[244] For the life led by many of the détenus in France before 1814, and for anecdotes regarding Sir Alexander Don, see Sir James Campbell of Ardkinglas' Memoirs, 2 vols. 8vo, London 1832, vol. ii. chaps. 7 and 8.

[245] Hugh Scott of Harden, afterwards (in 1835) Lord Polwarth—succeeded by his son Henry, in 1841.

[246] Henry Jas. Scott, who succeeded to the Barony of Montagu on the demise of his grandfather, the Duke of Montagu, was the son of Henry, 3d Duke of Buccleuch. At Lord M.'s death in 1845 the Barony of Montagu expired.

[247] Henry Scott, afterwards Lord Polwarth.

[248] Slightly altered from Pope's Eloisa to Abelard.

[249] The Catalogue of Criminals brought before the Circuit Courts at one time was termed in Scotland the Portuous Roll. The name appears to have been derived from the practice in early times of delivering to the judges lists of Criminals for Trials in Portu, or in the gateway as they entered the various towns on their circuit ayres.—Chambers's Book of Scotland, p. 310.

Jamieson suggests that the word may have come from "Porteous" as originally applied to a Breviary, or portable book of prayers, which might easily be transferred to a portable roll of indictments.

[250] Quarterly Review, No. 66, Pepys' Diary.

[251] Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 3.

[252] See Froissart's account of the Battle of Crecy, Bk. i. cap. 129.

[253] Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iv. Sc. 1.

[254] See Goldsmith's Comedy, Act III.

[255] King Lear, Act III. Sc. 2.

[256] James Pringle, Convener of Selkirkshire for more than half a century. For an account of the Pringles of Torwoodlee, see Mr. Craig Brown's History of Selkirkshire, vol. i. pp. 459-470.

[257] "The Insurrection of the Papers—a Dream." The Twopenny Post-Bag, 12mo, London, 1812.

[258] The well-known ballads on these two North-country legends were published by M.G. Lewis and Mr. Lambe, of Norham. "Sir Guy," in the Tales of Wonder, and "The Worm," in Ritson's Northumberland Garland.—See Child's English and Scottish Ballads, 8 vols. 12mo, Boston, 1857, vol. i. p. 386.

[259] Fyn Segellak wel brand en vast houd: old brand used by sealing-wax makers.

[260] Balaam is the cant name in a Newspaper Office for asinine paragraphs, about monstrous productions of Nature and the like, kept standing in type to be used whenever the real news of the day leaves an awkward space that must be filled up somehow.—J.G.L.

[261] Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2.

[262] Ritson, Scottish Songs, xvi.

[263] See Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol. xx. pp. 152-244, or Quarterly Review No. 67, Kelly's Reminiscences.

[264] 2 Henry IV., Act III. Sc. I, slightly altered.

[265] [Mrs. Brown's Lodgings, No. 6 North St. David Street.]

[266] This is the opening couplet of a German trooper's song, alluded to in Life, vol. ii. p. 13. The literal translation is:—

[267] Scott had written:—"and yet to part with the companion of twenty years just six," and had then deleted the three words, "years just six," and written "nine" above them. It looks as if he had meant at first to refer to the change in his fortunes, "just six" MONTHS before, and had afterwards thought it better to refrain. This would account for a certain obscurity of meaning.

[268] As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 4.

[269] Cicero, de Orat. ii. p. 346.—J.G.L.

[270] Walter Scott Lockhart, died at Versailles in 1853, and was buried in the Cemetery of Notre-Dame there.

[271] The Rev. Edward Bannerman Ramsay, A.M., St. John's College, Cambridge, incumbent St. John's, Edinburgh, afterwards Dean of the Diocese in the Scots Episcopal Church, and still more widely known as the much-loved "Dean Ramsay," author of Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character. This venerable Scottish gentleman was for many years the delight of all who had the privilege of knowing him. He died at the age of eighty-three in his house, 23 Ainslie Place, Edinburgh, Dec. 27th, 1872.

[272] See Life, vol. iv. p. 2.

[273] Mr. Skene has preserved the following note written on this day:—"I take the advantage of Mr. Ramsay's return to Edinburgh to answer your kind letter. It would have done no good to have brought you here when I could not have enjoyed your company, and there were enough friends here to ensure everything being properly adjusted. Anne, contrary to a natural weakness of temper, is quite quiet and resigned to her distress, but has been visited by many fainting fits, the effect, I am told, of weakness, over-exertion, and distress of mind. Her brothers are both here—Walter having arrived from Ireland yesterday in time to assist at the munus inane; their presence will do her much good, but I cannot think of leaving her till Monday next, nor could I do my brethren much good by coming to town, having still that stunned and giddy feeling which great calamities necessarily produce. It will soon give way to my usual state of mind, and my friends will not find me much different from what I have usually been.

"Mr. Ramsay, who I find is a friend of yours, appears an excellent young man.—My kind love to Mrs. Skene, and am always, yours truly,

[274] The Highland Widow, Waverley Novels, vol. xli.

[275] See February 10, 1826.

[276] This excellent philosophical song appears to have been famous in the sixteenth century.—Percy's Reliques, vol. i. 307.—J.G.L.

[277] See June 2.

[278] Sheridan's Critic, Act IV. Sc. 2.

[279] Buckingham's Rehearsal.—The expression "To Feague" does not occur in the first edition, where the passage stands thus:—

"Phys.—When a knotty point comes, I lay my head close to it, with a pipe of tobacco in my mouth and then whew it away. I' faith.

"Bayes.—I do just so, i' gad, always." Act II. Sc. 4.

In some subsequent editions the words are:—"I lay my head close to it with a snuff-box in my hand, and I feague it away. I' faith."

I am indebted to Dr. Murray for this reference, which he kindly furnished me with from the materials collected for his great English Dictionary.

[280] This alludes to the claim advanced by the creditors of Constable and Co. to the copyright of Woodstock and the Life of Napoleon. The Dean of the Faculty of Advocates was at that time George Cranstoun, afterwards a judge on the Scottish Bench under the title; of Lord Corehouse, from 1826 until 1839, when he retired; he died 1850.

[281] i.e. spending.

[282] The eldest son of "The Man of Feeling." He had been a judge from 1822; he died at the age of seventy-four in 1851.

[283] Baron Gifford died a few months later, viz., in Sept. 1826; he had been Attorney-General in 1819, and Chief-Justice in 1824. Lord and Lady Gifford had visited Abbotsford in the autumn of 1825.

[284] Speech of Lord Chancellor Seafield on the ratification of the Scottish Union.—See Miscell. Prose Works, vol. xxv. p. 93.

[285] See Moréri's Dictionnaire, Art. "Tanneguy du Châtel."

[286] An example of Scott's wonderful patience, and his power of utilising hints gathered from the most unpromising materials. Apropos of this Mr. Skene relates:—"In one of our frequent walks to the pier of Leith, to which the freshness of the sea breeze offered a strong inducement to those accustomed to pass a few of the morning hours within the close and impure atmosphere of the Court of Session, I happened to meet with, and to recognise, the Master of a vessel in which I had sailed in the Mediterranean. Our recognition of each other seemed to give mutual satisfaction, as the cordial grasp of the seaman's hard fist effectually indicated. It was some years since we had been shipmates, he had since visited almost every quarter of the globe, but he shook his head, and looked serious when he came to mention his last trip. He had commanded a whaler, and having been for weeks exposed to great stress of weather in the polar regions, finally terminated in the total loss of his vessel, with most of her equipage, in the course of a dark tempestuous night. When thrown on her beam-ends, my friend had been washed overboard, and in his struggles to keep himself above water had got hold of a piece of ice, on the top of which he at length succeeded in raising himself—'and there I was, sir, on a cursed dark dirty night, squatted on a round lump of floating ice, for all the world like a tea-table adrift in the middle of a stormy sea, without being able to see whether there was any hope within sight, and having enough ado to hold on, cold as my seat was, with sometimes one end of me in the water, and sometimes the other, as the ill-fashioned crank thing kept whirling, and whomeling about all night. However, praised be God, daylight had not been long in, when a boat's crew on the outlook hove in sight, and taking me for a basking seal, and maybe I was not unlike that same, up they came of themselves, for neither voice nor hand had I to signal them, and if they lost their blubber, faith, sir, they did get a willing prize on board; so, after just a little bit gliff of a prayer for the mercy that sent them to my help, I soon came to myself again, and now that I am landed safe and sound, I am walking about, ye see, like a gentleman, till I get some new craft to try the trade again.'—Sir Walter, who was leaning on my arm during this narrative, had not taken any share in the dialogue, and kept gazing to seaward, with his usual heavy, absorbed expression, and only joined in wishing the seaman better success in his next trip as we parted. However, the detail had by no means escaped his notice, but dropping into the fertile soil of his mind, speedily yielded fruit, quite characteristic of his habits. We happened that evening to dine in company together; I was not near Sir Walter at table, but in the course of the evening my attention was called to listen to a narrative with which he was entertaining those around him, and he seemed as usual to have excited the eager interest of his hearers. The commencement of the story I had not heard, but soon perceived that a shipwreck was the theme, which he described with all the vivid touches of his fancy, marshalling the incidents and striking features of the situation with a degree of dexterity that seemed to bring all the horrors of a polar storm home to every one's mind, and although it occurred to me that our rencontre in the morning with the shipwrecked Whaler might have recalled a similar story to his recollection, it was not until he came to mention the tea-table of ice that I recognised the identity of my friend's tale, which had luxuriated to such an extent in the fertile soil of the poet's imagination, as to have left the original germ in comparative insignificance. He cast a glance towards me at the close, and observed, with a significant nod, 'You see, you did not hear one-half of that honest seaman's story this morning.' It was such slender hints, which in the common intercourse of life must have hourly dropped on the soil of his retentive memory, that fed the exuberance of Sir Walter's invention, and supplied the seemingly inexhaustible stream of fancy, from which he drew forth at pleasure the ground-work of romance."—Reminiscences.

[287] Painted for Lord Montagu in 1822.—See Life, vol. vii. p. 13.

Raeburn apparently executed two "half lengths" of Scott almost identical at this time, giving Lord Montagu his choice. The picture chosen remained at Ditton, near Windsor, until 1845, when at Lord Montagu's death it became the property of his son-in-law, the Earl of Home, and it is now (1889) at the Hirsel, Coldstream. The engraving referred to was made from the replica, which remained in the artist's possession, by Mr. Walker, and published in 1826. Sir Henry Raeburn died in July 1823, and I do not know what became of the original, which may be identified by an official chain round the neck, not introduced in the Montagu picture.

[288] Song of The Hunting of the Hare.—J.G.L.

[289] This entry reminds one of Hannah More's account of Mrs. Garrick's conduct after her husband's funeral. "She told me," says Mrs. More, "that she prayed with great composure, then went and kissed the dear bed, and got into it with a sad pleasure."—See Memoirs of Mrs. More, vol. i. p. 135.—J.G.L.

[290] Campbell's Turkish Lady, slightly altered. The poet was then editor of the New Monthly Magazine, but he soon gave it up.—J.G.L.

[291] Viz.: the first series of Chronicles of the Canongate, which was published in 1827. The title originally proposed was The Canongate Miscellany or Traditions of the Sanctuary.

Woodstock had just been launched under the following title:—Woodstock, or the Cavalier; a Tale of the Year Sixteen Hundred and Fifty-one, by the author of Waverley, Tales of the Crusaders, etc. "He was a very perfect gentle knight" (Chaucer). Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co., Edinburgh; and Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, London, 1826. (At the end) Edinburgh: Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. 3 vols. post 8vo.

[292] Thomas Hamilton, Esq. (brother of Sir William Hamilton, the Metaphysician), author of Cyril Thornton, Men and Manners in America, Annals of the Peninsular Campaign, etc. Died in 1842.

[293] Bryan Waller Procter, author of Dramatic Scenes, and other Poems, 1819. He died in London in 1874.

[294] A favourite expression of Scott's, from Robinson Crusoe.

[295] John Hay Forbes (Lord Medwyn from 1825 to 1852), second son of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo. Lord Medwyn died at the age of seventy-eight in 1854.

[296] The Highland Widow.

[297] A favourite exclamation of Sir Walter's, which he had picked up on his Irish tour, signifying "don't mind it"—Na-bac-leis. Compare Sir Boyle Roche's dream that his head was cut off and placed upon a table: "'Quis separabit?' says the head; 'Naboclish,' says I, in the same language."

[298] That Mr. Kinloch was not singular in his opinion has been shown by the remarks made in the House of Commons (see ante, March 17). Lord Cockburn in his Trials for Sedition says, "With Botany Bay before him, and money to make himself comfortable in Paris, George Kinloch would have been an idiot if he had stayed." Mr. Kinloch had just returned to Scotland.

[299] His neighbour, John Archibald Murray, then living at 122 George Street.—See p. 133.

[300] See Molière's l'École des Femmes.

[301] In 1827 Scott was one day heard saying, as he saw Peter guiding the plough on the haugh:—"Egad, auld Pepe's whistling at his darg: if things get round with me, easy will be his cushion!" Old Peter lived until he was eighty-four. He died at Abbotsford in 1854, where he had been well cared for, respected, and beloved by all the members of the family since Sir Walter's death.

[302] Sheridan's Rivals, Act II. Sc. 1.

[303] The murder of Weare by Thurtell and Co., at Gill's-Hill in Hertfordshire (1824). Sir Walter collected printed trials with great assiduity, and took care always to have the contemporary ballads and prints bound up with them. He admired particularly this verse of Mr. Hook's broadside—

—J.G.L.

[304] Dr. John Jamieson, formerly minister to a Secession congregation in Forfar, removed to a like charge in Edinburgh in 1795, where he officiated for forty-three years; he died in his house in 4 George Square in 1838, aged seventy-nine.

[305] This novel was passing through the press in 8vo, 12mo, and 18mo, to complete collective editions in these sizes.—J.G.I.

[306] Afterwards Sir David Brewster. He died at Allerley House on the Tweed, aged eighty-seven, on February 10, 1868.

[307] By Middleton, 1697.

[308] The Hector of Germanie, or the Palsgrave Prime Elector. An Honourable History by William Smith. 4to, 1615.

[309] Two London playhouses.—See Knight's Biography of Shakespeare.

[310] Molière's La Princesse d'Élide (Prologue).

[311] See Crabbe's Tale of The Struggles of Conscience.—J.G.L.

[312] Tales of a Grandfather, Miscell. Prose Works, vol. xxiii. p. 72.

[313] See Tales of the Genii. The Talisman of Oromanes.

[314] Eldest daughter of William Fraser of Balnain.—See Burgon's Life of P.F. Tytler, 8vo, Lond. 1859. Mrs. Tytler died in London, aged eighty-four, in 1837.

[315] Alexr. Fraser Tytler, 1747-1813. Besides his acknowledged works, Lord Woodhouselee published anonymously a translation of Schiller's Robbers as early as 1792.

[316] Henry Cranstoun, elder brother of Lord Corehouse and Countess Purgstall. He resided for some years near Abbotsford, at the Pavilion on the Tweed, where he died in 1843, aged eighty-six. An interesting account of Countess Purgstall is given by Basil Hall, who was with her in Styria at her death in 1835. This very early friend of Scott's was thought by Captain Hall to have been the prototype of Diana Vernon—"that safest of secret keepers."—See Schloss Hainfeld, 8vo, Lond. 1836.

[317] The property of Gattonside had been purchased in 1824 by George Bainbridge of Liverpool, a keen angler, author of The Fly Fisher's Guide, 8vo, Liverpool, 1816.

[318] Lady Anna Maria Elliot, see ante, p. 133.

[319] W. Scott of Maxpopple.

[320] In the fairy tale of Countess D'Aulnoy—Fortunio.

[321] See Johnson's Rambler, Nos. 204 and 205.

[322] Afterwards Sir Philip Crampton. "The Surgeon-General struck Sir Walter as being more like Sir Humphry Davy than any man he had met, not in person only, but in the liveliness and range of his talk."—Life, vol. viii. p. 23.

[323] Gaelic for "old women."

[324] William Douglas, fourth Duke of Queensberry, succeeded, on the death of his kinsman, Duke Charles, in 1778. He died in 1810 at the age of eighty-six, when his titles and estates were divided between the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Douglas, the Marquis of Queensberry, and the Earl of Wemyss.

See Wordsworth's indignant lines beginning:

"Degenerate Douglas, oh the unworthy Lord";

also George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, 4 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1843-4.

[325] Alexander, tenth Earl of Home, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Henry, third Duke of Buccleuch.

[326] Charles, second son of Archibald Lord Douglas.

[327] James Thomas, Viscount Stopford, afterwards fourth Earl of Courtown, and his wife, Lady Charlotte, sister of the then Duke of Buccleuch, at that time still in his minority. Lady Charlotte died within eighteen months of this date.

Prior's Female Phaeton.

Catherine Hyde, daughter of Henry Earl of Clarendon, and wife of Charles Duke of Queensberry. She was the friend of Gay, and her beauty, wit, and oddities have been celebrated in prose and rhyme by the wits and poets of two generations. Fifty-six years after Prior had sung her "mad Grace's" praises, Walpole added those two lines to the Female Phaeton—

She died at a great age in 1777. For her letter to George II. when forbid the Court, see Agar Ellis, Historical Inquiries, Lond. 1827, p. 40.

[329] Ballad on young Rob Roy's abduction of Jean Key, Cromek's Collections.—J.G.L.

[330] See Letter to C.K. Sharpe, from Drumlanrig, vol. ii. pp. 369-71.

[331] Sir Frederick Adam, son of the Chief Commissioner—a distinguished soldier, afterwards High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, and subsequently Governor of Madras; he died in 1853.

[332] Mr. Richard Sharp published in 1834 a very elegant and interesting little volume of Letters and Essays, in Prose and Verse.—See Quarterly Review, 102.—J.G.L. He had been Member of Parliament from 1806 to 1820, and died on the 30th of March 1835 at the age of seventy-six.

[333] Sir Thomas Brisbane, who had formerly commanded a brigade in the Peninsula. In 1832 he succeeded Sir Walter Scott as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Sir Thomas had married in 1819 a daughter of Sir Henry Hay Makdougall of Makerstoun, Bart. Sir Thomas died at Brisbane House, Ayrshire, in January 1860, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.

[334] For an account of this family see The Swintons of that Ilk and their Cadets, 4to, 1883, a privately printed volume by A.C. Swinton of Kimmerghame. In a letter to his friend Swinton in 1814, Scott says that he had been reading the family pedigree "to my exceeding refreshment."

[335] One of the Abbotsford labourers.

[336] 2 Henry IV. Act IV. Sc. 2.

[337] Mr. E.W. Auriol Drummond Hay, heir-presumptive at one time of Lord Kinnoul, was then residing in Edinburgh, owing to his official duties in the Lyon Office; he took a great interest in archaeological matters, and was for two years Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries before his departure as Consul General to the Barbary States. He died at Tangier on the 1st March 1845.

[338] Milton's Comus, v. 208.—J.G.L.

[339] Lady Scott had not been quite four months dead, and the entry of the preceding day shows how extremely ill-timed was this communication from a gentleman with whom Sir Walter had never had any intimacy. This was not the only proposition of the kind that reached him during his widowhood.—J.G.L.

[340] A coil of rope.

[341] See Life, vol. x. 95, and The Haigs of Bemersyde, 8vo, Edin. 1881, edited by J. Russell.

[342] Mr. Thomas Shortreed, a young gentleman of elegant taste and attainments, devotedly attached to Sir Walter, and much beloved in return, had recently died.—J.G.L.

[343] See Act III. Sc. 1.

[344] The Rev. Dr. Thomas Somerville, minister of Jedburgh, author of the History of Great Britain during the reign of Queen Anne, and other works, died 14th May 1830, in the ninetieth year of his age, and sixty-fourth of his ministry.—J.G.L. Autobiographical Memorials of his Life and Times, 1741-1814, 8vo, Edinburgh, were published in 1861.

[345] Much Ado about Nothing, Act III. Sc. 5.

[346] Afterwards Judge in the Court of Session from 1843, author of Gleams of Thought reflected from Milton, etc. It was of this witty and humorous judge Mr. Lockhart wrote the sportive lines:—

Lord Robertson died in 1855.

[347] Act III. Sc. 3.

[348] One of Scott's old High School mates.—Life, vol. i. p. 163.

[349] Burns's Epistle to J. Smith.

[350] Eldest daughter of the illustrious Admiral Lord Duncan, wife of Sir Hew Hamilton Dalrymple. She died in 1852.

[351] This implacable enemy of Napoleon,—a Corsican, died in his seventy-fourth year in 1842.

[352] E.H. Locker, Esq., then Secretary, afterwards one of the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital—an old and dear friend of Scott's.—See Oct. 25.

[353] As an illustration of Constable's accuracy in gauging the value of literary property, it may be stated that in his formal declaration, after sequestration, he said:—"I was so sanguine as to the success of the Memoirs of Napoleon that I did not hesitate to express it as my opinion that I had much confidence in it producing him at least £10,000, and this I observed, as my expectation, to Sir W. Scott." This opinion was expressed not only before the sale of the work, but before it was all written.—A. Constable and his Correspondents, vol. iii. p. 313.

[354] Another of the Abbotsford labourers.

[355] See Ballad of Edom of Gordon.

[356] "On the 12th of October, Sir Walter left Abbotsford for London, where he had been promised access to the papers in the Government offices; and thence he proceeded to Paris, in the hope of gathering from various eminent persons authentic anecdotes concerning Napoleon. His Diary shows that he was successful in obtaining many valuable materials for the completion of his historical work; and reflects, with sufficient distinctness, the very brilliant reception he on this occasion experienced both in London and Paris. The range of his society is strikingly (and unconsciously) exemplified in the record of one day, when we find him breakfasting at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Park, and supping on oysters and porter in "honest Dan Terry's house, like a squirrel's cage," above the Adelphi Theatre in the Strand. There can be no doubt that this expedition was in many ways serviceable in his Life of Napoleon; and I think as little that it was chiefly so by renewing his spirits. The deep and respectful sympathy with which his misfortunes, and gallant behaviour under them, had been regarded by all classes of men at home and abroad, was brought home to his perception in a way not to be mistaken. He was cheered and gratified, and returned to Scotland with renewed hope and courage for the prosecution of his marvellous course of industry."—Life, vol. ix. pp. 2, 3.

[357] John B. Saurey Morritt of Rokeby, a friend of twenty years' standing, and "one of the most accomplished men that ever shared Scott's confidence."

He had published, before making Scott's acquaintance, a Vindication of Homer, in 1798, a treatise on The Topography of Troy, 1800, and translations and imitations of the minor Greek Poets in 1802.

Mr. Morritt survived his friend till February 12th, 1843, when he died at Rokeby Park, Yorkshire, in his seventy-second year.—See Life throughout.

[358] MS. note on margin of Journal by Mr. Morritt: "No—it was left by Reynolds to Mason, by Mason to Burgh, and given to me by Mr. Burgh's widow."