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]