is something totally different from the | with the greatest respect and tenderworship of calthrops and Elzevirs. ness, especially so in the case of the In the historical novels which deal Benedictine monk who fraternizes with with the Reformation period, and in all Captain Clutterbuck at Kennaquhair, indeed in which the Roman Catholic so much so, indeed, that there can be Church is contrasted with the Protes- little doubt on which side Scott's symtant communities, Scott seems to have pathies lay, though here, as in the case held the balance with equal fairness, of the Jacobites, they were at war with and never to have marred the serious his understanding. This conflict is effect of his romance by exaggerations very conspicuous in "The Abbot," and improbabilities of any very grave where, after associating all that is character. There is nothing either im- interesting and romantic in the charprobable or unjust in Father Eustace acter of Roland Græme with his alleor Father Ambrose, or the Benedictine giance to the Church, he converts him monk who appears in the introduction at the last moment to Protestantism, to "The Monastery." Here we see and pays this tardy homage to the the good side of the Roman Church. Reformation as a kind of death-bed In Father Boniface, in Prior Aylmer, repentance when it could do no harm in Friar Tuck, in Cardinal Balue, we to the story, and all had been made see the reverse. So, too, with their that could be made of the poetry of opponents: Heury Warden and Hal- Catholicism. bert Glendinning may well be set Mr. Keble is probably right in thinkagainst Dryfesdale, Tony Foster, and ing that Scott had in him the making Mause Headrigg. Of course it was of a good Anglican Churchman, had part of the day's work that in a series the system ever been fairly set before of stories ministering to that reaction him. That his mind was so constiagainst the French Revolution to which tuted as to respond more readily to the we have referred, Scott should select Church's appeal than to that of any Calwhatever was venerable or beneficent vinistic sect may readily be granted. in the ancient church and place it in In her antiquity, her solemnity, her the fairest light. But it is to be ob- beauty, she had everything to attract served that as a general rule he draws him. He was peculiarly well fitted to a marked line between the religious-appreciate what made so deep an imness of his Roman Catholic and that pression on Newman, her greatness. of his Protestant characters. In the latter, as in the case of Henry Warden, Mary Avenel, and many others to be found in his later novels-such as Nehemiah Holdenough, Major Bridgenorth, David Deans-it consists of steadfast belief in certain doctrines and articles of faith on which they pin their salvation; in the former it is more often a loyal and chivalric sentiment clinging to an hereditary faith and a falling cause, rather than any deep conviction of the value of particular tenets. "Forsake the faith of my gallant ancestors!" says Diana Vernon; "I would as soon, were I a man, forsake their banner when the tide of battle pressed hardest against it, and turn, like a hireling recreant, to join the victorious enemy." These feelings are always treated But beyond that his churchmanship did not extend. Whether with a different education it would have extended further, each person well acquainted with his character and writings may decide for himself. But what there can be no doubt at all about is the exquisite skill with which he extracted from Roman Catholicism whatever was eligible for his own purposes, and appealed to the sentiments of revereuce, loyalty, and piety, which it was his business to consult, without the slightest intrusion of a controversial element, or a word calculated to wound the susceptibilities of the most sensitive Protestant. He takes his leading or most effective characters from the losing side, as being always more poetical than the winning one; and in this respect Roman Catholics and Protes tants, Covenanters and Cavaliers, Whigs | imagination, to which the garish light and Jacobites, are treated with perfect of day was not admitted. In all other impartiality. respects this section of the Waverleys corresponds very closely with the historical Shakespearian plays; so that on this ground also we may call Sir Walter the Shakespeare of the nineteenth century. Scott and Shakespeare are the two poets of English history, standing out by themselves in strong relief, dealing each with a particular series of events starting from the same cause, a disputed succession to the crown, and both equally well adapted for po Scott's execution of this labor of love is a masterpiece of art, and it is, we think, in these novels that posterity will recognize his greatest work. We do not mean to say that his best novels are to be found among the number, but that, regarded as the presentation of one long drama, complete within itself and capable of being detached from the rest of the series without injury to any part of it, they remain the most brilliant and enduring monument of his genius. Scott made this great story his own, and has stamped upon it the impress of his own mind in characters which will never fade, and will continue to be a decisive influence The last of the three sections or classes into which we have divided the historical novels are the Stewart series: "Waverley," "Rob Roy," ," "Old Mortality," "A Legend of Montrose," "The Abbot," "Peveril of the Peak," "Redgauntlet," and "Woodstock." In "The Black Dwarf" and "The Bride of Lammermoor," the banished family is referred to so slightly that we have not included them in the list. The eight we have mentioned, extend-etic treatment. ing from the deposition of Mary Queen of Scots to the last expiring effort of her family in the reign of George III., cover a period of two hundred years, and have done for that memorable struggle and that doomed race what Shakespeare did for the Wars of the Roses, to which he has devoted five consecutive historical dramas. We need not here enter on the vexed question of the authorship of these plays, or enquire for how much or how little of them Shakespeare was indebted to others. There they stand, a monument of a bloody struggle between two great royal houses, rife with all the elements of romance and tragedy. The contest was between hereditary in the popular interpretation of it to right on one side and a Parliamentary title on the other. The Yorkists were the Jacobites of the fifteenth century, though they fared better than the adherents of hereditary right in the seventeenth and eighteenth; and Shakespeare clearly recognized the and gentlemen, contended in vain. legal title of the elder branch of the Plantagenets, though his sympathies into one great poem with a skill and do not seem to have been given exclusively to either party. In fact, the romance of misfortune was about evenly distributed between them. But time longer. the Stewarts kept undivided possession In glancing briefly at the general of it, and no true poet, in telling that characteristics of the whole octology, long tale of sadness, generosity, and fidelity, could have helped yielding to its fascination. The Parliamentary dynasty was the object of Scott's sober regard and sincere conviction. The White Rose was the mistress of his heart, bowered in the recesses of his the end of time. The house of Stewart, like one of the old royal houses of ancient Greece, seemed to lie under the curse of some avenging deity, with which the virtues of individuals, the gallantry and self-devotion of knights Scott has worked up these elements tact, with a breadth of sympathy and a warmth of imagination, which must still engage our attention for a short if we may be allowed to coin a word The board the vessel which conveys her out With the rest of the Stewarts his of Scotland seems in a manner to fore- task was much less difficult. Before shadow and to typify the embarkation the publication of Hallam's "Constituof Charles Edward and Redgauntlet on tional History," the world in general board the vessel that was to carry them had been willing to take its history to France; the beginning and the end from Hume; and although of course of "an auld sang." The coincidence is there were plenty of superior people curious, and no doubt wholly uninten- who took the Whig view of the distional; but it has often struck us, and putes between Charles I. and his Parwill not, we hope, seem overstrained. liament, the large majority of those In the story of "The Abbot," Scott who thought anything at all about it had perhaps a more difficult task to believed the king to have been much perform than in any of the Stewart ill used, and that his death would have series. What he himself thought about atoned for worse errors than any which the queen has long been the common he actually committed. Public opinion property of all his admirers. He re- rests half-way at present between the fused to write her life because he did exalted estimate of Charles as a saint not like to tell what he thought the and a martyr which prevailed at one truth about it. Yet in the pages of time, and the still more absurd depre"The Abbot" he is at little trouble ciation of him as a tyrant and a traitor to conceal it; though the manner of which was fostered by the Whigs and its revelation is one of the most won- their great swordsman, Lord Macaulay. derful monuments of Scott's literary Scott, however, had to do with the first skill which he has bequeathed to us. of these estimates, strengthened as it In his representation of Queen Mary was through the reaction in favor of he exhibits to us all that we are capable hereditary right and kingly inviolability of conceiving of female beauty, grace, naturally engendered by the murder of and sweetness, which, combined with Louis XVI. and the usurpation of Nawomanly wit and queenly dignity, make poleon. More than this, the reputation up one of those enchantresses for the of Charles threw a sort of ægis over sake of whom in all ages men have his descendants, and was allowed to willingly died. Yet from first to last, cover many sins. Charles II. was the and long before we come to that scene Merry Monarch who restored old Enof delirium brought on by Lady Flem-glish customs, the Maypole and the ing's indiscretion, which we have morris dance. If Dr. Johnson, the always thought rather a mistake, we great moralist, condoned "the lighter are conscious of a something, we know vices" which Charles practised, surely not what, a subtlety of suggestion worse people might do the same. baffling definition, which lurks in a Charles was witty, good-humored, and presentation of her, haunting us with a affable. As for misgovernment and mysterious sense of guilt, even while it so forth, few people knew or cared enhances, if possible, the interest with much about that. It was remembered which we gaze upon her and the spell that after all he was one of the most which she throws over us. Perhaps one popular sovereigns that ever sat upon source of this impression may be found the English throne; and the rest was in the admirable art with which Scott forgotten. James II. Scott, perhaps just glances at the innocent expression wisely, let alone. But in Charles Edof Mary's face, making it almost im- ward he had another popular hero, possible for any one to think ill of her separated by a long interval of time when in her presence. Thus, without from all the errors which destroyed his saying a word derogatory to the queen, family, and of whom the public, ignohe suggests a contrast which, delicately rant in general of his later years, knew conveyed as it is, can hardly fail to nothing that was not favorable. strike any reader of ordinary discrim- the Charles of 1745, therefore, he had ination. few or no difficulties to surmount. With These began when he returned to him twenty years later. So, too, with Charles II., Scott had an easier task with the youth of twenty, the fugitive prince fresh from Worcester fight, than with the middle-aged monarch, in whom he had to reconcile much that was discreditable both to the man and the sovereign with the popular idea of him which still survived when "Peveril of the Peak " was written. ham. Scott has contrived all the time with an art peculiar to himself to keep the amiable side of the king's character uppermost, even while he makes no secret of the other, and to adopt a sympathetic treatment of the traditional estimate of Charles without violating what none knew better than himself to be the truth of history. even the the In the portrait of Charles Edward, as we have already said, his skill was not But both in this novel and in "Wood- so heavily taxed. At the age of fivestock" he is quite as successful as he is and-twenty the prince had only exhibin "The Abbot," though he attained ited qualities calculated to gild a worse his object by a different method. The cause than his. There was but one lights and shades in Charles's character opinion of the prince himself, whatever are admirably intermingled; and in one might be thought of the justice of his particular, as in "The Abbot," more claim or the wisdom of his measures. is suggested than is stated. When But between the Charles Edward of Charles is repulsed by Alice Lee, we "Waverley" " and the Charles Edward seem to be intended to understand that of "Redgauntlet" there was he was then for the first time in his more difference than between life confronted with a truly virtuous Charles of "Woodstock' and girl, a being whom hitherto he had not Charles of Whitehall. To reproduce. believed to exist, and that as soon as after a lapse of twenty years the galhe realized the fact he was inclined to lant young adventurer of 1745, as a relinquish the pursuit. His behavior prematurely old man with all the famin the duel scene, one of the most pow-ily failings strongly developed in him, erful which Seott ever drew, was the was a daring experiment; yet it strikes natural result of the revelation, aided us as a marvellous success. At first by the further discovery of the depth sight it might appear that in his first and sincerity of Alice's affection for interview with Alan Fairford in the Everard. In "Peveril of the Peak" old Cumberland manor-house the we see Louis Kerneguy over again, prince would have carefully avoided with all his generous impulses still un- any word, act, or gesture calculated quenched, but with all his bad habits to excite suspicion or curiosity in the confirmed and strengthened. His self-mind of the young Whig lawyer; yet ishness appears in the absence of any his language, his demeanor, his air of attempt to expose the falsehood of the authority and condescension, are all of -Popish plot, or to save the lives of the numerous victims sacrificed to it. His profligacy would have condemned another Alice, another young lady whose virtue was equal to her beauty, to the lot which he had designed for Alice Lee. Yet it is difficult to resist the charm of his manner in Chiffinch's apartment, when Alice, ignorant of his intentions, appeals to him for protection; or to help being touched by his behavior to Major Coleby in the Tower, by his courageous bearing when in formed of Edward Christian's plot, and the mingled dignity and generosity displayed in his forgiveness of Bucking a nature to suggest that he was something more than the simple Roman Catholic priest which he was represented to be. Yet is not this, after all, thoroughly true to human nature, and especially to Stewart human nature ? The discrowned king, soured by repeated disappointments, growing more and more tenacious of the forms ef royalty as the substance disappears, jealous of the smallest encroachment on his personal dignity, and keenly alive to the least apparent want of respect and deference, is surely just what we should have expected to find in the Charles Edward of 1765. The high tone of the drama is sus- mingle with all the fascinations of tained to the last; and in all the Stew-romance so large a vein of common art gallery there is no more striking sense, sobriety, and moderation, — to figure than Redgauntlet himself, far enchain our imaginations without drugsuperior in our opinion to Fergus Mac-ging our reason, and to keep his eye on Ivor, and well likened by Scott to the regal port And faded splendor wan homely truth without ever letting us down "into the common day." The "Legend of Montrose," though one of the most interesting of the of the Prince of Darkness. Additional Stewart series, does not illustrate so interest is given to the tale by the fact strongly as the others the particular that the events described in it were points on which we have been trying taking place when the fathers of some to lay emphasis, and may more fitly be of us might have been alive. We can introduced under another head. Of think of the life at Fairladies almost "The Fortunes of Nigel," the same as something which we might have may be said. Though its hero is Queen witnessed ourselves. Nothing in any Mary's son, it is rather to be placed, of the Stewart novels appeals more with "Kenilworth," "Anne of Geierstrongly to the imagination than the old stein," and "The Fair Maid of Perth," hall secluded darkly among the lanes in a separate list which we should call and woods of Cumberland, "a home of the miscellaneous historical novels. ancient faith," and sheltering the heir of a long line of kings in his last wild effort to restore his fallen fortunes. Charles Edward's final interview with, and final parting from, the few followers who remained to him, and the break-up of the Stewart interest, are equally dignified and pathetic; and it were well that the story of this most deeply interesting, most unfortunate, and unhappy prince should end where Scott ends it. The conclusion of the long romance is not unworthy of the beginning; the Jacobite cause is finally laid to rest with every circumstance appropriate to a scene so sad and solemn; and the white rose is laid gently on its grave, watered by the tears of brave men, and consecrated by the Church's blessing. Little objection that we know of has ever been taken to Scott's character of James I., the wisest of fools and most foolish of wits, who ought nearly to head the list when we come to the humor of the Waverleys. But persons have been made seriously angry by his portrait of Queen Elizabeth, his story of Amy Robsart, and his libels, as they are called, on Sir Richard Varney and Anthony Foster. In regard to the queen, all that can be said is that Scott did not feel himself under any obligation to depart from the traditional and popular estimate of England's Eliza beth which he found ready to his hand. This was good enough for him; and it was not his business, but that of the historian and autiquarian, to impugn its accuracy if they did not believe it to be true. Whether Scott would have been equally justified in his picture of good Queen Bess, had "Kenilworth" been written after the publication of Scott, it will be observed, fully admits that the cause of the Stewarts was desperate, and that men of fortune with anything to lose would have been madmen to rush on certain and speedy Mr. Froude's "History "instead of ruin. From first to last he steered fifty years before it, is another quesclear of the danger to which an inferior tion, with which we have nothing to genius might have succumbed, - the do. Scott himself was of opinion that, danger, that is, of being carried away if any fault was found by Englishmen by his own sympathies to exaggerate with the portrait of their great queen, the merits and virtues, the strength it would be that it was not favorable and the popularity of Jacobites and enough. In a similar spirit Scott took Jacobitism; nor is it the least striking up the popular legends of Amy Robmark of his genius that he was able to sart and Cumuor Hall. This much, we |