ged
upon both tasks, one of them among the happiest things he ever
undertook, and the other containing, at least, one piece of his most
interesting work. These were the _Tales of a Grandfather_ and the
_Chronicles of the Canongate_. Both supplied him with his tasks, his
daily allowance of 'leaves,'[38] for great part of 1827, and both were
finished and the _Chronicles_ actually published, before the end of
it.[39]

For the actual stories comprising these _Chronicles_ I have never cared
much. The chief in point of size, the _Surgeon's Daughter_, deals with
Indian scenes, of which Scott had no direct knowledge, and in connection
with which there was no interesting literature to inspire him. It
appears to me almost totally uninteresting, more so than _Castle
Dangerous_ itself. _The Two Drovers_ and _The Highland Widow_ have more
merit; but they are little more than anecdotes.[40] On the other hand,
the 'Introduction' to these _Chronicles_, with the history of their
supposed compiler, Mr. Chrystal Croftangry, is a thing which I should be
disposed to put on a level with his very greatest work. Much is
admittedly personal reminiscence of himself and his friends, handled not
with the clumsy and tactless directness of reporting, which has ruined
so many novels, but in the great transforming way of Fielding and
Thackeray. Chrystal's early thoughtless life, the sketch of his ancestry
(said to represent the Scotts of Raeburn), the agony of Mr. Somerville,
suggested partly by the last illness of Scott's father, the sketches of
Janet M'Evoy and Mrs. Bethune Baliol (Mrs. Murray Keith of Ravelston),
the visit to the lost home,--all these things are treated not merely
with consummate literary effect, but with a sort of _sourdine_
accompaniment of heart-throbs which only the dullest ear can miss. Nor,
as we see from the _Diary_, were the author's recent misfortunes, and
his sojourn in a moral counterpart of the Deserted Garden of his friend
Campbell, the only disposing causes of this. He had in several ways
revived the memory of his early love, Lady Forbes, long since dead. Her
husband had been among the most active of his business friends in
arranging the compromise with creditors, and was shortly (though Scott
did not know it) to discharge privately the claim of the recalcitrant
Jew bill-broker Abud, who threatened Sir Walter's personal liberty. Her
mother, Lady Jane Stuart, had renewed acquaintance with him, and very
soon after the