A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century Part 3

[9] Scott's ascription of "Sir Tristram" to Thomas the Rhymer, or Thomas of Erceldoune, was doubtless a mistake. His edition of the romance was printed in 1804. In 1800 he had begun a prose tale, "Thomas the Rhymer,"

a fragment of which is given in the preface to the General Edition of the Waverley Novels (1829). This old legendary poet and prophet, who flourished _circa_ 1280, and was believed to have been carried off by the Queen of Faerie into Eildon Hill, fascinated Scott's imagination strongly. See his version of the "True Thomas'" story in the "Minstrelsy," as also the editions of this very beautiful romance in Child's "Ballads," in the publications of the E. E. Text So.; and by Alois Brandl, Berlin: 1880.

[10] See vol. i., p. 390.

[11] See the General Preface to the Waverley Novels for some remarks on "Queenhoo Hall" which Strutt began and Scott completed.

[12] _Cf._ vol. i., p. 344.

[13] "I am therefore descended from that ancient chieftain whose name I have made to ring in many a ditty, and from his fair dame, the Flower of Yarrow--no bad genealogy for a Border minstrel."

[14] "He neither cared for painting nor sculpture, and was totally incapable of forming a judgment about them. He had some confused love of Gothic architecture because it was dark, picturesque, old and like nature; but could not tell the worst from the best, and built for himself probably the most incongruous and ugly pile that gentlemanly modernism ever devised."--Ruskin. "Modern Painters," vol. iii., p. 271.

[15] See vol. i., p. 200.

[16] The _Abbey_ of Tintern was irrelevant to Wordsworth.--Herford. "The Age of Wordsworth," Int., p. xx.

[17] "Dear Sir Walter Scott and myself were exact, but harmonious, opposites in this:--that every old ruin, hill, river or tree called up in his mind a host of historical or biographical a.s.sociations; . . .

whereas, for myself . . . I believe I should walk over the plain of Marathon without taking more interest in it than in any other plain of similar features."--Coleridge, "Table Talk," August 4, 1833.

[18] See the delightful anecdote preserved by Carlyle about the little Blenheim c.o.c.ker who hated the "genus acrid-quack" and formed an immediate attachment to Sir Walter. Wordsworth was far from being an acrid quack, or even a solemn prig--another genus hated of dogs--but there was something a little unsympathetic in his personality. The dalesmen liked poor Hartley Coleridge better.

[19] Scott could scarcely have forborne to introduce the figure of the Queen of Scots, to insure whose marriage with Norfolk was one of the objects of the rising.

[20] For a full review of "The White Doe" the reader should consult Princ.i.p.al Shairp's "Aspects of Poetry," 1881.

[21] Scott averred that Wordsworth offended public taste on system.

[22] This is incomparable, not only as a masterpiece of romantic narrative, but for the spirited and natural device by which the hero is conducted to his adventure. R. L. Stevenson and other critics have been rather hard upon Scott's defects as an artist. He was indeed no stylist: least of all a _precieux_. There are no close-set mosaics in his somewhat slip-shod prose, and he did not seek for the right word "with moroseness," like Landor. But, in his large fashion, he was skilful in inventing impressive effects. Another instance is the solitary trumpet that breathed its "note of defiance" in the lists of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, which has the genuine melodramatic thrill--like the horn of Hernani or the bell that tolls in "Venice Preserved."

[23] See the "Hunting Song" in his continuation of "Queenhoo Hall"--

"Waken, lords and ladies gay, On the mountain dawns the day."

[24] See vol. i., pp. 277 and 390.

[25] The Glen of the Green Women.

[26] "And still I thought that shattered tower The mightiest work of human power; And marvelled as the aged hind With some strange tale bewitched my mind, Of foragers who, with headlong force, Down from that strength had spurred their horse, Their Southern rapine to renew, Far in the distant Cheviots blue; And, home returning, filled the hall With revel, wa.s.sail-rout and brawl."--"Marmion." Introduction to Canto Third. See Lockhart for a description of the view from Smailholme, _a propos_ of the stanza in "The Eve of St. John":

"That lady sat in mournful mood; Looked over hill and vale: O'ver Tweed's fair flood, and Mertoun's wood, And all down Teviot dale."

[27] See vol. i., pp. 394-395.

[28] Scott's verse "is touched both with the facile redundance of the mediaeval romances in which he was steeped, and with the meretricious phraseology of the later eighteenth century, which he was too genuine a literary Tory wholly to put aside."--"The Age of Wordsworth," C. H.

Herford, London. 1897.

[29] "The Gray Brother" in vol. iii. of the "Minstrelsy."

[30] "And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's brood, Decoy young border-n.o.bles through the wood, And skip at every step, Lord knows how high, And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why."

[31] "Now leave we Margaret and her knight To tell you of the approaching fight."--Canto Fifth, xiii.

[32] Landor says oddly of Warton that he "had lost his ear by laying it down on low swampy places, on ballads and sonnets."

[33] Does not the quarrel of Richard and Philip in "The Talisman" remind one irresistibly of Achilles and Agamemnon in the "Iliad"?

[34] For a review of English historical fiction before Scott, consult Professor Cross' "Development of the English Novel," pp. 110-114.

[35] "Familiar Studies of Men and Books," by R. L. Stevenson. Article, "Victor Hugo's Romances."

[36] "Le Roman Historique a l'Epoque Romantique." Essai sur l'influence de Walter Scott. Par Louis Maigron. Paris (Hachette). 1898, p. 331, _note_. And _ibid_., p. 330: "Au lieu que les cla.s.siques s'efforcaient toujours, a travers les modifications que les pays, les temps et les circonstances peuvent apporter aux sentiments et aux pa.s.sions des hommes, d'atteindre a ce que ces pa.s.sions et ces sentiments conservent de permanent, d'immuable et d'eternel, c'est au contraire a l'expression de l'accidentel et du relatif que les novateurs devaient les efforts de leur art. Plus simplement, a la place de la verite humaine, ils devaient mettre la verite locale." Professor Herford says that what Scott "has in common with the Romantic temper is simply the feeling for the picturesque, for colour, for contrast." "Age of Wordsworth," p. 121.

[37] De Quincey defines _picturesque_ as "the characteristic pushed into a sensible excess." The word began to excite discussion in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. See vol. i., p. 185, for Gilpin's "Observations on Picturesque Beauty." See also Uvedale Price, "Essays on the Picturesque as Compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful," three vols., 1794-96. Price finds the character of the picturesque to consist in roughness, irregularity, intricacy, and sudden variation. Gothic buildings are more picturesque than Grecian, and a ruin than an entire building. Hovels, cottages, mills, interiors of old barns are picturesque. "In mills particularly, such is the extreme intricacy of the wheels and the wood work: such is the singular variety of forms and of lights and shadows, of mosses and weather stains from the constant moisture, of plants springing from the rough joints of the stones--that, even without the addition of water, an old mill has the greatest charm for a painter" (i., 55). He mentions, as a striking example of picturesque beauty, a hollow lane or by-road with broken banks, thickets, old neglected pollards, fantastic roots bared by the winter torrents, tangled trailers and wild plants, and infinite variety of tints and shades (i., 23-29). He denounces the improvements of Capability Brown (see "Romanticism," vol. i., p. 124): especially the clump, the belt and regular serpentine walks with smooth turf edges, the made water with uniformly sloping banks--all as insipidly formal, in their way, as the old Italian gardens which Brown's landscapes displaced.

[38] "Essay on Walter Scott."

[39] Andrew Lang reminds us that, after all, only three of the Waverley Novels are "chivalry romances." The following are the only numbers of the series that have to do with the Middle Ages: "Count Robert of Paris,"

_circa_ 1090 A.D.; "The Betrothed," 1187; "The Talisman," 1193; "Ivanhoe," 1194; "The Fair Maid of Perth," 1402; "Quentin Durward," 1470; "Anne of Geierstein," 1474-77.

[40] "The Romantic School in Germany," p. 187. _Cf._ Stendhal, "Walter Scott et la Princesse de Cleves." "Mes reflexions seront mal accueilles.

Une immense troupe de litterateurs est interessee a porter aux nues Sir Walter Scott et sa maniere. L'habit et le collier de cuivre d'un serf du moyen age sont plus facile a decrire que les mouvements du coeur humain. . . . N'oublions pas un autre avantage de l'ecole de Sir Walter Scott: la description d'un costume et la _pose_ d'un personnage . . .

prennent au moins deux pages. Les mouvements de l'ame fourniraient a peine quelques lignes. Ouvrez au hazard un cies volumes de la 'Princesse de Cleves,' prenez dix pages au hasard, et ensuite comparez les aux dix pages d'Ivanhoe' ou de 'Quentin Durward': ces derniers ouvrages ont un _merite historique_. Ils apprennent quelques pet.i.tes choses sur l'histoire aux gens qui l'ignorent ou qui le savent mal. Ce merite historique a cause un grand plaisir: je ne le nie pas, mais c'est ce merite historique qui se fanera le premier. . . . Dans 146 ans, Sir Walter Scott ne sera pas a la hauteur ou Corneille nous apparait 146 ans apres sa mort." "To write a modern romance of chivalry." says Jeffrey, in his review of "Marmion" in the _Edinburgh_, "seems to be much such a phantasy as to build a modern abbey or an English paG.o.da. . . .

[Scott's] genius, seconded by the omnipotence of fashion, has brought chivalry again into temporary favor. Fine ladies and gentlemen now talk, indeed, of donjons, keeps, tabards, 'scutcheons, tressures, caps of maintenance, portcullises, wimples, and we know not what besides; just as they did, in the days of Dr. Darwin's popularity, of gnomes, sylphs, oxygen, gossamer, polygynia, and polyandria. That fashion, however, pa.s.sed rapidly away, and Mr. Scott should take care that a different sort of pedantry," etc.

[41] For an exhaustive review of Scott's influence on the evolution of historical fiction in France, consult Maigron, "Le Roman Historique,"

etc. A longish pa.s.sage from this work will be found at the end of the present chapter. For English imitators and successors of the Waverley Novels, see Cross, "Development of the English Novel," pp. 136-48. See also De Quincey's "Literary Reminiscences," vol. iii., for an amusing account of "Walladmor" (1824), a pretended German translation of a non-existent Waverley novel.

[42] "Racine et Shakespeare."

[43] "Don Quixote."

[44] "Sir Walter Scott."

[45] "Dix ans d'etudes historiques": preface.

[46] Walter Bagehot says that "Ivanhoe" "describes the Middle Ages as we should have wished them to be," ignoring their discomforts and harsh barbarism. "Every boy has heard of tournaments and has a firm persuasion that in an age of tournaments life was thoroughly well understood. A martial society where men fought hand to hand on good horses with large lances," etc. ("The Waverley Novels").

[47] "Of enthusiasm in religion Scott always spoke very severely. . . .

I do not think there is a single study in all his romances of what may be fairly called a pre-eminently spiritual character" (R. H. Hutton: "Sir Walter Scott," p. 126).

[48] "Unopposed, the Catholic superst.i.tion may sink to dust, with all its absurd ritual and solemnities. Still it is an awful risk. The world is in fact as silly as ever, and a good competence of nonsense will always find believers." ("Diary" for 1829).

[49] See vol. i., p. 42. "We almost envy the credulity of those who in the gentle moonlight of a summer night in England, amid the tangled glades of a deep forest, or the turfy swell of her romantic commons, could fancy they saw the fairies tracing their sportive ring. But it is in vain to regret illusions which, however engaging, must of necessity yield their place before the increase of knowledge, like shadows at the advance of morn." ("Demonology." p. 183). "Tales of ghosts and demonology are out of date at forty years of age and upward. . . . If I were to write on the subject at all, it should have been during a period of life when I could have treated it with more interesting vivacity. . . . Even the present fashion of the world seems to be ill-suited for studies of this fantastic nature: and the most ordinary mechanic has learning sufficient to laugh at the figments which in former times were believed by persons far advanced in the deepest knowledge of the age." (_Ibid_., p. 398).

[50] See vol. i., pp. 249 and 420.

[51] "Postscript" to "Appreciations."

[52] For the rarity of the real romantic note in mediaeval writers see vol. i., pp. 26-28, and Appendix B to the present chapter.