Scott's 'Peveril of the Peak' 1822

 

First edition - published January 1823

Right at the end of Volume IV, on page 319 (of 320), Scott sums up the 1200 pages odd as well as anyone. Charles II remarks: Here is a plot without a drop of blood; and all the elements of a romance, without its conclusion. Here we have had a wandering island princess (I pray my Lady of Derby's pardon,) a dwarf, a Moorish sorceress, an impenitent rogue, and a repentant man of rank, and yet all ends without a hanging or marriage. Well, he was wrong on one count. On the last page Julian Peveril and Alice Bridgenorth do marry. In fact, the last volume seemed rather like one of Sir John Vanbrugh's Restoration Comedies, notwithstanding the occasional talk of violence.

Scott, apparently, found writing Peveril heavy-going. It is certainly too long and should not have stretched beyond the usual three volumes. Lockhart thought the plot clumsy and perplexed. John Buchan pointed out that Scott chose a period of history in which he was not perfectly at home, and had to read too quickly through contemporary  documents. Buchan is more critical than usual: the opening is laboured and the narrative drags, the ravelled skein of the plot is never properly wound up, and the ending is huddled; the fatigue of its composition is reflected in the style, which sinks often to abysses of verbiage. A good example is Scott's rambling about the new species of 'armour' worn by some Protestants, called silk armour, and too many verbose meanderings by the dwarf.

I am not so severe about the early part of the book, as I found it quite interesting! Admittedly, it quickens once Julian Peveril leaves the Isle of Man for London. The attack on Chiffinch and his French cook Chaubert by Julian and Lance - to retrieve the Countess of Derby's letters -  is well written..

Julian Peveril points his pistol at Chiffinch

Lance Outram stands above Chaubert

There are one or two typical Scott cameos: Whitaker, Lady Peveril's steward, is a good example. His mistress suggests he should shew your joy on such occasions, by drinking and swearing a little less...he replies, if I am not to drink and swear after my degree, how are men to know Peveril of the Peak's steward...I say, how is an old cavalier like me to be known from those cuckoldy Round-heads that do nothing but fast and pray, if we are not to drink and swear according to our degree? Then there is the ejected Episcopal Vicar, Honest Doctor Dummerar, who had served Sir Geoffrey Peveril and was in high favour, not merely on account of his sound orthodoxy and deep learning, but his exquisite skill in playing at bowls, and his facetious conversation over a pipe and tankard of October. Others, like the servant Deborah Debbitch, the young Earl of Derby, Lance Outram, who accompanies Julian to London, are little more than walk-on parts

The Duke of Buckingham and Zarah

Fenella/Zarah is barely credible - Buchan says the plot hinges on her; however, she is grotesque but not impressive. We first meet her as the Countess of Derby's train-bearer at the Castle of Holm-Peel in the Isle of Man. This little creature, for she was of the least and slightest of womankind, was exquisitely well formed in all her limbs...her face was darker than the usual hue of Europeans; and the profusion of long and silken hair, which, when she undid the braids in which she commonly wore it, fell down almost to her ancles, was also rather a foreign attribute. Her countenance resembled a most beautiful miniature... But, alas she was a deaf mute...or, was she?!

Sir Geoffrey Peveril is a competent portrayal of a typical Cavalier - he bids farewell to his son Julian: God bless thee, my boy, and keep true to Church and King, whatever wind brings foul weather. Edward Christian (aka Master Ganlesse) and Ralph Bridgenorth (Alice's father) are quite well sketched - one a calculating rogue, the other an increasingly Puritanical fanatic (always a Scott bête noire); while the Merry Monarch, Old Rowley, Charles II is very like the figure portrayed in history books. As for the Duke of Buckingham, it appears that Scott's portrait is near the mark. It is said that the distinguishing features of his life were incompleteness, imperfection, insignificance, neglected talent and wasted opportunity. Not a list to be proud of. Scott was correct when he wrote that Buckingham lived in an age when what was called gallantry warranted the most atrocious actions of deceit and violence.

Once again, I did well to read Scott's Prefatory Letter, as (probably due to yet more criticism of his methods) he expounds his modus operandi: a poor fellow, like myself, weary with ransacking his own barren and bounded imagination, looks out for some general subject in the huge and boundless field of history, which holds forth examples of every kind - lights on some personage, or some combination of circumstances, or some striking trait of manners, which he thinks may be advantageously used as the basis of a fictitious narrative - bedizens it with such colouring as his skill suggests...and in reply to the sober charge of falsehood, against a narrative announced positively to be fictitious, one can only reply, by Prior's exclamation, "Odzooks, must one swear to the truth of a song?"