He
owed not a little to his Edinburgh nativity and citizenship.
owed not a little to his Edinburgh nativity and citizenship.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v12
Wilson.
Hogg.
Maginn.
Noctes Ambrosianae.
The
London Magazine. De Quincey's Opium Eater. Lamb's Roast
Pig. The New Monthly Magazine
140
## p. ix (#21) ##############################################
Contents
ix
CHAPTER VII
HAZLITT
By W. D. HOWE, Professor of English in the University
of Indiana, U. S. A.
PAGE
Hazlitt's early years. His later life. His work as a critic. His
dramatic criticism. His writings on art. His quotations. His
influence
164
CHAPTER VIII
LAMB
By A. HAMILTON THOMPSON, M. A. , F. S. A. , St John's College
Lamb's early days and friendships. Mary Lamb. Charles Lloyd. Tales
from Shakespear. Specimens of English Dramatic Poets. Con-
tributions to periodicals. The Essays of Elia. Letters. His
later life. Summary
180
CHAPTER IX
THE LANDORS, LEIGH HUNT, DE QUINCEY
By GEORGE SAINTSBURY
Walter Savage Landor's prose and verse. His classicism. Gebir.
Count Julian. Hellenics. Imaginary Conversations. Landor
as a critic. Leigh Hunt's influence. His merits and defects.
De Quincey's mastery in ornate prose. Robert Eyres Landor
204
CHAPTER X
JANE AUSTEN
By HAROLD CHILD, sometime Scholar of Brasenose
College, Oxford
Early tales. Pride and Prejudice. Sense and Sensibility. North-
anger Abbey. Mansfield Park. Emma. Persuasion.
231
## p. x (#22) ###############################################
X
Contents
CHAPTER XI
LESSER NOVELISTS
By HAROLD CHILD
PAGE
Susan Edmondstone Ferrier. Catherine Grace Gore. Thomas Henry
Lister. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Frankenstein. Catherine
Crowe. The Night Side of Nature. George Croly. G. P. R. James.
W. H. Ainsworth. Marryat. Theodore Hook. John Galt. Moir's
Mansie Wauch
245
CHAPTER XII
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT
By the Ven. W. H. HUTTON, B. D. , Archdeacon of North-
ampton, Canon of Peterborough and Fellow of St John's
College, Oxford
Keble. R. H. Froude. Tracts for the Times. Newman at St Mary's.
Tract 90. Ward's The Ideal of a Christian Church. Newman
joins the Roman Catholic church. Pusey. Keble's Christian Year.
Isaac Williams. Newman's Apologia pro vita sua. The Dream of
Gerontius. His later works. Dean Church. Trench. Liddon.
Neale. The Mozleys. Hook. The Wilberforces. Wiseman,
Manning. Pollen. Faber. Dalgairns. W. G. Ward. de Lisle.
Dolben. F. E. Paget
253
CHAPTER XIII
THE GROWTH OF LIBERAL THEOLOGY
By the Rev. F. E. HUTCHINSON, M. A. , Trinity College, Oxford,
formerly Chaplain of King's College
The Evangelicals. The Clapham sect. The influence of Coleridge.
Erskine of Linlathen. The noetics. Whately. Hampden. Thomas
Arnold. Frederick Denison Maurice. Robertson of Brighton.
The Broad Churchmen. Jowett. Stanley. Essays and Reviews.
Robertson Smith. Ecce Homo. Westcott and Hort. Lightfoot.
T. H. Green. Martineau. Father Tyrrell
279
## p. xi (#23) ##############################################
Contents
xi
CHAPTER XIV
HISTORIANS
WRITERS ON ANCIENT AND EARLY ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
By Sir A. W. WARD, Litt. D. , F. B. A. , Master of Peterhouse
PAGE
The influence of Niebuhr. Arnold's Roman History. Merivale's
Romans under the Empire. Long's Decline of the Roman
Republic. Thirlwall and Grote. Finlay's History of Greece.
Freeman. George Rawlinson. Smith's Dictionaries. Milman's
Latin Christianity. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley. William Bright.
Hodgkin's Italy and her Invaders
300
.
CHAPTER XV
SCHOLARS, ANTIQUARIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHERS
By Sir JOHN EDWIN SANDYS, Litt. D. , F. B. A. , Fellow of
St John's College and Public Orator in the University
of Cambridge
Greek Scholars. Latin Scholars. Classical Archaeologists. Oriental
Scholars. English Scholars. Archaeological Antiquaries. Literary
Antiquaries. Bibliographers
323
.
372
524
•
Bibliographies .
Supplementary Bibliography: Relations of English and Continental
Literatures in the Romantic Period
Table of Principal Dates
Index of Names
528
531
## p. xii (#24) #############################################
## p. xiii (#25) ############################################
CHAPTER I
SIR WALTER SCOTT
verse.
LIKE Burns, Scott is, in his way, an anomaly in English litera-
ture. Both as poet and novelist, he bore the badge of singularity.
It was as poet that he made his first appeal to the world, and his
poetic tendencies were not directly inspired by modern English
In matter and manner, if not in metrical form, his poetry
has as little kinship with that of his immediate English pre-
decessors as has the verse of Burns. His relations are more
intimate with ancient, than with modern, bards, though not with
the same bards as Burns; and, like him, he is very specifically
-though not so peculiarly and completely-Scottish. His im-
mense interest in the Scottish past represents a phase of the
reaction against the ecclesiastical obsession of previous genera-
tions. With the advent of the reformation, Scotland's interest
in her secular past was, for a long time, almost extinguished.
Even the memories of Bannockburn and of her stern struggles for
national independence became obscured by the new protestant
alliance with England; while her catholic past acquired, in the
eyes of the majority of the nation, a kind of criminal aspect from
its supposed association with a long period of ‘idolatry’and spiritual
decline. One of the most marked features of the Scottish
literary revival of the eighteenth century was the awakened
interest in her secular past. This was further accentuated by the
romantic, though futile, Jacobite risings. Scott inherited strong
Jacobite partialities, and, through his father and others, was
brought into close contact with Jacobite traditions; while the
feats of his old border ancestry captivated the imagination of his
early childhood. Interest in the past, and specially in the feudal
and chivalric past, was the predominant inspiration of his verse;
and conferred on it a marked dissimilarity from that of his imme-
diate predecessors.
85
1
E. L. XII.
CH. I.
## p. xiii (#26) ############################################
2
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
As a novelist, his distinctiveness largely depends, also, on his
historic and antiquarian enthusiasms. Here, it is true, his relations
with his immediate literary predecessors were much more intimate.
Though his tales derive something of their romantic flavour from
his familiarity with the older romance writers—both in prose and
verse—he was also much advantaged by the antecedence of the
great eighteenth century novelists and later and lesser novelists.
He himself described Fielding as 'the father of the English novel';
he had a very strong admiration for Smollett; and he also confessed
that, but for the success attained by Maria Edgeworth in her Irish
tales, he might never have thought of attempting a novel of
Scottish life. His prefaces to Ballantyne's Novelists' Library,
also, show, as Lockhart remarks, 'how profoundly he had investi-
gated the principles and practices of those masters before he
struck out a new path for himself. ' But, while more dependent as
novelist than as poet on the stimulus and guidance of his modern
predecessors, he was a much greater, a much more outstanding,
novelist than poet. Here, he discovered his true literary vocation.
Here, he found scope for a more complete and varied exercise of
his special accomplishments and genius; and, great as were the
merits of his chief eighteenth century predecessors, he was able to
compass achievements, in some essential respects markedly different
from theirs, and, at the same time, so comprehensive and many-
sided as to confer on him a peculiar lustre.
The special literary development of Scott, while the conse-
quence of a rare combination of natural gifts, was, also, largely
influenced by certain exceptional circumstances which gave it its
original impulse and did much to determine its character.
He
owed not a little to his Edinburgh nativity and citizenship. His
‘own romantic town,' uniquely picturesque and variously associated
with pregnant memories of the past, was an exceptionally suitable
cradle for his genius. Long familiarity never lessened its fascina-
tion for him.
'No funeral hearse,' writes Lockhart, 'crept more leisurely than did his
landau up the Canongate or Cowgate, and not a queer tottering gable but
recalled to him some long-buried memory of splendour or bloodshed, which,
by a few words, he set before the hearer in the reality of life. His image is
so associated in my mind with the antiquities of his native place that I cannot
now revisit them without feeling as if I were treading on his gravestone. '
He was also favoured, in no small degree, by his border descent
and prepossessions and an early literary nurture on border tales
and ballads. It was this that gave the first impulse and direction
## p. xiii (#27) ############################################
1]
3
Early Literary Proclivities
to his poetic genius ; and it formed, in a sense, the basis of his
future literary achievements. His interest in the stirring border
past was awakened in his early childhood principally by the vivid
reminiscences of his grandmother, ‘in whose youth,' he says, “the old
border depredations were matter of recent tradition,' and who used
to tell him ‘many a tale of Watt of Harden, Wight Willie of Aikwood
and Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead and other heroes-merry men
all of the persuasion and calling of Robin Hood and little John. '
The solitary condition of his childhood, caused by his lameness,
begat, also, precocious literary proclivities which, otherwise, might
have lain much longer in abeyance, or might have been largely
obstructed by his strong partiality for outdoor activities. It made
him, as he modestly puts it, 'a tolerable reader,' his enthusiasm, he
remarks, being chiefly awakened by the wonderful and the terrible,'
the common taste,' he adds, 'of children but in which I have re-
mained a child unto this day. ' In this respect, however, he was no
more an ordinary child than he was an ordinary man. The stories
he read produced an exceptionally deep impression on him, and
called into early exercise his imaginative faculty. While he was still
at the High school of Edinburgh, his tales, on days when play was
made impossible by the severity of the weather, used 'to assemble
an admiring audience round Lucky Brown's fire side'; and his
interest in the marvellous became rather more than less absorbing
as he approached manhood. After he became a legal appren-
tice in his father's office, his strong predilection for ‘romantic
lore' caused him to spend a portion of his earnings on attend-
ance twice a week at an Italian class, and, for the same reason, he
' renewed and extended' his 'knowledge of the French language. '
Later, he was accustomed, every Saturday in summer, and, also,
during holidays, to retire with a friend to one of the neighbouring
heights, where, perched in solitude, they read together “romances
of Knight errantry, the Castle of Otranto, Spenser, Ariosto and
Boiardo being great favourites. ' He, also, he tells us, 'fastened like
a tiger upon every collection of old songs and romances' which
chanced to fall in his way; and had a wonderful faculty of
retaining in his memory whatever pleased him, 'above all a
Border ballad. '
While it was by the border tales and ballads that his romantic
ardour was first aroused, it was, also, his ballad enthusiasm that
induced him to make his first venture in publication; and, in
ballad composition and translation, in ballad collection, annotation
and amendment, he served a literary apprenticeship which proved
a
6
1-2
## p. xiii (#28) ############################################
4
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
6
6
to be of cardinal advantage to him both as poet and as novelist.
Shortly after he left the High school, his interest in old ballads
received an abiding stimulus from bishop Percy's Reliques of
Ancient Poetry, which he read, he says, 'with a delight which
may be imagined but cannot be described. It was their romantic
stimulus that roused his curiosity about the old romantic poetry
not only of England but of France and Italy; and, through his
German studies, begun in 1792, his ballad fervour received further
quickening by his introduction to the modern balladry of German
poets, whose interest in this form of verse was, also, first aroused
by the Reliques of Percy.
In the same year in which he began his German studies, he had,
under the guidance of sheriff substitute Shortrede, made the first of
his seven successive annual raids into the wild and primitive district
of Liddesdale, to explore the remains of old castles and peels,
to pick up such samples as were obtainable of the ancient riding
ballads,' to collect other relics of antiquity and to enjoy the
queerness and the fun'associated with the rough hospitality of
those unsophisticated regions. The special attention he was now
directing to the old minstrelsy of the borders quickened and
enlightened his appreciation of modern German balladry, his
interest in which was first awakened in 1794, through the reports
of Mrs Barbauld's recital, in the house of Dugald Stewart, of
Taylor's translation of Bürger's Leonore. Moved by the eulogies
of several who had listened to it, he obtained from Hamburg a
copy of Bürger's works, when, he tells us, the perusal of the ballad
in German rather exceeded,' than disappointed, his expectations.
In his enthusiasm, he immediately promised a friend a verse trans-
lation of it, which, in 1796, he published in a thin quarto along
with that of Der wilde Jäger.
Ide Jäger. For his own gratification, he then
'began,' he says, 'to translate on all sides,' but, while the dramas
of Goethe, Schiller and others ‘powerfully attracted him’-80
much so that, in 1799, he published a translation of Goethe's
Goetz von Berlichingen—the ballad poetry, he affirms, was his
'favourite. ' He was affected mainly by a particular form or
aspect of the German romantic movement. It appealed to him so far
as it harmonised with predilections which had been created inde-
pendently of it. It widened and deepened his previous interest
in the chivalric past and the marvels and diablerie of tradition,
but he had nothing in common with its metaphysical, mystical
and extravagant tendencies. It was more especially to its balladry
that he was indebted, and this chiefly for directing his attention
6
6
## p. xiii (#29) ############################################
1]
5
Ballad Poetry
more distinctly and seriously to this form of verse, and causing
him to essay experiments which were a kind of preparation for
the accomplishment of his poetical romances. From the trans-
lation of German ballads, he acquired, he says, sufficient con-
fidence to attempt the imitation of them. In his experiments,
he now, also, received encouragement and counsel from 'Monk’
Lewis, his acquaintanceship with whom ‘rekindled effectually,' he
says, in his breast, “the spark of poetical ambition, and to whom
he was indebted for salutary corrections of his careless tendencies
in regard to rime and diction, partly caused by his familiarity
with the rude ballads of tradition. Lewis accepted certain of his
ballads for his projected Tales of Wonder, which, however, did not
appear until 1801; and, owing to the delay in the publication of
the volume, Scott induced his old schoolfellow James Ballantyne,
who had a printer's business at Kelso, to throw off, in 1799, a dozen
copies of his own ballads, which, in pamphlet form, and under the
title Apology for Tales of Terror, he distributed among his more
intimate Edinburgh friends.
This small pamphlet was the beginning of business relations
with Ballantyne which were to exercise a cardinal influence both
on Ballantyne's and on Scott's fortunes. So pleased was Scott with
this specimen of his friend's press that he promised to him the
printing of a volume of old border ballads, should such a project
take shape. It not only did so, but in a more comprehensive and
elaborate form than he had at first contemplated. While it was still
under consideration, he received, in 1799, an appointment to the
sheriffdom of Selkirkshire. This marked a still more important
turning-point in his life. It determined his permanent local
connection with the border; and, meanwhile, it multiplied his
opportunities for the acquisition of old border lore and for
augmenting his topographical knowledge of the district. An
acquaintanceship now formed with Richard Heber, also, greatly
aided him in his medieval studies; and he received valuable
suggestions from the remarkable young borderer, John Leyden, to
whom, and, also, to William Laidlaw, his future steward, and to
James Hogg, he was further indebted for several ballad versions.
The collection appeared in 1802 in two volumes; and a third
volume, which included ballad imitations by himself, Lewis and
others, was published in 1803. In subsequent editions, changes
were made in the ballad texts, by way both of amendment and of
additions, the arrangement was altered and the notes were im-
proved and supplemented. Though entitled Minstrelsy of the
## p. 6 (#30) ###############################################
6
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
Scottish Border, it included ballads and other pieces which had no
special connection with the borders either of Scotland or England.
According to Motherwell, forty-three poems were published for the
first time; but a few of these were forgeries by Surtees; some
were not properly ballads; several had appeared as broadsides;
and others were accessible in manuscript collections. Nearly all
those detailing border feats or incidents, or misfortunes, were,
however, previously unknown outside the border communities;
and it is to Scott and his coadjutors that we are indebted for the
rescue from gradual oblivion of such fragments and rude versions
of them as were still retained in vanishing tradition. Most of the
versions published by Scott were of a composite character. Unlike
Percy, he obtained several traditional copies—often differing
widely in phraseology-of most of the ballads; and he con-
structed his versions partly by selecting what he deemed the best
reading of each; partly by amending the more debased diction, or
the halting rhythm, or the imperfect rime, partly by the fabrica-
tion of lines, and even stanzas, to replace omissions, or enhance
the dramatic effect of the ballad. 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.
London Magazine. De Quincey's Opium Eater. Lamb's Roast
Pig. The New Monthly Magazine
140
## p. ix (#21) ##############################################
Contents
ix
CHAPTER VII
HAZLITT
By W. D. HOWE, Professor of English in the University
of Indiana, U. S. A.
PAGE
Hazlitt's early years. His later life. His work as a critic. His
dramatic criticism. His writings on art. His quotations. His
influence
164
CHAPTER VIII
LAMB
By A. HAMILTON THOMPSON, M. A. , F. S. A. , St John's College
Lamb's early days and friendships. Mary Lamb. Charles Lloyd. Tales
from Shakespear. Specimens of English Dramatic Poets. Con-
tributions to periodicals. The Essays of Elia. Letters. His
later life. Summary
180
CHAPTER IX
THE LANDORS, LEIGH HUNT, DE QUINCEY
By GEORGE SAINTSBURY
Walter Savage Landor's prose and verse. His classicism. Gebir.
Count Julian. Hellenics. Imaginary Conversations. Landor
as a critic. Leigh Hunt's influence. His merits and defects.
De Quincey's mastery in ornate prose. Robert Eyres Landor
204
CHAPTER X
JANE AUSTEN
By HAROLD CHILD, sometime Scholar of Brasenose
College, Oxford
Early tales. Pride and Prejudice. Sense and Sensibility. North-
anger Abbey. Mansfield Park. Emma. Persuasion.
231
## p. x (#22) ###############################################
X
Contents
CHAPTER XI
LESSER NOVELISTS
By HAROLD CHILD
PAGE
Susan Edmondstone Ferrier. Catherine Grace Gore. Thomas Henry
Lister. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Frankenstein. Catherine
Crowe. The Night Side of Nature. George Croly. G. P. R. James.
W. H. Ainsworth. Marryat. Theodore Hook. John Galt. Moir's
Mansie Wauch
245
CHAPTER XII
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT
By the Ven. W. H. HUTTON, B. D. , Archdeacon of North-
ampton, Canon of Peterborough and Fellow of St John's
College, Oxford
Keble. R. H. Froude. Tracts for the Times. Newman at St Mary's.
Tract 90. Ward's The Ideal of a Christian Church. Newman
joins the Roman Catholic church. Pusey. Keble's Christian Year.
Isaac Williams. Newman's Apologia pro vita sua. The Dream of
Gerontius. His later works. Dean Church. Trench. Liddon.
Neale. The Mozleys. Hook. The Wilberforces. Wiseman,
Manning. Pollen. Faber. Dalgairns. W. G. Ward. de Lisle.
Dolben. F. E. Paget
253
CHAPTER XIII
THE GROWTH OF LIBERAL THEOLOGY
By the Rev. F. E. HUTCHINSON, M. A. , Trinity College, Oxford,
formerly Chaplain of King's College
The Evangelicals. The Clapham sect. The influence of Coleridge.
Erskine of Linlathen. The noetics. Whately. Hampden. Thomas
Arnold. Frederick Denison Maurice. Robertson of Brighton.
The Broad Churchmen. Jowett. Stanley. Essays and Reviews.
Robertson Smith. Ecce Homo. Westcott and Hort. Lightfoot.
T. H. Green. Martineau. Father Tyrrell
279
## p. xi (#23) ##############################################
Contents
xi
CHAPTER XIV
HISTORIANS
WRITERS ON ANCIENT AND EARLY ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
By Sir A. W. WARD, Litt. D. , F. B. A. , Master of Peterhouse
PAGE
The influence of Niebuhr. Arnold's Roman History. Merivale's
Romans under the Empire. Long's Decline of the Roman
Republic. Thirlwall and Grote. Finlay's History of Greece.
Freeman. George Rawlinson. Smith's Dictionaries. Milman's
Latin Christianity. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley. William Bright.
Hodgkin's Italy and her Invaders
300
.
CHAPTER XV
SCHOLARS, ANTIQUARIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHERS
By Sir JOHN EDWIN SANDYS, Litt. D. , F. B. A. , Fellow of
St John's College and Public Orator in the University
of Cambridge
Greek Scholars. Latin Scholars. Classical Archaeologists. Oriental
Scholars. English Scholars. Archaeological Antiquaries. Literary
Antiquaries. Bibliographers
323
.
372
524
•
Bibliographies .
Supplementary Bibliography: Relations of English and Continental
Literatures in the Romantic Period
Table of Principal Dates
Index of Names
528
531
## p. xii (#24) #############################################
## p. xiii (#25) ############################################
CHAPTER I
SIR WALTER SCOTT
verse.
LIKE Burns, Scott is, in his way, an anomaly in English litera-
ture. Both as poet and novelist, he bore the badge of singularity.
It was as poet that he made his first appeal to the world, and his
poetic tendencies were not directly inspired by modern English
In matter and manner, if not in metrical form, his poetry
has as little kinship with that of his immediate English pre-
decessors as has the verse of Burns. His relations are more
intimate with ancient, than with modern, bards, though not with
the same bards as Burns; and, like him, he is very specifically
-though not so peculiarly and completely-Scottish. His im-
mense interest in the Scottish past represents a phase of the
reaction against the ecclesiastical obsession of previous genera-
tions. With the advent of the reformation, Scotland's interest
in her secular past was, for a long time, almost extinguished.
Even the memories of Bannockburn and of her stern struggles for
national independence became obscured by the new protestant
alliance with England; while her catholic past acquired, in the
eyes of the majority of the nation, a kind of criminal aspect from
its supposed association with a long period of ‘idolatry’and spiritual
decline. One of the most marked features of the Scottish
literary revival of the eighteenth century was the awakened
interest in her secular past. This was further accentuated by the
romantic, though futile, Jacobite risings. Scott inherited strong
Jacobite partialities, and, through his father and others, was
brought into close contact with Jacobite traditions; while the
feats of his old border ancestry captivated the imagination of his
early childhood. Interest in the past, and specially in the feudal
and chivalric past, was the predominant inspiration of his verse;
and conferred on it a marked dissimilarity from that of his imme-
diate predecessors.
85
1
E. L. XII.
CH. I.
## p. xiii (#26) ############################################
2
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
As a novelist, his distinctiveness largely depends, also, on his
historic and antiquarian enthusiasms. Here, it is true, his relations
with his immediate literary predecessors were much more intimate.
Though his tales derive something of their romantic flavour from
his familiarity with the older romance writers—both in prose and
verse—he was also much advantaged by the antecedence of the
great eighteenth century novelists and later and lesser novelists.
He himself described Fielding as 'the father of the English novel';
he had a very strong admiration for Smollett; and he also confessed
that, but for the success attained by Maria Edgeworth in her Irish
tales, he might never have thought of attempting a novel of
Scottish life. His prefaces to Ballantyne's Novelists' Library,
also, show, as Lockhart remarks, 'how profoundly he had investi-
gated the principles and practices of those masters before he
struck out a new path for himself. ' But, while more dependent as
novelist than as poet on the stimulus and guidance of his modern
predecessors, he was a much greater, a much more outstanding,
novelist than poet. Here, he discovered his true literary vocation.
Here, he found scope for a more complete and varied exercise of
his special accomplishments and genius; and, great as were the
merits of his chief eighteenth century predecessors, he was able to
compass achievements, in some essential respects markedly different
from theirs, and, at the same time, so comprehensive and many-
sided as to confer on him a peculiar lustre.
The special literary development of Scott, while the conse-
quence of a rare combination of natural gifts, was, also, largely
influenced by certain exceptional circumstances which gave it its
original impulse and did much to determine its character.
He
owed not a little to his Edinburgh nativity and citizenship. His
‘own romantic town,' uniquely picturesque and variously associated
with pregnant memories of the past, was an exceptionally suitable
cradle for his genius. Long familiarity never lessened its fascina-
tion for him.
'No funeral hearse,' writes Lockhart, 'crept more leisurely than did his
landau up the Canongate or Cowgate, and not a queer tottering gable but
recalled to him some long-buried memory of splendour or bloodshed, which,
by a few words, he set before the hearer in the reality of life. His image is
so associated in my mind with the antiquities of his native place that I cannot
now revisit them without feeling as if I were treading on his gravestone. '
He was also favoured, in no small degree, by his border descent
and prepossessions and an early literary nurture on border tales
and ballads. It was this that gave the first impulse and direction
## p. xiii (#27) ############################################
1]
3
Early Literary Proclivities
to his poetic genius ; and it formed, in a sense, the basis of his
future literary achievements. His interest in the stirring border
past was awakened in his early childhood principally by the vivid
reminiscences of his grandmother, ‘in whose youth,' he says, “the old
border depredations were matter of recent tradition,' and who used
to tell him ‘many a tale of Watt of Harden, Wight Willie of Aikwood
and Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead and other heroes-merry men
all of the persuasion and calling of Robin Hood and little John. '
The solitary condition of his childhood, caused by his lameness,
begat, also, precocious literary proclivities which, otherwise, might
have lain much longer in abeyance, or might have been largely
obstructed by his strong partiality for outdoor activities. It made
him, as he modestly puts it, 'a tolerable reader,' his enthusiasm, he
remarks, being chiefly awakened by the wonderful and the terrible,'
the common taste,' he adds, 'of children but in which I have re-
mained a child unto this day. ' In this respect, however, he was no
more an ordinary child than he was an ordinary man. The stories
he read produced an exceptionally deep impression on him, and
called into early exercise his imaginative faculty. While he was still
at the High school of Edinburgh, his tales, on days when play was
made impossible by the severity of the weather, used 'to assemble
an admiring audience round Lucky Brown's fire side'; and his
interest in the marvellous became rather more than less absorbing
as he approached manhood. After he became a legal appren-
tice in his father's office, his strong predilection for ‘romantic
lore' caused him to spend a portion of his earnings on attend-
ance twice a week at an Italian class, and, for the same reason, he
' renewed and extended' his 'knowledge of the French language. '
Later, he was accustomed, every Saturday in summer, and, also,
during holidays, to retire with a friend to one of the neighbouring
heights, where, perched in solitude, they read together “romances
of Knight errantry, the Castle of Otranto, Spenser, Ariosto and
Boiardo being great favourites. ' He, also, he tells us, 'fastened like
a tiger upon every collection of old songs and romances' which
chanced to fall in his way; and had a wonderful faculty of
retaining in his memory whatever pleased him, 'above all a
Border ballad. '
While it was by the border tales and ballads that his romantic
ardour was first aroused, it was, also, his ballad enthusiasm that
induced him to make his first venture in publication; and, in
ballad composition and translation, in ballad collection, annotation
and amendment, he served a literary apprenticeship which proved
a
6
1-2
## p. xiii (#28) ############################################
4
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
6
6
to be of cardinal advantage to him both as poet and as novelist.
Shortly after he left the High school, his interest in old ballads
received an abiding stimulus from bishop Percy's Reliques of
Ancient Poetry, which he read, he says, 'with a delight which
may be imagined but cannot be described. It was their romantic
stimulus that roused his curiosity about the old romantic poetry
not only of England but of France and Italy; and, through his
German studies, begun in 1792, his ballad fervour received further
quickening by his introduction to the modern balladry of German
poets, whose interest in this form of verse was, also, first aroused
by the Reliques of Percy.
In the same year in which he began his German studies, he had,
under the guidance of sheriff substitute Shortrede, made the first of
his seven successive annual raids into the wild and primitive district
of Liddesdale, to explore the remains of old castles and peels,
to pick up such samples as were obtainable of the ancient riding
ballads,' to collect other relics of antiquity and to enjoy the
queerness and the fun'associated with the rough hospitality of
those unsophisticated regions. The special attention he was now
directing to the old minstrelsy of the borders quickened and
enlightened his appreciation of modern German balladry, his
interest in which was first awakened in 1794, through the reports
of Mrs Barbauld's recital, in the house of Dugald Stewart, of
Taylor's translation of Bürger's Leonore. Moved by the eulogies
of several who had listened to it, he obtained from Hamburg a
copy of Bürger's works, when, he tells us, the perusal of the ballad
in German rather exceeded,' than disappointed, his expectations.
In his enthusiasm, he immediately promised a friend a verse trans-
lation of it, which, in 1796, he published in a thin quarto along
with that of Der wilde Jäger.
Ide Jäger. For his own gratification, he then
'began,' he says, 'to translate on all sides,' but, while the dramas
of Goethe, Schiller and others ‘powerfully attracted him’-80
much so that, in 1799, he published a translation of Goethe's
Goetz von Berlichingen—the ballad poetry, he affirms, was his
'favourite. ' He was affected mainly by a particular form or
aspect of the German romantic movement. It appealed to him so far
as it harmonised with predilections which had been created inde-
pendently of it. It widened and deepened his previous interest
in the chivalric past and the marvels and diablerie of tradition,
but he had nothing in common with its metaphysical, mystical
and extravagant tendencies. It was more especially to its balladry
that he was indebted, and this chiefly for directing his attention
6
6
## p. xiii (#29) ############################################
1]
5
Ballad Poetry
more distinctly and seriously to this form of verse, and causing
him to essay experiments which were a kind of preparation for
the accomplishment of his poetical romances. From the trans-
lation of German ballads, he acquired, he says, sufficient con-
fidence to attempt the imitation of them. In his experiments,
he now, also, received encouragement and counsel from 'Monk’
Lewis, his acquaintanceship with whom ‘rekindled effectually,' he
says, in his breast, “the spark of poetical ambition, and to whom
he was indebted for salutary corrections of his careless tendencies
in regard to rime and diction, partly caused by his familiarity
with the rude ballads of tradition. Lewis accepted certain of his
ballads for his projected Tales of Wonder, which, however, did not
appear until 1801; and, owing to the delay in the publication of
the volume, Scott induced his old schoolfellow James Ballantyne,
who had a printer's business at Kelso, to throw off, in 1799, a dozen
copies of his own ballads, which, in pamphlet form, and under the
title Apology for Tales of Terror, he distributed among his more
intimate Edinburgh friends.
This small pamphlet was the beginning of business relations
with Ballantyne which were to exercise a cardinal influence both
on Ballantyne's and on Scott's fortunes. So pleased was Scott with
this specimen of his friend's press that he promised to him the
printing of a volume of old border ballads, should such a project
take shape. It not only did so, but in a more comprehensive and
elaborate form than he had at first contemplated. While it was still
under consideration, he received, in 1799, an appointment to the
sheriffdom of Selkirkshire. This marked a still more important
turning-point in his life. It determined his permanent local
connection with the border; and, meanwhile, it multiplied his
opportunities for the acquisition of old border lore and for
augmenting his topographical knowledge of the district. An
acquaintanceship now formed with Richard Heber, also, greatly
aided him in his medieval studies; and he received valuable
suggestions from the remarkable young borderer, John Leyden, to
whom, and, also, to William Laidlaw, his future steward, and to
James Hogg, he was further indebted for several ballad versions.
The collection appeared in 1802 in two volumes; and a third
volume, which included ballad imitations by himself, Lewis and
others, was published in 1803. In subsequent editions, changes
were made in the ballad texts, by way both of amendment and of
additions, the arrangement was altered and the notes were im-
proved and supplemented. Though entitled Minstrelsy of the
## p. 6 (#30) ###############################################
6
[CH.
Sir Walter Scott
Scottish Border, it included ballads and other pieces which had no
special connection with the borders either of Scotland or England.
According to Motherwell, forty-three poems were published for the
first time; but a few of these were forgeries by Surtees; some
were not properly ballads; several had appeared as broadsides;
and others were accessible in manuscript collections. Nearly all
those detailing border feats or incidents, or misfortunes, were,
however, previously unknown outside the border communities;
and it is to Scott and his coadjutors that we are indebted for the
rescue from gradual oblivion of such fragments and rude versions
of them as were still retained in vanishing tradition. Most of the
versions published by Scott were of a composite character. Unlike
Percy, he obtained several traditional copies—often differing
widely in phraseology-of most of the ballads; and he con-
structed his versions partly by selecting what he deemed the best
reading of each; partly by amending the more debased diction, or
the halting rhythm, or the imperfect rime, partly by the fabrica-
tion of lines, and even stanzas, to replace omissions, or enhance
the dramatic effect of the ballad. 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
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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
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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.
