much of the hardness and harshness originally impressed on the visage by anxious penury and the sinister habits of a black-fisher;—and the Tom Purdie of 1820 stands before us. We were all delighted to see how completely Scott had recovered his bodily vigour, and none more so than Constable, who, as he puffed and panted after him up one ravine and down another, often stopped to wipe his forehead, and remarked that "it was not every author who should lead him such a dance." But Purdie's face shone with rapture as he observed how severely the swag-bellied bookseller's activity was tasked. Scott exclaiming exultingly, though perhaps for the tenth time, "This will be a glorious spring for our trees, Tom!"-"You may say that, Sheriff," quoth Tom,-and then lingering a moment for Constable-My certy," he added, scratching his head, "and I think it will be a grand season for our buiks too.” But indeed Tom always talked of our buiks as if they had been as regular products of the soil as our aits and our birks. Having threaded, first the Hexilcleugh and then the Rhymer's Glen, we arrived at Huntly Burn, where the hospitality of the kind Weird-Sisters, as Scott called the Miss Fergusons, reanimated our exhausted Bibliopoles, and gave them courage to extend their walk a little further down the same famous brook. Here there was a small cottage in a very sequestered situation, by making some little additions to which Scott thought it might be converted into a suitable summer residence for his daughter and future son-in-law. The details of that plan were soon settled-it was agreed on all hands that a sweeter scene of seclusion could not be fancied. He repeated some verses of Rogers' "Wish," which paint the spot : 66 Mine be a cot beside the hill A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear; A willowy brook that turns a mill, But when he came to the Stanza "And Lucy at her wheel shall sing, he departed from the text, adding "But if Bluestockings here you bring, The Great Unknown won't dine with you." Johnny Ballantyne, a projector to the core, was particularly zealous about this embryo establishment. Foreseeing that he should have had walking enough ere he reached Huntly Burn, his dapper little Newmarket groom had been ordered to fetch Old Mortality thither, and now, mounted on his fine hunter, he capered about us, looking pallid and emaciated as a ghost, but as gay and cheerful as ever, and would fain have been permitted to ride over hedge and ditch to mark out the proper line of the future avenue. Scott admonished him that the country people, if they saw him at such work, would take the whole party for heathens; and clapping spurs to his horse, he left us. "The deil's in the body," quoth Tom Purdie, he'll be ower every yett atween this and Turnagain, though it be the Lord's day. I wadna wonder if he were to be ceeted before the Session." "Be sure, Tam," cries Constable, "that ye egg on the Dominie to blaw up his father-I would na grudge a hundred miles o' gait to see the ne'er-do-weel on the stool, and neither, I'll be sworn, would the Sheriff."—" Na, na," quoth the Sheriff we'll let sleeping dogs be, Tam." As we walked homeward, Scott, being a little fatigued, laid his left hand on Tom's shoulder and leaned heavily for support, chatting to his Sunday poney," as he called the affectionate fellow, just as freely as with the rest of the party, and Tom put in his word shrewdly and manfully, and grinned and grunted whenever the joke chanced to be within his apprehension. It was easy to see that his heart swelled within him from the moment that the Sheriff got his collar in his gripe. There arose a little dispute between them about what tree or trees ought to be cut down in a hedgerow that we passed, and Scott seemed somewhat ruffled with finding that some previous hints of his on that head had not been attended to. When we got into motion again, his hand was on Constable's shoulder-and Tom dropped a pace or two to the rear, until we approached a gate, when he jumped forward and opened it. "Give us a pinch of your snuff, Tom," quoth the Sheriff -Tom's mull was produced, and the hand resumed its position. I was much diverted with Tom's behaviour when we at length reached Abbotsford. There were some garden chairs on the green in front of the cottage porch. Scott sat down on one of them to enjoy the view of his new tower as it gleamed in the sunset, and Constable and I did the like. Mr Purdie remained lounging near us for a few minutes, and then asked the Sheriff "to speak a word." They withdrew together into the garden and Scott presently rejoined us with a particularly comical expression of face. As soon as Tom was out of sight, he said -"Will ye guess what he has been saying, now?-Well, this is a great satisfaction! Tom assures me that he has thought the matter over, and will take my advice about the thinning of that clump behind Captain Ferguson's." I must not forget that, whoever might be at Abbotsford, Tom always appeared at his master's elbow on Sunday, when dinner was over, and drank long life to the Laird and the Lady and all the good company, in a quaigh of Whiskey, or a tumbler of wine, according to his fancy. I believe Scott has somewhere expressed in print his satisfaction that, among all the changes of our manners, the ancient freedom of personal intercourse may still be indulged between a master and an out-of-doors' servant; but in truth he kept by the old fashion even with domestic servants to an extent which I have hardly seen practised by any other gentleman. He conversed with his coachman if he sat by him, as he often did, on the box-with his footman, if he happened to be in the rumble; and when there was any very young lad in the household, he held it a point of duty to see that his employments were so arranged as to leave time for advancing his education, made him bring his copy-book once a-week to the library, and examined him as to all that he was doing. Indeed he did not confine this humanity to his own people. Any steady servant of a friend of his was soon considered as a sort of friend too, and was sure to have a kind little colloquy to himself at coming and going. With all this, Scott was a very rigid enforcer of discipline-contrived to make it thoroughly understood by all about him, that they must do their part by him as he did his by them; and the result was happy. I never knew any man so well served as he was-so carefully, so respectfully, and so silently; and I cannot help doubting if, in any department of human operations, real kindness ever compromised real dignity. In a letter, already quoted, there occurs some mention of the Prince Gustavus Vasa, who was spending this winter in Edinburgh, and his Royal Highness's accomplished attendant, the Baron Polier. I met them frequently in Castle Street, and remember as especially interesting the first evening that they dined there. The only portrait in Scott's Edinburgh dining-room was one of Charles XII. of Sweden, and he was struck, as indeed every one must have been, with the remarkable resemblance which the exiled Prince's air and features presented to the hero of his race. Young Gustavus, on his part, hung with keen and melancholy enthusiasm on Scott's anecdotes of the expedition of Charles Edward Stewart. The Prince, accompanied by Scott and myself, witnessed the ceremonial of the proclamation of King George IV. on the 2d of February at the Cross of Edinburgh, from a window over Mr Constable's shop in the High Street; and on that occasion also the air of sadness, that mixed in his features with eager curiosity, was very affecting. Scott explained all the details to him, not without many lamentations over the barbarity of the Auld Reekie bailies, who had removed the beautiful Gothic Cross itself, for the sake of widening the thoroughfare. The weather was fine, the sun shone bright; and the antique tabards of the heralds, the trumpet notes of God save the King, and the hearty cheerings of the immense uncovered multitude that filled the noble old street, produced altogether a scene of great splendour and solemnity. The Royal Exile surveyed it with a flushed cheek and a watery eye, and Scott, observing his emotion, withdrew whispering "poor lad! poor lad! God help him." Later in the 8 season the Prince spent a few days at Abbotsford; but I have said enough to explain some allusions in the following letter to Lord Montagu, in which Scott also adverts to several public events of January and February, 1820-the assassination of the Duke of Berri-the death and funeral of King George III.-the general election which ensued the royal demise-and its more unhappy consequence, the reagitation of the old disagreement between George IV. and his wife, who, as soon as she learned his accession to the throne, announced her resolution of returning to England from the Continent (where she had been leading for some years a wandering life), and asserting her rights as Queen. The Tory gentleman in whose canvass of the Selkirk boroughs Scott was now earnestly concerned, was his worthy friend, Mr Henry Monteith of Carstairs, who ultimately carried the election. "To the Lord Montagu, &c. &c., Ditton Park, Windsor. "Edinburgh, 22d February, 1820. In "MY DEAR LORD,-I have nothing to say, except that Selkirk has declared decidedly for Monteith, and that his calling and election seem to be sure. Roxburghshire is right and tight. Harden will not stir for Berwickshire. short, within my sphere of observation, there is nothing which need make you regret your personal absence; and I hope my dear young namesake and chief will not find his influence abated while he is unable to head it himself. It is but little I can do, but it shall always be done with a good will-and merits no thanks, for I owe much more to his father's memory than ever I can pay a little of. I often think what he would have said or wished, and, within my limited sphere, that will always be a rule to me while I have the means of advancing in any respect the interest of his son-certainly if any thing could increase this desire, it would be the banner being at present in your Lordship's hand. I can do little but look out a-head, but that is always something. When I look back on the house of Buccleuch, as I once knew it, it is a sad retrospect. But we must look forward, and hope for the young blossom of so goodly a tree. I think your Lordship judged quite right in carrying Walter in his place to the funeral.* He will long remember it, and may survive many occasions of the same kind, to all human appearance. Here is a horrid business of the Duke de Berri. It was first told me yesterday by Count Itterburg (i. e. Prince Gustavus of Sweden, son of the ex-King), who comes to see me very often. No fairy tale could match the extravagance of such a tale being told to a private Scott gentleman by such a narrator, his own grandfather having perished in the same manner. But our age As my ac has been one of complete revolution, baffling all argument and expectation. to the King and Queen, or to use the abbreviation of an old Jacobite of quaintance, who, not loying to hear them so called at full length, and yet desirous to have the newspapers read to him, commanded these words always to be pronounced as the letters K. and Q.—I say then, as to the K. and the Q. I venture to think, that whichever strikes the first blow will lose the battle. The sound, well-judging, and well-principled body of the people will be much shocked as the stirring such a hateful and disgraceful question. If the K. urges it unprovoked, the public feeling will put him in the wrong; if he lets her alone, her own imprudence, and that of her hot-headed adviser Harry Brougham, will push on the discussion; and, take a fool's word for it, as Sancho says, the country will never * The funeral of George III. at Windsor: the young Duke of Buccleuch was at this time at Eton. bear her coming back, foul with the various kinds of infamy she has been stained with, to force herself into the throne. On the whole, it is a discussion most devoutly to be deprecated by those who wish well to the Royal family. "Now for a very different subject. I have a report that there is found on the farm of Melsington, in a bog, the limb of a bronze figure, full size, with a spur on the heel. This has been reported to Mr Riddell, as Commissioner, and to me as Antiquary in chief, on the estate. I wish your lordship would permit it to be sent provisionally to Abbotsford, and also allow me, if it shall seem really curious, to make search for the rest of the statue. Clarkson* has sent me a curious account of it; and that a Roman statue, for such it seems of that size should be found in so wild a place, has something very irritating to the curiosity. I do not of course desire to have any thing more than the opportunity of examining the relique. It may be the foundation of a set of bronzes, if stout Lord Walter should turn to virtu. The novel of the Monastery was published, by Messrs Longman and Co., in the beginning of March. It appeared not in the post 8vo form of Ivanhoe, but in 3 vols. 12mo, like the earlier works of the series. In fact, a few sheets of the Monastery had been printed before Scott agreed to let Ivanhoe have "By the Author of Waverley on its title-page; and the different shapes of the two books belonged to the abortive scheme of passing off" Mr Laurence Templetone" as a hitherto unheard of candidate for literary success. CHAPTER XXIV. Scott revisits London-His Portrait by Lawrence, and Bust by Chantrey-Anecdotes by Allan Cunningham-Letters to Mrs Scott-Laidlaw, &c.-His Baronetcy gazetted-Marriage of his daughter Sophia-Letter to "the Baron of Galashiels" -Visit of Prince Gustavus Vasa at Abbotsford-Tenders of Honorary Degrees from Oxford and Cambridge-Letter to Mr Thomas Scott-1820. AT the rising of his Court on the 12th of March, Scott proceeded to London, for the purpose of receiving his baronetcy, which he had been prevented from doing in the spring of the preceding year by his own illness, and again at Christmas by accumulated family afflictions. On his arrival in town, his son the Cornet met him, and they both established themselves at Miss Dumergue's. One of his first visiters was Sir Thomas Lawrence, who informed him that the King had resolved to adorn the great gallery, then in progress at Windsor Castle, with portraits by his hand of his Majesty's most distinguished contemporaries; all the reigning monarchs of Eu * Ebenezer Clarkson, Esq., a surgeon of distinguished skill at Selkirk, and through life a trusty friend nd crony of the Sheriff's. |