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Defoe and Scott
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In 1817 one of Scott's closest friends and most penetrating critics wrote of his latest romance: “I must mention a remark Mrs Weddell has repeatedly made: ‘This has the nature of Daniel Defoe's novels, tho with a higher style of writing. I can hardly forbear fancying every word of it true.‘” This underlying resemblance is due in part to Scott's course of reading, in part to his literary methods or his traits of mind. But, paradoxically, the influence of Defoe on Scott is hardly more remarkable than the influence of Scott on Defoe's literary reputation.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1941
References
1 Letter from Lady Louisa Stuart to Scott, January 11, 1817; quoted by Sir Herbert Grierson, The Letters of Sir Walter Scott (Centenary ed.), iv, 345, note 1. (Cf. also Letters, I, pp. lxxiii, lxxiv.)
2 Miscellaneous Works, iv, 247.
3 Cf. Scott's letter to George Ellis, November 2, 1808 (Letters, xii, 304).
4 The fairly long list of titles which Dottin assigns in Daniel De Foe et ses romans (Paris, 1924), p. 869, to the Edinburgh ed. of 1809–10 implies some confusion with the Bohn ed. In actuality the Edinburgh ed. contained only the following works: Vols. 1, 2, and 3, Robinson Crusoe (2 parts); Vols. 4 and 5, Memoirs of a Cavalier; Vols. 6 and 7, Colonel Jack; Vols. 8 and 9, Captain Singleton and The True-Born Englishman; Vols. 10 and 11, A New Voyage round the World; Vol. 12, The History of the Plague in London. The first volume contains the biographical essay, and the last volume a list of a hundred works assigned to Defoe. There are no notes of consequence, and but two critical introductions—to Robinson Crusoe and to Memoirs of a Cavalier. Dottin's bibliography misled me to make the statement elsewhere (Huntington Library Quarterly, iv, 107) that The Dumb Philosopher was included in Scott's ed.; however, the biographical sketch in the Edinburgh ed. proves that Scott must have known that tract as Defoe's.
5 Life of Scott, Fireside ed. (Boston and New York, 1910), ii, 57, note 1.
6 Cf. Catalogue of the Library at Abbotsford, Ballantyne Club Publication No. 60, ed. J. G. Cochrane (Edinburgh, 1838). The index is quite inadequate for checking the list of Defoe's writings.
7 A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts. Second ed. (London, 1809–15), 13 vols.
8 The number is only approximate. A few of the “Somers Tracts” have been erroneously or very doubtfully assigned to Defoe; some others not yet assigned to Defoe are almost certainly his.
9 Letters to Constable, August 20 and September 10, 1820, quoted by Grierson, Sir Walter Scott, Bart. (London, 1938), pp. 188–189.
10 Cf. Letters, xii, 2.
11 Cf. “Poe, Scott, and ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’,” American Literature, viii, 52–54.
12 Cf. Grierson, Sir Walter Scott, Bart., p. 12.
13 One contemporary undertook to review Quentin Durward, “with very copious extracts,” before that novel had appeared (Letters, vii, 389). See other allusions in the Letters, as well as Scott's remarks on his imitators in his Journal (i, 274–275).
14 Letters, x, 481–482.
15 E.g., Letters, xi, 475; Journal, i, 259–260.
16 He thanked Terry for sending him “the two books in the world I most longed to see,” Falconer's Voyages and Bingfield's Travels, because they brought back with vivid association “the sentiments of my childhood—I might almost say infancy” (Letters, iii, 515–516).
17 Cf. Letters, iii, 275; Journal, ii, 259.
18 Cf. Journal, ii, 81; Letters, viii, 21 and note 2, 76, 417; Letters, x, 329. Cf. also Letters, ii, 32, for Scott's explanation of editing Swift “after such a scourging crop as Marmion.”
19 The Tegg ed. of Defoe refers to “the Edition attributed to the late Sir Walter Scott.”
20 Utters, ix, 223, 224–225; x, 201.
21 R. K. Gordon, “Dryden and the ‘Waverley Novels’,” MLR, xxxiv, 201.
22 Absalom and Achitophel, l. 99.
23 The Abbot, ch. 20 (Dryburgh ed., p. 206).
24 Scott's Memoirs of Swift (Miscellaneous Works, ii, 215, note 2).
25 Kenilworth, ch. 12 (Dryburgh ed., p. 133). Cf. also the Swiftian doggerel of the Journal, the Drapier-like Malagrowther papers, and the frequent references to the flappers of Laputa in Scott's correspondence.
26 Journal, i, 275.
27 Miscellaneous Works, iv, 256.
28 Miscellaneous Works, vii, 445–446.
29 E.g., Charity Still a Christian Virtue (London, 1719), p. 17; Applebee's Journal, September 21, 1723; An Account of the Cartoucheans in France; etc.
30 Miscellaneous Works, iv, 280–281.
31 Letters, iii, 390–391, 460; iv, 282; viii, 240; ix, 133; xii, 480.
32 E.g., Journal, i, 221; ii, 366.
33 Letters, xii 128.
34 Letters, iv, 92–93.
35 Letters, viii, 113.
36 Letters, x, 510.
37 Journal, i, 339.
38 Journal, ii, 268.
39 Miscellaneous Works, xx, 170.
40 Miscellaneous Works, xxi, 107.
41 The Fortunes of Nigel, ch. 1 (Dryburgh ed., p. 2).
42 The Pirate, Note 18 (Dryburgh ed., p. 456).
43 The Monastery, Introduction (Dryburgh ed., p. xlviii).
44 Rob Roy, ch. 16 (Dryburgh ed., p. 148).
45 Miscellaneous Works, iv, 249.
46 Ibid., p. 260.
47 Letters, viii, 310.
48 Old Mortality, Note 35 (Dryburgh ed., pp. 426–427); cf. also Miscellaneous Works, iv, 258. There is an odd confusion through Scott's consistent misspelling of Defoe's pen name as Morton (like the name of his own hero) instead of Moreton.
49 Miscellaneous Works, xix, 41–43 (from The Quarterly Review, January, 1817).
50 E.g., in his critical study of Defoe, Scott has the following note: “The author has long sought for his poem Caledonia, without being able to obtain a sight of it” (Miscellaneous Works, iv, 248, note 1). This poem, of which I own a copy, is scarce, but not remarkably rare.
51 Miscellaneous Works, iii, 115–116.
52 Miscellaneous Works, iii, 181.
53 Cf. Introduction to The Fortunes of Nigel (Dryburgh ed., pp. xvii, xviii, xxii) and numerous comments on his own practice as a novelist.
54 James Sutherland, Defoe (London, 1937), pp. 245–246.
55 Journal, i, 128, note 2; i, 174, note 1.
56 Ibid., ii, 81–82, 225, 276–277. Where Scott seems to distrust his own judgment and to rely to some extent on Ballantyne's (e.g., Journal, i, 90) it is clear that he is thinking primarily of the sales of his books, not of their literary quality.
57 Ibid., i, 128–129, note 2.
58 R. L. Stevenson, “A Note on Realism” (Works, Thistle ed., xxii, 267).
59 Letters (Thistle ed.), ii, 249–250.
60 Journal, i, 222. Cf. also ii, 78, 158.
61 Letters, x, 382.
62 Journal, ii, 96.
63 Miscellaneous Works, iv, 262–263.
64 Miscellaneous Works, xix, 2–3.
65 Miscellaneous Works, ii, 300; vi, 216.
66 Miscellaneous Works, iii, 71.
67 Miscellaneous Works, iv, 259. Cf. also Journal, i, 390.
68 John Buchan, Sir Walter Scott (London, 1932), p. 193.
69 Introduction to A Legend of Montrose (Dryburgh ed., p. 144).
70 Miscellaneous Works, iv, 265.
71 Journal, i, 251. Cf. also i, 75, 81, etc.
72 Letters, xii, 457.
73 Journal, i, 218.
74 Journal, i, 181.
75 Miscellaneous Works, iv, 266.
76 Introduction to Rob Roy (Dryburgh ed., p. xl).
77 Journal, ii, 131. Cf. also I, 117; i, 151.
78 Miscellaneous Works, iv, 262.
79 Miscellaneous Works, iii, 108.
80 Cf. The New York Times Book Review, December 26, 1937, p. 8. Cf. also my Defoe in the Pillory and Other Studies, Indiana University Humanities Series No. 1 (Bloomington, Indiana, 1939), pp. 40–42.
81 For a powerful rebuttal to Borrow, see Andrew Lang's introduction to The Pirate (Border ed.).
82 Letter of December 11, 1812, quoted by W. M. Parker, “Suggestions for Scott's Muse,” LTLS, March 23, 1940, p. 152.
83 A Journal of the Plague Year (Shakespeare Head ed.), p. 149. Examples of this sort could easily be multiplied. An even more equivocal statement occurs in Due Preparations for the Plague (Aitken ed.), p. 48, where we are told that the principal narrative is “partly historical and partly for direction.”
84 Sutherland, op. cit., p. 248.
85 Miscellaneous Works, iv, 253.
86 Cf. my Defoe in the Pillory and Other Studies, pp. 105, 112, 113.
87 Miscellaneous Works, xix, 41. (The italics are mine.)
88 Paul Dottin, The Life and Strange and Surprising Adventures of Daniel De Foe (New York, 1929), p. 122.
89 Religious Courtship (Tegg ed.), p. 115.
90 The Life and Actions of Jonathan Wild (Vol. xvi, Aitken ed. of Works), pp. 264–268.
91 Miscellaneous Works, xix, 2–3.
92 Sutherland, op. cit., p. 245.
93 Life of Scott (Fireside ed.), iii, 343.
94 Miscellaneous Works, xix, 4.
95 St. Ronan's Well, ch. 18 (Dryburgh ed., p. 186).
96 The Bride of Lammermoor, ch. 1 (Dryburgh ed., pp. 9–13).
97 Cf. my Defoe in the Pillory and Other Studies, ch. 8, especially pp. 134–141.
98 Cf. Lockhart's preface to Cochrane's ed. of the Catalogue of the Library at A bbotsford.
99 A 2nd ed. (London, 1724, in 8vo.) and two later reworkings of the material (London, 1732, in 12mo., and an edition of the combined lives of the highwaymen and pirates, London, 1742, in folio).
100 Miscellaneous Works, iv, 251.
101 Ibid., iv, 248–249.
102 Letters, ii, 341.
103 Letters, iii, 256–257.
104 Letters, iii, 275.
105 Letters, ii, 312.
106 Letters, iii, 223.
107 Letters, iii, 220–221.
108 Letters, iii, 478–479 (to John B. S. Morritt).
109 Letters, iv, 234.
110 Letters, vii, 12, note 2.
111 Journal, i, 97, 347.
112 Miscellaneous Works, v, 142–143.
113 Miscellaneous Works, ix, 2.
114 St. Rowan's Well, ch. 3 (Dryburgh ed., p. 32).
115 Rob Roy, ch. 26 (Dryburgh ed., p. 237).
116 Ibid., ch. 8 (Dryburgh ed., p. 73).
117 Cf. my Defoe in the Pillory and Other Studies, pp. 131–132. Scott's allusion is anachronistic; the second edition of Smith's History of the Highwaymen appeared in 1714, but the composite work attributed to Johnson did not appear until 1734, nineteen years after the ostensible date of Rob Roy.
118 Kenilworth, ch. 7 (Dryburgh ed., p. 81).
119 Woodstock, ch. 34 (Dryburgh ed., p. 425).
120 Redgauntlet, chs. 13, 14 (Dryburgh ed., pp. 286, 292, 294–295, 296, 299).
121 Note 35 (Redgauntlet, Dryburgh ed., p. 444).
122 Letters, vii, 87.
123 Cf. Journal, i, 361, note 2.
124 Letters, vii, 12.
125 Editor's Introduction to The Pirate (Border ed., p. xi).
126 The Pirate, Introduction (Dryburgh ed., p. ix).
127 John Buchan, op. cit., p. 244.
128 Advertisement to The Pirate (Dryburgh ed., p. xi).
129 Editor's Introduction to The Pirate (Border ed., p. xi).
130 “Johnson's” [Defoe's] A General History of the Pirates (Arthur Hayward ed., London, 1926, p. 203); The Pirate, ch. 36 (Dryburgh ed., p. 387).
131 History of the Pirates, p. 211; the italics are mine. Cf. also pp. 183, 209.
132 The Pirate, ch. 34 (Dryburgh ed., p. 364); the italics are mine. Cf. also Ch. 36 (Dryburgh ed., p. 381).
133 Advertisement to The Pirate (Dryburgh ed., p. xii). Cf. History of the Pirates, p. 333.
134 E.g., cf. History of the Pirates, pp. 219, 319, 490.
135 Ibid., p. 48.
136 Ibid., pp. 564–573.
137 Note 31 to The Pirate (Dryburgh ed., p. 463). Cf. Rob Roy, where the ex-buccaneer who taught Bailie Jarvie to mix drinks was named Captain Coffinkey.
138 History of the Pirates, p. 563.
139 Ibid., p. 254.
140 The Pirate, especially ch. 36 (Dryburgh ed., pp. 390, 392).
141 History of the Pirates, p. 483.
142 Ibid., p. 108.
143 Ibid., p. 400.
144 Ibid., p. 56.
145 Ibid., pp. 49, 50; The Pirate, ch. 39 (Dryburgh ed., p. 420).
146 Ibid., ch. 31 (Dryburgh ed., p. 333); History of the Pirates, pp. 193–194, etc.
147 The Pirate, ch. 22 (Dryburgh ed., p. 241); references in the History of the Pirates are numerous (e.g., p. 566).
148 Ibid., pp. 202–203; The Pirate, chs. 31, 40 (Dryburgh ed., pp. 332, 433).
149 Ibid., ch. 21 (Dryburgh ed., p. 226); History of the Pirates, p. 20, etc.
150 Ibid., p. 305; The Pirate, chs. 17, 34 (Dryburgh ed., pp. 182, 360).
151 Ibid., ch. 31 (Dryburgh ed., p. 328); History of the Pirates, p. 40.
152 Ibid., p. 323; The Pirate, chs. 18, 31 (Dryburgh ed., pp. 185, 332).
153 Ibid., ch. 34 (Dryburgh ed., p. 368).
154 History of the Pirates, p. 492, etc.; The Pirate, ch. 34 (Dryburgh ed., p. 359).
155 History of the Pirates, p. 209; The Pirate, chs. 40, 41 (Dryburgh ed., pp. 434–435).
156 Ibid., ch. 40 (Dryburgh ed., p. 432); History of the Pirates, pp. 108, 208, 236, 294.
157 Ibid., pp. 208–209, 234; The Pirate, chs. 40, 41 (Dryburgh ed., pp. 433, 435).
158 Ibid., ch. 40 (Dryburgh ed., p. 429).
159 History of the Pirates, p. 330.
160 Allan Fea, The Real Captain Cleveland (London, 1912), p. 25.
161 John Buchan, op. cit., p. 247.
162 The Pirate, ch. 37 (Dryburgh ed., p. 395).
163 History of the Pirates, pp. 328–329.
164 The Pirate, ch. 31 (Dryburgh ed., p. 338).
165 The Pirate, ch. 34 (Dryburgh ed., p. 362).
166 Lockhart's Life of Scott (Fireside ed., iii, 584, 586).
167 Rokeby, Canto iii, xxiii, note 2.
168 Waverley, ch. 10 and note 9 (Dryburgh ed., pp. 56, 473).
169 A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts (Second ed., London, 1809–15), xii, 358.
170 The Black Dwarf, ch. 13 (Dryburgh ed., p. 94).
171 Cf. my Defoe in the Pillory and Other Studies, pp. 149, 151.
172 Letters, vii, 368.
173 Letters, vii, 367, note 1.
174 History of the Pirates, pp. 45–66.
175 Letters, iii, 106.
176 Journal, i, 97.