Scott's 'The Monastery' 1820

 

     

First edition - March 1820

I bought these volumes on 29th June 1981, for £6.00! (The same day I bought the 1st edition of Ivanhoe for the same price). I posted in my previous Blog that I never got further than the first few chapters with the latter, more famous and popular novel. However, I recall reading The Monastery soon after purchasing it and quite enjoying it. The novel was a disappointment to many - its sales were only moderate (better in Edinburgh than in London) and Scott himself wrote, I agree with the public in thinking the work not very interesting, but it was written with as much care as the others...

Let me get over my few negative points first. I agree with the Edinburgh Monthly Review's comment that the White Lady was absurd almost to childishness. It might be based on a legend (La Motte-Fouqué's Undine), and Sixteenth century mankind certainly believed in more than their fair share of spooky-wookies, but I still found it too fantastic (I am not a fan of science fiction/supernatural stories at all). Moreover, Scott's interruption of prose with verse (often it does not rise to the level of poetry) increasingly grates on me; so much so that I find I am skipping over the stanzas. Secondly, Sir Piercie Shafton was a bore from first to last; I read that many contemporary readers and reviewers thought him too gross a comic caricature. Sir Andrew Aguecheek was the most irritating character in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, but he was more sympathetic than Shafton. The latter is as fake as his back story.

The White Lady appears to both Father Philip and Halbert Glendenning

To be fair, other reviewers found the White Lady striking, powerful and even sublime, praising her poetry; whilst Sir Piercie was regarded as entertaining.  The duel between Halbert and Sir Piercie was well done, but, to me, the latter quickly outstayed his welcome.

The Duel between Halbert and Sir Piercie

As for the other characters, Dame Elspeth and Mary Avenel (by nature mild, pensive, and contemplative, gentle in disposition, and most placable when accidently offended... the melancholy and reflecting turn of her disposition gave to her sorrows a depth and breadth peculiar to her character.) do not inspire much interest; Dame Glendinning is slightly better; Halbert and Edward Glendinning are both well sketched as characters, but in no great depth. Mysie Happer the miller's daughter has more about her - an 'earthy' character with plenty of initiative, even if it involves an impossible rescue of Sir Piercie. 

Sir Piercie and Mysie Happer

Christie of Clinthill (with that impudent familiarity which such persons mistake for graceful ease...) recalls Craigengelt in The Bride of Lammermoor. To me, the real interest is the way Scott portrays the various types of monks - Father Philip, the Sacristan, The Abbot of St. Mary's, Kennaquhair (very like the real Melrose) and the Sub-Prior. I expect it's because Scott's views strike a chord with my own anti Roman Catholicism. As for Henry Warden, he is again Scott's stock figure of unreasonable Protestantism - a Covenanter before the Covenant existed.

Abbot Boniface: He had many of those habits of self-indulgence which men are apt to acquire who live for themselves alone. He was vain, moreover; and when boldly confronted, had sometimes shewn symptoms of timidity...in short, he would in other times have slumbered out his term of preferment with as much credit as any other "purple Abbot", who lived easily, but at the same time decorously - slept soundly, and disquieted himself with no dreams. His relationship with, and manoeuverings against, the Sub Prior are amusing.

The anti-Roman Catholics sentences are stark: Thus spoke, at least thought, a man [Eustace, the Sub Prior] zealous according to his imperfect knowledge, confounding the vital interests of Christianity with the extravagant and usurped claims of the Church of Rome... and again: Mary Avenel felt the void of mind, arising from the narrow and bigotted ignorance in which Rome then educated the children of her church. Their whole religion was a ritual, and their prayers were the formal iteration of unknown words...and yet again:... the errors and human inventions with which the Church of Rome had defaced the simple edifice of Christianity, as erected by its divine architect... As Henry Warden points out: [Roman Catholicism] established a toll-house betwixt heaven and hell, that profitable purgatory of which the Pope keeps the keys, like an iniquitous judge commutes punishment for bribes... Scott, ever the moderate, can attack the narrow-minded bigotry of both the Roman (represented by the Sub Prior) and the Puritan (Henry Warden). I thoroughly concur.

For once, I enjoyed reading the Introductory epistles between Captain Clutterbuck and the Author of "Waverley" - not as dry as previous efforts by Scott. One phrase lodged nicely in my memory: "When does love wait for the sanction of heraldry?"