KOREDUN..
THIS fiction is a tale attributed to the late Sir Walter Scott; the authenticity of which, and the story how the manuscript came into the possession of the present " proprietor,"— a story as won- drous as the romance itself,—have excited the curiosity of literary gossips for months past. The account of the manner in which M. E. De Saint Maurice Cabany obtained the manuscript is essentially the same as that by which authors, ever since the days of Mr. - Tom Little at least, have aimed at drawing attention to their lucubrations by a framework of manuscripts discovered, and so forth.
"About thirty years ago," an eccentric [and anonymous] Ger-
man merchant came to Paris, and M. Cabany assisted him in " some statistical works [what were they ?] and inquiries." The German expressed himself so grateful as to induce the idea of a legacy; but "misfortunes suddenly overtook him," and left him nothing substantial to bestow. Before his death, however, the German promised M. Cabany his writing-desk; speaking mys- teriously about its contents—" that it was all he had to leave me, but that it would be a more durable memorial than any sum he could have bequeathed me."
In due time the old gentleman died : his wife and daughter quit- ted Paris for Germany, taking with them the mysterious writing- desk, to which neither the legatee nor anybody else attached any value. Three-and-twenty years afterwards the desk turned up.
." My astonishment," writes M. Cabany, "may be imagined when, in the month of September 1854, I received a box, with a note from his daughter, now married in Bavaria, accompanying the writing-desk, which, she said, her i, ther and she had taken away inadvertently amongst other articles,— that they would have sent it to me long ere then, never having forgotten that it was mine by her father's dying bequest ; but that they feared the expense of carriage would be greater, perhaps, than its value. The visit of a relative to Paris gave them now, she added, an opportunity of sending it free of any charge.
" If I was surprised to receive the writing-desk after such an interval, still more so was I with its contents; for amongst them I found. besides a singular collection of Royalist tracts relating to the Restoration, a package containing
the MS. of Moredun, a tale of relating 1210,' accompanied by the following
letter."
The letter is dated Paris, 4th November 1826; and is addressed to " W. S.," assumed to be the Hon. W. R. Spene, r, well known for his elegant " vers de Societe." It is subscribed " W. S.," as- sumed to be Walter Scott ; and, to cut a long story short, presents the manuscript of a tale to S. [Spencerl as a gift to his " daft friend the foreign monomaniac," in whose case " Anne " [Miss Anne Scott] had been interested by Spencer. It is assumed that this tale was Moredun. The letter states that the story was written many years ago, and was intended to form one of a series of tales drawn from the history of Scotland ; and that the manu- script was given to "Anne "; who, however, could not part with it without consent, &c.
The story of the discovery first saw the light in November last year, and excited some but scarcely general attention. M. Cabany says the Parisian men of letters, with one exception, were afraid to commit themselves. A daily paper in this country had no such misgiving ; an article appeared vouching for every- thing, the merit of Moredun included : but we have not heard of any one falling on his knees, as did Parr, to receive the manuscript of Ireland's Shakspere forgery. The general current of opinion, we think, was adverse to the claim. Several persons well ac- quainted with Scott unhesitatingly denounced the whole story as a fraud, on particular evidence or opinion ; perhaps somewhat too broadly. To confute those assertions is the object of an introduc- tion of more than sixty pages ; as well as to show from Lockhart's Life and other sources the probability that Scott should have writ- ten a tale like Moredun, thrown it aside, and subsequently given it to Spencer for publication. For Spencer, like himself, was then in difficulties from the great panic of 1825. Scott, too, it is ar- gued, might have had the further object of trying if he could get up another " Great Unknown," and Moredun was to be the feeler. The matter is not one for halting between two opinions. The book is a verity or a forgery, be the concocter who he may ; and we are decidedly in favour of the latter conclusion. The starting difficulty is great. Scott was not the man to have any sympathy with a German monomaniac. It is not likely he would at any time, much less in 1826, have given away a manuscript fiction of three volumes for a stranger whom he certainly would have despised. If, as is insinuated, it was given to Spencer as a delicate mode of conferring a pecuniary fa- vour, why was not the tale published at the time ? If Spencer declined the offer, why not return the manuscript, or at all events why give it to this anonymous German ? Who was this " daft man"? and what connexion had he with a member of the Eng- lish aristocracy and London world driven to Paris by sudden pecuniary difficulties ? There is another awkwardness : the story was not made public till every one who could have given direct evidence upon the matter was dead. Curiously enough, the ac- count was distributed to the journals the day before Lockhart's death, and the first notice of it appeared in London on the day of his
• Moredun: a Tale of the Twelve Hundred and Ten. By W. S. In three volumes. Published by Low and Son.
death. Lo^khart, however, would not have been an original wit- ness, though his opinion would have been important. The foundation thus seems rotten enough. The superstructure is exceedingly clever—in fact, too clever. M. Cabany in his in- troduction answers the assertions and arguments of Skene the friend of Scott and Gordon his amanuensis, very well, if not altogether convincingly. He professes not to have read Lock- hart's. Life till after the discovery was made public and the authen- ticity denied; but he makes out as good a case from the Life, why Scott might or indeed did do all that is attributed to him, as if the story had been planned to square with the argument. Everything is capital save the one thing needful—Moredun itself.
That is very inferior, not merely to Scott's known romances, but to the romances of several of Scott's successors or copyists. James has far better tales than Moredun. Nay, we could produce closer resemblances to Scott's manner from very inferior writers. It may be said that this story is assumed by the " proprietor " to have been written at an early stage of Scott's career. But it is not a mere mode of composition of which we speak. There is no life, no vigour, no historical vraisemblance, there are no manners in the book. Nor do we think there is any interest, though the reader may be led on for a time out of curiosity. The most re- markable feature of the tale is literalness, mostly wandering along a dead level, sometimes sinking to the absurdity of bathos. This feature is the very opposite of Scott. His characteristic, and in- deed the source of his popularity, was animation. His poetry is often commonplace enough in imagery and sentiment ; his expres- sion rather removed from prose than poetical in any high sense; his ideas and versification at times approach doggerel. But he is ever bright and animated, dashing along like a shallow brook. The novels are defective in many things : the story not well con- structed ; probability in the conduct sacrificed to the convenience of the writer or to claptrap ; the thoughts wanting depth ; the per- sons, except in his strictly " Scotch novels," often too melodramatic. But, unless when some grotesque humorist becomes a bore, the narrative and dialogue are always lively. Into whatever Scott did he seemed to throw some of his healthy vigorous organization— his animal spirits; even his epistles mostly have this characteris- tic. The letter to "My dear W. S.," which opens "this strange eventful history," is about as flat a piece of epistolary writing as needs be.
If the reader turn to particular points instead of broad views in searoh of evidence, he will not be disappointed. Moredun is a Scotch hovel of the year 1210, when William the Lion was on the throne of Scotland and John was ruling in England. Moredun is the hero and the lover ; he is supposed to be a poor but valorous knight; and the object is to marry him to King William's niece, the daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon ; which, after a series of adventures in the hacknied style of historical romance, is accom- plished. The opening scene is called an inundation : it is a break- ing-up of ice, perhaps more appropriate to large Northern rivers than to Scotland. However, here William the Lion is introduced, by dropping him into a parenthesis. A Chancellor of Scotland in the thirteenth century, at a Royal Council, is represented as speaking of the High Constable as " my esteemed colleague." A Knight Templar, of the same age, talks of the " antecedents " of a serving man, in the sense of character and previous career ; though the word " antecedents " was little if at all in use before Scott's death, and certainly not at the time when it is pretended this tale was composed. In the third volume we find a Town- Clerk introduced as draughtsman of the "marriage settlements "; an idea derived from the close of Warerley, but about as fitly introduced here as if the scribe of the thirteenth century had been invested with modern black superfine and silk stockings. The letter signed "W. S." speaks of anachronisms, and the point is also guarded in the introduction ; but at no period of his career would Scott have fallen into these and many similar gaucheries.
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