John Lord
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 13: Great Writers
More important to him than any literary friendship was his partnership with James Ballantyne, the printer, whom he had known from his youth. This in the end proved unfortunate, and nearly ruined him; for Ballantyne, though an accomplished man and a fine printer, as well as enterprising and sensible, was not a safe business man, being over-sanguine. For a time, however, this partnership, which was kept secret, was an advantage to both parties, although Scott embarked in the enterprise his whole available capital, about £5000. In connection with the publishing business, soon added to the printing, with James Ballantyne's brother John as figure-head of the concern,–a talented but dissipated and reckless "good fellow," with no more head for business than either James Ballantyne or Scott,–the association bound Scott hand and foot for twenty years, and prompted him to adventurous undertakings. But it must be said that the Ballantynes always deferred to him, having for him a sentiment little short of veneration. One of the first results of this partnership was an eighteen-volume edition of Dryden's poems, with a Life, which must have been to Scott little more than drudgery. He was well paid for his work, although it added but little to his fame, except for intelligent literary industry.
Before the Dryden, however, in the same year, 1808, appeared the poem of "Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field," which was received by the public with great avidity, and unbounded delight. Jeffrey wrote a chilling review, for which Scott with difficulty forgave him, since with all his humility and amiability he could not bear unfriendly or severe criticism.
In a letter to Joanna Baillie, Scott makes some very sensible remarks as to the incapability of such a man as Jeffrey appreciating a work of the imagination, distinguished as he was:–
"I really have often told him that I think he wants the taste for poetry which is essentially necessary to enjoy, and of course to criticize with justice. He is learned with the most learned in its canons and laws, skilled in its modulations, and an excellent judge of the justice of the sentiments which it conveys; but he wants that enthusiastic feeling which, like sunshine upon a landscape, lights up every beauty, and palliates if it cannot hide every defect. To offer a poem of imagination to a man whose whole life and study have been to acquire a stoical indifference towards enthusiasm of every kind, would be the last, as it would surely be the silliest, action of my life."
As stated above, it was about this time that Scott broke off his connection with the Edinburgh Review. Perhaps that was what Jeffrey wished, since the Review became thenceforth more intensely partisan, and Scott's Toryism was not what was wanted.
It is fair to add that in 1810 Jeffrey sent Scott advance proofs of his critique on "The Lady of the Lake," with a frank and friendly letter in which he says:–
"I am now sensible that there were needless asperities in my review of 'Marmion,' and from the hurry in which I have been forced to write, I dare say there may be some here also.... I am sincerely proud both of your genius and of your glory, and I value your friendship more highly than most either of my literary or political opinions."
Southey, Ellis, and Wordsworth, Erskine, Heber, and other friends wrote congratulatory letters about "Marmion," with slight allusions to minor blemishes. Lockhart thought that it was on the whole the greatest of Scott's poems, in strength and boldness. Most critics regarded the long introduction to each canto as a defect, since it broke the continuity of the narrative; but it may at least be said that these preludes give an interesting insight into the author's moods and views. The opinions of literary men of course differ as to the relative excellence of the different poems. "Marmion" certainly had great merit, and added to the fame of the author. There is here more variety of metre than in his other poems, and also some passages of such beauty as to make the poem immortal,–like the death of Marmion, and those familiar lines in reference to Clara's constancy:–
"O woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light, quivering aspen made,–
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou."
The sale of "Marmion" ultimately reached fifty thousand copies in Great Britain. The poem was originally published in a luxurious quarto at thirty-one and a-half shillings. Besides one thousand guineas in advance, half the profits went to Scott, and must have reached several thousand pounds,–a great sale, when we remember that it was confined to libraries and people of wealth. In America, the poem was sold for two or three shillings,–less than one-tenth of what it cost the English reader. A successful poem or novel in England is more remunerative to the author, from the high price at which it is published, than in the United States, where prices are lower and royalties rarely exceed ten per cent. It must be borne in mind, however, that in England editions are ordinarily very small, sometimes consisting of not more than two hundred and fifty copies. The first edition of "Marmion" was only of two thousand copies. The largest edition published was in 1811, of five thousand copies octavo; but even this did not circulate largely among the people. The popularity of Scott in England was confined chiefly to the upper classes, at least until the copyright of his books had expired. The booksellers were not slow in availing themselves of Scott's popularity. They employed him to edit an edition of Swift for £1500, and tried to induce him to edit a general edition of English poets. That scheme was abandoned in consequence of a disagreement between Scott and Murray, the London publisher, as to the selection of poets.
I think the quarrels of authors eighty or one hundred years ago with their publishers were more frequent than they are in these times. We read of a long alienation between Scott and Constable, the publisher, who enjoyed a sort of monopoly of the poet's contributions to literature. Constable soon after found a great rival in Murray, who was at this time an obscure London bookseller in Fleet Street. Both these great publishers were remarkable for sagacity, and were bold in their ventures. The foundation of Constable's wealth was laid when he was publishing the Edinburgh Review. In 1809, Murray started the Quarterly Review, its great political rival, with the aid of Scott, who wrote many of its most valuable articles; and William Gilford, satirist and critic, became its first editor. Growing out of the quarrel between Scott and Constable was the establishment of John Ballantyne & Co. as publishers and booksellers in Edinburgh.
Shortly after the establishment of the Quarterly Review as a Tory journal, Scott began his third great poem, "The Lady of the Lake," which was published in 1810, in all the majesty of a quarto, at the price of two guineas a copy. He received for it two thousand guineas. The first edition of two thousand copies disappeared at once, and was followed the same year by four octavo editions. In a few months the sale reached twenty thousand copies. The poem received great commendation both from the Quarterly and the Edinburgh Review.
Mr. Ellis, in his article in the Quarterly, thus wrote:
"There is nothing in Scott of the severe majesty of Milton, or of the terse composition of Pope, or the elaborate elegance of Campbell, or the flowing and redundant diction of Southey; but there is a medley of bright images, and a diction tinged successively with the careless richness of Shakespeare, the antique simplicity of the old romances, the homeliness of vulgar ballads, and the sentimental glitter of the most modern poetry,–passing from the borders of the ludicrous to the sublime, alternately minute and energetic, sometimes artificial, and frequently negligent, but always full of spirit and vivacity, abounding in images that are striking at first sight to minds of every contexture, and never expressing a sentiment which it can cost the most ordinary reader any exertion to comprehend."
This seems to me to be a fair criticism, although the lucidity of Scott's poetry is not that which is most admired by modern critics. Fashion in these times delights in what is obscure and difficult to be understood, as if depth and profundity must necessarily be unintelligible to ordinary readers. In Scott's time, however, the fashion was different, and the popularity of his poems became almost universal. However, there are the same fire, vivacity, and brilliant coloring in all three of these masterpieces, as they were regarded two generations ago, reminding one of the witchery of Ariosto; yet there is no great variety in these poems such as we find in Byron, no great force of passion or depth of sentiment, but a sort of harmonious rhythm,–more highly prized in the earlier part of the century than in the latter, since Wordsworth and Tennyson have made us familiar with what is deeper and richer, as well as more artistic, in language and versification. But no one has denied Scott's originality and high merits, in contrast with the pompous tameness and conventionality of the poetry which arose when Johnson was the oracle of literary circles, and which still held the stage in Scott's day.
Even Scott's admirers, however, like Canning and Ellis, did not hesitate to say that they would like something different from anything he had already written. But this was not to be; and perhaps the reason why he soon after gave up writing poetry was the conviction that his genius as a poet did not lie in variety and richness, either of style or matter. His great fame was earned by his novels.
One thing greatly surprises me: Scott regarded Joanna Baillie as the greatest poetical genius of that day, and be derived more pleasure from reading Johnson's "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes" than from any other poetical composition. Indeed, there is nothing more remarkable in literary history than Scott's admiration of poetry inferior to his own, and his extraordinary modesty in the estimate of his own productions. Most poets are known for their morbid vanity, their self-consciousness, their feeling of superiority, and their depreciation of superior excellence; but Scott had eminently a healthy mind, as he had a healthy body, and shrank from exaggeration as he did from vulgarity in all its forms. It is probable that his own estimate of his poetry was nearer the truth than that of his admirers, who were naturally inclined to be partial.
There has been so much poetry written since "The Lady of the Lake" was published,–not only by celebrated poets like Wordsworth, Southey, Moore, Byron, Campbell, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Browning, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Bryant, but also by many minor authors,–that the standard is now much higher than it was in the early part of the century. Much of that which then was regarded as very fine is now smiled at by the critics, and neglected by cultivated readers generally; and Scott has not escaped unfavorable criticism.
It has been my object to present the subject of this Lecture historically rather than critically,–to show the extraordinary popularity of Scott as a poet among his contemporaries, rather than to estimate his merit at the present time. I confess that most of "Marmion," as also of the "Lady of the Lake," is tame to me, and deficient in high poetic genius. Doubtless we are all influenced by the standards of our own time, and the advances making in literature as well as in science and art. Yet this change in the opinions of critics does not apply to Byron's "Childe Harold," which is as much, if not as widely, admired now as when it was first published. We think as highly too of "The Deserted Village," the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," and the "Cotter's Saturday Night," as our fathers did. And men now think much more highly of the merits of Shakspeare than they have at any period since he lived; so that after all there is an element in true poetry which does not lose by time. In another hundred years, the verdicts of critics as to the greater part of the poems of Tennyson, Wordsworth, Browning, and Longfellow, may be very different from what they now are, while some of their lyrics may be, as they are now, pronounced immortal.
Poetry is both an inspiration and an art. The greater part of that which is now produced is made, not born. Those daintily musical and elaborate measures which are now the fashion, because they claim novelty, or reproduce the quaintness of an art so old as to be practically new, perhaps will soon again be forgotten or derided. What is simple, natural, appealing to the heart rather than to the head, may last when more pretentious poetry shall have passed away. Neither criticism nor contemporary popularity can decide such questions.
Scott himself seemed to take a true view. In a letter to Miss Seward, he said:–
"The immortality of poetry is not so firm a point in my creed as the immortality of the soul."
'I've lived too long,
And seen the death of much immortal song.'
"Nay, those that have really attained their literary immortality have gained it under very hard conditions. To some it has not attached till after death. To others it has been the means of lauding personal vices and follies which had otherwise been unremembered in their epitaphs; and all enjoy the same immortality under a condition similar to that of Noureddin in an Eastern tale. Noureddin, you remember, was to enjoy the gift of immortality, but with this qualification,–that he was subjected to long naps of forty, fifty, or a hundred years at a time. Even so Homer and Virgil slumbered through whole centuries. Shakspeare himself enjoyed undisturbed sleep from the age of Charles I., until Garrick waked him. Dryden's fame has nodded; that of Pope begins to be drowsy; Chaucer is as sound as a top, and Spenser is snoring in the midst of his commentators. Milton, indeed, is quite awake; but, observe, he was at his very outset refreshed with a nap of half-a-century; and in the midst of all this we sons of degeneracy talk of immortality! Let me please my own generation, and let those who come after us judge of their facts and my performances as they please; the anticipation of their neglect or censure will affect me very little."
In 1812 the poet-lawyer was rewarded with the salary of a place whose duties he had for some years performed without pay,–that of Clerk of Sessions, worth £800 per annum. Thus having now about £1500 as an income, independently of his earnings by the pen, Scott gave up his practice as an advocate, and devoted himself entirely to literature. At the same time he bought a farm of somewhat more than a hundred acres on the banks of the beautiful Tweed, about five miles from Ashestiel, and leaving to its owners the pretty place in which he had for six years enjoyed life and work, he removed to the cottage at Abbotsford,–for thus he named his new purchase, in memory of the abbots of Melrose, who formerly owned all the region, and the ruins of whose lovely abbey stood not far away. Of the £4000 for this purchase half was borrowed from his brother, and the other half on the pledge of the profits of a poem that was projected but not written,–"Rokeby."
Scott ought to have been content with Ashestiel; or, since every man wishes to own his home, he should have been satisfied with the comfortable cottage which he built at Abbotsford, and the modest improvements that his love for trees and shrubs enabled him to make. But his aspirations led him into serious difficulties. With all his sagacity and good sense, Scott never seemed to know when he was well off. It was a fatal mistake both for his fame and happiness to attempt to compete with those who are called great in England and Scotland,–that is, peers and vast landed proprietors. He was not alone in this error, for it has generally been the ambition of fortunate authors to acquire social as well as literary distinction,–thus paying tribute to riches, and virtually abdicating their own true position, which is higher than any that rank or wealth can give. It has too frequently been the misfortune of literary genius to bow down to vulgar idols; and the worldly sentiments which this idolatry involves are seen in almost every fashionable novel which has appeared for a hundred years. In no country is this melancholy social slavery more usual than in England, with all its political freedom, although there are noble exceptions. The only great flaw in Scott's character was this homage to rank and wealth.
On the other hand, rank and wealth also paid homage to him as a man of genius; both Scotland and England received him into the most select circles, not only of their literary and political, but of their fashionable, life.
In 1811 Scott published "The Lord of the Isles," and in 1813, "Rokeby," neither of which was remarkable for either literary or commercial success, although both were well received. In 1814 he edited a nineteen-volume edition of Dean Swift's works, with a Life, and in the same year began–almost by accident–the real work of his own career, in "Waverley."
If public opinion is far different to-day from what it was in Scott's time in reference to his poetry, we observe the same change in regard to the source of his widest fame, his novels,–but not to so marked a degree, for it was in fiction that Scott's great gifts had their full fruition. Many a fine intellect still delights in his novels, though cultivated readers and critics differ as to their comparative merits. No two persons will unite in their opinions as to the three of those productions which they like most or least. It is so with all famous novels. Then, too, what man of seventy will agree with a man of thirty as to the comparative merits of Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, George Eliot, Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, Balzac, George Sand? How few read "Uncle Tom's Cabin," compared with the multitudes who read that most powerful and popular book forty years ago? How changing, if not transient, is the fame of the novelist as well as of the poet! With reference to him even the same generation changes its tastes. What filled us with delight as young men or women of twenty, is at fifty spurned with contempt or thrown aside with indifference. No books ever filled my mind and soul with the delight I had when, at twelve years of age, I read "The Children of the Abbey" and "Thaddeus of Warsaw," What man of eighty can forget the enthusiasm with which he read "Old Mortality" or "Ivanhoe" when he was in college?
Perhaps one test of a great book is the pleasure derived from reading it over and over again,–as we read "Don Quixote," or the dramas of Shakspeare, of whose infinite variety we never tire. Measured by this test, the novels of Sir Walter Scott are among the foremost works of fiction which have appeared in our world. They will not all retain their popularity from generation to generation, like "Don Quixote" or "The Pilgrim's Progress" or "The Vicar of Wakefield;" but these are single productions of their authors, while not a few of Scott's many novels are certainly still read by cultivated people,–if not with the same interest they excited when first published, yet with profit and admiration. They have some excellencies which are immortal,–elevation of sentiment, chivalrous regard for women, fascination of narrative (after one has waded through the learned historical introductory chapters), the absence of exaggeration, the vast variety of characters introduced and vividly maintained, and above all the freshness and originality of description, both of Nature and of man. Among the severest and most bigoted of New England Puritans, none could find anything corrupting or demoralizing in his romances; whereas Byron and Bulwer were never mentioned without a shudder, and even Shakspeare was locked up in book-cases as unfit for young people to read, and not particularly creditable for anybody to own. The unfavorable comments which the most orthodox ever made upon Scott were as to the repulsiveness of the old Covenanters, as he described them, and his sneers at Puritan perfections. Scott, however, had contempt, not for the Puritans, but for many of their peculiarities,–especially for their cant when it degenerated into hypocrisy.
One thing is certain, that no works of fiction have had such universal popularity both in England and America for so long a period as the Waverley Novels. Scott reigned as the undisputed monarch of the realm of fiction and romance for twenty-five years. He gave undiminished entertainment to an entire generation–and not that merely, but instruction–in his historical novels, although his views were not always correct,–as whose ever are? He who could charm millions of readers, learned and unlearned, for a quarter of a century must have possessed remarkable genius. Indeed, he was not only the central figure in English literature for a generation, but he was regarded as peculiarly original. Another style of novels may obtain more passing favor with modern readers, but Scott was justly famous; his works are to-day in every library, and form a delightful part of the education of every youth and maiden who cares to read at all; and he will as a novelist probably live after some who are now prime favorites will be utterly forgotten or ignored.
About 1830 Bulwer was in his early successes; about 1840 Dickens was the rage of his day; about 1850 Thackeray had taken his high grade; and it was about 1860 that George Eliot's power appeared. These still retain their own peculiar lines of popularity,–Bulwer with the romantic few, Thackeray with the appreciative intelligent, George Eliot with a still wider clientage, and Dickens with everybody, on account of his appeal to the universal sentiments of comedy and pathos. Scott's influence, somewhat checked during the growth of these reputations and the succession of fertile and accomplished writers on both sides of the Atlantic,–including the introspective analysts of the past fifteen years,–has within a decade been rising again, and has lately burst forth in a new group of historical romancers who seem to have "harked back" from the subjective fad of our day to Scott's healthy, adventurous objectivity. Not only so, but new editions of the Waverley Novels are coming one by one from the shrewd publishers who keep track of the popular taste, one of the most attractive being issued in Edinburgh at half-a-crown a volume.
The first of Scott's remarkable series of novels, "Waverley," published in 1814 when the author was forty-three years of age and at the height of his fame as a poet, took the fashionable and literary world by storm. The novel had been partly written for several years, but was laid aside, as his edition of Swift and his essays for the supplement of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and other prose writings, employed all the time he had to spare.
This hack-work was done by Scott without enthusiasm, to earn money for his investment in real estate, and is not of transcendent merit. Obscurer men than he had performed such literary drudgery with more ability, but no writer was ever more industrious. The amount of work which he accomplished at this period was prodigious, especially when we remember that his duties as sheriff and clerk of Sessions occupied eight months of the year. He was more familiar with the literary history of Queen Anne's reign than any subsequent historian, if we except Macaulay, whose brilliant career had not yet begun. He took, of course, a different view of Swift from the writers of the Edinburgh Review, and was probably too favorable in his description of the personal character of the Dean of St. Patrick's, who is now generally regarded as "inordinately ambitious, arrogant, and selfish; of a morose, vindictive, and haughty temper, utterly destitute of generosity and magnanimity, as well as of tenderness, fidelity, and compassion." Lord Jeffrey, in his Review, attacked Swift's moral character with such consummate ability as to check materially the popularity of his writings, which are universally admitted to be full of genius. His superb intellect and his morality present a sad contrast,–as in the cases of Bacon, Burns, and Byron,–which Scott, on account of the force of his Tory prejudices, did not sufficiently point out.
But as to the novel, when it suddenly appeared, it is not surprising that "Waverley" should at once have attained an unexampled popularity when we consider the mediocrity of all works of fiction at that time, if we except the Irish tales of Maria Edgeworth. Scott received from Constable £1000 for this romance, then deemed a very liberal remuneration for what cost him but a few months' work. The second and third volumes were written in one month. He wrote with remarkable rapidity when his mind was full of the subject; and his previous studies as an antiquary and as a collector of Scottish poetry and legends fitted him for his work, which was in no sense a task, but a most lively pleasure.
It is not known why Scott published this strikingly original work anonymously; perhaps it was because of his unusual modesty, and the fear that he might lose the popularity he had already enjoyed as a poet. But it immediately placed him on a higher literary elevation, since it was generally suspected that he was the author. He could not altogether disguise himself from the keen eyes of Jeffrey and other critics.
The book was received as a revelation. The first volume is not particularly interesting, but the story continually increases in interest to its close. It is not a dissection of the human heart; it is not even much of a love-story, but a most vivid narrative, without startling situations or adventures. Its great charm is its quiet humor,–not strained into witty expressions which provoke laughter, but a sort of amiable delineation of the character of a born gentleman, with his weaknesses and prejudices, all leaning to virtue's side. It is a description of manners peculiar to the Scottish gentry in the middle of the eighteenth century, especially among the Jacobite families then passing away.
Of course the popularity of this novel, at that time, was chiefly confined to the upper classes. In the first place the people could not afford to pay the price of the book; and, secondly, it was outside their sympathies and knowledge. Indeed, I doubt if any commonplace person, without culture or extended knowledge, can enjoy so refined a work, with so many learned allusions, and such exquisite humor, which appeals to a knowledge of the world in its higher aspects. It is one of the last books that an ignorant young lady brought up on the trash of ordinary fiction would relish or comprehend. Whoever turns uninterested from "Waverley" is probably unable to see its excellencies or enjoy its peculiar charms. It is not a book for a modern school-boy or school-girl, but for a man or woman in the highest maturity of mind, with a poetic or imaginative nature, and with a leaning perhaps to aristocratic sentiments. It is a rebuke to vulgarity and ignorance, which the minute and exaggerated descriptions of low life in the pages of Dickens certainly are not.
In February, 1815, "Guy Mannering" was published, the second in the series of the Waverley Novels, and was received by the intelligent reading classes with even more éclat than "Waverley," to which it is superior in many respects. It plunges at once in medias res, without the long and labored introductory chapters of its predecessor. It is interesting from first to last, and is an elaborate and well-told tale, written con amore, when Scott was in the maturity of his powers. It is full of incident and is delightful in humor. Its chief excellence is in the loftiness of its sentiments,–being one of the healthiest and wholesomest novels ever written, appealing to the heart as well as to the intellect, to be read over and over again, like "The Vicar of Wakefield," without weariness. It may be too aristocratic in its tone to please everybody, but it portrays the sentiments of its age in reference to squires and Scottish lairds, who were more distinguished for uprightness and manly duties than for brains and culture.
The fascination with which Scott always depicts the virtues of hospitality and trust in humanity makes a strong impression on the imagination. His heroes and heroines are not remarkable for genius, but shine in the higher glories of domestic affection and fidelity to trusts. Two characters in particular are original creations,–"Dominie Sampson" and "Meg Merrilies," whom no reader can forget,–the one, ludicrous for his simplicity; and the other a gypsy woman, weird and strange, more like a witch than a sibyl, but intensely human, and capable of the strongest attachment for those she loved.
"The easy and transparent flow of the style of this novel; its beautiful simplicity; the wild magnificence of its sketches of scenery; the rapid and ever brightening interest of the narrative; the unaffected kindness of feeling; the manly purity of thought, everywhere mingled with a gentle humor and homely sagacity,–but, above all, the rich variety and skilful contrast of character and manners, at once fresh in fiction, and stamped with the unforgeable seal of truth and nature, spoke to every heart and mind; and the few murmurs of pedantic criticism were lost in the voice of general delight which never fails to welcome the invention that introduces to the sympathy of the imagination a new group of immortal realities."
Scott received about £2000 for this favorite romance,–one entirely new in the realm of fiction,–which enabled him to pay off his most pressing debts, and indulge his taste for travel. He visited the Field of Waterloo, and became a social lion in both Paris and London. The Prince of Wales sent him a magnificent snuff-box set with diamonds, and entertained him with admiring cordiality at Carlton House,–for his authorship of "Waverley" was more than surmised, while his fame as a poet was second only to that of Byron. Then (in the spring of 1815) took place the first meeting of these two great bards, and their successive interviews were graced with mutual compliments. Scott did not think that Byron's reading was extensive either in poetry or history, in which opinion the industrious Scottish bard was mistaken; but he did justice ta Byron's transcendent genius, and with more charity than severity mourned over his departure from virtue. After a series of brilliant banquets at the houses of the great, both of rank and of fame, Scott returned to his native land to renew his varied and exhausting labors, having furnished his publishers with a volume of letters on the subjects which most interested him during his short tour. Everything he touched now brought him gold.
