after speaking of him in the text as having written but too little, he adds in a note, 'that his unfinished. sketches display more talent than the laboured masterpieces of others.' For Wordsworth he felt the highest respect-a feeling compounded of admiration for his original genius, and of love for that genuineness and depth of nature, that sound moral feeling and pure enthusiasm, which he possessed in a degree only inferior to Milton.

In doing and feeling all this Scott was thoroughly disinterested. Even had he needed a quid pro quo and expected it, it did not come. Southey is rather stingy in his laudations of Scott; and when he does not speak out plainly, he can hint a fault and hesitate dislike. Wordsworth never even professed any great admiration for Scott's poetry, although he loved the man warmly, and wrote a plaintive sonnet on his leaving his native land, which we shall quote in the sequel.

Coleridge eloquently eulogized many of Scott's novels; but in this as in other matters his judgments were to a great extent neutralized by his caprice, uncertainty, and thousand-and-one wayward moods. Toryism no doubt formed an element of union between the Lakers and Scott. But we are persuaded that even had these men been Radicals, and bitter detractors of Scott withal,

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he would have spoken of their genius just as he did,—such was the largeness of his heart, and the sweet-blooded tone of his mental and moral constitution.

With Moore, too, he was on kindly terms. And for George Crabbe he had a special affection, and did not know whether more to admire his simplicity as a man or his strong sinewy genius as a poet. And we shall find that Crabbe's poetry was read to him (as it had been a generation before to Charles James Fox) in his dying days.

Constable knew to his cost how indulgent Scott was to the inferior writers, for whom the author of Waverley persuaded him to publish. He said he always liked Scott's ain bairns, but not those of his fostering.' On the other hand, a vast number of young writers of verse and of prose from every county in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and from every civilised country in the world, sent in books or MSS. to the affable Archangel of Abbotsford ; and hundreds of instances are on record of the real kindness which he showed them,-a kindness all the more valuable that he was strictly honest in his judgments and faithful in his strictures, although mild and measured in his expressions. Merciful to all, he never praised any in whom he did not perceive real merit. Ingratitude his placid nature

prepared for, and would have forgiven; but ingratitude, unless from Hogg in one of his wild, senseless moods, which he lived himself to regret, he never met. He had the art of sheathing the sting of his censure in such honeyed phrases that it was scarcely felt, or, as the Irishman has it,

'He kicked them down-stairs with such a good grace, That they thought he was handing them up.'

It were well if all who in a lesser but still a large measure are pestered with sucking writers, and feel the penalty rather greater than the honour, could take a leaf out of the master's book, and be enabled to imitate his inward honesty and his outward bonhomie. Not till one tries can he feel how difficult it is to do so.

Around Scott there rose a giant brood of novelists, in Scotland and elsewhere, inferior to him, but of decided power and genius,—strong spurs upon his mountain chain. Such were Professor Wilson, Lockhart, Galt, Miss Ferrier the authoress of The Inheritance and Marriage, and, some time afterwards, Lord Bulwer Lytton. In all of these Scott took a warm interest, and felt for them a true admiration. He lived long enough to read and see the promise in Bulwer's earlier novels. And all these authors have reciprocated his feelings,-Bulwer dedicating

his Eugene Aram to Scott in language glowing with gratitude and enthusiasm. Unless Bulwer, none of these writers approached their model in popularity, nor did any other, till Dickens arose,-Dickens, of whose sudden and premature death we have this day heard (the 10th of June), in whom, in common with the whole literary world, and far beyond that world's limits, we mourn a great cheerful light quenched ere it was evening, and in whom we have always traced many of Scott's qualities, specially his warmth and width of sympathies, his genial and kindly nature, and the desire, which was ever uppermost with him, to find the soul of goodness in things that are evil, and the essence of beauty in objects thought by vulgar eyes common and unclean. We called him in his youthBonnie Prince Charlie,' and must now lament that in the fulness of his powers, and in the height of his benignant dominion, he has been called away!

CHAPTER XVI.

'CARLE, NOW THE KING'S COME.'

ROM London Scott came down to Abbotsford, plans for the completion of which

he had brought along with him. Lockhart and his young wife had established themselves in the little cottage of Chiefswood, and there Scott was often with them, adding fresh brightness to what was then a bright and happy spot. Often in the mornings, after his daily task was over, 'the clatter of Sybil Grey's hoofs, the yelping of Mustard and Spice, and his own joyous shout of reveillée under our windows, were the signal that he had burst his toils, and meant for that day to "take his ease in his inn." He was then busy with The Pirate, and sometimes wrote chapters of it in a dressing-room in Chiefswood, which he would hand to his friend William Erskine, who, as sheriff of Orkney and Shetland, knew the localities well,