at times by a smile of intelligence and approbation from the
Prince as he passed the group, Waverley exerted his powers of
fancy, animation, and eloquence, and attracted the general
admiration of the company. The conversation gradually assumed
the line best qualified for the display of his talents and
acquisitions. The gaiety of the evening was exalted in
character, rather than checked, by the approaching dangers of
the morrow. All nerves were strung for the future, and prepared
to enjoy the present. This mood is highly favourable for the
exercise of the powers of imagination, for poetry, and for that
eloquence which is allied to poetry.’
Neither ‘eloquence’ nor ‘poetry’ are the exact words with which it would
be appropriate to describe the fresh style of the Waverley Novels; but
the imagination of their author was stimulated by a fancied mixture of
sentiment and fact, very much as he describes Waverley’s to have been
by a real experience of the two at once. The second volume of Waverley
is one of the most striking illustrations of this peculiarity. The
character of Charles Edward, his adventurous undertaking, his ancestral
rights, the mixed selfishness and enthusiasm of the Highland chiefs,
the fidelity of their hereditary followers, their striking and strange
array, the contrast with the Baron of Bradwardine and the Lowland gentry;
the collision of the motley and half-appointed host with the formed and
finished English society, its passage by the Cumberland mountains and
the blue lake of Ullswater—are unceasingly and without effort present
to the mind of the writer, and incite with their historical interest
the susceptibility of his imagination. But at the same time the mental
struggle, or rather transition, in the mind of Waverley—for his mind
was of the faint order which scarcely struggles—is never for an instant
lost sight of. In the very midst of the inroad and the conflict, the
acquiescent placidity with which the hero exchanges the service of the
imperious for the appreciation of the ‘nice’ heroine, is kept before
us, and the imagination of Scott wandered without effort from the great
scene of martial affairs to the natural but rather unheroic sentiments
of a young gentleman not very difficult to please. There is no trace of
effort in the transition, as is so common in the inferior works of later
copyists. Many historical novelists, especially those who with care and
pains have ‘read up’ their detail, are often evidently in a strait how
to pass from their history to their sentiment. The fancy of Sir Walter
could not help connecting the two. If he had given us the English side of
the race to Derby, he would have described the Bank of England paying in
sixpences, and also the loves of the cashier.
It is not unremarkable in connection with this, the special
characteristic of the ‘Scotch novels,’ that their author began his
literary life by collecting the old ballads of his native country. Ballad
poetry is, in comparison at least with many other kinds of poetry, a
sensible thing. It describes not only romantic events, but historical
ones, incidents in which there is a form and body and consistence—events
which have a result. Such a poem as ‘Chevy Chace,’ we need not explain,
has its prosaic side. The latest historian of Greece has nowhere been
more successful than in his attempt to derive from Homer, the greatest of
ballad poets, a thorough and consistent account of the political working
of the Homeric state of society. The early natural imagination of men
seizes firmly on all which interests the minds and hearts of natural
men. We find in its delineations the council as well as the marriage;
the harsh conflict as well as the deep love-affair. Scott’s own poetry
is essentially a modernised edition of the traditional poems which his
early youth was occupied in collecting. The _Lady of the Lake_ is a sort
of _boudoir_ ballad, yet it contains its element of common sense and
broad delineation. The exact position of Lowlander and Highlander would
not be more aptly described in a set treatise than in the well-known
lines:
‘Saxon, from yonder mountain high
I marked thee send delighted eye
Far to the south and east, where lay,
Extended in succession gay,
Deep waving fields and pastures green,
With gentle slopes and groves between:
These fertile plains, that softened vale,
Were once the birthright of the Gael.
The stranger came with iron hand,
And from our fathers reft the land.
Where dwell we now! See, rudely swell
Crag over crag, and fell o’er fell.
Ask we this savage hill we tread,
For fattened steer or household bread;
Ask we for flocks these shingles dry,—
And well the mountain might reply:
To you, as to your sires of yore,
Belong the target and claymore;
I give you shelter in my breast,
Your own good blades must win the rest.
Pent in this fortress of the North,
Think’st thou we will not sally forth
To spoil the spoiler as we may,
And from the robber rend the prey?
Ay, by my soul! While on yon plain
The Saxon rears one shock of grain;
While of ten thousand herds there strays
But one along yon river’s maze;
The Gael, of plain and river heir,
Shall with strong hand redeem his share.’
We need not search the same poem for specimens of the romantic element,
for the whole poem is full of them. The incident in which Ellen
discovers who Fitz-James really is, is perhaps excessively romantic. At
any rate the lines,—
‘To him each lady’s look was lent;
On him each courtier’s eye was bent;
Midst furs and silks and jewels sheen,
He stood in simple Lincoln green,
The centre of the glittering ring,
And Snowdoun’s knight is Scotland’s king,’—
may be cited as very sufficient example of the sort of sentimental
incident which is separable from extreme feeling. When Scott, according
to his own half-jesting but half-serious expression, was ‘beaten out of
poetry’ by Byron, he began to express in more pliable prose the same
combination which his verse had been used to convey. As might have
been expected, the sense became in the novels more free, vigorous,
and flowing, because it is less cramped by the vehicle in which it is
conveyed. The range of character which can be adequately delineated in
narrative verse is much narrower than that which can be described in
the combination of narrative with dramatic prose; and perhaps even the
sentiment of the novels is manlier and freer; a delicate unreality hovers
over the _Lady of the Lake_.
The sensible element, if we may so express it, of the Waverley Novels
appears in various forms. One of the most striking is in the delineation
of great political events and influential political institutions. We
are not by any means about to contend that Scott is to be taken as an
infallible or an impartial authority for the parts of history which
he delineates. On the contrary, we believe all the world now agrees
that there are many deductions to be made from, many exceptions to be
taken to, the accuracy of his delineations. Still, whatever period or
incident we take, we shall always find in the error a great, in one or
two cases perhaps an extreme, mixture of the mental element which we term
common sense. The strongest _un_sensible feeling in Scott was perhaps
his Jacobitism, which crept out even in small incidents and recurring
prejudice throughout the whole of his active career, and was, so to say,
the emotional aspect of his habitual Toryism. Yet no one can have given
a more sensible delineation, we might say a more statesmanlike analysis,
of the various causes which led to the momentary success, and to the
speedy ruin, of the enterprise of Charles Edward. Mr. Lockhart says,
that notwithstanding Scott’s imaginative readiness to exalt Scotland at
the expense of England, no man would have been more willing to join in
emphatic opposition to an anti-English party, if any such had presented
itself with a practical object. Similarly his Jacobitism, though not
without moments of real influence, passed away when his mind was directed
to broad masses of fact, and general conclusions of political reasoning.
A similar observation may be made as to Scott’s Toryism; although it is
certain that there was an enthusiastic, and, in the malicious sense,
poetical element in Scott’s Toryism, yet quite as indisputably it partook
largely of two other elements, which are in common repute prosaic. He
shared abundantly in the love of administration and organisation, common
to all men of great active powers. He liked to contemplate method at
work and order in action. Everybody hates to hear that the Duke of
Wellington asked ‘how the king’s government was to be carried on.’ No
amount of warning wisdom will bear so fearful a repetition. Still he
_did_ say it, and Scott had a sympathising foresight of the oracle
before it was spoken. One element of his conservatism is his sympathy
with the administrative arrangement, which is confused by the objections
of a Whiggish opposition and is liable to be altogether destroyed by
uprisings of the populace. His biographer, while pointing out the strong
contrast between Scott and the argumentative and parliamentary statesmen
of his age, avows his opinion that in other times, and with sufficient
opportunities, Scott’s ability in managing men would have enabled him to
‘play the part of Cecil or of Gondomar.’ We may see how much a suppressed
enthusiasm for such abilities breaks out, not only in the description of
hereditary monarchs, where the sentiment might be ascribed to a different
origin, but also in the delineation of upstart rulers, who could have
no hereditary sanctity in the eyes of any Tory. Roland Græme, in the
_Abbot_, is well described as losing in the presence of the Regent Murray
the natural impertinence of his disposition. ‘He might have braved with
indifference the presence of an earl merely distinguished by his belt
and coronet; but he felt overawed in that of the soldier and statesman,
the wielder of a nation’s power, and the leader of her armies.’ It is
easy to perceive that the author shares the feeling of his hero by the
evident pleasure with which he dwells on the Regent’s demeanour: ‘He then
turned slowly round toward Roland Græme, and the marks of gaiety, real or
assumed, disappeared from his countenance as completely as the passing
bubbles leave the dark mirror of a still profound lake into which the
traveller has cast a stone; in the course of a minute his noble features
had assumed their natural expression of melancholy gravity,’ &c. In real
life, Scott used to say, that he never remembered feeling abashed in any
one’s presence except the Duke of Wellington’s. Like that of the hero of
his novel, his imagination was very susceptible to the influence of great
achievements and prolonged success in wide-spreading affairs.
The view which Scott seems to have taken of democracy indicates exactly
the same sort of application of a plain sense to the visible parts of
the subject. His imagination was singularly penetrated with the strange
varieties and motley composition of human life. The extraordinary
multitude and striking contrast of the characters in his novels show this
at once. And even more strikingly is the same habit of mind indicated
‘by a tendency never to omit an opportunity of describing those varied
crowds and assemblages,’ which concentrate for a moment into a unity the
scattered and unlike varieties of mankind. Thus, but a page or two before
the passage which we alluded to in the _Abbot_, we find the following:
‘It was indeed no common sight to Roland, the vestibule of a
palace, traversed by its various groups,—some radiant with
gaiety—some pensive, and apparently weighed down by affairs
concerning the State, or concerning themselves. Here the
hoary statesman, with his cautious yet commanding look, his
furred cloak and sable pantoufles; there the soldier in buff
and steel, his long sword jarring against the pavement, and
his whiskered upper lip and frowning brow looking an habitual
defiance of danger, which perhaps was not always made good;
there again passed my lord’s serving-man, high of heart
and bloody of hand, humble to his master and his master’s
equals, insolent to all others. To these might be added the
poor suitor, with his anxious look and depressed mien—the
officer, full of his brief authority, elbowing his betters, and
possibly his benefactors, out of the road—the proud priest,
who sought a better benefice—the proud baron, who sought a
grant of church lands—the robber chief, who came to solicit a
pardon for the injuries he had inflicted on his neighbours—the
plundered franklin, who came to seek vengeance for that which
he had himself received. Besides, there was the mustering
and disposition of guards and soldiers—the despatching of
messengers, and the receiving them—the trampling and neighing
of horses without the gate—the flashing of arms, and rustling
of plumes, and jingling of spurs within it. In short, it was
that gay and splendid confusion, in which the eye of youth sees
all that is brave and brilliant, and that of experience much
that is doubtful, deceitful, false, and hollow—hopes that will
never be gratified—promises which will never be fulfilled—pride
in the disguise of humility—and insolence in that of frank and
generous bounty.’
As in the imagination of Shakespeare, so in that of Scott, the principal
form and object were the structure—that is a hard word—the undulation
and diversified composition of human society; the picture of this stood
in the centre, and everything else was accessory and secondary to it.
The old ‘rows of books,’ in which Scott so peculiarly delighted, were
made to contribute their element to this varied imagination of humanity.
From old family histories, odd memoirs, old law-trials, his fancy
elicited new traits to add to the motley assemblage. His objection to
democracy—an objection of which we can only appreciate the emphatic
force, when we remember that his youth was contemporary with the first
French Revolution, and the controversy as to the uniform and stereotyped
rights of man—was, that it would sweep away this entire picture, level
prince and peasant in a common _égalité_,—substitute a scientific
rigidity for the irregular and picturesque growth of centuries,—replace
an abounding and genial life by a symmetrical but lifeless mechanism. All
the descriptions of society in the novels,—whether of feudal society,
of modern Scotch society, or of English society,—are largely coloured
by this feeling. It peeps out everywhere, and liberal critics have
endeavoured to show that it was a narrow Toryism; but in reality, it is
a subtle compound of the natural instinct of the artist with the plain
sagacity of the man of the world.
It would be tedious to show how clearly the same sagacity appears in his
delineation of the various great events and movements in society which
are described in the Scotch novels. There is scarcely one of them which
does not bear it on its surface. Objections may, as we shall show, be
urged to the delineation which Scott has given of the Puritan resistance
and rebellions, yet scarcely any one will say there is not a worldly
sense in it. On the contrary, the very objection is, that it is too
worldly, and far too exclusively sensible.
The same thoroughly well-grounded sagacity and comprehensive appreciation
of human life is shown in the treatment of what we may call _anomalous_
characters. In general, monstrosity is no topic for art. Every one has
known in real life characters which if, apart from much experience,
he had found described in books, he would have thought unnatural and
impossible. Scott, however, abounds in such characters. Meg Merrilies,
Edie Ochiltree, Radcliffe, are more or less of that description. That of
Meg Merrilies especially is as distorted and eccentric as anything can
be. Her appearance is described as making Mannering ‘start;’ and well it
might.
‘She was full six feet high, wore a man’s greatcoat over the
rest of her dress, had in her hand a goodly sloethorn cudgel,
and in all points of equipment except her petticoats seemed
rather masculine than feminine. Her dark elf-locks shot out
like the snakes of the gorgon between an old-fashioned bonnet
called a bongrace, heightening the singular effect of her
strong and weather-beaten features, which they partly shadowed,
while her eye had a wild roll that indicated something of
insanity.’
Her career in the tale corresponds with the strangeness of her exterior.
‘Harlot, thief, witch, and gipsy,’ as she describes herself, the hero
is preserved by her virtues; half-crazed as she is described to be, he
owes his safety on more than one occasion to her skill in stratagem, and
ability in managing those with whom she is connected, and who are most
likely to be familiar with her weakness and to detect her craft. Yet on
hardly any occasion is the natural reader conscious of this strangeness.
Something is of course attributable to the skill of the artist; for no
other power of mind could produce the effect, unless it were aided by the
unconscious tact of detailed expression. But the fundamental explanation
of this remarkable success is the distinctness with which Scott saw how
such a character as Meg Merrilies arose and was produced out of the
peculiar circumstances of gipsy life in the localities in which he has
placed his scene. He has exhibited this to his readers not by lengthy
or elaborate description, but by chosen incidents, short comments, and
touches of which he scarcely foresaw the effect. This is the only way
in which the fundamental objection to making eccentricity the subject
of artistic treatment can be obviated. Monstrosity ceases to be such
when we discern the laws of nature which evolve it: when a real science
explains its phenomena, we find that it is in strict accordance with what
we call the natural type, but that some rare adjunct or uncommon casualty
has interfered and distorted a nature which is really the same, into
a phenomenon which is altogether different. Just so with eccentricity
in human character; it becomes a topic of literary art only when its
identity with the ordinary principles of human nature is exhibited in
the midst of, and as it were by means of, the superficial unlikeness.
Such a skill, however, requires an easy careless familiarity with usual
human life and common human conduct. A writer must have a sympathy
with health before he can show us how, and where, and to what extent,
that which is unhealthy deviates from it; and it is this consistent
acquaintance with regular life which makes the irregular characters of
Scott so happy a contrast to the uneasy distortions of less sagacious
novelists.
A good deal of the same criticism may be applied to the delineation which
Scott has given us of the _poor_. In truth, poverty is an anomaly to
rich people. It is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner
do not ring the bell. One half of the world, according to the saying,
do not know how the other half live. Accordingly, nothing is so rare
in fiction as a good delineation of the poor. Though perpetually with
us in reality, we rarely meet them in our reading. The requirements of
the case present an unusual difficulty to artistic delineation. A good
deal of the character of the poor is an unfit topic for continuous art,
and yet we wish to have in our books a lifelike exhibition of the whole
of that character. Mean manners and mean vices are unfit for prolonged
delineation; the every-day pressure of narrow necessities is too petty
a pain and too anxious a reality to be dwelt upon. We can bear the mere
description of the _Parish Register_—
‘But this poor farce has neither truth nor art
To please the fancy or to touch the heart.
Dark but not awful, dismal but yet mean,
With anxious bustle moves the cumbrous scene;
Presents no objects tender or profound,
But spreads its cold unmeaning gloom around;’—
but who could bear to have a long narrative of fortunes ‘dismal but yet
mean,’ with characters ‘dark but not awful,’ and no objects ‘tender or
profound’? Mr. Dickens has in various parts of his writings been led
by a sort of pre-Raphaelite _cultus_ of reality into an error of this
species. His poor people have taken to their poverty very thoroughly;
they are poor talkers and poor livers, and in all ways poor people
to read about. A whole array of writers have fallen into an opposite
mistake. Wishing to preserve their delineations clear from the defects
of meanness and vulgarity, they have attributed to the poor a fancied
happiness and Arcadian simplicity. The conventional shepherd of ancient
times was scarcely displeasing: that which is by everything except
express avowal removed from the sphere of reality does not annoy us by
its deviations from reality; but the fictitious poor of sentimental
novelists are brought almost into contact with real life, half claim
to be copies of what actually exists at our very doors, are introduced
in close proximity to characters moving in a higher rank, over whom no
such ideal charm is diffused, and who are painted with as much truth as
the writer’s ability enables him to give. Accordingly, the contrast is
evident and displeasing: the harsh outlines of poverty will not bear the
artificial rose-tint; they are seen through it, like high cheek-bones
through the delicate colours of artificial youth; we turn away with
some disgust from the false elegance and undeceiving art; we prefer the
rough poor of nature to the petted poor of the refining describer. Scott
has most felicitously avoided both these errors. His poor people are
never coarse and never vulgar; their lineaments have the rude traits
which a life of conflict will inevitably leave on the minds and manners
of those who are to lead it; their notions have the narrowness which
is inseparable from a contracted experience; their knowledge is not
more extended than their restricted means of attaining it would render
possible. Almost alone among novelists Scott has given a thorough,
minute, lifelike description of poor persons, which is at the same time
genial and pleasing. The reason seems to be, that the firm sagacity of
his genius comprehended the industrial aspect of poor people’s life
thoroughly and comprehensively, his experience brought it before him
easily and naturally, and his artist’s mind and genial disposition
enabled him to dwell on those features which would be most pleasing to
the world in general. In fact, his own mind of itself and by its own
nature dwelt on those very peculiarities. He could not remove his firm
and instructed genius into the domain of Arcadian unreality, but he was
equally unable to dwell principally, peculiarly, or consecutively, on
those petty, vulgar, mean details in which such a writer as Crabbe lives
and breathes. Hazlitt said that Crabbe described a poor man’s cottage
like a man who came to distrain for rent; he catalogued every trivial
piece of furniture, defects and cracks and all. Scott describes it as
a cheerful but most sensible landlord would describe a cottage on his
property: he has a pleasure in it. No detail, or few details, in the
life of the inmates escape his experienced and interested eye; but he
dwells on those which do not displease him. He sympathises with their
rough industry and plain joys and sorrows. He does not fatigue himself or
excite their wondering smile by theoretical plans of impossible relief.
He makes the best of the life which is given, and by a sanguine sympathy
makes it still better. A hard life many characters in Scott seem to lead;
but he appreciates, and makes his reader appreciate, the full value of
natural feelings, plain thoughts, and applied sagacity.
His ideas of political economy are equally characteristic of his strong
sense and genial mind. He was always sneering at Adam Smith, and telling
many legends of that philosopher’s absence of mind and inaptitude for
the ordinary conduct of life. A contact with the Edinburgh logicians
had, doubtless, not augmented his faith in the formal deductions of
abstract economy; nevertheless, with the facts before him, he could give
a very plain and satisfactory exposition of the genial consequences of
old abuses, the distinct necessity for stern reform, and the delicate
humanity requisite for introducing that reform temperately and with
feeling: