Rob Roy

The anecdote about the title is well known. Constable suggested it, and Scott was at first wisely reluctant to "write up to a title." Names like Rob Roy, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Cleopatra, and so forth, tell the reader too much, and, Scott imagined, often excite hopes which cannot be fulfilled. However, in the geniality of an after-dinner hour in the gardens of Abbotsford, Scott allowed Constable to be sponsor. Many things had lately brought Rob into his mind. In 1812 Scott had acquired Rob Roy's gun—"a long Spanish-barrelled piece, with his initials R. M. C.," C standing for Campbell, a name assumed in compliment to the Argyll family.

Rob's spleuchan had also been presented by Mr. Train to Sir Walter, in 1816, and may have directed his thoughts to this popular freebooter. Though Rob flourished in the '15, he was really a character very near Scott, whose friend Invernahyle had fought Rob with broadsword and target—a courteous combat like that between Ajax and Hector.

At Tullibody Scott had met, in 1793, a gentleman who once visited Rob, and arranged to pay him blackmail.

Mr. William Adam had mentioned to Scott in 1816 the use of the word "curlie-wurlies" for highly decorated architecture, and recognised the phrase, next year, in the mouth of Andrew Fairservice.

In the meeting at Abbotsford (May 2, 1817) Scott was very communicative, sketched Bailie Nicol Jarvie, and improvised a dialogue between Rob and the magistrate. A week later he quoted to Southey, Swift's lines— Too bad for a blessing, too good for a curse,—which probably suggested Andrew Fairservice's final estimate of Scott's hero,—"over bad for blessing, and ower gude for banning."

These are the trifles which show the bent of Scott's mind at this period. The summer of 1817 he spent in working at the "Annual Register" and at the "Border Antiquities." When the courts rose, he visited Rob's cave at the head of Loch Lomond; and this visit seems to have been gossiped about, as literary people, hearing of the new novel, expected the cave to be a very prominent feature. He also went to Glasgow, and refreshed his memory of the cathedral; nor did he neglect old books, such as "A Tour through Great Britain, by a Gentleman" (4th Edition, 1748). This yielded him the Bailie's account of Glasgow commerce "in Musselburgh stuffs and Edinburgh shalloons," and the phrase "sortable cargoes."

Hence, too, Scott took the description of the rise of Glasgow. Thus Scott was taking pains with his preparations. The book was not written in post-haste. Announced to Constable early in May, the last sheet was not corrected till about December 21, when Scott wrote to Ballantyne:—

DEAR JAMES,—

With great joy I send you Roy. 
'T was a tough job, 
But we're done with Rob.

"Rob Roy" was published on the last day of 1817. The toughness of the job was caused by constant pain, and by struggles with "the lassitude of opium." So seldom sentimental, so rarely given to expressing his melancholy moods in verse, Scott, while composing "Rob Roy," wrote the beautiful poem "The sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill," in which, for this once, "pity of self through all makes broken moan."

Some stress may be laid on the state of Sir Walter's health at this moment, because a living critic has tried to show that, in his case, "every pang of the stomach paralyses the brain;" that he "never had a fit of the cramp without spoiling a chapter."—[Mr. Ruskin's "Fiction Fair and Foul," "Nineteenth Century," 1880, p. 955.]—"Rob Roy" is a sufficient answer to these theories. The mind of Scott was no slave to his body.

The success of the story is pleasantly proved by a sentence in a review of the day: "It is an event unprecedented in the annals either of literature or of the custom-house that the entire cargo of a packet, or smack, bound from Leith to London, should be the impression of a novel, for which the public curiosity was so much upon the alert as to require this immense importation to satisfy."