APPENDIX B.
"The magical touch and the sense of mystery and all the things that are associated with the name romance, when that name is applied to 'The Ancient Mariner,' or 'La Belle Dame sans Merci,' or 'The Lady of Shalott,' are generally absent from the most successful romances of the great mediaeval romantic age. … The true romantic interest is very unequally distributed over the works of the Middle Ages, and there is least of it in the authors who are most representative of the 'age of chivalry.' There is a disappointment prepared for any one who looks in the greater romantic authors of the twelfth century for the music of 'The Faery Queene' or 'La Belle Dame sans Merci.' … The greater authors of the twelfth century have more affinity to the 'heroic romance' of the school of the 'Grand Cyrus' than to the dreams of Spenser or Coleridge. … The magic that is wanting to the clear and elegant narrative of Benoit and Chrestien will be found elsewhere; it will be found in one form in the mystical prose of the 'Queste del St. Graal'—a very different thing from Chrestien's 'Perceval'—it will be found, again and again, in the prose of Sir Thomas Malory; it will be found in many ballads and ballad burdens, in 'William and Margaret,' in 'Binnorie,' in the 'Wife of Usher's Well,' in the 'Rime of the Count Arnaldos,' in the 'Königskinder'; it will be found in the most beautiful story of the Middle Ages, 'Aucassin and Nicolette,' one of the few perfectly beautiful stories in the world."—"Epic and Romance," W. P. Ker, London, 1897, p. 371 ff.
[1] Scott's translations from the German are considered in the author's earlier volume, "A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century." Incidental mention of Scott occurs throughout the same volume; and a few of the things there said are repeated, in substance though not in form, in the present chapter. It seemed better to risk some repetition than to sacrifice fulness of treatment here.
[2] "The Development of the English Novel," by Wilbur L. Cross, p. 131.
[3] Vol. i., p. 300.
[4] The sixth canto of the "Lay" closes with a few lines translated from the "Dies Irae" and chanted by the monks in Melrose Abbey.
[5] Vol. i., pp. 389–404.
[6] Vol. i., pp. 48–49.
[7] "Scott was entirely incapable of entering into the spirit of any classical scene. He was strictly a Goth and a Scot, and his sphere of sensation may be almost exactly limited by the growth of heather."—Ruskin, "Modern Painters," vol. iii., p. 317.
[8] "Marmion": Introduction to Canto third. In the preface to "The Bridal of Triermain," the poet says: "According to the author's idea of Romantic Poetry, as distinguished from Epic, the former comprehends a fictitious narrative, framed and combined at the pleasure of the writer; beginning and ending as he may judge best; which neither exacts nor refuses the use of supernatural machinery; which is free from the technical rules of the Epée. … In a word, the author is absolute master of his country and its inhabitants."
[9] Scott's ascription of "Sir Tristram" to Thomas the Rhymer, or Thomas of Erceldoune, was doubtless a mistake. His edition of the romance was printed in 1804. In 1800 he had begun a prose tale, "Thomas the Rhymer," a fragment of which is given in the preface to the General Edition of the Waverley Novels (1829). This old legendary poet and prophet, who flourished circa 1280, and was believed to have been carried off by the Queen of Faerie into Eildon Hill, fascinated Scott's imagination strongly. See his version of the "True Thomas'" story in the "Minstrelsy," as also the editions of this very beautiful romance in Child's "Ballads," in the publications of the E. E. Text So.; and by Alois Brandl, Berlin: 1880.
[10] See vol. i., p. 390.
[11] See the General Preface to the Waverley Novels for some remarks on "Queenhoo Hall" which Strutt began and Scott completed.
[12] Cf. vol. i., p. 344.
[13] "I am therefore descended from that ancient chieftain whose name I have made to ring in many a ditty, and from his fair dame, the Flower of Yarrow—no bad genealogy for a Border minstrel."
[14] "He neither cared for painting nor sculpture, and was totally incapable of forming a judgment about them. He had some confused love of Gothic architecture because it was dark, picturesque, old and like nature; but could not tell the worst from the best, and built for himself probably the most incongruous and ugly pile that gentlemanly modernism ever devised."—Ruskin. "Modern Painters," vol. iii., p. 271.
[15] See vol. i., p. 200.
[16] The Abbey of Tintern was irrelevant to Wordsworth.—Herford. "The Age of Wordsworth," Int., p. xx.
[17] "Dear Sir Walter Scott and myself were exact, but harmonious, opposites in this:—that every old ruin, hill, river or tree called up in his mind a host of historical or biographical associations; … whereas, for myself … I believe I should walk over the plain of Marathon without taking more interest in it than in any other plain of similar features."—Coleridge, "Table Talk," August 4, 1833.
[18] See the delightful anecdote preserved by Carlyle about the little Blenheim cocker who hated the "genus acrid-quack" and formed an immediate attachment to Sir Walter. Wordsworth was far from being an acrid quack, or even a solemn prig—another genus hated of dogs—but there was something a little unsympathetic in his personality. The dalesmen liked poor Hartley Coleridge better.
[19] Scott could scarcely have forborne to introduce the figure of the Queen of Scots, to insure whose marriage with Norfolk was one of the objects of the rising.
[20] For a full review of "The White Doe" the reader should consult Principal Shairp's "Aspects of Poetry," 1881.
[21] Scott averred that Wordsworth offended public taste on system.
[22] This is incomparable, not only as a masterpiece of romantic narrative, but for the spirited and natural device by which the hero is conducted to his adventure. R. L. Stevenson and other critics have been rather hard upon Scott's defects as an artist. He was indeed no stylist: least of all a precieux. There are no close-set mosaics in his somewhat slip-shod prose, and he did not seek for the right word "with moroseness," like Landor. But, in his large fashion, he was skilful in inventing impressive effects. Another instance is the solitary trumpet that breathed its "note of defiance" in the lists of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, which has the genuine melodramatic thrill—like the horn of Hernani or the bell that tolls in "Venice Preserved."
[23] See the "Hunting Song" in his continuation of "Queenhoo Hall"—
"Waken, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountain dawns the day."
[24] See vol. i., pp. 277 and 390.
[25] The Glen of the Green Women.
[26] "And still I thought that shattered tower
The mightiest work of human power;
And marvelled as the aged hind
With some strange tale bewitched my mind,
Of foragers who, with headlong force,
Down from that strength had spurred their horse,
Their Southern rapine to renew,
Far in the distant