Margaret Ball - Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature

M >> Margaret Ball >> Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature

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Besides Scott's formal reviews, we find cited as evidence of his extreme
amiability his letters, his journal, and the remarks he made to friends
in moments of enthusiasm. These do indeed contain some sweeping
statements, but in almost every case one can see some reason, other than
the desire to be obliging, why he made them. He was not double-faced.
One of the nearest approaches to it seems to have been in the case of
Miss Seward's poetry, for which he wrote such an introduction as hardly
prepares the reader for the remark he made to Miss Baillie, that most of
it was "absolutely execrable." His comment in the edition of the
poems--the publication of which Miss Seward really forced upon him as a
dying request--is sedulously kind, and in _Waverley_ he quotes from her
a couple of lines which he calls "beautiful." But the essay is most
carefully guarded, and throughout it the editor implies that the woman
was more admirable than the poetry. Personally, indeed, he seems to have
liked and admired her.[248]

The catalogue of Scott's contemporaries is so full of important names
that his genius for the enjoyment of other men's work had a wide
opportunity to display itself without becoming absurd. An argument early
used to prove that Scott was the author of _Waverley_ was the frequency
of quotation in the novels from all living poets except Scott himself,
and he felt constrained to throw in a reference or two to his own poetry
in order to weaken the force of the evidence.[249] The reader is
irresistibly reminded of the following description, given by Lockhart in
a letter to his wife, of a morning walk taken by Wordsworth and Scott in
company: "The Unknown was continually quoting Wordsworth's Poetry and
Wordsworth ditto, but the great Laker never uttered one syllable by
which it might have been intimated to a stranger that your Papa had ever
written a line either of verse or prose since he was born."[250]

Scott's opinions in regard to his fellow craftsmen may best be given
largely in his own words--words which cannot fail to be interesting,
however little evidence they show of any attempt to make them quotable.

In considering Scott's estimation of his contemporaries it is
chronologically proper to mention Burns first. As a boy of fifteen Scott
met Burns, an event which filled him with the suitable amount of awe. He
was most favorably impressed with the poet's appearance and with
everything in his manner. The boy thought, however, that "Burns'
acquaintance with English poetry was rather limited, and also, that
having twenty times the abilities of Allan Ramsay and of Ferguson, he
talked of them with too much humility as his models."[251] Scott's
admiration of Burns was always expressed in the highest and, if one may
say so, the most affectionate terms. He refused to let himself be named
"in the same day" with Burns.[252] "Long life to thy fame and peace to
thy soul, Rob Burns!" he exclaimed, in his _Journal_; "when I want to
express a sentiment which I feel strongly, I find the phrase in
Shakespeare--or thee."[253] On another day he compared Burns with
Shakspere as excelling all other poets in "the power of exciting the
most varied and discordant emotions with such rapid transitions."[254]
Again, "The Jolly Beggars, for humorous description and nice
discrimination of character, is inferior to no poem of the same length
in the whole range of English poetry."[255] Scott wished that Burns
might have carried out his plan of dramatic composition, and regretted,
from that point of view, the excessive labor at songs which in the
nature of things could not all be masterpieces.[256]

Of writers who were more precisely contemporaries of Scott, the Lake
Poets and Byron are the most important. The precedence ought to be given
to Coleridge because of the suggestion Scott caught from a chance
recitation of _Christabel_ for the meter he made so popular in the
_Lay_.[257] Fragments from _Christabel_ are quoted or alluded to so
often in the novels[258] and throughout Scott's work that we should
conclude it had made a greater impression upon him than any other single
poem written in his own time, if Lockhart had not spoken of Wordsworth's
sonnet on Neidpath Castle as one which Scott was perhaps fondest of
quoting.[259] _Christabel_ is not the only one of Coleridge's poems
which Scott used for allusion or reference, but it was the favorite. "He
is naturally a grand poet," Scott once wrote to a friend. "His verses on
Love, I think, are among the most beautiful in the English language. Let
me know if you have seen them, as I have a copy of them as they stood in
their original form, which was afterwards altered for the worse."[260]
The _Ancient Mariner_ also made a decided impression on him, if we judge
from the fact that he quoted from it several times.[261] Scott evidently
felt that Coleridge was a most tantalizing poet, and once intimated that
future generations would in regard to him feel something like Milton's
desire "to call up him who left half told the story of Cambuscan
bold."[262] "No man has all the resources of poetry in such profusion,
but he cannot manage them so as to bring out anything of his own on a
large scale at all worthy of his genius.... His fancy and diction would
have long ago placed him above all his contemporaries, had they been
under the direction of a sound judgment and a steady will."[263] Such,
in effect, was the opinion that Scott always expressed concerning
Coleridge, and it is practically that of posterity. In _The Monastery_
Coleridge is called "the most imaginative of our modern bards." In
another connection, after speaking of the "exquisite powers of poetry he
has suffered to remain uncultivated," Scott adds, "Let us be thankful
for what we have received, however. The unfashioned ore, drawn from so
rich a mine, is worth all to which art can add its highest decorations,
when drawn from less abundant sources."[264] These remarks are worth
quoting, not only because of their wisdom, but also because Scott had
small personal acquaintance with Coleridge and was rather repelled than
attracted by what he knew of the character of the author of
_Christabel_. His praises cannot in this case be called the tribute of
friendship, and his own remarkable power of self-control might have made
him a stern judge of Coleridge's shortcomings.

One of his most interesting comments on Coleridge is contained in a
discussion of Byron's _Darkness_, a poem which to his mind recalled "the
wild, unbridled, and fiery imagination of Coleridge."[265] _Darkness_ is
characterized as a mass of images and ideas, unarranged, and the critic
goes on to warn the author against indulging in this sort of poetry. He
says: "The feeling of reverence which we entertain for that which is
difficult of comprehension, gives way to weariness whenever we begin to
suspect that it cannot be distinctly comprehended by anyone.... The
strength of poetical conception and beauty of diction bestowed upon such
prolusions [_sic_], is as much thrown away as the colors of a painter,
could he take a cloud of mist or a wreath of smoke for his canvas." It
is disappointing that we have no comment from Scott upon Shelley's
poetry, but we can imagine what is would have been.[266] Scott's
position as the great popularizer of the Romantic movement in poetry
makes particularly interesting his very evident though not often
expressed repugnance to the more extreme development of that movement.

Wordsworth's peculiar theory of poetry seemed to Scott superfluous and
unnecessary, though he was never, so far as we can judge, especially
irritated by it.[267] Of Wordsworth and Southey he wrote to Miss Seward:
"Were it not for the unfortunate idea of forming a new school of poetry,
these men are calculated to give it a new impulse; but I think they
sometimes lose their energy in trying to find not a better but a
different path from what has been travelled by their predecessors."[268]
Scott paid tribute in the introduction to _The Antiquary_ to as much of
Wordsworth's poetical creed as he could acquiesce in when he said, "The
lower orders are less restrained by the habit of suppressing their
feelings, and ... I agree with my friend Wordsworth that they seldom
fail to express them in the strongest and most powerful language." In a
letter to Southey Scott calls Wordsworth "a great master of the
passions,"[269] and in his _Journal_ he said: His imagination "is
naturally exquisite, and highly cultivated by constant exercise."[270]
At another time he compared Wordsworth and Southey as scholars and
commented on the "freshness, vivacity, and spring" of Wordsworth's
mind.[271]

The personal relations between Scott and Wordsworth were, as Wordsworth's
tribute in _Yarrow Revisited_ would indicate, those of affectionate
intimacy. And if Scott took exception to Wordsworth's choice of subjects
and manner, Wordsworth used the same freedom in disagreeing with Scott's
poetical ideals. "Thank you," he wrote in 1808, "for _Marmion_, which I
have read with lively pleasure. I think your end has been attained. That
it is not in every respect the end which I should wish you to purpose to
yourself, you will be well aware, from what you know of my notions of
composition, both as to matter and manner."[272] When, in 1821, Chantrey
was about to exhibit together his busts of the two poets, Scott wrote:
"I am happy my effigy is to go with that of Wordsworth, for (differing
from him in very many points of taste) I do not know a man more to be
venerated for uprightness of heart and loftiness of genius. Why he will
sometimes choose to crawl upon all fours, when God has given him so
noble a countenance to lift to heaven, I am as little able to account
for as for his quarrelling (as you tell me) with the wrinkles which time
and meditation have stamped his brow withal."[273]

These remarks upon Wordsworth and Coleridge touch merely the fringe of
the subject, and indeed we do not find that Scott exercised any such
sublimated ingenuity in appreciating these men as has often been
considered essential. We can see that he admired certain parts of their
work intensely, but we look in vain for any real analysis of their
quality. But as he never had occasion to write essays upon their poetry,
it is perhaps hardly fair to expect anything more than the general
remarks that we actually do find, and as far as they go they are
satisfactory.

Like most of his distinguished contemporaries, Scott held the work of
Southey in surprisingly high estimation.[274] Southey, more than anyone
else except Wordsworth, and more than Wordsworth in some ways, was the
"real poet" of the period, devoting his whole heart to literature and
his whole time to literary pursuits. Scott commented on the fact,
saying, "Southey's ideas are all poetical," and, "In this respect, as
well as in many others, he is a most striking and interesting
character."[275] Nevertheless Scott found it easy to criticise Southey's
poems adversely, as we may see from his correspondence. Writing to Miss
Seward he pointed out flaws in the story and the characterization of
_Madoc_,[276] yet after repeated readings he saw enough to convince him
that _Madoc_ would in the future "assume his real place at the feet of
Milton."[277] _Thalaba_ was one of the poems he liked to have read aloud
on Sunday evenings.[278] A review of _The Curse of Kehama_, in which he
seemed to express the opinion that this surpassed the poet's previous
work, illustrates his professed creed as to criticism. He wrote to Ellis
concerning his article: "What I could I did, which was to throw as much
weight as possible upon the beautiful passages, of which there are many,
and to slur over the absurdities, of which there are not a few.... This
said _Kehama_ affords cruel openings for the quizzers, and I suppose
will get it roundly in the _Edinburgh Review_. I could have made a very
different hand of it, indeed, had the order of the day been _pour
dechirer_."[279] If Scott had to make an effort in writing the review,
he made it with abundant energy. Some absurdities are indeed mentioned,
but various particular passages are characterized in the most
enthusiastic way, with such phrases as "horribly sublime," "impressive
and affecting," "reminds us of the Satan of Milton, yet stands the
comparison," "all the gloomy power of Dante." It may be noted that Scott
used Milton's name rather freely in comparisons, and that for Dante his
admiration was altogether unimpassioned,[280] but the review, after all,
is on the whole very laudatory.[281] In it Scott awards to Southey the
palm for a surpassing share of imagination, which he elsewhere gave to
Coleridge. Possibly Scott was the less inclined to be severe over the
absurdities of _Kehama_ because Southey agreed with his own theory as to
the evil of fastidious corrections.[282] At any rate he seems to have
been quite sincere in saying to Southey, in connection with the
poet-laureateship which, according to Scott's suggestion, was offered to
him in 1813, "I am not such an ass as not to know that you are my better
in poetry, though I have had, probably but for a time, the tide of
popularity in my favour."[283]

Much as Scott admired Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, he considered
Byron the great poetical genius of the period. He once spoke of Byron as
the only poet of transcendent talents that England had had since
Dryden.[284] At another time his comment was: "He wrote from impulse,
never from effort; and therefore I have always reckoned Burns and Byron
the most genuine poetical geniuses of my time, and half a century before
me. We have ... many men of high poetical talent, but none, I think, of
that ever-gushing and perennial fountain of natural water."[285] The
likenesses between Byron's poetical manner and Scott's own must have
made it easy for the elder poet to recognize the power of the younger,
since Scott was innocent of all repining or envy over the fact which he
so freely acknowledged in later years, that Byron "beat" him out of the
field.[286] From the time of the appearance of the first two cantos of
_Childe Harold_ he acknowledged the author's "extraordinary power,"[287]
and even before that he had tried to soften Jeffrey's harsh treatment of
_Hours of Idleness_.[288] In 1814 he was ready to say, "Byron hits the
mark where I don't even pretend to fledge my arrow."[289]

It was Byron, rather than Scott, who realized the debt of the new
popular favorite to the old; and their personal relations were of the
pleasantest, though they were never intimate as Scott was with Southey
and Wordsworth. As poets, Scott and Byron seem to have understood each
other thoroughly.[290] None of the other great poets of the period did
justice to Scott, nor did he succeed so well in defining the power of
any of the others. His first review of _Childe Harold_ is the most
important of all his articles on the poetry of his time; and his remarks
written at the death of Lord Byron, though brief, are not less full of
good judgment. Originality, spontaneity, and the ability and inclination
to write rapidly were traits Scott admired most in Byron, and in the
vigor and beauty of the poems he found the fine flower of all these
qualities. "We cannot but repeat our conviction," he says, "that poetry,
being, in its higher classes, an art which has for its elements
sublimity and unaffected beauty, is more liable than any other to suffer
from the labour of polishing.... It must be remembered that we speak of
the higher tones of composition; there are others of a subordinate
character where extreme art and labour are not bestowed in vain. But we
cannot consider over-anxious correction as likely to be employed with
advantage upon poems like those of Lord Byron, which have for their
object to rouse the imagination and awaken the passions."[291]

Byron's temperament was far from being of a sort that Scott could
admire, though he was very susceptible to his personal charm: "Byron's
countenance is a thing to dream of," he once said;[292] but he felt that
popular estimation did Byron injustice. His articles on this poet
contain some of his most characteristic moral reflections. Something of
Byron's gloominess Scott attributes to the sensitive poetic organization
which he felt that Byron had in an extreme degree; but more to the
perverted habit of looking within rather than around upon the realities
of life, in which Providence intended men to find their happiness. The
philosophy is not novel or brilliant; it is only very sincere and very
just; and it supplies to Scott's criticism of Byron that element of
moral reflection which we feel was necessary to the occasion.[293]

But though Scott never failed to express disapproval of Byron's attitude
toward life, he kept his criticism on this point essentially distinct
from his judgment on the poetry. In a way it was impossible to separate
the two subjects, and the public demanded some discussion of the man
when his poetry was reviewed. But Scott's verdict on the importance of
the poems as such was unaffected by his disapproval of the author's
point of view. He praised _Don Juan_ no less heartily than _Childe
Harold_.

His criticism of _Don Juan_ is, however, to be gathered only from short
and incidental remarks, as he never reviewed the poem. A satire written
by R.P. Gillies is commemorated thus in Scott's _Journal_: "This poem
goes to the tune of _Don Juan_, but it is the champagne after it has
stood two days with the cork drawn."[294] He called Byron "as various in
composition as Shakspeare himself"; and added, "this will be admitted by
all who are acquainted with his _Don Juan_.... Neither _Childe Harold_,
nor any of the most beautiful of Byron's earlier tales, contain more
exquisite morsels of poetry than are to be found scattered through the
cantos of _Don Juan_."[295] The defence of _Cain_ which Scott wrote in
accepting the dedication of that poem to himself is well known.[296] He
calls it a "very grand and tremendous drama," and continues, "Byron has
certainly matched Milton on his own ground. Some part of the language is
bold, and may shock one class of readers, whose tone will be adopted by
others out of affectation or envy. But then they must condemn the
_Paradise Lost_, if they have a mind to be consistent."

Scott's comments on Byron are closely paralleled by those of Goethe, who
considered that Byron had the greatest talent of any man of his
century.[297] The opinions of continental critics in general were
similar. Among English critics Matthew Arnold aroused many protests when
he ranked Byron as one of the two greatest English poets of the
nineteenth century, but his views seem perfectly rational now; and
though he remarked upon the extravagance of Scott's phrases his own
verdict was not very unlike that we have been considering.

Scott's enthusiasm about the literature of his own time seems natural
enough when we consider that the list of his notable contemporaries is
far from exhausted after Burns, the Lake Poets, and Byron have been
named. Campbell was a poet of whose powers he thought very highly, but
who, he believed had given only a sample of the great things he might do
if he would cease to "fear the shadow of his own reputation." Before he
wrote about Byron Scott had given in his review of _Gertrude of Wyoming_
an exposition of his opinion as to the dangers of extreme care in
revision. "The truth is," he says, "that an author cannot work upon a
beautiful poem beyond a certain point without doing it real and
irreparable injury in more respects than one."[298] He felt that
Campbell had worked, in many cases, beyond the "certain point." For the
"impetuous lyric sally," like the _Mariners of England_ and the _Battle
of the Baltic_, Scott rightly thought that Campbell excelled all his
contemporaries. Moore was another lyrist whose poetry Scott greatly
admired. In Moore's case, as in Southey's, the contemporary estimate was
higher than can now be maintained, but Moore is to-day underrated. From
what Scott says about him we conclude that the man's personality and his
way of singing added much to the exquisiteness of his songs. "He seems
almost to think in music," Scott said, "the notes and words are so
happily suited to each other";[299] and, "it would be a delightful
addition to life if T.M. had a cottage within two miles of one."[300]
Allan Cunningham was a young protege of Scott whose songs, "Its hame and
it's hame," and "A wet sheet and a flowing sea," seemed to him "among
the best going."[301] Another poet who received Scott's good offices was
Hogg, whose relations with the greater man are described so vividly and
at some points so amusingly by Lockhart. Scott called him a "wonderful
creature for his opportunities."[302]

For the poet Crabbe, Scott, like Byron and Wordsworth,[303] had a steady
and high admiration. In the Sunday evening readings that Lockhart
describes as being so pleasant a feature of the life of the family in
Edinburgh, Crabbe was perhaps the chief standing resource after
Shakspere.[304] His work was particularly recommended to the young
people of the family,[305] and when the venerable poet visited the
Scotts in 1822, he was received as a man whom they always looked upon as
nobly gifted. Scott once wrote of him: "I think if he had cultivated the
sublime and the pathetic instead of the satirical cast of poetry, he
must have stood very high (as indeed he does at any rate) on the list of
British poets. His _Sir Eustace Grey_ and _The Hall of Justice_ indicate
prodigious talent."[306] Scott did not like Crabbe's choice of
subjects,[307] but he appreciated the "force and vigour" of a poet whom
students of our own day are once more beginning to admire, after a
period during which he was practically ignored.

Scott's very high estimation of Joanna Baillie has already been
mentioned.[308] In this case as in many others he was proud and happy in
the personal friendship of the writer whose works he admired. He once
wrote to Miss Edgeworth: "I have always felt the value of having access
to persons of talent and genius to be the best part of a literary man's
prerogative."[309] Almost the earliest of the writers for whose
friendship Scott felt grateful was Matthew Lewis, famed as the author of
_The Monk_. Lewis was also something of a poet, and was really helpful
to Scott in giving him advice on literary subjects. Though Scott
perceived that Lewis's talents "would not stand much creaming"[310] he
continued to regard him as one who had had high imagination and a "finer
ear for rhythm than Byron's."

Scott felt that his own taste in respect to poetry became more rigorous
as he grew older. In 1823 in a letter to Miss Baillie he commented on
Mrs. Hemans as "somewhat too poetical for my taste--too many flowers, I
mean, and too little fruit--but that may be the cynical criticism of an
elderly gentleman; for it is certain that when I was young I read verses
of every kind with infinitely more indulgence, because with more
pleasure than I can now do--the more shame for me now to refuse the
complaisance which I have had so often to solicit."[311] Similarly he
speaks in the preface to _Kenilworth_ of having once been delighted with
the poems of Mickle and Langhorne: "There is a period in youth when the
mere power of numbers has a more strong effect on ear and imagination
than in after-life." With these comments we may put Lockhart's sagacious
remark: "His propensity to think too well of other men's works sprung,
of course, mainly from his modesty and good nature; but the brilliancy
of his imagination greatly sustained the delusion. It unconsciously gave
precision to the trembling outline, and life and warmth to the vapid
colours before him."[312] This and his kindness would account for the
latter half of the observation made by his publisher: "I like well
Scott's ain bairns--but heaven preserve me from those of his
fathering."[313]

I have found no reference to Landor, a poet whom Southey and Wordsworth
read with eagerness, but Mr. Forster makes this statement in his
_Biography of Landor_: "Among Landor's papers I found a list, prepared
by himself, of resemblances to passages of his own writing to be found
in Scott's _Tales of the Crusaders_. There were several from _Gebir_....
The poem had made a great impression on Scott, who read it at Southey's
suggestion."[314] Forster also notes the fact that Southey, in a letter
to Scott written in 1812, spoke very highly of Landor's _Count
Julian_.[315] I am similarly unable to cite any comment by Scott on the
writings of Lamb. Was it because Scott's genius clung to Scotland and
Lamb's to London, that the two seemed so little to notice each other? It
does seem odd that Scott never refers to the delightful _Specimens of
English Dramatic Poets_. At one time Lamb wrote to Sir Walter asking a
contribution toward a fund that was being raised to help William Godwin
out of pecuniary troubles, and Scott replied, through the artist Haydon,
with a cheque for ten pounds and a pleasant message to Mr. Lamb, "whom I
should be happy to see in Scotland, though I have not forgotten his
metropolitan preference of houses to rocks, and citizens to wild rustics
and highland men."[316] Hazlitt and Hunt were two other writers whose
literary work Scott ignored.[317] This, as well as his neglect of Lamb's
and DeQuincey's essays, may be due largely to the fact that he seldom
read newspapers and magazines, and these writers were journalists and
contributors to periodicals. Voracious reader as Scott was, he had to
economize time somewhere, and the hours saved from papers could be given
to books. We do find one or two references to these men as political
writers. Scott hoped Lockhart would learn, as editor of the _Quarterly_,
to despise petty adversaries, for "to take notice of such men as Hazlitt
and Hunt in the _Quarterly_ would be to introduce them into a world
which is scarce conscious of their existence."[318]

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