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OUR LITERARY CORNER.

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED MATTER. NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

THE CENTENARY OF "ROB ROY." ♦ "The Times'' Literary Supplement.) Over a year elapsed between the appearance of '"'Old' Mortality'' *in midDeceibber, 181 tj, and that of "Rob Boy"' on the last day of ISI7, eo that '•Rob Roy" might almost be described cs oife of Scott'k more deliberate efforts. The deliberation was due in part to tho claims of other work, including "Harold the Dauntless," "Border Antiquities," and a heavy burden of "history" for the "Annual Register," in part to the in-cirien'-e of the first of those' alarming illnesses which ovorshadowed the last Khcen years of his life. The earliest attack of cramjf in the stomach occurred on March sth, 1817, when Scott "retired from the room with a scream of agony which electrified hio guests." Next month he wrote to his myrmidon "Rigdumfolnnido.s" Ballantyne: "Dear John, —I havo a good subject for a work nf fiction in petto. What do you think Constable would give forasipellof it?" In the great collective edition of 1829 tho novel is published as fourth instead of sixth in the Waverley series, coming immediately after "The Antiquary"; and this has led to some chronological confusion; but the account of the genesis of "Rob Rev" given in Lockhart is most oircumstantial.

Scott now abandoned tho double mystification ho attempted in 1816 by changing his publisher and posing as Jedcdiah Cleishbotham, editor oT "Tales of My Landlord," and reverted to his old publisher and his old style as "The Author of "Waverlev." On May 6th, John Ballaniyne wrote to his brother •Tames: •'! am at this moment returned from Abbotsford. .... . Wish me joy. I shall gain above £600 fin the ©vent over £1200] —Constable taking my sharo of stock also. The title is 'Rob Roy'—by the Author of Waverley!!!'" It appeared in due course at the.end of December as ''RoWloy, by the Author of 'Waverley,' 'Guy Mannering,' and The 'Antiquary,' " in three volumes,' Edinburgh, printed-by James Ballantye and Co. fpr Archibald Constable and Co., Edinbilrfchr 1818, bearing an epigraph from Wordsworth's "Rob Roy's Grave" and a sham "Advertisement" designed to cancel the solemn farewell to the magic rod of tho Romancist of which ho had delivered himself in "The Antiquary." The title of the new novel was suggested and pressed by Constable. "What, Mr Accoucheur," said Scott, "must you be setting.up for Mr Sponsor too. . . Xay, never let me have to write up to a name. You know I havo generally adopted a title that told nothing." The bookseller persevered, and after the $rio (J. B. forming tho third) had dined, Scott's scruples gave way. On rising from the table, Constable tells, they sallied forth on the green lawn at Abbotsford and all in the highest spirits enjoyed the fino May evening. Scott, it would seem, had drunk a good skinful of.clarct, and ' I never," said Constable, "had found him so communicative about what he meant to do." Though he had had an attack only the day heforc, lie continued for more than an hour to walk up and down tho green, talking, laughing, and improvising dialogue for the characters he was about to create. A few years before Scott had acquired tho celebrated Spanish musket of the Scottish Dick Turpin, and as recently as 1816 Joseph Train, the most invaluable of Scottish "feeders)" had presented him with Rob's spjeuchan or pouch, elaborately described in the novel. John Ballantyne, hoppiihg up and >skfwn in,his glee, .exclaimed "Is Rob's gun here, Mr Scott: wouki you object to my trying the auld barrel with a few-de-joy?" "Nay, Mr Puff," said Soott, "it would burst and blow you to the devil before - your timefP "Johnny, my .man," said Constable, "what the mischief puts drawing, at sight into your "head?" During the summer the author made a short excursion to Glasgow and the Rob Roy countrv, including the Clachan of A'berfoil, the Fords of Frew, and the Pass of Loch Ard. In early December he sent the last proof-sheets to the printer with-tho endorsement: —

' Dear James,—With great joy I send you Roy, 'Twaa a tough job, But we're done with Rob. The' toughness of the 1 job was intensified by the pain and the "fumes of tho laudanum" taken to alleviate it. But Scott would have it that tho earlier part of the book "smelt of cramp," just as he afterwards attributed tho smell of apoplexy to "Peveril of the Peak. A packet boat from Leith to London is said to have been loaded exclusively with copies of tho three volumes, of which over 10,000 sets were*, printed. Scott's apprehension about the title was not altogether ill-founded. Many readers " were disappointed at tho outlaws nob bestriding the novel more like a Colossus, and some such title as "Frank Ossulton or Osbaldistone: A Tale of the "Year Fifteen," might perhaps have been considered more in accordanco with the Waverley tradition. But Abbotsford was not displeased at the consumption of 13,000 copies within the month. ' , ... Goethe's general remark that "Waverlev" was not only the first but also the greatest of the series, and that the merits of all its successors are implicit in it, contains about as much truth as would a similar statement about "Pfckwiek" in regard to the novels of Dickens. But_ in "Rob Roy there is no doubt that scott returns to his "Waverley'' mood and seeks similar sources of inspiration. The hero, as in inostof Scott's earlier stories, is a somewhat coxcombical poet. Tho author delays the commencement of tho action, with a deliberation not far rfc* moved from that of "Wavorley," untir the Highland line is reached, and then thingg proceed -with ar tremendous rush, ■the extrication of the plot being "huddled" almost without precedent even in Soott. The author of "Waverley'' is no exoeption to the rule that the British ■ novelist is nearly always optimist aiM "ffatobiographer. He embodied portions of his nature in Edward Waverley, • in Colonel Manncring, in Jonathan Oldbuck, and above all in Allan Fairford. But Fairford does not by any means completely represent • tho youthful Walter Scott. Frank Osbaldistone is perhaps a nearer identification of the author than any of his other heroes. Frank's infancy, his education by means of a nurse s tales of tho Border, his early attraction to Ariosto and romance—those . pre Scott's. In the opening scenes between Frank and his father we have reminiscences of Walter's apprenticeship. The elder Scott, who was a martinet with a Turkish contempt for literature, is exactly reproduced in the hero's father. The verses 6lippod in among .Frank's' business papers no doubt belong to the

same period: with slight alteration tho best couplet was afterwards inserted in Marmion:— O for the voice of that wild horn On Fontarabian echoes borne. ■' 'Fontarabian echoes,' said my father with the moit bitter irony, 'tuc fontarabian Fair would have been moro to tl'.c purpose.' !• rank's hatred 01 drudgery, iii= political attitude, his purely .sentimental Jacobitism, are cquaiiy derived from Scott's own experience of manhood. Frank is no singer, but is said to have sung a song while drunk; tho iame incident happened to Stfott. The Osbaldistoncs, like the Scotts, arc a long-descended family of country genii omen, and Frank's father, like Scott's, has been the first to engage in business. Frank's ambition is avowedly to escape from tho trammels of business in order to occupy the coveted position of laird and landed proprietor. Farts of "Hob Roy'' curiously foreshadow tho admittedly autobiographical ''Rrdgauntlet.'" In both talos tho chief adventures take place in the north-west of England. Tire scene at Justice Inglewood's is like the later scene at Squiro Foxloy's. The fortunes of the heroes of both romances arc involved in the preparations for a Jacobito rising. Whoa Scott comes into the open with fragments from his own experience he is always sensitive about covering up his trail, and is prolific in lettors, pseudonyms and alibis. Tho form of "Rob Roy" is decidedly unusual —an autobiographical episode written for an intimate friend. The hero, after some thirty years of wedded happiness, in his bcroavement, returns to the days of his youth, and chronicles the few months of his' life, so eventful and adventurous, immediately preceding his marriage. The story opens when Frank is nearly of ago, in the beginning of July, 171-5, two months before the Jacobito rising, and closes soon after tho collapse, of the insurrection in February, 1716. From a reference to John Wilkes in the fourth chapter tho memoirs may be supposed to have boen written about 1765. It is a tnlo of a hundred years since. In "Waverley" Scott's sources were chiefly tales told liim in his boyhood; in "Guy Mannering" he sketched the of his early youth, in "Tho Antiquary'* tho Scotland of his early manhood; in "Old Mortality" he made bis first attempt to reconstruct the past from written records; in "Rob Roy" h« goes a generation back upon'Waverley, and describes what novel readers picture as tho era of "Esmond" and "The Bride of Lnmmermoor." But at Tullibody in 1793 Scott once net a man who had paid blackmail to Rob Roy, and his friend Inverhayle, who was his best informant on 1745, once crossed swords with the herculean Rob.

As a novel "Rob Roy" belongs to tlie class tJf Waverley, but is superior to it in many respects, notably in characterisation and humour. It lias its distinctive glories. Apart from Catherine Seyton in ''The. Abbot" *for Green Mantle in "lledgaui'tlct" is but the shadow of a shade), Diana Vernon lias 110 rival among Scott's heroines: unlike Catharine, she is mature, and she Scott-lovers wili agree, the most original and captivating of all the "Waverley heroines. Diana is cue of the deathless daughters of drsams, and Scott-wrote of her with an emotion very unusual in him. Her proximity to Frank "evoked the'frustration of his own love romance-of 1700 —tho'lost love which lives again in "Redgauntlet" and gives pathoS_ to_ the character of the antiquary. Die Vernon is almost, if not quite, the best evidence we have that the springs of Scott's heart were not dried up. Diana's ride with IVanlc to Inglewood Hall—the whole scene, occupying three whole chapters, the ride, the genial justice, the frostbitten clerk, the compliments that pass, the apparition of "Mr Campbell," she adminisi tration of crowner's law. the ride back the Hall and tho conversation that accompanies it—all is delightful; we have nothing quite like it in the series; it is the high-water mark of the great Waverlev range. The gardener at Osbaldistone Hall is one of the .nost deeplv-hi'.ten of all Scott's characters and one of the most humorous. Only Shakespeare and Scott, says Andrew Lang,'

could havo given us medicines lo make us like this cowardly, conceited, "gimp honest" follow, Andrew Fairservice, who just escapes being a hypocrite by dint of. some sincere old Covenanting leaven in his veins. "Wo may make. bold to say that the creator of Perollea and Lucio, and many another lax and lovable knave, would, had he been a Scot, havo drawn Andrew Fairaervico thus and not otherwise.

His history (witness his account of Glasgow Cathedral) is unapproachable, his logic (witness his explanation of cock-fighting in Scotland) irrefutable, his dialcct perfection itself and h's philosophy quit* Shakespearean. Scotland rose'at Baillie Nicol Jarvie, greatest of all the Baillies, called him hers, applauded and acclaimed her civic child When the novel was dramatised the part as played by the Glaswegian Charles Mackay proved an urrirailed attraction. Scott himself was delighted—''the illusion of theatrical deception cannot possibly be carried farther than it was in. this part"—-and so was the King when he saw liob Roy" on the boards in 1824 •, no other Scott ploy approached it m popularity. The Tolbooth and Clachan of Aberfoyle scenes were irresistible. Roh himself is an effective figure, not melodramatic in the least; the fact that he disappointed those in quest of sensation rather exalts him m our eyes '1 0 atono for his moderation m- depicting a national hero Scott wrote a long and rather tedious character description of him in the introduction to the 1829 edition of tho Waverleys. In this Scott remarks:—"A pretended history of Rob appeared m London during his lifetime under'the title of 'The Highland Rogue'—a catchpenny publication. It is-a great pity so excellent a theme for a narrative had not fallen into the hands of Defoe.' The irony of research ha 3 since proved that there is ample reason for supposing that the pretended history of "The Highland Rogue" is by no othec. than Defoe. The inevitable question obtrudes Hself—where does "Rob Roy" stand m the Waverley hierarchy? own answer is that it takes a very high place indeed —perhaps the highest of an, were it not for losing points under two heads. First, the superfluity of naughtiness of the villain Rashleigh—Scott_s one attempt in the lago line; secondly, the disharmony, variously estimated, but unquestionable of As in '"'St. Romans Well," or as m the case of Dickens in » tions" or Thackeray m Vamty rair, Scott took interested advice from on of these popular British advisers.who would have grafted » h .appy ending upon "Manon Lescaut" itself, iio repudiated his original intention, we feel KSTSd thereby seriously the artistic unity of one of finest creations. The storv attains a natural and congruous conclusion with tho recovery of tho missing documents, the reconciliation of father and son, receipt of Die Vernon's ring and message of farewell There is iw necd to briii" in "The Fifteen' at all. The rising had not yet begun. It may be objected that this makes a complete change in the fortunes of Die . and Frank.- But their love is not originally designed to end well; the writer imaginative conception is acverso tho conventional happy ending. Sco own experience, the choice of the nero-

ine's name, tho atmosphere of the love scnes—all are against such a denouement-. The lovely vision of 3>ie on the Aberfoyie read Has a gesture of farewell, and Scott knew" that in real lifo Frank and Diana would never have met again after that unforgettable parting on the moonlit road. He shrank from the unpopularity of leaving Diana immured in a convent an.'n denying to the English novel-reader_ his human craving for a lump of dissolved sugar at the bottom of the cup. Raskin maintained that Scott's ailments prejudiced most of Scott's later work, beginning with "Rob Hoy.'' »et this_ fine romance intervenes between two of Scott's popularly acknowledged masterpieces. "'Old Mortality' - and ' The Heart of Midlothian." .Elton speaks of him regiithcring his forces after 'Rod Hoy" for a supreme masterpiece. Browning and Stevenson put it high, if not highest, among the series. Ha/i----lc-tl agreeing.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19180323.2.31

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16168, 23 March 1918, Page 7

Word count
Tapeke kupu
2,450

OUR LITERARY CORNER. Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16168, 23 March 1918, Page 7

OUR LITERARY CORNER. Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16168, 23 March 1918, Page 7

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