The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

With the desire of placing his financial position on a more substantial basis, Scott had solicited the office of Clerk of Session; and after some difficulties, during which he visited London and was received by the Princess of Wales, he was installed in that position on March 8, 1806, and continued to discharge its duties with exemplary regularity for twenty-five years.

The progress of "Marmion" was further interrupted by Scott's appointment as secretary to a Commission for the improvement of Scottish Jurisprudence, but the poems appeared at last in February, 1808. It received only very qualified praise from Jeffrey, but I think it may be considered on the whole Scott's greatest poem, and its popularity was from the very first extraordinary.

In April of the same year William Miller of Albemarle Street published Scott's great edition of Dryden, with a biography, in eighteen volumes; and the editor's industry and critical judgement were the subject of a laudatory article by Hallam in the "Edinburgh Review."

Scott was now engaged in a vast multiplicity of business. He was preparing an edition of Swift for Constable, establishing his own partner as a publisher in Edinburgh under the title of "John Ballantyne and Co., Booksellers," and was projecting a new periodical of sound constitutional principles, to be known as the "Quarterly Review," published by Murray in London and by Ballantyne in Edinburgh. In connection with the latter enterprise Scott and Mrs. Scott went up to London for two months in the Spring of 1809, and enjoyed the society of Coleridge, Canning, Croker, and Ellis. The first "Quarterly" appeared while he was in London, and contained three articles from his pen. At this time also he prevailed on Henry Siddons, the nephew of Kemble, to undertake the lease and management of the Edinburgh Theatre; and purchasing a share himself, became an acting trustee, and for many years took a lively concern in the Edinburgh company.

Early in May, 1810, "The Lady of the Lake" came out, like her two elder sisters, in all the majesty of quarto, at the price of two guineas, the author receiving two thousand guineas for the copyright. The whole country rang with the praises of the poet, and crowds set off to view the scenery of Loch Katrine. The critics were in full harmony with one another and with the popular voice.

The Waverley Novels

On returning, in 1810, from an excursion to the Islands of the western Scottish coast, where he had been collecting impressions for "The Lord of the Isles," Scott was searching one morning for fishing-flies in an old desk at Ashestiel, when he came across a forgotten manuscript, written and abandoned five years before. It contained the first two chapters of "Waverley." He submitted it to Ballantyne, whose opinion was on the whole against completion of the novel, and it was again laid aside.

Although his publishing venture had begun to wear a bad aspect, Scott was now in receipt of £1300 a year as Clerk of Session, and when the lease of Ashestiel ran out in May, 1811, he felt justified in purchasing, for £4000, a farm on the banks of the Tweed above Galafoot. This farm, then known as "Garty Holes," became "Abbotsford," so called because these lands had belonged of old to the great Abbey of Melrose; and in his own mind Scott became henceforth the "Laird of Abbotsford."

The last days at Ashestiel were marked by a friendly interchange of letters with Lord Byron, whose "Childe Harold" had just come out, and with correspondence with Johanna Baillie and with Crabbe. At Whitsuntide the family, which included two boys and two girls, moved to their new possession, and structural alterations on the farmhouse began.

The poem "Rokeby" appeared in January, 1813. A month or two later the crisis in the war affected credit aniversally, and many publishing firms, including that of the Ballantynes, were brought to extremity. The difficulty was relieved for a time by the sale of copyrights and much of the stock to Constable, on the understanding that the publishing concern should be wound up as soon as possible. But Scott was preparing fresh embarrassments for himself by the purchase of another parcel of land; a yet more acute crisis in the Ballantyne firm forced him to borrow from the Duke of Buccleuch; and when planning out his work for the purpose of retrieving his position he determined to complete the fragment of "Waverley."

The offer of the post of poet-laureate was made to Scott at this time, but holding already two lucrative offices in the gift of the Crown, he declined the honour and suggested that it should be given to Southey, which was accordingly done. The "Swift" in nineteen volumes, appeared in July, 1814, and had a moderate success.

"Waverley," of which Scott was to receive half the profits, was published by Constable in July, 1814, without the author's name, and its great success with the public was assured from the first. None of Scott's intimate friends ever had, or could have, the slightest doubt as to its parentage, and when Mr. Jeffrey reviewed the book, doing justice to its substantial merits, he was at no pains to conceal his conviction of the authorship. With the single exception of the "Quarterly," the critics hailed it as a work of original creative genius, one of the masterpieces of prose fiction.