1 - “We are five-and-forty”: meter and national identity in Sir Walter Scott

Summary

While composing the second of his Letters of Malachi Malagrowther (1826), Sir Walter Scott paused long enough to record the following remarks in his Journal:

Spent the morning and till dinner on Malachi's Second Epistle to the Athenians. It is difficult to steer betwixt the natural impulse of one's National feelings setting in one direction and the prudent regard to the interests of the empire and its internal peace and quiet recommending less vehement expression. I will endeavour to keep sight of both. But were my own interest alone concern[e]d, d – n me but I wa'd give it them hot.

The tension between “National feelings” and “the interests of the empire” points to a problem that, as we shall see, runs throughout the Letters of Malachi Malagrowther, the problem of sustaining Scotland's national integrity under the imperial jurisdiction of Great Britain, but in this Journal entry the immediate concern is somewhat different. Here Scott wonders whether he asserts Scottish autonomy too forcefully – whether his tone is too “hot.”

Scott's concern was justified. The Scottish Lord Melville was moved to “condemning … the inflammatory tendency of his letters,” arguing that “popular inflammation … is seldom resorted to by those who really wish well to their country.” The imputation of disloyalty was made more explicit when John Croker, in the government's official response to Scott's Letters, asserted that “the loyalty which could be shaken, as yours seems to have been … was, like your plaids, loosely worn, and easily cast off.”