terribly from cold and rheumatism, but went steadily on with Napoleon. One day in December he saw Dr. Stokoe, for a short time the great man's medical attendant at St. Helena, whose reminiscences have been quite recently published; and later on he had an interview with Dr. Shortt, who superintended the opening of his body. During the Christmas vacation the Journal has this significant entry :—

"I have not been able, during three weeks, to stir above once or twice from the house. But then I have executed a great deal of work, which would be otherwise unfinished."

The sixth of the big volumes had been finished early in January; and it was soon afterwards agreed that the constantly expanding work should be completed in eight. By the middle of the next month he has "landed Boney at Smolensk," and is preparing to "bring him off again," but is much worried with the "infernal Russian names" in tracing the operations of the armies. On February 19th the Journal says:—

'I read and wrote up the bitter account of the French retreat from Moscow, in 1812, till the little room (in Edinburgh) and coal fire seemed snug by comparison. Uninterrupted to-day, and did eight leaves "-that is, more than thirty of the printed book.

When a quarter of the eighth and last volume has been finished, the historian wonders whether he shall be happy when it is done. "Umph! I think not," he writes doubtfully. He was by this time, he says, at writing what he used to be at riding-slow, heavy and awkward

at mounting, but when once fixed in the saddle, able to "screed away with anyone." An urgent request from Ballantyne to extend the last two volumes was agreed to -"but it makes one feel like a dog in a wheel, always moving and never advancing." However, the old historical summary which Scott had written years before for the Edinburgh Annual Register was now found useful; and after perusing it the author agreed with his printer that after all he had some talents for history-writing.

The last stages were very strenuous. "Bonaparte " ran in his biographer's head from seven in the morning till ten at night. So we gather from the notes supplied by young Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd's nephew, and Scott's amanuensis at this time. When Hogg came at six in the morning he found Sir Walter already writing; and their joint work went on till the same hour in the evening, with breaks only for breakfast and dinner, which were served in the room to avoid loss of time. Scott admitted that the exertion was unusual, but it was only the manual labour which seemed to tire him. He composed quite easily; and carried on "two distinct trains of thought" at the same time, thinking ahead while dictating the current sentence. At last, on June 7th, 1827, the task was completed. Lockhart calculates that this laborious work occupied, allowing for intervals given to travel and other literary undertakings, not much over a twelvemonth, though nominally extending over two years. It was done in the midst of pain, sorrow, and ruin, as he says; but it

won the high praise of men like Goethe and Wellington, and it produced for the author's creditors the sum of £18,000! "I question if more was ever made by a single work, or by a single author's labours, in the same time," writes Scott triumphantly of the £12,000 accruing from the first issue alone.

The Napoleon had a serio-comic epilogue to which I must refer briefly before leaving it. Sir Walter, in writing of the dethroned Emperor's life at St. Helena, had made use of letters written to the Colonial Office authorities by General Gourgaud, one of his retinue. It is well known that much squabbling went on among the persons who composed the suite; and Gourgaud, who it appears had saved Napoleon's life at least once, was so piqued at his own treatment by him, that he had actually testified to the inaccuracy of the statements that were circulated about the harshness of Sir Hudson Lowe towards his charge. But that a foreigner should make use of such testimony could not be pleasing to Gallic pride; and there seemed some likelihood that Scott might have to defend himself against the French fire-eater in the same way as the Comte de Ségur, who had fought a duel in defence of his book on the Russian campaign. Sir Walter was prepared to do it, scorning anything like "privilege of literature "; but he set himself right with the world by publishing in the Times the evidence on which he had based his statements. The French papers refused to print this. Will Clerk was to have been his second in this "affair of honour,"

in which the gallant old man would doubtless have not been displeased at ending a life on which he no longer set any great store. However, matters did not proceed to that extremity; and having shown that the genius of a poet was not, in his own words, irreconcilable with pluck, Scott was able to preserve his life for the nobler struggle on behalf of Duty.

T

CHAPTER XXII

THE TWILIGHT OF SCOTT'S LIFE

HE period of Scott's life on which we are now about to enter may be thought of as pleasant

twilight, after the glare and heat of the day, and before the darkness of night. Two or three days after "Boney" was finished, the Lockharts arrived at Portobello with their children; and a season of comparative idleness, sweetened by the society of children and grandchildren and old friends, succeeded to times of stress and sorrow. Even before the Law Term was over there were occasional delicious days at Abbotsford, when Sir Walter confessed to his Journal that he had not done "the least right thing"; or evenings on the beach at Portobello given up to telling his grandson stories of Prestonpans or other Scottish battlefields; and although the vacation in the country brought renewed zest for literary labours, there was now no evening toil. Thus on July 28th "we were once more merry in hall-the first time for this many a month and many a day," Sophia singing as of old; July 31st, "Music in the evening as before"; August 2nd, 2nd, "In spite of good