t and
worship--and, a few political fanatics and envious poetasters
apart--wherever he appeared in town or in country, whoever had Scotch
blood in him, "gentle or simple," felt it move more rapidly through
his veins when he was in the presence of Scott. To descend to what
many looked on as higher things, he considered himself, and was
considered by all about him, as rapidly consolidating a large fortune:
the annual profits of his novels alone had, for several years, been
not less than L10,000: his domains {p.237} were daily increased--his
castle was rising--and perhaps few doubted that erelong he might
receive from the just favor of his Prince some distinction in the way
of external rank, such as had seldom before been dreamt of as the
possible consequence of a mere literary celebrity. It was about this
time that the compiler of these pages first had the opportunity of
observing the plain easy modesty which had survived the many
temptations of such a career; and the kindness of heart pervading, in
all circumstances, his gentle deportment, which made him the rare,
perhaps the solitary, example of a man signally elevated from humble
beginnings, and loved more and more by his earliest friends and
connections, in proportion as he had fixed on himself the homage of
the great, and the wonder of the world.

It was during the sitting of the General Assembly of the Kirk in May,
1818, that I first had the honor of meeting him in private society:
the party was not a large one, at the house of a much-valued common
friend--Mr. Home Drummond of Blair Drummond, the grandson of Lord
Kames. Mr. Scott, ever apt to consider too favorably the literary
efforts of others, and more especially of very young persons, received
me, when I was presented to him, with a cordiality which I had not
been prepared to expect from one filling a station so exalted. This,
however, is the same story that every individual, who ever met him
under similar circumstances, has had to tell. When the ladies retired
from the dinner-table, I happened to sit next him; and he, having
heard that I had lately returned from a tour in Germany, made that
country and its recent literature the subject of some conversation. In
the course of it, I told him that when, on reaching the inn at Weimar,
I asked the waiter whether Goethe was then in the town, the man stared
as if he had not heard the name before; and that on my repeating the
question, adding _Goethe der grosse dichter