Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume VI Part 17

"Our return from Blair-Adam (after the first meeting of the Club) was very early on a Tuesday morning, that we might reach the Courts by nine o'clock. An occurrence took place near the Hawes'

Inn, which left little doubt upon my mind that Sir Walter Scott was the author of Waverley, of Guy Mannering, and of The Antiquary, his only novels then published. The morning was prodigiously fine, and the sea as smooth as gla.s.s. Sir Walter and I were standing on the beach, enjoying the prospect; the other gentlemen were not come from the boat. The porpoises were rising in great numbers, when Sir Walter said to me, 'Look at them, how they are showing themselves; what fine fellows they are! I have the greatest respect for them: I would as soon kill a man as a phoca.' I could not conceive that the same idea could occur to two men respecting this animal, and set down that it could only be Sir Walter Scott who made the phoca have the better of the battle with the Antiquary's nephew, Captain M'Intyre.[105]

"Soon after, another occurrence quite confirmed me as to the authorship of the novels. On that visit to Blair-Adam, in course of conversation, I mentioned an anecdote about Wilkie, the author of The Epigoniad, who was but a formal poet, but whose conversation was most amusing, and full of fancy. Having heard much of him in my family, where he had been very intimate, I went, when quite a lad, to St. Andrews, where he was a Professor, for the purpose of visiting him. I had scarcely let him know who I was, when he said, 'Mr. William, were you ever in this place before?' I said, no. 'Then, sir, you must go and look at Regulus'

Tower,--no doubt you will have something of an eye of an architect about you;--walk up to it at an angle, advance and recede until you get to see it at its proper distance, and come back and tell me whether you ever saw anything so beautiful in building: till I saw that tower and studied it, I thought the beauty of architecture had consisted in curly-wurlies, but now I find it consists in symmetry and proportion.' In the following winter Rob Roy was published, and there I read that the Cathedral of Glasgow was 'a respectable Gothic structure, without any _curly-wurlies_.'

"But what confirmed, and was certainly meant to disclose to me the author (and that in a very elegant manner), was the mention of the Kiery Craigs--a picturesque piece of scenery in the grounds of Blair-Adam--as being in the vicinity of Kelty Bridge, the _howf_ of Auchtermuchty, the Kinross carrier.--It was only an intimate friend of the family, in the habit of coming to Blair-Adam, who could know anything of the Kiery Craigs or its name; and both the scenery and the name had attractions for Sir Walter.

"At our first meeting after the publication of The Abbot, when the party was a.s.sembled on the top of the rock, the Chief-Baron Shepherd, looking Sir Walter full in the face, and stamping his staff on the ground, said, 'Now, Sir Walter, I think we be upon the top of the Kiery _Craggs_.' Sir Walter preserved profound silence; but there was a conscious looking down, and a considerable elongation of his upper lip."

[Footnote 105: The good Chief-Commissioner makes a little mistake here--a _Phoca_ being, not a porpoise, but a _Seal_.]

Since I have obtained permission to quote from this private volume, I may as well mention that I was partly moved to ask that favor, by the author's own confession that his "Blair-Adam, from 1733 to 1834,"

originated in a suggestion of Scott's. "It was," says the Judge, "on a fine Sunday, lying on the gra.s.sy summit of Bennarty, above its craggy brow, that Sir Walter said, looking first at the flat expanse of Kinross-shire (on the south side of the Ochils), and then at the s.p.a.ce which Blair-Adam fills between the hill of Drumglow (the highest of the Cleish hills) and the valley of Loch.o.r.e, 'What an extraordinary thing it is, that here to the north so little appears to have been done, when there are so many proprietors to work upon it; and to the south, here is a district of country entirely made by the efforts of one family, in three generations, and one of them amongst us in the full enjoyment of what has been done by his two predecessors and himself. Blair-Adam, as I have always heard, had a wild, uncomely, and unhospitable appearance, before its improvements were begun. It would be most curious to record in writing its original state, and trace its gradual progress to its present condition.'" Upon this suggestion, enforced by the approbation of the other members present, the President of the Blair-Adam Club commenced arranging the materials for what const.i.tutes a most instructive as well as entertaining history of the agricultural and arboricultural progress of his domains, in the course of a hundred years, under his grandfather, his father (the celebrated architect), and himself. And Sir Walter had only suggested to his friend of Kinross-shire what he was resolved to put into practice with regard to his own improvements on Tweedside; for he begun at precisely the same period to keep a regular Journal of all his rural transactions, under the t.i.tle of Sylva Abbotsfordiensis.

For reasons, as we have seen, connected with the affairs of the Ballantynes, Messrs. Longman published the first edition of The Monastery; and similar circ.u.mstances induced Sir Walter to a.s.sociate this house with that of Constable in the succeeding novel. Constable disliked its t.i.tle, and would fain have had The Nunnery instead: but Scott stuck to his Abbot. The bookseller grumbled a little, but was soothed by the author's reception of his request that Queen Elizabeth might be brought into the field in his next romance, as a companion to the Mary Stuart of The Abbot.[106] Scott would not indeed indulge him with the choice of the particular period of Elizabeth's reign, indicated in the proposed t.i.tle of The Armada; but expressed his willingness to take up his own old favorite, the legend of Meikle's ballad. He wished to call the novel, like the ballad, c.u.mnor-Hall, but in further deference to Constable's wishes, subst.i.tuted Kenilworth.

John Ballantyne objected to this t.i.tle, and told Constable the result would be "something worthy of the kennel;" but Constable had all reason to be satisfied with the child of his christening. His partner, Mr. Cadell, says: "His vanity boiled over so much at this time, on having his suggestion gone into, that when in his high moods, he used to stalk up and down his room, and exclaim, 'By G--, I am all but the author of the Waverley Novels!'" Constable's bibliographical knowledge, however, it is but fair to say, was really of most essential service to Scott upon many of these occasions; and his letter (now before me) proposing the subject of The Armada, furnished the Novelist with such a catalogue of materials for the ill.u.s.tration of the period as may, probably enough, have called forth some very energetic expression of thankfulness.

[Footnote 106: [Scott writes in December to Lady Louisa Stuart: "I do not design any scandal about Queen Bess, whom I admire much, although, like an old _true blue_, I have malice against her on Queen Mary's account. But I think I shall be very fair. The story is the tragedy of Leicester's first wife, and I have made it, as far as my facilities would permit, 'a pleasant tragedy, stuffed with most pitiful mirth.'"--_Familiar Letters_, vol. ii. p. 102.]]

Scott's kindness secured for John Ballantyne the usual interest in the profits of Kenilworth, the last of his great works in which this friend was to have any concern. I have already mentioned the obvious drooping of his health and strength; and a doc.u.ment, to be introduced presently, will show that John himself had occasional glimpses, at least, of his danger, before the close of 1819. Nevertheless, his spirits continued, at the time of which I am now treating, to be in general as high as ever;--nay, it was now, after his maladies had taken a very serious shape, and it was hardly possible to look on him without antic.i.p.ating a speedy termination of his career, that the gay hopeful spirit of the shattered and trembling invalid led him to plunge into a new stream of costly indulgence. It was an amiable point in his character that he had always retained a tender fondness for his native place. He had now taken up the ambition of rivalling his ill.u.s.trious friend, in some sort, by providing himself with a summer retirement amidst the scenery of his boyhood; and it need not be doubted, at the same time, that in erecting a villa at Kelso, he antic.i.p.ated and calculated on substantial advantages from its vicinity to Abbotsford.

One fine day of this autumn I accompanied Sir Walter to inspect the progress of this edifice, which was to have the t.i.tle of Walton Hall.

John had purchased two or three old houses of two stories in height, with notched gables and thatched roofs, near the end of the long original street of Kelso, and not far from the gateway of the Duke of Roxburghe's magnificent park, with their small gardens and paddocks running down to the margin of the Tweed. He had already fitted up convenient bachelor's lodgings in one of the primitive tenements, and converted the others into a goodly range of stabling, and was now watching the completion of his new _corps de logis_ behind, which included a handsome entrance-hall, or saloon, destined to have old Piscator's bust, on a stand, in the centre, and to be embellished all round with emblems of his sport. Behind this were s.p.a.cious rooms overlooking the little _pleasance_, which was to be laid out somewhat in the Italian style, with ornamental steps, a fountain and _jet d'eau_, and a broad terrace hanging over the river, and commanding an extensive view of perhaps the most beautiful landscape in Scotland. In these new dominions John received us with pride and hilarity; and we then walked with him over this pretty town, lounged away an hour among the ruins of the Abbey, and closed our perambulation with _the Garden_, where Scott had spent some of the happiest of his early summers, and where he pointed out with sorrowful eyes the site of the Plata.n.u.s under which he first read Percy's Reliques. Returning to John's villa, we dined gayly, _al fresco_, by the side of his fountain; and after not a few b.u.mpers to the prosperity of Walton Hall, he mounted Old Mortality, and escorted us for several miles on our ride homewards. It was this day that, overflowing with kindly zeal, Scott revived one of the long-forgotten projects of their early connection in business, and offered his services as editor of a Novelists' Library, to be printed and published for the sole benefit of his host. The offer was eagerly embraced, and when, two or three mornings afterwards John returned Sir Walter's visit, he had put into his hands the MS. of that admirable life of Fielding, which was followed at brief intervals, as the arrangements of the projected work required, by others of Smollett, Richardson, Defoe, Sterne, Johnson, Goldsmith, Le Sage, Horace Walpole, c.u.mberland, Mrs. Radcliffe, Charles Johnstone, Clara Reeve, Charlotte Smith, and Robert Bage. The publication of the first volume of Ballantyne's Novelists' Library did not take place, however, until February, 1821; and the series was closed soon after the proprietor's death in the ensuing summer. In spite of the charming prefaces, in which Scott combines all the graces of his easy narrative with a perpetual stream of deep and gentle wisdom in commenting on the tempers and fortunes of his best predecessors in novel literature, and also with expositions of his own critical views, which prove how profoundly he had investigated the principles and practice of those masters before he struck out a new path for himself--in spite of these delightful and valuable essays, the publication was not prosperous. Constable, after Ballantyne's death, would willingly have resumed the scheme. But Scott had by that time convinced himself that it was in vain to expect much success for a collection so bulky and miscellaneous, and which must of necessity include a large proportion of matter, condemned by the purity, whether real or affected, of modern taste. He could hardly have failed to perceive, on reflection, that his own novels, already const.i.tuting an extensive library of fiction, in which no purist could pretend to discover danger for the morals of youth, had in fact superseded the works of less strait-laced days in the only permanently and solidly profitable market for books of this order. He at all events declined Constable's proposition for renewing and extending this attempt. What he did, was done gratuitously for John Ballantyne's sake; and I have dwelt on it thus long, because, as the reader will perceive by and by, it was so done during (with one exception) the very busiest period of Scott's literary life.

Shortly before Scott wrote the following letters, he had placed his second son (at this time in his fifteenth year) under the care of the Reverend John Williams, who had been my intimate friend and companion at Oxford, with a view of preparing him for that University.[107] Mr.

Williams was then Vicar of Lampeter, in Cardiganshire, and the high satisfaction with which his care of Charles Scott inspired Sir Walter, induced several other Scotch gentlemen of distinction by and by to send their sons also to his Welsh parsonage; the result of which northern connections was important to the fortunes of one of the most accurate and extensive scholars and most skilful teachers of the present time.

[Footnote 107: [Writing to Lady Louisa Stuart, December 14, Scott says: "My youngest son, who is very clever and very idle, I have sent to a learned clergyman ... to get more thoroughly grounded in cla.s.sical learning. For two years Mr. Williams has undertaken to speak with him in Latin, and, as everybody else talks Welsh, he will have n.o.body to show off his miscellaneous information to, and thus a main obstacle to his improvement will be removed. It would be a pity any stumbling-block were left for him to break his shins over, for he has a most active mind and a good disposition."--_Familiar Letters_, vol.

ii. p. 103.]]

TO WALTER SCOTT, ESQ., 18TH HUSSARS, CORK.

EDINBURGH, 14th November, 1820.

MY DEAR WALTER,--I send you a cheque on Coutts for your quarter's allowance. I hope you manage your cash like a person of discretion--above all, avoid the card-tables of ancient dowagers.

Always remember that my fortune, however much my efforts may increase it, and although I am improving it for your benefit, not for any that can accrue in my own time,--yet never can be more than a decent independence, and therefore will make a poor figure unless managed with good sense, moderation, and prudence--which are habits easily acquired in youth, while habitual extravagance is a fault very difficult to be afterwards corrected.

We came to town yesterday, and bade adieu to Abbotsford for the season. Fife,[108] to mamma's great surprise and scandal, chose to stay at Abbotsford with Mai, and plainly denied to follow the carriage--so our canine establishment in Castle Street is reduced to little Ury.[109] We spent two days at Arniston, on the road,--and on coming here, found Sophia as nicely and orderly settled in her house as if she had been a married woman these five years. I believe she is very happy--perhaps unusually so, for her wishes are moderate, and all seem anxious to please her.

She is preparing in due time for the arrival of a little stranger, who will make you an uncle, and me (G.o.d help me!) a grandpapa.

The Round Towers you mention are very curious, and seem to have been built, as the Irish hackney-coachman said of the Martello one at the Black Rock, "to puzzle posterity." There are two of them in Scotland--both excellent pieces of architecture; one at Brechin, built quite close to the old church, so as to appear united with it, but in fact it is quite detached from the church, and sways from it in a high wind, when it vibrates like a lighthouse. The other is at Abernethy in Perthshire--said to have been the capital city of the Picts. I am glad to see you observe objects of interest and curiosity, because otherwise a man may travel over the universe without acquiring any more knowledge than his horse does.

We had our hunt, and our jollification after it, on last Wednesday. It went off in great style, although I felt a little sorry at having neither Charles nor you in the field. By the way, Charles seems most admirably settled. I had a most sensible letter on the subject from Mr. Williams, who appears to have taken great pains, and to have formed a very just conception both of his merits and foibles. When I have an opportunity, I will hand you his letter; for it will entertain you, it is so correct a picture of Monsieur Charles.

Dominie Thomson has gone to a Mrs. Dennistoun, of Colgrain, to drill her youngsters. I am afraid he will find a change; but I hope to have a nook open to him by and by--as a sort of retreat or harbor on his lee. Adieu, my dear--always believe me your affectionate father,

WALTER SCOTT.

[Footnote 108: _Finette_--a spaniel of Lady Scott's.]

[Footnote 109: _Urisk_ [Ourisque]--a small terrier of the long silky-haired Kintail breed.]

TO MR. CHARLES SCOTT.

_Care of the Rev. John Williams, Lampeter._

EDINBURGH, 14th November, 1820.

MY DEAR BOY CHARLES,--Your letters made us all very happy, and I trust you are now comfortably settled and plying your task hard.

Mr. Williams will probably ground you more perfectly in the grammar of the cla.s.sical languages than has. .h.i.therto been done, and this you will at first find but dry work. But there are many indispensable reasons why you must bestow the utmost attention upon it. A perfect knowledge of the cla.s.sical languages has been fixed upon, and not without good reason, as the mark of a well-educated young man; and though people may have scrambled into distinction without it, it is always with the greatest difficulty, just like climbing over a wall, instead of giving your ticket at the door. Perhaps you may think another proof of a youth's talents might have been adopted; but what good will arise from your thinking so, if the general practice of society has fixed on this particular branch of knowledge as the criterion?

Wheat or barley were as good grain, I suppose, as _sesamum_; but it was only to _sesamum_ that the talisman gave way, and the rock opened; and it is equally certain that, if you are not a well-founded grammatical scholar in Greek and Latin, you will in vain present other qualifications to distinction. Besides, the study of grammar, from its very asperities, is calculated to teach youth that patient labor which is necessary to the useful exertion of the understanding upon every other branch of knowledge; and your great deficiency is want of steadiness and of resolute application to the dry as well as the interesting parts of your learning. But exerting yourself, as I have no doubt you will do, under the direction of so learned a man and so excellent a teacher as Mr. Williams, and being without the temptations to idleness which occurred at home, I have every reason to believe that to your natural quickness you will presently add such a _habit_ of application and steadiness, as will make you a respected member of society, perhaps a distinguished one. It is very probable that the whole success of your future life may depend on the manner in which you employ _the next two years_; and I am therefore most anxious you should fully avail yourself of the opportunities now afforded you.

You must not be too much disconcerted with the apparent dryness of your immediate studies. Language is the great mark by which man is distinguished from the beasts, and a strict acquaintance with the manner in which it is composed becomes, as you follow it a little way, one of the most curious and interesting exercises of the intellect.

We had our grand hunt on Wednesday last, a fine day, and plenty of sport. We hunted all over Huntly wood, and so on to Halidon and Prieston--saw twelve hares, and killed six, having very hard runs, and tiring three packs of grews completely. In absence of Walter and you, Stenhouse the horse-couper led the field, and rode as if he had been a piece of his horse, sweltering like a wild-drake all through Marriage-Moss, at a motion betwixt swimming and riding. One unlucky accident befell;--Queen Mab, who was bestrode by Captain Adam, lifted up her heels against Mr.

Craig of Galashiels,[110] whose leg she greeted with a thump like a pistol-shot, while by the same movement she very nearly sent the n.o.ble Captain over her ears. Mr. Craig was helped from horse, but would not permit his boot to be drawn off, protesting he would faint if he saw the bone of his leg sticking through the stocking. Some thought he was reluctant to exhibit his legs in their primitive and unclothed simplicity, in respect they have an unhappy resemblance to a pair of tongs. As for the Captain, he declared that if the accident had happened _in action_, the surgeon and drum-boys would have had off, not his _boot_ only, but his _leg to boot_, before he could have uttered a remonstrance. At length Gala and I prevailed to have the boot drawn, and to my great joy I found the damage was not serious, though the pain must have been severe.

On Sat.u.r.day we left Abbotsford, and dined and spent Sunday at Arniston, where we had many inquiries after you from Robert Dundas, who was so kind to you last year.

I must conclude for the present, requesting your earnest pursuit of such branches of study as Mr. Williams recommends. In a short time, as you begin to comprehend the subjects you are learning, you will find the path turn smoother, and that which at present seems wrapped up in an inextricable labyrinth of thorns and briers, will at once become easy and attractive.--Always, dear Charlie, your affectionate father,

W. S.

[Footnote 110: Mr. George Craig, factor to the laird of Gala, and manager of a little branch bank at Galashiels. This worthy man was one of the regular members of the Abbotsford Hunt.]

On the same day Scott wrote as follows to the manly and amiable author of Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, who had shortly before sent the MS. of that romantic drama to Abbotsford for his inspection:--

TO MR. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

_Care of F. Chantrey, Esq., R. A., London._

EDINBURGH, 14th November, 1820.

MY DEAR ALLAN,--I have been meditating a long letter to you for many weeks past; but company, and rural business, and rural sports, are very unfavorable to writing letters. I have now a double reason for writing, for I have to thank you for sending me in safety a beautiful specimen of our English Michael's talents in the cast of my venerable friend Mr. Watt: it is a most striking resemblance, with all that living character which we are apt to think life itself alone can exhibit. I hope Mr. Chantrey does not permit his distinguished skill either to remain unexercised, or to be lavished exclusively on subjects of little interest. I would like to see him engaged on some subject of importance completely adapted to the purpose of his chisel, and demanding its highest powers. Pray remember me to him most kindly.

I have perused twice your curious and interesting ma.n.u.script.

Many parts of the poetry are eminently beautiful, though I fear the great length of the piece, and some obscurity of the plot, would render it unfit for dramatic representation. There is also a fine tone of supernatural impulse spread over the whole action, which I think a common audience would not be likely to adopt or comprehend--though I own that to me it has a very powerful effect. Speaking of dramatic composition in general, I think it is almost essential (though the rule be most difficult in practice) that the plot, or business of the piece, should advance with every line that is spoken. The fact is, the drama is addressed chiefly to the eyes, and as much as can be, by any possibility, represented on the stage, should neither be told nor described. Of the miscellaneous part of a large audience, many do not understand, nay, many cannot hear, either narrative or description, but are solely intent upon the action exhibited. It is, I conceive, for this reason that very bad plays, written by performers themselves, often contrive to get through, and not without applause; while others, immeasurably superior in point of poetical merit, fail, merely because the author is not sufficiently possessed of the trick of the scene, or enough aware of the importance of a maxim p.r.o.nounced by no less a performer than Punch himself--(at least he was the last authority from whom I heard it),--_Push on, keep moving!_[111] Now, in your very ingenious dramatic effort, the interest not only stands still, but sometimes retrogrades. It contains, notwithstanding, many pa.s.sages of eminent beauty,--many specimens of most interesting dialogue; and, on the whole, if it is not fitted for the modern stage, I am not sure that its very imperfections do not render it more fit for the closet, for we certainly do not always read with the greatest pleasure those plays which act best.

If, however, you should at any time wish to become a candidate for dramatic laurels, I would advise you, in the first place, to consult some professional person of judgment and taste. I should regard friend Terry as an excellent Mentor, and I believe he would concur with me in recommending that at least one third of the drama be retrenched, that the plot should be rendered simpler, and the motives more obvious, and I think the powerful language and many of the situations might then have their full effect upon the audience. I am uncertain if I have made myself sufficiently understood; but I would say, for example, that it is ill explained by what means Comyn and his gang, who land as shipwrecked men, become at once possessed of the old lord's domains, merely by killing and taking possession. I am aware of what you mean--namely, that being attached to the then rulers, he is supported in his ill-acquired power by their authority. But this is imperfectly brought out, and escaped me at the first reading. The superst.i.tious motives, also, which induced the shepherds to delay their vengeance, are not likely to be intelligible to the generality of the hearers. It would seem more probable that the young Baron should have led his faithful va.s.sals to avenge the death of his parents; and it has escaped me what prevents him from taking this direct and natural course.

Besides it is, I believe, a rule (and it seems a good one) that one single interest, to which every other is subordinate, should occupy the whole play,--each separate object having just the effect of a mill-dam, sluicing off a certain portion of the sympathy, which should move on with increasing force and rapidity to the catastrophe. Now, in your work, there are several divided points of interest; there is the murder of the old Baron--the escape of his wife--that of his son--the loss of his bride--the villainous artifices of Comyn to possess himself of her person--and, finally, the fall of Comyn, and acceleration of the vengeance due to his crimes. I am sure your own excellent sense, which I admire as much as I do your genius, will give me credit for my frankness in these matters; I only know, that I do not know many persons on whose performances I would venture to offer so much criticism.