Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/98

 Scott's agent, receiving a salary of 400l. a year for managing the printing business. The affairs of this and the publishing business had become indistinguishable. John Ballantyne said that the publishing business was wound up with a clear balance of 1,000l. in consequence of Scott's energy. The new firm took over, according to Lockhart (p. 451), liabilities to the amount of 10,000l. Scott complained much in 1813 of having been kept in ignorance by his partners of the real state of affairs; and it seems that the printing, as well as the publishing, office had been in difficulties from an early period. The printing business, however, was substantially a good one, and, now that the publishing was abandoned, might be expected to thrive.

For two or three years after the arrangement with Constable the affairs of the firm were in a very critical state, and Scott was put to many straits for raising money. He cordially admitted his obligations to Constable's sagacity and help, while he begged John Ballantyne to treat him ‘as a man, and not as a milch-cow’ (, ch. xxvi. p. 246). Scott, however, was sanguine by nature, and had sufficiently good prospects. His income, he says (24 Aug. 1813), was over 2,000l. a year, and he was owner of Abbotsford and the house in Castle Street. He was clear that no one could ultimately be a loser by him. Just at this time the regent offered him the poet-laureateship, which he erroneously supposed to be worth 400l. a year. It had fallen into such discredit that he feared to be ridiculed for taking it, and declined on the ground that he could not write the regular odes then imperative, and that his legal offices were a sufficient provision. In the midst of his difficulties he was sending 50l. to Maturin, then in distress, and was generous to other struggling authors while pressed to pay his family expenses.

Unfortunately, Scott had been seized with a passion for adding to his landed property. A property was for sale which would extend his estate from the Tweed to the Cauldshiels Loch; and to raise the money he offered, in June 1813, to sell an unwritten poem (afterwards ‘The Lord of the Isles’) to Constable for 5,000l. Though the literary negotiation failed, he bought the land, and was at the same time buying ‘a splendid lot of ancient armour’ for his museum.

On 1 July 1814 appeared Scott's edition of Swift in nineteen volumes, which was reviewed by Jeffrey in the ‘Edinburgh’ at Constable's request. Jeffrey praised Scott, but his hostile estimate of Swift was thought by Constable to have injured the sale of the works. In the midst of his troubles Scott had accidentally found his old manuscript of ‘Waverley’ in looking for some fishing-tackle. He thought that his critics, Erskine and Ballantyne, had been too severe; and in the last three weeks of June 1814 wrote the two concluding volumes. The book appeared on 7 July 1814. The first edition of one thousand copies was sold in five weeks, and a sixth had appeared before the end of a year. Constable had offered 700l. for the copyright, which Scott said was too little if it succeeded, and too much if it failed. It was therefore published upon half-profits. On 29 July Scott sailed upon a cruise with the lighthouse commissioners, in which he was accompanied by his friend William Erskine and others. They visited the Orkney and Shetland islands, and returned by the Hebrides, reaching Greenock on 8 Sept. The delightful journal published in Lockhart's ‘Life’ gives a graphic picture of Scott's charm as a travelling companion, and of his keen delight in the scenery, the antiquities, and the social condition of the people. He turned his experience to account in ‘The Pirate’ and ‘The Lord of the Isles.’ On returning he received the news of the death of his old friend the Duchess of Buccleuch, who, as Countess of Dalkeith, had suggested ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel.’ He found also that ‘Waverley’ was making a startling success. For the time he had other pieces of work in hand. Besides writing articles on chivalry and the drama for Constable's ‘Supplement’ to the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ and other minor pieces of work, he had finally agreed, while passing through Edinburgh, for ‘The Lord of the Isles.’ Constable gave 1,500l. for half the copyright. It was rapidly finished, and published on 18 Jan. 1815. Though it was about as popular as ‘Rokeby,’ Scott became aware that the poetical vein was being exhausted. When Ballantyne told him of the comparative failure, he received the news after a moment with ‘perfect cheerfulness,’ and returned to work upon the conclusion of his second novel, ‘Guy Mannering,’ which, as Lockhart calculates, was written in six weeks, about Christmas 1814. The success of his novels encouraged him to make new purchases. ‘Money,’ he writes to Morritt in November 1814, ‘has been tumbling in upon me very fast;’ his pinches from ‘long-dated bills’ are over, and he is therefore buying land (Letters, i. 351).

For the next ten years Scott was pouring out the series of novels, displaying an energy and fertility of mind which make the feat one