ection upon him.

When Scott lived in Castle Street he was not regarded by Edinburgh
society as particularly brilliant in conversation, since he never
aspired to lead by learned disquisitions. He told stories well, with
great humor and pleasantry, to amuse rather than to instruct. His talk
was almost homely. The most noticeable thing about it was common-sense.
Lord Cockburn said of him that "his sense was more wonderful than his
genius." He did not blaze like Macaulay or Mackintosh at the
dinner-table, nor absorb conversation like Coleridge and Sydney Smith.
"He disliked," says Lockhart, "mere disquisitions in Edinburgh and
prepared impromptus in London." A _doctrinaire_ in society was to him an
abomination. Hence, until his fame was established by the admiration of
the world, Edinburgh professors did not see his greatness. To them he
seemed commonplace, but not to such men as Hallam or Moore or Rogers or
Croker or Canning.

Notwithstanding Scott gave great dinners occasionally, they appear to
have been a bore to him, and he very rarely went out to evening
entertainments, although at public dinners his wit and sense made him a
favorite chairman. He retired early at night and rose early in the
morning, and his severest labors were before breakfast,--his principal
meal. He always dined at home on Sunday, with a few intimate friends,
and his dinner was substantial and plain. He drank very little wine, and
preferred a glass of whiskey-toddy to champagne or port. He could not
distinguish between madeira and sherry. He was neither an epicure nor
a gourmand.

After Scott had become world-famous, his happiest hours were spent in
enlarging and adorning his land at Abbotsford, and in erecting and
embellishing his baronial castle. In this his gains were more than
absorbed. He loved that castle more than any of his intellectual
creations, and it was not completed until nearly all his novels were
written. Without personal extravagance, he was lavish in the sums he
spent on Abbotsford. Here he delighted to entertain his distinguished
visitors, of whom no one was more welcome than Washington Irving, whom
he liked for his modesty and quiet humor and unpretending manners.
Lockhart writes: "It would hardly, I believe, be too much to affirm that
Sir Walter Scott entertained under his roof, in the course of the seven
or eight brilliant seasons when his prosperity was at its height, as
many persons of distinction in rank, in politics, in