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SCOTT, SIR WALTER, BART
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See also:SCOTT, See also:SIR See also:WALTER, See also:BART . (1771-1832), Scottish poet and novelist, was See also:born at See also:Edinburgh on the 15th of See also:August 1771. His See also:pedigree, in which he took a See also:pride that strongly influenced the course of his See also:life, may be given in the words of his own fragment of autobiography. " My See also:birth was neither distinguished nor sordid. According to the prejudices of my See also:country it was esteemed See also:gentle, as I was connected, though remotely, with See also:ancient families both by my See also:father's and See also:mother's See also:side. My father's grandfather was Walter Scott, well known by the name of Beardie. He was the second son of Walter Scott, first See also:laird of See also:Raeburn, who was third son of Sir See also: And it was his pride in their real or supposed feudal dignity and their rough marauding exploits that first directed him to the study of Border See also:history and See also:poetry, the basis of his fame as a poet and romancer. His father,. Walter Scott, a writer to the signet (or See also:attorney) in Edinburgh—the See also:original of the See also:elder Fairford in Redgauntletwas the first of the family to adopt a See also:town life or a learned profession. His mother was the daughter of Dr John See also:Rutherford, a medical See also:professor in the university of Edinburgh, who also traced descent from the chiefs of famous Border clans. The ceilings of See also:Abbotsford display the arms of about a dozen Border families with which Scott claimed kindred through one side or the other. His father was conspicuous for methodical and thorough See also:industry; his mother was a woman of imagination and culture. The son seems to have inherited the best qualities of the one and acquired the best qualities of the other.
The details of his See also:early See also:education are given with See also:great precision in his autobiography. John See also:Stuart See also: With a characteristically conscientious See also:desire not to set a bad example, the autobiographer solemnly declares that he was neither a dunce nor an idler, and explains how the misunderstanding arose. His See also:health in boyhood was uncertain;' he was consequently irregular in his attendance
1 Dr See also: See also:Left very much to. himself throughout his boyhood in the matter of See also:reading, so See also:quick, lively, excitable and uncertain in health that it was considered dangerous to See also:press him and prudent rather to keep him back, Scott began at a very early See also:age to accumulate the romantic See also:lore of which he afterwards made such splendid use. As a child he seems to have been an eager and interested listener and a great favourite with his elders, apparently having even then the same engaging See also:charm that made him so much beloved as a man. See also:Chance threw him in the way of many who were willing to indulge his delight in stories and See also:ballads. Not only his own relatives—the old See also:women at his grandfather's See also:farm at Sandyknowe, his aunt, under 'whose See also:charge he was sent to See also:Bath for a year, his mother—took an See also:interest in the precocious boy's questions, told him tales of See also:Jacobites and Border worthies of his own and other clans, but casual See also:friends of the family—such as the military See also:veteran at I'restonpans, old Dr See also:Blacklock the See also:blind poet, Home the author of See also:Douglas, See also:Adam See also:Ferguson the See also:martial historian of the See also:Roman See also:republic—helped forward his education in the direction in which the See also:bent of his See also:genius See also:lay. At the age of six he was able to define himself as "a virtuoso," "one who wishes to and will know everything." At ten his collection of See also:chap-books and ballads had reached several volumes, and he was a connoisseur in various readings. Thus he took to the High School, Edinburgh, when he was strong enough to be put in See also:regular attendance, an unusual See also:store of See also:miscellaneous knowledge and an unusually quickened intelligence, so that his See also:master " pronounced that, though many of his schoolfellows understood the Latin better, Gualterus Scott was behind few in following and enjoying the author's meaning." Throughout his school days and afterwards when he was apprenticed to his father, attended university classes, read for the See also:bar, took See also:part in academical and professional debating See also:societies, Scott steadily and ardently pursued his own favourite studies. His reading in See also:romance and history was really study, and not merely the See also:indulgence of an See also:ordinary schoolboy's promiscuous appetite for exciting literature. In fact, even as a schoolboy he specialized. He followed the line of overpowering inclination; and even then, as he frankly tells us, " fame was the spur." He acquired a reputation among his schoolfellows for out-of-the-way knowledge, and also for See also:story-telling, and he worked hard to maintain this See also:character, which compensated to his ambitious spirit his indifferent distinction in ordinary school-work. The youthful " virtuoso," though he read ten times the usual See also:allowance of novels from the circulating library, was carried by his See also:enthusiasm into See also:fields much less generally attractive. He was still a schoolboy when he mastered French sufficiently well to read through collections of old French romances, and not more than fifteen when, attracted by See also:translations to See also:Italian romantic literature, he learnt the See also:language in See also:order to read See also:Dante and See also:Ariosto in the original. This willingness to See also:face dry work in the pursuit of romantic reading affords a measure of the strength of Scott's See also:passion. In one of the See also:literary parties brought together to lionize See also:Burns, when the See also:peasant poet visited Edinburgh, the boy of fifteen was the only member of the See also:company who could tell the source of some lines affixed to a picture that had attracted the poet's See also:attention—a slight but significant See also:evidence both of the width of his reading and of the tenacity of his memory. The same thoroughness appears in another little circumstance. He took an interest in Scottish family history and genealogy, but, not content with the ordinary See also:sources, he ransacked the See also:MSS. preserved in the See also:Advocates' Library. By the time he was one and twenty he had acquired such a reputation for his skill in deciphering old See also:manuscripts that his assistance was sought by professional antiquaries. This early, assiduous, unintermittent study was the See also:main secret, over and above his natural gifts, of Scott's extempore speed and fertility when at last he found forms into which to pour his vast See also:accumulation of See also:historical and romantic lore. Hewas, as he said himself, " like an ignorant gamester who keeps up a good See also:hand till he knows how to See also:play it." That he had vague thoughts from a much earlier See also:period than is commonly supposed of playing the hand some See also:day is extremely probable, if, as he tells us, the See also:idea of See also:writing romances first occurred to him when he read Cervantes in the original. This was See also:long before he was out of his teens; and, if we add that his leading idea in his first novel was to depict a Jacobitic See also:Don Quixote, we can see that there was probably a long See also:interval between the first conception of Waverley and the ultimate completion. Scott's preparation for See also:painting the life of past times was probably much less unconsciously such than his equally thorough preparation for acting as the painter of Scottish See also:manners and character in all grades of society. With all the extent of his reading as a schoolboy and a See also:young man he was far from being a cloistered student, absorbed in his books. In spite of his lameness and his serious illnesses in youth, his constitution was naturally robust, his disposition genial, his See also:spirits high: he was always well to the front in the fights and frolics of the High School, and a boon See also:companion in the " high jinks " of the junior bar. The future novelist's experience of life was singularly See also:rich and varied. While he liked the life of imagination and scholarship in sympathy with a few choice friends, he was brought into intimate daily contact with many varieties of real life. At home he had to behave as became a member of a Puritanic, somewhat ascetic, well-ordered Scottish See also:household, subduing his own inclinations towards a more graceful and comfortable See also:scheme of living into outward conformity with his father's strict See also:rule. Through his mother's family he obtained See also:access- to the literary society of Edinburgh, at that time electrified by the See also:advent of Burns, full of vigour and ambition, rejoicing in the See also:possession of not a few widely known men of letters, philosophers, historians, novelists and critics, from racy and See also:eccentric See also:Monboddo to refined and scholarly See also:Mackenzie. In that society also he may have found the materials for the manners and characters of St Ronan's Well. From any tendency to the pedantry of over-culture he was effectually saved by the rougher and manlier spirit of his professional comrades, who, though they respected belles lettres, would not tolerate anything in the shape of affectation or sentimentalism. The See also:atmosphere of the See also:Parliament See also:House (the See also:law-courts of Edinburgh) had considerable See also:influence on the See also:tone of Scott's novels. His peculiar See also:humour as a story-See also:teller and painter of character was first See also:developed among the young men of his own See also:standing at the bar. They were the first mature See also:audience on which he experimented, and seem often to have been in his mind's See also:eye when he enlarged his public. From their mirthful companionship by the See also:stove, where the briefless congregated to discuss knotty points in law and help one another to enjoy the humours of See also:judges and litigants, " See also:Duns Scotus " often See also:stole away to See also:pore over old books and manuscripts in the library beneath; but as long as he was with them he was first among his peers in the See also:art of providing entertainment. It was to this See also:market that Scott brought the See also:harvest of the vacation rambles which it was his See also:custom to make every autumn for seven years after his See also:call to the bar and before his See also:marriage. He scoured the country in See also:search of ballads and other See also:relics of antiquity; but he found also and treasured many traits of living manners, many a lively See also:sketch and story with which to amuse the See also:brothers of " the See also:mountain " on his return. His staid father did not much like these escapades, and told him bitterly that he seemed See also:fit for nothing but to be a " gangrel scrape-gut." But, as the companion of " his See also:Liddesdale raids " happily put it, " he was makin' himsell a' the time, but he didna See also:ken maybe what he was about till years had passed: at first he thought o' little, I dare say, but the queerness and the fun." His father intended him originally to follow his own business, and he was apprenticed in his sixteenth year; but he preferred the upper walk of the legal profession, and was admitted a member of the See also:faculty of advocates in 1792. He seems to have read hard at law for four years at 'See also:east, but almost from the first to have limited his , ambition to obtaining some comfortable See also:appointment such as would leave him a good See also:deal of leisure for literary pursuits. In this he was not disappointed. In 1799 he obtained the See also:office of See also:sheriff-depute of See also:Selkirkshire, with a See also:salary of £300 and very See also:light duties. In 18o6 he obtained the reversion of the office of clerk of session. It is sometimes supposed, from the immense amount of other work that Scott accomplished, that this office was a See also:sinecure. But the duties, which are fully described by See also:Lockhart, were really serious, and kept him hard at fatiguing work, his biographer estimates, for at least three or four See also:hours daily during six months out of the twelve, while the See also:court was in session. He discharged these duties faithfully for twenty-five years, during the height of his activity as an author. He did not enter on the emoluments of the office till 1812, but from that time he received from the clerkship and the sheriffdom combined an income of £i600 a year, being thus enabled to See also:act in his literary undertakings on his often-quoted See also:maxim that "literature should be a See also:staff and not a crutch." Scott's profession, in addition to supplying him with a competent livelihood, supplied him also with abundance of opportunties for the study of men and manners.
It was as a poet that he was first to make a literary reputation. According to his own See also:account, he was led to adopt the See also:medium of See also:verse by a See also:series of accidents. The story is told by himself at length and with his customary frankness and modesty in the Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad, prefixed to the 183o edition of his Border Minstrelsy, and in the r83o introduction to the Lay of the Last Minstrel. The first See also:link in the See also:chain was a lecture by See also: As soon as he had the See also:burden of preparation for the bar off his mind he learnt German, and was profoundly excited to find a new school founded on the serious study of a See also:kind of literature his own devotion to which was regarded by most of his companions with wonder and ridicule. We must remember always that Scott quite as much as See also:Wordsworth created the See also:taste by which he was enjoyed, and that in his early days he was See also:half-ashamed of his romantic studies, and pursued them more or less in secret with a few intimates. While he was in the height of his enthusiasm for the new German romance, Mrs See also:Barbauld visited Edinburgh, and recited an English See also:translation of See also:Burger's Lenore. Scott heard of it from a friend, who was able to repeat two lines
" See also:Tramp, tramp, across the See also:land they speed ;
Splash, splash, across the See also:sea ! "
The two lines were enough to give Scott a new ambition, He could write such poetry himself ! The impulse was strengthened by his reading See also:Lewis's See also: He began to See also:cast about for a See also:form which should have the ad-• vantage of novelty, and a subject which should secure unity of composition. He was engaged at the time preparing a collection of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The first See also:instalment was published in two volumes in 18o2; it was followed by a third next year, and by an edition and continuation of the old romance of Sir Tristram; and Scott was still hesitating about subject and form for a large original work. Chance at last threw in his way both a suitable subject and a suitable metrical vehicle. He had engaged all his friends in the See also:hunt for Border ballads and legends. Among others, the countess of See also:Dalkeith, wife of the See also:heir-apparent to the dukedom of See also:Buccleuch, interested herself in the work. Happening to hear the legend of a tricksy hobgoblin named See also:Gilpin See also:Horner, she asked Scott to write a ballad about it. He agreed with delight, and, out of compliment to the See also:lady who had given this command to the See also:bard, resolved to connect it with the house of Buccleuch. The subject See also:grew in his fertile imagination, till incidents enough had gathered See also:round the goblin to furnish a framework for his long-designed picture of Border manners. Chance also furnished him with a hint for a novel scheme of verse. See also:Coleridge's fragment of Christabel, though begun in 1797—when he and Wordsworth were discussing on the Quantock Hills the principles of such ballads as Scott at the same time was reciting to himself in his gallops on See also:Mussel-See also:burgh sands—was not published till 1816. But a friend of Scott's, Sir John Stoddart, had met Coleridge in See also:Malta, and had carried home in his memory enough of the unfinished poem to convey to Scott that its See also:metre was the very metre of which he had been in search. Scott introduced still greater variety into the four-See also:beat See also:couplet; but it was to Christabel that he owed the See also:suggestion, as one line borrowed whole and many imitated rhythms testify. The Lay of the Last Minstrel appeared in See also:January 18os, and at once became widely popular. It sold more rapidly than poem had ever sold before. Scott was astonished at his own success, although he expected that " the attempt to return to a more See also:simple and natural style of poetry was likely to be welcomed." Many things contributed to the extraordinary demand for the Lay. First and foremost, no doubt, we must reckon its simplicity. After the abstract themes and abstruse, elaborately allusive style of the 18th See also:century, the public were glad of verse that could be read with ease and even with exhilaration, verse in which a simple interesting story was told with brilliant See also:energy, and simple feelings were treated not as isolated themes but as incidents in the lives of individual men and women. The thought was not so profound, the lines were not so polished, as in The Pleasures of Memory or The Pleasures of See also:Hope, but the " light-horseman sort of See also:stanza " carried the reader briskly over a much more diversified country, through boldly outlined and strongly coloured scenes. No stanza required a second reading; you had not to keep attention on the stretch or pause and construe laboriously before you could grasp the writer's meaning or enter into his artfully condensed sentiment. To remember the pedigrees of all the Scotts, or the names of all the famous chiefs and See also:hardy retainers " whose gathering word was See also:Bellenden," might have required some effort, but only the conscientious reader need care to make it. The only See also:puzzle in the Lay was the goblin See also:page, and the general reader was absolved from all trouble about him by the unanimous See also:declaration of the critics, led by See also:Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review, that he was a See also:grotesque excrescence, in no way essential to the story. - It is commonly taken for granted that Scott acquiesced in this See also:judgment, his politely ironic See also:letter to See also:Miss See also:Seward being quoted as conclusive. This is hardly fair to the poor goblin, seeing that his story was the germ of the poem and determines its whole structure; but it is a See also:tribute to the lively simplicity of the Lay that few See also:people should be willing to take the very moderate amount of pains necessary to see the goblin's true position in the See also:action. The supernatural See also:element was Scott's most risky innovation. For the See also:rest, he was a cautious and conservative reformer, careful not to offend established traditions. He was far from raising the See also:standard of See also:rebellion, as Wordsworth had done, against the great See also:artistic See also:canon of the classical school " True art is nature to See also:advantage dressed." To " engraft See also:modern refinement on ancient simplicity," to undertook to carry through on See also:condition that the See also:printing was preserve the energy of the old ballad without its rudeness and done by Ballantyne & Co., the " Co. " being kept a profound bareness of poetic See also:ornament, was Scott's avowed aim. He secret, because it might have injured the lawyer and poet adhered to the poetic diction against which Wordsworth See also:pro- professionally and socially to be known as partner in a commercial tested. His rough Borderers are " dressed to advantage " in concern. the See also:costume of romantic See also:chivalry. The baronial magnificence In 1806 he collected from different publications his Ballads of Branksome, Deloraine's " See also:shield and See also:jack and See also:acton, " the and Lyrical Pieces. Between 1806 and 1812, mainly to serve elaborate ceremony of the combat between the pseudo-Deloraine the interests of the See also:firm, though of course the work was not in and See also:Musgrave, are concessions to the taste of the 18th century. itself unattractive to him, Scott produced his elaborate See also:editions Further, he disarmed See also:criticism by putting his poem into the of See also:Dryden (18 vols., 1808), See also:Swift (19 vols., 1818), the See also:Somers mouth of an ancient minstrel, thus pictorially emphasizing the Tracts (13 vols., 1809-1815), and the See also:State Papers and Letters fact that it was an See also:imitation of antiquity, and providing a of Sir See also:Ralph See also:Sadler (2 vols., 1809). Incidentally these laborious scapegoat on whose back might be laid any remaining sins of tasks contributed to his preparation for the main work of his rudeness or excessive simplicity. And, while imitating the life by extending his knowledge of English and Scottish history. See also:antique romance, he was careful not to imitate its faults of Marmion, begun in See also:November 1806 and published in See also:February rambling, discursive, disconnected structure. He was scrupu- 1808, was written as a See also:relief to " graver cares," though in this lously attentive to the classical unities of time, place and action. also he aimed at combining with a romantic story a solid picture The See also:scene never changes from Branksome and its neighbourhood; of an historical period. It was even more popular than the the time occupied by the action (as he pointed out in his See also:preface) Lay. Scott's resuscitation of the four-beat measure of the old is three nights and three days; and, in spite of all that critics " gestours " afforded a See also:signal See also:proof of the justness of their have said about the superfluity of the goblin page, it is not See also:instinct in choosing this vehicle for their recitations. The difficult to trace unity of intention and regular progressive four-beat lines of Marmion took possession of the public like development in the incidents. a kind of madness: they not only clung to the memory but they The success of the Lay decided finally, if it was not decided would not keep off the See also:tongue: people could not help spouting already, that literature was to be the main business of Scott's them in solitary places and muttering them as they walked life, and he proceeded to arrange his affairs accordingly. It about the streets. The critics, except Jeffrey, who may have would have been well for his comfort, if not for his fame, had he been offended by the pronounced politics of the poet, were on adhered to his first See also:plan, which was to buy a small mountain- the whole better pleased than with the Lay. Their See also:chief comfarm near Bowhill, with the proceeds of some See also:property left to plaint was with the " introductions " to the various cantos, which him by an See also:uncle, and See also:divide his year between this and Edinburgh, were objected to as vexatiously breaking the current of the where he had good hopes, soon afterwards realized, of a salaried story. appointment in the Court of Session. This would have given The triumphant success of Marmion, establishing him as him ample leisure and seclusion for literature, while his private facile princeps among living poets, gave Scott such a heeze, means and See also:official emoluments secured him against dependence to use his own words, " as almost lifted him off his feet." He on his See also:pen. He would have been laird as well as sheriff of the touched then the highest point of prosperity and happiness. See also:cairn and the scaur, and as a man of letters his own master. Presently after, he was irritated and tempted by a See also:combination Since his marriage in 1997 with See also:Charlotte See also:Charpentier, daughter of little circumstances into the great blunder of his life, the of a French refugee, his chief See also:residence had been at Lasswade, See also:establishment of the See also:publishing house of John Ballantyne & Co. about six See also:miles from Edinburgh. But on a hint from the See also:lord- A coolness arose between him and Jeffrey, chiefly on See also:political See also:lieutenant that the sheriff must live at least four months in the but partly also on See also:personal grounds. They were old friends, year within his See also:county, and that he was attending more closely and Scott had written, many articles for the Review, but its to his duties as quartermaster of a mounted company of political attitude at this time was intensely unsatisfactory See also:volunteers than was consistent with the proper See also:discharge of his to Scott. To See also:complete the See also:breach, Jeffrey reviewed Marmion duties as sheriff, he had moved his household in 1804 to Ashestiel. in a hostile spirit. A See also:quarrel occurred also between Scott's When his uncle's See also:bequest fell in, he determined to buy a small printing firm and See also:Constable, the publisher, who had been the property on the See also:banks of the See also:Tweed within the limits of his See also:principal feeder of its press. Then the tempter appeared in sheriffdom. There, within sight of See also:Newark See also:Castle and Bowhill, the shape of See also: Scott's of which by degrees the man of letters became the overwrought See also:trust in Rigdumfunnidos and his brother, " Aldiborontiphos- slave, milch-cow and victim. cophornio, " and in his own power to See also:supply all their deficiencies, When the Lay was off his hands, Scott's next literary enterprise is as See also:strange a piece of infatuation as any that ever formed was a See also:prose romance—a See also:confirmation of the See also:argument that he a theme for romance or tragedy. Their devoted See also:attachment did not take to prose after See also:Byron had " See also:bet him," as he put it, to the architect of their fortunes and proud confidence in his in verse, but that romance writing was a long-cherished purpose. powers helped forward to the See also:catastrophe, for whatever Scott He began Waverley, but a friend to whom he showed the first recommended they agreed to, and he was too immersed in chapters—which do not take Waverley out of See also:England, and multifarious literary work and professional and social engage-describe an education in romantic literature very much like ments to have time for cool examination of the numerous rash Scott's own—not unnaturally decided that the work was deficient speculative ventures into which he launched the firm. in interest and unworthy of the author of the Lay. Scott The Lady of the See also:Lake (May 1810) was the first great publication accordingly laid Waverley aside. We may fairly conjecture that by the new house, and next year the See also:Vision of Don See also:Roderick he would not have been so easily diverted had he not been followed. The Lady of the Lake was received with enthusiasm, occupied at the time with other heavy publishing enterprises even Jeffrey joining in the See also:chorus of applause. It made the calculated to bring grist to the printing establishment. His See also:Perthshire See also:Highlands fashionable for tourists, and raised the active brain was full of projects for big editions, which he See also:post-See also:horse duty in See also:Scotland. But it did not make up to . Ballantyne & Co. for their heavy investments in unsound ventures. The Edinburgh See also:Annual See also:Register, meant as a See also:rival to the Edinburgh Review, though Scott engaged See also:Southey to write for it and wrote for it largely himself, proved a failure. In a very See also:short time the warehouses of the firm were filled with unsaleable stock. By the end of three years Scott began to write to his partners about the propriety of " reefing sails." But apparently he was too much occupied to look into the accounts of the firm, and, so far from understanding the real state of their affairs, he considered himself rich enough to make his first purchase of land at Abbotsford. But he had hardly settled there in the See also:spring of 1812, and begun his schemes for See also:building and planting and converting a See also:bare See also:moor into a richly wooded pleasaunce, than his business troubles began, and he found himself harassed by fears of See also:bankruptcy. Rigdumfunnidos concealed the situation as long as he could, but as See also:bill after bill came due he was obliged to make urgent application to Scott, and the truth was thus forced from him See also:item by item. He had by no means revealed all when Scott, who behaved with admirable good-nature, was provoked into remonstrating, " For See also:heaven's See also:sake, treat me as a man and not as a milch-cow." The proceeds of Rokeby (January 1813) and of other labours of Scott's pen were swallowed up, and bankruptcy was inevitable, when Constable, still eager at any See also:price to secure Scott's services, came to the See also:rescue. With his help three crises were tided over in 1813. It was in the midst of these embarrassments that Scott opened up the rich new vein of the Waverley novels. He chanced upon the See also:manuscript of the opening chapters of Waverley which he had written in 18o5, and resolved to complete the story. Four See also:weeks in the summer of 1814 sufficed for the work, and Waverley was published by Constable without the author's name in See also:July. The notes and introductions first appeared in the edition of 1829. Many plausible reasons might be given and have been given for Scott's See also:resolution to publish anonymously. The See also:reason given by Lockhart is that he considered the writing of novels beneath the dignity of a See also:grave clerk of the Court of Session. Why he kept up the mystification, though the secret, which was formally divulged in 1827, was an open one to all his Edinburgh acquaintances, is easily understood. He enjoyed it, and his formally initiated coadjutors enjoyed it; it relieved him from the annoyances of foolish compliment; and it was not unprofitable—curiosity about " the Great Unknown " keeping alive the interest in his See also:works. The secret was so well kept by all to whom it was definitely entrusted, and so many devices were used to throw conjecture off the See also:scent, that even Scott's friends, who were certain of the authorship from See also:internal evidence, were occasionally puzzled. He kept on producing in his own name as much work as seemed humanly possible for an official who was to be seen every day at his post and as often in society as the most fashionable of his professional brethren. His See also:treatises on chivalry, romance and the See also:drama, besides an elaborate work in two volumes on Border antiquities, appeared in the same year with Waverley, and his edition of Swift in nineteen volumes in the same See also:week. In 1813 he published the romantic See also:tale of The Bridal of Triermain in three cantos, enlarged from an earlier poem, printed in the Edinburgh Annual Register of 1809. The Lord of the Isles was published in January 1815; See also:Guy Mannering, written in " six weeks about See also:Christmas," in February; and The See also: Even the few intimates who knew how early he got up to prepare his packet for the printer, and had some idea of the extraordinary power that he had acquired of commanding his faculties for the utilization of See also:odd moments, must have wondered at times whether he had not inherited the arts of his ancestral relation See also:Michael See also:Scot, and kept a goblin in some retired See also:attic or vault. Scott's fertility is not absolutely unparalleled; See also:Anthony See also:Trollope claimed to have surpassed him in See also:rate as well as See also:total amount of See also:production, having also business duties to attend to. But in speed of production combined with variety and depth of interest and See also:weight and accuracy of historical substance Scott is unrivalled. On his claims as a serious historian, which Carlyle ignored in his curiously narrow and splenetic criticism, he was always, with all his magnanimity, peculiarly sensitive. A certain feeling that his antiquarian studies were undervalued seems to have haunted him from his youth. It was probably this that gave the sting to Jeffrey's criticism of Marmion, and that tempted him to the somewhat questionable proceeding of reviewing his own novels in the Quarterly upon the appearance of Old Mortality. He was nettled besides at the See also:accusation of having treated the See also:Covenanters unfairly, and wanted to justify himself by the production of historical documents. In this criticism of himself Scott replied lightly to some of the See also:familiar objections to his work, such as the feebleness of his heroes, Waverley, See also:Bertram, Lovel, and the melodramatic character of some of his scenes and characters. But he argued more seriously against the idea that historical romances are the enemies of history, and he rebutted by anticipation Carlyle's objection that he wrote only to amuse idle persons who like to See also:lie on their backs and read novels. His apologia is See also:worth quoting. Historical romances, he admits, have always been failures, but the failure has been due to the imperfect knowledge of the writers and not to the See also:species of composition. If, he says, anachronisms in manners can be avoided, and " the features of an age gone by can be recalled in a spirit of delineation at once faithful and striking, .. . the composition itself is in every point of view dignified and improved; and the author, leaving the light and frivolous associates with whom a careless observer would be disposed to ally him, takes his seat on the See also:bench of the historians of his time and country. In this proud See also:assembly, and in no mean place of it, we are disposed to See also:rank the author of these works. At once a master of the great events and minute incidents of history, and of the manners of the times he celebrates, as distinguished from those which now prevail, the intimate thus of the living and of the dead, his judgment enables him to See also:separate those traits which are characteristic from those that are generic; and his imagination, not less accurate and discriminating than vigorous and vivid, presents to the mind of the reader the manners of the times, and introduces to his familiar acquaintance the individuals of the drama as they thought and spoke and acted." This See also:defence of himself shows us the, ideal at which Scott aimed, and which he realized. He was not in the least unconscious of his own excellence. He did not hesitate in this review to compare himself with See also:Shakespeare in respect of truth to nature. " The See also:volume which this author has studied is the great See also:book of nature. He has gone abroad into the world in quest of what the world will certainly and abundantly supply, but what a man of great discrimination alone will find, and a man of the very highest genius will alone depict after he has discovered it. The characters of Shakespeare are not more exclusively human, not more perfectly men and women as they live and move, than those of this mysterious author." The immense See also:strain of Scott's See also:double or quadruple life as sheriff and clerk, hospitable laird, poet, novelist, and miscellaneous man of letters, publisher and printer, though the prosperous excitement sustained him for a time, soon told upon his health. Early in 1817 began a series of attacks of agonizing See also:cramp of the See also:stomach, which recurred at short intervals during more than two years. But his appetite and capacity for work remained unbroken. He made his first attempt at play-writing 1 as he was recovering from the first attack; before the year was out he had completed Rob See also:Roy, and within six months it was followed by The See also:Heart of Midlothian, which filled the four volumes of the second series of Tales of My Landlord, and has remained one of the most popular among his novels. The See also:Bride of Lammermoor, The Legend of See also:Montrose, forming the third series by " Jedediah Cleishbotham," and Ivanhoe (1820) were dictated to amanuenses, through fits of suffering so acute that he could not suppress cries of agony. Still he would not give up. When See also:Laidlaw begged him to stop dictating he only answered, " See also:Nay, Willie, only see that the doors are fast. I would See also:fain keep all the cry as well as the See also:wool to ourselves; but as to giving over work, that can only be when I am in woollen."
Throughout those two years of intermittent See also:ill-health, which was at one time so serious that his life was despaired of and he took formal leave of his family, Scott's semi-public life at Abbots-See also:ford continued as usual—swarms of visitors coming and going, and the rate of production, on the whole, suffering no outward and visible check, all the world wondering at the novelist's prodigious fertility. The first of the series concerning which there were murmurs of dissatisfaction was The Monastery (182o), which was the first completed after the re-establishment of the author's bodily vigour. The failure, such as it was, was possibly due to the introduction of the supernatural in the See also:person of the See also: But any theory of falling off or exhaustion based upon plausible general considerations has to be qualified so much when brought into contact with the facts that very little confidence can be reposed in its accuracy. The Fortunes of Nigel comes comparatively See also:late in the series and has often been blamed for its looseness of construction. Scott himself always spoke slightingly of his plots, and humorously said that he proceeded on Bayes's maxim, " What the See also:deuce is a See also:plot good for but to bring in good things ?" Yet some competent critics prefer The Fortunes of Nigel to any other of Scott's novels. An attempt might be
1 The See also:Doom of Devorgoil. This and his other dramatic sketches, See also:Macduff's See also:Cross, Halidon See also: Apparently he never informed himself accurately of the new relations of mutual See also:accommodation on which the printing firm then entered with the great but rashly speculative publisher, and drew liberally for his own See also:expenditure against the undeniable profits of his novels without asking any questions, trusting blindly in the solvency of his commercial henchmen. Unfortunately, " lifted off their feet " by the wonderful triumphs of their chief, they thought themselves exempted like himself from the troublesome duty of inspecting ledgers and balancing accounts, till the See also:crash came. From a diary which Scott began a few days before the first rumours of See also:financial difficulty reached him we know how he See also:bore from day to day the rapidly unfolded prospect of unsuspected liabilities. " Thank See also:God," was his first reflection, " I have enough to pay more than 20S. in 'the See also:pound, taking matters at the worst." But a few weeks revealed the unpleasant truth that, owing to the way in which Ballantyne & Co. were mixed up with Constable & Co., and Constable with See also:Hurst & See also:Robinson, the failure of the London house threw upon him personal responsibility for 130,000. How Scott's pride rebelled against the dishonour of bankruptcy, how he toiled for the rest of his life to clear off this enormous See also:debt, declining all offers of assistance and asking no See also:consideration from his creditors except time, and how nearly he succeeded, is one of the most familiar chapters in literary history, and would be one of the saddest were it not for the heroism of the enterprise. His wife died soon after the struggle began, and he suffered other painful bereavements; but, though sick at heart, he toiled on indomitably, and, writing for See also:honour, exceeded even his happiest days in industrious speed. If he could have maintained the rate of the first three years, during which he completed See also:Woodstock (1826); See also:Chronicles of the Canongate (1827), which included three tales—" The Highland Widow," " The Two Drovers " and " The Surgeon's Daughter"; The Fair Maid of See also:Perth (1828, in the second series of Chronicles of the Canongate); See also:Anne of Geierstein (182g); the Life of Napoleon (9 vols., 1827); part of his History of Scotland (2 vols., 1829-1830, for See also:Lardner's See also:Cabinet Cyclopaedia); the Scottish series of Tales of a Grandfather (four series, 1828-1829-1830-1831; inscribed to "See also:Hugh Little-john," i.e. John Hugh Lockhart), besides several See also:magazine articles, some of them among the most brilliant of his miscellaneous writings, and prefaces and notes to a collected edition of his novels—if he could have continued at this rate he might soon have freed himself from all his encumbrances. The result of his exertions from January 1826 to January 1828 was nearly £40,000 for his creditors. But the terrific labour proved too much even for his endurance. Ugly symptoms began to alarm his family in 1829, and in February of 183o he had his first stroke of See also:paralysis. Still he was undaunted, and not all the persuasions of friends and physicians could induce him to take rest. " During 1830," Lockhart says, " he covered almost as many sheets with his MS. as in 1829," the new introductions to a collected edition of his poetry and the Letters on See also:Demonology and See also:Witchcraft being amongst the labours of the year. He had a slight See also:touch of See also:apoplexy in November and a distinct stroke of paralysis in the following See also:April; but, in spite of these warnings and of other bodily ailments, he had two more novels, See also:Count See also:Robert of See also:Paris and Castle Dangerous(constituting the fourth series of Tales of My Landlord), ready for the press by the autumn of 1831. He would not yield to the solicitations of his friends and consent to try rest and a See also:change of scene, till fortunately, as his See also:mental powers failed, he became possessed of the idea that all his debts were at last paid and that he was once more a free man. In this belief he happily remained till his death. When it was known that his physicians recommended a sea voyage for his health, a See also:government See also:vessel was put at his disposal, and he cruised about in the Mediterranean and visited places of interest for the greater part of a year before his death. But, when he See also:felt that the end was near, he insisted on being carried across See also:Europe that he might See also:die on his beloved Tweedside at Abbotsford, where he expired on the 21st of See also:September 1832. He was buried at Dryburgh See also:Abbey. Scott's wife had died in 1826. His eldest son, Walter, succeeded to the baronetcy which had been conferred on his father in 1820, and the title became See also:extinct on his death in 1847; the second son, Charles, died at See also:Teheran in 1841, and the second daughter, Anne, died unmarried in 1833. Scott's elder daughter Charlotte See also:Sophia (d. 1837) was the wife of his biographer, J. G. Lockhart (q.v.); and their daughter Charlotte (d. 1858) married J. R. Hope-Scott (q.v.), and was the mother of Mary Monica, wife of the Hon. J. C. See also:Maxwell, who in 1874 took the additional name of Scott on his marriage with the heiress of Abbotsford. Mrs Maxwell Scott inherited some of the family literary See also:talent, and among other books wrote two volumes about Abbotsford (1893 and 1897).
Two busts of Scott were executed by Sir See also:Francis See also:Chantrey: one in 1820, which was presented to Scott by the sculptor in 1828; a second in 1828, which was sent by Chantrey to Sir Robert See also:Peel about.1837, and is now in the See also:National Portrait See also:Gallery, London. The 182o bust was duplicated by Chantrey for the See also:duke of See also:Wellington in 1827, and there is a copy in See also:Westminster Abbey, erected in 1897. Henry Raeburn painted Scott's portrait for See also:Archibald Constable in 18o8; Scott sat to the same artist in 1809 for the portrait now at Abbotsford, and two or three times subsequently. Other notable portraits were executed by Sir See also: The Scott See also:monument in Princes See also:Street, Edinburgh, erected in 1846, was designed by George See also:Kemp, the statue being the work of John Steell. The standard life by his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (7 vols., Edinburgh, 1837-1838), left little new material for later biographers. It was supplemented by the publication (2 vols., 1890) of Scott's See also:Journal, covering the years from 1825 to 1832, and of his Familiar Letters (2 vols., 1894), both edited by See also:David Douglas. Some unpublished letters from Scott to the marchioness of See also:Abercorn were sold at See also:Sotheby's in 1909. Shorter lives, chiefly based on Lockhart, are by R. H. See also:Hutton (" English Men of Letters," London, 1898) ; by C. D. See also:Yonge (" Great Writers," London, 1888), with bibliography by J. P. See also: Maigron, Le Roman historique d l'epoque romantique, Essai sur l'influence de Walter Scott (Paris, 1898). An account of the portraits of Scott, and a bibliography of his works, are given in Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell's Catalogue of the Scott Exhibition, commemorating Scott's See also:centenary at Edinburgh in July-August 1871. (W. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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