And many an oak that grew thereby;—"
in the lays of Tasso, Ariosto, etc., he laid up so much of the food of future romance, and where Edie Ochiltrees and Dugald Dalgettys were crossing his everyday path.
It was here that occurred that singular scene, in which his mother bringing in a cup of coffee to a gentleman who was transacting business with her husband, when the stranger was gone, Mr. Scott told his wife that this man was Murray of Broughton, who had been a traitor to Prince Charles Stuart; and saying that his lip should never touch the cup which a traitor had drank out of, flung it out of the window. The saucer, however, being preserved, was secured by Scott, and became a conspicuous object in his juvenile museum.
Such to Scott was No. 25, George's-square. Is it not the secret charm of these old and precious associations which has recently led his old and most intimate friend, Sir Adam Fergusson, to take a house in this square, and within, I believe, one door of Scott's old residence?
We may dismiss in a few words No. 19, South Castle-street, the house where he occupied a flat immediately on his marriage, and the Parliament-house, where he sat, as a clerk of session, and the Outer house, where he might, in his earlier career, be seen often making his acquaintance merry over his stories;—these places will always be viewed with interest by strangers: but it is his house, 39, North Castle-street, around which gather the most lively associations connected with his mature life in Edinburgh.
Here it was that he lived when in town, from soon after his marriage till the great break up of his affairs in 1826. Here a great portion of the best of his life was passed. Here he lived, enjoyed, worked, saw his friends, and felt, in the midst of his happy family, the sense of the great name and affection that he had won among his fellow-men. It is evident, from what he says in his journal, when it had to be sold, that he was greatly attached to it. It was his pride very often when he took strangers home with him, to stop at the crossing of George-street, and point out to them the beauty and airiness of the situation. In one direction was St. George's Church, in another the whole length of George-street, with the monuments of Pitt and Dundas. In one direction, the castle on its commanding rock, in the other the frith of Forth, and the shores of Fife beyond. It was in this house that "the vision of the hand" was seen from a neighboring one in George-street, which is related in Lockhart's Life. A party was met in this house which was situated near to, and at right angles with, George-street. "It was a party," says the relator, "of very young persons, most of them, like Menzies and myself, destined for the bar of Scotland. The weather being hot, we adjourned to a library, which had one large window looking northward. After carousing here an hour or more, I observed that a shade had come over the aspect of my friend, who happened to be placed immediately opposite to myself, and said something that intimated a fear of his being unwell. 'No,' said he, 'I shall be well enough presently, if you will only let me sit where you are, and take my chair; for there is a confounded hand in sight of me here, which has often bothered me before, and now it won't let me fill my glass with a goodwill.' I rose to change places with him accordingly, and he pointed out to me this hand, which, like the writing on Belshazzar's wall, disturbed his hour of hilarity. 'Since we sat down,' said he, 'I have been watching it—it fascinates my eye—it never stops—page after page is finished and thrown on that heap of manuscript, and still it goes on unwearied, and so it will be till candles are brought in, and God knows how long after that. It is the same every night—I can't stand a sight of it when I am not at my books.' 'Some stupid, dogged, engrossing clerk, probably,' exclaimed myself, or some other giddy youth of our society. 'No, boys,' said our host, 'I well know what hand it is—'tis Sir Walter Scott's.' This was the hand that in the evenings of three summer weeks, wrote the two last volumes of Waverley."
I went with Mr. Robert Chambers into this house to get a sight of this window, but some back wall or other had been built up and shut out the view. In the next house, occupied I think by a tailor, we, however, obtained the desired sight of this window on the second story at the back of Scott's house, and could very well have seen any hand at work in the same situation. The house is now inhabited by Professor Napier, the editor of the Edinburgh Review.
The houses and places of business of the Ballantynes and Constable are not devoid of interest, as connected with Scott. In all these he was frequently for business or dining. The place of business of Constable, was at one time that which is now the Crown hotel, at the east end of Princes-street. That which is now the commercial room, or the first floor, was Constable's book-dépôt, and where he sat a good deal; and a door near the window, looking out toward the Register Office, entered a lesser room, now altered, where Scott used to go and write occasionally. The private residence of Constable was at Palton, six or seven miles from Edinburgh. James Ballantyne's was in St. John-street, a row of good, old-fashioned, and spacious houses, adjoining the Canongate and Holyrood, and at no great distance from his printing establishment. John Ballantyne's auction-rooms were in Hanover-street, and his country house, styled by him Harmony-hall, was near the frith of Forth by Trinity. Of both the private and convivial entertainments at these places we have full accounts given by Lockhart. Sometimes, he says, Scott was there alone with only two or three intimate friends; at others, there were great and jovial dinners, and that all guests with whom Scott did not wish to be burdened were feasted here by John Ballantyne, in splendid style; and many were the scenes of uproarious merriment amid his "perfumed conversations," and over the Parisian delicacies of the repast.
But, in fact, the buildings and sites in and around Edinburgh, with which associations of Scott are connected, are innumerable, almost universal. His Marmion, his Heart of Mid-Lothian, his Tales of the Canongate, have peopled almost every part of the city and neighborhood with the vivid characters of his creation. The Canongate, the Cowgate, the Nether and West Bows, the Grass-market, the site of the old Tolbooth, Holyrood, the Park, Muschat's cairn, Salisbury-craig, Davie Dean's cottage, Liberton, the abode of Dominie Butler, Craigmillar Castle, and a thousand other places, are all alive with them. We are astonished, on visiting Edinburgh, to find how much more intense is the interest cast over different spots by his genius than by ordinary history.
A superb monument to his memory, a lofty and peculiarly beautiful gothic cross, now stands in Princes-street, within which stands his statue.