_January_ 30.--_False delicacy_. Mr. Gibson, Mr. Cowan, Mr. J.B., were with me last night to talk over important matters, and suggest an individual for a certain highly confidential situation. I was led to mention a person of whom I knew nothing but that he was an honest and intelligent man. All seemed to acquiesce, and agreed to move the thing to the party concerned this morning, and so Mr. G. and Mr. C. left me, when J.B. let out that it was their unanimous opinion that we should be in great trouble were the individual appointed, from faults of temper, etc., which would make it difficult to get on with him. With a hearty curse I hurried J.B. to let them know that I had no partiality for the man whatever, and only named him because he had been proposed for a similar situation elsewhere. This is provoking enough, that they would let me embarrass my affairs with a bad man (an unfit one, I mean) rather than contradict me. I dare say great men are often used so.
I laboured freely yesterday. The stream rose fast--if clearly, is another question; but there is bulk for it, at least--about thirty printed pages.
"And now again, boys, to the oar."
_January_ 31.--There being nothing in the roll to-day, I stay at home from the Court, and add another day's perfect labour to _Woodstock_, which is worth five days of snatched intervals, when the current of thought and invention is broken in upon, and the mind shaken and diverted from its purpose by a succession of petty interruptions. I have now no pecuniary provisions to embarrass me, and I think, now the shock of the discovery is past and over, I am much better off on the whole; I am as if I had shaken off from my shoulders a great mass of garments, rich, indeed, but cumbrous, and always more a burden than a comfort. I am free of an hundred petty public duties imposed on me as a man of consideration--of the expense of a great hospitality--and, what is better, of the great waste of time connected with it. I have known, in my day, all kinds of society, and can pretty well estimate how much or how little one loses by retiring from all but that which is very intimate. I sleep and eat, and work as I was wont; and if I could see those about me as indifferent to the loss of rank as I am, I should be completely happy. As it is, Time must salve that sore, and to Time I trust it.
Since the 14th of this month no guest has broken bread in my house save G.H. Gordon[142] one morning at breakfast. This happened never before since I had a house of my own. But I have played Abou Hassan long enough; and if the Caliph came I would turn him back again.
FOOTNOTES:
[107] The parsimonious yet liberal London merchant, whose miserly habits gave Arbuthnot the materials of the story. See Professor Brown's _Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind_, vol i. p. 244, and Martin Scriblerns, cap. xii., Pope, vol. iv. p. 54, Edin. 1776.
[108] This plantation now covers the remains of an old Roman road from the Great Camp on the Eildon Hills to the ford below Scott's house.--J.G.L.
[109] The residence for several years of Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart.
[110] When settling his estate on his eldest son, Sir Walter had retained the power of burdening it with £10,000 for behoof of his younger children; he now raised the sum for the assistance of the struggling firms.--J.G.L. See Dec. 14, 1825.
[111] William Scrope, author of _Days of Deer Stalking_, roy. 8vo, 1839; and _Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing_, roy. 8vo, 1843; died in his 81st year in 1852. Mr. Lockhart says of this enthusiastic sportsman that at this time "he had a lease of Lord Somerville's pavilion opposite Melrose, and lived on terms of affectionate intimacy with Sir Walter Scott."
[112] Mr. George Ticknor of Boston. He saw much of Scott and his family in the spring of 1819 in Edinburgh and at Abbotsford; and was again in Scotland in 1838. Both visits are well described in his journals, published in Boston in 1876.
Mrs. Lockhart was of opinion that Leslie's portrait of her father was the best extant, "and nothing equals it except Chantrey's bust."--Ticknor's _Life_, vol. i. p. 107.
Leslie himself thought Chantrey's was the best of all the portraits. "The gentle turn of the head, inclined a little forward and down, and the lurking humour in the eye and about the mouth, are Scott's own."--_Autobiographical Recollections of Leslie_, edited by Taylor, vol. i. p. 118.
[113] ... sedet, eternumque sedebit Infelix Theseus ... VIRGIL.--J.G.L.
[114] In a letter of this date to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Thomas Scott, Sir Walter says:--"Poor aunt Curle died like a Roman, or rather like one of the Sandy-Knowe bairns, the most stoical race I ever knew. She turned every one out of the room, and drew her last breath alone. So did my uncle, Captain Robert Scott, and several others of that family."--J.G.L.
[115] See letter addressed by C.J. Mathews to his mother, in which he says, "I took particular notice of everything in the room (Sir Walter's sanctum), and _if he had left me there, should certainly have read all his notes_." _Memoirs_, edited by Dickens, 2 vols., London, 1879, vol. i. p. 284.
[116] _Merchant's Tale_, lines 9706-8, slightly altered.
[117] 2 _King Henry IV_., Act iv. Sc. 2.--J.G.L.
[118] "I had long been in the habit of passing the Christmas with Sir Walter in the country, when he had great pleasure in assembling what he called 'a fireside party,' where he was always disposed to indulge in the free and unrestrained outpouring of his cheerful and convivial disposition. Upon one of these occasions the Comedian Mathews and his son were at Abbotsford, and most entertaining they were, giving us a full display of all their varied powers in scenic representations, narrations, songs, ventriloquism, and frolic of every description, as well as a string of most amusing anecdote, connected with the professional adventures of the elder, and the travels of the son, who seemed as much a genius as his father. He has never appeared on the stage, although abundantly fit to distinguish himself in that department, but has taken to the profession of architecture. Notwithstanding that the snow lay pretty deep on the ground, Sir Walter, old Mathews, and myself set out with the deerhounds and terriers to have a large range through the woods and high grounds; and a most amusing excursion it was, from the difficulties which Mathews, unused to that sort of scrambling, had to encounter, being also somewhat lame from an accident he had met with in being thrown out of a gig,--the good-humoured manner with which each of my two lame companions strove to get over the bad passes, their jokes upon it, alternately shouting for my assistance to help them through, and with all the liveliness of their conversation, as every anecdote which one told was in emulation tried to be outdone by the other by some incident equally if not more entertaining,--and it may be well supposed that the healthful exercise of a walk of this description disposed every one to enjoy the festivity which was to close the day."--_Mr. Skene's Reminiscences_.
[119] See Moore's _Life of Sheridan_, vol. i. p. 191. This work was published late in 1825.--J.G.L.
[120] Burns's _Vision_.--J.G.L.
[121] Lindsay's _Chronicles of Scotland_ 2 vols. Edin. 1814, pp. 246-7.
[122] Mr. Skene in his _Reminiscences_ says:--"The family had been at Abbotsford, and it had long been their practice the day they came to town to take a family dinner at my house, which had accordingly been complied with upon the present occasion, and I never had seen Sir Walter in better spirits or more agreeable. The fatal intimation of his bankruptcy, however, awaited him at home, and next morning early I was surprised by a verbal message to come to him as soon as I had got up. Fearful that he had got a fresh attack of the complaint from which he had now for some years been free, or that he had been involved in some quarrel, I went to see him by seven o'clock, and found him already by candle-light seated at his writing-table, surrounded by papers which he was examining, holding out his hand to me as I entered, he said, "Skene, this is the hand of a beggar. Constable has failed, and I am ruined _de fond en comble_. It's a hard blow, but I must just bear up; the only thing which wrings me is poor Charlotte and the bairns.""
[123] _Crook_. The chain and hook hanging from the crook-tree over the fire in Scottish cottages.
[124] [Sir Walter's private law-agent.] Mr. John Gibson, Junr., W.S., Mr. James Jollie, W.S., and Mr. Alexander Monypenny, W.S., were the three gentlemen who ultimately agreed to take charge, as trustees, of Sir Walter Scott's affairs; and certainly no gentlemen ever acquitted themselves of such an office in a manner more honourable to themselves, or more satisfactory to a client and his creditors.--J.G.L. Mr. Gibson wrote a little volume of _Reminiscences of Scott_, which was published in 1871. This old friend died in 1879. "In the month of January 1826," says Mr. Gibson, "Sir Walter called upon me, and explained how matters stood with the two houses referred to, adding that he himself was a partner in one of them--that bills were falling due and dishonoured--and that some immediate arrangement was indispensably necessary. In such circumstances, only two modes of proceeding could be thought of--either that he should avail himself of the Bankrupt Act, and allow his estate to be sequestrated, or that he should execute a trust conveyance for behoof of his creditors. The latter course was preferred for various reasons, but chiefly out of regard for his own feeling." _Reminiscences_, p. 12. See entry in Journal under Jan. 24.