John Wilson's 'The Foresters' 1825

 

First edition - 1825

I have now read John Wilson's three novels - Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life (1822); The Trials of Margaret Lyndsay (1823); and The Foresters (1825). As Sir George Douglas, in his The 'Blackwood Group' (1897), remarks, ...of course, it is not to the department of fiction that Wilson's most conspicuous literary achievements belong. Outside of his philosophy classes at Edinburgh University, he was best known as 'Christopher North', the copious and indefatigable contributor to Blackwood's Magazine.

The Foresters has all the strengths and weaknesses of his previous two novels. It is worth quoting Douglas again, as his is a most apt summary of the book's foibles: [It] is the history of one Michael Forester, who is exhibited in turn in his relation as a dutiful son, a kind self-sacrificing brother, a loving and faithful husband, and a wise affectionate father; whilst from time to time we are also enabled to trace his beneficent influence in the affairs of other members of the small community in which he lives. The tone of the book is peaceful and soothing; it inculcates cheerfulness and resignation, and holds up for our edification a picture of that contentment which springs from the practice of virtue. A group of faultless creatures - for none but the subordinate characters have any faults - pursue the tenor of their lives amid fair scenes of nature, and, when sorrow or misfortune falls to their lot, meet it with an inspiring fortitude.

Throughout the novel, goodness and virtue prevail. Michael's marriage to the much younger (15 years) Agnes Hay, is blissfully happy, marred only by her brief serious illness - dearer was she to him than all his other best and happiest possessions - than all other remembrances - all other hopes; his father, Adam, is a benign old man, tending his lowly property, Dovenest in the romantic scenery of the Esk, between Roslin and Lasswade; Agnes' aunt, Isobel, who joins the household, was indeed the most lively and cheerful of all possible old ladies, blest with untameable good spirits; the local clergyman, Mr Kennedy, exemplifies the goodness and charity of his Christian beliefs. Emma Cranstoun, the Lady of the Hirst, 16 years old when we first encounter her, may be consumptive and near death on one occasion ('saved' by Lucy's sojourn at the Hirst), is another paragon of goodness - as soon as her eyes had been open to the knowledge, however limited, of humble rural life...thenceforth, all the precepts of Christianity, either of will or deed, seemed to call upon her for obedience and practice.. It is apt that she eventually marries the calf-lover of  Lucy Forester, Edward Ellis, the son of an English gentleman of fortune.

 

Above all, there is Lucy Forester, Michael's daughter and main heroine of the tale. As a young girl, she is in features the very image of her mother, but the most gleesome of children, and wild as the fawn in the wood. Her marriage, at the end of the story, to Miles Colinson, the son of the vicar of Ellesmere  -, another of admirable character and who ran a vicarage where each member of the family was alike estimable - unites two families of proven virtue.

The clouds, often brief, on this blissful world, include 

• Michael's young brother, Abel, who commits forgery and felony, forcing Michael and his wife (his father has died) to move from their beloved Dovenest to pay Abel's debts - but, to another lovely homestead Bracken-Braes. Abel returns, much later in the story, laden with guilt, as was the wretched man, yet in our Father's house there are many mansions - all of them happier and blessed than the most untroubled recesses of any earthy household. Abel dies, but all his knowledge of the Bible revived with his restored power of memory - and he was told, that great as had been his sins, he might hope for the salvation Heaven offered to all believers. When Michael and Agnes travel to the English Lake District - to Ellesmere, hard by Windermere (where the author actually had a home), to collect Scotch Martha, Abel's orphan daughter, they find a wholesome child, to join the other paragons of the tale. She, too, finds love - with Hamish Fraser, a Highlander and another virtuous character.
• Lucy, aged six, is snatched by a gipsy woman, but is restored to the family by a neighbour, Jacob Mayne. Jacob's brother, Richard, notwithstanding his considerable wealth, has been stealing from the church's poor plate. However, he repents and leaves his money to Michael who, in turn, enables it to go to the poorer Jacob. The Maynes were not out of the wood yet. Jacob's son, Isaac, pride of the countryside...a boy of surpassing genius, a boy of many thousand, goes to College and the wider world leads him astray. He returns home, ashamed and shameful, to expire young. His last words were "God bless Lucy Forester!" 
• Mary Morrison, is Lucy's closest friend, but has to live with a brutal father, Abraham, with whom the world had gone hardly. She succumbs to one of the only two real villains in the book -  Mark Thornhill - who subsequently repudiates his lawful marriage to her, ensuring her father's vengeful behaviour. On his deathbed, Thornhill admits the truth. Mary is re-admitted into 'good' society and ends up serving Lucy and her husband at their new home in the Lake District. Moreover, her father becomes a changed man - patient, even mild - and under the power of a pious penitence.
• Emma Cranston's brother, Henry, long detained in a French fortress, returns to the Hirst soon after his sister's own return from Italy. He is an absolute bounder, a deep-dyed rogue...his passions had run riot in early indulgence...he had formed wild, irregular, and disorderly habits...his had seemed to be the very worst kind of selfishness. His kidnapping of Lucy is swiftly foiled and, although protesting repentance, is soon after found cleanly-dispatched in a duel by a man whose sister he had seduced. He polluted the book!
• The darkest cloud appears to be Michael's loss of sight, after a virulent lightning storm. And yet, there is the silver lining even in what appeared to be a tragedy. Chapter XII, which deals with the immediate aftermath is one of the most moving in the whole novel.

Once again, the author's purple passages - usually commenting on the local scenery - are easy targets for ridicule. The best defence, is that they are sincerely written. The umbrella over the whole book, is that of Christianity, whether it be the Presbyterian version of Mr Kennedy, or the Anglican pathway of Mr Colinson. To the 21st century mind, it is hard to swallow the occasional over-the-top piety. Agnes Forester appears at near-death at Ellesmere. Michael gives in to natural despair. The author contrasts such unhappy beings with Happy mortals! who  may come to know that even into the deepest wounds those affections can suffer, there is a Divine hand that can pour a balm that flows in the fountains of heaven! (Hmm! It is interesting to note that John Wilson's last years were melancholic and despondent.)

There is a revealing passage in Chapter XLIV, when Michael - just after he hears Dovenest was to be restored to him - muses on his life and circumstances:

...there also came over him a deep sense of the goodness of his Maker. How had all things wrought together for the good of himself and family! His father had died quite happy at last, and full of years - poor Abel, after much suffering no doubt which his errors incurred, had found, when all his wanderings were over, a hopeful death-bed, and a quiet grave - Martha, the orphan, although far away, had prospects of happiness in that peaceful foreign land [Canada] - who was so good, and so happy, as his  beautiful Lucy - Agnes Hay had brought blessings into his house which none enjoyed more than that gentle spirit - in extreme age, Aunt Isobel was cheerful as a new-stirred fire - and Mary Morrison, in her meekness, was like a child of their own at Bracken-Braes.

Wilson's statue in Princes Street Gardens

Edinburgh