Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume IV Part 3

Your horrid story reminds me of one in Galloway, where the perpetrator of a similar enormity on a poor idiot girl was discovered by means of the print of his foot which he left upon the clay floor of the cottage in the death struggle. It pleased Heaven (for nothing short of a miracle could have done it) to enlighten the understanding of an old ram-headed sheriff, who was usually nicknamed Leather-head. The steps which he took to discover the murderer were most sagacious. As the poor girl was pregnant (for it was not a case of violation), it was pretty clear that her paramour had done the deed, and equally so that he must be a native of the district. The sheriff caused the minister to advertise from the pulpit that the girl would be buried on a particular day, and that all persons in the neighborhood were invited to attend the funeral, to show their detestation of such an enormous crime, as well as to evince their own innocence. This was sure to bring the murderer to the funeral. When the people were a.s.sembled in the kirk, the doors were locked by the sheriff's order, and the shoes of all the men were examined; that of the murderer was detected by the measure of the foot, tread, etc., and a peculiarity in the mode in which the sole of one of them had been patched. The remainder of the curious chain of evidence upon which he was convicted will suit best with twilight, or a blinking candle, being too long for a letter. The fellow bore a most excellent character, and had committed this crime for no other reason that could be alleged, than that, having been led accidentally into an intrigue with this poor wretch, his pride revolted at the ridicule which was likely to attend the discovery.

On calling at Ballantyne's, I find, as I had antic.i.p.ated, that your copy, being of royal size, requires some particular nicety in hot-pressing. It will be sent by the Carlisle mail _quam primum_.--Ever yours,

WALTER SCOTT.

P. S.--Love to Mrs. Morritt. John Ballantyne says he has just about eighty copies left, out of 3250, this being the second day of publication, and the book a two-guinea one.

It will surprise no one to hear that Mr. Morritt a.s.sured his friend he considered Rokeby as the best of all his poems. The admirable, perhaps the unique fidelity of the local descriptions, might alone have swayed, for I will not say it perverted, the judgment of the lord of that beautiful and thenceforth cla.s.sical domain; and, indeed, I must admit that I never understood or appreciated half the charm of this poem until I had become familiar with its scenery. But Scott himself had not designed to rest his strength on these descriptions. He said to James Ballantyne while the work was in progress (September 2), "I hope the thing will do, chiefly because the world will not expect from _me_ a poem of which the interest turns upon _character_;" and in another letter (October 28, 1812), "I think you will see the same sort of difference taken in all my former poems,--of which I would say, if it is fair for me to say anything, that the force in the Lay is thrown on style--in Marmion, on description--and in The Lady of the Lake, on incident."[15] I suspect some of these distinctions may have been matters of afterthought; but as to Rokeby, there can be no mistake. His own original conceptions of some of its princ.i.p.al characters have been explained in letters already cited; and I believe no one who compares the poem with his novels will doubt that, had he undertaken their portraiture in prose, they would have come forth with effect hardly inferior to any of all the groups he ever created. As it is, I question whether even in his prose there is anything more exquisitely wrought out, as well as fancied, than the whole contrast of the two rivals for the love of the heroine in Rokeby; and that heroine herself, too, has a very particular interest attached to her. Writing to Miss Edgeworth five years after this time (10th May, 1818), he says, "I have not read one of my poems since they were printed, excepting last year The Lady of the Lake, which I liked better than I expected, but not well enough to induce me to go through the rest--so I may truly say with Macbeth--

'I am afraid to think what I have done-- Look on 't again I dare not.'

"This much of _Matilda_ I recollect--(for that is not so easily forgotten)--that she was attempted for the existing person of a lady who is now no more, so that I am particularly flattered with your distinguishing it from the others, which are in general mere shadows."[16] I can have no doubt that the lady he here alludes to was the object of his own unfortunate first love; and as little, that in the romantic generosity, both of the youthful poet who fails to win her higher favor, and of his chivalrous compet.i.tor, we have before us something more than "a mere shadow."

In spite of these graceful characters, the inimitable scenery on which they are presented, and the splendid vivacity and thrilling interest of several chapters in the story--such as the opening interview of Bertram and Wycliffe--the flight up the cliff on the Greta--the first entrance of the cave at Brignall--the firing of Rokeby Castle--and the catastrophe in Eglistone Abbey;--in spite certainly of exquisitely happy lines profusely scattered throughout the whole composition, and of some detached images--that of the setting of the tropical sun,[17] for example--which were never surpa.s.sed by any poet; in spite of all these merits, the immediate success of Rokeby was greatly inferior to that of The Lady of the Lake; nor has it ever since been so much a favorite with the public at large as any other of his poetical romances. He ascribes this failure, in his Introduction of 1830, partly to the radically unpoetical character of the Roundheads; but surely their character has its poetical side also, had his prejudices allowed him to enter upon its study with impartial sympathy; and I doubt not, Mr. Morritt suggested the difficulty on this score, when the outline of the story was as yet undetermined, from consideration rather of the poet's peculiar feelings, and powers as. .h.i.therto exhibited, than of the subject absolutely. Partly he blames the satiety of the public ear, which had had so much of his rhythm, not only from himself, but from dozens of mocking-birds, male and female, all more or less applauded in their day, and now all equally forgotten.[18] This circ.u.mstance, too, had probably no slender effect; the more that, in defiance of all the hints of his friends, he now, in his narrative, repeated (with more negligence) the uniform octosyllabic couplets of The Lady of the Lake, instead of recurring to the more varied cadence of the Lay or Marmion. It is fair to add that, among the London circles at least, some sarcastic flings in Mr. Moore's Twopenny Post Bag must have had an unfavorable influence on this occasion.[19] But the cause of failure which the poet himself places last was unquestionably the main one. The deeper and darker pa.s.sion of Childe Harold, the audacity of its morbid voluptuousness, and the melancholy majesty of the numbers in which it defied the world, had taken the general imagination by storm; and Rokeby, with many beauties and some sublimities, was pitched, as a whole, on a key which seemed tame in the comparison.

I have already adverted to the fact that Scott felt it a relief, not a fatigue, to compose The Bridal of Triermain _pari pa.s.su_ with Rokeby. In answer, for example, to one of James Ballantyne's letters, urging accelerated speed with the weightier romance, he says, "I fully share in your anxiety to get forward the grand work; but, I a.s.sure you, I feel the more confidence from coquetting with the guerilla."

The quarto of Rokeby was followed, within two months, by the small volume which had been designed for a twin birth;--the MS. had been transcribed by one of the Ballantynes themselves, in order to guard against any indiscretion of the press-people; and the mystification, aided and abetted by Erskine, in no small degree heightened the interest of its reception. Except Mr. Morritt, Scott had, so far as I am aware, no English confidant upon this occasion. Whether any of his daily companions in the Parliament House were in the secret, I have never heard; but I can scarcely believe that any of those intimate friends, who had known him and Erskine from their youth upwards, could have for a moment believed the latter capable either of the invention or the execution of this airy and fascinating romance in little. Mr. Jeffrey, for whom chiefly "the trap had been set," was far too sagacious to be caught in it; but, as it happened, he made a voyage that year to America, and thus lost the opportunity of immediately expressing his opinion either of Rokeby or of The Bridal of Triermain. The writer in the Quarterly Review (July, 1813) seems to have been completely deceived.

"We have already spoken of it," says the critic, "as an imitation of Mr. Scott's style of composition; and if we are compelled to make the general approbation more precise and specific, we should say, that if it be inferior in vigor to some of his productions, it equals or surpa.s.ses them in elegance and beauty; that it is more uniformly tender, and far less infected with the unnatural prodigies and coa.r.s.eness of the earlier romances. In estimating its merits, however, we should forget that it is offered as an imitation. The diction undoubtedly reminds us of a rhythm and cadence we have heard before; but the sentiments, descriptions, and characters, have qualities that are native and unborrowed."

If this writer was, as I suppose, Ellis, he probably considered it as a thing impossible that Scott should have engaged in such a scheme without giving him a hint of it; but to have admitted into the secret any one who was likely to criticise the piece, would have been to sacrifice the very object of the device. Erskine's own suggestion, that "perhaps a quizzical review might be got up," led, I believe, to nothing more important than a paragraph in one of the Edinburgh newspapers. He may be pardoned for having been not a little flattered to find it generally considered as not impossible that he should have written such a poem; and I have heard James Ballantyne say that nothing could be more amusing than the style of his coquetting on the subject while it was yet fresh; but when this first excitement was over, his natural feeling of what was due to himself, as well as to his friend, dictated many a remonstrance; and, though he ultimately acquiesced in permitting another minor romance to be put forth in the same manner, he did so reluctantly, and was far from acting his part so well.

Scott says, in the Introduction to The Lord of the Isles, "As Mr.

Erskine was more than suspected of a taste for poetry, and as I took care, in several places, to mix something that might resemble (as far as was in my power) my friend's feeling and manner, the train easily caught, and two large editions were sold." Among the pa.s.sages to which he here alludes are no doubt those in which the character of the minstrel Arthur is shaded with the colorings of an almost effeminate gentleness. Yet, in the midst of them, the "mighty minstrel" himself, from time to time, escapes; as, for instance, where the lover bids Lucy, in that exquisite picture of crossing a mountain stream, trust to his "stalwart arm"--

"Which could yon oak's p.r.o.ne trunk uprear."

Nor can I pa.s.s the compliment to Scott's own fair patroness, where Lucy's admirer is made to confess, with some momentary lapse of gallantry, that he

"Ne'er won--best meed to minstrel true-- One favoring smile from fair Buccleuch;"

nor the burst of genuine Borderism,--

"Bewcastle now must keep the hold, Speir-Adam's steeds must bide in stall, Of Hartley-burn the bowmen bold Must only shoot from battled wall; And Liddesdale may buckle spur, And Teviot now may belt the brand, Tarras and Ewes keep nightly stir, And Eskdale foray c.u.mberland."

But, above all, the choice of the scenery, both of the Introductions and of the story itself, reveals the early and treasured predilections of the poet. For who that remembers the circ.u.mstances of his first visit to the vale of St. John, but must see throughout the impress of his own real romance? I own I am not without a suspicion that, in one pa.s.sage, which always seemed to me a blot upon the composition--that in which Arthur derides the military c.o.xcombries of his rival--

"Who comes in foreign trashery Of tinkling chain and spur, A walking haberdashery Of feathers, lace, and fur; In Rowley's antiquated phrase, Horse-milliner of modern days"--

there is a sly reference to the incidents of a certain ball, of August, 1797, at the Gilsland Spa.[20]

Among the more prominent Erskinisms, are the eulogistic mention of Glasgow, the scene of Erskine's education; and the lines on Collins--a supplement to whose Ode on the Highland Superst.i.tions is, as far as I know, the only specimen that ever was published of Erskine's verse.[21]

As a whole, The Bridal of Triermain appears to me as characteristic of Scott as any of his larger poems. His genius pervades and animates it beneath a thin and playful veil, which perhaps adds as much of grace as it takes away of splendor. As Wordsworth says of the eclipse on the lake of Lugano--

"'T is sunlight sheathed and gently charmed;"

and I think there is at once a lightness and a polish of versification beyond what he has elsewhere attained. If it be a miniature, it is such a one as a Cooper might have hung fearlessly beside the masterpieces of Vand.y.k.e.

The Introductions contain some of the most exquisite pa.s.sages he ever produced; but their general effect has always struck me as unfortunate. No art can reconcile us to contemptuous satire of the merest frivolities of modern life--some of them already, in twenty years, grown obsolete--interlaid between such bright visions of the old world of romance, when

"Strength was gigantic, valor high, And wisdom soared beyond the sky, And beauty had such matchless beam As lights not now a lover's dream."

The fall is grievous, from the h.o.a.ry minstrel of Newark, and his feverish tears on Killiecrankie, to a pathetic swain, who can stoop to denounce as objects of his jealousy--

"The landaulet and four blood bays-- The Hessian boot and pantaloon."

Before Triermain came out, Scott had taken wing for Abbotsford; and indeed he seems to have so contrived it in his earlier period, that he should not be in Edinburgh when any unavowed work of his was published; whereas, from the first, in the case of books that bore his name on the t.i.tle-page, he walked as usual to the Parliament House, and bore all the buzz and tattle of friends and acquaintance with an air of good-humored equanimity, or rather total apparent indifference. The following letter, which contains some curious matter of more kinds than one, was written partly in town and partly in the country:--

TO MISS JOANNA BAILLIE, HAMPSTEAD.

EDINBURGH, March 13, 1813.

MY DEAREST FRIEND,--The pinasters have arrived safe, and I can hardly regret, while I am so much flattered by, the trouble you have had in collecting them. I have got some wild larch-trees from Loch Katrine, and both are to be planted next week, when, G.o.d willing, I shall be at Abbotsford to superintend the operation. I have got a little corner of ground laid out for a nursery, where I shall rear them carefully till they are old enough to be set forth to push their fortune on the banks of Tweed.--What I shall finally make of this villa-work I don't know, but in the mean time it is very entertaining. I shall have to resist very flattering invitations this season; for I have received hints, from more quarters than one, that my bow would be acceptable at Carlton House in case I should be in London, which is very flattering, especially as there were some prejudices to be got over in that quarter. I should be in some danger of giving new offence, too; for, although I utterly disapprove of the present rash and ill-advised course of the princess, yet, as she always was most kind and civil to me, I certainly could not, as a gentleman, decline obeying any commands she might give me to wait upon her, especially in her present adversity. So, though I do not affect to say I should be sorry to take an opportunity of peeping at the splendors of royalty, prudence and economy will keep me quietly at home till another day. My great amus.e.m.e.nt here this some time past has been going almost nightly to see John Kemble, who certainly is a great artist. It is a pity he shows too much of his machinery. I wish he could be double-capped, as they say of watches;--but the fault of too much study certainly does not belong to many of his tribe. He is, I think, very great in those parts especially where character is tinged by some acquired and systematic habits, like those of the Stoic philosophy in Cato and Brutus, or of misanthropy in Penruddock; but sudden turns and natural bursts of pa.s.sion are not his forte. I saw him play Sir Giles Overreach (the Richard III. of middling life) last night; but he came not within a hundred miles of Cooke, whose terrible visage, and short, abrupt, and savage utterance, gave a reality almost to that extraordinary scene in which he boasts of his own successful villainy to a n.o.bleman of worth and honor, of whose alliance he is ambitious.

Cooke contrived somehow to impress upon the audience the idea of such a monster of enormity as had learned to pique himself even upon his own atrocious character. But Kemble was too handsome, too plausible, and too smooth, to admit its being probable that he should be blind to the unfavorable impression which these extraordinary vaunts are likely to make on the person whom he is so anxious to conciliate.

ABBOTSFORD, 21st March.

This letter, begun in Edinburgh, is to take wing from Abbotsford. John Winnos (now John Winnos is the sub-oracle of Abbotsford, the princ.i.p.al being Tom Purdie)--John Winnos p.r.o.nounces that the pinaster seed ought to be raised at first on a hot-bed, and thence transplanted to a nursery; so to a hot-bed they have been carefully consigned, the upper oracle not objecting, in respect his talent lies in catching a salmon, or finding a hare sitting--on which occasions (being a very complete Scrub) he solemnly exchanges his working jacket for an old green one of mine, and takes the air of one of Robin Hood's followers. His more serious employments are ploughing, harrowing, and overseeing all my premises; being a complete Jack-of-all-trades, from the carpenter to the shepherd, nothing comes strange to him; and being extremely honest, and somewhat of a humorist, he is quite my right hand. I cannot help singing his praises at this moment, because I have so many odd and out-of-the-way things to do, that I believe the conscience of many of our jog-trot countrymen would revolt at being made my instrument in sacrificing good corn-land to the visions of Mr. Price's theory. Mr. Pinkerton, the historian, has a play coming out at Edinburgh; it is by no means bad poetry, yet I think it will not be popular; the people come and go, and speak very notable things in good blank verse, but there is no very strong interest excited; the plot also is disagreeable, and liable to the objections (though in a less degree) which have been urged against the Mysterious Mother; it is to be acted on Wednesday; I will let you know its fate. P., with whom I am in good habits, showed the MS., but I referred him, with such praise as I could conscientiously bestow, to the players and the public. I don't know why one should take the task of d.a.m.ning a man's play out of the hands of the proper tribunal. Adieu, my dear friend. I have scarce room for love to Miss, Mrs., and Dr. B.

W. SCOTT.

To this I add a letter to Lady Louisa Stuart, who had sent him a copy of these lines, found by Lady Douglas on the back of a tattered bank-note:--

"Farewell, my note, and wheresoe'er ye wend, Shun gaudy scenes, and be the poor man's friend.

You've left a poor one; go to one as poor, And drive despair and hunger from his door."

It appears that these n.o.ble friends had adopted, or feigned to adopt, the belief that The Bridal of Triermain was a production of Mr. R. P. Gillies--who had about this time published an imitation of Lord Byron's Romaunt, under the t.i.tle of Childe Alarique.

TO THE LADY LOUISA STUART, BOTHWELL CASTLE.

ABBOTSFORD, 28th April, 1813.

DEAR LADY LOUISA,--Nothing can give me more pleasure than to hear from you, because it is both a most acceptable favor to me, and also a sign that your own spirits are recovering their tone. Ladies are, I think, very fortunate in having a resource in work at a time when the mind rejects intellectual amus.e.m.e.nt. Men have no resource but striding up and down the room, like a bird that beats itself to pieces against the bars of its cage; whereas needle-work is a sort of sedative, too mechanical to worry the mind by distracting it from the points on which its musings turn, yet gradually a.s.sisting it in regaining steadiness and composure; for so curiously are our bodies and minds linked together, that the regular and constant employment of the former on any process, however dull and uniform, has the effect of tranquillizing, where it cannot disarm, the feelings of the other. I am very much pleased with the lines on the guinea note, and if Lady Douglas does not object, I would willingly mention the circ.u.mstance in the Edinburgh Annual Register. I think it will give the author great delight to know that his lines had attracted attention, and _had_ sent the paper on which they were recorded, "heaven-directed, to the poor." Of course I would mention no names. There was, as your Ladyship may remember, some years since, a most audacious and determined murder committed on a porter belonging to the British Linen Company's Bank at Leith, who was stabbed to the heart in broad daylight, and robbed of a large sum in notes.[22] If ever this crime comes to light, it will be through the circ.u.mstance of an idle young fellow having written part of a playhouse song on one of the notes, which, however, has as yet never appeared in circulation.

I am very glad you like Rokeby, which is nearly out of fashion and memory with me. It has been wonderfully popular, about ten thousand copies having walked off already, in about three months, and the demand continuing faster than it can be supplied. As to my imitator, the Knight of Triermain, I will endeavor to convey to Mr. Gillies (_puisque Gillies il est_) your Ladyship's very just strictures on the Introduction to the second Canto. But if he takes the opinion of a hacked old author like myself, he will content himself with avoiding such bevues in future, without attempting to mend those which are already made. There is an ominous old proverb which says, _Confess and be hanged_; and truly if an author acknowledges his own blunders, I do not know who he can expect to stand by him; whereas, let him confess nothing, and he will always find some injudicious admirers to vindicate even his faults. So that I think after publication the effect of criticism should be prospective, in which point of view I dare say Mr. G. will take your friendly hint, especially as it is confirmed by that of the best judges who have read the poem.--Here is beautiful weather for April! an absolute snow-storm mortifying me to the core by r.e.t.a.r.ding the growth of all my young trees and shrubs.--Charlotte begs to be most respectfully remembered to your Ladyship and Lady D. We are realizing the nursery tale of the man and his wife who lived in a vinegar bottle, for our only sitting-room is just twelve feet square, and my Eve alleges that I am too big for our paradise. To make amends, I have created a tolerable garden, occupying about an English acre, which I begin to be very fond of. When one pa.s.ses forty, an addition to the quiet occupations of life becomes of real value, for I do not hunt and fish with quite the relish I did ten years ago. Adieu, my dear Lady Louisa, and all good attend you.

WALTER SCOTT.