I see wi' mair than kingly pride, My hearth a heaven o' neatness.— I like your company an' your crack, "The Recruiting Cockade" is a happy thought, and well brought out. No. V. THE RECRUITING COCKADE. TIBBY'S jo at Saint Boswell's had listed; He took my cauld hand an' he kissed it, I dreaded na what was the cause o't, Looked paughty, an' seemed to grow fause on't, I thought little gude could come out o' I shrieked, an' my head gae a swirl Grew blind, an' fell dead on his breast, An' kissed aff the tear frae my e'e, The next is a sweet and beautiful lyric entitled-"Tweedside.” No. VI.-TWEEDSIDE. WE'LL aye think o' Tweedside, love, Our early, only hame, Our ain, our faithers' pride, love, Mind ye when nane were near, love, An' some sleep there in death, love, With one more example we shall hold for the present. The subject is rather a novel one, viz.-"The Huntsman's Bride." No. VII. THE HUNTSMAN'S BRIDE. SHOULD the knight be sad when the morning breaks As the stealthy fox from a dream awakes, Should the knight be sad when, at break of day, The proud fleet steeds are prancing, And the gallant hounds round his lady bay, Away! away! let the night be gay, They've left sorrow behind- -on the lazy wind, Should the knight be sad when his own true bride, VOL. I. 2 L Or a spirit of smiles that cheers his side When the chase is o'er, and her eyes are bright Oh! it is the smile of her own loved knight, Let the knight be gay, let the knight be gay, For his lady-love will sing the lay To which he loves to listen. When the sun has set, and the huntsmen all Have left the banquet mellow, Her evening song on his ear shall fall, Her breast shall be his pillow. AN INQUIRY INTO THE MERITS OF THE SCOTTISH NOVELS. MEANWHILE, whate'er of beautiful or new, BEATTIE. FOR a number of years previous to the publication of the first of these novels, fictitious writing had in a great degree been regarded as trivial and unprofitable, as unworthy of employing the pen of genius and talent. We had indeed a solid though rather voluminous Richardson, a Fielding powerful in description, a Defoe characterized by simple yet attractive narration, a Smollet who pictured human nature in all the hues of reality, a chaste and elegant Goldsmith; but all these great minds had disappeared from our earth, and no one arose capable of following in their footsteps. A sickly taste for meretricious ornament had usurped the throne of fancy and fiction, and the press teemed with tales of horror and paltry love-adventures. The wit and the scholar had employed their talents on other subjects, and had left the fair fields of romance, and the fairy regions of the imagination, to minds of inferior cast among their own species, or to be described by the pen of the female writer. I mean not to detract from the wellwon praises of an Edgeworth, a Radcliffe, or an Opie, but certain it is that during that period the female sex seemed to have obtained a sort of prescriptive right over this kind of composition. At length, however, the Giant Genius of Scotland arose, and, concentrating in himself all those powers which have gained a reputation for the Novelists that preceded him, burst forth in the energy of his strength, and formed a new æra in the annals of fiction. From the metropo lis of the North the star of his fame arose in splendour, but not to his own country only were its rays confined,-all Europe saw and wondered; and shooting across the ocean, they were hailed with surprise on the further shores of the Atlantic. From city to city, from na tion to nation have these novels travelled, and by all, high or low, have they been admired and praised. The reading world was in a manner taken by surprise,-every one found in them something congenial to his own taste. The mere rea der for amusement was delighted with tracing the imaginative flights of the Novelist through the interesting events which occurred in the course of the tale, with the wonderful invention apparent in each successive chapter. But no sooner did the Waverley novels come into general circulation, than the Novelist was discovered to be a wit, a scholar, a philosopher and a critic. The man of learning wondered at finding depth of erudition and critical acumen under the unpretending, or rather disreputable garb of fiction, and the observer of hu man nature was agreeably surprised that such a writer should embody in his works the real passions which agitate the breast of man, or describe in such an interesting manner the events which occur in the world. The antiquarian, too, found in the author of Waverley a companion suited to his taste-a friend well versed in the customs and events of antiquity. The lover of poetry, also, perceived in the Scottish Novelist a mind that could view the universe with a poet's eye, and describe in glowing colours all the magnificence of nature. But not only were the productions of which we are speaking suited to the taste of each individual reader; they possessed another charmthat of novelty in design and execution-a charm which, in the present state of literary amusement, was sufficient of itself to confer upon them, at least, a temporary reputation. Before the appearance of Waverley, novel-writers, comparatively speaking, had confined themselves within narrow limits with regard to the developement of character, and depended more upon incident than any thing else for the purpose of exciting interest. Smollet, for example, took a hero and introduced him into a variety of scenes, which are no doubt described with the accuracy of a master; and the same thing may be said of Fielding. But none of our author's predecessors ever thought of introducing into his novels matters of national importance, or of describing characters who, in their day, were of some eminence in their country. This was left to the Scottish Novelist, by whom events, often involving a nation's welfare, are finely described; and kings, princes and heroes walk before the imagination, dressed in the same habiliments, and engaged in the same affairs as they were in the olden time, when they flourished in all their glory. We have thus taken a sort of general view of the merits of the Author of Waverley; let us now consider him closely; and, first, let us enquire into his manner of conducting his story. By employing such an expression, I do not mean to insinuate that the plots of his novels are of the same kind, that they are conducted on a similar plan, or even that they are equally well managed. Nor am I on the other hand disposed to grant with some, that Waverley must still be regarded as his masterpiece, or that he has written nothing since which can be compared with that first wonderful performance. On the contrary, I am of opinion that there are many of the succeeding novels which are not only equal to that one, but which even surpass it; and I need only mention Ivanhoe, the Pirate, and Quentin Durward, to prove my assertion. Waverley however possessed an advantage which the others did not enjoy,-it was the first our author produced, and men recollecting the pleasure they felt in reading it, looked back upon it with delight and a sort of veneration, and it soon became the fashion to decry the succeeding efforts of the Novelist as inferior to the first. Impressed with this opinion I have not the least hesitation in asserting that, if even the least esteemed of his novels, such as Peveril of the Peak or the Fortunes of Nigel, had appeared in circumstances similar to those with which the author of Waverley was ushered into the world, they would have met with a similar reception. Nor would I have it inferred that a novel-writer should be restricted to those rules of epic severity, regularity and accuracy, with which graver productions may be tried. The professed object of a Novelist is to amuse; he is therefore at liberty to employ whatever is conducive to entertainment; and on this account he enjoys a freedom which no other writer can claim with justice. Our author has taken advantage, in no small degree, of this privilege, and perhaps not an inconsiderable portion of the interest he excites may be traced to this circumstance. The osteusible plots in Waverley, Ivanhoe, and Quentin Durward, are a recital of the adventures of these characters during a certain portion of their lives. In the first of these, however, our attention is almost wholly occupied with the well-written details of the rebellion in 1745, and the fortunes of the ill-starred Charles Edward and his adherents; in the second we dwell upon the feats of the lionhearted Richard and the cabals of his faithless brother, with as much interest as upon the real hero of the romance; and in the last, the intrigues of Louis attract a great, if not the greatest part of the reader's curiosity. The Waverley Novels are therefore, for the most part, to be regarded as a kind of history of a certain period, adorned of course with fiction and the creations of a lofty imagination, rather than the mere adventures of a single individual. One character, however, was necessary in all works of the kind, in order to give unity to the whole, and to which the mind might on all occasions refer. Besides, when a writer of a novel sits down to his task, he must have some end in view, some catastrophe to unfold and describe, and it is the manner in which the author of Waverley brings about this by degrees, that I mean now to consider. A novel, although, as I have already said, it is subject not to the restrictions of an epic poem, must yet, in the language of the critics upon that species of poetry, have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Its action and fable, if not great and nationally important, must at least be interesting, fully developed, complete in themselves, and lead to a result-probable as well as satisfactory, when considered as the consequence of events mentioned before. The real plot or fable in most of the Waverley novels is not very extensive, and if stripped of all contingent circumstances, might have been comprised in a very few pages. It is not indeed upon the fortunes of his heroes merely that our author relies for giving his productions effect,-it is more upon the description of events which were of great |
