n the Abbey, the night-ride of poor Father
Philip, the escape from the Castle of Avenel, the passage of the
interview of Halbert with Murray and Morton? Even the episode of Sir
Piercie Shafton, though it is most indisputably true that Scott has not
by any means truly represented Euphuism, is good and amusing in itself;
while there are those who boldly like the White Lady personally. She is
more futile than a sprite beseems; but she is distinctly 'nice.'

At any rate, nobody could (or indeed did) deny that the author, six
months later, made up for any shortcoming in _The Abbot_, where, except
the end (eminently of the huddled order), everything is as it should be.
The heroine is, except Die Vernon, Scott's masterpiece in that kind,
while all the Queen Mary scenes are unsurpassed in him, and rarely
equalled out of him. Nor was there any falling off in _Kenilworth_ (Jan.
1821), where he again shifted his scene to England. He has not indeed
interested us very much personally in Amy Robsart, but as a hapless
heroine she is altogether the superior of Lucy Ashton. The book is,
among his, the 'novel without a hero,' and, considering his defects in
that direction, this was hardly a drawback. It cannot be indeed said to
have any one minor character which is a success of the first class. But
the whole is interesting throughout. The journeys of Tressilian to
Devonshire and of Amy and Wayland to Kenilworth have the curious
attraction which Scott, a great traveller, and a lover of it, knew how
to give to journeys, and the pageantry and Court scenes, at Greenwich
and elsewhere, command admiration. Indeed, _Kenilworth_ equals any of
the novels in sustained variety of interest, and, unlike too many of
them, it comes to a real end.

It was in 1821 that a book now necessarily much forgotten and even rare
(it is comparatively seldom that one sees it in catalogues), Adolphus's
_Letters on the Author of Waverley_, at once showed the interest taken
in the identity of the 'Great Unknown,' and fixed it as being that of
the author of the _Lay_, with a great deal of ingenuity and with a most
industrious abundance of arguments, bad and good. After such a proof of
public interest, neither Scott nor Constable could be much blamed for
working what has been opprobriously called the 'novel manufactory' at
the highest pressure; and _The Pirate_, _The Fortunes of Nigel_,
_Peveril of the Peak_, _Quentin Durward_, _St. Ronan's Well_, and
_Redgauntlet_ wer