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author has thrown upon it. He says naturally enough, that his incognito gave him the pleasure of one who was in possession of a secret treasure; but this were too childish a reason for so grave an act. That his reputation and standing needed not, as he justly argues, the support of their popularity, is still no reason why he should go out of the plain path to avoid it. The dread of giving offence to majesty, from the tenderness they displayed towards an exiled race, he himself has rejected with scorn, as if the magnanimity of him who filled their throne, could not "pardon a sigh from others, or bestow one themselves to the memory of brave opponents." Something may undoubtedly be assigned to the author's love of mystery, and something to his fear of breaking the charm which that mystery seemed to have with the public; but after all, I am inclined to attribute much, very much, to that more honorable cause to which he himself alludes, and the sincerity of which his whole life so strikingly displays, namely, a wish "to avoid the partiality of friends, or the adulation of flatterers,” and a secret dislike to enter on personal discussion concerning his own literary labors. "It is a dangerous intercourse, he observes, for an author to be dwelling continually among those who make his writings a frequent and familiar subject of conversation."— "The habits of self-importance, thus acquired, are highly injurious to a well regulated mind."

For the long period of twelve years, during which these splendid and touching romances, some historical, some of pure fiction, continued to issue forth from their secret recesses with a rapidity unparalleled; the mask was worn; and although to near friends the disguise was far from complete, yet to the literary world it was still "The Black Knight of the Fetterlock," whom no man knew by his device, however they might recognize him by his power: it was in short "the great Unknown." In the meantime, Scott appeared fully engaged by his occasional acknowledged productions,

all avenues to the secret were barred with jealous care; the chosen few, (twenty in number,) to whom it had been necessarily entrusted, remained faithful; and although suspicion ever and anon rested on him, it was as often thrown at fault by some implied or even direct denial on his part. Such evasions it is not my intention to justify; his own reply to me was, "Sir, it was not a crime of which I was accused.""No man had a right to put me on trial, and wrest from my silence or ambiguous answer a secret which I had a right to keep."

I turn to a more pleasing theme-the wondrous number, and still more wondrous merits of the works themselves. I will not weary you, gentlemen, with their enumeration, their names are all familiar to our ears as household words," and to republican ears much more so than "Harry the king, Bedford, and Exeter." In the order of merit, amid much difference of opinion, all will acknowledge in them both a rise and declension of power, somewhat similar, though less marked, to what has been already noticed in his poems. For myself, I should say, that they continued to rise in merit from their commencement in "Waverley" until we come to "Rob Roy," "Old Mortality," and the "Heart of Mid Lothian." These three following in order, look to me like the Eildon Hill with its triple crown, at whose feet they were written-while the splendid epic of Ivanhoe, somewhat separated from them, shoots up like some one of the solitary hills of that classic range, to an equal or perhaps superior height; it came, in short, to redeem and re-establish a claim which in the opinion of the public began to waver. But throughout the whole series, almost to its very close, the same graphic pen, and the same master's hand may be traced, varying indeed much, but still, rather with the excitement of the heart of the author, than the powers of his mind. And when his heart was engaged in his subject, where shall we find his equal! How just the conception, how felicitous the execution, how overwhelming the

emotion! How does he bow the heart with a thought, and call forth tears with a word! In those scenes of tenderness it is not Scott-'tis nature herself that speaks; no wonder then that the heart obeys; as a child, at the call of its mother, so do we become children in his hands, and hearing that maternal voice which never speaks in vain, yield to him a passive obedience to lead us how and where he will.-He leads us to the listed plain of the preceptory at Templestowe, the heavy bell with its slow sullen sounds salutes our ear, the drawbridge falls, and lo! the pale proud Jewess with her slow but undismayed step, the champion of the order, fierce yet ghastly pale as he reins in his pawing war-horse, the floating standard, and the hurried cry of “ A champion, A champion!"—all this rises at once before our glistening eyes.Again, we enter with him the cottage at Mussel Crag, and seated by the side of the heart-broken Mucklebackit, feel how sympathetic are tears when they course down weatherbeaten cheeks; while the mother's cry breaks our very heart, “O my bairn, my bairn, my bairn! what for is thou lying there? and eh! what for am I left to greet for ye!"—With the elder Philipson, we tremble with desperation on the rock at Gierstein, as he watches the perils of an only son; and like him are only withheld from some act of despair, by the sorrowing appeal of the youthful guide on his bended knee, "I too have a father."-We enter the cottage of Jeannie Deans, and our proud hearts are humbled before the lofty integrity of a low-born Scottish maiden ;-while again in a roofless and ruined mansion, they are raised to such a height of piety, as it would be well that holier walls should always inspire, as we listen to the simple wisdom of the grandmother of poor Hobbie Elliot. If any one doubt the power of Scott to teach the lesson of thankful piety, let him read the story of that good old dame, “who lost no opportunity of impressing her lesson when the heart was best open to receive it." "Was it not my word, said she, "that if could say his

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will be done, ye might hae cause to say, 'His name be praised.""

Scriptural quotation has been made a charge against the piety of Scott; but as it is a charge common to all, from Milton to Mrs. Sherwood, the only question is, in what spirit it has been done, and with what influence it has been accompanied. Now in this, each must judge for himself; but to me, it seems that Scott has done it with equal sincerity to Milton, and perhaps more than equal awe. Had Scott been wanting, as some think, in the "root of the matter," such characters as Mc Briar, Mucklewrath, and Dominie Sampson, would have been turned into impious mockery. As it is, their religion bears them up, and from the pen of Scott, that is made to give dignity even to folly and insanity, which, with a Smollett or a Fielding, would have constituted the main but of ridicule. Scott's sensibilities, as well in church as state, were all no doubt strong in favor of antiquity. He was no friend to innovation or rising sects; yet such was his catholic spirit, and such his respect for the religion of the heart, under whatever form, that his fictions are kinder, and perhaps truer than history; and the Cameronian and the Quaker may look elsewhere in vain for so pleasing a portrait as they will find given of themselves in the family of Mount Sharon and the cottage of St. Leonards.

And in their moral aspect, how pure the light that beams from the works of Scott! Shakspeare, with all his genius, evinces no such moral principle. Spenser, with all his high imaginings, had not so chaste a muse. Dryden wrote willingly for "a ribbald king and court," and Pope's religion could not save him from being sometimes a pander to vice; but he who can extract from the pages of Scott, even in his pictures of the most vile, one licentious thought, stands in the court of conscience self-condemned; he is his own betrayer! his own imagination is the traitor that has poisoned a pure fountain.

What too shall we say of him, when compared with his

ill-fated rival Byron, whom placing first in the list of genius, we must place first also in the painful list of those who, in the lofty language of our poet,

"Profaned their God-given strength,

And marred the lofty line."

Up to his time English poets at least had purified as they run, and cast off with the passions of youth what even the passions of youth can never excuse. But Byron's, with all its soundless depth, was ever a dark stream: no olive branch of peace ever sweetened its black and bitter waters, which ever and anon settled into stagnant pools of pestilential corruption. How different the muse, the imagination of Scott! Here, the fountain, humanly speaking, was pure, for it was a heart of noble and tender feeling; and the stream was pure, for it flowed through the channels of a virtuous life : it was, in short, like his own sweet river, on whose banks he dwelt, now a brawling brook and now a placid lake, but ever sweet-waters; now kissing its banks of flowers, now rushing impetuous among rocks, now visiting the vine-clad cottage, and now some mouldering ruin; but still, wherever it went, by tower or town, diffusing life and verdant beauty till it reached that ocean, to which now, alas, it is gone down to mingle with its parent flood.

It has been asked by some, who measure genius by a scale of subjects, where are the solid works on which Scott's fame is built? And by others, in the same tone, it is lamented that such a genius had not consecrated his powers to higher and nobler themes; but with respect be it spoken, this is a narrow and false view, both of the subjects on which he did write, and the duties to which he was bound.

What makes a work solid, I would ask, but truth? And what is truth, but a faithful portraiture of that which the author professes to copy? And where shall the author find a nobler theme (at least in human subjects) than in the de

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