The Antiquary | Page 7

antiquarian oldwomanries. It is like knitting a
stocking,--diverting the mind without occupying it." ("Journal," March
9, 1828).
Begun about Jan. 1, 1816, "The Antiquary" was published before May
16, 1816, when Scott writes to say that he has sent Mr. Morritt the
novel "some time since." "It is not so interesting as its predecessors; the
period does not admit of so much romantic situation. But it has been
more fortunate than any of them in the sale, for six thousand went off
in the first six days, and it is now at press again." The Preface of the
first edition ends with the melancholy statement that the author "takes
his respectful leave, as one who is not likely again to solicit favour."

Apparently Scott had already determined not to announce his next
novels ("The Black Dwarf" and "Old Mortality") as "by the Author of
Waverley." Mr. Constable, in the biography of his father, says (iii. 84):
"Even before the publication of 'The Antiquary,' John Ballantyne had
been impowered by the Author to negotiate with Mr. Murray and Mr.
Blackwood for the first series of the 'Tales of my Landlord.'" The note
of withdrawal from the stage, in the first edition of "The Antiquary,"
was probably only a part of another experiment on public sagacity. As
Lockhart says, Mr. Murray and Mr. Blackwood thought that the
consequent absence of the Author of "Waverley's" name from the
"Tales of my Landlord" would "check very much the first success of
the book;" but they risked this, "to disturb Constable's tenure."
Scott's temporary desertion of Constable in the "Tales of my Landlord"
may have had various motives. There was a slight grudge against
Constable, born of some complications of the Ballantynes' affairs.
Perhaps the mere amusement of the experiment on public sagacity was
one of the more powerful reasons for the change. In our day Lord
Lytton and Mr. Trollope made similar trials of their popularity when
anonymous, the former author with the greater success. The idea of
these masquerades and veils of the incognito appears to have bewitched
Constable. William Godwin was writing for him his novel
"Mandeville," and Godwin had obviously been counselled to try a
disguise. He says (Jan. 30, 1816) "I have amused my imagination a
thousand times since last we parted with the masquerade you devised
for me. The world is full of wonder. An old favourite is always
reviewed with coldness. . . . 'Pooh,' they say; 'Godwin has worn his pen
to the stump!' . . . But let me once be equipped with a significant mask
and an unknown character from your masquerade shop, and admitted to
figure in with the 'Last Minstrel,' the 'Lady of the Lake,' and 'Guy
Mannering' in the Scottish carnival, Gods! how the boys and girls will
admire me! 'Here is a new wonder!' they will say. 'Ah, this is something
like! Here is Godwin beaten on his own ground. . . Here is for once a
Scottish writer that they cannot say has anything of the Scotchman
about him.'"
However, Mr. Godwin did not don the mask and domino. "Mandeville"
came out about the same time as "Rob Roy;" but the "craziness of the
public" for the Author of "Waverley" was not changed into a passion

for the father-in-law of Shelley.
"'The Antiquary,' after a little pause of hesitation, attained popularity
not inferior to 'Guy Mannering,' and though the author appears for a
moment to have shared the doubts which he read in the countenance of
James Ballantyne, it certainly was, in the sequel, his chief favourite
among all his novels.'"
As Scott said to Terry, "If a man will paint from nature, he will be
likely to amuse those who are daily looking at it." The years which saw
the first appearance of "Guy Mannering" also witnessed that of
"Emma." By the singular chance, or law, which links great authors
closely in time, giving us novelists in pairs, Miss Austen was "drawing
from nature" at the very moment when Scott was wedding nature with
romance. How generously and wisely he admired her is familiar, and it
may, to some, seem curious that he never deliberately set himself to a
picture of ordinary life, free from the intrusion of the unusual, of the
heroic. Once, looking down at the village which lies on the Tweed,
opposite Melrose, he remarked that under its roofs tragedies and tales
were doubtless being lived. 'I undertake to say there is some real
romance at this moment going on down there, that, if it could have
justice done to it, would be well worth all the fiction that was ever spun
out of human brains.'" But the example he gave was terrible,--"anything
more dreadful was never conceived by Crabbe;" yet, adds Lockhart, "it
would never have entered