.
 
 PARALLEL 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKSPEARE AND SCOTT; 
 
 BEING THE SUBSTANCE 
 OK 
 
 THREE LECTURES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 KINDRED NATURE OF THEIR GENIUS, 
 
 READ BEFORE THE LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL 
 SOCIETY OF 
 
 CHICHESTER, 
 1S33 AND 1834. 
 
 LONDON : 
 WHITTAKER AND CO., AVE-MARIA-LAXE. 
 
 MDCCCXXXY.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 1NTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, 
 Stamford Street.
 
 THE author of the following pages thinks proper to 
 apprize the reader, that he has not seen the last re- 
 print of Scott's novels, in which he is given to under- 
 stand that writer has laid open many of the sources 
 from whence he drew his materials, and the history of 
 the persons from whom he sketched some of the por- 
 traits. Miss Edgeworth has made the hero of her 
 " Helen " declare, that he should be sorry to be per- 
 sonally acquainted with Scott, for fear of disturbing the 
 agreeable picture of his own mind of the accomplished 
 author of so much fascination. A sentiment something 
 like this inclines the writer of this sketch not to take 
 any pains to be acquainted with his expositions of his 
 own sleight, from the pen of the great magician himself, 
 however curious and agreeable. Much of the charm of 
 fiction is in danger of being lost by a too nice inspection 
 into the character of its sources. If the statue please, 
 why need we care for the unsightly block out of which 

 
 iv 
 
 it was hewn ! The much-enamoured Psyche had 
 abundant reason to weep for the gratification of a 
 forbidden curiosity. It is said of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 that he was extremely jealous of any one coming behind 
 his easel to witness the mechanical operations by which 
 he attained his object. It was in character with the 
 candour and fearlessness of Scott to admit all the world 
 into his studio ; but it were to be doubted if the removal 
 of the decent veil of obscurity were always wise, even if 
 it were safe. 
 
 The author also begs leave to intonate, thai he has 
 never " assisted " at the performance of any of the 
 stage adaptations of Scott. 
 
 All his other negative advantages he leaves to the con- 
 jecture, or the absolute conclusion of his good-natured 
 reader. 
 
 April 10, 183).
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page iii, tenth line, fa picture of, read picture in. 
 
 7, fourth line, for unborn, read inborn. 
 
 9, fifth line, for castes, read casts. 
 16, fourth line, for fledged, read flayed. 
 20, ninth line, for bind, read blind. 
 24, fifteenth line, for Asiatics, read Satiates. 
 36, second line, for moral, read march. 
 44, seventh line, for as it is, read a/id it is. 
 46, fourth line, for opposition, read apposition. 
 65, second line, for selections, read relations, 
 67, fifth line, for is, read 6e$r. 
 
 history generally is indebted to him for the reduction to 
 order of many of the scattered fragments of the sys- 
 tems of others, and of the facts and observations that 
 have been, of late years, pouring in so copiously from 
 all quarters. 
 
 But a late clever writer has said, that " science alone
 
 iv 
 
 it was hewn ! The much-enamoured Psyche had 
 abundant reason to weep for the gratification of a 
 forbidden curiosity. It is said of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 that he was extremely jealous of any one coming behind
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 BEFORE we enter upon the business of these Lectures, 
 allow me to draw your attention for a moment to the 
 remarkable 'circumstances under which we are assem- 
 bled, to take this transient survey of the genius and 
 labours of one, whom contemporary fame has acknow- 
 ledged as the brightest literary ornament of the age, and 
 whom posterity will admit to have been its best practi- 
 cal moralist. The reflection is forced upon us by the 
 recent extinction of many of the brightest lights of 
 science, as well as of polite letters. The names of 
 Bentham, Cuvier, Leslie, Goethe, Crabbe, and Scott 
 excite no common emotions, and their places, in the 
 public mind, will not very quickly be reoccupied. That 
 of Cuvier will mark an eera in the progress of natural 
 history. In his hands, a new branch of physical 
 research in the most recondite of the regions of nature 
 has been raised to the dignity of a science ; and natural 
 history generally is indebted to him for the reduction to 
 order of many of the scattered fragments of the sys- 
 tems of others, and of the facts and observations that 
 have been, of late years, pouring in so copiously from 
 all quarters. 
 
 But a late clever writer has said, that " science alone
 
 is hard and mechanical : it exercises the understanding 
 upon things out of ourselves, whilst it leaves the affec- 
 tions unemployed, or engaged with our own immediate 
 narrow interests*." 
 
 Without assenting to the extreme of this proposition, 
 we may allow that the acquisition of knowledge is 
 sometimes made at the expense of an imperfect cultiva- 
 tion of the moral feelings, that perfect science is not 
 always perfect wisdom. If to Cuvier, then, and Leslie, 
 and their fellow-labourers in physics, we give our 
 highest admiration, our warmest affections have been 
 engaged, and our keenest regrets must be reserved for 
 the poet, philosopher, and moralist. 
 
 The extensive cultivation and rapid progress of the 
 arts and sciences without any great and corresponding 
 improvement in morals, it is to be supposed, have given 
 rise to] the erroneous opinion of the incompatibility of 
 these objects, and consequently of no advance in the 
 sum of human happiness. May we not ask if the burst 
 of admiration and regret that followed upon the death of 
 Scott be not sufficient answer to the objection? IB it 
 not a sign of the extension and improvement of the 
 moral feeling, when the public mind responds to the 
 call of a universal friendship, and, for once, at least, the 
 world seems to acknowledge that a prophet has been 
 amongst them ? 
 
 This enthusiasm has not been confined to the poetic 
 traveller, who has wandered down Gallawater or stood 
 at the foot of the ancient cross at Melrose or looked 
 * Ilazlitt.
 
 up from the Teviot on the dismantled towers of Bianx- 
 holme, on the " Ladye's bower : " 
 
 " The bower that was guarded by word and by spell, 
 
 Deadly to hear and deadly to tell. 
 
 Jesu-Maria, shield us well ! " 
 
 It has been acknowledged in the humblest recesses of 
 private life it has been heard in foreign lands and 
 the remotest parts of the civilized world have responded 
 to the strain. 
 
 " The wizard note has not been touch'd in vain.'' 
 
 The death of Scott has probably closed in one of the 
 most brilliant periods of what is called polite literature. 
 Let us take a hasty view of its several seras in English 
 history. 
 
 The earliest dawn of polite letters in this country, or 
 the time, at least, in which it assumed anything like 
 form and consistency, has, by general consent, been 
 styled " the age of Chaucer." This was succeeded, 
 after a long interval, by that " of Elizabeth," or " of 
 Shakspeare," and that again by what has been called 
 "the Augustan age of England; " when Swift, Addison, 
 and Pope gave elegance of form and polish (perhaps at 
 the expense of some nerve) to the accumulated materials 
 of autient and modern times. After this succeeded so 
 long and great a decay, that, as far as poetry was con- 
 cerned, it was supposed that the resources of the human 
 mind were exhausted, that " the force of nature could 
 no farther go," that we were " drawing upon the lees: " 
 
 B 2
 
 but, in our own times, and in the memory of most of us, 
 we have seen such a revival, not only of this, but of 
 every other branch of polite letters, that we are war- 
 ranted in supposing that there are, in these ebbings and 
 flowings of the tide of the human understanding such 
 indications of a paroxysmal activity and repose as are to 
 be observed in almost all other natural objects. That, 
 when from indolence, or exhaustion, or the want of 
 strong excitement from external causes, the public mind 
 is in danger of falling into decrepitude, means are pro- 
 vided for its renewal. To repose succeed new incen- 
 tives for exertion, new views, new habits, and a new 
 " avatar " of the divine spirit of poesy appears upon 
 the earth to revivify the whole. 
 
 The task to which I am pledged by the announce- 
 ment for this evening's Lecture is, to bring to your re- 
 collection some of the manifestations of the genius of 
 the northern bard ; and to contrast them with the cha- 
 racteristic features of one whom it has always been con- 
 sidered the highest excellence even to approach, and of 
 whom it has been said, with more poetical than logical 
 truth, that 
 
 " None but himself could be his parallel." 
 
 If any objection be made to the use of the word 
 parallel, (and I grant such an objection does not appear 
 unreasonable,) let it be remembered, that that word 
 does not necessarily imply equality ; that in criticism, 
 as in geometry, parallel lines are not always lines of 
 equal breadth and force. It is sufficient for my purpose
 
 that enough similarity in the genius of Shakspeare and 
 Scott exists, on which to found a comparison, without 
 the supposition of perfect equality, or rivalry in merit. 
 When Plutarch drew his parallels, he did not insist 
 upon these conditions ; upon Numa being so great or 
 good a man as Solon, or that Caesar was exactly upon a 
 par with Alexander, although a kindred genius guided 
 the destinies of both. I shall endeavour to show in 
 what points Scott has exceeded, and in the sequel it will 
 be seen how he has fallen short of his great model. 
 
 I find no mean apology also in the outset for the use 
 of the word parallel, in the curious fact that the epithets 
 of " sorcerer " and " wizard " have, by general con- 
 sent, grown into equal use in speaking of these remark- 
 able men : and it must be familiar to you all, that in the 
 critiques and eulogies that have been lavished upon 
 Scott, constant reference has been made to his great 
 prototype ; and his noble personifications are referred to 
 the standard of Shakspeare, as to the standard of truth 
 and nature, the only true source of all ideal excel- 
 lence. Direct contrast or comparison of their several 
 productions is, for the most part, avoided ; but frequent 
 allusions are made to their strong resemblance, and 
 broad hints of the only fraternization offered in the his- 
 tory of polite letters. Poets celebrate a new incarnation 
 of the spirit of the bard of Avon painters hasten to 
 embody the creations of a fancy, not so fine, perhaps, 
 but as original and pure, and the most prosaic of 
 readers find in the endless variety of Scott a charm 
 only to be equalled in the pages of the splendid ori- 
 ginal.
 
 I do not propose to be very formal in my criticisms, 
 nor is it necessary that I should be so ; but that we may 
 have some plan to guide us in our research, I will ven- 
 ture to say that I mean, in the first place, to bring into 
 view the general characteristics of Scott, as compared 
 with those of Shakspeare, and afterwards to glance at 
 some particular points of resemblance; and to shew 
 how much the novelist had his dramatic prototype in 
 view, though, perhaps, not always sensible of it: for, to 
 the close observer, such resemblances appear more 
 numerous than the generality of readers would readily 
 believe. 
 
 If Scott was sensible, in himself, of the influence of 
 the writings of Shakspeare, and desired to tread in the 
 steps of so great a master, he had the prudence not to 
 avow it, or to challenge comparison by any sort of 
 intimation that he was thinking of his matchless crea- 
 tions when employed in embodying his own ; and here 
 appears one of the first tests of the high genius of Scott 
 a genius that enabled him to move in the same, or a 
 similar orbit, with Shakspeare, without being a servile 
 imitator. Innumerable planets move around in the 
 boundless regions of human invention without danger 
 of collision, or without necessary interference with each 
 other. 
 
 One of the chief attributes of the genius of Shak- 
 speare, and that which has always been allowed him, 
 under some mode of expression or another, is his uni- 
 versality. This term is of so comprehensive a nature, 
 that you will, perhaps, be startled at my claiming the
 
 same excellence for Scott. I mean to express by it 
 the poiver of identifying himself with every kind and 
 condition of existence. It is not necessary now to 
 inquire if this be an intuitive or unborn quality, or the 
 creature of education and habit, or, what is most pro- 
 bable, the joint result of both : but it is this quality, 
 combined with another of the great characteristics of 
 Scott his candour which is expressed by the word 
 manysidedness, lately introduced to you by the ad- 
 mirers of Goethe*. With all my admiration for the 
 Gothic original of our language, I cannot say that I 
 wish to see the expression naturalized among us ; nor 
 do I think we require it. 
 
 This felicitous power of the mind has been the theme 
 of panegyric with all the writers on Shakspeare, and in 
 it we recognize the great charm of Scott's productions. 
 Its great characteristic is fitness, and to its exercise we 
 owe the admirable impersonations of both our authors : 
 the splendid procession of princes, nobles, simple citi- 
 zens, and peasants, with all their general and particular 
 attributes, each clothed in his proper garb, and each 
 speaking the sentiments of his kind. Nor'is this vivid 
 and distinct representation confined to vague generalities 
 or generic distinctions ; it deals equally with individual 
 features and specific differences such as are to be 
 found in the moral, as in the natural world. 
 
 In this general sympathy with man in all his natural 
 and social relations, we recognise the very essence of the 
 dramatic character; and how it can be said that the 
 
 * Mrs. Austin's " Characteristics of Goethe."
 
 8 
 
 genius of Scott is not dramatic, I cannot divine. His 
 romances are dramas in everything but the precise form. 
 But of this we shall have more to say, by and by. 
 
 Nor is this sort of spontaneous metempsychosis con- 
 fined to the moral condition of man, and his relations to 
 external things; we may observe the exercise of the same 
 many or rather every sidedness in relation to things 
 themselves, the same fitness, propriety, and verisimi- 
 litude ; and circumstances and scenes are ever as much 
 before the mind of the reader as the persons who move 
 in them. If this be conceded for Shakspeare and 
 I suppose we can bespeak nothing for his genius that 
 will not be conceded it is only necessary to call to 
 mind such scenes in the most popular works of Scott as 
 are presented in " Old Mortality," "Marmion," " Ivan- 
 hoe," and indeed any other. Or, to be more particular, 
 take for example, the magnificent opening of "The 
 Talisman " the graphic scene in the Desert, and the 
 single combat of the two heroes of the tale. Or the 
 escape of Sir Arthur "Wardour and his daughter from 
 the sea and ascent from the cliffs, in " The Antiquary ;" 
 or the more familiar but spirited scene in the Clock- 
 smith's-shop in Fleet-street, in the commencement of 
 "The Fortunes of Nigel;" or the tragic end of the poor 
 usurer Trapbois, in the same tale ; or any other of those 
 living pictures in which the actors, and the natural 
 accompaniments, harmonize with the features of sur- 
 rounding objects, like all the parts of the finest perform- 
 ances of the sister art. 
 
 But the best test of this power of delineating the
 
 thoughts, actions, and passions of human nature, in their 
 various phases, is, as I have before hinted, to be found in 
 the manner in which the same passions, the same virtues 
 or vices are made to operate differently in different per- 
 sons, according to their several constitutional castes uf 
 character, situation in life, or other ruling circumstance. 
 Take, for instance, in Scott, his various modifications of 
 religious enthusiasm. In Beaumanoir, the rigid adhe- 
 sion to prescribed forms, the devotion to the preservation 
 of the privileges of his " order;" a bigotry grounded in 
 selfishness and constitutional coldness of heart. In the 
 Abbot Eustace, the same objects operating with warm and 
 kindly affections. The religious enthusiasm of David 
 Deans again, is homely, stedfast, and patient in suffering. 
 In Balfour, selfish, superstitious, and brutal. But we 
 have in that chef d'ceuvre of Scott, the tale of " Old 
 Mortality," in illustration of this test of universa'ity, a 
 whole tribe of fanatics, in which the same general 
 features are preserved with an individuality of form and 
 colouring that makes each a distinct and perfect portrait ; 
 and the whole together one of the finest exemplifications 
 of the crimes and follies of men, who mistake the vain 
 workings of their own imaginations, and the impulse of 
 their own selfish passions, for the dictates of the divine 
 spirit. The maniac Mucklewrath, the savage Burley, 
 the gentle but energetic Macbriar : after these come the 
 shallow and wordy Kettledrumle, and the prudent and 
 conforming Poundtext : not to mention the well- 
 imagined dogged ignorance of Mause, and the easy faith 
 of Cuddle Headrig, whose religion rests upon the means 
 
 B5
 
 10 
 
 of a comfortable subsistence, and deals rather in the 
 realities of life, than the abstract questions of doctrine 
 and church-government. In all these we recognise a 
 certain individuality which makes them species of the 
 same genus ; and all drawn with a correctness and force 
 that is truly wonderful. 
 
 Take again, for instance, his exemplifications of 
 loyalty. I mean, by loyalty, a steady adherence to per- 
 sons and opinions, regardless of the accidents of fortune ; 
 a virtue, so various in its character, as to seem in some 
 cases like mere animal instinct ; in others, a principle 
 rising to the highest pitch of moral excellence. In 
 Flora Mac Ivor, or Kenneth, or Sir Henry Lee, high- 
 minded, disinterested, secret, and valiant. In Leicester 
 and Varney, base and selfish. In Caleb Balderetone, a 
 warm and heartfull, but almost brute impulse. In 
 Andrew Fairservice, mercenary, cowardly and loose. In 
 Dalgetty, crafty, calculating, and easily transferable. In 
 Wamba (that prince of jesters) fearless and romantic, 
 and suiting the character of one of Scott's happiest 
 creations. To all these you will find no parallel in our 
 literature but in the writings of Shakspeare, who has, 
 with the same power of universal sympathy, and the 
 same discrimination, shadowed forth his living por- 
 traitures, different and yet the same. Ambition is the 
 ruling principle of Macbeth, of Bolingbroke, and 
 Richard ; and yet how different the men ! How various 
 the patriotism of Brutus, of Cassius, or Casca ! The 
 jealousy that hurries on the high-minded and fiery 
 Othello with uncalculating force, inspires in lago (for he
 
 li 
 
 does not seem to have any other motive, unless we 
 admit that undefinable personal dislike, which often 
 leads to acts of great inhumanity) the most crafty and 
 calculating villany. In Ford again, the same passion is 
 made homely, weak-minded and credulous ; and it is 
 not much less so in the more gentlemanly Posthumus. 
 These shades of difference are perhaps all referable to 
 matters of natural temperament, modified by external 
 circumstances; though I doubt much if either of our 
 authors thought of such a thing. The days of Shak- 
 speare were not those of mental analysis*; and the 
 " Dramatis Persona" of Scott are too full of the real 
 business of life to grow metaphysically curious about the 
 origin of their emotions, and the endless combinations of 
 moral and physical impulse. 
 
 Akin to what I have called the universality of Scott, 
 which makes him, like Shakspeare, always at home, from 
 the cottage to the throne, is his genius of appropriation. 
 The happy use of the scattered materials of history and 
 tradition, and of the popular poetry and superstitions of 
 his day. I shall have more to say of the latter of these 
 when I consider his title to picturesque and poetic excel- 
 lence. Of the obligations of Shakspeare to contemporary 
 literature, and of the freedom with which he seized upon 
 everything that turned to his own purpose, few persons 
 can have any conception, who have not made themselves 
 a little conversant with the labours of his numerous 
 commentators. Whole passages from the chronicles, 
 
 * See Johnson's ' ; Preface to Shakspeare."
 
 12 
 
 talcs, songs, and popular works of the day, can be traced 
 to their several sources; and much of the most admired 
 dialogue of his most impassioned scenes, is a literal 
 transcript from those authorities. 
 
 To this power of appropriation, we owe many of the 
 beauties and excellencies of both our authors. Nor 
 is this fact any derogation of their merits ; any more 
 than it is discreditable to a painter that his whole 
 picture is not original ; that he looks abroad for models 
 of excellence ; that he takes a sketch from a painting in 
 one place, and a study from nature in another, and 
 works them up with his own inventions and conceptions. 
 
 Johnson aggrandizes this appropriative power too 
 highly when he says, that " genius is only the power of 
 using to any certain purpose the materials which dili- 
 gence procures." He omits in this definition the great 
 attribute of genius, the inventive faculty. He was him- 
 self a man of great attainments, but of little inventive 
 genius. But a more recent authority has made a similar 
 declaration in favour of the power of appropriation. You 
 will probably recognise it; and of its eloquence and 
 force there can be but one opinion. 
 
 Goethe says, " the Colossus is composed of parts ; the 
 demigod is a collective being. The greatest genius will 
 never be worth much, if he pretend to draw exclusively 
 from his own resources. What is genius, but the faculty 
 of seizing and turning to account everything that strikes 
 us; of co-ordinating and breathing life into all the mate- 
 rials that present themselves, of taking here marble, there 
 brass, and building a lasting monument with them ?
 
 13 
 
 The most original young painter, who thinks he owes 
 everything to his invention, cannot, if he really has 
 genius, come into the room in which we are now sitting, 
 and look around at the drawings with which it is hung) 
 without going out a different man from what he came in, 
 and with a new supply of ideas ; what should I be, what 
 would remain to me, if this act of appropriation were 
 considered as derogatory to genius ? What have I done? 
 I have collected and turned to account all that I have 
 seen, observed, heard: I have put in requisition the 
 works of nature and of man. Every one of my writings 
 has been furnished tome by a thousand different persons, 
 a thousand different things ; the learned and the igno- 
 rant, the wise and the foolish, infancy and age, have 
 come in turn, generally without having the least suspi- 
 cion of it, to bring me the offspring of their thoughts, 
 their faculties, their experience. They have sown the 
 harvest I have reaped*." 
 
 Who has not been charmed with the long passages in 
 Shakspeare's plays, extracted almost word for word from 
 Holingshed, and other chroniclers ? We might instance 
 some of the most impassioned and pathetic speeches 
 iu Henry the Eighth, Henry the Fifth, and Richard the 
 Second. And who would not admire the dexterity with 
 which Scott has availed himself in like manner of histo- 
 rical facts and personal anecdotes, and the picturesque 
 effect with which they are used ? Again, for instance, 
 how happily, and with what verisimilitude he makes use 
 of Sir Walter Raleigh and the well-known incident of 
 * Mrs. Austin, loc, cit.
 
 14 
 
 the cloak, in the magnificent tragedy, for so we must call 
 it, of " Kenilworth." With what grace, also, the name 
 of Shakspeare is there introduced, with some allusions to 
 his writings and personal history. And who does nut 
 admire the tact and delicacy and superior discretion that 
 refrained from bringing the great bard himself upon the 
 scene : as if the author were aware that the most suc- 
 cessful portraiture must have fallen short of every 
 reader's expectation; or, what is still more probable, 
 could not satisfy himself. With what grace again 
 Blondel appears in Richard's tent in the Holy Land, and 
 is identified in the well-known fortunes of his master. To 
 say nothing of the thousand instances of the felicitous 
 application of the materials and even the precise words 
 of history, and historical personages. Even Elizabeth's 
 joke about the Earl of Sussex's copper-coloured nose is 
 made delightfully illustrative of her character. When 
 Scott's incognito was matter of dispute, I have often 
 wondered that any doubt could exist about the author- 
 ship of the Waverley novels, amongst persons who had it 
 in their power to compare " Guy Mannering " with the 
 " Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." Almost all the 
 adventitious circumstances that give so much picturesque 
 effect to the romance are to be found there. You well 
 know with what dexterity they have been introduced. 
 
 Allied to the foregoing attribute of Scott's genius is his 
 copiousness. It has been said that Shakspeare often 
 encumbers his dialogue with poetic imagery. With 
 as much truth it may be asserted that Scott has often 
 over-informed his narrative, spreading abroad with
 
 15 
 
 boundless profusion the stores of his various and accom- 
 plished mind ; reminding us of Imlac's enumeration of 
 the multifarious and impossible requisites of a poet, 
 whose knowledge, he says, should embrace " all that is 
 awfully vast or elegantly little*;" and although this 
 facility of Scott often leads him into prolix and weari- 
 some detail, it seldom degenerates into the trifling 
 humour and puerilities of Shakspeare. In illustration 
 of the copiousness of his resources, and the pregnancy of 
 which I am speaking, I take, almost at random, the fol- 
 lowing conversation of Gurth and Wamba, from the 
 early part of the splendid romance of " Ivanhoe." 
 
 Gurth, the swineherd, is urging his companion to 
 assist him in getting his herd together. tl Truly," said 
 Wamba, without stirring from the spot, ' I have con- 
 sulted my legs upon this matter, and they are altogether 
 of opinion, that to carry my gay garments through these 
 sloughs would be an act of unfriendship to my sovereign 
 person and royal wardrobe ; wherefore, Gurth, I would 
 advise thee to call off Fangs, and leave the herd to their 
 destiny, which, whether they meet with bands of travel- 
 ling soldiers, or of outlaws, or of wandering pilgrims, can 
 be little else but to be converted into Normans before 
 morning, to thy no small ease and comfort." 
 
 " Swine turned Normans to my comfort," quoth 
 Gurth, " expound that to me, Wamba, for my brain is 
 too dull, and my mind too vexed to read riddles." 
 
 " Why, how call you these brutes running about 
 on their four legs ?" demanded Wamba. 
 * Rasselas.
 
 if Swine, fool, swine," said the herd, " ever}- fool 
 knows that." 
 
 " And swine is good Saxon," said the jester, " but 
 how call you the sow, when she is fledged and drawn ami 
 quartered, and hung up by the heels like a traitor ?" 
 
 "Pork," answered the swineherd. 
 
 " I am very glad that every fool knows that too," said 
 Wamba, " and pork, I think, is good Norman-French, 
 and so, when the brute lives and is in the charge of 
 a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name, but becomes 
 a Norman and is called pork, when she is carried to the 
 Castle-hall to feast among the nobles. What dost thou 
 think of this, friend Gurth, ha ?" 
 
 " It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however 
 it got into thy fool's pate." 
 
 " Nay, I can tell you more," said Wamba, in the 
 same tone. " There is old alderman Ox continues 
 to hold his Saxon epithet, whilst he is under the charge 
 of serfs and bondsmen, such as thou, but becomes beef, 
 a fiery French gallant, when he armes before the 
 worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. 
 Mynheer Calf, too, becomes Monsieur de Veau in the like 
 manner. He is Saxon when he requires tendance, and 
 takes a Norman name when he becomes matter of 
 enjoyment." 
 
 In this dialogue, put so appropriately, though cer- 
 tainly rather too refinedly into the mouths of these 
 worthies, (when I say too refinedly, though, it must be 
 remembered that everything in this noble performance 
 is in a state of exaltation, a refinement upon the realities
 
 17 
 
 of life,) Scott seems to have had in mind the hypothesis 
 of some philologist, whose name I do not remember, that 
 the substitution of Norman for Saxon words in the pro- 
 gress of our language after the conquest, begun in towns, 
 as most refinements might be expected to do, where 
 Norman soldiers and other Norman residents were 
 assembled in greatest numbers. That thence it arose 
 that the Saxon hog, brought in from the country, and 
 killed for the use of the Norman garrison, became pork : 
 the sheep, when dead and marketed, became mutton ; 
 and calf, the cow's offspring, when alive in the country, 
 became veal or veau and the offspring of vache, when 
 served up at the Baron's table. His dialogue has every- 
 where the same redundancy, when not fully occupied 
 with the interlocutor's business and feelings. Much 
 complaint has been made of his antiquarian minuteness; 
 but this fault, if it be one, is counterbalanced by the 
 curious infonnation it conveys, and is a part only of the 
 overflowings of a mind " redolent " of all useful know- 
 ledge ; and it seems reasonable to conclude that it was 
 this copiousness of Scott, and his love of detail, that led 
 him to prefer the narrative to the dramatic form of com- 
 position. The terseness and condensation so necessary 
 to the purposes of the drama were too much opposed to 
 his copious flow of ideas, and facility of language. 
 
 I have said that candour was a necessary ingredient 
 of that universality or every sidedness that enabled 
 Scott, like Shakspeare, to sympathize with all the sorts 
 and conditions of existence, its virtues and its vices. 
 To this candour we owe the healthy quality of his
 
 18 
 
 genius, and the freedom from the exclusiveiiess of party 
 spirit in matters of civil polity ; (in spite of his well- 
 known Tory partialities;) the absence of all bigotry in 
 religion ; and of all prudery and mawkishness in 
 morality. If it be true that he shared with Shakspeare 
 in a spirit of indulgence for the virtues of the great, it is 
 no less so that he has chastised their vices with an un- 
 sparing hand. And if, in some cases, he has taken 
 occasion to exalt the virtues of the nobility, it is with no 
 less regard to those of the commonalty, which are ever 
 the theme of his praises. In this respect, in spite of 
 much that has been said to the contrary, I do not hesi- 
 tate to maintain that he is pre-eminently the " poet of 
 the people," the vindicator of popular virtues and 
 popular rights, as those rights ought in justice to be 
 supported. But then it is said again that the virtues 
 of his subordinate characters serve only to enhance the 
 merits of the rich. It is but a feeble objection to the 
 fidelity, the disinterested attachment of a Wamba, or a 
 Caleb Balderstone, that they administer to the vanity or 
 magnify the noble qualities of their masters. Loyalty 
 is a virtue distinct from the object that commands its 
 exercise ; its sacrifices are sacrifices to principle, and its 
 triumphs are victories over selfishness and the baser 
 passions ; and it is no less worthy of our admiration for 
 its own intrinsic value in the humble dependent than in 
 the brave and proud retainer of royalty, and often there, 
 as Scott has painted it, more disinterested and more 
 pure. I have already had occasion to observe how he 
 has dealt with his usual fairness and discrimination in
 
 19 
 
 regard to this virtue ; but there is everywhere sufficient 
 evidence of the healthy quality of his mind in this parti- 
 cular apart from aristocratic association. 
 
 His impartial distribution of virtuous and noble quali- 
 ties, independently of the considerations of rank and 
 condition, is equally apparent. Witness his Dandie 
 Dinmont his Harry Gow and his noble burghers and 
 citizens of all sorts. His partialities and his prejudices 
 (the creatures of education and habit) give way before 
 his native candour; even his darling chivalry is not 
 spared when he is compelled to acknowledge the vices 
 of the system to which it administered support. " And 
 what," says Rebecca, in her retort upon what she calls 
 " the fantastic chivalry of the Nazarenes," " is it, save 
 an offering of sacrifice to a demon of vain glory, and a 
 passing through the fire to Moloch? What remains to 
 you as the price of all the blood you have spilled of all 
 the travail and pain you have endured of all the tears 
 which your deeds have caused, when death hath broken 
 the strong man's spear and overtaken the speed of his 
 war-horse ? 
 
 " Glory, maiden, glory ! which gilds our sepulchre 
 and embalms our name. 
 
 " Glory ! alas, is the rusted mail which hangs as a 
 hatchment over the champion's dim and mouldering 
 tomb is the defaced sculpture of the inscription which 
 the ignorant monk can hardly read to the inquiring pil- 
 grim : are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice of 
 every kindly affection, for a life spent miserably that 
 ye may make others miserable ? or is there such virtue
 
 20 
 
 in the rude rhymes of a wandering bard, that domestic 
 love, kindly affection, peace, and happiness are so wildly 
 bartered, to become the hero of these ballads, which 
 vagabond minstrels sing to drunken churls over their 
 evening ale ? " 
 
 Of this fair dealing with opposing classes and bodies 
 of men we have other abundant proof. His respect for 
 royalty in the abstract, or for the baronial character and 
 feudal form of government, did not bind him to the 
 defects of the one or the vices of the other. Witness 
 his Louis XI. his James I. his Robert of Scotland 
 and other princes and potentates. His Front de Bceuf 
 also his Brian de Bois-Guilbert his Black Douglases 
 and a host of nobles a mixture of turbulent pride 
 and meanness w ith other personifications of aristocratic 
 insolence, down to the " bloody Claverhouse " and 
 crafty Argyle of modern times. Nor does his predi- 
 lections for the cause of royalty and the Stuarts, and 
 his admiration of the cavaliers, stand in the way of such 
 delineations as a Morton, a Bridgnorth, a Markham 
 Everhard, and many other conscientious supporters of 
 popular rights and the parliamentary cause ; nor suffer 
 him to blink the arguments by which those rights and 
 that cause were supported. These instances will be 
 sufficient, I trust, to rescue Scott's genius from the 
 charge of being too aristocratic ; and if anything more 
 were necessary to establish his claim to fair dealing in 
 this particular, we have only to turn to the history of 
 Jeanie Deans, in whom, as he himself expresses it, 
 " a fictitious personage is rendered interesting by mere
 
 21 
 
 dignity of mind and rectitude of principle, assisted by 
 unpretending good sense and temper, without any of the 
 beauty, grace, talent, accomplishment, and wit to which 
 a heroine of romance is supposed to have a prescriptive 
 right." There is so much beauty and so much moral 
 grandeur in the picture here exhibited, that I hope to be 
 excused if I return to it another night, when I am upon 
 that part of my subject which relates to execution and 
 dramatic effect. 
 
 I shall presently observe how, in Shakspeare, we re- 
 cognize this spirit of candour and fair dealing towards 
 individuals, although we do not find anything to be com- 
 pared with the foregoing as regards what we now recog- 
 nise as the great orders of men. There was, in his day, 
 no well-ordered vindication of popular rights ; and the 
 state of society was such as precluded the existence of a 
 people distinct from the aristocracy on one hand and 
 the mob on the other. There was no " public " in his 
 day ; and the words prince and people meant no other 
 than despotism on the one hand (sometimes kind and 
 paternal, and sometimes otherwise) and servile submis- 
 sion on the other. I can hardly make an exception in 
 favour of his dignified merchants and noble citizens, 
 they belong to the aristocracy of wealth, and share the 
 exclusiveness of rank. In the word prince may be in- 
 cluded the feudal lords and their immediate dependents, 
 the rest are a headlong race of rude mechanicals or 
 savage boors, on whom it is not wonderful that Shak- 
 speare should pour all the force of his ridicule and vitu- 
 peration. Even the lowest of all virtues, mere animal
 
 22 
 
 courage, is hardly allowed them ; and although he incul- 
 cates a tender and merciful regard to their safety and 
 comfort, it is not so much on account of their own merits 
 as for the maintenance of the dignity of their masters : 
 as Hamlet says, 
 
 " Use them 
 
 Not according to their deserts, 
 But as best befits your worth and dignity." 
 
 The recognition of popular virtue is, therefore, hardly 
 to be met with in the works of the great dramatist. To 
 compensate for which, we have ample proof of his fair 
 dealing between man and man, and of bodies of men 
 with each other. Princes do justice to princes, and 
 peasants deal as candidly with one another and with 
 their betters as the nature of their prejudices will allow ; 
 and although Shakspeare has a decided leaning to the 
 aristocratic side, we see enough to satisfy us how he 
 would have acted if he had lived, like Scott, in times of 
 greater intellectual advancement. Of this frank impar- 
 tiality we have a fine example in the acute and candid 
 soliloquy of the lively Faulconbridge, on the dereliction 
 of the cause of Prince Arthur by the confederate princes 
 in " King John." It is not so hacknied but it will 
 bear repetition here : 
 
 " Mad world ! mad kings ! mad composition ! 
 John to stop Arthur's title in the whole, 
 Hath willingly departed with a part, 
 And France (whose armour conscience buckled on, 
 Whom zeal and charity brought to the field 
 As God's own soldier) sounded in the ear,
 
 23 
 
 With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil, 
 
 That broker, that still breaks the pate of faith; 
 
 That daily break-vow, he that wins of all, 
 
 Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids 
 
 Who having no external thing to lose 
 
 But the word maid cheats the poor maid of that, 
 
 That smooth-faced gentleman tickling commodity. 
 
 Commodity ! the bias of the world, 
 
 The world who of itself is peised well, 
 
 Made to run even, upon even ground ; 
 
 Till this advantage, this vile drawing bias, 
 
 This sway of motion, this commodity, 
 
 Makes it take head from all indifferency, 
 
 From all direction, purpose, course, intent, 
 
 And this same bias this commodity, 
 
 This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word, 
 
 Clapp'd on the eye of fickle France, 
 
 Hath drawn him from his own determined aid, 
 
 From a reserved and honourable war 
 
 To a most base and vile-concluded peace. 
 
 And why rail I on this commodity ! 
 
 But that because he hath not wooed me yet, 
 
 Not that I have the power to clutch my hand 
 
 When his fair angels would salute my palm, 
 
 But for my hand as unattempted yet, 
 
 Like a poor beggar raileth on the rich. 
 
 Well while I am a beggar I will rail, 
 
 And say, there is no sin but to be rich ; 
 
 And being rich, my virtue then shall be 
 
 To say there is no vice but beggary.
 
 24 
 
 Since kings break faith upon commodity, 
 Gain be my lord, for I will worship thee ! " 
 
 There is a more familiar instance of this impartial 
 bearing in the lenient, but still just, reproof he gives to 
 Henry V. for his neglect of his quondam boon compa- 
 nion, Falstaff. When news of the poor knight's illness 
 is brought to his old associates, Corporal Nym says, 
 
 "The king hath run bad humours on the knight, 
 that's the even of it. 
 
 " Pist. Nym, thou hast spoke the right his heart is 
 fractured and corroborate. 
 
 c< Nym. The king is a good king : but it must be as 
 it may ; he passes some humours and careers." 
 
 In general, Shakspeare deals fairly between Greeks 
 and Trojans Romans and Asiatics French and En- 
 glish. In the latter case, with a pardonable leaning to 
 the victors of Poictiers and Agincourt ; and the Tudors, 
 it is thought, are greater favourites than the Plantagenets. 
 
 It was to be expected that his own intellectual free- 
 dom would incline him to the Protestant faith, and 
 moreover, it was the court religion ; and he has lent his 
 powerful aid to the Reformation, then still struggling 
 for existence. The dispute between Gardiner and Cran- 
 mer, and the fine council-scene in " Henry VIII." and 
 some passages of the like kind, were calculated, at that 
 time of day, when the theatre was as popular and as 
 fashionable as the pulpit, powerfully to sway the public 
 mind, and give additional force to pulpit eloquence. 
 
 Of individual fair dealing, I may quote the well-
 
 25 
 
 known instance of Griffith's praise of Wolsey, permitted 
 and responded to by the ill-used Catharine, on the score 
 of learning, munificence, and statesman-like qualities; 
 although the author is desirous of setting in the fullest 
 light the luxury, avarice, and ambition of the prelate. 
 Again, the high aristocratic pride of Coriolanus is finely 
 checked by his more politic mother, though she dims 
 the lustre of her character by advising him to dissemble 
 his real feelings of hatred and contempt to practise the 
 mean arts of an election candidate and to clothe him- 
 self in the hypocrisy and false pretences that are errone- 
 ously supposed to be necessary to the conciliation of 
 popular favour in all ages to vail his bonnet to the 
 " scum of Rome." A better reproof of his unreason- 
 able contempt for the " incertum vulgus " is put into 
 the mouth of one of the officers of the senate. " Now, 
 to seem to affect the malice and displeasure of the 
 people, is as bad as that which he dislikes, to flatter 
 them for their love." And the candid admission of 
 the great qualities of the gallant Roman, from the 
 mouth of his rival Aufidius, is another instance of fail- 
 dealing : 
 
 " He was 
 
 A noble servant to them ; but he could not 
 Carry his honours even : whether 'twas pride, 
 Which out of daily fortune ever taints 
 The happy man; whether defect*of judgment, 
 To fail in the disposal of those chances 
 Which he was lord of; or whether nature, 
 Not to be other than one thing, not moving 
 
 c
 
 20 
 
 From the casque to the cushion but commanding 
 
 peace 
 
 Even with the same austerity and garb 
 As he controll'd the war ; but, one of these, 
 As he hath spices of them all .... made him fear'd, 
 So hated, and so banish'd : but he has a merit, 
 To choke it in the utterance. So our virtues 
 Lie in the interpretation of the time." 
 It is unnecessary to multiply examples, because the 
 man who wrote for all people and all times cannot but 
 have practised the candour of which we speak in the 
 highest degree. I have proposed the liberality of his 
 religious sentiments as another test of the candid and 
 healthy character of Scott's genius. 
 
 An attempt to do justice to this part of my subject, in 
 its fullest extent, would probably lead me too much into 
 theological discussion, and out of my depth in matters 
 of church polity. I have before adverted to his masterly 
 delineations of the various modifications of religious 
 enthusiasm, and it cannot but be allowed that, consider- 
 ing his well-known leaning towards episcopacy, (and it 
 was a part of his toryism,) he has treated the more 
 democratic form of church government with great fair- 
 ness. Confident in the benevolent influence of the 
 Christian religion under all its forms, he has not hesi- 
 tated to throw himself into the situation of its pro- 
 fessors and ministers of every kind, with the fearless 
 avowal of the sentiments and feelings proper to each, or 
 common to them all. With a satire as keen, and a 
 censure as trenchant, as Shakspeare's, he assails the 
 usurpations, the pride, and wickedness of the Catholic
 
 27 
 
 priesthood. With no less justice, we see him, as in the 
 case of Father Eustace, giving credit to the virtues of 
 some of its members and to the merits of the eldest- 
 bom of state -religions. If Presbyterianism has suffered 
 under his castigation, has he not also exalted its merits, 
 and demonstrated, as in the cases of Harry Warden and 
 Reuben Butler, its truly pastoral character? He allows 
 virtues to Catholics, honourable feelings and gentle- 
 manly manners to Puritans, and gives something more 
 than pity even to the professors of another faith, along 
 with his admiration of the noble qualities which may 
 exist apart from the considerations of religious belief. 
 The beautiful lesson of toleration he has left us in the 
 instance of the character of Saladin, is worth all the 
 essays on that subject since the days of Locke; and 
 although he has carried it to the highest latitude in some 
 things, particularly in his fine " Hymn to Arrhimenes," 
 (which I am strongly tempted to repeat here if it were 
 not too long,) no one can suppose that Scott was appre- 
 hensive of any danger in such speculations to his own 
 religious faith or that of others. All the burthen of his 
 reprehension is reserved for that dark, heartless, and 
 withering scepticism, with which he has associated the 
 most malignant dispositions and the most atrocious 
 crimes ; and we may well pardon the display of Pyr- 
 rhonism which illustrates the vices of such men as Giles 
 Amaury, and Yarney, and Henbane D wining. 
 
 One other test of the healthy and candid character of 
 Scott's genius, to which I shall briefly advert, is the 
 frankness with which he has treated the passion of 
 
 c 2
 
 28 
 
 love, without a shadow of impurity on the one hand, 
 or of prudery and affectation on the other. In this he 
 assimilates to Shakspeare more strongly than in some 
 other points. Ignorance of the true force and bearing 
 of Shakspeare's personifications of the tender passion 
 alone can suppose that their purity is sullied by the 
 plain language and sometimes gross allusions with 
 which they are accompanied. These belong to the 
 manners of the time, and are distinctly separable from 
 those exquisite pictures of love and conjugal affection, 
 and leave no taint upon their purity. As my business 
 with Shakspeare is not to particularise his excellences, 
 but simply to advert to such as serve the purpose of 
 illustration, I pass over the less equivocal the highly- 
 impassioned, the warm, though chaste, Juliet the no 
 less devoted, but modest and retiring Viola the deep, 
 patient, and enduring Helena the romantic and enter- 
 prising Rosalind the pure and simple, almost childish, 
 Perdita and Miranda and the dignified and self-pos- 
 sessed Portia and triumphantly appeal to the best 
 proof of how little the meretricious and the impure can 
 enter into association with high genius, in the boldness 
 and dexterity with which he handles such doubtful cases 
 as the voluptuous Cleopatra and the facile Cressida. 
 
 In Scott, in whose writings, as in Shakspeare's, 
 viewed collectively, love takes the subordinate, and yet 
 important, part in the conduct of human affairs, that we 
 see in common life (and in this they differ from almost 
 all other writers of fiction*),' we observe the same 
 * See " Johnson's Preface."
 
 29 
 
 delicacy and propriety with the corresponding freedom ; 
 which, whilst it gives it as much alloy as convinces us 
 of its earthly origin, detracts nothing from the exalted 
 and ethereal spirit which elevates it above all other pas- 
 sions when 
 
 " Love is heaven, and heaven is love ! " 
 
 with full warranty for the indulgence that leaves no 
 stain behind it. I am not the blind panegyrist of Scott 
 and I will not pretend to oppose to the bright galaxy 
 before us such personages as Lucy Ashton, however 
 intense the interest of her hapless story or Amy Rob- 
 sart, however lovely and confiding or Minna, however 
 romantic or Rebecca, however self-denying and ele- 
 vated : but who would not admire the address and the 
 freedom from false delicacy and squeamishness that 
 characterises these admirable portraits ? who does not 
 sympathise with the pure feelings of the lovely Jewess, 
 kneeling, in Torquilstone, by the side of the object of 
 her affections, and ministering to his wants, conscious of 
 his indifference ? or not feel his heart ache for the senti- 
 ments which prompt her final visit to Rowena ? who 
 would accuse the admirable Diana Vernon of indelicacy, 
 when she bends from her horse, in the twilight, and 
 kisses the uninviting cheek of the lover she expects 
 never to meet again? or who so nice as to take excep- 
 tion at the lowly handmaiden who leaves the postern 
 door of her master's mansion ajar, that she may steal 
 out unheard and unseen to meet the lad, who " Is low 
 down, he's in the broom that's waiting for me." 
 
 But it is time to break off. In my next Lecture, I
 
 shall consider the inexhaustible humour of Scott, in 
 affinity with the humour of Shakspeare ; and his pre- 
 tensions to dramatic power and to poetic excellence. 
 In this last there can be no question of an immea- 
 surable disparity. Nevertheless, there is a rich vein of 
 poetry running through the writings of Scott ; and par- 
 ticularly, as we have in part seen, of poetry of the 
 moral kind the poetry of man. Not of that intense 
 and harrowing kind, of which we have lately had such 
 exquisite specimens in Lord Byron and others of his 
 school, tinctured, as we may suppose, with the transcen- 
 dental philosophy of " the mystagogues of Germany; " 
 but of the real and practical kind more natural and 
 congenial to man in his every-day condition of ex- 
 istence, less visionary, and, in a word, more Shak- 
 spearian.
 
 31 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 THE business of my last lecture was to point out some of 
 the great characteristics of the genius of Scott, and of Ins 
 writings; and to show how they assimilated, or con- 
 trasted with those of Shakspeare, in preference to any 
 other master of fiction in our language ; and to explain, 
 as well as my limits would allow, and consistently with 
 my plan, the grounds of that preference. 
 
 You may remember that these were the great scope 
 and universality of his moral vision, that penetrating 
 glance, and all-pervading sympathy which is the great 
 boast of Shakspeare's genius. 
 
 His imaginative and imitative [powers, which with the 
 foregoing, necessarily imply great dramatic excellence* 
 of which we shall have more to say as we proceed. 
 
 His appropriative power, by which, like Shakspeare, 
 he subdued all things to his use, from the sterling gold 
 of history, to the merest dross of popular tradition and 
 superstitious ignorance. A power, the fruits of a saga- 
 cious and vigilant observation of men and manners ; 
 making, as he has somewhere familiarly told us, even his 
 stage-coach conversations subservient to his delineations 
 of character. 
 
 His copiousness, the result of the former attributes,
 
 and of a mind overflowing with knowledge of the most 
 practical kind. 
 
 The healthful character of his opinions, exemplified 
 in his treatment of the all-important subject of religion, 
 and of the all-engrossing passion of love. 
 
 And above all, of that delightful spirit of candour 
 which, finding a response in every bosom, is the essence 
 and the charm of his universality, and gives to all his 
 writings the impress of nature and of truth. 
 
 In pursuance of my plan, I propose this evening 
 to say a few words more on Scott's dramatic power and 
 delineation of character ; to dilate a little upon his 
 humour and the variety of its characteristics for in the 
 variety, delicacy, and originality of his humour he comes 
 nearest to Shakspeare ; and to make some attempt at an 
 appreciation of his merits in the higher graces of the 
 picturesque and the poetical. 
 
 I have already adverted to the magical effect of the 
 pictorial and imitative power that enables both our 
 authors to identify their characters, and by making them 
 act and speak for themselves, to bring before the spec- 
 tator or the reader a vivid and correct delineation of the 
 business of the scene ; whether it consist in a natural 
 progression of events, or a display of the workings of the 
 mind, in the calm repose of a settled purpose, or moving 
 in the " storm and whirlwind of the passions." To 
 do either of these effectually, nothing should occur to 
 disturb the verisimilitude ; nothing that is not essential 
 and interesting to the persons concerned. It is the
 
 33 
 
 practice of authors of inferior dramatic excellence, to 
 weary their readers by long details of the actions and 
 motives of their personages, to describe in their own 
 words all that they do and feel, and instead of bringing 
 them upon the scene to embody their thoughts in action, 
 and furnish the materials upon which the reader may 
 ground his own estimate, they are made unnaturally 
 to descant upon their feelings, analyse their motives, and 
 even to expatiate metaphysically on the passions with 
 which they affect to be actuated. 
 
 I do not advance these remarks as very original, 
 but their repetition here is necessary to my purpose as 
 illustrative of the strong affinities which it is the business 
 of these lectures to demonstrate. 
 
 It has been well observed by Mrs. Montague, that 
 u the business of the drama is to excite sympathy ; and 
 its effect on the spectator depends on such a justness of 
 imitation, as shall cause to a certain degree the same 
 passions and affections, as if what was exhibited were 
 real. Narrative imitation is too faint and feeble a 
 means to excite passion ; declamation still worse, plays 
 idly on the surface of the subject, and makes the writer, 
 who should be concealed in the action, visible to the 
 spectator." It is this superiority of the imitative over 
 the descriptive art, that gives life and energy to Scott's 
 dramatic scenes. For although he is necessarily led by 
 the conduct of his fable into the details of narrative, and 
 frequently into prolix descriptions of the motives of his 
 characters, when he does so, it is in strict accordance 
 with the business of the scene ; and he more frequently 
 
 c 3
 
 34 
 
 makes them speak and act for themselves ; and, by 
 a succession of pictures, he unites the effect of a series 
 of dramatic incidents, with the elaborate details of a 
 finished narrative. 
 
 Impersonation is his great aim the exposition of 
 the virtues, the vices, the duties, the passions, the moral 
 poetry of man; and subordinate to these, the illustration 
 of the manners and customs of past times. It is, there- 
 fore, when he deserts the line of narrative, however ex- 
 planatory, copious, and pregnant, that the dramatic 
 excellence of Scott is most apparent ; and it is in de- 
 tached scenes and critical situations, that we are most 
 frequently surprised with those striking imitations of 
 nature that constitute the great charm of his pro- 
 ductions. It soon became apparent that the conduct of 
 his fables and the fabric of his plots were made sub- 
 servient to the attainment of these objects, and nobody 
 seems to have been more sensible than himself of the 
 deficiencies of the other parts of his mechanism. But it 
 cannot be denied that the excellence of his personi- 
 fications and the variety of dramatic incident amply 
 compensate for these defects. It were superfluous to 
 institute a comparison with Shakspeare in this parti- 
 cular; in the case of neither author does it seem that 
 there is any necessary relation between the excellence of 
 the individual portraiture and the deficiencies of the 
 action : as in a painting, each part, taken separately, 
 may be good, though the grouping be faulty. We do 
 not appreciate the noble character of Hamlet less 
 because the plot of the drama is inartificially conducted.
 
 35 
 
 and the catastrophe clumsily and hastily wound up. 
 The incongruities and improbabilities of " Marmion " or 
 " Ivanhoe " are overlooked in contemplation of the ex- 
 cellence of their actors and the spirit-stirring incidents 
 of their scenes. 
 
 In illustration of Scott's dramatic power, and as 
 instances of impassioned eloquence, we may take the 
 three most interesting periods in the tale of " The Heart 
 of Mid Lothian" the outbreaking of the Porteous mob 
 the trial of Effie Deans and Jeanie's interview with 
 the Queen and the Duke of Argyle. In all these, the 
 incidents are so striking the images they present to 
 the mind so vivid and the language so appropriate, 
 that they might be transferred at once to the stage ; and 
 being read or seen, cannot fail to be remembered with 
 admiration and delight. 
 
 Of these three specimens of dramatic excellence, 
 although the interview at Hampton Court is, perhaps, 
 more artful in its construction, more delicate in its 
 handling, and a more highly-finished picture, the trial 
 scene presents a greater variety, and may be selected as- 
 one of the finest combinations of invention, imagination, 
 and judgment (the great requisites of such composi- 
 tions,) with all the necessary passion to give it true 
 tragic elevation our language affords; not excepting 
 the pathetic reality of Lord William Russell, and of 
 Charles I., or the noble ideal of the " Merchant of 
 Venice." The dignity of the personages, the strong 
 passion of revenge on one side, and the noble resigna- 
 tion on the other; the strong contrasting situations, ami
 
 36 
 
 the intricacy and gradual development of the story ; 
 with the stately moral of the antique phraseology and 
 blank verse of Shakspeare and his poetic imagery, 
 incline us to give a preference to the trial-scene of the 
 noble merchant. But to these we may oppose excel- 
 lences of a great, though somewhat different kind. The 
 admirable preparation and solemn introduction of the 
 action in the progress of David Deans and his daughter 
 to the court-house, the one firm in his power of en- 
 durance, in the double character of a father and a 
 sufferer for conscience sake, and the other in her purpose 
 of adhering to the truth, confident in the sacred precept 
 that a contingent good is no warranty for an act of 
 positive sinfulness, and that if her sister's deliverance 
 were within the range of possibility, the mercy of that 
 heaven in which she placed her reliance would point 
 out other means than those of deceit and falsehood. 
 
 As the story proceeds, higher excitements crowd upon 
 us. We see the desolation of the culprit the clinging 
 to life and to the hope that her sister's testimony would 
 free her from the charge of blood-guiltiness : the con- 
 trast in the character of the two females the one gentle, 
 flexible, and erring the other affectionate, but firm, 
 strong in mind, and pure, without hardness of heart : 
 the exquisite art of the advocate : the merciful tone, 
 hut inflexible integrity of the court. Then comes the 
 crisis of the action, and the consummation of Jeanie's 
 fortitude and truth, and all ears are open to the effect of 
 the simple question, " But what did she tell you of the 
 cause of her illness? " " Nothing." Never was single
 
 word of more importance; it is the pivot on which all 
 the interest of the fable turns, and the fate of all the 
 principal actors in it ; the tale was written for its pro- 
 nunciation, and the circumstances under which it is 
 uttered make it one of the finest efforts of moral energy 
 the history of the female character presents. If to these 
 objects of high interest, are added the burst of an intui- 
 tive parental affection in the poor girl reminded of her 
 bereavement; of parental agony of the poor old man, 
 doubly wounded by the ignominious fate of his child 
 and the abasement of his pride of opinion in the defec- 
 tion of his high principles of religious and domestic 
 government, and we have all the requisites of high and 
 impassioned tragedy. But after all, it may be said, 
 the homeliness of the persons concerned their walk in 
 life and general want of elevation of language and de- 
 portment deny it the character of the highest order of 
 tragedy ; that still it is a sort of " tragedie Bourgeoise : " 
 be it so; nevertheless, it is of the highest order of 
 nature; it is not wanting in elevation of sentiment, and 
 as such finds a response in every bosom whether of 
 peer or peasant ; and however we may differ as to the 
 right position of this effort of the genius of Scott, in the 
 scale of comparison, it cannot be denied that it displays 
 great dramatic force. 
 
 Let us turn to another and more dignified display of 
 Scott's mastery of effect and delineation of passion, 
 which will afford a closer parallel perhaps to some pas- 
 sages in his great predecessor ; I mean the interview of 
 the confederated lords with Mary at Loch-Leven and
 
 38 
 
 the abdication of that unfortunate princess. The cir- 
 cumstances of the two cases do not so much difier ; but 
 the character of the principal personage is so different 
 from that of Richard II., that they can hardly be placed 
 in a parallel view ; the excellences, too, are of a dif- 
 ferent order ; nevertheless, I cannot but think that Scott 
 had the desolation of the fallen monarch in view when 
 he drew the picture of Mary's reluctant resignation to 
 an inevitable necessity. Scott's delineation is disfigured 
 by some puerile conceits of the chivalrous page and 
 petulant waiting-women : but, guided by the truth of 
 history and his just conception of the character of Mary, 
 he has given us an admirable portraiture of the struggles 
 of offended pride, of fitful but imposing majesty, united 
 with feminine weakness ; and in the assembled noble- 
 men, a finely contrasted variety of character, in the in- 
 flexible pertinacity of Lindsey the mild and persuasive 
 but weak and wavering deportment of Melville and 
 the brutality and cogency of Ruthven. 
 
 I have purposely taken these specimens from two of 
 the less popular and less generally admired of his pro- 
 ductions ; for all his tales in prose and verse abound in 
 similar instances, which, detached from the narrative, 
 present pictures of the highest dramatic interest. The 
 taste of the age which leads men to the library for the 
 amusement they used to find in the theatre, probably 
 turned Scott from dramatic composition ; and, as I ?aid 
 before, the pregnancy of his mind and the copiousness 
 of his resources, with the facility of his execution, made 
 him give the preference to the novel; a species of
 
 39 
 
 composition to which he has given, although he did not 
 invent, a variety and force of which it was not previ- 
 ously thought capable. To the humour and the shrewd 
 insight into the follies and weaknesses of mankind of 
 Cervantes, he adds the searching and caustic satire of 
 Le Sage and Fielding, and the elaborate and artful 
 machinery of Richardson ; combined with the impas- 
 sioned energy of the older dramatists, their variety, and 
 grace, and with occasional touches of pathos, equalled 
 only by the now-neglected, but incomparable, Sterne. 
 
 And this leads me to speak of another great ingre- 
 dient in Scott's genius his mastery of the pathetic 
 and the impassioned eloquence with which he has 
 clothed the sentiments of his actors when the business 
 of the scene is calculated to bring forth the manifesta- 
 tions of a vivid impression. It has been said of Shak- 
 speare, that, although he is often puerile and trifling, 
 and that his dialogue sometimes languishes upon ordi- 
 nary occasions, yet he is never wanting when the busi- 
 ness is worthy of exertion that his powers rise with 
 the necessity for their exercise. Some of the most 
 finished of Shakspeare's productions cannot be said to 
 exhibit this inequality, for nothing can exceed the sus- 
 tained and uniform dignity and vigour of " Othello," 
 "Macbeth," or " Richard III." amongst his tragedies. 
 His comedies are more open to the objection, and yet 
 how little would we wish to lose of the " Much ado 
 about Nothing," or of the exquisite " Twelfth Night !" 
 All writers of fiction are more or less open to the same 
 remark ; and we may surely predicate of Scott, that he
 
 40 
 
 is not uniformly interesting or correct ; but it would be 
 an affectation of Shakspearian genius indeed to say that 
 be is exactly like him in these paroxysmal displays of 
 weakness and of power. The elaborate narration to 
 which he is addicted, and which I before alluded to, 
 sometimes leads him into a tedious minuteness, and he 
 becomes tiresome by his long and strict adhesion to his 
 subject; but it is an occasional dulness only soon for- 
 gotten in some brilliant display of eloquence and dra- 
 matic force : and may we not consider this inequality 
 as one of the characteristics of high genius ? The pain- 
 ful efforts of a genius of a lower grade may fail to give 
 offence by falling below the standard of good taste, but 
 then they seldom rise above mediocrity, and are inca- 
 pable of imparting the high gratification we feel in the 
 flights of fancy and the embodied expressions of a 
 strong and vivid imagination. 
 
 If we speak of pathos, in the general sense, we should 
 probably include all the degrees of impassioned feeling. 
 1 1 is too much restriction of the term to confine it to the 
 pitiful and tender, or what is commonly called the 
 pathetic. 
 
 The dramatic excellence of Scott, for which I have 
 been contending, necessarily implies the exercise of 
 this quality in the general sense of the word ; and we 
 have not far to look for other examples of its display. 
 I n it, we observe the same qualities of good keeping and 
 just appropriation that are elsewhere manifest every 
 thing is in consonance with the character he depicts 
 and the situation that calls it forth. When Rob Roy,
 
 41 
 
 in the heat of blood, engendered by his escape from the 
 troops sent to apprehend him, and exulting also in his 
 escape from the temporary degradation of an assumed 
 character, is addressed by Osbaldistone in that cha- 
 racter, as Mr. Campbell, who is not electrified with the 
 exclamation " I am no mister, sir, my foot is on my 
 native heath, my name's Macgregor!" and who does 
 not read in these few words the history of a hero's feel- 
 ings the pride of native dignity the indignation of 
 injured rights the vindication of insulted honour ? 
 
 Of the same kind is the well-known example in the 
 spirit-stirring scene in the " Lady of the Lake," when, 
 after the recital of his wrongs and his determination to 
 avenge them, his followers start up at the signal of the 
 bold Highlander, as he exclaims 
 
 ' These are Clanalpine's warriors true 
 And, Saxon, I am Roderick- Dhu !" 
 
 In Waverley again, in the tragic position and heroic 
 devotion of Evan Macombich, when he offers, at his trial 
 at Carlisle, himself and six of his fellow clansmen to lay 
 down their lives for the redemption of his chieftain, and 
 the offer excites the risibility of some of the bystanders : 
 " If the Saxon gentlemen are laughing," he said, "be- 
 cause a poor man, such as me, thinks my life, or the life 
 of six of my degree, is worth that of Vich Jan Vohr, it's 
 like enough they may be very right : but if they laugh 
 because they think I would not keep my word and come 
 back to redeem him, I can tell them, they ken neither 
 the heart of a Hielandmau nor the honour of a gentle- 
 man."
 
 42 
 
 The self-devotion of a Curtius or a Regulus might 
 have a higher object, but it could not betray greater 
 emotion nor express itself more nobly. 
 
 Witness also the impassioned eloquence of Rebecca, 
 of Constance Beverley, or Brian de Bois Guilbert, 
 (whose talents command our admiration, while his vices 
 compel our censure,) or the no less inspirited oratory of 
 Henry Warden or Macbriar, rich in Scripture language, 
 and in the imagery of that inexhaustible mine of poetic 
 wealth, or of the fanatic Muklewrath ; or, in another 
 and very different vein, of the artless and ever-honoured 
 Jeanie Deans a part of whose address to the Queen 
 I will repeat here, although it is familiar to us all, 
 and although it properly belongs to the class of the 
 pathetic, because it exhibits a characteristic truly Shaks- 
 pearian; I mean a proof that the language of the 
 highest passion is often of the most homely kind, and 
 loses nothing of its force by the meanness of the illus- 
 tration, provided it be striking and appropriate : *' And 
 when the hour of death comes that comes to high and 
 low 0, my Leddy, then, it is not what we have done 
 for ourselves, but what we have done for others, that we 
 think on maist pleasantly; and the thoughts that ye hae 
 intervened to spare the puir thing's life w r ill be sweeter 
 in that hour, come when it may, than if a word of your 
 mouth could hang the haill Porteous mob at the tail of 
 ae tow." 
 
 It is no new observation that Shakspeare is often thus 
 homely and natural in his stateliest moods of declama- 
 tion and passion. For instance, in " Measure for
 
 43 
 
 Measure," Isabella, pleading for her brother's life, ex- 
 claims 
 
 " He's not prepared for death ! Even for our kitchens 
 We kill the fowl of season ; shall we serve heaven 
 With less respect than we do minister 
 To our gross selves ! " 
 
 Or that homely allusion in " Hamlet : " 
 
 " Or ere those shoes were old 
 With which she followed my poor father's body ! " 
 
 Scott has, unconsciously, perhaps, often made use of 
 this excellence, for so we must call it; and yet it is 
 curious, that in one remarkable instance when it pre- 
 sented itself in real life, he should have come to a false 
 conclusion upon this very point. It occurs in his "Life 
 of Napoleon Bonaparte." It would be foreign to my 
 task to say much of this piece of agreeable biography 
 its errors and excellences will long be matter of dis- 
 pute; but it must be acknowledged that a prejudice 
 reigns throughout (a very pardonable one truly, if any 
 prejudice be pardonable) against the social qualities 
 and good breeding of his hero. He could allow him to 
 be a great soldier and a clever statesman a Caesar in 
 the camp and in the cabinet ; but he had not Caesar's 
 fine qualities his scholarship and good breeding : 
 Bonaparte was not, according to our conventional 
 standard of good breeding, a gentleman. Upon this 
 principle, he condemns his memorable speech to the 
 members of his senate, when, taking courage from his 
 fallen fortunes, they upbraided him with his faults and 
 follies his inordinate ambition and the miseries it
 
 44 
 
 entailed upon his country. In his answer, given extem- 
 poraneously, in the warmth of passion, and, doubtless, 
 with characteristic vehemence, he reminds them of the 
 untimely nature of such expositions, and that if they 
 must needs tell him of his faults, they should do so in 
 private "for men do not expose their dirty linen to the 
 public gaze." Scott could not allow, as it is one of the 
 few instances of a prejudice standing in the way of his 
 admirable candour, that this is the language of passion, 
 appropriate, strong, and natural, and though homely, 
 eloquent, and, by its position, almost poetical : in fact, 
 after the example of Shakspeare, and himself in similar 
 circumstances an example we may suppose to be 
 followed by some future Shakspeare, some four or five 
 centuries hence, in the nobler blank-verse of whose 
 tragedy call it, if you like, " Prometheus Chained, or 
 the Downfall of Napoleon" it will be deemed, by 
 future critics, a fine escape from the conventionalities 
 of courts and high places. 
 
 Of the like kind is the expression which he has put, 
 so appropriately, into the mouth of the crafty and cruel 
 Louis, in " Quentin Durward," that "no perfume is 
 more agreeable than the scent of a dead traitor." It is 
 copied from real life, for it is almost the very words of 
 Catherine of Medicis, " She-wolf of France ! " upon 
 seeing the mangled and putrifying body of the excellent 
 Coligny. It is thus that things, mean in themselves, 
 and even foul and disgusting under ordinary circum- 
 stances, are elevated into importance by the touch of 
 passion, and afford to the poetical and imaginative mind 
 the materials of eloquence.
 
 Nor has Scott been unmindful of those touching inci- 
 dents that give identity and force to the manifestations 
 of emotion, greater, perhaps, than the strongest lan- 
 guage can impart. Who does not remember, for in- 
 stance, Will Badger's expedient of stopping the great 
 house clock to divert the attention of the unhappy father 
 of Amy Robsart, in the exquisite picture of the desola- 
 tion of heart and mind of the poor old man, given in 
 Tressilian's visit to Lidcote ; or of the Knight himself 
 riding with his hounds to cover, and, then looking 
 round, recollecting himself and reminded of his loneli- 
 ness, silently turning his horse again towards home ; or 
 in the same tale, the imitation of Leicester's whistle, by 
 Varney, in the Court-yard at Cumnor that whistle, 
 which to her had always been the herald of joy and 
 delight, which now brings the poor victim of his vil- 
 lainy, and of that loved husband's mistaken ambition, 
 into the murderous trap at her chamber-door ; or 
 amongst many affecting touches of the like kind in low 
 life that of the fisherman Mucklebacket, who, after 
 many vain attempts to go on with his work, dashes his 
 hammer against the boat, the unconscious instrument of 
 his son's death. 
 
 Our literature generally, as I said in one of my former 
 Lectures, is rich in pathos; I cannot, therefore, call 
 these characteristics exclusively Shakspearian ; but they 
 are forcible and natural, and nobody has made better 
 use of them than Scott and Shakspeare, and none surely 
 such varied and extensive use. 
 
 Before I quit this part of my subject, let me draw
 
 46 
 
 your attention to a combination of the pathetic and 
 the humorous in Scott, that is almost his own. Shak- 
 speare has been considered as the earliest writer who 
 ventured to bring these two qualities into direct opposi- 
 tion ; he found them so in nature, and we may sup- 
 pose that, without thinking much about the matter, he 
 drew them as he found them. But I do not think that 
 he has anywhere united them in the same person. And 
 yet this also is to be found in real life ; and Scott's 
 Nanty Ewart, Jonathan Oldbuck, and some others are 
 memorable illustrations of the rule in fictitious life. 
 The lively Mercutio can scarcely be said to have much 
 of the pathetic about him ; or, at least, he is pathetic 
 only by reflection and by his early fate. The philo- 
 sophic and melancholy Jacques comes nearest to this 
 mixture of the tender and the humourous ; but, in his 
 case, the humour is rather of the reflected kind ; for if 
 he is jocular, he is so without intending it, the purpose 
 of his benevolent misanthropy is always to be serious. 
 To return to Scott, our excellent friend, the antiquary, 
 although he is the subject and cause of more humour in 
 others, is himself no mean joker, and his simple inven- 
 tion and peculiar use of the word "womankind" is 
 often as pathetic as it is ludicrous ; and I do not know 
 a more touching incident in the volumes in which he 
 plays his part, than the production of the papers re- 
 lating to the fate of his early love, on which there 
 appears inscribed, after the title and subject, the simple 
 ejaculation, " Eheu Evelina ! " 
 
 In Nanty Ewart, the commander of the smuggling
 
 vessel in " Redgauntlet," we have a fine sketch of the 
 wreck of a mind originally active and powerful, and of 
 a heart susceptible of the tenderest emotions; where 
 virtue in unequal contest with vice is always yielding, 
 but never entirely subdued; and seduced by whose 
 humourous good nature, and courageous loyalty, we 
 are almost tempted to subscribe to the opinion of Shak- 
 speare's Mariana : 
 
 " They say best men are moulded out of faults, 
 And, for the most, become much more the better 
 For being a little bad." 
 
 The doubtful morality of the precept may be excused 
 by the position in which it stands, and the enlarged 
 humanity of its author. 
 
 This mixture of the pathetic and the ludicrous leads 
 me to speak of the redundant and characteristic humour 
 of both our authors generally. 
 
 It has, I think, been mistakenly said of Shakspeare, 
 that his forte was comedy. This erroneous estimate of 
 his powers has arisen, I suspect, partly from the natural 
 and happy combination of the humourous and the 
 pathetic in the same dramas, and partly from the all- 
 pervading humour and joyous character of his genius 
 generally. The position might be maintained if it could 
 be proved that his Fal staff, his Dogberry, his Sir Toby 
 Belch, and the like, are finer and more perfect deline- 
 ations than his Othello, his Macbeth, his Richard, and 
 others ; but our convictions start up against such a con- 
 clusion. In the universality of his genius, and in his 
 abounding humour, we are only delighted to see that
 
 48 
 
 the contemplation of the vices and follies of mankind 
 did not serve to fix upon him any sense of hopelessness 
 or of settled misanthropy; but, on the contrary, the 
 conviction, that amid the turmoil of bad passions and 
 worse practice, there is space still left for the exercise of 
 every benevolent feeling, and for the indulgence of sen- 
 timents, of cheerfulness, and good humour, and even of 
 vulgar merriment when merriment is innocent and not 
 selfish, and regardless of mutual rights. 
 
 In these observations, have I not also sketched the 
 character of Scott's humour? It is cheerful, seldom 
 sarcastic, delicate, forcible, appropriate, general : it 
 pervades all his works, and mainly contributes to their 
 acknowledged fascination. Broader humour and more 
 ludicrous situations are to be found elsewhere, but 
 nowhere else but in Shakspeare is humour so blended 
 with other excellences, so harmonious, and so natural. 
 
 My limits will hardly allow jof the exhibition of parti- 
 cular specimens ; and, indeed, the want of that remark- 
 able prominence to which I have alluded makes a 
 selection difficult : besides that the character of his wit, 
 like that of Shakspeare, is shown as much in the manner 
 in which his humorous personages act, and are acted 
 upon, as by what they say. It has been well observed, 
 that we are let into the character of Falstaff as much by 
 what he refrains from doing as by what he does, by 
 what is said of him by his companions as by what falls 
 from his own mouth, by the bare recital of his tavern- 
 bill as by his speech in praise of " good sherris sack." 
 These ludicrous situations abound in Scott. The Friar
 
 49 
 
 of Copmanhurst, munching his parched peas, with 
 furtive glances toward his intrusive guest, as much as 
 to say, may I trust you with the history of the venison 
 pasty ? bespeaks in this the humour of his character as 
 effectually as in his remark that " although blessed 
 St. Dunstan baptized with the water of his well, it is 
 not said that he ever drank any of it." The same may 
 be said of the unconscious humour of a Caleb Balder- 
 stone, or a Triptolemus Yellowly. Such also is the 
 nature of the humour in the concluding scenes of " Old 
 Mortality," when Cuddie Headrigg is diverted from his 
 generous purpose of discovering himself to his quondam 
 master and friend, and sulkily tucks the bed-clothes 
 about him as he yields to his wife's more prudent course 
 of conduct and selfish policy ; and while muttering his 
 unwilling submission to petticoat government, he does 
 as much to show the superior genius of Jenny's habi- 
 tual ascendancy as he does of his own manly, but 
 accidental, courage, when he breaks through all the 
 obstacles she throws in his way, and, finally, rushes to 
 Morton's assistance, when the danger is imminent. 
 
 If we take a more general view of Scott's humour, 
 we observe the same natural and Shakspearian cha- 
 racter the same variety, consonance, and happy adap- 
 tation : in Friar Tuck, bold, joyous, and full of animal 
 appetite ; in his boon companion Richard, of the same 
 nature, dignified with a little more intellectuality, and 
 this heightened into a romantic jollity in his intercourse 
 with Wamba; in Wamba himself, warm-hearted, with 
 a touch of chivalrous and romantic poetry ; in Baillie
 
 50 
 
 Nicol Jarvie, shrewd and homely ; in Baron Bradwar- 
 dine and Monkbarnes, benevolent and gentlemanly : 
 indeed, we may always say of the humour of Scott, as 
 of Shakspeare, that it never condescends to buffoonery. 
 Shakspeare's clowns have a touch of gentility ; and his 
 rude mechanicals, in their silliest moods, have nothing 
 of a revolting coarseness about them. So we may say 
 of Scott, that dealing, as he has done, so much in the 
 humble walks of life, we are never offended with obtru- 
 sive vulgarity ; his most ludicrous situations never shock 
 our delicacy ; and the language of his humorous, as 
 well as serious rustics, displays like their sentiments 
 an elevation and propriety seldom to be met with in 
 similar walks of literature. Mause Headrigg's bitterest 
 retorts upon the respectable Lady Margaret are in the 
 best taste of rustic independence of mind ; and the sly 
 jokes of Edie Ochiltree might win favour amongst gen- 
 tlemen. 
 
 It remains for me to speak of the power of Scott's 
 genius for the picturesque and the poetical, a subject 
 that would afford matter for a whole lecture, or, indeed, 
 many lectures, to do it justice : my analysis must be 
 brief; and it is with unfeigned diffidence I touch upon 
 the subject at all, particularly as I am free to confess, 
 as I before said, that the transcendent superiority of 
 Shakspeare over every competitor, as the poet of human, 
 as well as of external nature, bids defiance to all paral- 
 lelism a superiority on which even kindred genius 
 must look with distant and respectful admiration. It is 
 not our business to deal in paradox; and claiming, as
 
 51 
 
 we do, a title to the independence of mind that admits 
 of no weak compliances with received opinions, because 
 they are such, whilst we abjure all arrogant pretensions 
 to exclusiveness of judgment, it would ill become the 
 character of philosophical and analytical research to 
 maintain anything, or to defer to anything, in contra- 
 diction to the supremacy of truth. 
 
 The fame of Scott will ever rest upon his noble and 
 happy impersonations of human life, and of the realities 
 of history and tradition, in which, if we except some of 
 the highest and most impassioned, he is equal to Shak- 
 speare ; and, in variety, exceeds him : and if he fall far 
 behind in the graceful ornaments of mellifluous diction 
 and poetic imagery, it must be allowed that he yet chal- 
 lenges a high character for these attributes, and that too 
 of a strictly kindred nature. 
 
 If I were asked where the greatest strength of Shak- 
 speare's poetry resided, I should say, certainly not in 
 those fanciful and supernatural creations on which 
 critics have been so much accustomed to dwell which 
 the stage cannot embody, nor the painter imitate ; and 
 of which I have not the high admiration so generally 
 affected. To say nothing of his clumsy and prosy 
 ghosts of men, women, and children his visionary 
 beings of another sort the " gentlefolk " of Fairy Land 
 are too extravagant and fantastical (using the word in 
 its bad sense) always to be pleasing. His Oberon and 
 Titania are really very absurd personages, despite the 
 poetical language they play their pranks in, and which 
 gilds an otherwise inexcusable machinery. The great 
 
 D 2
 
 52 
 
 charm of Shakspeare's poetic genius consists in that 
 exquisite vein of imagery that runs through all his 
 dialogue, and gives life and energy and elegance to natu- 
 ral objects. His dialogue may be said to be steeped in 
 poetry, and there is more of its sterling gold in the con- 
 versations of Florizel and Perdita, or of Guiderius 
 and Arviragus, or in the sallies of Mercutio, or the 
 insane musings of Ophelia, than in all the supernatural 
 creations of the " Midsummer Night's Dream." Let 
 me not be misunderstood. I am not insensible to the 
 beauties of the more graceful, as well as the grander 
 and more appropriate of Shakspeare's machinery : his 
 Ariel and Caliban, and all the airy magnificence of the 
 " Tempest," as well as the mysterious and terrific infer- 
 nal agency of the witches in " Macbeth ; " the one the 
 essence of a spiritualized, the other of a brutalized 
 humanity; fit type of the universal range of the 
 author's powers : for, after all, as it has been elsewhere 
 observed, the supernatural can never be anything but 
 a modification of human nature, its actions, and passions, 
 or it becomes absurd and unintelligible. 
 
 It cannot be denied that, in imitation of his great 
 model, Scott has contrived to give a great additional 
 charm and much picturesque effect to his stories by the 
 introduction of various species of what may be called 
 machinery ; and interwoven a great variety of popular 
 and traditionary superstition very successfully. There 
 is another source also from which he has derived much 
 assistance, and drawn nmch poetic imagery ; and it is 
 almost the only one left to us since the decay of those
 
 53 
 
 superstitions, and the exhaustion of the mythological 
 systems of poetic agency, by the prevalence and 
 searching progress of analytical philosophy and the 
 advance of physical knowledge generally. I mean, the 
 mysterious sympathies of nature, on which the mind 
 rests its hopes of communion with the invisible world, 
 when driven by a merciless causation from all its 
 ancient reliances and " coins of vantage :" 
 " The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 
 The fair humanities of old religion, 
 The power, the beauty, and the majesty, 
 That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountains, 
 Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring, 
 Or chasms, and wat'ry depths; all these have vanish'd, 
 They live no longer in the faith of reason ! 
 But still the heart doth need a language." 
 
 Reason may reject it, but the heart, in its poetic aspira- 
 tions after such communion, delights to listen to its 
 voice ; and although the mode of faith may change, the 
 failing, if it be one, seems still inherent in the human 
 mind. 
 
 With his usual good taste and discretion, Scott hae 
 not given, in general, any distinct notions of the sources 
 of these reliances of poetic faith ; and he thus heightens 
 the interest by the shadowy and intangible nature of 
 this communion of unknown agencies. When second 
 sight, astrology, witchcraft, or some popular superstition, 
 or romantic legend, does not present itself, he most fre- 
 quently takes his stand upon those indications of a 
 special providence, which we believe to be wrought out 
 by unexpected and often untraceable secondary causes ;
 
 and with equal propriety, he rarely, and only when it is 
 forced upon him by the strongest circumstances, makes 
 any bolder and more direct appeal to religious faith. 
 
 In illustration of what I have been saying, let us turn 
 to some of the closing incidents of " Guy Mannering." 
 
 You may remember how all the circumstances of the 
 fable are interwoven with remarkable coincidences and 
 signs of supernatural agencies, or, at least, of a doubtful 
 fatality. The astrology of Colonel Mannering, and the 
 oracular predictions and objurgations of the gipsy, with 
 many circumstances of time and place, are made con- 
 joint operators in this machinery. At the time Harry 
 Bertram is about to make his appearance as the rightful 
 heir of Ellangowan, Meg Merrilies brings Dominie 
 Sampson to a little hillock that overlooks the bay, in 
 which Dirk Hatteraick's sloop is riding. With that 
 mixture of vague notions of supernal and infernal 
 agencies, which this remarkable woman, in the language 
 of her country, calls the " weird " of her hero, she 
 charges Sampson with a message to Mannering, bidding 
 him to look at the stars, without fail, that night. Samp- 
 son follows her to the hillock. " Here," she said, 
 " stand still, here. Look how the setting sun breaks 
 through yon cloud that's been darkening the lift a' day. 
 See, where the first stream o' light fa's it fa's upon 
 Donagild's round tower the auldest tower in the 
 Castle o' Ellangowan, that's no for naething. See, as 
 it's gloaming to seaward aboon yon sloop in the bay 
 that's no for naething neither ! Here I stood on this 
 very spot," said she, drawing herself up so as not to
 
 55 
 
 lose one hair-breadth of her uncommon height, and 
 stretching out her long sinewy arm and clenched hand, 
 " Here I stood, when I tauld the last Laird o' Ellan- 
 gowan what was coming on his house, and did that 
 fa' to the ground ? Na, it hit even ower sair ! and here 
 where I brak the wand of peace ower him here I stand 
 again to bid God bless and prosper the just heir of 
 Ellangowan." And so on to the concluding scene in 
 the cave, where she meets her own death with compo- 
 sure, and even with exultation, as a part of her own 
 " weird," and a consummation of the action, in which 
 she believes herself to be no mean agent and operating 
 cause the apparently accidental concurrence of per- 
 sons, times, and places assisting in the "denouement." 
 
 Passing over many instances of the like kind, as a 
 proof of the happy dexterity and poetic force with which 
 he makes natural causes operate the semblance of supe- 
 rior agency, we may adduce the death of Brian de Bois 
 Guilbert, who falls, it may be remembered, without a 
 blow or a wound, before his sick and enfeebled anta- 
 gonist, Wilfrid of Ivanhoe. Although, in this case, the 
 relations of cause and effect are made apparent to the 
 philosophic observer, to the majority of the spectators 
 it appears to be the work of a supernatural agent in 
 behalf of the cause of truth and justice; as, in fact, 
 the grand-master of the Templars declares it. 
 
 Of the poetical force with which he has made use, 
 and of his skill in the adaptation of popular super- 
 stitions, and these too of the Shakspearian cast, we may 
 refer to some of the most remarkable. 
 
 It must be confessed that neither the interest of the
 
 56 
 
 fable, nor the poetic excellence of the " Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel " are much enhanced by its supernatural 
 machinery ; nor is the agency of that machinery very 
 useful in working out the plot. His " gramarie," in 
 general, is never very successful, except in illustration 
 of national or local peculiarities. He never gives him- 
 self frankly and entirely to the illusion ; and, indeed, it 
 may be supposed that the historian of witchcraft had 
 himself become philosophical and analytic, and that 
 the practice of tracing out the sources of correct know- 
 ledge had in him the usual effect of " circumscribing 
 the limits of the imagination, and clipping the wings of 
 poetry." Shakspeare has not been able to escape 
 entirely from the incongruities of the mixture of matter 
 and spirit ; and in Scott's most remarkable attempt to 
 tread in his steps, he seems to have been sensible of his 
 own failure. I cannot stop now to inquire into the 
 beauties and defects of the " White Maid of Avenel," 
 but that Scott himself considered it as a failure we may 
 reasonably conclude from her nonappearance in the con- 
 tinuation of the story in the " Abbot " where the 
 machinery and her agency being dropped, their tradi- 
 tional foundation is barely alluded to. 
 
 The poetic beauties of his other poems are of a dif- 
 ferent order ; and as my limits will not admit of it, and 
 as they are not exclusively of a Shakspearian cast of 
 character, I shall not dwell upon them : not so, though, 
 the snatches of ballads, the roundelays, and other bril- 
 liant trifles with which his novels are besprinkled : 
 they have all the harmonious features of " the kindred 
 genius."
 
 57 
 
 The picturesque effect of " Waverley " is finely 
 enhanced by the introduction of the poetic Davie Gel- 
 latly : it is decidedly a Shakspearian feature ; and, 
 besides the gleams of poetic light thrown over the tale, 
 his instrumentality is useful, in the true sense of a 
 machinery, in furthering the plot. 
 
 Madge Wildfire, in the " Heart of Mid Lothian," 
 with her mixture of the terrific and the ludicrous, is 
 of the same cast natural, forcible, and imaginative. 
 
 The intense passion and tragic interest of the " Bride 
 of Lammermuir " are also finely heightened by the 
 adventitious graces of poetic conception. Signs, tokens, 
 ancient traditions, the raith of blind Alice, the scenes 
 of the mermaid's fountain with a long train of circum- 
 stances of the mysterious sympathies of internal and 
 external things, and the witch-like old Beldames are 
 all highly picturesque and poetical. 
 
 No person can study these, and many others of the 
 beauties of Scott; the construction of his fables, and 
 the fine personifications, upon which we have dwelt so 
 much, without perceiving that his mind was filled with 
 the imagery, the invention, the execution, and just judg- 
 ment of Shakspeare ; and that he, perhaps uncon- 
 sciously, made him his model ; or rather, insensibly 
 took his cast of mind and character from that divine 
 original. It is difficult to appreciate the extent, but it 
 is impossible not to perceive that the public mind, the 
 national character, even our language, has taken an 
 impulse from the writings of Shakspeare ; and the full 
 impress of that influence is not yet, perhaps, fully 
 
 D 5
 
 58 
 
 received. It was scarcely possible, therefore, that a 
 mind like Scott's should not share largely in the general 
 feeling, and not wonderful that it should betray itself in 
 the shape of imitation, or, at least, in evident signs of 
 an inclination to tread in the same steps. No one can 
 doubt that he had Othello and lago in mind when he 
 drew his Leicester and Varney ; and it is only surprising 
 that in this, as in similar cases, he should escape so 
 well from the snares of servile imitation. 
 
 It is true that, as Mrs. Jameson says, his Lady 
 Ashton is a domestic Lady Macbeth. Lady Ashton and 
 her victims are amongst the most powerful of Scott's 
 conceptions ; and there is one point in her history on 
 which I must stop to animadvert, as a great excellence ; 
 I mean that which represents her as living to a good 
 old age, hardened in error and self-esteem, and insen- 
 sible to the miseries inflicted by her cruel self-will. It 
 is aV finely imagined, and as true to nature as the 
 remorse of Lady Macbeth, and, perhaps, not less in- 
 structive. We are not told that Catherine of Medicis 
 felt any death-bed remorse Henry VIII. does not 
 appear to have been haunted by his murdered queens 
 the Duke of Alva died in his bed, a pious, comfortable 
 old man and it does not appear that the Semiramises 
 of ancient, or the Catherines of modern days slept the 
 less soundly, or died the less holily, for the hearts that 
 were wrung and the blood that was shed in the further- 
 ance of their selfish ambition. There is a moral in all 
 this ; but it is the work of the divine, or the professed 
 moralist, not of the critic, to trace it out.
 
 59 
 
 There are besides many curious coincidences illus* 
 trative of the observation that Scott, in his extensive 
 reading, had not been neglectful of the writings of the 
 elder bard, and of the facility with which the mind 
 slides into the train of thought and finds expression in 
 the language of a favourite author the involuntary and 
 unconscious plagiary of a ready writer. 
 
 Take, for instance, De Vaux's description of Ken- 
 neth's greyhound, in " The Talisman." 
 
 " Is he then so handsome? " said the king. 
 
 " A most perfect creature of heaven," said the baron, 
 " of the noblest northern breed deep in the chest 
 strong in the stern black colour, and brindled on the 
 breast and legs, not spotted with white, but just shaded 
 into grey strength to pull down a bull swiftness to 
 cote an antelope." 
 
 This, though less tuneful, tallies well with Theseus's 
 description of his hounds *, and will also serve to show 
 (of what we have other corroborating proofs) that both 
 authors were warm lovers of the canine race. 
 
 " My hounds were bred out of the Spartan kind, 
 So flew'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung 
 With ears that sweep away the morning dew ; 
 Crook-kneed, and dewlapp'd, like Thessalian bulls j 
 Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, 
 Each under each : a cry more tuneable 
 Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn, 
 In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly." 
 
 * Midsummer Night's Dream.
 
 60 
 
 If I thought I was labouring in support of a doubt- 
 ful hypothesis, or if I was not satisfactorily convinced 
 that Scott's merits rested upon a wider foundation than 
 the beauties of his verse and they are not few or the 
 general smoothness and elegance of his style, and that 
 is by no means problematical, I should be averse from 
 taking leave of you to-night, upon a contrast so much 
 in favour of his mellifluous predecessor, and with these 
 " tuneable " lines still sounding in your ears.
 
 61 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 SOME general remarks yet remain to be made to com- 
 plete the sketch upon which we are now employed : but 
 before we proceed any farther, allow me to recall your 
 attention to the fact alluded to in the commencement of 
 my first Lecture the universal recognition of Scott's 
 supremacy in that class of literature which is the dis- 
 tinguishing feature of the age in which we live. The 
 works of fiction, among which he holds the highest 
 place, are now doing what the stage did in the time of 
 Shakspeare, and what it continued to do till the office 
 was shared by the periodicals of the reign of Anne and 
 the early Georges, to hold the mirror up to nature and 
 show the age its own lineaments. The lover of the 
 drama may lament the decay of the public taste ; and 
 the admirers of the old sententious moral essay may be 
 excused for expressing some contempt for a change 
 which their fathers would have considered as an alarm- 
 ing sign of degeneracy and frivolity : but the " fiat " 
 has gone forth, and the public seem determined, for the 
 present, at least, to admit of no moral instruction; I 
 might almost say, of no instruction at all, that did not 
 come in the pleasing shape of allegory or fictitious nar-
 
 62 
 
 rative; and the despised novel is now, as Mr. Peter 
 Pattieson says, " praised by the judicious and admired by 
 the feeling, engrossing the young and attracting even 
 the old." I have, in one of my former Lectures, spoken 
 of the sudden advance of this species of composition in 
 the hands of Scott, and do not intend to enlarge upon it 
 here ; but to draw your attention to another remarkable 
 sign of the spirit of the age, the celerity with which the 
 public intelligence has been collected and confirmed in 
 this instance, and with how much more promptitude 
 than at any former period the meed of public admiration 
 is now bestowed on great talents either of the literary 
 or scientific kind. The gratitude of the world, in 
 general, is no longer reluctantly doled out in the shape 
 of posthumous fame: immediate reputation, honours, 
 and even riches (if they are sought for), await the suc- 
 cessful labourer in the fields of intellect. 
 
 In this particular, in the fortunes of the great men 
 whose names I have ventured to associate, there is 
 hardly any parallel. Shakspeare retired to his native 
 place, after the performance of his "miracles of genius," 
 beloved of his companions and intimates for his social 
 virtues, but easy in his circumstances, more by his 
 commercial success as a playhouse proprietor than by 
 his fame as an author. His reputation as the greatest 
 and most original of dramatic poets dates a century 
 later ; and it was not till a period comparatively recent 
 that it has challenged the admiration of the world, and 
 has been cherished with the fondness of idolatry. 
 
 Since the delivery of my first Lecture, one of the best
 
 63 
 
 and most beautiful monuments to the genius of Shak- 
 speare has appeared from the pen of a lady : no praise 
 of mine can enhance the fame of Mrs. Jameson's 
 " Characteristics of Women." For correct knowledge 
 of her subject, for just discrimination and delicate and 
 masterly handling, she far surpasses all other English 
 critics on Shakspeare's female characters. The shrewd 
 penetration of Hazlitt, and the somewhat paradoxical 
 disquisitions of Lamb, must yield to the fine fancy and 
 good sense of the lady-commentator; and her warm 
 and generous estimate contrasts most favourably with 
 the cold and metaphysical analysis of Richardson. Her 
 fine fancy sometimes degenerates into prettiness and 
 conceit, and approaches to what her great master would 
 perhaps condemn under the appellation of " high fan- 
 tastical : " but her love of truth, her admiration of the 
 beautiful, her freedom from prudery and affectation in 
 morality, and the boldness of her speculations, cannot be 
 too much admired. 
 
 Amongst the best and most efficient critics and eulo- 
 gists of Scott too, I think I might name another fair 
 authoress*. Her essay is, in part, a psychological 
 disquisition on the formation of his character and 
 genius ; in which, I think, she is in part very success- 
 ful, although I dispute her favourite hypothesis, as I 
 shall presently have occasion to observe. 
 
 And here let me pause for one moment to congratu- 
 late my hearers of the fair sex on these and other great 
 
 * Tail's Magazine, Dec. 1832.
 
 64 
 
 modern achievements of their accomplished country- 
 women. One of the earliest and most successful 
 champions in the cause of Shakspeare was a lady : 
 Mrs. Montague's " Essay " may still be read with 
 delight and instruction the venerable parent of such 
 daughters as Mrs. Jameson. Since the time of Mrs. 
 Montague, a splendid succession of female writers grace 
 our literary annals; and in spite of the prejudices which 
 operate against a system of severer discipline for the 
 female mind, the fields of science seem destined to 
 furnish triumphs of the like kind witness the name 
 of Somerville. 
 
 Many Diana Yernons may be brought out by circum- 
 stances much less trying than the adventures of the 
 admirable heroine of " Rob Roy." 
 
 To return to our subject. There are parallel circum- 
 stances in the early history of these men their educa- 
 tion and mental discipline that ought not to be over- 
 looked in any estimate of their relative powers. It is 
 true of the human mind, as of everything else, that, 
 to a certain extent, like causes produce like effects 
 that different individuals having the same, or nearly the 
 same natural capacities, operated upon by the same or 
 similar external causes, will evince the same general 
 character. Scott's and Shakspeare's early education 
 seems to have been very loosely conducted : though 
 not self-taught, they were left very much to their own 
 guidance. It is very well known that Shakspeare's 
 scholastic learning was very imperfect, and his acade- 
 mic life of very short duration ; and we are given to
 
 65 
 
 understand, that between the wise indifference of his 
 selections to any school-discipline likely to he injurious 
 to a constitution naturally infirm, and his own disin- 
 clination for any other than desultory study and pro- 
 miscuous reading, Scott was left to his natural Dent, 
 and was but little subjected to the trammels of what is 
 commonly called education. A- system of education 
 conducted according to prescribed rules, and consisting 
 chiefly of an invariable succession of pursuits that 
 deals much in words and little in things however it 
 may be calculated to foster talent, tends to cramp, if not 
 to destroy genius : whilst a more varied, not to say 
 desultory exercise of all the faculties preserves the mind 
 in its natural elasticity relieves it from the fascination 
 or the thraldom of set phrases and prescribed modes of 
 thought makes it more familiar with realities and 
 keeps it fitter for that universality of application which 
 is indeed the essential property of genius. 
 
 These observations were written before I had seen 
 the psychological " Essay " which I before alluded to, 
 and I rejoice to find that they are there amplified with 
 admirable effect*. But I cannot admit the authoress's 
 hypothetical supposition of the necessity of much natu- 
 ral bodily suffering for the formation of such a cha- 
 racter as Scott's ; and we have proof to the contrary in 
 what we know of Shakspeare's life and character : 
 either I am altogether wrong, and half the world with 
 me, in maintaining the strong affinity in the character 
 
 * Miss Martineau, loc. cit.
 
 as well as the genius of these men, or the lady is right 
 upon false premises. We never heard that Shakspeare 
 was of infirm health, man or boy ; and in suavity of 
 disposition and amenity of manners, in conversational 
 powers as well as vigour of intellect no one will be so 
 hardy as to maintain that he was inferior to any man of 
 genius who ever enjoyed the advantage (if it be not a 
 contradiction to say so) of the sickliest childhood. The 
 theory which would derive the benevolence and cheer- 
 fulness of Scott, and the misanthropy or rather the 
 spurning at his own nature because it was imperfect 
 and less than illimitable of Byron, from the same 
 natural defect, is too violent to be just. All that we can 
 justly conclude of the private character and social his- 
 tory of these remarkable men and in this we may 
 safely compare them is, that both lived much in the 
 world from their earliest days, and drew much of their 
 materials for thought from actual observation, un- 
 shackled by opinion. Both were social in their dispo- 
 sitions and habits, and both were beloved, and their 
 society courted by their contemporaries. It is a delight- 
 ful and edifying consideration that the humanities they 
 laboured to inculcate, the kindly affections they loved to 
 depict, and the noble thoughts they embodied in their 
 writings, reacted upon their own hearts and minds, and 
 made them as much beloved in their lives as they are 
 admired in the productions that survive them. 
 
 Another very obvious trait in the character of their 
 minds is their fertility and the number of their pro- 
 ductions. Industry if not an indispensable requisite
 
 07 
 
 in the composition is certainly one of the usual cha 
 racteristics of high genius; and that it is not universally 
 so, is perhaps to be ascribed to some accidental physical 
 failing in the possessor : extravagant exertion, rather 
 than " inglorious ease," is the besetting sin of genius. 
 The rule obtains in the sister arts of painting and 
 music, as well as in polite letters. The short life of 
 Raffaelle was a scene of industrious exertion ; and the 
 amazing labours of Reubens the mere quantity of 
 canvass covered with his spirited productions strike us 
 with astonishment; and Handel, Haydn, and Mozart 
 were as industrious as they were powerful. Shakspeare 
 produced his thirty-five dramas in about twenty-five 
 years, besides his other poems; and Scott about the 
 same number of novels, in verse and prose, in about 
 thirty years, besides many minor productions his pre- 
 faces his editorial writings his newspaper articles 
 and reviews thrown off at any person's bidding and with 
 uncalculating profusion : a fecundity only equalled in 
 this country' by a writer of great, though inferior genius, 
 the author of " Robinson Crusoe ; " and in no other, 
 perhaps, except in the instance of Lope de Vega; a 
 fecundity checked only by the loss of health, brought 
 on by that unhappy train of circumstances which it was 
 his honourable ambition to surmount, and under which 
 he sunk, fighting " in the imminent deadly breach." 
 In the natural world, fecundity is often a sign of weak- 
 ness ; and in authorship, it would be too much to assert 
 that, in general, no dilution is the consequence of rapid 
 and constant production ; but we have little reason to
 
 68 
 
 think that a concentration of their powers on fewer 
 objects would have heightened the interest, or added 
 anything to the fame of Shakspeare and Scott : rapidity 
 of execution, as well as fertility of invention, is the cha- 
 racteristic of the highest genius ; the power of the ima- 
 gination seems to keep pace with its exercise ; and I 
 believe we have it somewhere from Scott himself that 
 his happiest efforts were the result of rapid thought, 
 and as rapid execution. In neither instance also does 
 it appear that much improvement arose out of practice. 
 The industry of the commentators has not been able to 
 determine the precise order of Shakspeare's plays ; but 
 it is pretty well known that the rate of excellence does 
 not keep pace with the order of precedence. Dr. Far- 
 mer reckons the " Tempest " among the earliest, and 
 " Lear " among the latest : " Love's Labour Lost," 
 " Pericles," and some other of his inferior productions, 
 fall promiscuously amongst the rest. Of Scott's pro- 
 ductions, neither the first nor the last is best. After 
 the publication of his first three novels some inferior 
 one followed, and it was thought he had written him- 
 self out, when the world was electrified with the splen- 
 dour of his " Ivanhoe ; " and the rapid succession 
 that followed, like Banquo's progeny, seemed to be 
 endless. A witty writer on music speaks of a composer 
 who, he says, was born with but one opera in his head, 
 and proceeds to show how, though a voluminous author, 
 all his compositions were but repetitions of this single 
 creation. Some such imputation was endeavoured, in 
 the early part of his career, to be affixed by the critics
 
 69 
 
 upon Scott; and it was maintained for a time that 
 " Waverley " contained the germs, and was the parent 
 of all that followed or were to follow that, like the 
 aphis, (of which naturalists tell us,) it had raised four 
 or five generations out of a single conception : but the 
 accidents of human life and the varieties of nature are 
 endless ; and it belonged to Scott's universality to be 
 equal to them all. 
 
 It is the privilege of genius to picture forth the past, 
 and the probable, from its knowledge of the present; 
 but the same, or similar conditions of life, suggest simi- 
 lar trains of thought ; and the most fertile imagination 
 cannot be expected always to give to each as the scene 
 may require a new and distinct actor. Thence it is, 
 that, like his great prototype, he sometimes repeats him- 
 self. It does not require a very diligent reading of 
 Shakspeare to verify this remark ; and in the multi- 
 farious productions of Scott, we are only surprised that 
 it does not apply more frequently. 
 
 The mention of the critical Tjotices of Scott reminds 
 me of another circumstance upon which we may expend 
 a_few observations, particularly as the point has a refer- 
 ence to a kindred and corresponding feature in Shak- 
 speare's writings. It has been observed by Johnson, 
 and the observation has been re-echoed by his admirers, 
 that Shakspeare's dramas have no heroes that the 
 action of the fable is so justly distributed amongst the 
 various actors, that it is often difficult to assign the cha- 
 racter of hero to any of them. No train of events natu- 
 rally described ever requires or allows the prominence
 
 70 
 
 and active agency of a single person, which it is the 
 task of the ordinary hero to support : every man acts, 
 and is re-acted upon by others ; and no man, however 
 great his talents or prominent his station, can altogether 
 command or control the progress of events, but must 
 sometimes yield himself to the influence of others, and 
 to the force of circumstances. The imputation which 
 has fallen upon Scott of having given less than the due 
 importance and prominence to the personages who take 
 what is called the parts of heroes and heroines in his 
 tales, has arisen mainly from a mistaken notion that 
 the fable and conduct of the novel should partake more 
 of the epic than the dramatic character. It will be in- 
 ferred from what I stated in my former Lectures, that I 
 consider the novel as properly the amplification of the 
 drama ; and were it necessary here, it would, perhaps, 
 not be difficult to prove that the nearest approach to 
 excellence in the epic must always depend upon what 
 it possesses of dramatic force. 
 
 Having said so much in my last Lecture on the 
 dramatic power of Scott's genius, it is unnecessary to 
 say more upon the consonance of the feature we have 
 now in review with the general character of his fables ; 
 and, moreover, with the precepts of nature, and the 
 example of Shakspeare. 
 
 Of Scott's heroes who stand in the predicament 
 according to the theories of some critics of being no. 
 heroes at all, " Waverley," "Ivanhoe," "Nigel," and 
 Henry Morton (of the tale of " Old Mortality " ) are 
 as remarkable as any. Let us examine into the cha-
 
 71 
 
 racter and conduct of the last-mentioned of these 
 worthies. It was doubtless intended by the author, and 
 it most happily falls out, that a finer contrast could not 
 have been imagined than the generous, manly, and 
 humane temper of Morton, as opposed to the fierce, 
 uncompromising, and fanatical zeal of the covenanting 
 chiefs. 
 
 The philosophy of history has determined the ques- 
 tion, and the experience of almost two centuries con- 
 firmed it ; and Scott saw that the truth lay between the 
 contending parties. His candid and generous mind 
 easily struck off the model of a disinterested and heroic 
 character, who should embody this idea of a true and 
 happy medium a " mezzo termine; " neither high- 
 church nor low-church ; neither ultra-Whig nor ultra- 
 Tory, Cavalier, nor Roundhead. He is easily and natu- 
 rally brought forward in the early part of the story, and 
 his character is finely developed in his early conversa- 
 tions with Balfour, and in the soliloquy which follows 
 upon his first interview with him, and before he is aware 
 of the share his new acquaintance took in the murder 
 of Archbishop Sharp. 
 
 " ' Farewell, stern enthusiast,' said Morton, looking 
 after him ; ' in some moods of my mind, how danger- 
 ous would be the society of such a companion ! If I 
 am unmoved by his zeal for abstract doctrines of faith, 
 or rather, for a peculiar mode of worship, can I be a 
 man, and a Scotchman, and look with indifference on 
 that persecution which has made wise men mad ? Was 
 not the cause of freedom, civil and religious, that for
 
 72 
 
 which my father fought, and shall I do well to remain 
 inactive, or to take the part of an oppressive govern- 
 ment, if there should appear any rational prospect of 
 redressing the insufferable wrongs to which my mi- 
 serable countrymen are subjected ? And yet who shall 
 warrant me that these people rendered wild by perse- 
 cution would not, in the hour of victory, be as cruel 
 and intolerant as those by whom they are now hunted 
 down? What degree of moderation or of mercy can be 
 expected from this Burley, so distinguished as one of 
 their principal champions, and who seems even now to 
 be reeking from some recent deed of violence, and to feel 
 stings of remorse which even his enthusiasm cannot 
 altogether stifle ? I am weary of seeing nothing but 
 violence and fury around me now assuming the mask 
 of lawful authority now taking that of religious zeal ; 
 I am sick of my country of myself of my dependent 
 situation of my repressed feelings 
 
 " ' But I am no slave,' he said aloud, and drawing 
 himself up to his full stature, ' no slave in one respect, 
 surely. I can change my abode ; my father's sword is 
 mine, and Europe lies open before me, as before him and 
 hundreds besides of my countrymen who have filled it 
 with the fame of their exploits. Perhaps some lucky 
 chance may raise me to a rank with our Ruthvens, our 
 Lesleys, our Monroes, the chosen leaders of the famous 
 Protestant champion ; or if not, a soldier's life or a 
 soldier's grave.' " 
 
 And farther on the exposition of the character is 
 taken up by the author. " These feelings impressed
 
 him with a diffidence and reserve which effectually con- 
 cealed from all but very intimate friends the extent of 
 talent and the firmness of character which we have 
 stated him to be possessed of. The circumstances of 
 the times had added to this reserve an air of indecision 
 and of indifference ; for, being attached to neither of the 
 factions which divided the kingdom, he passed for dull, 
 insensible, and uninfluenced by the feeling of religion 
 or of patriotism. No conclusion, however, could be 
 more unjust ; and the reasons of the neutrality which he 
 had hitherto professed had root in very different and 
 most praiseworthy motives. He had formed few con- 
 genial ties with those who were the objects of perse- 
 cution, and was disgusted alike by their narrow-minded 
 and selfish party-spirit, their gloomy fanaticism, their 
 abhorrent condemnation of all elegant studies or inno- 
 cent exercises, and the envenomed rancour of their 
 political hatred : but his mind was still more revolted 
 by the tyrannical and oppressive conduct of the govern- 
 ment, the misrule, license, and brutality of the soldiery, 
 the executions on the scaffold, the slaughters in the 
 open field, the free-quarters and exactions imposed by 
 military law, which placed the lives and fortunes of a 
 free people on a level with Asiatic slaves. Condemning, 
 therefore, each party as its excesses fell under his eyes, 
 disgusted with the sight of evils which he had no means 
 of alleviating, and hearing alternate complaints and ex- 
 ultations with which he could not sympathise, he would 
 long ere this have left Scotland had it not been for his 
 attachment to Edith Bellenden."
 
 As the story proceeds, the character of Morton rises 
 in importance, and grows upon our affections; and after 
 he suffers personal aggression, and is involved in the 
 proceedings of the revolted Covenanters, a further expla- 
 nation of the motives of his conduct takes place by the 
 part he takes in their councils after the skirmish of 
 Drumclog, and his disputes with Balfour, when pro- 
 testing against the meditated revengeful violence of the 
 insurgent leaders. 
 
 The change effected in him by his sudden emergence 
 into public life is also well imagined, and well described, 
 upon his return to his uncle's house after the establish- 
 ment of the insurgent forces in Glasgow. The passage 
 is too long for recital ; but it is in Scott's happiest 
 manner of analytical exposition of the motives and 
 actions of men, and concludes with the following soli- 
 loquy, which is a little commonplace, perhaps, but it 
 is appropriately used, and if not new, is characteristic 
 and forcible. 
 
 " I shall fall young," he said, " if fall I must, my 
 motives misconstrued and my actions condemned by 
 those whose approbation is dearest to me : but the 
 sword of liberty and patriotism is in my hand, and I 
 will neither fall meanly nor unavenged. They may 
 expose my body and gibbet my limbs, but other days 
 will come when the sentence of infamy will recoil 
 against those who may pronounce it ; and that heaven, 
 whose name is so often profaned during this unnatural 
 war, will bear witness to the purity of the motives by 
 which I have been guided."
 
 V5 
 
 In all the fearful scenes that follow, although a host 
 of extraordinary men move upon the scene, we never 
 lose sight of the talented, wise, and temperate Henry 
 Morton ; and when we meetvhim again, after his return 
 from exile, we find him still, though grown older in 
 practical wisdom, confirmed in all the generous senti- 
 ments of his youth ; and we hail his final victory over 
 Balfour, as the triumph of liberality over bigotry of 
 benevolence over selfishness of truth over hypocrisy 
 of moral over brute force. 
 
 The slender love-story which runs through the drama, 
 and gives cohesion to its parts, is kept subordinate 
 amongst its higher and more powerful excitements; 
 and its heroine, Edith Bellenden's character is corre- 
 spondingly unpretending. It is, nevertheless, perfectly 
 consonant with the rest, and worthy of the affianced 
 bride of the accomplished Morton intelligent, prudent, 
 lady-like, fixed in principle, but yielding to uncon- 
 trollable circumstances, and, like her lover's, exerting 
 upon others, and receiving from them in turn, the legi- 
 timate influence of a reciprocal agency. 
 
 I have not dwelt upon the character of Morton as of 
 one of Scott's most felicitous conceptions, but because it 
 is illustrative of what is true to nature and to history : 
 that in a series of events, the wisest and best men 
 seldom have the power to control and direct circum- 
 stances, but must be themselves often guided, if not 
 compelled by them, and submit to be the sport even, at 
 times, of the actions and passions of others : nor do I 
 offer these remarks as anything remarkable for their 
 
 E 2
 
 novelty, but in answer to the objection before adverted 
 to, and in support of a Shakspearian characteristic in 
 Scott. How would it sound to have it said that 
 Hamlet is a weak vacillating character, the sport of 
 circumstances, and of his own fine-spun scheme of pro- 
 babilities in fact, a " Waverley ; " Othello, the dupe 
 of a shallow plot and the tool of an inferior agent; 
 or Henry VIII. not the greatest personage in his own 
 tragedy ? 
 
 These observations on the character of the hero of 
 " Old Mortality " have also brought to my recollection 
 the admirable sketch of Serjeant Bothwell, whose death 
 at the skirmish of Drumclog adds so much to the 
 dramatic effect of that most interesting scene. The 
 discovery of the papers, the lock of hair, and other 
 marks of an early and unfortunate love, upon the per- 
 son of Bothwell, and the reflections on the wreck of an 
 originally good, but wild and romantic character, are 
 finely imagined, and remind us of those beautiful con- 
 trasts we so often meet with in Shakspeare, which give 
 repose to his brightest pictures and tend so much to 
 realize the scene. 
 
 It has been said that the worst characters of Shak- 
 speare have about them some touch of a redeeming 
 humanity; but said, I think, without due consideration. 
 The human affections betrayed by Lear's wretched 
 daughters are no redemption of their characters, because 
 they arc of the worst possible kind : lago is demo- 
 niac throughout. Scott's Varney, Lady Ashton, and 
 some others are portraitures of the same unrelaxing
 
 malignity. Such unhappy cases exist in nature, and it 
 is right to depict them as they are : but there are bea\i- 
 tiful examples of this light and shade in Shakspeare ; 
 and it has been remarked of Lady Macbeth, that she 
 could not murder Duncan because he was like her 
 father in his sleep ; and her subsequent remorse is 
 feminine, and gives repose to a character of great in- 
 tensity. Richard, too, has some show of relenting, 
 although, I believe, it has escaped the observation of 
 the critical notices of his character : 
 
 " There is no creature loves me, 
 And if I die, no soul will pity me ; 
 Nay wherefore should they ? since that I myself 
 Find in myself no pity to myself." 
 
 This repose in character is also in both authors accom- 
 panied with repose in action. They well knew that the 
 natural course of events is in alternate periods of acti- 
 vity and relaxation. No man exists long in a storm of 
 passion, and the most stirring times have their fits of 
 dulness and inactivity. Of the innumerable examples 
 in Shakgpeare, I may instance the exquisite scene in 
 " Julius Caesar," of Brutus sitting down with Cassius 
 after their reconciliation, to tell him of the death of 
 Portia : 
 
 " O, Cassius, I am sick of many griefs ! " 
 
 and which finishes with his attendant falling asleep : or 
 the scene of Henry V. conversing incognito with the 
 soldiers before the battle of Agincourt, and concluding 
 with his fine soliloquy on the superior lot of
 
 " The wretched slave, 
 Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind, 
 Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread." 
 
 I shall conclude these observations with an apposite 
 instance in Scott's "Marmion;" and I choose it be- 
 cause I know it has been criticised as a blemish, upon 
 a prejudice on the part of the critic, or a misapprehen- 
 sion of the author's object. 
 
 In the midst of his spirited description of the battle 
 of Flodden, the wounded Marmion is borne aside by his 
 attendants, and in his dying moments is waited upon by 
 Clara, which gives rise to the well-known apostrophe 
 beginning 
 
 " O woman ! in our hours of ease." 
 
 Following up the train of ideas suggested by this act* of 
 female beneficence, and to heighten its effect, the author 
 takes them to a spring of water, surmounted by a cross, 
 a monument also of womanly care : 
 
 " A little fountain-cell, 
 
 Where water, clear as diamond spark. 
 In a stone basin fell. 
 
 Above, some half- worn letters say, 
 
 Drink, weary pilgrim, drink and pray, 
 
 For the kind soul of Sibyl Grey, 
 Who built this cross and well. 
 She filled the helm." 
 
 I think you will agree with me, that this, coupled as 
 it is with the ministry of the lovely female and the 
 wants of the dying man, instead of being an impertinent 
 interruption to the business of the scene, harmonises
 
 79 
 
 with it, gives relief to the picture, and is one of its 
 greatest beauties ; and to complete it, it is reverted to in 
 a subsequent stanza. 
 
 " Less easy task it were to show 
 Lord Marmion's namelfess grave, and low. 
 They dug his grave e'en where he lay, 
 
 But every mark is gone ; 
 Time's wasting hand has done away 
 The simple cross of Sibyl Grey, 
 
 And broke her font of stone : 
 But yet from out the little hill 
 Oozes the slender springlet still." 
 
 The rains of heaven have washed away the blood and 
 carnage of the field, and nothing remains of it but some 
 historical recollections ; the grave of Marmion is mingled 
 with the surrounding waste, or the ploughshare has 
 passed over it the cross is gone ! but woman's love 
 remaineth; and the little fountain is still welling on 
 the hill side ; for human affections and the bounty of 
 nature like the truth that gave them endure for ever 
 and ever. 
 
 I have spoken of the mighty, though inappreciable 
 effect of the dramas of Shakspeare upon the spirit of the 
 age, and the genius of his descendants" still flowing 
 and ever to flow on " his benevolence, his suavity, and 
 the grandeur and comprehensive nature of his morality. 
 To those who ask for proofs of the direct or indirect 
 utility of the writings of Scott beyond the idle amuse- 
 ment of the passing hour, I answer in the words of the 
 ingenious female eulogist before spoken of:
 
 "If the office of casting new lights into philosophy 
 and adding new exemplifications and sanctions to 
 morals be not the business of literary genius, we know 
 not what is. It is the business, the first business of 
 every man to deduce these very lessons from actual life ; 
 and we can conceive no more important occupation than 
 his, who does the same thing for many, while doing it 
 for himself ; presenting the necessary materials and their 
 issues, unravelled from the complications and separated 
 from the admixtures which may impair their effect in 
 real life, but no less palpably real than if they had 
 passed under actual observation." 
 
 If these proofs of the strong affinity of the genius of 
 Shakspeare and Scott fall short of what some persons 
 would think a just parallel, enough has been shown, I 
 trust, to convince us of the existence of a strong re- 
 semblance. In Scott, the likeness of a younger brother, 
 perhaps, but still, a brother, and bearing the impress 
 of the same divine original ; and sufficient to establish 
 the position with which we started, that although 
 there were nothing new under the sun, and the world 
 should seldom rejoice in the advent of another Shak- 
 speare, there may be such renewal of the inventive and 
 imaginative faculties as vindicate the unimpaired powers 
 of the human mind and the unexhausted and inex- 
 haustible resources of nature. 
 
 In the foregoing sketch hastily undertaken, and 
 without due consideration of the importance of the task, 
 and, I fear, but feebly supported I have endeavoured 
 to preserve an impartial judgment. It is difficult, in
 
 81 
 
 any way, to avoid offence to the strong prejudices per- 
 haps I ought to say, the strong inherent convictions we 
 all possess of the supremacy of Shakspeare. Till the 
 achievements of the human mind reach a point of per- 
 fection of which, at present, we have no conception, it 
 never can, nor ever will be said, 
 
 " Let old Timotheus yield the prize," 
 but sometimes, as now, 
 
 " Let both divide the crown : 
 
 JJiu, lifts a mortal to the skies ; 
 That, draws an angel down." 
 
 THE END.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 1'RINTKD BY WILLIAM CLO\VKS AND SONS, 
 Stamford Street.
 
 A 000 026 993 6