JAMES HOGG
From the water-color portrait by Denning
Though the Duke of Buccleuch would not dismiss a poor tenant merely because Hogg called him "a mean fellow," he had told Scott that if he could find an unappropriated "pendicle," such as this letter referred to, he would most willingly bestow it on the Shepherd. It so happened, that when Scott paid his first visit at Bowhill after the death of the Duchess, the Ettrick Shepherd was mentioned: "My friend," said the Duke, "I must now consider this poor man's case as her legacy;" and to this feeling Hogg owed, very soon afterwards, his establishment at Altrive, on his favorite braes of Yarrow.
As Scott passed through Edinburgh on his return from his voyage, the negotiation as to The Lord of the Isles, which had been protracted through several months, was completed—Constable agreeing to give fifteen hundred guineas for one half of the copyright, while the other moiety was retained by the author. The sum mentioned had been offered by Constable at an early stage of the affair, but it was not until now accepted, in consequence of the earnest wish of Scott and Ballantyne to saddle the publisher of the new poem with part of their old "quire stock,"—which, however, Constable ultimately persisted in refusing. It may easily be believed that John Ballantyne's management of money matters during Scott's six weeks' absence had been such as to render it doubly convenient for the Poet to have this matter settled on his arrival in Edinburgh—and it may also be supposed that the progress of Waverley during that interval had tended to put the chief parties in good-humor with each other.
In returning to Waverley, I must observe most distinctly that nothing can be more unfounded than the statement which has of late years been frequently repeated in memoirs of Scott's life, that the sale of the first edition of this immortal Tale was slow. It appeared on the 7th of July, and the whole impression (1000 copies) had disappeared within five weeks; an occurrence then unprecedented in the case of an anonymous novel, put forth at what is called among publishers the dead season. A second edition, of 2000 copies, was at least projected by the 24th of the same month;[100]—that appeared before the end of August, and it, too, had gone off so rapidly, that when Scott passed through Edinburgh, on his way from the Hebrides, he found Constable eager to treat, on the same terms as before, for a third of 1000 copies. This third edition was published in October, and when a fourth of the like extent was called for in November, I find Scott writing to John Ballantyne, "I suppose Constable won't quarrel with a work on which he has netted £612 in four months, with a certainty of making it £1000 before the year is out;" and, in fact, owing to the diminished expense of advertising, the profits of this fourth edition were to each party £440. To avoid recurring to these details, I may as well state at once, that a fifth edition of 1000 copies appeared in January, 1815; a sixth of 1500 in June, 1816; a seventh of 2000 in October, 1817; an eighth of 2000 in April, 1821; that in the collective editions, prior to 1829, 11,000 were disposed of; and that the sale of the current edition, with notes, begun in 1829, has already reached 40,000 copies. Well might Constable regret that he had not ventured to offer £1000 for the whole copyright of Waverley!
I must now look back for a moment to the history of the composition.—The letter of September, 1810, was not the only piece of discouragement which Scott had received, during the progress of Waverley, from his first confidant. James Ballantyne, in his deathbed memorandum, says: "When Mr. Scott first questioned me as to my hopes of him as a novelist, it somehow or other did chance that they were not very high. He saw this, and said: 'Well, I don't see why I should not succeed as well as other people. At all events, faint heart never won fair lady—'tis only trying.' When the first volume was completed, I still could not get myself to think much of the Waverley-Honor scenes; and in this I afterwards found that I sympathized with many. But, to my utter shame be it spoken, when I reached the exquisite descriptions of scenes and manners at Tully-Veolan, what did I do but pronounce them at once to be utterly vulgar!—When the success of the work so entirely knocked me down as a man of taste, all that the good-natured author said was: 'Well, I really thought you were wrong about the Scotch. Why, Burns, by his poetry, had already attracted universal attention to everything Scottish, and I confess I could n't see why I should not be able to keep the flame alive, merely because I wrote Scotch in prose, and he in rhyme.'"—It is, I think, very agreeable to have this manly avowal to compare with the delicate allusion which Scott makes to the affair in his Preface to the Novel.
The only other friends originally entrusted with his secret appear to have been Mr. Erskine and Mr. Morritt. I know not at what stage the former altered the opinion which he formed on seeing the tiny fragment of 1805. The latter did not, as we have seen, receive the book until it was completed; but he anticipated, before he closed the first volume, the station which public opinion would ultimately assign to Waverley. "How the story may continue," Mr. Morritt then wrote, "I am not able to divine; but, as far as I have read, pray let us thank you for the Castle of Tully-Veolan, and the delightful drinking-bout at Lucky Mac-Leary's, for the characters of the Laird of Balmawhapple and the Baron of Bradwardine; and no less for Davie Gelatly, whom I take to be a transcript of William Rose's motley follower, commonly yclept Caliban.[101] If the completion be equal to what we have just devoured, it deserves a place among our standard works far better than its modest appearance and anonymous title-page will at first gain it in these days of prolific story-telling. Your manner of narrating is so different from the slipshod sauntering verbiage of common novels, and from the stiff, precise, and prim sententiousness of some of our female moralists, that I think it can't fail to strike anybody who knows what style means; but, amongst the gentle class, who swallow every blue-backed book in a circulating library for the sake of the story, I should fear half the knowledge of nature it contains, and all the real humor, may be thrown away. Sir Everard, Mrs. Rachael, and the Baron are, I think, in the first rank of portraits for nature and character; and I could depone to their likeness in any court of taste. The ballad of St. Swithin, and scraps of old songs, were measures of danger if you meant to continue your concealment; but, in truth, you wear your disguise something after the manner of Bottom the weaver; and in spite of you the truth will soon peep out." And next day he resumes: "We have finished Waverley, and were I to tell you all my admiration, you would accuse me of complimenting. You have quite attained the point which your postscript-preface mentions as your object—the discrimination of Scottish character, which had hitherto been slurred over with clumsy national daubing." He adds, a week or two later: "After all, I need not much thank you for your confidence. How could you have hoped that I should not discover you? I had heard you tell half the anecdotes before—some turns you owe to myself; and no doubt most of your friends must have the same sort of thing to say."
Monk Lewis's letter on the subject is so short that I must give it as it stands:—
TO WALTER SCOTT, ESQ., ABBOTSFORD.
The Albany, August 17, 1814.
My Dear Scott,—I return some books of yours which you lent me 'sixty years since'—and I hope they will reach you safe. I write in great haste; and yet I must mention, that hearing Waverley ascribed to you, I bought it, and read it with all impatience. I am now told it is not yours, but William Erskine's. If this is so, pray tell him from me that I think it excellent in every respect, and that I believe every word of it.