Life of Sir Walter Scott, with Abbotsford Notanda

by Robert Chambers; Robert Carruthers

BIRTH—BIRTHPLACE—EARLY SCENES.

Sir Walter Scott was born at Edinburgh on the 15th of August 1771, being the birthday of the great European hero [Napoleon] whose deeds he was afterwards to record. He was the third of a family consisting of six sons and one daughter. The eldest son, John, attained to a captaincy in an infantry regiment, but was early obliged to retire from service on account of the delicate state of his health. Another elder brother, Daniel, was a sailor, but died in early life. Of him Sir Walter has often been heard to assert, that he was by far the cleverest and most interesting of the whole. Thomas, the next brother to Sir Walter, followed the father’s profession, and was for some years factor to the Marquis of Abercorn, but eventually died in Canada in 1822, in the capacity of paymaster to the 70th Regiment. Sir Walter himself entertained a fondly high opinion of the talents of this brother; but it is not borne out by the sense of his other friends. He possessed, however, some burlesque humour, and an acquaintance with Scottish manners and character—qualities which were apt to impose a little, and even induced some individuals to believe, for some time, that he, rather than his more gifted brother, was the author of ‘The Novels.’

Existence opened upon the author of Waverley in one of the duskiest parts of the ancient capital, which he has been pleased to apostrophise in Marmion as his ‘own romantic town.’ At the time of his birth, and for some time after, his father lived at the head of the College Wynd, a narrow alley leading from the Cowgate to the gate of the college. The two lower flats of the house were occupied by Mr Keith, W.S., grandfather of the Knight Marischal of Scotland, and Mr Walter Scott lodged on the third floor, his part of the mansion being accessible by a stair behind.

It was a house of what would now be considered humble aspect, but at that time neither humble from its individual appearance nor from its vicinage. As it stood on the line necessary for the opening of a street along the north skirt of the new university buildings, it was destroyed on that occasion, and never rebuilt. Speaking of this house in a series of notes communicated to a local antiquary in 1825, Sir Walter said: ‘It consisted of two flats above Mr Keith’s, and belonged to my father, Mr Walter Scott, Writer to the Signet; there I had the chance to be born, 15th August 1771. My father, soon after my birth, removed to George’s Square, and let the house in the College Wynd, first to Mr Dundas of Philipstoun, and afterwards to Mr William Keith, father of Sir Alexander Keith. It was purchased by the public, together with Mr Keith’s’ [the inferior floors], ‘and pulled down to make way for the new college.’

It appears, however, that, before Sir Walter could receive any impressions from the romantic scenery of the Old Town of Edinburgh, he was removed, on account of the delicacy of his health, to the country, and lived for a considerable period under the charge of his paternal grandfather at Sandyknow. This farm is situated upon high ground, near the bottom of Leader Water, and overlooks a large part of the vale of Tweed. In the immediate neighbourhood of the farm-house, upon a rocky foundation, stood the Border fortlet called Smailholm Tower, which possessed many features to attract the attention of the young poet. It was his early residence at this romantic spot that imparted an intense affection for the southern part of Scotland, to which he finally adjourned. Some account of the district which he so dearly loved may here properly be given.

THE LAND OF SCOTT.

The district which this mighty genius has appropriated as his own, may be described as restricted in a great measure to the counties of Roxburgh and Selkirk, the former of which is the central part of the frontier or Border of Scotland, noted of old for the warlike character of its inhabitants, and even, till a comparatively late period, for certain predatory habits, unlike anything that obtained at the same time, at least in the southern portion of Scotland. Though born in Edinburgh, Walter Scott was descended from Roxburghshire families, and was familiar in his early years with both the scenery and the inhabitants, and the history and traditions, of that romantic land. He was indeed fed with the legendary lore of the Borders as with a mother’s milk; and it was this, no doubt, which gave his mind so remarkable a taste for the manners of the middle ages, to the exclusion of all sympathy for either the ideas of the ancient classics, or the literature of modern manners. There was something additionally engaging to a mind like his in the poetical associations which have so long rendered this region the very Arcadia of Scotland. The Tweed, flowing majestically from one end of it to the other; the Teviot, a scarcely less noble tributary; with all the lesser streams connected with these two—the Jed, the Gala, the Ettrick, the Yarrow, and the Quair—had, from the revival of Scottish poetry, been sung by unnumbered bards, many of whose names have perished, like flowers, from the face of the earth which they adorned. From all these associations mingled together, did the mind of this transcendent genius draw its first and its happiest inspiration.

The general character of this district of Scotland is pastoral. Here and there, along the banks of the streams, there are alluvial strips called haughs, all of which are finely cultivated; and the plough, in many places, has ascended the hill to a considerable height; but the land in general is a succession of pastoral eminences, which are either green to the top, or swathed in dusky heath, unless where a patch of young and green wood seeks to soften the climate and the soil. Much of the land still belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch, and other descendants of noted Border chiefs, and it annually supplies much of what both clothes and feeds the British population. Being little intruded upon by manufactures, or any other thing calculated to introduce new ideas, its population exhibit, in general, those primitive features of character which are so invariably found to characterise a pastoral people. Even where, in such cases as Hawick and Galashiels, manufactures have established an isolated seat, the people are hardly distinguishable, in simplicity and homely virtues, from the tenants of the hills.

Starting at Kelso upon an excursion over this country, the traveller would soon reach Roxburgh, where the Teviot and the Tweed are joined—a place noted in early Scottish history for the importance of its town and castle, now alike swept away. Pursuing upwards the course of the Teviot, he would first be tempted aside into the sylvan valley of the Jed, on the banks of which stands the ancient and picturesque town of Jedburgh, and whose beauties have been rapturously described by Thomson, who spent many of his youngest and happiest years amidst its beautiful braes. Farther up, the Teviot is joined by the Aill, and, farther up still, by the Rule, a rivulet whose banks were once occupied almost exclusively by the warlike clans of Turnbull and Rutherford. Next is the Slitrig, and next the Borthwick; after which, the accessories of this mountain stream cease to be distinguished. Every stream has its valley; every valley has its particular class of inhabitants—its own tales, songs, and traditions; and when the traveller contrasts its noble hills and clear trotting burnies with the tame landscapes of ‘merry England,’ he is at no loss to see how the natives of a mountainous region come to distinguish their own country so much in poetical recollection, and behold it with such exclusive love. When the Englishman is absent from his home, he sees a scene not greatly different from what he is accustomed to, and regards his absence with very little feeling. But when a native of these secluded vales visits another district, he finds an alien peculiarity in every object; the hills are of a different height and vesture; the streams are different in size, or run in a different direction. Everything tells him that he is not at home. And, when returning to his own glen, how every distant hill-top comes out to his sight as a familiar and companionable object! How every less prominent feature reminds him of that place which, of all the earth, he calls his own! Even when he crosses what is termed the height of the country, and but sees the waters running towards that cherished place, his heart is distended with a sense of home and kindred, and he throws his very soul upon the stream, that it may be carried before him to the spot where he has garnered up all his most valued affections.

There is one part of Roxburghshire which does not belong to the great vale of the Tweed, and yet is as essentially as any a part of the Land of Scott. This is Liddesdale, or the vale of the Liddel, a stream which seeks the Solway, and forms part of the more westerly border. Nothing out of Spain could be more wild or lonely than this pastoral vale, which once harboured the predatory clans of Elliot and Armstrong, but is now occupied by a race of more than usually primitive sheep-farmers. It is absolutely overrun with song and legend, of which Sir Walter Scott reaped an ample harvest for his Border Minstrelsy, including the fine old ballads of Dick o’ the Cow and Jock o’ the Syde.