Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/151

 9 th S. II. AUG. 20, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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of the story, namely, Margaret of Branksome, Metelill, Mary Avenel, and poor Lucy Ashton, whose "dour carline" of a mother both she and her father could well have spared. Even the Lady of Avenel dies before the story is finished. It is true that there are others whose mothers come into the story more or less, but they take little or no part in the action with their daughters ; such, for instance, are the mother of Lucy Bertram, and Lady Campbell, the mother of that bright little sunbeam Annot Lyle. In ' The Bridal of Triermain ' we do not see Guendo- len and her daughter together, as Guendolen has departed this life before Gyneth appears on the scene. On the other hand, Scott's heroines have in a great many instances a father living : Hose Bradwardine, Julia Mannering (we near of Col. Mannering's wife, but we are not actually introduced to her), Lucy Bertram, Isabella Wardour, Di Vernon, Annot Lyle above mentioned, Jeanie and Effie Deans, Lucy Ashton, Rebecca, Catherine Seyton, Amy Robsart, Minna and Brenda Troil, Margaret Ramsay, Alice Bridgenorth and her namesake Alice Lee, Catherine Glover, Anne of Geierstein, Ellen Douglas, Matilda of Rokeby, Metelill. I ought to add Eveline Berenger, whose father, however, is slain in battle in the early part of the story. In some instances Scott's heroines have neither father nor mother, but only more distant relations, living ; for example, Flora Mac Ivor, Rowena (who appears to have no blood relations living : the same may be said of Eivir or Gunnar), Edith Bellenden, Lilias Redgauntlet (" Green Mantle "), Isabelle de Croye, Clara Mowbray, Edith Planta- genet, and Edith of Lorn. In fact, the only mothers of heroines who may be said really to take a place and act their part amongst Scott's dramatis personce are the Lady of Branksome, Jutta (the mother of Metelill), Lady Ashton, and, in a lesser degree, the Lady of Avenel.

I can hardly suppose that this was entirely accidental. Scott must have had a reason for it. He could scarcely have had a personal motive, as he himself had an "excellent mother " (Lockhart's phrase). "The good old lady," as Scott himself calls her, not long before she died was talking to some friends about 'The Bride of Lammermoor,' then recently published, and pointing out where the romance differed from the real story. See Lockhart's 'Life of Scott,' December, 1819.

Scott occasionally introduces us to very ill- conditioned mothers besides Lady Ashton ; for instance, Lady Glenallan, "a rudas wife," as Maggie Mucklebackit calls her ; Elspat

MacTavish, the Highland widow ; and Meg Murdockson, the mother of Madge Wildfire. These, however, are not the mothers of his heroines, as Lady Glenallan and Elspat Mac- Tavish are the mothers of Lord Glenallan and Hamish Bean MacTavish respectively ; and Madge Wildfire is not a "heroine" in the usual acceptation of the term.

If I have fallen into any errors in the above, will some one kindly point them out ?

A verj' intelligent and well-informed lady, herself an authoress, to whom I have sub- mitted the above note, and who has given me permission to quote her remarks, says :

"The point you take is a good one. The only answer I can suggest is that the suppression of mothers was almost a necessity of fiction. Accord- ing to our ancestors' notions, a right-minded young lady would walk in everything by the guidance 01 her mother, supposing her mother to be reasonably good and sensible : hence the daughter could hardly act with the independence often necessary for work- ing out the story. Jane Austen \vas personally a devoted daughter ; but her heroines, quiet as their lives are, are practically without mothers, or have silly ones."

JONATHAN BOUCHIER. Ropley, Alresford, Hants.

THE SWALLOW'S SONG. In her 'Scottish Song,' p. 33, ed. 1874, Mrs. Carlyle substitutes " gowdspink " for Progne in Minstrel Burne's tender and picturesque ' Leader Haughs and Yarrow.' Burne, thinking of one of the leading features in the landscape he is carefully depict- ing, thus introduces the wood-notes wild of the vale :

A mile below, wha lists to ride Will hear the mavis singing ; Into Saint Leonard's banks she '11 bide, Sweet birks her head o'erhinging.

The lint-white loud, and Progne proud, With tuneful throats and narrow,

Into Saint Leonard's banks they sing, As sweetly as in Yarrow.

Mrs. Carlyle writes :

" We have here used the word gowdspink, instead of Progne, as being more in keepingwith the simplicity of the song ; and, at any rate, Progne is inappro- priate, as the swallow never sings."

It is disappointing and harassing to find an editor deliberately tampering with the poet's text, especially with the frank avowal, as here, that the editorial knowledge and dis- crimination are superior to those that guided the author's selection of terms and references. At the utmost, would it not have been suffi- cient to explain or protest in a foot-note, having given the text intact ? At any rate, the editor, in order to be consistent, should have changed Philomel in the next stanza to something more simple and appropriate.