eminent and
popular;--yet his fame has quietly and steadily widened with time, the
"reading public" of our day is as much his public as the reading public
of his own, and there has been no period since he commenced writing when
there were not more persons familiar with his novels than with those of
any other author. Some novelists are more highly estimated by certain
classes of minds, but no other comprehends in his popularity so many
classes, and few bear so well that hardest of tests, re-perusal. Many
novels stimulate us more, and while we are reading them we think they
are superior to Scott's; but we miss, in the general impression they
leave on the mind, that peculiar charm which, in Scott, calls us back,
after a few years, to his pages, to revive the recollection of scenes
and characters which may be fading away from our memories. We doubt,
also, if any other novelist has, in a like degree, the power of
instantaneously withdrawing so wide a variety of readers from the
perplexities and discomforts of actual existence, and making them for
the time denizens of a new world. He has stimulating elements enough,
and he exhibits masterly art in the wise economy with which he uses
them; but he still stimulates only to invigorate; and when he enlivens
jaded minds, it is rather by infusing fresh life than by applying fierce
excitements, and there is consequently no reaction of weariness and
disgust. He appeases, satisfies, and enchants, rather than stings and
inflames. The interest he rouses is not of that absorbing nature which
exhausts from its very intensity, but is of that genial kind which
continuously holds the pleased attention while the story is in progress,
and remains in the mind as a delightful memory after the story is
finished. It may also be said of his characters, that, if some other
novelists have exhibited a finer and firmer power in delineating higher
or rarer types of humanity, Scott is still unapproached in this, that he
has succeeded in domesticating his creations in the general heart and
brain, and thus obtained the endorsement of human nature as evidence of
their genuineness. His characters are the friends and acquaintances of
everybody,--quoted, referred to, gossipped about, discussed, criticized,
as though they were actual beings. He, as an individual, is almost lost
sight of in the imaginary world his genius has peopled; and most of
his readers have a more vivid sense of the reality of Dominie Sampson