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CHAPTER III.

THE

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OPUS MAGNUM"

"RELIGIOUS DISCOURSES, BY A LAYMAN"-LETTERS TO GEORGE HUNTLY GORDON-CADELL— AND BALLANTYNE-HEATH'S KEEPSAKE, &c.-ARNISTON -DALHOUSIE PRISONS DISSOLUTION OF YEOMANRY CAVALRY-THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH PUBLISHED

JANUARY-APRIL, 1828.

WITH the exception of a few weeks occupied by anexcursion to London, which business of various sorts had rendered necessary, the year 1828 was spent in the same assiduous labour as 1827. The commercial transaction completed at Christmas cleared the way for two undertakings, which would of themselves have been enough to supply desk-work in abundance; and Sir Walter appears to have scarcely passed a day on which something was not done for them. I allude to Cadell's plan of a new edition of the Poetry, with biographical prefaces; and the still more extensive one of an uniform reprint of the Novels, each to be introduced by an account of the hints on which it had been founded, and illustrated throughout by historical and antiquarian annotations. On this last, commonly mentioned in the Diary as the Opus Magnum, Sir Walter bestowed pains commensurate with its importance;—and in the execution of the very delicate task which either scheme imposed, he has certainly displayed such a combination of frankness and modesty as entitles him to a high place

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in the short list of graceful autobiographers. True dignity is always simple; and perhaps true genius, of the highest class at least, is always humble. These operations took up much time; yet he laboured hard this year both as a novelist and a historian. He contributed, moreover, several articles to the Quarterly Review and the Bannatyne Club library; and to the Journal conducted by Mr Gillies, an excellent Essay on Moliere; this last being again a free gift to the Editor.

But the first advertisement of 1828 was of a new order; and the announcement that the Author of Waverley had Sermons in the press, was received perhaps with as much incredulity in the clerical world, as could have been excited among them by that of a romance from the Archbishop of Canterbury. A thin octavo volume, entitled "Religious Discourses by a Layman," and having "W. S." at the foot of a short preface, did, however, issue in the course of the spring, and from the shop, that all might be in perfect keeping, of Mr Colburn, a bookseller then known almost exclusively as the standing purveyor of what is called " light reading"-novels of" fashionable life," and the like pretty ephemera. I am afraid that the "Religious Discourses," too, would, but for the author's name, have had a brief existence; but the history of their composition, besides sufficiently explaining the humility of these tracts in a literary as well as a theological point of view, will, I hope, gratify most of my readers.

It may perhaps be remembered, that Sir Walter's Cicerone over Waterloo, in August 1815, was a certain Major Pryse Gordon, then on half-pay and resident at Brussels. The acquaintance, until they met at Sir Frederick Adam's table, had been very slight-nor was it ever carried farther; but the Major was exceedingly attentive during Scott's stay, and afterwards took some

pains about collecting little reliques of the battle for Abbotsford. One evening the poet supped at his house, and there happened to sit next him the host's eldest son, then a lad of nineteen, whose appearance and situation much interested him. He had been destined for the Church of Scotland, but as he grew up a deafness, which had come on him in boyhood, became worse and worse, and at length his friends feared that it must incapacitate him for the clerical function. He had gone to spend the vacation with his father, and Sir Frederick Adam, understanding how he was situated, offered him a temporary appointment as a clerk in the Commissariat, which he hoped to convert into a permanent one, in case the war continued. At the time of Scott's arrival that prospect was wellnigh gone, and the young man's infirmity, his embarrassment, and other things to which his own memorandum makes no allusion, excited the visiter's sympathy. Though there were lion-hunters of no small consequence in the party, he directed most of his talk into the poor clerk's ear-trumpet; and at parting, begged him not to forget that he had a friend on Tweedside.

A couple of years elapsed before he heard any thing more of Mr Gordon, who then sent him his father's little spolia of Waterloo, and accompanied them by a letter explaining his situation, and asking advice, in a style which renewed and increased Scott's favourable impression. He had been dismissed from the Commissariat at the general reduction of our establishments, and was now hesitating whether he had better take up again his views as to the Kirk, or turn his eyes towards English orders; and in the mean-time he was anxious to find some way of lightening to his parents, by his own industry, the completion of his professionaleducation. There ensued a copious correspondence between him and Scott, who gave him on all points of his case

most paternal advice, and accompanied his counsels with offers of pecuniary assistance, of which the young man rarely availed himself. At length he resolved on reentering the Divinity Class at Aberdeen, and in due time was licensed by the Presbytery there as a Preacher of the Gospel; but though with good connexions, for he was 66 sprung of Scotia's gentler blood," his deafness operated as a serious bar to his obtaining the incumbency of a parish. After several years had elapsed, he received a presentation; but the Provincial Synod pronounced his deafness an insuperable objection, and the case was referred to the General Assembly. That tribunal heard Mr Gordon's cause maintained by all the skill and eloquence of Mr Jeffrey, whose good offices had been secured by Scott's intervention, and they overruled the decision of the Presbytery. But Gordon, in the course of the discussion, gathered the conviction, that a man almost literally stone-deaf could not discharge some of the highest duties of a parishpriest in a satisfactory manner, and he with honourable firmness declined to take advantage of the judgment of the Supreme Court. Mean-time he had been employed, from the failure of John Ballantyne's health downwards, as the transcriber of the Waverley MSS. for the press, in which capacity he displayed every quality that could endear an amanuensis to an author; and when the disasters of 1826 rendered it unnecessary for Scott to have his MS. copied, he exerted himself to procure employment for Gordon in one of the Government offices in London. Being backed by the kindness. of the late Duke of Gordon, his story found favour with the then Secretary of the Treasury, Mr Lushington— and Gordon was named assistant private secretary to that gentleman. The appointment was temporary, but he so pleased his chief that there was hope of better things

by and by. Such was his situation at Christmas 1827; but that being his first Christmas in London, it was no wonder that he then discovered himself to have somewhat miscalculated about money matters. In a word, he knew not whither to look at the moment for extrication, until he be thought him of the following little incident of his life at Abbotsford.

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He was spending the autumn of 1824 there, daily copying the MS. of Redgauntlet, and working at leisure hours on the Catalogue of the Library, when the family observed him to be labouring under some extraordinary depression of mind. It was just then that he had at length obtained the prospect of a Living, and Sir Walter was surprised that this should not have exhilarated him. Gently sounding the trumpet, however, he discovered that the agitation of the question about the deafness had shaken his nerves-his scruples had been roused-his conscience was sensitive, and he avowed that, though he thought, on the whole, he ought to go through with the business, he could not command his mind so as to prepare a couple of sermons which, unless he summarily abandoned his object, must be produced on a certain day —then near at hand—before his Presbytery. Sir Walter reminded him, that his exercises when on trials for the Probationership had given satisfaction; but nothing he could say was sufficient to re-brace Mr Gordon's spirits, and he at length exclaimed, with tears, that his pen was powerless, that he had made fifty attempts, and saw nothing but failure and disgrace before him. Scott answered, "My good young friend, leave this matter to me-do you work away at the Catalogue, and I'll write

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you a couple of sermons that shall pass muster well enough at Aberdeen." Gordon assented with a sigh; and next morning Sir Walter gave him the MS. of the "Religious Discourses." On reflection, Mr Gordon con

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