The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-11-22
THE SCOTT MONUMENT AT NEW
YORK.

Aoofeoo- ~ William Cullen Rryaut
The statue of Sir Walter Scott. pre-
sented to the city of New York by the
Scottish residents, was recently un
yelled in Central Park in the presenc,
OF large crowd of spectators. Aftel
music and the unwilling of the statue
William Cullen Bryant delivered tn,
following Grafton -
Inc SCOTTISH residents of this city
whose public spirit and reverence fol
genius have moved them to presen
to the people of New York the statu,
OF their countryman which has Jus
now been unveiled to the public gaze
have honored me with request that
should so far take part in these cere
monies as to speak few words con
corning the great poet and novelist, o
whose renown they are SO justly
proud.
As 1 look round oil this assembly
perceive few persons of my own age
few who can remember, as 1 Can, the
rising and setting of this brilliant
luminary of modern literature. / well
recollect the time when Scott, then "a
years of age, gave to the world his
LAY of the Last Minstrel" the first
OF his works which awakened the en-
thusiastic admiration that afterward
attended all he wrote. In that poem
the spirit of the old Scottish ballads
the most beautiful of their CLASSIFIED
again. In it We had all their fire,
their rapid narrative, their unlabored
graces, their pathos, animating a story
to which he had given a certain epic
breadth and unity. We read with
scarcely less delight his poem OF
"Marmion." and soon afterward the
youths and maidens of our country
hung with rapture over the pages OF
his Lady of the Lake." / need not
enumerate his other poems, but this
will say of them all, that no other
metrical narratives in our language
seem to me to possess an equal power
of enchanting the attention of the
reader, and carrying him on from in
cident to incident with such entire
freedom from WEAKNESS. These works,
printed in cheap editions, were dis
persed all over our country; they
found their way to almost every fire.
side, and their popularity raised UP
both here and in Great Britain multi.
tude of inlitators now forgotten.
This power over the mind of the
reader was soon to be exemplified i'm a
more remarkable. manner, and when,
at the age of 43, Scott gave to tue
world, without any indication of its
authorship, his romance of "Waver.
ley" all perceived that a lew era in
the literature of fiction had begun.
Here" they said, lis genius of new
order. What wealth of materials,
what free mastery i'm molding them
into shape, what invention, humor,
pathos, vivid portraiture of character
nothing overcharged or exaggerated,
yet all distinct; spirited and Iife-like
Are We not" they asked, "to have
other works by the same hand?n
The desir2 thus expressed was soon
gratified. The expected romances
came forth with rapidly which
amazed their readers. Some, it is true,
ascribed them to Scott as the only
man who could write them. at cam
not be-" said others; "Scott is occu-
pied with writing histories and poems,
and editing WORK after work, which
require great labor and research; he
has no time for writing romances like
these" SO he went on, throwing off
these remarkable works as if the writ
ing of them had been but a pastime,
fairly bombardfng the world with
romances from his mysterious covert.
1t was like what i'm the neighborhood
OF this city We see ON fine evening of
the Fourth of July, when rocket after
rocket rises from the distant horizon
and bursts in the air, throwing off to
right and left jets of flame and firebalIs
of every brilliant hue, vet whose are
the hands that launch them we know
not. So We read and wondered and
lest ourselves in conjectures as to the
author who ministered to our delight,
and when at length, at a public dinner
in the year 1897, Scott avowed himself
to be the sole author of the Waverly
novels, the interest which we felt at
this disclosure was hardly less than
that with which we heard of the issue
of the great battle of Waterloo.
L have seen a design by some artist
IN which Scott is shown surrounded
by the personages whom, in his poems
and romances, he called into being.
They formed a vast crowd, face beyond
face, each with its characteristic ex-
pressiOn-a multitude so great that it
reminded me of the throng-the cloud
/ must call it-of cherubim which in
certain pictures on the walls of Eu-
ropean churches surround the Virgin
Mother. For forty years has Scott laid
in his grave, and now his countrymen
place in this park an image of the
noble brow, so fortunately copied by
the artist, beneath which the person
ages of his imagination grew into be-
ing. Shall We say gre,o, as if they
sprang up spontaneously in his mind,
like plants from a fruitful soil, while
his fingers guided the pen that noted
down their words and recorded their
acts? Or should we imagine the facul-
ties of his mind to have busted them
selves at his bidding i'm the chambers
of that active brain, and gradually to
have nodded the characters of his
wonderful fictions to their perfect
form? AT all events, let us say that
He who breathed the breath of life,
the frame of which copy is before us,
impaired with that breath a portion of
his own creative power.
And now as the statue of Scott is set
up in this beautiful park, which, a few
years since, possessed no human asso-
Citations, historical or poetic, connect
ed with its shades, its lawns, its rocks
and its waters, these grounds become
peopled with new memories. Hence
forth the silent earth at this spot will
be eloquent of old traditions, the airs
that stir the branches of the trees will
whisper feats of chivalry to the visitor.
All that vast crowd of ideal person
ages created by the Imagination of
Scott will enter with his sculptured
effigy and remain-Fergus and Flora
Mclvor, Meg Merrilies and Dick Hat
teraik. the Antiquary and his sister
and Eddie Ochiltree, Rob Roy and
Helen Macgregor, and Baillie Jarvie
and Daudie, Dinmont, and Diana
Vernon and Old Morality-but the
night would be upon us before l could
go through the muster-roll of this
great army. They will pass in endless
procession around the statue of him in
whose prolific brain they had their
birth, until the language which we
speak shall perish, and the spot on
which we stand shall be again a wood
land wilderness.
An Accent HomOrist.
Hierocles, why lived in the sixth CEN
fury, collected twenty-one tests under the
general title of the Pedants," and in this
fossil jest-book we find jokes that have
been handed down through succeeding col
lections, and have become old and famil-
lar friends Among these accent jests is
the account of the man who, for fear of