On the whole, with due heed paid to possible qualifications, it is clear that the standard of life and conduct must have been low between, say, 1780 and 1820. We have Scott's express statement that domestic purity was in general maintained in Edinburgh society, but scandalous exceptions were by no means unknown. Among the lower classes the freedom from wholesome, if irksome, restraints was, of course, marked by greater lapses. Among them a generation grew up, practically ignorant of the elementary ideas of religion. As a contemporary quaintly puts it, they were as ignorant as Hottentots, and as little acquainted with the decalogue as with repealed Acts of Parliament. The streets, which formerly a lady might have traversed in perfect safety at any hour, now became notoriously unsafe. Doubtless all this was increased, and to some extent occasioned, by the constant influx of a new and shifting population, attracted by the rapid extension of the city. The vices and easy manners of a modern city soon concealed what remained of the old Scottish habits and character. In short, Edinburgh in those years passed from the state of a national capital to that of a big provincial centre, such as Colonel Mannering beheld it, 'with its noise and clamour, its sounds of trade, of revelry and licence, and the eternally changing bustle of its hundred groups.'
CHAPTER XI
Scott apprenticed to the Law—Copying Money and menus plaisirs—Novels—Romances—Early Attempts—John Irving—Sibbald's Library—Sees Robert Burns—The Parliament House—The 'Krames.'
About 1785-86, Walter Scott, acceding to his father's wish, was indentured in his father's office, and 'entered upon the dry and barren wilderness of forms and conveyances.' Boy as he was, he felt even then that he was not cut out for this career, but family circumstances and the necessary intimacy with so many representatives of the profession no doubt prevented him from making any very serious objection, though he felt in a general way that his 'parts ill-suited law's dry, musty arts.' His warm affection and respect for his father was also a determining motive. For this reason, and indeed with the honest desire to excel, he made up his mind to work hard. But he was never enthusiastic over deeds and quills. He mentions as no trifling incentive to labour, the copying money, an allowance which supplied him with funds for going to the theatre and subscribing to a library.[1] One of his feats was to copy one hundred and twenty folio pages with no interval either for food or rest. But when there was no call for toil, he would spend his time in reading. His desk was filled with books of every kind, except manuals of law. His supreme delight was in works of fiction, of which he must have read an enormous number. He was not, however, entirely uncritical in his choice. Only the 'art of Burney, or the feeling of Mackenzie,' could make him read a domestic tale. He therefore realised early enough that the field of novel-writing was unoccupied. His fondness for adventure led him to devour every romance he came across without much discrimination. 'I really believe (he says) I have read as much nonsense of this class as any man now living.' Of the exploits of knight-errantry he never tired, and he soon began to make attempts at imitating the stories he loved. These early efforts were not in verse.
[1] See General Preface to Waverley Novels.
A quaintly interesting glimpse into the life of this most notable of law apprentices is given in the General Preface of 1829, where he describes himself and a chosen friend as delighting, on a holiday, to escape from the town and in some solitary spot to recite alternately such adventures as each had been able to invent. 'These legends, in which the material and the miraculous always predominated, we rehearsed to each other during our walks, which were usually directed to the most solitary spots about Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags.... Whole holidays were spent in this singular pastime, which continued for two or three years, and had, I believe, no small effect in directing the turn of my imagination to the chivalrous and romantic in poetry and prose.' This companion of Scott's was Mr. John Irving, W.S., whose mother seems also to have been very sympathetic with the boy. She would recite ballads to him, which he easily learned by heart, and which helped him in making the collection in six volumes which he had thus early begun.
Such being his tastes, he was naturally more interested in literary characters than in the notable men of the legal profession. In the course of frequenting Sibbald's circulating library in Parliament Square, where he must have spent a good deal of time in rummaging the dusty shelves for rare old songs and romances, he had occasionally 'a distant view' of some of the literary celebrities of the time. Among them was the unfortunate Andrew Macdonald, author of Vimonda, and also from this library vantage-ground he saw, at a distance, 'the boast of Scotland, Robert Burns.'[2] The Parliament House itself was less interesting to Scott than his beloved library, but he must by this time have been very familiar with it, and often have seen the 'Lords' of the old generation, whose pictures have been so quaintly sketched by Lord Cockburn. Edinburgh, like any other collection of three hundred thousand people, has amongst its numbers persons possessed of some æsthetic conscience, persons who lament the past orgies of Vandalism, and who do not admire the present triumphs of commercial architecture. But such men are naturally not as a rule to be found in Town or Parish Councils, and seldom indeed in public posts of any kind. Thus the population has always seemed wholly given over to the worship of the æsthetic Baal, and as a consequence the name of Lord Cockburn shines in almost solitary splendour as that of a dignitary who protested against the incredible doings of ignorance and avarice dressed in the authority of municipal rank. Cockburn bitterly regretted the destruction of the old Parliament House, which, he says, was, both outside and in, a curious and interesting place. 'The old building exhibited some respectable turrets, some ornamented windows and doors, and a handsome balustrade. But the charm that ought to have saved it was its colour and its age, which, however, were the very things that caused its destruction. About one hundred and seventy years had breathed over it a grave grey hue. The whole aspect was venerable and appropriate; becoming the air and character of a sanctuary of Justice. But a mason pronounced it to be all Dead Wall.[3] The officials to whom, at a period when there was no public taste in Edinburgh,[4] this was addressed, believed him; and the two fronts were removed in order to make way for the bright free-stone and contemptible decorations that now disgrace us.... I cannot doubt that King Charles tried to spur his horse against the Vandals when he saw the profanation begin. But there was such an utter absence of public spirit in Edinburgh then, that the building might have been painted scarlet without anybody objecting.'
[2] 'I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor Ferguson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sat silent, looked and listened. The only thing I remember which was remarkable in Burns's manner was the effect produced upon him by a print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on the one side, on the other his widow, with a child in her arms. These lines were written beneath:
"Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain;
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery baptized in tears."
Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather by the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of "The Justice of the Peace." I whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received and still recollect with very great pleasure.'—Letter to J. G. LOCKHART.