Uno avulso non deficit alter.
Scott's imitators, in his lifetime, produced little or nothing of merit: he was, however, to leave successors, the author of "Vingt Ans Après" first and greatest; the author of "Esmond"; the author, we may surely add, of "The Master of Ballantrae." Much as these differ from Scott, both in quantity and quality of genius, in method, in style, they are all "sealed of his tribe," like the spiritual children of Ben Jonson. Scott is he
Without whose life they had not been,
and thus his example has borne, and still bears, new fruit in the most innocent of intellectual pleasures. For a later generation Scott has done what the romances and the epics did for chivalry, and fairy-tales for all the world. In an unexpected place, the Memoirs of Dr. Adam Clarke, we find a tribute to old romance and fairy-tale. Had he not read these in boyhood, the learned and excellent Doctor declares, his religion would have lacked imagination, and his character the courage which he displayed in face of many dangers. Examples of lofty fancy, of chivalrous courage, all that can attract and inspire youth, all that makes against moody despair, and stolid commonplace, and creeping prose, Scott gives, even in this late work, and he enlightens all with humour, as in his admirable description of the despotic German innkeeper, before whom the Earl of Oxford has to lower his bonnet. While youth is youth, and men have yet a smack of it, we can be happy with Arthur Philipson in his duel, with Sigismund in the fight, with the cheery maid of Anne of Geierstein, and her honest ideas of love on first principles, with that royal philosopher King René, with the sagacious loyalty of Oxford, and the manly patriotism of the peasant noble. That the conclusion is entangled, and the knots rather broken than disengaged, is no unusual fault in Scott: it haunted his works from the beginning. Considering his health, his absence, in this tale, from scenes familiar to him, and times familiar to his readers, the novel is remarkable for its interest. What success and merit it possesses are mainly due, however, to a determined effort of the will, not to a delighted and conscious inspiration. In his last essays, though the will was indomitable, the material machinery of the brain was shattered, and we can only criticise them as psychological examples of unconquered courage. He had to see James Ballantyne, broken by his wife's death, and "squandering his thoughts and senses upon dowdy metaphysics, and abstruse theology." It was better for Scott to work on, and die at his task, at the labour of a life which would not be complete, would not offer the same invigorating spectacle, had he thrown his pen away and confessed himself defeated.
The historical sources of "Anne of Geierstein" are explained in Scott's own Introduction and Notes. All the later part of the novel follows the narrative of Commines closely, save for certain dramatic liberties, as we shall point out in our additional annotations.
Andrew Lang.
INTRODUCTION
TO
ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN.
This novel was written at a time when circumstances did not place within my reach the stores of a library tolerably rich in historical works, and especially the memoirs of the Middle Ages, amidst which I had been accustomed to pursue the composition of my fictitious narratives. In other words, it was chiefly the work of leisure hours in Edinburgh, not of quiet mornings in the country. In consequence of trusting to a memory, strongly tenacious certainly, but not less capricious in its efforts, I have to confess on this occasion more violations of accuracy in historical details, than can perhaps be alleged against others of my novels. In truth, often as I have been complimented on the strength of my memory, I have through life been entitled to adopt old Beattie of Meikledale's answer to his parish minister when eulogising him with respect to the same faculty. "No, doctor," said the honest border-laird, "I have no command of my memory; it only retains what happens to hit my fancy, and like enough, sir, if you were to preach to me for a couple of hours on end, I might be unable at the close of the discourse to remember one word of it." Perhaps there are few men whose memory serves them with equal fidelity as to many different classes of subjects; but I am sorry to say, that while mine has rarely failed me as to any snatch of verse or trait of character that had once interested my fancy, it has generally been a frail support, not only as to names, and dates, and other minute technicalities of history, but as to many more important things.
I hope this apology will suffice for one mistake which has been pointed out to me by the descendant of one of the persons introduced in this story, and who complains with reason that I have made a peasant deputy of the ancestor of a distinguished and noble family, none of whom ever declined from the high rank to which, as far as my pen trenched on it, I now beg leave to restore them. The name of the person who figures as deputy of Soleure in these pages, was always, it seems, as it is now, that of a patrician house. I am reminded by the same correspondent of another slip, probably of less consequence. The Emperor of the days my novel refers to, though the representative of that Leopold who fell in the great battle of Sempach, never set up any pretensions against the liberties of the gallant Swiss, but, on the contrary, treated with uniform prudence and forbearance such of that nation as had established their independence, and with wise, as well as generous kindness, others who still continued to acknowledge fealty to the imperial crown. Errors of this sort, however trivial, ought never, in my opinion, to be pointed out to an author, without meeting with a candid and respectful acknowledgment.