Galt's 'The Last of the Lairds' 1826

 

        

First edition - 1826

I must admit, I was slightly puzzled once I had finished reading the novel: there were some genuine Galtian (is there such a word?!) moments and yet other sections didn't quite 'ring true'. The chapter in P. H. Scott's biography of the author (1985) helps to explain this. Scott quotes Galt himself, who wrote in his Literary Life:

I meant it to belong to that series of fictions of manners, of which the Annals of the Parish is the beginning; but owing to some cause, which I no longer remember, instead of an autobiography I was induced to make it a narrative, and in this respect it lost that appearance of truth and nature which is, in my opinion, the great charm of such works. 

That is one nail hit on the head. The laird is filtered through a narrator (who is occasionally blessed with some interesting foibles himself) which, inevitably, means the immediacy of an autobiography disappears. In fact, Galt was (deliberately?) misremembering the involvement of his publisher Blackwood who, seemingly reflecting the 'dead hand of gentility' which was infecting the literary establishment, became more and more worried about the novel as it progressed. Galt's tendency to call a spade a spade was not the 'realism' the publisher wanted. Susan Ferrier may have spoken for many, when she had said (of Sir Andrew Wylie) I can't endure that man's writing, and I am told the vulgarity of this beats print. Galt was now about to set off for Canada and, after over thirty letters between author and publisher, he finally left Blackwood's reader and collaborator, D.M. Moir, to 'carve and change as you please'. Moir not only 'toned down' the novel but added three chapters of his own at the end. A final point about the narrator/autobiographer nature of the book - in fact, it is written in the first person, by a narrator who is very different in character from the laird, one who moves in literary circles, whereas Mailing's amateurish efforts could never have made the printed page (the narrator calls the laird's effort the auto-biography of an idiot!) The narrator himself is very much on the defensive, when accused of interfering by Mr Tansy: I am not a man of such curiosity as you seem to think, but only actuated by a liberal spirit of inquiry, the love of truth, and a constitutional penchant for fact. And later - I, good easy man, who never meddled with any other body's business - for my innocent curiosity can never be called meddling - when he compares himself with Mrs Soorocks' visitations sprung from a prying disposition and an unaccountable desire to have a finger in every pie in the neighbourhood... - I might well say the country... Mrs Soorocks, on one occasion does respond - ye hae a particular pleasure in lookin' into the catastrophes o' ither folks.

The Laird represents a symbol of old Scotland, one which is giving way to new forces in the guise of Mr Rupees. He is described early on by the narrator: He was apparelled in a dressing-gown, which had evidently been economically made out of two of his deceased lady's flagrant chintz gowns of dissimilar patterns. His head was adorned with a blue velvet cap, wadded and padded not only to supersede the use of his wig, but even to be warm enough to cause a germination of fancies, if ideas could be raised by anything like the compost in which gardeners force exotics. His purpose in writing his autobiography is to pay off one of his heritable bonds: That silly auld havering creature, Balwhidder o' Dalmailing, got a thousand pounds sterling, down on Blackwood's counter, in red gold, for his clishmaclavers; and Provost Pawkie's widow has had twice the dooble o't, they say, for the Provost's life. He should, doubtless, get much more! His favourite pastime appears to have been sitting busy with idleness on the louping-on stone at his gate. Thwarted in his aim to marry Annie Daisie - only a gairner's dochter, he had to make do with Miss Betty Graeme - the tocherless dochter o' a broken Glasgow Provost, who made her leeving by seamstress-wark and floowring lawn. The latter now long gone, the Laird is forced to cast about for another, partly in the hopes of a decent dowry

The laird's factotum, Jock, or John Dabbler as he ought to be called, is lovingly described by Galt. ...as faithful to his menial trusts as the key or the mastiff; as true as the one, and not less vigilant than the other. the Nabob, and his new built Nawaubpore, don't quite 'ring true' with me, but I assume he represented a type known to Galt at the time.

One of the undoubted pleasures of the book is revelling in the behaviour of the affecting commiseration of Mrs Soorocks (she reminded me of Mistress Niven in the Dr. Finlay television series). Her sole business and vocation in life consisted in visiting those among her neighbours who were suffering either under misfortune or anxiety, and feelingly, as she herself called it, "sympatheesing with their dispensation". She fans herself with her handkerchief - some four or five times during the operation puffed her breath with a sough somewhat between the sound of a blast and a sigh - whilst being very rude about others - I'm obliged to endure frae the contumacity o'yon twa wizzent and gaizent penure pigs o' Barenbraes. Miss Girzie, one of the 'pigs', could be caustic about her in turn: she's ane, indeed, to speak o' shaving faces - she ought to be taught to scrape her ain tongue. But it's beneath me to discompose mysell for sik a clash-clecking clypen kennawhat. She's just a midwife to ill-speaking. 

Galt's humour emerges regularly - the description of the laird's father's decease (his e'en flew up and his lip fell down); the building up of the characters of Miss Shoosie and Miss Girzie Minnygaff, maiden sisters at Barenbraes (the former only in her fiftieth year, but so mulcted of the few graces which niggard nature had so stingily bestowed, that she was seemingly already an aged creature); the portrayal of the young Dr Lounlans as one of those modern ornaments of the Scottish Church, by whom her dignity, as shown in the conduct and intelligence of her ministers, is maintained as venerable in public opinion; as Jock says, isna Dr Lounlans a capital preacher? - isna he a great gun? He is the very Mons-meg o' the presbytery. Then there is one of the many admirers of Mrs Soorocks - Captain Hawser o' the press-gang...only three parts o' a man too, for he had a tinner leg; the marriage of the laird to Miss Shoosie is very droll.

There is the occasional pointless meandering (Walter Scott is much worse, but you have to pad out three-deckers somehow), such as Mr Tansie's philosophising, but the narrative keeps a steady enough course. There are times when his humour is too belittling (vide the Laird) and bordering on the caustic. Galt does allow himself a few shafts at his usual targets: Tories in the pools of corruption; the pre-Reform electoral system; the Edinburgh literary establishment, persons so self-celebrated. All-in-all, though, there are many more hits than misses about the novel. It can't match The Annals or The Provost, but it is still worth the read.