Guy Mannering or The Astrologer

"I expect," says Colonel Mannering, "that you will pay to this young lady that attention which is due to misfortune and virtue." "Certainly, sir. Is my future friend red-haired?" Miss Mannering is very capable of listening to Brown's flageolet from the balcony, but not of accompanying Brown, should he desire it, in the boat. As for Brown himself, he is one of Sir Walter's usual young men,―"brave, handsome, not too clever,"―the despair of their humorous creator. "Once you come to forty year," as Thackeray sings, "then you'll know that a lad is an ass;" and Scott had come to that age, and perhaps entertained that theory of a jeune premier when he wrote "Guy Mannering." In that novel, as always, he was most himself when dealing either with homely Scottish characters of everyday life, with exaggerated types of humorous absurdity, and with wildly adventurous banditti, who appealed to the old strain of the Border reiver in his blood. The wandering plot of "Guy Mannering" enabled him to introduce examples of all these sorts. The good-humoured, dull, dawdling Ellangowan, a laird half dwindled to a yeoman, is a sketch absolutely accurate, and wonderfully touched with pathos. The landladies, Mrs. MacCandlish and Tib Mumps, are little masterpieces; so is Mac-Morlan, the foil to Glossin; and so is Pleydell, allowing for the manner of the age. Glossin himself is best when least villanous. Sir Robert Hazlewood is hardly a success. But as to Jock Jabos, a Southern Scot may say that he knows Jock Jabos in the flesh, so persistent is the type of that charioteer. It is partly Scott's good fortune, partly it is his evil luck, to be so inimitably and intimately true in his pictures of Scottish character. This wins the heart of his countrymen, indeed; but the stranger can never know how good Scott really is, any more than a Frenchman can appreciate Falstaff. Thus the alien may be vexed by what he thinks the mere clannish enthusiasm of praise, in Scott's countrymen. Every little sketch of a passing face is exquisite in Scott's work, when he is at his best. For example, Dandie Dinmont's children are only indicated "with a dusty roll of the brush;" but we recognize at once the large, shy, kindly families of the Border. Dandie himself, as the "Edinburgh Review" said (1817), "is beyond all question the best rustic portrait that has ever yet been exhibited to the public,―the most honourable to rustics, and the most creditable to the heart as well as to the genius of the Author, the truest to nature, the most complete in all its lineaments." Dandie is always delightful,―whether at Mumps's Hall, or on the lonely moor, or at home in Charlieshope, or hunting, or leistering fish, or entering terriers at vermin, or fighting, or going to law, or listening to the reading of a disappointing will, or entertaining the orphan whom others neglect; always delightful he is, always generous, always true, always the Border farmer. There is no better stock of men, none less devastated by "the modern spirit." His wife is worthy of him, and has that singular gentleness, kindliness, and dignity which prevail on the Border, even in households far less prosperous than that of Dandie Dinmont.―[Dr. John Brown's Ailie, in "Rab and his Friends," will naturally occur to the mind of every reader.]

Among Scott's "character parts," or types broadly humorous, few have been more popular than Dominie Sampson. His ungainly goodness, unwieldy strength, and inaccessible learning have made great sport, especially when "Guy Mannering" was "Terryfied" for the stage.