St John's Gospel. Scott listened with mild devotion, and said when he was done, 'Well, this is a great comfort. I have followed you distinctly, and I feel as if I were myself again.' At length, on the 21st of September, the scene was gently closed. On that day,' says Lockhart, 'Sir Walter breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. It was a beautiful day-so warm that every window was wide open-and so perfectly still, that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.' It is said that on the last morning of his life, consciousness returned. He asked his nurse to help him to the window; he gave one last look on Tweed, and said: 'To-night I shall know all.' Sir Walter died in the sixty-second year of his age. He was buried a few days after in a family sepulchre within the limits of Dryburgh Abbey.

CHAPTER XII.

CHARACTER OF SCOTT-MONUMENT-DESCENDANTS-TRIBUTE BY MR ANDREW LANG, ETC.

HE character of Scott has already been indicated in the tenor of his life, and it is not necessary to say much in addition. It certainly included a wonderful amount of the very noblest and most lovable of the qualities of humanityrarely, perhaps, have so many been combined in one person. The revelations concerning his commercial affairs damaged the ideal image of Scott only; it has not injured the real man. Far better, we would say, to look the

actual character in the face, and judge of it from its shadows as well as its lights; then only can we truly appreciate even the worth and goodness of Scott, for then only do we see a bearer of our own nature, charged with a share of its infirmities, as well as of its glories. Admit, for instance, that he erred in his anxiety for wealth; see, on the other hand, what objects he had here in view! There was nothing sordid in this passion of his-the results were mainly used to realise a poetic dream from which others were to derive the substantial benefits. A large share was also devoted without a grudge to solace the unfortunate. Grant, again, that he venerated rank; the feeling was essentially connected with his historic taste. He wor

shipped not the title or its living bearer; his idol was constituted by the romantic associations which it awoke— and thus he has been known to pay far more practical respect to a poor Highland chieftain than to a modern English peer.

The gravest charge against him lies undeniably in his heedlessness regarding his affairs. Apart altogether from his accommodations to Constable and Company, he had entered deeply into a false system of credit on his own account; and while much debt was consequently hanging over him, he is found transferring the only solid security for it his estate-to his son. This, however, should be contemplated in connection with all the circumstances which we can suppose to have justified it in his own mind. To one who was producing ten thousand a year by his pen, and who had done so for years—who, moreover, saw large possessions in his own hands-there might appear no pressing reason for looking anxiously into the accounts concerning even so large a sum of floating debt as forty-six thousand pounds; at least to one whose temperament, we

now see, was sanguine and ideal as ever poet manifested, though in his case usually veiled under an air of worldly seeming. When this is considered, the weight of the charge will, we think, appear much lessened, though it cannot be altogether done away. For what remains, let us reflect on the latter days of Scott, and surely we must own that never was fault more nobly expiated, or punishment more nobly borne, than by the great Minstrel.

Lady Scott, one day speaking of a person who had been very fortunate in life, seemed to impute a good deal of his success to luck. Ah, mamma!' said Sir Walter-he often addressed his wife familiarly by the term mamma—' you may say as you like; but take my word for it, 'tis skill leads to fortune.' Being one day in company when the various merits of Johnson's imitators were discussed, he said: 'Ay, ay, many of them produce his report, but which of them carries his bullet?'

He once reproved his daughter Anne for speaking of something as vulgar. He explained that the meaning of vulgar was common. 'Nothing that is common, except wickedness, can deserve to be spoken of in a tone of contempt; and when you have lived to my years, you will be disposed to agree with me in thanking God that nothing really worth having or caring about in this world is uncommon.'

The estimates of the work and influence of Scott by Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin are very different. The former finds nothing spiritual in him; all is 'economical, material, of the earth, earthy.' He does justice to his power as a novelist, however, and admits that when he departed, he took a man's life along with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of Time.' On the other hand, Ruskin

finds no words full enough to tell 'what good Scott has in him to do;' and he esteems him as 'beyond comparison the greatest intellectual force manifested in Europe since Shakespeare... His ideal of honour in men and women is inbred, indisputable; fresh as the air of his mountains, firm as their rocks.' Amongst the novels, he ranks The Heart of Midlothian as highest and best; in Waverley and the Lay, he thinks Scott is all himself.

After the death of Scott, the whole of his debts were cleared off by the profits of his writings. It was found that the remaining principal sum of commercial debt amounted to £54,000 in his life-time. A sum of £22,000 had been insured upon his life. Mr Cadell offered to advance £30,000, and this, with money in the hand of the trustees, allowed of the general creditors being paid in 1833. At length in 1847, fifteen years after Scott's death, Cadell's claims were discharged, and Abbotsford was free of burden. Lockhart generously set aside the profits of Scott's biography in behalf of the creditors. Scott had spent upon Abbotsford about £71,000, and earned not less than £140,000 by his pen.

A few years after the death of Sir Walter, the citizens of Edinburgh resolved to erect a monument to his memory, and the device adopted was that magnificent Norman cross, from plans of Mr George M. Kemp, placed in so conspicuous a situation in Princes Street as to strike the eye of every passing traveller. It encloses, under open Gothic arches, a marble statue (life-size) of the poet in a sitting posture, by a native artist, Mr John Steell. The monument, which was completed in 1846, is open daily for the inspection of strangers. The cost of the structure has been upwards of £15,000. It has been justly described by

Professor Masson as the finest monument ever erected to a man of letters.

All Sir Walter Scott's brothers predeceased him. The only one of them who was married was Thomas, who left a son and three daughters. There is something sorrowful in the failure of Scott's high hopes of founding a family. The fond dream of his life may be said to have come to nought. He left two sons and two daughters, who did not long survive him. Miss Anne Scott died in London, 25th June 1833. Sophia, who was married to John Gibson Lockhart, and who, in appearance and character, most resembled her father, died 17th May 1837. Charles Scott, the second son, died, unmarried, while acting as an attaché to a diplomatic embassy to Persia, 28th October 1841. Walter, the eldest son, who succeeded to the baronetcy, and rose to be lieutenant-colonel in the 15th Hussars, died on his passage home from India, 8th February 1847.

married, but left no issue, and the baronetcy is extinct. Mrs Lockhart had three children, John Hugh Lockhart― the Hugh Littlejohn' for whom Scott so lovingly wrote the Tales of a Grandfather-who died 15th December 1831; Walter Scott Lockhart, an officer in the army, who died at Versailles, 10th January 1853; and Charlotte Harriet Jane Lockhart, who was married in 1847 to James Robert Hope, barrister, grandson of the Earl of Hopetoun. This lady, the last surviving child of Lockhart, died at Edinburgh 26th October 1858. She had three children, two of whom died young, the only survivor being Mary Monica, born 2d October 1852. Mrs Hope having, in virtue of inheritance, succeeded to the estate of Abbotsford, assumed with her husband the surname Scott, in addition to that of Hope. Their daughter was accordingly known as Miss Hope-Scott. In 1874 she married Joseph Constable-Maxwell, brother of