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The proposed visit, however, had to be deferred in consequence of Dr. Hughes's ill health, as the following letter shows. In this letter he denies in the most emphatic way that he wrote the novels. He suggests an alternative line of travel to the east coast route which he had advised in the previous letter.

DEAR MRS. HUGHES I received with much concern your melancholy account of Dr. Hughes's health which threatens to deprive Scotland of our promised pleasure in a visit from you.

...

I really assure you that I am not the author of the novels which the world ascribe to me so pertinaciously. If I were, what good reason should I have for concealing, being such a hackneyd scribbler as I am?

Permit me to hope that your visit may proceed. If it does not, Lady Scott and I will regret both the disappointment and the cause. You are now in a delightful country, Warwick and Kenilworth within reach and the North

road free before you. But what is all this when indisposition makes us alike weary of motion and of rest. I am always Dear Mrs. Hughes with best regards to Dr. Hughes most truly yours

Edinburgh 16 May

1823

Walter Scott

We are stationary here till 12 July.

Note by Mrs. Hughes.- Addressed to me at Leamington, where we were staying for the benefit of your Grandfather's health which was in a state too precarious to allow of our putting our design of visiting Scotland in execution that year.

By the next letter in the series by Sir Walter, with its dissertation on the literary lion (omitted here as already published), it would seem that all hope had been given up that the Hugheses would be able to make the Scotch tour that year.

The following letter indicates that a rapid and unexpected improvement had taken place in the health of Dr. Hughes and that the journey to Scotland was again mooted.

Abbotsford April 1st 1824

MY DEAR MRS. HUGHES I write in haste to say I have received your very acceptable letter. I rejoice in Dr. Hughes' recovered health and in the renew'd prospect of your northern journey. I would almost have advised the delay for a month or six weeks for our Scotch springs are very chilly matters though our summers are like our neighbours' and our

autumns excellent. But we must be thankful to take you when duty and health permit. Our motions are regulated by my official attendance at the court which carry me to Edinburgh from 12 May to 12 July. I shall be here till 12 May therefore, and beg you to come as soon as you can. I would have been delighted to see the young tourist and hope for that pleasure another day. Lady Scott joins in compliments to the Doctor and I always am Dear Mrs. Hughes Most truly yours

Walter Scott

All the world knows Abbotsford is four miles from the capital city of Selkirk, lying on the north west road to Carlisle. We hope you will make your visit a week at the very least.

In the next (omitted here) he briefly sketches for them some details of the northern part of their route. Then follow two short notes (omitted), the one to Mr. Blackwood, the publisher, introducing Dr. and Mrs. Hughes, and the other to Mrs. Hughes, appointing a meeting in Parliament Square.

The visit went off with utmost satisfaction on the one side as on the other, as is shown both by the entries in Mrs. Hughes's diaries written by her while at Abbotsford, and also by the length and tenor of the letters that Sir Walter writes from the date of this visit until near the end of his life.

In spite of Sir Walter Scott's double denial to her, in previous letters, of his authorship of "the far famed novels," it is certain that Mrs. Hughes kept her suspicions, which may have amounted to virtual certainty, as keenly as ever; nor does she fail, in her Abbotsford journal of 1824, to

notice several occasions on which some suggestion about the novels was received with an "arch smile," and so on. The fact is, as Lockhart says, that the mask grew to be worn more carelessly as time went on, so that at the last, before his distinct

avowal of the authorship, he seldom took much trouble to repel any side hint concerning it. A brief extract or two from Mrs. Hughes's journal will show the manner in which he received from his friends at that time a hint that they suspected his authorship.

May 4th. Abbotsford. Tom Purdie made the speech given to Andrew Fairservice during a continuance of rainy weather in harvest time: "If there is one fine day in seven, Sunday is sure to come and lick it up." This Sir Walter

told us after tea yesterday, and Dr. Hughes was so struck that he exclaimed involuntarily "Oh, that is in Rob Roy!" It was curious to see the arch smile which lurked at the corner of Sir W.'s eye, and the beam from under his over-hanging brow, as he carelessly answered “Oh, I daresay it has been often said in a wet season."

In like manner, when he was showing, as he delighted in showing, the country about Abbotsford, he lightly turned off any comment on the similarity of this or that scene with some described in the novels-as Mrs. Hughes "saw a glen and cleft in the green hills exactly answering the description of the road to Glendinning."

I think it is not without a smile that one can read in the following letter that the "abuse of wine is now unknown in good society" in Scotland:

MY DEAR MRS. HUGHES I have to offer you my best thanks for two letters, the last particularly welcome as it assured us of your safe arrival at your resting place without our good and kind Dr. Hughes having suffered any inconvenience from the journey. I was rather anxious on the occasion, for my wife accuses me of the three sins which beset a Scotch Landlord, overwalking, over talking and over feeding the guests whom I delight to honour. As for over talking that must be as it mayover walking is now a little beyond my strength and over feasting I always regulate by the inclinations of my guests, and Dr. Hughes is so moderate in that respect that there is no fear of any one hurting him. Not that I ever was much of a bon vivant myself, but in our cold country, although abuse of wine is now unknown in good society, yet the use of the good creature is more than with you in the South, for which climate & manners are an apology.

I am very happy you have made your pilgrimage well out & seen those you must have been interested in seeing. I am particularly obliged for the hint you have given me about Southey. I thought he had taken me en guignon, though I could not guess why. I know he has owed me a letter since 1818, and when he made a tour through Scotland with Telford the Engineer never looked near me although not far from my door. But it is of little consequence who is in fault when no unkindness is meant and so I will write to him very soon and I thank you kindly for having been the good natured friend who when, as I think Richardson says, the parallel lines are in danger of running along side of each other for ever gives one of them a chop out of its course and makes them meet again. I am sorry Mrs. O. P. has past into the next letter of the Alphabet and

turned Q. I hate all conversions of mere form; they are usually a change of garments, not the heart.

Wordsworth is a man and a gentleman every inch of him unless when he is mounted on his critical hobby horse and tells one Pope is no poet; he might as well say Wellington is no soldier because he wears a blue greatcoat and not a coat of burnished mail.

I owe you among many things the honour of a most obliging letter from the Duke of Buckingham about the M.S. supposed of Swinton. I hope the Duchess will make out her tour; the best way of inducing her Grace to honour us by looking our way is to assure her that our hospitality, such as it is, is never ostentatious and therefore no inconvenience to ourselves.

Charles will I am sure be grateful for Mr. Hughes's patronage and I trust he will profit by the acquaintances he may procure him at Oxford. I know nothing so essential to give the proper tone to a young mind as intercourse with the learned & the worthy. Charles does not leave me till October. In the mean time I hope to have a visit from my "gay Goss-hawk" Walter the only one of my family whom you do not know and who is a fine fellow in his own way and devoted to his profession.

Thank you for the verses on old Q;1 they are both witty and severe yet give him little more than his due for he was a most ingeniously selfish animal. I have given the music to Sophia in the first place, who will impart it to her more idle sister. Besides, both Mama3 and Anne have been at Abbotsford for three weeks during which time I have not seen them. I was never half the time separated from my wife since our marriage saving when I have been "forth of Scotland" as our law phrase goes. I quite agree with you that Byron's merits and the regrets due to his inimitable genius should supersede every thing else that envy may wish to dwell upon. Our lake-friends were narrow-minded about his talents and even about his conduct, much of which might be indefensible but only attracted loud and virulent stricture because of the brilliancy of his powers.

To swear no broader upon paper to a lady, the deuce take your Mr. Whitgreave. He may call himself Mr. Higgins.now, if he will, without being challenged by him of HigginsNeuch, who is gone to the shades below, where the race of Higgins as well as of Percies & Howards must descend. His successor is called Mr. Burn Calender which I hope will satisfy your ear. I would be quite delighted to become proprietor at any reasonable rate of the old chimney piece. It would however be necessary that someone on the spot be employed on my behalf-an expert joiner who compleatly understands his business-to take it down & pack

it with saw dust & shavings (or what do you call them in English, I mean planings of wood) in a proper case, and it might be sent by sea from Liverpool to Glasgow where there is daily communication, & Lockhart would cause someone there to send it through the canal to Edinburgh, for so old a material must be tender & very easily broken. A few guineas will be no object to me to secure this point, so the packing is carefully attended to.

By the way, Mrs. Patterson who experienced your bounty is now, she writes me, in a tolerable way of providing for her family and, to her credit, with a very grateful feeling for kindness shewn, assures me she is extricated from her difficulties and in no need of farther assistance than good wishes. Her eldest son is taken off her hands and promises to succeed well. So true it is that moderate assistance will often help those effectually who are really willing to help themselves. I begin to be ashamed of my letter, for as your friend Mungo says "Adod it is a tumper." I will stifle this modesty however in respect I very seldom trespass upon the patience of my correspondents unless they are in a hurry for answers & moreover because I had so many kindnesses to acknowledge. I go to Abbotsford on Saturday for three or four days which will be a great refreshment. Remember me most kindly to the Doctor & believe me always

most respectfully yours

Edinburgh 16 June 1824

Walter Scott

On looking at your letter this morning I find the chimney piece must be asked from Lord Craven and about this I feel much delicacy. I am not fond of obligations & do not know his Lordship in the slightest degree. Besides there is a sort of affront in asking a man for a curiosity of this kind, as your request must be founded upon the supposition that he has not himself taste enough to value it. If he would take better care of it himself it would answer my purpose. If I had any friend to sound Lord Craven it would be a different matter.

Notes by Mrs. Hughes.-1 A satirical poem many years before on the supposed death of the old Duke of Queensberry.

2 Mrs. Lockhart, his eldest daughter.

3 Sir Walter was in the habit of calling Lady Scott "Mama."

4 This alludes to an account which I had sent him of a visit I had made on our road home to see Moxley Hall near Wolverhampton, one of the houses of refuge for Charles 2d after his escape from the battle of Worcester. Mr. Whitgreave, the lineal descendant of the loyal owners, who at the peril of his life sheltered his Sovereign, had so neglected the old mansion that it was fallen inte utter decay, & had built a large modern house at

a mile distant. The allusion to the name of Higgins relates to Sir Walter having been much amused at my indignation on finding that the proprietor of the ancient castle of Creighton bore that most plebeian designation.

5 A very curious old chimney piece at Stokesly Castle near Ludlow, belonging to Lord Craven. The mansion is in utter decay, & I had heard the chimney piece had been once offered to Sir F. Cunliffe; I was in hopes it could have been procured for Sir Walter, but Lord Craven having refused it to Lady Denbigh was with regret obliged also to deny the request.

On their way south from Abbotsford in 1824 Dr. and Mrs. Hughes looked in at Keswick upon Southey. Naturally their talk would turn and return to the great Scotsman, and no doubt Southey told Mrs. Hughes, who was an old friend, that the bonds of friendship that had once been woven close between himself and Sir Walter had grown very slack. Southey appears to have deemed himself a little slighted by Sir Walter, who had omitted to answer a letter, and Sir Walter, in turn, as the above letter shows, was a little hurt that his old friend had made no effort to see him when he was on tour in Scotland. It was just one of those foolish drifts asunder, caused by none or purely fanciful reasons, that require a sympathetic hand to close it up, and such a hand Mrs. Hughes applied. The success of the application is fully proved by the letter to Southey published in Lockhart.

To this gracious letter (which perhaps Sir Walter of intention rendered the more appealing by the reference in its postscript to the distressful state of illness through which he had passed in the long interval of silence in their correspondence) Southey -"in his way as agreeable as possible, although it is a different way from Sir Walter's," says Mrs. Hughes's journal-responded no less cordially; and so "the parallel lines" were brought to meet again.

"Mrs. O. P." who" has past into the next letter of the Alphabet" is Mrs. Opie, who had become a Quaker. Mrs. Hughes says of her in her journal written at Keswick: "He [Southey] had just received a letter from Mrs. Opie formally announcing her reception into the Society of Friends. I may well say formally, for she had adopted the language of her new friends, and thee'd and thou'd her old friend most unmercifully."

Abbotsford 10 Sep. 1824

MY DEAR MRS. HUGHES Many thanks to you for all your kindness. I am not in the least disappointed about the chimney piece or surprised that Lord Craven should (even without any apology) have declined a request which a stranger had no title to make. Though a professed Pedlar in antiquarian [matters] I really feel none of the paltry spirit of appropriation which induces many of that class to disjoin curiosities from the place to which they are fitted by association for the poor gratification of calling them their own. The chimney piece at Stokesly is of ten times the value which it can be any where else and it was only the idea that it was neglected and going to decay (which I am happy to understand is erroneous) that could have induced me to accept your tempting offer to mediate for it in my favour.

I had written thus far three weeks since when I was involved in one of those currents of petty interruptions and avocations in which it has been my frequent lot to make shipwreck of much valuable time and which particularly has occasioned frequent gaps in my correspondence. All your valued drawings1 (that is your son's) came quite safe, and will serve to do yeoman service in illustrating my favourite Clarendon. The view of Abbotsford is, I think, quite accurate except that perhaps the belfry tower has rather more than its due share of height & importance, but this is a trifle.

By the way I have discovered that the affecting ballad about the Stuons is not quite original. The great author has not disdained to borrow the verse about "my dog & I" from a song in D'Urfeys collection elegantly called "Pills to purge melancholy." It shows that as a Justice of Peace may be obliged to his kinsman for a man, as Slender vaunteth, so a great bard may sometimes be indebted for a thought or a stanza.

This letter has been written by instalments like a man in distressed circumstances endeavouring to pay his debts honestly, while your goodness has so far overwhelmed me with further obligations that I am in no small danger of compleat bankruptcy. So if you see my name in the Gazette as a defaulter in correspondence you must not be surprised. The chief cause of this ungracious insolvency has been Woman-Woman that seduces all mankind. The male animals I can leave to stray about Abbotsford by themselves, but my tenderness of heart often leads me to wait on my lady visitors in their rambles and this is a sad consumption of time. I am quite surprised at the dexterity with which Mr. Hughes has made out such a complicated mansion as Abbotsford, commonly called Conundrum Castle, without any disproportions which can indicate his not having seen the place, but I think his Mama

made a sketch much more full than she allowed us to see. The western tower where the bell hangs is perhaps a little exalted in height above the rest of the house, although I am by no means sure that this criticism is just. By the way I see I made it in the first page.

I should feel in despair at the idea‐of robbing you of your Pallas 3 but that Dr. Hughes can so well spare Wisdom or its prototype, and that I on the other hand would be much obliged to any one to improve the slender stock which nature has given me and should therefore make Minerva the goddess of my private chapel.

I sincerely hope this will find the Dr. continuing in the enjoyment of tolerable good health and your son flourishing and prospering. Charles is approaching the awful time which sends him to the banks of the Isis, and must exchange moor-fowl shooting and ponybreaking for reading and studies. I hope some indulgence in the one here has not interfered with his propensities towards the other. The drawing of Moxley Hall put me in mind of Prior's lines

"Oh Moxley, Oh Moxley, if this be a hall

The same with the building will presently fall."

I almost wish mine would fall too, for it keeps me a little too full of company, though all of them are people that I like to see. But this is the go-about time for our English friends, and to make amends our winters and springs are solitary enough. I expect Mr. Canning here in about a fortnight. My kindest remembrances and those of all the family attend Dr. Hughes, and I am with regard Dear Madam

yours truly

Walter Scott

Notes by Mrs. Hughes.-1 Drawings of Boscobel, Moxley Hall & White Ladies which your father had made for Sir Walter, as well as one of Abbotsford from a rough sketch I had brought from Scotland. 2 The old ballad of "George Ridler's oven " which begins with a chorus in which "The Stones" (called in the Gloucestershire dialect Stuons) is repeated through the whole Air before the ballad begins. Sir Walter had been particularly amused with this quaint ditty.

3 A head of Pallas enamelled on Copper which is now in the little Armoury at Abbotsford & is a curious Antique.

Canning, however, did not make out his visit, not a little, as it would seem, to Sir Walter's regret, although he had lately been making complaints not a few of the waste of his time caused by the many visitors that already flocked to Abbotsford, notwithstanding that the authorship of the wonderful novels still was unacknowledged.

(To be continued)

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