Edinburgh Under Sir Walter Scott

by W. T. Fyfe

Miss Cranstoun, afterwards Countess of Purgstall, told Captain Basil Hall on her deathbed that she and William Erskine got a few copies of the Lenore printed. She was doing her best for Scott in his courtship of Miss Stuart, and thought the verses might work in his favour. She sent a copy, 'richly bound and blazoned,' to Scott, who was in the country at a house where Miss Stuart was also a visitor. This was really Scott's first publication. The verses were much admired by his friends, but this was all. His pursuit of Miss Stuart presently came to an end, on the announcement of her engagement to Forbes. A most interesting glimpse into the real inwardness of this affair is afforded in Peveril of the Peak, written twenty-six years after. The poet thus soberly moralises, non sine desiderio:—'The period at which love is formed for the first time, and felt most strongly, is seldom that at which there is much prospect of its being brought to a happy issue. The state of artificial society opposes many complicated obstructions to early marriages; and the chance is very great that such obstacles prove insurmountable. In fine, there are few men who do not look back in secret to some period of their youth, at which a sincere and early affection was repulsed, or betrayed, or became abortive from opposing circumstances. It is these little passages of secret history which leave a tinge of romance in every bosom, scarce permitting us, even in the most busy or the most advanced period of life, to listen with total indifference to a tale of true love.'

CHAPTER XXVII

Friendship with Skene of Rubislaw—Skene's Account of the Edinburgh Light Horse—'Earl Walter'—Marriage of Walter Scott and Charlotte Carpenter—The Edinburgh Home—Edinburgh Friends—The Cottage at Lasswade.

Scott's German studies brought him at this time one of the most valued friendships of his life. Mr. Skene of Rubislaw, having resided several years in Saxony, and having a similar fondness for the fresh and natural literature of Germany, entered into Scott's ideas with zest, and assisted him in his struggles with the language. The two soon drew together, and became intimate friends. Skene wrote afterwards with pride of this friendship, which during nearly forty years 'never sustained even a casual chill,' and he testified, like all others who knew him, that 'never in the whole progress of his varied life, could I perceive the slightest shade of variance from that simplicity of character with which he impressed me on the first hour of our meeting.' Skene was one of those who joined heartily in promoting the volunteer cavalry movement, and of this affair he has given some interesting particulars. 'The London Light Horse had set the example, but in truth it was to Scott's ardour that this force in the North owed its origin. Unable, by reason of his lameness, to serve amongst his friends on foot, he had nothing for it but to rouse the spirit of the moss-trooper with which he readily inspired all who possessed the means of substituting the sabre for the musket.' In February 1797 a meeting was held, and an offer was sent to the Government which was at once accepted. The organisation of the corps was then begun. The Major-Commandant was Maitland of Rankeillor. Skene was a cornet: Scott was quartermaster. 'The part of quartermaster was purposely selected for him, that he might be spared the rough usage of the ranks; but, notwithstanding his infirmity, he had a remarkably firm seat on horseback, and in all situations a fearless one: no fatigue ever seemed too much for him, and his zeal and animation served to sustain the enthusiasm of the whole corps, while his ready mot à rire kept up, in all, a degree of good-humour and relish for the service, without which the toil and privations of long daily drills would not easily have been submitted to by such a body of gentlemen. At every interval of exercise, the order sit at ease was the signal for the quartermaster to lead the squadron to merriment; every eye was intuitively turned on "Earl Walter," as he was familiarly called by his associates of that date, and his ready joke seldom failed to raise the ready laugh.... His habitual humour was the great charm, and at the daily mess that reigned supreme.' The gallant squadron continued its daily drills all the spring and summer of 1797, and even spent some weeks under canvas at Musselburgh. Most of the troopers being professional men, they had their drill at five in the morning,—an act of heroic self-denial which speaks volumes for the spirit evoked by 'haughty Gaul's' threats of invasion. By the end of the year England had established her supremacy on sea, all fear of an invasion was dissipated, and the volunteers' occupation for the time was gone.[1]

[1] See, in connection with the volunteer episode, Scott's 'War Song of the Royal Edinburgh Light Dragoons,' written in 1802: also Introduction to Canto v. of Marmion.

On the 24th of December of this year Scott was married in St. Mary's Church, Carlisle, to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter, whom he had met for the first time when on a tour during that autumn among the English Lakes. She was the daughter of Jean Charpentier, a French royalist, who had died about the beginning of the Revolution. The widow and her daughter took refuge in England, where Charpentier had, in his first alarm at the outbreak of the revolution, invested a sum of £4000. In a letter to his mother Scott speaks of his wife's fortune as then £500 a year, but precarious as to the amount, being partly dependent on her brother, who held a high office in Madras. With this added to his own earnings, he says, 'I have little doubt we will be enabled to hold the rank in society which my family and situation entitle me to fill.' Their married life in Edinburgh began in a lodging in George Street, from which they removed, as soon as it was ready for their reception, to a house in South Castle Street. Mrs. Scott, who was lively and fond of society, soon found herself the centre of a most interesting social life. Indeed 'those humble days' were perhaps the happiest of all. 'Mrs. Scott's arrival' (says Lockhart) 'was welcomed with unmingled delight by the brothers of the Mountain. The officers of the Light Horse, too, established a club among themselves, supping once a week at each other's houses in rotation. The lady thus found two somewhat different, but both highly agreeable circles ready to receive her with cordial kindness; and the evening hours passed in a round of innocent gaiety, all the arrangements being conducted in a simple and inexpensive fashion, suitable to young people whose days were mostly laborious, and very few of their purses heavy. Scott and Erskine had always been fond of the theatre; the pretty bride was passionately so—and I doubt if they ever spent a week in Edinburgh without indulging themselves in this amusement. But regular dinners and crowded assemblies were in those years quite unthought of.'

In the summer of 1798 began the series of summer sojourns at Lasswade, on the Esk, which brought to Scott important additions to his list of friends. Among his neighbours in this romantic district, which had been his favourite haunt in boyish rambles, were Henry Mackenzie, the 'Man of Feeling,' the Clerks of Pennycuick, and Lord Woodhouselee, with all of whom he was already familiar. But it was at Lasswade that he first 'formed intimacies, even more important in their results, with the noble families of Melville and Buccleuch, both of whom have castles in the same valley.'

'Who knows not Melville's beechy grove,

And Roslin's rocky glen;

Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,

And classic Hawthornden?'

It is of the Esk that he says in the same poem, The Grey Brother,

'Thro' woods more fair no stream more sweet

Rolls to the eastern main.'