author, depressed in spirits, and straitened in circumstances, was nevertheless forcing his way into fame by his matchless conversational and lecturing powers, and had become, next to Scott himself, the lion of the season, and the great orator of the dining-tables in the metropolis. Scott met him at Sotheby's, and was much struck by his talk, although probably he did not understand it all, any more than his other auditors, or sometimes the lecturer himself.

On his return he commenced the Lady of the Lake. While writing it he was subject to fits of absence. His mind was in the Trosachs; and once he mistook another house in Castle Street for his own, but cried out, when he discovered the blunder, 'Ah! there are too many bairns' bannets here for this hoose to be mine!' He went with his wife in autumn to revisit the well-known localities of his new poem, and satisfied himself in his own person that a good horseman might gallop from Loch Venachar to Stirling within the space he was to allot to Fitz-James. He then visited Ross Priory and Buchanan House, and read there to the assembled guests the description of the stag-chase which he had not long before composed,-read it almost in the shadow of Ben Ledi.

At Buchanan House he saw, for the first time,

Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and was not at all annoyed by the young poet's attack on himself. He had read the Hours of Idleness, and even from it had predicted the future fame of the poet-had deprecated the article in the Edinburgh Review, and once thought of remonstrating with Jeffrey on the subject.

He issued this year an edition of Sir Ralph Sadler's State Papers, in three quarto volumes. John Kemble visited him in the autumn, and 'seduced him somewhat into the old compotatory habits of "Colonel Grogg." It was on this occasion that the twain were pursued by a furious bull. They tried to escape by crossing a stream, but found it in spate, when Kemble exclaimed, in all the pomp of stage declamation (as Scott used to relate with exquisite mimicry), 'The flood is angry, Sheriff; methinks I'll get me up into a tree!' But no tree was at hand; and had not the dogs succeeded in diverting the animal, King John's days had been numbered. This year Miss Seward died; but her loss was more than supplied to Scott by his becoming acquainted with Daniel Terry, who afterwards adapted so many of his novels for the stage, and was, besides, a warm, intelligent, and amusing friend.

1810 was one of Scott's brightest years. Early

in May appeared the Lady of the Lake, and was received with boundless enthusiasm. The critics and the public were for once of the same opinion to an iota. On all the roads leading to the Trosachs was suddenly heard the rushing of many horses and chariots. Old inns were crowded to suffocation; bad dinners and breakfasts, and enormous charges, were endured with exemplary patience; and new inns sprung up like mushrooms. Post-hire permanently rose. Every corner of that fine gorge was explored, and every foot of that beautiful loch was traversed, by travellers carrying copies of the book in their hands; and as they sailed toward Glengyle, or climbed the grey scalp of Ben An, or sate in the shady hollow of Coirnan-Uriskin, or leaned over the still waters of Loch Achray, repeating passages from it with unfeigned rapture. It was as if a ray from another sphere had fallen on and revealed a nook of matchless loveliness, and all rejoiced in the gleam and its revelation.

The Lady of the Lake has always been, as a whole, our favourite among Scott's poems. We love it for the delicious naturalness and interest of the story,—the breathless rapidity of the verse, reminding you of the gallop of the gallant grey which bore its hero in the storm of chase till he

sank in death; the freshness of its spirit, like morning dew sparkling on the heath flowers of Ellen's Isle; its exquisitely assorted and contrasted characters, and because we have known from boyhood so well the scenery of the poem: Glenartney's hazel shade; the wild heights of Uamvar; lone Glenfinlas; Ben Ledi's heaving sides and hoary summit; the down-rushing masses of Ben Venue; Loch Achray, as sweet, if not so solitary still, as when Allan Bane uttered his thrilling farewell; and the gnarled defile of the Trosachs, in which to fancy's ear the horn of Fitz-James is heard 'still sounding for evermore.' In the unmixed delight afforded by this poem there is no parallel in literature, save in two or three of the author's own novels, or in a few of Shakspeare's plays; and he that has given that to all readers may well defy carping criticism. Walter Savage Landor justly magnifies its closing verses as unequalled in princely dignity and gracefulness.

In the same propitious year Scott recommenced Waverley, but threw it again aside upon a cold criticism from James Ballantyne.

1

CHAPTER VII

ASHESTIEL TO ABBOTSFORD-GLIMPSE OF FAMILY, DOMESTIC CIRCUMSTANCES, AND HOME LIFE.

N the Lady of the Lake Scott's poetical career had come to its height. He had come to the first 'Rest and be Thankful' in his upward course. Even then, indeed, as usually happens, the chariot of his triumph had a slave riding behind it. But before speaking of the business entanglements which were beginning slowly to gather round him, we shall now look at his domestic circumstances, growing family, and his change of residence, and what it implied.

Scott's married life, as we saw, commenced under auspices on the whole favourable. We

are

aware that rumours affecting Mrs. Scott's prudence, education, economy, and other still more indispensable virtues in the female charac