Part 61 (1/2)

Fourthly. He is a good workman; knows his own business well, and can judge of other craft, if sound, or otherwise.

All these four qualities of him must be known before we can understand this single speech. Keeping them in mind, I take it up, word by word.

You observe, in the outset, Scott makes no attempt whatever to indicate accents or modes of p.r.o.nunciation by changed spelling, unless the word becomes a quite definitely new and scarcely writeable one. The Scottish way of p.r.o.nouncing 'James,' for instance, is entirely peculiar, and extremely pleasant to the ear. But it is so, just because it does _not_ change the word into Jeems, nor into Jims, nor into Jawms. A modern writer of dialects would think it amusing to use one or other of these ugly spellings. But Scott writes the name in pure English, knowing that a Scots reader will speak it rightly, and an English one be wise in letting it alone. On the other hand he writes 'weel' for 'well,' because that word is complete in its change, and may be very closely expressed by the double _e_. The ambiguous '_u_'s in 'gude' and 'sune' are admitted, because far liker the sound than the double _o_ would be, and that in 'hure,' for grace' sake, to soften the word;--so also 'flaes'

for 'fleas.' 'Mony' for 'many' is again positively right in sound, and 'neuk' differs from our 'nook' in sense, and is not the same word at all, as we shall presently see.

Secondly, observe, not a word is corrupted in any indecent haste, slowness, slovenliness, or incapacity of p.r.o.nunciation. There is no lisping, drawling, s...o...b..ring, or snuffling: the speech is as clear as a bell and as keen as an arrow: and its elisions and contractions are either melodious, ('na,' for 'not,'--'pu'd,' for 'pulled,') or as normal as in a Latin verse. The long words are delivered without the slightest bungling; and 'bigging' finished to its last _g_.

I take the important words now in their places.

_Brave._ The old English sense of the word in 'to go brave' retained, expressing Andrew's sincere and respectful admiration. Had he meant to insinuate a hint of the church's being too fine, he would have said 'braw.'

_Kirk._ This is of course just as pure and unprovincial a word as 'Kirche,' or 'eglise.'

_Whigmaleerie._ I cannot get at the root of this word, but it is one showing that the speaker is not bound by cla.s.sic rules, but will use any syllables that enrich his meaning. 'Nipperty-tipperty' (of his master's 'poetry-nonsense') is another word of the same cla.s.s. 'Curlieurlie' is of course just as pure as Shakespeare's 'Hurly-burly.' But see first suggestion of the idea to Scott at Blair-Adam (L. vi. 264).

_Opensteek hems._ More description, or better, of the later Gothic cannot be put into four syllables. 'Steek,' melodious for st.i.tch, has a combined sense of closing or fastening. And note that the later Gothic, being precisely what Scott knew best (in Melrose) and liked best, it is, here as elsewhere, quite as much himself[172] as Frank, that he is laughing at, when he laughs _with_ Andrew, whose 'opensteek hems' are only a ruder metaphor for his own 'willow-wreaths changed to stone.'

_Gunpowther._ '-Ther' is a lingering vestige of the French '-dre.'

_Syne._ One of the melodious and mysterious Scottish words which have partly the sound of wind and stream in them, and partly the range of softened idea which is like a distance of blue hills over border land ('far in the distant Cheviot's blue'). Perhaps even the least sympathetic 'Englisher' might recognise this, if he heard 'Old Long Since' vocally subst.i.tuted for the Scottish words to the air. I do not know the root; but the word's proper meaning is not 'since,' but before or after an interval of some duration, 'as weel sune as syne.' 'But first on Sawnie gies a ca', Syne, bauldly in she enters.'

_Behoved_ (_to come_). A rich word, with peculiar idiom, always used more or less ironically of anything done under a partly mistaken and partly pretended notion of duty.

_Siccan._ Far prettier, and fuller in meaning than 'such.' It contains an added sense of wonder; and means properly 'so great' or 'so unusual.'

_Took_ (_o' drum_). Cla.s.sical 'tuck' from Italian 'toccata,' the preluding 'touch' or flourish, on any instrument (but see Johnson under word 'tucket,' quoting _Oth.e.l.lo_). The deeper Scottish vowels are used here to mark the deeper sound of the ba.s.s drum, as in more solemn warning.

_Bigging._ The only word in all the sentence of which the Scottish form is less melodious than the English, 'and what for no,' seeing that Scottish architecture is mostly little beyond Bessie Bell's and Mary Gray's? 'They biggit a bow're by yon burnside, and theekit it ow're wi rashes.' But it is pure Anglo-Saxon in roots; see glossary to Fairbairn's edition of the Douglas _Virgil_, 1710.

_Coup._ Another of the much-embracing words; short for 'upset,' but with a sense of awkwardness as the inherent cause of fall; compare Richie Moniplies (also for sense of 'behoved'): 'Ae auld hirplin deevil of a potter behoved just to step in my way, and offer me a pig (earthern pot--etym. dub.), as he said ”just to put my Scotch ointment in;” and I gave him a push, as but natural, and the tottering deevil coupit owre amang his own pigs, and damaged a score of them.' So also Dandie Dinmont in the postchaise: ''Od! I hope they'll no coup us.'

_The Crans._ Idiomatic; root unknown to me, but it means in this use, full, total, and without recovery.

_Molendinar._ From 'molendinum,' the grinding-place. I do not know if actually the local name,[173] or Scott's invention. Compare Sir Piercie's 'Molinaras.' But at all events used here with bye-sense of degradation of the formerly idle saints to grind at the mill.

_Crouse._ Courageous, softened with a sense of comfort.

_Ilka._ Again a word with azure distance, including the whole sense of 'each' and 'every.' The reader must carefully and reverently distinguish these comprehensive words, which gather two or more perfectly understood meanings into one _chord_ of meaning, and are harmonies more than words, from the above-noted blunders between two half-hit meanings, struck as a bad piano-player strikes the edge of another note. In English we have fewer of these combined thoughts; so that Shakespeare rather plays with the distinct lights of his words, than melts them into one. So again Bishop Douglas spells, and doubtless spoke, the word 'rose,'

differently, according to his purpose; if as the chief or governing ruler of flowers, 'rois,' but if only in her own beauty, rose.

_Christian-like._ The sense of the decency and order proper to Christianity is stronger in Scotland than in any other country, and the word 'Christian' more distinctly opposed to 'beast.' Hence the back-handed cut at the English for their over-pious care of dogs.

I am a little surprised myself at the length to which this examination of one small piece of Sir Walter's first-rate work has carried us, but here I must end for this time, trusting, if the Editor of the _Nineteenth Century_ permit me, yet to trespa.s.s, perhaps more than once, on his readers' patience; but, at all events, to examine in a following paper the technical characteristics of Scott's own style, both in prose and verse, together with Byron's, as opposed to our fas.h.i.+onably recent dialects and rhythms; the essential virtues of language, in both the masters of the old school, hinging ultimately, little as it might be thought, on certain unalterable views of theirs concerning the code called 'of the Ten Commandments,' wholly at variance with the dogmas of automatic morality which, summed again by the witches' line, 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair,' hover through the fog and filthy air of our prosperous England.

JOHN RUSKIN.

'_He hated greetings in the market-place_, and there were generally loiterers in the streets to persecute him _either about the events of the day_, or about some petty pieces of business.'