452 Sir Walter Scott. 



at his command. That the author of 'Waverly' understood the 

 Scottish [character thoroughly, no one can doubt ; and we boldly 

 prophesy, though there is little boldness, inasmuch as the notes, 

 that have already appeared in the cheap editions, disclose a great deal 

 of the secret history of the novels, that all, or nearly all of his native 

 characters especially in low, middling, or mercantile life are 

 drawn from portraits. In stating this, nothing is intended in dis- 

 paragement of the author's talents or of his imaginative powers : if 

 would be as absurd to suppose Raffaelle to be a mere copyist^ 

 because he used his beautiful mistress as the model of his female, 

 figures. What we have already said amounts simply to this, that 

 Scott was very profoundly acquainted with national archaeology ancV 

 that he had a disposition for such studies that gave him great facili-2 

 ties in pushing them still further. What we mean to say in addition, 

 is, that from his observation of society and not a small circle of \{1 

 he acquired a knowledge of the workings, that is, of the more 

 superficial workings of the human feelings ; and his retentive me- 

 mory was so deeply impressed with them, that he was enabled w 

 transfer them to paper with a vivacity and power that give the cha- 

 racters in which he embodies these borrowed conceptions the stampl 

 of the highest genius and originality. Yet, it would be difficult to\ 

 imagine that the Overreach of Massinger or the Shylock of Shak- 

 speare, terrible as they are, were drawn without hints from 

 actual originals. Away then with the objections of those, who deny 

 the meed of poetical originality to characters, ilie first idea of which 

 is conceived from nature herself. Whether Scott conceived more 

 than the first idea from real characters, we have not the means of 

 ascertaining. But, besides his love of becoming acquainted with 

 individual character, Scott possessed a fund of humour, which en- 

 abled him to infuse drollery into some of his representations of cha- 

 racter. Monkbar-ns, and Baillie Nicol Jarvie, not here cited as the 

 best of his comic characters, could not have been portrayed by a 

 writer devoid of natural humour. ' They live, move, and ^have their 

 being.' He was, besides, particularly fortunate in his description of 

 scenery. Now, to assert that much of the scenery that is depicted in 

 the Waverly Novels, came under the author's own eyes at different 

 times during his rambles, would be nothing extravagant nothing 

 more than true. This would in the eye of some prove him to be a 

 copyist, -just as much and no more than Constable (alas, now gone 

 and without a survivor worthy of him)-^the first of aerial and climatic 

 landscape poets could be said to be the servile copyist of a passing 

 shower in April or of a sultry day in July. The charge is absurd. 

 But Walter Scott was not the mere describer'of inanimate nature. He 

 could infuse life into his scenery and fill it with bustle and agitation : 

 in short he was thoroughly acquainted with what may be termed 

 the melodramatic department of romance. Witness in proof of this 

 ability Waverly's interview with Flora Mac-Ivor at the cataract of 

 Glennaquoich, the rescue of Sir Arthur Wardour and his daughter 

 from drowning by Lovel and Ochiltree, the approach and depar- 

 ture of Claverton's troops to and from the Castle of Tillietudlem, 

 the capture of the saturnine enthusiast Balfour in his rocky fastness, 



