peare in
large creation and revelation of mankind, proud had every Scotsman been
of his name, and fondly had the nation cherished his memory. But when
his brilliant and wonderful life fell under the shadow of all these
tragical clouds, when its course was arrested by obstacles which are
usually unsurmountable, before which any other man must have broken
down, when he stood in the face of fate, in the face of every
misfortune, broken in health, in hope, in power, a lonely man where he
had been the centre of every joy in life, an enchanter with his magic
wand broken and his witchery gone--then, and then only, does Scott
attain his highest greatness and give the world most noble assurance of
a man. His diary as his life dwindles away, that life once so splendid
and so full, is like the noblest poem--its broken and falling sentences
go direct to the heart. _Fuimus_ was never written more grandly, with
more noble patience and valour. Without this downfall his triumph might
have been but as the other triumph--the tragedy of the conclusion is a
sight for men and angels. Lockhart, who preserves the record for us,
becomes for the time the greatest, with a subject more moving, more
noble, than any that his hero had selected from the records of the ages.
The pity and anguish grow too much for the spectator. We are spectators
no longer, but mournful and devoted retainers standing about, all hushed
and silent, scarcely able either to shed or to restrain the choking
tears.

One asks one's self, Is this the cost of supreme human power? is it to
be bought by nothing but the agony in which failure, real or apparent,
is a part, and in which all the exquisite tenement of reputation,
happiness, and delightsome life seems to crumble down like a house of
cards before our eyes? Dread question for the genius of the future, sad
yet sublime problem of the past! At all events it was so in the life of
Scott, which in all its greatness was never so great, so touching, so
secure of love and honour, as in the moment when his weapons fell from
his hands and his genius and being alike failed, breaking down in a last
supreme struggle for justice and honour and fair dealing, to avoid what
he thought disgrace and the intolerable stigma of having done any man
wrong.

It is a penalty of such greatness, especially in the midst of an
enthusiastic and unanimous country, that it becomes more or less a thing
to trade upon, the subject of vague patriotic vapour