actual publication sent him some MS. memorials of the
days that were long enough ago--memorials causing one of those paroxysms
of memory which are the best of all things for a fairly hale and happy
man, but dangerous for one whom time and ill-luck have shaken.[41] He
had, while the _Chronicles_ were actually a-writing, revisited St.
Andrews, and, while his companions were climbing St. Rule's Tower, had
sat on a tombstone and thought how he carved her name in Runic letters
thirty-four years before. In short, all the elements, sentimental and
circumstantial, of the moment of literary projection were present, and
the Introduction was no vulgar piece of 'chemic gold.'

The delightful and universally known _Tales of a Grandfather_ present no
such contrasts of literary merit, and were connected with no such
powerful but exhausting emotions of the mind. They originated in actual
stories told to 'Hugh Littlejohn,' they were encouraged by the fact that
there was no popular and readable compendium of Scottish history, they
came as easily from his pen as the _Napoleon_ had run with difficulty,
and are as far removed from hack-work as that vast and, to his
creditors, profitable compilation must be pronounced to be on the whole
near to it. The book, of course, is not in the modern sense strictly
critical, though it must be remembered that the authorities for at least
the earlier history of Scotland are so exceedingly few and meagre, that
criticism of the saner kind has very little to fasten upon. But in this
book eminently, in the somewhat later compilation for _Lardner's
Cyclopaedia_ to a rather less degree, this absence of technical criticism
is more than made up by Scott's knowledge of humanity, by the divining
power, so to say, which his combined affection for the subject and
general literary skill gave him, and by that singularly shrewd and
pervading common sense which in him was so miraculously united with the
poetical and romantic gift. I was pleased, but not at all surprised,
when, some year or so ago, I asked a professed historian, and one of the
best living authorities on the particular subject, what he thought of
the general historic effect of Scott's work, to find him answer without
the slightest hesitation that it was about the soundest thing, putting
mere details aside, that exists on the matter. It may be observed, in
passing, that the later compilation referred to was a marked example of
the way in which Scott could a