strong, and most unhappy man was able, but, like his Roderick, was eclipsed in the splendour of the review it obtained in the Edinburgh,—a review in which, in power of writing, Jeffrey surpassed himself. We think, however, especially since a recent perusal of Swift's Journal to Stella, that the critic's view of Swift's morale is far too harsh and sweeping. Swift, with all his faults, which the public now knows passing well, and with all his madness, which, as in the case of poor Byron, none can know, was altogether a noble spirit, loved, and deserving to be loved, by the most gifted men and the most accomplished women of his time; the idol, and most justly the idol, of the people of Ireland; and in point of mental power and original genius, ranking with Edmund Burke and Daniel O'Connell, as the first three men that country has hitherto produced. 'We shall never have such a Rector of Laracor;' no, nor ever such a creator of new worlds as the author of Gulliver's Travels, or such a daring humorist as the author of the Tale of a Tub. Besides writing some papers on chivalry and the drama for the supplement to the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, Scott completed Waverley, which appeared in July, and became instantly popular. And so soon as it was off his hands, he, as we shall see in the next chapter, proceeded on a sea voyage round Scotland.

Here let us linger for a moment on the fact of the publication of Waverley. With what emotion do we see the first welling out of one of the great rivers of the earth from its far desert or mountain spring! Surely with deeper feeling may the lover of literature turn back to the day when there began a series of the finest creations of the human mind, combining lifelike reality with ideal beauty, full of simplicity, essentially Christian feeling, pathos and humanity, as well as of the highest eloquence, interest, and imagination,—a series which has bettered and blessed, as well as cheered and electrified, myriads and myriads more of mankind, and which, so far from having exhausted its artistic or beneficent power, is likely to increase in widespread influence as man advances and as ages roll on. And if Bruce was not blamed when, as he stood by the fountain whence he deemed the 'Great Father of Egypt's waters' took his rise, he swelled that fountain by his tears, let our emotion now not be counted false or factitious, while standing beside a well whence streams of intellectual life, as bountiful and copious as the Nile, have flowed out to gladden, to instruct, and to elevate the human race. To effect this, let it be remembered, was the purpose, the pride, and the joy, and that he had effected it was ultimately the consolation, of our noble Scottish novelist.

CHAPTER IX.

AT SEA.

S

COTT was now culminating, if not exactly culminated. His prestige as a poet had, indeed, in some measure declined; but he had established his name, and had newly opened up a mine of virgin richness in Waverley. He was still young, only forty-three; and there was as yet no indication of those complicated maladies which were destined first to shake, and then prematurely to destroy, one of the most robust constitutions, both in body and mind, that ever existed. Having propelled Waverley to the point of publication, he joyfully threw down the oar, and started on a long delightful excursion round the northern coast of Scotland. He writes, ere starting, to Morritt: 'I have accepted an invitation from the Commissioners of the Northern Lights (I don't mean the Edinburgh reviewers, but the bona fide Commissioners for

the beacons) to accompany them upon a nautical tour round Scotland, visiting all that is curious in continent and isle. The party are three gentlemen.' Those gentlemen were: Robert Hamilton, Sheriff of Lanarkshire; Adam Duff, Sheriff of Forfarshire; and William Erskine, Sheriff of Orkney and Shetland; besides a few others, with Mr. Stevenson as surveyor-viceroy over the Commissioners,-all more or less kindred spirits to Scott, and all pleasant, gentlemanly persons.

There is something peculiarly exhilarating in a tour undertaken immediately after some strenuous and successful literary effort. The mind continues cheerfully to chew the cud of its recent felicitous endeavour, and is at the same time, having shaken off a load, free to welcome every new impression, and ready to feel that idleness is a duty as well as an exquisite delight. Scott, too, had so much enthusiasm for the scenery of the North, that he must have looked forward to this excursion as to a long gala-day. And so it proved. Surrounded by such sympathetic friends as William Erskine, every new morning lighting in some new spot of loveliness, grandeur, or romantic interest, their time and the vessel at the entire disposal of the party, Scott was thoroughly in his element, as his journal kept during the voyage proves. Then he was not

altogether idle, since he was traversing scenes which he designed to turn to account at a future and not a very remote day, in the Lord of the Isles, a poem already begun, as well as afterwards in The Pirate.

His Edinburgh friends saw him embark with pleasure more than regret, knowing that he would return with many spoils, as well as greatly enjoy himself during the journey. James Hogg, indeed, wrote a curious letter to Lord Byron on the subject, which his Lordship thus quizzically notices in one of his epistles to Moore: 'Oh! I have had the most amusing letter from Hogg, the Ettrick minstrel and shepherd. Scott, he says, is gone to the Orkneys in a gale of wind; during which wind, he affirms, the said Scott, "he is sure, is not at his ease, to say the least of it." Lord! Lord! if these home-keeping minstrels had crossed your Atlantic or my Mediterranean, and tasted a little open boating in a white squall, or a gale in the "Gut,” or the Bay of Biscay with no gale at all, how it would enliven and introduce them to a few of the sensations!'

On the 29th of July 1814, Scott started on his norland tour; and he had scarcely cleared the Firth when the gale of wind did overtake him, and blew him on to Arbroath, where, after having