Poems of the Week: Walter Scott

Walter Scott (1771 – 1832) was a remarkable man. His life as an artist was in two distinct sections: the first part was as a poet; this essentially ended in 1815. The second part was as a novelist, and nowadays this is perhaps the work by which he is best remembered. His first novel was Waverley which appeared in 1814, but the novels best known today include Rob Roy (1817) and Ivanhoe (1819). However, his poetry was part of the Romantic movement, which included the Lake poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey) and Lord Byron. He was sufficiently well regarded that he was invited to become Poet Laureate; and it is this part of his work that we will be discussing this week.

Scott was born on August 15, 1771 in Old Town, Edinburgh, the fourth child of Walter Scott, writer to the Signet of Edinburgh (a legal office), and Anne, the daughter of a professor of medicine. He came of a Border family, the Scotts of Harden, an offshoot from the house of Buccleuch (pronounced ‘Buckloo’). Six of his 11 brothers and sisters died in infancy, and an early illness (polio) left him lame in the right leg. However, Scott grew up to be a man over six feet tall and with great physical endurance. In The Life of Scott, written by John Gibson Lockhart (1794 – 1854) (published in 1837; a shorter version appeared in 1848), the following passage describes his father: “Walter Scott, the eldest son of Robert of Sandy-Knowe, appears to have been the first of the family that ever adopted a town life, or anything claiming to be classed among the learned professions. His branch of the law, however, could not in those days be advantageously prosecuted without extensive connexions in the country; his own were too respectable not to be of much service to him in his calling, and they were cultivated accordingly. His professional visits to Roxburghshire and Ettrick Forest were, in the vigour of his life, very frequent; and though he was never supposed to have any tincture either of romance or poetry in his composition, he retained to the last a warm affection for his native district, with a certain reluctant flavour of the old feelings and prejudices of the Borderer.”

Because of his early health problems, his early childhood was passed for the most part at Sandyknowe, a farm owned by his paternal grandfather in the county of Roxburgh. While he was there, he went to school in Kelso. When he was eight, he returned to Edinburgh where he attended Edinburgh High School (1779-1783) and then entered Edinburgh University, where he studied arts and law (1783-86, 1789-92).

In 1786, he was apprenticed to his father, in whose office he worked as a clerk until 1795, in which year he was called to the Bar (my sources are somewhat unclear on the exact date of his being called to the Bar). He had fair success as a lawyer, and in 1797 he was married to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter, or Charpentier, daughter of Jean Charpentier of Lyon in France. They had five children. In the summer of 1798 Scott hired a cottage at Lasswade, on the Esk, about six miles from Edinburgh. In 1799 he was appointed Sheriff Depute of Selkirk (a legal position) and in 1806 he was appointed as Clerk of Session (again, this is a legal position; the point about these appointments is that they carried a salary, without requiring very much work!). I will have more to say about these appointments a little later.

In 1804 he rented a small house at Ashestiel on Tweed. The Tweed is a river in the south of Scotland, running into the North Sea on the east of the country. For the last twenty miles or so it forms the border between the county of Berwick in Scotland, and Northumberland in England. Fifteen miles or so in from the coast, there is a small town called Coldstream on the Scottish side, and on the English side Branxton Moor, with a small hill called Flodden Hill. On the 9th of September, 1513, a battle took place between King James IV of Scotland, and an English army led by the Earl of Surrey. The English King at the time was Henry VIII, and he had gone to France to participate in an alliance at war with the French. King James was married to a sister of Henry, and there was supposed to be a treat of friendship between the two countries. However, there was also a long-standing relationship between France and Scotland, called the ‘Auld Alliance’, and this had been recently renewed; James’s adventure was stimulated by this. For a variety of reasons, the English force won the battle, and King James and most of the Scottish nobility were killed.

This was (and still is!) regarded by the Scots as the effective end of their independence. Scott used the image in his 1815 poem about the battle of Waterloo, The Dance of Death, in the third stanza:

Lone on the outskirts of the host,
The weary sentinel held post,
And heard, through darkness far aloof,
The frequent clang of courser’s hoof,
Where held the cloaked patrol their course,
And spurred ’gainst storm the swerving horse;
But there are sounds in Allan’s ear,
Patrol nor sentinel may hear,
And sights before his eye aghast
Invisible to them have passed,
    When down the destined plain,
’Twixt Britain and the bands of France,
Wild as marsh-borne meteor’s glance,
Strange phantoms wheeled a revel dance,
    And doomed the future slain. -
Such forms were seen, such sounds were heard,
When Scotland’s James his march prepared
    For Flodden’s fatal plain;
Such, when he drew his ruthless sword,
As Choosers of the Slain, adored
    The yet unchristened Dane.
An indistinct and phantom band,
They wheeled their ring-dance hand in hand,
    With gestures wild and dread;
The Seer, who watched them ride the storm,
Saw through their faint and shadowy form
    The lightning’s flash more red;
And still their ghastly roundelay
Was of the coming battle-fray,
    And of the destined dead.

The southernmost parts of Scotland, which included the counties of Roxburgh, Selkirk, Peebles, and Dumfries in addition to Berwick, were called the Borders, to distinguish the region from the Southern Uplands, which includes Edinburgh. The Highlands are to the north and the west. Generally, the Celtic language Gaelic was spoken in the Highlands, but the south spoke a form of English, that contained a number of words that are not in the English spoken in England. This type of variation is called a ‘dialect’; the language used by Robert Burns (1759 – 1796) is a dialect called ‘Lallans’, which itself is derived from the word ‘lowlands’. As is usual, the educated generally spoke a language much closer to formal English, and Walter Scott, although he knew Burns (Scott had met him when he was seventeen), generally did not use Lallans in his poetry.

The name Scott is one of the names of chiefs or nobles in Scotland. The groupings were called clans, and the clan which included the name Scott was (as I said earlier) Buccleuch.

Here is a brief extract from The Great Historic Families of Scotland, which I found at www.electricscotland.com; they say the information came from “a 2 volume set discovered in an antiquarian bookshop and written by James Taylor, M.A., D.D., F.S.A. and published in 1887 as set 88 of a 250 print run”. “Scott of Satchells, who published, in 1688, ‘A True History of the Right Honourable Name of Scott,’ gives the following romantic account of the origin of that name. Two brothers, natives of Galloway, having been banished from that country, for a riot or insurrection, came to Rankleburn, in Ettrick Forest, where the keeper, whose name was Brydone, received them joyfully on account of their skill in winding the horn, and in the other mysteries of the chase. Kenneth MacAlpin, then King of Scotland, came soon after to hunt in the royal forest, and pursued a buck from Ettrickheugh to the glen now called Buccleuch, about two miles above the junction of Rankleburn with the river Ettrick. Here the stag stood at bay; and the King and his attendants, who followed on horseback, were thrown out by the steepness of the hill, and the morass. John, one of the brothers from Galloway, had followed the chase on foot, and now coming in, seized the buck by the horns, and, being a man of great strength and activity, threw him on his back, and ran with his burden about a mile up a steep hill to a place called Cracra Cross, where Kenneth had halted, and laid the buck at the sovereign’s feet.

‘The deer being curee’d in that place,
At his Majesty’s command,
Then John of Galloway ran apace,
And fetched water to his hand.
The King did wash into a dish,
And Galloway John he wot;
He said, "Thy name, now, after this,
Shall ever be called John Scott.
‘"The forest, and the deer therein,
We commit to thy hand:
For thou shalt sure the ranger be,
If thou obey command;
And for the buck thou stoutly brought
To us up that steep heuch,
Thy designation ever shall
Be John Scott, in Buckscleuch."

* * *

‘In Scotland no Buckcleuch was then
Before the Luck in the cleuch was slain;
Night’s men at first they did appear,
Because moon and stars to their arms they bear;
Their crest, supporters, and hunting-horn,
Show their beginning from hunting came;
Their names and style, the book doth say
John gained them both into one day.’

This account of the origin of the Scotts of Buccleuch, however it may have originated, though widely believed, is pure invention. The lands of Buccleuch did not become the property of the family of Scott until at least two centuries subsequent to the time of Kenneth III (he ruled from 997 – 1005 CE); and it was not until the fifteenth century that the designation of Scott of Buccleuch began to be used by the head of the family.”

“Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm succeeded his grandfather, in 1492. He held the family estates for a very short period, and was succeeded by his son of the same name, who represented the house for no less than forty-eight years, and by his combined energy and prudence became one of the most powerful barons on the Borders. His retainers fought under the banner of their sovereign at the battle of Flodden, and though very young at that time, it is not improbable that he was present as their leader.”

“Henry became third Duke of Buccleuch in 1751, and in 1810 he succeeded to the titles and large estates of the Queensberry family. He was educated at Eton, and in 1764 his Grace and his brother, Campbell Scott, set out on their travels, accompanied by the celebrated Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, who received an annuity of £300 in compensation for the salary of his chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, which he had of course to resign when he undertook the charge of the young Duke. Their tour, which lasted nearly three years, afforded an opportunity to the philosopher and his pupils to become acquainted with Quesnay, Turgot, D’Alembert, Necker, Marmontel, and others who had attained the highest eminence in literature and science. The Duke’s brother, the Hon. Campbell Scott, was assassinated in the streets of Paris on the 18th of October, 1766, and immediately after this sad event his Grace returned to London. For Adam Smith, who had nursed him during an illness at Compiègne with remarkable tenderness and assiduous attention, the Duke cherished the greatest affection and esteem. ‘We continued to live in friendship,’ he said, ‘till the hour of his death; and I shall always remain with the impression of having lost a friend, whom I loved and respected not only for his great talents, but for every private virtue.’ It was through the Duke’s influence that Smith was appointed, in 1778, one of the Commissioners of Customs in Scotland.

On the commencement of the war with France in 1778, his Grace raised a regiment of 'Fencibles,’ which was called out to suppress the anti-Catholic riots in Edinburgh. Throughout his whole life the Duke showed a marked predilection for the society of literary men, and he was the first President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk, who passed several glowing eulogiums on Duke Henry, both in prose and verse, says, at the time when he was about to visit his estates on coming of age, ‘The family had been kind to their tenants, and the hopes of the country were high that this new possessor of so large a property might inherit the good temper and benevolence of his progenitors. I may anticipate what at first was only guessed, but came soon to be known, that he surpassed them all, as much in justice and humanity as he did in superiority of understanding and good sense. In this Duke was revived the character which Sir James Melville gave his renowned predecessor in Queen Mary’s reign, ‘Sure and true, stout and modest.’

Numerous anecdotes are told of the simplicity, geniality, and generosity of the Duke’s character, some of which have been embodied in verse. He is said to have sometimes paid visits in disguise to the tenants and peasants on his estate. The Border poet, Henry Riddell, puts an allusion to this habit into the mouth of an old man in Glendale, in whose hut the Duke was said on one occasion to have passed a night :—

And yet they say he’s curious ways,
And slyly comes among them,
Like old King James; and they say more,
He’s o’er indulgent to the poor—
Ye’d think that needna wrang them.

It was mainly to the Duke of Buccleuch’s influence that Sir Walter Scott was indebted for his appointment to the office of sheriff-depute of Selkirk in 1799, and in 1806 to that of one of the principal clerks of the Court of Session.

The Duke died at Dalkeith House on 11th January, 1812, at the age of sixty-six. The news of his death caused deep sorrow among all classes, and there was scarce a dry eye among the attendants at his funeral. ‘There never lived a man in a situation of distinction,’ said Sir Walter at the time of the Duke’s death, ‘so generally beloved, so universally praised, so little detracted from or censured. . . . The Duke’s mind was moulded upon the kindliest and most single-hearted model, and arrested the affections of all who had any connection with him. He is truly a great loss to Scotland, and will be long missed and lamented.’

On 2nd May, 1767, The Duke married Lady Elizabeth Montagu, only daughter of the last Duke of Montagu. Their eldest son, George, died in infancy. Henry James Montagu, the third son, inherited, in 1790, the estates of his maternal grandfather, and became Lord Montagu. The second son— Charles William Henry, became fourth Duke of Buccleuch and sixth Duke of Queensberry. He was a nobleman of singular amiability and generosity, but unfortunately possessed the family honours and estates only seven years, and was cut off in the forty-seventh year of his age. The Queensberry estates had, under the last Duke (Old Q) been neglected and devastated, the fine old trees cut down, and the mansion house allowed to fall into decay. The newcomer set himself energetically to rescue it from dilapidation, and it cost him £60,000 to make it wind and water-tight. He planted an immense number of trees to replace those cut down by the ‘degenerate Douglas,’ and rebuilt all the cottages, in which, as Scott said, ‘an aged race of pensioners of Duke Charles and his wife, "Kitty, blooming, young, and gay," had, during the last reign, been pining into rheumatisms and agues, in neglected poverty.’ It has been calculated that he spent on the Queensberry estates eight times the income he actually derived from them during his brief tenure.

Sir Walter Scott, in his obituary notice of the Duke, mentions a striking example of the disinterested manner in which his Grace administered his estates and of his generous sympathy with his retainers:—

‘In the year 1817, when the poor stood so much in need of employment, a friend asked the Duke why his Grace did not propose to go to London in the spring. By way of answer the Duke showed him a list of day-labourers then employed in improvements on his different estates, the number of whom, exclusive of his regular establishment, amounted to nine hundred and forty-seven persons. If we allow to each labourer two persons whose support depended on his wages, the Duke was, in a manner, foregoing, during this severe year, the privilege of his rank, in order to provide with more convenience for a little army of nearly three thousand persons, many of whom must otherwise have found it difficult to obtain subsistence.’

The Duke was a warm friend of Sir Walter Scott, and took a deep interest in his welfare. The letters which passed between them show their strong mutual attachment; and when the Duchess passed away ‘in beauty’s bloom,’ it was to the ‘Minstrel of the Clan’ that the Duke at once turned for sympathy and consolation. Sir Walter cherished an unbounded admiration of this lady. On receiving the unexpected intimation of her death (Aug. 24th, 1814), he thus expressed his opinion of her in his Diary: ‘She was indeed a rare example of the soundest good sense, and the most exquisite purity of moral feeling, united with the utmost grace and elegance of personal beauty, and with manners becoming the most dignified rank in British society. There was a feminine softness in all her deportment which won universal love, as her firmness of mind and correctness of principle commanded veneration. To her family her loss is inexpressibly great.’

The Lay of the Last Minstrel, which was dedicated to the Duke, was written in compliance with the wish of the Duchess, who was at that time Countess of Dalkeith. In his preface to the edition of 1813, the author says, ‘The lovely young Countess of Dalkeith, afterwards Harriet, Duchess of Buccleuch, had come to the land of her husband with the desire of making herself acquainted with its traditions and customs, as well as its manners and history. All who remember this lady will agree that the intellectual character of her extreme beauty, the amenity and courtesy of her manners, the soundness of her understanding, and her unbounded benevolence, gave more the idea of an angelic visitant than of a being belonging to this nether world; and such a thought was but too consistent with the short space she was permitted to tarry among us.’ Scott proceeds to mention that an aged gentleman near Langholm communicated to her ladyship the story of Gilpin Homer, in which he, like many more of the district, was a firm believer. The Countess was so delighted with the legend, and the gravity and full confidence with which it was told, that she enjoined on Scott, as a task, to compose a ballad on the subject. ‘Of course,’ he adds, ‘to hear was to obey,’ and the result was the composition of the immortal Lay.’

While Walter was at school and at the University, he was a very active student. He appears to have read a great deal, and to have remembered everything he read. He studied German, and his first published works (1796) were translations of two German ballads by Gottfried August Bürger (1747 – 1794), who was one of the founders of German Romantic ballad literature. In 1793 Bürger had published a rather bizarre ballad Lenore, which involves a ghostly rider posing as Lenore’s dead lover who carries her away on a macabre night ride, culminating with a revelation of the rider as Death itself. This was one of Scott’s translations; the other was The Wild Huntsman. This was followed by a translation (1799) of Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen. However, Scott had also been collecting Scottish border poems, and this was published as Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (2 vol., 1802; enl. ed., 3 vol., 1803). In Chapter III of Lockhart’s Life of Scott the following interesting comment is made: “With what delight must Scott have found the scope and manner of our Elizabethan drama revived on a foreign stage at the call of a real master! - with what double delight must he have seen Goethe seizing for the noblest purposes of art, men and modes of life, scenes, incidents, and transactions, all claiming near kindred with those that had from boyhood formed the chosen theme of his own sympathy and reflection! In the baronial robbers of the Rhine, stern, bloody, and rapacious, but frank, generous, and, after their fashion, courteous - in their forays upon each other's domains, the besieged castles, the plundered herds, the captive knights, the browbeaten bishop, and the baffled liege-lord, who vainly strove to quell all these turbulences - Scott had before him a vivid image of the life of his own and the rival Border clans, familiarized to him by a hundred nameless minstrels. If it be doubtful whether, but for Percy's Reliques, he would ever have thought of editing their Ballads, I think it not less so, whether, but for the Ironhanded Goetz, it would ever have flashed upon his mind, that in the wild traditions which these recorded, he had been unconsciously assembling materials for more works of high art than the longest life could serve him to elaborate.”

The ‘Percy’ referred to here was Thomas Percy (1729 – 1811), an antiquarian and bishop, whose collection of ballads, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), according to Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature, “awakened widespread interest in English and Scottish traditional songs. The basis of Percy’s collection was a tattered 15th-century manuscript of ballads, to which he added many other ballads, songs and romances. Publication of the Reliques inaugurated the “ballad revival” a flood of collections of ancient songs that provided a source of inspiration to the Romantic poets.” It is interesting that Bürger produced a German version of the Reliques.

Scott’s first major poem was The Lay of the Last Minstrel, which appeared in 1805. It became a huge success and made him the most popular author of the day. It was dedicated to Charles, Earl of Dalkeith, as I have indicated above; here is Scott’s preface:

The Poem, now offered to the Public, is intended to illustrate the customs and manners which anciently prevailed on the Borders of England and Scotland. The inhabitants living in a state partly pastoral and partly warlike, and combining habits of constant depredation with the influence of a rude spirit of chivalry, were often engaged in scenes highly susceptible of poetical ornament. As the description of scenery and manners was more the object of the Author than a combined and regular narrative, the plan of the Ancient Metrical Romance was adopted, which allows greater latitude, in this respect, than would be consistent with the dignity of a regular Poem. The same model offered other faculties, as it permits an occasional alteration of measure, which, in some degree, authorizes the change of rhythm in the text. The machinery, also, adopted from popular belief, would have seemed puerile in a Poem which did not partake of the rudeness of the old Ballad, or Metrical Romance.

For these reasons, the Poem was put into the mouth of an ancient Minstrel, the last of the race, who, as he is supposed to have survived the Revolution, might have caught somewhat of the refinement of modern poetry, without losing the simplicity of his original model. The date of the Tale itself is about the middle of the sixteenth century, when most of the personages actually flourished. The time occupied by the action is Three Nights and Three Days.

It was followed by Marmion: a Tale of Flodden Field (1808), a historical romance in tetrameter, set in 1513, and concerning the attempts of Lord Marmion to marry the rich Lady Clare. This begins with a lengthy Introduction to Canto First, addressed to William Stewart Rose, Esq., from Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest. Here is part of it:

Prompt on unequal tasks to run,
Thus Nature disciplines her son:
Meeter, she says, for me to stray,
And waste the solitary day
In plucking from yon fen the reed,
And watch it floating down the Tweed,
Or idly list the shrilling lay
With which the milkmaid cheers her way.
Marking its cadence rise and fail,
As from the field, beneath her pail,
She trips it down the uneven dale;
Meeter for me, by yonder cairn,
The ancient shepherd's tale to learn,
Though oft he stop in rustic fear,
Lest his old legends tire the ear
Of one who, in his simple mind,
May boast of book-learned taste refined.

But thou, my friend, canst fitly tell
(For few have read romance so well,)
How still the legendary lay
O'er poet's bosom holds its sway;
How on the ancient minstrel strain
Time lays his palsied hand in vain;
And how our hearts at doughty deeds,
By warriors wrought in steely weeds,
Still throb for fear and pity's sake;
As when the Champion of the Lake
Enters Morgana's fated house,
Or in the Chapel Perilous,
Despising spells and demons' force,
Holds converse with the unburied corse;
Or when, Dame Ganore's grace to move—
Alas, that lawless was their love!—
He sought proud Tarquin in his den,
And freed still sixty knights; or when,
A sinful man and unconfessed,
He took the Sangreal's holy quest,
And slumbering saw the vision high
He might not view with waking eye.

The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorned not such legends to prolong.
They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream,
And mix in Milton's heavenly theme;
And Dryden, in immortal strain,
Had raised the Table Round again,
But that a ribald king and court
Bade him toil on, to make them sport;
Demanded for their niggard pay,
Fit for their souls, a looser lay,
Licentious satire, song, and play;
The world defrauded of the high design,
Profaned the God-given strength, and marred the lofty line.

Warmed by such names, well may we then,
Though dwindled sons of little men,
Essay to break a feeble lance
In the fair fields of old romance;
Or seek the moated castle's cell,
Where long through talisman and spell,
While tyrants ruled and damsels wept,
Thy Genius, Chivalry, hath slept.
There sound the harpings of the North,
Till he awake and sally forth,
On venturous quest to prick again,
In all his arms, with all his train,
Shield, lance, and brand, and plume, and scarf,
Fay, giant, dragon, squire, and dwarf,
And wizard with his wand of might,
And errant maid on palfrey white.
Around the Genius weave their spells,
Pure Love, who scarce his passion tells;
Mystery, half veiled and half revealed;
And Honor, with his spotless shield;
Attention, with fixed eye; and Fear,
That loves the tale she shrinks to hear;
And gentle Courtesy; and Faith,
Unchanged by sufferings, time, or death;
And Valor, lion-mettled lord,
Leaning upon his own good sword.

Well has thy fair achievement shown
A worthy meed may thus be won:
Ytene's oaks —beneath whose shade
Their theme the merry minstrels made,
Of Ascapart, and Bevis bold,
And that Red King, who, while of old
Through Boldrewood the chase he led,
By his loved huntsman's arrow bled—
Ytene's oaks have heard again
Renewed such legendary strain;
For thou hast sung, how he of Gaul,
That Amadis so lamed in hall,
For Oriana, foiled in fight
The Necromancer's felon might;
And well in modern verse hast wove
Partenopex's mystic love:
Hear, then, attentive to my lay,
A knightly tale of Albion's elder day

His next major work was The Lady of the Lake, which appeared in 1810; some critics believe it to be his best poem. It begins:

Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
    On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring
And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,
    Till envious ivy did around thee cling,
Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,--
    O Minstrel Harp, still must shine accents sleep?
Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring,
    Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep,
Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep?

Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon,
    Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd,
When lay of hopeless love, or glory won,
    Aroused the fearful or subdued the proud.
At each according pause was heard aloud
    Thine ardent symphony sublime and high!
Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bowed;
    For still the burden of thy minstrelsy
Was Knighthood's dauntless deed, and Beauty's matchless eye.

O, wake once more ! how rude soe'er the hand
    That ventures o'er thy magic maze to stray;
O, wake once more ! though scarce my skill command
    Some feeble echoing of shine earlier lay:
Though harsh and faint, and soon to die away,
    And all unworthy of thy nobler strain,
Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway,
    The wizard note has not been touched in vain.
Then silent be no more! Enchantress, wake again!

The general story involves a hunter pursuing a stag in northern Scotland, who becomes separated from the rest of the hunting party: after a long pursuit the stag escapes in the mountains. His horse becomes exhausted and eventually dies. The hunter, now lost, finally arrives at the shores of Loch Katrine:

And now, to issue from the glen,
No pathway meets the wanderer's ken,
Unless he climb with footing nice
A far-projecting precipice.
The broom's tough roots his ladder made,
The hazel saplings lent their aid;
And thus an airy point he won,
Where, gleaming with the setting sun,
One burnished sheet of living gold,
Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled,
In all her length far winding lay,
With promontory, creek, and bay,
And islands that, empurpled bright,
Floated amid the livelier light,
And mountains that like giants stand
To sentinel enchanted land.
High on the south, huge Benvenue
Down to the lake in masses threw
Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,
The fragments of an earlier world;
A wildering forest feathered o'er
His ruined sides and summit hoar,
While on the north, through middle air,
Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

He uses his hunting horn in attempt to call his friends, and then:

But scarce again his horn he wound,
When lo! forth starting at the sound,
From underneath an aged oak
That slanted from the islet rock,
A damsel guider of its way,
A little skiff shot to the bay,
That round the promontory steep
Led its deep line in graceful sweep,
Eddying, in almost viewless wave,
The weeping willow twig to rave,
And kiss, with whispering sound and slow,
The beach of pebbles bright as snow.
The boat had touched this silver strand
Just as the Hunter left his stand,
And stood concealed amid the brake,
To view this Lady of the Lake.
The maiden paused, as if again
She thought to catch the distant strain.
With head upraised, and look intent,
And eye and ear attentive bent,
And locks flung back, and lips apart,
Like monument of Grecian art,
In listening mood, she seemed to stand,
The guardian Naiad of the strand.

From an American point of view, one interesting section in the second Canto of this long poem is this song, sung by one hundred clansmen in honor of their Chief:

Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances!
    Honored and blessed be the ever-green Pine!
Long may the tree, in his banner that glances,
    Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line!
        Heaven send it happy dew,
        Earth lend it sap anew,
    Gayly to bourgeon and broadly to grow,
        While every Highland glen
        Sends our shout back again,
    'Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!'

Ours is no sapling, chance-sown by the fountain,
    Blooming at Beltane, in winter to fade;
When the whirlwind has stripped every leaf on the mountain,
    The more shall Clan-Alpine exult in her shade.
        Moored in the rifted rock,
        Proof to the tempest's shock,
    Firmer he roots him the ruder it blow;
        Menteith and Breadalbane, then,
        Echo his praise again,
    'Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!'

Proudly our pibroch has thrilled in Glen Fruin,
    And Bannochar's groans to our slogan replied ;
Glen Luss and Ross-dhu, they are smoking in ruin,
    And the best of Loch Lomond lie dead on her side.
        Widow and Saxon maid
        Long shall lament our raid,
    Think of Clan-Alpine with fear and with woe;
        Lennox and Leven-glen
        Shake when they hear again,
    'Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!'

Row, vassals, row, for the pride of the Highlands!
    Stretch to your oars for the ever-green Pine!
O that the rosebud that graces yon islands
    Were wreathed in a garland around him to twine!
        O that some seedling gem,
        Worthy such noble stem,
    Honored and blessed in their shadow might grow!
        Loud should Clan-Alpine then
        Ring from her deepmost glen,
    Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!'

This became the song that is played for the President on formal occasions, with a melody composed by the English composer James Sanderson, who was the conductor of London's Surrey Theater orchestra and wrote many songs for local theatrical productions. Following the great popular success of Scott’s poem, several theatrical productions based on it appeared. The American words, which are seldom sung, are considerably different from those used by Sanderson, which were essentially those of Scott; they were written by Albert Gamse:

Hail to the Chief we have chosen for the nation,
Hail to the Chief! We salute him, one and all.
Hail to the Chief, as we pledge co-operation
In proud fulfillment of a great, noble call.

Yours is the aim to make this grand country grander,
This you will do, That's our strong, firm belief.
Hail to the one we selected as commander,
Hail to the President! Hail to the Chief!

If I may say, this lacks something compared to Scott’s words!

Our first poem of this week is from the first Canto of the Lady of the Lake; it is a song that begins Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o’er.

In 1811, Scott wrote a poem entitled The Vision of Don Roderick. This is his introduction to it, written on June 24th, 1811:

“The following Poem is founded upon a Spanish Tradition, bearing, in general, that Don Roderick, the last Gothic King of Spain, when the invasion of the Moors was depending, had the temerity to descend into an ancient vault, near Toledo, the opening of which had been denounced as fatal to the Spanish Monarchy. The legend adds, that his rash curiosity was mortified by an emblematical representation of those Saracens who, in the year 714, defeated him in battle, and reduced Spain under their dominion. I have presumed to prolong the Vision of the Revolutions of Spain down to the present eventful crisis of the Peninsula, and to divide it, by a supposed change of scene, into, THREE PERIODS. The FIRST of these represents the Invasion of the Moors, the Defeat and Death of Roderick, and closes with the peaceful occupation of the country by the victors. The SECOND PERIOD embraces the state of the Peninsula when the conquests of the Spaniards and Portuguese in the East and West Indies had raised to the highest pitch the renown of their arms; sullied, however, by superstition and cruelty. An allusion to the inhumanities of the Inquisition terminates this picture. The LAST PART of the Poem opens with the state of Spain previous to the unparalleled treachery of BUONAPARTE, gives a sketch of the usurpation attempted upon that unsuspicious and friendly kingdom, and terminates with the arrival of the British succours. It may be further proper to mention, that the object of the Poem is less to commemorate or detail particular incidents, than to exhibit a general and impressive picture of the several periods brought upon the stage.”

Here are the opening two stanzas:

I.
Rearing their crests amid the cloudless skies,
    And darkly clustering in the pale moonlight,
Toledo’s holy towers and spires arise,
    As from a trembling lake of silver white.
Their mingled shadows intercept the sight
    Of the broad burial-ground outstretched below,
And nought disturbs the silence of the night;
    All sleeps in sullen shade, or silver glow,
All save the heavy swell of Teio’s ceaseless flow.

II.
All save the rushing swell of Teio’s tide,
    Or, distant heard, a courser’s neigh or tramp;
Their changing rounds as watchful horsemen ride,
    To guard the limits of King Roderick’s camp.
For through the river’s night-fog rolling damp
    Was many a proud pavilion dimly seen,
Which glimmered back, against the moon’s fair lamp,
    Tissues of silk and silver twisted sheen,
And standards proudly pitched, and warders armed between.

The poem was written in celebration of Wellington's successes in the Peninsular Campaign, with all profits to be donated to Portuguese war sufferers. Composed in Spenserian stanzas, the poem was based on an episode in Ginés Pérez de Hita's Guerras civiles de Granada, one of Scott's favourite books as a boy. He began work on the poem at Ashestiel during the spring vacation of 1811 but found composition extremely hard-going. Upon completing the poem, he dismissed it in his correspondence as 'this patriotic puppet' (letter to John Morrit, 1 July 1811) and a mere 'Drum and Trumpet performance' (letter to William Hayley, 2 July 1811).

Scott derived his poem's scheme from Pérez Hita's story of Don Roderick, the last Gothic King of Spain, descending into an enchanted cave to learn the outcome of the Moorish invasion. Scott has two bronze giants reveal further visions of Spain's future: the Moorish dominion following Don Roderick's death, the restoration of Christian rule, the conquest of the New World, religious persecution, the slow decline of the increasingly corrupt Spanish court, down to the present day with Napoleon's invasion, the resistance of the Spanish patriots, and, finally, Wellington's brilliant victories.

Published on July 2, 1811, The Vision of Don Roderick was, in spite of Scott's own negative assessment, well-received by the public and earned one hundred guineas for the Portuguese war fund. Critical reaction was more mixed. The vividness of its descriptions were widely praised though the Quarterly Review queried the propriety of mixing historical and allegorical figures and regretted that it lacked all suspense. Francis Jeffrey, writing in the Edinburgh Review similarly decried the absence of all story and characters but nonetheless admired the brilliance of Scott's tableaux. The Critical Review pointedly refrained from passing judgment given the poem's charitable purpose while the Eclectic Review regretted Scott's idolatry of Wellington and accused him of celebrating war and barbarity.

In 1811 his lease on Ashestiel expired, and the family moved to a much larger house at Abbotsford, which was to be his home until his death. He spent a great deal of money on the house, which is a large Georgian mansion: his descendents still live there.

Scott’s next major work was Rokeby, published in 1813. Here is a song from it:

A weary lot is thine, fair maid,
    A weary lot is thine!
To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
    And press the rue for wine!
A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien,
    A feather of the blue,
A doublet of the Lincoln green,--
    No more of me you knew
        My love!
    No more of me you knew.

This morn is merry June, I trow,
    The rose is budding fain;
But she shall bloom in winter snow,
Ere we two meet again."
    He turn'd his charger as he spake,
Upon the river shore,
He gave his bridle-reins a shake,
    Said, "Adieu for evermore,
        My love!
     And adieu for evermore.”

In 1813 there were two important events in Scott’s life, which are to some extent related. In 1809 he had founded the firm of John Ballantyne and Company, booksellers and publishers. This suffered a financial collapse in 1813, and it was rescued by the publishers Constable. The second event was that he was offered the post of Poet Laureate, succeeding Henry James Pye (1745 – 1813). Pye had been appointed in 1790, largely because of his political services to William Pitt the Younger – his appointment was looked on as ridiculous, and the intention had been for his successor to be a first-class and highly-regarded poet. Scott declined the invitation, probably because of the financial problems he was faced with; and after discussions among the other leading poets at the time he proposed Robert Southey (1774 – 1843), one of the Lake Poets (he has appeared in these pages before).

Scott’s last major poem was The Lord of the Isles, which was published in 1815. In the summer and autumn of 1814, Scott was invited to join a party of Commissioners for the Northern Lighthouse Service on a voyage of inspection around the coast of Scotland and through its various islands. The party included Scott's old friend William Erskine, Sheriff of Orkney and Zetland (Shetland), and the lighthouse builder, Robert Stevenson, grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson. Scott hoped that the voyage would permit him to refresh his memories of the Western Isles (which he had first visited in 1810) and to discover locations which might be used in the poem. He began writing upon his return to Abbotsford, vividly working his fresh impressions of Skye, Staffa, Arran, and Mull into his verse. The Lord of the Isles was composed at a feverish rate, with the first three cantos being complete by November 10 and the remaining three by December 16. The completed poem was published on January 2, 1815 and after a worryingly slow start, the first edition sold out within a month.

The story opens in the castle of Ardtornish in 1307 on the wedding-day of Edith of Lorn and Ronald, Lord of the Isles. A tense atmosphere reigns as Edith rightly suspects that Ronald is a reluctant groom. Indeed, he has fallen in love with the Bruce's sister, Isabel. Before the marriage is celebrated, the fugitive Bruce arrives and, concealing his identity, demands sanctuary. His party includes his brother Edward and Isabel, her face hidden by a veil. Edith's brother, the Lord of Lorn recognizes the Bruce and denounces him as the murderer of his kinsman the Red Comyn in Greyfriars Church, Dumfries. As their quarrel threatens to become violent, Isabel throws off her veil and attempts to intercede. Ronald's reaction reveals to Edith where his affections lie. The Abbot who is to conduct the ceremony arrives and is asked to decide the conflict between the Bruce and the Lord of Lorn. The Abbot strives to denounce the Bruce's sacrilegious crime but is moved by divine inspiration to acclaim him as the future liberator of Scotland. Ronald pledges fealty to the Bruce, but Edith and her brother Lorn leave in fury.

Ronald and his page Allan go with Bruce to Skye, while Edward is to accompany Edith to a convent. On Skye, the royal party meet five piratical followers of Lorn who claim to have been shipwrecked there. They have with them a captive, a mute minstrel-boy whom neither Ronald nor the Bruce recognizes as Edith in disguise. In the night the followers of Lorn attack the royal party and murder Allan, but all five are in turn slain by Ronald and the Bruce. The 'minstrel' is freed and joins the royal party.

The Bruce's brother Edward arrives with news that Scotland has risen against English rule and that Edward I of England is dead. The Bruce proceeds to Arran where his fleet his awaiting him. During the voyage, Ronald asks the Bruce for Isabel's hand. The Bruce promises to urge his suit but at Arran, in the Convent of St Bride, he learns that Isabel desires to be a nun. In all events, she could not marry Ronald until he has been absolved from his promise to marry Edith.

Edith, still disguised as a minstrel, is sent with a message to one of the Bruce's followers at Carrick. She is captured by the English at Turnberry Castle, the Bruce's ancestral home, and condemned to death as a spy. Her life is saved, though, when the Bruce successfully storms the castle. The siege proves to be the turning-point in the Bruce's fortunes, and he goes on to regain almost all of Scotland.

The poem ends with his final victory at Bannockburn. In the intervening years, the Bruce has reluctantly consented to his sister taking conventual vows. Edith has joined Isabel in the convent without herself taking vows. Ronald, meanwhile, has grown increasingly remorseful at his faithlessness to Edith. Isabel recommends that she go to Ronald in disguise and test the extent of his penitence. She confronts him on the victorious field of Bannockburn. Ronald begs for her forgiveness and their engagement is renewed.

Reviews were mixed. Some journals (British Review, European Magazine, Gentleman's Magazine, Monthly Magazine, Scot's Magazine) ranked The Lord of the Isles amongst Scott's best work. For others, though, it showed signs of hurried composition. The Augustan Review wished that Scott would 'think more, print less'. The Eclectic Review found the dialogue prolix and prosaic, the diction careless, and the rhymes and imagery often inappropriate. George Ellis in a particularly detailed review for the Quarterly regretted 'violations of propriety' in both language and plot. He felt there was no genuine, vital connection between the amours of Ronald and Edith and the Bruce's campaigns, and, like many readers, found the lovers' reconciliation inadequately motivated.

The relatively slow public response, and poor reviews of the work are what decided Scott to give up poetry and move to writing novels, which occupied the rest of his life. Interesting as they are, I do not intend to discuss this phase of his literary life here.

In 1820 Scott was created a baronet. In November 1820 Sir James Hall of Dunglass resigned the Presidency of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Fellows, though they had on all former occasions selected a man of science to fill that post, paid Sir Walter the compliment of unanimously requesting him to be Sir James's successor in it. He felt and expressed a natural hesitation about accepting this honor, which at first sight seemed like invading the proper department of another order of scholars. But when it was urged upon him that the Society is really a double one, embracing a section for literature as well as one of science, and that it was only due to the former to let it occasionally supply the chief of the whole body “Scott acquiesced to the flattering proposal. His gentle skill was found effective in maintaining and strengthening the tone of good feeling and good manners which can alone render the meetings of such a society either agreeable or useful.”

Scott was also responsible, through a series of pseudonymous letters published in the Edinburgh Weekly News in 1826, for retaining the right of Scottish banks to issue their own banknotes, which is reflected to this day by his continued appearance on the front of all notes issued by the Bank of Scotland.

As with all poets, it seems, he was not without his critics. Perhaps the most biting criticism was that of Thomas Love Peacock (1785 – 1866), who addressed all the Romantic poets in The Four Ages of Poetry:

“The descriptive poetry of the present day has been called by its cultivators a return to nature. Nothing is more impertinent than this pretension. Poetry cannot travel out of the regions of its birth, the uncultivated lands of semi-civilized men. Mr. Wordsworth, the great leader of the returners to nature, cannot describe a scene under his own eyes without putting into it the shadow of a Danish boy or the living ghost of Lucy Gray, or some similar phantastical parturition of the moods of his own mind.

In the origin and perfection of poetry, all the associations of life were composed of poetical materials. With us it is decidedly the reverse. We know too that there are no Dryads in Hyde-park nor Naiads in the Regent's-canal. But barbaric manners and supernatural interventions are essential to poetry. Either in the scene, or in the time, or in both, it must be remote from our ordinary perceptions. While the historian and the philosopher are advancing in, and accelerating, the progress of knowledge, the poet is wallowing in the rubbish of departed ignorance, and raking up the ashes of dead savages to find gewgaws and rattles for the grown babies of the age. Mr. Scott digs up the poachers and cattle-stealers of the ancient border. Lord Byron cruizes for thieves and pirates on the shores of the Morea and among the Greek Islands. Mr. Southey wades through ponderous volumes of travels and old chronicles, from which he carefully selects all that is false, useless, and absurd, as being essentially poetical; and when he has a commonplace book full of monstrosities, strings them into an epic. Mr. Wordsworth picks up village legends from old women and sextons; and Mr. Coleridge, to the valuable information acquired from similar sources, superadds the dreams of crazy theologians and the mysticisms of German metaphysics, and favours the world with visions in verse, in which the quadruple elements of sexton, old woman, Jeremy Taylor, and Emanuel Kant, are harmonized into a delicious poetical compound. Mr. Moore presents us with a Persian, and Mr. Campbell with a Pennsylvanian tale, both formed on the same principle as Mr. Southey's epics, by extracting from a perfunctory and desultory perusal of a collection of voyages and travels, all that useful investigation would not seek for and that common sense would reject.”

Another critical remark about his poetry dates from 1816. On hearing the news of the Allied victory at Waterloo (June 18, 1815), Scott burned to see the scene of Napoleon's final defeat and to visit newly conquered Paris. Continental Europe had been closed to British visitors for more than a decade, and Scott had never before travelled abroad. In August, he set sail for Belgium, hoping to recuperate his expenses by writing a series of imaginary letters describing his travels. Scott was amongst the first British civilians to view the battlefield at Waterloo, accompanied by General Adam's aide-de-camp, Captain Campbell, and Major Pryse Gordon. Mixing personal observation with information gained from his escorts and from other participants in the battle, he began work on a poem, The Field of Waterloo, profits from which would go to a fund set up for widows and orphans of soldiers. Proceeding to Paris, Scott obtained further details from Allied officers and spoke with the Duke of Wellington himself, whose lack of conceit and pretension greatly impressed him.

An initial run of 6,000 copies appeared on October 23, 1815. The poem sold well and went into a third edition by the end of year. The critics, however, were unimpressed. For the Critical Review, it was 'absolutely the poorest, dullest, least interesting composition that has hitherto issued from the author of Rokeby’. The poem's worthy purpose prevented other journals from being quite so harsh, but there was widespread censure of clumsy phrasing and other signs of authorial haste. Although The Field of Waterloo counted Byron amongst its few admirers, it is now best remembered through an anonymous squib:

On Waterloo's ensanguined plain
Full many a gallant man was slain,
But none, by sabre or by shot,
Fell half so flat as Walter Scott.

However, let us remember his great poetry!

One of Scott’s most famous poems is Bonnie Dundee, and it will be our second poem of this week. ‘Bonnie Dundee” was John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee (1648-89), who was a commander in the Jacobite rebellion whose objective was to restore King James VII of Scotland (James II of England). Following the Protectorate (established after the Civil War), which led to the ouster and, eventually, beheading of King Charles I, the monarchy was eventually restored with the return of Charles II in 1660. Charles has been described as the Catholic King of a protestant country, and reigned during a period which could be described as an uncomfortable time for Protestants – particularly the Presbyterians and Calvinists (one of whom, William Penn, left England in 1682 to found Pennsylvania). It became considerably worse in 1685 when Charles was succeeded by his brother James II. James was openly Catholic, which proved intolerable for the English who still had bitter memories of Mary I and Protestants burning at the stake. He was ousted in 1688 after William of Orange invaded England in the ‘Glorious Revolution’ which resulted in the crowning of William and his wife Mary (Charles and James’s sister).

John Graham was the elder son of Royalists, descended from Robert III, and a distant kinsman of Montrose. He spent his childhood in Glen Ogilvy near Dundee, attended St. Andrews University and then went to France as a volunteer serving Louis XIV (under the Duke of Monmouth and MacKay of Scourie). He joined William of Orange, reputedly saving William's life in battle, and was recommended to James, Duke of York (later King James) at William’s marriage to Mary in 1677 (was this family messed up, or what?). Returning to Scotland, he commanded an independent Troop of Horse raised to suppress seditious conventicles (Lowland Presbyterian meetings) in Dumfries and Galloway, and was given additional powers as Charles II's absolutism increased.

Graham was later blamed (and still is in some parts) for every atrocity of a savage period ("The Bluidy Clavers"), but in fact urged moderation "lest severity alienate the hearts of the whole people". In the 1679 Covenanter's rebellion he was defeated at Drumclog, helped defend Glasgow, and fought at Bothwell Brig. His marriage to Jean Cochrane of a notoriously Covenanting family had briefly damaged his career, but while in England with the Scots Army in 1688 James VII made him Viscount Dundee, though ignoring his advice to stand firm.

Following the Glorious Revolution, James II accepted exile to France, but Graham did not, and went quietly through the Highlands, gathering willing clansmen for war.

During the post-Revolution Convention of Estates at Edinburgh, March 1689, Graham’s life was threatened and he left, climbing the Castle Rock to confer with the Duke of Gordon who held the castle for the ousted James. Learning of Lochiel's Highland confederacy (to restore James to the throne), and now declared a rebel by the Convention, he raised the Standard on Dundee Law, left his wife and new-born son in Glen Ogilvy for safety, and left to fight in the cause he believed in, riding north-east to rally support for the Jacobite (which came from the Latin for James: Jacobus), cause.

The Jacobites marched south and east, and in the Pass of Killiecrankie on 27 July they met four thousand musketed men under General Hugh MacKay, Lowland Scots and veterans of the Dutch wars. They were called "Williamites" as they fought for William of Orange. The Williamites outnumbered Dundee two to one, but they broke ranks under the ferocious storm-charge of the Highland clans, swinging their huge two-handed claymores mercilessly. This was a shocking loss to the British/Government forces and the danger of the Highland army was now a major problem for William and the British Parliament. The Jacobite cause, already started, was now taken more seriously than ever before.

It was a total victory for John Graham (Bonnie Dundee), but, unfortunately he was killed in the clash at what is now called the "Battle of Killiecrankie", his greatest victory. The Highlanders who followed him were now in the hands of a new leader, one without the vitality and charisma of John Graham of Claverhouse, Bonnie Dundee.

My third poem for this week is from The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto VI. It is a song sung by a bard, Harold:

Then from his seat, with lofty air,
Rose Harold, bard of brave St. Clair;
St. Clair, who, feasting high at Home,
Had with that lord to battle come.

His song describes the death of Rosabelle.

In 1826 the publishing company, now called Constable, Hurst and Robinson, and the associated printers, James Ballantyne, failed; and Scott was faced with bankruptcy. His debts were enormous. The story of his response to ruin (nobly faced up to in his very readable Journal) is well known: he buckled to, and simply worked harder than ever for the six remaining years of his life. He produced a torrent of work, fiction and critical prose mostly, which slowly but steadily paid off his patient creditors, but at a terrible price to his health. His wife, Lady Scott, died in 1826, and the author himself had a stroke in 1830.

In 1831, he decided to travel to Europe, although he was in generally poor health. In the late part of September, there was a dinner with a few friends at Abbotsford. Among the guests was William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850). Lockhart, who was also present, remarks that “The following Sonnet was, no doubt, composed by Wordsworth that same evening (September 22nd, 1831 – Scott’s last day at Abbotsford, before leaving for London).”

A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light
Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height:
Spirits of power assembled there complain
For kindred power departing from their sight;
While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,
Saddens his voice again, and yet again.
Lift up your hearts, ye mourners! for the might
Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes;
Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue
Than sceptred King or laurelled Conqueror knows,
Follow this wondrous potentate. Be true,
Ye winds of Ocean, and the Midland Sea,
Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope."

“Early on the 23d of September 1831, Sir Walter left Abbotsford, attended by his daughter Anne and myself, and we reached London by easy stages on the 28th, having spent one day at Rokeby.”

Next year Scott sailed to Italy. In Malta he wrote one novel and a short story, and in Naples he collected old songs and ballads. After return to England in 1832, he died at Abbotsford on September 21st. Scott was buried beside his ancestors and his wife in Dryburgh Abbey. From the profits of his writings all his debts were ultimately paid.

So here is a view of a remarkable man. Beginning as the son of a lawyer, he became first a major poet, of a level to be considered as a candidate for selection as Poet Laureate; before abandoning that path to become one of Scotland’s most important novelists, largely creating the form of the historical novel. His productivity, driven in his later years by the desire to pay his bankruptcy debts, was absolutely astounding. Eventually, he became – and remains – one of Scotland’s most honored icons, with his image on the currency, and (although I had no space to cover this!) several important statues in most of Scotland’s major cities. The main line rail station in Edinburgh is named after one of his novels, Waverleys. Essentially throughout this artistic career, he maintained his senior legal responsibilities, and was honored by his selection as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

I hope you enjoy some of the examples of his work that I have selected!