LETTER V. O with how great liveliness did he represent the conditions of all manner of men !-from the overweening monarch to the peevish swaine, through all intermediate degrees of the superficial courtier or proud warrior, dissembled churchman, doting old man, cozening lawyer, lying traveler, covetous merchant, rude seaman, pedantick scolar, the amorous shepheard, envious artisan, vain-glorious master and tricky servant ;- -He had all the jeers, squibs, flouts, buls, quips, taunts, whims, jests, clinches, gybes, mokes, jerks, with all the several kinds of equivocations and other sophistical captions, that could properly be adapted to the person by whose representation he intended to inveagle the company into a fit of mirth. ΕΚΣΚΥΒΑΛΑΥΡΟΝ, or the Discovery of a most exquisite Jewel, &c. (By Sir Thomas Urquhart.) London, 1653. P. 105, 6. AN important and highly characteristic portion of the novels to which the foregoing observations on style bear very little reference, is the dialogue: a subject which I thought might conveniently be reserved for separate consideration. In comparing the dramatic scenes of the two writers, it will of course be proper to allow something for the difference between prose composition and lyrical poetry, in their general tone, and cast of phraseology. I must candidly own, too, that if it were necessary for the present purpose to point any specimen of dialogue in the poems as rivalling that of the novels, taken in its happiest vein, I must at once abandon this topic. The display of exquisite humour and natural feeling in the characters and language of Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine, Dominie Sampson, honest Dandie Dinmont, Baillie Jarvie, Old Milnwood and his housekeeper, Lady Margaret Bellenden, Serjeant Bothwell, Jenny Dennison, Čuddie, and Mause, and the Covenanters, Robin Hood and the Clerk of Copmanhurst and the buxom Richard, have, I freely own, no counterparts in all the range of fiction from the Last Minstrel to Harold the Dauntless: nor would it be reasonable to expect, in compositions of this latter kind, such lively colloquial turns as the following: "Our knight of the broken head first kissed and hugged them" (the children) "all round, then distributed whistles, penny-trumpets, and gingerbread, and, lastly, when the tumults of their joy and welcome got beyond bearing, exclaimed to his guest, This is a' the gudewife's fault, Captain-she will gie the bairns a' their ain way.' "Me! Lord help me,' said Ailie, who at that instant entered with the bason and ewer, 'how can I help it? I have naething else to gie them, poor things!"-Guy Mannering, vol. ii. ch. 3. Or the Highlander's whimsical expostulation with the Baillie for singeingh is plaid: "Saw ever ony body a decent gentleman fight wi' a firebrand before ?"-Rob Roy, vol. iii. ch. 1. Or the reflection which escapes with so much naïveté from Jeany Deans, when, after her tragi-comic parting with poor Dumbiedikes, her feelings of distress and gratitude give way for a moment to her sense of ridicule, as the Laird is hurried away in his night-gown by the mutinous Rory Bean. "He's a gude creature," said she, "and a kind-it's a pity he has sae willyard a powney." -Heart of Mid Lothian, vol. iii. ch. 1. But if the comparison be restricted to those points in which a near resemblance may be reasonably expected, an examination of the dialogue will, I think, go far in confirming our assurance of the novelist's identity with the poet. Their address in combining narrative with conversation, so that each supports and animates the other, has been too long admired and celebrated to need illustration by particular examples. I cannot, however, forbear mentioning two splendid instances; the death of Marmion, and the distress of Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour on Knockwinnock Sands*. * Antiquary, vol. i. ch. 7. Not less remarkable are the nicety of perception and felicity of execution with which they adapt language to the sex, age, character, and condition of the speaker. A few examples will show how similarly (if not equally in degree) the same talent is developed by these authors in both modes of composition: how each (as the author of Marmion says of Swift)" seems, like the Persian dervise, to" possess "the faculty of transfusing his own soul into the body of any one whom he" may select ;-" of seeing with his eyes, employing every organ of his sense, and even becoming master of the powers of his judgment." 66 In the reply of young Buccleuch to the English archer, observe the admirable combination of childish simplicity with native haughtiness and courage: "For when the Red-Cross spied he, 6 Now, by St. George,' the archer cries, 'Yes! I am come of high degree, For Walter of Harden shall come with speed, And every Scott from Esk to Tweed; And if thou dost not let me go, Despite thine arrows and thy bow, I'll have thee hang'd to feed the crow!' "Gramercy for thy good will, fair boy! My mind was never set so high; But if thou art chief of such a clan, And art the son of such a man, And ever comest to thy command, Our wardens had need to keep good order: Thou'lt make them work upon the border. For good Lord Dacre thou shalt see; t Life of Swift (prefixed to the edition of his works in 19 volumes-Edinburgh 1814), conclusion, page 496. I think our work is well begun, Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto III. St. 18, &c. The scene I have quoted has perhaps reminded you of that in which old Stawarth Bolton places his red cross in the bonnet of little Halbert Glendinning, and the boy indignantly "skims it into the brook." "I will not go with you," said Halbert boldly, "for you are a falsehearted southern; and the southerns killed my father; and 1 will war on you to the death, when I can draw my father's sword*." "God-a-mercy, my levin-bolt," said Stawarth," the goodly custom of deadly feud will never go down in thy day, I presume."-Monastery, vol. i. ch. 2. To infuse into conversation a spirit truly and unaffectedly feminine appears to me one of the most difficult tasks that can be undertaken by a writer of our sex: yet this is in many instances happily achieved by the author of Marmion, although the somewhat antiquated turn of his style is unfavourable to such an attempt. I think his greatest felicity in this respect lies in occasional snatches of speech interwoven with animated description; as when, in Holyrood palace, Lady Heron "And first she pitch'd her voice to sing, She could not, would not, durst not play!" Marmion, Canto V. St. 11. Or where the young chief of Duncraggan is summoned from his father's funeral to the gathering of Clan-Alpine: * "And if I live to be a man, My father's death revenged shall be." Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I. St. 9. "But when he saw his mother's eye Suspended was the widow's tear, While yet his footsteps she could hear; 'Kinsman,' she said, his race is run Yet trust I well, his duty done, The orphan's God will guard my son.'-&c. Lady of the Lake, Canto III. St. 18. Nor must I omit that beautiful burst of wounded maternal pride, when the elvish counterfeit of young Buccleuch refuses to mix with the defenders of Branksome : "Then wrathful was the noble dame; Sure some fell fiend has cursed our line, Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto IV. St. 11. But there are many colloquial passages of greater length in these poems, highly distinguished by feminine grace and tenderness: as, for instance, the conversations of Matilda with her two lovers, in Rokeby*: that scene in the Lady of the Lake, where Fitz-James, impelled by his passion for Ellen, revisits the Lonely Isle on the eve of a Highland insurrection; and the opening conversation in the Lord of the Isles, when Edith of Lorn, attended by her nurse, is watching for her tardy bridegroom: → Cantos IV. and V. + Canto IV, St. 16 to 18. |