MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SCOTT. 7 vols.

SOME few years have now elapsed since a funeral procession was seen winding along the banks of the Tweed, and darkening its waters as it passed, carrying the mortal remains of the great Minstrel of the North to repose in the monastic sepulchre he himself had selected. Though the private tear which was given freely to the remembrance of Sir Walter Scott's domestic virtues may have now ceased to flow, the popular gratitude and curiosity are still alive; nor would they, we think, have been satisfied with any thing less than the copious narrative and the minute and faithful details of the life of their great and favourite writer that have appeared in the work before us. Indeed it is impossible to have wished that the important task of communicating to the public a full and accurate account of the eminent person whom they so admired, had been placed in any other hands. Mr. Lockhart united to all the familiarity of intimate acquaintance, those talents which have enabled him to appreciate and delineate the genius of Scott with accuracy and discrimination; and he alone possessed those ample and confidential records, which enabled him to give a finished and full-length portrait of the departed Bard. For ourselves, we must express our cordial satisfaction with the spirit and manner in which this very interesting biography is composed less, as we observed, would not have satisfied the public mind; and it must have been additional matter of extraordinary value which could have made the portrait of Scott's private and social character more complete. All has been gained that could be desired, without breaking the sanctity of private intercourse, or unlocking that hidden drawer in which the confidential secrets of all families * repose. We see him in every varying situation of his active and energetic life, in "the musing rambles among his own glens, the breezy ride over the moors, the merry spell at the woodman's axe, or the festive chase of Newark, Ferniglen, or Delorain, the quiet old-fashioned contentment of the little domestic circle, alternating with the brilliant phantasmagoria of admiring and doubtless admired strangers, or the hoisting of the telegraph flag that called laird and bonnet laird to the burning of the water, or the wassail of the hall."

:

The whole portrait we consider to be most satisfactory, not only to the friends and relations of Scott, but to all who love to cherish the belief of the firm alliance between genius and the high moral qualities and virtues of the heart. Scott is seen in Mr. Lockhart's pages under the full blaze of the domestic lamp; and few indeed are the parts of his character that require to be softened or drawn into the slightest shade. We view him in

* "I never thought it lawful to keep a journal of what passes in private society; so that no one need expect from the sequel of this narrative any detailed record of Scott's familiar talk."-Lockhart's Life, vol. iv. p. 150.

See p. 413-415 of Mr. Lockhart's seventh volume for interesting remarks on Scott's religious feelings and virtuous conduct.

See the conclusion of Basil Hall's Diary, vol. v. p. 415-418, formed on his character of Scott's character.

these confidential pages in many various situatious and relations, and under many changes of fortune. We see him at one time rising to the full summit of worldly honour and prosperity; and we see him, too, more suddenly thrown down by a calamitous reverse of fortune: we see him now commanding fresh creations for ever to rise at his bidding; and again we behold him bending in dismay over the powerful crucible which had been in an instant shattered to pieces, the fires extinct, and the furnace cold.* At one time we see him in the frank joyousness and the bright hopes of the gayest and most commanding spirit; and we view him, too, in later years, when care had eaten into that noble heart, and sorrow had broken down that powerful intellect. We view him in the full possession of his gigantic powers, when thought and labour, that would have overwhelmed ordinary men,† were borne by him as the light amusement of a summer day; and we see him when the bow he alone could bend was broken, and its now useless strings were trailing on the ground. At one time he appears standing like an enchanter in the centre of the wonderful and imaginary creation which he had raised; and again he is seen when the sceptre of command had dropped from his hand, when the magic palace was empty, and his empire for ever gone.

It is impossible not to watch with great interest the progress of Scott from the time when his name first appeared in the field of literature, with arms and device as yet unknown to fame; to the period when he subsequently came into the lists to claim still higher honours, cased in armour, dark and mysterious; and when he retired, amid the enthusiasm and inquiries of the spectators, his vizor still closed, his name unheard, and his features unknown.

The purpose which we have in view in this our brief mention of Mr. Lockhart's book, is neither to recapitulate the circumstances and events of Scott's life, which will be read and known by all in the original work; nor is it to enter into argumentative detail and analyses of his writings, which have been the subject of much able and ingenious criticism from many writers of eminence; but rather to show from the original evidence of his own works, and the attentive observation of his friends, what were the foundations on which his genius had built this lofty and extended fabric-to mark the original and native powers with which he was gifted, and the improvement which these powers received, as well as from the habits and pursuits of his active life, as in the scclusion of his studious hours. So that, however extraordinary, and above all common exertion and ability, were the emanations of Scott's genius; yet we have the satisfaction of understanding and ascertaining their growth,-of witnessing the first collection of materials,-the choice and disposition of them; and of acknowledging that an originally rich and native genius, united with those resources which well-directed study and laborious research could give, were alone equal to the noble undertakings that he achieved.

The constituents of genius have been generally supposed to be-first, a rapid instinctive tact or feeling which seizes upon thoughts and ideas and appropriates them ;-secondly, a bright imagination which reflects and

* See Scott's Diary, vol. vi. p. 164. "What a life mine has been broken-hearted for two years my heart had scarcely pieced again, yet the crack will remain to my dying day. Rich and poor four or five times, once on the verge of ruin," &c.

† See Robert Hogg's account, while Scott's amanuensis, of his " carrying on two distinct trains of thought," one arranged, and the other simultaneously preparing, while dictating to him. v. vii. p. 41.

paints them as in a mirror ;-thirdly, a sensibility to impressions, tender or powerful; and a sympathy which enables the author to catch the opinions and feelings of others. These, Scott appeared eminently to possess. To the first, he owed the rapidity of his ideas,--the readiness of his combinations, and the happiness of his analogies and allusions. To the second, the clear and distinct manner in which he carried out of his mind the images which were created there; the variety of his allusions and illustrations, and that versatility of fancy which could turn from grave to gay, from the sublime and terrible to the pathetic, the festive, or the tender; that could invest the outline of form with the richness of the most graceful drapery; so that all parts and provinces of external nature seemed open to his incursions; that sometimes he could come sweeping down to earth, at others soar aloft to heaven. The third enabled him to give such dramatic powers to his scenes and pictures of social life; to enter as by right into every feeling and passion of our nature; to catch the most important features of character, and the deepest shades of thought; to reflect the fertility and humour of the bright and overflowing spirit, or to pour forth the despairing voice of nature crying from the tomb. Scott's was emphatically a picturesque imagination, and what is called an outward and objective mind. He had not the power given to him which Shakspeare possessed, of carrying the torch into the deepest abysses of the human heart, and of throwing a light, unseen before, on its darkest and most profound retreats. He had not that eagle gaze, (never seen again) which, like the scalpel of the great surgeon, was said to penetrate even into the awful and secret springs of life and death. But all but this was given to him; and in the fertility of his resources,-the rapidity of his combinations, the variety of his scenes, situations, and characters,— the life and spirit of his narrative,—the force and beauty of his descriptions, the minute and living accuracy of his delineations, he must claim the title of a great original genius-of that which does not borrow its materials from what has been collected and used before, but works rather like nature from its own resources, and derives life and motion from itself. To this we attribute the excellencies of his finest creations,-the true splendour and sublimity of his descriptions,-the copiousness of his language, the richness and profusion which rarely encumbers, but far more often adorns; and we must add something of still higher value,—principles uniformly just, and sensibilities always virtuous; a rooted dislike to all that is dastardly and selfish, and an admiration of all high and heroic desires. Mr. Adolphus has marked the correctness of morals as well as the propriety of manners, by which these novels are distinguished. With Scott's great and masculine understanding, he achieved great purposes and attained an imperishable fame; and we now will trace, as we proposed, a few steps of his intellectual progress, with the assistance of the narrative

"I do not compare myself in point of imagination with Wordsworth for fruit, for his is naturally exquisite and highly cultivated from constant exercise. But I can see as many castles in the clouds as any man,--as many genii in the circling smoke of a steam engine,-as perfect a Persepolis in the embers of a sea-coal fire.”Diary, vol. vii. p. 5. See also,-" I have worn a wishing cap, the power of which has been to divert present griefs by a touch of the wand of imagination," &c. vol. vi. p. 180. To this prevalence of the imaginative power, we must ascribe what Scott's friends called " a blind enthusiasm for the dreams of by-gone ages."--vol. iv. p. 156. See this illustrated in the account of the opening of the Regalia of Scotland, p. 119.

before us, and reserve for the end some observations on the species of writing in which he so eminently excelled, but which he did not appear himself to estimate according to the delight and admiration it so widely diffused.

Scott's mother, we are informed, had a turn for literature quite uncommon among the ladies of that age, and encouraged her son in his passion for Shakspeare; so that his plays and the Arabian Nights were often read in the family circle by Walter: this was poets' food. In another place Scott himself says,—

"My week-day tasks were more agreeable; my lameness and my solitary habits had made me a tolerable reader, and my hours of leisure were usually spent in reading aloud to my mother Pope's Translation of Homer, which, excepting a few traditionary ballads, and the songs in Allan Ramsay's Evergreen, was the finest poetry I perused. My mother had good natural taste and great feeling; she used to make me pause on those passages which expressed generous and worthy sentiments, and if she could not divert me from those which were descriptive of battle and tumult, she con

trived at least to divide my attention between them. My own enthusiasm, however, was chiefly awakened by the wonderful and the terrible-the common taste of children, but in which I have remained a child even unto this day. I got by heart, not as a task, but almost without intending it, the passages with which I was most pleased, and used to recite them aloud, both when alone and to others, more willingly, however, in my hours of solitude, for I had observed some auditors smile, and I dreaded ridicule at that time of life more than I have ever done since."

Scott describes himself as acquiring a great acquaintance with the old books describing the early history of the Church of Scotland, the wars and sufferings of the Covenanters, and so forth. With a head on fire for chivalry, he was early a cavalier and a tory; he hated presbyterians, and admired Montrose with his victorious highlanders.

"I took up (he says) my politics at that period, as King Charles the Second did his religion, from an idea that the cavalier creed was the more gentlemanlike persuasion of the two. In the mean while my acquaintance with English literature was gradually extending itself; in the intervals of my school hours I had always perused with avidity such books of history, or poetry, or voyages and travels, as chance presented to me, not forgetting the usual or rather ten times the usual quantity of fairy tales, eastern stories, romances, &c. These studies were totally unregulated and undirected; my tutor thought it almost a sin to open a profane play or poem, and my mother, besides that she might be in some degree tramelled by the religious scruples which he suggested, had no longer the opportunity to hear me read poetry, as formerly. I found, however, in her dressing-room, (where I slept at one time) some odd volumes of Shakspeare, nor can I easily forget the rapture with which I sate up in my shirt reading them by the light of a fire in her apartment, until the bustle of the family rising from supper, warned me it was time to creep back to my bed, where I was supposed to have been safely de

posited since nine o'clock. Chance, however, threw in my way a poetical precep

tor.

This was no other than the excellent and benevolent Dr. Blacklock, well known at that time as a literary character. I know not how I attracted his attention, and that of some of the young men who boarded in his family, but so it was, that I became a frequent and favoured guest. The kind old man opened to me the stores of his library, and through his recommendation I became intimate with Ossian and Spenser. I was delighted with both, yet chiefly, I think, with the latter poet. The taudry repetitions of the Ossianic phraseology disgusted me rather sooner than might have been expected from my age. But Spenser I could read for ever. Too young to trouble myself about the allegory, I considered all the knights and ladies as dragons and giants, in their outward and exoteric sense, and God only knows how delighted I was to find myself in such society. As I had always a wonderful facility in retaining in my memory whatever verses pleased

me,

the quantity of Spenser's stanzas which I could repeat was really marvellous; but this memory of mine was a very fickle ally, and has through my whole