Monthly supplement of the penny magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, issue 37, September 29 to October 31, 1832
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Date: 2025-11-19T00:00:00+00:00
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Title: Monthly supplement of the penny magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, issue 37, September 29 to October 31, 1832

Editor: Charles Knight

Release date: November 19, 2025 [eBook #77270]

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Original publication: London: Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1832

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONTHLY SUPPLEMENT OF THE PENNY MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE, ISSUE 37, SEPTEMBER 29 TO OCTOBER 31, 1832 ***

Monthly Supplement of

THE PENNY MAGAZINE

OF THE

Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

37.]

September 29 to October 31, 1832

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

[Sir Walter Scott. From Mr. Chantrey’s Bust.]

[We have considered it proper to deviate, in some degree, from the plan of our Supplement, by devoting the present number entirely to a Memoir of Sir Walter Scott. The works, especially the Novels and Romances, of this illustrious man have been so universally read, and his name is so completely a “household word” in every mouth, that we cannot doubt that the subject will be of interest to the great majority of our readers. The following Biographical Sketch has been drawn up by a gentleman who had the advantage of a long personal acquaintance with Sir Walter Scott. We have to regret that the limited space which we could assign to the subject has necessarily prevented him from fully employing his original materials.]

Sir Walter Scott was born at Edinburgh on the 15th of August, 1771. His father, Mr. Walter Scott, was a respectable Writer to the Signet, a branch of the law profession in Scotland, corresponding to that of attorney or solicitor in the English Courts. The house occupied by the family, at the period of the poet’s birth and for some time afterwards, stood at the head of the College Wynd, a narrow alley leading from the Cowgate to the northern gate of the College, and now considered one of the meanest lanes of the Old Town. At that time, however, the College Wynd was inhabited by several families of respectability; and, among others, by that of Mr. Keith, grandfather to the present Sir Alexander Keith, likewise a Writer to the Signet, who (agreeably to the ancient Edinburgh fashion) occupied the two lower flats of the same house of which the upper stories, accessible by another entrance, belonged to the family of the poet. This mansion was eventually pulled down to make way for the new college.

The father of Sir Walter Scott was not a man of shining talents, but was much esteemed as a steady and expert man of business, and as a person of great benevolence and integrity. He held for many years the honourable office of elder in the parish church of Old Grayfriars, of which Dr. Robertson the historian, and Dr. Erskine, an eminent presbyterian divine, then had the collegiate pastoral charge. His professional career was prosperous, and he seems to have early attained ease if not affluence of worldly circumstances.

The wife of this worthy man, and mother of the poet, appears from all accounts to have been a more remarkable person. She was a daughter of Dr. John Rutherford, professor of the practice of Physic in the University of Edinburgh, and sister of Dr. Daniel Rutherford, Professor of Botany in the same institution, both men of considerable scientific reputation, and living in habits of familiar intercourse with the first literary society which Scotland in their day produced. Besides the advantage of such connexions, and of an excellent education, Mrs. Scott possessed superior natural talents, had a good taste for poetry, and great conversational powers. She is said to have been well acquainted in her youth with Allan Ramsay, Beattie, Blacklock, and other Scottish authors of the last century; and independently of the influence which her own talents and acquirements may have given her in training the opening mind of her distinguished son, it is obvious that he must have been greatly indebted to her for his introduction, in early life, into the select literary and intellectual society of which she and her near relations were ornaments.

Sir Walter was connected, both by the father and mother’s side, with several Scottish families of ancient lineage and renown. His maternal grandmother was a daughter of Swinton of Swinton, a border family whose chivalric ancestor he has celebrated in his drama of ‘Halidon Hill;’ and through his father he was descended, though more remotely, from the Scotts of Harden, in which race the chieftainship of that doughty border clan is understood to reside. It is, however, a curious fact that his more immediate ancestor in this warlike line was a Quaker. This worthy schismatic, to whom his illustrious descendant has humorously referred in some of his fictitious works, was Walter Scott of Raeburn, third son of Sir William Scott of Harden. He lived at the time of the Restoration, and having embraced the tenets of Quakerism (which about that period gained several disciples among the Scottish gentry), he was on this account most iniquitously persecuted by the Government of the day. He was imprisoned first in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, and afterwards in the jail of Jedburgh, where even his own family were denied access to him. What was still more cruelly oppressive, his three children were, by an edict of the Scotch Privy Council, removed altogether out of his control, and placed for their education, at his expense, under the tuition of other relatives, with a view to embue them with principles altogether alien to those their parent had conscientiously adopted. And this most arbitrary purpose, it appears, was fully attained; for the Quaker Walter’s three children became such staunch Jacobites, that the second son, who was great grandfather to the poet, in testimony of his devotion to the unhappy house of Stuart, bound himself at the Revolution, by a vow, which he kept till his dying day, never to shave his beard till the exiled race were restored to the British throne; and from this circumstance he acquired among his compatriots on the Border the name of Beardie. Strong Jacobite predilections thus became hereditary in the family, and descended to the infant poet mingled with all the endearing and exciting associations of family pride and feudal tradition. These circumstances have been briefly noticed, because they tend to throw light on the mental education of the great Scottish novelist. We come now to what more directly relates to himself.

Sir Walter was the third child of a family of six sons and one daughter, all of whom he survived. From an early period of his infancy until the age of sixteen, he was afflicted with frequent ill health; and either from the effects of a sickly constitution, or as some accounts say, from an accident occasioned by the carelessness of a nurse, his right foot was injured and rendered lame for life. The delicacy of his health induced his parents to consent to his residence, during a considerable part of his early boyhood, at Sandy Know, the house of his paternal grandfather, a respectable farmer in Roxburghshire. This farm-house occupies an elevated situation near the old border fortlet, called Smailholm Tower, and overlooks a large portion of the vale of the Tweed and the adjacent country, the Arcadia of Scotland, and the very cradle of Scottish romance and song. Southward, on the Northumbrian marches, rise dark and massive the Cheviot mountains, with the field of Flodden on their eastern skirts; while on the west, within a few miles’ distance, appears the legendary three-peaked Eildon, looking down on the monastic ruins of Melrose and Dryburgh, on the “Rhymer’s Tower,” and “Huntly Bank,” and “Leader Haughs,” and “Cowdenknows,”—and on the storied streams of Teviot and Ettrick, and Yarrow and Gala-water, issuing to the Tweed from their pastoral glens. “The whole land,” to use the poetical language of Allan Cunningham, “is alive with song and story: almost every stone that stands above the ground is the record of some skirmish or single combat; and every stream, although its waters be so inconsiderable as scarcely to moisten the pasture through which they run, is renowned in song and in ballad. ‘I can stand,’ said Sir Walter, one day, ‘on the Eildon Hill, and point out forty-three places, famous in war and verse[1].’”

Such was the country that opened, from the thatched farm-house at Smailholm Tower, to the eyes and the imagination of the future minstrel; and the impressions that were then indelibly stamped on his infant mind by the pastoral scenery and legendary lore of the “land of his sires,” are beautifully described in the introduction to the third canto of ‘Marmion.’

His residence, with his venerable relatives, at this secluded spot, which after early boyhood was, we believe, occasionally renewed during the summer vacations of the High School and College, was undoubtedly fraught with many advantages, physical and mental. It was here that his feeble constitution was, by the aid of free air and exercise, gradually strengthened into robustness; and though he never got rid of his lameness, it was so far overcome as to be in after-life rather a deformity than an inconvenience. It was here that his love of ballad lore and border story was fostered into a passion; and it was here, doubtless, and at the house of one of his uncles (Mr. Thomas Scott, of Woolee, also a Roxburghshire farmer), that he early acquired that intimate acquaintance with the manners, character, and language of the Scottish peasantry, which he afterwards turned to such admirable account in his novels. That such was the fact, indeed, the writer of this sketch is fully persuaded from circumstances that have come within his own knowledge, as well as from many incidents mentioned to him in conversation by Sir Walter himself.

While his poetical education (if we may so term it) was thus prosperously though unconsciously proceeding, his progress in school instruction is understood to have been considerably delayed or interrupted by his absence in the country and his irregular health. Mr. Cunningham mentions that he was taught the rudiments of knowledge by his mother. Mr. Chambers states that he received some part of his early education at a school kept by a Mr. Leeshman in Bristo Street, Edinburgh[2]; other accounts say that he attended a school at Musselburgh; and the present writer happens to know that he resided some time at Kelso, in his early days, in the house of a relative, but whether or not he attended any school there he cannot say. These minute details, though all highly interesting in reference to a man so distinguished, must necessarily be left to be accurately sifted out by more competent biographers. It is sufficient for our present purpose, to mention that he entered the class of Mr. Luke Frazer in the High School of Edinburgh in October 1779, when he had completed his eighth year; and two years subsequently he was transferred to the class of the Rector, Dr. Adam,—an amiable man and an excellent teacher, whose memory Sir Walter ever held in high regard.

It would appear from all accounts that have yet reached the public, that his progress in the classics was at this period by no means extraordinary. It is even affirmed that he was remarkable for incorrectness in his exercises; and it appears, at least, pretty well ascertained that he left no distinct impression of superior talent or acuteness, either on his teachers or his fellow-pupils. He is better remembered for having been “a remarkably active and dauntless boy, full of all manner of fun, and ready for all manner of mischief;” and so far from being timid or quiet on account of his lameness, that very defect (as he has himself remarked to be usually the case in similar circumstances with boys of enterprising disposition) prompted him to take the lead among all the stirring boys in the street where he lived, or the school which he attended. He left the High School in 1783, ranking only eleventh in the Rector’s class.

However idle or backward, however, the schoolboy Scott might be in regard to classical attainments, he had, it seems, even then acquired a high character as a romancer. Of this curious fact he gives the following account in the general introduction to the new edition of the Waverley Novels:—

“I must refer to a very early period of my life, were I to point out my first achievements as a tale-teller; but I believe some of my old school-fellows can still bear witness that I had a distinguished character for that talent, at a time when the applause of my companions was my recompense for the disgraces and punishments which the future romance-writer incurred for being idle himself, and keeping others idle, during hours that should have been employed on our tasks. The chief enjoyment of my holidays was to escape with a chosen friend, who had the same taste with myself, and alternately to recite to each other such wild adventures as we were able to devise. We told, each in turn, interminable tales of knight-errantry and battles and enchantments, which were continued from one day to another, as opportunity offered, without our ever thinking of bringing them to a conclusion. As we observed a strict secresy on the subject of this intercourse, it acquired all the character of a concealed pleasure; and we used to select for the scenes of our indulgence, long walks through the solitary and romantic environs of Arthur’s Seat, Salisbury Craigs, Braid Hills, and similar places in the vicinity of Edinburgh; and the recollection of those holidays still forms an oasis in the pilgrimage which I have to look back upon.”

He entered the University of Edinburgh in October, 1783, at the age of twelve years; but he appears (as far as can be ascertained from the matriculation records) to have attended only the Greek and Humanity (or Latin) classes for two seasons, and that of Logic one season. If he entered any other classes, it seems probable that his irregular health had interrupted his attendance. The consequence was that he had little opportunity, even if he had had the ambition, to distinguish himself at college; and he thus entered the world with a very desultory, and, as far as regards the classics, apparently a rather defective education. Nor was his course of private reading (it could scarcely be called study) much calculated to remedy that disadvantage. He thus describes, in the auto-biographical chapter already referred to, the intellectual dissipation to which he was at that period devoted.

“When boyhood, advancing into youth, required more serious studies and graver cares, a long illness threw me back on the kingdom of fiction, as if it were by a species of fatality. My indisposition arose, in part at least, from my having broken a blood-vessel; and motion and speech were for a long time pronounced positively dangerous. For several weeks I was confined strictly to my bed, during which time I was not allowed to speak above a whisper, to eat more than a spoonful or two of boiled rice, or to have more covering than one thin counterpane. When the reader is informed that I was at this time a growing youth, with the spirits, appetite, and impatience of fifteen, and suffered, of course greatly under this severe regimen, which the repeated return of my disorder rendered indispensable, he will not be surprised that I was abandoned to my own discretion, so far as reading (my almost sole amusement) was concerned, and still less so, that I abused the indulgence which left my time so much at my own disposal.

“There was at this time a circulating library at Edinburgh, founded, I believe, by the celebrated Allan Ramsay, which, besides containing a most respectable collection of books of every description, was, as might have been expected, peculiarly rich in works of fiction. It exhibited specimens of every kind, from the romances of chivalry, and the ponderous folios of Cyrus and Cassandra, down to the most approved works of later times. I was plunged into this great ocean of reading without compass or pilot; and unless when some one had the charity to play at chess with me, I was allowed to do nothing, save read, from morning to night. I was, in kindness and pity, which was perhaps erroneous, however natural, permitted to select my subjects of study at my own pleasure, upon the same principles that the humours of children are indulged to keep them out of mischief. As my taste and appetite were gratified in nothing else, I indemnified myself by becoming a glutton of books. Accordingly, I believe I read almost all the old romances, old plays, and epic poetry, in that formidable collection, and no doubt was unconsciously amassing materials for the task in which it has been my lot to be so much employed.

“At the same time, I did not in all respects abuse the license permitted me. Familiar acquaintance with the specious miracles of fiction brought with it some degree of satiety, and I began by degrees to seek in histories, memoirs, voyages and travels, and the like, events nearly as wonderful as those which were the work of the imagination, with the additional advantage that they were, at least, in a great measure true. The lapse of nearly two years, during which I was left to the service of my own free will, was followed by a temporary residence in the country, where I was again very lonely, but for the amusement which I derived from a good, though old-fashioned library. The vague and wild use which I made of this advantage I cannot describe better than by referring my reader to the desultory studies of Waverley in a similar situation; the passages concerning whose reading were imitated from recollections of my own.”

Such a course of study would probably have gone far to ruin a less masculine intellect than that which Scott was gifted with by nature; and even as it was, it may remain a doubtful point whether the chief faults of his style of writing, both in poetry and prose, may not be in a great measure attributable to this “gluttony and literary indigestion of his juvenile years.” There is no doubt, however, that this dangerous habit was, in the case of Scott, afterwards cured by a course of vigorous voluntary application, in the acquisition of a vast fund of antiquarian and other curious learning.

Having thus passed through a somewhat sickly and solitary infancy, which threw him much into the society of his elder relatives, and a somewhat idle boyhood, in which the recurrence of ill health cast him upon the resources of romance reading, and romance dreaming, the constitution of the imaginative youth, about his sixteenth year, experienced a decisive improvement. His lameness indeed remained so far that he was obliged to use a staff to assist his foot in walking; but in other respects he became remarkably robust, and able to endure great fatigue, whether bodily or mental. He now applied himself with vigour to the study of law; and besides attending the usual classes in the university necessary to fit him for the bar, he performed the ordinary duties of an attorney’s apprentice under his father, in order to acquire a more thorough technical knowledge of his profession. He exhibited, however, no ambition to distinguish himself at any of the debating societies at which the academical youth of Edinburgh, and more especially the candidates for forensic honours, are wont to train their unfledged powers of eloquence or argumentation. “He was never heard of,” says a Scottish biographer, “at any of those clubs; and so far as he was known at all, it was only as a rather abstracted young man, very much given to reading, but not the kind of reading with which other persons of his age are conversant.”

On the 10th of July, 1792, about three months before he had completed his 21st year, he passed Advocate at the Scottish bar, after the usual examinations. Mr. Chambers, whose respectable biographical sketch we have already quoted, in reference to this period of his professional career makes the following statement:—

“The young barrister was enabled, by the affluence of his father, to begin life in an elegant house in the most fashionable part of the town; but it was not his lot to acquire either wealth or distinction at the bar. He had perhaps some little employment at the provincial sittings of the criminal court, and occasionally acted in unimportant causes as a junior counsel; but he neither obtained, nor seemed qualified to obtain, a sufficient share of general business to insure an independency. The truth is, his mind was not yet emancipated from that enthusiastic pursuit of knowledge which had distinguished his youth. His necessities, with only himself to provide for, and a sure retreat behind him in the comfortable circumstances of his native home, were not so great as to make an exclusive application to his profession imperative; and he therefore seemed destined to join what a sarcastic barrister has termed, “the ranks of the gentlemen, who are not anxious for business.” Although he could speak readily and fluently at the bar, his intellect was not at all of a forensic cast. He appeared to be too much of the abstract and unworldly scholar to assume readily the habits of an adroit pleader; and even although he had been perfectly competent to the duties, it is a question if his external aspect and general reputation would have permitted the generality of agents to intrust them to his hands.

“Throughout all the earlier years of his life as a barrister, he was constantly studying either one branch of knowledge or another. Unlike most of the young men of his order, he was little tempted from study into composition. With all the diligence which the present writer could exercise, he has not been able to detect any fugitive piece of Sir Walter’s in any of the periodical publications of the day.”

The hereditary politics of his family, at least from the time of the persecuted Quaker, Walter of Raeburn, had been, as we have seen, strongly Jacobitical; and Sir Walter’s own turn of mind, as well as the whole course of his early studies, naturally led him to embrace with ardour the same predilections. On the extinction of the Stuart race the old Jacobites gradually assumed the principles of high Toryism; and Sir Walter’s entrance on public life being contemporary with the stirring events of the French Revolution, he naturally ranged himself under the banners of the ruling Pittite or Anti-Gallican party. After the breaking out of the war with France, and when the apprehensions of foreign invasion led to the enrolment of yeomanry and volunteer militia throughout every part of the country, the young barrister entered into the martial feeling of the times with great enthusiasm. He filled the post of Quarter-Master of the Edinburgh Light Dragoons. Being an excellent horseman, in spite of his lameness, and an exceedingly zealous officer, he distinguished himself in this favourite vocation; being naturally fond of all that relates to warlike exercises, and with such a predilection for the military profession, that but for his early personal infirmity, he would, in all probability, have entered the army. His good humour and powers of social entertainment made him very popular in the regiment; and, what was of more importance to his future fortunes, his regimental zeal and general talents (conjoined no doubt with his political opinions) recommended him to the powerful patronage of Henry Duke of Buccleugh, who had taken great interest in the organization of the yeomanry cavalry of Scotland. Through the friendship of this nobleman, he afterwards obtained, in December 1799, the crown appointment of Sheriff of Selkirkshire, to which was attached a salary of £300 a year. But we must now advert to the first dawn of his literary distinction, which a few years preceded the period just mentioned.

Sir Walter was by no means a precocious author either in verse or prose. He had reached his 25th year before he had given any indications of the peculiar talents which were destined to render him the most popular and voluminous writer of his age. The circumstances which awakened his dormant powers, and altered the whole complexion of his future life, have been detailed by himself in a very interesting manner in the biographical introductions prefixed to the later editions of his works. After mentioning the remarkably low ebb to which the art of poetry had fallen during the last ten years of the eighteenth century, he describes the effect produced by the introduction of some translations of the German ballad school, especially of Bürger’s ‘Leonore,’ and the extraordinary excitement produced by the German poetry on his own mind. Having recently made himself master of the German language, he was led to form an acquaintance with Mr. Lewis, the author of ‘The Monk,’ who chanced about that period to visit Edinburgh; and, “out of this acquaintance,” says Scott, “consequences arose which altered almost all the Scottish ballad-maker’s future prospects in life.” In early youth he had been an eager student of ballad poetry, both printed and oral, but he had never dreamt, he says, of attempting that style of writing himself. “I had,” he observes, “indeed, tried the metrical translations which were occasionally recommended to us at the High School. I got credit for attempting to do what was enjoined, but very little for the mode in which the task was performed; and I used to feel not a little mortified when my verses were placed in contrast with others of admitted merit.”

The result of this resolution was the translation of several ballads from Bürger; and finding these very favourably received by the friends to whom he showed them in MS. he was induced to try their effect on the public by publishing anonymously the translation of ‘Leonore,’ with that of ‘The Wild Huntsman,’ in a thin quarto[3]. “The fate of this my first publication,” he remarks, “was by no means flattering. I distributed so many copies among my friends, as materially to interfere with the sale; and the number of translations which appeared in England about the same time, including that of Mr. Taylor, to which I had been so much indebted, and which was published in the Monthly Magazine, were sufficient to exclude a provincial writer from competition.… In a word, my adventure proved a dead loss; and a great part of the edition was condemned to the service of the trunk-maker.”

Without allowing himself, however, to be discouraged by this failure, the young poet continued his prosecution of German literature, and, in 1799, published ‘Goetz of Berlichingen,’ a tragedy translated from the German of Goëthe. Meanwhile he continued his devotion to ballad poetry, and by degrees gained sufficient confidence to attempt original composition in that style, ‘Glenfinlas,’ a Highland legend, and ‘The Eve of St. John,’ a border ballad (of which the scene was Smailholm Tower, the haunt of his early childhood), were his first original productions; and from this period he appears to have devoted himself, at least in secret, with increasing confidence and ardour to his favourite pursuits. To his confidential friend, William Erskine, he is said to have opened the purpose of his heart—to secure a small competence, and then dedicate all the time he could command to literature.

By the time that Scott had attained his 32d year, he was in a situation to take this step without imprudence. His success as a barrister was not such as to hold out any very flattering prospects of his attaining either wealth or distinction by his profession; at least not with such divided affection as he was inclined to bestow upon it. “My profession and I,” he says, “came to stand nearly upon the footing which honest Slender consoled himself with having established with Mrs. Anne Page. ‘There was no great love between us at the beginning, and it pleased Heaven to decrease it on farther acquaintance!’ I became sensible that the time was come when I must either buckle myself resolutely to ‘the toil by day, the lamp by night,’ renouncing all the Dalilahs of my imagination, or bid adieu to the profession of the law, and hold another course.”

His appointment as Sheriff, however, with some fortune left him by his father, secured him a moderate competency; and his marriage, which took place in 1797, is understood to have augmented his family resources by an annuity which Mrs. Scott possessed of £400; so that when he made up his mind to abandon his professional practice, he must have attained an income of at least £700 or £800 a year. The lady he married was a Miss Carpenter, a native, we believe, of the city of Lyons, but of English parentage, with whom he had become acquainted at the watering-place of Gilsland, in Cumberland. She is said to have possessed in youth great personal attractions.

After his marriage he spent several summers in a delightful retreat at Lasswade, on the banks of the Esk, about five miles from Edinburgh. Here he continued the prosecution of his favourite studies, and commenced the work which first established his name in literature—‘The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.’ The materials of this work were collected during various excursions, or raids, as Sir Walter was wont to call them, through the most remote recesses of the border glens, made by the poetical compiler in person, assisted by one or two other enthusiasts in ballad lore. Preeminent among his coadjutors in this undertaking, was Dr. John Leyden, an enthusiastic borderer and ballad-monger like himself, and to whom he has gratefully acknowledged his obligations both in verse and prose.

Some amusing anecdotes have been printed, and others are yet extant in oral tradition among the border hills, of the circumstances attending the collection of these ballads. The old women, who were almost the only remaining depositaries of ancient song and tradition, though proud of being solicited to recite them by “so grand a man” as “an Edinburgh Advocate,” could not repress their astonishment that “a man o’ sense an’ lair” (learning) should spend his time in writing into a book “auld ballads and stories of the bluidy border wars and paipish times.” The writer of this sketch (himself a borderer) remembers well that the first time he heard the name of Walter Scott mentioned was on seeing some of the proof sheets of the ‘Border Minstrelsy’ at Kelso in 1802, while the work was printing by Mr. Ballantyne, a native of that town, and an early friend of Sir Walter’s. On eagerly inquiring who it was that had collected these old ballads, with many of which he was previously familiar from oral recitation, he was told that it was “one Mr. Scott, an Edinburgh Writer or Advocate, who had lately been appointed Sheriff of Selkirkshire;” and this was all he could then learn on the subject. The Minstrelsy was issued at first in two volumes, but a third was added with the second edition. Two years subsequently he published the romance of ‘Sir Tristram,’ a Scottish metrical tale of the thirteenth century, which he showed, in a learned disquisition, to have been composed by Thomas of Ercildown, commonly called the Rhymer.

These works, especially the ‘Border Minstrelsy,’ were favourably received by the public, and established Scott’s reputation on a very respectable footing, as an excellent poetical antiquary, and as a writer of considerable power and promise, both in verse and prose. As yet, however, he had produced no composition of originality and importance sufficient to secure that high and permanent rank in literature, to which his secret ambition led him to aspire. But he had now a subject in hand which was destined to attain for him a popularity far beyond what his most sanguine hopes could have ventured to anticipate.

‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’ appeared in 1805. The structure of the verse was suggested, as the author states, by the ‘Christabel’ of Coleridge, a part of which had been repeated to him, about the year 1800, by Sir John Stoddart. The originality, wildness, poetical beauty, and descriptive power of Scott’s border romance produced an effect on the public mind, only to be equalled, perhaps, by some of the earlier works of Byron.

In the spring of 1806 Sir Walter obtained an appointment which, he says, completely met his moderate wishes as to preferment. This was the office of a principal Clerk of Session, of which the duties are by no means heavy, though personal attendance during the sitting of the courts is required. Mr. Pitt, under whose administration the appointment had been granted, having died before it was officially completed, the succeeding Whig Ministry had the satisfaction of confirming it, accompanied by very complimentary expressions from Mr. Fox to the nominee on the occasion. The emoluments of this office were about £1,200 a year; but Scott received no part of the salary till the decease of his predecessor in 1812, the appointment being a reversionary one.

From the appearance of the ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel’ the history of Sir Walter Scott is, with the exception of a few important incidents, little else than the history of his numerous publications. To criticise, or even to enumerate with precision, the whole of that voluminous and splendid array, forms no part of the object of the present article; but we must briefly notice the appearance of the principal works.

‘Marmion’ appeared in 1808, and, though pretty sharply criticised by some of the reviewers, was received by the public with a degree of favour, if possible, even surpassing that experienced by the ‘Lay.’ This was succeeded in 1810 by ‘The Lady of the Lake;’ in 1811 appeared ‘Don Roderick;’ in 1813, ‘Rokeby;’ and in 1814 ‘The Lord of the Isles.’ ‘The Bridal of Triermain,’ and ‘Harold the Dauntless,’ appeared anonymously, the former in 1813, and the latter in 1817.

After the publication of ‘The Lady of the Lake,’ the popularity of Scott’s poetry began to decline. This was partly owing to the public having become satiated with his peculiar style, which had now lost the charm of novelty: partly, also, to some inferiority, in interest or in execution, of the poems themselves; but principally to the circumstance of a rival having entered the lists, of such prowess as to eclipse even the minstrel Knight of Flodden Field and Bannockburn. This was Lord Byron, who published the first two cantos of ‘Childe Harold’ in 1812, and followed up these by a rapid succession of brilliant productions, which for a time cast every thing else in the shape of verse into the shade.

In the mean while Sir Walter appeared to prosper apace in his worldly circumstances. In the enjoyment of an income of above £2,000 a year, independently altogether of his literary exertions, he was supposed at least to double that income, one year with another, by the exuberant harvest of his brain. His industry appeared almost as extraordinary as the force and versatility of his talents. Amidst the full blaze of his poetical renown, and while one metrical romance followed another with dazzling rapidity, he found time for a variety of laborious works in criticism, biography, and miscellaneous literature, which added considerably both to his funds and his reputation. Among these were new editions of the works of Dryden and Swift, with biographical memoirs; ‘Sadler’s State Papers;’ ‘Somers’ Tracts;’ ‘Lives of the Novelists;’ besides numerous contributions to encyclopædias, reviews, and other periodical publications. Amidst all this labour, too, he found abundant leisure not only for his official avocations, but for social enjoyment and rural recreation.

While the Court of Session was sitting, Scott lived in Edinburgh, in a good substantial house in North Castle Street. During the vacations he resided in the country, and appeared to enter with ardour into the ordinary occupations and amusements of country gentlemen. After he was appointed Sheriff of Selkirk, he hired for his summer residence the house and farm of Ashiesteil, in a romantic situation on the banks of the Tweed; and here many of his poetical works were written. But with the increase of his resources grew the desire to possess landed property of his own, where he might indulge his tastes for building, planting, and gardening. Commencing with moderation, he purchased a small farm of about one hundred acres, lying on the south bank of the Tweed, three miles above Melrose, and in the very centre of that romantic and legendary country which his first great poem has made familiar to every reader. This spot, then called Cartly Hole, had a northern exposure, and at that time a somewhat bleak and uninviting aspect; the only habitable house upon it was a small and inconvenient farm-house. Such was the nucleus of the mansion and estate of Abbotsford. By degrees, as his resources increased, he added farm after farm to his domain, and reared his chateau, turret after turret, till he had completed what a French tourist not inaptly terms “a romance in stone and lime;” clothing meanwhile the hills behind, and embowering the lawns before, with flourishing woods of his own planting. The embellishment of his house and grounds, and the enlargement of his landed property, became, after the establishment of his literary reputation, the objects, apparently, of Scott’s most engrossing interest: and whatever may be the intrinsic value of the estate as a heritage to his posterity, he has at least succeeded in creating a scene altogether of no ordinary attractions, and worthy of being for ever associated with his distinguished name.

The appearance of the prose romance of Waverley in 1814 forms an epoch in modern literature as well as in the life of Scott. The circumstances which led him to attempt this new style of composition, and induced him for so long a period carefully to conceal his authorship, are detailed in a very interesting manner in his introduction to the new edition of this extraordinary series of tales. We cannot do more than merely refer to his own narrative. But we may remark in passing, that however well the secret was kept, and however vehement and ludicrous the controversies to which it gave rise, it was in reality no secret at all to any one (to any Scotchman, at least, of literary sagacity) who was acquainted with Sir Walter’s other works, or with his trains of thought and modes of expression. Among the literary men of Edinburgh, assuredly, there was scarcely even the shadow of a doubt from the beginning. The writer of this sketch remembers well a conversation he had with Sir Walter, after the publication of ‘Guy Mannering,’ about the gipsy heroine, Jean Gordon, subsequently avowed to have been the prototype of Meg Merrilies. After relating the story (now well known) of Jean Gordon and the Goodman of Lochside,—“I have a great notion,” added Scott, with impenetrable command of countenance, though he saw that his auditor could not repress a smile—“I have a great notion that the author of Waverley had Jean Gordon in his eye when he drew the character of Meg Merrilies.” And his visitor concurred in the opinion as gravely as he could; having at the same time no more doubt as to the authorship than he has now.

The mystery, however, such as it was, had doubtless some effect in increasing the interest of these extraordinary fictions; though in truth, they required no adventitious charm to render them popular. With faults neither slight nor few, they evinced merit of such high order and of such vast variety, that they firmly established the author on that throne of literary supremacy, where the very highest of his poetical works could not long legitimately maintain him. In his metrical romances, Scott appears like one of his own knights of chivalry, magnificent and imposing, and stalwart in action, but at the same time somewhat stiff and artificial from the very constraint of the shining harness which incases him. But in his best prose fictions he is free, natural, graceful, and energetic as his Rob Roy with his foot on his native heath. It was in prose fiction that Scott at length found where the true secret of his strength lay.

It is a curious circumstance that he had commenced the novel of Waverley so early as 1805, and had then actually advertised it to be published by Mr. John Ballantyne, bookseller in Edinburgh; but, after proceeding as far as the seventh chapter, receiving an unfavourable opinion from a critical friend, he had thrown it aside, and continued his brilliant career in verse. He ascribes to accident his resumption of novel writing at a later period; but it would have been more wonderful if he had not sooner or later discovered the richest vein of his intellectual wealth. It also proved to be an actual mine of gold in a more commercial sense. Year after year he poured forth the rich creations of his fertile brain; and such was their unprecedented success that all the chief booksellers of the kingdom competed for the privilege of turning his literary merchandise into money. Had he indeed received gold and not paper, the seventy-four volumes of his tales (for such was the amazing extent of these works) would have realized a sum far beyond what any author ever before received, and almost surpassing the fairy gifts of oriental fiction. But his connexion with the house of Constable and Co., who continued to be his principal publishers, led him into pecuniary speculations which eventually engulphed the larger portion of his well-earned fortune.

In the meanwhile Sir Walter considered himself, and was considered by the world in general, as a person in very prosperous and enviable circumstances. By an extraordinary union of great original genius with a degree of promptitude and industry scarcely less surprising, and regulated by a judgment and a tact which enabled him to adapt his productions with complete success to the popular taste of the age, he seemed to have “fixed a spoke in the wheel of Fortune.” His aristocratic ambition, too, to keep himself, as he expresses it, “abreast of society,” had been eminently successful. During the greater part of the summer and autumn, he kept house at Abbotsford like a wealthy country gentleman, receiving, with a cordial yet courtly hospitality, the many distinguished persons, both from England and the Continent, who found means to obtain an introduction to his “enchanted castle.” Anything more delightful than a visit to Abbotsford when Sir Walter was in the full enjoyment of his health and spirits can scarcely be imagined. After his morning labours, which, even when busiest, were seldom protracted beyond mid-day, (his time for composition being usually from seven to eleven or twelve o’clock,) he devoted himself to the entertainment of his guests with so much unaffected cordiality, such hilarity of spirits, and such homely kindliness of manner, and above all with such an entire absence of literary pretension, that the shyest stranger found himself at once on terms of the easiest familiarity with the most illustrious man in Europe.

The writer of these pages will long remember with a melancholy pleasure his first visit to Abbotsford. He had been acquainted with Sir Walter in Edinburgh for a year or two previously, but had not seen much of him in domestic or social life, when in the autumn of 1819 he received an invitation to visit him at his mansion on Tweed Side. Exclusive of his own family, he found five or six visitors, some like himself from a distance, and others gentlemen of the neighbourhood; but all of them early and intimate friends of Sir Walter, and more than one of them honourably distinguished by name in his works. Owing to this circumstance, probably, the conversation after dinner turned much upon his earlier days;—his moderate success as a barrister; his first efforts in literature; his pecuniary difficulties about the time of his marriage, which induced him for the sake of £70 to part with a favourite collection of coins and medals; and many similar topics,—which, though treated chiefly in a humorous vein of conversational anecdote, were of the highest interest as connected with the personal history of this extraordinary man. But though thus talking with the most delightful openness respecting his own career, when led to do so by his old comrades, he evinced not the slightest appearance of egotistical assumption or literary vanity. Of arrogance or envy he seemed not to have the slightest tinge in his composition; and he spoke much and kindly of other eminent men who had been his companions or rivals in the race of life, or of literary ambition. Some others of the little party were also men of conversational talent; but the object of all, as if by tacit agreement, was to draw out Scott to talk of “bygone times.” In this they were very successful, and the result was an intellectual treat of the richest and most racy description—such as those only who have seen Sir Walter in his happiest, drollest, and most communicative moods can have any conception of.

Such was Sir Walter at Abbotsford, in the heyday of his prosperity. He had then nearly reached the highest point of his literary eminence and worldly distinction. He was still in the vigour of life; with all the endearing links of his domestic circle unbroken; with an affluent fortune acquired by intellectual toils which had ennobled himself and enriched the literature of his country; and with yet higher personal distinction in immediate prospect. And no one who knew him then will deny that he wore his honours meekly.

In the spring of the ensuing year (1820) he was created a baronet of the United Kingdom, by George IV., as a testimony of personal favour and friendship. On the King’s visit to Scotland, in 1822, Sir Walter was invited to superintend the arrangements for his Majesty’s reception; and he performed that delicate and difficult task with admirable address and propriety, and gave, by his animating influence, something of a high and chivalrous character to what would probably have otherwise appeared a formal as well as a frivolous piece of pageantry.

‘The author of Waverley’ was still continuing to issue the apparently inexhaustible “coinage of his brain,” at the rate of from three to eight volumes a year, exclusive of as much additional poetry and prose ‘by Sir Walter Scott’ as would have built up a goodly reputation for any ordinary author,—when, in January, 1826, the house of Constable and Co. became bankrupt. It then became known, to the extreme surprise and universal regret of the public, that their great literary benefactor and favourite was involved by the failure to an extent which appeared utterly ruinous. By bill transactions with Messrs. Constable and Co., and by other means not yet very distinctly detailed, he had become responsible for debts to the enormous amount of £120,000, of which not above one half were actually incurred on his own account. How a man of Sir Walter’s characteristic prudence and knowledge of business should have been so incautious as to entangle himself in such transactions is most surprising, and scarcely well accounted for by any explanation that has yet appeared of these concerns. Probably the very large sums expended in the purchase and embellishment of Abbotsford, amounting, it is said, to from fifty to a hundred thousand pounds, was one chief originating cause of these involvements. These points will be all developed when his life comes to be published. But whatever may have been the causes of this crushing misfortune, his conduct under it was admirable; and the honour which rests upon his memory for his gigantic exertions to pay off this immense debt without deduction, is a far nobler heritage to his posterity than the most princely fortune. Though this period of his life is one of the most interesting passages of his whole history, we must of necessity now hurry forward to the close of his career.

He encountered adversity with dignified and manly intrepidity. On meeting the creditors he refused to accept of any compromise, and declared his determination, if life was spared him, to pay off every shilling. He insured his life in their favour for £22,000; surrendered all his available property in trust; sold his town house and furniture, and removed to a humbler dwelling; and then set himself calmly down to the stupendous task of reducing this load of debt. The only indulgence he asked for was time; and, to the honour of the parties concerned, time was liberally and kindly given him.

A month or two after the crash of Constable’s house Lady Scott died—domestic affliction thus following fast on worldly calamity.

The divulgement of the Waverley secret became, by the exposure of Constable’s concerns, indispensable, and took place at an anniversary dinner of the Edinburgh Theatrical Fund Association in February, 1827. The original MSS. of these works falling into the possession of the creditors, were afterwards sold in London by public auction.

For five years after his pecuniary misfortunes, namely, from January, 1826, to the spring of 1831, Sir Walter continued his indefatigable labours, and in that period, besides some eight or ten new works of fiction, produced the ‘Life of Napoleon,’ in nine volumes; a ‘History of Scotland,’ in two volumes; ‘Tales of a Grandfather,’ in nine small volumes; ‘Letters on Demonology;’ ‘Malagrowther’s Letters,’ and a variety of smaller productions. The profits of these works, and of the new edition of the Waverley Novels, which was commenced in 1829, were so considerable, that towards the end of the year 1830, £54,000 of debt had been paid off; all of which, except six or seven thousand, had been produced by his own literary labours.

The prodigious labour which these numerous and voluminous works necessarily required, was too much, however, for even the most ready intellect and robust frame. The present writer, when he saw Sir Walter for the last time at Abbotsford, in the autumn of 1830, was exceedingly struck by the change which a comparatively short period had produced on his personal appearance. A few years previously he looked a hale and active man in middle life; now, at the age of sixty, he appeared at least ten or twelve years older. His hair had become thin and perfectly white; the marks of old age were gathering fast upon his countenance; and from increased decrepitude he “hirpled” (as he expressed it) much more than formerly in his gait. His cordial kindness and conversational felicity remained unimpaired, but something of his former hilarity of spirit was wanting. When told of the death of a gentleman of his acquaintance by paralysis, a few days previously, he appeared much struck, and made a remark which seemed at the time to indicate some secret apprehension in his own mind of that fatal malady then lurking in his own overwrought frame.

He had then just retired from his office as a principal Clerk of Session, but the relief he thereby gained (if indeed the time saved was not filled by more exhausting labours) came too late. The springs of life, so long overtasked, began to give way. During the ensuing winter symptoms of gradual paralysis (a disease of which his father, it seems, had also died, but at an advanced age) began to be manifested. His lameness became more distressing, and his utterance began to be obviously affected. Yet even in this afflicting and ominous condition he continued to work with undiminished diligence.

During the summer of 1831 he grew gradually worse. His medical attendants strictly forbade mental exertion; yet he could not be restrained altogether from composition. In the autumn a visit to Italy was recommended and a passage to Malta in a ship of war was readily obtained for him. He was with difficulty prevailed on to leave Scotland; but yielded at length to the entreaties of his friends, and sailed in October, accompanied by his eldest son and his unmarried daughter. His health seemed improved by the voyage; but after visiting Naples and Rome, at both of which cities he was received with almost regal honours, his desire to return to his native land became irrepressible, and he hurried homeward with a rapidity which, in his state of health, was highly injurious, and doubtless accelerated the catastrophe which perhaps no degree of skill or caution could have long delayed. He experienced a further severe attack of his disorder in passing down the Rhine, and reached London in nearly the last stage of physical and mental prostration. Medical aid could only, it was found, for a short period protract dissolution; and to gratify his most ardent dying wish, he was conveyed by the steam-packet to Leith, and on the 11th of July, 1832, reached once more his favourite house at Abbotsford,—but in such a pitiable condition, that he no longer recognised his dearest and nearest relations. After lingering in this deplorable state till, in the progress of this melancholy malady—this living death—mortification had been some time proceeding in different parts of the mortal frame—he expired without a struggle on the 21st of September, 1832.

The funeral was attended chiefly by the personal friends and relatives of the deceased, and by the gentlemen of his acquaintance in the vicinity; but the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns and villages evinced their respect for his memory by spontaneously suspending all business and generally assuming the emblems of mourning, while the funeral train were proceeding to deposit the body in its last narrow dwelling. He was interred in his family burial aisle amidst the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey,—a spot of great picturesque beauty, lying on Tweed Side about half way between Smailholm, the scene of his simple infancy, and Abbotsford, the stately home of his latter years.

[Dryburgh Abbey.]

The death of Sir Walter Scott, though it had been for some time expected, produced a great sensation; and the exaggerated rumours of the amount of his debts remaining unpaid, and the probability of Abbotsford being in consequence lost to his family, called forth a very general wish for some generous manifestation of national gratitude to avert so afflicting a result. It has been since ascertained that the whole of the debts now remaining do not much exceed £20,000—a sum which his family have, it is understood, declared their ability and determination to meet without assistance.

Meetings have in the meanwhile been held on Tweed Side, in Edinburgh, and in London, to give expression to the national sorrow for his loss, and to decide on the erection of more than one monument of national respect and admiration.

Sir Walter Scott has left a family of two sons and two daughters. The elder son, the present Sir Walter, is a Major in the 15th Hussars; Charles the younger, is an Attaché to the Neapolitan Legation. The elder daughter was married in 1820 to Mr. J. G. Lockhart, editor of the Quarterly Review; the younger, Miss Ann Scott, remains still unmarried.

In person Sir Walter Scott was about six feet in height, but from his somewhat stooping gait did not look quite so tall. In middle life he was considered a powerful and robust man. His dress and manners were distinguished by a dignified simplicity. The character and expression of his countenance have been rendered familiar to the world by engravings from several fine portraits, and casts from the admirable bust by Chantry. His literary and social habits we have already cursorily noticed. He was beloved by all classes from the prince to the peasant; with all classes he was equally at home; and the characters and manners of all he has described in his writings with equal truth and felicity. In this respect, he is equalled by Shakspeare alone. He had a kindly sympathy for human nature in all its aspects, and, though naturally of decidedly aristocratic predilections, he respected the feelings of the humblest individual. He was most punctual in answering letters, though the labour which this task involved (and much of it caused by uninvited correspondents) was often a real affliction. Of his kindliness of heart we could relate many most pleasing traits—especially in acts of friendship to literary men whom he found struggling in obscurity or adversity. To the Ettrick Shepherd he was an early and active patron. Mr. Allan Cunningham has gratefully recorded his obligations to him, in obtaining, through his interest, appointments for two of his sons in India. Mr. T. Pringle (another of his border acquaintance) was warmly recommended by him when he went abroad in 1820, for a government appointment at the Cape. Some of the sons of the poet Burns have been effectually helped forward in life by his generous intervention. The widow of Johnson, the engraver, (the early friend and correspondent of Burns,) received in her destitute old age a monthly allowance from his purse. And the catalogue of such generous acts (though all carefully concealed by himself) might be enlarged tenfold were we at liberty to disclose merely all those that have become known to ourselves. His graceful mode of doing a friendly act was even more meritorious than the act itself: he always endeavoured to represent himself as the obliged person. With all these great and good qualities Sir Walter Scott had, like all of Adam’s race, his foibles and defects; but we have neither space nor inclination to attempt their impartial delineation. His colossal character, intellectual and moral, with all its lights and shades, (and the latter were but few,) will be, doubtless, ere long depicted by hands fully competent to the task; and the influence of his genius on the literature not of England merely, but of Europe, at the same time, justly appreciated.

1. Memoir of Sir Walter Scott, by Mr. Cunningham, in the Athenæum.

2. In ‘Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal’—a little work published weekly, at three-halfpence;—which deserves, as it has received, extensive support. We are happy to have an opportunity of recommending this labourer in the same field with ourselves, especially as the large sale of the Edinburgh Journal offers one of many proofs that sound and accurate information, conveyed in a familiar and agreeable shape, will be acceptable to the large body of readers, without any of those attractions, whether of violence as to public subjects, or frivolous tattling about private ones, which have been formerly considered essential to popularity.

3. The following is the title of this his first publication:—‘The Chace; and William and Helen: Edinburgh; Manners and Miller, 1796.’

⁂ The Office of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge is at 59, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT, PALL-MALL EAST.

Shopkeepers and Hawkers may be supplied Wholesale by the following Booksellers, of whom, also, any of the previous Numbers may be had:—

London, Groombridge, Panyer Alley.

Bath, Simms.

Birmingham, Drake.

Bristol, Westley and Co.

Carlisle, Thurnam; and Scott.

Derby, Wilkins and Son.

Devonport, Byers.

Doncaster, Brooke and Co.

Exeter, Balle.

Falmouth, Philip.

Hull, Stephenson.

Kendal, Hudson and Nicholson.

Leeds, Baines and Newsome.

Lincoln, Brooke and Sons.

Liverpool, Willmer and Smith.

Manchester, Robinson; and Webb and Simms.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Charnley.

Norwich, Jarrold and Son.

Nottingham, Wright.

Oxford, Slatter.

Plymouth, Nettleton.

Portsea, Horsey, Jun.

Sheffield, Ridge.

Staffordshire, Lane End, C. Watts.

Worcester, Deighton.

Dublin, Wakeman.

Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd.

Glasgow, Atkinson and Co.

New York, Jackson.

Printed by William Clowes, Duke Street, Lambeth.

Transcriber’s Notes

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Itemized changes from the original text:

- p. 297: Added period after phrase “alien to those their parent had conscientiously adopted.”

- p. 299: Added closing double quotation mark after phrase “any of the periodical publications of the day.”

- p. 300: Added closing single quotation mark after title “The Wild Huntsman.”

- p. 302: Replaced “marraige” with “marriage” in phrase “pecuniary difficulties about the time of his marriage.”

- p. 304: Added period after phrase “Panyer Alley.”

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Table of Contents

- The Penny Magazine, September 29 to October 31 , 1832

- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

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