Читать книгу The Life of Sir Walter Scott: A Biography - S. Fowler Wright - Страница 20

CHAPTER XVI.

The same October (1796) that saw the final defeat of Scott’s effort to win Miss Stuart, saw his first published attempt at victory in the field of literature.

He published a thin quarto volume containing the version of Leonore (“William and Helen”) which Jane Cranston caused to be set in type six months earlier, and The Wild Huntsman,. both being translations from Burger, a copy of whose ballads in the original had been presented to him by a German lady who had married Hugh Scott, the chief of his own (Harden) branch of the family.

This brings us to another of Scott’s innumerable friendships, and to another of Lockhart’s alleged ‘influences’.

That Walter Scott would visit Hugh Scott at Mertoun was a certain thing. That Mrs. Hugh, the daughter of Count Bruhl, the Saxon ambassador in London, should take an interest in a young kinsman of her husband, who had learnt the language of her native country, and was translating its literature, was natural also. And it was absolutely certain that Scott would use the opportunity to learn from her all that the stores of her own mind, the experiences of her own life, could supply. He appears to have had the gift of pillaging the minds of others in such a manner that they were left with a pleasant satisfaction in the thought of how much they knew, and how much they had been able to help the pleasant and diffident young man with whom they had been conversing. It is curious, but not unnatural, that Scott seems to have shared their belief quite frequently. It had some truth. The mental wares which had been spread on the table between them had been those of their own minds. They did not realise that those which he had already accumulated were a hundred times more than theirs would ever be. They asked nothing from him. He asked information from them so deferentially that we are reminded of ants gently stroking aphidian abdomens, so that their milk shall flow freely.

Mrs. Hugh Scott, daughter of the Dowager-Countess of Egremont (think of that! Lockhart asks us to do so), met Walter Scott when he was twenty-five, and thought him very young for his years. She knew English better than he. They agreed about that. She could correct his bad rhymes; the Scotticisms of his conversations, which would otherwise (doubtless) invade his youthful efforts at literary expression. He once spoke about the “little two dogs” and she was able to explain that “two little dogs” was preferred in the best society. He was duly grateful. She spread her tail in the sun.

She did more than this. She “set him right in a thousand little trifles,” as she naturally could, being the “first lady of fashion” to “take him up”. It is an unconscious comedy as Lockhart tells it, but he may do justice to neither.

When we think of the verbal loveliness of Rosabelle and other lyrics which must have been written at or very soon after this period, and all the experimental beauties of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, we may smile a little at this picture of uncouth diffidence being instructed by this German-born lady in the elements of the English tongue; but Scott doubtless did learn something from her, and the lady was happy. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Lockhart has supplied his hero with a “mentor” in Will Clerk, a “monitor” in Will Erskine, and now a “lady of fashion” to complete the preparation for his exalted destiny, after which he should go far.

But, for the moment, he didn’t.

Friends who knew him in Edinburgh talked of the book and gave it generous praise, which may not have exceeded sincerity, because they regarded it in relation to the riches of his own mind, of which they already knew. But London literary circles declined to be excited. In fact, they declined to buy it at all. Lockhart is sure that “real lovers of poesy” saw that “no one but a poet could have transfused the daring imagery of the German in a style so free, bold, masculine, and full of life.” Perhaps it was so, and perhaps they did. Lockhart’s team of adjectives are somewhat of the same colour, and go no further than to suggest that the translations were of a vigorous quality. So they were. They had energy, and showed some skill in craftsmanship. But they were not his subjects: they were not his inventions: vitally, they were not his. They were more or less capable exercises in verse: they were not poetry at all. It was a time at which everyone was translating Burger. Some did it better than Scott, and most could have been better occupied. If he could do no better than that, he might give up trying, and it would be no loss to the world.

He took the failure with serenity. Beaten, for the moment, both in love and literature, he made no complaint. He went on practising the art of verse: he went on with his legal business: he redoubled his efforts to organise a regiment of volunteer horse.

And in this same Autumn of 1796, while the preparations for Williamina’s wedding were being pushed forward at Invermay, Scott commenced another of his life-long friendships. A young man, James Skene of Rubislaw, who had just come back from Saxony, where he had been staying for several years, no doubt first attracted his attention owing to his interest in German literature. He wanted to know many things that James should be able to tell him. The fact that Skene was some years the younger of the two may explain Lockhart allowing Scott to have a friend who is not a monitor, but for the extent and quality of the resulting intimacy we may take Mr. Skene’s ultimate statement that it continued for “nearly forty years”—that is till one of them should be buried in Dryburgh Abbey—“without ever having sustained a casual chill from unkind thought or word.”

For the moment they talked of chargers, of the fear of French invasion on the northern coast, of the regiment of Light Horse that had been raised in London, and of the possibility of a similar enterprise being successful in the Scottish capital. During the winter, Scott worked so hard at this project that he was able in the middle of February to send a petition to the Government in London, signed by a sufficient number who would be willing to serve in a regiment of volunteer cavalry, to secure the necessary authority; and with such energy was the recruiting pressed that the regiment was an established fact when the spring came. It pledged itself to serve, in case of invasion, in any part of the United Kingdom. It was commanded by Charles Maitland of Rankeillor. Scott was “Paymaster, Quartermaster and Secretary.” Its cornets were James Skene, and William Forbes of Pitsligo. The last name is an incidental evidence that no shadow of hostility had fallen between Walter Scott and his successful rival.

As most of the members of the corps had business or professional duties that filled their days, the hour for drill was fixed for five A.M.—an hour which recalls Scott’s early-morning energies in his legal studies, and suggests that the secretary of the corps had some responsibility for this arrangement.

James Skene’s account of him in this connection deserves quotation:

“The part of quartermaster was purposely selected for him, that he might be spared the rough usage of the ranks; but, not withstanding his infirmity, he had a remarkably firm seat on horseback, and in all situations a fearless one: no fatigue ever seemed too much for him, and his zeal and animation served to sustain the enthusiasm of the whole corps, while his ready “mot a rire” kept up, in all, a degree of good-humour and relish for the service, without which the toil and privations of long daily drills would not easily have been submitted to by such a body of gentlemen. At every interval of exercise, the order, Sit at ease, was the signal for the quartermaster to lead the squadron to merriment; every eye was intuitively turned on ‘Earl Walter’, as he was familiarly called by his associates of that date, and his ready joke seldom failed to raise the ready laugh. He took his full share in all the labours and duties of the corps, had the highest pride in its progress and proficiency, and was such a trooper himself, as only a very powerful frame of body and the warmest zeal in the cause could have enabled any one to be.”

The triple offices which Scott held at the first organisation of the regiment, for the existence of which his persistent energy was responsible, reminds us of the similar multiplicity of his official services to the Speculative Club. On this occasion, he found that he had undertaken more than it would be possible to continue permanently, and an arrangement was made for the paymaster’s duties to be transferred to Mr. Colin Mackenzie. But it is amazing at this, as at every subsequent period of his life, to observe how much of his time (and often of his money also) was given to the service of others, or to occupations that brought no remuneration. It is obvious, from Skene’s account, and from much other witness, that he was the life and inspiration of the regiment, though he had no thought to press for its higher dignities. At this time it seemed as though he would allow himself no time for solitary or introspective thought. He rose early: he read late. On a charger fitted for his unusual height and weight, which he had named Leonore, and the purchase of which had presented such difficulty that he had seriously thought of selling his collection of antique coins to acquire it, he appeared among his brother volunteers as of an inexhaustible vitality, and a good temper that nothing could overset.

It was so that he would appear to others through the vicissitudes of many future years. As they passed, it would become almost a routine with him to give his time and money to assist the troubles of others, and to keep his own to the privacy of his own heart. There would even be those in later days (but not who had known him) who would suggest that his passions were of no more than a moderate temperature. It is true that in the immense volume of his writings the allusion to periods—

“When on the weary night dawned wearier day,

And bitterer was the grief devoured alone,”

are very brief and few. But shallowness is a more talkative and more selfish thing.