Walter Scott.
The following letter touches on the dropping of the Bill which had been introduced by Government for the purpose of degrading the consort of George the Fourth; the riotous rejoicings of the Edinburgh mob on that occasion; and Scott's acquiescence in the request of the guardians of the young Duke of Buccleuch, that he should act as chancellor of the jury about to serve his grace heir (as the law phrase goes) to the Scottish estates of his family.
TO THE LORD MONTAGU.
Edinburgh, 30th November, 1820.
My dear Lord,—I had your letter some time since, and have now to congratulate you on your two months' spell of labor-in-vain duty being at length at an end. The old sign of the Labor-in-vain Tavern was a fellow attempting to scrub a black-a-moor white; but the present difficulty seems to lie in showing that one is black. Truly, I congratulate the country on the issue; for, since the days of Queen Dollalolla[113] and the Rumti-iddity chorus in Tom Thumb, never was there so jolly a representative of royalty. A good ballad might be made, by way of parody, on Gay's Jonathan Wild,—
"Her Majesty's trial has set us at ease,
And every wife round me may kiss if she please."
We had the Marquis of Bute and Francis Jeffrey, very brilliant in George Street, and I think one grocer besides. I was hard threatened by letter, but I caused my servant to say in the quarter where I thought the threatening came from, that I should suffer my windows to be broken like a Christian, but if anything else was attempted, I should become as great a heathen as the Dey of Algiers. We were passed over, but many houses were terribly Cossaqué, as was the phrase in Paris in 1814 and 1815. The next night, being, like true Scotsmen, wise behind the hand, the bailies had a sufficient force sufficiently arranged, and put down every attempt to riot. If the same precautions had been taken before, the town would have been saved some disgrace, and the loss of at least £1000 worth of property.—Hay Donaldson[114] is getting stout again, and up to the throat in business; there is no getting a word out of him that does not smell of parchment and special service. He asked me, as it is to be a mere law service, to act as chancellor on the Duke's inquest, which honorable office I will of course undertake with great willingness, and discharge—I mean the hospitable part of it—to the best of my power. I think you are right to avoid a more extended service, as £1000 certainly would not clear the expense, as you would have to dine at least four counties, and as sweetly sing, with Duke Wharton on Chevy Chase,
"Pity it were
So much good wine to spill,
As these bold freeholders would drink,
Before they had their fill."
I hope we shall all live to see our young baron take his own chair, and feast the land in his own way. Ever your Lordship's most truly faithful
Walter Scott.