Description:

Scott Sir Walter

1p ALS by Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), inscribed overall and signed by him as "Yours +c. Walter Scott" at center right. Trace remnants of red wax seal on integral address leaf. In near fine condition, with expected paper folds. Overall light even toning and V-shaped notch missing from corner of address leaf. Unfolded measures 8.875" x 7.125".

 

Sir Walter Scott wrote a courtly letter to one "Mr. Ford, 10 George Street, Mrs. Scotts [sic] Lodgings" from Edinburgh on May 21, 1829.

 

"Dear Mr. Ford,

 

You must not think me insensible of your kindness if I beg to decline accepting so valuable a gift as that of the picture your goodness destined for me but I really cannot in justice to my own feelings accept what I have no means of acknowledging.

 

My absence in the country and my necessary avocations here have prevented my calling which I hope to do were I only to thank you for your profound kindness.

 

Yours +c. Walter Scott"

 

Scott's correspondent was a rare book collector and art dealer whose "Collection of Books, Prints, Pictures, &c" was advertised in the November 1828-May 1829 issue of the Edinburgh Literary Journal. The "picture" given to Scott was probably an Italian School print or English portrait like the ones Ford advertised for sale.

 

In 1829, the wildly popular Scottish novelist who had produced the Waverly Novels (1814-1832), Rob Roy (1817), and Ivanhoe (1820) was bankrupt after the 1825 British banking crisis. Scott's reason for declining Ford's gift might have been his inability to pay for the painting, here implicitly stated as "what I have no means of acknowledging". Whatever Scott's reasons for declining the gift, his note is one of the most courtly and gracious that we have encountered.


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