that we would receive the prolongation of such a represented tragedy by first-rate performers on the boards of a theatrical stage, and the postponement of its denouément, have we received the prefixed notice to the present portion of the Life, that every succeeding month has brought the biographer some accession of materials, so that one volume more than was originally contemplated, forming the Seventh, will be requisite to complete the work. besides that which I always claim on my own, has, as We feel that it is impossible by any preliminary observations to convey any tolerable idea of the varied and absorbing interest which the contents of the present volume are capable of communicating. Nay, we find it difficult to fix on any principle of analysis or selection to impart a proper conception of any one of the diversified traits of character, or of the numerous vicissi-hung on both their minds, for at the conclusion of a tudes which are here explained and represented. It is true that an immense deal has been made publicly 'Mount and go-mount and make you ready, known heretofore concerning Scott and the eventful Mount and go, and be a soldier's lady.' period embraced by the volume now under considera- Though her fortune be considerable, the favours of the tion; but regarding no other part of his life has Mr. public will enable me to make such settlements as her Lockhart's publication so greatly surpassed the testi- been the poor mother (a highland lady of great worth friends think very adequate. The only impediment has monies previously existing as in this, chiefly because and integrity), who could not brook parting with the a diary kept and left by Sir Walter himself has been sole object of her care and attention, to resign her to copiously introduced and illustrated. In fact, but for the vicissitudes of a military life, while I necessarily the revelations of this diary it would never have been refused to let my son sink into a mere fox-hunting, muirfowl-shooting squire. She has at length been known to his most intimate friends, or even to his own obliged to acquiesce rather than consent-her friends children, what struggles it cost him, what hopes, fears, and counsellors being clear-sighted enough to see that agonies, consolations, and triumphs, crowded a portion her daughter's happiness could scarce be promoted by of his life-the triumphs over disaster, over his own compelling the girl to break off a mutual attachment, temper, to the attainment of a lofty serenity of mind, of having a troop very soon, with a good estate in reand a match with a young lieutenant of hussars, sure constituting one of the grandest, most impressive, and version, and as handsome a fellow as ever put his foot gratifying spectacles that ever has been displayed. in a stirrup. So they succeeded in bringing matters to How nobly does his good common sense, his honour a bearing, although old Papa has practised the 'profane, and his genius stand out in their united and inseparable and unprofitable art of poem-making-and the youngform from the whole of this volume!—and how grate to be quiet at Abbotsford for a few days, and then they ster wears a pair of formidable mustachios. They are fully, we may almost exclaim, should we regard the go to town to make their necessary purchases of cardarkest and most disastrous periods of Scott's fate; for riage, and so forth; they are to be at my old friend, without these passages never would posterity have ap- Miss Dumergue's, and will scarcely see any one; but preciated the nobility of his character, or had such a as I think you will like to call on my dear little Jane, I am sure she will see you, and I know you will be rare example of perseverance, integrity, and achieve-kind and indulgent to her. Here is a long letter when ment bequeathed to it! To be sure, as Lockhart has it, "He paid the penalty of health and life, but he saved his honour and his self-respect: I only meant a line. I think they will be in London We must hurry over a great number of curious particulars connected with the progress of several of Scott's literary labours, and among these the history of the project of Constable's Miscellany, the origin of a style of publication and a genus of works that will figure in the records of civilization and popular knowledge. Scott's excursions to Ireland, of which his biographer has preserved some elegant as well as amusing notes, would of itself deserve the consideration of an entire volume. The numerous letters everywhere interspersed, the anecdotes, and the accounts of very many interviews with distinguished persons, are as playful, shrewd or touching as any that the world ever saw. But how awakened to fear and sorrow does the heart become as the commercial crisis of 1825 is approached, when, in consequence of having dealt in sheaves of Accommodation Bills, the house of Constable, as well that of Ballantyne and Co., were crushed, Scott all along entrusting his interests and name almost blindfolded to adventurers or those who proceeded on an unsafe principle of trade; and in a manner miraculous for a man of such sound sense, knowledge of mankind, and punctual habits-hardly ever setting his mind firmly to the task and duty of obtaining a thorough acquaintance with the condition of those with whose fortunes his own were inseparable. harangues about an author's works in his own house." The commercial atmosphere was beginning to become murky and troubled, so that on the 25th of November we find the following sage resolutions set down: "I here register my purpose to practise economics. I have little temptation to do otherwise. Abbotsford is all that I can make it, and too large for the property; so I resolve"No more building; "No purchases of land, till times are quite safe; "No buying books or expensive trifles-I mean to any extent; and "Clearing off encumbrances, with the returns of this year's labour; "Which resolutions, with health, and my habits of industry, will make me 'sleep in spite of thunder.' "After all, it is hard that the vagabond stock-jobbing Jews should, for their own purposes, make such a shake of credit as now exists in London, and menace the credit of men trading on sure funds like Hurst and Robinson. It is just like a set of pickpockets, who raise a mob, in which honest folks are knocked down and plundered, that they may pillage safely in the midst of the confusion they have excited." Every sentence in the diary is striking and, in some respect or other, illustrative; and what is also remarkable, Scott seems through joy and sorrow, good and evil, to have persevered in noting down for every day that which was uppermost in his mind. On November 30th, he begins thus-"I am come to the time when those that look out of the windows shall be darkened.'" He speaks also of his lameness becom Passing over much that is arresting, we come to that part of the present volume where the Diary first appears, and from which the biographer has, in the exercise of a considerate discretion, extracted what must form the principal source of what we are about to quote. A more precious autobiographical record surely has never been read-the manliness, the candour, the virtue, which pervade the whole being being more inconvenient, and says his "mental vestyond measure beautiful. We quote part of the very first entry. ments are none of the newest." But he consoles himself by adding that his sons and Mr. Lockhart, whom we once heard him mention as a son also, "though of "Edinburgh November 20, 1825.-I have all my later birth, yet not less endeared," are so active and life regretted that I did not keep a regular Journal. I have myself lost recollection of much that was interest- handsome, that while they enjoy these blessings, he ing; and I have deprived my family of some curious in-can hardly be said to want them. Lockhart, about the formation by not carrying this resolution into effect. I very period we are now speaking of, removed to Lonhave bethought me, on seeing lately some volumes of don; for on the 5th of December an entry in the Diary Byron's notes, that he probably had hit upon the right says "This morning Lockhart and Sophia left us way of keeping such memorandum-book, by throwing 99 out all pretence to regularity and order, and marking early, and without leave-taking; when I rose at eight down events just as they occured to recollection. I o'clock, they were gone. This was very right. I hate will try this plan; and behold I have a handsome lock-red eyes and blowing of noses. ed volume, such as might serve for a lady's Album. Family happiness and the ties of relationship were Nota bene, John Lockhart, and Anne, and I are to raise finely appreciated by Sir Walter. Change of domestic a Society for the Suppression of Albums. It is a most troublesome shape of mendicity. Sir, your autograph circumstances, and the events inseparable from the -a line of poetry-or a prose sentence!-Among all advance of years, one my be sure were frequent the sprawling sonnets, and blotted trumpery that dis-themes of reflection to him. Here is a specimen of honours these miscellanies, a man must have a good his solitary thoughts in regard to such points. stomach that can swallow this botheration as a compliment." "Dined quiet with Lady Sand Anne. Anne is practising Scots songs, which I take as a kind comFor the following day we read thus-"I am en-pliment to my own taste, as her's leads her chiefly to amoured of my journal. I wish the zeal may last;" foreign music. I think the good girl sees that I want and soon after-"Talking of Abbotsford, it begins to and must miss her sister's peculiar talent in singing the be haunted by too much company of every kind, but airs of our native country, which, imperfect as my muespecially foreigners. I do not like them. I hate fine sical ear is, made, and always have made the most waistcoats, and breast-pins upon dirty shirts. I detest constraint on herself for my sake, I can only say, in reAnd so if she puts a pleasing impression upon me. the impudence that pays a stranger compliments, and quital, God bless her. "I have much to comfort me in the present aspect of my family. My eldest son, independent in fortune, united to an affectionate wife-and of good hopes in his profession;-my second, with a good deal of talent, and in the way, I trust, of cultivating it to good purpose. Anne, an honest, downright, good Scots lass, in whom I could only wish to correct a spirit of satire; and Lockhart is Lockhart, to whom I can most willingly confide the happiness of the daughter who chose him, and whom he has chosen. But my dear wife, the partner of early cares and successes is, I fear, frail in health though I trust and pray she may see me out. Indeed, if this troublesome complaint goes on-it bodes no long existence. My brother was affected with the same weakness, which, before he was fifty, brought on mortal symptoms. The poor Major had been rather a free liver. But my father, the most abstemious of men, save when the duties of hospitality required him to be very moderately free with his bottle, and that was very seldom, had the same weakness of the powers of retention which now annoys me, and he, I think, was not above seventy when cut off. Square the odds, and good-night Sir Walter about sixty.-I care not, if I leave my name unstained, and my family properly settled-Sat est vixisse." As was the case throughout Scott's life, we find him, at the critical period upon which we are now dwelling, liberal with his purse and influence in behalf of the destitute and the deserving. He appears to have been heavily taxed by the impudent as well as the unfortuHere are some notices that show some of the annoyances of the sort alluded to, which, no doubt, he was, for many years, subjected to. nate. "Answered two letters-one answer to a schoolboy, who writes himself Captain of Giggleswick School (a most imposing title), entreating the youngster not to commence editor of a magazine to be entitled the Yorkshire Muffin, I think, at seventeen years old-second, to a soldier of the 79th, showing why I cannot oblige him by getting his discharge, and exhorting him rather to bear with the wickedness and profanity of the service, than take the very precarious step of desertion. This is the old receipt of Durandarte-Patience, cousin, and shuffle the cards; and I suppose the correspondents will think I have been too busy in offering my counsel where I was asked for assistance. "A third rogue writes to tell me-rather of the latest, if the matter was of consequence-that he approves of the first three volumes of the Heart of Mid-Lothian, but totally condemns the fourth. Doubtless he thinks his opinon worth the sevenpence sterling which his letter costs. However, an author should be reasonably well pleased when three-fourths of his work are acceptable to the reader. The knave demands of me, in a postscript, to get back the sword of Sir William Wallace from England, where it was carried from Dumbarton Castle. I am not Master-General of the Ordnance, that I know. It was wrong, however, to take away that, and Mons. Meg. If I go to London this spring, I will renew my negotiation with the Great Duke for recovery of Mons. Meg." to decline a demand which might have been as reasonably made by any Campbell on earth; and another impulse has determined the man of fifty pounds to send me anonymous abuse of my works, and temper, and selfish disposition. The severity of the joke lies in 14d. for postage, to avoid which, his next epistle shall go back to the clerks of the Post-Office, as not for Sir WS. How the severe rogue would be disappointed, if he knew I never looked at more than the first and last lines of his satirical effusion! When I first saw that a literary profession was to be my fate, I endeavoured by all efforts of stoicism to divest myself of that irritable degree of sensibility—or, to speak plainly, of vanitywhich makes the poetical race miserable and ridiculous. The anxiety of a poet for praise and for compliments I have always endeavoured to keep down." On the 15th of December, he says,—“I am determined not to stand mine host to all Scotland and England, as I have done." He begins also to complain of forgetfulness overtaking him in regard to little appointments connected with social life; and utters some touching sentiments about a tremor of the head, "the pulsation of which becomes painfully sensible-a disposition to causeless alarm." Were there not some inscrutable forebodings of evil allied to all this? Let us see what is said on the 18th December. "Poor T. S. called again yesterday. Through his incoherent, miserable tale, I could see that he had exhausted each access to credit, and yet fondly imagines that, bereft of all his accustomed indulgences, he can work with a literary zeal unknown to his happier days. I hope he may labour enough to gain the mere support of his family. For myself, if things go badly in London, the magic wand of the Unknown will be shivered in his grasp. He must then, faith, be termed the Too-wellknown. The feast of fancy will be over with the feeling of independence. He shall no longer have the delight of waking in the morning with bright ideas in his mind, hasten to commit them to paper, and count them monthly, as the means of planting such scaurs, and purchasing such wastes; replacing dreams of fiction by other prospective visions of walks by 'Fountain heads, and pathless groves; Places which pale passion loves.' This cannot be; but I may work substantial husbandry, i. e. write history, and such concerns. They will not be received with the same enthusiasm; at least I much doubt, the general knowledge that an author must write for his bread, at least for improving his pittance, degrades him and his productions in the public eye. He falls into the second-rate rank of estimation: While the harness sore galls, and the spurs his side goad, The high-mettled racer's a hack on the road.' It is a bitter thought; but if tears start at it, let them flow. My heart clings to the place I have created. There is scarce a tree on it that does not owe its being to me. "What a life mine has been!-half-educated, almost wholly neglected, or left to myself; stuffing my head "How to make a critic.—A sly rogue, sheltering him- with most nonsensical trash, and undervalued by most self under the generic name of Mr. Campbell, request of my companions for a time; getting forward, and held ed of me, through the penny-post, the loan of 50l. for a bold and clever fellow, contrary to all who thought me two years, having an impulse, as he said, to make this a mere dreamer; broken-hearted for two years; my heart demand. As I felt no corresponding impulse, I begged | handsomely pierced again; but the crack will remain 脂 till my dying day. Rich and poor four or five times; once on the verge of ruin, yet opened a new source of wealth almost overflowing. Now to be broken in my pirch of pride, and nearly winged (unless good news shall come), because London chooses to be in an uproar, and in the tumult of bulls and bears, a poor inoffensive lion like myself is pushed to the wall. But what is to be the end of it? God knows; and so ends the catechism. without any manifest struggle, to have instantly accommodated his mind to the alteration in his circumstances, for he says on the 3d of January-"All is for the best. When I returned, signed a bond for 10,000%. which will disencumber me of all pressing claims; when I get forward Woodstock and Nap. there will be 12,000l. and upwards, and I hope to add 3,000l. against this time next year, or the devil must hold the dice." The sacrifice which had been made by signing the above-mentioned bond, was however but as a drop in the bucket, which was to deluge the most popular author of the age. "Edinburgh, January 16.-Came through cold roads to as cold news. Hurst and Robinson have suffered a bill to come back upon Constable, which I suppose infers the ruin of both houses. We shall soon see. Dined with the Skenes. "Nobody in the end can lose a penny by me-that is one comfort. Men will think pride has had a fall. Let them indulge their own pride in thinking that my fall will make them higher, or seem so at least. I have the satisfaction to recollect that my prosperity has been of advantage to many, and to hope that some at least will forgive my transient wealth on account of the innocence of my intentions, and my real wish to do good to the poor. Sad hearts, too, at Darnick, and in the cottages 1 of Abbotsford. I have half resolved never to see the place again. How could I tread my hall with such a diminished crest? How live a poor indebted man, where I was once the wealthy-the honoured? I was to have gone there on Saturday in joy and prosperity to receive my friends. My dogs will wait for me in vain. It is foolish-but the thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures have moved me more than any of the painful reflections I have put down. Poor things, I must get them kind masters! There may be yet those who, loving me, may love my dog, because it has been mine. I must end these gloomy forebodings, or I shall lose the tone of mind with which men should meet distress. I feel my dogs' feet on my knees. I hear them whining and seeking me everywhere. This is nonsense, but it is what they would do could they know how things may be. An odd thought strikes me-When I die, will the journal of these days be taken out of the ebony cabinet at Abbotsford, and read with wonder that the well-seeming Baronet should ever have experienced the risk of such a hitch? Or will it be found in some obscure lodging-house, where the decayed son of Chi"January 18.-He that sleeps too long in the mornvalry had hung up his scutcheon, and where one or two ing let him borrow the pillow of a debtor. So says the old friends will look grave, and whisper to each other, Spaniard, and so say I. I had of course an indifferent 'Poor gentleman'-'a well-meaning man'-'nobody's night of it. I wish these two days were over; but the enemy but his own'-thought his parts would never worst is over. The Bank of Scotland has behaved very wear out-family poorly left'-pity he took that fool-well; expressing a resolution to serve Constable's house ish title. Who can answer this question? "Poor Will Laidlaw-poor Tom Purdie-such news will wring your hearts, and many a poor fellow besides to whom my prosperity was daily bread. "January 17.-James Ballantyne this morning, good honest fellow, with a visage as black as the crook. He hopes no salvation; has indeed taken measures to stop. It is hard, after having fought such a battle. Have apologised for not attending the Royal Society Club, who have a gaudeamus on this day, and seemed to count much on my being the preses. My old acquaintance, Miss Elizabeth Clerk, sister of Willie, died suddenly. I cannot choose but wish it had been Sir W. S., and yet the feeling is unmanly. I have Anne, my wife, and Charles to look after. I felt rather sneaking as I came home from the Parliament House-felt as if I were liable monstrario digito in no very pleasant way. But this must be borne cum cæteris; and, thank God, however uncomfortable, I do not not feel despondent. I have seen Cadell, Ballantyne, and Hogarth; all advise me to execute a trust of my property for payment of my obligations; so does John Gibson, and so I resolve to do. My wife and daughter are gloomy, but yet patient. and me to the uttermost; but as no one can say to what extent Hurst and Robinson's failure may go, borrowing would but linger it out." "Ballantyne behaves like himself, and sinks the prosThe house of Hurst, Robinson, and Co., for some pect of his own ruin in contemplating mine. I tried to time longer persisted in saying that they would pay enrich him indeed, and now all, all is in the balance." everybody in full. We need not detail how different "All is in the balance." But hopes revived once or was the result, nor how Constable and Ballantyne were twice after this. On the 22nd of the same month, we affected by that result. It is to the wonderful picture find him upon Woodstock, and saying, "I wrote six which Scott, from the moment that he found himself of my close pages yesterday, which is about twenty-pennyless and deep in debt, in consequence of his enfour pages in print. What is more, I think it comes off gagements with those parties, exhibits to the world that twangingly." Scott must have husbanded his paper we have to call attention. well. The air of Bonnie Dundee running in his head, was soon written out, which also served to show the elasticity of his mind, as well as the buoyancy of his fitful hopes. Even when he knew, early in 1826, that his pecuniary loss to a considerable amount, by the pressure and disarrangement of the times, was certain, he seems to have remained undisturbed, or at least, At the very time that tidings of the most calamitous nature, in a pecuniary point of view, were coming in thick succession upon Sir Walter, he was daily at his pen, and performing many active offices of public and private life. We find him on the 19th of January recording that he had finished what would amount to about twenty printed pages of Woodstock-that “a painful scene after dinner, and another after supper," had occurred, "endeavonring to convince these poor dear creatures (his wife and daughter, of course,) that they must not look for miracles, but consider the misfortune as certain, and only to be lessened by patience and labour." He, in the same entry ejaculates "Heigho!" —at which one can the less wonder, when it is mentioned that to satisfy a friend he had to give a sitting to a portrait-painter, a species of endurance which, in a former part of the volume, he describes as having been always exceedingly irksome to him. How well he disguised his own sufferings, how great those sufferings of mind were, how magnanimously he accommodated himself to his new lot, must ever engage admiration. On January 20th he writes-"Indifferent night-very bilious." On the 21st-"Susannah, in Tristram Shandy, thinks death is best met in bed. I am sure trouble and vexation are not. The watches of the night press wearily when disturbed by fruitless regrets and disagreeable anticipations." And more at length on the 22nd "I feel neither dishonoured nor broken down by the bad-now really bad-news I have received. I have walked my last on the domains I have planted-sate the last time in the halls I have built. But death would have taken them from me if misfortune had spared them. My poor people whom I loved so well! There is just another die to turn up against me in this run of ill luck: i. e.-If I should break my magic wand in the fall from this elephant, and lose my popularity with my fortune. Then Woodstock and Bony may both go to the paper maker, and I may take to smoking cigars and drinking grog, or turn devotee, and intoxicate the brain another way. In prospect of absolute ruin, I wonder if they would let me leave the Court of Session. I would like, methinks, to go abroad, self! May man be kind! May God be propitious! The worst is, I never quite know when I am right or will fear to tell me. Lockhart would be worth gold wrong; and Ballantyne, who does know in some degree, just now, but he too might be too diffident to speak broad out. All my hope is in the continued indulgence of the public. I have a funeral letter to the burial of who has died at the Royal Hotel. He wished to be the Chevalier Yelin, a foreigner of learning and talent, introduced to me, and was to have read a paper before the Royal Society, when this introduction was to have taken place. I was not at the Society that evening, and the poor gentleman was taken ill at the meeting, and again; and now his funeral will be the first public place unable to proceed. He went to his bed and never rose I shall appear at. He dead and I ruined.—This is what you call a meeting." Scott felt and said that public favour was now his only lottery; and something told him that his evil genius would not overwhelm him if he stood by himself. He knew he had no enemies, and he found that he had many constant attached friends. The offers, indeed, that were made him in the way of pecuniary assistance were numerous, some of them magnificent. One anonymous munificent offer was made him of 30,000. which, like every other, he rejected. "A penny," he declared, "I will not borrow from any one." An arrangement with his creditors, by which he might obtain time to pay to the uttermost farthing, the enormous sum that he was answerable for, was all that he asked, and which he was determined to fulfil, or die in the struggle. The thing was granted pretty much to his satisfaction; for on the 26th of January he writes: "Gibson comes with a joyful face, announcing all the creditors had unanimously agreed to a private trust. This is handsome and confidential, and must warm my best efforts to get them out of the scrape. I will not 'And lay my bones far from the Tweed.' But I find my eyes moistening, and that will not do. I will not yield without a fight for it. It is odd when I set myself to work doggedly, as Dr. Johnson would say, I am exactly the same man that I ever wasneither low-spirited nor distrait. In prosperous times I have sometimes felt my fancy and powers of language flag, but adversity is to me at least a tonic and bracer; the fountain is awakened from its inmost recesses, as if the spirit of affliction had troubled it in his passage. "Poor Mr. Pole, the harper, sent to offer me 500/-down-a hundred thoughts. or 6007., probably his all. There is much good in the world, after all. But I will involve no friend, either rich or poor. My own right hand shall do it-else will I be done in the slang language, and undone in common parlance. doubt to doubt is to lose. Sir William Forbes took the chair, and behaved, as he has ever done, with the generosity of ancient faith and early friendship. That House is more deeply concerned than most. In what scenes have Sir William and I not borne share together desperate and almost bloody affrays, rivalries, deep drinking matches, and finally, with the kindest feelings on both sides, somewhat separated by his retiring much within the bosom of his family, and I moving little beyond mine. It is fated our planets should cross, though, and that at the periods most interesting for me. "I am glad that, beyond my own family, who are, excepting Lady S., young and able to bear sorrow, of which this is the first taste to some of them, most of the hearts are past aching, which would have once been inconsolable on this occasion. I do not mean that many will not seriously regret, and some perhaps lament my misfortunes. But my dear mother, my almost sister, Christy Rutherford, poor Will Erskine; those would have been mourners indeed. Down "I hope to sleep better to-night. If I do not I shall get ill, and then I cannot keep my engagements. Is it not odd? I can command my eyes to be awake when toil and weariness sit on my eyelids, but to draw the curtain of oblivion is beyond my power. I remember some of the wild Buccaneers, in their impiety, succeeded pretty well by shutting hatches, and burning brimstone and assafoetida, to make a tolerable imitation of hell-but the pirate's heaven was a wretched affair. It is one of the worst things about this system of ours, that it is a hundred times more easy to inflict pain than to create pleasure." On the 30th he says "I laboured fairly yesterday. "Well-exertion-exertion. O, Invention, rouse thy-The stream rose fast-if clearly is another question; |