Chapter LXXV WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE—THE LAKE POETS
AFTER Coleridge and Wordsworth once met they soon became fast friends, and in order to be near Coleridge the Wordsworths moved to another house near Nether Stowey in Somersetshire.
Coleridge was two years or more younger than Wordsworth, having been born in 1772. He was the thirteenth child of his father, who was a clergyman. As a boy he was sensitive and lonely, liking better to day-dream by himself than to play with his fellows. While still a mere child he loved books. Before he was five he had read the Arabian Nights, and he peopled his day dreams with giants and genii, slaves and fair princesses. When he was ten he went to school at Christ's Hospital, the Bluecoat School. Here he met Charles Lamb, who also became a writer, and whose Essays and Tales from Shakespeare I hope you will soon read.
At school even his fellows saw how clever Coleridge was. He read greedily and talked with any one who would listen and answer. In his lonely wanderings about London on "leave days" he was delighted if he could induce any stray passer-by to talk, especially, he says, if he was dressed in black. No subject came amiss to him, religion, philosophy, science, or poetry. From school Coleridge went to Cambridge, but after a time, getting into trouble and debt, he ran away and enlisted in a cavalry regiment under the name of Silas Tomkyn Comberback.
In a few months, however, he was discovered, and his brothers bought him out. He then went back to Cambridge, but left again at the end of the same year without taking a degree.
Meantime, while on a visit to Oxford, he had met Southey, another poet who was at this time a student there.
Robert Southey was born in 1774, and was the son of a Bristol Linen draper, but he was brought up chiefly by an aunt in Bath. At fourteen he went to school at Westminster, and later to Balliol College, Oxford. When Coleridge met him he was just twenty, and Coleridge twenty-two. Like Wordsworth, they were both fired with enthusiasm for the French Revolution, and they soon became friends.
With some others of like mind they formed a little society, which they called the Pantisocracy, from Greek words meaning all-equal- rule. They decided that they should all marry and then emigrate to the banks of the Susquehanna (chosen, it has been said, because of its beautiful name), and there form a little Utopia. Property was to be in common, each man laboring on the land two hours a day in order to provide food for the company. But the fine scheme came to nothing, for meanwhile none of the company had enough money to pay for his passage to the banks of the beautiful-sounding river. Coleridge and Southey, however, carried out part of the program. They both married, their wives being sisters.
Coleridge, about the same time as he married, published a volume of poems. But as this did not bring him wealth he then tried various other ways of making a living. He began a weekly paper which ceased after a few numbers, he lectured on history, and preached in various Unitarian chapels. Then after a time he settled at Nether Stowey, where he was living when he met Wordsworth.
The two poets, as has been said, at once became friends, Coleridge having a deep and whole-hearted admiration for Wordworth's genius. "I speak with heartfelt sincerity," he says, "and I think unblinded judgment, when I tell you that I feel a little man by his side."
The two friends had many walks and talks together, shaping their ideas of what poetry should be. They at length decided to publish a book together to be called Lyrical Ballads.
In this book there was published the poem which of all that Coleridge write is the best known, The Ancient Mariner. It tells how this old old sailor stops a guest who is going to a wedding, and bids him hear a tale. The wedding guest does not wish to stay, but the old man holds him with his skinny hand—
"He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding Guest stood still,
And listens like three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will."
He hath his will, and tells how the ship sailed forth gayly, and how it met after a time with storms, and cold, and fog, until at last it was all beset with ice. Then when to the sailors all hope seemed lost, an albatross came sailing through the fog. With joy they hailed it, the only living thing in that wilderness of ice. They fed it with delight—
"It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew:
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!"
Then on they gladly sailed, the albatross following, until one day the Ancient Mariner, in a mad moment, shot the beautiful bird. In punishment for this deed terrible disasters fell upon that ship and its crew. Under a blazing sun, in a hot and slimy sea filled with creeping, crawling things, they were becalmed—
"Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean."
Then plague and death came, and every man died except the guilty
Mariner—
"Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea;
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
. . . . .
"I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gush'd,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust."
But one day as the Mariner watched the water snakes, the only living things in all that dreadful waste, he blessed them unaware, merely because they were alive. That self-same moment, he found that he could pray, and the albatross, which his fellows in their anger had hung about his neck, dropped from it, and fell like lead into the sea. Then, relieved from his terrible agony of soul, the Mariner slept, and when he woke he found that the dreadful drought was over, and that it was raining. Oh, blessed relief! But more terrors still he had to endure until at last the ship drifted homeward—
"Oh, dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?
"We drifted o'er the Harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray—
'O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.'"
The shop had indeed reached home, but in the harbor it suddenly sank like lead. Only the Mariner was saved.
When once more he came to land, he told his tale to a holy hermit and was shriven, but ever and anon afterward an agony comes upon him and forces him to tell the tale again, even as he has just done to the wedding guest. And thus he ends his story—
"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."
Then he goes, leaving the wondering wedding guest alone.
"The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the Wedding Guest
Turned from the Bridegroom's door.
"He went, like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn."
Among the poems which Wordsworth wrote for the book of Lyrical Ballads, was one which every one knows, We are Seven. In another, called Lines written in Early Spring, he gives as it were the text of all his nature poems, and his creed, for here he tells us that he believes that all things in Nature, bird and flower alike, feel.
"I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
"In her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it griev'd my heart to think
What man has made of man.
"Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
"The birds around me hopp'd and play'd,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion that they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
"The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
"If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?"
The book was not a success. People did not understand The Ancient Mariner, and they laughed at Wordsworth's simple lyrics, although the last poem in the book, Tintern Abbey, has since become famous, and is acknowledged as one of the treasures of our literature.
And now, as this new book was not a success, and as he did not seem able to make enough money as a poet, Coleridge seriously began to think of becoming a Unitarian preacher altogether. But, the Wedgwoods, the famous potters, wealthy men with cultured minds and kindly hearts, offered him one hundred and fifty pounds a year if he would give himself up to poetry and philosophy. After some hesitation, Coleridge consented, and that winter he set off for a visit to Germany with the Wordsworths.
It was on their return from this visit that Wordsworth again changed his home and went to live at Dove Cottage, near Grasmere, in the Lake District, which as a boy he had known and loved. And here, among the hills, he made his home for the rest of his life.
The days at Grasmere flowed along peacefully and almost without an event. Wordsworth published a second volume of lyrical ballads, and then went on writing and working steadily at his long poem The Prelude, in which he told the story of his early life.
Coleridge soon followed his friend, and settled at Greta Hall, Keswick, and there was much coming and going between Dove Cottage and Greta Hall. At Greta Hall there were two houses under one roof, and soon Southey took the second house and came to live beside his brother-in-law, Coleridge. And so these three poets, having thus drifted together, came to be called the Lake Poets, although Southey's poetry had little in common with that of either Wordsworth or Coleridge.
It seemed hardly to break the peaceful flow of life at Dove Cottage, when, in 1802, Wordsworth married his old playmate and schoolfellow, Mary Hutchinson. They had known each other all their lives, and marriage was a natural and lovely ending to their friendship. Of her Wordsworth wrote—
"She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
to haunt, to startle, and waylay.
"I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright and good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
"And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light."
The years passed in quiet fashion, with friendly coming and goings, with journeys here and there, now to Scotland, now to the Continent.
Children were born, friends died, and once or twice the Wordsworths changed their house until they finally settled at Rydal Mount, and there the poet remained for the rest of his long life. And all the time, for more than fifty years, Wordsworth steadily wrote, but it is not too much to say that all his best work was done in the twenty years between 1798 and 1818.
Besides The Prelude, of which we have already spoken, Wordsworth's other long poems are The Excursion and The White Doe of Rylstone. The White Doe is a story of the days of Queen Elizabeth, of the days when England was still in the midst of religious struggle. There was a rebellion in Yorkshire, in which the old lord of Rylstone fought vainly if gallantly for the Old Religion, and he and his sons died the death of rebels. Of all the family only the gentle Emily remained "doomed to be the last leaf on a blasted tree." About the country-side she wandered alone accompanied only by a white doe. In time she, too, died, then for many years the doe was seen alone. It was often to be seen in the churchyard during service, and after service it would go away with the rest of the congregation.
The Excursion, though a long poem, is only part of what Wordsworth meant to write. He meant in three books to give his opinions on Man, Nature, and Society, and the whole was to be called The Recluse. To this great work The Prelude was to be the introduction, hence its name. But Wordsworth never finished his great design and The Excursion remains a fragment. Much of The Excursion cannot be called poetry at all. Yet, as one of Wordsworth's great admirers has said: "In deserts of preaching we find delightful oases of poetry."* There is little action in The Excursion, and much of it is merely dull descriptions and conversations. So I would not advise you to read it for a long time to come. But to try rather to understand some of Wordworth's shorter poems, although at times their names may seem less inviting.
*Morley.
One of the most beautiful of all his poems Wordsworth calls by the cumbrous name of Intimations of Immorality from recollections of Early Childhood. This is his way of saying that when we are small we are nearer the wonder-world than when we grow up, and that when we first open our eyes on this world they have not quite forgotten the wonderful sights they saw in that eternity whence we came, for the soul has no beginning, therefore no ending. I will give you here one verse of this poem:—
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily further from the east
Must travel , still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."
Wordsworth, for the times in which he lived, traveled a good deal, and in his comings and goings he made many new friends and met all the great literary men of his day. And by slow degrees his poetry won its way, and the younger men looked up to him as to a master. The great, too, came to see in him a power. Since 1813 Southey had been Laureate, and when in 1843 he died, the honor was given to Wordsworth. He was now an old man of seventy- three, and although he still wrote a few poems, he wrote nothing as Laureate, except an ode in honor of the Prince Consort when he became Chancellor of Cambridge University. Now, as he grew old, one by one death bade his friends to leave him—
"Like clouds that rake the mountain summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!
"Yet I whose lids from infant slumber
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice, that asks in whispers
'Who next will drop and disappear?'"*
*Upon the Death of James Hogg.
At length in 1850, at the age of eighty, he too closed his eyes, and went "From sunshine to the sunless land."
"But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing power?
Others will teach us how to dare,
And against fear our breast to steel;
Others will strengthen us to bear—
But who, ah! who, will make us feel?"*
*Arnold.
BOOKS TO READ
Poems of Wordsworth, selected by C. L. Thomson. Selections, by
Matthew Arnold.
Chapter LXXVI COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY—SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
LONG before Wordsworth closed his eyes on this world, Coleridge, in some ways a greater poet than his friend, had gone to his last rest. Wordsworth had a happy, loving understanding of the little things of real life. He had an "exquisite regard for common things," but his words have seldom the glamour, the something which we cannot put into words which makes us see beyond things seen. This Coleridge had. It is not only his magic of words, it is this trembling touch upon the unknown, the unearthly beauty and sadness of which he makes us conscious in his poems that marks him as great.
And yet all that Coleridge has left us which reaches the very highest is very little. But as has been said, "No English poet can be put above Coleridge when only quality and not quantity is demanded."* Of The Ancient Mariner I have already told you, although perhaps it is too full of fearsomeness for you to read yet. Next to it stands Christabel, which is unfinished. It is too full of mysterious glamour to translate into mere prose, so I will not try to tell the story, but here are a few lines which are very often quoted—
*Stainsbury.
"Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And Constancy lives in realms above;
And Life is thorny; and Youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted—ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining;
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliff's which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between;—
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once had been."
Coleridge's singing time was short. All his best poetry had been written before he went to live at Keswick. There his health, which had never been good, gave way. Unhappy in his home, and racked with bodily pain, he at length began to use opium in order to find relief. The habit to which he soon became a slave made shipwreck of his life. He had always been unstable of purpose and weak of will, never keeping to one course long. He had tried journalism, he tried lecturing, he planned books which were never written. His life was a record of beginnings. As each new plan failed he yielded easily to the temptation of living on his friends. He had always been restless in mind. He left his home, and after wanderings now here now there, he at length found a home in London with kind, understanding friends. Of him here we have a pathetic picture drawn by another great man.* "The good man—he was now getting old, towards sixty perhaps, and gave you the idea of a life that had been full of sufferings; a life heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still swimming painfully in seas of manifold physical and other bewilderment. Brow and head were round and of massive weight, but the face was flabby and irresolute. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as of inspiration, confused pain looked mildly from them, as in a kind of mild astonishment. The whole figure and air, good and amiable otherwise, might be called flabby and irresolute, expressive of weakness under possibility of strength . . . a heavy-laden, high-aspiring, and surely much suffering man."
*Carlyle.
And yet to this broken-down giant men crowded eagerly to hear him talk. Never, perhaps, since the great Sam had held his court had such a talker been heard. And although there was no Boswell near to make these conversations live again, the poet's nephew, Henry Nelson Coleridge, gathered some of his sayings together into a book which he called Table Talk. With his good friends Coleridge spent all his remaining life from 1816 till 1834, when he died.
Meanwhile his children and his home were left to the care of others. And when Coleridge threw off his home ties and duties it was upon Southey that the burden chiefly fell. And Southey, kindly and generous, loving his own children fondly, loved and cared for his nephews and nieces too. We cannot regard Southey as one of our great poets, but when we read his letters, we must love him as a man. He wrote several long poems, the two best known perhaps are The Curse of Kehama and Thalaba, the one a Hindoo, the other a Mahometan story, but he is better remembered by his short poems, such as The Battle of Blenheim and The Inchcape Rock.
For forty years Southey lived at Greta Hall, and from his letters we get the pleasantest picture of the home-loving, nonsense- loving "comical papa" who had kept the heart of a boy, even when his hair grew gray—
"A man he is by nature merry,
Somewhat Tom-foolish, and comical very;
Who has gone through the world, not mindful of self,
Upon easy terms, thank Heaven, with himself."
He loved his books and he loved the little curly-headed children that gathered about him with pattering feet and chattering tongues, and never wished to be absent from them. "Oh dear, oh dear," he says, "there is such a comfort in one's old coat and old shoes, one's armchair and own fireside, one's own writing- desk and own library—with a little girl climbing up my neck, and saying, 'Don't go to London, papa—you must stay with Edith'; and a little boy, whom I have taught to speak the language of cats, dogs, cuckoos, and jackasses, etc., before he can articulate a word of his own; there is such a comfort in all these things, the transportation to London for four or five weeks seems a heavier punishment than any sins of mine deserve."
And so we see him spending long hours, long years, among his books, hoping for lasting fame from his poems, and meantime earning with his prose food for hungry little mouths, shoes for nimble little feet, with just a trifle over for books, and still more books. For Southey loved books, and his big library was lined with them. There were thousands there, many in beautiful bindings, glowing in soft coloring, gleaming with pale gold, for he loved to clothe his treasures in fitting garments. When a new box of books comes he rejoices. "I shall be happier," he says, "than if his Majesty King George IV were to give orders that I should be clothed in purple, and sleep upon gold, and have a chain about my neck, and sit next him because of my wisdom and be called his cousin."
We think of Southey first as a poet, but it is perhaps as a prose writer that his fame will last longest, and above all as a biographer, that is a writer of people's lives. During the busy years at Greta Hall he wrote about a hundred books, several of them biographies—among them a life of Nelson, which is one of the best short lives ever written. Some day I hope you will read it, both for the sake of Southey's clear, simple style, and for the sake of the brave man of whom he writes. You might also, I think, like his lives of Bunyan and Cowper, both of whom you have heard of in this book.
Another book which Southey wrote is called The Doctor. This is a whimsical, rambling jumble, which can hardly be called a story; a mixture of quotations and original work, of nonsense and earnest. And in the middle of it what do you think you come upon? Why our old nursery friend, The Three Bears. Southey trusts that this book will suit every one, "that the lamb may wade in it, though the elephant may swim, and also that it will be found 'very entertaining to the ladies.'" Indeed he flatters himself that it will be found profitable for "old and young, for men and for women, the married and the single, the idle and the studious, the merry and the sad; and that it may sometimes inspire the thoughtless with thought, and sometimes beguile the careful of their cares." But if it is to be quite perfect it must have a chapter for children—
"Prick up your ears then,
My good little women and men;
And ye who are neither so little nor no good, favete linguis,* for here follows the story of the Three Bears." So there it is. "One of them was a Little, Small, Wee Bear; and one was a Middle- sized Bear, and the other was a Great, Huge Bear"—and from the way it is told, I think we may be sure that Uncle Robert or comical papa often told stories with a circle of eager, bright faces round him. For he says—
*Be silent.
"And 'twas in my vocation
For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King."
As the years went on Southey received other honors besides the Laureateship. He was offered a baronetcy which he refused. He wall "ell-ell-deed" by Oxford, as he quaintly puts it in his letters to his children. And when he tells them about it he says, "Little girls, you know it might be proper for me now to wear a large wig, and to be called Doctor Southey and to become very severe, and leave off being a comical papa . . . . However, I shall not come home in my wig, neither shall I wear my robes at home."
It is sad to think that this kindly heard had to bear the buffetings of ill fortune. Two of his dearly loved children died, then he was parted from his wife by worse than death, for she became insane and remained so until she died. Eight years later Robert Southey was laid beside her in the churchyard under the shadow of Skiddaw. "I hope his life will not be forgotten," says Macaulay, "for it is sublime in its simplicity, its energy, its honour, its affection. . . . His letter are worth piles of epics, and are sure to last among us, as long as kind hearts like to sympathise with goodness and purity and love and upright life."
BOOKS TO READ
Southey: Poems, chosen by E. Dowden. Life of Nelson (Everyman's
Library).
Coleridge: Lyrical Poems, Chosen by A. T. Quiller-Couch.
YEAR 10
Chapter LXXVII SCOTT—THE AWAKENING OF ROMANCE
THE 15th of August 1771 was a lucky day for all the boys and girls and grown-up people too of the English-speaking race, for on that day Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh. Literature had already begun to shake off its fetters of art. Romance had begun to stir in her long sleep, for six years before sturdy baby Walter was born, Bishop Percy had published a book called Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. In this book he had gathered together many old ballads and songs, such as those of Robin Hood and Patrick Spens. They had almost been forgotten, and yet they are poems which stir the heart with their plaintive notes, telling as they do—
"Of old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago;
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again!"*
*Wordsworth.
Bishop Percy, like a knight of old, laid his lance in rest and tilted against the prickly briar hedge that had grown up around the Sleeping Beauty, Romance. But he could not win through and wake the princess. And although Burns and Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, all knowing it or not, fought on his side, it was left for another knight to break through the hedge and make us free of the Enchanted Land. And that knight's name was Walter— Sir Walter, too—for, like a true knight, he won his title in the service of his lady.
Little Walter's father was a kindly Scots lawyer, but he came of a good old Border family, "A hardy race who never shrunk from war."* Among his forbears had been wild moss-troopers and cattle-reivers, lairds of their own lands, as powerful as kings in their own countryside. There were stories enough of their bold and daring deeds to fill many books, so that we feel that Walter had been born into a heritage of Romance.
*Leyden.
Walter was a strong, healthy child, but when he was about eighteen months old he had an illness which left him lame in his right leg. Everything was done that could be done to restore the lost power, and although it was partly regained, Scott walked with a limp to the end of his days. Meanwhile he had a by no means unhappy childhood. He spent a great deal of time at the farm belonging to his grandfather. Little Wat was a winsome laddie, and the whole household loved him. On fine days he was carried out and laid down among the crags and rocks, beside an old shepherd who tended his sheep and little Walter too, telling him strange tales the while—
"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."*
*Marmion.
At other times Walter listened to the stories of his grandmother, hearing all about the wild doings of his forbears, or the brave deeds of Bruce and Wallace. He was taken to the seaside, to Bath, and to London, and at length, grown into a sturdy little boy, though still lame, he went back to his father's house in Edinburgh. Here he says he soon felt the change from being a single indulged brat, to becoming the member of a large family.
He now went to school, but did not show himself to be very clever. He was not a dunce, but an "incorrigibly idle imp," and in spite of his lameness he was better at games than at lessons. In some ways, owing to his idleness, he was behind his fellows, on the other hand he had read far more than they. And now he read everything he could, in season and out of season. Pope's Homer, Shakespeare, Ossian, and especially Spenser were among his favorites. Then one happy day he came upon a volume of Percy's Reliques. All one summer day he read and read, forgetting the world, forgetting even to be hungry. After that he was for ever entertaining his schoolfellows with scraps of tragic ballads, and as soon as he could scrape enough money together, he bought a copy of the book for himself.
So the years passed, Walter left school, went to Edinburgh University, and began to study law. It was at this time, as a boy of sixteen, that for the first and only time he met Robert Burns, who had just come to Edinburgh, and was delighted at receiving a kind word and look from the poet. He still found time to read a great deal, to ride, and to take long, rambling walks, for, in spite of his limp, he was a great walker and could go twenty or thirty miles. Indeed he used to tramp the countryside so far and so long that his father would say he feared his son was born to be nothing better than a wandering peddler.
After a time it was decided that Walter should be a barrister, or, as it is called in Scotland, an advocate, and in 1792 he was called to the Bar. His work as an advocate was at first not very constant, and it left him plenty of time for long, rambling excursions or raids, as he used to call them, in different parts of Scotland and in the north of England. He traveled about, listening to the ballads of the country folk, gathering tales, storing his mind with memories of people and places. "He was making himself a' the time," said a friend who went with him, "but he didna ken maybe what he was about till years had passed. At first he thought o' little, I daresay, but the queerness and the fun."
It was in an expedition to the English Lakes with his brother and a friend that Scott met his wife. One day while out riding he saw a lady also riding. She had raven black hair and deep brown eyes, which found a way at once to the poet's heart. In true poet fashion he loved her. That night there was a ball, and though Walter Scott could not dance, he went to the ball and met his lady love. She was Charlotte Margaret Carpenter, the daughter of a Frenchman who had taken refuge in England from the fury of the Revolution. Walter was able to win his lady's heart, and before the end of the year had married her and carried her off to Scotland.
Two or three years after his marriage, Scott published a book of Border Ballads. It was the outcome of his wanderings in the Border country. In it Scott had gathered together many ballads which he heard from the country folk, but he altered and bettered them as he thought fit, and among them were new ballads by himself and some of his friends.
The book was only a moderate success, but in it we may find the germ of all Scott's later triumphs. For it was the spirit of these ballads with which his mind was so full which made it possible for him to write the Metrical Romances that made him famous.
It is now many chapters since we spoke of Metrical Romances. They were, you remember, the chief literature from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, which time was also the time of the early ballads. And now that people had begun again to see the beauty of ballads, they were ready also to turn again to the simplicity of Metrical Romances. These rime stories which Scott now began to write, burst on our Island with the splendor of something new, and yet it was simply the old-time spirit in which Scott had steeped himself, which found a new birth—a Renascence. Scott was a stalwart Border chieftain born out of time. But as another writer says, instead of harrying cattle and cracking crowns, this Border chief was appointed to be the song-singer and pleasant tale-teller to Britain and to Europe. "It was the time for such a new literature; and this Walter Scott was the man for it."*
*Carlyle.
"The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorn'd not such legends to prolong:
They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream,
And mix in Milton's heavenly theme."*
*Marmion.
The first of Scott's song stories was called The Lay of the Last Minstrel. In it he pictures an old minstrel, the last of all his race, wandering neglected and despised about the countryside. But at Newark Castle, the seat of the Duchess of Buccleuch, he receives kindly entertainment.
"When kindness had his wants supplied,
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride:
And he began to talk anon,
Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,
And of Earl Walter, rest him, God!
A braver ne'er to battle rode;
And how full many a tale he knew,
Of the old warriors of Buccleuch;
And, would the noble Duchess deign
To listen to an old man's strain,
Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak,
He though even yet, the sooth to speak,
That, if she loved the harp to hear,
He could make music to her ear."
This humble boon was granted. The minstrel was led to the room of state where sat the noble-hearted Duchess with her ladies, and there began his lay. You must read The Lay itself to learn about William of Deloraine, the Goblin Page, the Lady Margaret, and Lord Canstoun, and all the rest. The meter in which Scott wrote was taken from Coleridge's Christabel. For, though it was not yet published, it had long been in manuscript, and Scott had heard part of it repeated by a friend.
The Lay of the Last Minstrel was a success. From henceforth Scott was an author. But he had no need to write for money, as money came to him in other ways. So none of the struggles of a rising author fell to his lot. His career was simply a triumphant march. And good-natured, courteous, happy-hearted Scott took his triumphs joyously.
Other poems followed The Lay, the best being Marmion and The Lady of the Lake. Scott's son-in-law says, "The Lay is, I should say, generally considered as the most natural and original, Marmion as the most powerful and splendid, The Lady of the Lake as the most interesting, romantic, picturesque, and graceful of his great poems." Fame and money poured in upon Scott, and not upon him only, but upon Scotland. For the new poet had sung the beauties of the rugged country so well that hundreds of English flocked to see it for themselves. Scotland became the fashion, and has remained so ever since.
In 1799 Scott had been appointed Sheriff-deputy of Selkirkshire, and as this obliged him to live part of the year at least in the district, he rented a house not far from Selkirk. But now that he saw himself becoming wealthy, he bought an estate in his beloved Border country and began to build the house of Abbotsford. To this house he and his family removed in May 1812. Here, amid the noise of carpenters and masons, with only one room fit to sit in, and that shared by chattering children, he went on with his work. To a friend he writes, "As for the house and the poem, there are twelve masons hammering at the one, and one poor noddle at the other—so they are both in progress."
It was at Abbotsford that Scott made his home for the rest of his life. Here he put off the gown and wig of a barrister, and played the part of a country gentleman. He rode about accompanied by his children and his friends, and followed by his dogs. He fished, and walked, and learned to know every one around, high and low. He was beloved by all the countryside, for he was kindly and courteous to all, and was "aye the gentleman." He would sit and talk with a poor man in his cottage, listening to his tales of long ago, with the same ease and friendliness as he would entertain the great in his own beautiful house. And that house was always thronged with visitors, invited and uninvited, with friends who came out of love of the genial host, with strangers who came out of curiosity to see the great novelist. For great as Scott's fame as a poet, it was nothing to the fame he earned as a story-teller.
The first story he published was called Waverley, or 'Tis Sixty Years Since. He had begun to write this tale years before, but had put it aside as some of his friends did not think well of it. One day he came upon the manuscript by accident, thought himself that the story was worth something, and resolved to publish it. Finishing the writing in three weeks he published the novel without putting his name upon the title-page. He did this, he said, because he thought it was not quite dignified for a grave advocate and Sheriff of the county to write novels. The book was a wild success, everybody read it, everybody was eager to know who the author was. Many people guessed that it was Scott, but, for more than ten years, he would not own it. At public dinners when the health of the author of Waverley was drunk, people would look meaningly at Scott, but he would appear quite unconcerned, and drink the health and cheer with the rest. To keep the mystery up he even reviewed his own books. And so curiosity grew. Who was this Great Unknown, this Wizard of the North?
Waverley is a story of the Jacobite times, of the rebellion of '45. The hero, Edward Waverley, who is no such great hero either, his author calling him indeed "a sneaking piece of imbecility," gives his name to the book. He meets Bonnie Prince Charlie, is present at the famous ball at Holyrood, fights at the battle of Prestonpans, and marches with the rebel army into England.
Thus we have the beginning of the historical novel. Scott takes real people, and real incidents, and with them he interweaves the story of the fortunes of make-believe people and make-believe incidents. Scott does not always keep quite strictly to fact. He is of the same mind as the old poet Davenant who thought it folly to take away the liberty of a poet and fetter his feet in the shackles of an historian. Why, he asked, should a poet not make and mend a story and frame it more delightfully, merely because austere historians have entered into a bond to truth. So Scott takes liberties with history, but he always gives us the spirit of the times of which he writes. Thus in one sense he is true to history. And perhaps from Waverley we get the better idea of the state of Scotland, at the time of the last Jacobite rebellion, than from any number of histories. In the next chapter Scott himself shall give you an account of the battle of Prestonpans.
Chapter LXXVIII SCOTT—"THE WIZARD OF THE NORTH"
"THE army, moving by its right from off the ground on which they had rested, soon entered the path through the morass, conducting their march with astonishing silence and great rapidity. The mist had not risen to the higher grounds, so that for some time they had the advantage of starlight. But this was lost as the stars faded before approaching day, and the head of the marching column, continuing its descent, plunged as it were into the heavy ocean of fog, which rolled its white waves over the whole plain, and over the sea by which it was bounded. Some difficulties were now to be encountered, inseparable from darkness, a narrow, broken, and marshy path, and the necessity of preserving union in the march. These, however, were less inconvenient to Highlanders, from their habits of life, than they would have been to any other troops, and they continued a steady and swift movement. . . . . . . . . . . . . "The clan of Fergus had now gained the firm plain, which had lately borne a large crop of corn. But the harvest was gathered in, and the expanse was unbroken by trees, bush, or interruption of any kind. The rest of the army were following fast, when they heard the drums of the enemy beat the general. Surprise, however, had made no part of their plan, so they were not disconcerted by this intimation that the foe was upon his guard and prepared to receive them. It only hastened their dispositions for the combat, which were very simple. . . . . . . . . . . . . "'Down with your plaid, Waverley,' cried Fergus, throwing off his own; 'we'll win silks for our tartans before the sun is above the sea.'
"The clansmen on every side stripped their plaids, prepared their arms, and there was an awful pause of about three minutes, during which the men, pulling off their bonnets, raised their faces to heaven, and uttered a short prayer; then pulled their bonnets over their brows and began to move forward at first slowly. Waverley felt his heart at that moment throb as it would have burst his bosom. It was not fear, it was not ardour—it was a compound of both, a new and deeply energetic impulse, that with its first emotion chilled and astounded, then fevered and maddened his mind. The sounds around him combined to exalt his enthusiasm; the pipes played, and the clans rushed forward, each in its own dark column. As they advanced they mended their pace, and the muttering sounds of the men to each other began to swell into a wild cry. At this moment, the sun, which was not risen above the horizon, dispelled the mist. The vapours rose like a curtain, and showed the two armies in the act of closing. The line of the regulars was formed directly fronting the attack of the Highlanders; it glittered with the appointments of a complete army, and was flanked by cavalry and artillery. But the sight impressed no terror on the assailants.
"'Forward, sons of Ivor,' cried their chief, 'or the Camerons will draw the first blood!' They rushed on with a tremendous yell.
"The rest is well known. The horses, who were commanded to charge the advancing Highlanders in the flank, received an irregular fire from their fusees as they ran on, and, seized with a disgraceful panic, wavered, halted, disbanded, and galloped from the field. The artillerymen, deserted by the cavalry, fled after discharging their pieces, and the Highlanders, who dropped their guns when fired, and drew their broadswords, rushed with headlong fury against the infantry. . . . . . . . . . . . . "The English infantry, trained in the wars in Flanders, stood their ground with great courage. But their extended files were pierced and broken in many places by the close masses of the clans; and in the personal struggle which ensued, the nature of the Highlanders' weapons, and their extraordinary fierceness and activity, gave them a decided superiority over those who had been accustomed to trust much to their array and discipline, and felt that the one was broken and the other useless. . . . . . . . . . . . . "Loud shouts now echoed over the whole field. The battle was fought and won, and the whole baggage, artillery, and military stores of the regular army remained a possession of the victors. Never was a victory more complete."
Such is Scott's picture of the battle of Prestonpans. And throughout the whole book we have wonderful pictures of Scottish life as it then was—pictures of robbers' caves, and chieftains' halls, of the chiefs themselves, and their followers, of mountain, loch, and glen, all drawn with such a true and living touch that we cannot forget them.
After Waverley other novels followed fast, each one adding to the reputation of the unknown author, and now, from the name of the first, we call them all the Waverley Novels.
Scott's was one of the most wonderful successes—perhaps the most wonderful—that has ever been known in our literature. "As long as Sir Walter Scott wrote poetry," said a friend, "there was neither man nor woman ever thought of either reading or writing anything but poetry. But the instant that he gave over writing poetry, there was neither man nor woman ever read it more! All turned to tales and novels."*
*James Hogg.
Everybody read The Novels, from the King to the shepherd. Friends, money, and fame came tumbling in upon the author. He had refused to be made Poet Laureate, and passed the honor on to Southey, but he accepted a baronetcy. He added wing after wing to his beautiful house, and acre after acre to his land, and rejoiced in being laird of Abbotsford.
The speed with which Scott wrote was marvelous. His house was always full of visitors, yet he always had time to entertain them. He was never known to refuse to see a friend, gentle or simple, and was courteous even to the bores who daily invaded his home. He had unbounded energy. He rose early in the morning, and before the rest of the family was astir had finished more than half of his daily task of writing. Thus by twelve o'clock he was free to entertain his guests.
If ever man was happy and successful, Scott seemed to be that man. But suddenly all his fair prospects were darkened over. Sir Walter was in some degree a partner in the business both of his publisher and his printer. Now both publisher and printer failed, and Scott found himself ruined with them. At fifty-five he was not only a ruined man, but loaded with a terrible debt of 117,000 pounds.
It was a staggering blow, and most men would have been utterly crushed by it. Not so Scott. He was proud, proud of his old name and of his new-founded baronial hall. He was stout of heart too. At fifty-five he began life again, determined with his pen to wipe out the debt. Many were the hands stretched out to help him; rich men offered their thousands, poor men their scanty savings, but Scott refused help from both rich and poor. His own hand must wipe out the debt, he said. Time was all he asked. So with splendid courage and determination, the like of which has perhaps never been known, he set to work.
But evil days had begun for Sir Walter. Scarcely four months after the crash, his wife died, and so he lost a companion of nearly thirty years. "I think my heart will break," he cries in the first bitterness of sorrow. "Lonely, aged, deprived of my family, an impoverished, an embarrassed man." But dogged courage comes to him again. "Well, that is over, and if it cannot be forgotten must be remembered with patience." So day after day he bent to his work. Every morning saw his appointed task done. Besides novels and articles he wrote a History of Napoleon, a marvelous book, considering it was written in eighteen months.
Then Scott began the book which will be the first of all his books to interest you, The Tales of a Grandfather. This is a history of Scotland, and it was written for his grandson John Hugh Lockhard, or Hugh Littlejohn as he is called in The Tales. "I will make," said Scott, "if possible, a book that a child shall understand, yet a man shall feel some temptation to peruse should he chance to take it up."
Hugh Littlejohn was a delicate boy, indeed he had not long to live, but many a happy day he spent, this summer (1827), riding about the woods of Abbotsford with his kind grandfather, listening to the tales he told. For Scott, too, the rides were a joy, and helped to make him forget his troubles. When he had told his tale in such a simple way that Littlejohn understood, he returned home and wrote it down.
In the December of the same year the first part of The Tales was published, and at once was a tremendous success, a success as great almost as any of the novels. Hugh Littlejohn liked The Tales too. "Dear Grandpapa," he writes, "I thank you for the books. I like my own picture and the Scottish chief: I am going to read them as fast as I can."
Two more volumes of Tales followed. Then there was no need to write more for the dearly loved grandson, as a year or two later, when he was only eleven, poor Littlejohn died. But already the kind grandfather was near his end also, the tremendous effort which he made to force himself to work beyond his strength could not be kept up. His health broke down under it. Still he struggled on, but at last, yielding to his friends' entreaties, he went to Italy in search of health and strength. It gives us some idea of the high place Sir Walter had won for himself in the hearts of the people, when we learn that his health seemed a national concern, and that a warship was sent to take him on his journey. But the journey was of no avail. Among the great hills and blue lakes of Italy Scott longed for the lesser hills and grayer lochs of Scotland. So he turned homewards. And at home, in his beloved Abbotsford, in the still splendor of an autumn day, with the meadow-scented air he loved fanning his face, and the sound of rippling Tweed in his ears, he closed his eyes for ever. In the grass-grown ruin of Dryburgh Abbey, not far from his home, he was laid to rest, while the whole countryside mourned Sir Walter.
Before he died Scott had paid 70,000 pounds of his debt, an enormous sum for one man to make by his pen in six years. He died in the happy belief that all was paid, as indeed it all was. For after the author's death, his books still brought in a great deal of money, so that in fifteen years the debt was wiped out.
I have not told you any of Scott's stories here, because, unlike many of the books we have spoken of, they are easily to be had. And the time will soon come, if it has not come already, when you can read Sir Walter's books, just as he wrote them. It is best, I think, that you should read them so, for Sir Walter Scott is perhaps the first of all our great writers nearly the whole of whose books a child can read without help. You will find many long descriptions in them, but do not let them frighten you. You need not read them all the first time, and very likely you will want to read them the second time.
But perhaps before you read his novels you will like to read his Metrical Romances. For when we are children—big children perhaps, but still children—is the time to read them. Long ago in the twelfth century, when the people of England were simple and unlearned, they loved Metrical Romances, and we when we are simple and unlearned may love them too. Many of these old romances, however, are hard to get, and they are written in a language hard for many of us to understand. But Sir Walter Scott, in the nineteenth century, has recreated for us all the charm of those old tales. For this then, let us thank and remember him.
"His legendary song could tell
Of ancient deeds, so long forgot;
Of feuds, whose memory was not;
Of forests, now laid waste and bare;
Of towers, which harbour now the hare;
Of manners, long since chang'd and gone;
Of chiefs, who under their grey stone
So long had slept, that fickle Fame
Had blotted from her rolls their name,
And twin'd round some new minion's head
The fading wreath for which they bled."*
*Lay of the Last Minstrel.