Novels and Romances of the Author of Waverley..: Quentin Durward.

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232

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345 g

Erschienen bei:

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Kurzbeschreibung

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. III. To this brave man the knight repairs For counsel in his law affairs; And found him mounted in his pew, With books and money placed for shew, Like nest-eggs to make clients lay. And for this false opinion pay. Hudibras. Our reader may recollect a certain smoothtongued, lank-haired, buckram-suited Scottish scrivener, who, in the first volume of this history, appeared in the character of a protege' of George Heriot. It is to his house we are about to remove, but times have changed with him. The petty booth hath become a chamber of importance?the buckram suit is changed into black velvet; and although the wearer retains his puritanical humility and politeness to clients of consequence, he can now look others broad in the face, and treat them with a full allowance of superior opulence, and the insolence arising from it. It was but a short period that had achieved these alterations, nor was the party himself as yet entirely accustomed to them, but the change was becoming less embarrassing to him with every day's practice. Among other acquisitions of wealth, you may see one of Davy Ramsay's best time-pieces on the table, and his eye is frequently observing its revolutions, while a boy, whom he employs as a scribe, is occasionally sent out to compare its progress with the clock of Saint Dunstan. The scrivener himself seemed considerably agitated. He took from a strong-box a bundle of parchments, and read passages of them with great attention; then began to soliloquize?" There is no outlet which law can suggest?no back-door of evasion?none?if the lands of Glenvarloch are not redeemed before it rings noon, Lord Dalgarno has them a cheap pennyworth. Strange, that he should have been at last able to set his patron at defiance, and achieve for himself the fair estate, ...

Portrait

Sir Walter Scott (1771 - 1832) war der größte Romanautor seiner Zeit und ist einer der einflussreichsten Schriftsteller der Literaturgeschichte. Schlagartig bekannt wurde der Anwalt aus Edinburgh, der zunächst als Übersetzer (u.a. von Goethe) hervortrat, mit der Versdichtung "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" (1805). Als Byron ihm als Lyriker den Rang abzulaufen begann, wechselte er ins Prosafach. Praktisch im Alleingang begründete er das Genre des historischen Romans, sein Erstling "Waverley" (1814) schöpft schon dessen ganzes Potenzial aus: Eingebettet in eine recht konventionelle Fabel, verwickelt er den Helden in die sozialen und politischen Umstände seiner Zeit und macht so die Vergangenheit hautnah erlebbar. Noch erfolgreicher als die von der Kritik geschätzten Bücher über das Schottland des 18. Jahrhunderts waren seine Mittelalter-Romane. Am Ende seiner Laufbahn wandte er sich wieder zeitgenössischen Stoffen zu. In der englischen Romantik, der er europaweit zur Geltung verhalf, nahm er eine Sonderstellung ein. Weder teilte er Byrons und Shelleys Lust am Irrationalen, noch war der Tory und Presbyterianer für die Revolution zu begeistern.

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