1 |
It has been mentioned that in the course of the preceding
summer, the Lord-Lieutenant of Selkirkshire complained
of Scott’s military zeal as interfering sometimes
with the discharge of his shrieval functions, and took occasion to remind him, that the
law, requiring every Sheriff to reside at least four months in the year within his own
jurisdiction, had not hitherto been complied with. It appears that
Scott received this communication with some displeasure, being
conscious that no duty of any importance had ever been neglected by him; well knowing that
the law of residence was not enforced in the cases of many of his brother sheriffs; and, in
fact, ascribing his Lord-Lieutenant’s complaint to nothing but a certain nervous
fidget as to all points of form, for which that respectable nobleman was notorious, as well
became, perhaps, an old Lord of the Bedchamber, and High
2 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
While he was seeking about, accordingly, for some “lodge in the Forest,” his kinsman of Harden suggested that the tower of Auld Wat might be refitted, so as to serve his purpose; and he received the proposal with enthusiastic delight. On a more careful inspection of the localities, however, he became sensible that he would be practically at a greater distance from county business of all kinds at Harden, than if he were to continue at Lasswade. Just at this time, the house of
* I remember being much amused with an instance of Lord Napier’s precision in small matters, mentioned by the late Lady Stewart of Castlemilk, in Lanarkshire. Lord and Lady Napier had arrived at Castlemilk, with the intention of staying a week; but next morning it was announced that a circumstance had occurred which rendered it indispensable for them to return without delay to their own seat in Selkirkshire. It was impossible for Lady Stewart to extract any further explanation at the moment, but it turned out afterwards that Lord Napier’s valet had committed the grievous mistake of packing up a set of neckcloths which did not correspond in point of date with the shirts they accompanied! |
ASHESTIEL—1804. | 3 |
* Describing his meeting with Scott in the summer of 1801, James Hogg says—“During the sociality of the evening, the discourse ran very much on the different breeds of sheep, that curse of the community of Ettrick Forest. The original black-faced Forest breed being always called the short sheep, and the Cheviot breed the long sheep, the disputes at that period ran very high about the practicable profits of each. Mr Scott, who had come into that remote district to preserve what fragments remained of its legendary |
4 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
The business part of these letters refers to Scott’s brother Daniel, who, as he expresses it, “having been bred to the mercantile line, had been obliged, by some untoward circumstances, particularly an imprudent connexion with an artful woman, to leave Edinburgh for
lore, was rather bored with everlasting questions of the long and the short sheep. So at length, putting on his most serious, calculating face, he turned to Mr Walter Bryden, and said, ‘I am rather at a loss regarding the merits of this very important question. How long must a sheep actually measure to come under the denomination of a long sheep?’ Mr Bryden, who, in the simplicity of his heart, neither perceived the quiz nor the reproof, fell to answer with great sincerity. ‘It’s the woo [wool], sir it’s the woo’ that makes the difference. The lang sheep ha’e the short woo’, and the short sheep ha’e the lang thing, and these are just kind o’ names we gi’e them, like.’ Mr Scott could not preserve his grave face of strict calculation; it went gradually awry, and a hearty guffaw “[i. e. horselaugh]” followed. When I saw the very same words repeated near the beginning p. (4) of the ‘Black Dwarf,’ how could I be mistaken of the author? “Autobiography prefixed to Hogg’s “Altrive Tales.” |
DEATH OF CAPTAIN ROBERT SCOTT. | 5 |
On the 10th of June, 1804, died, at his seat of Rosebank, Captain Robert Scott, the affectionate uncle whose name has often occurred in this narrative.* “He was” says his nephew to Ellis, on the 18th, “a man of universal benevolence, and great kindness towards his friends, and to me individually. His manners were so much tinged with the habits of celibacy as to render them peculiar, though by no means unpleasingly so, and his profession (that of a seaman) gave a high colouring to the whole. The loss is one which, though the course of nature led me to expect it, did not take place at last without considerable pain to my feelings. The arrangement of his affairs, and the distribution of his small fortune among his relations, will devolve in a great measure upon me. He has distinguished me by leaving me a beautiful little villa on the banks of the Tweed, with every possible convenience annexed to it, and about
* In the obituary of the Scots Magazine for this month I find:—“Universally regretted, Captain Robert Scott of Rosebank, a gentleman whose life afforded an uniform example of unostentatious charity and extensive benevolence.” |
6 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Scott sold Rosebank in the course of the year for £5000; his share (being a ninth) of his uncle’s other property amounted, I believe, to about £500; and he had besides a legacy of £100 in his quality of trustee. This bequest made an important change in his pecuniary position, and influenced accordingly the arrangements of his future life. Independently of practice at the bar, and of literary profits, he was now, with his little patrimony, his Sheriffship, and about £200 per annum arising from the stock ultimately settled on his wife, in possession of a fixed revenue of nearly, if not quite, £1000 a-year.
On the 1st of August he writes to Ellis from Ashestiel—“Having had only about a hundred and fifty
things to do, I have scarcely done any thing, and yet could not give myself leave to
suppose that I had leisure to write letters. 1st, I had this farm-house to furnish from
sales, from broker’s shops, and from all manner of hospitals for incurable
furniture. 2dly, I had to let my cottage on the banks of the Esk. 3dly, I had to
arrange matters for the sale of Rosebank. 4thly, I had to go into quarters with our
cavalry, which made a very idle fortnight in the midst of all this business. Last of
all, I had to superintend a removal, or what we call a flit-
ASHESTIEL. | 7 |
Ashestiel will be visited by many for his sake, as long as Waverley and Marmion are remembered. A more beautiful situation for the
residence of a poet could not be conceived. The house was then a small one, but, compared
with the cottage at Lasswade, its accommodations were amply sufficient. You approached it
through an old-fashioned garden, with holly hedges, and broad, green, terrace walks. On one
side, close under the windows, is a deep ravine, clothed with venerable trees, down which a
mountain rivulet is heard, more than seen, in its progress to the Tweed. The river itself
is separated from the high bank on which the
8 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
When he first examined Ashestiel, with a view to being his cousin’s
tenant, he thought of taking home James Hogg to
superintend the sheep-farm, and keep watch over the house also during the winter. I am not
ASHESTIEL—JAMES HOGG. | 9 |
10 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
In truth Scott had hardly been a week in possession of his new domains, before he made acquaintance with a character much better suited to his purpose than James Hogg ever could have been. I mean honest Thomas Purdie, his faithful servant—his affectionately devoted humble friend from this time until death parted them. Tom was first brought before him, in his capacity of Sheriff, on a charge of poaching, when the poor fellow gave such a touching account of his circumstances,—a wife, and I know not how many children depending on his exertions—work scarce and grouse abundant, and all this with a mixture of odd sly humour,—that the Sheriff’s heart was moved. Tom escaped the penalty of the law was taken into employment as shepherd, and showed such zeal, activity, and shrewdness in that capacity, that Scott never had any occasion to repent of the step he soon afterwards took, in promoting him to the position which had been originally offered to James Hogg.
It was also about the same time that he took into his service as coachman Peter Mathieson, brother-in-law to Thomas Purdie, another faithful servant, who never afterwards left him, and still survives his kind master. Scott’s awkward conduct of the little phaeton had exposed his wife to more than one perilous overturn, before he agreed to set up a close carriage, and call in the assistance of this steady charioteer.
During this autumn Scott formed the
personal acquaintance of Mungo Park, the celebrated
victim of
MUNGO PARK. | 11 |
12 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Calling one day at Fowlsheils, and not finding Park at home, Scott walked in search of him along the banks of the Yarrow, which in that neighbourhood passes over various ledges of rock, forming deep pools and eddies between them. Presently he discovered his friend standing alone on the bank, plunging one stone after another into the water, and watching anxiously the bubbles as they rose to the surface. “This,” said Scott, “appears but an idle amusement for one who has seen so much stirring adventure.” “Not so idle, perhaps, as you suppose,” answered Mungo. “This was the manner in which I used to ascertain the depth of a river in Africa before I ventured to cross it—judging whether the attempt would be safe, by the time the bubbles of air took to ascend.” At this time Park’s intention of a second expedition had never been revealed to Scott; but he instantly formed the opinion that these experiments on Yarrow were connected with some such purpose.
MUNGO PARK—1804. | 13 |
His thoughts had always continued to be haunted with Africa. He told Scott that whenever he awoke suddenly in the night, owing to a nervous disorder with which he was troubled, he fancied himself still a prisoner in the tent of Ali; but when the poet expressed some surprise that he should design again to revisit those scenes, he answered, that he would rather brave Africa and all its horrors, than wear out his life in long and toilsome rides over the hills of Scotland, for which the remuneration was hardly enough to keep soul and body together.
Towards the end of the autumn, when about to quit his country for the
last time, Park paid Scott a farewell visit, and slept at Ashestiel. Next morning his host
accompanied him homewards over the wild chain of hills between the Tweed and the Yarrow.
Park talked much of his new scheme, and mentioned his
determination to tell his family that he had some business for a day or two in Edinburgh,
and send them his blessing from thence without returning to take leave. He had married, not
long before, a pretty and amiable woman; and when they reached the Williamhope Ridge, “the autumnal mist floating heavily and slowly down
the valley of the Yarrow,” presented to Scott’s
imagination “a striking emblem of the troubled and uncertain prospect which his
undertaking afforded.” He remained, however, unshaken, and at length they
reached the spot at which they had agreed to separate. A small ditch divided the moor from
the road, and, in going over it, Park’s horse stumbled, and
nearly fell. “I am afraid, Mungo,” said the
Sheriff, “that is a bad omen.” To which he answered, smiling,
“Freits (omens) follow those who look to
them.” With this expression Mungo struck the spurs into his
horse, and Scott never saw him again. His parting proverb, by the way,
was probably suggested by one of the Border ballads, in which spe-
14 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Them look to freits, my master dear, Then freits will follow them.” |
I must not omit that George Scott, the unfortunate companion of Park’s second journey, was the son of a tenant on the Buccleuch estate, whose skill in drawing having casually attracted the Sheriff’s attention, he was recommended by him to the protection of the family, and by this means established in a respectable situation in the Ordnance department of the Tower of London; but the stories of his old acquaintance Mungo Park’s discoveries, had made such an impression on his fancy, that nothing could prevent his accompanying him on the fatal expedition of 1805.
The brother of Mungo Park remained in Scott’s employment for many years, and was frequently his companion in his mountain rides. Though a man of the most dauntless temperament, he was often alarmed at Scott’s reckless horsemanship. “The de’il’s in ye, Sherra,” be would say, “ye’ll never halt till they bring you hame with your feet foremost.” He rose greatly in favour, in consequence of the gallantry with which he seized a gipsy, accused of murder, from amidst a group of similar desperadoes, on whom the Sheriff and he had come unexpectedly in a desolate part of the country.
To return to The Lay of the Last
Minstrel:—Ellis, understanding it to be
now nearly ready for the press, writes to Scott, urging him to set it
forth with some engraved illustrations—if possible, after Flaxman, whose splendid designs from Homer had shortly before made their appearance. He answers, August
21—“I should have liked very much to have had appropriate embellishments. Indeed, we
made some attempts of
LETTER TO ELLIS—AUGUST, 1804. | 15 |
16 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
I believe the spinsters of Sunderland hall proved very generous dragons; and Scott lived to see them succeeded in the guardianship of Mr Plummer’s literary treasures by an amiable young gentleman of his own name and family. The half-starved amanuensis of this letter was Henry Weber, a laborious German, of whom we shall hear more hereafter. With regard to the pictorial embellishments contemplated for the first edition of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, I believe the artist in whose designs the poet took the greatest interest was Mr Masquerier, now of Brighton, with whom he corresponded at some length on the subject; but his distance from that ingenious gentleman’s residence was inconvenient, and the booksellers were probably impatient of delay, when the MS. was once known to be in the hands of the printer.
There is a circumstance which must already have struck such of my
readers as knew the author in his latter days, namely, the readiness with which he seems to
have communicated this poem, in its progress, not only to his own familiar friends, but to
new and casual acquaintances. We shall find him following the same course with his Marmion—but not, I think, with any of his
subsequent works. His determination to consult the movements of his own mind alone in the
conduct of his pieces was probably taken before he began the Lay;
and he soon resolved to trust for the detection of minor inaccuracies to two persons
only—James Ballantyne and William Erskine. The printer was himself a man of
considerable literary talents; his own style had the incurable faults of pomposity and
ASHESTIEL—1804. | 17 |
Before he left Ashestiel for the winter session, the printing of the
poem had made considerable progress. Ellis writes to
him on the 10th November, complaining of bad health, and adds, “Tu quid
agis? I suppose you are still an inhabitant of Reged, and being there it
is impossible that your head should have been solely occupied by the ten thousand cares
which you are likely to have in common with other mortals, or even by the Lay, which must have
been long since completed, but must have started during the summer new projects
sufficient to employ the lives of half-a-dozen patriarchs. Pray tell me all about it,
for as the present state of my frame precludes me from much activity, I want to enjoy
that of my friends.” Scott answers from
Edinburgh: “I fear you fall too much into the sedentary habits incident to a
literary life, like my poor friend Plummer, who
used to say that a walk from the parlour to the gar-
18 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Ellis had also touched upon a literary feud then
raging between Scott’s allies of the Edinburgh
Review, and the late Dr Thomas Young,
illustrious for inventive genius, displayed equally in physical science and in philological
literature. A northern critic, whoever he was, had treated with merry contempt certain
discoveries in natural philosophy and the mechanical arts, more especially that of the
undulating theory of light, which ultimately conferred on
Young’s name one of its highest distinctions. “He
had been for some time,” says Ellis, “lecturer
at the Royal Institution; and having determined to publish his lectures, he had
received from one of the booksellers the offer of L.1000 for the copyright. He was
actually preparing for the press, when the bookseller came to him, and told him that
the ridicule thrown by the Edinburgh Review, on some papers
of his in the Philosophical Transactions, had so frightened the whole trade that he
must request to be released from his bargain. This consequence, it is true, could not
have been foreseen by the reviewer, who, however, appears to have written from feelings
of private animosity; and I still continue to think, though I greatly admire the good
taste of the literary essays, and the perspicuity of the dissertations on political
economy, that an apparent want
THE LAY—DECEMBER, 1804. | 19 |
On the 30th December he resumes: “The Lay is now ready, and will probably be in Longman and Rees’s hands shortly after this comes to yours. I have charged them to send you a copy by the first conveyance, and shall be impatient to know whether you think the entire piece corresponds to that which you have already seen. I would also fain send a copy to Gifford, by way of introduction.—My reason is that I understand he is about to publish an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, and I think I could offer him the use of some miscellaneous notes, which I made long since on the margin of their works.* Besides I have a good esteem of Mr Gifford
* It was his Massinger that Gifford had at this time in hand. His Ben Jonson followed, and then his Ford. Some time later, he projected editions, both of Beaumont and Fletcher, and of Shakspeare: but, to the grievous misfortune of literature, died without having completed either of them. We shall see presently what became of Scott’s Notes on Beaumont and Fletcher. |
20 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Ellis, not having as yet received the new poem,
answers on the 9th January, 1805, “I look daily and with the greatest anxiety for
the Last Minstrel—of which I still hope to
see a future edition decorated with designs à
la Flaxman,
as the Lays of Homer have already been. I think you
told me that Sir Tristrem had not
excited much sensation in Edinburgh. As I have not been in London this age, I
can’t produce the contrary testimony of our metropolis. But I can produce one
person, and that one worth a considerable number, who speaks of it with rapture, and
says, ‘I am only sorry that Scott has not
(and I am sure he has not) told us the whole of his creed on the subject of
Tomas, and the other early Scotch
minstrels, I suppose he was afraid of the critics, and determined to say very
little more than he was able to establish by incontestable proofs. I feel
infinitely obliged to him for what he has told us, and I have no hesitation in
saying, that I consider Sir T. as by far the most
interesting work that has as yet been published on the subject of our earliest
poets, and, indeed, such a piece of literary antiquity as no one could have,
a priori, supposed to
exist.’ This is Frere—our
ex-ambassador for Spain, whom you would delight to know, and who would delight to know
you. It is remarkable that you were, I believe, the most ardent of all the admirers of
his old English version of the Saxon
JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE. | 21 |
Scott answers—“Frere is so perfect a master of the ancient style of composition, that I would rather have his suffrage than that of a whole synod of your vulgar antiquaries. The more I think on our system of the origin of romance, the more simplicity and uniformity it seems to possess; and though I adopted it late and with hesitation, I believe I shall never see cause to abandon it. Yet I am aware of the danger of attempting to prove, where proofs are but scanty, and probable suppositions must be placed in lieu of them. I think the Welsh antiquaries have considerably injured their claims to confidence, by attempting to detail very remote events with all the accuracy belonging to the facts of yesterday. You will hear one of them describe you the cut of Llywarch Hen’s beard, or the whittle of Urien
* “I have only met, in my researches into these matters,” says Scott in 1830, “with one poem, which, if it had been produced as ancient, could not have been detected on internal evidence. It is the War Song upon the Victory at Brunnanburgh, translated from the Anglo-Saxon into Anglo-Norman, by the Right Hon. John Hookham Frere. See Ellis’s Specimens of Ancient English Poetry, vol. i. p. 32. The accomplished editor tells us, that this very singular poem was intended as an imitation of the style and language of the fourteenth century, and was written during the controversy occasioned by the poems attributed to Rowley. Mr Ellis adds, ‘the reader will probably hear with some surprise that this singular instance of critical ingenuity was the composition of an Eton schoolboy.’”—Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad, p. 19. |
22 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
In the first week of January, 1805, “The Lay” was published; and its success at once decided that literature should form the main business of Scott’s life.
In his modest Introduction of 1830, he had himself told us all that he thought the world would ever desire to know of the origin and progress of this his first great original production. The present Memoir, however, has already included many minor particulars, for which I believe no student of literature will reproach the compiler. I shall not mock the reader with many words as to the merits of a poem which has now kept its place for nearly a third of a century; but one or two additional remarks on the history of the composition may be pardoned.
It is curious to trace the small beginnings and gradual developement of
his design. The lovely Countess of Dalkeith hears a
wild rude legend of Border diablerie, and
sportively asks him to make it the subject of a ballad. He had been already labouring in
the elucidation of the “quaint Inglis” ascribed to an ancient seer and bard of
the same district, and perhaps completed his own
THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. | 23 |
24 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
A word more of its felicitous machinery. It was at Bowhill that the Countess of Dalkeith requested a ballad on Gilpin Horner. The ruined castle of Newark closely adjoins that seat, and is now indeed included within its pleasance. Newark had been the chosen residence of the first Duchess of Buccleuch, and he accordingly shadows out his own beautiful friend in the person of her lord’s ancestress, the last of the original stock of that great house; himself the favoured inmate of Bowhill, introduced certainly to the familiarity of its circle in consequence of his devotion to the poetry of a by-past age, in that of an aged minstrel, “the last of all the race,” seeking shelter at the gate of Newark, in days when many an adherent of the fallen cause of Stuart,—his own bearded ancestor, who had fought at Killiecrankie, among the rest,—owed their safety to her who
In pride of power, in beauty s bloom, Had wept o’er Monmouth’s bloody
tomb.” |
The arch allusions which run through all these Introductions, without in the least interrupting the truth and graceful pathos of
their main impression, seem to me exquisitely characteristic of Scott, whose delight and pride was to play with the genius which
nevertheless mastered him at will. For, in truth, what is it that gives to all his works
their unique and marking charm, except the matchless effect which sudden effusions of the
purest heart blood of nature derive from their being poured out, to all appearance
involuntarily, amidst diction and sentiment cast equally in the mould of the busy world,
and the seemingly habitual desire to dwell on nothing but what might be likely to excite
curiosity,
LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. | 25 |
Many minor personal allusions have been explained in the notes to the last edition of the “Lay.” It was hardly necessary even then to say that the choice of the hero had been dictated by the poet’s affection for the living descendants of the Baron of Cranstoun; and now none who have perused the preceding pages can doubt, that he had dressed out his Margaret of Branksome in the form and features of his own first love. This poem may be considered as the “bright consummate flower” in which all the dearest dreams of his youthful fancy had at length found expansion for their strength, spirit, tenderness, and beauty.
“Hush’d is the harp the Minstrel gene; And did he wander forth alone? Alone, in indigence and age, To linger out his pilgrimage? No! close beneath proud Newark’s tower Arose the Minstrel’s humble bower,” &c.— |
26 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“When summer smiled on sweet Bowhill,” |
“There would he sing achievement high And circumstance of chivalry, Till the ’rapt traveller would stay, Forgetful of the closing day; And noble youths, the strain to hear, Forget the hunting of the deer; And Yarrow, as he rolled along, Bear burden to the Minstrel’s song.” |
I consider it as, in one point of view, the greatest misfortune of his
life that this vision was not realized; but the success of the poem itself changed
“the spirit of his dream.” The favour which it at once attained had
not been equalled in the case of any one poem of considerable length during at least two
generations: it certainly had not been approached in the case of any narrative poem since
the days of Dryden. Before it was sent to the press
it had received warm commendation from the ablest and most influential critic of the time;
but when Mr Jeffrey’s reviewal appeared, a month after publication,
laudatory as its language was, it scarcely came up to the opinion which had already taken
root in the public mind. It, however, quite satisfied the author,
LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. | 27 |
I abstain from transcribing the letters which conveyed to Scott the private opinions of persons themselves eminently distinguished in poetry; but I think it just to state, that I have not discovered in any of them—no, not even in those of Wordsworth or Campbell—a strain of approbation higher on the whole than that of the chief professional reviewer of the period. When the happy days of youth are over, even the most genial and generous of minds are seldom able to enter into the strains of a new poet with that full and open delight which he awakens in the bosoms of the rising generation about him. Their deep and eager sympathies have already been drawn upon to an extent of which the prosaic part of the species can never have any conception; and when the fit of creative inspiration has subsided, they are apt to be rather cold critics even of their own noblest appeals to the simple primary feelings of their kind. Miss Seward’s letter, on this occasion, has been since included in the printed collection of her correspondence; but perhaps the reader may form a sufficient notion of its tenor from the poet’s answer which, at all events, he will be amused to compare with the Introduction of 1830:—
“I am truly happy that you found any amusement in the
Lay of the Last Minstrel. It
has great faults, of
28 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
I mention these circumstances to you, and to any one
THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. | 29 |
“We have a new poet come forth amongst us—James Graham, author of a poem called the Sabbath, which I admire very much. If I can find an opportunity I will send you a copy. Your affectionate humble servant,
Mr Ellis does not seem to have written
at any length on the subject of the Lay, until he had perused the article in the Edinburgh Review. He then says, “Though I
had previously made up my mind, or rather perhaps because I had done so, I was
very anxious to compare my sentiments with those of the Edinburgh critic, and I
found that in general we were perfectly agreed, though there are parts of the
subject which we consider from
30 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“What Frere
and myself think, must be stated in the shape of a hyper-criticism—that is to say, of a review of the reviewer. We say
that the Lay of the Last Minstrel
is a work sui generis, written with
the intention of exhibiting what our old romances do indeed exhibit in point of
fact, but incidentally, and often without the wish, or rather contrary to the
wish of the author;—viz. the manners of a particular age; and that therefore,
if it does this truly, and is at the same time capable of keeping the steady
attention of the reader, it is so far perfect. This is also a poem, and ought
therefore to contain a great deal of poetical merit. This indeed it does by the
admission of the reviewer, and it must be admitted that he has shown much real
taste in estimating the most beautiful passages; but he finds fault with many
of the lines as careless, with some as prosaic, and contends that the story is
not sufficiently full of incident, and that one of the incidents is borrowed
from a merely local superstition, &c. &c. To this we answer—1st, that
if the Lay were intended to give any idea of the
Minstrel compositions, it would have been a most glaring absurdity to have
rendered the poetry as perfect and uniform as the works usually submitted to
modern readers—and as in telling a story, nothing, or very little would be
lost,
ELLIS AND FRERE ON THE LAY. | 31 |
“We therefore (i.e. Frere and myself)
dissent from all
32 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
* Mr Morritt informs me, that he well remembers the dinner where this conversation occurred, and thinks Mr Ellis has omitted in his report the best thing that Sir Harry Englefield said, in answer to one of the Dii Minorum Gentium, who made himself conspicuous by the severity of his censure on the verbal inaccuracies and careless lines of The Lay. “My dear sir,” said the Baronet, “you remind me of a lecture on sculpture, which M. Falconet delivered at Rome, shortly after completing the model of his equestrian statue of Czar Peter, now at Petersburg. He took for his subject the celebrated horse of Marcus Aurelius in the Capitol, and pointed out as many faults in it as ever a jockey did in an animal he |
THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. | 33 |
I fancy most of my readers will agree with me in thinking that Sir Henry Englefield’s method of reading and enjoying poetry was more to be envied than smiled at; and in doubting whether posterity will ever dispute about the “propriety” of the Canto which includes the Ballad of Rosabelle and the Requiem of Melrose. The friendly hypercritics seem, I confess, to have judged the poem on principles not less pedantic, though of another kind of pedantry, than those which induced the critic to pronounce that its great prevailing blot originated in those “local partialities of the author,” which had induced him to expect general interest and sympathy for such personages as his “Johnstones, Elliots, and Armstrongs.” “Mr Scott,” said Jeffrey, “must either sacrifice his Border prejudices, or offend his readers in the other parts of the empire.” It might have been answered by Ellis or Frere, that these Border clans figured after all on a scene at least as wide as the Troad; and that their chiefs were not perhaps inferior, either in rank or power, to the majority of the Homeric kings; but even the most zealous of its admirers among the professed literators of the day would hardly have ventured to suspect that the Lay of the Last Minstrel might have no prejudices to encounter but their own. It was destined to charm not only the British empire, but the whole civilized world; and had, in fact, exhibited a more Homeric genius than any regular epic since the days of Homer.
“It would be great affectation,” says the Introduction of 1830, “not to own that the author expected some success from the Lay of the Last Minstrel. The attempt
34 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Through what channel or in what terms Fox made known his opinion of the Lay, I have failed to ascertain. Pitt’s praise, as expressed to his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope, within a few weeks after the poem appeared, was repeated by her to Mr William Stewart Rose, who, of course, communicated it forthwith to the author; and not long after, the Minister, in conversation with Scott’s early friend the Right Hon. William Dundas, signified that it would give him pleasure to find some opportunity of advancing the fortunes of such a writer. “I remember,” writes this gentleman, “at Mr Pitt’s table in 1805, the Chancellor asked me about you and your then situation, and after I had answered him, Mr Pitt observed, ‘he can’t remain as he is,’ and desired me to ‘look to it.’ He then repeated some lines from the Lay describing the old harper’s embarrassment when asked to play, and said,—‘This is a sort of thing which I might have expected in painting, but could never have fancied capable of being given in poetry.’”*
* Letter dated April 25th, 1818, and indorsed by Scott, “William Dundas a very kind letter.” |
THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. | 35 |
It is agreeable to know that this great statesman and accomplished scholar awoke at least once from his supposed apathy as to the elegant literature of his own time.
The poet has under-estimated even the patent and tangible evidence of his success. The first edition of the Lay was a magnificent quarto, 750 copies; but this was soon exhausted, and there followed an octavo impression of 1500; in 1806, two more, one of 2000 copies, another of 2250; in 1807, a fifth edition of 2000, and a sixth of 3000; in 1808, 3550; in 1809, 3000—a small edition in quarto (the ballads and lyrical pieces being then annexed to it), and another octavo edition of 3250; in 1811, 3000; in 1812, 3000; in 1816, 3000; in 1823, 1000. A fourteenth impression of 2000 foolscap appeared in 1825; and besides all this, before the end of 1836, 11,000 copies had gone forth in the collected editions of his poetical works. Thus, nearly forty-four thousand copies had been disposed of in this country, and by the legitimate trade alone, before he superintended the edition of 1830, to which his biographical introductions were prefixed. In the history of British Poetry nothing had ever equalled the demand for the Lay of the Last Minstrel.
The publishers of the first edition were Longman and Co. of London, and Archibald
Constable and Co. of Edinburgh; which last house, however, had but a small
share in the adventure. The profits were to be divided equally between the author and his
publishers; and Scott’s moiety was L.169, 6s.
Messrs Longman, when a second edition was called for, offered L.500
for the copyright; this was accepted, but they afterwards, as the Introduction says,
“added L.100 in their own unsolicited kindness. It was handsomely given to
supply the loss of a fine horse which broke down suddenly while the author was riding
with one of the worthy publishers.”
36 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Mr Rees’ visit to Ashestiel occurred in the autumn. The success of the poem had already been decisive; and fresh negotiations of more kinds than one were at this time in progress between Scott and various booksellers’ houses both of Edinburgh and London.
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