By WALLACE BRUCE.

“The Fair Maid of Perth” is at once a photograph and a drama. The beautiful county of Perthshire, with its wild mountains and picturesque lakes, seems transferred bodily as by a camera to the novelist’s pages, and the historic incidents are so real and rapid in dramatic interest that they seem lifted from the realm of history into a sort of Shaksperean play.

The story opens with a description of Perth from a spot called the Wicks of Baigle, “where the traveler beholds stretching beneath him the valley of the Tay, traversed by its ample and lordly stream; the town of Perth with its two large meadows, its steeples, and its towers; the hills of Moncreiff and Kinnoul faintly rising into picturesque rocks, partly clothed with woods; the rich margin of the river, studded with elegant mansions, and the distant view of the huge Grampian mountains, the northern screen of this exquisite landscape.”

The time of the story is 1402. Almost a century has elapsed since the battle of Bannockburn—a century of turmoil and strife. Its history seems like a great tempest-tossed sea swept by constantly recurring whirlwinds. Three kings and as many regents reign in turn; and at the opening of our story Scotland is under the government of Robert the Third.

David the Second, only son of Robert Bruce, died childless; his sister, Marjory, married Walter, the Lord High Steward of the realm; their son was crowned Robert the Third, King of Scotland. The family took the name of Stewart, which gave by direct descent the Stuart line to the throne of Britain, and their descendants are to-day upon the thrones of England, Italy and Greece. The little skiff, tossed ashore upon the rugged cliffs and cold hospitality of Lorne Castle, as described in our last article, carried therefore the ancestor of a long historic line—a line not always fortunate, not always honest, but presenting for the most part during its record of five hundred years a fair average of manhood and womanhood as kings and queens generally run.

Robert the Third found his country torn by civil feuds, and his temper was too mild for those stormy times. His brother, the Duke of Albany, a crafty counselor of the Iago type, provoked strife between father and son. The good king’s heart was broken. “Vengeance followed,” says Scott, “though with a slow pace, the treachery and cruelty of his brother. Robert of Albany’s own grey hairs went, indeed, in peace to the grave, and he transferred the regency, which he had so foully acquired, to his son Murdoch. But nineteen years after the death of the old king, James the First returned to Scotland, and Duke Murdoch of Albany, with his sons, was brought to the scaffold, in expiation of his father’s guilt and his own.”

Such are the main historic features of the story. The inwoven incidents make us acquainted with many of the customs of humble life which pertain to the close of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century. It portrays the ancient observances of St. Valentine’s Day; the fierce conflict of two Highland clans; the bitter jealousy between the Black Douglas and the Earl of March; the trial by Bier-Right in the Church of St. John; the government of Scottish towns and burroughs; the hardihood of the brave burghers who knew their rights, and had the courage to maintain them. It reveals the dissipation of the Court, led on by the much-loved but dissipated son of the king, the Duke of Rothsay, over whom the father mourned, even as David over his son Absalom.

Through this black serge-cloth of history runs a silver thread—the life of Catharine Glover. Her bold and resolute lover, Henry Gow, a smith and armorer by trade, who had the good fortune of being her Valentine, seems too warlike for her gentle and amiable character, or as Harry sums it up briefly in a blunt sentence: “She thinks the whole world is one great minster church, and that all who live in it should behave as if they were at an eternal mass.”

The romance abounds with many eloquent passages and poetic touches; even the bold armorer, with his love for hard blows, reveals here and there a touch of sentiment, as where he returns to Perth from a long journey and says: “When I crossed the Wicks and saw the bonny city lie fairly before me, like a fairy queen in romance, whom the knight finds asleep among a wilderness of flowers, I felt even as a bird, when it folds its weary wings to stoop down on its own nest.”

The description of the burial of the Highland Chief is the sketch of a master. We are transported to the rugged hills of the northern Highlands. Around us rise lofty mountain peaks; below us stretches the silver expanse of Loch Tay; the black-bannered flotilla carrying the dead leader, Mac Ian, with oars moving to wild music, holds its course to the ruined cathedral of the Holy Isle, where still slumbers the daughter of Henry the First of England, wife of Alexander the First of Scotland. “The monks issue from their lowly portal; the bells peal their death-toll over the long lake; a yell bursts from the assembled multitude, in which the deep shout of warriors, and the shrill wail of females join their notes with the tremulous voice of age, and the babbling cry of childhood; the deer start from their glens for miles around and seek the distant recesses of the mountains, even the domestic animals, accustomed to the voice of man, flee from their pastures into morasses and dingles.”

Scott’s power as a poet is seen in passages like this, and his power as a dramatist in words like the following placed in the mouth of the heart-broken king, revealing in one condensed sentence of agony the unfortunate state of his country: “Oh, Scotland, Scotland; if the best blood of thy bravest children could enrich the barren soil, what land on earth would excel thee in fertility? When is it that a white hair is seen on the beard of a Scottish man, unless he be some wretch like thy sovereign, protected from murder by impotence, to witness the scenes of slaughter to which he can not put a period? The demon of strife and slaughter hath possessed the whole land.”

But the clouds and mists upon the mountain-heights of royalty do not always envelop the valley, or affect the happiness of those who live in humble spheres; and we are glad to know that Harry Gow is at last made happy by the hand of Catharine. He promises to hand up his broadsword, never more to draw it unless against the enemies of Scotland. “And should Scotland call for it,” said Catharine, “I will buckle it round you.”

Our next novel, in historic sequence, takes us to the Court of Louis the Eleventh in the year 1468. The reader is introduced to a young Scotchman by the name of Quentin Durward. He is in France seeking employment for his sword; he joins the Scottish archers which form the body-guard of the King; he soon wins the notice and favor of Louis the Eleventh by his courage, address and honesty; he goes as escort for two noble ladies who had fled for refuge from the court of Burgundy to France, and becomes at last as the title of the book would indicate the important personage in the romance, and his honesty is rewarded by the hand of the heroine.

But the great value of this work is the character sketch of Louis the Eleventh, a king who possessed a soul as hardened as that of Mephistopheles, and a brain like that of Machiavelli, whose birth at Florence in 1469 appropriately commemorates the early years of Louis’ reign; he found the throne in a tottering condition; in fact all Europe was unsettled. It was the dark hour preceding the dawn of the Reformation. There was some excuse for caution, and perhaps for craftiness in order to preserve his government, but no excuse and no necessity for the cruelty and treachery that marked every day of his life. He seemed malevolent for the sake of malevolence; or as Scott more briefly puts it, “he seemed an incarnation of the devil himself, permitted to do his utmost to corrupt our ideas of honor to its very source.” He surrounded himself with menials, invited low and obscure men to secret councils, employed his barber as prime minister, not for any special ability displayed, but from his readiness to pander to his lowest wishes. In every way he brought disrespect upon the court of his father, “who tore from the fangs of the English lion the more than half-conquered kingdom of France.”

Scott places the character of Louis the Eleventh in contrast with that of the Duke of Burgundy; “a man who rushed on danger because he loved it, and on difficulties because he despised them.” His rude, chivalrous nature despised his wily cousin, who had his mouth at every man’s ear, and his hand in every man’s palm. As we read the history of Louis XI. he seems like a great spider slowly but surely spinning his web about his enemies until at last there is no escape. By tortuous policy he “rose among the rude sovereigns of the period to the rank of a keeper among wild beasts, who, by superior wisdom, by distribution of food, and some discipline of blows, comes finally to predominate over those, who, if unsubjected by his arts, would by main strength have torn him to pieces.”

Apart from the main thread of history Scott gives us a picture of the Gypsies, or Bohemians, who had just made their appearance in Europe. They claimed an Egyptian descent, and their features attested that they were of eastern origin. Their complexion was positively eastern, approaching to that of the Hindoos. Their manners were as depraved as their appearance was poor and beggarly. The few arts which they studied with success, were of a slight and idle, though ingenious description. Their pretensions to read fortunes, by palmistry and astrology, acquired them sometimes respect, but oftener drew them under the suspicion of sorcerers; and lastly, the universal accusation that they augmented their horde by stealing children, subjected them to doubt and execration. They incurred almost everywhere sentence of banishment, and, where suffered to remain, were rather objects of persecution than of protection from the law. The arrival of the Egyptians as these singular people were called, in various parts of Europe, corresponds with the period in which Tamerlane invaded Hindostan, affording its natives the choice between the Koran and death. There can be little doubt that these wanderers consisted originally of the Hindostanee tribes, who, displaced and flying from the sabers of the Mohammedans, undertook this species of wandering life, without well knowing whither they were going. Scott gives us in the character of Hayraddin a type of this great family, a brief sketch of which taken as above from his notes we thought would be of interest to the general reader.

The interview of Louis the Eleventh with the astrologer not only reveals the superstition of the king but also places in sharp contrast the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which were cut asunder, as it were, with a sword of light. The old astrologer’s apostrophe to the art of printing, which was then invented, is worthy of a place in these historic references: “Believe me that, in considering the consequences of this invention, I read with as certain augury as by any combination of the heavenly bodies, the most awful and portentous changes. When I reflect with what slow and limited supplies the stream of science hath hitherto descended to us; how difficult to be obtained by those most ardent in its search; how certain to be neglected by all who regard their ease; how liable to be diverted, or altogether dried up, by the invasion of barbarism; can I look forward without wonder and astonishment to the lot of a succeeding generation, on which knowledge will descend like the first and second rain, uninterrupted, unabated, unbounded; fertilizing some grounds, and overflowing others; changing the whole form of social life; establishing and overthrowing religions; erecting and destroying kingdoms.” “Hold,” said Louis, “shall these changes come in our time?” “No, my royal brother,” replied the astrologer, “this invention may be likened to a young tree, which is now newly planted, but shall, in succeeding generations, bear fruit as fatal, yet as precious, as that of the Garden of Eden; the knowledge, namely, of good and evil.”

Anne of Geierstein is to a certain extent a sequel to Quentin Durward. The time of the story is four years later; the scene is laid in the mountains of Switzerland. The romance reveals the power of the Vehmic tribunal of Westphalia, a secret organization, whose bloody executions gave to the east of Germany the name of the Red Land. It portrays faithfully the heroic character of the Swiss people who preferred peace to war, but accepted war when the issue meant liberty or servitude.

Two travelers, apparently English merchants, are benighted near the ruined castle of Geierstein. They are hospitably entertained, and after a few days’ delay, they join a Swiss embassy on its way to the Court of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, the mission of which embassy was to ask redress for injuries done to the Helvetian Cantons. On their journey they meet with a warlike adventure in which the English travelers have opportunity to display their courage and judgment. They are imprisoned and released; the elder has the misfortune of falling into the hands of the Vehmic court, and the rare good fortune of being released; and so the story moves on as it were from one ambuscade to another, until they reach the court and army of the proud Duke of Burgundy.

They meet en route at a Cathedral in Strasburg, Queen Margaret of Anjou, who in the bloody struggle between the House of York and Lancaster had been driven from the English throne. This meeting reveals the fact that the English travelers are no less personages than the Earl of Oxford and his son, who are on their way to persuade, if possible, the Duke of Burgundy to give his support to the House of Lancaster. The duke promises relief; but circumstances combine with his rashness to prevent the proffered aid. He proposes at first to subdue the haughty Swiss. He dismisses their embassy with scorn, and prepares for a fruitless war in spite of the noble plea of the white haired Landamman: “And what can the noble Duke of Burgundy gain by such a strife? Is it wealth and plunder? Alas, my lord, there is more gold and silver on the very bridle-bits of your Highness’ household troops than can be found in the public treasures or private hoards of our whole confederacy. Is it fame and glory you aspire to? There is little honor to be won by a numerous army over a few scattered bands, by men clad in mail over half-armed husbandmen and shepherds—of such conquest small was the glory. But if, as all Christian men believe, and as it is the constant trust of my countrymen, from memory of the times of our fathers—if the Lord of Hosts should cast the balance in behalf of the fewer numbers and worse-armed party, I leave it with your Highness to judge, what in that event would be the diminution of worship and fame. Is it extent of vassalage and dominion your Highness desires, by warring with your mountain neighbors? Know that you may, if it be God’s will, gain our barren and rugged mountains; but, like our ancestors of old, we will seek refuge in wilder and more distant solitudes, and when we have resisted to the last, we will starve in the icy wastes of the glaciers. Ay, men, women and children, we will be frozen into annihilation together, ere one free Switzer will acknowledge a foreign master.”

Well would it have been if the stubborn duke had listened to these words; for Louis the Eleventh was already making peace with the English king, and the balance of power which the duke had held for so many years was slipping from his grasp forever. He attacks the Swiss in their mountain fastnesses, and pays for his rashness with his life. The haughty Queen Margaret dies, and for the time the hope of the House of Lancaster perishes.

But does some fair reader ask: Who is Anne of Geierstein? Is the book all history? Ask the son of the Earl of Oxford, and he will tell you that Anne was the fair maiden who rescued him from a perilous rock the night they were lost near the castle of Geierstein; that she was with the embassy on her way to visit her father; that she again rescued him from imprisonment and death; and after the fall of the House of Lancaster the Swiss maiden becomes his bride.

“But the star of Lancaster,” in the language of Scott, “began again to culminate, and called the banished lord and his son from their retirement, to mix once more in politics, and soon thereafter was fought the celebrated battle of Bosworth, in which the arms of Oxford and his son contributed so much to the success of Henry the Seventh. This changed the destinies of young Oxford and his bride; but it is said that the manners and beauty of Anne of Geierstein attracted as much admiration at the English Court as formerly in the Swiss chalet.”