The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Part 24

[295] John Hay Forbes (Lord Medwyn from 1825 to 1852), second son of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo. Lord Medwyn died at the age of seventy-eight in 1854.

[296] _The Highland Widow_.

[297] A favourite exclamation of Sir Walter's, which he had picked up on his Irish tour, signifying "don't mind it"--_Na-bac-leis_. Compare Sir Boyle Roche's dream that his head was cut off and placed upon a table: "'_Quis separabit?_' says the head; '_Naboclish_,' says I, in the same language."

[298] That Mr. Kinloch was not singular in his opinion has been shown by the remarks made in the House of Commons (see _ante_, March 17). Lord c.o.c.kburn in his _Trials for Sedition_ says, "With Botany Bay before him, and money to make himself comfortable in Paris, George Kinloch would have been an idiot if he had stayed." Mr. Kinloch had just returned to Scotland.

[299] His neighbour, John Archibald Murray, then living at 122 George Street.--See p. 133.

[300] See Moliere's _l'ecole des Femmes_.

[301] In 1827 Scott was one day heard saying, as he saw Peter guiding the plough on the haugh:--"Egad, auld Pepe's whistling at his darg: if things get round with me, easy will be his cus.h.i.+on!" Old Peter lived until he was eighty-four. He died at Abbotsford in 1854, where he had been well cared for, respected, and beloved by all the members of the family since Sir Walter's death.

[302] Sheridan's _Rivals_, Act II. Sc. 1.

[303] The murder of Weare by Thurtell and Co., at Gill's-Hill in Hertfords.h.i.+re (1824). Sir Walter collected printed trials with great a.s.siduity, and took care always to have the contemporary ballads and prints bound up with them. He admired particularly this verse of Mr.

Hook's broadside--

"They cut his throat from ear to ear, His brains they battered in; His name was Mr. William Weare, He dwelt in Lyon's Inn."

--J.G.L.

[304] Dr. John Jamieson, formerly minister to a Secession congregation in Forfar, removed to a like charge in Edinburgh in 1795, where he officiated for forty-three years; he died in his house in 4 George Square in 1838, aged seventy-nine.

[305] This novel was pa.s.sing through the press in 8vo, 12mo, and 18mo, to complete collective editions in these sizes.--J.G.I.

[306] Afterwards Sir David Brewster. He died at Allerley House on the Tweed, aged eighty-seven, on February 10, 1868.

AUGUST.

_August_ 1.--Yesterday evening did nothing for the _idlesse_ of the morning. I was hungry; eat and drank and became drowsy; then I took to arranging the old plays, of which Terry had brought me about a dozen, and dipping into them scrambled through two. One, called _Michaelmas Term_,[307] full of traits of manners; and another a sort of bouncing tragedy, called the _Hector of Germany, or the Palsgrave_.[308] The last, worthless in the extreme, is, like many of the plays in the beginning of the seventeenth century, written to a good tune. The dramatic poets of that time seem to have possessed as joint-stock a highly poetical and abstract tone of language, so that the worst of them often remind you of the very best. The audience must have had a much stronger sense of poetry in those days than now, since language was received and applauded at the Fortune or at the Red Bull,[309] which could not now be understood by any general audience in Great Britain.

This leads far.

This morning I wrote two hours, then out with Tom Purdie, and gave directions about thinning all the plantations above Abbotsford properly so called. Came in at one o'clock and now set to work. _Debout, debout, Lyciscas, debout._[310] Finished four leaves.

_August_ 2.--Well; and to-day I finished before dinner five leaves more, and I would crow a little about it, but here comes Duty like an old housekeeper to an idle chambermaid. Hear her very words:--

DUTY.--Oh! you crow, do you? Pray, can you deny that your sitting so quiet at work was owing to its raining heavily all the forenoon, and indeed till dinner-time, so that nothing would have stirred out that could help it, save a duck or a goose? I trow, if it had been a fine day, by noon there would have been aching of the head, throbbing, shaking, and so forth, to make an apology for going out.

EGOMET IPSE.--And whose head ever throbbed to go out when it rained, Mrs. Duty?

DUTY.--_Answer not to me with a fool-born jest_, as your poor friend Erskine used to say to you when you escaped from his good advice under the fire of some silly pun. You smoke a cigar after dinner, and I never check you--drink tea, too, which is loss of time; and then, instead of writing me one other page, or correcting those you have written out, you rollick into the woods till you have not a dry thread about you; and here you sit writing down my words in your foolish journal instead of minding my advice.

EGO.--Why, Mrs. Duty, I would as gladly be friends with [you] as Crabbe's[311] tradesman fellow with his conscience; but you should have some consideration with human frailty.

DUTY.--Reckon not on that. But, however, good-night for the present. I would only recommend to you to think no thoughts in which I am not mingled--to read no books in which I have no concern--to write three sheets of botheration all the six days of the week _per diem_, and on the seventh to send them to the printer. Thus advising, I heartily bid you farewell.

EGO.--Farewell, madam (exit Duty) and be d--d to ye for an unreasonable b.i.t.c.h! "The devil must be in this greedy gled!" as the Earl of Angus said to his hawk; "will she never be satisfied?"[312] I believe in my soul she is the very hag who haunted the merchant Abudah.[313]

I'll have my great chest upstairs exorcised, but first I'll take a nap till supper, which must take place within ten minutes.

_August_ 3.--Wrote half a task in the morning. From eleven till half-past eight in Selkirk taking precognitions about a _row_, and came home famished and tired. Now, Mrs. Duty, do you think there is no other Duty of the family but yourself? Or can the Sheriff-depute neglect his Duty, that the author may mind _his_? The thing cannot be; the people of Selkirk must have justice as well as the people of England books. So the two Duties may go pull caps about it. My conscience is clear.

_August_ 4.--Wrote to Miss Edgeworth on her sister's marriage, which consumed the better part of the morning. I must read for Marengo.

_Item_, I must look at the pruning. _Item_, at the otter hunt; but my hope is constant to make up a good day's task notwithstanding. Failed in finding the otter, and was tired and slept, and did but a poor day's work.

_August_ 6.--Wrote to-day a very good day's work. Walked to Chiefswood, and saw old Mrs. Tytler,[314] a friend when life was young. Her husband, Lord Woodhouselee, was a kind, amiable, and accomplished man; and when we lived at La.s.swade Cottage, soon after my marriage, we saw a great deal of the family, who were very kind to us as newly entered on the world.[315] Walked home, and worked in the evening; four leaves finished.

_August_ 7.--My niece Anne leaves us this morning, summoned back from one scene of distress to another. Her uncle, David Macculloch, is extremely ill--a paralytic stroke, I fancy. She is a charming girl, lady-like in thought and action, and very pleasant in society. We are to dine to-day with our neighbours at Gattonside. Meantime I will avail myself of my disposition to labour, and work instead of journalising.

Mr. H. Cranstoun[316] looked in a morning call. He is become extremely deaf. He gave me a letter from the Countess Purgstall, his sister, which I have not the heart to open, so many reproaches I have deserved for not writing. It is a sad thing, though, to task eyes as hard wrought as mine to keep up correspondence. Dined at Gattonside.[317]

_August_ 8.--Wrote my task this morning, and now for walk. Dine to-day at Chiefswood; have company to-morrow. Why, this is dissipation! But no matter, Mrs. Duty, if the task is done. "Ay, but," says she, "you ought to do something extra--provide against a rainy day." Not I, I'll make a rainy day provide against a fair one, Mrs. Duty. I write twice as much in bad weather. Seriously, I write fully as much as I ought. I do not like this dull aching in the chest and the back, and its giving way to exercise shows that it originates in remaining too long in a sitting posture. So I'll take the field, while the day is good.

_August_ 9.--I wrote only two leaves to-day, but with as many additions as might rank for three. I had a long and warm walk. Mrs. Tytler of Woodhouselee, the Hamiltons, and Colonel Ferguson dined here. How many early stories did the old lady's presence recall! She might almost be my mother, yet there we sat, like two people of another generation, talking of things and people the rest knew nothing of. When a certain period of life is survived, the difference of years between the survivors, even when considerable, becomes of much less consequence.

_August_ 10.--Rose early, and wrote hard till two, when I went with Anne to Minto. The place, being new to my companion, gave her much amus.e.m.e.nt.

We found the Scotts of Harden, etc., and had a very pleasant party. I like Lady M. particularly, but missed my facetious and lively friend, Lady A[nna] M[aria].[318] It is the fas.h.i.+on for women and silly men to abuse her as a blue-stocking. If to have wit, good sense, and good-humour, mixed with a strong power of observing, and an equally strong one of expressing the result, be _blue_, she shall be as blue as they will. Such cant is the refuge of persons who fear those who they [think] can turn them into ridicule; it is a common trick to revenge supposed raillery with good substantial calumny. Slept at Minto.

_August_ 11.--I was up as usual, and wrote about two leaves, meaning to finish my task at home; but found my Sheriff-subst.i.tute[319] here on my return, which took up the evening. But I shall finish the volume on Sunday; that is less than a month after beginning it. The same exertion would bring the book out at Martinmas, but December is a better time.

_August_ 12.--Wrote a little in the morning; then Duty and I have settled that this is to be a kind of holiday, providing the volume be finished to-morrow. I went to breakfast at Chiefswood, and after that affair was happily transacted, I wended me merrily to the Black c.o.c.k Stripe, and there caused Tom Purdie and John Swanston cut out a quant.i.ty of firs. Got home about two o'clock, and set to correct a set of proofs. James Ballantyne presages well of this work, but is afraid of inaccuracies--so am I--but things must be as they may. There is a kind of glamour about me, which sometimes makes me read dates, etc., in the proof-sheets, not as they actually do stand, but as they ought to stand.

I wonder if a pill of holy trefoil would dispel this fascination.

By the way, John Swanston measured a young shoot that was growing remarkably, and found that for three days successively it grew half an inch every day. Fine-Ear[320] used to hear the gra.s.s grow--how far off would he have heard this extravagant rapidity of vegetation? The tree is a silver fir or spruce in the patch at the Green-tongue park.

_August_ 13.--Yesterday I was tired of labouring in the rough ground.

Well, I must be content to feel my disabilities increase. One sure thing is, that all wise men will soon contrive to lay aside inclination when performance grows toilsome. I have hobbled over many a rough heugh in my day--no wonder if I must sing at last--

"Thus says the auld man to the aik tree, Sair failed, hinny, since I kenn'd thee."

But here are many a mile of smooth walk, just when I grow unable to face bent and brae, and here is the garden when all fails. To a sailor the length of his quarter-deck is a good s.p.a.ce of exercising ground.

I wrote a good task to-day, then walked to the lake, then came back by three o'clock, hungering and thirsting to finish the volume. I have seldom such fits of voluntary industry, so Duty shall have the benefit.

Finished volume iv. this evening--_Deo Gratias_.

_August_ 14.--This is a morning I have not seen many a day, for it appears to set in for a rainy day. It has not kept its word though. I was seized by a fit of the "clevers," and finished my task by twelve o'clock, and hope to add something in the evening. I was guilty, however, of some waywardness, for I began volume v. of _Boney_ instead of carrying on the _Canongate_ as I proposed. The reason, however, was that I might not forget the information I had acquired about the Treaty of Amiens.

_August_ 15.--The weather seems decidedly broken. Yesterday, indeed, cleared up, but this day seems to persevere in raining. _Naboclis.h.!.+_ It's a rarity nowadays. I write on, though a little afflicted with the oppression on my chest. Sometimes I think it is something dangerous, but as it always goes away on change of posture, it cannot be speedily so. I want to finish my task, and then good-night. I will never relax my labour in these affairs, either for fear of pain or love of life. I will die a free man, if hard working will do it. Accordingly, to-day I cleared the ninth leaf, which is the tenth part of a volume, in two days--four and a half leaves a day. Walter and Jane, with Mrs. Jobson, are arrived to interrupt me.

_August_ 16.--G.o.d be praised for restoring to me my dear children in good health, which has made me happier than anything that has happened these several months. Walter and Jane appear cordial and happy in each other; the greatest blessing Heaven can bestow on them or me who witness it. If we had Lockhart and Sophia, there would be a meeting of the beings dearest to me in life. Walked to Huntly Burn, where I found a certain lady on a visit--so youthy, so beautiful, so strong in voice--with sense and learning--above all, so fond of good conversation, that, in compa.s.sion to my eyes, ears, and understanding, I bolted in the middle of a tremendous shower of rain, and rather chose to be wet to the skin than to be bethumped with words at that rate. There seemed more than I of the same opinion, for Col Ferguson chose the ducking rather than the conversation. Young Mr. Surtees came this evening.

_August_ 17.--Wrote half a leaf short of my task, having proofs, etc., to correct, and being called early to walk with the ladies. I have gained three leaves in the two following days, so I cannot blame myself.

_Sat cito si sat bene. Sat boni_ I am sure--I may say--a truly execrable pun that; hope no one will find it out.