The Female Portrait Gallery/Jenny Dennison
No. 10.—JENNY DENNISON.
In nothing does Sir Walter Scott show his great skill in the delineation of human nature more than in the characters taken from low life. These had been generally confined to a valet, half knave, half fool; a lady's maid, who took her mistress's airs like cast-off dresses, a little the worse for the wear; and now and then a virtuous peasant. But his lower range of dramatis personæ are as varied and as striking as the most important performers—they are at once individuals and national specimens. Day by day the strong ties of feudal bondage are loosening before the high-pressure of steam-engines, the progress of wealth, and the scattering of power; soon there will be little remaining but what is preserved in these graphic pages. The advantages of general independence are too obvious for dispute; but it may be regretted that the rich and poor now-a-days live so far apart: they have no amusements in common, and it is the cheerful hours of life past together that most knit the social ties. The hunt in his forest, and the Christmas by his hearth, drew the baron and his people together, each in their most lightsome mood—the gain was mutual. There is a beautiful, though more modern touch of this in the "Antiquary," when Monkbarns carries the head of the young fisherman to the grave; it was the acknowledgment of human nature's equality in the hour of suffering—it was the practical admission that
"We have all of us one human heart."
Partly from being a more scattered population, which leads to self-dependence—partly to their religious struggles having given an historical character to their ordinary remembrances, nourished by that family pride which loves to look back—there is more individuality among the Scotch than among any other peasantry. It loses none of its raciness in the hands of their great painter.
The female character is always a softened reflection of the male; whatever are the peculiarities of the one, are, as Moore says of his lover and mistress—
"The changes of his face
In her's reflected with still lovelier grace,
Like echo sending back sweet music, fraught
With twice the aerial sweetness it had wrought."
Scott's female portraits are as life-like as those of his men. Take the fisherman's wife—why you can in fancy hear the "flyting" between her and Miss Grizzy, the maiden lady—starch, grave, but "weel respeckit;" or, again, Alison Wilson, the housekeeper in this very tale: there is the lofty generosity! It does not even appear to cross her imagination that she may retain house and lands when the rightful heir appears; she at once talks of them as his own; and in her anxiety to conform even to the prodigal habits which he may have acquired in foreign parts, she allows that he may "eat meat three times a week." I know few passages that affect me so much as the meeting between the faithful creature and her youthful, nay, no longer youthful, master—
"But when return 'd the boy, the boy no more
Return'd exulting to his native shore,"
he returned as many return, who left their country with far higher hopes than Henry Morton—changed, subdued, and grey at heart before their time.
But we are keeping Jenny Dennison waiting—a fault she would not have pardoned in any one of her followers at trysting time. In this pearl of soubrettes Scott has most ingeniously blended the general cast of her kind, and the peculiar cast of her country. She has a natural gift of coquetry, which is as much a talent as a taste for music, drawing, or any other female accomplishment; she not only, like Will Honeycombe, "laughs easily," (a most popular facility), but what is of infinitely more consequence to a woman, cries easily too. Her coquetry is also combined with calculation—she never forgets that though there is certainly no hurry in the matter, one or other of these lovers is some day to be her husband; and to do Jenny Dennison justice, she does not seem very particular which, though there is a sort of a preference for Cuddie. But the lovers of her mistress are of more importance to her than her own, and not so easily managed. She pities Morton, but her preference is for Lord Evandale. The dialogue between her and Cuddie, when she protests against any recognition of the former, as likely to militate against the interests of the latter with Edith, is a most exquisite piece of conjugal diplomacy. I remember paying a visit of condolence to a poor woman who had just lost her child; I could not help thinking while gazing on the abject poverty around, that the poor infant might have been congratulated on the early escape from the hardships which appeared its daily portion. My companion tenderly soothed the mother, and told of that other and better world, to which the grave is but the portal; but it was too soon—the truth was admitted, but the consolation was unfelt. An old woman who came in, understood the matter better. "True," said she, "you have lost your child, but you have still got a good and obedient husband." A good, that is, an obedient husband, was also Jenny Dennison's idea of a helpmate; and, allowing for a little obstinacy, there appears no doubt but that Mrs. Hedrigg was perfectly satisfied with her bargain.