Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/98

234 and the alterations which it received were, by his own hand, copied upon tlio other proof-sheet for the use of the printers, so that even the corrected proofs of the author were never seen in the printing office; and thus the curiosity of such eager inquirers as made the most minute investigation, was entirely at fault."

To this account of the publication of Waverley it is only to be added, that the popularity of the work became decided rather more quickly, and was, when decided, much higher, than the author has given to be understood. It was read and admired universally, both in Scotland and England, so that, in a very short time about twelve thousand copies were disposed of.

Previously to 1811, Mr Scott had been in the habit of residing, during the summer months, at a villa called Ashiestiel on the banks of the Tweed, near Selkirk, belonging to his kinsman colonel Russell. He now employed part of his literary gains in purchasing a farm a few miles farther down the Tweed, and within three miles of Melrose. Here he erected a small house, which he gradually enlarged, as his emoluments permitted, till it eventually became a Gothic castellated mansion of considerable size. He also continued for some years to make considerable purchases of the adjacent grounds, generally paying much more for them than their value. The desire of becoming an extensive land-proprietor was a passion which glowed more warmly in his bosom than any appetite which he ever entertained for literary fame. The whole cast of his mind, from the very beginning, was essentially aristocratic; and it is probable that he looked with more reverence upon an old title to a good estate, than upon the most ennobled title-page in the whole catalogue of contemporary genius. Thus it was a matter of astonishment to many, that, while totally insensible to flattery on the score of his works, and perfectly destitute of all the airs of a professed or practised author, he could not so well conceal his pride in the possession of a small patch of territory, or his sense of importance as a local dispenser of justice. As seen through the medium of his works, he rather appears like an old baron or chivalrous knight, displaying his own character and feelings, and surrounded by the ideal creatures which such an individual would have mixed with in actual life, than as an author of the modern world, writing partly for fame, and partly for subsistence, and glad to work at that which he thinks he can best execute. It was unquestionably owing to the same principle that he kept the Waverley secret with such pertinacious closeness being unwilling to be considered as an author writing for fortune, which he must have thought somewhat degrading to the baronet of Abbotsford. It was now the principal spring of his actions to add as much as possible to the little realm of Abbotsford, in order that he might take his place not among the great literary names which posterity is to revere, but among the country gentlemen of Roxburghshire!

Under the influence of this passion—for such it must be considered,—Mr Scott produced a rapid succession of novels, of which it will be sufficient hereto state the names and dates. To Waverley succeeded, in 1815, Guy Mannering; in 1816, the Antiquary, and the First Series of the Tales of my Landlord, containing the Black Dwarf and Old Mortality; in 1818, Rob Roy, and the Second Series of the Tales of my Landlord, containing the Heart of Mid Lothian; and in 1819, the Third Series of the Tales of my Landlord, containing the Bride of Lammermoor, and a Legend of Montrose.

It is to be observed, that the series, called "Tales of my Landlord," were