Nov. 3. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



343 



I am pretty certain that it is liis own hand-writing. I 

 had not heard that those works were imputed to any- 

 other person until you mentioned it." 



Thomas Scott died soon after this remarkable 

 disclosure. Among the letters from Sir Walter 

 to him, which appear in Lockhart's book, I was 

 particularly struck with the following passages in 

 a letter written during the autumn of 1814 : 



" Send me a novel, intermixing your exuberant and 

 natural humour, with any incidents and descriptions of 

 scenery you maj' see — particularly with characters and 

 traits of manners. I will give it all the cobbling that is 

 necessary, and, if you do but exert yourself, I have not 

 the least doubt it will be worth 500/. ; and to encourage 

 you, you may, when I send the manuscript, draw on me 

 for 100/. at fiftj' days' sight ; so that your labours will at 

 any rate not be quite thrown away. You have more fun 

 and descriptive talent than most people ; and all that you 

 want — /. e. the mere practice of composition — I can sup- 

 ply, or the devil's in it. Keep this matter a dead secret." 



Throughout the remainder of the book, I can 

 find no farther references to this matter. How 

 many of the Waverley Novels did Thomas Scott 

 forward to his brother for revision, is a ques- 

 tion to which these Notes of mine may elicit a 

 reply. Many of the humorous characters are most 

 likely Thomas Scott's creation. Walter was pro- 

 bably the Beaumont who curtailed the redun- 

 dancies of Fletcher's wit. 



On Dec. 22, 1815, Sir Walter, in a letter to 

 Mr. J. B. S. Morritt, M.P., announces his inten- 

 tion of applying himself seriously to the Aiiti- 

 guary, of which he had in his possession " a general 

 sketch." On May 16, 1816, addressing tiie same 

 party, Scott speaks of the Antiquary, then just 

 published, as not so interesting as its predeces- 

 sors. Lockhart tells us that it was while correct- 

 ing the proof-sheets of this novel, that Scott first 

 took to equipping his chapters with mottoes of his 

 own fabrication. 



From the American letter, it would also appear, 

 that Thomas Scott gave important assistance to 

 Waverley and Guy Manneiniig. Very likely. I 

 do not see how Sir Walter could possibly have 

 written them in the time. In the year 1814, 

 Scott, according to Lockhart, wrote The Lord of 

 the Isles, the voluminous Life and Works of Swift 

 (19 vols.), "Essays" in an Encyclopcedia, the 

 curious Memorie of the Somervilles, and Rowland 

 letting off the Humours of the Blood. He had also, 

 writes his son-in-law — 



" Kept up his private correspondence on a scale which I 

 believe never to have been exemplified in the case of anv 

 Other person who wrote continually for the press, except, 

 perhaps, Voltaire ; and, to say nothing of strictlv profes- 

 sional duties, he had, as a vast heap of documents before 

 me proves, superintended from day to day, except during 

 his Hebridean voyage, the still perplexed concerns of 

 the Ballantynes, with a watchful assiduity that might 

 have done credit to the most diligent of tradesmen. The 

 •machine' might truly require 'refreshment.' " 



Mr. Lockhart is of opinion (p. 306., edit, of 

 1845) that, on Dec. 25, 1814, no part of Guy 



No. 314.] ^ -^ 



Manne?-ivg had been written by Sir W. Scott." 

 On that day he wrote to Constable, that he had 

 corrected the last proofs, and was setting out for 

 Abbotsford, to refresh the machine. We will 

 allow him, I suppose, at least a week of repose 

 after the intellectual labour described by Mr. 

 Lockhart. On or about Jan. 2, 1815, then. Sir 

 Walter, according to the family accounts, com- 

 menced Guy Mannering : 



" Before the Lord of the Isles was published (continues 

 Mr. Lockhart), which took place on Jan. 18, 1815, two 

 volumes of Gtiy Mannering had been not only written 

 and copied by an amanuensis, but printed ! " 



I confess, I think it hardly possible that the mere 

 printing, and proof correcting alone, of an import- 

 ant three-volume novel, could, without some con- 

 siderable effort, be accomplished within the time. 

 Perhaps some person disposed to doubt the 

 correctness of my views, mav, if it be in his power, 

 refer to the original MSS. of the Antiqvxiry, 

 &c., and find them to be in Sir Walter Scott's 

 handwriting. I should not be in the least sur- 

 prised to hear this. Sir Walter Scott thought 

 nothing of transcribing, even when no particular 

 object was to be gained by doing so. When he 

 got books for review, he copied the extracts sooner 

 than cut them in the usual way. Lockhart gives 

 us innumerable instances in which Scott, for the 

 purpose of mystification, transcribed the writings 

 of certain cotemporaries of his acquaintance. In 

 the first edition of Mr. Lockhart's work, he tells 

 how Scott devoted a portion of a review of the 

 Waverleys in the Quarterly to an elaborate de- 

 fence of his own picture of the Covenanters, which 

 Dr. M'Crie had warmly impugned. In the new 

 edition of 1845, Mr. Lockhart expresses his con- 

 viction that Erskine, and not Scott, had written 

 the critical estimate of the Waverleys in the said 

 article ; but that Scott, with a characteristic love 

 of mystification, took the trouble of transcribing 

 every line of it. William John Fitz- Patrick. 

 South-hill Avenue, Booterstown, Dublin. 



:^tn0r <Sivitvit€, 



" The Friend of Humanity and the Knife 

 Grinder." — We were told, many years since, by 

 the late Mr. Douce, who spoke on the authority of 

 his friend George Ellis, that these now celebrated 

 Sapphics were written by Canning, Frere, and 

 Ellis, sitting at a little three-sided table — a bas- 

 set table (we think it was called) — and that the 

 first line having been started by one of them, the 

 next gave the second, and the verse was com- 

 pleted by the third. Mr. Douce had a copy of 

 the poem, pointing out the authorship of each 

 line. Presuming that this would be recorded in 

 his copy of the Poetry of the Anti- Jacobin, now 



