Chapter XLI
Town and Country—Scott’s Ideal—Reversion of Clerkship—Impeachment of Lord Melville—Acquittal—The Edinburgh Dinner—Scott’s Song of Triumph—Nature of his Professional Duties—Social Claims and Literary Industry.
When Scott decided to abandon the Bar, he had no intention of quitting Edinburgh. Notwithstanding his delight in natural scenery and his real fondness for rural pursuits and his passion for sport, he had an equally strong attachment to the city and its old routine. ‘Here is the advantage of Edinburgh’ (he says in his Journal). ‘In the country, if a sense of inability once seizes me, it haunts me from morning to night; but in Edinburgh the time is so occupied and frittered away by official duties and chance occupation, that you have not time to play Master Stephen and be gentlemanlike and melancholy. On the other hand, you never feel in town those spirit-stirring influences—those glances of sunshine that make amends for clouds and mist. The country is said to be quieter life; not to me, I am sure. In the town the business I have to do hardly costs me more thought than just occupies my mind, and I have as much of gossip and ladylike chat as consumes the time pleasantly enough. In the country I am thrown entirely on my own resources, and there is no medium betwixt happiness and the reverse.’ To carry out his ideal, therefore, of a life alternating between town and country, and enjoying the best of both, and to keep his mind easy about the provision—generous, of course—which he should make for his increasing family, Scott was not satisfied with an income of £1000 a year. He accordingly set about obtaining another post—such a post (he frankly puts it) as an author might hope to retreat upon, without any perceptible alteration of circumstances, whenever the time came that the public grew weary of him, or he himself tired of his pen. He hoped, in fact, to obtain a clerkship in the Court of Session, and his friends began to work for it just after the Lay was published. These friends were the Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Melville, and, as we have seen, Pitt himself had given orders that something should be done. Near the end of 1805 it was arranged that Scott should have the succession to the clerkship held by Mr. Home of Wedderburn. The old gentleman was to retain the whole salary during his life, while Scott was to do the work and fall into the salary at Home’s death. The matter was arranged just before Lord Melville’s retirement, but a mistake having been made in the patent, Scott’s commission had to be made out by the Home Secretary of the Whig Government of 1806. Thus it appeared as if he had owed his appointment to the Whigs, and some of the meaner sort among the local people grumbled loudly and complained of the preference. Scott resented this doubly, since he really owed nothing to the Whig Ministry and would never have accepted a favour at their hands. Lockhart says that this incident was the occasion of his making himself prominent for a time as a decided Tory partisan.
The Coalition Government signalised its accession to power by impeaching Lord Melville. The charges, it is now well known, were groundless and absurd. At the same time ‘the investigation brought out many circumstances by no means creditable to his discretion.’ But on the one side there was a savage whoop of triumph when the autocrat was himself brought to trial; on the other, loud and scornful jubilation when the great pro-consul was acquitted. Less noise might well have served. In Edinburgh a public dinner was held to celebrate the event, on the 27th of June 1806, and for this occasion Scott wrote a jolly piece of rattling doggerel, ‘Health to Lord Melville,’ which was sung by James Ballantyne, and received with shouts of applause. A line in this song ‘Tally-ho to the Fox,’ was fastened upon by political spite as a shout of triumph over Fox, because he was then on his death-bed. Never was any effort of malignity more idiotic. If it had been so intended, even a fool might have seen that it would have been irrelevant. It was, of course, merely one note of the triumphal cock-crowing at the defeat of the impeachment. Any one who could seriously think that Scott would for a moment rejoice at the illness or death of Fox is outside the pale of argument.
Surprise has often been expressed at the enormous output of Scott’s literary labours during the twenty most active years of his life. But, vast as it is, the literary output represents only half of his industry and exertion. Neither his sheriffship nor his clerkship was a sinecure. The latter required actual attendance in the court, on the average, for from four to six hours daily during rather less than six months out of the twelve. The work, though partly mechanical, constantly entailed extra toil in the way of consulting law papers and authorities at home. It is well known, too, that Scott performed these duties with the most conscientious regularity and care. He never employed inferior assistants to relieve himself of drudgery. He took a just pride, as did also the best of his colleagues, in maintaining a high reputation for legal science. There can, indeed, be no question of the justness of his biographer’s view, that it forms one of the most remarkable features in his history, that during his great period of literary production, he must have devoted a large proportion of his hours, during half at least of every year, to the conscientious discharge of professional duties.
Thus Scott, while in Edinburgh, led a life of very exacting labour, and strictly governed by official routine. His habit of early rising enabled him to get through the larger portion of his literary task before breakfast. He was always ready to play his part cheerfully in the duties of the family circle, as well as to implement the round of social engagements. The latter were always great, owing to his own and his wife’s popularity in society. Of course, as time went on and his fame became world-wide, these social calls upon his leisure became greater and greater. Still, he would often contrive to rescue some of the evening hours as well, in order to complete the minimum of his daily literary task. But for occasional drives with his family or friends, his time in town was mainly spent indoors, and later on he confessed that this want of activity and open-air life proved highly injurious to his bodily health.