English Literature
tastes were fixed for life. At the high school he was a fair scholar, but
without enthusiasm, being more interested in Border stories than in the
text-books. He remained at school only six or seven years, and then entered
his father's office to study law, at the same time attending lectures at
the university. He kept this up for some six years without developing any
interest in his profession, not even when he passed his examinations and
was admitted to the Bar, in 1792. After nineteen years of desultory work,
in which he showed far more zeal in gathering Highland legends than in
gaining clients, he had won two small legal offices which gave him enough
income to support him comfortably. His home, meanwhile, was at Ashestiel on
the Tweed, where all his best poetry was written.
Scott's literary work began with the translation from the German of
Bürger's romantic ballad of _Lenore_ (1796) and of Goethe's _Götz von
Berlichingen_ (1799); but there was romance enough in his own loved
Highlands, and in 1802-1803 appeared three volumes of his _Minstrelsy of
the Scottish Border_, which he had been collecting for many years. In 1805,
when Scott was 34 years old, appeared his first original work, _The Lay of
the Last Minstrel_. Its success was immediate, and when _Marmion_ (1808)
and _The Lady of the Lake_ (1810) aroused Scotland and England to intense
enthusiasm, and brought unexpected fame to the author,--without in the
least spoiling his honest and lovable nature,--Scott gladly resolved to
abandon the law, in which he had won scant success, and give himself wholly
to literature. Unfortunately, however, in order to increase his earnings,
he entered secretly into partnership with the firms of Constable and the
brothers Ballantyne, as printer-publishers,--a sad mistake, indeed, and the
cause of that tragedy which closed the life of Scotland's greatest writer.
The year 1811 is remarkable for two things in Scott's life. In this year he
seems to have realized that, notwithstanding the success of his poems, he
had not yet "found himself"; that he was not a poetic genius, like Burns;
that in his first three poems he had practically exhausted his material,
though he still continued to write verse; and that, if he was to keep his
popularity, he must find some other work. The fact that, only a year later,
Byron suddenly became the popular favorite, shows how correctly Scott had
judged himself and the reading public, which was even more fickle than
usual in this emotional age. In that same year, 1811, Scott bought the
estate of Abbotsford, on the Tweed, with which place his name is forever
associated. Here he began to spend large sums, and to dispense the generous
hospitality of a Scotch laird, of which he had been dreaming for years. In
1820 he was made a baronet; and his new title of Sir Walter came nearer to
turning his honest head than had all his literary success. His business
partnership was kept secret, and during all the years when the Waverley
novels were the most popular books in the world, their authorship remained
unknown; for Scott deemed it beneath the dignity of his title to earn money
by business or literature, and sought to give the impression that the
enormous sums spent at Abbotsford in improving the estate and in
entertaining lavishly were part of the dignity of the position and came
from ancestral sources.
It was the success of Byron's _Childe Harold_, and the comparative failure
of Scott's later poems, _Rokeby_, _The Bridal of Triermain_, and _The Lord
of the Isles_, which led our author into the new field, where he was to be
without a rival. Rummaging through a cabinet one day in search of some
fishing tackle, Scott found the manuscript of a story which he had begun
and laid aside nine years before. He read this old story eagerly, as if it
had been another's work; finished it within three weeks, and published it
without signing his name. The success of this first novel, _Waverley_
(1814), was immediate and unexpected. Its great sales and the general
chorus of praise for its unknown author were without precedent; and when
_Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, Black Dwarf, Old Mortality, Rob Roy_, and
_The Heart of Midlothian_ appeared within the next four years, England's
delight and wonder knew no bounds. Not only at home, but also on the
Continent, large numbers of these fresh and fascinating stories were sold
as fast as they could be printed.
During the seventeen years which followed the appearance of _Waverley_,
Scott wrote on an average nearly two novels per year, creating an unusual
number of characters and illustrating many periods of Scotch, English, and
French history, from the time of the Crusades to the fall of the Stuarts.
In addition to these historical novels, he wrote _Tales of a Grandfather,
Demonology and Witchcraft_, biographies of Dryden and of Swift, the _Life
of Napoleon_, in nine volumes, and a large number of articles for the
reviews and magazines. It was an extraordinary amount of literary work, but
it was not quite so rapid and spontaneous as it seemed. He had been very
diligent in looking up old records, and we must remember that, in nearly
all his poems and novels, Scott was drawing upon a fund of legend,
tradition, history, and poetry, which he had been gathering for forty
years, and which his memory enabled him to produce at will with almost the
accuracy of an encyclopedia.
For the first six years Scott held himself to Scottish history, giving us
in nine remarkable novels the whole of Scotland, its heroism, its superb
faith and enthusiasm, and especially its clannish loyalty to its hereditary
chiefs; giving us also all parties and characters, from Covenanters to
Royalists, and from kings to beggars. After reading these nine volumes we
know Scotland and Scotchmen as we can know them in no other way. In 1819 he
turned abruptly from Scotland, and in _Ivanhoe_, the most popular of his
works, showed what a mine of neglected wealth lay just beneath the surface
of English history. It is hard to realize now, as we read its rapid,
melodramatic action, its vivid portrayal of Saxon and Norman character, and
all its picturesque details, that it was written rapidly, at a time when
the author was suffering from disease and could hardly repress an
occasional groan from finding its way into the rapid dictation. It stands
to-day as the best example of the author's own theory that the will of a
man is enough to hold him steadily, against all obstacles, to the task of
"doing what he has a mind to do." _Kenilworth, Nigel, Peveril_, and
_Woodstock_, all written in the next few years, show his grasp of the
romantic side of English annals; _Count Robert_ and _The Talisman_ show his
enthusiasm for the heroic side of the Crusaders' nature; and _Quentin
Durward_ and _Anne of Geierstein_ suggest another mine of romance which he
discovered in French history.
For twenty years Scott labored steadily at literature, with the double
object of giving what was in him, and of earning large sums to support the
lavish display which he deemed essential to a laird of Scotland. In 1826,
while he was blithely at work on _Woodstock_, the crash came. Not even the
vast earnings of all these popular novels could longer keep the wretched
business of Ballantyne on its feet, and the firm failed, after years of
mismanagement. Though a silent partner, Scott assumed full responsibility,
and at fifty-five years of age, sick, suffering, and with all his best work
behind him, he found himself facing a debt of over half a million dollars.
The firm could easily have compromised with its creditors; but Scott
refused to hear of bankruptcy laws under which he could have taken refuge.
He assumed the entire debt as a personal one, and set resolutely to work to
pay every penny. Times were indeed changed in England when, instead of a
literary genius starving until some wealthy patron gave him a pension, this
man, aided by his pen alone, could confidently begin to earn that enormous
amount of money. And this is one of the unnoticed results of the
popularization of literature. Without a doubt Scott would have accomplished
the task, had he been granted only a few years of health. He still lived at
Abbotsford, which he had offered to his creditors, but which they
generously refused to accept; and in two years, by miscellaneous work, had
paid some two hundred thousand dollars of his debt, nearly half of this sum
coming from his _Life of Napoleon_. A new edition of the Waverley novels
appeared, which was very successful financially, and Scott had every reason
to hope that he would soon face the world owing no man a penny, when he
suddenly broke under the strain. In 1830 occurred a stroke of paralysis
from which he never fully recovered; though after a little time he was
again at work, dictating with splendid patience and resolution. He writes
in his diary at this time: "The blow is a stunning one, I suppose, for I
scarcely feel it. It is singular, but it comes with as little surprise as
if I had a remedy ready, yet God knows I am at sea in the dark, and the
vessel leaky."
It is good to remember that governments are not always ungrateful, and to
record that, when it became known that a voyage to Italy might improve
Scott's health, the British government promptly placed a naval vessel at
the disposal of a man who had led no armies to the slaughter, but had only
given pleasure to multitudes of peaceable men and women by his stories. He
visited Malta, Naples, and Rome; but in his heart he longed for Scotland,
and turned homeward after a few months of exile. The river Tweed, the
Scotch hills, the trees of Abbotsford, the joyous clamor of his dogs,
brought forth the first exclamation of delight which had passed Scott's
lips since he sailed away. He died in September of the same year, 1832, and
was buried with his ancestors in the old Dryburgh Abbey.
WORKS OF SCOTT. Scott's work is of a kind which the critic gladly passes
over, leaving each reader to his own joyous and uninstructed opinion. From
a literary view point the works are faulty enough, if one is looking for
faults; but it is well to remember that they were intended to give delight,
and that they rarely fail of their object. When one has read the stirring
_Marmion_ or the more enduring _Lady of the Lake_, felt the heroism of the
Crusaders in _The Talisman_, the picturesqueness of chivalry in _Ivanhoe_,
the nobleness of soul of a Scotch peasant girl in _The Heart of
Midlothian_, and the quality of Scotch faith in _Old Mortality_, then his
own opinion of Scott's genius will be of more value than all the criticisms
that have ever been written.
At the outset we must confess frankly that Scott's poetry is not artistic,
in the highest sense, and that it lacks the deeply imaginative and
suggestive qualities which make a poem the noblest and most enduring work
of humanity. We read it now, not for its poetic excellence, but for its
absorbing story interest. Even so, it serves an admirable purpose.
_Marmion_ and _The Lady of the Lake_, which are often the first long poems
read by the beginner in literature, almost invariably lead to a deeper
interest in the subject; and many readers owe to these poems an
introduction to the delights of poetry. They are an excellent beginning,
therefore, for young readers, since they are almost certain to hold the
attention, and to lead indirectly to an interest in other and better poems.
Aside from this, Scott's poetry is marked by vigor and youthful abandon;
its interest lies in its vivid pictures, its heroic characters, and
especially in its rapid action and succession of adventures, which hold and
delight us still, as they held and delighted the first wondering readers.
And one finds here and there terse descriptions, or snatches of song and