mer weeks, and on July 7th, 1814, the book appeared anonymously under the title of " Waverley, or 'Tis Sixty Years Since." In the whole range of literary history there is nothing, I suppose, so astonishing as the casual haphazard manner in which this immortal series of novels was ushered into the world. Until his misfortunes compelled him to declare himself, Scott, as you know, never publicly avowed the authorship of these novels. Many ingenious reasons have been discovered for this secrecy; but he has probably given us the real one when he said it was his humor. In the case of "Waverley," no doubt there was a natural unwillingness to risk a reputation already gained on a new experiment; but with the others, the mystification, such as it was, both amused him and was convenient. It saved him from troublesome questions, and compliments he did not care for; and it amused him to watch the public puzzling itself over the identity of this Great Unknown. But with his familiar friends there was never any mystery; nor indeed would it have been possible for him to hide himself from those who knew him well. The comrades of his youth must have had a hundred memories of those merry days recalled to them; hardly a character he had met, a place he had seen, a story he had heard, but had set his fancy to work in one shape or another. In such tales as 66 Guy Manner ing," "The Antiquary," "Redgauntlet," "St. Ronan's Well," there was enough in every chapter to prove the identity of the author of " Waverley" with Walter Scott in any court in Christendom. What puzzled the general public was the extraordinary rapidity with which the novels appeared. Perhaps in these days this might not seem so extraordinary, when we have grown used to seeing books springing up all round us like mushrooms; indeed I believe there is more than one novelist who claims to have beaten Sir Walter in quantity-though I have not yet heard any claim openly made to be his superior in quality. And there were voluminous authors, too, then-authors wonderfully prolific in that easy writing which, as Sheridan said, makes such uncommonly hard reading. But the least critical reader could not but see that this was an entirely new kind of writing, a kind hitherto unknown in English prose NEW SERIES.-VOL. L., No. 2. and 14 fiction. Scott's great predecessors in that delightful art, Fielding and Smollett and Richardson, had drawn the life around them that they knew, and drawn it with a master's hand. But here was a man who gave you all the pell-mell of life as none had ever given it before, save Shakespeare alone. I do not of course put Scott's genius on a level with Shakespeare's to do that would be to liken a bright, brimming river to the great ocean. For one thing, there is the immeasurable difference between poetry and prose: prose at its best is a fine thing poetry at its best is the consummate expression of the human intellect. And then, one of the many moods of that myriad-minded man Scott never approached. no attempt to grapple with the mystery of life there is no Hamlet in the novels. What Wordsworth has so beautifully called He made The heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Scott puts by-wisely, in my poor judgment, for such matters have not, it seems to me, their proper place in the domain of prose-fiction. However, we need not discuss this question here; but at least in the vigor and amplitude of his imagination, in the variety of his characters, in the fitness of their words and actions to their situations, in his broad and wholesome view of humanity, Walter Scott, it seems to me indisputable, stands second in English literature to Shakespeare alone. Nor are these qualities shown only in those novels in which he has painted the humors. of Scottish life and character. No doubt he is at his best when his foot is on his native heath. There we get his richest humor and his purest pathos, and especially that blending of the two, when the tears are close behind the smiles-as in "The Heart of Mid-Lothian" for instance-in which again he has been surpassed only by Shakespeare, and equalled, I think, only by Cervantes. But when he goes farther back, into distant times and countries not his own, when he draws his materials mainly from books, his hand is no less bold nor his touch less sure. In high and low life he is equally at home. That great critic, Goethe, who had the profoundest admiration for Scott, was especially struck with this quality of sureness in him." He is equal," he said, " to his subject in every direction in which it takes him.' That 66 gives way before the thundering blows of Richard Plantagenet. We get from Scott's novels, as we get from no others, a sense of public affairs: they are chapters, almost one may say, from the history of the world, full of all the color and movement of life, of life not as seen in its fireside concerns, to use Lamb's phrase, but as acted on the broad public stage of the world. is so. His Covenanters in "Old Mortality" are as real as his Highlanders in "Rob Roy" Claverhouse is as compact of flesh and blood as Rob himself. King James in The Fortunes of Nigel," Elizabeth in "Kenilworth," Mary Stuart in "The Abbot"-they breathe and move and speak as surely as Jonathan Oldbuck or Meg Merrilies or Jeanie Deans. His history, too, is wonderfully sound on its broad lines. If what Carlyle has called the mean How one man, and a busy man, who peddling details get occasionally in his had moreover nothing of the hermit about way, so much the worse for them-as it him, could possibly produce all these wonis, you know, with Shakespeare, who derful books along with all his other work makes Hector quote Aristotle and gives in the time that he did, may well, as you Bohemia a sea-coast. Scott was not gocan suppose, have puzzled even those who ing to spoil a splendid scene because Amy knew him. Scott had of course a wonRobsart was never at Kenilworth, or be- derful facility of composition. He wrote cause Prince Charlie was never in Scot- very fast, and when the subject suited him land after he had lost his last stake at Cul- he undoubtedly wrote best that way; we loden. But in the essential truth of the have seen at what a white heat "Wavermatter he is never out. And this it is ley" was composed: "Guy Mannering," which makes his historical romances some- again, in design and construction the best, thing apart and by themselves in fiction, I think, of all the novels, was the work of which makes them kin to the historical a Christmas vacation, by way of what he plays of Shakespeare. "Nothing is so used to call refreshing the machine, when tiresome," he wrote in his journal-and it tired with the routine of the law-courts. would be a good thing if some modern He was also a man of very regular habits, geniuses would condescend occasionally to and an assiduous observer of his favorite remember this" nothing is so tiresome maxim, never to be doing nothing he as walking through a beautiful scene with had no unconsidered trifles of time; every a minute philosopher, a botanist or pebble- moment was turned to account, and thus gatherer, who is eternally calling your at- he had leisure for everything. So long as tention from the grand features of the nat- his health permitted he used to work in ural picture to look at grapes and chucky- the early morning, so that by breakfaststanes. Life is not crushed out between time he had, as he expressed it, broken the pages of the historian and the archæ- the neck of the day's work. Often these ologist, nor disguised in the scraps of the were the only hours he could spare, when theatrical dressing-room; it is brought Abbotsford was full of company, as it combefore us fresh monly was; and however busy he might be, when his guests had to be entertained, there was Scott, always ready for them, the gayest of the gay, as though he had nothing in his head but the amusement of the hour, and no more to do with writing books than the youngest and idlest of the party. From the dark backward and abysm of time, in all its comedy and tragedy. We seem ourselves to move among those stirring scenes and stand face to face with those famous personages. We ride with Claverhouse through the red rout of Drumclog; we hear the trumpets of Montrose sounding the charge amid the dark passes of Ben Nevis: we hold our breath as Elizabeth in her fury confronts Leicester with his wronged wife the wild words of poor conscience-stricken Mary ring in our ears through the vaulted chamber of Lochleven: we see King Jamie grimacing and slobbering, as he cracks his jests with Jingling Geordie; and we watch with Rebecca from the castle-wall how the war But the real secret of the way in which he managed to combine quality with quantity lies in that phrase I have quoted to you he was making himself all the time. One of his friends said once to him, “I know that you contrive to get a few hours in your own room, and that may do for the mere pen-work; but when is it that you think?" Oh," answered Scott, "I lie simmering over things for an hour or so before I get up; and there's the 66 66 time I am dressing to overhaul my halfsleeping, half-waking thoughts--and when I get the paper before me it commonly runs off pretty easily." And in his journal there is a passage in which he contrasts his advantages over the host of imitators that his success had flooded the market with. They may do their fooling with better grace, "he says, ," but I, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, do it more natural;" he meant that they had to get their knowledge to write their books, while he wrote his books because he had got the knowledge. He had long ago, in short, made himself so thoroughly that when he sat down to his desk the ideas flowed as freely from his brain as the ink from his pen. "It commonly runs off pretty easily:" that it certainly did. I have seen some of his manuscripts, and they are marvels to look at-not exactly marvels of handwriting indeed in that respect they bear a striking resemblance to certain other manuscripts you may perhaps have heard of by the name of pœnas. But the wonder of these sheets is that they are written almost wholly without erasures. Page after page the writing runs on exactly as you read it in print. I was looking not long ago at the manuscript of "Kenilworth" in the British Museum, and examined the end with particular care, thinking that the wonderful scene of Amy Robsart's death must surely have cost him some labor. They were the cleanest pages in the volume: I do not think there was a sentence altered or added in the whole chapter. 66 And what is still more wonderful, he could dictate with the same rapidity. Three of his novels, and they are among his best-"A Legend of Montrose, "Ivanhoe," and "The Bride of Lammermoor"-were in great part dictated, the last entirely so, owing to ill-health; but his amanuenses declared that they could hardly keep pace with him. During the progress of The Bride of Lammermoor' his pain was sometimes such that, strong inan as he was, he fairly screamed aloud, but with the next breath he would continue the sentence as though nothing had happened. On one occasion his agony was so great that he was begged to give over till it had passed. Nay," was the answer. "Only see that the doors are fast. would fain keep all the cry as well as the wool to ourselves; but as to giving over work that can only be when I am dead." I And never did Scott speak a truer word. He never did give over work till life gave over him. It is probably known to you that he suffered a sad change of fortune in his last years. To explain exactly how it happened would need a clearer head for figures than I ever carried into our mathematical school. Nor is it necessary. It will be enough to say that Scott had himself been rash and extravagant, and had mixed up his affairs with men who had been still more so. His publisher Constable failed, and the failure involved the smaller house of Ballantyne in which Scott had been for many years a partner. He might have taken the advantage the law allowed him and declared himself bankrupt. But this he would not do no man, he said, should lose a penny through him; if they would give him time the debt should be paid in full. The sum was close upon £120,000, and Scott was fiftyfive years old; yet so strong was the trust in him, so universal the affection and pity felt for him, that it was unanimously agreed to give him the time he asked. His The blow fell at a cruel moment. wife was dying-she was dead within four months of the bad news; his own health was breaking; his children were no longer round him; the eldest son Walter was married and with his regiment; the second, Charles, had just gone to Oxford; one of his daughters, Sophia, was married to Lockhart and settled in London with children of her own; only Anne, the second girl, was left to comfort him. Yet this brave man addressed himself without a complaint or reproach to his tremendous task. His house in Edinburgh, where he had lived since his marriage, was sold: all the gay life at Abbotsford was stopped: his servants indeed he could not get rid of, for they all refused to leave him, working on diminished wages as happily as ever, and more than ever fond and proud of their master. Never was man in his adversity more amply repaid than Scott for the good deeds of his prosperity. Offers of assistance poured in on him from all quarters, the highest and the lowest, including an anonymous one of £30,000; but he refused them all. "Unless I die, he wrote to Lockhart, "I shall beat up against this foul weather. A penny I will not borrow from any one. And in the same letter he tells his friend not to think he is writing" in the heat of excited re sistance to bad fortune :" My dear Lockhart, I am as calm and temperate as ever you saw me, and working at Woodstock like a very tiger." Figures, Lord Beaconsfield is reported to have said, are the most deceptive things in the world except facts; but facts and figures alike show that Scott had made no rash promise to his creditors. Within two years they were paid very nearly £40,000: when he died there remained only £30,000 unpaid; and within fifteen years this sum also was extinguished by the sale of his copyrights. It would of course be unfair to compare the work done under these conditions with the work of his prime; but we must remember that it included "Woodstock," "The Fair Maid of Perth," and the "Tales of a Grandfather." This tremendous strain could not last. He had been suffering all through this time under a complication of disorders, and now his brain began to fail. Fortunately this brought also a merciful relief. The fancy took him that he had paid all his debts and was once more a free man. Then, and not till then, he yielded to his friends' entreaties and let them take him abroad to try what rest and change could do for him. They had pressed this on him often, but he could not bring himself to leave the hills and woods he had made his own. One can fancy that the lines he had put five and twenty years earlier into the mouth of the old minstrel must have often come back to him in those days: By Yarrow's stream still let me stray, ful sonnet: A trouble, not of clouds or weeping rain, Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height: Spirits of power assembled there complain For kindred power departing from their sight; While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain, Saddens his voice again and yet again. Lift up your hearts, ye mourners; for the might Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes; Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue But it was too late. Not rest nor change nor the might of the whole world's good wishes could avail him now; and in the next summer, the summer of 1832, they brought him back from Italy to Abbotsford to die. It would be easy to draw a lesson from Scott's life. The old, old tale of the vanity of human things has rarely had a more striking illustration than that supplied by the sight of this great man, struck down in a moment, in the fulness of fame, wealth and honor, with the dearest wish of his heart destined never to be realized, and dragging out his years in sorrow and labor. And yet Scott never showed himself so truly great as then admired and loved as he had been in the full blaze of his prosperity, he was never so truly honored as in the dark shadow of his ruin. The stern moralist may shake his head and remind us that this ruin came from his own faults and from causes unworthy of him. That may be so; but at least, if the fault was his, he met it and atoned for it with a courage and a sense of duty worthy of the highest and purest cause. Lockhart well said that those who knew and loved him would ever remember that the real nobility of his character could not have shown itself to the world at large had he never been exposed to the ordeal of adversity. Setting aside his genius, Scott's life, till the trial came, was but the life of any busy prosperous man with a generous nature, a warm heart and a keen relish of life. It was reserved for the dark hour to show the metal he was made of; to leave for his own age and for all ages to come an almost unexampled assurance of that equal temper, to use Lord Tennyson's fine words, That equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will, To strive, to seek, to find, but not to yield. -Macmillan's Magazine. MANLY WOMEN. FASHION has decreed that at the present time it is the right and proper thing for its female votaries to adopt manly occupations, amusements, mode of conversation, sports, and to a certain extent imitations of the male garments, not to mention the more serious movements on foot for women to share in the political life of men and in the government of their country. Nowadays it is by no means thought necessary for a young married lady to be a good housekeeper, or to be well versed in domestic arrangements-all these things can be looked after by the servants, and beyond vehement protests at the largeness of the monthly books when presented, no efforts are made by manage ment to check the expenditure, and, if some spasmodic attempts are initiated, they are rendered utterly futile by the absolute ignorance of the subject on the part of the lady of the house, which is at once detected by the tradesmen and servants, who use it to their own advantage. If children are to be well looked after, cannot good nurses and governesses be found and on them the responsibility can be placed, while in case of illness, or even of any of the mildest forms of infantile derangements, is it not the simplest thing to send for the doctor, who will give full details as to the necessary modes of diet and bringing up suitable for them? So what is the necessity of studying such subjects? Thus in former days what used to be considered the special duty of our women is no longer so, and in consequence, by shelving their responsibilities on to the shoulders of those who are paid to bear them, they have more time on their hands, and feel that it is the right thing that they should take up occupations and ideas which are shared equally with men. In country houses at the present day, during the annual "shoots," if the walking is of a nature to permit it, such as in partridgedriving and covert-shooting, the ladies now expect to come out with the lunch, or sometimes before, and to walk with the shooters; and they take, or pretend to take, the keenest interest in the sport. Their costumes on these occasions are as nearly allied to that of their male companions as the difference of sex will allow; they adopt the gaiters, or spats; their dresses are made in imitation of men's clothes by men tailors, and their design is to resemble a coat and waistcoat, with a flannel or silk shirt underneath, and with tie and pin; and their heads are adorned with stalking or cloth caps, which, as a rule, are by no means a comfortable or suitable covering to their "coiffure." It is almost needless to add that a covert-coat now is an indispensable article of attire. 66 These ladies come out in troops, and, when lunch is over, distribute themselves among the guns, each one attaching herself to the man of her choice, and accompanying him for the rest of the afternoon, not always to the complete satisfaction of many sportsmen," who think, with considerable justness, that women are out of place on such occasions. There is little doubt that in our short winter days it causes considerable delay, as lunch for fourteen or fifteen people takes much longer than it would if only the six or seven shooters were there; besides the meal is bound to be more elaborate; while in partridge-driving in particular it is difficult to persuade the keen sporting ladies to keep themselves properly out of sight, as they are anxious to see all that is going on, the birds coming and being killed; the result being that they show themselves and turn the birds; so that it requires a strong-minded sportsman to insist on his fair follower sitting under a damp hedge out of sight while the drive is going on. In addition to all these drawbacks, it is by no means a feminine occupation to witness, without partaking in the skilful performance of it, the massacre of hundreds of harmless birds and beasts, and it must be deteriorating to watch the sufferings of the unfortunate wounded, and is sure to produce a callousness to suffering that is most contrary to the true womanly instinct of gentleness and abhorrence of all that tends to cruelty or the infliction of pain. Many women now bet at race meetings, and, though they have not yet gone the length of making their bets with the bookmakers personally, yet they get their friends to do so for them, and look upon it as a serious matter of business, and in many cases venture considerable sums. We do not, of course, refer to those who, when they go casually to Ascot, have |