ortion
withdrawn from it for the mean domestic uses of those who dwelt on its
banks?'

The Bailie is as real a human being as ever lived--as the present Lord
Mayor, or Dandie Dinmont, or Sir Walter himself; but Mrs. Macgregor has
obviously just stepped off the boards of a minor theatre, devoted to the
melodrama. As long as Scott keeps to his strong ground, his figures are
as good flesh and blood as ever walked in the Saltmarket of Glasgow;
when once he tries his heroics, he too often manufactures his characters
from the materials used by the frequenters of masked balls. Yet there
are many such occasions on which his genius does not desert him. Balfour
of Burley may rub shoulders against genuine Covenanters and west-country
Whigs without betraying his fictitious origin. The Master of Ravenswood
attitudinises a little too much with his Spanish cloak and his slouched
hat; but we feel really sorry for him when he disappears in the Kelpie's
Flow. And when Scott has to do with his own peasants, with the
thoroughbred Presbyterian Scotchman, he can bring intense tragic
interest from his homely materials. Douce Davie Deans, distracted
between his religious principles and his desire of saving his daughter's
life, and seeking relief even in the midst of his agonies by that
admirable burst of spiritual pride: 'Though I will neither exalt myself
nor pull down others, I wish that every man and woman in this land had
kept the true testimony and the middle and straight path, as it were on
the ridge of a hill, where wind and water steals, avoiding right-hand
snare and extremes, and left-hand way-slidings, as well as Johnny Dodds
of Farthy's acre and ae man mair that shall be nameless'--Davie is as
admirable a figure as ever appeared in fiction. It is a pity that he was
mixed up with the conventional madwoman, Madge Wildfire, and that a
story most touching in its native simplicity, was twisted and tortured
into needless intricacy. The religious exaltation of Balfour, or the
religious pigheadedness of Davie Deans, are indeed given from the point
of view of the kindly humourist, rather than of one who can fully
sympathise with the sublimity of an intense faith in a homely exterior.
And though many good judges hold the 'Bride of Lammermoor' to be Scott's
best performance, in virtue of the loftier passions which animate the
chief actors in the tragedy, we are, after all, called upon to
sympathise as much with the gentleman of good family who