[59] Mr. Lockhart suggests Lords Hermand and Succoth, the former living at 124 George Street, and the latter at 1 Park Place.
[60] William Knox died 12th November. He had published _Songs of Israel_, 1824, _A Visit to Dublin_, 1824, _The Harp of Zion_, 1825, etc., besides _The Lonely Hearth_. His publisher (Mr. Anderson, junior, of Edinburgh) remembers that Sir Walter occasionally wrote to Knox and sent him money--£10 at a time.--J.G.L.
[61] In Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his Humour_.
[62] Providence was kinder to the venerable lady than the Government, as at this juncture a handsome legacy came to her from an unexpected quarter. _Memoir and Correspondence_, Lond. 1845, vol. iii. p. 71.
[63] _Measure for Measure_, Act iv. Sc. 3.--J.G.L.
[64] Burns's _Dedication to Gavin Hamilton_.--J.G.L.
[65] _Don Quixote_, Pt. II. ch. 23.
[66] _Spectator_, No. 159.--J.G.L.
[67] Sir William Allan, President of the Royal Scottish Academy from 1838: he died at Edinburgh in 1850.
[68] _Beaumont and Fletcher_, 8vo, Lond. 1788, vol. v. pp. 410-413,419-426.
[69] For notices of David Thomson, see _Life_, October 1822, and T. Craig Brown's _History of Selkirkshire_, 2 vols. 4to, Edin. 1886, vol. i. pp. 505, 507, and 519.
[70] Burns's _Address to the Unco Guid_.--J.G.L.
[71] Banamhorar-Chat, _i.e._ the Great Lady of the Cat, is the Gaelic title of the Countess-Duchess of Sutherland. The county of Sutherland itself is in that dialect _Cattey_, and in the English name of the neighbouring one, _Caithness_, we have another trace of the early settlement of the _Clan Chattan_, whose chiefs bear the cognisance of a Wild Cat. The Duchess-Countess died in 1838.--J.G.L.
[72] See 1 _King Henry IV_., Act II. Sc. 1.
[73] John Hope, Esq., was at this time Solicitor-General for Scotland, afterwards Lord Justice-Clerk from 1841 until his death in 1858.
[74] Henry Dundas, the first Viscount Melville, first appeared in Parliament as Lord Advocate of Scotland.--J.G.L.
[75] Robert Sym Wilson, Esq., W.S., Secretary to the Royal Bank of Scotland.--J.G.L.
[76] The Right Hon. Sir Samuel Shepherd, who had been at the head of the Court of Exchequer since 1819, was then living at 16 Coates Crescent; he retired in 1830, and resided afterwards in England, where he died, aged 80, on the 30th November 1840. Before coming to Scotland, Sir Samuel had been Solicitor-General in 1814, and Attorney-General in 1817.
[77] See _Nice Valour_, by John Fletcher; Beaumont and Fletcher's _Works_.
[78] From Charles Dibdin's song, _The Racehorse_.
[79] Sir Samuel Shepherd.
[80] The Right Hon. Charles Hope, who held the office of Lord President of the Court of Session for thirty years; he died in 1851 aged eighty-nine.
[81] Afterwards Sir James Yorke Scarlett, G.C.B.
[82] Sir James Scarlett, first Lord Abinger.
[83] The Dedication of _Constable's Miscellany_ was penned by Sir Walter--"To His Majesty King George IV., the most generous Patron even of the most humble attempts towards the advantage of his subjects, this _Miscellany_, designed to extend useful knowledge and elegant literature, by placing works of standard merit within the attainment of every class of readers, is most humbly inscribed by His Majesty's dutiful and devoted subject--Archibald Constable."--J.G.L.
[84] Probably a slip of the pen for "weeks," as Mathews was in London in March (1822), and we know that he dined with Scott in Castle Street on the 10th of February. _Memoirs_, vol. iii. p. 262. Mr. Lockhart says, "within a week," and at p. 33 vol. vii. gives an account of a dinner party. Writing so many years after the event he may have mistaken the date. James Boswell died in London 24th February 1822; his brother, Sir Alexander, was at the funeral, and did not return to Edinburgh till Saturday 23d March. James Stuart of Dunearn challenged him on Monday; they fought on Tuesday, and Boswell died on the following day, March 27. Mr. Lockhart says that "several circumstances of Sir Alexander's death are exactly reproduced in the duel scene in _St. Ronan's Well_."
[85] In a letter to Skene written late in 1821, Scott, in expressing his regret at not being able to meet Boswell, adds, "I hope J. Boz comes to make some stay, but I shall scarce forgive him for not coming at the fine season." The brothers Boswell had been Mr. Skene's schoolfellows and intimate friends; and he had lived much with them both in England and Scotland.
Mr. Skene says, in a note to Letter 28, that "they were men of remarkable talents, and James of great learning, both evincing a dash of their father's eccentricity, but joined to greater talent. Sir Walter took great pleasure in their society, but James being resident in London, the opportunity of enjoying his company had of late been rare. Upon the present occasion he had dined with me in the greatest health and spirits the evening before his departure for London, and in a week we had accounts of his having been seized by a sudden illness which carried him off. In a few weeks more his brother, Sir Alexander, was killed in a duel occasioned by a foolish political lampoon which he had written, and in a thoughtless manner suffered to find its way to a newspaper."--_Reminiscences_.
[86] See _Life_, vol. v. p. 87.
[87] Henry Savary, son of a banker in Bristol, had been tried for forgery a few months before.
[88] From _What d'ye call it?_ by John Gay.
[89] _Life of Napoleon_.--J.G.L.
[90] See Scott's _Poetical Works_, vol. xii. pp. 194-97.--J.G.L.
[91] William Erskine of Kinnedder was Scott's senior by two years at the bar, having passed Advocate in 1790. He became Sheriff of Orkney in 1809, and took his seat on the Bench as Lord Kinnedder, 29 January 1822; he died on the 14th of August following. Scott and he met first in 1792, and, as is well known, he afterwards "became the nearest and most confidential of all his Edinburgh associates." In 1796 he arranged with the publishers for Scott's earliest literary venture, a thin 4to of some 48 pages entitled _The Chase_, etc. See _Life_ throughout, more particularly vol. i. pp. 279-80, 333-4, 338-9; ii. pp. 103-4; iv. pp. 12, 166, 369; v. p. 174; vi. p. 393; vii. pp. 1, 5, 6, 70-74. See Appendix for Mr. Skene's account of the destruction of the letters from Scott to Erskine.
[92] Patrick Brydone, author of _A Tour through Sicily and Malta_, 2 vols. 8vo, 1773.
[93] Gilbert, Earl of Minto, died in June 1814.--J.G.L.
[94] See Canning's _German Play_, in the _Anti-Jacobin_.--J.G.L.
[95] See Johnson's _Musical Museum_, No. 490, slightly altered.
[96] See _Candide_.--J.G.L.
[97] James Clarkson, Esq., surgeon, Melrose, son to Scott's old friend, Dr. Clarkson of Selkirk.--J.G.L.
[98] See _Constable's Miscellany_, vol. v.--J.G.L.
[99] See the _Quarterly Review_ for January 1820--or Scott's _Miscellaneous Prose Works_.--J.G.L.
[100] _As You Like it_, Act IV. Sc. 3.--J.G.L.
[101] Formerly tutor at Abbotsford. Mr. Lockhart says: "I observe, as the sheet is passing through the press, the death of the Rev. George Thomson--the happy 'Dominie Thomson' of the happy days of Abbotsford: he died at Edinburgh on the 8th of January 1838."
[102] Burns's "O poortith cauld and restless love."
[103] John Rutty, M.D., a physician of some eminence in Dublin, died in 1775, and his executors published his very curious and absurd "Spiritual Diary and Soliloquies." Boswell describes Johnson as being much amused with the Quaker doctor's minute confessions. See the Life of Johnson _sub anno_ 1777.--J.G.L.
[104] _Woodstock_--contracted for in 1823.
[105] _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act III. Sc. 1.
[106] George Huntly Gordon, amanuensis to Scott.
1826
1826.--JANUARY.
_January_ 1.--A year has passed--another has commenced. These solemn divisions of time influence our feelings as they recur. Yet there is nothing in it; for every day in the year closes a twelvemonth as well as the 31st December. The latter is only the solemn pause, as when a guide, showing a wild and mountainous road, calls on a party to pause and look back at the scenes which they have just passed. To me this new year opens sadly. There are these troublesome pecuniary difficulties, which however, I think, this week should end. There is the absence of all my children, Anne excepted, from our little family festival. There is, besides, that ugly report of the 15th Hussars going to India. Walter, I suppose, will have some step in view, and will go, and I fear Jane will not dissuade him.
A hard, frosty day--cold, but dry and pleasant under foot. Walked into the plantations with Anne and Anne Russell. A thought strikes me, alluding to this period of the year. People say that the whole human frame in all its parts and divisions is gradually in the act of decaying and renewing. What a curious timepiece it would be that could indicate to us the moment this gradual and insensible change had so completely taken place, that no atom was left of the original person who had existed at a certain period, but there existed in his stead another person having the same limbs, thews, and sinews, the same face and lineaments, the same consciousness--a new ship built on an old plank--a pair of transmigrated stockings, like those of Sir John Cutler,[107] all green silk, without one thread of the original black silk left! Singular--to be at once another and the same.