END OF VOLUME FIVE
Footnote 1: The Mull of Cantyre.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 2: [Joseph Train was born in 1779, at Gilminscroft, Sorn, Ayrshire, where his father was grieve and land-steward. The boy was apprenticed at an early age to a weaver in Ayr, but, notwithstanding the narrowness of his circumstances, and a very imperfect education, he even then showed a love of learning and a passion for antiquarian lore. From 1799 to 1802 he served in the Ayrshire militia. While the regiment was stationed at Inverness, he became a subscriber to Currie's edition of Burns, and his colonel, Sir David Hunter-Blair, seeing the volumes at the bookseller's, was surprised to learn that they had been ordered by one of his men. Greatly pleased thereat, Sir David had the books handsomely bound and sent to Train, free of charge; and later obtained for him an appointment in the Excise in the Ayr district. He was a faithful and efficient officer, but owing to the then prevalent custom of giving the higher places in the Excise to Englishmen, all Scott's efforts for the advancement of his friend were unavailing; he remained supervisor till he went on the retired list in 1836. In 1829 Train was admitted a member of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries. Though the death of Scott made a sad blank in his life, his interest in his favorite studies continued to the end. The latter part of his life was spent in a cottage at Castle Douglas, where he was visited shortly before his death by James Hannay, who found him in a little parlor, crowded with antiquities of interest and value,—the antiquary, "a tall old man, with an autumnal red in his face, hale looking, and of simple, quaint manners." (See Household Words, July 10, 1853.) Train's last extended works were an Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of Man, with a view of its peculiar customs and popular superstitions (1845); and a study of a local religious sect in The Buchanites from First to Last (1846); but he was an occasional contributor to various periodicals. He died December 1, 1852.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 3: "The Voyages, Dangerous Adventures, and Imminent Escapes of Capt. Rich. Falconer. Containing the Laws, Customs, and Manners of the Indians in America; his shipwrecks; his marrying an Indian wife; his narrow escape from the Island of Dominico, etc. Intermixed with the Voyages and Adventures of Thomas Randal, of Cork, Pilot; with his Shipwreck in the Baltick, being the only man that escap'd. His being taken by the Indians of Virginia, etc. And an Account of his Death. The Fourth Edition. London. Printed for J. Marshall, at the Bible in Gracechurch Street. 1734."
On the fly-leaf is the following note, in Scott's handwriting: "This book I read in early youth. I am ignorant whether it is altogether fictitious and written upon De Foe's plan, which it greatly resembles, or whether it is only an exaggerated account of the adventures of a real person. It is very scarce, for, endeavoring to add it to the other favorites of my infancy, I think I looked for it ten years to no purpose, and at last owed it to the active kindness of Mr. Terry. Yet Richard Falconer's adventures seem to have passed through several editions."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 4: "The Travels and Adventures of William Bingfield, Esq., containing, as surprizing a Fluctuation of Circumstances, both by Sea and Land, as ever befel one man. With an Accurate Account of the Shape, Nature, and Properties of that most furious, and amazing Animal, the Dog-Bird. Printed from his own Manuscript. With a beautiful Frontispiece. 2 vols. 12mo. London: Printed for E. Withers, at the Seven Stars, in Fleet Street. 1753." On the fly-leaf of the first volume Scott has written as follows: "I read this scarce little Voyage Imaginaire when I was about ten years old, and long after sought for a copy without being able to find a person who would so much as acknowledge having heard of William Bingfield or his Dog-birds, until the indefatigable kindness of my friend Mr. Terry, of the Haymarket, made me master of this copy. I am therefore induced to think the book is of very rare occurrence." [In consequence of these Notes, both Falconer and Bingfield have been recently reprinted in London.—(1839.)][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 5: Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 6: Francis, Lord Seaforth, died 11th January, 1815, in his 60th year, having outlived four sons, all of high promise. His title died with him, and he was succeeded in his estates by his daughter, Lady Hood, now the Hon. Mrs. Stewart-Mackenzie of Seaforth.—See some verses on Lord Seaforth's death, in Scott's Poetical Works, vol. viii. p. 392 [Cambridge Ed. p. 419]. The Celtic designation of the chief of the clan MacKenzie, Caberfae, means Staghead, the bearing of the family. The prophecy which Scott alludes to in this letter is also mentioned by Sir Humphry Davy in one of his Journals (see his Life, by Dr. Davy, vol. ii. p. 72),—and it was, if the account be correct, a most extraordinary one, for it connected the fall of the house of Seaforth not only with the appearance of a deaf Caberfae, but with the contemporaneous appearance of various different physical misfortunes in several of the other great Highland chiefs; all of which are said—and were certainly believed both by Scott and Davy—to have actually occurred within the memory of the generation that has not yet passed away. Mr. Morritt can testify thus far—that he "heard the prophecy quoted in the Highlands at a time when Lord Seaforth had two sons both alive and in good health—so that it certainly was not made après coup." [Mrs. Stewart-Mackenzie died at Brahan Castle in 1862, in her 79th year. "Her funeral was one of the largest ever witnessed in the North." The Seaforth estates passed to the eldest of her three sons.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 7: John Ballantyne put forth the following paragraph in the Scots Magazine of December, 1814:—
"Mr. Scott's poem of The Lord of the Isles will appear early in January. The Author of Waverley is about to amuse the public with a new novel, in three volumes, entitled Guy Mannering."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 8: He was not forty-four till August, 1815.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 9: E. G. "If they want to depose Scott, I only wish they would not set me up as a competitor. I like the man—and admire his works to what Mr. Braham calls Entusymusy. All such stuff can only vex him, and do me no good."—Byron (1813), vol. ii. p. 259.
"Scott is certainly the most wonderful writer of the day. His novels are a new literature in themselves, and his poetry as good as any—if not better (only on an erroneous system), and only ceased to be popular, because the vulgar learned were tired of hearing 'Aristides called the Just,' and Scott the Best, and ostracized him."—Byron (1821), vol. v. p. 72.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 10: I leave my text as it stood in the former editions; but since the last of these appeared, a writer in The Gentleman's Magazine (July, 1840) has pointed out some very remarkable coincidences between the narrative of Guy Mannering and the very singular history of James Annesley, claimant in 1743 of the honors and estates of the Earls of Anglesey, in Ireland. That Sir Walter must have read the records of this celebrated trial, as well as Smollett's edition of the story in Peregrine Pickle, there can be no doubt. How the circumstance had not recurred to his memory when writing the explanatory Introduction to his Novel, I can offer no conjecture. Very possibly the Garland itself may have been framed after the Annesley trial took place.—(1841.) [The paper in The Gentleman's Magazine, referred to above, will be found in the Appendix to this volume.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 11: Lord of the Isles, Canto vi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 12: [John Murray—the third of the name—gives some interesting notes of his recollections of these meetings in Albemarle Street, in the Memoirs of his father (vol. i. p. 267).][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 13: Mr. Murray had, at the time of giving the vase, suggested to Lord Byron, that it would increase the value of the gift to add some such inscription; but the noble poet answered modestly,—
"April 9, 1815. Dear Murray,—I have a great objection to your proposition about inscribing the vase—which is, that it would appear ostentatious on my part; and of course I must send it as it is, without any alteration. Yours ever, Byron."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 14: This most amiable and venerable gentleman, my dear and kind friend, died at Edinburgh on the 17th February, 1839, in the 80th year of his age. He retained his strong mental faculties in their perfect vigor to the last days of this long life, and with them all the warmth of social feelings which had endeared him to all who were so happy as to have any opportunity of knowing him. The reader will find an affectionate tribute to his worth, from Sir Walter Scott's Diary, in a subsequent volume of these Memoirs.—(March, 1839.)[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 15: Since this narrative was first published, I have been told by two gentlemen who were at this dinner, that, according to their recollection, the Prince did not on that occasion run so "near the wind" as my text represents; and I am inclined to believe that a scene at Dalkeith, in 1822, may have been unconsciously blended with a gentler rehearsal of Carlton House, 1815. The Chief Commissioner had promised to revise my sheets for the present edition; but alas, he never did so—and I must now leave the matter as it stands.—(1839.)[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 16: [The Search after Happiness.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 17: Scott's Poetical Works, vol. xi. p. 353 [Cambridge Ed. p. 431].[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 18: Mechlin—the Highlander gave it the familiar pronunciation of a Scotch village, Mauchline, celebrated in many of Burns's poems.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 19: See Major Gordon's Personal Memoirs (1830), vol. ii. pp. 325-338.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 20: The skull of Shaw is now in the Museum at Abbotsford.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 21: Scott acknowledges, in a note to St. Ronan's Well (chap. xv.), that he took from Platoff this portrait of Mr. Touchwood: "His face, which at the distance of a yard or two seemed hale and smooth, appeared, when closely examined, to be seamed with a million of wrinkles, crossing each other in every direction possible, but as fine as if drawn by the point of a very small needle." Thus did every little peculiarity remain treasured in his memory, to be used in due time for giving the air of minute reality to some imaginary personage.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 22: See Poetical Works (Edin. Ed.), vol. xi. p. 295 [Cambridge Ed. p. 420].[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 23: John Scott, Esq., of Gala, died at Edinburgh, 19th April, 1840.—(1842.)[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 24: I think it very probable that Scott had his own first interview with the Duke of Wellington in his mind when he described the introduction of Roland Græme to the Regent Murray, in the novel of The Abbot, chap. xviii.:—"Such was the personage before whom Roland Græme now presented himself with a feeling of breathless awe, very different from the usual boldness and vivacity of his temper. In fact, he was, from education and nature, ... much more easily controlled by the moral superiority arising from the elevated talents and renown of those with whom he conversed, than by pretensions founded only on rank or external show. He might have braved with indifference the presence of an Earl merely distinguished by his belt and coronet; but he felt overawed in that of the eminent soldier and statesman, the wielder of a nation's power, and the leader of her armies."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 25: This was published in the Edinburgh Annual Register in 1815.—See Poetical Works (Ed. 1834), vol. xi. p. 297 [Cambridge Ed. p. 421].[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 26: See Poetical Works (Ed. 1834), vol. xi. p. 312 [Cambridge Ed. p. 424].[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 27: Irving's Abbotsford and Newstead, 1835, p. 40.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 28: A birse, or bunch of hog's bristles, forms the cognizance of the Sutors. When a new burgess is admitted into their community, the birse passes round with the cup of welcome, and every elder brother dips it into the wine, and draws it through his mouth, before it reaches the happy neophyte, who of course pays it similar respect.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 29: [A touching letter from Morritt, written shortly before his wife's death, and one of Scott's, written after that event, will be found in Familiar Letters, vol. i. pp. 352-354.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 30: See Scott's Poetical Works (Ed. 1834), vol. xi. p. 317 [Cambridge Ed. p. 425].[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 31: This Mr. Campbell was the same whom the poet's mother employed to teach her boys to sing, as recorded in the Autobiographical Fragment—ante, vol. i. p. 44. I believe he was also the "litigious Highlander" of a story told in Irving's Abbotsford and Newstead, p. 57.
[In the November of this year, Scott writes to Lady Abercorn: "The only thing I have been doing of late is to write two or three songs for a poor man called Campbell.... He has made an immense collection of Highland airs, and I have given him words for some of them. One of them is the only good song I ever wrote—it is a fine Highland Gathering tune called Pibroch an Donuil Dhu, that is, the Pibroch of Donald the Black."—Familiar Letters, vol. i. p. 374.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 32: [In the letter accompanying his gift, Glengarry says: "His name is Maida, out of respect for that action in which my brother had the honor to lead the 78th Highlanders to victory." Writing to Joanna Baillie, April 12, Scott describes his new friend as "the finest dog of the kind in Scotland.... He is between the deer greyhound and mastiff, with a shaggy mane like a lion; he always sits beside me at dinner, his head as high as the back of my chair; yet it will gratify you to know that a favorite cat keeps him in the greatest possible order, and insists upon all rights of precedence, and scratches with impunity the nose of an animal who would make no bones of a wolf, and pulls down a red deer without fear or difficulty. I heard my friend set up some most piteous howls, and I assure you the noise was no joke, all occasioned by his fear of passing puss, who had stationed himself on the stairs."—Familiar Letters, vol. i. p. 358.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 33: Coleridge—Ancient Mariner.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 34: The late Mr. Hay Donaldson, W. S.,—an intimate friend of both Thomas and Walter Scott,—and Mr. Macculloch of Ardwell, the brother of Mrs. Thomas Scott.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 35: Shortly after Beau Brummell (immortalized in Don Juan) fell into disgrace with the Prince Regent, and was dismissed from the society of Carlton House, he was riding with another gentleman in the Park, when the Prince met them. His Royal Highness stopt to speak to Brummell's companion—the Beau continued to jog on—and when the other dandy rejoined him, asked with an air of sovereign indifference, "Who is your fat friend?" Such, at least, was the story that went the round of the newspapers at the time, and highly tickled Scott's fancy. I have heard that nobody enjoyed so much as the Prince of Wales himself an earlier specimen of the Beau's assurance. Taking offence at some part of His Royal Highness's conduct or demeanor, "Upon my word," observed Mr. Brummell, "if this kind of thing goes on, I shall be obliged to cut Wales, and bring the old King into fashion."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 36: See Hudibras.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 37: In February, 1816, when James Ballantyne married, it is clearly proved by letters in his handwriting, that he owed to Scott more than £3000 of personal debt.—(1839.)[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 38: James Ballantyne's dwelling-house was then in this street, adjoining the Canongate of Edinburgh.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 39: May, 1839. Since this book was first published, I have received from the representatives of Mr. Blackwood several documents which throw light on the transaction here mentioned. It will be apparent from one of those I am about to quote, that Blackwood, before he sent his message to Jedediah Cleishbotham, had ascertained that no less a person than Mr. Gifford concurred in his opinion—nay, that James Ballantyne himself took the same view of the matter. But the reader will be not less amused in comparing the "Black Hussar's" missive in the text, with the edition of it which actually reached Blackwood—and which certainly justifies the conjecture I had ventured to express.
TO WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, ESQ.
Edinburgh, 4th October, 1816.
My dear Sir,—Our application to the author of Tales of my Landlord has been anything but successful; and in order to explain to you the reason why I must decline to address him in this way in future, I shall copy his answer verbatim:—
"My respects to our friends the Booksellers. I belong to the Death-head Hussars of Literature, who neither take nor give criticism. I am extremely sorry they showed my work to Gifford, nor would I cancel a leaf to please all the critics of Edinburgh and London; and so let that be as it is: They are mistaken if they think I don't know when I am writing ill, as well as Gifford can tell me. I beg there may be no more communications with critics."
Observe—that I shall at all times be ready to convey anything from you to the author in a written form, but I do not feel warranted to interfere farther.
Yours very truly,
J. Ballantyne.
TO JAMES BALLANTYNE, ESQ.
Edinburgh, 5th October, 1816.
My dear Sir,—I am not a little vexed at having ventured to suggest anything to the author of the Tales of my Landlord, since I find he considers it in the light of sutor ultra crepidam. I never had for one moment the vanity to think, that from any poor remark of mine, or indeed of any human being, he would be induced to blot one line or alter a single incident, unless the same idea occurred to his own powerful mind. On stating to you what struck me, and finding that your opinion coincided with mine, I was induced to request of you to state it to the author, in order that he might be aware that the expense of cancelling the sheets was no object to me. I was the more anxious to do this, in case the author should have given you the MS. of this portion of the work sooner than he intended, in order to satisfy the clamoring for it which I teased you with. I trust the author will do me the justice to believe that it is quite impossible for any one to have a higher admiration of his most extraordinary talents; and speaking merely as a bookseller, it would be quite unnecessary to be at the expense of altering even one line, although the author himself (who alone can be the proper judge) should wish it, as the success of the work must be rapid, great, and certain.
With regard to the first volume having been shown to Mr. Gifford, I must state in justification of Mr. Murray, that Mr. G. is the only friend whom he consults on all occasions, and to whom his most secret transactions are laid open. He gave him the work, not for the purpose of criticism, but that as a friend he might partake of the enjoyment he had in such an extraordinary performance. No language could be stronger than Mr. Gifford's, as I mentioned to you; and as the same thing had occurred to Mr. G. as to you and me, you thought there would be no harm in stating this to the author.
I have only again to express my regret at what has taken place, and to beg you will communicate this to the author in any way you may think proper.
Yours, etc.,
W. Blackwood.
[A much fuller and more accurate knowledge of this whole transaction, than that possessed by Lockhart, can be gathered from the annals of the two great publishing houses concerned in it;—Smiles's Memoir of John Murray (vol. i. chap. xviii.), and Mrs. Oliphant's William Blackwood and his Sons (vol. i. pp. 56-92), especially from the latter work, in which the whole incident is set in its proper light. Notwithstanding the heavy preliminary tax for unsalable books from the Ballantynes' "wretched stock," neither publisher seems to have had a moment's doubt as to the acceptance of the offer of the ostensibly anonymous Work of Fiction, though they were much fretted by the delays, uncertainties, and mysteries attending the matter. "One in business must submit to many things, and swallow many a bitter pill, when such a man as Walter Scott is the object in view," writes Blackwood to Murray,—the bitterness being largely the dealing with James Ballantyne. "John I always considered as no better than a swindler, but James I put some trust and confidence in. You judged him more accurately." ... And on another occasion,—"Except my wife, there is not a friend whom I dare advise with. I have not ventured to mention the business to my brother on account of the cursed mysteries and injunctions of secrecy connected with it. I know he would blame me for engaging in it, for he has a very small opinion of the Ballantynes." Apart from the vexations attending their office as intermediaries, for which the Ballantynes were only partially responsible, this shrewd, if irritated, observer appears to have formed opinions of the brothers as business men, in some respects not differing greatly from those held by Lockhart in later days.
The delight of the two publishers in at last receiving the MS. of The Black Dwarf and the manner in which it passed into the hands of Constable, even before the stipulated 6000 copies were disposed of,—it must be owned he treated his rivals somewhat unhandsomely, finally severing them from Scott's literary career,—are fully set forth by the historian of the House of Blackwood. With her "one cannot but feel that this was one of those tragically insignificant circumstances which so often shape life apart from any consciousness of ours. Probably ruin would never have overtaken Sir Walter had he been in the steady and careful hands of Murray and Blackwood, for it is unlikely that even the glamour of the great Magician would have turned heads so reasonable and sober.">[[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 40: The sister of Miss Jane Nicolson.—See ante, vol. i. p. 248. Vol. ii. p. 82.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 41: [Referring to the edition of 1839, in ten volumes.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 42: [Scott says in a letter to John Murray, written October 20, 1814: "In casting about how I might show you some mark of my sense of former kindness, a certain MS. History of Scotland in Letters to my Children has occurred to me, which I consider as a desideratum; it is upon the plan of Lord Lyttelton's Letters, as they are called." Nearly a year later he returns to the subject, and says: "I intend to revise my letters on Scottish History for you, but I will not get to press till November, for the country affords no facilities for consulting the necessary authorities. I hope it may turn out a thing of some interest, though I rather intend to keep to its original purpose as a book of instruction to children." These references seem to show that the work may have been further advanced than Lockhart supposed. The announcement of the proposed book by Constable and Longman naturally excited the indignation of Blackwood and Murray, as is shown in a vigorous letter from the Edinburgh to the London publisher, blaming equally the Ballantynes and Constable.—See Memoirs of John Murray, vol. i. pp. 245, 246, 462.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 43: A cast from the monumental effigy at Stratford-upon-Avon—now in the library at Abbotsford—was the gift of Mr. George Bullock, long distinguished in London as a collector of curiosities. This ingenious man was, as the reader will see in the sequel, a great favorite with Scott.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 44: Mrs. Terry had offered the services of her elegant pencil in designing some windows of painted glass for Scott's armory, etc.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 45: The late James Boswell, Esq., of the Temple—second son of Bozzy.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 46: The Honorable William Lamb—now Lord Melbourne.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 47: [Even such keen observers as Murray and Blackwood had their intervals of doubt regarding the authorship of the Novels. In June, 1816, Blackwood writes: "There have been various rumors with regard to Greenfield being the author, but I never paid much attention to it; the thing appeared to me so very improbable.... But from what I have heard lately, and from what you state, I now begin to think that Greenfield may probably be the author." And only a month after the date of his letter to Scott, here given, Murray writes to Blackwood:—
"I can assure you, but in the greatest confidence, that I have discovered the author of all these Novels to be Thomas Scott, Walter Scott's brother. He is now in Canada. I have no doubt but that Mr. Walter Scott did a great deal to the first Waverley Novel, because of his anxiety to save his brother, and his doubt about the success of the work. This accounts for the many stories about it. Many persons had previously heard from Mr. Scott, but you may rely upon the certainty of what I have told you." By this time Blackwood is firm in the faith of Scott's authorship; but Bernard Barton writes to Murray that he has heard that James Hogg is the author of Tales of my Landlord, and that he has had intimation from himself to that effect; while Lady Mackintosh is informed on excellent authority that the writer is Mrs. Thomas Scott. Writing to Blackwood in February, 1817, Murray avers,—"I will believe, till within an inch of my life, that the author of Tales of my Landlord is Thomas Scott."—See Smiles's Memoir of John Murray, vol. i. pp. 461, 473, 474.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 48: Parisina—The Dream—and the "Domestic Pieces," had been recently published.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 49: [On November 27 Scott had written to Joanna Baillie, who had just returned from a tour on the Continent:—
"All I ever longed for on the Continent was their light wines, which you do not care about, and their fine climate, which we should both value equally; and to say truth, I never saw scene or palace which shook my allegiance to Tweedside and Abbotsford, though so inferior in every respect, and though the hills, or rather braes, are just high enough 'to lift us to the storm' when the storms are not so condescending as to sweep both crest and base, which, to do them justice, is seldom the case. What have I got to send you?... Alas, nothing but the history of petty employments and a calendar of increasing bad weather. The latter was much mitigated by enjoying for a good portion of the summer the society of John Morritt, of Rokeby, who has so much of that which is delightful, both in his grave and gay moods, that he can make us forget the hillside while sitting by the fireside. His late loss has cast a general shade of melancholy over him, which renders him yet dearer to his friends, by the gentle and unaffected manner in which his natural gayety of temper gleams through it and renders it still more interesting....
"A far different object of interest, yet still of interest, checkered with pity and disapprobation, is Lord Byron, whose present situation seems to rival all that ever has been said and sung of the misfortunes of a too irritable imagination. The last part of Childe Harold intimates a terrible state of mind, and with all the power and genius which characterized his former productions, the present seems to indicate a more serious and desperate degree of misanthropy. I own I was not much moved by the scorn of the world which his first poems implied, because I know it is a humor of mind which those whom fortune has spoilt by indulgence, or irritated by reverses, are apt to assume, because it looks melancholy and gentlemanlike, and becomes a bard as well as being desperately in love, or very fond of the sunrise, though he lies in bed till noon, or anxious in recommending to others to catch cold by visiting old abbeys by moonlight, which he never happened to see under the chaste moonbeam himself; but this strange poem goes much deeper, and either the Demon of Misanthropy is in full possession of him, or he has already invited ten guests, equally desperate, to the swept and garnished mansion of Harold's understanding."—Familiar Letters, vol. i. p. 369.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 50: [This is probably the "expression of kindness" which encouraged Murray to beg Scott to review in the Quarterly Byron's recently published volumes, Childe Harold, Canto III., and The Prisoner of Chillon, a Dream, and Other Poems. The request was promptly complied with, and the article appeared in the next number issued (dated October, 1816),—a review full of generous, and also judicious, appreciation. For some reason, hard now to discover, unless it were the kindliness of the writer's tone towards the younger poet, some of Lady Byron's friends, among whom was Joanna Baillie, seem to have taken strong exception to the paper, and Miss Baillie wrote to Scott at some length on the matter, even animadverting upon the purely literary criticism of the reviewer. Much of the correspondence which ensued, including a characteristic letter from Lady Byron, can be found in the Familiar Letters (vol. i. pp. 413-422).
Of the review, Byron writes to Murray (March 3, 1817):—
... "It seems to me (as far as the subject of it may be permitted to judge) to be very well written as a composition, and ... even those who may condemn its partiality, must praise its generosity. The temptations to take another and less favorable view of the question have been so great and numerous, that, what with public opinion, politics, etc., he must be a gallant as well as a good man, who has ventured in that place and at this time to write such an article even anonymously. Such things, however, are their own reward; and I even flatter myself that the writer, whoever he may be (and I have no guess), will not regret that the perusal of this has given me as much gratification as any composition of that nature could give, and more than any other has ever given,—and I have had a good many in my time of one kind or the other. It is not the mere praise, but there is a tact and a delicacy throughout, not only with regard to me, but to others, which, as it has not been observed elsewhere, I had till now doubted, whether it could be observed anywhere." He writes a few weeks later, on learning that Scott wrote the article: ... "It cannot add to my good opinion of him, but it adds to that of myself."—Letters and Journals of Lord Byron (1900), vol. iv. pp. 63, 85.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 51: Since I have mentioned this reviewal, I may as well, to avoid recurrence to it, express here my conviction, that Erskine, not Scott, was the author of the critical estimate of the Waverley Novels which it embraces—although, for the purpose of mystification, Scott had taken the trouble to transcribe the paragraphs in which that estimate is contained. At the same time I cannot but add that, had Scott really been the sole author of this reviewal, he need not have incurred the severe censure which has been applied to his supposed conduct in the matter. After all, his judgment of his own works must have been allowed to be not above, but very far under the mark; and the whole affair would, I think, have been considered by every candid person exactly as the letter about Solomon and the rival mothers was by Murray, Gifford, and the "four o'clock visitors" of Albemarle Street—as a good joke. A better joke, certainly, than the allusion to the report of Thomas Scott being the real author of Waverley, at the close of the article, was never penned; and I think it includes a confession over which a misanthrope might have chuckled: "We intended here to conclude this long article, when a strong report reached us of certain Transatlantic confessions, which, if genuine (though of this we know nothing), assign a different author to these volumes than the party suspected by our Scottish correspondents. Yet a critic may be excused seizing upon the nearest suspicious person, on the principle happily expressed by Claverhouse, in a letter to the Earl of Linlithgow. He had been, it seems, in search of a gifted weaver, who used to hold forth at conventicles: 'I sent for the webster (weaver), they brought in his brother for him: though he, maybe, cannot preach like his brother, I doubt not but he is as well-principled as he, wherefore I thought it would be no great fault to give him the trouble to go to jail with the rest!'"—Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol. xix. pp. 85, 86.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 52: [On reading The Black Dwarf, Mrs. Leigh believed her brother to be the author, and wrote to him to that effect. Byron had not yet seen the book, and says in his reply: "I am not P. P. [Peter Pattieson], I assure you on my honor, and do not understand to what book you allude, so that all your compliments are quite thrown away."—Byron's Letters and Journals (1900), vol. iv. p. 56.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 53: [Lady Louisa Stuart, whose approbation Scott writes he values "beyond a whole wilderness of critics," says in a letter of December 5, 1816:
"[Old Mortality] is super-excellent in all its points; it breaks up fresh ground, and has all the raciness of originality. I cannot help thinking it will bear down the world before it triumphantly. As usual it makes its personages our intimate acquaintance, and its scenes so present to the eye, that, last night, after sitting up unreasonably late over it, I got no sleep, from a kind of fever of mind it had occasioned. It seemed as if I had been an eye and ear witness of all the passages, and I could not lull the agitation into calmness. Mause and Cuddie hurried my spirits in another way; they forced me to laugh out aloud, which one seldom does alone. On a second slower reading I expect to be still better pleased, and then also I suppose I shall find out the faults. At present it has, in the Scotch phrase, 'taken me off my feet,' and I do not criticise, though I think you will believe me when I say I do not and will not flatter. One thing I regret, that like the author of The Antiquary, Jedediah did not add a glossary; because even I, a mongrel, occasionally paying long visits to Scotland, and hearing Girsy at Bothwell gate and Peggy Macgowan hold forth in the village,—even I, thus qualified, have found a great many words absolute Hebrew to me, and I fear the altogether English will find many more beyond their comprehension or conjecture. But this may be remedied in another edition. I have as yet only one great attack to make, and that upon a single word; but such a word! such an anachronism! Claverhouse says he has no time to hear sentimental speeches. My dear sir! tell Jedediah that Claverhouse never heard the sound of those four syllables in his life. We are used to them; but sentiment and sentimental were, I believe, first introduced into the language by Sterne, and are hardly as old as I am. Let alone the Covenanters' days, I am persuaded you would look in vain for them in the works of Richardson and Fielding. Nay, the French, from whom they were borrowed, did not talk of le sentiment in that sense till long after Louis XIV.'s reign. No such thing is to be found in Madame de Sévigné, la Bruyère, etc., etc., etc. At home or abroad I defy Lord Dundee ever to have met with the expression. Mr. Peter Pattieson had been reading the Man of Feeling, and it was a slip of his tongue, which I am less inclined to excuse than Mause's abstruse Scotch, which I duly reverence, as she did Kettledrummle's sermons, because I do not understand it. Once more I shall be much disappointed if this work does not quickly acquire a very great reputation. I fancy Mr. Morritt is in the secret; yet, as I am not certain, I will keep on the secure side and not mention it when I write to him, however one may long to intercommune on such subjects with those likely to hold the same faith."
At the close of his reply, Scott says: "I must not forget to thank your Ladyship for your acute and indisputable criticism on the application of the word sentimental. How it escaped my pen I know not, unless that the word owed me a grudge for the ill will I have uniformly borne it, and was resolved to slip itself in for the express purpose of disgracing me. I will certainly turn it out the first opportunity." This was done in the second edition.—Familiar Letters, vol. i. pp. 394, 400.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 54: [Scott's old friend, John Richardson, who was from the first in the secret of the Waverley Novels, was a stanch Whig, as beseemed the descendant of an old Covenanting family. Some of his ancestral traditions suggested certain passages in Old Mortality, and he has recorded that during a visit to Abbotsford Scott gave him the proof sheets of the first volume to read, and how he lost a night's sleep in doing it. Twelve years later, in writing to Scott regarding The Tales of a Grandfather, he says that in this work,—"You have paid a debt which you owed to the manes of the Covenanters for the flattering picture which you drew of Claverhouse in Old Mortality."
Scott says in his reply (December, 1828): "As to Covenanters and Malignants, they were both a set of cruel and bloody bigots, and had, notwithstanding, those virtues with which bigotry is sometimes allied. Their characters were of a kind much more picturesque than beautiful; neither had the least idea either of toleration or humanity, so that it happens that, so far as they can be distinguished from each other, one is tempted to hate most the party which chances to be uppermost for the time."—See Journal, note, vol. ii. p. 404.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 55: Joanna Baillie's Orra.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 56: Twelfth Night, Act II. Scene 3.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 57: The late Right Honorable Robert Dundas of Arniston, Chief Baron of the Scotch Exchequer; one of Scott's earliest and kindest friends in that distinguished family.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 58: This young gentleman is now an officer in the East India Company's army.—(1837.) Mr. W. S. Terry lived to distinguish himself as a soldier, and fell in action against the Afghans.—(1848.)[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 59: Sir Archy Mac-Sarcasm and Sir Pertinax Mac-Sycophant.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 60: [On the 17th of March, Scott had written to Joanna Baillie: "Two remarkables struck me in my illness: the first was, that my great wolf-dog clamored wildly and fearfully about my bed when I was very ill, and would hardly be got out of the room; the other, that when I was recovering, all acquired and factitious tastes seemed to leave me, and I could eat nothing but porridge, and listen to no better reading than a stupid Scottish diary which would have made a whole man sick."—Familiar Letters, vol. i. p. 421.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 61: See Poetical Works, vol. xi. p. 348 [Cambridge Ed. p. 436]. Scott's farewell for Kemble first appeared in The Sale-Room for April 5, 1817; and in the introductory note James Ballantyne says: "The character fixed upon, with happy propriety, for Kemble's closing scene, was Macbeth. He had labored under a severe cold for a few days before, but on the memorable night the physical annoyance yielded to the energy of his mind. 'He was,' he said in the Green-room, immediately before the curtain rose, 'determined to leave behind him the most perfect specimen of his art which he had ever shown;' and his success was complete. At the moment of the tyrant's death, the curtain fell by the universal acclamation of the audience. The applauses were vehement and prolonged; they ceased—were resumed—rose again—were reiterated—and again were hushed. In a few minutes the curtain ascended, and Mr. Kemble came forward, in the dress of Macbeth (the audience by a consentaneous movement rising to receive him), to deliver his farewell." ... "Mr. Kemble delivered the lines with exquisite beauty, and with an effect that was evidenced by the tears and sobs of many of the audience. His own emotions were very conspicuous. When his farewell was closed, he lingered long on the stage, as if unable to retire. The house again stood up, and cheered him with the waving of hats and long shouts of applause."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 62: Mr. Laidlaw has not published many verses; but his song of Lucy's Flitting—a simple and pathetic picture of a poor Ettrick maiden's feelings in leaving a service where she had been happy—has long been, and must ever be, a favorite with all who understand the delicacies of the Scottish dialect, and the manners of the district in which the scene is laid.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 63: These anecdotes were subsequently inserted in the Introduction to Guy Mannering.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 64: Scott's meeting with this Mr. Smith occurred at the table of his friend and colleague, Hector Macdonald Buchanan. The company, except Scott and Smith, were all, like their hospitable landlord, Highlanders.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 65: Lady Montagu was the daughter of the late Lord Douglas by his first marriage with Lady Lucy Graham, daughter of the second Duke of Montrose.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 66: Lord Montagu's house at Ditton Park, near Windsor, had recently been destroyed by fire—and the ruins revealed some niches with antique candlesticks, etc., belonging to a domestic chapel that had been converted to other purposes from the time, I believe, of Henry VIII.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 67: Mr. Atkinson, of St. John's Wood, was the architect of Lord Montagu's new mansion at Ditton, as well as the artist ultimately employed in arranging Scott's interior at Abbotsford.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 68: Shakespeare's Poems—Venus and Adonis.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 69: [A misprint of some earlier date, possibly the 16th. See the more detailed account of Scott's movements at this time, to be found in Familiar Letters, vol. i. pp. 432-436.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 70: On completing this purchase, Scott writes to John Ballantyne:—"Dear John,—I have closed with Usher for his beautiful patrimony, which makes me a great laird. I am afraid the people will take me up for coining. Indeed, these novels, while their attractions last, are something like it. I am very glad of your good prospects. Still I cry, Prudence! Prudence!—Yours truly,
W. S."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 71: [On August 1, 1817, Jeffrey writes to Scott, asking if he could not be induced to write a notice of Mr. C. K. Sharpe's edition of Kirkton's Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland, for the Edinburgh Review, to which Scott replies, August 5:—
"I flatter myself it will not require many protestations to assure you with what pleasure I would undertake any book that can give you pleasure; but in the present case I am hampered by two circumstances: one, that I promised Gifford a review of this very Kirkton for the Quarterly; the other that I shall certainly be unable to keep my word with him. I am obliged to take exercise three or four hours in the forenoon and two after dinner, to keep off the infernal spasms which since last winter have attacked me with such violence, as if all the imps that used to plague poor Caliban were washing, wringing, and ironing the unshapely but useful bag which Sir John Sinclair treats with such distinction—my stomach, in short. Now, as I have much to do of my own, I fear I can hardly be of use to you in the present case, which I am very sorry for, as I like the subject, and would be pleased to give my own opinion respecting the Jacobitism of the editor, which, like my own, has a good spice of affectation in it, mingled with some not unnatural feelings of respect for a cause which, though indefensible in common sense and ordinary policy, has a great deal of high-spirited Quixotry about it.
"Can you not borrow from your briefs and criticism a couple of days to look about you here? I dare not ask Mrs. Jeffrey till next year, when my hand will be out of the mortar-tub; and at present my only spare bed was till of late but accessible by the feudal accommodation of a drawbridge made of two deals, and still requires the clue of Ariadne.... I am like one of Miss Edgeworth's heroines, master of all things in miniature—a little hill, and a little glen, and a little horse-pond of a loch, and a little river, I was going to call it,—the Tweed; but I remember the minister was mobbed by his parishioners for terming it, in his statistical report, an inconsiderable stream. So pray do come and see me, and if I can stead you, or pleasure you, in the course of the winter, you shall command me."—Cockburn's Life of Jeffrey, vol. i p. 417.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 72: I have before me two letters of Mr. Irving's to Scott, both written in September, 1817, from Edinburgh, and referring to his visit (which certainly was his only one at Abbotsford) as immediately preceding. There is also in my hands a letter from Scott to his friend John Richardson, of Fludyer Street, dated 22d September, 1817, in which he says, "When you see Tom Campbell, tell him, with my best love, that I have to thank him for making me known to Mr. Washington Irving, who is one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances I have made this many a day."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 73: [From the journal of three English ladies, travellers in Scotland in the summer of 1817, we get another glimpse of Johnnie Bower, and a pleasant sketch of Sophia Scott:—
"In the chancel Miss Scott, a very charming, lively girl of seventeen, pointed out to us 'The Wizard's Grave,' and then the black stone in the form of a coffin, to which the allusion is made in the poem, 'A Scottish monarch sleeps below,'—said to be the tomb of Alexander II. 'But I will tell you a secret,' she half whispered; 'only don't you tell Johnnie Bower. There is no Scottish monarch there at all, nor anybody else, for papa had the stone taken up, not long ago, and no coffin nor anything was to be found. And then Johnnie came and begged me not to tell people so. "For what wull I do, Miss Scott, when I show the ruins, if I canna point to this bit, and say, 'A Scottish monarch sleeps below'?"' As, however, he had the pleasure of saying this to us the evening before, Miss Scott thought we might fairly have her secret....
"We now set out for Dryburgh, about five miles. Mr. Scott placed his daughter in our carriage, that she might point out the different places as we passed them. We could not have had a better director, nor a more lively, entertaining companion. Every spot was known to her, and in this fairyland her quick imagination seemed to delight in all the legendary lore she had heard, and could so promptly apply.... At the view of some distant mountains, Miss Scott suddenly exclaimed, 'Look, there are the Cheviots; are you not glad to see England again?' We assured her we were, though we should quit Scotland with so much regret. 'Well,' she said, 'I should not have liked you if you were not glad to return home.' Her father had taken her to London the year before, and she was delighted to get back again, and to hail the Cheviots on her return. It was plain to see she was her father's darling, and she talked of him with enthusiasm. She has a very natural, unaffected character, with a strong tincture of romantic feeling, which seemed judiciously kept in check by him, as she said he did not allow her to read much poetry, nor had she even read all his own poems, which were never to be found in the way, at their house. She spoke of her sister and her brothers, with a warmth of affection very pleasing. On asking what was become of Camp, she shook her head, and said he was dead. 'You must never come to Abbotsford when any of the dogs die, for there is a sad weeping amongst us all.'"—Lang's Life of Lockhart, vol. i. pp. 232-234.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 74: ["His daughter Sophia and his son Charles were those of his family who seemed most to feel and understand his humors, and to take delight in his conversation. Mrs. Scott did not always pay the same attention, and would now and then make a casual remark which would operate a little like a damper. Thus, one morning at breakfast, when Dominie Thomson the tutor was present, Scott was going on with great glee to relate an anecdote of the laird of Macnab, 'who, poor fellow!' premised he, 'is dead and gone.' 'Why, Mr. Scott,' exclaimed the good lady, 'Macnab's not dead, is he?' 'Faith, my dear,' replied Scott, with humorous gravity, 'if he's not dead, they've done him a great injustice,—for they've buried him.'
"The joke passed harmless and unnoticed by Mrs. Scott, but hit the poor Dominie just as he had raised a cup of tea to his lips ... sending half its contents about the table."—Irving's Abbotsford.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 75: [That this visit remained a vivid and delightful memory to the end of Irving's life is shown in some words spoken not long before his death: "Oh! Scott was a master spirit—as glorious in his conversation as in his writings. Jeffrey was delightful, and had eloquent runs in conversation; but there was a consciousness of talent with it. Scott had nothing of that. He spoke from the fulness of his mind, pouring out an incessant flow of anecdote, story, with dashes of humor, and then never monopolizing, but always ready to listen to and appreciate what came from others. I never felt such a consciousness of happiness as when under his roof."—Washington Irving's Life and Letters, vol. iv. p. 260.][Back to Main Text]
"Good-morrow to thy sable beak,
And glossy plumage dark and sleek,
Thy crimson moon, and azure eye,
Cock of the heath, so wildly shy!" etc.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 77: The flageolet alludes to Mr. Alexander Ballantyne, the third of the brothers—a fine musician, and a most amiable and modest man, never connected with Scott in any business matters, but always much his favorite in private.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 78: Mr. Magrath has now been long established in his native city of Dublin. His musical excellence was by no means the only merit that attached Scott to his society while he remained in Edinburgh.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 79: This fine greyhound, a gift from Terry, had been sent to Scotland under the care of Mr. Magrath. Terry had called the dog Marmion, but Scott rechristened him Hamlet, in honor of his "inky coat."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 80: Before the second and larger part of the present house of Abbotsford was built, the small room, subsequently known as the breakfast parlor, was during several years Scott's sanctum.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 81: This alludes to certain pieces of painted glass, representing the heads of some of the old Scotch kings, copied from the carved ceiling of the presence-chamber in Stirling Castle. There are engravings of them in a work called Lacunar Strevelinense. Edinb. 4to, 1817.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 82: Adam Paterson was the intelligent foreman of the company of masons then employed at Abbotsford.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 83: Thomas Scott had sent his brother the horns and feet of a gigantic stag, shot by him in Canada. The feet were ultimately suspended to bell-cords in the armory at Abbotsford; and the horns mounted as drinking-cups.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 84: They called Daniel Terry among themselves "The Grinder," in double allusion to the song of Terry the Grinder, and to some harsh under-notes of their friend's voice.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 85: [On the 16th of February, Lady Louisa Stuart wrote:—
"I have read Rob Roy twice.... The scale with me would be Waverley, Old Mortality, Guy Mannering—so far I am sure. I am not sure which of the others I could positively prefer; there are striking beauties in each. In Rob Roy the painting of character is as vivid as in anything the author ever wrote. Rob himself, Die Vernon, Nicol Jarvie, Andrew Fairservice, not to speak of the Tory baronet and his cubs, or the Jesuit Rashleigh. The beginning and end, I am afraid, I quarrel with; ... but beginnings signify little; ends signify more. Now, I fear the end of this is huddled, as if the author were tired and wanted to get rid of his personages as fast as he could, knocking them on the head without mercy. Die Vernon has what a Lord Bellamont (famous in my day and before it for profligacy and affectation) used to call such 'a catastrophical countenance' that one cannot reconcile oneself to her being married and settled like her sober neighbors. It is almost as bad as if Flora MacIvor had married the Colonel's nephew.... You see I give my opinion (let it be worth something or nothing) as if I were writing to a person not supposed to be in any way sib to the mysterious Unknown; but it is because I believe you have too distinguishing a taste to relish all sugar and treacle. Goldsmith's metaphor was bad when he said, 'Who peppers the highest is surest to please,' for flattery resembles neither pepper nor salt. Apropos of the mystery, those who see far into a millstone are now sure that the Tales of my Landlord were written by a different person, and parts of them by different hands. When they give their reasons with a complacent delight in their own sagacity, I think to myself, how often must I have talked as much wise nonsense upon subjects which I knew nothing about."—Familiar Letters, vol. ii. p. 11.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 86: Collection of Inventories and other Records of the Royal Wardrobe and Jewel-House, etc. Edin. 1815, 4to.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 87: A stage-coach, so called, which ran betwixt Edinburgh and Jedburgh.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 88: Slightly altered from Dr. Johnson's Prologue to the comedy of A Word to the Wise.
Footnote 89: Mr. Nicol Milne of Faldonside. This gentleman's property is a valuable and extensive one, situated immediately to the westward of Abbotsford; and Scott continued, year after year, to dream of adding it also to his own.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 90: A sawmill had just been erected at Toftfield.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 91: A cocklaird adjoining Abbotsford at the eastern side. His farm is properly Lochbreist; but in the neighborhood he was generally known as Laird Lauchie—or Lauchie Langlegs. Washington Irving describes him in his Abbotsford, with high gusto. He was a most absurd original.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 92: An article in one of the early numbers of Blackwood's Magazine, entitled The Chaldee MS., in which the literati and booksellers of Edinburgh were quizzed en masse—Scott himself among the rest. It was in this lampoon that Constable first saw himself designated in print by the sobriquet of "The Crafty," long before bestowed on him by one of his own most eminent Whig supporters; but nothing nettled him so much as the passages in which he and Blackwood are represented entreating the support of Scott for their respective Magazines, and waved off by "the Great Magician" in the same identical phrases of contemptuous indifference. The description of Constable's visit to Abbotsford may be worth transcribing—for Sir David Wilkie, who was present when Scott read it, says he was almost choked with laughter, and he afterwards confessed that the Chaldean author had given a sufficiently accurate version of what really passed on the occasion:—
"26. But when the Spirits were gone, he (The Crafty) said unto himself, I will arise and go unto a magician, which is of my friends: of a surety he will devise some remedy, and free me out of all my distresses.
"27. So he arose and came unto that great magician which hath his dwelling in the old fastness, hard by the River Jordan, which is by the Border.
"28. And the magician opened his mouth and said, Lo! my heart wisheth thy good, and let the thing prosper which is in thy hands to do it.
"29. But thou seest that my hands are full of working, and my labor is great. For, lo, I have to feed all the people of my land, and none knoweth whence his food cometh; but each man openeth his mouth, and my hand filleth it with pleasant things.
"30. Moreover, thine adversary also is of my familiars.
"31. The land is before thee: draw thou up thine hosts for the battle on the mount of Proclamation, and defy boldly thine enemy, which hath his camp in the place of Princes; quit ye as men, and let favor be shown unto him which is most valiant.
"32. Yet be thou silent; peradventure will I help thee some little.
"33. But the man which is Crafty saw that the magician loved him not. For he knew him of old, and they had had many dealings; and he perceived that he would not assist him in the day of his adversity.
"34. So he turned about, and went out of his fastness. And he shook the dust from his feet, and said, Behold I have given this magician much money, yet see now, he hath utterly deserted me. Verily, my fine gold hath perished."—Chap. iii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 93: [The story of the composition of The Chaldee Manuscript, its publication in the first number of the magazine, destined to so long and brilliant a career, and the extraordinary commotion caused thereby, is admirably told in the Annals of a Publishing House, which also gives the details regarding Laidlaw's brief connection with the new periodical, and the correspondence of Scott and Blackwood during its early months.—See Mrs. Oliphant's William Blackwood and His Sons, vol. i. chap, iii.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 94: John Usher, the ex-proprietor of Toftfield, was eventually Scott's tenant on part of those lands for many years. He was a man of far superior rank and intelligence to the rest of the displaced lairds—and came presently to be one of Scott's trusty rural friends, and a frequent companion of his sports.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 95: A yoke of oxen.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 96: Scott's article on Kirkton's History of the Church of Scotland, edited by Mr. C. K. Sharpe, appeared in the 36th number of the Quarterly Review,—See Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol. xix. p. 213.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 97: Scott expressed great satisfaction on seeing the Lives of the Covenanters—Cameron, Peden, Semple, Wellwood, Cargill, Smith, Renwick, etc.—reprinted without mutilation in the Biographia Presbyteriana. Edin. 1827. The publisher of this collection was the late Mr. John Stevenson, long chief clerk to John Ballantyne, and usually styled by Scott "True Jock," in opposition to one of his old master's many aliases—namely, "Leein' Johnnie."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 98: See Scott's Prose Miscellanies, vol. xviii. p. 250.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 99: The Letters of Horace Walpole to George Montagu.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 100: Anthony Hall is only known as Editor of one of Leland's works. I have no doubt Scott was thinking of John Hall Stevenson, author of Crazy Tales; the friend, and (it is said) the Eugenius of Sterne.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 101: I believe Mr. Rose's Court and Parliament of Beasts is here alluded to.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 102: Bullock's manufactory was in this street.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 103: A drama founded on the novel of Rob Roy had been produced, with great success, on the London stage.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 104: Mr. Alexander Nasmyth, an eminent landscape painter of Edinburgh—the father of Mrs. Terry.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 105: See ante, vol. iii. p. 220.[Back to Main Text]
"What beauties does Flora disclose,
How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed," etc.—Crawford.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 107: The late Sir Patrick Murray of Ochtertyre, Bart.—one of the Scotch Barons of Exchequer.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 108: [Of Hinse, Washington Irving writes in his Abbotsford:—
"Among the other important and privileged members of the household who figured in attendance at dinner, was a large gray cat, who, I observed, was regaled from time to time with titbits from the table. This sage grimalkin was a favorite of both master and mistress, and slept at night in their room, and Scott laughingly observed, that one of the least wise parts of their establishment was that the window was left open at night for puss to go in and out. The cat assumed a kind of ascendency among the quadrupeds—sitting in state in Scott's armchair, and occasionally stationing himself on a chair beside the door, as if to review his subjects as they passed, giving each dog a cuff beside the ears as he went by. This clapper-clawing was always taken in good part; it appeared to be, in fact, a mere act of sovereignty on the part of grimalkin to remind the others of their vassalage; which they acknowledged by the most perfect acquiescence. A general harmony prevailed between sovereign and subjects, and they would all sleep together in the sunshine.">[[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 109: See Croker's Boswell (edit. 1831), vol. iii p. 38.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 110: George Hogarth, Esq., W. S., brother of Mrs. James Ballantyne. This gentleman is now well known in the literary world; especially by a History of Music, of which all who understand that science speak highly. [He was the father-in-law of Charles Dickens, and for many years a musical and dramatic critic in London.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 111: "Now, John," cried Constable, one evening after he had told one of his best stories, "now, John, is that true?" His object evidently was, in Iago's phrase, to let down the pegs; but Rigdum answered gayly, "True, indeed! Not one word of it!—any blockhead may stick to truth, my hearty—but 't is a sad hamperer of genius."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 112: [This letter was written August 11, by Lady Louisa Stuart, and it appears in its original and complete form in Familiar Letters, vol. ii. p. 18. To the end of her long life, the writer was somewhat influenced by the feeling prevailing in her youth as to the loss of caste suffered by women of good social position who appeared in print. Writing to Mrs. Lockhart after her father's death, and enclosing some of his letters, Lady Louisa says: "If Mr. Lockhart wishes to insert any of these, I will beg not to be named. It is not that I am not proud enough of having been honored with his regard, but I never yet saw my name in print, and hope I never shall." Mr. Lockhart evidently in part overcame this objection.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 113: In 1827, Lady Louisa wrote for Caroline, Lady Scott, a great-granddaughter of the duke, Some Account of John, Duke of Argyle, and his Family. This delightful memoir was first printed (privately) in 1863. It was published in 1899, in Selections from the Manuscripts of Lady Louisa Stuart.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 114: [Sheffield Place, the seat of Lord Sheffield, the friend and editor of Gibbon.][Back to Main Text]
Footnote 115: Ebony was Mr. Blackwood's own usual designation in the jeux d'esprit of his young Magazine, in many of which the persons thus addressed by Scott were conjoint culprits. They both were then, as may be inferred, sweeping the boards of the Parliament House as "briefless barristers."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 116: I understand that this now celebrated soup was extemporized by M. Florence on Scott's first visit to Bowhill after the publication of Guy Mannering. Florence had served—and Scott having on some sporting party made his personal acquaintance, he used often afterwards to gratify the poet's military propensities by sending up magnificent representations in pastry, of citadels taken by the Emperor, etc.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 117: In the Introduction to The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1830, Sir Walter says: "Were I ever to take the unbecoming freedom of censuring a man of Mr. Coleridge's extraordinary talents, it would be on account of the caprice and indolence with which he has thrown from him, as in mere wantonness, those unfinished scraps of poetry, which, like the Torso of antiquity, defy the skill of his poetical brethren to complete them. The charming fragments which the author abandons to their fate are surely too valuable to be treated like the proofs of careless engravers, the sweepings of whose studios often make the fortune of some painstaking collector." And in a note to The Abbot, alluding to Coleridge's beautiful and tantalizing fragment of Christabel, he adds: "Has not our own imaginative poet cause to fear that future ages will desire to summon him from his place of rest, as Milton longed
'To call up him who left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold'?"[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 118: Macneill's Will and Jean.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 119: When playing, in childhood, with the young ladies of the Buccleuch family, she had been overheard saying to her namesake Lady Anne Scott, "Well, I do wish I were Lady Anne too—it is so much prettier than Miss;" thenceforth she was commonly addressed in the family by the coveted title.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 120: Vide "Green-breeks" in the General Introduction to the Waverley Novels. Surely Yellow Waistcoat was his prototype.[Back to Main Text]