into a system of living greatly beyond his real means, and from which the pressure of no embarrassments, however severe, could awaken him. Another error,
to which the steps were perhaps as natural and easy, was his yielding to the desires of his friend Sir Walter Scott, for money, and the means of raising money,
as a fore-payment of literary labour. Both men were in some degree intoxicated by the extraordinary success they had met with in their respective
careers, which seemed to assure them against the occurrence of any real
difficulty in any of the processes of worldly affairs ; and, mutually supporting
their common delusion, they launched without rudder or compass into an ocean
of bank credit, in which they were destined eventually to perish. The
reverence of the publisher for the author was not greater than was the confidence of the author in " the strong sense and sagacious calculations," (his
own words) of the publisher. Both afterwards discovered that they had been
in a great measure wrong, as even the works of a Scott could only produce a
certain sum, while the calculations of Mr Constable, though bearing the impress
of an ardent and generous temperament, were not conducted upon those rules
which alone will ensure good results in commercial affairs. It is painful to
reflect on the change which adversity brought over the mutual sentiments
of these distinguished men. Mr Constable lived to lament on a death-bed the
coldness which the results of his bankruptcy had introduced into the mind
of his former friend, and to complain (whether justly or not) that, if he had not
been so liberal towards that friend, he might have still known prosperity. Sir
Walter, on the other hand, lived to suffer the pain of pecuniary distress in con-
sequence of the loose calculations of himself and his publisher, and to entertain in
his benevolent and tranquil mind, so changed a feeling regarding that individual,
as prevented him from paying the common respect of a friend to his remains,
when, in the hour of calamity and sorrow, they were transferred to the grave.
Mr Constable had in early life entertained literary aspirations only less ambitious than those by which he distinguished himself in commercial life. Though wanting the advantages of an academical education, he wrote his own language fluently and correctly. Scottish antiquities formed the department in which he desired to exert himself, and the present writer has heard him, amidst the pressing cares of business, express a touching regret for the non-fulfilment of the hopes which he once entertained in reference to this favourite study. From respect for his literary abilities, MissSeward bequeathed to him her whole correspondence, in the expectation that he would personally undertake the duty of editor; a task, however, for which he found it necessary to employ a substitute, in the person of Mr Morehead. The only literary efforts of Mr Constable which have ever been ascertained, consist in the editing of Lamont's Diary in 1810, and of a compilation of" The Poetry contained in the Waverley Novels," and the composition of a small volume which appeared in 1822, under the title of " Memoir of George Heriot, jeweller to king James, containing an account of the Hospital founded by him at Edinburgh." Having become a widower in 1816, Mr Constable, in 1818, married Miss Charlotte Neale, who survived him. In the early part of 1822, he was obliged, by a due regard to his physical and mental energies, to reside for some months in England. It may also be mentioned among the particulars of his life, that, in 1823, though professedly a Whig in politics, he was included by the liberal policy of the government in a list of new justices of the peace for the city of Edinburgh. In the same year, he removed from the warehouse he had occupied for nearly thirty years in the High street, to an elegant mansion adjacent to the Register House, in the New Town, which had become his own by purchase from the connexions of his second marriage.
