Eliza Logan's 'Restalrig; or, The Forfeiture' 1829

 

 Maclachlan & Stewart first edition - 1829

It seems a long time since I read Eliza Logan's St Johnstoun (in fact, mid August last year), but I remembered, towards the end, the meeting of young Walter Restalrig with Queen Anne. I looked up the final paragraph of Chapter VIII in Volume III: Of the life and fate of the stripling who thus magnanimously secured their safety (the two remaining sons of the House of Ruthven), if this tale is not due to utter oblivion, the reader may chance to hear more at a future period; one of the remaining manuscripts in our possession, being a relation of the circumstances of his eventful life. True to her word, the author produced this tale, albeit six years had elapsed between the two works.

Several times during my reading, I felt that Eliza Logan was the contemporary author most akin to Sir Walter Scott, with all his strengths and weaknesses. She produces excellent cameos of leading real-life persons - Queen Anne again, Prince Henry, Robert Carr, Sir Robert Carey, Henry Quatre of France (warts and all), and the Duc de Sully; and life-like portraits of the lower classes - George Sprott and his sister Annie (the female clad in white), Roger Dewlap, Restalrig's loyal servant; Jasper Foster, another trusty retainer; Jacquenette, the delicious French peasant girl whom Henri lusts after.

Roger Dewlap is the only one to speak in broad Scots (thankfully, for this reader!) and his response to Restalrig's argument that he could not think of keeping followers until he regains the wherewithal is typical: O sir, ye speak till me as though I was a fremit body a'thegither, and as if ye thought I could tak siller for serving you; and I have tel't ye already that yere ain bounty and yere father (God saine him) hasna left me destitute o'means, forby the pickle siller gained lang syne, when we were allowed to harrie the biggins of the English corbies. Wonderful! Roger thoroughly deserves his place amongst the heroes of the story.

 

I think she trumps Sir Walter on her more realistic portrayal of women, which is not really surprising. We are introduced to the heroine, Rosa Grey, who had nearly arrived at the age of one-and-twenty, her features had much of the Grecian outline, and possessed the Italian dignity of expression, blended with a softness peculiarly their own...but Rosa is no mere cardboard cut-out and, fully-fleshed. she meets with triumph and disaster as a thoroughly believable character. Her cousin, Isabella, is not so well delineated, but still realistic. Perhaps Rosa is too much a paragon of virtue. I admit to a mild irritation over their dialogues, though - far too many No, no my pretty coz and I wot not, however!

Logan can compose some excellent, riveting scenes: such as Henri IV's attempted seduction of Jacquenette and the terrifying collapse of the tower into the mere. 

But the author carries with her some of Scott's less commendable traits. She, too, goes off piste, with what appears to be padding; her sentences/paragraphs are often simply too convoluted; and she can't refrain from several purple passages. Her dwarf, Algerton, at first, veered towards the dreaded supernatural (his brother certainly thought he was in league with the devil) in addition to being the malevolent villain of the book: who appeared to have but small pretensions to claim kindred with humanity; - his body bearing no proportion in size to his limbs, from the great distortion occasioned by a prodigious hump on his back, nearly balanced by a corresponding excrescence on his breast...all due to a fall from his nurse's arms! Can one blame his misanthrope? The other black sheep, James VI and I is off-stage throughout; but the author's opinion of him has not deviated from her work of six years previously.

Logan can be charged with (repetitive) ungainliness:  But we return to the son...; we shall now leave him, while we pay a visit to one of the royal palaces...; it is now, however, time to leave the cousins, while we satisfy the curiosity of the reader...; having now given this account of the brothers, we proceed to see what has become of him whose history is our theme...; we now return to honest Roger; where we shall leave them, while we relate what has meanwhile passed  in England.

There is a trace of antisemitism, e.g.: many of these men seemed, from their features and dress, to be foreigners, and several of them Jews, who preyed at that time upon the vitals of the country that protected them, by undermining its laws, and robbing its more honest subjects of their property.  and, the inexorable old Jew... Shylock lives? Logan  also makes her views clear about the graded grains of Society. Comparing the French peasantry of the early 17th with the early 19th centuries, she wrote: We may truly say innocent, for at that day they were totally free from all those notions of equalization, by which they have been lately corrupted, and filled with the most filial regard and adorning veneration for their great monarch, and with profound respect for all those whom it had pleased God to constitute their superiors in rank and wealth. They were consequently happy and contented in their humble situations... No comment!

Wisely, Logan confined herself to two volumes rather than three; if only Sir Walter and other contemporary Scottish writers had done the same. I do wish she had written more novels, though. 

A. L. Rowse

I packed A.L. Rowse with me for our regular weekend trip to London. Highlights were the usual stay at the Caledonian Club in Belgravia; the mind-boggling exhibition on The World of Stonehenge at the British Museum; and (to a lesser extent) Dürer's Journeys, Travels of a Renaissance Artist at the National Gallery. Rowse helped to palliate an awful journey down to the Great Wen. Our train from Derby was first delayed, then cancelled; the next train was 30 minutes late and consisted of just five coaches - to carry two normal trains' passengers and Friday's (all were cancelled that day due to Storm Eunice). The carriages had standing passengers throughout - for the entire journey; some could not even get on the train at Long Eaton. We got to St Pancras at 1.00 p.m. - taking three hours for a journey scheduled for half that time. This is not usually the subject of my Blog, BUT I am still angry at the sheer incompetence of East Midlands Rail. To cap it all, Derby was gridlocked, due to flooding, on our return home. Bah!

Macmillan & Co. - 1945

I bought the above book a fortnight ago and it was an interesting companion over the weekend. I am not sure why I have a sneaking partiality for Rowse. Regularly dismissed by so-called academics (whose prose often sends the reader to sleep), his Journal/Diaries show him in an unflattering light as an over-opinionated, rude, 'catty' man. He was wedded to Shakespeare's version of Richard III, which should not endear him to this member of the Richard III Society. Nevertheless, (or, perhaps because of this), I find his loneliness, his chip-on-the-shoulder and social inferiority complex, quite endearing!

A. L. Rowse

West-Country Stories rarely moves out of his beloved Cornwall. After the first few short stories - The Wicked Vicar of Lansillian, The Stone that liked Company, All Soul's Night, I thought there was a tinge of M.R. James about things, However, the book soon settled down to a, rather uneven in quality, series of stories and articles, usually around the author's travels and meetings with other Cornishmen and women. The sense of place was well brought to life in Rialton: A Cornish Monastic Manor (written in 1941) and The Story of Polruddan; the tributes to the Cornish character was fruitful in How Dick Stephens fought the Bear, Cornwall in the Civil War (1933), and John Opie and Harmony Cot (1938). One of the best pieces was Kilvert in Cornwall (1938), which quoted extensively from that clerical writer. I thought Pageant of Plymouth, (broadcast in November 1939) however, was poor. In his Preface, Rowse writes: perhaps some of the descriptions may serve to bring back things of beauty in the West Country as they were, now gone for ever. I think he achieved this.

Although I have moved around several times in my life (West Indies, London, Buckinghamshire, Leicestershire and, now, Derbyshire), I still have a particular fondness for Somerset and Wiltshire, where I spent my formative years. I absolutely concur with Rowse's feeling for his 'homeland' and sense of place. I agree, too, with the belief that the so-called citizens of everywhere are really citizens of nowhere. And he loved cats!

My Rowse Collection includes: 

 

1950                                               1955

1972

These contain some of his best work. I used the first two at school preparing for 'A' Levels..

Also:

 1951                                 1959

1966                                       1976

 1984                                  1986

1986                                     1995

2003

Scott's 'Anne of Geierstein' 1829

Cadell and Co. first edition - 1829

Walter Scott, of his composition of Anne of Geierstein, wrote I muzzled on. I can call it little better. The materials are excellent, but the power of using them is failing. Apparently, he began to fall asleep over his work and found the going tough, even loathing the work before completion. However, the story of the last few years of Charles the Bold's (I prefer 'the Rash') Burgundy - the novel runs from the Autumn of 1474 to Charles' death at the battle of Nancy in January 1477) - is a thrilling one.

There appears to be three main aspects to the novel.

Firstly, the Gothic.

As Hesketh Pearson writes, Scott's youthful love of witches sorcery, apparitions and demons, remained with him to the end...he touches [here] on superstitions, visions, secret societies (I found the chanting of the Secret Tribunal/Holy Vehme simply daft) dungeons (Arthur has to experience a typical Scott basement), portentous ritual, mysterious disappearances, and all the other dramatic devices that enthral the juvenile mind, including a trapdoor and a sinister priest (thanks to the ill-omened master of the Golden Fleece, John Mengs, placing Oxford in the correct room of his inn). I find this aspect of Scott's novels the most irritating! (the 'apparition' of Anne leaving the fortress at night and passing a shocked Arthur stifled a yawn from this reader) and the drawn out tale by Rudolf Donnerhugel about Anne's ancestry again bored  me;  but, as A.N. Wilson sensibly writes: since we do not belong to a 'Gothic generation', how can we read and appreciate his novels? On the other hand, I don't mind the mysterious identity aspect, adopted by Oxford and his son, as in the Black Knight - Lionheart - in Ivanhoe;  Maître Pierre - Louis XI - in Quentin Durward; or Saladin in The Talisman.  

Arthur hangs on!

The second major theme, of course, is Romance. George Saintsbury puts the romance of Arthur and Anne above, not below, the usual hero and heroine. It begins with one of Scott's strengths as a storyteller - the marrying of the environment with humankind; in this case, Arthur's rescue by Anne from a precipice above a torrent, which he heard raging at the depth of a hundred yards beneath, with a noise like subterranean thunder. These first few chapters are excellent and we are drawn into this budding romance to a background of powerful Alpine scenery. No matter that Anne's father the Count is a wizard...her grandmother was a will-of-wisp, Anne is the one for Arthur. She is missing from nearly all of Volume III, but reappears at the end for her nuptials. The subsidiary romance between Annette Veilchen (a sparkling young lady!) and her beau Louis Sprenger is a happy vignette.

Thirdly, there is the History. Scott knew his history well, and he explains the relevance of Charles the Bold's importance to the England of Lancaster v. York and the events leading up to the Treaty of Picquigny between Edward IV and Louis XI in 1475. Given the loyalties of Oxford and his son, the bias is firmly Lancastrian. Edward is variously described (by Oxford) as a voluptuous usurper...sensual debauchee supported by (says Margaret of Anjou) the false, the traitorous, the dishonoured George, whom he calls Duke of Clarence - the blood-drinker, Richard - the licentious Hastings... 

He also gives an accurate account of the breakdown of relations between Charles and the Swiss Cantons. Scott's portrayal of Charles is compelling, on a par with that of Louis XI in Quentin Durward. Charles mixed cruelty with justice, magnanimity with meanness of spirit, economy with extravagance, and liberality with avarice...The other dominating portrayal is that of Margaret of Anjou: whose noble and majestic features, which even yet, - though care, disappointment, domestic grief, and humbled pride, had quenched the fire of her eye, and wasted the smooth dignity of her forehead, - even yet showed the remains of that beauty which once was held unequalled in Europe.

Admittedly, he allows poetic licence to trump the facts - with the deaths of Margaret of Anjou and her father King René. Margaret died near Anjou on 25 August 1482 not 1476, whilst René died two years earlier, in July 1480. Moreover, John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, had no children, apart from an illegitimate daughter, Katherine, and, between 1474 and 1478, he was imprisoned in Hammes Castle near Calais. So was Philipson really Oxford!

John Buchan suggests Anne of Geierstein has never had its merits fully recognized...it is not one of the great novels, but it is a vigorous and competent one...there is no sadness in the book; its spirit is happy. Well, yes - if you discount Margaret of Anjou's desperate state; the failure of the Earl of Oxford's plans and Charles the Bold's disintegration! A.N. Wilson praises what he calls 'the set pieces' - as in the conclave of the Vehm-gericht  and King René's artistic court in Provence and the Troubadours. George Saintsbury does, however, suggest the novel's chief fault, in fact, lies with the too great predominance of merely episodic and unnecessary things and persons, like the Vehmgericht and King René's court.

There are the usual well-drawn minor characters - Arnold Biederman, with the broad shoulders and prominent muscles of a Hercules...the steady sagacious features, open front, large blue eyes, and deliberate resolution which it expressed, more resembled the character of the fabled King of Gods and men; Sigismund, Biederman's son and the dullest of the family, with the limited intellect of a simple mind, but who comes up trumps more than once; Rudolph of Donnerhugel, the bold and jealous rival of Arthur for Anne's heart; the sinister Priest of Saint Paul's (aka the Carmelite aka Count Albert of Geierstein, Anne's father); Brother Bartholomew, the sanctimonious but ill-intentioned lay brother aiming to rob Oxford on the road; the evil henchman of Charles, Archibald de Hagenbach (fit applicant for a part in a Hammer Horror film), with his wonderful lines in black humour, meeting a thoroughly deserved end on the makeshift scaffold (rather horrifically described by Scott).

Bye bye Hagenbach

 I'll forgive Scott his forays into the supernatural; his drawn-out dialogues (such as between Annette and Anne, whilst Arthur waits patiently below!), and his off piste chapters; for, nonetheless, I did enjoy Anne of Geierstein. I bought this first edition on 20th February 1989, and remember reading it 33 years ago, again with pleasure.

I noticed more mistakes in the text than usual, e.g. Albert for Arthur; 1376 for 1476; 1466 (twice) for 1476; and two Chapter VIIIs in Volume I.

David Moir's 'The Life of Mansie Wauch' 1828

 

 William Blackwood first edition - 1828

After a month's break, I return to my last dozen or so early Nineteenth Century Scottish novels.

I must admit I was slightly disappointed with Mansie Wauch. I had read that it was in John Galt's style (The Annals, The Provost), and there is a fulsome tribute to Galt in the dedication by his sincere friend and admirer. However, it didn't quite have the sharpness of humour (although there were examples of drollery) or the clean, knitting together of the storyline.

My main structural criticism is the insertion of an 80 page history-cum-romance on Gustavus Vasa of Sweden. Entitled The Curate of Suverdiso. A Tale of the Swedish Revolution, it has no bearing at all on the rest of the novel. Moir's excuse for telling it was that Mansie ended up with papers found by me in the side-pocket of the grand velvet coat, bought from the auld-farrant Welsh flunky with the peaked hat and the pigtail. Well okay, but put it at the end, almost as a separate tale. Essentially, it is the story set in the period known as the Swedish War of Liberation where the whereabouts and activities of Vasa are still the subject of guesswork as much as of fact. David Moir, quite skilfully it must be admitted, constructs a tale around the pursued Vasa in the province of Dalecarlia. The Curate of Suverdsio and his daughter Margaret give succour to Count Eric Voss (Vasa in disguise), who is then joined by Regner Beron (Margaret's sweetheart). All's well that ends well, with quite a good twist at the end. There are a couple of anti-Roman Catholic sentences - the Curate says time, custom, self-interest, have not been able to blind mine eyes to its crookedness - to its mummeries - to its monstrous absurdities...; the glorious doctrines of the immortal Luther sprung up conquering and to conquer the gloomy, debasing, and detestable superstition of the Roman Church - but, to be fair, it is in the context of the Reformation spreading to Sweden. In fact, sections of the tale become a mere History lesson. The author is also guilty of a besetting sin of so many of the early 19th century writers - descriptive purple passages.

Mansie's Shop Door

Many a time one is reminded of Galt's Provost Pawkie (deliberately so by the author), with his smugness and boasting (often unconsciously) and there is plenty of humour to be found as a result. Mansie, (born in 1765), thirty years an elder of Master Wiggie's kirk; an upstanding (if often frightened - too regularly in an terrible funk) member of the Volunteers (and one of his Majesty's confidential servants...); and proud owner of a housie (two rooms and a kitchen, not speaking of a coal-cellar, and a hen-house) and shop, with the sign of the Goose and Pair of Shears rampant, had good cause to be proud. The story of the Bailie and Deacon and others ignorantly trying to eat cigars (curious-looking long black things) offered by a newly arrived Nabob from the East Indies is very well told; as is the tale of Mansie's first and last play.

The first day I got my Regimentals on

Mansie redeems himself by his obvious love and care for his wife, Nanse Cromie (if ever a man loved, and loved like mad, it was me...), his son Benjie and the town of Dalkeith. He is an obvious patriot and anti Whigs, the Black-nebs, the Radicals, and the Friends of the People, together with the rest of the clanjamphrey.

There were enough Scotch words to make me reach for my trusty Scottish Dictionary, but I guessed at many of them so as not to slow down my reading speed. There are some wonderful words to savour: cockernony - the gathering of a woman's hair; scougged - hid; craps - stomachs; brans - calves; mouls - graves; snab - shoe-maker; spaining-bash - milk fever.

Amelia Smyth's 'Tales of the Moors' 1828

 

William Blackwood first edition - 1828

Amelia Gillespie Smyth (1788-1876) is another author I had never heard of until my search last year for early 19th century Scottish authors. She was born in Vienna, where her father, Sir Robert Murray Keith, was a diplomat. At twenty, she married Robert Gillespie, a major in the County Militia and a Deputy Lieutenant, who assumed the name of Smyth, as his wife was the heiress of Gibliston, Fife. Amelia was a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, before moving to England after her husband's death in 1855. She wrote short stories and books for children, as well as works on History and Scripture. She also compiled, in two volumes, Memoirs and Correspondence of Sir Robert Murray Keith in 1849.

Amelia Gillespie Smyth

The Tales, dedicated to Sir Walter Scott, Baronet, consist of four stories of uneven length. Four men meet in one of the remotest and least accessible parts of Ross-shire. They are there in quest of grouse and happiness from the farthest extremity of the Island. The four comprise of Colonel Richard Sullivan - of Irish extraction and Irish warmth of heart; Frederick, an Englishman, though but a stickit soldier, had served in Spain and travelled in Italy; Ned Vernon, another Englishman, who was once a diplomatist; and a young lawyer, Master Hamilton, of very rising fame and promising talents...at whose suggestion the present shooting-party had been originally projected. Completely exhausted by the end of the first week, hidebound due to incessant rain, the Colonel suggests that they all write their adventures down.

The first, and by far the longest, is The Return. The young lawyer recounts the story of an elderly (he is only 47!) uncle, Sir Walter Hamilton, back from thirty years residence in India, first in the army and then in trade. He is now a wealthy man, but a brief marriage ended in the death of his wife and infant. He returns with another name - Buchanan - and much changed, so that few recognise him (he is bald by now!).  As the tale unfolds, he meets up with past friends and various members of his family. I never really engaged with any of the characters and found too many purple passages for my liking. There was a throwaway anti-Roman Catholic remark - Presbyterian worship in Scotland being better calculated to swell the heart with genuine devotion, than the most gorgeous procession ever devised by our pomp-loving sister of Rome. There are moments of levity: Ten thousand a-year, and a case of fine teeth, entitled Miss Hawtayne to indulge, particularly among her male intimates, in that absolutely plebeian or exclusively patrician accomplishment, a loud laugh...a fine tall person, and white hand and arm, rendered the harp a favourite engine of display with Miss Hawtayne. After much toing and froing, Sir Walter purchases Marknows, the old family estate, which included the old Castle of Oakenshaws, for the benefit of his nephew and niece.  It is a solid tale without a sparkle. 

As for the other three stories, they are much shorter. My Last Days in Rome (a mere 40 pages), narrated by Frederick, is a simple tale where he gives up a transient passion for an impoverished Spanish girl Isidora (now a menial polisher of pearls) so that she can marry her equally down and out copier of paintings, the Castilian Christoval. There is a (possibly) anti-Semitic aside - among the group below, I detected the sharp faces of one or two Shylock-looking creditors, whom it would have been a joy to my heart to defraud of their bond... Frederick also provides the couple with financial support. A slight story which, however, is worth the short time needed to read it.

Adventures of an Attaché is Ned Vernon's story. He is sent to Scotland to be under the tutelage of his uncle, Sir William Somerville, well versed in military and diplomatic affairs. The 22 year-old travels to Europe in the company of his uncle, aunt and cousin Horatia - who blended in the happiest manner, both in person and character, the best features of both her parents. They tour Holland and the site of Waterloo, before arriving  at the Court of X. Here, its Duke takes a shine to Horatia, as does the son of a deceased friend of Sir William - the young Baron Ernest de Vilmerghan. Ned, in turn, fancies Albertine, Ernest's sister. Luckily, the course of true love eventually runs smooth. Albertine, seemingly too often downcast and unwell, wanted to marry (and does) a Frenchman, Louis La Rochecour. Vernon comes to his senses: I wondered at the blindness which had rendered me so long insensible to all that could embellish and shed perpetual sunshine over the quiet path of domestic life. Thus, he marries Horatia and gladdened the declining years of my own with a daughter... 

Richard Sullivan's story is rather blandly entitled A  Day in the Isle of Wight. However, it's not a bad one. Two boys, both bright, meet at Arbury Hall -  on the whole, a good school. Their Master decides that the winner of the annual prize should be decided by the boys, not himself. Richard, a volatile youth, rescues a young boy, Harry Edwards, who has the deciding vote, from a swamp. He catches a fever and, while recovering, hears that he only did it to win the vote! He accosts his rival, Edmund Penrose, and knocks him to the ground, occasioning a deep wound on his forehead. The tales shifts to some years later. Sullivan is now a major in the British Army. He befriends an elegant English mother and her daughter, desperate for news of their son/half-brother stationed in South America. Madame de Castro (now widowed twice) and daughter Inez get on very well with Richard until, having seen a painting of him, realises the brother is Edmund!  Worse, news comes that Edmund has been killed; Richard does not tell the two women. On a walk to Undercliff, despair changes to delight. Penrose appears (the dead man was wrongly named!), forgives Richard, who will clearly marry Inez. Convoluted? Unlikely? Too coincidental? No matter, it was an enjoyable short story.