I must set now to a second epistle of _Malachi_ to the Athenians. If I can but get the sulky Scottish spirit set up, the devil won't turn them.
"Cock up your beaver, and cock it fu' sprush; We'll over the Border, and give them a brush; There's somebody there we'll teach better behaviour; Hey, Johnnie lad, cock up your beaver."[194]
_February_ 26.--Spent the morning and till dinner on _Malachi's_ second epistle to the Athenians. It is difficult to steer betwixt the natural impulse of one's national feelings setting in one direction, and the prudent regard to the interests of the empire and its internal peace and quiet, recommending less vehement expression. I will endeavour to keep sight of both. But were my own interests alone concerned, d--n me but I would give it them hot! Had some valuable communications from Colin Mackenzie and Lord Medwyn, which will supply my plentiful lack of facts.
Received an anonymous satire in doggrel, which, having read the first verse and last, I committed to the flames. Peter Murray, son of the clever Lord Elibank, called and sat half-an-hour--an old friend, and who, from the peculiarity and originality of his genius, is one of the most entertaining companions I have ever known.[195] But I must finish _Malachi_.
_February_ 27.--_Malachi_ is getting on; I must finish him to-night. I dare say some of my London friends will be displeased--Canning perhaps, for he is _engoué_ of Huskisson. Can't help it.
The place I looked at won't do; but I really must get some lodging, for, reason or none, Dalgleish[196] will not leave me, and cries and makes a scene. Now if I stayed alone in a little set of chambers, he would serve greatly for my accommodation. There are some nice places of the kind in the. New Buildings, but they are distant from the Court, and I cannot walk well on the pavement. It is odd enough that just when I had made a resolution to use my coach frequently I ceased to keep one--in town at least.
_February_ 28.--Completed _Malachi_ to-day. It is more serious than the first, and in some places perhaps too peppery. Never mind, if you would have a horse kick, make a crupper out of a whin-cow,[197] and I trust to see Scotland kick and fling to some purpose. _Woodstock_ lies back for this. But _quid non pro patria_?
FOOTNOTES:
[143] _Cause of Truth defended_, etc. Two Trials of the Rev. T. Hill, Methodist Preacher, for defamation of the character of Miss Bell, etc. etc. 8vo. Hull and London, 1827.
[144] Coleridge's _Christabel_, Part II.
[145] James Ferrier, one of the Clerks of Session,--the father of the authoress of _Marriage, The Inheritance_, and _Destiny_. Mr. Ferrier was born in 1744, and died in 1829.
[146] "Authentic Memoirs of the remarkable Life and surprising Exploits of Mandrin, Captain-General of the French Smugglers, who for the space of nine months resolutely stood in defiance of the whole army of France," etc. 8vo, Lond. 1755. See _Waverley Novels_, vol. xxxvii. p. 434, Note.--J.G.L.
[147] See _Tranent Muir_ by Skirving.
[148] Addison, _Cato_, i. 4.
[149] See p. 83.
[150] Variation from 2 _Henry IV._, Act II. Sc. 4.
[151] _See_ "Glee for King Charles," _Waverley Novels_, vol. xl. p. 40.--J.G.L.
[152] Lady Louisa Stuart, youngest daughter of John, third Earl of Bute, and grand-daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
[153] The well-known Mathematician and Natural Philosopher. Professor Playfair died in 1819 in his seventy-second year.
Have you seen the famed Bas bleu, the gentle dame Apreece, Who at a glance shot through and through the Scots Review, And changed its swans to geese? Playfair forgot his mathematics, astronomy, and hydrostatics, And in her presence often swore, he knew not two and two made four.
[Squib of 1811.]
[154] See _Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act II. Sc. 2.
[155] This journey was made in 1810.--_See Life_, Chapter xxi. vol. iii. p. 271.
[156] Lady Davy survived her distinguished husband for more than a quarter of a century; she died in London, May 1855.
[157] _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 3.
[158] Sir Patrick Murray of Ochtertyre, then a baron of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland; he died in June 1837.
[159] This cherished and confidential friend had been living at Kaeside from 1817, and acting as steward on the estate. Mr. Laidlaw died in Ross-shire in 1845.
Mr. Lockhart says, "I have the best reason to believe that the kind and manly character of Dandie [Dinmont in _Guy Mannering_], the gentle and delicious one of his wife, and some at least of the most picturesque peculiarities of the _ménage_ at Charlieshope were filled up from Scott's observation, years after this period [1792], of a family, with one of whose members he had, through the best part of his life, a close and affectionate connection. To those who were familiar with him, I have perhaps already sufficiently indicated the early home of his dear friend, William Laidlaw." _Life_, vol. i. p. 268. See also vol. ii. p. 59; v. pp. 210-15, 251; vii. p. 168; viii. p. 68, etc.
[160] Flax on her distaff.
[161] _The English in Italy_, 3 vols., Lond. 1825, ascribed to the Marquis of Normanby.
[162] "S.W.S." Scott, in writing of himself, often uses these three letters in playful allusion to a freak of his trusty henchman Tom Purdie, who, in his joy on hearing of the baronetcy, proceeded to mark every sheep on the estate with a large letter "S" in addition to the owner's initials, W.S., which, according to custom, had already been stamped on their backs.
[163] Moore also felt that the morning was his happiest time for work, but he preferred "composing" in bed! He says somewhere that he would have passed half his days in bed for the purpose of composition had he not found it too relaxing.
Macaulay, too, when engaged in his _History_, was in the habit of writing three hours before breakfast daily.
[164] I am assured by Professor Butcher that there is no such passage in the Odyssey, but he suggests "that what Scott had in his mind was merely the Greek idea of a _waking vision_ being a true one. They spoke of it as a ὕπαρ opposed to an ὄναρ, a mere dream. These waking visions are usually said to be seen towards morning.
"In the Odyssey there are two such visions which turn out to be realities:--that of Nausicaa, Bk. vi. 20, etc., and that of Penelope, Bk. xix. 535, etc. In the former case we are told that the vision occurred just before dawn; I. 48-49, αὐτίκα δ' Ἠὼςἦλθεν, 'straightway came the Dawn,' etc. In the latter, there is no special mention of the hour. The vision, however, is said to be not a dream, but a true vision which shall be accomplished (547, οὐκ ὂναρ ἀλλ' ὕπαρ ἐσθλὸν, ὅ τοι τετελεσμένον ἔσται).
"Such passages as these, which are frequent in Greek literature, might easily have given rise to the notion of a 'matutinal inspiration,' of which Scott speaks."
[165] General Sir James Steuart Denham of Coltness, Baronet, Colonel of the Scots Greys. His father, the celebrated political economist, took part in the Rebellion of 1745, and was long afterwards an exile. The reader is no doubt acquainted with "Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters" addressed to him and his wife, Lady Frances.--J.G.L. See also Mrs. Calderwood's _Letters_, 8vo. Edin. 1884. Sir James died in 1839.
[166] "Had Prince Charles slept during the whole of the expedition," says the Chevalier Johnstone, "and allowed Lord George Murray to act for him according to his own judgment, there is every reason for supposing he would have found the crown of Great Britain on his head when he awoke."--_Memoirs of the Rebellion of 1745_, etc. 4to, p. 140. London, 1810.--J.G.L.
[167] The lines are given in _Woodstock_, with the following apology: "We observe this couplet in Fielding's farce of _Tumbledown Dick_, founded on the same classical story. As it was current in the time of the Commonwealth, it must have reached the author of _Tom Jones_ by tradition, for no one will suspect the present author of making the anachronism."
[168] Colonel Ranaldson Macdonell of Glengarry. He died in January 1828.--J.G.L.
[169] "We have had Maréchal Macdonald here. We had a capital account of Glengarry visiting the interior of a convent in the ancient Highland garb, and the effect of such an apparition on the nuns, who fled in all directions."--Scott to Skene, Edinburgh, 24th June 1825.
[170] No. 39 Castle Street, which had been occupied by him from 1802, when he removed from No. 10 in the same street. The situation suited him, as the houses of nearly all his friends were within a circle of a few hundred yards. For description see _Life_, vol. v. pp. 321, 333-4, etc.
[171] See below, _March_ 12.
[172] Burns's _Dedication_ to Gavin Hamilton--
"May ne'er misfortune's gowling bark Howl through the dwelling o' the _Clerk_."
[173]
"O born to arms! O worth in youth approved, O soft humanity in age beloved!"
--See Pope, _Epitaphs_, 9.
[174] David Monypenny had been on the Bench from 1813; he retired in 1830, and died at the age of eighty-one in 1850.
[175] Parody on Moore's _Minstrel Boy_.--J.G.L.
[176] "Le Pas de la Fontaine des Pleurs."--_Chroniques Nationales_.