CHAPTER IX. Reception of "The Lay."-Jeffrey, Thomas Campbell, Miss Seward, Wordsworth, Southey.-Fox and Pitt.- Partnership with Ballantyne. - Home Habits."Waverley" begun. - Helvellyn.-Rumor of Invasion. - Clerk of Session.-A Lion in London.-J. H. Frere, Canning, and Joanna Baillie. "The Melville Ballad."-" Marmion."-The Introductions.- Tributes to Pitt and Fox.-"Rejected Addresses."-The Trial Scene. Jeffrey's Critique. Philip Freneau.-Edition of Dryden. - Morritt of Rokeby.-At Home. "TH 1805-1808. HE Lay of the Last Minstrel" excited more attention, and won more admiration, than perhaps any narrative poem produced in England up to that time. It had been submitted in manuscript to Mr. Jeffrey, who graciously put his imprimatur upon it, and very warmly praised it in "The Edinburgh Review," No. VI. The introductory and concluding lines of each canto, the setting, as it were, were commended as being "in the very first rank of poetical excellence." The poem, as a whole, was greatly commended; but the Goblin Page was set down as its "capital deformity." Thomas Campbell, who had known Scott some years before in Edinburgh, and was indebted to him for kindness when he published "The Pleasures of Hope" at the age of twenty, had seen some of the more striking passages of The Lay" in manuscript, and predicted its unbounded success. Miss Seward, a great authority at that time, praised it warmly; and Scott finally confessed to her that the dwarf page was an excres 66 cence. Ellis and Frere, very competent southern critics, united in complaining that Jeffrey had not praised it sufficiently. Wordsworth condescended to commend it generally, with the reservation that it was written against his views of poetry; and Southey, though warmer, seemed scarcely better satisfied, so different was the rapid rush of the narrative from the heavy blank-verse march of "Joan of Arc" and the measured rhythm of "Thalaba." The leading reviews rivalled Jeffrey in giving it high praise. Charles James Fox, a scholar who sometimes snatched a few hours for literature from his politics and pleasures, declared his satisfaction with the poem, though he protested against the eulogy upon Claverhouse. Last of all, William Pitt found or made time to read it, and at dinner with Dundas, Scott's early friend, repeated the lines quoted in the preceding chapter, describing the minstrel's embarrassment when asked to play; saying, "This is a sort of thing which I might have expected in painting, but could never have fancied capable of being given in poetry." He made inquiries as to the author's position in life, and said to Dundas, who then regulated promotions and appointments in Scotland, "He can't remain as he is: look to it." The result was very favorable, shortly after, for the poet. The first edition of "The Lay" was, to the number of seven hundred and fifty copies in quarto, immediately exhausted, and succeeded by sixteen thousand five hundred copies up to 1812, exclusive of another quarto edition of three thousand within these seven years. Before 1830, nearly forty-four thousand copies had circulated. This is nothing like the sale of some American publications: but the Americans are a nation of readers so numerous, that publishers can afford to supply their wants at low prices; whereas the English, at the time in question, had to give ÆT. 34] BECOMES A PRINTER. 133 from two guineas to twelve shillings for a single poem. "The Lay," on half profits, gave Scott a payment of £69. 68.; but, when a second edition was immediately called for, the publishers gave him five hundred pounds for the copyright, to which they added a hundred pounds subsequently. The whole profits of the author, then, were six hundred and sixtynine pounds, the largest amount, up to that time, ever paid for one poem in the English language. There arose a demand for this money, and more. Ballantyne asked the loan of a considerable sum to enable him to carry on his printing-office; and Scott offered to make the required advance on condition that he was admitted to one-third share of the business. The amount, I believe, was five thousand pounds. A very unfortunate measure this partnership was, on one hand, involving a heavy mental and pecuniary responsibility; on the other, initiating him into the facile process of putting the future in pawn, by raising money on notes, not merely "for value received," but for works not written, works which were not yet even in the author's mind. After the publication of "The Lay," it would have been easy for Scott to have given up the practice of the law (which in his best year had yielded only two hundred pounds), and settle down in the country, with a thousand pounds a year from official income and personal resources, with the certainty, if he pleased, of making a large additional sum by very moderate exercise of his pen. His very success in literature was against him at the bar, where he was eclipsed by patient plodders, as well as by men of ability: so he resolved to leave the bar when circumstances would permit. After this first great success, "I determined," he said, "that literature should be my staff, but not my crutch; and that the profits of my literary labor, however convenient otherwise, should not, if I could help it, become necessary to my ordinary expenses." He resolved, that, without shutting his ears to true criticism, he would pay no attention to that which assumed the form of satire. The result was, he never was involved in a literary quarrel or controversy, and succeeded in gaining and retaining the personal friendship of his most approved contemporaries. He kept concealed from all his friends, except Mr. Erskine, that he had embarked in the printing concern of James Ballantyne & Co., -partly, it may be, because, as his phrenological friend, Mr. George Combe, would have said, of a strong cranial development of the organ of secretiveness; but chiefly, I suspect, because it was considered unprofessional for a lawyer also to be a trader. The concealment gave him great advantages as a trader. He made a rule, that whatever he wrote or edited should be printed at the Ballantyne press; and it came to be understood that his co-operation in any literary scheme was contingent on this rule being rigidly observed. He suggested a variety of publications to his friends of "the trade" in London, among which was a complete edition of all the British poets, ancient and modern," at least a hundred volumes, to be published at the rate of ten a year," — an idea originating with Thomas Campbell, out of which came the "Specimens of English Poetry," illustrated with biographical and critical essays, by the Bard of Hope, and an edition and biography of Dryden, in eighteen volumes, by Scott. He was willing to edit what he called a "Corpus Historiarum," or full edition of the Chronicles of England, an immense work, beginning with Holinshed, for a small compensation, provided the printing was given to Ballantyne & Co. short, he was keen after business. Fresh funds being required, he obtained the money, as if for Ballantyne individually, from Forbes's bank. In |