FURTHER NOTES CONCERNINa StR WALTER SCOTT 209 



The cheap and very convenient one-volume edition of 

 Lockhart's Life of Scott, published within the last three or four 

 years, is not a reprint of the first edition, of which the first 

 volume was published in 1837, and the remaining six in 

 1838, but of the second edition, which followed in 1839 ; though 

 as far as I can make out, that was exactly the same as the other, 

 except for a description of Abbotsford interposed in the text 

 near the end ; and for the addition of a large number of foot-notes. 



Perhaps the most interesting of these is a story Lockhart had 

 received from Mrs Thomas Scjtt after the first edition was pub- 

 lished, which, like a good many other anecdotes, gives rather a 

 different idea of Sir Walter's surroundings from what one would 

 gather from his own writings. 



Their mother, Mrs Scott, was fidgeting about her younger son 

 Tom, who at some late hour had not come in from a ramble ; 

 when her husband said "0 Annie, my dear, you need not be 

 anxious about Tom ; you know he is with Walter ; and have you 

 never observed, that wherever Walter goes, he gets his bread 

 buttered on both sides." 



This full recognition of his son's social success was very credit- 

 able to Mr Scott's intelligence, while it could not reconcile him 

 to his absences from the office. He died before the Lay of the 

 Last Minstrel was published. It is before this, too, that the 

 Wordsworths say they might have been entertained all through 

 Scotland, by merely mentioning Mr Scott's name. It is to be 

 noticed, that Lockhart's abridgment of the Life^ dated 1848, 

 though not published till 1871, though a different work, has a 

 considerable part of the same text — pages and paragraphs 

 having been used. 



There is a notice of Sir Walter Scott as a young child, in the 

 interesting Life of Henry Erskine, which makes one doubt 

 whether he ever did really live at Sandyknowe except in summer. 

 It is in the part of the memoir contributed by Mr Erskine's son, 

 who had succeeded to the family title of Buchan. 



Their house in George Square was next door to the Scotts' and 

 Mr Erskine rented the stables of the other house ; which partly 

 explains the circumstances. Little Wattie, before he spoke 

 plainly, but when he had so far the practical use of his legs, 

 used to be always running into Mr Erskine's house and wanting 

 Mr Erskine to play with him— as, his son says, all children did. 

 One day he came up to his friend with the question: — *'Mr 



