The Heart of Mid-Lothian | Page 4

than the
heartless Hetty, in the same condemnation.
As to her lover, Robertson, or Sir George Staunton, he certainly verges
on the melodramatic. Perhaps we know too much about the real George
Robertson, who was no heir to a title in disguise, but merely a "stabler
in Bristol" accused "at the instance of Duncan Forbes, Esq. of Culloden,
his Majesty's advocate, for the crimes of Stouthrieff, Housebreaking,
and Robbery." Robertson "kept an inn in Bristo, at Edinburgh, where
the Newcastle carrier commonly did put up," and is believed to have
been a married man. It is not very clear that the novel gains much by
the elevation of the Bristo innkeeper to a baronetcy, except in so far as
Effie's appearance in the character of a great lady is entertaining and
characteristic, and Jeanie's conquest of her own envy is exemplary. The
change in social rank calls for the tragic conclusion, about which
almost every reader agrees with the criticism of Lady Louisa Stuart and
her friends. Thus the novel "filled more pages" than Mr. Jedediah
Cleishbotham had "opined," and hence comes a languor which does not
beset the story of "Old Mortality." Scott's own love of adventure and of
stirring incidents at any cost is an excellent quality in a novelist, but it
does, in this instance, cause him somewhat to dilute those immortal
studies of Scotch character which are the strength of his genius. The
reader feels a lack of reality in the conclusion, the fatal encounter of the
father and the lost son, an incident as old as the legend of Odysseus.
But this is more than atoned for by the admirable part of Madge
Wildfire, flitting like a feu follet up and down among the douce Scotch,
and the dour rioters. Madge Wildfire is no repetition of Meg Merrilies,
though both are unrestrained natural things, rebels against the settled
life, musical voices out of the past, singing forgotten songs of nameless
minstrels. Nowhere but in Shakspeare can we find such a distraught
woman as Madge Wildfire, so near akin to nature and to the moods of
"the bonny lady Moon." Only he who created Ophelia could have
conceived or rivalled the scene where Madge accompanies the hunters
of Staunton on the moonlit hill and sings her warnings to the fugitive.
When the glede's in the blue cloud, The lavrock lies still; When the
hound's in the green-wood, The hind keeps the hill. There's a

bloodhound ranging Tinwald wood, There's harness glancing sheen;
There's a maiden sits on Tinwald brae, And she sings loud between. O
sleep ye sound, Sir James, she said, When ye suld rise and ride? There's
twenty men, wi' bow and blade, Are seeking where ye hide.
The madness of Madge Wildfire has its parallel in the wildness of
Goethe's Marguerite, both of them lamenting the lost child, which, to
Madge's fancy, is now dead, now living in a dream. But the gloom that
hangs about Muschat's Cairn, the ghastly vision of "crying up Ailie
Muschat, and she and I will hae a grand bouking-washing, and bleach
our claise in the beams of the bonny Lady Moon," have a terror beyond
the German, and are unexcelled by Webster or by Ford. "But the moon,
and the dew, and the night-wind, they are just like a caller kail-blade
laid on my brow; and whiles I think the moon just shines on purpose to
pleasure me, when naebody sees her but mysell." Scott did not deal
much in the facile pathos of the death-bed, but that of Madge Wildfire
has a grace of poetry, and her latest song is the sweetest and wildest of
his lyrics, the most appropriate in its setting. When we think of the
contrasts to her--the honest, dull good-nature of Dumbiedikes; the
common-sense and humour of Mrs. Saddletree; the pragmatic pedantry
of her husband; the Highland pride, courage, and absurdity of the
Captain of Knockdander--when we consider all these so various and
perfect creations, we need not wonder that Scott was "in high glee"
over "The Heart of Mid-Lothian," "felt himself very strong," and
thought that these would be "the best volumes that have appeared." The
difficulty, as usual, is to understand how, in all this strength, he
permitted himself to be so careless over what is really by far the easiest
part of the novelist's task--the construction. But so it was; about "The
Monastery" he said, "it was written with as much care as the rest, that is,
with no care at all." His genius flowed free in its own unconscious
abundance: where conscious deliberate workmanship was needed, "the
forthright craftsman's hand," there alone he was lax and irresponsible.
In Shakspeare's case we can often account for similar incongruities by
the constraint of the old plot which he was using; but