( 4-23 )- 

 RECOLLECTIONS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 



( Concluded from p. 315.) 



In the course of the evening the conversation turned on Sir 

 Walter's latest poetical works. I was afraid, when the subject was 

 first broached, which it was, seemingly by accident, by Mr. Ballan- 

 tine, that as those poems were so unsuccessful, and were so much 

 ridiculed by the critical press of the day, that Scott would have 

 felt sore on 'it. Not so. Indeed he seemed to me to enter on 

 it with peculiar pleasure. The fact was that he lived and died in 

 the firm belief that the silliest of his poetical productions was fully 

 equal to " Marmion," " The Lay of the Last Minstrel,'' and those 

 other poems which were so favourably received by the public ; and 

 that the reason why they were not so successful as those last alluded 

 to was, as he has since stated in print, that his too frequent appear- 

 ance before the public as a poet had created a kind of satiety, and 

 that this feeling was increased by the circumstance of Lord Byron's 

 reputation beginning at the time to rise so rapidly. In thus think- 

 ing as highly of his worst as of his best poetical works Sir Walter 

 was not singular. Thousands of authors before him have been 

 equally at variance with the public in the estimation of their own 

 works. The fact that Milton clung to the impression to the lastthathis 

 " Paradise Regained" was not only equal but superior to his " Para- 

 dise Lost" is one instance, not to mention any more, with which 

 the reading world are well acquainted. 



Sir Walter on this occasion, as indeed I understood from his friends 

 he often did, referred with much seeming pleasure to the short pe- 

 riod during which he practised as a Scottish advocate, or rather at- 

 tempted to practise ; for the cases with which he was entrusted were 

 so few as to be hardly worthy the name of a business. Among these 

 few, however, there was one of a very extraordinary kind. It was that 

 of a clergyman of the church of Scotland, of the name of Mr. M'N. 

 It occurred in 1793, and created the deepest interest throughout 

 Scotland. The case was not tried before a civil court, but before 

 the General Assembly of the church. The charges preferred 

 against the reverend defendant were of the gravest nature. The 

 preamble of the libel (I was shown a copy of the report of the pro- 

 ceedings in the case) was in the following terms : — The Rev. Mr. 



John M'N .minister of the gospel in the parish of G ,* is 



hereby indicted, at the instance of the elders and heads and familiars 



in the parish of , for the crimes of drunkenness, lying, cursing, 



swearing, blaspheming, using obscene, immodest, impious, and 

 wicked language and expressions, of misconstruing the holy scrip- 

 tures, and thereby burlesquing and ridiculing the same, of endea- 

 vouring to corrupt the faith of the teachers of the gospel, of profan- 



• I do not give the names at full length, though at the time the case was known, 

 as already mentioned, all over Scotland, as by reviving it, it might give unnecessary 

 pain to Bomc of the reverend defendant's relatives, if any such there be alive. 



