latter's generosity in offering to share the cask with him after the shipwreck; the man's character had been originally noble and aspiring, with longings for culture and refinement, and a friend to whom he could express the real nature of his soul. Such a friend he hopes to find in Bertram. Meanwhile he is in love with Miss Walladmor, whom he had saved from death; she had been carried away by the noble and generous qualities of his heart, and for some time they have been lovers. Nichols. however is an outcast before the law; he had been reared in the midst of crime; he had himself been guilty at a time when he knew no higher impulses; but he was not responsible; now the sense of the cruelty of society and the injustice of the law in marking him a criminal drives him almost to frenzy; with the thought of finding justice under a new society which would recognize the real conditions of his life and his nobler aspirations, he had been led into a conspiracy against the Government. (All this rant seems to be a weak imitation of Karl von Moor.) In the midst of a harangue they are surprised. Nichols escapes, but Bertram is captured. The witch had betrayed the rendezvous; for she is the sworn foe of Nichols. Bertram is imprisoned in Walladmor Castle. He is identified as the offender (for there is a striking resemblance between them), and condemned to death; thereupon the real Nichols with characteristic magnanimity makes himself known to Squire Walladmor, and establishes the innocence of the prisoner. He rushes from the castle; meets on the way the object of his affections and implores her to follow him. She has learned however of his connection with Cato-street; her soul recoils in horror from the monster; the last tie that holds the smuggler to his better self is broken, and he leaves her swearing vengeance. It is now necessary to explain that the Squire had condemned the son of old Gillie, the witch, as a smuggler, and so had become the object of her wrath. His wife had died at the birth of her son; old Gillie was the only person present and she had hurriedly made away with the child. As the reader will suspect the child became the smuggler Nichols. There is a series of astounding and blood-curdling adventures, but the sum total is that Miss Walladmor falls in love with Bertram; that Nichols after attempting to kill him, after storming the castle and losing most of his men, comes to the conclusion that life is not worth living, surrenders himself and is condemned to die on the morrow. Another shipload of smugglers appears; he is rescued and again attacks the castle. In the midst of the carnage old Gillie makes the revelation that he is the Squire's son. Walladmor's sense of justice is so high that he cannot give him pardon; but not so high as to refuse him a chance to escape and nichols sails away to begin life anew in South America. It now appears that Lady Walladmor had born two sons; that Bertram is the other; that he had received an education in Germany, and had come to Wales seeking material to write an imitation of Sir Walter Scott's novels. This is discovered by no less a personage than the author of Waverley himself, a mysterious character who had suspected the secret designs of Bertram in his search for the picturesque. The last bit makes it certain that the author of this tale enjoyed the hoax more than anyone else. He really seems to have made the story as impossible and ridiculous as he could. The last volume could have been written for no other purpose; it is plainly farce, mixed with endless dissertations on Welsh mythology, English history and politics, etc.; after the first two volumes, which are more carefully written, had insured a sale, the author let his hoaxing genius loose, and attempted to cut as many pranks as possible. 1 De Quincey reviewed this book in characteristic style. He was forced to write his paper in 32 hours; yet he read at least enough to know the outlines of the book. The review is made up of copious quotations, a statement of its mistakes in chronology etc. and humorous advice to the hoaxer. His real trial came when he agreed to translate the book. He began his translation in good enough spirits, hoping to finish it in three weeks; only after the printing had begun, did he realize what a task it was. "Such rubbish" he writes, "such 'almighty' nonsense, no eye has ever beheld". Before the end of the book he is disgusted thoroughly; his feelings find expression in sarcastic notes: for example, to the sentence, "A pile of books sent by the worthy baronet, restored Bertram to some degree of spirits". De Quincey adds, "Amongst which we are happy to say was the first volume of Walladmor, a novel, 2 Vols. post 8vo; the second being not then finished". He has described his book in his best vein, not only in the preface, but in a later article written for his "Autobiographic Sketches", but not published there. "In some instances", he says, "I let the incidents stand, and contented myself with rewriting every word of the ridic 1 London Magazine, Oct. 1824. Not reprinted by De Quincey and not included in Masson's Edition. 2 Walladmor: Freely translated into German from the English of Sir Walter Scott, and now freely translated from the German into English. In two volumes. London 1825. 3 Tait's Magazine, Sept. 1838; cf. Works XIV, 132 ff. 1 ulous narration, and the still more ridiculous dialogues. In others I recomposed even the incidents. In particular I was obliged to put in a new catastrophe. Upon this it struck me that certain casuistical doubts might arise as to the relation which I held to my German principal; which doubts I thus expressed in a dedication to that person: 'Having some intention, sir, of speaking rather freely of you and your German translation in a postscript to the volume of my English one, I am shy of sending a presentation copy to Berlin. . . Yet as books sometimes travel far, if you should ever happen to meet with mine knocking about the world in Germany, I would wish you to know that I have endeavoured to make you what amends I could for any little affront which I meditate in that postscript by dedicating my English translation to yourself. You will be surprised to observe that your three corpulent German volumes have collapsed into two English ones of rather consumptive appearance. Sir John Cutler had a pair of silk stockings, which his housekeeper, Dolly, darned for a long term of years with worsted; at the end of which time the last gleam of silk had vanished and Sir John's silk stockings were found to have degenerated into worsted. Now, upon this a question arose amongst the metaphysicians, whether Sir John's stockings retained (or, if not, at what precise period they lost) their personal identity. Some 1 This is almost worse than the original. Miss Walladmor is reconciled to her cousin. In the midst of the love scene the noise of attack between the smugglers and the dragoons is heard; Nichols rushes out, and, just as a dragoon fires, Miss Walladmor throws herself before her loyer and receives the bullet in her breast. Nichols escapes to South America and dies a noble death. De Quincey apologizes for the book in the words of the old proverb, "You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." such questions will arise, I apprehend, upon your German Walladmor, as darned by myself. But here, my good sir, stop a moment. . . . . Sir John's stockings were origiginally of silk, and darned with worsted. Your worsted stockings it is that I have darned with silk..... I have retouched the Captain and curled his whiskers. I have also taken the liberty of curing Miss Walladmor of an hysterical affliction. . . . Your geography let me tell you was none of the best; and I brushed it up myself. . . Your chronology, by the way, was also damaged, but that has gone to the watchmaker's and is now regulated, so as to go as well as the Horse Guards. Now, finally, 'Mine deare sare',could you not translate me back into German, and darn me as I have darned you". etc. 1 The postscript shows much more than De Quincey's usual good-natured raillery. Professor Masson's opinion, that De Quincey was a little bored by his part in the silly affair, is certainly right. His disgust appears not only in the paper written in 1838, but in the postscript itself. "In general I would request the reader to consider himself indebted to me for anything he may find particularly good; and above all things to load my unhappy 'principal' with the blame of everything that is wrong. If he comes to any passage which he is disposed to think superlatively bad, let him be assured that it is not mine. Let him take my word when I apply to the English Walladmor the spirit of the old bull 'Had you seen but these roads before they were made, 1 Works XIV, 139 ff. reprint of the original dedication. |