The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Part 76

_April_ 26.--But not a finger did I lay on the jacket of _Anne_. Looking for something, I fell in with the little drama, long missing, called the _Doom of Devorgoil_. I believe it was out of mere contradiction that I sat down to read and correct it, merely because I would not be bound to do aught that seemed compulsory. So I scribbled at a piece of nonsense till two o'clock, and then walked to the lake. At night I flung helve after hatchet, and spent the evening in reading the _Doom of Devorgoil_ to the girls, who seemed considerably interested. Anne objects to the mingling the goblinry, which is comic, with the serious, which is tragic. After all, I could greatly improve it, and it would not be a bad composition of that odd kind to some picnic receptacle of all things.

_April_ 27.--This day must not be wasted. I breakfast with the Fergusons, and dine with the Brewsters. But, by Heaven, I will finish _Anne of Geierstein_ this day betwixt the two engagements. I don't know why nor wherefore, but I hate _Anne_, I mean _Anne of Geierstein_; the other two Annes are good girls. Accordingly I well nigh accomplished my work, but about three o'clock my story fell into a slough, and in getting it out I lost my way, and was forced to postpone the conclusion till to-morrow. Wrote a good day's work notwithstanding.

_April_ 28.--I have slept upon my puzzle, and will now finish it, Jove bless my _pia mater_, as I see not further impediment before me. The story will end, and shall end, because it must end, and so here goes.

After this doughty resolution, I went doggedly to work, and finished five leaves by the time when they should meet the coach. But the misfortune of writing fast is that one cannot at the same time write concisely. I wrote two pages more in the evening. Stayed at home all day. Indeed, the weather--sleety, rainy, stormy--forms no tempting prospect. Bogie, too, who sees his flourish going to wreck, is looking as spiteful as an angry fiend towards the unpropitious heavens. So I made a day of work of it,

"And yet the end was not."

_April_ 29.--This morning I finished and sent off three pages more, and still there is something to write; but I will take the broad axe to it, and have it ended before noon.

This has proved impossible, and the task lasted me till nine, when it was finished, _tant bien que mal_. Now, will people say this expresses very little respect for the public? In fact, I have very little respect for that dear _public.u.m_ whom I am doomed to amuse, like Goody Trash in _Bartholomew Fair_, with rattles and gingerbread; and I should deal very uncandidly with those who may read my confessions were I to say I knew a public worth caring for or capable of distinguis.h.i.+ng the nicer beauties of composition. They weigh good and evil qualities by the pound. Get a good name and you may write trash. Get a bad one and you may write like Homer, without pleasing a single reader. I am, perhaps, _l'enfant gate de succes_, but I am brought to the stake,[305] and must perforce stand the course.

Having finished _Anne_[306] I began and revised fifteen leaves of the History, and sent them to Dr. Lardner. I think they read more trashy than I expected. But when could I ever please myself, even when I have most pleased others? Then I walked about two hours by the thicket and river-side, watching the appearance of spring, which, as Coleridge says--

"Comes slowly up this way."

After dinner and tea I resumed the task of correction, which is an odious one, but must be attempted, ay, and accomplished too.

_April_ 30.--Dr. Johnson enjoins Bozzy to leave out of his diary all notices of the weather as insignificant. It may be so to an inhabitant of Bolt Court, in Fleet Street, who need care little whether it rains or snows, except the s.h.i.+lling which it may cost him for a Jarvie; but when I wake and find a snow shower sweeping along, and destroying hundreds perhaps of young lambs, and famis.h.i.+ng their mothers, I must consider it as worth noting. For my own poor share, I am as indifferent as any Grub Streeter of them all--

"--And since 'tis a bad day, Rise up, rise up, my merry men, And use it as you may."

I have accordingly been busy. The weather did not permit me to go beyond the courtyard, for it continued cold and rainy. I have employed the day in correcting the history for Cyclopaedia as far as page 35, exclusive, and have sent it off, or shall to-morrow. I wish I knew how it would run out. Dr. Lardner's measure is a large one, but so much the better. I like to have ample verge and s.p.a.ce enough, and a mere abridgment would be discreditable. Well, n.o.body can say I eat the bread of idleness. Why should I? Those who do not work from necessity take violent labour from choice, and were necessity out of the question I would take the same sort of literary labour from choice--something more leisurely though.

FOOTNOTES:

[286] Son of Lord Medwyn. Mr. Forbes had lately returned from Italy, where he had had as travelling companion Mr. Cleasby, and it was owing to Mr. Forbes's recommendation that Mr. Cleasby came to Edinburgh to pursue his studies. Mr. Forbes possessed a fine tenor voice, and his favourite songs at that time were the Neapolitan and Calabrian canzonetti, to which Sir Walter alludes under April 4.

[287] Mr. Lockhart's own account of the overture is sufficiently amusing and characteristic of the men and the times:--

"I had not time to write more than a line the other day under Croker's cover, having received it just at post time. He sent for me; I found him in his nightcap at the Admiralty, colded badly, but in audacious spirits. His business was this. The Duke of W[ellingto]n finds himself without one newspaper _he_ can depend on. He wishes to buy up some evening print, such as the _dull Star_; and could I do anything for it?

I said I was as well inclined to serve the Duke as he could be, but it must be in other fas.h.i.+on. He then said _he agreed_ with me--but there was a second question: Could I find them an editor, and undertake to communicate between them and him--in short, save the Treasury the inconvenience of maintaining an avowed intercourse with the Newspaper press? He said he himself had for some years done this--then others. I said I would endeavour to think of a man for their turn and would call on him soon again.

"I have considered the matter at leisure, and resolve to have nothing to do with it. They CAN only want me as a _writer_. Any understrapper M.P.

would do well enough for carrying hints to a newspaper office, and I will not, even to secure the Duke, mix myself up with the newspapers.

That work it is which has d.a.m.ned Croker, and I can't afford to sacrifice the advantage which I feel I have gained in these later years by abstaining altogether from partisan scribbling, or to subject the _Quarterly_ to risk of damage. The truth is, I don't admire, after all that has come and gone, being applied to through the medium of friend Crokey. I hope you will approve of my resolution."

[288] Peel, in writing to Scott, says, "The mention of your name [in Parliament] as attached to the Edinburgh pet.i.tion was received with loud cheers."

[289] Richard Cleasby, afterwards the well-known scholar who spent many years in gathering materials for an Icelandic Dictionary. Mr. Cleasby died in 1847, but the work he had planned was not published until 1874, when it appeared under the editors.h.i.+p of Mr. Vigfusson,[A] a.s.sisted by Sir George Dasent.

[290] Bickerstaff's _Padlock_, Act I. Sc. 6.

[A] An Icelandic-English Dictionary based on the MS. collections of the late Richard Cleasby, enlarged and completed by G. Vigfusson. 4to, Oxford, 1874.

[291] _Don Quixote_, Pt. I. Bk. II. Cap. 2.

[292] Friends of Joanna Baillie's and John Richardson's.

[293] This must have been an unusual experience for the head of a family that considered itself to be the oldest in Christendom. Their chateau contained, it was said, two pictures: one of the Deluge, in which Noah is represented going into the Ark, carrying under his arm a small trunk, on which was written "_Papiers de la maison de Levis_;" the other a portrait of the founder of the house bowing reverently to the Virgin, who is made to say, "_Couvrez-vous, mon cousin_."--See Walpole's _Letters_. The book referred to by Sir Walter is _The Carbonaro: a Piedmontese Tale_, by the Duke de Levis. 2 vols. London, 1829.

[294] No. 152--May, 1829.

[295] Burns's Lines to a Mouse: "a daimen-icker in a thrave," that is, an ear of corn out of two dozen sheaves.

[296] John, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich.

[297] These biographies, intended for _The Family Library_, were never written.

[298] _Romeo and Juliet_, Act v. Sc. 1.

[299]

"When I think on the world's pelf May the shame fa' and the blethrie o 't." Burden of old Scottish Song.

[300] That these afternoon rambles with the dogs were not always so tranquil may be gathered from an incident described by Mr. Adolphus, in which an unsuspecting cat at a cottage door was demolished by Nimrod in one of his gambols.--_Life_, vol. ix. p. 362. This deer-hound was an old offender. Sir Walter tells his friend Richardson, _a propos_ of a story he had just heard of Joanna Baillie's cat having worried a dog: "It is just like her mistress, who beats the male race of authors out of the pit in describing the higher pa.s.sions that are more proper to their s.e.x than hers. Alack-a-day! my poor cat Hinse, my acquaintance, and in some sort my friend of fifteen years, was snapped at even by the paynim Nimrod. What could I say to him but what Brantome said to some _ferrailleur_ who had been too successful in a duel, 'Ah! mon grand ami, vous avez tue mon autre grand ami.'"

[301] Manager of the _Foreign Review_.

[302] Robert Pitcairn, author of _Criminal Trials in Scotland_, 3 vols.

4to.

[303] William Scott, Esq., afterwards Laird of Raeburn, was commonly thus designated from a minor possession, during his father's lifetime.

Whatever, in things of this sort, used to be practised among the French n.o.blesse, might be traced, till very lately, in the customs of the Scottish provincial gentry.--- J.G.L.

[304] _Life_, vol. vi. p. 90.

[305]

"They have ty'd me to a stake; I cannot fly, But bear-like I must fight the course."--_Macbeth_, Act v. Sc. 7.

[306] The work was published in May30 under the following t.i.tle:--"_Anne of Geierstein_, or _The Maiden of the Mist_. By the Author of _Waverley_, etc.

What! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground?

SHAKESPEARE.

In three volumes. Edinburgh: Printed for Cadell & Co., Edinburgh; and Simpkin & Marshall, London, 1829. (At the end) Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne & Company, Paul's Work, Canongate."

MAY.

_May_ 1.--Weather more tolerable. I commenced my review on the Duke of Guise's Expedition,[307] for my poor correspondent Gillies, with six leaves. What a curious tale that is of Masaniello! I went to Huntly Burn in the sociable, and returned on foot, to my great refreshment. Evening as usual. Ate, drank, smoked, and wrote.

_May_ 2.--A pitiful day of rain and wind. Laboured the whole morning at Gillies's review. It is a fine subject--the Duke of Guise at Naples--and I think not very much known, though the story of Masaniello is.