[1] Mr. Hutton's Life of Scott, in the English Men of Letters series, contains no chapter nor any extended passage on Scott's critical and scholarly work, though there is a chapter on "Scott's Morality and Religion," and one on "Scott as a Politician." This, like the other short biographies of Scott, is professedly a compilation, so far as its facts are concerned, from Lockhart's book. The Lives of Scott by Gilfillan and by Mackenzie, published about the time of the Scott centenary in 1871, are longer than Hutton's, but contain no more extended references to the critical writings. Mackenzie's book out of nearly five hundred pages gives only one to a discussion of the edition of Dryden, and half a page to an account of the establishment of the Quarterly Review. Gilfillan characterizes the critical work in almost as short a space, but with a good deal of judgment. The German biography of Scott contemporary with these, by Dr. Felix Eberty, is concerned with the man rather than his works. Of later Lives of Scott, Prof. Saintsbury's gives, in proportion to its length, more space than any other to Scott's critical work, but the book has only a hundred and fifty-five pages in all. Another recent biographer, Mr. W.H. Hudson, says of Scott's editorial and critical work, "these exertions, though they call for passing record, occupy a minor place in his story"; and he gives them only "passing record." Mr. Andrew Lang's still more recent and briefer Sir Walter Scott devotes only a few lines here and there to comment on Scott as a critic, and contains hardly even a reference to the little-known volumes that he edited.
[2] Ten of Scott's twenty-seven novels (counting the first series of Chronicles of the Canongate as one) have scenes laid in the eighteenth century. They are as follows, arranged approximately in the order of their periods: The Bride of Lammermoor, The Pirate, The Black Dwarf, Rob Roy, The Heart of Midlothian, Waverley, Guy Mannering, Redgauntlet, Chronicles of the Canongate (First series), The Antiquary. The long poems all found their setting in earlier periods.
[3] British Novelists and their Styles, pp. 167-8.
[4] Familiar Letters, Vol. II, p. 9.
[5] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 194.
[6] See particularly Paul's Letters; Provincial Antiquities; and the Histories of the years 1814 and 1815, each a respectable volume, written for the Edinburgh Annual Register.
[7] Ruskin's remark that "The excellence of Scott's work is precisely in proportion to the degree in which it is sketched from present nature," should not necessarily lead on to the condemnation which follows: "He does not see how anything is to be got out of the past but confusion, old iron on drawing-room chairs, and serious inconvenience to Dr. Heavysterne." (Modern Painters, Part IV, ch. 16, § 32.)
[8] Letters to Richard Heber, etc. (by J.L. Adolphus), pp. 136-137.
[9] Mr. Herford distinguishes two lines of romantic sentiment—"the one pursuing the image of the past as a refuge from reality, the other as a portion of it: the mediaevalism of Tieck and the mediaevalism of Scott." The Age of Wordsworth, Introduction, p. xxiv, note.
[10] Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart, p. 249.
[11] Journal, Vol. I, p. 333; Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 81. The edition of Lockhart's Life of Scott to which reference is made throughout this study is that in five volumes, published by Macmillan & Co. in the "Library of English Classics."
[12] Chesterton, Varied Types, pp. 161-2.
[13] The fact that Scott was a Clerk of the Court of Sessions is remembered less frequently than the fact that he had business complications. But this employment of his, which could be undertaken only by a lawyer, occupied a large proportion of his time during twenty-four years. He once wrote, "I cannot work well after I have had four or five hours of the court, for though the business is trifling, yet it requires constant attention, which is at length exhausting." (Constable's Correspondence, Vol. III, p. 195.) Again he wrote, "I saw it reported that Joseph Hume said I composed novels at the clerk's table; but Joseph Hume said what neither was nor could be correct, as any one who either knew what belonged to composing novels, or acting as clerk to a court of justice, would easily have discovered." (Memoirs of Sir William Knighton, p. 252.)
[14] Journal, Vol. I, p. 60; Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 390.
[15] See the Memoir prefixed to the Globe Edition of Scott's poems.
[16] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 217.
[17] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 447.
[18] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 122.
[19] Cooper measured his own success by the same test. At the conclusion of the Letter to the Publisher with which The Pioneers originally opened he said he should look to his publisher for "the only true account of the reception of his book." (Lounsbury's Life of Cooper, pp. 43-4.)
[20] Napoleon, Vol. I, ch. 2.
[21] "He fixed his attention on his employments without the slightest consideration for his own feelings of whatever kind, either in regard to state of health or domestic sorrows." (Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, by R.P. Gillies, Vol. III, p. 141.)
[22] Familiar Letters, Vol. II, p. 365.
[23] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 112.
[24] Journal, Vol. 1, p. 303; Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 68.
[25] Letters to Heber, p. 69.
[26] Irving's Abbotsford.
[27] Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor, Vol. I, p. 282. See also Scott's review of the Life of Home; and Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 304.
[28] Cockburn's Memorials, p. 181.
[29] Ticknor, Vol. I, p. 280.
[30] Letters to Heber, p. 63; Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 496.
[31] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 177.
[32] Review of Poems of William Herbert, Edinburgh Review, October, 1806.
[33] Lockhart, Vol. I, pp. 275-6.
[34] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 333.
[35] In 1830.
[36] Ritson's principal works were as follows: Select Collection of English Songs (1783); Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry from Authentic Manuscripts and Old Printed Copies (1791); Ancient Songs from the Time of Henry III. to the Revolution (1792); Scottish Songs with the Genuine Music (1794); Poems by Laurence Minot (1795); Robin Hood Poems (1795); Ancient English Metrical Romances (1802).
[37] Ellis published his Specimens of the Early English Poets in 1790, and it was reissued with the addition of the Introduction in 1801 and 1803. He edited also Way's translations of the Fabliaux (1796), and Specimens of Early English Romances in Metre (1805).
[38] Review of Dunlop's History of Fiction, July, 1815.
[39] The Magnum Opus of Robert Surtees was his History of Durham, published 1816-1840.
[40] Douce published Illustrations of Shakespeare in 1807. Later he edited Arnold's Chronicle; Judicium, a Pageant; and a metrical Life of St. Robert. The two latter, which appeared in 1822 and 1824, were done for the Roxburghe Club. In 1824 he also wrote some notes for Warton's History of English Poetry.
[41] Age of Wordsworth, p. 39.
[42] A number of volumes containing old ballads together with modern imitations had been published both before and after the appearance of Percy's Reliques, but Ritson's collections were the first, except Percy's, to treat the material in a scholarly way.
[43] The discussion centered upon the social and literary position of minstrels. The first edition of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, published in 1765, contained an essay on the History of Minstrelsy, and one on the Origin of the Metrical Romances, which, taken together, says Mr. Courthope, "may be said to furnish the first generalized theory of the nature of mediaeval poetry." (History of English Poetry, Vol. I, p. 426.) Percy considered the minstrels as the authors of the compositions which they sang to the harp, and as holding a dignified social position similar to that of the Anglo-Saxon scôp or the old Norse scald. This theory was vigorously attacked by Joseph Ritson in the preface of his Select Collection of English Songs in 1783, and again in his Ancient English Metrical Romances in 1802, and in his essay On the Ancient English Minstrels in Ancient Songs and Ballads (1792). Ritson contended that minstrels were musical performers of a low class, or even acrobats, and that they were not literary composers. Scott used his knowledge of ballads and romances and the customs depicted in them to reinforce his own decision that the truth lay somewhere between the two extremes. He pointed out that the word may have covered a wide variety of professional entertainers. A modern comment (by E.K. Chambers, in The Mediaeval Stage, Vol. I, p. 66) seems like an echo of Scott: "This general antithesis between the higher and lower minstrelsy may now, perhaps, be regarded as established. It was the neglect of it, surely, that led to that curious and barren logomachy between Percy and Ritson, in which neither of the disputants can be said to have had hold of more than a bare half of the truth."
[44] Scott's theory as to the authorship of ballads is even now held by Mr. Courthope. At the end of his chapter on Minstrelsy, in The History of English Poetry, he thus sums up the matter: "All the evidence cited in this chapter shows that, so far from the ballad being a spontaneous product of popular imagination, it was a type of poem adapted by the professors of the declining art of minstrelsy, from the romances once in favour with the educated classes. Everything in the ballad—matter, form, composition—is the work of the minstrel; all that the people do is to remember and repeat what the minstrel has put together." This statement represents a position which is actively assailed by the adherents of the communal origin theory. Another critical idea which originated in Germany, and in which Scott had no interest, though he knew something about it, was the Wolffian hypothesis in regard to the Homeric poems. He once heard Coleridge expound the subject, but failed to join in the discussion. (Journal, Vol. II, p. 164; Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 193.) He said the theory could never be held by any poet. See a note by Lockhart on the essay on Popular Poetry. Henderson's edition of Minstrelsy, Vol. I, p. 3.
[45] Review of Cromek's Reliques of Burns. Quarterly Review, February, 1809.
[46] "No one but Burns ever succeeded in patching up old Scottish songs with any good effect," Scott wrote in his Journal (Vol. II, p. 25). And in his review of Cromek's Reliques of Burns he said on the same subject of Scottish songs: "Few, whether serious or humorous, past through his hands without receiving some of those magic touches which, without greatly altering the song, restored its original spirit, or gave it more than it had ever possessed." (Quarterly, February, 1809.)
[47] Remarks on Popular Poetry, Henderson's edition of Minstrelsy, Vol. I, p. 46.
[48] Henderson's edition of Minstrelsy, Vol. I, p. xix.
[49] Henderson's edition of Minstrelsy, Vol. I, pp. 167-8.
[50] The matter may be traced in Child's collection of ballads, or more easily in the latest edition of the Minstrelsy, edited by T.F. Henderson and published in four volumes in 1902. Mr. Henderson's views of ballad origins are quite in accord with Scott's own, but he notes the points at which Scott failed to follow any originals. There seems to be some reason to believe, however, though Mr. Henderson does not say so, that Scott wrote Kinmont Willie without any originals at all, except the very similar situations in three or four other ballads. See the introduction by Professor Kittredge to the abridged edition of Child's ballads, edited by himself and Helen Child Sargent.
It is unnecessary to give here any detailed account of Scott's procedure, as the matter has been thoroughly worked out by students of ballads. A few examples may be given as illustrations, however. In The Dowie Dens of Yarrow (Henderson's edition, Vol. III, p. 173) 28 lines out of the 68 are noted by Mr. Henderson as either changed or added by Scott. Scott writes (beginning of fifth stanza), "As he gaed up the Tennies bank" for "As he gaed up yon high, high hill," and we find from a note of Lockhart's that The Tennies is the name of a farm belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch. In the sixth stanza Scott changes the lines,
In the seventeenth stanza he changes,
In Jellon Grame (Vol. III, p. 203), Mr. Henderson notes changes in 15 different lines, and points out 2 whole stanzas, out of the 21, that are interpolated. In the Gay Goss-hawk (Vol. III, p. 187) 6 stanzas out of 39 are noted as probably wholly or mainly by Scott, and 30 stanzas were changed by him. Sometimes his alterations occurred in every line of a stanza. It is probable that Scott changed Jamie Telfer enough to make the Scotts take the place of prominence that had been held by the Elliotts in the original form of the story. See The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads as Exemplified by 'Jamie Telfer i' the Fair Dodhead' and other Ballads; by Lieut.-Col. the Hon. Fitzwilliam Elliott. Reviewed in Edinburgh Review, No. 418, p. 306 (October, 1906).
[51] See the examples given in the preceding note. Most of the changes there spoken of were made without annotation.
[52] This extraordinary young man was poet and scholar on his own account by 1800, though he was four years younger than Scott. His erudition in many fields was remarkable, and he was as enthusiastic as Scott himself about Scotch poetry, and was the chief assistant in gathering ballads for the Minstrelsy. He also collected the material for the essay on Fairies in the second volume, which was especially praised by the reviewer in the Edinburgh Review (January, 1803). Leyden's chief fame was derived from his wonderfully varied activities in India, from 1803 to his early death in 1811. Any reader of Lockhart's Life of Scott or of Scott's delightful little memoir, published first in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1811, and included in the Miscellaneous Prose Works, must feel that the uncouth young genius is a familiar acquaintance.
[53] The Ettrick Shepherd, who, after reading the first two volumes of the Minstrelsy, sought an acquaintance with Scott, and offered assistance which was gladly made use of in the preparation of the third volume. Scott in his turn provided much of the material for Hogg's Jacobite Relics, published in 1819. The following note on one of the songs in that work adds to the reader's doubts concerning the accuracy of Scott's texts: "I have not altered a word from the manuscript, which is in the handwriting of an amanuensis of Mr. Scott's, the most incorrect transcriber, perhaps, that ever tried the business." (Jacobite Relics, Vol. I, p. 282. Note on song lxiii.)
[54] Henderson's edition of the Minstrelsy, Vol. I, p. 284.
[55] Quarterly, May, 1810.
[56] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 514.
[57] Still more striking evidence that Scott lacked an infallible sense of the difference between genuine and spurious ballad material is afforded by his comments on Peter Buchan's collection, which is now considered particularly untrustworthy. He thought that with two or three exceptions the pieces in the book were genuine, and said: "I scarce know anything so easily discovered as the piecing and patching of an old ballad; the darns in a silk stocking are not more manifest." (Correspondence of C.K. Sharpe, Vol. II, p. 424.)
[58] Scott's manuscript collections of ballads dropped partially out of sight after his death, and it was only about 1890 that their magnitude and importance became known. Professor Child and later editors have found them of very great service. (On Child's use of the Abbotsford materials, see the Advertisement to Part VIII of his collection, contained in Volume IV.) In 1880 appeared a reprint of the Ballad Book of C.K. Sharpe, "with notes and ballads from the unpublished manuscripts of C.K. Sharpe and Sir Walter Scott," but the contributions from Scott's papers did not amount to much. Scott's materials were at the service of his friend for use in the original edition of the Ballad Book, published in 1823. See Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. II, pp. 264, 271 and 325, for letters from Scott on this subject.
[59] Note on The Raid of the Reidswire, in the Minstrelsy.
[60] Henderson's edition of the Minstrelsy, Vol. III, p. 232.
[61] Henderson's edition of the Minstrelsy, Vol. II, p. 57.
[62] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 360.
[63] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 332.
[64] First edition of the Minstrelsy, Vol. II, pp. 156-7.
[65] Edinburgh Review, January, 1803.
[66] The Minstrelsy is arranged in three parts: I., Historical Ballads; II., Romantic Ballads; III., Imitations of the Ballad. The first part is preceded by the Introductory Remarks on Popular Poetry, and by the historical introduction. The second part is preceded by the essay on The Fairies of Popular Superstition; and the third by the essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad. The poems by Scott given in this third part are as follows: Thomas the Rhymer (parts 2 and 3), Glenfinlas, The Eve of St. John, Cadyow Castle, The Gray Brother, War Song of the Royal Edinburgh Light Dragoons. Besides these there are three poems by John Leyden (and he has also an Ode on Scottish Music preceding the Romantic ballads), two by C.K. Sharpe, three by John Marriott, who was tutor to the children of the Duke of Buccleuch, and one each by Matthew Lewis, Anna Seward, Dr. Jamieson, Colin Mackenzie, J.B.S. Morritt, and an unnamed author. In the other parts of the book there are a few imitations, notably the three by Surtees—Lord Ewine, the Death of Featherstonhaugh, and Barthram's Dirge, which Scott supposed were old; and one or two like the Flowers of the Forest, which he noted as largely modern, or which he had found, after arranging his material, to be wholly modern. Nearly forty old ballads were published in the Minstrelsy for the first time.
[67] Remarks on Popular Poetry, conclusion.
[68] Review of the Poems of William Herbert. Edinburgh Review, October, 1806.
[69] Stanzas 10-12, and 31, are noted by Child as particularly suspicious. "Basnet," which occurs in stanza 10, is not a very common word in ballads. It is used in The Lay, Canto I., stanza 25, and in Marmion, Canto VI, st. 21.
[70] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 221.
[71] Memoir of William Taylor, Vol. I, pp. 98-99, and see Sharpe's Correspondence, Vol. I, pp. 146-7, for a letter to Sharpe on a similar point.
[72] Minstrelsy, Introduction to Lord Thomas and Fair Annie.
[73] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 101.
[74] Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 35-6.
[75] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 244. See also Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 408.
[76] Sometime before 1821 (probably a good while before, but the date cannot be fixed), Scott began a translation of Don Quixote, and afterwards gave the work over to Lockhart, who completed it. See Constable's Correspondence, Vol. III, p. 161.
[77] Louis-Elizabeth de la Vergne, Comte de Tressan, was born in 1705 and died in 1783. In early life he was sent to Rome on diplomatic business, and it is said that in the Vatican library he acquired his taste for the literature of chivalry. His chief works were Amadis de Gaules (1779); Roland furieux (translated from the Italian, 1780); Corps d'extraits romans de chevalerie (1782). His translations were partly adaptations, and were far from being rendered with precision.
[78] See particularly his article on Ellis's and Ritson's Metrical Romances (Edinburgh Review, January, 1806), the essay on Romance, and Remarks on Popular Poetry in the Minstrelsy.
[79] Edinburgh Review, July, 1804. Ellis and Scott had had much correspondence on Sir Tristrem, and it was Ellis's queries that first led Scott into the detailed investigation which resulted in the separate publication of the work. He had intended to print it in the Minstrelsy (Lockhart, Vol. I. p. 289). The letters are given in Lockhart, Vol. I.
[80] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 381.
[81] Die nordische und die englische Version der Tristan-sage—II. Sir Tristrem. Heilbronn, 1882. Mr. George P. McNeill's edition of Sir Tristrem was printed for the Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh, 1886.
[82] Kölbing thinks Scott probably hired a transcriber who knew nothing of Middle English—a usual method of procedure in the beginning of the nineteenth century. In later editions more errors were introduced by the carelessness of printers, until, after 1830, when the book was included in the complete editions of Scott's poems, the text was collated with the manuscript. But it was still far from correct. Kölbing enumerates about a hundred and thirty mistakes (see his Introduction, p. xvii). Of these I took twenty-one at random, and found that eight of them did not occur in the 1806 edition—in other words, the person who collated the text nearly thirty years after Scott or his hired transcriber had done it was far from infallible. A few illustrations may be given of mistakes that occur in both the 1806 and the 1833 editions: l. 117, send is given for sent; l. 846, telle for tel; l. 863, How for Hou; l. 912, mak for make; l. 1212, leuedi for leuedy; l. 1580, wende sche weren for whende sche were; l. 1334. have for han; l. 1514, as for als.
[83] Review of Johnes's Translation of Froissart, Edinburgh Review, January, 1805.
[84] Waverley, and Claverhouse in Old Mortality.
[85] Lockhart, Vol. I, pp. 480 and 482. Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 147.
[86] Essay on Romance.
[87] See Gaston Paris, La Littérature Française au Moyen Age, 1ère partie, ch. IV.
[88] Review of Metrical Romances, Edinburgh Review, January, 1806.
[89] Journal, Vol. II, pp. 258-259.
[90] Essay on Romance.
[91] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 46.
[92] Memoir in the Globe edition of Scott's poems.
[93] Scott adopted the conclusions of Malcolm Laing, who edited Macpherson's poems and adduced parallel passages from "a mass of poetry, enough to serve any six gentle readers for their lifetime," as the reviewer says. The most of these parallels were found in "Homer, Virgil, and their two translators; Milton, Thomson, Young, Gray, Mason, Home, and the English Bible." Although he was convinced by the argument, Scott saw that the editor was in some cases misled by his own ingenuity.
[94] Later, however (in the essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad, 1830), he said: "In their spirit and diction they nearly resemble fragments of poetry extant in Gaelic." By this time he was probably reverting to the earlier opinion which had made the more vivid impression.
[95] For the Northern Antiquities, edited by Robert Jamieson and published in 1814, Scott wrote an abstract of the Eyrbyggja Saga, using, as one would conclude from his introductory words, the Latin version made by Thorkelin, who published the saga in 1787. The purpose of the publication required the historical and antiquarian rather than the literary point of view, and accordingly we find Scott's notes occupied with historical comment.
[96] In 1804 Weber came to Edinburgh in a deplorable condition of poverty, and was employed and assisted in literary work by Scott during the following nine years. In 1813 he was seized with insanity, and challenged Scott, across the study table, to an immediate duel with pistols. Scott supported Weber during the remaining five years of his life in an insane hospital. He was much liked by the Scott family. Scott rated his learning very highly, and gave him valuable assistance in various literary projects. Weber's chief publications were: Metrical Romances of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries, with Introduction, Notes and Glossary (1810); Dramatic Works of John Ford, with Introduction and Explanatory Notes (1811); Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, with Introduction and Explanatory Notes (1812): to this Scott's notes were the most valuable contribution; Illustrations of Northern Antiquities (1814), with Jamieson and Scott.
[97] See his essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad.
[98] Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, translated by the Vicar of Batheaston. Conybeare had died two years before the publication of the book.
[99] Review of Ellis's Specimens, Edinburgh Review, April, 1804.
[100] Bletson and Richard Ganlesse.
[101] But see the dictum quoted by Scott in a somewhat over-emphatic way from Ellis's Specimens of the Early English Poets, to the effect that Chaucer's "peculiar ornaments of style, consisting in an affectation of splendour, and especially of latinity," were perhaps his special contribution to the improvement of English poetry. (Edinburgh Review, April, 1804.) Scott said of Dunbar, "This darling of the Scottish muses has been justly raised to a level with Chaucer by every judge of poetry to whom his obsolete language has not rendered him unintelligible." (Memoir of Bannatyne, p. 14.) After naming the various qualities in which Dunbar was Chaucer's rival, he pronounces the Scottish poet inferior in the use of pathos. The relative position here assigned to the two poets seems to be rather an exaltation of Dunbar than a degradation of Chaucer.
[102] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 408.
[103] Dryden, Vol. XI, p. 245.
[104] Dryden, Vol. XI, p. 396.
[105] Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 243.
[106] Ibid., Vol. XI, p. 338.
[107] The discussion of popular superstitions given in the introduction to the Minstrelsy and in the Essay on Fairies, which is prefixed to the ballad of Young Tamlane, suggests comparison with the Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft which Scott wrote in the year before he died. He collected a remarkable library in regard to superstition, and thought at various times of making a book on the subject, but the project was pushed aside for other matters until 1831. The Letters which he wrote then are full of pleasant anecdote and judicious comment, and though they lack the vigor of his earlier work they have remained fairly popular. An edition of Kirk's Secret Commonwealth of Elves and Fairies, published in 1815, has been attributed to Scott. (See below, the Bibliography of books edited by Scott.) Reviews of his which have not been mentioned in this chapter, but which naturally connect themselves with the subjects here discussed, are the following: The Culloden Papers—an account of the Highland clans, largely narrative (Quarterly, January, 1816); Ritson's Annals of the Caledonians, Picts and Scots—an article of more than forty pages, discussing the early history of Scotland and the historians who have written upon it (Quarterly, July, 1829); Tytler's History of Scotland—an article similar to that on Ritson's book (Quarterly, November, 1829); Pitcairn's Ancient Criminal Trials—a long article, which begins with an extended digression on booksellers and collectors and on the Roxburghe and Bannatyne clubs (Quarterly, February, 1831); Sibbald's Chronicle of Scottish Poetry—merely a series of notes on special points (Edinburgh Review, October, 1803); Southey's Chronicle of the Cid (Quarterly, February, 1809). For the Encyclopædia Britannica Scott wrote an essay on Chivalry, as well as the one on Romance to which reference has been made.
[108] Review of Kelly's Reminiscences and the Life of Kemble, Quarterly Review, June, 1826.
[109] Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 97.
[110] Terry had been educated as an architect, and his knowledge and taste were of assistance to Scott in connection with the building and furnishing of Abbotsford. After 1812 he played chiefly in London. In 1816 his version of Guy Mannering, the first of his adaptations from Scott, was presented. Before this he had taken the part of Roderick Dhu in two dramatic versions of The Lady of the Lake. In 1819 he was the first David Deans in his adaptation of The Heart of Midlothian. Six years later he became manager of the Adelphi theater, in association with F.H. Yates. At this time Scott became Terry's security for £1280, a sum which he was afterward obliged to pay with the addition of £500 for which the credit of James Ballantyne was pledged. When financial embarrassment caused Terry to retire from the management his mental and physical powers gave way, and he died of paralysis in 1829. Terry admired Scott so much that he learned to imitate his facial expression, his speech and his handwriting.
[111] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 94.
[112] The phrase, which was a favorite one of Scott's, is spoken not by Tony Lumpkin, but by one of his tavern companions. Scott's use of it is an indication of the way in which he was familiar with the drama. Very likely he never reread the play after his youth, but his strong memory doubtless retained a pretty definite impression of it.
[113] Review of the Life and Works of John Home, Quarterly, June, 1827.
[114] Familiar Letters, Vol. II, p. 143.
[115] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 427. It may be noted that this criticism does not show much dramatic insight.
[116] Lockhart, Vol. III, pp. 445-6.
[117] Journal, Vol. I, p. 117; Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 447.
[118] Journal, Vol. I, p. 94; Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 419.
[119] Advertisement to Halidon Hill. When the publisher Cadell closed a bargain with Scott in five minutes for Halidon Hill, giving him £1000, he wrote as follows to his partner: "My views were these: here is a commencement of a series of dramatic writings—let us begin by buying them out." (Constable's Correspondence, Vol. III, p. 217.)
[120] "That well-written, but very didactic 'Old Play'," as Adolphus calls it. (Letters to Heber, p. 55.)
[121] Introductory epistle to Nigel.
[122] Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 414.
[123] Fitzgerald's New History of the English Stage, Vol. II, p. 404.
[124] Dramatic Essays, Hazlitt's Works, Vol. VIII, p. 422.
[125] Lockhart, Vol. III. p. 176.
[126] Ibid., Vol. III. p. 265.
[127] Ibid., Vol. III. p. 332.
[128] Essay on the Drama.
[129] In 1808 he wrote to a friend: "We have Miss Baillie here at present, who is certainly the best dramatic writer whom Britain has produced since the days of Shakspeare and Massinger." (Fam. Let., Vol. I. p. 99.) But Wilson also put Joanna Baillie next to Shakspere, and quite seriously. The article in the Dictionary of National Biography, on Joanna Baillie says that when the first volume of Plays on the Passions was published anonymously in 1798, Walter Scott was at first suspected of being the author. But as Scott had done nothing to give him a literary reputation in 1798, the assertion is incredible. It seems to be based on the following very inexact statement in Chambers's Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen. (Vol. V, Art. Joanna Baillie.) "Rich though the period was in poetry, this work made a great impression, and a new edition of it was soon required. The writer was sought for among the most gifted personages of the day, and the illustrious Scott, with others then equally appreciated, was suspected as the author."
[130] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 380.
[131] Life of Dryden, ch. I. In Guy Mannering and The Antiquary, the first two novels in which Scott habitually used mottoes to head his chapters, most of the selections are from plays. Eighteen plays of Shakspere are represented by twenty-nine quotations. Other mottoes are from The Merry Devil of Edmonton, from Jonson, from Fletcher (The Little French Lawyer, Women Pleased, The Fair Maid of the Inn, The Beggar's Bush), from Brome, Dekker, Middleton and Rowley, Cartwright, Otway, Southerne, The Beggar's Opera, Walpole's Mysterious Mother, The Critic, Chrononhotonthologos, Joanna Baillie. For the latter part of The Antiquary many of the mottoes were composed by Scott himself. Kenilworth presents a similar list, with some variations: Jonson's Masque of Owls was used, more than one play by Beaumont and Fletcher, Waldron's Virgin Queen, Wallenstein, and Douglas. In St. Ronan's Well there is a larger proportion of non-dramatic mottoes, as in most of the later novels, but we find represented nine of Shakspere's plays and one of Beaumont and Fletcher's. The Legend of Montrose (chapter XIV) has a motto from Suckling's Brennoralt. In Anne of Geierstein ten of Shakspere's plays were drawn upon, and Manfred was twice used. Scott made his chapters much longer in these later novels, and used fewer mottoes, but the evidence of the selections would seem to indicate that he had lost something of his early familiarity with dramatic literature.
[132] Hazlitt's Characters of Shakespeare's Plays appeared in 1817; his Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Queen Elizabeth in 1821.
[133] Scott first began to fabricate occasional mottoes for his chapters during the composition of The Antiquary in 1816.
[134] Saintsbury in Macmillan's Magazine, lxx: 323. Scott's style in many sages is strongly colored by the influence of Shakspere.
[135] Introduction by Lang to The Fortunes of Nigel.
[136] It is possible that among the various jobs of editing undertaken by Scott with a view to keeping the Ballantyne types busy, were certain collections of dramas. Ancient British Drama, in three volumes, and Modern British Drama, in five volumes, published in 1810 and 1811, are sometimes attributed to Scott in library catalogues, but on what authority it seems impossible to discover. There is almost no commentary in the Ancient British Drama, but the Modern British Drama contains three brief introductions which I believe were written by Scott. They show a striking likeness to some parts of the Essay on the Drama written several years later, and it is not probable that Scott took his criticism ready-made from another author. In the preface to the Ancient British Drama we find this statement: "The present publication is intended to form, with The British Drama and Shakspeare, a complete and uniform collection in ten volumes of the best English plays." The Shakspeare here referred to is doubtless that of which Constable the publisher afterwards spoke in his correspondence with Scott as "Ballantyne's Shakespeare," and Scott had no hand in the editorship. (Constable's Correspondence, Vol. III, p. 244.)
It is true, however, as R.S. Mackenzie says in his Life of Scott, that Scott "had not only meditated, but partly executed an edition of Shakespeare." The work was suggested by Constable in 1822, was begun in 1823 or 1824, and three volumes of the proposed ten were printed by the time of Constable's financial crash in the beginning of 1826. The project was sometime afterwards abandoned, and the printed sheets, which apparently were not bound up, disappeared from view. The first volume was to be a life of Shakspere by Scott, and this was probably not begun at all. Of the commentary in the other volumes, Scott was to have the oversight but Lockhart was to do most of the work. It was not designed that the critical apparatus should to any great degree represent original ideas furnished by Lockhart or Scott, but the book was to be "a sensible Shakespeare, in which the useful and readable notes should be condensed and separated from the trash." (See the discussion of the matter in letters between Scott and his publisher given in the third volume of Constables Correspondence. See also Lang's Life of Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 409, and Vol. II, p. 13, and Mackenzie's Life of Scott, pp. 475-6.) The Boston Public Library contains three volumes which are thought to be a unique copy of so much of the Scott-Lockhart Shakspere as was printed. (See below, the Bibliography of books edited by Scott.)
Scott's notes on Beaumont and Fletcher, which he had wished in 1804 to offer to Gifford, were actually used by Weber in his Beaumont and Fletcher, published about 1810, an edition which was characterized by Scott as "too carelessly done to be reputable." (Lockhart, Vol. IV, p. 472.)
[137] He seems to have connected heroic plays too closely with "the romances of Calprenède and Scudéri." See his introduction to The Indian Emperor, Dryden, Vol. II, pp. 317-20; also Vol. I, p. 56, and Vol. VI, p. 125. On his opinion in regard to the relation between novels and plays see below, pp. 75-6.
[138] See his comment on Corneille's Oedipe, Dryden, Vol. VI, p. 125 and Mr. Saintsbury's note.
[139] Lockhart, Vol. III, p. 446.
[140] Hutchinson's Letters of Scott, p. 224.
[141] That Scott admired Sackville greatly is evident from more than one comment. Of Ferrex and Porrex he says, "In Sackville's part of the play, which comprehends the two last acts, there is some poetry worthy of the author of the sublime Induction to the Mirror of Magistrates." (Dryden, Vol. II, p. 135.) Elsewhere Scott calls Sackville "a beautiful poet." (Fragmenta Regalia, p. 277. Secret History of the Court of James I., Vol. I, p. 278, note.)
[142] Dryden, Vol. II, p. 136.
[143] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 229. See also Vol. III, p. 223.
[144] Ibid., Vol. V, p. 322.
[145] See, for example, Hawthornden, in Provincial Antiquities.
[146] Dryden, Vol. XV, p. 337.
[147] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 10.
[148] Note on Sir Tristrem, Fytte II., stanza 56.
[149] See Middleton's Plays in the Mermaid edition: Introduction, Vol. I, pp. viii-ix.
[150] Ticknor, in Allibone's Dictionary, Vol. II, p. 1968.
[151] Journal, Vol. I, p. 234; Lockhart, Vol. V, p. 23.
[152] See Scott's article on Molière, Foreign Quarterly Review, February, 1828.
[153] Essay on Drama; Dryden, Vol. I, p. 101 ff., Vol. II, pp. 317-20, Vol. IV, p. 4.
[154] Dryden, Vol. IV, p. 4.
[155] Article on Molière, Foreign Quarterly Review, February, 1828.
[156] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 431.
[157] Review of Kelly's Reminiscences and the Life of Kemble, Quarterly Review, June, 1826.
[158] Ibid.
[159] Dryden, Vol. VI, p. 128.
[160] In Provincial Antiquities (Borthwick Castle). Scott cites parallels from Sir John Oldcastle, The Pinner of Wakefield, and one of Nash's pamphlets, for a curious incident in Scottish history.
[161] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 431. This search among seventeenth century pamphlets may have suggested to Scott the need of a new edition of Somers' Tracts. Apparently he arranged with the publishers in 1807 to undertake this task, but the first volume did not appear till 1809. (Lockhart, Vol. II, p. 10, and see below, pp. 89-90, for an account of Scott's edition of the Tracts.) Some of his materials for the Dryden were taken from this collection, but more from the Luttrell collection, to which he refers in the Advertisement.
[162] Lockhart, Vol. I, p. 433. Scott's Dryden appeared in 1808, and with some slight changes in 1821; as reëdited by Mr. Saintsbury it was published in 1882-1893. It was the first complete and uniform edition of Dryden's works, and it remains the only one. The dramatic works had appeared in folio in 1701. They were edited by Congreve in 1717, and Scott used Congreve's text. The non-dramatic poems were also published in 1701 in folio. They appeared in more convenient forms in 1741, 1743, and 1760, but of these editions only the last was reasonably complete. In 1800 the Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works were edited by Malone, who added a Life of Dryden which has furnished a large part of the material used by biographers since his time. This biography was badly written, but with Johnson's brilliant essay it was the only Life of Dryden before Scott's that was worth considering. An edition of Dryden's poems, with notes by Joseph Warton and others, appeared in 1811, but seems to have been prepared before Scott's edition was published. The text of this is very incorrect. Since then the non-dramatic poems have been published several times. Mr. Christie said in his preface to the Globe edition: "Sir Walter Scott's is the last important edition of Dryden, as it is indeed still the only general collection of his works; and it is to be regretted that that distinguished man did not give as much pains to the purification of Dryden's text as he did to his excellent biography and to the notes which enrich the edition."
[163] Editor's Preface.
[164] Dryden, Vol. IX, p. 226.
[165] Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 2.
[166] In this connection Scott's review of Todd's edition of Spenser is interesting. He takes exception to the lack of an appearance of continuity in the biography, caused by the long quotations included in the body of the narrative; and censures the editor for not having used the history of Italian poetry in elucidating Spenser's work. (Edinburgh Review, October, 1805.)
[167] Review of Todd's Spenser.
[168] Dryden, Vol. I, p. 6.
[169] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 229; and Dryden, Vol. I, p. 6.
[170] Dryden, Vol. I, pp. 402-3.
[171] Dryden, Vol. I, p. 403.
[172] Ibid., p. 404. Mr. Saintsbury thinks that Scott's prefatory introductions to the plays are often "both meagre and depreciatory"; also that Scott's judgment on Dryden's letters is rather harsh, for him, and that after he had begun to write novels he would not have been so impatient of remarks on "turkeys, marrow-puddings, and bacon."
[173] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 405.
[174] Ibid., Vol. X, p. 307 ff.
[175] Ibid., Vol. XIV, pp. 136 and 146.
[176] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 405.
[177] In order to give a more specific view of Scott's methods, two or three of the introductions to well-known poems may be briefly analysed. The introduction to Absalom and Achitophel occupies 111/2 pages, of which about 21/2 are given to quotation from a tract which Scott thought furnished the argument to Dryden, and which was unnoticed by any former commentator. Scott's remarks follow this outline: Position of the poem in literature, and history of its composition; origin of the particular allegory as applied to modern politics; a parallel use of the allegory (with a quotation from Somers' Tracts in illustrations); aptness of the allegory; merits of the satire—treatment of Monmouth and other main characters; changes in the second edition to mitigate the satire; characterization of the poem as having few flights of imagination but much correctness of taste as well as fire and spirit; other objections by Johnson refuted; success of the poem; history of the first publication and of the replies and congratulatory poems; editions, and Latin versions. The notes on this poem are historical and very full, but the introduction contains as much literary as historical comment. Religio Laici is prefaced by 8 pages of introduction, in which are discussed the motive of the writing, the argument, the title, the purpose of the poem, and its reputation. Dryden's style in didactic poetry is compared with Cowper's, to the disadvantage of the later poet. The introduction to The Hind and the Panther is 20 pages long, and discusses the history of the period as well as the argument of the poem, its style, the subject of fables in general, and the effects the poem produced. The notes on this poem are copious. As he discussed the Fables in the Life of Dryden, Scott gave them no general introduction, and for each poem he wrote only a slight preface, telling something of the source and pointing out special beauties. His notes vary greatly in abundance. Those on Palamon and Arcite, e.g., are brief, explaining terms of chivalry and heraldry, but not giving literary or linguistic comment.
[178] Dryden, Vol. XIII, p. 324.
[179] Ibid., Vol. XII, p. 20.