On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    failed to interest . He could have delighted , and he * did d&light , with only the Thames and Richmond hill for his theme ; but that was only braw feeding for the cows , ' compared with- the sensation which the treasures of the land of mountain and of flood enabled him to produce . Another great advantage may be noted in his early familiarity with the national ballads and oral traditions

    of his country , and the early direction of his mind to antiquarian studies . He thus became familiar , in an . extraordinary degree , with the details , material and mental , of the mode of existence in past generations . His tenacious memory became enriched with the particulars whose combination was to prodape the localities , to rear the dwellings , to clothe the persons , to form the

    characters , and to suggest the adventures , of his future productions . This is the best and truest history . He shews us rnen as they were , externally and internall y * singly and in combination . It was a good thing , too , that he was ' the Shirra ; ' Meg Merrilies , and Dirk Hatteraick , and Edie Ochiltree , and Sharpitlaw , and many others are all the better for it . He probably apprehended

    many of them in virtue of his office . It was a pleasant treadmill , to be sent to labour for a month in a Wayerley novel ; a benevolent chastisement on gypseys and smuggler ^ rogues and vaga ^ bonds , getting good out of thena for the community ; and much better even for those who had been plundered by thein > than having to pay yet more for the pleasure of knowing that they had all been flogged in the Tolbooth . Would there were ever open

    such a House of Correction and Refuge for the Destitute . Would there were more such moral anatomists to whom subjects of this class might be handed over for dissection . Like an active magistrate , Scott sent them all to serve their country in the ranks of the regiments he hatd raised ; and they have done their duty . The limitation of Scott ' s power , and his occasional failures , are , as well as his success , to be traced to the peculiar mental

    character which we have endeavoured to indicate . The process which he pursued was , as we have shewn , one of practical observation and logical induction , rather than of poetical creation . Hence he never succeeded in . the supernatural . His materials failed him . His creatures were all of the earth , earthy . He could scarcely rise enough above the actual world even to depict effectively an unwavering faith in starry , or spiritual influences .

    Mannering does not believe in his own calculations , and Narna has doubts of her own conjurations . His best believers are Meg Merrilies and M'Aulay , and even their faith he ha * neutralised by throwing into the scale a grain or two of insanity . The White Lady is but a lady in white ; and he seldom got safely beyond the letter of hia legend ; he wanted documents * . His cguntry was very rich , and he coined and circulated the wealth , in superstitious record * , but there were none Qf these which could help him to penetrate , ua Shatapeare did , into thfl ifrfiQfpaQst workings pf the

    Untitled Article

    720 On the Intellectual Character

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1832, page 726, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1824/page/6/