CHAPTER XVI.

SCOTT.

THE period in English literature which lies between the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 and the death of Scott in 1831, is only less wonderful than the wonderful age of Elizabeth and James. It includes the whole work of Scott, Byron, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Lamb, with all that is vital of Wordsworth's. The output, so infinitely varied, is difficult to group. Chronologically, and in a sense logically, Wordsworth and Coleridge come first; they were the men who formulated the principles of the reaction; and though for long they were ignored or misconceived by the public and the critics, they had full effect on the poets. Coleridge's influence is felt by Scott, and more strongly by Byron, in verse technique; Lamb was Coleridge's friend and disciple. But there can be no question that first Scott, and then Byron, became notable, long before the rest; theirs was the original impact on the public mind; they were the first who altered the public taste; and with them accordingly we shall begin.

Walter Scott, the most lovable figure in all letters, is one of those persons who cannot be

understood without reference to their pedigree. Born in 1771, he descended from a lesser branch of the great Scott clan, whose feudal head was the Duke of Buccleuch. The father of his grandfather's grandfather was Auld Wat of Harden, whose name, he says, "I have made to ring in many a ditty, with that of his wife, the Flower of Yarrow.' His great-grandfather was a Jacobite, who lost lands and goods in the Stuart cause, and was known through Teviotdale as "Beardie," from the venerable beard, then portentous as a comet, which he cherished in regret for the exiled house. Jacobite sentiment came to Scott in full force through his father, an Edinburgh writer to the signet (attorney); and it is easy to trace in Sir Walter, the man of letters and the enthusiast for a Hanoverian sovereign, lineaments of the Border rider and the Stuart partisan.

Scott's childhood decided his career. Convulsions in his second year left him with a shrunk leg, and threw him upon stories for amusement. He was sent for country air to live with his grandfather near Smailholme Tower, and his earliest recollections go back to this place, where he was bred up among old songs and tales, and met men who remembered the butcherings after Culloden. Only thirty years, let it be noted, had gone by since "the Forty-five." He has told us of it all himself:

Thus while I ape the measure wild
Of tales that charm'd me yet a child,
Rude though they be, still with the chime
Return the thoughts of early time;
And feelings, roused in life's first day,
Glow in the line, and prompt the lay.

Then rise those crags, that mountain tower
Which charm'd my fancy's wakening hour.
Though no broad river swept along,
To claim, perchance, heroic song;

T

Though sigh'd no groves in summer gale,
To prompt of love a softer tale;
Though scarce a puny streamlet's speed
Claim'd homage from a shepherd's reed;
Yet was poetic impulse given,

By the green hill and clear blue heaven.
It was a barren scene, and wild,
Where naked cliffs were rudely piled;
But ever and anon between

Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green;
And well the lonely infant knew
Recesses where the wall-flower grew,
And honeysuckle loved to crawl
Up the low crag and ruin'd wall.

I deem'd such nooks the sweetest shade
The sun in all its round survey'd ;
And still I thought that shatter'd tower
The mightiest work of human power;

And marvell'd, as the aged hind

With some strange tale bewitch'd my mind,

Of forayers, who, with headlong force,

Down from that strength had spurr'd their horse, Their southern rapine to renew,

Far in the distant Cheviots blue,

And, home returning, fill'd the hall

With revel, wassel-rout, and brawl.

Methought that still with trump and clang,

The gateway's broken arches rang;

Methought, grim features, seam'd with scars,
Glared through the window's rusty bars,
And ever, by the winter hearth,
Old tales I heard of woe or mirth,
Of lovers' slights, of ladies' charms,

Of witches' spells, of warriors' arms;

Of patriot battles, won of old

By Wallace wight and Bruce the bold;
Of later fields of feud and fight,

When, pouring from their Highland height,
The Scottish clans, in headlong sway,

Had swept the scarlet ranks away.

While stretch'd at length upon the floor,
Again I fought each combat o'er,
Pebbles and shells in order laid,
The mimic ranks of war display'd;

And onward still the Scottish Lion bore,

And still the scatter'd Southron fled before.

At the age of seven, near Prestonpans, he had much talk with a veteran of the German Wars, one Dalgetty-a name destined to immortality; here also he met George Constable, afterwards sketched as the Antiquary (though a deal of Scott himself went to complete Monkbarns). This friend turned him loose on Shakspeare, whom he came to know literally by heart. Lameness still made of him the all-devouring reader, which, without that disability, one so impassioned for outdoor sports might hardly have become. But at the age of

fifteen a severe illness seemed a crisis, and he emerged from it still lame indeed, but immensely strong, and even a tireless walker.

While still a lad he was put to the law, and showed no excessive application. But whatever was antique had its interest for Scott, and the lawyer is constantly evident in his novels. His taste for reading lasted, but he gathered knowledge other ways than from books. History

appealed to him, but specially the rough history of the Border, enshrined not only in prose, but in numberless ballads that he had by heart; and year after year he explored the recesses of the dales, above all Liddesdale, where in those days no wheeled vehicle penetrated. The geniality which made him everywhere the best beloved of companions, endeared him no less to the Dandie Dinmonts and their wives than to his fellow-advocates. He was writing nothing; but as Mr. Shortreed, his companion in these "raids," wrote later, "he was making himself all the time."

Like the fine healthy youth that he was, he fell in love, and there followed "three years of dreaming and two of awakening." The lady's parents interposed; shortly afterwards she was married to Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo. Scott uttered his

feeling in lines which, alone of all the writings that he published, have the note of personal emotion: The violet in her greenwood bower, Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle, May boast itself the fairest flower

In glen, or copse, or forest dingle.

Though fair her gems of azure hue,
Beneath the dewdrop's weight reclining,
I've seen an eye of lovelier blue,

More sweet through watery lustre shining.
The summer sun that dew shall dry,
Ere yet the day be past its morrow;
Nor longer in my false love's eye

Remained the tear of parting sorrow.

Less than a year later he was engaged, and shortly afterwards married to Miss Charpentier, daughter of a French émigré. "The heart still shaken by the swell of an old passion is readier to entertain a new one than the heart which is at rest." But Scott's first love struck deep. Though we have little record of his emotions in his work, we have now his Journal, and it should be read by all who wish to see into the mind of a great and good man. In the crash of his fortunes, and after his wife's death, we read how he received a letter from the lady of his first attachment, and it seemed to him "like a summons from the grave." A few days later he writes:

I went to make another visit, and fairly softened myself like an old fool by recalling old stories till I was fit for nothing but shedding tears and repeating verses for the whole night. This is sad work. The very grave gives up its dead, and time rolls back thirty years to add to my perplexities. I don't care. I begin to grow overhardened, and, like a stag turning at bay, my naturally good temper grows fierce and dangerous. Yet what a romance to tell, and told, I fear, it will one day be; and then my three years of dreaming and two years of awakening will be chronicled doubtless. But the dead will feel no pain.