the door locked during my absence. 3dly, I expect Mr Bullock here every day, and should be glad to have the drawings for the diningroom wainscot, as he could explain them to the artists who are to work them. This (always if quite convenient) would be the more desirable, as I must leave this place in a fortnight at farthest the more's the pity-and, consequently, the risk of blunders will be considerably increased. I should like if the pannelling of the wainscot could admit of a press on each side of the sideboard. I don't mean a formal press with a high door, but some crypt, or, to speak vulgarly, cupboard, to put away bottles of wine, etc. You know I am my own butler, and such accommodation is very convenient. We begin roofing to-morrow. Wilkie admires the whole as a composition, and that is high authority. I agree that the fountain shall be out of doors in front of the green-house; there may be an enclosure for it with some ornamented mason-work, as in old gardens, and it will occupy an angle, which I should be puzzled what to do with, for turf and gravel would be rather meagre, and flowers not easily kept. I have the old fountain belonging to the Cross of Edinburgh, which flowed with wine at the coronation of our kings and on other occasions of public rejoicing. I send a sketch of this venerable relic, connected as it is with a thousand associations. It is handsome in its forms and proportions—a free-stone basin about three feet in diameter, and five inches and a half in depth, very handsomely hollowed. A piece has been broken off one edge, but as we have the fragment, it can easily be restored with cement. There are four openings for pipes in the circumference-each had been covered with a Gothic masque, now broken off and defaced, but which may be easily restored. Through these the wine had fallen into a larger and lower reservoir. I intend this for the centre of my fountain. I do not believe I should save L. 100 by retaining Mrs Redford, by the time she was raised, altered, and beautified, for, like the Highlandman's gun, she wants stock, lock, and barrel to put her into repair. In the mean time, 'the cabin is convenient.' Yours ever, W.S." T "To Mr William Laidlaw, Kaeside. "Edinburgh, Nov. 15th, 1817. "DEAR WILLIE,-I have no intention to let the Whitehaugh without your express approbation, and I wish you to act as my adviser and representative in these matters. I would hardly have ventured to purchase so much land without the certainty of your counsel and co-operation. On the other side you will · find a small order on the banker at Galashiels, to be renewed half-yearly; not by way of recompensing your friendship with a load of barren money,' but merely to ease my conscience in some degree for the time which I must necessarily withdraw from the labour which is to maintain your family. Believe me, dear Willie, yours truly, W. SCOTT." "DEAR WILLIE,-I hope you will not quarrel with my last. Believe me that, to a sound-judging, and philosophical mind this same account of Dr. and Cr., which fills up so much time in the world, is comparatively of very small value. When you get rich, unless I thrive in the same proportion, I will request your assistance for less, for little, or for nothing, as the case may require; but while 1 wear my seven-league boots to stride in triumph over moss and muir, it would be very silly in either of us to let a cheque twice a-year of L.25 make a difference between us. But all this we talk over when we meet. I meditate one day a coup-de-mattre, which will make my friend's advice and exertion essential-in : deed worthy of much better remuneration. When you come, I hope you will bring us information of all my rural proceedings. Though so lately come to town, I still remember, at my waking hours, that I can neither see Tom Purdie nor "To Thomas Scott, Esq., Paymaster, 70th Regiment, Kingston, Canada. 66 Edinburgh, 13th Dec. 1817. "MY DEAR TOM,-I should be happy to attend to your commission about a dominie for your boy, but I think there will be much risk in yoking yourself with one for three or four years." You know what sort of black cattle these are, and how difficult it is to discern their real character, though one may give a guess at their attainments. When they get good provender in their guts, they are apt to turn out very different animals from what they were in their original low condition, and get frisky and troublesome. I have made several enquiries, however, and request to know what salary you would think reasonable, and also what acquisitions he ought to possess. There is no combating the feelings which you express for the society of your son, otherwise I really think that a Scottish education would be highly desirable; and should you at any time revert to this plan, you may rely on my bestowing the same attention upon him as upon my own boys. "I agree entirely with you on the necessity of your remaining in the regiment while it is stationary, and retiring on half-pay when it marches; but I cannot so easily acquiesce in your plan of settling in Canada." On the latter event taking place, on the contrary, I think it would be highly advisable that you should return to your native country. In the course of nature you must soon be possessed of considerable property, now life-rented by our mother, and I should think that even your present income would secure you comfort and independence here. Should you remain in Canada, you must consider your family as settlers in that state, and as I cannot believe that it will remain very long separated from America, I should almost think this equal to depriving them of the advantages of British subjectsat least of those which they might derive from their respectable connexions in this country. With respect to your son, in particular, I have little doubt that I could be of considerable service to him in almost any line of life he might chance to adopt here, but could of course have less influence on his fortunes, were he to remain on the Niagara. I certainly feel anxious on this subject, because the settlement of your residence in America would be saying, in other words, that we two, the last remains of a family once so numerous, are never more to meet upon this side of time. My own health is very much broken up by the periodical recurrence of violent cramps in the stomach, which neither seem disposed to yield to medicine nor to abstinence. The complaint, the doctors say, is not dangerous in itself, but I cannot look forward to its continued recurrence, without being certain that it is to break my health, and anticipate old age in cutting me short. Be it so, my dear Tom-Sat est vixisse-and I am too much of a philosoper to be anxious about protracted life, which, with all its infirmities and deprivations, I have never considered as a blessing. In the years which may be before me, it would be a lively satisfaction to me to have the pleasure of seeing you in this country, with the prospect of a comfortable settlement. I have but an imperfect account to render of my doings here. I have amused myself with making an addition to my cottage in the country; one little apartment is to be fitted up as an armoury for my old relics and curiosities. On the wicket 1 intend to mount your deer's footas an appropriate knocker. I hope the young ladies liked their watches, and that all your books, stationary, etc., came safe to hand. I am told you have several * Adam Paterson was the intelligent foreman of the company of masons then employed at Abbotsford. Thomas Scott had sent his brother the horns and feet of a gigantic stag, shot by him in Canada. The feet were ultimately suspended to bell-cords in the armoury at Abbotsford, and the horns mounted as drinking cups. kinds of the oak peculiar to America. If you can send me a few good acorns, with the names of the kinds they belong to, I will have them reared with great care. and attention. The heaviest and smoothest acorns should be selected, as one would wish them, sent from such a distance, to succeed, which rarely happens unless they are particularly well ripened. I shall be as much obliged to you as Sancho was to the Duchess, or, to speak more correctly, the Duchess to Sancho, for a similar favour. Our mother keeps her health surprisingly well now, nor do I think there is any difference, unless that her deafness is rather increased. My eldest boy is upwards of six feet high; therefore born, as Sergeant Kite says, to be a great man. I should not like such a rapid growth, but that he carries strength along with it; my youngest boy is a very sharp little fellow-and the girls give us great satisfaction. Ever affectionately yours, WALTER SCOTT.? The following note is without date. It accompanied, no doubt, the last proof-sheet of Rob Roy, and was therefore in all probability written about ten days before the 31st of December, 1817— on which day the novel was published. DEAR JAMES, "To Mr James Ballantyne, St John Street. With great joy 'Twas a tough job, But we're done with Rob. I forget if I mentioned Terry in my list of Friends. Pray send me two or three copies as soon as you can. It were pity to make the Grinder* pay carriage. Yours ever, W. S." The novel had indeed been" a tough job"-for lightly and airily as it reads, the author had struggled almost throughout with the pains of cramp or the lassitude of opium. Calling on him one day to dun him for copy, James Ballantyne found him with a clean pen and a blank sheet before him, and uttered some rather solemn exclamation of surprise."Ay, prise. "Ay, ay, Jemmy," said he, "'tis easy for you to bid me get on, but how the deuce can I make Rob Roy's wife speak with such a curmurring in my guts?" * They called Daniel Terry among themselves "The Grinder," in double allusion to the song of Terry the Grinder, and to some harsh under-notes of their friend's voice. · CHAPTER XVI. Rob Roy published-Negociation concerning the Second Series of Tales of My Landlord-Commission to search for the Scottish Regalia-Letters to the Duke of Buccleuch-Mr Croker-Mr Morritt-Mr Murray-Mr Maturin, &c.-Cor respondence on rural Affairs with Mr Laidlaw-and on the Buildings at Abbotsford with Mr Terry-Death of Mrs Murray Keith and Mr George Bullock1818, ROB ROY and his wife, Bailie Nicol Jarvie and his housekeeper, Die Vernon and Rashleigh Osbaldistone-these boldly, drawn and most happily contrasted personages-were welcomed as warmly as the most fortunate of their predecessors. Constable's resolution to begin with an edition of 10,000, proved to have been as sagacious as bold; for within a fortnight a second impression of 3000 was called for; and the subsequent sale of this novel has considerably exceeded 40,000 more. 66 Scott, however, had not waited for this new burst of applause. As soon as he came within view of the completion of Rob Roy, he desired John Ballantyne to propose to Constable and Co. a second series of the Tales of my Landlord, to be comprised, like the first, in four volumes, and ready for publication by the King's birth-day;" that is, the 4th of June, 1818. "I have hungered and thirsted," he wrote, " to see the end of those shabby borrowings among friends; they have all been wiped out except the good Duke's L.4000-and I will not suffer either new offers of land or any thing else to come in the way of that clearance. I expect that you will be able to arrange this resurrection of Jedediah, so that L.5000 shall be at my order." Mr Rigdum used to glory in recounting that he acquitted himself on this occasion with a species of dexterity not contemplated in his commission. He well knew how sorely Constable had been wounded by seeing the first Tales of Jedediah published by Murray and Blackwood -and that the utmost success of Rob Roy would only double his anxiety to keep them out of the field, when the hint should be dropt that a second MS. from Gandercleuch might shortly be looked for. He, therefore, took a convenient opportunity to mention the new scheme, as if casually-so as to give Constable the impression that the author's purpose was to divide the second series also between his old rival in Albemarle Street, of whom his jealousy was always most sensitive, and his neighbour Blackwood, whom, if there had been no other grudge, the recent conduct and rapidly increasing sale of his Magazine would have been sufficient to make Constable hate with a perfect hatred. To see not only his old Scots Magazine eclipsed, but the authority of the Edinburgh Review itself bearded on its own soil by this juvenile upstart, was to him gall and wormwood; and, moreover, he himself had come in for his share in some of those grotesque jeux d'esprit by which, at this period, Blackwood's young Tory wags delighted to assail their elders and betters of the Whig persuasion. To prevent the proprietor of this new journal from acquiring any thing like a hold on the author of Waverley, and thus competing with himself not only in periodical literature, but in the highest of the time, was an object for which, as John Ballantyne shrewdly guessed, Constable would have made at that moment almost any sacrifice. When, therefore, the haughty but trembling bookseller-" The Lord High Constable" (as he had been dubbed by these jesters)-signified his earnest hope that the Second Tales of my Landlord were destined to come out under the same auspices with Rob Roy, the plenipotentiary answered with an air of deep regret, that he feared it would be impossible for the author to dispose of the work unless to publishers who should agree to take with it the whole of the remaining stock of "John Ballantyne and Co. ;" and Constable, pertinaciously as he had stood out against many more modest propositions of this nature, was so worked upon by his jealous feelings, that his resolution at once gave way. He agreed on the instant to do all that John seemed to shrink from asking-and at one sweep cleared the Augean stable in Hanover Street of unsaleable rubbish to the amount of L.5270! I am assured by his surviving partner that when he had finally redisposed of the stock, he found himself a loser by fully two-thirds of this sum. Burthened with this heavy condition, the agreement for the sale of 10,000 copies of the embryo series was signed before the end of November, 1817; and on the 7th of January, 1818, Scott wrote as follows to his noble friend : "To the Duke of Buccleuch, &c. &c. &c.. "MY DEAR LORD DUKE, I have the great pleasure of enclosing the discharged bond which your Grace stood engaged in for me, and on my account. The accommodation was of the greatest consequence to me, as it enabled me to retain possession of some valuable literary property, which I must otherwise have suffered to be sold at a time when the booksellers had no money to buy it. My dear Lord, to wish that all your numerous and extensive acts of kindness may be attended with similar advantages to the persons whom you oblige, is wishing you what to your mind will be the best recompense; and to wish that they may be felt by all as gratefully as by me, though you may be careless to hear about that part of the story, is only wishing what is creditable to human nature. I have this moment your more than kind letter, and congratulate your Grace that, in one sense of the word, you can be what you never will be in any other, ambidexter. But I am sorry you took so much trouble, and I fear pains besides, to display your new talent. Ever your Grace's truly faithful WALTER SCOTT." |