As under favourable conditions there is perhaps no form of labour more delightful than literary work, so there can be none more sickening when it is half-hearted or against the grain. Galt had now produced two novels in succession in which it was but too apparent that his heart was not, and he may well have felt weary of the work. Or their languor may have been due to the fact that his interest had been drawn off in another direction. At any rate, after a long and—if we judge it by its best productions—an extremely brilliant spell at his desk, he now practically abandoned it for some years to come. Well had it been, not only for his best interests, but for his material happiness, had he remained where he was!
The immediate occasion of this change in his life was as follows:—It happened that some of the principal inhabitants of Canada, whose property had sustained damage in the American War of 1814, had recently become urgent in their claims for compensation from the mother country. As the result of 'proceedings' on which theAutobiographythrows no light, Galt was commissioned to act as agent in this country for the injured parties, which commission he accepted, undaunted by the worry and demands upon his time which it must necessarily entail, and set zealously to work to get the claims allowed by the Treasury. He gained his point subject to conditions, it being agreed by Government that the demands of the claimants should be satisfied from the proceeds of the sale of certain Crown lands in Canada known as the 'reserves.' To find purchasers for this land now becameGalt's object, and mainly through his instrumentality the 'Canada Company' was formed. But in the meantime, the inhabitants of Upper Canada, among whom party spirit ran unusually high, having prejudiced their case with Government, it was determined that the money realised by selling the reserves should be devoted to other purposes. Thus Galt found himself defeated in his object, and in this juncture he was persuaded to join the Canada Company as a member. He was then appointed a Commissioner to determine the value of the land to be purchased by the Company, and having crossed the Atlantic, he proceeded to York, the capital of Upper Canada, where the Commission prosecuted its enquiries. His health at the time was bad, but his task was congenial. From boyhood he had nourished a hankering after colonisation, and if we abate a few comparatively trifling dissensions, his experiences at this time seem on the whole to have been agreeable. In due course the Commissioners signed their report and returned to England, only to receive the news that their labours had been unexpectedly complicated by action taken by the Canadian clergy in relation to the 'clergy reserves.' After some difficulty this matter also was at length adjusted, and the Company having obtained its Charter, Galt was deputed to return to Canada to superintend the founding of the new colony. Whilst the affairs above-mentioned had been under discussion, he had, however, found time to produceThe OmenandThe Last of the Lairds, two small but admirable works in contrasted styles.
Indeed, the sustained excellence of the former suffices to constitute it his masterpiece in the purely tragic vein. It is likewise in all probability his most characteristicwork, its unique and special claim to attention consisting in the tense and lurid imaginative atmosphere which the author has created and made to pervade his tale. Availing himself of the autobiographical convention, and assuming a fantastic dramatic guise, he gives the rein to his fancy and roams at large in a world that is dominated by those presentiments, bodings, and subtle hidden relations of things, which had always exercised so powerful a fascination over his mind. And yet—what is of vital importance in the effect which he obtains—these portents are never allowed to lead us away from the firm earth, or from actual life. From the very first the reader is brought under the potent spell of the author's imagination, and so perfect is the art that ever as the dark tale unfolds the author's grip gains in strength. There are passages of fervid and gloomy eloquence in the writing which recall nothing in literature so much as Chateaubriand's masterpiece, and it is notable that, whilst in other respects the two stories are entirely distinct, the mysterious and repellent point on which they turn is one.Renéwas almost pure autobiography, and it is plain to those who have studied Galt's more intimate utterances that intoThe Omenhe threw much of what was moody and fantastic in his own mind and personality.
The Last of the Lairdsis a pleasant comedy of old Scotch manners, rich in the masterly painting of old Scotch character. The plot turns on the making up by busybodies of a match between a withered spinster and an elderly, partly imbecile, and ruined landlord—the threatened ugliness of the theme being averted by a gaiety rare in Galt's work, and also—as in the case of some of Hogarth's pictures—by sheer skill and power displayed in the characterisation.The contrasted meddlers, the bride and her sister, the Nabob, and the Laird's Jock are all of them capital; whilst the Laird himself, though failing to attain the breadth and dignity proper to a type, is at least a good and by no means ungenial portrait. The change wrought in him by marriage, if surprising, is not incredible, and serves to pave the way for the welcome happy ending. This book, which was left incomplete by Galt when he returned to America, received some finishing touches from his friend Moir, though the hand of the latter cannot be said to be traceable in its pages.
Late in the year 1826, the author returned to Canada, having already, by his own account, some grounds for believing that he was regarded with hostility. Whether these suspicions were purely morbid or not it is impossible to say, but a general consideration of his fitness for the work to which he had chosen to devote his life may not be out of place. There is every reason to believe that he was afterwards harshly and unjustly used; yet judging solely from what he himself has told of himself, one must allow that he was not precisely the sort of man to select for the discharge of important public business. That his ability was extraordinary, and his power of work immense, has been amply established; none the less does it remain true that in certain qualities not less essential to business he was positively defective. Morbidly sensitive, he lacked the wisdom to control his feelings under a sense of injury, and was too much inclined to form conclusions, and to act, upon impulse. In addition to this, imagination or fancy—of which, in a world constituted as ours is, the mere suspicion will often suffice to prejudice a man in his dealings with his fellow-men—wasfar too active a power in his brain. But, to leave such considerations as are grounded upon character and revert to substantial facts, what was the assumption from Galt's previous history as a man of business? That history reveals a goodly number of schemes and of attempts, scarce one of which but had proved abortive or a failure. Surely, if he was in truth a competent business man, ill-luck must have pursued him with uncommon pertinacity; and even allowing this to have been the case, he will still stand condemned as a wretched judge of the chances of success inherent in any given business concern. The years at which we have now arrived were the most momentous in his life as a man; but in a sketch of his literary career, such as the present, their place is subordinate.
Haunted by presentiments of evil even at the time of leaving home, Galt had scarcely reached Canada when his troubles began. In fact his differences with Sir Peregrine Maitland, the Lieutenant-Governor of the province, date from the morning after his arrival. Of this disagreement it is sufficient to say that Galt was not the aggressor, though very likely his previous conduct had been less wary than behoved for one in his delicate position. Certainly, with all due sympathy for a much-suffering man of genius, it cannot be asserted that his temperament was one calculated to smooth away difficulties, or, where self-love was concerned, to carry him pleasantly out of a misunderstanding. The Governor, besides suspecting him of unfriendliness to the Government, was jealous of a supposed inclination to interfere in public matters outside his sphere; and though these suspicions were alike groundless, it unfortunately happened that a communicationwhich Galt had addressed to the editor of an opposition journal afforded a specific ground of complaint. Here, at once, were all the materials for a very pretty quarrel.
A visit to Quebec, however, brought more agreeable experiences, social and adventurous. Thence Galt proceeded to York, to commence the duties of his mission. He was now practically in sole charge of the business of the Company, but he seems to have felt quite equal to his responsibilities, and when winter was over he decided to begin operations by founding a city in the Company's territory. Determined to clothe the occasion with as much impressiveness as possible, and having selected St George's Day as an auspicious date, he accordingly travelled to the appointed site—the last nine miles of the journey lying within the primeval forest. Here is his account of the proceedings:—
'It was consistent with my plan to invest our ceremony with a little mystery, the better to make it be remembered. So intimating that the main body of the men were not to come, we walked to the brow of the neighbouring rising ground, and Mr Prior having shown the site selected for the town, a large maple tree was chosen; on which, taking an axe from one of the woodmen, I struck the first stroke. To me at least the moment was impressive,—and the silence of the woods, that echoed to the sound, was as the sigh of the solemn genius of the wilderness departing for ever. The doctor followed me, then, if I recollect correctly, Mr Prior, and the woodmen finished the work. The tree fell with a crash of accumulating thunder, as if ancient Nature were alarmed at the entrance of social man into her innocent solitudes with his sorrows, his follies, and his crimes. I do not suppose that the sublimity of the occasion was unfelt by the others, for I noticed that after the tree fell, there was a funereal pause, as when the coffin is lowered into the grave; it was, however, of short duration, for the doctor pulled a flask of whisky from his bosom, and we drank prosperity to the City of Guelph.'
'It was consistent with my plan to invest our ceremony with a little mystery, the better to make it be remembered. So intimating that the main body of the men were not to come, we walked to the brow of the neighbouring rising ground, and Mr Prior having shown the site selected for the town, a large maple tree was chosen; on which, taking an axe from one of the woodmen, I struck the first stroke. To me at least the moment was impressive,—and the silence of the woods, that echoed to the sound, was as the sigh of the solemn genius of the wilderness departing for ever. The doctor followed me, then, if I recollect correctly, Mr Prior, and the woodmen finished the work. The tree fell with a crash of accumulating thunder, as if ancient Nature were alarmed at the entrance of social man into her innocent solitudes with his sorrows, his follies, and his crimes. I do not suppose that the sublimity of the occasion was unfelt by the others, for I noticed that after the tree fell, there was a funereal pause, as when the coffin is lowered into the grave; it was, however, of short duration, for the doctor pulled a flask of whisky from his bosom, and we drank prosperity to the City of Guelph.'
The name was chosen in compliment to the Royal Family. To matter-of-fact minds the characteristic tone of this passage may appear dangerously poetical, so perhaps it is well to add that the site of the new city had been most judiciously chosen. Occupying a tongue of land projecting into a river, almost in the centre of the district which separates the lakes of Ontario, Simcoe, Huron, and Erie, the infant township enjoyed extraordinary facilities for communication. It became prosperous, and within the space of forty-five years its population had reached the total of 50,000.
Galt now threw himself with great zeal and energy into his work, which was on a grand scale and of a stimulating character, and, besides the founding of cities, included the felling of forests, exploration, and the naming of places unnamed. To a voyage undertaken for the purpose of finding a harbour on Lake Huron, was due the origin of the now flourishing city of Goderich. Of course the romance of this sort of life, together with the sense it gave him of playing an important part in the spread of civilisation, were agreeable and flattering to Galt; but in other respects his position was not without drawbacks. Those symptoms of troubles to come which had so early presented themselves to him had by no means disappeared; whilst, as he assures us, secret enemies were also at work against him. There were not wanting signs of friction between the Government and the Directors of the Company, the stock of the latter fell to a discount, and the Directors thereupon taxed their Commissioner with extravagance in the carrying out of his plans. He began to find himself subjected to petty annoyances, and at this time an incident in which he had humanely, but perhapsinjudiciously, befriended some helpless emigrants served further to embroil matters.
In this juncture, he received a private warning to expect a reprimand from his Directors. No doubt there were faults on both sides, but conscious that he had done his best, and smarting under the injustice of being assumed unheard to be in fault, he placed his resignation in the hands of a friend. The friend, however, decided not to present it, and Galt therefore continued his labours as before, evincing an astonishing fertility in projects and ideas, of which we may suppose a fair proportion to have been applicable enough to his circumstances. Unfortunately causes of annoyance continued to flow in upon him, and it was evident that a climax was not far off.
The spectacle now afforded by theAutobiographyis a melancholy one. It is that of a gifted and generous-minded, though unduly irritable, man-of-letters entangled in toils of red-tape, and in the meantime exposed to the darts of his enemies. In such a contest—though in some respects Galt was a giant pitted against pigmies—it was a foregone conclusion that he must come off second-best. Matters were precipitated by the Directors appointing an accountant to assist him in his duties. The conduct of this person supplied grounds for a belief that he was authorised to exercise surveillance over the Superintendent, and such a position being intolerable, Galt resolved to return to England. Indeed he found himself driven to the conclusion that it was intended to break up the Company, and that his own removal from office would be a step towards that end. Unfortunately he was destined to undergo treatment even less agreeable than that which he anticipated. Circumstances havingcompelled him to defer his return to England, he paid a final visit to Goderich, and had arrived at New York on his homeward journey when he was informed that he had been superseded. As he had been on the point of retiring from the service, his material position remained practically unaffected. But his resignation, if indeed it were irrevocably determined on, had certainly not been publicly announced, and to a man of his temperament it must have been gall and wormwood to have forcibly taken from him even though 'twere but that which he was ready to resign. No wonder that he felt himself to have been treated with the vilest ingratitude. 'The Canada Company,' he writes, 'had originated in my suggestions, it was established by my endeavours, organised in disregard of many obstacles by my perseverance, and, though extensive and complicated in its scheme, a system was formed by me upon which it could be with ease conducted. Yet without the commission of any fault, for I dare every charge of that kind, I was destined to reap from it only troubles and mortifications, and something which I feel as an attempt to disgrace me.'[7]
The writer of the article, before referred to, in the Dictionary of National Biography has spoken of theAutobiographyas 'remarkable for self-complacency.' It is, therefore, only fair to state that the value which Galt puts upon his own services as a colonial organiser is not unsupported by testimony from without. The report of a local expert, incorporated in Galt's narrative, testifies not only to the intrinsic excellence of his system, but to the success attending it; whilst an address of gratitude and good wishes presented by the settlers in the new city bearswitness to the personal estimation in which they held him. Indeed one of the main causes of his failure seems to have been that he took too high a view of his own mission, aspiring to aim at the good of humanity, where his associates and principals were content to contemplate gain: a Quixote set to perform the work of a Board composed of Sancho Panzas. Even at this date, had he been informed at once that his dismissal must be regarded as final, he would have been spared some suffering. But his agony—the term is scarcely an exaggeration—was prolonged by suspense and by unavailing struggles. And finally, as if anything were yet wanting to complete the irony of his position, he lived to see the Company which he had himself founded, and in the service of which three of the best years of his life had been spent, develop into a flourishing concern, yielding abundant profits in which he had no share.
Misfortunes come not singly, and the fall of the lion is the opportunity of meaner creatures. The determining of his connection with the Canada Company had hit Galt severely in his pecuniary circumstances. He now found himself unable to meet the claims which were made upon him, and at the suit of a certain Dr Valpy of Reading, one of the oldest of his English acquaintances, to whom he owed the paltry sum of £80 for the education of his sons, he was presently arrested. Conscious as he was of unimpeachable probity of intention, and marking, as in his Utopian way he did, a distinction between law and justice, he felt this last indignity keenly. He, however, made no sign, but endured with imperturbable stoicism a long period of confinement. None the less—partly by the physical restraint to which he was so little accustomed,partly, as he himself with only too much show of probability suggests, by distress of mind—his constitution was irreparably injured. He was now entirely dependent on his pen, and though his literary activity continued as great as before, the literary fruits which he put forth had lost the fineness of their old savour. Of this he seems to have been aware, for he has put on record the fact that his later novels were written to please the public, not himself, and that he would not wish to be estimated by them. For our purpose, therefore, a hasty glance at them may suffice.
In 1830 he publishedLawrie Todd, a tale of life in the backwoods, which, withBogle Corbet, or The Emigrants, (1831), was founded upon fact, and designed by the author to serve the double purpose of amusing the general reader and conveying reliable information to those practically interested in the American colonies.Southennan, a tale of the days of Mary Queen of Scots, also published in 1830, was inspired by the tradition associated with a romantic old mansion-house, which had impressed Galt's fancy in youth. In the same year he also produced hisLife of Byron, of which—so keen was public interest in the subject at the time—three editions were exhausted in as many months. The author's view of the noble poet's character has been already indicated; his work has, however, been pronounced 'valueless.' About this time he also acted as editor ofThe Courier, a Tory newspaper; but, finding the work uncongenial, after a few months abandoned it. In 1831, by way of a change of employment, at the suggestion of Lockhart, who was always a good friend to him, he put together his amusingLives of the Players. In the same year he took up his abode atBrompton—a suburb in those days not yet absolutely devoid of the charms of the country—where for some three or four years to come he occupied Old Barnes Cottage, a somewhat dilapidated building, but one which possessed the invaluable appendage of a large and pleasant garden.
It was at this time that Carlyle met him at a dinner-party at the house of Fraser, the publisher, and wrote a description of him. But before quoting this sketch, we may give that of Moir, penned some eight years earlier. At that time, according to the Doctor's testimony, Galt was 'in the full vigour of health,' a man of herculean frame, over six feet in height and inclining to corpulency, with jet-black hair as yet ungrizzled, nose almost straight, small but piercing eyes, and finely rounded chin. When Carlyle saw him, trouble had already told upon him. 'Galt looks old,' he writes,[8]'is deafish, has the air of a sedate Greenock burgher; mouth indicating sly humour and self-satisfaction; the eyes, old and without lashes, gave me a sort of wae interest for him.... Said little, but that little peaceable, clear andgutmüthig. Wish to see him again.' This account he supplemented a month later as follows: 'A broad gawsie Greenock man, old-growing, lovable with pity.'
The need for pity soon increased. It has been stated that Galt's health had suffered from his confinement, it was about this time further affected by the first of a long series of shocks, which are described as of a nature 'analogous to paralysis.' This sufficed to destroy such hopes of active employment as remained to him—and he had been, as usual, hard at work weaving schemeswith all his former ingenuity—and in process of time reduced him to a wreck. Still he clung to his pen, adding to the already lengthy list of his works the novel ofStanley Buxton, or The Schoolfellows, as well as two political satires entitledThe MemberandThe Radical. Mrs Thomson, authoress of 'Recollections of Literary Characters,' an old friend, who visited him when he was growing ever more and more disabled, has left a touching account of his helplessness. Galt received her without rising from his seat, gave her his left hand, and pointing to his right, said, 'with a little quickness, "Perhaps you have heard of my attack? It has fallen upon my limbs; my head is clear."' Alas! though clear, his mental powers were by no means what they had been. But, if on some former occasions he had shown himself too much a prey to moral sensibility, where physical suffering was concerned his behaviour was that of a stoic. Whilst the progress of the disease deprived him of the use of one limb after another, he continued, uncomplaining, to make the most of such powers as yet remained. Indeed, during the three or four years immediately following his first seizure, his annual literary output in the departments of editing, book-making, and story-writing, seems if anything larger than usual. But among all these undertakings, it is sufficient here to name the novels ofEben Erskine, or The Traveller, andThe Stolen Child, with the three volumes of tales collected under the title ofStories of the Study, and theAutobiographyandLiterary Life and Miscellanies. The lax composition of the latter works is probably a symptom of mental decay in the author. The book last named was dedicated by permission to William the Fourth, who in acknowledgment of the complimentsent Galt £200, which money, together with £50 obtained for him from the Literary Fund, may be said to represent the sum of official, or quasi-official, recognition which he received. For his claims against Government for 'brokerage,' or commission, on the sale of lands to the Canada Company were refused, whilst a pension said to have been promised him by the Company was never paid. The last years of his life were spent in dependence, but it is pleasing to note that theAutobiographycloses with an expression of satisfaction over the payment of secured debts. He had in the meantime been removed to the house of a sister at Greenock, where he died on the 11th April 1839, not having yet completed his sixtieth year.
In summing up Galt's position, it may be said that he remains the most unequal of all writers possessing equal claims to distinction—the man whocouldproduceThe ProvostandRingan Gilhaizeand whodidproduceThe SpaewifeandThe Literary Life. For it is not enough to say, as has been said, that in him there were two men, the man of letters and the man of affairs: there were two literary men in him, the creative artist and the book-maker. And the fact that, of these two, the latter had things too much his own way was due to Galt's defective appreciation of his high calling. 'My literary propensities,' he writes, 'were suspended during my residence in Upper Canada, not from resolution, but because I had more interesting pastime. I did then think myself qualified to do something more useful than "stringing blethers into rhyme," or writing clishmaclavers in a closet.' And again: 'At no time, as I frankly confess, have I been a great admirer of mere literary character; to tell the truth, I have sometimes felt a little shamefacedin thinking myself so much an author, in consequence of the estimation in which I view the profession of book-making in general. A mere literary man—an author by profession—stands low in my opinion.' The petulance and perversity of the first statement, and the sheer vulgarity of the second, may be palliated by the fact that the author was in low spirits and bad health when he made them. It remains none the less true that these opinions ruled his practice. But they carried their punishment with them. For who will doubt that Galt would have been a happier man had he been truer to his vocation, had he resisted the temptation to fly off at a tangent in pursuit of every commercial will-o'-the-wisp that might chance to catch his eye, and devoted his great powers with something more of steadiness and of seriousness to doing his best at what he was best qualified to do?
He expected that fuller appreciation would come to him after death, and perhaps this expectation, so fallacious in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred, was in his case not without plausible grounds. For, from a literary point of view, Galt, like De Stendhal, was in advance of his time. Employing the word in its specialised sense, he was more 'modern' than the greatest among his contemporaries. For example, as has been already indicated, when most himself he had more of what we are pleased to consider the characteristically modern qualities of sensitiveness and imaginative intensity than had Scott. In illustration of this, perhaps we cannot do better than cite the already quotedOmen, with its sombre and lurid effects, the sense of bated breath, suspense, impending tragedy, which pervades its every page. Nothing of allthis, as I need hardly say, was in Scott's line; even in the finest and most imaginative of his shorter pieces, inMy Aunt Margaret's Mirror, the tension is eased by characteristic diffuseness of manner. And Galt's superior—some will call it morbid—sensitiveness extended also to his style: his use of words, when he is at his best, is much more interesting than Scott's. It might possibly even be argued that his Scotch, if perhaps less abundant, is more remarkable for nice appropriateness of word and phrase than Sir Walter's. [And, by the way, the failure of Galt's reputation to cross the Tweed may, perhaps, be partly explained by the fact that, whereas in Scott's novels the dialogue alone is Scotch, in some of Galt's best books the entire narrative is interspersed with dialect words. One can fancy, for instance, the puzzled condition of a southern reader who is informed by the author himself that 'Mrs Malcolm herself was this winter brought to death's door by a terrible host that came on her in the kirk,' or that a certain clock 'was a mortification to the parish from the Lady Breadland.'] But, to continue our argument, besides the above, Galt has more of the modern pictorial quality than Scott: there is more in his descriptive work which is addressed directly to the eye. Once more, he repeatedly gratifies a modern taste by choosing for his theme what is fantastic, or occult, or what lies off the beaten track. In stating all this, we would, of course, guard against being understood to imply that all these characteristics are points of advantage possessed by Galt over Scott. On the contrary, some of them may even be symptoms of an age of literary decadence; what we do maintain is that, in virtue of these characteristics, his chance of appealing to a late nineteenth-century audienceis improved. As a final word under this heading, Galt may be called the forerunner of the Realistic movement in Scottish fiction.The ProvostandThe Annalsmight almost belong to the age of Tourguenieff and Mr Henry James, and in this respect his works have been more studied than they have been praised, their influence has been greater than their reputation. Generally, and in conclusion, Galt may be credited with having done to some extent for Glasgow and the West of Scotland what Scott triumphantly accomplished for the Borders and the Highlands, and for the trading and professional classes of his country what Scott did for its gentry and peasantry.
'After all, how precarious a thing is literary fame! Things to which I have bent the whole force of my mind, and which are worth remembering—if any things that I have done are at all worth remembering—have attracted but a very doubtful share of applause from critics; whilst things dashed off likeMansie Wauch, as mere sportive freaks, and which for years and years I have hesitated to acknowledge, have been out of sight my most popular productions.' Thus wrote Moir, under date of April 12th, 1845—six years before his life's labours closed—to his friend and biographer, Thomas Aird, author ofThe Devil's Dream. And in this instance posterity has taken its cue from contemporary popularity; for it is upon the homely and genialMansie Wauch, and on that alone, that the once considerable literary reputation of 'the amiable Delta' rests to-day.
David Macbeth Moir, born on the 5th January 1798, was the son of Robert Moir and Elizabeth Macbeth, whom Aird describes simply as 'respectable citizens.' His birthplace was Musselburgh, and to Musselburgh he remained faithful through life. Indeed, though lives of men-of-letters—from Shakespeare to Thomas Hardy—afford plenty of instances of local attachment, there can be few instances I should suppose of lives more closely associatedwith a single place. In Musselburgh Moir's life was spent; Musselburgh he served faithfully, both in his profession and as a public servant; and in the neighbourhood of Musselburgh he placed the scene of his most popular work. Gratifying is it, therefore, to know that Musselburgh has recognised him as her poet—a minor writer certainly, yet exclusively her own.
Having received his schooling in his native town, at the age of thirteen young Moir was bound apprentice to a physician in practice there. His apprenticeship lasted four years, during the latter part of which, as also during the year following, he studied medicine in the Edinburgh University. In 1816 he obtained his surgeon's diploma. In the following year he lost his father, and being then eighteen, became the partner of a Dr Brown of Musselburgh, whose practice kept him so occupied that for more than ten years to come he is said not to have spent a single night out of the town.
Meantime, having a facile pen (too facile it has proved!) he had begun to compose as far back as 1812, about which year he sent two essays to a Haddington publication entitledThe Cheap Magazine. In 1816 he contributed to theScots Magazine, and, further, commemorated the exploit of Lord Exmouth by publishing anonymouslyThe Bombardment of Algiers, and Other Poems. Despite pressure of work, he did not give up literature on entering the medical profession, but in time became a contributor to Constable's and Blackwood's Magazine—to the latter of which, over the signature 'Δ,' he came regularly to furnish not onlyjeux d'espritbut essays and serious verse as well, his contributions in all amounting to the large total of nearly four hundred. In this manner he becameacquainted with John Wilson, for whose showy poetry he entertained an admiration which was doubtless less uncommon then than it would be now. Other periodicals to which he contributed wereFraser's Magazineand theEdinburgh Literary Gazette. Between medicine and literature, his life now went on busily but uneventfully. In the end of 1824 or the commencement of the next year, he published, under his pseudonym, a volume of verse to which he gave the title of theLegend of Genevieve, which he dedicated to the veteran author of theMan of Feeling. The titular poem is a sentimental story written in the manner of Byron's Tales, the remaining pieces being on miscellaneous subjects. About the same time the first instalments ofMansie Wauchmade their appearance inBlackwood's Magazine, the completed story, with additions, being published as a book in 1828. Moir was a man of an intensely domestic disposition, and having become affianced in this year, in the following summer he took to himself a wife in the person of Miss Catherine Bell of Leith, whom he espoused in the Church of Carham in Northumberland, celebrating the occasion by a series of Sonnets on the Scenery of the Tweed. By this lady he eventually became the father of eleven children. His literary reputation was now established, and in 1829 Mr Blackwood made him an offer of the editorship of theQuarterly Journal of Agriculture, which, however, he declined. In remaining constant to the medical profession, he has been credited with purely philanthropic motives; but, without bating a jot of my respect for the man, the following (his own) explanation of the case seems to me the more reasonable one. 'In early youth,' says he, in a letter to David Vedder, the sailor poet of Orkney, 'I had many aspiring feelings to dedicatemy life to literature, and to literature alone; but I thank God—seeing what I have seen in Galt, in Hogg, in Hood, and other friends—that I had resolution to resolve on a profession, and to make poetry my crutch and not my staff. I have, in consequence, lost the name which, probably, with due exertion, I might have acquired; but I have gained many domestic blessings which more than counter-balance it, and I can yet turn to my pen, in my short intervals of occasional relaxation, with as much zest as in my days of romantic adolescence.' This is the utterance of a sensible man who, having his way to make in the world, decides on the expediency of a certain course and adheres to it. Possibly Moir's estimate of his own powers was a juster one than that of many of his friends; at any-rate it is satisfactory to learn that, 'in spite of the common distrust of the literary character,' he succeeded in making his way as a doctor even in that place where proverbially a prophet is apt to lack honour. Mr Blackwood and others of his friends also urged him to leave Musselburgh and to set up in practice in Edinburgh, offering to use their interest in obtaining patients for him. But these offers he likewise declined. His next publication (1831) consisted ofOutlines of the Ancient History of Medicine, and was intended as the first instalment of a complete history of the subject, although increased pressure of professional duties, occasioned first by the events of the next year and then by the retirement of his partner in the year following, prevented his further execution of the design.
The period at which we have now arrived is one of those which have been rendered terribly memorable by a visitation of cholera, and in the commencement of 1832 the town of Musselburgh was attacked with specialseverity by the epidemic. So great was the terror prevailing throughout the country that many physicians are said to have fled from their posts, but now, as also during a later outbreak, was the time when Moir's character shone out with peculiar lustre. Rising to the height of the emergency, he was to be found night and day at his post, endeavouring both to lessen the sufferings of the sick by his medical skill, and to comfort the dying with the consolations of religion. His humane exertions on behalf of the poor were, in particular, remarkable. This is a period regarding which one would gladly supply further facts, for it is, no doubt, the most interesting in Moir's life, and it is consequently with regret that we find it passed over in a few lines in the accredited biography. When that was written, circumstantial details of his faithful labours might still have been collected, and these would have brought the man nearer to us than anything else could do. But Aird has given us nothing but generalities. During the outbreak, Moir held the post of Secretary to the Board of Health of Musselburgh, and it was as an answer to numberless enquiries addressed to him in this capacity that he now wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled 'Practical Observations on Malignant Cholera,' which, says Aird, flew like wild-fire through the country, and which he shortly supplemented by 'Proofs of the Contagion of Malignant Cholera.'
No doubt by way of recruiting after his labours, he this year attended the Meeting of the British Association, which was held at Oxford, and afterwards visited London, mainly in order to see Galt, with whom he had become friendly some years before, and who was nowliving in broken health at Brompton. On this occasion he had an interview with Coleridge at Highgate. The sage, who received him in bed, and treated him to 'two hours of divine monologue,' talked at first of his own early life, incidentally reciting part of his early-written Monody on the Death of Chatterton, and so far all went well. But Moir, who had a constitutional dislike of mysticism, and who ought to have known better, had the rashness to put a few questions to the poet, 'relative to his peculiar speculations in philosophy,' and from that moment, needless to say, he found himself involved in the intricacies of a labyrinth.
As that of a medical man in the full swing of a large practice, Moir's life now affords but little material to the biographer. In a letter to Robert Macnish, his dearly-loved friend and brother in medicine and the muses, he has himself described his daily existence. 'Our business,' says he, 'has ramified itself so much in all directions of the compass—save the north, where we are bounded by the sea—that on an average I have sixteen or eighteen miles' daily riding; nor can this be commenced before three or four hours of pedestrian exercise has been hurried through. I seldom get from horseback till five o'clock; and by half-past six I must be out to the evening rounds, which never terminate till after nine. Add to this the medical casualties occurring between sunset and sunrise, and you will see how much can be reasonably set down to the score of my leisure.' Still, such leisure as he had, he perseveringly devoted to literature. When driving upon his rounds, he would read in his carriage; but his chief time for study was after the house was shut up for the night, when all was quiet around him, and when hecould, with some degree of comfort, sit down in his library to read and write. 'Even then, however, from the uncertainty of his profession, he was never altogether sure of his own time. Often did he remark that, whether it was the contrariety of human nature, or his own peculiar sensitiveness to interruption at such a time, he was most liable to be broken in upon when he was most deeply engaged in writing.' Under such circumstances we cannot wonder that his literary work lacks finish. The wonder is rather that he did not give up literature altogether; but we read that he loved it too well to do this, and that he never seemed so happy as when his mind was employed upon it. As a doctor of literary men, he exercised a beneficial influence. Shortly before the death of Mr Blackwood, that gentleman lay ill in Ainslie Place; whilst Galt, who was also in bad health, was living in lodgings close by. Relations between the two had been strained, and illness prevented their meeting. But it is pleasing to read that their mutual respect and esteem were now renewed, and that Moir, who was in attendance on both, carried kind messages between them.
A most affectionate parent, Moir had sustained a succession of cruel bereavements by losing three of his children, who died in early childhood, within the space of about eighteen months, in the years 1838 and 1839. To relieve his feelings on these occasions, he wrote a series of elegies, which, after being circulated among his friends, were published, with a few other poems, in 1843, under the title ofDomestic Verses. It is as an elegiac poet—if as a poet at all—that the author is now remembered, and one of these elegies—called by the self-conferred name of one of the babes, 'Casa Wappy'—has enjoyed greatpopularity and is still included in anthologies, though in my own opinion a less meritorious composition than the the second of the three poems on the same subject, entitled 'Casa's Dirge':—
'Now winter with its snow departs,The green leaves clothe the tree;But summer smiles not on the heartsThat bleed and break for thee:The young May weaves her flowery crown,Her boughs in beauty wave;They only shake their blossoms downUpon thy silent grave.'
'Now winter with its snow departs,The green leaves clothe the tree;But summer smiles not on the heartsThat bleed and break for thee:The young May weaves her flowery crown,Her boughs in beauty wave;They only shake their blossoms downUpon thy silent grave.'
His elegiac muse is sweet and fluent, and breathes the consolations of Christianity. But, like Motherwell, he is apt to be over-lachrymose and to insist upon his grief, which is fatal to pathos. His touch, too, is uncertain. For instance, in one Sonnet we have this fine line,
'The bliss that feeds upon the heart destroys,'
'The bliss that feeds upon the heart destroys,'
in near juxta-position with the ridiculous figure,
'Joy's icicles melt down before Time's sun.'
'Joy's icicles melt down before Time's sun.'
Here as elsewhere, too, he freely repeats himself. Aird has namedThe Deserted Churchyardas Moir's highest imaginative piece. But Aird is no critic, and description was not Moir's forte. He multiplies touches—each perhaps good in its way—multiplies them, indeed, to excess; but to combine and compose them into a whole is beyond him. And the same defect—the mark either of an inferior talent, or of an untutored one—is noticeable in his critical portraits. Of his poetry generally, then, it must be confessed that it belongs to that class which, finding acceptance to-day, is without significance for the morrow. But, in justice, it must be remembered that inits own day it not only pleased the general reader, but also drew warm praises from such judges as Tennyson, Jeffrey, Wordsworth, and Lockhart. Moir's time, as we have seen, was not at his disposal, but besides—or perhaps because of this—he was an impatient composer. He chose—if such things be determined by choice—to write much rather than to write well. As a whole his poetry is inferior in style to that of his less prolific contemporary, Thomas Pringle. And certainly, if poetry is intended to endure, it must be moulded in some less pliant material than that which Moir employed.
Not much now remains to tell. In the year after the publication of hisDomestic Verses, Moir contracted a serious illness by sitting all night in damp clothes by the bedside of a patient, and in 1846 his general health suffered further from the effects of a carriage accident, which also permanently lamed him. In 1848 he made an excursion, lasting two and a half days, and meditated during seven previous years, to the Lake District with Mrs Moir; and in the following year he visited the Highlands, with Christopher North, who was 'in great force,' Henry Glassford Bell, and one or two others. In spring of 1851, he delivered a course of six lectures at the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, his subject being the Poetical Literature of the Past Half Century. On appearing on the platform, he had a very warm reception, and his lectures, proving popular, were soon afterwards published; nor have they quite lost their interest yet. Of course at the present day no one would be likely to turn to them for an estimate of the genius, say, of Byron or of Shelley, or for a summing up of the poetical achievement of Wordsworth, Coleridge, or Keats. It is in the nature ofthings that truth in criticism, as in evidence, is arrived at by a slow process, and abler pens have dealt with these great writers since Moir's day. But should anyone wish to know the estimation in which they were held at the date in question, he will generally find a good indication of it here. And in so doing, as was inevitable, he will come across some curiosities of criticism—as, for instance, where the lecturer, speaking of Byron and Wilson together, as the two rising poetic lights of the year 1812, adds that 'it is difficult even yet to say which of the two was most distinguished for general scope of mind, for imaginative and intellectual power.' Also, should any student desire a sketch—descriptive rather than critical—of such half-forgotten literary figures as 'Monk' Lewis and his followers, or of the 'artistic artificial school' of Hayley, the 'Swan of Lichfield,' and the Della Cruscans, or seek for appreciative observations on the author ofThe Farmer's Boy, on Kirke White, or on Samuel Rogers, here he will find them. Besides these lectures and the works already mentioned, Moir's literary undertakings include an edition of the works of Mrs Hemans, an Account of the Antiquities of the Parish of Inveresk, written for the Statistical Account of Scotland (1845), and a few occasional monographs.
On the 22nd of June of this year, in dismounting from his horse at the door of a patient's house, Moir sustained further injuries to his already partially disabled leg. Failing to rally from the effects of this accident, and hoping to derive benefit from rest and change, about a week later he set out upon a short excursion. Mrs Moir accompanied him, and they had reached Ayr, and had visited the cottage where Burns first saw the light, when the Doctor becameseriously ill. Declining medical assistance, however, he struggled on to Dumfries, where he became so much worse as to be forced to take to his bed. It was soon evident that death was at hand. On hearing of his illness, several of his friends had hastened to his side, and surrounded by these and by members of his family, faithfully attended by his wife, and fortified by a firm religious faith, he passed away on the morning of Sunday, the 6th July. The inhabitants of the town in which he had laboured so indefatigably decreed him a public funeral, paying every mark of respect in their power to his memory, and shortly afterwards his statue, executed by a sculptor named Ritchie, who had been a pupil of Thorwaldsen, was erected in a commanding situation on the banks of the river Esk. Besides his professional labours, he had been a Member of the Council of his native town and of its Kirk Session, had attended the General Assembly as a Representative Elder, and had acted as Secretary to a local Reform Committee appointed on the eve of the passing of the great Bill. In fine, his life had been essentially that of the good citizen—an honourable part for which we have so high a respect that we should be glad to see it oftener adorned with literary distinction.
In person Moir was tall, well-formed and erect, of sanguine complexion and with hair tending to the 'sandy' hue, his keen sense of humour, during friendly intercourse, being particularly manifest in his countenance. In private life, he was amiable and exemplary, and much beloved by many friends, including several distinguished writers—'a man,' says the writer of his obituary inBlackwood's Magazine, 'who, we verily believe, never had an enemy, and never harboured an angry or vindictive thought against ahuman being.' Nor did this proceed from any lack of determination or force of character, of which he had plenty.
Did not one recognise the relation subsisting between humour and pathos, it would be a surprise to find the melancholy Moir—the mourner of a score of dirges—figuring as author of a succession of broadly and farcically comic episodes; for such, in the main, is theLife of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith. The book was conceived in avowed imitation of Galt; and, in general outline, the autobiographical tailor, with his unconscious self-revelation, is obviously suggested by the Provosts and Micah Balwhidders of that writer. For in literature Galt is as much the originator of the 'pawky' Scotsman of the commercial or professional class as was the creator of Dinmont and Headrigg of the Scotsman living on the soil and racy of it. But if Delta borrowed the first idea of the story from his friend, the means by which he develops it owe little or nothing to that source. There, indeed, the sprightly little volume reminds us of a very different class of literature. In their frank appeal to those who are easily amused (happily a numerous body), and in the pleasant clownishness of their fooling, a large proportion of the scenes recall forcibly the ancient folk-tales, 'drolls' and chap-books, or the more modern collections of local stories founded upon the same, and the peculiar style of humour associated with such time-honoured popular favourites as Lothian Tom and George Buchanan, the King's Jester. Incidents, for instance, like that of James Batter, the weaver, concealed in the closet during the visit of the Minister, and of his inopportune fall through the bottomless chair and imprisonment there, or of the bigsuit of clothes being sent home to the little man, and the little suit to the big man, belong to the primeval stock-in-trade of the rustic humourist; whilst as for the episode of Deacon Paunch and the cat—probably there are few parishes in the country boasting the possession of a phenomenally heavy man where some 'variant' of this story is not current at the present day. The epigram—if I may so call it—of the book is also conceived after the popular model; as, for instance, when the aggrieved collier-woman, taunting Cursecowl on the prominence of one of his features, declares that he has 'run fast when the noses were dealing'; when it is observed, in reference to the various grades of society and their interdependence, that 'we all hang at one another's tails like a rope of ingans'; or when the writer speaks of an 'evendown pour of rain, washing the very cats off the house-tops,' or remarks of hopes not quite likely to be fulfilled that 'many a rottener ship has come to land.' Some of these phrases may perhaps be proverbial, but at any rate into just such verbal moulds flows, or used to flow, the expression of the livelier fancy of the people. The Scotch, too, in which the book is written is singularly rich and racy.
It may possibly be asked whether stories such as those referred to above have much to gain from literary elaboration, brevity in this peculiar form of wit appearing perhaps even more than usually desirable. The answer is that the result has justified the experiment. For one thing,Mansie Wauch—which preceded thePickwick Papersby some years—is one of the earliest classic specimens of broad humour which is entirely free from coarseness; and, secondly, in this instance, most of the farcicalepisodes—such as the mock duel, the Volunteering scene, the scenes in the watch-house or with the dumb spaewife, and the playhouse scene, where Mansie so artlessly mistakes feigning for reality—are made in a way to serve the purpose of illustrating character. In the case last named—even allowing for the tailor's native simplicity, for the fact that this is his first play, and for the 'three jugs' of which he has partaken in the company of Glen, the farmer—a pretty strong call is made on humorous convention, or on the credulity of the reader. But, after all, in this style of writing, who would 'consider curiously'? No! give the humourist his head is the rule, concede him a trifle of exaggeration, and let him make you laugh if he can. This book was never meant for closets and the midnight oil, but to be read aloud over the fire on winter's eves in the family circle.
Of course strokes of humorous portraiture somewhat subtler than the above are by no means wanting, as is shown for instance, in the same scene, in the fuddled tailor's preoccupation with the clothes worn by the actors—the good coat 'with double gilt buttons and fashionable lapells,' or 'the very well-made pair of buckskins, a thought the worse of the wear, to be sure, but which if they had been cleaned, would have looked almost as good as new.' But throughout the book little Mansie is equally 'particular,' especially in regard to clothes,—he has the loquacity of one occupied in a sedentary manual toil, and the abounding detail in description of minute occurrences which characterises dwellers in small towns. The scene of the stampede from the barn, following his reply to the players, is quite in the best manner of the humourists and caricaturists of that day,—whenuncouth persons tumbling one over the other in their haste, coat-tails torn off, bull-dogs fastening teeth in human calves, and wigs flying to the winds, seem to have constituted a never-failing resource for 'bringing down the house.' Pity that, like Mercutio, we are become grave men since then! However by far the best scene of this sort—a classic of its kind—is that which paints the inroad of the gigantic butcher, infuriated at the misfit of his new killing-coat, into the tailor's shop, and the subsequent tussle between him on the one hand and Tommy Bodkin, the three 'prentices, Mansie, and James Batter on the other. Everywhere George Cruikshank, the illustrator of the book, is neck and neck with the author, hitting off the very spirit of his fun, and indeed sometimes adding a point to it; but in his delineations of this scene and of that with the spaewife he surpasses himself.
Of course the book would not be Moir's if it entirely lacked poetic and pathetic relief, which is supplied in the contents of the papers found in the Welshman's coat-pocket; in the episode of Mungo Glen, the apprentice from the Lammermoors, who dies of home-sickness and of a country boy's hatred of the town, and in the story of theMaid of Damascus.
Of the character of Mansie—the keystone, so to speak, of the book—it cannot be said that it stands out with the firmness and clearness of Galt's best work in the kind, still less of one of Miss Ferrier's inimitable creations. Yet, if somewhat faintly limned, the little tailor—so eager, so busy, and so thrifty, such a queer mixture of guilelessness, shrewdness, and superstition, 'a douce elder of Maister Wiggie's kirk,' and abounding in Scripturalallusion accordingly, cautious, yet apt to be 'overtaken' as well as overreached, but with his heart exactly in the right place—is a figure who in the long run wins and holds a place in our sympathy. In the course of his professional avocations, Moir may have had occasion to observe that tailors generally are a nervous race of men, and from the commencement of the narrative we are shown that Mansie is full of groundless fears and anxieties—terrified to discharge his musket when on parade as a Volunteer, and frightened out of his wits in the Kirk Session house by night. And yet in the hour of need, when house and home are in danger on the night of the fire, we see him brave as a lion and brimful of resource—saving 'the precious life of a woman of eighty that had been four long years bed-ridden,' and by well-directed efforts with his bucket accomplishing more than the local fire-engine had done. Such a contrast as this—at once effective and true to human nature—or as that where Mansie, finding the escaped French prisoner concealed in his coal-hole, is divided between wrath against the enemy of his country and sympathy for a fellow-creature in distress, put the finishing touches to a genial figure, which in our Scottish national literature has a little niche of its own.
Susan Edmonstone Ferrier, the great mistress of the novel of manners in Scotland, was born in Edinburgh on the 7th September 1782, and was the youngest of her parents' ten children. Her father, James Ferrier, was a younger son of John Ferrier, laird of Kirklands, in Renfrewshire, and her mother—whose maiden name was Helen Coutts—was the daughter of a farmer near Montrose. James Ferrier was by profession a Writer to the Signet, having been admitted a member of the Society in the year 1770. He had been trained to his vocation in the office of a distant relative, who had the management of the Argyll estates, and to this gentleman's business he ultimately succeeded. He was thus on terms of intimacy with the Duke of Argyll, through whose instrumentality he was appointed a Principal Clerk of Session. In this office he had Sir Walter Scott as a colleague, and he was also so fortunate as to enjoy the friendship of Henry Mackenzie, author of the admirableMan of Feeling, of Dr Blair, and last, not least, of Burns. Thus, from her earliest years onward, his young daughter must have been accustomed to see and to hear of the literary lights of the Scotland of that day.
After their marriage, Mr and Mrs Ferrier occupied a flat in Lady Stair's Close in the Old Town. Their large family was made up of six sons and four daughters. When Susan was fifteen she lost her mother, and soonafterwards she was taken by her father to visit at Inverary Castle, the seat of his patron the Duke. Here a new world was opened to the plainly brought up Edinburgh girl. Here for the first time she saw fashion and the 'high life,' and here—either on this or some subsequent occasion—she formed several acquaintances which were destined to influence her career. Under John, fifth Duke of Argyll, society at the Castle had at that period a somewhat literary and artistic tone. Among its visitors was the accomplished Lady Charlotte Campbell—afterwards Lady Charlotte Bury—a name which, if unknown to the present generation, was once of some repute in the world of letters. Lady Charlotte was the Duke's younger daughter, and had inherited much of the beauty of her mother, the celebrated Elizabeth Gunning. She was just seven years older than Susan Ferrier, was distinguished by a passion for thebelles-lettres, and was accustomed to do the honours of Scotland to the literary celebrities of the time. During the year of Miss Ferrier's first visit to the Castle, she published anonymously a first literary venture, which bore the conventional title of 'Poems upon Several Occasions,' by 'A Lady.'
It may readily be guessed that this fascinating and high-born personage—distinguished as she was by the honours and the romance of authorship—produced her due impression on the imagination of the young visitor. Susan's literary instincts must certainly have been quickened by the intimacy—for a friendship which lasted till death sprung up between herself and Lady Charlotte. But, if she was a gainer in one direction from the acquaintance, I am inclined to believe that she was a loser in another. Years after, when she herselfbecame an authoress, her earliest work was disfigured by direct and unsparing portraiture of living persons among her acquaintance. Now no doubt this kind of writing may be productive of extreme mirth to persons qualified to read between the lines, and it must be acknowledged that Miss Ferrier's talent has made the mirth outlast its immediate occasion. Still, judged as art, this kind of thing is neither great nor gracious, and to her credit be it said that the authoress ofMarriagelived to see that this was so, and to amend her style accordingly. It may be noted, however, that the works attributed to her friend Lady Charlotte include conspicuous instances of a similar error in taste. Amid the vicissitudes of many years, her ladyship lived to produce a number of works of fiction, of the contents of which such titles asFlirtation,The Journal of the Heart,A Marriage in High Life, may afford some indication. But the single work with which in the present day her name is associated—and if she never acknowledged the authorship, it must be remembered that she resisted all provocations to deny it—is the notorious Diary in which a lady-in-waiting of Caroline of Brunswick has chronicled the follies and indiscretions of that unhappy princess, and the unpleasantnesses of daily life in her Court. Bearing this in mind, one can scarcely regard the brilliant Lady Charlotte as the best of friends for a young woman, her inferior in years and station, though greatly her superior in talent.
Among other visitors met by Susan at Inverary, two may be particularised as having afterwards contributed by their oddities to enliven the pages of her first book. These were the eccentric Mrs Seymour Damer, the amateur sculptor and friend of Horace Walpole, andLady Ferrers, widow of the peer who was hanged for the murder of his steward. With a Miss Clavering, a grand-daughter of the Duke, who was a child of eight at the time of her first visit to the Castle, she struck up an eager friendship. An animated correspondence was started between them, some of the letters in which have been preserved. These are for the most part undated, but have reference to a work of fiction which the young ladies proposed to undertake in partnership, and it is thus that the germ ofMarriageis first brought to light.
'I do not recollect,' says Miss Ferrier, writing in high spirits; 'I do not recollect ever to have seen the sudden transition of a high-bred English beauty, who thinks she can sacrifice all for love, to an uncomfortable solitary highland dwelling among tall red-haired sisters and grim-faced aunts. Don't you think this would make a good opening of the piece? Suppose each of us try our hands on it.' And, later on, after submitting a portion of her work, she writes again:—'I am boiling to hear from you, but I've taken a remorse of conscience about Lady Maclaughlan and her friends: if I was ever to be detected, or even suspected, I would have nothing for it but to drown myself. I mean, therefore, to let her alone till I hear from you, as I think we might compound some other kind of character for her that might do as well and not be so dangerous. As to the misses, if ever it was to be published they must be altered or I must fly my native land.'
In this passage, even after allowing for girlish facetiousness of expression, Susan Ferrier appears in the character of an accomplished 'quiz,' sailing dangerously close to thewind. Of course her correspondent is delighted with the specimen of work submitted to her, and will not hear of anything being altered. What school-girl would? She essays to allay her friend's fear of discovery, and offers to take the responsibility of the personalities upon herself. In a subsequent letter, dated December 1810, she describes reading the manuscript to Lady Charlotte during a drive. Her ladyship laughed as she had never been seen to laugh before, and pronounced the fragment 'without the least exception the cleverest thing that ever was written'—a verdict which after more detailed examination she endorsed in writing, declaring it to be 'capital, with a dash under it.' Not otherwise do the thoughtless and light-hearted egg each other on to mischief.
But Miss Ferrier was by this time eight-and-twenty years of age. Her native strong good sense asserted itself, and for a long time she resolutely declined to publish her work. (I ought ere this to have explained that the intended collaboration with Miss Clavering had fallen through, the sole passage contributed by the younger lady being the brief and not particularly interestingHistory of Mrs Douglas). In course of time, however, the merits of the book became known to persons having more authority to judge them than Lady Charlotte Bury or her niece. Mr Blackwood, the publisher, read the manuscript, and strongly urged the authoress to prepare it for publication; whilst no less a personage than Sir Walter Scott, in the conclusion to hisTales of My Landlord—then seemingly in proof—referred flatteringly to a 'very lively work entitledMarriage,' and singled out its author for mention among writers of fiction capable ofgathering in the rich harvest afforded by Scottish character. At length, in 1818—after undergoing several changes in the interval—the book was given to the world. It was published anonymously, and the authoress, speaking at a later date, professes to have believed that her name 'never would be guessed at, or the work heard of beyond a very limited sphere.' But from such obscurity the gallery of portraits which it contained must alone have sufficed to save it. For, in addition to the two ladies already mentioned—whose oddities appear to have contributed jointly to the inimitable figure of Lady Maclaughlan—the three spinster aunts were drawn from certain Misses Edmonstone, whilst Mrs Fox represented Mary, Lady Clerk, a well-known Edinburgh character of the time. It must not, however, be supposed that the vogue of the book depended upon adventitious circumstances alone; forMarriagesoon became popular far beyond the limits of any local set. In London it was attributed to the pen of Sir Walter Scott, and it is even stated to have been very successful in a French translation.
Its success at home can surprise no one, for never before had the idiosyncrasies of Scottish society been so vigorously pourtrayed. As has already been seen, the means adopted for showing them off are ingeniously contrived. At the commencement of the story we are introduced to the beautiful but shallow and artificial Juliana, the Earl of Courtland's only daughter—a young lady who has been trained solely with a view to social success and the formation of a brilliant alliance, the more solid parts of education having in her case been systematically neglected. She is betrothed to the elderly Duke ofL——, but at the last moment throws him over and elopes to Scotland. The companion of her flight is Douglas, a handsome young officer in the army, the child of Scotch parents, but brought up in England by a wealthy adoptive father. The honeymoon is scarce over when the young people find themselves, not only partially disabused of their illusions, but in actual pecuniary straits. Juliana's elopement has hopelessly alienated the Earl; whilst Douglas, absent from his regiment without leave, is superseded in theGazette. In these circumstances the only course open to them is to take up their quarters with the bridegroom's father, at his castle of Glenfern in the Highlands. Their proposal to do so is most cordially received, and now the irony of circumstance begins to declare itself. Lady Juliana has repeatedly protested that with the man of her choice she could be happy in a desert. But then her idea of a desert, as she avows when 'tis too late, is a beautiful place full of roses and myrtles, which, though very retired, would not be absolutely out of the world; where one could occasionally see one's friends and givedéjeunersandfêtes champêtres. A very different kind of place is Glenfern Castle. After a long journey in a drizzling rain through dreary scenery, their destination is reached, and Juliana makes herentrée, attended by her footman and lady's-maid, surrounded by her lap-dogs, squirrel, and mackaw, and encumbered by all the paraphernalia of an artificial elegance. Never was there a meeting between more opposed extremes.