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.