th far more
zeal and intention than Scott. The resemblance, however, which is so
curiously exact, the seven cantos and the seven chapters, the five
years' interval, the satisfaction of the work resumed, is, different as
are the men and their work, one of those fantastic parallels which are
delightful to the fantastic soul. Nothing could be more unlike than that
dark and splendid poem to Scott's sunshiny and kindly art; nothing less
resembling than the proud embittered exile with his hand against every
man, and the genial romancer whose heart overflowed with the milk of
human kindness. Yet this strange occurrence in both lives takes an
enhanced interest from the curious dissimilarity which makes the
repetition of the fact more curious still.

The sudden burst into light and publicity of a gift which had been
growing through all the changes of private life, of the wonderful stream
of knowledge, recollection, divination, boundless acquaintance with and
affection for human nature, which had gladdened the Edinburgh streets,
the Musselburgh sands, the Southland moors and river-sides, since ever
Walter Scott had begun to roam among them, with his cheerful band of
friends, his good stories, his kind and gentle thoughts--was received by
the world with a burst of delighted recognition to which we know no
parallel. We do not know, alas! what happened when the audience in the
Globe Theatre made a similar discovery. Perhaps the greater gift, by its
very splendour, would be less easily perceived in the dazzling of a
glory hitherto unknown, and obscured it may be by jealousies of actors
and their inaptitude to do justice to the wonderful poetry put into
their hands. But of that we know nothing. We know, however, that there
were no two opinions about _Waverley_. It took the world by storm, which
had had no such new sensation and no such delightful amusement for many
a day. It was not only the beginning of a new and wonderful school in
romance, a fresh chapter in literature, but the revelation of a region
and a race unknown. Scotland had begun to glow in the sunshine of
poetry, in glimpses of Burns's westland hills and fields, of Scott's
moss-troopers and romantic landscapes, visions of battle and old
tradition: but the wider horizon of a life more familiar, of a broad
country full of nature, full of character, running over with fun and
pawky humour, thrilling with high enthusiasm and devotion, where men
were still ready to risk everyth