Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart
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MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. VOLUME THE FIFTH. MDCCCXXXVII. ROBERT CADELL, EDINBURGH. JOHN MURRAY AND WHITTAKER AND CO., LONDON. CONTENTS OF VOLUME FIFTH. CHAPTER I. Autumn at Abbotsford Scott's Hospitality Visit of Sir Humphry Davy Henry Mackenzie Dr Wollaston and William Stewart Rose Coursing on Newark Hill Salmon-fishing The Festival at Boldside The Abbots- ford Hunt The Kirn, &c 1820, 1 CHAPTER II. Publication of the Abbot The Blair- Adam Club Kelso Waltonhall, &c. Ballantyne's Novelist's Library Acquit- tal of Queen Caroline Service of the Duke of Buccleuch Scott elected President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh The Celtic Society Letters to Lord Montagu Cornet Scott Charles Scott Allan Cunningham, &c. Kenil- -worth published 1820-1821, 19 CHAPTER III. Visit to London Project of the Royal Society of Literature Affairs of the 18th Hussars Marriage of Captain Adam Ferguson Letters to Lord Sidmouth Lord Montagu Allan Cunningham Mrs Lockhart and Cornet Scott 1821, 50 VI CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER IV. Illness and Death of John Ballantyne Extract from his Pocketbook Letters from Blair- Adam Castle- Campbell " Sir Samuel Shepherd Bailie Mackay," &c Corona- tion of George IV. Correspondence with James Hogg and Lord Sidmouth Letter on the Coronation Anecdotes Allan Cunningham's Memoranda Completion of Chant- rey's Bust 1821, 74 CHAPTER V. Publication of Mr Adolphus's Letters on the Authorship of Waverley 1821, 103 CHAPTER VI. New Buildings at Abbotsford Chiefswood William Erskine * Letter to Countess Purgstall Progress of the Pirate Private Letters in the Reign of James I. Commencement of the Fortunes of Nigel Second Sale of Copyrights Con- tract for " Four Works of Fiction" Enormous Profits of the Novelist, and Extravagant Projects of Constable The Pirate published Lord Byron's Cain, dedicated to Scott Affair of the Beacon Newspaper Franck's Northern Me- moirs And Notes of Lord Fountainhall, published 1821, 122 CHAPTER VII. William Erskine promoted to the Bench Joanna Baillie's Miscellany Halidon Hill and MacdufTs Cross Letters to Lord Montagu Last Portrait by Raeburn Constable's Letter on the Appearance of the Fortunes of Nigel Hali- don Hill published 1822, 156 CHAPTER VIII. Repairs of Melrose Abbey Letters to Lord Montagu and Miss Edgeworth King George IV. visits Scotland Celtic Mania Mr Crabbe in Castle Street Death of Lord Kin- nedder Departure of the King Letters from Mr Peel and Mr Croker 1822, 178 CHAPTER IX. Mons Meg Jacobite Peerages Invitation from the Gala- shiels Poet Progress of Abbotsford House Letters to CONTENTS. Vli HUK Joanna Baillie Terry Lord Montagu, c. Completion and Publication of Peveril of the Peak 1822-1823, 220 CHAPTER X. Quentin Durward in progress Letters to Constable and Dr Dibdin the Author of Waverley and the Roxburghe Club the Bannatyne Club Founded Scott Chairman of the Edin- burgh Oil Gas Company, &c Mechanical Devices at Abbotsford Gasometer Air-bell, &c. &c The Bellen- den Windows 1823, 253 CHAPTER XL Quentin Durward published Transactions with Constable Dialogues on Superstition proposed Article on Romance " Written St Ronan's Well begun Melrose in July" Abbotsford Visited by Miss Edgeworth And by Mr Adol- phus His Memoranda Excursion to Allanton Anecdotes Letters to Miss Baillie, Miss Edgeworth, Mr Terry, &c. Publication of St Ronan's Well 1823, 279 CHAPTER XII. Publication of Redgauntlet Death of Lord Byron Library " and Museum The Wallace Chair" House-painting, &c Anecdotes Letters to Constable Miss Edgeworth Terry Miss Baillie Lord Montagu Mr Southey Charles Scott, &c. Speech at the Opening of the Edin- burgh Academy Death and Epitaph of Maida Fires in Edinburgh 1824, 319 CHAPTER XIII. Tales of the Crusaders begun A Christmas at Abbotsford, in Extracts from the MS. Journal of Captain Basil Hall, R. N Dec. 29, 1824 Jan. 10, 1825 374 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. CHAPTER I. AUTUMN AT ABBOTSFORD SCOTT's HOSPITALITY VISIT OF SIR HUMPHRY DAVY HENRY MACKENZIE DR WOLLASTON AND WILLIAM STEWART ROSE COURSING ON NEWARK HILL SALMON-FISHING THE FESTIVAL AT BOLDS1DE THE ABBOTSFORD HUNT THE KIRN, ETC. 1820. ABOUT the middle of August (1820), my wife and I went to Abbotsford ; and we remained there for several weeks, during which I became familiarized to Sir Walter Scott's mode of existence in the country. It was neces- sary to observe it, day after day, for a considerable period, before one could believe that such was, during nearly half the year, the routine of life with the most productive author of his age. The humblest person who stayed merely for a short visit, must have departed with the impression, that what he witnessed was an occasional that Scott's him to break in variety ; courtesy prompted to but upon his habits when he had a stranger amuse ; VOL. v. A 2 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. that it was physically impossible, that the man who was of writing the Waverley romances at the rate nearly twelve volumes in the year, could continue, week after week, and month after month, to devote all but a hardly of doors' perceptible fraction of his mornings to out occupations, and the whole of his evenings to the enter- tainment of a constantly varying circle of guests. The hospitality of his afternoons must alone have of been enough to exhaust the energies almost any man ; for his visiters did not mean, like those of country houses in general, to enjoy the landlord's good cheer and amuse the far arrived from each other ; but greater proportion a distance, for the sole sake of the Poet and Novelist himself, whose person they had never before seen, and whose voice they might never again have any oppor- tunity of hearing. No other villa in Europe. was ever resorted to from the same motives, and to any thing like the Voltaire never same extent, except Ferney ; and dreamt of being visible to his hunters, except for a brief of the few of dined with space day ; them even him, and none of them seem to have slept under his roof. Scott's establishment, on the contrary, resembled in every particular that of the affluent idler, who, because he has inherited, or would fain transmit, political influence in some province, keeps open house receives as many as he has room for, and sees their apartments occupied, as soon as they vacate them, by another troop of the same description. Even on gentlemen guiltless of inkshed, the of exercise hospitality upon this sort of scale is found to a tax few of impose heavy ; them, nowadays, think of it for maintaining any large portion of the year : very few indeed below the highest rank of the nobility in whose case there is a usually staff of led-captains, led- servile chaplains, dandies, and semi-professional talkers AUTUMN AT ABBOTSFORD. 3 and jokers from London, to take the chief part of the burden. Now, Scott had often in his mouth the pithy verses " Conversation is but carving, Give no more to every guest, Than he's able to digest ; Give him always of the prime, And but a little at a time ; Carve to all but just enough, Let them neither starve nor stuff; And that you may have your due, " Let your neighbours carve for you : and he, in his own familiar circle always, and in other circles where it was possible, furnished a happy exem- plification of these rules and regulations of the Dean of St Patrick's. But the same sense and benevo- lence which dictated adhesion to them among his old friends and acquaintance, rendered it necessary to break them, when he was receiving strangers of the class I have described above at Abbotsford : he felt that their coming was the best homage they could pay to his celebrity, and that it would have been as uncourteous in him not to give them their fill of his talk, as it would be in your every-day lord of manors to make his casual guests welcome indeed to his venison, but keep his grouse-shooting for his immediate allies and dependants. Every now and then he received some stranger who was not indisposed to take his part in the carving; and how good-humouredly he surrendered the lion's share to any one that seemed to covet it with what perfect placidity he submitted to be bored even by bores of the first water, must have excited the admiration of many besides the daily observers of his proceedings. I have heard a spruce Senior Wrangler lecture him for half an evening on the niceties of the Greek epigram ; 4 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. I have heard the poorest of all parliamentary blunderers try to detail to him the pros and cons of what he called the Truck System ; and in either case the same bland the of the tormentor. with such eye watched lips But, ludicrous exceptions, Scott was the one object of the and followed Abbotsford pilgrims ; evening evening only to show him exerting, for their amusement, more of animal spirits, to say nothing of intellectual vigour, than would have been considered by any other man in the company as sufficient for the whole expenditure of a week's existence. Yet this was not the chief marvel ; he talked of things that interested himself, because he knew that by doing so he should give most pleasure to but how vast was the of on his guests ; range subjects which he could talk with unaffected zeal; and with what admirable delicacy of instinctive politeness did he select his topic according to the peculiar history, study, habits of the ! pursuits or social stranger How beauti- his of fully he varied style letter-writing, according to the character and situation of his multifarious corres- the reader has been enabled to pondents, already judge ; but to carry the same system into practice at sight to manage utter strangers, of many and widely different classes, in the same fashion, and with the same effect for of observation called a quickness and fertility of as no resource such description can convey the slightest notion of to those who never witnessed the thing for themselves.