As Scott had now become a professional man of letters, while remaining a well paid official, it may be convenient to glance at the state of the literary calling in 1808. Britain was not yet a wildly excitable and hysterical1 country. Rapidity of communication of news had not irritated the nerves of the community. We won or lost a battle, but as men knew nothing about it till long after the event, as they did not sit with their eyes on a tape, as there were not fresh editions of the evening newspaper every quarter of an hour, they could be engaged in war without wholly abandoning the study and purchase of books. A few years after Scott’s death, a Parliamentary Commission inquired into the financial conditions of publishers and authors. The Commission learned, from one of Messrs. Longmans’ firm, that it was not unusual for
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gentlemen to “form libraries” (the expression “every gentleman’s library” survives as a jest), but that the practice began to decline in 1814, and had now ceased to be.
The man who killed the formation of private libraries was Walter Scott. His Waverley appeared in 1814, and henceforth few people purchased any books except novels. Poetry soon became a “drug in the market,” and the taste for “the classics,” whether ancient or modern, died away: the novel was everything, and presently novels were procured6 from the circulating library.
“QUARTERLY REVIEW”
It was the fortune of Scott to take full advantage of the traditional usage of “forming libraries” in the years between the appearance of the Lay and of Waverley. He edited Dryden in many volumes, and was fairly well paid. By doubling the price, Constable7 induced him to edit Swift’s works, and to write the best extant Life of Swift. He also edited the important Sadleir Papers, the diplomatic correspondence of the agent of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, a most valuable book to the historian, and he was concerned in many antiquarian publications. These were undertaken partly from love of the past, partly for the purpose of gaining employment for needy8 men of letters like Henry Weber, a German who later became insane and challenged Scott to a pistol duel9
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across a table! Constable was usually the publisher of the ventures, but Constable had a partner, a Mr. Hunter, a laird, no less, who bullied10 Weber, and behaved to Scott in a manner which he deemed insufferable.
Again, politics came between Constable and Scott. Constable was the publisher of the Edinburgh Review, which had filled up the measure of its iniquities11. No man likes to be called an unpatriotic pedant14, and Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, had called Scott both pedantic15 and unpatriotic. Again, the year 1808 saw the Spanish national rising against Napoleon. Backed by Britain and Wellington, and by the infatuation of Bonaparte himself,[4] by the fatuous16 Moscow expedition, and the revenge of Germany, the rising of the Peninsula overthrew17 the French Emperor. But the Edinburgh Review and the Whigs had no taste for a national rising in the name of freedom. The Spanish, they observed, were a Catholic and intolerant people, not like the liberal French. The Spanish insurrections began in massacres18 of unpopular officials, and, at Valencia (June 6, 7, 1808), in the murder of the whole colony of French merchants in the town. That French Republican mobs should massacre19 uncounted victims was very
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well: it was intolerable to the Whigs that Spanish Catholic mobs should imitate them. The Spanish cause was both disreputable and desperate, said the Whigs. England, if she aided Spain, must perish in the same ruin. Such was the song of the Edinburgh Review, at that time the only critical journal conducted by educated men. Meanwhile Scott recognized the genius of Wellesley—“I would to God he were now at the head of the English in Spain!”
“QUARTERLY REVIEW”
For personal and political reasons then, as a patriot13 and a poet outraged20, Scott determined21 not only to counteract22 the Edinburgh Review, but to set up a rival to Constable, its publisher. It is difficult to trace each step in his scheme of resistance to Constable and Whiggery. But John Murray, then a young publisher in London, saw his opportunity of winning Scott away from Constable; he determined to back, financially, the Ballantynes in London, and he visited Ashestiel in October 1808. He had heard of the nascent23 Lady of the Lake, he had heard of Waverley as “on the stocks,” and he wished to have his share. From a letter of Scott to his brother Thomas, we learn that the old staff of The Antijacobin, including Canning, now Prime Minister, and Frere, had been “hatching a plot” for a Tory rival to the Edinburgh Review. Scott had been offered the Editorship, with “great
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prospects of emolument,” and the new serial25 was to have private information from Government. But for many obvious reasons, Scott could not take the Editorship, which fell to Gifford, a man of bad health, bad temper, and procrastinating26 habits, feared and unpopular as a satirist27. Heber and Ellis, however, were ready to aid contributors, and Scott’s letters reveal his opinion of the state of literary criticism.
As is usual, periodical criticism revelled28 in “a facetious29 and rejoicing ignorance.” Specialists could not write what the public would read; editors like Jeffrey added flippancy30 to their dull lucubrations. Reviewing had long been indolently good natured: the Edinburgh Review had set the fashion of being tart31 and bitter; the fashion pleased, and “the minor32 reviews give us all abuse and no talent.” The age of “slashing” criticism had begun, and Scott held that “decent, lively, and reflecting criticism” would be welcome. He knew Gifford’s temper, and hoped to abate33 it. “We must keep our swords clear as well as sharp, and not forget the gentlemen in the critics.” Had Scott accepted the Editorship, with Heber, Ellis, Southey, and other gentlemen for his aides, the Quarterly would have been what he desired it to be. But a satirist was the Editor, and for long the tone was “savage and tartarly,” in cases well remembered. Many of
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Scott’s best essays, however, appeared in the Quarterly.
His indignation, and we may say his infatuation, found vent2 in another project. Lockhart may be too severe in his account of James Ballantyne’s brother John, who, after failing in various undignified lines, was started as a publisher by Scott, in 1809. Scott supplied most of the capital; John was expected to manage the accounts, and so the fatal business began. Nobody could call the Ballantynes “gentlemen,” whether in a heraldic or any other sense of the word. But both, in several ways, consciously or unconsciously amused Scott; he was deeply attached to them, and they to him. That he had such henchmen was his own fault: they were, so to speak, his Cochranes and Oliver Sinclairs, the unworthy favourites who were the ruin of the old Stuart Kings. Lockhart says that “a more reckless, thoughtless, improvident36 adventurer” than the festive37 John “never rushed into the serious responsibilities of business,” while James “never understood book-keeping or could bring himself to attend to it with regularity38.” Scott, on the other hand, thoroughly39 understood business, and kept systematic40 accounts of his private expenditure41.
THE BALLANTYNE COMPANY
But his success carried him, as it carried the great Emperor his contemporary, beyond himself.
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He felt adequate to all labours, however diverse; he was as confident as Napoleon in his own star; he entered on this publishing business as Napoleon invaded Russia, without organized supplies (for Mr. Murray soon withdrew from the Ballantyne alliance), and disaster was always at his doors. Between 1805 and 1810 he invested at least £9,000 in the Ballantyne companies, and night by night the fairy gold won by his imagination changed into worthless paper. We cannot here attempt to distribute exactly the shares of blame which fall to Scott and to the Ballantynes. Mr. Cadell uses the word “hallucination” to qualify Scott’s part in the business. I have examined these complicated matters carefully,[5] and the gist42 of the explanation lies in a remark of James Ballantyne. “The large sums received never formed an addition to stock. In fact they were all expended43 by the partners, who, being then young and sanguine44 men, not unwillingly45 adopted my brother John’s sanguine results.” They accepted John’s book-keeping at a venture, and, to use a slang phrase, they “blued” the apparent profits. That is the secret.
To leave a repulsive46 theme, in 1809 Scott visited the Highlands, he began The Lady of the Lake, which had long “simmered” in his mind, and he
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rode Fitz James’s ride from Loch Vennachar to Stirling, finding it practicable, though the ground, to be sure, must have been very different in the days of James V, when lochs occupied what is now arable48 land. At Buchanan House, on this tour, he read English Bards49 and Scotch50 Reviewers, and briefly51 spoke52 of the author as “a whelp of a young Lord Byron ... abusing me for endeavouring to scratch out a living with my pen. God help the bear if, having little else to eat, he must not even suck his own paws.” But, like the Moslems in Thackeray’s White Squall, he “thought but little of it,” and did not dream of repaying Byron in kind.
NO SATIRIST
As he wrote to Lady Abercorn, “If I did not rather dislike satire53 from principle than feel myself altogether disqualified from it by nature, I have the means of very severe retaliation54 in my power,” particularly with respect to the Whigs of Holland House. Scott never used his powers as a satirist. He was remarkably55 skilled in the playful imitation of the styles of other poets, a faculty56 scarcely to have been expected from one so careless of finish in his own productions. He could easily have retaliated57 on Byron and others in the manner of Pope; but, as he thought, satire is the lowest, because the least sincere, of all forms of composition. Mankind is weary of the points and the
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feigned indignation of the satirist, and as “damns have had their day,” according to Bob Acres, versified satire too is fortunately in the limbo58 of things obsolete59.
Scott seems usually to have had in his mind the theme for his next poem but one before he had finished its predecessor60. In an excursion to Stirling, during the autumn of 1808, he told Mrs. Scott that he hoped one day “to make the earth yawn” at Bannockburn, “and devour61 the English archery and knighthood, as it did on that celebrated62 day of Scottish glory.” The design was long deferred63, and when it was fulfilled, the Earth is not the only person who yawns in the course of The Lord of the Isles64.
In a life that was now very happy, whether spent in London, in Edinburgh, or in coursing and spearing salmon66 with the Ettrick Shepherd at Ashestiel, Scott occupied his morning hours with his edition of Swift, with the editing of the Somers Tracts67, and with The Lady of the Lake, which appeared in May 1810.
The feud68 with Constable was now dying of natural decline, and Scott and Jeffrey were quite forgetting their differences. Scott had never concealed69 from Jeffrey his opinion that the critic knew nothing of the heart and glow of poetry, and Jeffrey, before publishing his review of The Lady
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of the Lake sent his proof sheets to Scott, expressing his regret for the “heedless asperities” in the criticism of Marmion. “Believe me when I say that I am sincerely proud both of your genius and your glory, and that I value your friendship more highly than most of either my literary or political opinions.” Jeffrey was a good fellow at heart, though, in criticising contemporary poetry, he spoke most highly of a certain Professor Brown! He found The Lady of the Lake “more polished in its diction” than its predecessors71, and certainly its rhyming octosyllabic couplets are more monotonous72 than the varied73 cadences74 of the Lay. “It never expresses a sentiment which it can cost the most ordinary reader any exertion75 to comprehend,” which is true enough, but is no less true of the Iliad and the Odyssey76. The general chorus of praise, and the rush of tourists to Loch Katrine and Ellen’s Isle65, did not turn Scott’s head, or persuade him that he was a poet of the first order. Miss Scott told James Ballantyne that she had not read The Lady of the Lake. “Papa says there is nothing so bad for young people as reading bad poetry.” Yet he confessedly wrote for “young people of spirit.” He says, “I can, with honest truth, exculpate77 myself from having been at any time a partisan78 of my own poetry, even when it was in the highest fashion with the million.
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”
“LADY OF THE LAKE”
Meanwhile, whosoever, in youth, has read the magical lines—
The stag at eve had drunk his fill
Where danced the moon on Monan’s rill,
and has followed the chase across the Brig of Turk, to
The lone79 lake’s western boundary
has to thank Scott for leading him into the paradise of romance, and cares not how low the literary critics may rate the Minstrel. Such a reader has been with
mountains that like giants stand
To sentinel enchanted80 land.
Other enchanted lands there are, but to one Scott has given him the key, to a land where the second-sighted man foretells81 the coming of the stranger, and the prophet sleeps swathed in the black bull’s hide in the spray of the haunted linn.
Never can we forget the hurrying succession of pictures that pass by the bearer of the fiery82 cross, or the song of the distraught Blanche that gives warning to Fitz James.
The toils83 are pitch’d, and the stakes are set,
Ever sing merrily, merrily;
The bows they bend, and the knives they whet4,
Hunters live so cheerily.
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It was a stag, a stag of ten,
Bearing his branches sturdily;
He came stately down the glen,
Ever sing hardily84, hardily.
It was there he met with a wounded doe,
She was bleeding deathfully;
She warned him of the toils below,
Oh, so faithfully, faithfully!
He had an eye and he could heed70,
Ever sing warily85, warily;
He had a foot, and he could speed,
Hunters watch so narrowly.
On this passage the egregious86 Jeffrey wrote—
“No machinery87 can be conceived more clumsy for effecting the deliverance of a distressed88 hero, than the introduction of a mad woman, who, without knowing or caring about the wanderer, warns him, by a song, to take care of the ambush89 that was set for him. The maniacs90 of poetry have indeed had a prescriptive right to be musical, since the days of Ophelia downwards91; but it is rather a rash extension of this privilege to make them sing good sense, and to make sensible people be guided by them.”
“LADY OF THE LAKE”
Scott recked so lightly of this censure92 that he repeated the situation (his novels often repeat the situations of his poems), the warning lilts
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of a brainsick girl, in The Heart of Midlothian, in that most romantic passage where Madge Wildfire’s snatches of song give warning to the fugitive93 lover of Effie Deans. These parallelisms between the structure of the rhymed and of the anonymous94 prose romances are frequent and curious.
The whole poem of The Lady of the Lake is inimitably vivacious95, it has on it the dew of morning in a mountain pass: the King is worthy35 of the praise of Scott’s princes given to Byron by the Prince of Wales, who, with all his faults, could appreciate Walter Scott and Jane Austen. “I told the Prince,” Byron wrote to Scott, “that I thought you more particularly the painter of Princes, as they never appeared more fascinating than in Marmion and The Lady of the Lake. He was pleased to coincide, and to dwell on the description of your James’s as no less royal than poetical96. He spoke alternately of Homer and yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both.” A British king well acquainted with Homer is hardly the idiot of Thackeray’s satire.
Scott said in taking farewell of his work—
Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp34!
Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway,
And little reck I of the censure sharp
May idly cavil97 at an idle lay.
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Much have I owed thy strains on life’s long way,
Through secret woes98 the world has never known,
When on the weary night dawn’d wearier day,
And bitterer was the grief devour’d alone,
That I o’erlive such woes, Enchantress! is thine own.
He had shown more of his heart than he cared to show, and passed the confession99 off with a quotation100 from Master Stephen, who deemed melancholy101 “a gentlemanly thing.”
Scott’s gains from The Lady of the Lake must have been considerable, though of course not nearly so great as the profits of a modern dealer102 in fustian103 novels. A prudent104 poet would have regarded the money as capital, and Scott, as we said, did place at least £9,000 in his Ballantyne companies. But it appears that the money was no sooner in than the profits were taken out again for the private expenditure of the partners.
“WAVERLEY”
It really seems that Scott often was deceived, or at least confused, as to the state of his commercial accounts. He used to write to John Ballantyne, his book-keeper, in the strain of an affectionate elder brother, imploring105 “dear John” to “have the courage to tell disagreeable truths to those whom you hold in regard,” “not to shut your eyes or blind those of your friends upon the actual state of business.” The advice was given in vain, says Lockhart, and he explains that Scott’s own conduct
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made his counsels of no avail. The Ballantynes could not inquire strictly106 into Scott’s “uncommercial expenditure,” because, while he was the only moneyed partner, they had “trespassed largely, for their own purposes, on the funds of the companies.” The same reason, namely that the money was not theirs, made it impossible for them to check Scott’s commercial expenditure on the publication of huge antiquarian volumes, exquisitely107 ill done by the many literary hangers-on for whom he wished to procure5 a livelihood108. These piles of waste paper remained on the hands of his publishing company, which was also bearing the weight of that Old Man of the Sea, his Annual Register, irregularly published at a loss of £1,000 a year. Thus, although the excitements of the Peninsular and other wars did not prevent the public from buying Scott’s poetry largely, the Ballantyne companies went from one bank to another in search of accommodation, while Scott lived as joyously109 as La Fontaine’s grasshopper110, in the summer weather of his genius.
In 1810 he showed the fragment of Waverley to James Ballantyne, who looked on it without enthusiasm. James was to Scott what the old housekeeper111 was to Molière, a touchstone of public taste; his remarks on the margins112 of Scott’s proof-sheets show that he was rather below the level of general
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ignorance, and rather more morally sensitive than the common prude of the period. He could throw cold water on Waverley, but could not restrain Scott from publishing Dr. Jamieson’s History of the Culdees, and Weber’s egregious “Beaumont and Fletcher.” Business looked so bad that in 1810 Scott entertained the notion of seeking a judicial113 office in India.
His next poem, Don Roderick—“this patriotic12 puppet show” he called it—he gave, since silver and gold he had none, as a subscription114 to the fund for ruined Portuguese115. Scott, in Don Roderick, passed Sir John Moore over in silence, not because Moore was a Whig, but because Scott did not appreciate the much disputed strategy of that great soldier and good man. Neither Moore’s glorious death, nor his stand at Corunna, expiated116, in Scott’s opinion, the disasters of his hurried retreat. It was at this time that his friend, Captain Fergusson, read The Lady of the Lake aloud, the sixth canto117, to the men of his command, under artillery118 fire.
ABBOTSFORD
A trifling119 piece, The Inferno120 of Altesidora, contained verses in the manner of Crabbe, Moore, and himself; these are excellent imitations, and, with a lyric121, The Resolve, in the manner of the Caroline poets, justify122 the opinion that Scott would have been a formidable satirist had he chosen to attack
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Byron and the Whigs in the manner and measure of Pope.
As Scott had now a near prospect24 of a salary of £1,300 a year, for his hitherto unpaid123 labours as Clerk of Session, he yielded to the fatal temptation of purchasing a small estate on Tweedside. This purchase was really an antiquarian extravagance; he wished to add to his collection the field of the last great Border clan124 battle, fought in 1526 between the clans125 of Scott and Ker, including the stone called Turn Again, where an Elliot checked the pursuit by spearing Ker of Cessford. The two farms which he bought were styled Cartley or Clarty Hole, and Kaeside, “a bare haugh and a bleak126 bank,” said Scott, and there was an ugly little farmhouse127 at Clarty Hole, rechristened Abbotsford, in memory of the monks128 of Melrose. It is not a good site, lying low, close to the existing public road, and the proprietor129 had not the charter for salmon fishing in the pools beneath his house. But the property was all “enchanted land,” rich in legends and Border memories of Thomas of Ercildoune and of battles, while Scott often cast longing130 eyes on the adjacent Faldonside, once the home of Andrew Ker, the most ruffianly of Riccio’s murderers, and on the perfect little peel tower of Darnick. Washington Irving says that Scott spoke to him of a project of buying Smailholme Tower. Like
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almost all Scots for many centuries, the Sheriff longed to be a landed man; his lease of Ashestiel was ended, and, above all, the land which he now purchased was rich in antiquarian interest. So he collected farms, began to rebuild the house of Clarty Hole, and entered on his private Moscow expedition, the Making of Abbotsford. The first farm purchased was dear at the £4,000 which was its price. Meanwhile, a source which, in our day, would have proved a mine of gold to Scott, was by him unworked. He would not dramatize his poems, or, later, his novels, for the stage, and every adventurer made prize of them.
“ROKEBY”
Early in 1812 Scott began Rokeby, a poem on the home of his friend Morritt, and in May he “flitted” in a gipsy-like procession from Ashestiel to Abbotsford. But Childe Harold appeared before Rokeby; Scott disliked the popular misanthropy of The Childe, but privately131 declared it to be “a poem of most extraordinary power, which may rank its author with our first poets.” Scott burned the whole of his first draft of Rokeby (canto 1), because “I had corrected the spirit out of it.” Meanwhile Scott and Byron became correspondents, in a tone, to quote Lockhart, “of friendly confidence equally honourable132 to both these great competitors, without rivalry133, for the favour of the literary world.” Of Rokeby, which
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appeared in the last days of 1812, Scott said that it was a “pseudo romance of pseudo chivalry,” though he liked the beautiful lyrics134 interspersed135 through the poem, and rather piqued136 himself on the character of the outlaw137 Bertram, who has won the applause of Mr. Swinburne. The scene of Rokeby is English, and of the characters Lockhart says that, in a prose romance “they would have come forth3 with effect hardly inferior to any of all the groups Scott ever created.” Scott told Miss Edgeworth that Matilda was drawn138 from “a lady who is now no more,” his lost love, and that most of the other personages “are mere47 shadows.” The poet never left much for his critics to say in the way of disapproval139.
The poem, enfin, was in no way a success. Mocking birds of song had wearied the public of Scott by endless imitation.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed,
And now again the people
Call it but a weed.
Scott himself was imitating himself in The Bridal of Triermain, to “set a trap for Jeffrey,” who was expected to take Erskine for the author. He was boyishly reckless of his reputation; he easily resigned the lists when Byron “beat him,” as he says,
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and in the year 1813 was harassed140 by “the ignoble141 melancholy of pecuniary142 embarrassment143.”
A crisis had come in the affairs of Ballantyne & Co. The interest, for us, lies in the light which the crisis throws on the character of Scott. We have seen that a friend wrote, at the time of his disappointment in love, about Scott’s “violent” and “ungovernable” character, while Scott himself refers to “the family temper” as rather volcanic144. The late Mr. W. B. Scott, too, considered it worth while to tell the world in his Memoirs145, that, as a boy, he once heard Scott swear profane146 in a printer’s office. The truth of the matter seems to be that Scott had a large share of the family temper in boyhood, when he suffered from serious illnesses, and that he was capable of relapses in his overworn later years. But in the full health and vigour147 of his manhood, he mastered his temper admirably.
BALLANTYNE TROUBLES
He was at Abbotsford, at Drumlanrig with the Duke of Buccleuch, and at other country houses remote from Edinburgh, in the July and August of 1813. He was disturbed by frequent letters from John Ballantyne, always at the very last moment demanding money to save the existence of the firm, and always concealing148 the exact state of financial affairs. John was like the proverbial spendthrift
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who never can be induced to give his benevolent149 kinsfolk a full schedule of his debts. Thus harassed and menaced with ruin, Scott wrote letters which are models of tact150 and temper. He only asked to be told “in plain and distinct terms” how affairs really stood, and to be told in good time. But John was as unpunctual and untrustworthy as Scott was punctual and placable. He would not write explicitly151, he always sent unexpected demands, and it was only certain that he was keeping others back. Scott had not an hour of peace and safety, and he told Ballantyne as much, “in charity with your dilatory152 worship.” “Were it not for your strange concealments, I should anticipate no difficulty in winding153 up these matters.” Lockhart says that he would as soon have hanged his favourite dog as turned John Ballantyne adrift. The conclusion of the matter was that the Ballantyne publishing company found a haven154 in the capacious bosom155 of Constable, who believed in the Star of Scott, advanced some £4,000, and took off the sinking ship the useless burden of the valueless books.
On the whole Scott could be patient, he knew that his copyrights and library were valuable enough to secure all his creditors156 from ultimate loss. But to avoid loss by the hurried sale of copy
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rights, he obtained a guarantee for £4,000 from his friend and chief, the Duke of Buccleuch, backed, it seems, by Messrs. Longman. At the same time he declined an offer of the Poet Laureateship—vacant by the death of Pye—from the Prince Regent. He supposed that the Laureateship was worth three or four hundred pounds annually157, a mistake. But as he held two other offices, the Clerkship and Sheriffship, he deemed it wrong to take the money, and secured the office for Southey, who lived solely158 by his pen. Another motive159, felt by Scott and urged by the Duke of Buccleuch, was the ridicule160 which then was attached to the bays, and the necessity of writing a Birthday Ode every year. The Regent removed that obsolete necessity, and Southey, despite one famous error, redeemed161 the honour of the laurels162, next held by Wordsworth, and then by Tennyson. “Sir Walter’s conduct,” Southey said, “was, as it always was, characteristically generous, and in the highest degree friendly.”
Thus in temper, in generosity163, and in determination that no man should be a loser by him, we see Scott at his best, while in the sanguine hopefulness which led him to go on buying land, books, and old armour164, during the crisis, we mark the cause of his final misfortunes; and, in his ceaseless industry
Sir Walter Scott and His Friends.
From the painting by Thomas Faed, R.A.
LAUREATESHIP
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during these distractions165, we note the courageous166 perseverance167 by which he saved his honour at the expense of his life. Through his financial troubles he worked doggedly168 at his Edition and Life of Swift, and began The Lord of the Isles, though already he was the butt169 of every bore, and the host of tedious uninvited guests, “the thieves of time.” Simultaneously170, he was assisting Maturin and other literary strugglers with money, his constant practice. But he did cause the Income Tax collectors to “abandon their claim upon the produce of literary labour.” Lockhart chronicles this fact “in case such a demand should ever be renewed hereafter!”
It is renewed, of course, and with perfect justice. What Scott resisted was double taxation171 of literary earnings172, first under the property tax, next, yearly, under the Income Tax. He must not first be taxed on the full price, say, of Marmion, as income, and then again yearly on the interest of the price.[6]
In July 1814 the Edition and Life of Swift appeared in nineteen volumes, six years after this laborious173 work was begun. The Life, which became popular, is perhaps, with that by Sir Henry Craik, the most generous and sympathetic attempt
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to make intelligible174 one of the greatest, most miserable175, and most mysterious of mankind. Scott made more allowance than Thackeray for what Lockhart calls “the faults and foibles of nameless and inscrutable disease.
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”
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hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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whet
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| v.磨快，刺激 | |
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procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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constable
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needy
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
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duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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iniquities
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| n.邪恶( iniquity的名词复数 )；极不公正 | |
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patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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patriot
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| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
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pedant
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| n.迂儒；卖弄学问的人 | |
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pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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17
overthrew
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| overthrow的过去式 | |
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18
massacres
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| 大屠杀( massacre的名词复数 )； 惨败 | |
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19
massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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20
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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21
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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22
counteract
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| vt.对…起反作用，对抗，抵消 | |
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23
nascent
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| adj.初生的，发生中的 | |
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24
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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25
serial
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| n.连本影片，连本电视节目；adj.连续的 | |
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procrastinating
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| 拖延，耽搁( procrastinate的现在分词 )； 拖拉 | |
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satirist
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| n.讽刺诗作者，讽刺家，爱挖苦别人的人 | |
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28
revelled
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| v.作乐( revel的过去式和过去分词 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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29
facetious
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| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
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30
flippancy
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| n.轻率；浮躁；无礼的行动 | |
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31
tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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32
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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33
abate
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| vi.(风势，疼痛等)减弱，减轻，减退 | |
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34
harp
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| n.竖琴；天琴座 | |
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35
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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36
improvident
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| adj.不顾将来的，不节俭的，无远见的 | |
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37
festive
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| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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38
regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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39
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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40
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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41
expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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42
gist
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| n.要旨；梗概 | |
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43
expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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44
sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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45
unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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46
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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47
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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48
arable
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| adj.可耕的，适合种植的 | |
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49
bards
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| n.诗人( bard的名词复数 ) | |
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50
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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51
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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52
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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53
satire
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| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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54
retaliation
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| n.报复，反击 | |
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55
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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56
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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57
retaliated
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| v.报复，反击( retaliate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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58
limbo
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| n.地狱的边缘；监狱 | |
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59
obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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60
predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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61
devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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62
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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63
deferred
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|
| adj.延期的，缓召的v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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64
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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65
isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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66
salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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67
tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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68
feud
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| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
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69
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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70
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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71
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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72
monotonous
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|
| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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73
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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74
cadences
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| n.（声音的）抑扬顿挫( cadence的名词复数 )；节奏；韵律；调子 | |
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75
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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76
odyssey
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| n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险 | |
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77
exculpate
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| v.开脱，使无罪 | |
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78
partisan
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| adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒 | |
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79
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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80
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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81
foretells
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的第三人称单数 ) | |
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82
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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83
toils
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| 网 | |
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84
hardily
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| 耐劳地，大胆地，蛮勇地 | |
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85
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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86
egregious
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| adj.非常的，过分的 | |
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87
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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88
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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89
ambush
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| n.埋伏(地点)；伏兵；v.埋伏；伏击 | |
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90
maniacs
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| n.疯子（maniac的复数形式） | |
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91
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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92
censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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93
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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94
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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95
vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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96
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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97
cavil
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| v.挑毛病，吹毛求疵 | |
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98
woes
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| 困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉 | |
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99
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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100
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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101
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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102
dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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103
fustian
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| n.浮夸的；厚粗棉布 | |
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104
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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105
imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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106
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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107
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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108
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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109
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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110
grasshopper
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| n.蚱蜢，蝗虫，蚂蚱 | |
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111
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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112
margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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113
judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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114
subscription
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| n.预订，预订费，亲笔签名，调配法，下标（处方） | |
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115
Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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116
expiated
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| v.为（所犯罪过）接受惩罚，赎（罪）( expiate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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117
canto
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| n.长篇诗的章 | |
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118
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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119
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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120
inferno
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| n.火海；地狱般的场所 | |
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121
lyric
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| n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的 | |
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122
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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123
unpaid
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| adj.未付款的，无报酬的 | |
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124
clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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125
clans
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| 宗族( clan的名词复数 )； 氏族； 庞大的家族； 宗派 | |
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126
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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127
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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128
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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129
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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130
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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131
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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132
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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133
rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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134
lyrics
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| n.歌词 | |
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135
interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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136
piqued
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| v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心） | |
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137
outlaw
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| n.歹徒，亡命之徒；vt.宣布…为不合法 | |
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138
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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139
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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140
harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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141
ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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142
pecuniary
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| adj.金钱的；金钱上的 | |
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143
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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144
volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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145
memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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146
profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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147
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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148
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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149
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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150
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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explicitly
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| ad.明确地，显然地 | |
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dilatory
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| adj.迟缓的，不慌不忙的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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155
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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creditors
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| n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
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annually
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| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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164
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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distractions
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| n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱 | |
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courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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171
taxation
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| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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172
earnings
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| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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