Walter Scott - The Man Behind the Books. Walter Scott
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arts, of soul and spirit, which, like the vital principle in man, defies the research of the most critical anatomist. You feel where it is not, yet you cannot describe what it is you want. Sir Joshua, or some other great painter, was looking at a picture on which much pains had been bestowed — ”Why, yes,” he said, in a hesitating manner, “it is very clever — very well done — can’t find fault; but it wants something; it wants — it wants, damn me — it wants THAT” — throwing his hand over his head and snapping his fingers. Tom Moore’s is the most exquisite warbling I ever heard. Next to him, David Macculloch for Scots songs. The last, when a boy at Dumfries, was much admired by Burns, who used to get him to try over the words which he composed to new melodies. He is brother of Macculloch of Ardwell.
November 22. — MOORE. I saw Moore (for the first time, I may say) this season. We had indeed met in public twenty years ago. There is a manly frankness, and perfect ease and good breeding about him which is delightful. Not the least touch of the poet or the pedant. A little — very little man. Less, I think, than Lewis, and somewhat like him in person; God knows, not in conversation, for Matt, though a clever fellow, was a bore of the first description. Moreover, he looked always like a schoolboy. I remember a picture of him being handed about at Dalkeith House. It was a miniature I think by Sanders, who had contrived to muffle Lewis’s person in a cloak, and placed some poignard or dark lanthorn appurtenance (I think) in his hand, so as to give the picture the cast of a bravo. “That like Mat Lewis?” said Duke Henry, to whom it had passed in turn; “why, that is like a MAN!” Imagine the effect! Lewis was at his elbow. Now Moore has none of this insignificance; to be sure his person is much stouter than that of M.G.L., his countenance is decidedly plain, but the expression is so very animated, especially in speaking or singing, that it is far more interesting than the finest features could have rendered it.
I was aware that Byron had often spoken, both in private society and in his Journal, of Moore and myself in the same breath, and with the same sort of regard; so I was curious to see what there could be in common betwixt us, Moore having lived so much in the gay world, I in the country, and with people of business, and sometimes with politicians; Moore a scholar, I none; he a musician and artist, I without knowledge of a note; he a democrat, I an aristocrat — with many other points of difference; besides his being an Irishman, I a Scotchman, and both tolerably national. Yet there is a point of resemblance, and a strong one. We are both good-humoured fellows, who rather seek to enjoy what is going forward than to maintain our dignity as lions; and we have both seen the world too widely and too well not to contemn in our souls the imaginary consequence of literary people, who walk with their noses in the air, and remind me always of the fellow whom Johnson met in an alehouse, and who called himself “the great Twalmley — inventor of the floodgate iron for smoothing linen.” He also enjoys the mot pour rire, and so do I.
Moore has, I think, been illtreated about Byron’s Memoirs; he surrendered them to the family (Lord Byron’s executors) and thus lost £2000 which he had raised upon them at a most distressing moment of his life. It is true they offered and pressed the money on him afterwards, but they ought to have settled it with the booksellers and not put poor Tom’s spirit in arms against his interest. I think at least it might have been so managed. At any rate there must be an authentic life of Byron by somebody. Why should they not give the benefit of their materials to Tom Moore, whom Byron had made the depositary of his own Memoirs? — but T.M. thinks that Cam Hobhouse has the purpose of writing Byron’s life himself. He and Moore were at sharp words during the negotiation, and there was some explanation necessary before the affair ended. It was a pity that nothing save the total destruction of Byron’s Memoirs would satisfy his executors. But there was a reason — Premat nox alta.
It would be a delightful addition to life, if T.M. had a cottage within two miles of one. We went to the theatre together, and the house, being luckily a good one, received T.M. with rapture. I could have hugged them, for it paid back the debt of the kind reception I met with in Ireland.
Here is a matter for a May morning, but much fitter for a November one. The general distress in the city has affected H. and R., Constable’s great agents. Should they go, it is not likely that Constable can stand, and such an event would lead to great distress and perplexity on the part of J.B. and myself. Thank God, I have enough at least to pay forty shillings in the pound, taking matters at the very worst. But much distress and inconvenience must be the consequence. I had a lesson in 1814 which should have done good upon me, but success and abundance erased it from my mind. But this is no time for journalising or moralising either. Necessity is like a sour-faced cookmaid, and I a turnspit whom she has flogged ere now, till he mounted his wheel. If W-st-k can be out by 25th January it will do much, and it is possible.
––‘s son has saved his comrade on shipboard by throwing himself overboard and keeping the other afloat — a very gallant thing. But the Gran giag’ Asso asks me to write a poem on the civic crown, of which he sends me a description quoted from Adam’s Antiquities, which mellifluous performance is to persuade the Admiralty to give the young conservator promotion. Oh! he is a rare headpiece, an admirable Merron. I do not believe there is in nature such a full-acorned Boar.
Could not write to purpose for thick-coming fancies; the wheel would not turn easily, and cannot be forced.
“My spinning-wheel is auld and stiff,
The rock o’t winna stand, sir;
To keep the temper-pin in tiff
Employs aft my hand, sir.”
Went to dine at the L[ord] J[ustice]-C[lerk’s] as I thought by invitation, but it was for Tuesday se’nnight. Returned very well pleased, not being exactly in the humour for company, and had a beefsteak. My appetite is surely, excepting in quantity, that of a farmer; for, eating moderately of anything, my Epicurean pleasure is in the most simple diet. Wine I seldom taste when alone, and use instead a little spirits and water. I have of late diminished the quantity, for fear of a weakness inductive to a diabetes — a disease which broke up my father’s health, though one of the most temperate men who ever lived. I smoke a couple of cigars instead, which operates equally as a sedative —
“Just to drive the cold winter away,
And drown the fatigues of the day.”
I smoked a good deal about twenty years ago when at Ashestiel; but, coming down one morning to the parlour, I found, as the room was small and confined, that the smell was unpleasant, and laid aside the use of the Nicotian weed for many years; but was again led to use it by the example of my son, a hussar officer, and my son-in-law, an Oxford student. I could lay it aside tomorrow; I laugh at the dominion of custom in this and many things.
“We make the giants first, and then — do not kill them.”
November 23. — On comparing notes with Moore, I was confirmed in one or two points which I had always laid down in considering poor Byron. One was, that like Rousseau he was apt to be very suspicious, and a plain downright steadiness of manner was the true mode to maintain his good opinion. Will Rose told me that once, while sitting with Byron, he fixed insensibly his eyes on his feet, one of which, it must be remembered, was deformed. Looking up suddenly, he saw Byron regarding him with a look of concentrated and deep displeasure, which wore off when he observed no consciousness or embarrassment in the countenance of Rose. Murray afterwards explained this, by telling Rose that Lord Byron was very jealous of having this personal imperfection noticed or attended to. In another point, Moore confirmed my previous opinion, namely, that Byron loved mischief-making. Moore had written to him cautioning him against the project of establishing the paper called the Liberal, in communion with such men as P.B. Shelley and Hunt, on whom he said the world had set its mark. Byron showed this to the parties. Shelley wrote a modest and rather affecting expostulation to Moore. These two peculiarities of extreme suspicion and love of mischief are both shades of the malady which certainly tinctured some part of the character of this mighty genius; and, without some tendency towards which, genius — I mean that kind which depends on the imaginative power — perhaps cannot exist to great extent. The wheels of a machine, to play rapidly, must not fit with the utmost exactness, else the attrition diminishes the impetus.
Another of Byron’s peculiarities