On the Old Road Volume Ii Part 22

[Footnote 51: The reference is to a series of "Waverley Tableaux" given in London shortly before the publication of this paper.--ED.]

[Footnote 52: L. iv. 177.]

[Footnote 53: L. vi. 67.]

[Footnote 54: "One other such novel, and there's an end; but who can last forever? who ever lasted so long?"--Sydney Smith (of the _Pirate_) to Jeffrey, December 30, 1821. (_Letters_, vol. ii. p. 223.)]

[Footnote 55: L. vi. p. 188. Compare the description of Fairy Dean, vii.

192.]

[Footnote 56: All, alas! were now in a great measure so written.

"Ivanhoe," "The Monastery," "The Abbot," and "Kenilworth" were all published between December 1819 and January 1821, Constable & Co. giving five thousand guineas for the remaining copyright of them, Scott clearing ten thousand before the bargain was completed; and before the "Fortunes of Nigel" issued from the press Scott had exchanged instruments and received his bookseller's bills for no less than four "works of fiction," not one of them otherwise described in the deeds of agreement, to be produced in unbroken succession, _each of them to fill up at least three volumes, but with proper saving clauses as to increase of copy money in case any of them should run to four_; and within two years all this antic.i.p.ation had been wiped off by "Peveril of the Peak,"

"Quentin Durward," "St. Ronan's Well," and "Redgauntlet."]

[Footnote 57: "Woodstock" was finished 26th March, 1826. He knew then of his ruin; and wrote in bitterness, but not in weakness. The closing pages are the most beautiful of the book. But a month afterwards Lady Scott died; and he never wrote glad word more.]

[Footnote 58: Compare Mr. Spurgeon's not unfrequent orations on the same subject.]

[Footnote 59: There are three definite and intentional portraits of himself, in the novels, each giving a separate part of himself: Mr.

Oldbuck, Frank Osbaldistone, and Alan Fairford.]

[Footnote 60: See note, p. 224.--ED.]

[Footnote 61: Andrew knows Latin, and might have coined the word in his conceit; but, writing to a kind friend in Glasgow, I find the brook was called "Molyndona" even before the building of the Subdean Mill in 1446.

See also account of the locality in Mr. George's admirable volume, "Old Glasgow," pp. 129, 149, etc. The Protestantism of Glasgow, since throwing that powder of saints into her brook Kidron, has presented it with other pious offerings; and my friend goes on to say that the brook, once famed for the purity of its waters (much used for bleaching), "has for nearly a hundred years been a crawling stream of loathsomeness. It is now bricked over, and a carriage-way made on the top of it; underneath the foul mess still pa.s.ses through the heart of the city, till it falls into the Clyde close to the harbor."]

FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL.[62]

II.

35. _"He hated greetings in the market-place_, and there were generally loiterers in the streets to persecute him _either about the events of the day_, or about some petty pieces of business."

These lines, which the reader will find near the beginning of the sixteenth chapter of the first volume of the "Antiquary," contain two indications of the old man's character, which, receiving the ideal of him as a portrait of Scott himself, are of extreme interest to me. They mean essentially that neither Monkbarns nor Scott had any mind to be called of men, Rabbi, in mere hearing of the mob; and especially that they hated to be drawn back out of their far-away thoughts, or forward out of their long-ago thoughts, by any manner of "daily" news, whether printed or gabbled. Of which two vital characteristics, deeper in both men, (for I must always speak of Scott's creations as if they were as real as himself,) than any of their superficial vanities, or pa.s.sing enthusiasms, I have to speak more at another time. I quote the pa.s.sage just now, because there was one piece of the daily news of the year 1815 which did extremely interest Scott, and materially direct the labor of the latter part of his life; nor is there any piece of history in this whole nineteenth century quite so pregnant with various instruction as the study of the reasons which influenced Scott and Byron in their opposite views of the glories of the battle of Waterloo.

36. But I quote it for another reason also. The princ.i.p.al greeting which Mr. Oldbuck on this occasion receives in the market-place, being compared with the speech of Andrew Fairservice, examined in my first paper, will furnish me with the text of what I have mainly to say in the present one.

"'Mr. Oldbuck,' said the town-clerk (a more important person, who came in front and ventured to stop the old gentleman), 'the provost, understanding you were in town, begs on no account that you'll quit it without seeing him; he wants to speak to ye about bringing the water frae the Fairwell spring through a part o' your lands.'

"'What the deuce!--have they n.o.body's land but mine to cut and carve on?--I won't consent, tell them.'

"'And the provost,' said the clerk, going on, without noticing the rebuff, 'and the council, wad be agreeable that you should hae the auld stanes at Donagild's Chapel, that ye was wussing to hae.'

"'Eh?--what?--Oho! that's another story--Well, well, I'll call upon the provost, and we'll talk about it.'

"'But ye maun speak your mind on't forthwith, Monkbarns, if ye want the stanes; for Deacon Harlewalls thinks the carved through-stanes might be put with advantage on the front of the new council house--that is, the twa cross-legged figures that the callants used to ca' Robbin and Bobbin, ane on ilka door-cheek; and the other stane, that they ca'd Ailie Dailie, abune the door. It will be very tastefu', the Deacon says, and just in the style of modern Gothic.'

"'Good Lord deliver me from this Gothic generation!' exclaimed the Antiquary,--'a monument of a knight-templar on each side of a Grecian porch, and a Madonna on the top of it!--_O crimini!_--Well, tell the provost I wish to have the stones, and we'll not differ about the water-course.--It's lucky I happened to come this way to-day.'

"They parted mutually satisfied; but the wily clerk had most reason to exult in the dexterity he had displayed, since the whole proposal of an exchange between the monuments (which the council had determined to remove as a nuisance, because they encroached three feet upon the public road) and the privilege of conveying the water to the burgh, through the estate of Monkbarns, was an idea which had originated with himself upon the pressure of the moment."

37. In this single page of Scott, will the reader please note the kind of prophetic instinct with which the great men of every age mark and forecast its destinies? The water from the Fairwell is the future Thirlmere carried to Manchester; the "auld stanes"[63] at Donagild's Chapel, removed as a _nuisance_, foretell the necessary view taken by modern c.o.c.kneyism, Liberalism, and progress, of all things that remind them of the n.o.ble dead, of their fathers' fame, or of their own duty; and the public road becomes their idol, instead of the saint's shrine.

Finally, the roguery of the entire transaction--the mean man seeing the weakness of the honorable, and "besting" him--in modern slang, in the manner and at the pace of modern trade--"on the pressure of the moment."

But neither are these things what I have at present quoted the pa.s.sage for.

I quote it, that we may consider how much wonderful and various history is gathered in the fact recorded for us in this piece of entirely fair fiction, that in the Scottish borough of Fairport (Montrose, really), in the year 17--of Christ, the knowledge given by the pastors and teachers provided for its children by enlightened Scottish Protestantism, of their fathers' history, and the origin of their religion, had resulted in this substance and sum;--that the statues of two crusading knights had become, to their children, Bobbin and Bobbin; and the statue of the Madonna, Ailie Dailie.

A marvelous piece of history, truly: and far too comprehensive for general comment here. Only one small piece of it I must carry forward the readers' thoughts upon.

38. The pastors and teachers aforesaid, (represented typically in another part of this errorless book by Mr. Blattergowl,) are not, whatever else they may have to answer for, answerable for these names.

The names are of the children's own choosing and bestowing, but not of the children's own inventing. "Robin" is a cla.s.sically endearing cognomen, recording the _errant_ heroism of old days--the name of the Bruce and of Rob Roy. "Bobbin" is a poetical and symmetrical fulfillment and adornment of the original phrase. "Ailie" is the last echo of "Ave,"

changed into the softest Scottish Christian name familiar to the children, itself the beautiful feminine form of royal "Louis"; the "Dailie" again symmetrically added for kinder and more musical endearment. The last vestiges, you see, of honor for the heroism and religion of their ancestors, lingering on the lips of babes and sucklings.

But what is the meaning of this necessity the children find themselves under of completing the nomenclature rhythmically and rhymingly? Note first the difference carefully, and the attainment of both qualities by the couplets in question. Rhythm is the syllabic and quant.i.tative measure of the words, in which Robin both in weight and time, balances Bobbin; and Dailie holds level scale with Ailie. But rhyme is the added correspondence of sound; unknown and undesired, so far as we can learn, by the Greek Orpheus, but absolutely essential to, and, as special virtue, becoming t.i.tular of, the Scottish Thomas.

39. The "Ryme,"[64] you may at first fancy, is the especially childish part of the work. Not so. It is the especially chivalric and Christian part of it. It characterizes the Christian chant or canticle, as a higher thing than a Greek ode, melos, or hymnos, or than a Latin carmen.

Think of it; for this again is wonderful! That these children of Montrose should have an element of music in their souls which Homer had not,--which a melos of David the Prophet and King had not,--which Orpheus and Amphion had not,--which Apollo's unrymed oracles became mute at the sound of.

A strange new equity this,--melodious justice and judgment, as it were,--in all words spoken solemnly and ritualistically by Christian human creatures;--Robin and Bobbin--by the Crusader's tomb, up to "Dies irae, dies illa," at judgment of the crusading soul.

You have to understand this most deeply of all Christian minstrels, from first to last; that they are more musical, because more joyful, than any others on earth: ethereal minstrels, pilgrims of the sky, true to the kindred points of heaven and home; their joy essentially the sky-lark's, in light, in purity; but, with their human eyes, looking for the glorious appearing of something in the sky, which the bird cannot.

This it is that changes Etruscan murmur into Terza rima--Horatian Latin into Provencal troubadour's melody; not, because less artful, less wise.

40. Here is a little bit, for instance, of French ryming just before Chaucer's time--near enough to our own French to be intelligible to us yet.

"O quant tres-glorieuse vie, Quant cil qui tout peut et maistrie, Veult esprouver pour necessaire, Ne pour quant il ne blasma mie La vie de Marthe sa mie: Mais il lui donna exemplaire D'autrement vivre, et de bien plaire A Dieu; et plut de bien a faire: Pour se conclut-il que Marie Qui estoit a ses piedz sans braire, Et pensoit d'entendre et de taire, Estleut la plus saine partie.

La meilleur partie esleut-elle Et la plus saine et la plus belle, Qui ja ne luy sera ostee Car par verite se fut celle Qui fut tousjours fresche et nouvelle, D'aymer Dieu et d'en estre aymee; Car jusqu'au cueur fut entamee, Et si ardamment enflamee, Que tousjours ardoit I'estincelle; Par quoi elle fut visitee Et de Dieu premier confortee; Car charite est trop ysnelle."

41. The only law of _meter_, observed in this song, is that each line shall be octosyllabic:

Qui fut tousjours fresche et nouvelle, D'autre ment vi vret de bien (ben) plaire Et pen soit den tendret de taire.

But the reader must note that words which were two-syllabled in Latin mostly remain yet so in the French.

La _vi_ _e_ de Marthe sa mie,

although _mie_, which is pet language, loving abbreviation of _amica_ through _amie_, remains monosyllabic. But _vie_ elides its _e_ before a vowel:

Car Mar- the me nait vie active Et Ma- ri-e contemp lative;

and custom endures many exceptions. Thus _Marie_ may be three-syllabled, as above, or answer to _mie_ as a dissyllable; but _vierge_ is always, I think, dissyllabic, _vier-ge_, with even stronger accent on the _-ge_, for the Latin _-go_.