The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Part 54

_November_ 23.--I bilked the Court to-day, and worked at the review. I wish it may not be too long, yet know not how to shorten it. The post brought me a letter from the Duke of Buccleuch, acquainting me with his grandmother, the d.u.c.h.ess-Dowager's death.[79] She was a woman of unbounded beneficence to, and even beyond, the extent of her princely fortune. She had a masculine courage, and great firmness in enduring affliction, which pressed on her with continued and successive blows in her later years. She was about eighty-four, and nature was exhausted; so life departed like the extinction of a lamp for lack of oil. Our dinner on Monday is put off. I am not superst.i.tious, but I wish this festival had not been twice delayed by such sinister accidents--first, the injury sustained by Lord Melville, and then this event spreading c.r.a.pe like the shroud of Saladin over our little festival.[80] G.o.d avert bad omens!

Dined with Archie Swinton. Company--Sir Alexander and Lady Keith, Mr.

and Mrs. Anderson, Clanronald, etc. Clanronald told us, as an instance of Highland credulity, that a set of his kinsmen, Borradale and others, believing that the fabulous Water Cow inhabited a small lake near his house, resolved to drag the monster into day. With this view they bivouacked by the side of the lake, in which they placed, by way of night-bait, two small anchors, such as belong to boats, each baited with the carcase of a dog slain for the purpose. They expected the Water Cow would gorge on this bait, and were prepared to drag her ash.o.r.e the next morning, when, to their confusion of face, the baits were found untouched. It is something too late in the day for setting baits for Water Cows.[81]

_November_ 24.--Wrote at review in the morning. I have made my revocation of the invitation for Monday. For myself it will give me time to work. I could not get home to-day till two o'clock, and was quite tired and stupid. So I did little but sleep or dose till dressing-time.

Then went to Sir David Wedderburn's, where I met three beauties of my own day, Margaret Brown, Maria Brown, and Jane Wedderburn, now Lady Wedderburn, Lady Hampden, and Mrs. Oliphant. We met the pleasant Irish family of Meath. The resemblance between the Earl of Meath and the Duke of Wellington is something remarkably striking--it is not only the profile, but the mode of bearing the person, and the person itself. Lady Theodora Brabazon, the Earl's daughter, and a beautiful young lady, told me that in Paris her father was often taken for Lord Wellington.

_November_ 25.--This forenoon finished the review, and despatched it to Lockhart before dinner. Will Clerk, Tom Thomson, and young Frank Scott dined with me. We had a pleasant day. I have wrought pretty well to-day.

But I must

Do a little more And produce a little ore.

_November_ 26.--Corrected proof-sheets of _Chronicles_ and _Tales_.

Advised Sheriff processes, and was busy.

Dined with Robert Dundas of Arniston, Lord Register, etc. An agreeable evening.

_November_ 27.--Corrected proofs in the morning, and attended the Court till one or two o'clock, Mr. Hamilton being again ill. I visited Lady S.

on my return. Came home too f.a.gged to do anything to purpose.

Anecdote from George Bell. In the days of Charles II. or his brother, flourished an old Lady Elphinstone, so old that she reached the extraordinary period of 103. She was a keen Whig, so did not relish Graham of Clavers. At last, having a curiosity to see so aged a person, he obtained or took permission to see her, and asked her of the remarkable things she had seen. "Indeed," said she, "I think one of the most remarkable is, that when I entered the world there was one Knox deaving us a' with his clavers, and now that I am going out of it, there is one Clavers deaving us with his knocks."

_November_ 28.--Corrected proofs and went to Court. Returned about one, and called on the Lord Chief-Baron. Dined with the d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford at the Waterloo, and renewed, as I may say, an old acquaintance, which began while her Grace was Lady Georgiana.[82] She has now a fine family, two young ladies silent just now, but they will find their tongues, or they are not right Gordons, a very fine child, Alister, who shouted, sung, and spoke Gaelic with much spirit. They are from a shooting-place in the Highlands, called Inveres.h.i.+e, in Badenoch, which the Duke has taken to gratify the d.u.c.h.ess's pa.s.sion for the heather.

_November_ 29.--My course of composition is stopped foolishly enough. I have sent four leaves to London with Lockhart's review. I am very sorry for this blunder, and here is another. Forgetting I had been engaged for a long time to Lord Gillies--a first family visit too--the devil tempted me to accept of the office of President of the Antiquarian Society. And now they tell me people have come from the country to be present, and so forth, of which I may believe as much as I may. But I must positively take care of this absurd custom of confounding invitations. My conscience acquits me of doing so by malice _prepense_, yet one incurs the suspicion. At any rate it is uncivil and must be amended. Dined at Lord C. Commissioner's--to meet the d.u.c.h.ess and her party. She can be extremely agreeable, but I used to think her Grace _journaliere_. She may have been cured of that fault, or I may have turned less jealous of my dignity. At all events let a pleasant hour go by unquestioned, and do not let us break ordinary gems to pieces because they are not diamonds. I forgot to say Edwin Landseer was in the d.u.c.h.ess's train. He is, in my mind, one of the most striking masters of the modern school. His expression both in man and animals is capital. He showed us many sketches of smugglers, etc., taken in the Highlands, all capital.

"Some gaed there, and some gaed here, And a' the town was in a steer, And Johnnie on his brocket mear, He raid to fetch the howdie."

_November_ 30.--Another idle morning, with letters, however. Had the great pleasure of a letter from Lord Dudley[83] acquainting me that he had received his Majesty's commands to put down the name of my son Charles for the first vacancy that should occur in the Foreign Office, and at the same time to acquaint me with his gracious intentions, which were signified in language the most gratifying to me. This makes me really feel light and happy, and most grateful to the kind and gracious sovereign who has always shown, I may say, so much friends.h.i.+p towards me. Would to G.o.d _the King's errand might lie in the cadger's gait_, that I might have some better way of showing my grat.i.tude than merely by a letter of thanks or this private memorandum of my grat.i.tude. The lad is a good boy and clever, somewhat indolent I fear, yet with the capacity of exertion. Presuming his head is full enough of Greek and Latin, he has now living languages to study; so I will set him to work on French, Italian, and German, that, like the cla.s.sic Cerberus, he may speak a leash of languages at once. Dined with Gillies, very pleasant; Lord Chief-Commissioner, Will Clerk, Cranstoun, and other old friends. I saw in the evening the celebrated Miss Grahame Stirling, so remarkable for her power of personifying a Scottish old lady. Unluckily she came late, and I left early in the evening, so I could not find out wherein her craft lay. She looked like a sensible woman. I had a conference with my trustees about the purchase (in company with Cadell) of the copyrights of the novels to be exposed to sale on the 19th December, and had the good luck to persuade them fully of the propriety of the project. I alone can, by notes and the like, give these works a new value, and in fact make a new edition. The price is to be made good from the Second Series _Chronicles of Canongate_, sold to Cadell for 4000; and it may very well happen that we shall have little to pay, as part of the copyrights will probably be declared mine by the arbiter, and these I shall have without money and without price. Cadell is most anxious on the subject. He thinks that two years hence 10,000 may be made of a new edition.

FOOTNOTES:

[65] Holyrood remained an asylum for civil debtors until 1880, when by the Act 43 & 44 Victoria, cap. 34 imprisonment for debt was abolished.

For description of bounds see _Chronicles of the Canongate,_ p. 7. (vol.

xli.).

[66] The book was published during November, under the following t.i.tle, _Chronicles of the Canongate_ (First Series). By the author of _Waverley_, etc.--SIC ITUR AD ASTRA, motto of Canongate arms. In two vols. _The Two Drovers_, _The Highland Widow_, _The Surgeon's Daughter_.

Edinburgh, printed for Cadell and Co., and Simpkin Marshall. London 1827.

The introduction to this work contains sketches of Scott's own life, with portraits of his friends, unsurpa.s.sed in any of his earlier writings; for example, what could be better than the description of his ancestors the Scotts of Raeburn, vol. xli. p. 61:--

"_They werena ill to them, sir, and that is aye something; they were just decent bien bodies. Ony poor creature that had face to beg got an awmous and welcome; they that were shamefaced gaed by, and twice as welcome. But they keepit an honest walk before G.o.d and man, the Croftangrys, and as I said before, if they did little good, they did as little ill. They lifted their rents and spent them; called in their kain and eat them; gaed to the kirk of a Sunday, bowed civilly if folk took aff their bannets as they gaed by, and lookit as black as sin at them that keepit them on_."

[67] Mrs. Wilson, landlady of the inn at Fus.h.i.+e, one stage from Edinburgh,--an old dame of some humour, with whom Sir Walter always had a friendly colloquy in pa.s.sing. I believe the charm was, that she had pa.s.sed her childhood among the Gipsies of the Border. But her fiery Radicalism latterly was another source of high merriment.--J.G.L.

[68] The "new hare" was this: "It transpired in the very nick of time, that a suspicion of usury attached to these Israelites without guile, in a transaction with Hurst and Robinson, as to one or more of the bills for which the house of Ballantyne had become responsible. This suspicion, upon investigation, a.s.sumed a shape sufficiently tangible to justify Ballantyne's trustees in carrying the point before the Court of Session; but they failed to establish their allegation."--_Life_, vol.

ix. pp. 178-9.

[69] A favourite domestic at Abbotsford, whose name was never to be mentioned by any of Scott's family without respect and grat.i.tude.--_Life_, vol. x. p. 3.

[70] Lady Jane Stuart's house was No. 12 Maitland Street, opposite Shandwick Place. Mrs. Skene told Mr. Lockhart that at Sir Walter's first meeting with his old friend a very painful scene occurred, and she added--"I think it highly probable that it was on returning from this call that he committed to writing the verses, _To Time_, by his early favourite."--_Life_, vol. ix, p. 183.

The lines referred to are given below--

Friend of the wretch oppress'd with grief. Whose lenient hand, though slow, supplies The balm that lends to care relief, That wipes her tears--that checks her sighs!

'Tis thine the wounded soul to heal That hopeless bleeds for sorrow's smart, From stern misfortune's shaft to steal The barb that rankles in the heart.

What though with thee the roses fly, And jocund youth's gay reign is o'er; Though dimm'd the l.u.s.tre of the eye, And hope's vain dreams enchant no more.

Yet in thy train come dove-eyed peace, Indifference with her heart of snow; At her cold couch, lo! sorrows cease, No thorns beneath her roses grow.

O haste to grant thy suppliant's prayer, To me thy torpid calm impart: Rend from my brow youth's garland fair, But take the thorn that's in my heart.

Ah! why do fabling poets tell That thy fleet wings outstrip the wind?

Why feign thy course of joy the knell, And call thy slowest pace unkind?

To me thy tedious feeble pace Comes laden with the weight of years; With sighs I view morn's blus.h.i.+ng face, And hail mild evening with my tears.

_--Life,_ vol. i. pp. 334-336.

[71] Sir William Forbes crowned his generous efforts for Scott's relief by privately paying the whole of Abud's demand (nearly 2000) out of his own pocket--ranking as an ordinary creditor for the amount; and taking care at the same time that his old friend should be allowed to believe that the affair had merged quietly in the general measures of the trustees. In fact it was not until some time after Sir William's death (in the following year) that Sir Walter learned what he had done.--_Life_, vol. ix. p. 179.

[72] _St. Valentine's Day_ or _Fair Maid of Perth_.

[73] A Royal Commission, of which Sir Walter was a member, had been appointed in 1826 to visit the Universities of Scotland. At the suggestion of Lord Aberdeen, a hundred guinea prize had been offered for the best essay on the national character of the Athenians. This prize, which excited great interest among the Edinburgh students, was won by John Brown Patterson, and ordered to be read before the Commissioners, and the other public bodies, with the result described by Sir Walter. It was read on the 17th November before a distinguished audience.

[74] Sir William Rae's house, in Liberton parish, near Edinburgh.

[75] From the old song _Andrew and his Cutty Gun_.

[76] Sir James Gibson-Craig, one of the Whig leaders, and a prominent advocate of reform at the end of last century.

[77] Gillespie was tried at Aberdeen before Lord Alloway on September 26, and sentenced to be executed on Friday, 16th November 1827.

[78] Slightly altered from _Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 2.

[79] Lady Elizabeth Montagu, daughter of George Duke of Montagu.

[80] Saladin's shroud, which was said to have been displayed as a standard "to admonish the East of the instability of human greatness."--GIBBON.

[81] The belief in the existence of the 'Water Cow' is not even yet extinct in the Highlands. In Mr. J.H. Dixon's book on _Gairloch_, 8vo, 1886, it is said the monster lives or did live in Loch na Beiste! Some years ago the proprietor, moved by the entreaties of the people, and on the positive testimony of two elders of the Free Church, that the creature was hiding in his loch, attempted its destruction by pumping and running off the water; this plan having failed owing to the smallness of the pumps, though it was persevered in for two years, he next tried poisoning the water by emptying into the loch a quant.i.ty of quick lime!!--Whatever harm was thus done to the trout none was experienced by _the Beast_, which it is rumoured has been seen in the neighbourhood as late as 1884 (p. 162). This transaction formed an element in a case before the Crofters' Commission at Aultbea in May 1888.

[82] Daughter of Alexander, fourth Duke of Gordon.

[83] Lord Dudley, then Secretary of State for the Foreign Department, was an early friend of Scott's. He had been partly educated in Edinburgh, under Dugald Stewart's care.