END OF VOLUME ONE

Footnote 1: Quarterly Review, vol. cxvi. p. 447.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 2: To one of these friends, the Rev. George Robert Gleig, Chaplain General of the Forces, we owe the only authoritative account of Lockhart's early life. This is to be found in the interesting article, the Life of Lockhart, in the Quarterly Review for October, 1864. Like his friend, Mr. Gleig was educated at Glasgow University, was a Snell Scholar, and was an early contributor to Blackwood and to Fraser. Later he wrote for both the great Reviews. He was long the last survivor of the early Blackwood and Fraser groups. He died in 1888, in his ninety-third year. The name which stood next to Lockhart in the alphabetical arrangement of the first class was that of Henry Hart Milman, his dear friend in later life, and one of his most constant and valued allies in the Quarterly. His correspondence with Milman forms an interesting feature of Lang's Life.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 3: Lang's Life of Lockhart, vol. i. pp. 128-130.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 4: It has been said of Valerius, that it "contains as much knowledge of its period, and that knowledge as accurate, as would furnish out a long and elaborate German treatise on a martyr and his time;" so that, whether the report that reached its author, that the novel had been used in Harvard College as a handbook, was correct or no, it would scarcely have been a misuse of the book. It is certain that it was speedily appropriated by an American publisher, and we have a traditional knowledge of its having been much read and admired in certain New England circles.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 5: From the interesting obituary notice in the London Times for December 9, 1854, supposed to have been written by Dean Milman and Lady Eastlake.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 6: Abbotsford Notanda, pp. 190-193.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 7: Lang's Life of Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 214.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 8: Ibid. pp. 181, 182.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 9: "A few lines sent to him by a friend whom he rarely saw, who is seldom mentioned in connection with his history, yet who then and always was exceptionally dear to him. The lines themselves were often on his lips to the end of his own life, and will not be easily forgotten by any one who reads them." Froude's Thomas Carlyle, vol. i. p. 249.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 10: There were untruths as well; some of them so grotesquely false as now to cause amusement rather than anger. An article on Lockhart in Temple Bar for June, 1895 (vol. cv. p. 175), touches on some of these legends, and pleads for a memoir. Gratitude is due to the anonymous writer, for he was, says Mr. Andrew Lang, "the onlie begetter" of that gentleman's biography of Lockhart, which gives so interesting a portrait of its subject, whom, it is plain, the author has learned to love. It is a book written with such sympathetic insight and genuine feeling, that it should hereafter make Lockhart known as he was. Mr. Lang was somewhat hampered (though not very seriously so) by an occasional lack of material, including want of access to the archives of the houses of Blackwood and Murray; but this is partly set right by Mrs. Oliphant's admirable history of William Blackwood and His Sons, which gives as graphic a description of the early days of Maga and of Lockhart's connection therewith, indeed of all his relations to the magazine and its publishers, as could be desired.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 11: Scott's Familiar Letters, vol. ii. p. 389.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 12: Studies of a Biographer, vol. ii. p. 1.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 13: Quarterly Review, vol. cxvi. p. 475.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 14: Ornsby's Memoirs of J. R. Hope-Scott, vol. ii p. 138.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 15: Quarterly Review, vol. cxvi. p. 475.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 16: Bailie Johnston died 4th April, 1838, in his 73d year.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 17: Mr. Rees retired from the house of Longman and Co. at Midsummer, 1837, and died 5th September following, in his 67th year.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 18: I do not mean to say that my success in literature has not led me to mix familiarly in society much above my birth and original pretensions, since I have been readily received in the first circles in Britain. But there is a certain intuitive knowledge of the world, to which most well-educated Scotchmen are early trained, that prevents them from being much dazzled by this species of elevation. A man who to good nature adds the general rudiments of good breeding, provided he rest contented with a simple and unaffected manner of behaving and expressing himself, will never be ridiculous in the best society, and so far as his talents and information permit, may be an agreeable part of the company. I have therefore never felt much elevated, nor did I experience any violent change in situation, by the passport which my poetical character afforded me into higher company than my birth warranted.—(1826).[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 19: The present Lord Haddington, and other gentlemen conversant with the south country, remember my grandfather well. He was a fine, alert figure, and wore a jockey cap over his gray hair.—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 20: Mrs. Cockburn (born Miss Rutherford of Fairnalie) was the authoress of the beautiful song—

"I have seen the smiling Of fortune beguiling."—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 21: He was this year made major of the second battalion, by the kind intercession of Mr. Canning at the War Office—1809. He retired from the army, and kept house with my mother. His health was totally broken, and he died, yet a young man, on 8th May, 1816.—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 22: Poor Tom, a man of infinite humor and excellent parts, pursued for some time my father's profession; but he was unfortunate, from engaging in speculations respecting farms and matters out of the line of his proper business. He afterwards became paymaster of the 70th regiment, and died in Canada. Tom married Elizabeth, a daughter of the family of M'Culloch of Ardwell, an ancient Galwegian stock, by whom he left a son, Walter Scott, now second lieutenant of engineers in the East India Company's service, Bombay—and three daughters; Jessie, married to Lieutenant-Colonel Huxley; 2. Anne; 3. Eliza—the two last still unmarried.—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 23: She died in 1810.—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 24: [Regarding this illness, see a medical note by Dr. Creighton to the article, "Scott," in the Encyclopædia Britannica.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 25: He was a second cousin of my grandfather's. Isobel MacDougal, wife of Walter, the first Laird of Raeburn, and mother of Walter Scott, called Beardie, was grand-aunt, I take it, to the late Sir George MacDougal. There was always great friendship between us and the Makerstoun family. It singularly happened, that at the burial of the late Sir Henry MacDougal, my cousin William Scott younger of Raeburn, and I myself, were the nearest blood relations present, although our connection was of so old a date, and ranked as pall-bearers accordingly.—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 26: My uncle afterwards resided at Elliston, and then took from Mr. Cornelius Elliot the estate of Woollee. Finally he retired to Monklaw in the neighborhood of Jedburgh, where he died, 1823, at the advanced age of ninety years, and in full possession of his faculties. It was a fine thing to hear him talk over the change of the country which he had witnessed.—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 27: Besides this veteran, I found another ally at Prestonpans, in the person of George Constable, an old friend of my father's, educated to the law, but retired upon his independent property, and generally residing near Dundee. He had many of those peculiarities of temper which long afterwards I tried to develop in the character of Jonathan Oldbuck. It is very odd, that though I am unconscious of anything in which I strictly copied the manners of my old friend, the resemblance was nevertheless detected by George Chalmers, Esq., solicitor, London, an old friend, both of my father and Mr. Constable, and who affirmed to my late friend, Lord Kinedder, that I must needs be the author of The Antiquary, since he recognized the portrait of George Constable. But my friend George was not so decided an enemy to womankind as his representative Monkbarns. On the contrary, I rather suspect that he had a tendresse for my Aunt Jenny, who even then was a most beautiful woman, though somewhat advanced in life. To the close of her life, she had the finest eyes and teeth I ever saw, and though she could be sufficiently sharp when she had a mind, her general behavior was genteel and ladylike. However this might be, I derived a great deal of curious information from George Constable, both at this early period, and afterwards. He was constantly philandering about my aunt, and of course very kind to me. He was the first person who told me about Falstaff and Hotspur, and other characters in Shakespeare. What idea I annexed to them I know not; but I must have annexed some, for I remember quite well being interested on the subject. Indeed, I rather suspect that children derive impulses of a powerful and important kind in hearing things which they cannot entirely comprehend; and therefore, that to write down to children's understanding is a mistake: set them on the scent, and let them puzzle it out. To return to George Constable, I knew him well at a much later period. He used always to dine at my father's house of a Sunday, and was authorized to turn the conversation out of the austere and Calvinistic tone, which it usually maintained on that day, upon subjects of history or auld langsyne. He remembered the forty-five, and told many excellent stories, all with a strong dash of a peculiar caustic humor.

George's sworn ally as a brother antiquary was John Davidson, then Keeper of the Signet; and I remember his flattering and compelling me to go to dine there. A writer's apprentice with the Keeper of the Signet, whose least officer kept us in order!—It was an awful event. Thither, however, I went with some secret expectation of a scantling of good claret. Mr. D. had a son whose taste inclined him to the army, to which his father, who had designed him for the Bar, gave a most unwilling consent. He was at this time a young officer, and he and I, leaving the two seniors to proceed in their chat as they pleased, never once opened our mouths either to them or each other. The Pragmatic Sanction happened unfortunately to become the theme of their conversation, when Constable said in jest, "Now, John, I'll wad you a plack that neither of these two lads ever heard of the Pragmatic Sanction."—"Not heard of the Pragmatic Sanction!" said John Davidson; "I would like to see that;" and with a voice of thunder he asked his son the fatal question. As young D. modestly allowed he knew nothing about it, his father drove him from the table in a rage, and I absconded during the confusion; nor could Constable ever bring me back again to his friend Davidson's.—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 28: [Lord Cockburn, in his Life of Jeffrey, quotes with approval Scott's commendation of Mr. Fraser, and adds, that this teacher had the singular good fortune to turn out from three successive classes Walter Scott, Francis Jeffrey, and Henry Brougham.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 29: I read not long since, in that authentic record called the Percy Anecdotes, that I had been educated at Musselburgh school, where I had been distinguished as an absolute dunce; only Dr. Blair, seeing farther into the millstone, had pronounced there was fire in it. I never was at Musselburgh school in my life, and though I have met Dr. Blair at my father's and elsewhere, I never had the good fortune to attract his notice, to my knowledge. Lastly, I was never a dunce, nor thought to be so, but an incorrigibly idle imp, who was always longing to do something else than what was enjoined him.—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 30: [On December 27, 1809, a few days after Dr. Adam's death, Scott writes to Mrs. Thomas Scott: "Poor old Dr. Adam died last week after a very short illness, which first affected him in school. He was light-headed, and continued to speak as in the class until the very last, when, having been silent for many hours, he said, 'That Horace was very well said; you did not do it so well;' then added faintly, 'But it grows dark, very dark, the boys may dismiss,' and with these striking words he expired."—Familiar Letters, vol. i. p. 154.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 31: [Home's Douglas.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 32: Now Lord Abercromby.—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 33: The late Alexander Campbell, a warm-hearted man, and an enthusiast in Scottish music, which he sang most beautifully, had this ungrateful task imposed on him. He was a man of many accomplishments, but dashed with a bizarrerie of temper which made them useless to their proprietor. He wrote several books—as a Tour in Scotland, etc.;—and he made an advantageous marriage, but fell nevertheless into distressed circumstances, which I had the pleasure of relieving, if I could not remove. His sense of gratitude was very strong, and showed itself oddly in one respect. He would never allow that I had a bad ear; but contended, that if I did not understand music, it was because I did not choose to learn it. But when he attended us in George's Square, our neighbor, Lady Cumming, sent to beg the boys might not be all flogged precisely at the same hour, as, though she had no doubt the punishment was deserved, the noise of the concord was really dreadful. Robert was the only one of our family who could sing, though my father was musical, and a performer on the violoncello at the gentlemen's concerts.—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 34: Now Lord Justice-Clerk.—(1826.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 35: On Sir Walter's copy of Recreations with the Muses, by William, Earl of Stirling, 1637, there is the following MS. note:—"Sir William Alexander, sixth Baron of Menstrie, and first Earl of Stirling, the friend of Drummond of Hawthornden and Ben Jonson, died in 1640. His eldest son, William, Viscount Canada, died before his father, leaving one son and three daughters by his wife, Lady Margaret Douglas, eldest daughter of William, first Marquis of Douglas. Margaret, the second of these daughters, married Sir Robert Sinclair of Longformacus in the Merse, to whom she bore two daughters, Anne and Jean. Jean Sinclair, the younger daughter, married Sir John Swinton of Swinton; and Jean Swinton, her eldest daughter, was the grandmother of the proprietor of this volume."[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 36: His family well remember the delight which he expressed on receiving, in 1818, a copy of this first edition, a small dark quarto of 1688, from his friend Constable. He was breakfasting when the present was delivered, and said, "This is indeed the resurrection of an old ally—I mind spelling these lines." He read aloud the jingling epistle to his own great-great-grandfather, which, like the rest, concludes with a broad hint, that as the author had neither lands nor flocks—"no estate left except his designation"—the more fortunate kinsman who enjoyed, like Jason of old, a fair share of fleeces, might do worse than bestow on him some of King James's broad pieces. On rising from table, Sir Walter immediately wrote as follows on the blank leaf opposite to poor Satchells' honest title-page—

"I, Walter Scott of Abbotsford, a poor scholar, no soldier, but a soldier's lover,
In the style of my namesake and kinsman do hereby discover,
That I have written the twenty-four letters twenty-four million times over;
And to every true-born Scott I do wish as many golden pieces
As ever were hairs in Jason's and Medea's golden fleeces."

The rarity of the original edition of Satchells is such, that the copy now at Abbotsford was the only one Mr. Constable had ever seen—and no wonder, for the author's envoy is in these words:—

"Begone, my book, stretch forth thy wings and fly
Amongst the nobles and gentility;
Thou'rt not to sell to scavengers and clowns,
But given to worthy persons of renown.
The number's few I've printed, in regard
My charges have been great, and I hope reward;
I caus'd not print many above twelve score,
And the printers are engaged that they shall print no more."[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 37: Leyden, the author of these beautiful lines, has borrowed, as The Lay of the Last Minstrel did also, from one of Satchells's primitive couplets—

"If heather-tops had been corn of the best,
Then Buccleugh mill had gotten a noble grist."[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 38: Since this book was first published, I have seen in print A Poem on the Death of Master Walter Scott, who died at Kelso, November 3, 1729, written, it is said, by Sir William Scott of Thirlestane, Bart., the male ancestor of Lord Napier. It has these lines:—

"His converse breathed the Christian. On his tongue
The praises of religion ever hung;
Whence it appeared he did on solid ground
Commend the pleasures which himself had found....
His venerable mien and goodly air
Fix on our hearts impressions strong and fair.
Full seventy years had shed their silvery glow
Around his locks, and made his beard to grow;
That decent beard, which in becoming grace
Did spread a reverend honor on his face," etc.—(1838.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 39: "From the genealogical deduction in the Memorials, it appears that the Haliburtons of Newmains were descended from and represented the ancient and once powerful family of Haliburton of Mertoun, which became extinct in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The first of this latter family possessed the lands and barony of Mertoun by a charter granted by Archibald, Earl of Douglas and Lord of Galloway (one of those tremendous lords whose coronets counterpoised the Scottish crown), to Henry de Haliburton, whom he designates as his standard-bearer, on account of his service to the earl in England. On this account the Haliburtons of Mertoun and those of Newmains, in addition to the arms borne by the Haliburtons of Dirleton (the ancient chiefs of that once great and powerful, but now almost extinguished name)—viz. or, on a bend azure, three mascles of the first—gave the distinctive bearing of a buckle of the second in the sinister canton. These arms still appear on various old tombs in the abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh, as well as on their house at Dryburgh, which was built in 1572."—MS. Memorandum, 1820. Sir Walter was served heir to these Haliburtons soon after the date of this Memorandum, and thenceforth quartered the arms above described with those of his paternal family.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 40: See Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh, vol. ii. pp. 127-131. The functions here ascribed to Mrs. Ogilvie may appear to modern readers little consistent with her rank. Such things, however, were not uncommon in those days in poor old Scotland. Ladies with whom I have conversed in my youth well remembered an Honorable Mrs. Maitland who practised the obstetric art in the Cowgate.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 41: In Sir Walter Scott's desk, after his death, there was found a little packet containing six locks of hair, with this inscription in the handwriting of his mother:—

"All these are dead, and none of my present family was born till some time afterwards."[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 42: [No. 25.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 43: [Poetical Works, Cambridge Edition, p. 108.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 44: This old woman still possesses "the banes" (bones)—that is to say, the boards—of a Psalm-book, which Master Walter gave her at Sandy-Knowe. "He chose it," she says, "of a very large print, that I might be able to read it when I was very auld—forty year auld; but the bairns pulled the leaves out langsyne."[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 45: [In writing of his little grandson's earliest lessons, Scott recalls these days in a letter to Lockhart (March 3, 1826):—

"I rejoice to hear of Johnnie's grand flip towards instruction. I hope Mrs. Mactavish, whom I like not the worse, you may be sure, for her name, will be mild in her rule, and let him listen to reading a good deal without cramming the alphabet and grammar down the poor child's throat. I cannot at this moment tell how or when I learned to read, but it was by fits and snatches, as one aunt or another in the old rumble-tumble farmhouses could give me a lesson, and I am sure it increased my love and habit of reading more than the austerities of a school could have done. I gave trouble, I believe, in wishing to be taught, and in self-defence gradually acquired the mystery myself. Johnnie is infirm a little, though not so much so as I was, and often he has brought back to my recollection the days of my own childhood. I hope he will be twice any good that was in me, with less carelessness."—Lang's Life of Lockhart, vol. i. p. 397.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 46: Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol. xx. p. 154.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 47: It may amuse my reader to recall, by the side of Scott's early definition of "a virtuoso," the lines in which Akenside has painted that character—lines which might have been written for a description of the Author of Waverley:—

"He knew the various modes of ancient times,
Their arts and fashions of each various guise;
Their weddings, funerals, punishments of crimes;
Their strength, their learning eke, and rarities.
Of old habiliment, each sort and size,
Male, female, high and low, to him were known;
Each gladiator's dress, and stage disguise,
With learned clerkly phrase he could have shown."[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 48: He was, in fact, six years and three months old before this letter was written.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 49: Mrs. Keith of Ravelston was born a Swinton of Swinton, and sister to Sir Walter's maternal grandmother.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 50: Waverley, chap, xlvii. note.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 51: According to Mr. Irving's recollections, Scott's place, after the first winter, was usually between the 7th and the 15th from the top of the class. He adds, "Dr. James Buchan was always the dux; David Douglas (Lord Reston) second; and the present Lord Melville third."[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 52: Chap. xvi. verse 7.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 53: Mr. Irving inclines to think that this incident must have occurred during Scott's attendance on Luke Fraser, not after he went to Dr. Adam; and he also suspects that the boy referred to sat at the top, not of the class, but of Scott's own bench or division of the class.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 54: I am obliged for these little memorials to the Rev. W. Steven of Rotterdam, author of an interesting book on the history of the branch of the Scotch Church long established in Holland, and still flourishing under the protection of the enlightened government of that country. Mr. Steven found them in the course of his recent researches, undertaken with a view to some memoirs of the High School of Edinburgh, at which he had received his own early education.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 55: This young patroness was the Duchess-Countess of Sutherland.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 56: This transposition of hospes and nostris sufficiently confirms his pupil's statement that Mr. Mitchell "superintended his classical themes, but not classically." The "obnoxious master" alluded to was Burns's friend Nicoll, the hero of the song—

"Willie brewed a peck O' maut,
And Rob and Allan cam' to see," etc.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 57: George, ninth Earl of Dalhousie, highly distinguished in the military annals of his time, died on the 21st March, 1838, in his 68th year.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 58: See Strang's Germany in 1831, vol. i. p. 265.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 59: [Miss Fleming, in her contribution to Dr. John Brown's memorial of her sister Marjorie, says that these verses were written by her aunt, Mrs. Keir, after meeting the boy poet at Ravelston. Another aunt was the wife of Scott's kinsman, Mr. William Keith of Corstorphine Hill, and it was at her house, 1, North Charlotte Street, that Sir Walter came to know familiarly her delightful little niece, during her long visits to Edinburgh. These ladies and Mrs. Fleming were the daughters of Dr. James Rae.—See Marjorie Fleming.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 60: Lord Nelson's connection with this lady will preserve her celebrity. In Kay's Edinburgh Portraits the reader will find more about Dr. Graham.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 61: [See Journal, vol. i. pp. 137-139.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 62: See Preface to Waverley, 1829.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 63: Life of Scott, by Mr. Allan, p. 53.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 64: ["Long life to thy fame and peace to thy soul, Rob Burns! When I want to express a sentiment which I feel strongly, I find the phrase in Shakespeare—or thee."—Journal, December 11, 1826.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 65: Introduction to Rob Roy.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 66: Mr. Edmonstone died 19th April, 1840.—(1848.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 67: "Dinna steer him," says Hobbie Elliot; "ye may think Elshie's but a lamiter, but I warrant ye, grippie for grippie, he'll gar the blue blood spin frae your nails—his hand's like a smith's vice."—Black Dwarf, chap. xvii.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 68: Author of the famous Essay on dividing the Line in Sea-fights.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 69: Compare The Antiquary, chap. iv.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 70: The most remarkable of these antique heads was so highly appreciated by another distinguished connoisseur, the late Earl of Buchan, that he carried it off from Mr. Clerk's museum, and presented it to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries—in whose collection, no doubt, it may still be admired.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 71: Rob Roy, chap. xii.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 72: After the cautious father had had further opportunity of observing his son's proceedings, his wife happened one night to express some anxiety on the protracted absence of Walter and his brother Thomas. "My dear Annie," said the old man, "Tom is with Walter this time; and have you not yet perceived that wherever Walter goes, he is pretty sure to find his bread buttered on both sides?"—From Mrs. Thomas Scott.—(1839.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 73: "The members of The Club used to meet on Friday evenings in a room in Carrubber's Close, from which some of them usually adjourned to sup at an oyster tavern in the same neighborhood. In after-life, those of them who chanced to be in Edinburgh dined together twice every year, at the close of the winter and summer sessions of the Law Courts; and during thirty years, Sir Walter was very rarely absent on these occasions. It was also a rule, that when any member received an appointment or promotion, he should give a dinner to his old associates; and they had accordingly two such dinners from him—one when he became Sheriff of Selkirkshire, and another when he was named Clerk of Session. The original members were, in number, nineteen—viz., Sir Walter Scott, Mr. William Clerk, Sir A. Ferguson, Mr. James Edmonstone, Mr. George Abercromby (Lord Abercromby), Mr. D. Boyle (now Lord Justice-Clerk), Mr. James Glassford (Advocate), Mr. James Ferguson (Clerk of Session), Mr. David Monypenny (Lord Pitmilly), Mr. Robert Davidson (Professor of Law at Glasgow), Sir William Rae, Bart., Sir Patrick Murray, Bart., David Douglas (Lord Reston), Mr. Murray of Simprim, Mr. Monteith of Closeburn, Mr. Archibald Miller (son of Professor Miller), Baron Reden, a Hanoverian; the Honorable Thomas Douglas, afterwards Earl of Selkirk,—and John Irving. Except the five whose names are underlined, these original members are all still alive."—Letter from Mr. Irving, dated 29th September, 1836.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 74: The present Laird of Raeburn.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 75: All Scott's letters to the friend here alluded to are said to have perished in an accidental fire.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 76: The late Countess-Duchess of Sutherland.—(1848.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 77: In one of his latest articles for the Quarterly Review, Scott observes, "There have been instances of love tales being favorably received in England, when told under an umbrella, and in the middle of a shower."—Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol. xviii.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 78: [The object of the strongest, or perhaps it should be said the single, passion of Scott's life was Williamina, the only child of Sir John Wishart Belsches Stuart of Fettercairn, and his wife, the Lady Jane Leslie, daughter of David, Earl of Leven and Melville. Beside beauty of person, sweetness of disposition, a quick intelligence, and cultivated tastes, Miss Stuart seems to have possessed in large measure that indefinable but potent gift, which is called charm. Through some misapprehension, Lockhart appears to have antedated the beginning of her influence over Scott, as in 1790 she was hardly more than a child, and she was not sixteen when he was called to the Bar, though the meeting in the Greyfriars' Churchyard had probably already taken place. The "three years of dreaming" were ended, as the biographer narrates, in the autumn of 1796. On January 19, 1797, Miss Stuart was married to William Forbes, son and heir of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, an eminent banker, and the author of a Life of his friend Beattie. Scott's affectionate allusions to his early rival will be found in the Introduction to the Fourth Canto of Marmion:—

"And one whose name I may not say,—
For not mimosa's tender tree
Shrinks sooner from the touch than he,"—

an Introduction inscribed to James Skene of Rubislaw, whose marriage to a daughter of Sir William had been speedily followed by the father's death. Mr. Forbes succeeded to the baronetcy in 1806, and his wife, on the death of Sir John Stuart, inherited Fettercairn. She died December 5, 1810, after thirteen years of unclouded happiness. Dean Boyle has recorded that Lockhart once read to him the letter "full of beauty," which Scott wrote to the bereaved husband at this time. Lady Stuart-Forbes left six children, four sons and two daughters. The three sons who survived to maturity all were men of unusual ability.

The story of Williamina Stuart's brief life was told for the first time with any fulness by Miss F. M. F. Skene in the Century Magazine for July, 1899. As the daughter of one of Scott's earliest and dearest friends and the niece of Sir William Forbes, she could write with knowledge. She says that from the day of his wife's death, "so far as society and the outer world were concerned, Sir William Forbes may be said to have died with her. He retired into the most complete seclusion, maintaining the heart-stricken silence of a grief too deep for words, and scarcely seeing even his own nearest relatives. Only at the call of duty did he ever emerge from his [retirement," as when he proved so stanch a friend to Scott in the darkest days of 1826 and 1827.

A charming portrait, after a miniature by Cosway, accompanies Miss Skene's sketch of Lady Stuart-Forbes,—a pleasing contrast to the picture, without merit, either as a work of art or as a likeness, which was engraved for the Memoir of her youngest son, James David Forbes.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 79: Mr. Andrew Shortreed (one of a family often mentioned in these Memoirs) says, in a letter of November, 1838: "The joke of the one pair of boots to three pair of legs was so unpalatable to the honest burghers of Jedburgh, that they have suffered the ancient privilege of 'riding the Fair,' as it was called (during which ceremony the inhabitants of Kelso were compelled to shut up their shops as on a holiday), to fall into disuse. Huoy, the runaway forger, a native of Kelso, availed himself of the calumny in a clever squib on the subject:—

'The outside man had each a boot,
The three had but a pair.'"[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 80: Books on Civil Law.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 81: A tame fox of Mr. Clerk's, which he soon dismissed.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 82: Mr. James Clerk, R. N.[Back to Main Text]

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

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 circumstances 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 class would serve equally well for the purpose I had in view?" I regretted the leg of mutton.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 85: Redgauntlet, chap. i.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 86: Redgauntlet, letter ix.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 87: Pies.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 88: Sir A. Ferguson.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 89: Redgauntlet, chap. i.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 90: It has been suggested that Pest is a misprint for Peat. There was an elderly practitioner of the latter name, with whom Mr. Fairford must have been well acquainted.—(1839.)[Back to Main Text]

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

Footnote 92: Redgauntlet, letter ix.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 93: An eminent annotator observes on this passage:—"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.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 94: The Judges then attended in Edinburgh in rotation during the intervals of term, to take care of various sorts of business which could not brook delay, bills of injunction, etc.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 95: The beautiful seat of the Baillies of Jerviswood, in Berwickshire, a few miles below Dryburgh.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 96: Mr. Russell, surgeon, afterwards Professor of Clinical Surgery at Edinburgh.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 97: Sir William Miller (Lord Glenlee).[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 98: Mr. Gibb was the Librarian of the Faculty of Advocates.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 99: Clerk, Abercromby, Scott, Ferguson, and others, had occasional boating excursions from Leith to Inchcolm, Inchkeith, etc. On one of these their boat was neared by a Newhaven one—Ferguson, at the moment, was standing up talking; one of the Newhaven fishermen, taking him for a brother of his own craft, bawled out, "Linton, you lang bitch, is that you?" From that day Adam Ferguson's cognomen among his friends of The Club was Linton.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 100: Walter Scott of Synton (elder brother of Bolt-Foot, the first Baron of Harden) was thus designated. He greatly distinguished himself in the battle of Melrose, A. D. 1526.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 101: This alludes to being lost in a fishing excursion.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 102: The companions of The Club.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 103: William Hamilton of Wishaw,—who afterwards established his claim to the peerage of Belhaven.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 104: John James Edmonstone.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 105: I am obliged to Mr. John Elliot Shortreed, a son of Scott's early friend, for some memoranda of his father's conversations on this subject. These notes were written in 1824; and I shall make several quotations from them. I had, however, many opportunities of hearing Mr. Shortreed's stories from his own lips, having often been under his hospitable roof in company with Sir Walter, who to the last always was his old friend's guest when business took him to Jedburgh.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 106: Waverley, chap, xxxviii. note.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 107: Introduction to The Lady of the Lake, 1830.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 108: Waverley, chap. viii.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 109: Wordsworth's Sonnet on Neidpath Castle.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 110: Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 398.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 111: A hare.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 112: Dr. Robertson was tutor to the Laird of Simprim, and afterwards minister of Meigle—a man of great worth, and an excellent scholar. In his younger days he was fond of the theatre, and encouraged and directed Simprim, Grogg, Linton & Co. in their histrionic diversions.—(1839.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 113: According to a friendly critic, one of the Liberals exclaimed, as the row was thickening, "No Blows!"—and Donald, suiting the action to the word, responded, "Plows by ——!"—(1839.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 114:

"The third day comes a frost, a killing frost."
King Henry VIII.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 115: Dr. Rutherford.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 116: Captain John Scott had been for some time with his regiment at Gibraltar.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 117: Colonel Russell of Ashestiel, married to a sister of Scott's mother.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 118: Crab was the nickname of a friend who had accompanied Ferguson this summer on an Irish tour. Dr. Black, celebrated for his discoveries in chemistry, was Adam Ferguson's uncle; and had, it seems, given the young travellers a strong admonition touching the dangers of Irish hospitality.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 119: These lines are part of a song on Little-tony—i. e., the Parliamentary orator Littleton. They are quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson, originally published in 1791.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 120: Sir A. Wood was himself the son of a distinguished surgeon in Edinburgh. He married one of the daughters of Sir William Forbes—rose in the diplomatic service—and died in 1846.—(1848.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 121: This story was told by the Countess of Purgstall on her deathbed to Captain Basil Hall. See his Schloss Hainfeld, p. 333.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 122: See ante, p. 97.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 123: A servant-boy and pony.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 124:

"'Dost fear? dost fear?—The moon shines clear;—
Dost fear to ride with, me?
Hurrah! hurrah! the dead can ride!'—
Oh, William, let them be!'

"'See there! see there! What yonder swings
And creaks 'mid whistling rain?'—
Gibbet and steel, the accursed wheel,
A murderer in his chain.

"'Hollo! thou felon, follow here,
To bridal bed we ride;
And thou shalt prance a fetter dance
Before me and my bride.'

"And hurry, hurry! clash, clash, clash!
The wasted form descends;
And fleet as wind, through hazel bush,
The wild career attends.

"Tramp, tramp! along the land they rode;
Splash, splash! along the sea;
The scourge is red, the spur drops blood.
The flashing pebbles flee."[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 125: George Cranstoun, Lord Corehouse.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 126: Decisions by Lord Fountainhall.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 127: A very intimate friend both of Scott and of the lady tells me that these verses were great favorites of hers—she gave himself a copy of them, and no doubt her recitation had made them known to Scott—but that he believes them to have been composed by Mrs. Hunter of Norwich.—(1839.)[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 128: Mr. Scott of Harden's right to the peerage of Polwarth, as representing, through his mother, the line of Marchmont, was allowed by the House of Lords in 1835.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 129: The Kelso Mail.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 130: Some extracts from this venerable person's unpublished Memoirs of his own Life have been kindly sent to me by his son, the well-known physician of Chelsea College, from which it appears that the reverend doctor, and, more particularly still, his wife, a lady of remarkable talent and humor, had formed a high notion of Scott's future eminence at a very early period of his life. Dr. S. survived to a great old age, preserving his faculties quite entire, and I have spent many pleasant hours under his hospitable roof in company with Sir Walter Scott. We heard him preach an excellent circuit sermon when he was upwards of eighty-two, and at the Judges' dinner afterwards he was among the gayest of the company.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 131: Remarks on Popular Poetry. 1830.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 132: [James Skene, son of George Skene of Rubislaw, was born in 1775.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 133: [Beside the memoranda placed by Mr. Skene in Lockhart's hands and used by him in various portions of the Life, the friend's unpublished Reminiscences, from which Mr. Douglas has fortunately been enabled to draw largely in annotating the Journal, contains recollections of peculiar interest.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 134: See particulars of Stanfield's case in Lord Fountainhall's Chronological Notes of Scottish Affairs, 1680-1701, edited by Sir Walter Scott. 4to, Edinburgh, 1822. Pp. 233-236.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 135: Some of Scott's most intimate friends at the Bar, partly, no doubt, from entertaining political opinions of another caste, were by no means disposed to sympathize with the demonstrations of his military enthusiasm at this period. For example, one of these gentlemen thus writes to another in April, 1797: "By the way, Scott is become the merest trooper that ever was begotten by a drunken dragoon on his trull in a hayloft. Not an idea crosses his mind, or a word his lips, that has not an allusion to some d——d instrument or evolution of the Cavalry—'Draw your swords—by single files to the right of front—to the left wheel—charge!' After all, he knows little more about wheels and charges than I do about the wheels of Ezekiel, or the King of Pelew about charges of horning on six days' date. I saw them charge on Leith Walk a few days ago, and I can assure you it was by no means orderly proceeded. Clerk and I are continually obliged to open a six-pounder upon him in self-defence, but in spite of a temporary confusion, he soon rallies and returns to the attack."[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 136: See the Introduction to this novel in the edition of 1830.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 137: I owe this circumstance to the recollection of Mr. Claud Russell, accountant in Edinburgh, who was one of the party. Previously I had always supposed these verses to have been inspired by Miss Carpenter.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 138: ["You may perhaps have remarked Miss Carpenter at a Carlisle ball, but more likely not, as her figure is not very frappant. A smart-looking little girl with dark brown hair would probably be her portrait if drawn by an indifferent hand. But I, you may believe, should make a piece of work of my sketch, as little like the original as Hercules to me."—Scott to P. Murray, December, 1797.—Familiar Letters, vol. i. p. 10.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 139: In several deeds which I have seen, M. Charpentier is designed "Écuyer du Roi;" one of those purchasable ranks peculiar to the latter stages of the old French Monarchy. What the post he held was, I never heard.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 140: From the German of Goethe.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 141: A miniature of Scott.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 142: ["I had a visit from Mr. Haliburton to-day, and asked him all about your brother, who was two years in his house. My father is Mr. Haliburton's relation and chief, as he represents a very old family of that name. When you go to the south of Scotland with me, you will see their burying-place, now all that remains with my father of a very handsome property. It is one of the most beautiful and romantic scenes you ever saw, among the ruins of an old abbey. When I die, Charlotte, you must cause my bones to be laid there; but we shall have many happy days before that, I hope."—Scott to Miss Carpenter, November 22, 1797.—Familiar Letters, vol. i. p. 8.][Back to Main Text]

Footnote 143: The account in the text of Miss Carpenter's origin has been, I am aware, both spoken and written of as an uncandid one: it had been expected that even in 1837 I would not pass in silence a rumor of early prevalence, which represented her and her brother as children of Lord Downshire by Madame Charpentier. I did not think it necessary to allude to this story while any of Sir Walter's own children were living; and I presume it will be sufficient for me to say now, that neither I, nor, I firmly believe, any one of them, ever heard either from Sir Walter, or from his wife, or from Miss Nicolson (who survived them both) the slightest hint as to the rumor in question. There is not an expression in the preserved correspondence between Scott, the young lady, and the Marquis, that gives it a shadow of countenance. Lastly, Lady Scott always kept hanging by her bedside, and repeatedly kissed in her dying moments, a miniature of her father which is now in my hands; and it is the well-painted likeness of a handsome gentleman—but I am assured the features have no resemblance to Lord Downshire or any of the Hill family.—(1848.)[Back to Main Text]