206 FURTHER NOTES CONCERNING SIR WALTER SCOTT 



at Edinburgh, 19th January 1797, to Sir William Forbes 

 of Pitslip^o, baronet, and had issue ; and died at Lympstone, in 

 Devonshire, Sth December 1810.' 



The chief interest of this, as concerning Sir Walter Scott, 

 is that it shows how very young Miss Belshes must have 

 been at the time their acquaintance began. She cannot 

 have been more than twenty at the time of her marriage, 

 and as he was married in the end of the same year, the 

 "three years of dreaming and two years of waking" of 

 which he writes in his diary, have to be got in between 1792 

 and 1797. In fact the affair, with her parents' knowledge, would 

 seem to have been going on for years before she was regularly 

 introduced into society ; which accounts for a good deal. 



Her name and her grandmother's seem to be misprinted 

 in Douglas ; WilUelmina is probably meant for Wilhelmina. 

 There seems an error about the "golden wedding" of the 

 grandparents, which is made six months too soon, July having 

 been apparently taken for January contracted. Lady Forbes's 

 name seems really to have been Williamina ; it appears 

 in that form on the tombstone of her distinguished son, 

 James Forbes. There is perhaps nothing really strange in the 

 fact, but still it is curious how completely she vanishes from Sir 

 Walter's life after his marriage, considering how very seriously 

 he seems to have taken his courtship of her, and at the same 

 time how freely he seems to have talked about it. Not the 

 least serious of his utterances is that to his Journal, thirty years 

 later; when annoyed bj' her old mother insisting on going over 

 the whole thing, he says " These things had become a matter of 

 solemn and not unpleasing recollection," — at least I think these 

 are the words. 



Mr Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp e, who came on the scene 

 not long after the marriage of both, — he made Sir 

 Walter's acquaintance in 1800, — rather professes to doubt 

 Lockhart's account of the whole affair, on the ground that he 

 had known Sir Walter intimately for thirty-two years, and had 

 never heard of it. 



This was illogical enough, especially considering the sort of 

 man he was ; but what is remarkable is, that two sisters of Sir 

 William Forbes, the man who did marry Miss Belsches. were 

 married to about the two most intimate friends of Sir Walter's 

 later life ; Mr James Skene, probably was, as Lockhart says, 



