 | Good company for every day in the year |  |
MY CHILDHOOD.
By SIR WALTER SCOTT.
IT was at Sandy-Knowe, in the residence of my paternal
grandfather, that I had the first consciousness of existence;
and I recollect distinctly that my situation and
appearance were a little whimsical. Among the odd remedies
recurred to to aid my lameness, some one had recommended
that so often as a sheep was killed for the use of the
family, I should be stripped, and swathed up in the skin,
warm as it was flayed from the carcass of the animal. In
this Tartar-like habiliment I well remember lying upon the
floor of the little parlor in the farm-house, while my grandfather,
a venerable old man with white hair, used every
excitement to make me try to crawl. I also distinctly remember
the late Sir George MacDougal of Makerstoun,
father of the present Sir Henry Hay MacDougal, joining in
this kindly attempt. He was, God knows how, a relation of
ours, and I still recollect him in his old-fashioned military
habit (he had been colonel of the Greys), with a small
cocked hat, deeply laced, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat,
and a light-colored coat, with milk-white locks tied in a military
fashion, kneeling on the ground before me, and dragging
his watch along the carpet to induce me to follow it. The
benevolent old soldier and the infant wrapped in his sheepskin
would have afforded an odd group to uninterested spectators.
This must have happened about my third year, for
shortly after that period.
My grandmother continued for some years to take charge
of the farm, assisted by my father's second brother, Mr.
Thomas Scott, who resided at Crailing, as factor or land-steward
for Mr. Scott of Danesfield, then proprietor of that
estate. This was during the heat of the American war, and
I remember being as anxious on my uncle's weekly visits
(for we heard news at no other time) to hear of the defeat
of Washington, as if I had had some deep and personal cause
of antipathy to him. I know not how this was combined
with a very strong prejudice in favor of the Stuart family,
which I had originally imbibed from the songs and tales of
the Jacobites. This latter political propensity was deeply
confirmed by the stories told in my hearing of the cruelties
exercised in the executions at Carlisle, and in the Highlands,
after the battle of Culloden. One or two of our own distant
relations had fallen on that occasion, and I remember of detesting
the name of Cumberland with more than infant hatred.
Mr. Curle, farmer at Yetbyre, husband of one of my
aunts, had been present at their execution; and it was probably
from him that I first heard these tragic tales which
made so great an impression on me. The local information,
which I conceive had some share in forming my future taste
and pursuits, I derived from the old songs and tales which
then formed the amusement of a retired country family.
My grandmother, in whose youth the old Border depredations
were matter of recent tradition, used to tell me many
a tale of Watt of Harden, Wight Willie of Aikwood, Jamie
Telfer of the fair Dodhead, and other heroes,— merrymen
all of the persuasion and calling of Robin Hood and Little
John. A more recent hero, but not of less note, was the
celebrated Diel of Littledean, whom she well remembered,
as he had married her mother's sister. Of this extraordinary
person I learned many a story, grave and gay, comic
window-seat were explored for my amusement in the tedious
winter-days. Automathes, and Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany,
were my favorites, although at a later period an odd
volume of Josephus's Wars of the Jews divided my partiality.
My kind and affectionate aunt, Miss Janet Scott, whose
memory will ever be dear to me, used to read these works
to me with admirable patience, until I could repeat long passages
by heart. The ballad of Hardyknute I was early
master of, to the great annoyance of almost our only visiter,
the worthy clergyman of the parish, Dr. Duncan, who had
not patience to have a sober chat interrupted by my shouting
forth this ditty. Methinks I now see his tall thin
emaciated figure, his legs cased in clasped gambadoes, and
his face of a length that would have rivalled the Knight of
La Mancha's, and hear him exclaiming, “One may as well
speak in the mouth of a cannon as where that child is.”
With this little acidity, which was natural to him, he was a
most excellent and benevolent man, a gentleman in every
feeling, and altogether different from those of his order who
cringe at the tables of the gentry, or domineer and riot at
those of the yeomanry. In his youth he had been chaplain
in the family of Lord Marchmont — had seen Pope — and
could talk familiarly of many characters who had survived
the Augustan age of Queen Anne. Though valetudinary,
he lived to be nearly ninety, and to welcome to Scotland his
son, Colonel William Duncan, who, with the highest character
for military and civil merit, had made a considerable fortune
in India. In [1795], a few days before his death, I
paid him a visit, to inquire after his health. I found him
emaciated to the last degree, wrapped in a tartan night-gown,
and employed with all the activity of health and youth in
correcting a history of the Revolution, which he intended
should be given to the public when he was no more. He
read me several passages with a voice naturally strong, and
of age and declining health. I begged him to spare
this fatigue, which could not but injure his health. His answer
was remarkable. “I know,” he said, “that I cannot
survive a fortnight — and what signifies an exertion that can
at worst only accelerate my death a few days?” I marvelled
at the composure of this reply, for his appearance
sufficiently vouched the truth of his prophecy, and rode
home to my uncle's (then my abode), musing what there
could be in the spirit of authorship that could inspire its
votaries with the courage of martyrs. He died within less
than the period he assigned, — with which event I close my
digression.
I was in my fourth year when my father was advised that
the Bath waters might be of some advantage to my lameness.
My affectionate aunt, although such a journey promised
to a person of her retired habits anything but pleasure
or amusement, undertook as readily to accompany me to the
wells of Bladud, as if she had expected all the delight that
ever the prospect of a watering-place held out to its most
impatient visitants. My health was by this time a good
deal confirmed by the country air, and the influence of that
imperceptible and unfatiguing exercise to which the good
sense of my grandfather had subjected me; for when the
day was fine, I was usually carried out and laid down beside
the old shepherd, among the crags or rocks round which he
fed his sheep. The impatience of a child soon inclined me
to struggle with my infirmity, and I began by degrees to
stand, to walk, and to run. Although the limb affected was
much shrunk and contracted, my general health, which was
of more importance, was much strengthened by being frequently
in the open air, and, in a word, I who in a city had
probably been condemned to hopeless and helpless decrepitude,
was now a healthy, high-spirited, and, my lameness
apart, a sturdy child,— non sine diis animosus infans.
We went to London by sea, and it may gratify the curiosity
of minute biographers to learn, that our voyage was
performed in the Duchess of Buccleuch, Captain Beatson,
master. At London we made a short stay, and saw some
of the common shows exhibited to strangers. When, twenty-five
years afterwards, I visited the Tower of London and
Westminster Abbey, I was astonished to find how accurate
my recollections of these celebrated places of visitation
proved to be, and I have ever since trusted more implicitly
to my juvenile reminiscences. At Bath, where I lived about
a year, I went through all the usual discipline of the pump-room
and baths, but I believe without the least advantage
to my lameness. During my residence at Bath, I acquired
the rudiments of reading at a day-school, kept by an old
dame near our lodgings, and I had never a more regular
teacher, although I think I did not attend her a quarter of a
year. An occasional lesson from my aunt supplied the rest.
Afterwards, when grown a big boy, I had a few lessons from
Mr. Stalker of Edinburgh, and finally from the Rev. Mr.
Cleeve. But I never acquired a just pronunciation, nor
could I read with much propriety.
In other respects my residence at Bath is marked by
very pleasing recollections. The venerable John Home,
author of Douglas, was then at the watering-place, and paid
much attention to my aunt and to me. His wife, who has
survived him, was then an invalid, and used to take the air
in her carriage on the Downs, when I was often invited to
accompany her. But the most delightful recollections of
Bath are dated after the arrival of my uncle, Captain Robert
Scott, who introduced me to all the little amusements which
suited my age, and above all, to the theatre. The play was
As You Like It; and the witchery of the whole scene is
alive in my mind at this moment. I made, I believe, noise
more than enough, and remember being so much scandalized
at the quarrel between Orlando and his brother in the first
weeks' residence at home convinced me, who had till then
been an only child in the house of my grandfather, that a
quarrel between brothers was a very natural event.
The other circumstances I recollect of my residence in
Bath are but trifling, yet I never recall them without a feeling
of pleasure. The beauties of the parade (which of them
I know not), with the river Avon winding around it, and the
lowing of the cattle from the opposite hills, are warm in my
recollection, and are only rivalled by the splendors of a toy-shop
somewhere near the Orange Grove. I had acquired, I
know not by what means, a kind of superstitious terror for
statuary of all kinds. No ancient Iconoclast or modern Calvinist
could have looked on the outside of the Abbey church
(if I mistake not, the principal church at Bath is so called)
with more horror than the image of Jacob's Ladder, with all
its anges, presented to my infant eye. My uncle effectually
combated my terrors, and formally introduced me to a statue
of Neptune, which perhaps still keeps guard at the side of
the Avon, where a pleasure-boat crosses to Spring Gardens.
After being a year at Bath, I returned first to Edinburgh,
and afterwards for a season to Sandy-Knowe; — and thus
the time whiled away till about my eighth year, when it was
thought sea-bathing might be of service to my lameness.
For this purpose, still under my aunt's protection, I remained
some weeks at Prestonpans, a circumstance not
worth mentioning, excepting to record my juvenile intimacy
with an old military veteran, Dalgetty by name, who had
pitched his tent in that little village, after all his campaigns,
subsisting upon an ensign's half-pay, though called by courtesy
a Captain. As this old gentleman, who had been in all
the German wars, found very few to listen to his tales of
military feats, he formed a sort of alliance with me, and I
used invariably to attend him for the pleasure of hearing
those communications. Sometimes our conversation turned
the time of Burgoyne's unfortunate expedition, to which my
Captain and I augured different conclusions. Somebody had
showed me a map of North America, and, struck with the
rugged appearance of the country, and the quantity of lakes,
I expressed some doubts on the subject of the General's arriving
safely at the end of his journey, which were very
indignantly refuted by the Captain. The news of the Saratoga
disaster, while it gave me a little triumph, rather shook
my intimacy with the veteran.
From Prestonpans, I was transported back to my father's
house in George's Square, which continued to be my most
established place of residence, until my marriage in 1797.
I felt the change from being a single indulged brat, to becoming
a member of a large family, very severely; for under
the gentle government of my kind grandmother, who was
meekness itself, and of my aunt, who, though of a higher
temper, was exceedingly attached to me, I had acquired a
degree of license which could not be permitted in a large
family. I had sense enough, however, to bend my temper
to my new circumstances; but such was the agony which I
internally experienced, that I have guarded against nothing
more in the education of my own family, than against their
acquiring habits of self-willed caprice and domination. I
found much consolation during this period of mortification,
in the partiality of my mother. She joined to a light and
happy temper of mind, a strong turn to study poetry and
works of imagination. She was sincerely devout, but her
religion was, as became her sex, of a cast less austere than
my father's. Still, the discipline of the Presbyterian Sabbath
was severely strict, and I think injudiciousy so. Although
Bunyan's Pilgrim, Gesner's Death of Abel, Rowe's
Letters, and one or two other books, which, for that reason,
I still have a favor for, were admitted to relieve the gloom
of one dull sermon succeeding to another, — there was far
the end it did none of us any good.
My week-day tasks were more agreeable. My lameness
and my solitary habits had made me a tolerable reader, and
my hours of leisure were usually spent in reading aloud to
my mother Pope's translation of Homer, which, excepting a
few traditionary ballads, and the songs in Allan Ramsay's
Evergreen, was the first poetry which I perused. My
mother had good natural taste and great feeling; she used
to make me pause upon those passages which expressed generous
and worthy sentiments, and if she could not divert me
from those which were descriptive of battle and tumult, she
contrived at least to divide my attention between them.
My own enthusiasm, however, was chiefly awakened by the
wonderful and the terrible, — the common taste of children,
but in which I have remained a child even unto this day.
I got by heart, not as a task, but almost without intending
it, the passages with which I was most pleased, and used to
recite them aloud, both when alone and to others, — more
willingly, however, in my hours of solitude, for I had observed
some auditors smile, and I dreaded ridicule at that
time of life more than I have ever done since.
In [1778] I was sent to the second class of the Grammar
School, or High School of Edinburgh, then taught by Mr.
Luke Fraser, a good Latin scholar and a very worthy man.
Though I had received, with my brothers, in private, lessons
of Latin from Mr. James French, now a minister of the
Kirk of Scotland, I was nevertheless rather behind the class
in which I was placed both in years and in progress. This
was a real disadvantage, and one to which a boy of lively
temper and talents ought to be as little exposed as one who
might be less expected to make up his lee-way, as it is called.
The situation has the unfortunate effect of reconciling a boy
of the former character (which in a posthumous work I may
claim for my own) to holding a subordinate station among
There is also, from the constitution of the High
School, a certain danger not sufficiently attended to. The
boys take precedence in their places, as they are called, according
to their merit, and it requires a long while, in general,
before even a clever boy, if he falls behind the class, or
is put into one for which he is not quite ready, can force his
way to the situation which his abilities really entitle him to
hold. But, in the meanwhile, he is necessarily led to be
the associate and companion of those inferior spirits with
whom he is placed; for the system of precedence, though it
does not limit the general intercourse among the boys, has
nevertheless the effect of throwing them into clubs and
coteries, according to the vicinity of the seats they hold. A
boy of good talents, therefore, placed even for a time among
his inferiors, especially if they be also his elders, learns to
participate in their pursuits and objects of ambition, which
are usually very distinct from the acquisition of learning;
and it will be well if he does not also imitate them in that
indifference which is contented with bustling over a lesson
so as to avoid punishment, without affecting superiority or
aiming at reward. It was probably owing to this circumstance,
that, although at a more advanced period of life I
have enjoyed considerable facility in acquiring languages, I
did not make any great figure at the High School, — or, at
least, any exertions which I made were desultory and little
to be depended on.
Our class contained some very excellent scholars. The
first Dux was James Buchan, who retained his honored
place, almost without a day's interval, all the while we
were at the High School. He was afterwards at the head
of the medical staff in Egypt, and in exposing himself to
the plague infection, by attending the hospitals there, displayed
the same well-regulated and gentle, yet determined
perseverance, which placed him most worthily at the head
dispositions held an inferior station. The next best scholars
(sed longo intervallo) were my friend David Douglas, the
heir and élève of the celebrated Adam Smith, and James
Hope, now a Writer to the Signet, both since well known
and distinguished in their departments of the law. As for
myself, I glanced like a meteor from one end of the class
to the other, and commonly disgusted my kind master as
much by negligence and frivolity, as I occasionally pleased
him by flashes of intellect and talent. Among my companions,
my good-nature and a flow of ready imagination
rendered me very popular. Boys are uncommonly just in
their feelings, and at least equally generous. My lameness,
and the efforts which I made to supply that disadvantage,
by making up in address what I wanted in activity, engaged
the latter principle in my favor; and in the winter play
hours, when hard exercise was impossible, my tales used to
assemble an admiring audience round Lucky Brown's fireside,
and happy was he that could sit next to the inexhaustible
narrator. I was also, though often negligent of my
own task, always ready to assist my friends, and hence I
had a little party of stanch partisans and adherents, stout
of hand and heart, though somewhat dull of head, — the
very tools for raising a hero to eminence. So, on the whole,
I made a brighter figure in the yards than in the class.
My father did not trust our education solely to our High
School lessons. We had a tutor at home, a young man of
an excellent disposition, and a laborious student. He was
bred to the Kirk, but unfortunately took such a very strong
turn to fanaticism that he afterwards resigned an excellent
living in a seaport town, merely because he could not persuade
the mariners of the guilt of setting sail of a Sabbath,
— in which, by the by, he was less likely to be successful,
as, cæteris paribus, sailors, from an opinion that it is a fortunate
omen, always choose to weigh anchor on that day.
judged of by this anecdote; but in other respects, he was a
faithful and active instructor; and from him chiefly I learned
writing and arithmetic. I repeated to him my French lessons,
and studied with him my themes in the classics, but not
classically. I also acquired, by disputing with him, (for this
he readily permitted,) some knowledge of school-divinity
and church-history, and a great acquaintance in particular
with the old books describing the early history of the Church
of Scotland, the wars and sufferings of the Covenanters,
and so forth. I, with a head on fire for chivalry, was a Cavalier;
my friend was a Roundhead: I was a Tory, and he
was a Whig. I hated Presbyterians, and admired Montrose
with his victorious Highlanders; he liked the Presbyterian
Ulysses, the dark and politic Argyle: so that we never
wanted subjects of dispute; but our disputes were always
amicable. In all these tenets there was no real conviction
on my part, arising out of acquaintance with the views or
principles of either party; nor had my antagonist address
enough to turn the debate on such topics. I took up my
politics at that period, as King Charles II. did his religion,
from an idea that the Cavalier creed was the more gentle-manlike
persuasion of the two.
After having been three years under Mr. Fraser, our
class was, in the usual routine of the school, turned over to
Dr. Adam, the Rector. It was from this respectable man
that I first learned the value of the knowledge I had hitherto
considered only as a burdensome task. It was the fashion
to remain two years at his class, where we read Cæsar, and
Livy, and Sallust, in prose; Virgil, Horace, and Terence,
in verse. I had by this time mastered, in some degree, the
difficulties of the language, and began to be sensible of its
beauties. This was really gathering grapes from thistles;
nor shall I soon forget the swelling of my little pride when
the Rector pronounced, that though many of my school-fellows
behind few in following and enjoying the author's meaning.
Thus encouraged, I distinguished myself by some attempts
at poetical versions from Horace and Virgil. Dr. Adam
used to invite his scholars to such essays, but never made
them tasks. I gained some distinction upon these occasions,
and the Rector in future took much notice of me; and his
judicious mixture of censure and praise went far to counterbalance
my habits of indolence and inattention. I saw I
was expected to do well, and I was piqued in honor to vindicate
my master's favorable opinion. I climbed, therefore,
to the first form; and, though I never made a first-rate
Latinist, my school-fellows, and what was of more consequence,
I myself, considered that I had a character for learning
to maintain. Dr. Adam, to whom I owed so much,
never failed to remind me of my obligations when I had
made some figure in the literary world. He was, indeed,
deeply imbued with that fortunate vanity which alone could
induce a man who has arms to pare and burn a muir, to submit
to the yet more toilsome task of cultivating youth. As
Catholics confide in the imputed righteousness of their saints,
so did the good old Doctor plume himself upon the success
of his scholars in life, all of which he never failed (and
often justly) to claim as the creation, or at least the fruits,
of his early instructions. He remembered the fate of every
boy at his school during the fifty years he had superintended
it, and always traced their success or misfortunes entirely
to their attention or negligence when under his care. His
“noisy mansion,” which to others would have been a melancholy
bedlam, was the pride of his heart; and the only
fatigues he felt, amidst din and tumult, and the necessity of
reading themes, hearing lessons, and maintaining some degree
of order at the same time, were relieved by comparing
himself to Cæsar, who could dictate to three secretaries
at once; — so ready is vanity to lighten the labors of duty.
It is a pity that a man so learned, so admirably adapted
for his station, so useful, so simple, so easily contented,
should have had other subjects of mortification. But the
magistrates of Edinburgh, not knowing the treasure they
possessed in Dr. Adam, encouraged a savage fellow, called
Nicol, one of the undermasters, in insulting his person and
authority. This man was an excellent classical scholar, and
an admirable convivial humorist (which latter quality recommended
him to the friendship of Burns); but worthless,
drunken, and inhumanly cruel to the boys under his charge.
He carried his feud against the Rector within an inch of
assassination, for he waylaid and knocked him down in the
dark. The favor which this worthless rival obtained in the
town-council led to other consequences, which for some
time clouded poor Adam's happiness and fair fame. When
the French Revolution broke out, and parties ran high in
approving or condemning it, the Doctor incautiously joined
the former. This was very natural, for as all his ideas of
existing governments were derived from his experience of
the town-council of Edinburgh, it must be admitted they
scarce brooked comparison with the free states of Rome
and Greece, from which he borrowed his opinions concerning
republics. His want of caution in speaking on the
political topics of the day lost him the respect of the boys,
most of whom were accustomed to hear very different opinions
on those matters in the bosom of their families. This,
however (which was long after my time), passed away with
other heats of the period, and the Doctor continued his
labors till about a year since, when he was struck with
palsy while teaching his class. He survived a few days,
but becoming delirious before his dissolution, conceived he
was still in school, and after some expressions of applause
or censure, he said, “But it grows dark, — the boys may
dismiss,” — and instantly expired.
From Dr. Adam's class I should, according to the usual
I was not yet to lose, by a total dismission from
constraint, the acquaintance with the Latin which I had
acquired. My health had become rather delicate from rapid
growth, and my father was easily persuaded to allow me to
spend half a year at Kelso with my kind aunt, Miss Janet
Scott, whose inmate I again became. It was hardly worth
mentioning that I had frequently visited her during our
short vacations.
At this time she resided in a small house, situated very
pleasantly in a large garden, to the eastward of the church-yard
of Kelso, which extended down to the Tweed. It was
then my father's property, from whom it was afterwards
purchased by my uncle. My grandmother was now dead,
and my aunt's only companion, besides an old maid-servant,
was my cousin, Miss Barbara Scott, now Mrs. Meik. My
time was here left entirely to my own disposal, excepting
for about four hours in the day, when I was expected to attend
the Grammar School of the village. The teacher, at
that time, was Mr. Lancelot Whale, an excellent classical
scholar, a humorist, and a worthy man. He had a supreme
antipathy to the puns which his very uncommon name frequently
gave rise to; insomuch, that he made his son spell
the word Wale, which only occasioned the young man being
nicknamed the Prince of Wales by the military mess to which
he belonged. As for Whale, senior, the least allusion to
Jonah, or the terming him an odd fish, or any similar quibble,
was sure to put him beside himself. In point of knowledge
and taste, he was far too good for the situation he held,
which only required that he should give his scholars a rough
foundation in the Latin language. My time with him,
though short, was spent greatly to my advantage and his
gratification. He was glad to escape to Persius and Tacitus
from the eternal Rudiments and Cornelius Nepos; and
as perusing these authors with one who began to understand
under his instructions. I suspect, indeed, that some of
the time dedicated to me was withdrawn from the instruction
of his more regular scholars; but I was as grateful as I
could. I acted as usher, and heard the inferior classes, and
I spouted the speech of Galgacus at the public examination,
which did not make the less impression on the audience that
few of them probably understood one word of it.
In the mean while my acquaintance with English literature
was gradually extending itself. In the intervals of my
school hours I had always perused with avidity such books
of history or poetry or voyages and travels as chance presented
to me — not forgetting the usual, or rather ten times
the usual, quantity of fairy tales, eastern stories, romances,
&c. These studies were totally unregulated and undirected.
My tutor thought it almost a sin to open a profane
play or poem; and my mother, besides that she might be in
some degree trammelled by the religious scruples which he
suggested, had no longer the opportunity to hear me read
poetry as formerly. I found, however, in her dressing-room
(where I slept at one time) some odd volumes of Shakespeare,
nor can I easily forget the rapture with which I sat
up in my shirt reading them by the light of a fire in her
apartment, until the bustle of the family rising from supper
warned me it was time to creep back to my bed, where I
was supposed to have been safely deposited since nine
o'clock. Chance, however, threw in my way a poetical preceptor.
This was no other than the excellent and benevolent
Dr. Blacklock, well known at that time as a literary
character. I know not how I attracted his attention, and
that of some of the young men who boarded in his family;
but so it was that I became a frequent and favored guest.
The kind old man opened to me the stores of his library,
and through his recommendation I became intimate with
Ossian and Spenser. I was delighted with both, yet I think
Ossianic phraseology disgusted me rather sooner than might
have been expected from my age. But Spenser I could
have read forever. Too young to trouble myself about the
allegory, I considered all the knights and ladies and dragons
and giants in their outward and exoteric sense, and God
only knows how delighted I was to find myself in such society.
As I had always a wonderful facility in retaining in
my memory whatever verses pleased me, the quantity of
Spenser's stanzas which I could repeat was really marvellous.
But this memory of mine was a very fickle ally, and
has through my whole life acted merely upon its own capricious
motion, and might have enabled me to adopt old Beattie
of Meikledale's answer, when complimented by a certain
reverend divine on the strength of the same faculty: —
“No, sir,” answered the old Borderer, “I have no command
of my memory. It only retains what hits my fancy; and
probably, sir, if you were to preach to me for two hours, I
would not be able when you finished to remember a word
you had been saying.” My memory was precisely of the
same kind: it seldom failed to preserve most tenaciously a
favorite passage of poetry, a play-house ditty, or, above all,
a Border-raid ballad; but names, dates, and the other technicalities
of history, escaped me in a most melancholy degree.
The philosophy of history, a much more important subject,
was also a sealed book at this period of my life; but I gradually
assembled much of what was striking and picturesque
in historical narrative; and when, in riper years, I attended
more to the deduction of general principles, I was furnished
with a powerful host of examples in illustration of them. I
was, in short, like an ignorant gamester, who kept up a good
hand until he knew how to play it.
I left the High School, therefore, with a great quantity
of general information, ill arranged, indeed, and collected
without system, yet deeply impressed upon my mind; readily
gilded, if I may be permitted to say so, by a vivid and
active imagination. If my studies were not under any direction
at Edinburgh, in the country, it may be well imagined,
they were less so. A respectable subscription library, a circulating
library of ancient standing, and some private bookshelves,
were open to my random perusal, and I waded into
the stream like a blind man into a ford, without the power
of searching my way, unless by groping for it. My appetite
for books was as ample and indiscriminating as it was
indefatigable, and I since have had too frequently reason to
repent that few ever read so much, and to so little purpose.
Among the valuable acquisitions I made about this time,
was an acquaintance with Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered,
through the flat medium of Mr. Hoole's translation. But
above all, I then first became acquainted with Bishop
Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry. As I had been
from infancy devoted to legendary lore of this nature, and
only reluctantly withdrew my attention, from the scarcity
of materials and the rudeness of those which I possessed,
it may be imagined, but cannot be described, with what
delight I saw pieces of the same kind which had amused my
childhood, and still continued in secret the Delilahs of my
imagination, considered as the subject of sober research,
grave commentary, and apt illustration, by an editor who
showed his poetical genius was capable of emulating the best
qualities of what his pious labor preserved. I remember
well the spot where I read these volumes for the first time.
It was beneath a huge platanus-tree, in the ruins of what
had been intended for an old-fashioned arbor in the garden
I have mentioned. The summer-day sped onward so fast,
that notwithstanding the sharp appetite of thirteen, I forgot
the hour of dinner, was sought for with anxiety, and was
still found entranced in my intellectual banquet. To read
and to remember was in this instance the same thing, and
would hearken to me, with tragical recitations from the ballads
of Bishop Percy. The first time, too, I could scrape a
few shillings together, which were not common occurrences
with me, I bought unto myself a copy of these beloved volumes;
nor do I believe I ever read a book half so frequently,
or with half the enthusiasm. About this period
also I became acquainted with the works of Richardson, and
those of Mackenzie (whom in later years I became entitled
to call my friend), — with Fielding, Smollett, and some
others of our best novelists.
To this period also I can trace distinctly the awaking
of that delightful feeling for the beauties of natural objects
which has never since deserted me. The neighborhood of
Kelso, the most beautiful, if not the most romantic village
in Scotland, is eminently calculated to awaken these ideas.
It presents objects, not only grand in themselves, but venerable
from their association. The meeting of two superb
rivers, the Tweed and the Teviot, both renowned in song, —
the ruins of an ancient Abbey, — the more distant vestiges
of Roxburgh Castle, — the modern mansion of Fleurs, which
is so situated as to combine the ideas of ancient baronial
grandeur with those of modern taste, — are in themselves
objects of the first class; yet are so mixed, united, and
melted among a thousand other beauties of a less prominent
description, that they harmonize into one general picture,
and please rather by unison than by concord. I believe I
have written unintelligibly upon this subject, but it is fitter
for the pencil than the pen. The romantic feelings which
I have described as predominating in my mind naturally
rested upon and associated themselves with these grand features
of the landscape around me; and the historical incidents,
or traditional legends connected with many of them,
gave to my admiration a sort of intense impression of
reverence, which at times made my heart feel too big for its
especially when combined with ancient ruins or remains of
our fathers' piety or splendor, became with me an insatiable
passion, which, if circumstances had permitted, I would willingly
have gratified by travelling over half the globe.
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