But when I
speak of Scott as a Home-Ruler, I should add that had not Scotland
been for generations governed to a great extent, and, as he thought
successfully, by Home-Rule, he was far too good a Conservative to have
apologized for it at all. The basis of his Conservatism was always the
danger of undermining a system which had answered so well. In the
concluding passages of the letters to which I have just referred, he
contrasts "Theory, a scroll in her hand, full of deep and mysterious
combinations of figures, the least failure in any one of which may
alter the result entirely," with "a practical system successful for
upwards of a century." His vehement and unquailing opposition to
Reform in almost the very last year of his life, when he had already
suffered more than one stroke of paralysis, was grounded on precisely
the same argument. At Jedburgh, on the 21st March, 1831, he appeared
in the midst of an angry population (who hooted and jeered at him till
he turned round fiercely upon them with the defiance, "I regard your
gabble no more than the geese on the green,") to urge the very same
protest. "We in this district," he said, "are proud, and with reason,
that the first chain-bridge was the work of a Scotchman. It still
hangs where he erected it a pretty long time ago. The French heard of
our invention, and determined to introduce it, but with great
improvements and embellishments. A friend of my own saw the thing
tried. It was on the Seine at Marly. The French chain-bridge looked
lighter and airier than the prototype. Every Englishman present was
disposed to confess that we had been beaten at our own trade. But
by-and-by the gates were opened, and the multitude were to pass over.
It began to swing rather formidably beneath the pressure of the good
company; and by the time the architect, who led the procession in
great pomp and glory, reached the middle, the whole gave way, and
he--worthy, patriotic artist--was the first that got a ducking. They
had forgot the middle bolt,--or rather this ingenious person had
conceived that to be a clumsy-looking feature, which might safely be
dispensed with, while he put some invisible gimcrack of his own to
supply its place."[48] It is strange that Sir Walter did not see that
this kind of criticism, so far as it applied at all to such an
experiment as the Reform Bill, was even more in point as a rebuke to
the rashness of the Scotch reformer who hung the first successful
chain-bri