The Blackmailer and His Wife -- Sir Walter Scott's Rob Roy

There are a few times in the novel Rob Roy were Sir Walter Scott makes reference to Joseph Addison. In all the instances, Scott kind of makes fun of Addison. In his Lives of the Poets, Samuel Johnson idolizes Joseph Addison, along with Sir Richard Steele, as the creators of the "Tatler" and "Spectator," two daily papers that helped to broaden the average English person's knowledge and conversation base, as well as his manners and the regularity of his language.

The way Johnson puts it, he makes Addison sound like a master of style, a kind of first proponent of "cool." Sir Walter Scott makes Addison's work sound like a bit of a bore.

In the introduction to Rob Roy, Scott actually seems to pit Rob Roy, as an ideal, against Joseph Addison and the poet Alexander Pope. Scott says:

"[Rob Roy] owed his fame in a great measure to residing on the very verge of the Highlands, and playing such pranks in the beginning of the 18th century, as are usually ascribed to Robin Hood in the middle ages -- and that within forty miles of Glasgow, a great commercial city, the seat of a learned university. Thus a character like his, blending the wild virtues, with subtle policy, and unrestrained license of an American Indian, was flourishing in Scotland during the Augustan age of Queen Anne and George I. Addison, it is probable, or Pope, would have been considerably surprised if they had known that there existed on the same island with them a personage of Rob Roy's peculiar habits and profession."

I'm not really sure whether Addison would have been too surprised. But Samuel Johnson would certainly have been surprised. Johnson can barely believe when a grocer's son becomes an official letter-writer for a queen, or when a joiner's son becomes the man negotiating peace between England and France. And I think Sir Walter Scott might think of Addison as being like Johnson.

Anyhow, Scott himself, in his introduction to Rob Roy, paints a less than favorable picture of Rob Roy. I'm not sure if there's an additional story to Scott's Introduction. It was written in 1829, it appears, while Rob Roy was first published, I believe in 1818. So there might have been a kind of change of attitude in Scott regarding Rob Roy between the time he wrote his novel and the time he wrote the introduction.

The introduction to the book is really good. But I think I'm going to leave it to the side for a bit. The truth is, there's a lot of history in Rob Roy. And I feel like part of Scott's whole point to writing the introduction is that he wasn't able to put all this copious history into the novel.

But it's a good thing he didn't. One of the really nice things about the book is that it is an historical novel, but that it lets history play the role of backstory, rather than smashing up, sometimes awkwardly, against the action of the story.

The main character of the book, Francis Osbaldistone, finds himself up in the north of England, and eventually in Scotland. He finds himself in all these places because of the action of the story. And as he finds himself in each new place, he learns more about the history of the place.

Like Sir Walter Scott's quote above says, Rob Roy, or "Red Rob" MacGregor, was thought of as a Robin Hood of the 18th century. He was, in general, a cattle rustler -- although, at that time in Scotland, cattle rustling wasn't thought of as such a bad thing.

He was also a "blackmailer." Blackmailing was something a bit different than what we think of it nowadays. Actually -- I was at the Paley Center for Media in New York City today. The Paley Center is what used to be known as the Museum of TV and Radio.

It's basically a library full of computer screens. You sit down at the computer screens and pull up old TV shows. It's not so different from YouTube. Actually, sometimes YouTube is easier to navigate and has better availability of stuff to watch. But Paley actually has some really interesting items, that you can only see at Paley. Plus, it's nice to be in a room with a lot of other people, all watching all different kinds of TV shows.

Anyway, I watched the first episode of Days of Our Lives, from 1965, I guess. In the episode, the patriarch, Dr. Horton, jokingly mentions blackmailing his son with a photo he has of him as a three-month-old baby. Dr. Horton's son is now a lawyer, and Dr. Horton's wife says, therefore, that the son would probably not be too worried about blackmail.

I watched a few minutes of another show, a detective show called Honey West. Honey is a female detective. At the beginning of this show she is trying to obtain negatives of a photo that a man is trying to blackmail a rich woman with. The man is threatening that if he doesn't get fifty thousand dollars from the woman, he'll publicize the pictures.

So, in these examples, you can see what we think of as blackmail: a person threatening to do something to somebody unless the threatened person does soemthing for the threatening person. Usually the threatening person wants money. And usually the person is threatened with something that would ruin his social standing.

But in Rob Roy's day, blackmail was the taking or giving of payment in exchange for protection of lands. In Rob Roy's day, the early eighteenth century, Scotland ran rampant with cattle thieves. Cattle thieves weren't necessarily looked down on. But, still, people didn't want their cattle stolen.

So Scottish chieftains, warrior chiefs, were paid to "protect" certain lands for the owners of those lands. They didn't necessarily protect the lands, according to Sir Walter Scott. They would simply allow only a certain amount of cattle to be stolen. They would then take a cut of the money from the sale of the stolen cattle. They might even give a cut of this cut to the owner of the stolen cattle. But if they were paid to "protect" the lands, according to my understanding of Scott, they only allowed a certain amount of cattle to be stolen.

In America, we've had the tradition with the mafia, of "protection." It's a similar idea. As the mafia movies tell us, some guy opens up a shop, let's say, in New York City. The mafia muscles in on him and tells him, "You pay us, we'll protect you." The guy asks what would happen if he didn't pay them for protection. The mafia implies, at least in the mafia movies, that they'll rob or wreck the guy's shop.

In this sense, "protection" isn't protection. It's easy money. And this is basically the idea that Scott gives us, in his introduction and throughout his novel, about the tactic of blackmail in Scotland.

But Rob Roy is the mysterious hero of Scott's novel. Francis Osbaldistone is the main character and the real hero. But he's kind of an innocent young man, going through a kind of coming of age or initiation ritual in his journey from London into the Highlands of Scotland.

Rob Roy is -- really, a kind of constant deus ex Machina. He's always appearing at just the right moment to save everybody from all kinds of trouble. He kind of reminds me of The Lone Ranger. Everybody always asks, "Who was that masked man?"

But how is this mysterious hero such a morally ambiguous kind of person? Well... that's kind of a silly question for a 21st century American to ask. It's been decades since our comic book superheroes have been anything other than morally ambiguous. And the characters of comic books like Watchmen are living in a world that would, I often think, make Charles II's poets blush.

And that's the point, in a way. Poetically, Rob Roy is a kind of counterpoint to the poets Samuel Johnson held up as exemplary, while being something more like the people whose lives Johnson holds up as disgusting. Scott seems to want to show that there is something admirable in the life of Rob Roy, while Rob Roy is not always the most exemplary a character.

I think that by Sir Walter Scott's time, Abraham Cowley had been smothered out of view by Johnson's criticism, while poets like Joseph Addison had been cultivated into favor. In the meantime, other poets were completely forgotten, most likely because Johnson said their poetry wasn't worth anything at all.

One good representative of this class, from the first half of the second volume of Johnson's Lives, is Sheffield of Buckinghamshire. Sheffield doesn't seem to have written any poetry of merit. But his Life is incredible. He fought in a number of different wars. He didn't just fight bravely on the sea, in the midst of a rain of bullets and cannon balls: he was so cool-headed that he actually made scientific observations regarding the projectiles. Like this one, which Johnson records:

"I have observed two things, which I dare affirm, though not generally believed. One was, that the wind of a cannon-bullet, though flying never so near, is incapable of doing the least harm; and, indeed, were it otherwise, no man above deck would escape. The other was, that a great shot may sometimes be avoided, even as it flies, by changing one's ground a little; for, when the wind sometimes blew away the smoke, it was so clear a sun-shiny day that we could easily perceive the bullets (that were half-spent) fall into the water, and from thence bound up again among us, which gives sufficient time for making a step or two on any side; though, in so swift a motion, 'tis hard to judge so well in what line the bullet comes, which, if mistaken, may by removing, cost a man his life instead of saving it."

This was early in Sheffield's life, when he was fighting at sea against the Dutch, during the reign of King Charles II. But Sheffield also fought for King James II. King William, even though he liked Sheffield, was a bit suspicious of Sheffield, because Sheffield was very loyal to King James. So Sheffield didn't get as much of a chance to act (or be compensated for his actions) during the reign of King William.

But Sheffield had actually courted Queen Anne. So when Queen Anne took the throne, Sheffield was given a number of titles and preferments. But Sheffield disagreed with Queen Anne, like he'd disagreed with King William, on a number of things. He virtually retired from business -- although he was by that time wealthy enough to build Buckingham House, an estate large enough to accommodate the tastes, a few decades later, of Queen Charlotte.

What little show in the business world Sheffield made were put to a complete halt once King George took the throne -- Sheffield was a total opponent of King George. And so Sheffield busied himself in writing tragedies until his death in 1721.

After Johnson so captivatingly relates to us Sheffield's life of bravery in war, honesty in politics, and achievement in business, Johnson then goes on to completely ruin Sheffield's reputation by calling saying that Sheffield has a Hobbesian religious outlook (bad in those days), loose morality, terrible views regarding women, a gambler's idea of property, and tendencies toward covetousness, idleness, and neglect.

Johnson seems to believe that the lives of great, active men are often full of great fault. Even scholars, like Milton, Dryden, and Addison, seem to have the great fault -- of being too scholarly. But the vices of men of action are, according to Johnson, often the lives of licentiousness. And, when it comes to the poetry of these men, it often falls flat, in Johnson's opinion. Like Johnson says of Sheffield:

"His verses are often insipid; but his memoirs are lively and agreeable; he had the perspicuity and elegance of an historian, but not the fire and the fancy of a poet."

Again, another poet too wild for Johnson's tastes -- like Cowley. And -- like Cowley, this poet is "cold" he doesn't have "fire" or "fancy." He's another man of action, like Prior. And -- like Prior, he is more of an historian than a poet. Prior could write tales, according to Johnson, but not poetry. Sheffield can write memoirs, but not poetry.

Johnson is most likely correct about the high quality of Prior's tales and Sheffield's memoirs. But Johnson's overall criticism of Sheffield reduces him in the sight of so many people that his reputation, I'd argue, has just withered away. If people can't put a few of his poems into a book, and say what Johnson said about him, he likely won't go into an anthology. So he won't be remembered. His memoirs won't be used in an anthology -- regardless of what Johnson says about them -- because they aren't poetry.

I don't think Abraham Cowley was much of a factor in English poetry by Scott's time. I don't think Scott would have really conceived of Cowley. And I think that was largely because of Johnson.

But the stance that Johnson seems to have taken against Cowley, against wild speech, and for Joseph Addison, and his promotion of refined, easy, cool-headed speech, seems to be opposed, by Scott, by the use of Rob Roy and his kinsmen -- especially his wife Helen MacGregor, who gives some of the most beautiful speeches in the book.

Here is a passage that Scott puts into the mouth of his main character, Francis Osbaldistone, regarding the speech of Helen MacGregor and the Scots:

"There was a strong provincial accentuation, but otherwise, the language rendered by Helen MacGregor, out of the native and poetical Gaelic, into the English, which she had acquired as we do learned tongues, but had probably never heard applied to the mean purposes of ordinary life, was graceful, flowing, and declamatory. Her husband, who in his time had played many parts, used a much less elevated and emphatic dialect; -- but even his language rose in purity of expression, as you may have remarked, if I had been accurate in recording it, when the affairs which he discussed were of an agitating and important nature; and it appears to me in his case, and in that of some other Highlanders whom I have known, that when familiar and facetious they use the Lowland Scottish dialect -- when serious and impassioned, their thoughts arranged themselves in the idiom of their native language; and in the latter case, as they uttered the corresponding ideas in English, the expressions sounded wild, elevated, and poetical. In fact, the language of passion is almost always pure as well as vehement, and it is no uncommon thing to hear a Scotchman, when overwhelmed by a countryman with a tone of bitter and fluent upbraiding, reply by way of taunt to his adversary, 'You have gotten to your English.'"

One interesting thing about this passage is that Scott uses the word "vehement," which Johnson always uses in terms of the controversy writers. One part of John Milton's career that Johnson absolutely hates is Milton's spreading of controversy. And Johnson always calls these writings of Milton's "vehement." But as well as this language being "vehement," it is also "wild, elevated, and poetical." This language of "passion," having all the characteristics opposite of what Johnson thinks of as poetical, is actually a strongly poetic language, for Scott.

Compare the passage above with Johnson's passage below, which I love, just as much as I love the above passage by Scott:

"It has been suggested that the Royal Society was instituted soon after the Restoration, to divert the attention of the people from publick discontent. The 'Tatler' and 'Spectator' had the same tendency: they were published at a time when two parties, loud, restless, and violent, each with plausible declarations, and each perhaps without any distinct termination of its views, were agitating the nation; to minds heated with political contest, they supplied cooler and more inoffensive reflections; and it is said by Addison, in a subsequent work, that they had a perceptible influence upon the conversation of that time, and taught the frolick and the gay to unite merriment with decency; an effect which they can never wholly lose, while they continue to be among the first books by which both sexes are initiated in the elegances of knowledge."

So we have through Scott's passage, a picture of a Rob Roy who, because he is more experienced with the world outside the Highlands than his wife Helen is, can speak English with a jocular kind of style, known as the Lowlands dialect.

Rob Roy has become experienced enough in the world, through trading (stolen) cattle to the Lowland Scottish and Northern English, that he can speak a freer kind of language. But this is just the kind of language that I'm sure Johnson would think is vulgar, while Scott declares that the less refined, less experienced person of the married couple, Helen, is only capable of speaking in an elegant language.

Nevertheless, for Rob Roy, the freer language isn't the language of his heart. His emotions are similar with his wife's emotions. His business experience only gives him the ability to wear the mask of the freer language. For Rob Roy, the world of an Addison, where people may have the leisure or freedom to fashion their thoughts in such a way as "to unite merriment with decency," is not Rob Roy's world.

Rob Roy is, first of all, an outlaw, by circumstance. Secondly, he comes from a family which has, for over a hundred years, and up until only recently, been banned from using their own name, "MacGregor," due to the criminal acts of some of their ancestors. Third, Scotland, having united with England, now must adhere to England's principles, and to a King which, apparently, not much of Scotland actually likes.

When we first meet Rob Roy, at the beginning of the book, he heaps "preferments" onto everybody at the table of a public house, as Johnson seems to relate to us the preferments often heaped upon some of the more active men among his poets. Rob Roy declares:

"'Gentlemen... I havna much dubitation that King George weel deserves the predilection of his friends; and if he can haud the grip he has gotten, why, doubtless, he may make the gauger, here, a commissioner of the revenue, and confer on our friend, Mr. Quitam, the preferment of solicitor-general; and he may also grant some good deed or reward to this honest gentleman who is sitting upon his portmanteau, which he prefers to a chair: And questionless, King James is also a grateful person, and when he gets his hand in play, he may, if he be so minded, make this reverend gentleman Archprelate of Canterbury, and Dr. Mixit chief physician to his household, and commit his royal beard to my friend Latherum. But as I doubt mickle whether any of the competing sovereigns would give Rob Campbell a tass of aquivitae, if he lacked it, I give my vote and interest to Jonathan Brown, our landlord, to be the King and Prince of Skinkers, conditionally that he fetches us another bottle, as good as the last.'"

In one sense, this could just be a typical game of imagining greatness. Kids crown each other King, Queen, Princess, or Knight, all the time. But this heaping of preferments does seem to be a lot like Johnson's litany of preferments, titles, and positions in many of his Lives.

But what Rob Roy is really stating here is his resentment that he would never be approved of by the King. Rob Roy, we find out later in the book, actually has a price on his head in Scotland, at least. He's an outlaw, like Robin Hood, except a bit shadier.

But Rob Roy's real problem seems to be the situation of Scotland. Scotland's Union with England has put Scotland, it seems, under England's complete subjection. Scotland no longer even has a parliament of its own. There is no real freedom, then, for the Scots. Or -- at least this is what Rob Roy's thoughts seem to be.

In the novel, Helen MacGregor, Rob Roy's wife, is definitely of this sentiment. Rob Roy might take a bit of a different view of the whole situation. But Rob Roy is definitely more driven by Helen than he is, often, by his own emotions.

Rob Roy was, the novel says, driven to his life as an outlaw, not by the Union of England and Scotland, but by a financial crisis, which led him to lose his money. He was driven into bankruptcy and had his lands taken away from him, not by an Englishman, but by another Scotsman.

The shame of losing the family lands seems to have affected Helen's pride worse than it affected Rob Roy's pride. And it appears that Helen has become a sort of chieftain to the chieftain, driving Rob Roy not only to be an outlaw, but to be something of a revolutionary.

At least, I should say, this is how I understand it. A lot of the backstory of the book is written in the Scottish dialect, which I think I did fine with. But I don't think I caught every bit and piece. And, when push comes to shove, I feel a lot like Willfred, the fool of the family, of whom Francis says, during the small Scottish uprising near the end of the book:

"I have heard he was never able exactly to comprehend the cause of the battle, and did not uniformly remember, on which king's side he was engaged."

The two Kings are King George and King James. James was still alive, though he had been dethroned (two monarchs previous to George). There were many in England, mostly the Catholics, who were trying to bring King James back to the throne. But in Scotland there was a large contingent of people working for a revolution against King George and for King James.

The groups of people fighting for King James were -- I think -- called the Jacobites. And a larger Jacobite uprising actually occurred, I believe, toward the middle of the eighteenth century in Scotland and the North of England. But the smaller Jacobite uprising, which is foreshadowed through most of the book, and which forms a few episodes toward the end of the book, is the type of event which Helen MacGregor hopes to drive her husband toward.

In fact, many of the problems in the book seem to arise from Rob Roys attempts, largely inspired by his wife, to get some kind of strategic information which will really make a Jacobite uprising from Scotland down into England possible.

But because of his dealings as both an outlaw and a revolutionary, Rob Roy, though he is always doing business with people, is always on the outskirts of society. And he feels like he is simply doomed to be that way. He was once a law-abiding citizen. But circumstances have made him something else. And now he has to live that way.

But -- because he was born into the clan of the MacGregors -- a clan that for so long wasn't even able to use its own name -- he feels a dark shadow over the destiny, not only of his own life, but over the lives of his family.

This is illustrated toward the end of the book, when one of Rob Roy's cousins, Nicol Jarvie, a Scottish merchant and judge (?) who lives in Glasgow and has done much to help out Francis Osbaldistone, the hero of the story, offers to educate Rob Roy's two sons, Robin and Hamish, at no charge. Rob Roy becomes annoyed -- almost violently annoyed -- at Jarvie's attempts to convince Rob Roy.

Rob Roy seems to believe that he's stuck in this kind of life -- that his whole family is stuck in this kind of life. But I think that his real reason for not sending Robin and Hamish to be educated by Jarvie is that he's afraid of his wife. His wife would hear nothing of a Glasgow man -- a Lowland Scotland man -- raising her two sons! Lowland Scotland is just as bad as England in her eyes. And England is an abomination for her.

Helen even regrets the fact that Rob Roy has to do any kind of business with the Lowland Scots or the English. And, in her opinion, any time he does business with them, he ends up only bringing trouble on himself. Nobody ever remembers or is grateful for what he's done for them. Helen says of Rob Roy that:

"'Wise only when the bonnet is on his head, and the sword is in his hand, he never exchanges the tartan for the broad-cloth, but he runs himself into the miserable intriguies of the Lowlanders, and becomes again, after all he has suffered, their agent -- their tool -- their slave.'"

When Francis wishes for Helen to add "benefactor" to the epithets, Helen replies:

"'Be it so... for it is the most empty title of them all, since he has uniformly sown benefits to reap a harvest of the most foul ingratitude.'"

Helen herself fights in battles, and, in Rob Roy's absence, is herself a leader of the Scotch warriors. She drives the men on with her vehement, impassioned speech. And it seems pretty obvious that she drives on Rob Roy in the same way.

In the introduction to Rob Roy, however -- maybe I didn't read carefully enough -- Scott's "historical" Rob Roy doesn't seem to be driven on as much by Helen as the fictional Rob Roy. I only found three solid references to Helen.

In one of these references, Rob Roy's wife has been extremely insulted by one of the men to whom Rob Roy owes a large debt. In another one of them, just before Rob Roy is set to get into a fight, Helen hides the sword of the opponent (although the opponent manages to find a sword and actually scare Rob Roy away). In the final reference, when Rob Roy was an aged man and dying, Scott says:

"He expressed some contrition for particular parts of his life. His wife laughed at these scruples of conscience, and exhorted him to die like a man, as he had lived. In reply, he rebuked her for her violent passions, and the counsels she had given him. 'You have put strife,' he said, 'betwixt me and the best men of the country, and now you would place enmity between me and my God.'"

But, I would assume, from my understanding of Scott's ideas, that the best men in the country, in Rob Roy's opinion, were Highland Scots, not Lowland Scots. Englishmen weren't even included in the statement.

So, it would seem that the historical Rob Roy was on his own as far as being a revolutionary was concerned. Scott implies in the Introduction that the "historical" Rob Roy was actually carrying out the strategy of war much like the common blackmailer of the Scottish days carried out the strategy of "protection." Scott was actually fighting, if not for King George, then at least in such a way that King George wouldn't lose through any action of Rob Roy's warriors.

In one decisive battle, as Scott relates, Rob Roy even stood, with his men, up at the top of a hill, while other Scottish clans fought the British. When it became clear that the Scots were not going to win the battle, Rob Roy had his men charge down the hill.

Rob Roy, with the men, didn't arrive at the scene of battle in time to do much else than plunder the purses of the dead men lying on the field. This eventually became the notorious subject of a satirical poem which Scott quotes.

Again, regarding the education of Rob Roy's sons, Scott gives us a scene that shows the "historical" Rob Roy as a man who believes that his life is the exemplary life. Instead of having to fend off a relative who wishes to educate his children, Rob Roy has to be -- very delicately -- dissuaded from almost kidnapping one of his relatives' children, so that he can educate him in the life of a blackmailer.

"At length the perplexed Professor pleaded that his son was very young, and in an infirm state of health, and not yet able to endure the hardships of a mountain life; but that in another year or two he hoped his health would be firmly established, and he would be in a fitting condition to attend on his brave kinsman, and follow out the splendid destinies to which he opened the way. This agreement being made, the cousins parted, -- Rob Roy pledging his honour to carry his young relation to the hills with him on his next return to Aberdeenshire, and Dr. Gregory, doubtless, praying in his secret soul that he might never see Rob's Highland face again."

Then why does Scott show his fictional Rob Roy to be the kind of man he is? The Rob Roy of the novel is a hero -- almost like The Lone Ranger, except with a few moral ambiguities. But his moral ambiguities don't stop him from being directed in action, eloquent, brave, and diligent. The "historical" Rob Roy, as Scott shows him, lacks each of these virtues in turn, story by story. And why is Helen such a driving force in the "fictional" Rob Roy's life, when she doesn't seem to have been such in the "historical" Rob Roy's life?

The answer is that Rob Roy is a kind of "medicine" for the hero, Francis Osbaldistone. Like I said earlier, the story of Rob Roy, from Francis' viewpoint, is a kind of coming of age story.

The story begins with Francis coming home from France, where he's been tutored by one of his father's business relations. But Francis hasn't been very strictly tutored, for a number of reasons. Francis has developed a taste for poetry. There are a few examples of his poetry. They seem fine enough. But as Francis himself warns us, these were the early years of the eighteenth century, when poets were thought of as impoverished drunkards and thieves.

Francis' father is educating Francis so he can take over the family business -- one, apparently, of the most famous banking houses in all of London. But Francis doesn't want to have anything to do with his old man's business. He'd rather be a poet.

Francis' father tells Francis that he'll either take over the business or be disowned. Francis, as hard-headed as his father, decides he'd rather be disowned. So, instead of being completely disowned, Francis is sent up to the North of England, to Northumberland, to Osbaldistone Hall, to live with his Uncle Hildebrand Osbaldistone. Hildebrand is to send down one of his own sons to live with Francis' father and be educated so that he may take over the business.

The cousin who is chosen to live with Francis' father is a young man named Rashleigh. I think both Francis and Rashleigh are about the same age -- about twenty years old. Rashleigh is, before he even steps onto the stage, the villain of the piece. He had been studying for the priesthood (Hildebrand's family, despite being English, are Roman Catholics).

But Rashleigh hasn't been studying in order to save men's souls. He admits to Francis later in the book that he's been working to become a priest because he wants the power of the priesthood: he wants Kings kneeling before him.

Rashleigh has involved himself, through Rob Roy, with the minor Jacobite uprising that takes place at the end of the book. And for the ends of the revolt (I think -- I'm not totally sure), Rashleigh, upon arriving in London and gaining the trust of Francis' father, takes advantage of being in almost complete control of the Osbaldistone banking-house in order to cause a few troubles with accounts in Scotland. These accounts also threaten to bankrupt the Osbaldistone banking house. They also threaten, through some machinations I didn't understand, to incite the Jacobite Scots into an uprising.

Rashleigh has, by this point, removed himself from London up to Glasgow. Francis, learning all the details of Rashleigh's deceits, goes up to Glasgow to try to find either Francis, the records of the accounts that Francis has absconded with, or both.

In the meantime, Francis has fallen in love with one of his distant cousins, Diana, or "Die," Vernon. Die has a past that she is reluctant to share with Francis. But she is also an extremely elegant, almost brashly honest person. She lives in a mansion filled with men. But she can do anything the men can do. She's also been trained to be incredibly intelligent.

As part of her past, Die has been contracted to marry one of her cousins at Osbaldistone Hall. The patriarch of the Hall, Francis' Uncle Hildebrand, will make the decision on the marriage. Rashleigh had hoped he'd be the one who could marry Die. But she rejected him. So he took to the idea of becoming a priest. In the meantime, he still harbored a violently jealous love for her.

Francis and Rashleigh, before Rashleigh leaves for London, get into fights as Rashleigh tries to pit Francis against Die -- it's obvious how much Francis and Die feel for each other, and Rashleigh doesn't want that relationship to work out at all. Rashleigh and Francis part with animosity. This animosity is renewed when Rashleigh and Francis again meet in Glasgow.

But Die's secret is eventually revealed. Her father, a Jacobite was involved in a previous revolution. It is rumored that he's died. But he is only lying low Northumberland until the political climate becomes more favorable for him. Die's father is such a staunch Jacobite that he won't hear of Die marrying a non-Catholic.

There's no question of Die marrying someone like Francis, who, Francis tells us, due to the cosmpolitan education of France, doesn't have a very specific religion at all. So it looks, over and over again, like Die and Francis are going to be split apart forevery. This is the technique, Anne Carson tells us in her book Eros the Bittersweet, of a good romance. I'm not sure what Scott would think about that. But I agree.

Anyhow -- after a number of scenes of Francis working his way up into Glasgow, and then up into the Highlands, in order to receive the documents to save his father's business -- Francis finally decides that he will, after all, compromise with his father and work at the family bank.

Rob Roy, then, is an image that Francis has of himself: the wild poet with the passionate voice. He also sees Helen as Die Vernon.

Francis, through a kind of pampered, undisciplined life, has figured that he can live a life without any focus, without any kind of business purpose. Die Vernon has lived as the daughter of a revolutionary, and has had to harden and focus her mind, close off her emotions, more than a woman would in those days. So Scott sees these two young people, Francis and Die, as people who have, due to their life histories, grown up a bit out of tune with their natures and with the nature of society.

Like Camille Paglia would say about Shakespeare's As You Like It, the aim of the story is to bring the two young lovers into a kind of integration with their society. The same thing is going on for Francis and Die all throughout Rob Roy.

Rob Roy is the wild part of Francis. Francis has to see that the wild part of himself can be effective, can save him and protect him. Once he has allowed himself to recognize that it can act as a functional part of himself, he can integrate it into himself. But he can't integrate that part into himself -- and thereafter integrate himself into society -- until that part of himself has shown that it can protect him. And, thus, Francis must go on his initiation ritual.

Helen, as Francis' anima, is a strong and extremely eloquent character. She's in charge of all the Highlanders -- all of the male elements of Francis' mind. But she has experienced a great deal of shame. When Francis first meets Die, she's partly like a stately, refined English woman, and partly like the brave but rude Helen. Like Helen, Die lives all among men. Like Helen, Die can do anything the men surrounding her do, equally well, if not better.

Die's family history is her own history. And I'm sure that one could easily see this story as Die's unconscious journey just as easily as they could see it as Francis' journey. But Die's family history is also a projection of Francis' own experience with his anima onto Die. So, seeing Die, Francis gets a first glimpse of his anima.

Just as a side note, this double-view is a characteristic that Sir Walter Scott shares with Western novel writer Zane Grey. Many of his books could be seen as initiation rituals for young men. And the women in those stories could be seen as anima projections. But, I believe, especially in the books The Thundering Herd, Wildfire, and Desert Gold -- the conclusion of which, by the way, is, formally, very similar to that of Rob Roy -- the journey could just as easily be seen as the woman's rite of passaage, and the man could just as easily be seen as the woman's animus projection.

But, for purposes of the example, let's look, for now, at Die Vernon as holding, at least to some degree, the projection of Francis' anima.

In the form of Helen, the anima, in her full strength, is driving Francis away from integrating himself into society (his father's business), and into a kind of profession which, at that time, was pretty much synonymous with drunken dissolution (or envelopment in the unconscious, which would mean complete possession by the anima).

Francis is given an image of himself, by turning his back on society, as a rebellion, a rebellion as noble as that of a subjugated country against the ruling country. But his anima only has the power she has to convince him of this because she is imprisoned in the space in which she is imprisoned by society -- a society of men.

Francis has been exiled to France, in a manner of speaking, by his father. It is obvious throughout the book that Francis and his father share a loving relationship. But their relationship is definitely one that the father rules. Maybe the father rules the relationship a bit too much, and a bit too cruelly.

Francis has no space, in his feelings, for the world of men, because, it seems to him, his father controls it so completely. So he exiles his sensitivity, his anima, deep in his unconscious, just like he's been exiled to France.

I think this idea, that Francis' emotions were too overpowered by his father as such a dominant male, so that his anima became not only an exile, but a figure that drove Francis on to hard-headed rebellion, is reinforced by a lot of the speeches that Die gives -- as the kind of first view, or projected-view, that Francis gets of the anima.

In these speeces, Die often laments being born a woman at all. She actually gives three reasons for her discontent, which I will condense, as they take place in the midst of a dialogue on sympathy between Die and Francis (in which Francis keeps pledging sympathy, and then keeps criticizing everything Die says):

"'There are three things for which I am much to be pitied, if any one thought it worth while to waste any compassion upon me.

"'In the first place, I am a girl, and not a young fellow, and would be shut up in a madhouse if I did half the things I had a mind to; -- and that, if I had your happy prerogative of acting as you list, would make all the world mad with imitating and applauding me....

"'The second count of my indictment against fortune... [is that] I belong to an oppressed sect and antiquated religion, and, instead of getting credit for my devotion, as is due to all good girls beside, my kind friend, Justice Inglewood, may send me to the house of correction, merely for worshipping God in the way of my ancestors....

"'My third cause of vexation... [is that] I am by nature, as you may easily observe, of a frank and unreserved disposition -- a plain, true-hearted girl, who would willingly act openly and honestly by the whole world, and yet fate has involved me in such a series of nets and toils, and entanglements, that I dare hardly speak a word for fear of consequences -- not to myself, but to others.'"

In all of these instances, Die mentions either the possibility of being entrapped or the actual state of bieng entrapped. But she has just rescued her cousin from being imprisoned by Justice Inglewood, the judge she says "may send [her] to the house of correction."

Francis is threatened with imprisonment, sent to rescue friends from prison (and getting trapped there himself), captured as a traitor by British soldiers, and captured as a traitor by Scottish soldiers.

It is only in the last case that Francis is subjugated by a female. But by that time, he's far up North (which, I'm coming to learn, after having read William Morris, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and, now, Sir Walter Scott, must be, or must have been, an aspect of the unconscious for the English). He's finally in the realm of the anima. And he is under her control.

Die is, personally, entrapped in her contracted marriage to an Osbaldistone. Her only other option is to become a nun. But, being entrapped, as a woman, in society, she also stands for Francis -- who has been so overwhelmed by male society that he has had to exile his anima deep into his unconscious.

But certain elements of Francis' male side, also in a state of underdevelopment, also exiled to Francis' unconscious, are under the control of Francis' anima. The strongest of these male figures is Rob Roy, who enters the outskirts of the conscious world, scarcely going farther south (or scarcely going farther into the English conscious), than Northumberland.

However, once Francis has come face to face with his anima, once he has been imprisoned by her, like Rob Roy had been imprisoned by her, he learns that Rob Roy has been imprisoned, by male, English soldiers. Francis and Rob Roy have changed places. Now Francis is sent, by the anima, to rescue Rob Roy for her.

Francis meets the English troops and Rob Roy. Rob Roy makes a daring escape -- for which, it seems, Francis needed to be there. Francis, inspired, in turn, by Rob Roy, later makes an escape as well. They both escape by means of a river.

After Francis has escaped from the English troops, outwitting the English troops, by himself, with help neither from Die Vernon, Rob Roy, or Helen MacGregor, Francis is met, mysteriously, on the road by Die Vernon, who, apparently escaping from Britain altogether with a mysterious man, hands all Francis' father's account documents back to Francis. Somehow Die has managed to steal these accounts away from the villain Rashleigh, in order to restore Francis' father's business.

Not long after Die and the man disappear, Francis is again met on the road by Rob Roy. Rob Roy and Francis approach Rob Roy's wife Helen, and Helen takes a much milder tone. Rob Roy and Francis have, to a certain degree, managed some kind of integration of personality in a functional way, and are able to withstand the world of male society, which was previously overwhelming. So Helen, as the anima, is less able to possess the male aspects of the personality.

This, I think, also would explain why Rob Roy is so against his two sons, Hamish and Robin, being instructed by their Uncle Nicol Jarvie. Rob Roy is an element of the unconscious, or, possibly, of the pre-conscious -- like a dream. His sons may be a mix between the unconscious anima and himself. They live in a kind of liminal world. They can't be brought out into Jarvie's world of the conscious. Rob Roy has to resist such an offer. Every part of personality must be integrated as it is.

The remainder of the book follows this development. But I think I'd like to leave some of the final scenes alone. They're probably a lot more fun when you read them freshly, without anybody telling you what happens. I think it's fine to give away a lot of the surprising scenes in a book.

Sometimes, in complicated books, it's actually helpful to talk about some of the scenes -- I mean, just to say right out what happens in them. I've always appreciated books or essays that did that kind of thing, simply because then it helps me know what to look for in the language. It helps me read difficult passages. The scenes don't lose any excitement. The excitement may actually be enhanced.

But I don't feel so comfortable doing that with the final scenes in books, since there's something about the freshness of the scene that makes it exciting. So I'll leave the final exciting scenes for you all to read.

The Hierarchy of "Cool" -- Johnson's Lives of the Poets, Volume Two (Part One)

(Note: The quotes below are from the Bohn's Standard Library version of Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets, edited by Mrs. Alexander Napier. The rights-free version of the text is available for download on Google Books.)

One of my favorite contemporary authors, William Gibson, famed for his cyberpunk Neuromancer novel, has said, on some You Tube post I saw from him from around the time, I think, of the release of his novel Spook Country, that he believed that the idea of "cool" came as a result of the Industrial Revolution.

I actually just did some hunting and found the YouTube post: William Gibson on Cool

"Cool" -- that modern idiom of fashionable approval which rules so much of our lives -- is a big theme in Gibson's work. His main character in the novel Pattern Recognition, Cayce Pollard, I believe, has the job of being a "Coolhunter," a real-world job, apparently, where a person is assigned to judge the "coolness" of a product or logo -- i.e. its acceptability by a wide audience.

As I understood Gibson, "cool" was a term that came with the Industrial Revolution, with machines, and with the accompanying concepts of effortlessness. If something is cool, it is, in some way effortlessly effective. You have power without having to raise your body temperature. Or, possibly, you exert your own social power without necessarily having to raise the body temperature of others.

What Gibson said made a lot of sense to me -- that is, if I understood it correctly, which -- knowing me -- isn't always certain! But I still agree with Gibson in a lot of ways about this idea.

But I was actually surprised, on reading through the first half of the second volume of Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets, to find hints or clues to the possibility that "cool" really came about through Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, the creators of the daily journals "The Tatler" and "The Spectator."

The "Tatler" was the first of the two papers to be created, and it was made as a direct response to the condition of English manners. England had long been torn apart by Civil Wars which largely centered around factions of religion -- despite what all of their causes may have been.

Even after the Civil Wars, Reformation, and Restoration, there were still revolutions. Cromwell murdered Charles I. Cromwell was defeated and Charles II took over the throne. This was the period of Restoration. But after Charles II died, King James II took over the throne. Suddenly there was more religious strife in England: King James II brought Catholicism back to England.

King William removed King James II from the throne, and the Anglican religion was again restored to England. Queen Anne succeeded King William. By this time, the confict in England had turned from one of religion to one of parties. The Whigs were set up in opposition to the Tories. And I really can't say what the one stood for and what the other stood for. But it seems to me that the main point was, if you were a Whig, you hated the Tories, and if you were a Tory, you hated the Whigs.

I believe that Samuel Johnson felt that English thought had become lopsided. Almost all the focus of English people was on these very high-level issues. And almost everybody had access to these issues, regardless of whether they could understand the issues. This was because propaganda was constantly being spread. And the propaganda, if not actually in daily papers, was being circulated in papers just as cheap as daily papers.

So this cheap, widely-circulated information, about very high-level issues and nothing else, was becoming the cultural staple of the world. As Johnson says:

"This mode of conveying cheap and easy knowledge began among us in the Civil Wars, when it was much the interest of either party to raise and fix the prejudices of the people."

And:

"Hitherto nothing had been conveyed to the people, in this commodious manner, but controversy relating to the Church or State; of which they taught many to talk, whom they could not teach to judge."

So plenty of people were learning about these high-level topics, but nobody was learning how to acquire the temperance of wit and wisdom that would help them really understand how to judge and make decisions on these topics.

Joseph Addison and Richard Steele saw the situation in their age and hoped to remedy it. They wished to create a cheap, daily paper that would follow in the manner of Casa and Castiglione, people who, in Johnson's words, taught:

"the minuter decencies and inferior duties, to regulate the practice of daily conversation, to correct those depravities which are rather ridiculous than criminal, and remove those grievances which, if they produce no lasting calamities, impress hourly vexation."

These lessons, Johnson argues, would be taught by a "master of common life," which England did not yet have. Before being a judge of higher-level ideas, one might do well to be a common judge of propriety -- an "arbiter elegantarium."

Johnson expresses his belief that daily papers are the best vehicle for the propagation of education in this sphere:

"For this purpose nothing is so proper as the frequent publication of short papers, which we read not as study but as amusement. If the subject be slight, the treatise likewise is short."

With short papers like this, Johnson says, "The busy may find time, and the idle may find patience."

The real strength, as Johnson seems to have seen it, with the pamphlets of the Civil War controversists, was that they provided "cheap and easy knowledge" (though I'd probably put "knowledge" in its own set of quotes). But this "cheap and easy knowledge could be put to better use. As Johnson says:

"An instructor like Addison was now wanting, whose remarks being superficial, might be easily understood, and being just, might prepare the mind for more attainments."

So cheap and easy information, with just thoughts added, would be a cheap and easy knowledge which could actually help people. Johnson doesn't seem to think being superficial is so bad. And he doesn't seem to think that easy lessons, "Dummies' Guides," I guess we might call them, are so bad. He also doesn't think too lowly of a middle path for morality -- not too high, and not too low:

"As a teacher of wisdom, [Addison] may be confidently followed... His morality is neither dangerously lax, nor impractically rigid. All the enchantment of fancy, and all the cogency of argument, are employed to recommend to the reader his real interest, the care of pleasing the Author of his being."

And this quality, I believe, leads thematically into the passage where Johnson actually uses the epithet "cool":

"It has been suggested that the Royal Society was instituted soon after the Restoration, to divert the attention of the people from publick discontent. The 'Tatler' and 'Spectator' had the same tendency: they were published at a time when two parties, loud, restless, and violent, each with plausible declarations, and each perhaps without any distinct termination of its views, were agitating the nation; to minds heated with political contest, they supplied cooler and more inoffensive reflections; and it is said by Addison, in a subsequent work, that they had a perceptible influence upon the conversation of that time, and taught the frolick and the gay to unite merriment with decency; an effect which they can never wholly lose, while they continue to be among the first books by which the sexes are initiated in the elegances of knowledge."

In my opinion, Johnson's ideal of "coolness" would be more directed toward domesticity, which I believe was taken as an ideal for people after Queen Elizabeth's time, and was embodied as a wise way of living by John Milton. But it also shows itself in Addison, as Johnson says:

"His humor... is so happily diffused as to give the grace of novelty to domestic scenes and daily occurrences."

Johnson's praise for most of the poets in the whole work, as I've read it so far, has been when the verse is elegant, spritely, easy, lively. The greater poets are marked for copiousness of sentiment or force of imagination. But, especially with drama, one great theme of praise from Johnson depends on how well the writer portrays domestic scenes.

Thus, with Nicholas Rowe, Johnson says that Rowe's play Tamerlane, an allegorical play comparing King William's feats with those of Tamerlane, is not understandable. But of Rowe's play The Fair Penitent, Johnson says it is:

"One of the most pleasing tragedies on the stage... The story is domestick, and therefore easily received by the imagination, and assimilated to common life; the diction is exquisitely harmonious, and soft or spritely as occasion requires."

Again, Johnson comments on Rowe's play Jane Shore:

"This play, consisting chiefly of domestick scenes and private distress, lays hold upon the heart. The wife is forgiven because she repents, and the husband is honored because he forgives. This therefore is one of the pieces which we still welcome on the stage."

But what's also interesting to me about the long passage above is what Johnson says about the Royal Society: that it was set up to divert people from discontent after the Restoration. The Royal Society was started by a group of intellectuals in England who, after the Restoration, met on a regular basis to hold discussions on philosophy and science.

Here is another interesting example of people trying to spread knowledge about something other than Anglicans, Papists, and Puritans, or Whigs and Tories. The members of the Royal Society were trying to give the English people a broader base of knowledge. A broader base of knowledge would help people make wise decisions.

The history of the Royal Society was written by Thomas Sprat, who also wrote the Life of Abraham Cowley for the edition of Cowley's poems which was printed after Cowley's death.

Now, in Samuel Johnson's terms, I've come to think of Abraham Cowley as a kind of bellwether for the English poets. Joseph Addison has one aspect of "cool" -- the aspect of elegance and effortlessness.

But for Johnson, effortlessness and elegance are typically products of coming of good breeding. People who don't come of good breeding can be brilliant, geniuses, even terrific statesmen. But they can't be "cool" in the sense of doing things elegantly and effortlessly. I'm not sure why this would be the case.

Abraham Cowley, in my opinion, might stand for the kind of "coolness" we think of with rock stars. His verses are wild and free. His style of Pindaric Odes was, for his time, the epitome of poetic freedom. And many people who wrote poetry mimicked his style.

This wild side to coolness is not in Johnson's definition of coolness. And, in fact, Johnson -- though he seems to revere Cowley more than he'd like to admit -- seems to judge a poet by how he acts in relation to Cowley.

Thus, Johnson says of Sprat:

"He considered Cowley as a model; and supposed that, as he was imitated, perfection was approached. Nothing therefore but Pindarick liberty was to be expected. There is in his production not want of such conceits as he thought excellent; and those of our judgment may be settled by the first that appears in his praise Cromwell, where he says that Cromwell's 'fame, like man, will grow white as it grows old.'"

That dizzingly wide conceit makes me giggle every time I read it. And, for some reason, that's exactly why I think it's good. But I think that comes from listening to rock music, which is full of dizzying conceits -- when it's good.

But Johnson does seem to equate a love for Cowley with a love for licentiousness. The first poet in the second volume of the Lives, Edmund Smith, is probably -- morally -- the wildest person in the whole first half of the volume. I'd assume he's probably the wildest of all the poets in the second volume -- but I'm not into the second half yet.

Edmund Smith went to Christ Church in Oxford and was so ill-behaved there that he basically got expelled -- *after* he was a Bachelor! But Christ Church, Johnson claims, had such indulgence toward geniuses, that it kept him on until he'd finally just gotten so wild and rowdy that Christ Church had at last, in 1705, to kick Smith out altogether.

Smith came to London and was treated well there by a number of people who also appreciated genius. He wrote some really good works, including his Phaedra and the elegy to his good friend John Philips. But he continued in his wild ways.

In fact, in London, Smith became known as Captain Rag -- a name he received from the habit he had of never paying any attention to his dress. Captain Rag became in his own right, as a second persona for Smith, a legend in London.

Nevertheless, Smith was a genius, albeit a fiery, impulsive one, as Johnson points out in this quote:

"One practice he had, which was easily observed: if any thought or image was presented to his mind that he could use or improve, he did not suffer it to be lost; but, amidst the jollity of a tavern, or in the warmth of conversation, very diligently committed it to paper."

As well as being impulsive, Johnson quotes one man, Gilbert Walmsey, as saying of Smith, or the Captain: "Rag was a man of great veracity."

Captain Rag proposed to write a play about Lady Jane Grey. One of the patrons of his genius, a Mr. George, allowed Rag to live with him in Wiltshire for quiet and concentration. However, at this point, Smith's over-indulgence, if not his licentiousness, was fatal:

"Here he found such opportunities of indulgence as did not much forward his studies, and particularly some strong ale, too delicious to be resisted. He ate and drank till he found himself plethorick; and then, resolving to ease himself by evacuation, he wrote to an apothecary in the neighborhood a prescription of a purge so forcible, that the apothecary thought it his duty to delay it till he had given notice of its danger. Smith, not pleased with the contradiction of a shopman, and boastful of his own knowledge, treated the notice with rude contempt, and swallowed his own medicine, which, in July, 1710, brought him to the grave."

So this wild poet, really the last wild poet of the era, a poet of William's and Anne's reigns, but more like the poets from the days of Charles II, is characterized by Johnson as poor, wild, licentious, and over-indulgent. And -- who does he take as his model?

"He has several imitations of Cowley."

And

"The simile by which an old man returning the fire of his youth is compared to Aetna flaming through the snow, which Smith has used with great pomp, is stolen from Cowley, however little worth the labor of conveyance."

But the most interesting character given by Johnson in conjunction with Johnson's admiring distaste for Cowley is that of Matthew Prior.

Matthew Prior was born in 1664 in Dorsetshire. Little is known about his family. But Johnson assumes that Prior's father was a "Joiner in London." In Johnson's mind, this would equate Prior's father, I'd assume, with one of Bottom's theatre company in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. Only, in the play, the position is charming, where in Johnson's reality, it's slightly disgusting.

Matthew Prior was a man of incredible gifts. And Prior's life is a story of rising through the ranks, to become an incredibly important statesman.

In the beginning, Prior was a poet in King William's era. Johnson seems pretty certainly to claim that King William himself was not a great patron of the arts. But, according to Johnson, many of the most powerful people of William's court were patrons of poets.

Prior, along with Montague, later the earl of Halifax, wrote the comic response to Dryden's "Hind and the Panther," the "City Mouse and the Country Mouse." This got both Montague and Prior preferments at court, although Montague saw his preferments first.

Montague went on to become a great patron for poets, introducing Joseph Addison to Court. Addison, in addition to creating the "Tatler" and "Spectator" with Steele, as well as writing such great works as "Rosamund" and "Cato," rose through the ranks himself, eventually becoming Secretary of State. This was largely thanks to Montague.

Montague also saw dramatist William Congreve's talents later on and gave Congreve preferments that basically lasted him all through his life.

But Montague was the son of an earl, while Prior was the son of Snug. Nevertheless, he and Montague both received preferments. Prior's position sent him to The Hague, where Prior acted as secretary to the embassy when "an assembly of princes and nobles, to which Europe has scarcely seen anything equal," was forming a plot against King Louis of France.

This plot didn't acutally work out. But King William himself was so impressed with how Prior conducted himself during this that he made Prior one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber. And, as Johnson says of Prior, "he is supposed to have passed some of the next years in the quiet cultivation of literature and poetry."

Prior had a great admiration for King William. Prior was, Johnson says, "professedly encomiastic." He seemed to have no problem with writing poems to flatter people. But his poems to King William, Johnson says, were genuine:

"King William supplied copious materials for either verse or prose. His whole life had been action, and none ever denied him the resplendent qualities of steady resolution and personal courage. He was really in Prior's mind what he represents him in his verses; he considered him as a hero, and was accustomed to say, that he praised others in compliance with the fashion, but that in celebrating King William he followed his inclination."

Nevertheless, as Johnson describes King William as "resplendent," it must also be remembered that he described King William as no great patron of the poets. King William's life of "action" was, I believe, a bit repugnant to Johnson, just as Prior's upbringing was.

Prior ended up serving as an ambassador on a number of occasions in France. Prior performed so well that he was remembered fondly at the French Court.

When Queen Anne took the throne, England was so overwhelmed with war that an ambassador, a person mainly used, in Johnson's mind, for drawing up treaties, wasn't of much use.

But finally Queen Anne wanted peace with France. She sent Prior to France. Prior brought back some French ambassadors. Queen Anne, these ambassadors, and Prior, all met in Prior's house to come up with a treaty for peace. This led to the Conferences of Utrecht, in 1712, which were supposed to lead to peace. But things still moved slowly.

Queen Anne sent Bolingbroke as ambassador and Prior as a private representative to make peace in France. Bolingbroke had to go back to England. Shrewsbury was sent to France to accompany Prior. But he didn't want to work with somebody so mean-born as Prior. So he left. Prior was left to himself and took the role of ambassador.

Prior must have done a good job as ambassador: when Queen Anne made a misstep in some diplomatic move, the former ambassador, Bolingbroke, wrote this message to Prior:

"Dear Mat, hide the nakedness of thy country; and give the berst turn thy fertile brain will furnish thee with to the blunders of thy country-men, who are not much better politicians than the French are poets."

He had such an intimate relationship with the French court that once, when Prior returned to England, King Louis sent Queen Anne this message:

"I shall expect, with impatience, the return of Mr. Prior, whose conduct is very agreeable to me."

But Queen Anne died, the Tories lost power in England, and Prior found himself out of favor -- while he was still in France! He wasn't getting paid. He was incurring debts. He was finally recalled to England. But he couldn't leave France until he'd paid his debts. But he wasn't getting paid so he could pay his debts, "though," as Johnson says, "his old friend Montague was now at the head of the Treasury."

On returning to England, Prior found himself put under house arrest. According to the Whigs now in power, Prior's having held the conference between the French and Queen Anne in his own house was considered an act of treason. Prior was put on trial and imprisoned for a little over two years. Finally, a while after an Act of Grace had been enstated by King George, Prior was granted freedom.

Prior was left with next to nothing to live on. However, Prior's friends, including the poet Jonathan Swift, and lord Herley, helped Prior put together a volume of his poetry, which he sold on subscription, gathering two-thousand pounds from the sales. Lord Herley doubled this sum so that Prior could buy Dora-hall, where he spent the remainder of his life in quiet and contemplation.

This story is very much like the story of Cowley -- not quite the story of Cowley as Johnson tells it -- but the story of Cowley as gleaned from various bits of Johnson, Sprat, and the scholars.

Cowley distinguished himself intellectually and became a favorite at court. He was sent on dangerous missions to deliver messages during the Civil Wars. He eventually followed the Queen to France, where he became her official letter-writer. But when he returned to England he was put in prison. He was basically, thereafter, put under house arrest.

When the Restoration occurred, Cowley would have been forgotten altogether, had it not been for his friends, who helped him get a place to live in peace and contemplation for the remainder of his years.

The difference is that Prior was a bit more active than Cowley -- and that he had a bit less poetic talent. Nevertheless the story is similar: a mean-born man proves himself and rises through the ranks to become trusted to royalty.

Johnson mentions Cowley in conjunction with Prior on three occasions. In the first, he says that Prior's poem cycle "Amorous Effusions" "have the coldness of Cowley, without his wit."

Johnson often talks about Cowley being emotionally cold. I think this is a compensating reaction to what Cowley really is in a lot of cases: explosively hot.

In the next instance, Johnson says that in his poem "Solomon," Prior perhaps "thought, like Cowley, that hemistichs ought to be admitted into heroic poetry."

But the most telling paragraph on Prior by Johnson is this:

"Some of his poems are written without regularity of measures; for, when he commenced poet, we had not recovered from our Pindarick infatuation [which, in Johnson's mind, is Cowley's direct responsibility]; but he probably lived to be convinced that the essence of verse is order and consonance."

In other words, Prior grew up mean-born, like Cowley, but he attained some elegance in his later age.

This might seem like an unfair equivalence of terms. But I think I'm right in making it. When Johnson talks about Prior's character he says that nobody ever spoke bad about Prior's character. But he then turns around to say of Prior that:

"Tradition represents him as willing to descend from the dignity of the poet and the statesman to the low delights of mean company. His Chloe [in the "Amorous Effusions" poem cycle"] was sometimes ideal; but the woman with whom he cohabited was a despicable drab of the honest species. One of his wenches, perhaps Chloe, while he was absent from his house, stole his plate and ran away."

Johnson mentions that some people have tried to guess why Prior would like "the low delights of mean company." The people guess that Prior had spent so much of his time in extremely lofty intellectual pursuits that he could only relieve himself by spending time with people who were not so morally lofty. It would be a kind of Jungian compensation.

But Johnson thinks this idea is just silly. Prior was mean-born. So of course he'd love "the low delights of mean company." As Johnson concludes Prior's life:

"A survey of the life and writings of Prior may exemplify a sentence which he doubtless understood well, when he read Horace at his uncle's; 'the vessel long retains the scent which it first receives.' In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college. But on higher occasions and nobler subjects, when habit was overpowered by the necessity of reflection, he wanted not wisdom as a statesman, nor elegance as a poet."

So Prior, as a mean-born vessel, always will "retain" the "scent" of a mean-born vessel. And Johnson's quality of a mean-born genius, versus a high-born genius, in my opinion, is that the high-born genius can do things with ease and measure, while mean-born geniuses take effort to achiever their greatness, and never do it with satisfactory measure.

This idea, I think, is exemplified in the following passage:

"His diction, however, is more his own than that of any among the successors of Dryden. ... His phrases are original, but they are sometimes harsh; as he has inherited no elegances, none has he bequeathed. His expression has every mark of laborious study; the line seldom seems to have been formed at once; the words did not come till they were called, and were then put by constraint into their places, where they do their duty, but do it sullenly. In his greater compositions there may be found more rigid stateliness than graceful dignity."

Matthew Prior's Life ends on the same note as William Congreve's Life, which directly follows Prior's in Johnson's book. But in Congreve's Life, the paragraph is in praise of Congreve as being the person finally to help the English poets break free of Cowley's style, rather than a criticism, like in Prior's case, for being influenced by it:

"Yet to [Congreve] it must be confessed that we are indebted for the correction of a national error, and for the cure of our Pindarick madness. He first taught the English writers that Pindar's odes were regular; and though certainly he had not the fire requisite for the higher species of lyric poetry, he has shown us that enthusiasm has its rules, and that in mere confusion there is neither grace nor greatness."

Well, who is this person who could have cured England of low-born Cowley's "Pindarick madness?" William Congreve, who, as Johnson says, was "descended from a family in Staffordshire, of so great antiquity that it claims a place among the few that extend their line beyond the Norman Conquest." A well-born, high-born Englishman -- with an important father as well.

Congreve's life, like Milton's (for the most part), and like Dryden's, was all about writing. His writing was recognized by Montague, then Halifax. Congreve was given easy work so that he could continue writing comfortably. And he didn't seem to have ambitions above his easy positions. He wasn't like Addison, and he wasn't like Prior.

He was, then, a high-born man of ancient stock who lived a somewhat domestic life, focused on studying. It was this kind of personality that produced poetry which managed to break free of that wildness which Johnson seems to characterize directly with Cowley.

But there are some other interesting things that Johnson says about Congreve's style of writing:

"Congreve has merit of the highest kind; he is an original writer, who borrowed neither the models of his plot, nor the manner of his dialogue."

Apparently the highest-born man we've seen so far, in Johnson's cosmology, would have the highest merit. But in the following passages, we see how Johnson equated Congreve's poetry with an aristocratic style of wit, which I find very interesting:

"He formed a peculiar idea of comick excellence, which he supposed to consist in gay remarks and unexpected answers; but that which he endeavored, he seldom failed of performing... his personages are a kind of intellectual gladiator.

"His comedies have, therefore, in some degree, the operation of tragedies; they surprise rather than divert, and raise admiration oftener than merriment. But they are the works of a mind replete with images, and quick in combination."

This sounds very much like something Camille Paglia, in her book Sexual Personae, might say about Oscar Wilde. In her book, Paglia describes Wilde's wit as a kind of belief in order. The wit in Wilde's work is a kind of worship of style. Style provides lines, order, and beauty, and protects, it seems, Wilde's male consciousness from the threats of the disorder of the primeval female unconscious of his anima.

Many people see in Wilde's work a kind of cynicism toward society, fashion, and style. But Paglia believes that Wilde worships society and rules, and believes in their power to protect. He desperately believes in style. And, as a part of worshipping society and style, Wilde seems to believe in the necessity of hierarchies. Wilde believes in aristocracy, in elitism, to the point of cruelty -- or, at least, he did -- before he got thrown in prison.

Congreve's writing style seems to match Wilde's style. But anecdotes from his life also seem to match this belief in hierarchy. He wished to be known, not as a poet, but as a part of the social hierarchy. He wanted to be stylish. As Johnson relates:

"He treated the Muses with ingratitude; for, having long conversed familiarly with the great, he wished to be considered rather as a man of fashion than of wit; and, when he received a visit from Voltaire, disgusted him by the despicable foppery of desiring to be considered not as an author but a gentleman; to which the Frenchman replied, 'that if he had only been a gentleman, he should not have come to visit him.'"

Nevertheless, it is this "despicable fop" who has apparently delivered England from low-born Cowley's clutches. Just like Milton was nothing more than a silly boarding-school teacher.

And I think this is where I would put a kind of disconnect between the concept of "cool," as Johnson left it for posterity, and "cool" as we see it now. Cowley was obviously cool. He drove people wild with his poetry. And everybody thought his Pindarick style was the only way to write poetry for a long time. But Cowley's cool was so hot that Johnson thought it was ice-cold.

On the other hand, Addison's cool was dignified and mild. It was refined and aristocratic, highly learned, but superficial, easy to digest, not overly thoughtful. And Congreve took this to an even more refined level.

For Johnson, "cool" had to be elegant and effortless. But nothing could be effortless unless it came from a mind that was so high-born that elegance would inherently require no effort.

Addison does have one aspect of cool -- because being effortlessly elegant is a part of being cool. But Cowley has the other aspect -- the aspect of being able to be wildly, almost absurdly active and imaginative. Congreve, like Wilde, almost combines these two things. Oscar Wilde probably gets closer than William Congreve.

What I think the Industrial Revolution added to the concept of "cool" was that it probably combined the elements of Addison with the elements of Cowley.

As technology becomes more and more a part of our lives, it is assumed, more of the aspects of our lives will become effortless and elegant. As the same time, as technology develops, the things we think of nowadays as only imaginary will become more and more practical. So as our imagination becomes freer, so will our practical world become wider and fuller.