Abbotsford.
Photo by Valentine & Sons. Dundee.
“THE BEACON”
finished them, and that they were a valuable asset. In fact, he turned from them and began Nigel, a romance of the same period, apparently before he had brought The Pirate to a close.
That “splendid romance,” as Lockhart calls it, based on Scott’s visit to the Orcades in 1814, was published in December 1821. Though the fair and dark sisters, Minna and Brenda, were popular, and Cleveland himself had a vogue, the humours of the Udaler and of the agriculturist were not enjoyed, and Norna of the Fitful Head, a kind of civilized Ulrica, was never much appreciated.
It is not necessary here to enter into the details about a luckless Tory newspaper, The Beacon, which had Scott’s support, but was conducted in an amateur and bludgeonly fashion, in spite of his advice. There was nothing but blundering and bad language, and Scott declined to see the paper. Yet he was one of its early supporters, and there is evidence suggesting (I have not seen this evidence) that he was nearly involved in a duel, while his friend, Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck, was unfortunately shot in an affair arising out of a successor to The Beacon. “I have kept Lockhart out of this scrape, in which some of the young men are knee deep,” writes Sir Walter. “I hope,” he wrote to Lockhart, after Auchinleck’s duel, “that this catastrophe will end the species of personal satire and abuse which has crept into our political discussions. The lives of brave and good citizens were given them for other purposes than to mingle in such unworthy affrays.”
Nigel was published in May 1822, and Constable, who was in London, saw people reading it, in Macaulay’s fashion, as they walked along the streets. The ship which carried the edition arrived on a Sunday, by Monday 7,000 copies had been dispersed. So Constable asked Scott to write a trifle, like the poem of Halidon Hall (for which he paid £1,000) every quarter: every poem to be on a battle. Lockhart thought that Constable’s brain was “well nigh unsettled.” Quite unsettled, if he expected the public to buy £4,000 worth of battle poetry every year, while the press was producing 30,000 volumes of Peveril of the Peak. Ballantyne’s press was turning out at this date 145,000 volumes of works by Scott, and Constable was about buying an estate called Balniel. Yet, all the while, the old £12,000, the price for a set of copyrights, had not been and never was fully paid. There seems to have been the slenderest metallic basis for waggon loads of bills, which all concerned looked on as being as good as bullion.
“NIGEL”