LETTER II. Ede quid illum Esse putes? quemvis hominem secum attulit ad nos, Ad summam, non Maurus erat, neque Sarmata, nec Thrax. THE internal evidence, Sir, which I have thought deserving of your notice, may be arranged in two classes. I will first solicit your attention to those parts of the anonymous works which afford glimpses of the personal character, the habits, studies, and occupations of their author, and shall invite you to remark with me, how singularly they correspond with those of our great romantic poet, as illustrated by his avowed publications. I will then point out, in the writings of these two authors, such resemblances in sentiment, language, incident, conception of character, and general dramatic arrangement, as in my opinion most satisfactorily prove the fraternal relation of Marmion and his compeers to that mysterious unacknowledged family, which, in their present circumstances, may be denominated "The Children of the Mist." With respect to the unknown author, I suppose it would be superfluous to insist that he is a native of Scotland. He has himself informed us (in the postscript, or l'envoy, to Waverley) that he was not born a Highlander, and I think it may be gathered from his novels that, whatever spot may boast of having given him birth, a great part of his life has been passed in the city or neighbourhood of Edinburgh. The familiarity with which he speaks of that metropolis and its environs, and of manners and customs formerly prevailing among its inhabitants, but now obsolete, fully justifies the conjecture; and his description of the walk under Salisbury Crags, which (as he says, speaking in the person of Peter Pattieson)" used to be his favourite evening and morning resort,” and a scene of delicious musing, when life was young and promised to be happy," can hardly have been written by any other than the "truant boy," who " sought the nest" on Blackford Hill, and has expatiated so feelingly and beautifully on the prospect of Edinburgh from that side, in the fourth canto of Marmiont. It has been already observed, that the author of Waver ley possesses in a high degree, the qualifications of a poet. His mind seems, in fact, to be habitually, as well as naturally, given to the Muse of Song. I do not now speak of detached thoughts, single expressions, or insulated pas sages; the very conception and main structure of his stories is in some instances purely poetical. Take as an example the Bride of Lammermoor. Through the whole progress of that deeply affecting tale, from the gloomy and agitating scene of Lord Ravenswood's funeral to the final agony and appalling death of his ill-fated heir, we experience that fervour and exaltation of mind, that keen susceptibility of emotion, and that towering and perturbed state of the imagination, which poetry alone can produce. Thus while the events are comparatively few, and the whole plan and conduct of the tale unusually simple, our passions are fully exercised, and our expectation even painfully excited, by occurrences in themselves unimportant, conversations without any material result, and descriptions which even retard the main action. The principal character is strikingly poetical, and its effect skilfully heightened by the manner in which the subordinate figures, even those of a grotesque outline, are grouped around it. Of those interesting and highly fanciful incidents, which, although rather appendages than essential parts of the principal narrative, in fact constitute its chief beauty as a work of imagination, I need only mention, as particular examples, the ominous slaughter of the ravent, the fiendish conferences between Ailsie Gourlay and her companions, and the legend of Lord Ravenswood and + Stanza 24. § Vol. ii. c. 9. i. 7, 8. * Heart of Mid Lothian, vol. i. ch. 7. Vol. ii. c. 7. the Naiad*, which contains in itself all the elements of a beautiful and affecting poem. I treat these as appendages, because the story might be told without them; but it must also be observed, that without them the story would not be worth telling. It may be suggested that the characteristic features which I have pointed out in the Bride of Lammermoor, belong rather to the species of fiction than to the individual fable, and that all romantic tales must bear the same resemblance to poetic narrative, which appears, perhaps, a little more decidedly than usual in the instance now adduced. But the observation would not hold true, even if confined to the novels of the present author. In Waverley and Guy Mannering, for example, there are flights of imagination and strokes of passion beyond the scope of a mere prose writer; but the poetical character does not predominate either in the general design, or in the majority of incidents, or in the agency by which those incidents are brought about. Both Waverley and Guy Mannering might possibly, with some loss of effect, be thrown into verse, but neither of them is, like the Bride of Lammermoor, a tale which no man but a poet could tell. I have dwelt long upon this work, as it appeared to furnish the most striking and complete illustration of my remark on the genius of its author. If other examples were required, I would point out the Introduction to Old Mortality, and the story of serjeant More M'Alpint, both, I think, conceived in the true spirit of poetry. It seems not improbable, that the Legend of Montrose was, in part, formed out of materials originally collected for a metrical romance; but the author has succeeded ill in making this portion of his fable combine and harmonize with the rest. There appears a natural incongruity between the lofty and imaginative, and the broad and familiar parts of the subject; they may be joined, but they refuse to blend. The Monastery is liable to a similar objection: nothing can be * Vol. i. c. 4. Introduction to A Legend of Montrose, Tales of My Land lord, Third Series, vol. iii. more poetical in conception, and sometimes in language than the fiction of the White Maid of Avenel; but when this etherial personage, who rides on the cloud which "for Araby is bound," who is "Something betwixt heaven and hell Something that neither stood nor fell*"_ whose existence is linked by an awful and mysterious destiny to the fortunes of a decaying family; when such a being as this descends to clownish pranks, and promotes a frivolous jest about a tailor's bodkin, the course of our sympathies is rudely arrested, and we feel as if the author had put upon us the old-fashioned pleasantry of selling a bargain. It is an unsafe thing to venture on a high poetical flight in a composition partly ludicrous and familiar, unless some reconciling medium can be found to give mellowness and consistency to the whole. No man can be more sensible of this difficulty, for no man has_more frequently triumphed over it, than the writer whom I have presumed, in the instances just cited, to pronounce unsuccessful. From the invention and general conduct of his stories, I might proceed to the particular passages of the novelist which betray a poet's hand. But examples of this nature are so abundant, and the best of them are so familiar even to the most negligent reader, that it would be unpardonable to detain you on this point. I have only then to observe, that the passages alluded to are not merely eloquent, natural, spirited, impassioned, they are nothing if not poetical. You are probably acquainted with Mr. Hope's Memoirs of a Greek: it is a work abounding in brilliant and often affecting composition; there is much eloquent narrative, much highly-finished description; but the narrative and the description are those of an accomplished prose writer. In all that he relates we see distinctly and with pleasure the object or action which the author places before us; but there his power ceases; he * Vol. i. c. 11. has not the art of making a few words call up a host of images in the mind, and, by the happy suggestion of a single thought, transporting the reader's fancy into a world of illusion and in this he totally differs from the author of Waverley, and from every true poet. But the novelist (and it serves to illustrate the habitual bent of his mind) not only indulges in poetical description, where the course of his narrative obviously leads to it, but discerns, as by instinct, and seizes with enthusiasm, every slighter opportunity which the incidents afford him for introducing such embellishments. Thus he compares the antics of a clownish boy escaped from his pedagogue to the "frisking" of "a goblin by moon-light*." In describing a maiden sinking under consumption, "You would have thought," he says, "that the very trees mourned for her, for their leaves dropt around her without a gust of windt." If he puts in motion a body of soldiers, by day-light they are seen issuing from among trees, their arms glance like lightning, and the waving of banners is accompanied by the clang of trumpets and kettle-drums: by night the steel caps glitter in the moon-light, and "the dark figures of the horses and riders" are" imperfectly traced through the gloomt." If a canon is discharged from a fortress, the castle is invested "in wreaths of smoke, the edges of which dissipate slowly in the air, while the central veil is darkened ever and anon by fresh clouds poured forth from the battlements," and the spectator reflects, " that each explosion may ring some brave man's knell." If we launch our vessel on a Highland loch, a piper makes shrill melody in the bow, or the rowers chant wild airs that float mournfully to the shore||. If we embark for a sea voyage, the white sails swell, the ship "leans her side to the gale, and goes roaring through the waves, leaving a long and rippling furrow to track her * Kenilworth, vol. i. c. 9. + Waverley, vol. i. c. 4. Ibid. vol. ii. c. 23. Tales of My Landlord, First Series, vol. ii. c 6, 11. § Waverley, vol. ii. c. 16. Legend of Montrose, last vol. c. 2. Heart of Mid Lothian, vol. iv. c. 9. |