Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/109

Rh After having preluded for some time in the department of fiction, and as an anonymous contributor to the periodicals, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, having now fully essayed his strength, adventured upon the decisive three-volumed experiment, by publishing his historical romances of "Lochindhu" and the "Wolf of Badenoch." The scenery of both of these works was laid in Moray shire, a county with which he was so well acquainted, while the time of action was that which succeeded the days of Bruce, the period when chivalrous warfare was at the hottest in Scotland, while it had Froissart for the chronicler of some of its best passages of arms. It was a right perilous attempt to follow the sandalled steps of the warrior-monk; and Sir Thomas, stalwart though he was, and a knight to boot, was scarcely able to keep pace with his mighty leader. But who, indeed, would read modern chivalrous romances in the hope of finding newer and more stirring deeds of warlike emprise, after what Froissart has written? or search for keener ridicule of the fooleries of chivalry than can be found in the pages of Cervantes? The attempts of Sir Thomas, therefore, in these productions, partook somewhat of the inferiority of Smollet, when the latter endeavoured, in his "Sir Launcelot Greaves," to produce an English similitude of Don Quixote de la Mancha. It happened unfortunately also for "Lochindhu" and the "Wolf of Badenoch," that their author, not content with entering a field so preoccupied, must needs accommodate himself to the language of the period, by interlacing his phraseology with antique and consequently uncouth words; and thus his style, which after all would have been a patois unintelligible to the 14th century, of which it purports to be the type, becomes utter barbarism to readers of the 19th, for whose gratification it was written. This is generally the fate of such literary compromises; and Sir Walter Scott was guilty of the same blunder, when, in his romance of "Ivanhoe," he jumbled together the characters and events of the early period of Richard Cœur de Lion with the refinements of that of Richard III., and crowned the whole with the English phraseology of the days of Queen Elizabeth. But, in spite of these incongruities, "Ivanhoe" is a magnificent epic, and "Lochindhu" and the "Wolf" are heart-stirring, captivating romances. In scenic description and delineation of events, Sir Thomas has approached the nearest to Scott of all the ambitious imitators of the "great unknown" of the period. But it is in individuality of character that he chiefly fails, and his knights, like the brave Gyas, and the brave Cloanthes, are little more than facsimiles of each other. They have all the same complement of thews and bones, and are equally prompt to use them; and they only differ by virtue of the scenery with which they are surrounded, and the historical actions of which they form a part.

But of all the works which Sir Thomas Dick Lauder has produced, that entitled "The Moray Floods in 1829," is perhaps the one by which he will continue to be best appreciated. He had himself not only been an eye-witness of these tremendous inundations, but an active philanthropist in the relief of those who had been ruined by the havoc; and the account which he wrote of the event will long be prized by the lovers of vigorous writing, and vivid, poetical, and truthful description. Another descriptive work which he produced, commemorative of a great national event, was the "Queen's Visit to Scotland in 1842." But reverting during this long interval to that kind of study which gave full scope to his imagination, as well as brought the varied resources of his experience and observation into complete act and use, he published his "High-