onal temptations, and the
indulgence of a little taste and inclination of your own in the midst of
so many burdens for others. Thus Abbotsford grew, of which all the
critics have talked as if its, alas! somewhat sham antiquity and its few
acres had been the cause of all the trouble. One could have wished that
Scott's taste had been more true, that he had so dearly bought and so
fondly collected curiosities more worthy, that he should have had a
genuine old house, a direct and happy lineage, son and son's son, to
bear his name--not to posterity, with whom it was safe, but on Tweedside
among the other Scotts,--a kindly and not ignoble ambition. But he has
himself forestalled the criticisms of the antiquarians by that
delightful record of good Monkbarns's mistakes and deceptions which
would make us forgive him for any "lang ladle" or fictitious relic; and
it would be a hard heart that would be otherwise than thankful that he
had so much as Abbotsford to indemnify him for his labours and trials.
As the time approached when he was no longer able to maintain that
gallant struggle, and the power of labour failed and confidence was
lost, the position of the man becomes more tragical than the spectator
can well bear to look upon. Who can read unmoved the story of the time
when his faithful friends (though it was their necessities that had
pulled him down to the ground of this bitter failure) had to come and
tell him that his last romance was scarcely worth paper and print? who
could refrain from going down on his knees to kiss that failing hand
which could now only bring forth Count Robert of Paris where once it had
set out in glorious array of battle Sir Kenneth of Scotland, and the
stout old Constable of Chester, and Front de Boeuf, and the Scottish
archers--and which still could not be inactive, but would struggle on,
on--to pay that miserable money and leave behind a spotless name!

There is one melancholy and almost terrible consolation in such a
heartbreaking record, terrible from the light it throws upon the
constitution of human nature and the conditions of that supreme sympathy
which is the noblest kind of fame. Had Sir Walter been able to throw his
burdens from him, had he loosed the millstone from his neck and retired
in full credit and comfort to his Abbotsford to pass the conclusion of
peaceful and glorious days on the banks of the Tweed--had we known him
only as the greatest romancist of the world, the next to Shaks