of Charles I., until Garrick
waked him. Dryden's fame has nodded; that of Pope begins to be drowsy;
Chaucer is as sound as a top, and Spenser is snoring in the midst of his
commentators. Milton, indeed, is quite awake; but, observe, he was at
his very outset refreshed with a nap of half-a-century; and in the midst
of all this we sons of degeneracy talk of immortality! Let me please my
own generation, and let those who come after us judge of their facts and
my performances as they please; the anticipation of their neglect or
censure will affect me very little."

In 1812 the poet-lawyer was rewarded with the salary of a place whose
duties he had for some years performed without pay,--that of Clerk of
Sessions, worth L800 per annum. Thus having now about L1500 as an
income, independently of his earnings by the pen, Scott gave up his
practice as an advocate, and devoted himself entirely to literature. At
the same time he bought a farm of somewhat more than a hundred acres on
the banks of the beautiful Tweed, about five miles from Ashestiel, and
leaving to its owners the pretty place in which he had for six years
enjoyed life and work, he removed to the cottage at Abbotsford,--for
thus he named his new purchase, in memory of the abbots of Melrose, who
formerly owned all the region, and the ruins of whose lovely abbey stood
not far away. Of the L4000 for this purchase half was borrowed from his
brother, and the other half on the pledge of the profits of a poem that
was projected but not written,--"Rokeby."

Scott ought to have been content with Ashestiel; or, since every man
wishes to own his home, he should have been satisfied with the
comfortable cottage which he built at Abbotsford, and the modest
improvements that his love for trees and shrubs enabled him to make.
But his aspirations led him into serious difficulties. With all his
sagacity and good sense, Scott never seemed to know when he was well
off. It was a fatal mistake both for his fame and happiness to attempt
to compete with those who are called great in England and
Scotland,--that is, peers and vast landed proprietors. He was not alone
in this error, for it has generally been the ambition of fortunate
authors to acquire social as well as literary distinction,--thus paying
tribute to riches, and virtually abdicating their own true position,
which is higher than any that rank or wealth can give. It has too
frequently been the misfortune of literary genius to bow