n, it is a hard matter to say what has to be said
within prescribed limits such as these, just as it is still harder to
select from so copious a store of biographical information details which
may be sufficient, and not more than sufficient, to give a firm and
distinct picture of his life. Yet it may perhaps be questioned whether
very elaborate handling is necessary for Scott. No man probably,
certainly no man of letters, is more of a piece than he. As he has been
subjected to an almost unparalleled trial in the revelation of his
private thoughts, so his literary powers and performances extend over a
range which is unusual, if not absolutely singular, in men of letters of
the first rank. Yet he is the same throughout, in romance as in review,
in novel as in note-writing. Except his dramatic work, a department for
which he seems to have been almost totally unfitted (despite the
felicity of his 'Old Play' fragments), nothing of his can be neglected
by those who wish to enjoy him to the full. Yet though there is no
monotony, there is a uniformity which is all the more delightfully
brought out by the minor variations of subject and kind. The last as the
first word about Scott should perhaps be, 'Read him. And, as far as may
be, read all of him.'

When, in comparatively early days of his acquaintance with Lockhart,
Scott, thinking himself near death in the paroxysms of his cramps,
bequeathed to his future son-in-law, in the words of the ballad, 'the
vanguard of the three,' the duty of burying him and continuing his work,
if possible, he had himself limited the heritage to the defence of
ancient faith and loyalty--a great one enough. But his is, in fact, a
greater. From generation to generation, whosoever determines, in so far
as fate and the gods allow, to hold these things fast, and, moreover, to
love all good literature, to temper erudition with common sense, to let
humour wait always upon fancy, and duty upon romance; whosoever at least
tries to be true to the past, to show a bold front to the present, and
to let the future be as it may; whosoever 'spurns the vulgar' while
endeavouring to be just to individuals, and faces 'the Secret' with
neither bravado nor cringing,--he may take, if not the vanguard, yet a
place according to his worth and merit, in the legion which this great
captain led. Of the frequent parallels or contrasts drawn between him
and Shakespeare it is not the least noteworthy that he is, of all men of
le