The Crown of Wild Olive
called 'of the Ten Commandments,' wholly at variance with the dogmas of
automatic morality which, summed again by the witches' line, 'Fair is
foul, and foul is fair,' hover through the fog and filthy air of our
prosperous England.
JOHN RUSKIN.
* * * * *
'_He hated greetings in the market-place_, and there were generally
loiterers in the streets to persecute him _either about the events of
the day_, or about some petty pieces of business.'
These lines, which the reader will find near the beginning of the
sixteenth chapter of the first volume of the _Antiquary_, contain two
indications of the old man's character, which, receiving the ideal of
him as a portrait of Scott himself, are of extreme interest to me. They
mean essentially that neither Monkbarns nor Scott had any mind to be
called of men, Rabbi, in mere hearing of the mob; and especially that
they hated to be drawn back out of their far-away thoughts, or forward
out of their long-ago thoughts, by any manner of 'daily' news, whether
printed or gabbled. Of which two vital characteristics, deeper in both
the men, (for I must always speak of Scott's creations as if they were
as real as himself,) than any of their superficial vanities, or passing
enthusiasms, I have to speak more at another time. I quote the passage
just now, because there was one piece of the daily news of the year 1815
which did extremely interest Scott, and materially direct the labour of
the latter part of his life; nor is there any piece of history in this
whole nineteenth century quite so pregnant with various instruction as
the study of the reasons which influenced Scott and Byron in their
opposite views of the glories of the battle of Waterloo.
But I quote it for another reason also. The principal greeting which Mr.
Oldbuck on this occasion receives in the market-place, being compared
with the speech of Andrew Fairservice, examined in my first paper, will
furnish me with the text of what I have mainly to say in the present
one.
'"Mr. Oldbuck," said the town-clerk (a more important person, who came
in front and ventured to stop the old gentleman), "the provost,
understanding you were in town, begs on no account that you'll quit it
without seeing him; he wants to speak to ye about bringing the water
frae the Fairwell spring through a part o' your lands."
'"What the deuce!--have they nobody's land but mine to cut and carve
on?--I won't consent, tell them."
'"And the provost," said the clerk, going on, without noticing the
rebuff, "and the council, wad be agreeable that you should hae the auld
stanes at Donagild's Chapel, that ye was wussing to hae."
'"Eh?--what?--Oho! that's another story--Well, well, I'll call upon the
provost, and we'll talk about it."
'"But ye maun speak your mind on't forthwith, Monkbarns, if ye want the
stanes; for Deacon Harlewalls thinks the carved through-stanes might be
put with advantage on the front of the new council-house--that is, the
twa cross-legged figures that the callants used to ca' Robbin and
Bobbin, ane on ilka door-cheek; and the other stane, that they ca'd
Ailie Dailie, abune the door. It will be very tastefu', the Deacon says,
and just in the style of modern Gothic."
'"Good Lord deliver me from this Gothic generation!" exclaimed the
Antiquary,--"a monument of a knight-templar on each side of a Grecian
porch, and a Madonna on the top of it!--_O crimini!_--Well, tell the
provost I wish to have the stones, and we'll not differ about the
water-course.--It's lucky I happened to come this way to-day."
'They parted mutually satisfied; but the wily clerk had most reason to
exult in the dexterity he had displayed, since the whole proposal of an
exchange between the monuments (which the council had determined to
remove as a nuisance, because they encroached three feet upon the public
road) and the privilege of conveying the water to the burgh, through the
estate of Monkbarns, was an idea which had originated with himself upon
the pressure of the moment.'
In this single page of Scott, will the reader please note the kind of
prophetic instinct with which the great men of every age mark and
forecast its destinies? The water from the Fairwell is the future
Thirlmere carried to Manchester; the 'auld stanes'[174] at Donagild's
Chapel, removed as a _nuisance_, foretell the necessary view taken by
modern cockneyism, Liberalism, and progress, of all things that remind
them of the noble dead, of their father's fame, or of their own duty;
and the public road becomes their idol, instead of the saint's shrine.
Finally, the roguery of the entire transaction--the mean man seeing the
weakness of the honourable, and 'besting' him--in modern slang, in the
manner and at the pace of modern trade--'on the pressure of the moment.'
But neither are these things what I have at present quoted the passage
for.
I quote it, that we may consider how much wonderful and various history
is gathered in the fact, recorded for us in this piece of entirely fair
fiction, that in the Scottish borough of Fairport, (Montrose, really,)
in the year 17-- of Christ, the knowledge given by the pastors and
teachers provided for its children by enlightened Scottish
Protestantism, of their fathers' history, and the origin of their
religion, had resulted in this substance and sum;--that the statues of
two crusading knights had become, to their children, Robin and Bobbin;
and the statue of the Madonna, Ailie Dailie.
A marvellous piece of history, truly: and far too comprehensive for
general comment here. Only one small piece of it I must carry forward
the readers' thoughts upon.
The pastors and teachers aforesaid, (represented typically in another
part of this errorless book by Mr. Blattergowl) are not, whatever else
they may have to answer for, answerable for these names. The names are
of the children's own choosing and bestowing, but not of the children's
own inventing. 'Robin' is a classically endearing cognomen, recording
the _errant_ heroism of old days--the name of the Bruce and of Rob Roy.
'Bobbin' is a poetical and symmetrical fulfilment and adornment of the
original phrase. 'Ailie' is the last echo of 'Ave,' changed into the
softest Scottish Christian name familiar to the children, itself the
beautiful feminine form of royal 'Louis;' the 'Dailie' again
symmetrically added for kinder and more musical endearment. The last
vestiges, you see, of honour for the heroism and religion of their
ancestors, lingering on the lips of babes and sucklings.
But what is the meaning of this necessity the children find themselves
under of completing the nomenclature rhythmically and rhymingly? Note
first the difference carefully, and the attainment of both qualities by
the couplets in question. Rhythm is the syllabic and quantitative
measure of the words, in which Robin, both in weight and time, balances
Bobbin; and Dailie holds level scale with Ailie. But rhyme is the added
correspondence of sound; unknown and undesired, so far as we can learn,
by the Greek Orpheus, but absolutely essential to, and, as special
virtue, becoming titular of, the Scottish Thomas.
The 'Ryme,'[175] you may at first fancy, is the especially childish part
of the work. Not so. It is the especially chivalric and Christian part
of it. It characterises the Christian chant or canticle, as a higher
thing than a Greek ode, melos, or hymnos, or than a Latin carmen.
Think of it, for this again is wonderful! That these children of
Montrose should have an element of music in their souls which Homer had
not,--which a melos of David the Prophet and King had not,--which
Orpheus and Amphion had not,--which Apollo's unrymed oracles became mute
at the sound of.
A strange new equity this,--melodious justice and judgment as it
were,--in all words spoken solemnly and ritualistically by Christian
human creatures;--Robin and Bobbin--by the Crusader's tomb, up to 'Dies
irae, dies illa,' at judgment of the crusading soul.
You have to understand this most deeply of all Christian minstrels, from
first to last; that they are more musical, because more joyful, than any
others on earth: ethereal minstrels, pilgrims of the sky, true to the
kindred points of heaven and home; their joy essentially the sky-lark's,
in light, in purity; but, with their human eyes, looking for the
glorious appearing of something in the sky, which the bird cannot.
This it is that changes Etruscan murmur into Terza rima--Horatian Latin
into Provencal troubadour's melody; not, because less artful, less wise.
Here is a little bit, for instance, of French ryming just before
Chaucer's time--near enough to our own French to be intelligible to us
yet.
'O quant tres-glorieuse vie,
Quant cil quit out peut et maistrie,
Veult esprouver pour necessaire,
Ne pour quant il ne blasma mie
La vie de Marthe sa mie:
Mais il lui donna exemplaire
D'autrement vivre, et de bien plaire
A Dieu; et plut de bien a faire:
Pour se conclut-il que Marie
Qui estoit a ses piedz sans braire,
Et pensait d'entendre et de taire,
Estleut la plus saine partie.
La meilleur partie esleut-elle
Et la plus saine et la plus belle,
Qui ja ne luy sera ostee
Car par verite se fut celle
Qui fut tousjours fresche et nouvelle,
D'aymer Dieu et d'en estre aymee;
Car jusqu'au cueur fut entamee,
Et si ardamment enflammee.
Que tous-jours ardoit l'estincelle;
Par quoi elle fut visitee
Et de Dieu premier comfortee;
Car charite est trop ysnelle.'
The only law of _metre_, observed in this song, is that each line shall
be octosyllabic:
Qui fut | tousjours | fresche et | nouvelle,
D'autre | ment vi | vret de | bien (ben) plaire,
Et pen | soit den | tendret | de taire
But the reader must note that words which were two-syllabled in Latin
mostly remain yet so in the French.
La _vi_ | -_e_ de | Marthe | sa mie,
although _mie_, which is pet language, loving abbreviation of _amica_
through _amie_, remains monosyllabic. But _vie_ elides its _e_ before a
vowel:
Car Mar- | the me | nait vie | active
Et Ma- | ri-e | contemp | lative;
and custom endures many exceptions. Thus _Marie_ may be three-syllabled
as above, or answer to _mie_ as a dissyllable; but _vierge_ is always, I
think, dissyllabic, _vier-ge_, with even stronger accent on the -_ge_,
for the Latin -_go_.
Then, secondly, of quantity, there is scarcely any fixed law. The metres
may be timed as the minstrel chooses--fast or slow--and the iambic
current checked in reverted eddy, as the words chance to come.
But, thirdly, there is to be rich ryming and chiming, no matter how
simply got, so only that the words jingle and tingle together with due
art of interlacing and answering in different parts of the stanza,
correspondent to the involutions of tracery and illumination. The whole
twelve-line stanza is thus constructed with two rymes only, six of each,
thus arranged:
AAB | AAB | BBA | BBA |
dividing the verse thus into four measures, reversed in ascent and
descent, or _descant_ more properly; and doubtless with correspondent
phases in the voice-given, and duly accompanying, or following, music;
Thomas the Rymer's own precept, that 'tong is chefe in mynstrelsye,'
being always kept faithfully in mind.[176]
Here then you have a sufficient example of the pure chant of the
Christian ages; which is always at heart joyful, and divides itself into
the four great forms, Song of Praise, Song of Prayer, Song of Love, and
Song of Battle; praise, however, being the keynote of passion through
all the four forms; according to the first law which I have already
given in the laws of Fesole; 'all great Art is Praise,' of which the