FORS CLAVIGERA.

FORS CLAVIGERA.LETTER XLVII.Hotel du Mont Blanc, St. Martin’s,12th October, 1874.We have now briefly glanced at the nature of the squire’s work in relation to the peasant; namely, making a celestial or worshipful appearance to him; and the methods of operation, no less than of appearance, which are generally to be defined as celestial, or worshipful.We have next to examine by what rules the action of the squire towards the peasant is to be either restrained or assisted; and the function, therefore, of the lawyer, or definer of limits and modes,—which was above generally expressed, in its relation to the peasant, as “telling him, in black letter, that his house is his own.” It will be necessary, however, evidently, that his houseshouldbe his own, before any lawyer can divinely assert the same to him.Waiving, for the moment, examination of this primal necessity, let us consider a little how that divine function[244]of asserting, in perfectly intelligible and indelible letters, the absolute claim of a man to his own house, or castle, and all that it properly includes, is actually discharged by the powers of British law now in operation.We will take, if you please, in the outset, a few wise men’s opinions on this matter, though we shall thus be obliged somewhat to generalize the inquiry, by admitting into it some notice of criminal as well as civil law.My readers have probably thought me forgetful of Sir Walter all this time. No; but all writing about him is impossible to me in the impure gloom of modern Italy. I have had to rest awhile here, where human life is still sacred, before I could recover the tone of heart fit to say what I want to say in this Fors.He was the son, you remember, of a writer to the signet, and practised for some time at the bar himself. Have you ever chanced to ask yourself what was his innermost opinion of the legal profession?Or, have you even endeavoured to generalize that expressed with so much greater violence by Dickens? The latter wrote with a definitely reforming purpose, seemingly; and, I have heard, had real effects on Chancery practice.But are the Judges of England—at present I suppose the highest types of intellectual and moral power that Christendom possesses—content to have reform forced on them by the teazing of a caricaturist, instead of the pleading of their own consciences?[245]Even if so, is there no farther reform indicated as necessary, in a lower field, by the same teazing personage? The Court of Chancery and Mr. Vholes were not his only legal sketches. Dodson and Fogg; Sampson Brass; Serjeant Buzfuz; and, most of all, the examiner, for the Crown, of Mr. Swiveller in the trial of Kit,1—are these deserving of no repentant attention? You, good reader, probably have read the trial in Pickwick, and the trial of Kit, merely to amuse yourself; and perhaps Dickens himself meant little more than to amuse you. But did it never strike you as quite other than a matter of amusement, that in both cases, the force of the law of England is represented as employed zealously to prove a crime against a person known by the accusing counsel to be innocent; and, in both cases, as obtaining a conviction?You might perhaps think that these were only examples of the ludicrous, and sometimes tragic, accidents which must sometimes happen in the working of any complex system, however excellent. They are by no means so. Ludicrous, and tragic, mischance must indeed take place in all human affairs of importance, however honestly conducted. But here you have deliberate, artistic, energetic dishonesty; skilfullest and resolutest endeavour to prove a crime against an innocent person,—a crime of which, in the case of the boy, the reputed[246]commission will cost him at least the prosperity and honour of his life,—more to him than life itself. And this you forgive, or admire, because it is not done in malice, but for money, and in pride of art. Because the assassin is paid,—makes his living in that line of business,—and delivers his thrust with a bravo’s artistic finesse you think him a respectable person; so much better in style than a passionate one who does his murder gratis, vulgarly, with a club,—Bill Sykes, for instance? It is all balanced fairly, as the system goes, you think. ‘It works round, and two and two make four. He accused an innocent person to-day:—to-morrow he will defend a rascal.’And you truly hold this a business to which your youth should be bred—gentlemen of England?‘But how is it to be ordered otherwise? Every supposed criminal ought surely to have an advocate, to say what can be said in his favour; and an accuser, to insist on the evidence against him. Both do their best, and can anything be fairer?’Yes; something else could be much fairer; but we will find out what Sir Walter thinks, if we can, before going farther; though it will not be easy—for you don’t at once get at the thoughts of a great man, upon a great matter.The first difference, however, which, if you know your Scott well, strikes you, between him and Dickens, is that your task of investigation is chiefly pleasant,[247]though serious; not a painful one—and still less a jesting or mocking one. The first figure that rises before you is Pleydell; the second, Scott’s own father, Saunders Fairford, with his son. And you think for an instant or two, perhaps, “The question is settled, as far as Scott is concerned, at once. What a beautiful thing is Law!”For you forget, by the sweet emphasis of the divine art on what is good, that there ever was such a person in the world as Mr. Glossin. And you are left, by the grave cunning of the divine art, which reveals to you no secret without your own labour, to discern and unveil for yourself the meaning of the plot of Redgauntlet.You perhaps were dissatisfied enough with the plot, when you read it for amusement. Such a childish fuss about nothing! Solway sands, forsooth, the only scenery; and your young hero of the story frightened to wet his feet; and your old hero doing nothing but ride a black horse, and make himself disagreeable; and all that about the house in Edinburgh so dull; and no love-making, to speak of, anywhere!Well, it doesn’t come in exactly with my subject, to-day;—but, by the way, I beg you to observe that there is a bit of love in Redgauntlet which is worth any quantity of modern French or English amatory novels in a heap. Alan Fairford has been bred, and willingly bred, in the strictest discipline of mind and[248]conduct; he is an entirely strong, entirely prudent, entirely pure young Scotchman,—and a lawyer. Scott, when he wrote the book, was an old Scotchman; and had seen a good deal of the world. And he is going to tell you how Love ought first to come to an entirely strong, entirely prudent, entirely pure youth, of his own grave profession.How loveoughtto come, mind you. Alan Fairford is the real hero (next to Nanty Ewart) of the novel; and he is the exemplary and happy hero—Nanty being the suffering one, under hand of Fate.Of course, you would say, if you didn’t know the book, and were asked what should happen—(and with Miss Edgeworth to manage matters instead of Scott, or Shakespeare, nothing elsewouldhave happened,)—of course the entirely prudent young lawyer will consider what an important step in life marriage is; and will look out for a young person of good connections, whose qualities of mind and moral disposition he will examine strictly before allowing his affections to be engaged; he will then consider what income is necessary for a person in a high legal position, etc., etc., etc.Well, this is whatdoeshappen, according to Scott, you know;—(or more likely, I’m afraid, know nothing about it). The old servant of the family announces, with some dryness of manner, one day, that a ‘leddy’ wants to see Maister Alan Fairford,—for legal consultation. The[249]prudent young gentleman, upon this, puts his room into the most impressive order, intending to make a first appearance reading a legal volume in an abstracted state of mind. But, on a knock coming at the street door, he can’t resist going to look out at the window; and—the servant maliciously showing in the client without announcement—is discovered peeping out of it. The client is closely veiled—little more than the tip of her nose discernible. She is, fortunately, a little embarrassed herself; for she did not want Mr. Alan Fairford at all, but Mr. Alan Fairford’s father. They sit looking at each other—at least, he looking at the veil and a green silk cloak—for half a minute. The young lady—(for sheisyoung; he has made out that, he admits; and something more perhaps,)—is the first to recover her presence of mind; makes him a pretty little apology for having mistaken him for his father; says that, now she has done it, he will answer her purpose, perhaps, even better; but she thinks it best to communicate the points on which she requires his assistance, in writing,—curtsies him, on his endeavour to remonstrate, gravely and inexorably into silence,—disappears,—“And put the sun in her pocket, I believe,” as she turned the corner, says prudent Mr. Alan. And keeps it in her pocket for him,—evermore. That is the way one’s Love is sent, when she is sent from Heaven, says the aged Scott.‘But how ridiculous,—how entirely unreasonable,—how[250]unjustifiable, on any grounds of propriety or common sense!’Certainly, my good sir,—certainly: Shakespeare and Scott can’t help that;—all they know is,—that is the way God and Nature manage it. Of course, Rosalind ought to have been much more particular in her inquiries about Orlando;—Juliet about the person masqued as a pilgrim;—and there is really no excuse whatever for Desdemona’s conduct; and we all know what came of it;—but, again I say, Shakespeare and Scott can’t help that.Nevertheless, Love is not the subject of this novel of Redgauntlet; but Law: on which matter we will endeavour now to gather its evidence.Two youths are brought up together—one, the son of a Cavalier, or Ghibelline, of the old school, whose Law is in the sword, and the heart; and the other of a Roundhead, or Guelph, of the modern school, whose Law is in form and precept. Scott’s own prejudices lean to the Cavalier; but his domestic affections, personal experience, and sense of equity, lead him to give utmost finish to the adverse character. The son of the Cavalier—in moral courage, in nervous power, in general sense and self-command,—is entirely inferior to the son of the Puritan; nay, in many respects quite weak and effeminate; one slight and scarcely noticeable touch, (about the unproved pistol,) gives the true relation of the characters, and makes their portraiture complete, as by Velasquez.[251]The Cavalier’s father is dead; his uncle asserts the Cavalier’s law of the Sword over him: its effects upon him are the first clause of the book.The Puritan’s father—living—asserts the law of Precept over him: its effects upon him are the second clause of the book.Together with these studies of the two laws in their influence on the relation of guardian and ward—or of father and child, their influence on society is examined in the opposition of the soldier and hunter to the friend of man and animals,—Scott putting his whole power into the working out of this third clause of the book.Having given his verdict in these three clauses, wholly in favour of the law of precept,—he has to mark the effects of its misapplication,—first moral, then civil.The story of Nanty Ewart, the fourth clause, is the most instructive and pathetic piece of Scott’s judgment on the abuse of the moral law, by pride, in Scotland, which you can find in all his works.Finally, the effects of the abuse of the civil law by sale, or simony, have to be examined; which is done in the story of Peter Peebles.The involution of this fifth clause with that of Nanty Ewart is one of the subtlest pieces of heraldic quartering which you can find in all the Waverley novels; and no others have any pretence to range with them in this[252]point of art at all. The best, by other masters, are a mere play of kaleidoscope colour compared to the severe heraldic delineation of the Waverleys.We will first examine the statement of the abuse of Civil Law.There is not, if you have any true sympathy with humanity, extant for you a more exquisite study of the relations which must exist, even under circumstances of great difficulty and misunderstanding, between a good father and good son, than the scenes of Redgauntlet laid in Edinburgh. The father’s intense devotion, pride, and joy, mingled with fear, in the son; the son’s direct, unflinching, unaffected obedience, hallowed by pure affection, tempered by youthful sense, guided by high personal power. And all this force of noble passion and effort, in both, is directed to a single object—the son’s success at the bar. That success, as usually in the legal profession, must, if it be not wholly involved, at least give security for itself, in the impression made by the young counsel’s opening speech. All the interests of the reader (if he has any interest in him) are concentrated upon this crisis in the story; and the chapter which gives account of the fluctuating event is one of the supreme masterpieces of European literature.The interests of the reader, I say, are concentrated on the success of the young counsel: that of his client is of no importance whatever to any one. You perhaps[253]forget even who the client is—or recollect him only as a poor drunkard, who must be kept out of the way for fear he should interrupt his own counsel, or make the jury laugh at him. His cause has been—no one knows how long—in the courts; it is good for practising on, by any young hand.You forget Peter Peebles, perhaps: you don’t forget Miss Flite, in the Dickens’ court? Better done, therefore,—Miss Flite,—think you?No; not so well done; or anything like so well done. The very primal condition in Scott’s type of the ruined creature is, that heshouldbe forgotten! Worse;—that he shoulddeserveto be forgotten. Miss Flite interests you—takes your affections—deserves them. Is mad, indeed, but not a destroyed creature, morally, at all. A very sweet, kind creature,—not even altogether unhappy,—enjoying her lawsuit, and her bag, and her papers. She is a picturesque, quite unnatural and unlikely figure,—therefore wholly ineffective except for story-telling purposes.But Peter Peebles is a natural ruin, and a total one. An accurate type of what is to be seen every day, and carried to the last stage of its misery. He is degraded alike in body and heart;—mad, but with every vile sagacity unquenched,—while every hope in earth and heaven is taken away. And in this desolation, you can only hate, not pity him.That, says Scott, is the beautiful operation of the[254]Civil Law of Great Britain, on a man whose affairs it has spent its best intelligence on, for an unknown number of years. His affairs being very obscure, and his cause doubtful, you suppose? No. His affairs being so simple that the younghonestcounsel can explain them entirely in an hour;—and his cause absolutely and unquestionably just.What is Dickens’ entire Court of Chancery to that? With all its dusty delay,—with all its diabolical ensnaring;—its pathetic death of Richard—widowhood of Ada, etc., etc.? All mere blue fire of the stage, and dropped footlights; no real tragedy.—A villain cheats a foolish youth, who would be wiser than his elders, who dies repentant, and immediately begins a new life,—so says, at least, (not the least believing,) the pious Mr. Dickens. All that might happen among the knaves of any profession.But with Scott, the best honour—soul—intellect in Scotland take in hand the cause of a man who comes to them justly, necessarily, for plain, instantly possible, absolutely deserved, decision of a manifest cause.They are endless years talking of it,—to amuse, and pay, themselves.And they drive him into the foulest death—eternal—if there be, for such souls, any Eternity. On which Scott does not feel it his duty, as Dickens does, to offer you an opinion. He tells you, as Shakespeare, the facts he knows,—no more.[255]There, then, you have Sir Walter’s opinion of the existing method and function of British Civil Law.What the difference may be, and what the consequences of such difference, between this lucrative function, and the true duty of Civil Law,—namely, to fulfil and continue in all the world the first mission of the mightiest Lawgiver, and declare that on such and such conditions, written in eternal letters by the finger of God, every man’s house, or piece of Holy land, is his own,—there does not, it appears, exist at present wit enough under all the weight of curled and powdered horsehair in England, either to reflect, or to define.In the meantime, we have to note another question beyond, and greater than this,—answered by Scott in his story.So far as human laws have dealt with the man, this their ruined client has been destroyed in his innocence. But there is yet a Divine Law, controlling the injustice of men.And the historian—revealing to us the full relation of private and public act—shows us that the wretch’s destruction was in his refusal of the laws of God, while he trusted in the laws of man.Such is the entire plan of the story of Redgauntlet,—only in part conscious,—partly guided by the Fors which has rule over the heart of the noble king in his word, and of the noble scribe in his scripture, as[256]over the rivers of water. We will trace the detail of this story farther in next Fors; meantime, here is your own immediate lesson, reader, whoever you may be, from our to-day’s work.The first—not the chief, but the first—piece of good work a man has to do is to find rest for himself,—a place for the sole of his foot; his house, or piece of Holy land; and tomakeit so holy and happy, that if by any chance he receive order to leave it, there may be bitter pain in obedience; and also that to his daughter there may yet one sorrowful sentence be spoken in her day of mirth, “Forget also thy people, and thy father’s house.”‘But I mean to make money, and have a better and better house, every ten years.’Yes, I know you do.If you intend to keep that notion, I have no word more to say to you. Fare you—not well, for you cannot; but as you may.But if you have sense, and feeling, determine what sort of a house will be fit for you;—determine to work for it—to get it—and to die in it, if the Lord will.‘What sort of house will be fit for me?—but of course the biggest and finest I can get will be fittest!’Again, so says the Devil to you: and if you believe him, he will find you fine lodgings enough,—for rent. But if you don’t believe him, consider, I repeat, what sort of house will be fit for you.[257]‘Fit!—but what do you mean by fit?’I mean, one that you can entirely enjoy and manage; but which you will not be proud of, except as you make it charming in its modesty. If you are proud of it, it isunfit for you,—better than a man in your station of life can by simple and sustained exertion obtain; and it should be rather under such quiet level than above. Ashesteil was entirely fit for Walter Scott, and Walter Scott was entirely happy there. Abbotsford was fit also forSirWalter Scott; and had he been content with it, his had been a model life. But he would fain still add field to field,—and died homeless. Perhaps Gadshill was fit for Dickens; I do not know enough of him to judge; and he knew scarcely anything of himself. But the story of the boy on Rochester Hill is lovely.And assuredly, my aunt’s house at Croydon was fit for her; and my father’s at Herne Hill,—in which I correct the press of this Fors, sitting in what was once my nursery,—was exactly fit for him, and me. He left it for the larger one—Denmark Hill; and never had a quite happy day afterwards. It was not his fault, the house at Herne Hill was built on clay, and the doctors said he was not well there; also, I was his pride, and he wanted to leavemein a better house,—a good father’s cruellest, subtlest temptation.Butyouare a poor man, you say, and have no hope of a grand home?[258]Well, here is the simplest ideal of operation, then. You dig a hole, like Robinson Crusoe; you gather sticks for fire, and bake the earth you get out of your hole,—partly into bricks, partly into tiles, partly into pots. If there are any stones in the neighbourhood, you drag them together, and build a defensive dyke round your hole or cave. If there are no stones, but only timber, you drive in a palisade. And you are already exercising the arts of the Greeks, Etruscans, Normans, and Lombards, in their purest form, on the wholesome and true threshold of all their art; and on your own wholesome threshold.You don’t know, you answer, how to make a brick, a tile, or a pot; or how to build a dyke, or drive a stake that will stand. No more do I. Our education has to begin;—mine as much as yours. I have indeed, the newspapers say, a power of expression; but as they also say I cannot think at all, you see I have nothing to express; so that peculiar power, according tothem, is of no use to me whatever.But you don’t want to make your bricks yourself; you want to have them made for you by the United Grand Junction Limited Liability Brick-without-Straw Company, paying twenty-five per cent. to its idle shareholders? Well, what will you do, yourself, then? Nothing? Or do you mean to play on the fiddle to the Company making your bricks? What willyoudo—of this first work necessary for your life? There’s[259]nothing but digging and cooking now remains to be done. Will you dig, or cook? Dig, by all means; but your house should be ready for you first.Your wife should cook. What else canyoudo? Preach?—and give us your precious opinions of God and His ways! Yes, and in the meanwhileIam to build your house, am I? and find you a barrel-organ, or a harmonium, to twangle psalm-tunes on, I suppose? Fight—will you?—and pull other people’s houses down; while I am to be set to build your barracks, that you may go smoking and spitting about all day, with a cockscomb on your head, and spurs to your heels?—(I observe, by the way, the Italian soldiers have now got cocks’tailson their heads, instead of cocks’ combs.)—Lay down the law to me in a wig,—will you? and tell me the house I have built is—NOTmine? and take my dinner from me, as a fee forthatopinion? Build, my man,—build, or dig,—one of the two; and then eat your honestly-earned meat, thankfully, and let other people alone, if you can’t help them.[261]NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.The points suggested by the letter printed in the Fors of September, respecting the minor action of English Magistracy, must still be kept for subsequent consideration, our to-day’s work having been too general to reach them.I have an interesting letter from a man of business, remonstrating with me on my declaration that railroads should no more pay dividends than carriage roads, or field footpaths.He is a gentle man of business, and meshed, as moderately well-meaning people, nowadays, always are, in a web of equivocation between what is profitable and benevolent.He says that people who make railroads should be rewarded by dividends for having acted so benevolently towards the public, and provided it with these beautiful and easy means of locomotion. But my correspondent is too good a man of business to remain in this entanglement of brains—unless by his own fault. He knows perfectly well, in his heart, that the ‘benevolence’ involved in the construction of railways amounts exactly to this much and no more,—that if the British public were informed that engineers were now confident, after their[262]practice in the Cenis and St. Gothard tunnels, that they could make a railway to Hell,—the British public would instantly invest in the concern to any amount; and stop church-building all over the country, for fear of diminishing the dividends.[263]1See the part of examination respecting communication held with the brother of the prisoner.↑

FORS CLAVIGERA.LETTER XLVII.

Hotel du Mont Blanc, St. Martin’s,12th October, 1874.We have now briefly glanced at the nature of the squire’s work in relation to the peasant; namely, making a celestial or worshipful appearance to him; and the methods of operation, no less than of appearance, which are generally to be defined as celestial, or worshipful.We have next to examine by what rules the action of the squire towards the peasant is to be either restrained or assisted; and the function, therefore, of the lawyer, or definer of limits and modes,—which was above generally expressed, in its relation to the peasant, as “telling him, in black letter, that his house is his own.” It will be necessary, however, evidently, that his houseshouldbe his own, before any lawyer can divinely assert the same to him.Waiving, for the moment, examination of this primal necessity, let us consider a little how that divine function[244]of asserting, in perfectly intelligible and indelible letters, the absolute claim of a man to his own house, or castle, and all that it properly includes, is actually discharged by the powers of British law now in operation.We will take, if you please, in the outset, a few wise men’s opinions on this matter, though we shall thus be obliged somewhat to generalize the inquiry, by admitting into it some notice of criminal as well as civil law.My readers have probably thought me forgetful of Sir Walter all this time. No; but all writing about him is impossible to me in the impure gloom of modern Italy. I have had to rest awhile here, where human life is still sacred, before I could recover the tone of heart fit to say what I want to say in this Fors.He was the son, you remember, of a writer to the signet, and practised for some time at the bar himself. Have you ever chanced to ask yourself what was his innermost opinion of the legal profession?Or, have you even endeavoured to generalize that expressed with so much greater violence by Dickens? The latter wrote with a definitely reforming purpose, seemingly; and, I have heard, had real effects on Chancery practice.But are the Judges of England—at present I suppose the highest types of intellectual and moral power that Christendom possesses—content to have reform forced on them by the teazing of a caricaturist, instead of the pleading of their own consciences?[245]Even if so, is there no farther reform indicated as necessary, in a lower field, by the same teazing personage? The Court of Chancery and Mr. Vholes were not his only legal sketches. Dodson and Fogg; Sampson Brass; Serjeant Buzfuz; and, most of all, the examiner, for the Crown, of Mr. Swiveller in the trial of Kit,1—are these deserving of no repentant attention? You, good reader, probably have read the trial in Pickwick, and the trial of Kit, merely to amuse yourself; and perhaps Dickens himself meant little more than to amuse you. But did it never strike you as quite other than a matter of amusement, that in both cases, the force of the law of England is represented as employed zealously to prove a crime against a person known by the accusing counsel to be innocent; and, in both cases, as obtaining a conviction?You might perhaps think that these were only examples of the ludicrous, and sometimes tragic, accidents which must sometimes happen in the working of any complex system, however excellent. They are by no means so. Ludicrous, and tragic, mischance must indeed take place in all human affairs of importance, however honestly conducted. But here you have deliberate, artistic, energetic dishonesty; skilfullest and resolutest endeavour to prove a crime against an innocent person,—a crime of which, in the case of the boy, the reputed[246]commission will cost him at least the prosperity and honour of his life,—more to him than life itself. And this you forgive, or admire, because it is not done in malice, but for money, and in pride of art. Because the assassin is paid,—makes his living in that line of business,—and delivers his thrust with a bravo’s artistic finesse you think him a respectable person; so much better in style than a passionate one who does his murder gratis, vulgarly, with a club,—Bill Sykes, for instance? It is all balanced fairly, as the system goes, you think. ‘It works round, and two and two make four. He accused an innocent person to-day:—to-morrow he will defend a rascal.’And you truly hold this a business to which your youth should be bred—gentlemen of England?‘But how is it to be ordered otherwise? Every supposed criminal ought surely to have an advocate, to say what can be said in his favour; and an accuser, to insist on the evidence against him. Both do their best, and can anything be fairer?’Yes; something else could be much fairer; but we will find out what Sir Walter thinks, if we can, before going farther; though it will not be easy—for you don’t at once get at the thoughts of a great man, upon a great matter.The first difference, however, which, if you know your Scott well, strikes you, between him and Dickens, is that your task of investigation is chiefly pleasant,[247]though serious; not a painful one—and still less a jesting or mocking one. The first figure that rises before you is Pleydell; the second, Scott’s own father, Saunders Fairford, with his son. And you think for an instant or two, perhaps, “The question is settled, as far as Scott is concerned, at once. What a beautiful thing is Law!”For you forget, by the sweet emphasis of the divine art on what is good, that there ever was such a person in the world as Mr. Glossin. And you are left, by the grave cunning of the divine art, which reveals to you no secret without your own labour, to discern and unveil for yourself the meaning of the plot of Redgauntlet.You perhaps were dissatisfied enough with the plot, when you read it for amusement. Such a childish fuss about nothing! Solway sands, forsooth, the only scenery; and your young hero of the story frightened to wet his feet; and your old hero doing nothing but ride a black horse, and make himself disagreeable; and all that about the house in Edinburgh so dull; and no love-making, to speak of, anywhere!Well, it doesn’t come in exactly with my subject, to-day;—but, by the way, I beg you to observe that there is a bit of love in Redgauntlet which is worth any quantity of modern French or English amatory novels in a heap. Alan Fairford has been bred, and willingly bred, in the strictest discipline of mind and[248]conduct; he is an entirely strong, entirely prudent, entirely pure young Scotchman,—and a lawyer. Scott, when he wrote the book, was an old Scotchman; and had seen a good deal of the world. And he is going to tell you how Love ought first to come to an entirely strong, entirely prudent, entirely pure youth, of his own grave profession.How loveoughtto come, mind you. Alan Fairford is the real hero (next to Nanty Ewart) of the novel; and he is the exemplary and happy hero—Nanty being the suffering one, under hand of Fate.Of course, you would say, if you didn’t know the book, and were asked what should happen—(and with Miss Edgeworth to manage matters instead of Scott, or Shakespeare, nothing elsewouldhave happened,)—of course the entirely prudent young lawyer will consider what an important step in life marriage is; and will look out for a young person of good connections, whose qualities of mind and moral disposition he will examine strictly before allowing his affections to be engaged; he will then consider what income is necessary for a person in a high legal position, etc., etc., etc.Well, this is whatdoeshappen, according to Scott, you know;—(or more likely, I’m afraid, know nothing about it). The old servant of the family announces, with some dryness of manner, one day, that a ‘leddy’ wants to see Maister Alan Fairford,—for legal consultation. The[249]prudent young gentleman, upon this, puts his room into the most impressive order, intending to make a first appearance reading a legal volume in an abstracted state of mind. But, on a knock coming at the street door, he can’t resist going to look out at the window; and—the servant maliciously showing in the client without announcement—is discovered peeping out of it. The client is closely veiled—little more than the tip of her nose discernible. She is, fortunately, a little embarrassed herself; for she did not want Mr. Alan Fairford at all, but Mr. Alan Fairford’s father. They sit looking at each other—at least, he looking at the veil and a green silk cloak—for half a minute. The young lady—(for sheisyoung; he has made out that, he admits; and something more perhaps,)—is the first to recover her presence of mind; makes him a pretty little apology for having mistaken him for his father; says that, now she has done it, he will answer her purpose, perhaps, even better; but she thinks it best to communicate the points on which she requires his assistance, in writing,—curtsies him, on his endeavour to remonstrate, gravely and inexorably into silence,—disappears,—“And put the sun in her pocket, I believe,” as she turned the corner, says prudent Mr. Alan. And keeps it in her pocket for him,—evermore. That is the way one’s Love is sent, when she is sent from Heaven, says the aged Scott.‘But how ridiculous,—how entirely unreasonable,—how[250]unjustifiable, on any grounds of propriety or common sense!’Certainly, my good sir,—certainly: Shakespeare and Scott can’t help that;—all they know is,—that is the way God and Nature manage it. Of course, Rosalind ought to have been much more particular in her inquiries about Orlando;—Juliet about the person masqued as a pilgrim;—and there is really no excuse whatever for Desdemona’s conduct; and we all know what came of it;—but, again I say, Shakespeare and Scott can’t help that.Nevertheless, Love is not the subject of this novel of Redgauntlet; but Law: on which matter we will endeavour now to gather its evidence.Two youths are brought up together—one, the son of a Cavalier, or Ghibelline, of the old school, whose Law is in the sword, and the heart; and the other of a Roundhead, or Guelph, of the modern school, whose Law is in form and precept. Scott’s own prejudices lean to the Cavalier; but his domestic affections, personal experience, and sense of equity, lead him to give utmost finish to the adverse character. The son of the Cavalier—in moral courage, in nervous power, in general sense and self-command,—is entirely inferior to the son of the Puritan; nay, in many respects quite weak and effeminate; one slight and scarcely noticeable touch, (about the unproved pistol,) gives the true relation of the characters, and makes their portraiture complete, as by Velasquez.[251]The Cavalier’s father is dead; his uncle asserts the Cavalier’s law of the Sword over him: its effects upon him are the first clause of the book.The Puritan’s father—living—asserts the law of Precept over him: its effects upon him are the second clause of the book.Together with these studies of the two laws in their influence on the relation of guardian and ward—or of father and child, their influence on society is examined in the opposition of the soldier and hunter to the friend of man and animals,—Scott putting his whole power into the working out of this third clause of the book.Having given his verdict in these three clauses, wholly in favour of the law of precept,—he has to mark the effects of its misapplication,—first moral, then civil.The story of Nanty Ewart, the fourth clause, is the most instructive and pathetic piece of Scott’s judgment on the abuse of the moral law, by pride, in Scotland, which you can find in all his works.Finally, the effects of the abuse of the civil law by sale, or simony, have to be examined; which is done in the story of Peter Peebles.The involution of this fifth clause with that of Nanty Ewart is one of the subtlest pieces of heraldic quartering which you can find in all the Waverley novels; and no others have any pretence to range with them in this[252]point of art at all. The best, by other masters, are a mere play of kaleidoscope colour compared to the severe heraldic delineation of the Waverleys.We will first examine the statement of the abuse of Civil Law.There is not, if you have any true sympathy with humanity, extant for you a more exquisite study of the relations which must exist, even under circumstances of great difficulty and misunderstanding, between a good father and good son, than the scenes of Redgauntlet laid in Edinburgh. The father’s intense devotion, pride, and joy, mingled with fear, in the son; the son’s direct, unflinching, unaffected obedience, hallowed by pure affection, tempered by youthful sense, guided by high personal power. And all this force of noble passion and effort, in both, is directed to a single object—the son’s success at the bar. That success, as usually in the legal profession, must, if it be not wholly involved, at least give security for itself, in the impression made by the young counsel’s opening speech. All the interests of the reader (if he has any interest in him) are concentrated upon this crisis in the story; and the chapter which gives account of the fluctuating event is one of the supreme masterpieces of European literature.The interests of the reader, I say, are concentrated on the success of the young counsel: that of his client is of no importance whatever to any one. You perhaps[253]forget even who the client is—or recollect him only as a poor drunkard, who must be kept out of the way for fear he should interrupt his own counsel, or make the jury laugh at him. His cause has been—no one knows how long—in the courts; it is good for practising on, by any young hand.You forget Peter Peebles, perhaps: you don’t forget Miss Flite, in the Dickens’ court? Better done, therefore,—Miss Flite,—think you?No; not so well done; or anything like so well done. The very primal condition in Scott’s type of the ruined creature is, that heshouldbe forgotten! Worse;—that he shoulddeserveto be forgotten. Miss Flite interests you—takes your affections—deserves them. Is mad, indeed, but not a destroyed creature, morally, at all. A very sweet, kind creature,—not even altogether unhappy,—enjoying her lawsuit, and her bag, and her papers. She is a picturesque, quite unnatural and unlikely figure,—therefore wholly ineffective except for story-telling purposes.But Peter Peebles is a natural ruin, and a total one. An accurate type of what is to be seen every day, and carried to the last stage of its misery. He is degraded alike in body and heart;—mad, but with every vile sagacity unquenched,—while every hope in earth and heaven is taken away. And in this desolation, you can only hate, not pity him.That, says Scott, is the beautiful operation of the[254]Civil Law of Great Britain, on a man whose affairs it has spent its best intelligence on, for an unknown number of years. His affairs being very obscure, and his cause doubtful, you suppose? No. His affairs being so simple that the younghonestcounsel can explain them entirely in an hour;—and his cause absolutely and unquestionably just.What is Dickens’ entire Court of Chancery to that? With all its dusty delay,—with all its diabolical ensnaring;—its pathetic death of Richard—widowhood of Ada, etc., etc.? All mere blue fire of the stage, and dropped footlights; no real tragedy.—A villain cheats a foolish youth, who would be wiser than his elders, who dies repentant, and immediately begins a new life,—so says, at least, (not the least believing,) the pious Mr. Dickens. All that might happen among the knaves of any profession.But with Scott, the best honour—soul—intellect in Scotland take in hand the cause of a man who comes to them justly, necessarily, for plain, instantly possible, absolutely deserved, decision of a manifest cause.They are endless years talking of it,—to amuse, and pay, themselves.And they drive him into the foulest death—eternal—if there be, for such souls, any Eternity. On which Scott does not feel it his duty, as Dickens does, to offer you an opinion. He tells you, as Shakespeare, the facts he knows,—no more.[255]There, then, you have Sir Walter’s opinion of the existing method and function of British Civil Law.What the difference may be, and what the consequences of such difference, between this lucrative function, and the true duty of Civil Law,—namely, to fulfil and continue in all the world the first mission of the mightiest Lawgiver, and declare that on such and such conditions, written in eternal letters by the finger of God, every man’s house, or piece of Holy land, is his own,—there does not, it appears, exist at present wit enough under all the weight of curled and powdered horsehair in England, either to reflect, or to define.In the meantime, we have to note another question beyond, and greater than this,—answered by Scott in his story.So far as human laws have dealt with the man, this their ruined client has been destroyed in his innocence. But there is yet a Divine Law, controlling the injustice of men.And the historian—revealing to us the full relation of private and public act—shows us that the wretch’s destruction was in his refusal of the laws of God, while he trusted in the laws of man.Such is the entire plan of the story of Redgauntlet,—only in part conscious,—partly guided by the Fors which has rule over the heart of the noble king in his word, and of the noble scribe in his scripture, as[256]over the rivers of water. We will trace the detail of this story farther in next Fors; meantime, here is your own immediate lesson, reader, whoever you may be, from our to-day’s work.The first—not the chief, but the first—piece of good work a man has to do is to find rest for himself,—a place for the sole of his foot; his house, or piece of Holy land; and tomakeit so holy and happy, that if by any chance he receive order to leave it, there may be bitter pain in obedience; and also that to his daughter there may yet one sorrowful sentence be spoken in her day of mirth, “Forget also thy people, and thy father’s house.”‘But I mean to make money, and have a better and better house, every ten years.’Yes, I know you do.If you intend to keep that notion, I have no word more to say to you. Fare you—not well, for you cannot; but as you may.But if you have sense, and feeling, determine what sort of a house will be fit for you;—determine to work for it—to get it—and to die in it, if the Lord will.‘What sort of house will be fit for me?—but of course the biggest and finest I can get will be fittest!’Again, so says the Devil to you: and if you believe him, he will find you fine lodgings enough,—for rent. But if you don’t believe him, consider, I repeat, what sort of house will be fit for you.[257]‘Fit!—but what do you mean by fit?’I mean, one that you can entirely enjoy and manage; but which you will not be proud of, except as you make it charming in its modesty. If you are proud of it, it isunfit for you,—better than a man in your station of life can by simple and sustained exertion obtain; and it should be rather under such quiet level than above. Ashesteil was entirely fit for Walter Scott, and Walter Scott was entirely happy there. Abbotsford was fit also forSirWalter Scott; and had he been content with it, his had been a model life. But he would fain still add field to field,—and died homeless. Perhaps Gadshill was fit for Dickens; I do not know enough of him to judge; and he knew scarcely anything of himself. But the story of the boy on Rochester Hill is lovely.And assuredly, my aunt’s house at Croydon was fit for her; and my father’s at Herne Hill,—in which I correct the press of this Fors, sitting in what was once my nursery,—was exactly fit for him, and me. He left it for the larger one—Denmark Hill; and never had a quite happy day afterwards. It was not his fault, the house at Herne Hill was built on clay, and the doctors said he was not well there; also, I was his pride, and he wanted to leavemein a better house,—a good father’s cruellest, subtlest temptation.Butyouare a poor man, you say, and have no hope of a grand home?[258]Well, here is the simplest ideal of operation, then. You dig a hole, like Robinson Crusoe; you gather sticks for fire, and bake the earth you get out of your hole,—partly into bricks, partly into tiles, partly into pots. If there are any stones in the neighbourhood, you drag them together, and build a defensive dyke round your hole or cave. If there are no stones, but only timber, you drive in a palisade. And you are already exercising the arts of the Greeks, Etruscans, Normans, and Lombards, in their purest form, on the wholesome and true threshold of all their art; and on your own wholesome threshold.You don’t know, you answer, how to make a brick, a tile, or a pot; or how to build a dyke, or drive a stake that will stand. No more do I. Our education has to begin;—mine as much as yours. I have indeed, the newspapers say, a power of expression; but as they also say I cannot think at all, you see I have nothing to express; so that peculiar power, according tothem, is of no use to me whatever.But you don’t want to make your bricks yourself; you want to have them made for you by the United Grand Junction Limited Liability Brick-without-Straw Company, paying twenty-five per cent. to its idle shareholders? Well, what will you do, yourself, then? Nothing? Or do you mean to play on the fiddle to the Company making your bricks? What willyoudo—of this first work necessary for your life? There’s[259]nothing but digging and cooking now remains to be done. Will you dig, or cook? Dig, by all means; but your house should be ready for you first.Your wife should cook. What else canyoudo? Preach?—and give us your precious opinions of God and His ways! Yes, and in the meanwhileIam to build your house, am I? and find you a barrel-organ, or a harmonium, to twangle psalm-tunes on, I suppose? Fight—will you?—and pull other people’s houses down; while I am to be set to build your barracks, that you may go smoking and spitting about all day, with a cockscomb on your head, and spurs to your heels?—(I observe, by the way, the Italian soldiers have now got cocks’tailson their heads, instead of cocks’ combs.)—Lay down the law to me in a wig,—will you? and tell me the house I have built is—NOTmine? and take my dinner from me, as a fee forthatopinion? Build, my man,—build, or dig,—one of the two; and then eat your honestly-earned meat, thankfully, and let other people alone, if you can’t help them.[261]NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.The points suggested by the letter printed in the Fors of September, respecting the minor action of English Magistracy, must still be kept for subsequent consideration, our to-day’s work having been too general to reach them.I have an interesting letter from a man of business, remonstrating with me on my declaration that railroads should no more pay dividends than carriage roads, or field footpaths.He is a gentle man of business, and meshed, as moderately well-meaning people, nowadays, always are, in a web of equivocation between what is profitable and benevolent.He says that people who make railroads should be rewarded by dividends for having acted so benevolently towards the public, and provided it with these beautiful and easy means of locomotion. But my correspondent is too good a man of business to remain in this entanglement of brains—unless by his own fault. He knows perfectly well, in his heart, that the ‘benevolence’ involved in the construction of railways amounts exactly to this much and no more,—that if the British public were informed that engineers were now confident, after their[262]practice in the Cenis and St. Gothard tunnels, that they could make a railway to Hell,—the British public would instantly invest in the concern to any amount; and stop church-building all over the country, for fear of diminishing the dividends.[263]

Hotel du Mont Blanc, St. Martin’s,12th October, 1874.

We have now briefly glanced at the nature of the squire’s work in relation to the peasant; namely, making a celestial or worshipful appearance to him; and the methods of operation, no less than of appearance, which are generally to be defined as celestial, or worshipful.

We have next to examine by what rules the action of the squire towards the peasant is to be either restrained or assisted; and the function, therefore, of the lawyer, or definer of limits and modes,—which was above generally expressed, in its relation to the peasant, as “telling him, in black letter, that his house is his own.” It will be necessary, however, evidently, that his houseshouldbe his own, before any lawyer can divinely assert the same to him.

Waiving, for the moment, examination of this primal necessity, let us consider a little how that divine function[244]of asserting, in perfectly intelligible and indelible letters, the absolute claim of a man to his own house, or castle, and all that it properly includes, is actually discharged by the powers of British law now in operation.

We will take, if you please, in the outset, a few wise men’s opinions on this matter, though we shall thus be obliged somewhat to generalize the inquiry, by admitting into it some notice of criminal as well as civil law.

My readers have probably thought me forgetful of Sir Walter all this time. No; but all writing about him is impossible to me in the impure gloom of modern Italy. I have had to rest awhile here, where human life is still sacred, before I could recover the tone of heart fit to say what I want to say in this Fors.

He was the son, you remember, of a writer to the signet, and practised for some time at the bar himself. Have you ever chanced to ask yourself what was his innermost opinion of the legal profession?

Or, have you even endeavoured to generalize that expressed with so much greater violence by Dickens? The latter wrote with a definitely reforming purpose, seemingly; and, I have heard, had real effects on Chancery practice.

But are the Judges of England—at present I suppose the highest types of intellectual and moral power that Christendom possesses—content to have reform forced on them by the teazing of a caricaturist, instead of the pleading of their own consciences?[245]

Even if so, is there no farther reform indicated as necessary, in a lower field, by the same teazing personage? The Court of Chancery and Mr. Vholes were not his only legal sketches. Dodson and Fogg; Sampson Brass; Serjeant Buzfuz; and, most of all, the examiner, for the Crown, of Mr. Swiveller in the trial of Kit,1—are these deserving of no repentant attention? You, good reader, probably have read the trial in Pickwick, and the trial of Kit, merely to amuse yourself; and perhaps Dickens himself meant little more than to amuse you. But did it never strike you as quite other than a matter of amusement, that in both cases, the force of the law of England is represented as employed zealously to prove a crime against a person known by the accusing counsel to be innocent; and, in both cases, as obtaining a conviction?

You might perhaps think that these were only examples of the ludicrous, and sometimes tragic, accidents which must sometimes happen in the working of any complex system, however excellent. They are by no means so. Ludicrous, and tragic, mischance must indeed take place in all human affairs of importance, however honestly conducted. But here you have deliberate, artistic, energetic dishonesty; skilfullest and resolutest endeavour to prove a crime against an innocent person,—a crime of which, in the case of the boy, the reputed[246]commission will cost him at least the prosperity and honour of his life,—more to him than life itself. And this you forgive, or admire, because it is not done in malice, but for money, and in pride of art. Because the assassin is paid,—makes his living in that line of business,—and delivers his thrust with a bravo’s artistic finesse you think him a respectable person; so much better in style than a passionate one who does his murder gratis, vulgarly, with a club,—Bill Sykes, for instance? It is all balanced fairly, as the system goes, you think. ‘It works round, and two and two make four. He accused an innocent person to-day:—to-morrow he will defend a rascal.’

And you truly hold this a business to which your youth should be bred—gentlemen of England?

‘But how is it to be ordered otherwise? Every supposed criminal ought surely to have an advocate, to say what can be said in his favour; and an accuser, to insist on the evidence against him. Both do their best, and can anything be fairer?’

Yes; something else could be much fairer; but we will find out what Sir Walter thinks, if we can, before going farther; though it will not be easy—for you don’t at once get at the thoughts of a great man, upon a great matter.

The first difference, however, which, if you know your Scott well, strikes you, between him and Dickens, is that your task of investigation is chiefly pleasant,[247]though serious; not a painful one—and still less a jesting or mocking one. The first figure that rises before you is Pleydell; the second, Scott’s own father, Saunders Fairford, with his son. And you think for an instant or two, perhaps, “The question is settled, as far as Scott is concerned, at once. What a beautiful thing is Law!”

For you forget, by the sweet emphasis of the divine art on what is good, that there ever was such a person in the world as Mr. Glossin. And you are left, by the grave cunning of the divine art, which reveals to you no secret without your own labour, to discern and unveil for yourself the meaning of the plot of Redgauntlet.

You perhaps were dissatisfied enough with the plot, when you read it for amusement. Such a childish fuss about nothing! Solway sands, forsooth, the only scenery; and your young hero of the story frightened to wet his feet; and your old hero doing nothing but ride a black horse, and make himself disagreeable; and all that about the house in Edinburgh so dull; and no love-making, to speak of, anywhere!

Well, it doesn’t come in exactly with my subject, to-day;—but, by the way, I beg you to observe that there is a bit of love in Redgauntlet which is worth any quantity of modern French or English amatory novels in a heap. Alan Fairford has been bred, and willingly bred, in the strictest discipline of mind and[248]conduct; he is an entirely strong, entirely prudent, entirely pure young Scotchman,—and a lawyer. Scott, when he wrote the book, was an old Scotchman; and had seen a good deal of the world. And he is going to tell you how Love ought first to come to an entirely strong, entirely prudent, entirely pure youth, of his own grave profession.

How loveoughtto come, mind you. Alan Fairford is the real hero (next to Nanty Ewart) of the novel; and he is the exemplary and happy hero—Nanty being the suffering one, under hand of Fate.

Of course, you would say, if you didn’t know the book, and were asked what should happen—(and with Miss Edgeworth to manage matters instead of Scott, or Shakespeare, nothing elsewouldhave happened,)—of course the entirely prudent young lawyer will consider what an important step in life marriage is; and will look out for a young person of good connections, whose qualities of mind and moral disposition he will examine strictly before allowing his affections to be engaged; he will then consider what income is necessary for a person in a high legal position, etc., etc., etc.

Well, this is whatdoeshappen, according to Scott, you know;—(or more likely, I’m afraid, know nothing about it). The old servant of the family announces, with some dryness of manner, one day, that a ‘leddy’ wants to see Maister Alan Fairford,—for legal consultation. The[249]prudent young gentleman, upon this, puts his room into the most impressive order, intending to make a first appearance reading a legal volume in an abstracted state of mind. But, on a knock coming at the street door, he can’t resist going to look out at the window; and—the servant maliciously showing in the client without announcement—is discovered peeping out of it. The client is closely veiled—little more than the tip of her nose discernible. She is, fortunately, a little embarrassed herself; for she did not want Mr. Alan Fairford at all, but Mr. Alan Fairford’s father. They sit looking at each other—at least, he looking at the veil and a green silk cloak—for half a minute. The young lady—(for sheisyoung; he has made out that, he admits; and something more perhaps,)—is the first to recover her presence of mind; makes him a pretty little apology for having mistaken him for his father; says that, now she has done it, he will answer her purpose, perhaps, even better; but she thinks it best to communicate the points on which she requires his assistance, in writing,—curtsies him, on his endeavour to remonstrate, gravely and inexorably into silence,—disappears,—“And put the sun in her pocket, I believe,” as she turned the corner, says prudent Mr. Alan. And keeps it in her pocket for him,—evermore. That is the way one’s Love is sent, when she is sent from Heaven, says the aged Scott.

‘But how ridiculous,—how entirely unreasonable,—how[250]unjustifiable, on any grounds of propriety or common sense!’

Certainly, my good sir,—certainly: Shakespeare and Scott can’t help that;—all they know is,—that is the way God and Nature manage it. Of course, Rosalind ought to have been much more particular in her inquiries about Orlando;—Juliet about the person masqued as a pilgrim;—and there is really no excuse whatever for Desdemona’s conduct; and we all know what came of it;—but, again I say, Shakespeare and Scott can’t help that.

Nevertheless, Love is not the subject of this novel of Redgauntlet; but Law: on which matter we will endeavour now to gather its evidence.

Two youths are brought up together—one, the son of a Cavalier, or Ghibelline, of the old school, whose Law is in the sword, and the heart; and the other of a Roundhead, or Guelph, of the modern school, whose Law is in form and precept. Scott’s own prejudices lean to the Cavalier; but his domestic affections, personal experience, and sense of equity, lead him to give utmost finish to the adverse character. The son of the Cavalier—in moral courage, in nervous power, in general sense and self-command,—is entirely inferior to the son of the Puritan; nay, in many respects quite weak and effeminate; one slight and scarcely noticeable touch, (about the unproved pistol,) gives the true relation of the characters, and makes their portraiture complete, as by Velasquez.[251]

The Cavalier’s father is dead; his uncle asserts the Cavalier’s law of the Sword over him: its effects upon him are the first clause of the book.

The Puritan’s father—living—asserts the law of Precept over him: its effects upon him are the second clause of the book.

Together with these studies of the two laws in their influence on the relation of guardian and ward—or of father and child, their influence on society is examined in the opposition of the soldier and hunter to the friend of man and animals,—Scott putting his whole power into the working out of this third clause of the book.

Having given his verdict in these three clauses, wholly in favour of the law of precept,—he has to mark the effects of its misapplication,—first moral, then civil.

The story of Nanty Ewart, the fourth clause, is the most instructive and pathetic piece of Scott’s judgment on the abuse of the moral law, by pride, in Scotland, which you can find in all his works.

Finally, the effects of the abuse of the civil law by sale, or simony, have to be examined; which is done in the story of Peter Peebles.

The involution of this fifth clause with that of Nanty Ewart is one of the subtlest pieces of heraldic quartering which you can find in all the Waverley novels; and no others have any pretence to range with them in this[252]point of art at all. The best, by other masters, are a mere play of kaleidoscope colour compared to the severe heraldic delineation of the Waverleys.

We will first examine the statement of the abuse of Civil Law.

There is not, if you have any true sympathy with humanity, extant for you a more exquisite study of the relations which must exist, even under circumstances of great difficulty and misunderstanding, between a good father and good son, than the scenes of Redgauntlet laid in Edinburgh. The father’s intense devotion, pride, and joy, mingled with fear, in the son; the son’s direct, unflinching, unaffected obedience, hallowed by pure affection, tempered by youthful sense, guided by high personal power. And all this force of noble passion and effort, in both, is directed to a single object—the son’s success at the bar. That success, as usually in the legal profession, must, if it be not wholly involved, at least give security for itself, in the impression made by the young counsel’s opening speech. All the interests of the reader (if he has any interest in him) are concentrated upon this crisis in the story; and the chapter which gives account of the fluctuating event is one of the supreme masterpieces of European literature.

The interests of the reader, I say, are concentrated on the success of the young counsel: that of his client is of no importance whatever to any one. You perhaps[253]forget even who the client is—or recollect him only as a poor drunkard, who must be kept out of the way for fear he should interrupt his own counsel, or make the jury laugh at him. His cause has been—no one knows how long—in the courts; it is good for practising on, by any young hand.

You forget Peter Peebles, perhaps: you don’t forget Miss Flite, in the Dickens’ court? Better done, therefore,—Miss Flite,—think you?

No; not so well done; or anything like so well done. The very primal condition in Scott’s type of the ruined creature is, that heshouldbe forgotten! Worse;—that he shoulddeserveto be forgotten. Miss Flite interests you—takes your affections—deserves them. Is mad, indeed, but not a destroyed creature, morally, at all. A very sweet, kind creature,—not even altogether unhappy,—enjoying her lawsuit, and her bag, and her papers. She is a picturesque, quite unnatural and unlikely figure,—therefore wholly ineffective except for story-telling purposes.

But Peter Peebles is a natural ruin, and a total one. An accurate type of what is to be seen every day, and carried to the last stage of its misery. He is degraded alike in body and heart;—mad, but with every vile sagacity unquenched,—while every hope in earth and heaven is taken away. And in this desolation, you can only hate, not pity him.

That, says Scott, is the beautiful operation of the[254]Civil Law of Great Britain, on a man whose affairs it has spent its best intelligence on, for an unknown number of years. His affairs being very obscure, and his cause doubtful, you suppose? No. His affairs being so simple that the younghonestcounsel can explain them entirely in an hour;—and his cause absolutely and unquestionably just.

What is Dickens’ entire Court of Chancery to that? With all its dusty delay,—with all its diabolical ensnaring;—its pathetic death of Richard—widowhood of Ada, etc., etc.? All mere blue fire of the stage, and dropped footlights; no real tragedy.—A villain cheats a foolish youth, who would be wiser than his elders, who dies repentant, and immediately begins a new life,—so says, at least, (not the least believing,) the pious Mr. Dickens. All that might happen among the knaves of any profession.

But with Scott, the best honour—soul—intellect in Scotland take in hand the cause of a man who comes to them justly, necessarily, for plain, instantly possible, absolutely deserved, decision of a manifest cause.

They are endless years talking of it,—to amuse, and pay, themselves.

And they drive him into the foulest death—eternal—if there be, for such souls, any Eternity. On which Scott does not feel it his duty, as Dickens does, to offer you an opinion. He tells you, as Shakespeare, the facts he knows,—no more.[255]

There, then, you have Sir Walter’s opinion of the existing method and function of British Civil Law.

What the difference may be, and what the consequences of such difference, between this lucrative function, and the true duty of Civil Law,—namely, to fulfil and continue in all the world the first mission of the mightiest Lawgiver, and declare that on such and such conditions, written in eternal letters by the finger of God, every man’s house, or piece of Holy land, is his own,—there does not, it appears, exist at present wit enough under all the weight of curled and powdered horsehair in England, either to reflect, or to define.

In the meantime, we have to note another question beyond, and greater than this,—answered by Scott in his story.

So far as human laws have dealt with the man, this their ruined client has been destroyed in his innocence. But there is yet a Divine Law, controlling the injustice of men.

And the historian—revealing to us the full relation of private and public act—shows us that the wretch’s destruction was in his refusal of the laws of God, while he trusted in the laws of man.

Such is the entire plan of the story of Redgauntlet,—only in part conscious,—partly guided by the Fors which has rule over the heart of the noble king in his word, and of the noble scribe in his scripture, as[256]over the rivers of water. We will trace the detail of this story farther in next Fors; meantime, here is your own immediate lesson, reader, whoever you may be, from our to-day’s work.

The first—not the chief, but the first—piece of good work a man has to do is to find rest for himself,—a place for the sole of his foot; his house, or piece of Holy land; and tomakeit so holy and happy, that if by any chance he receive order to leave it, there may be bitter pain in obedience; and also that to his daughter there may yet one sorrowful sentence be spoken in her day of mirth, “Forget also thy people, and thy father’s house.”

‘But I mean to make money, and have a better and better house, every ten years.’

Yes, I know you do.

If you intend to keep that notion, I have no word more to say to you. Fare you—not well, for you cannot; but as you may.

But if you have sense, and feeling, determine what sort of a house will be fit for you;—determine to work for it—to get it—and to die in it, if the Lord will.

‘What sort of house will be fit for me?—but of course the biggest and finest I can get will be fittest!’

Again, so says the Devil to you: and if you believe him, he will find you fine lodgings enough,—for rent. But if you don’t believe him, consider, I repeat, what sort of house will be fit for you.[257]

‘Fit!—but what do you mean by fit?’

I mean, one that you can entirely enjoy and manage; but which you will not be proud of, except as you make it charming in its modesty. If you are proud of it, it isunfit for you,—better than a man in your station of life can by simple and sustained exertion obtain; and it should be rather under such quiet level than above. Ashesteil was entirely fit for Walter Scott, and Walter Scott was entirely happy there. Abbotsford was fit also forSirWalter Scott; and had he been content with it, his had been a model life. But he would fain still add field to field,—and died homeless. Perhaps Gadshill was fit for Dickens; I do not know enough of him to judge; and he knew scarcely anything of himself. But the story of the boy on Rochester Hill is lovely.

And assuredly, my aunt’s house at Croydon was fit for her; and my father’s at Herne Hill,—in which I correct the press of this Fors, sitting in what was once my nursery,—was exactly fit for him, and me. He left it for the larger one—Denmark Hill; and never had a quite happy day afterwards. It was not his fault, the house at Herne Hill was built on clay, and the doctors said he was not well there; also, I was his pride, and he wanted to leavemein a better house,—a good father’s cruellest, subtlest temptation.

Butyouare a poor man, you say, and have no hope of a grand home?[258]

Well, here is the simplest ideal of operation, then. You dig a hole, like Robinson Crusoe; you gather sticks for fire, and bake the earth you get out of your hole,—partly into bricks, partly into tiles, partly into pots. If there are any stones in the neighbourhood, you drag them together, and build a defensive dyke round your hole or cave. If there are no stones, but only timber, you drive in a palisade. And you are already exercising the arts of the Greeks, Etruscans, Normans, and Lombards, in their purest form, on the wholesome and true threshold of all their art; and on your own wholesome threshold.

You don’t know, you answer, how to make a brick, a tile, or a pot; or how to build a dyke, or drive a stake that will stand. No more do I. Our education has to begin;—mine as much as yours. I have indeed, the newspapers say, a power of expression; but as they also say I cannot think at all, you see I have nothing to express; so that peculiar power, according tothem, is of no use to me whatever.

But you don’t want to make your bricks yourself; you want to have them made for you by the United Grand Junction Limited Liability Brick-without-Straw Company, paying twenty-five per cent. to its idle shareholders? Well, what will you do, yourself, then? Nothing? Or do you mean to play on the fiddle to the Company making your bricks? What willyoudo—of this first work necessary for your life? There’s[259]nothing but digging and cooking now remains to be done. Will you dig, or cook? Dig, by all means; but your house should be ready for you first.

Your wife should cook. What else canyoudo? Preach?—and give us your precious opinions of God and His ways! Yes, and in the meanwhileIam to build your house, am I? and find you a barrel-organ, or a harmonium, to twangle psalm-tunes on, I suppose? Fight—will you?—and pull other people’s houses down; while I am to be set to build your barracks, that you may go smoking and spitting about all day, with a cockscomb on your head, and spurs to your heels?—(I observe, by the way, the Italian soldiers have now got cocks’tailson their heads, instead of cocks’ combs.)—Lay down the law to me in a wig,—will you? and tell me the house I have built is—NOTmine? and take my dinner from me, as a fee forthatopinion? Build, my man,—build, or dig,—one of the two; and then eat your honestly-earned meat, thankfully, and let other people alone, if you can’t help them.[261]

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.The points suggested by the letter printed in the Fors of September, respecting the minor action of English Magistracy, must still be kept for subsequent consideration, our to-day’s work having been too general to reach them.I have an interesting letter from a man of business, remonstrating with me on my declaration that railroads should no more pay dividends than carriage roads, or field footpaths.He is a gentle man of business, and meshed, as moderately well-meaning people, nowadays, always are, in a web of equivocation between what is profitable and benevolent.He says that people who make railroads should be rewarded by dividends for having acted so benevolently towards the public, and provided it with these beautiful and easy means of locomotion. But my correspondent is too good a man of business to remain in this entanglement of brains—unless by his own fault. He knows perfectly well, in his heart, that the ‘benevolence’ involved in the construction of railways amounts exactly to this much and no more,—that if the British public were informed that engineers were now confident, after their[262]practice in the Cenis and St. Gothard tunnels, that they could make a railway to Hell,—the British public would instantly invest in the concern to any amount; and stop church-building all over the country, for fear of diminishing the dividends.[263]

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.

The points suggested by the letter printed in the Fors of September, respecting the minor action of English Magistracy, must still be kept for subsequent consideration, our to-day’s work having been too general to reach them.I have an interesting letter from a man of business, remonstrating with me on my declaration that railroads should no more pay dividends than carriage roads, or field footpaths.He is a gentle man of business, and meshed, as moderately well-meaning people, nowadays, always are, in a web of equivocation between what is profitable and benevolent.He says that people who make railroads should be rewarded by dividends for having acted so benevolently towards the public, and provided it with these beautiful and easy means of locomotion. But my correspondent is too good a man of business to remain in this entanglement of brains—unless by his own fault. He knows perfectly well, in his heart, that the ‘benevolence’ involved in the construction of railways amounts exactly to this much and no more,—that if the British public were informed that engineers were now confident, after their[262]practice in the Cenis and St. Gothard tunnels, that they could make a railway to Hell,—the British public would instantly invest in the concern to any amount; and stop church-building all over the country, for fear of diminishing the dividends.[263]

I have an interesting letter from a man of business, remonstrating with me on my declaration that railroads should no more pay dividends than carriage roads, or field footpaths.

He is a gentle man of business, and meshed, as moderately well-meaning people, nowadays, always are, in a web of equivocation between what is profitable and benevolent.

He says that people who make railroads should be rewarded by dividends for having acted so benevolently towards the public, and provided it with these beautiful and easy means of locomotion. But my correspondent is too good a man of business to remain in this entanglement of brains—unless by his own fault. He knows perfectly well, in his heart, that the ‘benevolence’ involved in the construction of railways amounts exactly to this much and no more,—that if the British public were informed that engineers were now confident, after their[262]practice in the Cenis and St. Gothard tunnels, that they could make a railway to Hell,—the British public would instantly invest in the concern to any amount; and stop church-building all over the country, for fear of diminishing the dividends.[263]

1See the part of examination respecting communication held with the brother of the prisoner.↑

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