[ 39 ] |
Before the Court of Session rose in July, Sir Walter had made considerable progress in his Sketch of the
French Revolution; but it was agreed that he should make his promised excursion to Ireland
before any MS. went to the printers. He had seen no more of the sister island than Dunluce
and the Giant’s Causeway, of which we have his impressions in the Lighthouse Diary of
1814; his curiosity about the scenery and the people was lively; and besides the great
object of seeing his son and daughter-in-law under their own roof, and the scarcely
inferior pleasure of another meeting with Miss
Edgeworth, he looked forward to renewing his acquaintance with several
accomplished persons, who had been serviceable to him in his labours upon Swift. But, illustriously as Ireland has contributed to
the English Library, he had always been accustomed to hear that almost no books were now
published there, and fewer sold than in any other country calling itself civilized; and he
had naturally concluded that apathy and indifference prevailed as to literature itself, and
of course as to literary men. He had not, therefore, formed the remotest anticipation of
the kind of reception which awaited him in
40 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
On the day after he despatched the following letter, he had the satisfaction of seeing his son gazetted as Captain.
“I shall wait with some impatience for this night’s Gazette. I have written to Coutts to pay the money so soon as you are in possession.
“On Saturday 11th, I went to Blair-Adam, and had a delicious stroll among the woods. The roe-deer are lying as thick there as in the Highlands, and, I daresay, they must be equally so at Lochore: so you will have some of the high game. They are endeavouring to destroy them, which they find very difficult. It is a pity they do so much mischief to the woods, for otherwise they are the most beautiful objects in nature; and were they at Abbotsford, I could not I think have the heart to make war on them. Two little fawns came into the room at tea-time and drank cream. They had the most beautiful dark eyes and little dark muzzles, and were scarce so big as Miss Ferguson’s Italian greyhound. The Chief Commissioner offered them to me, but to keep them tame would have been impossible on account of the dogs, and to turn them loose would have been wilfully entailing risk on the plantations which have cost me so much money and trouble. There was then a talk of fattening them for the kitchen, a proposal which would have driven mamma distracted.
“We spent Monday on a visit to Lochore, and in
planning the road which is so much wanted. The Chief
Commissioner is an excellent manager, and has under-
JUNE, 1825. | 41 |
“I am glad Jane looks after her own affairs. It is very irksome to be sure; but then one must do it, or be eaten up by their servants, like Actæon by his hounds. Talking of hounds, I have got a second Maida, but he is not yet arrived. Nimrod is his name.
“I keep my purpose as expressed in my last. I might, perhaps, persuade mamma to come, but she is unhappy in steam-boats, bad beds, and all the other inconveniences of travelling. Sir Adam and Lady Ferguson, as I hear, are thinking of stirring towards you. I hope they will allow our visit to be over in the first instance, as it would overtax Jane and you—otherwise I should like to see the merry knight in Ireland, where I suppose he would prove Ipsis Hybernis Hybernior, more Irish than the natives.
“I have given Charles his choice between France and Ireland, and shall have his answer in two or three days. Will he be de trop if we can pack him up in the little barouche?
“Your commentary on Sir D. Dundas’s confused hash of regulations, which, for the matter of principle, might be shortened to a dozen, puts me in mind of old Sir William Erskine’s speech to him, when all was in utter confusion at the retreat from before Dunkirk, and Sir William came down to protect the rear. In passing Sir David, the tough old veteran exclaimed, ‘Davie, ye donnert idiot, where’s a’ your peevioys (pivots) the day?’
“As to your early hours, no man ought to be in bed at seven in summer time. I never am; your four o’clock is rather premature.—Yours, with kindest remembrances to Jane,
42 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“P. S.—Yours just received, dateless as was your former. I suppose it is a family fault. What I have written will show that the cash, matters are bang-up. A comparison of the dates will show there has been no voluntary delay on my part; indeed, what motive could I have for leaving money without interest in the hands of a London banker? But we are corresponding at a triangle, when you write to me and I to London. I will write to Jane to scold her for her ladylike fears about our reception; to find you happy will be the principal part of my welcome; for the rest, a slice of plain meat of any kind—a cigar—and a little potheen, are worth turtle and burgundy to my taste. As for poor dear stupid ——, there is only one answer, which the clown in one of Shakspeare’s plays says will be a fitting reply to all questions—Oh Lord, sir!!!”
It did not suit either Lady Scott or
her eldest daughter to be of the Irish expedition;
Anne Scott and myself accompanied Sir Walter. We left Edinburgh on the 8th of July in a light
open carriage, and after spending a few days among our friends in Lanarkshire, we embarked
at Glasgow in a steamer for Belfast. Sir Walter kept no
diary during this excursion, and the bustle and tumult throughout were such that he found
time to write but very few letters. From my own to the ladies left at home, I could easily
draw up a pretty exact journal of our proceedings; but I shall content myself with noting a
few particulars more immediately connected with the person of
Scott—for I am very sensible, on looking over what I set down at the
moment, that there was hardly opportunity even for him to draw any conclusions of serious
value on the structure and ordinary habits of society in Ireland, to say nothing of the
vexed questions of politics and administration; and such
BELFAST STEAMER—JULY, 1825. | 43 |
The steam-boat, besides a crowd of passengers of all possible classes,
was lumbered with a cargo offensive enough to the eye and the nostrils, but still more
disagreeable from the anticipations and reflections it could not fail to suggest. Hardly
had our carriage been lashed on the deck before it disappeared from our view amidst
mountainous packages of old clothes; the cast-off raiment of the Scotch beggars was on its
way to a land where beggary is the staple of life. The captain assured us that he had
navigated nearly forty years between the West of Scotland and the sister island, and that
his freights from the Clyde were very commonly of this description; pigs and potatoes being
the usual return. Sir Walter rather irritated a military
passenger (a stout old Highlander), by asking whether it had never occurred to him that the
beautiful checkery of the clan tartans might have originated in a pious wish on the part of
the Scottish Gael to imitate the tatters of the parent race. After soothing the veteran
into good-humour, by some anecdotes of the Celtic splendours of August, 1822, he remarked
that if the Scotch Highlanders were really descended in the main from the Irish blood, it
seemed to him the most curious and difficult problem in the world to account for the
startling contrasts in so many points of their character, temper, and demeanour; and
entered into some disquisition on this subject, which I am sorry I cannot repeat in detail.
The sum of his opinion was that, while courage and generous enthusiasm of spirit, kindness
of heart, and great strength and purity of domestic affection, characterised them equally,
the destruction, in the course of endless feuds, and wars, and rebellions, of the
44 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
A voyage down the Firth of Clyde is enough to make any body happy: nowhere can the Home Tourist, at all events, behold, in the course of one day, such a succession and variety of beautiful, romantic, and majestic scenery: on one hand dark mountains and castellated shores—on the other, rich groves and pastures, interspersed with elegant villas and thriving towns, the bright estuary between alive with shipping, and diversified with islands.
It may be supposed how delightful such a voyage was in a fine day of
July, with Scott, always as full of glee on any trip as
a schoolboy; crammed with all the traditions and legends of every place we passed; and too
happy
VOYAGE TO BELFAST. | 45 |
46 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
VOYAGE TO BELFAST. | 47 |
Something in this story suggested to Scott an incident, recorded in some old book of Memoirs, of a French
envoy’s reception in the tower of some Irish chieftain, during one of the rebellions
against Queen Elizabeth; and he narrated it, to the
infinite delight of the Protestant Squireen. This comforter of the rebels was a bishop, and
his union of civil and religious dignity secured for him all possible respect and
attention. The chief (I think the name was O’Donoghue) welcomed
him warmly: He was clad in a yellow mantle—(“to wit, a dirty blanket,”
interposes the Squireen)—but this he dropt
48 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
When we got upon deck again after our carousal, we found it raining
heavily, and the lady passengers in great misery; which state of things continued till we
were within sight of Belfast. We got there about nine in the morning, and I find it set
down that we paid four guineas for the conveyance of the carriage, and a guinea apiece for
ourselves; in 1837 I understand the charge for passengers is not more than half-a-crown
a-head in the cabin, and sixpence in the steerage—so rapidly has steam-navigation extended
in the space of twelve years.
BELFAST—JULY, 1825. | 49 |
The following is part of the first letter I wrote to my wife from Dublin:—“Belfast is a thriving bustling place, surrounded with smart villas, and built much like a second-rate English town; yet there we saw the use of the imported rags forthwith. One man, apparently happy and gay returning to his work (a mason seemingly), from breakfast, with pipe in mouth, had a coat of which I don’t believe any three inches together were of the same colour or the same stuff—red, black, yellow, green—cloth, velveteen, corduroy, fustian—the complete image of a tattered coverlid originally made on purpose of particularly small patches—no shirt, and almost no breeches;—yet this is the best part of Ireland, and the best population. What shall we see in the South?
“Erin deserves undoubtedly the style of Green
Erin. We passed through high and low country, rich and poor, but none that was
not greener than Scotland ever saw. The husbandry to the north seemed rather careless
than bad—I should say slovenly, for every thing is cultivated,
50 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
IRELAND—JULY 1825. | 51 |
When we halted at Drogheda, a retired officer of dragoons, discovering that the party was Sir Walter’s, sent in his card, with a polite offer to attend him over the field of the battle of the Boyne, about two miles off, which of course was accepted;—Sir Walter rejoicing the veteran’s heart by his vigorous recitation of the famous ballad (The Crossing of the Water), as we proceeded to the ground, and the eager and intelligent curiosity with which he received his explanations of it.
On Thursday the 14th we reached Dublin in time for dinner, and found young Walter and his bride established in one of those large and noble houses in St Stephen’s Green (the most extensive square in Europe), the founders of which little dreamt that they should ever be let at an easy rate as garrison lodgings. Never can I forget the fond joy and pride with which Sir Walter looked round him, as he sat for the first time at his son’s table. I could not but recall Pindar’s lines, in which, wishing to paint the gentlest rapture of felicity, he describes an old man with a foaming wine-cup in his hand at his child’s wedding-feast.
That very evening arrived a deputation from the Royal Society of Dublin,
inviting Sir Walter to a public dinner; and next morning
he found on his breakfast-table a letter from the Provost of Trinity College (Dr Kyle, now Bishop of Cork), announcing that the
University desired to pay him the very high compliment of a degree of Doctor of Laws by diploma. The Archbishop of Dublin (the celebrated Dr Magee), though surrounded with severe domestic
afflictions at the time, was among the earliest of his visitors; another was the
Attorney-General (now Lord Chancellor Plunkett); a
52 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
DUBLIN—ST PATRICK. | 53 |
I may as well, perhaps, extract from a letter of the 16th, the contemporary note of one day’s operations. “Sir Humphry Davy is here on his way to fish in Connemara—he breakfasted at Walter’s this morning; also Hartstonge, who was to show us the lions of St Patrick’s. Peveril was surprised to find the exterior of the cathedral so rudely worked, coarse, and almost shapeless—but the interior is imposing, and even grand. There are some curious old monuments of the Cork family, &c., but one thinks of nothing but Swift there—the whole cathedral is merely his tomb. Your papa hung long over the famous inscription,* which is in gilt letters upon black marble; and seemed vexed there was not a ladder at hand that he might have got nearer the bust (apparently a very fine one), by Roubilliac, which is placed over it. This was given by the piety of his printer, Faulkener. According to this, Swift had a prodigious double chin; and Peveril remarked that the severity of the whole countenance is much increased by the absence of the wig, which, in the prints, conceals the height and gloom of the brow, the uncommon massiveness and breadth of the temple-bones, and the Herculean style in which the head fits in to the neck
* The terrible inscription is “Hic depositum est corpus Jonathan Swift, S.T.P. &c., ubi sæva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit.” |
54 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
‘Jolly lads of St Patrick’s, St Kevin’s, Donore,’ |
DUBLIN—JULY 1825. | 55 |
‘Insulted us all by insulting the Dean.’ |
“We next saw the Bank—late Parliament House—the Dublin Society’s Museum, where papa was enchanted with a perfect skeleton of the gigantic moose-deer, the horns fourteen feet from tip to tip, and high in proportion—and a long train of other fine places and queer things, all as per road-book. Every where throughout this busy day—fine folks within doors and rabble without—a terrible rushing and crushing to see the Baronet; Lord Wellington could not have excited a better rumpus. But the theatre in the evening completed the thing. I never heard such a row. The players might as well have had no tongues. Beatrice (Miss Foote) twice left the stage; and at last Benedick (Abbot, who is the manager) came forward, cunning dog, and asked what was the cause of the tempest. A thousand voices shouted, Sir Walter Scott; and the worthy lion being thus bearded and poked, rose, after an hour’s torture, and said, with such a kindness and grace of tone and manner, these words:—‘I am sure the Irish people—(a roar)—I am sure this respectable audience will not suppose that a stranger can be insensible to the kindness of their reception of him; and if I have been too long in saying this, I trust it will be attributed to the right cause—my unwillingness to take to myself honours so distinguished, and which I could not and cannot but feel to be unmerited.’ I think these are the very words. The noise continued a perfect cataract and thunder of roaring; but he would take no hints about going to the stage-box, and the evening closed decently enough. The
See Scott’s Swift (Edit. 1814), Vol. x. p. 537. |
56 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
On Monday the 18th, to give another extract: “Young Mr Maturin breakfasted, and Sir Walter asked a great deal about his late father and
the present situation of the family, and promised to go and see the widow. When the
young gentleman was gone, Hartstonge told us
that Maturin used to compose with a wafer pasted
on his forehead, which was the signal that if any of his family entered the sanctum they must not speak to him. ‘He was never bred in
a writer’s chaumer,’ quoth
Peveril. Sir Walter observed that it
seemed to be a piece of Protestantism in Dublin to drop the saintly titles of the
Catholic Church: they call St Patrick’s, Patrick’s; and St Stephen’s
Green has been Orangeized into Stephen’s. He said you might trace the Puritans in
the plain Powles (for St Paul’s) of the old English
comedians. We then went to the Bank, where the Governor and Directors had begged him to
let themselves show him every thing in proper style; and he was
forced to say, as he came out, ‘These people treated me as if I was a Prince
of the Blood.’ I do believe that, just at this time, the Duke of York might be treated as well—better he could not
be. From this to the College hard by. The Provost received Sir W.
in a splendid drawing-room, and then carried him through the libraries, halls, &c.
amidst a crowd of eager students. He received his diploma in due form, and there
followed a superb dejeuner in the Provostry.
Neither Oxford nor Cambridge could have done the whole thing in better style. Made
acquaintance with Dr Brinkley, Astronomer Royal,
and Dr Macdonnell, Professor of Greek, and all
the rest of the leading Professors, who vied with each other in respect
DUBLIN—WICKLOW. | 57 |
From Dublin we made an excursion of some days into the county Wicklow, halting for a night at the villa of the Surgeon-General, Mr Crampton, who struck Sir Walter as being more like Sir Humphry Davy than any man he had met, not in person only, but in the liveliness and range of his talk, and who kindly did the honours of Lough Breagh and the Dargle; and then for two or three at Old Connaught, Lord Plunkett’s seat near Bray. Here there was a large and brilliant party assembled; and from hence, under the guidance of the Attorney-General and his amiable family, we perambulated to all possible advantage the classical resorts of the Devil’s Glyn, Rosanna, Kilruddery, and Glendalough, with its seven churches, and St Kevin’s Bed—the scene of the fate of Cathleen, celebrated in Moore’s ballad—
“By that lake whose gloomy shore Skylark never warbles o’er,” &c. |
58 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
On the 1st of August we proceeded from Dublin to Edgeworthstown, the
party being now reinforced by Captain and Mrs Scott, and also by the delightful addition of the
Surgeon-General, who had long been an intimate
friend of the Edgeworth family, and equally gratified both the novelists by breaking the
toils of his great practice to witness their meeting on his native soil. A happy meeting it
was: we remained there for several days, making excursions to Loch Oel and other scenes of
interest in Longford and the adjoining counties; the gentry every where exerting themselves
with true Irish zeal to signalize their affectionate pride in their illustrious
countrywoman, and their appreciation of her guest; while her brother, Mr Lovell Edgeworth, had his classical mansion filled
every evening with a succession of distinguished friends, the elite
of Ireland. Here, above all, we had the opportunity of seeing in what universal respect and
comfort a gentleman’s family may live in that country, and in far from its most
favoured district, provided only they live there habitually, and do their duty as the
friends and guardians of those among whom Providence has appointed their proper place. Here
we found neither mud hovels nor naked peasantry, but snug cottages and smiling faces all
about. Here there was a very large school in the village, of which masters and pupils were
in a nearly equal proportion Protestants and Roman Catholics, the Protestant squire himself
making it a regular part of his daily business to visit the scene of their operations, and
strengthen authority and enforce discipline by his personal superintendence. Here, too, we
pleased ourselves
EDGEWORTHSTOWN—AUG. 1825. | 59 |
“Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain;” |
It may well be imagined with what lively interest Sir Walter surveyed the scenery with which so many of the
proudest recollections of Ireland must ever be associated, and how curiously he studied the
rural manners it presented to him, in the hope (not disappointed) of being able to trace
some of his friend’s bright creations to their first hints and germs. On the delight
with which he contemplated her position in the midst of her own large and happy domestic
circle I need say still less. The reader is aware by this time how deeply he condemned and
pitied the conduct and fate of those who, gifted with pre-eminent talents for the
instruction and entertainment of their species at large, fancy themselves entitled to
neglect those every-day duties and charities of life, from
60 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, AUG. 1825. | 61 |
Lest I should forget to mention it, I put down here a rebuke which, later in his life, Sir Walter once gave in my hearing to his daughter Anne. She happened to say of something, I forget what, that she could not abide it—it was vulgar. “My love,” said her father, “you speak like a very young lady; do you know, after all, the meaning of this word vulgar? ’Tis only common; nothing that is common, except wickedness, can deserve to be spoken of in a tone of contempt; and when you have lived to my years, you will be disposed to agree with me in thanking God that nothing really worth having or caring about in this world is uncommon.”
At Edgeworthstown he received the following letter from Mr Canning:—
“A pretty severe indisposition has prevented me from
sooner acknowledging your kind letter; and now I fear that I shall not be able
to accomplish my visit
62 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I rejoice to see that my countrymen (for, though I was accidentally born in London, I consider myself an Irishman) have so well known the value of the honour which you are paying to them.
“By the way, if you landed at Liverpool on your return, could you find a better road to the north than through the Lake country? You would find me (from about the 10th of August) and Charles Ellis* at my friend Mr Bolton’s, on the Banks of Windermere, where I can promise you as kind, though not so noisy a welcome, as that which you have just experienced; and where our friend the Professor (who is Admiral of the Lake) would fit out all his flotilla, and fire as many of his guns as are not painted ones, in honour of your arrival.—Yours, my dear sir, very sincerely,
This invitation was not to be resisted; and the following letter announced a change of the original route to Mr Morritt.
“Your kind letter, my dear Morritt, finds me sweltering under the hottest weather I ever experienced, for the sake of seeing sights—of itself, you know, the most feverish occupation in the world. Luckily we are free of Dublin, and there is nothing around us but green fields and fine trees, ‘barring the high-roads,’ which
* Now Lord Seaford. |
EDGEWORTHSTOWN. | 63 |
64 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“In sober sadness, to talk of the misery of Ireland at this time, is to speak of the illness of a malade imaginaire. Well she is not, but she is rapidly becoming so. There are all the outward and visible tokens of convalescence. Every thing is mending; the houses that arise are better a hundred-fold than the cabins which are falling; the peasants of the younger class are dressed a great deal better than with the rags which clothe the persons of the more ancient Teagues, which realize the wardrobe of Jenny Sutton, of whom Morris sweetly sings,
‘One single pin at night let loose. The robes which veiled her beauty.’ |
“With all this there is much that remains to be
amended, and which time and increase of capital only can amend. The price of
labour is far too low, and this naturally reduces the labouring poor beyond
their just level in society. The behaviour of the gentry in general to the
labourers is systematically harsh, and this arrogance is received with a
servile deference which argues any thing
IRELAND—AUG. 1825. | 65 |
Miss Edgeworth, her sister Harriet, and her brother William, were easily persuaded to join our party for the rest of our Irish
travels. We had lingered a week at Edgeworthstown, and were now anxious to make the best of
our way towards the Lakes of Killarney; but posting was not to be very rapidly accomplished
in those regions by so large a company as had now collected—and we were more agreeably
delayed by the
66 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
It was a succession of festive gaiety wherever we halted; and in the
course of our movements we saw many castles, churches, and ruins of all sorts—with more
than enough of mountain, wood, lake, and river, to have made any similar progress in any
other part of Europe, truly delightful in all respects. But those of the party to whom the
South of Ireland was new, had almost continually before them spectacles of abject misery,
which robbed these things of more than half their charm. Sir
Walter, indeed, with the habitual hopefulness of his temper, persisted that
what he saw even in Kerry was better than what books had taught him to expect; and insured,
therefore, that improvement, however slow, was going on. But, ever and anon, as we moved
deeper into the country, there was a melancholy in his countenance, and, despite himself,
in the tone of his voice, which I for one could not mistake. The constant pass-
RELAND—AUG. 1825. | 67 |
“Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.” |
68 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
There was, however, abundance of ludicrous incidents to break this gloom; and no traveller ever tasted either the humours or the blunders of Paddy more heartily than did Sir Walter. I find recorded in one letter a very merry morning at Limerick, where, amidst the ringing of all the bells, in honour of the advent, there was ushered in a brother-poet, who must needs pay his personal respects to the author of Marmion. He was a scarecrow figure attired much in the fashion of the strugglers—by name O’Kelly; and he had produced on the spur of the occasion this modest parody of Dryden’s famous epigram:
“Three poets, of three different nations born, The United Kingdom in this age adorn; And Erin’s pride O’Kelly,
great and good.” |
Are characters whose fame not soon will cease.” |
We were still more amused (though there was real misery in the case)
with what befel on our approach to a certain pretty seat, in a different county, where
there was a collection of pictures and curiosities, not usually shown to travellers. A
gentleman, whom we had met in Dublin, had been accompanying us part of the day’s
journey, and volunteered, being acquainted with the owner, to procure us easy admission. At
the entrance of the domain, to which we proceeded under his wing, we were startled by the
dolorous apparition of two undertaker’s men, in voluminous black scarfs, though
IRELAND—AUG. 1825. | 69 |
“Mrs —— presents her kind compliments to Mr ——, and much regrets that she cannot show the pictures to-day, as Major —— died yesterday evening by apoplexy; which Mrs —— the more regrets, as it will prevent her having the honour to see Sir Walter Scott and Miss Edgeworth.”
Sir Walter said it reminded him of a woman in Fife, who, summing up the misfortunes of a black year in her history, said—“Let me see, sirs; first, we lost our wee callant—and then Jenny—and then the gudeman himsel died—and then the coo died too, poor hizzey; but, to be sure, her hide brought me fifteen shillings.”
At one county gentleman’s table where we dined, though two grand
full-length daubs of William and Mary adorned the walls of the room, there was a mixed
company—about as many Catholics as Protestants, all apparently on cordial terms, and
pledging each other lustily in bumpers of capital claret. About an hour after dinner,
however, punch was called for; tumblers and jugs of hot water appeared, and with them two
magnums of whisky, the one bearing on its label King’s,
the other Queen’s. We did not at first understand these
inscriptions; but it was explained, sotto
70 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Since I have alluded at all to the then grand dispute, I may mention,
that, after our tour was concluded, we considered with some wonder that, having partaken
liberally of Catholic hospitality, and encountered almost every other class of society, we
had not sat at meat with one specimen of the Romish priesthood; whereas, even at Popish
tables, we had met dignitaries of the Established Church. This circumstance we set down at
the time as amounting pretty nearly to a proof that there were few gentlemen in that order;
but we afterwards were willing to suspect that a prejudice of their own had been the source
of it. The only incivility, which Sir Walter Scott
ultimately discovered himself to have encountered—(for his friends did not allow him to
hear of it at the time)—in the course of his Irish peregrination, was the refusal of a
Roman Catholic gentleman, named O’Connell, who kept staghounds
near Killarney, to allow of a hunt on the upper lake, the day he visited that beautiful
scenery. This he did, as we were told, because he considered it as a notorious fact, that
Sir Walter Scott was an enemy to the Roman Catholic claims for
admission to seats in Parliament. He was entirely mistaken, however; for, though no man
disapproved of Romanism as a system of faith and practice more sincerely than Sir
Walter always did, he had long before this period formed the opinion, that
no good could come of farther resistance to the claim in question. He on all occasions
expressed manfully his belief, that the best thing for
IRELAND—AUG. 1825. | 71 |
If he had been made aware at the time of the dis-
72 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I wish most heartily that I had been in my own green land to welcome you. It delights me, however, to see (what I could not have doubted) that the warm hearts of my countrymen have shown that they know how to value you. How I envy those who will have the glory of showing you and Killarney to each other! No two of nature’s productions, I will say, were ever more worthy of meeting. If the Kenmares should be your Ciceroni, pray tell them what I say of their Paradise, with my best regards and greetings. I received your kind message, through Newton,* last year, that ‘if I did not come and see you, before you died, you would appear to me afterwards.’ Be assured that, as I am all for living apparitions, I shall take care and have the start of you, and would have done it this very year, I rather think, only for your Irish movements.
“Present my best regards to your son-in-law, and believe me, my dear Sir Walter (though we have met, I am sorry to say, but once in our lives),
* The late amiable and elegant artist, Gilbert Stewart Newton, R. A., had spent part of the autumn of 1824 at Chiefswood. |
LETTER TO MR MOORE. | 73 |
Scott’s answer was—
“If any thing could have added to the pleasure I must necessarily feel at the warm reception which the Irish nation have honoured me with, or if any thing could abate my own sense that I am no ways worth the coil that has been made about me, it must be the assurance that you partake and approve of the feelings of your kind-hearted country-folks.
“In Ireland I have met with every thing that was kind, and have seen much which is never to be forgotten. What I have seen has, in general, given me great pleasure; for it appears to me that the adverse circumstances which have so long withered the prosperity of this rich and powerful country are losing their force, and that a gradual but steady spirit of progressive improvement is effectually, though tacitly, counteracting their bad effects. The next twenty-five years will probably be the most important in their results that Ireland ever knew. So prophesies a sharp-sighted Sennachie from the land of mist and snow, aware that, though his opinion may be unfounded, he cannot please your ear better than by presaging the prosperity of Ireland.
“And so, to descend from such high matters, I hope
you will consider me as having left my card for you by this visit, although I
have not been happy enough to find you at home. You are bound by the ordinary
forms of society to return the call, and come to see Scotland. Bring wife and
bairns. We have plenty of room, and plenty of oatmeal, and, entre nous, a bottle or two of good
claret, to which I think you have as
74 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I return through England, yet, I am afraid, with little chance of seeing you, which I should wish to do were it but for half an hour. I have come thus far on my way to Killarney, where Hallam is lying with a broken leg. So much for middle-aged gentlemen climbing precipices. I, who have been regularly inducted into the bed of St Kevin at the Seven Churches, trust I shall bear charmed limbs upon this occasion.—I am very much, dear sir, your obliged and faithful
Having crossed the hills from Killarney to Cork, where a repetition of
the Dublin reception—corporation honours, deputations of the literary and scientific
societies, and so forth—awaited him, he gave a couple of days to the hospitality of this
flourishing town, and the beautiful scenery of the Shannon; not forgetting an excursion to
the groves of Blarney, among whose shades we had a right mirthful pic-nic. Sir Walter scrambled up to the top of the castle, and kissed,
with due faith and devotion, the famous Blarney stone, one salute of
which is said to emancipate the pilgrim from all future visitations of mauvaise honte:
LLANGOLLEN—AUG. 1825. | 75 |
“The stone this is, whoever kisses, He never misses to grow eloquent— ’Tis he may clamber to a lady’s chamber, Or be a member of Parliament.” |
“The statues growing that noble place in, Of heathen goddesses most rare Homer, Venus, and Nebuchadnezzar, All standing naked in the open air.” |
From Cork we proceeded to Dublin by Fermoy, Lismore, Cashel, Kilkenny,
and Holycross—at all of which places we were bountifully entertained, and assiduously
ciceroned—to our old quarters in St Stephen’s green; and after a morning or two spent
in taking leave of many kind faces that he was never to see again, Sir Walter and his original fellow-travellers started for Holyhead on the
18th of August. Our progress through North Wales produced nothing worth recording, except
perhaps the feeling of delight which every thing in the aspect of the common people, their
dress, their houses, their gardens, and their husbandry, could not fail to call up in
persons who had just been seeing Ireland for the first time; and a short visit (which was,
indeed, the only one he made) to the far-famed “ladies” of Llangollen. They had
received some hint that Sir Walter meant to pass their way; and on
stopping at the inn, he received an invitation so pressing to add one more to the long list
of the illustrious visitors of their retreat,
76 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
An extract from a gossipping letter of the following week will perhaps be sufficient for Llangollen.
* * * “We slept on Wednesday evening at Capel Carig,
which Sir W. supposes to mean the Chapel of
the Crags; a pretty little inn in a most picturesque situation certainly, and
as to the matter of toasted cheese, quite exquisite. Next day we advanced
through, I verily believe, the most perfect gem of a country eye ever saw,
having almost all the wildness of Highland backgrounds, and all the loveliness
of rich English landscape nearer us, and streams like the purest and most
babbling of our own. At Llangollen your papa was waylaid by the celebrated
‘Ladies’—viz. Lady Eleanor
Butler and the Honourable Miss
Ponsonby, who having been one or both crossed in love, foreswore
all dreams of matrimony in the heyday of youth, beauty, and fashion, and
selected this charming spot for the repose of their now time-honoured
virginity. It was many a day, however, before they could get implicit credit
for being the innocent friends they really were, among the people of the
neighbourhood; for their elopement from Ireland had been performed under
suspicious circumstances; and as Lady Eleanor arrived here
in her natural aspect of a pretty girl, while Miss
Ponsonby had condescended to accompany her in the garb of a
smart footman in buckskin breeches, years and years elapsed ere full justice
was done to the character of their romance. We proceeded up the hill, and found
every thing about them and their habitation odd and ex-
ELLERAY—AUG. 1825. | 77 |
78 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
This letter was written on the banks of Windermere, where we were received with the warmth of old friendship by Mr Wilson, and one whose grace and gentle goodness could have found no lovelier or fitter home than Elleray, except where she is now.
Mr Bolton’s seat, to which Canning had invited Scott, is situated a couple of miles lower down on the same Lake; and
thither Mr Wilson conducted him next day. A large
company had been assembled there in honour of the Minister—it included already Mr Wordsworth and Mr
Southey. It has not, I suppose, often happened to a plain English merchant,
wholly the architect of his own fortunes, to entertain at one time a party embracing so
many illustrious names. He was proud of his guests; they respected him, and honoured and
loved each other; and it would have been difficult to say which star in the constellation
shone with the brightest or the softest light. There was “high discourse,”
intermingled with as gay flashings of courtly wit as ever Canning
displayed; and a plentiful allowance, on all sides, of those airy transient pleasantries,
in which the fancy of poets, however wise and grave, delights to run riot when they are
sure not to be misunderstood. There were beautiful and accomplished women to adorn and
enjoy this circle. The weather was as Elysian as the scenery. There were brilliant
cavalcades through the woods in the morn-
SEPTEMBER 1, 1825. | 79 |
On at last quitting the festive circle of Storrs, we visited the family
of the late Bishop Watson at Calgarth, and Mr Wordsworth at his charming retreat of Mount Rydal. He
accompanied us to Keswick, where we saw Mr Southey
re-established in his unrivalled library. Mr Wordsworth and his
daughter then turned with us, and passing over
Kirkstone to Ulswater, conducted us first to his friend Mr
Marshall’s elegant villa, near Lyulph’s Tower, and on the next
day to the noble castle of his lifelong friend and patron Lord
Lonsdale. The Earl and Countess had their halls filled with another splendid
circle of distinguished persons, who, like them, lavished all possible attentions and
demonstrations of respect upon Sir Walter. He remained a
couple of days, and perambulated, under Wordsworth’s guidance,
the superb terraces and groves of the “fair domain,” which that poet has
connected with the noblest monument of his genius. But the temptations of Storrs and
Lowther had cost more time than had been calculated upon, and the promised visit to Rokeby
80 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
I add two letters on the subject of this Irish expedition:
“Your letter, my dear Morritt, gave me most sincere pleasure on your account, and also on my own, as it reconciled me to myself for my stupidity in misdirecting my letters to Charlotte and you from Wales. I was sincerely vexed when I found out my bevue, but am now well pleased that it happened, since we might otherwise have arrived at Rokeby at a time when we must necessarily have been a little in the way. I wish you joy most sincerely of your nephew’s settling in life, in a manner so agreeably to your wishes and views. Bella gerant alii—he will have seen enough of the world abroad to qualify him fully to estimate and discharge the duties of an English country-gentleman; and with your example before him, and your advice to resort to, he cannot, with the talents he possesses, fail to fill honourably that most honourable and important rank in society. You will, probably, in due time, think of Parliament for him, where there is a fine sphere for young men of talents at present, all the old political post-horses being, as Sir Pertinax says, dry-foundered.
“I was extremely sorry to find Canning at Windermere looking poorly; but, in
a ride, the old man seemed to come alive again. I fear he works himself too
hard, under the great error of trying to do too much with his own hand, and to
see every thing with his own eyes, whereas the greatest general and the first
statesman must, in many cases, be content to use the eyes and fingers of
LETTER TO MR MORRITT. | 81 |
“All this travelling and wooing is like to prevent our meeting this season. I hope to make up for it the next. Lady Scott, Anne, and Sophia join Lockhart and me in best wishes to the happy two who are to be soon one. My best respects attend the Miss Morritts, and I ever am, most truly yours,
* 2nd King Henry IV., Act II. Sc. 3. |
82 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“It did not require your kind letter of undeserved remembrance, my dear friend, to remind me that I had been guilty of very criminal negligence in our epistolary correspondence. How this has come to pass I really do not know; but it arises out of any source but that of ingratitude to my friends, or thoughtless forgetfulness of my duty to them. On the contrary, I think always most of them to whom I do owe letters, for when my conscience is satisfied on that subject, their perturbed spirits remain at rest, or at least do not haunt me as the injured spirits do the surviving murderers.
“I well intended to have written from Ireland, but,
alas! Hell, as some stern old divine says, is paved with good intentions. There
was such a whirl of visiting, and hiking, and boating, and wondering, and
shouting, and laughing, and carousing; so much to be seen and so little time to
see it; so much to be heard and only two ears to listen to twenty voices, that,
upon the whole, I grew desperate, and gave up all thoughts of doing what was
right and proper upon post-days—and so all my epistolary good intentions are
gone to Macadamize, I suppose, ‘the burning marle’ of the
infernal regions. I have not the pen of our friend, Maria Edgeworth, who writes all the while she laughs, talks,
eats, and drinks, and I believe, though I do not pretend to be so far in the
secret, all the time she sleeps too. She has good luck in having a pen which
walks at once so unweariedly and so well. I do not, however, quite like her
last book on Education,
considered as a general work. She should have limited the title to Education in
Natural Philosophy, or some such term, for there is no great use in teaching
children in general to roof
LETTER TO MISS BAILLIE. | 83 |
“Well, but I did not mean to say any thing about
Harry and Lucy, whose dialogues are very interesting after all, but about
Ireland, which I could prophesy for as well as if I were Thomas the Rhymer. Her natural gifts are so
great, that, despite all the disadvantages which have hitherto retarded her
progress, she will, I believe, be queen of the trefoil of kingdoms. I never saw
a richer country, or, to speak my mind, a finer people; the worst of them is
the bitter and envenomed dislike which they have to each other. Their factions
84 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
LETTER TO MISS BAILLIE. | 85 |
‘And merry folks were we.’ |
86 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“John Richardson has been looking at a wild domain within five miles of us, and left us in the earnest determination to buy it, having caught a basket of trouts in the space of two hours in the stream he is to call his own. It is a good purchase I think: he has promised to see me again and carry you up a bottle of whisky, which, if you will but take enough of, will operate as a peace-offering should, and make you forget all my epistolary failures. I beg kind respects to dear Mrs Agnes and to Mrs Baillie. Lady Scott and Anne send best respects.—I have but room to say that I am always yours,
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