A SCOTTISH LADY'S REMINISCENCES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2923, 23 March 1910, Page 79

A SCOTTISH LADY'S REMINISCENCES.

__ THE WIZARD OF THE NORTH. - It may well be doubted if there are ! half a dozen persons now living who per- • sonally remember. Sir Walter -Scott. Cer- ! tainly there must be very few, for it is j more than seventy-seven years since the mighty Wizard of the North breathed his : last without sight and sound of the silver I Tweed which he loved so- well. One of j this select band died in Edinburgh re- : cently in the person of Miss Mackenzie, j daughter of Lord Mackenzie, a famous Scottish judge of his day. . It was the j good fortune of this venerable lady, who was in her eighty-ninth year, not only to have seen Scott, but to have been a j youthful member of his social circle. —Chats With Sir Walter Scott.— Among Scott's intimate friends ; were Miss Mackenzie's father and paternal j grandfather. The latter was the famous j Henry Mackenzie, "the Man of Feeling, "* j who for upwards of half a century was " one of the most illustrious names connected with polite literature in Edin burgh," and among the earliest admirers of Burns. Scott was a regular visitor at | both homes, and Miss Mackenzie had frequent girlish chats with him. One \ of her very early memories was being ] allowed to sit up two or three hours be- j yond her usual bedtime in order that she might see Sir Walter, who was to have ; supper, as the custom then was, at half- i past 9 o'clock in her father's house. She j had a distinct recollection of Scott taking I her between his knees, patting her on the i head, and tilling her that heir grandfather (Henry Mackenzie) was his oldest and dearest friend, and that to him Burns : owed his introduction to the brilliant j literary coterie which then adorned the j Scottish capital. In 1829 Miss Mackenzie | accompanied her parents on a visit to the poet at Abbotsford. The visit lasted for several days, and though she was only a nine-year-old at the time, she was able ! to enjoy much of the entertainment Sir j Walter had provided for his guests. Three years later, in September, 1832, Miss Mac- j kenzie learned, of Scott's death in cir- j cumstances which' may well be described as unspeakably sad. Being on a visit to j Floors Castle, the seat of the Duke of ! Rnxburghe, her parents drove with her j one day to see Lady Scott's grave at j Abbotsford. While the party were in the churchyard a messenger from Abbots- j

ford brought the sad intelligence to Mr , Richardson that Sir Walter was no more. Miss Mackenzie never forgot the startling effect produced by the announcement ot Scott's death while she and her parents were actually inspecting the grave of his wife. There is a good story that Miss j Mackenzie's mother wa.3 fond of telling. I On one aeasion, after. a drive from Jed- ; burgh to Melrose, the tediousness of which Scott relieved by recounting a legend for every mile of the road, she was introduced to the then parish minister of~Melrose, who is generally believed to have been the original of one of the most delightful of Scoffs characters, Dominie Sampson. The old minister had a wooden leg, and when, at the dinner table, it somehow came into contact with Mrs Mackenzie's dress, he profusely apologised for the unfeeling leg. " Madam," he said, "you must excuse a bad neighbour; it is ■ not flexible." I —How Lord Jeffrey Read-the Bible.— But it is time to say something of other j notable people who found a place in this venerable lady's brilliant chapter of reminiscences. There were, for example, Lord Jeffrey and Lord Cockburn, both of , whom were colleagues of her father on I the judicial bench. Of Jeffrey she had j many interesting recollections. While' j visiting with her mother • at his bouse | once she had a. most amusing proof of | Jeffrey's habit of reading the Bible, de-. j spite the fact that among his friends he j was never regarded as a religious man. j " Do you know, my dear," he said to | Miss Mackenzie's mother, - " there is a j matter which has been troubling me for L some nights about which I want to speak to you? I know you will enjoy it, and I j wonder if you can help me?" Then Jeff ) rey proceeded to tell how his doctor had j recommended him to bathe his feet every j night in water of a stated temperature, | and that while the boiling water cooled j lie reid the Bible. " Now," he went on, j " I have been reading the Epistles of St! I Paul. \ r ou know how closely Paul's reasoning is linked together, and so I cannot stop reading till I have come to the | end of the epistle for the night. I had | Colossians and Phiiippians at the beginj ning of the week, and when I finished j reading them the water was just right; j but Ja-st nfght I read Ephesians, and at I the end the water was too cold. To-night, j my dear, I am to tackle Galatians, and ! I am anxious to have the water all right. [ What am I to do?" —Emerson and Tom Campbell.— It was at the town house of Lord Jeffrey I that Miss Mackenzie met Ralph Waldo i Emerson. The distinguished American writer had been staying there for a. few days, and she and other members of her i family were invited to meet him. Dr | John Brown, the author of " Rafc and j His Friends," was also of the party. ; Emerson engaged, in a long conversation j with her brother, who was then studying ! at Cambridge. The talk was almost en- ! tirely confined to English university life; I but apparently Emerson was not at his i best. At all events, Miss Mackenzie's ! brother came away with rather a poor opinion of his conversational powers. " I expected to find Emerson a tower of wit and cleverness," he remarked to his j father on reaching home, "but he was really not nearly so interesting as Jeffrey | himself." Campbell, the poet, was an- ! other notable personage who occasionally | visited Jeffrey. On one occasion a dinner I was got up in his honour, to which Mies I Mackenzie was invited ; but the poet did ! not appear. He had had a bad whitlow, j and was in great pain, a. circumstance i which Jeffrey turned to good account in j to the company for his abI sence. "The poet," he said, •" ie so

much under the thumb of Tom Campbell ' to-night he cannot appear." —Gladstone and His Tartan Plaid. — A very close friendship subsisted between Miss Mackenzie's family and that of the Gladstones. Our subject's maternal grandfather was the last Lord Seaforth, and at his Highland home, Brahran Castle, Mr Gladstone's mother, then Miss Robertson, daughter of the Dingwall provost, was a constant visitor. Lo'/d Seaforth once remarked to his wife that he would like Miss Robartson to make Brahran her home, as she was so very useful in entertaining their English visitors, to which Lady Seaforth replied, " That would be very nice; but I hope she will soon marry and become th>2 mother of distinguished sons," a wish which was surely more than realised. The friendship thus begun between the two families ripened with the years, fn this connection it is interesting to recall that the residence of Mr Gladstone's father in the neighbourhood of Liverpool was called Seaforth, in honour of the Highland chief. Mr Gladstone himself was an intimate friend of Miss Mackenzie's, and was a frequent caller at her house when staying in Edinburgh or ■ its neighbourhood. During one of his Mid-Lothian campaigns she presented hriri. with a Mackehzi'3 tanan plaid, which the statesman wore constantly at the time. —Lord Macaulay and Chalmers.— Miss Mackenzie had' vivid recollections of a conversation she once had with Lord Macaulay at a dinner party, at Lauriston Castle, which was then the home of Lord Rutherford, a distinguished Scottish judge. The Whig historian was at that time one of the Parliamentary representatives of Edinburgh, and almost at the height of his fame. Miss Mackenzie was charmed by his manner and the ease with which, in conversation, - he passed from one interesting topic to another. Chalmers j Miss Mackenzie knew intimately, and of I the great Scottish divine eh-s had many - interesting stories to tell. In the spring" of 1847 she and her sister arranged to take him from Belmont, their home, to see i Lord Jeffrey at Craigerook, his country seat. Chalmers -agreed to go on one condition. They were hot to drive, but to climb together the two walls and the stretch of Corstorphine Hill which espai*'ated the two houses. But this little excursion never came off, for a few day<s later the whole of Scotland was mourning tho death of Thomas Chalmers. Miss Mackenzie's reminiscences were not only •rich and varied, but well nigh inexhaustible, for she had met most of the famous people who have lived in, or visited, Edinburgh during the past eighty years. What has been recorded above represents, therefore, only a fragment of her recollections, but it at least affords a glimpse of some of the prominent figures who moved in Edinburgh society in the days before its glory had departed.—T. P.'s Weekly.