The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Part 59

_February_ 1.--I had my two youths again to breakfast, but I did not say more about my determination, save that I would help them if I could make it convenient. The Chief Commissioner has agreed to let Heath have his pretty picture of a Study at Abbotsford, by Edwin Landseer, in which old Maida occurs. The youth Reynolds is what one would suppose his father's son to be, smart and forward, and knows the world. I suppose I was too much f.a.gged with sitting in the Court to-day to write hard after dinner, but I did work, however.

_February_ 2.--Corrected proofs, which are now nearly up with me. This day was an idle one, for I remained in Court till one, and sat for my picture till half-past three to Mr. Smith. He has all the steadiness and sense in appearance which his cousin R.P.G. lacks.[124] Whether he has genius or no, I am no judge. My own portrait is like, but I think too broad about the jowls, a fault which they all fall into, as I suppose, by placing their subject upon a high stage and looking upwards to them, which must foreshorten the face. The Chief Baron and Chief Commissioner had the goodness to sit with me.

Dressed and went with Anne to dine at Pinkie House, where I met the President,[125] Lady Charlotte, etc.; above all, Mrs. Scott of Gala, whom I had not seen for some time. We had much fun, and I was, as Sir Andrew Aguecheek says, in good fooling.[126] A lively French girl, a governess I think, but very pretty and animated, seemed much amused with the old gentleman. Home at eleven o'clock.

By the by, Sir John Hope had found a Roman eagle on his estate in Fife with sundry of those pots and coffeepots, so to speak, which are so common: but the eagle was mislaid, so I did not see it.

_February_ 3.--I corrected proofs and wrote this morning,--but slowly, heavily, lazily. There was a mist on my mind which my exertions could not dispel. I did not get two pages finished, but I corrected proofs and commentated.

_February_ 4.--Wrote a little and was obliged to correct the Moliere affair for R.P.G. I think his plan cannot go on much longer with so much weakness at the helm. A clever fellow would make it take the field with a vengeance, but poor G. will run in debt with the booksellers and let all go to the devil. I sent a long letter to Lockhart, received from Horace Smith, very gentlemanlike and well-written, complaining that Mr.

Leigh Hunt had mixed him up, in his Life of Byron, with Sh.e.l.ley as if he had shared his irreligious opinions. Leigh Hunt afterwards at the request of Smith published a swaggering contradiction of the inference to be derived from the way in which he has named them together. Horatio Smith seems not to have relied upon his disclamation, as he has requested me to mention the thing to John Lockhart, and to some one influential about Ebony, which I have done accordingly.

_February_ 5.--Concluded the first volume before breakfast. I am but indifferently pleased; either the kind of thing is worn out, or I am worn out myself, or, lastly, I am stupid for the time. The book must be finished, however. Cadell is greatly pleased with annotations intended for the new edition of the Waverley series. I believe that work must be soon sent to press, which would put a powerful wheel in motion to clear the ship. I went to the Parliament House, and in return strolled into Cadell's, being rather anxious to prolong my walk, for I fear the constant sitting for so many hours. When I returned, the Duke of Buccleuch came in. He is looking very well, and stout, but melancholy about his sister, Lady Charlotte Stopford. He is fitting up a part of Bowhill and intends to shoot there this year. G.o.d send him life and health, for it is of immense consequence.

_February_ 6.--This and visits wasted my time till past two, and then I slept half-an-hour from mere exhaustion. Went in the evening to the play, and saw that good old thing, an English tragedy, well got up. It was _Venice Preserved_. Mrs. H. Siddons played Belvidera with much truth, feeling, and tenderness, though short of her mother-in-law's uncommon majesty, which is a thing never to be forgotten. Mr. Young played Pierre very well, and a good Jaffier was supplied by a Mr.

Vandenhoff. And so the day glided by; only three pages written, which, however, is a fair task.

_February_ 7.--It was a Teind day, so no Court, but very little work. I wrote this morning till the boy made his appearance for proofs; then I had letters to write. Item, at five o'clock I set out with Charles for Dalkeith to present him to the young Duke.

I asked the Duke about poor Hogg. I think he has decided to take Mr.

Riddell's opinion; it is unlucky the poor fellow has ever taken that large and dear farm.[127] Altogether Dalkeith was melancholy to-night, and I could not raise my spirits at all.

_February_ 8.--I had a little work before dinner, but we are only seven pages into volume second. It is always a beginning, however; perhaps not a good one--I cannot tell. I went out to call on Gala and Jack Rutherfurd of Edgerstoun; saw the former, not the latter. Gala is getting much better. He talked as if the increase of his village was like to drive him over the hill to the Abbotsford side, which would greatly beautify that side and certainly change his residence for the better, only that he must remain some time without any appearance of plantation. The view would be enchanting.

I was tempted to buy a picture of Nell Gywnne,[128] which I think has merit; at least it pleases me. Seven or eight years ago Graham of Gartmore bid for it against me, and I gave it up at twenty-five guineas.

I have now bought it for 18, 18s. Perhaps there was folly in this, but I reckoned it a token of good luck that I should succeed in a wish I had formerly harboured in vain. I love marks of good luck even in trifles.

_February_ 9.--Sent off three leaves of copy; this is using the press like the famished sailor who was fed by a comrade with sh.e.l.l-fish by one at a time. But better anything than stop, for the devil is to get set a-going again. I know no more than my old boots whether I am right or wrong, but have no very favourable antic.i.p.ations.

As I came home from the Court about twelve I stepped into the Exhibition. It makes a very good show; the portraits are better than last year, those of Colvin Smith and Watson Gordon especially improve.

Landseer's Study at Abbotsford is in a capital light, and generally admired. I particularly distinguished John Thomson's picture of Turnberry, which is of first-rate excellence. A picture by Scrope was also generally distinguished. It is a view in Calabria.

There is a rival Exhibition which does not hurt the earlier foundation, but rather excites emulation. I am told there are good paintings there.

I came home with little good-will to work, but I will compel myself to do something. Unluckily, I have again to go out to dinner to-day, being President of the Bannatyne.

The dinner was a pleasant one; about thirty members attended. I kept the chair till near eleven, and the company were very joyous.

_February_ 10.--I set myself doggedly to work, and turned off six leaves before dinner. Had to dinner Sir John Pringle, my dear Gala and his lady, and young Mackenzie and Miss Jardine. I was quite pleased to see Gala so well recovered of the consequences of his frightful fall, which hung about him so long. He is one of the kindest and best-informed men whom I know.

_February_ 11.--I had Charles Young[129] to breakfast with us, who gave us some striking anecdotes of Talma during the Reign of Terror, which may figure in _Napoleon_ to great advantage.

My son Charles left us this morning to take possession of his situation in the Foreign Office. He has been very lucky. Correcting sheets, etc., took up the morning hours. I wrote three leaves before two o'clock. Day bitter cold--with snow, a strong contrast to the mild weather we had last week.

Salutation of two old Scottish lairds:--"Ye're maist obedient hummil servant, Tannachy Tulloh."--"Your nain man, Kilspindie."

Finished six pages, twenty-five pages of print that is, or about the thirteenth part of a volume. That would be a volume in a fortnight, with a holiday to boot. It would be possible enough for a little while.

_February_ 12.--I wrought hard this morning. Ballantyne blames the Ossianic monotony of my princ.i.p.al characters. Now they are not Ossianic.

The language of the Ossianic poetry is highly figurative; that of the knights of chivalry may be monotonous, and probably is, but it cannot be Ossianic. Sooth to say, this species of romance of chivalry is an exhaustible subject. It affords materials for splendid description for once or twice, but they are too unnatural and formal to bear repet.i.tion.

We must go on with our present work, however, _valeat quantum_. Mr.

Cadell, less critical than J.B., seems pleased. The world will soon decide if I get on at this rate; for I have finished four leaves to-day, notwithstanding my attendance on the Court.

_February_ 13.--Mr. Macintosh Mackay, minister of Laggan, breakfasted with us this morning. This reverend gentleman is completing the Highland Dictionary,[130] and seems very competent for the task. He left in my hands some papers of Cluny Macpherson, concerning the affair of 1745, from which I have extracted an account of the battle of Clifton for _Waverley_. He has few prejudices (for a Highlander), and is a mild, well-mannered young man. We had much talk on Highland matters.

The Children's Tales continue in demand. Cadell expects a new edition of 10,000 about next year, which may be 750 or 800 in pouch, besides const.i.tuting a fine property.

_February_ 14.--Mr. Edwards, a candidate for the situation of Rector in the Edinburgh Academy, a pleasant, gentlemanlike man, and recommended highly for experience and learning; but he is himself afraid of wanting bodily strength for the work, which requires all the nerve and muscle of Williams. I wish he had been three inches taller, and stout in proportion. I went to Mr. John Russell's, where there was an Academical party at dinner. Home at nine, a cigar, and to bed.

_February_ 15.--Rose this morning about seven and wrote at the desk till breakfast; finished about a page and a half. I was f.a.gged at Court till near two. Then called on Cadell, and so home, tired enough.

_February_ 16.--There dined with me to-day Tom Thomson, Will Clerk, Mr.

Edwards, and my Celtic friend Mr. Mackay of Laggan.

_February_ 17.--A day of hard work, being I think eight pages[131]

before dinner. I cannot, I am sure, tell if it is worth marking down, that yesterday at dinner-time I was strangely haunted by what I would call the sense of pre-existence,--videlicet, a confused idea that nothing that pa.s.sed was said for the first time, that the same topics had been discussed, and the same persons had stated the same opinions on the same subjects. It is true there might have been some ground for recollections, considering that three at least of the company were old friends, and kept much company together: that is, Justice-Clerk,[132]

[Lord] Abercromby, and I. But the sensation was so strong as to resemble what is called a _mirage_ in the desert, or a calenture on board ship, when lakes are seen in the desert, and silvan landscapes in the sea. It was very distressing yesterday, and brought to my mind the fancies of Bishop Berkeley about an ideal world. There was a vile sense of want of reality in all I did and said. It made me gloomy and out of spirits, though I flatter myself it was not observed. The bodily feeling which most resembles this unpleasing hallucination is the giddy state which follows profuse bleeding, when one feels as if walking on feather-beds and could not find a secure footing. I think the stomach has something to do with it. I drank several gla.s.ses of wine, but these only augmented the disorder. I did not find the _in vino veritas_ of the philosophers.

Something of this insane feeling remains to-day, but a trifle only.

_February_ 18.--I had other work to do this day. In the morning corrected proofs. After breakfast, made a visit or two, and met Sandie Buchanan, whom it joys me to see. Then despatched all my sheriff processes, save one, which hitches for want of some papers. Lastly, here I am, before dinner, with my journal. I sent all the county money to Andrew Lang. Wrote to Mr. Reynolds too; methinks I will let them have the Tales which Jem Ballantyne and Cadell quarrelled with.[133] I have asked 500 for them--pretty well that. I suppose they will be fools enough to give it me. In troth she'll no pe cheaper.

_February_ 19.--A day of hard and continued work, the result being eight pages. But then I hardly ever quitted the table save at meal-time. So eight pages of my ma.n.u.script may be accounted the maximum of my literary labour. It is equal to forty printed pages of the novels. I had the whole of this day at my own disposal, by the voluntary kindness of Sir Robert Dundas interfering to take up my duty at the Court. The proofs of my Sermons are arrived, but I have had no time, saving to blot out some flummery, which poor Gordon had put into the preface.[134]

_February_ 20.--Another day of labour; but not so hard. I worked from eight till three with little intermission, but only accomplished four pages. Then I went out and made a visit or two, and looked in on Cadell.

If I get two pages in the evening I will be satisfied, for volume II.

may be concluded with the week, or run over to Sunday at most. Will it tell, this work? I doubt it, but there is no standing still.

A certain Mr. Mackay from Ireland called on me, an active agent, it would seem, about the reform of prisons. He exclaims, justly I have no doubt, about the state of our Lock-up House. For myself, I have some distrust of the fanaticism--even of philanthropy. A good part of it arises in general from mere vanity and love of distinction, gilded over to others and to themselves with some show of benevolent sentiment. The philanthropy of Howard, mingled with his ill-usage of his son, seems to have risen to a pitch of insanity. Yet without such extraordinary men, who call attention to the subject by their own peculiarities, prisons would have remained the same dungeons which they were forty or fifty years ago. I do not see the propriety of making them dandy places of detention. They should be a place of punishment, and that can hardly be if men are lodged better, and fed better, than when they are at large.

The separation of ranks is an excellent distinction, and is nominally provided for in all modern prisons. But the size of most of them is inadequate to the great increase of crime, and so the pack is shuffled together again for want of room to keep them separate. There are several prisons constructed on excellent principles, the economy of which becomes deranged so soon as the death takes place of some keen philanthropist who had the business of a whole committee, which, having lost him, remained like a carca.s.s without a head. But I have never seen a plan for keeping in order these resorts of guilt and misery, without presupposing a superintendence of a kind which might perhaps be exercised, could we turn out upon the watch a guard of angels. But, alas! jailors and turnkeys are rather like angels of a different livery, nor do I see how it is possible to render them otherwise.

Superintendence is all you can trust to, and superintendence, save in some rare cases, is hard to come by, where it is to be vigilantly and constantly exercised. _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ As to reformation, I have no great belief in it, when the ordinary cla.s.s of culprits, who are vicious from ignorance or habit, are the subjects of the experiment. "A shave from a broken loaf" is thought as little of by the male set of delinquents as by the fair frail. The state of society now leads so much to great acc.u.mulations of humanity, that we cannot wonder if it ferment and reek like a compost dunghill. Nature intended that population should be diffused over the soil in proportion to its extent. We have acc.u.mulated in huge cities and smothering manufactories the numbers which should be spread over the face of a country; and what wonder that they should be corrupted? We have turned healthful and pleasant brooks into mora.s.ses and pestiferous lakes,--what wonder the soil should be unhealthy? A great deal, I think, might be done by executing the punishment of _death_, without a chance of escape, in all cases to which it should be found properly applicable; of course these occasions being diminished to one out of twenty to which capital punishment is now a.s.signed. Our ancestors brought the country to order by kilting[135] thieves and banditti with strings. So did the French when at Naples, and bandits became for the time unheard of. When once the evil habit is altered--when men are taught a crime of a certain character is connected inseparably with death, the moral habits of a population become altered, and you may in the next age remit the punishment which in this it has been necessary to inflict with stern severity. I think whoever pretends to reform a corrupted nation, or a disorderly regiment, or an ill-ordered ship of war, must begin by severity, and only resort to gentleness when he has acquired the complete mastery by terror--the terror being always attached to the law; and, the impression once made, he can afford to govern with mildness, and lay the iron rule aside.

Mr. Mackay talked big of the excellent state of prisons in Ireland.

_J'en doute un peu._ That the warm-hearted and generous Irish would hurry eagerly into any scheme which had benevolence for its motive, I readily believe; but that Pat should have been able to maintain that calm, all-seeing, all-enduring species of superintendence necessary to direct the working of the best plan of prison discipline, I greatly hesitate to believe.

Well, leaving all this, I wish Mr. Mackay good luck, with some little doubt of his success, but none of his intentions. I am come in my work to that point where a lady who works a stocking must count by threads, and bring the various loose ends of my story together. They are too many.

_February_ 21.--Last night after dinner I rested from my work, and read third part of [Theodore Hook's] _Sayings and Doings_, which shows great knowledge of life in a certain sphere, and very considerable powers of wit, which somewhat damages the effect of the tragic parts. But he is an able writer, and so much of his work is well said, that it will carry through what is _manque_. I hope the same good fortune for other folks.

I am watching and waiting till I hit on some quaint and clever mode of extricating, but do not see a glimpse of any one. James B., too, discourages me a good deal by his silence, waiting, I suppose, to be invited to disgorge a full allowance of his critical bile. But he may wait long enough, for I am discouraged enough. Now here is the advantage of Edinburgh. In the country, if a sense of inability once seizes me, it haunts me from morning to night; but in Edinburgh the time is so occupied and frittered away by official duties and chance occupation, that you have not time to play Master Stephen and be gentlemanlike and melancholy.[136] On the other hand, you never feel in town those spirit-stirring influences--those glances of sunshine that make amends for clouds and mist. The country is said to be quieter life; not to me, I am sure. In the town the business I have to do hardly costs me more thought than just occupies my mind, and I have as much of gossip and ladylike chat as consumes the time pleasantly enough. In the country I am thrown entirely on my own resources, and there is no medium betwixt happiness and the reverse.

_February_ 22.--Went to Court, and remained there until one o'clock.

Then to Mr. Colvin Smith's and sat to be stared at till three o'clock.

This is a great bore even when you have a companion, sad when you are alone and can only disturb the painter by your chatter. After dinner I had proofs to the number of four. J.B. is outrageous about the death of Oliver Proudfoot, one of the characters; but I have a humour to be cruel.

"His business 'tis to die."

Received a present from a Mr. Dobie of a candlestick said to be that of the Rev. Mr. Guthrie, minister of Fenwick in the seventeenth century,--very civil of a gentleman unknown, if there comes no request to look over poems, or to get made a gauger, or the like, for I have seen that kind of compliment made on the principle on which small balloons are sent up before a large one, to see how the wind sits. After dinner proof-sheets.