id not square with the natural state
of things--if upon this subject he still remained the victim of early
prejudices, and, perhaps, of the predilections of a poetical mind, yet
he was fortunate enough to promote, by his writings, the real
improvement of the people. France has reason to reproach him severely
for the unaccountable statements in his "Paul's Letters to his
Kinsfolk," and in the "History of Bonaparte." But those errors were
imputable to carelessness much more than to malice. A prose writer, a
poet, a novelist--he yielded, during his long and laborious career, to
the impulse of a fancy, rich, copious, and entirely independent of
present circumstances, aloof from the agitations of the day,
delighting in the memory of the past, and drawing from the surviving
relics of ancient times the traditionary tale, to revive and embellish
it. He was one of those geniuses in romance who may be said to have
been impartial and disinterested, for he gave a picture of ordinary
life exactly as it was. He painted man in all the varieties produced
in his nature by passion and the force of circumstances, and avoided
mixing up with these portraits what was merely ideal. Persons gifted
with this power of forgetting themselves, as it were, and of assuming
in succession an infinite series of varied characters, who live,
speak, and act before us in a thousand ways that affect or delight us,
such men are often susceptible of feelings the most ardent on their
own account, although they may not directly express as much. It is
difficult to believe that Shakspeare and Moliere, the noblest types of
this class of exalted minds, did not contemplate life with feelings of
deep and, perhaps, melancholy emotion. It was not so, however, with
Scott, who certainly belonged not to their kindred, possessing neither
the vigour of combination, nor the style which distinguished those
men. Of great natural benevolence, gentle and kind, ardent in the
pursuit of various knowledge, accommodating himself to the manners and
sentiments of his day, good-humoured, and favoured by happy
conjunctures of circumstances, Scott came forth under the most
brilliant auspices, accomplishing his best and most durable works
almost without an effort, and without impressing on these productions
any sort of character which would connect them with the personal
character of the author. If he be represented, indeed, in any part of
his writings, it is in such characters as that of M