The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 550, June 2, 1832

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

THE WAVERLEY NOVELS

Heroines.

The female characters in the Waverley Novels are touched with much grace and spirit, though they are not, upon the whole, brought so vividly to our minds as the men,—probably because they are more ideal. Such they must necessarily be. The course of woman's existence glides comparatively unobserved in the under-current of domestic life; and the records of past days furnish little note of their condition. Few materials are available from which the historical novelist can deduce an accurate notion of the relative situation of women in early times. We know very little either of the general extent of their cultivation and acquirements, or of the treatment which they received from men. On the latter point, we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the poetical effusions of gallantry, and the false varnish of chivalrous devotion. It is to be feared that the practice of the days of chivalry was much at variance with its professions; and that women were degraded, as we always find them wherever civilization has made little progress. It was by command of Edward I. of England, the Mirror of Chivalry, one of the bravest knights in the host of the Crusaders, that two of the noblest ladies in Scotland were hung up in iron cages, exposed like wild beasts to the view of the populace. Facts like this mark the standard of public feeling, and may teach us that there was little real consideration for women in those times;—and where that is not found, there can be little refinement. Scantiness of information, and the necessity of assimilating to modern tastes a picture which, if it could have been obtained, would probably have been disagreeable, has obliged the Author of Waverley to draw much from the resources of his poetical mind in the depicting of female character. And wisely has he so done; for we regard many of the females in his tales only as beautiful and poetical creations; and we are gratified without being deceived. We find no fault with him for having made his Minna and Brenda beings such as the daughters of a Shetland Udaller, nearly a century and a half ago, were not likely to have been;—we blame him not because in his Rebecca, that most charming production of an imagination rich with images of nobleness and beauty, he has exhibited qualities incompatible with the real situation of the daughter of that most oppressed and abject being, a Jew of the twelfth century. It is plain that if Minna or Rebecca had been drawn with a strict regard to probability, and made just such as they were most likely to have been, one of the great objects of fiction would have been reversed: the reader would have been repelled instead of being attracted. This poetical tone pervades, more or less, the delineations of all his heroines; and the charm which it imparts, perhaps more than counterbalances the detrimental tendency of sameness. At the same time, we may add, that it is least exhibited when circumstances seem least to require it. His heroines are, on the whole, better treated, as such, than his heroes, who are, for the most part, thrown into the ring to be bandied about, the sport of circumstances;—owing almost all their interest to the events which thicken around them. Many of them exhibit no definite character, or, when they rise above nonentities, are not so much individuals as abstractions. A strong fraternal likeness to the vacillating Waverley does not raise them in our esteem. They seem too nearly imitations of the most faulty portion of that otherwise admirable tale.

Scenic Description.

Good as are the descriptions of quiescent objects, it is in his treatment of events,—of the visible operations of man, or of the elements,—that the author displays most power. What have we finer of its kind, than the storm in the Antiquary? The sullen sunset—the advancing tide—the rocks half hidden by the rising foam—the marks of promised safety fading from sight, and with them the hope they nourished—the ledge which the sufferers gained with difficulty—on the one side, a raging sea, and on the other, a barrier that forbade retreat! Guy Mannering contains another masterpiece—the night attack of Portanferry, witnessed by Bertram. We feel as though we were that person—we see and hear all of which his eyes and ears had cognizance; and the impression is the more strong, because the writer has told only that, and left the rest to our imagination. This illustrates one feature of the author's skill. He knows the effect producible by leaving circumstances in the incompleteness and obscurity in which they often present themselves to the senses of a single person; he tells just what that person could have perceived, and leaves the sketch to be finished by his reader. Thus, when Porteous is hurried away to execution, we attend his ruthless conductors, but we wait not to witness the last details, but flee with Butler from the scene of death, and looking back from afar, see through the lurid glare of torches a human figure dangling in the air—and the whole scene is more present to our minds, than if every successive incident had been regularly unfolded. Thus, when Ravenswood and his horse vanish from the sight of Colonel Ashton, we feel how the impressiveness and beauty of the description are heightened by placing us where the latter stood,—showing us no more than he could have witnessed, and bidding our imaginations to fill up the awful doubtful chasm.

That the Author of Waverley is a master of the pathetic, is evinced by several well-known passages. Such are the funeral of the fisherman's son in the Antiquary—the imprisonment and trial of Effie Deans, and the demeanour of the sister and the broken-hearted father—the short narrative of the smuggler in Redgauntlet—many parts of Kenilworth—and of that finest of tragic tales, the Bride of Lammermoor.

Plots.

The plots in the Waverley Novels generally display much ingenuity, and are interestingly involved; but there is not one in the conduct of which it would not be easy to point out a blemish. None have that completeness which constitutes one of the chief merits of Fielding's Tom Jones. There is always either an improbability, or a forced expedient, or an incongruous incident, or an unpleasant break, or too much intricacy, or a hurried conclusion. They are usually languid in the commencement, and abrupt in the close; too slowly opened, and too hastily summed up. Guy Mannering is one of those in which these two faults are least apparent. The plot of Peveril of the Peak might perhaps, on the whole, have been considered the best, if it had not been spoiled by the finale.

Scott and Shakspeare.

It may be said of the novels of Sir Walter Scott, as of the plays of Shakspeare, that though they never exhibit an attempt to enforce any distinct moral, they are, on the whole, favourable to morality. They tend (to use a common expression) to keep the heart in its right place. They inspire generous emotions, and a warm-hearted and benevolent feeling towards our fellow-creatures; and for the most part afford a just and unperverted view of human character and conduct. In them a very sparing use is made of satire—that weapon of questionable utility—which perhaps has never yet done much good in any hands, not even in those of Pope or Young. Satire is thought useful, too much because it gratifies the uncharitableness of our nature. But to hold up wisdom and virtue to our admiration, is better than to apply the lash, however dexterously, to vice and folly. There are, perhaps, no fictions exciting the imagination so strongly as the Waverley Novels, which have a less tendency to corrupt the heart; and it is, chiefly, because they do not exhibit flattering and delusive pictures of crime. In this again they resemble the plays of Shakspeare. Forcibly as that great dramatist has depicted vice, and ably as he has sometimes shown its coexistence with physical energy and intellectual superiority,—much as he may teach us to admire the villain for some of his attributes, he never confounds the limits of right and wrong. He produces no obliquity in our moral sense, nor seduces us to lend our sympathy against the dictates of our better reason. Neither in his graver, nor in his gayer scenes, is there aught which can corrupt. He invests profligacy with no attractive colours, nor lends a false and imposing greatness to atrocious villany. We admire the courage of Macbeth, the ability of Richard, the craft and dexterity of Iago, and the stubborn energy of Shylock,—but we never applaud, nor wish to emulate. We see them too truly as they are. The Author of Waverley, though he approaches nearer to the fault in question than Shakspeare, can never be fairly said to have committed it. Cleveland, Robertson, Rashleigh, Christian, might, by a few touches added, and a few expunged, become very captivating villains, and produce a brisk fermentation of mischief in many young and weak heads. But of such false touches and suppressions of truth, the author has not been guilty. He has not disguised their vices and their weaknesses,—he has not endowed them with incompatible virtues; but, just favouring them charitably, so as to take off the edge of our dislike, has exhibited them nearly as they must necessarily have been. The same discretion is observable in his impersonation of those equivocal characters in humble life which he has invested with an interest hitherto unknown. Meg Merrilies, Madge Wildfire, Ratclifte, and the Smuggler in Redgauntlet, are characters in whom are found redeeming traits of the best feeling, and which, therefore, interest us deeply. Yet all of them are more or less at war with order and the institutions of society, and must fall under its heavy ban. And, interested as we are, we are never led to deem the censures of society unjust, or to take part with them in their war against it.

Style.

Beauty of style is not one of Sir Walter Scott's chief merits. His choice of expressions is, however, better than his disposition of them. His sentences are too full of expletives,—too long, and loosely arranged; exuberant, like his fancy, and untrimmed, as if never subjected to a process of compression,—a limæ labor, perhaps incompatible with the wonderful expedition with which work after work has issued from the press. This facility of production is too remarkable to be overlooked. It is almost unexampled. Voltaire and Lord Byron have written some of their best works in an inconceivably short time. Dryden produced five act plays at the rate of three a-year. Shakspeare is supposed in one year to have written five, among which is that whereon he must have expended most thought—Hamlet. This, considering the value of the productions, would perhaps be the greatest feat on record, if we could be sure that the plays had been wholly invented and written within the twelve-month—but this cannot be ascertained. Nevertheless, for long continued fertility of pen, perhaps Sir Walter Scott may be safely said to have never been exceeded.

Two remarks have been repeated, till many receive them as undeniable axioms; and we notice them only for that reason. One is, that the Author of Waverley's earliest productions are decidedly his best—the other, that he is never so great as when he treads on Scottish ground. In neither assertion is there much truth. Are Ivanhoe, Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward, Nigel, and Kenilworth, inferior to St. Ronan's Well, the Monastery, and the Abbot? May not the first mentioned five be ranked among the best of his novels? and must they unquestionably yield to Rob Roy or the Antiquary? or does one of our latest favourites, the Maid of Perth, betray much deficiency of that vigour which characterized the first-born Waverley! Few will answer in the affirmative.—Edinburgh Review.