[328] The reference as given by Lockhart is as follows: "This man, who has shown so much genius, has a good deal of the manners, or want of manners, peculiar to his countrymen." (Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 62.) Cooper observes in regard to this point: "The manners of most Europeans strike us as exaggerated, while we appear cold to them. Sir Walter Scott was certainly so obliging as to say many flattering things to me, which I, as certainly, did not repay in kind. As Johnson said of his interview with George the Third, it was not for me to bandy compliments with my sovereign. At that time the diary was a sealed book to the world, and I did not know the importance he attached to such civilities." It is a pity that the transcriber of the passage in the Journal changed "manner," which was the word Scott wrote, to the more objectionable "manners." (Journal, Vol. I, p. 295.)
[329] Scott's letter was substantially as follows: "I have considered in all its bearings the matter which your kindness has suggested. Upon many former occasions I have been urged by my friends in America to turn to some advantage the sale of my writings in your country, and render that of pecuniary avail as an individual which I feel as the highest compliment as an author. I declined all these proposals, because the sale of this country produced me as much profit as I desired, and more—far more—than I deserved. But my late heavy losses have made my situation somewhat different, and have rendered it a point of necessity and even duty to neglect no means of making the sale of my works effectual to the extrication of my affairs, which can be honorably and honestly resorted to. If therefore Mr. Carey, or any other publishing gentleman of credit and character, should think it worth while to accept such an offer, I am willing to convey to him the exclusive right of publishing the Life of Napoleon, and my future works in America, making it always a condition, which indeed will be dictated by the publisher's own interest, that this monopoly shall not be used for the purpose of raising the price of the work to my American readers, but only for that of supplying the public at the usual terms....
"At any rate, if what I propose should not be found of force to prevent piracy, I cannot but think from the generosity and justice of American feeling, that a considerable preference would be given in the market to the editions emanating directly from the publisher selected by the author, and in the sale of which the author had some interest.
"If the scheme shall altogether fail, it at least infers no loss, and therefore is, I think, worth the experiment. It is a fair and open appeal to the liberality, perhaps in some sort to the justice, of a great people; and I think I ought not in the circumstances to decline venturing upon it. I have done so manfully and openly, though not perhaps without some painful feelings, which however are more than compensated by the interest you have taken in this unimportant matter, of which I will not soon lose the recollection." (Knickerbocker Magazine, Vol. XI, p. 380 ff., April, 1838.)
[330] Knickerbocker, Vol. XII, p. 349 ff., October, 1838.
[331] In a letter written in January, 1839, Sumner said, speaking of Cooper's article, "I think a proper castigation is applied to the vulgar minds of Scott and Lockhart." (See Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, by Edward L. Pierce, Vol. II, p. 38; and Lounsbury's Cooper, p. 160.)
[332] Lockhart, Vol. IV, pp. 163-4.
[333] Ibid., Vol. III, p. 262.
[334] Ibid., Vol. III, p. 131, note; Fam. Let., Vol. I, p. 440. "Walter Scott was the first transatlantic author to bear witness to the merit of Knickerbocker," wrote P.M. Irving in his Life of Washington Irving. Henry Brevoort presented Scott with a copy of the second edition in 1813, and received this reply: "I beg you to accept my best thanks for the uncommon degree of entertainment which I have received from the most excellently jocose history of New York. I am sensible that as a stranger to American parties and politics I must lose much of the concealed satire of the piece, but I must own that looking at the simple and obvious meaning only, I have never read anything so closely resembling the style of Dean Swift, as the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker.... I think too there are passages which indicate that the author possesses powers of a different kind, and has some touches which remind me much of Sterne." (Life of Irving, Vol. I, p. 240.) When, in 1819, Irving needed money, he wrote to Scott for advice about publishing the Sketch Book in England. "Scott was the only literary man," he says, "to whom I felt that I could talk about myself and my petty concerns with the confidence and freedom that I would to an old friend—nor was I deceived. From the first moment that I mentioned my work to him in a letter, he took a decided and effective interest in it, and has been to me an invaluable friend." (Vol. I, p. 456.) At this time Scott asked Irving to accept the editorship of a political newspaper in Edinburgh, an offer which Irving of course refused. (Fam. Let., Vol. II, p. 60; Life of Irving, Vol. I, pp. 441-2, and Vol. III, pp. 272-3.) Scott called the Sketch Book "positively beautiful." He was by some people supposed to be the author. In this connection it was said of him that his "very numerous disguises," and his "well-known fondness for literary masquerading, seem to have gained him the advantage of being suspected as the author of every distinguished work that is published." (Letter by Lady Lyttleton, in Life of Irving, Vol. II, p. 21.)
[335] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 131; Life of Irving, Vol. I, p. 240.