Part 1 (1/2)
Marriage.
by Susan Edmonstone Ferrier.
PREFATORY NOTE.
MISS FERRIER'S Novels have, since their first appearance, suffered curtailment in all subsequent Editions. The present Edition is the first reprint from the original Editions, and contains the whole of the omissions in other reprints. It is, therefore, the only perfect Edition of these Novels.
Works which have received the praise of Sir Walter Scott and Sir James Mackintosh, and been thought worthy of discussion in the _Noctes Ambrosianae,_ require no further introduction to the reader. The almost exceptional position which they occupy as satirizing the foibles rather than the more serious faults of human nature, and the caustic character of that satire, mingled with such bright wit and genial humour, give Miss Ferrier a place to herself in English fiction; and it is felt that a time has come to recognize this by producing her works in a form which fits them for the library, and in a type which enables them to be read with enjoyment.
G.B.
NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
_December_ _1881._
MISS FERRIER'S NOVELS. [1]
In November 1854 there died in Edinburgh one who might, with truth, be called almost the last, if not _the_ last, of that literary galaxy that adorned Edinburgh society in the days of Scott, Jeffrey, Wilson, and others. Distinguished by the friends.h.i.+p and confidence of Sir Walter Scott, the name of Susan Edmonstone Ferrier is one that has become famous from her three clever, satirical, and most amusing novels _of Marriage, The_ _Inheritance,_ and _Destiny. _They exhibit, besides, a keen sense of the ludicrous almost unequalled. She may be said to have done for Scotland what Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth have respectively done for England and Ireland--left portraits, painted in undying colours, of men and women that will live for ever in the hearts and minds of her readers. In the present redundant age of novel writers and novel-readers, and when one would suppose the supply must far exceed the demand from the amount of puerile and often at the same time prurient literature in the department of fiction that daily flows from the press, it is refres.h.i.+ng to turn to the vigorous and, above all, healthy moral tone of this lady's works. To the present generation they are as if they had never been, and to the question, ”Did you ever read _Marriage?”_ it is not uncommon in these times to get such an answer as, ”No, never. Who wrote it?” ”Miss Ferrier.” ”I never heard of her or her novels.” It is with the view, therefore, of enlightening such benighted ones that I pen the following pages.
[1] Reprinted from the _Temple Bar_ Magazine for November 1878, Vol I.
Miss Ferrier was the fourth and youngest daughter of James Ferrier, Writer to the Signet, and was born at Edinburgh, 7th of September 1782.
Her father was bred to that profession in the office of a distant relative, Mr. Archibald Campbell of Succoth (great grandfather of the present Archbishop of Canterbury).To his valuable and extensive business, which included the management of all the Argyll estates, he ultimately succeeded. He was admitted as a member of the Society of Writers to the Signet in the year 1770. He was also appointed a Princ.i.p.al Clerk of Session through the influence (most strenuously exerted) of his friend and, patron, John, fifth Duke of Argyll, [1] and was a colleague in that office with Scott. He also numbered among his friends Henry Mackenzie, the ”Man of Feeling,” Dr. Hugh Blair, and last, though not least, Burns the poet. His father, John Ferrier, had been in the same office till his marriage with Grizzel, only daughter and heiress of Sir Walter Sandilands Hamilton, Bart., of Westport, county Linlithgow. [2] John Ferrier was the last Laird of Kirklands, county Renfrew, subsequently sold to Lord Blantyre. Mr. James Ferrier was the third son of his parents, and was born 1744. [3] Miss Ferrier was in the habit of frequently visiting at Inveraray Castle in company with her father, and while there had ample opportunity afforded her of studying fas.h.i.+onable life in all its varied and capricious moods, and which have been preserved to posterity in her admirable delineations of character.
Her reason for becoming an auth.o.r.ess is from her own pen, as follows, and is ent.i.tled a preface to _The Inheritance_:--
[1] To this n.o.bleman, in his later years, Mr. Ferrier devoted much of his time, both at Inveraray and Roseneath. He died in 1806. His d.u.c.h.ess was the lovely Elizabeth Gunning. Mr. Ferrier died at 25 George Street, Edinburgh, January 1829, aged eighty-six. Sir Walter Scott attended his funeral. After his death Miss Ferrier removed to a smaller house, in Nelson Street.
[2] Sir Walter's father, Walter Sandilands of Hilderston, a cadet of the Torphichen family (his father was commonly styled Tutor of Calder), a.s.sumed the name of Hamilton on his marriage with the heiress of Westport.
[3] His brothers were: William, who a.s.sumed the name of Hamilton on succeeding his grandfather in the Westport estate. He was in the navy, and at the capture of Quebec, where he a.s.sisted the sailors to drag the cannon up the heights of Abraham; m. Miss Johnstone of Straiton, co.
Linlithgow; died 1814. Walter; m. Miss Wallace of Cairnhill, co. Ayr, father of the late Colonel Ferrier Hamilton of Cairnhill and Westport.
Ilay, major-general in the army; m. first Miss Macqueen, niece of Lord Braxfield, second, Mrs. Cutlar of Orroland, co. Kirkcudbright. He was Governor of Dumbarton Castle, and died there 1824.
”An introduction had been requested for the first of these three works, _Marriage;_ but while the author was considering what could be said for an already thrice-told tale, it had pa.s.sed through the press with such rapidity as to outstrip all consideration. Indeed, what can be said for any of them amounts to so little, it is scarcely worth saying at all.
The first was begun at the urgent desire of a friend, and with the promise of a.s.sistance, which, however, failed long before the end of the first volume; the work was then thrown aside, and resumed some years after. [1] It afforded occupation and amus.e.m.e.nt for idle and solitary hours, and was published in the belief that the author's name never would be guessed at, or the work heard of beyond a very limited sphere.
_'Ce n'est que le premier pas qu'il coute'_ in novel-writing, as in carrying one's head in their hand; _The Inheritance_ and _Destiny _followed as matters of course. It has been so often and confidently a.s.serted that almost all the characters are individual portraits, that the author has little hope of being believed when she a.s.serts the contrary. That some of them were sketched from life is not denied; but the circ.u.mstances in which they are placed, their birth, habits, language, and a thousand minute particulars, differ so widely from the originals as ought to refute the charge of personality. With regard to the introduction of religious sentiment into works of fiction, there exists a difference of opinion, which, in the absence of any authoritative command, leaves each free to act according to their own feelings and opinions. Viewing this life merely as the prelude to another state of existence, it does seem strange that the future should ever be_ wholly_ excluded from any representation of it, even in its motley occurrences, scarcely less motley, perhaps, than the human mind itself. The author can only wish it had been her province to have raised plants of n.o.bler growth in the wide field of Christian literature; but as such has not been her high calling, she hopes her 'small herbs of grace' may, without offence, be allowed to put forth their blossoms amongst the briars, weeds, and wild flowers of life's common path.
[1] It underwent several changes before its final publication in 1818.
”Edinburgh, _April_ 1840.”
The friend on whose a.s.sistance she relied was Miss Clavering, daughter of Lady Augusta Clavering, and niece of the late Duke of Argyll. Between this lady and our author an early friends.h.i.+p existed, which was severed only by death. It commenced in 1797, when Miss Ferrier lost her mother, [1] and when she went with her father to Inveraray Castle she was then fifteen, and her friend only eight. Miss Clavering became the wife of Mr.
Miles Fletcher, advocate, but was better known in later years as Mrs.