Part 2

It may be said, indeed, that, of all places in the south of Scotland, the attention of the great novelist was first fixed upon Liddesdale. In his second literary effort--the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_--he confined himself in a great measure to Teviotdale, in the upper part of which, about three miles above Hawick, stands Branxholm Castle, the chief scene of the poem. The old house has been much altered since the supposed era of the _Lay_; but it has nevertheless more of an ancient than a modern appearance, and does not much disappoint a modern beholder. For a long time, the Buccleuch family have left it to the occupancy of the individuals who act as their agents or chamberlains on this part of their extensive property; and it is at present kept in the best order, and surrounded by some fine woods of ancient and modern growth. Seated on a lofty bank, it still overlooks that stream, and is overtopped by those hills, to which, it will be recollected, ‘the lady’ successively addressed her witching incantations.

The small vale of Borthwick Water, which starts off from the strath of the Teviot a little above Hawick, contains a scene which cannot well be overlooked--namely, Harden Castle, the original though now deserted seat of the family of Scott of Harden, from which, through the Raeburn branch, Sir Walter Scott was descended. This, though neglected alike by its proprietor and by tourists, is one of the most remarkable pieces of scenery which we, who have travelled over nearly the whole of Scotland, have yet seen within its shores. Conceive, first, the lonely pastoral beauty of the vale of Borthwick; next, a minor vale receding from its northern side, full of old and emaciated, but still beautiful wood: penetrating this recess for a little way, the traveller sees, perched upon a lofty height in front, and beaming perhaps in the sun, a house which, though not picturesque in its outline, derives that quality in a high degree from its situation and accompaniments. This is Harden House or Castle; but, though apparently near it, the wayfarer has yet to walk a long way around the height before he can wind his way into its immediate presence. When arrived at the platform whereon the house stands, he finds it degraded into a farm-house; its court forming perhaps a temporary cattle-yard; every ornament disgraced; every memorial of former grandeur seen through a slough of plebeian utility and homeliness, or broken into ruin. A pavement of black and white diced marble is found in the vestibule, every square of which is bruised to pieces, and the whole strewed with the details of a dairy. The dining-room, a large apartment with a richly ornamented stucco roof, is now used as the farmer’s kitchen. Other parts of the house, still bearing the arms and initials of Walter Scott, Earl of Tarras, great-grandfather of the late Mr Scott of Harden, and of his second wife, Helen Hepburn, are sunk in a scarcely less proportion. This nobleman was at first married to Mary, Countess of Buccleuch, who died, however, without issue, leaving the succession open to her sister Anne, who became the wife of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, eldest natural son of Charles II. Through this family connection, the Earl of Tarras was induced to join in the conspiracy which usually bears the name of the Rye-house Plot, for which he was attainted, only saving his life by giving evidence against his more steadfast companion, Baillie of Jerviswood, the great-grandfather of another Scottish proprietor, who happened to be an immediate neighbour of Harden. It may be asked why Mr Scott did not inherit the title of his ancestor: the answer is, that it was only thought necessary to invest the husband of the Countess of Buccleuch with a title for his own life--which proves that the hereditary character of the peerage has not always been observed in our constitution. While all of this scene that springs from art is degraded and wretched, it is striking to see that its natural grandeur suffers no defalcation. The wide-sweeping hills stretch off grandly on all hands, and the celebrated _den_, from which the place has taken its name, still retains the features which have rendered it so remarkable a natural curiosity. This is a large abyss in the earth, as it may be called, immediately under the walls of the house, and altogether unpervaded by running water--the banks clothed with trees of all kinds, and one side opening to the vale, though the bottom is much beneath the level of the surrounding ground. Old Wat of Harden--such is the popular name of an aged marauder celebrated in the _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_--used to keep the large herds which he had draughted out of the northern counties of England in this strange hollow; and it seems to have been admirably adapted for the purpose. It was this Border hero of whom the story is told somewhere by his illustrious descendant, that, coming once homeward with a goodly prey of cattle, and seeing a large haystack standing in a farm-yard by the way, he could not help saying, with some bitterness: ‘By my saul, an ye had four feet, ye should gang too!’

SCHOOL-BOY DAYS.

It is understood that, at the ‘evening fire’ of Sandyknow, Sir Walter learned much of that Border lore which he afterwards wrought up in his fictions. To what extent his residence there retarded his progress in school instruction, is not discovered. After being at Sandyknow, he was, for the sake of the mineral waters, sent, in his fourth year, to Bath, where he attended a dame’s school, and received his first lessons in reading. Returning to Edinburgh, he made some advances in the rudiments of learning at a private school kept by a Mr Leechman in Hamilton’s Entry, Bristo Street [now a small, decayed building, with a tiled roof, occupied by a working blacksmith]. This was his first school in Edinburgh. It is almost certain that his attendance at school was rendered irregular by his delicate health. He entered Fraser’s class at the High School in the _third year_--that is to say, when that master had carried his class through one half of the ordinary curriculum of the school; wherefore it is clear that any earlier instruction he could have received must have been in some inferior institution, and very probably communicated in a hurried and imperfect manner. It is at the commencement of the school year in October 1779 that his name first appears in the school register: he must have then been eight years of age, which, it may be remarked, is an unusually early period for a boy to enter the third year of his classical course. What is further remarkable, his elder brother attended the same class. It is therefore to be suspected that his educational interests were sacrificed, in some measure, to the circumstances of the school, which were at that period in such an unhappy arrangement as to teachers, that parents often precipitated their children into a class for which they were unfitted, in order to escape a teacher whom they deemed unqualified for his duties, and secure the instructions of one who bore a superior character.

Although Mr Luke Fraser was one of the severest flagellators even of the _old school_, he enjoyed the reputation of being a sound scholar, so far as scholarship was required for his duties, and also that of a most conscientious and painstaking teacher. He first caused his scholars to get by heart Ruddiman’s _Rudiments_, and as soon as they were thoroughly grounded in the declensions, the Vocabulary of the same great grammarian was put into their hands, and a small number of words prescribed to be repeated every morning. They then read in succession the _Colloquies_ of Corderius, four or five lives of Cornelius Nepos, and the first four books of Cæsar’s _Commentaries_. Ere this course was perfected, the greater part of Ruddiman’s _Grammatica Minora_, in Latin, was got by heart. Select passages from Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, the _Bucolics_ and the first _Æneid_ of Virgil, concluded the fourth year; after which the boys were turned over to the rector, by whom they were instructed for two years more; making the course in all six years. It must also be understood, that every one of the three masters besides Mr Fraser pursued the same system, bringing forward a class from the first elements to the state in which it was fitted for the attention of the rector; after which he returned once more to take up a new set of boys in the first class--and so forth for one lustrum after another, so long as he was connected with the school. If any teacher could have brought a boy over such a difficulty as that which attended the commencement of Sir Walter’s career at the High School, it would have been Mr Fraser; for few of his profession at that time were more anxious to explain away every obstruction in the path of his pupils, or took so much pains to ascertain that they were carrying the understandings of the boys along with them through all the successive stages. Apparently, however, neither the care of the master nor the inborn genius of the pupil availed much in this case, for it is said that the twenty-fifth place was no uncommon situation in the class for the future author of the Waverley Novels.

After two years of instruction, commenced under these unfavourable circumstances, Sir Walter, in October 1781, entered the rector’s class, then taught by Dr Alexander Adam, the author of many excellent elementary books, and one of the most meritorious and most eminent teachers that Scotland has ever produced. The authors read by Dr Adam’s class at this period, and probably during the whole of his career, were Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, and Terence; but it was not in reading and translating alone that an education under this eminent man consisted. Adam, who was an indefatigable student, as the number and excellence of his works testify, was a complete contrast to Mr Fraser. The latter hardly ever introduced a single remark but what was intended to illustrate the _letter_ of the author; whereas Dr Adam commented at great length upon whatever occurred in the course of reading in the class, whether it related to antiquities, customs, and manners, or to history. He was of so communicative a disposition, that whatever knowledge he had acquired in his private studies, he took the first opportunity of imparting to his class, paying little regard whether it was above the comprehension of the greater number of his scholars or not. He abounded in pleasant anecdote; and while he never neglected the proper business of his class, it is certain that he inspired a far higher love of knowledge and of literary history into the minds of his pupils than any other teacher of his day. At the same time, he displayed a benevolence of character which won the hearts of his pupils, and nothing ever gave him so much pleasure as to hear of their success in after-life. To this venerable person, Sir Walter was always ready to acknowledge his obligations, and it is not improbable that much of his literary character was moulded on that of Dr Adam.

As a scholar, nevertheless, the subject of this memoir never became remarkable for proficiency. There is his own authority for saying, that, even in the exercise of metrical translation, he fell far short of some of his companions; although others preserve a somewhat different recollection, and state that this was a department in which he always manifested a superiority. It is, however, unquestionable, that in his exercises he was remarkable, to no inconsiderable extent, for blundering and incorrectness; his mind apparently not possessing that aptitude for mastering small details, in which so much of scholarship, in its earliest stages, consists.

Regarding his school-days, we may introduce an extract from an original letter on the subject. ‘The following lines were written by Walter Scott when he was between ten and eleven years of age, and while he was attending the High School, Edinburgh. His master there had spoken of him as a remarkably stupid boy, and his mother with grief acknowledged that they spoke truly. She saw him one morning, in the midst of a tremendous thunder-storm, standing still in the street, and looking at the sky. She called to him repeatedly, but he remained looking upwards without taking the least notice of her. When he returned into the house, she was very much displeased with him: “Mother,” he said, “I could tell you the reason why I stood still, and why I looked at the sky, if you would only give me a pencil.” She gave him one, and, in less than five minutes, he laid a bit of paper on her lap, with these words written on it:

“Loud o’er my head what awful thunders roll, What vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole, It is thy voice, my God, that bids them fly, Thy voice directs them through the vaulted sky; Then let the good thy mighty power revere, Let hardened sinners thy just judgments fear.”

The old lady repeated them to me herself, and the tears were in her eyes: for I really believe, simple as they are, that she values these lines, being the first effusion of her son’s genius, more than any later beauties which have so charmed all the world besides.’

Before quitting the High School, he, along with his brothers, received the advantages of some tutorial training under a Mr Mitchell, who afterwards became a minister connected with the Scotch Church. Previous to entering the university of Edinburgh, young Walter spent some time with his aunt at Kelso. Here, in order that he might be kept up in his classical studies, he attended the grammar-school, at that time under the rectorship of Mr Lancelot Whale, a worthy man and good scholar, who possessed traits of character not unlike some of those which have been depicted in Dominie Sampson. It was while thus residing for a short time at Kelso, about 1783, that Sir Walter made the acquaintance of James Ballantyne, then a schoolboy of his own age, with kindred literary tastes.

Sir Walter’s education being irregular from bad health, he did not distinguish himself as a scholar, yet often surprised his instructors by the miscellaneous knowledge which he possessed, and now and then was acknowledged to display a sense of the beauties of the Latin authors such as is seldom seen in boys. In the rough amusements which went on out of school, his spirit enabled him to take a leading share, notwithstanding his lameness. He would help to man the Cowgate Port in a snow-ball match, and pass the Kittle Nine Steps on the Castle Rock with the best of them. In the winter evenings, when out-of-door exercise was not attractive, he would gather his companions round him at the fireside, and entertain them with stories, real and imaginary, of which he seemed to have an endless store. Unluckily, his classical studies, neglected as they comparatively were, experienced an interruption from bad health, just as he was beginning to acquire some sense of their value.

It would, nevertheless, be difficult to say whether Scott was the worse or the better of the interruptions he experienced in school learning. He lost a certain kind of knowledge, it is true, but he gained another. The vacant time at his disposal he gave to general reading. History, travels, poetry, and prose fiction he devoured without discrimination, unless it were that he preferred imaginative literature to every other; and of all imaginative writers, was fondest of such as Spenser, whose knights and ladies, and dragons and giants, he was never tired of contemplating. Any passage of a favourite poet which pleased him particularly was sure to remain on his memory, and thus he was able to astonish his friends with his poetical recitations. At the same time, he admits that solidly useful matters had a poor chance of being remembered. His sober-minded parents and other friends regarded these acquirements without pride or satisfaction; they marvelled at the thirst for reading and the powers of memory, but thought it all to little good purpose, and only excused it in consideration of the infirm health of the young prodigy. Scott himself lived to lament the indifference he shewed to that regular mental discipline which is to be acquired at school. He says in his autobiography: ‘It is with the deepest regret that I recollect in my manhood the opportunities of study which I neglected in my youth; through every part of my literary career, I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance; and I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the good-fortune to acquire, if by doing so I could rest the remaining part upon a solid foundation of learning and science.’

It is the tradition of the family--and the fact is countenanced by this propensity to tales of chivalric adventure--that Sir Walter wished at this period of his life to become a soldier. The illness, however, which had beset his early years rendered this wish bootless, even although his parents had been inclined to gratify it. His malady had had the effect of contracting his right leg, so that he could hardly walk erect, even with the toes of that foot upon the ground. It has been related by a member of his family that, on this being represented to him as an insuperable obstacle to his entering the army, he left the room in an agony of mortified feeling, and was found some time afterwards suspended by the wrists from his bedroom window, somewhat after the manner of the unfortunate Knight of the Rueful Countenance, when beguiled by the treacherous Maritornes at the inn. On being asked the cause of this strange proceeding, he said he wished to prove to them that, however unfitted by his limbs for the profession of a soldier, he was at least strong enough in the arms. He had actually remained in that uneasy and trying posture for upwards of an hour.

His parents made many efforts to cure his lameness. Edinburgh at this time boasted of an ingenious mechanist in leather, the first person who extended the use of that commodity beyond ordinary purposes; on which account there is an elaborate memoir of him in Dodsley’s _Annual Register_ for 1793. His name was Gavin Wilson, and, being something of a humorist, he exhibited a sign-board intended to burlesque the vanity of his brother-tradesmen--his profession being thus indicated: ‘Leather leg-maker, _not_ to his Majesty.’ Honest Gavin, on the application of his parents, did all he could for Sir Walter, but in vain.

An attempt was made about the same time to give him instructions in music, which used to be a branch of ordinary education in Scotland. His preceptor was Mr Alexander Campbell, then organist of an Episcopal chapel in Edinburgh, but known in later life as the editor of _Albyn’s Anthology_, and author of various other publications. Mr Campbell’s efforts were entirely in vain: he had to abandon his pupil in a short time, with the declaration, that he was totally deficient in that indispensable requisite to a musical education--an _ear_. It may appear strange, that he who wrote so many musical verses, should have wanted this natural gift; but there are other cases to shew that a perception of metrical quantities does not depend on any such peculiarity. Dr Johnson is a splendid instance. Throughout life, Sir Walter, however capable of enjoying music, was incapable of producing two notes consecutively that were either in tune or in time. He used to be pressed, however, at an annual agricultural dinner, to contribute his proper quota to the cantations of the evening; on which occasions he would break forth with the song of _Tarry Woo_, in a strain of unmusical vehemence, which never failed, on the same principle as Dick Tinto’s ill-painted sign, to put the company into good-humour.

UNIVERSITY.

Sir Walter was placed in the University of Edinburgh, October 1783. The usual course at this famed seminary is, for the first year, to attend the classes of Latin and Greek, to which, during the second, are added Mathematics and Logic; the third and last year of the course of a merely liberal education is spent in attending the lectures on Moral and Natural Philosophy. It would appear that Sir Walter did not proceed regularly through this academical course. He was matriculated, or booked, in 1783, at once for the Humanity or Latin class under Professor Hill, and the Greek class under Professor Dalyell; and for the latter, once more in 1784. But the only other class for which he seems to have matriculated at the college was that of Logic, under Professor Bruce, in 1785. Although he may perhaps have attended other classes without matriculation, there is reason to believe that his irregular health produced a corresponding irregularity in his academical studies. The result, it is to be feared, was, that he entered life much in the condition of his illustrious prototype, the Bard of Avon--that is, ‘with a little Latin and less Greek.’

Between his twelfth and fifteenth year, young Scott had a particularly favourite companion of his own age, John Irvine, the mutual attraction being a love of fictions of a chivalrous description, furnished by an eminent circulating library, which had been founded in Edinburgh by Allan Ramsay, and situated in the High Street, a short way above the Tron Church, and then belonged to Mr James Sibbald, a person of literary tastes, who edited the _Edinburgh Magazine_, and a collection of Scottish poetry. This old-fashioned library, the first of its kind, passed in time into the hands of Mr Alexander Mackay; and was finally sold off in 1831. With a volume from this precious repository, the two youths sometimes adjourned to the picturesque sides of Arthur’s Seat, where, seated together so as to read from the same page, they revelled in the adventures of heroes and heroines of romance.

It will thus be observed that Sir Walter’s acquirements in his early years did not lie nearly so much in ordinary branches of education, as in a large stock of miscellaneous reading, taken up at the dictation of his own taste. His thirst for reading is perhaps not described in sufficiently emphatic terms, even in the above narrative. It amounted to an enthusiasm. He was at that time very much in the house of his uncle, Dr Rutherford, at foot of Hyndford’s Close, near the Netherbow, and there, even at breakfast, he would constantly have a book open by his side, to refer to while sipping his coffee, like his own Oldbuck in the _Antiquary_. His uncle frequently commanded him to lay aside his book while eating, and Sir Walter would only ask permission first to read out the paragraph in which he was engaged. But no sooner was one paragraph ended than another was begun, so that the doctor never could find that his nephew finished a paragraph in his life. It may be mentioned that Shakspeare was at this period frequently in his hands, and that, of all the plays, the _Merchant of Venice_ was his principal favourite.

Another choice companion at this period was young Adam Ferguson--afterwards known as Sir Adam Ferguson--son of Dr Adam Ferguson, author of the _History of the Roman Republic_, and who remained an intimate friend during life. The house of Dr Ferguson was a villa situated on the east side of a southern suburb of Edinburgh, called _The Sciennes_, from its proximity to the remains of an ancient monastery, dedicated to St Catherine of Sienna. Dr Ferguson’s house is remarkable as that in which young Walter Scott had an opportunity of being in the company of Robert Burns. Scott had read Burns’s poetry, and he ardently desired to see the poet. An opportunity was at length furnished, when Burns, on visiting Edinburgh in 1787, came by invitation to the residence of Dr Ferguson. Of the meeting, Scott has communicated an unaffected description to Mr Lockhart. Sir Adam Ferguson favoured me with some particulars of the visit of Burns to his father’s house on this occasion.