CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
[Illustration: cover]
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR
The author, on a former occasion, declined giving the real source from
which he drew the tragic subject of this history, because, though
occurring at a distant period, it might possibly be unpleasing to the
feelings of the descendants of the parties. But as he finds an account
of the circumstances given in the Notes to Law’s Memorials, by his
ingenious friend, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., and also indicated
in his reprint of the Rev. Mr. Symson’s poems appended to the Large
Description of Galloway, as the original of the Bride of Lammermoor,
the author feels himself now at liberty to tell the tale as he had it
from connexions of his own, who lived very near the period, and were
closely related to the family of the bride.
It is well known that the family of Dalrymple, which has produced,
within the space of two centuries, as many men of talent, civil and
military, and of literary, political, and professional eminence, as any
house in Scotland, first rose into distinction in the person of James
Dalrymple, one of the most eminent lawyers that ever lived, though the
labours of his powerful mind were unhappily exercised on a subject so
limited as Scottish jurisprudence, on which he has composed an
admirable work.
He married Margaret, daughter to Ross of Balneel, with whom he obtained
a considerable estate. She was an able, politic, and high-minded woman,
so successful in what she undertook, that the vulgar, no way partial to
her husband or her family, imputed her success to necromancy. According
to the popular belief, this Dame Margaret purchased the temporal
prosperity of her family from the Master whom she served under a
singular condition, which is thus narrated by the historian of her
grandson, the great Earl of Stair: “She lived to a great age, and at
her death desired that she might not be put under ground, but that her
coffin should stand upright on one end of it, promising that while she
remained in that situation the Dalrymples should continue to flourish.
What was the old lady’s motive for the request, or whether she really
made such a promise, I shall not take upon me to determine; but it’s
certain her coffin stands upright in the isle of the church of
Kirklistown, the burial-place belonging to the family.” The talents of
this accomplished race were sufficient to have accounted for the
dignities which many members of the family attained, without any
supernatural assistance. But their extraordinary prosperity was
attended by some equally singular family misfortunes, of which that
which befell their eldest daughter was at once unaccountable and
melancholy.
Miss Janet Dalrymple, daughter of the first Lord Stair and Dame
Margaret Ross, had engaged herself without the knowledge of her parents
to the Lord Rutherford, who was not acceptable to them either on
account of his political principles or his want of fortune. The young
couple broke a piece of gold together, and pledged their troth in the
most solemn manner; and it is said the young lady imprecated dreadful
evils on herself should she break her plighted faith. Shortly after, a
suitor who was favoured by Lord Stair, and still more so by his lady,
paid his addresses to Miss Dalrymple. The young lady refused the
proposal, and being pressed on the subject, confessed her secret
engagement. Lady Stair, a woman accustomed to universal submission, for
even her husband did not dare to contradict her, treated this objection
as a trifle, and insisted upon her daughter yielding her consent to
marry the new suitor, David Dunbar, son and heir to David Dunbar of
Baldoon, in Wigtonshire. The first lover, a man of very high spirit,
then interfered by letter, and insisted on the right he had acquired by
his troth plighted with the young lady. Lady Stair sent him for answer,
that her daughter, sensible of her undutiful behaviour in entering into
a contract unsanctioned by her parents, had retracted her unlawful vow,
and now refused to fulfil her engagement with him.
The lover, in return, declined positively to receive such an answer
from any one but his mistress in person; and as she had to deal with a
man who was both of a most determined character and of too high
condition to be trifled with, Lady Stair was obliged to consent to an
interview between Lord Rutherford and her daughter. But she took care
to be present in person, and argued the point with the disappointed and
incensed lover with pertinacity equal to his own. She particularly
insisted on the Levitical law, which declares that a woman shall be
free of a vow which her parents dissent from. This is the passage of
Scripture she founded on:
“If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul
with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all
that proceedeth out of his mouth.
“If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond,
being in her father’s house in her youth; And her father hear her vow,
and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall
hold his peace at her: then all her vows shall stand, and every bond
wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand.
“But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of
her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall
stand: and the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed
her.”—Numbers xxx. 2-5.
While the mother insisted on these topics, the lover in vain conjured
the daughter to declare her own opinion and feelings. She remained
totally overwhelmed, as it seemed—mute, pale, and motionless as a
statue. Only at her mother’s command, sternly uttered, she summoned
strength enough to restore to her plighted suitor the piece of broken
gold which was the emblem of her troth. On this he burst forth into a
tremendous passion, took leave of the mother with maledictions, and as
he left the apartment, turned back to say to his weak, if not fickle,
mistresss: “For you, madam, you will be a world’s wonder”; a phrase by
which some remarkable degree of calamity is usually implied. He went
abroad, and returned not again. If the last Lord Rutherford was the
unfortunate party, he must have been the third who bore that title, and
who died in 1685.
The marriage betwixt Janet Dalrymple and David Dunbar of Baldoon now
went forward, the bride showing no repugnance, but being absolutely
passive in everything her mother commanded or advised. On the day of
the marriage, which, as was then usual, was celebrated by a great
assemblage of friends and relations, she was the same—sad, silent, and
resigned, as it seemed, to her destiny. A lady, very nearly connected
with the family, told the Author that she had conversed on the subject
with one of the brothers of the bride, a mere lad at the time, who had
ridden before his sister to church. He said her hand, which lay on his
as she held her arm around his waist, was as cold and damp as marble.
But, full of his new dress and the part he acted in the procession, the
circumstance, which he long afterwards remembered with bitter sorrow
and compunction, made no impression on him at the time.
The bridal feast was followed by dancing. The bride and bridegroom
retired as usual, when of a sudden the most wild and piercing cries
were heard from the nuptial chamber. It was then the custom, to prevent
any coarse pleasantry which old times perhaps admitted, that the key of
the nuptial chamber should be entrusted to the bridesman. He was called
upon, but refused at first to give it up, till the shrieks became so
hideous that he was compelled to hasten with others to learn the cause.
On opening the door, they found the bridegroom lying across the
threshold, dreadfully wounded, and streaming with blood. The bride was
then sought for. She was found in the corner of the large chimney,
having no covering save her shift, and that dabbled in gore. There she
sat grinning at them, mopping and mowing, as I heard the expression
used; in a word, absolutely insane. The only words she spoke were, “Tak
up your bonny bridegroom.” She survived this horrible scene little more
than a fortnight, having been married on the 24th of August, and dying
on the 12th of September 1669.
The unfortunate Baldoon recovered from his wounds, but sternly
prohibited all inquiries respecting the manner in which he had received
them. “If a lady,” he said, “asked him any question upon the subject,
he would neither answer her nor speak to her again while he lived; if a
gentleman, he would consider it as a mortal affront, and demand
satisfaction as having received such.” He did not very long survive the
dreadful catastrophe, having met with a fatal injury by a fall from his
horse, as he rode between Leith and Holyrood House, of which he died
the next day, 28th March 1682. Thus a few years removed all the
principal actors in this frightful tragedy.
Various reports went abroad on this mysterious affair, many of them
very inaccurate, though they could hardly be said to be exaggerated. It
was difficult at that time to become acquainted with the history of a
Scottish family above the lower rank; and strange things sometimes took
place there, into which even the law did not scrupulously inquire.
The credulous Mr. Law says, generally, that the Lord President Stair
had a daughter, who, “being married, the night she was bride in, was
taken from her bridegroom and harled through the house (by spirits, we
are given to understand) and afterward died. Another daughter,” he
says, “was supposed to be possessed with an evil spirit.”
My friend, Mr. Sharpe, gives another edition of the tale. According to
his information, it was the bridegroom who wounded the bride. The
marriage, according to this account, had been against her mother’s
inclination, who had given her consent in these ominous words: “Weel,
you may marry him, but sair shall you repent it.”
I find still another account darkly insinuated in some highly
scurrilous and abusive verses, of which I have an original copy. They
are docketed as being written “Upon the late Viscount Stair and his
family, by Sir William Hamilton of Whitelaw. The marginals by William
Dunlop, writer in Edinburgh, a son of the Laird of Househill, and
nephew to the said Sir William Hamilton.” There was a bitter and
personal quarrel and rivalry betwixt the author of this libel, a name
which it richly deserves, and Lord President Stair; and the lampoon,
which is written with much more malice than art, bears the following
motto:
Stair’s neck, mind, wife, songs, grandson, and the rest,
Are wry, false, witch, pests, parricide, possessed.
This malignant satirist, who calls up all the misfortunes of the
family, does not forget the fatal bridal of Baldoon. He seems, though
his verses are as obscure as unpoetical, to intimate that the violence
done to the bridegroom was by the intervention of the foul fiend, to
whom the young lady had resigned herself, in case she should break her
contract with her first lover. His hypothesis is inconsistent with the
account given in the note upon Law’s Memorials, but easily reconcilable
to the family tradition.
In all Stair’s offspring we no difference know,
They do the females as the males bestow;
So he of one of his daughters’ marriages gave the ward,
Like a true vassal, to Glenluce’s Laird;
He knew what she did to her master plight,
If she her faith to Rutherfurd should slight,
Which, like his own, for greed he broke outright.
Nick did Baldoon’s posterior right deride,
And, as first substitute, did seize the bride;
Whate’er he to his mistress did or said,
He threw the bridegroom from the nuptial bed,
Into the chimney did so his rival maul,
His bruised bones ne’er were cured but by the fall.
One of the marginal notes ascribed to William Dunlop applies to the
above lines. “She had betrothed herself to Lord Rutherfoord under
horrid imprecations, and afterwards married Baldoon, his nevoy, and her
mother was the cause of her breach of faith.”
The same tragedy is alluded to in the following couplet and note:
What train of curses that base brood pursues,
When the young nephew weds old uncle’s spouse.
The note on the word “uncle” explains it as meaning “Rutherfoord, who
should have married the Lady Baldoon, was Baldoon’s uncle.” The poetry
of this satire on Lord Stair and his family was, as already noticed,
written by Sir William Hamilton of Whitelaw, a rival of Lord Stair for
the situation of President of the Court of Session; a person much
inferior to that great lawyer in talents, and equally ill-treated by
the calumny or just satire of his contemporaries as an unjust and
partial judge. Some of the notes are by that curious and laborious
antiquary, Robert Milne, who, as a virulent Jacobite, willingly lent a
hand to blacken the family of Stair.
Another poet of the period, with a very different purpose, has left an
elegy, in which he darkly hints at and bemoans the fate of the
ill-starred young person, whose very uncommon calamity Whitelaw,
Dunlop, and Milne thought a fitting subject for buffoonery and
ribaldry. This bard of milder mood was Andrew Symson, before the
Revolution minister of Kirkinner, in Galloway, and after his expulsion
as an Episcopalian following the humble occupation of a printer in
Edinburgh. He furnished the family of Baldoon, with which he appears to
have been intimate, with an elegy on the tragic event in their family.
In this piece he treats the mournful occasion of the bride’s death with
mysterious solemnity.
The verses bear this title, “On the unexpected death of the virtuous
Lady Mrs. Janet Dalrymple, Lady Baldoon, younger,” and afford us the
precise dates of the catastrophe, which could not otherwise have been
easily ascertained. “Nupta August 12. Domum Ducta August 24. Obiit
September 12. Sepult. September 30, 1669.” The form of the elegy is a
dialogue betwixt a passenger and a domestic servant. The first,
recollecting that he had passed that way lately, and seen all around
enlivened by the appearances of mirth and festivity, is desirous to
know what had changed so gay a scene into mourning. We preserve the
reply of the servant as a specimen of Mr. Symson’s verses, which are
not of the first quality:
Sir, ’tis truth you’ve told.
We did enjoy great mirth; but now, ah me!
Our joyful song’s turn’d to an elegie.
A virtuous lady, not long since a bride,
Was to a hopeful plant by marriage tied,
And brought home hither. We did all rejoice,
Even for her sake. But presently our voice
Was turn’d to mourning for that little time
That she’d enjoy: she waned in her prime,
For Atropus, with her impartial knife,
Soon cut her thread, and therewithal her life;
And for the time we may it well remember,
It being in unfortunate September;
Where we must leave her till the resurrection.
’Tis then the Saints enjoy their full perfection.
Mr. Symson also poured forth his elegiac strains upon the fate of the
widowed bridegroom, on which subject, after a long and querulous
effusion, the poet arrives at the sound conclusion, that if Baldoon had
walked on foot, which it seems was his general custom, he would have
escaped perishing by a fall from horseback. As the work in which it
occurs is so scarce as almost to be unique, and as it gives us the most
full account of one of the actors in this tragic tale which we have
rehearsed, we will, at the risk of being tedious, insert some short
specimens of Mr. Symson’s composition. It is entitled:
“A Funeral Elegie, occasioned by the sad and much lamented death of
that worthily respected, and very much accomplished gentleman, David
Dunbar, younger, of Baldoon, only son and apparent heir to the right
worshipful Sir David Dunbar of Baldoon, Knight Baronet. He departed
this life on March 28, 1682, having received a bruise by a fall, as he
was riding the day preceding betwixt Leith and Holyrood House; and was
honourably interred in the Abbey Church of Holyrood House, on April 4,
1682.”
Men might, and very justly too, conclude
Me guilty of the worst ingratitude,
Should I be silent, or should I forbear
At this sad accident to shed a tear;
A tear! said I? ah! that’s a petit thing,
A very lean, slight, slender offering,
Too mean, I’m sure, for me, wherewith t’attend
The unexpected funeral of my friend:
A glass of briny tears charged up to th’ brim.
Would be too few for me to shed for him.
The poet proceeds to state his intimacy with the deceased, and the
constancy of the young man’s attendance on public worship, which was
regular, and had such effect upon two or three other that were
influenced by his example:
So that my Muse ’gainst Priscian avers,
He, only he, _were_ my parishioners;
Yea, and my only hearers.
He then describes the deceased in person and manners, from which it
appears that more accomplishments were expected in the composition of a
fine gentleman in ancient than modern times:
His body, though not very large or tall,
Was sprightly, active, yea and strong withal.
His constitution was, if right I’ve guess’d,
Blood mixt with choler, said to be the best.
In’s gesture, converse, speech, discourse, attire,
He practis’d that which wise men still admire,
Commend, and recommend. What’s that? you’ll say.
’Tis this: he ever choos’d the middle way
’Twixt both th’ extremes. Amost in ev’ry thing
He did the like, ’tis worth our noticing:
Sparing, yet not a niggard; liberal,
And yet not lavish or a prodigal,
As knowing when to spend and when to spare;
And that’s a lesson which not many are
Acquainted with. He bashful was, yet daring
When he saw cause, and yet therein not sparing;
Familiar, yet not common, for he knew
To condescend, and keep his distance too.
He us’d, and that most commonly, to go
On foot; I wish that he had still done so.
Th’ affairs of court were unto him well known;
And yet meanwhile he slighted not his own.
He knew full well how to behave at court,
And yet but seldom did thereto resort;
But lov’d the country life, choos’d to inure
Himself to past’rage and agriculture;
Proving, improving, ditching, trenching, draining,
Viewing, reviewing, and by those means gaining;
Planting, transplanting, levelling, erecting
Walls, chambers, houses, terraces; projecting
Now this, now that device, this draught, that measure,
That might advance his profit with his pleasure.
Quick in his bargains, honest in commerce,
Just in his dealings, being much adverse
From quirks of law, still ready to refer
His cause t’ an honest country arbiter.
He was acquainted with cosmography,
Arithmetic, and modern history;
With architecture and such arts as these,
Which I may call specifick sciences
Fit for a gentleman; and surely he
That knows them not, at least in some degree,
May brook the title, but he wants the thing,
Is but a shadow scarce worth noticing.
He learned the French, be’t spoken to his praise,
In very little more than fourty days.
Then comes the full burst of woe, in which, instead of saying much
himself, the poet informs us what the ancients would have said on such
an occasion:
A heathen poet, at the news, no doubt,
Would have exclaimed, and furiously cry’d out
Against the fates, the destinies and starrs,
What! this the effect of planetarie warrs!
We might have seen him rage and rave, yea worse,
’Tis very like we might have heard him curse
The year, the month, the day, the hour, the place,
The company, the wager, and the race;
Decry all recreations, with the names
Of Isthmian, Pythian, and Olympick games;
Exclaim against them all both old and new,
Both the Nemaean and the Lethaean too:
Adjudge all persons, under highest pain,
Always to walk on foot, and then again
Order all horses to be hough’d, that we
Might never more the like adventure see.
Supposing our readers have had enough of Mr. Symson’s woe, and finding
nothing more in his poem worthy of transcription, we return to the
tragic story.
It is needless to point out to the intelligent reader that the
witchcraft of the mother consisted only in the ascendency of a powerful
mind over a weak and melancholy one, and that the harshness with which
she exercised her superiority in a case of delicacy had driven her
daughter first to despair, then to frenzy. Accordingly, the Author has
endeavoured to explain the tragic tale on this principle. Whatever
resemblance Lady Ashton may be supposed to possess to the celebrated
Dame Margaret Ross, the reader must not suppose that there was any idea
of tracing the portrait of the first Lord Viscount Stair in the tricky
and mean-spirited Sir William Ashton. Lord Stair, whatever might be his
moral qualities, was certainly one of the first statesmen and lawyers
of his age.
The imaginary castle of Wolf’s Crag has been identified by some lover
of locality with that of Fast Castle. The Author is not competent to
judge of the resemblance betwixt the real and imaginary scenes, having
never seen Fast Castle except from the sea. But fortalices of this
description are found occupying, like ospreys’ nests, projecting rocks,
or promontories, in many parts of the eastern coast of Scotland, and
the position of Fast Castle seems certainly to resemble that of Wolf’s
Crag as much as any other, while its vicinity to the mountain ridge of
Lammermoor renders the assimilation a probable one.
We have only to add, that the death of the unfortunate bridegroom by a
fall from horseback has been in the novel transferred to the no less
unfortunate lover.
CHAPTER I
By Cauk and keel to win your bread,
Wi’ whigmaleeries for them wha need,
Whilk is a gentle trade indeed
To carry the gaberlunzie on.
Old Song.
Few have been in my secret while I was compiling these narratives, nor
is it probable that they will ever become public during the life of
their author. Even were that event to happen, I am not ambitious of the
honoured distinction, _digito monstrari_. I confess that, were it safe
to cherish such dreams at all, I should more enjoy the thought of
remaining behind the curtain unseen, like the ingenious manager of
Punch and his wife Joan, and enjoying the astonishment and conjectures
of my audience. Then might I, perchance, hear the productions of the
obscure Peter Pattieson praised by the judicious and admired by the
feeling, engrossing the young and attracting even the old; while the
critic traced their fame up to some name of literary celebrity, and the
question when, and by whom, these tales were written filled up the
pause of conversation in a hundred circles and coteries. This I may
never enjoy during my lifetime; but farther than this, I am certain, my
vanity should never induce me to aspire.
I am too stubborn in habits, and too little polished in manners, to
envy or aspire to the honours assigned to my literary contemporaries. I
could not think a whit more highly of myself were I found worthy to
“come in place as a lion” for a winter in the great metropolis. I could
not rise, turn round, and show all my honours, from the shaggy mane to
the tufted tail, “roar you an’t were any nightingale,” and so lie down
again like a well-behaved beast of show, and all at the cheap and easy
rate of a cup of coffee and a slice of bread and butter as thin as a
wafer. And I could ill stomach the fulsome flattery with which the lady
of the evening indulges her show-monsters on such occasions, as she
crams her parrots with sugar-plums, in order to make them talk before
company. I cannot be tempted to “come aloft” for these marks of
distinction, and, like imprisoned Samson, I would rather remain—if such
must be the alternative—all my life in the mill-house, grinding for my
very bread, than be brought forth to make sport for the Philistine
lords and ladies. This proceeds from no dislike, real or affected, to
the aristocracy of these realms. But they have their place, and I have
mine; and, like the iron and earthen vessels in the old fable, we can
scarce come into collision without my being the sufferer in every
sense. It may be otherwise with the sheets which I am now writing.
These may be opened and laid aside at pleasure; by amusing themselves
with the perusal, the great will excite no false hopes; by neglecting
or condemning them, they will inflict no pain; and how seldom can they
converse with those whose minds have toiled for their delight without
doing either the one or the other.
In the better and wiser tone of feeling, which Ovid only expresses in
one line to retract in that which follows, I can address these quires—
Parve, nec invideo, sine me, liber, ibis in urbem.
Nor do I join the regret of the illustrious exile, that he himself
could not in person accompany the volume, which he sent forth to the
mart of literature, pleasure, and luxury. Were there not a hundred
similar instances on record, the rate of my poor friend and
school-fellow, Dick Tinto, would be sufficient to warn me against
seeking happiness in the celebrity which attaches itself to a
successful cultivator of the fine arts.
Dick Tinto, when he wrote himself artist, was wont to derive his origin
from the ancient family of Tinto, of that ilk, in Lanarkshire, and
occasionally hinted that he had somewhat derogated from his gentle
blood in using the pencil for his principal means of support. But if
Dick’s pedigree was correct, some of his ancestors must have suffered a
more heavy declension, since the good man his father executed the
necessary, and, I trust, the honest, but certainly not very
distinguished, employment of tailor in ordinary to the village of
Langdirdum in the west. Under his humble roof was Richard born, and to
his father’s humble trade was Richard, greatly contrary to his
inclination, early indentured. Old Mr. Tinto had, however, no reason to
congratulate himself upon having compelled the youthful genius of his
son to forsake its natural bent. He fared like the school-boy who
attempts to stop with his finger the spout of a water cistern, while
the stream, exasperated at this compression, escapes by a thousand
uncalculated spurts, and wets him all over for his pains. Even so fared
the senior Tinto, when his hopeful apprentice not only exhausted all
the chalk in making sketches upon the shopboard, but even executed
several caricatures of his father’s best customers, who began loudly to
murmur, that it was too hard to have their persons deformed by the
vestments of the father, and to be at the same time turned into
ridicule by the pencil of the son. This led to discredit and loss of
practice, until the old tailor, yielding to destiny and to the
entreaties of his son, permitted him to attempt his fortune in a line
for which he was better qualified.
There was about this time, in the village of Langdirdum, a peripatetic
brother of the brush, who exercised his vocation sub Jove frigido, the
object of admiration of all the boys of the village, but especially to
Dick Tinto. The age had not yet adopted, amongst other unworthy
retrenchments, that illiberal measure of economy which, supplying by
written characters the lack of symbolical representation, closes one
open and easily accessible avenue of instruction and emolument against
the students of the fine arts. It was not yet permitted to write upon
the plastered doorway of an alehouse, or the suspended sign of an inn,
“The Old Magpie,” or “The Saracen’s Head,” substituting that cold
description for the lively effigies of the plumed chatterer, or the
turban’d frown of the terrific soldan. That early and more simple age
considered alike the necessities of all ranks, and depicted the symbols
of good cheer so as to be obvious to all capacities; well judging that
a man who could not read a syllable might nevertheless love a pot of
good ale as well as his better-educated neighbours, or even as the
parson himself. Acting upon this liberal principle, publicans as yet
hung forth the painted emblems of their calling, and sign-painters, if
they seldom feasted, did not at least absolutely starve.
To a worthy of this decayed profession, as we have already intimated,
Dick Tinto became an assistant; and thus, as is not unusual among
heaven-born geniuses in this department of the fine arts, began to
paint before he had any notion of drawing.
His talent for observing nature soon induced him to rectify the errors,
and soar above the instructions, of his teacher. He particularly shone
in painting horses, that being a favourite sign in the Scottish
villages; and, in tracing his progress, it is beautiful to observe how
by degrees he learned to shorten the backs and prolong the legs of
these noble animals, until they came to look less like crocodiles, and
more like nags. Detraction, which always pursues merit with strides
proportioned to its advancement, has indeed alleged that Dick once upon
a time painted a horse with five legs, instead of four. I might have
rested his defence upon the license allowed to that branch of his
profession, which, as it permits all sorts of singular and irregular
combinations, may be allowed to extend itself so far as to bestow a
limb supernumerary on a favourite subject. But the cause of a deceased
friend is sacred; and I disdain to bottom it so superficially. I have
visited the sign in question, which yet swings exalted in the village
of Langdirdum; and I am ready to depone upon the oath that what has
been idly mistaken or misrepresented as being the fifth leg of the
horse, is, in fact, the tail of that quadruped, and, considered with
reference to the posture in which he is delineated, forms a
circumstance introduced and managed with great and successful, though
daring, art. The nag being represented in a rampant or rearing posture,
the tail, which is prolonged till it touches the ground, appears to
form a _point d’appui_, and gives the firmness of a tripod to the
figure, without which it would be difficult to conceive, placed as the
feet are, how the courser could maintain his ground without tumbling
backwards. This bold conception has fortunately fallen into the custody
of one by whom it is duly valued; for, when Dick, in his more advanced
state of proficiency, became dubious of the propriety of so daring a
deviation to execute a picture of the publican himself in exchange for
this juvenile production, the courteous offer was declined by his
judicious employer, who had observed, it seems, that when his ale
failed to do its duty in conciliating his guests, one glance at his
sign was sure to put them in good humour.
It would be foreign to my present purpose to trace the steps by which
Dick Tinto improved his touch, and corrected, by the rules of art, the
luxuriance of a fervid imagination. The scales fell from his eyes on
viewing the sketches of a contemporary, the Scottish Teniers, as Wilkie
has been deservedly styled. He threw down the brush took up the
crayons, and, amid hunger and toil, and suspense and uncertainty,
pursued the path of his profession under better auspices than those of
his original master. Still the first rude emanations of his genius,
like the nursery rhymes of Pope, could these be recovered, will be dear
to the companions of Dick Tinto’s youth. There is a tankard and
gridiron painted over the door of an obscure change-house in the Back
Wynd of Gandercleugh——But I feel I must tear myself from the subject,
or dwell on it too long.
Amid his wants and struggles, Dick Tinto had recourse, like his
brethren, to levying that tax upon the vanity of mankind which he could
not extract from their taste and liberality—on a word, he painted
portraits. It was in this more advanced state of proficiency, when Dick
had soared above his original line of business, and highly disdained
any allusion to it, that, after having been estranged for several
years, we again met in the village of Gandercleugh, I holding my
present situation, and Dick painting copies of the human face divine at
a guinea per head. This was a small premium, yet, in the first burst of
business, it more than sufficed for all Dick’s moderate wants; so that
he occupied an apartment at the Wallace Inn, cracked his jest with
impunity even upon mine host himself, and lived in respect and
observance with the chambermaid, hostler, and waiter.
Those halcyon days were too serene to last long. When his honour the
Laird of Gandercleugh, with his wife and three daughters, the minister,
the gauger, mine esteemed patron Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, and some
round dozen of the feuars and farmers, had been consigned to
immortality by Tinto’s brush, custom began to slacken, and it was
impossible to wring more than crowns and half-crowns from the hard
hands of the peasants whose ambition led them to Dick’s painting-room.
Still, though the horizon was overclouded, no storm for some time
ensued. Mine host had Christian faith with a lodger who had been a good
paymaster as long as he had the means. And from a portrait of our
landlord himself, grouped with his wife and daughters, in the style of
Rubens, which suddenly appeared in the best parlour, it was evident
that Dick had found some mode of bartering art for the necessaries of
life.
Nothing, however, is more precarious than resources of this nature. It
was observed that Dick became in his turn the whetstone of mine host’s
wit, without venturing either at defence or retaliation; that his easel
was transferred to a garret-room, in which there was scarce space for
it to stand upright; and that he no longer ventured to join the weekly
club, of which he had been once the life and soul. In short, Dick
Tinto’s friends feared that he had acted like the animal called the
sloth, which, heaving eaten up the last green leaf upon the tree where
it has established itself, ends by tumbling down from the top, and
dying of inanition. I ventured to hint this to Dick, recommended his
transferring the exercise of his inestimable talent to some other
sphere, and forsaking the common which he might be said to have eaten
bare.
“There is an obstacle to my change of residence,” said my friend,
grasping my hand with a look of solemnity.
“A bill due to my landlord, I am afraid?” replied I, with heartfelt
sympathy; “if any part of my slender means can assist in this
emergence——”
“No, by the soul of Sir Joshua!” answered the generous youth, “I will
never involve a friend in the consequences of my own misfortune. There
is a mode by which I can regain my liberty; and to creep even through a
common sewer is better than to remain in prison.”
I did not perfectly understand what my friend meant. The muse of
painting appeared to have failed him, and what other goddess he could
invoke in his distress was a mystery to me. We parted, however, without
further explanation, and I did not see him until three days after, when
he summoned me to partake of the _foy_ with which his landlord proposed
to regale him ere his departure for Edinburgh.
I found Dick in high spirits, whistling while he buckled the small
knapsack which contained his colours, brushes, pallets, and clean
shirt. That he parted on the best terms with mine host was obvious from
the cold beef set forth in the low parlour, flanked by two mugs of
admirable brown stout; and I own my curiosity was excited concerning
the means through which the face of my friend’s affairs had been so
suddenly improved. I did not suspect Dick of dealing with the devil,
and by what earthly means he had extricated himself thus happily I was
at a total loss to conjecture.
He perceived my curiosity, and took me by the hand. “My friend,” he
said, “fain would I conceal, even from you, the degradation to which it
has been necessary to submit, in order to accomplish an honourable
retreat from Gandercleaugh. But what avails attempting to conceal that
which must needs betray itself even by its superior excellence? All the
village—all the parish—all the world—will soon discover to what poverty
has reduced Richard Tinto.”
A sudden thought here struck me. I had observed that our landlord wore,
on that memorable morning, a pair of bran new velveteens instead of his
ancient thicksets.
“What,” said I, drawing my right hand, with the forefinger and thumb
pressed together, nimbly from my right haunch to my left shoulder, “you
have condescended to resume the paternal arts to which you were first
bred—long stitches, ha, Dick?”
He repelled this unlucky conjecture with a frown and a pshaw,
indicative of indignant contempt, and leading me into another room,
showed me, resting against the wall, the majestic head of Sir William
Wallace, grim as when severed from the trunk by the orders of the
Edward.
The painting was executed on boards of a substantial thickness, and the
top decorated with irons, for suspending the honoured effigy upon a
signpost.
“There,” he said, “my friend, stands the honour of Scotland, and my
shame; yet not so—rather the shame of those who, instead of encouraging
art in its proper sphere, reduce it to these unbecoming and unworthy
extremities.”
I endeavoured to smooth the ruffled feelings of my misused and
indignant friend. I reminded him that he ought not, like the stag in
the fable, to despise the quality which had extricated him from
difficulties, in which his talents, as a portrait or landscape painter,
had been found unavailing. Above all, I praised the execution, as well
as conception, of his painting, and reminded him that, far from feeling
dishonoured by so superb a specimen of his talents being exposed to the
general view of the public, he ought rather to congratulate himself
upon the augmentation of his celebrity to which its public exhibition
must necessarily give rise.
“You are right, my friend—you are right,” replied poor Dick, his eye
kindling with enthusiasm; “why should I shun the name of an—an—(he
hesitated for a phrase)—an out-of-doors artist? Hogarth has introduced
himself in that character in one of his best engravings; Domenichino,
or somebody else, in ancient times, Morland in our own, have exercised
their talents in this manner. And wherefore limit to the rich and
higher classes alone the delight which the exhibition of works of art
is calculated to inspire into all classes? Statues are placed in the
open air, why should Painting be more niggardly in displaying her
masterpieces than her sister Sculpture? And yet, my friend, we must
part suddenly; the carpenter is coming in an hour to put up the—the
emblem; and truly, with all my philosophy, and your consolatory
encouragement to boot, I would rather wish to leave Gandercleugh before
that operation commences.”
We partook of our genial host’s parting banquet, and I escorted Dick on
his walk to Edinburgh. We parted about a mile from the village, just as
we heard the distant cheer of the boys which accompanied the mounting
of the new symbol of the Wallace Head. Dick Tinto mended his pace to
get out of hearing, so little had either early practice or recent
philosophy reconciled him to the character of a sign-painter.
In Edinburgh, Dick’s talents were discovered and appreciated, and he
received dinners and hints from several distinguished judges of the
fine arts. But these gentlemen dispensed their criticism more willingly
than their cash, and Dick thought he needed cash more than criticism.
He therefore sought London, the universal mart of talent, and where, as
is usual in general marts of most descriptions, much more of each
commodity is exposed to sale than can ever find purchasers.
Dick, who, in serious earnest, was supposed to have considerable
natural talents for his profession, and whose vain and sanguine
disposition never permitted him to doubt for a moment of ultimate
success, threw himself headlong into the crowd which jostled and
struggled for notice and preferment. He elbowed others, and was elbowed
himself; and finally, by dint of intrepidity, fought his way into some
notice, painted for the prize at the Institution, had pictures at the
exhibition at Somerset House, and damned the hanging committee. But
poor Dick was doomed to lose the field he fought so gallantly. In the
fine arts, there is scarce an alternative betwixt distinguished success
and absolute failure; and as Dick’s zeal and industry were unable to
ensure the first, he fell into the distresses which, in his condition,
were the natural consequences of the latter alternative. He was for a
time patronised by one or two of those judicious persons who make a
virtue of being singular, and of pitching their own opinions against
those of the world in matters of taste and criticism. But they soon
tired of poor Tinto, and laid him down as a load, upon the principle on
which a spoilt child throws away its plaything. Misery, I fear, took
him up, and accompanied him to a premature grave, to which he was
carried from an obscure lodging in Swallow Street, where he had been
dunned by his landlady within doors, and watched by bailiffs without,
until death came to his relief. A corner of the Morning Post noticed
his death, generously adding, that his manner displayed considerable
genius, though his style was rather sketchy; and referred to an
advertisement, which announced that Mr. Varnish, a well-known
printseller, had still on hand a very few drawings and paintings by
Richard Tinto, Esquire, which those of the nobility and gentry who
might wish to complete their collections of modern art were invited to
visit without delay. So ended Dick Tinto! a lamentable proof of the
great truth, that in the fine arts mediocrity is not permitted, and
that he who cannot ascend to the very top of the ladder will do well
not to put his foot upon it at all.
The memory of Tinto is dear to me, from the recollection of the many
conversations which we have had together, most of them turning upon my
present task. He was delighted with my progress, and talked of an
ornamented and illustrated edition, with heads, vignettes, and _culs de
lampe_, all to be designed by his own patriotic and friendly pencil. He
prevailed upon an old sergeant of invalids to sit to him in the
character of Bothwell, the lifeguard’s-man of Charles the Second, and
the bellman of Gandercleugh in that of David Deans. But while he thus
proposed to unite his own powers with mine for the illustration of
these narratives, he mixed many a dose of salutary criticism with the
panegyrics which my composition was at times so fortunate as to call
forth.
“Your characters,” he said, “my dear Pattieson, make too much use of
the _gob box;_ they _patter_ too much (an elegant phraseology which
Dick had learned while painting the scenes of an itinerant company of
players); there is nothing in whole pages but mere chat and dialogue.”
“The ancient philosopher,” said I in reply, “was wont to say, ‘Speak,
that I may know thee’; and how is it possible for an author to
introduce his _personæ dramatis_ to his readers in a more interesting
and effectual manner than by the dialogue in which each is represented
as supporting his own appropriate character?”
“It is a false conclusion,” said Tinto; “I hate it, Peter, as I hate an
unfilled can. I grant you, indeed, that speech is a faculty of some
value in the intercourse of human affairs, and I will not even insist
on the doctrine of that Pythagorean toper, who was of opinion that over
a bottle speaking spoiled conversation. But I will not allow that a
professor of the fine arts has occasion to embody the idea of his scene
in language, in order to impress upon the reader its reality and its
effect. On the contrary, I will be judged by most of your readers,
Peter, should these tales ever become public, whether you have not
given us a page of talk for every single idea which two words might
have communicated, while the posture, and manner, and incident,
accurately drawn, and brought out by appropriate colouring, would have
preserved all that was worthy of preservation, and saved these
everlasting ‘said he’s’ and ‘said she’s,’ with which it has been your
pleasure to encumber your pages.”
I replied, “That he confounded the operations of the pencil and the
pen; that the serene and silent art, as painting has been called by one
of our first living poets, necessarily appealed to the eye, because it
had not the organs for addressing the ear; whereas poetry, or that
species of composition which approached to it, lay under the necessity
of doing absolutely the reverse, and addressed itself to the ear, for
the purpose of exciting that interest which it could not attain through
the medium of the eye.”
Dick was not a whit staggered by my argument, which he contended was
founded on misrepresentation. “Description,” he said, “was to the
author of a romance exactly what drawing and tinting were to a painter:
words were his colours, and, if properly employed, they could not fail
to place the scene which he wished to conjure up as effectually before
the mind’s eye as the tablet or canvas presents it to the bodily organ.
The same rules,” he contended, “applied to both, and an exuberance of
dialogue, in the former case, was a verbose and laborious mode of
composition which went to confound the proper art of fictitious
narrative with that of the drama, a widely different species of
composition, of which dialogue was the very essence, because all,
excepting the language to be made use of, was presented to the eye by
the dresses, and persons, and actions of the performers upon the stage.
But as nothing,” said Dick, “can be more dull than a long narrative
written upon the plan of a drama, so where you have approached most
near to that species of composition, by indulging in prolonged scenes
of mere conversation, the course of your story has become chill and
constrained, and you have lost the power of arresting the attention and
exciting the imagination, in which upon other occasions you may be
considered as having succeeded tolerably well.”
I made my bow in requital of the compliment, which was probably thrown
in by way of _placebo_, and expressed myself willing at least to make
one trial of a more straightforward style of composition, in which my
actors should do more, and say less, than in my former attempts of this
kind. Dick gave me a patronising and approving nod, and observed that,
finding me so docile, he would communicate, for the benefit of my muse,
a subject which he had studied with a view to his own art.
“The story,” he said, “was, by tradition, affirmed to be truth,
although, as upwards of a hundred years had passed away since the
events took place, some doubts upon the accuracy of all the particulars
might be reasonably entertained.”
When Dick Tinto had thus spoken, he rummaged his portfolio for the
sketch from which he proposed one day to execute a picture of fourteen
feet by eight. The sketch, which was cleverly executed, to use the
appropriate phrase, represented an ancient hall, fitted up and
furnished in what we now call the taste of Queen Elizabeth’s age. The
light, admitted from the upper part of a high casement, fell upon a
female figure of exquisite beauty, who, in an attitude of speechless
terror, appeared to watch the issue of a debate betwixt two other
persons. The one was a young man, in the Vandyke dress common to the
time of Charles I., who, with an air of indignant pride, testified by
the manner in which he raised his head and extended his arm, seemed to
be urging a claim of right, rather than of favour, to a lady whose age,
and some resemblance in their features, pointed her out as the mother
of the younger female, and who appeared to listen with a mixture of
displeasure and impatience.
Tinto produced his sketch with an air of mysterious triumph, and gazed
on it as a fond parent looks upon a hopeful child, while he anticipates
the future figure he is to make in the world, and the height to which
he will raise the honour of his family. He held it at arm’s length from
me—he held it closer—he placed it upon the top of a chest of
drawers—closed the lower shutters of the casement, to adjust a downward
and favourable light—fell back to the due distance, dragging me after
him—shaded his face with his hand, as if to exclude all but the
favourite object—and ended by spoiling a child’s copy-book, which he
rolled up so as to serve for the darkened tube of an amateur. I fancy
my expressions of enthusiasm had not been in proportion to his own, for
he presently exclaimed with vehemence: “Mr. Pattieson, I used to think
you had an eye in your head.”
I vindicated my claim to the usual allowance of visual organs.
“Yet, on my honour,” said Dick, “I would swear you had been born blind,
since you have failed at the first glance to discover the subject and
meaning of that sketch. I do not mean to praise my own performance, I
leave these arts to others; I am sensible of my deficiencies, conscious
that my drawing and colouring may be improved by the time I intend to
dedicate to the art. But the conception—the expression—the
positions—these tell the story to every one who looks at the sketch;
and if I can finish the picture without diminution of the original
conception, the name of Tinto shall no more be smothered by the mists
of envy and intrigue.”
I replied: “That I admired the sketch exceedingly; but that to
understand its full merit, I felt it absolutely necessary to be
informed of the subject.”
“That is the very thing I complain of,” answered Tinto; “you have
accustomed yourself so much to these creeping twilight details of
yours, that you are become incapable of receiving that instant and
vivid flash of conviction which darts on the mind from seeing the happy
and expressive combinations of a single scene, and which gathers from
the position, attitude, and countenance of the moment, not only the
history of the past lives of the personages represented, and the nature
of the business on which they are immediately engaged, but lifts even
the veil of futurity, and affords a shrewd guess at their future
fortunes.”
“In that case,” replied I, “Painting excels the ape of the renowned
Gines de Passamonte, which only meddled with the past and the present;
nay, she excels that very Nature who affords her subject; for I protest
to you, Dick, that were I permitted to peep into that
Elizabeth-chamber, and see the persons you have sketched conversing in
flesh and blood, I should not be a jot nearer guessing the nature of
their business than I am at this moment while looking at your sketch.
Only generally, from the languishing look of the young lady, and the
care you have taken to present a very handsome leg on the part of the
gentleman, I presume there is some reference to a love affair between
them.”
“Do you really presume to form such a bold conjecture?” said Tinto.
“And the indignant earnestness with which you see the man urge his
suit, the unresisting and passive despair of the younger female, the
stern air of inflexible determination in the elder woman, whose looks
express at once consciousness that she is acting wrong and a firm
determination to persist in the course she has adopted——”
“If her looks express all this, my dear Tinto,” replied I, interrupting
him, “your pencil rivals the dramatic art of Mr. Puff in The Critic,
who crammed a whole complicated sentence into the expressive shake of
Lord Burleigh’s head.”
“My good friend, Peter,” replied Tinto, “I observe you are perfectly
incorrigible; however, I have compassion on your dulness, and am
unwilling you should be deprived of the pleasure of understanding my
picture, and of gaining, at the same time, a subject for your own pen.
You must know then, last summer, while I was taking sketches on the
coast of East Lothian and Berwickshire, I was seduced into the
mountains of Lammermoor by the account I received of some remains of
antiquity in that district. Those with which I was most struck were the
ruins of an ancient castle in which that Elizabeth-chamber, as you call
it, once existed. I resided for two or three days at a farmhouse in the
neighbourhood, where the aged goodwife was well acquainted with the
history of the castle, and the events which had taken place in it. One
of these was of a nature so interesting and singular, that my attention
was divided between my wish to draw the old ruins in landscape, and to
represent, in a history-piece, the singular events which have taken
place in it. Here are my notes of the tale,” said poor Dick, handing a
parcel of loose scraps, partly scratched over with his pencil, partly
with his pen, where outlines of caricatures, sketches of turrets,
mills, old gables, and dovecots, disputed the ground with his written
memoranda.
I proceeded, however, to decipher the substance of the manuscript as
well as I could, and move it into the following Tale, in which,
following in part, though not entirely, my friend Tinto’s advice, I
endeavoured to render my narrative rather descriptive than dramatic. My
favourite propensity, however, has at times overcome me, and my
persons, like many others in this talking world, speak now and then a
great deal more than they act.