The Friend

‘June 7th, 1809.

DEAR Coleridge,—I congratulate you on the appearance of “The Friend.” Your first number promises well, and I have no doubt the succeeding numbers will fulfil the promise…’

Charles Lamb’s letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (begun above) references Coleridge’s publication  “The Friend”, which was to ultimately reach 28 volumes.  Coleridge mentioned Sir Walter Scott more than once in “The Friend”.  The following is found in the notes to “The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge” (edited by James Dykes Campbell).

‘…in after years, Coleridge himself looked back on his Wallenstein with some complacency.  In a note to Essay XVI of The Friend (1818, i. 204 – it is suppressed in later editions), he thanks Sir Walter Scott for quoting it ‘with applause’.  Sir Walter certainly said ‘Coleridge had made Schiller’s “Wallenstein” far finer than he found it’ (Lockhart’s Life, iv 193).  In another passage in The Friend (1818, iii. 99) Coleridge again makes his acknowledgements to Sir Walter and other ‘eminent and even popular literati.’

Siege of Jerusalem

'While the fire continued, the two parties laboured in active union, like the jarring factions of the Jews during the siege of Jerusalem, when compelled to unite in resisting an assault of the besiegers. But when the last bucket of water had hissed on the few embers that continued to glimmer--when the sense of mutual hostility, hitherto suspended by a feeling of common danger, was in its turn rekindled--the parties, mingled as they had hitherto been in one common exertion, drew off from each other, and began to arrange themselves at opposite sides of the hall, and handle their weapons, as if for a renewal of the fight.'

Sir Walter Scott uses the siege of Jerusalem as an analogy in "Peveril of the Peak".  The Siege of Jerusalem began on June 7, 1099, with Raymond of Toulouse and Godfrey of Bouillon taking the city by July 15. 

John Rennie

On June 7, 1761, the civil engineer John Rennie was born.  Rennie had a facility for mechanical work, and as a youth spent time in Andrew Meikle's (inventor of threshing machine) workshop.  Rennie attended Edinburgh University between 1780 and 1783.  In 1784, he visited James Watt, who offered him a position.  Rennie accepted, moving to London to work on a steam engine being built by Boulton & Watt.

Rennie worked on several projects in London, including canals (Kennet and Avon), docks (London docks), harbors (Holyhead harbor), and bridges (London bridge).  He is also credited with designing and building the Bell Rock Lighthouse.

Rennie received early schooling in Prestonkirk.  Walter Scott drew upon this area, including Haddington for some of his character inspiration.  Some of these are detailed in "Reminiscences of the royal burgh of Haddington and old East Lothian agriculturists".  For example (West Port):

...Witches of old were burned in the Gallows Green. Sir Walter Scott had no doubt these atrocious events in his eye when, in his novel of the Bride of Lammermoor, he describes an interview betwixt old Alice, Ravenswood, Henry and Lucy Ashton, in the following words :

— ** * They think,' said Henry Ashton, who came up at that moment, and whispered into Ravenswood's ear,
* that she is a witch that should have been burnt with them that suffered at Haddington.'

" ' What is that you say,' said Alice, turning towards the boy, her sightless visage inflamed with passion ;


* that I am a witch, and ought to have suffered with the helpless old wretches who were murdered at Haddington.?'" ...

WRS