Waverley; Or 'Tis Sixty Years Since — Complete

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER I

  INTRODUCTORY

  The title of this work has not been chosen without the grave and soliddeliberation which matters of importance demand from the prudent. Evenits first, or general denomination, was the result of no commonresearch or selection, although, according to the example of mypredecessors, I had only to seize upon the most sounding and euphonicsurname that English history or topography affords, and elect it atonce as the title of my work and the name of my hero. But, alas! whatcould my readers have expected from the chivalrous epithets of Howard,Mordaunt, Mortimer, or Stanley, or from the softer and more sentimentalsounds of Belmour, Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave, but pages ofinanity, similar to those which have been so christened for half acentury past? I must modestly admit I am too diffident of my own meritto place it in unnecessary opposition to preconceived associations; Ihave, therefore, like a maiden knight with his white shield, assumedfor my hero, WAVERLEY, an uncontaminated name, bearing with its soundlittle of good or evil, excepting what the reader shall hereafter bepleased to affix to it. But my second or supplemental title was amatter of much more difficult election, since that, short as it is, maybe held as pledging the author to some special mode of laying hisscene, drawing his characters, and managing his adventures. Had I, forexample, announced in my frontispiece, 'Waverley, a Tale of otherDays,' must not every novel-reader have anticipated a castle scarceless than that of Udolpho, of which the eastern wing had long beenuninhabited, and the keys either lost, or consigned to the care of someaged butler or housekeeper, whose trembling steps, about the middle ofthe second volume, were doomed to guide the hero, or heroine, to theruinous precincts? Would not the owl have shrieked and the cricketcried in my very title-page? and could it have been possible for me,with a moderate attention to decorum, to introduce any scene morelively than might be produced by the jocularity of a clownish butfaithful valet, or the garrulous narrative of the heroine'sfille-de-chambre, when rehearsing the stories of blood and horror whichshe had heard in the servants' hall? Again, had my title borne,'Waverley, a Romance from the German,' what head so obtuse as not toimage forth a profligate abbot, an oppressive duke, a secret andmysterious association of Rosycrucians and Illuminati, with all theirproperties of black cowls, caverns, daggers, electrical machines,trap-doors, and dark-lanterns? Or if I had rather chosen to call mywork a 'Sentimental Tale,' would it not have been a sufficient presageof a heroine with a profusion of auburn hair, and a harp, the softsolace of her solitary hours, which she fortunately finds always themeans of transporting from castle to cottage, although she herself besometimes obliged to jump out of a two-pair-of-stairs window, and ismore than once bewildered on her journey, alone and on foot, withoutany guide but a blowzy peasant girl, whose jargon she hardly canunderstand? Or, again, if my Waverley had been entitled 'A Tale of theTimes,' wouldst thou not, gentle reader, have demanded from me adashing sketch of the fashionable world, a few anecdotes of privatescandal thinly veiled, and if lusciously painted, so much the better? aheroine from Grosvenor Square, and a hero from the Barouche Club or theFour-in-Hand, with a set of subordinate characters from the elegantesof Queen Anne Street East, or the dashing heroes of the Bow-StreetOffice? I could proceed in proving the importance of a title-page, anddisplaying at the same time my own intimate knowledge of the particularingredients necessary to the composition of romances and novels ofvarious descriptions;--but it is enough, and I scorn to tyranniselonger over the impatience of my reader, who is doubtless alreadyanxious to know the choice made by an author so profoundly versed inthe different branches of his art.

  By fixing, then, the date of my story Sixty Years before this present1st November, 1805, I would have my readers understand, that they willmeet in the following pages neither a romance of chivalry nor a tale ofmodern manners; that my hero will neither have iron on his shoulders,as of yore, nor on the heels of his boots, as is the present fashion ofBond Street; and that my damsels will neither be clothed 'in purple andin pall,' like the Lady Alice of an old ballad, nor reduced to theprimitive nakedness of a modern fashionable at a rout. From this mychoice of an era the understanding critic may farther presage that theobject of my tale is more a description of men than manners. A tale ofmanners, to be interesting, must either refer to antiquity so great asto have become venerable, or it must bear a vivid reflection of thosescenes which are passing daily before our eyes, and are interestingfrom their novelty. Thus the coat-of-mail of our ancestors, and thetriple-furred pelisse of our modern beaux, may, though for verydifferent reasons, be equally fit for the array of a fictitiouscharacter; but who, meaning the costume of his hero to be impressive,would willingly attire him in the court dress of George the Second'sreign, with its no collar, large sleeves, and low pocket-holes? Thesame may be urged, with equal truth, of the Gothic hall, which, withits darkened and tinted windows, its elevated and gloomy roof, andmassive oaken table garnished with boar's-head and rosemary, pheasantsand peacocks, cranes and cygnets, has an excellent effect in fictitiousdescription. Much may also be gained by a lively display of a modernfete, such as we have daily recorded in that part of a newspaperentitled the Mirror of Fashion, if we contrast these, or either ofthem, with the splendid formality of an entertainment given Sixty YearsSince; and thus it will be readily seen how much the painter of antiqueor of fashionable manners gains over him who delineates those of thelast generation.

  Considering the disadvantages inseparable from this part of my subject,I must be understood to have resolved to avoid them as much aspossible, by throwing the force of my narrative upon the characters andpassions of the actors;--those passions common to men in all stages ofsociety, and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether itthrobbed under the steel corslet of the fifteenth century, the brocadedcoat of the eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat ofthe present day. [Footnote: Alas' that attire, respectable andgentlemanlike in 1805, or thereabouts, is now as antiquated as theAuthor of Waverley has himself become since that period! The reader offashion will please to fill up the costume with an embroideredwaistcoat of purple velvet or silk, and a coat of whatever colour hepleases.] Upon these passions it is no doubt true that the state ofmanners and laws casts a necessary colouring; but the bearings, to usethe language of heraldry, remain the same, though the tincture may benot only different, but opposed in strong contradistinction. The wrathof our ancestors, for example, was coloured gules; it broke forth inacts of open and sanguinary violence against the objects of its fury.Our malignant feelings, which must seek gratification through moreindirect channels, and undermine the obstacles which they cannot openlybear down, may be rather said to be tinctured sable. But thedeep-ruling impulse is the same in both cases; and the proud peer, whocan now only ruin his neighbour according to law, by protracted suits,is the genuine descendant of the baron who wrapped the castle of hiscompetitor in flames, and knocked him on the head as he endeavoured toescape from the conflagration. It is from the great book of Nature, thesame through a thousand editions, whether of black-letter, or wire-woveand hot-pressed, that I have venturously essayed to read a chapter tothe public. Some favourable opportunities of contrast have beenafforded me by the state of society in the northern part of the islandat the period of my history, and may serve at once to vary and toillustrate the moral lessons, which I would willingly consider as themost important part of my plan; although I am sensible how short thesewill fall of their aim if I shall be found unable to mix them withamusement--a task not quite so easy in this critical generation as itwas 'Sixty Years Since.'