MICHAEL SCOTT

'At the entrance of the strangers, a flock of females rushed forward to meet them. Douglas good-humouredly submitted to be hugged by three long-chinned spinsters whom he recognised as his aunts, and warmly saluted five awkward purple girls he guessed to be his sisters:while Lady Juliana stood the image of despair, and, scarcely conscious, admitted in silence the civilities of her new relations.'

The three elderly spinsters are the Laird's sisters—Miss Jacky, who is esteemed the most sensible woman as well as the greatest orator in the parish, Miss Grizzy the platitudinous, and Miss Nicky, who is not wanting in sense either; and these representatives of a bygone social order are the most celebrated characters in the book.

Appalled by the sight of the surroundings amid which her life is to be spent, and distressed by the insolence of a pampered lady's-maid who instantly throws up her place, Juliana presently succumbs to hysterics.

'Douglas now attempted to account for the behaviour of his noble spouse by ascribing it to the fatigue she had lately undergone, joined to distress of mind at her father's unrelenting severity towards her.'"O the amiable creature!" interrupted the unsuspecting spinsters, almost stifling her with their caresses as they spoke. "Welcome, a thousand times welcome, to Glenfern Castle!" said Miss Jacky. "Nothing shall be wanting, dearest Lady Juliana, to compensate for a parent's rigour, and make you happy and comfortable. Consider this as your future home. My sisters and myself will be as mothers to you: and see these charming young creatures," dragging forward two tall frightened girls, with sandy hair and great purple arms; "thank Providence for having blest you with such sisters!"'"Don't speak too much, Jacky, to our dear niece at present," said Miss Grizzy; "I think one of Lady Maclaughlan's composing draughts would be the best thing for her—there can be no doubt about that."'"Composing draughts at this time of day!" cried Miss Nicky; "I should think a little good broth a much wiser thing. There are some excellent family broth making below, and I'll desire Tibby to bring a few."'"Will you take a little soup, love?" asked Douglas. His lady assented; and Miss Nicky vanished, but quickly re-entered, followed by Tibby, carrying a huge bowl of coarse Scotch broth, swimming with leeks, greens, and grease. Lady Juliana attempted to taste it, but her delicate palate revolted at the homely fare; and she gave upthe attempt, in spite of Miss Nicky's earnest entreaties to take a few more of these excellent family broth.'"I should think," said Henry, as he vainly attempted to stir it round, "that a little wine would be more to the purpose than this stuff."'The aunts looked at each other; and, withdrawing to a corner, a whispering consultation took place, in which "Lady Maclaughlan's opinion, birch, balm, currant, heating, cooling, running risks," &c. &c. transpired. At length the question was carried; and some tolerable sherry, and a piece of very substantialshort-bread, were produced.'It was now voted by Miss Jacky, and carriednem. con., that her ladyship ought to take a little repose till the hour of dinner.'

'"O the amiable creature!" interrupted the unsuspecting spinsters, almost stifling her with their caresses as they spoke. "Welcome, a thousand times welcome, to Glenfern Castle!" said Miss Jacky. "Nothing shall be wanting, dearest Lady Juliana, to compensate for a parent's rigour, and make you happy and comfortable. Consider this as your future home. My sisters and myself will be as mothers to you: and see these charming young creatures," dragging forward two tall frightened girls, with sandy hair and great purple arms; "thank Providence for having blest you with such sisters!"

'"Don't speak too much, Jacky, to our dear niece at present," said Miss Grizzy; "I think one of Lady Maclaughlan's composing draughts would be the best thing for her—there can be no doubt about that."

'"Composing draughts at this time of day!" cried Miss Nicky; "I should think a little good broth a much wiser thing. There are some excellent family broth making below, and I'll desire Tibby to bring a few."

'"Will you take a little soup, love?" asked Douglas. His lady assented; and Miss Nicky vanished, but quickly re-entered, followed by Tibby, carrying a huge bowl of coarse Scotch broth, swimming with leeks, greens, and grease. Lady Juliana attempted to taste it, but her delicate palate revolted at the homely fare; and she gave upthe attempt, in spite of Miss Nicky's earnest entreaties to take a few more of these excellent family broth.

'"I should think," said Henry, as he vainly attempted to stir it round, "that a little wine would be more to the purpose than this stuff."

'The aunts looked at each other; and, withdrawing to a corner, a whispering consultation took place, in which "Lady Maclaughlan's opinion, birch, balm, currant, heating, cooling, running risks," &c. &c. transpired. At length the question was carried; and some tolerable sherry, and a piece of very substantialshort-bread, were produced.

'It was now voted by Miss Jacky, and carriednem. con., that her ladyship ought to take a little repose till the hour of dinner.'

So bad begins, but worse remains behind; for these are but the occurrences of a few hours, whilst the visit is to be of long duration. However enough has been said to indicate the lines along which the story now develops. The feather-pate Juliana is not of those to whom Time brings wisdom, and a further acquaintance with her surroundings only serves to bring to light fresh disgusts. The gaunt apparitions of the first evening grow no less tiresome as she knows them better, no less hopelessly remote from every habit, tradition or association of her life. But her poison is the reader's meat. In the course of the next few pages we are introduced to Miss Grizzy's friend, Lady Maclaughlan, a distinguished amateur of medicine and an object of awed admiration to the sisters. As this lady steps upon the scene—fearfully and wonderfully attired, and bearing in her hand her gold-headed cane—with her deep-toned voice, her mercilessly blunt remarks, and her uncompromising 'humph!'—her ineffectually recalcitrant little husband borne behind her much as if he were a parcel—she is certainly one of the most memorable figures in all fiction. And among the most laughable scenes in allfiction must certainly be counted those in which in high dudgeon she cuts short her visit to Glenfern Castle, and—still better, and indeed unsurpassable—in which the ill-starred spinsters, mistaking the day, arrive to visit her when they are not expected.

Nor must it for a moment be supposed that such creations as this and the Aunts are mere masterpieces of the caricaturist. In Miss Ferrier's best characters it may almost be said to be a rule that caricature enters only into the details, and is never allowed to interfere with the main outline. An accusation far more justly to be brought against the authoress of this book is that of hard-heartedness, or a defect of sympathy and even of toleration for her own creations. Susan Ferrier was an uncompromisingly candid woman, as her interesting account of the visits paid by her to Sir Walter Scott are enough to show. That her heart was a kind one we know; but when she took pen in hand it was not her way to extenuate anything. Neither was she given to view persons or occurrences through any softening light of imagination or feeling. 'What a cruel thing is a farce to those engaged in it!' wrote another Scottish author. But she, having devised a farcically cruel situation, squares her shoulders and regards its development with a ruthlessness more proper perhaps to science than to art. Not a touch of compunction has she for her heroine—who, intolerably selfish and heartless as she is, is yet but a child and the victim of the harshest circumstance; not a touch of pity for the pathos and repression of such lives as those of the Aunts. In a word, tolerance is not her strong point. And, admirable as it is, her art yet suffers by the limitation of her sympathies. For one pines for the hundred little humanising touches by virtue ofwhich the same characters—living though they be—might have lived with a fuller and more gracious life. It is stated that Miss Ferrier's favourite author was La Bruyère, and in such studies as those of Lady Placid and Mrs Wiseacre he is obviously the model followed. And, though her best creations surpass those of her master as a living character will always surpass an abstract type, yet in this, her earliest effort, she still retains a good deal too much of the frigid intellectual method of the Frenchman.

What will, perhaps, more generally be considered a legitimate ground for the unpleasant task of fault-finding is, however, the extremely inartistic construction of the book. As we approach the middle, we are surprised to find the interest shifted to an almost entirely new set of characters, who belong to a new generation. Thus at a time when Lady Juliana cannot be much more than eighteen years of age, she ceases to be prominent in the story, and after the briefest interval we are called on to follow the fortunes of her twin daughters, who are now nearing that age. The bridegroom, Douglas, and two of the Aunts disappear altogether from the book; and this is the more to be regretted because there are few readers but will infinitely prefer the racy humours of the elder generation to the insipid long-drawn-out love-affairs of the contrasted sisters, even when these are more or less successfully enlivened by the sallies of the shrewd Lady Emily, by the caricature figure of Dr Redgill thegourmand, and by the absurdities of the literaryprécieusesof Bath.

The success ofMarriage, justified by its painting of Scottish manners and by the figures of Lady Maclaughlan and the spinster aunts, had the right effect upon the sterling Scottish character of the authoress. It led her totry how much better still she could do. Six years elapsed before the appearance of her next book, which was published in 1824—like its predecessor, anonymously. Indeed secrecy as to her literary undertakings appears to have been one of the novelist's strongest desires; and, writing much ofThe Inheritanceat Morningside House, near Edinburgh—where her father spent the summers—she complains of the smallness of the house as making concealment very difficult.

In the endeavour to improve upon her first achievement, Miss Ferrier was triumphantly successful. 'The new book,' wrote one of Mr Blackwood's correspondents at the time of its publication, 'is a hundred miles aboveMarriage.' Nor does this assertion overshoot the mark; for if the one is at most a bit of brilliant promise, the other is a superb performance. Foremost among its advantages must be counted, in place of the slip-slop ofMarriage, an interesting and admirably-compacted plot, and a vigorous literary style—the latter marked indeed, yet not marred, by a mannerism of literary quotation. What was shapeless and redundant inMarriageis here moulded and restrained by exigencies of the story, with the result that characters well-defined, and skilfully contrasted and relieved, confront the reader standing boldly and firmly on their feet.

Several features ofThe Inheritanceseem to have been suggested by the celebrated Douglas Cause. The Honourable Thomas St Clair, youngest son of the Earl of Rossville, has forfeited the countenance of his family by marrying out of his own rank in life. He settles with his wife in France, and here in the course of years a succession of deaths places him in the position of heir-presumptive to the earldom. He announces at head-quartersthe important tidings that Mrs St Clair is expecting to be confined, and having done so, with the Earl's concurrence he and his wife prepare to return to Scotland. But the confinement takes place, prematurely, on the journey. A female child is born, after which event the projected return is indefinitely postponed. So much by way of proem. The opening of the story shows us Mrs St Clair, now a widow, and her daughter, Gertrude, a beautiful and blooming maiden, taking up their abode with the elderly and unmarried Lord Rossville, who recognises the young lady as heiress to his title and estates. Under his roof, attention is drawn to a likeness existing between Gertrude and the portrait of one Lizzie Lundie, a low-born beauty of a bygone day, who had sat as model for a painting in the Castle. This resemblance is noticed by more than one person, and on more than one occasion, and reference to it is generally accompanied by marks of agitation in Mrs St Clair. Meantime the youthful heiress has won the admiration of two young men, cousins of her own, who frequent the Castle—the handsome and elegant Colonel Delmour, a man of fashion and of the world, and the less showy but far deeper-natured Edward Lyndsay. A singular meeting now takes place between Mrs St Clair and a stranger named Lewiston, and soon afterwards it becomes apparent that the latter exercises a great, though unexplained, power over the lady. The stranger's identity is presently revealed as that of the husband—long supposed to be dead—of a nurse of Gertrude's, to whom she had been tenderly attached. At a nocturnal meeting with Lewiston, at which Mrs St Clair has by entreaty, and by throwing out vague threats, compelled her daughter to be present, Lyndsay arrives upon the scene in time to saveGertrude from molestation, and thus earns her gratitude. However Delmour now declares his passion, which Gertrude returns—with the result that an understanding is come to between them. But the Earl has other intentions regarding the disposal of the hand of his heir, which for family and political reasons he designs to confer upon the Colonel's elder brother, a colourless man-of-affairs. By asserting her independence in this matter, Gertrude provokes Lord Rossville's displeasure; but the unforeseen effect of his lordship's purblind and blundering intervention is merely to bring to light the fact that Lyndsay also is in love with his beautiful cousin. The Earl, who has power to dispose of his possessions as he pleases, is meditating to disinherit Gertrude on account of her disobedience, when his sudden death leaves her free to follow her own wishes. In the meantime, Delmour's conduct has supplied ground for doubting the purity of his motives; whilst Lyndsay, who has again come to her rescue in a trying interview with Lewiston, has shown himself throughout a staunch friend to her best interests. But Gertrude is now Countess of Rossville in her own right; her lover returns to her side, and she is herself too noble-minded to question his disinterestedness. Under his influence she launches out into a variety of extravagant schemes, and going to London, where she becomes the admired of all admirers, devotes herself wholly to the pleasures of society, which for a time have rather an injurious effect upon her character. Lyndsay makes an appeal to her better self, but amid the excitement of her surroundings his remonstrance passes unheeded. Jaded by the excesses of fashionable life, at the end of the season she returns to Rossville,where the intrusive Lewiston, who has been thought drowned, now again appears upon the scene, and provoked by her disdainful treatment divulges the secret that she is the daughter, not of Mrs St Clair, but of her nurse, and that consequently she has no title to her present position. Overwhelmed by this intelligence, which Mrs St Clair's confession confirms, Gertrude loses no time in informing her lover of the true state of matters, and in so doing reveals the miserable shallowness of his nature. Delmour's love for the beautiful and high-spirited girl is genuine; but nameless and without fortune as she now is, he hesitates to fulfil his engagement towards her. Her love for him has been of such a different nature that she is well-nigh broken-hearted by the discovery. But the faithful Lyndsay stands her friend in need, and the book closes with her reinstatement, long afterwards, as his wife, in the brilliant position which she has already wrongly, though innocently, occupied.

The plot ofThe Inheritance, of which the above is a sketch, is a model of its kind, whilst from first to last the conduct of the narrative is perfect. Indeed theformof the story could not be improved—a rare merit even in a masterpiece of British fiction; and though the book is a long one, it contains not a superfluous page. Among the numerous authors quoted in the course of it are Shakespeare and the Greek dramatists, and perhaps, without stretching probability too far, we may assume that the authoress had studied the latter as well as the former. In any caseThe Inheritancein its own degree unites principal characteristics of the Greek and the Shakespearian drama, for the web of circumstance inexorably woven about the innocent and unconscious heroine isentirely in the manner of the first, whilst the indifferent, life-like alternation of tragic and ludicrous incident in the narrative is of a piece with Shakespeare's irony. No finer example of the latter could be cited than the impressive scene in which Lord Rossville, looking blankly from his window one snowy afternoon, is amazed to see a hearse approaching the Castle. Out of the vehicle, when it has reached the door, steps his lordship's pet aversion and the reader's delight—the undaunted and ubiquitous Miss Pratt. The voluble lady has a long story to tell of the circumstances which have compelled her to resort to this unconventional mode of conveyance, whilst the pompous Earl is scandalised at the general impropriety of the proceedings, and especially at thought of the hearse of Mr McVitae, the Radical distiller, putting up for the night at the Castle. However there is no help for it; nor as it turns out is the visit so ill-timed as had seemed, for the next morning Lord Rossville is discovered dead upon his bed.

But if the book is remarkable for its admirable story, certainly not less remarkable is it for the extraordinary wealth of character which it portrays. Probably few 'novels of plot' are so rich in character, few 'novels of character' so strong in plot. It may be that some carping critic of the ungentle sex will be found to object to Lyndsay and to Delmour, the contrasted lovers of the heroine, as to 'a woman's men'—to urge that their demeanour is too consistently emotional, too demonstrative, to be founded upon any very solid base of character or of disposition. But supposing (which I am far from granting) that there were some truth in this, here at any rate all ground even for hypercriticism must end. Andwhere in fiction is there a heroine more charming and more lovable than Gertrude St Clair—gentle yet high-spirited as she is, natural, and the soul of truth? Her pretended mother—ambitious and worldly-minded, violent, embittered by the slights and mortifications of her youth and bent vindictively upon retaliation—rises to the dignity of tragedy. Then we have the inimitable rattle and busybody, Miss Pratt, at home everywhere except in her own house, and incessantly referring to the sayings and doings of an invisible 'Anthony Whyte'—a very masterpiece of humorous delineation; and old Adam Ramsay, the cross-grained, misanthropic, Indian uncle, who yet compels our sympathy by his sentimental attachment to the home of his boyhood, and his constancy to the memory of his ill-starred love. Miss Bell Black, afterwards Mrs Major Waddell, is delightful in her perfect inanity and fatuity; and though her creator may not yet have learned to suffer fools gladly, she certainly has by this time mastered the art of portraying 'as though she loved' them. The Earl of Rossville, puffed up by a sense of his own importance, long-winded, sesquepedalian and null; Miss Lilly, the poetess, her Cockney lover and her brothers; gentle Anne Black; Miss Becky Duguid, the accommodating poor relation; Mrs Fairbairn, the materfamilias; and the peasant-woman whose misguided foresight leads her to prepare betimes her ailing husband's dead-clothes,—all of them are admirable, and all bear evidence of being freshly observed from the life. But the writer has learnt the lesson of substituting poetic for local truth; and if any portraits appear in this gallery—and it is stated that Adam Ramsay to some extent represents the authoress's father—they are such as can no longer rightly give offence to anyone.Miss Ferrier had reached middle life when she wroteThe Inheritance, and perhaps the laughter which it provokes is less boisterous than that aroused by the first essays of her youth. But for a scene of high comedy—to select one from many—the first conversation of Miss Pratt and Uncle Adam would certainly be difficult to surpass. Finally, we have abundant evidence that in all that she wrote our authoress was actuated by a genuine desire for the moral and religious welfare of her reader; but in comparison to that ofMarriage, hertonein this book is as is the influence of a well-guided life to a sententious homily delivered from a pulpit. In one word, there is no single point in her art in which she has not risen from what is crude and tentative to what is finished and masterly.

As it well deserved to be,The Inheritancewas a great success, and amongst those from whom it elicited warm commendation the names of Jeffrey and Sir Walter Scott may be particularised. Some of the chief comic actors of the day wished to have it produced upon the stage, with which object the manager of Covent Garden Theatre applied to Mrs Gore, the novelist, for a dramatic version of the story. But that lady's intentions were anticipated by one Fitzball, a purveyor of transpontine wares in the kind, to whose unfitness for his task the complete failure of the play, when it came to be produced, may probably be ascribed. For in its strong, well-developed plot, and diversified characterisation, the story possesses in a high degree the chief requisites of a successful stage-play.The Inheritancehas also the distinction of having furnished to Tennyson the outline of his beautiful ballad ofLady Clare.

Miss Ferrier was a very careful craftswoman—a fact to which much of her success has been attributed—and it was not until 1831 that her next book,Destiny, appeared. Much of it was written at Stirling Castle, while she was on a visit to the wife of the Governor of the garrison. The new novel was dedicated to Sir Walter Scott, to whom the authoress had good reason to feel obliged, for it was largely in consequence of his skilful bargaining that she had received for it the large sum of £1700 from Cadell. The prices paid to her by Blackwood for her two previous books had been £150 and £1000 respectively.

AsThe Inheritancerepresents the meridian of the writer's powers, soDestinyrepresents their decline—not because there are not some as good things, or very nearly as good things, in the latter as in the former, but because the whole is very much less good. The construction ofDestinyis loose and inartificial, and almost from the outset the want of a strong frame-work which shall hold the contents together and keep them in place makes itself felt. Properly speaking, there are two stories in the story,—namely, that which centres in the disposal of the Inch Orran property and the adventures of Ronald Malcolm, and that which concerns itself with the development of the relations between Edith and her recalcitrant lover. In itself of course this would be no defect, but instead of being interwoven, or subordinated one to the other, the two stories are allowed to run parallel and distinct until near the end of the book. Thus their interest is dissipated—an effect which diffuseness of treatment materially increases. Idle pages and straggling incidents abound, and in fact the sense of form which was so conspicuousinThe Inheritanceis inDestinyconspicuous only by absence.

If we judge it as an essay in character-painting, rather than as a story, no doubt the novel comes off better. Again, as inThe Inheritance, we have a gallery of masterly portraits—though this time the collection is smaller, and the paintings less highly-finished; and again we feel that these portraits are drawn, not from some conventional limbo of the novelist's, but from observation of life itself, backed up by true imagination. Among the group, the Reverend Duncan M'Dow bears off the palm from all competitors. This insufferable person, imperturbable in his own conceit—with his horse-laugh over his own jocularity, his grossness of manners, his greed for 'augmentation,' and his wounded self-love mingling with overweening vanity at the end of the book—is a piece of life itself, and the description of his luncheon-party is as good as anything accomplished by the authoress. The incarnation of fashionable selfishness and frivolity in the person of Lady Elizabeth Malcolm runs him close; but she is probably a less entirely original creation than the Minister—not that she is in any sense a copy, but that the same sort of model has been oftener studied. If we seek for something pleasanter to contemplate, the simple warm-hearted Molly Macauley, the dreamer of dreams, and the devoted adherent of the Chief who snubs her, is an endearing figure. The Chief himself, who loves good eating, and does not disdain to truckle to his rich childless kinsman, is a conspicuous example of materialisation and degeneracy, though the dotage of his 'debilitated mind and despotic temper' becomes almost as tiresome to the reader as it became to Edith and SirReginald. The key to the character of Benbowie, Glenroy's echo, is not quite apparent, and we should have liked to be assured (as we believe) that it was mere ineptitude, and not meanness, which caused him to disappear so hastily on an important occasion when money was required, and to return bringing it with him when it could no longer be of use. The vignettes of Inch Orran, the 'particular man,' and his wife, also stand out in the memory, as does that of the odious Madame Latour. And from this it will be seen that, with one or two exceptions, the more disagreeable personages of the book remain the most in evidence, for the Conways and the family of Captain Malcolm fade into insignificance beside those whose names are enumerated above. And, though the crux is an old one, where the high purpose of the writer is so much insisted on, perhaps it may not be unfair to enquire how far exactly she can be held to succeed in her aims, when even the regenerate reader is ill at ease in the company of her good characters and enjoys himself among her awful examples. The artificiality of some of its dialogues and the triteness of some of its reflections are further symptoms of the enervation which has begun to invade the book.

Miss Ferrier's history is the history of her books, and to these remarks upon her final literary production little need be added. Her mother being dead, and her three sisters married, it fell to her lot to keep house for her father, to whom she was devotedly attached, and with him she continued to reside until his death in January 1829. Her life, which was divided between Morningside House and Edinburgh, and varied by occasional visits to her sisters, is described as a very quiet one, and if wemay accept the Adam Ramsay ofThe Inheritanceas at all a close portrait of Mr Ferrier, it must have had its grim side too. She had long suffered from her eyes, and in 1830 she paid her final visit to London, in order to consult an oculist. From his treatment, however, she seems to have derived little benefit; her eyesight failed, and it became necessary for her to spend much of her time in a darkened room; and though she still continued occasionally to receive a few friends at tea in the evening, her life from henceforth was a very retired one. She died in Edinburgh, on the 5th November 1854, at the house of her brother, Mr Walter Ferrier, and was interred in St Cuthbert's Churchyard.

Her dislike of publicity characterized her to the last. It was not until 1851, when a new edition of her works was published, that she consented to allow her name to appear upon the title-page, whilst her unwillingness to be made the subject of a biography led her to destroy all letters which might have been used for such a purpose, and in particular a correspondence with one of her sisters, which contained much biographical matter. The records of her life are consequently few, but the following testimony of an intimate friend is interesting:—

'The wonderful vivacity she maintained in the midst of darkness and pain for so many years, the humour, wit, and honesty of her character, as well as the Christian submission with which she bore her great privation and general discomfort, when not suffering acute pain, made everyone who knew her desirous to alleviate the tediousness of her days; and I used to read a great deal to her at one time, and I never left her darkened chamber without feeling that I had gained something better than the book we might be reading, from her quick perception of its faults and its beauties, and her unmerciful remarks on all that was mean or unworthy in conduct or expression.'

Still more interesting is the sentence in Scott's diary which describes her as 'A gifted personage, having, besides her great talents, conversation the leastexigeanteof any author-female, at least, whom I have ever seen among the long list I have encountered; simple, full of humour, and exceedingly ready at repartee, and all this without the least affectation of the blue-stocking.' Of her considerate kindness to the author ofWaverley, then in failing health, on the occasion of her last visit to Abbotsford, Lockhart gives this pleasing description:—

'To assist in amusing him in the hours which he spent out of his study, and especially that he might make these hours more frequent, his daughter had invited his friend the authoress ofMarriageto come out to Abbotsford; and her coming was serviceable. For she knew and loved him well, and she had seen enough of affliction akin to his to be well skilled in dealing with it. She could not be an hour in his company without observing what filled his children with more sorrow than all the rest of the case. He would begin a story as gaily as ever, and go on, in spite of the hesitation in his speech, to tell it with highly picturesque effect; but before he reached the point, it would seem as if some internal spring had given way. He paused and gazed around him with the blank anxiety of look that a blind man has when he has dropped his staff. Unthinking friends sometimes gave him the catchword abruptly. I noticed the delicacy of Miss Ferrier on such occasions. Her sight was bad, and she took care not to use her glasses when he was speaking, and she affected also to be troubled with deafness, and would say, "Well, I am getting as dull as a post, I have not heard a word since you said so and so," being sure to mention a circumstance behind that at which he had really halted. He then took up the thread with his habitual smile of courtesy, as if forgetting his case entirely in the consideration of the lady's infirmity.'

In conclusion, if Miss Ferrier's work lacks the sweetness and delicacy of Miss Austin's, it has at its best a strength to which her English sister's makes no pretension. The portraits of the former arebitten inwith a powerful acid unknown in the chemistry of the latter.But if she was sometimesdownrightto the verge of cruelty, Miss Ferrier's view of life was a sound one. She strikes unsparingly at the rawness and self-sufficiency which are characteristic defects of such large numbers of our countrymen; yet she remains without rival as a painter of Scottish society, and one at least of her novels deserves to rank with the masterpieces of British fiction.

There used to be a tradition at Cambridge to the effect that an undergraduate, being called on in examination to give some account of John the Baptist, returned the answer, 'Little or nothing is known of this extraordinary man,'—a reply which probably did not go far enough to satisfy the examiner. Scarcely more satisfying, however, must be the response of the biographer who is called on to gratify natural curiosity regarding the author ofTom Cringle's Log—scarcely more satisfying, though with apparently so much less of excuse. For it is only a little over sixty years since the death of Michael Scott. Neither was his a case of posthumous reputation, or of rehabilitation after long neglect, which might have accounted for the obscuring of biographical detail—his work, though it has lost nothing of popularity, or certainly of readableness in the interim, having been received with acclamation on its first appearance. And yet, after diligent and eager enquiry, the present writer finds himself forced to acknowledge that all but a meagre outline of the facts of Scott's life is lost. This is the more remarkable in that he was obviously no bookworm or literary recluse, and that all who know his writings will feel instinctively that one so characterised by humour and the love of good company—to say nothing of practical joking—should have strewnanecdote thick behind him wherever he went. But if this was so, his traces have been most effectually expunged. The sort of find which now rewards, or mocks, his would-be biographer is, for example, such a tradition as that which records that he was fond of whisky punch—a solitary survival in the mind of one who remembers him in Glasgow, but a trait which, considering the times and the society in which Scott lived, can scarcely be held as individual. This, however, is not the worst. The writer has reason to believe that the glorious sea masterpiece with which Scott's name is chiefly associated was written, or at least partly written, in a house now belonging to himself—namely, the secluded cottage of Birseslees, situated on the banks of Ale, in Roxburghshire. Such, at least, is the tradition which he received from his father, one constitutionally averse to random statement, who had himself occupied the cottage within ten years of Scott's decease, and who, as an enthusiastic yachtsman, familiar with the West Indies, had special reasons for being interested in his writings. Such testimony—as Mr Mowbray Morris, Scott's biographer, remarks—is at least as good as that on which rest most of the statements regarding his life, and no apology is made for adducing it here. Yet, in despite of this testimony, a careful search, recently conducted among the oldest inhabitants of the neighbourhood, has failed to bring to light any but the vaguest and most uncertain references to the author of theLog. Under these conditions, what is left for a biographer to do? He has no choice but to content himself with a recapitulation of the few facts already current. One person, indeed, there is in whose power it almost certainly lies, by enlightening our ignorance, togratify our by no means unkindly curiosity; but it is generally understood that, for reasons which we have no right to challenge, and which at least in no wise concern the fair fame of the author, that person's lips are sealed. It therefore now only remains to consider whether the darkness which surrounds Scott's life is the result of intention or of accident, and in support of the former conclusion it may be stated that, among men-of-letters of the time, taking their cue from the author ofWaverley, and the practice of Maga, there existed an undoubted taste for mystification; whilst that the younger Scott shared in it is proved by the facts that his true name was never known to his publisher otherwise than by hearsay, and that in his own family circle and that of his immediate acquaintances the identity of Tom Cringle was unknown. One suggestion is that these measures were taken from a prudential point of view, in the interest of his business as a merchant, which might possibly have suffered had it been known to receive but divided attention. But as he avoided publicity in authorship, he may also have chosen to do so in other things. Otherwise, if internal evidence counts for anything, we should certainly suppose him to have been the least self-conscious of men, and one of the last in the world to trouble his head—unless he did it as a joke—as to what might be known, or not known, about himself.

Under existing circumstances, to write the life of Scott is to reproduce the narrative of Mr Mowbray Morris. Born at Cowlairs, near Glasgow, on the 30th October 1789, he was his father's fifth and youngest son. To that father, Allan Scott by name, the estate of Cowlairs had come from an elder brother, Robert, described as aGlasgow merchant of good family, who had purchased it in 1778,—at which time the house stood in the country, though its site has long since been swallowed up by the encroachments of the town. Young Scott was sent first to the Grammar School, as the High School of Glasgow was then called, and afterwards to the University, where he matriculated when just twelve years of age. Aird states that he was at school with John Wilson. At the University he remained four years, during the latter part of which he had as his inseparable companion the future author ofCyril Thornton, a fellow-student of tastes akin to his own, who has furnished in that novel a picture of the college life of the time. At the University Scott does not appear to have gained distinction. Perhaps, like many another author in embryo, he preferred miscellaneous reading to the college course; at any rate, the few literary allusions scattered over the pages of his books are generally apt and appreciative. However his taste seems to have been for active life, spiced if possible by adventure, and accordingly, in 1806, we find him leaving Scotland for the West Indies.

At this point Mr Morris, our authority, makes a digression in order to describe the magnitude and antiquity of the Clyde shipping-trade, and the effect exercised upon it by the revolt of our American colonies, which, by diverting it from Virginia to the West Indies, had changed its staple from tobacco to sugar. It happened that a family friend of the Scotts, Bogle by name—a Glasgow merchant and the descendant of Glasgow merchants—had at that time a nephew resident in Jamaica, where he was occupied as an estate-agent, and on his own account as a trader. To the care of this gentleman young Scott is now supposedto have been consigned, that he might be taught an estate-agent's duties. The agent's name was George William Hamilton, and one feels sure that no admirer of theLogwill hear with indifference that in him Scott found the original of the most individual of his many droll planter portraits—the portrait of Aaron Bang.

After profiting for three or four years by the instructions of Hamilton, who combined with his humorous propensities a very decided talent for business, in the year 1810 Scott entered a mercantile house at Kingston, in the employment of which he continued for seven years more. 'These years,' says Mr Morris, 'were the making of theLog. His business, coupled with Hamilton's friendship, not only brought him into contact with every phase of society in Jamaica, but sent him on frequent voyages among the islands and to the Spanish Main; and certainly few travellers can have carried a more curious pair of eyes with them than Michael Scott, or entered more heartily into the spirit of the passing hour.' In 1817 he returned to Scotland, and in the year following married Margaret, daughter of the Mr Bogle previously referred to, and consequently first cousin to Hamilton. He was soon back in Jamaica, however, and it was presumably at this time that he occupied the house—situated high up among the Blue Mountains, in midst of some of the finest scenery in the world—which is still shown to visitors as his. He remained in Jamaica till 1822, when he finally returned to his native land to start business on his own account. This he seems to have combined with a share in other mercantile concerns, being at the time of his death a partner in a commission-house in Glasgow, as well as ina Scottish commercial house in Maracaybo, on the Spanish Main.

It was in 1829 that he first appeared as an author, in which year—again to quote Mr Morris—'theLogbegan to make its appearance in Blackwood's Magazine as a disconnected series of sketches, published intermittently as the author supplied them, or as the editor found it convenient to print them. The first five, for instance, appeared in September and November, 1829, and in June, July and October, 1830, under the titles of "A Scene off Bermuda," "The Cruise of H.M.S.Torch," "Heat and Thirst—a Scene in Jamaica," "Davy Jones and the Yankee Privateer," and the "Quenching of theTorch"; and these five papers now constitute the third chapter.' But shrewd Mr Blackwood, who greatly admired the sketches, persuaded the author to give them some sort of connecting link, 'which, without binding him to the strict rules of narrative composition, would add a strain of personal and continuous interest in the movement of the story. The young midshipman accordingly began to cut a more conspicuous figure; and in July, 1832, the title of "Tom Cringle's Log" was prefixed to what is now the eighth, but was then called the eleventh chapter. Henceforward theLogproceeded regularly each month, with but one intermission, to its conclusion in August, 1833'; and a few months later, after some final touches, it made its appearance as a book. Its success was immediate. It was hailed with applause in particular by Coleridge, Christopher North, and Albany Fonblanque—the first-named of whom pronounced it 'most excellent.' Lockhart in theQuarterly Review, in an article on 'Monk' Lewis'sWest Indian travels, also speaks of it as the most brilliant series of magazine papers of the time; whilst theScottish Literary Gazettefor November 1833 concludes a glowing notice by adjuring the writer, whatever he may undertake next, to remember that he is the author ofTom Cringle's Log.

Its successor,The Cruise of the Midge, made a more regular progress, from its commencement in March 1834, to its conclusion in June of the following year, though it also required some final overhauling before its appearance as a volume. These two books constitute the literary output of their author, and the completion of theCruise of the Midgebrings us within a short distance of his death, which occurred at his house in Glasgow[9]on the 7th November 1835, when he had just completed his forty-sixth year. A large family survived to mourn his loss. He is buried in the Necropolis, where an unpretending monument marks his resting-place and that of his wife and several of their children. In the inscription which it bears, no allusion whatever is made to his literary achievements. I have been told that in private life Scott was a quiet easy-going man, of modest and retiring disposition, and also, on the authority of an old lady who remembers his death, that great was the surprise in Glasgow when it became known that he had been the author of thrilling tales of adventure by sea and land. It is said, by the way, that certain of Cringle's adventures were drawn from the experiences of a Captain Hobson, father of the Arctic explorer of that name, who when a lieutenant, about the year 1821, was engaged in putting down piracy in the West Indies. The characterof Paul Gelid can likewise be traced to an original.

Here ends what is to be known about Scott's life, and if it is with regret that we accept this fact as inevitable, there is at least a certain consolation to be derived from reflecting that, in this prying age, at least one gallant literary figure stands secure from the mishandling of meddlers. But—the author himself having evaded the biographer—it is scarcely less remarkable that the popularity of his works seems to have won them no adequate eulogy. For, so far as I know, we may search in vain among critical essays for an appreciation of these masterpieces. Possibly their character as books of adventure relegated to the boys' shelf may be in part accountable for this; whilst doubtless the frequent roughness and homeliness of their style—whether casual, or introduced for the purpose of fitting the speech to the speaker—may have scared off many such pedants and wiseacres as have yet to learn that merecorrectnessis one of the very humblest of literary qualities, or at least that genius—so itbegenius—is like King Sigismund, above the grammar-books. At an age when most boys are still puzzling over syntax and orthography, Mr Thomas Cringle and Lieutenant Benjamin Brail had already brought stout hearts and ready hands to bear upon the work of men, and it is quite true that in the records of their experiences not only do we find foreigners talking their own languages very imperfectly, but also the authors themselves from time to time making use of faulty constructions and of novel spelling. Now had their business been mainly an affair of words and phrases, this had been serious indeed; but as, instead, it happens to be one ofthoughts, feelings, sensations, and the art of communicating them, the case is very different. And we may add that had any man composed ten times as loosely as Cringle sometimes chose to do, whilst still retaining Cringle's power to make us see and feel with him, that man had still remained a most remarkable writer. However already more than enough has been said on the subject of these few and very trifling errors, which in fact interfere not at all with a style which is usually clear, nervous and straightforward.

As has been already indicated, Scott's principal literary gift lay in his power of presentation—his power, that is, of putting simply, sufficingly, and without redundancy, a scene or person before the reader, so that he shall see the one and hear the other speak. From the days of Homer to those of the world-wide success of the youngest of our distinguished novelists, this gift has been recognised as quintessential in the story-teller. In the two broad classes of temperaments, it is wont to assume two separate forms, which differ from one another—in class-room terms—as the objective from the subjective. Of the latter of these—by virtue of which a reader is compelled so completely to identify himself with scenes depicted that he not only seems to witness them, but actually for the time being to participate and play the leading part in them—the works of Currer Bell, and perhaps especiallyVillette, the most highly-finished of her novels, afford notable examples. The converse side of the gift is displayed by the virile and active temperament of Michael Scott; and, of this particular quality, many a writer of far higher reputation has possessed greatly less than he. In illustration of this, the example of his greater namesake may be quoted, for withall his many other excellences, Sir Walter's pictorial or mimetic effects are seldom, or never, perfectly 'clean'—direct, and free from surplusage or alloy. Michael Scott's, on the other hand, are about as direct as it is possible to be. Illustrations might be quoted at will, for if there is one thing more surprising than the gift itself, it is the lavish use made of it by its possessor on page after page of his writings. The following characteristic scene may serve as an example, and it must be borne in mind that all Scott's fine scenes are incidental: he never, so to speak, makes a point of them.

'It was eleven o'clock in the forenoon, a fine clear breezy day, fresh and pleasant, sometimes cloudy overhead, but always breaking away again, with a bit of a sneezer, and a small shower. As the sun rose there were indications of squalls in the north-eastern quarter, and about noon one of them was whitening to windward. So "hands by the top-gallant clew-lines" was the word, and we were all standing by to shorten sail, when the Commodore came to the wind as sharp and suddenly as if he had anchored; but on a second look, I saw his sheets were let fly. The wind, ever since noon, had been blowing in heavy squalls, with appalling lulls between them. One of these gusts had been so violent as to bury in the sea the lee-guns in the waist, although the brig had nothing set but her close-reefed main-top-sail, and reefed foresail. It was now spending its fury, and she was beginning to roll heavily, when, with a suddenness almost incredible to one unacquainted with these latitudes, the veil of mist that had hung to windward the whole day was rent and drawn aside, and the red and level rays of the setting sun flashed at once, through a long arch of glowing clouds, on the black hull and tall spars of his Britannic Majesty's sloop,Torch. And, true enough, we were not the only spectators of this gloomy splendour; for, right in the wake of the moonlike sun, now half sunk in the sea, at the distance of a mile or more, lay a long warlike-looking craft, apparently a frigate or heavy corvette, rolling heavily and silently in the trough of the sea, with her masts, yards, and the scanty sail she had set, in strong relief against the glorious horizon.'

Or this—

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