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72 Hedvig af Petersens
posed, I lost no time in selecting authors, but took the first that
proved interesting, and translated right through, using a brush
instead of a pen. If allowed my own way, I could usually make
sixty pages per day in this manner, and when a volume was
finished I bound it up roughly, having a frame and implements for
that purpose. But I regarded these manuscripts only as materials
to be improved infinitely by a process of remaniement, whereas my
publishers thought they were sufficiently good in their existing
state, and eight volumes were brought out, which realized to me
a considerable sum.»1
Om summan vär stor, så vär den likafullt otillräcklig, och de
sista resterna av Gillies’ förmögenhet gingo förlorade i samma
panik- och kåta strof artade kris, som bortsopade Walter Scotts. I
stället för att, som denne rått honom till, lämna sina affärer i
händerna på kvalificerade personer och själv ägna sig åt litterärt
förvärvsarbete, inlät han sig på en rad processer, som slukade hans
inkomster och hindrade honom från arbete.
Walter Scott skriver om honom i sin dagbok — 3 dec. 1825:
»I really fear he is near an actual standstill. He has been
extremely improvident. When I first knew him, he had an excellent
estate, and now he is deprived, I fear, of the whole reversion of
the price, and this from no vice or extreme, except a wasteful
mode of buying pictures and other costly trifles at high prices, and
selling them again for nothing, besides an extravagant
housekeeping and profuse hospitality.» Han karakteriserar honom i
sammanhanget: »An excellent disposition, with a considerable fund of
aquired knowledge, would have rendered him an agreeable
companion, had he not affected singularity, and rendered himself
accordingly singularly affected. He was very near being a poet —
but a miss is as good as a mile and he always fell short of the
mark. I knew him first, many years ago, when, he was desirous of
my aquaintance; but he was too poetical for me, or I was not
poetical enough for him, so that we continued only ordinary
aquaintance, with goodwill on either side, which R. P. G. really deserves,
as a more friendly generuos creature never lived. Lockhart hopes
to to get something done for him, being sincerely attached to him,
1 Gillies’ Memoirs a. a., Vol. Ill, s. 91. Bland arbeten från denna tid
märkes German Stories selected from the works of Hoffmann, Dela Motte, Pichler,
Kruse and others (3 vol. 1822).
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