No. 18.— MYSIE HAPPER.
Scott seldom chooses a heroine from any but the upper ranks. He rarely urges that this is "the loveliest low-born lass;" he likes the lady of his choice to be unexceptionable in her quarterings, and I believe that the blot in Sir Percie Shafton's escutcheon originated in the desire to excuse the mes-alliance. Still the miller has a sort of poetical aristocracy—he belongs to the realm of tradition and ballad—the picturesque which the mill gives to the landscape, with its gigantic wings, and its rushing stream is, in some kind, communicated to the owner. He is connected with all that is loveliest in pastoral life, the golden cornfield, the glad harvest-home; and, if there be a beautiful bit in the country, it is where the mill rears its dusky sails. Neither has it lost its fair predominance even in our own day. The most exquisite ballad of modern production flings anew charm around the mill-dam. Need we name Mr. Tennyson's "Miller's Daughter." Now, as antiquity was the chief charm of rank with Scott, we can imagine it almost supplying its place—poetry in the case of the 'Miller's Daughter' was nearly equivalent to the peerage.
Mysie Happer's great charm is the perfect nature in the delineation; she is just a lively good-humoured girl, who has known no care, but whose naturally ready wit has been quickened by constant activity, as in Dame Glendinning's kitchen she has always been accustomed to make herself useful. Love gives the one touch of elevation to the warm and beating heart, which knew not its own sensibilities and its own powers. The depth of a woman's character is to be tested by her choice in affection; according to that preference must be her standard of perfection. Now, Sir Percie is but a feather-brained coxcomb—still Mysie's liking may well stand excused. In nine cases out of ten, the lover owes half his qualities to the imagination of his mistress; and, it must be admitted, that a proper outside, and fair apparel, are not a bad foundation for fancy. Sir Percie's discourse, garnished with its pearls of rhetoric, seems to us marvellous nonsense, but we must remember that the miller's daughter had the great advantage of not understanding it. Now, the generality of people are very much in the situation of the courtiers in the story of Princess Sable, over whose cradle an old fairy pronounced some mysterious prediction. "The courtiers and nurses did not comprehend one word that she said; they, therefore, concluded it was something very fine, or very terrible." After all, the instinct of the heart did not deceive her—the knight of the three-piled velvet and the embroidered satin, proves brave, generous, and true. We cannot hold the delineation of Sir Percie, to be the complete failure which even its author admits it to be. This candour is one of Scott's most remarkable qualities; but, like a rich merchant, his general ventures are successful enough to admit of occasional failure. He can afford a loss. The view that he takes of the fruitlessness of an attempt to make a delineation popular, founded solely on gone-by affectation, is to a great degree true; but we must also add that the light airy cavalier required a degree of playfulness which is not one of Scott's qualities. He is, too, entirely Scotch, and wit is not a Scottish characteristic; they want the brightness, the abandon, the ready repartee so peculiarly to both French and Irish. The Scotch are too cautious to be witty—they take thought beforehand of their answers; they are not people of impulse, and wit is an impulse. "It springs spontaneous if it spring." But then they have humour, rich, racy, sly humour, full of national character, and nearly allied to pathos. This humour Scott has in perfection. Wit belongs to the head, and humour to the heart—there is always somewhat of inconsequence in the character of a witty people.
What a strange page in human history is that of social distinction; no people so savage but they have a sort of fashion. Even among the wild people in whose country I am now writing, there are all the small distinctions of small gentility—for example, it is not "comme il faut to wear silk."
Yet, as if to vindicate the humanity of Scott's creations, we are insensibly interested in the Euphuist. I would almost accuse the reader of hard-heartedness, who does not sympathise with the knight's mortification, when the rough English soldier so remorsely reveals the ignoble parentage of his mother. We do not know a prettier scene, yet "touching withal," than where Sir Percie leaves the planner and companion of his escape to return, as he supposes, to her father. He looks back and sees her standing desolate and hopeless, with the gold chain neglected in her hand. With one delicate touch is revealed the deep world of love and joy beating in her heart. When Sir Percie comes back to question of her state, look in his face she dare not; speak to him she cannot; but her feelings find expression in a timid caress, bestowed on the neck of his horse. Whatever may be Sir Percie's fortunes in the foreign land whither he is bound, at the conclusion of the story, they can never be utterly forlorn, with such a fair and faithful companion.