tion a life-like colouring which it is difficult otherwise
to attain. But I insist upon their being introduced _skilfully_. For
there is no doubt that it is not so easy to introduce historical
facts--things which have actually happened--into a work of which the
incidents belong to the domain of pure imagination, as many people
think it is. And it requires a peculiar skilfulness, which everybody is
not fortunate enough to possess. In the absence of it there appears
merely a pale, distorted simulacrum of life, instead of the freshness
of reality. I know works--particularly some by literary ladies--in
which one feels, at every instant, how the writer has gone dipping the
brush into the colour-box, bringing nothing out of it, after all, but a
sort of jumble of strokes of different colours, just where what was
wanted was a thoroughly life-like picture."

"I quite agree with you," said Lothair. "And, having just chanced to
remember a particular novel, written by an otherwise fairly clever
woman (which, notwithstanding all the dippings of her brush into the
aforesaid paint-box, does not possess a single atom of real semblance
of life, or of poetic truth, from one end of it to the other, so that
one cannot remember it for a single moment), I merely wish to say that
this particular skill in producing an effect of reality and historical
truth, brilliantly distinguishes the works of a writer who has only
rather recently become known to us. I mean Walter Scott. I have only
read his 'Guy Mannering.' But _ex ungue leonem_. The 'exposition' of
this tale is based upon Scotch manners and customs, and matters
belonging peculiarly to the place in which the scene of it is laid.
But, without any acquaintance with them, one is carried away by the
vivid reality of the characters and incidents in an extraordinary
degree, and the 'exposition' is to be termed so utterly masterly just
because we are landed _in medias res_ in a moment, as if by the wave of
an enchanter's wand. Moreover, Scott has the power of drawing the
figures of his pictures with a few touches, in such a way that they
seem to come out of their frames, and move about before us in the most
living fashion imaginable. Scott is a splendid phenomenon appearing in
the literature of Great Britain. He is as vivid as Smollett, though far
more classic and noble. But I think he is wanting in that brilliant
lire of profound humour which coruscates in the writings of Sterne and
Swift."

"I