The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Part 83

_June_ 13.--The same may be said of this day.

_June_ 14.--And of this, only I went out for an hour and a half to Mr.

Colvin Smith, to conclude a picture for Lord Gillies. This is a sad relief from labour.

"... Sedet aeternumque sedebit Infelix Theseus."[371]

But Lord Gillies has been so kind and civil that I must have his picture as like as possible.

_June_ 15.--I had at breakfast the son of Mr. Fellenburg[372] of Hofwyll, Switzerland, a modest young man. I used to think his father something of a quack, in proposing to discover how a boy's natural genius lies, with a view to his education. How would they have made me a scholar, is a curious question. Whatever was forced on me as a task I should have detested. There was also a gentlemanlike little man, the Chevalier de----, silent, and speaks no English. Poor George Scott, Harden, is dead of the typhus fever. Poor dear boy! I am sorry for him, and yet more for his parents. I have a letter from Henry on the subject.

_June_ 16.--I wrote this forenoon till I completed the 100 pages, which is well done. I had a call from Colin Mackenzie, whom I had not seen for nearly two years. He has not been so well, and looks ghastly, but I think not worse than I have seen him of late years. We are very old acquaintances. I remember he was one of a small party at college, that formed ourselves into a club called the Poetical Society. The other members were Charles Kerr of Abbotrule (a singular being), Colin M'Laurin (insane), Colin, and I, who have luckily kept our wits. I also saw this morning a Mr. Low, a youth of great learning, who has written a good deal on the early history of Scotland.[373] He is a good-looking, frank, gentlemanlike lad; with these good gifts only a parish schoolmaster in Aberdeenshire. Having won a fair holiday I go to see Miss Kemble for the first time. It is two or three years since I have been in a theatre, once my delight.

_June_ 17.--Went last night to theatre, and saw Miss f.a.n.n.y Kemble's Isabella,[374] which was a most creditable performance. It has much of the genius of Mrs. Siddons, her aunt. She wants her beautiful countenance, her fine form, and her matchless dignity of step and manner. On the other hand, Miss f.a.n.n.y Kemble has very expressive, though not regular, features, and what is worth it all, great energy mingled with and chastened by correct taste. I suffered by the heat, lights, and exertion, and will not go back to-night, for it has purchased me a sore headache this theatrical excursion. Besides, the play is Mrs.

Beverley,[375] and I hate to be made miserable about domestic distress, so I keep my gracious presence at home to-night, though Ive and respect Miss Kemble for giving her active support to her father in his need, and preventing Covent Garden from coming down about their ears. I corrected proofs before breakfast, attended Court, but was idle in the forenoon, the headache annoying me much. Dinner will make me better. And so it did. I wrote in the evening three pages, and tolerably well, though I may say with the Emperor t.i.tus (not t.i.tus Oates) that I have lost a day.

_June_ 18, _[Blair-Adam]_.--Young John Colquhoun of Killermont and his wife breakfasted with us,--a neat custom that, and saves wine and wa.s.sail. Then to Court, and arranged for our departure for Blair-Adam, it being near midsummer when the club meets. Anne with me, and Sir Adam Ferguson. The day was execrable. Our meeting at Blair-Adam was cordial, but our numbers diminished; the good and very clever Lord Chief Baron[376] is returned to his own country, with more regrets than in Scotland usually attend a stranger. Will Clerk has a bad cold, [Thomas]

Thomson is detained, but the Chief Commissioner, Admiral Adam, Sir Adam, John Thomson and I, make an excellent concert. I only hope our venerable host will not fatigue himself. To-morrow we go to Culross, which Sir Robert Preston is repairing, and the wise are asking for whose future enjoyment. He is upwards of ninety, but still may enjoy the bustle of life.

_June_ 19.--Arose and expected to work a little, but a friend's house is not favourable; you are sure to want the book you have not brought, and are in short out of sorts, like the minister who could not preach out of his own pulpit. There is something fanciful in this, and something real too, and I have forgot my watch and left half my gla.s.ses at home.

Off we set at half-past eight o'clock, Lord Chief Commissioner being left at home owing to a cold. We breakfasted at Luscar, a place belonging to Adam Rolland, but the gout had arrested him at Edinburgh, so we were hospitably received by his family. The weather most unpropitious, very cold and rainy. After breakfast to Culross, where the veteran, Sir Robert Preston,[377] showed us his curiosities. Life has done as much for him as most people. In his ninety-second year he has an ample fortune, a sound understanding, not the least decay of eyes, ears, or taste; is as big as two men, and eats like three. Yet he too experiences the _singula praedantur anni_, and has lost something since I last saw him. If his appearance renders old age tolerable, it does not make it desirable. But I fear when death comes we shall be unwilling for all that to part with our bundle of sticks. Sir Robert amuses himself with repairing the old House of Culross, built by the Lord Bruce of Kinloss. To what use it is destined is not very evident to me. It is too near his own comfortable mansion of Valleyfield to be useful as a residence, if indeed it could be formed into a comfortable modern house.

But it is rather like a banqueting house. Well, he follows his own fancy. We had a sumptuous cold dinner. Adam grieves it was not hot, so little can war and want break a man to circ.u.mstances. We returned to Blair-Adam in the evening, through "the wind but and the rain." For June weather it is the most ungenial I have seen. The beauty of Culross consists in magnificent terraces rising on the sea-beach, and commanding the opposite sh.o.r.e of Lothian; the house is repairing in the style of James the Sixth. The windows have pediments like Heriot's Work.[378]

There are some fine relics of the old Monastery, with large Saxon arches. At Luscar I saw with pleasure the painting by Raeburn, of my old friend Adam Rolland, Esq.,[379] who was in the external circ.u.mstances, but not in frolic or fancy, my prototype for Paul Pleydell.[380]

_June_ 20.--We settled this morning to go to church at Loch.o.r.e, that is, at Ballingray; but when we came to the earthly paradise so called, we were let off for there was no sermon, for which I could not in my heart be sorry. So, after looking at Loch.o.r.e, back we came to lounge and loiter about till dinner-time. The rest of the day was good company, good cheer, and good conversation. Yet to be idle here is not the thing, and to be busy is impossible, so I wish myself home again in spite of good entertainment. We leave to-night after an early dinner, and I will get to work again.

_June_ 21, [_Edinburgh_].--Wrote to Walter a long letter. The day continued dropping occasionally, but Sir Adam was in high fooling, and we had an amazing deal of laughing. We stole a look at the Kiery Craigs between showers. In the meantime George Cheape and his son came in. We dined at half-past three, but it was seven ere we set off, and did not reach the house in Shandwick Place till eleven at night. Thus ended our Club for the year 1830, its thirteenth anniversary. Its numbers were diminished by absence and indisposition, but its spirit was unabated.

_June_ 22.--Finished proofs and some copy in the morning. Returned at noon, and might have laboured a good day's work, but was dull, drowsy, and indolent, and could not, at least did not, write above half a page.

It was a day lost, and indeed it is always with me the consequence of mental indolence for a day or two, so I had a succession of eating and dozing, which I am ashamed of, for there was nothing to hinder me but "thick-coming fancies." Pshaw, rabbit un!

_June_ 23.--Worked well this morning, and then to Court. At two called on Mr. Gibson, and find him disposed for an instalment. Cadell has 10,000, and Gibson thinks 12,000 will pay 2s. 6d. I wish it could be made three shillings, which would be 15,000.

Presided at a meeting of the Bannatyne Club. The Whigs made a strong party to admit Kennedy of Dunure, which set aside Lord Medwyn, who had been longer on the roll of candidates. If politics get into this Club it will ruin the literary purpose of the meeting, and the general good-humour with which it has gone on. I think it better to take the thing good-humouredly, and several of them volunteered to say that Medwyn must be the next, which will finish all _a l'aimable_. If it come to party-work I will cut and run. Confound it! my eyes are closing now, even _now_, at half-past four.

Dined with Lord Medwyn, a pleasant party. The guest of importance, Mrs.

Peter Latouche from Dublin, a fine old dame, who must have been beautiful when young, being pleasant and comely at seventy,--saintly it appears.

_June_ 24.--Hard work with Ballantyne's proofs and revises, but got them accomplished. I am at the twelfth hour, but I think I shall finish this silly book before the tenth of July.

Notwithstanding this sage resolution I did not write half a page of the said _Demonology_ this day. I went to the Court, called on Mr. Cadell, returned dog-tired, and trifled my time with reading the trial of Corder. What seemed most singular was his love to talk of the young woman he had murdered, in such a manner as to insinuate the circ.u.mstances of his own crime, which is a kind of necessity which seems to haunt conscience-struck men. Charles Sharpe came in at night and supped with us.

_June_ 25.--Slept little later than I should. The proofs occupied the morning. The Court and walk home detained me till two. When I returned, set to work and reached page 210 of copy. There is little or nothing else to say. Skene was with me for a few minutes. I called at Cadell's also, who thinks a dividend of 3s. per pound will be made out.[381] This will be one-half of the whole debts, and leave a sinking fund for the rest about 10,000 a year "if the beast live and the branks bide hale."[382]

_June_ 26.--Miss Kemble and her father breakfasted here, with Sir Adam and Lady Ferguson. I like the young lady very much, respecting both her talents and the use she has made of them. She seems merry, unaffected, and good-humoured. She said she did not like the apathy of the Scottish audiences, who are certain not to give applause upon credit. I went to the Court, but soon returned; a bad cold in my head makes me cough and sneeze like the Dragon of Wantley. The Advocates' Bill[383] is read a third time. I hardly know whether to wish it pa.s.sed or no, and am therefore _in utrumque paratus_.

_June_ 27.--In the morning worked as usual at proofs and copy of my infernal _Demonology_--a task to which my poverty and not my will consents. About twelve o'clock I went to the country to take a day's relaxation. We (i.e. Mr. Cadell, James Ballantyne, and I) went to Prestonpans, and, getting there about one, surveyed the little village, where my aunt and I were lodgers for the sake of sea-bathing in 1778, I believe. I knew the house of Mr. Warroch, where we lived,--a poor cottage, of which the owners and their family are extinct. I recollected my juvenile ideas of dignity attendant on the large gate, a black arch which lets out upon the sea. I saw the church where I yawned under the inflictions of a Dr. M'Cormick, a name in which dulness seems to have been hereditary. I saw the Links where I arranged my sh.e.l.ls upon the turf, and swam my little skiffs in the pools. Many comparisons between the man, and the recollections of my kind aunt, of old George Constable, who, I think, dangled after her; of Dalgetty, a veteran half-pay lieutenant, who swaggered his solitary walk on the parade, as he called a little open s.p.a.ce before the same pool. We went to Preston, and took refuge from a thunder-plump in the old tower. I remembered the little garden where I was crammed with gooseberries, and the fear I had of Blind Harry's spectre of Fawdon showing his headless trunk at one of the windows. I remembered also a very good-natured pretty girl (my Mary Duff), whom I laughed and romped with and loved as children love. She was a Miss Dalrymple, daughter of Lord Westhall,[384] a Lord of Session; was afterwards married to Anderson of Winterfield, and her daughter is now [the spouse] of my colleague Robert Hamilton. So strangely are our cards shuffled. I was a mere child, and could feel none of the pa.s.sion which Byron alleges, yet the recollection of this good-humoured companion of my childhood is like that of a morning dream, nor should I now greatly like to dispel it by seeing the original, who must now be sufficiently time-honoured.

Well, we walked over the field of battle, saw the Prince's Park, Cope's Loan, marked by slaughter in his disastrous retreat, the thorn-tree which marks the centre of the battle, and all besides that was to be seen or supposed. We saw two broadswords, found on the field of battle, one a Highlander's, an Andrew Ferrara, another the dragoon's sword of that day. Lastly, we came to c.o.c.kenzie, where Mr. Francis Cadell, my publisher's brother, gave us a kind reception. I was especially glad to see the mother of the family, a fine old lady, who was civil to my aunt and me, and, I recollect well, used to have us to tea at c.o.c.kenzie.

Curious that I should long afterwards have an opportunity to pay back this attention to her son Robert. Once more, what a kind of shuffling of the hand dealt us at our nativity. There was Mrs. F. Cadell, and one or two young ladies, and some fine fat children. I should be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d to the time[385] did I not tell our fare. We had a _tiled_ whiting,[386] a dish unknown elsewhere, so there is a bone for the gastronomers to pick.

Honest John Wood,[387] my old friend, dined with us. I only regret I cannot understand him, as he has a very powerful memory, and much curious information. The whole day of pleasure was damped by the news of the King's death; it was fully expected, however, as the termination of his long illness. But he was very good to me personally, and a kind sovereign. The common people and gentry join in their sorrow. Much is owing to a kindly recollection of his visit to this country, which gave all men an interest in him.

_June_ 29.--The business of the Court was suspended, so back I came, without stop or stay, and to work went I. As I had risen early I was sadly drowsy; however, I fought and f.a.gged away the day. I am still in hope to send my whole ma.n.u.script to Ballantyne before the 10th July.

Well, I must devise something to myself; I must do something better than this Demonological trash. It is nine o'clock, and I am weary, yea, my very spirit's tired.[388] After ten o'clock Mr. Daveis,[389] an American barrister of eminence, deputed to represent the American States in a dispute concerning the boundaries of Nova Scotia and New England, with an introduction to me from Mr. Ticknor, called. I was unable to see him, and put him off till to-morrow morning at breakfast.

_June_ 30.--The new King was proclaimed, and the College of Justice took the oaths. I a.s.sisted Mr. Daveis, who is a pleasant and well-informed man, to see the ceremony, which, probably, he would hardly witness in his own country. A day of noise and bustle. We dined at Mr. and Mrs.

Strange, _chere exquise_ I suppose. Many friends of the Arniston family.

I thought there was some belief of Lord Melville losing his place. That he may exchange it for another is very likely, but I think the Duke will not desert him who adhered to him so truly.

FOOTNOTES:

[365] Mr. John d.i.c.kinson of Nash Mill, Herts, the eminent papermaker.--J.G.L. _Ante_, p. 31.

[366] Burns's _Tam o' Shanter_.

[367] See Johnson's _Musical Museum_ Ill.u.s.trations, Pt. v. No. 454.

[368] _Henry V._ Act II. Sc. 1.

[369] Daughter of his old friend, Mrs. Maclean Clephane of Torloisk.

[370] "Little Walter," Thomas Scott's son, who went to India in 1826, _ante_, vol. i. p. 103. He became a General in the Indian Army, and died in 1873.

[371] _aeneid_ VI. 617.

[372] Emanuel de Fellenburg, who died in 1844.

[373] "The History of Scotland from the Earliest Period to the Middle of the Ninth Century," by the Rev. Alex. Low. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1826.--See _Misc. Prose Works_, vol. xx. pp. 374-6.

[374] Southerne's _Fatal Marriage_.

[375] In the _Gamester_ by Moore.

[376] Sir Samuel Shepherd.--See _ante_, vol. i. p. 51 _n_.

[377] Sir Robert Preston, Bart., died in May 1834, aged ninety-five.--- J.G.L.

[378] Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh.

[379] See _ante_, p. 279 note, and for sketch of Adam Rolland of Gask, c.o.c.kburn's _Memorials_, pp. 360-3.

[380] The "frolic and fancy" of Councillor Pleydell were commonly supposed to have been found in Andrew Crosbie, Advocate, but as Crosbie died when Scott was only fourteen, and had retired from the bar for some years, the latter could scarcely have known him personally. See p. 281 _n_.

[381] A second dividend of 3s. was declared on December 17, 1830.

[382] An old Galloway proverb. _Branks_, "a sort of bridle used by country people in riding."--_Jamieson_. Burns in a Scotch letter to Nicol of June 1, 1787, says, "I'll be in Dumfries the morn gif the beast be to the fore and the branks bide hale."--Cromek's _Reliques_, p. 29.

[383] Relating to the changes in the Court of Session.