been busied with the "Lay of the Last
Minstrel," and was still to be occupied, ere he finished his interrupted
novel, with "Marmion," "The Lady of the Lake," "Rokeby," and "The Lord of
the Isles." The comparative failure of the last-named no doubt
strengthened his determination to try prose romance. He had never cared
mach for his own poems, he says, Byron had outdone him in popularity, and
the Muse--"the Good Demon" who once deserted Herrick--came now less
eagerly to his call. It is curiously difficult to disentangle the
statements about the composition of "Waverley." Our first authority, of
course, is Scott's own account, given in the General Preface to the
Edition of 1829. Lockhart, however, remarks on the haste with which Sir
Walter wrote the Introductions to the magnum opus; and the lapse of
fifteen years, the effects of disease, and his habitual carelessness
about his own works and mode of working may certainly to some extent have
clouded his memory. "About the year 1805," as he says, he "threw together
about one third part of the first volume of 'Waverley.'" It was
advertised to be published, he goes on, by Ballantvne, with the second
title, "'T is Fifty Years since." This, obviously, would have made 1755
the date of the events, just as the title "'T is Sixty Years since" in
1814 brought the date of the events to 1754. By inspecting the water-mark
of the paper Lockhart discovered that 1805 was the period in which the
first few chapters were composed; the rest of the paper was marked 1814.
Scott next observes that the unfavourable opinion of a critical friend on
the first seven chapters induced him to lay the manuscript aside. Who was
this friend? Lockhart thinks it was Erskine. It is certain, from a letter
of Ballantyne's at Abbotsford,--a letter printed by Lockhart, September
15, 1810,--that Ballantyne in 1810 saw at least the earlier portions of
"Waverley," and it is clear enough that he had seen none of it before. If
any friend did read it in 1805, it cannot have been Ballantyne, and may
have been Erskine. But none of the paper bears a water-mark, between 1805
and 1813, so Scott must merely have taken it up, in 1810, as it had been
for five years. Now Scott says that the success of "The Lady of the
Lake," with its Highland pictures, induced him "to attempt something of
the same sort in prose." This, as Lockhart notes, cannot refer to 1805,
as the "Lady of the Lake" did not appear till 1810. But the good fortune