Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/107

 ing to Sir J. G. Craig, it might certainly have been upset. Scott would then, he says, have felt it necessary to become a bankrupt (Journal, 16 Feb.) This would have been against the creditors' interests. The general feeling seems to have been that his bankruptcy would have been a national calamity, and that he should be treated with all gentleness in his attempt to atone for his errors. His son Walter made offers to help him which he declined; and ‘poor Mr. Pole, the harper,’ who had taught his daughters music, offered to contribute all his own savings, amounting to five or six hundred pounds. Scott was deeply touched by this, and by the great kindness of Sir William Forbes, his old friend and successful rival in his first love affair. In the following year, when a creditor threatened Scott with arrest, Forbes paid the demand of 2,000l. from his own pocket, ranking as an ordinary creditor for the amount, and carefully keeping the transaction secret till after Scott's death (, ch. lxxiv.) Scott's servants accepted the change with equal loyalty. His old coachman, Peter Matheson, became ‘ploughman in ordinary;’ the butler doubled his work and took half the wages; and though Laidlaw had to leave Kaeside, which was let by the trustees, he came every week for a ramble with his patron. The house in Castle Street was sold, and Scott had to take lodgings during the legal session. The rest of the time was spent at Abbotsford, where he had made all possible reductions.

Scott's attention, even at this time, was diverted to a patriotic object. The proposal of government to suppress the circulation of small bank-notes was supposed to be injurious to Scottish banks; and Scott attacked the measure in three letters of vehement patriotism, signed ‘Malachi Malagrowther,’ in the Edinburgh ‘Evening Journal’ of March. A sensation was produced comparable to that caused by Swift's ‘Drapier's Letters;’ and the government, though much annoyed at Scott's action, consented in May to drop the application of the measure to Scotland. Scott's pleasure at this success was dashed by a new calamity. Lady Scott's health had shown ominous symptoms. The news of her condition, he says (19 March), ‘is overwhelming. … Really these misfortunes come too close upon each other!’ She became gradually worse, and died on 15 May. Lady Scott is not a very conspicuous figure in his life, and she apparently rather encouraged than checked his weaknesses; nor did he feel for her so romantic a passion as for his early love. He was, however, an affectionate and generous husband; and many entries in the journal show that this catastrophe severely tried his stoicism. The younger son, Charles, was now at Oxford; and his younger daughter, Anne, also in weak health, was the only permanent member of his household. Another anxiety which weighed heavily upon his spirits was the fatal diseases of his ‘darling grandson,’ John Hugh Lockhart. ‘The best I can wish for him,’ he says (18 March), ‘is early death.’ Though there were occasional hopes, the fear of the coming loss overshadowed Scott's remaining years. Scott hid his gloomy feelings as well as he could, and his family learnt their existence only from his journal. He was at his desk again soon after his wife's funeral. He had been encouraged (3 April) by news that ‘Woodstock,’ written in three months, had been sold for 8,228l., ‘all ready money.’ His chief employment was now the ‘Life of Napoleon,’ but he resolved to fill up necessary intervals by a new story, the ‘Chronicles of the Canongate.’ ‘Woodstock,’ according to Lockhart, was a good bargain for the purchasers. Scott drudged steadily at ‘Napoleon’ till, in the autumn, he found it desirable to examine materials offered to him in London and Paris. He left Abbotsford on 12 Oct., and returned by the end of November. He was cordially received by his old friends in England, from the king downwards, and in Paris he declares (5 Nov.) that the French were ‘outrageous in their civilities.’ In the following winter he suffered severely from rheumatism, but stuck to his work, grudging every moment that was not spent at his desk. He was depressed by the sense of ‘bodily helplessness,’ and his writing became ‘cramped and confused.’ At the beginning of 1827 he was living quietly with his daughter, occasionally dining with old friends, and still heartily enjoying their society. On 23 Feb. he took the chair at a meeting to promote a fund for decayed actors. He allowed Lord Meadowbank to propose his health as author of the ‘Waverley Novels,’ and in his reply made the first public acknowledgment that he was the sole writer.

Scott still found time to write various articles, including one for the benefit of R. P. Gillies, to whom it brought 100l. Another gift of a year later was a couple of sermons written to help G. H. Gordon when a candidate for ordination. Gordon was one of the countless young men whom he had helped; after employing him as an amanuensis, he had obtained a place for him in a public office, and now allowed him to clear off debt by selling the sermons for 250l. The ‘Life of Napoleon’ was published