Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume VI Part 22

"31st Dec., 1819. In moving a bed from the fireplace to-day upstairs, I found an old memorandum-book, which enables me to trace the following recollections of _this day_, the last of the year.

"1801. A shopkeeper in Kelso; at this period my difficulties had not begun in business; was well, happy, and 27 years old; new then in a connection which afterwards gave me great pain, but can never be forgotten.

"1802. 28 old: In Kelso as before--could scarcely be happier--hunted, shot, kept ****'s company, and neglected business, the fruits whereof I soon found.

"1803. 29: Still fortunate, and happy from same cause. James in Edinburgh thriving as a printer. When I was ennuied at home, visited him. Business neglected every way.

"1804. 30: Material change; getting into difficulties; all wrong, and changes in every way approaching.

"1805. 31: All consummated; health miserable all summer and ****

designated in an erased mem., _the scoundrel_. I yet recollect the cause--can I ever forget it? My furniture, goods, etc., sold at Kelso, previous to my going to Edinburgh to become my brother's clerk; whither I _did_ go, for which G.o.d be praised eternally, on Friday, 3d January, 1806, on 200 a year. My effects at Kelso, with labor, paid my debts, and left me penniless.

"From this period till 1808. 34: I continued in this situation--then the scheme of a bookselling concern in Hanover Street was adopted, which I was to manage; it was 300 a year, and one fourth of the profits besides.

"1809. 35: Already the business in Hanover Street getting into difficulty, from our ignorance of its nature, and most extravagant and foolish advances from its funds to the printing concern. I ought to have resisted this, but I was thoughtless, although not young, or rather reckless, and lived on as long as I could make ends meet.

"1810. 36: Bills increasing--the destructive system of accommodations adopted.

"1811. 37: Bills increased to a most fearful degree. Sir Wm.

Forbes and Co. shut their account. No bank would discount with us, and everything leading to irretrievable failure.

"1812. 38: The first partner stepped in, at a crisis so tremendous, that it shakes my soul to think of it. By the most consummate wisdom, and resolution, and unheard-of exertions, he put things in a train that finally (so early as 1817) paid even himself (who ultimately became the sole creditor of the house) _in full_, with a balance of a thousand pounds.

"1813. 39: In business as a literary auctioneer in Prince's Street; from which period to the present I have got gradually forward, both in that line and as third of a partner of the works of the Author of Waverley, so that I am now, at 45, worth about (I owe 2000) 5000, with, however, alas, many changes--my strong const.i.tution much broken; my father and mother dead, and James estranged--the chief enjoyment and glory of my life being the possession of the friendship and confidence of the greatest of men."

In communicating John's death to the Cornet, Sir Walter says: "I have had a very great loss in poor John Ballantyne, who is gone, after a long illness. He persisted to the very last in endeavoring to take exercise, in which he was often imprudent, and was up and dressed the very morning before his death. In his will the grateful creature has left me a legacy of 2000, life-rented, however, by his wife; and the rest of his little fortune goes betwixt his two brothers. I shall miss him very much, both in business, and as an easy and lively companion, who was eternally active and obliging in whatever I had to do."

I am sorry to take leave of John Ballantyne with the remark, that his last will was a doc.u.ment of the same cla.s.s with too many of his _states_ and _calendars_. So far from having 2000 to bequeath to Sir Walter, he died as he had lived, ignorant of the situation of his affairs, and deep in debt.[126]

[Footnote 126: No specimen of John's inaccuracy as to business-statements could be pointed out more extraordinary than his a.s.sertion in the above sketch of his career, that the bookselling concern, of which he had had the management, was finally wound up with a balance of 1000 in favor of the first partner. At the time he refers to (1817), John's name was on floating bills to the extent of at least 10,000, representing _part_ of the debt which had been acc.u.mulated on the bookselling house, and which, on its dissolution, was a.s.sumed by the printing company in the Canongate.--(1839.)]

The two following letters, written at Blair-Adam, where the Club were, as usual, a.s.sembled for the dog-days, have been selected from among several which Scott at this time addressed to his friends in the South, with the view of promoting Mr. Mackay's success in his _debut_ on the London boards as Bailie Jarvie.

TO MISS JOANNA BAILLIE, HAMPSTEAD.

The immediate motive of my writing to you, my dearest friend, is to make Mrs. Agnes and you aware that a Scots performer, called Mackay, is going up to London to play Bailie Nicol Jarvie for a single night at Covent Garden, and to beg you of all dear loves to go and see him; for, taking him in that single character, I am not sure I ever saw anything in my life possessing so much truth and comic effect at the same time: he is completely the personage of the drama, the purse-proud consequential magistrate, humane and irritable in the same moment, and the true Scotsman in every turn of thought and action; his variety of feelings towards Rob Roy, whom he likes, and fears, and despises, and admires, and pities all at once, is exceedingly well expressed. In short, I never saw a part better sustained, certainly; I pray you to collect a party of Scotch friends to see it. I have written to Sotheby to the same purpose, but I doubt whether the exhibition will prove as satisfactory to those who do not know the original from which the resemblance is taken. I observe the English demand (as is natural) broad caricature in the depicting of national peculiarities: they did so as to the Irish till Jack Johnstone taught them better, and at first I should fear Mackay's reality will seem less ludicrous than Liston's humorous extravagances. So let it not be said that a dramatic genius of Scotland wanted the countenance and protection of Joanna Baillie: the Doctor and Mrs.

Baillie will be much diverted if they go also, but somebody said to me that they were out of town. The man, I am told, is perfectly respectable in his life and habits, and consequently deserves encouragement every way. There is a great difference betwixt his _bailie_ and all his other performances: one would think the part made for him, and him for the part--and yet I may do the poor fellow injustice, and what we here consider as a falling off may arise from our identifying Mackay so completely with the worthy Glasgow magistrate, that recollections of Nicol Jarvie intrude upon us at every corner, and mar the personification of any other part which he may represent for the time.

I am here for a couple of days with our Chief-Commissioner, late Willie Adam, and we had yesterday a delightful stroll to Castle-Campbell, the Rumbling Brig, Cauldron Linns, etc. The scenes are most romantic, and I know not by what fatality it has been, that living within a step of them, I never visited any of them before. We had Sir Samuel Shepherd with us, a most delightful person, but with too much English fidgetiness about him for crags and precipices,--perpetually afraid that rocks would give way under his weight which had over-brow'd the torrent for ages, and that good well-rooted trees, moored so as to resist ten thousand tempests, would fall because he grasped one of their branches; he must certainly be a firm believer in the simile of the lover of your native land, who complains,--

"I leant my back unto an aik, I thought it was a trusty tree, But first it bow'd and then it brake," etc., etc., etc.[127]

Certes these Southrons lack much the habits of the wood and wilderness,--for here is a man of taste and genius, a fine scholar and a most interesting companion, haunted with fears that would be entertained by no shopkeeper from the Luckenbooths or the Saut Market. A sort of _c.o.c.kneyism_ of one kind or another pervades their men of professional habits, whereas every Scotchman, with very few exceptions, holds country exercises of all kinds to be part of his nature, and is ready to become a traveller, or even a soldier on the slightest possible notice.

The habits of the moorfowl shooting, salmon-fishing, and so forth, may keep this much up among the gentry, a name which our pride and pedigree extend so much wider than in England; and it is worth notice that these amus.e.m.e.nts, being cheap and tolerably easy come at by all the petty dunniewa.s.sals, have a more general influence on the national character than fox-hunting, which is confined to those who can mount and keep a horse worth at least 100 guineas. But still this hardly explains the general and wide difference betwixt the countries in this particular. Happen how it will, the advantage is much in favor of Scotland: it is true that it contributes to prevent our producing such very accomplished lawyers, divines, or artisans[128] as when the whole mind is bent with undivided attention upon attaining one branch of knowledge,--but it gives a strong and muscular character to the people in general, and saves men from all sorts of causeless fears and flutterings of the heart, which give quite as much misery as if there were real cause for entertaining apprehension.

This is not furiously to the purpose of my letter, which, after recommending Monsieur Mackay, was to tell you that we are all well and happy. Sophia is getting stout and pretty, and is one of the wisest and most important little mammas that can be seen anywhere. Her bower is _bigged in gude green wood_, and we went last Sat.u.r.day in a body to enjoy it, and to consult about furniture; and we have got the road stopt which led up the hill, so it is now quite solitary and approached through a grove of trees, actual well-grown trees, not Lilliputian forests like those of Abbotsford. The season is dreadfully backward. Our ashes and oaks are not yet in leaf, and will not be, I think, in anything like full foliage this year, such is the rigor of the east winds.--Always, my dear and much respected friend, most affectionately yours,

W. SCOTT.

BLAIR-ADAM, 11 June, 1821, In full sight of Lochleven.

P. S.--Pray read, or have read to you by Mrs. Agnes, The Annals of the Parish. Mr. Galt wrote the worst tragedies ever seen, and has now written a most excellent novel, if it can be called so.

[Footnote 127: Ballad of the Marchioness of Douglas, "O waly, waly, up yon bank!" etc.]

[Footnote 128: The great engineer, James Watt, of Birmingham--in whose talk Scott took much delight--told him, that though hundreds probably of his northern countrymen had sought employment at his establishment, he never could get one of them to become a first-rate artisan. "Many of them," said he, "were too good for that, and rose to be valuable clerks and book-keepers; but those incapable of this sort of advancement had always the same insuperable aversion to toiling so long at any one point of mechanism as to gain the highest wages among the workmen." I have no doubt Sir Walter was thinking of Mr. Watt's remark when he wrote the sentence in the text.]

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

BLAIR-ADAM, June 11, 1821.

MY DEAR LORD,--There is a man going up from Edinburgh to play one night at Covent Garden, whom, as having the very unusual power of presenting on the stage a complete Scotsman, I am very desirous you should see. He plays Bailie Nicol Jarvie in Rob Roy, but with a degree of national truth and understanding, which makes the part equal to anything I have ever seen on the stage, and I have seen all the best comedians for these forty years. I wish much, if you continue in town till he comes up, that you would get into some private box and take a look of him. Sincerely, it is a real treat--the English will not enjoy it, for it is not broad enough, or sufficiently caricatured for their apprehensions, but to a Scotsman it is inimitable, and you have the Glasgow Bailie before you, with all his bustling conceit and importance, his real benevolence, and his irritable habits. He will want in London a fellow who, in the character of the Highland turnkey, held the backhand to him admirably well. I know how difficult it is for folks of condition to get to the theatre, but this is worth an exertion,--and, besides, the poor man (who I understand is very respectable in private life) will be, to use an admirable simile (by which one of your father's farmers persuaded the Duke to go to hear his son, a probationer in divinity, preach his first sermon in the town of Ayr), _like a cow in a fremd loaning_, and glad of Scots countenance.

I am glad the Duke's cold is better--his stomach will not be put to those trials which ours underwent in our youth, when deep drinking was the fashion. I hope he will always be aware, however, that his is not a strong one.

Campbell's Lives of the Admirals is an admirable book, and I would advise your Lordship e'en to redeem your pledge to the Duke on some rainy day. You do not run the risk from the perusal which my poor mother apprehended. She always alleged it sent her eldest son to the navy, and did not see with indifference any of her younger olive branches engaged with Campbell except myself, who stood in no danger of the c.o.c.kpit or quarterdeck. I would not swear for Lord John though. Your Lordship's tutor was just such a well-meaning person as mine, who used to take from me old Lindsay of Pitscottie, and set me down to get by heart Rollin's infernal list of the Shepherd Kings, whose hard names could have done no good to any one on earth, unless he had wished to raise the devil, and lacked language to conjure with.--Always, my dear Lord, most truly yours,

WALTER SCOTT.

The coronation of George IV., preparations for which were (as has been seen) in active progress by March, 1820, had been deferred, in consequence of the unhappy affair of the Queen's Trial. The 19th of July, 1821, was now announced for this solemnity, and Sir Walter resolved to be among the spectators. It occurred to him that if the Ettrick Shepherd were to accompany him, and produce some memorial of the scene likely to catch the popular ear in Scotland, good service might thus be done to the cause of loyalty. But this was not his only consideration. Hogg had married a handsome and most estimable young woman, a good deal above his own original rank in life, the year before; and expecting with her a dowry of 1000, he had forthwith revived the grand ambition of an earlier day, and become a candidate for an extensive farm on the Buccleuch estate, at a short distance from Altrive Lake. Various friends, supposing his worldly circ.u.mstances to be much improved, had supported his application, and Lord Montagu had received it in a manner for which the Shepherd's letters to Scott express much grat.i.tude. Misfortune pursued the Shepherd--the unforeseen bankruptcy of his wife's father interrupted the stocking of the sheep-walk; and the arable part of the new possession was sadly mismanaged by himself. Scott hoped that a visit to London, and a coronation poem, or pamphlet, might end in some pension or post that would relieve these difficulties, and he wrote to Hogg, urging him to come to Edinburgh, and embark with him for the great city. Not doubting that this proposal would be eagerly accepted, he, when writing to Lord Sidmouth, to ask a place for himself in the Hall and Abbey of Westminster, mentioned that Hogg was to be his companion, and begged suitable accommodation for him also. Lord Sidmouth, being overwhelmed with business connected with the approaching pageant, answered by the pen of the Under-Secretary of State, Mr. Hobhouse, that Sir Walter's wishes, both as to himself and the Shepherd, should be gratified, _provided_ they would both dine with him the day after the coronation, in Richmond Park, "where," says the letter before me, "his Lordship will invite the Duke of York and a few other Jacobites to meet you." All this being made known to the tenant of Mount-Benger, he wrote to Scott, as he says, "with the tear in his eye," to signify, that if he went to London he must miss attending the great annual Border fair, held on St. Boswell's Green, in Roxburghshire, on the 18th of every July; and that his absence from that meeting so soon after entering upon business as a store-farmer, would be considered by his new compeers as highly imprudent and discreditable. "In short," James concludes, "the thing is impossible.

But as there is no man in his Majesty's dominions admires his great talents for government, and the energy and dignity of his administration, so much as I do, I will write something at home, and endeavor to give it you before you start." The Shepherd probably expected that these pretty compliments would reach the royal ear; but however that may have been, his own Muse turned a deaf ear to him--at least I never heard of anything that he wrote on this occasion.

Scott embarked without him, on board a new steamship called The City of Edinburgh, which, as he suggested to the master, ought rather to have been christened The New Reekie. This vessel was that described and lauded in the following letter:--

TO THE LORD MONTAGU, ETC., ETC.

EDINBURGH, July 1, 1821.

MY DEAR LORD,--I write just now to thank you for your letter. I have been on board the steamship, and am so delighted with it, that I think I shall put myself aboard for the coronation. It runs at nine knots an hour (_me ipso teste_) against wind and tide, with a deck as long as a frigate's to walk upon, and to sleep on also, if you like, as I have always preferred a cloak and a mattress to these crowded cabins. This reconciles the speed and certainty of the mail-coach with the ease and convenience of being on shipboard. So I really think I will run up to see the grandee show, and run down again. I scorn to mention economy, though the expense is not one fifth, and that is something in hard times, especially to me, who, to choose, would always rather travel in a public conveyance, than with my domestic's good company in a po-chay.

But now comes the news of news. I have been instigating the great Caledonian Boar, James Hogg, to undertake a similar trip--with the view of turning an honest penny, to help out his stocking, by writing some sort of Shepherd's Letters, or the like, to put the honest Scots bodies up to this whole affair. I am trying with Lord Sidmouth to get him a place among the newspaper gentry to see the ceremony. It is seriously worth while to get such a popular view of the whole as he will probably hit off.

I have another view for this poor fellow. You have heard of the Royal Literary Society, and how they propose to distribute solid pudding, _alias_ pensions, to men of genius. It is, I think, a very problematical matter, whether it will do the good which is intended; but if they do mean to select worthy objects of encouragement, I really know n.o.body that has a better or an equal claim to poor Hogg. Our friend Villiers takes a great charge of this matter, and good-naturedly forgave my stating to him a number of objections to the first concoction, which was to have been something resembling the French Academy. It has now been much modified. Perhaps there may be some means fallen upon, with your Lordship's a.s.sistance, of placing Hogg under Mr. Villiers's view. I would have done so myself, but only I have battled the point against the whole establishment so keenly, that it would be too bad to bring forward a protege of my own to take advantage of it. They intended at one time to give pensions of about 100 a year to thirty persons. I know not where they could find half a dozen with such pretensions as the Shepherd's.

There will be risk of his being lost in London, or kidnapped by some of those ladies who open literary _menageries_ for the reception of _lions_. I should like to see him at a rout of blue-stockings. I intend to recommend him to the protection of John Murray the bookseller; and I hope he will come equipped with plaid, kent, and colley.[129]

I wish to heaven Lord Melville would either keep the Admiralty, or in Hogg's phrase,--

"O I would eagerly press him The keys of the _east_ to require,"--

for truly the Board of Control is the Corn Chest for Scotland, where we poor gentry must send our younger sons, as we send our black cattle to the south.--Ever most truly yours,

WALTER SCOTT.