In this passage the young and impressionable Edward
Waverley, having already experienced a close-up view of the cruder hierarchical
aspects of clan life at Glennaquoich, proceeds through an idealised Highland
landscape for an assignation with Flora Mac-Ivor, sister of the ambitious
clan-leader Fergus. Immediately following this Flora performs a song for her
admirer, himself a Hanoverian officer, filled with references to Jacobite
Highland clan-leaders, and clearly aimed at enticing Waverley to join the
impending 1745 Rising. The surrounding Highland scenery, in conveying which
Scott uses the full force of picturesque description, reinforces the sense of
an entrancing romance world, analogous with the appeals of sentimental
Jacobitism. The likening of this setting and the figures it contains to the
landscapes of Claude Lorraine (less appropriately transferred to Poussin in
later editions) is extremely well calculated: much prized by aristocratic
collectors in Scott’s time, these paintings were celebrated for their evocation
of departed classical glories and ethereal evening atmospherics. While Scott
might seem here to be proceeding at full throttle in glorifying the scene, closer
attention shows a number of small braking points in the description, such as in
the seemingly ‘more than human brilliancy’ in Flora’s eye. Elsewhere Waverley
will suffer more sudden moments of bathetic deflation. Even so, there can be
little doubt of the huge appeal of this description to (especially) English
readers, this adding to the wave of tourists in pursuit of similar settings in
areas such as the Trossachs. The popularity of the incident is also reflected
in the number of contemporary illustrations showing Flora at the Waterfall.
July 2020
