justification, and urges that he sacrificed to literature very fair
chances in his original profession. Many people might, perhaps, be
disposed to take a bolder line of defence. Cut out of English fiction
all that which has owed its birth more or less to a desire of earning
money honourably, and the residue would be painfully small. The truth,
indeed, seems to be simple. No good work is done when the one impelling
motive is the desire of making a little money; but some of the best work
that has ever been done has been indirectly due to the impecuniosity of
the labourers. When a man is empty he makes a very poor job of it, in
straining colourless trash from his hardbound brains; but when his mind
is full to bursting he may still require the spur of a moderate craving
for cash to induce him to take the decisive plunge. Scott illustrates
both cases. The melancholy drudgery of his later years was forced from
him in spite of nature; but nobody ever wrote more spontaneously than
Scott when he was composing his early poems and novels. If the precedent
of Shakespeare is good for anything, it is good for this. Shakespeare,
it may be, had a more moderate ambition; but there seems to be no reason
why the desire of a good house at Stratford should be intrinsically
nobler than the desire of a fine estate at Abbotsford. But then, it is
urged, Scott allowed himself to write with preposterous haste. And
Shakespeare, who never blotted a line! What is the great difference
between them? Mr. Carlyle feels that here too Scott has at least a very
good precedent to allege; but he endeavours to establish a distinction.
It was right, he says, for Shakespeare to write rapidly, 'being ready to
do it. And herein truly lies the secret of the matter; such swiftness of
writing, after due energy of preparation, is, doubtless, the right
method; the hot furnace having long worked and simmered, let the pure
gold flow out at one gush.' Could there be a better description of Scott
in his earlier years? He published his first poem of any pretensions at
thirty-four, an age which Shelley and Keats never reached, and which
Byron only passed by two years. 'Waverley' came out when he was
forty-three--most of our modern novelists have written themselves out
long before they arrive at that respectable period of life. From a child
he had been accumulating the knowledge and the thoughts that at last
found expression in his work. He had been a teller of stories before he
was well in breeches; and had worked hard till middle life in
accumulating vast stores of picturesque imagery. The delightful notes
to all his books give us some impression of the fulness of mind which
poured forth a boundless torrent of anecdote to the guests at
Abbotsford. We only repine at the prodigality of the harvest when we
forget the long process of culture by which it was produced. And, more
than this, when we look at the peculiar characteristics of Scott's
style--that easy flow of narrative never heightening into epigram, and
indeed, to speak the truth, full of slovenly blunders and amazing
grammatical solecisms, but also always full of a charm of freshness and
fancy most difficult to analyse--we may well doubt whether much labour
would have improved or injured him. No man ever depended more on the
perfectly spontaneous flow of his narratives. Carlyle quotes Schiller
against him, amongst other and greater names. We need not attempt to
compare the two men; but do not Schiller's tragedies smell rather
painfully of the lamp? Does not the professor of æsthetics pierce a
little too distinctly through the exterior of the poet? And, for one
example, are not Schiller's excellent but remarkably platitudinous
peasants in 'William Tell' miserably colourless alongside of Scott's
rough border dalesmen, racy of speech, and redolent of their native soil
in every word and gesture? To every man his method according to his
talent. Scott is the most perfectly delightful of story-tellers, and it
is the very essence of story-telling that it should not follow
prescribed canons of criticism, but be as natural as the talk by
firesides, and, it is to be feared, over many gallons of whisky-toddy,
of which it is, in fact, the refined essence. Scott skims off the cream
of his varied stores of popular tradition and antiquarian learning with
strange facility; but he had tramped through many a long day's march,
and pored over innumerable ballads and forgotten writers, before he had
anything to skim. Had he not--if we may use the word without
offence--been cramming all his life, and practising the art of
story-telling every day he lived? Probably the most striking incidents
of his books are in reality mere modifications of anecdotes which he had
rehearsed a hundred times before, just disguised enough to fit into his
story. Who can read, for example, the inimitable legend of the blind
piper in 'Redgauntlet' without seeing that it bears all the marks of
long elaboration as clearly as one of those discourses of Whitfield,
which, by constant repetition, became marvels of dramatic art? He was an
impromptu composer, in the sense that when his anecdotes once reached
paper, they flowed rapidly, and were little corrected; but the
correction must have been substantially done in many cases long before
they appeared in the state of 'copy.'
Let us, however, pursue the indictment a little further. Scott did not
believe in anything in particular. Yet once more, did Shakespeare? There
is surely a poetry of doubt as well as a poetry of conviction, or what
shall we say to 'Hamlet'? Appearing in such an age as the end of the
last and the beginning of this century, Scott could but share the
intellectual atmosphere in which he was born, and at that day, whatever
we may think of this, few people had any strong faith to boast of. Why
should not a poet stand aside from the chaos of conflicting opinions, so
far as he was able to extricate himself from the unutterable confusion
around them, and show us what was beautiful in the world as he saw it,
without striving to combine the office of prophet with his more
congenial occupation? Carlyle did not mean to urge so feeble a criticism
as that Scott had no very uncompromising belief in the Thirty-nine
Articles; for that is a weakness which he would share with his critic
and with his critic's idol, Goethe. The meaning is partly given by
another phrase. 'While Shakespeare works from the heart outwards,
Scott,' says Carlyle, 'works from the skin inwards, never getting near
the heart of men.' The books are addressed entirely to the everyday
mind. They have nothing to do with emotions or principles, beyond those
of the ordinary country gentleman; and, we may add, of the country
gentleman with his digestion in good order, and his hereditary gout
still in the distant future. The more inspiring thoughts, the deeper
passions, are seldom roused. If in his width of sympathy, and his vivid
perception of character within certain limits, he reminds us of
Shakespeare, we can find no analogy in his writings to the passion of
'Romeo and Juliet,' or to the intellectual agony of 'Hamlet.' The charge
is not really that Scott lacks faith, but that he never appeals, one way
or the other, to the faculties which make faith a vital necessity to
some natures, or lead to a desperate revolt against established faiths
in others. If Byron and Scott could have been combined; if the energetic
passions of the one could have been joined to the healthy nature and
quick sympathies of the other, we might have seen another Shakespeare in
the nineteenth century. As it is, both of them are maimed and imperfect
on different sides. It is, in fact, remarkable how Scott fails when he
attempts a flight into the regions where he is less at home than in his
ordinary style. Take, for instance, a passage from 'Rob Roy,' where our
dear friend, the Bailie, Nicol Jarvie, is taken prisoner by Rob Roy's
amiable wife, and appeals to her feelings of kinship. '"I dinna ken,"
said the undaunted Bailie, "if the kindred has ever been weel redd out
to you yet, cousin--but it's kenned, and can be proved. My mother,
Elspeth Macfarlane (otherwise Macgregor), was the wife of my father,
Denison Nicol Jarvie (peace be with them baith), and Elspeth was the
daughter of Farlane Macfarlane (or MacGregor), at the shielding of Loch
Sloy. Now this Farlane Macfarlane (or Macgregor), as his surviving
daughter, Maggy Macfarlane, wha married Duncan Macnab of
Stuckavrallachan, can testify, stood as near to your gudeman, Robin
MacGregor, as in the fourth degree of kindred, fur----"
'The virago lopped the genealogical tree by demanding haughtily if a
stream of rushing water acknowledged any relation with the portion
withdrawn from it for the mean domestic uses of those who dwelt on its
banks?'
The Bailie is as real a human being as ever lived--as the present Lord
Mayor, or Dandie Dinmont, or Sir Walter himself; but Mrs. Macgregor has
obviously just stepped off the boards of a minor theatre, devoted to the
melodrama. As long as Scott keeps to his strong ground, his figures are
as good flesh and blood as ever walked in the Saltmarket of Glasgow;
when once he tries his heroics, he too often manufactures his characters
from the materials used by the frequenters of masked balls. Yet there
are many such occasions on which his genius does not desert him. Balfour
of Burley may rub shoulders against genuine Covenanters and west-country
Whigs without betraying his fictitious origin. The Master of Ravenswood
attitudinises a little too much with his Spanish cloak and his slouched
hat; but we feel really sorry for him when he disappears in the Kelpie's
Flow. And when Scott has to do with his own peasants, with the
thoroughbred Presbyterian Scotchman, he can bring intense tragic
interest from his homely materials. Douce Davie Deans, distracted
between his religious principles and his desire of saving his daughter's
life, and seeking relief even in the midst of his agonies by that
admirable burst of spiritual pride: 'Though I will neither exalt myself
nor pull down others, I wish that every man and woman in this land had
kept the true testimony and the middle and straight path, as it were on
the ridge of a hill, where wind and water steals, avoiding right-hand
snare and extremes, and left-hand way-slidings, as well as Johnny Dodds
of Farthy's acre and ae man mair that shall be nameless'--Davie is as
admirable a figure as ever appeared in fiction. It is a pity that he was
mixed up with the conventional madwoman, Madge Wildfire, and that a
story most touching in its native simplicity, was twisted and tortured
into needless intricacy. The religious exaltation of Balfour, or the
religious pigheadedness of Davie Deans, are indeed given from the point
of view of the kindly humourist, rather than of one who can fully
sympathise with the sublimity of an intense faith in a homely exterior.
And though many good judges hold the 'Bride of Lammermoor' to be Scott's
best performance, in virtue of the loftier passions which animate the
chief actors in the tragedy, we are, after all, called upon to
sympathise as much with the gentleman of good family who can't ask his
friends to dinner without an unworthy device to hide his poverty, as
with the passionate lover whose mistress has her heart broken. In truth,
this criticism as to the absence of high passion reminds us again that
Scott was a thorough Scotsman, and--for it is necessary, even now, to
avoid the queer misconception which confounds together the most distinct
races--a thorough Saxon. He belonged, that is, to the race which has in
the most eminent degree the typical English qualities. Especially his
intellect had a strong substratum of downright dogged common sense; his
religion, one may conjecture, was pretty much that of all men of sense
in his time. It was that of the society which had produced and been
influenced by Hume and Adam Smith; which had dropped its old dogmas
without becoming openly sceptical, but which emphatically took 'common
sense' for the motto of its philosophy. It was equally afraid of bigotry
and scepticism and had manufactured a creed out of decent compromises
which served well enough for ordinary purposes. Even Hume, a sceptic in
theory, was a Tory and a Scottish patriot in politics. Scott, who cared
nothing for abstract philosophy, did not bother himself to form any
definite system of opinions; he shared Hume's political prejudices
without inquiring into his philosophy. He thoroughly detested the
dogmatism of the John Knox variety, and considered the Episcopal Church
to offer the religion for a gentleman. But his common sense in such
matters was chiefly shown by not asking awkward questions and adopting
the creed which was most to his taste without committing himself to any
strong persuasion as to abstract truth. He would, on the whole, leave
such matters alone, an attitude of mind which was not to Carlyle's
taste. In the purely artistic direction, this common sense is partly
responsible for the defect which has been so often noticed in Scott's
heroes. Your genuine Scot is indeed as capable of intense passion as any
human being in the world. Burns is proof enough of the fact if anyone
doubted it. But Scott was a man of more massive and less impulsive
character. If he had strong passions, they were ruled by his common
sense; he kept them well in hand, and did not write till the period of
youthful effervescence was over. His heroes always seem to be described
from the point of view of a man old enough to see the folly of youthful
passion or too old fully to sympathise with it. They are chiefly
remarkable for a punctilious pride which gives their creator some
difficulty in keeping them out of superfluous duels. When they fall in
love, they always seem to feel themselves as Lovel felt himself in the
'Antiquary,' under the eye of Jonathan Oldbuck, who was himself once in
love but has come to see that he was a fool for his pains. Certainly,
somehow or other, they are apt to be terribly wooden. Cranstoun in the
'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' Graeme in the 'Lady of the Lake,' or Wilton
in 'Marmion,' are all unspeakable bores. Waverley himself, and Lovel in
the 'Antiquary,' and Vanbeest Brown in 'Guy Mannering,' and Harry Morton
in 'Old Mortality,' and, in short, the whole series of Scott's pattern
young men, are all chips of the same block. They can all run, and ride,
and fight, and make pretty speeches, and express the most becoming
sentiments; but somehow they all partake of one fault, the same which
was charged against the otherwise incomparable horse, namely, that they
are dead. And we must confess that this is a considerable drawback from
Scott's novels. To take the passion out of a novel is something like
taking the sunlight out of a landscape; and to condemn all the heroes to
be utterly commonplace is to remove the centre of interest in a manner
detrimental to the best intents of the story. When Thackeray endeavoured
to restore Rebecca to her rightful place in 'Ivanhoe,' he was only doing
what is more or less desirable in all the series. We long to dismount
these insipid creatures from the pride of place, and to supplant them by
some of the admirable characters who are doomed to play subsidiary
parts. There is, however, another reason for this weakness which seems
to be overlooked by many of Scott's critics. We are often referred to
Scott as a master of pure and what is called 'objective' story-telling.
Certainly I don't deny that Scott could be an admirable story-teller:
'Ivanhoe' and the 'Bride of Lammermoor' would be sufficient to convict
me of error if I did. But as mere stories, many of his novels--and
moreover his masterpieces--are not only faulty, but distinctly bad.
Taking him purely and simply from that point of view, he is very
inferior, for example, to Alexandre Dumas. You cannot follow the thread
of most of his narratives with any particular interest in the fate of
the chief actors. In the 'Introductory Epistle' prefixed to the
'Fortunes of Nigel' Scott himself gives a very interesting account of
his method. He has often, he says in answer to an imaginary critic,
begun by laying down a plan of his work and tried to construct an ideal
story, evolving itself by due degrees and ending by a proper
catastrophe. But, a demon seats himself on his pen, and leads it astray.
Characters expand; incidents multiply; the story lingers while the
materials increase; Bailie Jarvie or Dugald Dalgetty leads him astray,
and he goes many a weary mile from the regular road and has to leap
hedge and ditch to get back. If he resists the temptation, his
imagination flags and he becomes prosy and dull. No one can read his
best novels without seeing the truth of this description. 'Waverley'
made an immense success as a description of new scenes and social
conditions: the story of Waverley himself is the least interesting part
of the book. Everybody who has read 'Guy Mannering' remembers Dandie
Dinmont and Meg Merrilies and Pleydell and Dominie Sampson; but how many
people could explain the ostensible story--the love affair of Vanbeest
Brown and Julia Mannering? We can see how Scott put the story together.
He was pouring out the most vivid and interesting recollections of the
borderers whom he knew so well, of the old Scottish gentry and smugglers
and peasants, and the old-fashioned lawyers who played high jinks in the
wynds of Edinburgh. No more delightful collection of portraits could be
brought together. But he had to get a story as a thread. He started with
the legend about an astrological prediction told of Dryden and one of
his sons, and mixed it up with the Annesley case, where a claimant
turned up with more plausibility than the notorious Orton. This
introduced of necessity an impossible and conventional bit of lovemaking
and a recognition of a long-lost heir. He is full of long-lost heirs.
Equally conventional and impossible stories are introduced in the
'Antiquary,' the 'Heart of Midlothian,' and the 'Legend of Montrose' and
elsewhere. Nobody cares about them, and the characters which ostensibly
play the chief part serve merely to introduce us to the subordinate
actors. 'Waverley,' for example, gives a description drawn with
unsurpassable spirit of the state of the Highland clans in 1745; and
poor Waverley's love affair passes altogether out of sight during the
greatest and most interesting part of the narrative. When Moore said of
the poems that Scott intended to illustrate all the gentlemen's seats
between Edinburgh and London, he was not altogether wide of the mark.
The novels are all illustrations--not of 'gentlemen's seats' indeed, but
of various social states; and it is only by a kind of happy accident
when this interest in the surroundings does not put the chief characters
out of focus. Nobody has created a greater number of admirable types,
but when we run over their names we perceive that in most cases they are
the secondary performers who are ousting the nominal heroes and heroines
from their places. Dugald Dalgetty, for example, becomes so attractive
that he squeezes all the other actors into a mere corner of the canvas.
Perhaps nothing more is necessary to explain why Scott failed as a
dramatist. With him, Hamlet would have been a mere peg to show us how
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern amused themselves at the royal drinking
parties.