Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume I Part 11

My {p.156} mother and sister join in compliments to aunt and you, and also in thanks for the attentions and hospitality which they experienced at Rosebank. And I am ever your affectionate nephew,

WALTER SCOTT.

P. S.--If you continue to want a mastiff, I think I can procure you one of a good breed, and send him by the carrier.

While attending Mr. Dugald Stewart's cla.s.s, in the winter of 1790-91, Scott produced, in compliance with the usual custom of ethical students, several essays besides that to which I have already made an allusion, and which was, I believe, ent.i.tled, On the Manners and Customs of the Northern Nations. But this essay it was that first attracted, in any particular manner, his Professor's attention. Mr.

Robert Ainslie,[83] well known as the friend and fellow-traveller of Burns, happened to attend Stewart the same session, and remembers his saying, _ex cathedra_, "The author of this paper shows much knowledge of his subject, and a great taste for such researches." Scott became, before the close of the session, a frequent visitor in Mr. Stewart's family, and an affectionate intercourse was maintained between them through their after-lives.

[Footnote 83: Mr. Ainslie died at Edinburgh, 11th April, 1838, in his 73d year.]

Let me here set down a little story which most of his friends must have heard him tell of the same period. While attending Dugald Stewart's lectures on moral philosophy, Scott happened to sit frequently beside a modest and diligent youth, considerably his senior, and obviously of very humble condition. Their acquaintance soon became rather intimate, and he occasionally made this new friend the companion of his country walks, but as to his parentage and place of residence he always preserved total silence. One day towards the end of the session, as Scott was returning to Edinburgh from a solitary ramble, {p.157} his eye was arrested by a singularly venerable _Bluegown_, a beggar of the Edie Ochiltree order, who stood propped on his stick, with his hat in his hand, but silent and motionless, at one of the outskirts of the city. Scott gave the old man what trifle he had in his pocket, and pa.s.sed on his way. Two or three times afterwards the same thing happened, and he had begun to consider the Bluegown as one who had established a claim on his bounty: when one day he fell in with him as he was walking with his humble student. Observing some confusion in his companion's manner as he saluted his pensioner, and bestowed the usual benefaction, he could not help saying, after they had proceeded a few yards further, "Do you know anything to the old man's discredit?" Upon which the youth burst into tears, and cried, "Oh no, sir, G.o.d forbid!--but I am a poor wretch to be ashamed to speak to him--he is my own father. He has enough laid by to serve for his own old days, but he stands bleaching his head in the wind, that he may get the means of paying for my education." Compa.s.sionating the young man's situation, Scott soothed his weakness, and kept his secret, but by no means broke off the acquaintance. Some months had elapsed before he again met the Bluegown--it was in a retired place, and the old man begged to speak a word with him. "I find, sir," he said, "that you have been very kind to my Willie. He had often spoke of it before I saw you together. Will you pardon such a liberty, and give me the honor and pleasure of seeing you under my poor roof? Tomorrow is Sat.u.r.day; will you come at two o'clock? Willie has not been very well, and it would do him meikle good to see your face." His curiosity, besides better feelings, was touched, and he accepted this strange invitation. The appointed hour found him within sight of a sequestered little cottage, near St.

Leonard's--the hamlet where he has placed the residence of his David Deans. His fellow-student, pale and emaciated from recent {p.158} sickness, was seated on a stone bench by the door, looking out for his coming, and introduced him into a not untidy cabin, where the old man, divested of his professional garb, was directing the last vibrations of a leg of mutton that hung by a hempen cord before the fire. The mutton was excellent--so were the potatoes and whiskey; and Scott returned home from an entertaining conversation, in which, besides telling many queer stories of his own life--and he had seen service in his youth--the old man more than once used an expression, which was long afterwards put into the mouth of Dominie Sampson's mother:--"Please G.o.d, I may live to see my bairn wag his head in a pulpit yet."

Walter could not help telling all this the same night to his mother, and added, that he would fain see his poor friend obtain a tutor's place in some gentleman's family. "Dinna speak to your father about it," said the good lady; "if it had been _a shoulder_ he might have thought less, but he will say _the jigot_ was a sin. I'll see what I can do." Mrs. Scott made her inquiries in her own way among the Professors, and having satisfied herself as to the young man's character, applied to her favorite minister, Dr. Erskine, whose influence soon procured such a situation as had been suggested for him, in the north of Scotland. "And thenceforth," said Sir Walter, "I lost sight of my friend--but let us hope he made out his _curriculum_ at Aberdeen, and is now wagging his head where the fine old carle wished to see him."[84]

[Footnote 84: The reader will find a story not unlike this in the Introduction to _The Antiquary_, 1830. When I first read that note, I asked him why he had altered so many circ.u.mstances from the usual oral edition of his anecdote.

"Nay," said he, "both stories may be true, and why should I be always lugging in myself, when what happened to another of our cla.s.s would serve equally well for the purpose I had in view?" I regretted the _leg of mutton_.]

On the 4th January, 1791, Scott was admitted a member of _The Speculative Society_, where it had, long before, been the custom of those about to be called to the Bar, {p.159} and those who after a.s.suming the gown were left in possession of leisure by the solicitors, to train or exercise themselves in the arts of elocution and debate. From time to time each member produces an essay, and his treatment of his subject is then discussed by the conclave. Scott's essays were, for November, 1791, On the Origin of the Feudal System; for the 14th February, 1792, On the Authenticity of Ossian's Poems; and on the 11th December of the same year, he read one, On the Origin of the Scandinavian Mythology. The selection of these subjects shows the course of his private studies and predilections; but he appears, from the minutes, to have taken his fair share in the ordinary debates of the Society,--and spoke, in the spring of 1791, on these questions, which all belong to the established text-book for juvenile speculation in Edinburgh:--"Ought any permanent support to be provided for the poor?" "Ought there to be an established religion?" "Is attainder and corruption of blood ever a proper punishment?" "Ought the public expenses to be defrayed by levying the amount directly upon the people, or is it expedient to contract national debt for that purpose?" "Was the execution of Charles I. justifiable?" "Should the slave-trade be abolished?" In the next session, previous to his call to the Bar, he spoke in the debates of which these were the theses:--"Has the belief in a future state been of advantage to mankind, or is it ever likely to be so?" "Is it for the interest of Britain to maintain what is called the balance of Europe?" and again on the eternal question as to the fate of King Charles I., which, by the way, was thus set up for re-discussion on a motion by Walter Scott.

He took, for several winters, an ardent interest in this society. Very soon after his admission (18th January, 1791), he was elected their librarian; and in the November following he became also their secretary and treasurer; all which appointments indicate the reliance placed on {p.160} his careful habits of business, the fruit of his chamber education. The minutes kept in his handwriting attest the strict regularity of his attention to the small affairs, literary and financial, of the club; but they show also, as do all his early letters, a strange carelessness in spelling. His constant good temper softened the asperities of debate; while his multifarious lore, and the quaint humor with which he enlivened its display, made him more a favorite as a speaker than some whose powers of rhetoric were far above his.

Lord Jeffrey remembers being struck, the first night he spent at the Speculative, with the singular appearance of the secretary, who sat gravely at the bottom of the table in a huge woollen nightcap; and when the president took the chair, pleaded a bad toothache as his apology for coming into that wors.h.i.+pful a.s.sembly in such a "portentous machine." He read that night an essay on ballads, which so much interested the new member that he requested to be introduced to him.

Mr. Jeffrey called on him next evening, and found him "in a small den, on the sunk floor of his father's house in George's Square, surrounded with dingy books," from which they adjourned to a tavern, and supped together. Such was the commencement of an acquaintance, which by degrees ripened into friends.h.i.+p, between the two most distinguished men of letters whom Edinburgh produced in their time. I may add here the description of that early _den_, with which I am favored by a lady of Scott's family:--"Walter had soon begun to collect out-of-the-way things of all sorts. He had more books than shelves; a small painted cabinet, with Scotch and Roman coins in it, and so forth. A claymore and Lochaber axe, given him by old Invernahyle, mounted guard on a little print of Prince Charlie; and _Broughton's Saucer_ was hooked up against the wall below it." Such was the germ of the magnificent library and museum of Abbotsford; and such were the "new realms" in which he, on taking possession, had {p.161} arranged his little paraphernalia about him "with all the feelings of novelty and liberty." Since those days, the habits of life in Edinburgh, as elsewhere, have undergone many changes: and the "convenient parlor,"

in which Scott first showed Jeffrey his collections of minstrelsy, is now, in all probability, thought hardly good enough for a menial's sleeping-room.

But I have forgotten to explain _Broughton's Saucer_. We read of Mr.

Saunders Fairford, that though "an elder of the kirk, and of course zealous for King George and the Government," yet, having "many clients and connections of business among families of opposite political tenets, he was particularly cautious to use all the conventional phrases which the civility of the time had devised as an admissible mode of language betwixt the two parties: Thus he spoke sometimes of the Chevalier, but never either of the _Prince_, which would have been sacrificing his own principles, or of _the Pretender_, which would have been offensive to those of others: Again, he usually designated the Rebellion as the _affair_ of 1745, and spoke of any one engaged in it as a person who had been _out_ at a certain period--so that, on the whole, he was much liked and respected on all sides."[85] All this was true of Mr. Walter Scott, W. S.; but I have often heard his son tell an anecdote of him, which he dwelt on with particular satisfaction, as ill.u.s.trative of the man, and of the difficult time through which he had lived.

[Footnote 85: _Redgauntlet_, chap. i.]

Mrs. Scott's curiosity was strongly excited one autumn by the regular appearance, at a certain hour every evening, of a sedan chair, to deposit a person carefully m.u.f.fled up in a mantle, who was immediately ushered into her husband's private room, and commonly remained with him there until long after the usual bedtime of this orderly family.

Mr. Scott answered her repeated inquiries with a vagueness which irritated the lady's feelings more and more; until, at last, she could bear the thing {p.162} no longer; but one evening, just as she heard the bell ring as for the stranger's chair to carry him off, she made her appearance within the forbidden parlor with a salver in her hand, observing that she thought the gentlemen had sat so long, they would be the better of a dish of tea, and had ventured accordingly to bring some for their acceptance. The stranger, a person of distinguished appearance, and richly dressed, bowed to the lady, and accepted a cup; but her husband knit his brows, and refused very coldly to partake the refreshment. A moment afterwards the visitor withdrew--and Mr. Scott, lifting up the window-sash, took the cup which he had left empty on the table, and tossed it out upon the pavement. The lady exclaimed for her china, but was put to silence by her husband's saying, "I can forgive your little curiosity, madam, but you must pay the penalty. I may admit into my house, on a piece of business, persons wholly unworthy to be treated as guests by my wife. Neither lip of me nor of mine comes after Mr. Murray of Broughton's."

This was the unhappy man who, after attending Prince Charles Stuart as his secretary throughout the greater part of his expedition, condescended to redeem his own life and fortune by bearing evidence against the n.o.blest of his late master's adherents, when

"Pitied by gentle hearts Kilmarnock died-- The brave, Balmerino, were on thy side."

When confronted with Sir John Douglas of Kelhead (ancestor of the Marquess of Queensberry), before the Privy Council in St. James's, the prisoner was asked, "Do you know this witness?" "Not I," answered Douglas; "I once knew a person who bore the designation of Murray of Broughton--but that was a gentleman and a man of honor, and one that could hold up his head!"

The saucer belonging to Broughton's teacup had been preserved; and Walter, at a very early period, made prize {p.163} of it. One can fancy young Alan Fairford pointing significantly to the relic, when Mr. Saunders was vouchsafing him one of his customary lectures about listening with, unseemly sympathy to "the blawing, bleezing stories which the Hieland gentlemen told of those troublous times."[86]

[Footnote 86: _Redgauntlet_, letter ix.]

The following letter is the only one of the autumn of 1791 that has reached my hands. It must be read with particular interest for its account of Scott's first visit to Flodden field, destined to be celebrated seventeen years afterwards in the very n.o.blest specimen of his numbers:--

TO WILLIAM CLERK, ESQ., PRINCE'S STREET, EDINBURGH.

NORTHUMBERLAND, 26th August, 1791.

DEAR CLERK,--Behold a letter from the mountains; for I am very snugly settled here, in a farmer's house, about six miles from Wooler, in the very centre of the Cheviot hills, in one of the wildest and most romantic situations which your imagination, fertile upon the subject of cottages, ever suggested. And what the deuce are you about there? methinks I hear you say. Why, sir, of all things in the world--drinking goat's whey--not that I stand in the least need of it, but my uncle having a slight cold, and being a little tired of home, asked me last Sunday evening if I would like to go with him to Wooler, and I answering in the affirmative, next morning's sun beheld us on our journey, through a pa.s.s in the Cheviots, upon the back of two special nags, and man Thomas behind with a portmanteau, and two fis.h.i.+ng-rods fastened across his back, much in the style of St. Andrew's Cross. Upon reaching Wooler we found the accommodations so bad that we were forced to use some interest to get lodgings here, where we are most delightfully appointed indeed. To add to my satisfaction, we are amidst places renowned by the feats of former days; each {p.164} hill is crowned with a tower, or camp, or cairn, and in no situation can you be near more fields of battle: Flodden, Otterburn, Chevy Chase, Ford Castle, Chillingham Castle, Copland Castle, and many another scene of blood, are within the compa.s.s of a forenoon's ride. Out of the brooks, with which these hills are intersected, we pull trouts of half a yard in length, as fast as we did the perches from the pond at Pennycuik, and we are in the very country of muirfowl.

Often as I have wished for your company, I never did it more earnestly than when I rode over Flodden Edge. I know your taste for these things, and could have undertaken to demonstrate that never was an affair more completely bungled than that day's work was. Suppose one army posted upon the face of a hill, and secured by high grounds projecting on each flank, with the river Till in front, a deep and still river, winding through a very extensive valley called Milfield Plain, and the only pa.s.sage over it by a narrow bridge, which the Scots artillery, from the hill, could in a moment have demolished. Add, that the English must have hazarded a battle while their troops, which were tumultuously levied, remained together; and that the Scots, behind whom the country was open to Scotland, had nothing to do but to wait for the attack as they were posted. Yet did two thirds of the army, actuated by the _perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_, rush down and give an opportunity to Stanley to occupy the ground they had quitted, by coming over the shoulder of the hill, while the other third, under Lord Home, kept their ground, and having seen their king and about 10,000 of their countrymen cut to pieces, retired into Scotland without loss. For the reason of the bridge not being destroyed while the English pa.s.sed, I refer you to Pitscottie, who narrates at large, and to whom I give credit for a most accurate and clear description, agreeing perfectly with the ground.

My uncle drinks the whey here, as I do ever since I understood {p.165} it was brought to his bedside every morning at six, by a very pretty dairy-maid. So much for my residence: all the day we shoot, fish, walk, and ride; dine and sup upon fish struggling from the stream, and the most delicious heath-fed mutton, barn-door fowls, poys,[87] milk-cheese, etc., all in perfection; and so much simplicity resides among these hills, that a pen, which could write at least, was not to be found about the house, though belonging to a considerable farmer, till I shot the crow with whose quill I write this epistle. I wrote to Irving before leaving Kelso. Poor fellow, I am sure his sister's death must have hurt him much; though he makes no noise about feelings, yet still streams always run deepest. I sent a message by him to Edie,[88] poor devil, adding my mite of consolation to him in his affliction. I pity poor ******, who is more deserving of compa.s.sion, being his first offence. Write soon, and as long as the last; you will have Perths.h.i.+re news, I suppose, soon. Jamie's adventure diverted me much. I read it to my uncle, who being long in the India service, was affronted. Remember me to James when you write, and to all your family, and friends in general. I send this to Kelso--you may address as usual; my letters will be forwarded--adieu--au revoir,

WALTER SCOTT.

[Footnote 87: Pies.]

[Footnote 88: Sir A. Ferguson.]

With the exception of this little excursion, Scott appears to have been nailed to Edinburgh during this autumn, by that course of legal study, in company with Clerk, on which he dwells in his Memoir with more satisfaction than on any other pa.s.sage in his early life. He copied out _twice_, as the fragment tells us, his notes of those lectures of the eminent Scots Law professor (Mr. Hume), which he speaks of in such a high strain of eulogy; and Mr. Irving adds that the second copy, being fairly finished and bound into volumes, was presented to {p.166} his father. The old gentleman was highly gratified with this performance, not only as a satisfactory proof of his son's a.s.siduous attention to the law professor, but inasmuch as the lectures afforded himself "very pleasant reading for leisure hours."

Mr. Clerk a.s.sures me that nothing could be more exact (excepting as to a few petty circ.u.mstances introduced for obvious reasons) than the resemblance of the Mr. Saunders Fairford of Redgauntlet to his friend's father:--"He was a man of business of the old school, moderate in his charges, economical, and even n.i.g.g.ardly in his expenditure; strictly honest in conducting his own affairs and those of his clients; but taught by long experience to be wary and suspicious in observing the motions of others. Punctual as the clock of St. Giles tolled nine" (the hour at which the Court of Session meets), "the dapper form of the hale old gentleman was seen at the threshold of the court hall, or, at farthest, at the head of the Back Stairs" (the most convenient access to the Parliament House from George's Square), "trimly dressed in a complete suit of snuff-colored brown, with stockings of silk or woollen, as suited the weather; a bob wig and a small c.o.c.ked hat; shoes blacked as Warren would have blacked them; silver shoe-buckles, and a gold stock-buckle. His manners corresponded with his attire, for they were scrupulously civil, and not a little formal.... On the whole, he was a man much liked and respected, though his friends would not have been sorry if he had given a dinner more frequently, as his little cellar contained some choice old wine, of which, on such rare occasions, he was no n.i.g.g.ard.

The whole pleasure of this good old-fas.h.i.+oned man of method, besides that which he really felt in the discharge of his own daily business, was the hope to see his son attain what in the father's eyes was the proudest of all distinctions--the rank and fame of a well-employed lawyer. Every profession has its peculiar honors, and his mind was constructed upon {p.167} so limited and exclusive a plan, that he valued nothing save the objects of ambition which his own presented.

He would have shuddered at his son's acquiring the renown of a hero, and laughed with scorn at the equally barren laurels of literature; it was by the path of the law alone that he was desirous to see him rise to eminence; and the probabilities of success or disappointment were the thoughts of his father by day, and his dream by night."[89]

[Footnote 89: _Redgauntlet_, chap. i.]

It is easy to imagine the original of this portrait, writing to one of his friends, about the end of June, 1792--"I have the pleasure to tell you that my son has pa.s.sed his private Scots Law examinations with good approbation--a great relief to my mind, especially as worthy Mr.

Pest[90] told me in my ear, there was no fear of the 'callant,' as he familiarly called him, which gives me great heart. His public trials, which are nothing in comparison, save a mere form, are to take place, by order of the Honorable Dean of Faculty,[91] on Wednesday first, and on Friday he puts on the gown, and gives a bit chack of dinner to his friends and acquaintances, as is the custom. Your company will be wished for there by more than him.--_P. S._ His thesis is on the t.i.tle, _De periculo et commodo rei venditae_, and is a very pretty piece of Latinity."[92]

[Footnote 90: It has been suggested that _Pest_ is a misprint for _Peat_. There was an elderly pract.i.tioner of the latter name, with whom Mr. Fairford must have been well acquainted.--(1839.)]

[Footnote 91: The situation of Dean of Faculty was filled in 1792 by the Honorable Henry Erskine, of witty and benevolent memory.]

[Footnote 92: _Redgauntlet_, letter ix.]

And all things pa.s.sed in due order, even as they are figured. The real _Darsie_ was present at the real Alan Fairford's "bit chack of dinner," and the old Clerk of the Signet was very joyous on the occasion. Scott's _thesis_ was, in fact, on the t.i.tle of the Pandects, _Concerning the disposal of the dead bodies of Criminals_. It was {p.168} dedicated, I doubt not by the careful father's advice, to his friend and neighbor in George's Square, the coa.r.s.ely humorous, but acute and able, and still well-remembered, Macqueen of Braxfield, then Lord Justice-Clerk (or President of the Supreme Criminal Court) of Scotland.[93]

[Footnote 93: An eminent annotator observes on this pa.s.sage:--"The praise of Lord Braxfield's capacity and acquirement is perhaps rather too slight. He was a very good lawyer, and a man of extraordinary sagacity, and in quickness and sureness of apprehension resembled Lord Kenyon, as well as in his ready use of his profound knowledge of law."--(1839.)]

I have often heard both _Alan_ and _Darsie_ laugh over their reminiscences of the important day when they "put on the gown." After the ceremony was completed, and they had mingled for some time with the crowd of barristers in the Outer Court, Scott said to his comrade, mimicking the air and tone of a Highland la.s.s waiting at the Cross of Edinburgh to be hired for the harvest work--"We've stood here an hour by the Tron, hinny, and de'il a ane has speered our price." Some friendly solicitor, however, gave him a guinea fee before the Court rose; and as they walked down the High Street together, he said to Mr.

Clerk, in pa.s.sing a hosier's shop--"This is a sort of a wedding-day, Willie; I think I must go in and buy me a new nightcap," He did so accordingly; perhaps this was Lord Jeffrey's "portentous machine." His first fee of any consequence, however, was expended on a silver taper-stand for his mother, which the old lady used to point to with great satisfaction, as it stood on her chimney-piece five-and-twenty years afterwards.

CHAPTER VII {p.169}

First Expedition into Liddesdale. -- Study of German. -- Political Trials, etc. -- Specimen of Law Papers. -- Burger's Lenore Translated. -- Disappointment in Love.

1792-1796.

Scott was called to the Bar only the day before the closing of the session, and he appears to have almost immediately escaped to the country. On the 2d of August I find his father writing,--"I have sent the copies of your _thesis_ as desired;" and on the 15th he addressed to him at Rosebank a letter, in which there is this paragraph, an undoubted autograph of Mr. Saunders Fairford, _anno aetatis_ sixty-three:--