Another of Lockhart’s charges was that of professional incompetence, made not from his own knowledge, but on the conjectural statements of Robert Cadell, the partner of Constable and afterwards his supplanter in the publication of the Waverley Novels. This objection mainly rested on the assertion that James Ballantyne had not been trained as a printer, but it need count for little. Neither Caxton nor Chepman, nor yet Baskerville, all of them celebrated typographers, received the education of a printer; and of how many printer-capitalists of the present day can it be said that they have been subjected to the technical training of a skilled workman? This, however, may be better answered from some notes by Dr. Robert Chambers, a printer and a publisher,[43] who personally knew both Scott and the Ballantynes. He maintains that Scott watched closely over all the arrangements, was cognisant of the most minute transactions, and alone planned all the necessary ways and means for carrying on the business. He says further that “the printing business, which was James Ballantyne’s legitimate work, was always prosperous, and we can say with equal confidence from what we have ascertained through our own experience, and that of friends, that his printing-office was decidedly the most ably and carefully managed for all ends with which its customers had to do in Edinburgh.” And Mr. R. P. Gillies, in his “Recollections of Sir Walter Scott,”[44] observes regarding James Ballantyne: “A character of more sterling integrity, or more friendly disposition, never existed. As he was by no means of an over-sanguine temperament, it is possible that by following his advice the subsequent embarrassments might have been avoided.”
Again, as late as 1897, the British Weekly, in noticing Leslie Stephen’s article on Scott in the Cornhill Magazine of April that year, says: “Although nothing will ever explain Scott’s extraordinary recklessness, one comes nearer to an understanding when reading that Scott drew from the Ballantyne business in four years £7000 for building at Abbotsford, £5000 for his son’s commission, and nearly £900 to a wine-merchant. Altogether it appears that during the four years (1822-1826) Ballantyne & Co. had paid on Scott’s account £15,000 more than they had received from him.”
This chapter may be concluded with Sir Walter’s own testimony to James Ballantyne. In his “Journal” under date of December 18, 1825, he writes: “Ballantyne behaves like himself, and sinks his own ruin in contemplating mine. I tried to enrich him indeed, and now all—all is gone.” In a letter to Lockhart, January 20, 1826, Scott again exonerates James Ballantyne from being a primary cause of his misfortunes, and says: “It is easy, no doubt, for any friend to blame me for entering into connection with commercial matters at all. But I wish to know what I could have done better.... Literature was not in those days what poor Constable has made it; and with my little capital I was too glad to make commercially the means of supporting my family.... I have been far from suffering by James Ballantyne. I owe it to him to say that his difficulties as well as his advantages, are owing to me.” We have here the crux of the whole matter; and with this manly admission on the part of Sir Walter a painful controversy may now be allowed to rest.
JAMES BALLANTYNE & CO’S. PRINTING OFFICE.
CHAPTER XI
THROUGH OLD PAUL’S WORK, CANONGATE
In the early years of last century, when the New Town of Edinburgh was beginning to show itself along the northern slopes of the valley of the Nor’ Loch, beneath the Castle and the High Street, all the printing-houses were to be found either down the closes or lanes or in some blind alley approached from the High Street or the Cowgate. The precincts were frequently noisome with the dirt and rubbish of long-past years. The building itself would have a peculiar odour of its own—a combination of rancid oil, mouldy paste, and printer’s ink, and few people would ever care to pass that way except on business. The printing-office would probably be located in what had at one time been a private dwelling-house, and rendered serviceable by the removal of partitioning walls, the erection of narrow winding stairs, and the joining of several apartments of neighbouring houses into one, not infrequently on varying levels.
Paul’s Work was entered by a small courtyard with an iron gateway leading to a narrow door immediately below an outside stair. This stair led to the counting-room, adjoining which was the room allotted to Sir Walter Scott on his visits. The window of this room is shown in the accompanying illustration.
In those days work began at either six or seven in the morning—the “devils” having been there an hour earlier for sweeping and cleaning. There was an hour, from nine to ten, for breakfast, a healthy arrangement long since given up under the pressure of modern business, which tends more and more to fewer breaks in the day—although the removal of work-places to suburban districts may also have had much to do with this change. The workmen now make their appearance at eight, and the dinner interval is from one to two, instead of from two to three as in former days.