Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume V Part 14

EDINBURGH, July 3, 1817.

MY DEAR SIR,--I send you Adam's and Riley's Travels. You will observe I don't want a review of the books, or a detail of these persons' adventures, but merely a short article expressing the light, direct or doubtful, which they have thrown on the interior of Africa. "Recent Discoveries in Africa" will be a proper t.i.tle. I hope to find you materially amended, or rather quite stout, when I come out on Sat.u.r.day. I am quite well this morning. Yours, in haste,

W. S.

P. S.--I add Mariner's Tonga Islands, and Campbell's Voyage.

Pray take great care of them, as I am a c.o.xcomb about my books, and hate specks or spots. Take care of yourself, and want for nothing that Abbotsford can furnish.

These notes have carried us down to the middle of the year. But I must now turn to some others, which show that before Whitsuntide, when Laidlaw settled at Kaeside, negotiations were on foot respecting another novel.

TO MR. JOHN BALLANTYNE, HANOVER STREET, EDINBURGH.

ABBOTSFORD, Monday. [April, 1817.]

DEAR JOHN,--I have a good subject for a work of fiction _in petto_. What do you think Constable would give for a smell of it? You ran away without taking {p.160} leave the other morning, or I wished to have spoken to you about it. I don't mean a continuation of Jedediah, because there might be some delicacy in putting that by the original publishers. You may write if anything occurs to you on this subject. It will not interrupt my History. By the way, I have a great lot of the Register ready for delivery, and no man asks for it. I shall want to pay up some cash at Whitsunday, which will make me draw on my brains. Yours truly,

W. SCOTT.

TO THE SAME.

ABBOTSFORD, Sat.u.r.day, May 3, 1817.

DEAR JOHN,--I shall be much obliged to you to come here with Constable on Monday, as he proposes a visit, and it will save time. By the way, you must attend that the usual quant.i.ty of stock is included in the arrangement--that is 600 for 6000 copies. My sum is 1700, payable in May--a round advance, by'r Lady, but I think I am ent.i.tled to it, considering what I have twined off hitherto on such occasions.

I make a point on your coming with Constable, health allowing. Yours truly,

W. S.

The result of this meeting is indicated in a note, scribbled by John Ballantyne at the bottom of the foregoing letter, before it was seen by his brother the printer:--

Half-past 3 o'clock, Tuesday.

DEAR JAMES,--I am at this moment returned from Abbotsford, with entire and full success. Wish me joy. I shall gain above 600--Constable taking my share of stock also. This t.i.tle is _Rob Roy--by the Author of Waverley!!!_ Keep this letter for me.

J. B.

On the same page there is written, in fresher ink, which marks, no doubt, the time when John pasted it into his collection of private papers now before me,--

N. B.--I did gain above 1200.--J. B.

{p.161} The t.i.tle of this novel was suggested by Constable, and he told me years afterwards the difficulty he had to get it adopted by the author. "What!" said he, "Mr. Accoucheur, must you be setting up for Mr. Sponsor too?--but let's hear it." Constable said the name of the real hero would be the best possible name for the book. "Nay,"

answered Scott, "never let me have to write up to a name. You well know I have generally adopted a t.i.tle that told nothing."--The bookseller, however, persevered; and after the trio had dined, these scruples gave way.

On rising from table, according to Constable, they sallied out to the green before the door of the cottage, and all in the highest spirits enjoyed the fine May evening. John Ballantyne, hopping up and down in his glee, exclaimed, "Is Rob's gun here, Mr. Scott; would you object to my trying the auld barrel with a _few de joy_?"--"Nay, Mr. Puff,"

said Scott, "it would burst, and blow you to the devil before your time."--"Johnny, my man," said Constable, "what the mischief puts drawing at sight into _your_ head?" Scott laughed heartily at this innuendo; and then observing that the little man felt somewhat sore, called attention to the notes of a bird in the adjoining shrubbery.

"And by the bye," said he, as they continued listening, "'tis a long time, Johnny, since we have had the Cobbler of Kelso." Mr. Puff forthwith jumped up on a ma.s.s of stone, and seating himself in the proper att.i.tude of one working with his awl, began a favorite interlude, mimicking a certain son of Crispin, at whose stall Scott and he had often lingered when they were schoolboys, and a blackbird, the only companion of his cell, that used to sing to him, while he talked and whistled to it all day long. With this performance Scott was always delighted: nothing could be richer than the contrast of the bird's wild sweet notes, some of which he imitated with wonderful skill, and the accompaniment of the Cobbler's hoa.r.s.e cracked {p.162} voice, uttering all manner of endearing epithets, which Johnny multiplied and varied in a style worthy of the Old Women in Rabelais at the birth of Pantagruel. I often wondered that Mathews, who borrowed so many good things from John Ballantyne, allowed this Cobbler, which was certainly the masterpiece, to escape him.

Scott himself had probably exceeded that evening the three gla.s.ses of wine sanctioned by his Sangrados. "I never," said Constable, "had found him so disposed to be communicative about what he meant to do.

Though he had had a return of his illness but the day before, he continued for an hour or more to walk backwards and forwards on the green, talking and laughing--he told us he was sure he should make a hit in a Glasgow weaver, whom he would _ravel up with Rob_; and fairly outshone the Cobbler, in an extempore dialogue between the bailie and the cateran--something not unlike what the book gives us as pa.s.sing in the Glasgow tolbooth."

Mr. Puff might well exult in the "full and entire success" of this trip to Abbotsford. His friend had made it a _sine qua non_ with Constable that he should have a third share in the bookseller's moiety of the bargain--and though Johnny had no more trouble about the publis.h.i.+ng or selling of Rob Roy than his own Cobbler of Kelso, this stipulation had secured him a _bonus_ of 1200, before two years pa.s.sed. Moreover, one must admire his adroitness in persuading Constable, during their journey back to Edinburgh, to relieve him of that fraction of his own old stock, with which his unhazardous share in the new transaction was burdened. Scott's kindness continued, as long as John Ballantyne lived, to provide for him a constant succession of similar advantages at the same easy rate; and Constable, from deference to Scott's wishes, and from his own liking for the humorous auctioneer, appears to have submitted with hardly a momentary grudge to this heavy tax on his most important ventures.

{p.163} The same week Scott received Southey's celebrated letter to Mr. William Smith, M. P. for Norwich. The poet of Keswick had also forwarded to him somewhat earlier his Pilgrimage to Waterloo, which piece contains a touching allusion to the affliction the author had recently sustained in the death of a fine boy. Scott's letter on this occasion was as follows:--

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ., KESWICK.

SELKIRK, May 9, 1817.

MY DEAR SOUTHEY,--I have been a strangely negligent correspondent for some months past, more especially as I have had you rarely out of my thoughts, for I think you will hardly doubt of my sincere sympathy in events which have happened since I have written. I shed sincere tears over the Pilgrimage to Waterloo. But in the crucible of human life, the purest gold is tried by the strongest heat, and I can only hope for the continuance of your present family blessings to one so well formed to enjoy the pure happiness they afford. My health has, of late, been very indifferent.

I was very nearly succ.u.mbing under a violent inflammatory attack, and still feel the effects of the necessary treatment. I believe they took one third of the blood of my system, and blistered in proportion: so that both my flesh and my blood have been in a woefully reduced state. I got out here some weeks since, where, by dint of the insensible exercise which one takes in the country, I feel myself gathering strength daily, but am still obliged to observe a severe regimen. It was not to croak about myself, however, that I took up the pen, but to wish you joy of your triumphant answer to that coa.r.s.e-minded William Smith. He deserved all he has got, and, to say the truth, you do not spare him, and have no cause. His attack seems to have proceeded from the vulgar insolence of a low mind desirous of attacking genius at disadvantage. It is the ancient and eternal strife of which the witch speaks in {p.164} Thalaba. Such a man as he, feels he has no alliance with such as you, and his evil instincts lead him to treat as hostile whatever he cannot comprehend. I met Smith once during his stay in Edinburgh,[64] and had, what I seldom have with any one in society, a high quarrel with him. His mode of travelling had been from one gentleman's seat to another, abusing the well-known hospitality of the Highland lairds, by taking possession of their houses, even during their absence, domineering in them when they were present, and not only eating the dinner of to-day, but requiring that the dinner of to-morrow should also be made ready and carried forward with him, to save the expense of inns. All this was no business of mine, but when, in the middle of a company consisting of those to whom he had owed this hospitality, he abused the country, of which he knew little--the language, of which he knew nothing--and the people, who have their faults, but are a much more harmless, moral, and at the same time high-spirited population, than, I venture to say, he ever lived amongst--I thought it was really too bad, and so e'en took up the debate, and gave it him over the knuckles as smartly as I could. Your pamphlet, therefore, fed fat my ancient grudge against him as well as the modern one, for you cannot doubt that my blood boiled at reading the report of his speech. Enough of this gentleman, who, I think, will not walk out of the round in a hurry again, to slander the conduct of individuals.

[Footnote 64: Scott's meeting with this Mr. Smith occurred at the table of his friend and colleague, Hector Macdonald Buchanan. The company, except Scott and Smith, were all, like their hospitable landlord, Highlanders.]

I am at present writing at our head-court of freeholders--a set of quiet, unpretending, but sound-judging country gentlemen, and whose opinions may be very well taken as a fair specimen of those men of sense and honor, who are not likely to be dazzled by literary talent, which {p.165} lies out of their beat, and who, therefore, cannot be of partial counsel in the cause; and I never heard an opinion more generally, and even warmly expressed, than that your triumphant vindication brands Smith as a slanderer in all time coming. I think you may not be displeased to know this, because what men of keen feelings and literary pursuits must have felt, cannot be unknown to you, and you may not have the same access to know the impression made upon the general cla.s.s of society.

I have to thank you for the continuation of the History of Brazil--one of your gigantic labors; the fruit of a mind so active, yet so patient of labor. I am not yet far advanced in the second volume, reserving it usually for my hour's amus.e.m.e.nt in the evening, as children keep their dainties for _bonne bouche_: but as far as I have come, it possesses all the interest of the commencement, though a more faithless and worthless set than both Dutch and Portuguese I have never read of; and it requires your knowledge of the springs of human action, and your lively description of "hair-breadth 'scapes," to make one care whether the hog bites the dog, or the dog bites the hog. Both nations were in rapid declension from their short-lived age of heroism, and in the act of experiencing all those retrograde movements which are the natural consequence of selfishness on the one hand, and bigotry on the other.

I am glad to see you are turning your mind to the state of the poor. Should you enter into details on the subject of the best mode of a.s.sisting them, I would be happy to tell you the few observations I have made--not on a very small scale neither, considering my fortune, for I have kept about thirty of the laborers in my neighborhood in constant employment this winter. This I do not call charity, because they executed some extensive plantations and other works, which I could never have got done so cheaply, and which I always intended {p.166} one day to do. But neither was it altogether selfish on my part, because I was putting myself to inconvenience in incurring the expense of several years at once, and certainly would not have done so, but to serve mine honest neighbors, who were likely to want work but for such exertion. From my observation, I am inclined greatly to doubt the salutary effect of the scheme generally adopted in Edinburgh and elsewhere for relieving the poor. At Edinburgh, they are employed on public works at so much a day--tenpence, I believe, or one s.h.i.+lling, with an advance to those who have families. This rate is fixed below that of ordinary wages, in order that no person may be employed but those who really cannot find work elsewhere. But it is attended with this bad effect, that the people regard it partly as charity, which is humiliating--and partly as an imposition, in taking their labor below its usual salable value; to which many add a third view of the subject--namely, that this sort of half-pay is not given them for the purpose of working, but to prevent their rising in rebellion. None of these misconceptions are favorable to hard labor, and the consequence is, that I never have seen such a set of idle _faineants_ as those employed on this system in the public works, and I am sure that, notwithstanding the very laudable intention of those who subscribed to form the fund, and the yet more praiseworthy, because more difficult, exertions of those who superintend it, the issue of the scheme will occasion full as much mischief as good to the people engaged in it. Private gentlemen, acting on something like a similar system, may make it answer better, because they have not the lazy dross of a metropolis to contend with--because they have fewer hands to manage--and, above all, because an individual always manages his own concerns better than those of the country can be managed. Yet all who have employed those who were distressed for want of work at under wages, have had, less or more, similar complaints to make. I {p.167} think I have avoided this in my own case, by inviting the country people to do piece-work by the contract. Two things only are necessary--one is, that the nature of the work should be such as will admit of its being ascertained, when finished, to have been substantially executed. All sort of spade-work and hoe-work, with many other kinds of country labor, fall under this description, and the employer can hardly be cheated in the execution if he keeps a reasonable lookout.

The other point is, to take care that the undertakers, in their anxiety for employment, do not take the job too cheap.

A little acquaintance with country labor will enable one to regulate this; but it is an essential point, for if you do not keep them to their bargain, it is making a jest of the thing, and forfeiting the very advantage you have in view--that, namely, of inducing the laborer to bring his heart and spirit to his work. But this he will do where he has a fair bargain, which is to prove a good or bad one according to his own exertions. In this case you make the poor man his own friend, for the profits of his good conduct are all his own. It is astonis.h.i.+ng how partial the people are to this species of contract, and how diligently they labor, acquiring or maintaining all the while those habits which render them honorable and useful members of society. I mention this to you, because the rich, much to their honor, do not, in general, require to be so much stimulated to benevolence, as to be directed in the most useful way to exert it.

I have still a word to say about the poor of our own parish of Parna.s.sus. I have been applied to by a very worthy friend, Mr. Scott of Sinton, in behalf of an unfortunate Mr.

Gilmour, who, it seems, has expended a little fortune in printing, upon his own account, poems which, from the sample I saw, seem exactly to answer the description of Dean Swift's country house:--

"Too bad for a blessing, too good for a curse, I wish from my soul they were better or worse."

{p.168} But you are the dean of our corporation, and, I am informed, take some interest in this poor gentleman. If you can point out any way in which I can serve him, I am sure my inclination is not wanting, but it looks like a very hopeless case. I beg my kindest respects to Mrs. Southey, and am always sincerely and affectionately yours,

Walter SCOTT.

About this time Hogg took possession of Altrive Lake, and some of his friends in Edinburgh set on foot a subscription edition of his Queen's Wake (at a guinea each copy), in the hope of thus raising a sum adequate to the stocking of the little farm. The following letter alludes to this affair; and also to the death of Frances, Lady Douglas, sister to Duke Henry of Buccleuch, whose early kindness to Scott has been more than once mentioned.

TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD MONTAGU.

ABBOTSFORD, June 8, 1817.

MY DEAR LORD,--I am honored with your letter, and will not fail to take care that the Shepherd profits by your kind intentions, and those of Lady Montagu. This is a scheme which I did not devise, for I fear it will end in disappointment, but for which I have done, and will do, all I possibly can. There is an old saying of the seamen's, "Every man is not born to be a boatswain," and I think I have heard of men born under a sixpenny planet, and doomed never to be worth a groat. I fear something of this vile sixpenny influence had gleamed in at the cottage window when poor Hogg first came squeaking into the world. All that he made by his original book he ventured on a flock of sheep to drive into the Highlands to a farm he had taken there, but of which he could not get possession, so that all the stock was ruined and sold to disadvantage. Then he tried another farm, which proved too dear, so that he fairly broke upon it. Then put forth divers publications, {p.169} which had little sale--and brought him accordingly few pence, though some praise. Then came this Queen's Wake, by which he might and ought to have made from 100 to 200--for there were, I think, three editions--when lo! his bookseller turned bankrupt, and paid him never a penny. The Duke has now, with his wonted generosity, given him a cosie bield, and the object of the present attack upon the public is to get if possible as much cash together as will stock it. But no one has loose guineas now to give poor poets, and I greatly doubt the scheme succeeding, unless it is more strongly patronized than can almost be expected. In bookselling matters, an author must either be the conjurer, who commands the devil, or the witch who serves him--and few are they whose situation is sufficiently independent to enable them to a.s.sume the higher character--and this is injurious to the indigent author in every respect, for not only is he obliged to turn his pen to every various kind of composition, and so to injure himself with the public by writing hastily, and on subjects unfitted for his genius; but, moreover, those honest gentlemen, the booksellers, from a natural a.s.sociation, consider the books as of least value, which they find they can get at least expense of copy-money, and therefore are proportionally careless in pus.h.i.+ng the sale of the work. Whereas a good round sum out of their purse, like a moderate rise of rent on a farm, raises the work thus acquired in their own eyes, and serves as a spur to make them clear away every channel, by which they can discharge their quires upon the public. So much for bookselling, the most ticklish and unsafe and hazardous of all professions, scarcely with the exception of horse-jockeys.h.i.+p.

You cannot doubt the sincere interest I take in Lady Montagu's health. I was very glad to learn from the Duke, that the late melancholy event had produced no permanent effect on her const.i.tution, as I know how {p.170} much her heart must have suffered.[65] I saw our regretted friend for the last time at the Theatre, and made many schemes to be at Bothwell this next July. But thus the world glides from us, and those we most love and honor are withdrawn from the stage before us. I know not why it was that among the few for whom I had so much respectful regard, I never had a.s.sociated the idea of early deprivation with Lady Douglas.

Her excellent sense, deep information, and the wit which she wielded with so much good-humor, were allied apparently to a healthy const.i.tution, which might have permitted us to enjoy, and be instructed by her society for many years. _Dis aliter visum_, and the recollection dwelling on all the delight which she afforded to society, and the good which she did in private life, is what now remains to us of her wit, wisdom, and benevolence. The Duke keeps his usual health, with always just so much of the gout, however, as would make me wish that he had more--a kind wish, for which I do not observe that he is sufficiently grateful. I hope to spend a few days at Drumlanrig Castle, when that ancient mansion shall have so far limited its courtesy as to stand covered in the presence of the wind and rain, which I believe is not yet the case. I am no friend to ceremony, and like a house as well when it does not carry its roof _en chapeau bras_. I heartily wish your Lords.h.i.+p joy of the new mansion at Ditton, and hope my good stars will permit me to pay my respects there one day. The discovery of the niches certainly bodes good luck to the house of Montagu, and as there are three of them, I presume it is to come threefold.

From the care with which they were concealed, I presume they had been closed in the days of Cromwell, or a little before, and that the artist employed (like the {p.171} General, who told his soldiers to fight bravely against the Pope, since they were Venetians before they were Christians) had more professional than religious zeal, and did not even, according to the practice of the time, think it necessary to sweep away Popery with the besom of destruction.[66] I am here on a stolen visit of two days, and find my mansion gradually enlarging. Thanks to Mr. Atkinson (who found out a practical use for our romantic theory), it promises to make a comfortable station for offering your Lords.h.i.+p and Lady Montagu a pilgrim's meal, when you next visit Melrose Abbey, and that without any risk of your valet (who I recollect is a substantial person) sticking between the wall of the parlor and the backs of the chairs placed round the table.

This literally befell Sir Harry Macdougal's fat butler, who looked like a s.h.i.+p of the line in the loch at Bowhill, altogether unlike his master, who could glide wherever a weasel might make his way. Mr. Atkinson has indeed been more attentive than I can express, when I consider how valuable his time must be.[67] We are attempting no castellated conundrums to rival those Lord Napier used to have executed in sugar, when he was Commissioner, and no cottage neither, but an irregular somewhat--like an old English hall, in which your squire of 500 a year used to drink his ale in days of yore.

[Footnote 65: Lady Montagu was the daughter of the late Lord Douglas by his first marriage with Lady Lucy Graham, daughter of the second Duke of Montrose.]

[Footnote 66: Lord Montagu's house at Ditton Park, near Windsor, had recently been destroyed by fire--and the ruins revealed some niches with antique candlesticks, etc., belonging to a domestic chapel that had been converted to other purposes from the time, I believe, of Henry VIII.]

[Footnote 67: Mr. Atkinson, of St. John's Wood, was the architect of Lord Montagu's new mansion at Ditton, as well as the artist ultimately employed in arranging Scott's interior at Abbotsford.]