From Scottish history Scott again turned to English, and in January, 1821, the tragic story of "Kenilworth" made its appearance. It is a beautiful episode of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, though somewhat marred by unaccountable Shakespearian anacronisms. It was formerly, and to some extent it still is, an article of every liege Scotchman's creed to be strongly prejudiced in favor of the unfortunate Mary Stuart, and equally so against "her sister and her foe," the good Queen Bess; but, despite the influence of that prejudice, "almost as natural to him as his native air," it is very generally conceded that Scott's delineation of England's Maiden Queen is both excellent and impartial.

In the last month of that year-1821came "The Pirate," brilliant with lyrical gems. Most of it was written at Chieftswood, the home of Lockhart, and its details were gathered by the author while on a voyage round the coast of Scotland, made by him in the summer and autumn of 1814 as the guest of the Light House Commission.

"The Fortunes of Nigel," which followed in May, 1822, introduces us to James I and to so many of the sorry noblemen of that pedantic and selfish monarch's reign that we are pleased at length to discover among its dramatis personæ, although in such poor company, George Heriot-Jingling Geordie, as "Our Cousin of Scotland" was wont to call him

-whose name is doubly imperishable, not only as figuring in this novel, but as being the founder of one of the most splendid and best-appointed institutions in the City of Edinburgh.

"Peveril of the Peak" is crowded with characters more numerous and diverse than are introduced in any of Scott's other novels; "Quentin Durward," a story of the time of Louis XI, caused a literary revolution in France and created a race of Gallic novelists, besides gaining for its author the proud title of "the poet of battles," while in "St. Ronan's Well" (the name of an English watering place -a mineral spring whither he had taken refuge as a healthful change "from his legal folios and progresses of title deeds" -) Scott returns to his own, his native land, and lays his story amid the scenery where, twenty-five years before, he had won the hand of Charlotte Carpenter. These three novels—a remarkable trinity -were all produced in 1823.

"Redgauntlet, a Tale of the Eighteenth Century," originally named "Herries," followed close upon the heels of "St. Ronan's Well," being published in June, 1824. It is a Jacobite story, and contains, as Lockhart remarks, perhaps more of the author's personal experiences than any of the other novels, or even than all the rest of them put together.

"The Talisman," one of the "Tales of the Crusaders," derives its title from the incident of the story to this day known as the "Lee-penny," and is perhaps the best of Scott's shorter tales. It takes us back to the times of the third crusade, and presents to us well-drawn sketches of the two chief leaders of the Cross and the Crescent "Him of the lion-heart," with the terrors of whose name, as Saladin avouches, "even on the sands of Yemen, the nurse stills her child, and the free

Arab subdues his restive steed," and the Sultan "Saladin, King of Kings, Soldan of Egypt and of Syria, the light and refuge of the earth," than whom "no greater name is recorded in Eastern history." Most of its incidents, however, are fictitious, and it was Scott's gift to romantic literature in 1825.

The works of Sir Walter Scott published after that year have a peculiar interest, for the financial crash of the publishing houses of Constable and Company and of Messrs. Ballantyne and Company came in 1826-January 17th-and Scott, being a partner in the concerns, found himself, at the age of 55, involved in the ruin, with liabilities amounting to about £130,000, or $650,000. All the world knows the story of his Titanic struggle to repay that debt, and how nobly he toiled to achieve it. The saddest epoch of his career, all the world knows that the struggle cost him his life. "Brave men lived before Agamemnon," but no page of history, no chapter of biographical tale, is more replete with the tragedy of a sad triumph than the leaf of Scott's life which he had now turned. Our thoughts recoil at the magnitude of the task and at the heroic spirit displayed by the struggler, for not many days previous to the failure Scott had an attack of that species of brain disease known as aphasia, whereof the most striking symptom is the mistaking by the patient of one word for another. On the 22d day of the same month of January, he sadly writes: "I feel neither dishonored nor broken down by the bad, now truly bad, news I have received. I have walked my last in the domains I have planted-sat the last time in the halls I have built. But death would have taken them from me, if misfortune had spared them. people whom I loved so well!

My poor There is

just another die to turn up against me in this run of ill-luck, i. e., if I should break my magic wand in the fall from this elephant, and lose my popularity with my fortune. Then Woodstock and Boney may both go to the paper-maker, and I may take to smoking cigars and drinking grog, or turn devotee and intoxicate the brain another way." To add to his grief, his wife of twenty-nine married years was taken from him, and Lady Scott died alone in Abbotsford, while her husband, for economy's sake, was lodging in a humble abode in St. David's street of his native city. It was Lord Chief Baron Shepherd who, in imitation of Cicero's encomium of another great man, spoke of Sir Walter Scott as one who "had borne adversity wisely, who had not been broken by fortune, and who, amidst the buffets of fate, had maintained his dignity," and the learned Baron, who wrote many true

things, wrote none more true than this.

"For many years," were Scott's own words to Mr. Gillies, "I have been accustomed to hard work, because I found it a pleasure; now, with all due respect for Falstaff's principle, 'nothing on compulsion,' I certainly will not shrink from work because it has become necessary." Scott did go to work, and he laid down the pen only when he laid down his life. His fatal error had been in associating his duties as an author with those of the publisher and printer. His income from his profession of law was probably $8,000 a year, and it had been easy for him to live up to his favorite maxim that literature should be a staff, not a crutch. "Woodstock, or The Cavalier; a Tale of the Year Sixteen Hundred and Fortyone," was not destined to "go to the paper-maker," and in June, 1826, the work was given to an expectant public.

It was Scott's first effort to redeem his promise to repay his creditors, and it brought to him substanial profits, netting £8,228 "a matchless sale for less than three months' work."

The authorship of the "Waverley Novels" was as hotly disputed as that of the famous Letters of Junius, and the year 1827 is memorable as that in which the Great Unknown threw off his mask and disclosed Sir Walter Scott as the author of these tales. The confession was made by him at the Theatrical Fund Dinner, given in Edinburgh, on February 23d, of that year, and was divulged in response to Lord Meadowbank's toast of "The Author of Waverley." The "Life of Napoleon," which no one now reads, and which on the Continent was a failure from the start, appeared four months later; before the close of the year the first series of "The Chronicles of the Canongate" (each of whose three talesThe Highland Widow, the Two Drovers

and The Surgeon's Daughter-had a foundation in fact), and the first series of his "Tales of a Grandfather, being the History of Scotland," written in imitation of J. W. Croker's Stories from the History of England, and with a dedication to "Master Hugh Littlejohn," his grandchild Lockhart (for whose use "these Tales were written in the interval of other avocations," were published); "The Fair Maid of Perth" followed in the spring of 1828, and was succeeded by the second "Chronicles of the Canongate" and series two of the "Tales of a Grandfather"; the year 1829 closed with the third series of these Tales, the publication of "Anne of Geierstein; or, The Maiden of the Mist" (chiefly the work of leisure hours in Edinburgh, not of quiet mornings in the country, and the last of his works prior to his apoplectic stroke) and much miscellaneous but not unprofitable work; 1830 welcomed a further series of the "Tales of a Grandfather," besides a

"History of Scotland," while "Count Robert of Paris" and "Castle Dangerous," belonging to 1831, and in reality the productions of a paralytic patient, complete the long list of Sir Walter Scott's immortal works.

"Castle Dangerous" safely launched, Scott's career was drawing swiftly to its close, and he felt that he was destined shortly to follow those life-long friends who one by one were falling through the broken arches of the bridge of life. Death came to this "perfect gentle knight" at his beloved Abbotsford, to which he had hastened from the sunny shores of Italy when he perceived "life's candle tapering to a close," and there, on the 21st day of September, 1821, in presence of his children, and with the music of the rippling Tweed in his ears, "God's finger touched him and he slept." Five days later, all that was mortal of Scotland's greatest novelist was laid beside the body of his wife, beneath the sod which grew fresh and green among the venerable ruins of Dryburgh Abbey.

I have not spoken of Scott as a dramatist, because there is little in that con

nection to record. Well-nigh every poet tries his "prentice hand" at the drama, and Scott was no exception to the rule. It may appear paradoxical, but I think the history of English literature sustains the assertion, that a good poet rarely or never makes a good dramatist, and, besides, Scotland, so famous for its poets, has never produced a really great dramatist. Byron, of all poets the most dramatic, could produce nothing better than "Sardanapalus," and Alfred Tennyson has added nothing to his renown by his ponderous historical plays. It is, I think, a significant fact that while Scott wrote several dramas, and that all of them were failures, yet in the cunning hands of the skilful playwright both his poems and romances have met with an abundance of deserved success. Witness "Guy Mannering," "The Antiquary," "The Heart of Midlothian" and "The Lady of the Lake." Of dramas proper Scott wrote at least five, but not all of his readers, I apprehend, have read "Halidon Hill," "The Doom of Devorgoil" or "The House of Aspen." (To be continued.)

meal in peace;"

"Too much salt-nonsense," answered

Jones, "you're always finding fault;" "Not without cause," snapped Mrs. Jones; "the oatmeal is too salt."

to have this quarreling cease;" "It would stop instantly, I'm sure, if you would change your course;" "Poor me again," said Mrs. Jones, "I'll sue for a divorce."