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diff --git a/21250-h/21250-h.htm b/21250-h/21250-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9dc8cbd --- /dev/null +++ b/21250-h/21250-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1311 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sir Walter Scott, by William Paton Ker, LL.D. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em;} + + h1 {text-align: center; + clear: both;} + + h2 {text-align: center; + margin-top: 5em;} + + body {margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + right: 2%; + font-size: 80%; + text-align: right; + color: #555555;} + + p.padded {text-align: center; + margin-top: 5em;} + + span.small {font-size: 80%;} + + span.large {font-size: 120%;} + + span.wpk {margin-left: 70%;} + + p.note {width: 60%; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto;} + + .blockquot {margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1.5em; + margin-bottom: 1.5em;} + + p.poem {margin-left: 30%; + margin-top: 1.5em; + margin-bottom: 1.5em;} + + span.indented {margin-left: 7em;} + + span.flodden {margin-left: 2em;} + + span.eildon {margin-left: 1em;} + + p.printer {margin-top: 5em; + text-align: center; + font-size: 80%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sir Walter Scott, by William Paton Ker + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Sir Walter Scott + A Lecture at the Sorbonne + +Author: William Paton Ker + +Release Date: April 29, 2007 [EBook #21250] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR WALTER SCOTT *** + + + + +Produced by Constanze Hofmann, Jeanette Jordan, Lori +Scoggins, Norilan, McMartha, sassi, Siobhan Hillman, Tamise +Totterdell, Zara Baxter, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>SIR WALTER SCOTT</h1> + +<p class="center">A Lecture at the Sorbonne,<br /> +May 22, 1919, in the series of<br /> +<i>Conférences Louis Liard</i></p> + +<p class="padded"><span class="small">BY</span><br /> +<span class="large">WILLIAM PATON KER, LL.D.</span></p> + +<p class="padded">GLASGOW<br /> +<span class="large">MACLEHOSE, JACKSON AND CO.</span><br /> +<span class="small">PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY</span><br /> +1919</p> + +<h2>NOTE</h2> + + +<p class="note">This Essay appeared in the <i>Anglo-French +Review</i>, August, 1919, and I am obliged to +the Editor and Publisher for leave to reprint it.</p> + +<p> +<span class="wpk">W. P. K.</span><br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="Sir_Walter_Scott" id="Sir_Walter_Scott"></a>Sir Walter Scott</h2> + + +<p>When I was asked to choose a subject for a +lecture at the Sorbonne, there came into my +mind somehow or other the incident of Scott's +visit to Paris when he went to see <i>Ivanhoe</i> at +the Odéon, and was amused to think how the +story had travelled and made its fortune:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'It was an opera, and, of course, the story sadly +mangled and the dialogue in great part nonsense. Yet +it was strange to hear anything like the words which +(then in an agony of pain with spasms in my stomach) +I dictated to William Laidlaw at Abbotsford, now +recited in a foreign tongue, and for the amusement of +a strange people. I little thought to have survived the +completing of this novel.'</p></div> + +<p>It seemed to me that here I had a text for my +sermon. The cruel circumstances of the composition +of <i>Ivanhoe</i> might be neglected. The +interesting point was in the contrast between +the original home of Scott's imagination and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> +the widespread triumph of his works abroad—on +the one hand, Edinburgh and Ashestiel, the +traditions of the Scottish border and the Highlands, +the humours of Edinburgh lawyers and +Glasgow citizens, country lairds, farmers and +ploughmen, the Presbyterian eloquence of the +Covenanters and their descendants, the dialect +hardly intelligible out of its own region, and +not always clear even to natives of Scotland; on +the other hand, the competition for Scott's novels +in all the markets of Europe, as to which I take +leave to quote the evidence of Stendhal:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'Lord Byron, auteur de quelques héroïdes sublimes, +mais toujours les mêmes, et de beaucoup de tragédies +mortellement ennuyeuses, n'est point du tout le chef +des romantiques.</p> + +<p>'S'il se trouvait un homme que les traducteurs à la +toise se disputassent également à Madrid, à Stuttgard, +à Paris et à Vienne, l'on pourrait avancer que cet +homme a deviné les tendances morales de son époque.'</p></div> + +<p>If Stendhal proceeds to remark in a footnote +that 'l'homme lui-même est peu digne d'enthousiasme,' +it is pleasant to remember that Lord +Byron wrote to M. Henri Beyle to correct his +low opinion of the character of Scott. This is +by the way, though not, I hope, an irrelevant +remark. For Scott is best revealed in his friend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>ships; +and the mutual regard of Scott and Byron +is as pleasant to think of as the friendship between +Scott and Wordsworth.</p> + +<p>As to the truth of Stendhal's opinion about +the vogue of Scott's novels and his place as chief +of the romantics, there is no end to the list of +witnesses who might be summoned. Perhaps +it may be enough to remember how the young +Balzac was carried away by the novels as they +came fresh from the translator, almost immediately +after their first appearance at home.</p> + +<p>One distinguishes easily enough, at home in +Scotland, between the novels, or the passages in +the novels, that are idiomatic, native, homegrown, +intended for his own people, and the +novels not so limited, the romances of English or +foreign history—<i>Ivanhoe</i>, <i>Kenilworth</i>, <i>Quentin +Durward</i>. But as a matter of fact these latter, +though possibly easier to understand and +better suited to the general public, were not +invariably preferred. The novels were 'the +Scotch novels.' Although Thackeray, when he +praises Scott, takes most of his examples from +the less characteristic, what we may call the +English group, on the other hand, Hazlitt +dwells most willingly on the Scotch novels, +though he did not like Scotsmen, and shared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +some of the prejudice of Stendhal—'my friend +Mr. Beyle,' as he calls him in one place—with +regard to Scott himself. And Balzac has no +invidious preferences: he recommends an English +romance, <i>Kenilworth</i>, to his sister, and he +also remembers David Deans, a person most +intensely and peculiarly Scots.</p> + +<p>One may distinguish the Scotch novels, which +only their author could have written, from +novels like <i>Peveril of the Peak</i> or <i>Anne of +Geierstein</i>, which may be thought to resemble +rather too closely the imitations of Scott, the +ordinary historical novel as it was written by +Scott's successors. But though the formula of +the conventional historical novel may have been +drawn from the less idiomatic group, it was not +this that chiefly made Scott's reputation. His +fame and influence were achieved through the +whole mass of his immense and varied work; +and the Scots dialect and humours, which make +so large a part of his resources when he is putting +out all his power, though they have their +difficulties for readers outside of Scotland, were +no real hindrances in the way of the Scotch +novels: Dandie Dinmont and Bailie Nicol +Jarvie, Cuddie Headrigg and Andrew Fairservice +were not ignored or forgotten, even where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +<i>Ivanhoe</i> or <i>The Talisman</i> might have the preference +as being more conformable to the general +mind of novel readers.</p> + +<p>The paradox remains: that the most successful +novelist of the whole world should have had +his home and found his strength in a country +with a language of its own, barely intelligible, +frequently repulsive to its nearest neighbours, a +language none the more likely to win favour +when the manners or ideas of the country were +taken into consideration as well.</p> + +<p>The critics who refuse to see much good in +Scott, for the most part ignore the foundations +of his work. Thus Stendhal, who acknowledges +Scott's position as representative of his age, the +one really great, universally popular, author of +his day, does not recognise in Scott's imagination +much more than trappings and tournaments, +the furniture of the regular historical novel. +He compares Scott's novels with <i>La Princesse +de Clèves</i>, and asks which is more to be praised, +the author who understands and reveals the +human heart, or the descriptive historian who +can fill pages with unessential details but is +afraid of the passions.</p> + +<p>In which it seems to be assumed that Scott, +when he gave his attention to the background<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +and the appropriate dresses, was neglecting the +dramatic truth of his characters and their expression. +Scott, it may be observed, had, in his +own reflexions on the art of novel-writing, taken +notice of different kinds of policy in dealing +with the historical setting. In his lives of the +novelists, reviewing <i>The Old English Baron</i>, +he describes the earlier type of historical novel +in which little or nothing is done for antiquarian +decoration or for local colour; while in his criticism +of Mrs. Radcliffe he uses the very term—'melodrama'—and +the very distinction—melodrama +as opposed to tragedy—which is the +touchstone of the novelist. Whatever his success +might be, there can be no doubt as to his +intentions. He meant his novels, with their +richer background and their larger measure of +detail, to sacrifice nothing of dramatic truth. +<i>La Princesse de Clèves</i>, a professedly historical +novel with little 'local colour', may be in essentials +finer and more sincere than Scott. This is +a question which I ask leave to pass over. But +it is not Scott's intention to put off the reader +with details and decoration as a substitute for +truth of character and sentiment. Here most +obviously, with all their differences, Balzac and +Scott are agreed: expensive both of them in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +description, but neither of them inclined to let +mere description (in Pope's phrase) take the +place of sense—i.e. of the life which it is the +business of the novelist to interpret. There is +danger, no doubt, of overdoing it, but description +in Balzac, however full and long, is never +inanimate. He has explained his theory in a +notice of Scott, or rather in a comparison of +Scott and Fenimore Cooper (<i>Revue Parisienne</i>, +1840), where the emptiness of Cooper's novels +is compared with the variety of Scott's, the solitude +of the American lakes and forests with the +crowd of life commanded by the author of +<i>Waverley</i>. Allowing Cooper one great success +in the character of Leather-stocking and +some merit in a few other personages, Balzac +finds beyond these nothing like Scott's multitude +of characters; their place is taken by the beauties +of nature. But description cannot make up for +want of life in a story.</p> + +<p>Balzac shows clearly that he understood the +danger of description, and how impossible, how +unreasonable, it is to make scenery do instead of +story and characters. He does not seem to +think that Scott has failed in this respect, while +in his remarks on Scott's humour he proves how +far he is from the critics who found in Scott<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +nothing but scenery and accoutrements and the +rubbish of old chronicles. Scott's chivalry and +romance are not what Balzac is thinking about. +Balzac is considering Scott's imagination in +general, his faculty in narrative and dialogue, +wherever his scene may be, from whatever +period the facts of his story may be drawn.</p> + +<p>Scott's superiority to his American rival comes +out, says Balzac, chiefly in his secondary personages +and in his talent for comedy. The American +makes careful mechanical provision for +laughter: Balzac takes this all to pieces, and +leaves Scott unchallenged and inexhaustible.</p> + +<p>Scott's reputation has suffered a little through +suspicion of his politics, and, strangely enough, +of his religion. He has been made responsible +for movements in Churches about which opinions +naturally differ, but of which it is certain Scott +never dreamed. Those who suspect and blame +his work because it is reactionary, illiberal, and +offensive to modern ideas of progress, are, of +course, mainly such persons as believe in 'the +march of intellect,' and think meanly of each +successive stage as soon as it is left behind. The +spokesman of this party is Mark Twain, who +wrote a burlesque of the Holy Grail, and who +in his <i>Life on the Mississippi</i> makes Scott<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +responsible for the vanities and superstitions of +the Southern States of America:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'The South has not yet recovered from the debilitating +influence of his books. Admiration of his +fantastic heroes and their grotesque "chivalry" doings +and romantic juvenilities still survives here, in an atmosphere +in which is already perceptible the wholesome +and practical nineteenth century smell of cotton-factories +and locomotives.'</p></div> + +<p>It is useless to moralise on this, and the purport +and significance of it may be left for private +meditation to enucleate and enjoy. But it +cannot be fully appreciated, unless one remembers +that the author of this and other charges +against chivalry is also the historian of the feud +between the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords, +equal in tragedy to the themes of the <i>chansons +de geste</i>: of <i>Raoul de Cambrai</i> or <i>Garin le +Loherain</i>. Mark Twain in the person of +Huckleberry Finn is committed to the ideas +of chivalry neither more nor less than Walter +Scott in <i>Ivanhoe</i> or <i>The Talisman</i>. I am told +further—though this is perhaps unimportant—that +Gothic ornament in America is not peculiarly +the taste of the South, that even at Chicago +there are imitations of Gothic towers and halls.</p> + +<p>Hazlitt, an unbeliever in most of Scott's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +political principles, is also the most fervent and +expressive admirer of the novels, quite beyond +the danger of modern progress, his judgment +not corrupted at all by the incense of the cotton-factory +or the charm of the locomotive. Hazlitt's +praise of Scott is an immortal proof of +Hazlitt's sincerity in criticism. Scott's friends +were not Hazlitt's, and Scott and Hazlitt differed +both in personal and public affairs as much +as any men of their time. But Hazlitt has too +much sense not to be taken with the Scotch novels, +and too much honesty not to say so, and too much +spirit not to put all his strength into praising, +when once he begins. Hazlitt's critical theory of +Scott's novels is curiously like his opinion about +Scott's old friend, the poet Crabbe: whose name +I cannot leave without a salute to the laborious +and eloquent work of M. Huchon, his scholarly +French interpreter.</p> + +<p>Hazlitt on Crabbe and Scott is a very interesting +witness on account of the principles and +presuppositions employed by him. In the last +hundred years or so the problems of realism +and naturalism have been canvassed almost +too thoroughly between disputants who seem +not always to know when they are wandering +from the point or wearying their audience with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +verbiage and platitudes. But out of all the controversy +there has emerged at least one plain +probability—that there is no such thing as +simple transference of external reality into +artistic form. This is what Hazlitt seems to +ignore very strangely in his judgment of Crabbe +and Scott, and this is, I think, an interesting +point in the history of criticism, especially when +it is remembered that Hazlitt was a critic of +painting, and himself a painter. He speaks +almost as if realities passed direct into the verse +of Crabbe; as if Scott's imagination in the novels +were merely recollection and transcription of experience. +Speaking of the difference between +the genius of Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott, +he says:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'It is the difference between <i>originality</i> and the want +of it, between writing and transcribing. Almost all +the finest scenes and touches, the great master-strokes +in Shakespeare, are such as must have belonged to the +class of invention, where the secret lay between him +and his own heart, and the power exerted is in adding +to the given materials and working something out of +them: in the author of <i>Waverley</i>, not all, but the +principal and characteristic beauties are such as may +and do belong to the class of compilation—that is, +consist in bringing the materials together and leaving +them to produce their own effect....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> + +<p>'No one admires or delights in the Scotch Novels +more than I do, but at the same time, when I hear it +asserted that his mind is of the same class with Shakespeare, +or that he imitates nature in the same way, I +confess I cannot assent to it. No two things appear +to me more different. Sir Walter is an imitator of +nature and nothing more; but I think Shakespeare +is infinitely more than this.... Sir Walter's mind is +full of information, but the "<i>o'er informing power</i>" is +not there. Shakespeare's spirit, like fire, shines through +him; Sir Walter's, like a stream, reflects surrounding +objects.'</p></div> + +<p>I may not at this time quote much more of +Hazlitt's criticism, but the point of it would be +misunderstood if it were construed as depreciation +of Scott. What may be considered merely +memory in contrast to Shakespeare's imagination +is regarded by Hazlitt as a limitless source +of visionary life when compared with the ideas +of self-centred authors like Byron. This is +what Hazlitt says in another essay of the same +series:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'Scott "does not 'spin his brains' but something +much better." He "has got hold of another clue—that +of Nature and history—and long may he spin it, +'even to the crack of doom!'" Scott's success lies in +not thinking of himself. "And then again the catch +that blind Willie and his wife and the boy sing in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +hollow of the heath—there is more mirth and heart's +ease in it than in all Lord Byron's <i>Don Juan</i> or +Mr. Moore's <i>Lyrics</i>. And why? Because the author +is thinking of beggars and a beggar's brat, and not of +himself, while he writes it. He looks at Nature, sees +it, hears it, feels it, and believes that it exists before it +is printed, hotpressed, and labelled on the back <i>By the +Author of</i> '<i>Waverley</i>.' He does not fancy, nor would +he for one moment have it supposed, that his name +and fame compose all that is worth a moment's consideration +in the universe. This is the great secret of +his writings—a perfect indifference to self."'</p></div> + +<p>Hazlitt appears to allow too little to the mind +of the Author of <i>Waverley</i>—as though the +author had nothing to do but let the contents +of his mind arrange themselves on his pages. +What this exactly may mean is doubtful. We +are not disposed to accept the theory of the passive +mind as a sufficient philosophical explanation +of the Scotch novels. But Hazlitt is +certainly right to make much of the store of +reading and reminiscence they imply, and it is +not erroneous or fallacious to think of all Scott's +writings in verse or prose as peculiarly the fruits +of his life and experience. His various modes +of writing are suggested to him by the way, and +he finds his art with no long practice when the +proper time comes to use it. After all, is this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +not what was meant by Horace when he said +that the subject rightly chosen will provide what +is wanted in art and style?</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="indented">Cui lecta potenter erit res</span><br /> +Nec facundia deseret hunc nec lucidus ordo.</p> + +<p>It was chosen by Corneille as a motto for +<i>Cinna</i>; it would do as a summary of all the +writings of Scott.</p> + +<p>The Waverley Novels may be reckoned +among the works of fiction that have had their +origin in chance, and have turned out something +different from what the author intended. Reading +the life of Scott, we seem to be following a +pilgrimage where the traveller meets with different +temptations and escapes various dangers, +and takes up a number of duties, and is led to +do a number of fine things which he had not +thought of till the time came for attempting +them. The poet and the novelist are revealed +in the historian and the collector of antiquities. +Scott before <i>The Lay of the Last Minstrel</i> looked +like a young adventurer in the study of history +and legend, who had it in him to do solid work +on a large scale (like his edition of Dryden) if +he chose to take it up. He is not a poet from +the beginning like Wordsworth and Keats,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +devoted to that one service; he turns novelist +late in life when the success of his poetry seems +to be over. His early experiments in verse are +queerly suggested and full of hazard. It needs +a foreign language—German—to encourage him +to rhyme. The fascination of Bürger's <i>Lenore</i> +is a reflection from English ballad poetry; the +reflected image brought out what had been less +remarkable in the original. The German devices +of terror and wonder are a temptation to +Scott; they hang about his path with their +monotonous and mechanical jugglery, their +horrors made all the more intolerable through +the degraded verse of Lewis—a bad example +which Scott instinctively refused to follow, +though he most unaccountably praised Lewis's +sense of rhythm. The close of the eighteenth +century cannot be fully understood, nor the +progress of poetry in the nineteenth, without +some study of the plague of ghosts and +skeletons which has left its mark on <i>The Ancient +Mariner</i>, from which Goethe and Scott did not +escape, which imposed on Shelley in his youth, +to which Byron yielded his tribute of <i>The Vampire</i>. +A tempting subject for expatiation, +especially when one remembers—and who that +has once read it can forget?—the most glorious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> +passage in the <i>Memoirs</i> of Alexandre Dumas +describing his first conversation with the unknown +gentleman who afterwards turned out to +be Charles Nodier, in the theatre of the Porte +Saint-Martin where the play was the <i>Vampire</i>: +from which theatre Charles Nodier was expelled +for hissing the <i>Vampire</i>, himself being part-author +of the marvellous drama. I hope it is +not impertinent in a stranger to express his +unbounded gratitude for that delightful and +most humorous dialogue, in which the history of +the Elzevir Press (starting from <i>Le Pastissier +françois</i>) and the tragedy of the rotifer are so +adroitly interwoven with the theatrical scene of +Fingal's Cave and its unusual visitors, the whole +adventure ending in the happiest laughter over +the expulsion of the dramatist. I may not have +any right to say so, but I throw myself on the +mercy of my hearers: I remember nothing in +any chronicle so mercurial or jovial in its high +spirits as this story of the first encounter and +the beginning of friendship between Charles +Nodier and Alexandre Dumas.</p> + +<p>The Vampire of Staffa may seem rather far +from the range of Scott's imagination; but his +contributions to Lewis's <i>Tales of Wonder</i> show +the risk that he ran, while the White Lady of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +Avenel in <i>The Monastery</i> proves that even in +his best years he was exposed to the hazards of +conventional magic.</p> + +<p>Lockhart has given the history of <i>The Lay of +the Last Minstrel</i>, how the story developed and +took shape. It is not so much an example of +Scott's mode of writing poetry as an explanation +of his whole literary life. <i>The Lay of the Last +Minstrel</i> was his first original piece of any +length and his first great popular success. And, +as Lockhart has sufficiently shown, it was impossible +for Scott to get to it except through the +years of exploration and editing, the collection +of the Border ballads, the study of the old +metrical romance of <i>Sir Tristrem</i>. The story +of the Goblin Page was at first reckoned enough +simply for one of the additions to the Border +Minstrelsy on the scale of a ballad. Scott had +tried another sort of imitation in the stanzas +composed in old English and in the metre of the +original to supply the missing conclusion of <i>Sir +Tristrem</i>. It was not within his scope to write +an original romance in the old language, but Coleridge's +<i>Christabel</i> was recited to him, and gave +him a modern rhythm fit for a long story. So +the intended ballad became the <i>Lay</i>, taking in, +with the legend of Gilpin Horner for a founda<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>tion, +all the spirit of Scott's knowledge of his +own country.</p> + +<p>Here I must pause to express my admiration +for Lockhart's criticism of Scott, and particularly +for his description of the way in which the <i>Lay</i> +came to be written. It is really wonderful, +Lockhart's sensible, unpretentious, thorough +interpretation of the half-unconscious processes +by which Scott's reading and recollections were +turned into his poems and novels. Of course, +it is all founded on Scott's own notes and introductions.</p> + +<p>What happened with the <i>Lay</i> is repeated a +few years afterwards in <i>Waverley</i>. The <i>Lay</i>, +a rhyming romance; <i>Waverley</i> an historical +novel; what, it may be asked, is so very remarkable +about their origins? Was it not open to +any one to write romances in verse or prose? +Perhaps; but the singularity of Scott's first +romances in verse and prose is that they do not +begin as literary experiments, but as means of +expressing their author's knowledge, memory +and treasured sentiment. Hazlitt is right; +Scott's experience is shaped into the Waverley +Novels, though one can distinguish later between +those stories that belong properly to Scott's life and +those that are invented in repetition of a pattern.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> + +<p>Scott's own alleged reason for giving up the +writing of tales in verse was that Byron beat +him. But there must have been something +besides this: it is plain that the pattern of +rhyming romance was growing stale. The <i>Lay</i> +needs no apology; <i>Marmion</i> includes the great +tragedy of Scotland in the Battle of Flodden:—</p> + +<p class="poem">The stubborn spearmen still made good<br /> +Their dark impenetrable wood,<br /> +Each stepping where his comrade stood,<br /> +<span class="flodden">The instant that he fell.</span><br /> +No thought was there of dastard flight;<br /> +Link'd in the serried phalanx tight,<br /> +Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,<br /> +<span class="flodden">As fearlessly and well;</span><br /> +Till utter darkness closed her wing<br /> +O'er their thin host and wounded king.</p> + +<p>And <i>The Lady of the Lake</i> is all that the Highlands +meant for Scott at that time. But <i>Rokeby</i> +has little substance, though it includes more than +one of Scott's finest songs. <i>The Lord of the +Isles</i>, though its battle is not too far below <i>Marmion</i>, +and though its hero is Robert the Bruce, +yet wants the original force of the earlier +romances. When Scott changed his hand from +verse to prose for story-telling and wrote +<i>Waverley</i>, he not only gained in freedom and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +got room for a kind of dialogue that was impossible +in rhyme, but he came back to the same +sort of experience and the same strength of +tradition as had given life to the <i>Lay</i>. The +time of <i>Waverley</i> was no more than sixty +years since, when Scott began to write it and +mislaid and forgot the opening chapters in 1805; +he got his ideas of the Forty-five from an old +Highland gentleman who had been out with the +Highland clans, following the lead of Prince +Charles Edward, the Young Chevalier. The +clans in that adventure belonged to a world more +ancient than that of <i>Ivanhoe</i> or <i>The Talisman</i>; +they also belonged so nearly to Scott's +own time that he heard their story from one of +themselves. He had spoken and listened to +another gentleman who had known Rob Roy. +<i>The Bride of Lammermoor</i> came to him as +the Icelandic family histories came to the historians +of Gunnar or Kjartan Olafsson. He +had known the story all his life, and he wrote it +from tradition. The time of <i>The Heart of +Midlothian</i> is earlier than <i>Waverley</i>, but it is +more of a modern novel than an historical +romance, and even <i>Old Mortality</i>, which is +earlier still, is modern also; Cuddie Headrigg +is no more antique than Dandie Dinmont or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> +Ettrick Shepherd himself, and even his mother +and her Covenanting friends are not far from the +fashion of some enthusiasts of Scott's own time—e.g. +Hogg's religious uncle who could not be +brought to repeat his old ballads for thinking +of 'covenants broken, burned and buried.' +<i>Guy Mannering</i> and <i>The Antiquary</i> are both +modern stories: it is not till <i>Ivanhoe</i> that +Scott definitely starts on the regular historical +novel in the manner that was found so easy to +imitate.</p> + +<p>If <i>Rob Roy</i> is not the very best of them all—and +on problems of that sort perhaps the right +word may be the Irish phrase <i>Naboclish!</i> ('don't +trouble about that!') which Scott picked up +when he was visiting Miss Edgeworth in Ireland—<i>Rob +Roy</i> shows well enough what Scott +could do, in romance of adventure and in +humorous dialogue. The plots of his novels +are sometimes thought to be loose and ill-defined, +and he tells us himself that he seldom +knew where his story was carrying him. His +young heroes are sometimes reckoned rather +feeble and featureless. Francis Osbaldistone, +like Edward Waverley and Henry Morton, +drifts into trouble and has his destiny shaped for +him by other people and accidents. But is this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +anything of a reproach to the author of the +story? Then it must tell against some novelists +who seem to work more conscientiously and +carefully than Scott on the frame of their story—against +George Meredith in Evan Harrington +and Richard Feverel and Harry Richmond, +all of whom are driven by circumstances and see +their way no more clearly than Scott's young +men. Is it not really the strength, not the weakness, +of Scott's imagination that engages us in +the perplexities of Waverley and Henry Morton +even to the verge of tragedy—keeping out of +tragedy because it is not his business, and would +spoil his looser, larger, more varied web of a +story? Francis Osbaldistone is less severely +tried. His story sets him travelling, and may +we not admire the skill of the author who uses +the old device of a wandering hero with such +good effect? The story is not a mere string of +adventures—it is adventures with a bearing on +the main issue, with complications that all tell in +the end; chief among them, of course, the successive +appearances of Mr. Campbell and the +counsels of Diana Vernon. The scenes that +bring out Scott's genius most completely—so +they have always seemed to me—are those of +Francis Osbaldistone's stay in Glasgow. Seldom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +has any novelist managed so easily so many different +modes of interest. There is the place—in +different lights—the streets, the river, the +bridge, the Cathedral, the prison, seen through +the suspense of the hero's mind, rendered in the +talk of Bailie Nicol Jarvie and Andrew Fairservice; +made alive, as the saying is, through +successive anxieties and dangers; thrilling with +romance, yet at the same time never beyond the +range of ordinary common sense. Is it not a +triumph, at the very lowest reckoning, of dexterous +narrative to bring together in a vivid +dramatic scene the humorous character of the +Glasgow citizen and the equal and opposite +humour of his cousin, the cateran, the Highland +loon, Mr. Campbell disclosed as Rob Roy—with +the Dougal creature helping him?</p> + +<p>Scott's comedy is like that of Cervantes +in <i>Don Quixote</i>—humorous dialogue independent +of any definite comic plot and mixed up +with all sorts of other business. Might not +Falstaff himself be taken into comparison too? +Scott's humorous characters are nowhere and +never characters in a comedy—and Falstaff, the +greatest comic character in Shakespeare, is not +great in comedy.</p> + +<p>Some of the rich idiomatic Scottish dialogue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +in the novels might be possibly disparaged (like +Ben Jonson) as 'mere humours and observation.' +Novelists of lower rank than Scott—Galt +in <i>The Ayrshire Legatees</i> and <i>Annals +of the Parish</i> and <i>The Entail</i>—have nearly +rivalled Scott in reporting conversation. But +the Bailie at any rate has his part to play in the +story of <i>Rob Roy</i>—and so has Andrew Fairservice. +Scott never did anything more ingenious +than his contrast of those two characters—so +much alike in language, and to some extent +in cast of mind, with the same conceit and self-confidence, +the same garrulous Westland +security in their own judgment, both attentive +to their own interests, yet clearly and absolutely +distinct in spirit, the Bailie a match in courage +for Rob Roy himself.</p> + +<p>Give me leave, before I end, to read one +example of Scott's language: from the scene in +<i>Guy Mannering</i> where Dandie Dinmont explains +his case to Mr. Pleydell the advocate. +It is true to life: memory and imagination here +indistinguishable:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dinmont, who had pushed after Mannering into +the room, began with a scrape of his foot and a +scratch of his head in unison. 'I am Dandie +Dinmont, sir, of the Charlies-hope—the Liddesdale<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +lad—ye'll mind me? It was for me you won yon +grand plea.'</p> + +<p>'What plea, you loggerhead?' said the lawyer; 'd'ye +think I can remember all the fools that come to +plague me?'</p> + +<p>'Lord, sir, it was the grand plea about the grazing o' +the Langtae-head,' said the farmer.</p> + +<p>'Well, curse thee, never mind;—give me the +memorial, and come to me on Monday at ten,' replied +the learned counsel.</p> + +<p>'But, sir, I haena got ony distinct memorial.'</p> + +<p>'No memorial, man?' said Pleydell.</p> + +<p>'Na, sir, nae memorial,' answered Dandie; 'for your +honour said before, Mr. Pleydell, ye'll mind, that ye +liked best to hear us hill-folk tell our ane tale by word +o' mouth.'</p> + +<p>'Beshrew my tongue that said so!' answered the +counsellor; 'it will cost my ears a dinning.—Well, say +in two words what you've got to say—you see the +gentleman waits.'</p> + +<p>'Ou, sir, if the gentleman likes he may play his ain +spring first; it's a' ane to Dandie.'</p> + +<p>'Now, you looby,' said the lawyer, 'cannot you conceive +that your business can be nothing to Colonel +Mannering, but that he may not choose to have these +great ears of thine regaled with his matters?'</p> + +<p>'Aweel, sir, just as you and he like, so ye see to +my business,' said Dandie, not a whit disconcerted by +the roughness of this reception. 'We're at the auld +wark o' the marches again, Jock o' Dawston Cleugh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +and me. Ye see we march on the tap o' Touthoprigg +after we pass the Pomoragrains; for the Pomoragrains, +and Slackenspool, and Bloodylaws, they come +in there, and they belang to the Peel; but after ye +pass Pomoragrains at a muckle great saucer-headed +cutlugged stane, that they ca' Charlie's Chuckie, there +Dawston Cleugh and Charlies-hope they march. +Now, I say, the march rins on the tap o' the hill +where the wind and water shears; but Jock o' Dawston +Cleugh again, he contravenes that, and says that it +hauds down by the auld drove-road that gaes awa by +the Knot o' the Gate ower to Keeldar-ward—and that +makes an unco difference.'</p> + +<p>'And what difference does it make, friend?' said +Pleydell. 'How many sheep will it feed?'</p> + +<p>'Ou, no mony,' said Dandie, scratching his head; +'it's lying high and exposed—it may feed a hog, or +aiblins twa in a good year.'</p> + +<p>'And for this grazing, which may be worth about +five shillings a-year, you are willing to throw away +a hundred pound or two?'</p> + +<p>'Na, sir, it's no for the value of the grass,' replied +Dinmont; 'it's for justice.'</p></div> + +<p>Do we at home in Scotland make too much +of Scott's life and associations when we think +of his poetry and his novels? Possibly few +Scotsmen are impartial here. As Dr. Johnson +said, they are not a fair people, and when they +think of the Waverley Novels they perhaps do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +not always see quite clearly. Edinburgh and +the Eildon Hills, Aberfoyle and Stirling, come +between their minds and the printed page:—</p> + +<p class="poem">A mist of memory broods and floats,<br /> +<span class="eildon">The Border waters flow,</span><br /> +The air is full of ballad notes<br /> +<span class="eildon">Borne out of long ago.</span></p> + +<p>It might be prudent and more critical to take +each book on its own merits in a dry light. But +it is not easy to think of a great writer thus +discreetly. Is Balzac often judged accurately +and coldly, piece by piece, here a line and there +a line? Are not the best judges those who +think of his whole achievement altogether—the +whole amazing world of his creation—<i>La +Comédie Humaine</i>? By the same sort of rule +Scott may be judged, and the whole of his work, +his vast industry, and all that made the fabric of +his life, be allowed to tell on the mind of the +reader.</p> + +<p>I wish this discourse had been more worthy +of its theme, and of this audience, and of this +year of heroic memories and lofty hopes. But +if, later in the summer, I should find my way +back to Ettrick and Yarrow and the Eildon +Hills, it will be a pleasure to remember there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +the honour you have done me in allowing me +to speak in Paris, however unworthily, of the +greatness of Sir Walter Scott.</p> + +<p class="printer">Glasgow: Printed at the University Press by Robert MacLehose and Co. Ltd.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sir Walter Scott, by William Paton Ker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR WALTER SCOTT *** + +***** This file should be named 21250-h.htm or 21250-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/2/5/21250/ + +Produced by Constanze Hofmann, Jeanette Jordan, Lori +Scoggins, Norilan, McMartha, sassi, Siobhan Hillman, Tamise +Totterdell, Zara Baxter, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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