Returned from Court by Constable"s, and found Cadell had fled to the sanctuary, being threatened with ultimate diligence by the Bank of Scotland. If this be a vindictive movement, it is harsh, useless, and bad of them, and flight, on the contrary, seems no good sign on his part. I hope he won"t prove his father or grandfather at Prestonpans:--
"Cadell dressed among the rest, Wi" gun and good claymore, man, On gelding grey he rode that day, Wi" pistols set before, man.
The cause was gude, he"d spend his blude Before that he would yield, man, But the night before he left the corps, And never faced the field, man."[147]
Harden and Mrs. Scott called on Mamma. I was abroad. Henry called on me.
Wrote only two pages (of ma.n.u.script) and a half to-day. As the boatswain said, one can"t dance always _nowther_, but, were we sure of the quality of the stuff, what opportunities for labour does this same system of retreat afford us! I am convinced that in three years I could do more than in the last ten, but for the mine being, I fear, exhausted.
Give me my popularity--_an awful postulate!_--and all my present difficulties shall be a joke in five years; and it is _not_ lost yet, at least.
_February_ 5.--Rose after a sound sleep, and here am I without bile or anything to perturb my inward man. It is just about three weeks since so great a change took place in my relations in society, and already I am indifferent to it. But I have been always told my feelings of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, enjoyment and privation, are much colder than those of other people.
"I think the Romans call it stoicism."[148]
Missie was in the drawing-room, and overheard William Clerk and me laughing excessively at some foolery or other in the back-room, to her no small surprise, which she did not keep to herself. But do people suppose that he was less sorry for his poor sister,[149] or I for my lost fortune? If I have a very strong pa.s.sion in the world, it is _pride_, and that never hinged upon world"s gear, which was always with me--Light come, light go.
_February_ 6.--Letters received yesterday from Lord Montagu, John Morritt, and Mrs. Hughes--kind and dear friends all--with solicitous inquiries. But it is very tiresome to tell my story over again, and I really hope I have few more friends intimate enough to ask me for it. I dread letter-writing, and envy the old hermit of Prague, who never saw pen or ink. What then? One must write; it is a part of the law we live on. Talking of writing, I finished my six pages, neat and handsome, yesterday. _N.B._ At night I fell asleep, and the oil dropped from the lamp upon my ma.n.u.script. Will this extreme unction make it go smoothly down with the public?
Thus idly we "profane the sacred time"
By silly prose, light jest, and lighter rhyme.[150]
I have a song to write, too, and I am not thinking of it. I trust it will come upon me at once--a sort of catch it should be.[151] I walked out, feeling a little overwrought. Saw Constable and turned over Clarendon. Cadell not yet out of hiding. This is simple work. Obliged to borrow 240, to be refunded in spring, from John Gibson, to pay my nephew"s outfit and pa.s.sage to Bombay. I wish I could have got this money otherwise, but I must not let the orphan boy, and such a clever fellow, miscarry through my fault. His education, etc., has been at my expense ever since he came from America.
_February_ 7.--Had letters yesterday from Lady Davy and Lady Louisa Stuart,[152] two very different persons. Lady Davy, daughter and co-heiress of a wealthy Antigua merchant, has been known to me all my life. Her father was a relation of ours of a Scotch calculation. He was of a good family, Kerr of Bloodielaws, but decayed. Miss Jane Kerr married first Mr. Apreece, son of a Welsh Baronet. The match was not happy. I had lost all acquaintance with her for a long time, when about twenty years ago we renewed it in London. She was then a widow, gay, clever, and most actively ambitious to play a distinguished part in London society. Her fortune, though handsome and easy, was not large enough to make way by dint of showy entertainments, and so forth. So she took the _blue_ line, and by great tact and management actually established herself as a leader of literary fashion. Soon after, she visited Edinburgh for a season or two, and studied the Northern Lights.
One of the best of them, poor Jack Playfair,[153] was disposed "to shoot madly from his sphere,"[154] and, I believe, asked her, but he was a little too old. She found a fitter husband in every respect in Sir Humphry Davy, to whom she gave a handsome fortune, and whose splendid talents and situation as President of the Royal Society gave her naturally a distinguished place in the literary society of the Metropolis. Now this is a very curious instance of an active-minded woman forcing her way to the point from which she seemed furthest excluded. For, though clever and even witty, she had no peculiar accomplishment, and certainly no good taste either for science or letters naturally. I was once in the Hebrides with her, and I admired to observe how amidst sea-sickness, fatigue, some danger, and a good deal of indifference as to what she saw, she gallantly maintained her determination to see everything.[155] It marked her strength of character, and she joined to it much tact, and always addressed people on the right side. So she stands high, and deservedly so, for to these active qualities, more French I think than English, and partaking of the Creole vivacity and suppleness of character, she adds, I believe, honourable principles and an excellent heart. As a lion-catcher, I could pit her against the world. She flung her la.s.so (see Hall"s _South America_) over Byron himself. But then, poor soul, she is not happy. She has a temper, and Davy has a temper, and these tempers are not one temper, but two tempers, and they quarrel like cat and dog, which may be good for stirring up the stagnation of domestic life, but they let the world see it, and that is not so well. Now in all this I may be thought a little harsh on my friend, but it is between my _Gurnal_ and me, and, moreover, I would cry heartily if anything were to ail my little cousin, though she be addicted to rule the Cerulean atmosphere.[156] Then I suspect the cares of this as well as other empires overbalance its pleasures. There must be difficulty in being always in the right humour to hold a court. There are usurpers to be encountered, and insurrections to be put down, an incessant troop, _bienseances_ to be discharged, a sort of etiquette which is the curse of all courts. An old lion cannot get hamstrung quietly at four hundred miles distance, but the Empress must send him her condolence and a pot of lipsalve. To be sure the monster is consanguinean, as Sir Toby says.[157]
Looked in at Constable"s coming home; Cadell emerged from Alsatia; borrowed Clarendon. Home by half-past twelve.
My old friend Sir Peter Murray[158] called to offer his own a.s.sistance, Lord Justice-Clerk"s, and Abercromby"s, to negotiate for me a seat upon the Bench [of the Court of Session] instead of my Sheriffdom and Clerkship. I explained to him the use which I could make of my pen was not, I thought, consistent with that situation; and that, besides, I had neglected the law too long to permit me to think of it; but this was kindly and honourably done. I can see people think me much worse off than I think myself. They may be right; but I will not be beat till I have tried a rally, and a bold one.
_February_ 8.--Slept ill, and rather bilious in the morning. Many of the Bench now are my juniors. I will not seek _ex eleemosyna_ a place which, had I turned my studies that way, I might have aspired to long ago _ex meritis_. My pen should do much better for me than the odd 1000 a year. If it fails, I will lean on what they leave me. Another chance might be, if it fails, in the patronage which might, after a year or two, place me in Exchequer. But I do not count on this unless, indeed, the D[uke] of B[uccleuch], when he comes of age, should choose to make play.
Got to my work again, and wrote easier than the two last days.
Mr. Laidlaw[159] came in from Abbotsford and dined with us. We spent the evening in laying down plans for the farm, and deciding whom we should keep and whom dismiss among the people. This we did on the true negro-driving principle of self-interest, the only principle I know which _never_ swerves from its objects. We chose all the active, young, and powerful men, turning old age and infirmity adrift. I cannot help this, for a guinea cannot do the work of five; but I will contrive to make it easier to the sufferers.
_February_ 9.--A stormy morning, lowering and bl.u.s.tering, like our fortunes. _Mea virtute me involvo._ But I must say to the Muse of fiction, as the Earl of Pembroke said to the ejected nuns of Wilton, "Go spin, you jades, go spin!" Perhaps she has no _tow_ on her _rock_.[160]
When I was at Kilkenny last year we went to see a nunnery, but could not converse with the sisters because they were in strict retreat. I was delighted with the red-nosed Padre, who showed us the place with a sort of proud, unctuous humiliation, and apparent dereliction of the world, that had to me the air of a complete Tartuffe; a strong, sanguine, square-shouldered son of the Church, whom a Protestant would be apt to warrant against any sufferings he was like to sustain by privation. My purpose, however, just now was to talk of the "strict retreat," which did not prevent the nuns from walking in their little garden, breviary in hand, peeping at us, and allowing us to peep at them. Well, now, _we_ are in _strict retreat_; and if we had been so last year, instead of gallivanting to Ireland, this affair might not have befallen--if literary labour could have prevented it. But who could have suspected Constable"s timbers to have been rotten from the beginning?
Visited the Exhibition on my way home from the Court. The new rooms are most splendid, and several good pictures. The Inst.i.tution has subsisted but five years, and it is astonishing how much superior the worst of the present collection are to the teaboard-looking things which first appeared. John Thomson, of Duddingston, has far the finest picture in the Exhibition, of a large size--subject _Dunluce_, a ruinous castle of the Antrim family, near the Giant"s Causeway, with one of those terrible seas and skies which only Thomson can paint. Found Scrope there improving a picture of his own, an Italian scene in Calabria. He is, I think, greatly improved, and one of the very best amateur painters I ever saw--Sir George Beaumont scarcely excepted. Yet, hang it, _I do_ except Sir George.
I would not write to-day after I came home. I will not say could not, for it is not true; but I was lazy; felt the desire _far niente_, which is the sign of one"s mind being at ease. I read _The English in Italy_,[161] which is a clever book.
Byron used to kick and frisk more contemptuously against the literary gravity and slang than any one I ever knew who had climbed so high.
Then, it is true, I never knew any one climb so high; and before you despise the eminence, carrying people along with you, as convinced that you are not playing the fox and the grapes, you must be at the top.
Moore told me some delightful stories of him. One was that while they stood at the window of Byron"s Palazzo in Venice, looking at a beautiful sunset, Moore was naturally led to say something of its beauty, when Byron answered in a tone that I can easily conceive, "Oh! come, d--n me, Tom, don"t be poetical." Another time, standing with Moore on the balcony of the same Palazzo, a gondola pa.s.sed with two English gentlemen, who were easily distinguished by their appearance. They cast a careless look at the balcony and went on. Byron crossed his arms, and half stooping over the balcony said, "Ah! d--n ye, if ye had known what two fellows you were staring at, you would have taken a longer look at us." This was the man, quaint, capricious, and playful, with all his immense genius. He wrote from impulse, never from effort; and therefore I have always reckoned Burns and Byron the most genuine poetical geniuses of my time, and half a century before me. We have, however, many men of high poetical talent, but none, I think, of that ever-gushing and perennial fountain of natural water.
Mr. Laidlaw dined with us. Says Mr. Gibson told him he would dispose of my affairs, were it any but S.W.S.[162] No doubt, so should I, and am wellnigh doing so at any rate. But, _fortuna juvante!_ much may be achieved. At worst, the prospect is not very discouraging to one who wants little. Methinks I have been like Burns"s poor labourer,
"So constantly in Ruin"s sight, The view o"t gives me little fright."
_[Edinburgh,] February_ 10.--Went through, for a new day, the task of b.u.t.toning, which seems to me somehow to fill up more of my morning than usual--not, certainly, that such is really the case, but that my mind attends to the process, having so little left to hope or fear. The half hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention.[163] When I get over any knotty difficulty in a story, or have had in former times to fill up a pa.s.sage in a poem, it was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me. This is so much the case that I am in the habit of relying upon it, and saying to myself, when I am at a loss, "Never mind, we shall have it at seven o"clock to-morrow morning." If I have forgot a circ.u.mstance, or a name, or a copy of verses, it is the same thing. There is a pa.s.sage about this sort of matutinal inspiration in the Odyssey,[164] which would make a handsome figure here if I could read or write Greek. I will look into Pope for it, who, ten to one, will not tell me the real translation. I think the first hour of the morning is also favourable to the bodily strength. Among other feats, when I was a young man, I was able at times to lift a smith"s anvil with one hand, by what is called the _horn_, or projecting piece of iron on which things are beaten to turn them round. But I could only do this before breakfast, and shortly after rising. It required my full strength, undiminished by the least exertion, and those who choose to try it will find the feat no easy one. This morning I had some good ideas respecting _Woodstock_ which will make the story better. The devil of a difficulty is, that one puzzles the skein in order to excite curiosity, and then cannot disentangle it for the satisfaction of the prying fiend they have raised. A letter from Sir James Mackintosh of condolence, prettily expressed, and which may be sung to the old tune of "Welcome, welcome, brother Debtor." A brother son of chivalry dismounted by mischance is sure to excite the compa.s.sion of one laid on the arena before him.
Yesterday I had an anecdote from old Sir James Steuart Denham,[165]
which is worth writing down. His uncle, Lord Elcho, was, as is well known, engaged in the affair of 1745. He was dissatisfied with the conduct of matters from beginning to end. But after the left wing of the Highlanders was repulsed and broken at Culloden, Elcho rode up to the Chevalier and told him all was lost, and that nothing remained except to charge at the head of two thousand men, who were still unbroken, and either turn the fate of the day or die sword in hand, as became his pretensions. The Chevalier gave him some evasive answer, and, turning his horse"s head, rode off the field. Lord Elcho called after him (I write the very words), "There you go for a d.a.m.ned cowardly Italian," and never would see him again, though he lost his property and remained an exile in the cause. Lord Elcho left two copies of his memoirs, one with Sir James Steuart"s family, one with Lord Wemyss. This is better evidence than the romance of Chevalier Johnstone; and I have little doubt it is true. Yet it is no proof of the Prince"s cowardice, though it shows him to have been no John of Gaunt. Princes are constantly surrounded with people who hold up their own _life_ and _safety_ to them as by far the most important stake in any contest; and this is a doctrine in which conviction is easily received. Such an eminent person finds everybody"s advice, save here and there that of a desperate Elcho, recommend obedience to the natural instinct of self-preservation, which very often men of inferior situations find it difficult to combat, when all the world are crying to them to get on and be d.a.m.ned, instead of encouraging them to run away. At Prestonpans the Chevalier offered to lead the van, and he was with the second line, which, during that brief affair, followed the first very close. Johnstone"s own account, carefully read, brings him within a pistol-shot of the first line. At the same time, Charles Edward had not a head or heart for great things, notwithstanding his daring adventure; and the Irish officers, by whom he was guided, were poor creatures. Lord George Murray was the soul of the undertaking.[166]
_February 11_.--Court sat till half-past one. I had but a trifle to do, so wrote letters to Mrs. Maclean Clephane and nephew Walter. Sent the last, 40 in addition to 240 sent on the 6th, making his full equipment 280. A man, calling himself Charles Gray of Ca.r.s.e, wrote to me, expressing sympathy for my misfortunes, and offering me half the profits of what, if I understand him right, is a patent medicine, to which I suppose he expects me to stand trumpeter. He endeavours to get over my objections to accepting his liberality (supposing me to entertain them) by a.s.suring me his conduct is founded on a _sage selfishness_. This is diverting enough. I suppose the Commissioners of, Police will next send me a letter of condolence, begging my acceptance of a broom, a shovel, and a scavenger"s greatcoat, and a.s.suring me that they had appointed me to all the emoluments of a well-frequented crossing. It would be doing more than they have done of late for the cleanliness of the streets, which, witness my shoes, are in a piteous pickle. I thanked the selfish sage with due decorum--for what purpose can anger serve? I remember once before, a mad woman, from about Alnwick, baited me with letters and plans--first for charity to herself or some _protege_. I gave my guinea.
Then she wanted to have half the profit of a novel which I was to publish under my name and auspices. She sent me the ma.n.u.script, and a _moving_ tale it was, for some of the scenes lay in the _cabinet a l"eau._ I declined the partnership. Lastly, my fair correspondent insisted I was a lover of speculation, and would be much profited by going shares in a patent medicine which she had invented for the benefit of little babies, I believe. I dreaded to have anything to do with such a Herod-like affair, and begged to decline the honour of her correspondence in future. I should have thought the thing a quiz, but that the novel was real and substantial. Anne goes to Ravelston to-day to remain to-morrow. Sir Alexander Don called, and we had a good laugh together.
_February_ 12.--Having ended the second volume of _Woodstock_ last night, I have to begin the third this morning. Now I have not the slightest idea how the story is to be wound up to a catastrophe. I am just in the same case as I used to be when I lost myself in former days in some country to which I was a stranger. I always pushed for the pleasantest road, and either found or made it the nearest. It is the same in writing, I never could lay down a plan--or, having laid it down, I never could adhere to it; the action of composition always diluted some pa.s.sages, and abridged or omitted others; and personages were rendered important or insignificant, not according to their agency in the original conception of the plan, but according to the success, or otherwise, with which I was able to bring them out. I only tried to make that which I was actually writing diverting and interesting, leaving the rest to fate. I have been often amused with the critics distinguishing some pa.s.sages as particularly laboured, when the pen pa.s.sed over the whole as fast as it could move, and the eye never again saw them, except in proof. Verse I write twice, and sometimes three times over. This may be called in Spanish the _Dar donde diere_ mode of composition, in English _hab nab at a venture_; it is a perilous style, I grant, but I cannot help it. When I chain my mind to ideas which are purely imaginative--for argument is a different thing--it seems to me that the sun leaves the landscape, that I think away the whole vivacity and spirit of my original conception, and that the results are cold, tame, and spiritless. It is the difference between a written oration and one bursting from the unpremeditated exertions of the speaker, which have always something the air of enthusiasm and inspiration. I would not have young authors imitate my carelessness, however; _consilium non currum eape_.
Read a few pages of Will D"Avenant, who was fond of having it supposed that Shakespeare intrigued with his mother. I think the pretension can only be treated as Phaeton"s was, according to Fielding"s farce--
"Besides, by all the village boys I"m shamed, You, the sun"s son, you rascal?--you be d.a.m.n"d."
Egad--I"ll put that into _Woodstock_.[167] It might come well from the old admirer of Shakespeare. Then Fielding"s lines were not written. What then?--it is an anachronism for some sly rogue to detect. Besides, it is easy to swear they were written, and that Fielding adopted them from tradition. Walked with Skene on the Calton Hill.
_February_ 13.--The Inst.i.tution for the Encouragment of the Fine Arts opens to-day, with a handsome entertainment in the Exhibition-room, as at Somerset House. It strikes me that the direction given by amateurs and professors to their _proteges_ and pupils, who aspire to be artists, is upon a pedantic and false principle. All the Fine Arts have it for their highest and more legitimate end and purpose, to affect the human pa.s.sions, or smooth and alleviate for a time the more unquiet feelings of the mind--to excite wonder, or terror, or pleasure, or emotion of some kind or other. It often happens that, in the very rise and origin of these arts, as in the instance of Homer, the princ.i.p.al object is obtained in a degree not equalled by his successors. But there is a degree of execution which, in more refined times, the poet or musician begins to study, which gives a value of its own to their productions of a different kind from the rude strength of their predecessors. Poetry becomes complicated in its rules--music learned in its cadences and harmonies--rhetoric subtle in its periods. There is more given to the labour of executing--less attained by the effect produced. Still the n.o.bler and popular end of these arts is not forgotten; and if we have some productions too learned, too _recherches_ for public feeling, we have, every now and then, music that electrifies a whole a.s.sembly, eloquence which shakes the forum, and poetry which carries men up to the third heaven. But in painting it is different; it is all become a mystery, the secret of which is lodged in a few connoisseurs, whose object is not to praise the works of such painters as produce effect on mankind at large, but to cla.s.s them according to their proficiency in the inferior rules of the art, which, though most necessary to be taught and learned, should yet only be considered as the _Gradus ad Parna.s.sum_--the steps by which the higher and ultimate object of a great popular effect is to be attained. They have all embraced the very style of criticism which induced Michael Angelo to call some Pope a poor creature, when, turning his attention from the general effect of a n.o.ble statue, his Holiness began to criticise the hem of the robe. This seems to me the cause of the decay of this delightful art, especially in history, its n.o.blest branch. As I speak to myself, I may say that a painting should, to be excellent, have something to say to the mind of a man, like myself, well-educated, and susceptible of those feelings which anything strongly recalling natural emotion is likely to inspire. But how seldom do I see anything that moves me much! Wilkie, the far more than Teniers of Scotland, certainly gave many new ideas. So does Will Allan, though overwhelmed with their rebukes about colouring and grouping, against which they are not willing to place his general and original merits. Landseer"s dogs were the most magnificent things I ever saw--leaping, and bounding, and grinning on the canvas. Leslie has great powers; and the scenes from Moliere by [Newton] are excellent. Yet painting wants a regenerator--some one who will sweep the cobwebs out of his head before he takes the palette, as Chantrey has done in the sister art. At present we are painting pictures from the ancients, as authors in the days of Louis Quatorze wrote epic poems according to the recipe of Madame Dacier and Co. The poor reader or spectator has no remedy; the compositions are _secundum artem_, and if he does not like them, he is no judge--that"s all.
_February 14_--I had a call from Glengarry[168] yesterday, as kind and friendly as usual. This gentleman is a kind of Quixote in our age, having retained, in their full extent, the whole feelings of clanship and chieftainship, elsewhere so long abandoned. He seems to have lived a century too late, and to exist, in a state of complete law and order, like a Glengarry of old, whose will was law to his sept. Warmhearted, generous, friendly, he is beloved by those who know him, and his efforts are unceasing to show kindness to those of his clan who are disposed fully to admit his pretensions. To dispute them is to incur his resentment, which has sometimes broken out in acts of violence which have brought him into collision with the law. To me he is a treasure, as being full of information as to the history of his own clan, and the manners and customs of the Highlanders in general. Strong, active, and muscular, he follows the chase of the deer for days and nights together, sleeping in his plaid when darkness overtakes him in the forest. He was fortunate in marrying a daughter of Sir William Forbes, who, by yielding to his peculiar ideas in general, possesses much deserved influence with him. The number of his singular exploits would fill a volume[169]; for, as his pretensions are high, and not always willingly yielded to, he is every now and then giving rise to some rumour. He is, on many of these occasions, as much sinned against as sinning; for men, knowing his temper, sometimes provoke him, conscious that Glengarry, from his character for violence, will always be put in the wrong by the public. I have seen him behave in a very manly manner when thus tempted. He has of late prosecuted a quarrel, ridiculous enough in the present day, to have himself admitted and recognised as Chief of the whole Clan Ra.n.a.ld, or surname of Macdonald. The truth seems to be, that the present Clanra.n.a.ld is not descended from a legitimate Chieftain of the tribe; for, having accomplished a revolution in the sixteenth century, they adopted a Tanist, or Captain--that is, a Chief not in the direct line of succession, a certain Ian Moidart, or John of Moidart, who took the t.i.tle of Captain of Clanra.n.a.ld, with all the powers of Chief, and even Glengarry"s ancestor recognised them as chiefs _de facto_ if not _de jure_. The fact is, that this elective power was, in cases of insanity, imbecility, or the like, exercised by the Celtic tribes; and though Ian Moidart was no chief by birth, yet by election he became so, and transmitted his power to his descendants, as would King William III., if he had had any. So it is absurd to set up the _jus sanguinis_ now, which Glengarry"s ancestors did not, or could not, make good, when it was a right worth combating for. I wrought out my full task yesterday.
Saw Cadell as I returned from the Court. He seems dejected, apprehensive of another trustee being preferred to Cowan, and gloomy about the extent of stock of novels, etc., on hand. He infected me with his want of spirits, and I almost wish my wife had not asked Mr. Scrope and Charles K. Sharpe for this day. But the former sent such loads of game that Lady Scott"s grat.i.tude became ungovernable. I have not seen a creature at dinner since the direful 17th January, except my own family and Mr.
Laidlaw. The love of solitude increases by indulgence; I hope it will not diverge into misanthropy. It does not mend the matter that this is the first day that a ticket for sale is on my house. Poor No. 39.[170]
One gets accustomed even to stone walls, and the place suited me very well. All our furniture, too, is to go--a hundred little articles that seemed to me connected with all the happier years of my life. It is a sorry business. But _sursum corda_.
My two friends came as expected, also Missie, and stayed till half-past ten. Promised Sharpe the set of Piranesi"s views in the dining-parlour.
They belonged to my uncle, so I do not like to sell them.[171]
_February_ 15.--Yesterday I did not write a line of _Woodstock_. Partly, I was a little out of spirits, though that would not have hindered.
Partly, I wanted to wait for some new ideas--a sort of collecting of straw to make bricks of. Partly, I was a little too far beyond the press. I cannot pull well in long traces, when the draught is too far behind me. I love to have the press thumping, clattering, and banging in my rear; it creates the necessity which almost always makes me work best. Needs must when the devil drives--and drive he does even according to the letter. I must work to-day, however. Attended a meeting of the Faculty about our new library. I spoke--saying that I hoped we would now at length act upon a general plan, and look forward to commencing upon such a scale as would secure us at least for a century against the petty and partial management, which we have hitherto thought sufficient, of fitting up one room after another. Disconnected and distant, these have been costing large sums of money from time to time, all now thrown away.
We are now to have s.p.a.ce enough for a very large range of buildings, which we may execute in a simple taste, leaving Government to ornament them if they shall think proper--otherwise, to be plain, modest, and handsome, and capable of being executed by degrees, and in such portions as convenience may admit of.
Poor James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, came to advise with me about his affairs,--he is sinking under the times; having no a.s.sistance to give him, my advice, I fear, will be of little service. I am sorry for him if that would help him, especially as, by his own account, a couple of hundred pounds would carry him on.
_February_ 16.---"Misfortune"s gowling bark"[172] comes louder and louder. By a.s.signing my whole property to trustees for behoof of creditors, with two works in progress and nigh publication, and with all my future literary labours, I conceived I was bringing into the field a large fund of payment, which could not exist without my exertions, and that thus far I was ent.i.tled to a corresponding degree of indulgence. I therefore supposed, on selling this house, and various other property, and on receiving the price of _Woodstock_ and _Napoleon_, that they would give me leisure to make other exertions, and be content with the rents of Abbotsford, without attempting a sale. This would have been the more reasonable, as the very printing of these works must amount to a large sum, of which they will reap the profits. In the course of this delay I supposed I was to have the chance of getting some insight both into Constable"s affairs and those of Hurst and Robinson. Nay, employing these houses, under precautions, to sell the works, the publisher"s profit would have come in to pay part of their debts. But Gibson last night came in after dinner, and gave me to understand that the Bank of Scotland see this in a different point of view, and consider my contribution of the produce of past, present, and future labours, as compensated in full by their accepting of the trust-deed, instead of pursuing the mode of sequestration, and placing me in the _Gazette_.
They therefore expected the trustees instantly to commence a law-suit to reduce the marriage settlement, which settles the estate upon Walter, thus loading me with a most expensive suit, and, I suppose, selling library and whatever they can lay hold on.
Now this seems unequal measure, and would besides of itself totally destroy any power of fancy or genius, if it deserves the name, which may remain to me. A man cannot write in the House of Correction; and this species of _peine forte et dure_ which is threatened would render it impossible for one to help himself or others. So I told Gibson I had my mind made up as far back as the 24th of January, not to suffer myself to be harder pressed than law would press me. If this great commercial company, through whose hands I have directed so many thousands, think they are right in taking every advantage and giving none, it must be my care to see that they take none but what law gives them. If they take the sword of the law, I must lay hold of the shield. If they are determined to consider me as an irretrievable bankrupt, they have no t.i.tle to object to my settling upon the usual terms which the Statute requires. They probably are of opinion that I will be ashamed to do this by applying publicly for a sequestration. Now, my feelings are different. I am ashamed to owe debts I cannot pay; but I am not ashamed of being cla.s.sed with those to whose rank I belong. The disgrace is in being an actual bankrupt, not in being made a legal one. I had like to have been too hasty in this matter. I must have a clear understanding that I am to be benefited or indulged in some way, if I bring in two such funds as those works in progress, worth certainly from 10,000 to 15,000.
Clerk came in last night and drank wine and water.
Slept ill, and bilious in the morning. _N.B._--I smoked a cigar, the first for this present year, yesterday evening.
_February_ 17.--Slept sound, for Nature repays herself for the vexation the mind sometimes gives her. This morning put interlocutors on several Sheriff-Court processes from Selkirkshire. Gibson came to-night to say that he had spoken at full length with Alexander Monypenny, proposed as trustee on the part of the Bank of Scotland, and found him decidedly in favour of the most moderate measures, and taking burthen on himself for the Bank of Scotland proceeding with such lenity as might enable me to have some time and opportunity to clear these affairs out. I repose trust in Mr. M. entirely. His father, old Colonel Monypenny, was my early friend, kind and hospitable to me when I was a mere boy. He had much of old Withers about him, as expressed in Pope"s epitaph--
"O youth in arms approved!
O soft humanity in age beloved."[173]
His son David, and a younger brother, Frank, a soldier who perished by drowning on a boating party from Gibraltar, were my school-fellows; and with the survivor, now Lord Pitmilly,[174] I have always kept up a friendly intercourse. Of this gentleman, on whom my fortunes are to depend, I know little. He was Colin Mackenzie"s partner in business while my friend pursued it, and he speaks highly of him: that"s a great deal. He is secretary to the Pitt Club, and we have had all our lives the habit _idem sentire de republica_: that"s much too. Lastly, he is a man of perfect honour and reputation; and I have nothing to ask which such a man would not either grant or convince me was unreasonable. I have, to be sure, some of my const.i.tutional and hereditary obstinacy; but it is in me a dormant quality. Convince my understanding, and I am perfectly docile; stir my pa.s.sions by coldness or affronts, and the devil would not drive me from my purpose. Let me record, I have striven against this besetting sin. When I was a boy, and on foot expeditions, as we had many, no creature could be so indifferent which way our course was directed, and I acquiesced in what any one proposed; but if I was once driven to make a choice, and felt piqued in honour to maintain my proposition, I have broken off from the whole party, rather than yield to any one. Time has sobered this pertinacity of mind; but it still exists, and I must be on my guard against it.
It is the same with me in politics. In general I care very little about the matter, and from year"s end to year"s end have scarce a thought connected with them, except to laugh at the fools who think to make themselves great men out of little, by swaggering in the rear of a party. But either actually important events, or such as seemed so by their close neighbourhood to me, have always hurried me off my feet, and made me, as I have sometimes afterwards regretted, more forward and more violent than those who had a regular jog-trot way of busying themselves in public matters. Good luck; for had I lived in troublesome times, and chanced to be on the unhappy side, I had been hanged to a certainty.