and perfect confidence than that between the strong and manly Scott and the sensitive and almost womanlynatured Erskine never existed; whose was the greater nobility of heart and character it was impossible to decide. Scott said of his friend that "if ever a pure spirit quitted the vale of tears, it was William Erskine"; and added to the simple eulogy the truly characteristically practical words: "I must turn to and see what can be done about getting some pension for his daughters." Sir Walter was not only the "discriminating and keen man" which Crabbe found him, but also a being of supreme tenderness.

T the period of the King's visit to Scotland we

A

may think of Scott as at the height of his fame and fortune. He was now certainly the greatest Scotsman, and probably, next to Wellington, the most illustrious British subject of his day.

At Abbotsford he was inundated with visitors of all classes and every clime-British peers, foreign princes, American tourists. The position he had attained in the literary world is shown no less by his election to "The Club" founded by Dr. Johnson, than by his relations with Archibald Constable, that most ambitious but not least sagacious of publishers. Not only were the remainder of Scott's copyrights purchased from him for a substantial sum, but money was advanced to him by way of bills in exchange for vague agreements stipulating merely that he should write four "works of fiction" of the usual "Waverley" length, extra payment to be made if this were exceeded. The four works thus provided for came forth within two years under the titles of Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward, St. Ronan's Well, and Redgauntlet. Builders and planters had, as the author

said, drained his purse, but with such means of repairing it there was no fear of the future in his mind.

Of these four the first is the longest, and at the same time one of the weakest works that ever came from Sir Walter's pen. The author himself said it smelt of the apoplexy. The story begins and continues much too slowly, and then ends suddenly and jerkily in a series of historical scenes, which are not uninteresting in themselves, but do not connect themselves at all easily with the plot. It is a little uncertain whether it is the old cavalier Sir Geoffrey, or his son Julian, who gives his name to the tale. Whichever it be we cannot profess much interest in him; nor is The Peak itself for long the theatre of events. The lovemaking of Julian and Alice is prolix and does not stir us, in spite of the jack-in-the-box appearances of the lady's father, Major Bridgenorth, whose conduct throughout is most perplexing; and in the complex intrigues of Buckingham and Edward Christian we quite lose sight of the affairs of the old Countess of Derby and the Isle of Man till the old lady is hurriedly brought in at the close to remind us and the King of them.

Yet the whole of the action hinges upon the scheme of revenge which Christian endeavours to carry out against the judicial murderer of his brother the Deemster. Scott was never in the Isle of Man; but his attention was drawn to this home of congenial legend by the accidental residence there for some time of his

brother Thomas, when in pecuniary distress. Through Thomas Scott he was enabled to see some papers which threw much light upon the part played by the leading personages of the island in the Great Rebellion. It cannot be said that he made much of his material; and one is not sorry to leave the Castles of Holm Peel and Rushen and the monumental stone of Goddard Crovan for the shores of England. The Derbyshire scenes that follow are little better; but the author's familiarity with the history of the period galvanises some life into the story before it expires in the atmosphere of the Court of Charles II. Buckingham and Sir Geoffrey Hudson, the dwarf, are, like most of Scott's historical characters, more alive than any of the fictitious personages, unless it be the feigned mute Fenella; and Colonel Blood and Titus Oates make effective, if somewhat spasmodic, appearances.

The Whitehall chapters of Peveril are nearly as good as those of Nigel; St. James's Park is again the scene of one of the leading incidents, and we now see the inside of Newgate as well as that of the Tower. But one feels that these things are thrown in to give life to the story which they rather smother. Fenella (the name was borrowed from "Lady Fenella's Castle" in Kincardineshire), the diminutive spy, whose hopeless, yet steadfast passion upsets all the villainous schemes of her father, is a grotesque performer, whose tricks we are compelled to watch with a certain reluctant admiration. Incredible as they are, Scott borrowed the most

astounding of them-her long-assumed deafness and dumbness—from an apparently well-attested fact in his own family history. A woman, who originally came for a night's shelter at his grandfather's house, but who remained there to spin and look after the poultry for three or four years, actually kept up the pretence that she was dumb during all that time. Being one day surprised into speech, she disappeared from the house as suddenly as she had come.

The skilfully compacted romance of Quentin Durward soon came to atone for the long-winded and somewhat incoherent Peveril. The new work-to my thinking the finest specimen in existence of the historical novelsurpasses even The Fortunes of Nigel, The Abbot, and Ivanhoe, by the natural manner in which the affairs of the fictitious hero are made to fit in with real events. Yet although the writer himself knew that he had done well, his public at first gave the book as cold a reception as they had Peveril, and Constable actually declined to arrange for any further novels till the four, of which this was the second, should have appeared! Scott himself thought of making a pause and bringing out some dialogues on the subject of popular superstitions before going on with another Waverley. ere a satisfactory bargain had been struck the tide turned; and St. Ronan's Well was in print by the end of the same year. Quentin Durward was the first book Scott in which the scene is laid outside the British

But