Professional women he can always paint with power. Meg
Dods, the innkeeper, Meg Merrilies, the gipsy, Mause Headrigg, the
Covenanter, Elspeth, the old fishwife in _The Antiquary_, and the old
crones employed to nurse and watch, and lay out the corpse, in _The
Bride of Lammermoor_, are all in their way impressive figures.
And even in relation to women of a rank more fascinating to Scott, and
whose inner character was perhaps on that account, less familiar to
his imagination, grant him but a few hints from history, and he draws
a picture which, for vividness and brilliancy, may almost compare with
Shakespeare's own studies in English history. Had Shakespeare painted
the scene in _The Abbot_, in which Mary Stuart commands one of her
Mary's in waiting to tell her at what bridal she last danced, and Mary
Fleming blurts out the reference to the marriage of Sebastian at
Holyrood, would any one hesitate to regard it as a stroke of genius
worthy of the great dramatist? This picture of the Queen's mind
suddenly thrown off its balance, and betraying, in the agony of the
moment, the fear and remorse which every association with Darnley
conjured up, is painted "from the heart outwards," not "from the skin
inwards," if ever there were such a painting in the world.
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