His exclamation of "Oh, my son, my son!" and the yielding of the facetious character of the Baron to the natural feelings of the father, are beautiful. (Evan Dhu's fears that his father-in-law should die quietly in his bed made us laugh almost as much as the bear and the boot-jack.)

Jinker, in the battle, pleading the cause of the mare which he had sold to Balmawhapple, and which had thrown him for want of the proper bit, is truly comic: my father says that this and some other passages respecting horsemanship could not have been written by any one who was not master both of the great and little horse.

I tell you, without order, the great and little strokes of humor and pathos just as I recollect or am reminded of them, at this moment, by my companions. The fact is, that we have had the volumes only during the time we could read them, and as fast as we could read, lent to us as a great favor by one who was happy enough to have secured a copy before the first and second editions were sold in Dublin. When we applied, not a copy could be had we expected one in the course of next week; but we resolved to write to the author without waiting for a second perusal. Judging by our own feelings as authors, we guess that he would rather know our genuine first thoughts than wait for cool second thoughts, or have a regular eulogium or criticism put into the most lucid order, and given in the finest sentences that ever were rounded.

Is it possible that I got thus far without having named Flora, or Vich Ian Vohr, the last Vich Ian Vohr? Yet our minds were full of them the moment before I began this letter- and, could you have seen the tears forced from us by their fate, you would have been satisfied that the pathos went to our hearts. Ian Vohr, from the first moment he appears till the last, is an admirably drawn and finely sustained character- -new- - perfectly new to the English reader —often entertaining — always heroic — and sometimes sublime. The gray spirit, the Bodach Glas, thrills us with horror. Us! What effect must it have under the influence of the superstitions of the Highlands? This circumstance is admirably introduced. This superstition is a weakness quite consistent with the strength of the character, perfectly natural after the disappointment of all his hopes, in the dejection of his mind and the exhaustion of his bodily strength.

Flora we could wish was never called Miss Mac Ivor, because in this country there are tribes of vulgar Miss Macs, and this association is unfavorable to the sublime and beautiful of your Flora,

she is a true heroine: her first appearance seized upon the mind, and enchanted us so completely, that we were certain she was to be your heroine, and the wife of your hero; but with what unaccountable art you gradually convince the reader that she was

ÆT. 43.]

MISS EDGEWORTH'S LETTER.

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not, as she said of herself, capable of making Waverley happy! Leaving her in full possession of our admiration, you first made us pity, then love, and at last give our undivided affection to Rose Bradwardine, sweet Scotch Rose! The last scene between Flora and Waverley is highly pathetic: my brother wishes that bridal garments were shroud; he thinks it would be stronger, and more natural- because, when the heart is touched, we seldom use metaphor, or quaint alliteration-bride favors - bridal garment.

There is one thing more we could wish changed or omitted in Flora's character: I have not the volume, and therefore cannot refer to the page; but I recollect in the first visit to Flora, when she is to sing certain verses, there is a walk, in which the description of the place is beautiful, but too long; and we did not like the preparation for a scene, and the appearance of Flora and her harp. It was too like a common heroine she should be far above all stage-effect or novelist's trick.

These are, without reserve, the only faults we found, or can find, in this work of genius. We should scarcely have thought them worth mentioning, except to give you proof positive that we are not flatterers. Believe me, I have not, nor can I convey to you the full idea of the pleasure, the delight, we have had in reading "Waverley" — nor of the feeling of sorrow with which we came to the end of the history of persons, whose real presence had so filled our minds. We felt that we must return to the flat realities of life, and that our stimulus was gone. We were little disposed to read the postscript which should have been a preface. 'Well, let us hear it," said my father — and Mrs. E. read on.

O my dear sir, how much pleasure would my father, my whole family, as well as myself, have lost, if we had not read to the last page! And the pleasure came upon us so unexpectedly! We had been so completely absorbed, that every thought of ourselves, or our own authorship, was far, far away.

Thank you for the honor you have done us, and for the great pleasure you have given us, great in proportion to the opinion we had formed of the work we had just perused; and believe me, every opinion I have in this letter expressed was formed before any individual in the family had peeped to the end of the book, or knew how much he owed you.

Your obliged and grateful

MARIA EDGEwortil.

The allusion, in the above letter, to the "large family" at Edgeworthstown, may be explained by the fact that Mr. Edgeworth had been four times married, and had children by each wife, nearly all of whom remained under the paternal roof.

The objection that the occasional addresses from the author to the reader were too like Fielding had also been made by Henry Mackenzie, who said, "You should never be forced to recollect, maugre all its internal evidence to the contrary, that such a work is but a work of fiction, and all its fine creations but of air." On the other hand, Bulwer and Thackeray have often suspended their story to gossip with the reader about it. Dickens never did.

At the time (late in 1842) when I gave Mr. Lockhart a copy of Miss Edgeworth's letter, the publication of the second edition of the "Life of Scott" had been completed; and he stated his regret to me at not having been able to insert it in its proper place. Of its interest as a contribution to the literary history of his time he expressed himself warmly, vivâ voce as well as by letter.

Among other literary ladies of note, who, about this time, passed judgment upon "Waverley," was Miss Mary Russell Mitford, who in October, 1814, wrote thus: "Have you read Walter Scott's 'Waverley'? I have ventured to say Walter Scott's;' though I hear he denies it, just as a young girl denies the imputation of a lover: but, if there be any belief in internal evidence, it must be his. It is his by a thousand indications, by all the faults and all the beauties; by the unspeakable and unrecollectable names; by the vile pedantry of French, Latin, Gaelic, and Italian; by the hanging the clever hero, and marrying the stupid one; by the praise (well deserved, certainly, for when had Scotland ever such a friend?-but thrust in by his head and shoulders) of the late Lord Melville; by the sweet lyric poetry; by the perfect costume; by the excellent keeping of the picture; by the liveliness and gayety of the dialogues; and last, not least, by the entire and admirable individuality of every character in the

ET. 43.]

MISS MITFORD'S CRITICISM.

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book, high as well as low, the life and soul which animates them all with a distinct existence, and brings them before our eyes like the portraits of Fielding and Cervantes." The Baron of Bradwardine was her favorite character: "And yet his is, perhaps, the least original of any; a mere compound, but a most entertaining compound, of Shakspeare's Fluellen and Smollett's Lismahago.' Assuredly, as far as the latter was concerned, only personal resemblance was involved. Some weeks later, Miss Mitford, again writing to Sir William Elford, said that she remained convinced that Scott had some share in "Waverley;" adding, "I know not the evidence that could induce me to believe that Dugald Stewart had any thing to do with it. He! - the triptologist, as Horace Walpole says, he! the style-monger, whose periods, with their nice balancing and their elaborate finish, always remind one of a worthy personage in blue and silver, ycleped, I believe, the Flemish Hercules, whom I have seen balancing a ladder on his finger, with three children on one end, and two on the other, he write that half-French, half-English, half-Scotch, half-Gaelic, half-Latin, half-Italian, that hotch-potch of languages, - that movable Babel called Waverley'! My dear Sir William, there is not in the whole book one single page of pure and vernacular English; there is not one single period of which you do not forget the sense in admiration of the sound." There were three cogent circumstances to confirm the doubt thus expressed, first, Dugald Stewart, a life-long adept in metaphysics, logic, politics, and political economy, had never taken very kindly to literature; next, when "Waverley" was published, he was over sixty years of age; and, lastly, several "Waverley" novels appeared after his death.

CHAPTER XIV.

Abbotsford.-"Guy Mannering."-Origin of the Story.-Annesley Peerage.Joseph Train. The Cavern Scene. Visit to London. -The Prince Regent.-Carlton-House Hospitality.-Checkmated for Once. - Intimacy with Byron.- Dagger and Vase. - Stolen Autograph.

1814-1815.

BBOTSFORD, when Scott returned from the isles in September, 1814, had been augmented in acres by the purchase of a then desolate and naked mountain-mere, which, in the language of a famous landscape-gardener of the last century, had "great capabilities (hence the sobriquet of "Capability Brown "), and gave him a little lake at one end of his estates, as a contrast to the silvery Tweed at the other. A fancy price was paid for it; landowners in that quarter being shrewd enough to see that "the Shirrá" was anxious to obtain territory. He favored planting on land not decidedly arable, and had indulged in this judicious taste from the first day of his becoming master of Abbotsford. Within three years he had the gratification of reporting to one of his friends, whose woods had been the growth of centuries, "I cannot walk, nor even sit, under my own trees; but I can rest me beneath their shadow:" and wrote to another, "I am anxiously measuring my oak-trees (which are to be) with a one-foot rule." The dwelling at Abbotsford was advancing. In place of the miserable farm-house was arising what Scott, writing to Terry, calls "the whimsical, gay old cabin