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Rob Roy. By the Author of Waverley, &c. 3 vols. Constable and Co. Edinburgh, 1818.

(Concluded from page 50.)

IT has been objected to the novelists of the present day, and particularly to the eminent author now before us, that they do not possess that skill in the management of their stories which used to be thought so indispensablea requisite of their art. There seems, indeed, to have been a revolution in the sentiments of the present age in this particular. The conduct of a story is now regarded as a very inferior department of the poetic province, and in spite of Aristotle's authority to the contrary, we are much inclined to give into this modern heresy. We do not dispute that there is a beauty in a regular and interesting plot, which those geniuses who can rise to nothing higher, do well to secure for their narratives, and if it is connected with a certain perfection in the general style and sen

timents of the piece-the effect of the whole upon the mind is always pleasing, and sometimes powerful. An effect of this kind is produced by the Oedipus of Sophocles, and several other Greek dramas, which are equally remarkable for the artifice of their conduct, and for their general propriety and perfection,-yet how insignificant is this effect, when compared with the power of Shakespeare, when he hurries us along in the whirlwind of passion, or when he delights us with the exhibition of character,—and how little do we regard the improba

bilities and hallucinations which sa constantly traverse us in the progress of his stories! Indeed, of the higher order of poets or of novelists, how small a part of the pleasure which, we derive from their works, is to be ascribed to their narratives! The conduct of the Iliad is much admired for its simplicity and regularity; but we believe very few readers fix upon this as the chief source of their delight in that wonderful production, and if it were to retain its characters, its animation and its sublimity, although the story were much more disjointed, we believe few of those who now admire it most, would have much feeling of the defect. Fielding's Tom Jones has been greatly cried up as an admirably conducted story,-we have really no very distinct recollection whether it is so or no,-but we never can forget the impression of his humorous characters, his squires, his innkeepers, and his pedagogues! A story is not like a picture or a statue, the whole of which we can take in at one glance, and of course immediately perceive whether there is any absurdity or incongruity in the composition. Our attention is rather successively occupied with different parts than with the whole, and if we are much interested, we shall be very ready either not to perceive or to forget the perplexities in which the narrator has involved himself. With all this we do not mean to say that it would not be better to keep free of such perplexities, but that they are of less consequence than has been supposed, and that they are certainly not worth avoiding, if they cannot be got rid of without the sacrifice of higher beauties.

These observations, however, might be better applied to the former novels

"

of this author, than to the present. As a story, Rob Roy is more artfully conducted than any of the others. Rob himself is the subject of an anagnorisis, which even the Stagyrite might vouchsafe to view;" and we have no doubt, if it were worth while, that examples of many other technical beauties might be pointed out in the narrative, which would not have disgraced the treatise of an ancient critic. For our parts, we shall not go into these minutiae, nor any farther into the character of the fable, than merely to enter our protest against one favourite device, which, though it seems of a kind that can never be resisted by the writers of romance, either in prose or verse, has always a most baneful effect upon any story in which it is introduced. We mean when the events are made to turn in any considerable degree on the contents or the fate of pieces of parchment or bits of paper, whether locked up in caskets or scattered to the winds like the Sybil's leaves. However important these representative idola of wealth may be in real life, they make no figure in a work of imagination,and there is so much explanation required to shew in what way they can, be made to act upon the grand wheel of affairs, that we invariably grow bewildered in the attempt to follow their operation. Mr Owen's assets are about as puzzling and tedious as his great modern namesake's proposals for the amelioration of society, and we do not see how the one could have any more effect in stirring up the rebellion in 1715, than the other in removing, in 1818, all vice and misery, and the poor's rates. This commercial machine, too, looks particularly ill when introduced into the heart of Highland scenery; when

we

think of Rob Roy, we are prepared certainly to hear an hundred oxen at his levee roar," but for "the scrap" that "pregnant with thousands flits unseen, we are out of all patience at encountering its flimsy aspect in the midst of our lakes and mountains, and cannot help suspecting that our excellent author, in one of his last visits to the Highlands, must have joined some of the steamboat parties of cockneys, and permitted his great genius to be brought down, for a tine, to the level of his company.

We ought now to proceed with our sketch of this interesting fiction, but we really cannot think of taking up the time of our readers with a nar rative of events with which, we suppose, there is not one of the reading public (we beg Mr Coleridge's pardon) who is not already quite familiar. Who does not know, that when Mr Osbaldistone was conveyed into the prison in Glasgow, where we left him, it was to meet with poor Owen, whom he found there in a most melancholy predicament,-that his colloquy with this great arithmetician," was interrupted by the arrival of Baillie Jarvie and his maid Mattie,-and that the Baillie recognizes the mysterious guide who conducted our young Englishman thither, to be no other than the mighty freebooter, Rob Roy, soon identified, by Osbaldistone himself, with his old acquaintance Campbell? Who does not know, that the Baillie has weighty reasons for letting Rob slip off that night, and that he releases Mr Owen next morning? Soon after we accompany Osbaldistone and the Baillie into Rob Roy's country, to get hold of the assets, with which Rashleigh had made off, and which Rob promises to see restored, then follows the quarrel scene in the Highland inn,—the arrival of the party from the garrison of Inversnaid, who carry our travellers along with them, and fall into an ambush laid for them by Helen Campbell, wife of the freebooter,the description of that virago,—the terrible vengeance which, when she learns that her husband had been taken prisoner, and was in danger of his life, she takes upon the poor coward Morris, who had fallen into her hands as a hostage,-the mission of Osbaldistone to the station of the Duke of Montrose, whose prisoner Rob was,— the Duke's determination to put the laws in full force,-Rob's escape as he is conveyed across a river,-Osbaldistone's night wanderings,-his, first, meeting Diana and a mysterious stranger,-afterwards Rob, who is shocked at the account of the drowning of poor Morris,-his return to Glasgow with the Baillie and the precious assets,-his meeting his father there, and their departure together for England.-Then breaks out the Rebellion, and Sir Hildebrand, who joins in it, is taken prisoner, and all his booby sons

"We seek the outlaw, Rob Roy Macgregor Campbell,' answered the officer, and make no war on women; therefore offer no vain opposition to the king's troops, and assure yourself of civil treatment.'

most conveniently pop off, and leave Osbaldistone heir to the estate,-the old Baronet, who dies too, disinheriting the rascal Rashleigh, who had turned tail, and joined the powers that be.--The return of our young Squire to the old Northumberland mansion-house,-his taking possession of the library,-his finding Diana and the stranger, who turns out to be her father, lurking in a neighbouring apartment,--Rashleigh's attempt to seize them as rebels, the rescue by Rob Roy,- Rashleigh's death,-Diana's escape,—and, finally, her marriage with her lover.-These are a few of the remaining heads of the story which our readers must piece out for themselves.

We again repeat, that it is to the characters and the descriptions, much more than to the story, that our attention is rivetted in this, and in the other fictions of this great painter of manners; and that we think the peculiar merit of the piece before us consists in the truth, and the little exaggeration of its leading features. He has, indeed, as we have already remarked, thrown in a few poetical characters to give a relief to the homeliness of the rest. Diana Vernon is a perfect exhibition of this kind. Rashleigh is less successful, though drawn likewise with great power; but Helen Campbell, we suspect, rather out-herods Herod.' Her first appearance is her best, though it reminds us, a little unfortunately, of some of the grander aspects of Meg Merrilies.

"I have seldom seen a finer or more commanding form than this woman. She might be between the term of forty and fifty years, and had a countenance which must once have been of a masculine cast of beauty; though now, imprinted with deep lines by exposure to rough weather, and perhaps by the wasting influence of grief and pas sion, its features were only strong, harsh, and expressive. She wore her plaid, not drawn around her head and shoulders, as is the fashion of the women in Scotland, but disposed around her body as the Highland soldiers wear theirs. She had a man's bonnet, with a feather in it, an unsheathed sword in her hand, and a pair of pistols at her girdle.

"It's Helen Campbell, Rob's wife," said the Baillie, in a whisper of considerable alarm; and there will be broken heads amang us or it's lang.'

"What seek ye here ?" she asked again at Captain Thornton, who had himself advanced to reconnoitre.

"Ay,' retorted the Amazon, I am no left me neither name nor fame-my mostranger to your tender mercies. Ye have ther's bones will shrink aside in their grave when mine are laid beside them-Ye have left me and mine neither house nor hold, blanket nor bedding, cattle to feed us, or flocks to clothe us-Ye have taken from us all-all-the very name of our ancestors have ye taken away, and now ye come for our lives.""

They are the characters of unexaggerated nature, however, that we prize by far the most highly in this work, and in some of them the author has shewn infinite skill, in interweaving together discordant qualities, with so happy a regard to the due limits and proportions of each, that the result of the whole is the production of a perfectly natural character, even in cases where," to overstep the modesty of nature," was almost unavoidable. We have a strong instance in point, in the character of Rob Roy. There are qualities in his mind of an heroic and generous cast, which an ordinary artist would have infallibly pourtrayed in such broad and glaring colours, as to have obscured entirely its more vulgar and coarser features. But the Rob Roy here presented to us, we have very little doubt, is very much the Rob Roy of real life; with all that rudeness of demeanour, occasional lowness of thought, and homeliness of language, which, from their apparent truth, set off, rather than seem inconsistent with his nobler characteristics. Take the description of him as he appears before the Duke. It is impossible for any picture of fancy to come nearer actual existence.

"He gave orders accordingly, and the prisoner was brought before him, his armis belted down above the elbow, and secured to his body by a horse-girth buckled tight behind him. Two non-commissioned officers had hold of him, one on each side, and two file of men with carabines and fixed bayonets attended for additional security.

"I had never seen this man in the dress of his country, which set in a striking point of view the peculiarities of his form. A shock-head of red hair, which the hat and periwig of the Lowland costume had in a great measure concealed, was seen beneath the Highland bonnet, and verified

the epithet of Roy, or Red, by which he was much better known in the low country than by any other, and is still, I suppose, best remembered. The justice of the appellation was also vindicated by the appearance of that part of his limbs, from the bottom of his kilt to the top of his short hose, which the fashion of his country dress left bare, and which was covered

with a fell of thick, short, red hair, especially around his knees, which resembled in this respect, as well as from their sinewy appearance of extreme strength, the limbs of a red-coloured Highland bull. Upon the whole, betwixt the effect produced by the change of dress, and by my having become acquainted with his real and formidable character, his appearance had acquired to my eyes something so much wilder and more striking than it before presented, that I could scarce recognise him to be the same person.

"His manner was bold, unconstrained

unless by the actual bonds, haughty, and even dignified. He bowed to the Duke, nodded to Garschattachin and others, and shewed some surprise at seeing me among

the party.

"It is long since we have met, Mr Campbell,' said the Duke.

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"It is so, my Lord Duke; I could have wished it had been,' (looking at the fastening on his arms,) when I could have better paid the compliments I owe to your Grace but there's a guid time coming.' "No time like the time present, Mr Campbell,' answered the Duke, for the hours are fast flying that must settle your last account with all mortal affairs. I do Rot say this to insult your distress, but you must be aware yourself that you draw near the end of your career. I do not deny that you may sometimes have done less harm than others of your unhappy trade, and that you may occasionally have exhi bited marks of talent, and even of a disposition which promised better things. But you are aware how long you have been the terror and the oppressor of a peaceful neighbourhood, and by what acts of violence you have maintained and extended your usurped authority. You know, in short, that you have deserved death, and that you must prepare for it.'

"My Lord,' said Rob Roy, although may well lay my misfortunes to your Grace's door, yet I will never say that you yourself have been the wilful and witling author of them. My Lord, if I had thought see, your Grace would not this day have been sitting in judgment on me; for you have been three times within good rifle distance of me when you were thinking but of the red deer, and few people have kenn'd me miss my aim. But as for them that have abused your Grace's ear, and set you up against a man that was ance as peacefu'

In the same style of accurate drawing, without the slightest distortion or exaggeration, is the scene of the party of Highland gentlemen at the small inn in the village of Aberfoil. They are gentlemen in their demeanour, and even language, yet they have all the violence and coarseness suited to their rude age and unsettled country; and the dash of the savage and of the Jacobite, thrown into their conversation, mingled, too, with the extravagances of drunkenness, could not possibly be given with finer effect. If we turn to characters in the lowest life, what can be better imagined than "the creatur" Dougal? His perfect savageness, his exquisite cunning, his delightful fidelity, and his inimitable nai veté!--Then this great artist shews himself equally at home in city as in rustic life. There never was a citizen pourtrayed one half so wellas Baillie Jarvie; and the picture is the more admirable, inasmuch as, while it differs in every thing else, it resembles, in some of its moral and intellectual features, one of the former most original creations of our author-Dandie Dinmont. There is in both the same kindness of heart, and unreserved looseness of talk, combined with a coarse roundabout common sense. They are both, too, completely Scotch characters, and there was never any thing like them on the other side of the Tweed; but "Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain." Here is the distinction,Dandie is a perfect rustic, with all his habits and ideas drawn from the country, while the Baillie carries into the sublimest or most beautiful scenes of nature, notions manufactured, like his plaids and stockings, in the Saltmarket of Glasgow. The goodness and innocence of these beings render them alike susceptible of the impressions to which they have respectively been inured; and, if Dandie's salmon-fishing and otter-hunting, and his Peppers and Mustards, make him come forth with a more enlivening and romantic accompaniment than the son of the worthy deacon can boast of, yet he, too, in his own way, makes a very pic

turesque figure when he sits down to eat hissinged tup's head," or squeezes into his bowl of brandypunch the limes from his own little farm 66 yonder awa;" and still more, when he sallies forth for his journey into the Highlands, "cloaked, mantled, hooded, and booted, as if for a Siberian winter, while two apprentices, under the immediate direction of Mattie, lead forth his decent ambling steed." Mattie is quite delicious. She scarcely speaks two words throughout the whole book, yet there is no character that we more thoroughly comprehend; and when, at last, we find the Baillie married to her, we are satisfied that it is quite as it ought to be, and that the good man could not possibly have Besides, Mattie was nae ordinary lassock-quean; she was akin to the laird o' Limmerfield." We before remarked the contrast between the ledgered and docketted intellect of the London clerk, Owen, and the Baillie's rambling and excursive genius. This is most exquisitely brought out in the discussion, in which these two worthies engage on the Highland population and character.

done better.

"Ye maun understand (says the Baillie) I found my remarks on figures, whilk, as Mr Owen here weel kens, is the only true demonstrable root of human knowledge.'

"Owen readily assented to a proposition so much in his own way, and our orator proceeded.

"These Hielands of ours, as we ca' them, gentlemen, are but a wild kind of warld by themsells, full of heights and hows, woods, caverns, lochs, rivers, and mountains, that it wad tire the very deevil's wings to flee to the tap o' them. And in this country, and in the isles, whilk are little better, or, to speak the truth, rather waur than the main land, there are about twa hunder and thirty parochines, including the Orkneys, where, whether they speak Gaelic or no, I wot na, but they are an uncivilized people.-Now, sirs, I shall haud ilk parochine at the moderate estimate of eight hunder examinable persons, deducting children under nine years of age, and then adding one-fifth to stand for bairns of nine years auld, and under, the whole population will reach to the sum of let us add one-fifth to 800 to be the multiplier, and 230 being the multipli

cand'

array of this Hieland country, were a' the men-folk between aughteen and fifty-six brought out that could bear arms, could na come weel short of fifty-seven thousand five hundred men. Now, sir, it's a sad

and awfu' truth, that there is neither wark, for the tae half of thae puir creatures; that nor the very fashion or appearance of wark, is to say, that the agriculture, the pastu rage, the fisheries, and every species of honest industry about the country, cannot employ the one moiety of the population, let them work as lazily as they like, and they do work as if a pleugh or a spade burnt their fingers. Aweel, sir, this moiety of unemployed bodies, amounting to

"To one hundred and fifteen thousand souls,' said Owen, being the half of the above product.'

whereof there may be twenty-eight thou"Ye hae't, Maister Owen-ye hae'tsand seven hundred able-bodied gillies fit to bear arms, and that do bear arms, and will touch or look at nae honest means of livelihood even if they could get it—which, lack-a-day, they cannot.'

"But is it possible,' said I, Mr Jarvie, that this can be a just picture of so large a portion of the island of Britain?'

"Sir, I'll make it as plain as Peter Pasley's pike-staff-I will allow that ilk parochine, on an average, employs fifty pleughs, whilk is a great proportion in sic miserable soil as thae creatures hae to labour, and that there may be pasture aneugh for pleugh horses, and owsen, and forty or fifty cows; now, to take care of the pleughs and cattle, we'se allow seventy-five families of six lives in ilk family, and we'se add fifty mair to make even numbers, and ye hae five hundred souls, the tae half o' the population, employed and maintained in a sort o' fashion, wi' some chance of sourmilk and crowdie; but I wad be glad to ken what the other five hunder are te do?"

There is a horrible scene, very strongly and powerfully painted the hurling poor Morris, with a stone about his neck, into the lake; but we have some doubts how far a scene of that revolting and painful kind ought to be described at all. It is really something approaching to the treading out the Duke of Gloucester's eyes in King Lear, and cutting out Lavinia's tongue in Titus Andronicus; and, if the taste of the age continues to set in so violently for every kind of emotion or sensation, we suspect such beautiful exhibitions as these will again come into vogue. We do not recollect having so great a tendency to feel sick at stomach with any description of a poor wretch's death, since we read in Mr