Very different was it in the case of poor Burns, who was almost driven distracted because he owed a debt of £7 4_s_. for a volunteer's uniform, which he could not pay. He sent to his friend Thomson, the publisher of his songs, imploring the loan of £5, promising full value in "song-genius."[1] His last poem was a "love song," in part payment of the loan, which he composed only a few days before his death.
[Footnote 1: "After all my boasted independence," he said, "curst necessity compels me to implore you for five pounds. A cruel scoundrel of a haberdasher, to whom I owe an account, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process, and will infallibly put me in jail. Do, for God's sake, send me that sum, and by return of post. Forgive me this earnestness; but the horrors of a jail have made me half distracted. I do not ask all this gratuitously: for upon returning health I promise and engage to furnish you with five pounds' worth of the neatest song-genius you have seen."—Burns to Thomson. 12th July, 1796. Burns died on the 21st of the same month.]
Sydney Smith had a severe struggle with poverty in the early part of his life. He had a poor living, a wide parish, and a large family. His daughter says that his debts occasioned him many sleepless nights, and that she has seen him in an evening, when bill after bill has poured in (carefully examining them, and gradually paying them off), quite overcome by the feeling of the debt hanging over him, cover his face with his hands, and exclaim, "Ah! I see I shall end my old age in a gaol."[1] But he bore up bravely under the burden, labouring onward with a cheerful heart, eking out his slender means by writing articles for the Edinburgh, until at length promotion reached him, and he reaped the reward of his perseverance, his industry, and his independence.
[Footnote 1: LADY HOLLAND—Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith, vol. i, p. 206.]
De Foe's life was a long battle with difficulty and debt. He was constantly involved in broils, mostly of his own stirring up. He was a fierce pamphleteer from his youth up; and was never for a moment at rest, He was by turns a soldier with the Duke of Monmouth, a pantile maker, a projector, a poet, a political agent, a novelist, an essayist, a historian. He was familiar with the pillory, and spent much of his time in gaol. When reproached by one of his adversaries with mercenariness, he piteously declared how he had, "in the pursuit of peace, brought himself into innumerable broils;" how he had been "sued for other men's debts, and stripped naked by public opinion, of what should have enabled him to pay his own;" how, "with a numerous family, and with no helps but his own industry, he had forced his way, with undiscouraged diligence, through a sea of debt and misfortune," and "in gaols, in retreats, and in all manner of extremities, supported himself without the assistance of friends and relations." Surely, there never was such a life of struggle and of difficulty as that of the indefatigable De Foe. Yet all his literary labours, and they were enormous, did not suffice to keep him clear of debt, for it is believed that he died insolvent.[2]
[Footnote 2: George Chalmers—Life of De Foe, p. 92.]
Southey was, in his own line, almost as laborious a writer as De Foe; though his was the closet life of the student, and not the aggressive life of the polemic. Though he knew debt, it never became his master; and from an early period in his career, he determined not to contract a debt that he was not able to discharge. He was not only enabled to do this, but to help his friends liberally—maintaining for a time the families of his brothers-in-law, Coleridge and Lovell—by simply not allowing himself any indulgences beyond his actual means, though these were often very straitened. The burthen he carried would have borne down a man less brave and resolute; but he worked, and studied, and wrote, and earned money enough for all his own wants, as well as the wants of those who had become dependent upon him. He held on his noble way without a murmur or complaint. He not only liberally helped his relatives, but his old schoolfellows, in distress. He took Coleridge's wife and family to live with him, at a time when Coleridge had abandoned himself to opium-drinking. To meet the numerous claims upon him, Southey merely imposed upon himself so much extra labour. He was always ready with good advice to young men who sought his help. Thus he encouraged Kirke White, Herbert Knowles, and Dusantoy, all of whom died young and full of promise. He not only helped them with advice and encouragement, but with money; and his timely assistance rescued the sister of Chatterton from absolute want. And thus he worked on nobly and unselfishly to the last—finding happiness and joy in the pursuit of letters—"not so learned as poor, not so poor as proud, not so proud as happy." These were his own words.
The most touching story in Sir Walter Scott's life, is the manner in which he conducted himself after the failure of the publishing house of Constable and Co., with which he had become deeply involved. He had built Abbotsford, become a laird, was sheriff of his county, and thought himself a rich man; when suddenly the Constable firm broke down, and he found himself indebted to the world more than a hundred thousand pounds. "It is very hard," he said, when the untoward news reached him, "thus to lose all the labour of a lifetime, and to be made a poor man at last. But if God grant me health and strength for a few years longer, I have no doubt that I shall redeem it all." Everybody thought him a ruined man, and he almost felt himself to be so. But his courage never gave way. When his creditors proposed to him a composition, his sense of honour forbade his listening to them. "No, gentlemen," he replied; "Time and I against any two." Though the debts had been contracted by others, he had made himself legally responsible for them; and, strong in his principle of integrity, he determined, if he could, to pay them off to the last farthing. And he set himself to do it: but it cost him his life.
He parted with his town house and furniture, delivered over his personal effects to be held in trust for his creditors, and bound himself to discharge a certain amount of his liabilities annually. This he did by undertaking new literary works, some of them of great magnitude, the execution of which, though they enabled him to discharge a large portion of his debt, added but little to his reputation. One of his first tasks was his "Life of Napoleon Buonaparte," in nine volumes, which he wrote, in the midst of pain, sorrow, and ruin, in about thirteen months,—receiving for it about fourteen thousand pounds. Even though struck by paralysis, he went on writing until in about four years he had discharged about two-thirds of the debt for which he was responsible,—an achievement probably unparalleled in the history of letters.
The sacrifices and efforts which he made during the last few years of his life, even while paralyzed and scarcely able to hold his pen, exhibit Scott in a truly heroic light. He bore up with unconquerable spirit to the last. When his doctor expostulated with him against his excessive brain-work, he replied, "If I were to be idle, I should go mad: in comparison to this, death is no risk to shrink from." Shortly before his last fatal attack, when sitting dozing in his chair on the grass in front of the house at Abbotsford, he suddenly roused himself, threw off the plaids which covered him, and exclaimed, "This is sad idleness. Take me to my own room, and fetch the keys of my desk." They wheeled him into his study, and put pens and paper before him. But he could not grasp the pen; he could not write; and the tears rolled down his cheeks. His spirit was not conquered, but his bodily powers were exhausted and shattered; and when at length he died, he fell asleep—like a child.