Lockhart The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Vol. 3: 1812 - 1815

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-3-8496-4548-9
Verlag: Jazzybee Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 414 Seiten

Biography yields to no other species of composition, in interest and instruction. More especially is this true, when the subjects of which it treats are the struggles and vicissitudes of a life devoted to the pursuits of literature. There is a pleasure of the purest kind in observing the gradual development of thought and re?nement of expression in one, who, smitten with a love of the good and the beautiful, and desirous to leave something behind him less perishable than his tombstone, has 'scorned delights and loved laborious days.' No one can read these Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott, so long and so anxiously expected, without feeling this pleasure, and without deriving from them that instruction which might not be received from the perusal of less interesting works. In our judgment, not the least important lesson which these memoirs teach, is the advantage, or rather the necessity, which there is of having some profession less precarious than that of literature, upon which the child of genius can fall back for comfort or support in the hour when adversity clouds the lights which hope hung up in the uncertain future. This is volume 3 out of 7 of one of the best and most extensive Scott biographies ever and it covers the years 1812 through 1815.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lockhart, John Gibson

Leseproben

Chapter II.

AFFAIRS OF JOHN BALLANTYNE AND CO.—CAUSES OF THEIR DERANGEMENT—LETTERS OF SCOTT TO HIS PARTNERS—NEGOTIATION FOR RELIEF WITH MESSRS CONSTABLE—NEW PURCHASE OF LAND AT ABBOTSFORD—EMBARRASSMENTS CONTINUED—JOHN BALLANTYNE’S EXPRESSES—DRUMLANRIG—PENRITH,ETC.—SCOTT’S MEETING WITH THE MARQUIS OF ABERCORN AT LONGTOWN—HIS APPLICATION TO THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH—OFFER OF THE POET-LAUREATESHIP—CONSIDERED—AND DECLINED—ADDRESS OF THE CITY OF EDINBURGH TO THE PRINCE-REGENT—ITS RECEPTION—CIVIC HONOURS CONFERRED ON SCOTT—QUESTION OF TAXATION ON LITERARY INCOME—LETTERS TO MR MORRITT—MR SOUTHEY—MR RICHARDSON—MR CRABBE—MISS BAILLIE AND LORD BYRON— 1813

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About a month after the publication of the Bridal of Triermain, the affairs of the Messrs Ballantyne, which had never apparently been in good order since the establishment of the bookselling firm, became so embarrassed as to call for Scott’s most anxious efforts to disentangle them. Indeed, it is clear that there had existed some very serious perplexity in the course of the preceding autumn; for Scott writes to John Ballantyne, while Rokeby was in progress (August 11, 1812)—“I have a letter from James, very anxious about your health and state of spirits. If you suffer the present inconveniences to depress you too much, you are wrong; and if you conceal any part of them, are very unjust to us all. I am always ready to make any sacrifices to do justice to engagements, and would rather sell any thing, or every thing, than be less than true men to the world.”

I have already, perhaps, said enough to account for the general want of success in this publishing adventure; but Mr. James Ballantyne sums up the case so briefly in his death-bed paper, that I may here quote his words. “My brother,” he says, “though an active and pushing, was not a cautious bookseller, and the large sums received never formed an addition to stock. In fact, they were all expended by the partners, who, being then young and sanguine men, not unwillingly adopted my brother’s hasty results. By May, 1813, in a word, the absolute throwing away of our own most valuable publications, and the rash adoption of some injudicious speculations of Mr. Scott, had introduced such losses and embarrassments, that after a very careful consideration, Mr. Scott determined to dissolve the concern.” He adds,—“This became a matter of less difficulty, because time had in a great measure worn away the differences between Mr. Scott and Mr. Constable, and Mr. Hunter was now out of Constable’s concern.* A peace, therefore, was speedily made up, and the old habits of intercourse were restored.”

* Mr. Hunter died in March, 1812.

How reluctantly Scott had made up his mind to open such a negotiation with Constable, as involved a complete exposure of the mismanagement of John Ballantyne’s business as a publisher, will appear from a letter dated about the Christmas of 1812, in which he says to James, who had proposed asking Constable to take a share both in Rokeby and in the Annual Register, “You must be aware, that in stating the objections which occur to me to taking in Constable, I think they ought to give way either to absolute necessity or to very strong grounds of advantage. But I am persuaded nothing ultimately good can be expected from any connexion with that house, unless for those who have a mind to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. We will talk the matter coolly over, and in the mean while, perhaps you could see W. Erskine, and learn what impression this odd union is like to make among your friends. Erskine is sound-headed, and quite to be trusted with your whole story. I must own I can hardly think the purchase of the Register is equal to the loss of credit and character which your surrender will be conceived to infer.” At the time when he wrote this, Scott no doubt anticipated that Rokeby would have success not less decisive than the Lady of the Lake; but in this expectation—though 10,000 copies in three months would have seemed to any other author a triumphant sale—he had been disappointed. And mean while the difficulties of the firm, accumulating from week to week, had reached, by the middle of May, a point which rendered it absolutely necessary for him to conquer all his scruples.

Mr. Cadell, then Constable’s partner, says in his Memoranda,—“Prior to this time the reputation of John Ballantyne and Co. had been decidedly on the decline. It was notorious in the trade that their general speculations had been unsuccessful; they were known to be grievously in want of money. These rumours were realized to the full by an application which Messrs B. made to Mr. Constable in May, 1813, for pecuniary aid, accompanied by an offer of some of the books they had published since 1809, as a purchase, along with various shares in Mr. Scott’s own poems. Their difficulties were admitted, and the negotiation was pressed urgently; so much so, that a pledge was given, that if the terms asked were acceded to, John Ballantyne and Co. would endeavour to wind up their concerns, and cease, as soon as possible, to be publishers.” Mr. Cadell adds:—“I need hardly remind you that this was a period of very great general difficulty in the money market. It was the crisis of the war. The public expenditure had reached an enormous height; and even the most prosperous mercantile houses were often pinched to sustain their credit. It may easily, therefore, be supposed that the Messrs Ballantyne had during many months besieged every banker’s door in Edinburgh, and that their agents had done the like in London.”

The most important of the requests which the labouring house made to Constable was, that he should forthwith take entirely to himself the stock, copyright, and future management of the Edinburgh Annual Register. Upon examining the state of this book, however, Constable found that the loss on it had never been less than £1000 per annum, and he therefore declined that matter for the present. He promised, however, to consider seriously the means he might have of ultimately relieving them from the pressure of the Register, and, in the mean time, offered to take 300 sets of the stock on hand. The other purchases he finally made on the 18th of May, were considerable portions of Weber’s unhappy Beaumont and Fletcher—of an edition of Defoe’s novels, in twelve volumes—of a collection entitled Tales of the East, in three large volumes, 8vo, double columned—and of another in one volume, called Popular Tales about 800 copies—of the Vision of Don Roderick—and a fourth of the remaining copyright of Rokeby, price £700. The immediate accommodation thus received amounted to £2000; and Scott, who had personally conducted the latter part of the negotiation, writes thus to his junior partner, who had gone a week or two earlier to London in quest of some similar assistance there:

To Mr. John Ballantyne, care of Messrs Longman &c. Co., London.

“Printing-office, May 18th, 1813.

“Dear John,

“After many offs and ons, and as many projets and contre-projets as the treaty of Amiens, I have at length concluded a treaty with Constable, in which I am sensible he has gained a great advantage;* but what could I do amidst the disorder and pressure of so many demands? The arrival of your long-dated bills decided my giving in, for what could James or I do with them? I trust this sacrifice has cleared our way, but many rubs remain; nor am I, after these hard skirmishes, so able to meet them by my proper credit. Constable, however, will be a zealous ally; and for the first time these many weeks I shall lay my head on a quiet pillow, for now I do think that, by our joint exertions, we shall get well through the storm, save Beaumont from depreciation, get a partner in our heavy concerns, reef our topsails, and move on securely under an easy sail. And if, on the one hand, I have sold my gold too cheap, I have, on the other, turned my lead to gold. Brewster† and Singers‡ are the only heavy things to which I have not given a blue eye. Had your news of Cadell’s sale§ reached us here, I could not have harpooned my grampus so deeply as I have done, as nothing but Rokeby would have barbed the hook.

* “These and after purchases of books from the stock of J. Ballantyne and Co. were resold to the trade by Constable’s firm, at less than one half and one third of the prices at which they were thus obtained.”—Note from Mr. R. Cadell.

† Dr. Brewster’s edition of Ferguson’s Astronomy, 2 vols. 8vo, with plates, 4to, Edin. 1811. 36s.

‡Dr. Singers’ General View of the County of Dumfries, 8vo. Edin. 1812. 18s.

§ A trade sale of Messrs Cadell and Davies in the Strand.

“Adieu, my dear John. I have the most sincere regard for you, and you may depend on my considering your interest with quite as much attention as my own. If I have ever expressed myself with irritation in speaking of this business, you must impute it to the sudden, extensive, and unexpected embarrassments in which I found myself involved all at once. If to your real...