tters, that one of whom we have the most intimate and the fullest
revelation, while of Shakespeare we have the least. There need be very
little doubt that if we knew everything about Shakespeare, he would
come, as a man of mould might, scathless from the test. But we do know
everything, or almost everything, about Scott, and he comes out nearly
as well as anyone but a faultless monster could. For all the works of
the Lord in literature, as in other things, let us give thanks--for
Blake and for Beddoes as well as for Shelley and for Swift. But let
everyone who by himself, or by his fathers, claims origin between
Tol-Pedn-Penwith and Dunnet Head give thanks, with more energy and more
confidence than in any other case save one, for the fact that his is the
race and his the language of Sir Walter Scott.

FOOTNOTES:

[47] So, in a still earlier generation, Johnson, after calling his
step-daughter 'my dearest love,' and writing in the simplest way, will
end, and quite properly, with, 'Madam, your obedient, humble servant.'

[48] He made, as is well known, preparations to 'meet' General Gourgaud,
who was wroth about the _Napoleon_, but who never actually challenged
him.

[49] Most injustice has perforce been done to his miscellaneous verse
lying outside the great poems, and not all of it included in the novels.
It would be impossible to dwell on all the good things, from _Helvellyn_
and _The Norman Horseshoe_ onward; and useless to select a few. Some of
his best things are among them: few are without force, and fire, and
unstudied melody. The song-scraps, like the mottoes, in his novels are
often really marvellous snatches of improvisation.

[50] Il y a plus de philosophie dans ses ecrits ... que dans bon nombre
de _romans philosophiques_.

[51] When some tactless person tried to play tricks with the Crown.

INDEX

SCOTT, SIR WALTER:
Ancestry and parentage, 9, 10;
birth, 10;
infancy, 11;
school and college days, _ibid._;
apprenticeship, _ibid._;
friends and early occupations, 12, 13;
call to the Bar, 12, 14;
first love, 14-16;
engagement and marriage, 16;
briefs, fights, and volunteering, 17;
journeys to Galloway and elsewhere, 18, 19;
slowness of literary production and its causes, 20, 21;
call-thesis and translations of Buerger, 22;
reception of these last and their merit, 23;
contributes to _Tales of Wonder_, 24;
remarks on _Glenfinlas_ and _The Eve of St. John_, 25,