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

Among the thousand painful feelings which this melancholy event had excited, I have sometimes thought of his distance from home.

Yet this was done with the best intention, and upon the best advice, and was perhaps the sole chance which remained for reestablishment. It has pleased G.o.d that it has failed; but the best means were used under the best direction, and mere mortality can do no more. I am very anxious about the dear young ladies, whose lives were so much devoted to their father, and shall be extremely desirous of knowing how they are. The d.u.c.h.ess has so much firmness of mind, and Lady M. so much affectionate prudence, that they will want no support that example and kindness can afford. To me the world seems a sort of waste without him. We had many joint objects, constant intercourse, and unreserved communication, so that through him and by him I took interest in many things altogether out of my own sphere, and it seems to me as if the horizon were narrowed and lowered around me. But G.o.d's will be done; it is all that brother or friend can or dare say.--I have reluctance to mention the trash which is going on here. Indeed, I think little is altered since I wrote to your Lordship fully, excepting that last night late, Chisholm[38]

arrived at Abbotsford from Lithgow, recalled by the news which had somehow reached Edinburgh,--as I suspect by some officiousness of ****. He left Lithgow in such a state that there is no doubt he will carry that burgh, unless Pringle[39] gets Selkirk. He is gone off this morning to try the possible and impossible to get the single vote which he wants, or to prevail on one person to stand neuter. It is possible he may succeed, though this event, when it becomes generally known, will be greatly against his efforts. I should care little more about the matter, were it not for young Walter,[40] and for the despite I feel at the success of speculations which were formed on the probability of the event which has happened. Two sons of *******

came here yesterday, and with their father's philosophical spirit of self-accommodation, established themselves for the night.

Betwixt them and Chisholm's noise, my head and my stomach suffered so much (under the necessity of drowning feelings which I could not express), that I had a return of the spasms, and I felt as if a phantasmagoria was going on around me. Quiet, and some indulgence of natural and solitary sorrow, have made me well. To-day I will ride up to Selkirk and see the magistrates, or the chief of them. It is necessary they should not think the cause deserted. If it is thought proper to suspend the works at Bowhill, perhaps the measure may be delayed till the decision of this matter.

I am sure, my dear Lord, you will command me in all I can do. I have only to regret it is so little. But to show that my grat.i.tude has survived my benefactor, would be the pride and delight of my life. I never thought it possible that a man could have loved another so much, where the distance of rank was so very great. But why recur to things so painful? I pity poor Adam Ferguson, whose affections were so much engaged by the Duke's kindness, and who has with his gay temper a generous and feeling heart. The election we may lose, but not our own credit, and that of the family--that you may rest a.s.sured of. My best respects and warmest sympathy attend the dear young ladies, and Lady Montagu.

I shall be anxious to know how the d.u.c.h.ess-Dowager does under this great calamity. The poor boy--what a slippery world is before him, and how early a dangerous, because a splendid, lot is presented to him! But he has your personal protection. Believe me, with a deep partic.i.p.ation in your present distress, your Lordship's most faithfully,

WALTER SCOTT.

[Footnote 38: Mr. Chisholm was the Tory candidate for the Selkirk burghs.]

[Footnote 39: Mr. Pringle of Clifton, the Whig candidate.]

[Footnote 40: Walter Francis, the present Duke of Buccleuch.]

Scott drew up for Ballantyne's newspaper of that week the brief character of Charles, Duke of Buccleuch, which has since been included in his Prose Miscellanies (vol. iv.); and the following letter accompanied a copy of it to Ditton Park:--

TO THE LORD MONTAGU, ETC., ETC., ETC.

MY DEAR LORD,--I send you the newspaper article under a different cover. I have studied so much to suppress my own feelings, and so to give a just, calm, and temperate view of the excellent subject of our present sorrow, such as I conceive might be drawn by one less partially devoted to him, that it has to my own eye a cold and lifeless resemblance of an original so dear to me. But I was writing to the public, and to a public less acquainted with him than a few years' experience would have made them. Even his own tenantry were but just arrived at the true estimation of his character. I wrote, therefore, to insure credit and belief, in a tone greatly under my own feelings. I have ordered twenty-five copies to be put in a different shape, of which I will send your Lordship twenty. It has been a painful task, but I feel it was due from me. I am just favored with your letter. I beg your Lordship will not write more frequently than you find quite convenient, for you must have now more than enough upon you. The arrangement respecting Boughton[41] is what I expected--the lifeless remains will be laid where the living thoughts had long been. I grieve that I shall not see the last honors, yet I hardly know how I could have gone through the scene.

Nothing in the circ.u.mstances could have given me the satisfaction which I receive from your Lordship's purpose of visiting Scotland, and bringing down the dear young ladies, who unite so many and such affecting ties upon the regard and affection of every friend of the family. It will be a measure of the highest necessity for the political interest of the family, and your Lordship will have an opportunity of hearing much information of importance, which really could not be made the subject of writing. The extinction of fire on the hearths of this great house would be putting out a public light and a public beacon in the time of darkness and storms. Ever your most faithful

W. S.

[Footnote 41: Boughton, in Northamptonshire. This seat came into the possession of Henry, Duke of Buccleuch, by his marriage with the daughter and heiress of John, the last Duke of Montagu, who survived for many years her son, Duke Charles. At Boughton, as the reader will see, Scott's early friend, the d.u.c.h.ess Harriet of Buccleuch, had been buried in 1814.]

On the 11th of May, Scott returned to Edinburgh, and was present next day at the opening of the Court of Session; when all who saw him were as much struck as I had been at Abbotsford with the lamentable change his illness had produced in his appearance. He was unable to persist in attendance at the Clerks' Table--for several weeks afterwards I think he seldom if ever attempted it;--and I well remember that, when the Third Series of the Tales of my Landlord at length came out (which was on the 10th of June), he was known to be confined to bed, and the book was received amidst the deep general impression that we should see no more of that parentage. On the 13th he wrote thus to Captain Ferguson, who had arrived in London with the remains of the Duke of Buccleuch:--

TO CAPTAIN ADAM FERGUSON, ETC., ETC., MONTAGU HOUSE, WHITEHALL.

MY DEAR ADAM,--I am sorry to say I have had another eight days'

visit of my disorder, which has confined me chiefly to my bed. It is not attended with so much acute pain as in spring, but with much sickness and weakness. It will perhaps shade off into a mild chronic complaint--if it returns frequently with the same violence, I shall break up by degrees, and follow my dear Chief.

I do not mean that there is the least cause for immediate apprehension, but only that the const.i.tution must be injured at last, as well by the modes of cure, or rather of relief, as by the pain. My digestion as well as my appet.i.te are for the present quite gone--a change from former days of Leith and Newhaven parties. I thank G.o.d I can look at this possibility without much anxiety, and without a shadow of fear.

Will you, if your time serves, undertake two little commissions for me? One respects a kind promise of Lord Montagu to put George Thomson's name on a list for kirk preferment. I don't like to trouble him with letters--he must be overwhelmed with business, and has his dear brother's punctuality in replying even to those which require none. I would fain have that Scottish Abraham Adams provided for if possible. My other request is, that you will, if you can, see Terry, and ask him what is doing about my dining-room chairs, and especially about the carpet, for I shall not without them have the use of what Slender calls "mine own great parlor" this season. I should write to him, but am really unable. I hope you will soon come down--a sight of you would do me good at the worst turn I have yet had. The Baronet[42] is very kind, and comes and sits by me. Everybody likes the Regalia, and I have heard of no one grudging their _hog_[43]--but you must get something better. I have been writing to the Commie[44] about this. He has been inexpressibly kind in Walter's matter, and the Duke of York has promised an early commission. When you see our friend, you can talk over this, and may perhaps save him the trouble of writing particular directions what further is to be done. Iago's rule, I suppose--"put money in thy purse." I wish in pa.s.sing you would ask how the ladies are in Piccadilly. Yours ever,

W. SCOTT.

[Footnote 42: Mr. William Clerk.]

[Footnote 43: A shilling.]

[Footnote 44: The Lord Chief-Commissioner Adam.]

The Bride of Lammermoor, and A Legend of Montrose, would have been read with indulgence had they needed it; for the painful circ.u.mstances under which they must have been produced were known wherever an English newspaper made its way; but I believe that, except in numerous typical errors, which sprung of necessity from the author's inability to correct any proof sheets, no one ever affected to perceive in either tale the slightest symptom of his malady. Dugald Dalgetty was placed by acclamation in the same rank with Bailie Jarvie--a conception equally new, just, and humorous, and worked out in all the details, as if it had formed the luxurious entertainment of a chair as easy as was ever shaken by Rabelais; and though the character of Montrose himself seemed hardly to have been treated so fully as the subject merited, the accustomed rapidity of the novelist's execution would have been enough to account for any such defect. Of Caleb Balderstone--(the hero of one of the many ludicrous delineations which he owed to the late Lord Haddington, a man of rare pleasantry, and one of the best tellers of old Scotch stories that I ever heard)--I cannot say that the general opinion was then, nor do I believe it ever since has been, very favorable. It was p.r.o.nounced at the time, by more than one critic, a mere caricature; and though Scott himself would never in after-days admit this censure to be just, he allowed that "he might have sprinkled rather too much parsley over his chicken." But even that blemish, for I grant that I think it a serious one, could not disturb the profound interest and pathos of The Bride of Lammermoor--to my fancy the most pure and powerful of all the tragedies that Scott ever penned. The reader will be well pleased, however, to have, in place of any critical observations on this work, the following particulars of its composition from the notes which its printer dictated when stretched on the bed from which he well knew he was never to rise.

"The book" (says James Ballantyne) "was not only written, but published, before Mr. Scott was able to rise from his bed; and he a.s.sured me, that when it was first put into his hands in a complete shape, he did not recollect one single incident, character, or conversation it contained! He did not desire me to understand, nor did I understand, that his illness had erased from his memory the original incidents of the story, with which he had been acquainted from his boyhood. These remained rooted where they had ever been; or, to speak more explicitly, he remembered the general facts of the existence of the father and mother, of the son and daughter, of the rival lovers, of the compulsory marriage, and the attack made by the bride upon the hapless bridegroom,[45] with the general catastrophe of the whole. All these things he recollected just as he did before he took to his bed: but he literally recollected nothing else--not a single character woven by the romancer, not one of the many scenes and points of humor, nor anything with which he was connected as the writer of the work. 'For a long time,' he said, 'I felt myself very uneasy in the course of my reading, lest I should be startled by meeting something altogether glaring and fantastic. However, I recollected that you had been the printer, and I felt sure that you would not have permitted anything of this sort to pa.s.s.' 'Well,' I said, 'upon the whole, how did you like it?' 'Why,' he said, 'as a whole, I felt it monstrous gross and grotesque; but still the worst of it made me laugh, and I trusted the good-natured public would not be less indulgent.' I do not think I ever ventured to lead to the discussion of this singular phenomenon again; but you may depend upon it, that what I have now said is as distinctly reported as if it had been taken down in short-hand at the moment; I should not otherwise have ventured to allude to the matter at all. I believe you will agree with me in thinking that the history of the human mind contains nothing more wonderful."

[Footnote 45: There appeared in the _Edinburgh Evening Post_ of October 10, 1840, a letter dated September 5, 1823, addressed by Sir J. Horne Dalrymple Elphinstone, Bart., to the late Sir James Stewart Denham of Coltness, Bart., both descendants of the Lord President Stair, whose daughter was the original of the Bride of Lammermoor, from which it appears that, according to the traditional creed of the Dalrymple family, the lady's unhappy lover, Lord Rutherford, had found means to be secreted in the nuptial chamber, and that the wound of the bridegroom, Sir David Dunbar of Baldoon, was inflicted by his Lordship's hand. The letter in question will be appended to future editions of the novel.--(1841.)]

Soon after Scott reappeared in the Parliament House, he came down one Sat.u.r.day to the vaulted chambers below, where the Advocates' Library was then kept, to attend a meeting of the Faculty, and as the a.s.sembly was breaking up, he asked me to walk home with him, taking Ballantyne's printing-office in our way. He moved languidly, and said, if he were to stay in town many days, he must send for Sibyl Grey; but his conversation was heart-whole; and, in particular, he laughed till, despite his weakness, the stick was flourishing in his hand, over the following almost incredible specimen of that most absurd personage the late Earl of Buchan.

Hearing one morning shortly before this time, that Scott was actually _in extremis_, the Earl proceeded to Castle Street, and found the knocker tied up. He then descended to the door in the area, and was there received by honest Peter Mathieson, whose face seemed to confirm the woeful tidings, for in truth his master was ill enough. Peter told his Lordship that he had the strictest orders to admit no visitor; but the Earl would take no denial, pushed the bashful coachman aside, and elbowed his way upstairs to the door of Scott's bedchamber. He had his fingers upon the handle before Peter could give warning to Miss Scott; and when she appeared to remonstrate against such an intrusion, he patted her on the head like a child, and persisted in his purpose of entering the sickroom so strenuously, that the young lady found it necessary to bid Peter see the Earl downstairs again, at whatever damage to his dignity. Peter accordingly, after trying all his eloquence in vain, gave the tottering, bustling, old, meddlesome c.o.xcomb a single shove,--as respectful, doubt not, as a shove can ever be,--and he accepted that hint, and made a rapid exit. Scott, meanwhile, had heard the confusion, and at length it was explained to him; when, fearing that Peter's gripe might have injured Lord Buchan's feeble person, he desired James Ballantyne, who had been sitting by his bed, to follow the old man home--make him comprehend, if he could, that the family were in such bewilderment of alarm, that the ordinary rules of civility were out of the question--and, in fine, inquire what had been the object of his Lordship's intended visit. James proceeded forthwith to the Earl's house in George Street and found him strutting about his library in a towering indignation. Ballantyne's elaborate demonstrations of respect, however, by degrees softened him, and he condescended to explain himself. "I wished," said he, "to embrace Walter Scott before he died, and inform him that I had long considered it as a satisfactory circ.u.mstance that he and I were destined to rest together in the same place of sepulture. The princ.i.p.al thing, however, was to relieve his mind as to the arrangements of his funeral--to show him a plan which I had prepared for the procession--and, in a word, to a.s.sure him that I took upon myself the whole conduct of the ceremonial at Dryburgh." He then exhibited to Ballantyne a formal programme, in which, as may be supposed, the predominant feature was not Walter Scott, but David, Earl of Buchan. It had been settled, _inter alia_, that the said Earl was to p.r.o.nounce an eulogium over the grave, after the fashion of French Academicians in the _Pere la Chaise_.

And this silliest and vainest of busybodies was the elder brother of Thomas and Henry Erskine! But the story is well known of his boasting one day to the late d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon of the extraordinary talents of his family--when her unscrupulous Grace asked him, very coolly, whether the wit had not come by the mother, and been all settled on the younger branches?

Scott, as his letters to be quoted presently will show, had several more attacks of his disorder, and some very severe ones, during the autumn of 1819; nor, indeed, had it quite disappeared until about Christmas. But from the time of his return to Abbotsford in July, when he adopted the system of treatment recommended by a skilful physician (Dr. d.i.c.k), who had had large experience in maladies of this kind during his Indian life, the seizures gradually became less violent, and his confidence that he was ultimately to baffle the enemy remained unshaken.[46]

[Footnote 46: ["For nearly two years he had to struggle for his life with that severe illness, which the natural strength of his const.i.tution at length proved sufficient to throw off. With its disappearance, although restored to health, disappeared also much of his former vigor of body, activity, and power of undergoing fatigue, while in personal appearance he had advanced twenty years in the downward course of life; his hair had become bleached to pure white and scanty locks; the fire of his eye quenched; and his step, more uncertain, had lost the vigorous swinging gait with which he was used to proceed; in fact, old age had by many years antic.i.p.ated its usual progress and marked how severely he had suffered."--James Skene's _Reminiscences_,--See _Journal_, vol. ii. p. 97, note.]]

As I had no opportunity of seeing him again until he was almost entirely reestablished, I shall leave the progress of his restoration to be collected from his correspondence. But I must not forget to set down what his daughter Sophia afterwards told me of his conduct upon one night in June, when he really did despair of himself. He then called his children about his bed, and took leave of them with solemn tenderness. After giving them, one by one, such advice as suited their years and characters, he added: "For myself, my dears, I am unconscious of ever having done any man an injury, or omitted any fair opportunity of doing any man a benefit. I well know that no human life can appear otherwise than weak and filthy in the eyes of G.o.d: but I rely on the merits and intercession of our Redeemer." He then laid his hand on their heads, and said, "G.o.d bless you! Live so that you may all hope to meet each other in a better place hereafter. And now leave me, that I may turn my face to the wall." They obeyed him; but he presently fell into a deep sleep; and when he awoke from it after many hours, the crisis of extreme danger was felt by himself, and p.r.o.nounced by his physician, to have been overcome.

CHAPTER XLV

Gradual Reestablishment of Scott's Health. -- Ivanhoe in Progress. -- His Son Walter Joins the Eighteenth Regiment of Hussars. -- Scott's Correspondence with Hhis Son. -- Miscellaneous Letters to Mrs. Maclean Clephane, M. W. Hartstonge, J. G. Lockhart, John Ballantyne, John Richardson, Miss Edgeworth, Lord Montagu, Etc. -- Abbotsford Visited by Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. -- Death of Mrs. William Erskine.

1819

Before Scott left Edinburgh, on the 12th of July, he had not only concluded his bargain with Constable for another novel, but, as will appear from some of his letters, made considerable progress in the dictation of Ivanhoe.

That he already felt great confidence on the score of his health may be inferred from his allowing his son, Walter, about the middle of the month, to join the 18th regiment of Hussars in which he had, shortly before, received his commission as Cornet.

Scott's letters to his son, the first of his family that left the house, will merit henceforth a good deal of the reader's attention.

Walter was, when he thus quitted Abbotsford to try his chances in the active world, only in the eighteenth year of his age; and the fashion of education in Scotland is such, that he had scarcely ever slept a night under a different roof from his parents, until this separation occurred. He had been treated from his cradle with all the indulgence that a man of sense can ever permit himself to show to any of his children; and for several years he had now been his father's daily companion in all his out-of-doors occupations and amus.e.m.e.nts. The parting was a painful one; but Scott's ambition centred in the heir of his name, and instead of fruitless pinings and lamentings, he henceforth made it his constant business to keep up such a frank correspondence with the young man as might enable himself to exert over him, when at a distance, the gentle influence of kindness, experience, and wisdom. The series of his letters to his son is, in my opinion, by far the most interesting and valuable, as respects the personal character and temper of the writer. It will easily be supposed that, as the young officer entered fully into his father's generous views of what their correspondence ought to be, and detailed every little incident of his new career with the same easy confidence as if he had been writing to a friend or elder brother not very widely differing from himself in standing, the answers abound with opinions on subjects with which I have no right to occupy or entertain my readers: but I shall introduce in the prosecution of this work, as many specimens of Scott's paternal advice as I can hope to render generally intelligible without indelicate explanations--and more especially such as may prove serviceable to other young persons when first embarking under their own pilotage upon the sea of life. Scott's manly kindness to his boy, whether he is expressing approbation or censure of his conduct, can require no pointing out; and his practical wisdom was of that liberal order, based on such comprehensive views of man and the world, that I am persuaded it will often be found available to the circ.u.mstances of their own various cases, by young men of whatever station or profession.

I shall, nevertheless, adhere as usual to the chronological order; and one or two miscellaneous letters must accordingly precede the first article of his correspondence with the Cornet. He alludes, however, to the youth's departure in the following:--

TO MRS. MACLEAN CLEPHANE OF TORLOISK.

ABBOTSFORD, July 15, 1819.

DEAR MRS. CLEPHANE,--Nothing could give me more pleasure than to hear you are well, and thinking of looking this way. You will find all my things in very different order from when you were here last, and plenty of room for matron and miss, man and maid.

We have no engagements, except to Newton Don about the 20th August--if we be alive--no unreasonable proviso in so long an engagement. My health, however, seems in a fair way of being perfectly restored. It is a joke to talk of any other remedy than that forceful but most unpleasant one--_calomel_. I cannot say I ever felt advantage from anything else; and I am perfectly satisfied that, used as an alterative, and taken in very small quant.i.ties for a long time, it must correct all the inaccuracies of the biliary organs. At least it has done so in my case more radically than I could have believed possible. I have intermitted the regime for some days, but begin a new course next week for precaution. Dr. d.i.c.k, of the East India Company's service, has put me on this course of cure,[47] and says he never knew it fail unless when the liver was irreparably injured. I believe I shall go to Carlsbad next year. If I must go to a watering-place, I should like one where I might hope to see and learn something new myself, instead of being hunted down by some of the confounded lion-catchers who haunt English spas. I have not the art of being savage to those people, though few are more annoyed by them. I always think of Snug the Joiner--

"----If I should as lion _come in strife_ Into such place, 't were pity on my life."