LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- [Walter Scott in 1822]
From the painting by Sir Henry Raeburn, R. A., in the possession of the Earl of Home. Frontispiece - [Maida, the Scottish Deerhound]
After the painting by Landseer made in 1824. 96 - [John Murray]
From the painting by Henry W. Pickersgill, R. A., in the possession of John Murray, Esq. 124 - [Washington Irving]
After the painting by Charles Robert Leslie, R. A.180 - [Scott's House in Castle Street]
After the drawing by J. M. W. Turner, R.A.250 - [John Gibson Lockhart]
After the painting by Henry W. Pickersgill, R. A.274
CHAPTER XXXIV.
progress of the lord of the isles. — correspondence with mr. joseph train. — rapid completion of the lord of the isles. — "refreshing the machine." — "six weeks at a christmas." — publication of the poem, — and of guy mannering. — letters to morritt, terry, and john ballantyne. — anecdotes by james ballantyne. — visit to london. — meeting with lord byron. — dinners at carlton house.
1814-1815.
By the 11th of November, then, The Lord of the Isles had made great progress, and Scott had also authorized Ballantyne to negotiate among the booksellers for the publication of a second novel. But before I go further into these transactions, I must introduce the circumstances of Scott's first connection with an able and amiable man, whose services were of high importance to him, at this time and ever after, in the prosecution of his literary labors. Calling at Ballantyne's printing-office while Waverley was in the press, he happened to take up a proof sheet of a volume entitled "Poems, with notes illustrative of traditions in Galloway and Ayrshire, by Joseph Train, Supervisor of Excise at Newton-Stewart." The sheet contained a ballad on an Ayrshire tradition, about a certain "Witch of Carrick," whose skill in the black art was, it seems, instrumental in the destruction of one of the scattered vessels of the Spanish Armada. The ballad begins:—
"Why gallops the palfrey with Lady Dunore?
Who drives away Turnberry's kine from the shore?
Go tell it in Carrick, and tell it in Kyle—
Although the proud Dons are now passing the Moil,[1]
On this magic clew,
That in fairyland grew,
Old Elcine de Aggart has taken in hand
To wind up their lives ere they win to our strand."
Scott immediately wrote to the author, begging to be included in his list of subscribers for a dozen copies, and suggesting at the same time a verbal alteration in one of the stanzas of this ballad. Mr. Train acknowledged his letter with gratitude, and the little book reached him just as he was about to embark in the lighthouse yacht. He took it with him on his voyage, and, on returning home again, wrote to Mr. Train, expressing the gratification he had received from several of his metrical pieces, but still more from his notes, and requesting him, as he seemed to be enthusiastic about traditions and legends, to communicate any matters of that order connected with Galloway which he might not himself think of turning to account; "for," said Scott, "nothing interests me so much as local anecdotes; and, as the applications for charity usually conclude, the smallest donation will be thankfully accepted."