The Journal of Sir Walter Scott

Volume I

BURT FRANKLIN NEW YORK

Published by BURT FRANKLIN 235 East 44th St., New York, N.Y. 10017 Originally Published: 1890 Reprinted: 1970 Printed in the U.S.A.

S.B.N. 32110 Library of Congress Card Catalog No.: 73-123604 Burt Franklin: Research and Source Works Series 535 Essays in Literature and Criticism 82

"I must home to work while it is called day; for the night cometh when no man can work. I put that text, many a year ago, on my dial-stone; but it often preached in vain."--SCOTT'S Life, x. 88.]

"I shall have a peep at Bothwell Castle if it is only for half-an-hour. It is a place of many recollections to me, for I cannot but think how changed I am from the same Walter Scott who was so passionately ambitious of fame when I wrote the song of Young Lochinvar at Bothwell; and if I could recall the same feelings, where was I to find an audience so kind and patient, and whose applause was at the same time so well worth having, as Lady Dalkeith and Lady Douglas? When one thinks of these things, there is no silencing one's regret but by Corporal Nym's philosophy: Things must be as they may. One generation goeth and another cometh."--To LORD MONTAGU, June 28th, 1825.

PREFACE.

On the death of Sir Walter Scott in 1832, his entire literary remains were placed at the disposal of his son-in-law, Mr. John Gibson Lockhart. Among these remains were two volumes of a Journal which had been kept by Sir Walter from 1825 to 1832. Mr. Lockhart made large use of this Journal in his admirable life of his father-in-law. Writing, however, so short a time after Scott's death, he could not use it so freely as he might have wished, and, according to his own statement, it was "by regard for the feelings of living persons" that he both omitted and altered; and indeed he printed no chapter of the Diary in full.

There is no longer any reason why the Journal should not be published in its entirety, and by the permission of the Hon. Mrs. Maxwell-Scott it now appears exactly as Scott left it--but for the correction of obvious slips of the pen and the omission of some details chiefly of family and domestic interest.

The original Journal consists of two small 4to volumes, 9 inches by 8, bound in vellum and furnished with strong locks. The manuscript is closely written on both sides, and towards the end shows painful evidence of the physical prostration of the writer. The Journal abruptly closes towards the middle of the second volume with the following entry--probably the last words ever penned by Scott--

We slept reasonably, but on the next morning]

In the annotations, it seemed most satisfactory to follow as closely as possible the method adopted by Mr. Lockhart. In the case of those parts of the Journal that have been already published, almost all Mr. Lockhart's notes have been reproduced, and these are distinguished by his initials. Extracts from the Life, from James Skene of Rubislaw's unpublished Reminiscences, and from unpublished letters of Scott himself and his contemporaries, have been freely used wherever they seemed to illustrate particular passages in the Journal.

With regard to Scott's quotations a certain difficulty presented itself. In his Journal he evidently quoted from memory, and he not unfrequently makes considerable variations from the originals. Occasionally, indeed, it would seem that he deliberately made free with the exact words of his author, to adapt them more pertinently to his own mood or the impulse of the moment. In any case it seemed best to let Scott's quotations appear as he wrote them. His reading lay in such curious and unfrequented quarters that to verify all the sources is a nearly impossible task. It is to be remembered, also, that he himself held very free notions on the subject of quotation.

I have to thank the Hon. Mrs. Maxwell-Scott for permitting me to retain for the last three years the precious volumes in which the Journal is contained, and for granting me access to the correspondence of Sir Walter preserved at Abbotsford, and I have likewise to acknowledge the courtesy of His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch for allowing me the use of the Scott letters at Dalkeith. To Mr. W.F. Skene, Historiographer Royal for Scotland, my thanks are warmly rendered for intrusting me with his precious heirloom, the volume which contains Sir Walter's letters to his father, and the Reminiscences that accompany them--one of many kind offices towards me during the last thirty years in our relations as author and publisher. I am also obliged to Mr. Archibald Constable for permitting me to use the interesting Memorandum by James Ballantyne.

Finally, I have to express my obligation to many other friends, who never failed cordially to respond to any call I made upon them.

D.D.

EDINBURGH, 22 DRUMMOND PLACE, October 1, 1890.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOL. I.

PORTRAIT, painted by JOHN GRAHAM GILBERT, R.S.A., for the Royal Society, Edinburgh. Copied by permission of the Council of the Society, Frontispiece

VIGNETTE on Title-page

"The Dial-Stone" in the Garden, from drawing made at Abbotsford by GEORGE REID, R.S.A.

"WORK WHILE IT IS DAY."

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ΝΥΞ ΓΑΡ ΕΡΧΕΤΑΙ

"I must home to 'work while it is called day; for the night cometh when no man can work.' I put that text, many a year ago, on my dial-stone; but it often preached in vain."--SCOTT'S Life, x. 88.

MAP OF ABBOTSFORD, from the Ordnance Survey, 1858, to face p. 414.

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SIR WALTER SCOTT'S JOURNAL.

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NOVEMBER.

I was in Ireland last summer, and had a most delightful tour. It cost me upwards of £500, including £100 left with Walter and Jane, for we travelled a large party and in style. There is much less exaggerated about the Irish than is to be expected. Their poverty is not exaggerated; it is on the extreme verge of human misery; their cottages would scarce serve for pig-styes, even in Scotland, and their rags seem the very refuse of a rag-shop, and are disposed on their bodies with such ingenious variety of wretchedness that you would think nothing but some sort of perverted taste could have assembled so many shreds together. You are constantly fearful that some knot or loop will give, and place the individual before you in all the primitive simplicity of Paradise. Then for their food, they have only potatoes, and too few of them. Yet the men look stout and healthy, the women buxom and well-coloured.

Dined with us, being Sunday, Will. Clerk and Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. W.C. is the second son of the celebrated author of Naval Tactics. I have known him intimately since our college days; and, to my thinking, never met a man of greater powers, or more complete information on all desirable subjects. In youth he had strongly the Edinburgh pruritus disputandi; but habits of society have greatly mellowed it, and though still anxious to gain your suffrage to his views, he endeavours rather to conciliate your opinion than conquer it by force. Still there is enough of tenacity of sentiment to prevent, in London society, where all must go slack and easy, W.C. from rising to the very top of the tree as a conversation man, who must not only wind the thread of his argument gracefully, but also know when to let go. But I like the Scotch taste better; there is more matter, more information, above all, more spirit in it. Clerk will, I am afraid, leave the world little more than the report of his fame. He is too indolent to finish any considerable work. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe is another very remarkable man. He was bred a clergyman, but did not take orders, owing I believe to a peculiar effeminacy of voice which must have been unpleasant in reading prayers. Some family quarrels occasioned his being indifferently provided for by a small annuity from his elder brother, extorted by an arbitral decree. He has infinite wit and a great turn for antiquarian lore, as the publications of Kirkton, etc., bear witness. His drawings are the most fanciful and droll imaginable--a mixture between Hogarth and some of those foreign masters who painted temptations of St. Anthony, and such grotesque subjects. As a poet he has not a very strong touch. Strange that his finger-ends can describe so well what he cannot bring out clearly and firmly in words. If he were to make drawing a resource, it might raise him a large income. But though a lover of antiquities, and therefore of expensive trifles, C.K.S. is too aristocratic to use his art to assist his revenue. He is a very complete genealogist, and has made many detections in Douglas and other books on pedigree, which our nobles would do well to suppress if they had an opportunity. Strange that a man should be curious after scandal of centuries old! Not but Charles loves it fresh and fresh also, for, being very much a fashionable man, he is always master of the reigning report, and he tells the anecdote with such gusto that there is no helping sympathising with him--the peculiarity of voice adding not a little to the general effect. My idea is that C.K.S., with his oddities, tastes, satire, and high aristocratic feelings, resembles Horace Walpole--perhaps in his person also, in a general way.--See Miss Hawkins' Anecdotes for a description of the author of The Castle of Otranto.

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