feeling is thus rescued from
oblivion! How many hours of heartfelt satisfaction has our author given
to the gay and thoughtless! How many sad hearts has he soothed in pain
and solitude! It is no wonder that the public repay with lengthened
applause and gratitude the pleasure they receive. He writes as fast as
they can read, and he does not write himself down. He is always in the
public eye, and we do not tire of him. His worst is better than any
other person's best. His _backgrounds_ (and his later works are little
else but back-grounds capitally made out) are more attractive than the
principal figures and most complicated actions of other writers. His
works (taken together) are almost like a new edition of human nature.
This is indeed to be an author!

The political bearing of the _Scotch Novels_ has been a considerable
recommendation to them. They are a relief to the mind, rarefied as it
has been with modern philosophy, and heated with ultra-radicalism. At a
time also, when we bid fair to revive the principles of the Stuarts,
it is interesting to bring us acquainted with their persons and
misfortunes. The candour of Sir Walter's historic pen levels our
bristling prejudices on this score, and sees fair play between
Roundheads and Cavaliers, between Protestant and Papist. He is a writer
reconciling all the diversities of human nature to the reader. He does
not enter into the distinctions of hostile sects or parties, but treats
of the strength or the infirmity of the human mind, of the virtues or
vices of the human breast, as they are to be found blended in the whole
race of mankind. Nothing can shew more handsomely or be more gallantly
executed. There was a talk at one time that our author was about to take
Guy Faux for the subject of one of his novels, in order to put a more
liberal and humane construction on the Gunpowder Plot than our "No
Popery" prejudices have hitherto permitted. Sir Walter is a professed
_clarifier_ of the age from the vulgar and still lurking old-English
antipathy to Popery and Slavery. Through some odd process of _servile_
logic, it should seem, that in restoring the claims of the Stuarts by
the courtesy of romance, the House of Brunswick are more firmly seated
in point of fact, and the Bourbons, by collateral reasoning, become
legitimate! In any other point of view, we cannot possibly conceive
how Sir Walter imagines "he has done something to revive the declining
spirit of loyalty" by these nov