sound construction, a sure hold upon those principles of speech-call them rules, practices, or what you willwhich come from the deepest parts of humanity, and are common to all that succeed in this kind. A mind not sensible to the effects of Scott, when he intends effect, would have to seek satisfaction somewhere else than in literature as it has been practised by all Europe (to take the narrowest limit) from Homer to this day. And it is to be added that even the unpretentious freedom of his ordinary manner has a value in its place by way of relief and contrast.

6

A signal instance of both qualities may be found in the scene which lays the corner-stone of Guy Mannering' -the denunciation of the landowner and magistrate, Bertram of Ellangowan, by the gipsy witch, Meg Merrilies. The little band to which she belongs, after having been protected and encouraged for many generations in a precarious settlement upon Bertram's estate, have now been expelled, in a capricious fit of reform, by the summary process of pulling down their miserable tenements. The author of this improvement, little content with his severity, absents himself on the day of execution; but as he rides home, he meets the emigrant families in painful procession upon the confines of his property. To the sufferers his act naturally appears tyrannous, a provocation of the higher powers of providential justice; nor is it beyond common reckoning to divine that, in a country and among a population not very orderly, the defiance of such enemies may lead to disaster. Of such feelings and prognostications, raised to the tone of prophecy by the ambiguous pretensions of a witch-wife, Meg Merrilies makes herself the voice. The sequel of the story turns, as will be remembered, upon the fulfilment of her prophecy, to which, in the natural course of things, she contributes a great and, in the end, a dominant influence. The conception of her character is the key to the whole design; and here, in the scene of the prophecy, is the leading note upon which the whole depends.

The chapter (viii) containing it will throughout repay study; but for our present purpose we may begin with the two paragraphs which immediately precede the denunciation itself. The first gives the psychology of the situation, describing, without affectation of subtlety,

the uncomfortable feelings of the magistrate, who has just undergone, from the passing caravan, the novel experience of resentment and hatred.

'His sensations were bitter enough. The race, it is true, which he had thus summarily dismissed from their ancient place of refuge, was idle and vicious; but had he endeavoured to render them otherwise? They were not more irregular characters now than they had been while they were admitted to consider themselves as a sort of subordinate dependents of his family. . . . Some means of reformation ought at least to have been tried before sending seven families at once upon the wide world, and depriving them of a degree of countenance which withheld them at least from atrocious guilt. There was also a natural yearning of heart on parting with so many known and familiar faces; and to this feeling Godfrey Bertram was peculiarly accessible, from the limited qualities of his mind, which sought its principal amusements among the petty objects around him. As he was about to turn his horse's head to pursue his journey, Meg Merrilies, who had lagged behind the troop, unexpectedly presented herself.'

Manifestly we have here no research of style, 'no style at all' in the sense which the word 'style' has for the critic or the conscious artist. In vocabulary, phrasing, the cast and turn of sentences, there is as little character and stamp as the individuality of authorship may well admit. If anything is to be praised it is a certain plain gravity, proceeding partly from this very absence of pose. And there are negligences which are almost faults. To render them otherwise. . .; depriving them of a degree of countenance ...; from the limited qualities of his mind...; to turn his horse's head to pursue his journey...; these and other phrases might be improved, and would not have satisfied a punctilious composer. But, on the other hand, there is no hitch, nothing to stumble at, and we are put without strain in full possession of the meaning.

The next paragraph is much more important and characteristic, and, as a composition, is both better and worse. It contains what for Scott, in such a situation as this, was essentially significant-the stage-directions, so to speak, for setting the group and scene in preparation for the coming effect. Stage-directions we may well call them, for it is actually to the theatre that the author

has gone, as he often did, for inspiration; and later, at the crowning moment of the scene, he refers us to the source from which he has drawn: Margaret of Anjou' (he says), bestowing on her triumphant foes her keenedged malediction, could not have turned from them with a gesture more proudly contemptuous.' From the mind of Scott Shakespeare was never far; and with 'Henry the Sixth,' especially the final scenes, the figure of Meg Merrilies is more than once associated. The particular passage, to which he directs us, we will presently quote, for it is even more pertinent than his words imply. But for the moment we note only, as a fact, his theatrical prepossession, and now present in this light what we are justified in calling his stage-directions: 'She was standing upon one of those high precipitous banks which, as we before noticed, overhung the road; so that she was placed considerably higher than Ellangowan, even though he was on horseback; and her tall figure, relieved against the clear blue sky, seemed almost of supernatural stature. We have noticed that there was in her general attire, or rather in her mode of adjusting it, somewhat of a foreign costume, artfully adopted perhaps for the purpose of adding to the effect of her spells and predictions, or perhaps from some traditional notions respecting the dress of her ancestors. On this occasion she had a large piece of red cotton cloth rolled about her head in the form of a turban, from beneath which her dark eyes flashed with uncommon lustre. Her long and tangled black hair fell in elf-locks from the folds of this singular head-gear. Her attitude was that of a sibyl in frenzy, and she stretched out in her right hand a sapling bough, which seemed just pulled.'

Considering this from a practical point of view, as a catalogue of points which the reader is to focus as a preparation of the eye for the delivery of the tirade that follows, we may pronounce it beyond improvement. Nothing is neglected or slurred; posture and colours, properties and accessories, suggestions, duly vague, of history or literature, all is prescribed; the least lively imagination must be ready to work on such terms; and the tableau could be set, one almost fancies that it could be painted, by an amateur. But for style-the conscious stylist might say again that there is none. The whole method

See the motto to chapter liv.

is the very negation of art, in so far as art is said to lie in the concealment of the mechanical process. Stevenson, for example, would have cancelled a chapter, and that not once but twice or thrice, sooner than leave such a paragraph in such a state. He actually cited another passage of Guy Mannering,' and might have cited this, for proof of his master's indifference to such scruples as consumed his own days and weeks. Scott wants, at this moment, certain details of scenery and costume; and, with perfect simplicity, he now recapitulates them, or now puts them in.

They ought, perhaps, to be ready beforehand; or at least that is the more artistic way, the way of Stevenson, and of Dumas when he is on his mettle. The points might have been so touched and emphasised before that to collect them now would be needless. But Scott will not be troubled with anything so unpractical. Those high precipitous banks,' which overhang the road, we before noticed,' says the author. Banks' we may have noticed. That they should be high and steep he himself has not before seen; but as height now proves to be necessary, he simply raises them. The 'clear blue sky' is similarly imported, and without the least preparation. The red turban comes rightly enough, and, as a property, is of the best; but it is put in with so much fumblingwe have noticed . . . or rather . . . or perhaps ... on this occasion—that we seem to be watching a sketcher while he changes his brushes for a tint.

From these two paragraphs, taken separately or singly, no one, we suppose, could receive direct pleasure; and, if the history of literature has any lessons, assuredly no such work would, by itself, have roused the admiration of the world. The effect of it all is just to excite expectation, which, as the literary novice is warned by Horace, is a very dangerous thing to do. But Scott will have it so, and he is not even yet content. He has posed and painted his performer, and now, before she speaks, he insists on defining the effect:

""I'll be d-d," said the groom, "if she has not been cutting the young ashes in the Dukit park!" The Laird made no answer, but continued to look at the figure which was thus perched above his path.'

Now this is all very well, but what is to come of it?

'How is this big-mouthed promise to be kept?' 'Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?' You may protest that you have imagined something really most impressive, and may invoke in attestation the most august memories of art and religion-Delphi and Avernus, tragedy and epic, Cassandra and Deiphobe; but, given your sibyl, what will you make her say?

"Ride your ways," said the gipsy, "ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan-ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram! This day have ye quenched seven smoking hearths-see if the fire in your ain parlour burn the blither for that. Ye have riven the thack off seven cottar houses-look if your ain rooftree stand the faster. Ye may stable your stirks in the shealings at Derncleugh-see that the hare does not couch on the hearthstane at Ellangowan. Ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram-what do ye glower after our folk for? There's thirty hearts there that wad hae wanted bread ere ye had wanted sunkets,* and spent their life-blood ere ye had scratched your finger. Yes-there's thirty yonder, from the auld wife of an hundred to the babe that was born last week, that ye have turned out o' their bits o' bields, to sleep with the tod and the blackcock in the muirs! Ride your ways, Ellangowan! Our bairns are hinging at our weary backs— look that your braw cradle at hame be the fairer spread up; not that I am wishing ill to little Harry, or to the babe that's yet to be born-God forbid-and make them kind to the poor, and better folk than their father!-And now, ride e'en your ways; for these are the last words ye'll ever hear Meg Merrilies speak, and this is the last reise † that I'll ever cut in the bonny woods of Ellangowan."

'So saying, she broke the sapling she held in her hand and flung it into the road.'

What wonder if the world sat up to listen! To praise such a composition would be superfluous indeed, and I cite it for no such purpose. A man who could miss or mistake the impression would be beyond instruction by words. But there may be some interest and profit, especially in view of what is said—and said truly, if rightly applied-about Scott's neglect of style, in examining this passage in detail, and exhibiting some part of its almost incredible fidelity to rule. We know that 'Guy Mannering' was written at full speed, and not even

* Delicacies. [W. S.]

+ Sapling branch. [W.S.]