Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume V Part 21

April 30, 1818--SELKIRK.

MY DEAR TERRY,--Your packet arrived this morning. I was much disappointed not to find the Prince of the Black Islands'

plan in it, nor have I heard a word from him since anent it, or anent the still more essential articles of doors and windows. I heard from Hector Macdonald Buchanan, that the said doors and windows were packing a fortnight since, but there are no news of them. Surely our friend's heart has grown as hard as his materials; or the spell of the enchantress, which confined itself to the extremities of his predecessor, has extended over his whole person. Mr.

Atkinson has kept tryst charmingly, and the ceiling of the dining-room will be superb. I have got I know not how many casts, from Melrose and other places, of pure Gothic antiquity. I {p.231} must leave this on the 12th, and I could bet a trifle the doors, etc., will arrive the very day I set out, and be all put up _a la bonne aventure_. Meantime I am keeping open house, not much to my convenience, and I am afraid I shall be stopped in my plastering by the want of these matters. The exposed state of my house has led to a mysterious disturbance. The night before last we were awaked by a violent noise, like drawing heavy boards along the new part of the house. I fancied something had fallen, and thought no more about it. This was about _two_ in the morning. Last night, at the same witching hour, the very same noise occurred. Mrs. S., as you know, is rather _timbersome_, so up got I, with Beardie's broadsword under my arm,

"So bolt upright, And ready to fight."

But nothing was out of order, neither can I discover what occasioned the disturbance. However, I went to bed, grumbling against Tenterden Street,[102] and all its works.

If there was no entrance but the keyhole, I should warrant myself against the ghosts. We have a set of idle fellows called workmen about us, which is a better way of accounting for nocturnal noises than any that is to be found in Baxter or Glanville.

[Footnote 102: Bullock's manufactory was in this street.]

When you see Mr. Atkinson, will you ask him how far he is satisfied with the arch between the armory and the ante-room, and whether it pleases him as it now stands? I have a brave old oaken cabinet, as black as ebony, 300 years old at least, which will occupy one side of the ante-room for the present. It is seven feet and a half long, about eighteen inches deep, and upwards of six feet high--a fine stand for china, etc.

You will be sorry to hear that we have lost our excellent old friend, Mrs. Murray Keith. She enjoyed all her spirits and excellent faculties till within two days of her death, when she was seized with a feverish complaint, {p.232} which eighty-two years were not calculated to resist. Much tradition, and of the very best kind, has died with this excellent old lady; one of the few persons whose spirits and cleanliness, and freshness of mind and body, made old age lovely and desirable. In the general case, it seems scarce endurable.

It seems odd to me that Rob Roy[103] should have made good fortune; pray let me know something of its history. There is in Jedediah's present work a thing capable of being woven out a _bourgeoise_ tragedy. I think of contriving that it shall be in your hands some time before the public see it, that you may try to operate upon it yourself. This would not be difficult, as vol. 4, and part of 3d, contain a different story. _Avowedly_ I will never write for the stage; if I do, "call me _horse_." And indeed I feel severely the want of knowledge of theatrical business and effect: however, something we will do. I am writing in the noise and babble of a head-court of freeholders; therefore my letter is incoherent, and therefore it is written also on long paper; but therefore, moreover, it will move by frank, as the member is here, and stands upon his popularity. Kind compliments to Mrs. Terry and Walter.

Yours very truly,

Walter SCOTT.

[Footnote 103: A drama founded on the novel of _Rob Roy_ had been produced, with great success, on the London stage.]

On the morning that Mr. Terry received the foregoing letter in London, Mr. William Erskine was breakfasting with him; and the chief subject of their conversation was the sudden death of George Bullock, which had occurred on the same night, and, as nearly as they could ascertain, at the very hour when Scott was roused from his sleep by the "mysterious disturbance" here described, and sallied from his chamber with old Beardie's Killiecrankie claymore in his hand. This coincidence, when {p.233} Scott received Erskine's minute detail of what had happened in Tenterden Street, made a much stronger impression on his mind than might be gathered from the tone of an ensuing communication.

TO D. TERRY, ESQ., LONDON.

ABBOTSFORD, 4th May, 1818.

DEAR TERRY,--I received with the greatest surprise, and the most sincere distress, the news of poor George Bullock's death. In the full career of honorable industry,--distinguished by his uncommon taste and talent,--esteemed by all who transacted business with him,--and loved by those who had the pleasure of his more intimate acquaintance,--I can scarce conceive a more melancholy summons. It comes as a particular shock to me, because I had, particularly of late, so much a.s.sociated his idea with the improvements here, in which his kind and enthusiastic temper led him to take such interest; and in looking at every unfinished or projected circ.u.mstance, I feel an impression of melancholy which will for some time take away the pleasure I have found in them. I liked George Bullock because he had no trumpery selfishness about his heart, taste, or feelings. Pray let me know about the circ.u.mstances of his family, etc. I feel most sincerely interested in all that concerns him. It must have been a dreadful surprise to Mr. Atkinson and you who lived with him so much. I need not, I am sure, beg you to be in no hurry about my things. The confusion must be cruelly great, without any friend adding to it; and in fact, at this moment, I am very indifferent on the subject. The poor kind fellow! He took so much notice of little Charles, and was so domesticated with us all, that I really looked with a schoolboy's anxiety for his being here in the season, to take his own quiet pleasures, and to forward mine. But G.o.d's will be done. All that surviving friends can do upon such a loss is, if possible, to love each other still better.--I {p.234} beg to be kindly remembered to Mrs. Terry and Monsieur Walter. Ever most truly yours,

Walter SCOTT.

TO THE SAME.

EDINBURGH, 16th May, 1818.

MY DEAR TERRY,--Mr. Nasmyth[104] has obligingly given me an opportunity of writing to you a few lines, as he is setting out for London. I cannot tell you how much I continue to be grieved for our kind-hearted and enthusiastic friend Bullock. I trust he has left his family comfortably settled, though, with so many plans which required his active and intelligent mind to carry them through, one has natural apprehensions upon that score. When you can with propriety make inquiry how my matters stand, I should be glad to know.

Hector Macdonald tells me that my doors and windows were ready packed, in which case, perhaps, the sooner they are embarked the better, not only for safety, but because they can only be in the way, and the money will now be the more acceptable. Poor Bullock had also the measures for my chimney-pieces, for grates of different kinds, and orders for beds, dining-room tables and chairs. But how far these are in progress of being executed, or whether they can now be executed, I must leave to your judgment and inquiry. Your good sense and delicacy will understand the _facon de faire_ better than I can point it out. I shall never have the pleasure in these things that I expected.

[Footnote 104: Mr. Alexander Nasmyth, an eminent landscape painter of Edinburgh--the father of Mrs.

Terry.]

I have just left Abbotsford to attend the Summer session--left it when the leaves were coming out--the most delightful season for a wors.h.i.+pper of the country like me.

The Home-bank, which we saw at first green with turnips, will now hide a man somewhat taller than Johnny Ballantyne in its shades. In fact, the trees {p.235} cover the ground, and have a very pretty bosky effect; from six years to ten or twelve, I think wood is as beautiful as ever it is afterwards until it figures as aged and magnificent. Your hobbledehoy tree of twenty-five years' standing is neither so beautiful as in its infancy, nor so respectable as in its age.

Counsellor Erskine is returned, much pleased with your hospitality, and giving an excellent account of you. Were you not struck with the fantastical coincidence of our nocturnal disturbances at Abbotsford with the melancholy event that followed? I protest to you the noise resembled half-a-dozen men hard at work putting up boards and furniture, and nothing can be more certain than that there was n.o.body on the premises at the time. With a few additional touches, the story would figure in Glanville or Aubrey's Collection. In the mean time you may set it down with poor Dubisson's warnings,[105] as a remarkable coincidence coming under your own observation. I trust we shall see you this season. I think we could hammer a neat _comedie bourgeoise_ out of The Heart of Mid-Lothian. Mrs.

Scott and family join in kind compliments to Mrs. Terry; and I am ever yours truly,

Walter SCOTT.

[Footnote 105: See _ante_, vol. iii. p. 220.]

It appears from one of these letters to Terry, that, so late as the 30th of April, Scott still designed to include two separate stories in the second series of the Tales of my Landlord. But he must have changed his plan soon after that date; since the four volumes, entirely occupied with The Heart of Mid-Lothian, were before the public in the course of June. The story thus deferred, in consequence of the extent to which that of Jeanie Deans grew on his hands, was The Bride of Lammermoor.

{p.236} CHAPTER XLI.

Dinner at Mr. Home Drummond's. -- Scott's Edinburgh Den. -- Details of his Domestic Life in Castle Street. -- His Sunday Dinners. -- His Evening Drives, etc. -- His Conduct in the General Society of Edinburgh. -- Dinners at John Ballantyne's Villa, and at James Ballantyne's in St. John Street, on the Appearance of a New Novel. -- Anecdotes of the Ballantynes, and of Constable.

1818.

On the 12th of May, as we have seen, Scott left Abbotsford, for the summer session in Edinburgh.

At this moment, his position, take it for all in all, was, I am inclined to believe, what no other man had ever won for himself by the pen alone. His works were the daily food, not only of his countrymen, but of all educated Europe. His society was courted by whatever England could show of eminence. Station, power, wealth, beauty, and genius, strove with each other in every demonstration of respect and wors.h.i.+p--and, a few political fanatics and envious poetasters apart--wherever he appeared in town or in country, whoever had Scotch blood in him, "gentle or simple," felt it move more rapidly through his veins when he was in the presence of Scott. To descend to what many looked on as higher things, he considered himself, and was considered by all about him, as rapidly consolidating a large fortune: the annual profits of his novels alone had, for several years, been not less than 10,000: his domains {p.237} were daily increased--his castle was rising--and perhaps few doubted that erelong he might receive from the just favor of his Prince some distinction in the way of external rank, such as had seldom before been dreamt of as the possible consequence of a mere literary celebrity. It was about this time that the compiler of these pages first had the opportunity of observing the plain easy modesty which had survived the many temptations of such a career; and the kindness of heart pervading, in all circ.u.mstances, his gentle deportment, which made him the rare, perhaps the solitary, example of a man signally elevated from humble beginnings, and loved more and more by his earliest friends and connections, in proportion as he had fixed on himself the homage of the great, and the wonder of the world.

It was during the sitting of the General a.s.sembly of the Kirk in May, 1818, that I first had the honor of meeting him in private society: the party was not a large one, at the house of a much-valued common friend--Mr. Home Drummond of Blair Drummond, the grandson of Lord Kames. Mr. Scott, ever apt to consider too favorably the literary efforts of others, and more especially of very young persons, received me, when I was presented to him, with a cordiality which I had not been prepared to expect from one filling a station so exalted. This, however, is the same story that every individual, who ever met him under similar circ.u.mstances, has had to tell. When the ladies retired from the dinner-table, I happened to sit next him; and he, having heard that I had lately returned from a tour in Germany, made that country and its recent literature the subject of some conversation. In the course of it, I told him that when, on reaching the inn at Weimar, I asked the waiter whether Goethe was then in the town, the man stared as if he had not heard the name before; and that on my repeating the question, adding _Goethe der grosse dichter_ (the great poet), he shook his head as doubtfully as {p.238} before--until the landlady solved our difficulties, by suggesting that perhaps the traveller might mean "the _Herr Geheimer-Rath_ (Privy Counsellor) _Von Goethe_."

Scott seemed amused with this, and said, "I hope you will come one of these days and see me at Abbotsford; and when you reach Selkirk or Melrose, be sure you ask even the landlady for n.o.body but _the Sheriff_." He appeared particularly interested when I described Goethe as I first saw him, alighting from a carriage, crammed with wild plants and herbs which he had picked up in the course of his morning's botanizing among the hills above Jena. "I am glad," said he, "that my old master has pursuits somewhat akin to my own. I am no botanist, properly speaking; and though a dweller on the banks of the Tweed, shall never be knowing about Flora's beauties;[106] but how I should like to have a talk with him about trees!" I mentioned how much any one must be struck with the majestic beauty of Goethe's countenance (the n.o.blest certainly by far that I have ever yet seen): "Well," said he, "the grandest demiG.o.d I ever saw was Dr. Carlyle, minister of Musselburgh, commonly called _Jupiter Carlyle_, from having sat more than once for the king of G.o.ds and men to Gavin Hamilton--and a shrewd, clever old carle was he, no doubt, but no more a poet than his precentor. As for poets, I have seen, I believe, all the best of our own time and country--and, though Burns had the most glorious eyes imaginable, I never thought any of them would come up to an artist's notion of the character, except Byron." A reverend gentleman present (I think, Princ.i.p.al Nicoll of St. Andrews) expressed his regret that he had never seen Lord Byron. "And the prints," resumed Scott, "give one no impression of him--the l.u.s.tre is there, Doctor, but it is not lighted up. Byron's countenance is _a thing to dream of_. A certain fair lady, whose name has been too often {p.239} mentioned in connection with his, told a friend of mine, that when she first saw Byron, it was in a crowded room, and she did not know who it was, but her eyes were instantly nailed, and she said to herself, _that pale face is my fate_. And, poor soul, if a G.o.dlike face and G.o.dlike powers could have made any excuse for devilry, to be sure she had one." In the course of this talk, an old friend and schoolfellow of Scott's[107] asked him across the table if he had any faith in the antique busts of Homer. "No, truly," he answered, smiling, "for if there had been either limners or stuccoyers worth their salt in those days, the owner of such a headpiece would never have had to trail the poke. They would have alimented the honest man decently among them for a lay-figure."

[Footnote 106: "What beauties does Flora disclose, How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed," etc.--_Crawford._]

[Footnote 107: The late Sir Patrick Murray of Ochtertyre, Bart.--one of the Scotch Barons of Exchequer.]

A few days after this, I received a communication from the Messrs.

Ballantyne, to the effect that Mr. Scott's various avocations had prevented him from fulfilling his agreement with them as to the historical department of the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1816, and that it would be acceptable to him as well as them, if I could undertake to supply it in the course of the autumn. This proposal was agreed to on my part, and I had consequently occasion to meet him pretty often during that summer session. He told me, that if the war had gone on, he should have liked to do the historical summary as before; but that the prospect of having no events to record but radical riots, and the pa.s.sing or rejecting of corn bills and poor bills, sickened him; that his health was no longer what it had been; and that though he did not mean to give over writing altogether--(here he smiled significantly, and glanced his eye towards a pile of MS. on the desk by him)--he thought himself now ent.i.tled to write nothing but what would rather be an amus.e.m.e.nt than a fatigue to him--"_Juniores ad labores_."

{p.240} He at this time occupied as his _den_ a square small room, behind the dining parlor in Castle Street. It had but a single Venetian window, opening on a patch of turf not much larger than itself, and the aspect of the place was on the whole sombrous. The walls were entirely clothed with books; most of them folios and quartos, and all in that complete state of repair which at a glance reveals a tinge of bibliomania. A dozen volumes or so, needful for immediate purposes of reference, were placed close by him on a small movable frame--something like a dumb-waiter. All the rest were in their proper niches, and wherever a volume had been lent, its room was occupied by a wooden block of the same size, having a card with the name of the borrower and date of the loan, tacked on its front. The old bindings had obviously been retouched and regilt in the most approved manner; the new, when the books were of any mark, were rich, but never gaudy--a large proportion of blue morocco--all stamped with his _device_ of the portcullis, and its motto, _clausus tutus ero_--being an anagram of his name in Latin. Every case and shelf was accurately lettered, and the works arranged systematically; history and biography on one side--poetry and the drama on another--law books and dictionaries behind his own chair. The only table was a ma.s.sive piece of furniture which he had had constructed on the model of one at Rokeby, with a desk and all its appurtenances on either side, that an amanuensis might work opposite to him when he chose; and with small tiers of drawers, reaching all round to the floor. The top displayed a goodly array of session papers, and on the desk below were, besides the MS. at which he was working, sundry parcels of letters, proof sheets, and so forth, all neatly done up with red tape. His own writing apparatus was a very handsome old box, richly carved, lined with crimson velvet, and containing ink-bottles, taper-stand, etc., in silver--the whole in such order that it might have come from the silversmith's {p.241} window half an hour before. Besides his own huge elbow-chair, there were but two others in the room, and one of these seemed, from its position, to be reserved exclusively for the amanuensis. I observed, during the first evening I spent with him in this _sanctum_, that while he talked, his hands were hardly ever idle--sometimes he folded letter-covers--sometimes he twisted paper into matches, performing both tasks with great mechanical expertness and nicety; and when there was no loose paper fit to be so dealt with, he snapped his fingers, and the n.o.ble Maida aroused himself from his lair on the hearth-rug, and laid his head across his master's knees, to be caressed and fondled. The room had no s.p.a.ce for pictures except one, an original portrait of Claverhouse, which hung over the chimney-piece, with a Highland target on either side, and broadswords and dirks (each having its own story), disposed star-fas.h.i.+on round them. A few green tin-boxes, such as solicitors keep t.i.tle-deeds in, were piled over each other on one side of the window; and on the top of these lay a fox's tail, mounted on an antique silver handle, wherewith, as often as he had occasion to take down a book, he gently brushed the dust off the upper leaves before opening it. I think I have mentioned all the furniture of the room except a sort of ladder, low, broad, well carpeted, and strongly guarded with oaken rails, by which he helped himself to books from his higher shelves. On the top step of this convenience, Hinse of Hinsfeldt, (so called from one of the German _Kinder-marchen_,) a venerable tom-cat, fat and sleek, and no longer very locomotive, usually lay watching the proceedings of his master and Maida with an air of dignified equanimity; but when Maida chose to leave the party, he signified his inclinations by thumping the door with his huge paw, as violently as ever a fas.h.i.+onable footman handled a knocker in Grosvenor Square; the Sheriff rose and opened it for him with courteous alacrity,--and then Hinse came {p.242} down purring from his perch, and mounted guard by the footstool, _vice_ Maida absent upon furlough.[108] Whatever discourse might be pa.s.sing, was broken every now and then by some affectionate apostrophe to these four-footed friends. He said they understood everything he said to them--and I believe they did understand a great deal of it. But at all events, dogs and cats, like children, have some infallible tact for discovering at once who is and who is not really fond of their company; and I venture to say, Scott was never five minutes in any room before the little pets of the family, whether dumb or lisping, had found out his kindness for all their generation.

[Footnote 108: [Of Hinse, Was.h.i.+ngton Irving writes in his _Abbotsford_:--

"Among the other important and privileged members of the household who figured in attendance at dinner, was a large gray cat, who, I observed, was regaled from time to time with t.i.tbits from the table. This sage grimalkin was a favorite of both master and mistress, and slept at night in their room, and Scott laughingly observed, that one of the least wise parts of their establishment was that the window was left open at night for puss to go in and out. The cat a.s.sumed a kind of ascendency among the quadrupeds--sitting in state in Scott's armchair, and occasionally stationing himself on a chair beside the door, as if to review his subjects as they pa.s.sed, giving each dog a cuff beside the ears as he went by.

This clapper-clawing was always taken in good part; it appeared to be, in fact, a mere act of sovereignty on the part of grimalkin to remind the others of their va.s.salage; which they acknowledged by the most perfect acquiescence. A general harmony prevailed between sovereign and subjects, and they would all sleep together in the suns.h.i.+ne."]]

I never thought it lawful to keep a journal of what pa.s.ses in private society, so that no one need expect from the sequel of this narrative any detailed record of Scott's familiar talk. What fragments of it have happened to adhere to a tolerably retentive memory, and may be put into black and white without wounding any feelings which my friend, were he alive, would have wished to spare, I shall introduce as the occasion suggests or serves. But I disclaim on the threshold anything more than this; and I also wish to enter a protest once for all against the general fidelity of several literary gentlemen who have kindly forwarded to me private lucubrations {p.243} of theirs, designed to _Boswellize_ Scott, and which they may probably publish hereafter. To report conversations fairly, it is a necessary prerequisite that we should be completely familiar with all the interlocutors, and understand thoroughly all their minutest relations, and points of common knowledge and common feeling with each other. He who does not, must be perpetually in danger of misinterpreting sportive allusion into serious statement; and the man who was only recalling, by some jocular phrase or half-phrase, to an old companion, some trivial reminiscence of their boyhood or youth, may be represented as expressing, upon some person or incident casually tabled, an opinion which he had never framed, or if he had, would never have given words to in any mixed a.s.semblage--not even among what the world calls _friends_ at his own board. In proportion as a man is witty and humorous, there will always be about him and his a widening maze and wilderness of cues and catchwords, which the uninitiated will, if they are bold enough to try interpretation, construe, ever and anon, egregiously amiss--not seldom into arrant falsity. For this one reason, to say nothing of many others, I consider no man justified in journalizing what he sees and hears in a domestic circle where he is not thoroughly at home; and I think there are still higher and better reasons why he should not do so where he is.

Before I ever met Scott in private, I had, of course, heard many people describe and discuss his style of conversation. Everybody seemed to agree that it overflowed with hearty good-humor, as well as plain unaffected good sense and sagacity; but I had heard not a few persons of undoubted ability and accomplishment maintain that the genius of the great poet and novelist rarely, if ever, revealed itself in his talk. It is needless to say, that the persons I allude to were all his own countrymen, and themselves imbued, more or less, with the conversational habits derived from a system of education in which the {p.244} study of metaphysics occupies a very large share of attention. The best table-talk of Edinburgh was, and probably still is, in a very great measure made up of brilliant disquisition--such as might be transferred without alteration to a professor's note-book, or the pages of a critical Review--and of sharp word-catchings, ingenious thrusting and parrying of dialectics, and all the quips and quibblets of bar pleading. It was the talk of a society to which lawyers and lecturers had, for at least a hundred years, given the tone. From the date of the Union, Edinburgh ceased to be the headquarters of the Scotch n.o.bility--and long before the time of which I speak, they had all but entirely abandoned it as a place of residence. I think I never knew above two or three of the Peerage to have houses there at the same time--and these were usually among the poorest and most insignificant of their order. The wealthier gentry had followed their example. Very few of that cla.s.s ever spent any considerable part of the year in Edinburgh, except for the purposes of educating their children, or superintending the progress of a lawsuit; and these were not more likely than a score or two of comatose and lethargic old Indians, to make head against the established influences of academical and forensic celebrity. Now Scott's tastes and resources had not much in common with those who had inherited and preserved the chief authority in this provincial hierarchy of rhetoric. He was highly amused with watching their dexterous logomachies--but his delight in such displays arose mainly, I cannot doubt, from the fact of their being, both as to subject-matter and style and method, remote _a Scaevolae studiis_. He sat by, as he would have done at a stage-play or a fencing-match, enjoying and applauding the skill exhibited, but without feeling much ambition to parade himself as a rival either of the foil or the buskin. I can easily believe, therefore, that in the earlier part of his life--before the blaze of universal fame had overawed {p.245} local prejudice, and a new generation, accustomed to hear of that fame from their infancy, had grown up--it may have been the commonly adopted creed in Edinburgh, that Scott, however distinguished otherwise, was not to be named as a table-companion in the same day with this or that master of luminous dissertation or quick rejoinder, who now sleeps as forgotten as his grandmother. It was natural enough that persons brought up in the same circle with him, who remembered all his beginnings, and had but slowly learned to acquiesce in the justice of his claim to unrivalled honor in literature, should have clung all the closer for that late acquiescence to their original estimate of him as inferior to themselves in other t.i.tles to admiration. It was also natural that their prejudice on that score should be readily taken up by the young aspirants who breathed, as it were, the atmosphere of their professional renown. Perhaps, too, Scott's steady Toryism, and the effect of his genius and example in modifying the intellectual sway of the long dominant Whigs in the north, may have had some share in this matter. However all that may have been, the substance of what I had been accustomed to hear certainly was, that Scott had a marvellous stock of queer stories, which he often told with happy effect, but that, bating these drafts on a portentous memory, set off with a simple old-fas.h.i.+oned _navete_ of humor and pleasantry, his strain of talk was remarkable neither for depth of remark nor felicity of ill.u.s.tration; that his views and opinions on the most important topics of practical interest were hopelessly perverted by his blind enthusiasm for the dreams of bygone ages; and that, but for the grotesque phenomenon presented by a great writer of the nineteenth century gravely uttering sentiments worthy of his own Dundees and Invernahyles, the main texture of his discourse would be p.r.o.nounced, by any enlightened member of modern society, rather bald and poor than otherwise. I think the epithet most in vogue was _commonplace_.

{p.246} It will easily be believed that, in companies such as I have been alluding to, made up of, or habitually domineered over, by voluble Whigs and political economists, Scott was often tempted to put forth his Tory doctrines and antiquarian prejudices in an exaggerated shape--in colors, to say the truth, altogether different from what they a.s.sumed under other circ.u.mstances, or which had any real influence upon his mind and conduct on occasions of practical moment.

But I fancy it will seem equally credible, that the most sharp-sighted of these social critics may not always have been capable of tracing, and doing justice to, the powers which Scott brought to bear upon the topics which they, not he, had chosen for discussion. In pa.s.sing from a gas-lit hall into a room with wax candles, the guests sometimes complain that they have left splendor for gloom; but let them try by what sort of light it is most satisfactory to read, write, or embroider, or consider at leisure under which of the two, either men or women look their best.

The strongest, purest, and least observed of all lights, is, however, daylight; and his talk was commonplace, just as suns.h.i.+ne is, which gilds the most indifferent objects, and adds brilliancy to the brightest. As for the old-world anecdotes which these clever persons were condescending enough to laugh at as pleasant extravagances, serving merely to relieve and set off the main stream of debate, they were often enough, it may be guessed, connected with the theme in hand by links not the less apt that they might be too subtle to catch their bedazzled and self-satisfied optics. There might be keener knowledge of human nature than was "dreamt of in their philosophy"--which pa.s.sed with them for _commonplace_, only because it was clothed in plain familiar household words, not dressed up in some pedantic masquerade of ant.i.thesis. "There are people," says Landor, "who think they write and speak finely, merely because they have forgotten the language in which their fathers and {p.247} mothers used to talk to them;" and surely there are a thousand homely old proverbs, which many a dainty modern would think it beneath his dignity to quote either in speech or writing, any one of which condenses more wit (take that word in any of its senses) than could be extracted from all that was ever said or written by the _doctrinaires_ of the Edinburgh school. Many of those gentlemen held Scott's conversation to be commonplace exactly for the same reason that a child thinks a perfectly limpid stream, though perhaps deep enough to drown it three times over, must needs be shallow. But it will be easily believed that the best and highest of their own idols had better means and skill of measurement: I can never forget the pregnant expression of one of the ablest of that school and party--Lord c.o.c.kburn--who, when some glib youth chanced to echo in his hearing the consolatory tenet of local mediocrity, answered quietly: "I have the misfortune to think differently from you--in my humble opinion, Walter Scott's _sense_ is a still more wonderful thing than his _genius_."

Indeed I have no sort of doubt that, long before 1818, full justice was done to Scott, even in these minor things, by all those of his Edinburgh acquaintance, whether Whig or Tory, on whose personal opinion he could have been supposed to set much value. With few exceptions, the really able lawyers of his own or nearly similar standing had ere that time attained stations of judicial dignity, or were in the springtide of practice; and in either case they were likely to consider general society much in his own fas.h.i.+on, as the joyous relaxation of life, rather than the theatre of exertion and display. Their tables were elegantly, some of them sumptuously spread; and they lived in a pretty constant interchange of entertainments upon a large scale, in every circ.u.mstance of which, conversation included, it was their ambition to imitate those voluptuous metropolitan circles, wherein most of them had from time to time mingled, and several of them {p.248} with distinguished success. Among such prosperous gentlemen, like himself past the _mezzo cammin_, Scott's picturesque anecdotes, rich easy humor, and gay involuntary glances of mother-wit, were, it is not difficult to suppose, appreciated above contributions of a more ambitious stamp; and no doubt his London _reputation de salon_ (which had by degrees risen to a high pitch, although he cared nothing for it) was not without its effect in Edinburgh. But still the old prejudice lingered on in the general opinion of the place, especially among the smart praters of _the Outer-House_, whose glimpses of the social habits of their superiors were likely to be rare, and their gall-bladders to be more distended than their purses.