THE ANTIQUARY.
No. 5.— MISS WARDOUR.
The history of credulity would be the most singular page in the great history of mankind. From those vast beliefs which have founded religions and empires, down to the inventions that garnish the last new murder, there has always been a tendency in the human mind to believe with as little expense of the reasoning faculty as possible. A few useful doubters have certainly existed, and we cannot but agree with a late periodical writer, who says, "a doubt is a benefit to the truth;" generally speaking, however, doubt requires to be sharpened by vanity or by interest before it becomes an effective agent—the original leaning is the other way. When I left England the wondrous effects of animal magnetism usually came in to be discussed with the fish and soup; and if Sir Walter could have heard the miracles recorded, and the miracles credited and accredited by "the most respectable witnesses," he might not have thought it necessary to apologize for making his German charlatan an instrument in his plot. It is a curious fact, that the true has always been more opposed at the outset than the false; the circulation of the blood and vaccination nearly lost their discoverers credit and practice, while some vender of quack medicines makes a rapid fortune. This may perhaps be accounted for, simply, that the impostor addresses the multitude, while the scientific discoverer appeals to his brethren in knowledge, all of whom are inclined to deny, what, if admitted, must show, that a great part of their own research and acquirement has been in vain; still he who trades on human credulity will have a good stock on hand, especially when the lure held forth is that of gain.
Sir Arthur Wardour, involved in embarrassments from which he lacked skill, resolution, and means to extricate himself, was the very man to hope improbabilities—and from the improbable to the impossible is but a step. It is very remarkable the skill with which Sir Walter works out his second-rate characters—we should ascribe this to their being taken from real life—his dramatis personæ are remembrances rather than inventions, he required straw for his bricks, and his imagination did not begin to work till his memory had garnered up material: hence his Scottish novels are unquestionably the best, for there his impressions are the most vivid. He needed a clue to the labyrinth of human nature—and that clue was observation. He rarely creates a character; he is not given to subtle analysis, and we never come upon those remarks which seem like a window suddenly thrown open, that we had never seen unclosed before; but he is the great master of the outward and the actual. Every observation that he makes is rational and rightminded, but they never come like new discoveries; the reader applauds them as the echo of what he has already known to be right, but they never startle him into thinking. All Scott's qualities were opposed to the metaphysical; he and his cotemporary, Goëthe, were the antipodes of each other. The German looked within, the Scotchman looked without: to the one was assigned the province of thought—to the other that of action. The genius of the one stands as much alone as the genius of the other.
As a story teller, Scott is unrivalled; he would have made the fortune of a cafe at Damascus. The common conversation of every day may show how rare such a talent is; one person will give you a little narrative of some recent event, and politeness alone will compel attention; while, perhaps, one in a hundred will keep you amused while recounting a seemingly trivial accident. In the present novel there is a situation—a great favourite with our author, it is that of a father and daughter left dependant on each other's mutual affection. Rose Bradwardine, Julia Mannering, Lucy Bertram, Isabel Wardour, and Diana Vernon, are all the only daughters of a widowed father. It would be difficult, though interesting, to trace in what this predilection of Scott's originated. Such a tie is one of nature's most sacred and most touching. How deep must be the feeling of the bereaved parent who cannot look on the fair face of his child without recalling a face, once the fairest and the dearest in the world: the shadow of the grave hangs around the infant playfulness of the orphan, and even the hopes of the present must come tinged with something of sadness from the past. How soon too, with the quick feelings of her sex, would the orphan-girl learn that consolation needed to be mixed with her affection; a vague pity would mingle with her caresses, and each party would think there required so much allowance to be made for the other—and allowances are the golden links of domestic happiness. The memory of the departed would be a perpetual bond of union—the father would think how sad for his child was the loss of a mother's care; while the daughter would feel a more anxious tenderness from knowing that it was hers to supply a tenderness even more anxious than her own. The affection of his daughter throws a respectability around Sir Arthur; she loves him, she humours his little foibles, and, for her sake, others also bear with him.
Isabella Wardour's kindness of heart is indicated in all those slight things which throw such sweetness on the common air of life. The old beggar, the inimitable Edie Ochiltre, at the risk of his life, meets them on the beach, because "he could na bide to think o' the dainty young lady's peril, that has aye been kind to ilka forlorn heart that cam' near her." Even the Antiquary, with all his contempt for his "womankind," has an involuntary respect for her. If any further proof of her attraction be needed, she is the object of a romantic and devoted attachment, which if eye and manner requite less kindly than the conscious heart—it is for her father's sake. However, neither she nor Lovel need regret her earlier discouragement; for what man ever valued an object whose pursuit was unattended by trouble? Difficulty is as needful to appreciation as labour is to existence.