ANALECTIC MAGAZINE, AND NAVAL CHRONICLE. AUGUST, 1816. man. ORIGINAL. NOTICE OF WALTER SCOTT, ACCOMPANYING the present number of the Analectic Magazine, we exhibit to our readers the likeness of the popular personage whose name stands at the head of this article. Mr. Scott is said to be a robust, broad-shouldered, rather a bony, than a fleshy His hair and complexion are light; his face is round and full; but, with the exception of a somewhat luminous parti-coloured eye, his countenance exhibits, upon the whole, an expression of stupidity, rather than of genius. In all these particulars (so far as they can be traced with the pencil) our portrait is faithful,-much more faithful, we are assured, than that which has been prefixed to some of his works republished in this country. We may take this occasion to remark, however, that all well-executed likenesses are apt to give too flattering a representation of the human face. The steady, unalterable look of the painting leads us to expect a character of penetration and thoughtfulness in the original; and the most light and frivolous persons are in this way not unfrequently represented with a dignity which is the invariable occasion of disappointment and surprise. We have said more of the portrait than, we fear, we can say of the original. Few lives, which are so illustrious, have been so much neglected as that of Walter Scott. As he is almost conVOL. VIII. 14 stantly before us in some interesting character or other, we have neither time nor disposition to investigate his history: the British periodical magazines,-seldom deficient in their biographical duties, are lamentably barren on this most popular topic; and there is not a publication within our knowledge which contains any thing like a satisfactory biography of Mr. Scott. What little we know of him shall be most freely communicated,-with this preliminary remark, however, that the life of a prolific author can be little more than a history of his several publications. Walter Scott was born of obscure parents (1769) in Lothian, in Scotland. A lameness in his leg exempted him from the common laborious lot of his brothers; and, as he had nothing to supply the place of occupation, he resorted the company, and became the darling of old men and shepherds; who dandled him on their knees, and told him legendary stories of the Scottish borderers. A taste for such tales, thus early acquired, led him, at a subsequent period, to consult the manuscripts of the border antiquary: he searched with indefatigable eagerness for every ballad and stanza of the ancient bards:* his thorough knowledge of such kind of poetry inspired him with confidence to attempt some imitations; and in 1802 he published a volume, to which he gave the curious title of Scottish Minstrelsy,—consisting of old ballads retouched and amended, together with some original compositions by himself and a Mr. Leyden. The local narrative, the rude metre, and the uncouth diction of these pieces are not sufficiently counterbalanced by the vigour and simplicity of the thoughts to make them the subjects of very general perusal; and the Minstrelsy of the Scottish border has ceased perhaps to be much sought after, except by those who are willing to purchase their pleasure at the expense of consulting a glossary. The interruption occasioned by this tedious process always impairs, and not unfrequently destroys the effect of the best poetry:-a kind of composition, we should remember, which ought to bear along the mind in a stream of uninterrupted thought. No man ever relished Virgil while he was learning the Latin tongue; and no man can hope to receive He is now publishing, in sixteen parts, a voluminous and elaborate work upon the Border Antiquities of England and Scotland. much pleasure from Scottish poetry, while he is obliged to divide his attention between the ballad and the dictionary. Yet this collection of minstrelsy was by no means destitute of popularity. Among Mr. Scott's own countrymen, who understood the language, and felt an interest in the stories, it unquestionably enjoyed a very extensive circulation: and in England, as well as in America, the strength and pathos of the conceptions forced their way into perusal through every obstacle of measure and diction.— We cannot be expected to enter into a detailed criticism of the several ballads which compose the volume. If any single pieces are supereminent to the rest, perhaps the Lament of the Queen's Marie and Helen of Kirconnell Lee* may claim that distinction. -The contributions of Mr. Scott, and of his friend, Mr. Leyden, possess much poetical excellence: but the language continually betrays the recency of their origin; and we believe it is utterly impracticable to exclude from imitations of ancient poetry the unequivocal characteristics of modern phraseology. With all these difficulties in the way, it was hardly to be expected that the Scottish Minstrelsy would be universally admired. Yet, as Mr. Scott had devoted a part of more than thirty years to the history of the border clans, an attachment to the subject was radicated too deeply in his mind to be shaken by the partial illsuccess of a first essay; and in 1805 he attempted a still more arduous flight, in the production of an original epic romance. the Lay of the Last Minstrel, it was Mr. Scott's professed object to combine the rudeness and simplicity of the ancient ballad with the polish and refinement of modern poetry; and accordingly the poem is put into the mouth of an old bard, who may be supposed to have survived the Revolution, and to have realized the experience of the Pylian sage:— Two ages o'er his native land had reigned, And now the example of the third remained. The success of this poem was beyond anticipation. It was extolled by the critics, reprinted by the booksellers, and read by every This ballad was often published before its appearance in the Minstrelsy; and we have lately seen it in some of the most respectable British periodic l works, as an original production of a Mr. John Mynę. body. From the reputation of a humble compiler, Mr. Scott rose suddenly to the eminence of an original poet,-not in the too common acceptation of that word, as being able to complete a volume of what is poetry to the eye merely, but as possessing that nameless quality which can extract the essence of things from its concomitants, and make the representation stronger than the reality.* The praise bestowed upon the Lay was not certainly on account of its story,-which, for an epic poem, is deficient in some of the most important requisites of excellence. The progress of the narrative is too much obstructed by the events of the three first cantos; and when it has once got a going, it runs on more than one whole canto beyond the legitimate catastrophe. Yet the visit of Delorane to the holy pile of Melrose' gives occasion to so many splendid specimens of poetic excellence, that we should be sorry to see it sacrificed to the propriety of the narrative. We believe the same indulgence cannot extend to the conclusion of the fifth, and the whole of the sixth canto. When the hero is killed, or is betrothed, the story should be at an end; and the poet always transgresses the canons of criticism, if he conducts his readers through the joyous carousals of a marriage, or the lugubrious ceremonies of a funeral. Yet Mr. Scott steps in between our pen and his poem with a palliation which ought not to be altogether disregarded. He tells us that his object was not so much to produce a continuous, regular story, as to exhibit the characteristic manners of his actors,— to portray the pastoral, yet warlike habits of the Scottish borders; whose proud and chivalric notions were constantly prompting them to reciprocal depredation, and who thought they had made a singular escape if their dwellings were not burned to the ground at least once a year. Whether he might not have interwoven all his materials on these subjects into one regular and complete nar. • Johnson in the lives of Waller and Pope. They crossed the Liddle at curfew hour, rative, he alone perhaps is the proper person to judge: for ourselves, we see very little difference between his own case and that of every other epic writer; and nothing but the assurance of losing some of his best poetry would reconcile us to a repetition of his irregularities. Mr. Scott has also bespoken our indulgence for the machinery of the poem; but we think he had better spared himself the trouble of an excuse. Supernatural agency is never required, and will never be tolerated, except when the action cannot be performed by human hands. The estray of the boy in the forest, the interview of Lord Henry with Lady Margaret, and the theft of sir William's armour, might all have been effectuated without the help of the goblin-page, or the consultation of Michael Scott's cybeline book. The page is a malicious intruder into good company; and the most he does is to exclaim, 'lost! lost! lost!' at the beginning of the poem, and found! found! found!' at the end. There are a few other personages in this poem who are objectionable for their names more than for their characters. Mr. Scott has never delighted in those smooth names which' (says Dryden) 'seem made for poetry,' "As Hector, Alexander, Helen, Phyllis, Ulysses, Agamemnon, and Achilles." On the contrary, he seems to take pleasure in conquering a stubborn, unpoetical name, and in making it lie easy in his lines. For his success in most instances he is at least entitled to indulgence; but it is not all the drilling in the world that can subdue to smoothness such names as Arthur-Fire-the-braes, and Archibald-Bellthe-cat.-If some native American should write a poem on the wars of our own borderers, and should encumber his lines with the Indian names of Split-log, Walk-in-the-water, and a dozen more which we could mention,-how speedily would the European critics be impaling him upon the point of their pens! The Lay is sung in the dissolute numbers of the old ballad metre, though Mr. Scott has introduced and concluded each canto with a more regular and measured verse. These exquisite, though scanty effusions were the earnest of still more copious and excellent productions. It is amusing to trace the progress of Mr. Scott from incipient imitation to final originality. He first appears |