It is a curious fact that Mr. Crosbie had a clerk very much like Pleydell's 'Driver,' who could write from dictation just as well, asleep or awake, drunk or sober, and whose principal recommendation was that he could always be found at the same tavern, while less 'steady' fellows often had half a dozen. The incident which Mr. Pleydell relates to Colonel Mannering, of how certain legal papers were prepared while both lawyer and clerk were intoxicated, was, we are assured by the author, no uncommon occurrence. It will be remembered that Mr. Pleydell had been dining on Saturday night and at a late hour, when he 'had a fair tappit hen[[5]] under his belt,' was asked to draw up some papers. Driver was sent for and brought in both speechless and motionless. He was unable to see the inkstand, and it was necessary for some one to dip the pen in the ink. Nevertheless he was able to write as handsomely as ever and the net result of this attempt to 'worship Bacchus and Themis' at the same time, was a document in which 'not three words required to be altered.'
EDINBURGH FROM THE CASTLE
Crosbie's clerk, though a dissipated wretch, was well versed in the law. He had been known to destroy a paper in his employer's writing and draw up a better one himself. An old Scotchman used to say that 'he would not give ——'s drunken glour at a paper for the serious opinions of the haill bench.'
Unfortunately, both Crosbie and his clerk gave up the 'steady' habit of drinking at a single tavern and in later life began to frequent many places. The result was the complete ruin of both. Scott's highly amusing account of the convivial habits of Counsellor Pleydell and his dissipated clerk is a fairly accurate, if not entirely complimentary picture of the daily life of a certain class of prominent lawyers in Edinburgh, in the middle of the eighteenth century. The more pleasing side of Pleydell's character was taken from Adam Rolland, an old friend of Scott's, who died at the age of eighty-five, four years after 'Guy Mannering' was published. He was an accomplished gentleman, an excellent scholar, an eminent lawyer, and a man of the highest probity and Christian character. He would have been quite incapable of such a performance as 'high jinks.'
As in many of his other novels, Scott makes the subordinate characters of 'Guy Mannering' the most interesting. Dominie Sampson, Dandie Dinmont, Meg Merrilies, Dirk Hatteraick, and Paulus Pleydell are original creations of strong, dramatic interest. Each had a prototype in real life, but it was the genius of the novelist that brought them into existence in the sense that Mr. Pickwick and Becky Sharp are real people, and conferred upon them a kind of immortality that will be as sure to delight the generations of the future as they have been successful in appealing to the readers of the past century.
As to Colonel Mannering himself, I need only repeat the exclamation of James Hogg when he first read the novel:—'Colonel Mannering is just Walter Scott painted by himself!' Though doubtless not intended for a portrait, the fine, dignified, soldierly, and scholarly colonel is the picture of a perfect gentleman, intended to embody the high ideals which were a part of Scott's own character and for which we like to remember him.
[[1]] A 'Gauger' is an excise officer and 'Loup' is Scottish for 'leap.'
[[2]] Another story, some of the details of which may have suggested a part of the plot, concerns the experiences of James Annesley, a full account of which appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine of July, 1840, and is reprinted in full in Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. v. Lockhart says, 'That Sir Walter must have read the record of this celebrated trial, as well as Smollett's edition of the story in Peregrine Pickle, there can be no doubt.' The trial took place in 1743. It suggested, perhaps, something of the method by which Glossin undertook to deprive Harry Bertram of his rights. Another legal case, which came within Scott's own knowledge and may have suggested some of the details of the novel, was related by him in a letter to Lady Abercorn. See Familiar Letters of Sir Walter Scott, vol. 1, p. 292.