Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume V Part 15

I am making considerable plantations (that is, considering), being greatly encouraged by the progress of those I formerly laid out. Read the veracious Gulliver's account of the Windsor Forest of Lilliput, and you will {p.172} have some idea of the solemn gloom of my Druid shades. Your Lordship's truly faithful

Walter SCOTT.

This is the 8th of June, and not an ash-tree in leaf yet.

The country cruelly backward, and whole fields destroyed by the grub. I dread this next season.

{p.173} CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

Excursion to the Lennox, Glasgow, and Drumlanrig. -- Purchase of Toftfield. -- Establishment of the Ferguson Family at Huntly Burn. -- Lines Written in Illness. -- Visits of Washington Irving, Lady Byron, and Sir David Wilkie. -- Progress of the Building at Abbotsford. -- Letters to Morritt, Terry, etc. -- Conclusion of Rob Roy.

1817.

During the summer term of 1817, Scott seems to have labored chiefly on his History of 1815 for the Register, which was published in August; but he also found time to draw up the Introduction for a richly embellished quarto, ent.i.tled Border Antiquities, which came out a month later. This valuable essay, containing large additions to the information previously embodied in the Minstrelsy, has been included in the late collection of his Miscellaneous Prose, and has thus obtained a circulation not to be expected for it in the original costly form.

Upon the rising of the Court in July, he made an excursion to the Lennox, chiefly that he might visit a cave at the head of Loch Lomond, said to have been a favorite retreat of his hero, Rob Roy. He was accompanied to the seat of his friend, Mr. Macdonald Buchanan, by Captain Adam Ferguson--the _long Linton_ of the days of his apprenticeship; and thence to Glasgow, where, under the auspices of a kind and intelligent acquaintance, Mr. John Smith, bookseller, he refreshed his recollection of the n.o.ble cathedral, and other localities of the birthplace of Bailie Jarvie. Mr. Smith took care also {p.174} to show the tourists the most remarkable novelties in the great manufacturing establishments of his flourishing city; and he remembers particularly the delight which Scott expressed on seeing the process of _singeing_ muslin--that is, of divesting the finished web of all superficial knots and irregularities, by pa.s.sing it, with the rapidity of lightning, over a bar of red-hot iron. "The man that imagined this," said Scott, "was _the Shakespeare of the Wabsters_,--

'Things out of hope are compa.s.s'd oft with vent'ring.'"[68]

[Footnote 68: Shakespeare's Poems--_Venus and Adonis_.]

The following note indicates the next stages of his progress:--

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH, DRUMLANRIG CASTLE.

SANQUHAR, 2 o'clock, July 30,[69] 1817.

From Ross, where the clouds on Benlomond are sleeping-- From Greenock, where Clyde to the Ocean is sweeping-- From Largs, where the Scotch gave the Northmen a drilling-- From Ardrossan, whose harbor cost many a shilling-- From Old c.u.mnock, where beds are as hard as a plank, sir-- From a chop and green pease, and a chicken in Sanquhar, This eve, please the Fates, at Drumlanrig we anchor.

W. S.

[Footnote 69: [A misprint of some earlier date, possibly the _16th_. See the more detailed account of Scott's movements at this time, to be found in _Familiar Letters_, vol. i. pp. 432-436.]]

The Poet and Captain Ferguson remained a week at Drumlanrig, and thence repaired together to Abbotsford. By this time, the foundations of that part of the existing house, which extends from the hall westwards to the original courtyard, had been laid; and Scott now found a new source of constant occupation in watching the proceedings of his masons. He had, moreover, no lack of employment further a-field,--for he was now negotiating with another neighboring landowner for the purchase of an addition, of more consequence than any he had hitherto {p.175} made, to his estate. In the course of the autumn he concluded this matter, and became, for the price of 10,000, proprietor of the lands of _Toftfield_,[70] on which there had recently been erected a substantial mansion-house, fitted, in all points, for the accommodation of a genteel family. This circ.u.mstance offered a temptation which much quickened Scott's zeal for completing his arrangement. The venerable Professor Ferguson had died a year before; Captain Adam Ferguson was at home on half-pay; and Scott now saw the means of securing for himself, henceforth, the immediate neighborhood of the companion of his youth, and his amiable sisters.

Ferguson, who had written, from the lines of Torres Vedras, his hopes of finding, when the war should be over, some sheltering cottage upon the Tweed, within a walk of Abbotsford, was delighted to see his dreams realized; and the family took up their residence next spring at the new house of Toftfield, on which Scott then bestowed, at the ladies' request, the name of Huntly Burn: this more harmonious designation being taken from the mountain brook which pa.s.ses through its grounds and garden,--the same famous in tradition as the scene of Thomas the Rhymer's interviews with the Queen of Fairy. The upper part of the _Rhymer's Glen_, through which this brook finds its way from the Cauldshiels Loch to Toftfield, had been included in a previous purchase. He was now master of all these haunts of "True Thomas," and of the whole ground of the battle of Melrose, from _Skirmish-field_ to _Turn-again_. His enjoyment of the new territories was, however, interrupted by various returns of his cramp, and the depression of spirit which always attended, in his case, the use of opium, {p.176} the only medicine that seemed to have power over the disease.[71]

[Footnote 70: On completing this purchase, Scott writes to John Ballantyne:--"DEAR JOHN,--I have closed with Usher for his beautiful patrimony, which makes me a great laird. I am afraid the people will take me up for coining. Indeed, these novels, while their attractions last, are something like it. I am very glad of _your_ good prospects. Still I cry, _Prudence!

Prudence!_--Yours truly, W. S."]

[Footnote 71: [On August 1, 1817, Jeffrey writes to Scott, asking if he could not be induced to write a notice of Mr. C. K. Sharpe's edition of Kirkton's _Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland_, for the _Edinburgh Review_, to which Scott replies, August 5:--

"I flatter myself it will not require many protestations to a.s.sure you with what pleasure I would undertake any book that can give you pleasure; but in the present case I am hampered by two circ.u.mstances: one, that I promised Gifford a review of this very Kirkton for the _Quarterly_; the other that I shall certainly be unable to keep my word with him. I am obliged to take exercise three or four hours in the forenoon and two after dinner, to keep off the infernal spasms which since last winter have attacked me with such violence, as if all the imps that used to plague poor Caliban were washing, wringing, and ironing the unshapely but useful bag which Sir John Sinclair treats with such distinction--my stomach, in short. Now, as I have much to do of my own, I fear I can hardly be of use to you in the present case, which I am very sorry for, as I like the subject, and would be pleased to give my own opinion respecting the Jacobitism of the editor, which, like my own, has a good spice of affectation in it, mingled with some not unnatural feelings of respect for a cause which, though indefensible in common sense and ordinary policy, has a great deal of high-spirited Quixotry about it.

"Can you not borrow from your briefs and criticism a couple of days to look about you here? I dare not ask Mrs. Jeffrey till next year, when my hand will be out of the mortar-tub; and at present my only spare bed was till of late but accessible by the feudal accommodation of a drawbridge made of two deals, and still requires the clue of Ariadne.... I am like one of Miss Edgeworth's heroines, master of all things in miniature--a little hill, and a little glen, and a little horse-pond of a loch, and a little river, I was going to call it,--the Tweed; but I remember the minister was mobbed by his parishioners for terming it, in his statistical report, an inconsiderable stream. So pray do come and see me, and if I can stead you, or pleasure you, in the course of the winter, you shall command me."--c.o.c.kburn's _Life of Jeffrey_, vol. i p.

417.]]

It was while struggling with such languor, on one lovely evening of this autumn, that he composed the following beautiful verses. They mark the very spot of their birth,--namely, the then naked height overhanging the northern side of the Cauldshiels Loch, from which Melrose Abbey to the eastward, and the hills of Ettrick and Yarrow to the west, are now visible over a wide range of rich woodland,--all the work of the poet's hand:--

{p.177} "The sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill, In Ettrick's vale, is sinking sweet; The westland wind is hush and still-- The lake lies sleeping at my feet.

Yet not the landscape to mine eye Bears those bright hues that once it bore; Though evening, with her richest dye, Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick's sh.o.r.e.

"With listless look along the plain I see Tweed's silver current glide, And coldly mark the holy fane Of Melrose rise in ruin'd pride.

The quiet lake, the balmy air, The hill, the stream, the tower, the tree,-- Are they still such as once they were, Or is the dreary change in me?

"Alas! the warp'd and broken board, How can it bear the painter's dye!

The harp of strain'd and tuneless chord, How to the minstrel's skill reply!

To aching eyes each landscape lowers, To feverish pulse each gale blows chill; And Araby's or Eden's bowers Were barren as this moorland hill."

He again alludes to his illness in a letter to Mr. Morritt:--

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

ABBOTSFORD, August 11, 1817.

MY DEAR MORRITT,--I am arrived from a little tour in the west of Scotland, and had hoped, in compliance with your kind wish, to have indulged myself with a skip over the Border as far as Rokeby, about the end of this month. But my fate denies me this pleasure; for, in consequence of one or two blunders, during my absence, in executing my new premises, I perceive the necessity of remaining at the helm while they are going on. Our masons, though excellent workmen, are too little accustomed to the gimcracks of their art, to be trusted with the execution of a _bravura_ plan, without constant inspection. Besides, the said laborers lay me under the necessity {p.178} of laboring a little myself; and I find I can no longer with impunity undertake to make one week's hard work supply the omissions of a fortnight's idleness. Like you, I have abridged my creature-comforts,--as Old Mortality would call them,--renouncing beer and ale on all ordinary occasions; also pastry, fruit, etc., and all that tends to acidity.

These are awkward warnings; but _sat est vixisse_. To have lived respected and regarded by some of the best men in our age is enough for an individual like me; the rest must be as G.o.d wills, and when He wills.

The poor-laws, into which you have ventured for the love of the country, form a sad quagmire. They are like John Bunyan's Slough of Despond, into which, as he observes, millions of cart-loads of good resolutions have been thrown, without perceptibly mending the way. From what you say, and from what I have heard from others, there is a very natural desire to trust to one or two empirical remedies, such as general systems of education, and so forth. But a man with a broken const.i.tution might as well put faith in Spilsbury or G.o.dbold. It is not the knowledge, but the use which is made of it, that is productive of real benefit. To say that the Scottish peasant is less likely than the Englishman to become an inc.u.mbrance on his parish, is saying, in other words, that this country is less populous,--that there are fewer villages and towns,--that the agricultural cla.s.ses, from the landed proprietor down to the cottager, are individually more knit and cemented together;--above all, that the Scotch peasant has harder habits of life, and can endure from his infancy a worse fare and lodging than your parish almshouses offer.--There is a terrible evil in England to which we are strangers,--the number, to wit, of tippling-houses, where the laborer, as a matter of course, spends the overplus of his earnings. In Scotland there are few; and the Justices are commendably inexorable in rejecting all application for licenses where {p.179} there appears no public necessity for granting them. A man, therefore, cannot easily spend much money in liquor, since he must walk three or four miles to the place of suction and back again, which infers a sort of _malice prepense_ of which few are capable; and the habitual opportunity of indulgence not being at hand, the habits of intemperance, and of waste connected with it, are not acquired. If financiers would admit a general limitation of the ale-houses over England to one fourth of the number, I am convinced you would find the money spent in that manner would remain with the peasant, as a source of self-support and independence.

All this applies chiefly to the country;--in towns, and in the manufacturing districts, the evil could hardly be diminished by such regulations. There would, perhaps, be no means so effectual as that (which will never be listened to) of taxing the manufacturers according to the number of hands which they employ on an average, and applying the produce in maintaining the manufacturing poor. If it should be alleged that this would injure the manufacturers, I would boldly reply,--"And why not injure, or rather limit, speculations, the excessive stretch of which has been productive of so much damage to the principles of the country, and to the population, whom it has, in so many respects, degraded and demoralized?" For a great many years, manufactures, taken in a general point of view, have not partaken of the character of a regular profession, in which all who engaged with honest industry and a sufficient capital might reasonably expect returns proportional to their advances and labor--but have, on the contrary, rather resembled a lottery, in which the great majority of the adventurers are sure to be losers, although some may draw considerable advantage. Men continued for a great many years to exert themselves, and to pay extravagant wages, not in hopes that there could be a reasonable prospect of an orderly and regular demand for the goods they wrought {p.180} up, but in order that they might be the first to take advantage of some casual opening which might consume their cargo, let others shift as they could.

Hence extravagant wages on some occasions; for these adventurers who thus played at hit or miss, stood on no scruples while the chance of success remained open. Hence, also, the stoppage of work, and the discharge of the workmen, when the speculators failed of their object. All this while the country was the sufferer;--for whoever gained, the result, being upon the whole a loss, fell on the nation, together with the task of maintaining a poor, rendered effeminate and vicious by over-wages and over-living, and necessarily cast loose upon society. I cannot but think that the necessity of making some fund beforehand, for the provision of those whom they debauch, and render only fit for the almshouse, in prosecution of their own adventures, though it operated as a check on the increase of manufactures, would be a measure just in itself, and beneficial to the community. But it would never be listened to;--the weaver's beam, and the sons of Zeruiah, would be too many for the proposers.

This is the eleventh of August: Walter, happier than he will ever be again, perhaps, is preparing for the moors. He has a better dog than Trout, and rather less active. Mrs. Scott and all our family send kind love.

Yours ever,

W. S.

Two or three days after this letter was written, Scott first saw Washington Irving, who has recorded his visit in a delightful Essay, which, however, having been penned nearly twenty years afterwards, betrays a good many slips of memory as to names and dates. Mr. Irving says he arrived at Abbotsford on the 27th of August, 1816; but he describes the walls of the new house as already overtopping the old cottage; and this is far from being the only circ.u.mstance he mentions which {p.181} proves that he should have written 1817.[72] The picture which my amiable friend has drawn of his reception shows to all who remember the Scott and the Abbotsford of those days, how consistent accuracy as to essentials may be with forgetfulness of trifles.

[Footnote 72: I have before me two letters of Mr.

Irving's to Scott, both written in September, 1817, from Edinburgh, and referring to his visit (which certainly was his only one at Abbotsford) as immediately preceding. There is also in my hands a letter from Scott to his friend John Richardson, of Fludyer Street, dated 22d September, 1817, in which he says, "When you see Tom Campbell, tell him, with my best love, that I have to thank him for making me known to Mr. Washington Irving, who is one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances I have made this many a day."]

Scott had received The History of New York by Knickerbocker, shortly after its appearance in 1812, from an accomplished American traveller, Mr. Brevoort; and the admirable humor of this early work had led him to antic.i.p.ate the brilliant career which its author has since run. Mr.

Thomas Campbell, being no stranger to Scott's high estimation of Irving's genius, gave him a letter of introduction, which, halting his chaise on the high-road above Abbotsford, he modestly sent down to the house, "with a card, on which he had written, that he was on his way to the ruins of Melrose, and wished to know whether it would be agreeable to Mr. Scott to receive a visit from him in the course of the morning." Scott's family well remember the delight with which he received this announcement:--he was at breakfast, and sallied forth instantly, dogs and children after him as usual, to greet the guest, and conduct him in person from the highway to the door.

"The noise of my chaise," says Irving, "had disturbed the quiet of the establishment. Out sallied the warder of the castle, a black greyhound, and leaping on one of the blocks of stone, began a furious barking. This alarm brought out the whole garrison of dogs, all open-mouthed and vociferous.

In a little while, the lord of the castle himself made his appearance. I knew him at once, by the likenesses that had been {p.182} published of him. He came limping up the gravel walk, aiding himself by a stout walking staff, but moving rapidly and with vigor. By his side jogged along a large iron-gray staghound, of most grave demeanor, who took no part in the clamor of the canine rabble, but seemed to consider himself bound, for the dignity of the house, to give me a courteous reception.

"Before Scott reached the gate, he called out in a hearty tone, welcoming me to Abbotsford, and asking news of Campbell. Arrived at the door of the chaise, he grasped me warmly by the hand: 'Come, drive down, drive down to the house,' said he; 'ye're just in time for breakfast, and afterwards ye shall see all the wonders of the Abbey.'

"I would have excused myself on the plea of having already made my breakfast. 'Hut, man,' cried he, 'a ride in the morning in the keen air of the Scotch hills is warrant enough for a second breakfast.'

"I was accordingly whirled to the portal of the cottage, and in a few moments found myself seated at the breakfast-table.

There was no one present but the family, which consisted of Mrs. Scott; her eldest daughter, Sophia, then a fine girl about seventeen; Miss Anne Scott, two or three years younger; Walter, a well-grown stripling; and Charles, a lively boy, eleven or twelve years of age.