Waverley; Or 'Tis Sixty Years Since, Page 2

  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 common researchor selection, although, according to the example of my predecessors,I had only to seize upon the most sounding and euphonic surname thatEnglish history or topography affords, and elect it at once as the titleof my work, and the name of my hero. But, alas! what could my readershave expected from the chivalrous epithets of Howard, Mordaunt,Mortimer, or Stanley, or from the softer and more sentimental sounds ofBelmour, Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave, but pages of inanity, similarto those which have been so christened for half a century past? Imust modestly admit I am too diffident of my own merit to place it inunnecessary opposition to preconceived associations; I have, therefore,like a maiden knight with his white shield, assumed for my hero,WAVERLEY, an uncontaminated name, bearing with its sound little of goodor evil, excepting what the reader shall hereafter be pleased to affixto it. But my second or supplemental title was a matter of much moredifficult election, since that, short as it is, may be held as pledgingthe author to some special mode of laying his scene, drawing hischaracters, and managing his adventures. Had I, for example, announcedin my frontispiece, 'Waverley, a Tale of other Days,' must not everynovel reader have anticipated a castle scarce less than that of Udolpho,of which the eastern wing had long been uninhabited, and the keys eitherlost, or consigned to the care of some aged butler or housekeeper, whosetrembling steps, about the middle of the second volume, were doomed toguide the hero, or heroine, to the ruinous precincts? Would not the owlhave shrieked and the cricket cried in my very title-page? and couldit have been possible for me, with a moderate attention to decorum, tointroduce any scene more lively than might be produced by the jocularityof a clownish but faithful valet, or the garrulous narrative of theheroine's fille-de-chambre, when rehearsing the stories of blood andhorror which she had heard in the servants' hall? Again, had my titleborne 'Waverley, a Romance from the German,' what head so obtuse asnot to image 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 my worka 'Sentimental Tale,' would it not have been a sufficient presage of aheroine with a profusion of auburn hair, and a harp, the soft solaceof her solitary hours, which she fortunately finds always the means oftransporting from castle to cottage, although she herself be sometimesobliged to jump out of a two-pair-of-stairs window, and is more thanonce bewildered on her journey, alone and on foot, without any guide buta blowzy peasant girl, whose jargon she hardly can understand? Or again,if my WAVERLEY had been entitled 'A Tale of the Times,' wouldst thounot, gentle reader, have demanded from me a dashing sketch of thefashionable world, a few anecdotes of private scandal thinly veiled,and if lusciously painted, so much the better? a heroine from GrosvenorSquare, and a hero from the Barouche Club or the Four-in-hand, with aset of subordinate characters from the elegantes of Queen Anne StreetEast, or the dashing heroes of the Bow Street Office? I could proceed inproving the importance of a title-page, and displaying at the same timemy own intimate knowledge of the particular ingredients necessary to thecomposition of romances and novels of various descriptions: but itis enough, and I scorn to tyrannize longer over the impatience of myreader, who is doubtless already anxious to know the choice made by anauthor so profoundly versed in the different branches of his art.

  By fixing, then, the date of my story Sixty Years before the present 1stNovember, 1805, I would have my readers understand, that they will meetin 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 purpleand in 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 further 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, andthe triple-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, with itsdarkened and tinted windows, its elevated and gloomy roof, and massiveoaken table garnished with boar's-head and rosemary, pheasants andpeacocks, 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 of them,with the splendid formality of an entertainment given Sixty Years since;and thus it will be readily seen how much the painter of antique orof fashionable manners gains over him who delineates those of the lastgeneration.

  Considering the disadvantages inseparable from this part of my subject,I must be understood to have resolved to avoid them as much as possible,by throwing the force of my narrative upon the characters and passionsof the actors;--those passions common to men in all stages of society,and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it throbbed underthe steel corselet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of theeighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the presentday. [Alas! that attire, respectable and gentlemanlike in 1805, orthereabouts, is now as antiquated as the Author of Waverley has himselfbecome since that period! The reader of fashion will please to fill upthe costume with an embroidered waistcoat of purple velvet or silk,and a coat of whatever colour he pleases.] Upon these passions it isno doubt true that the state of manners and laws casts a necessarycolouring; but the bearings, to use the language of heraldry, remainthe same, though the tincture may be not only different, but opposed instrong contradistinction. The wrath of our ancestors, for example, wascoloured GULES; it broke forth in acts of open and sanguinary violenceagainst the objects of its fury. Our malignant feelings, which mustseek gratification through more indirect channels, and undermine theobstacles which they cannot openly bear down, may be rather said to betinctured SABLE. But the deep-ruling impulse is the same in both cases;and the proud peer who can now only ruin his neighbour according to law,by protracted suits, is the genuine descendant of the baron who wrappedthe castle of his competitor in flames, and knocked him on the head ashe endeavoured to escape from the conflagration. It is from the greatbook of Nature, the same through a thousand editions, whether ofblack-letter, or wire-wove and hot-pressed, that I have venturouslyessayed to read a chapter to the public. Some favourable opportunitiesof contrast have been afforded me, by the state of society in thenorthern part of the island at the period of my history, and may serveat once to vary and to illustrate the moral lessons, which I wouldwillingly consider as the most important part of my plan; although Iam sensible how short these will fall of their aim, if I shall be foundunable to mix them with amusement,--a task not quite so easy in thiscritical generation as it was 'Sixty Years since.'