The Times Great Scottish Lives: Obituaries of Scotland’s Finest. Magnus Linklater

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СКАЧАТЬ of posthumous celebrity. He does not, therefore, require any vindication of his fame, or any display of his literary merits, at our hands.

      Our object in alluding to his death and character is of a higher land than that of literary criticism. Our object is to speak of him as a tolerant, candid, and kind-hearted member of that great republic of letters, of which he would willingly have been elected President had that republic acquired a settled organisation − to recommend his personal simplicity of character and total absence of literary affectation, to the imitation of those who, though they cannot pretend to his genius, think themselves exempted − on the ground of their inferior powers − from the common restraints and customs of society, to which he always submitted − and to bestow its due need of praise on that noble and manly spirit of independence which led him to the immense labours of the last years of his life, that he might disengage himself from debts and difficulties under which a less resolute mind must have sunk, or from which a less honest one would have sought relief by leaning on those friends and patrons who would have been proud to have offered their aid. The republication of his novels, with notes and illustrations, was perhaps one of the greatest literary enterprises known in this country; and the success of the work, if it has not enabled him to leave much to his children, has at least satisfied the demands of his creditors. His indifference to the attacks of envy and malignity with which he was assailed in the earlier part of his career was as remarkable as his candid appreciation of the merits, and his zealous desire to promote the fame, of his friends. The garland which he threw on the grave of Byron, and the zeal with which be defended his personal character, when it evinced some courage to rebut the charges brought against his memory, will never be forgotten by the admirers of misguided genius.

      Though Sir Walter Scott was an unflinching Tory all his life, his politics never degenerated into faction, nor did they ever interfere with his literary candour or his private friendships. Indeed, his party principles seemed to have been rather formed from his early connexions or his poetical predilections, than adopted for ambitious objects or even selected after mature examination.

      But one distinguishing characteristic of this great author’s mind and feelings deserves, even in the shortest allusion to his memory, to be mentioned as having given a colour to all his works − we mean his love of country − his devoted attachment to the land of his birth, and the scenes of his youth − his warm sympathy in every thing that interested his nation, and the unceasing application of his industry and imagination to illustrate its history or to celebrate its exploits. From the Lay of the Last Minstrel, or the border ballads, to the last lines which he wrote, he showed a complete and entire devotion to his country. His works, both of poetry and prose, are impregnated with this feeling, and are marked by the celebration of successive portions of its wild scenery, or of separate periods of its romantic annals. Hence his friends could often trace his residence, or the course of his reading, for periods anterior to the publication of his most popular works, in the pages of his glowing narrative or graphic description. Hence the Lady of the Lake sent crowds of visitors to the mountains of Scotland, who would never have thought of such a pilgrimage unless led by the desire to compare the scenery with the poem. No poet or author since the days of Homer was ever so completely a domestic observer, or a national writer, and probably none has ever conferred more lasting celebrity on the scenes which he describes. The border wars − the lawless violence of the Highland clans − the romantic superstitions of the dark ages, with their lingering remains in Scotland, the state of manners at every period of his country’s annals, the scene of any remarkable event are all to be found in his pages, and scarcely a mountain or promontory “rears its head unsung” from Tweed to John o’Groat’s.

      The patriotism of Sir Walter Scott, though sometimes tinged with party, was always as warm as such poetical feelings could render it. Hence two or three of the most spirited of his lyrical pieces were written on the threatened invasion by Napoleon, and we need not cite his enthusiastic sympathy in the fame of his country, evinced in Waterloo and Don Roderick. His mind disdained that pretended enlargement, but real narrowness of spirit, which affects to consider all lands as alike, and would be ashamed to show any predilections for home.

      But, as our object is not either criticism or biography, we must conclude these hasty remarks by referring for an account of Sir Walter Scott’s publications to the short article which we have extracted from the Globe. He had abandoned for nearly 20 years the cultivation of poetry, in which he was first distinguished, for the composition of his historical novels: he had left thus a most respectable property on Parnassus to descend into a more fertile spot below. Thence he has given to the world twenty works which will communicate delight, and extend his fame to all ages. The enchanter’s wand is now broken, and his “magic garment plucked off;” but the spirits which this Prospero of romance has “called up,” and placed in these noble productions, will last as long as the language in which they express themselves.

      Thomas Telford

      Engineer whose roads, bridges and canals opened up the Highlands

      

      

      4 September 1834

      

      

      We announce with feelings of deep regret, the death of this eminent and excellent individual, which took place at 5 o’clock yesterday after-noon at his house in Abingdon street.

      Mr. Telford was in the 79th year of his age. The immediate cause of his death was a repetition of severe bilious attacks to which he had for some years been subject. He was a native of Langholm, in Dumfriesshire, which he left at an early age. His gradual rise from the stonemasons’ and builders’ yard to the top of his profession in his own country, or, believe we may say, in the world, is to be ascribed not more to his genius, his consummate ability, and persevering industry, than to his plain, honest, straightforward dealing, and the integrity and candour which marked his character throughout life.

      Mr. Telford had been for some time past by degree retiring from professional business, to enable him the better to “adjust his mantle.” He has of late chiefly employed his time writing a detailed account of the principal works which he planned, and lived to see executed; and it is a singular and fortunate circumstance that the corrected manuscript of his work was only completed by his clerk, under his direction, two or three days ago. His works are so numerous all over the island, that there is hardly a county in England, Wales, or Scotland, in which they may not be pointed out. The Menai and Conway bridges, the Caledonian canal, the St. Katherine Docks, the Holyhead roads and bridges, the Highland roads and bridges, the Chirke and Pont-y-ciallte Aqueducts, the canals in Salop, and great works in that county, of which he was surveyor for more than half a century, are some of the traits of his genius which occur to us and which will immortalise the name of Thomas Telford.

      We have access to know that he was inclined to set a higher value on the success which has attended his exertions for improving the great communication from London to Holyhead, the alterations of the line of the road, its smoothness, and the excellence of the bridges than on the success of any other work he executed; but it seems difficult to draw a line of distinction with anything like nicety of discrimination as to the degree of credit to which an engineer is entitled for ingenuity to plan, and the ability to execute magnificent and puzzling improve-ments on the public communications of a great country. The Menai bridge will probably be regarded by the public as the imperishable monument of Mr. Telford’s fame. This bridge over the Bangor ferry, connecting the counties of Carnarvon and Anglesea, partly of stone and partly of iron, on the suspension principle, consists of seven stone arches, exceeding in magnitude every work of the kind in the world. They connect the land with the two main piers, which rise 53 feet above the level of the road, over the top of which the chains are suspended, each chain being 1,714 feet from the fastenings in the rock. The first three-masted vessel passed under the bridge in 1826. Her topmasts were nearly as high СКАЧАТЬ