Was Walter Scott Bowdlerized?

Sir Walter Scott - painted by Sir William Allan



On March 24, 1826, Sir Walter Scott wrote in his Journal:

JB clamorous for a motto.
Go to. D—n
the mot-toe.
It is foolish to encourage people to expect mottoes and such-like Decoraments. You have no credit for success in finding them, and there is a disgrace in wanting them’

This is the text that appears in The Journal of Sir Walter Scott. From the Original Manuscript of Abbotsford, ed. W. E. K. Anderson (Oxford, 1972), 119, and in the Canongate 1999 edition, which has a footnote but does not comment on the textual variants.

However, the words:

'Go to.
D—n the mot-toe.'


did not appear in John Gibson Lockhart's Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume 4, , p. 36, 1838; nor in 1845: 618;  or 1852: 618. [Possibly in 1851: 618, but I've not been able to check that one]

Is it to be surmised that D--n was deleted by Lockhart's wife, Sophia, Scott's daughter? Are there any other similar instances during this period?


John Gibson Lockhart (1794 - 1854) and Charlotte Sophia Scott

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