ing in life for a falling cause, and
other men not unwilling to pick up the spoils, was a discovery and
surprise more delightful than anything that had happened to the
generation. The books flew through the island like magic, penetrating to
corners unthought of, uniting gentle and simple in an enthusiasm beyond
parallel. How the multitude got at them at all it is difficult to
understand, for these were the days of really high prices, before the
actual cost of a book got modified by one-half as now, and when there
were as yet no cheap editions. _Waverley_ was printed in three small
volumes at the cost of a guinea. We believe that to buy books was more
usual then than now, and there were circulating libraries everywhere,
conveying perhaps the stream of literature more evenly over the country
than can be attained by one gigantic Mudie. At all events; by whatever
means it was procured, _Waverley_ and its successors were read
everywhere, not only in great houses but in small, wherever there was
intelligence and a taste for books; and the interest, the curiosity, the
eagerness, were everywhere overwhelming. I have heard of girls in a
dressmaker's workroom who kept the last volume in a drawer, from whence
it was read aloud by one to the rest, the drawer being closed hurriedly
whenever the mistress came that way. From this humble scene to the
highest in the land, where the Prince Regent sat--

"His table spread with tea and toast,
Death-warrants, and the _Morning Post_,"

these volumes went everywhere. One of them lies before me now in rough
boards of paper, with the "blue back" of which one of Scott's
correspondents talks, not a prepossessing volume, but independent of
externals and all things else except its own native excellence and
power.

For fifteen years after, this stream of living literature poured forth
in the largest generous volume like a great river, through every region
where English was spoken or known. His work was as the march of a
battalion, always increasing, new detachments appearing suddenly, now an
individual, now a group, to join the line. The Baron of Bradwardine with
his attendant bailie; Vich Ian Vohr and noble Evan Dhu, and all the
clan; the family at Ellangowan and that at Charlieshope, good Dandie and
all his delightful belongings; Jock Jabos and the rest; Monkbarns and
Edie Ochiltree, and all the pathos of the Mucklebackits; Bailie Nicol
Jarvie and the Dougal Cratur; humours of the clach