On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2)

In both of the Masters, it is always to be remembered that the evil and good are alike conditions of literal vision: and therefore also, inseparably connected with the state of the health. I believe the first elements of all Scott's errors were in the milk of his consumptive nurse, which all but killed him as an infant (L. i. 19)—and was without doubt the cause of the teething fever that ended in his lameness (L. i. 20). Then came (if the reader cares to know what I mean by "Fors," let him read the page carefully) the fearful accidents to his only sister, and her death (L. i. 17); then the madness of his nurse, who planned his own murder (21), then the stories continually told him of the executions at Carlisle (24), his aunt's husband having seen them; issuing, he himself scarcely knows how, in the unaccountable terror that came upon him at the sight of statuary (31)—especially Jacob's ladder; then the murder of Mrs. Swinton, and finally the nearly fatal bursting of the blood vessel at Kelso, with the succeeding nervous illness (65-67)—solaced, while he was being "bled and blistered till he had scarcely a pulse left," by that history of the Knights of Malta—fondly dwelt on and realized by actual modeling of their fortress, which returned to his mind for the theme of its last effort in passing away.

42

"Se dit par dénigrement, d'un chrétien qui ne croit pas les dogmes de sa religion."—Fleming, vol. ii. p. 659.

43

The novel alluded to is "The Mill on the Floss." See below, p. 272, § 108.—Ed.

44

"A son nom," properly. The sentence is one of Victor Cherbuliez's, in "Prosper Randoce," which is full of other valuable ones. See the old nurse's "ici bas les choses vont de travers, comme un chien qui va à vêpres," p. 93; and compare Prosper's treasures, "la petite Vénus, et le petit Christ d'ivoire," p. 121; also Madame Brehanne's request for the divertissement of "quelque belle batterie à coups de couteau" with Didier's answer. "Hélas! madame, vous jouez de malheur, ici dans la Drôme, l'on se massacre aussi peu que possible," p. 33.

45

Edgeworth's "Tales," (Hunter, 1827), "Harrington and Ormond," vol. iii. p. 260.

46

Alice of Salisbury, Alice Lee, Alice Bridgnorth.

47

Scott's father was habitually ascetic. "I have heard his son tell that it was common with him, if any one observed that the soup was good, to taste it again, and say, 'Yes—it is too good, bairns,' and dash a tumbler of cold water into his plate."—Lockhart's "Life" (Black, Edinburgh, 1869), vol. i. p. 312. In other places I refer to this book in the simple form of "L."

48

A young lady sang to me, just before I copied out this page for press, a Miss Somebody's "great song," "Live, and Love, and Die." Had it been written for nothing better than silkworms, it should at least have added—Spin.

49

See passage of introduction to "Ivanhoe," wisely quoted in L. vi. 106.

50

See below, note, p. 199, on the conclusion of "Woodstock."

51

The reference is to a series of "Waverley Tableaux" given in London shortly before the publication of this paper.—Ed.

52

L. iv. 177.

53

L. vi. 67.

54

"One other such novel, and there's an end; but who can last forever? who ever lasted so long?"—Sydney Smith (of the Pirate) to Jeffrey, December 30, 1821. (Letters, vol. ii. p. 223.)

55

L. vi. p. 188. Compare the description of Fairy Dean, vii. 192.

56

All, alas! were now in a great measure so written. "Ivanhoe," "The Monastery," "The Abbot," and "Kenilworth" were all published between December 1819 and January 1821, Constable & Co. giving five thousand guineas for the remaining copyright of them, Scott clearing ten thousand before the bargain was completed; and before the "Fortunes of Nigel" issued from the press Scott had exchanged instruments and received his bookseller's bills for no less than four "works of fiction," not one of them otherwise described in the deeds of agreement, to be produced in unbroken succession, each of them to fill up at least three volumes, but with proper saving clauses as to increase of copy money in case any of them should run to four; and within two years all this anticipation had been wiped off by "Peveril of the Peak," "Quentin Durward," "St. Ronan's Well," and "Redgauntlet."

57

"Woodstock" was finished 26th March, 1826. He knew then of his ruin; and wrote in bitterness, but not in weakness. The closing pages are the most beautiful of the book. But a month afterwards Lady Scott died; and he never wrote glad word more.

58

Compare Mr. Spurgeon's not unfrequent orations on the same subject.

59

There are three definite and intentional portraits of himself, in the novels, each giving a separate part of himself: Mr. Oldbuck, Frank Osbaldistone, and Alan Fairford.

60

See note, p. 224.—Ed.

61

Andrew knows Latin, and might have coined the word in his conceit; but, writing to a kind friend in Glasgow, I find the brook was called "Molyndona" even before the building of the Subdean Mill in 1446. See also account of the locality in Mr. George's admirable volume, "Old Glasgow," pp. 129, 149, etc. The Protestantism of Glasgow, since throwing that powder of saints into her brook Kidron, has presented it with other pious offerings; and my friend goes on to say that the brook, once famed for the purity of its waters (much used for bleaching), "has for nearly a hundred years been a crawling stream of loathsomeness. It is now bricked over, and a carriage-way made on the top of it; underneath the foul mess still passes through the heart of the city, till it falls into the Clyde close to the harbor."

62

August, 1880.

63

The following fragments out of the letters in my own possession, written by Scott to the builder of Abbotsford, as the outer decorations of the house were in process of completion, will show how accurately Scott had pictured himself in Monkbarns.

64

Henceforward, not in affectation, but for the reader's better convenience, I shall continue to spell "Ryme" without our wrongly added h.

65

L. ii. 278.

66

"Che nella mente mia ragiona." Love—you observe, the highest Reasonableness, instead of French ivresse, or even Shakespearian "mere folly"; and Beatrice as the Goddess of Wisdom in this third song of the Convito, to be compared with the Revolutionary Goddess of Reason; remembering of the whole poem chiefly the line:—

"Costei penso chi che mosso l'universo."

(See Lyell's "Canzoniere," p. 104.)

67

ὡραν της τἑρπσιος—Plato, "Laws," ii., Steph. 669. "Hour" having here nearly the power of "Fate" with added sense of being a daughter of Themis.

68

"Gunpowder is one of the greatest inventions of modern times, and what has given such a superiority to civilized nations over barbarous"! ("Evenings at Home"—fifth evening.) No man can owe more than I both to Mrs. Barbauld and Miss Edgeworth; and I only wish that in the substance of what they wisely said, they had been more listened to. Nevertheless, the germs of all modern conceit and error respecting manufacture and industry, as rivals to Art and to Genius, are concentrated in "Evenings at Home" and "Harry and Lucy"—being all the while themselves works of real genius, and prophetic of things that have yet to be learned and fulfilled. See for instance the paper, "Things by their Right Names," following the one from which I have just quoted ("The Ship"), and closing the first volume of the old edition of the "Evenings."

69

Carlyle, "French Revolution" (Chapman, 1869), vol. ii. p. 70; conf. p. 25, and the Ça ira at Arras, vol. iii. p. 276.

70

Ibid. iii. 26.

71

Carlyle, "French Revolution," iii. 106, the last sentence altered in a word or two.

72

I have been greatly disappointed, in taking soundings of our most majestic mountain pools, to find them, in no case, verge on the unfathomable.

73

September, 1880.

74

"It must be put by the original, stanza for stanza, and verse for verse; and you will see what was permitted in a Catholic country and a bigoted age to Churchmen, on the score of Religion—and so tell those buffoons who accuse me of attacking the Liturgy.

"I write in the greatest haste, it being the hour of the Corso, and I must go and buffoon with the rest. My daughter Allegra is just gone with the Countess G. in Count G.'s coach and six. Our old Cardinal is dead, and the new one not appointed yet—but the masquing goes on the same." (Letter to Murray, 355th in Moore, dated Ravenna, Feb. 7, 1820.) "A dreadfully moral place, for you must not look at anybody's wife, except your neighbor's."

75

See quoted infra the mock, by Byron, of himself and all other modern poets, "Juan," canto iii. stanza 80, and compare canto xiv. stanza 8. In reference of future quotations the first numeral will stand always for canto; the second for stanza; the third, if necessary, for line.

76

"Island," ii. 16, where see context.

77

"Juan," viii. 5; but, by your Lordship's quotation, Wordsworth says "instrument,"—not "daughter." Your Lordship had better have said "Infant" and taken the Woolwich authorities to witness: only Infant would not have rymed.

78

"Juan," viii. 3; compare 14, and 63, with all its lovely context 61-68: then 82, and afterwards slowly and with thorough attention, the Devil's speech, beginning, "Yes, Sir, you forget" in scene 2 of "The Deformed Transformed": then Sardanapalus's, act i. scene 2, beginning, "he is gone, and on his finger bears my signet," and finally the "Vision of Judgment," stanzas 3 to 5.

79

"Island," iii. 3, and compare, of shore surf, the "slings its high flakes, shivered into sleet" of stanza 7.

80

A modern editor—of whom I will not use the expressions which occur to me—finding the "we" a redundant syllable in the iambic line, prints, "we're." It is a little thing—but I do not recollect, in the forty years of my literary experience, any piece of editor's retouch quite so base. But I don't read the new editions much: that must be allowed for.

81

"Island," ii. 5. I was going to say, "Look to the context," but am fain to give it here; for the stanza, learned by heart, ought to be our school-introduction to the literature of the world.

"Such was this ditty of Tradition's days,Which to the dead a lingering fame conveysIn song, where fame as yet hath left no signBeyond the sound whose charm is half divine;Which leaves no record to the skeptic eye,But yields young history all to harmony;A boy Achilles, with the centaur's lyreIn hand, to teach him to surpass his sire.For one long-cherish'd ballad's simple stave,Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave,Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side,Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide,Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear,Than all the columns Conquest's minions rear;Invites, when hieroglyphics are a themeFor sages' labors or the student's dream;Attracts, when History's volumes are a toil—The first, the freshest bud of Feeling's soil,Such was this rude rhyme—rhyme is of the rude,But such inspired the Norseman's solitude,Who came and conquer'd; such, wherever riseLands which no foes destroy or civilize,Exist; and what can our accomplish'd artOf verse do more than reach the awaken'd heart?"

82

"Shepherd's Calendar." "Coronatiön," loyal-pastoral for Carnation; "sops in wine," jolly-pastoral for double pink; "paunce," thoughtless pastoral for pansy; "chevisaunce," I don't know (not in Gerarde); "flowre-delice"—pronounce dellice—half made up of "delicate" and "delicious."

83

Herrick, "Dirge for Jephthah's Daughter."

84

"Passionate Pilgrim."

85

In this point compare the "Curse of Minerva" with the "Tears of the Muses."

86

"He,"—Lucifer; ("Vision of Judgment," 24). It is precisely because Byron was not his servant, that he could see the gloom. To the Devil's true servants, their Master's presence brings both cheerfulness and prosperity; with a delightful sense of their own wisdom and virtue; and of the "progress" of things in general:—in smooth sea and fair weather,—and with no need either of helm touch, or oar toil: as when once one is well within the edge of Maelstrom.

87

"Island," ii. 4; perfectly orthodox theology, you observe; no denial of the fall,—nor substitution of Bacterian birth for it. Nay, nearly Evangelical theology, in contempt for the human heart; but with deeper than Evangelical humility, acknowledging also what is sordid in its civilization.

88

November, 1880.—Ed.

89

"Childe Harold," iv. 79; compare "Adonais," and Sismondi, vol. i. p. 148.

90

Adrian the Fourth. Eugenius died in the previous year.

91

"All the multitudes threw themselves on their knees, praying mercy in the name of the crosses they bore: the Count of Blandrata took a cross from the enemies with whom he had served, and fell at the foot of the throne, praying for mercy to them. All the court and the witnessing army were in tears—the Emperor alone showed no sign of emotion. Distrusting his wife's sensibility, he had forbidden her presence at the ceremony; the Milanese, unable to approach her, threw towards her windows the crosses they carried, to plead for them."—Sismondi (French edition), vol. i. p. 378.

92

The most noble and tender confession is in Allegra's epitaph, "I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me."

93

Hypocrisy is too good a word for either Pall Mall or Trianon, being justly applied (as always in the New Testament), only to men whose false religion has become earnest, and a part of their being: so that they compass heaven and earth to make a proselyte. There is no relation between minds of this order and those of common rogues. Neither Tartuffe nor Joseph Surface are hypocrites—they are simply impostors: but many of the most earnest preachers in all existing churches are hypocrites in the highest; and the Tartuffe-Squiredom and Joseph Surface-Masterhood of our virtuous England which build churches and pay priests to keep their peasants and hands peaceable, so that rents and per cents may be spent, unnoticed, in the debaucheries of the metropolis, are darker forms of imposture than either heaven or earth have yet been compassed by; and what they are to end in, heaven and earth only know. Compare again, "Island," ii. 4, "the prayers of Abel linked to deeds of Cain," and "Juan," viii. 25, 26.

94

Perhaps some even of the attentive readers of Byron may not have observed the choice of the three names—Myrrha (bitter incense), Marina (sea lady), Angiolina (little angel)—in relation to the plots of the three plays.

95

I shall have lost my wits very finally when I forget the first time that I pleased my father with a couplet of English verse (after many a year of trials); and the radiant joy on his face as he declared, reading it aloud to my mother with emphasis half choked by tears,—that "it was as fine as anything that Pope or Byron ever wrote!"

96

Of our tingle-tangle-titmouse disputes in Parliament like Robins in a bush, but not a Robin in all the house knowing his great A, hear again Plato: "But they, for ever so little a quarrel, uttering much voice, blaspheming, speak evil one of another,—and it is not becoming that in a city of well-ordered persons, such things should be—no; nothing of them nohow nowhere,—and let this be the one law for all—let nobody speak mischief of anybody (Μηδἑνα κακηγορεἱτο μηδεις)."—Laws, book ii. s. 935; and compare Book iv. 117.

97

A paragraph beginning "I find press corrections always irksome work, and in my last paper trust the reader's kindness to make some corrections in the preceding paper," is here omitted, and the corrections made.—Ed.

98

October 1881.

99

"Jean François Millet." Twenty Etching's and Woodcuts reproduced in Facsimile, and Biographical Notice by William Ernest Henley. London, 1881.

100

I am sorry to find that my former allusion to the boating expedition in this novel has been misconstrued by a young authoress of promise into disparagement of her own work; not supposing it possible that I could only have been forced to look at George Eliot's by a friend's imperfect account of it.

101

I am ashamed to exemplify the miserable work of "review" by mangling and mumbling this noble closing chapter of the "Monastery," but I cannot show the web of work without unweaving it.

102

With ludicrously fatal retouch in the later edition "was deprived of" his sword.

103

Again I am obliged, by review necessity, to omit half the points of the scene.

104

I must deeply and earnestly express my thanks to my friend Mr. Hale White for his vindication of Goethe's real opinion of Byron from the mangled representation of it by Mr. Matthew Arnold (Contemporary Review, August, 1881).

105

"Reirde, rerde, Anglo-Saxon reord, lingua, sermo, clamor, shouting" (Douglas glossary). No Scottish sentence in the Scott novels should be passed without examining every word in it, his dialect, as already noticed, being always pure and classic in the highest degree, and his meaning always the fuller, the further it is traced.

106

The reader must observe that in quoting Scott for illustration of particular points I am obliged sometimes to alter the succession and omit much of the context of the pieces I want, for Scott never lets you see his hand, nor get at his points without remembering and comparing far-away pieces carefully. To collect the evidence of any one phase of character, is like pulling up the detached roots of a creeper.

107

Note the "wee business of my ain," i. 213.

108

Its "hero" is a tall youth with handsome calves to his legs, who shoots a bull with a fowling-piece, eats a large lunch, thinks it witty to call Othello a "nigger," and, having nothing to live on, and being capable of doing nothing for his living, establishes himself in lunches and cigars forever, by marrying a girl with a fortune. The heroine is an amiable governess, who, for the general encouragement of virtue in governesses, is rewarded by marrying a lord.

109

The present paper was, however, the last.—Ed.

110

This paper forms the introduction to a volume entitled "German Popular Stories, with Illustrations after the original designs of George Cruikshank, edited by Edgar Taylor, with Introduction by John Ruskin, M.A." London: Chatto and Windus, 1868. The book is a reprint of Mr. Edgar Taylor's original (1823) selections of the "Hausmärchen," or "German Popular Stories" of the Brothers Grimm. The original selections were in two octavo volumes; the reprint in one of smaller size, it being (the publisher states in his preface) "Mr. Ruskin's wish that the new edition should appeal to young readers rather than to adults."—Ed.

111

Contemporary Review, May 1873.

112

These were, first, Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Bias of Patriotism," being the ninth chapter of his "Study of Sociology," first published in the Contemporary Review; and, secondly, Mr. W. R. Greg's "What is culpable luxury?" See below, p. 303, § 135.—Ed.

113

I take due note that Mr. Spencer partly means by his adverbial sentence that Patriotism is individual Egoism, expecting its own central benefit through the Nation's circumferent benefit, as through a funnel: but, throughout, Mr. Spencer confuses this sentiment, which he calls "reflex egoism," with the action of "corporate conscience."

114

See the letters on "How the Rich Spend their Money" (reprinted from the Pall Mall) in "Arrows of the Chace," vol. ii., where the origin of the discussion is explained.—Ed.

115

I use the current English of Mrs. Lennox's translation, but Henry's real saying was (see the first—green leaf—edition of Sully), "It is written above what is to happen to me on every occasion." "Toute occasion" becomes "cette occasion" in the subsequent editions, and finally "what is to happen to me" (ce que doit être fait de moi) becomes "what I ought to do" in the English.

116

Cahors. See the "Memoirs of the Duke of Sully," Book 1. (Bohn's 1856 Edition, vol. i., pp. 118-9.)—Ed.

117

Where violence and brutality are punished. See Dante's "Inferno," Canto xii.—Ed.

118

See the Contemporary Review at pp. 618 and 624.—Ed.

119

Viz.:—That if the expenditure of an income of £30,000 a year upon luxuries is to rob the poor, so pro tanto is the expenditure of so much of an income of £300 as is spent on anything beyond "the simplest necessaries of life."—Ed.

120

Referring to two anonymous articles on "The Agricultural Laborer," in the Cornhill Magazine, vol. 27, Jan. and June 1873, pp. 215 and 307.—Ed.

121

See the Times of November 23rd of that year.

122

"Is a Christian life feasible in these days?"—Ed.

123

See Munera Pulveris, § 139: "No man can become largely rich by his personal will.... It is only by the discovery of some method of taxing the labor of others that he can become opulent." And see also Time and Tide, § 81.—Ed.

124

Contemporary Review, February 1880.

125

See below (p. 393, § 236), in the eighth letter on the Lord's Prayer.—Ed.

126

In Proverbs xxviii. 8, "usury" is coupled with "unjust gain," and a pitiless spirit towards the poor, which shows in what sense the word is to be understood there, and in such other passages as Ps. xv. 5 and Ezek. xviii. 8, 9.

127

See post, p. 394, § 237.—Ed.

128

Speech of Mr. J. C. Hubbard, M.P. for London, reported in Standard of 26th July, 1879.

129

See the Articles of Association of the East Surrey Hall, Museum, and Library Company. (Fors Clavigera, Letter lxx.)

130

"The Polar World," p. 342, Longmans, 1874.

131

"The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,The best conditioned and unwearied spirit,In doing courtesies; and one in whomThe ancient Roman honor more appears,Than any that draws breath in Italy."

This is the Shakespearian description of that Anthony, whom the modern British public, with its new critical lights, calls a "sentimentalist and speculator!"—holding Shylock to be the real hero, and innocent victim of the drama.

132

Introduction to a pamphlet entitled "Usury and the English Bishops," or more fully, "Usury, its pernicious effects on English agriculture and commerce: An allegory dedicated without permission to the Bishops of Manchester, Peterborough and Rochester" (London: A. Southey, 146, Fenchurch Street, 1885). By R. J. Sillar. (See Fors Clavigera, vol. v. Letter 56.)—Ed.