The present age has discovered a desire, or rather a rage, for literary anecdote and private history, that may be well permitted to alarm one who has engaged in a certain degree the attention of the public. That I have had more than my own share of popularity, my contemporaries will be as ready to admit, as I am to confess that its measure has exceeded not only my hopes, but my merits, and even wishes. I may be therefore permitted, without an extraordinary degree of vanity, to take the precaution of recording a few leading circumstances (they do not merit the name of events) of a very quiet and uniform life—that, should my literary reputation survive my temporal existence, the public may know from good authority all that they are entitled to know of an individual who has contributed to their amusement.
| 2 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
From the lives of some poets a most important moral lesson may doubtless be derived, and few sermons can be read with so much profit as the Memoirs of Burns, of Chatterton, or of Savage. Were I conscious of any thing peculiar in my own moral character which could render such developement necessary or useful, I would as readily consent to it as I would bequeath my body to dissection, if the operation could tend to point out the nature and the means of curing any peculiar malady. But as my habits of thinking and acting, as well as my rank in society, were fixed long before I had attained, or even pretended to, any poetical reputation,* and as it produced, when acquired, no remarkable change upon either, it is hardly to be expected that much information can be derived from minutely investigating frailties, follies, or vices, not very different in number or degree from those of other men in my situation. As I have not been blessed with the talents of Burns or Chatterton, I have been happily exempted from the influence of their violent passions, exasperated by the
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 3 |
Every Scottishman has a pedigree. It is a national prerogative
as unalienable as his pride and his poverty. My birth was neither distinguished
nor sordid. According to the prejudices of my country, it was esteemed gentle,
as I was connected, though remotely, with ancient families both by my
father’s and mother’s side. My father’s grandfather was
Walter Scott, well known in
Teviotdale by the surname of Beardie. He was the second
son of Walter Scott, first Laird of Raeburn, who was third
son of Sir William Scott, and the
grandson of Walter Scott, commonly
called in tradition Auld Watt, of Harden. I am therefore
lineally descended from that ancient chieftain, whose name I have made to ring
in many a ditty, and from his fair dame, the Flower
of Yarrow—no bad genealogy for a Border minstrel. Beardie, my great-grandfather aforesaid,
derived his cognomen from a venerable beard, which he wore unblemished by razor
or scissors, in token of his regret for the banished dynasty of
Stewart. It would have been well that his zeal had
stopped there. But he took arms, and intrigued in their cause, until he lost
all he had in the world, and, as I have heard, run a narrow risk of being
hanged, had it not been for the interference of Anne,
Duchess of Buccleuch and Mon-
| 4 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
He left three sons. The eldest, Walter,
had a family, of which any that now remain have been long settled in America:
the male-heirs are long since extinct. The third was
William, father of James Scott,
well known in India as one of the original settlers of Prince
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 5 |
The second, Robert
Scott, was my grandfather. He was originally bred to the sea;
but, being shipwrecked near Dundee in his trial voyage, he took such a sincere
dislike to that element, that he could not be persuaded to a second attempt.
This occasioned a quarrel between him and his father, who left him to shift for
himself. Robert was one of those active spirits to whom
this was no misfortune. He turned Whig upon the spot, and fairly abjured his
father’s politics, and his learned poverty. His chief and relative,
Mr Scott of Harden, gave him a lease of the farm of
Sandy-Knowe, comprehending the rocks in the centre of which Smailholm or
Sandy-Knowe Tower is situated. He took for his shepherd an old man, called
Hogg, who willingly lent him, out of respect to his
family, his whole savings, about L.30, to stock the new farm. With this sum,
which it seems was at the time sufficient for the purpose, the master and
servant set off to purchase a stock of sheep at Whitsun-Tryste, a fair held on
a hill near Wooler in Northumberland. The old shepherd went carefully from
drove to drove, till he found a hirsel likely to answer
their purpose, and then returned to tell his master to come up and conclude the
bargain. But what was his surprise to see him galloping a mettled hunter about
the race-course, and to find he had expended the whole stock in this
extraordinary purchase! Moses’s
bargain of green spectacles did not strike more dismay into the Vicar of Wakefield’s family than my
grandfather’s rashness into the poor old shep-
| 6 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Robert Scott of Sandy-Knowe, married, in 1728, Barbara Haliburton, daughter of Thomas Haliburton of Newmains, an ancient and respectable family in Berwickshire. Among other patrimonial possessions, they enjoyed the part of Dryburgh, now the property of the Earl of Buchan, comprehending the ruins of the Abbey. My granduncle, Robert Haliburton, having no male heirs,
* The present Lord Haddington, and other gentlemen conversant with the south country, remember my grandfather well. He was a line alert figure, and wore a jockey cap over his grey hair. [1826]. |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 7 |
Walter Scott, my father, was born in
1729, and educated to the profession of a Writer to the Signet. He was the
eldest of a large family, several of whom I shall have occasion to mention with
a tribute of sincere gratitude. My father was a singular instance of a man
rising to eminence in a profession for which nature had in some degree unfitted
him. He had indeed a turn for labour, and a pleasure in analyzing the abstruse
feudal doctrines connected with conveyancing, which would probably have
rendered him unrivalled in the line of a special pleader, had there been such a
profession in Scotland; but in the actual business of the profession which he
embraced, in that sharp and intuitive perception which is necessary in driving
bargains for himself and others, in availing himself of the wants, necessities,
caprices, and follies of some, and guarding against the knavery and malice of
others, uncle Toby himself could not have
| 8 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
His person and face were uncommonly handsome, with an
expression of sweetness of temper, which was not fal-
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 9 |
* Mrs Cockburn (born Miss Rutherford of Fairnalie) was the authoress of the beautiful song
|
| 10 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
|
“To a thing that’s uncommon
A youth of discretion,
Who, though vastly handsome,
Despises flirtation:
To the friend in affliction,
The heart of affection,
Who may hear the last trump
Without dread of detection.”
|
In [April, 1758] my father married Anne Rutherford, eldest daughter of Dr John Rutherford, professor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh. He was one of those pupils of Boerhaave to whom the school of medicine in our northern metropolis owes its rise, and a man distinguished for professional talent, for lively wit, and for literary acquirements. Dr Rutherford was twice married. His first wife, of whom my mother is the sole surviving child, was a daughter of Sir John Swinton of Swinton, a family which produced many distinguished warriors during the middle ages, and which, for antiquity and honourable alliances, may rank with any in Britain. My grandfather’s second wife was Miss Mackay, by whom he had a second family, of whom are now (1808) alive, Dr Daniel Rutherford, professor of botany in the University of Edinburgh, and Misses Janet and Christian Rutherford, amiable and accomplished women.
My father and mother had a very numerous family, no fewer, I
believe, than twelve children, of whom many
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 11 |
“No more the geese shall cackle on the poop, No more the bagpipe through the orlop sound, No more the midshipmen, a jovial group, Shall toast the girls, and push the bottle round. In death’s dark road at anchor fast they stay, Till Heaven’s loud signal shall in thunder
roar, Then starting up, all hands shall quick obey, Sheet home the topsail, and with speed
unmoor.” |
| 12 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
John Scott, my second brother, is about three years older than me. He addicted himself to the military service, and is now brevet-major in the 73d regiment.*
I had an only sister, Anne Scott, who seemed to be from her cradle the butt for mischance to shoot arrows at. Her childhood was marked by perilous escapes from the most extraordinary accidents. Among others, I remember an iron-railed door leading into the area in the centre of George’s Square being closed by the wind, while her fingers were betwixt the hasp and staple. Her hand was thus locked in, and must have been smashed to pieces, had not the bones of her fingers been remarkably slight and thin. As it was, the hand was cruelly mangled. On another occasion she was nearly drowned in a pond, or old quarry-hole, in what was then called Brown’s Park, on the south side of the square. But the most unfortunate accident, and which, though it happened while she was only six
* He was this year made major of the second battalion, by the kind intercession of Mr Canning at the War-Office 1809 He retired from the army, and kept house with my mother. His health was totally broken, and he died, yet a young man, on 8th May, 1816.—[1826]. |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 13 |
A year lower in the list was my brother Thomas Scott, who is still alive.*
Last, and most unfortunate of our family, was my youngest brother Daniel. With the same aversion to labour, or rather, I should say, the same determined indolence that marked us all, he had neither the vivacity of intellect which supplies the want of diligence,
* Poor Tom, a man of infinite humour and excellent parts, pursued for some time my father’s profession; but he was unfortunate, from engaging in speculations respecting farms and matters out of the line of his proper business. He afterwards became paymaster of the 70th regiment, and died in Canada. Tom married Elizabeth, a daughter of the family of M’Culloch of Ardwell, an ancient Galwegian stock, by whom he left a son, Walter Scott, now second lieutenant of engineers in the East India Company’s service, Bombay, and three daughters—Jessie, married to Lieutenant-Colonel Huxley; 2, Anne; 3, Eliza—the two last still unmarried.—[1826]. |
| 14 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Having premised so much of my family, I return to my own story. I was born, as I believe, on the 15th August, 1771, in a house belonging to my father, at the head of the College Wynd. It was pulled down, with others, to make room for the northern front of the new College. I was an uncommonly healthy child, but had nearly died in consequence of my first nurse being ill of a consumption, a circumstance which she chose to conceal, though to do so was murder to both herself and me. She went privately to consult Dr Black, the celebrated professor of chemistry, who put my father on his guard. The woman was dismissed, and I was consigned to a healthy peasant, who is still alive to boast of her laddie being what she calls a grand gentleman.* I showed every sign of health and strength until I was about eighteen months old. One night, I have been often told, I showed great reluctance to be caught and put to bed, and after being chased about the room, was apprehended and consigned to my dormitory with some difficulty. It was the last time I was to show such personal agility. In the morning I was discovered to be affected with the fever which often accompanies the cutting of large teeth. It held me three days. On the
* She died in 1810.—[1826]. |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 15 |
An odd incident is worth recording. It seems my mother had
sent a maid to take charge of me, that I might be no inconvenience in the
family. But the damsel sent on that important mission had left her heart behind
her, in the keeping of some wild fellow, it is likely, who had done and said
more to her than he was like to make good. She became extremely desirous to
return to Edinburgh, and as my mother made a point of her remaining where she
was, she contracted a sort of hatred at poor me, as the cause of her being
| 16 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
It is here at Sandy-Knowe, in the residence of my paternal grandfather, already mentioned, that I have the first consciousness of existence; and I recollect distinctly that my situation and appearance were a little whimsical. Among the odd remedies recurred to to aid my lameness, some one had recommended that so often as a sheep was killed for the use of the family, I should be stripped, and swathed up in the skin warm as it was flayed from the carcass of the animal. In this Tartar-like habiliment I well remember lying upon the floor of the little parlour in the farm-house, while my grandfather, a venerable old man with white hair, used every excitement to make me try to crawl. I also distinctly remember the late Sir George MacDougal of Makerstoun, father of the present Sir Henry Hay MacDougal, joining in this kindly attempt. He was, God knows how,* a relation of ours, and I still recollect him in his
* He was a second cousin of my grandfather’s. Isobel MacDougal, wife of Walter, the first Laird of Raeburn, and mother of Walter Scott, called Beardie, was grand aunt, I take it, to the late Sir George MacDougal. There was always great friendship between |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 17 |
My grandmother continued for some years to take charge of the farm, assisted by my father’s second brother, Mr Thomas Scott, who resided at Crailing, as factor or land-steward for Mr Scott of Danesfield, then proprietor of that estate.* This was during the heat of the American war, and I remember being as anxious on my uncle’s weekly visits (for we heard news at no other time) to hear of the defeat of Washington, as if I had had some deep and personal cause of antipathy to him. I know not how this was combined with a very strong prejudice in favour of the Stuart family, which
us and the Makerston family. It singularly happened that at the burial of the late Sir Henry MacDougal, my cousin William Scott younger of Raeburn, and I myself were the nearest blood-relations present, although our connexion was of so old a date, and ranked as pall-bearers accordingly. [1826]. * My uncle afterwards resided at Elliston, and then took from Mr Cornelius Elliot the estate of Woollee. Finally, he retired to Monklaw, in the neighbourhood of Jedburgh, where he died, 1823, at the advanced age of ninety years, and in full possession of his faculties. It was a fine thing to hear him talk over the change of the country which he had witnessed.—[1826]. |
| 18 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
My kind and affectionate aunt, Miss Janet Scott, whose
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 19 |
| 20 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
I was in my fourth year when my father was advised that the
Bath waters might be of some advantage to my lameness. My affectionate
aunt, although such a journey
promised to a person of her retired habits any thing but pleasure or amusement,
undertook as readily to accompany me to the wells of Bladud, as if she had expected all the delight that ever the
prospect of a watering-place held out to its most impatient visitants. My
health was by this time a good deal confirmed by the country air, and the
influence of that imperceptible and unfatiguing exercise to which the good
sense of my grandfather had subjected me; for when the day was fine, I was
usually carried out and laid down beside the old shepherd, among the crags or
rocks round which he fed his sheep. The impatience of a child soon inclined me
to struggle with my infirmity, and I began by degrees to stand, to walk, and to
run. Although the limb
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 21 |
We went to London by sea, and it may gratify the curiosity of minute biographers to learn, that our voyage was performed in the Duchess of Buccleuch, Captain Beatson, master. At London we made a short stay, and saw some of the common shows exhibited to strangers. When, twenty-five years afterwards, I visited the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, I was astonished to find how accurate my recollections of these celebrated places of visitation proved to be, and I have ever since trusted more implicitly to my juvenile reminiscences. At Bath, where I lived about a year, I went through all the usual discipline of the pump-room and baths, but I believe without the least advantage to my lameness. During my residence at Bath, I acquired the rudiments of reading at a day-school, kept by an old dame near our lodgings, and I had never a more regular teacher, although I think I did not attend her a quarter of a year. An occasional lesson from my aunt supplied the rest. Afterwards, when grown a big boy, I had a few lessons from Mr Stalker of Edinburgh, and finally from the Rev. Mr Clure. But I never acquired a just pronunciation, nor could I read with much propriety.
In other respects my residence at Bath is marked by
| 22 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
The other circumstances I recollect of my residence in Bath
are but trifling, yet I never recall them without a feeling of pleasure. The
beauties of the parade (which of them I know not), with the river Avon winding
around it, and the lowing of the cattle from the opposite hills, are warm in my
recollection, and are only rivalled by the splendours of a toy-shop somewhere
near the Orange Grove. I had acquired, I know not by what means, a kind of
superstitious terror for statuary of all kinds. No ancient Iconoclast or modern
Calvinist could have looked on the outside of the abbey church (if I mistake
not, the principal church at Bath is so
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 23 |
After being a year at Bath, I returned first to Edinburgh, and afterwards for a season to Sandy-Knowe; and thus the time whiled away till about my eighth year, when it was thought sea-bathing might be of service to my lameness.
For this purpose, still under my aunt’s protection, I
remained some weeks at Prestonpans, a circumstance not worth mentioning,
excepting to record my juvenile intimacy with an old military veteran,
Dalgetty by name, who had pitched his tent in that
little village, after all his campaigns subsisting upon an ensign’s
half-pay, though called by courtesy a Captain. As this old gentleman, who had
been in all the German wars, found very few to listen to his tales of military
feats, he formed a sort of alliance with me, and I used invariably to attend
him for the pleasure of hearing those communications. Sometimes our
conversation turned on the American war, which was then raging. It was about
the time of Burgoyne’s unfortunate
expedition, to which my Captain and I augured different conclusions. Somebody
had showed me a map of North America, and, struck with the rugged appearance of
the country, and the quantity of lakes, I expressed some doubts on the subject
of the General’s arriving safely at the end of his journey, which were
very indignantly refuted by the Captain. The
| 24 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
|
* Besides this veteran, I found another ally at Prestonpans, in the person of George Constable, an old friend of my father’s, educated to the law, but retired upon his independent property, and generally residing near Dundee. He had many of those peculiarities of temper which long afterwards I tried to develope in the character of Jonathan Oldbuck. It is very odd, that though I am unconscious of any thing in which I strictly copied the manners of my old friend, the resemblance was nevertheless detected by George Chalmers, Esq., solicitor, London, an old friend, both of my father and Mr Constable, and who affirmed to my late friend, Lord Kinedder, that I must needs be the author of the Antiquary, since he recognised the portrait of George Constable. But my friend George was not so decided an enemy to womankind as his representative Monkbarns. On the contrary, I rather suspect that he had a tendresse for my Aunt Jenny, who even then was a most beautiful woman, though somewhat advanced in life. To the close of her life, she had the finest eyes and teeth I ever saw, and though she could be sufficiently sharp when she had a mind, her general behaviour was genteel and ladylike. However this might be, I derived a great deal of curious information from George Constable, both at this early period, and afterwards. He was constantly philandering about my aunt, and of course very kind to me. He was the first person who told me about Falstaff and Hotspur, and other characters in Shakspeare. What idea I annexed to them I know not, but I must have annexed some, for I remember quite well being interested on the subject. Indeed, I rather suspect that children derive impulses of a powerful and important kind in hearing things which they cannot entirely comprehend; and therefore, that to write down to children’s understanding is a mistake; set them on the scent, and let them puzzle it out. To return to George Constable, I knew him well at a much later period. He used always to dine at my father’s house of a Sunday, and was authorized to turn the conversation out of the austere and Calvinistic tone, which it usually maintained on that day, upon subjects of history or auld langsyne. He remembered the forty-five, and told many excellent stories, all with a strong dash of a peculiar caustic humour. George’s sworn ally as a brother antiquary was John Davidson, then Keeper of the Signet; and I remember his flattering and com- |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 25 |
From Prestonpans I was transported back to my father’s house in George’s Square, which continued to be my most established place of residence, until my marriage in 1797. I felt the change from being a single indulged brat, to becoming a member of a large family, very severely; for under the gentle government of my kind grandmother, who was meekness itself, and of my aunt, who, though of an higher temper, was exceedingly attached to me, I had acquired a degree of license which could not be permitted in a large family. I had sense enough, however, to bend my temper to my new circumstances; but such was the agony which I internally experienced, that I have guarded against nothing more in the education of my own family, than against their acquiring habits of self-willed caprice and domination. I found much consolation during this period of mortification in the partiality of my mother. She join-
pelling me to go to dine there. A writer’s apprentice with the Keeper cf the Signet, whose least officer kept us in order! It was an awful event. Thither, however, I went with some secret expectation of a scantling of good claret. Mr D. had a son whose taste inclined him to the army, to which his father, who had designed him for the bar, gave a most unwilling consent. He was at this time a young officer, and he and I, leaving the two seniors to proceed in their chat as they pleased, never once opened our mouths either to them or each other. The Pragmatic Sanction happened unfortunately to become the theme of their conversation, when Constable said in jest, “Now, John, I’ll wad you a plack that neither of these two lads ever heard of the Pragmatic Sanction.”—“Not heard of the Pragmatic Sanction! “said John Davidson; “I would like to see that;” and with a voice of thunder, he asked his son the fatal question. As young D. modestly allowed he knew nothing about it, his father drove him from the table in a rage, and I absconded during the confusion; nor could Constable ever bring me back again to his friend Davidson’s. [1826]. |
| 26 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
My week-day tasks were more agreeable. My lameness and my
solitary habits had made me a tolerable reader, and my hours of leisure were
usually spent in reading aloud to my mother Pope’s translation of Homer, which, excepting a few traditionary ballads,
and the songs in Allan
Ramsay’s Evergreen, was the first poetry which I
perused. My mother had good natural
taste and great feeling: she used to make me pause upon those passages which
expressed generous and worthy sentiments, and if she could not divert me from
those which were descriptive of battle and tumult, she contrived at least to
divide my attention between them. My own enthusiasm, however, was chiefly
awakened by the wonderful and the terrible—the common taste of children, but in
which I have remained a child even unto this day. I got by heart, not as a
task, but almost without intending it, the passages with which I was most
pleased, and used to recite them aloud, both when alone and to others—more
willingly, however, in my
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 27 |
In [1779] I was sent to the second class of the Grammar
School, or High School of Edinburgh, then taught by Mr Luke Fraser, a good Latin scholar and a very worthy man.
Though I had received, with my brothers, in private, lessons of Latin from
Mr James French, now a minister of
the Kirk of Scotland, I was nevertheless rather behind the class in which I was
placed both in years and in progress. This was a real disadvantage, and one to
which a boy of lively temper and talents ought to be as little exposed as one
who might be less expected to make up his lee-way, as it is called. The
situation has the unfortunate effect of reconciling a boy of the former
character (which in a posthumous work I may claim for my own) to holding a
subordinate station among his class-fellows—to which he would otherwise affix
disgrace. There is also, from the constitution of the High School, a certain
danger not sufficiently attended to. The boys take precedence in their places,
as they are called, according to their merit, and it requires a long while, in
general, before even a clever boy, if he falls behind the class, or is put into
one for which he is not quite ready, can force his way to the situation which
his abilities really entitle him to hold. But, in the mean while, he is
necessarily led to be the associate and companion of those inferior spirits
with whom he is placed; for the system of precedence, though it does not limit
the general intercourse among the boys, has nevertheless the effect of
| 28 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Our class contained some very excellent scholars. The first
Dux was James Buchan, who retained his honoured place,
almost without a day’s interval, all the while we were at the High
School. He was afterwards at the head of the medical staff in Egypt, and in
exposing himself to the plague infection, by attending the hospitals there,
displayed the same well-regulated and gentle, yet determined perseverance,
which placed him most worthily at the head of his school-fellows, while many
lads of livelier parts and dispositions held an inferior station. The next best
scholars (sed longo intervallo) were
my friend David Douglas, the heir and
élève of the celebrated Adam
Smith, and James Hope, now
a Writer to the Signet, both since well known and distinguished in their
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 29 |
My father did not trust our education solely to our High School lessons. We had a tutor at home, a young
* I read not long since, in that authentic record called the Percy Anecdotes, that I had been educated at Musselburgh school, where I had been distinguished as an absolute dunce, only Dr Blair, seeing farther into the millstone, had pronounced there was fire in it. I never was at Musselburgh school in my life, and though I have met Dr Blair at my father’s and elsewhere, I never had the good fortune to attract his notice, to my knowledge. Lastly, I was never a dunce, nor thought to be so, but an incorrigibly idle imp, who was always longing to do something else than what was enjoined him.—[1826]. |
| 30 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 31 |
After having been three years under Mr Fraser, our class was, in the usual routine
of the school, turned over to Dr Adam,
the Rector. It was from this respectable man that I first learned the value of
the knowledge I had hitherto considered only as a burdensome task. It was the
fashion to remain two years at his class, where we read Cæsar, and Livy, and
Sallust, in prose; Virgil, Horace,
and Terence, in verse. I had by this time
mastered, in some degree, the difficulties of the language, and began to be
sensible of its beauties. This was really gathering grapes from thistles; nor
shall I soon forget the swelling of my little pride when the Rector pronounced,
that though many of my school-fellows understood the Latin better,
Gualterus Scott was behind
few in following and enjoying the author’s meaning. Thus encouraged, I
distinguished myself by some attempts at poetical versions from
Horace and Virgil. Dr
Adam used to invite his scholars to such essays, but never made
them tasks. I gained some distinction upon these occasions, and the Rector in
future took much notice of me, and his judicious mixture of censure and praise
went far to counterbalance my habits of indolence and inattention. I saw I was
expected to do well, and I was piqued in honour to vindicate my master’s
favourable opinion. I climbed, therefore, to the first form; and, though I
never made a first-rate Latinist, my schoolfellows, and what was of more
consequence, I myself, considered that I had a character for
| 32 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
It is a pity that a man so learned, so admirably adapted for
his station, so useful, so simple, so easily contented, should have had other
subjects of mortification. But the magistrates of Edinburgh, not knowing the
treasure they possessed in Dr Adam,
encouraged a savage fellow, called Nicol, one of the undermasters, in insulting his person and
authority. This
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 33 |
From Dr Adam’s
class I should, according to the
| 34 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
At this time she resided in a small house, situated very
pleasantly in a large garden, to the eastward of the churchyard of Kelso, which
extended down to the Tweed. It was then my father’s property, from whom
it was afterwards purchased by my uncle. My grandmother was now dead, and my
aunt’s only companion, besides an old maid-servant, was my cousin,
Miss Barbara Scott, now Mrs
Meik. My time was here left entirely to my own disposal,
excepting for about four hours in the day, when I was expected to attend the
grammar-school of the village. The teacher at that time was Mr Lancelot Whale, an excellent classical
scholar, a humourist, and a worthy man. He had a supreme antipathy to the puns
which his very uncommon name frequently gave rise to; insomuch, that he made
his son spell the word Wale, which only occasioned the
young man being nicknamed the Prince of Wales by the
military mess to which he belonged. As for Whale, senior,
the least allusion to Jonah, or the terming him an odd
fish, or any similar quibble, was sure to put him beside himself. In point of
knowledge and
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 35 |
In the mean while my acquaintance with English literature was
gradually extending itself. In the intervals of my school hours I had always
perused with avidity such books of history or poetry or voyages and travels as
chance presented to me—not forgetting the usual, or rather ten times the usual,
quantity of fairy tales, eastern stories, romances, &c. These studies were
totally unregulated and undirected. My tutor thought it almost a sin to open a
profane play or poem; and my mother,
besides that she might be in some degree trammelled by the religious scruples
which he suggested, had no longer the opportunity to hear me read poetry as
formerly. I found, however, in her dressing-room (where I slept at one time)
some odd volumes of Shak-
| 36 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 37 |
I left the High School, therefore, with a great quantity of
general information, ill arranged, indeed, and collected without system, yet
deeply impressed upon my mind; readily assorted by my power of connexion and
memory, and gilded, if I may be permitted to say so, by a vivid and active
imagination. If my studies were not under any direction at Edinburgh, in the
country, it may be well imagined, they were less so. A respectable subscription
library, a circulating library of ancient standing, and some private
book-shelves, were open to my random perusal, and I waded into the stream like
a blind man into a ford, without the power
| 38 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Among the valuable acquisitions I made about this time was an
acquaintance with Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, through the flat
medium of Mr Hoole’s translation. But above all, I
then first became acquainted with Bishop
Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Poetry. As I had been from infancy devoted to
legendary lore of this nature, and only reluctantly withdrew my attention, from
the scarcity of materials and the rudeness of those which I possessed, it may
be imagined, but cannot be described, with what delight I saw pieces of the
same kind which had amused my childhood, and still continued in secret the
Delilahs of my imagination, considered
as the subject of sober research, grave commentary, and apt illustration, by an
editor who showed his poetical genius was capable of emulating the best
qualities of what his pious labour preserved. I remember well the spot where I
read these volumes for the first time. It was beneath a huge platanus-tree, in
the ruins of what had been intended for an old-fashioned arbour in the garden I have mentioned. The summer day sped onward so
fast, that notwithstanding the sharp appetite of thirteen, I forgot the hour of
dinner, was sought for with anxiety, and was still found entranced in my
intellectual banquet. To read and to remember was in this instance the same
thing, and henceforth I overwhelmed my schoolfellows, and all who would hearken
to me,
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 39 |
To this period also I can trace distinctly the awaking of
that delightful feeling for the beauties of natural objects which has never
since deserted me. The neighbourhood of Kelso, the most beautiful, if not the
most romantic village in Scotland, is eminently calculated to awaken these
ideas. It presents objects, not only grand in themselves, but venerable from
their association. The meeting of two superb rivers, the Tweed and the Teviot,
both renowned in song—the ruins of an ancient Abbey—the more distant vestiges
of Roxburgh Castle—the modern mansion of Fleurs, which is so situated as to
combine the ideas of ancient baronial grandeur with those of modern taste—are
in themselves objects of the first class; yet are so mixed, united, and melted
among a thousand other beauties of a less prominent description, that they
harmonize into one general picture, and please rather by unison than by
concord. I believe I have written unintelligibly upon this subject, but it is
fitter for the pencil than the pen. The romantic feelings which I have
described as predominating in my mind, naturally rested upon and associated
themselves
| 40 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
I was recalled to Edinburgh about the time when the College
meets, and put at once to the Humanity class, under Mr Hill, and the first Greek class, taught by Mr Dalzell. The former held the reins of
discipline very loosely, and though beloved by his students, for he was a
good-natured man as well as a good scholar, he had not the art of exciting our
attention as well as liking. This was a dangerous character with whom to trust
one who relished labour as little as I did, and amid the riot of his class I
speedily lost much of what I had learned under Adam and Whale. At the
Greek class, I might have made a better figure, for Professor
Dalzell maintained a great deal of authority, and was not only
himself an admirable scholar, but was always deeply interested in the progress
of his students. But here lay the villany. Almost all my companions who had
left the High School at the same time with myself, had acquired a smattering of
Greek before they came to College. I, alas! had none; and finding myself far
inferior to all my fellow-students, I could hit upon no better mode of
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 41 |
| 42 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Mean while, as if to eradicate my slightest tincture of Greek, I fell ill during the middle of Mr Dalzell’s second class, and migrated a second time to Kelso where I again continued a long time reading what and how I pleased, and of course reading nothing but what afforded me immediate entertainment. The only thing which saved my mind from utter dissipation was that turn for historical pursuit, which never abandoned me even at the idlest period. I had forsworn the Latin classics for no reason I know of, unless because they were akin to the Greek, but the occasional perusal of Buchanan’s history, that of Mathew Paris, and other monkish chronicles, kept up a kind of familiarity with the language even in its rudest state. But I forgot the very letters of the Greek alphabet; a loss never to be repaired, considering what that language is, and who they were who employed it in their compositions.
About this period—or soon afterwards—my father judged it
proper I should study mathematics, a study upon which I entered with all the
ardour of novelty. My tutor was an aged person, Dr
MacFait, who had in his time been distinguished as a teacher of
this science. Age, however, and some domestic inconveniences, had diminished
his pupils, and lessened his authority amongst the few who remained. I think
that had I been more fortunately placed for instruction, or had I had the spur
of emulation, I might have made some progress in this
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 43 |
In other studies I was rather more fortunate; I made some progress in Ethics under Professor John Bruce, and was selected as one of his students whose progress he approved, to read an essay before Principal Robertson. I was farther instructed in Moral Philosophy at the class of Mr Dugald Stewart, whose striking and impressive eloquence riveted the attention even of the most volatile student. To sum up my academical studies, I attended the class of History, then taught by the present Lord Woodhouselee, and, as far as I remember, no others, excepting those of the civil and municipal law. So that if my learning be flimsy and inaccurate, the reader must have some compassion even for an idle workman, who had so narrow a foundation to build upon. If, however, it should ever fall to the lot of youth to peruse these pages—let such a reader remember that it is with the deepest regret that I recollect in my manhood the opportunities of learning which I neglected in my youth; that through every part of my literary career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance; and that I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the good fortune to acquire, if by doing so I could rest the remaining part upon a sound foundation of learning and science.
I imagine my father’s reason for sending me to so few classes in the
College, was a desire that I should apply myself particularly to my legal
studies. He had not determined whether I should fill the situation of an
Advocate or a Writer; but judiciously considering the
| 44 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
I cannot reproach myself with being entirely an idle apprentice—far less, as the reader might reasonably have expected,
“A clerk foredoom’d my father’s soul to
cross.” |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 45 |
My greatest intimate, from the days of my school-tide, was
Mr John Irving, now a Writer to the
Signet. We lived near each other, and by joint agreement were wont, each of us,
to compose a romance for the other’s amusement. These legends, in which
the martial and the miraculous always predominated, we rehearsed to each other
during our walks, which were usually directed to the most solitary spots about
Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags. We naturally sought seclusion, for we
were conscious no small degree of ridicule would have attended our amusement,
if the nature of it had become known. Whole holidays were spent in this
singular pastime, which continued for two or three years, and had, I believe,
no small effect in
| 46 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Mean while, the translations of Mr Hoole having made me acquainted with Tasso and Ariosto, I learned from his notes on the latter, that the Italian language contained a fund of romantic lore. A part of my earnings was dedicated to an Italian class which I attended twice a-week, and rapidly acquired some proficiency. I had previously renewed and extended my knowledge of the French language, from the same principle of romantic research. Tressan’s romances, the Bibliothèque Bleue, and Bibliothèque de Romans, were already familiar to me, and I now acquired similar intimacy with the works of Dante, Boiardo, Pulci, and other eminent Italian authors. I fastened also, like a tiger, upon every collection of old songs or romances which chance threw in my way, or which my scrutiny was able to discover on the dusty shelves of John Sibbald’s circulating library in the Parliament Square. This collection, now dismantled and dispersed, contained at that time many rare and curious works, seldom found in such a collection. Mr Sibbald himself, a man of rough manners but of some taste and judgment, cultivated music and poetry, and in his shop I had a distant view of some literary characters, besides the privilege of ransacking the stores of old French and Italian books, which were in little demand among the bulk of his subscribers. Here I saw the unfortunate Andrew Macdonald, author of Vimonda; and here, too, I saw at a distance the boast of Scotland, Robert Burns. Of the latter I shall presently have occasion to speak more folly.
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 47 |
I am inadvertently led to confound dates while I talk of this
remote period, for, as I have no notes, it is impossible for me to remember
with accuracy the progress of studies, if they deserve the name, so irregular
and miscellaneous. But about the second year of my apprenticeship, my health,
which, from rapid growth and other causes, had been hitherto rather uncertain
and delicate, was affected by the breaking of a blood-vessel. The regimen I had
to undergo on this occasion was far from agreeable. It was Spring, and the
weather raw and cold, yet I was confined to bed with a single blanket, and bled
and blistered till I scarcely had a pulse left. I had all the appetite of a
growing boy, but was prohibited any sustenance beyond what was absolutely
necesary for the support of nature, and that in vegetables alone. Above all,
with a considerable disposition to talk, I was not permitted to open my lips
without one or two old ladies who watched my couch being ready at once to souse
upon me, “imposing silence with a stilly sound.” My only
refuge was reading and playing at chess. To the romances and poetry, which I
chiefly delighted in, I had always added the study of history, especially as
connected with military events. I was encouraged in this latter study by a
tolerable acquaintance with geography, and by the opportunities I had enjoyed
while with Mr MacFait to learn the
meaning of the more ordinary terms of fortification. While, therefore, I lay in
this dreary and silent solitude, I fell upon the resource of illustrating the
battles I read of by the childish expedient of arranging shells, and seeds, and
pebbles, so as to represent encountering armies.
| 48 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
After one or two relapses, my constitution recovered the
injury it had sustained, though for several months afterwards I was restricted
to a severe vegetable diet. And I must say, in passing, that though I gained
health under this necessary restriction, yet it was far from being agreeable to
me, and I was affected whilst under its influence with a nervousness which I
never felt before or since. A disposition to start upon slight alarms—a want of
decision in feeling and acting, which has not usually been my failing—an acute
sensibility to trifling inconveniences—and an unnecessary apprehension of
contingent misfortunes, rise to my memory as connected with my vegetable diet,
although they may very possibly have been entirely the result of the disorder
and not of the cure. Be this as it may, with this illness I bade
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 49 |
My frame gradually became hardened with my constitution, and being both tall and muscular, I was rather disfigured than disabled by my lameness. This personal disadvantage did not prevent me from taking much exercise on horseback, and making long journies on foot, in the course of which I often walked from twenty to thirty miles a-day. A distinct instance occurs to me. I remember walking with poor James Ramsay, my fellow apprentice, now no more, and two other friends to breakfast at Prestonpans. We spent the forenoon in visiting the ruins at Seton, and the field of battle at Preston—dined at Prestonpans on tiled haddocks, very sumptuously—drank half a bottle of port each, and returned in the evening. This could not be less than thirty miles, nor do I remember being at all fatigued upon the occasion.
These excursions on foot or horseback formed by far my most
favourite amusement. I have all my life delighted in travelling, though I have
never enjoyed that pleasure upon a large scale. It was a propensity which I
sometimes indulged so unduly as to alarm and vex my parents. Wood, water,
wilderness itself had an inexpressible charm for me, and I had a dreamy way of
going much farther than I intended, so that uncon-
| 50 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
|
“Jog on, jog on, the foot path way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.”
|
|
* Now Lord Abercromby. [1826]. |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 51 |
My principal object in these excursions was the pleasure of
seeing romantic scenery, or what afforded me at least equal pleasure, the
places which had been distinguished by remarkable historical events. The
delight with which I regarded the former of course had general approbation, but
I often found it difficult to procure sympathy with the interest I felt in the
latter. Yet to me the wandering over the field of Bannockburn was the source of
more exquisite pleasure than gazing upon the celebrated landscape from the
battlements of Stirling castle. I do not by any means infer that I was dead to
the feeling of picturesque scenery; on the contrary, few delighted more in its
general effect. But I was unable with the eye of a painter to dissect the
various parts of the scene, to comprehend how the one bore upon the other, to
estimate the effect which various features of the view had in producing its
leading and general effect. I have never, indeed, been capable of doing this
with precision or nicety, though my latter studies have led me to amend and
arrange my original ideas upon the subject. Even the humble ambition, which I
long cherished, of making sketches of those places which interested me, from a
defect of eye or of hand was totally ineffectual. After long study and many
efforts, I was unable to apply the elements of perspective or of shade to the
scene before me, and was obliged to relinquish in despair an art which I was
most anxious to practise. But show me an old castle or a field of battle, and I
was at home at once, filled it with its combatants in their proper costume, and
overwhelmed my bearers by the enthusiasm of my description. In
| 52 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
With music it was even worse than with painting. My mother was anxious we should at least learn Psalmody; but the incurable defects of my voice and ear soon drove my teacher to despair.* It is only by long
* The late Alexander Campbell, a warm-hearted man, and an |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 53 |
In other points, however, I began to make some amends for the irregularity of my education. It is well known that in Edinburgh one great spur to emulation among youthful students is in those associations called literary societies, formed not only for the purpose of debate, but of composition. These undoubtedly have some disadvantages, where a bold, petulant, and dispu-
enthusiast in Scottish music, which he sang most beautifully, had this ungrateful task imposed on him. He was a man of many accomplishments, but dashed with a bizarrerie of temper which made them useless to their proprietor. He wrote several books—as a Tour in Scotland, &c.—and he made an advantageous marriage, but fell nevertheless into distressed circumstances, which I had the pleasure of relieving, if I could not remove. His sense of gratitude was very strong, and showed itself oddly in one respect. He would never allow that I had a bad ear; but contended, that if I did not understand music, it was because I did not choose to learn it. But when he attended us in George’s Square, our neighbour, Lady Cumming, sent to beg the boys might not be all flogged precisely at the same hour, as, though she had no doubt the punishment was deserved, the noise of the concord was really dreadful. Robert was the only one of our family who could sing, though my father was musical and a performer on the violoncello at the gentlemen’s concerts. [1826]. |
| 54 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
In the business of these societies—for I was a member of more
than one successively—I cannot boast of having made any great figure. I never
was a good speaker unless upon some subject which strongly animated my
feelings; and, as I was totally unaccustomed to composition, as well as to the
art of generalizing my ideas upon any subject, my literary essays were but very
poor work. I never attempted them unless when compelled to do so by the
regulations of the society, and then I was like the Lord of Castle Rackrent, who was obliged to cut
down a tree to get a few faggots to boil the kettle; for
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 55 |
Looking back on these times, I cannot applaud in all respects the way in which our days were spent. There was too much idleness, and sometimes too much
* Now Lord Justice-Clerk. [1826]. |
| 56 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Amidst these studies, and in this society, the time of my
apprenticeship elapsed; and in 1790, or thereabouts, it became necessary that I
should seriously consider to which department of the law I was to attach
myself. My father behaved with the most
parental kindness. He offered, if I preferred his own profession, immediately
to take me into partnership with him, which, though his business was much
diminished, still afforded me an immediate prospect of a handsome independence.
But he did not disguise his wish that I
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 57 |
In the usual course of study, the Roman or civil law was the
first object of my attention—the second, the Municipal Law of Scotland. In the
course of reading
| 58 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY. | 59 |
Under these auspices, I commenced my legal studies. A little
parlour was assigned me in my father’s house, which was spacious and
convenient, and I took the exclusive possession of my new realms with all the
feelings of novelty and liberty. Let me do justice to the only years of my life
in which I applied to learning with stern, steady, and undeviating industry.
The rule of my friend Clerk and myself
was, that we should mutually qualify ourselves for undergoing an examination
upon certain points of law every morning in the week, Sundays excepted. This
was at first to have taken place alternately at each other’s houses, but
we soon discovered that my friend’s resolution was inadequate to severing
him from his couch at the early hour fixed for this exercitation. Accordingly,
I agreed to go every morning to his house, which, being at the extremity of
Prince’s Street, New Town, was a walk of two miles. With great
punctuality, however, I beat him up to his task every morning before seven
o’clock, and in the course of two summers, we went, by way of question
and answer, through the whole of Heineccius’s Analysis of the
Institutes and Pandects, as well as through the smaller
| 60 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
My progress in life during these two or three years had been gradually enlarging my acquaintance, and facilitating my entrance into good company. My father and mother, already advanced in life, saw little society at home, excepting that of near relations, or upon particular occasions, so that I was left to form connexions in a great measure for myself. It is not difficult for a youth with a real desire to please and be pleased, to make his way into good society in Edinburgh—or indeed any where—and my family connexions, if they did not greatly further, had nothing to embarrass my progress. I was a gentleman, and so welcome any where, if so be I could behave myself, as Tony Lumpkin says, “in a concatenation accordingly.”
