424 RECOLLECTIONS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 



iiig llie Lord's day, of withdrawing and detaining the funds belonging 

 to the poor * * * deliberately violating both law and justice, being 

 guilty of the most flagrant acts of injustice, corruption, extortion, and 

 oppression, compounding and transacting crimes, demanding and re- 

 ceiving money under false pretences," &c. &c. I am sure the 

 reader will concur with me in thinking that, if this " criminal of the 

 cloth" had only been guilty of one half the offences here laid to his 

 charge, he would still have been a transgressor of no ordinary mag- 

 nitude. I expressed a hope in the hearing of Sir Walter that the 

 clerical defendant was innocent of most, if not all of the charges ; but 

 from the statementsmade to me I found that my charity had been mis- 

 placed. Indeed, I learned that, with the single exception of not vio- 

 lating the sixth commandment, the reverend culprit had run the 

 round of the cardinal vices. It is more than probable — though this 

 is only conjecture, nothing having fallen from Sir Walter in the 

 course of the evening which directly sanctioned the opinion — that 

 this clerical delinquent was afterwards taken by the author of Wa- 

 verley as the model of some of the " consummate villains" whose 

 characters are so forcibly pourtrayed in several of his novels. 



It is right to mention that Sir Walter viewed with the utmost hor- 

 ror the conduct of his reverend client, and, though of course main- 

 taining a prudent silence on the subject while the case was pending 

 before the General Assembly, he never spoke of it after the decision 

 of that venerable court without censuring the reverend gentleman's 

 conduct in the most unqualified terms. Sir Walter (then Mr, Scott) 

 did, as in duty bound, every thing possible to obtain an acquittal. 

 He cited no fewer than thirty-one witnesses in his favour. In the 

 peroration of his speech, which was remarkable alike for its earnest- 

 ness and eloquence, he expressed a hope that the venerable court 

 would not by its decision utterly and for ever ruin the character, de- 

 stroy the peace of mind of his client, and reduce him and his parents, 

 entirely depending on him for support, to beggary, but that the se- 

 vere sufferings he had already undergone would be considered some 

 atonement for his improprieties, and that in its judgment it would 

 remember mercy. The court however, very properly considering 

 that the character of the church of Scotland and the interests of re- 

 ligion and morality were deeply involved in the matter, came to a 

 unanimous decision to depose him from his pastoral charge, and ex- 

 communicate him from a church which he had done so much to 

 bring into discredit. 



This visit to SirWalter at Abbotsford took place about ten years be- 

 fore he formally avowed himself the author of the Waverly novels. 

 I had not, any more than the public, the shadow of a doubt for some 

 years previously that that extraordinary series of works owed its pa- 

 rentao-e to him. If I had had any doubt, it woidd have vanished by a 

 merely accidental circumstance which came under my notice on this 

 occasion. I saw several printed sheets — there were no corrections on 

 tliem — so far as I could see from the rapid glance I was able to give 

 them, of the second volume of one of his forthcoming novels, lying on 

 the table, which, however, be hastily gathered together and placed 

 on a shelf among a quantity of other loose sheets, as if desirous that 



