Chapter XVIII
The Scottish Bar—Two Careers open—Walter’s Choice—Studies with William Clerk—The Law Professors—Hume’s Lectures—Hard Study—Beginnings of social Distinction—Influence of Clerk—Early Love-story—Description of Walter Scott at Twenty.
Of the two branches of the legal profession, the bar offered the greatest attractions to young men ambitious of distinction. For mere financial success Walter Scott might have been tempted to take to the Writer’s career. His father offered to take him at once into partnership, which would have meant ‘an immediate prospect of a handsome independence.’ But Walter was never very fond of money, and had then no expensive plans in view to make the acquisition of it a necessity. In all other respects he preferred the Advocate’s life. It was the line of ambition and liberty. When he saw that his father also would prefer it, he hesitated no longer. Four arduous years of preparation (1789 to 1792) were devoted to the necessary legal studies. This period was utterly different from his Arts course. He studied with the greatest zeal and perseverance, giving his whole heart to the one aim. The companion of his studies was his cherished friend, William Clerk, whom he describes as ‘a man of the most acute intellects and powerful apprehension, and who, should he ever shake loose the fetters of indolence by which he has been trammelled, cannot fail to be distinguished in the highest degree.’ At this time the Civil Law chair might be considered ’as in abeyance,’ the Professor being almost in a state of dotage. It was different with the class of Scots Law. Under Professor David Hume, an enormous amount of legal learning had to be got up. Jeffrey, who attended the class in 1792, ‘groaned over Hume’s elaborate dulness,’ but on Scott the subject seemed to exercise a charm. He considered Hume’s prelections an honour to himself and an advantage to his country. He copied them over twice, which would mean the writing of four or five hundred closely packed pages. He speaks of Hume as having imported plan and order to the ancient and constantly altered structure of Scots Law by ‘combining the past state of our legal enactments with the present, and tracing clearly and judiciously the changes which took place, and the causes which led to them.’
Upon these years of legal study Scott could always look back with satisfaction. ‘A little parlour (he tells in his fragment of Autobiography, referring to the ‘den’ where Jeffrey found him) was assigned me in my father’s house, which was spacious and convenient (for a modest student), and I took possession of my new realms with all the feelings of novelty and liberty. Let me do justice to the only years of my life in which I applied to learning with stern, steady, and undeviating industry. The rule of my friend Clerk and myself was, that we should mutually qualify ourselves for undergoing an examination upon certain points of law every morning in the week, Sundays excepted.... His house being at the extremity of Princes Street, New Town, was a walk of two miles. With great punctuality, however, I beat him up to his task every morning before seven o’clock, and in the course of two summers, we went, by way of question and answer, through the whole of Heineccius’s Analysis of the Institutes and Pandects, as well as through the smaller copy of Erskine’s Institutes of the Law of Scotland.’
At this time, as a natural consequence of advancing years, his parents had given over entertaining company, unless in the case of near relations. Walter, however, though he was thus left in a great measure to form connections for himself, found no difficulty in making his way into good society. He scarcely ever refers to his social triumphs, but from other sources we can gather that he soon became a notable and a favourite figure. Before he had achieved any literary reputation, he had conquered local fame by the charm of his personality and the freshness of his conversation. Cockburn, speaking of the year 1811, has recorded that ‘people used to be divided at this time as to the superiority of Scott’s poetry or his talk. His novels had not yet begun to suggest another alternative. Scarcely, however, even in his novels was he more striking or delightful than in society, where the halting limb, the bur in the throat, the heavy cheeks, the high Goldsmith-forehead, the unkempt locks, and general plainness of appearance, with the Scotch accent and stories and sayings, all graced by gaiety, simplicity, and kindness, made a combination most worthy of being enjoyed.’
His early cultivation of society, which was of course a wholesome thing for a youth of twenty, was greatly favoured by his friendship with William Clerk. We have Lockhart’s authority for the opinion that ‘of all the connections he formed in life there was no one to whom he owed more.’ Clerk’s influence helped to decide him to take to the bar, the line of ambition and liberty. He then, as we have seen, by his very physical inertia, supplied Scott with a stimulating object during their legal studies. His influence on Scott’s personal habits even was good and great. Walter’s modesty and kind good-nature had perhaps made him a trifle more free and easy with his father’s apprentices than was quite desirable for either him or them. They were, of course, his professional equals and the sharers in his daily pursuits, but their ideas and manners were not calculated to promote ambition so much as liberty. Walter, during his apprenticeship, was intentionally careless of appearances, and apt to be slovenly in his dress. He condescended to the clubs and festive resorts of the apprentices, a most dangerous thing for a genius, as Ferguson’s blasted career had just proved. It was a fortunate enough and useful episode for the future author of Guy Mannering, but it was not a good school of manners or academy of habits for Walter Scott. Fortunately William Clerk, with his West-end prejudices, came just at the right time, to chaff his friend out of his slovenliness and to show him the way to a more wholesome and not less interesting society. Finally, of course, it was his own sound sense that made this amiable change in his habits so easy. To this period, that is, about 1790, belongs the most romantic episode of Walter Scott’s life, his unrequited love for Margaret Stuart.1 He had made her acquaintance in the Greyfriars churchyard on a wet Sunday afternoon, when she accepted his offered umbrella and his escort home, for ‘young Walter Scott,’ a Duchess of Sutherland at this time said, ‘was a comely creature.’ And here we may give Lockhart’s description of Scott as seen by Clerk and Margaret and the rest of his Edinburgh friends:—
‘His personal appearance at this time was not unengaging.... He had outgrown the sallowness of early ill-health, and had a fresh, brilliant complexion. His eyes were clear, open, and well-set, with a changeful radiance, to which teeth of the most perfect regularity and whiteness lent their assistance, while the noble expanse and elevation of the brow gave to the whole aspect a dignity far above the charm of mere features. His smile was always delightful; and I can easily fancy the peculiar intermixture of tenderness and gravity with playful, innocent hilarity and humour in the expression, as being well calculated to fix a fair lady’s eye. His figure, excepting the blemish in one limb, must in those days have been eminently handsome; tall, much above the usual standard, it was cast in the very mould of a young Hercules; the head set on with singular grace, the throat and chest after the truest model of the antique, the hands delicately finished; the whole outline that of extraordinary vigour, without as yet a touch of clumsiness.... I have heard him, in talking of this part of his life, say, with an arch simplicity of look and tone, which those who were familiar with him can fill in for themselves—“It was a proud night with me when I first found that a pretty young woman could think it worth her while to sit and talk with me, hour after hour, in a corner of the ballroom, while all the world were capering in our view.”’
Notes
1 Scott’s youthful love-dream lasted through several years. The lady eventually married Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, who was a banker in Edinburgh. Sir William acted a very friendly part during Scott’s financial disaster of 1826-27.