Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Walter Scott to George Crabbe, [January 1813?]
“My dear Sir,
“I was favoured with your kind letter some time ago.
Of all people in the world, I am least entitled to demand regularity of
correspondence; for being, one way and another, doomed to a great deal more
writing than suits my indolence, I am sometimes tempted to envy the reverend
hermit of Prague, confessor to the niece of Queen
Gorboduc, who never saw either pen or ink. Mr Brunton is a very respectable clergyman of
Edinburgh, and I believe the work in which he has solicited your assistance is
one adopted by the General Assembly, or Convocation of the Kirk. I have no
notion that he has any individual interest in it; he is a well-educated and
liberal-minded man, and generally esteemed. I have no particular acquaintance
with him myself, though we speak together. He is at this very moment sitting on
the outside of the bar of our Supreme Court, within which I am fagging as a
clerk; but as he is hearing the opinion of the judges upon an action for
augmentation of stipend to him and to his brethren, it would not, I conceive,
be a very favourable time to canvass a literary topic. But you are quite safe
with him; and having so much command of scriptural language, which appears to
me essential to the devotional poetry of Christians, I am sure you can assist
his purpose much more than any man alive.
“I think those hymns which do not immediately recall
the warm and exalted language of the Bible are apt to be, however elegant,
rather cold and flat for the pur-![]()
| CORRESPONDENCE WITH CRABBE. | 25 |
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poses of devotion. You will readily
believe that I do not approve of the vague and indiscriminate Scripture
language which the fanatics of old and the modern Methodists have adopted, but
merely that solemnity and peculiarity of diction, which at once puts the reader
and hearer upon his guard as to the purpose of the poetry. To my Gothic ear,
indeed, the Stabet Mater, the
Dies Iræ, and some of
the other hymns of the Catholic Church, are more solemn and affecting than the
fine classical poetry of Buchanan; the
one has the gloomy dignity of a Gothic church, and reminds us instantly of the
worship to which it is dedicated; the other is more like a Pagan temple,
recalling to our memory the classical and fabulous deities.* This is, probably,
all referable to the association of ideas—that is, if the ‘association of
ideas’ continues to be the universal pick-lock of all metaphysical
difficulties, as it was when I studied moral philosophy—or to any other more
fashionable universal solvent which may have succeeded to it in reputation.
Adieu, my dear sir,—I hope you and your family will long enjoy all happiness
and prosperity. Never be discouraged from the constant use of your charming
talent. The opinions of reviewers are really too contradictory to found any
thing upon them, whether they are favourable or otherwise; for it is usually
their principal object to display the abilities of the writers of the critical
lucubrations themselves. Your ‘Tales’ are universally admired here. I go but little out, but
the few judges whose opinions I have been accustomed to look up to, are
unanimous. Ever yours, most truly,
Alexander Brunton (1772-1854)
Presbyterian minister and professor of oriental languages in the University of Edinburgh
(1813); he was the husband of the novelist Mary Brunton.
George Buchanan (1506-1582)
Scottish historian, scholar, and respected Latin poet; he was tutor to James VI. and
author of
Rerum Scoticarum historia (1582).
