Crabbe, George, 1754-1832; Poets, English -- 18th century -- Biography; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
"On receiving the poet on the quarter-deck, his Majesty
called for a bottle of Highland whisky, and having drunk his
health in this national liquor, desired a glass to be filled for
him. Sir Walter, after draining his own bumper, made a
request that the king would condescend to bestow on him the
glass out of which his Majesty had just drunk his health: and
this being granted, the precious vessel was immediately
wrapped up and carefully deposited in what he conceived to
be the safest part of his dress. So he returned with it to
Castle Street; but--to say nothing at this moment of graver
distractions--on reading his house he found a guest established
there of a sort rather different from the usual visitors
of the time. The Poet Crabbe, to whom he had been introduced
when last in London by Mr. Murray of Albemarle
Street, after repeatedly promising to follow up the acquaintance
by an excursion to the North, had at last arrived in the
midst of these tumultuous preparations for the royal advent.
Notwithstanding all such impediments, he found his quarters
ready for him, and Scott entering, wet and hurried, embraced
the venerable man with brotherly affection. The royal gift
was forgotten--the ample skirt of the coat within which it had
been packed, and which he had hitherto held cautiously in
front of his person, slipped back to its more usual position--he
sat down beside Crabbe, and the glass was crushed to
atoms. His scream and gesture made his wife conclude that
he had sat down on a pair of scissors, or the like: but very
little harm had been done except the breaking of the glass, of
which alone he had been thinking. This was a damage not to
be repaired: as for the scratch that accompanied it, its scar
was of no great consequence, as even when mounting the
'cat-dath, or battle-garment' of the Celtic Club, he adhered,
like his hero, Waverley, to _the trews_."
What follows in Lockhart's pages is also too interesting, as regards
Scott's visitor himself, to be omitted. The Highland clans, or what
remained of them, were represented on the occasion, and added greatly to
the picturesqueness of the procession and other pageantry. And this is
what occurred on the morning after the meeting of Scott and his guest:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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