: "Why, man, how
often I have thought of you!" and smiled and wept over the dogs who came
rushing as in bygone times to lick his hand. He died a few days later,
on the afternoon of a glorious autumn day, with all the windows open, so
that he might catch to the last the whisper of the Tweed over its
pebbles.

"And so," says Carlyle, "the curtain falls; and the strong Walter Scott
is with us no more. A possession from him does remain; widely
scattered; yet attainable; not inconsiderable. It can be said of him,
when he departed, he took a Man's life along with him. No sounder piece
of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of Time.
Alas, his fine Scotch face, with its shaggy honesty, sagacity and
goodness, when we saw it latterly on the Edinburgh streets, was all worn
with care, the joy all fled from it--plowed deep with labor and sorrow.
We shall never forget it; we shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir
Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud and sad farewell."

II. SCOTT'S PLACE IN THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

In order rightly to appreciate the poetry of Scott it is necessary to
understand something of that remarkable "Romantic Movement" which took
place toward the end of the eighteenth century, and within a space of
twenty-five years completely changed the face of English literature.
Both the causes and the effects of this movement were much more than
merely literary; the "romantic revival" penetrated every crevice and
ramification of life in those parts of Europe which it affected; its
social, political, and religious results were all deeply significant.
But we must here confine ourselves to such aspects of the revival as
showed themselves in English poetry.

Eighteenth century poetry had been distinguished by its polish, its
formal correctness, or--to use a term in much favor with critics of that
day--its "elegance." The various and wayward metrical effects of the
Elizabethan and Jacobean poets had been discarded for a few
well-recognized verse forms, which themselves in turn had become still
further limited by the application to them of precise rules of
structure. Hand in hand with this restricting process in meter, had gone
a similar tendency in diction. The simple, concrete phrases of daily
speech had given way to stately periphrases; the rich and riotous
vocabulary of earlier poetry had been replaced by one more decorous,
measured, and high-sounding. A corresponding process of sele