The Life of Sir Walter Scott: A Biography. S. Fowler Wright
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