Certainly, my good sir,—certainly: Shakespeare and Scott can’t help that;—all they know is,—that is the way God and Nature manage it. Of course, Rosalind ought to have been much more particular in her inquiries about Orlando;—Juliet about the person masqued as a pilgrim;—and there is really no excuse whatever for Desdemona’s conduct; and we all know what came of it;—but, again I say, Shakespeare and Scott can’t help that.
Nevertheless, Love is not the subject of this novel of Redgauntlet; but Law: on which matter we will endeavour now to gather its evidence.
Two youths are brought up together—one, the son of a Cavalier, or Ghibelline, of the old school, whose Law is in the sword, and the heart; and the other of a Roundhead, or Guelph, of the modern school, whose Law is in form and precept. Scott’s own prejudices lean to the Cavalier; but his domestic affections, personal experience, and sense of equity, lead him to give utmost finish to the adverse character. The son of the Cavalier—in moral courage, in nervous power, in general sense and self-command,—is entirely inferior to the son of the Puritan; nay, in many respects quite weak and effeminate; one slight and scarcely noticeable touch, (about the unproved pistol,) gives the true relation of the characters, and makes their portraiture complete, as by Velasquez. [[251]]
The Cavalier’s father is dead; his uncle asserts the Cavalier’s law of the Sword over him: its effects upon him are the first clause of the book.
The Puritan’s father—living—asserts the law of Precept over him: its effects upon him are the second clause of the book.
Together with these studies of the two laws in their influence on the relation of guardian and ward—or of father and child, their influence on society is examined in the opposition of the soldier and hunter to the friend of man and animals,—Scott putting his whole power into the working out of this third clause of the book.
Having given his verdict in these three clauses, wholly in favour of the law of precept,—he has to mark the effects of its misapplication,—first moral, then civil.
The story of Nanty Ewart, the fourth clause, is the most instructive and pathetic piece of Scott’s judgment on the abuse of the moral law, by pride, in Scotland, which you can find in all his works.
Finally, the effects of the abuse of the civil law by sale, or simony, have to be examined; which is done in the story of Peter Peebles.
The involution of this fifth clause with that of Nanty Ewart is one of the subtlest pieces of heraldic quartering which you can find in all the Waverley novels; and no others have any pretence to range with them in this [[252]]point of art at all. The best, by other masters, are a mere play of kaleidoscope colour compared to the severe heraldic delineation of the Waverleys.