[1] Guillim, Ed. 1638.
[2] The reason of this honour to Sir Walter was that he had been the
first English knight who rode into France after the king had quartered
the Fleur-de-Lys.
[3] I omit much, without putting stars, in these bits of
translation. By the way, in last 'Fors,' p. 21, note, for "insert,"
read "omit."
[4] Not unfairly; only having to fight for their Calais instead of
getting in for a bribe.
[5] Besogne. "The thing that has to be done"--word used still in
household service, but impossible to translate; we have no such
concentrated one in English.
[6] The passage is entirely spoiled in Johnes' translation by the use
of the word 'gallant' instead of 'gentle' for the French 'gentil.' The
boy was not yet nineteen, (born at Woodstock, June 15, 1330,) and
his father thirty-six: fancy how pretty to see the one waiting on
the other, with the French knights at his side.
[7] Sacred fillet, or "diadema," the noblest, as the most ancient,
crown.
[8] The best is on George III.'s pound, 1820, the most finished in
work on George IV.'s crown-piece, 1821.
[9] More properly 'named from the husbandman.' Thus Lycus is 'a
wolf,' Lycius, 'named from the wolf,' or 'wolfish.' So, Georgus
is 'a husbandman,' Georgius, 'named from the husbandman,' or
'husbandmannish.'
[10] See the complete series of subjects as given by M. Didron in his
'Iconographie Chrétienne' (8vo. Paris, 1845, p. 369), and note the
most interesting trace of the idea of Triptolemus, in the attendant
child with the water-pitcher behind the equestrian figure of the Saint.
[11] You will find that in my 19th letter, p. 11, I propose that our
St. George's Company in England shall be under the patronage also
of St. Anthony in Italy. And in general, we will hold ourselves
bound to reverence, in one mind, with Carpaccio and the good
Painters and Merchants of Venice, the eight great Saints of the
Greek Church,--namely (in the order M. Didron gives them)--the
Archangel Michael, the Precursor (John Baptist), St. Peter, St. Paul,
St. Nicholas, St. George, Ste. Catherine of Sinai, and St. Anthony,
these being patrons of our chief occupations, (while, over our
banking operations we will have for patron or principal manager,
the more modern Western Saint, Francis of Assisi;) meaning always
no disrespect to St. Jerome or Ste. Cecilia, in case we need help in
our literature or music.
[12] "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will
love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." Our
mona,--as in the 2nd verse (John xiv.)
[13] Humboldt, Personal Narrative, London, 1827, vol. v., p. 640 et
seq. I quote, as always, accurately, but missing the bits I don't want.
[14] The saying is only quoted in 'Munera Pulveris' to be denied,
the reader must observe.
[15] See terminal notes.
[16] Compare XXIII. 12.
[17] See Miss Edgeworth's Story, 'Forgive and Forget,' in the 'Parents'
Assistant.'
[18] 21st March: one just received, interesting, and to be answered
next month.
[19] I observed nothing of the kind. It was the previous speaker
(unknown to me, but, according to the 'Pall Mall' Mr. Dering) who not
merely 'observed' but positively affirmed, as the only groundwork of
sound political economy, that the nature of man was that of a beast
of prey, to all his fellows.
[20] My dear friend, I can't bear to interrupt your pretty letter;
but, indeed, one should not worship God on one day more, or less,
than on another; and one should rest when one needs rest, whether on
Sunday or Saturday.
[21] My correspondent will perhaps be surprised to hear that I have
never in my life voted for any candidate for Parliament, and that I
never mean to.
[22] Far wiser than letting him gather them as valueless.
[23] Not translateable. In French, it has the form of a passionate
oath, but the spirit of a gentle one.
[24] Head of house doing all he can do well, himself. If he had not
had time to make the brooms well, he would have bought them.
[25] Do not calculate so closely how much you can afford to give for
the price.
[26] Not meaning "you can cheat them afterwards," but that the customer
would not leave him for another broom-maker.
[27] Sold.
[28] "Aussi" also how happy she felt. Aussi is untranslateable in
this pretty use; so hereafter I shall put it, as an English word,
in its place.
[29] "Nigaud," good for nothing but trifles; worthless, but without
sense of vice; (vaut-rien, means viciously worthless). The real sense
of this word here would be "Handless fool," but said good-humouredly.
[30] Se mit à regarder. I shall always translate such passages with
the literal idiom--put himself.
[31] A single batz, about three halfpence in bad silver, flat struck:
I shall use the word without translating henceforward.
[32] Pushed it. No horse wanted.
[33] Coup de main, a nice French idiom meaning the stroke of hand
as opposed by that of a senseless instrument. The phrase "Taking a
place by a coup de main" regards essentially not so much the mere
difference between sudden and long assault, as between assault with
flesh or cannon.
[34] Assez clair semées.
[35] He is now a capitalist, in the entirely wholesome and proper
sense of the word. See answer of 'Pall Mall Gazette,' driven to have
recourse to the simple truth, to my third question in last 'Fors.'
[36] See above, the first speech of the farmer to Hansli, "Many's
the year now," etc. It would be a shame for a well-to-do farmer to
have to buy brooms; it is only the wretched townspeople whom Hansli
counts on for custom.
[37] Copeaux, I don't understand this.
[38] The mistress of a farm; paysan, the master. I shall use paysanne,
after this, without translation, and peasant, for paysan; rarely
wanting the word in our general sense.
[39] "Du battu," I don't know if it means the butter, or the
buttermilk.
[40] "Le bout du monde," meaning, he never thought of going any
farther.
[41] Compare, if you can get at the book in any library, my article on
'Home and its Economies' in the 'Contemporary Review' for May.
[42] Colonel Talbot, in 'Waverley;' I need not, surely, name the
other:--note only that, in speaking of heroism, I never admit into
the field of comparison the merely stage-ideals of impossible virtue
and fortune--(Ivanhoe, Sir Kenneth, and the like)--but only persons
whom Scott meant to be real. Observe also that with Scott, as with
Titian, you must often expect the most tender pieces of completion
in subordinate characters.
[43] I beg my readers to observe that I never flinch from stating a
fact that tells against me. This George's Square is in that New Town
of Edinburgh which I said, in the first of these letters, I should
like to destroy to the ground.
[44] Lockhart's Life, 8vo. Edinburgh: Cadell, 1837. Vol. i. p. 65. In
my following foot-notes I shall only give volume and page--the book
being understood.
[45] i. 67. What sort of tender mercies were to be expected?
[46] His name unknown, according to Leyden, is perhaps discoverable;
but what songs? Though composed by an Englishman, have they the
special character of Scottish music?
[47] Dinlay;--where?
[48] Pensil, a flag hanging down--'pensile.' Pennon, a stiff
flag sustained by a cross arm, like the broad part of a
weathercock. Properly, it is the stiff-set feather of an arrow.
"Ny autres riens qui d'or ne fust
Fors que les pennons, et le fust."
'Romance of the Rose,' of Love's arrows: Chaucer translates,
"For all was gold, men might see,
Out-take the feathers and the tree."
[49] People would not have me speak any more harm of Mr. Mill,
because he's dead, I suppose? Dead or alive, all's one to me, with
mischievous persons; but alas! how very grievously all's two to me,
when they are helpful and noble ones.
[50] Out of the first of Scott's notes to the Lay, but the note is
so long that careless readers are sure to miss the points; also I
give modern spelling for greater ease.
[51] A walled group of houses: tynen, Saxon, to shut in (Johnson).
[52] i. 68. "The indignant laird was on the point of desiring
his prisoner to say a last prayer, when his more considerate dame
interposed milder counsels, suggesting that the culprit was born to
a good estate, and that they had three unmarried daughters. Young
Harden, it is said, not without hesitation, agreed to save his life
by taking the plainest of the three off their hands."
[53] Eldest son, or grandson, of Sir William Scott of Harden, the
second in our genealogy.
[54] Came, by invitation from his landlord, Scott of Harden.
[55] Here, you see, our subject begins to purpose!
[56] I give the round numbers for better remembering. Wat of Harden
married the Flower of Yarrow in 1567; Robert of Sandy-Knowe married
Barbara Haliburton in 1728.
[57] Vol. vi., p. 164.
[58] Portion omitted short, and of no moment just now. I shall refer
to it afterwards.
[59] The actual toil gone through by him is far greater during the
last years than before--in fact it is unceasing and mortal; but I
count only as the true labour-time that which is healthy and fruitful.
[60] If my own life is spared a little longer, I can at least rescue
Pope from the hands of his present scavenger biographer; but alas,
for Scott's loving hand and noble thought, lost to him!
[61] To the speech of Mr. Baillie of Jerviswoode; vol. vii., p. 221.
[62] Vol. vii., p. 213.
[63] Not to break away from my text too long, I add one or two farther
points worth notice, here:--
"Boerhaave lost none of his hours, but when he had attained one
science attempted another. He added physick to divinity, chemistry
to the mathematicks, and anatomy to botany.
"He knew the importance of his own writings to mankind, and lest
he might, by a roughness and barbarity of style too frequent among
men of great learning, disappoint his own intentions, and make his
labours less useful, he did not neglect the politer arts of eloquence
and poetry. Thus was his learning at once various and exact, profound
and agreeable.
"But his knowledge, however uncommon, holds in his character but the
second place; his virtue was yet much more uncommon than his learning.
"Being once asked by a friend, who had often admired his patience
under great provocations, whether he knew what it was to be angry,
and by what means he had so entirely suppressed that impetuous and
ungovernable passion, he answered, with the utmost frankness and
sincerity, that he was naturally quick of resentment, but that he had,
by daily prayer and meditation, at length attained to this mastery
over himself."
[64] See terminal notes.
[65] Autobiography, p. 15.
[66] His own words to Mr. Skene of Rubislaw, vol. i., p. 83, spoken
while Turner was sketching Smailholm Tower, vol. vii., p. 302.
[67] The Ballad of Hardiknute is only a fragment--but one consisting of
forty-two stanzas of eight lines each. It is the only heroic poem in
the Miscellany; of which--and of the poem itself--more hereafter. The
first four lines are ominous of Scott's own life:--
"Stately stept he East the wa',
And stately stept he West;
Full seventy years he now had seen,
With scarce seven years of rest."
[68] Lockhart, in the extract just below, calls them "milk-white." This
is exactly right of the pale bluish translucent quartz, in which the
agatescent veins are just traceable, and no more, out of the trap
rocks; but the gneissitic hills give also exquisitely brilliant pure
white and cream-coloured quartz, rolled out of their vein stones.
[69] With your pardon, Mr. Lockhart, neither ducks nor duckweed are
in the least derogatory to the purity of a pool.
[70] Vol. ii., p. 358; compare ii., 70. "If it seemed possible to
scramble through, he scorned to go ten yards about, and in fact
preferred the ford," etc.
[71] 8vo, 1806, p. 119.
[72] Vol. vii., pp. 164, 166, 196.
[73] Vol. vii., p. 9.
[74] Fourth Report of Rivers Pollution Commission, p. 52.
[75] See Analysis of Water of Leith, the Foul Burn, and Pow Burn,
same Report, p. 21.
[76] Same Report; so also the River Almond, pp. 22-45.
[77] See terminal Notes.
[78] Blood-hound, from 'lym,' Saxon for leash.
[79] Introduction to Border Minstrelsy, p. 86.
[80] "The Capacity and Extent of the Human Understanding; exemplified
in the extraordinary case of Automathes, a young nobleman who
was accidentally left in his infancy upon a desolate island, and
continued nineteen years in that solitary state, separate from all
human society." By John Kirkby. 1745. Small 8vo.
[81] It is impossible to concentrate the vulgar modern vices of art
and literature more densely than has been done in this--in such kind,
documental--book. Here is a description of the 'Queen of the Flowers'
out of it, which is so accurately characteristic of the 'imagination'
of an age of demand and supply, that I must find space for it in small
print. She appears in a wood in which "here and there was a mulberry
tree disporting itself among the rest." (Has Mr. Huguessen, M.P., ever
seen a mulberry tree, or read as much of Pyramus and Thisbe as Bottom?)
"The face was the face of a lady, and of a pretty, exceedingly
good-humoured lady too; but the hair which hung down around her
head"--(the author had better have written hung up)--"was nothing
more or less than festoons of roses,--red, lovely, sweet-scented"
(who would have thought it!) "roses; the arms were apparently entirely
composed of cloves and" (allspice? no) "carnations; the body was formed
of a multitude of various flowers--the most beautiful you can imagine,
and a cloak of honeysuckle and sweetbriar was thrown carefully over
the shoulders." (Italics mine--care being as characteristic of the
growth of the honeysuckle as disport is that of the mulberry.)
[82] Robert, who comes to visit them in Bath, to little Walter's
great joy.
[83] See first terminal note.
[84] Or Méhun, near Beaugency, Loire.
[85] On Mr. M'Fie's motion for a committee to consider the relations
that subsist between the United Kingdom and the Colonies. On the
varieties of filial sentiment, compare Herodotus, iii. 38; iv. 26.
[86] Much the most important part of the service in Protestant
Switzerland, and a less formal one than in Scotland.
[87] Utmost wisdom is not in self-denial, but in learning to find
extreme pleasure in very little things.
[88] This pleasure is a perfectly natural and legitimate one, and
all the more because it is possible only when the riches are very
moderate. After getting the first shilling of which I told you, I
set my mind greatly upon getting a pile of new "lion shillings," as I
called them--the lion standing on the top of the crown; and my delight
in the bloomy surface of their dead silver is quite a memorable joy
to me. I have engraved, for the frontispiece, the two sides of one of
Hansli's Sunday playthings; it is otherwise interesting as an example
of the comparatively vulgar coinage of a people uneducated in art.
[89] Has quarrelled with them.
[90] "Les ont brusquées." I can't get the derivation beyond Johnson:
"Fr. brusque; Gothic, braska." But the Italian brusco is connected
with the Provençal brusca, thicket, and Fr. broussaille.
[91] Paysan--see above.
[92] 'The Forms of Water.' King and Co., Cornhill. 1872.
[93] When next the reader has an opportunity of repeating Professor
Tyndall's experiments (p. 92) in a wreath of dry snow, I recommend him
first to try how much jumping is necessary in order to get into it
"breast-deep"; and secondly, how far he can "wade" in that dramatic
position.
[94] See the last terminal note.
[95] I have long since expressed these facts in my 'Ethics of the
Dust,' but too metaphorically. "The way in which common people read
their Bibles is just like the way that the old monks thought hedgehogs
ate grapes. They rolled themselves (it was said) over and over, where
the grapes lay on the ground: what fruit stuck to their spines, they
carried off and ate. So your hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over
and over their Bibles, and declare that whatever sticks to their own
spines is Scripture, and that nothing else is."
[96] See terminal Notes, 1.
[97] If you don't know your Scott properly, it is of no use to give
you references.
[98] "Dicimus, et stabilito tenore firmamus, amorem non posse, inter
duos jugales, suas extendere vires."
[99] He meant the Bible; having learned Evangelical views at the
massacre of St. Bartholomew.
[100] For the present, the daughters seem to take the initiative. See
story from Halifax in the last terminal Note.
[101] Italics mine.
[102] The complete idea I believe to be "the Divine Fors," or
Providence, accurately so called, of God. "For it is sanctified by
the Word of God, and the granting."
[103] See p. 14 in the Notes.