18 ALEXANDER GORDON, THE ANTIQUARY. 



dents connected witli the formation and later history of the Penny- 

 cuik collection, when he drew the inimitable portraiture of Jonathan 

 Oldbiick. He does indeed tell us, in the introduction to " The 

 Chronicles of the Canongate," that " the character of Jonathan Old- 

 buck, in ' The Antiquary,' was partly founded on that of an old 

 friend of my youth, to whom I am indebted for introducing me to 

 Shakespeare, and other invaluable favours." But he adds at a later 



'date that the only incident in the novel borrower! from the real cir- 

 cumstances of his early friend, excepting the fact that he resided in an 

 old house near a flouiishing seaport, is a scene which Scott himself 

 chanced to witness, in which he played the part of the Laird in his 

 conflict with Mrs. Macleuchar, at the head of her trap stairs in the 

 old High Street of Edinburgh. Of his otlier recorded qualities — 

 including ''an excellent temper, with a slight degree of subacid 

 humour ; learning, wit, and drollery, the more poignant that they 

 were a little marked by the peculiarities of an old bachelor," — the 

 Pennycuik traditions have preserved nothing in common ; nor is it 

 easy to conceive of the patient, plodding author of the Itinerarium 

 ever unbending so far as to be found capable of wit or drollery. 



But the power of idealization was too strong in Scott to admit of 

 his being the mere literary photographer of some familiar acquaint- 

 -ance. Many traits of his old friend George Constable, of V/allace 

 Crag, were doubtless wrought into the ideal Jonathan Oldbuck ; 

 but we have the authority of Lockhart for the fact that John Clerk, 

 of Eldin, a younger son of the Baron of Pennycuik, — author of a 

 once famous essay on dividing the line in sea-fights, to which was 

 ascribed some of the victories of Lord Rodney and a general revolu- 

 tion in naval tactics ; — who inhei'ited the antiquarian tastes of his 

 father, supplied not a few of the most graphic touches in the inimi- 

 table portraiture of the Laird of Monkbarns. Nor was the author 

 wholly u.nconscious of personal traits of the Laird of Abbotsford 

 himself, derived in part from the enthusiasm of friends of his 

 youth, and fostered by such studies as those of " Sandy Gordon's 

 Itinerarium Septentrionale." But Scott's characters are creations, 

 and not mere portraits, much less caricatures. They are true to 

 nature, and replete with evidence of that comprehensive study of 

 humanity in which the power of the poet and the di-amatist lies. 

 But of the influence of the Itinerarium Septentrionale on the 



diterary form of " The Antiquary," and the enriching of its pages 



