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Granting, then, that rarely if ever have more brilliant pictures of more interesting incidents been more lavishly set before a reader than in the pages of Tom Cringle's Log, we are impelled to enquire what are the corresponding weaknesses which have debarred the author from taking the highest rank as a writer. The answer is not far to seek; it is a defect of constructive power. If he possessed much genius, Michael Scott had but little art. The effect of his fine pictures is not cumulative; each is alike revealed, as it were, by a powerful flash, and the result is that they obliterate one another. For it is surely needless to point out that every work of high artistic achievement is a whole, and that in that whole, and in relation to that whole, each part has a value greatly exceeding its value when considered separately. But in Scott's stories this is not so. Remove any one incident from one of his stories, and the reader will be the poorer by the loss of an interesting incident, and by no more. And so, with injury only of the same kind, his books might be extended or curtailed, whilst their incidents might be transposed without injury at all. I am aware that to write in this somewhat heavily academic style of a writer than whom no man of equal gifts made ever less pretention, may be to incur the imputation of taking too high a ground, and to draw down criticism upon the critic's head. I can only reply that the extreme excellence, within their own limits, of Scott's literary achievements has provoked me to it, and that had his works shown less surprising merit they should have been treated in a lighter vein.

The same neglect of constructive power which strikes us in the conduct of the tales is apparent in the treatment of the characters. It is the practice of masters of characterisation to make their characters, so to speak, turn round before the reader, so that, ere the end of the book is reached, no aspect of them shall have been left unseen. But with Scott one aspect is exhibited repeatedly, and thus our knowledge is circumscribed. That the characters live we feel assured, but with one or two such exceptions as Aaron and Obed, it is as members of a class that we recognise them, not as individuals, whilst again and again as we read we are compelled to turn back would we distinguish from his fellows any particular one among the quaintly-named officers and seamen.

In female portraiture Scott attempts but little, in which he is probably well-advised. For though Cringle's sweetheart is certainly a pleasing sketch enough, in his more ambitious and quasi-Byronic flights – the delineation of the pirate's leman or the bride of Adderfang – the author for the moment leaves nature behind him, and consequently gives us almost the only passages in his books which do not ring true. These passages may perhaps be held to justify the condemnation of Captain Marryat, who pronounced him melodramatic. But – despite the strong nature of the fare which he provides – melodramatic, except in such passages, he certainly is not. For to describe thrilling situations, with the eye not fixed upon the situations themselves but intent on their effect, is melodrama in the true sense; and of this the genial author of The Pirate and Three Cutters himself supplies some choice examples.

It strikes a reader as strange that the occasion of Cringle's visit to Carthagena evokes no allusion to Smollett, for it is with Smollett and Marryat that we most naturally think of comparing Cringle's creator. Michael Scott does not rise to the Cervantic heights of humour of the former; but few, indeed, are the writers who have done this. Nor, of course, has he Smollett's style; though, on the other side of the account, with thankfulness we acknowledge that his page is quite free from Smollett's filth and coarseness. Marryat also possessed more of the gifts of the novelist than Scott, or at least had greater opportunities of showing them. But there is one point, and that a most telling one, in which Scott has immeasurably the advantage of the others – he comes far nearer to the reader than either of them. Of course his easy and homely style, his use of the first person, his occasional confidential digressions, are means employed towards this end, but equally of course the secret of his success lies in his personality. Personality, or, in other words, genius it is which gives him his power over the reader – a power which makes even the refractory and fastidious to follow him, as a dog follows its master. Constitutionally a reader may have small relish for farce, and a positive distaste for horse-play; and yet when Scott is in the mood for either, the reader will become so too. And in a higher and sweeter kind of humour, his power is equally in proportion to the demand of the occasion – in support of which I can cite no better evidence than the delightful scenes in which the sailors of the Midge seek to resuscitate the apparently drowned baby boy, afterwards nicknamed Dicky Phantom; and in which their joy is expressed when he gives signs of life; with Dogvane's mission to the officer in command to plead on behalf of his mess-mates for the custody of the child (which shall replace in their affections a parrot blown away in a gale, a monkey washed overboard, and a cat which has died of cold) and the subsequent scenes in which, with a comical shamefaced roundaboutness, one after another, to the admiral himself, puts in his claim for the care of the babe. Scenes more winningly human than these would, I think, be far to seek. In equal degree does this beloved writer hold the key to our manlier enthusiasms. Far distant be the day when amongst generous-minded boys such books as his shall lose their popularity, for it is by these that the best lessons of our history are enforced. It has been said of the playwright Shakespeare that his works are proof that he had it in him to strike a stout blow in a good cause. The spirit of Agincourt was not found wanting at Trafalgar, and the same may be said with truth of the Glasgow merchant, Scott. The voice of Britain's greatness itself speaks in his books, and as we read them we seem brought nearer to the spirit of Drake or of Dundonald.

In conclusion, Scott's stories have here been considered together, for though the Log is on the whole justly the favourite of the two, in general characteristics they are almost identical. Quite towards the close, both books display some slight tendency to 'drag,' but in this respect the Cruise is the worse transgressor. It is also the more loosely put together, and this despite the fact that in the relations subsisting between Lennox and Adderfang, and the mystery which surrounds young De Walden, the author has obviously been at pains to sustain interest by something in the nature of a plot. Again, if he does not repeat himself in the Cruise, Scott at least does not steer quite clear of all danger of doing so; for, in addition to the fact that the general pattern of the two tales is the same, several incidents of the latter have counterparts in the former. And yet, on the whole, such fine books are they both that to criticise either is deservedly to incur the imputation of being spoiled with good things.

THOMAS HAMILTON

The statement – somewhat disquieting to the professed littérateur – that almost any man may if he choose write one good book in a life-time, finds something like confirmation in the case of Thomas Hamilton. Not primarily a writer, and not gifted by nature with any very remarkable talent or grace of the pen, he yet contrived to produce a book for which a few transcripts of military life in peace and war, a few pictures of travel, perhaps a portrait or two drawn from the life, have sufficed to preserve, after seventy years, a portion of the favour with which it was greeted on its first appearance. The materials for a sketch of his career are scanty, but blanks in the narrative may to some extent be filled in from a perusal of Cyril Thornton.

Born in the year 1789, he was the younger son of William Hamilton, Professor of Anatomy and Botany in the University of Glasgow, his elder brother becoming in time Sir William Hamilton, the celebrated metaphysician and intellectual luminary of Edinburgh. He was put to school in the south of England, and about the year 1803 entered the Glasgow University, where he studied for three winters, giving evidence, as his brother has borne witness, of ability rather than of application. His taste for a military life was at first opposed, but having satisfied his friends by experiment that he was unsuited for a commercial career, in 1810 he obtained by purchase a commission in the 29th Regiment. He had hardly joined, when the corps was ordered out to active service in the Peninsula, where it bore the brunt of the hardly-won battle of Albuera, in which Hamilton himself was wounded by a musket bullet in the thigh. During his short military career, he was once more on active service in the Peninsula, and also served in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick during the American War, subsequent to which he returned to Europe, his regiment being sent as part of the army of occupation to France. Retiring on half-pay about the year 1818, he came to reside in Edinburgh, and began to turn his attention to literature. He had received a good classical education, and being well introduced, he was hailed as a congenial spirit by the Blackwood circle, and becoming associated with the magazine, threw himself into the spirit of the enterprise, to which he furnished contributions both in verse and prose. In the Noctes Ambrosianæ he occasionally figures as 'O'Doherty,' a name, however, which was also applied to Dr Maginn. He is described in Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk as possessing a 'noble grand Spaniard-looking head,' with a very sombre expression of countenance, and a tall graceful person. The natural freedom of his movements seems, however, to have been to some extent impeded by his wound. Carlyle, who knew him later, describes him as a 'pleasant, very courteous, and intelligently talking man, enduring, in a cheery military humour, his old Peninsular hurts,' and altogether it is easy to see that he must have formed an interesting and popular figure in the Edinburgh society of his day.

Having married in 1820, he resided for several summers at the picturesque little dwelling of Chiefswood, near Melrose, where he had an appreciative neighbour in the person of Sir Walter Scott, and where the greater part of the Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton was written. This book appeared in 1827, and at once attracted attention. In 1829, the author followed it up with Annals of the Peninsular Campaigns, from 1808 to 1814, and in 1833, after a visit to the New World, by Men and Manners in America. In later life, having lost his first wife and married again, he settled at Elleray, in the Lake District, where he saw a good deal of Wordsworth, of whom he had long been an admirer, frequently, as we are told, accompanying the poet upon long mountain walks. His death, occasioned by a shock of paralysis, took place at Pisa, whilst he was travelling with Mrs Hamilton, on the 7th December 1842. He was buried at Florence.

No doubt the novel of Cyril Thornton has in time past owed much of its popularity to its varied action and frequently shifting scene, and if we are to judge it now on literary grounds we have no choice but to acknowledge that great portion of its interest has perished. Still, there remain a few admirable passages, and in this particular instance the lines of cleavage between true and false are marked with peculiar distinctness. For the book may be described as fragments of autobiography embedded in a paste of romance. Now imagination was by no means Hamilton's strong point; his fancy was neither very happy nor very abundant, and when he essays character-painting on an important scale – as in the case of old David Spreull, the conventional eccentric but beneficent uncle of the story, and his faithful servant Girzy, he is as deficient in anything like true insight as he is in lightness of touch. But though his fiction is of this heavy quality, he could present to admiration what he himself had seen and taken part in, and from time to time he has thought fit to do so, with excellent effect.

Cyril Thornton is the scion of an old county family, who, at a very early age, has the misfortune accidentally to kill his elder brother. His father's affection is in consequence alienated from him, and he grows up under a cloud. In time he is sent to the University, and the scene of the story shifts to Glasgow, thus affording opportunity for some scathing portraiture of the merchant life of that city. At Glasgow Cyril makes the acquaintance of his uncle, and by the amiability and independence of his character conquers the affection of the rich old childless man. He has now arrived at man's estate, and whilst visiting his aristocratic connection, the Earl of Amersham, at Staunton Court, he sees, loves, and is beloved by, the beautiful and fascinating Lady Melicent, the daughter of the house. Their scarcely-avowed attachment is interrupted by the fatal illness of Cyril's mother, and being summoned to return home with all speed, Cyril is there informed that, in a spirit of cruel vindictiveness, his father has disinherited him. His gloom deepens, and after some further romantic and amatory experience, at length – alas! it is, indeed, at length – he joins the army. This is what we have been waiting for, and our patience is now rewarded. At first he is quartered at Halifax, where, at that time, the Duke of Kent was Commander-in-Chief, and we are treated to a satirical portrait of His Royal Highness, followed by a good deal of interesting description of the military life of those days, interspersed with characteristic anecdote, and varied by love-intrigue and a duel. Then follow travel and sea-faring, with eloquent picture of an ascent of the Peak of Teneriffe, of the Bermuda islands, and Gibraltar. Whilst Cyril is at the last-named station, the vicissitudes of military life are illustrated by an outbreak of yellow-fever, and when he is on his way back to England the transport ship which bears him becomes engaged with a French privateer. From all this it will be seen that of incident and movement there is no lack, yet it is not until after the outbreak of the Spanish War of Independence, when the hero is ordered with his regiment to the Peninsula, that our expectations are fully satisfied. In such passages as, for instance, those which describe the storming of the heights of Roleia, the night spent by Cyril on out-piquet duty, or the capture of the fort witnessed by the light of fire-balls, we have, not only the scenes of war, but the poetry of the soldier's life set before us to admiration. Scarcely less excellent is the account of Cyril's further service under Wellington, Sir Rowland Hill, and Marshal Beresford, at the lines of Torres Vedras, the siege of Badajos, and the battle of Albuera, our interest in which is greatly strengthened by knowledge that the writer was himself a part of what he describes. Our only regret is that he has devoted so comparatively little of his book to what he does so well. For all too soon we have the hero back in London once more, frightfully disfigured by a wound received in action, and as a consequence slighted by the dazzling but shallow Lady Melicent, who before had looked so graciously upon the handsome soldier. And now the novel begins to drag lamentably. The hero's domestic misfortunes strike us as superfluous, whilst the madhouse scenes, where the characters discourse in 'poetic prose,' are in the basest style of melodrama. Nor do we care enough for Mr Spreull and his Girzy to have much patience with the languid and long-drawn concluding scenes in which they take part. Suffice it then to say that, ere we bid adieu to Cyril, he is restored to his family estate, enriched by the inheritance of his uncle's fortune, and consoled for the loss of the fickle Melicent by worth and affection in the person of Laura Willoughby, the friend of his youth.

The writer of the obituary of Hamilton in Blackwood is eloquent in praise of the literary style of the book. But when we find the novelist, who writes in the first person, declaring that 'the elements of thought and feeling within him were conglomerated into confused and inextricable masses,' or describing a housemaid as being 'busied in her matutinal vocation,' or alluding to the 'supererogatory decoration of shaving,' or, when he wishes to inform us that there was a doctor in a certain village, employing the locution that the village 'had the advantage of including in its population a professor of the healing art,' – then we dispute the competency of his critic. This inflation of style is the more curious in that, fortified by his English education, Hamilton, like Miss Ferrier, is by no means inclined to deal mercifully with the foibles of his countrymen, as is amply shown by his portrait of Mr Archibald Shortridge, or his account of the visit of the five Miss Spreulls, of Balmalloch, and their mother to Bath. But for this we should naturally have passed over any slips in his own style, preferring to regard them as the not unamiable lapses of a hand more skilled to wield the sword than drive the pen. His book on the Peninsular Campaigns is written in good straightforward English, but in Men and Manners in America he again falls victim to the temptation never to use one word where two will do nearly as well. When the characters in Cyril Thornton converse – be they officers in the army, charming young ladies, peers of the realm, or (like Miss Mansfield) daughters of respectable tradesmen – they uniformly make use of finely rounded and elaborately constructed periods, preferring as a rule the third person as a form of address – as, for instance, when a lady, addressing the hero, observes, 'I should be surprised to hear that Captain Thornton was of those,' and so on. This, however, is, of course, no fault of the author's, but simply a not ungraceful literary convention of the age in which he wrote.

Though he professed Whig politics, Hamilton's pose throughout his writings is one of aristocratic hauteur, and we are consequently the less surprised to learn that the book in which he embodied his observations on America gave dire offence in that country, provoking angry reprisals. It may be that the comments of the gallant captain are made occasionally in a spirit neither wholly free from insular prejudice, nor from that particular pedantry which is sometimes generated by a military training. But it is also manifest that the existence which he surveyed – in a world, as must be remembered, at that time really new – was in many respects a sufficiently bare, comfortless, inelegant, and unrefined one, strangely lacking in the elements of elevation in public or private life. Hamilton strove to judge it fairly, and his observations are those of an intelligent and honest critic. Passing easily, as they do, from grave to gay – now commenting on the tendencies of democratic government or of the tariff, now comparing the constitutions of the different States, now describing the prison or scholastic systems of the country, and now touching upon the beauty and the dress of the ladies, upon dinner parties, modes of eating, barbarisms of language, and the like – they may be read with interest and historically not without profit to this day.

Of his Annals of the Peninsular Campaigns, the author tells us that it was intended to appeal to a wider public than was likely to be available for the lengthy histories of Napier and Southey, its object being to extend a knowledge of the great achievements of the British arms and an appropriate pride in them. Hamilton had special qualifications for the task, and he supplied an admirably terse and lucid narrative, but this was not accomplished without a sacrifice of much of that picturesque and personal detail which does so much to save history from dryness, and to make it attractive and memorable to the general reader. So that his end was but half attained.