4 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



company. But just before this the paths of these two 

 had crossed in a more delicate and tender region. Most 

 readers of Lockhart's ' Life of Scott ' will remember the 

 allusions it contains to a ' first love/ which ended un- 

 fortunately for the poet. It is there told how the 

 acquaintance began in the Greyfriars Churchyard, where 

 rain happening to fall one Sunday after church-time, 

 Scott offered his umbrella to a young lady, and the tender 

 having been accepted, escorted her to her home, which 

 proved to be at no great distance from his own. To 

 return from church together had, it seems, grown into 

 something like a custom, before they met in society. It 

 then appeared that the mothers of the two young people, 

 Lady Jane Stuart and Mrs. Scott, had been companions 

 in their youth, though, both living secludedly, they had 

 scarcely seen each other for many years. The two ma- 

 trons now renewed their former intercourse. For long 

 years Scott nourished this dream, but it was doomed 

 to end in disappointment. ' The lady/ we are told, ' pre- 

 ferred a friend of Scott's, who was in this also a rival, 

 a gentleman of the highest character, to whom some 

 affectionate allusions occur in one of the greatest of the 

 poet's works, and who lived to act the part of a most 

 generous friend to Scott throughout the anxieties and 

 distresses of 1826 and 1827/ That lady was Williamina 

 Belches, sole child and heir of a gentleman, who was a 

 cadet of the ancient family of Invermay, and who after- 

 wards became Sir John Stuart of Fettercairn. The more 

 fortunate rival was Sir William Forbes, who married the 

 lady whom Scott so loved. The youngest child of this mar- 

 riage was James David, whose life is here to be recorded. 

 Lockhart adds that he has no doubt that this deep dis- 

 appointment had a powerful influence in nerving Scott's 

 mind to face steadily and perseveringly those legal studies 

 which were to fit him for being called to the bar. Perhaps 

 it may have had this effect. More subtle observers have 

 traced to it another result deeper and more lasting. 

 Keble in a beautiful essay on Scott more than hints a 

 belief that it was this imaginative regret haunting Scott 



