Читать книгу The Life of Sir Walter Scott: A Biography - S. Fowler Wright - Страница 25

CHAPTER XXI.

The year 1799, which witnessed the death of Scott’s father (too soon to know the justification of those early wanderings which had vexed his mind), the publication of the Goetz translation, and the birth of his first child, was momentous in two other directions.

During that week in the early autumn which was spent with Captain Robert at Kelso, Mr. Walter Scott had a visitor. The Editor of the Kelso Mail, Mr. James Ballantyne, a young man of his own age, called to request an article from him on a legal subject of topical interest, with which he was particularly competent to deal. Scott agreed to write it, and to bring it in to the Mail office on completion. The importance of this incident may be exaggerated. The two men had known each other from boyhood, James having been a pupil of Mr. Lancelot Whale when Walter had attended his school during the summer that intervened between his High School and College courses. After that, James had come to Edinburgh, continuing his studies there, his father (a “decent shopkeeper” Lockhart calls him, which is praise by implication, though it holds a sneer) intending him for the legal profession. But this plan was abandoned, and James on his return to his native town, founded the Kelso Mail; laying down his own plant, and being proprietor, printer and editor of this local weekly.

Scott, as we know, was a frequent visitor at Kelso, first with his Aunt Janet, and then at Rosebank with Captain Robert, and the schoolboy acquaintance had been kept up.

In the light of after-knowledge, James Ballantyne’s call at Rosebank may seem to be of a decisive importance to many lives, but this may be an appearance only. Had he not called, Scott might have called upon him. Anyway, when he did so, he not only had the promised article in his pocket, he had some of his ballads also, to which the talk turned. Lockhart’s hearsay account of this interview derived from James Ballantyne, is the best we have. He says:

“Scott, carrying his article himself to the printing-office, took with him also some of his recent pieces, designed to appear in Lewis’s Collection. With these, especially, as his Memorandum says, the ‘Morlachian fragment after Goethe,’ Ballantyne was charmed, and he expressed his regret that Lewis’s book was so long in appearing. Scott talked of Lewis with rapture; and, after reciting some of his stanzas, said—“I ought to apologise to you for having troubled you with anything of my own when I had things like this for your ear.”—“I felt at once,” says Ballantyne, “that his own verses were far above what Lewis could ever do, and though, when I said this, he dissented, yet he seemed pleased with the warmth of my approbation.” At parting, Scott threw out a casual observation, that he wondered his old friend did not try to get some little booksellers’ work, “to keep his types in play during the rest of the week.” Ballantyne answered that such an idea had not before occurred to him—that he had no acquaintance with the Edinburgh ‘trade’; but, if he had, his types were good, and he thought he could afford to work more cheaply than town-printers. Scott, “with his good-humoured smile,” said—“You had better try what you can do. You have been praising my little ballads; suppose you print off a doze copies or so of as many as will make a pamphlet, sufficient to let my Edinburgh acquaintances judge of your skill for themselves.” Ballantyne assented; and I believe exactly twelve copies of William and Ellen, The Fire-King, The Chase, and a few more of those pieces, were thrown off accordingly, with the title (alluding to the long delay of Lewis’s Collection) of “Apology for Tales of Terror—1799”. This first specimen of a press, afterwards so celebrated, pleased Scott; and he said to Ballantyne—“I have been for years collecting old Border ballads, and I think I could, with little trouble, put together such a selection from them as might make a neat little volume, to sell for four or five shillings. I will talk to some of the booksellers about it when I get to Edinburgh, and if the thing goes on, you shall be the printer.”

It is improbable that this account of a conversation which is based on James Ballantyne’s recollection at a much later date has more than an approach to accuracy, but it is clear that Scott did not give him a printing order merely because he admired his types. It is clear that since his hurried, prematurely-ended visit to London, he had been steadily occupied in the production of ballads such as might (he hoped) be accepted by Lewis for inclusion in the Tales of Terror. He had worked systematically to complete those that had been in draft, and he had written others. His correspondence with Lewis shows that he had the definite aim of producing such as would be acceptable for the projected book, the delay of which was prolonged.

It is clear also that since the date of his marriage (if not earlier) he had fixed his mind upon winning honours in the field of literature. Ballantyne may have got a contrary impression, but he was not on terms of intimacy with him at this period, and allowance must be made for Scott’s habitual reticence where his personal feelings or projects were concerned. Lockhart recognises this as a probability, in spite of his tendency to represent Scott as a more or less plastic centre of surrounding influences. If he goes widely wrong, it is in the assumption that his ambition was not known among his inner circle of friends. He produces some evidence to support this conclusion, but it may be argued that it should be placed in the opposite scale.

There is the letter from Mr. Kerr, which congratulates Scott upon some increase of business this autumn at the Jedburgh Court, and continues:

“Go on: and with your strong sense and hourly ripening knowledge, that you must rise to the top of the tree in the Parliament House in due season, I hold as certain as that Murray died Lord Mansfield. But don’t let many an Ovid, or rather many a Burns (which is better), be lost in you. I rather think men of business have produced as good poetry in their by-hours as the professed regulars; and I don’t see any sufficient reason why Lord President Scott should not be a famous poet (in the vacation time), when we have seen a President Montesquieu step so nobly beyond the trammels in the Esprit des Loix. I suspect Dryden would have been a happier man had he had your profession. The reasoning talents visible in his verses assure me that he would have ruled in Westminster Hall as easily as he did at Button’s, and he might have found time enough besides for everything that one really honours his memory for.”

Lockhart recognises that this letter expresses an opinion on which Scott had so far acted, and continued throughout his career, but Lockhart may have been less ready to accept its wisdom. He was himself a professional literary man, who doubtless regarded his occupation as too exacting to be shared with other business interests. This may be true in many instances, and of literary work of diverse kinds. But so far as poetry is concerned, Kerr expressed a truth which many professional poets might have learnt to their own benefit, and that of their art. The writing of poetry cannot be a full-time occupation for any lifetime, nor a legitimate excuse for continued idleness; and if it be used in that way the results may be of a deplorable kind.

Chaucer, Dante, Spencer, Shakespeare, Milton—they were all men of affairs, who could show records of careers of honour, apart from the art they loved; and the influence of those activities is evident in the quality of the work they left. Those who make the writing of poetry an excuse for standing aside from the adventure of life, or for failing to take its fences properly, may produce work in consequence which is of an inferior beauty or a lessened authority. The best “professional” poets have usually buried their excellencies amid quantities of versifying which are not worth reading, and which a busier man would not have written at all.

Kerr states a more disputable opinion when he asserts that Scott was likely to rise to ‘the top of the tree’ in Parliament House. It is improbable that he would ever have made a great name as an advocate, but the qualities which unfitted him for that occupation would have made him an excellent judge. He was a sound lawyer. He was sympathetic. He had a profound knowledge of human nature, and an exceptional capacity for judging character; and he would never have allowed his sympathies to deflect his judgement.

Had he not turned from poetry to fiction, and found it a more time-absorbing occupation, it is more than likely that Scotland’s greatest poet would also have been known as one of her greatest judges; but his promotion would, in the first instance, have been by patronage, rather than as the reward of forensic triumphs.

This letter of Kerr’s, whatever be thought of the advice he gives, shows rather that Scott was already regarded by his friends as destined for a literary career, than that it was a future which even he himself had not begun to contemplate seriously.

He went to Ballantyne with the ballads in his pocket—and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he had the thought of ordering them to be printed before he entered the door. The title shows what was in his mind. They were an apology for the non-appearance of the book to which he was to have been an important contributor, and which had been a subject of expectation among his friends ever since Monk Lewis had visited them nearly twelve months ago....

The other event which belongs to the close of this year, and which was to have many after-consequences, arose from the unexpected death of Mr. Andrew Plummer, another antiquarian-scholar with whom Scott had established a familiar intimacy, and who held the office of Sheriff of Selkirkshire. The duties of such an office were not heavy, and it was a life-appointment, carrying a salary of £300 a year. There was no doubt of Scott’s suitability for the position, in ability, in character, and in legal knowledge. It was such a position as was often found in those days (and still is in the United States) to provide means of livelihood for men of literature, leaving them the leisure which their work requires. Joined to Charlotte’s income, which was being regularly paid, the money he had received at his father’s death, and his earnings at the Bar, it might seem sufficient to secure him from financial anxiety as long as his life should last. It would be congenial work, and the appointment would be very opportune now that his first child was born, and the question must arise of how long the Lasswade cottage would give sufficient accommodation for the summer months.

An appointment of this kind was, at the time, in the gift of the Crown, and its vacancy was the occasion of a political scramble, in which it was likely to fall to the man who had the most and the loudest friends. It is a method of appointment which is, at least, superior to that of a competitive examination, and though some scandals resulted, it was unusual for a man obviously unsuitable to be able to secure sufficiently numerous and powerful nominations. In Scott’s case, though he felt an enduring sense of obligation to a large number of people for the result of their concentrated activities, it must have been a walk-over from the first. His services in promoting the formation of the Yeomanry regiment were alone sufficient, with his personal qualifications, to give him a claim which it would be difficult to ignore. He was widely known among the most influential in political, legal, and military circles in Scotland, and universally popular. The Duke of Buccleuch, the young Earl of Dalkeith, Lord Montague, and a dozen others united their efforts. It is an incidental evidence of Scott’s numberless friendships that Mr. Henry Dundas (Viscount Melville) who had control of the Crown patronage in Scotland, found the nomination supported by his oldest son (who had known Scott at the High School), and his two nephews, Robert Dundas, the Lord Advocate, and William Dundas, the Secretary to the Board of Control.

With this din in his ears, Mr. Henry Dundas, who had himself (of course) met Mr. Walter Scott previously, and been favourably impressed, made the recommendation, and on December 16th, 1799, the patent of appointment was formally issued, and Scott was in office as Sheriff.

The appointment necessitated the refusal of the offer of the summer residence at Craignethan. Strictly, it required that there should be actual residence in the county for not less than four months in the year, but it was not until the Lord Lieutenant of Selkirkshire had made a formal protest, about three years later, that Scott fulfilled this condition. Until the summer of 1804 he continued to reside at Lasswade so far as he was at home during the summer months. He visited Jedburgh regularly in the autumn, maintaining his practice at the Head Court there. He spent the winter in Edinburgh during the legal terms. The house which had been rented in South Castle Street was exchanged for one of a similar size in North Castle Street, which he was now able to purchase, and which would continue to be his winter home for the next twenty-five years. For the rest of his life, circumstances would require or enable him to divide his year between a city and country life, as it would be divided between professional and literary work.

He found a little inn at Clovenford on the road to Selkirk, at which he made a habit of putting up, when the duties of his appointment required his presence in that neighbourhood. He made (needless to say) new friends in that district. Two of them William Laidlaw and James Hogg, will require more than a passing mention, as will John Leyden, whom he met at Edinburgh at about this time.

The winter of 1799-1800 was a time not only of its own successes but of far greater dreams, many of which were to be the facts of the future, and yet none of which may have been audacious enough to forecast how great that future was soon to be.

In April 1800, Scott wrote to Mr. Ballantyne suggesting that he should leave Kelso, and set up a printing business in Edinburgh. He thought that he saw an opening for “a man of talent and education”. He, and a friend, were prepared to influence business to such a firm, and some capital might be found in return for a share of the profits, if that were necessary. There was business to be done in the printing of legal documents. Beyond that, why should not Ballantyne succeed with a weekly newspaper in Edinburgh, as he had established the Mail in Kelso?

Why not a monthly? Why not an Annual Register?

Vaguely, if not definitely, Scott had the vision of a press which should be under his own control.