The Press. — London, England, 1857-02-14 00:00:00

FEBRUARY 14, 1857. was unfairly treated. But the heart of this beautiful and amiable Princess must have withered as the tragedies perpetrated by the remorseless Philip thickened about her. She could hardly have been ignorant of the means taken to put an end to the life of Carlos. From the first hour of his incarceration, the cata strophe must have been apparent to every one. The grandees who supported the arrest, must have known that they were not safe as long us the Prince remained alive. Miss Freer's character of Philip is that of a respectable business-like king. She has not mind to grasp his real nature. He was of all characters the most detestable ; a formal bigot, without sympathies, sagacity, conscience, or heart. Schiller has invested him with a gloomy grandeur he does not deserve. Of all men that ever held sovereign power, he was, in our judgment, the worst. As is not un commonly the case with men of narrow in tellect, implacable will, and stony heart, he bad a firm belief in his own infallibility. He could smile and murder while he smiled, from a conviction that he was acting a meritorious part. This seems to us the very height and perfection of atrocity humanity is capable of attaining, when the extreme of wickedness is combined with the extreme of self•compla cency. While one spark of remorse exists in the mind, while even it is shaken by a doubt, nature is not wholly depraved. It is only when all thoughts that can suggest error or plead for pity are hushed to rest, that man becomes an incarnate fiend ; and this result is seldom attained, except when the grossest bigotry is grafted upon a character grossly brutal by nature. The period of history embraced in these volumes is extremely important, and the more fascinating to the mind as we feel that the true history of Don Carlos, and his connection with his sweet and lovely step-mother, has yet to be disclosed. The Works of the Rev. Thomas ..11.Crie, D.D. Edited by his Son. Parts 111., IV., V., VI., and VII. London : Blackwoods. AUTHORS who deserve to be remembered belong to various classes. Some are remark able by their style ; others by their deep thought, or decided originality ; and not a few merit preservation by their valuable matter and the judicious application of common faculties uncommonly cultivated. Amongst these latter we think that the late Dr. M•Crie deserves an honourable place. His " Life of Knox" was a highly creditable performance ; and we think that it will be difficult for any succeeding author to displace Dr. 111'Crie from the rank of being the biographer of the famous Scotch Reformer. Other writings from the same learned pen have in a lesser degree many of his best characteristics. M'Crie was a thorough Protestant. He was also a Scotch " nationalist," in a sense different from the meaning of Sir Walter Scott. He had little imagination ; his style is not affected by the influence of poetry; he had the force and acuteness of the Scotch mind, though his capacity for generalisation was not equally developed. To a certain extent his intellect was book-ridden; we meet with no passages of originality in his writings He could not be the head of a school of thinkers, nor could he powerfully modify the opinions of those around him. Examined with reference to the eminent literary men of his own couLtry, it must be conceded that his style wants the continuous ft< w of Robertson. the cold, high finish of Blair, and the genial verve and expansive force of Chalmers. But APCrie had great merits of his own, which must always give his works an honourable place in a Scottish library, and make some of his writings sought for by English scholars. His attainments were solid ; his researches were painstaking ; and his style, if neither ambi tious nor brilliant , is forcible and natural, though deficient in flexibility. His notes bear testimony to his wide acquaintance with his subject, and on Scottish ecclesiastical subjects his name will often be cited, and always with respect. We arc not, therefore, surprised at his writings being collected for republication. The two first parts of the edition before us' THE PRESS. contain his well-known " Life of Knox.' The third and fourth are occupied with the " Life of Andrew Melville," which is of little interest except to explorers in Scotch history; the fifth and sixth parts treat of the " Reformation in Italy and Spain and the seventh is occupied with the once•famous " Review of "Tales of My LAndlord.'" The last part merits the attention of the reader who is curious in watching the unreality of masters in the art. of historical fiction. This review occupies nearly half of the seventh part, running to ono hundred anti thirty pages, making about as much matter as is in two hundred pages of an ordinary '• Quarterly." The price of the part is two shillings and sixpence, and it deserves being placed on the shelf where the Waverley Novels repose. We shall notice this remarkable piece of writing. The review is thus introduced with the following notice from the editor:— The following review first appeared in the pages of the Christian Instructor, a religious periodical, under the editorship of the late celebrated Dr. Andrew Thomson of Edinbur.A. It extended over the numbers of that periodical for January, February, and March, 1'417. From the Life of Dr. M'Crie, it appears that he was induced to undertake the task of reviewing the " Tales of My Land lord '' by his ardent and energetic friend, the editor, who urged him not to spare the author; to praise his Scotch, but reprobate his principles with all his might. Our reviewer entered on his task con amore, and pro duced a critique which excited at the same time the live liest sensation. In the tale of " Ohl Mortality " " The Great Unknown " had intruded into ground still hell sacred in Scotland, and represented the heroes of the Covenant as little better than madmen, fanatics, and cut throats. He had besides employed all the charms of his pen to throw an air of attractive romance around the cha racter of Claverhouse, the bitter persecutor of the Cove nanters, who, from the deep share he took in the sanguinary proceedings of that unhappy period, was long held in abhorrence throughout Scotland, under the designation of " Bloody Claverse." In the judgment of the Scottish public, the review was held to be a complete refutation of the historical misstatements of the novelist, and a successful vindication of the vilified Covenanters. But it has been remarked, " it was something more than this in the eyes of Scott and his admirers, for it attacked him with a strength of wit and power of sarcasm that threatened to turn the laugh against himself, and foil him at his own chosen weapon." As the authorship of the Tales was then more than suspected, so that of the Review did not long remain unknown ; and it was held to be no ordinary contest when the type of ancient feudalism was seen pitted against the representative of its old adversary, the Whiggism of the Covenant. That the majority of "the Scottish public " at large may have taken the estimate alluded to here, may be true enough ; but there were two sides to the question in the opinion of a not incompetent or unlearned minority. Of the effect produced by these " invectives," as Lockhart calls them, we have that accom plished critic's own admission in the life of his famous father-in-law :—" Though Scott, " when he first heard of these invectives, ex " pressed his resolution never even to read " them, he found the impression they were " producing so strong that he soon changed " his purpose, and finally devoted a very large " part of his article for the Quarterly Reriew to " an elaborate defence of his own picture of " the Covenanters." The nineteenth volume of Scott's " Miscellaneous Prose Works " con tains the " article " referred to by Lockhart, taken from the Quarterly Reriew (January, Pin). The present editor reiterates his father's opinion, and reminds us of Scott having branded Dundee's victims as " the " beastly Covenanters," and Scott's own ad mission that he "had many Cavalier prejudices " instilled into him :" and he adds, " it is now " generally allowed by those who have read " the following vindication of the Covenanters, " that the prince of novelists was guilty of " taking the most inexcusable liberties with " the facts of history." This conclusion, ex pressed with so much strength, may be demur red to by sonic. It is many years since we read this able dissertation on th.' substratum of historical fact in " Old Mortality." We have now pe rused it again, and our feelings are not quite in unison with the able essayist. From first to last he never makes sufficient allowance for the exigeneie.s of a fiction, and he treats his author as if he were criticising a Hume, or Robertson, or professed narrator of positive facts. That there is prejudice in Scott's pic ture of the Covenanters, is true ; and we suspect that it would be difficult to find any 161 literary Scotchman who could write of those tunes with perfect impartiality. Scutt's serene temper, and his dislike of exaggerated reli gion, recoiled from the stern, though often sublime, fanaticism of the Covenanters. We acquit hint of all design of caricaturing them, or holding them up to reprobation, though we admit that his picture of them is unfavourable. " An historical fiction " is still a novel after all, made to amuse, written without the deep responsibility of an historian, and addressed to the lightest and gayest portion of society It is the inherent vice of that class of work that it is hybrid, and that either the actual or the amusing must be sacrificed. A writer with frigid impartiality could scarcely have the warm sympathies, and vigorous play of human feeling, necessary for a great novelist. Scott put a modest value on the labours of a writer of fietion. He observes, in his " Life of Mrs. Radcliffe," "If those who rail at this species " of composition were to consider the actual " quantity of pleasure which it produces, and " the much greater proportion of real sorrow " and distress which it alleviates, their philan " thropy ought to moderate their critical " uride or religious intolerance."—( Lives of the Novelists.) The essayist remarks with something more that "critical pride" on the accomplishments necessary for an historical novelist : Resides fidelity, impartiality, and judgment, it requires an extensive, and minute, and accurate acquaintance with the history of the period selected, including the history of opinions and habits, as well as of events. And we do not hesitate to say that this is a species of intelligence which is not likely to he possessed by the person who holds in sovereign contempt the opinions which were then deemed of the utmost moment, and turns with disgust from the very exterior manners of the men whose inmost haiits he affects to disclose. Nor will the multifarious reading of the dabbler in everything, from the highest affairs of Church and State down to the economy of the kitchen and the management of the stable, keep him from blundering here at every step. We think that the critic before us takes an exaggerated view of Sir Walter Scott's partisanship, even if such must be admitted. For example, Scott wrote : The rigour of the strict Calvinists (says he) increased in proportion to the wishes of the Government that it should be relaxed. A supercilious oondeunation of all manly pastimes and harmless recreations distinguished those who professed a more than ordinary share of sanctity. After a page of mordant ridicule the reviewer tvinds up a vehement passage with what he considers a crushing reply to the foregoing assertion : The fact is, that from the Reformation down to the period in which the scene of this tale is laid, such exer cises and pastimes were quite common throughout Scot• land ; children were carefully traine I to them when at school; professors in universities attended and joined in them, as well as their students ; and the IWsbytenan ministers, having practised them at school and at college, instead of condemning them as unlawful, did not scruple to countenance them with their presence. There were some of these precise preachers for whom, we suspect, our author (with all his intimate knowledge of such sports) might not have been quite a match in shooting at the popinjay; and in playing with them at the rapier or small sword, or in wrestling a Gill, we are afraid he might have come off as badly as Sergeant Bothwell did from the brawny arms of John Balfour of Burley. Now, Scott's assertion was pointed only at those who professed a more than ordinary " share of sanctity." The sneer about the author not being likely to be a match for " some of them at the rapier or small-sword," &c., is singularly inappropriate. Mr. Carlyle well observes, in his striking though severe paper on Scott, " that Sir Walter would have played his part well amongst the William of " Deloraiues, or the Marmions, of whom he " wrote." He was more than commonly endowed with both moral and physical courage. Many other sneers, which had their point as long as the author of the Waverley Novels was undiscovered, now are blunted. Here, for exa►nple, is a passage which, like many similar ones, had allusion, force, and pungency at the time : Hat we must conclude that part of our review which relates to the partiality shown by the author to the op• pressors of the Pre,,h3terians ; and we cannot do this better than by quoting a passage from a beautiful little poem which has appeared in the Pothc Mirror, and which we should have liked to hive seen in a separate form. It is said to be written by Walter Scott. It certainly would have done no discredit to the talents of that celebrated poet ; but some of its most prominent sentiments—not to speak of the sty le — bear so very little resemblance to his, I