soon came to be known, printed his Ambrosio or The Monk, and at once attained considerable fame. Scott mentions especially, however, the ballads "with which Mr. Lewis had interspersed his prose narrative."[1] Reading these had now revived a boyish interest in making verses, as he tells us in the following words:
"In short, . . . I had not for ten years indulged the wish to couple so much as love and dove when, finding Lewis in possession of so much reputation and conceiving that, if I fell behind him in poetical powers, I considerably exceeded him in general information, I suddenly took it into my head to attempt the style of poetry by which he had raised himself to fame."[2]
This passage is immediately followed by the account of the Lenore translation, the occasion for putting into action his new idea.
As to the incident which the Countess Purgstall related with such vividness to Captain Hall, it occurred; says Lockhart, with absolute definiteness, "in the beginning of April, 1796." This date, although at variance with what Scott himself says,[3] fits in with every other detail we know. Lockhart also confirms the Countess Purgstall by adding, "A few days afterwards, Scott went to pay a visit at a country house where he expected to meet 'the lady of his love'."[4] If the account by the Countess of printing Scott's William and Helen without his knowledge is to be trusted, and there seems no reason to doubt it, the first copies of the poem were struck off in the spring of 1796, perhaps before Mr. Spencer's edition had been issued. So far as I know no copy of this print is now in existence. It was clearly printed very privately, and probably only a few copies were made.[5]
- ↑ Essay on Imitations, etc., p. 33.
- ↑ Essay on Imitations, etc., p. 36. The Dict. of Nat. Biog. puts the first meeting of Lewis and Scott in 1798, and although Scott seems to imply an earlier date in the Essay on Imitations, the year 1798 is probably right.
- ↑ Prefatory note to edition of his works, see footnote to p. 49.
- ↑ Lockhart's Life, ch. VII. (I, 205).
- ↑ As is well known, this issue did not sufficiently further Scott's suit. The lady, Miss Stuart, married in January, 1797, William Forbes, son and heir of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, and before the end of December Scott had himself found a bride. See further in Sir Walter Scott's First Love.
Certain allusions in Scott's works have been connected with the incident of his early verses and his first love. The matter has been fully developed in the book mentioned in the preceding paragraph. Here we may note that Wilfred Wycliffe in Rokeby (1813) bears some resemblance to Scott, and stanza XXIV of canto I may be a reminiscence of the William and Helen being sent to him at Inverary when he was visiting Miss Stuart. Again in Rob Roy (1818) ch. XVI, Die Vernon, finding by chance some verses of Frank Osbaldistone, puts him to delightful confusion by "the sweetest sounds which mortal can drink in—those of a youthful poet's verses, namely, read by the lips which are dearest to him." The writer of the book above would also find suggestions of the lady in The Lay of the Last Minstrel, The Lady of the Lake, and especially in the Lady of the Green Mantle in Red Gauntlet (1824). In the latter, Alan Fairford is supposed to be Scott himself.
There would seem to be added significance to the passage in Rob Roy because, at the beginning of the next chapter but one, Scott himself uses a stanza from his Bürger translation as a motto. On this and its accuracy, see a note by Walter Graham, in Modern Language Notes, XXX, 14.
