In May 1816 The Antiquary appeared; in April he had begun The Tales of my Landlord, he wrote the historical part of The Annual Register, and he trifled with Harold the Dauntless, while as busy as ever with official duties, society, and sport, adding 850 acres to his estate, by purchases of small farms at exorbitant prices. Meanwhile he did not clear off the cargoes of encumbrances of useless books, and wind up the Ballantyne affairs. Instead of making a firm bargain with Constable, John Ballantyne negotiated the business of The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality with Mr. Blackwood and Mr. Murray—the volumes were not to bear the name of “the Author of Waverley.” Now Mr. Blackwood, very naturally, did not care for The Black Dwarf, and “without seeking any glossy periphrase,” spoke out his demand for alterations to James Ballantyne. Scott’s temper was not governed on this occasion, but James did not report to Mr. Blackwood the very unparliamentary terms of the reply to his “most impudent proposal.”
“OLD MORTALITY”
Old Mortality and The Black Dwarf came out, at the end of 1816, in four volumes. The Black Dwarf is of little account, but Old Mortality is in the first three of the Waverley novels in merit. Scott knew the Covenanting literature well, and, if he has made errors, for example where he writes as if the English Liturgy were in use, in the Scotland of the Restoration, he may be merely seeking effect. But the learned Dr. M’Crie, the biographer of Knox, a most painful student of manuscript sources, published a long set of criticisms historical, in an Edinburgh serial, to which Scott thought fit to reply in a review of the romance in The Quarterly. Erskine wrote the literary parts of the criticism, while Scott replied, with much humour and great good humour, to his clerical censor. The Covenanters of the Restoration were a peculiar people. In 1660, when the King came to his own, the leaders of the milder party were ready to abate the claims of the preachers to “rule the roast” in politics; and one of the leaders wished to see the preachers of the fiercer party banished to the Orkneys. The zealots, on the other hand, desired Charles II to put down the Church of England in England, which meant civil war. But both parties were equally struck at by the introduction of Episcopacy without a Liturgy. Like the zealots on divers occasions, the Governors under Charles II expelled the Non-conformists from their pulpits. A rising followed, and then a skimble-skamble Government which offered “Indulgences” to Presbyterians. The milder sort were satisfied with being tolerated, the wilder sort wished to be intolerant, and the Kirk split into divers sections, hating each other nearly as much as they hated prelatists. Strange wandering prophets, prophesying balderdash, scoured the country, pursued by dragoons, and in their utterances are many ludicrous things and anarchic doctrines, reprobated by the more peaceful section.
Scott knew all the parties, and was not tender to the absurdities. He had written a novel, not a history, and had used the licence of a novelist. Meanwhile in the beautiful character of Bessie Maclure, Scott surely made amends for his maniac preacher, his indulged preacher, and the rest of his warring Covenanters. The Claverhouse of the novel is not, of course, the actual Claverhouse of history, but he is more like the man than the absurd Claverhouse of Macaulay. One fault is attributed to the gallant Graham which he did not possess. Far from being reckless of plebeian as opposed to “gentle” blood, he urged the policy of sparing the multitude and punishing their “gentle leaders.” It is improbable that Claverhouse was given to quoting Froissart, as in the novel, but he did quote Lucan, an author admired by Scott.
“OLD MORTALITY”
We cannot go into a criticism of the historical accuracy of a novel. Old Mortality is not only one of Scott’s most stirring tales, but it contains even an unusual number of his most admirable characters, Cuddie and Mause Headrigg, Gudyill, the Major, Goose Gibbie, Old Milnwood (a true “Laird Nippy”), the murderer Burly, Bessie Maclure, Jenny Dennison, that unscrupulous coquette, Milnwood’s housekeeper, the fallen Bothwell, the fanatics of every shade, and Claverhouse himself. Indeed, be the inaccuracies of detail what they may, and they are trivial, no romance based on book knowledge displays so correct a general picture of the men and the times.
Old Mortality himself, about whom Scott heard much from his friend, Mr. Train (who suggested the novel), had been met by the author in his youth at Dunottar Castle among the graves of the Covenanters who died of ill-usage in the castle dungeons. That a number of soldiers in like manner perished of hunger when the Whigs got the upper hand at Edinburgh in 1688 is a circumstance generally omitted by the Whiggish Muse of Modern History. What would not have been said had hundreds of prisoners taken by Montrose been starved to death? Yet even Mr. Gardiner does not mention the hundreds of Royalist prisoners taken by Cromwell at Dunbar, immured in Durham Cathedral, and there permitted to die of hunger. To be sure the levies of Montrose took very few prisoners indeed, but settled all scores with the claymore.
Old Mortality contains a striking scene in which the appearance of Henry Morton is taken by Edith for his apparition, after or at the moment of death. The novels, like the poems, are seldom without a touch of “the supernatural,” which, in the case of Morton’s appearance, was the normal. In Waverley there is the death warning to Fergus MacIvor; in Guy Mannering there is the fulfilled horoscope: in The Antiquary the apparition to the hero is explained away, to some extent, but yields the desired effect. Scott was very much interested in phantasms and witchcraft, his library is rich in rare old books full of ghostly narratives, Bovet, Lavaterus, Sinclair, Petrus Thyraeus and crowds of others. Neither his friends nor he himself knew the precise frontiers of his belief and disbelief. At an inn he slept soundly in one bed of a double-bedded room, while a dead man occupied the other. He was insensible to fear, in these airy matters, and says that he had only twice in his life felt “eery.” Once it was at Glamis Castle, haunted for long by a legend of a Presence in a secret chamber. The secret of the chamber is no secret, and the Presence is borrowed bodily from a story current, in the eighteenth century, about Vale Royal in Cheshire. The other occasion on which Scott felt “eery” is not given by Lockhart, but is probably revealed by this anecdote of Gillies.
GHOST STORIES
“The most awkward circumstance about well-authenticated hobgoblins,” said he, “is that they, for the most part, come and disappear without any intelligible object or purpose, except to frighten people; which, with all due deference, seems rather foolish! Very many persons have either seen a ghost, or something like one, and I am myself among the number; but my story is not a jot better than the others I have heard, which, for the most part, were very inept. The good stories are sadly devoid of evidence; the stupid ones only are authentic.