of the stomach. Similar attacks were repeated during the next two years, and the change in his appearance shocked his acquaintances. In April 1819 Scott himself took a solemn leave of his children, in expectation of immediate death. The Earl of Buchan had already designed a splendid funeral, and tried to force his way into the patient's room to comfort him by explaining the details. The attacks caused intense agony, which he bore with unflinching courage. When unable to write he dictated to Ballantyne and Laidlaw in the midst of his suffering. The greatest part of the ‘Bride of Lammermoor,’ the ‘Legend of Montrose,’ and ‘Ivanhoe,’ was written under these conditions (Ballantyne's full account is printed in Journal, i. 408). James Ballantyne testified to the remarkable fact that Scott, while remembering the story upon which the ‘Bride of Lammermoor’ was founded, had absolutely forgotten his own novel, and read it upon its appearance as entirely new to him. The attacks were repeated in 1820, but became less violent under a new treatment.
Scott's growing fame had made him the centre of a wide and varied social circle. In Edinburgh he was much occupied by his legal as well as literary duties, and kept early hours, which limited his social engagements. In the evenings he enjoyed drives in the lovely scenery and rambles in the old town. Every Sunday he entertained his old cronies, who were chiefly of the tory persuasion. The bitterness of political divisions in Scotland divided society into two sections, though Scott occasionally met Jeffrey and other whigs; and Cockburn testifies (Memorials, p. 267) that the only question among them at an early period used to be whether his poetry or his talk was the more delightful. The ‘Edinburgh Reviewers’ talked Adam Smith and Dugald Stewart, and aimed at epigrammatic smartness, while Scott simply poured out the raw material of the ‘Waverley Novels;’ and one may easily believe that his easy humour was more charming than their brilliance. He took part also in the jovial dinners, where he was the idol of his courtiers, the Ballantynes, and where the dignified Constable occasionally appeared. Scott himself was temperate, ate little after a hearty breakfast, and was as indifferent to cookery as to music. He kept up the ponderous ceremonial of the ‘toasts’ and ‘sentiments’ of the old-fashioned dinners (Cockburn, Memorials, p. 40), at which the Ballantynes would read specimens of the forthcoming novel. It was at Abbotsford that Scott was in his glory. He had from the first been eager to extend his property. In 1816, according to Lockhart, the estate had grown from one hundred and fifty to nearly one thousand acres by purchases from small holders, who took advantage of his eagerness to exact extravagant prices. In 1817 he settled his old friend William Laidlaw on one of his farms at Kaeside. In 1817 he also bought the house and land of Huntly Burn for 10,000l., upon which next spring he settled Adam Ferguson, now retired on half-pay. In 1819 he was contemplating a purchase of Faldonside for 30,000l. This was not carried out, though he was still hankering after it in 1825 (Letters, ii. 260, 347); but in 1821, according to Lockhart, he had spent 29,000l. on land (Ballantyne Humbug, p. 93). He had set about building as soon as he came into possession, and a house-warming, to celebrate the completion of his new house, took place in November 1818. Beginning with a plan for an ‘ornamental cottage,’ he gradually came to an imitation of a Scottish baronial castle.
At Abbotsford Scott was visited by innumerable admirers of all ranks. American tourists, including Washington Irving and George Ticknor, English travellers of rank, or of literary and scientific fame, such as Sir Humphry Davy, Miss Edgeworth, Wordsworth, Moore, and many others, stayed with him at different periods, and have left many accounts of their experience. His businesslike habits enabled him during his most energetic labours to spend most of his mornings out of doors, and to give his evenings to society. His guests unanimously celebrate his perfect simplicity and dignity, as well as the charms of his conversation and his skill in putting all his guests at their ease. The busiest writer of the day appeared to be entirely absorbed in entertaining his friends. He was on intimate terms with all his neighbours, from the Duke of Buccleuch to Tom Purdie, and as skilful in chatting to the labourers, in whose planting he often took an active share, as in soothing the jealousies of fine ladies. He had annually two grand celebrations, devoted to salmon-fishing and coursing, which brought the whole country-side together, and gave a ‘kirn,’ or harvest-home, to his peasantry. Scott was always surrounded by his dogs, of whom the bulldog Camp and the deerhound Maida are the most famous. On Camp's death in 1809 he gave up an engagement for the loss ‘of a dear old friend.’ Maida died in 1824, and was celebrated by an epitaph, translated into Latin by Lockhart. Even a pig took a ‘sentimental attachment’ to him.
