In his creation of personages, Scott displays a fecundity resembling that of nature herself, a
           fecundity derived from his comprehensive acquaintanceship with all sorts and conditions of
           men. Like Burns, he at once placed himself on easy terms with everyone he met. His early
           raids into Liddesdale, for example, gave him a better insight into the characteristics of the
           border shepherds and farmers than most strangers could obtain, for the simple reason that he
           at once became intimate with them. The verdict of one of them, at first disposed to stand in
           awe of the Edinburgh advocate, was, so soon as Scott had spoken to him, “He’s just a chield
           like ourselves I think”; and this was the impression he produced in whatever circle he moved.
           He met everyone on terms of their common human nature; he mingled with his workmen
           without conveying any sense of patronage, he and they were at home with each other. On
           animals, he seemed to exercise, unconsciously, a mesmeric influence, founded on their
           instinctive trust in his goodwill; and a similar glamour, derived from his deep geniality, at once
           secured him the confidence and regard of nearly every person he met.
           “I believe,” says Lockhart, “Scott has somewhere expressed in print his satisfaction that,
           during all the changes of our manners, the ancient freedom of personal intercourse may still be
           indulged in between a master and an out-of-door’s servant, but in truth he kept up the old
           fashion even with his domestic servants to an extent which I have hardly seen practised by any
           other gentleman. He conversed with his coachman if he sat by him, as he often did, on the
           box, with his footman if he happened to be in the rumble…. Any steady servant of a friend of
           his was soon considered as a sort of friend too, and was sure to have a kind little colloquy to
           himself at coming and going.”

           Referring to the bashful reluctance of Nigel to mix in the conversation of those with whom he
           was not familiar, Scott remarks:
           It is a fault only to be cured by experience and knowledge of the world which soon teaches
           every sensible and acute person the important lesson that amusement, and, what is of more
           consequence, that information and increase of knowledge are to be derived from the
           conversation of every individual whatsoever with whom he is thrown into a natural train of
           communication. For ourselves we can assure the reader—and perhaps if we have been able
           to afford him amusement it is owing in a great degree to this cause—that we never found
           ourselves in company with the stupidest of all possible companions in a post-chaise, or with
           the most arrant cumber-corner that ever occupied a place in the mail-coach, without finding
           that in the course of our conversation with him we had some idea suggested to us, either grave
           or gay, or some information communicated in the course of our journey, which we should
           have regretted not to have learned, and which we should be sorry to have immediately
           forgotten.

           Scott’s curiosity as to idiosyncrasies, though kindly and well bred, was minute and insatiable;
           and it may further be noted that, for his study of certain types of human nature, he had peculiar
           opportunities from his post of observation as clerk to the court of session. Moreover, he was
           happily dowered with the power to combine strenuous literary and other labours with an
           almost constant round of social distractions. His mental gifts were splendidly reinforced by
           exceptional physical vigour, and, more particularly, by a nervous system so strongly strung
           that, for many years, it was not seriously disquieted by incessant studious application combined
           with an almost constant round of conviviality. To almost the last, it enabled him to perform
           prodigies of literary labour, even after it had begun to show serious signs of breaking up.
           Though it must be granted that the infesting of his border home by a constant influx of “tourists,
           wonder hunters and all that fatal species,” was, even from monetary
           considerations—considerations the importance of which were, in the end, to be calamitously
           revealed—far from an unmixed blessing, it had certain compensations. If he occasionally found
           it needful—from the behests of literary composition—to escape from it, the social racket, on
           the whole, gave him more pleasure than boredom. Lockhart describes the society at
           Abbotsford as “a brilliant and ever varying” one; and Scott, evidently, enjoyed its diversity;
           and, while responding to its brilliances, took quiet note of its follies and vanities. Though the
           “daily reception of new comers” entailed more or less “worry and exhaustion of spirit upon all
           the family,” he was himself, we are told, proof against this. The immense geniality of Scott,
           which qualified him for so comprehensive an appreciation of human nature, especially manifests
           itself in his method of representing character. His standpoint is quite the antipodes of that of
           Swift or Balzac. Mentally and morally, he was thoroughly healthy and happy; there was no
           taint of morbidity or bitterness in his disposition; and, if aspiring, he was so without any tincture
           of jealousy or envy. Though possessing potent satiric gifts, he but rarely has recourse to them.
           Generally his humour is of an exceptionally kindly and sunny character. He hardly ever—and
           only when, as in the case of the marquis of Argyll, his political prejudices are strongly
           stirred—manifests an unfairness that verges on spite. If a somewhat superficial, he is not a
           narrow, moralist. The existence of human frailties does not seriously oppress him; they appeal,
           many of them, as much to his sense of humour as to his judiciary temper. He shows no trace of
           the uneasy cynicism which greatly afflicted Thackeray; and, unlike many modern writers, he
           displays no absorbing anxiety to explore what they deem the depths of human nature and
           expose its general unsoundness. On the other hand, he is an expert exponent of its
           eccentricities and its comical qualities; and, if not one of the most profoundly instructive, he is
           one of the most wholesomely cheerful, of moralists. At the same time, he can admirably depict
           certain types of vulgarly ambitious scoundrels, such as the attorney Glossin in Guy
           Mannering, and he has a keen eye for a grotesque hypocrite like Thomas Turnbull in
           Redgauntlet. Captain Dirk Hatteraick is, also, a splendid ruffian, although a much less difficult
           portrait than that of captain Nanty Ewart of “The Jumping Jenny” and his pathetic struggle
           between good and evil. On the other hand, his merely villainous creations, whether of the
           diabolically clever order like Rashleigh, or the somewhat commonplace sort of Lord Dalgarno,
           or the low and depraved kind of his eminence of Whitefriars—grossly impressive after a
           fashion though he be—are all a little stagey. In historical character, his outstanding successes
           are Louis XI and James VI and I. Here, of course, he had the advantage of having to deal with
           very marked idiosyncrasies; but this might well have been a snare to an inferior romancer.
           Scott’s portraits of them may be more or less incorrect, but both are very masterly and vivid
           representations of very definite embodiments of peculiar royal traits. With them, he was much
           more successful than with Mary queen of Scots, whose stilted heroics do not impress us, and,
           here, he was handicapped by the conflict between his sympathies and his convictions. His
           strong cavalier bias, also, on other occasions proved a snare to him. For example, he
           outrageously exaggerates the sinister qualities of the marquis of Argyll; while his Montrose is a
           featureless and faultless hero, quite overshadowed in interest by captain Dugald Dalgetty.
           Claverhouse, again—whom, in Old Mortality, he rather infelicitously refers to as “profound in
           politics,” and whom, inadvertently, he makes to figure there more as an arrogant coxcomb than
           as the high-hearted royalist he would wish him to be—is, in Wandering Willie’s Tale, very
           impressively revealed to us as he appears in convenanting tradition. On the other hand, the
           fanaticism of Burley in Old Mortality is rather overdrawn: the stern indignation which
           prompted the murder of archbishop Sharp was not allied to any form of mental disorder. Still,
           if not historically correct, the picturesque luridness of the fanaticism which is ascribed to him is
           effectively set forth.
 
 
 
 

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