The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Part 57

[103] The Rev. Thomas Wright was minister of Borthwick from 1817 to 1841, when he was deposed on the ground of alleged heresy. His works, _The True Plan of a Living Temple_, _Morning and Evening Sacrifice_, _Farewell to Time_, _My Old House_, etc., were published anonymously.

Mr. Wright lived in Edinburgh for fourteen years after his deposition, much beloved and respected; he died on 13th March 1855 in his seventy-first year.

[104] Rev. John Clunie, Mr. Wright's predecessor in the parish, of whom, many absurd stories were told, appears to have been an enthusiastic lover of Scottish songs, as Burns in 1794 says it was owing to his singing _Ca' the yowes to the knowes_ so charmingly that he took it down from his voice, and sent it to Mr. Thomson.--Currie's _Burns_, vol. iv.

p. 100, and Chambers's _Scottish Songs_, 2 vols. Edin. 1829, p. 269.

[105] See Burns's "Auld Farmer's New-year Salutation."

[106] "Mount Benger," of which Hogg had taken a lease on his marriage, in 1820, and found that he could not make it pay.

[107] The first series had just been published under the following t.i.tle: _Tales of a Grandfather, being stories taken from Scottish History_. Humbly inscribed to Hugh Littlejohn, Esq., in three volumes.

Printed for Cadell and Co., Edinburgh, Simpkin and Marshall, London, and John c.u.mming, Dublin, 1828.

[108] During Sir Walter's illness in 1818-19 Mr. Skene was with him at Abbotsford, and he records a curious incident regarding Dryburgh which may be given here:--"For nearly two years he had to struggle for his life with that severe illness, which the natural strength of his const.i.tution at length proved sufficient to throw off. With its disappearance, although restored to health, disappeared also much of his former vigour of body, activity, and power of undergoing fatigue, while in personal appearance he had advanced twenty years in the downward course of life; his hair had become bleached to pure white and scanty locks; the fire of his eye quenched; and his step, more uncertain, had lost the vigorous swinging gait with which he was used to proceed; in fact, old age had by many years antic.i.p.ated its usual progress and marked how severely he had suffered. The complaint, that of gall-stones, was one of extreme bodily suffering. During his severest attack he had been alone at Abbotsford with his daughter Sophia, before her marriage to Mr. Lockhart, and had sent to say that he was desirous I should come to him, which I did, and remained for ten days till the attack had subsided. During its course the extreme violence of the pain end spasmodic contraction of the muscles of the stomach were such that I scarcely expected the powers of endurance could sustain him through the trial, and so much at times was he exhausted by it as to leave us in alarm as to what the result had actually been. One night I shall not soon forget: he had been frequently and severely ill during the day, and having been summoned to his room in the middle of the night, where his daughter was already standing, the picture of deep despair, at his bed-side, the attack seemed intense, and we followed the directions left by the physician to a.s.suage it. At length it seemed to subside, and he fell back exhausted on the pillow, his eyes were closed, and his countenance wan and livid. Apparently with corresponding misgivings, his daughter at one side of the bed and I at the other gazed for some time intently and in silence on his countenance, and then glanced with anxious inquiring looks to each other, till, at length, having placed my finger on his pulse, to ascertain whether it had actually ceased to throb, I shall never forget the sudden beam which again brightened his daughter's countenance, and for a moment dispelled the intense expression of anxiety which had for some time overspread it, when Sir Walter, aware of my feeling his pulse, and the probable purpose, whispered, with a faint voice, but without opening his eyes, 'I am not _yet_ gone.' After some time he revived, and gave us a proof of the mastery of his mind over the sufferings of the body. 'Do you recollect,'

he said to me, 'a small round turret near the gate of the Monastery of Aberbrothwick, and placed so as to overhang the street?' Upon answering that I did perfectly, and that a picturesque little morsel it was, he said, 'Well, I was over there when a mob had a.s.sembled, excited by some purpose, which I do not recollect, but failing of their original intention, they took umbrage at the little venerable emblem of aristocracy, which still bore its weather-stained head so conspicuously aloft, and, resolving to humble it with the dust, they got a stout hawser from a vessel in the adjoining harbour, which a sailor lad, climbing up, coiled round the body of the little turret, and the rabble seizing the rope by both ends tugged and pulled, and laboured long to strangle and overthrow the poor old turret, but in vain, for it withstood all their endeavours. Now that is exactly the condition of my poor stomach: there is a rope twisted round it, and the malicious devils are straining and tugging at it, and, faith, I could almost think that I sometimes hear them shouting and cheering each other to their task, and when they are at it I always have the little turret and its tormentors before my eyes.' He complained that particular ideas fixed themselves down upon his mind, which he had not the power of shaking off; but this was, in fact, the obvious consequence of the quant.i.ty of laudanum which it was necessary for him to swallow to allay the spasms.

"After he had got some repose, and had become rather better in the morning, he said, with a smile on his countenance, 'If you will promise not to laugh at me I have a favour to ask. Do you know I have taken a childish desire to see the place where I am to be laid when I go home, which there is some probability may not now be long delayed. Now, as I cannot go to Dryburgh Abbey--that is out of the question at present--it would give me much pleasure if you would take a ride down and bring me a drawing of that spot, which he minutely described the position of, and mentioned the exact point where he wished it drawn, that the site of his future grave might appear. His wish was accordingly complied with."--_Reminiscences_.

1828.

JANUARY.

"As I walked by myself, I talked to myself, And thus myself said to me."

_January_ 1.--Since the 20th November 1825, for two months that is, and two years, I have kept this custom of a diary. That it has made me wiser or better I dare not say, but it shows by its progress that I am capable of keeping a resolution. Perhaps I should not congratulate myself on this; perhaps it only serves to show I am more a man of method and less a man of originality, and have no longer that vivacity of fancy that is inconsistent with regular labour. Still, should this be the case, I should, having lost the one, be happy to find myself still possessed of the other.

_January_ 2.--_Caecae mentes hominum_.--My last entry records my punctuality in keeping up my diary hitherto; my present labour, commenced notwithstanding the date, upon the 9th January, is to make up my little record betwixt the second and that latter date. In a word, I have been several days in arrear without rhyme or reason,--days too when there was so little to write down that the least jotting would have done it. This must not be in future.

_January_ 3.--Our friends begin to disperse. Mrs. Ellis, who has been indisposed for the last two days, will I hope bear her journey to London well. She is the relict of my dear old friend George Ellis,[109] who had more wit, learning, and knowledge of the world than would fit out twenty _literati_. The Hardens remained to-day, and I had a long walk with the laird up the Glen, and so forth. He seemed a little tired, and, with all due devotion to my Chief, I was not sorry to triumph over some one in point of activity at my time of day.

_January_ 4.--Visited by Mr. Stewart of Dalguise, who came to collect materials for a description of Abbotsford, to be given with a drawing in a large work, _Views of Gentlemen's Seats._ Mr. Stewart is a well-informed gentleman-like young man, grave and quiet, yet possessed of a sense of humour. I must take care he does not in civility over-puff my little a.s.semblage of curiosities. Scarce anything can be meaner than the vanity which details the contents of China closets,--basins, ewers, and chamberpots. Horace Walpole, with all his talents, makes a silly figure when he gives an upholsterer's catalogue of his goods and chattels at Strawberry Hill.

_January_ 5.--This day I began to review Taschereau's _Life of Moliere_ for Mr. Gillies, who is crying help for G.o.d's sake. Messrs. Treuttel and Wurtz offer guerdon. I shall accept, because it is doing Gillies no good to let him have my labour for nothing, and an article is about 100. In my pocket it may form a fund to help this poor gentleman or others at a pinch; in his, I fear it would only encourage a neglect of sober economy. When in his prosperity he asked me whether there was not, in my opinion, something interesting in a man of genius being in embarra.s.sed circ.u.mstances. G.o.d knows he has had enough of them since, poor fellow; and it should be remembered that if he thus dallied with his good fortune, his benevolence to others was boundless.

We had the agreeable intelligence of Sophia being safely delivered of a girl; the mother and child doing well. Praised be G.o.d!

_January_ 6.--I have a letter from the Duke of Wellington, making no promises, but a.s.suring me of a favourable consideration of Walter's case, should an opening occur for the majority. This same _step_ is represented as the most important, but so in their time were the lieutenancy and the troop. Each in its turn was _the_ step _par excellence_. It appears that these same steps are those of a treadmill, where the party is always ascending and never gains the top. But the same simile would suit most pursuits in life.

The Misses Kerr left us on Friday--two charming young persons, well-looked, well-mannered, and well-born; above all, well-principled.

They sing together in a very delightful manner, and our evenings are the duller without them.

I am annoyed beyond measure with the idle intrusion of voluntary correspondents; each man who has a pen, ink, and sheet of foolscap to spare, flies a letter at me. I believe the postage costs me 100 [a year], besides innumerable franks; and all the letters regard the writer's own hopes or projects, or are filled with unasked advice or extravagant requests. I think this evil increases rather than diminishes. On the other hand, I must fairly own that I have received many communications in this way worth all the trouble and expense that the others cost me, so I must "lay the head of the sow to the tail of the grice," as the proverb elegantly expresses itself.

News again of Sophia and baby. Mrs. Hughes thinks the infant a beauty.

Johnnie opines that it is not _very_ pretty, and grandpapa supposes it to be like other new-born children, which are as like as a basket of oranges.

_January_ 7.--Wrought at the review, and finished a good lot of it. Mr.

Stewart left us, amply provided with the history of Abbotsford and its contents. It is a kind of Conundrum Castle to be sure, and I have great pleasure in it, for while it pleases a fantastic person in the style and manner of its architecture and decoration, it has all the comforts of a commodious habitation.

Besides the review, I have been for this week busily employed in revising for the press the _Tales of a Grandfather_. Cadell rather wished to rush it out by employing three different presses, but this _I repressed_ (smoke the pun!). I will not have poor James Ballantyne driven off the plank to which we are all three clinging.[110] I have made great additions to volume first, and several of these _Tales_; and I care not who knows it, I think well of them. Nay, I will hash history with anybody, be he who he will.[111] I do not know but it would be wise to let romantic composition rest, and turn my mind to the history of England, France, and Ireland, to be _da capo rota'd,_ as well as that of Scotland. Men would laugh at me as an author for Mr. Newbery's shop in Paul's Churchyard. I should care little for that. _Virginibus puerisque._ I would as soon compose histories for boys and girls, which may be useful, as fictions for children of a larger growth, which can at best be only idle folk's entertainment. But write what I will, or to whom I will, I am doggedly determined to write myself out of the present sc.r.a.pe by any labour that is fair and honest.

_January_ 8.--Despatched my review (in part), and in the morning walked from Chiefswood, all about the shearing flats, and home by the new walk, which I have called the Bride's Walk, because Jane was nearly stuck fast in the bog there, just after her marriage, in the beginning of 1825.

My post brings serious intelligence to-day, and of a very pleasing description. Longman and Company, with a reserve which marks all their proceedings, suddenly inform Mr. Gibson that they desire 1000 of the 8vo edition of _St. Ronan's Well,_ and the subsequent series of Novels thereunto belonging, for that they have only _seven_ remaining, and wish it to be sent to their printers, and pushed out in three months. Thus this great house, without giving any previous notice of the state of the sale, expect all to be boot and saddle, horse and away, whenever they give the signal. In the present case this may do, because I will make neither alteration nor addition till our grand _opus_, the Improved Edition, goes to press. But ought we to go to press with this 1000 copies knowing that our project will supersede and render equivalent to waste paper such of them as may not reach the public before our plan is publicly known and begins to operate? I have, I acknowledge, doubt as to this. No doubt I feel perfectly justified in letting Longman and Co.

look to their own interest, since they have neither consulted me nor attended to mine. But the loss might extend to the retail booksellers; and to hurt the men through whom my works are ultimately to find their way to the public would be both unjust and impolitic. On the contrary, if the _St. Ronan_ Series be hurried out immediately, there is time enough perhaps to sell it off before the Improved Edition appears. In the meantime it appears that the popularity of these works is increasing rather than diminis.h.i.+ng, that the measure of securing the copyrights was most judicious, and that, with proper management, things will work themselves round. Successful first editions are good, but they require exertion and imply fresh risk of reputation. But repeated editions tell only to the agreeable part of literature.[112]

Longman and Company have also at length opened their oracular jaws on the subject of _Bonaparte_, and acknowledged its rapid sale, and the probable exhaustion of the present edition.

These tidings, with the success of the _Tales_, "speak of Africa and golden joys."[113] But the tidings arriving after dinner rather discomposed me. In the evening I wrote to Cadell and Ballantyne at length, proposing a meeting at my house on Tuesday first, to hold a privy council.

_January_ 9.--My first reflection was on Napoleon. I will not be hurried in my corrections of that work; and that I may not be so, I will begin them the instant that I have finished the review. It makes me tremble to think of the ma.s.s of letters I have to look through in order to select all those which affect the subject of _Napoleon_, and which, in spite of numerous excellent resolutions, I have never separated from the common file from which they are now to be selected. Confound them! but they _are_ confounded already. Indolence is a delightful indulgence, but at what a rate we purchase it! To-day we go to Mertoun, and having spent some time in making up my Journal to this length, and in a chat with Captain John, who dropped in, I will presently set to the review--knock it off, if possible, before we start at five o'clock. To-morrow, when I return, we will begin the disagreeable task of a thorough rummage of papers, books, and doc.u.ments. My character as a man of letters, and as a man of honour, depends on my making that work as correct as possible. It has succeeded, notwithstanding every effort here and in France[114] to put it down, and it shall not lose ground for want of backing. We went to dine and pa.s.s the night at Mertoun, where we met Sir John Pringle, Mr. and Mrs. Baillie Mellerstain, and their daughters.

_January_ 10.--When I rose this morning the weather was changed and the ground covered with snow. I am sure it's winter fairly. We returned from Mertoun after breakfast through an incipient snowstorm, coming on partially, and in great flakes, the sun bursting at intervals through the clouds. At last _Die Wolken laufen zusammen_. We made a slow journey of it through the swollen river and heavy roads, but here we are at last.

I am rather sorry we expect friends to-day, though these friends be the good Fergusons. I have a humour for work, to which the sober, sad uniformity of a snowy day always particularly disposes me, and I am sure I will get poor Gillies off my hand, at least if I had morning and evening. Then I would set to work with arranging everything for these second editions of _Napoleon, The Romances_, etc., which must be soon got afloat. I must say "the wark gangs bonnily on."[115] Well, I will ring for coals, mend my pen, and try what can be done.

I wrought accordingly on Gillies's review for the _Life of Moliere_, a gallant subject. I am only sorry I have not time to do it justice. It would have required a complete re-perusal of his works, for which, alas!

I have no leisure.

"For long, though pleasant, is the way, And life, alas! allows but one ill winter's day."

Which is too literally my own case.

_January_ 11.--Renewed my labour, finished the review, _talis qualis_, and sent it off. Commenced then my infernal work of putting to rights.

Much cry and little woo', as the deil said when he sh.o.r.e the sow. But I have detected one or two things that had escaped me, and may do more to-morrow. I observe by a letter from Mr. Cadell that I had somewhat misunderstood his last. It is he, not Longman, that wishes to publish the thousand copies of _St. Ronan's_ Series, and there is no immediate call for _Napoleon_. This makes little difference in my computation. The pressing necessity of correction is put off for two or three months probably, and I have time to turn myself to the _Chronicles_. I do not much like the task, but when did I ever like labour of any kind? My hands were fully occupied to-day with writing letters and adjusting papers--both a great bore.

The news from London a.s.sure a change of Ministry. The old Tories come in play. But I hope they will compromise nothing. There is little danger since Wellington takes the lead.

_January_ 12.--My expenses have been considerably more than I expected; but I think that, having done so much, I need not undergo the mortification of giving up Abbotsford and parting with my old habits and servants.[116]

_January_ 13, _[Edinburgh]._--We had a slow and tiresome retreat from Abbotsford through the worst of weather, half-sleet, half-snow. Dined with the Royal Society Club, and, being an anniversary, sat till nine o'clock, instead of half-past seven.

_January_ 14.--I read Cooper's new novel, _The Red Rover_; the current of it rolls entirely upon the ocean. Something there is too much of nautical language; in fact, it overpowers everything else. But, so people once take an interest in a description, they will swallow a great deal which they do not understand. The sweet word "Mesopotamia" has its charm in other compositions as well as in sermons. He has much genius, a powerful conception of character, and force of execution. The same ideas, I see, recur upon him that haunt other folks. The graceful form of the spars, and the tracery of the ropes and cordage against the sky, is too often dwelt upon.

_January_ 15.--This day the Court sat down. I missed my good friend Colin Mackenzie, who proposes to retire, from indifferent health. A better man never lived--eager to serve every one--a safeguard over all public business which came through his hands. As Deputy-Keeper of the Signet he will be much missed. He had a patience in listening to every one which is of the [highest consequence] in the management of a public body; for many men care less to gain their point than they do to play the orator, and be listened to for a certain time. This done, and due quant.i.ty of personal consideration being gained, the individual orator is usually satisfied with the reasons of the civil listener, who has suffered him to enjoy his hour of consequence. I attended the Court, but there was very little for me to do. The snowy weather has annoyed my fingers with chilblains, and I have a threatening of rheumatism--which Heaven avert!

James Ballantyne and Mr. Cadell dined with me to-day and talked me into a good humour with my present task, which I had laid aside in disgust.

It must, however, be done, though I am loth to begin to it again.