Edinburgh Under Sir Walter Scott

by W. T. Fyfe

In this year began that correspondence with Byron which connects so pleasantly the names of the two most popular poets of the day. In one letter he mentions that he was staying in the gardener's hut at Abbotsford. Alterations were going on apace, and besides raising the roof and projecting some of the lower windows, a rustic porch, a supplemental cottage at one end, and a fountain to the south, soon made their appearance. Here is the 'laird's' amusing account of his 'flitting' from Ashestiel: 'The neighbours have been much delighted with the procession of my furniture, in which old swords, bows, targets, and lances made a very conspicuous show. A family of turkeys was accommodated within the helmet of some preux chevalier of ancient border fame; and the very cows, for aught I know, were bearing banners and muskets. I assure your ladyship that this caravan, attended by a dozen of ragged rosy peasant children, carrying fishing-rods and spears, and leading ponies, greyhounds, and spaniels, would, as it crossed the Tweed, have furnished no bad subject for the pencil, and really reminded me of the gypsey groups of Callot upon their march.'

CHAPTER XLVI

Scott and the Actors—Kemble, Siddons, Terry—Terry's Imitation of 'the Shirra'—Anecdote of Terry and C. Mathews—Mathews in Edinburgh—'The Reign of Scott'—Anecdotes of his Children—Excursion to the Western Isles.

A very remarkable feature of Edinburgh society at this period was the free admittance to the best houses of the chief actors of the time. Scott was particularly fond of their company. Charles Young, in 1803, seems to have been the first of these theatrical friends. Later came John Philip Kemble and his incomparable sister, Mrs. Siddons. Scott used to say that Kemble was the only man who ever seduced him into very deep potations in his middle life. Through his intimacy with Kemble, Scott was led to take an interest in getting Henry Siddons, Kemble's nephew, to take on the lease and management of the Edinburgh Theatre. He purchased a share, became a trustee, and continued to take much interest in the affairs of the company. Daniel Terry also was a friend of Scott's. Both Terry and Kemble were highly educated men, and were well read in the old literature of the drama. Terry was also, like Scott, an enthusiast in the antiquities of vertu. Terry was remarkable for his apparently involuntary imitation of Scott, whom he almost worshipped. In particular, he acquired the power of imitating his handwriting so closely that Lockhart says their letters, lying before him, appeared as if they had all been written by one person. Scott himself used to say that, if he were called on to swear to any document, the utmost he could venture to attest would be, that it was either in his own hand or in Terry's. Their common friends were much amused at the approximation of Terry to a replica of Scott in facial tricks and gravity of expression, and even in tone and accent. It is this that gives point to an anecdote of Terry and Charles Mathews. They happened to be thrown out of a gig together, and Mathews received an injury which made him lame for life, while Terry escaped unhurt. 'Dooms, Dauniel,' said Mathews when they next met, 'what a pity that it wasna your luck to get the game leg, mon! Your Shirra would hae been the very thing, ye ken, an' ye wad hae been croose till ye war coffined.'

Mathews was in Edinburgh in the spring of 1812, when he seems to have been greatly delighted with his success. On April 13th he wrote to his wife: 'Edinburgh turned out as delightful as Glasgow was horrible. Beautiful weather—good society—had the luck to see the superfine patterns of the Scotch; and the warmest reception I ever yet met with, because I have considered an Edinburgh audience so difficult to please. Hundreds turned away at my benefit. I reckon Edinburgh an annuity to me for the future.'

Scott's popularity as a poet was about this time at its highest. This period (1811) was, as Byron said, 'the reign of Scott.' He had reached his poetical apogee with the publication of the Lady of the Lake, the most successful of all his poems. In Edinburgh, by James Ballantyne's habit of reading portions to select friends while the work was printing, the highest expectations had been excited. Cadell, the publisher, testifies that, when it appeared, the country rang with the praises of the poet. 'Crowds' (he says) 'set off to view the scenery of Loch Katrine, till then comparatively unknown: and as the book came out just before the season for excursions, every house and inn in that neighbourhood was crammed with a constant succession of visitors. It is a well-ascertained fact, that from the date of the publication of the Lady of the Lake, the post-horse duty in Scotland rose in an extraordinary degree, and indeed it continued to do so regularly for a number of years, the author's succeeding works keeping up the enthusiasm for our scenery which he had thus originally created.' Within a year no fewer than 20,000 copies of the poem were sold.

Scott, as is well known, was always too modest and sensible to be, even at the height of success, 'a partisan of his own poetry.' John Ballantyne is the authority for a very surprising instance of this. 'I remember,' he says, 'going into his library shortly after the publication of the Lady of the Lake, and finding Miss Scott (who was then a very young girl) there by herself. I asked her—"Well, Miss Sophia, how do you like the Lady of the Lake?" Her answer was given with perfect simplicity—"Oh, I have not read it: papa says there's nothing so bad for young people as reading bad poetry."'

Lockhart adds that the children in those days of childhood really did not know that their father was in any way distinguished above the other gentlemen of his profession who were their visitors and friends. He caps Ballantyne's story with another: 'The eldest boy, Walter, came home one afternoon from the High School, with tears and blood hardened together upon his cheeks.—"Well, Wat," said his father, "what have you been fighting about to-day?" The boy blushed and hung his head, and at last stammered out—that he had been called a lassie. "Indeed!" said Mrs. Scott, "this was a terrible mischief, to be sure." "You may say what you please, mamma," Wat answered roughly, 'but I dinna think there's a waufer (shabbier) thing in the world than to be a lassie, to sit boring at a clout.' Upon further inquiry it turned out that one or two of his companions had dubbed him the Lady of the Lake, and the phrase was to him incomprehensible, save as conveying some imputation on his prowess, which he accordingly vindicated in the usual style of the Yards. Of the poem he had never before heard. Shortly after, this story having got wind, one of Scott's colleagues of the Clerks' Table said to the boy—who was in the home circle called Gilnockie, from his admiration of Johnny Armstrong—"Gilnockie, my man, you cannot surely help seeing that great people make more work about your papa than they do about me or any other of your uncles—what is it do you suppose that occasions this?" The little fellow pondered for a minute or two, and then answered very gravely—"It's commonly him that sees the hare sitting." And yet this was the man who had his children all along so very much with him.'

It was at this time, while his heart was in a glow with happiness, that he made his famous excursion to the Western Isles. The Laird of Staffa, whose hospitality he celebrates, was the elder brother of his colleague Macdonald Buchanan. The Laird was an ideal specimen of the old Highland chief, 'living among a people distractedly fond of him.'

CHAPTER XLVII