166 



SCOTT. 



?o great an author in an extraordinary line of com- 

 position, met with an extensive sale. The profits 

 of these various publications, hut especially his share 

 of the profits of the new edition of his novels, en- 

 abled him, towards the end of the year 1830, to 

 pay a dividend of three shillings in the pound, 

 which, but for the vast accumulation of interest, 

 would have reduced his debts to nearly one-half. 

 Of 54,000 which had now been paid, all except 

 six or seven thousand had been produced by his own 

 literary labours ; a fact which fixes the revenue of 

 his intellect for the last four or five years at nearly 

 10,000 a year. Besides this sum, Sir Walter had 

 also paid up the premium of the policy upon his 

 life, which, as already mentioned, secured a post 

 obit interest of 22,000 to his creditors. On this 

 occasion, it was suggested by one of these gentle- 

 men, (Sir James Gibson Craig), and immediately 

 assented to, that they should present to Sir Walter 

 personally the library, manuscripts, curiosities, and 

 plate", which had once been his own, as an acknow- 

 ledgment of the sense they entertained of his hon- 

 ourable conduct. 



In November, 1830, he retired from his office of 

 principal clerk of session, with the superannuation 

 allowance usually given after twenty-three years' 

 service. Earl Grey offered to make up the allow- 

 ance to the full salary: but, from motives of deli- 

 cacy, Sir Walter firmly declined to accept of such a 

 favour from one to whom he was opposed in politics. 



His health, from his sixteenth year, had been 

 very good, except during the years 1818 and 1819, 

 when he suffered under an illness of such severity 

 as to turn his hair quite grey, and send him out 

 again to the world apparently ten years older than 

 before. It may be mentioned, however, that this 

 illness, though accompanied by very severe pain, 

 did not materially interrupt or retard his intellec- 

 tual labours. He was only reduced to the neces- 

 sity of employing an amanuensis, to whom he dictat- 

 ed from his bed. The greater portion of the Bride 

 of Lammermuir and of Ivanhoe were created under 

 these circumstances. Mr William Laidlaw, his 

 factor, who at one time performed the task of 

 amanuensis, has described how he would sometimes 

 be stopped in the midst of some of the most amus- 

 ing or most elevated scenes, by an attack of pain 

 which being past, he would recommence in the 

 same tone at the point where he had left off, and so 

 on for day after day, till the novel was finished. 

 It happened very unfortunately, that the severe 

 task which he imposed upon himself, for the purpose 

 of discharging his obligations, came at a period of 

 life when he was least able to accomplish it. It 

 will hardly be believed that, even when so far oc- 

 cupied with his official duties in town, he seldom 

 permitted a day to pass over his head without writ- 

 ing as much as to fill a sheet of print, or sixteen 

 pages; and this, whether it was of an historical na- 

 ture, with of course the duty of consulting docu- 

 ments, or of fictitious matter spun from the loom 

 of his fancy. The reader may judge how strong 

 must have been that principle of integrity, which 

 could command such a degree of exertion and self- 

 denial, not so much to pay debts contracted by 

 himself, as to discharge obligations in which he was 

 involved by others. He can only be likened, in- 

 deed, to the generous elephant, which, being set to 

 a task above its powers, performed it at the expense 

 of life, and then fell dead at the feet of its master. 



His retirement from official duty might have 

 been expected to relieve in some measure the pains 



of intense mental application. It was now too late, 

 however, to redeem the health that had fled. 

 During the succeeding winter, symptoms of gradual 

 paralysis, a disease hereditary in his family, began to 

 be manifested. His contracted limb became grad- 

 ually weaker and more painful, and his tongue less 

 readily obeyed the impulse of the will. Since the 

 early part of the year 1831, he had, in a great mea- 

 sure, abandoned the pen for the purposes of author- 

 ship. This, however, he did with some difficulty, 

 and it is to be feared that he resumed it more fre- 

 quently than he ought to have done. In the autumn, 

 his physicians recommended a residence in Italy, as 

 a means of delaying the approaches of his illness. 

 To this scheme he felt the strongest repugnance, 

 as he feared he should die on a foreign soil, far from 

 the mountain-land which was so endeared to him- 

 self, and which he had done so much to endear to 

 others; but by the intervention of some friends, 

 whose advice he had been accustomed to respect 

 from his earliest years, he was prevailed upon to 

 comply. By the kind offices of captain Basil Hall, 

 liberty was obtained for him to sail in his majesty's 

 ship the Barham, which was then fitting out for 

 Malta. He sailed in this vessel from Portsmouth, 

 on the 27th of October, and on the 27th of De- 

 cember landed at Naples, where he was received 

 by the king and his court with a feeling approaching 

 to homage. In April, he proceeded to Rome, and 

 was there received in the same manner. He paid 

 visits to Tivoli, Albani, and Frescati. Feeling, 

 however, that his strength was rapidly decaying, 

 his desire to return to his native land became irre- 

 pressible, and he hurried homeward with a rapidity 

 which, in his state of health, was highly injurious, 

 and doubtless accelerated the catastrophe which 

 perhaps no degree of skill or caution could have 

 long delayed. He experienced a further severe 

 attack of his disorder in passing down the Rhine, 

 and reached London in nearly the last stage of phy- 

 sical and mental prostration. Medical aid could 

 only, it was found, for a short period postpone dis- 

 solution ; and to gratify his most ardent dying wish, 

 he was conveyed by the steam packet to Leith, 

 and on the llth of July, 1832, reached once more 

 his favourite house at Abbotsford, but in such a 

 pitiable condition, that he no longer recognised his 

 nearest and dearest relations. After lingering in 

 this state till, in the progress of his melancholy 

 malady, mortification had been some time proceed- 

 ing in different parts of the mortal frame, he 

 expired without a struggle on the 21st of Septem- 

 ber, 1832. He was interred in his family burial 

 aisle amidst the ruins of Dryburgh abbey, a spot 

 of great picturesque beauty, lying on the Tweed 

 Side, about half way between Smailholm, the 

 scene of his simple infancy, and Abbotsford, the 

 stately home of his latter years. 



Sir Walter left a family of two sons and two 

 daughters. The elder son, the present Sir Walter, 

 is a major in the 15th Hussars; the younger, 

 Charles, is an attache to the Neapolitan Legation. 

 The elder daughter was married in 1820, to Mr 

 J. G. Lockhart, and died in 1837; the younger 

 daughter, Anne, did not long survive the death of 

 her father. In stature, Sir Walter was above six 

 feet; but, having been lame from an early period 

 of life in the right limb, he sank a little on that 

 side in walking. His person was, in latter life, 

 bulky, but not corpulent, and made a graceful ap- 

 pearance on horseback. His features must be 

 familiar to every reader though the medium of the 



