GODWIN, WILLIAM (1756-1836): CHAUCER, GEOFFREY, LIFE OF. . Pr. xvii. 55

(1804)

This is an article from the Edinburgh Review for 1804 on a work by Godwin in two volumes, quarto, upon which the writer says (Lockhart's "Life," ii. 177), “I have not either inclination or talents to use the critical scalping "knife, unless, as in the case of Godwin, where flesh and blood succumbed "under the temptation." Of this work "on Chaucer," Scott presumed that the entire edition had been employed by the sapient Government as the "heaviest materials to be come at" and adopted for blocking up "the mouth "of our enemy's harbours." The scalping-knife is amusingly used where (p. 69) he corrects Mr. Godwin, who had blamed Chaucer for "polluting the "portrait of Creseide's virgin character in the beginning of the poem with so "low and pitiful joke as this:

"But whether that she children had, or none,

"I rede it not, therefore I let it gone.''

In which lines (as Scott says) Chaucer intended no joke, inasmuch as Creseide was a young widow:

"And as a widowe was she and alone."

Nor does the critic consider it other than a “poor excuse” (p. 70), “after "writing a huge book, to tell the reader that it is but superficial work' be"cause the author came a novice to such an undertaking." He advises Mr. Godwin in future "to read before he writes, and not merely while he is 'writing." The whole may be characterized as a "slashing review."

Godwin could not properly have made a work of many pages, much less two volumes, on the life of Chaucer, so he padded it with "memoirs of his [Chaucer's] near friend and kinsman, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, "[and] with sketches of the manners, opinions, arts, and literature of England "in the fourteenth century."

GODWIN, WILLIAM: FLEETWOOD; OR, THE NEW MAN OF FEELING.

Monk Lewis negotiated the sale of Scott's version of Goethe's tragedy for £26.5.0, with a further payment of a like sum in case of a second edition, but "none was called for until long after the copyright had expired." Goetz was a real character, and was called Iron Hand, having lost his right hand for contravening an ordinance of Maximilian, the grandfather of Charles V., published in 1495, against duelling. "A machine," it is related, "was "made and fitted to his right arm, whence he was called 'Iron Hand.'"

GOLDSMITH, OLIVER (1728-1774), MEMOIR OF. (1821-5) Pr. iii.

231.

This is one of the "Prefaces" in Ballantyne's "Novelist's Library." This charming sketch gives too brief an account of one "who touched nothing "that he did not adorn," as Dr. Johnson affirmed in the epitaph placed in Westminster Abbey to Goldsmith's memory. It touches lightly on his acting as a "reader" in the printing-house of Samuel Richardson, and the well known anecdote of Dr. Johnson's selling for him the "Vicar of Wakefield" for £60 when Goldsmith was in trouble with his landlady on account of overdue rent. It gives many a sample of his habits of forgetfulness, as, for instance, when he sallied forth from some apartments he had engaged, he forgot to ask the name or address of the landlady, and could never have returned "had he not met the porter who had carried his luggage."

This forgetfulness served him in good stead at times, for once when he was going to Leyden, forgetting about his destination, he embarked in a ship which was bound from Leith for Bordeaux, and was fortunately driven into Newcastle-upon-Tyne by stress of weather, where he succeeded in getting locked up in a prison, and on his release found that his ship had sailed. It was wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne, and every soul on board perished. His comedy of the "Good-Natured Man" (1768) ran nine nights. His "She Stoops to Conquer" still retains a place on the stage. The main incident in the latter play, of mistaking a gentleman's residence for an inn, was borrowed from a blunder of the author himself while travelling in Ireland.

GUY MANNERING; OR, THE ASTROLOGER. 2 vols. (1815) Nov. iii. and iv.

This was received with eager curiosity, and pronounced by acclamation fully worthy to share the honours of "Waverley." In the spring of 1816, Daniel Terry, the actor (1780-1828), produced a dramatic version of this novel "which met with great success on the London boards, and still con"tinues to be a favourite with the theatrical public." The novel was published "exactly two months after the Lord of the Isles' was dismissed from "the author's desk." In Lockhart's "Life" (vol. v. pp. 397-408) is given the ballad from "The Durham Garland," recovered "after Sir W. Scott's 'death," which "in fact contains a great deal more of the main fable" of "Guy Mannering" "than the other versions mentioned by the author in his "Introduction." He probably had read it in his boyhood and remembered the purport of it, though its actual words could not just at the time be recalled.— See Lockhart's "Life" (vol. v. pp. 5 and 35, 36).

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The principal incidents of this story are founded on facts. The two characters which live most actively in the memory undoubtedly are "Dominie "Sampson, the stickit minister" and eccentric schoolmaster with a "pro-di"gi-ous" amount of unapplied learning; and Meg Merrilies, whose personality has been graven on the mind even more deeply than in the novel by the superb acting of Miss Charlotte Cushman. The gipsy on whom the char

acter of Meg was founded was well known in the middle of the eighteenth century "by the name of Jean Gordon, an inhabitant of the village of "Kirk Yetholm, in the Cheviot Hills, adjoining the English border." The author adds (Nov. iii. p. 23), “Such a preceptor as Mr. Sampson is supposed "to have been was actually tutor in the family of a gentleman of consider"able property." The events of the tale are laid in the years 1750-70, in the reigns of George II. and George III.

Andrew Crosby, whose portrait hangs in the Parliament Hall, Edinburgh, was the original of the shrewd and witty Counsellor Pleydell.

HAJJI BABA OF ISPAHAN IN ENGLAND. BY MORIER, JAMES.

See Morier.

HALIDON HILL.

(1822)

Pr. xviii.

(1829) 354

Po. xii. 1-86

This is a "Dramatic Sketch from Scottish History." Halidon Hill is situate about two miles northwest of Berwick-on-Tweed, England, where, July 19, 1333, the English under Edward III. defeated the Scots under the Regent Archibald Douglas. The scene utilized by Scott was really Homildon Hill, a height near Wooler in Northumberland, England, where the English under Percy defeated the Scots under Douglas in 1402. The Regent of the play is a purely imaginary character.

Messrs. Constable, without seeing the manuscript, offered £1000 for the copyright, which was accepted. Scott did not succeed in dramatic composition. Whether he could have done so if he had taken the necessary care and pains is not to the point. His dramatic pieces "would have been long "since forgotten, but that they came from Scott's pen."

This was published "by the author of the Bridal of Triermain'" within less than a month of the publication of "The Black Dwarf" and "Old "Mortality." A sketch of it had been actually printed in 1809 in the Edinburgh Annual Register, avowedly as one of three imitations of "Living "Poets." The comparative failure of this piece resolved Sir Walter that he would "never again adventure in poetry on a grand scale." Scott's own feeling was that "it turned vapid upon his imagination, and he had finished "it at last with hurry and impatience."

Again the critics were on a false scent, and the Critical Review styled "Harold" "a tolerably successful imitation of some parts of the style of Mr. "Walter Scott, but, like all imitations, it is clearly distinguishable from the "prototype: it wants the life and seasoning of originality." Blackwood's criticism on it (see Po. xi. pp. 252-254) describes it as "one of the closest " and most successful imitations," without being either "a caricature or a "parody, that perhaps ever appeared in any language." This makes amusing reading. In three or four years it was found to be Sir W. Scott's own work.

HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, THE. 2 vols. (1818) Nov. xi., 139-419;

xii. and xiii., 1–234.

This formed the second series of the "Tales of My Landlord." The events are laid in the years 1736-51, in the reign of George II., and gather round the noisy scenes of the Porteous Riot in Edinburgh. Porteous was captain of the Edinburgh City Guard, and fired upon the people for a disturbance made when a noted smuggler named Wilson was hanged. Porteous was tried for shooting the people illegally, and was himself sentenced to be hanged; but the people, believing the sentence would not be carried into effect, broke into the prison while Porteous was rejoicing with friends at an anticipated speedy reprieve, and executed him. The character of Jeanie Deans, the heroine of the story, had a real prototype in the person of Helen Walker, who walked to London to ask and obtained the pardon of her sister, who was under sentence of death for child murder. They were the daughters of a small farmer in a place called Dalwhairn, in the parish of Irongray, Dumfriesshire. The historical personages, the Duke of Argyle, Queen Caroline the consort of George II., Porteous, Lady Suffolk, and others, and the strongly marked characters of Madge Wildfire and the grand Jeanie Deans, lend this story extreme interest. The "Heart of Midlothian" was a name given to the old jail or Tolbooth of Edinburgh. It was taken down in 1817. Sir Walter Scott caused a monument to be erected over the grave of Helen Walker to her memory. The novelist gives (vol. xi. pp. 151*–152*) several particulars of Helen and Isabella Walker, the latter of whom, after being saved by her sister, was married to the person (named Waugh) who had wronged her, and "lived happily for great part of a century, uniformly "acknowledging the extraordinary affection to which she owed her preser"vation." Helen was never married. In vol. xiii. at pp. 36-39 are some interesting particulars of Madge Wildfire.

HERBERT, THE HONOURABLE AND REV. WILLIAM (1778-1847):
HERBERT'S POEMS. (1806)
Pr. xvii. 102

.

This was a review published in the Edinburgh Review for 1806 upon two volumes of "Miscellaneous Poetry" by Mr. Herbert.

The way in which the celebrated "Death Song of Regnar Lodbrog” had become perverted, and the exact contrary of the original had been given in English versions of Scaldic poetry by reason of being translated from Icelandic into Latin and thence into English, is amusingly shown (p. 104) by apt quotations. Mr. Herbert translated directly from the Icelandic, and so corrected many gross blunders.

HIGHLAND WIDOW, THE. (1827)

Nov. xli.

121-237

This tale, laid in the year 1755, in the reign of George II., was derived from the author's friend, Mrs. Murray Keith. "Neither the Highland cicerone "MacLeish, nor the demure waiting-woman, were drawn from imagination." The tale is related "very much as the excellent old lady used to tell the "story," and forms the first of the first series of "Tales of the Canongate."

HOFFMANN, ERNEST THEODORE WILLIAM (1776-1822), NOVELS OF. (1827). Pr. xviii. 270

66

Hoffmann's third name is variously given as William, Wolfgang, and Amadeus. This review appeared in the first number of the Foreign Quarterly for July, 1827. It gives a very interesting account of the author, whose career was both painful and extraordinary. He was one of the "most remarkable and "original of German story tellers." Carlyle, in 1827, wrote an interesting account of him, now included in his "Critical and Miscellaneous Essays." Hoffmann led an extremely ill-regulated life, and when success had turned his head, he, in disgust with conventionalities, retired to the wine house. Strangers," says one of his biographers, "came to Berlin to see him in the "tavern. The tavern was his study, his pulpit, and his throne. Here his wit "flashed and flamed like an aurora borealis, and the table was forever in a 66 roar; and thus, amid tobacco smoke and over coarse earthly liquor, was Hoffmann, wasting faculties which might have seasoned the nectar of the gods." His personal courage and literary industry in the last painful years of his life, when suffering a medical martyrdom, are a curious warning how "the most "fertile fancy may be exhausted by the lavish prodigality of its possessor." The three novels criticised by Scott are Hoffmann's "Leben und Nachlass" (1823), "Serapions-Brüder" (1819-26), and “ Nachtstücke" (1816).

66

HOME, JOHN (1724-1808), LIFE AND WORKS OF. BY MACKENZIE,
HENRY. (1827).
Pr. xix. 283

This long article appeared in the Quarterly for June, 1827. Scott met the author of "Douglas" at Bath, when Home was still a young man, and retained many later kindly recollections of him. In writing of this review in his "Diary," Scott says: "Home's works are poorer than I thought them: good blank verse and stately sentiment, but something lukewarmish, excepting Douglas, which is certainly a masterpiece; even that does not stand the "closet. Its merits are for the stage; and it is certainly one of the best act'ing plays going." He adds, "I finished the criticism on Home, adding a "string of Jacobite anecdotes, like that which boys put to a kite's tail."

HOUSE OF ASPEN, THE: A TRAGEDY. (1799)

Po. xii. 363-441

This is a very free "translation from one of the minor dramatists," executed by Scott in 1799, but first published in "The Keepsake" of 1829, "one of "the literary almanacks." Sir W. Scott received £500 for permission to print this with "My Aunt Margaret's Mirror," "The Tapestried Chamber," and "The Death of the Laird's Jock" in "The Keepsake," but regretted "having "meddled in any way with the toy-shop of literature, and would never do "so again, though repeatedly offered very large sums." (See Life ii. 19, and ix. 208.)