INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATION. A WRITER in the Quarterly Review has observed,-" Scott, both as a man and a writer, seems to be in danger of passing-we cannot conceive why-out of the knowledge of the rising generation. Doubtless there will be found at most railway stations cheap copies of Scott's Poems and the Waverley Novels,' which travellers purchase, one by one, that they may read them on the journey as they read any worthless trash, and then throw them away. But the instances are rare, we suspect, in which, even among educated persons, young men or young women under five-and-twenty know anything at all, either of what Scott wrote, or of what he did. Now we look upon this fact, if a fact it be, as a great public misfortune. You cannot find a surer test of the habits of thought in a people than by taking note of the light literature which is most in favour with the young of its educated classes. When we find such great works as 'Waverley,'' Guy Mannering,' and the 'Antiquary' cast aside, in order that young ladies and young gentlemen may break their hearts over the sorrows of bigamists and adulterers, we confess that the impression made upon our minds is not very flattering-we do not say to the taste, but to the moral sense of the age." There is only too much truth in the foregoing. Scott, of late years, has suffered by the diffusion of a low standard of morals, and a consequent literature. In France an equivalent complaint is made. The rising generation read the fictions of the younger Dumas school, relieved by the coarse humours of De Kock, and the spiced meats of Ponson du Terrail. In England, among the young generation "Guy Mannering" and "Waverley" are not very acceptable reading; at any rate, they are not so generally acceptable as they should be. This "Day" with Sir Walter Scott has been compiled in the hope that it may lead at least a few young readers to the "Great Magician of the North," and lure back older readers who, in the excitement and overwork of our latter days, have been truants from his page. Let them remember what Samuel Taylor Coleridge said: “When I am very ill indeed, I can read Scott's novels; they are almost the only books I can read." July, 1871. BLANCHARD JERROLD. 66 COTT has said that Pope's translation of Homer was, with the exception of a few "traditionary ballads" and the songs in Allan Ramsay's "Evergreen," the first poetry he ever perused. Homer, these "traditionary ballads," the Iliad, and the Odyssey, were the first cradles, then, in which all the rich store of noble romance that has travelled round the world, and passed into every printed language, was nursed. Scott's head was on fire for chivalry." He glowed at the name of Montrose, with his victorious highlanders; and had tough fights with his Whig tutor, who "liked Presbyterian Ulyssesthe dark and politic Argyle." "Existence," Dr. Robert Chambers observes of the poet's birth, "opened upon the author of Waverley in one of the duskiest parts of the ancient capital (Edinburgh), which he has been pleased to apostrophize in Marmion as 'his own romantic town.' At the time of his birth, and for some time after, his father lived at the head of the College Wynd-a narrow alley leading from the Cowgate to the gate of the College. ... It appears, however, that before Sir Walter could receive any impressions from the romantic scenery of the Old Town of Edinburgh, he was removed, on account of the delicacy of his health, to the country, and lived for a considerable period under the charge of his paternal grandfather, at Sandyknow. This farm is situated upon high ground, near the bottom of Leader Water, and overlooks a large part of the Vale of Tweed. In the immediate neighbourhood of the farmhouse, upon a rocky foundation, stood the Border fortlet called Smailholm Tower, which possessed many features to attract the attention of the young poet. It was his early residence at this romantic spot that imparted an intense affection for the southern part of Scotland, to which he finally adjourned." An affectionate and a reverent nature are made manifest in the earliest accounts we have of Walter Scott. His heart G warmed to every story of noble deeds-and these were in truth to him 66 the building sites of a child's church." With an unerring and unfaltering instinct he kept to those studies which were to mature his genius, and make his fame immortal. His "little Latin and less Greek" were compensated by the wealth of legend and lore, that, in his subtle brain, were woven into undying poetry, and the noblest store of romance one man has ever bequeathed to posterity. Dr. Chambers gives an extract from an original letter on Scott's schooldays. "The following lines were written by Walter Scott when he was between ten and eleven years of age, and while he was attending the High School, Edinburgh. His master there had spoken of him as a remarkably stupid boy,* and his mother with grief acknowledged that they spoke truly. She saw him one morning in the midst of a tremendous thunderstorm, standing still in the street, and looking at the sky. She called to him repeatedly, but he remained looking upwards, without taking the least notice of her. When he returned into the house, she was very much displeased with him. 'Mother,' he said, 'I could tell you the reason why I stood still, and why I looked at the sky, if you would only give me a pencil.' She gave him one, and in less than five minutes he laid a bit of paper on her lap, with these words written on it :— "Loud o'er my head what awful thunders roll! What vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole! The old lady repeated them to me herself, and the tears were in her eyes: for I really believe, simple as they are, that she values these lines-being the first effusion of her son's genius-more than any later beauties which have so charmed all the world besides."` They were, to her, the first precious proofs that Walter, albeit unlike the mass of the boys at the High School, was not stupid. We are told that he had "little Latin and less Greek ;" and yet that he often surprised his masters by the miscellaneous knowledge which he possessed; and "now and then was acknowledged to display a sense of the beauties of the Latin authors, such as is seldom seen in boys." He saw the beauties, and his companions mastered the rules, being, possibly, at the same time stone-blind to the genius and the spirit of the text. It should be remembered that Walter Scott in his early childhood, was a very sickly lad, and all his life he was lame. But this misfortune gave him one early advantage, since it led his baby eyes to those scenes which are now collectively known to his affectionate countrymen as the Lands of Scott. His bad health induced his removal to his father's farm, *The great men who have been described by their schoolmasters as stupid are only so many testimonies to the dulness of tutors. + See The Lands of Scoti. where he could overlook the Vale of Tweed and drink in liberally the romantic stories with which every acre of it abounds. It is remarked that very early he was a copious and popular story-teller among his companions. "In the rough amusements which went on out of school, his spirit enabled him to take a leading share, notwithstanding his lameness. He would help to man the Cowgate Port in a snow-ball match, and pass the Kittle nine steps on the Castle Rock with the best of them. In the winter evenings, when out-door exercise was not attractive, he would gather his companions round him at the fireside, and entertain them with stories, real and imaginary, of which he seemed to have an endless store." The "stupid" boy, albeit a poor classical scholar (which he afterwards regretted,* but which the world has no reason to lament), was an insatiable reader. Dr. Chambers says of his passion for books: "It amounted to an enthusiasm. He was at that time (between his twelfth and thirteenth year) very much in the house of his uncle, Dr. Rutherford, at the foot of Hyndford's Close, near the Netherbow, and there, even at breakfast, he would constantly have a book open by his side to refer to while sipping his coffee, like his old Oldbuck in the Antiquary. His uncle frequently commanded him to lay aside his books while eating, and Sir Walter would only ask permission first to read out the paragraph in which he was engaged. But no sooner was one paragraph ended than another was begun, so that the doctor never could find that his nephew finished a paragraph in his life. It may be mentioned that "Shakspeare" was at this period frequently in his hands, and that, of all the plays, the Merchant of Venice was his principal favourite." 66 This kind of reading was not congenial to his sober-minded and stiff parents. His home, although full of love, was, to his ardent spirit, cold and hard in its rules. Fortunately for the world, however, the author of Waverley was cradled chiefly in congenial places; and that the minstrelsy of the Scottish Border rang in his ears, to echo about the wide world presently in the Lay of the Last Minstrel and in Waverley. Fortunately, also, he found a congenial spirit, between his twelfth and fifteenth year, in John Irving,† whose heart, like his own, was on fire for chivalry," and who, with him, would borrow books of high and renowned deeds from the circulating library in the High Street, founded by Allan Ramsay, and find a picturesque nook by Arthur's Seat, where they might enjoy them together. Scott was well-starred in the friends and surroundings of his childhood. His mother's connections brought him into contact with bookish and gifted men, and made their children the associates of his play hours. Adam Ferguson (afterwards Sir Adam, and author of the History of the Roman Republic) was of his list of playmates; and in the house of Adam's father he was, as a boy, associated with the most brilliant literary "I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the good fortune to acquire, if I could rest the remaining part upon a solid foundation of learning and science."-Autobiography. + See Scott's Companions and Correspondence. |