Marriage | Page 6

imprimatur."
In allusion to Sir Walter's eulogium on the novel above quoted, Mr. Blackwood writes to the author:--
"I have the pleasure of enclosing you this concluding sentence of the new Tales of my Landlord, which are to be published to-morrow. After this call, surely you will be no longer silent. If the great magician does not conjure you I shall give up all hopes."
But Miss Ferrier seems to have been proof against the great magician even. Marriage became deservedly popular, and was translated into French, as appears from the annexed:--
"We perceive by the French papers that a translation of Miss Ferrier's clever novel Marriage has been very successful in France."-New Times, 6 Oct. '25.
For Marriage she received the sum of ��150. Her second venture was more successful in a pecuniary sense. Space, however, prohibits me from dwelling any longer on Marriage, so we come next to The Inheritance. This novel appeared six years after, in 1824, and is a work of very great merit. To her sister (Mrs. Kinloch, in London) Miss Ferrier writes:--
"John (her brother) has now completed a bargain with Mr. Blackwood, by which I am to have ��1000 for a novel now in hand, but which is not nearly finished, and possibly never may be. Nevertheless he is desirous of announcing it in his magazine, and therefore I wish to prepare you for the shock. I can say nothing more than I have already said on the subject of vigilence, if not of secrecy. I never will avow myself, and nothing can hurt and offend me so much as any of my friends doing it for me; this is not faron de parler, but my real and unalterable feeling; I could not bear the fuss of authorism!"
Secrecy as to her authorship seems to have been the great desire of her heart, and much of The Inheritance was written in privacy at Morningside House, old Mr. Ferrier's summer retreat near Edinburgh, and she says, "This house is so small, it is very ill-calculated for concealment."
It was not till 1851 that she publicly avowed herself by authorising her name to be prefixed to a revised and corrected edition of her works. [1] Sir Walter Scott was delighted with this second novel, a proof of which was conveyed to Miss Ferrier by Mr. Blackwood:--
[1] Published by the late Mr. Richard Bentley, to whom she sold her copyrights in 1841. A previous edition was published by him in 1841.
"On Wednesday I dined in company with Sir Walter Scott, and he spoke of the work in the very highest terms. I do not always set the highest value on the baronet's favourable opinion of a book, because he has so much kindness of feeling towards everyone, but in this case he spoke so much con amore, and entered so completely, and at such a length, to me, into the spirit of the book and of the characters, that showed me at once the impression it had made on him. Everyone I have seen who has seen the book gives the some praise of it. Two or three days ago I had a note from a friend, which I copy: 'I have nearly finished a volume of The Inheritance. It is unquestionably the best novel of the class of the present day, in so far as I can yet judge. Lord Rossville, Adam Ramsay, Bell Black and the Major, Miss Pratt and Anthony Whyte are capital, and a fine contrast to each other. It is, I think, a more elaborate work than Marriage, better told, with greater variety, and displaying improved powers. I congratulate you, and have no doubt the book will make a prodigious sough'." [1]
[1] Sensation.
Mr. Blackwood adds: "I do not know a better judge nor a more frank and honest one than the writer of this note."
Again he writes:--
"On Saturday I lent in confidence to a very clever friend, on whose discretion I can rely, the two volumes of The Inheritance. This morning I got them back with the following note: 'My dear Sir-I am truly delighted with The Inheritance. I do not find as yet anyone character quite equal to Dr. Redgill, [1] except, perhaps, the good-natured, old-tumbled (or troubled, I can't make out which) maiden, [2] but as a novel it is a hundred miles above Marriage. It reminds me of Miss Austen's very best things in every page. And if the third volume be like these, no fear of success triumphant.'"
[1] In Marriage the gourmet physician to Lord Courtland, and "the living portrait of hundreds, though never before hit off so well."
[2] Miss Becky Duguid.
Mr. Blackwood again says:--
"You have only to go on as you are going to sustain the character Sir Walter gave me of Marriage, that you had the rare talent of making your conclusion even