THE ORIGINAL DIANA VERNON

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 97, 18 January 1919, Page 4

THE ORIGINAL DIANA VERNON

There is an interesting tradition about tho woman who may have been the original Diana Vernon.' She was a Miss Cranstoun, the sister of one of Sir Walter Scott's intimate lriends, says a Boston paper. It chanced that Miss Cranstoun had heard Mrs. Barbauld reoito Taylor's translation of Burger's ballad of "Lenore," and her description of the poem inspired Scott with the resolve to read it in the original. He not only' mastered the original poem, but at once wrote his own translation of it, and this is still one of the host English versions of the poem. So impatient was he to learn Miss Cranstoun's opinion of his effort that, being unable to sleep, ho carried it to the lady's home at 6 o'clock oho morning. Miss Cranstoun threw on her clothes hurriedly, and wentdown to see what could be the occasion of such an early call. She was most enthusiastic over Scott's ballad, and begged him to leave it with her for a more . careful perusal. To anyone familiar with "Rob Roy," the scene between Frank and Diana, in the library, will instantly recur. The description, to be read there, of bow Frank showed Miss Vernon a Tut of his own translation and received her congratulations regarding tho excellence of the same, might easily have been suggested by tbis_ incident in Scott's own early experience. Tho samo Miss Cranstoun later married an Austrian nobleman and went with him to a rather lonely existence in his grand old ancestral castle in Styria. Although at length left quite alone'in this remote spot, the Countess I'urgstall could never be persuaded to .return to her friends in Scotland; she did, however, frequently correspond with Scott. It was a certain Captain Basil Hall who, with friends, spent some weeks in Styria as the guest of the Countess, who throws light on this question of whether or not the onetime Miss Cranstoun was the original Diana Vernon. She was still sprightly and vivacious, according to Hall, and she delighted to recall certain of her youthful escapades, particularly thoso concerned with horseback riding. It occurred to Hall to wonder if she might have been Scott's model for Diana Vernon, and he resolved to find out as much as he could. One significant 'thing/was, that while Scott bad sent his distant friend each of his Waverley Novels, as it appeared, -he had never included "Rob Roy." A copy of it was procured, and, during tho reading, tho Countoss repeatedly exclaimed; sho remembered one scene, another perhaps recalled an anecdote to her. Also she freely discussed all tho characters in the book, with the exception of its . lieroino; her the Countess never mentioned; so Hall and his frionds felt hound to respect her silence. But they formed their own conclusions in consequence. Lockhart,' Scott's son-in-law and biogrn pher, does not accept this theory of the identity of Diana Vernon, but, there is, certainly, some reason to sup-' pose that the Countoss believed herself to havo been connected with the depicting of ono of Scott's most captivating heroines.