369 



SCOTT, WALTER. 



SCOTT, WALTER. 



370 



talents of the story-teller; and, as in the cases of Gothe and Richardson, 

 tho precocious command of language, giving voice and form to the 

 stories which his imagination constructed, showed itself in the pleasure 

 he found in inventing and telling tales for the amusement of his 

 companions. 



The society around him was favourable to the nourishment of such ten- 

 dencies. His father was a strict disciplinarian, a precisionist in religion, 

 and a legal formalist. He exacted from his children a strict observance 

 of the outward forms of religion, and spared no trouble to imbue their 

 minds with a knowledge of the doctrines of the national church. He 

 strove to make the actions of his domestic circle as strictly conformable 

 to rules as his causes in the Court of Session. The strong hand of 

 discipline like this usually serves to make children more intent upon 

 the stolen enjoyment of their favourite amusements. Walter read 

 with more avidity what his father scorned as trifling reading, and hung 

 on the lips of every one who could gratify him with legendary tales. 

 He was surrounded too by characters calculated to leave a deep im- 

 pression on the mind of a bookish boy. The Lowlands of Scotland 

 had by that time settled down into the same regulated habits of steady 

 industry that still characterise them ; but many old-world characters 

 belonging to a less tranquil period were still surviving. George 

 Constable, of Wallace Craigie, near Dundee, who sat for his picture in 

 the ' Antiquary ;' Mrs. Anne Murray Keith, the Mrs. Bethune Babel of 

 the ' Chronicles of the Canongate;' Mrs. Margaret Swinton, who figures 

 in the introduction to 'My Aunt Margaret's Mirror;' Alexander Stewart, 

 of Invernahyle, a Highland gentleman, who had been "out in the 

 forty-five," by their appearance and conversation carried the boy's 

 imagination back to a state of society which had ceased to exist, and 

 formed a connecting link between the real world in which he lived 

 and the imaginary world which he found in his romances. He had 

 opportunities too of observing closely the manners and feelings of the 

 lower classes of society in the agricultural districts in the south of 

 Scotland. His grandfather, being a farmer, lived on a footing of more 

 familiar intercourse with his domestics than was even then customary 

 in towns, and in his house Scott learned the pass-word to the con- 

 fidence of that class. As he grew in years and in strength, he was 

 encouraged by his family, probably with a view to confirm his health, 

 to take long rambles on foot and on horseback through the border and 

 highland counties where his father had relations or clients. 



The impressions thus derived might have faded even from a retentive 

 memory in the busy period of confirmed manhood ; but a direction 

 had been given to his awakening intellect, which led him to brood 

 over and cherish them. On one of his visits to a paternal uncle, who 

 resided in the environs of Kelso, he became acquainted with the col- 

 lections of the Bishop of Dromore. " In early youth," he says, in the 

 ' Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad,' prefixed to the third 

 volume of the ' Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," " I had been an 

 eager student of ballad poetry, and the tree is still in my recollection, 

 beneath which I lay and first entered upon the enchanting perusal of 

 Percy's 'Reliques of Ancient Poetry,' although it has long perished 

 in the general blight which affected the whole race of oriental plat-anus 

 to which it belonged." The perusal of this work led him on to the 

 kindred publications of Herd and Evans. Herd's book was an attempt 

 to do for Scottish what the bishop had accomplished for English 

 traditional song. In Evans's work some poems of modern date were 

 intermingled with the old ballads, and among others ' Cumnor Hall ' 

 by Mickle, adverted to in the notes which Scott appended to ' Kenil- 

 worth,' in Cadell's collective edition of his novels. The hot controversy 

 which arose between Percy and Ritson led the amateurs of old ballad 

 poetry to plunge more deeply than they contemplated into philological 

 and antiquarian discussions. The effects of this upon Scott may be 

 conjectured from the subjects of one essay composed as a class exercise 

 during his attendance on the moral philosophy lectures of Dugald 

 Stewart in 1790, and three which he read in the years 1792-93 in the 

 Speculative Society. They are, ' On the Manners and Customs of the 

 Northern Nations of Europe,' ' On the Origin of the Feudal System,' 

 ' On the Origin of the Scandinavian Mythology,' and ' On the Authen- 

 ticity of Ossian's Poems.' The topics which at that time engrossed 

 the attention of his young contemporaries (among whom were the 

 future founders of the 'Edinburgh Review') were practical, economical, 

 and political discussions. Scott however held on his own way : his 

 favourite themes were the old world, the bent of his mind wat, 

 historical. 



Like most young men addicted to literary pursuits, he had at an 

 early age tried his hand at rhyme. His ballad studies kept alive the 

 inclination. Burns, whom he saw at the house of Professor Ferguson 

 in 1786-87, seems to have made a lasting impression upon him, both by 

 his writings and his personal appearance. For ten years however his 

 rhyming propensities remained in abeyance, till they were re-awakened 

 by the popularity earned by the ballads of Monk Lewis. Scott's atten- 

 tion had been directed to German literature by a very superficial 

 essay on ' The German Theatre,' read by Henry Mackenzie at a meet- 

 ing of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1788. Scott and several of 

 his companions formed a class, soon after the publication of that 

 paper, for the purpose of studying the German language ; but these 

 studies were followed up in a rather desultory manner till the year 

 1793 or 1794, when Miss Aiken (Mrs. Barbauld) directed his attention 

 to the works of Burger. He had some difficulty in procuring them ; 



BIOG. DIV. VOL. V. 



and had already met the young lion of the day, Lewis, and been 

 stimulated, by his conviction of his own superiority in general infor- 

 mation, to attempt an appeal to the public, when an edition of Burger, 

 which a friend had procured for him from Hamburg, came into his 

 hands. Having made a free version of the poems which had moat 

 caught his fancy, they met with BO much applause in the friendly 

 circles where he recited them, that he was, as he himself playfully says, 

 " prevailed on by the request of friends to indulge his own vanity by 

 publishing the translation of Burger's ' Leonora,' and the ' Wild Hunts- 

 man,' in a thin quarto " (1796). This event is mainly of importance 

 as it marks tho termination of his probationary career, his course of 

 hard study, with vague aspirations after some mode of turning it to 

 account. The die was in fact cast : from that moment he was an 

 author for life. 



It is necessary that we advert to Scott's more active pursuits before 

 closing this retrospect of his probationary years. He was apprenticed 

 to his father in May 1786. He never however acted regularly as 

 clerk. His absences on jaunts to the Highlands and the border coun- 

 ties were long and frequent ; and a gentleman who was in Mr. Scott's 

 office during the period of Walter's nominal apprenticeship, assured 

 us that his time while there was mostly spent in playing chess. In 

 1791, having finally resolved to adopt the profession of advocate, 

 he recommenced his attendance upon the college classes, interrupted 

 by his illness, and joined the Speculative Society. In 1791 he peti- 

 tioned and was admitted by the Faculty of Advocates to his first 

 trials; in 1792 he passed the rest, and was called to the bar. As a 

 member of the Speculative Society and the faculty, he took an active 

 part in the private business of both bodies. In the civil court, he has 

 told us, his employment did not exceed one opportunity of appearing 

 as the prototype of Peter Public. But in the Court of Justiciary he 

 made several appearances, in all of which he distinguished himself by 

 diligent preparation. His conduct at this period was marked by an 

 anxious desire to force himself into professional employment, and by 

 that energy which promised success, could he but succeed in making 

 a beginning. 



We have now brought the subject of our narrative to the commence- 

 ment of that literary career which he prosecuted with unabated per- 

 severance till his death. The story of his literary life naturally divides 

 itself into three epochs: that during which he was achieving his 

 poetical fame, extending from the publication of his translation of 

 Burger in 1796 to the publication of ' Waverley ' in 1814 ; the period 

 of the celebrity of his novels, during which they followed each other 

 in brilliant and rapid succession from the publication of ' Waverley ' 

 till the bankruptcy of Constable in 1826; the period of his Herculean 

 struggle to re-adjust his affairs, shattered by the convulsion of 1826, 

 till he sunk over-tasked into a premature grave in 1832. It is in 

 every case difficult, perhaps inexpedient, to separate the part from the 

 man : in the case of Scott it is impossible. We proceed therefore 

 briefly, as our limits command, to trace, for each of the three periods 

 we have enumerated, an outline of his actual life and circumstances, 

 and of the literary works produced under their influence. 



Unaware of the extent to which he had become involved in the 

 literary career, he continued for some time his professional efforts. 

 He was engaged as counsel for the defendants in several of the prose- 

 cutions for riots, seditious practices, and other offences arising out of 

 the political ferment of the day. It has been imagined that the active 

 part which his political zeal induced him to take in organising and 

 disciplining the volunteer corps of horse formed in Edinburgh, con- 

 tributed to mar his professional prospects. It certainly distracted his 

 attention from legal studies, but it accelerated rather than retarded 

 his promotion. In December 1799 he was appointed sheriff of Sel- 

 kirkshire; in 1806 he was appointed one of the principal clerks of the 

 Court of Session. The duties of these offices, even when discharged 

 by the same individual, left a large proportion of bis time at his own 

 disposal. The first mentioned insured to him a small competency ; 

 the other was ultimately a lucrative appointment, although the 

 arrangement he made with his predecessor in office prevented his 

 deriving the full emolument from it till 1812. In addition to these 

 sources of income he succeeded to a small landed property on the 

 death of an uncle in 1797, and received a moderate fortune with Miss 

 Carpenter, whom he married towards the close of the same year. He 

 was thus placed above absolute dependence upon the literary exertions 

 to which his inclination and leisure invited him. At the same time 

 his relish for the elegant luxuries of life and the ambition to minglo 

 on a feeling of equality with the families of the aristocracy, upon 

 some of whom, as well as upon the honest farmers above alluded to, 

 he had a claim of relationship an ambition strengthened by his 

 fondness for the legends of chivalry operating on an imaginative dis- 

 position, rendered further additions to his fortune not indifferent to 

 him. It is questionable whether even this stimulus could have nerved 

 him to perseverance in the dry drudgery of the law, but his active 

 and energetic disposition courted labour so long as it did not impose 

 any restraint upon the rambling desultory habits of thought acquired 

 during the days of incessant reading of his sickly boyhood. 



Even before he formed his final resolution to use literature "as a 

 staff not as a crutch," he followed up the appeal made to the public 

 by the printing of 'William and Helen.' In 1799 he published a 

 translation of Gothe's ' Gotz of Berlichingen. 1 He composed and 



2 B 



