SCOTT began to work on "The Heart of Mid-Lothian" almost before he had
completed "Rob Roy." On Nov. 10, 1817, he writes to Archibald Constable
announcing that the negotiations for the sale of the story to Messrs. Longman
have fallen through, their firm declining to relieve the Ballantynes of their
worthless "stock." "So you have the staff in your own hands, and, as you are on
the spot, can manage it your own way. Depend on it that, barring unforeseen
illness or death, these will be the best volumes which have appeared. I pique
myself on the first tale, which is called 'The Heart of Mid-Lothian.'" Sir Walter had
thought of adding a romance, "The Regalia," on the Scotch royal insignia, which
had been rediscovered in the Castle of Edinburgh. This story he never wrote. Mr.
Cadell was greatly pleased at ousting the Longmans--"they have themselves to
blame for the want of the Tales, and may grumble as they choose: we have
Taggy by the tail, and, if we have influence to keep the best author of the day, we
ought to do it."--[Archibald Constable, iii. 104.]
Though contemplated and arranged for, "The Heart of Mid-Lothian" was not
actually taken in hand till shortly after Jan. 15, 1818, when Cadell writes that the
tracts and pamphlets on the affair of Porteous are to be collected for Scott. "The
author was in great glee . . . he says that he feels very strong with what he has
now in hand." But there was much anxiety concerning Scott's health. "I do not at
all like this illness of Scott's," said James Ballantyne to Hogg. "I have eften seen
him look jaded of late, and am afraid it is serious." "Hand your tongue, or I'll gar
you measure your length on the pavement," replied Hogg. "You fause, down-
hearted loon, that ye are, you daur to speak as if Scott were on his death-bed! It
cannot be, it must not be! I will not suffer you to speak that gait." Scott himself
complains to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of "these damned spasms. The
merchant Abudah's hag was a henwife to them when they give me a real night of
it."
"The Heart of Mid-Lothian," in spite of the author's malady, was published in June
1818. As to its reception, and the criticism which it received, Lockhart has left
nothing to be gleaned. Contrary to his custom, he has published, but without the
writer's name, a letter from Lady Louisa Stuart, which really exhausts what
criticism can find to say about the new novel. "I have not only read it myself,"
says Lady Louisa, "but am in a house where everybody is tearing it out of each
other's hands, and talking of nothing else." She preferred it to all but "Waverley,"
and congratulates him on having made "the perfectly good character the most
interesting. . . . Had this very story been conducted by a common hand, Effie
would have attracted all our concern and sympathy, Jeanie only cold
approbation. Whereas Jeanie, without youth, beauty, genius, warns passions, or
any other novel-perfection, is here our object from beginning to end." Lady
Louisa, with her usual frankness, finds the Edinburgh lawyers tedious, in the
introduction, and thinks that Mr. Saddletree "will not entertain English readers."
