THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL by Sir WALTER SCOTT An Electronic Classics Series Publication The Fortunes of Nigel by Sir Walter Scott is a publication of The Electronic Classics Series. This Portable Document file is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the Pennsylvania State Uni- versity nor Jim Manis, Editor, nor anyone associated with the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the material contained within the document or for the file as an electronic transmis- sion, in any way. The Fortunes of Nigel by Sir Walter Scott, The Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Editor, PSU- Hazleton, Hazleton, PA 18202 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them. Jim Manis is a faculty member of the English Department of The Pennsylvania State University. This page and any preceding page(s) are restricted by copyright. The text of the following pages are not copyrighted within the United States; however, the fonts used may be. Cover Design: Jim Manis Copyright © 2009 - 2013 The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university. Sir Walter Scott INTRODUCTION But why should lordlings all our praise engross? THE Rise, honest man, and sing the Man of Ross. FORTUNES OF Pope HAVING, in the tale of the Heart of Mid-Lothian, suc- ceeded in some degree in awakening an interest in behalf NIGEL of one devoid of those accomplishments which belong to a heroine almost by right, I was next tempted to choose a by hero upon the same unpromising plan; and as worth of character, goodness of heart, and rectitude of principle, Sir WALTER SCOTT Bart were necessary to one who laid no claim to high birth, romantic sensibility, or any of the usual accomplishments A Tale Which Holdeth Children from Play & Old Men of those who strut through the pages of this sort of com- from the Chimney Corner position, I made free with the name of a person who has —SIR PHILIP SIDNEY left the most magnificent proofs of his benevolence and charity that the capital of Scotland has to display. 3 The Fortunes of Nigel To the Scottish reader little more need be said than so much under their care, that it now supports and edu- that the man alluded to is George Heriot. But for those cates one hundred and thirty youths annually, many of south of the Tweed, it may be necessary to add, that whom have done honour to their country in different the person so named was a wealthy citizen of Edinburgh, situations. and the King’s goldsmith, who followed James to the The founder of such a charity as this may be reason- English capital, and was so successful in his profession, ably supposed to have walked through life with a steady as to die, in 1624, extremely wealthy for that period. He pace, and an observant eye, neglecting no opportunity had no children; and after making a full provision for of assisting those who were not possessed of the experi- such relations as might have claims upon him, he left ence necessary for their own guidance. In supposing his the residue of his fortune to establish an hospital, in efforts directed to the benefit of a young nobleman, which the sons of Edinburgh freemen are gratuitously misguided by the aristocratic haughtiness of his own brought up and educated for the station to which their time, and the prevailing tone of selfish luxury which talents may recommend them, and are finally enabled seems more peculiar to ours, as well as the seductions of to enter life under respectable auspices. The hospital in pleasure which are predominant in all, some amusement, which this charity is maintained is a noble quadrangle or even some advantage, might, I thought, be derived of the Gothic order, and as ornamental to the city as a from the manner in which I might bring the exertions building, as the manner in which the youths are pro- of this civic Mentor to bear in his pupil’s behalf. I am, I vided for and educated, renders it useful to the commu- own, no great believer in the moral utility to be derived nity as an institution. To the honour of those who have from fictitious compositions; yet, if in any case a word the management, (the Magistrates and Clergy of spoken in season may be of advantage to a young per- Edinburgh), the funds of the Hospital have increased son, it must surely be when it calls upon him to attend 4 Sir Walter Scott to the voice of principle and self-denial, instead of that history is that when the ancient rough and wild man- of precipitate passion. I could not, indeed, hope or ex- ners of a barbarous age are just becoming innovated pect to represent my prudent and benevolent citizen in upon, and contrasted, by the illumination of increased a point of view so interesting as that of the peasant or revived learning, and the instructions of renewed or girl, who nobly sacrificed her family affections to the reformed religion. The strong contrast produced by the integrity of her moral character. Still however, some- opposition of ancient manners to those which are gradu- thing I hoped might be done not altogether unworthy ally subduing them, affords the lights and shadows nec- the fame which George Heriot has secured by the last- essary to give effect to a fictitious narrative; and while ing benefits he has bestowed on his country. such a period entitles the author to introduce incidents It appeared likely, that out of this simple plot I might of a marvellous and improbable character, as arising out weave something attractive; because the reign of James of the turbulent independence and ferocity, belonging I., in which George Heriot flourished, gave unbounded to old habits of violence, still influencing the manners scope to invention in the fable, while at the same time it of a people who had been so lately in a barbarous state; afforded greater variety and discrimination of charac- yet, on the other hand, the characters and sentiments ter than could, with historical consistency, have been of many of the actors may, with the utmost probabil- introduced, if the scene had been laid a century earlier. ity, be described with great variety of shading and de- Lady Mary Wortley Montague has said, with equal truth lineation, which belongs to the newer and more improved and taste, that the most romantic region of every coun- period, of which the world has but lately received the try is that where the mountains unite themselves with light. the plains or lowlands. For similiar reasons, it may be in The reign of James I. of England possessed this ad- like manner said, that the most picturesque period of vantage in a peculiar degree. Some beams of chivalry, 5 The Fortunes of Nigel although its planet had been for some time set, contin- munity was perpetually giving rise to acts of blood and ued to animate and gild the horizon, and although prob- violence. The bravo of the Queen’s day, of whom ably no one acted precisely on its Quixotic dictates, men Shakspeare has given us so many varieties, as Bardolph, and women still talked the chivalrous language of Sir Nym, Pistol, Peto, and the other companions of Falstaff, Philip Sydney’s Arcadia; and the ceremonial of the tilt- men who had their humours, or their particular turn of yard was yet exhibited, though it now only flourished extravaganza, had, since the commencement of the Low as a Place de Carrousel. Here and there a high-spirited Country wars, given way to a race of sworders, who used Knight of the Bath, witness the too scrupulous Lord the rapier and dagger, instead of the far less dangerous Herbert of Cherbury, was found devoted enough to the sword and buckler; so that a historian says on this sub- vows he had taken, to imagine himself obliged to com- ject, “that private quarrels were nourished, but espe- pel, by the sword’s-point, a fellow-knight or squire to cially between the Scots and English; and duels in every restore the top-knot of ribbon which he had stolen from street maintained; divers sects and peculiar titles passed a fair damsel;* but yet, while men were taking each unpunished and unregarded, as the sect of the Roaring other’s lives on such punctilios of honour, the hour was Boys, Bonaventors, Bravadors, Quarterors, and such already arrived when Bacon was about to teach the like, being persons prodigal, and of great expense, who, world that they were no longer to reason from author- having run themselves into debt, were constrained to ity to fact, but to establish truth by advancing from run next into factions, to defend themselves from dan- fact to fact, till they fixed an indisputable authority, ger of the law. These received countenance from divers not from hypothesis, but from experiment. of the nobility; and the citizens, through lasciviousness The state of society in the reign of James I. was also consuming their estates, it was like that the number [of strangely disturbed, and the license of a part of the com- these desperadoes] would rather increase than dimin- * See Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s Memoirs. 6 Sir Walter Scott ish; and under these pretences they entered into many iquity, beyond manner abounding in most places.” desperate enterprizes, and scarce any durst walk in the Nor is it only in the pages of a puritanical, perhaps a street after nine at night.”* satirical writer, that we find so shocking and disgusting The same authority assures us farther, that “ancient a picture of the coarseness of the beginning of the sev- gentlemen, who had left their inheritance whole and well enteenth century.