Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1889-06-21
tling with a passion for hi

ytituS Win u ltbsiOH lOT HIS
lress he must not dare TO reveal
MT, the beautiful but unfortunate
gof Leicester, whose husband aspires
Hand OF Elizabeth, his death by poison
led for another, q sad ending of that
vaulting ambition, that o'ereaps itself,
And falls on tother side"
hese, too, are there. What would the world
ever have known, beyond dry and often dis
torted statements, of Mary, Queen of Scots,
the beautiful but most unfortunate woman;
the proud, imperious, but queenly sovereign,
not always right, but far more sinned against
than SHINING, had THE ABBOT not been
written There, also, the ability and treach-
cry of the Regent Murray; the chivalrous
devotion of one OF the mighty name Of
Douglas, are drawn out in lines never to be
forgotten. The persecution Of the Cove
nanters, by the instrument of royalty and
ecclesiasticism combined, the hated Claver-
house; the splendid character of Morton,
the self-sacriicing hero among that violent.
puritanical sect; the storming of Boutwell,
Brig; the daring projects and attempts of
that insane zealot, John Balfour, of Burley,
are written in Old Mortality. Louis XII of
France, the very embodiment of the Mephis-
tophiles Of g othe, dark, ambitious, treacher-
GUS; yet wlthal, acute, caustic, and entirely
selfish, though branded in general history
in general terms, nowhere appears full size,
complete in villainy as in Quentin DuTsodrd.
Mary Avenel, in The Monastery; Rowena
and Rebecca, In Ioanlt0e; Evelne Berenger,
in The Betr0t,ted, are among the examples of
genuine and exalted womanho6d, such as
chivalrous men fell down to worship in the
days wen females had not usurped them
selves into stump-orators and scramblers for
the ballot
fo lot rif
objected that Scott is not always historically
correct-this, in several instances, he him
self warns the reader is the case-yet that
objection would lie against Shakespeare; and,
after all, history, specially modern history,
because mostly partisan is amongst the most
uncomfortable of liars.
had marked a number of passages of
this noble literature; but dreadng the
growth of such desire, in making this art-
Gle too long, that great pleasure is foregone.
The first instance known, the Scott cult has
been lately attacked by Howells, now COM
ing into some notorety. He objects to the
honor placed upon birth and station, gori-
flying the vulgarism whose enmity kindles
against such Attitudes, and praises the lev
cling, agrarian spirit which is fast permeat-
ing modern lterature-if 1t deserves to be
called by that name-and sapping the foun-
dations of social and national life. Demon
strating, in all cases, conscious personal
lack OF these same attributes and forget
ting the eternal ordination, "Order is heav-
ems first law" The hierarchy of angel
hood is a mistake and fault; the superiority
OF one star to another star a creative blum
der; the gift to one man of mind and de-
scent while another is fitted to different
sphere a divine injustice; so think our
critics in this age of "steam engine utilitari-
anism," this era of communistic sentiments,
when the fanatic cry of the French Revo-
luton, Liberty, Fraternity, Equality" is
revived, though set to minor key For
getting, too, that the same law obtains in
the lower animal kingdom; pure blood in
stock still costs hundreds, even thousands,
while scrubs go for song-good, too, for
something, il only for hash 1t will be
found at last that beings conscious of adj
vantages "were not too proud to make good
saints in heaven" Vain has been every at
tempt, patterned after Fourier,
To fill the bitches up 'twixt class and class,
And live together in phalanstaries.
Such the attempt and such the influence,
of authors like Dickens. A keen Judge of
human nature, the preacher, the lawyer,
and perhaps few others, must read him for
other uses than model. In the course of
repeated perusals of his works, | cannot
now recall single word of praise for one
who had lin his eyes, the misfortune to be
well-born. His characters are, for the most
part, selected from the lowest strata of So
ciety, and all their hideous vices held up to
constant view If he finds hero anywhere,
he must come from the workhouse or the
Jail. Many pathetic passages there are The
death of little Nell; little Paul Dombey,
dying by the seaside, and asking Floy
what the waves are saying, and a hun
dred others that do honor to his head and
heart; but, per contra, he holds up his own
father las Micawber) to the scorn of all flu
ture time. The danger of cultivating low
taste in young and inexperienced readers is
real and great. The young fellow of birth
and breeding, debauched by mental associa-
ton with low examples gloritied, and, swept
away with what he calls his "American
idea" romanticaly weds where ancestry
have neither birth on the one side nor brains
on the other, sine d0te, sans everything but
lace and fancy, and finds out, too late,
that
Lovers fool paradise
Is out OF date, like Adams.
Beautiful, accomplished girls are running
away with their fathers coachmen and
bold young men, with not half the sense
of Romney Leigh go doom to find an angel.
and find only a Marian Erie!
Where Misunderstanding stamped one
an'ardndron-a princely man-hs epposites
instinctively antagonize him. The very OPP
posite were the rational course. AS Car
lyle so often tells us, it is the man, the MAN,
we must look for Poor he may be, OBJ
structed, depressed, hemmed in, but the
KONG, the King isin him, born there In
ratio none can estimate, we all are infu-
enced by the books we read. For the Gull
tivation of an elevated taste, for implanting
and fostering exalted aspirations, for en-,
couragement TO attempt the highest ideals.