The laugh, half in ridicule, half in good nature, with 113 which the crowd greeted every very gaudily dressed member, richer in symbol and obsolete finery than his neighbour, showed that the day had passed in which such things could produce their originally intended effect. Will the time ever arrive in which stars and garters will claim as little respect as broad-skirted doublets of green velvet, surmounted with three-cornered hats tagged with silver lace? Much, we suppose, must depend upon the characters of those who wear them, and the kind of services on which they will come to be bestowed. An Upper House of mere diplomatists––skilful only to overreach––imprudent enough to substitute cunning for wisdom––ignorant enough to deem the people not merely their inferiors in rank, but in discernment also––weak enough to believe that laws may be enacted with no regard to the general good––wrapped up in themselves, and acquainted with the masses only through their eavesdroppers and dependants––would bring titles and orders to a lower level in half an age, than the onward progress of intellect has brought the quaintnesses of mechanic symbol and mystery in two full centuries. We but smile at the one, we would learn to execrate the other. Has the reader ever seen Quarles’ Emblems, or Flavel’s Husbandry and Navigation Spiritualized? Both belong to an extinct species of literature, of which the mechanic mysteries described by Coleridge, and exhibited in the procession of Saturday last, strongly remind us. Both alike proceeded on a process of mind the reverse of the common. Comparison generally leads from the moral to the physical, from the abstract to the visible and the tangible; here, on the contrary, the tangible and the visible––the emblem and the symbol––were made to lead to the moral and the abstract. There are beautiful instances, too, of the same school in the allegories of Bunyan,––the wonders in the house of the Interpreter, for instance, and the scenes exhibited in the cave of the ‘man named Contemplation.’ 114
Sir Walter’s monument will have one great merit, regarded as a piece of art. It will be entirely an original,––such a piece of architecture as he himself would have delighted to describe, and the description of which he, and he only, could have sublimed into poetry. There is a chaste and noble beauty in the forms of Greek and Roman architecture which consorts well with the classic literature of those countries. The compositions of Sir Walter, on the contrary, resemble what he so much loved to describe––the rich and fantastic Gothic, at times ludicrously uncouth, at times exquisitely beautiful. There are not finer passages in all his writings than some of his architectural descriptions. How exquisite is his Melrose Abbey,––the external view in the cold, pale moonshine,
‘When buttress and buttress alternately
Seemed formed of ebon and ivory;’
internally, when the strange light broke from the wizard’s tomb! Who, like Sir Walter, could draw a mullioned window, with its ‘foliaged tracery,’ its ‘freakish knots,’ its pointed and moulded arch, and its dyed and pictured panes? We passed, of late, an hour amid the ruins of Crichton, and scarce knew whether most to admire the fine old castle itself, so worthy of its poet, or the exquisite picture of it we found in Marmion.
Sir Walter’s monument would be a monument without character, if it were other than Gothic. Still, however, we have our fears for the effect. In portrait-painting there is the full life-size, and a size much smaller, and both suit nearly equally well, and appear equally natural; but the intermediate sizes do not suit. Make the portrait just a very little less than the natural size, and it seems not the reduced portrait of a man, but the full-sized portrait of a dwarf. Now a similar principle seems to obtain in Gothic architecture. 115
The same design which strikes as beautiful in a model––the piece which, if executed in spar, and with a glass cover over it, would be regarded as exquisitely tasteful––would impress, when executed on a large scale, as grand and magnificent in the first degree. And yet this identical design, in an intermediate size, would possibly enough be pronounced a failure. Mediocrity in size is fatal to the Gothic, if it be a richly ornamented Gothic; nor are we sure that the noble design of Mr. Kemp is to be executed on a scale sufficiently extended. We are rather afraid not, but the result will show. Such a monument a hundred yards in height would be one of the finest things perhaps in Europe.
What has Sir Walter done for Scotland, to deserve so gorgeous a monument? Assuredly not all he might have done; and yet he has done much––more, in some respects, than any other merely literary man the country ever produced. He has interested Europe in the national character, and in some corresponding degree in the national welfare; and this of itself is a very important matter indeed. Shakespeare––perhaps the only writer who, in the delineation of character, takes precedence of the author of Waverley––seems to have been less intensely imbued with the love of country. It is quite possible for a foreigner to luxuriate over his dramas, as the Germans are said to do, without loving Englishmen any the better in consequence, or respecting them any the more. But the European celebrity of the fictions of Sir Walter must have had the inevitable effect of raising the character of his country,––its character as a country of men of large growth, morally and intellectually. Besides, it is natural to think of foreigners as mere abstractions; and hence one cause at least of the indifference with which we regard them,––an indifference which the first slight misunderstanding converts into hostility. It is something towards a more general diffusion of goodwill to be enabled 116 to conceive of them as men with all those sympathies of human nature, on which the corresponding sympathies lay hold, warm and vigorous about them. Now, in this aspect has Sir Walter presented his countrymen to the world. Wherever his writings are known, a Scotsman can be no mere abstraction; and in both these respects has the poet and novelist deserved well of his country.
Within the country itself, too, his great nationality, like that of Burns, has had a decidedly favourable effect. The cosmopolism so fashionable among a certain class about the middle of the last century, was but a mock virtue, and a very dangerous one. The ‘citizen of the world,’ if he be not a mere pretender, is a man to be defined by negatives. It is improper to say he loves all men alike: he is merely equally indifferent to all. Nothing can be more absurd than to oppose the love of country to the love of race. The latter exists but as a wider diffusion of the former. Do we not know that human nature, in its absolute perfection, and blent with the absolute and infinite perfection of Deity, indulged in the love of country? The Saviour, when He took to Himself a human heart, wept over the city of His fathers. Now, it is well that this spirit should be fostered, not in its harsh and exclusive, but in its human and more charitable form.
Liberty cannot long exist apart from it. The spirit of war and aggression is yet abroad: there are laws to be established, rights to be defended, invaders to be repulsed, tyrants to be deposed. And who but the patriot is equal to these things? How was the cry of ‘Scotland for ever’ responded to at Waterloo, when the Scots Greys broke through a column of the enemy to the rescue of their countrymen, and the Highlanders levelled their bayonets for the charge! A people cannot survive without the national spirit, except as slaves. The man who adds to the vigour of the feeling at the same time that he lessens its exclusiveness, 117 deserves well of his country; and who can doubt that Sir Walter has done so?
The sympathies of Sir Walter, despite his high Tory predilections, were more favourable to the people as such than those of Shakespeare. If the station be low among the characters of the dramatist, it is an invariable rule that the style of thinking and of sentiment is low also.