MR BALDWIN AND SCOTT

Evening Star, Issue 20428, 8 March 1930, Page 27

MR BALDWIN AND SCOTT

TRIBUTE TO “HOMER" OF SCOTLAND v Mr Baldwin delivered the address aa president of the Sir Walter Scott Club, Edinburgh, at its annual dinner recently, when ho proposed the immortal memory of the great poet and novelist in what he described as “ a plain unadorned account of ' what Sir Walter Scott has meant to one of tho millions of those who dwell in that part- of Great Britain called England.” To us gathered here, Mr Baldwin said, Scott is not a mere name, for there is not one of us in whose heart he is nob cherished as a close friend. Wo cannot picture a world without Scott.

Mr Baldwin recalled the early days of his acquaintance with tho novelist’s works, and told a story of how ho perused Scott’s, novels before ho could even read them.

My father and’mother, he continued, had loved Scott from their earliest days. On their wedding journey they visited Abbotsford as pilgrims. The first books in the library at homo which swam into my ken were the author’s edition of the novels with the uniform editions of the poems and prose works. That edition was published a volume at a time at the first of the month, and 100 years ago this last Now Year’s Day appeared the second volume of*‘Rob Roy.’ Before I could x’ead them I used,to pore oyer tho little steel engraved frontispieces. The picture of “ Di Vernon,” in her father’s arms stirred my romantic heart very much —I will confess to you that she was my first love. Tho vignette of Dirk Hatteraick breaking Glossin’s neck strengthened my faith in tho ultimate justice that rules the world. When I was nine and ton I was reading several of the novels aloud in the long autumn and winter afternoons to an indulgent quut, and for months at a time wo lived in the world of which we read. ‘ Mannion ’ and tho ‘ Lay ’ were devoured about the same time, and I would declaim either by heart, or sometimes with a hook in my hand, as I tramped the lanes or sat under a hedge to rest. The world of the ‘ Lay/ of ‘ Rob Roy/ of ‘ Mannion/ of ‘ Guy Mannering/ and ‘ Tho Pirato ’ was that in which so much of my childhood lived and had its being. But 1 can remember now my consternation and amazement when I found, after my first fortyeight hours at a private school, that none of my coevals in my new environment had heard of Scott, and being one who liked going his own way with as little friction as possible, I dreamed my own dreams and kept my own counsel. Such was Scott to mo in my earliest days. A household word at home, a gateway which induced my .first steps into the world of poetry, history, and romance, the man whose life I knew so much from Hie lips of my parents before Lockhart and the ‘Journal’ had become tho companions of my pilgrimage. But I must beware of talking too much about myself—it is one of tho temptations of the ago. After recalling tho poems, tho minstrels, and novels of Scott, Mr Baldwin continued: To havo awakened and kept alive in an artificial and too moneyloving ago “that character of mine which wo call romantic,” which by transformation can become something so much beyond itself, is oven from tho severest moral point of view no mean merit. .To higher than this few poets can lay claim. But let tho critics praise him or let them blame him, it matters not. His reputation will not wane, hut will grow with time. A GREAT EPIC MINSTREL.

Therefore, we do well to make much of Waiter Scott. Ho is tho only Homer who has been vouchsafed to Scotland — I might almost say to modern Europe. He came at the latest hour that it -was possible for a great epic minstrel to bo born, and the altered conditions of tho world will not admit of another. Mr Baldwin reminded them of tho break-neck speed at which Scott produced most of lps,novels, and said what wonder the littlo critics seized on the

speed of his work to pick holes in obvious errors that would have been corrected in a second, third, or fourth revision. Recalling more of Scott’s works, Mr Baldwin said: If I had to choose a handful to be my companions in prison or on a desert island I should unhesitatingly select tho Scottish volumes. Give me ‘Guy Mannering/ ‘The Antiquary/ ‘Old Mortality/ ‘The Heart of Midlothian,’ and ‘Rob Roy.’ I do not forget ‘Sir Nigel’ or the ‘ Fair Maid of Perth ’ or ‘ Waverley/ yet why not make my five into a round halfdozen and throw in ‘ Redgauntlet ’ ? Mr Baldwin said that when, many years ago, he sat on a parliamentary committee before which the case of the Glasgow boundary extension was being considered, they could imagine with what a sense of almost familiarity ho heard witnesses bearing the honoured title Bailie and riveted his gaze on the vast maps with which the walls were hung and traced tho spot tjiat Francis and Rashleigh met and the prison where Nicol Jarvio so unexpectedly encountered his fiery cousin from tho Highland*. SERVICE TO SCOTLAND. Scott at one blow; as it wore, made Scotland realise herself north and south, east and west, and f threw tho glamour of romance over her not only in Scotland, but in every civilised country of the world. Who but Scott could have put George IV. in a kilt? (Laughter.) la a description of-Scott Mr Baldwin said: I seo him with pot Marjorie, the choice and beloved child of all time, a man, if God ever ijiade one, a man of .genius-recognised and indisputable, hut withal of character as well nigh flawless as human character may bo. There was a wonderful simplicity about him, too, a simplicity that belongs to tho man. Most open; there was no attudinising; ambitions he had and worldly ambition he had, though of no mean kind merely to pile up money for money’s sake, or to cut a figure in the fashionable world. Tho desire to found a family-—Scott of Abbotsford—was a desire founded, as Lockhart said, on that ardent feeling for blood and kindred, a feeling which in its turn is founded upon some of tho truest and deepest instincts in the heart of man.

The industrial revolution was far from him. He was the soul of feudalism in its highest sense. His scheme of society was feudal, alike in its simplicity and its nobility. Mr Baldwin concluded: To generation after generation of men, stumbling along in their quest of the ideal, distracted by the noise and confusion ot the world and tho perpetual strife ot tongues, Scott comes like the wind on tho heath, blowing away the mists and the miasmas, illuminating tho path ot honour and courage and wisdom and sweet sanity. Through such souls alone God, stooping, shows sufficient of His light for us in the dark to rise by.