n the mouths of men is not the greatest
thing or the best. "Act well your part, there all the honor lies," for
life after all is a drama or a stage. The supremest happiness is not in
being praised; it is in the consciousness of doing right and being
possessed with the power of goodness.

When, however, a man has been seated on such a lofty pinnacle as was Sir
Walter Scott, we wish to know something of his personal traits, and the
steps by which he advanced to fame. Was he overrated, as most famous men
have been? What is the niche he will probably occupy in the temple of
literary fame? What are the characteristics of his productions? What
gave him his prodigious and extraordinary popularity? Was he a born
genius, like Byron and Burns, or was he merely a most industrious
worker, aided by fortunate circumstances and the caprices of fashion?
What were the intellectual forces of his day, and how did he come to be
counted among them?

All these points it is difficult to answer satisfactorily, but some
light may be shed upon them. The bulky volumes of Lockhart's Biography
constitute a mine of information about Scott, but are now heavy reading,
without much vivacity,--affording a strong contrast to Boswell's Life of
Johnson, which concealed nothing that we would like to know. A
son-in-law is not likely to be a dispassionate biographer, especially
when family pride and interests restrain him. On the other hand, it is
not wise for a biographer to be too candid, and belittle his hero by the
enumeration of foibles not consistent with the general tenor of the
man's life. Lockhart's knowledge of his subject and his literary skill
have given us much; and, with Scott's own letters and the critical
notice of his contemporaries, both the man and his works may be fairly
estimated.

Most biographers aim to make the birth and parentage of their heroes as
respectable as possible. Of authors who are "nobly born" there are very
few; most English and Scotch literary men are descended from ancestors
of the middle class,--lawyers, clergymen, physicians, small landed
proprietors, merchants, and so on,--who were able to give their sons an
education in the universities. Sir Walter Scott traced his descent to an
ancient Scottish chief. His grandfather, Robert Scott, was bred to the
sea, but, being ship-wrecked near Dundee, he became a farmer, and was
active in the cattle-trade. Scott's father was a Writer to the Signet in
Edinburgh,--what would be