Halleck's New English Literature

by Reuben Post Halleck

[Illustration: WALTER SCOTT. From the painting by William
Nicholson.]

Life.—Walter Scott, the son of a solicitor, was born in Edinburgh in 1771. In childhood he was such an invalid that he was allowed to follow his own bent without much attempt at formal education. He was taken to the country, where he acquired a lasting fondness for animals and wild scenery. With his first few shillings he bought the collection of early ballads and songs known as Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Of this he says, "I do not believe I ever read a book half so frequently, or with half the enthusiasm." His grandmother used to delight him with the tales of adventure on the Scottish border.

Later, Scott went to the Edinburgh High School and to the University. At the High School he showed wonderful genius for telling stories to the boys. "I made a brighter figure in the yards than in the class," he says of himself at this time. This early practice of relating tales and noting what held the attention of his classmates was excellent training for the future Wizard of the North.

After the apprenticeship to his father, the son was called to the bar and began the practice of law. He often left his office to travel over the Scottish counties in search of legendary ballads, songs, and traditions, a collection of which he published under the title of Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. In 1797 he married Miss Charlotte Carpenter, who had an income of £500 a year. In 1799, having obtained the office of sheriff of Selkirkshire at an annual salary of £300, with very light duties, he found himself able to neglect law for literature. His early freedom from poverty is in striking contrast to the condition of his fellow Scotsman, Robert Burns.

During the period between thirty and forty years of age, he wrote his best poems. Not until he was nearly forty-three did he discover where his greatest powers lay. He then published Waverley, the first of a series of novels known by that general name. During the remaining eighteen years of his life he wrote twenty-nine novels, besides many other works, such as the Life of Napoleon in nine volumes, and an entertaining work on Scottish history under the title of Tales of a Grandfather.

[Illustration: ABBOTSFORD, HOME OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.]

The crisis that showed Scott's sterling character came in the winter of 1825-1826, when an Edinburgh publishing firm in which he was interested failed and left an his shoulders a debt of £117,000. Had he been a man of less honor, he might have taken advantage of the bankrupt law, which would have left his future earnings free from past claims; but he refused to take any step that would remove his obligation to pay the debt. At the age of fifty four, he abandoned his happy dream of founding the house of Scott of Abbotsford and sat down to pay off the debt with his pen. The example of such a life is better than the finest sermon on honor. He wrote with almost inconceivable rapidity. His novel Woodstock, the product of three months' work, brought him £8228. In four years he paid £70,000 to his creditors. One day the tears rolled down his cheeks because he could no longer force his fingers to grasp the pen. The king offered him a man-of-war in which to make a voyage to the Mediterranean. Hoping to regain his health, Scott made the trip, but the rest came too late. He returned to Abbotsford in a sinking condition, and died in 1832, at the age of sixty-one.

[Illustration: SCOTT'S GRAVE IN DRYBURGH ABBEY.]

Poetry.—Scott's three greatest poems are The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Marmion (1808), and The Lady of the Lake (1810). They belong to the distinct class of story-telling poetry. Like many of the ballads in Percy's collection, these poems are stories of old feuds between the Highlander and the Lowlander, and between the border lords of England and Scotland. These romantic tales of heroic battles, thrilling incidents, and love adventures, are told in fresh, vigorous verse, which breathes the free air of wild nature and moves with the prance of a war horse. Outside of Homer, we can nowhere find a better description of a battle than in the sixth canto of Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field:—

"They close, in clouds of smoke and dust,
With sword sway and with lance's thrust;
And such a yell was there,
Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if men fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air;
* * * * *
And in the smoke the pennons flew,
As in the storm the white sea mew."