Saddletree; the pragmatic pedantry of her husband; the Highland pride, courage, and absurdity of the Captain of Knockdander—when we consider all these so various and perfect creations, we need not wonder that Scott was “in high glee” over “The Heart of Mid-Lothian,” “felt himself very strong,” and thought that these would be “the best volumes that have appeared.” The difficulty, as usual, is to understand how, in all this strength, he permitted himself to be so careless over what is really by far the easiest part of the novelist’s task—the construction. But so it was; about “The Monastery” he said, “it was written with as much care as the rest, that is, with no care at all.” His genius flowed free in its own unconscious abundance: where conscious deliberate workmanship was needed, “the forthright craftsman’s hand,” there alone he was lax and irresponsible. In Shakspeare’s case we can often account for similar incongruities by the constraint of the old plot which he was using; but Scott was making his own plots, or letting them make themselves. “I never could lay down a plan, or, having laid it down, I never could adhere to it; the action of composition always diluted some passages and abridged or omitted others; and personages were rendered important or insignificant, not according to their agency in the original conception of the plan, but according to the success or otherwise with which I was able to bring them out. I only tried to make that which I was actually writing diverting and interesting, leaving the rest to fate … When I chain my mind to ideas which are purely imaginative—for argument is a different thing—it seems to me that the sun leaves the landscape, that I think away the whole vivacity and spirit of my original conception, and that the results are cold, tame, and spiritless.”
In fact, Sir Walter was like the Magician who can raise spirits that, once raised, dominate him. Probably this must ever be the case, when an author’s characters are not puppets but real creations. They then have a will and a way of their own; a free-will which their creator cannot predetermine and correct. Something like this appears to have been Scott’s own theory of his lack of constructive power. No one was so assured of its absence, no one criticised it more severely than he did himself. The Edinburgh Review about this time counselled the “Author of Waverley” to attempt a drama, doubting only his powers of compression. Possibly work at a drama might have been of advantage to the genius of Scott. He was unskilled in selection and rejection, which the drama especially demands. But he detested the idea of writing for actors, whom he regarded as ignorant, dull, and conceited. “I shall not fine and renew a lease of popularity upon the theatre. To write for low, ill-informed, and conceited actors, whom you must please, for your success is necessarily at their mercy, I cannot away with,” he wrote to Southey. “Avowedly, I will never write for the stage; if I do, ‘call me horse,’ ” he remarks to Terry. He wanted “neither the profit nor the shame of it.” “I do not think that the character of the audience in London is such that one could have the least pleasure in pleasing them.” He liked helping Terry to “Terryfy” “The Heart of Mid-Lothian,” and his other novels, but he had no more desire than a senator of Rome would have had to see his name become famous by the Theatre. This confirmed repulsion in one so learned in the dramatic poets is a curious trait in Scott’s character. He could not accommodate his genius to the needs of the stage, and that crown which has most potently allured most men of genius he would have thrust away, had it been offered to him, with none of Caesar’s reluctance. At the bottom of all this lay probably the secret conviction that his genius was his master, that it must take him where it would, on paths where he was compelled to follow. Terse and concentrated, of set purpose, he could not be. A notable instance of this inability occurs in the Introductory Chapter to “The Heart of Mid-Lothian,” which has probably frightened away many modern readers. The Advocate and the Writer to the Signet and the poor Client are persons quite uncalled for, and their little adventure at Gandercleugh is unreal. Oddly enough, part of their conversation is absolutely in the manner of Dickens.
“ ‘I think,’ said I, … ‘the metropolitan county may, in that case, be said to have a sad heart.’
“ ‘Right as my glove, Mr. Pattieson,’ added Mr. Hardie; ‘and a close heart, and a hard heart—Keep it up, Jack.’
“ ‘And a wicked heart, and a poor heart,’ answered Halkit, doing his best.
“ ‘And yet it may be called in some sort a strong heart, and a high heart,’ rejoined the advocate. ‘You see I can put you both out of heart.’ ”
Fortunately we have no more of this easy writing, which makes such very melancholy reading.
The narrative of the Porteous mob, as given by the novelist, is not, it seems, entirely accurate. Like most artists, Sir Walter took the liberty of “composing” his picture. In his “Illustrations of the Author of Waverley” (1825) Mr. Robert Chambers records the changes in facts made by Scott. In the first place, Wilson did not attack his guard, and enable Robertson to escape, after the sermon, but as soon as the criminals took their seats in the pew. When fleeing out, Robertson tripped over “the plate,” set on a stand to receive alms and oblations, whereby he hurt himself, and was seen to stagger and fall in running down the stairs leading to the Cowgate. Mr. McQueen, Minister of the New Kirk, was coming up the stairs. He conceived it to be his duty to set Robertson on his feet again, “and covered his retreat as much as possible from the pursuit of the guard.” Robertson ran up the Horse Wynd, out at Potter Row Port, got into the King’s Park, and headed for the village of Duddingston, beside the loch on the south-east of Arthur’s Seat. He fainted after jumping a dyke, but was picked up and given some refreshment. He lay in hiding till he could escape to Holland.
The conspiracy to hang Porteous did not, in fact, develop in a few hours, after his failure to appear on the scaffold. The Queen’s pardon (or a reprieve) reached Edinburgh on Thursday, Sept. 2; the Riot occurred on the night of Sept. 7. The council had been informed that lynching was intended, thirty-six hours before the fatal evening, but pronounced the reports to be “caddies’ clatters.” Their negligence, of course, must have increased the indignation of the Queen. The riot, according to a very old man, consulted by Mr. Chambers, was headed by two butchers, named Cumming, “tall, strong, and exceedingly handsome men, who dressed in women’s clothes as a disguise.” The rope was tossed out of a window in a “small wares shop” by a woman, who received a piece of gold in exchange. This extravagance is one of the very few points which suggest that people of some wealth may have been concerned in the affair. Tradition, according to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, believed in noble leaders of the riot. It is certain that several witnesses of good birth and position testified very strongly against Porteous, at his trial.
According to Hogg, Scott’s “fame was now so firmly established that he
cared not a fig for the opinion of his literary friends beforehand.” He
was pleased, however, by the notice of “Ivanhoe,” “The Heart of
Mid-Lothian,” and “The Bride of Lammermoor” in the Edinburgh Review of
1820, as he showed by quoting part of its remarks. The Reviewer frankly
observed “that, when we began with one of these works, we were conscious
that we never knew how to leave off. The Porteous mob is rather heavily
described, and the whole part of George Robertson, or Staunton, is
extravagant and displeasing. The final catastrophe is needlessly
improbable and startling.” The critic felt that he must be critical, but
his praise of Effie and Jeanie Deans obviously comes from his heart.
Jeanie’s character “is superior to anything we can recollect in the
history of invention … a remarkable triumph over the greatest of all
difficulties in the conduct of a fictitious narrative.” The critique
ends with “an earnest wish that the Author would try his hand in the
lore of Shakspeare”; but, wiser than the woers of Penelope, Scott
refused to make that perilous adventure.
ANDREW LANG.
An essay by Mr.