A
TO THE STANDARD EDITION OF
A. D. 1831.
IN seeking to go back, by the traces of recollection, to the period when the first impression of the heroes which form the story of the Scottish Chiefs was made on my mind, I am carried so completely into the scenes of my infancy, that I feel like one of the children old tales tell of, who, being lost in a wood, tries to find her way home again, by the possibly preserved track of a few corn seeds she had chanced to scatter on the ground as she came.
To wander in these memories, has, however, a pleasure of its own, many pleasant places presenting themselves to stop at, and thence to review with a sweet sadness, through the long vale of past days, some distant, lovely scene, under the soul-hallowed twilight of time.–Such scenes are peopled with beloved forms, living there before our heart's eye; but, in reality, long removed from us into an eternal paradise.
Born on the border lands of Scotland, my mother, in an early widowhood, took her children thither, then almost infants: to bring them up in good air, and in the future advantage of a good education at a moderate expense. But in Scotland, it is not the "pastors and masters" only who educate the people; there is a spirit of wholesome knowledge in the country, pervading all ranks, which passes from one to the other like the atmosphere they breathe; and I may truly say, that I was hard y six years of age when I first heard the names of William Wallace and Robert Bruce:–not from gentlemen and ladies, readers of history; but from the maids in the nursery, and the serving-man in the kitchen: the one had their songs of "Wallace wight!" to lull my baby sister to sleep: and the other his tales of "Bannockburn," and "Cambus-Kenneth," to entertain my young brother,–keeping his eager attention awake evening after evening, often to a late hour, and sending him to his bed, still asking for more, to see the heroes in his dreams.
I remember with delight even now how I was amused for hours in the same way by a venerable old woman called Luckie Forbes; who lived in a humble but comfortable occupation, near some beautiful green banks which rose in natural terraces behind my mother's house; and who, often meeting me there when playing about, would walk by me, and talk to me, with her knitting in her hand; or I used to run to her own little home, and sit down on a stool by her side, while she told me of the wonderful deeds of William Wallace:–of his fighting for Scotland, against as many cruel tyrants as those whom Abraham overcame when he recovered Lot and all his herds and flocks from the five robber-kings, in the vale that was afterwards called the king's dale because of that victory. My lowly instructress never omitted an opportunity of mingling a pious allusion with her narrations. In like manner, at many a cotter's fireside in Scotland, the seed of the bread for this life and of that which is to come are sown together. From this custom of hers, I often listened to her with an awful reverence, as well as with delighted interest in the events of her stories.
She described the person of Wallace from head to foot, as if she had seen him; telling me how comely he was, and how lofty in spirit; and that no temptation from "bonnie leddy" or powerful prince could ever bribe him from the cause of Scotland. But she seemed to have most satisfaction in talking of the friendship between Wallace and Bruce; and she dwelt on it over and over again, comparing it with that of David and Jonathan "whose souls were knit together, and whose love for each other was wonderful, passing the love of women"–"My bonnie bairn," said she, "there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother."
I never can forget that dear old woman; so shrewd, yet simple-minded, and cheerfully religious: she performed her humble duties with activity and content; her recreation, and "exceeding great reward," was reading her Bible, which she did every day. I do not recollect ever seeing any other book in her house; though she knew the history of Scotland, and the biography of its great families, as accurately as if the top of her muckle kist, on which her Bible lay, had been filled with historic chronicles. Luckie Forbes was not singular in this simplicity of book-learning and comprehensive knowledge with regard to her own country. I remember to have met much of the same amongst most of the Scotch of the lower orders with whom whether as a child or in later years, I became acquainted. I do not say that I did not hear of the "doughty deeds" of her favorite heroes from the lips of our revered school-instructor, Mr. Fulton, of Niddry's Wynd, whose lessons were always chosen from the noblest subjects; nor, indeed, from occasional references, made by several accomplished scholars and esteemed friends who visited my honored mother's unpretending tea-table:–but I must avow, that to Luckie Forbes's familiar, and even endearing, manner of narrating the lives of William Wallace and his dauntless followers; her representation of their heart-sacrifices for the good of their country, filling me with an admiration and a reverential amazement, like her own; and calling forth my tears and sobs, when she told of the deaths of some, and of the cruel execution of the virtuous leader of them all;–to her I must date my early and continued enthusiasm in the character of Sir William Wallace! and in the friends his truly hero-soul "delighted to honor."
But Scotland, at the time especially when we were gathering our first aliments of mental existence there, might have been particularly designated "the land of enthusiasm for all gallant and disinterested emotions." I should say, of generous principles! when we revert to the primary source of some of our regretted misdirected emotions of this order; such as compassion for the unfortunate defence of the weaker side, which, unwittingly, too often would impede the natural march of a just change in the order of men's destinies.
At the time I speak of, many of the widows and orphans, who had been made such by the eventful struggle for the British crown in the year 1745, were still existing. The widows of the fallen or executed brave men, nobles or gentry, who had adhered through every peril to the cause of the Stuarts, and so perished with it, lived in dignified poverty, in the remote alleys and by-places of their own once regal Edinburgh; and the accidental sight of any of these noble ladies, looking out of her uncurtained window from some garret-height in her obscure dwelling, often arrested my attention, and bowed my little knee in curtseying respect, when walking up the reverenced close with Bel Johnston, my young sister's nurse. She then told, how the lords of those ladies died in defence of the rights of Prince Charles; and that she had heard that the heads of some of them were yet to be seen stuck through with spikes, on a great bar, in the city of London; and that their ghosts haunted the spot, and never could be laid till those heads were given up, and sent back to Scotland, to be buried with their kindred.
These venerable ladies just spoken of, the still honored relics of a departed or dispossessed nobility, usually appeared in a plain but suitable attire to their age and remembered gentility; but I only saw their heads, coifed in a milk-white mutch –that is, a close-crowned cap, tied under the chin–or with a little black silk hood, covering their silver hairs. One, however, of these noble widows I remember to have seen more than once, nearer than from her window. She used to visit a family who lived in the square we inhabited; and I then remarked her as a person of great age, of a feeble step, but a majestic though slender form; dressed in a long tartan plaid, reaching from the top of her head to the sole of her foot, and clasped under the chin with a large brooch of some costly materials, for it sparkled as the sun shone on it. She walked with a short stick, and always unattended; nevertheless, she was no less a personage than either the Duchess of Perth, Lady Galloway, or the Lady Lovatt: one of the three she was, but which I cannot now charge my memory to say undoubtingly; having, at the time, heard so much about them all, 1 am now somewhat confused in my recollections respecting them individually.
But there was one interesting person, whom I chanced to meet in a. most extraordinary manner, in the same little square, and about whose identity I am perfectly certain. However, I must premise, that the small enclosure here aggrandized with the title of a square did not contain more than seven houses; built, not like the usual style of the old town for many families under one roof, but each to commodiously contain one family only: and my mother's comfortable abode there, long and low, stood singly at the head of the square; almost occupying the whole of the space, being merely flanked on each side by an opening to the pleasant green banks I before mentioned, and from which a delightful view was commanded of the Frith of Forth. The distinguished Lord Elchies had lived in our house; and other persons of note having inhabited those of our neighbors, no small respect was attached to our little square. It was bounded on one side, near to the gates of entrance, by a wall of the well-known High School of Edinburgh; and from the privacy in which those seldom opened gates kept the square the children of its inhabitants were allowed, without any apprehension, to play by themselves on the grass-plot in its centre. Indeed, so very small a postern door was left open for common egress, that few strangers found their way in; therefore, the appearance of any, when they did come, was the more likely to excite the notice even of a child.
One evening, as myself and my brother, who was then a flaxen headed little fellow, dressed in kilt and tartans, were playing on the grass-plot just described, I saw a strange gentleman enter the postern; and, while we continued at our amusement, we sometimes looked up to remark on him to each other, as he walked to and fro in the pathway beyond the grass: for he appeared very different from the usual order of gentlemen we had seen. He was a person of a slight figure, dressed in faded mourning, and with the extraordinary appendage to such a habit, of a plaid scarf tied round him in the military fashion. When he drew near, we saw that the scarf was much discolored, and torn. He held a rose in his hand, to which at times he seemed earnestly talking. Sometimes he walked fast, sometimes slow; but, as his step was feeble, a child might easily conclude he must be either ill or old, or perhaps both.
After a while, he sat down on a broken bar of the wooden railing which had formerly surrounded the grass-plot; he took off his hat, wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, which he had taken from his bosom, after carefully placing his rose there. His hair was of silver whiteness; and it reminded me of my dear, kind grandfather, who had not been long dead. My brother and I threw down the gowans we had been gathering, and ran to him. Taking his hand, we asked him to go in with us to our mother, who would be glad to see him, as we were. I never shall forget that poor stranger's countenance and manner when we spoke to him thus, and hung by his hand; nor can I ever forget that hand, so small, so white, and soft, as I caressed it in our beseechings that he would go in with us; for we saw tears stealing down his cheeks while, unanswering, he gazed upon us. Our young eyes looked with admiring pity upon his face. Its skin seemed soft as his hand, and was fair even to lily paleness, excepting where many small blue veins traversed his delicately turned chin. In short, every feature of that faded face had been moulded to beauty. The eyes, of a then dimmed azure, were sweet and penetrating; his gray hairs, or rather locks, of snow, hung scattered over them. There were no wrinkles on his brow, or on his cheek; but there was a marking–I know not what to call it–that told, youth was fled! Sorrow, too, had stamped its characters. Children as we were, we knew its signature; we had read it often on the brow nearest and dearest to us.
While we were still preferring our unavailing petitions, our mother herself discerned us and our companion from her parlor window, and, attracted by the extraordinary appearance of the stranger, came out herself and approached us. I met her eagerly, telling her of the poor gentleman's fatigue and tears, and yet refusal to go in and rest with her. She drew near, and her persuasions were soon successful. He rose languidly from the broken rail; my brother offered him his shoulder to lean on; he placed the little white hand there, and was led into the house. Seated in our parlor, while the refreshment my mother had ordered was spreading before him, his eyes roamed around the apartment, and fixed where my dear and lamented father's sword hung, over a large military sketch of the two armies' positions at the battle of Minden. When the servant left the room, my mother invited her guest to eat; but his attention could not be withdrawn from the objects on which he looked. While he was gazing there, my brother and I were prattling the history we had often heard of that battle; and telling how our mamma could show him some curious trophies of the victory, which had been found in a French prince's tent, and given to our dear papa next day. * The stranger smiled mournfully upon us, stroking our heads; then told my mother, with much agitation, that he had been a soldier in his youth.
"I, too, fought, and fell! " cried he. "In the year forty-five, I received a wound worse than death: I shall never recover from it!" He put his hand to his head, and looked so wildly, that our mother drew us instinctively towards her. He too promptly understood her apprehension. "Kind lady," said he, rising from his chair "I told your children I was unfit for any shelter but the wide heavens: yet my wound harms no one but myself." He turned, and with a hurried step moved towards the door. His eye was then dry, but our mother's overflowed: memory, as well as pity, was then busy in her heart. "You must not go, sir!" cried she. "If I have undesignedly given pain to the afflicted, my offence has been my punishment. Come back! the calamities of war have made me what you see me–a widow!"
The poor gentleman turned, and looked on my mother with a faint color rising to his cheek; he bowed his head too, with an air of reverence. His hand was pressed close to his heart, and his lip quivered, yet he smiled. My mother has often said, she never could forget the anguish of that smile. "I cannot go back," he replied: "I ought never to have come back anywhere. Sin should always be an outcast!"–"Nay, sir," answered my mother, "the followers of Prince Charles were unfortunate–might be mistaken; but their fidelity could not be a sin!"
While she was speaking, he became very pale; looking to the door and to the windows, as if he did not know from which to make his escape. Rather frightened. I hastened to open the door; he hurried towards it; then turned his eyes on my mother, with an expression of such long-seated woe that it went to her soul. He stopped at the door; and taking from out his waistcoat breast the rose I had seen him hide there, he put it into my hand. "There," said he, "it is a white one! Keep it near your innocent heart; and when you look at it, night and morning, pray for him that once owned it!" With a sigh that seemed heaved from the very depth of his soul, he passed through the open door-way. We heard his hasty steps over the paved floor of the passage, and then through the porch of the house-door. The latter usually stood open; the closed gates of the square being sufficient guard against intruders. My brother with his kind little heart sympathizing with the shows of some distress he could not well understand, hovered at a distance, and watched him out of the square.
"Who can he be?" my mother said, as she dried her eyes, and laid the rose he had given to me upon her table. Inquiry amongst our neighbors could lead her to form no guess; but, some time afterwards, she was told by an old woman who came to sell salt at the door–such being the regular venders of that article in Edinburgh, bringing it about in large baskets on their heads–that a person answering to the description our servant gave of the stranger had been occasionally seen by her, wandering along the fields towards the town of an evening; and that she was sorry to say, an accident had happened to him by which he was likely to die.
In short, on one of those evenings, while crossing the Canongate towards Holyrood House, his foot slipped on a stone, and he fell: at that instant a four-horse dray-cart, escaped from its owner, drove furiously over him. The fallen gentleman was taken up insensible, and conveyed by some of the humane people about to the city infirmary. One of the persons who assisted chanced to have been an old Jacobite sergeant; and he recognised the plaid scarf, then covering the death-like face of the stranger, to be the peculiar colors worn only by Prince Charles himself, when in Scotland. The common royal tartan of the Stuarts was of a distinctly different pattern. He whispered his observations to one of the hospital attendants, a friend of his own; and when the object of their joint particular interest was taken into a ward, and consigned to surgical care, it was discovered that not only a limb was fractured, but two ribs broken, and–that the sufferer was a woman!
When she was told her dangerous state, and urged to reveal her name, she wrote with pencil on a piece of paper, "I have forfeited my name; but send to the manse of * * * * :–those are there who will come to lay in a decent grave the last remains of an unhappy wanderer from their Christian care. This handwriting will explain to them whom they are called upon to bury–and forget."
The paper was sealed and despatched. The next day witnessed the arrival of a venerable minister and his aged sister. They acknowledged the sufferer to be their near relation; that for many years she had been visited with occasional fits of mental distraction; but she had never before strayed away from the deep seclusion in which, during all that time, she had hidden herself, until within the preceding fortnight; and then her alarmed friends were ceaselessly making every inquiry, when their search was so sadly terminated by the delivery of the note from the Edinburgh infirmary.
The old couple were conducted to the room of their dying relative, now, perhaps by the loss of blood, restored to her sanest state; and the meeting, we were told, drew tears from everybody present. After many sufferings, from the varied consequences of this terrible accident, she died,–with her pious kinsfolk praying over her. They closed her eyes; and the venerable old lady, after streeking the fair, emaciated corpse, wrapped it first in a linen winding-sheet, and then in Prince Charles's plaid. It was one he had worn himself; and ever since he had folded it, one stormy night at sea, round her he loved, it had been the cherished covering of her too faithful, though penitent and often distracted heart. Knowing this, the Christian hand which spread it there in death, felt, that He who said, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice!" and whose redeeming goodness had sealed the pardon of so true a Magdalen, would not count as sin this last act of sympathy with the melancholy tenderness of a fond woman's heart. The venerable minister, with many tears, silently acquiesced in what was done; and, on the night of the day in which their unhappy kinswoman was released from sorrow and suffering, they took her remains to their own home, and buried them in the manse burial-ground:–so slept Jeannie Cameron!
It may appear incredible to the generality of readers, that children of between six and eight years of age should have been so interested as I have represented, in events like these. It is most probable, that children brought up with nothing about them but the cares, tuitions, and indulgences of a nursery, would not even notice such things, did they chance to occur before them; for the minds of both young and old must be awakened to, and then habituated to certain feelings before they can be excited in the sudden way I have described, by objects of distress. The orphans of younger brothers who have married women of more virtues than fortune, seldom know anything of that restricting nursery care, which shuts up children from witnessing the casualties of life: they have to bestir their own selves from their cradles, and to share in every home scene that passes around them; and thus their minds and their hearts attain an early culture,–the selfish principle is crushed,–and a quick sympathizing sensibility is ever ready to start at the door. Something of this kind was the answer I returned, full twenty years ago, to Mr. Hastings (I mean the late Warren Hastings), when, on having read "The Scottish Chiefs" and "Thaddeus of Warsaw," he asked me how it was possible that a person, then so young as their author was, could have known so much of the human heart, and of human conduct, as those works described.
Though my earliest associations it may be seen, were all in favor of "The Scottish Chiefs" being the first of my writings, yet having quitted Scotland while still a child, eager to read books, and little dreaming of ever writing one, the "Fairy Queen," Sidney's "Arcadia," and other tales of English chivalry, soon took their share in dividing my admiration with the Scottish heroes, whom almost deifying tradition had taught me to worship. Sober history came in in good time to sift the wheat in this mingled growth of weeds and harvest; and my late preface to the standard edition of "Thaddeus of Warsaw" shows how the time-honored names of Sobieski and his followers wrought on me first, to dare becoming myself a narrator of heroic deeds.
That work was written in London; surrounded by living characters, whose corresponding military fame seemed to hold me examples I need only copy, to produce all I wanted to portray. But "The Scottish Chiefs" was composed under very different circumstances. Our revered parent had retired with us into the country. She wisely took us from a world that might have presented too many charms for young and ardent spirits, and which was then opening in many ways before us. In the quiet seclusion she chose, where we had then few acquaintance, recollections of the past could not but be our frequent amusement; and those of dear Scotland often presented themselves. We talked of our walks on the Calton Hill, then a vast green slope, with no other buildings breaking the line of its smooth and magnificent brow but Hume's monument on one part, and the astronomical observatory on another; then of our climbing the steeper heights of Arthur's seat, and of our awed visits to St. Anton's well–all haunted by the ever-inspiring images of William Wallace and his brother heroes; or, the not less interesting, though more modern remembrances, attached to the misfortunes of the house of Stuart, from unhappy Mary to her expatriated descendant, Charles Edward.
In these discourses, I often found myself again by the side of Luckie Forbes and her spinning-wheel, listening to the delightful hum of her legendary lore; and while I dwelt in recollection on all she had told me of the champion of Scotland, and on all I subsequently had read of him and his associates, whether in history, or in the old native poems of "Blinde Harrie" and "Barbour's Bruce," some of the earliest friends of my youth successively died–persons descended from the bravest and the best of those honored associates; and, under the impulse of a votive sorrow, I conceived the idea of writing "The Scottish Chiefs."
It was composed and published within the year in which I first touched it; so entirely was my mind, and heart, and time, devoted to my subject. And how it fared with a kind public, the postscript annexed to a former Preface of the work (both being reprinted here), will now gratefully repeat, in the year 1831.
To paint the portrait of one of the most complete heroes that ever filled the page of history, may be a bold, though I hope not a vain design. The contemplation of virtue is an improving, as well as a delightful employment; and however inadequate this picture may be to represent its original–William Wallace of Scotland–yet, that it is a copy of such excellence, will be merit in the eyes of those who so love virtue as to venerate its shade.
I have spared no pains in consulting almost every writing extant which treats of the sister kingdom during the period of my narrative. It would be tedious to swell this page with a list of these authorities; but all who are intimate with our old British historians must perceive, on reading the Scottish Chiefs, that in the sketch which history would have laid down for the biography of my principal hero, I have made no addition, excepting where, time having made some erasure, a stroke was necessary to fill the space and unite the outline. Tradition has been a great assistance to me in this respect, and for much valuable information on the subject, I am indebted to the bard of Hope, my friend Mr. Thomas Campbell; he who has so nobly mingled the poet's bays with the laurels of his clan.
While tracing the characters of my personages in the Scottish annals, it was with infinite pleasure I recognised those virtues in the fathers which had attached me to their posterity. Delighted with this most dear proof of kindred, I have fondly lingered over my work; re-enjoying, in its visionary scenes, hours fled to heaven. I have again discoursed, and mingled my soul, with friends whose nobility of spirit honored the illustrious stems from which they sprang; but, like the blossomed bough torn from its branch, they are gone, and spread fragrance in my path no more.
It is now too common to contemn as nonsense even an honest pride in ancestry. But where is the Englishman who is not proud of being the countryman of Nelson? Where the British sailor that does not thirst to emulate his fame? Where the worthy citizen who does not respect himself in the honorable memories of William Walworth and Sir Thomas Gresham?
If this sentiment be right, respect for noble progenitors cannot be wrong, for it proceeds from the same source,–the principle of kindred, of inheritance, and of virtue. Let the race of Douglas, or the brave line of the Percy, bear witness whether the name they hold be not as a mirror to show them what they ought to be, and to kindle in their hearts the flame which burnt in their fathers. Happy is it for this realm that the destiny which now unites the once contending arms of those brave families has also consolidated their rival nations into one, and by planting the heir of Plantagenet and of Bruce upon one throne, hath redeemed the peace of Britain, and fixed it on lasting foundations.
From the nature of my story, more agents have been used in its conduct than I should have adopted had it been a work of mere imagination. But very few persons wholly imaginary have been introduced; and wishing to keep as near historical truth as could be consistent with my plan, no intentional injustice has been committed against the characters of the individuals who were real actors with the chief hero of the tale. The melancholy circumstance which first excited him to draw his sword for Scotland, though it may be thought too much like the creation of modern romance, is recorded as a fact in the old poem of Blind Harrie. Other private events have been interwoven with the public subjects of these volumes, that the monotony of a continued series of warlike achievements might in some measure be lessened. Some notes are added, to confirm the historical incidents; but finding that were they all marked, such a plan would swell each volume beyond its proper size; in one word, I assure the reader, that I seldom lead him to any spot in Scotland whither some written or oral testimony respecting my hero had not previously conducted myself. In the same spirit, being careful to keep to the line of my chronology, I have not strayed from it in any instance, until my chief personages return from France; and then, my history being intended to be within the bounds of modern romance rather than measured by the folios of Scudery, I found myself obliged to take some liberties with time and circumstance; for both of which offences, and particularly for the management of my catastrophe, I hope the historical, if he be also a gentle reader, will find no difficulty in forgiving me.
J. P.
LONG DITTON,
Dec. 1809.
IN dismissing this edition of the Scottish Chiefs from the press after so many of its predecessors, its author will not deny herself the genuine pleasure of expressing her grateful sense of the candor with which so adventurous a work from a female pen has been generally received. That among these liberal approvers are the people of her hero's nation–the country in which she first drew the aliments of her intellectual life–cannot but afford a peculiar gratification to her heart; and she expresses her delight on this occasion with the feeling of a child rejoicing in the approbation of indulgent parents; for England, the land of her birth, has not been less kind in its reception
While thus fondly recording the favorable sentiments of her own country; she has the satisfaction of adding similar suffrages from foreign lands; while, indeed, the immediate result from such an approval in one of those lands was quite unexpected by her–giving her the honor of sharing the distinction of a literary banishment along with the great name of Madame de Stael. The Scottish Chiefs was translated into the languages of the continent. She received from Vienna, Berlin, Wirtemberg, Petersburgh, and Moscow, and even far distant India, letters of generous criticism from persons of the highest name in rank and literature. But when the work was ready for publication in France, it was denounced by the order of Napoleon, as dangerous to the state, and commanded to be withheld or destroyed.
The widow of the brave and unfortunate General Moreau was the first that mentioned this prohibition to the writer. There are many interesting events connected in the author's mind with that communication. It was made to her in the morning of a most remarkable day; for a very few hours after Madame Moreau had been talking with her, and the young and lovely widow's full heart had drawn a sad parallel between her own lost hero and those commemorated by her friend, the author saw her on the platform of the balcony of the Pulteney Hotel, to witness, along with the imperial family of Russia then resident there, the public entry into London of Louis XVIII. on his restoration as king of France. The writer of this recollection, though she had not the honor of being on the same balcony, was so situated as to be able to observe all that passed there. The Grand Duchess Catherine of Russia, and the Princess Charlotte of England, stood together, after having embraced each other on their meeting, amidst the welcoming shouts of the throng of people in the street. Both were simply but elegantly dressed; both were in the bloom of youth, and full of joyous gaiety. Near them stood another Russian princess, also in the summer of her life, and equally animated. On the opposite side of the balcony sat our true British princess, Elizabeth, looking all kind-hearted gladsomeness for the happy pageant about to pass. The duke of Oldenberg, a pretty child, the son of the young grand duchess, was on her royal highness's knee. Madame Moreau, in her deep widow's weeds, stood not far from her, leaning against the balustrade. When the procession came forward and the open carriage which contained Louis stopped an instant under the balcony to receive the gratulations of the imperial and royal party above, all waved their handkerchiefs; the grand duchess and the Princess Charlotte kissing their hands to the gratefully-bowing head of the Duchess d'Angoulême, whose pale cheek and emaciated form bore too evident marks of her trying destiny up to that hour. She smiled–all smiled excepting the recently desolated widow of Moreau; and she indeed leaned over the railing towards the carriage, and waved her white handkerchief too; but the writer of this saw the heavy tears rolling down her cheeks in actual showers, and fall upon the top of the balustrade in large drops, leaving it wet with them.
But a sadder memorial hangs over that scene. In the course of a very few years afterwards, not one of those young and blooming persons, royal and noble, who stood there, the hope and admiration of many loyal and attached hearts, was existing on this earth! The Grand Duchess Catherine died at Wirtemberg, then its queen; the other Russian princess followed the same early call at St. Petersburgh. Madame Moreau closed her widowed sorrows at Paris; and our own Princess Charlotte–all England knows how it lost her. Even the boy duke of Oldenberg is no more! And the sole remaining one, who looked in that extraordinary moment from that balcony, filled with youth and beauty, and tenderly-beating hearts, is our Princess Elizabeth, the most senior of them all, who, after becoming the landgravine of Hesse Homberg, has herself returned a widow to her country, which is indeed happy to receive back the honored mourner. But the awful events ended not there: the royal object of that great day's pageant is himself gone to another world; and the Duchess d'Angoulême, again driven from the throne of her ancestors, has once more become a hopeless exile! Thus then it is proved, that death and sorrow know no respect of persons.
Madame Moreau's information had gone further to me than communicating the interdiction of this work by the Emperor Napoleon. She told me of its immediate publication in Paris on the recall of the Bourbons; and soon after receiving a copy from France, I found the translator's account of the prohibition in his preface.
It seems hardly credible that the same victor, who when he came forward (with pretensions at least) to redeem Poland to independence, quoted the words of her hero Sobieski, by way of a noble excitement, should, not many years afterwards, put an interdict on the very same sentiments, when expressed by the Scottish Chiefs, in his own empire of France. But the difference in his language may be read in his relative circumstances. He wished, as a pretended umpire and benefactor, to impose his lasting sceptre on the one people, and to hold in unreflecting subjection the other. We know that with conquerors, who usually fight for power rather than justice, the use of certain sentiments springs more from expediency than principle. Real principle is proved in the result; a true patriot establishes the liberty of his country without infringing on the rights of others, a pretender first founds a despotic empire over his own countrymen, and then leads them to put similar chains on their neighbors.
To draw the line between such characters, to place high chivalric loyalty and the spirit of patriotic freedom on just principles, whether in the breast of prince or peasant, the writer of this tale has studied the page of many a history,–has studied the lesson in many a noble heart. With humility as to the execution of her task, but with due confidence in its matter and object, she proceeded from Thaddeus of Warsaw to The Scottish Chiefs. And so would do henceforward on whatever ground she might take her stand to labor in the cause.
Sir Philip Sidney, a true hero of her own country, early gave her this text, "Let who may make the laws of a people, allow me to write their ballads and I'll guide them at my will!" What ballads were to the sixteenth century, romances are to ours,–the constant companions of young people's leisure hours; biassing them to virtue or misleading them to vice. And to inspire the most susceptible period of man's existence, his youth, with the principles which are to be his future staff, and their effects his "exceeding great reward;" is the motive of my pen. Hence, in proportion to the great view of the aim must be the satisfaction derived, when the approbation of the wise and of the good has pronounced the attempt not unworthy its intention.
* This was the Prince de Soubise; a gallant officer, but so great a coxcomb that his soldiers called him Madame. Swords, pistols, powder-horns, cosmetics, perfumes, all were found mingled together in his tent when entered by the British soldiers.
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