Walter Scott - The Man Behind the Books. Walter Scott

it was here that he was despatched by three bandits in the pay of the Duke of Maddaloni; and here he found an honourable interment during a rapid reflux of popular favour. In this church, too, lies Conradin the last prince of the great house of Suabia, with his companion in arms and in death, Frederic, son of the Margrave of Baden, with pretensions, through his mother, to the Dukedom of Austria. The features of the mediæval building have long since been obliterated by reconstructions of the 17th and 18th centuries, while round the tomb of Conradin a tissue of fictions has been woven by the piety and fondness of after times. The sceptics of modern research do not, however, forbid us to believe that there may be an element of truth in the beautiful legend of the visit and benefactions of Elizabeth Margaret of Bavaria, the widowed mother of Conradin, erroneously dignified with the title of Empress, to the resting-place of her son. Her statue in the convent, with a purse in her hand, seems to attest the tale, which was no doubt related to the Scottish Poet, and may well have stirred his fancy. What the epitaph was which he copied we cannot now determine. It is not pretended that the unhappy lady was buried here, but two inscriptions commemorate the ferocity of Charles of Anjou, and the vicissitudes of fortune which befell his victims. One, believed to be of great antiquity, is attached to a cross or pillar erected at the place of execution. It breathes the insolence of the conqueror mingled with a barbarous humour embodied in a play on words — for “Asturis” has a double reference to the kite and to the place “Astura,” at which the fugitive Princes were captured:

      “Asturis ungue Leo Pullum rapiens Aquilinum

      Hic deplumavit, acephalumque dedit.”

      The other lines, in the Church, of more modern date, are conceived in a humaner spirit, and may possibly be those which touched the heart of the old worshipper of chivalry.

      Ossibvs et memoriæ Conradini de Stovffen, vltimi ex sva progenie Sveviæ dveis, Conradi Rom. Regis F. et Friderici II, imp. nepotis, qui cvm Siciliæ et Apvliæ regna exercitv valido, vti hereditaria vindicare proposvisset, a Carolo Andegavio I. hvivs nominis rege Franco cæperani in agro Palento victvs et debellatvs extitit, deniqve captvs cvm Frederico de Asbvrgh vltimo ex linea Avstriæ dvce, itineris, ac eivsdem fortvnæ sotio, hic cvm aliis (proh scelvs) a victore rege secvri percvssvs est.

      Pivm Neap. coriariorvm collegivm, hvmanarvm miseriarvm memor, loco in ædicvlam redacto, illorvm memoriam ab interitv conservavit.

      (For the details of the death of Conradin and the stories connected with his memory see Summonte, Storia di Napoli, vol. ii. Celano, Notizie di Napoli Giornata Quarta, and St. Priest, Histoire de la Conquête de Naples, vol. iii.)

       No. V.

      “Mother Goose’s Tales,” p. 459. The following note by a distinguished authority on Nursery Tales, will be read with interest.

      “It is unfortunate that Sir Walter Scott did not record in his Diary the dates of the Neapolitan collection of ‘Mother Goose’s Tales,’ and of the early French editions with which he was acquainted. He may possibly have meant Basile’s Lo Cunto de li cunti (Naples, 1637-44 and 1645), which contains some stories analogous to those which Scott mentions. There can be no doubt, however, that France, not Italy, can claim the shapes of Blue Beard, The Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, and the other ‘Tales of Mother Goose,’ which are known best in England. Other forms of these nursery traditions exist, indeed, not only in Italian, but in most European and some Asiatic and African languages. But their classical shape in literature is that which Charles Perrault gave them, in his Contes de ma Mère l’Oie, of 1697. Among the ‘early French editions’ which Sir Walter knew, probably none were older than Dr. Douce’s copy of 1707, now in the Bodleian. The British Museum has no early copy. There was an example of the First Edition sold in the Hamilton sale: another, or the same, in blue morocco, belonged to Charles Nodier, and is described in his Mélanges. The only specimen in the Public Libraries of Paris is in the Bibliothèque Victor Cousin. It is probable that the ‘dumpy duodecimo’ in the Neapolitan dialect, seen by Scott, was a translation of Perrault’s famous little work. The stories in it, which are not in the early French editions, may be L’Adroite Princesse, by a lady friend of Perrault’s, and Peau d’Ane in prose, a tale which Perrault told only in verse. These found their way into French and Flemish editions after 1707. Our earliest English translation seems to be that of 1729, and the name of ‘Mother Goose’ does not appear to occur in English literature before that date. It is probably a translation of ‘Ma Mère l’Oie,’ who gave her name to such old wives’ fables in France long before Perrault’s time, as the spider, Ananzi, gives his name to the ‘Nancy Stories’ of the negroes in the West Indies. Among Scott’s Century of Inventions, unfulfilled projects for literary work, few are more to be regretted than his intended study of the origin of Popular Tales, a topic no longer thought ‘obnoxious to ridicule.’“ — A.L.

       No. VI.

      DESCENDANTS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

      Sir walter SCOTT, == CHARLOTTE CARPENTER,

      d. Sept. 21, 1832. d. May 14, 1826.

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      SOPHIA, == JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, WALTER, = JANE JOBSON. ANNE, CHARLES,

      d. May 1837. | d. Nov. 25, 1854. d. Feb. 8, d. 1877. d. June 1833. d. Oct. 28, 1841,

      | 1847, s.p.

      | s.p.

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      JOHN HUGH, WALTER SCOTT, CHARLOTTE, == JAMES HOPE.

      d. Dec. 15, 1831. d. Jan. 1853, d. Oct. 26, | d. April 29,

      s.p. 1858. | 1873.

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      MARY MONICA,==HON. JOSEPH MAXWELL, WALTER MICHAEL, MARGARET ANNE,

      | d. 1858. d. 1858.

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      WALTER MARY WINIFRED MARY JOSEPH MICHAEL, ALICE MARY MALCOLM JOSEPH MARGARET MARY

      JOSEPH, JOSEPHINE, JOSEPHINE, b. May 25, JOSEPHINE, RAPHAEL, LUCY,

      b. April 10, b. June 5, b. March 7, 1878, 1880. b. Oct. 9, b. Oct. 22, b. Dec. 13,

      1875. 1876. d. March 12, 1880. 1881. 1883. 1886.

      Letters

       Table of Contents

      PAUL’S LETTERS TO HIS KINSFOLK

       Table of Contents

       Letter I

       Letter II

       Letter III

       Letter IV

       Letter V

       Letter VI

       Letter VIL

       Letter VIII

       Letter IX