No More Learning

In some cases, as in that of
Kinmont Willie, fragmentary recitals were merely utilised as
little more than suggestions for the construction of what was
practically a new ballad, inspired by their general tenor; and
large portions of other ballads, as in the striking instance of
Otterbourne, were very much a mere amalgam of amended and
supplemented lines and phrases, welded into poetic unity and
effectiveness by his own individual art. The publication of
Minstrelsy led, gradually, to a more critical enquiry into the
genesis and diffusion of the ancient ballad. By collecting several
versions of many ballads and preserving them at Abbotsford,
Scott helped to supply data towards this enquiry; while his intro-
ductions and notes tended to awaken a more scientific curiosity as
to the sources of ballad themes, the connection of the ballad with
old tales and superstitions and its relation to other forms of ancient
literature.
The reconstruction and amendment of old ballads brought
Scott still more completely under the spell of the ancient Scottish
past, and, also, helped not a little to discipline and enrich his poetic
art. Little more than the rudiments of poetic art were manifested
in his earlier ballad imitations. While, like the ballads of Bürger,
they suffer from a too close endeavour to reproduce the form and
spirit of the ancient ballad, they, also, though displaying glimpses
of poetic power, are often a little rough and uneven in their style and


## p. 7 (#31) ###############################################

1] The Lay of the Last Minstrel
7
expression; and, while they come short of the dramatic force and
vividness of Bürger's ballads, they manifest nothing of the modern
creative adaptation of the ancient ballad art brilliantly displayed
in the ballads of Schiller and Goethe. But, what we have specially
to notice is that they contain nothing comparable to the best
stanzas of the amended Minstrelsy versions, and that none of
them possesses the condensed tragic effectiveness of, for example,
his own short ballad Albert Graeme in The Lay of the Last
Minstrel (1805).
The production of this long romantic poem was the more
immediately important consequence of Scott's ballad studies. It
may almost be described as a kind of prolonged and glorified border
ballad. While on the outlook for a subject which might be made
the theme of a romance, 'treated with the simplicity and wildness
of an ancient ballad,' he received from the countess of Dalkeith a
border legend of Gilpin Horner, with the suggestion that he
might compose a ballad on it. He had then just finished the
editing of the old metrical romance Sir Tristrem, and he had also
been much struck by the casual recital to him of Coleridge's
Christabel, as yet unpublished. What he, therefore, at first con-
templated was, according to Lockhart,
to throw the story of Gilpin into a somewhat similar cadence, so that he
might produce such an echo of the late metrical romance as would serve to
connect his conclusion of the primitive Sir Tristrem with his imitation of
the common popular ballad in The Gray Brother and The Eve of St John,
But, when he began shaping the story, it assumed, partly through
the hints and suggestions of friends, the form of a romance
divided into cantos, sung or recited by an aged minstrel to the
duchess of Buccleugh and her ladies in the state room of Newark
castle.
The resort to the minstrel-whose personality, circumstances,
temperament and moods are finely indicated in sympathetic
stanzas at the beginning of the poem and, incidentally, between
the cantos—was a specially happy inspiration. The poem being
a minstrel recitation, a certain minstrel simplicity is maintained
throughout; and, while an antique charm thus pervades its general
method and manner, the recitation is preserved from the monotony
of the old romances by substituting for the archaic romance
stanzas an irregular and plastic metrical form. This mescolanza
of measures,' as Scott terms it, was previously known to him as
used by Anthony Hall, Anstey, Wolcot and others.
indebted to Coleridge for the suggestion of its adaptability to
6
He was


## p. 8 (#32) ###############################################

8
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
1
more serious narrative verse; but The Lay, apart from the metre,
has little in common with the fantastic fairy romance of Christabel.
The rhythmical advantage of the metrical scheme consists in the
fact that the length of the line is determined not by syllables
but by accents. While it is limited to four accents, the number
of the syllables may vary from seven to twelve. In a long
narrative poem this, in itself, was a great antidote to monotony;
and with it was conjoined the intermixture of couplet stanzas
with others in which the couplet is varied with alternate or woven
rime. In the case of Scott, the use of the metrical scheme was
modified by the influence of the old ballad verse, of the old
romance stanzas and of the verse forms of the old Scottish poets,
which conferred, imperceptibly, perhaps, to himself, a certain
antique flavour on the form, as well as the substance, of his
poem. From the immense poetic licence which this “mescolanza
of measures' affords, success in its use, even in a strictly
metrical sense, depends, also, in a very special way, on the inde-
pendent individual art of the poet.
The goblin pranks of Gilpin Horner were declared by Jeffrey
to be the capital deformity of the poem; but, if these interludes add
neither to its poetic nor romantic charm, they are (a point over-
looked by the adverse critics) an essential part of what plot there
is, since the combat which forms the climax of the poem depends
upon the decoying of young Buccleugh and his falling into English
hands. Again, the goblin story was Scott's original theme; and
he could hardly have paid a more appropriate compliment to the
lady to whom he was indebted for it than by making it the
occasion of creating the series of striking episodes which he has
linked with the annals of the house of Scott. The sequence of
old border scenes and incidents is elaborated with an admirable
combination of antique lore, clan enthusiasm and vividly pic-
turesque art. Necessarily, the presentation is a selective, a
poetical, a more or less idealised, one. The ruder and harsher
aspects of the old border life are ignored. Apart, also, from
imaginary occurrences, some liberty has been taken with historical
facts, and the chronology, here and there, is a little jumbled; but,
the main point is that the poetic tale, while reasonably accordant
with known facts, is, on the whole, instinct with imaginative
efficacy and artistic charm. While Scott's border prepossessions
may, as has been objected, have enticed him, here and there, into
details that are caviare to the general reader-and it may be
granted that the prosaic recital of the savage combat by which the
>


## p. 9 (#33) ###############################################

1]
The Lay and Marmion
9
a
Scotts of Eskdale won their land is an irrelevant interruption of
the main story—these local partialities,' though not quite ex-
cusable, are not prominent enough strongly to offend, as Jeffrey
feared, 'the readers of the poem in other parts of the empire.
Again, though certain critics may be so far right in pronouncing
canto vi a kind of superfluity-for the fine description of the
wailing music of the harper's requiem would have formed an
admirable conclusion—the superfluity may well be forgiven in
the case of a canto including, to mention nothing further, the
rapturous pathetic invocation with which it opens, the consum-
mately successful ballad adaptation Albert Graeme, the more
elaborately beautiful song of the English bard Fitztraver, the
graphic and pathetic Rosabelle and the pilgrim mass in Melrose
abbey, with the impressive English version of Dies Irae.
Scott himself says that 'the force in The Lay is thrown on
style, in Marmion on description’; but the dictum must be inter-
preted in a somewhat loose sense. Notwithstanding many felicities
and beauties, the style in The Lay, as in Marmion, is often
careless. Owing, partly, to his overflowing energy and his
emotional absorption in his subject, of which he was practically
master before he began to write, he was a great, an almost
matchless, improvisator ; he created his impression more by the
ardour and vividness of his presentation than by the charm of
a subtle and finished art. The Lay being, however, his first poetic
venture on a large scale, he necessarily had to give special atten-
tion to its poetic form and manner, and this all the more because
it was a quite novel kind of poetic venture. He had to devise a
metrical scheme for it, and, having elected that the story should
be told by a minstrel, he had to preserve throughout a certain
minstrel directness and simplicity. But, if The Lay be more care-
fully written than Marmion, it is rather more archaic and not so
directly potent. Notwithstanding The Lay's pleasant antique
flavour and the quaintly interesting personality of the minstrel-
for whom the introductory epistles to each canto of Marmion,
however excellent in themselves, are by no means a happy
substitute-Marmion has the advantage of being less imitative
and artificial in its manner and more unrestrainedly effective.
The metrical scheme is a kind of modification of that of The Lay.
The rhythm is less irregular, the couplets being generally octo-
syllabic; and couplets bulk more largely than interwoven stanzas,
the former being usually employed for the simple narrative, and the
latter for the more descriptive passages. Marmion, also, conjures


## p. 10 (#34) ##############################################

IO
Sir Walter Scott
[CH.
in
up a more striking, varied and pregnant series of scenes than does
The Lay. The past depicted is not specifically a border, but a
partly Scottish and partly English, past. As he himself tells us,
it is an attempt to paint the manners of feudal times on a
broader scale and in the course of a more interesting story. The
love story—though, so far as concerns Constance, a far from
pleasant one—is more poignantly interesting; and the story to
which it is subordinate, the tragic national story of Flodden, is
more profoundly moving than The Lay's chivalric combat. Lord
Marmion, whose love concerns, diplomatic errand and final fate
are the ostensible theme of the poem, is not, however, a very con-
vincing or coherent portrait. 'The combination of mean felony
with so many noble qualities in the character of the hero'-
however well it may have served to give occasion for the ad-
mirable pictures of the past which are the poem's most conspicuous
feature-is, as Lockhart admits, the main blot in the poem. '
It is a more serious blot than are the pranks of the goblin page
The Lay. It especially detracts from the poetic effectiveness of
his death-scene, for the reader resents the distinction thus con-
ferred on the double-hearted hero by the glowing and minute
account of his individual fate when cardinal national issues are
hanging in the balance. While the fortunes of Lord Marmion
are, ostensibly, the main theme of the poem, he is, however, intro-
duced merely to afford opportunity to paint the manners of the
time in the year of Flodden. They are shown to us in association
with the castle, the convent, the inn, the court, the camp and the
battle. The force, as Scott says, is laid on description. The poem
is very much a series of vivid kaleidoscopic scenes. It may suffice
to mention the exquisite prospect of Norham castle illuminated by
the setting sun; the description of Marmion's approach to it;
the presentation of the voyage of the Whitby nuns along the rock-
bound Durham and Northumbrian coasts to St Cuthbert's holy
isle; the trial and doom of Constance by the heads of the three
convents in ‘the dread vault' of Lindisfarne; the inn interior of
the olden time with its host and guests; the approach towards
Lord Marmion from the woodland shade of the lion king Sir David
Lyndsay, on his milk-white palfrey, attended by his heralds and
pursuivants on their prancing steeds and all clothed in their
gorgeous heraldic bravery; the picture of the mighty mass of
Crichton castle dominating the green vale of Tyne’; and the
presentation of the white pavilions of the great and motley
Scottish army on the Borough muir backed by the turrets and


## p. 11 (#35) ##############################################

i] The Lady of the Lake
II
rocky heights of Edinburgh and the shining expanse of the firth
of Forth. But the great descriptive triumph of the poem is the
dramatic picture of the stress and tumult and varying fortunes
of the Flodden conflict, to the last heroic stand of the Scots
and their flight across the Tweed in the gathering darkness. With
the description of the morrow's battlefield and of the discovery of
the king's body, the poem might well have ended; for the story of
Lord Marmion's burial, of Wilton's feats and of Clara's happy
marriage is rather an anticlimax.
While, in The Lay, the force, according to Scott, is laid on style,
and, in Marmion, on description, in The Lady of the Lake (1810)
it is laid on incident. The poem sets before us an almost con-
tinuous succession of exciting occurrences. It is not so much a
re-creation of the past as a stirring recital of hazards and ad-
ventures. Nevertheless, it is as picturesquely descriptive as either
of its two predecessors; and, apart from the vividly coloured
incidents, it gains a special charm from the wild and enchanting
scenery which forms their setting. The detailed obtrusiveness of
the scenery has been objected to as too guidebook-like; but what
would the poem, as a poem, be apart from the matchless repro-
duction of the scenery's enchantment? It was, in fact, the deep
impression made on Scott by the mingled loveliness and wild
grandeur of the loch Katrine region that suggested to him to make
it the scene of such a theme. This poem,' he says, “the action of
which lay among scenes so beautiful and so deeply impressed on
my recollection, was a labour of love. '
Each canto begins with one or more Spenserian stanzas, mainly
of an invocatory character; and, except for the interpolated songs
or bard recitals, he confines himself, throughout his tale, almost
wholly to the octosyllabic couplet. This has met with some
disapproval; but the rapid succession of exciting incidents tends
to prevent the monotony of effect that might have been felt in
the case of a less animated narrative, the poem being almost
destitute of such irksome passages as have been commented on in
the case of its predecessors. It is the most uniformly and vividly
entertaining of the three poems, and was, and seems destined to
be, the most popular. If it cannot be termed great poetry,
it is, for most readers, a very fascinating poetic tale. Though
it may even verge, occasionally, on rodomontade, though its
representations of personalities are rather slight and superficial
and, in some instances, a little stagey, there is irresistible spirit
and verve in the depiction of its incidents and much poetic charm


## p. 12 (#36) ##############################################

I 2
[ch.
Sir Walter Scott
ta
1
6
in the arrangement of their setting. As for the interpolated
songs, some, intended to represent the more voluminous impro-
visations of the highland bards, are but fairly successful Ossianic
imitations; but the song of Ellen, Rest, Warrior, Rest, is a true
romantic inspiration; ardent clan loyalty is consummately blended
with savage warrior sentiment in the boat chorus Hail to the
Chief; and it would be difficult to overpraise the condensed
passion of the coronach.
Of Rokeby (1813), Scott wrote to Ballantyne: 'I hope the
thing will do, chiefly because the world will not expect from
me a poem of which the interest turns upon character. ' Of
Bertram, the lusty villain of the poem, he also wrote to Joanna
Baillie :
He is a Caravaggio sketch, which I may acknowledge to you—but tell it not
in Gath-I rather pride myself upon, and he is within the keeping of nature,
though critics will say to the contrary.
Lockhart questions whether, even in his prose, “there is anything
more exquisitely wrought out as well as fancied than the whole
contrast of the two rivals for the love of the heroine in Rokeby';
and he also expresses the opinion that 'the heroine herself has
a very particular interest in her. At this, few, perhaps, will be
disposed to cavil very much. Scott here gave the world a glimpse
of a new aspect of his genius. In none of his previous poetic
tales did he direct special attention to the portrayal of character.
With the exception of Lord Marmion, who, at least, is an artistic,
if not psychological, failure, his personalities are rather loosely
sketched ; in Rokeby, there is a much more elaborate indication
of idiosyncrasies. It thus possesses a more pungent human
interest than any of the three previous poems; the story, also,
is better constructed and it abounds in thrilling and dramatic
situations, all well devised and admirably elaborated; on the
other hand, it is rather overburdened with mere sordidness and
deficient in the finer elements of romance; it has neither the
antique charm of The Lay, nor the national appeal of Marmion,
nor the captivating singularity of The Lady of the Lake. Of the
scenery, Scott says, 'it united the romantic beauties of the wilds
of Scotland and the rich and smiling aspect of the southern
portion of the island. ' And he had bestowed immense care on
mastering its characteristic features; but, superior in rich,
natural charms as is this Yorkshire country to most of southern
Scotland, it lacks the mingled grandeur and bewitching loveliness
of the loch Katrine region; and, in Rokeby Scott failed to utilise
"T


## p. 13 (#37) ##############################################

1]
13
The Lord of the Isles
it with anything of the same effectiveness. The incidents of
Rokeby might have happened anywhere and at any period, as
well after any other battle as that of Marston moor. No
attempt is made to portray the characteristics of cavaliers or
roundheads; and the historic interest of the poem is almost nil.
In The Lord of the Isles (1818), again, the historic interest is
supreme. Its main fault, as a poetic tale, is, in truth, that it
is too strictly historical, too much a mere modern reproduction
of Barbour's Bruce. The lurid Skye episode, however, is recorded
with rare impressiveness, and the whole pageantry of the poem
is admirably managed. Of the less important romances—The
Vision of Don Roderick (1811), The Bridal of Triermain (1813)
and Harold the Dauntless (1817)little need be said. Though the
first-founded on a Spanish legend and written on behalf of a
fund for the relief of the Portuguese-bears more than the usual
signs of hasty composition, the glowing enthusiasm of its martial
stanzas largely atones for its minor defects. Of The Bridal of
Triermain, fragmentary portions appeared in The Edinburgh
Annual Register for 1813 as an imitation of Scott. By some, they
were attributed to William Erskine, afterwards Lord Kinneder,
and, at Erskine's request, Scott agreed to complete the tale,
on condition that Erskine should make no serious effort to
disown the composition, if report should lay it at his door. ' To
aid in the deception, Scott took care ‘in several places to mix
something which might resemble' his 'friend's feeling and manner';
and we must suppose that this was more particularly attempted
in the Lucy introductions. The romance, a wondrous love story
of the time of Arthur, is itself, also, in a more gentle and subdued
key than is usual with Scott, and the airily graceful story of its
scatheless marvels strongly contrasts with the potent and semi-
burlesque energy that animates the fierce and fearsome saga,
Harold the Dauntless.
Little importance attaches to any of Scott's dramatic efforts-
Halidon Hill (1822), Macduff's Cross (1822), The Doom of
Devorgoil (1830) or The Tragedy of Auchindrane (1830)—which
but serve to show that his genius or his training unfitted him to
excel in this more concise form of imaginative art. As for his
poetic romances, they might conceivably have gained by more
careful elaboration and considerable condensation; but, on the
other hand they might, by such a process, have lost much of their
fire and spirit and naïve picturesqueness. Their main charm lies
in their vivid presentation of the exciting incidents and wondrous


## p. 14 (#38) ##############################################

14
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
Api
man
but
MI
By
buy
occurrences of former times, in association with their antique
environinent, with old surviving memorials of the past and with
notably characteristic scenery. If their poetry be lacking in
condensed effectiveness, in emotional depth and in the more
exquisite beauties and splendours of imaginative art, it is
generally admirably spirited, and it is almost unmatched for its
brilliant pictures of adventure, pageantry and conflict.
But, on the whole, it is, perhaps, as a lyric poet that Scott is
seen to best advantage; though, even in Scotland, his lyric greatness
has been rather overlooked. Here, he has been overshadowed by
Burns, and he hardly deserves to be so. Necessarily, he was not
a little indebted to the example of Burns, of whom he was one
of the most ardent of admirers, and his minute acquaintance with
Johnson's Musical Museum is, also, evident. But, if, here, he owes
something to Burns, he was, in some respects, a close rival of him.
He does not rival him as a love poet; but, if, also, in other
respects, a much less voluminous writer of lyrics, he showed,
perhaps, a more independent fertility, and his diversity is quite
as remarkable. Various examples of his lyric art in his poetic
romances have already been quoted ; and, scattered throughout
his novels, there are, also, many exquisite lyrical fragments and
other incidental verse. Such purely English pieces as Brignal
Banks; A Weary Lot; Rest, Warrior, Rest; Allan a Dale; County
Guy; Waken Lords and Ladies Gay; Love Wakes and Weeps
and Young Lochinvar have no parallel in Burns. Burns was
almost devoid of romance—as, indeed, were generally the Scottish
vernacular bards--except when, as in It was a' for our Richtful
King, he borrowed the sentiment of a predecessor; nor could
he have penned the tenderly mournful Proud Maisie. Of Scott's
mastery of rollicking humour, we have at least one example in
Donald Caird; his Bonnie Dundee, Pibroch of Donald Dhu
and Macgregor's Gathering are unsurpassed as spirited martial
odes; the mournful pathos of old age is finely expressed in
The Sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill; and Rebecca's hymn When
Israel of the Lord Beloved is a majestic summary of Jewish
faith.
From the time of the publication of The Lay, not only had
Scott been by far the most popular poet of his time; his popu-
larity was of an unprecedented character. But the great vogue
of his verse was, of necessity, temporary. It was occasioned partly
by its novelty, supplemented by the general reaction against the
cold classicism of the eighteenth century. Furthermore, his verse
門
​

## p. 15 (#39) ##############################################

1]
15
Scott and Byron
represented a form of this reaction which appealed, more than any
other contemporary verse, to the general reader. It revealed
the more attractive aspects of the feudal and chivalric past with
elaborate verisimilitude, and set forth its adventures and combats
with rare dramatic vividness. But, if these recitals stirred the
blood, they but faintly dealt with passion, they hardly appealed to
the profounder emotions, they were an unimportant stimulus to
thought, they did not very strongly thrill the soul, their romance
was mainly of a reminiscent and partly archaic type, their imagina-
tion hardly ranged beyond the externals of the past. Excellent
of its sort though his verse was, the scope of its influence was,
thus, of a limited and superficial character; and, also, it became
clear that Scott's vein was exhausted, even before his popularity
was eclipsed by that of Byron, who, while partly borrowing his
methods, applied them in a much more pungent fashion. Of
Byron, Scott himself says: 'He beat me out of the field in
description of the stronger passions and in deepseated knowledge
of the human heart. ' Whatever the exact degree of truth in this
modest verdict of Scott, his recognition of his partial eclipse as
a poet by Byron was a happy decision both for himself and the
world. It definitely induced him to abandon the poetic tale for
the novel; and, here, he attained a supremacy which, at least
during his own generation, remained unchallenged, and, if, later,
it was rivalled, has hardly yet been overthrown. His poetic
romances, while originating in certain strong predilections
specially fostered from his infancy, represented a mere fraction
of his endowments, characteristics and accomplishments. His
novels, on the contrary, afforded scope for the full exercise of
his uncommon combination of natural gifts and acquirements,
or his wholesome humour as well as his comprehensive sym-
pathies, for the utilisation not merely of his historical and
antiquarian lore but of his everyday experiences and his varied
practical knowledge of human nature. They mirrored the
writer himself more exactly and fully than others have been
mirrored in their literary productions. On his novels he may
be said to have lavished the whole of his mental resources, to
have spent the stores of his reflections and observations, and
to have bestowed the most precious resources of his extensive
erudition.
Before he began his career as novelist, he had reached
his forty-third year; and the literary apprenticeship he had
served as ballad collector and annotator, and poetic romance


## p. 16 (#40) ##############################################

16
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
writer, was an invaluable preparative for the greater vocation
of his late years. It had placed him in close relations with
the past; it had kindled, instructed and trained his romantic
imagination; it had stored his memory with countless interesting
details which were pregnant with suggestions for his fictitious
prose narratives and, in various ways, greatly enriched their
texture.
Nor is it possible to forget the insight into the spirit and
temper of special historical periods acquired by him in the course
of other literary undertakings. Among the more important
works issued under his editorship were the Civil War Memoirs
of Sir Henry Slingsby and captain Hodgson (1806); the Works
of Dryden, with life and elaborate notes, 18 vols. (1808); the
Military Memoirs (1672–1713) of George Carleton (1808); Sir
Robert Cary's Memoirs (1808); Somers's Collection of Tracts,
13 vols. (1809); The Life, Letters and State Papers of Sir Ralph
Sadler, 3 vols. (1809); The Secret History of James 1, 2 vols.
(1811); the Works of Jonathan Swift with life and notes, 19 vols.
(1814); Memorie of the Somervilles (1814); and various other
works in later years.
In purely historical writings, Scott's imaginative genius found
itself somewhat cramped. His Tales of a Grandfather (1827–9)
only faintly mirror his gift of story-telling. As for his voluminous
Life of Napoleon (1827), considering the circumstances in which
it was written and the rapidity with which it was achieved, it
is a remarkable tour de force; but it cannot claim to be, in almost
any respect, a satisfactory biography. On the other hand, his
Border Antiquities of England and Scotland (1817) exhibits
some of his most characteristic qualities. In compiling it, he
gained a very minute mastery of the characteristics of ancient
architecture and of the scenic features of a region teeming with
ancient martial exploits and exciting adventures. Scott had a
very keen eye for the picturesque features of ancient buildings
and of their situation and surroundings. While still in his father's
office, one of his chief recreations consisted of long country ex-
cursions on foot or on horseback, the principal object of which,
he says, was 'the pleasure of seeing romantic scenery, or what
afforded me at least equal pleasure, the places which had been
distinguished by remarkable historical events’; and, though he
modestly states that, while none delighted more than he in the
general effect of picturesque scenery, he was unable with the eye
of a painter to dissect the various parts of the scene, and, from


## p. 17 (#41) ##############################################

1]
17
Scenic Arrangement
some defects of eye or hand, was unable to train himself to make
sketches of those places which interested him; yet,
‘show me,' he says, 'an old castle or a field of battle, and I was at home at
once, filled it with its combatants in their proper costume and overwhelmed
my hearers with the enthusiasm of my description. '
6
>
He here touches on one of the cardinal idiosyncrasies of his
imaginative productions. Their inspiration is derived partly from
their scenes, and their fascination is greatly aided by his ex-
ceptional mastery of scenic arrangement. While possessing a
minute knowledge of the exteriors and interiors of old keeps and
castles, of ancient domestic habits and customs, of the modes
of ancient combat, of antique military apparel and weapons and
of the observances and pageantry of chivalry, he had, also, to
obtain a particular setting, a definite environment, for his incidents
before his imaginative genius could be adequately kindled ; and
an outstanding feature of his novels is the elaborate attention
bestowed on what may be termed the theatre of his events. If,
as he affirms, his sense of the picturesque in scenery was greatly
inferior to his sense of the picturesque in action, he was yet,
as he states, able, by very careful study and by 'adoption of a
sort of technical memory,' regarding the scenes he visited, to
utilise their general and leading features with all the effectiveness
he desired. But, much more than this may be affirmed. “Wood,
water, wilderness itself,' had, he says, 'an unsurpassable charm'
for him; and this charm he completely succeeds in communi-
cating to his readers. His vivid portrayal of the external
surroundings immensely enhances the effect of his narrative art;
it greatly heightens its interest, and powerfully assists him in
conveying a full sense of reality to the incidents he depicts.
As an instance of his employment of a graphically minute
description of surroundings to rouse and impress the reader's
imagination, reference may be made to the masterly picture of
the wildly desolate characteristics of the waste of Cumberland,
through which Brown, in Guy Mannering, journeyed to find
Dandie Dinmont engaged in a life and death struggle with the
highway thieves.
He also shows a special partiality for night
There is, for example, the Glasgow midnight in Rob
Roy, the attack on the Tolbooth in The Heart of Midlothian, the
moonlight night in the beautiful highland valley, where Francis
Osbaldistone, journeying to a supper and bed at Aberfoil, is
overtaken by two horsemen, one of whom proves to be Diana
2
scenes.
E. L. XII.
CH. I.


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18
[ch.
Sir Walter Scott
Vernon, and, later, is suddenly hailed by a touch on the shoulder
from his mysterious friend, the escaped desperado Rob Roy, with
the remark 'a braw nicht Maister Osbaldistone, we have met
at the mirk hour before now'; the adventure of the Black Knight,
who, shortly after twilight in the forest had almost deepened into
darkness, chanced on the rude hut of that strange hermit the
buxom friar Tuck; and the night of the snowstorm, in which
Brown, after leaving the chaise, finds his way through the steep
glen to the ruinous hut in which he discovers Meg Merrilies
keeping lonely watch over the dying smuggler. But, indeed,
generally, an outstanding feature of his romances is the almost
magical art with which he conjures up the varied atmosphere and
scenery of his events and incidents. Outward nature was the
constant companion of his thoughts and feelings; he was familiar
with its varied aspects; and, in his references to them in his
romances, he shows an unerring instinct for what is appropriate
for his purpose.
Again, while employing an immense multiplicity of scenic
effects, he is peculiarly lavish in his introduction of personages.
His narrative, thus, has an immense sweep and compass. It
is not sufficient that his tale should relate the fortunes of hero
and heroine. They mainly assist in reviving a particular period
of the past, or the chief features of a great historic drama, or
the characteristics of certain ecclesiastical or political episodes.
The journey, for example, and adventures of Waverley are
merely a kind of pretext for a glimpse behind the scenes of the
'45; Guy Mannering and Redgauntlet deal more particularly
with the lawless aspects of southern Scotland shortly anterior
to Scott's own time, interspersed with amusing pictures of the
characteristic features of old legal Edinburgh ; Old Mortality
mirrors the Scotland of the covenanting persecution; and The
Fortunes of Nigel calls up the eccentric James VI and I, but,
more particularly, the seamy side of his court and the ruffianly
features of the London of his time. How instructively he
contrives to give a national interest to his tale is especially
seen in the case of The Heart of Midlothian. It is founded
on the actual case of a young woman who made a journey to
London on her sister's behalf, just as Jeanie Deans did, but,
with this, he interweaves the striking story of the Porteous
mob and the midnight attack on the Edinburgh Tolbooth,
paints vivid pictures of old burgher Edinburgh, of old rustic
Scottish life, of the stern Cameronians, of the old-world Scottish
3
1
1


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1] Comprehensive Sympathies 19
1
laird and his domestic affairs and of various Edinburgh repro-
bates, sets before us the ancient perils of the Great North
road, introduces us to queen Caroline and the great duke of
Argyll and his potent representatives, and describes the sovereign
sway of the duke's factor, the great Knockdunder, in the west
Highlands.
In his creation of personages, Scott displays a fecundity
resembling that of nature herself, a fecundity derived from his
comprehensive acquaintanceship with all sorts and conditions of
men. Like Burns, he at once placed himself on easy terms with
everyone he met. His early raids into Liddesdale, for example,
gave him a better insight into the characteristics of the border
shepherds and farmers than most strangers could obtain, for
the simple reason that he at once became intimate with them.
The verdict of one of them, at first disposed to stand in awe of
the Edinburgh advocate, was, so soon as Scott had spoken to him,
'he's just a chield like ourselves I think’; and this was the
impression he produced in whatever circle he moved. He met
everyone on terms of their common human nature; he mingled
with his workmen without conveying any sense of patronage, he
and they were at home with each other. On animals, he seemed
to exercise, unconsciously, a mesmeric influence, founded on their
instinctive trust in his goodwill; and a similar glamour, derived
from his deep geniality, at once secured him the confidence and
regard of nearly every person he met.
'I believe,' says Lockhart, “Scott has somewhere expressed in print his
satisfaction that, during all the changes of our manners, the ancient freedom
of personal intercourse may still be indulged in between a master and an
out-of-door's servant, but in truth he kept up the old fashion even with his
domestic servants to an extent which I have hardly seen practised by any
other gentleman. He conversed with his coachman if he sat by him, as he
often did, on the box, with his footman if he happened to be in the rumble. . . .
Any steady servant of a friend of his was soon considered as a sort of friend
too, and was sure to have a kind little colloquy to himself at coming and
going. '
Referring to the bashful reluctance of Nigel to mix in the
conversation of those with whom he was not familiar, Scott
remarks :
It is a fault only to be cured by experience and knowledge of the world
which soon teaches every sensible and acute person the important lesson that
amusement, and, what is of more consequence, that information and increase
of knowledge are to be derived from the conversation of every individual
whatsoever with whom he is thrown into a natural train of communication.
For ourselves we can assure the reader and perhaps if we have been able to
а
242


## p. 20 (#44) ##############################################

20
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
afford him amusement it is owing in a great degree to this cause—that we
never found ourselves in company with the stupidest of all possible com-
panions in a post-chaise, or with the most arrant cumber-corner that ever
occupied a place in the mail-coach, without finding that in the course of our
conversation with him we had some idea suggested to us, either grave or gay,
or some information communicated in the course of our journey, which
we should have regretted not to have learned, and which we should be sorry
to have immediately forgotten. '
Scott's curiosity as to idiosyncrasies, though kindly and well bred,
was minute and insatiable ; and it may further be noted that, for
his study of certain types of human nature, he had peculiar
opportunities from his post of observation as clerk to the court
of session. Moreover, he was happily dowered with the power
to combine strenuous literary and other labours with an almost
constant round of social distractions. His mental gifts were
splendidly reinforced by exceptional physical vigour, and, more
particularly, by a nervous system so strongly strung that, for
many years, it was not seriously disquieted by incessant studious
application combined with an almost constant round of con-
viviality. To almost the last, it enabled him to perform prodigies
of literary labour, even after it had begun to show serious signs
of breaking up. Though it must be granted that the infesting
of his border home by a constant influx of 'tourists, wonder
hunters and all that fatal species,' was, even from monetary
considerations—considerations the importance of which were, in
the end, to be calamitously revealed-far from an unmixed
blessing, it had certain compensations. If he occasionally found
it needful—from the behests of literary composition to escape
from it, the social racket, on the whole, gave him more pleasure
than boredom. Lockhart describes the society at Abbotsford as
'a brilliant and ever varying' one; and Scott, evidently, enjoyed
its diversity; and, while responding to its brilliances, took quiet
note of its follies and vanities. Though the daily reception of
new comers' entailed more or less ‘worry and exhaustion of spirit
upon all the family,' he was himself, we are told, proof against
this. The immense geniality of Scott, which qualified him for
80 comprehensive an appreciation of human nature, especially
manifests itself in his method of representing character. His
standpoint is quite the antipodes of that of Swift or Balzac.
Mentally and morally, he was thoroughly healthy and happy ;
there was no taint of morbidity or bitterness in his disposition ;
and, if aspiring, he was so without any tincture of jealousy or
envy.
Though possessing potent satiric gifts, he but rarely has
1


## p. 21 (#45) ##############################################

1]
21
Characters in his Novels
runy
6
recourse to them. Generally his humour is of an exceptionally
kindly and sunny character. He hardly ever and only when,
as in the case of the marquis of Argyll, his political prejudices
are strongly stirred-manifests an unfairness that verges on spite.
If a somewhat superficial, he is not a narrow, moralist. The
existence of human frailties does not seriously oppress him; they
appeal, many of them, as much to his sense of humour as to his
judiciary temper. He shows no trace of the uneasy cynicism
which greatly afflicted Thackeray; and, unlike many modern
writers, he displays no absorbing anxiety to explore what they
deem the depths of human nature and expose its general un-
soundness. On the other hand, he is an expert exponent of its
eccentricities and its comical qualities; and, if not one of the
most profoundly instructive, he is one of the most wholesomely
cheerful, of moralists. At the same time, he can admirably depict
certain types of vulgarly ambitious scoundrels, such as the attorney
Glossin in Guy Mannering, and he has a keen eye for a grotesque
hypocrite like Thomas Turnbull in Redgauntlet. Captain Dirk
Hatterick is, also, a splendid ruffian, although a much less difficult
portrait than that of captain Nanty Ewart of 'The Jumping Jenny'
and his pathetic struggle between good and evil. On the other
hand, his merely villainous creations, whether of the diabolically
clever order like Rashleigh, or the somewhat commonplace sort of
Lord Dalgarno, or the low and depraved kind of his eminence of
Whitefriars-grossly impressive after a fashion though he be-
are all a little stagey. In historical characters, his outstanding
successes are Louis XI and James VI and I. Here, of course,
he had the advantage of having to deal with very marked
idiosyncrasies ; but this might well have been a snare to an
inferior romancer. Scott's portraits of them may be more or
less incorrect, but both are very masterly and vivid representa-
tions of very definite embodiments of peculiar royal traits. With
them, he was much more successful than with Mary queen of
Scots, whose stilted heroics do not impress us, and, here, he was
handicapped by the conflict between his sympathies and his
convictions. His strong cavalier bias, also, on other occasions
proved a snare to him. For example, he outrageously exag-
gerates the sinister qualities of the marquis of Argyll; while his
Montrose is a featureless and faultless hero, quite overshadowed
in interest by captain Dugald Dalgetty. Claverhouse, again-
whom, in Old Mortality, he rather infelicitously refers to as
'profound in politics,' and whom, inadvertently, he makes to


## p. 22 (#46) ##############################################

22
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
figure there more as an arrogant coxcomb than as the high-hearted
royalist he would wish him to be—is, in Wandering Willie's
Tale, very impressively revealed to us as he appears in cove-
nanting tradition. On the other hand, the fanaticism of Burley
in Old Mortality is rather overdrawn: the stern indignation
which prompted the murder of archbishop Sharp was not allied
to any form of mental disorder. Still, if not historically correct,
the picturesque luridness of the fanaticism which is ascribed to
him is effectively set forth.
Generally, it may be said that Scott is least successful with
his more morally correct and least eccentric personages. He
specially fails to interest us in his lovers—perfectly proper but
rather buckram young men, with merely average commonplace
characteristics. Of Waverley, he himself said :
The hero is a sneaking piece of imbecility, and if he had married Flora,
she would have set him up upon the chimney piece, as Count Borowlaski's
wife used to do with him.
As for the heroines, their main fault is their faultlessness; they
do and say nothing that provokes criticism; and he is more
careful that we should respect and admire than understand them.
Catherine Seyton is clever, witty and sprightly. Diana Vernon
is rendered interesting by her peculiar surroundings, and, though
in a quite ingenuous fashion, verges on unconventionality. Julia
Mannering, Lucy Bertram, Flora MacIvor, Edith Bellenden, Miss
Wardour are all charming in a slightly different fashion from
each other; but little more than the surface of their natures is
revealed to us. On account of the peculiar prominence of the
love episode in The Bride of Lammermoor, and its strong tragic
characteristics, some have been inclined to pronounce this novel
Scott's masterpiece; but, while the tragic painfulness of portions
of the novel is undeniable, and no small art is shown in creating
a general atmosphere of tragic gloom and conveying a sense of
impending calamity, its tragic greatness is another matter. The
chief personalities hardly possess the qualities needful for evoking
the highest form of tragic pathos. The almost ludicrous sub-
jection of Sir William to his masterful wife is a serious hindrance
to the achievement of the desired effect; while, again, dis-
gust at her besotted prejudice and narrow, stolid pride tends
to prevent us from being roused to any other emotion as to
its consequences. Then, Lucy Ashton is too weak to win our
full sympathy; and her sudden lunacy and mad murderous
act shock, rather than impress, us; while, on the other hand,


## p. 23 (#47) ##############################################

1]
23
Love Episodes
Ravenswood is at once too readily conciliatory and too darkly
fierce. And, even if the tragic elements were better compounded
than they are, the novel, in other respects, is decidedly inferior
to the best of his productions. It has very patent faults-
sufficiently accounted for by Scott's condition of almost perpetual
torture when he wrote it-and, except in the case of the weird
crones, displays less than his usual graphic felicity in the portrayal
of Scottish characters, Caleb Balderstone, for example, being a
rather wearisome caricature, and the wit expended on his ingenious
devices to hide the extreme destitution of his master's larder being
of the very cheapest kind.
However admirably he could create a strong and thrilling
situation, Scott, in the portrayal of love episodes, fails to interest
his readers so much as do many less distinguished novelists.
Here, he shows little literary kinship with Shakespeare, with
whom he is sometimes compared, with whose influence he was
in many respects strongly saturated, from whom he obtained
important guidance in regard to artistic methods and whose
example is specially apparent in some of his more striking
situations. For his almost gingerly method of dealing with love
affairs, the exceedingly conventional character of the Edinburgh
society in which he moved may, in part, be held responsible.
He had an inveterate respect for the stereotyped proprieties.
By the time, also, that he began to write his prose romances,
love, with him, had mellowed into the tranquil affection of
married life. It was mainly in a fatherly kind of way that he
interested himself in the amatory interludes of his heroes and
heroines, who generally conduct themselves in the same invariably
featureless fashion, and do not, as a rule, play a more important
part in his narration than that of pawns in a game of chess.
With him, romance was not primarily the romance of love, but
the general romance of human life, of the world and its activities,
and, more especially, of the warring, adventurous and, more or
less, strange and curiosity-provoking past. For achieving his
best effects, he required a period removed, if even a little less
than ‘sixty years since,' from his own, a period contrasting more
or less strongly, but in, at least, a great variety of ways, with
it; and he depended largely on the curiosity latent, if not active,
in most persons, about old-time fashions, manners, modes of
life, personal characteristics and, more especially, dangers and
adventures.
'No fresher paintings of Nature,' says Carlyle, can be found


## p. 24 (#48) ##############################################

24
[ch.
Sir Walter Scott
than Scott's; hardly anywhere a wider sympathy with man’; but
a
he affirms that, while
Shakespeare fashions his characters from the heart outwards, your Scott
fashions them from the skin inwards, never getting near the heart of them!
The one set become living men and women, the other amount to little more
than mechanical cases, deceptively painted automatons.
Though a characteristically exaggerated pronouncement, it is
undeniable that there is a soupçon of truth in it. Scott would
have been the last to liken himself to Shakespeare as a delineator
of character. He is a little lacking in depth and subtlety; he
has an eye mainly for strongly marked characteristics, and
certain of his personages are but superficially delineated. He
makes no special intellectual or moral demands on us, as does,
for example, Meredith or Thackeray; he had little sense of
the finer shades, as had Jane Austen ; and he cannot quite
compare with Carlyle in the portrayal of historic personages.
Further, it is a notable circumstance that few or none of his
personages develop under his hands; for the most part, they are,
throughout the narrative, exhibited with characteristics which are
unmodified by time, experience or events. To analyse character
was, in fact, as little his aim, as it was to promulgate any special
social dogma. As Carlyle laments, he was not possessed with
an idea'; but, however predominant and effective a part ideas
may play in modern drama and fiction, they have their dis-
advantages; they are apt to prove rather a hindrance than an
aid to more than temporary success in the more creative forms
of literature. That Scott was not actuated by any more special
purpose than that of giving delight to his readers may even be
reckoned one of the chief sources of his charm and of the widely
beneficent influence he exercises. He attracts us mainly by an
exhibition of the multifarious pageantry of life; or, as Carlyle puts
it, his was a genius in extenso, as we may say, not in intenso. '
Yet, as a delineator of character, he has his strong points.
He had thoroughly studied the lowland Scot. If, not knowing
Gaelic, he never properly understood the Highlander, and portrays
mainly his superficial peculiarities arising from an imperfect
command of lowland Scots and a comparative ignorance of the
arts of civilised life--portrays him as the foreigner is usually
portrayed in English novels—he knew his lowland Scot as few
have ever known him. Here are ‘no deceptively painted auto-
matons, but living men and women. ' He is more especially
successful with the Scot of the humble or burgher class, and with


## p. 25 (#49) ##############################################

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25
Humourist and Romance Writer
Scottish eccentrics gentle or simple. Jeanie Deans and her
Cameronian father David, the theologically dull but practically
wide-awake ploughman Cuddie Headrig' and his fanatic mother
the covenanting Mause, Meg Merrilies, even if she be a little
stagey, the border farmer, Dandie Dinmont, Dominie Sampson, Ritt
Master Dalgetty, Baillie Nicol Jarvie, the bedesman Edie Ochil-
tree, that pitiable victim of litigation, the irrepressible Peter
Peebles, the Antiquary himself—these and such as these are all
immortals. His success with such characters was primarily owing
to his genial intercourse with all classes and his peculiar sense
of humour. In depicting eccentrics or persons with striking
idiosyncrasies, or those in the lower ranks of life, he displays
at once an amazing fecundity and a well-nigh matchless efficacy.
Here, he has a supremacy hardly threatened amongst English
writers even by Dickens, for, unlike Dickens, he is never fantastic
or extravagant. If not so mirth-provoking as Dickens, he is, in
his humourous passages, quite as entertaining, and his eccentrics
never, as those of Dickens often do, tax our belief in their
possible existence. As a humourist, his one drawback-a draw-
back which, with many, prevents an adequate appreciation of
his merits—is that his most characteristic creations generally
express themselves in a dialect the idiomatic niceties of which
can be fully appreciated only by Scotsmen, and not now by every
one of that nationality.
But the singularity of Scott is the peculiar combination in
him of the humourist with the romance writer, of the man of
the world with the devoted lover of nature and ardent worshipper
of the past. While, with a certain superficiality in the portrayal
of particular characters, he, pace Carlyle, displays an extra-
ordinary felicity in the portrayal of others, he unites with this
peculiar gift an exceptional power of vivifying the past on a very
extended scale—the past, at least, as conceived by him. The
question has been raised as to the historic value or historic
correctness of his presentations. It need hardly be said that
he was much more minutely and comprehensively versed in
Scottish history and Scottish antiquarianism than in those of
other countries, and had a much better understanding of Scottish
than. of other national characteristics. At the same time, his
training as a Scottish novelist was of immense service to him
when he found it advisable to seek fresh woods and pastures new.
Without his previous Scottish experiences he could, for example,
hardly have been so successful as he was in the case either of
>


## p. 26 (#50) ##############################################

26
[ch.
Sir Walter Scott
Quentin Durward or of Ivanhoe, which may be deemed his
purely romantic masterpieces. He had no original mastery of
the period of Louis XI. He had not even visited the scenes
of his story; for these, he relied mainly on certain drawings of
landscapes and ancient buildings made by his friend Skene
of Rubislaw, who had just returned from a tour in the district.
Lockhart, also, observed him 'many times in the Advocates'
Library, poring over maps and gazetteers with care and anxiety. '
For his historical and biographical inspiration, he was dependent
mainly on the Mémoires of Philippe de Comines, supplemented
by details from the chronicles of the period. We have only to turn
to these authorities in order to see with what deftness he created
his living world from a few records of the past, and the striking
character of his success was attested by the admiring enthusiasm
with which the work was received in France.
As regards Ivanhoe, it has been shown that he is glaringly
at fault in regard to some of the main features of the Norman
period, and more particularly as to the relations between Saxons
and Normans, on which the main tenor of the narrative depends.
Nevertheless, he had so minute a mastery of the manners,
customs, cardinal characteristics and circumstances of the chivalric
past, and was so profoundly in sympathy with its spirit, that he
is able to confer an atmosphere of reality on the period he seeks
to illustrate, for which we may look in vain in the records of
careful scientific historians.
In the case of the purely Scottish novels, he was more at
home and more completely master of his materials; but, for that
reason, he was, perhaps, less careful about historic accuracy in
details; as he puts it,'a romancer wants but a hair to make a
tether of. ' No such persons, for example, as Rashleigh, or Francis
Osbaldistone, or Miss Vernon, or her father, were associated in
the manner these persons are represented to have been with
any Jacobite rising; and, in addition, the whole financial story
on which the plot turns is hopelessly muddled. Further, Rob Roy,
a historical personage, never played any part in connection with
Jacobitism at all similar to that assigned him in the novel. Then,
in Waverley, the Fergus MacIvor whose ambitions occupy much
of our attention is a mere interpolation, and by no means a happy
portrait of a Highland chief; and, in Redgauntlet, the second
appearance of prince Charlie in the north of England is without
foundation either in fact or in tradition. Again, in The Abbot,
historic truth is even more wantonly violated violated after a


## p. 27 (#51) ##############################################

1]
27
Historical Inaccuracies
fashion that tends to bewilder the reader. While the Setons
were very devoted followers of queen Mary, the Henry Seton
and Catherine Seton of the novel are merely imaginary creations.
Although Mary Seton, one of the four Marys,' was sent for by the
queen to attend on her in England, and Lord Seton met her
shortly after her escape from Lochleven, no lady of the name
of Seton was in attendance on her in Lochleven castle. What
is worse, the Lady Mary Fleming, whom Scott represents as in
attendance on her there is apt to be confounded either with
Lady Fleming, who was the queen's governess in France, or
with Mary Fleming, one of the four Marys, who, by this time,
was the wife of Maitland of Lethington. Further, while Scott
may partly be excused for his version of the nature of the
pressure on the queen to cause her to demit her crown, he is
specially unfortunate in representing Sir Robert Melville as
deputed by the council to accompany Lord Lindsay on his
mission, though his presence, undoubtedly adds to the effective-
ness of the scene with the queen. Again, in Old Mortality, Scott
found it advisable, for artistic purposes, to place Henry Morton
in a more immediately dangerous position than could possibly
have been his; and, on the other hand, the indulged minister
Poundtext, whom he represents as seeking to exercise a moderating
influence in the council of the rebels, could not have been there,
since none of the indulged ministers took part in the rebellion.
Many minor errors of detail in his Scottish novels have also been
pointed out by critics; but the important matter is his mastery
of the multifarious characteristics of the period with which he
deals and his power to bring home to the reader its outstanding
peculiarities.
In the non-Scottish novels, and in Scottish novels of earlier
periods of history, the spirit of romance is the prevailing
element. Here, the portraiture of characters, except in the case
of main figures, is generally superficial. Such humorous or
eccentric personages as are introduced cannot compare with those
who, in the novels of the more modern periods, indulge in the
vernacular; they are a kind of hybrid creation, suggested, partly,
from the author's own observation and, partly, by books. In the
Scottish novels of the more modern periods, while the romance is
of a more homely kind, and has, also, for us, lost its freshness
in a manner that the earlier or the foreign element has not,
there is included, on the other hand, that immortal gallery of
Scottish characters to which allusion has already been made,
a


## p. 28 (#52) ##############################################

28
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
and the creation of which—however highly his purely romantic
genius may be estimated—is the most unequivocal testimony
to his greatness.
Great as was the actual achievement of Scott, it has reasonably
been doubted whether he made the most of his extraordinary
endowments. It was hardly contributory to this that, though by
.
no means a poor man, he set himself with desperate eagerness
to enrich himself by literature. While he had a deep enthusiasm
for the literary vocation ; while the hours he spent in writing
were mostly hours of keen delight to him and he never apparently
deemed it a toil; yet, his social aspirations seem to have been
stronger than his literary ambition. As Lockhart states:
‘His first and last worldly ambition was himself to be the founder of a
distinct branch,' of the clan Scott; he desired to plant a lasting root, and
dreamt not of lasting fame, but of long distant generations rejoicing in the
name of “Scott of Abbotsford. ” By this idea all his reveries, all his aspira-
tions, all his plans and efforts were overshadowed and controlled. '
This ambition was the product of the same romantic sentiment
which was the original inspiration of his literary efforts. It was
not a mere vulgar striving for opulence and rank; it was associated
with peculiar border partialities and enthusiasms; to be other
than a border laird and chief and the founder of a new border
house had no charms for him. Still, excusable as his ambition
may have been, it was to have for him very woeful consequences.
.
Though, without this special incentive, he might not have exerted
himself so strenuously in literature as he did, he would have
escaped the pecuniary disasters in a herculean effort to remedy
which he overtaxed his brain and abruptly shortened his life; and,
if the absence of ulterior motives might have lessened his literary
production, its fruits might, in quality, have been considerably
bettered. True, rapidity of production was one of his special gifts.
It was rendered possible by his previous mastery of his materials
and the possession of a nervous system which it was almost im-
possible to tire; and, in his case, the emotional excitement of
creation almost demanded celerity of composition ; but it was not
incumbent on him to omit careful revision of his first drafts. Had
he not disdained this, many somewhat wearisome passages might
have been condensed, various errors or defects of style might
have been corrected, redundances might have been removed, incon-
sistencies weeded out and the plots more effectively adjusted.
How immensely he might have bettered the literary quality of
his novels by careful revision there is sufficient proof in that


## p. 29 (#53) ##############################################

1] Defects and Merits of of his
his Style 29
splendid masterpiece Wandering Willie's Tale, the manuscript
of which shows many important amendments.
While the carelessness of Scott is manifest in defects of con-
struction and in curious contradictions in small details, it is
more particularly apparent in the style of portions of merely
narrative or descriptive passages. Yet, with all its frequent
clumsiness, its occasional lapses into mere rodomontade, its
often loosely interwoven paragraphs, and its occasionally halting
grammar, his style is that of a great writer. Except when he
overburdens it with lore, legal or antiquarian, it sparkles with
interest, its phrases and epithets are often exceptionally happy,
and, in his more emotional or more strikingly imaginative passages,
he attains to an exceptional felicity of diction. This is the case
throughout Wandering Willie's Tale ; and the description of the
ghastly revellers in Redgauntlet castle beginning : There was
the fierce Middleton,' is unsurpassable in apt and graphic
phraseology. The farewell of Meg Merrilies to Ellangowan has,
also, been singled out by critics for special praise ; but many
of his purely descriptive passages are, likewise, wholly admirable.
Take, for example, the account of the gathering storm in The
Antiquary :
The disk of the sun became almost totally obscured ere he had altogether
sunk below the horizon, and an early and lurid shade of darkness blotted the
serene twilight of a summer evening, eto.
or the picture in The Abbot of the various personages and groups
that traversed the vestibule of Holyrood palace : ‘Here the
hoary statesman,' etc. ; or the description of the Glasgow mid-
night in Rob Roy:
Evening had now closed and the growing darkness gave to the broad, still
and deep expanse of the brimful river, first a hue sombre and uniform-then
a dismal and turbid appearance, partially lighted by a waning and pallid
moon, etc.
or the woodland scene in The Legend of Montrose, where
Dalgetty is pursued by the bloodhounds of the marquis of
Argyll :
The moon gleamed on the broken pathway and on the projecting cliffs of
rock round which it winded, its light intercepted here and there by the
branches of bushes and dwarf trees, which finding nourishment in the
crevices of the rocks, in places overshadowed the brow and ledge of the
precipice. Below a thick copsewood lay in deep and dark shadow, etc.
Passages such as these are common with Scott; and, as for his
dialogues, though, in the English, he occasionally lapses into curious


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30
[CH. I
Sir Walter Scott
stiltednesses, the Scottish or semi-Scottish are invariably beyond
praise, both for their apt expressiveness, and their revelation of
character.
Necessarily, Scott's influence was felt more drastically in
Scotland than elsewhere. The enormous interest aroused there
by the publication of his poetic romances and then of his novels
we can now hardly realise. It quite outvied that immediately
caused by the poetry of Burns, who, to use Burns's own expression,
was less ‘respected' during his life than he gradually came to be
after his death. While some aspects of Scott's presentations of the
past called forth, at first, some protests from the stricter sectarians,
the general attitude towards them was that of enthusiastic appre-
ciation; and it is hardly possible to exaggerate their effect in
liberating Scotland from the trammels of social and religious
tradition. He did not, however, found a poetic school in Scot-
land. In England, he had various poetic imitators that are now
forgotten; and he had, further, a good deal to do with the
predominance of narrative in subsequent English verse. Byron,
also, was directly indebted to him in the case of his narrative
verse, and echoes of his method and manner are even to be found
in Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. In fiction, he may almost
be reckoned the founder of the historical romance, in which he has
had many successors, both in this country and abroad; and, if
Smollett was his predecessor in the Scottish novel, and is more
responsible than he for the earlier novels of Galt, Scott may
be deemed the originator of a pretty voluminous Scottish
romantic school, of which the most distinguished representative
is R. L. Stevenson ; while, with Smollett and Galt, he has been
the forerunner of a vernacular school of fiction which, within
late years, developed into a variety to which the term “kailyard'
has, with more or less appositeness, been applied. On the con-
tinent, Scott shared with Byron a vogue denied to all other
English writers except Shakespeare, and his influence was closely
interwoven with the romantic movement there, and, more especially,
with its progress in France.


## p. 31 (#55) ##############################################

CHAPTER II
BYRON
GEORGE GORDON, sixth Lord Byron, and descendant of an
ancient Norman family that accompanied William the Conqueror
to England, was the only son of 'Mad Jack’ Byron by his second
marriage with the Scottish heiress, Catherine Gordon of Gight.
He was born in London, on 22 January 1788; but, shortly after
his birth, owing to his father's withdrawal to France in order to
escape from his creditors, the future poet was brought by his
mother to Aberdeen. Here, his first boyhood was spent, and the
impressions which he received of Deeside, Lochnagar and the
Grampians remained with him throughout his life and have left
their mark upon his poetry. By the death of his great-uncle,
William, fifth Lord Byron, in 1798, the boy succeeded to the title
and to the Byron estates of Newstead priory and Rochdale; in the
year 1801, he entered Harrow school. Up to this time, his life had
been that of a wild mountain colt'; his education, both intel-
lectual and moral, had been neglected, and his mother petted and
abused him in turn; his father had died when he was a child
of three. Sensitive and proud by nature, his sensitiveness was
aggravated by his lameness and his poverty, while his pride was
nurtured by his succession, at the age of ten, to a peerage.
Harrow, he made many friends, read widely and promiscuously
in history and biography, but never became an exact scholar.
To these schoolboy years also belongs the story of his romantic,
unrequited love for Mary Ann Chaworth. From Harrow, Byron
proceeded, in October 1805, to Trinity college, Cambridge ; but
the university, though it widened his circle of friends, never won
his affections in the way that Harrow had. While at Harrow,
he had written a number of short poems, and, in January 1807, he
printed for private circulation a slender volume of verse, Fugitive
Pieces, the favourable reception of which led to the publication,
in the following March, of Hours of Idleness. The contemptuous,


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32
Byron
[ch.
but not wholly unjust, criticism of this volume in The Edinburgh
Review, which is generally supposed to have been the work of Lord
Brougham, while it stung the sensitive poet to the quick, also
spurred him to retaliation, and, early in 1809, appeared the famous
satire, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, which swiftly ran
through several editions and made its author famous. Shortly
before it appeared, Byron came of age and took his seat in the
House of Lords.
In the following June, accompanied by his friend, John Cam
Hobhouse, Byron left England for a tour in the Mediterranean and
the east. He was away for little more than a year; but the impres-
sions which he received of the life and scenery of Spain, Portugal
and the Balkan peninsula profoundly affected his mind and left an
indelible imprint upon his subsequent work as a poet. The letters
which he wrote at this time furnish a singularly vivid record of the
gay life of Spanish cities, the oriental feudalism of Ali pasha's
Albanian court, and of the memories of, and aspirations for,
political freedom which were quickened within him during his
sojourn at Athens. The first two books of Childe Harold and the
oriental tales—The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair and
The Siege of Corinth-were the immediate outcome of this year
of travel, but the memory of the scenes which he had witnessed
remained freshly in his mind when, years afterwards, he composed
Don Juan, and, at the close of his life, played his heroic part in
the liberation of Greece.
The publication of the first two cantos of Childe Harold in
1812, shortly after his return to England, placed Byron on the
summit of the pinnacle of fame, and, from this time onwards to
his death, he remained, through good report and evil report, the
poet most prominently before the minds of Englishmen. The
story of the three years which he spent as the lion of London
society under the regency, and of his marriage with Miss Milbanke
in 1815, is too familiar to need detailed record here; nor is this
the place to dwell upon the causes which led to the separation of
husband and wife shortly after the birth of their only child, Ada,
in 1816. Rightly or wrongly, the sympathies of English society at
this crisis in Byron's life were overwhelmingly on the side of Lady
Byron, and the poet was subjected to the grossest insults. At
first bewildered, and then lacerated in his deepest feelings, by the
hue and cry against him, he perceived that ‘if what was whispered
and muttered and murmured was true, I was unfit for England;
if false, England was unfit for me. ' He accordingly left England


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11] Final Departure from England 33
for the continent in May 1816, and never returned. He proceeded
leisurely up the Rhine to Switzerland, where he made the acquaint-
ance of Shelley and his wife, and spent much time in their society.
Thence, he passed to Italy, and established himself before the end
of the year at Venice, like the stag at bay, who betakes himself
to the waters. '
The events of the year 1816 mark a crisis both in Byron's
domestic life and in his poetic career. The outrage which he
believed, not unreasonably, that he had suffered at the hands
of English society embittered a mind naturally prone to melan-
choly, and equally prone to hide that melancholy beneath a
mask of cynicism. Knowing only too well the hollowness of the
world of English fashion under the regency, he looked upon the
fit of virtuous indignation which made him its victim and drove
him from the land as an outburst of envenomed hypocrisy. And,
just as the contemptuous criticism of Hours of Idleness by the
Edinburgh reviewer had roused him to a satiric onslaught upon
the whole contemporary world of letters, so, now, in his new home,
he prepared himself for the task of levelling against social hypo-
crisy the keenest weapons which a piercing wit and versatile genius
had placed at his command. But, bitter as Byron's feelings
towards England were, it is obvious that the new life which now
opened up to him on the shores of the Adriatic proved congenial
to his tastes and fostered the growth of his poetic genius. If the
loose code of morals accepted by Venetian society plunged him,
for a time, into libertinism, the beauty of the 'sea Cybele' and the
splendour of her historic past fired his imagination.
More or less indifferent to the triumphs of Italian plastic and
pictorial art, he was in full accord with what was best in Italian
poetry. His Lament of Tasso, Prophecy of Dante and Francesca
of Rimini are an imperishable witness to the sympathy which
he felt with the works and tragic destinies of two of Italy's
greatest poets; his Venetian tragedies and Sardanapalus show
the influence upon him of Alfieri, while his indebtedness to the
great Italian mock-heroic school, from Berni to Casti, is every-
where manifest in Beppo and in his great masterpiece, Don Juan.
Finally, his liaison with the countess Guiccioli, which began in
1819 and remained unbroken till his death, brought him into direct
touch with the Carbonari movement and made him the champion
of the cause of national freedom.
An exile from England, and deeply resentful of the wrongs
which he had suffered there, Byron, nevertheless, continued to
3
E. L. XII.
CH. II.


## p. 34 (#58) ##############################################

34
Byron
[ch.
follow with keen interest the course of English political, literary
and domestic affairs. He kept up an active correspondence with
the friends whom he had made there—Moore, Scott and his
publisher, John Murray, among others-studiously read the English
reviews, and remained almost morbidly sensitive to the reception
of his works by the British public. He was, moreover, ever ready
to offer hospitality to English friends in his Venetian home:
Hobhouse was with him in the summer of 1818, and was followed,
soon afterwards, by Shelley, whose intercourse with Byron is ideally
commemorated in Julian and Maddalo; in the next year, he
entertained Moore, who has left a vivid picture of his friend's
domestic life at this time. At no period of his career, moreover,
was Byron's literary activity so great as during the years which
immediately followed his departure from England. His tour
through Germany and Switzerland inspired the third canto of
Childe Harold, The Prisoner of Chillon and his witch-drama,
Manfred, while the concluding canto of Childe Harold was the
outcome of an Italian tour entered upon in the spring of 1817,
before he established himself definitely at Venice. To the year
1818 belong, among other things, Mazeppa, Beppo and the first
canto of Don Juan; about the same time, he began his famous
Memoirs, which he put into the hands of Moore, when his future
biographer and editor visited him at Venice, and which, in accord-
ance with the wishes of the poet's friend Hobhouse and his half-
sister, Augusta Leigh, was committed to the flames after Byron's
death. The publication of his poems—especially the third and
fourth cantos of Childe Harold and Manfred-greatly increased
Byron's reputation as a poet, and his fame spread from England to
the continent. The resemblance of Manfred to Faust stimulated
the interest of the most famous of Byron's literary contemporaries,
Goethe, who, henceforth, showed a lively regard for the younger
poet's genius and character. A correspondence sprang up between
them ; Byron dedicated to Goethe, in language of sincere homage,
his tragedy Sardanapalus (1821), and, after Byron's death, Goethe
honoured his memory by introducing him as Euphorion, child of
Helen and Faust, of Hellenism and the renascence, in the second
part of Faust.
In the spring of 1819 began Byron's connection with Theresa,
countess Guiccioli, the young wife of the sexagenarian count
Guiccioli, whose home was at Ravenna. On either side the attach-
ment was one of passionate devotion: the lady was prepared to
make supreme sacrifices for the man she loved, and her influence


## p. 35 (#59) ##############################################

11] Life at Venice and Ravenna
35
upon him was ennobling. She lifted him out of the mire of
Venetian libertinism and aroused his interest in the cause of
Italian freedom; she inspired one of his sublimest poems, The
Prophecy of Dante, while such was her power over him that, for
her sake, he desisted, for a time, from the continuation of Don
Juan after the completion of the fifth canto. In December 1819,
Byron broke up his home at Venice and moved to Ravenna, in
order to be nearer to the countess. Here, he was visited by Shelley,
who, in a letter to Mrs Shelley, dated 8 August 1821, speaks as
follows of the change which had come over his friend:
Lord Byron is greatly improved in every respect.