most extraordinary
genius of a boy I ever saw. He was reading a poem to his mother when I
went in. I made him read on; it was the description of a shipwreck. His
passion rose with the storm. He lifted his eyes and hands: 'There's the
mast gone!' says he. 'Crash it goes! They will all perish!' After his
agitation he turns to me: 'That is too melancholy,' says he. 'I had
better read you something more amusing.' I preferred a little chat, and
asked his opinion of Milton and other books he was reading, which he
gave me wonderfully. One of his observations was: 'How strange it is
that Adam, just new come into the world, should know every thing! That
must be the poet's fancy,' says he. But when told he was created
perfect by God, he instantly yielded. When taken to bed last night, he
told his aunt he liked that lady. 'What lady?' says she. 'Why, Mrs.
Cockburn, for I think she is a virtuoso,--like myself.' 'Dear Walter,'
says Aunt Jenny, 'what is a virtuoso?' 'Don't ye know? Why, it's one
who wishes and will know every thing.' Now, sir, you will think this a
very silly story. Pray, what age do you suppose this boy to be? Name
it, now, before I tell you. 'Why, twelve or fourteen.' No such thing;
he is not quite six years old. He has a lame leg, for which he was a
year at Bath, and has acquired the perfect English accent, which he has
not lost since he came, and he reads like a Garrick. You will allow
this an uncommon exotic."

The vivid imagination and love of knowledge which Scott displayed from
his earliest years were supplemented throughout his life by an
assiduous self-cultivation. The great and varied body of legendary lore
which he accumulated, together with his ever active and universal
sympathy with mankind, made the chief elements in his fictions. There
is no one respect in which the Waverley novels are pre-eminent. As
regards plot, Scott has been frequently surpassed. While "Kenilworth,"
the "Bride of Lammermoor," and "Ivanhoe," are well constructed, the
plan of "Rob Roy" and "The Monastery" are lacking in sequence. Other
novelists, too, have drawn character with quite as much power. But the
Waverly novels have attained their supreme position in public
estimation by a rare and well balanced union of different qualities.
They contain beautiful examples of the sublime, and amusing examples of
the ludicrous. They reflect nature in various phases, and always with
picturesqueness, power, and truth. Of Scott's historical no