s schisms, its political passions and strong family
ties, is so illuminated that while the interest is centered upon
the Deans and their homely yet tragic history, Scotch life in an
earlier century is envisaged broadly, truthfully, in a way never
to grow pale in memory. Cameraman or King's man, God-fearing
peasant, lawless ruffian or Tory gentleman, the characters are
so marshaled that without sides being taken by the writer, one
feels the complexity of the period: and its uncivil wildness is
dramatically conveyed as a central fact in the Tolbooth with its
grim concomitants of gallows and gaping crowd of sightseers and
malcontents.

Scott's feeling for dramatic situation is illustrated in several
scenes that stand out in high relief after a hundred details
have been forgotten: one such is the trial scene in which Effie
implores her sister to save her by a lie, and Jeanie in agony
refuses; the whole management of it is impressively pictorial.
Another is that where Jeanie, on the road to London, is detained
by the little band of gypsy-thieves and passes the night with
Madge Wildfire in the barn: it is a scene Scott much relishes
and makes his reader enjoy. And yet another, and greater, is
that meeting with Queen Caroline and Lady Suffolk when the
humble Scotch girl is conducted by the Duke of Argyll to the
country house and in the garden beseeches pardon for her sister
Effie. It is intensely picturesque, real with many homely
touches which add to the truth without cheapening the effect of
royalty. The gradual working out of the excellent plot of this
romance to a conclusion pleasing to the reader is a favorable
specimen of this romancer's method in story-telling. There is
disproportion in the movement: it is slow in the first part,
drawing together in texture and gaining in speed during its
closing portion. Scott does not hesitate here, as so often, to
interrupt the story in order to interpolate historical
information, instead of interweaving it atmospherically with the
tale itself. When Jeanie is to have her interview with the Duke
of Argyll, certain preliminary pages must be devoted to a sketch
of his career. A master of plot and construction to-day would
have made the same story, so telling in motive, so vibrant with
human interest, more effective, so far as its conductment is
concerned. Scott in his fiction felt it as part of his duty to
furnish chronicle-history, very much as Shakspere seems to have
done in his s