318 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Towards the winter of 1819 there prevailed a spirit of alarming
insubordination among the mining population of Northumberland and the weavers of the west
of Scotland; and Scott was particularly gratified with
finding that his own neighbours at Galashiels had escaped the contagion. There can be
little doubt that this exemption was principally owing to the personal influence and
authority of the Laird of Abbotsford and Sheriff of the Forest; but the people of
Galashiels were also fortunate in the qualities of their own beneficent landlords,
Mr Scott of Gala, and Mr Pringle of Torwoodlee. The progress of the western Reformers by degrees led even the most important Whigs in that district to exert themselves in the organization of volunteer
regiments, both mounted and dismounted; and, when it became generally suspected that
Glasgow and Paisley maintained a dangerous correspondence with the refractory colliers of
Northumberland—Scott and his friends the Lairds of Torwoodlee and
Gala determined to avail themselves of the loyalty and spirit of the men of Ettrick
LETTER TO LORD MONTAGU. | 319 |
He had again intended, as soon as he should have finished Ivanhoe, to proceed to London and receive his baronetcy; but as that affair had been crossed at Easter by his own illness, so at Christmas it was again obliged to be put off in consequence of a heavy series of domestic afflictions. Within one week Scott lost his excellent mother, his uncle Dr Daniel Rutherford, Professor of Botany in the University of Edinburgh—and their sister, Christian Rutherford, already often mentioned as one of the dearest and most esteemed of all his friends and connexions.
The following letters require no further introduction or comment.
* * * * * * “I wish I had any news to send your
Lordship, but the best is we are all quiet here. The Galashiels weavers, both
men and masters, have made their political creed known to me, and have sworn
themselves anti-radical. They came in solemn procession, with their banners,
and my own piper at their head, whom they had borrowed for the nonce. But
320 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
‘Come fill up our cup, come fill up our can, Come saddle the horses, and call up our men, Come open the gates, and let us go free, And we’ll show them the bonnets of bonny Dundee.’ |
“I am rather too old for that work now, and I cannot look forward to it with the sort of feeling that resembled pleasure—as I did in my younger and more healthy days. However, I have got a good following here, and will endeavour to keep them together till times mend.
“My respectful compliments attend Lady Montagu, and I am always, with the greatest regard, your Lordship’s very faithful
“I am much surprised and rather hurt at not hear-
LETTER TO CORNET SCOTT. | 321 |
“We are to have great doings in Edinburgh this winter. No less than Prince Gustavus of Sweden is to pass the season here, and do what Princes call studying. He is but half a Prince either, for this Northern Star is somewhat shorn of his beams. His father was, you know, dethroned by Buonaparte, at least by the influence of his arms, and one of his generals, Bernadotte, made heir of the Swedish throne in his stead. But this youngster, I suppose, has his own dreams of royalty, for he is nephew to the Emperor of Russia (by the mother’s side), and that is a likely connexion to be of use to him, should the Swedish nobles get rid of Bernadotte, as it is said they wish to do. Lord Melville has recommended the said Prince particularly to my attention, though I do not see how I can do much for him.
“I have just achieved my grand remove from Abbotsford to Edinburgh—a motion which you know I do not make with great satisfaction. We had the Abbotsford hunt last week. The company was small, as the newspapers say, but select, and we had excellent sport, killing eight hares. We coursed on Gala’s ground, and he was with us. The dinner went off with its usual alacrity, but we wanted you and Sally to ride and mark for us.
322 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I enclose another letter from Mrs Dundas of Arniston. I am afraid you have been careless in not delivering those I formerly forwarded, because in one of them, which Mrs Dundas got from a friend, there was enclosed a draught for some money. I beg you will be particular in delivering any letters intrusted to you, because though the good-nature of the writers may induce them to write to be of service to you, yet it is possible that they may, as in this instance, add things which are otherwise of importance to their correspondents. It is probable that you may have picked up among your military friends the idea that the mess of a regiment is all in all sufficient to itself; but when you see a little of the world you will be satisfied that none but pedants—for there is pedantry in all professions—herd exclusively together, and that those who do so are laughed at in real good company. This you may take on the authority of one who has seen more of life and society, in all its various gradations, from the highest to the lowest, than a whole hussar regimental mess, and who would be much pleased by knowing that you reap the benefit of an experience which has raised him from being a person of small consideration, to the honour of being father of an officer of hussars. I therefore enclose another letter from the same kind friend, of which I pray you to avail yourself. In fact, those officers who associate entirely among themselves see and know no more of the world than their messman, and get conceited and disagreeable by neglecting the opportunities offered for enlarging their understanding. Every distinguished soldier whom I have known, and I have known many, was a man of the world, and accustomed to general society.
“To sweeten my lecture, I have to inform you that,
this being quarter day, I have a remittance of L.50 to send you whenever you
are pleased to let me know it
DECEMBER—1819. | 323 |
“I wish you not to avail yourself of your leave of absence this winter, because, if my health continues good, I shall endeavour to go on the Continent next summer, and should be very desirous to have you with me; therefore, I beg you to look after your French and German. We had a visit from a very fine fellow indeed at Abbotsford, Sir Thomas Brisbane, who long commanded a brigade in the peninsula. He is very scientific, but bores no one with it, being at the same time a well informed man on all subjects, and particularly alert in his own profession, and willing to talk about what he has seen. Sir Harry Hay Macdougal, whose eldest daughter he is to marry, brought him to Abbotsford on a sort of wedding visit, as we are cousins according to the old fashion of country kin; Beardie, of whom Sir Harry has a beautiful picture, being a son of an Isabel Macdougal, who was, I fancy, grand-aunt to Sir Harry.
“Once more, my dear Walter, write more frequently, and do not allow yourself to think that the first neglect in correspondence I have ever had to complain of has been on your part. I hope you have received the Meerschaum pipe.—I remain your affectionate father,
“I hope your servant proves careful and trusty. Pray
let me know this. At any rate, do not trust him a bit further than you can help
it, for in buying any thing you will get it much cheaper yourself than he will.
We are now settled for the winter; that is, all of them excepting myself, who
must soon look southwards. On
324 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I am concerned I cannot give a very pleasant account of things here. Glasgow is in a terrible state. The Radicals had a plan to seize on 1000 stand of arms, as well as a depot of ammunition which had been sent from Edinburgh Castle for the use of the volunteers. The Commander-in-Chief, Sir Thomas Bradford, went to Glasgow in person, and the whole city was occupied with patroles of horse and foot, to deter them from the meditated attack on the barracks. The arms were then delivered to the volunteers, who are said to be 4000 on paper; how many effective and trustworthy, I know not. But it war new sight in Scotland on a Sunday to see all the inhabitants in arms, soldiers patroling the streets, and the utmost precaution of military service exacted and observed in an apparently peaceful city.
“The Old Blue Regiment of volunteers was again
summoned together yesterday. They did not muster very numerous, and looked most
of them a little ancient. However, they are getting
recruits fast, and then the veterans may fall out of the ranks. The
Commander-in-Chief has told the President that he may soon be obli-
DECEMBER, 1819. | 325 |
“They are embodying a troop of cavalry in Edinburgh—nice young men and good horses. They have paid me the compliment to make me an honorary member of the corps, as my days of active service have been long over. Pray take care, however, of my sabre, in case the time comes which must turn out all.
“I have almost settled that, if things look moderately tranquil in Britain in spring or summer, I will go abroad, and take Charles, with the purpose of leaving him, for two or three years, at the famous institution of Fellenborg, near Berne, of which I hear very highly. Two of Fraser Tytler’s sons are there, and he makes a very favourable report of the whole establishment. I think that such a residence abroad will not only make him well acquainted with French and German, as indeed he will hear nothing else, but also prevent his becoming an Edinburgh petit-maitre of fourteen or fifteen, which he could otherwise scarce avoid. I mentioned to you that I should be particularly glad to get you leave of absence, providing it does not interfere with your duty, in order that you may go with us. If I have cash
* The Right Honourable Charles Hope, Lord President of the Court of Session, was Colonel-commandant of the Old Blues, or First Regiment of Edinburgh Volunteers. |
326 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Mamma and the girls are quite well, and so is Master Charles, who is of course more magnificent, as being the only specimen of youthhead at home. He has got an old broadsword hanging up at his bedhead, which, to be the more ready for service, hath no sheath. To this I understand we are to trust for our defence against the Radicals. Anne (notwithstanding the assurance) is so much afraid of the disaffected, that last night, returning with Sophia from Portobello, where they had been dancing with the Scotts of Harden, she saw a Radical in every man that the carriage passed. Sophia is of course wise and philosophical, and mamma has not yet been able to conceive why we do not catch and hang the whole of them, untried and unconvicted. Amidst all their various emotions, they join in best love to you; and I always am very truly yours,
“I have a train of most melancholy news to acquaint
you with. On Saturday I saw your grandmother perfectly well, and on Sunday the girls drank tea
DECEMBER, 1819. | 327 |
“Dr Rutherford was a very ingenious as well as an excellent man, more of a gentleman than his profession too often are, for he could not take the backstairs mode of rising in it, otherwise he might have been much more wealthy. He ought to have had the Chemistry class, as he was one of the best chemists in Europe;* but superior interest assigned it to another, who, though a neat experimentalist, is not to be compared to poor Daniel for originality of genius. Since you knew him his health was broken and his spirits dejected, which may be traced
* “The subject of his Thesis is singular, and entitles Rutherford to rank very high among the chemical philosophers of modern times. Its title is “De Aere Mephitico,” &c.—It is universally admitted that Dr Rutherford first discovered this gas—the reputation of his discovery being speedily spread through Europe, his character as a chemist of the first eminence was firmly established, and much was |
328 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“To all this domestic distress I have to add the fearful and unsettled state of the country. All the regular troops are gone to Glasgow. The MidLothian Yeomanry and other corps of volunteers went there on Monday, and about 5000 men occupied the town. In the mean while, we were under considerable apprehension here, the Castle being left in the charge of the city volunteers and a few veterans.
“All our corner, high and low, is loyal. Torwoodlee, Gala, and I, have offered to raise a corps, to be called the Loyal Foresters, to act any where south of the Forth. If matters get worse, I will ask leave of absence for you from the Commander-in-chief, because your presence will be materially useful to levy men, and you can only be idle where you are, unless Ireland should be disturbed. Your old corps of the Selkirkshire Yeomanry have been under orders, and expect to be sent either to Dumfries or Carlisle. Berwick is dismantled, and they are removing the stores, cannon, &c., from one of the strongest places here, for I defy the devil to pass the bridge at Berwick, if reasonably well kept by 100 men. But there is a spirit of consternation implied in many of the orders, which, entre nous, I like worse than what I see or know of the circumstances which infer real danger. For myself I am too old to fight, but nobody is too old to die, like a man of virtue and honour, in defence of the principles he has always maintained.
“I would have you to keep yourself ready to return
augured from a young man in his twenty-second year having distinguished himself so remarkably.”—Bower’s History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. iii. (1830), pp. 260-1. |
DECEMBER, 1819. | 329 |
“Distress has been very busy with me since I wrote to you. I have lost, in the course of one week, my valued relations, Dr and Miss Rutherford—happy in this, that neither knew of the other’s dissolution. My dear mother has offered me deeper subject of affliction, having been struck with the palsy, and being now in such a state that I scarce hope to see her again.
“But the strange times compel me, under this
pressure of domestic distress, to attend to public business. I find Mr Scott of Gala agrees with me in thinking we
should appeal at this crisis to the good sense and loyalty of the lower orders,
and we have resolved to break the ice, and be the first in the Lowlands, so far
as I have yet heard of, to invite our labourers and those over whom
circumstances and fortune give us influence, to rise with us in arms, and share
our fate. You know, as well as any one, that I have always spent twice the
income of my property in giving work to my neighbours, and I hope they will not
be behind the Galashiels people, who are very zealous.
Gala and I go hand in
330 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“John Usher.* He should be lieutenant, or his son ensign.
“Sam Somerville.† I will speak to him—he may be lieutenant, if Usher declines; but I think in that case Usher should give us his son.
* Mr Usher has already been mentioned as Scott’s predecessor in the property of Toftfield. He now resided near those lands, and was Scott’s fenant on the greater part of them. † Samuel Somerville, W. S. (a son of the historian of Queen Anne) had a pretty villa at Lowood, on the Tweed, immediately opposite the seat of his relation, Lord Somerville, of whose estate he had the management. |
“THE LOYAL FORESTERS.” | 331 |
“Young Nicol Milne* is rather young, but I will offer to his father to take him in.
“Harper† is a sine quo non. Tell him I depend on him for the honour of Darnick. I should propose to him to take a gallant halbert.
“Adam Ferguson thinks you should be our adjutant. John Ferguson I propose for captain. He is steady, right bold, and has seen much fire. The auld captain will help us in one shape or other. For myself, I know not what they propose to make of me, but it cannot be any thing very active. However, I should like to have a steady quiet horse, drilled to stand fire well, and if he has these properties, no matter how stupid, so he does not stumble. In this case the price of such a horse will be no object.
“These, my dear friend, are your beating orders. I would propose to raise about sixty men, and not to take old men. John the Turk‡ will be a capital corporal; and I hope in general that all my young fellows will go with me, leaving the older men to go through necessary labour. Sound Tom what he would like. I think, perhaps, he would prefer managing matters at home in your absence and mine at drill.
“John of Skye is cock-a-hoop upon the occasion, and I suppose has made fifty blunders about it by this time. You must warn Tom Jamieson, Gordon Winness, John Swanston (who will carry off all the prizes at shooting), Davidson, and so forth.
“If you think it necessary, a little handbill might be
* Nicol Milne, Esq. (now advocate), eldest son of the Laird of Faldonside. † Harper, keeper of a little inn at Darnick, was a gallant and spirited yeoman—uniformly the gainer of the prizes at every contest of strength and agility in that district. ‡ One of Scott’s foresters—thus designated as being, in all senses of the word, a gallant fellow. |
332 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“The very precarious state of my poor mother detains me here, and makes me devolve this troublesome duty upon you. All you have to do, however, is to sound the men, and mark down those who seem zealous. They will perhaps have to fight with the pitmen and colliers of Northumberland, for defence of their firesides, for these literal blackguards are got beyond the management of their own people. And if such is the case, better keep them from coming into Scotland, than encounter the mischief they might do there. Yours always most truly,
“I wrote you about ten days since, stating that we
were all well here. In that very short space a change so sudden and so
universal has taken place among your friends here, that I have to communicate
to you a most miserable catalogue of losses. Our dear mother was on Sunday the 12th December in all
her usual strength and alertness of mind. I had seen and conversed with her on
the Saturday preceding, and never saw her better in my life of late years. My
two daughters drank tea with her on Sunday, when she was uncommonly lively,
telling them a number of stories, and being in rather unusual spirits, probably
from the degree of excitation which sometimes is remarked to precede a
paralytic affection. In the course of Monday she re-
DECEMBER, 1819. | 333 |
334 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
* St John’s Chapel. † Robert Rutherford, Esq., W.S., son to the Professor of Botany. ‡ “Our family heretofore buried in the Grey Friar’s Churchyard, close by the entrance to Heriot’s Hospital, and on the southern or left-hand side as you pass from the churchyard.”—MS. Memorandum. |
LETTER TO THOMAS SCOTT. | 335 |
“Thursday, December 23d.—My mother still lingers this morning, and as her constitution is so excellent, she may perhaps continue to exist some time, or till another stroke. It is a great consolation that she is perfectly easy. All her affairs of every sort have been very long arranged for this great change, and with the assistance of Donaldson and Macculloch, you may depend, when the event takes place, that your interest will be attended to most pointedly. I hope our civil tumults here are like to be ended by the measures of Parliament. I mentioned in my last that Kinloch of Kinloch was to be tried for sedition. He has forfeited his bail, and was yesterday laid under outlawry for non-appearance. Our neighbours in Northumberland are in a deplorable state; upwards of 50,000 blackguards are ready to rise between Tyne and Wear.* On the other hand, the Scottish frontiers are steady and loyal, and arming fast. Scott of Gala and I have offered 200 men, all fine strapping young fellows, and good marksmen, willing to go any where with us. We could easily double the number. So the necessity of the times has made me get on horseback once more. Our mother has at different times been perfectly conscious of her situation, and knew every one, though totally unable to speak. She seemed to take a very affectionate farewell of me the last time I saw her, which was the day before yesterday; and as she was much agitated, Dr Keith advised I should not see her again unless she seemed to desire it, which
* This was a ridiculous exaggerated report of that period of alarm. |
336 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Scott’s excellent mother died on the 24th December—the day after he closed the foregoing letter to his brother.
On the 18th, in the midst of these accumulated afflictions, the romance of Ivanhoe made its appearance. The date has been torn from the following letter, but it was evidently written while all these events were fresh and recent.
“I am favoured with your letter from Ditton, and am glad you found any thing to entertain you in Ivanhoe. Novelty is what this giddy-paced time demands imperiously, and I certainly studied as much as I could to get out of the old beaten track, leaving those who like to keep the road, which I have rutted pretty well. I have had a terrible time of it this year, with the loss of dear friends and near relations; it is almost fearful to count up my losses, as they make me bankrupt in society. My brother-in-law; our never-to-be-enough regretted Duke; Lord Chief Baron,* my early, kind, and constant friend, who took me up when I was a young fellow of little mark or likelihood; the wife of my intimate friend William Erskine; the only son of my friend David Hume, a youth of great promise, and just entering into life, who had grown up under my eye from
* The Right Hon. Robert Dundas of Arniston died 17th June, 1819. |
DEATH OF HIS MOTHER DECEMBER, 1819. | 337 |
338 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
‘Condemn’d to Hope’s delusive
mine, As on we toil from day to day, By sudden blasts, or slow decline, Our social comforts drop away.’* |
“I am not sure whether it was your ladyship, or the poor Duchess of Buccleuch, who met my mother once, and flattered me by being so much pleased with the good old lady. She had a mind peculiarly well stored with much acquired information and natural talent, and as she was very old, and had an excellent memory, she could draw without the least exaggeration or affectation the most striking pictures of the past age. If I have been able to do any thing in the way of painting the past times, it is very much from the studies with which she presented me. She connected a long period of time with the present generation, for she remembered, and had often spoken with, a person who perfectly recollected the battle of Dunbar, and Oliver Cromwell’s subsequent entry into Edinburgh. She preserved her faculties to the very day before her final illness; for our friends Mr and Mrs Scott of Harden visited her on the Sunday; and, coming to our house after, were expressing their surprise at the alertness of her mind, and the pleasure which she had in talking over both ancient and modern events. She had told them with great accuracy, the real story of the Bride of Lammermuir, and pointed out wherein it differed from the novel. She had all the names of the parties, and detailed (for she was a great genealogist) their connexion with existing families. On the subse-
DECEMBER, 1819. | 339 |
There is in the library at Abbotsford a fine copy of Baskerville’s folio Bible, two vols., printed at
Cambridge in 1763; and there appears on the blank leaf, in the trembling handwriting of
Scott’s mother, this in-
340 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
If literary success could have either filled Scott’s head or hardened his heart, we should have no such letters as those of December, 1819. Ivanhoe was received throughout England with a more clamorous delight than any of the Scotch novels had been. The volumes (three in number) were now, for the first time, of the post 8vo form, with a finer paper than hitherto, the press-work much more elegant, and the price accordingly raised from eight shillings the volume to ten; yet the copies sold in this original shape were twelve thousand.
I ought to have mentioned sooner, that the original intention was to bring out Ivanhoe as the production of a new hand, and that, to assist this impression, the work was printed in a size and manner unlike the preceding ones; but Constable, when the day of publication approached, remonstrated against this experiment, and it was accordingly abandoned.
The reader has already been told that Scott dictated the greater part of this romance. The portion of the MS.
which is his own appears, however, not only as
IVANHOE. | 341 |
As a work of art, Ivanhoe is perhaps the first of all Scott’s efforts, whether in prose or in verse; nor have the strength and splendour of his imagination been displayed to higher advantage than in some of the scenes of this romance. But I believe that no reader who is capable of thoroughly comprehending the author’s Scotch characters and Scotch dialogue will ever place even Ivanhoe, as a work of genius, on the same level with Waverley or the Heart of Mid-Lothian.
There is, to me, something so remarkably characteristic of Scott’s mind and manner in a particular passage of the
Introduction, which he penned ten years afterwards for this work, that I must be pardoned
for extracting it here. He says:—“The character of the fair Jewess found so much
favour in the eyes of some fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when
arranging the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned the hand of
Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less interesting Rowena. But, not to mention that the prejudices of the age rendered
such an union almost impossible, the author may, in passing, observe, that he thinks a
character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp, is degraded rather than exalted by an
attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. Such is not the recompense which
Providence has deemed worthy of suffering merit; and it is a dangerous and fatal
doctrine to
342 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
The introduction of the charming Jewess and her father originated, I
find, in a conversation that Scott held with his friend
Skene during the severest season of his bodily
sufferings in the early part of this year. “Mr
Skene,” says that gentleman’s wife, “sitting by his
bedside, and trying to amuse him as well as he could in the intervals of pain, happened
to get on the subject of the Jews, as he had observed them when he spent some time in
Germany in his youth. Their situation had naturally made a strong impression; for in
those days they retained their own dress and manners entire, and were treated with
considerable austerity by their Christian neighbours, being still locked up at night in
their own quarter by great gates; and Mr Skene, partly in
seriousness, but partly from the mere wish to turn his mind at the moment upon
something that might occupy and divert it, suggested that a group of Jews would be an
interesting feature if he could contrive to bring them into his next novel.”
Upon the appearance of Ivanhoe,
IVANHOE—DEC. 1819. | 343 |
By the way, before Ivanhoe made its appearance, I had myself been formally admitted to the author’s secret; but had he favoured me with no such confidence, it would have been impossible for me to doubt that I had been present some months before at the conversation which suggested, and indeed supplied all the materials of, one of its most amusing chapters. I allude to that in which our Saxon terms for animals in the field, and our Norman equivalents for them as they appear on the table, and so on, are explained and commented on. All this Scott owed to the after-dinner talk one day in Castle-street of his old friend Mr William Clerk, who, among other elegant pursuits, has cultivated the science of philology very deeply.
I cannot conclude this chapter without observing that the publication of Ivanhoe marks the most brilliant epoch in Scott’s history as the literary favourite of his contemporaries. With the novel which he next put forth, the immediate sale of these works began gradually to decline;
* See Waverley Novels, vol. xvii. p. 379. |
344 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
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