Walter Scott

“ If he had not Sir Walter Scott’s positive conviction that every man ought to be either a laird or a lawyer, casting in authorship as a mere addition if it were to be practised at all, he at least led so full and keen a life, and was drawn forth on so many sides by nature, society, and the unseen, that Literature, out of the actual moments in which he was engaged in it, must have seemed to him a mere bagatelle, a mere fantastic echo of not a tithe of life. ”

“ For my part, I can hardly regret that Sir Walter Scott had lost his consciousness of outward things before his works went out of vogue. It was good that he should forget his fame rather than that fame should first have forgotten him. Were he still a writer, and as brilliant a one as ever, he could no longer maintain anything like the same position in literature. The world, nowadays, requires a more earnest purpose, a deeper moral, and a closer and homelier truth than he was qualified to supply it with. Yet who can be to the present generation even what Scott has been to the past? ”

“ Sir Walter Scott was the first literary man of a great riding, sporting, and fighting clan. Indeed, his father—a Writer to the Signet, or Edinburgh solicitor—was the first of his race to adopt a town life and a sedentary profession. Sir Walter was the lineal descendant—six generations removed—of that Walter Scott commemorated in The Lay of the Last Minstrel, who is known in Border history and legend as Auld Wat of Harden. ”

“ Are there very many of the present generation who have not read Sir Walter Scott's novels? If there be any—and there must be, or where would be the demand to occasion this new and admirably devised supply—let them at once put aside modern sensationalism, and commence Walter Scott as a study. The Baron knows personally one man of mature years, who has read neither Waverley nor several others of the series, and him he envies, for, as the student in question has already set himself to the task, he has the greatest literary pleasure of his life yet to come. ”

“ Indeed, but for its wanting some inches in elevation of forehead— (a considerable want, it must be allowed) —the picture might be mistaken for one of Sir Walter Scott. The keen, shrewd expression of the eye, and the remarkable length and compression of the upper lip, bring him exactly before me as he appeared when entering with all the zeal of a professional agriculturist into the merits of a pit of marle discovered at Abbotsford. Had the old man been represented with his cap on his head, the resemblance to one particular phasis of the most changeful of countenances would have been perfect. ”

“ To speak of Sir Walter Scott as a literary man, would be the height of absurdity in a statistical writer. In that light he is known and duly appreciated over the whole world, wherever letters have found their way. But I shall say, that those who know him only by the few hundreds of volumes that he has published, know only the one half of the man, and that not the best half neither. As a friend, he is steady, candid, and sincere, expressing his sentiments freely, whether favourable or the reverse. He is no man's enemy, though he may be to his principles ”

“ It was natural enough that the very sight of this man should suggest to the studious youth, thoughts of greatness and of travel. His kinship to Sir Walter Scott and his familiarity with the lands beyond the seas, no doubt lent him a sort of halo, to the imagination of boyhood. But it must have done more than this; it must have suggested that one need not remain poor and unknown; and that, as Walter Scott, when a poor young man had lifted himself above his condition by means of his education, so might Oliver Carr. ”

“ Mr Walter Scott, born in 1729, and admitted as a Writer to the Signet in 1755, was by no means a man of shining abilities. He was, however, a steady, expert man of business, insomuch as to prosper considerably in life ”

“ I met Sir Walter Scott in Mr. Ticknor's library with all his benign, calm expression of countenance, his eye of genius and his mouth of humor—such as he was before the life of life was gone, such as genius loved to see him, such as American genius has given him to American friendship, immortalized in person as in mind. His very self I see feeling, thinking and about to speak—and to a friend to whom he loved to speak ”

“ He was invariably gracious and kind, and it was impossible ever to detect in his conversation a symptom of his grounding the slightest title to consideration upon his literary fame, or of his even being conscious of it. Of all men living, the most modest, as likewise the greatest and most virtuous, was Sir Walter Scott. ”

“ Of the two branches of the legal profession, the bar offered the greatest attractions to young men ambitious of distinction. For mere financial success Walter Scott might have been tempted to take to the Writer's career. His father offered to take him at once into partnership, which would have meant 'an immediate prospect of a handsome independence.' But Walter was never very fond of money, and had then no expensive plans in view to make the acquisition of it a necessity. In all other respects he preferred the Advocate's life. ”

“ It is a national prerogative as unalienable as his pride and his poverty. My birth was neither distinguished nor sordid. According to the prejudices of my country, it was esteemed gentle, (p. 003) as I was connected, though remotely, with ancient families both by my father's and mother's side. My father's grandfather was Walter Scott, well known in Teviotdale by the surname of Beardie. He was the second son of Walter Scott, first Laird of Raeburn, who was third son of Sir William Scott, and the grandson of Walter Scott, commonly called in tradition Auld Watt, of Harden. ”

“ This serenity we must attain if we would apply to Walter Scott even the methods of historical criticism. Approaching him from this point of view (and, as I must warn again, in a spirit of justice and serenity) we perceive that first of all we must take account of the social function he so admirably fulfilled.
Walter Scott, to speak quite plainly, was a literary manufacturer. His task it was to supply a market with wares which were in a demand as great as it was legitimate. Are not the needs of the human imagination—needs of stimulation or of amusement—real needs? ”

“ In later years, when such a step was suggested, Scott seems to have become convinced that the less conspicuous position was more fit and desirable for a literary man, and more especially a poet and novelist. At all events the Tory party lost the opportunity of making Walter Scott 'Lord Abbotsford.'
After the publication of Tales of my Landlord by Murray, Scott, in conjunction with his friend Erskine, contributed to the Quarterly a general review of the Waverley Novels and a reply to Dr. M'Crie's strictures on the treatment of the Covenanters in Old Mortality. ”

“ Remember, I anticipate the jest, "I like not such grinning honor as Sir Walter hath." [7] After all, if one must speak for himself, I have my quarters and emblazonments, free of all stain but Border theft and High Treason, which I hope are gentlemanlike crimes; and I hope Sir Walter Scott will not sound worse than Sir Humphry Davy, though my merits are as much under his, in point of utility, as can well be imagined. ”

“ Walter Scott was a great friend of my family and frequently came to Athol Crescent. I have often sat on his knee and had stories told me by him. I also accompanied my father to Abbotsford and spent some days there, and I remember that on our arrival Walter Scott, followed by his sleugh-hound ‘Maida,’ came out to welcome us, and, [4] taking my father by the arm, he turned round to ‘Maida’ and said, ‘Do you take care of Johnny and let him have a ride on your back if he likes.’ ‘Maida’ and I became great friends, and she allowed me to get on her back ”

“ The blood flows in a stormier torrent and the mind takes on something of the gloomy and savage majesty of those gaunt, barren, lonely hills. Even Sir Walter Scott, speaking of his own great works,—which are precious beyond words, and must always be loved and cherished by readers who know what beauty is,—said that all he had ever done was to polish the brasses that already were made. ”

“ About the middle of August, my wife and I went to Abbotsford; and we remained there for several weeks, during which I became familiarized to Sir Walter Scott's mode of existence in the country. It was necessary to observe it, day after day, for a considerable period, before one could believe that such was, during nearly half the year, the routine of life with the most productive author of his age. The humblest person who stayed merely for a short visit, must have departed with the impression that what he witnessed was an occasional variety ”

“ Persons not much interested in, or cognisant of, “antiquarian old womanries,” as Sir Walter called them, may ask “what all the pother is about,” in this little tractate. On my side it is “about” the veracity of Sir Walter Scott. He has been suspected of helping to compose, and of issuing as a genuine antique, a ballad, Auld Maitland. He also wrote about the ballad, as a thing obtained from recitation, to two friends and fellow-antiquaries. If to Scott’s knowledge it was a modern imitation, Sir Walter deliberately lied. ”

“ It is, then, the man in the imagination, the cheerful, healthy, vigorous, sympathetic, good-natured, and broad-natured Walter Scott himself, who, modestly hidden, as he seems to be, behind the characters and scenes he represents, really streams through them the peculiar quality of life which makes their abiding charm. He has been accepted by humanity, because he is so heartily humane,--humane, not merely as regards man in the abstract, but as regards man in the concrete. ”

“ The manner of Sir Walter Scott is that of a man accustomed to see much of the world without being exactly a man of the world himself. He has evidently great social tact, perfect self-possession, is quiet, and absolutely without pretension, and has much dignity; and yet it struck me that he wanted the ease and aplomb of one accustomed to live with his equals. ”

“ Walter Scott is a writer who should just now be re-emerging into his own high place in letters, for unquestionably the recent, though now dwindling, schools of severely technical and æsthetic criticism have been unfavourable to him. He was a chaotic and unequal writer, and if there is one thing in which artists have improved since his time, it is in consistency and equality. It would perhaps be unkind to inquire whether the level of the modern man of letters, as compared with Scott, is due to the absence of valleys or the absence of mountains. ”

“ Sir Walter's eldest grandchild, John Hugh Lockhart, for whom the Tales of a Grandfather were written, died before his grandfather; indeed Sir Walter heard of the child's death at Naples. The second son, Walter Scott Lockhart Scott, a lieutenant in the army, died at Versailles, on the 10th January, 1853. Charlotte Harriet Jane Lockhart, who was married in 1847 to James Robert Hope-Scott, and succeeded to the Abbotsford estate, died at Edinburgh, on the 26th October, 1858, leaving three children, of whom only one survives. Walter Michael and Margaret Anne Hope-Scott both died in infancy. ”

“ Sir Walter felt the consolatory delusion that he had succeeded in his task, that his debts were paid. The last autumn at Abbotsford was full of the charm of{201} sunset. Turner came, and painted Abbotsford on a tea tray, at a picnic. Young Walter Scott came, a joy to his father’s eyes, “a handsomer fellow never put foot into stirrup.” Wordsworth, too, was there, as his verses on Yarrow testify, and his noble sonnet ”

“ More than a century has passed since Walter Scott was born—a poet destined to exercise a profound, far-reaching, permanent influence upon the feelings of the human race, and thus to act a conspicuous part in its moral and spiritual development and guidance. ”

“ William Clerk, that Scott was observed to lay aside that carelessness, not to say slovenliness, as to dress, which used to furnish matter for joking at the beginning of their acquaintance. He now did himself more justice in these little matters, became fond of mixing in general female society, and, as his friend expresses it, "began to set up for a squire of dames."
His personal appearance at this time was not unengaging. A lady of high rank, [76] who well remembers him in the Old Assembly Rooms, says, "Young Walter Scott was a comely creature." ”

“ ABBOTSFORD NOTANDA. The death of Mr William Laidlaw, a man of fine natural powers, and of most estimable character, removed another of the few individuals connected directly and confidentially with the daily life and literary history of Sir Walter Scott, and also with the revival of the antique Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The loss of Hogg, while the twilight from Scott’s departed greatness still shone on the land, was universally regretted ”

“ But years went by before the vision ended—the vision of the lady of Rokeby, of Redgauntlet, and of the Lay of the Last Minstrel; “by many names one form.{22}”
It is because he knew passion too well that he is not a poet of passion. There is nothing in Scott like the melancholy or peevish repining of the lovers in Locksley Hall and in Maud. Only in the fugitive farewell caress of Diana Vernon, stooping from her saddle on the darkling moor before she rides into the night, do we feel the heart-throb of Walter Scott. Of love as of human life he knew too much to speak. ”