History of English Literature from "Beowulf" to Swinburne

by Andrew Lang

The brief "Wandering Willie's Tale," in "Redgauntlet," is Sir Walter's masterpiece of humour and terror: this story he worked on very carefully, and his care was rewarded. The Edinburgh lawyers, the eccentrics, Nanty Ewart, and the heroine of the Green Mantle, are worthy of their places in this great romance, made the more moving by many touches of autobiography.

"The Talisman" (1825) is a brilliant tale of Cœur de Lion and Saladin; "The Betrothed" is less appreciated than it ought to be. In 1825-1826 came the ruin of Scott, entailed by that of his publisher, Constable. How he bore it, how he laboured and died to redeem it, by long heavy task work at "The Life of Napoleon,"—by "Woodstock," in which the characters of Cromwell and of Charles II. in youth, are among his best creations; by "The Fair Maid of Perth," with the great character of the timid chief, and the finale of the Clan Battle of Perth; by "The Chronicles of the Canongate," and by his latest works, written with a half-palsied hand, composed by a brain in ruin, yet again and again inspired,—is a familiar story. The eyes are dimmed as these words are penned; so potent is the spell of that rich, kind genius, of that noble character, over the hearts of those who love and honour the great and good Sir Walter.

He created the historical novel; he opened the way in which no man or woman has followed him with such genius as his: we may say this even while we remember "Esmond" and "The Virginians"; "Kidnapped," "Catriona" and "The Master of Ballantrae"; "Les Trois Mousquetaires" and "La Dame de Monsoreau".

After a voyage to Italy, Sir Walter returned to Abbotsford, where he died in his own house with the murmur of Tweed in his ears as he passed away (September, 1832). "I say," wrote Byron emphatically, "that Walter Scott is as nearly a thoroughly good man as a man can be, because I know it by experience to be the case."

James Fenimore Cooper.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), bearing a name dear to grateful boyhood, is even now, with Hawthorne—an infinitely greater man—the American novelist best known on the Continent of Europe. In France as in England, he was the delight of the youth of men of letters; among the characters of fiction concerning whom Thackeray says Amo he places Leather Stocking with Dugald Dalgetty. Many of us, no doubt, at about the age of 10, have made stone heads for our arrows, like the noble neolithic Indian braves of Cooper, and have found (like Scottish savages, when flint was scarce) that slate served our purpose.

Cooper was born in New Jersey, and passed his childhood on his father's new settlement at Otsego Lake. Here were real deer and real Red Indians, and here Cooper's ply was taken. He was sent down from Yale, as inappreciative of the studious habits of the Pale Faces. He went to sea, thus obtaining another string to his bow as a novelist; next saw service in the Navy, by lake and sea; and, after a subsequent life of leisure, was stimulated by a bad English novel to vow that he could write a better,—his tale of English life, "Precaution," has not had the vogue of "Persuasion". Cooper turned to American topics in "The Spy," a story of the War of Independence; Scott's example may have led him to choose a recent historical topic; his knowledge of the forests and his remarkable hero, Harvey Birch, did the rest, and his success was assured; his work was welcomed both in France and England. Then came "The Pioneers," the first in composition of the five tales where Leather-Stocking, with his peculiar and silent laugh, leads us through forests, haunted by the Mingo and other fearful wild fowl. Then he turned to the sea, to Paul Jones, that renegade of Galloway, and Long Tom Coffin; this was the first of various novels of the Navy which are to American boys what Marryat's were and ought to be to our own. "The Last of the Mohicans," of 1826, marks the culmination of Cooper's talent, and Chingachgook, the Great Serpent, and Uncas, if not the paleface heroine, are imperishable in the memory. Cooper's visit to Europe led him into writings which rather exacerbated the American Eagle and the British Lion. Most of his very numerous later works are more or less polemical. He was no psychologue, his heroines are forlorn of admirers; in style he had nothing to touch R. L. Stevenson; he is "Cooper of the wood and wave".

Washington Irving.

The true beginner of accomplished literature in America was Washington Irving, born in New York, 3 April, 1783; his father was of the old Border family of the name, his mother, the daughter of an English clergyman. In his twenty-first year he visited Europe; on his return, with friends named Paulding, wrote light essays in a serial named "Salmagundi," and, later, a burlesque "History of New York," with the humours of "Diedrich Knickerbocker," a book in which Scott recognized gleams of Sterne and Swift. After the war ending in 1815, when he was under canvas, if not under fire much, he revisited England, and stayed with Scott at Abbotsford, of which he has left a pleasant record. In 1819 appeared his "Sketch Book" with the immortal story of Rip Van Winkle, and the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow". He had not quite shared Scott's enthusiasm for the scenery about Abbotsford, mainly resting for its charm on historical and legendary associations unfamiliar to him, but he gave legends to his native Catskill Hills, and the Hudson River. His style has an Addisonian felicity and kind humour; and in his "Bracebridge Hall" he handled old-fashioned England as if he loved it. His "Tales of a Traveller" (he now visited Italy, France, and Spain) are not, throughout, of his best work. Spain and the Spanish inspired his "Life of Columbus," which in England was deservedly popular, and the picturesque "Conquest of Granada," and "The Alhambra." In 1829, Irving became secretary of the American Legation in London, and, returning, produced "Astoria," to boys, at least, a delightful account of the wilds. In 1842 he went as American Minister to Spain, and, at home, wrote an attractive "Life of Mahomet". He carried into historical work the grace of his essays, and the power of visualizing characters and events. He did not write of Europe as an American, with his eyes very open to the comparative merits of his own country; and he did not write of America as a European. He was at home in the past as in the present, and though in his country's literature he was a pioneer, his performance has none of the roughness of pioneering work. He had the amiability of his favourite Goldsmith, whose biography he wrote. He died in November, 1859. If he were not a great writer, he is a delightful writer; we think of him with Addison and Goldsmith, without the occasional little petulancies of the author of "The Vicar of Wakefield". When he began his work America had no literature, when he died her chief poets and historians had given full assurance of their powers.