The Lady of the Lake in the Hugh Glass narrative and Gansevoort Melville's New York High School

The writer calling himself "Borderer" in late 1830 and early 1831 was soaked in Sir Walter Scott, as John Myers Myers figured out in his book on the Hugh Glass saga. Myers did not look at the other "Borderer" material in Scenes and Adventures in the Army, namely the interpolated tales of Sha-wa-now and Mah-za-pa-mee.  Like the story of Hugh Glass, both were originally published in the St Louis Beacon.  In 1835, both were again published over the signature of P.S.G.C. in the Military and Naval Magazine of the United States.  There, as in the St Louis Beacon, the story of Sha-wah-now is titled A Tale of the Rocky Mountains. Before republication in the Southern Literary Messenger, the Rocky Mountain tale of Sha-wa-now featured this direct quotation from The Lady of the Lake, Canto I:

The owlets started from their dream,
The eagles answered with their scream,
Round and around the sounds were cast,
Till echo seem'd an answering blast

Myers did recognize the romanticized duel between the Arikara Indian scout and Hugh Glass (as told by "Borderer," and later the narrator of Scenes and Adventures in the Army) as a dramatic recasting of the combat between Roderick Dhu and Fitz-James in Canto V of The Lady of the Lake.

Four years before the St Louis Beacon printing of the Hugh Glass story by "Borderer," Gansevoort Melville, Herman's older brother, is on record for his association in High School with this same Canto V of Scott's famous poem. Gansevoort was crowned best speaker (See Hershel Parker's biography, V1.36-7) before a packed assembly. For an encore he recited Halleck's Marco Bozzaris. As Parker also recounts in Melville: The Making of the Poet, a popular scene between Roderick Dhu and Fitz-James was subsequently enacted by two older boys--prompted by eleven-year-old Gansevoort. We know about Gansevoort's performance and prize from a December 28, 1826 letter by his naturally proud mother. Below is an excerpt from Maria Gansevoort Melville's letter to her mother Mrs. Peter Gansevoort, as printed in the 1984 article by Henry Murray, "Another Triumph for Maria's Firstborn":

... it was crowded we could with difficulty find a place to stand, after mounting Helen being the shortest of the party on a Desk, we turned to the Forum & saw Master Gansevoort making his Bow, he was the second call'd on to speak, he spoke rather faster than usual being unaccustomed to so large an audience otherwise he spoke well, when he had got through, two young men, tall, & about 20 years of age spoke the humorous piece of Doctor Pangloss & jac Doulass, then succeeded three or four more small boys, when those two tall Gentlemen again appear'd upon the Forum & spoke the Dialogue between Roderick Dhu, & Fitz James.  One thing really had a fine effect, Roderick Dhu Whistles when his clan arise & show themselves on all sides.  The Boys who were seated on a raised platform at the end of the room, at the sound of the Whistle at once arose & the clatter &c. had a fine effect. In the mean while Master Gansevoort was seated on the Forum at the side of Chancellor Kent with the Lady of the Lake in his hand prompting those two tall Gentlemen, one in particular--who could not remember his part, the other spoke well. (Melville Society Extracts No. 58)

‘Have then thy wish!’— He whistled shrill
And he was answered from the hill;
Wild as the scream of the curlew,
From crag to crag the signal flew.
Instant, through copse and heath, arose
Bonnets and spears and bended bows
On right, on left, above, below,
Sprung up at once the lurking foe;
From shingles gray their lances start,
The bracken bush sends forth the dart,
The rushes and the willow-wand
Are bristling into axe and brand,
And every tuft of broom gives life
‘To plaided warrior armed for strife.
That whistle garrisoned the glen
At once with full five hundred men,
As if the yawning hill to heaven
A subterranean host had given.

(From The Lady of the Lake, Canto 5, The Combat)

John Myers Myers on Sir Walter Scott in the Hugh Glass narrative

Impressively quick to spot a literary borrowing, John Myers Myers figured out that the climax of the Hugh Glass tale in Scenes and Adventures in the Army is reworked from The Lady of the Lake.  Presumed author Philip St George Cooke appropriates details from the combat between Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu when imaginatively presenting the fight to the death between Hugh Glass and an Arikara scout. Myers could not bring himself to charge the veracious Cooke with romancing fact, so he reasoned as follows in The Saga of Hugh Glass:

Taken by itself the duel that followed would not be suspect, but sandwiched between two other near-mortal misses, it has the look--as does nothing else in any of the versions--of deliberate high-piling. Not by Cooke himself, for he was a ramrod of uprightness, loathed by many a superior officer for his refusal to bend.  But it would certainly seem that, before the story reached his ears, somebody threw something in for the fun of it, whereas the other changes rung by the sundry accounts appear nothing more than the normal variants of a story which as been sifted through a spread of memories...

...all in all it's hard to keep from wondering whether this combat didn't originate in the brain of Sir Walter Scott, who had described one marvelously like it in The Lady of the Lake:

They tug, they strain! Down, down they go,
The Gael above, Fitz-James below.

But before being thrown by Roderick Dhu, Scotland's disguised king had wielded a rapier, which had repeatedly let out blood belonging to the wild Highlander. So just as Clan Alpine's chief was getting set to polish Fitz-James off with a dirk, Roderick collapsed instead.

As Scott's narrative poem was first published in 1810, it could logically have inspired the ensuing parallel:

And here his [Hugh's] career would probably have closed, but that in truth it seemed that he bore a charmed existence. At this instant the effect of his unerring shot was developed. The Indian's last convulsive exertion, so successful, was accompanied by a shout of victory—but dying on his lips, it had marked his soul's departure. ... Redeemed, unhoped, from death, Glass beheld at his feet his late enemy, not only dead, but already stiffening, with hand instinctively touching the hilt of his knife.

But whether true or a borrowing from a then very popular verse romance, the incident still left Glass short of a haven.  In telling how he reached one, Cooke wrote much to the same effect as his fellow authorities.  (Saga of Hugh Glass 161-3)

Myers was right! Except, no need to qualify the finding: Walter Scott is definitely, not probably the source, as the verbatim use of "Redeemed, unhoped" from The Lady of the Lake Canto V proves:

He faultered thanks to Heaven for life, Redeemed, unhoped, from desperate strife;

For his authoritative text, Myers seems to be quoting from the 1830 newspaper sketch of "Some Incidents in the Life of Hugh Glass, A Hunter of the Missouri River" in the St Louis Beacon, signed "Borderer" (December 2 and December 9, 1830).  Since I don't have either article copied yet from the Beacon, here below is the whole episode of the duel, transcribed from the September 1842  installment of Scenes and Adventures in the Army in the Southern Literary Messenger:

Glass had thus far again escaped a cruel fate. He had gained the almost impervious concealment of drifted and malted willows, and undergrowth, when the dread ebullition of triumph and death announced to him the evil he had escaped, and his still imminent peril. Like the hunted fox, he doubled, he turned, ran or crawled, successively gaining the various concealments of the dense bottom to increase his distance from the bloody scene. And such was his success, that he had thought himself nearly safe, when at a slight opening he was suddenly faced by a foe. It was an Arickara scout. The discovery was simultaneous, and so close were these wily woodsmen, that but the one had scarce time to use a weapon intended for a much greater distance. The deadly tomahawk of the other was most readily substituted for the steeled arrow. At the instant, it flew through the air, and the rifle was discharged; neither could see or feel the effect produced, but they rushed into each other's grasp, either endeavoring to crush his adversary by the shock of the onset. But not so the result; the grappling fold of their arms was so close, that they seemed as one animal:—for a while, doubtful was the struggle for the mastery;—so great was their exertion, that the grasped fingers met in the flesh! But Glass, not wholly recovered from his wounds, was doomed to sink beneath the superior strength of his adversary, by an irresistible effort, of which he was rolled upon the earth, the Indian above. At this instant the effect of his unerring shot was developed. The Indian's last convulsive exertion, so successful, was accompanied by a shout of victory—but dying on his lips, it had marked his spirit's departure. It was as if his proud soul, sensible of approaching feebleness, had willingly expired in the last desperate effort, and the shout of triumph with which he would have ushered both their souls into the presence of the 'Great Spirit.'

Redeemed, unhoped, from death, Glass beheld at his feet his late enemy, not only dead, but already stiffening, with hand instinctively touching the hilt of his knife.
Southern Literary Messenger, September 1842

The tale of Hugh Glass was reprinted widely from the 1842 Southern Literary Messenger in newspapers and other magazines, for example Seba Smith's The Rover.

Considering the clear debt to Sir Walter Scott, the writer's chosen pseudonym "Borderer" takes on added significance.  This Borderer not only locates himself on the Missouri River, at the western border of the young United States, but also identifies with the border heroes of Scottish history and song.

[Engraving illustrating Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake] - Walter Scott Image Collection

All of which makes me think again of Herman's brother Gansevoort Melville, but that's another post...