenes and manners at Tully-Veolan, what did I do but p.r.o.nounce them at once to be utterly vulgar!--When the success of the work so entirely knocked me down as a man of taste, all that the good-natured author said was: 'Well, I really thought you were wrong about the Scotch. Why, Burns, by his poetry, had already attracted universal attention to everything Scottish, and I confess I could n't see why I should not be able to keep the flame alive, merely because I wrote Scotch in prose, and he in rhyme.'"--It is, I think, very agreeable to have this manly avowal to compare with the delicate allusion which Scott makes to the affair in his Preface to the Novel.

The only other friends originally entrusted with his secret appear to have been Mr. Erskine and Mr. Morritt. I know not at what stage the former altered the opinion which he formed on seeing the tiny fragment of 1805. The latter did not, as we have seen, receive the book until it was completed; but he antic.i.p.ated, before he closed the first volume, the station which public opinion would ultimately a.s.sign to Waverley. "How the story may continue," Mr. Morritt then wrote, "I am not able to divine; but, as far as I have read, pray let us thank you for the Castle of Tully-Veolan, and the delightful drinking-bout at Lucky Mac-Leary's, for the characters of the Laird of Balmawhapple and the Baron of Bradwardine; and no less for Davie Gelatly, whom I take to be a transcript of William Rose's motley follower, commonly yclept Caliban.[101] If the completion be equal to what we have just devoured, it deserves a place among our standard works far better than its modest appearance and anonymous t.i.tle-page will at first gain it in these days of prolific story-telling. Your manner of narrating is so different from the slipshod sauntering verbiage of common novels, and from the stiff, precise, and prim sententiousness of some of our female moralists, that I think it can't fail to strike anybody who knows what style means; but, amongst the gentle cla.s.s, who swallow every blue-backed book in a circulating library for the sake of the story, I should fear half the knowledge of nature it contains, and all the real humor, may be thrown away. Sir Everard, Mrs. Rachael, and the Baron are, I think, in the first rank of portraits for nature and character; and I could depone to their likeness in any court of taste. The ballad of St. Swithin, and sc.r.a.ps of _old songs_, were measures of danger if you meant to continue your concealment; but, in truth, you wear your disguise something after the manner of Bottom the weaver; and in spite of you the truth will soon peep out." And next day he resumes: "We have finished Waverley, and were I to tell you all my admiration, you would accuse me of complimenting. You have quite attained the point which your _postscript-preface_ mentions as your object--the discrimination of Scottish character, which had hitherto been slurred over with clumsy national daubing." He adds, a week or two later: "After all, I need not much thank you for your confidence. How could you have hoped that I should not discover you? I had heard you tell half the anecdotes before--some turns you owe to myself; and no doubt most of your friends must have the same sort of thing to say."

Monk Lewis's letter on the subject is so short that I must give it as it stands:--

TO WALTER SCOTT, ESQ., ABBOTSFORD.

THE ALBANY, August 17, 1814.

MY DEAR SCOTT,--I return some books of yours which you lent me '_sixty years since_'--and I hope they will reach you safe. I write in great haste; and yet I must mention, that hearing Waverley ascribed to you, I bought it, and read it with all impatience. I am now told it is not yours, but William Erskine's. If this is so, pray tell him from me that I think it excellent in every respect, and that I believe every word of it.

Ever yours, M. G. LEWIS.

Another friend (and he had, I think, none more dear), the late Margaret Maclean Clephane of Torloisk, afterwards Marchioness of Northampton, writes thus from Kirkness, in Kinross-shire, on the 11th October:--

"In this place I feel a sort of pleasure, not unallied to pain, from the many recollections that every venerable tree, and every sunny bank, and every honeysuckle bower, occasions; and I have found something here that speaks to me in the voice of a valued friend--_Waverley_. The question that rises, it is perhaps improper to give utterance to. If so, let it pa.s.s as an exclamation.--Is it possible that Mr. Erskine can have written it? The poetry, I think, would prove a different descent in any court in Christendom. The turn of the phrases in many places is so peculiarly yours, that I fancy I hear your voice repeating them; and there wants but verse to make all Waverley an enchanting poem--varying to be sure from grave to gay, but with so deepening an interest as to leave an impression on the mind that few--very few poems--could awaken. But, why did not the author allow me to be his Gaelic Dragoman? Oh! Mr. ----, whoever you are, you might have safely trusted--M. M. C."

There was one person with whom it would, of course, have been more than vain to affect any concealment. On the publication of the third edition, I find him writing thus to his brother Thomas, who had by this time gone to Canada as paymaster of the 70th regiment:--

DEAR TOM,--A novel here called Waverley has had enormous success. I sent you a copy, and will send you another, with The Lord of the Isles, which will be out at Christmas. The success which it has had, with some other circ.u.mstances, has induced people

"To lay the bantling at a certain door, Where lying store of faults, they'd fain heap more."[102]

You will guess for yourself how far such a report has credibility; but by no means give the weight of your opinion to the transatlantic public; for you must know there is also a counter-report, that _you_ have written the said Waverley. Send me a novel intermixing your exuberant and natural humor with any incidents and descriptions of scenery you may see--particularly with characters and traits of manners. I will give it all the cobbling that is necessary, and, if you do but exert yourself, I have not the least doubt it will be worth 500; and, to encourage you, you may, when you send the MS., draw on me for 100, at fifty days' sight--so that your labors will at any rate not be quite thrown away. You have more fun and descriptive talent than most people; and all that you want--_i. e._, the mere practice of composition--I can supply, or the devil's in it. Keep this matter a dead secret, and look knowing when Waverley is spoken of. If you are not Sir John Falstaff, you are as good a man as he, and may therefore face Colville of the Dale. You may believe I don't want to make you the author of a book you have never seen; but if people will, upon their own judgment, suppose so, and also on their own judgment give you 500 to try your hand on a novel, I don't see that you are a pin's-point the worse. Mind that your MS. attends the draft. I am perfectly serious and confident that in two or three months you might clear the cobs. I beg my compliments to the hero who is afraid of Jeffrey's scalping-knife.

In truth, no one of Scott's intimate friends ever had, or could have had, the slightest doubt as to the parentage of Waverley: nor, although he abstained from communicating the fact formally to most of them, did he ever affect any real concealment in the case of such persons; nor, when any circ.u.mstance arose which rendered the withholding of direct confidence on the subject incompatible with perfect freedom of feeling on both sides, did he hesitate to make the avowal.

Nor do I believe that the mystification ever answered much purpose, among literary men of eminence beyond the circle of his personal acquaintance. But it would be difficult to suppose that he had ever wished that to be otherwise; it was sufficient for him to set the mob of readers at gaze, and above all, to escape the annoyance of having productions, actually known to be his, made the daily and hourly topics of discussion in his presence.[103]

Mr. Jeffrey had known Scott from his youth--and, in reviewing Waverley, he was at no pains to conceal his conviction of its authorship. He quarrelled, as usual, with carelessness of style, and some inartificialities of plot, but rendered justice to the substantial merits of the work, in language which I shall not mar by abridgment. The Quarterly was far less favorable in its verdict.

Indeed, the articles on Waverley, and afterwards on Guy Mannering, which appeared in that journal, will bear the test of ultimate opinion as badly as any critical pieces which our time has produced.

They are written in a captious, cavilling strain of quibble, which shows as complete blindness to the essential interest of the narrative, as the critic betrays on the subject of the Scottish dialogue, which forms its liveliest ornament, when he p.r.o.nounces that to be "a dark dialogue of Anglified Erse." With this remarkable exception, the professional critics were, on the whole, not slow to confess their belief, that, under a hackneyed name and trivial form, there had at last appeared a work of original creative genius, worthy of being placed by the side of the very few real masterpieces of prose fiction. Loftier romance was never blended with easier, quainter humor, by Cervantes himself. In his familiar delineations he had combined the strength of Smollett with the native elegance and unaffected pathos of Goldsmith; in his darker scenes he had revived that real tragedy which appeared to have left our stage with the age of Shakespeare; and elements of interest so diverse had been blended and interwoven with that nameless grace, which, more surely perhaps than even the highest perfection in the command of any one strain of sentiment, marks the master-mind cast in Nature's most felicitous mould.

Scott, with the consciousness (avowed long afterwards in his General Preface) that he should never in all likelihood have thought of a Scotch novel had he not read Maria Edgeworth's exquisite pieces of Irish character, desired James Ballantyne to send her a copy of Waverley on its first appearance, inscribed "from the author." Miss Edgeworth, whom Scott had never then seen, though some literary correspondence had pa.s.sed between them, thanked the nameless novelist, under cover to Ballantyne, with the cordial generosity of kindred genius;[104] and the following answer, not from Scott, but from Ballantyne--(who had kept a copy, now before me)--is not to be omitted:--

TO MISS EDGEWORTH, EDGEWORTHSTOWN, IRELAND.

EDINBURGH, 11th November, 1814.

MADAM,--I am desired by the Author of Waverley to acknowledge, in his name, the honor you have done him by your most flattering approbation of his work--a distinction which he receives as one of the highest that could be paid him, and which he would have been proud to have himself stated his sense of, only that being _impersonal_, he thought it more respectful to require my a.s.sistance than to write an anonymous letter.