Edinburgh Under Sir Walter Scott

by W. T. Fyfe

'I wrote a good deal of Count Robert, yet I cannot tell why my pen stammers egregiously and I write horridly incorrect. I long to have friend Laidlaw's assistance.'

CHAPTER LXV

The Paralytic Stroke—The Last Novels—Election Meetings—Disgraceful Conduct of Radical Gangs—Scott's Journey for Health—The Return—Collapse and Stupor—The Last Stay in Edinburgh—Death of Sir Walter Scott.

Very soon after this came what Sir Walter himself could not fail to recognise as 'a distinct stroke of paralysis affecting both nerves and speech.' Lockhart describes the occasion on which it occurred as follows: 'Sir Walter's friend Lord Meadowbank had come to Abbotsford, as usual when on the Jedburgh circuit; and he would make an effort to receive the Judge in something of the old style of the place; he collected several of the neighbouring gentry to dinner, and tried to bear his wonted part in the conversation. Feeling his strength and spirits flagging, he was tempted to violate his physician's directions, and took two or three glasses of champagne, not having tasted wine for several months before. On retiring to his dressing-room he had this severe shock of apoplectic paralysis, and kept his bed under the surgeon's hands for several days.'

A fortnight after, when Lockhart came to see him, Sir Walter, having been lifted on his pony, came about half a mile on the Selkirk road to meet him, with one of his grand-children before him on a pillion. Lockhart was sadly moved by the terrible change in his appearance, which he describes thus: 'All his garments hung loose about him; his countenance was thin and haggard, and there was an obvious distortion in the muscles of one cheek. His look, however, was placid—his eye as bright as ever—perhaps brighter than it ever was in health; he smiled with the same affectionate gentleness, and though at first it was not easy to understand everything he said, he spoke cheerfully and manfully.'

Under such conditions, Sir Walter still continued to work, seldom speaking even in the family circle about his illness at all, and only then in a hopeful way. His one desire was to use his faculties, while they remained responsive, for the benefit of those to whom he considered himself a debtor. Count Robert and Castle Dangerous were both finished at this time, the latter being perhaps the only permanent evidence of the final decay of his powers.

Scott's strong sense of duty, combined with the calls of his official position as Sheriff, obliged him to take part during the month of May in several election meetings. He was from deep conviction opposed to the great movement for reforming our political machinery by which the country was then convulsed. At Jedburgh the mob, largely recruited from Hawick, showed their political fanaticism by mobbing Sir Walter Scott and putting his life in danger. At Selkirk, however, though it also was invaded by a Radical contingent, no disrespect was shown to the great man who was there personally known to all and 'all but universally beloved as well as feared.' 'I am well pleased,' Lockhart remarks, 'that (Selkirk) the ancient capital of the Forest did not stain its fair name upon this miserable occasion; and I am sorry for Jedburgh and Hawick. This last town stands almost within sight of Branksome Hall, overhanging also sweet Teviot's silver tide. The civilised American or Australian will curse these places, of which he would never have heard but for Scott, as he passes through them in some distant century, when perhaps all that remains of our national glories may be the high literature adopted and extended in new lands planted from our blood.' It is a bitter reflection that Sir Walter Scott's last hours were haunted by the mob's brutal cry of 'Burke Sir Walter.'

But we must not dwell on the events of 1831. The European journey, the last slender hope for the great novelist's recovery, was begun in October, the Government putting at Sir Walter's disposal the Barham, 'a beautiful ship, a 74 cut down to a 50, and well deserving all the commendations bestowed on her.'

There remains now only one more Edinburgh scene to notice—a sadder scene than that of the death-bed. He had reached London on the 13th of June 1832, being then in a state of extreme feebleness and exhaustion. There he lay 'in the second-floor back-room' of a Jermyn Street hotel, for some three weeks, in a state of almost unbroken stupor. When conscious, he was for ever wishing to return to Abbotsford. At last it was decided to gratify his desire, and on the 7th of July he was lifted into his carriage and conveyed to the steamboat. On this journey he had with him his two daughters, Cadell, Lockhart, and Dr. Thomas Watson, his medical adviser. On board the steamer he seemed, after being laid in bed, unconscious of the removal that had taken place. At Newhaven, which the vessel reached late on the 9th, he was taken on shore, lying prostrate in his carriage. Then he was conveyed, still apparently unconscious, to Douglas's hotel in St. Andrew Square. This was his last visit to Edinburgh.

Lockhart mentions that Mr. and Mrs. Douglas had made all preparations that could have been desired for his accommodation, but he does not seem even to have known that he was once more in 'his own romantic town.' The old charm of Edinburgh had long resigned its power in favour of that of Abbotsford. The tie of home was no longer connected with the city, and the rousing of his memory only came when the carriage had made two stages towards the Tweed.